Abuse victim in Malta: Pope Benedict XVI is a 'saint' :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

When you cut through the 40 year old abuse cases, and talk with the Holy Father face to face, you see the compassion of the man in our Church who did the most to clean up the mess he didn't create: Pope Benedict XVI.
 May the abuse victims see what Joseph saw in him and find the grace to forgive  and move on.
May the rest of the Church hierarchy learn from the Holy Father to see the pain in the victims' eyes, and let it guide their actions in the future. No more winking at sin and passing the trash. There are real lives at stake, and eternal souls in the balance.
And may the media see the plank in their own eye; the rampant abuse in the public sector, before they point out once again the sins of the Church. Enough of this hypocrisy!

Abuse victim in Malta: Pope Benedict XVI is a 'saint' :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

In defense of our beloved shepherd, Pope Benedict

I am breaking my Holy Week fast from blogging for an important article which clears up the vile allegations of the New York Times. This article from Life Site News from the priest who was in charge of the Fr Murphy case, sets the record straight, and accuses the Times of sloppy journalism. In 1996, two decades after the last allegations of abuse by Fr. Murphy were made, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (then run by Cardinal Ratzinger) was informed of the accusations. The CDF instructed the local diocese to begin canonical proceedings against the priest. In the end, however, the recommendation was made by the CDF, due to Fr. Murphys extremely poor health, simply to restrict his pastoral activities, and he died several months later.


The NYTimes, however, has charged the CDF, and Pope Benedict himself, with having failed to take the case seriously, and of having declined to defrock the priest, “even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church.”
But Brundage has come to the defense of the pope, writing that "has done more than any other pope or bishop in history to rid the Catholic Church of the scourge of child sexual abuse and provide for those who have been injured."

It seems there may be an agenda afoot. . .don't you think it suspicious that the dirty tricks happened when the Church nearly succeeded in blocking the largest expansion of abortion in our time, in the health care bill?

Freedom speech and religious liberty to be curtailed by PBS

PBS doesn't fool me; whenever I see wonderful Catholic concerts like "The Priests" I know they are fundraising. Catholics are impressed and send money, then, the following week the gay and lesbian shows take the place of the Three Tenors. Bait and switch. This is how PBS really feels about religious content; it is to be eliminated.
from Focus on the Family

Take Action: PBS May Crack Down on Religious Content

Thirty-nine members of Congress have sent a letter to PBS Chairman John Porter expressing concern about a proposal that would strip affiliation from any station that carries “sectarian” content, such as local religious services. The board plans to vote on the issue June 16.
The lawmakers wrote: "There simply is no compelling reason for punishing these stations by forcing them to choose between programming that many depend on ... and the PBS affiliation."
The letter asks Porter to allow a 30-day public comment period.
"Forcing stations to ban religious programming or lose their affiliation treats religion like some kind of disease," said Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst at Focus on the Family Action. "That is absurd, considering 65 percent of Americans report that religion is important in their daily lives, and 3 out of 4 say Christianity is their religious preference."
TAKE ACTIONPlease ask PBS Chairman John Porter to allow affiliated stations to continue to air religious programming. You can e-mail him or call him.
(703) 739-5051
— Roger Greer

Pope Benedict praised women in Jordan Mass

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the importance of a topic and my inablity to cover it sufficiently here, therefore, I just cover the bits of the news, like the Holy Father's visit to the Holy Land which inspire my comments.
Like his address to women. When a pope has traditonal values on morality (surprise!) he is trashed as a misanthrope, a patriarchal neanderthal. So, New York Times, listen to his homily at a Mass in Jordan.
"How much your society owes to all those women who in different and at times courageous ways have devoted their lives to building peace and fostering love! From the very first pages of the Bible, we see how man and woman, created in the image of God, are meant to complement one another as stewards of God's gifts and partners in communicating his gift of life, both physical and spiritual, to our world. Sadly, this God-given dignity and role of women has not always been sufficiently understood and esteemed. The Church, and society as a whole, has come to realize how urgently we need what the late Pope John Paul II called the "prophetic charism" of women (cf. Mulieris Dignitatem, 29) as bearers of love, teachers of mercy and artisans of peace, bringing warmth and humanity to a world that all too often judges the value of a person by the cold criteria of usefulness and profit. By its public witness of respect for women, and its defence of the innate dignity of every human person, the Church in the Holy Land can make an important contribution to the advancement of a culture of true humanity and the building of the civilization of love."
Read the entire homily at Zenit.

