Please sign the petition to support Cardinal-designate Dolan and stand for religious freedom! We’ll send the petition to President Obama, members of Congress, and HHS Secretary Sebelius.
We’re all called to stand up for human life … for the truth … and for what’s right and good.
(Click on picture to enlarge)
by Doug Lawrence
The biblical account of the creation of man duly records the fact that the entire human race is derived from a single, original couple … and when that first couple united in one flesh… the first child was conceived.
Like every child ever since, there was never any real doubt as to precisely who or what a child is. It is a newly minted human life … begotten of 100% human stuff … stuff that was originally derived from Adam and Eve … according to the God-given power of procreation.
Thousands of years later, nothing has really changed. Most importantly, neither has the character and consistency of human life. Every new life bridges the gap between one generation and the next … extending the human race … and every new life explicitly begins at the moment of conception … no matter how some people, in order to suit their own ends … might attempt to redefine the terms involved.
The Bible also clearly records God’s main purpose for humanity:
“So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that move upon the earth.
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creep upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green herb for meat: and it was so.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” (Genesis 1:27-31)
So … God blessed man by giving him the ability to bear offspring (procreate) … and by giving him dominion over all of the substantial resources to be found on the earth … in order to nourish, shelter, and otherwise accommodate all who would eventually come to be.
The plan was a good one, and it still is. Unfortunately, many have other ideas about how things should be done, and they prefer instead, for whatever reasons, to pursue disordered and sinful lifestyles that are in direct opposition to God’s will.
World governments also used to be guided by God’s express instructions, as clearly stated in the Bible, and faithfully interpreted by the Catholic Church. But those days too, are long gone.
Today, the secular courts make government policy, while increasingly embattled and divided legislatures are unable (or unwilling) to come together and stand on their own, in order to meet judicial challenges.
The result is a literal death spiral … with governments going financially bankrupt, while their citizens are increasingly lulled into the spiritual bankruptcy of godless lifestyles … all under the guise of expanded personal freedom and liberty.
The process of corruption greatly accelerated in the aftermath of Vatican II, when wholesale apostasy within the church unfortunately coincided with a similarly undisciplined social revolution taking place in the world’s great institutions … and on the streets.
The Catholic Church, which was supposed to be the divine bulwark that kept the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil, at bay … instead turned out to be “missing in action” for one of the most important spiritual battles in the history of the world!
The combined death toll from abortion and AIDS can easily be counted. It is absolutely staggering … and still mounting …. yet the Catholic Church continues to speak with a weak voice, split almost down the middle between the protestantized “social justice” types and traditional, sacramental Catholics.
Worse yet is that both sides together (if such a thing is actually possible) based on their visible participation at Sunday Mass, make up only about ten percent of those who are actually counted today as Catholic … perhaps 100 million out of an estimated 1.1 billion.
The rest are AWOL (absent without leave), MIA (missing in action), or they have simply left the church without telling anyone.
The bottom line: We no longer have enough active, properly trained, fully informed and equipped Catholics in the world, to get the job done.
And the devil knows it!
So … faced with 39 years of generally unrestricted world-wide abortion deaths, numbering in the hundreds of millions … and 50 years of general apostasy and corruption so widespread that few even care anymore … what are faithful Catholics to do?
Here’s a plan that can’t fail:
1) Start by making a good confession, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If it has been so long that you no longer remember how, simply tell that to the priest and he’ll walk you through the various steps. This will “clear the decks” and permit you to cast off any and every type of past sin. It will also fill your soul with God’s grace, in order to give the Holy Spirit some “room” to work.
2) Get to Mass. The Sunday Mass obligation has never been rescinded. And there’s absolutely nothing to prevent your attendance at a weekday mass, or two.
The Mass is the universal prayer of the whole Church, and it is also a solemn renewal of the one time, once for all, perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, on the cross. Our participation at Mass confirms our distinct identity as Catholics, and it also serves as a major channel of God’s grace, which typically helps empower us to discern … and then (hopefully) carry out … God’s will … according to his plan. Successfully accomplishing that is about as good as it gets … this side of Heaven!
3) If there’s any impediment to your receiving Holy Communion … do whatever is necessary to remove it. You are what you eat, and without the right spiritual food, you’re likely to be quickly vanquished by the enemy. Additionally, the Holy Eucharist … worthily received … remains the only known antidote to eternal death and hell.
4) Pray several times a day, every day. Pray at regular, set times. Pray at regular, specific places. Pray for specific purposes. Pray for the people and institutions you love. Pray for the conversion of your enemies. Pray in order to give thanks and praise to God. Pray to ask God for favors. Pray to ask God for forgiveness (but be sure to get to confession promptly, in the event of mortal sin.)
