Is Anybody There?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says Yahweh Sabaoth" Zach 4:6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dio di Signore, nella Sua volontà è nostra pace!" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin 1759

Sunday, January 31, 2010

The 7 Sorrows & 7 Joys of St. Joseph

2 years ago I put up a post about the devotion to St. Joseph called the 7 Sorrows & 7 Joys of St. Joseph AKA The Devotion of the 7 Sundays. (St. Joseph's 7 Sorrows & 7 Joys Devotion) As I pointed out in that post 1 of most common ways of practicing that devotion is to do so on the 7 Sundays before the Feast of St. Joseph on 19 March. Today is the 1st of those 7 Sundays.
Back then I wrote: "As I have gotten older I have come to a great appreciation of the important role that God had for St. Joseph, not only during his lifetime, but even now as he is in Heaven with his beloved spouse, Mary & his son Jesus. I once read a comment that Mary's love for us is like that of a mother for her children. If so, then St. Joseph's has to be like that of a father. Neither is equal to that of God, but it is reflective of God's love & in total alignment with it & with God's plans for each & every one of us."
Since then I have come to appreciate that role even more. A part of that growth includes a greater understanding of the importance of asking St. Joseph's intercession in our battle against the "culture of death" & esp abortion.
Over the last few days I felt lead to pray this devotion as a way of asking St. Joseph's intercession for an end to abortion. Also to ask that he would bless the efforts of those Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers that provide an alternative to abortion. Finally, that he would help those fathers who lost a child to abortion to find repentance & forgiveness (if they willingly participated) & healing from the emotional damage (whether the father willingly participated or not).
Of course I will also be praying it for some personal needs as well. But I would like to challenge as many as possible to join in with me in praying this devotion to ask St. Joseph's intercession. Follow the link to my previous post for links to the devotion. I feel this devotion will be a powerful weapon that will speed up the day when we have that "Culture of Life" that God desires rather than our current "culture of death".

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Coming Soon to a Dissident Convent Near You!!!!!

Apostolic Visitation II: Nunjas!!!
This Time We Are Not Taking No For An Answer
by Matt and Patrick Archbold (Creative Minority Report)


The Apostolic Visitation started last year with reports of concerns, irregularities about a secular mentality or even a feminist spirit pervading America’s female religious. A letter from the Vatican followed. A simple request and a questionnaire to help the sisters and to respond to concerns for their welfare.
And then things got ugly. Many women religious teamed up and refused to comply. It was like Norma Rae but with off-the-rack gender neutral pantsuits.
But now, in a world where the Vatican’s Apostolic Visitation was rebuffed, many Sisters forgot something. One very important thing. You never ignore Rome.
While many wondered what the Vatican’s response would be, the second wave of the Apostolic Visitation will be carried out under the cover of darkness by…NUNJAS!!!!!!!!!!!
Just when liberated sisters thought it was safe to go back to tai-chi class…Apostolic Visitation II: Nunjas!!! And this time they’re not taking no for an answer.
Make no mistake, these are not your ordinary nuns. They don’t correct the wayward with rulers. When NUNJAS correct you, you stay corrected. They are NUNJAS! These Nunjas mock albino monk assassins…to their pasty white faces.
Their mission in the dead of night is to sneak into the Lair of the “Sisters of Perpetual Liberation” and exorcise their meditation rooms, replace crystals with rosaries, replace Pantsuits with habits, change their cable plan replacing HBO with EWTN (A litle less “Big Love” and a little more “Life on the Rock), tear down all Sr. Joan Chittister posters from their bedrooms, perform secret Nunja Sleeper hold on radicalized sisters like Sister Mary Rainforest and have them wake up with the Nashville Dominicans just in time for Eucharistic Adoration, and confiscate all rainbow lapel pins.
When it comes to NUNJAS Resistance is futile…but preferred.

Coming Soon to a Pharmacy Near You - A More Effective "Morning After" Abortifacent

Just what we don't need, a better way to murder the unborn. Remember when DuPont used the slogan "Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry."? Now it seems "worse things for more efficient killing" is more appropriate.




by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Abortion advocates are pushing a new drug that they say is an expanded morning after pill, or emergency contraception. However, pro-life doctors and advocates say Ellaone, also known as Ulipristal, works as an abortion drug and not an agent that prevents conception.
The morning after pill, or Plan B drug, has been around for years and can either prevent fertilization from occurring or can sometimes act as an abortifacient by killing the unique human being fertilization develops.
Ellaone is different -- instead of working hours or just a couple of days after sexual relations take place as the morning after pill does, it can be used up to five days afterwards.
The drug is becoming popular in Europe and abortion advocates there are pushing it as a better version of the morning after pill.
Ann Furedi, from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service abortion business in the UK, tells the London Daily Mail, "This new type of emergency contraceptive pill is exciting news."
But Josephine Quintavalle, of the Pro-Life Alliance, says Ellaone is not an emergency contraception because it causes an abortion rather than preventing pregnancy.
"If you take a morning-after pill within 24 hours, there is always the argument that the sperm may not have fertilized the egg by then, meaning pregnancy has not yet happened," she told the newspaper. "But if this pill works for five days there is no argument. This is not a contraceptive, it is an abortive agent."
Dr. Donna Harrison, the president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists agrees with the assessment of Ellaone (Ulipristal) as an abortion drug.
"I think it's important that the pro-life community recognize exactly what Ulipristal is, and how it works, so they are not fooled," she told LifeNews.com today.
Harrison says she is concerned that the drug will be able to be sold over the counter in the same way the Plan B morning after pill is sold without a doctor's prescription or consultation.
In England, the Ellaone drug is sold via prescription and costs almost three times as much as the morning after pill.
Abortion advocates, in preparing for a big push to promote Ulipristal to the general public, are touting new research papers showing it to be "more effective" in preventing pregnancy or, in this case, killing unborn children.
Anna Glasier, of NHS Lothian in Edinburgh, led a study of more than 5,500 women in the UK published online in The Lancet medical journal. It found fewer pregnancies among those women given the Ellaone drug within five days of intercourse. And for women who took the drug between 3-5 days after having sex, only women taking the traditional morning after pill became pregnant.
Glasier told the Daily Mail that she doesn't think the Ellaone drug will become as popular because women like the convenience of getting the morning after pill at a pharmacy without the prescription Ellaone requires.
But if that changes in England or becomes available without a prescription in the United States or other countries, Harrison's fears will be confirmed.
Related web sites:Pro-Life Alliance UK - http://prolife.org.uk/


American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists - http://www.aaplog.org%20/

