Are you praying for Christopher Hitchens?

At the Cennacle Sunday talk given by Fr Bonaventure, FI at the Marian Friary of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Griswold, we were reminded of the conversion story of hardened atheist Alfonse Ratisbonne. His friend who had been praying for him for some time, asked him to sit in a church while he spoke to the priest in the sacristy.
When the man emerged, Ratisbonne had undergone a radical transformation, for he said, "how this man (his friend) has prayed for me". He became an ardent Catholic from that moment on, having received the extraordinary grace of instantaneous conversion and infused knowlege (he learned the truths of the Faith instantly from God, not through study).
That is what I am interceding to God for a radical conversion to Catholicism for  Christopher Hitchens, who wrote "God is not Good" and persists in his sinful denial of God's existence.
I want him to be a sign of contradiction which will bring many more atheists to Holy Mother Church.
His heart is touched by charity, I heard from a friend who had a chance to meet him alone.

Hitchens recently told the AP that the people praying for him fall into one of three groups. The first are those who delight in his suffering and might wish to hasten his death. The second are those who want Hitchens to have a conversion experience. And the third group consists of those who are asking God to heal him.

I think we should be praying for a radical conversion, then, if God wills it, a miraculous healing so that he can spend the rest of his long life as a sign of he power of God.
Read the entire article on Renew America.

Atheists target Catholics for good reason

Greg Craven, Vice Chancellor of the Catholic University takes aim at atheists with a bit of humor and salty language; Aussie style.

"The second wearying thing about the new atheism is that it is not new at all. It is so banally derivative of every piece of hate mail ever sent to God that I am amazed Satan has yet to sue for copyright infringement. No old chestnut is too ripe, rotten or sodden, especially when it comes to the Catholics as accredited suppliers of what apparently is the Christian equivalent of methamphetamine."

Catholics are targeted precisely because we stand for the truth which atheists work so hard to ignore. If they really believed in nothing they would casually ignore the Church. But they can't, our faith grates on them, and they must attack, obeying the voice of Screwtape.

Notice how many nasty atheists left comments on the article.

Read the entire article at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Americans United challenging Tax Exempt Status of Catholic Church

To my fellow Catholics, Americans United is threatening to attack the tax exemption of our Church. In the early days of my own work as a Constitutional lawyer, my Catholicism was a problem for Rev. Barry Lynn. Because of me, and others like me, he was unable to convince folks that all Christian people with whom he disagreed over the Right to Life and a host of other issues were “fundamentalists”. He wanted to denigrate us all by assigning us to what he hoped to argue was a small segment of Protestant Christianity, the "fundamentalists', who were a threat to the Republic. He failed then and he must fail now.
Read the entire story here.

PZ Meyers on the rampage again

This time he's attacking prolife pharmacist MikeKoelzer, owner of Kay Pharmacy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, stopped selling contraceptive products in 2002. He's been featured in The Washington Post and on ABC World News for his views on abortion-causing drugs. Myers' latest screed of religious intolerance on his blog Pharyngula incited an all-out internet attack against Koelzer. Threats and hate mail inundated Koelzer's e-mail after he inadvertently sent Myers a speaking invitation.
Read the entire story on Life Site News.

Fr Loya interviews blasphemous Professor Meyers

Click here and scroll down to listen to Fr. Loya's interview with University of Minnesota Professor Paul Zachary Meyers who has obtained several consecrated hosts with the intention of desecrating them in public on his blog.
HT Catholic Radio International.

How to speak to atheists

Talking with atheists is something I don't relish as much as I did in college, where we'd have long debates over dinner in the cafeteria. . .maybe it's because I don't have as much time as I did then, but Jen Fulweiler of Et Tu, a former atheist, in her article suggests that atheists are getting bolder as they seem to have the upper hand in recent days.
"Atheism is a strong and growing influence in our culture. You can see it everywhere from the bestseller table at your local bookstore to the Darwin-mutated Jesus fish on the car in traffic in front of you. Atheists are comfortable declaring themselves atheists, comfortable promoting atheism, and comfortable decrying religion, which, according to some of the more prominent atheists, resides on the list of mankind's blessings somewhere between diphtheria and Nazism.

And now that we're encountering it more often, Christians sometimes find themselves ill-prepared to deal with this kind of muscular atheism. Especially for lifelong Christians, atheist arguments are so foreign that they don't know how to respond, and too often lapse into anger ("How dare you?!") or fear ("What if they're right?!"), neither of which does anyone any good, harming the Christian's witness and leaving the atheist firmly entrenched in his atheism. "
Prepare yourself for being drawn into such a discussion, it may come sooner that you think. As 1 Peter 15 says, we must always be ready to give the reason for our hope.
HT Holy Spirit Interactive

Atheist Billboard

Good thing they are not alone, they are going to need a friend when they appear before the thone of God and He says "I don't know you".

The History of Eugenics is in "Expelled"

The dark history of the shameful movement underpinning the biggest human atrocities of the 20th century was powerfully outlined by Ben Stein in his important documentary which is a must-see for anyone serious about science, about faith, and about freedom. See the trailer here.
Did I leave anybody out?

Stein followed the scientific community's lockstep loyalty to Darwinism backwards in time, and ended up at the Nazi gas chambers, which first killed disabled people. They were just practicing Darwinism, by speeding up the process of natural selection, formerly called survival of the fittest, by eliminating "useless eaters". Society bought into this toxic mentality because it came from doctors and scientists.
He followed their trail to Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who was a dedicated eugenicist, working overtime to rid the world of people like my immigrant grandparents. While she was ostensibly offering women choice, secretly she was seeking to rid American society of the 'unfit'. More Darwinism in action. We are still in the midst of the nightmare of Sanger's legacy; 46 million Americans have died of abortion, far surpassing the darkest dreams of Hitler and Stalin together.
Ben Stein did us the invaluable favor of holding a spotlight of truth on some of society's darkest secrets, and those valiant scientists who have dared to reveal them to academia. They were expelled from their positions and blacklisted from obtaining further employment. Oxbridge and Ivy League graduates who have produced world renowned work. They mentioned Intelligent Design once and they were gone. Nothing but strict Darwinism will be tolerated by academics. What happened to scientific inquiry and academic freedom?

