Saturday, November 29, 2008

Dilemmas of Pre-natal testing

Margarte Somerville has a good article on pre-natal testing at MercatorNet.
Are we using pre-natal testing as part of a search-and-destroy mission for the disabled?

As harsh as the language is, we must ask ourselves: "Are we on a search-and-destroy mission to wipe out certain groups of people?" Widespread pre-natal screening will eliminate entire groups of people, for instance, those with Down syndrome, genetically linked mental illness such as bipolar disease, the profoundly deaf, and so on. The vast majority of people oppose screening for sex as unethical, except some would allow it for sex-linked diseases. And some gay people are concerned there could be screening for genes linked with homosexuality.
If we don't want genetically "disabled" children to be born, what are our reasons and justifications? Are those reasons and justifications ethically acceptable? What principles and values do they establish and affirm at a societal level?
And when there are no legal restrictions on abortion, we must also consider routinized pre-natal screening in that light. Is it ethically acceptable to abort, for instance, a Down syndrome child at eight months of gestation?


I have discussed the hidden agenda of pre-natal testing, which we prefer to call "Search-and-destroy" as proven by the statistics quoted here: "Pre-natal testing halves numbers of babies born with Down syndrome". I had erroneously attributed the rise in births of children with Down syndrome in Britain to more positive public image of children with Down syndrome, in this post, when it may simply be more diagnosed cases of Trisomy 21 than before, and the fact that women are beginning families much later. Sish.

In any event, new findings that the symptoms of Down syndrome may be either prevented or treated prenatally may make the search-and-destroy fostered by such organizations as March of Dimes unnecessary, as stated here:
Down's starves developing nerve cells of two key proteins, leading to problems with mental development.
But when US researchers injected the proteins into mice pregnant with "Down's" pups, the offspring seemed free of these problems.

Read the entire article in BBC News.
But will they stop funding research into such types of pre-natal diagnosis as ?

Alas, my experience in pro-life activism tells me that this life-saving news will receive far less press than the new diagnostic techniques. They even had the gall to try and advertise on my other blog, Cause of Our Joy. "Great news, now fewer disabled babies will be able to slip through the net". Society will be the loser when fewer children like my Christina are born. But will be have the spiritual intelligence to recognize it?

Friday, November 28, 2008

What have we come to?

A 34 year old store employee was trampled to death by the crowds in a Valley Stream store this morning. I am appalled.
The 34-year-old male employee was pronounced dead an hour after shoppers breached the doors to the shopping center in Valley Stream, Long Island, about 5 a.m. Friday and knocked him down, police said.
Click here for photos.
"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," Jimmy Overby, the man's 43-year-old co-worker, told the New York Daily News. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too ... I literally had to fight people off my back."

Materialism is the culprit; on the part of Walmart execs who keep upping the ante by offering earlier and more dramatic "door buster" sales, and a crowd too bent on saving a few bucks to care if they killed a man, and nearly overran a pregnant woman. Even when rescue workers were trying to work on the man, they fought crowds.

Up in the tranquil stores in rural Connecticut, my mother, my daughter and I were in several stores this evening, with no trouble. I miss New York less every week.

Read the entire story here at Fox News.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Interview with Archbishop Burke

Many in the blogosphere have pointed out that the best part of this debacle of an election is that more and more bishops are emerging from the shadows to take bold stand for life.
Archbishop Burke did not have to emerge; he's always been at the forefront of the battle for the culture of life.
Read the interview here.

Guadalupe the film


This film was releasesd the same day as Gibson's Apocalypto,and is the natural continuation of the story, Our Lady of Guadalupe ended the bloodletting of the Aztecs sacrifices. John Henry Westen of Life Site news says it is estimate that 1 of 3 Aztec children died in sacrifice. That's the same percentage of children who die from abortion in this country.
I have been searching for this film and the website is no longer functioning. Does anyone know if it is our on DVD?

Mother Teresa's plea to the Supreme Court

Chocolate for your Brain has a moving post which includes this amicus brief filed by Mother Teresa to the Supreme Court when it was considering overturning Roe v Wade in 1994. It is more relevant than ever in the shadow of the upcoming adminstration of the culture of death.

This amicus brief was filed before the U.S. Supreme Court in the cases of Loce v. New Jersey and Krail et al. v. New Jersey in February 1994, by Mother Teresa.


I hope you will count it no presumption that I seek your leave to address you on behalf of the unborn child. Like that child I can be considered an outsider. I am not an American citizen. My parents were Albanian. I was born before the First World War in a part of what was not yet, and is no longer, Yugoslavia . In many senses I know what it is like to be without a country. I also know what is like to feel an adopted citizen of other lands.

When I was still a young girl I traveled to India . I found my work among the poor and the sick of that nation, and I have lived there ever since. Since 1950 I have worked with my many sisters from around the world as one of the Missionaries of Charity. Our congregation now has over four hundred foundations in more that one hundred countries, including the United States of America . We have almost five thousand sisters. We care for those who are often treated as outsiders in their own communities by their own neighbors—the starving, the crippled, the impoverished, and the diseased, from the old woman with a brain tumor in Calcutta to the young man with AIDS in New York City .

A special focus of our care are mothers and their children. This includes mothers who feel pressured to sacrifice their unborn children by want, neglect, despair, and philosophies and government policies that promote the dehumanization of inconvenient human life. And it includes the children themselves, innocent and utterly defenseless, who are at the mercy of those who would deny their humanity.


So, in a sense, my sisters and those we serve are all outsiders together. At the same time, we are supremely conscious of the common bonds of humanity that unite us and transcend national boundaries. In another sense, no one in the world who prizes liberty and human rights can feel anything but a strong kinship with America . Yours is the one great nation in all of history that was founded on the precept of equal rights and respect for all humankind, for the poorest and weakest of us as well as the richest and strongest. As your Declaration of Independence put it, in words that have never lost their power to stir the heart: “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…”

A nation founded on these principles holds a sacred trust: to stand as an example to the rest of the world, to climb ever higher in its practical realization of the ideals of human dignity, brotherhood, and mutual respect. Your constant efforts in fulfillment of that mission, far more that your size or your wealth or your military might, have made America an inspiration to all mankind.

It must be recognized that your model was never one of realized perfection, but of ceaseless aspiration. From the outset, for example, America denied the African slave his freedom and human dignity. But in time you righted that wrong, albeit at an incalculable cost in human suffering and loss of life. Your impetus has almost always been toward a fuller, more all embracing conception and assurance of the rights that your founding fathers recognized as inherent and God-given. Yours has ever been an inclusive, not an exclusive, society. And your steps, though they may have paused or faltered now and then, have been pointed in the right direction and have trod the right path.

