….We all know there is a liberal narrative of the Council, what Benedict called the “Council of the Media”; but there is also a conservative narrative, one which tries to absolve the Council itself of all possible wrongdoing and place the blame squarely on post-Conciliar innovations. That narrative is no longer plausible after reading this book.
Editor’s note: And just a few short years later, radical hippies similarly hijacked the Democratic Party of the United States.
In February 2010 Michigan pro-life activist Chris Veneklase decided to take a look in the trash dumpster used by the Woman’s Choice Clinic in Lansing.
He found the remains (below) of 17 aborted babies—killed at the clinic and tossed in the trash. The date of the abortion, and all of the names of the mothers were written on the medical baggies that contained the tiny dismembered human bodies of these children. They had all been aborted in January of that year and all in the first 10 weeks of gestation.
Chris Veneklase called me, the director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, as I have had extensive experience with the retrievals of aborted babies from clinic trash containers and the burials for these victims of abortion.
One of the things that I did was photograph the aborted babies Chris had found in the Woman’s Choice dumpster. Their photos are can seen here.
One of the photos was of a tiny arm and hand of a 7 week aborted baby, torn at the shoulder. This photo was printed in my book Abandoned: The Untold Story of the Abortion Wars, published in 2012 by Saint Benedict Press.
In the meantime, Mary Gilpin, the manager of a crisis pregnancy center in Milwaukee, had purchased a copy of Abandoned and kept the book at the CPC.
In October a woman came to the CPC intent on having an abortion. She justified her decision because she was only 7 weeks pregnant and was convinced that the baby was not formed yet, was not human, that “nothing was there”—thus she was not killing anyone!
Mary opened my book and showed her a photo (see right) that I had taken—a photo of one of the babies that Chris Veneklase had retrieved from the trash. The woman was immediately stunned by what she saw—a real hand of a real human being at 7 weeks gestational age!
The abortion-bound woman changed her mind against having the abortion—and her baby is alive today.
During an education and outreach session in Memphis on Friday, Republican Tennessee State Sen. Brian Kelsey gave Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a book that he thought she might need: “Web Sites for Dummies.”
….We all know there is a liberal narrative of the Council, what Benedict called the “Council of the Media”; but there is also a conservative narrative, one which tries to absolve the Council itself of all possible wrongdoing and place the blame squarely on post-Conciliar innovations. That narrative is no longer plausible after reading this book.
Editor’s note: And just a few short years later, radical hippies similarly hijacked the Democratic Party of the United States.
Robert Spencer has written a dozen books on Islam, as well as thousands of pages of commentary on Islamic law, scripture, and tradition, but this may be his most significant book yet because of its potential to alert Christians to a dangerous gap in their knowledge of Islam. Christian leaders are badly in need of a wake-up call about Islam and this is a wake-up call that is hard to ignore. Not Peace but a Sword asks questions about the relationship between Christianity and Islam that few others are asking, even though they are questions that beg for answers.
The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed (Free Selection)
The Miracle of Father Kapaun, my second book, was off the presses and in our hands on March 26, only 15 days before President Barack Obama handed the Medal of Honor to U.S. Army Chaplain Emil Kapaun’s family at the White House.
That’s crazy good luck, publishing a story just as the president elevates your story subject as a national hero. But it was no surprise to my co-author, Travis Heying, or to me.
We started the story by seemingly sheer coincidence, shortly after the Army revived Father Kapaun’s Medal of Honor investigation after 55 years. We overcame problems with almost no effort. We talked to former prisoners of war and researched Father Kapaun off and on for five years, and every time we ran into one of those problems that kills a complex project, the problem would go away in some weird and wonderful way. This was a story that seemed to be kissed by the angels.
Yale-educated University of Notre Dame professor of New Testament and early Christianity, Candida Moss has released a video promoting her new book, “The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom.”
In the video, Moss discounts the accounts of early Christian martyrdom:
Contrary to traditional Church teaching, and popular belief, Christians were not systematically tortured and killed by the Romans merely because they refused to deny Christ.
Rather, these stories were exaggerated, revised, and forged, often centuries later, and the history of the Church was reshaped in order to combat heresy, to inspire and educate the faithful, and to fund Churches.
She describes the goals of her book as “getting the history right,” and to “expose the dangerous legacy that these misunderstandings about Christian martyrdom have had for us today.”
Editor’s note: This professor is obviously a weak-minded follower of Joseph Campbell. Chalk up one more scandal for Notre Dame!
Below are excerpts from the first chapter of the book Meet Mary: Getting to Know the Mother of God, by Dr. Mark Miravalle, professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
Thanks to Sophia Institute Press for permitting me to reprint the excerpts in this column. Click here to order a copy of the book in paperback or in electronic format.
Mary in the New Testament
In the pages of the New Testament, we have the oldest historical record of Mary’s life. Almost all that we know of her earthly existence we know from the four Gospels, which were written sometime between 50 and 100 AD, along with the oral tradition passed on by the first Christians.
We know she was raised in Galilee, one of the most remote corners of one of the most remote provinces of the ancient Roman Empire. We know that when she came along in approximately 14 BC, Israel was governed by Herod, a sadistic and power-hungry king who ruled at the pleasure of the emperor in Rome. A representative of that emperor, the governor, also sat in Jerusalem, supervising the soldiers, keeping an eye on Herod, and putting down the periodic rebellions that sprang up among the Jewish people.
We also know that Mary was Jewish, a member of a people that had been persecuted, enslaved, exiled, and oppressed for thousands of years, yet who continued to worship the God of its ancestors and to reject the polytheism of its oppressors. We know that she married a carpenter named Joseph, gave birth to a son named Jesus, watched her son become a man, and later watched him die on a cross.
