Vive Christus Rex!

At Calvary Christ Was Not Invisible...

2011-11-12T10:38:00.005-05:00

Indifference By G. A. Studdert-Kennedy

When Jesus came to Golgatha,
They hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet,
And made a Calvary.

They crowned Him with a crown of thorns,
Red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days,
And human flesh was cheap !

When Jesus came to [your home town]
They simply passed Him by,
They never hurt a hair of Him,
They only let Him die;

For men have grown more tender,
And they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street,
And left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, "Forgive them,
For they know not what they do!"
And still it rained the winter rain
That drenched Him through and through;

The crowd went home and left the streets,
Without a soul to see,
and Jesus crouched against a wall
and cried for Calvary.

Archbishop Sheen Checking In; Baby with No Pulse for 61 Minutes Perfectly OK

2011-10-23T07:17:00.007-04:00

Sheen's Intercession Saved Their Baby
Born lifeless and without a pulse for 61 minutes, following prayers to the Servant of God, little James Fulton had a pulse:

By MARIANNE MEDLIN via the National Catholic Register:

“It had been a healthy pregnancy; it was a healthy labor. Everything was good,” Bonnie recalled.

But what the couple and attending midwife and birth assistant did not know was that there was a knot in James’ umbilical chord which tightened while he was descending the birth canal.
Her son, at 9 lbs. 10 oz., was a stillborn.

“I have a memory of repeating Sheen’s name, in my head, not out loud, but just kind of saying over and over again ‘Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen’ while they were still doing CPR,” she said.
Bonnie’s husband also baptized the baby James Fulton — “the name we had agreed upon” — before he was rushed to the St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill. During the transport to the hospital, a friend who had attended the birth called others to pray, with some of them invoking Sheen’s name as well.

...But at the hospital, a full 61 minutes after he was born and while doctors were preparing to declare the time of death, James Fulton suddenly had a pulse.

Although the medical team was stunned, they refrained from being optimistic, and simply told Bonnie’s husband that the baby had a heartbeat; but that was all they could say.

“My husband interpreted that as ‘He’s alive, but just for now,’” Bonnie recalled.

Doctors expected James Fulton to die within the week, or, at the very least, be on a ventilator or feeding tube — blind and strapped into a wheelchair — for the rest of his short life.

What happened in the following days, however, was nothing short of extraordinary.

...“There were people from all over the world who emailed me and left comments on my blog saying, ‘We’re praying for your son, and we are asking for Sheen’s intercession,’” Bonnie said. “It was really powerful and humbling.”

Within a week of his birth, doctors were shocked to find that James Fulton was breathing on his own.

“Everyone was just amazed by that — that wasn’t supposed to happen,” his mom said.

And day by day, after all of his vital organs were seen to be functioning properly, it became more apparent that little James Fulton was going to be just fine. "

Blogger Note: Apparently, Baby James Fulton, Life is Worth Living :) ...

Best of VCR: John Paul II: A Beatified Pope

2011-05-01T07:34:00.003-04:00

As the current political and financial situation of our great country seems to be very dim, I would like to reflect on a man up a balcony thirty years ago today who instructed us to "Be Not Afraid…"

As I am sure we can agree, God has a master plan for all of us. I think one of the greatest gifts from the life of this great Pope was that it assured and reminded us that God has a master plan for our "little lives" because we saw God’s master plan for Pope John Paul II’s majestic life so clearly. It is easier to see paint on the canvas when there are broad strokes rather than thin lines.

I heard many years back, and wish I could quote the source, maybe George Weigel, that it was very against the tradition of the Papacy to have a Pope call himself, the first. And yet in 1978, when Albino Luciani was elected Pope John Paul I, it happened. This unique situation in 2,000 years of Church history and the use of the Roman numeral was not a pointless effort because it foreshadowed a second to come. It was God’s plan to have Karol Wojtyla in the Papacy at that time as seen by how he called Pope John Paul I home after less than two months. Looking back, the first designation makes all the sense in the world now as we now know who was coming. For those trivia buffs out there, Wojtyla’s first instinct was to be called Pope Stanislaw, or Pope Stanley, to honor a very significant Polish saint and bishop of Krakow. He reconsidered and took the name John Paul.

When they announce "Habemus Papam", or Latin for "We Have a Pope!," on that night in St. Peter’s square the announcement of the non-Italian sounding name, "VOY-TEE-WHA." brought confusion and polite applause from the crowd in the courtyard. I often think he in his life went from polite applause that October night to 4,000,000 people coming to his Mass in the Philippines 15 years later. What an impactful life!

The two most incredible events that I have seen in my forty years of life, were both tied to this great man. One was the week of his funeral and viewing. The non-ending lines of mourners went on day, after day, after day. I remember telling a friend, the scene felt more like of a funeral for a beloved King, not a humble priest. I also vividly see as I write this post the page-flipping Bible on his plain wood casket during his funeral and the Cardinals holding on to their birettas/hats. A great wind was present at his funeral, a sign of the Holy Spirit.

The second most incredible world moment of my life was the week when the Berlin Wall came down. To see East-Germans sitting on top of the wall and swinging sledgehammers is an image that no one can ever forget. They were not breaking into tiny bits a structure, they swung their hammers thinking about smashing an evil regime and an ideology into tiny bits. An oppressive government collapsed and people were free.

Many do not know a story about John Paul that lead to this moment. When the Polish Solidarity movement was about to be crushed by Soviet tanks, John Paul II communicated with the secretary of the Soviet Communist party stating that if there was any Soviet aggression against the Poles, he would resign the Papacy and stand on the front lines with his people. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when the Kremlin received that word. This was not a political ploy, he was dead serious. He would resign the Papacy and stand with his people. It is somewhat of a global PR nightmare to run down a defenseless Pope in a tank. The Russians hands were tied and they continued to lose their control of Poland. As a historical note, the Kremlin feared the senior Cardinal of Poland, Stefan Wyszyński, much more than Karol Wojtyla when they were Cardinals. They felt Wojtyla was less of a threat and could be reasoned with when comparing the two Polish Cardinals. I read a comment that was made within the Kremlin after Wojtyla's election, saying at least it was not Wyszynski. They could not have been more wrong.

I will finish this reflection with VCR friend Fr. Owens Kearns’ statement after the passing of John Paul II. He was a guest on a cable news network and was asked by the commentator what was the greatest achievement of this Pope’s life was. So many thoughts riffled through me head: defeating Communism, his encyclicals, the "Culture of Life" movement he established. Fr. Owen surpassed my thoughts. He said, paraphrasing, "The example he gave us of life’s beauty and value in its fading days, the way he accepted his suffering and died with grace." I was speechless and stunned. This was also more poignant because Terri Schiavo's life was being seen as having no value at the same moment down in Florida.

I think many parents have many things they want to teach their children. Being honest, how to play Sports, finances, relationships, family history, cooking, etc… Don’t ever under estimate the learning opportunity we can gift wrap to our children as they witness us meet our most difficult trials in our lives with grace, acceptance and Faith; offering everything up. John Paul,a spiritual parent to us, did not under estimate this teaching opportunity.

John Paul the Great, Pray for Us!

There was a Heart: Msgr. James McDonald

2011-04-25T20:12:00.004-04:00

I have been on a prolonged hiatus from blogging, involved in some other pressing Catholic endeavours. But will all the discouragement that the news of Fr. Euteneuer and the allegations of Fr. Corapi have brought to me, I felt the absolute urge to post this sermon from VCR hero, Msgr. James McDonald.

Msgr. McDonald is giving a sermon in the presence of the relic of the actual heart of St. Jean Vianney, patron of priests. The church is filled with priesst, seminarians and religious people.

It was such a pick up for me listening to his words. As the saying goes, Msgr. McDonald is absolutely convincing because he is absolutely convinced.

Say a prayer for my favorite prelate today after listening to his talk - that Christ will keep him in good health. And say a prayer for our beloved priesthood.

Click here for the Sermon.

A Quarter Century of Catholic, Pro-Life Leadership in New York City

2011-01-08T12:52:00.007-05:00

Archbishop Timothy Dolan met the problem and the occasion head on Thursday holding a press conference to address a report released by the NYC Department of Health that stated a horrific statistic that 41% of all pregnancies in the 5 burroughs of NYC end in an abortion:

"For the first time in my happy twenty-one months as a New Yorker, I am embarrassed to be a member of a cherished community I now — usually with a lot of pride — call home.

That 41% of New York babies are aborted — a percentage even higher in the Bronx, and among our African-American babies in the womb — is downright chilling.

This New York community is rightly celebrated for its warm welcome to immigrants, for its hospitality, sense of embrace and inclusion, and gritty sensitivity for those in need.

But we are tragically letting down the tiniest, most fragile and vulnerable: the little baby in the womb.

We have to do more than shiver over these chilling statistics!

I invite all to come together to make abortion rare, a goal even those who work to expand the abortion license tell us they share.

A quarter century ago, Cardinal John O’Connor publicly stated: “Any woman who is pregnant and in need can come to the Church and we will help you,” a pledge Cardinal Egan, and now I, reaffirm. Through our Catholic charities, our adoption services, our lobbying on behalf of pregnant women and mothers of infants, our support for life-giving alternatives to the decision all call tragic — abortion, — in our education of youth for healthy, responsible, virtuous sexual behavior, our health care, — we have done our best to keep that promise, … and these haunting statistics only prod us to keep at it.

Mother Teresa remarked that the worst poverty was to take the life of a baby so we could live, as we want. New York does not deserve the gravestone, “Abortion capital of the world.” Our boast is the Statue of Liberty, not the “Grim Reaper.”

Bravo, Archbishop, thank you for your leadership.

Benedict the Compassionate

2011-01-07T18:47:00.008-05:00

Benedict, the Intellectual? Yes, But Benedict, the Compassionate also, as shown here in this clip of him traveling to the Gemelli Polyclinico Hospital to visit children in the pediatric ward and the neonatal intensive care unit.

It is a side of our Holy Father that should be showcased much more. Think of what this meant to the Catholic Faithful parents at this hospital who were exhausted and discouraged.

Htip Creative Minority via Al Kresta

Their 2010 Christmas Wish!

2010-12-20T10:46:00.003-05:00

Belle Chasse Primary School students and brothers Blake, Caleb and Zack Champagne got their Christmas wishes fulfilled at their school’s holiday play. Santa Claus disrobed at the assembly and turned out to be their Daddy, Lt. Col. Brian Champagne; home one week early from his second tour in Iraq.

A very uplifting story. Visit the story and video here.

We are so appreciative of all the sacrifices our military families makes to keep us safe.

God's speed and protection to them all!

-Voice in the Crowd

My 2010 Christmas Wish!

2010-12-11T06:36:00.038-05:00

If given a one Christmas wish this year, many would quickly reply that they wished for world peace, or an end to world hunger, or even an end to the suffering in the world. While these are definitely the most noble Christmas wishes and surely at the top of the list, my Christmas wish this year would be something a little more achievable and possibly more impactful.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Angel, Oregon, features a nomadic nativity scene that travels throughout their town serving as a reminder to all that witness it what the true meaning of Christmas is. Volunteers dress up as the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, mount a live donkey and quietly spend the weeks of Advent walking around the town heading to their final destination, the Church (see the accompanying picture as they cross paths with a pedestrian.)

Can you imagine that you are immersed in your morning: stopped at a red light, news radio blaring, wresting with your coffee cup lid, planning the mental checklist of your busy day and suddenly these two with their donkey pass in the crosswalk in front of your car? Can you imagine how this visual would stop you cold and force you to pause and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas right there and then?

My Christmas wish this year would be to hire these two volunteers, and their donkey, for an Advent walk that would stop at all the major cities up and down the east coast from Boston to Miami.

Can you imagine, these two quietly walking through the college campuses of Boston, where college vices and secular intellectualism are worshiped as gods? This sight would cause these collegians to stop in their tracks and take inventory of their lives - - as this scene would portray the selflessness, purity and humility that these two unschooled participants had during that first Christmas.

What about these two stopping traffic on the “Canyon of Heroes,” slowly making their way down to Wall St. in New York City? Can you imagine the financiers and traders with their thousand dollar suites and Montblanc watches taking their thumbs off their Blackberries when they see these two pausing on their journey in their worn clothes? These two not even having a roof over their heads, not to mention a beachfront vacation home to speak of? It would force these financial brokers who worship money as their god to acknowledge how fleeting and meaningless all their wealth really is.

How about having these two proceed through the shopping mall parking lots in New Jersey? Where people literally stampede each other to death before dawn for the sole purpose of getting a large, flat screen at a discount price. These shoppers would be forced to witness these vagabonds not owning a single possession and, in doing so, would crush these people’s god of materialism.

Can you imagine the scene of these two slowly making their way down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.? This simple, small, endearing visual would even steal the tourists away from the massive monument structures in our nation's Capitol. The hollowmen, power brokers who slither there would be forced to see in this image that their god of political, man-made power will, as Archbishop Sheen says, “…end in its own destruction.”

And finally imagine this very plain, unassuming couple making their way through the beautiful, jet set people of Miami Beach. Where everyone spends all their time and money to prevent any undesirable change to their appearance; but then go completely opposite by spending fortunes on the cutting edge of fashion with their Gucci wardrobes to constantly change their external appearances with each passing fad. This unfashionable pair would force these "pretty" masses to recognize the absolute truth of that first Christmas -- and how this bedrock revelation is not only in fashion today, but an unchanging truth that will last through eternity. Their gods of beauty and image would not survive this beautiful image.

And through these travels, I would even have these two stop and knock at random house doors along their journeys and to ask, “My Son was not welcomed anywhere in this world 2,000 years ago, is He welcomed in your home today -- or do you have too many other of these gods occupying your home?”

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas to all my readers!

May we all come to a deeper appreciation of the true meaning of Christmas!

-Voice in the Crowd

Iraqi Catholic Martyrs: "But The Cross Lives!"

2010-12-02T21:40:00.005-05:00

With so much of the media running every horrible story they can dig up about any former priest these days, here is a story that you will not see in the mainstream media. It is an eyewitness account of the al Qaeda massacre at Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church in Baghdad on October 31st, and how their priest carried themselves in their final moments. These priest were only 32 and 27 years old:

"...While I was on the ground I saw Don [Father] Tha'er trying to defend the altar servers: he embraced them and covered them with his cassock, to protect them, as if he wanted to hide them. One of the men attacked him, trying to beat him to his knees, but he resisted and remained standing, in the end the terrorist killed him. I could hear the cries of the people in the church, terribly afraid, when at one point I heard a voice, I do not know who he was shouting to the terrorists: 'We die, we die, okay. But the cross lives. Whoever it was, was immediately killed."

...Don Tha'er, the priest who celebrated the Mass, died because he wanted to save the children. Don Wassim with, who at the time of the attack was in the confessional, tried to talk with the terrorists to convince them to let the people and children go, and take only the two of them [the priests] as hostages. They offered their lives. Don Wassim, when he made to leave the altar and approach the terrorists he was shot by one of them. The last sentence of Don Tha'er, who died before the eyes of his mother [who survived and is now recovering in France], was: "Jesus, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

I would suggest you read this article to appreciate what our fellow Catholics go through in different locations around the world. We should never complain about how long a Homily is again.

May the angels lead them to paradise... Please say a prayer now for all these martyrs.

The Pepsi Refresh Project & Our Secular Society

2010-11-23T17:31:00.018-05:00

I came across the Pepsi Refresh Project the other day. The project, sponsored by Pepsi, allows people to enter a worthy cause on Pepsi's web site, then Web site visitors can vote for the best causes. Upon conclusion of the voting, Pepsi awards money - up to $250,000- to the most supported causes.

I thought the top leaders/choices at each dollar award level was a striking commentary on our society:

1) Rescue Animals from Cruelty
2) Stop Healthy Animals from Being Fed Antibiotics
3) Teach Hip Hop and Respect to Inner City Youths
4) Provide Dogs in Shelters with Comfort Items

Now, I am not saying that helpless animals don't deserve or need our help to save them from ongoing abuses, but three out of the four programs that our country currently believes is the best use for these financial awards does not relieve any aspect of human suffering. The other deals with teaching Hip Hop music.

Such a commentary on our nation.

By way of comparison, and to illustrate my point, these causes are beating programs that would work towards the end of human trafficking and one that would help babies with Cystic Fibrosis.

I thought over the past day or so what was responsible for this anti-human sentiment. Was it the belief that animals can't help themselves and people can? I believe this answer would not be at the true, underlying, subconscious root cause of this mindset. Babies with Cystic Fibrosis can't help themselves either, so that is not it.

I came to the conclusion that this anti-human sentiment is embedded in our society becoming more and more secular by the year. If we are all made in God's divine image, turning away from the priority of helping our fellow humans first has to coincide with turning away from God in our society, whatever the reasons these voters may give.

We all know people who are vegetarians and cite their lifestyle comes from a belief in not harming defenseless animals, or PETA members who subscribe to the same doctrine. For the most part, the vegetarians and PETA members I know personally have no problem with abortion, or even late-term abortions. I think the same rationale can be used here whether they acknowledge this mindset or not.

How many times has a pro euthanasia person argued with you, "Well they put animals out of their pain, don't humans deserve at least the same?" They are arguing actually humans should be brought down to the level of animals, although they think in their mind that humans should be raised at least to the level of animals. Same mindset again, Secularism 101.

Pope John Paul II: Nine Days that Changed the World

2010-11-21T13:18:00.009-05:00

I finally viewed Newt Gingrich's Nine Days that Changed the World, the story of John Paul II's victorious return to Poland after being elevated to the Papacy. The DVD is beautifully done with stunning, never-seen-before footage.

It is hard for Americans to understand this history-altering event from the inside. A bad day for most Americans is an unexpected $500 car repair bill. Our Polish brethren lived through Nazi occupation which resulted in the death of 5.5-6 million Poles, and the dark, soul-crushing, brutal regime of Communism after this carnage. Their suffering can not be comprehended by Westerners.

This documentary gives you that glimpse from the inside where in June of 1979, 12 million Poles (1/3 the population) greeted John Paul in person as their conquering hero and their national hope.

George Weigel summed up the trip saying that by the second day of this nine day trip, the Polish people had a new de facto leader of their county; the Holy Father had overtaken the government and eclipsed the fear it held on the people. Communism was headed to the "ash heap of history."

I can not emphasize enough that this is a DVD that every Catholic household should own. It should be viewed by your children and grandchildren to understand the greatness of Pope John Paul II, the unparalleled influence of the Papacy and the effect that the power of the absolute truths of Catholicism can have when preached and recognized.

Amazon apparently does not sell this DVD. I would go directly to the DVD's official website and secure this masterpiece for yourself and your family. Click here for the Nine Days Web site. Here is a little sample of this great DVD:

Decision Points: George W. Bush and Catholicism - Part II

2010-11-13T14:40:00.012-05:00

It has been a great week for the Office of President of the United States. While promoting his memoirs, President George Bush threw the proverbial gauntlet down showing how the Office of the Presidency should carry itself. With attacks on his Presidency coming almost weekly over the past two years from his passing-the-blame successor, the former President stayed above the fray and reminded the world of the core character he possesses as he remained silent despite opportunist microphones in front of him all week. This, in Bush's way, drew a stronger comparison, and answered any charges, of the present administration more definitively than any written comment or spoken word could have.

In May of 2008, I wrote a post that received a good amount of traffic calling George W. Bush the second Catholic U.S. President with a question mark. Cracking open his memoirs have led me to the feeling again that he is a closet Catholic or a future convert.

On page 113 of Decision Points, Bush writes, "I did feel a responsibility to voice my pro-life convictions and lead the country toward what Pope John Paul II called a culture of life." Interesting, no? He could have gone with a more Protestant statement saying his sense of responsibility came from sacred scripture, or his personal relationship with God, but he surprisingly quotes a Pontiff. Moreover (it is very subtle but when you notice it is very telling and impactful), he aligns his personal views with that of a Pontiff, and the Pontiff's moral teaching. Martin Luther must be rolling over in his grave.

A few pages later, Bush pens that during a private meeting with John Paul he expressed to the Vicar of Christ, "I thanked him for his example of principled leadership. I explained [to the Holy Father] that the Catholic Church's steadfast support of life provided a firm moral foundation on which pro-life politicians like me could take a stand on." An Episcopalian standing on a Catholic foundation? Why can't he stand on the Episcopalian foundation? Again, he is lining himself with the moral teachings of the Magisterium more than his own religion.

Now for the grand finale. Bush remembers the last moments of the funeral Mass of John Paul II that he personally attended, " [The pallbearers] turned to face the crowd and lifted the coffin for the last time. As they did, the clouds parted and the sun shined through onto the simple wooden [coffin]." An Episcopalian believing God shone His favor on a life of Pontiff? Henry VIII is now rolling over in his grave and disturbing multiple wives.

Before everything is said and done, President Bush might very well close his eyes as the second Catholic President.

Blogger Note: It is important in understanding this post to read the evidence I laid out in the original post here. When these two posts are taken together, Bush converting is a much more clearer reality.

Notre Dame Loses vs. the Big Ten with Obama

2010-11-04T19:47:00.011-04:00

CatholicCulture.org reports that the University of Notre Dame's annual donations fell off the cliff in the year ending 2009; dropping over $120 million dollars.

CC.org references in passing that honoring of the most militant, pro-abortion politician in America with a Humanitarian Award might have had some effect on donations. Ya' think???

The site then states, "The decline in donations largely coincided with the late-2000s recession, which officially began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009."

Oh really... let's see how the recession has affected some other big universities in the same region to test this theory. The below list shows: specific, similar-size universities; how much their donations went up or down in 2009 versus the previous year; and the percentage increase or decrease over the previous year:

Penn State University: +$4.8 Million (+2.7 percent)
Ohio State University: -$3.4 Million (-.14 percent - less than 1%)
Michigan State University: $-5.4 million (-4.2 percent)
University of Michigan: -$70 million million (-21 percent)
The University of Notre Dame: -$120 million (-35 percent)

If Notre Dame's decline in donations were due to the economy, other university declines would have been similar. As you can see, some of the universities' donations were actually up during this time frame.

If donations were affected by a lousy football season - I can hear this argument out there -, the donations to Michigan (who had a record of 3-9 that year) would have fallen much more than Notre Dame's (7-6). Notre Dame's donations for the year were $50 million worse than Michigan's.

I think the fallout from this decision is obvious with the above comparison. You can't offend the essence of an organization without major fallout.

People of Notre Dame, I am proud of you for not supporting this farce with your hard-earned money! I wrote this post to honor you.

The sad part is that Notre Dame did not lose this money for its beliefs, it lost this money for President Rev. John Jenkins' beliefs.

Htip to the bro's at CMR:

Barack Obama: A President Under Siege!

2010-11-01T19:54:00.004-04:00

On the cusp of one of the worst political defeats that an American political party will ever have to endure, Obama chose very interesting terminology to try to rally his core supporters as he spoke to the listeners of Univision radio:

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

These comments are so insightful to President Obama's psyche.