Jay Lenno to host Feminist Majority Fundraiser

Feminist Majority just had a protest the Crisis Pregnancy Center protest day because they want them shut down. Now Jay Lenno is doing a fundraiser on April 29 to help them with their evil agenda to promote abortion and take help away from women in crisis pregnancies.
"Although Leno isn’t known for promoting abortion on his program, his wife Mavis is a long-time board member of the pro-abortion group.
"Our current conservative, religious government is obsessed with women on life support and with fetuses because they are imaginary people," she complained in 2005 about the administration of President Bush and his support for unborn children and Terri Schiavo.

ACTION: Contact NBC CEO Jeff Zucker at jeff.zucker@nbc.com or 212-664-2830. You can mail the Jay Leno program c/o NBC, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112. To send an email to the Leno program, go to:http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/about/contact.shtml
Read the entire story at Life News.

Where's the Dignity" by Helen Alvare

Helen Alvare from the Culture of Life Foundation writes a compelling article explaining how a mother having babies turns into an embarassing media circus.
Where’s the Dignity? Mother of Fourteen Becomes’ Media’s “Octomom”

by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
The headlines blared “Octomom fell fast from miracle mom to punch line,” and “Octomom erupts.” The stories were referring to a woman, Nadya Suleman, who had given birth to eight living babies by means of in vitro fertilization using donor sperm. The search for the identity of the father was not long in coming: “Man Gave Sperm 3 Times, Believes He May Be Octuplets’ Dad” (followed by the subheading: Tune in to ABC News’ “Good Morning America” Monday Feb. 23 to learn the identity of the man who possibly fathered the Suleman octuplets.”) This was followed by the response headline: “Octo-Mom: He’s Not the Dad” a story which ended with the observations “But it looks like his 15 minutes of fame are over before they began!” Social networking websites are hosting “clubs” supporting or bashing Ms. Suleman, and a YouTube music video features a Suleman impersonator spewing babies while a doctor catches them in a baseball glove.
Where’s the dignity of new life in this story? Where’s the dignity of motherhood and of the family? Surveying the media carnage, there doesn’t seem to be a shred of dignity left to anyone involved with this story. We have an impoverished, multiparous, single mother with a baby-fetish, in an impoverished extended family, who meets up with an irresponsible fertility doctor willing to implant more embryos than can ordinarily safely develop or be carried to term. If you think about the scenario a bit more deeply, it is not difficult to conclude that once law and society allow human conception to take place in a retail setting, outside of an intimate marital relationship, and thus vulnerable to the tender mercies of the “laws” of the market and of fallible human desires, it’s not at all surprising that mothers and their children so conceived would be treated as legitimate objects of public commentary, scrutiny and even scorn. Decisions about how many children to have, whether to bear them serially or all at once, how to conceive them, who will be the daddy, and whether or not to get married first, all become like “preferences,” any of which can be acted upon legally, and each of which might alternatively appeal to or disgust different onlookers.
In the United States, state and federal lawmakers have contributed importantly to this state of affairs by deciding not to decide. They have not taken the trouble discern or to form any social consensus about the wisdom of any of these “preferences.” Unlike their behavior in other areas of the law involving children, they have not even mandated a floor below which adults’ behavior may not fall – a floor ordinarily called the “best interests of the child.” All has been left to the market to decide. And not surprisingly, the adults who constitute and run the market – and who influence the lawmakers -- have decided both that they want babies technologically if they have difficulty bearing them naturally, and that there’ s a boatload of money to be made providing babies to would-be parents. Experts estimate the size of the U.S. fertility industry to be in the billions of dollars. (see Debora Spar, The Baby Business: How Money, Politics and Commerce Drive the Science of Conception (2006)). Thus no state has any law restricting the use of assisted reproduction to married versus single persons, or restricting the number of embryos that may safely be artificially implanted into a woman. All of this has brought us to the question with which I began this paragraph: “where’s the dignity?”
The short answer is that human dignity cannot be destroyed. We are made in God’s image and likeness and can never become in essence “contemptible.” Nadya Suleman and her children are human beings made in God’s image and likeness. But indeed their dignity has sadly been obscured. In the case of the children, it has been assaulted from the beginning of their very existence.
