Looking back on 2010, in its recently-released annual report, Planned Parenthood racked up a stunning number of celebrity endorsements from musicians, writers, actors and other big-named people.
Susan B. Anthony List Posts Sad, Startling Statistics About Planned Parenthood’s Deadly Mission
Abortion giant Planned Parenthood just released its 2008-2009 annual report, and the stats are startling and saddening.
* Planned Parenthood received $363 million in government grants and contracts — our tax dollars — from 2008 to 2009 alone.
* During this same time period, Planned Parenthood destroyed the lives of 324,008 unborn babies and wounded that many mothers.
* While aborting 324,008 babies, Planned Parenthood made just 9,433 adoption referrals.
Their annual report shows that they received the most federal dollars ever — at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer — and this resulted in the most unborn babies ever killed by Planned Parenthood.
Modern Day Catholic Evangelization Efforts Make Good Use of Radio
“Our primary audience is educated Catholics stuck in traffic,” said Father Francis Hoffman, senior director of mission, programming and development for Relevant Radio. Relevant Radio owns and operates 12 stations and 21 affiliates nationally. “92% of adults listen to the radio every day. It’s much more powerful than television in shaping attitudes and is uniquely adapted to the task of evangelization.”
“The survey reinforces what I know to be true in my own life,” said David Rydberg, program director of Relevant Radio-affiliate KYES 1180 AM in St. Cloud, Minn. “My faith is nourished and fortified by listening to Catholic radio. It’s encouraging that others are also being fed by this kind of programming.
“As Catholics, we all have a role to play in evangelization,” said Rydberg. “By supporting local Catholic radio, you’re engaging in evangelization and making evangelization possible.”
Latest Scandal: Catholic hospital administrators shop for theologians to support practices that conflict with church teachings.
By ANNE HENDERSHOTT
The severing of ties last week between the Catholic Church and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, Ariz., is the latest example of the fraying relationship between the bishops and Catholic hospital administrators. In recent years, some Catholic hospitals have taken greater liberties, authorizing abortions and sterilization procedures that the church strictly prohibits. Earlier this year, for instance, Rev. Robert Vasa, bishop of the Diocese of Baker, Ore., ended the church’s sponsorship of St. Charles Medical Center in Bend over the hospital’s performance of tubal ligations.
But the Phoenix case breaks new ground. In explaining his decision, Rev. Thomas Olmsted, bishop of the Phoenix Diocese, was the first to explicitly point to the role played by Catholic theologians in providing theological cover for “a litany of practices in direct conflict with Catholic teachings.”
The break began more than a year ago, when a Catholic nun and longtime administrator of St. Joseph’s Hospital gave permission for doctors to perform an abortion. She claimed the pregnancy was terminated to save the life of the mother. Sister Margaret McBride’s decision drew sharp criticism from Bishop Olmsted. After excommunicating Sister McBride, the head of the diocese then turned his attention to the role of the hospital itself.
Have you read Thomas Aquinas’ 5 proofs of God? Don’t they sound utterly ridiculous?
Q: Have you read Thomas Aquinas’ 5 proofs of God? Don’t they sound utterly ridiculous?
A: Casting pearls before swine has always been utterly ridiculous.
Most people are totally incapable of, or unwilling to try understanding Aquinas’ logic, which must be studied in its proper, Catholic context … and that’s pretty much just as it was, back in the day.
Fortunately, some of us simply know God, and with that, no further proof is necessary.
You may want to read the “Cliff’s Notes” version:
Why do so many people believe in God/Jesus when there is no proof that he ever existed?
Q: Why do so many people believe in God/Jesus when there is no proof that he ever existed? I’ve read the bible. It’s a book that could have been written by anyone. It doesn’t prove to me that he ever existed.
A: The Bible is indeed authentic documentary evidence for the existence of God, but the best evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ is the Catholic Church, which constitutes not only the world’s oldest, continuously functioning government, but a (THE) living eye-witness to all the events in the New Testament.
You see … Catholics were there when Jesus was born, when he walked the earth, when he died on the cross, when he rose again from the dead, when he returned to heaven, and when the Holy Spirit descended on Pentecost Sunday, to preside over the official “grand opening” of the Catholic Church.
And we’ve been here ever since!