The task has not always been an easy one, and each new generation has faced its own challenges and temptations. But in a uniquely courageous and inspiring way, America has kept faith.

Yet there has been one infinitely tragic and destructive departure from those American ideals in recent memory. It was this Court's own decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) to exclude the unborn child from the human family. You ruled that a mother, in consultation with her doctor, has broad discretion, guaranteed against infringement by the United States Constitution, to choose to destroy her unborn child. Your opinion stated that you did not need to “resolve the difficult question of when life begins.”

That question is inescapable. If the right to life in an inherent and inalienable right, it must surely exist wherever life exists. No one can deny that the unborn child is a distinct being, that it is human, and that it is alive. It is unjust, therefore, to deprive the unborn child of its fundamental right to life on the basis of its age, size, or condition of dependency.

It was a sad infidelity to America 's highest ideals when this Court said that it did not matter, or could not be determined, when the inalienable right to life began for a child in its mother's womb. America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts—a child—as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience.

It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered domination over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners.

Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign. The Constitutional Court of the Federal Republic of Germany recently ruled that “ the unborn child is entitled to its rights to life independently of acceptance by its mother; this is an elementary and inalienable right that emanates from the dignity of the human being.” Americans may feel justly proud that Germany in 1993 was able to recognize the sanctity of human life. You must weep that your own government, at present, seems blind to this truth.

I have no new teaching for America . I seek only to recall you to faithfulness to what you once taught the world. Your nation was founded on the proposition—very old as a moral precept, but startling and innovative as a political insight—that human life is a gift of immeasurable worth, and that it deserves, always and everywhere, to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect.

I urge the Court to take the opportunity presented by the petitions in these cases to consider the fundamental question of when human life begins and to declare without equivocation the inalienable rights which it possesses.

What a powerful treatise on the dignity of human life, as declared by our own Founding Fathers! What will become of this nation which has abandoned it's role as salt and light to the world?

Blessed Mother Teresa, pray for us!

The ugly side of the internet

In a culture where women who are used in pornography are called, "adult performers" and there is such a thing as "snuff films" where an actor actually dies in the film, can 'suicide performers' be far behind?
Sadly, not.
A young man informed the "audience" via webcam of his impending suicide which he committed in their view. To the horror of his father, who was unaware of his 19 year old son's actions, those who watched his son take a lethal drug overdose and die on camera, share in the responsibility for his death. Some of the voyeurs did try to contact emergency workers, but they arrived too late.
What were those who watched this young man kill himself thinking? Would he have killed himself if there was no one to watch it? Did it urge him on?
How unbearably lonely does a young man have to be to seek the company of cruel voyeurs as he ends his life?
The cruelest form of entertainment yet is merely the latest symptom of the spiritual death of this culture of death.
Read the entire story here.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Sometimes it helps to remember Who's in charge of the world

A blessed feast of Christ the King to all of you.
Here's an excellent post on the feast day.
Que vive Cristo Rex!

Avoid the second collection this week!

We have been hearing about the USCCB's using the Campaign for Human Developement funds for ACORN whose shady election practices help elect Barack Obama. This Sunday, the second collection is for the Campaign again, and a reader at Mommy Life suggests we save our money for our local crisis pregnancy center instead.
Good idea.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

How to respond to Obama Trauma!

Every time I think I'm recovering from Obama Trauma, the news gets worse!
The appointees Obama is naming are the Who's Who of the abortion industry, from Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute professor Alta Charo, to CINO(Catholic in Name Only) Tom Daschle's being tapped for the position of Health and Human Services Secretary in the new cabinet, to this gloomy bit of info from the Cardinal Newman Society.
Several outspoken professors and political activities on Catholic campuses helped deliver pro-abortion Barack Obama the Catholic vote, according to a new report from The Cardinal Newman Society.
Exit polls show that Obama won over self-described Catholics 54 to 45 percent—better than the 52-46 split among all Americans—and even made inroads with Mass-attending and white, non-Hispanic Catholics.
Not surprising, I argued against it in my piece at Catholic Exchange, but these professors have the students as captive audiences. When I tried to frame our debate in my eighth grade US History class in term of life issues, which of course meant that Obama lost handily, I took some fierce flack from parents and students alike.This was in a conservative Catholic school.

Catholics don't want to hear the truth; they shut their ears and their hearts.
So the most pro-abortion politician in the history of the USA gets elected with our help. The bishops threaten a war over life issues, but I can't help remembering poor Fr. Newman being forced to retract his bold statement about voting for Obama and hand my head in shame.
An abomination!
Here, folks are our marching orders from Our Lady of Victory.. .

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Father Patrick Peyton's cause for canonization opened

This is wonderful news. No one save Archbishop Fulton Sheen did more to evangelize America than Fr Peyton whose famous saying, "the family that prays together, stays together" is well known.
Peyton, who died in 1992, used technology to reach more people than he ever could by person, founding Family Theater Productions in 1947 in Hollywood, said the Rev. John Phalen, president of Holy Cross Family Ministries, which carries on Peyton's work.
He bolstered his message with Hollywood elites, including Loretta Young, Jimmy Stewart, Bing Crosby and Lucille Ball, who appeared on his shows. He ended many programs with his catchy family message, now trademarked by his ministry.
As Peyton grew up in Ireland, his family prayed the rosary daily and it brought them strength, Phalen said. He thought the centuries-old tradition linked to the Virgin Mary could help other families.

May he pray for the Catholics in this nation who need his message of the family rosary more than ever.
HT AP

We're gonna miss ya W!

For those who complained that Bush was not prolife enough check out the lame duct move he makes here.
A last-minute Bush administration plan to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds has provoked a torrent of objections, including a strenuous protest from the government agency that enforces job-discrimination laws.
The proposed rule would prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their "religious beliefs or moral convictions."
It would also prevent hospitals, clinics, doctors' offices and drugstores from requiring employees with religious or moral objections to "assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity" financed by the Department of Health and Human Services.