The Suleman story and the public’s vociferous response helps us understand quite clearly why the Vatican’s recent instruction (December 2008) about technological interventions upon nascent human life, was entitled Dignitatis Personae, On the Dignity of the Human Person. What is at stake is nothing less when technology intervenes in human procreation. The instruction reminds us that the dignity of every human person is real but fragile. So fragile that it is very easy for even a brilliant scientist or loving, would-be parents, to misunderstand or ignore it. Humanity’s capacity for moral understanding, and for love and disinterested sacrifice, images but cannot equal God’s.
Which is why social practices and laws need to work hard to affirm and promote this dignity. Particularly to recognize the demonstrable fact that children’s and parents’ dignity is naturally upheld when procreation takes place via an act of love between committed, married parents. Consider just three aspects of this dignity that are naturally upheld when the latter situation obtains: the children are “made by love,” the only fit beginning for a human being, and within a setting naturally inclined to provide them the long-term and intensive care that human infants require. The child knows both of his or her parents, and has before him or her, an example of committed love by which to understand God’s love and to learn how to love others in the world. Finally, natural conceptions result usually in one or several children who can be carried safely to term. Questions about how many children parents decide to have, the “safety” of the method of conception for both the child and the parents, and the desirability of the “family form” into which the child is brought are almost never troubling. The law responds to this by easily leaving these matters to the natural and private choices of the parents. The parents’ and children’s dignity is almost never called into question by outsiders.
Now contrast this setting with laboratory assisted conception. The latter setting raises red flags at every turn. For example, the twin rate for assisted conception patients in the year 2000 reached 444.7 per 1000 live births; the triplet rate in 2000 was 98.7 per 1000 live births. (see Trends in Multiple births Conceived using Assisted Reproductive Technologies, United States: 19970-2000, 111 Pediatrics 1159 (May 2003)) When the number of unborn children conceived artificially is sufficiently high, doctors will recommend, even insist upon, “selective reduction” (abortion of one or more of the gestating children) Doctors encourage women to accept the implantation of multiple embryos so that the fertility clinics’ “success rates” will appear high. But multiple conceptions are dangerous for the babies involved and for their mothers, and raise the question of parents’ entire original disposition toward these new lives they are carrying. Recent findings indicated that even “singleton” pregnancies via IVF carry higher risks for the child’s well-being as compared with natural conceptions. (See Gina Kolata, Picture Emerging on Genetic Risks of IVF, New York Times, February 16, 2009) Finally, childbearing outside of marriage is closely associated with difficulties for mothers and children. It is robustly correlated with poverty and with emotional and educational difficulties for the children. Planned single-parenthood, costing thousands of dollars (millions in the case of the Suleman octuplets; see Kim Yoshina and Jessica Garrison, Octuplets could be costly for taxpayers, Los Angeles Times, Feb.11, 2009) and months of efforts, seems even more quixotic, more apparently adverse to the children’s best interests in the eyes of many.
Is it any wonder then that a pregnancy that began without due respect for the dignity of the lives involved would come to be associate with a most undignified media circus. Or that the public felt free to question whether a person who appeared to act like a “consumer” respecting children, made the right “consumer decisions?” They asked whether she had a right to have so many children in a world of limited resources, whether the children should receive any public monies, and whether the medical provider had a right to offer such services? Because human procreation has been reduced to a commodity for purchase questions particularly about the number of children per family can almost appear reasonable.
Dignitatis Personae urges us to “recognize[] the legitimacy of the desire for a child and understand[] the suffering of couples struggling with problems of fertility.” But it reminds us that “[s]uch a desire… should not override the dignity of every human life to the point of absolute supremacy. The desire for a child cannot justify the “production” of offspring….”
The Suleman saga makes manifest the assault on the dignity of human live brought about by assisted reproduction. It allows us to see clearly the risks of abandoning the natural protections for dignity offered by marital procreation. It alerts us to the inadequacy of our current laws and policies for shielding fragile human dignity. Lawmakers may respond to this current saga with proposals for restricting the simultaneous creation high numbers of embryos, or limiting the numbers of embryos which may be transferred into a woman’s uterus, or even restricting such technology to married or working parents (though I seriously doubt the latter). Such a response would be useful, but inadequate for protecting the full measure of dignity granted by God to each human person, but it would be better than this sorry state of affairs. Human beings deserve always to be brought into existence through a personal act of marital love.
(c) 2009 The Culture of Life Foundaiton. Reproduction granted with attribution required.

