Most Catholic Americans wrongly assume that Catholic hospitals are dedicated to fighting abortion. In fact, many of the most important people running those hospital systems, and representing them before government, have spent fortunes supporting some of the most powerful pro-abortion politicians in America.
Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) — Malaysia’s High Court ruled that a government ban on non-Muslim publications using the word “Allah” is unconstitutional, settling a dispute that stoked questions about religious freedom in the country.
The Herald, a weekly publication of the Catholic Church of Malaysia, filed for a judicial review after it was temporarily ordered to stop publishing for two weeks in December 2007 after using the word, which means “God,” in its Malay-language section.
The publication has a “constitutional right to use the word,” Judge Lau Bee Lan said in her oral judgment today, saying the paper only used it for a Christian audience and not for Muslims.
Malaysia’s government banned non-Muslims publications from referring to “Allah” in 1986 on grounds that it could threaten national security and confuse the country’s Muslims, who make up more than 60 percent of Malaysia’s 27 million population.
Reverend Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of The Herald, welcomed today’s decision, saying it upheld freedom of expression and religion in the country.
“This also means that the Bahasa Malaysia-speaking community of the Christian faith can now continue to freely use the word ‘Allah’ without any interference from the authorities,” he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur today.
Pelosi:
“We are all endowed with a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions,” she continues. “And that women should have that opportunity to exercise their free will.”
Informed reader’s comment:
Q: Is it wrong for the Church to interfere in the political arena, as Nancy Pelosi recently claims the Catholic Church did, just prior to the Stupak Amendment passing in the House last month?
A: Here is a quote from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on the subject:
“If by interference in politics is meant judging or condemning a philosophy of life which makes the party, or the state, or the class, or the race the source of all rights, and which usurps the soul and enthrones party over conscience and denies those basic rights for which this war was fought, the answer is emphatically Yes! The Church does judge such a philosophy. But when it does this, it is not interfering with politics, for such politics is no longer politics but Theology. When a State sets itself up as absolute as God, when it claims sovereignty over the soul, when it destroys freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, then the State has ceased to be political and has begun to be a counter-Church.” ~ Bishop Sheen, Characters of the Passion
Q&A provided by Phil S.
Submitted by Bob Stanley
The influx of students has left the St. Meinrad School of Theology straining to find classroom and living space for the new seminarians and other students at the campus 65 miles west of Louisville, Ky.
St. Meinrad, which trains many future priests for dioceses in Kentucky, Indiana and across the nation, began the year with 121 students — its highest number since 1988.
Church leaders and seminarians said a combination of spiritual and practical factors are behind the growth.
Many ancient theologians such as Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine (and most of the Eastern Fathers) interpreted Ezekiel’s prophecy about the Temple’s closed eastern gate as a prophecy of the virgin birth of Christ. According to Ezekiel, only the Messianic lord/king/priest could enter through this eastern gate of the Temple.
“Then He brought me back
to the outer gate of the Sanctuary,
which faces East;
and it was shut.
And He said to me,
“This gate shall remain shut;
it shall not be opened,
and no man shall enter by it;
for the Lord, the God of Israel,
has entered by it;
therefore it shall remain shut.
Only the Prince may sit in it
to eat bread before the Lord;
He shall enter by way of the vestibule of the gate,
and shall go out the same way” (Ezek 44:1-3).
As the Catholic Church teaches, the Blessed Virgin Mary is perpetually a virgin – she did not have relations with Joseph after Christ’s birth in accordance with the prophecy of Ezekiel: “and no man shall enter by it; for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut.”
God entered creation through her womb and it was hallowed in this profound mystery. The “Prince” who is Jesus “sits in it to eat bread before the Lord.” Christ was nourished in the darkness of her womb. He gained the flesh and blood that He would offer on the cross to His Father. The “bread” reference refers to Bethlehem (which means “house of bread”). It also points forward to the supersubstantial bread of the Holy Eucharist which is His flesh and blood.
Click the image to enlarge.
Keep this bell ringing…pass it on
‘The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you
And be gracious to you;
The LORD turn His face toward you
And give you peace…
Numbers 6:24-26
Submitted by Oscar S.
From the desert caves near the Dead Sea to the ruins of an ancient temple in Jordan, the story of the Messiah was etched in stone and written on parchment hundreds of years before Jesus was born.
Read the whole, remarkable story
More… including the present whereabouts of their mortal remains
Submitted by Doria2
Among Carroll’s lies:
1. “The case against Pius XII is well established: He knew early on of Hitler’s plan for the Final Solution of the ‘Jewish problem,’ and never raised his voice against it.”
