We're starting to make headway

When Dr Caplan of the University of Penn went to Ireland, he saw unusual faces. No, not just because they were Irish, but because Ireland doesn't do abortions, Dr Caplan saw children and adults with Down sydnrome. It struck him that he doesn't see them here in the US, or in Europe where the abortion rate tops 90%.
And he reflects that we are poorer for it. Well done.

As some families with a Down syndrome child have noted, fewer kids with Down may mean fewer public programs, fewer resources in schools and for housing and less political clout. If some genetic diseases begin to fade away, will society’s willingness to provide support for the diminishing numbers of those born with such diseases fade as well? And are we headed to a time when parents who choose not to be genetically tested find themselves condemned as morally irresponsible parents?

Bravo Sarah and Bristol Palin, for taking the vitriol you took for criticizing that vile episode of Family Guy which mocked your darling Trig. You started the discussion that gets the Ivy Leaguers thinking thoughts about where eugenic abortions are taking us as a society, yet I wonder; who was the ignorant one who needed education?
Read the entire column at MSNBC.

Universities must reflect the Truth

Read the entire story on CNS.

Notre Dame finds its pro-life voice; better late than never?

John Francis Borra quoted Law Professor Dr Charles Rice, a lifetime pro-lifer's letter to President Jenkins who suddenly feels the urge to attend the March for Life after 36 years, as charges are still pending against pro-lifers who protested the abortionist in chief's triumphant ride into Notre Dame where he received ovations and honors.


This is not an ordinary case of trespass to land such as would occur if a commuter walks across your lawn and flower bed as a short-cut to the train station. Notre Dame is ordinarily an open campus. Those 88 persons, 82 of whom are represented by Tom Dixon, ND ’84, ND Law School ’93, were arrested not because they were there, but because of who they were, why they were there and what they were saying. Other persons with pro-Obama signs were there but were not arrested and not disturbed. Serious legal and constitutional questions are involved, arising especially from the symbiotic relationship between the Notre Dame Security Police, who made the arrests, and the County Police.
This letter is not a legal brief. Rather I merely note that it is disingenuous for Notre Dame to pretend that this is merely a routine trespass case.Elsewhere in his letter, Dr. Rice alludes to Jenkins' pride, hypocrisy and contempt for the faithful:Please permit me to speak bluntly about your announced purpose to participate in the March for Life and to “invite other members of the Notre Dame Family to join me.” Notre Dame should have had an official presence at every March for Life since 1973. But until now it never has.
Notre Dame students, with the encouragement of Campus Ministry, participate in the March but the University, as such, has not done so. To put it candidly, it would be a mockery for you to present yourself now at the March, even at the invitation of Notre Dame students, as a pro-life advocate while, in practical effect, you continue to be the jailer, as common criminals, of those persons who were authentic pro-life witnesses at Notre Dame. When the pictures of Fr. Weslin’s humiliation and arrest by your campus police was flashed around the world it did an incalculable damage to Notre Dame that can be partially undone only by your public and insistent request, as President of Notre Dame, that the charges be dropped. In my opinion your attachment to the March for Life, including your offering of a Mass for Life, could give scandal in the absence, at least, of such an insistent request to dismiss those charges. Your decision to present an official Notre Dame presence at the March could be beneficial, but not in the context of an unrelenting criminalization by Notre Dame of sincere and peaceful friends of Notre Dame whose offense was their desire to pray, on the campus, for the University and all concerned including yourself. If you appear at the March as the continuing criminalizer of those pro-life witnesses, you predictably will earn not approbation but scorn—a scorn which will surely be directed toward Notre Dame as well.
As long as you pursue the criminalization of those pro-life witnesses, your newest pro-life statements will be regarded reasonably as a cosmetic covering of the institutional anatomy in the wake of the continuing backlash arising from your conferral of Notre Dame’s highest honor on the most relentlessly pro-abortion public official in the world.It goes without saying that Jenkins has effectively abandoned his vocation, forfeiting any moral authority he might once have possessed. The proof is in the pudding: When a lone pro-lifer called out to Barack Obama, "Stop killing our children," Jenkins' graduates shouted him down with "Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can..."The full text of Dr. Rice's letter is a must-read for anyone concerned with anti-Catholic, anti-life dissent within the Church. It's available at http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2009/09/open-letter-from-dr-charles-e-rice-to-fr-john-i-jenkins.html


Read the entire story at Veritatis.