Our Tax Dollars funding anti-Catholic video

from the Catholic League

LINK TV MOCKS CATHOLICISM;
VIDEO PRODUCED WITH FEDERAL FUNDS

On February 3, Link TV featured a three and a half minute video that mocks Catholicism. The media outlet is available as a basic service in more than 31 million homes that receive direct broadcast satellite TV.

The video, “Divine Food,” opens with a priest waking up to a rumbling noise that shakes the religious symbols and statues in his room. He proceeds to a Catholic church where he discovers several wafers near a cup (the implication is that they are consecrated Hosts). In a disrespectful manner, he chews them vigorously and then admonishes the statues that are “looking at him.” He falls asleep in the church and when awakened he is asked to say Mass, which he refuses to do. The priest then makes large wafers out of dough and gives the pancake-like substance (which he calls the “Body of Christ”) to confused parishioners at Communion. The video ends when he drops the remaining “Hosts” into a dirty aquarium.

Here is what Catholic League president Bill Donohue said about it:

“This video first aired last summer, right after a professor from the University of Minnesota intentionally desecrated the Eucharist. Now it’s being shown again. At first we thought this was just another loony attack, but then we found out that Link TV is funded by foundations that support anti-Catholicism. To wit: the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and George Soros’ Open Society Institute all fund Link TV, and all are generous contributors to Catholics for Choice, a notoriously anti-Catholic front group. Worse, of the three co-producers of the video, one of them—ITVS—is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a public entity.

“So here we have the urbane bigots in the foundation world, and a taxpayer-funded organization, underwriting anti-Catholicism. We will ask Link TV to pull the video. We hope we don’t have to do more.”

Contact Link TV media head, Julia Pacetti: jpacetti@linktv.org. We’ll contact the others involved. To see the video, click here.

Dems in bed with sympathetic media

from Brent Bozell at the Media Research Center:
I've just received shocking news that demands immediateaction by every member of our MRC Action team.
Tuesday, Politico broke the news that ABCNews' George Stephanopoulosis currently conducting private, daily phone briefings with Obamachief of staff Rahm Emanuel. CNN's Paul Begala, James Carville and pollster Stan Greenberg are also involved.

Imagine the liberal media's reaction if Brit Hume or Rush Limbaugh had been conducting daily strategy briefings with George Bush's chief of staff!

This is the height of irresponsible journalism! What could be worse than the liberal media's sycophantic coverage of President Barack Obama? ABC's George Stephanopoulos actively helping design and deliver the administration's strategy and message -which he is then charged with reporting. Will he be critical ofthe White House's plans when he spends mornings helping to craft them?+ +
Urgent Action Item
Clearly, journalistic lines have been crossed -- especially by Stephanopoulos who presents himself as a credible journalist and not a partisan commentator.That is why I am asking every member of the MRC Action team totake immediate action right now.
Here's how you can directly impact this breaking situation:
++ Call ABC News
take a moment to contact ABC News and express outrage that one of their so-called journalists is involved in daily planning meetings with the White House. Demand that he recuse himself from any reporting involving the Obama Administration. Here is the number to call the contacts below: 202-222-7700
George Stephanopoulos
Ariane De Vogue,
News Producer
Mary Walsh, News Producer
Toni Wilson, News Producer

After making your phone calls, please click here so that I can count your calls. I'd like to be able to report on our efforts.http://www.mrcaction.org/r.asp?U=15909&CID=500&RID=18278804

++ Alert your Friends we can't allow this outrageous affront to go unchallenged!
That's why, after making your calls, I'm urging you to forward this message.
So, Rush and other conservatives must be silent and Obama's pit bull Emmanuel will give daily marching orders to his version of PRAVDA, the sympathetic left-wing media.
If this doesn't send a chill up your spine, WAKE UP!!

