For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. ---Ephesians 6:12
"The age of casual Catholicism is over; the age of heroic Catholicism has begun. We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead must be Catholics by CONVICTION." ---Fr. Terrence Henry TOR, Franciscan University of Steubenville
Postings will be few and far between for a bit... Am returning to work after 2 months off for a healing of my left knee. Everything feels up in the air for now, so feel free to explore the 300 or so postings I have done, not to mention the up to date links on the left column to headlines on some very well written blogs. I will be concentrating on other things for a short while.
I have posted on Lila’s sting operations several times. You can find my most recent link HERE and then you can follow the other links I have on that post for the rest. Or you can go straight to Live Action Films.
HERE is a recent story in the LA Times. As you can see it is cautiously supportive,... very cautiously; but the paper is a liberal rag of sorts. In it the reporter implies that Planned Parenthood is simply too big to manage their people. Well, then it must be time to shut it down.
Hey Lila, God bless you and please be careful. If the abortuary is truly too large to control its own people then you need to take precautions. Good luck!
There are now 43 bishops in the US who have come out publicly against the decision of Notre Dame’s Father Jenkins to give both a platform and an honorary degree to the most pro-abortion President this country has ever seen, Barack Hussein Obama. The latest to join is Bishop Galeone of St. Augustine, who said he is "standing with (his) brother bishops." Read the whole article on Catholic Exchange, HERE. For my own initial reaction, click HERE.
Here is the list of 43 so far. The commencement is in 3 weeks, and there are still only 2 cardinals on the list. Where is Cardinal Rigali???
1. Bishop John D’Arcy - Fort Wayne-South Bend, IN 2. Bishop Samuel Aquila - Fargo, ND 3. Bishop Gregory Aymond - Austin, TX 4. Bishop Gerald Barbarito - Palm Beach, FL 5. Bishop Leonard Blair - Toledo, OH 6. Archbishop Daniel Buechlein - Indianapolis, IN 7. Bishop Robert Baker - Birmingham, AL 8. Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz - Lincoln, NE 9. Archbishop Eusebius Beltran - Oklahoma City, OK 10. Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantú - San Antonio, TX 11. Bishop Paul Coakley - Salina, KS 12. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo - Houston, TX 13. Archbishop Timothy Dolan - New York, NY 14. Bishop Thomas Doran - Rockford, IL 15. Auxiliary Bishop John Dougherty - Scranton, PA 16. Bishop Robert Finn - Kansas City-St. Joseph, MO 17. Bishop Victor Galeone - St. Augustine, FL 18. Cardinal Francis George - Chicago, IL; President, USCCB 19. Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger - Evansville, IN 20. Archbishop José Gomez - San Antonio, TX 21. Bishop William Higi - Lafayette, IN 22. Archbishop Alfred Hughs - New Orleans, LA 23. Bishop Joseph Latino - Jackson, MS 24. Bishop Jerome Listecki - La Crosse, WI 25. Bishop William E. Lori - Bridgeport, CT 26. Bishop George Lucas - Springfield, IL 27. Bishop Robert Lynch - St. Petersburg, FL 28. Bishop Joseph Martino - Scranton, PA 29. Bishop Charles Morlino - Madison, WI 30. Bishop George Murry - Youngstown, OH 31. Archbishop John J. Myers - Newark, NJ 32. Bishop R. Walker Nickless - Sioux City, IA 33. Archbishop John C. Nienstedt - St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN 34. Archbishop Edwin O’Brien - Baltimore, MD 35. Bishop Thomas Olmsted - Phoenix, AZ 36. Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk - Cincinnati, OH 37. Bishop Kevin Rhoades - Harrisburg, PA 38. Bishop Alexander Sample - Marquette, MI 39. Bishop Edward J. Slattery - Tulsa, OK 40. Bishop Richard Stika - Knoxville, TN 41. Bishop Anthony Taylor - Little Rock, AR 42. Bishop Robert Vasa - Baker, OR 43. Bishop Thomas Wenski - Orlando, FL
Archbishop Alfred Hughes, listed above, has chosen to boycott Xavier U. commencement because they, too, have selected a pro-abortionist as speaker and honoree (Donna Brazile, CINO). Hope this really catches on, as we need our bishops to take a stand on such issues.
