Bad deeds are done in the dead of night

So, what are the costs of President Biden’s open Southern border policy?

On March 17, 2022, I wrote of the fentanyl crisis enabled by Biden’s criminally wanton open-border policy.

"Illicit fentanyl, primarily manufactured in foreign clandestine labs and smuggled into the United States through Mexico, is being distributed across the country and sold on the illegal drug market.

 "Between 2020 and 2021, nearly 79,000 people between 18 and 45 years old — 37,208 in 2020 and 41,587 in 2021 — died of fentanyl overdoses …”

I concluded by asking, “So does Biden really care?” Biden's past remarks signal he doesn’t.

"I find that international drug trafficking — including … fentanyl ... constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States."

But fentanyl deaths are but one deadly consequence of Biden’s obtuseness. There are others.


Between February 2021, and May 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (“CBT”) states that there have been 2,500,000 encounters with foreign nationals illegally attempting to enter into the U.S.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody recently released a document from President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security, captioned, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection Overview of the Southwest Border.” That heavily redacted eight-page document describes the role of Mexican cartels and other transnational criminal organizations (“TCOs”) in smuggling foreign nationals into the U.S.

That document states,

“…We assess that smuggling networks [Mexican Drug Cartels and TCOs] are very active in promoting the flow of migrants through Mexico. These drug trafficking organizations maintain control of the primary trafficking corridors into the United States. The drug trafficking organizations’ control of these corridors, allows them to regulate the flow of migrants, as well as charge migrants a ‘tax’” for the right of passage through these corridors.

“TCOs will exploit migration flows and entrench themselves in the smuggling cycle. TCOs endanger vulnerable individuals, amass illicit profits that feed cartel violence in Mexico and along the border, and create a volatile border environment.”

AG Moody states that. “This … contradicts what the Biden administration has been telling the American people. It shows that the Mexican drug cartels are profiting off the mass migration ….”

In October 2021, according to Border Report, CBT agents advised:

“Everything going through their [the Cartels’] area they know,” … so everyone going through their area they has to pay a fee. … They charge between $8,000 and $15,000, depending on the person and where they are coming from. … They have pick-up drivers in the United States. They recruit the youth to drive. They have stash house coordinators, people that transport these people form the stash houses to their final destination.”

The detriment to the people of the U.S. has been well-documented. The illegals are rewarded with welfare benefits, SNAP cards, free medical care, free schooling for their children, etc., all at the expense of American Taxpayers. Why? To create a new mass of voters beholden and permanently loyal to the Democrat party, who will ensure the Democrats with a permanent hold on power.

But what effects does enriching the Drug Cartels have on the people of Mexico? Here is just one CTV News (Canada - 1/25/22) report. Many others can be found on the internet.

“Activists from Mexico's violence-plagued western state of Michoacan said … that the government has to fight all drug cartels equally and return land to an estimated 35,000 people displaced by fighting.

"’In terms of safety, we are worse than ever,’ said Hipolito Mora, former leader of the 2013-2014 self-defense movement that kicked the Knights Templar Cartel out of Michoacan.

“The cartels are back, with the Jalisco Cartel fighting the local Viagras gang for control of the state. The battle has featured heavy weaponry and the use of bomb-dropping drones. The government response has been to hold off incursions by the Jalisco cartel, while doing little to stop the other gangs.

“Rev. Gregorio Lopez, a Catholic priest once known for wearing a flak vest while celebrating Mass, said, … ‘There are regions where the government frankly can't go, regions ... where organized crime has total control…. At least 35,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and farms …. The warring drug cartels extort money from almost all merchandise passing through Michoacan. … They have to pay protection money on the outskirts of the city. There are little plastic tables and some guy there charging …’"

A president should be proud of his border policy. The Press and the American people should be allowed to see everything that’s being done. Secret air flights, disbursing the migrants in the dead of night, should tell you that Biden feels he needs to hide what he is doing from the American people.

Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on June 19, 2022 

Abortion, self-defense, slavery and the well-formed conscience

The sections dealing with abortion in the Roman Catholic catechism provide no exceptions allowing abortion, even in cases where the pregnancy threatens the mother with imminent death, and even in cases of rape or incest. But do other chapters provide exceptions? Perhaps. But such exceptions as might be provided in the chapters on conscience and self-defense, are narrow.

So, can a woman ever be justified in taking the life of her unborn child? (Note: we are discussing morality here; not “law.”).

On this matter, the Church’s catechism provides useful “guidance” to both those who’d say, “Yes,” and those who’d say, “No!”