Wrong. Carroll’s falsehood is flat-out debunked in many places (see my list below), including the book The Myth of Hitler’s Pope by Rabbi David Dalin. Even before he was pontiff, Pius XII, as Cardinal Pacelli, branded the Nazis as “false prophets with the pride of Lucifer” (Dalin, p. 65).
Pius’ “pro-Jewish” policies angered the Nazis so much that Hitler actually planned to kidnap and imprison the pontiff. Records from a July 1943 meeting reveal that Hitler openly discussed invading the Vatican. After the war, Nazi General Karl Otto Wolff testified that he had received orders to “occupy as soon as possible the Vatican and Vatican City.” (Wolff talked Hitler out of the plan in December 1943.) (Dalin, p. 77)
Meanwhile, the memoirs of Adolf Eichmann detail that the Vatican “vigorously protested the arrest of Jews, requesting the interruption of such action” (Dalin, p. 84).
And in a December 25, 1941, editorial, the New York Times wrote,
The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas… he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all… the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism… he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace.
Additionally, a August 6, 1942, headline in the Times read, “Pope is Said to Plead for Jews Listed for Removal from France.”
In his book, Three Popes and the Jews, Israeli diplomat and scholar Pinchas Lapide has asserted, “The Catholic Church under the pontificate of Pius XII was instrumental in saving lives of as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands.” Lapide adds that this “figure far exceeds those saved by all other Churches and rescue organizations combined.”
Jewish historian and biographer Sir Martin Gilbert has documented that Pope Pius was one of the first to publicly condemn Nazi atrocities and speak out on behalf of Europe’s Jews. Gilbert has also asserted, “Hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved by the Catholic Church, under the leadership and support of Pope Pius XII” (Dalin, pp. 13-14).
The truth is that Pius XII spoke out several times against the Nazi regime. Carroll is lying. (For more specific examples, see the sources I’ve listed below.)
2. “[I]n October 1943, more than a thousand Jews were rounded up in the Roman Ghetto at the foot of Vatican hill, within sight of the pope’s windows, and still [Pope Pius XII] did nothing. That is a fact. Those Jews died in Auschwitz.”
The truth is that Pius took immediate and decisive action as soon as he heard of the roundup. According to the research from Rabbi Dalin, Pius personally protested to Germany’s ambassador Ernst von Weizsacker and demanded that the Nazis stop the arrests. Pius himself gave sanctuary within the Vatican to hundreds of homeless Jews. He also asked that convents and churches throughout Italy shelter Jews.
Michael Tagliacozzo, “the foremost survivor on the October 1943 Nazi roundup of Rome’s Jews” and “a survivor of the raid himself, ” said Pius’ actions helped rescue 80 percent of Rome’s Jews. Said Tagliacozzo,
“Pope Pacelli was the only one who intervened to impede the deportation of Jews on October 16, 1943, and he did very much to hide and save thousands of us.” (Dalin, p. 83)
And in the June 21, 2009, edition of Carroll’s own newspaper, the Boston Globe, Mordechay Lewy, Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, is quoted,
“It is wrong to look for any affinity between [Pius] and the Nazis. It is also wrong to say that he didn’t save Jews. Everybody who knows the history of those who were saved among Roman Jewry knows that they hid in the church.”
by Doug Lawrence
The first thing God did after Adam fell from grace was call a meeting. (That probably explains why meetings have always seemed like a form of punishment, to many of us.)
The Old Testament Bible Book of Genesis, Chapter 3, verse 15, duly records the promise God made to Adam at that meeting … the promise of a redeemer … who would one day come to repair the damage that had been done … something that Adam could never hope to accomplish on his own.
Genesis 3:15 I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
Until that day, all of mankind would remain enslaved to Satan, sin, and death … except for the Virgin Mary, who was, by special privilege of God, conceived without sin, in order to make it possible for her to become the mother of our holy Savior, Jesus Christ. (That’s also why the above Bible verse has both a decidedly masculine as well as feminine “sense” to it.)
When Almighty God sets out to fulfill a promise, there’s nothing in the universe that can stop him … hence the joyous and absolutely confident proclamation of the angels, on that first Christmas.
Luke 2:10-14 And the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people: For, this day is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest: and on earth peace to men of good will.
As we all know, within the space of some thirty-three short years, that mild babe in the manger went on to perfectly fulfill all the prophecies and promises that God had ever made, concerning him … destroying Satan’s evil dominion, reconciling sinful mankind, opening the gates of Heaven, and permanently establishing the Kingdom of God, on the Earth.