The column below from Catholic Exchange is a must read for anyone concerned about the abortion issue, so rather than simply link to it or share bits of it, I shared the whole thing:
Secretary Of State Clinton Admits Obama Will Work To Dismantle Abortion Laws Around The World
In a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was confronted on her avowed commitment to eugenicist Margaret Sanger’s global agenda, and asked whether the Obama administration would work to overturn pro-life laws around the world - a priority that Clinton confirmed.
In a hearing to discuss the Obama administration’s foreign policy, New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith questioned Clinton on her statements upon receiving Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger award on March 27. Clinton had said she was "really in awe" of the Planned Parenthood founder.
"The 20th century reproductive rights movement, really embodied in the life and leadership of Margaret Sanger, was one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race," Clinton had said. She also said that Sanger’s work "is not done."
Smith yesterday asked Clinton about her praise for Sanger’s eugenic agenda, saying "it is extraordinarily difficult [to see] how anyone could be in awe" of Sanger, who "made no secret whatsoever" of her views.
"With all due respect, Madam Secretary, Sanger’s legacy was indeed transformational, but not for the better if one happens to be poor, disenfranchised, weak, disabled, a person of color, and unborn child, or among the many so-called undesirables Sanger would exclude and exterminate from the human race," said Smith.
"Sanger’s prolific writings dripped with contempt for those she considers to be unfit to live," he continued. "Sanger was an unapologetic eugenicist and racist, who said, and I quote, ‘The most merciful thing a family does for one of its infant members is to kill it.’
"She also said, on another occasion, quote, ‘Eugenics is the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.’"
Smith asked, "As part of Sanger’s work that remains undone," whether the Obama administration seeks "in any way to weaken or overturn pro-life laws and policies in African and Latin American countries, either directly or through multilateral organizations, including and especially the United Nations, African Union, or the OAS, or by way of funding NGOs like Planned Parenthood?"
Clinton replied: "It is my strongly held view that you are entitled to advocate and everyone who agrees with you should be free to do so anywhere in the world, and so are we." (Video of Secretary Clinton’s responses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gEA97EnxE4 )
Clinton confirmed that the Obama administration’s definition of "reproductive health" includes abortion, and that, "We are now an Administration that will protect the rights of women, including their rights to reproductive health care."
Congressman Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska also told Clinton he was "stunned" by her commitment to Sanger, and that he was "deeply grieved" at her answer to Congressman Smith.
"She [Sanger] advocated for the elimination of the disabled, the downtrodden, and the Black child," Fortenberry objected. "I don’t believe these ideologies have a place in our pluralistic society."
Decrying taxpayer funding of abortion overseas as "a form of neo-colonialism" that is "elitist, paternalistic, and an assault on the dignity of the poor," Fortenberry challenged Clinton to instead pursue foreign policy that "upholds the genius of womanhood and the life nestled within her."
Clinton responded by emphasizing that the "choice" to carry or kill an unborn child should be available "for all women."
Commenting in a later statement on Clinton’s remarks, Smith said: "It is evident that Mrs. Clinton and President Obama want to force the tragedy of abortion upon women around the world especially and including in countries where democratically elected leaders want to continue to protect their unborn children.
"There are other ways in which both mother and baby are protected, cared for and helped - with food, nutrition, clean water and life-affirming healthcare," he said.
"Secretary Clinton’s inability to see this will mean more babies will die and more women will suffer the consequence of abortion as a result of U.S. foreign policy overseas."
This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began consideration of a cap and trade plan that would regulate greenhouse gas emissions. As a member of the Committee, I have serious concerns about the plan we are considering, including the fact that we still don’t have actual bill text that we can use to analyze the true cost of the bill.