First of all, Obama is feeling like he and his administration are completely under siege and the barbarians are at the gate. Notice his mention of the word "enemies." What professional politician ever says this word? Really, even Hillary used the term "Right-wing conspiracy," and not the term "enemies." Please note, Obama is a man who does not even call terrorists our "enemies." It is a complete slip up giving us insight to how threatened he really feels and how much pressure he is currently under - that he made the slip up.

The second aspect I see in this slip up supports the controversial piece written by Dinesh D'Souza in regard to what he believes is Obama's governing, literally, personality trait. His Kenyan Anti-colonial Behavior:

"It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America's military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America's power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe's resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.

For Obama, the solutions are simple. He must work to wring the neocolonialism out of America and the West. And here is where our anticolonial understanding of Obama really takes off, because it provides a vital key to explaining not only his major policy actions but also the little details that no other theory can adequately account for."

All of the targeted traits mentioned above (military, free markets, the affluent, profits) have to deal with how Obama actually sees Conservatives. His "enemies" -- which explains this slip up again.

Early Voting Shows A Democratic Whomping!

2010-10-26T20:20:00.005-04:00

Jim Geraghty over at National Review organizes the early voting turnout compiled by the United States Election Project at GMU.

To give you an idea how bad it is for Liberals:

In Florida, 52.8% of the early voters are Republicans. In 2008, only 37.3% of early voters were Republican.

In Colorado, 41.7% of early voters are Republicans- beating this year's Democratic early voters by 6 points. In 2008, only 35.9% were from the GOP.

In Ohio this year's early ballots show "29,419 for Democrats to 28,506 for Republicans — after running more than 2-to-1 for Democrats in 2008."

In Pennsylvania, 56.4% of the early voters are Republicans. In the last 5 Presidential Elections going back to Bill Clinton's first victory, Pennsylvania voted Democrat.

Considering how much effort the Democrats put into getting early voters out, these numbers gives us a little glimpse to the Blue Massacre that is going to happen one week from tonight.

Maximilian Kolbe: Was Just As Precious to God

2010-10-23T15:47:00.010-04:00

Joseph Pronechen had a great interview in the National Catholic Register where he interviewed a 91-year-old priest - Father Lucjan Krolikowski - who knew Maximilian Kolbe. This interview crushed my self-inflected bias on St. Kolbe. I always thought of him as a man who met the moment; taking the place of a husband and a father in a Nazi death camp selected to die of starvation. After this article, I realize that the moment actually met Fr. Kolbe.

Fr. Krolikowski remembers the saint:

"Maximilian Kolbe used to come very often to the seminary. He played chess. He was so brilliant: a genius in math. He would play with 10 seminarians at one time and win every one. But he was humble and gave us a chance to win.

He was a genius. When he applied for the novitiate, there was a committee studying each case. When it came to Raymond — his name from baptism — his professor of math and physics said, “To be a monk would be a waste of time. He is a genius, and they need to send him to the university. He could be another Galileo or Copernicus.” The father provincial said, “Yes, you might be right; he is a genius. But I will tell you, professor, we also have geniuses of the spiritual realm, and we call them saints.”

...He was humble, very humble. Many times when people ask me how I would describe his humility, I say to all, “If you would come to [our religious community] and say to me, ‘I hear so much about Maximilian Kolbe. Who is he? What does he look like?’ I tell them, ‘I will march in a file in front of you (all the friars) and you guess who could be Maximilian Kolbe.’”

He would be the last to be recognized. He was so self-effacing, so ordinary and humble.

The brothers loved him so much. When he was arrested by the Nazis, 20 brothers applied to replace him, ready to die in his place, and the Nazi colonel said, “Even if it be 1,000 you would not liberate him. He is precious to us.”

...He had to be bright to manage everything — 700 brothers, 130 seminarians, all the printings [of a Catholic newsletter he published].

His monastery was so expanded and complicated; printing so many publications. What Maximilian Kolbe did sometimes — you judge it’s not in the ability of a man to do it. He has to be helped by God. It’s like a miracle.

[While Fr. Kolbe was actively running the monastery] Our superiors were afraid that, when he died, the monastery would collapse because it was too complicated to be run by one person. The father general said, “Let Father Maximilian Kolbe answer these accusations.” Fr. Kolbe stood up, put his hands like this [Father Krolikowski demonstrates, holding his arms down, with wrists crossed as if bound] and said nothing. Why? He believed in the providence of God.

Later I heard the father general said “I felt like Pilate before Christ.”"

As if Fr. Krolikowski wasn't lucky enough to know one saint, he tells a story in the article that a visiting Cardinal heard he was celebrating his silver jubilee with orphans. The Cardinal wanted to go and spend time with the orphans. Fr. Krolikowski remembers he saw the doors of the room he was in swing open, and before him stood Karol Wojtyla who spoke to the orphans for 10-20 minutes.

"No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"~ St. Maximilian Kolbe

Susan G. Koman for the Cure?????

2010-10-16T10:57:00.010-04:00

As we all know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The Susan G. Koman Foundation is the most high-profile, and well-financed, organization that claims to prevent and pursue a cure for breast cancer. But do their actions match their tag line????

In 2009, the Susan G. Koman Foundation gave $731,000 to Planned Parenthood, the leading provider of abortions in America. Over the past 5 years, the number has been put at $3 million dollars sent to Planned Parenthood from Koman affiliates. The SGKF claims these funds were for mammogram screenings, but it is all dumped into a bucket at Planned Parenthood, and pays for the overhead expenses and all their services across the board. In addition, a $700K gift to Planned Parenthood helps it to thrive and expand as an organization.

So below is the killer chart, no pun intended, I found at the Polycarp Research Institute.

29 out of 39 studies (74% of the studies - almost three fourths!!!) found a higher risk of breast cancer for woman who have procured abortions.

So tell me again, how is this organization safeguarding and protecting women against breast cancer?

I would highly recommend diverting any Susan G. Koman donations to the Polycarp Research Institute. They also have a similar, eye-opening chart correlating birth control to breast cancer with 85% of the studies affirming the relation. You will never see these truths on the news or in the newspapers.

The Coming Republican Tsunami

2010-10-09T06:50:00.005-04:00

Here are two very interesting pieces that should not be overlooked:

Gallup just released a likely voter poll that found if turnout on this Election Day is as expected, The Republicans would lead the Democrats by a 46% to 42% margin.

After this, it gets interesting. This likely voters poll also projects that if the turn out is much heavier than expected, the Republican voters will then lead the Democrats 53% to 40%, a 13 point lead and what would represent a severe whomping.

It even gets better. If the turnout is lower than expected, say extremely bad weather from Washington to Boston on election day, or the Democrats are too embarrassed to show their faces, aren't motivated to vote and just stay home, Republican voters would lead the Democratic voters by 56% to 38%. An incredible 18 point lead!

Too put this in perspective, Ronald Reagan had an 18 point difference when he carried 49 states in 1984.

John Fund quotes Michael Barone in the Wall St. Journal stating if these second scenarios happen, we will be looking at possibly picking up 100, one-zero-zero, House seats in Congress, and the Democratic devastation would be on par with the 1928 elections, even exceeding the 1994 Gringrich landslide when 54 House seats changed hands.

Now here is the second piece of data that I took notice of recently that when laid along side of the above data is very pertinent.

During September's election primaries, American University confirms that we had more Republicans turn out than Democrats for the first time since the 1930's. This has not been achieved in close to 80 years! In addition, Republican turn out was up +28% over 2006. Democratic turn out for this year's primaries was down -5% compared to 2006. This foreshadows that the Republican turn out will be heavier than expected and their base is very energized.

The Tsunami is coming... Boy is it coming!

My Boy AB Chaput Get's the Quote of the Week...

2010-10-06T20:00:00.003-04:00

At the 61st Religion Newswriter Annual Archbishop Chaput addressed the media's hostility towards Christianity:

"Journalists engender some of the hostility but generally are in denial about their own secular orthodoxies, which color their coverage of religion's rightful roles in politics and culture, Chaput said.

...New York Times reporter Laurie Goodstein asked Chaput why then he wouldn't give interviews to her newspaper.

Chaput said the newspaper had engaged in deliberate distortion of his views, falsely reporting he had encouraged people not to vote for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, a Catholic, in 2004.

Cathy Grossman of USA Today asked him if boycotting a paper because of one reporter and an event six years ago didn't somewhat undercut his plea for fairness.

[Blogger Note: Here it comes!!!!]

"We don't boycott everybody, just The New York Times," Chaput said. "

Saturday Morning Bagel Quote: Founding Father

2010-10-02T07:39:00.004-04:00

"...the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?"

-Benjamin Franklin, June 28, 1787

I would add to Franklin's admission, likewise is it possible that an empire can fall without His abandoment? Pray and act and remain loyal to Him. Remember who we are.

A Score of Compassion and Jubilance; Touchdown!!!

2010-09-28T17:43:00.005-04:00

From Fox News:

"Scoring the team's only touchdown in a 35-6 loss is normally nothing to celebrate. But sometimes the touchdown counts as more than six points on the scoreboard.

In a high-school game in Snohomish, Wash. on Friday, the hometown Snohomish Panthers avoided a shutout in inspirational fashion as junior Ike Ditzenberger -- a 17-year-old with Down syndrome -- scored on a 51-yard touchdown run after entering the game for the first time with just 10 seconds remaining.

Opposing players and coaches of Lake Stevens were apprised of the play beforehand, dubbed "The Ike Special" by his team. According to the The Daily Herald (Everett, Wash.), the play resembles the final snap of each Snohomish practice as his Panthers teammates allow Ditzenberger to score each day. "

It was 45 seconds that was insignificant in the scope of the game, but I am sure led to a flow of tears from his parents and left a big impact on Ike's life and self esteem. Kudo's to the Coach and Opposing Coach for leaving the spartan element of football behind and seeing an opportunity for kindness and love.

Bastille Day 2010!

2010-09-21T18:16:00.007-04:00

This was the best story of the day, maybe the month.

Robert Rizzo, a city manager in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell, decided to give himself a $787,000 annual salary without taxpayer approval and get fat on the public trough. The per capita income of the people in his district that he was supposed to be representing is $24,800 a year.

Rizzo's hacks on the council provided Rizzo with 107 days of vacation and 36 sick days in 2008 as part of his cushy package.

Rizzo also gave himself two $80,000 personal loans as well.

Today, he and seven of his political minions were taken away in handcuffs this morning. Rizzo faces 53 charges of misappropriation of public funds.

It is a different day in America. The corrupt politicians have been put on notice and the exhausted and exploited peasants are coming with their pitchforks. Sic semper tyrannis!

Catholic Motherhood: Two Souls; One Heart

2010-09-13T19:46:00.004-04:00

A great article from CNA. It is absolutely a must read for Catholic mothers, and every Catholic should get something out of this:

"September is the month of Our Lady of Sorrows. In his fourth meditation on the "Seven Sorrows of Our Lady," St. Alphonsus Liguori describes the pain, horror, and pity that the Blessed Virgin Mary experienced as she anticipated Christ's crucifixion, and encountered him on his way to Calvary:

All mothers feel the sufferings of their children as their own. Hence, when the Canaanitish woman entreated our Saviour to deliver her daughter from the devil that tormented her, she asked Him rather to pity her, the mother, than her daughter: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously troubled by a devil." But what mother ever loved her son as Mary loved Jesus?

Let us only imagine what a flame He must have enkindled in that pure heart of His holy Mother, void as it was of every earthly affection. In fine, the Blessed Virgin herself told Saint Bridget, "that love had rendered her heart and that of her Son but one." That blending together of Servant and Mother, of Son and God, created in the heart of Mary a fire composed of a thousand flames.

But the whole of this flame of love was afterwards, at the time of the Passion, ranged into a sea of grief, when Saint Bernardine declares, "that if all the sorrows of the world were united, they would not equal that of the glorious Virgin Mary." Yes, because, as Richard of St. Lawrence writes, "the more tenderly this Mother loved, so much the more deeply was she wounded." The greater was her love for Him, the greater was her grief at the sight of His sufferings; and especially when she met her Son, already condemned to death, and bearing His cross to the place of punishment.

The Blessed Virgin revealed to Saint Bridget, that when the time of the Passion of our Lord was approaching, her eyes were always filled with tears, as she thought of her beloved Son, whom she was about to lose on earth, and that the prospect of that approaching suffering caused her to be seized with fear, and a cold sweat to cover her whole body.

Saint Bonaventure, contemplating Mary on that night, says: "Thou didst spend it without sleep, and whilst others slept thou didst remain watching." In the morning the disciples of Jesus Christ came to this afflicted Mother, the one to bring her one account, the other another; but all were tidings of sorrow, verifying in her the prophecy of Jeremias: "Weeping, she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; there is none to comfort her of all them that were dear to her."

Mary goes with Saint John, and by the blood with which the way is sprinkled, she perceives that her Son has already passed. This she revealed to Saint Bridget: "By the footsteps of my Son, I knew where He had passed: for along the way the ground was marked with blood."

Alas, what a scene of sorrows then presented itself before her! the nails, the hammers, the cords, the fatal instruments of the death of her Son, all of which were borne before Him. And what a sword must the sound of that trumpet have been to her heart, which proclaimed the sentence pronounced against her Jesus! But behold, the instruments, the trumpeter, and the executioners, have already passed; she raised her eyes, and saw, O God ! a young man covered with blood and wounds from head to foot, a wreath of thorns on His head, and two heavy beams on His shoulders.

On the one hand she desired to behold Him, and on the other she dreaded so heart-rending a sight. At length they looked at each other. The Son wiped from His eyes the clotted blood, which, as it was revealed to Saint Bridget, prevented Him from seeing, and looked at His Mother, and the Mother looked at her Son. Ah, looks of bitter grief, which, as so many arrows, pierced through and through those two beautiful and loving souls.

The Mother would have embraced Him, as Saint Anselm says, but the guards thrust her aside with insults, and urged forward the suffering Lord; and Mary followed Him. Ah, holy Virgin, whither goest thou? To Calvary. And canst thou trust thyself to behold Him, who is thy life, hanging on a cross?

"We even pity wild beasts," as Saint John Chrysostom writes; and did we see a lioness following her cub to death, the sight would move us to compassion. And shall we not also be moved to compassion on seeing Mary follow her immaculate Lamb to death? Let us, then, pity her, and let us also accompany her Son and herself, by bearing with patience the cross which our Lord imposes on us.

Saint John Chrysostom asks why Jesus Christ, in His other sufferings, was pleased to endure them alone, but in carrying His cross was assisted by the Cyrenean? He replies, that it was "that thou mayest understand that the cross of Christ is not sufficient without thine."

September 11, 2010: The Calling of Our Time

2010-09-11T11:32:00.002-04:00

A few days after our country was attacked, on Sept. 14, President Bush came to a national cathedral in Washington D.C., and gave what I believe was the greatest speech of his Presidency. It received very little accolades from the press, probably too many references to God. It is a very worthwhile read on this 9th anniversary.

"We are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have suffered so great a loss, and today we express our nation's sorrow. We come before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who loved them. On Tuesday, our country was attacked with deliberate and massive cruelty. We have seen the images of fire and ashes and bent steel.

Now come the names, the list of casualties we are only beginning to read:

They are the names of men and women who began their day at a desk or in an airport, busy with life.

They are the names of people who faced death and in their last moments called home to say, be brave and I love you.

They are the names of passengers who defied their murderers and prevented the murder of others on the ground.

They are the names of men and women who wore the uniform of the United States and died at their posts.

They are the names of rescuers -- the ones whom death found running up the stairs and into the fires to help others.

We will read all these names. We will linger over them and learn their stories, and many Americans will weep.

To the children and parents and spouses and families and friends of the lost, we offer the deepest sympathy of the nation. And I assure you, you are not alone. Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history, but our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.

War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others; it will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing. Our purpose as a nation is firm, yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed and lead us to pray. In many of our prayers this week, there's a searching and an honesty. At St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, on Tuesday, a woman said, "I pray to God to give us a sign that He's still here."

Others have prayed for the same, searching hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still missing. God's signs are not always the ones we look for. We learn in tragedy that His purposes are not always our own, yet the prayers of private suffering, whether in our homes or in this great cathedral are known and heard and understood. There are prayers that help us last through the day or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers that give us strength for the journey, and there are prayers that yield our will to a Will greater than our own.

This world He created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance and love have no end, and the Lord of life holds all who die and all who mourn.

It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded and the world has seen that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave.

We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion, in long lines of blood donors, in thousands of citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way possible.

And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice:

Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end and at the side of his quadriplegic friend.

A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter.

Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down 68 floors to safety.

A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burned victims.

In these acts and many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one another and an abiding love for our country.

Today, we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called, "the warm courage of national unity." This is a unity of every faith and every background. It has joined together political parties and both houses of Congress. It is evident in services of prayer and candlelight vigils and American flags, which are displayed in pride and waved in defiance. Our unity is a kinship of grief and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the world.

America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for, but we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender, and the commitment of our Fathers is now the calling of our time.

On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask Almighty God to watch over our nation and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that He will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to come.

As we've been assured, neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth can separate us from God's love. May He bless the souls of the departed. May He comfort our own. And may He always guide our country.

God bless America."

Archbishop Sheen on Antique Road Show

2010-09-07T10:13:00.008-04:00

I joke with my wife I know I am getting old because I am finding myself watching the Antique Road Show more and more. Just a few years back my preference was watching contestants eat live scorpions on Fear Factor, but with the demands of 4 children I now need a more peaceful intake of viewing on my down time.

Last week they ran an older show on one of the weekend editions. Here is a great story about Archbishop Sheen and a little Iowan girl. Now 60 years old, the woman on the show reflected back to her childhood in 1953:

"I was in the Brownie Scouts. And we had moved from Chicago, and mother had packed the Brownie uniform. We had found the dress, but not the hat. So every day, I came home from school saying, "Mother, have you found the hat yet?" This went on for several months, and every day, it was, "No, I haven't found the hat." So one night, I was watching Bishop Sheen on “Life is Worth Living,” black-and-white TV, and I saw his hat. And I ran into the kitchen, and I said, "Mother, I found my Brownie hat." And she said, "Well, where is it?" Because she was very relieved. I said, "Well, Bishop Sheen stole it." And she thought that was so funny that she wrote him a letter explaining the story. But she changed it slightly and didn't tell him that I said he stole it, that he had it, or he took it. So for Christmas, he inscribed [his zuccheto/skull cap], "To Frances, God Love You-- Fulton J. Sheen," and sent it to me as a Christmas present."

For those of you dying to know, the zuccheto was appraised for between $2,000-$4,000.

It has definitely been an Archbishop Sheen stretch for me lately. Here is a little Catholic trivia: Archbishop Sheen's baptized name was Peter John Sheen. Fulton was his mother's maiden name and became the Archbishop's preference.

Best of VCR: American Pro-Life Hall of Fame Inaugural Class

2010-09-05T12:37:00.002-04:00

Originally Posted Sept. 22, 2008:

I recently had an idea for a post. My concept was that if an American Pro-Life Hall of Fame existed, who would be the inaugural class? Who would be the first five people to be honored based on the last 30+ years of the pro-life cause? The most influential individuals involved with the cause?

The guidelines would be that an eligible person for election would have to be American born and have exposure at a national level. To come up with this list, I spoke with someone whom I believe is a leading authority on the pro-life cause, and its history, in America. We bounced ideas off each other, and came up with the following list of whom we would select as the inaugural class trying to cover the multi-facets of the cause and our society:

Scientific Community:
Bernard Nathanson: A founding member of NARAL and responsible for 75,000 abortions during his OBGYN career, Nathanson’s heart and views were converted as ultrasound became more sophisticated. He became a leading voice in the vanguard of the pro-life cause. His VHS video, The Silent Scream, was widely distributed in the early 1980’s where he gave a detailed window to the womb showing the viability of the baby and the horror of the abortion procedure.

Legislative Community:
Henry Hyde: A congressman who represented the 6th district of Illinois. Author of the Hyde Amendment that in 1976 prevented federal funds being used for abortion. With this signed legislation, he became the first person to register a victory against the Roe v. Wade decision. For over 30 years Hyde was a stalwart for the defense of unborn children on Capitol Hill.

Public Activist:
Randall Terry: Founded Operation Rescue in 1987. Arrested over 40 times for civil disobedience at abortion clinics across America. Terry and his organization provided the activist wing of the pro-life movement an existence and created havoc for the abortion industry saving thousands of babies. Served as a spokesman for the Terri Schiavo family.

Religious Community:
Cardinal John O’Connor: One of the strongest pro-life voices for the Catholic Church in America in the past 30 years. The Archbishop of the Diocese of New York City for 16 years and made the pro-life cause a cornerstone of the Diocese. Told any woman who was thinking of an abortion to come to him personally and he will get her help to her keep her baby. Caused fits for Catholic politicians Mario Cuomo and Geraldine Ferraro and their political deflection that they're "personally opposed to, but publically in support of abortion" stating this view was morally unacceptable.

Media Community:
Patrick Buchanan:
For over 40 years represented an unyielding pro-life voice in Republican administrations, print and television media. For seventeen years, appeared on Crossfire and defended and explained the pro-life position to America. Flanked George H.W. Bush in a 1992 Presidential run causing him to strengthen his social conservative positions. Gave one of the defining pro-life speeches in memory stating we are in a "cultural war for the soul of America," at Republican National Convention the same year.

A few notes of interest with this list. Although religious affiliations were not a consideration while compiling this list, all five listed ended up being Catholic. Nathanson and Terry converted. Some of the above listed did have problems within their personal lives but we have to give them their due in the pro-life cause.

Please understand this is one opinion of who should be honored. In no way do I want to take away from acknowledging anyone’s pro-life efforts or dedication to our cause . There were so many other names mentioned in the discussion (honorable mentions) including: Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Rush Limbaugh, Fr. Frank Pavone, Ronald Reagan, Sam Brownback, Alan Keyes, Judie Brown, Gov. Robert Casey, Dr. Carolyn Gerster, Rev. Billy Graham, Fr. Weslin, Joan Andrews, etc…

I would love to hear if you think we got it right, or anyone else’s list.

Archbishop Sheen Vintage TV Clip: "Is One of Your Titles, "Servant of God?"

2010-08-30T19:31:00.010-04:00

Here is an archive film that I found last night. Archbishop Sheen was a guest on "What's My Line." It was an early television game show where the panel wore blindfolds and plays "20 questions" to try to eventually deduct who is the guest on the show.

A few things here to notice:
1) How loved Sheen was. The audience applauds for close to 20 seconds when they see it is him, and the first panel guest mentions, "it is the most solid round of applause I have heard in a long time." To put this in some perspective, the Archbishop received a 19 second round of applause when on the show; Joe DiMaggio received a 17 second round of applause when on the show.

2) His humility. When the same panelist asks, "Are you a familiar figure in public life," Sheen answers... "A little bit." Remember he had one of the highest ranking shows on television at the time.

3) How playful the archbishop can be, speaking French to throw off the panel. We also see the personal side of Sheen. How much he enjoys the "weekly on television and non-profit???" comment. And his quick wit telling the same panelist after he won money, "It's profit!"