I use the word “guidance” carefully. In the last instance, the catechism provides rules to guide the formation of the “well-formed” conscience. Why? Because ultimately every human must act in conformity with his/her own “well-formed” conscience — especially in grave or blood matters. On issues such as “conscience,” that catechism embodies the best analysis of popes, churchman, and theologians over the course of 2000 years, as well as scriptures.

The Catechism teaches that “conscience” requires every person to discern whether his proposed course of conduct will be good or evil. That judgment takes account of all relevant circumstances surrounding his/her act. It requires the person to utilize the means available, under the exigencies of the circumstances, to make an informed judgment. Once that effort has been made, the person must always obey the certain judgment of his/ her own conscience — regardless of what others may say.

"Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself, but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths. (§1776)

In addition to its teachings on conscience, the catechism also gives guidance on the issue of self-defense.

Under the secular principle of self-defense, a woman can do what is both reasonable and necessary to avoid the immediate threat of death or great bodily harm to herself. This principle of self-defense has been recognized in all societies from time immemorial and finds cautious support in the Church’s catechism.

“Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow. … Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.” §2264.

But can one incapable of “intending,” be an “aggressor?” Theologians have argued that issue through the millennia. Can a woman act in self-defense against the “unintended” acts of a fetus where there is a high probability that that pregnancy will cause her death? Few would deny her the right to use deadly force in self-defense to preserve her own life from death at the hands of a totally insane killer — a person incapable of intending to kill her, or even knowing what he is about to do. Is she not “bound to take more care of her own life? Is this not truly the realm of conscience?

Then there are sections on rape and slavery. Where conception occurs from rape or incest, because the crime does not end with penile withdrawal where pregnancy results, it is certainly arguable that the woman can defend herself and do what is reasonable and necessary to end the rape, forced pregnancy and enslavement. The Church recognizes that rape/incest “causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act.“ (§2356)

“§2414. The seventh commandment forbids … the enslavement of human beings … It is a sin … against … fundamental rights to reduce them by violence to [slavery].”

The sections on abortion, rape and slavery provide no remedies; but must be read together with those on conscience and self-defense.

The choice to act in self-defense, in the face of immediate death or great bodily harm, is the gravest choice that any woman can ever called upon to make. Especially here, she “must obey” her well-formed conscience. The catechism teaches, that conscience that “ever calls her to love,” permits the woman to love” her own life more, than that of her would-be killer [§2264). If she has done her best, under the circumstances, to fully inform her conscience, the Church teaches she is not culpable even if her judgment of conscience is wrong.

“If the ignorance is invincible, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to the person.” §1793.

Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on June 12, 2022 

Why does the Catholic Church condemn abortion?

Knowing the stance of the Catholic Church on abortion, why would anybody contemplating an abortion, consult its catechism? Where else can you find a succinct distillation of 2000 years of Christian moral teachings?

Most people who are pro-abortion, and, indeed, most people who are anti-abortion have never taken time to ponder the underpinnings of the Church’s teachings concerning abortion. But are its teachings today, consistent with those of the early church?

The Didache, generally thought to have been written in the late 1st Century, has been described as the oldest extant Christian catechism. It begins by teaching that “There are two ways, one of life and one of death.” In its second chapter, it condemns abortions: “thou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou slay it when born.”

Tertullian (c. 155 - 220 a.d.) in the 8th chapter of his Apology for Christians wrote,

“But Christians now are so far from homicide, that with them it is utterly unlawful to make away a child in the womb, when nature is in deliberation about the man; for to kill a child before it is born is to commit murder by way of advance; and there is no difference whether you destroy a child in its formation, or after it is formed and delivered. We Christians look upon him as a man, who is one in embryo; for he is in being, like the fruit in blossom, and in a little time would have been a perfect man, had nature met with no disturbance.”


On such texts, the church teaches: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.” “Abortion willed — either as an end or a means — is gravely contrary to the moral law.”

The church find support in its teachings in the Prophet Jeremiah, quoting God as saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.”

And in Isaiah, “Before birth the Lord called me, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name …

“Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”

Based on such passages, the church teaches 

“Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being, to life.”

From there, the Church goes on to teach, 

“The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation.

"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority.

“These human rights depend neither on single individuals, nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin."

Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.

The fundamental question here is not whether you agree with this op-ed. Nor whether you are a member of the Catholic Church. Nor even whether you agree with the catechism of the Church.

The fundamental question is whether, The church is right or wrong when it teaches that abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes. And given the “irreparable harm done” to the innocent fetus-embryo-child “who is put to death,” whether “abortion is grave matter” and mortal sin.

And is the church correct when it teaches, “The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined.”

In a few days the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether abortion remains a Constitution right — a legal question. Whatever its decision, the moral question still remains.

But if the “abortion” chapter of the catechism provides no exceptions, does it do so elsewhere?

See my next op ed.

Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on June 5, 2022