I believe we should be good stewards of this earth and its resources, but especially in the midst of a recession, this plan will amount to a massive new energy tax on American families that we cannot afford. Everything from making dinner in your oven, to heating the water for your morning shower, to commuting to your job each day, will all become more expensive overnight with this cap-and-tax plan.
And President Obama intends to use the money from the tax to spend not on advancing a clean energy economy, but on instituting universal healthcare.
Instead of creating the biggest of big government programs to transfer trillions of dollars of money from energy consumers to the federal government, we ought to be allowing the market to bring forward successful, clean alternative energy technologies.
My Democrat colleagues aren’t even serious enough about reducing greenhouse gases to consider nuclear power a reliable, clean option for energy generation. We should be moving forward with all of the practical solutions to cut greenhouse gas emissions, including nuclear energy and waste-to-energy, a proven clean technology that has been successful in my district for decades. We can reduce greenhouse gases and increase this nation’s energy security, but we can’t get there by relying solely on wind and solar power. We need to use wind and solar in conjunction with nuclear, hydro, biomass, waste-to-energy and others.
Though we obviously don’t have a complete bill to analyze, legislation (the Warner-Lieberman bill) in the last Congress that attempted to regulate greenhouse gases would have resulted in aggregate real GDP losses of nearly $5 trillion and 900,000 jobs lost in the first 20 years after enactment. And the Waxman-Markey draft is even more sweeping than the Warner-Lieberman plan. Plainly, the economic consequences will be worse.
We can’t tax our way to a successful new energy economy. We need to move forward with a clean energy plan that helps, not hurts our economy.
Rep. Joe Pitts is a contributor to NetRight Nation.] End of article.
I would like to add that unlike Rep. Pitts, I am not in the least bit concerned with green house gases or our ozone layer, as it is my personal opinion and that of other scientists (including the French scientist who came up with the global warming theory in the first place) that any current trend toward the warming of Earth is not influenced by anything man-made. On the other hand, I am very concerned about our dependency on energy being imported from countries who want us destroyed, and think we need to cut that umbilical cord sooner than later.
I felt like posting something a little lighter today, in spite of all the heavy things going on in the world right now.
As with anything in these modern times, peoples reactions to the above situation include an expletive beyond breaking the 2nd Commandment (Catholics and Lutherans) or 3rd Commandment (for the rest of you), even at a wedding. Sorry.
Tomorrow, April 21, is Holocaust Remembrance Day in a time when denial of historic events is gaining steam. The news, once truth driven, is now so agenda driven that few know where truth ends and fiction begins. And because of that, even fewer people concern themselves with history these days. I wish I was only talking about those who live in banana republics run by tin horn dictators, or those who live in middle eastern countries where “death to America” is chanted by misled crowds daily, but I am not.
So it is important to subject ourselves to documentaries that many of us might find shocking and distasteful in order that we remember the past, lest we be doomed to forget and thus repeat it.
The video above is part 2 out of 8 parts you can go to You Tube to watch, though no more than one or two would be enough to refresh our memories of such horror of the systematic and brutal killing of 6,000,000 Jews, as well as millions of Gypsies, gays, overzealous Christians, Poles, etc..., by the Nazis in WW2.
Darfur is where humanity is repeating such atrocities today...
Here are parts 1, 3, 4, 5, etc... of the Nazi Concentration Camps documentaries created by the US Army under Gen. Eisenhower.
For more information on Holocaust Remembrance Day and issues pertaining to it, feel free to explore Pam Geller's blog, Atlas Shrugs, HERE and HERE.
Here is a video I found at Alice the Camel on the subject of Irena Sendler, a Catholic who saved 2,500 Jewish children from the holocaust.