4) He instructs to send his earnings to leper colonies.

5) At the end one of the panelist even kisses his ring. Wouldn't see that today.

This is a time capsule of a time when Catholicism in America was held in high esteem by even non-believers.

Enjoy!

We Could All Use a Miracle Right About Now, Couldn't We?

2010-08-28T20:27:00.006-04:00

Today I was determined to find good news out there. It seems lately every headline posted at Yahoo or Google is depressing, as our country seems to be more adrift. I was determined to find a story to give everyone a quick Faith shot in the arm. It took quite a bit of searching, but I found such a story that was not even carried by English-speaking media outlets.

As we Americans are very familiar with, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (or ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease) is a horrible disease which gives its recipients very little hope. Sadly, only one in five people who are given this diagnosis live more than 5 five years. 50 percent of them do not make it 3 years.

By 2005, an Italian woman, Antonietta Raco (pictured), was completely paralyzed due to this disease and was resolved that this disease would run its course on her. In August of 2009, her body was completely free of the disease. What happened in between you ask? A pilgrimage to Lourdes, France.

Her prayers at Lourdes were not for self healing. She asked God to take her life in His hands. She asked the Lord to not have her last days mirror a recent highly publicized euthanasia case. She also prayed for a young girl in her village who shared her disease and her fate.

“I felt the presence of someone else [in the healing pool] that held me by the neck; I tried to turn around, but nobody was there. I felt a great pain in the legs, then a relief."

"It was at that moment when I heard to my left, a beautiful female voice, soft, tender, light," she said. “I never heard anything like it; I was relieved by the mere fact that I could actually physically hear her voice." The Woman said, 'Do not be afraid, do not be afraid!”

Upon examining Raco, Dr. Chio, her physician for the past 4 years, was quoted saying, “…from the standpoint of the medical literature, there has never been a case of regression for this disease.” He was surprised and said, "I am left speechless,'" Raco recalled.

I often think of an explanation for miracles that I once heard that resonated with me. The explanation was that a main purpose of a miracle is to remind us all who is really in control and still remains all powerful over science, nature, physics, perceptions, academia and our low-level realities. As humans we become standardized to the ways of the world and trapped in its secular thinking. Miracles drive a bulldozer through this default thinking.

Some links we all could use:

Here is a list of people who were cured at Lourdes. This is the official document, the Catholic Church is the most critical review on any reported cure. Ms. Raco has not been added yet.

Here is a link to get your prayer requests delivered to the Grotto at Lourdes.

Mother Teresa: A Beauty of God!

2010-08-25T19:02:00.004-04:00

When ever I read about you, Mother, I realize what a poor Catholic I am. Here is a worthwhile piece by Fr. Raymond de Souza:

"...In 1952, Mother Teresa found a woman dying in the streets, half-eaten by rats and ants, with no one to care for her. She picked her up and took her to the hospital, but nothing could be done. Realizing that there were many others dying alone in the streets, Mother Teresa opened within days Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart), a home for the dying. In the first 20 years alone, over 20,000 people were brought there, half of whom died knowing the love of the Missionaries of Charity. Nirmal Hriday is where one dying man, lying in the arms of Mother Teresa after being plucked from the gutters and bathed and clothed and fed, told her, “I have lived like an animal, but now I am dying like an angel.”

...She then came to be feted in the glamour capitals, receiving dozens of awards. In 1979, she received the Nobel Peace Prize, at that time still a prestigious award. When given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985, the plaque described her as the “saint of the gutters.” There have been others who have risen from the gutters to receive such awards, but she was the only one who went back to the gutters to live.

Mother Teresa knew that the true good cannot be found in systems or plans, no matter how clever or efficient, but in a person. She was not against the work of welfare agencies, but remarked that welfare was for a purpose, albeit a noble one, whilst love was for a person. Mother Teresa offered love. When criticized by those who accused her of not going to the root causes of problems, she would simply remind them what the true root cause was. “The greatest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody,”

...Mother Teresa never played to the crowd who wished to obscure the Gospel and reduce her to a humanitarian celebrity. She spoke out against abortion as the “greatest destroyer of peace” when in Oslo at the Nobel ceremony, and shocked the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington when she reminded them of the Christian tradition on the immorality of contraception.

...The world only knew her as diminutive and wizened, with a slight stoop and gnarled hands. Yet all who met her found her beautiful, for her eyes sparkled and her smile radiated joy.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger once wrote that ultimately the Church has only two things to offer to the world for the credibility of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: the beauty of her art and the lives of her saints. Mother Teresa captivated the whole world, becoming a patron saint of a difficult century. Like a great masterpiece of sacred art, she was indeed something beautiful for God."

Amen, Fr. de Souza, Amen. Happy 100th Mother, pray for us!

Bubbalicious, "No Please... It's Not My Place to Speak... Well, O.K. Only For a Minute..."

2010-08-24T18:51:00.005-04:00

Here is a very interesting column by Howard Fineman stating that where Democratic incumbents are terrified of being seen with Obama, Bill Clinton is stepping in to the rescue. This solution give these incumbents the power of a Presidential fundraiser, but not the baggage of being seeing with a completely incompetent and unpopular President.

What really is happening here, in the nuances, is that the Clintons are taking back control of the Democratic Party (he who controls the purse strings in politics...). They have given Barack enough time to have fun. The Clintons are also building IOU's for when Hillary challenges Obama for the 2012 Democratic Presidential nomination.

Here is Fineman's take:

"...According to Democratic polls, Democratic Senate candidates are doing much better in the horse race of the campaign than Obama is doing in overall popularity in most states. In Missouri, for example, Obama’s approval rating is 36 percent, but Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan is only a couple of points behind Republican Roy Blunt.

So into the top-of-the-ticket, presidential-level campaign void has (happily) stepped Bubba, as charming as ever, as sharp as ever at stating his case to voters. Plans are still “up in the air, but expect to see him out quite a bit,” says his spokesman, Matt McKenna.

...And when Clinton is “out” there, don’t expect him to fill his speeches with personal praise of Barack Obama. As a lawyer and salesman, Clinton knows that touting Obama as The One is a nonstarter given the president’s plummeting job-approval numbers. But permit me a moment of Machiavellian thinking to suggest that Clinton loves to be in a situation in which he has to make the Democrats’ case by damning with faint praise a man whose campaign he once dismissed as a “fairy tale.”

I always love listening to Bill Clinton. If you listen carefully, you can see all the gears in motion: he makes himself clear to people who bother to take him seriously. So what is he saying? That this president has “done a better job than he has gotten credit for so far.” (Which is not the same thing as saying that Obama has done a good job)."

The UK tabloid rag the Globe reported that Bill Clinton only has 6 months to live ;) , but boy is he going out doing what he loves: being the center of attention and being seen as selfless and benevolent despite his political motives!

Denis Dillon: A Profile in Courage

2010-08-21T06:56:00.010-04:00

This week a pro-life hero was laid to rest.

Denis Dillon was the Nassau County District Attorney for 31 years and one of the most non-wavering, public pro-life voices on Long Island over the past few decades.

During the week, he revolutionized the District Attorney’s office and provided such a progressive standard that eventually countless DA offices across our country adopted his way of doing things. He had one of the highest conviction rates in the country.

On weekends, he would be a pro-life activist by often partaking in public pro-life demonstrations setting a golden example on how public servants did not have to abandon their convictions.

Long Island’s newspaper, Newsday, took many cheap shots at him over the years because of his convictions and he was persecuted for his Catholic Faith.

New York State Justice Arthur Diamond remembered Denis at his funeral Mass with a story:

“Days before former Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon would stand for re-election one year, Dillon's longtime friend Arthur Diamond offered him some unsolicited advice.

"Stop hitting so hard on the anti-abortion issue," Diamond remembered telling Dillon, a devout Catholic. "It's hurting you politically."

Dillon paused, then said, "I love you, Artie, but I can't worry about this election. I have to worry about what happens to me long after this election," [Blogger Note: meaning when he met God].

There have been many quotes in Denis’ eulogies that were taken from the St. Thomas More (patron saint of lawyers) movie, A Man for All Seasons. But Denis, I believe you did meet God and it was a welcoming embrace because as stated in this great movie, “[God] will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to him."

"May the angels lead you into paradise: may the martyrs receive you at your coming, and lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem. May the choir of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, who once was poor, may you have everlasting rest.”

For more of a biography of this great man, click here:

Charles Krauthammer: "...no Mosque at Ground Zero."

2010-08-13T06:34:00.005-04:00

Charles Krauthammer has a very compelling column today on the controversy of building a mosque at Ground Zero. I, being a New Yorker impacted by 9/11 -- while also be a huge proponent of the Freedom of Religion, go back and forth on the issue, so this piece was a worthwhile read for me:

"A place is made sacred by a widespread belief that it was visited by the miraculous or the transcendent (Lourdes, the Temple Mount), by the presence there once of great nobility and sacrifice (Gettysburg), or by the blood of martyrs and the indescribable suffering of the innocent (Auschwitz).

When we speak of Ground Zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there [Blogger Note: and the first responders who sacrificed their lives there trying to save others] -- and that such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated.

That's why Disney's 1993 proposal to build an American history theme park near Manassas Battlefield was defeated by a broad coalition that feared vulgarization of the Civil War. It's why the commercial viewing tower built right on the border of Gettysburg was taken down by the Park Service. It's why, while no one objects to Japanese cultural centers, the idea of putting one up at Pearl Harbor would be offensive.

And why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz. He was in no way devaluing their heartfelt mission to pray for the souls of the dead. He was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place; it belongs to others. However pure your voice, better to let silence reign.

...Religious institutions in this country are autonomous. Who is to say that the mosque won't one day hire an Anwar al-Aulaqi -- spiritual mentor to the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber, and onetime imam at the Virginia mosque attended by two of the 9/11 terrorists?

...Location matters. Especially this location. Ground Zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history -- perpetrated by Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed.

Of course that strain represents only a minority of Muslims. Islam is no more intrinsically Islamist than present-day Germany is Nazi -- yet despite contemporary Germany's innocence, no German of goodwill would even think of proposing a German cultural center at, say, Treblinka.

Which makes you wonder about the goodwill behind Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's proposal. This is a man who has called U.S. policy "an accessory to the crime" of 9/11 and, when recently asked whether Hamas is a terrorist organization, replied, "I'm not a politician. . . . The issue of terrorism is a very complex question."

America is a free country where you can build whatever you want -- but not anywhere. That's why we have zoning laws. No liquor store near a school, no strip malls where they offend local sensibilities, and, if your house doesn't meet community architectural codes, you cannot build at all.

These restrictions are for reasons of aesthetics. Others are for more profound reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred. No commercial tower over Gettysburg, no convent at Auschwitz -- and no mosque at Ground Zero."

Barack Obama's Persona Part II; The Academic

2010-07-21T07:58:00.005-04:00

In following the point from a previous post that I believe Barack Obama is emotionally voided, I believe the second major component of his persona is that he is completely entrenched in the academic mindset.

Academia is a place where concepts and theories are king, where unrealistic concepts never have to be put to the fire to test their validity. It is a place where elite educators congratulate themselves on producing written thoughts on paper and theory lectures and not tangible measurements of creation and achievement.

For 12 years, Barack Obama served as a college professor at the University of Chicago Law School. This decade of academic mindset became thoroughly entrenched in him and is present even to this day. Even Liberal talking heads currently mention his press conferences have more of a tone of a college professor lecturing his class than anything else.

It should surprise no one that Barack Obama came from Academia. Do you ever wonder why there are so many Liberals in academia? It is not because they all decide one day to all be professors. It is because they gravitate to one of the only few places left in the world where they can exist with their failed, non-real world ideologies and get paid handsomely.

In contrast, however, academics will also shoot a proposal down based on their bravado academic reputations that prevent them from seeing possibilities. In 1965, Fred Smith turned in a term paper to his Yale professor that dealt with the concept on having centralized distribution hubs for a national package delivery company. So a package would go from New York City down to Memphis to be sorted; then back to the final destination across the river in Paramus, NJ. The paper received a “C” from his academic college professor stating it was implausible. Fred Smith had the last laugh though; he went on to found Federal Express.

To give you a real life story of mine comparing academia to real world, upon completing my Masters Degree I knew four different ways to determine a break-even selling price on a product to a customer; the exact price where a company selling a product does not make profit, but does not lose money either. At my first real job I was posed with a problem that Wal-Mart told my company that we needed to sell our product to them at a 20% loss, or we would lose their $80 million dollar business. I was completely a deer frozen in the headlights. I knew the text book instruction on how to figure out a break-even, but did not have real world experience to take it to the next level, or even understand there was a next level, in deciding whether we should sell something at a loss. I needed some real world experience to catch up with my education.

In the business world, if you say something completely foolish or wrong you are beaten to a pulp by upper management who are protecting their turf, and you probably do not get promoted. If you throw out an idea on the table, that you haven’t thought through thoroughly, it will be a feeding frenzy exposing all the holes in your suggestion. So you learn to think about every objection that could be brought up and all the real world considerations. Abraham Lincoln once said when he debated someone he would spend one-third the prep time thinking about what he would say, and two-thirds his prep time thinking what his opponent would say.

Academia is different however. You have a tenure certificate in your hand that protects your livelihood from mistakes and stupidity.

This was definitely the environment from where Barack Obama emerged from.

Our President announced that he would close down Gitmo, a great in-theory-promise to his left-wing supporters. Then after blurting this out, he realized that no state or country wanted to take any of the prisoners and there were legitimate reasons why Gitmo existed. A very bad promise in reality, only half thought through. He was congratulated by the academics on this idea before the operation of this project imploded. Academia vs. Real World.

There are countless examples of Obama not thinking about what he was saying. “Spread the Wealth”, No business trips to Las Vegas, the Special Olympics gaff on the late show, etc… All these show why the teleprompter is so valuable to him.

Obama’s stimulus package is completely borne from academia. It is based on all theories that will not work in the real world. You can’t spend your way out of a recession. Ask FDR who policies failed for 10 years eventually needing the industrial production of WWII to get us out of the Great Depression. Do we really think America will be on the road to recovery with a $13 Trillion debt? Taxes and inflation will have to follow this. If you make the rich and corporations pay more taxes to pay for this, they will only constrict their expenses, read cut jobs, that the middle and lower class people need resulting in even less consumer dollars - - extending the recession. It is a vicious cycle.

One story that you should read is how they increased taxes on the wealthy in Maryland believing this would increase their government coffers. The wealthy moved out of Maryland and took all their tax revenue with them and now Maryland has less tax revenue than when they started. Academia vs. the real world. This solution made so much sense up on the chalk board...

Bill Frezza had a great column stating that the $700 Billion bailout resulted in one million jobs. Doing the math, it cost us $787,000 per job creation. Frezza points out that Obama’s White House Economics advisers are all academic professors who never worked in the business world:

"They never had to meet a payroll. They never had to raise money to fund their businesses from skeptical investors. They never bet their life savings on their own business judgment. They never had to scramble to pay off a banker who called in a loan. They never had to decide whether to take a calculated risk to expand their workforce hoping to take market share from a fierce competitor. .. They never had to manage a reduction in force, explaining to employees that their jobs have been eliminated because the tax and regulatory burdens imposed by some new law forced them to cut costs. They never lost business to a government-subsidized competitor whose cost of capital was vastly lower than theirs. They never had to grease the palms of politicians offering constituent services to resolve a bureaucratic hangup caused by the labyrinthine government approvals these selfsame politicians inflict on many businesses. They never had to deal with a missed sales forecast caused by an economy so roiled by capricious and uncertain fiscal policy that frightened customers were holding back orders. They never had to deal with a key supplier that unexpectedly went bankrupt because their source of credit dried up as dollars got sucked out of the commercial economy into government debt... They never had to stand up in front of disappointed investors to explain why they lost money that had been entrusted to them. And you can be sure that none of them ever fell on their face and had to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and decide whether it was worth going through all of the joys described above to take another shot at building a business from scratch.

Go read their biographies. Do Christina, Austan, and Cecilia appear to you to be contributing members of the productive economy? Do you see any evidence that they've spent even a fraction of their careers creating jobs? What do you think qualifies these people to work as high level apparatchiks of a governing class determined to manage the businesses of others?

All three have Ph.D.'s from fancy universities. They are prize winning experts in macroeconomics. To have come this far you can bet that they are ambitious, articulate, well connected, and brilliant. Yet when the Council of Economic Advisers did its calculations to determine the number of jobs saved by the stimulus, they shamelessly counted assets and totally ignored liabilities.

… No, these people and those that appointed them are cunningly smart. It's we who are the fools for listening to them. Long after these experts return to their sinecures in academia to train another generation of economists on the wisdom of central planning and Keynesian pump priming, it's we and our children and our grandchildren who will be paying the price.”

So it is somewhat sad, we are left with a country with such major, serious problems, and a President who does not have the real world, tangible experience to fix them. He doesn’t even know where to start with his chalk in hand.

My Top Americans that Liberals Hate the Most

2010-07-06T21:09:00.016-04:00

The Editors of Townhall.com put out a "Top 100 Americans that Liberals Hate the Most" List. Here is their Top 10:

1-Glen Beck
2-Sara Palin
3- Rush Limbaugh
4- George W. Bush
5-Ann Coulter
6-Michelle Malkin
7-Tea Party Members
8-Dick Cheney
9-Bill O'Reilly
10-Michelle Bachmann

Now, I think they are giving Glen Beck way too much credit. Liberals see him as an emotional flake, not overly threatening. I mean this guy pauses in the middle of a show, directs his head to the covering camera and starts his eyes tearing up for dramatic purposes.

I also noticed on this list there are many people who are involved with Town Hall magazine that seem to rank higher than they should. I really don't think the ACLU stays up at night thinking about Michelle Malkin who is number 6 on the list.

Here is my real list of who Liberals really "hate" the most in order. I also go inside the Liberal mindset to show you how they perceive these people to give you a little insight on how Liberals think:

1- Sarah Palin- There is a very-old skit on Abbott and Costello where Lou Costello tries to ask directions to the Susquehanna Hat Company. Upon mentioning this company to any pedestrians passing by, the pedestrians become totally enraged beyond measure for some incomprehensible reason and start lashing out. Whala... the” Sara Palin Affect” with Liberals, need I say more? Liberals see Palin as a bumpkin, air-head who is foolin' (you betcha') everyone in regard to her intelligence and abilities. They don’t understand why everyone can’t see her for what she obviously is in their eyes. Then there is that whole Elitist vs. common man thing, and a woman who welcomed a Down Syndrome baby into her life. It is total rage!

2-George W. Bush – The poor guy has been lying on the couch,watching sports and barbecuing for the last 18 months and he is still blamed for every societal ill there is. He was even mentioned as being responsible for the Gore divorce and the Gulf leak. Way too funny. Liberals see GW as a irresponsible frat boy who stole an election and could care less about any of their opinions when he ran the country. Liberals hate being ignored or having their pseudo-intellects dismissed. They also firmly believe that he tricked us into the Iraq war, despite almost every member of Congress voted for it.

Recently, Sienna College polled 238 professors/presidential scholars on the greatest and worst Presidents in history. These academics, read Liberals, put GW at 39, fifth from the bottom with the likes of Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan. Obama came in as 15th overall. Obama was also ranked 8th as most intelligent - although he's not looking to bright lately. All of this is one more piece of evidence that academia is in la-la land, and not tapped into or respected by the real world. GW is in good company, though. Bill Clinton (who was impeached) beat Ronald Reagan (who won the Cold War) on the list as well.

3-Dick Cheney – Liberals see him as the Evil Emperor to GW Bush’s Lord Vader. They believe that GW was not smart enough to run the country by his own wits, so Liberals are convinced that Cheney called all the shots; pulled all the strings. Kinda’ like Sinatra in Vegas. They kinda’ see him like the old, bald, grouchy puppets in the balcony of the Muppet Show who is miserable and heckles everyone. They think of him as a war monger because of his prior role as Secretary of Defense. Throw in his fortune was made from Big Oil, he is deserving of number 3 most hated.

4- The Roman Catholic Church - Townhall.com names an organization on their list, the Tea Party, but the Catholic Church in America is far more hated than the Tea Party. Some would argue this should be number one on the list. Liberals know that the Church is the last bastion of unwavering morality in the world. Her teachings completely conflict with every self-centered lifestyle that Liberals want to have without a ping of conscience. I will bet my life on where the Catholic Church will stand on abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research five centuries from now. I could not do this with any other religious, political, social or ethical organization, and Liberals know this as well.

5- Ann Coulter - Is seen as obnoxious, loud, rude and without class, and that's just how her fellow Conservatives view her.

6-Newt Gingrich – Liberals see Gingrich similar to how the right sees Nancy Pelosi. Some extreme wacko swinging on the fringe of ideology completely not in touch with any reality. They see him as a hypocrite, family value guy who left his wife when she was sick, actually validity in this charge.

7-Justice Antonin Scalia – The Town Hall polls put Clarence Thomas ahead of Scalia, but I believe Scalia is hated more than Thomas by Liberals. First off, Scalia has been infuriating them for longer. Thomas is seen as a misdirected African-American. Thomas is always civil and soft spoken to his credit, though. Scalia is cutting and bluntly honest. When asked who was the one Liberal he disliked the most, he answered, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg…” So much for harmony in the workplace. He once rebutted a lawyer arguing a capital punishment case with, "Where does it say the death penalty has to be painless?" There is nothing that Liberals hate more than a Conservative who is razor sharp and can destroy all their emotional arguments easily with facts and intellect. The ACLU does lose sleep over Scalia.

8-Mark Levin – I think if you gave the Obama administration a choice to take one Conservative talk show host to take off the air… It would not be Rush, nor Sean Hannity, nor Glen Beck nor Bill O’Reilly. It would be Mark Levin. Levin met the dawning of the Chosen One’s euphoric Presidency with his best selling, wet-blanket book “Liberty and Tyrrany.” He is also the most cutting, the highest I.Q. and the most inciting of all the talk show hosts. The other hosts would be very careful about calling Obama a socialist openly for fear of lawsuit. Levin screams it before every commercial break and dares the lawsuit with “That's right… I said it!” There is nothing more than Levin would like than to be sued for slander by the Obama administration, and explain to the world via satellite-courtroom why our President is a socialist. Liberals see Levin as someone who should have been institutionalized a long time ago. They truly believe he does not have all of his faculties. To all the Bill O'Reilly fans, you should ask yourself why Obama picked O'Reilly to go on out of all the Conservative talkshows when running for President.

9-Gianna Jessen – I called her in a previous post the Most Dangerous Woman in America. Many liberals do not even know her, but when they find out she is the fetus who made it through a botched abortion with scaring injuries, and now can give these destroyed members of the human race a human voice… Oh boy… hold your hat. They truly wish that she could have been discarded as planned.

For the 10th slot, take your pick: Donald Rumsfeld, Rush Limbaugh, Michele Bachmann, Pat Buchanan, etc...