Bishop D'Arcy not letting Notre Dame Controversy Rest

"The real question posed by the situation is whether or not a Catholic university has a responsibility to give a public witness to the faith, D'Arcy states. "If not, what is the meaning of a life of faith? And how can a Catholic institution expect its students to live by faith in the difficult decisions that will confront them in a culture often opposed to the Gospel?" he wonders.

"In its decision to give its highest honor to a president who has repeatedly opposed even the smallest legal protection of the child in the womb, did Notre Dame surrender the responsibility that Pope Benedict believes Catholic universities have to give public witness to the truths revealed by God and taught by the church?" the bishop also asks."

Bishop D'Arcy will have the lead article onthis subject in this month's America magazine. Good for him for keeping this scandal from being buried in Obama's attempt to court Catholics for his Health Care Proposal.
Read the entire story at CNA.

When it really costs us to be Catholic: Belmont Abbey College

The President of Belmont Abbey College has done a fantastic job of recovering the college's Catholic identity. Enter in the anti-Catholic bigots, who have decreed that Belmont Abbey must cover something the Catholic Church has forbidden in it's employee health care plan.
Birth control.
Would a Muslim or Jewish University be forced to serve pork?
No, however, its always open season on authentically Catholic institutions.
Take heart, Belmont Abbey, it means you are serving God well when the devil takes an interest in you.
Here's a column in the Wall Street Journal by Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society. The EEOC ruled that contraceptives were mandated by a law covering pregnancy discrimination. Say what?! Reilly explains.
"The difference, however, between the EEOC's guidance and the North Carolina law is that the latter exempts religious employers such as a Catholic college, whereas the commission fails to consider that the tenets of a faith may preclude an institution from offering such benefits.
And that's the rub: Increasingly it is clear to Catholics and other religious groups that without very clear exemptions for religious employers—and conscience protections for individual doctors, nurses, pharmacists—federal health-care laws and guidelines could severely restrict religious freedom in the U.S."

Charity in Truth for Catholic Universities

Dr William Fahey spoke with Zenit News Service about it's implications for Catholic universities.
" I have only read the encyclical letter once in its entirety. A few key passages struck me as immediately relevant to my own position as a college professor and president.
What are the implications, for example, of a statement such as, "Truth needs to be sought, found, and expressed with the 'economy' of charity?" As the Holy Father goes on to say, this means—in part—that those who are the stewards of truth, must love that truth and demonstrate it in love.
Academics do not dwell much on charity or love and its relationship to the truth—or vice versa. But as the Holy Father reminds us, to know the truth entails a love of the truth; to love the truth means that we will be urged to act, to share the truth. This seems so simple as not to deserve comment, but upon reflection it is profound. As a Catholic educator, when I meditate on this, I perceive more clearly the connection between the intellectual life and the life of grace, the work that chiefly occupies the study or classroom and the broader work of evangelization."
So many Catholic in name only universities forget that their primary mission is to defend the truth and evangelize not only their students, but the wider culture as well. Notre Dame and Georgetown come to mind immediately, but sadly, they are far from unique.
So many intellectual snobs in academia are lusting after approval of the secular elite, and lose their souls in the meantime. All in the name of academic freedom.
The Holy Father is both a world-renowned intellectual and the leader of the Church. May they learn from his wisdom, submitting their own ambitions to his leadership. Or may they be replaced by the likes of Christendom, and Thomas More College of Liberal Arts.

