WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - I have been home all day caring for my wife who has been very ill. I am also taking care of our dear grandson whom we are helping to raise. One of our daughters lives with us. She is a single Mom. She chose life and I am proud of her for doing so!

My readers know of my deep and serious concern about the upcoming Presidential campaign in the United States. I believe this is the most important Presidential campaign of my lifetime. I will not keep silent about its importance and will do everything I can to ensure that the current President is not reelected.

The American Public is now aware of the lie behind the Obama Administrations' "Affordable Care Act". Those who purport to be champions of Freedom now seek to compel Christians, especially Catholic Christians, to violate their deeply held religious beliefs and bend the knee to a New Caesar. They will not succeed.

This is precisely what is at stake in the unconstitutional mandate which threatens punitive measures if Catholic and other Christian organizations do not provide abortion inducing drugs, contraceptives, sterilization and referrals to abortions as "preventative" health care under their health insurance plans. The alleged "accommodation" or "compromise", offered after the understandable outcry the mandate incurred, is a fraud.

I write to address a political golden calf; the claim that the current agenda calling itself "progressive" is progressive at all. The term implies progress toward something better. In fact, the political agenda being offered under the moniker of "progressive" is regressive. The dictionary defines "progressive" as an adjective, meaning "Moving forward; advancing." We have lived through the use of word games too many times in the last few decades. The misuse of the word "progressive" is just one more example of what the late great C.S. Lewis, in his "Studies in Words" called "verbicide."

C.S. Lewis warned us about allegedly "progressive" governing schemes wherein a collectivist ideology built upon moral relativism is unleashed in his book entitled "The Abolition of Man." In it we find these insightful words, "A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery."

One of his Essays, found in "God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics" and entitled "Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State," warned, "Let us not be deceived by phrases about 'Man taking charge of his own destiny.' All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of others. . . . The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be." 

There is a concerted effort to paint those who adhere to the Jewish and Christian vision of the human person, the family and a truly just civil society as "backward." We are deluged with direct and indirect efforts to portray us as committed to a kind of return to some perceived "dark age". In fact, what we offer is the path to true progress. True progress passes through authentic human freedom.

We are accused of forcing "our view" on others. While those who engage in this kind of word game, using the word "progressive" to promote a regressive cultural revolution, are actually the ones who are intolerant of any view other than their own. Let's consider just two of many policy agenda items of the political "progressives" of our age.

Abortion on Demand

Abortion on demand is the current state of the law in the United States since the infamous decisions of Roe and Doe. Our youngest neighbors in the first home of the whole human race can be killed by surgical instruments, chemical weapons or suction, at any time, for any reason. While restrictions on the practice are being slowly enacted in the States, the current state of the federal law has not changed.

However, our medical science has advanced. We now routinely reach into the womb and offer surgery to these same children in order to help them live fuller lives after birth. Our criminal codes have advanced.  We now prosecute a criminal offender who, in the course of committing another felony, takes their lives as well as their mothers.We take 4D and 3D images of them and send them to our friends. Sadly, the same technology guides the abortionist in his or her execution of those who are "unwanted".  

We all know the truth, that child in the womb is our neighbor. We also recognize the Natural Law written in every human heart which gives us the basis for our criminal codes. The real "Right" is the Right to Life. Without life there can be no other "rights" or liberty. The Right to life is the foundation of the prohibition against killing our innocent neighbor. All human persons have a right to life.

Those currently stealing the label "progressive" made ...