One name on this list that is going to climb like a bullet is Madeleine Sackler. I don't know if you have heard about her movie, The Lottery, that shows the true underbelly of the teacher's union, but this movie is going to tear down the place. Nothing is more hostile than lazy people making tons of money who have their tenure questioned. Good stuff!

Obamacare: Academia Incompetence vs. Tangible Reality

2010-06-18T06:19:00.007-04:00

Karl Rove lays out what is coming in Obamacare, initiated by an academic who never had to exist in the real world:

"...This [reality of people being able to lose their health care] was brought home to me when I asked the CEO of a major restaurant chain about health reform's effect on his company, which now spends $25 million a year on employee health insurance. That will jump to at least $90 million a year once the new law is phased in. It will be cheaper, he told me, for the company to dump its coverage and pay a fine—$2,000 for each full-time worker—and make sure that no part-time employee accidentally worked 31 hours and thereby incurred the fine.

This reality is settling in at businesses across America. A Midwestern contractor told me he pays $588,000 for health insurance for 70 employees, contributing up to $8,400 a year for a family's coverage. If he stops providing health insurance, he'll pay $2,000 per employee in fines, and the first 40 employees are exempt from fines altogether." [Blogger note: 70 employees, the first 40 are exempt from any fine, so he will pay $2k on 30 employees totaling $60,000, as opposed to the $588K he is paying now. This owner could pocket $500K in savings and can throw 70 people on the public health care system. Maybe that's what Obama wants.]

So basically, Obama's legislation was set up so it is more efficient for private sector companies to pay the fines and drop health care for its employees, than provide health care for its employees. Driving quicker towards having everyone on national health care.

Dick Morris: The President is No Executive

2010-06-17T19:18:00.005-04:00

Dick Morris wrote two columns that I combined that really touches the essence of President Obama's limitations is this recent crisis:

"Contrary to what the Constitution says, the president does not run the executive branch of the federal government. It runs itself. Following Newton’s Laws of Motion, it is “a body in motion that tends to remain in motion in the same direction and at the same speed unless acted upon by an outside force.” The bureaucracy keeps doing what it is programmed to do unless someone intervenes.

And that intervention is the proper job of the president. He has to step in, ask the right questions, get inside and outside advice, and decide how to intervene to move the bureaucracy one way or the other. President Clinton had an excellent sense of how to do this and when to get involved. President Obama does not.

…Because [Obama] has no administrative experience. I often saw Bill Clinton, as governor and as president, call in experts and ask the tough questions when he faced a new disaster. In Arkansas, it was tornadoes or floods or fires. In Washington, it was Oklahoma City. But, each time, he thoroughly familiarized himself with all the technical issues. He took a bath in the science and substance of the hazard and became as knowledgeable as those who had spent a lifetime studying it. So he knew what questions to ask.

Any CEO or COO or manager has similar experience. But a community organizer, law professor, state senator, US Senator, and president doesn’t have the requisite experience. He doesn’t know not to trust his own bureaucracy. He hasn’t been burned enough to realize that he needs to intervene to waive restrictions, set aside regulations, and open up the process to new solutions.

Why did he not waive the Jones Act (he still hasn’t) to allow foreign vessels to ply our waters to clean up the spill? Not because he was against it. He couldn’t have been against so obvious a course as waiving it. It was likely because nobody told him about it and he never knew to ask

…When the spill started, he and his campaign staff – now transplanted to the White House – reacted the way a Senator or a candidate would, blaming British Petroleum, framing an issue against the oil company, and holding it accountable. But what he needed to do was to review the plans for coping with the disaster and intervene to move the bureaucracy in untraditional but more appropriate directions. Instead, he let business as usual and inertia move the process.

…But this president is no executive. He is a legislator – he is now pushing new environmental legislation. He is a lawyer – his Attorney General is investigating criminal charges against BP. He is a populist – he is quick to blame BP. He is a big spender – he wants a fund to pay the spill’s victims. He is all of these things. But he is no chief executive and that, unfortunately, is the job he was elected to do."

Oil Spill and Obama's Inaction

2010-06-13T07:34:00.008-04:00

Yep, Mr. President... It's oil...

Below is a portion of the Oil Polution Act from 1990, that clearly outlines the Barack Obama can quickly and legally take complete control of the clean up of this spill through Federal agencies and does not need to wait for BP to get their act together:

Section 4201(a) of the Oil Pollution Act, which is codified at Title 33 of the United States Code, Section 1321(c), reads in part:
(c) Federal removal authority.

(1) General removal requirement.

(A) The President shall, in accordance with the National Contingency Plan and any appropriate Area Contingency Plan, ensure effective and immediate removal of a discharge, and mitigation or prevention of a substantial threat of a discharge, of oil or a hazardous substance–
(i) into or on the navigable waters;
(ii) on the adjoining shorelines to the navigable waters;
(iii) into or on the waters of the exclusive economic zone; or
(iv) that may affect natural resources belonging to, appertaining to, or under the exclusive management authority of the United States.

(B) In carrying out this paragraph, the President may–
(i) remove or arrange for the removal of a discharge, and mitigate or prevent a substantial threat of a discharge, at any time;
(ii) direct or monitor all Federal, State, and private actions to remove a discharge; and
(iii) remove and, if necessary, destroy a vessel discharging, or threatening to discharge, by whatever means are available.

(2) Discharge posing substantial threat to public health or welfare.
(A) If a discharge, or a substantial threat of a discharge, of oil or a hazardous substance from a vessel, offshore facility, or onshore facility is of such a size or character as to be a substantial threat to the public health or welfare of the United States (including but not limited to fish, shellfish, wildlife, other natural resources, and the public and private beaches and shorelines of the United States), the President shall direct all Federal, State, and private actions to remove the discharge or to mitigate or prevent the threat of the discharge.
(B) In carrying out this paragraph, the President may, without regard to any other provision of law governing contracting procedures or employment of personnel by the Federal Government–
(i) remove or arrange for the removal of the discharge, or mitigate or prevent the substantial threat of the discharge; and
(ii) remove and, if necessary, destroy a vessel discharging, or threatening to discharge, by whatever means are available.

We got what we knew we were electing. Someone with no executive experience; and someone who's leadership style is framed around blaming someone else.

What Obama has to be careful of is that he is at the top of the list for BP's political donations, and he should be concern with the appearance of inpropriety. Erica Lovley reports at Politico:

"During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records."

Two Political Predictions this Weekend

2010-06-12T11:00:00.005-04:00

1) Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Nomination for President in 2012, not Barack Obama.
My Reasoning:
A) By all reports, there is an incredible amount of animosity between the Clintons and the Obamas. When considering Hillary for Vice-President, Michelle Obama told the future President: "Do you really want Bill and Hillary just down the hall from you in the White House?"
There is no loyalty here, everything will be fair game. She will challenge him if necessary.
B) After enlisting Bill Clinton's help to offer Joe Sestak a cushy job in lieu of running for Senator against Arlen Specter, the Obama White House threw Bubba Bill under the bus as soon as this shady deal was exposed. This has entangled the former President in a scandal and even possibly a crime. The Clintons must be enraged, after what they saw as providing support for Obama and doing him a favor. Again, no loyalty owed so she will challenge.
C) Obama has lost the support and burned his bridges with the ACLU, pro-Israel supporters, environmentalists, some unions, some gays, etc... He will be a man without a country come 2012, and people will be screaming for Hillary.
D) Obama's popularity is plummeting and will continue. The insiders in the Democratic Party will come to realize he can not win. He might not even run.

2) If John Kasich wins the Governorship on Ohio this year, he will eventually become the President of the United States:

My Reasoning:
1) Kasich will be an incredibly popular Governor. He chaired the House Budget Committee in D.C. and will cut state government waste with a chainsaw. He will eventually give Ohioans relief by lowering taxes, creating jobs and turning Ohio's economy around. He will have a fiscal record that will appeal to Americans as our financial situation grows dimmer with a $13 trillion debt.
2) He is a polished and professional communicator and incredibly likable. He has that Abraham Lincoln lankiness, and Opie face, that portrays honesty, and is the son of a mailman. He has wide American appeal. Americans over the next few years will move away from the perfectly-gelled hair, teeth-whitening, $1,000 suits politicians.
3) If the GOP can lock up Ohio, most Presidential elections are over. Kasich on the ticket will ensure this.
...but he has to win the Gubernatorial Election this year.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Society's Misplaced Values

2010-06-07T20:05:00.004-04:00

Over the past few months, I find myself landing on some of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's writings from different sources.

This is a great piece on the hostility that large families face. I have recently experience some of this telling acquaintences that we are expecting our fourth. They never realize their reactions to this news tells me more about them then they could ever realize in just a few seconds. Here is Rabbi Boteach's piece:

"...I don't mind that the world doesn't really love babies, just that it pretends to. It's time we got honest about our priorities. Most people get a new car every two or three years, but one or two babies through the life of their marriage is plenty. You can get drunk on an airplane, laugh hysterically with your mates, and still not really anger people. But if you dare bring a crying baby on board you will be given malicious looks as if the little thing is a package that ticks. If you walk your dog along the street, people will stop you to tell you how cute he is. If you walk down the street with a baby, you might find a woman or two who coos, but for the most part, you'll be utterly ignored

...Why are people impressed that Jay Leno owns 20 motorcycles, but disgusted that some religious families choose to have 10 children?

Let's not finesse the response. [Blogger Note: He comes the Rabbi with the MACK truck of truth through the donut shop!] We all know why. A world that has lost its innocence has trouble appreciating beings who are innocent. A world that has become selfish has soured to the idea of leading a life of selflessness. A world that has become grossly materialistic is turned off to the idea of more dependents who consume resources. And a world that mistakenly believes that freedom means a lack of responsibility is opposed to the idea of needy creatures who "tie you down."

They can go fly a kite. [Blogger Note: This Irish-Catholic would phrase this much differently; the Rabbi is very kind and a better man than I.]

By just looking at my children, I become more innocent. By loving them, I become more noble. By spending my money on them rather than myself, I find transcendence. And by being a father and liberating all of the love in my heart, my spirit soars free. I work hard to support a large family and I give up no pleasures in doing so because my children are my foremost pleasure."

I can see why John Paul the Great called the Jewish people our older brothers, very wise.

Htip Creative Minority

Sr. Margaret McBride: A Heartless Excommunication?

2010-05-29T19:09:00.015-04:00

Secular news headlines are ablaze with Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted confirming the excommunication of Sr. Margaret McBride, a hospital executive, for procuring an abortion for a 27-year old woman with pulmonary hypertension who was 11 weeks pregnant. Sr. McBride cited the high mortality rate of mothers coming to term with this condition as her rationale.

Understanding this situation is a very difficult scenario, well above my "pay grade”, I would at least like to offer some bullet points for your consideration and further the discussion before we automatically demonize the Bishop and praise Sr. McBride.

1) Years back the maternal mortality rate of carrying a pregnancy to term with this condition was cited at 50%. More recently, it was then adjusted to 30%. An October 2005 article citing an 18 year survey actually cited 22%. I would ask each person who supports Sr. McBride’s decision an equally challenging question. At what mortality rate does the unborn child merit consideration and an abortion would be considered wrong?

2) How ‘bout 11%...? A research report by 13 doctors published in the International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (April 2010) cites a medical study where treating pregnant women who have PH with an early introduction of targeted pulmonary vascular therapy and early planned delivery under regional anesthesia had all the women in the study survive as well as their babies -- with the exception of one woman who chose to stop the treatment after childbirth. At the 11% mortality rate of this study do we sign off on the death certificates as a foregone conclusion of the 89 babies out of 100 that would survive birth along with their mothers? Or do we start thinking about treating both patients?

3) Father John Ehrich, the Medical Ethics Director for the Diocese Phoenix defended the Church and bishop in writing, "The unborn child can never be thought of as a pathology or an illness…" "That is, the child is not that [condition] which threatens the life of the mother, rather it is the pathology or illness [pulmonary hypertension] which threatens the mother's life." So my question is did this “ethics” review done by Sr. McBride prior to approving this abortion approach this dilemma as the pregnancy was the danger, or the pulmonary hypertension was the danger? Reading between the lines is that for Fr. Ehrich to specifically mention this in his Diocesan defense could infer that when the Diocese reviewed the minutes and documentation from this decision, this might have been the case, otherwise why would Fr. Ehrich draw ample attention to this consideration?

4) It should be stated that the excommunication was established by Sr. McBride’s action in itself and not initiated by a formal declaration from the Bishop.

5) My final observation is that why would a Catholic nun not consult the local Magisterium on a decision like this? Did she think they had no authority for a Catholic hospital within their Diocese? Sr. McBride was quickly relocated in her position after her action, so the Diocese did have authority over the hospital. So obviously this is not the reason the Diocese was not consulted. In my secular world, I wouldn't never make a decision against my company's set guidelines without getting approval from the chain on command. One would question are these decisions such a commonplace thing in this hospital that the frequency of the decisions have diluted the need to consult the Diocese on every one? Something is not right. There is more here than what is told.

Modern Day Witnesses for the Faith; May Perpetual Light Shine Upon Them

2010-05-24T19:51:00.003-04:00

VCR friend Tim Drake, from the Register:

"We are a Church of Martyrs. As the saying goes, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” From the death of Christ, on the Cross, and Stephen, the first martyr, to today, blood has been shed by those who follow Christ. We do not follow a bloodless faith.

The Vatican’s Fides agency has issued a list of all those involved in pastoral work who were killed during 2009. The list reveals where the Church’s modern “martyrs” have died for the practice of their faith. The Church no longer refers to the group as a “list of martyrs,” since the circumstances of death in many cases is unknown. Instead, they are listed as those involved in pastoral or missionary work who died violently.

Of the 37 who died in 2009, Central and South America appear to be the most dangerous places for the Catholic faith, with a total of 19 deaths. Both Colombia and Brazil had six deaths.

Thirty of those who were killed were priests, 19 of them diocesan. Two were seminarians, both of whom were killed in Mexico. Two were nuns, one a Trappist; the other a Sister of the Blessed Sacrament, who was killed in the U.S. in the state of New Mexico. Three of the total were lay people.

After Central and South America, the second most dangerous place for missionaries was Africa, with a total of 11 deaths, followed by Asia, with a death in the Philippines, and another in India. Three were from the U.S."

Here is a list of all the martyrs who died this past year . Please follow this link and say a prayer for the repose of their souls.

Great Priestly Works Accomplished in Darkness

2010-05-16T15:04:00.008-04:00

Archbishop John Quinn gave a very well-constructed speech at the National Federation of Priests’ Councils in Houston, Texas on April 13, 2010. I listed a few paragraphs to give you the flavor but it should be read in its entirety:

"I am here to pay tribute to you, the priests of the United States. You stand on the front line. You meet the angry or confused or troubled people at the Sunday Masses in your parishes and missions. You have to try to answer their questions about the worldwide crisis caused by priests and bishops around the world. You are the ones out there in the parishes whose hearts break at the anguish of our people over the robbed innocence of their children. And you weep inside over the desecration of something so beautiful, so cherished as the priesthood is to all of us. You are the ones who meet the children and the families, and try your best to walk with them in their search for peace and healing. You are there where the wound is.

I know that all over this country, in small towns and large cities, there are priests who stay up all night in a hospital waiting room with a distraught family whose teen-age daughter lies near death from an automobile accident. I know that there are priests in rural dioceses, like the priests I knew in Oklahoma, who drive hundreds of miles both ways to one or several mission churches on Saturday evenings and then have three Masses on Sundays with baptisms, counseling, youth groups and parish gatherings in the afternoon and evening…You are the priests who have persevered when your heart sank over an admired and gifted classmate who was removed from ministry because of allegations of abuse.

…We are at a critical point in the life of the church. Here and there commentators are beginning to compare it to the magnitude of the crisis of the Reformation. This is not the place to raise these cosmic issues. But I do believe it is the place to raise the question every priest must confront today. It is the question first raised by the Jesuit Karl Rahner: “Why would a modern man want to become or remain a priest today?”

…I think of my friend, Alfred Delp, who with his hands chained in a concentration camp, signed the paper of his final vows. I think of a brother priest who for long hours in the confessional listens to the pain and torment of [society's] unimportant people…I think of a brother priest who assists daily in a hospital at the bedside of death…I think of a brother priest who as a prison chaplain proclaims over and over the message of the Gospel with never any sign of gratitude. I think of the brother priest who (in a parish) with tremendous difficulty and without any clear evidence of success plods away at the task of awakening in just a few people a small spark of faith, of hope and of charity. These and many other forms and acts of renunciation, known to God alone, are still what is decisive in the priesthood.

But there are men like these who have lived in and come from our own American dioceses.

Think of Emil Kapaun, a priest of Wichita, Kansas. In a prison camp in Korea he stole food from the commissary at night for his starving men knowing that he would be shot on sight if discovered. Depression and futility gripped many of the men in his unit. A Protestant chaplain with a wife and children at home was severely depressed and Emil knew he would die if something didn’t change. He deliberately said things to make him angry knowing that the experience of anger would bring him out of himself. It worked, and the man lived to return to his family. Emil tried everything to keep the men positive and hopeful. The men who got dysentery, he carried on his shoulders to the latrine and cleaned them. Eventually he got phlebitis and the guards took him off to die. The last thing his men heard was Emil assuring the guards he held no animosity or hatred for them.

Stanley Rother, whose bishop I was at one time, was a priest of Oklahoma City. He volunteered for the mission we had in Guatemala. He served the people with great dedication, teaching them their faith and instructing them in the social doctrine of the church. He carried on his ministry as priests he knew and worked with were murdered. His own catechists and parish leaders were abducted and murdered. Told that he was on the death list, he was urged to return to Oklahoma, which he did. But there only a short time, knowing clearly that it would mean certain death he decided to go back to Guatemala. He told his parents, “The Shepherd can’t run. I have to go back.” Father Rother was killed shortly after his return.

… Joseph Guetzloe, a Divine Word Father, was pastor of a Japanese community in San Francisco. When the Japanese were forced to move to segregation camps during World War II, Father Gutzloe asked to go with them. He voluntarily spent all the war years there with his people. A young priest, ordained one year, wrote to me about his experience during that first year and said, “ I have been looking for the lack of success in the lack of technique and finding it in the lack of holiness.”

…The cataclysmic avalanche of the sexual abuse scandal is a profoundly troubling experience for every priest. It touches not only the perpetrators and those so gravely hurt by them, but it is now engulfing the papacy itself and eroding the leadership and credibility of the bishops in the church. It forces us to ask the question of Karl Rahner, “Why would a modern man want to become or to remain a priest today?” How can an American priest persevere in the midst of such a shattering trial? How do we priests and how does the church persevere in time of severe trial?

…For St. Bernard, John the Baptist is the great image of the priesthood in the Gospel. He is the friend—the friend of the Bridegroom. An important role of the friend of the Bridegroom was that he was responsible for the joy of the guests at the wedding feast. This is how Christ presents himself in the Resurrection accounts: he is the minister of consolation. He consoles Mary at the tomb, He consoles the disciples locked in fear in the upper room, he consoles Thomas in his doubts. This is our role as priests—to console the Holy Church of God in a time of intolerable pain and suffering. We are called to be the ministers of consolation and of evangelical hope.

…And so, in a difficult time we should not forget that the great works of God have been accomplished in darkness. The people fled Egypt in the darkness; they crossed the Red Sea in the darkness; the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the darkness of night; He gave us the Eucharist and the priesthood in the darkness of the Last Supper; he died on the Cross when the Gospel says “darkness covered the earth.” He lay in the darkness of the tomb. On the third day, He rose again in the darkness, and the empty tomb was discovered “early in the morning while it was still dark.” God is at work even in the darkness.

What John of the Cross describes as the dark night of the soul has in our time become the dark night of the church. John explains that the dark night is a bewildering experience, it strips away all the visible supports. It brings a helpless, sinking feeling. But it is only truly the dark night when it is accepted as coming from God and borne in faith. The believer and the church who pass through the dark night in faith are led to the loss of everything secondary and to discover that God is not who they thought he was and they are not who they thought they were. It is the discovery that God is beyond everything we can articulate or conceive and it is the experience that we do not control God. The dark night is dark because God is infinite light overwhelming our limited capacities. It is in the experience of the dark night that the believer and the church come to know that God is all. This dark night of the church is a divine [method to teach] us painfully that we are incredibly poor and utterly dependent on God…"

Future Vice-President:"She is Worth Every Tear."

2010-05-07T18:37:00.005-04:00

Rick Santorum has a way of breaking through the stereotypes of modern politicians. This column was published yesterday in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Htip to Reflections of a Paraplytic; I would also suggest you go over and visit Chelsea Zimmerman's blog. It is a worthwhile visit and you will leave thoroughly impressed. Both Santorum and Zimmerman do justice to the inherent beauty of life. Here is the former-Senator's column:

'Incompatible with life." The doctor's words kept echoing in my head as I held my sobbing wife, Karen, just four days after the birth of our eighth child, Isabella Maria.

Bella was born with three No. 18 chromosomes, rather than the normal two. The statistics were heartbreaking: About 90 percent of children with the disorder, known as trisomy 18, die before or during birth, and 90 percent of those who survive die within the first year.

Bella was baptized that day, and then we spent every waking hour at her bedside, giving her a lifetime's worth of love and care. However, not only did she not die; she came home in just 10 days.

She was sent home on hospice care, strange as that sounded for a newborn. The hospice doctor visited us the next day and described in graphic detail how Bella would die. In sum, she could die at any time without warning, and the best we could hope for was that she would die of the common cold.

Karen and I discontinued hospice so that we and our amazing doctors, James Baugh and Sunil Kapoor, could get to work focusing on Bella's health, not her death.

Like so many moms of special kids, Karen is a warrior, caring for Bella night and day and, at times, fighting with health-care providers and our insurance company to get our daughter the care she needs.

Being the parent of a special child gives one exceptional insight into the negative perception of the disabled among many medical professionals, particularly when they see your child as having an intellectual disability. Sadly, we discovered that not only did we have to search for doctors who had experience with trisomy 18. We also had to search for those who saw Bella not as a fatal diagnosis, but as a wanted and loved daughter and sister, as well as a beautiful gift from God.

We knew from experience that Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was such a place. Fourteen years ago, we had another baby who was diagnosed as having no hope, but CHOP's Dr. Scott Adzick gave him a shot at life. In the end, we lost our son Gabriel, but we will always be grateful to Dr. Adzick for affirming the value of his life.

When Bella was 3 months old, she needed some minor but vital surgery. Some doctors told us that a child like Bella wouldn't survive surgery or, even worse, that surgery was "not recommended" because of her genetic condition - in other words, that her life wasn't worth saving. So we again turned to the Children's Hospital and found compassion, concern, and hope in Dr. Thane Blinman. He told us he had several trisomy 18 patients who did well - and so did Bella.

Next week, we will mark Bella's second birthday. Over these two years, we have endured two close brushes with death, lots of sleepless nights, more than a month in CHOP's intensive care unit, and the constant anxiety that the next day could be our little girl's last.

And yet we have also been inspired - by her fighting spirit, and by the miracle of seeing our little flower blossom into a loving, joyful child who is at the center of our family life.