Why the media block out the March for Life by a journalist

"one could argue that the fact that tens of thousands of people have been descending on Washington on January 22nd for 35 years is, in itself, a remarkable achievement which should at least be acknowledged by the major news outlets.
By ignoring the March for Life, the news media do a grave disservice to the public. Viewers have a right to know that thousands of their friends and neighbors find it important enough to miss work and school one day each year in a show of solidarity against abortion. "
That's why I'll be working on my article about the March tomorrow.

Read the entire story at Life News.

Washington Times on lack of media interest in March for Life

One of the most important reasons I attend the March for Life is to cover it for you who can't make it there. We were told that the crowd of 300,000 was one of the largest ever, yet we barely make the obituary pages in mainstream press.

At least the Washington Times has the honesty to discuss the issue, but their article leaves me wondering; where are the photos of the hundreds of thousands of marchers? Their photo of Nellie Gray makes her look as lonely as the ten pro-aborts whose photos keep popping up in the photo gallery.

No paper I have read has the sense of fairness to show the impressive shot of the March filling Constitution Avenue from Capitol Hill.

Tell Obama you oppose FOCA on CNN tonight!

Larry King will have Obama live on his show on CNN tonight at 8PM.
This may be the only time he has to listen to us. Email CNN telling them to ask whether Obama would approve FOCA.
Read the entire story at Faith and Family Live

Watch and see why isn't Ann Coulter allowed on CBS?

Watch CBS Videos Online

The Holy Father's Christmas gift to the Church: The Inconvenient Truth

"In thousands of news articles and talk shows around the world today from Bulgaria to India, Pope Benedict XVI is being bashed for daring to say we should care as much for mankind as the tropical rainforests; that the harm caused by going against the Creator's plan for human sexuality is destructive and hurtful. In truth, he is being pilloried for having enough love to tell his brothers and sisters struggling with same-sex attraction, promiscuity, pornography, adultery and more, that their behavior is hurting them and society at large. It is hurting them physically, psychologically, but most importantly - hurting them spiritually. "

Life Site News

When a father sees his beloved children committing moral suicide, he tells them. He tells them, knowing that they most likely will scoff at him, tell him to mind his own business, or possibly get downright abusive in return.
Such has happened to our beloved Pope Benedict in return for his wisdom on the sins of the flesh, which Our Lady of Fatima told the children a century ago, led more people to hell than any other. He is speaking the truth in love. And because truth is so obscured by the mainstream press, and hated by the world, the virulent reaction should as no surprise to us. It merely indicates the necessity of the warning; if we continue to spit at God's gift of married love, through extra marital sexual relations, we are sowing the seeds of not only our own destruction, but the downfall of Western Civilization. It happened to Rome.

And about the rainforests; they come under the same category as the liberal hypocrisy about smoking; these are mere distractions to make them seem morally righteous while they destroy their lives through promiscuity. And those of the poorly catechized Catholics who follow their lead. If you are dying of AIDS, quitting smoking won't save you, but a good confession will prepare you for eternity. That's why Mother Teresa and Cardinal O'Connor set up the first AIDS hospice in New York City in the 80's. Catholics not only speak the truth in love, but we pick up the pieces afterward when our brothers and sisters are suffering the physical, spiritual, and emotional devastation of disobeying God's laws. Cardinal O'Connor also set up a religious order, the Sisters of Life, to care for mothers in crisis pregnancies, and for victims of "choice", those suffering the trauma of post abortion syndrome.

Gay bashers we are not. Fr Paul Harvey and Fr Benedict Groeschel have organized "Courage" to help those with same-sex attraction overcome their addiction and lead chaste, happy lives full of wholesome relationships with man and God.

God bless Pope Benedict and the leaders of the Catholic Church and Pastor Rick Warren for daring to speak the truth on this crucial issue of our times. Let's do our best to support them in their mission to save humanity from itself, on the very feast of the birth of our Blessed Saviour.
Read the entire story on Life Site News.