Obama's Stimulus Package - Creating Jobs to Kill the Unborn

Yes folks, you read that right, our taxes are going to help fund Planned Parenthood so it can open a new clinic. & while it says it won't perform abortions at the site because it is using federal funds*, those protesting its opening are not buying the claim that it won't refer women to other PP sites that do provide them^. & neither am I. Especially since HHS regs require them to do so#. Bluntly, given PP's track record of coverups of rape & incest etc, it is clear that they don't care about obeying the law, just making money off of abortions.
I predict that PP will use the following modus operendi. They will talk to the women & say she needs to go to another PP better suited to handle the problem, 1 that can give them info on all th options+. & you can bet your retirement fund that that PP will always be 1 that handles abortions. They may not admit the referal is for an abortion but it will be.
Once again we see the ugly truth, Planned Parenthood is taking our tax money to help expand its reach while adding to its already huge bottom line. The Obama administration is doing its part to expand abortion despite Obama's claims to the Pope that he would reduce abortions.
I am not surprized that this is happenning. But I am outraged that this is what our government sees as a way to create jobs. & I am disgusted that they see murdering the unborn as a boon to our economy. They may deny it, but that is exactly what is going on. & despite the polls, election results etc, the Dems in Congress & Obama are still so arrogant that they refuse to see that what they are doing is NOT wanted or welcome. Either that, or they figure if they are going to go down in flames because we dare to reject what they are doing, they are going to take the rest of us with them.
Follow the link above to the Hot Air story or the link below for Jill Stanek's post with links to other stories.
__________________________
*"Jesse Mermell, vice president of external relations at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said because the organization plans to open the Fitchburg office with federal grant money from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, employees cannot arrange appointments for abortions for patients at other offices. They also won’t perform abortions at the Fitchburg office."
#"But Planned Parenthood is also required by Health and Human Services to provide women who test positive for pregnancy at their office with information on all options, including prenatal care and delivery, foster care, adoption and abortion."
^"Bruso said a Main Street location, just down the street from Longsjo Middle School, makes the prospect of a Planned Parenthood office in Fitchburg even less palpable. Planned Parenthood is trying to depict itself as an agency that is only planning to educate the community about sexual health, Bruso said, but he believes that's not the case.
"They don't make money by giving out literature. They make money by performing abortions," Bruso said.
" (Father Robert Bruso, of St. Anthony de Padua Church in Fitchburg)
+""(Patients) can be handed a slip with phone numbers and Web sites and what not, but they have to go on their own and take action on their own if they choose to make an appointment," Mermell said. "

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Taking the 2nd Amendment to Its Logical Conclusion

I Thought Jesus Said "Go & Sin No More!" Not Use a Clean Needle

The last I looked, aiding & abetting someone in their drug habit was NOT in keeping with Catholic Teaching. This is a part of the same mindset that justifies giving out condoms as well. The last I looked, the Catholic Church's mission was to call people to repentance. Sr. Maureen, I have no idea where you got your theological training from, but Jesus never taught that it was Ok to help people to continue in their drug habit, even if it was to keep them from getting AIDS. May I remind you that Jesus told the man he healed "sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee." (John 5:14 Douay-Rheims) This IS NOT caring for your neighbor any way you cut it. Instead, as I already said, this IS condoning sin as well as formal cooperation in that sin.* (IMHO, to borrow a phrase from TH2, Sr. Maureen qualifies as a "habitless hussy" as the picture below confirms.)

By Mary DeTurris Poust
Catholic Charities of the Capital Region in Albany, N.Y., is starting a controversial needle exchange program -- the first of its kind by Catholic Charities in this country -- in an effort to prevent IV drug users from contracting AIDS when they share needles.
In an article in the Times Union, Sister Maureen Joyce, R.S.M, (R) CEO of Albany Catholic Charities, said "I understand there will be questions, but this is common sense. I strongly believe in this. It will save lives."
The program will allow drug users to anonymously receive syringes and other medical supplies from a custom van that will be located in areas of Albany where injection drug use is known to be occurring.
Later in the same article, Sister Maureen is quoted as saying that the needle exchange is in keeping with "the stated mission of Catholic Charities" and with the larger mission of Christians to care for others."
From a theological standpoint, we're not being faithful to our mission if we don't reach out to people addicted to drugs, too," she told the Times Union.
For the full story, click HERE.
__________________
* (Added 2 Feb 2010 @ 8:28 pm) THIS JUST IN Apparently my comment about this being formal cooperation is correct. In his post "Arguments against Bp. Hubbard's authorization of "needle programs" ", Edward N. Peters, JD, JCD says the same thing & rightly calls it a scandal as well. (Source: More on Bishop Hubbard and syringes)

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Nancy Pelosi and Father O'Malley

Father O'Malley rose from his bed. It was a fine spring day in his new Washington, D.C. parish. He walked to the window of his bedroom to get a deep breath of air and to see the beautiful day outside.
He then noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn. He promptly made a phone call. The conversation went like this:
"Good morning. This is Speaker Pelosi. How might I help you?"
"And the best of the day te yerself. This is Father O'Malley at St.Brigid's. There's a jackass lying dead in me front lawn. Would ye be so kind as to send a couple o'yer lads to take care of the matter?"
Speaker Pelosi, considering herself to be quite a wit, replied, "Father, it was always my impression that you people took care of last rites!"
There was silence on the line for a moment, and Father O'Malley replied:
"Aye, that's certainly true, but we are also obliged to first notify the next of kin."

Our Government at Work


Air America's Last Listener



Written by Carter Clews
Well, it has finally happened. We all knew was inevitable – but it still comes as a shock. Air America has closed its doors.
Decades from now, Americans from all walks of life will be asking each other: “Where were you the day the snooze-it died?” The precise time will now be stamped indelibly in the public psyche and enter the pantheon of history’s defining moments – like the day they added almonds to Joy … the night they raided Minsky’s … and the exact second Mookie’s grounder went through that idiot Buckner’s legs.
Have the gods no mercy? How much can people be expected to take? When, oh when, will it all end? Did Colgate Dental Cream really ever have an “invisible protective shield”?
To get an answer to these, and other questions about the nature of life, the Ptolemaic theory, and how vacuum pumps actually work, your faithful scribe contacted Hilda May Snopes, Air America’s last living listener, at her padded cell in Austin, Texas’, Good Hope Sanitarium. I share that enlightening interview with you now.
Me: Good morning, Miss Snopes, I’m sorry to awaken you in the middle of the afternoon.
HMS: What year is it?
Me: Still 2010, as near as I can remember. Miss Snopes, according to the Neilson Ratings, you were the last living listener to Air America. Is that true?
HMS: Is Karl Marx still alive?
Me: No, ma’am, I believe he passed away some years back.
HMS: Then I guess it’s true. Thank God for short wave.
Me: Indeed. So, how do you feel about the announcement that Air America has now gone bankrupt and is completely closing its doors?
HMS: Where’d you hear that? Rush Limbaugh tell you that? He’s a drug addict, you know – a drug addict who hates Mexicans and went deaf and had to get his ears replaced. Air America did a big special on it. Al Franken hosted it. He’s in the Senate, now, you know. I voted for him. So did the Dallas Cowboys starting line. ACORN got us all absentee ballots.
Me: I’m sure they did. Tell me, what do you think you’re going to miss most about Air America now that it’s off the air?
HMS: Same thing I missed when it was on the air – quality programming. That’s a joke, sonny. I may be old, but I’m still spry. I’ll miss Sean Hannity.
Me: I’m sorry, but I don’t believe Sean was actually on Air America.
HMS: I know. I missed him then, too. Let me think … let me think … don’t rush me now … Did you ever hear the commercial they had on for McDonald’s? The one about “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun?”
Me: Not recently. Who was your favorite Air America host of all time?
HMS: Fulton Lewis, Jr.
Me: With all due respect Miss Snopes, Fulton Lewis, Jr. has been dead for quite some time.
HMS: So has Air America.
Me: One last question, if I may. How does it feel to have been Air America’s last living listener now that they are gone?
HMS: Well, actually, not much different than when they were still around. You know, there were only three of us from the beginning. Then, I guess when Marx died and Mao moved to Tahoe, or whatever, those folks just kind of lost the will to live. I’m gonna miss them, though, I’ll tell you that. Did you ever hear the commercial they used to run for Minsky’s?
So, there you have it. Another great American institution fallen by the wayside. The Reggie Bar … the Edsel … two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun … that idiot Buckner – they all have their day in the sun and then are heard no more.
And now, Air America – the network that made Sominex superfluous and took the listen out of talk – has gone the way of the Dodo Bird. As Hilda Mae Snopes shouted to me from afar as I fled the sanatorium, “Tell Al Franken I liked him a lot better as Stuart Smalley.”
Carter Clews is the Executive Editor of ALG News.