Thanks to Christ, the state of war that had existed between Satan dominated sinful mankind and God was over. From that day forward, God’s grace would trump sin and death, while Satan, the former slave master and undisputed “Prince of this World” would remain a tragic, desperate fugitive on earth, (much like the late Iraqi dictator Sadaam Hussein, who spent his last days cowering in an underground “spider hole” until justice finally caught up with him.)
Now (and forever) Jesus reigns
as King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
Merry Christmas!
A preschooler wise beyond his years, Danny was a pint-sized neighborhood ambassador. He high-fived elderly strangers, made small talk with a lonely relative, befriended shy kids and impressed boys twice his size on the baseball field.
Most of all, says his grief-stricken dad, Mike Stanton, Danny was always giving hugs, and never hesitated to ask for one in return.
“That’s just how he expressed his life, and how he gave it. How he just let you in was so beautiful,” Stanton said.
So when Danny died of a seizure 14 days before Christmas — after frantic attempts by his parents, neighbors, paramedics and doctors to revive him, after all the medical tubes were disconnected — Danny’s dad lay down on the hospital bed. And he tightly hugged his little boy in return, as his body grew colder and colder.
AP (Photo: Mike Stanton)
VATICAN CITY, 23 DEC 2009 (VIS) – Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. today issued the following note concerning the signing of the recent decree on the heroic virtues of Servant of God Pope Pius XII.
“The Pope’s signing of the decree ‘on the heroic virtues’ of Pius XII has elicited a certain number of reactions in the Jewish world; perhaps because the meaning of such a signature is clear in the area of the Catholic Church and of specialists in the field, but may merit certain explanation for the larger public, in particular the Jewish public who are understandably very sensitive to all things concerning the historical period of World War II and the Holocaust.
“When the Pope signs a decree ‘on the heroic virtues’ of a Servant of God – i.e., of a person for whom a cause for beatification has been introduced – he confirms the positive evaluation already voted by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. … Naturally, such evaluation takes account of the circumstances in which the person lived, and hence it is necessary to examine the question from a historical standpoint, but the evaluation essentially concerns the witness of Christian life that the person showed (his intense relationship with God and continuous search for evangelical perfection) … and not the historical impact of all his operative decisions”.
“At the beatification of Pope John XXIII and of Pope Pius IX, John Paul II said: ‘holiness lives in history and no saint has escaped the limits and conditioning which are part of our human nature. In beatifying one of her sons, the Church does not celebrate the specific historical decisions he may have made, but rather points to him as someone to be imitated and venerated because of his virtues, in praise of the divine grace which shines resplendently in them’.
“There is, then, no intention in any way to limit discussion concerning the concrete choices made by Pius XII in the situation in which he lived. For her part, the Church affirms that these choices were made with the pure intention of carrying out the Pontiff’s service of exalted and dramatic responsibility to the best of his abilities. In any case, Pius XII’s attention to and concern for the fate of the Jews – something which is certainly relevant in the evaluation of his virtues – are widely testified and recognised, also by many Jews.
“The field for research and evaluation by historians, working in their specific area, thus remains open, also for the future. In this specific case it is comprehensible that there should be a request to have open access to all possibilities of research on the documents. … Yet for the complete opening of the archives – as has been said on a number of occasions in the past – it is necessary to organise and catalogue an enormous mass of documentation, something which still requires a number of years’ work.
“As for the fact that the decree on the heroic virtues of Pope John Paul II and Pope Pius XII were promulgated on the same day, this does not mean that from now on the two causes will be ‘paired’. They are completely independent of one another and each will follow its own course. There is, then, no reason to imagine that any future beatification will take place together”.
“It is, then, clear that the recent signing of the decree is in no way to be read as a hostile act towards the Jewish people, and it is to be hoped that it will not be considered as an obstacle on the path of dialogue between Judaism and the Catholic Church. Rather we trust that the Pope’s forthcoming visit to the Synagogue of Rome will be an opportunity for the cordial reiteration and reinforcement of ties of friendship and respect”.
OP/DECREE PIUS XII/LOMBARDIVIS 091223 (660)
He was born in an obscure village, the child of
a peasant woman. He grew up in another village,
where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was
thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant
preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held
an office. He never had a family or owned a home.
He didn’t go to college. He never visited a big city.