Clinton used the end of his presidency to pardon terrorists drug dealers and money launderers, and those were just his relatives. Bush uses the end of his presidency to save babies.
We will miss you President Bush, for all your flaws, you are a devout Christian and decent moral man. No president did as much as you for the unborn, and we thank you on their behalf.
As the Obama administration looms ahead, I am more afraid for the future of the innocents of this nation than ever.
HT International Herald Tribune

Obama's pro-gay agenda

From Citizen Link

President-elect Barack Obama is committed to creating special rights for homosexuals and trampling on traditional marriage. He laid out his agenda on his
Web site:
Expand hate-crimes legislation (which would create a new category of crime for actions said to be motivated by bias toward a person’s actual or perceived “sexual orientation” and “gender identity." Sexual-orientation hate-crimes laws have been used to prosecute speech in the U.S. and abroad).
Support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (which would create special rights based on an employee’s actual or perceived sexual orientation and could force Christian employers to hire against their religious beliefs).
Oppose a federal marriage-protection amendment.
Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (which would open the door to forcing all 50 states to recognize same-sex "marriage").
Expand gay adoption (which would leave vulnerable children without either a mom or a dad).
Repeal the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (which would jeopardize military readiness by allowing open homosexuality in the armed forces).
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said: "We need to support our men and women in the military and not expect them to carry the heavy burdens of social engineering."
She said no one has a "right" to serve in the military, as Obama seems to suggest.
"To say that the armed forces should accept any and all people is a little absurd," she told Family News in Focus. "Should we throw out all distinctions?"

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

What the UN Populatin Fund is doing with it's money

President Bush refused to fund the UN Population Fund because of horrific stories like the one I cite here. Our money would be used for forced abortions in China. Obama has promised to fund the UNFPA.
from the Family Research Council
Reinstating UNFPA -- Over China's Dead Bodies
Newspapers from cities as far away as Melbourne, Australia are anxiously awaiting word on a Uyghur woman in China, six months pregnant with her third child. According to local reports, government officials tracked Arzigul Tursun down in her village and escorted her to a hospital where authorities ordered her to abort the baby against her will. Although guards had been stationed at the hospital, Arzigul managed to escape. After the police interrogated her family, the mother-to-be was recaptured yesterday in the home of some relatives. Her plight has sparked outrage in the international community, which is demanding her release. In the past, the U.S. government -- at President Bush's insistence -- has withheld funding from groups like the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) for its supporting role in these coercive abortion policies. President-elect Obama has said he will restore U.S. funding to UNFPA. America will no longer be an innocent bystander of tragedies like this one. Instead, the U.S. will be knowingly funding forced abortions like Arzigul's with millions of taxpayer dollars. In an interview with the Obama campaign before the election, RH Reality check asked, "If elected President, would Sen. Obama, overturn the Global Gag Rule or reinstate funding for UNFPA?" A spokesman for the campaign responded, "Yes, Senator Obama would overturn the global gag rule and reinstate funding for UNFPA." The new administration plans to funnel millions of dollars to UNFPA despite its support of China's savage one-child policy. Contact your leaders and tell them that terrorizing pregnant women is not the "change" America voted for. Urge them to oppose Obama's anti-woman agenda.

Dr Alveda King on Obama and white guilt

The Obama election has changed the face of America. It strikes a blow to white guilt, because hundreds of thousands of white people voted for him to prove that they were not racists. It gives blacks who voted for him hope, because there has never been a black president of America.
And the election of Obama gives a face to abortion.
Like it or not president-elect Barack Obama has promised to do more to advance abortion rights than any other president in America’s history. His no-holds-barred promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) - which should be renamed the No Limits on Abortion Act - is a promise to make abortions more accessible than they have ever been since Roe vs. Wade.

Dr King is the niece of Dr Martin Luther King, and is part of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.
Read the entire story on Life Site News.

Italian nuns refuse to kill Eluana Englaro!!

God bless these brave nuns who refuse to comply with a court order to dehydrate this Italian woman! They are part of the resistance to the Culture of Death.
MILAN, November 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) –
The nuns who run the hospice in which Eluana Englaro has been living for 14 years have refused to carry out the court order to remove her food and hydration tube. On Friday, the highest court of appeals of Italy upheld a previous court’s ruling that Eluana Englaro, the young disabled woman who has been in a state of diminished consciousness since being in a car accident in 1992, may be killed by the removal of her food and hydration tube.
In a letter published in yesterday’s Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, the Misericordine nuns of Lecco said, “Our hope, and that of many like us, is that the death by hunger and thirst of Eluana, and others in her condition, will not be carried out.”
Read the entire story on Life Site.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Cardinal, 'Obama is apocolyptic'

His Eminence James Francis Cardinal Stafford criticized President-elect Barack Obama as “aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic,“ and said he campaigned on an “extremist anti-life platform,” Thursday night in Keane Auditorium during his lecture “Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul.“
“Because man is a sacred element of secular life,” Stafford remarked, “man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person’s life cannot ultimately be controlled by government.”

“For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden,” Stafford said, comparing America’s future with Obama as president to Jesus’ agony in the garden.
This is an awesome speech, and I hope it rallies the biggest crowd in the history of the March for Life. We MUST let the Abortion President know we're out here, and we're NOT GOING ANYWHERE. Our job is to be the biggest thorn in President Obama's side we can, all the while praying for his conversion. If it happened for this abortionist, it can happen to him.

Read the entire story at the CUA Tower.

Another abortionist converts miraculously!

The Spanish daily “La Razon” has published an article on the pro-life conversion of a former “champion of abortion.” Stojan Adasevic, who performed 48,000 abortions, sometimes up to 35 per day, is now the most important pro-life leader in Serbia, after 26 years as the most renowned abortion doctor in the country.

This is a testament to the power of prayer. This is as big as the conversion of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, or Norma McCorvey.
Read the entire story here at CNS.

Friday, November 14, 2008

See Video Banned on YouTube

Since YouTube has chosen to censor pro-life videos and allow anti-Catholic videos, we should all be looking to other websites. We know where their loyalty lies. Here's another banned video on the infants born alive at Planned Parenthood. YouTube refused to host this video.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Bold, brave priest speaks out on those who support Obama

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome
9 November 2008

Dear Friends in Christ,

We the People have spoken, and the 44th President of the United States will be Barack Hussein Obama. This election ends a political process that started two years ago and which has revealed deep and bitter divisions within the United States and also within the Catholic Church in the United States.
This division is sometimes called a “Culture War,” by which is meant a heated clash between two radically different and incompatible conceptions of how we should order our common life together, the public life that constitutes civil society.
And the chief battleground in this culture war for the past 30 years has been abortion, which one side regards as a murderous abomination that cries out to Heaven for vengeance and the other side regards as a fundamental human right that must be protected in laws enforced by the authority of the state.
Between these two visions of the use of lethal violence against the unborn there can be no negotiation or conciliation, and now our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president.
We must also take note of the fact that this election was effectively decided by the votes of self-described (but not practicing) Catholics, the majority of whom cast their ballots for President-elect Obama.In response to this, I am obliged by my duty as your shepherd to make two observations:
1. Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.
2. Barack Obama, although we must always and everywhere disagree with him over abortion, has been duly elected the next President of the United States, and after he takes the Oath of Office next January 20th, he will hold legitimate authority in this nation. For this reason, we are obliged by Scriptural precept to pray for him and to cooperate with him whenever conscience does not bind us otherwise.