Prayer is the way we officially give God permission
to interfere in our lives … for good.
5) Team up with other like-minded Catholics. The Church is the communion of all believers in Jesus Christ, but today’s church, as an institution, along with many associated apostolates and religious orders, is highly dysfunctional, in many ways.
Don’t let that stop you. Instead, accomplish whatever you can, in and through your own little group … but always in complete conformity with Catholic doctrine and tradition (which may not be easy, since it’s still quite difficult to get a firm and accurate opinion on things, from most Catholic priests and bishops.)
Remember: In the first century, twelve well disciplined, highly dedicated men, by the power of God’s grace, and against all odds, successfully established the Catholic Church throughout the known world.
Today’s Catholics still worship the same God, and we still operate according to the same grace. The mission has never changed. Only the results seem to be lacking. And that’s a real shame, since:
“… we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestine to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestine, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:28-31)
Time to get busy!
Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark on Obama’s new contraceptive mandates: We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law…
We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.
Editor’s note: Let’s give the bishops some time to develop their officially strategy on this very important matter. Then, it will be imperative for every one of this nation’s 10 to 20 million practicing Catholics to fully support the bishops, to the very end. As for all the rest … who knows?
Priest refers to beautiful old Catholic churches as “monstrosities”.
But as neighborhoods have changed and parishioners have migrated toward the suburbs, grand buildings like St. Philip Neri have become a drain on the archdiocese’s budget. The building is now ensconced in scaffolding, and most of its 1,700 seats stay empty on Sundays.
“A lot of the work done in the past, we’re now correcting,” said the Rev. Thomas Belanger, pastor of St. Philip Neri. “We’re left with nothing in the bank. With the ongoing costs of trying to heat these monstrosities, you wouldn’t build something like St. Philip Neri today.”
Editor’s note: Is anyone else offended by this priest’s unfortunate choice of words?
She said her abortion was 26 years ago and it was the best thing she’d ever done. Can you image living as long as she has and the only grand achievement she can claim for herself was having an abortion two and half decades ago?
She even remembered she was 40 days gestation at the time she terminated her pregnancy. Someone who is unaffected by something does not remember those types of details. Despite her forced smile and false enthusiasm for abortion, it was plain to see her pain. That pain also has a way of physically altering our appearance as well.
Book review: Finis Vitae – - Is “Brain Death” True Death?
By Randy Engel
“Why Does A Corpse Need Anesthesia? —
A Hundred and One Questions and Answers on the Fiction of ‘Brain Death”
Editor’s note: The information in this article might save your life … or the life of someone you love.
When you understand all three levels of vocation and the place each one holds in the hierarchy of importance, it becomes much easier to order your life and your priorities.
The term “vocation” means much more than the standard dictionary definition of “a career path or line of work.” It is more of a “calling” than a “job.” According to John Paul II, your vocation answers the question, “Why am I alive?” Moreover, he believed, only when you’re living out your vocation can you find fulfillment in this life. Your vocation, understood, embraced, and lived, is what makes you feel truly and fully alive.
There are three different levels of vocations.
Warren Buffett: pro-abort Anti-Christian plutocrat
To be specific, Buffett has given hundreds of millions over the years to anti-Catholic front groups like Catholics for Choice (formerly Catholics for a Free Choice) and its sister organization in Latin America, Catholics for the Right to Decide. In 2010, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation alone gave $759,822 to the former, and almost $1.7 million to the latter. These letter-head organizations wouldn’t exist if they depended on donations from members—they don’t have any—they exist because of the likes of Warren Buffett.
Catholics vs. commies in Hungary … and the EU is definitely not on the Catholic side.
The media attacks against the current Hungarian Government can thus to a large extent be explained as a culture war against the Christian values that are expressed in the new Constitution. The campaign is led by the defeated ex-communists, who, having been victed from power at home, are now mobilizing their allies in the European Parliament to fight back on their behalf. It is no wonder that one of the first charges against Mr. Orban was that he had “imposed” this new Constitution without duly involving the opposition parties.
If it wasn’t so disgusting, it might be laughable.
The film follows Robinson as the church grapples with how to handle lesbian and gay issues. Robinson’s election brought to a head divisions between liberal and conservative Episcopalians, and between the U.S. church and more conservative members of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Filmmakers followed Robinson to England in 2008, where he was excluded from the Anglicans’ Lambeth Conference of bishops. And they followed him to the Episcopal Church’s 2009 General Convention, where leaders voted to allow blessings of same-sex marriages, civil unions or domestic partnerships (where legal) and allow gay men and women to become bishops.
Editor’s note: William Shakespeare wrote, “To thine own self be true.” Jesus Christ said, “Take up your cross and follow me.” It looks to me like all these people got William Shakespeare mixed up with Jesus Christ, and are following the wrong guy!