On February 22, 1931, Our Lord Jesus appeared to Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, who recorded the event in her spiritual Diary:
In the evening when I was in my cell, I saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand [was] raised in the gesture of blessing, the other was touching the garment at his breast. From beneath the garment, slightly drawn aside at the breast, there were emanating two large rays, one red, the other pale. In silence I kept my gaze fixed on the Lord; my soul was struck with awe, but also with great joy. After a while, Jesus said to me,Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You. I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and [then] throughout the world(Diary 47).
I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish. I also promise victory over [its] enemies already here on earth, especially at the hour of death. I Myself will defend it as My own glory(Diary 48).
The two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water that makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls...
These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross. These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father. Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him (Diary 299).
The image of Jesus depicted here was painted by Eugene Kazimirowski in Vilnius (presently, Lithuania) in 1934 under the direction of St. Faustina Kowalska. It was venerated publicly for the first time on April 26, 1935, during the closing celebration of the Jubilee of Redemption at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Dawn Gate.
In 1937 the image was placed in St. Michael's Church, and it remained there until 1948 when the church was closed by the Communist government. A journey of hiding then took place until 1956, when it was enshrined in the Church in Nova Ruda (Belarus). There it remained until 1986 in spite of the fact that the church was closed in 1970 and provided a very poor physical environment for the painting. In 1986 the image was secretly removed again and brought to the Holy Spirit Church in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1991, on account of damages sustained, the painting was retouched by a local artist, but the face lost its original appearance in the process. Under the guidance of Cardinal Backis the image was professionally restored in May, 2003, and for the time being it will continue to be venerated in Holy Spirit Church, Vilnius.
To print a copy of the Divine Mercy Novena, click HERE. For the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, click HERE. For the Decree of Indulgence, click HERE. The mercy of Jesus Christ is an endless stream for those who detest all sin. Take advantage of it!
For more background on St. Faustina, click HERE. And to see the face of the painting of Jesus above compared to the image on the Shroud Of Turin by superimposing it, click HERE!
On the 15th of this month the former President of The Club For Growth and former Congressman, Pat Toomey, announced his candidacy for Arlen Specter's US Senate seat. You may recall that he ran against Specter six years ago and barely lost in the primary. But after several bad votes and an outright betrayal on the Porkulus package, Specter's seat is ripe for picking. Although Specter's people are encouraging democrats to register as republicans to vote for Specter in the upcoming primary election, I feel that in the primary at least, Toomey has a very good chance to beat him.
Here is Pat Toomey near Independence Hall in Philadelphia speaking at today's tax protest rally, The Philadelphia Tea Party II. The party itself went quite well, and drew over 2,000 people. This is good considering it isn't tax day, and that there might be a slight hang-over from the hundreds of protests on Wednesday. But the people are still dogged, determined, and angry at their irresponsible politicians for throwing money around that we no longer have.
I don't make a habit of watching Greg Gutfield's Red Eye on the Fox News Channel for two basic reasons: His show is usually rather sophomoric in nature, and I don't currently own a TV.
No, I am not Amish. I am Catholic. The reason for not owning a TV is because I am very poor. No money. Nadda. After all, what good is a wide screen TV without expensive cable to go with it? I do not miss it in the least.
But this particular snippet of Greg Gutfield's show is interesting in that Greg and his vulgar friends have video of people even more vulgar and sophomoric than Greg and his vulgar friends. Who could that be? Just a few people in the main stream media reporting on the tax protests.
Its a little hard to watch if you have delicate sensibilities (from not watching TV in a while). You should know, though, that the worst of it comes from the videos of CNN and MSNBC hosts and reporters, while only some comes from Greg and his vulgar friends. At least you know what to expect when you watch Red Eye. Now, the main stream news programs are stooping to Jr. High School humor (d!*k and f@&t jokes) to attack the Right. Several people are in desperate need of firing, but don't hold your breath.
Okay, I really did not only post this as a shameless attempt to plug the bumper sticker shown above, created by Kevin Gleeson and his brother Brendan. His other brother is Sean, whom you may have heard of , as he was a big blogger at one time.
But how true the cartoon rings!