Let us hope and pray that the responsibilities of the presidency and the grace of God will awaken in the conscience of this extraordinarily gifted man an awareness that the unholy slaughter of children in this nation is the greatest threat to the peace and security of the United States and constitutes a clear and present danger to the common good.

In the time of President Obama’s service to our country, let us pray for him in the words of a prayer found in the Roman Missal:

God our Father,
all earthly powers must serve you.
Help our President-elect, Barack Obama, to fulfill his responsibilities worthily and well. By honoring and striving to please you at all times, may he secure peace and freedom for the people entrusted to him.
We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Amen.
Father Newman

May Fr Newman give courage to his fellow priests to speak out boldly on the issues of life and reception of Holy Communion.
Remember what the Evangelicals say,
"If it were illegal to be a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"
This may come true one day soon, for me and Fr. Newman. Be assured that if we do suffer by opposing the Obama position on abortion, we will be rewarded someday.

Stand with us. Start a blog and speak out. Click the upper right hand corner of this page where it says "Create a Blog" and follow the prompts. It's free, and it's still legal, for a while at least.
When you have an address, drop it in the comments.
Two years ago I did, and my life hasn't been the same.
HT Fr Z's blog
11/16 UPDATE:
See this Life Site article with reactions from the nation's bishops. Most notable is that of Bishop Emeritus Rene Henry Gracida of Corpus Christi, TX, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) his reaction to Fr. Newman's letter "is one of admiration and awe. I find nothing in what he has written that is at variance with the Magisterium of the Church. He is to be congratulated."

US Bishops cut off ACORN funding

A community grantmaking arm of the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops has cut off all funding for a group embroiled in controversy over claims of voter registration fraud and embezzlement, church leaders said Tuesday.
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which supports anti-poverty and social justice programs nationwide, will no longer make grants to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, said Auxiliary Bishop Robert Morin of New Orleans.
The decision was made following claims that nearly $1 million had been embezzled from ACORN by the brother of its founder.


Talk about closing the barn door after the horse gets out. . .well, better late than never!
Remember the radio station my friends and I tried to start on Long Island? Our station on eastern LI may be going to ACORN. That's a bitter pill to swallow.
Read the entire story on the AP.

Jill Stanek is helped to praise God after a tragic election

And guess who helped her?
A young man with Down syndrome who wasn't afraid to praise God no matter what.
Read this beautiful story on World Net Daily

Beware of the new FCC chief who champions the Fairness Doctrine

from the Media Research Center
Barack Obama's transition team has tapped Henry Rivera as thenew FCC transition czar. A longtime radical leftist, lawyer andformer FCC commissioner, Rivera strongly supports the so-called"Fairness Doctrine" and could become the "angel of death" toconservative talk radio by supporting liberal leadership in amove to quickly reinstate it.
According to MRC's Media Reality Check "It's another troubling sign that Democrats are serious about trying to reinstate thelong-defunct FCC regulation, which can more aptly be describedas the "Censorship Doctrine" because of its chilling effect onfree speech."
Read the complete story by clicking here:http://www.mrcaction.org/r.asp?u=13257&RID=18278804++
Conservative Talk Under Siege, with this move, it is obvious what liberal leadership
have in mind and unless we unite, and muster a powerful and resilient front against this attack, liberals will succeed at removing the lastobstacle remaining in their mad drive for domination-complete censorshipof the conservative voice.We simply cannot allow that to happen. That's why we are asking you toclick here right now:http://www.mrcaction.org/r.asp?u=13257&RID=18278804++ Only One Obstacle RemainsThe Left owns the mainstream media. Just one barrier to totaldomination remains--conservative talk radio!Now they stand poised to launch an all-out push to silence free speechby resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine--instituting a radical formof government control that would banish the conservative voice fromthe airwaves!As citizens in this great nation, we simply cannot allow any formof blatant government censorship.
That is why we have launched the Free Speech Alliance, a coalitionof freedom-loving individuals who have joined together to ensure this"Censorship Doctrine" never returns to eliminate the conservativevoice of America.
Click here to sign:http://www.mrcaction.org/r.asp?u=13257&RID=18278804++

We Can Stop Them
We have the power to stop them.We can defeat this radical push and preserve ourFree Speech Rights for generations to come.But we must act now!
Please take a moment right now to join MRC’s Free Speech Alliance byadding your name to our petition:http://www.mrcaction.org/r.asp?u=13257&RID=18278804
Media Research Center

Here's Focus on the Family's report on the likelihood of the approval of the Fairness Doctrine
Congressional Democrats have threatened to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, which was put in place by the FCC in 1949 to force the nation’s TV and radio broadcasters to make time for voices on both sides of controversial issues. It was dropped as new technologies offered an abundance of sources for information.
With a 3-2 Democratic majority on the FCC, the Fairness Doctrine could be resurrected without approval by Congress.
Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said the Fairness Doctrine would force stations to stop addressing important policy issues.
“A Christian radio station discussing the issue of abortion would have to give airtime to a pro-abortion voice like Planned Parenthood,” she said. “Rather than present a view that fundamentally opposes the station’s core beliefs, it would likely steer clear of airing controversial topics altogether.”

Bishops warn Obama about abortion

"We have lost 50 times as many children in the last 35 years as we have lost soldiers in all the wars since the Revolution," said Bishop Robert J. Hermann of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
"I think any bishop here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow to bring about an end to abortion," he added.

"If we are willing to die tomorrow, then we should be willing to, until the end of our lives, to take all kinds of criticism for opposing this horrible infanticide."
The statement singled out the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) for criticism, saying it would "reduce religious freedom, and the Church must work against its passage."


I see the emergence of true moral courage and leadership. Bravo.
Read the entire story at the Washington Times

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Michael Barone: don't apologize when you spoke the truth

Michael Barone, A political pundit has apologized for saying during a recent conference that he thinks the mainstream media wanted Sarah Palin to have an abortion on her baby Trig, who has Down syndrome. Michael Barone, a frequent commentator on talking head shows was responsible for the dustup.
Barone, the author of the Almanac of American Politics, considered the encyclopedia for campaigns and elections, made the comment during a speech at a meeting of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.