Unless you’ve studied the Bible in a prophetic way, you’ve totally failed to realize that the Bible is the only book in the world that has ever successfully predicted (literally) thousands of future events … many of them, hundreds or thousands of years in advance … all of which culminated in the life, death and resurrection of only one man … who is also true God … Jesus Christ.
Finally, the miraculous, continued existence of the Catholic Church, in spite of its history of human corruption and failure, throughout much of the modern historical period, is also excellent evidence for the existence of God, since it was Jesus Christ alone who personally guaranteed the continued existence of his church, until the end of time … no matter what.
As for me … I know Jesus Christ. Jesus is a close, personal friend of mine. We often spend quality time together … and I hope that will continue, forever.
Perhaps I could introduce you.
If abortion is a completely legitimate and moral decision why not televise it?
Pro-aborts argue that abortion and birth can both be loving and maternal choices. They say that ending a pregnancy stops a “potential person” from becoming an actual person. So why can’t it be televised?
In fact, pro-lifers who dare to hold up graphic displays of the effects of abortion are shouted down as sick and twisted, even by people who work at abortion clinics. But women who tweet about their abortions are lionized as feminist heroes.
If MTV had any real guts their show about abortion would actually include the abortion instead of glossing over it as one of many equally legitimate options. What are they afraid of?
Catholic High School Kid Gives of Himself, Gets Much More In Return Than He Expected
Ben’s twin brother, Sammy, lay on a cot in the narrow hallway just outside the kitchen. Unable to see or speak or control his limbs, he coughed or let out a little moan every now and then. Rick and Patty took turns feeding Sammy, who has cerebral palsy, through a stomach tube. He cooed when they kissed his face or stroked his cheek, and when they cooed back, he opened his mouth into a wide, joyful O.
A few feet away was the narrow, winding stairway that is the family’s biggest burden lately.
Which is where 17-year-old Rudy’s simple, life-changing act of kindness comes in.
Alice is taking a week off and will return next Thursday.
She’ll answer as many questions as possible,
right here, every Thursday.
Email responses will also be provided, as time permits.
*** Alice is taking a week off and will return next Thursday. ***
Something Really Important To Contemplate On This New Year’s Eve
My Italian missal offers a helpful reminder of this fuller dimension of the mystery of the Incarnation in one of its auxiliary prefaces for Advent:
“You have hidden from us the day and hour in which Christ your Son, the Lord and judge of history, will appear upon the clouds of heaven clothed in power and splendor; on that great and glorious day, the present world will pass away, and new heavens and a new earth will arise. Now, Christ comes to meet us in every man and in every time, so that we may accompany him in faith and bear witness in love to the blessed hope of his reign.
And so, anticipating his final advent, together with the angels and saints we sing as one the hymn of your glory…”
Now that’s something worth staying up late to ponder: the Yom Yahweh, the Day of the Lord, in which every tear will be wiped away and all things will be made new; the day when the Father brings to completion, in the Supper of the Lamb, the work of salvation first announced in the call of Abraham; the day which begins that endless day called the Kingdom come in its fullness; the day on which that often-hollow phrase “the international community” takes on real meaning.
Tiny pro-life activist making big waves
The last two years appear all the more remarkable in light of their inauspicious beginning – when Lia’s pro-abortion teacher found out the topic of her speech, she told Lia that she could present her speech to her class, but would be automatically disqualified from the speech competition attached to the project. She recommended that Lia choose a different topic.
At the recent International Pro-Life Conference in Ottawa, Lia told the crowd that being “a fairly competitive person,” she was eager to participate in the competition; however, “after more praying and thinking” she decided that she would stick with the topic of abortion anyway, even if it meant disqualification.
Unexpectedly, however, Lia’s teacher was so impressed with the speech that she backtracked and, despite her pro-abortion views, recommended that Lia represent her class in the schoolwide competition.
Pro Life Youth Leaders To MTV: You will not silence our message. You will not mock our God. You will stop killing our generation!
Pro-Life youth leaders comment on shamelessly scripted, pro abortion MTV program:
After watching the show, Kristan Hawkins, Executive Director of Students for Life of America commented, “We just witnessed the planned, televised murder of an innocent human person. It was a blatant assault on the youth of America in an attempt to push them towards abortion.”
Roeser: While not all homosexuals are same-sex pedophiles, all same-sex pedophiles are homosexuals.