There are more tea parties to attend. Some are this weekend. Check listings! I will attempt to be at the one in Philly on Saturday, weather, money, knee health, and time permitting...
There are tax protests going on all over the country today, like in Harrisburg, PA where it is raining. And it is cold, but the turnout was quite good in spite of the weather. Took a few pictures, but the rain threatened my not-so-weather-resistant Sony digital camera,as I joined the many on or near the west steps of the PA capitol building in Harrisburg, PA, a mere 100 paces from one of my favorite cathedrals.
The people who made signs and weathered the cold and rain were and are still angry at their government for wasteful spending, and are determined not to let them get away with it. It looked to be at least a thousand concerned people who turned out (which would have been several times that had it been sunny and warm) who wanted to make their views known: WE ARE BROKE! WE MUST STOP SPENDING LIKE THERE IS NO END TO THE MONEY SUPPLY.
I have included a few pictures I took, and would like to give a very warm THANK YOU to the two strangers who allowed me to stand under their umbrellas while I recorded pictures of the event. And I would also like to thank the GrassrootsPA guy for the free bumper sticker after I almost pinned him between my car and his as he was exiting his vehicle.
The crowd was much larger than it appears because I could not find a good vantage point from which to capture it in full. And if there were not so many umbrellas you could see more signs, some of which were quite clever. Feel free to click on the pictures if you want to make them larger.
Holy Saturday is usually a day of silence in the Christian world, as it falls between a somber Good Friday and a celebratory Easter Sunday. Churches are usually quiet during the day on Saturday with no celebration of the Eucharist until the evening vigil. And at tonight's Easter Vigil, Catholic converts and reverts all over the world will celebrate Baptism, First Communion, and in most cases Confirmation (except for Catholic reverts like me who get confirmed at Pentecost).
It is expected to be a very emotional event with an indoor pillar of fire amidst a darkened church, followed by several readings from scripture, including psalms, followed by the Holy Sacraments. Most will be getting all three sacraments---the teenagers and a few of the adults. One of our couples renewed their wedding vows this morning, so that means four sacraments in one day for them! Since I have already been baptized in the Catholic faith I will be receiving only one, my first Communion.
I was actually set to have this done in the early 1970's, but for various reasons I did not. At least part of it has to do with my parents being of different denominations. One might think that sort of thing doesn't matter, but it usually means the whole family stays home on Sunday. Enough said on that.
My years in between then and the late 1990's were a journey not too unlike the years St. Augustine wrote about in his autobiography, The Confessions. Though I never joined up with any other religion, I did live according to my conscience only, as if Jiminy Cricket were my mentor. But what the morally relative folks at Disney never told us is that the human conscience becomes quite jaded over time as one ventures further and further into the abyss. In many instances the conscience becomes inverted so that wrong seems right and good seems bad, which is a typical result of gravitating toward what feels good rather than what IS good.
There were tragedies in my life and the lives around me for which I blamed God, and used them as excuses to avoid Him. When a person has little or no foundation in knowledge of The Lord, it becomes easy to blame all the world's troubles on him. And this I did, especially with my own issues.
During the 1990's God reached out to me several times to get my attention, most of which I ignored. But at a cousin's funeral in 2000 at an Episcopal church called St. Monica's (mother of St. Augustine), I took their version of communion which, although mere symbols of body and blood, reminded me of what I never received as a child ---The Holy Eucharist. It was then I decided to start patching things up with our most patient and merciful God.
With several stumbling blocks along the way (old habits die hard and sin does not fade easily), I made my way back into the fold that I walked away from decades ago. One of those blocks was my inability to join both my heart and mind in unison to believe in what the Bible teaches. So I dared to pray to God for a sign, in spite of the fact I was told how wrong it was to do so. I humbly pleaded with Him to help me with my skeptical pragmatism which plagued me from total commitment to Christ, and that with the sign I would doubt no more. Later that day I received a sign, then another two days later, and a third one three days after the second. I will not go into details as they are personal, but I am convinced as to what they were and doubt His existence no more.