Stein then exposed the utterly laughable theories of scientists who would rather make up some fairy tale about Extra Terrestrials coming to earth and planting "human seeds" from which we emerged, to life's beginnings as molecules bumping together as they "rode the backs of crystals".
With his trademark aplomb and vintage film clips adding humor and highlighting the outrageous statements captured by his camera, Ben Stein has created a classic which will one day be appreciated, as the film that drew society bent on self-destruction, back from the precipice.
If it's not too late.
If we continue to allow ourselves to be dominated by militantly atheistic scientists whose agenda blinds them to the fact that evolution is a 150 year old theory which has NOT withstood scientific advances, we will find ourselves in a totalitarian state. The scientists themselves admitted on camera that they wish to destroy the power religion holds on culture, and relegate it to an innocuous hobby, like knitting.
Global warming and political correctness will have replaced the Judeo-Christian belief in the dignity of man, the pinnacle and master of God's creation. We will find ourselves enslaved to a materialistic ideology. Our very right to exist will be determined by what the powerful consider a worthwhile contribution to society, against our carbon footprint. Many of us may not make the cut.
Terri Schiavo didn't.
46 million unborn American didn't.
See "Expelled" before it is banned by the Obama administration.

Confirmation: "The Golden Compass" disappoints

They have $350 million to recoup, and they made less than $30 million this weekend, not a good sign. This is the company that made "Lord of the Rings"
They needed it to be that popular, or like "Harry Potter",which is obviously what they expected, so this is a blow. Here's a story about it.
I don't know if the protests kept people away, or the fact that it was panned by many secular critics. Either way, I am relieved that fewer children will fall prey to Pullman's lies.
Leticia

Search for the Truth brings famous atheist to Faith in God

"One was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe. The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself - which is far more complex than the physical Universe - can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source."
Flew described the deity he believes in as "the god of Aristotle," not quite the personal God of Christianity and Judaism, "a person but not the sort of person with whom you can have a talk. It is the ultimate being, the Creator of the Universe." He said he does not "accept any claim of divine revelation" but is continuing to study them, particularly those of Christianity.
HT Religion and Spirituality.com
This is a classic case of seeing a design in the universe which points to a designer. HBO just aired a documentary which mocks this viewpoint, and refers to the Discovery Institute which advances this discussion as a dangerous agent of manipulation of our faith in Darwin. How medieval of them to fear an honest discussion on a 150 year old theory which is getting so rickety, that it no longer works without strict adherence!
I have heard it said that it takes more faith t0 believe in Darwinism than to believe that God created the universe. Michael Behe, a Professor of Biophysics at Lehigh University, in his book "Darwin's Black Box" debunks the theory in one simple example; the flagellum of a microorganism. This propelling tail will not work until every single cell is perfectly in line. Without it the organism can't find food, and wouldn't survive. According to the theory of evolution, this organism developed by trial and error into what it is, which means that for thousands of years, it would have to survive and reproduce without the tail. This is clearly impossible. This theory of irreducable complexity proposed by "Darwin's Black Box", has been described as, "the straw that broke the camel's back" or the end to the theory of evolution, IF evolutionists will stop hiding from it.
A true scientist would not fear entering into a debate like this, but according to the HBO special, evolutionary scientists are 'bad communicators who don't want to be bothered debating this issue with laymen who propose the theory of Intelligent Design. Especially not when they see what happens when scientists like Anthony Flew are open to the truth.

Need money? Write an Atheistic Book

"That a teaching is sublime and sustaining does not make it true. But that, along with its service in laying the moral foundations in the Western world for the belief in the dignity of all men and women--a belief that our new new atheists take for granted and for which they provide no compelling alternative foundation--is reason enough to give the variety of religions a fair hearing. And it is reason enough to respect believers as decent human beings struggling to make sense of a mysterious world."

Opinion Journal. com


This is an allusion to the Natural Law, a Catholic belief that the laws of God are written into the souls of men, for example, the belief in the dignity of man.

The Secularists are Sharing Secrets

Not that this is surprising, since they have the same boss, but it's amusing to see the other side mirroring itself halfway around the world. Bishop Thomas Tobin of Rhode Island is being threatened for his criticism of Rudy Guiliani's pro-abortion position, and threatened with revocation of his tax-exempt status by People for the American Way.

Over in Australia, Cardinal George Pell, is being similarly threatened for his remarks that Catholic politicians who support infanticide should not receive Holy Communion. I love Pell's response, it's a model for bishops.
“In a free society, anti-Christians like the Green, Lee Rhiannon, have every right to express their views,” Cardinal Pell said.
“However, there is a whiff of Stalinism or perhaps only of Henry the Eighth in her attempt to use this referral as a ‘warning’ to me.
“I respect parliamentary procedures and would be privileged to appear before the committee if necessary, to resist this clumsy attempt to curb religious freedom and freedom of speech.”
Source: New Oxford Review

Let's make it crystal clear to our critics, before we find ourselves in the camp of the compromisers. If we start equivocating, we will have to answer at the end of our lives before the Judgement Seat of Jesus Christ.
WE WILL NOT BE MOVED FROM OUR DEFENSE OF HUMAN LIFE AND
OF THE SACRED BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST!!