The media DID despise Sarah Palin because she gave birth to Trig. They would have and already have aborted him and perfectly healthy babies as well. When 40% of American women are post abortive, there is a lot of rage going around society. It focused on Sarah Palin.
She is a living testament to the pro-life cause, that's why she felt the full force of their fury.
I know. I do too.
Read the entire story at Lifenews.com

The first day of gay "marriage" in my home state of CT

from Focus on the Family
Same-Sex Couples 'Marry' in Connecticut

Homosexual couples began getting "married" in Connecticut today, after the state Supreme Court struck down the marriage law Oct. 10.
Connecticut joins Massachusetts in court-ordered same-sex "marriage"; a constitutional amendment approved by California voters last week put an end to the practice in that state.
The Family Institute of Connecticut, which is associated with Focus on the Family, called the high court's decision undemocratic."Unlike California, we did not have a remedy," said Peter Wolfgang, the group's executive director. "It must be overturned with patience, determination and fortitude."
Gay activists reportedly are turning their efforts to five other Northeastern states: New York, Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Gay "marriage" legislation already has been introduced in all five states.
FOR MORE INFORMATIONRead
Dr. James Dobson's response to the ruling by the Connecticut Supreme Court.
/content/A000008410.cfm
— Jennifer Mesko

Please sign the C-FAM petitition to the UN

On December 10th, pro-abortion groups will present petitions asking the United Nation's General Assembly to make abortion a universally recognized human right. The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute created an alternate petition drive that calls for government to interpret the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as protecting the unborn child from abortion. They
need at least 100,000 signatures by December 10th, the 60th Anniversary of the Universail Delaration of Human Rights. Please go to othe Website:
http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.95/default.asp and sign the petition.
If you know anyone that would be interested in doing the same you are welcome to forward this on to whomever.
"A nation that aborts its own children is a nation without hope." -- Pope John Paul II

Gay activists storm Church service

GAY FASCISTS STORM CHURCH:
NEW DEVELOPMENTS

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on new developments surrounding the radical gays who stormed a church on Nov. 9 in Lansing, Michigan (see Catholic League
news release 11-11):

“On Nov. 11, I asked Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox to launch an investigation into what happened at Mount Hope Church. We knew yesterday that a group of gay fascists stormed the church during a Sunday service. What we did not know is that this is a nationwide organization that has been planning to terrorize the church for the past month.

“The facts are not in dispute—all one has to do is tap into the website of Bash Back! There one will find that on Oct. 12 and Oct. 23, a memo was sent to members of the group to commemorate the founding of ‘Michigan’s newly formed chapter’ asking ‘Queers and Trannies’ to join in storming the church. The group boasts that in 2008 there has been ‘an explosion in Radical Trans/Queer organizing,’ citing progress that has been made from ‘Maine to the Midwest to The Bay Area.’ Bash Back! was founded to fight ‘State recognition in the form of oppressive institutions such as marriage and militarism’; it says both are ‘steps towards heteronormative assimilation.’ The radical nature of the group has led it to protest pro-gay marriage organizations like the Human Rights Campaign.

“It is important that law enforcement from all quarters address this issue. We will now contact Eaton County Sheriff Mike Raines and Eaton County Prosecutor Jeffrey L. Sauter to work cooperatively with Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox.

“A left-wing website, the Daily Kos, labeled news reports on what happened at the church ‘a funny story,’ and conducted a survey on the subject. Only 19 percent thought what Bash Back! did crossed the line.”

Contact Sheriff Mike Raines:
mraines@eatoncounty.org

Contact Prosecutor Jeff Sauter:
jsauter@eatoncounty.org

Boycott Planned Parenthood supporters

A message to Catholics for Sarah on Team Sarah!
Business that support/fund PLANNED PARENTHOOD
you can get national and local/regional information at Life Decisions International
Basics Office Products,
Whole Foods Market,
JPMorgan Chase (including Chase Bank, & Bank One),
Bank of America, Lost Arrow (Patagonia),
Wells Fargo, Chevron (including Caltex,
Xpress Lube, & Texaco),
eBay (including PayPal),
Carlson Companies (including Country Inns & Suites, Park Inn, Radisson Hotels, Regent Hotels, TGI Friday's restaurants),
Kenneth Cole,
Nike,
Midas,
Marriott (including Courtyard Hotels, Fairfield Inn, Renaissance Hotels & Inns, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, etc.),
Johnson & Johnson,
Valero (Beacon, Ultramar, etc.),
Wachovia, and
Sonic (drive-in restaurants).
And this is just a partial list!
To date, at least 180 corporations have ceased funding Planned Parenthood!, which has cost the abortion-committing Goliath more than $40 million
Go to this post at Life Decisions International for a full updated list.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Gay protests planned at a State Capital near you

To protest the democratic expression of those who value traditional marriage as in Propostions 8 in California, militant gays are organizing protests at these locations near you.
It's a bit ironic that there is to be one here in Hartford. As of yesterday, Connecticut has been forced to perform gay 'marriage' ceremonies thanks to the Supreme Court of the state legisating from the bench. They should be celebrating instead of protesting. We tried to pass a Constitutional Convention measure so that the people of Connecticut would have a voice in such issues, like Floridians and Californians did, but the National Education Association came up here with $80 million to oppose freedom of choice.
Watch this video, near the end a valiant little lady in yellow carries a large cross to a gay protest rally in Palm Springs, and takes her life in her hands. So much for tolerance!

Holy priests terrify me with their predictions about the Obama administration

It began with Fr Corapis' dire warning, "Death Wish; the Impending Suicide of a Once Great Nation". Then, Fr Benedict Groeschel, in an address to a pro-life Conference predicted the decline of America in the same way Rome was conquered; from it's own sinful sloth. Then my own former pastor, Fr McCartney, who should have his own EWTN show, gave a homily last Sunday at his parish on Long Island, which left me hugging Christina, my daughter with Down syndrome and weeping for her future. (I will be linking to this earth-shaking homily next week when it is available online).
Now Fr Angelo Geiger from the Friary of Our Lady of Guadalupe here in Connecticut, quotes Fr Rutler's near comparison of Obama to the Anti-Christ.
This convergence of opinion from the priests I respect most is the most serious warning I have ever heard about the future of this nation.
If this does not inspire prayer and fasting on our part, then we are beyond hope. We who take the time to write and read Catholic blogs must be the messengers of the urgency of what is coming under President Barack Obama. This is what Rep Chris Smith called "A tsunami of the Culture of Death" in Congress, as he discussed Obama on "The World Over". Soon Congress will be reviving the dangerous "Fairness Doctrine" which is nothing less to shut down websites like these which proclaim the truth. There is discussion of a civilian police force which may someday be rounding up pro-life Catholics. I know this sounds incredible but Fr Groeschel told us how it happened to Rome, the most powerful empire of the world. It happened in Germany, and the entire world went to war to stop it. If the USA is under the totalitarian regime of the Culture of Death, who will go to war to save us, the most powerful nation on earth?