Raymond Arroyo defends Catholic position on CNN

The Heroes of Notre Dame this weekend

Norma McCorvey, Fr Norman Weslin, and Joan Andrews Bell are in the front row.

We were with you in prayer.

Baby tells Obama a thing or two!

Don't trouble yourself by watching the entire speech, just the beginning where Obama mentions why someone who is prolife might have a problem voting for him.
Just then a baby cries.
The timing was divine!
HT Spirit Daily

Obamanation at Notre Dame:Reaction Roundup

"President Obama went to Notre Dame. The abortion apologists in the church, in the media, in the universities think they have won. But God is not mocked. Perhaps the prayers of the millions who objected will bring about conversion. But it is sad to think that this otherwise intelligent man does not know, does not care or even worse knows and does not care about the lives of these unborn children. Perhaps he should listen to his own words."
Read John Jacubczyk's full post here.

"Barack Hussein Obama, the Great Deceiver, knows that the Catholic Church is profoundly divided. Since the Land of Lakes Decision, the University of Notre Dame has been in the epicenter of the great divide. The Great Deceiver knows this and used the platform that they handed to him in order to confuse millions with the great lie: let's all just get along.
Father forgive them, because they do know exactly what they are doing."
Fr Farfalia writes about Notre Dame here.

" In order to secure the political advantage Obama had gained among Catholic voters last November, the president of the United States decided that he would define what it means to be a real Catholic in 21st-century America — not the bishop of Fort Wayne–South Bend, who in sorrow declined to attend Notre Dame’s commencement; not the 80-some bishops who publicly criticized Notre Dame’s decision to invite the president to receive an honorary degree; not the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which explicitly and unambiguously instructed Catholic institutions not to do what Notre Dame did. He, President Obama, would settle the decades-long intra-Catholic culture war in favor of one faction — the faction that had supported his candidacy and that had spent the first months of his administration defending his policies."
George Weigel's take on National Review Online.
HT Prolife Blogs

Fr Frank Pavone led the protest prayer at Notre Dame Graduation

My Day at Notre Dame
Fr. Frank PavoneNational Director, Priests for Life
There was an eerie stillness and silence across the Notre Dame campus as my colleagues, a few of the seniors and I walked across the campus very early on the morning of Commencement Day. It was the calm before the storm of what we knew was an historic day.
I started with a national Foxnews interview along with Fr. Richard McBrien. We were asked our views of the Commencement. My message was: Everyone can imagine people they would protest speaking at a commencement: an avowed racist, anti-Semite, or advocate of terrorism. So the failure to object to one who is unwilling to call for an end to abortion is the failure to see that abortion is as bad or worse than those other evils. We have to stop trivializing abortion.
Moreover, the university gave the President an honorary law degree. Law exists to protect human rights; but this president has admitted that he doesn't know when a child receives human rights. How can he defend human rights when he doesn't know who has them?
After speaking to various media, I greeted people on campus who were coming from all over the country to stand with the courageous students who boycotted their own commencement and invited me to lead them in an alternate ceremony.
After I greeted and blessed the demonstrators who were at the campus entrance, and concelebrated a special Mass for Life, I led the Class of 2009 Vigil for Life. We meditated on the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, on the victory of life over death, and on the fact that Jesus is King over every nation, over the courts, the Congress, and the White House. As I gave the students and their families reflections on these truths, the current occupant of the White House was calling the graduates to have "open minds, open hearts" and a spirit of dialogue.
Now dialogue with our opponents on this issue is something we at Priests for Life specialize in. I maintain friendships with abortion advocates and practicing abortionists. The clarity of our own convictions never means we despise, demonize, or shut out other people. And yes, we are willing to collaborate with others in morally legitimate ways to reduce the numbers of abortions.
But the President's remarks had a glaring omission. While willing to dialogue and to promote adoption, he gave no indication of any willingness to protect the children in the womb. And that's the crux of the issue. In his remarks, he referred to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation. Certainly, his call for open minds does not include openness to reconsider the segregation issue. There's a right answer to it, period.
So it is with the protection of the unborn. And as quiet again descended on campus at the end of the day, I reflected... Open minds, yes, but for the purpose of eventually firmly closing upon the truth! And isn't that supposed to be the purpose of Catholic universities?
Fr. Frank's columns are podcast, see www.priestsforlife.org/podcast