Most children with trisomy 18 diagnosed in the womb are aborted. Most who survive birth are given hospice care until they die. In these cases, doctors advise parents that these disabled children will die young or be a burden to them and society. But couldn't the same be said of many healthy children?

All children are a gift that comes with no guarantees. While Bella's life may not be long, and though she requires our constant care, she is worth every tear.

Living with Bella has been a course in character and virtue. She makes us better. And it's not just our family; she enriches every life she touches. In the end, isn't that what every parent hopes for his or her child?

Happy birthday, Isabella!

God Bless you and your family, Senator!

Becareful What You Wish For...

2010-04-28T18:22:00.004-04:00

By a 5 to 4 decision The Supreme Court of the United States overturned a lower court ruling stating that an erected cross at a national park violated the separation of Church and State. The majority, opinion written by Justice Kennedy, noted that the cross was non-sectarian in meaning and not reflecting back on a certain religion:

"Although certainly a Christian symbol, the cross was not emplaced on Sunrise Rock to promote a Christian message," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote of the cross that was put up in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars to commemorate U.S. soldiers who died in World War I. "Rather, those who erected the cross intended simply to honor our nation's fallen soldiers."

So here is the irony that will kill you. The liberals in this country have tried upon decades to dilute every possible Christian symbol from its true religious meaning, taking Christ out of Christmas, calling Christmas trees holiday trees and the like.

Now the conservative Justices are throwing it back at them stating that a cross is not a defacto Christian symbol promoting a Christian message, the death and resurrection of Christ. Basically saying, “Congratulations, you Libs win, a cross has no Christian message tied to it.”

Does anyone actually believe Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia think a cross has no Christian significance or message behind it when displayed? Especially when used to honor the dead? Did the VFW, when they put it up in 1934, thought it had no religious significance? Too funny.

Also noteworthy is the Kennedy has been voting almost lockstep with the Conservative wing of this court for a while now. Sotomayor must have pushed him over the edge,

Progress and Perspective on the Catholic Church's Abuse Scandal

2010-04-18T07:58:00.010-04:00

Understanding that one case of clerical abuse against any minor is reprehensible, evil and intolerable, we should also be aware of the progress our Church has made protecting our children in the recent years.

The chart directly above is from the John Jay study (2002) - the most comprehensive study on this topic -and shows the strides the church has made in addressing this issue and the rapid decline shown in these atrocities during the last two Papacies.

Rich Leonardi at Cincinnati.com puts into context how effective the Church's implemented efforts have been to protect children with some recent data:

"By virtually all accounts, [Benedict XVI's] reforms have been successful and, coupled with the efforts of local bishops, have led to a sharp decrease in incidents of abuse. In 2009, only six credible accusations were reported in the United States for a church that counts more than 65 million members. (By way of comparison, a 2004 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education found that nearly 10 percent of U.S. public school students reported having been targeted with sexual attention by school employees.)

While any case of abuse is a case too many, the church's record of safety is a remarkable achievement for such a large organization; we have Pope Benedict to thank for that."

So 6 cases in 65,000,000. I tried to get a percentage to visually show you how small this number is, but the calculator that comes with MS Office could not display a number this low and came up with an error message. Then I went to an Excel spreadsheet and it could not display it either; another error message.

By way of comparison (and to underscore what Leonardi infers), VCR friend Tom Hoopes quotes Hofstra University researcher Charol Shakeshaft with a comment that **should** unleash a media frenzy and widespread investigations if the mainstream media had any legitimacy, or desire, to investigate their Democratic Party sibling, the public school teachers' union, at the same level of intensity they have unleashed against the Catholic Church, stating: "

"...Hofstra University researcher Charol Shakeshaft looked into the problem [of abuse in the public schools], and the first thing that came to her mind when Education Week reported on the study were the daily headlines about the Catholic Church.“[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem?” she said. “The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

Then Hoopes quotes a piece by Wayne Laugesen that drives a bus through the double-standard:

..."Yet, during the first half of 2002, the 61 largest newspapers in California ran nearly 2,000 stories about sexual abuse in Catholic institutions, mostly concerning past allegations. During the same period, those newspapers ran four stories about the federal government’s discovery of the much larger — and ongoing — abuse scandal in public schools."

So while I read yet another New York Times' piece this morning, we should all be able to easily identify with assurance what is going on here.

Two Unlikely Benedict Defenders Should Give Everyone Pause

2010-04-12T08:00:00.004-04:00

Here are two very unexpected defenders of the Catholic Church and Benedict XVI.

My father has said, "I don't agree with any of Ed Koch's views, but I can't help finding myself liking him." We can all like him a little more with this op ed piece:

"I believe the continuing attacks by the media on the Roman Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI have become manifestations of anti-Catholicism. The procession of articles on the same events are, in my opinion, no longer intended to inform, but simply to castigate.

The sexual molestation of children, principally boys, is horrendous. This is agreed to by everyone, Catholics, the Church itself, as well as non-Catholics and the media. On a number of occasions on the Church's behalf, the pope has admitted fault and asked for forgiveness.

For example, The New York Times reported April 18, 2008 that the pope "came face to face with a scandal that has left lasting wounds on the American church Thursday, holding a surprise meeting with several victims of sexual abuse by priests in the Boston area. ... 'No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse,' the pope said in his homily. 'It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention."

...Many in the media who are pounding on the Church and the pope today clearly do it with delight, and some with malice. The reason for the constant assaults, I believe, is there are many in the media and some Catholics as well as many in the public who object to and are incensed by positions the Church holds, including opposition to all abortions, opposition to homosexual sex and same-sex marriage, retention of celibacy rules for priests, exclusion of women from the clergy, opposition to birth-control measures involving condoms and prescription drugs, and opposition to civil divorce."

And here is a defense by John Stephenson, a ... Lutheran theologian:

"The secular press has had it in for Joseph Ratzinger for going on three decades. Before his election as Pope in the spring of 2005, he was routinely derided in his homeland as the Panzerkardinal (“tank cardinal”) and caricatured in North America as the “Enforcer” or even the “Rottweiler.” The roots of this negative reputation stretch back at least as far as the book-length interview he granted to the Italian journalist Vittorio Messori that catapulted him to global fame when published as The Ratzinger Report in 1985.

But shrewd observers must wonder about the startling disproportion between the enormous hue and cry artificially whipped up by the media and the softly spoken real life figure who seems always to have avoided hyperbole like the plague.

(Blogger Note: Here comes the firework finale, maybe one of the most insightful paragraphs written on this spewing of hatred:)

...The negative reaction aroused already by the Ratzinger Report laid bare the sheer fury shared by Roman Catholic Modernists and the unbelieving world in general against anyone who dares to intimate that the historic Christian religion is, to put it bluntly, true. Neither apostates within Holy Christendom nor naked unbelievers outside her borders will ever forgive Ratzinger for the grave breach of secularist, pluralist etiquette involved in the first volume of his Jesus of Nazareth. It goes without saying (and around the Holy Week of each year the several forms of mainstream media say it loudly, often, and emphatically) that Jesus was an ordinary man, a wacko apocalyptist, or a failed political revolutionary. Stones must fly and clubs be brandished against a learned man fully familiar with all the “Jesus of history” literature from Reimarus to the present, who winsomely draws on believing scholarship of all confessions to offer a calm and cogent argument that the real, actual Jesus is the one who meets us in the Gospel record. Where the North American liberal intelligentsia can offer no refutation, they spit contempt. And a Western Europe sunk in a new heathenism and undergoing Islamic takeover can only howl at this attempt to arrest its suicidal downward slide."

htip to Fr. Z on the Stephenson piece.

Benedict XVI: "Behold the Man!"

2010-04-09T20:33:00.006-04:00

Paul Kokoski of Hamilton, Canada, says it more clearly, succinctly and with more of an overwhelming truth than I could have written in his opinion piece in USA Today:

"Ecce homo," "Behold the man!" These were the words spoken by Pontius Pilate when he presented a scourged Jesus Christ to a hostile mob shortly before his crucifixion. The same words aptly apply today to Pope Benedict XVI, as he is being held up to unprecedented ridicule and scorn by a hateful press and a world so out of touch with its spiritual nature and moral being.

One can almost hear Jesus saying to the peaceful and benevolent pope: "If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first" (John 15:18). Contrary to his critics, the pope, like Jesus, is completely innocent and is doing everything in his power to weed out those priests guilty of sexual abuse and to justly compensate victims for their suffering.

In fact, he is the one who has tackled these things head on. [Blogger Note: Benedict was one of the first high-ranking prelates to public denounce these horrible scandals calling them, "Filth."] Remember that even Jesus had his Judas. But the world wants to see the death of the church because it knows the church is the mother of all saints.

It knows that the Catholic Church is the last bastion of hope against a materialistic world that craves immorality at every step, including homosexuality, same-sex marriage, easy divorce, abortion, radical feminism, contraception, embryonic stem cell research and cloning.

Benedict will be remembered not for the scandals of a few priests but for his intense suffering in protecting the faith from wolves in sheep's clothing. He will be known as one of the greatest of Catholic martyrs.

Amen, Paul. Kudos.

The Best of VCR: Easter's Lesson: Evil's Mortal Wound

2010-04-03T08:45:00.001-04:00

This is one of my favorite pieces ever written. I read it throughout the year whenever I am discouraged and it puts everything into perspective. Easter is meant to lift up the discouraged. Just think of the mindset of the apostles and followers (including Mary below) that morning before witnessing the empty tomb. Blessed Easter to all!

"... Two days later, early in the morning, a converted sinner is found walking in a cemetery — she whose heart had been captured by Him without, as other men had done, laying it waste. She was in search of a tomb and a dead body which she hoped she might anoint with spices. The idea of the Resurrection did not seem to enter her mind — she who herself had risen from a tomb sealed by the seven devils of sin. Finding the tomb empty she broke again into a fountain of tears. No one who weeps ever looks upwards. With her eyes cast down as the brightness of the early sunrise swept over the dew-covered grass, she vaguely perceived someone near her, who asked: "Woman, why weepest thou?" (John 20:15).

Mary, thinking it might have been the gardener said: "Because they have taken away my Lord; and I do not know where they have laid him."

The figure before her spoke only one word, one name, and in a tone so sweet and ineffably tender that it could be the only unforgettable voice of the world; and that one word was: "Mary."

No one could ever say "Mary" as He said it. In that moment she knew Him. Dropping into the Aramaic of her mother’s speech she answered but one word: "Rabboni"! "Master"! And she fell at His feet— she was always there, anointing them at a supper, standing before them at a Cross, and now kneeling before Him in the Glory of an Easter morn.

The Cross had asked the questions; the Resurrection had answered them.

The Cross had asked the question: How far can Power go in the world?. The Resurrection answered: Power ends in its own destruction, for those who slew [their God] lost the day.

The Cross had asked: Why does God permit evil and sin to nail Justice to a tree? The Resurrection answered: That sin, having done its worst, might exhaust itself and thus be overcome by Love that is stronger than either sin or death.

Thus there emerges the Easter lesson that the power of evil and the chaos of any one moment can be defied and conquered, for the basis of our hope is not in any construct of human power, but in the Power of God Who has given to the evil of this earth its one mortal wound — an open tomb, a gaping sepulchre, an empty grave. "
-Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Prophecies Foretold Bring Us Back to the Foot of the Cross

2010-04-02T06:00:00.002-04:00

Having gone through Catholic school and religious eductaion my whole life, I have never read in its entirety the "Suffering Servant" scripture at the end of the book of Isiaih (53). This was written 700 years before the birth of Christ, but is there any doubt who this Jewish prophet is talking about?:

5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

12 …because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

And although obviously I was not at the crucifixion, you are brought closer to understanding this pure act of sacrifice and love and what Christ had to endure by reading the prophecy in Psalms 22:14-18. God gives us insight to what he would feel at the crucifixion:

14 I am poured out like water, And all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death.

16 For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet;

17 I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me.

18 They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.

How can we not feel remorse for the times we chose a path away from God after reading this?

My Return Love Affair with Music

2010-03-27T19:54:00.013-04:00

On a brutal 32-hour trip back from Southeast Asia, I rediscovered my love for listening to music in headphones. Here are some of my favorites that got me through the trip, that you may never have heard:

Coinleach Glas an Fhómhair - Clannad Shows you how beautiful the Gaelic language can be. You won't understand a word, but be compelled by the beauty of this love song.

Book of Love - Peter Gabriel PG was kind enough to release a new album just before my trip to help my travel along. This is a cover that he did of The Magnetic Fields' song. This rendition keeps running through my head.

Easter - Marillion This is my favorite all-time song. It is based on a poem written by W.B. Yeats that he wrote after Ireland's Easter Day rebellion in 1916. The poem asks the rhetorical question to the grieving... what can you do after a tragedy in your life, "make a stone of your heart?"; with the implication you can't stop feeling or loving. One of the best guitar solo's ever.

I Was Brought to My Senses - Sting A great song to listen in head phones. Sounds in the beginning like an old seafarer's song, then breaks into beautiful layers of instruments.

Song for Ireland - Mary Black One of the best female vocals I have heard. Mary Black's voice is crystal. She is just accompanied by a piano, but it sounds like so much more because of the power of her voice.

Sky Blue - Peter Gabriel One of the best 30,000 ft. plane reflections songs, for weary travelers who just want to get home. The Blind Boys of Alabama frame the song with their rhythmic background vocals.

A lot of Irish influence as I was traveling over St. Patrick's Day. You can see I also went melodic in my old age. These songs are worth a listen when on typing your computer. Enjoy.

Best of VCR: My Favorite St. Patrick's Day Joke

2010-03-17T07:45:00.001-04:00

Here is my favorite St. Patrick's Day joke. It is chock full of all the personality and humor that you would come to expect from a supreme race of story tellers!

A backpacker traveling on foot through Europe, stops in the Eternal City of Rome, and finds himself tagging along on a tour of the Vatican. While on the tour, he spots a gold-plated phone guarded by a lone Swiss Guard with a sign over it that says, “Converse with the Almighty - $10,000 a minute.” Being intrigued by the sight, he confirms with the Swiss Guard that it was indeed a hotline to Heaven, and he could surely talk to the God if he could afford the fee. Being penniless, he laments at his loss opportunity and continues on his way.

Several months later he finds himself hiking through the rolling, green hills of the Irish countryside and ducks into a small Irish pub to dodge an intensifying rain storm.

After shaking the raindrops off his cap, he sees to his disbelief what appears to be the same gold-plated phone that he saw at the Vatican months prior, positioned behind the bar. This one; however, has an accompanying sign that reads, “Converse with the Almighty - $.25 a minute”.

Being in a state of stark confusion, and after confirming with the bartender that the phones were indeed identical, the backpacker inquires how can the Vatican - with all of its rich treasures - be charging $10,000 a minute, and this small pub - with many leaks in the ceiling- be charging only $.25 a minute.

The bartender breaking a half grin and instantaneously coming to life with sparkling eyes as if he had been waiting for this question for centuries leans towards the backpacker. With an overflowing pride that he can not fully contain and all the assurance and conviction that can be found in and framed by a strong Irish brogue, the bartender whispers his secret, “My dear traveler, the answer is obvious, here it is a local call!”

Best of VCR: The Temperaments of God

2010-03-04T18:28:00.004-05:00

Originally posted 06/05/2008:

I often noted, and very much over the years tried to reconcile, the difference in temperaments between the God in the Old Testament (Yaweh), and the same God in the New Testament (God the Father).

Yaweh was a very stern God who would strike down your enemies down and let you wander 40 years in the desert if you made a mistake. The kind God in the New Testament - - who was the same exact God -- was a loving Father, and through his Son told us to love our enemies. He was a God who allowed what was most dear to Him to be sacraficed for our mistakes.

I once had a college professor try to offer an explanation. He said that in the Old Testament we were in our infancy stage with God and he treated us as such, like toddlers. Don’t touch the outlet, don’t go in the street, you will be severely punished and have to sit on the couch if you do what you are thinking. He said by the time the New Testament came along, we had grown up and our relationship with God advanced lovingly to where our parent became more of a trusted friend and confidant.

This made somewhat sense to me, but once again the words of St. Jean Vianney brought me closer to what was the true answer. He directed me to the exact beginning of the New Testament for the time when God’s temperament changed.

He said God’s anger was "hanging over our heads like a sword ready to strike us down, [but] as soon as the Holy Virgin appeared upon this earth, his anger was appeased." He saw the level of perfection that his creation could achieve, a creature than would never disobey, betray or disappoint Him; there the Virgin Mother stood in front of Him. Once again, His anger was "appeased." His temperament was changed.

Vianney tells of the special relationship that the Trinity has with this perfect human creation:

God views the Blessed Mother as the masterpiece of his creation that He made with his own hands. He takes great pride in her because it is His work done to absolute perfection.

The Son takes pleasure in the heart of Mary, from which He drew his mortal blood (the Blessed Mother provided the mortal makeup to Christ). He used this blood He received from her to "ransom" it for us so that we might be reconciled to the Father.

And The Holy Spirit considers the Blessed Mother His temple, a place of His dwelling, because He conceived with in her.

These beautiful insights from St. Jean Vianney really reinforces why we venerate the Blessed Mother, and why she will never be refuse any request she makes on our behalf in the presence of God.

So the next time you are watching The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston and see Yaweh striking down Israel’s enemies in the Red Sea, venerate Our Blessed Mother. Because of her we were not next.

Understanding the Devil

2010-02-20T21:32:00.016-05:00

Today, at 4:12PM, the devil unleashed an unspeakable howl that even Heaven could hear. Today the devil’s frustration over-flowed and could not be contained as his efforts on me proved as empty as his promises to the world. Today the devil filled my mind with every doubt and confusion possible of what I should and should not say until 4:11PM but would not step pass the velvet curtain with me. Today the devil knew I still belonged to Christ; a child of God. Today I went to confession.

French poet Baudelaire was quoted as saying “…the devil's best trick is to persuade you that he doesn't exist!" The world today definitely believes the devil doesn’t exist. Even many of the Faithful don’t have a firm belief and/or a reoccurring awareness that the devil is absolutely tangible and working behind the scenes with definitive actions to destroy lives and leads souls astray. To make my point, when was the last time you thought about ways to keep the devil out of your home?

Archbishop Fulton Sheen spoke at length about the devil. Sadly, many spiritual leaders today do not. Sheen mentioned that the world “di-abolical” literally translates to “breaking/ripping in two” and “look down upon” which is the devil’s M.O.

The devil’s work and presence can be easily identified in a situation where something was whole; and belonging to God but is now ripped into two and left in fragments; no longer whole.

I am convinced that the horrible Church scandals that were revealed over the past decade were the results of devil’s work. In not taking the least amount of responsibility away from the priest who took these evil actions, but the devil knew who were the weak links, sought them out, and got them. Christ’s Church is supposed to be whole, "one Body"; "One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church". This scandal left our Church ripped in two as many marginal Catholics left the Faith, and end product that the devil desired and planned. This scandal also lead to infighting among Christ’s Church – the parishioners (VotF) versus the hierarchy, the hierarchy against the Vatican, etc. Most significantly, the children's lives that this atrocity affected, the wholeness of their innocence that belonged to God, where also ripped in two, no longer whole and intact.

Do you see the devil's work in these scandals now? If you were the devil and wanted to destroy the Church, could you have devised a better scandal for this purpose of ripping the Church in two and discrediting the true way to Salvation?

Infidelity that arises to threaten a marriage covenant also has the devil’s fingerprints on it. A covenant that is supposed to be Divinely whole, but is ripped into two and left tattered in shreds; the complete opposition of what it should be. The devil has a host of options on how to destroy a marriage in today's society, and he will use any of them of them. What does infidelity do to the children's lives? What does divorce do to a family? All ripping in two.

Look for the ripping in two to know where the devil has been and fight any of these situations with spiritual warfare, prayers and fasting. St. Jean Vianney says nothing scares the Devil more than fasting because it denies your human nature which is his entry point. The Blessed Mother is the perfect intercessor and protectoress; use the Rosary as "the weapon". The disdain the devil must has for the Blessed Mother must be off the charts. Someone so pure and beyond reproach that she was even born without origin sin, his claim mark on every person who comes into this world. Keep her in your homes to keep him out of your homes.

A second way to easily identify the devil’s hand print is to identify what spreads quickly and steals souls. William Golding’s novel title The Lord of the Flies infers that Satan spreads evil at the same rate that flies spread infection. Drugs, alcohol, war violence and pornography spreads like wildfire in these ways. They all have their origin in the devil. Look for the rapid spreading of a destructive force to know the devil is the originator.

Archbishop Chaput spoke of these matters at a recent address:

“During his keynote address, Archbishop Chaput had also referred to the importance of recognizing that evil exists and that "Satan is real."

Responding later to a question from CNA about where he sees the Devil's presence in society, the archbishop said, "Well, one of the most obvious things in the United States is internet pornography which is pervasive, and subtle, and attractive and totally destructive of peoples' lives and there's very little talk about fighting it."

"If you talk about fighting pornography in the media you're somehow seen as anti-American, anti-freedom of speech. ... things that are so obviously destructive to society..." he said.
The archbishop also named divorce and the changing definition of marriage as places where Satan is holding sway."

…"So, those kind of basic human values, the value of chastity and the value of family life are popularly seen as 'old fashioned' because of the lies, because of the deceptions of the Evil One. Even Catholics are afraid of standing up for the truth because we're afraid of being branded 'old-fashioned.'"

When asked whether there are any successes in the fight today, the archbishop responded, "I think we're doing a lot of very good things and doing well in terms of fighting but in terms of winning the battles, we're not winning many of those cultural battles in terms of the formal direction of society."

"But," he added, "every time an individual is converted the battle has been won in a huge kind of way, because we're not saved as a group. We're saved as individuals and what pleases the enemy of God, Satan, is that individuals are not being faithful to their identity as children of God.”

"The Devil never runs upon a man to seize him with his claws until he sees him on the ground, already having fallen by his own will. " - St. Thomas More

US Catholic Church Growing

2010-02-20T10:46:00.004-05:00

Despite the most horrible, stomach-turning scandals ever in the history of the Roman Catholic Church coming to light over the past decade, our numbers are growing:

"U.S. membership has increased in the Catholic Church — the nation's largest Christian body — but the No. 2 Southern Baptist Convention, along with most mainline Protestant denominations, reported continuing decline, according to new figures released by the National Council of Churches."

Take a look at these growth numbers over the past year, comparing the home team with other Protestant sects:

The Catholic Church: 68.1 million, up 1.49 percent. [Blogger note: represents over 1 million people entering]
Southern Baptist Convention: 16.2 million, down 0.24 percent.
The United Methodist Church: 7.8 million (U.S.), down 0.98 percent
The Church of God in Christ: 5.5 million, no change.
National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc: 5 million, no change.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: 4.6 million, down 1.62 percent.
National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.: 3.5 million, no change.
Assemblies of God: 2.9 million, up 1.27 percent.
Presbyterian Church (USA): 2.8 million, down 3.3 percent. ."