Conservative pundits are lulling us to sleep saying that the economy will keep President elect Obama so busy he won't have time to cause trouble on social issues, but this Washington Post article says differently. While the March for Life was outside the White House, President Clinton enacted three executive orders expanding abortion to military hospitals, halting the Mexico City Policy, and approving fetal tissue research. President Bush immediately issued orders in 2000, re-instating the Mexico City policy , and we can expect President Obama to use executive orders immediately to remove the ban on Federal Funding for embryonic stem cell research, and reverse the Mexico City Policy . Our limited monies will immediately be put to evil use in his first days in office. AND I haven't even mentioned the Freedom of Choice Act which will erase 35 years of painsaking progress on the state level to limit abortions.
Do you see the violent gay rights activists targeting Christians, Mormons and Catholics? Expect them to avoid prosecution, and gain special protection, while pro-life protesters are jailed as they were in the Clinton Administration. AND the media will keep up a wall of silence.

Then the darkness will close in. Get the word out before we no longer can!

Obama's true nature is frightening: funeral of a born alive infant

UPDATE: Pro-abortion Catholic Politicians back on the USCCB agenda!!

Someone has been praying!
This is good news, especially since one of my favorite bishops, Robert Finn (the Cool) is involved. According to one report, Bishop Finn was said to have been consulted in the drafting... and given the presence of dear Bishop Martino, provided it all comes to pass, the USCCB will, indeed, be speaking for him, too.
This is an exciting development, keep the bishops in your prayers this week and watch them on EWTN. We must let the bishops know how much this means to us, especially in light of the recent election results.
Read the entire story here. at Whispers in the Loggia

Friday, November 07, 2008

Why Republicans are the party of Civil Rights

Award winning journalist Joan Swirsky in this article explains in great detail the track record of the Republican Party on civil rights. It seems that Democrats who support civil rights are the Johnny-come-lately's and want America to believe that anyone who did not vote for Obama did so out of racism. I would have been thrilled if I could have helped elect Alan Keyes as America's first black president. There has never been an American more worthy of the office.
Joan ends her commentary on the election on a positive note:

My perspective is not so bleak. We still have an influential conservative media, a growing number of exciting conservative stars on the political horizon, and an electorate that voted in huge numbers for a Republican candidate who was outspent by multimillions, shamefully savaged by a biased media, and distrusted by many of his fellow Party members. We won’t make that mistake again! And we won’t make the mistake of not reminding the electorate just how contributory we Republicans have been in fighting the Democrats to bring about true racial justice in our country.

Until and unless the socialists among us take away our rights, my country will always be America the Beautiful to me.


HT New Media Journal

Some positive things from the election

Washington, D.C. (5 November 2008) –

The following is a statement from Judie Brown, president of American Life League."In a night overshadowed by pro-abortion victories, one bright light shone for the pro-life movement, and it came from Colorado.The vote on Amendment 48, the "personhood initiative," marked the first round of the civil rights movement's final battle. Colorado voters were asked to define all human beings, from the moment of fertilization, as "persons."

Amendment 48 made history as the first ballot initiative of its kind. It attempted to answer the question, when is a human being a person deserving of human rights?The personhood movement defied the odds to blossom in hostile territory – traditionally liberal Colorado. A small group of inspired and passionate people, led by 21-year-old law student Kristi Burton, dedicated themselves to the glorious principles our nation was founded upon and spearheaded a movement that mobilized half a million people.

The word "personhood" made national news and headlines around the country. The abortion debate began anew: "We want to grant rights to all human beings – including those most vulnerable – preborn children." The personhood fire began in Colorado and has now ignited personhood campaigns in 16 states.God often picks the least likely to move mountains, and so it seems with the personhood movement. Kristi Burton is a brave and courageous young woman who has already inspired an entire pro-life movement with her tireless fight in Colorado.Amendment 48 gained 27 percent of the vote in one of the most pro-abortion states in the Union. Amendment 48 introduced the idea of personhood for the preborn to the nation. Planned Parenthood found it necessary to earmark an immense sum – $3 million – to defeat Amendment 48. Why? Because Planned Parenthood knows that personhood will be its death knell and the death knell of the entire American pro-abortion movement.We are inspired by Kristi Burton's efforts in Colorado and plan to champion personhood movements at both the state and federal levels. Indeed, for the babies, personhood is the only defense against the dual threats posed by the Freedom of Choice Act, which President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to sign into law, and the Prevention First Act, which he cosponsored.These acts would eliminate the possibility of any incremental restrictions on abortion and leave us only one viable option to end the assault on human life: a personhood amendment to the United States Constitution.American Life League was co-founded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death.

For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942. "

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

American Life League:http://www.all.org/

Colorado for Equal Rights: http://www.coloradoforequalrights.com/

Before Commercialism swallows up your Christmas

I have a subscribers only article at the National Catholic Register with 25 ways to keep your Advent centered on Christ.

Dr James Dobson's reflections on an Obama presidency

Dr. James Dobson has aired a two-part radio program to respond to Tuesday's election results and he both lamented Barack Obama's victory and forecasted significant promotion of abortion. He says Obama's election could set the pro-life movement back 35 years.
Dobson told his listeners he is "in the midst of a grieving process" over Obama's election victory but only because of the impact it will have on the fight to protect human life.
"I'm not grieving over Barack Obama's victory, but over the loss of things that I've fought for 35 years," he said.

Read the entire story here.
Dr Dobson has the largest radio audience of any broadcaster in the world, and this Saturday, he will be inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Billy Graham won't advise Obama because of abortion

His son Franklin spoke for his father's concern over the issue of abortion when he said,
"President-elect Obama heard our position," Franklin Graham told the news service. "And I told him that this was very difficult for us and hard for us. It's a moral issue that we just can't back down on."
"But he's our president-elect, and those positions that he holds that are contrary to Biblical teaching, I hope that God will change his heart," Graham added.