Ralph McInerny - RIP

Ralph McInerny, Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Jacques Maritain Center, & Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame until his retirement in June, 2009 passed away Friday morning. Back in the early 90s I had the pleasure of hearing him speak. I was impressed with his knowledge as well as his orthodoxy. A rarity for someone who then taught at Notre Dame. He started there in 1955 when the place was still Catholic so he actually harkens back to a better time. ND may have drifted, he didn't.
He was a solid & faithful Catholic who was very upset with the direction his beloved Notre Dame took in recent years. He publicly criticized ND President Jenkins for inviting Obama to speak at the 2009 commencement. In an article for The Catholic Thing (Is Obama Worth a Mass?) written in March 2009 he had this to say about the invite: "Not to put too fine a point on it, this is a deliberate thumbing of the collective nose at the Roman Catholic Church to which Notre Dame purports to be faithful. Faithful? Tell it to Julian the Apostate." & that was just the start. Later he comments: "the invitation to Barack Obama is far from being the usual effort of the university to get into warm contact with the power figures of the day. It is an unequivocal abandonment of any pretense at being a Catholic university."
He laid the roots of this right where it belonged, the "infamous 1967 Land O’Lakes statement in which the assembled presidents of Catholic institutions declared their freedom from the supposedly baleful influence of Catholic orthodoxy."
As I said he deeply loved Notre Dame & was hurt to see the direction it had taken. (Something I can very easily identify with in relation to my alma mater.) He was clearly hurt to see his career there have to end this way. "For one whose fifty-four year career as a member of the Notre Dame faculty is coming to an end this June, it is a bitter thing to reflect on the 2009 commencement speaker."
He concluded the article by saying: "By inviting Barack Obama to be the 2009 commencement speaker, Notre Dame has forfeited its right to call itself a Catholic university. It invites an official rebuke. May it come."
1st Things has a biographical tribute to him (Ralph McInerny (1929-2010) ) as well as another tribute here that links to some of the things he wrote for the magazine.
Several years ago he did a series on EWTN entitled What Went Wrong With Vatican II based on a book he wrote by the same name.
Finally, here is a part of a series he did on Thomas Aquinas. McInerny was 1 of our era's greatest Thomistic scholars. He will be sorely missed.

Freedom From Religion Promoting Racism, Eugenics?

I had an interesting thought as I was typing the following comment on another blog about the Freedom From Religion hissie fit about the Mother Teresa Stamp ("Atheists Protest Mother Teresa Stamp.") "As for Kate Hepburn, as I have pointed out more than once she was a big fan of Planned Parenthood & wrote many a fundraising letter to support them. Her credentials were the fact her mother was a co-founder of PP. So in their mind it is wrong to honor someone who made the world better, but it is OK to honor someone who condoned the daily murder of 3200 people." A light went on. & after a quick check of their website, I suspect that the dots connect they way I think they do.
Before I go any further I have to make it clear that there are plety of pro-life athiests. I know some of them. & for the most part they have no problem with Christians speaking out from their religious background either.
But I have also noticed that groups like Freedom From Religion try & stop Christians from having a part in the public debate only when the Christian stand goes against theirs. Abortion is a good case in point. & as I pointed out yesterday in my post (Athiests Going "Postal" Over Mother Teresa) they will even ignore or lie about their being a Chrisian basis for people like Rev King speaking out.
So where am I heading? Simple. Freedom From Religion appears to be pro-abortion from the way it covers things. They are promoting Kate Hepburn's stamp. She was a cheerleader for Planned Parenthood. Hepburn's mother co-founded it with Margaret Sanger who did so to promote her racist eugenic agenda. Part of that agenda was to eliminate the very people Mother Teresa helped. & FFR spokeswoman Gaylor made special emphasis of Mother Teresa's outspokenness on the abortion issue.
So, I highly suspect there is a double reason for this attack on the Mother Teresa stamp by FFR. & while I doubt they will admit it, FFR is a part of the same 'culture of death" gang that is all for getting rid of those people they see as inferior. The people other Teresa helped.
Coincidence? Maybe, but with the "culture of death" probably not.

Duplicitous Texting

Archbishop Chaput: Satan Is Real

"The Prince of This World and the Evangelization of Culture."