Operation Rescue Urges Notre Dame Protesters to Join Pro-Life Action League

Operation Rescue Urges Notre Dame Protesters to Join Pro-Life Action League
Events On May 17
May 15th, 2009
South Bend, IN - Pro-life supporters who are planning to protest President Barack Obama's graduation day speech at Notre Dame are encouraged to join the events sponsored by the Pro-Life Action League and the Center for Bioethical Reform on Sunday, May 17.
The protest day will include two components:
1. 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m: A Face the Truth Tour will be held off campus along Angela Boulevard and Michigan Street in the hours leading up to commencement.
2. 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.: Protesters will join the prayer vigil taking place on campus during the commencement ceremony.
Handheld graphic signs will be provided by CBR Midwest. (Click to view signs)
Operation Rescue has partnered with the Center for Bioethical Reform to maintain a Truth Truck and airplane banner presence at Notre Dame.
For more information on Sunday's events, please visit http://notredameprotest.com/protest/.

Half of Catholic Colleges promote gay lifestyle!

This is a disgrace, no wonder church attendance is waning! Parents; do you know what your hard earned tuition dollars are doing to your children?
Read the following from TFP student action.

Research finds pro-homosexual clubs at 96 Catholic colleges
Sign TFP petition: "Save Our Catholic Identity"
That's 45% of the Catholic universities. Here's the full report.
You see, many of these clubs sponsor events that promote the homosexual movement's radical agenda, while gagging 2,000 years of Catholic moral teaching.
Catholic students who thirst for the truth are confronted with visible, active and well-funded clubs that openly contradict natural law and unchangeable Church teaching.
For example:
According to reports, a "Trans-gender Awareness Week" was held at Jesuit-run Seattle University during Lent. The event promoted a "Trans-gender Bible" study and encouraged students to dress in "gender bending outfits."
What can we do about these grave scandals?
TFP Student Action is rushing to collect 100,000 petitions, urging the presidents and authorities of Catholic universities to reclaim true Catholic education by disbanding these clubs and activities.
But I am counting on your help to launch the petition.
Please...
Join the "Save Our Catholic Identity" petition. Sign it now.
Spread the word. Make this campaign snowball successfully by inviting your friends to participate.
Pray and offer sacrifices for the restoration of Catholic higher education.
Do petitions really work? The answer is: YES.
Thanks to prayerful petitions like this one, the annual "Queer Film Festival" at the University of Notre Dame did not take place this year.

Other Catholic campuses also banned performances of the lewd "V-Monologues."

Notre Dame to rescind Obama invitation?

It's only a rumor, but one I'm rooting for. Archbishop Raymond Burke had some withering comments about Notre Dame graduation speaker Barack Obama at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. Now he may be enforcing his speech with decisive action.
According to this report, he is in a position of power to enforce Canon Law. Time to pray, rescinding this invitation would show that the Church takes the right to life very seriously.
Amy Proctor has a reference to this rumor as well.
If so, Our Lady of Fatima may have triumphed today protecting the University of Notre Dame, today, on her feast day.
St Robert Bellarmine, corrector of heresies, pray for us!