Read the entire story at Life News.

A Timely Reminder from Fr Pavone that life didn't lose the election

only Republicans did. The pro-life movement is not dead, it was merely overlooked as Americans feared for their finances, and since I complain how half-heartedly it is championed by the Republicans, so, this is good to remember.
Father Pavone says “The vast majority of Americans are pro-life. They will fight abortion on the local level, opening pregnancy centers and closing abortion mills, activating their Churches and educating their children, proclaiming the message in the media and demonstrating in the streets. The pro-life movement is winning this battle in the hearts and minds of the American people, as opinion polls show and as the shrinking number of abortion mills and abortion providers prove.

“Political races are always a swinging of the pendulum. As soon as you win, you begin to lose, and as soon as you lose, you begin the ascent again to winning. In the next two election cycles (2010 and 2012) the pro-life movement will make up for political ground lost in this one.”
Read the entire story at the National Catholic Register.

A Word of Consolation from Fr. Corapi

THERE IS STILL A GOD IN HEAVEN!
The American people have now made it abundantly clear who they want to lead them, and the policies and practices that this president-elect has represented for some time they can now claim as their own.

Actions have consequences, and I am sure God has duly noted what our priorities are in the US of A. Economic matters would seem to take precedence over moral matters; money more important than life itself to most people. (I guess they don’t consider almost 50,000,000 innocent children murdered by abortion part of life).
Now we shall see what the fruit of such a tree will be. I predict that we won’t have to wait long. In recent months we have seen “corrections” in the stock market, housing market, and banking industries. Now we’ll see if God orchestrates a “correction” in a country and a world that has demonstrated quite clearly that it prefers convenience and wealth to life itself.
Regardless of whatever happens next, remember there is still a God in Heaven and He loves you. He is infinitely merciful—and He is infinitely just as well.

God Bless You
Fr. John Corapi

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

President Elect Obama

I am devastated beyond words.
I'll let Deacon Fournier do the talking at Catholic Online.
What is clear is that Barack Obama will now be my President as well as the President of all those who voted for him. I will pray for him and respect his office. I will do all that I can to influence him and his administration concerning the truth of this fundamental human right to life. I will also do something else.
I will join with others in building a new movement which recognizes the failures of both major political parties and seeks to build a new alliance of Americans. This alliance will insist upon the primacy of the fundamental human right to life - not as a single issue - but as the very framework and foundation of a truly just society. The movement to end legal abortion and recognize the right to life, at every age and stage, will not go away.
In fact, I predict that the election of this new President with such an extreme approach to this fundamental human rights issue assures a new birth of a new movement unlike this Nation has ever seen. So to my fellow Pro-life Americans who are tired, disappointed, distraught and dismayed, I say never lose hope. Our position concerning the humanity of children in the womb is revealed in the Natural Law and confirmed by medical science. It is true. It will be recognized and prevail as certainly as the truth concerning the intrinsic evil of slavery came to be recognized and prevailed in this Nation.
May God have mercy on this nation.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

BREAKING NEWS: Obama out to bankrupt coal industry!

Still want to vote for Obama in Pennysylvania, Ohio, and West Virgina?
Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that his clear air regulations will bankrupt coal plants. It's a scheme to fund clean energy development. Can you afford it?
Listen to the interview here.
HT Newsbusters

Bishop Rene Gracida's Radio Spot on Voting

Listen to his unequivocal message for the unborn, as he boldly states that Catholics may NOT vote for Barack Obama. BRAVO!
Bishop Gracida will be getting a call from Americans United soon.
May God bless him for his outspoken defense of life!

HT Randall Terry.com

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Miss America urges us to Vote Prolife since we are just one judge away from ending Roe

McCain leading in latest Zogby poll!!!!

Our prayers are working!
Dick Morris tells Newsmax that Friday night's polling for Zogby of 1,000 likely voters shows a huge shift for John McCain.
Zogby's poll, conducted on Friday night only, has McCain at 48 percent and Obama, at 47 percent.

Check it out here. at NewsMax.com
I voted in this poll, you can sign up to take Zogby polls on their website. It asks questions very objectively and obtains complete demographic data. It may be a sign that we are heading for victory.
Our Lady of Victory, pray for us!

Knights of Columbus details prolife victories

A message from the Knights of Columbus regarding the November 4 election

Dear friend of the unborn:
It has been a difficult struggle, but the pro-life movement has accomplished many things since the Supreme Court's decision to preempt all state and federal laws regulating abortion in Roe v. Wade in 1973. While achieving the ultimate goal of overturning Roe remains somewhere in the future, we have been able to achieve many small successes along the way:

• the Hyde Amendment, which restricts federal funding for abortions;

• the federal law banning partial birth abortions, which was finally upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2007;
• the "Mexico City Policy," which has barred the use of federal taxpayers' money to pay for abortions in other countries;
• laws in 44 states that preserve a parental role when children under 18 seek abortions;
• laws in 40 states that restrict late-term abortions;
• laws in 46 states that protect the right of conscience for individual health care providers;
• laws in 27 states that protect the right of conscience for institutions;• laws in 38 states that ban partial birth abortions;
• laws in 33 states that require counseling before having an abortion;
• and laws in 16 states that provide for ultrasounds before an abortion.All of these restrictions on abortion - all of the progress we've made over the past 35 years in trying to limit and reduce abortions in the United States - would be invalidated with the stroke of a pen if the next Congress passes, and the next president signs, the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA). Before you cast your vote on Tuesday, please take the time and effort necessary to learn whether candidates for whom you might vote favor or oppose FOCA.

The Senate sponsors of FOCA are listed here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR01964:@@@P
The House sponsors of FOCA are listed here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN01173:@@@PObviously , if a candidate in your area is not listed among the sponsors, you may have to ask his or her campaign for their position on FOCA.

We have gathered much additional information about the Freedom of Choice Act, including links to material from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and on life issues generally on a special Knights of Columbus web page:http://www.kofc.org/pro-lifeRemember, all that we've done together since Roe to save the lives of the unborn is at stake.
Please pass on this message to your pro-life friends.

Pray Pray Pray!