He never traveled 200 miles from the place where
he was born. He did none of the things that usually
accompany greatness. He had no credentials but
Himself. He was only thirty-three when the tide of
public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran
away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over
to His enemies and went through the mockery of a
trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
While he was dying. . . His executioners gambled
for His garments; the only property He had on earth.
When he was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave
through the piety of a friend. Nineteen centuries have
come and gone, and today He is the central figure of
the human race. All the armies that ever marched, all
the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever
sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have
not affected the life of man on this earth as much as
that. . . . . . .
ONE SOLITARY LIFE
The above is Doria2’s favorite Christmas greeting of all time, and he wishes all his friends around the globe a Merry Christmas, full of love … and a Happy, Healthy, Holy New Year.
Former Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich was summarily arrested when government wire taps revealed the possibility that he was attempting to “sell” Barack Obama’s open Senate seat to the “highest bidder”.
It looks like at least two (and probably a good deal more) Senate seats were summarily sold this very weekend in Washington, D.C., and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.
Where’s the U.S . Attorney when we really need him?
Let’s try to recapture the riches of this lost worldview by applying the spiritual sense of the Christmas story to our lives. For that story happens not only once, in history, but also many times in each individual’s soul. Christ comes to the world — but He also comes to each of us. Advent happens over and over again.
There are two ways to connecting the historical and the spiritual senses. The Jesuit method, from St. Ignatius’ “Spiritual Exercises,” tells us to imaginatively place ourselves into the Gospel stories. The older Augustinian method tells us to look for elements of the story in our lives. We shall be using this latter method as we survey the scene in Bethlehem for the next four weeks.
Look at your Nativity set. Around the Christ Child you see four people or groups: Mary, Joseph, the wise men and the shepherds. We are all around the Christ Child, defined by our relationship to Him; we are all Marys, Josephs, wise men or shepherds.
Douglas Lowry, founder and president of Marpex Inc., has made available to legislators and the general public a searchable, online version of the health care reform legislation, as it is currently being debated in the Senate.
An investigation by an independent Chicago Catholic news site has found Democrats and Republicans among the Archdiocese of Chicago’s auxiliary bishops and key members of the chancery staff.
Those who requested Democratic ballots in 2008 included retired Auxiliary Bishop John Gorman, retired Auxiliary Bishop Timothy Lyne, archdiocesan chancellor Jimmy Lago, and Father Raymond Baumhart, SJ. Those who requested Republican ballots included Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki, Father Daniel Flens (Cardinal George’s secretary), and Father Thomas Baima, vice president and provost of Mundelein Seminary. In addition, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry said that he voted for presidential candidate John McCain in the general election.
Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.
Last month’s passage of a sweeping ban on federal funding for abortion in the House healthcare bill caught most of Washington by surprise. The Democratic House leadership is closely aligned with the party’s pro-abortion rights base, which alleged the ban would roll back abortion access for many women by keeping coverage for the procedure out of federally subsidized healthcare plans. And for abortion rights activists, the central role of the Roman Catholic bishops in pressing House leaders to allow a vote on the ban, known as the Stupak-Pitts amendment—and in helping prod 64 Democratic congressmen to support it—was as galling as the ban itself. “It is extremely unfortunate,” Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said at the time, “that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and antichoice opponents were able to hijack the healthcare reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion in the United States.”
Antiabortion activists were just as surprised. “I did not think the bishops would have that degree of success with Stupak,” says Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina priest missed the $1 million top prize in a poker tournament to be televised this weekend but he won $100,000 for his church and he hopes his participation gives viewers a “fun twist” on their perceptions of the priesthood.
The Rev. Andrew Trapp said he entered the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge in hopes of putting St. Michael Catholic Church “super close” to its $5.5 million fundraising goal to build a new facility. He also wanted to strike a public relations blow for priests.
“At the very least, even if I didn’t win any prize money, I was hoping it would help people to see that priests can have fun and be normal people and hopefully get a little bit of a fun twist on the image of the priesthood,” the assistant pastor said Tuesday.
Doug Lawrence's Catholic Site 
She misses the issue ENTIRELY and obviously does not take her Catholic faith seriously enough to think deeply about this issue (or, she’s just plain dumb). Using Speaker Pelosi’s reading, the Catholic Church cannot come out against for example, rape, murder or torture (or, for that matter, sexual abuse of children by Priests or others) because that would impinge upon the ‘free will’ of the rapist, murderer, torturer or abuser.
With abortion, the issue is not “free will”. The issue is whether abortion is murder.
If its murder, how can the Catholic Church, or any religion, leave it up to one’s “free will?”
Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, folks!