Child sacrifice in 21st-century America
It was supposed to be a country in which women were liberated; it became a country in which women were ever more the victims of predatory and sexually irresponsible men, left alone with their “rights” to find a technological “fix” to the dilemma of unwanted pregnancy.
It was supposed to become a more humane country; it became a country in which morally coarsened pundits can describe as “extreme” and “weird” the faith-filled response of the Santorum family to the loss of a newborn shortly after birth.
It was supposed to be a country of greater equality; it became a country in which the fantasies of those who believed that America was for white Anglo-Saxon Protestants only, with emphasis on “white,” were realized beyond the wildest imaginings of the most crazed racists and eugenicists of the 1920s.
“Dagger John” and the Church Militant
So who will protect the American Church from the latest threat, this one from the hatchet-faced secretary of Health and Human Services (and why does such a department even exist?), Kathleen Sebelius, and her boss President Obama? As I wrote in my New York Post column yesterday:
Friday’s ruling by the Department of Health and Human Services proved yet again that ObamaCare’s critics are right. It’s a breathtaking attack not only on the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom, but also on the separation of church and state.
Kathleen Sebelius, the nominally Catholic HHS chief, bluntly informed religious medical institutions that offer services to the general public that she will indeed compel them to offer free birth control, sterilization and “morning after” pills as part of their employees’ health-care plans. They have exactly one year to get with the program or suffer the consequences.
That’s all their vehement objections to her August “guidelines” got them: “This additional year will allow these organizations more time and flexibility to adapt to this new rule,” read a department statement defending HHS’ insistence on what it euphemistically calls “preventive services.”
In other words, they have a year to figure out how to violate their religious beliefs and contravene church teaching. And if they choose to cancel their health-care plans rather than submit, they’ll incur a hefty annual fine under the tender mercies of ObamaCare.
The “right to choose” is a gift from God, but misusing that gift results in divine judgment.
by Doug Lawrence
God created man as a free person, obliged to make all kinds of free-will choices, and to answer for them, come Judgment Day.
One who knowingly and willingly chooses evil has nothing but the mercy of God, on which to rely.
One who knowingly induces others to do evil, by whatever means, shares the responsibility for all the negative consequences that logically follow.
But what of the person who claims their conscience informs them to the contrary … who perceives evil as good … and perhaps, good as evil? What then?
He gets to be President of the United States, and he gets to give a State of the Union speech on national television, in order to try to justify his seriously disordered “take” on things!
May God have mercy on his soul … and if he manages to get himself reelected … on this once great country!
Mother of 12 regrets her early support for abortion “rights”
Thirty-nine years ago nine black-robed men handed feminists a triumph that would try our souls, and — I have come to believe — find them wanting.
On Jan. 22, 1973, when the Sisterhood is Powerful crowd rejoiced at their Roe v. Wade victory, I was with them, a Washington, D.C., radical feminist scholar/abortion rights advocate, much in demand as a spokeswoman by virtue of my motherhood. After all, who better to illustrate the righteous need for abortion than a young woman with a future, already encumbered by a 3-year-old in daycare?
Five years later in San Francisco, on the morning of my own abortion, I felt proud of our feminist legacy — and even a little righteous, as though exercising my “right to choose” was a sacrament.
20 or so vs. 400,000! Are the numbers about the same?!
Michael Voris reports from the Washington, DC March:
If there was ever an example of secular media bias .. it’s this annual March .. and note this .. the largest annual gathering in Washington .. year after year .. bar none .. and to the secular media .. it never happens.
It is essentially ignored or treated so slightly that it may as well not have happened. Each year .. anywhere from 350,000 to 450,000 .. sometimes more .. an ocean of people stream up to the US Supreme Court protesting the evil of abortion and in favor or Roe v. Wade being overturned .. and yet .. you’d never know it by the secular media.
The only hint you might get .. that SOME people came to DC and did SOMETHING .. is the Associated Press or Reuters News Agency pictures of a dozen or so pro-aborts from NOW holding their signs in front of the Court amid hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers .. and hearing commentators on CNN say something stupid like .. so are the numbers on each side about the same?
.. That was the observation of one of CNN’s crack reporters and anchors last year.
The Archdiocese of Detroit vs. Real Catholic TV: All the latest … including the Ed Peters Canon Law controversy.
I have been doing much research in regard to Real Catholic TV (RCTV) and the Archdiocese of Detroit’s claims that RCTV is “not authorized to use the name Catholic.” The Archdiocese can claim that all it wants, but these claims amount to little more than harassment and a public relations campaign aimed at undermining RCTV’s moral authority and influence.
Read Steve Kellmeyer’s criticism of Ed Peters, the Canon Lawyer