The Protestant churches in the U.S. are in a very bad place right now. Many of them are establishing ideologies within their church that is strictly in contrast with God's teachings in the Bible. They try to explain this away, but their church members know. Say what you want about the Roman Catholic Church, I will bet my life of where their position will be on abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, etc.. five centuries from now.

I firmly believe this growth is a byproduct of the U.S. Bishops forcefully speaking out over the past two years on moral issues instructing their flocks.

People always get it wrong. They believe if you need numbers you soften and modify your beliefs (the Big Tent - so they say). In truth, it is the complete opposite. People respond quicker and more enthusiastically to conviction. The continuity in the bedrock teachings of our Church represent two millenniums of the greatest minds in the world and is extremely attractive to millions if it is heard unfiltered. And don't forget a little thing called the Holy Spirit as well.

"You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18)

1/21 Post Note: The Vatican has confirmed that the increasing Catholic population is not only a U.S. trend but a world trend, with an increase of +1.7% growth this year. 19 million more baptisms this year than last year.

The Blobfish; Things to Come

2010-02-20T07:49:00.004-05:00

This is a picture of the blobfish, a fish found off the coast of Australia. It has no muscles, just basically a gelatin like covering.

I saw this picture the other day and it alarmed me significantly. I came to the conclusion, "Boy this is the direction my looks are heading in." Actually, put some glasses on it, and it pretty much looks like any patriarch member of my family who lived past 70 years old.

See No... Hear No... Speak No...

2010-01-30T13:42:00.009-05:00

I can't help but hear my dearly-departed Irish grandmother's (County Longford) words echo in my head, "May God, Forgive Ya.." on this post.

In watching the State of the Union the other night, I couldn't help but draw strong comparisons between Obama, Biden and Pelosi being in the same camera shot, and the three-man government that was in judgment of Charleston Heston. Tell me if you see it:

Top Baseball Prospect Trades Home Runs for Homilies

2010-01-23T04:40:00.006-05:00

Every once is a while a story comes around that separate the Deist's perceptions from secularist's perceptions. This is a great story where most of the worldly-thinking, materialistic masses will think, "What is he thinking???", and those who understand the magnitude and impact of priesthood will think, "He couldn't have made a better $29,000 choice."

"[Grant] Desme, 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, delivered one of the finest statistical seasons in the minor leagues last year, hitting 31 homers with 89 RBI and 40 stolen bases. He was ranked the No. 8 prospect in Oakland's organization by Baseball America, and in November was named Most Valuable Player of the Arizona Fall League, the most prestigious talent showcase for minor leaguers.

But even as his career was beginning to blossom, Desme felt a tug from somewhere other than the diamond. During an injury-plagued 2008 season, in which he missed all but two games because of wrist and shoulder problems, he began reassessing his priorities.

Then Desme, born and raised in a devout Catholic family, said he had a powerful religious experience before last season.

"I had a really strong feel of a calling, a real strong desire to follow it. But I guess in a way I fought it," he said on a media conference call Friday. "As the year went on, God blessed me and I had as good a year as I could have ever imagined. But that almost reconfirmed my desire (to become a priest). I wasn't at peace with where I was at."

Read more on this story here:

Reason for Optimism; Forthcoming Pro-Life Generations

2010-01-22T18:58:00.003-05:00

The Knights of Columbus financed a survey by Marist college to gauge the pro-life representation in different generations:

"The survey, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, finds Baby Boomers (those aged 45-64) are the least pro-life, with 51 percent saying abortion is "morally wrong." [Blogger Note: Still the Majority]

The good news for the pro-life movement is the next two generations of Americans are pro-life.

Millennials, those young Americans between the ages of 18-29, have 59 percent of their generation saying abortion is morally wrong. Members of Generation X (30-44 years of age) say abortion is morally wrong at a 60% clip.

More than 6 in 10 of the Greatest Generation (those 65+) feel the same about opposing abortion.

Supreme Knight Carl Anderson told LifeNews.com today that the survey results are exciting to him because it represents hope for an abortion-free future."

Second-Class Relics Available

2010-01-19T20:31:00.004-05:00

Here are some second-class relics cards that would be welcome spiritual additions to any home, in the purpose of asking for these holy Catholics' intercessions for our needs, and to pass on as cherished sacramentals to your kids.

Received my beautiful Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen relic card today, with a swatch of his clothing attached. Write his canonization cause and request one: info@sheencause.org

A year or two back, I received a Mother Teresa relic card with a piece of her clothing. I am unsure if these are still available now that she is Beatified, but it can't hurt to ask.
relic@motherteresa.org

At the same time as I received the Mother Teresa card, I received a second-class relic card of his Eminence Cardinal Ignatius Kung. His nephew, Joseph, is in charge of the Cardinal's Foundation. JMKUNG@aol.com . Contact Mr. Kung and see if he has any still available.

Finally, as well a year or two back, I contacted Enrique de la Vega evegazorro@cox.net who designed a small standing cross with the relic of Fr. Miguel Pro's casket embedded in it. The cost is $30.00 to cover the cost of producing the cross.

It is important to specific these are not something to collect, these are sacraments to be used spiritually and hopefully advanced these great Catholics' Causes. Those mentioned above are complete inspirations to, and powerhouses of, our Catholic Faith and these relic cards should be treasured.

It is against our Church's directive to ever purchase first- or second-class relics. A free-will offering is requested, there is no set price, please be generous.

Normally you can not get access to obtaining first- or second-class relics. The only legitimate time is at the beginning of their canonization process, which makes this timing perfect.

Blessed Miguel Pro: The World's Much Needed Story

2010-01-09T09:03:00.008-05:00

Frequent visitors will notice I recently put the picture of Blessed Fr. Miguel Pro SJ up at the top of my blog. Since hearing this priest's life story a few years back, I have been immersed in it. The impact that this life story has had on me has been obvious, considering the name of this blog.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix does a much better job in telling the story of this holy priest than I can:

"The plan of the president of Mexico was simple: arrest Miguel Pro, bring him before the firing squad, watch him deny his faith in an attempt to save his life, then capture his cowardice on film and thereby disgrace the Church, especially its priests. That was the plan of the president, Plutarco Elias Calles. But as God says through the Prophet Isaiah (55:8-9), “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”

The first step of the president’s plan seemed promising. Miguel, a Jesuit priest, was arrested along with his brothers Roberto and Humberto. They were taken to the Mexico City jail, locked in cells, and subjected to frequent questioning. Though unable to prove them guilty of crimes deserving capital punishment, President Calles ordered Padre Pro’s execution, together with his brother Humberto. Moreover, the president invited government officials, members of the press and photographers to be present for the execution to witness and to capture on film the spectacle of disgrace that he was certain was about to occur.

At 10 a.m. on Nov. 23, 1927, the prisoner was taken from his cell and led across the compound to the execution site. Even before he reached the place of his martyrdom, the plan began to unravel. As Padre Pro walked with his crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other, one of the policemen who had helped to capture him a few days before broke ranks and approached him with tears, begging the priest to forgive him for his part in the ordeal. Reaching out to him as a brother, Padre Pro said, “Not only do I forgive you, I also give you thanks.”

Upon arrival at the wall of execution, the priest asked permission to pray before being executed. Being granted his wish, he knelt before the wall riddled with bullet holes from previous executions and, clasping the crucifix and the rosary next to his heart, he asked God for the grace of a holy death. Then, he rose, kissed the crucifix, extended his arms in the form of a cross and, facing the firing squad, declared: “May God have mercy on you. May God bless you. Lord, you know that I am innocent. With all my heart I forgive my enemies.” Finally, as the firing squad took aim, Padre Pro said in a calm and steady voice, “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” “Long live Christ the King!”

As the execution proceeded and he breathed his last breath, there was not a single expression of cowardice on his face, no fear or anger in his voice; there was only forgiveness and filial trust in God. The president’s plan had failed. Padre Pro was dead in his earthly body but he had triumphed over death. As St. Paul writes (1 Cor 15:54f), “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” As the president received assurance of his death on earth, Blessed Miguel Pro was already rejoicing in heaven; and the story of his heroic witness was about to spread like wildfire across his homeland and to the ends of the earth.

Padre Pro’s family collected his body, together with that of his brother Humberto who was executed after him. Their bodies, having been washed and laid out in coffins, were brought to the house of a friend, where, throughout the night, people came in ever increasing numbers to pay respect to this new priest-martyr. As the crowd expanded, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed on top of his coffin, a Holy Hour of Adoration was held, and then prayers continued until dawn.

In the morning, as the funeral procession was about to begin, those wishing to pay their final respect had increased into a sizeable crowd, despite the threats of President Calles, who had forbidden any public demonstration of sympathy. More than 500 cars joined the procession to the cemetery. As it wound its way through the streets, flowers were thrown from balconies, thousands of people lined the sidewalks, and voices shouted, over and over, “¡Viva Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe! ¡Viva Cristo Rey!”

At the gates of the cemetery, brother priests of Mexico, despite the danger of being arrested and executed themselves, asked for the privilege of carrying the martyr’s body to the place of burial and of lowering it into the grave. The family graciously granted permission and, bearing the coffin together, they brought his body, and that of his brother Humberto, to their place of rest.
The plan of President Calles was in shambles. The Plan of God, on the other hand, moved full steam ahead. Despite the president’s order that the photographs not be published, they were printed and distributed across the country and indeed around the world. People who had never heard of Miguel Pro now admired him as a martyr. Within days, he had become the most popular priest in Mexico and he remains so even today.

What is more, what he accomplished in life is nothing compared to what he has accomplished in death. Before his martyrdom, of which he had a premonition, he had told a friend, “If I am ever caught, be prepared to ask me for things when I am in Heaven.” To another friend, he had joked that, if asked to give his life for the faith, he would deal out favors from heaven as if they were a deck of cards. [Blogger Note: This is a very similar promise to the one St. Therese of Lisieux made] Indeed, many favors and miracles occurred, within weeks of his martyrdom, from healing of incurable illnesses to dramatic conversions of hardened sinners. While persecution against the Church continued for years, and hundreds of other priests and tens of thousands of other Catholics lost their lives, their resolve to remain faithful witnesses to the end was strengthened by the courageous example of their compatriot Padre Pro.

In 1988, Pope John Paul II beatified Miguel Pro, bringing great honor to the priesthood and immense joy to the faithful in Mexico and far beyond. In his beatification homily, the Holy Father said of Blessed Miguel Pro, “Neither suffering nor serious illness, neither the exhausting ministerial activity, frequently carried out in difficult and dangerous circumstances, could stifle the radiating and contagious joy which he brought to his life for Christ and which nothing could take away. Indeed, the deepest root of self-sacrificing surrender for the lowly was his passionate love for Jesus Christ and his ardent desire to be conformed to Him, even unto death.”

In some exciting news, Metanoia Films, the team that brought us the impactful movie Bella, is now working on a movie about the life of Miguel Pro. The producers have mentioned it will be Braveheart meets Life is Beautiful. I can't wait. For those like me who can't wait, here is a Turner Classic movie that touches on Pro's life.

I would encourage all to pray to Blessed Miguel Pro. As Sir Thomas More said in the movie when questioned at his execution whether he believed he would see Heaven, "[God] will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to him."

Blessed Miguel Pro, pray for us as well!

Miracle Needed for Kevin Archbold

2010-01-04T22:04:00.006-05:00

I have a fellow parishoner who needs our help. He is a very good man with a wonderful family. They are asking for the intercession of Mother Alphonsa to establish her path to canonization. Please follow this link and join in this prayerful petition.

Post Note: Kevin went home to God. Please remember his soul and his wife and his children in your prayers.

Who Inspired Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen?

2009-12-31T06:18:00.001-05:00

This month, Masses across America marked the 30th anniversary of the passing of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Servant of God. On a televised show he was asked who inspired him, the answer was riviting:

"A couple of months before his death Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was interviewed on national television. One of the questions was this: "Bishop Sheen, you have inspired millions of people all over the world. Who inspired you? Was it a Pope?"

Bishop Sheen responded that it was not a Pope, a cardinal, another bishop, or even a priest or a nun. It was a little Chinese girl of eleven years of age. He explained that when the Communists took over China, they imprisoned a priest in his own rectory near the Church. After they locked him up in his own house, the priest was horrified to look out of his window and see the Communists proceed into the Church, where they went into the sanctuary and broke into the tabernacle. In an act of hateful desecration, they took the ciborium and threw it on the floor with all of the Sacred Hosts spilling out. The priest knew exactly the number of Hosts in the ciborium; thirty-two.

When the Communists left, they either did not notice, or didn't pay any attention to a small girl praying in the back of the Church who saw everything that had happened. That night the little girl came back.

Slipping past the guard at the priest's house, she went inside the Church. There she made a holy hour of prayer, an act of love to make up for the act of hatred. After her holy hour she went into the sanctuary, knelt down, bent over and with her tongue received Jesus in Holy Communion, since (at that time) it was not permissible for laymen to touch the Sacred Host with their hands.

The little girl continued to come back each night to make her holy hour and receive Jesus in Holy Communion on her tongue. On the thirty-second night, after she had consumed the last and thirty-second host, she accidentally made a noise and woke the guard who was sleeping. He ran after her, caught her, and beat her to death with the butt of his rifle. This act of heroic martyrdom was witnessed by the priest as he watched grief-stricken from his bedroom window.

When Bishop Sheen heard the story he was so inspired that he promised God he would make a holy hour of prayer before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament every day of his life. If this frail, little child could give testimony and witness to the world concerning the real and wonderful Presence of her Savior in the Blessed Sacrament, then the Bishop was absolutely bound by all that was right and true, to do the same. His sole desire from then on was to bring the world to the burning Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

The little girl showed the Bishop what true courage and zeal really is; how faith could overcome all fear, how true love for Jesus in the Eucharist must transcend life itself. What is hidden in the Sacred Host is the glory of His love. The sun in the sky is symbolic of the Son of God in the Blessed Sacrament. This is why most monstrances are in the form of a sunburst. As the sun is the natural source of all energy, the Blessed Sacrament is the supernatural source of all grace and love."

Obama's Core is now Deserting Him

2009-12-30T16:13:00.002-05:00

Completely delusional and hysterical columnist Maureen Dowd - to be only on the par with the likes of say Eleanor Cliff - is now feeling the hangover effects of the Obama Kool Aid wearing off. This was just one guest opinion column in the NY Times, but it is so much more. If Maureen Dowd is now criticizing Obama, who is next, Hugo Chavez?

"Before he left for vacation, Obama tried to shed his Spock mien and juice up the empathy quotient on jobs. But in his usual inspiring/listless cycle, he once more appeared chilly in his response to the chilling episode on Flight 253, issuing bulletins through his press secretary and hitting the links. At least you have to seem concerned.

...But in a mystifying moment that was not technically or emotionally reassuring, there was no live video and it looked as though the Obama operation was flying by the seat of its pants.

...the president intoned: “It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect’s name on a no-fly list.”

In his detached way, Spock was letting us know that our besieged starship was not speeding into a safer new future, and that we still have to be scared.

Heck of a job, Barry."

I Triple-dog-dare-you on the breach of etiquette, calling Our Commander and Chief by his pre-Obama-Cult childhood name, Barry. Also interesting that she nailed the Spock comparison twice. For non-Trekies, Spock was a character on Star Trek whose race prided themselves with being non-emotional under any circumstances. Detached as mentioned in my prior post.

Too funny, and more notably his extreme liberal wing is now flanking him.

7 Centuries Foretold of the Messiah

2009-12-25T08:05:00.006-05:00

Bishop Sheen once gave a sermon that if he was at the beginning of a human search to look for a true Messiah to follow, he would look for signs from the Almighty that the Messiah he chose was without a doubt from God, His Chosen One. No other religion can claim such specific and fulfilled prophecies on the central figure of their Faith. They were so specific that the Roman authorities, Jewish community and traveling wisemen all knew that the birth had happened without firsthand knowledge.

700 years before the birth of Christ, Christ's lineage was from the House of David was prophesied:
"In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it--one from the house of David--one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness." Isaiah 16:5

700 years before Christ's birth in Bethlehem the location was prophesied:
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come . . . one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Micah 5:2

700 years before the Blessed Mother conceived from the Holy Spirit it was prophesied:
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." Isaiah 7:14 (Blogger Note: Bishop Sheen always pointed out that this unthinkable notion of a virgin birth has always been accepted as an unquestioned truth in world history. Unbelievers will argue many ways that Christ was not Divine, but surprisingly will rarely argue that a virgin can't conceive, which would seemingly be an easier argument to win for a non-believer - again reinforcing the Doctrine's world acceptance. In fact, St. Luke who wrote about the virgin birth was a doctor, and one would think he would be the most skeptical out of the four evangelists, but he actually gives the testament.)

700 years before Christ's birth the incarnation was prophesied, that our God would become human... "a child is born"... that would be called "Mighty God":
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. ..." Isaiah 9:6-7

Merry Christmas!

The Worth of a Soul

2009-12-12T08:19:00.005-05:00

Today marks the 18th anniversary of the lost of my brother, who died instantaneously at age 18 with a hidden heart condition. Anyone who goes through something like this knows how it forever alters your life. It also makes your awareness heightened to people’s struggles, especially those grieving. It makes you a better person.

Death at Holiday time is such an oxymoron. It definitely compounds the sadness as external Holiday joy takes juxtaposition against your internal grief. I remember my mother having to decide which siblings she would give my brother’s wrapped gifts to - that were left under the tree - as there was nothing else left that she could do. Some gifts obviously were not a perfect matches for the recipients, but they were warmly accepted with the realization of how much my brother wanted them and how we felt they were a link to him.

I also remember my parents getting us all gifts, and getting a grave blanket for my brother because again, that was all that was left that could be done on the material side. I remember the great personal sadness I had when reflecting on this forced, only pragmatic gift.

However, with every cross there is a blessing.

I remember listening to the car radio and hearing "Oh Holy Night" between my brother’s passing and that first Christmas without him. I have heard that song a countless times and it has always been one of my favorite songs. But at that moment I truly heard for the first time the line, "’Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth…" With this line the magnitude of the meaning of Christmas, with reflecting on my brothers’ soul and passing, was overwhelming realized and finally crystal clear. Without Christ’s birth and eventual accepted sacrifice, the soul had no worth, no graceful consideration or purpose, nor any final reward. No hope for happiness, basically no hope for anything. Abraham, Moses and even St. Joseph were not in a place of eternal happiness prior to Christ's victory.

So all who grieve this holiday season, take heart. The birth of a poverty-stricken baby, in a remote, outcast province of the Roman Empire two-thousand years ago changed eternity for all faithful people. This singular birth out of billions of historical births made a joyous afterlife and reward possible for all who struggle, care and mourn trying to actively live His Gospel. It was the greatest holiday gift for those in mourning by providing them THE eternal consolation.

Matthew 5:4: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Theater Play on the Life of St. Jean/John Vianney

2009-11-27T09:13:00.003-05:00

I have access to a very impactful play of the life of St. Jean Vianney. The play is truly Catholic and features multiple, actual homilies from this saint addressing many core beliefs in our Faith. It is meant for a cast of around twenty, so would be best served as a high-school, college or theater group play.

There are so few truly Catholic plays out there, this is one.

Along with Vianney's beautiful sermons it highlights his mysticism as well as his confrontations with the devil. Everyone can take something spiritual away with them from this play.

If you are interested in getting a copy of this play for consideration, please contact me through the comment link on this post, and include your e-mail contact information. I will not publish your comment, but send a copy of the play to you for your use free of charge.

Bishop Tobin Bans Patrick Kennedy from Communion

2009-11-22T06:55:00.003-05:00

When Bishop Tobin mentioned the word "scandal" below, it should have been a hint of what was coming. You can't have a dogmatic head of a diocese mention public scandal without an appropriate public remedy.

As I mentioned, the Catholic Church in America has turned a corner. The stakes have been raised. Patrick Kennedy's office vs. his soul.

"Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family.

"The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion," Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday.

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him "that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I've taken as a public official," particularly on abortion."

All weary pro-lifers should write Bishop Tobin a letter of support for this decision. There are many Catholic politicians who have been destructive towards human life for far too long who are cringing this morning with this story.

Buchanan: Some Good Questions

2009-11-19T04:14:00.003-05:00

Pat Buchanan asks a lot of very thought provoking questions, that he knows the answers to, in his recent column showing the lunacy of a civil trial for enemy combatants. It is a good read with historical basis.

If you want to notice something as interesting as telling, type Pat Buchanan's name in your Google search field and see how nothing automatically comes up. Every other public figure and columnist comes up as an autofill, even remote people when I search for them. Apparently, Google does not like Pat very much.

Bishop Tobin Sets Patrick Kennedy Straight

2009-11-11T19:15:00.005-05:00

Back in October of 2008, I said that the Pelosi Heresy would be the turning point for the Catholic Church in America. Clerics would no longer leave blatant, public distortions of our Faith unchallenged when made by bold, Catholic-in-name-only, posturing politicians.

In this latest event, the son of Ted Kennedy, Patrick (the apple doesn't fall far..) Kennedy, said publicly that “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.”

Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin definitively set the record straight:

"... Well, in fact, Congressman, in a way it does. Although I wouldn’t choose those particular words, when someone rejects the teachings of the Church, especially on a grave matter, a life-and-death issue like abortion, it certainly does diminish their ecclesial communion, their unity with the Church. This principle is based on the Sacred Scripture and Tradition of the Church and is made more explicit in recent documents.

For example, the “Code of Canon Law” says, “Lay persons are bound by an obligation and possess the right to acquire a knowledge of Christian doctrine adapted to their capacity and condition so that they can live in accord with that doctrine.” (Canon 229, #1)

...But let’s get down to a more practical question; let’s approach it this way: What does it mean, really, to be a Catholic? After all, being a Catholic has to mean something, right?

Well, in simple terms ...being a Catholic means that you’re part of a faith community that possesses a clearly defined authority and doctrine, obligations and expectations. It means that you believe and accept the teachings of the Church, especially on essential matters of faith and morals; that you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish; that you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly; that you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially.

...Your rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion falls into a different category – it’s a deliberate and obstinate act of the will; a conscious decision that you’ve re-affirmed on many occasions. Sorry, you can’t chalk it up to an “imperfect humanity.” [Blogger Note: Ted Kennedy used the term "imperfect" in his final letter to the Vatican to explain 40 years of voting in favor of abortion on demand] Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous [Blogger Note: There he said it!] to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.

...I invite you, as your bishop and brother in Christ, to enter into a sincere process of discernment, conversion and repentance. It’s not too late for you to repair your relationship with the Church, redeem your public image, and emerge as an authentic “profile in courage,” especially by defending the sanctity of human life for all people, including unborn children. And if I can ever be of assistance as you travel the road of faith, I would be honored and happy to do so."

Bravo Bishop, thank you for your courage, leadership and preaching the unfiltered Gospel.

Love, Worship, Truth and Freedom Cannot Be Surpressed

2009-11-08T06:27:00.005-05:00

Monday marks the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. We all know one of the most famous speeches of Ronald Reagan's life... and we all know this part:

"General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

But do we know this part?