When I was attending President Bush's first inauguration in 2000 after the horrible debacle of an undecided election, my family stayed to attend the March for Life, as we always do on January 22. There was an announcement that those who belonged to "Lepanto 2000" should make themselves known, and the crowd came alive with cheers. Thousands of Catholics had prayed the rosary in imitation of the Rosary Campaign which saved Christendom from the Muslim invasion of Europe.
This is from the EWTN website.
Battle of Lepanto
On October 7, 1571, a great victory over the mighty Turkish fleet was won by Catholic naval forces primarily from Spain, Venice, and Genoa under the command of Don Juan of Austria. It was the last battle at sea between "oared" ships, which featured the most powerful navy in the world, a Musliml force with between 12,000 to 15,000 Christian slaves as rowers. The patchwork team of Catholic ships was powered by the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Knowing that the Christian forces were at a distinct material disadvantage, the holy pontiff, St. Pope Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory. We know today that the victory was decisive, prevented the Islamic invasion of Europe, and evidenced the Hand of God working through Our Lady. At the hour of victory, St. Pope Pius V, who was hundreds of miles away at the Vatican, is said to have gotten up from a meeting, went over to a window, and exclaimed with supernatural radiance: "The Christian fleet is victorious!" and shed tears of thanksgiving to God.
What you may not know is that one of three admirals commanding the Catholic forces at Lepanto was Andrea Doria. He carried a small copy of Mexico's Our Lady of Guadalupe into battle. This image is now enshrined in the Church of San Stefano in Aveto, Italy.
As many of you may know, President Bush had two favorable Supreme Court decisions which confirmed his election on December 8(The Immaculate Conception) and December 12 (Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe). Our Lady had him under her starry mantle. Read more here about how she may have touched Senator John McCain's life on the blog "Under Her Starry Mantle".
Another great article on the Battle of Lepanto and it's significance for this election is up at Catholic Exchange.
Sign up for Lepanto 2008 rosary campaign here.
We must stop the most pro-abortion presidential candidate in American history from gaining the White House. Watch this homily on what it means for a Catholic to vote for such a candidtate.

Anti-Catholicism in High Gear

ELECTION ISSUES SPARK VITRIOLIC RESPONSE

The Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion, and its endorsement of the pro-marriage resolution in California, Proposition 8, has triggered an avalanche of criticism, much of it vitriolic. Here is a sampling:

· The National Catholic Reporter blasts all the bishops—“Not one among the bishops has had the courage”—to take on pro-life Catholics who have allegedly “distorted” the abortion issue
· Rabbi Brad Hirschfield criticizes Cardinal Egan for being anti-abortion, saying, “We need to stop litmus testing each other over single issues” like abortion. “We”?
· Catholics for Choice says that pro-abortion Catholics “are in good company, and in good conscience” for rejecting the Church’s teaching on this subject
· Rev. Daniel Kanter, a Unitarian, says the Catholic Church “employs a measure of fear” to get Catholics to oppose abortion
· Rev. Jonathan Tran, a Baptist, opines, “If the Church doesn’t tell us what to do with our ballots…and genitalia, who will?” “Us”?
· Professor Frank K. Flinn says the Catholic Church has not always been opposed to abortion, implying that the Catholic Catechism, the bishops and the pope are all wrong
· Rev. Geoffrey Farrow, a gay priest, says the Catholic Church’s opposition to gay marriage represents a “hurtful” theology
· Atheos, a musician, says Proposition 8 “is nothing but Bigotry—good ol’ Christian bigotry”
· Los Angeles Times writer Steve Lopez says that “Speaking up for the dignity of gay people must be a greater sin than being accused of molesting minors”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds as follows:

“Even worse are American Atheists, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. All accuse the Catholic Church of abusing its power by favoring Proposition 8, yet none says anything about the more than 100 houses of worship and religious organizations which oppose it. Their hypocrisy is appalling.”

Fr Euteneuer commends bishops

Commending the Bishops

Faithful Catholics in the US have been both stunned and gratified by the recent show of episcopal strength in dealing with the heretical nonsense of "Catholics" in public life who clearly misrepresent the Church's teaching on vital issues. To date, more than fifty bishops have spoken out about this kind of misconduct or issued guidelines about voting at this critical juncture in our nation's history. The trend is truly heartening. Let's pray that it continues! Much more could be done, of course, but I am grateful that more bishops are standing up to strengthen and protect the faith of millions. Many have been longing for this show of valor from our fathers in the faith - and yes, they are our spiritual fathers. When they are strong, we are strong; and when they are weak - the flock is ravaged by wolves.

A few bishops deserve special mention. A good example is Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, CA, who stood up before the misnamed "Catholic Gay and Lesbian" conference last month and proclaimed the Church's natural law teaching that homosexual acts are mortal sins. A whole group walked out of his speech in protest, and he was reviled afterward for daring to present Catholic teaching to them. The organizer of the conference actually apologized to the attendees for the talk! Bishop Soto made no apologies though. Likewise, San Diego Auxiliary, Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, has been the strongest champion of the legal effort to define marriage as between one man and one woman to combat the radical homosexual lobby in California.

Nor can we fail to mention the strong pro-life stances of Archbishops Burke (now in Rome) and Chaput (Denver) as well as Bishops Vasa (Baker, OR), Farrell and Vann (Dallas, TX), Martino (Scranton, PA) and Mallooly (Wilmington, DE) who are representatives of a group of other bishops who have made their voices heard forcefully on the Catholic voting issue.

It is not just in the US, however, where bishops have been applying their authority in an astonishing fashion. Here are just a few more of the good things happening around the world in the episcopal college:

The Bishops of Canada issued a statement criticizing the bestowing of Canada's highest honor, the Order of Canada, on extreme abortionist Henry Morganthaler as if he were an example of all that makes Canada proud. Cardinal Turcotte of Montreal actually returned his own Order of Canada medal as a sign of protest to this mockery;
John Cardinal Njue of Nairobi, Kenya recently issued a marvelous, hard-hitting pastoral letter to his Archdiocese concerning the efforts to legalize abortion in that pivotal African country which to date has been such a stronghold against the culture of death;
The Philippines Episcopal Conference came out forcefully against the US- and UN-inspired Reproductive Health Bill which attempted to legalize every form of perversion on that Catholic populace; the bill was subsequently defeated but the bishops know that theirs is a regular battle in which they must engage for the souls of their people.
Thankfully, there are many more examples of episcopal courage that we could add to the reflections but suffice it to say that there seems to be a new wind blowing through the College of Bishops all around the world these days. Perhaps that wind is originating from Bavaria, but whatever its origin, let us continue to pray for our bishops and priests who are always on the firing line between the culture of life and the culture of death. We also need to thank them personally when they speak out in order to encourage them to do even more! Now that the example has been set, let us hope that other bishops and priests will have the audacity of our hope in Christ to go out and do the same!

Sincerely Yours in Christ,


Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International