Judge John Roll: A life of authentic Catholic witness

In January 2008, at the invitation of Bishop Thomas Olmsted, I gave a homily at the annual Red Mass for attorneys, judges and public officials in Phoenix. The theme wasn’t new; I’ve said it a hundred times. So has Bishop Olmsted. So have many other bishops. But over the past weekend I dug it out and reread the homily’s last few lines:

“We’re citizens of heaven first. Our time here is limited. This life passes. Eternity is forever. We need to act in this world accordingly, with lives of Christian service to the poor and afflicted—including the unborn child, the immigrant, the homeless and the elderly. The more authentically Catholic we are in our lives, our choices, our actions and our convictions, the more truly we will contribute to the moral and political life of our nation.”

Sitting in the congregation that day was a woman named Maureen, an active and very committed Catholic, and a veteran of crisis pregnancy counseling with Tucson’s Catholic Charities. After the liturgy she moved on to the other tasks of her day, as I did mine. Except that Maureen apparently talked about the Red Mass with her spouse. And 10 months later, after the 2008 election, I got the first of several extraordinary letters from her husband—John Roll, chief judge of the federal District of Arizona; the same John Roll who died in the terrible Jan. 8 shootings in Tucson.

It’s impossible to fully know a man from correspondence alone. But each of John Roll’s letters had the same four clear marks: generosity; intelligence, largeness of spirit and a sincere love for his Catholic faith. Two days after Roll’s murder, his law clerk, attorney Aaron Martin, described to me the kind of man he was.

Roll was devoted to St. Thomas More and kept a biography of the saint on a table near his desk. He liked mentoring young Christian attorneys because he believed their faith gave them a better moral foundation for the vocation of law. For Martin and for Judge Roll’s other clerks, “he was more of a father figure than a boss. He knew our families, and he always wanted to hear the news about them.” He had the habit of reading a range of Catholic publications every Sunday morning before Mass to learn more about his faith. He swam nearly every morning at the local YMCA to stay in shape, and he made daily Mass as often as he could. He liked to joke about a federal marshal who was once assigned to him as round the clock security for a month when he was facing threats. The marshal said, “Judge, I’m a Catholic, but I’ve been to Mass more in the last 30 days than in the past 10 years.”

John Roll would have turned 64 on Feb. 8. He had three sons and five grandchildren. Maureen and John Roll had known each other, according to Aaron Martin, since they were 14 or 15. They were, throughout their life together, each other’s best friends. They would have celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary later this month.

John Roll was, finally, a man of unusual personal graciousness. Despite their political differences, Judge Roll and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, had a cordial relationship of mutual respect. Giffords sought more resources for the court system, and Judge Roll was grateful. Precisely because of their differences, Roll tried to greet Giffords at her local appearances whenever he could. On the morning of his death, Roll went to Mass, and at 9:55 a.m., according to Martin, left his house to just “drop in” on Giffords’ public gathering as a courtesy, to say hello. He never came home.

This life passes. Eternity is forever. We need to act in this world accordingly, with lives of Christian service. Maureen and John Roll shared a life of quiet, powerful, authentic Catholic witness. Please keep them both, and the entire Roll family, in your prayers.

God Bless you, Judge Roll.

Ditto - not a word in the media about the judge or his life and work.

Top US Federal Judge assassinated after threat to Obama agenda

Snip:
A Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that the top US Federal Judge for the State of Arizona was assassinated barely 72-hours after he made a critical ruling against the Obama administrations plan to begin the confiscation of their citizen’s private retirement and banking accounts in order to stave off their nations imminent economic collapse, and after having the US Marshals protecting him removed.

According to this SVR report, Federal Judge John McCarthy Roll was the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Arizona who this past Friday issued what is called a “preliminary ruling” in a case titled “United States of America v. $333,520.00 in United States Currency et al” [Case Number: 4:2010cv00703 Filed: November 30, 2010] wherein he stated he was preparing to rule against Obama’s power to seize American citizens money without clear and convincing evidence of a crime being committed.

The case being ruled on by Judge Roll, this report continues, was about bulk cash smuggling into or out of the United States that the Obama administration claimed was their right to seize under what are called Presidential Executive Orders, instead of using existing laws. The Obama administration used as support for their claim before Judge Roll, the SVR says, the seizing of all American citizens’ gold, in 1933, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 6102, which was ruled at the time to be constitutional.

He sounds like the real deal. God be with all his loved ones; I’m sure they’ll miss him greatly.

This article makes it sound like his aide is saying he went home after mass and then went specifically to see Giffords. That contradicts earlier reports that he called home to his wife to say he was going to stop in to see Giffords on his way home.

There are also contradictory reports on whether and when he was specifically “invited” to come to the gathering - with nobody even claiming who specifically invited him or when, although there is an FBI agent’s affidavit saying it was on or around Friday and it was by phone.