"Today the city thrives in spite of the challenges implicit in the very presence of this wall. What keeps you here? Certainly there's a great deal to be said for your fortitude, for your defiant courage. But I believe there's something deeper, something that involves Berlin's whole look and feel and way of life--not mere sentiment. No one could live long in Berlin without being completely disabused of illusions. Something instead, that has seen the difficulties of life in Berlin but chose to accept them, that continues to build this good and proud city in contrast to a surrounding totalitarian presence that refuses to release human energies or aspirations.

Something that speaks with a powerful voice of affirmation, that says yes to this city, yes to the future, yes to freedom. In a word, I would submit that what keeps you in Berlin is love--love both profound and abiding.

Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental distinction of all between East and West. The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront. Years ago, before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they erected a secular structure: the television tower at Alexander Platz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the tower's one major flaw, treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere--that sphere that towers over all Berlin--the light makes the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed.

As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom."

Within 2 years of this speech, the Wall dividing the German people was no more.

2009 Election Night: The Season of Our Discontent

2009-11-04T18:22:00.007-05:00

A few thoughts should be mentioned on last night’s elections.

First, Governor Corzine lost by 4 points to Chris Christie despite President Obama frequently stumping for him, and outspending Christie an incredible 4 to 1. Now a 4 percent victory only requires 2.1 percent of the population to change their mind to swing the election.

Was it the case that our President didn’t have the goodwill and/or influence to swing this small percentage of voters in a historically Liberal state? This answer could be very telling. Or was it a matter of Obama's frequent fundraising and photo op’s with Corzine did influence the race, but Corzine was so far behind Christie that it did not matter? Pretty much all polls were aligned saying this race was neck and neck coming into the election. This leaves the first choice, that Obama has no influence, as the more realistic choice. This is a very bad position for the President of the free world to be in. It is too bad this election was not held in France where Obama’s influence means something.

Bill Bennett on his radio show this morning humorously said, paraphrasing, “ the anti-bodies are kickin’ in to fight was is not supposed to be in America.” My personal opinion is that we have not had an extremely, full-fledged Liberal president in a generation. Bill Clinton was a social liberal, but fiscal moderate as he balanced the budget with Newt Gingrich. Jimmy Carter was the last Liberal flame thrower. When Carter was president, I was still not allowed to write in pen, and I was 5 years away from getting braces. It has been a very long time. Americans have completely forgotten -- due to time or for the younger voters, they have never been exposed to an uncontrollable tax-and-spend Liberal on the level of Obama --what it is like having a unapologetic Liberal calling the shots. Every day we see Obama's new spending in the news... 700 Billion here, or 400 billion there, as the black whole of debt that we and our children will have to dig out of gets deeper and deeper. Our collective memory does not recall, or is somehow not convinced, that tax increases targeting the private sector and spending increases targeting and benefiting the government sector will always destroy an economy. Very quietly, Johnson and Johnson yesterday announced layoffs for 8,000 employees. This is a premier health care company, and a premier consumer products company in the U.S. Just ask Warren Buffet who owns a good amount of its stock. If you think that Obama has done anything to help this economy a year after being elected take a look at Johnson and Johnson.

Extreme Left-Wing, diatriber Alan Dershowitz mentioned the public was having ‘buyer’s remorse” in regard to electing Obama a few months back. It is similar to having a whirlwind courtship and marrying someone, then finding out the person has an extremely violent temper and you are stuck with them. The year following this realization is the most fearful time. We are now in this time, the time of our discontent, with Obama, realizing he is not the package that was promised or advertised, we are stuck with him, and the fear is overwhelming.

Virginia had a 25 point swing towards Republican voters last night for the Gubernatorial vote when compared to what Obama carried last year. One out of four voters went running to the door. Close to 50% of the voters that elected Obama! Laughably, the White House says this does not reflect on Obama.

In upstate New York, a Conservative third-party candidate took on both establishment Parties with far less financing and was leading in the polls as of yesterday. If Democrats see the election outcome last night as a victory, they do it to their peril.

It seems that every generation needs to make their own mistakes and get their own wake up call. I predict that the next two Presidential elections will be won by the Republicans, possibly three. America has realized their mistake and the aftertaste will last at least ten years. On January 21st, Obama had 68% approval rating and 12% disapproval rating per Gallop. Now it is 50% approval (down -18%) verses 43% disapproval (up +31%). Overwhelming buyer’s remorse.

I also predict that Democrats will start fleeing Obama and his agenda to save their own hides. You don’t have to be Nostradamos to predict this. The movie Mississippi Burning has a very accurate quote in it, “Rattlesnakes don’t commit suicide.”

Archbishop Timothy Dolan: Anti-Catholicism is America's Pastime

2009-10-30T19:27:00.004-04:00

New York's Archbishop showed me something here, no mincing words. Maureen Dowd finally held accountable for her incoherent rants. Click on the above link, a very worth-while read.

"...Finally, the most combustible example of all came Sunday with an intemperate and scurrilous piece by Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages of the Times. In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.

True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today."

10/31 Post note: Archbishop Dolan confirmed he submitted this piece to the New York Times and they declined to print it.

Two Years From Now, These Will Be Considered the Good Ol' Days for Obama

2009-10-25T18:10:00.005-04:00

I don't understand. President Obama does nothing in his first 12 days in office and wins the Nobel Peace Prize, but then legitimately sets a true record for approval rating plummet and no one gives him any credit???

From Gallup:

"...the 9-point drop in the most recent quarter is the largest Gallup has ever measured for an elected president between the second and third quarters of his term, dating back to 1953

...More generally, Obama's 9-point slide between quarters ranks as one of the steepest for a president at any point in his first year in office."

The Liberal Tenet of Work vs. Jobs

2009-10-17T06:31:00.004-04:00

The Obama administration reported yesterday that it has saved or created 30,000 jobs by awarding $16 B-B-B-Billion to federal contractors in government projects. With a calculator, it comes out to a cost of more than $500,000 per job created which again shows you the inefficiencies and incompetence of this administration.

Now, let’s take that $16 Billion and try to stimulate this economy another way. Let’s give out 160,000 one-hundred thousand dollars low-interest loans, that should be noted have to be paid back, to small business entrepreneurs wanting to open a business. If each hires 2 people, when grouped with the entrepreneur, this would create 480,000 new jobs. Now what happens if one percent of the 160,000 companies actually become large companies down the road (Apple computers started in a garage). Take 1600 companies and times that by 10,000 jobs as well. 16 million new jobs.

The basic truth about Liberals is that they are very good at creating work for their constituencies, and very bad at creating established, long-term jobs. They can create a $60,000 job for a person directing traffic at a highway work site holding a stop sign, but this job is gone the day the work is completed.

Here is a great example of this using Boston’s Big Dig in the epicenter of Liberalism. The government wanted to move a highway underground that went through the middle of the city. It was originally budgeted for $2 Billion, and came in at a final cost of over $22 Billion. In the year 2000, 5,400 workers were hired for the job and at the end, in 2004, only 1,000 were still employed, and they were on short-term, mop-up duty.

Last week, in a poll of CEO’s only 13% expect to offer more jobs in the short term, although the majority expect their sales to grow in this same period. This, coupled with the Dow Jones hitting 10,000 this week, leads more credibility and concern to a job-less recovery, and very big problems for the Obama administration.

Best of VCR: What's the Nobel Prize Worth?

2009-10-09T06:33:00.005-04:00

Originally posted June 5, 2008. Thought I would dust it off with our President's recent honor. I read today that the nominations for this year's award we due Feb. 1st, 2009, so Obama was nominated 12 days into Office. This shows you the obsession in making sure Obama got this award regardless of achievements. This award is even more completely meaningless going forward than it was in the past, if that is possible.

This week, MSNBC.com ran a cover story on the downfall of Dr. James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.

Long-time pro-lifers are very familiar with Dr. Watson but not for his scientific advancements. They are familiar with him for his extreme culture-of-death philosophies:

In Prism magazine (1973), Dr. Watson suggests that children not be declared alive until three days after birth so that doctors may allow severely deformed children to die if their parents so choose.

Decades later, in an interview with the Australian paper The Sunday Age, Watson was quoted saying: "Any time you can prevent a seriously sick child from being born, it is good for everyone..."

What makes this man so incredible is not his accolades, but the place our society give him. He is an esteemed Nobel Laureate.

In researching the history of the Nobel Prizes, you will find such dark names in the ranks of the Nobel nominees as Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin. As the ol’ Yankee manager, Casey Stengel, said, "You can look it up."

What you will not find on the list of nominees are the names of Mahatma Gandhi nor Pope John Paul II.

In regard to the Holy Father, the Nobel organization did not believe embracing your assassin in a jail cell, speaking out for the most helpless and downtrodden members of society over the span of 30 years and being at the epicenter of the fall of Communism (bringing it down without a shot being fired) worthy of their recognition.

Despite what Al Gore and Jimmy Carter would tell you, this clearly defines how political these Nobel awards are.

So back to Dr. Watson… What finally brought down his career? He made racist remarks against the African American and Jewish communities.

One of the benefits of being pro-life is that your views allow you to quickly identify what kind of person is standing in front of you. Through our commitment to life, we knew the kind of man Dr. James Watson was in 1973; it took the rest of the world more than 30 years to catch up.

Grief: The Battleground between the Divine and the Mortal

2009-10-03T07:29:00.006-04:00

Mary Ellen Barrett is a Catholic writer and a homeschooling mother of seven on Long Island. I have quoted her writing previously on my blog.

In August, while on a camping trip, it is believed her fourteen-year-old son, Ryan, had a seizure that resulted in his drowning. As a parent who shares with her a deep love of our Catholic Faith and for our children, we all share in this heartache.

Ryan was very loved within his community, and aspired to become a priest. When Auxiliary Bishop Peter Libasci came to Ryan’s wake, he told a mourner, "I just had to come and see the little priest."

Mourning directly exposes our souls and our hearts to the presence of God without any obstructions. There are no pretenses or falsehoods in mourning; no rhetoric, no social pleasantries, no cosmetic appearances, no designer clothes, nor teeth whiteners. Nothing but the true essence of human struggling and emotions with all else stripped away.

Grieving is the battleground between the Divine and the mortal. Our mortal nature and senses tell us that our loved one is gone forever because we no longer have their physical presence; and our Faith tells us that they are in God’s embrace and that we are called to believe the nonphysical and things that can't be seen -- what our senses can’t perceive and hearts can't prove. It is a very tough battle.

This struggle is what Mary Ellen calls "sitting at the foot of the cross" in this beautiful piece where she wrote about her grief. You will see there are no pretenses in her words, just her struggling with her essence and the belief in her God. It is a very worthwhile read:

Triumph of the Cross
"One month. It's been one month since our world came crashing down around us and we began our vigil at the cross of Christ.

To learn to embrace the suffering and turn it to some use has been, at times, a nearly impossible task for me. I miss my Ryan so badly it is a physical pain that just will not go away. A stabbing knife in my chest that often makes it hard to catch my breath.

To sit at the foot of the cross in the real way that Dave and I have this past month, it is necessary to surrender to God and to just trust that His plan is for our ultimate salvation. I confess to having my moments of bewilderment/anger at why God called Ryan home but I pray through that and ask Ryan to pray for me. I know that Ryan is happy in heaven, that he is doing good there. There have been several little intercessions he has accomplished for his mom and dad and I'm told others have had little prayer requests granted. I am so comforted by the knowledge that he is home with Our Lady, helping his family and friends.
I still want him home with me. That is me, my fallen, broken nature. To be aware of his joy and yet want him here. I can't help it. I don't think I ever will be able to feel differently.

Still we chug along here, life still happens. Babies need feeding and changing, toddlers require care, older kids need to do school and go to music and soccer and other places. I am sometimes annoyed that the world hasn't stopped, frozen in time because my son died, but then I see that going to dance and soccer is good for the kids and visiting with family heals me.

So the grief crashes over us in waves. Mind numbingly, over-powering waves and then we gasp and stick our heads up and catch our breath. We see the world around us and the love being bestowed on us and we know it is good.

Sitting at the foot of the cross gives others the opportunity to minister. We have been so cared for and generously provided for in the last month. I still receive a delicious hot dinner every evening at 5:00 pm. I We spent this last weekend in a beautiful New England resort owned by my cousins, being catered to as if we really deserved such treatment. The dearest friend in the world and her husband and children still take care of so many details of daily living for us so that we no longer have to think. The generosity of our parish family, community and homeschool group have been unimaginable. Thank you all dear people.

This community too, this blogging world with is so "real" in spite of it's "unrealness" The cards, letters, donations, emails, gifts and prayers have overwhelmed us in their love. Thank you all so much.
I have almost 1,000 thank you notes to write. Yes 1,000. Between the wakes and the funeral and the giving that followed almost 1,000 people expressed their gratitude for Ryan's life and love for our family.
If you know me, you know how long that it is going to take to get that done. If you don't know me, let me tell you it's going to be a while.

I want to assure everyone that this blog is not going to become a constant outpouring of grief. I won't be able to keep it out entirely but I still want this to be a happy place that records what we do here and how we do it. I still will rant politically over at CatholicVote.org and I still intend to keep up with other writing commitments. Soon.

For today, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, let me assure you that the suffering we embrace does in fact unite us to Christ. While I think I have felt every emotion going in the last month the one that prevails is unity to Christ. A comforted, loved feeling. Knowing that my Father in heaven has embraced my family and I and is holding us close is a warmth I can't describe. To witness and experience the Body of Christ in the real, powerful and practical way that we have is evidence of the suffering doing good. It is evidence that God is in His heaven, that my son is there too and he is caring for Dave and I.

The cross will be triumphant, we shall all be united again.

Until then I can't wait to hug my boy."

Be Proud of Who You Are, America!

2009-09-17T06:07:00.003-04:00

Mark Steyn had a very powerful statement yesterday on Bill Bennett's radio show that I have been thinking about all day. He said all over the world (Asia, Europe, Australia and the Americas), hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets protesting their governments are not doing enough for them -- providing for their needs. In America, hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets protesting their government is too involved in their lives and needs to get the heck out of their way.

Steyn mentioned this independence streak was born from the original American colonies having to be self sufficient, then after accomplishing this feat they came together and formed a national government - making sure it was limited in its interference through the Constitution. All other places came from a monarchy or dictatorship where the population looked upward and waited for crumbs to fall from a royal plate to take care of them.

Be proud of who you are America!

George W. Bush's Speech at the National Cathedral

2009-09-11T23:31:00.002-04:00

A few days after our country was attacked, on Sept. 14, President Bush came to a national cathedral in Washington D.C., and gave what I believe was the greatest speech of his Presidency. It received very little accolades from the press, probably too many references to God. It is a very worthwhile read on this 8th anniversary.

"We are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have suffered so great a loss, and today we express our nation's sorrow. We come before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who loved them. On Tuesday, our country was attacked with deliberate and massive cruelty. We have seen the images of fire and ashes and bent steel.

Now come the names, the list of casualties we are only beginning to read:

They are the names of men and women who began their day at a desk or in an airport, busy with life.

They are the names of people who faced death and in their last moments called home to say, be brave and I love you.

They are the names of passengers who defied their murderers and prevented the murder of others on the ground.

They are the names of men and women who wore the uniform of the United States and died at their posts.

They are the names of rescuers -- the ones whom death found running up the stairs and into the fires to help others.

We will read all these names. We will linger over them and learn their stories, and many Americans will weep.

To the children and parents and spouses and families and friends of the lost, we offer the deepest sympathy of the nation. And I assure you, you are not alone. Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history, but our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.

War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others; it will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing. Our purpose as a nation is firm, yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed and lead us to pray. In many of our prayers this week, there's a searching and an honesty. At St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, on Tuesday, a woman said, "I pray to God to give us a sign that He's still here."

Others have prayed for the same, searching hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still missing. God's signs are not always the ones we look for. We learn in tragedy that His purposes are not always our own, yet the prayers of private suffering, whether in our homes or in this great cathedral are known and heard and understood. There are prayers that help us last through the day or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers that give us strength for the journey, and there are prayers that yield our will to a Will greater than our own.

This world He created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance and love have no end, and the Lord of life holds all who die and all who mourn.

It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded and the world has seen that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave.

We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion, in long lines of blood donors, in thousands of citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way possible.

And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice:

Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end and at the side of his quadriplegic friend.

A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter.

Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down 68 floors to safety.

A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burned victims.

In these acts and many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one another and an abiding love for our country.

Today, we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called, "the warm courage of national unity." This is a unity of every faith and every background. It has joined together political parties and both houses of Congress. It is evident in services of prayer and candlelight vigils and American flags, which are displayed in pride and waved in defiance. Our unity is a kinship of grief and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the world.

America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for, but we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender, and the commitment of our Fathers is now the calling of our time.

On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask Almighty God to watch over our nation and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that He will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to come.

As we've been assured, neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth can separate us from God's love. May He bless the souls of the departed. May He comfort our own. And may He always guide our country.

God bless America."

Krauthammer: Obama the Mortal

2009-09-08T16:00:00.000-04:00

A few days back, Charles Krauthammer had a piece on how President Obama is now being seen as human with all his warts. Here are some excerpts from his piece:

"What happened to President Obama? His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford (post-Nixon pardon)?

...Obama imagined that, as Fouad Ajami so brilliantly observed, he had won the kind of banana-republic plebiscite that grants caudillo-like authority to remake everything in one's own image.

Accordingly, Obama unveiled his plans for a grand makeover of the American system, animating that vision by enacting measure after measure that greatly enlarged state power, government spending and national debt. Not surprisingly, these measures engendered powerful popular skepticism that burst into tea-party town-hall resistance.

...Obama fancies himself tribune of the people, spokesman for the grass roots, harbinger of a new kind of politics from below that would upset the established lobbyist special-interest order of Washington. Yet faced with protests from a real grass-roots movement, his party and his supporters called it a mob -- misinformed, misled, irrational, angry, unhinged, bordering on racist. All this while the administration was cutting backroom deals with every manner of special interest -- from drug companies to auto unions to doctors -- in which favors worth billions were quietly and opaquely exchanged.

...But what has occurred -- irreversibly -- is this: He's become ordinary. The spell is broken. The charismatic conjurer of 2008 has shed his magic. He's regressed to the mean, tellingly expressed in poll numbers hovering at 50 percent.

...For a man who only recently bred a cult, ordinariness is a great burden, and for his acolytes, a crushing disappointment."

Should We Ever Publicly Criticize Priests?

2009-09-07T09:07:00.010-04:00

Over the past few months, many Catholics in the pro-life movement have felt abandoned by some of our clerical leaders as the issues of Barack Obama’s Notre Dame speech and Ted Kennedy’s funeral forced a spotlight on what should it mean to be a true, pro-life Catholic.

I have been very disappointed by more than a few prelates over the years in regard to the pro-life cause in as I firmly believed these prelates were giving mix signals to both the pro-life, pro-abortion and Catholic communities by their words and actions.

It is very hard for me not to be outwardly critical of these events because of the deep injustice I feel. In addition, it is very hard for me not to say anything because I am an Irishman. Only one of these ailments is curable.

The quote that remains with me, an alters my tongue to a large extent, is what God said to St. Catherine of Siena, as quoted in her Dialogue, in regard to criticizing priest, even those worthy of the criticism:

"…[It] is my intention that they be held in due reverence, not for what they are in themselves, but for my sake, because of the authority I have given them. Therefore the virtuous must not lessen their reverence, even should these ministers fall short in virtue. And, as far as the virtues of my ministers are concerned, I have described them for you by setting them before you as stewards of ... my Son’s body and blood and of the other sacraments. This dignity belongs to all who are appointed as such stewards, to the bad as well as to the good.

…[Because] of their virtue and because of their sacramental dignity you ought to love them. And you ought to hate the sins of those who live evil lives. But you may not for all that set ourselves up as their judges; this is not my will because they are my Christs, and you ought to love and reverence the authority I have given them.

You know well enough that if someone filthy or poorly dressed were to offer you a great treasure that would give you life, you would not disdain the bearer for love of the treasure, and the lord who had sent it, even though the bearer was ragged and filthy... You ought to despise and hate the ministers’ sins and try to dress them in the clothes of charity and holy prayer and wash away their filth with your tears.

Indeed, I have appointed them and given them to you to be angels on earth and suns, as I have told you. When they are less than that you ought to pray for them. But you are not to judge them. Leave the judging to me, and I, because of your prayers and my own desire, will be merciful to them."*

Enough said, you cannot disagree with Divine wisdom that God reveals to a saint as holy as Catherine of Siena. (As a side note on Catherine, one of my favorite stories on her was that she was so holy at an early age that she would levitate up the stairs (her feet not touching the stairs) as a child, causing her parents a great amount of anxiety for her safety - - too funny as all those overprotective parents out there can relate.)

In realizing that God always gives you what you need, yesterday I receive a mailing from the Cardinal Kung Foundation which has close ties to the persecuted, underground Church in China. In the mailing was a beautiful prayer that his Eminence wrote in 1953 in regard to elevating priests:

By His Eminence, the late Ignatius Cardinal Kung
"All powerful and eternal God, through the merits of your Son, Jesus, and through your love for him, I implore you, have pity on the priests of the Holy Church. In spite of their sublime dignity, they are fearful and weak, like all created beings. In your infinite mercy, inflame their hearts with the fire of divine love. For the sake of Jesus, your Son, bestow grace on the priests and uphold them. Do not let them fall into temptation and tarnish their noble vocation.

O Jesus, we implore you. Look with pity on the priests of the Holy Church: those who are serving you faithfully and proclaiming your glory; those who are persecuted for tending your flock; those who are abandoned, weary, and sorrowful; those who are lukewarm, confused and who have denied their faith; those who are sick, dying or in Purgatory. Lord Jesus, we entreat you. Listen to our supplication, have pity and console them.

O Jesus, we entrust to you the priests of the whole world: the priests who baptized me, absolved my sins, offered Holy Mass and consecrated the Eucharist to nourish my soul. We entrust to you the priests that instructed me when I was ignorant, gave me strength in my weakness, showed me the Way and the Truth and comforted me in my sorrow and affliction. For all the blessings they obtained for me, I implore you to support them in your loving kindness.

O Jesus, shelter our priests in your Sacred Heart. Let them take refuge in your mercy and love, in this life and to the hour of death. Amen."

We must realize that for every priest that may disappoint us, there is an equal number that are imprisoned, persecuted and face hostilities because they preach the unfiltered Gospel. As both sides of this priestly spectrum are irreversibly linked to Christ, they all deserve our prayers.