To whom much is given, much is expected. So I decided to start evangelizing by creating this blog, and giving money to the poor by sponsoring three children through Compassion International. But I needed to do more than that. I needed to find a church to call home.
Joining a church seemed to be the hardest part of returning to God. First I had to pick a denomination and then a city and state to call home. Being a trucker often means you live out of a PO Box and stay in hotels wherever you take your break, which I did for 13 years. But now it was time to land somewhere. And before I chose a location and denomination, God sent several Catholics into my life, one of whom was an old college roommate named Kevin (his St. Ambrose to my St. Augustine) who had prayed for me to join up with the Catholic Church 20 years before. With their guidance (and many deeply satisfying discussions) my fate was sealed. This past November I started classes in my local church's RCIA program, and tonight I join the church with my First Communion. In the pews will be mostly converts attending what must feel like a class reunion of sorts, remembering their First Communion with the Eucharist and the Catholic Church. I will try to keep from breaking down.
As a subscriber to the Cardinal’s Network (Cardinal George of Chicago), I receive in my email bucket some rather thought provoking material on a weekly basis; and I get it more often during Holy Week. Today’s message got my wheels turning. Here it is:
The Day of the Great Sacrifice
“Christ became obedient for us unto death, even to death on the cross.” Sacrificing things is a sign of generosity; sacrificing yourself is a sign of love. Christ loved his Father and he loves us, so much so that he gives himself freely to death for our eternal life. Jesus’ crucifixion by others is a sacrifice of himself, “a death willingly accepted.”
When we look at the crucifix on Good Friday, Christ might seize the moment to ask us who or what we are willing to die for. If we don’t have a ready answer, he might then ask us whether we are capable of loving.
That last line (my bold) raises a question that secular fundamentalists, especially liberals in general, find most uncomfortable. For when you get specific and ask them if they are willing to die for their country, they usually reply with an emphatic “NO.” And when you ask them if they are willing to die for anything at all, they stare at you blankly and shrug. Though I used to be one of them many years ago, it wasn't until now that I realized the reason for these answers.
The secularization of our nation has far reaching implications. So many children today are being raised in families that have never been to church, have only heard the name Jesus when said in anger and frustration, and are totally unawareof the ultimate act of His love for us ---the sacrifice at Calvary. Years ago there were the occasional oddball families like that living in every neighborhood, though greatly outnumbered by the Christians, but these days the heavily Christian families are the outnumbered oddballs. God is completely removed from schools and other public places, and is shown mostly disrespect in all media sources. Children are being raised in a society that no longer teaches that we were created by an unearthly power greater than or more loving than we could ever be.
In 1993 Pope John Paul II wrote the encyclical Gospel Of Life, (Evangelium Vitae) in which he stated that the warnings of Pope Paul VI have come true. That is, a modern day society that doesn't respect human life in the beginning (artificial contraception) will not respect it in the end. He predicted a dramatic rise in abortions, euthanasia, divorce, broken families, etc... and was proven right. A society that once professed love for Christ has taken a downslide into selfish hedonism, where the only people they love are themselves, and the only lives they are willing to sacrifice for others are those of the innocent unborn. Evil like that becomes infectious...and spreads. Look around you. Now start getting ACTIVE in church!
Looks like I will have to send my cat back to the shelter from where he was adopted, and all due to the chicken-little global warming hysteria. Click HERE for the whole story.
Have you made arrangements to attend one of the many Tea Parties happening this month? For a Tax Day Tea Party near you, click HERE. They are happening all over the country.
And if the video above isn't enough to motivate you, click HERE for one of my best rants.
Click on picture above for information about the author.
Also, I want to add that not everyone I link to below marches lock-step with me on every issue. But I link to them nonetheless because I think they are righteous. They have taken sides in their respective battles, political and/or religious, and have chosen wisely. May you do the same.