NY Times upset over Vatican prolife document

John Allen Jr in an Op-Ed says that Obama may have more issues on which he agrees with the Vatican than President Bush, but that the Vatican coming out with a clarification on life issues at the beginning of the Obama reign, is like shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.
In the ’08 elections, pro-life Catholics emerged as the dominant voice of the religious right. To be sure, Mr. Obama won a majority among Catholics. Yet the sharpest anti-Obama rhetoric from religious leaders came not from old culture warriors like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson but rather from some Catholic clergymen.
Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Mo., for example, warned voters that their eternal salvation might be at stake if they supported Mr. Obama. A couple of pro-life priests even suggested that Catholics who voted for Mr. Obama should go to confession. (Their bishops, it should be said, quickly rejected that idea.)
Cardinal Francis Stafford, a former archbishop of Denver who today heads a Vatican court, described Mr. Obama’s rhetoric on abortion as “aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic,” and compared the election results to the Garden of Gethsemane — the spot where, according to the Bible, Jesus agonized before his crucifixion.
In that context, “Dignitas Personae” risks being read as encouragement for the most ardent pro-life forces in America to let slip the dogs of war.
They are right, of course, the timing is bad. It should have come out three months ago, during the election, maybe things would have turned out differently if Catholics had life issues instead of money on their minds in the voting booth.
Don't worry, Mr Allen, the dogs of war are making plans to attend the March for Life to welcome our new president.
Read the entire article here.

Vatican issues reproductive technology/stem cell guidelines

I was gratified to be listening to Dom Giordano's show on the talk radio called "The Big Talker" 1210 AM in Philadelphia all the way up here in CT (don't ask me how I got that station when I can't get NYC stations). Dom Giordano interviewed Cardinal Justin Rigali on these new guidelines. He was graciously offering the Cardinal time to explain how "the Church is a friend to science"and welcomes the many cures already attributed to ADULT stem cells. This invterview was filmed by Fox News and will be televised shortly. Listen to another of his interviews of Cardinla Rigali here.
He is an intelligent Catholic who uses his show to highlight the truths of the Church's stand on the life issues. Would that Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly were this Catholic.
Don't miss this broadcast. It's one of very few times that a crystal clear description of Church teaching on bioethics is presented to a secular audience without any hostility on the part of the host. Savor this broadcast, it may become even rarer in the future.

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

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

ABC blocks prolife ads

There is a trend lately on YouTube, and mainstream media outlets to block the truth about Obama's pro-abortion record from reaching the American people.
After rejecting a radio commercial exposing Barack Obama's pro-abortion position, the ABC network has rejected a second ad. This one, sponsored by the Caring Outreach, has nothing to do with politics but is a 30-second television ad that features information on fetal development.
The group put together an ad entitled 85 Days that depicts intrauterine photos of an unborn baby in the first months of life.
The group tells LifeNews.com that the ad was slated to air on the Oprah program this month, but it has yet to appear during the program.
Read the entire story on LifeNews.

Robert Novak retires with malignant brain tumor

"Novak is a devout Catholic Christian who openly shares about his conversion to Catholicism and subsequent Baptism (along with his wife)at St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1998. Along with that story he details his full and fascinating life as a journalist and commentator in his must read book entitled “The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington.”
Never one to shy away from controversy, Novak has also been a strong defender of the unborn and a courageous advocate for the right to life. He is known mostly for his syndicated columns, written for the Chicago Sun-Times and his long time presence on TV’s “Crossfire”.
He has the courage to 'tell it like is it' and makes me proud to be a Catholic journalist.
May God restore him to health.
HT Catholic Online

John Allen's Op-Ed on Humanae Vitae in the NYTimes

The encyclical which was so widely opposed is now more relevant than ever. Who knew?
The Holy Spirit did, when he inspired Pope Paul VI, that's who!
"So the future of “Humanae Vitae” as the teaching of the Catholic Church seems secure, even if it will also continue to be the most widely flouted injunction of the church at the level of practice.
The encyclical’s surprising resilience is a reminder that forecasting the Catholic future in moments of crisis is always a dangerous enterprise — a point with relevance to a more recent Catholic predicament. Many critics believe that the church has not yet responded adequately to the recent sex-abuse scandals, leading to predictions that the church will “have to” become more accountable, more participatory and more democratic.
While those steps may appear inevitable today, it seemed unthinkable to many observers 40 years ago that “Humanae Vitae” would still be in vigor well into the 21st century. "

Read the entire article here.

HT Curt Jester