Allen contrasts two views—Benedict’s and that of Dominican priest Thomas Doyle who has been studying the crisis for years. Benedict is indubitably right. He goes straight to the heart of the problem—in “priestly formation” i.e. the theology taught in seminaries and lays the blame where it belongs on the heretical dogma of relativism which by downplaying good and evil and in Allen’s words “treating morality as a matter of weighing consequences” the door was opened to “justifying gravely immoral behavior including the sexual exploitation of minors.” Allen you see ran a seminar on the issue with George Weigel.
SSPX Catholics offer explanation of authentic Catholic Tradition that is not at odds with the whole truth.
We are going to see the life and development of divine tradition first as it concerns the individual; then as it manifests itself in the Church considered as a whole. It is very important to make a distinction between these two things.
Tradition is the revealed deposit. What is in the revelation? Essentially, the revelation is the intimate life of God which is communicated to us by grace and by the sacraments. The intimate life of God is God displaying himself in three divine Persons, and the entirety of this life is communicated to us by grace, the sacraments, and Our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the essential core of the Christian revelation, the very terms of this deposit one must keep. Living tradition is the same as saying that one lives the life of God, that one is imbued with this divine life, that one lives it by the intellect, by the will, by faith, by hope, by charity and by all the virtues.
Now this Christian life-this life of tradition in our hearts, persons, and surroundings-is a participation in the immutable life of God. God does not change. The blessed in heaven contemplate the immutable God in eternity which fills them with an immense joy for all eternity. They are delighted to contemplate the same and unchanging God forever, the Source of an inconceivable and inexpressible life. This is their eternal rejoicing, and nevertheless they are fixed in the immutable. See then the error of the progressists, who wish that this would not be constant change…. No! — The spiritual life is the most unchangeable! Look at the saints in their contemplation. They are fixed on God and that is sufficient for them and nourishes their lives. I am not speaking of the ecstasies possible on earth with the body almost suspended. I am speaking of the soul who, while conducting his ordinary activities, is completely immersed and transformed in God, firm and unchangeable. We understand well that the more we live this Tradition, the more we will be fixed in the immutable who is God, and the further we will be removed from the evolution of perpetual change.
For the modem evolutionists on the contrary, life consists of perpetual change. It is very difficult for them to conceive that the highest life which already exists here on earth for the saints, for the contemplatives and those who devote themselves to prayer and meditation, consists of the contemplation of the unchangeable-and yet, thus it is!
Michael Matt, Catholic Newspaper Publisher: The hope of the world is in the remnant of Christianity.
Recently, while on an airplane somewhere over the Atlantic I was struck by the realization that what looms largest in the path of Catholic restoration is not first and foremost rampant Christophobia or even anti-Christian presidents and legislators—faithless leaders of faithless men. Our fiercest foe is the damnable apathy that has become the hallmark of the Catholic people. Not much sleep is being lost in Catholicland these days over the fall of Christendom, the denial of the rights of God, the eradication of Catholic identity, or the international rejection of the social Kingship of Christ.
Apathetic and jaded, we, like the rest of the “enlightened” ones, tend to give little thought to the reasons why God put us on this earth. Reduced to wage slaves in computerized salt mines, most of us spend every waking moment laboring just to keep that bit of turf we’ve managed to mortgage to the hilt here in Utopia. Enslaved people who fancy themselves free wouldn’t even try to escape. So it stands to reason that–enslaved by liberty–apathy has become our lot. Besides, we’re still eating… a lot! And football and NASCAR are bigger than any circus ever conceived of in ancient Rome.
Elton John and Partner/Male Consort Buy Themselves A Child
Los Angeles (AP) – Sir Elton John and his domestic partner David Furnish have become parents to a 7-pound, 15-ounce baby boy born on Christmas Day.
The news was first reported Monday night by USMagazine.com and confirmed to The Associated Press by John’s Los Angeles-based publicist.
Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John was born in California via a surrogate, whose identity is being protected by the new parents.
Story of healthy unborn twin’s abortion sparks angry backlash from Canadian twins
…when a Burlington, Ontario mother’s decision to have one of her two healthy unborn twins killed in order to raise the other “in a way that I wanted to,” was reported in the National Post, letters poured into the newspaper’s office – many from twins themselves – expressing deep outrage that the child was put to death.
China attacks Pope’s Christmas message
In his Christmas broadcast, Pope Benedict XVI, urged Chinese Catholics “not [to] lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience” in China, but to persevere in “keeping alive the flame of hope”.
Doug Lawrence's Catholic Site 