By Michael H. Brown

All of us know the song New York, New York. How great that song would be if one substituted the words "We're praising/ the Lord" (instead of the lyrics, "start spreading/ the news")!

"I'm going to praise Him/ in a city/ that never sleeps!/ And call Him king of the world/ 'A-number-One'..."

Can you hear Sinatra belting it out? The Lord, the L--o--r---d....?

It would be a good thing to do -- immediately.

For New York, like New Orleans, like L.A., like so many places -- risks a repeat of danger.

There is no sugarcoating it.

Danger looms again.

Like the Big Easy, the Big Apple has a tremendous number of good Catholics (of good people of all faiths) who deserve our support and who with that support can stave off those dangers.

But the clock ticks.

There are terrific churches in this city. St. Patrick's is the nation's finest cathedral. My parish was once Our Lady of Good Counsel on East 90th, which is magnificent. My own return to active Catholicism took place in Manhattan.

But start spreading this news: evil here is again approaching a tipping point.

Seven years after 9/11, there is simply no sign -- in the general culture, in the day-to-day frenzy -- of a moral turnaround: nothing like what should have come in the wake of September 11. It is a time to pray for the victims of 9/11, yes. I lost one of my very closest friends in the South Tower that day of infamy. But just as much, we must pray for the removal of evil.

Start spreading the news. Start spreading the warning.

Start with the stark fact that the city has become the nation's abortion capital.

In most of the United States, 24 abortions are carried out for every hundred live births.

In New York, it's 72.

Put another way, the annual number of abortions in New York is nearly 33 times the death toll at the World Trade Center. Every twelve months, the total number of abortions is like killing every resident in a city the size of Corning.

When I lived in the city, abortionists even advertised on subways (saying they took credit cards).

"The continuing boom in abortions -- 90,157 were performed in the city in 2006, the last year for which statistics are available -- apparently means that many women are using abortion as their birth control method of choice," noted Crain's Business New York recently.

As a result, there is the opening for more future disaster.

There is the hyper-consumerism: instead of looking at what happened to a place that symbolized materialism (the trade center), New York and the rest of the nation -- the rest of the West -- have continued on their merry way.

There is the manipulation of money (the bank crisis originated right down there near the center).

There is Hollywood (it is financed from here).

So are most of the major media.

There is the obsession with fashion.

There is the obsession with status.

There is the occult: few realize that the Church of Satan has switched its "headquarters" from San Francisco to Manhattan.

That occurred in 2001 -- the year of 9/11 -- and the headquarters are in Hell's Kitchen, of course (on the West Side).

Remember Anton LaVey?

His folks are now on the streets of New York (with a post office box at Rockefeller Center).

Symbols? Coincidence?

Remember those demonic-like faces formed in smoke from the World Trade Center?

And so there is -- again -- pure danger.

My plea to this great city: Never mind spreading "the news." Start spreading the blessed salt. Do this at the Trade Center. Go up and down Wall Street. Cast out the spirit of selfishness. Cast out the spirit of mammon. Go to Chelsea. Go to Soho. Plant medals. To the the Lower West Side. Hit the docks. That's where the terrorists may be. Go to Greenwich Village. Cast out the spirits of drugs and dark music and distorted sexuality.

Fifth Avenue. Sixth Avenue. Spread salt in front of the networks! Toss it in front of the magazine headquarters, in front of the newspapers. Spread it in front of those advertising agencies!

Head uptown. Head for the boroughs. Spread it around Long Island and Connecticut and New Jersey. Make a circle of protection around St. Patrick's (and also, please, Good Counsel). Hit the 200 places where they do abortions.

Start spreading/ the salt....

Add those lyrics.

Is there an army there? Is there a group that will start this?

Is there a priest?

New York, great city, it is as the Mass reading today (9/10, on the eve, 1 Corinthians 7) says: "I tell you, brothers, the time is running out." That is true for everyone, everywhere. As New York, so goes the U.S.

Time is short to get right with God and prevent -- as we can -- disaster.

And so change the song:

  E-mail this link directly