Life as a bishop -- or at least the life of this bishop -- does not leave much time to spend on poetry. But a few years ago a friend loaned me a volume of Rainer Maria Rilke, and of course, Rilke's work can be quite beautiful. In it, I found some lines of his verse that might help us begin our discussion today:
Slowly now the evening changes his garments
held for him by a rim of ancient trees;
you gaze: and the landscape divides and leaves you
one sinking and one rising toward the stars.
And you are left, to none belonging wholly,
not so dark as a silent house, nor quite
so surely pledged unto eternity
as that which grows to star and climbs the night.
To you is left (unspeakably confused)
your life, gigantic, ripening, full of fears,
so that it, now hemmed in, now grasping all,
is changed in you by turns to stone and stars.
Philosophers and psychologists have offered a lot of different theories about the nature of the human person. But few have captured the human condition better than Rilke does in those 12 lines. We are creatures made for heaven; but we are born of this earth. We love the beauty of this world; but we sense there is something more behind that beauty. Our longing for that “something” pulls us outside of ourselves.
Striving for “something more” is part of the greatness of the human spirit, even when it involves failure and suffering. In the words of Venerable John Paul II, something in the artist, and by extension in all human beings, “mirrors the image of God as Creator.” We have an instinct to create beauty and new life that comes from our own Creator. Yet we live in a time when, despite all of our achievements, the brutality and indifference of the world have never been greater. The truth is that cruelty is also the work of human hands. So if we are troubled by the spirit of our age, if we really want to change the current course of our culture and challenge its guiding ideas – and this is the theme of our session here today -- then we need to start with the author of that culture. That means examining man himself.
Culture exists because man exists. Men and women think, imagine, believe and act. The mark they leave on the world is what we call culture. In a sense, that includes everything from work habits and cuisine to social manners and politics. But I want to focus in a special way on those elements of culture that we consciously choose to create; things like art, literature, technology, music and architecture. These things are what most people think of when they first hear the word “culture.” And that makes sense, because all of them have to do with communicating knowledge that is both useful and beautiful. The task of an architect, for example, is to translate abstract engineering problems into visible, pleasing form; in other words, to turn disorder into order, and mathematical complexity into a public expression of strength and elegance. We are social animals. Culture is the framework within which we locate ourselves in relationship to other people, find meaning in the world and then transmit meaning to others.
In his 1999 Letter to Artists, John Paul II wrote that “beauty is the visible form of the good, just as the good is the metaphysical condition of beauty.” There is “an ethic, even a 'spirituality' of artistic service which contributes [to] the life and renewal of a people,” because “every genuine art form, in its own way, is a path to the inmost reality of man and of the world.”
He went on the say that “true art has a close affinity with the world of faith, so that even in situations where culture and the Church are far apart, art remains a kind of bridge to religious experience . . . Art by its nature is a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, artists give voice [to] the universal desire for redemption.”
Christianity is an incarnational religion. We believe that God became man. This has huge implications for how we live, and how we think about culture. God creates the world in Genesis. He judges it as “very good” (Gen 1:31). Later he enters the world to redeem it in the flesh and blood of his son (Jn 1:14). In effect, God licenses us to know, love and ennoble the world through the work of human genius. Our creativity as creatures is an echo of God's own creative glory. When God tells our first parents, “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28), he invites us to take part, in a small but powerful way, in the life of God himself.
The results of that fertility surround us. We see it in the great Christian heritage that still underpins the modern world. Anyone with an honest heart will grant that the Christian faith has inspired much of the greatest painting, music, architecture and scholarship in human experience. For Christians, art is a holy vocation with the power to elevate the human spirit and lead men and women toward God.
Having said all this, we still face a problem. And here it is: God has never been more absent from the Western mind than he is today. Additionally, we live in an age when almost every scientific advance seems to be matched by some increase of cruelty in our entertainment, cynicism in our politics, ignorance of the past, consumer greed, little genocides posing as “rights” like the cult of abortion, and a basic confusion about what – if anything at all – it means to be “human.”
Science and technology give us power. Philosophers like Feuerbach and Nietzsche give us the language to deny God. The result, in the words of Henri De Lubac, is not atheism, but an anti-theism built on resentment. In destroying God, man sees himself as “overthrowing an obstacle in order to gain his freedom.” The Christian understanding of human dignity claims that we are made in the image and likeness of God. Thomas Aquinas – whose feast we celebrate tomorrow – said that “In this [likeness to God] is man's greatness, in this is man's worth, in this he excels every creature.” But this grounding in God is exactly what the modern spirit rejects.
Of course, most people have never read Nietzsche. Nor will they. Few have even heard of Feuerbach. But they do experience the benefits of science and technology every day. And they do live inside a cocoon of marketing that constantly strokes their appetites, makes death seem remote, and pushes questions about meaning and morality down into matters of private opinion. The result is this. While many people in the developed world still claim to be religious, their faith – in the words of the Pontifical Council for Culture – is “often more a question of religious feeling than a demanding commitment to God.” Religion becomes a kind of insurance policy for eternity. Too often, it is little more than a convenient moral language for daily life. And what is worse is that many people no longer have the skills, or even the desire, to understand their circumstances, or to think their way out of the cocoon.
Part of what blocks a serious awareness and rethinking of our current culture is the “knowledge economy” we have created. In its 1999 statement Towards a Pastoral Approach to Culture, the Pontifical Council for Culture saw that the constant flow of “information provided by [today's] mass media . . . affects the way things are perceived: What people come to know is not reality as such, but what they are shown. [The] constant repetition of selected items of information involves a decline in critical awareness, and this is a crucial factor in forming what is considered public opinion.” It also causes “a loss of intrinsic value [in the specific] items of information, an undifferentiated uniformity in messages which are reduced to pure information, a lack of responsible feedback, and a . . . discouragement of interpersonal relationships.” This is all true. Much of modern technology isolates people as often as it brings them together. It attacks community as easily as it builds it up. It also forms the human mind in habits of thought and expression that are very different from traditional culture based on the printed word. And that has implications both for the Word of God and for the Church.
There is one other important point here that even strong religious believers often find hard to talk about. Let me explain it this way.
Referring to artists, John Paul II said that, “In shaping a masterpiece, the artist not only summons his work into being, but also . . . reveals his own personality by means of it.” In other words, “works of art speak of their authors; they enable us to know their inner life.” This is quite normal. But it also poses a danger. A key temptation of our age is the will to power. It is most obvious in our politics and science; in the constant erosion of our respect for the weak, the infirm, the unborn and the disabled. But the impulse to pride -- that hunger to smash taboos and inflate the self – appeals most naturally to artists and other creators of high culture. Genius breeds vanity. And vanity breeds conflict and suffering. The vanity of creative genius has a pedigree that leads back a very long way; all the way back to the very first non serviam from Satan himself.
It is very odd that in the wake of the bloodiest century in history – a century when tens of millions of human beings were shot, starved, gassed and incinerated with superhuman ingenuity – even many religious leaders are embarrassed to talk about the devil. In fact, it is more than odd. It is revealing. Mass murder and exquisitely organized cruelty are not just really big “mental health” problems. They are sins that cry out to heaven for justice, and they carry the fingerprints of an Intelligence who is personal, gifted, calculating and powerful. The devil is only unbelievable if we imagine him as the black monster of medieval paintings, or think The Inferno is intended as a literal road map to hell. Satan was very real for Jesus. He was very real for Paul and the other great saints throughout history. And he is profoundly formidable. If we want a sense of the grandeur of the Fallen Angel before he fell, the violated genius of who Satan really is, we can take a hint from the Rilke poem The Angels:
. . . when they spread their wings
they waken a great wind through the land:
as though with his broad sculptor-hands
God was turning
the leaves of the dark book of the Beginning.
This is the kind of Being – once glorious, but then consumed by his own pride -- who is now the Enemy of humanity. This is the Pure Spirit who betrayed his own greatness. This is the Intellect who hates the Incarnation because through it, God invites creatures of clay like you and me to take part in God's own divinity. There is nothing sympathetic about Satan; only tragedy and loss and enduring, brilliant anger.
In 1929, as the great totalitarian murder-regimes began to rise up in Europe, the philosopher Raissa Maritain wrote a forgotten little essay called The Prince of This World. It is worth reading. We need to remember her words today and into the future. With no trace of irony or metaphor, Maritain argued:
“Lucifer has cast the strong though invisible net of illusion upon us. He makes one love the passing moment above eternity, uncertainty above truth. He persuades us that we can only love creatures by making Gods of them. He lulls us to sleep (and he interprets our dreams); he makes us work. Then does the spirit of man brood over stagnant waters. Not the least of the devil's victories is to have convinced artists and poets that he is their necessary, inevitable collaborator and the guardian of their greatness. Grant him that, and soon you will grant him that Christianity is unpracticable. Thus does he reign in this world.”
If we do not believe in the devil, sooner or later we will not believe in God. We cannot cut Lucifer out of the ecology of salvation. Satan is not God's equal. He is a created being subject to God and already, by the measure of eternity, defeated. Nonetheless, he is the first author of pride and rebellion, and the great seducer of man. Without him the Incarnation and Redemption do not make sense, and the cross is meaningless. Satan is real. There is no way around this simple truth.
Let me underline that even more strongly. Leszek Kolakowski, the former Marxist philosopher who died just last year, was one of the great minds of the last century. He was never a religious person in the traditional sense. But Kolakowski had few doubts about the reality of the devil. In his essay Short Transcript of a Metaphysical Press Conference Given by the Demon in Warsaw, on 20th December 1963, Kolakowski's devil indicts all of us who call ourselves “modern” Christians with the following words:
“Where is there a place [in your thinking] for the fallen angel? . . . Is Satan only a rhetorical figure? . . . Or else, gentlemen, is he a reality, undeniable, recognized by tradition, revealed in the Scriptures, commented upon by the Church for two millennia, tangible and acute? Why do you avoid me, gentlemen? Are you afraid that the skeptics will mock you, that you will be laughed at in satirical late night reviews? Since when is the faith affected by the jeers of heathens and heretics? What road are you taking? If you forsake the foundations of the faith for fear of mockery, where will you end? If the devil falls victim to your fear [of embarrassment] today, God's turn must inevitably come tomorrow. Gentlemen, you have been ensnared by the idol of modernity, which fears ultimate matters and hides from you their importance. I don't mention it for my own benefit – it is nothing to me – I am talking about you and for you, forgetting for a moment my own vocation, and even my duty to propagate error.”
We live in an age that imagines itself as post-modern and post-Christian. It is a time defined by noise, urgency, action, utility and a hunger for practical results. But there is nothing really new about any of this. I think St. Paul would find our age rather familiar. For all of the rhetoric about “hope and change” in our politics, our urgencies hide a deep unease about the future; a kind of well-manicured selfishness and despair. The world around us has a hole in its heart, and the emptiness hurts. Only God can fill it. In our baptism, God called each of us in this room today to be his agents in that work. Like St. Paul, we need to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (Jas 1:22). We prove what we really believe by our willingness, or our refusal, to act on what we claim to believe.
But when we talk about a theme like today's topic – “Priests and laity together, changing and challenging the culture” – we need to remember that what we do, proceeds from who we are. Nothing is more dead than faith without works (Jas 2:17); except maybe one thing: works without faith. I do not think Paul had management issues in his head when he preached at the Areopagus. Management and resources are important – but the really essential questions, the questions that determine everything else in our life as Christians, are these: Do I really know God? Do I really love him? Do I seek him out? Do I study his word? Do I listen for his voice? Do I give my heart to him? Do I really believe he's there?
For more than 30 years, first as a bishop and now as the successor to St. Peter, Benedict XVI has spoken often and very forcefully about the “culture of relativism” that guides today's developed world, breaks down human community and intimacy, and drains the meaning out of human activity. That culture flows out of the “new Areopagus” John Paul II described in Redemptoris Missio – a culture formed by radically new technologies and methods of communication; a culture with a power that reshapes how we think, what we think about, and how we organize our personal and social lives.
We have an obligation as Catholics to study and understand the world around us. We have a duty not just to penetrate and engage it, but to convert it to Jesus Christ. That work belongs to all of us equally: clergy, laity and religious. We are missionaries. That is our primary vocation; it is hardwired into our identity as Christians. God calls each of us to different forms of service in his Church. But we are all equal in baptism. And we all share the same mission of bringing the Gospel to the world, and bringing the world to the Gospel.
And yet, Kolakowski's devil was right. The fundamental crisis of our time, and the special crisis of today’s Christians, has nothing to do with technology, or numbers, or organization, or resources. It is a crisis of faith. Do we believe in God or not? Are we on fire with a love for Jesus Christ, or not? Because if we are not, nothing else matters. If we are, then everything we need in order to do God's work will follow, because he never abandons his people.
I began this talk today with the words of a poet, so I will end with the words of another poet. You may not have heard of him here in Italy. His name was Dante Alighieri, and he wrote an interesting little work called The Divine Comedy. He ends the Paradiso and the entire Comedy with these words: “The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.”
The Love which moves the sun and the other stars. That is the nature of the God we preach. A God so great in glory, heat, light and majesty that he can populate the heavens and call life out of dead space; yet so intimate that he became one of us; so humble that he entered our world on dirt and straw to redeem us. I think we can be forgiven for sometimes running away from that kind of love, like a child who runs away from a parent, because we simply cannot understand or compete with that ocean of unselfishness. It is only when we give ourselves to God that we understand, finally, that we were made to do exactly that. Our hearts are restless until they rest in him. We should not be afraid to believe and to love; it took even a great saint like Augustine half a lifetime to be able to admit, that “late have I loved thee, Beauty so old and so new; late have I loved thee.”
God calls us to leave here today and make disciples of all nations. But he calls us first to love him. If we do that, and do it zealously, with all our hearts – the rest will follow.
Address given to the Fifth Symposium Rome: Priests and Laity on Mission