The most detailed written information we have on Mary’s early life and relationship with her son comes from the Gospel of Luke.
Ali Sina is an Iranian ex-Muslim who established the organisation for apostates of Islam Faith Freedom International. In his latest book he posits that Muhammad is a narcissist, a paedophile, a mass murderer, a terrorist, a misogynist, a lecher, a cult leader, a madman, a rapist, a torturer, an assassin and a looter (*). Sina has offered 50,000 dollars for the one who can prove otherwise. Nobody has claimed the reward as yet. And no wonder, as the description is based on the Islamic texts themselves, such as the hadiths, the descriptions of Muhammad’s life from testimonies of contemporaries.
The historical Muhammad was the savage leader of a gang of robbers from Medina. Without scruples they looted, raped and murdered. The sources describe orgies of savagery where hundreds of people’s throats were cut, hands and feet chopped off, eyes cut out, entire tribes massacred. An example is the extinction of the jewish Kurayza tribe in Medina in 627. One of those who chopped off their heads was Muhammad. The women and children were sold as slaves. Confronted with the lunacy of Islamic terrorists today, it is not hard to find out where the lunacy comes from.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday sent a letter praising Pope Benedict XVI for reiterating that the Jewish people are not responsible for Jesus’ death. The Pope made the comments in a new book released on Wednesday.
“I commend you for forcefully rejecting, in your recent book, a false charge that has been a foundation for the hatred of the Jewish People for many centuries,” Netanyahu wrote.
Editor’s note: So, I guess this means Mr. Netanyahu will be singing up for R.C.I.A. real soon, now!
Condoms: What Pope Benedict XVI really said,
with an extensive extract from Light of the World
Much was made yesterday concerning the Pope’s apparent “softening” of the Church’s position on the use of condoms – Jonathan Wynne-Jones, the Telegraph’s religion correspondent, even lead with: “The Pope drops Catholic ban on condoms in historic shift”! The implication that Pope Benedict XVI has somehow changed the Catholic position on the use of condoms is based on a quote from Peter Seewald’s new book, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Sign of the Times. This book is the result of Seewald’s far-ranging six-hour interview with the Holy Father, and will be on sale from next Tuesday.
In light of the hysterical press coverage of Seewald’s new book, I would like to emphasise that the Pope has not changed or softened the Church’s stance on the use of condoms! All that has happened is that the Holy Father has now explained Catholic moral theology in such a simple way that even religious correspondents might understand it!
Here is the extract (in full) that deals with contraception and condoms – it is taken from Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times as found on the BBC News website:
“It is absurd…to even think that modern and contemporary culture–that which is understood as having its beginning in the Enlightenment and which today finds expression in ‘weak thought,’ or materialism, or indifferentism and relativism–can be recognized as a natural development of ancient Tradition.”
-From a book on the 2nd Vatican Council, by Msgr. Brunero Gherardini: Canon of St. Peter’s Basilica, a secretary for the Pontifical Academy of Theology, a professor emeritus at the Pontifical Lateran University, and the editor of Divinitas, a leading Roman theological journal.
San Francisco, Calif., Nov 6, 2009 / 06:17 am, excerpt, (CNA)
“Jesus Christ Himself reveals to us what it is to be a man,” Fr. Richards said. “It is about taking the one life that God has given us and give it away. When men are invited to die for others, they put others’ needs above their own. To be like Christ, and like all great men, will cost men their very lives.”
“There is a difference in the way men and women were created,” he remarked. “Men are not called to be women and vice versa. We are different – not better, but different – and men are called to be fully men. This needs to be dealt with up front because it’s a problem – in the Catholic Church and in the world itself.”
(CBS) Not many Supreme Court justices become famous, but Antonin Scalia is one of the few. Known as “Nino” to his friends and colleagues, he is one of the most brilliant and combative justices ever to sit on the court and one of the most prominent legal thinkers of his generation.
He first agreed to talk to 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl about a new book he’s written on how lawyers should address the court. But over the course of several conversations, our story grew into a full-fledged profile – his first major television interview – including discussions about abortion and Bush v. Gore.
Click to read more, or to view the 2 part interview
Catholic Perspective:
Last Sunday (April 27th) Lesley Stahl interviewed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in what turned out to be a candid and wide-ranging look into the life of this little known, but obviously very Catholic man.
While CBS’ editing has been suspect in the past, I had no reason to believe that anything I was seeing had been over-processed, or twisted in any way.
In fact, about half way through, I couldn’t help but notice the total lack of guile in the man, and the precise way in which he crafted his words. Not bad things for a Supreme Court Justice.
I also couldn’t help noticing that Scalia appeared to be an icon of the ideal Catholic man.
We could use a lot more just like him.
Catholic parents would do well to sit down and carefully watch the interview … first by themselves … and then with the kids.
It doesn’t get much better than this.
-LD
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Doug Lawrence's Catholic Site 
A positive movie review of “The Rite” … plus … 11 things you should know about exorcism.
I would like to say a few things about exorcism that are important to know and remember, especially when sensationalistic movies etc. take liberties. Allow these observations of mine in no particular order.
Read what Msgr. Charles Pope has to say
February 3, 2011
Categories: Books & Publications, Catholic Q & A, Events, Inspirational, Politics, Videos, Photos, Audio . Tags: book, catholic, commentary, exorcism, movie, review, The Rite, videos . Author: Hosted by Doug Lawrence . Comments: Leave a comment