Sheriff Dupnik is one of the sources who seems to be clouding the issue.

I tried to check on the accuracy of that claim by looking on the docket for that case in PACER. They have no new ruling listed. I don’t know exactly what that means because I don’t know if a “preliminary ruling” would show on a docket, or how a person would find out if he had indicated in any way what he was going to rule.

When I brought up this subject others immediately said that there would be no motive to assassinate Judge Roll if the ruling had already been made. For there to be no ruling on it - or for there to at least be no official record of a ruling on it - would leave the case to be decided by whoever Obama appoints to replace Judge Roll.

It’s called stacking the deck - like Obama did by having 2 “justices” (cough) on SCOTUS whose salaries and positions totally depend on Obama not being found ineligible to be POTUS refusing to recuse themselves when eligibility cases come up for conference - in spite of a clear and direct financial and personal conflict of interest.

The fact that the stories about how Judge Roll came to be at that event and who might have known he was going to be there are constantly changing, as well as discrepancies on who found what documents that show Giffords as the intended target... leads me to think there may be more to this story than we are being told, and the people doing the investigating are not particularly interested in making a set of genuine, documented facts and timeline available to the public. The “facts” from the sheriff’s office and the FBI are constantly shifting, and that doesn’t sit well with me.

Another thing that doesn’t make sense is the initial claim that the bullet wound went in from the side and came out the front. That switched to coming from the back and going straight through the left hemisphere and through the front. And then that switched to the bullet going into the forehead and out the back, with bone fractures in the front suggesting that the bullet sort of glanced off the bone and went through the brain superficially.

If the people reporting this stuff were talking to witnesses - such as the guy who said Loughner went up to Giffords and shot her in the face - then why were we getting media reports claiming the wound was to the side of her head.... and then reports that it went in the back of her head?

The stories have way too many discrepancies. If the reports we’re getting are in any way based on eyewitness testimony, these errors/shifting stories don’t make sense.

O God of spirits and of all flesh, You have trampled upon death and have abolished the power of the devil, giving life to Your world. Give rest to the soul of Your departed servant John in a place of light, in a place of repose, in a place of refreshment, where there is no pain, sorrow, and suffering. As a good and loving God, forgive every sin he has committed in thought, word or deed, for there is no one who lives and does not sin. You alone are without sin. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your word is truth.

For You are the resurrection, the life, and the repose of Your departed servant John, Christ our God, and to You we give glory, with Your eternal Father and Your allholy, good and life‑giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

May Christ our true God, who rose from the dead and as immortal King has authority over the living and the dead, have mercy on us and save us, through the intercessions of his spotless and holy Mother; of the holy, glorious, and praiseworthy Apostles; of our venerable and God‑bearing Fathers; of the holy and glorious forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; of his holy and righteous friend Lazarus, who lay in the grave four days; and of all the saints; establish the soul of His servant John, departed from us, in the dwelling place of the saints; give rest to him in the bosom of Abraham and number him among the righteous.

May your memory be eternal, dear brother, for you are worthy of blessedness and everlasting memory!

The case is still listed on Justia but to see details you have to go on PACER. I went on PACER and it didn’t show any action on it since December. Again, I don’t know exactly what that means. I wish the original article had cited some source for the claim.

Is it true that SCOTUS allowed FDR to seize personal assets without proving anybody had done anything wrong? I guess that’s what the government did to GM... although it was probably couched in other terminology or technicalities to make it not seem to be government unconstitutionally seizing assets.

Of course, Donofrio has documented that the judge in the Chrysler case has totally ignored the words used in sworn testimony.

I’ve been really down all day. It seems nobody is asking the questions that should be asked, on a million different things. It’s a bummer to be without local law enforcement in Tucson, without an FBI, without DHS, without DOJ, without a media, without a POTUS, without legitimate courts.... because the people occupying those roles are, with rare exceptions, just pretending.

It’s like our whole society is just as crazy as Loughner appears to be.

I’m tired of the Land of Oz. As Randy Stonehill said in his song, “Stop the World I Wanna Get Off”.... “I’ve just got to find a planet where they’re interested in sanity.”

The last election was resounding, a vote to go back to sanity. And now almost exactly 2 months later the media and politicians have so mucked things up on this story that I’m once again wondering if it’s just a tiny remnant of us who have any clue what’s going on. I know it’s just shadows and mirrors; the American public knows this isn’t Palin’s fault. And I think a lot of people probably do see that something is rotten in this whole thing, but I doubt if they think the rottenness is more than just the media and sheriff’s spin on it. I think the investigation itself is compromised by politics, as evidenced by the ever-shifting stories coming out of the official government sources (sheriff and FBI, citing official records and/or documents recovered, whose descriptions are changing as the narrative seems to demand).