Friday, January 29, 2010

With All Due Respect to Cavey

Thursday Cavey put up a video of André Rieu singing Ave Maria ( Schubert) (OK, Leningrad Cowboys, They Ain't... ) . & while she does a beautiful rendition there is still 1 performer who will always be the touchstone against which i measure every other version, Perry Como.

Even Pavarotti, good as he is, still doesn't measure up, IMHO.

US Congress' Charge Card

Rabbi Asks Questions Planned Parenthood Doesn't Want Asked


By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
SPRING VALLEY, New York, January 27, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - While the Washington D.C. March For Life was taking place on January 22, Rabbi Noson Shmuel Leiter, Executive Director of Torah Jews for Decency, was standing outside the Planned Parenthood abortuary in Spring Valley NY, reading a list of “uncomfortable questions,” and providing the equally uncomfortable, but necessary answers.
Carrying a banner that said, "Planned Parenthood Spreads Spirit of Barbarism" Rabbi Leiter began by asking, "What is worse than yet another year of mass-murder of the most defenseless citizens?"
The answer? "Another year of the State-Sanctioning of that Holocaust." He then asked: "What is even worse than the murder of 60 million preborn babies?" answering: "Planned Parenthood - which brazenly legitimizes - and thereby perpetuates - that crime."
The Rabbi continued to read a series of questions along the same lines.
"How can 'the little guy' hope to fight the agenda funded by leftist billionaires?" he asked, pointing out in response, "Mere exposure of the actual 'power behind the (satanic) throne' diminishes their effectiveness."
"If we don't deal with the source of subversion - we certainly won't stop it,” he said. “But if we do address those shadowy forces (e.g. the foundations of Soros, Ford, and others) we most likely will merit to see significant successes - perhaps well beyond our expectations. May that be His Will."
Rabbi Leiter told LifeSiteNews that after reading his declaration outside the abortuary he and his companions were ordered to leave by someone claiming to represent the owner of the property.
"After I politely asked a few questions to ascertain the validity of the order to leave, he angrily swore, rudely barking that he doesn't care at all about anything we're here for (pointing to my banner) and threatened to call the Police," Rabbi Leiter explained.
"After determining that he probably had the legal right to keep us out of that immediate area, we left - not much before the time we had previously planned to end."

Labels:

Athiests Going "Postal" Over Mother Teresa

I have to say that I am surprized it to the looneys at Freedom from Religion this long to start ranting & raving. Their name says it all. they hate religion & hate the Constitution that allows for free expression of religion. They want to eliminate any free expression. & this latest rant clearly shows it.
It also shows how far over the edge & out of touch with reality they are because of their hatred for God. Let's start with Gaylor's comment " Martin Luther King "just happened to be a minister". 1st of all he was known as Reverend King & a Baptist minister at that. 2ndly, Rev. King clearly based his actions on the Gospel. Maybe she better go back & read some of King's speeches. He was just as religious as Mother Teresa.
So if she makes the following claim about Mother Teresa: "Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can't really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did," then you have to say the same about Rev. King. He always used Biblical symbolism to back up what he was calling for. he usually spoke in black Churches & talked about racism being a sin. & then there is the organization he started, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Note the fact that it is Christian. Sorry, but Gaylor's claim just doesn't wash.
Then there is this comment she made about Malcom X: "Malcolm X was not principally known for being a religious figure." WHAT THE . . . .?????? Is she serious. Up to the time he left the Nation of Islam in 1964, Malcolm X taught its beliefs in his speeches. His speeches were peppered with the phrase "The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that . . . "
She said they were known for their civil rights activities, not for their religion. Sorry but their civil rights activities were closely related to their religion & inseperable despite revisionist attempts to do so.
Clearly their actions were no less motivated by their faith than Mother Teresa's. & she knows it. But she also knows she can hide behind the "civil rights' claim to try & justify her claim. Bluntly, it is anti-God & in particular anti-Catholic hatred motivating her & the whole organization.
Then there is this comment of Gaylor"s: "other things that deserve to be commemorated but are not because the people behind it didn't have the power of the Catholic church."
"It's enormously difficult to get them (commemorative stamps) and people have huge campaigns, and to me this speaks of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in hierarchy.
"They want to make her a saint and this is part of the PR machine."
Is she serious? Does she honestly think the Catholic Church has that much power that they can make the USPS issue a stamp to push it's agenda? Or that it would? & it is clear she has no idea of how the process for canonization operates by her clim this is a PR move to have that accomplished. Out of touch with reality motivated by hate, that is what is behind her actions.
I could go on but I think I made my point.
I appreciate Bruce Sheiman's being willing to speak out & point out how Freedom from Religion is being hypocritical.
Meanwhile, if Gaylor & Freedom From Religion don't want to use the stamp, don't. Nobody is forcing them to. There are plenty of other stamps they can use, such as super pro-abortion, Planned Parnthood cheerleader Kate Hepburn. You will note that Pro-lifers aren't trying to claim she is being honored for her abortion stand. They know she isn't. Many of us won't use the stamp for that reason, but we won't demand the stamp not be made.
But I will suggest that we do our best to make Mother Teresa's stamp 1 of the fastest sell-outs in the history of the USPS. & then use 1 of them to tell Gaylor we won't be silenced. (In a respectful way, of course.)