Notre Dame Trustees and Obama

According to an expose in Pewsitter.com, there are connections, financial connections between members of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees and Obama.
Now everything is crystal clear. It's about money. Money over morality.
"Many of the influential alumni on the Notre Dame board are from the nearby Chicago area, and are part of the same Chicago power structure that President Obama ascended. Richard and Peggy Notebaert are leading members of the ND community, and Notebaert is chair of the Notre Dame trustees. While Obama served in the senate, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, received federal funding earmarked by Obama.. Key Obama campaign fundraiser, Frank Clark served on the board of the Notebaert Museum at the time. The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, where ND trustee Arthur Velasquez (no relation!)is on the board, also received millions in earmarks. Velasquez contributed to Obama’s campaigns in 04 and 08."
Read the entire story at Pewsitter.com.
HT New Advent

Ambassador Alan Keyes was arrested for protesting at Notre Dame

Be a hero, save a whale,

save a baby, go to jail.

This was the chant ot Operation Rescue Movement in the 1980's when some of my dearest friends were jailed for protesting the murder of the innocent. Now Randall Terry and Dr Alan Keyes (these are his hands carrying the rosary and a fetal model) are the civil rights leaders of our times. Someday they will be lauded as heroes by all, not just a few.

Read this story with emotional photos on the arrests of the protesters at Notre Dame, while pro-abortion demonstrators watched.

May God have mercy on Fr Jenkins for causing this scandal.

Notre Dame; laymen and bishops oppose you

The Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found that, by a 60% to 25% margin, U.S. Catholics say Notre Dame should obey guidelines issued by the U.S. bishops and refrain from awarding an honorary degree to the president. Among all Americans, 52% oppose the honor and 25% support it.
"Faithful Catholics are sick to the heart over this scandal, which reflects decades of such scandals in our Catholic institutions," said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. "The Rasmussen poll confirms that this is not about politics … It's about Catholics who are fed up with Catholic institutions betraying their bishops and putting secular prestige ahead of principle, thereby undermining their own Church on the most serious moral issues of the day."
What does a university do when honoring a pro-abortion president has been opposed by 68 bishops, and over 60% of American Catholics?

Is digging your heels in the prudent thing to do Fr Jenkins? Or are you as Archbishop Chaput suggests, just another casualty to vanity and compromise?
Chaput said that while Obama is "a sincere and able man," his deeply pro-abortion principles "run directly against Catholic belief."
"And a Catholic institution should not honor that kind of behavior," he said.
While sinfulness is always present in society, said Chaput, "What's new about our current moment is that too many Christians have made peace with that sinfulness, baptized it with the language of personal conscience, and stopped trying to convert anybody - including themselves."

Read the entire story on Life Site News.

Fr Corapi on Notre Dame Scandal

ALL to hold rally at Notre Dame tomorrow

SOUTH BEND, Ind., April 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
The following advisory was issued today by the American Life League:
WHAT:
"Revealing the Sins of Notre Dame" - a history of undermining the Catholic Church and a formal appeal to Bishop John D'Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend to remove the school from the Official Catholic Directory in the wake of the Obama scandal.
WHEN:
Tuesday, May 5, 6:30 p.m.
WHERE:
Front Gates of the University of Notre Dame. At the intersection of E. Angela Blvd. and N. Notre Dame Ave.
WHO:
American Life League, in conjunction with Catholics from Fort Wayne, South Bend and across the country.
WHY:
Since the early 1960s, the University of Notre Dame has actively undermined Catholic teaching, culminating in an invitation to President Barack Obama to speak at the 2009 May commencement exercises where he is set to receive an honorary law degree.
"Notre Dame is placing the souls of millions in jeopardy in exchange for their own prestige," said Mike Barnett, leadership director at American Life League. "The school has no right to sell itself as Catholic to donors and potential students while simultaneously working to undermine the Church and honor the most pro-abortion president in the nation's history. In the interest of truth, we're asking Bishop D'Arcy to remove the school from the Official Catholic Directory."

Media seeking credentials please contact Katie Walker at (540) 659-4942 or at kwalker@all.org.
For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
American Life League: Petition to Remove the University of Notre Dame from the Kenedy Directory http://all.org/ndpetition/

Notre Dame Response video