I have oficially given up on getting the truth. It isn’t going to happen. Nobody has the slightest curiosity on our side of the aisle.

They just react to the media and hope it will all go away soon.

I can’t stand to listrn to any of these democrats or that jug eared phony.

Tonight I will probably take some sleep aid and go to bed so I don’t get curious as to what crap might be going on.

Face it, Obama will continue these lawsuits behind our backs until he gathers all he needs to take away any freedom we have left.

And it will be happening while everyone is going “what the hell”? But then it will be too late.

This judge and his death was key to all of this, but it got lost in the helter skelter of a manufactured so called national crisis.

I expect that of eyewitness accounts, but I don’t expect changing stories that are supposedly based on documents. The documents aren’t supposed to change. And the dates that documents were found and by whom isn’t supposed to change.

When was this letter from Giffords found and by whom? By the sheriff’s dept “hours after the shooting”, or by the FBI yesterday? When was the envelope saying “I planned ahead”, “assassination”, and “Giffords” found, and by whom? If it was found a different time, then by whom? I thought all of this was said to be found in the parents’ safe on Saturday. The FBI agent’s affidavit only mentioned the envelope, and if a letter from Giffords had been found with “Die Bitch” and “Die Cops” scrawled on it in the defendant’s handwriting it was bizarre for the affidavit to not include that.

And for federal investigators to assume that ONLY Giffords was the intended target is irresponsible - especially if, as they claim, they have documentation (enough to include the “fact” in an affidavit) that Judge Roll had planned to attend the event and talk about such-and-such with Giffords. The stories not matching up on whether anybody else knew that Judge Roll planned to be there is further reason to keep the option (of Roll being an additional target) on the table.

Something else that is being ignored by everybody is Loughner’s interest in mind control and those videos he posted. Nobody wants to stick their neck out and ask if Loughner could have been the subject of mind control, because it just seems like too far out of a “conspiracy theory”.

I have not checked out the documentation for this guy’s claims regarding his own life or the programs he talks about. I would not expect there to be much documentation on an operation such as this, but I remember there being some references to these kinds of operations in some official documents.

So I’m giving this with a disclaimer that I don’t know if these claims are accurate. But FWIW: http://duncanofinioan.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/anatomy-of-an-assassination-attempt-gabrielle-giffords/

I found that site after googling to try to find out any facts about where in the anatomy Judge Roll was shot. This link was on around the 15th page of Google responses, IIRC. And this guy wants to know the same kinds of details that I would want to know - AND which any legitimate investigation would NEED to know before ruling out Judge Roll as an intended target.

In looking at motives they better be doing a physical examination of Loughner to check for possible mind control avenues on his person, as well as any contacts he may have had both now and when his personality seemed to change, when he started isolating himself from his friends.

I don’t know what happened. But I’m not ready to write anything off as impossible, and I don’t like feeling as if the investigation itself could be compromised because of politics. From personal experience, I know that the FBI is not above lying for political reasons. And the investigation of the Vince Foster death does NOT speak well of the FBI being beyond political manipulation.

The FBI is under the jurisdiction of AG Eric Holder; that should tell us all we need to know.

I took a long nap this afternoon, feeling the same way. That was after having a long discussion with my husband, wondering whether resistance is futile on any of this stuff. Not because of Obama and his thugs, but because of the huge number of sleeping Americans who think it is too “conspiratorial” to ask legitimate questions and expect answers that stand up to scrutiny.

Did you know that ready.gov has a public service announcement to prepare people for the earth’s magnetic core reversing? At least that is what somebody said it was about and what it seems to be about; I can’t see video on my computer so I can’t say for sure. If a person talked about weird effects from a reversal of the earth’s magnetic core they would be called nuts - “conspiracy theorists” - but there’s a PSA about it at ready.gov.

We are so afraid of being called a “conspiracy theorist” that we won’t touch things with a 10-foot pole unless it’s on the alphabet networks - regardless of what facts or evidence there is. This self-censorship is dangerous. If we have defined conspiracies out of possibility we have groomed ourselves for a big-time conspiracy, because we will never allow ourselves to believe it even if it’s staring us in the face.

And this refusal to scrutinize public officials and the contradictory “facts” they give is dangerous too. It means that we have given up on an epistemology based on logic, reason, and evidence, and gone on to the post-modern idea that we can each make up our own facts. Dangerous, dangerous territory.

It’s good to hear that folks like Megyn Kelly are confronting Sheriff Dupnik on what facts he has to connect the shooting to political rhetoric. Now if somebody would confront him with the ever-changing “facts” he and the FBI are claiming, or ask for clarification of the seeming discrepancies, I’d have some hope that the investigation will be held accountable to facts at least.

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