Atheist Group Blasts Postal Service for Mother Teresa Stamp

An atheist organization is blasting the U.S. Postal Service for its plan to honor Mother Teresa with a commemorative stamp, saying it violates postal regulations against honoring "individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings."
The Freedom from Religion Foundation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp — and also to engage in a letter-writing campaign to spread the word about what it calls the "darker side" of Mother Teresa.
The stamp — set to be released on Aug. 26, which would have been Mother Teresa's 100th birthday — will recognize the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her humanitarian work, the Postal Service announced last month.
"Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years," the Postal Service said in a press release. "Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations."
But Freedom from Religion Foundation spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor says issuing the stamp runs against Postal Service regulations.
Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can't really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did," Gaylor told FoxNews.com.
Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts expressed surprise at the protest, given the long list of previous honorees with strong religious backgrounds, including Malcolm X, the former chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
"In fact we honored Father Flanagan in 1986 for his humanitarian work. This has nothing to do with religion or faith," Betts told FoxNews.com.
Click here to see other controversial U.S. stamps.
Gaylor said the atheist group opposed Father Flanagan's stamp but not those for King and Malcolm X, because she said they were known for their civil rights activities, not for their religion.
Martin Luther King "just happened to be a minister," and "Malcolm X was not principally known for being a religious figure," she said.
"And he's not called Father Malcolm X like Mother Teresa. I mean, even her name is a Roman Catholic honorific."
Gaylor said Mother Teresa infused Catholicism into her secular honors — including an "anti-abortion rant" during her Nobel Prize acceptance speech — and that even her humanitarian work was controversial.
"There was criticism by the end of her life that she turned what was a tiny charity into an extremely wealthy charity that had the means to provide better care than it did," Gaylor said. "...There's this knee jerk response that everything she did was humanitarian, and I think many people would differ that what she was doing was to promote religion, and what she wanted to do was baptize people before they die, and that doesn't have a secular purpose for a stamp."
But the Postal Service said the commemorative stamp has nothing to do with Mother Teresa's religion.
"Mother Teresa is not being honored because of her religion, she's being honored for her work with the poor and her acts of humanitarian relief," Betts told FoxNews.com.
"Her contribution to the world as a humanitarian speaks for itself and is unprecedented," he added.
Some atheists, too, spoke out against the group's objections, including Bruce Sheiman, author of "An Atheist Defends Religion." He said the Freedom from Religion Foundation is being "hypocritical" and really "stepping over the line."
"Clearly there are a number of things that you can point to and say it's religious and a number of things you can point to and say that it's areligious," Sheiman told FoxNews.com. "So it really doesn't make sense to protest it."
He said the Foundation's campaign stems from concern that the abundance of humanitarian work done by believers will overshadow that done by atheists.
"Like billboards and bus ads, this is just part of the whole campaign that they're doing to make non-belief more visible," he said.
Gaylor said the foundation's only concern is the "other things that deserve to be commemorated but are not because the people behind it didn't have the power of the Catholic church."
"It's enormously difficult to get them," she said, referring to commemorative stamps, "and people have huge campaigns, and to me this speaks of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in hierarchy.
"They want to make her a saint and this is part of the PR machine."
The Foundation is encouraging its supporters to purchase the new stamp honoring the late actress Katharine Hepburn, who was an atheist, instead — or any of the other 2010 stamps, which include cartoonist Bill Mauldin, singer Kate Smith, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, painter Winslow Homer and poet Julia de Burgos.
Betts said that despite the Foundation's accusations and letter-writing campaign, "The response to Mother Teresa has been overwhelmingly in favor of this stamp."
He said the Mother Teresa stamp, like other stamp subjects, will "stand the test of time, reflect the cultural diversity of our nation and have broad national appeal."

An Open Letter to President Obama

Media Bias Or Out & Out Intentional Media Fraud

I vote fraud.

Pro-Choice is Only Pro-Choice If That Choice Is For an Abortion

Over the last few days I have been following the reaction by the pro-aborts to the upcoming Super Bowl Ad featuring Tim Tebow & his mother where she talks about the choice to carry Tim to term despite doctors recommending she have an abortion. It just confirms the truth that was made clear in 2008 over their reaction to Sarah Palin's choice to have a Down syndrome child rather than abort it.
It isn't about choice. It is about abortion. It is about that being the only option, not a choice. When someone like Sarah Palin or Mrs. Tebow chooses to have the child, then it shows woman that abortion isn't the only option. & that is a fact that the "pro-choice" gang doesn't want women to know, that to choose to have the child is a valid choice.
What the pro-abortion gang is saying is that when a doctor tells a woman to have an abortion that woman should blindly obey that doctor & have it. The pro-aborts are the ones who actually oppose choice, not the pro-lifers. We support making the right choice, to let the child live.
They attack this ad as being misleading, confusing & divisive. Yet it is the pro-aborts that lie about what abortion is really about. They fight any laws that show the truth about abortion. They call the facts confusing. They don't want show women an ultrasound. they don't tell women about the emotional & physical harm abortion does. Women can't sort that info out, they say. You know what I think when I hear them say all that? By their saying the facts are too confusing they are calling women stupid. They are saying women are to dumb to make an educated choice by knowing all the facts. So, don't tell them the facts, just push them into having an abortion. Pretty insulting to women, isn't it? That is what I think. they talk about empowering women, yet they say woman can handle that power & these helpless women should trust the pro-aborts to know what is best. As I said, insulting to women.
The reality is, & they know it, when most women who are honestly searching for answers are told the truth about abortion those women will choose life, not abortion. Pro-aborts hate ultrasounds because of the 90% success rate of them convincing women to not have the abortion.
If the pro-aborts were truly pro-choice as they claim, then they would applaud women like Sarah Palin who made the choice to have Trig. They would applaud Mrs. Tebow for making the choice to have Tim rather than attacking her as a liar. They are not pro-choice, they are pro-abortion as the only way, not a choice. & this reaction to the Tebow ad is the latest bit of evidence proving that fact.
NOTE: LifeSiteNews has started a the petition to support CBS and its decision to air the Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad. To join the Facebook page to Support the Tim Tebow Ad, click here. Please sign the petition as pro-abortion groups have already gathered and presented to CBS over 120,000 signatures protesting the ad.
More Reading:
Pro-Choicers Call Tebow's Mother A Liar

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Some Interesting Reports from Human Life International

These are taken from the Jan 2010 issue of HLI Mission Report:

Dr. Ligaya A. Acosta, HLI’s Regional Coordinator for Asia shared the following as a part of her report on her trip to Kazakhstan.

She gave a one-day talk at the annual gathering of nuns from all over the huge Diocese of Astana. Anyone who is aware of the promotion of abortion & the "culture of death" by UNICEF won't be surprized by what 1 nun told her. She told Dr. Acosta that she now understands why, "when the sisters requested medicine from UNICEF for a sick baby, they were given boxes of condoms instead!" (emphasis HLI) Did you get that? Condoms, NOT medicine. UNICEF, that promotes itself as helping children is, in reality more concerned about promoting immorality than saving the lives of those children it claims to be concerned about.
She also gave a talk in the Diocese of Karaganda. The Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity felt the need tohave her speak with their youth wards in their house in Temirtau. It grew to be a talk to about 100 people. When the Bishop heard of this, he mandated all the priests & seminarians of the diocese to attend as well as a delegation of young people. (Oh for more bishops like that in the USA!)
Later in the report Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, president of HLI, shared about his journey to Belarus. he spoke at the Major Seminary, St. Thomas Aquinas, in Grodno, Belarus. That seminary is where all the men studying for the priesthood in Belarus go. He spoke to about 60 men sharing what the battle will be like after they are ordained.
Later Fr. Euteneuer went to Mogilev where he helped the local pro-life group with their sidewalk counseling at the local abortion hospital. what really made it unique is that fact that, unlike here in the USA, they could actually go into the abortion mill & talk to the women coming for abortions. Fr. Euteneuer calls his praying the Rosary as he sat in the abortion hospital 1 of the most unique experiences of his life. I have to agree. Can you imagine any abortion mill in the USA allowing us to do the same thing? We all know that they would have us arrested instead.
As an aside, their special offer for donors of $49 or more is a talk by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen entitled "First the Spiritual, Then Take Action". In it Archbishop Sheen says that we must combine both the spirituality and the action of our faith. One without the other is not sufficient. We must combine the Church of social action & the Church of individual sanctification into One
Church. Something I have said time after time myself.
Follow the link above to read the rest of the newsletter. & if you do not already support HLI, please consider doing so. They are at the forefront in the battle aainst the "culture of death" & the efforts to build a "Culture of Life".

Pro-Life Action League's Joe Sceidler's Shares His DC Encounter W/ ND's Fr. Jenkins

Finally a Chance To Talk with Jenkins
by Joe Scheidler—January 25th, 2010

Besides being probably the largest Pro-Life March in Washington to commemorate the January 22, 1973 U. S. Supreme Court’s unconstitutional rulings that legalized child-killing in America, this year’s 37th annual March for Life afforded many opportunities to advance our cause.
There were meetings, seminars, planning sessions, talks, discussions, and even the scheduling of numerable new programs to be launched in 2010.
It wasn’t only the regularly scheduled programs that produced much positive input; but literally hundreds of discussions over the tables engendered ideas for successful activities in the coming year.
One opportunity I had fall in my lap was a chance to talk to the infamous Fr. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame, who just happened to be standing near some Notre Dame students and one of the huge signs that said, “Fr. Jenkins, Free the N. D. 88,” referring to the eighty-eight pro-lifers where were arrested at Notre Dame last spring while protesting the invitation of pro-abortion Barack Obama to receive a law degree and speak at the graduation exercises.
“Well, You’ve Told Me”
We have tried to reach him through registered mail and numerous phone calls, but suddenly there he was standing just a few feet away!
So I went up to him and told him I was speaking on behalf of many friends and fellow Domers, and that he should pardon forthwith the Notre Dame 88. He was polite but absolutely noncommittal, saying something like, “Well, you’ve told me.”
I also told him I was a former student of Notre Dame and that I had taught at the University. So that he wouldn’t forget who I was, I gave him my Pro-Life Action League business card, which he put in his pocket. I hope he remembers that it is there.
He Could Drop Charges, If He Wanted To
Later in the day, after holding one of the huge yellow and black signs, Ann and I talked to some of the four-hundred Notre Dame students who had come to the March. We let them know that—despite the notion being passed around that Fr. Jenkins cannot have the charges dropped because they are now in the hands of the court—with his power and reputation he would have no trouble at all getting these charges of trespass dropped. After all, he is the one who instigated them in the first place.
We believe the charges will be nullified, if not by Fr. Jenkins, which seems unlikely, then by the court itself.
In any event, keep that issue in your prayers and pray for the conversion of Fr. Jenkins, who is going to be around Notre Dame for a long time, and—with his recent attitude—is not going to be what we had hoped for.

MARINES INVADE HAITI!!!!!- To Help

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Iowa Pork Congress Starts Today

Gee, I thought that the Iowa General Assembly (Legislature) had already started a couple weeks ago.
OK, I know that that isn't fair, to those who are participating in the 2010 Iowa Pork Congress that begins today in Des Moines. That group of people is working hard to promote the swine industry & help the economy. Unlike the Democratic controlled Iowa Legislature that went whole hog in overspending last year.
But given how the Democratic controlled Legislature screwed things up last year by overspending & creating an avoidable budget crisis, can you blame me for momentarily confusing the 2.

A Wedding Invite Like No Other

Obama's 1st "State of the Union" Speech

Obama will give his 1st State of the Union speech tonite. While I am sure he will try & paint as rosy a picture as he can about how things are going, there are some things I suspect he would like to say but won't.
Here are a few of the things I suspect he is thinking but will be sure won't be on his teleprompter:
" My fellow Democrats, a year ago we gathered her in DC to crown me as Messiah & Savior of the world. We started out with great hope that we would be able to take permanant control & remake the USA into the socialist state we wanted it to be. The fact that the Nobel committee gave me the Peace Prize was a confirmation that we were well on the way. Sadly things have not gone our way.
We should have seen things going the wrong way when the IOC gave the 2016 Olympics to Brazil. As you know those Olympics were intended to celebrate our complete takeover & my coronation as president for life.
Then we weren't able to push through ObamaCare so we could take over complete control sureptitiously.
I won't even go into the diaster that was Copenhagen.
& with the losses of 2 governorships & the recent Senate loss it looks like things are definitely not going as we planned. The 2010 & 2012 elections were meant to be a mere formality while we arranged to put an end to them & give ourselves permanent control. But with those losses it looks like we have to change our plans.
That is why I am declaring martial law effective immediately. Even as we speak I am having Janet Napolitano send federal officers to arrest Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin & the entire news team at Fox on charges of sedition & treason. There are also officers waiting outside to do the same with the Republican members of Congress as well as Chief Justice Roberts, & Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas & Kennedy.
In the next few weeks we will be rounding up every cartoonist & blogger who has said even 1 negative thing about me & sending them to concentration camps. We will also be doing the same with the entire pro-life movement. We have to ensure that those radical terrorists operating under the pro-life guise are put away before they do any harm. After all we know that all they want to do is terrorize women so they can no longer exercise their right to an abortion. Every pro-life pregnancy center will be shut down. & those bishops like Chaput, DiNardo & Rigali who have dared to criticize ObamaCare will be arrested as well.
Speaking of terrorists, I have authorized every federal marshall to shoot on sight any gun owner & confiscate their guns. & every teabagger is being rounded up as well. They will be sent to reeducation camps to insure that any of their any of their anti-higher tax thoughts are permanantly eliminated from their minds. We will be using electroshock therapy as well as waterboarding to acomplish this.
I am also sending troops down to Brazil so we can annex it & assure that we still have the 2016 Olympics.
We will also be declaring war on the Vatican so that its people can be set free from that dictator Benedict XVI. Our propaganda department has created enough fake evidience to prove that he cooperated with the Nazis, under orders from Pius XII. & we will have him tried & convicted as a war criminal under a special court set up to do so. The same falsified evidence will be used to posthumously try & convict John Paul II & Pius XII of war crimes as well. At the bequest of former President Clinton who will be the judge, we are also creating, opps again, finding evidence to convict Mother Teresa of doing the same. he says he 1st began to suspect her when she called him on the carpet publicly for supporting abortion. We are in negotiations with Cardinal Mahony, Bishops Gumbleton & Weakland to set up a new Catholic pope who will wholeheartedly endorse all our actions especially the spread of abortion & the homosexual agenda.
Soon we will be in complete & permanant control of this country.
I know this is not how we had planned it, but as I pointed out, some things started going wrong so we are left with no other option but this 1 that I am laying before you.
I made this decision after consultation with VP Biden, Sen Reid & Speaker Pelosi.
I now speak to those Americans out there to assure you that we are doing this for your own good. The government knows what is best & you can be sure that those of you who deserve it & serve a purpose will be given all you need so that you can continue to function as productive members of the United Soviet Socialist State of America."
Like I said, this is not what he will say, but I am sure that at least some, if not all of this is what he is thinking & would say if he could.

Diamonds in the Rough?

It would be interesting if this does turn out to be true. I know in the past there has been speculation that Jupiter had a giant diamond at its center. What actually is the makeup is still to be fully discovered. But whatever it turns out, it again shows the infinite variety of creation that reflects the infinite glory of God.
'Oceans of diamonds' on Uranus and Neptune
Oceans of liquid diamond topped with solid "icebergs" of the precious gems could be on Uranus and Neptune, new research has revealed.

The first ever detailed research into the melting point of diamond found it behaves like water during melting and freezing - with its solid form floating on the liquid.

A large diamond ocean on one or both of the planets could provide an explanation for an oddity they both share.

The two giant gas planets, unlike Earth, do not have magnetic poles which match up with their geographical poles.

As much as 10 per cent of both planets is carbon, and a liquid diamond ocean could deflect the angle of the magnetic field out of alignment with the planet's rotation, the researchers believe.

In laboratory conditions which simulated pressure levels on the gas planets, the scientists found that little crystals of solid diamond formed like icebergs in the liquid carbon they created.

Dr Jon Eggert, of the Laser Shock Equation of State (EOS) group in the Department of Physical and Life Sciences Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said: "The idea of significant quantities of pure carbon existing in giant planets such as Uranus and Neptune has gained both experimental and theoretical support.

"It is now accepted that the high-pressure, high-temperature behaviour of carbon is essential to predicting the evolution and structure of such planets.

"An ocean of diamond could help explain the orientation of Uranus' and Neptune's magnetic field."

The researchers took a half-millimetre wide diamond a tenth of a carat in weight and blasted it with lasers at high pressure, similar to that which found on Uranus and Neptune.

The diamond was liquified at pressures 40 million-times greater than at sea-level on Earth, and from there the scientists slowly reduced the temperature and pressure.

When the pressure fell to only 11 million-times Earth sea level and temperatures dipped to 50,000 degress Celsius, solid chunks of diamond began to appear in the liquid.

As the pressure continued to drop more and more chunks formed in the liquid diamond, and did not sink.

With most materials the solid state is more dense than the liquid state - with water one of the few exceptions.

Dr Eggert went on: "Diamond is relatively common material on Earth, but its melting point has never been measured.

"You can't just raise the temperature and have it melt, you also have to go to very high pressures, which makes it very difficult to measure the temperatures."

The new article is published in the journal Nature Physics

is the End of Roe In Sight???

Several things over the last few days have fueled hope that we may be seeing the start of a turn arround in the battle to put an end to abortion as the law of the land. Before I go on, I want to say that nothing of what I am about to say means we should relax in our battle, esp that battle as it is fought on our knees in prayer. I am just saying that the pro-abortion gang is concerned that things aren't going their way for some good reasons. & because they are, we can be sure that now, even more than ever, they will try & push through a health care bill that ensconces abortion as the law of the land.
The 1st thing is a ruling from the Supreme Court that, on the surface, would seem unrelated. But upon further reflection it isn't as unrelated as it may seem. I am talking about the ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that overturns key provisions of McCain-Feingold. As a part of that ruling it also also overturned a law that had been on the books for more than a century.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined Justice Samuel Alito to issue a separate concurrence “to address the important principles of judicial restraint and stare decisis implicated in this case.” Roberts conceded that “departures from precedent are inappropriate in the absence of a ‘special justification’”. But "At the same time, stare decisis is neither an ‘inexorable command’… nor ‘a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision’ … especially in constitutional cases. If it were, segregation would be legal, minimum wage laws would be unconstitutional, and the Government could wiretap ordinary criminal suspects without first obtaining warrants.”
“When considering whether to re-examine a prior erroneous holding, we must balance the importance of having constitutional questions decided against the importance of having them decided right," he added, “stare decisis is not an end in itself.”
He also mentions a need to “curtail the precedent’s disruptive effects” & imagines instances in which a “precedent’s validity is so hotly contested that it cannot reliably function as a basis for decision in future cases."
Roberts also says precedent could be reversed if its “rationale threatens to upend our settled jurisprudence in related areas of law, and when the precedent’s underlying reasoning has become so discredited that the Court cannot keep the precedent alive without jury-rigging new and different justifications to shore up the original mistake.”
He makes an excellent point. & 1 that pro-aborts & the liberal left are not too happy with. yet, in 2 of the 3 cases he cites, ending segragation & minimum wage laws, those changes are things they applauded.
It is his last statement about jury-rigging new justifications that gives me hope. It is clear that Roe & Doe were both mistakes, just as "seperate but equal" & "Dred Scott" were wrong. I would like to ask those abortion supporters like Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who complained: “Yesterday’s Roberts court decision, which exhibited a stunning disregard for settled law of decades’ standing, is terrifying to those of us who care deeply about the constitutional protections the court put in place for women’s access to abortion," if she felt it wrong for the Court to overturn its previous ruling upholding 'seperate but equal" & Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in particular were similar "stunning disregard for settled law of decades’ standing" & thus just as wrong? After all Brown came in the 50s & the original "seperate but equal" ruling came at the end of the 19th Century. & does she feel the Dred Scott ruling should still be followed as well?
Actually this again shows that ultimately we must have a "personhood" amendment to the Constitution to provide an even more future court overturning a potential future court ruling recognizing that personhood of the unborn.
The other good news is from a post in Jill Stanek's blog. She points out what pro-abort Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney had to say about this year's March for Life:
"I went to the March for Life rally Friday on the Mall expecting to write about its irrelevance. Isn't it quaint, I thought, that these abortion protesters show up each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, even though the decision still stands after 37 years. What's more, with a Democrat in the White House likely to appoint justices who support abortion rights, surely the Supreme Court isn't going to overturn Roe in the foreseeable future.
. . . . I was especially struck by the large number of young people among the tens of thousands at the march. It suggests that the battle over abortion will endure for a long time to come.
"We are the pro-life generation," said signs carried by the crowd, about half its members appearing to be younger than 30. There were numerous large groups of teenagers, many bused in by Roman Catholic schools and youth groups. They and their adult leaders said the youths were taught from an early age to oppose abortion.
"People our age are going to be the ones to change, to be the future leaders," said Lauren Powers, 16, who came with a group from an all-girls Catholic school in Milwaukee
."
As I already said, their awareness means that they will be also gearing up to fight all the harder to stop what they see coming, the end of abortion on demand, from happenning. We cannot become complacent. We must continue the battle to fight for the "culture of life" & put a end to the "culture ofdeath" that is operating. Again I repeat, we must start with prayer. We must seek God's guidance & ask for His intervetion to change hearts. We must also continue to work to change the laws to protect the unborn. We must begin, end & undergird all our efforts with prayer. & even when that "culture of life" is established, we must keep on praying & working to preserve that culture until the return of Jesus at the end of time when the last battle will be fought & He will fully reign.
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