*Catherine of Siena; The Dialogue, translated by Suzanne Noffke, O.P., New York: Paulist Press, 1980, pp. 229-231

Cardinal O'Malley Responds to Critics

2009-09-03T19:45:00.006-04:00

On his blog yesterday, his Emminence justifies his actions of officiating at Senator Kennedy's funeral:

"...There are those who objected, in some cases vociferously, to the Church’s providing a Catholic funeral for the Senator. In the strongest terms I disagree with that position. At the Senator’s interment on Saturday evening, with his family’s permission, we learned of details of his recent personal correspondence with Pope Benedict XVI. It was very moving to hear the Senator acknowledging his failing to always be a faithful Catholic, and his request for prayers as he faced the end of his life. The Holy Father’s expression of gratitude for the Senator’s pledge of prayer for the Church, his commendation of the Senator and his family to the intercession of the Blessed Mother, and his imparting the Apostolic Blessing, spoke of His Holiness’ role as the Vicar of Christ, the Good Shepherd who leaves none of the flock behind.

As Archbishop of Boston, I considered it appropriate to represent the Church at this liturgy out of respect for the Senator, his family, those who attended the Mass and all those who were praying for the Senator and his family at this difficult time. We are people of faith and we believe in a loving and forgiving God from whom we seek mercy.

At times, even in the Church, zeal can lead people to issue harsh judgments and impute the worst motives to one another. These attitudes and practices do irreparable damage to the communion of the Church. If any cause is motivated by judgment, anger or vindictiveness, it will be doomed to marginalization and failure. Jesus’ words to us were that we must love one another as He loves us. Jesus loves us while we are still in sin. He loves each of us first, and He loves us to the end. Our ability to change people’s hearts and help them to grasp the dignity of each and every life, from the first moment of conception to the last moment of natural death, is directly related to our ability to increase love and unity in the Church, for our proclamation of the Truth is hindered when we are divided and fighting with each other."

I think the issue that needs to be addressed here is scandal. By giving Kennedy this send off, O'Malley is encouraging other Catholic, pro-abortion politicians to sin and promote legislation that kills millions of innocent children and still be confident they are in good Communion with the Roman Catholic Church. That is the real sin here, not prayers for a flawed, 77-year old.

Ted Kennedy's Letter to Pope Benedict XVI

2009-08-30T16:16:00.005-04:00

Here is Ted Kennedy's final letter to Pope Benedict XVI as detailed on America.

Most Holy Father,

I asked President Obama to personally hand deliver this letter to you. As a man of deep faith himself, he understands how important my Roman Catholic faith is to me and I am so deeply grateful to him. I hope this letter finds you in good health. I pray that you have all of God’s blessings as you lead our church and inspire our world during challenging times.

I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines. I was diagnosed with brain cancer over a year ago and although I am undergoing treatment, the disease is taking its toll on me.

I am 77-years-old and preparing for the next passage of life. I’ve been blessed to be part of a wonderful family and both my parents, specifically my mother, kept our Catholic faith at the center of our lives. That gift of faith has sustained and nurtured and provided solace to me in the darkest hours. I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith I have tried to right my past.

I want you to know, your Holiness, that in my 50 years of elected office I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I’ve worked to welcome the immigrant, to fight discrimination and expand access to health care and education. I’ve opposed the death penalty and fought to end war. Those are the issues that have motivated me and have been the focus of my work as a U.S. Senator.

I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I am committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life. I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field and I’ll continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone.

I’ve always tried to be a faithful Catholic, Your Holiness. [Blogger Note: Excuse me for a minute... I have to pick my 75-year-old, pro-life, Irish-Catholic father off the floor.] And though I have fallen short through human failings I’ve never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith.

I continue to pray for God’s blessings on you and on our church and would be most thankful for your prayers for me.”

Although a very heartfelt letter, both the Vatican and Senator Kennedy knew the 800 pound gorilla that had to be addressed in this final letter, and this correspondence with its obvious omission - almost insultingly so -does not make me feel any more confident that Senator Kennedy came to terms with the evil he had entrenched himself with for 30 years and left this world in a state of grace. It is a very sad letter, for multiple reasons.

Thoughts on Ted Kennedy's Funeral

2009-08-30T09:25:00.012-04:00

After seeing that dog and pony show yesterday, I don’t know how this country survived 150 years prior to the birth of Ted Kennedy.

I was greatly saddened by seeing Cardinal O’Malley presiding at the Mass. (As a technical note, even through O’Malley did not say the Mass, the ranking prelate is considered the one who presides.) There was quite a lot of pressure put on His Eminence not to show up. American Life League actually sent a letter to O'Malley and started a petition. In the end, O’Malley gave the final invocation committing Senator Kennedy to God’s Mercy, which was OK, but his presence at the Mass gave Kennedy’s funeral in a Catholic Church a legitimacy. I am a great fan of Cardinal O’Malley and will defer judgment until I learn more about the situation hopefully through his blog. O'Malley did not look overly happy to be there.

Very noteworthy, O'Malley did not change into his vestments until right before he gave the final blessing. He changed post-Consecration, which I have never seen a priest do in my life. This could have been his way of portraying he was not partaking in the funeral mass, just the blessing of mercy. We also do not know if a supervisory request was made of him to be present.

When O’Malley greeted the Obama’s prior to Mass, Joe Biden extended his hand to O’Malley. O’Malley abruptly walked away, but then did shake hands with everyone in the first row at the Sign of Peace, including Biden’s. Joe Biden did receive Communion. The wide angle shot had the Obamas letting Biden out for Communion, and then cut away. It was a day of scandals. It was noteworthy also that no cameras were on the politicians receiving Communion. If you think this was random, think so more.

Fr. Mark Hession giving the Homily reminded me of Fr. Jenkins give his address at Notre Dame, trying to justify what he was doing and the life of Ted Kennedy. Maybe if you have to justify a life in a homily, you should take a step back.

George W. and Hillary where getting along swimmingly. I have a strong belief the George W. Bush will convert to Roman Catholicism. Love the fact that four former Presidents had to listen to the Ave Maria.

Mark Steyne brought up a very good point this week. The animosity and polarizations of America’s political parties origin can be traced precisely back to Ted Kennedy at the Judge Bork hearings:

"But leaving aside for the moment Chappaquiddick, which I think is, would be a stain on any man’s record, and the way he dealt with it, in a way, is an even greater stain, putting that to one side, I think I would credit him, by and large, with the politics of the modern era. And when I listen to Orrin Hatch talking about his terrific geniality and bipartisan spirit and all the rest of it, I think back to what he said about Judge Bork at those confirmation hearings twenty years ago, and I think actually a lot of the poison in our politics dates from that. I mean, it was an absurd caricature of Judge Bork’s views, it was utterly false in many respects, the idea that Robert Bork is in favor of segregated lunch counters and all the rest of it, I think it was a disgusting act from a disgusting man. But it helps you understand that a man who could behave as he did at Chappaquiddick would think nothing of doing what he did to Judge Bork in 1987."

So to say Kennedy reached out to the other side of the table, as much as I heard this yesterday, if fiction. He reached out to the other side when he needed something done.

To have his grandchild read a petition in the middle of the mass praying that we pass National Health Care and excepting the gay community more was an outrage and the exploitation of a minor. It is par for the course because the Kennedy’s have always used the Catholic Church to their benefit when needed.

Very surprisingly, Obama's Eulogy was very lacking. His oratory skills took the day off. I was expecting him to bring the place down. He seemed tired and not engaged. Could be the stress of the office is taking a tole. This could have been such a moment to seize for him with his popularity plummeting. Ted Kennedy Jr. stole the show and the limelight from the President. Maybe the wrong Ted Kennedy son is in politics.

Archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick oversaw the grave site service. Another thing that needs an explanation.

Fox news mentioned the Vicki Kennedy carried herself with all the grace and dignity as the former Kennedy widows at their husband’s funeral. I totally agree.

Fr. Euteneuer from Human Life International has some worthy thoughts on the subject of Ted Kennedy being burried in a Catholic Church:

"...There was very little about Ted Kennedy's life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today.

...Ted Kennedy's positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this "catholic" champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity.

...Senator Kennedy needs to be sent to the afterlife with a private, family-only funeral and the prayers of the Church for the salvation of his immortal soul. He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans."

Euteneuer has a little bit of Chaput in him. He drives a truck of truth through the veils of deceipt.

I Grieve An Asterisked Life

2009-08-26T18:23:00.007-04:00

Today I grieve over a life that did not reach its true potential. Today I grieve over a life that will forever have an asterisk associated with it.

It was a life that chose not to speak with the absolute conviction of the Divine Truths that had been revealed to it through its heritage, but instead chose to attenuate the voice of a secular confusion at the altar of man-made power.

It was a life that could have been a Profile in Courage by delivering his Party of millions to a culture of setting a place at the table for even the most defenseless members of our human family but in its stead chose to support, entrench and perpetuate the destruction of the innocent as part of his Party's platform.

It was a life that lovingly and profoundly penned in 1971:

"... it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized—the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.

...When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception."

It was a life that after accepting this written truth, then turned from it.

It was a life that will forever will be known as a tireless worker on behalf of the poor and the disadvantaged, but in the same breath will always have a scarlet asterisk anchored to it. The asterisk will forever acknowledge that this life was politically selective in his care towards society's most downtrodden when they were placed before him - - framed by his meditated, complete abandonment of the unborn.

I grieve this asterisk mostly today and the true 'Lion of the Senate' that could have been.

Pat Buchanan: Obama's Option A

2009-08-08T08:40:00.004-04:00

In my post on the Catholic case against Obamacare, I mentioned that Euthanasia would be the demonic offspring of Obama's new health care system. Pat Buchanan sees this coming as well. He wrote a very powerful column a few days back. Here are some excerpts:

"…[the] Washington Post [had a] story about Obamacare’s "proposal to pay physicians who counsel elderly or terminally ill patients about what medical treatment they would prefer near the end of life and how to prepare instructions such as living wills," and there is little doubt as to what is coming.

…Three weeks ago [under a socialize health care system], Sir Edward Downes, the world-renowned British orchestra leader, who was going blind and deaf, and his wife of 54 years, who had terminal cancer, ended their lives at a Zurich clinic run by the assisted suicide group Dignitas. They drank a small amount of liquid and died hand in hand, their adult children by their side.

This is the way of de-Christianized Europe. For years, doctors have assisted the terminally ill in ending their lives. Indeed, it has been reported that indigent, sick and elderly patients who could not make the decision for themselves had it made for them.

…To traditional Christians, God is the author of life and innocent life, be it of the unborn or terminally ill, may not be taken. Heroic means to keep the dying alive are not necessary, but to advance a natural death by assisting a suicide or euthanasia is a violation of the God’s commandment, Thou shalt not kill.

To secularists and atheists who believe life begins and ends here, however, the woman alone decides whether her unborn child lives, and the terminally ill and elderly, and those closest to them, have the final say as to when their lives shall end. As it would be cruel to let one’s cat or dog spend its last months or weeks in terrible pain, they argue, why would one allow one’s parents to endure such agony?

In the early 20th century, with the influence of Social Darwinism, the utilitarian concept that not all life is worth living or preserving prevailed. In Virginia and other states, sterilization laws were upheld by the Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said famously, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

…Revulsion to Nazism led to revival of the Christian ideal of the sanctity of all human life and the moral obligation of all to defend it. But the utilitarian idea — of the quality of life trumping the faith-based idea of the sanctity of life — has made a strong comeback.

And the logic remains inexorable. If government intends to "bend the curve" of rising health care costs, and half of those costs are incurred in the last six months of life, and physician-counselors will be sent to the seriously ill to advise them of what costs will no longer be covered, and what their options are — what do you think is going to be Option A?"

Barack Obama Persona, Part I: A Detached President

2009-07-29T17:49:00.005-04:00

As aforementioned, here is my take as to what the driving forces that makes up Barack Obama’s persona. Admittedly, I have absolutely no clinical training and my psychology classes numbered two in college, but hey… that never stopped an Irishman before.

My first observation is that I believe Barack Obama is a very detached person. Detached in many ways, but first and foremost detached from his emotions.

Sadly, his father abandoned his family when he was only two years old, which left the President without a male role model and the chance of forming this primary attachment in his life.

In addition, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents in Hawaii when he was ten, but permitted his half-sister to stay under her care. The separation was only one year, but again it strikes me as unusual and was probably not the best scenario to enhance the attachment of a maternal bond in Obama's life.

A few years back, I read the book Snakes in Suits. The book described at length how to spot psychopaths in the workplace. According to the book, one characteristic that distinguishes this group of people is that they are usually great public speakers. The philosophy behind this line of thought is that psychopaths do not have any connection to the words that saying; they are just words with no attachment to a conscious, emotion or to their feelings so the words freely flow unobstructed producing a great result.

When a normal person has to talk in publicly there is frequently stuttering and nerves that come out. These normal people have attachments to their words and emotions.

Now let me say very clearly I DO NOT BELIEVE our President is a psychopath, and I do not believe all great public speakers as psychopaths, but I do believe that the President’s emotional detachment may be a contributing force in allowing him to excel in public speaking.

Multiple political pundits have cited that Obama delivers his speeches in a way that a college professor would instruct a class. I think this is a fair observation. College professors instruct those around them at an elevated, professional level, void of interpersonal interaction. This again is where Obama excels.

During New York’s 2008 Al Smith Dinner (a dinner where presidential candidates humorously roast each other), Republican-nominee John McCain freely cracked jokes at the podium, even defaming himself often, frequently breaking out into laughter and shared his enjoyment with the whole room. When it was President Obama’s turn, to date, I have never seen Barack Obama appear more uncomfortable and squeamish than when he tried to deliver pre-written humorous punch lines at this dinner. Humor is an emotion, if you are detached from your emotions it is very difficult to laugh and be comfortable with your humorous side.

Moreover, cited repeatedly on this blog was the fact that Barack Obama was the only representative in the Illinois State Legislature to vote AGAINST the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. This piece of legislation protected babies that survived botched abortions and were breathing on their own. You really have to have ice in your veins to vote against this bill with no pings of conscious… or be very detached from any emotion.

I had a good amount of fun in this blog goofing on Obama’s Styra-foam pillars at his Denver convention speech. If you think about the back drop that Obama chose on this most important night of his life... it was a visual back drop of hard, cold, impersonal stone. Am I reading too much into this?

The Obama camp will tell you they copied JFK’s theme at his 1960 convention, but I would argue that Kennedy was a very detached person as well. Detached from his emotions and conscience. Multiple mistresses, shady dealings, etc... Kennedy was also a dynamic orator.

Obama was very comfortable with this colossus Coliseum theme, and the large-scale scope of this production also protected him from any smaller intimate setting that could possibly leave him exposed.

We have a very detached President.

America Shrugs with Consequences

2009-07-24T06:00:00.000-04:00

Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged has been getting an intense amount of play over the past year. For those who are not familiar with the book, the WSJ’s Stephen Moore does a good job in giving an overview of Rand’s writing:

"… the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism."

The 30-thousand-foot overview behind the selected title of this book revolves around the mythological figure Atlas, who held up the burden of the whole world on his shoulders, and what happens if all the hardworking people who contribute all the tax dollars that make everything run and provide for so many non-contributors decide to "shrug" one day and not do it anymore, or by the growing tax burden of the government eventually fail in their responsibility.

All Americans should take note of what is now happening in California. The social programs and government spending have exploded so much in the past decade -couple with the state taking in less tax revenue due to the downturn in the economy - that it has left a $24 billion dollar short fall.

As a result, on May 18th, Governor Schwarzenegger had Californians go to the polls to see if they can be tapped a little more on the tax side to compensate for the state’s fiscal irresponsibility. The Times Union reports:

"Just weeks ago, California voted down by an almost 2-to-1 margin their political leaders' grand compromise to stop the state's fiscal hemorrhaging. The compromise comprised six ballot initiatives. Of these, five lost with at least 63 percent voter rejection. The only one that did pass -- with 74 percent support -- was one prohibiting state lawmakers from raising their salaries if the state budget was not balanced."

Atlas shrugged, government's taxation of "We the people" had hit the bottom of the tank. Taxpayers sent a clear message to Sacramento that it was time to address the issue of their uncontrolled spending -- they would not give one more dime in taxes. The awful reality of the non-sustainable fiscal course that California chose to take will now result in their day of reckoning and have dire repercussions, hit harshly, and sadly target many of those most in need, as the Mercury news reports :

"Schwarzenegger has proposed dropping 500,000 families from the welfare rolls and wiping out Healthy Families, a program that subsidizes health insurance for children of people who work but are still poor. One million poor children would lose their health insurance in that little sleight of hand."

Alan Keyes many years back stated that if Americans knew the enormous amount of taxes they contributed to our government would go to those in most need, they would be OK with the tax burden because America has a very good heart at the end of the day. I totally agree with him.

California's day of reckoning is a direct result of the abuse of greedy government spending, political payoffs and non-deserving individuals and organizations who all milked the system. Heartbreakingly, those is desperate need of society's care will be clumped in with welfare-light cases as the California's buzz saw comes.

Pat Buchanan has a very sobering column showing the striking similarities between the course that California has been on for the past decade, and where the country of America right now is heading. Reading this column was an extreme downer, but doe not make it any less noteworthy.

Social programs now are over 60% of the U.S. budget, so these cuts will be inevitable as the interest on our trillion dollar debt grows to a higher percentage of our budget and the government needs to compensate from somewhere.

While America's day of reckoning is not here yet, it is without a question coming. We would be wise to review and revamp these programs now, carefully taking the time and diligence to protect those in real need. Maybe we should come up with a numeric rating system, putting those severely handicap at the top priority of the list, and able-body people who have been on welfare for more than a year at the bottom. This is a far more compassionate and moral solution then to arrive at the point where we have to throw hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people off these programs indiscriminately, on a moment's notice, five years from now. This is where we are sadly heading.

Barack Obama: A Six Month Pause Comparison

2009-07-21T21:07:00.006-04:00

On the morning after the 2008 Presidential election, a wildly-enthusiast Obama co-worker told me he was going to be one of the greatest presidents in American History. In order to temper this blind affection, I made a bold statement to him that I believed, within four years - or the end of Obama’s first term, the George W. Bush Presidency would have a higher approval rating than the Obama presidency. At that time, Barack Obama had an 80% approval rating in some polls, while the departing President Bush was at the extreme other end of the approval rating with only 20%.

As I made this bold statement, I thought of a quote by Richard Nixon in his autobiography. At the 1959 kitchen debate with Russian Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev was waiving his "We will Bury You!" bravado as Nixon recounts:

'Khrushchev arrogantly predicted to me,' writes Nixon, ' your grandchildren will live under Communism.' I responded, Your grandchildren will live in freedom.' At the time,'Nixon now concedes, 'I was sure he was wrong, but I was not sure I was right."

I felt the same way about my Bush/Obama approval rating prediction. I knew he was wrong, I wasn't sure I was right.

Well, this morning while making a 4AM escape from a Nashville hotel, I was greeted with today’s edition of USA Today. The front page listed a Gallup comparison on all the Presidents’ approval rating since Harry Truman after their first 6 months in office:

Truman: 82%
Kennedy: 75%
Johnson: 74%
Eisenhower: 73%
Carter: 67%
Bush Sr.: 66%
Nixon: 65%
Reagan: 60%
Bush Jr: 56%
Obama: 55%
Clinton: 41%
Ford: 39%

As you notice, right now Obama is tracking behind GW Bush. Maybe I should have 'gotten odds on my statement.

Last month, Peggy Noonan conveyed the thought that all great Presidencies are to known by just one sentence:

"The Sentence [philosophy] comes from a story Clare Boothe Luce told about a conversation she had in 1962 in the White House with her old friend John F. Kennedy. She told him, she said, that "a great man is one sentence." His leadership can be so well summed up in a single sentence that you don't have to hear his name to know who's being talked about. "He preserved the union and freed the slaves," or, "He lifted us out of a great depression and helped to win a World War." You didn't have to be told "Lincoln" or "FDR."

Noonan says Obama’s great sentence should be: "He brought America back from economic collapse and kept us strong and secure in the age of terror."

Sadly instead, Obama’s statement will read, "He was responsible for double-digit inflation due to the Fed's printing of money to cover his unprecendented, drunken-shopaholic-type spending on his failed fiscal and social programs."

After watching Barack Obama for the past 6 months, I finally understand what makes him tick. I am going to lay out my thoughts on what I believe are the three elements that make up his persona over the next few days.

President Obama Met America Tonight

2009-07-14T22:03:00.008-04:00

Away from his Washington Press Corps enablers, President Obama threw out the ceremony first pitch at tonight's baseball All-Star Game in St. Louis.

I told a co-worker today it will be a referendum on Obama, to see how America's heartland greeted him.

The Wall St. Journal confirms he was booed:

"Obama is still wearing jeans as he runs out of the dugout for the first pitch. And they’re booing him. Because he’s wearing a White Sox jacket. You have to admire the President of the United States running out to the pitcher’s mound in St. Louis while wearing a Chicago jacket."

Yeah, it was the jacket, not the 16% under/unemployment rate and the fact that the deficit passed a trillion dollars this week.

I carefully listened to the crowd reaction, and I would put the negative reaction at 60-70%.

The President offered the National League Sonya Sotomayor's empathy ruling for not winning in eleven years, and ignored a groundskeeper who asked him where all the other shovel-ready jobs were.

The Sports Examiner: "Obama booed more at All Star game than Manny in New York return"

Liberty and Tyranny

2009-07-14T21:08:00.007-04:00

I am currently making time in my overloaded schedule to read Mark Levine’s book Liberty and Tyranny.

Being a frequent listener to Levine's radio show, what struck me the most about his book is how truly scholarly this undertaking was. It has close to 40 pages of footnotes and documentations in the rear of the book. I know that Levine has an incredibly bright legal mind, but he is also an entertainer and humorous talk show host so I was expecting this book to be somewhat an extension of his persona and his radio show. However, this book reads like a dissertation. It is full of Federalist history, noted democratic philosophers and pertinent, historic quotes. Being 40% through this book, I am beginning to think that this is a book for the ages. Similar to Adam's Smith's Wealth of Nations. It is not your usual let me cash in on my fame by offering my thoughts bounded. This book is far above any book written by his contemporary talk show hosts or present day politicians. ("There, I said it!")

One of Levin's points that made me reflect the most was the notion that property is an essential part of Liberty. Being a Social Conservative, I always gravitate towards the “Freedom of Religion,” “Freedom of Speech”, “Inalienable Right to Life” as my prime definition of Liberty, but Levine made me pause on the concept of property.

And more than my layman’s definition of property, which I think is anything that I have to mow on Saturday, Levin is talking about any fruit of your labor. Your house, your salary, your business, your retirement accounts - - the legal definition of property which is anything that is owned by a person or entity (real and personal).

Levin states:

"In the civil society, private property and liberty are inseperable. The individual's right to live freely and safely and to pursue happiness includes the right to acquire and possess property, which represents the fruits of his own intellectual and/or physical labor. As the individual's time on earth is finite, so, too, is his labor. An illegitimate denial or diminution of his private property enslaves him to another and denies him his liberty."

Levine makes a very compelling argument that as our government assaults and commandeers our individual property through taxes and regulation we move from a state of Liberty to a state of Tyranny.

It made me rethink property in relation to Liberty. I should not have been surprised by this, the American Revolution was based on Taxation without Representation, a government that was attacking the patriot's personal property. The Founding Fathers for the most part had Freedom of Religion, and Ben Franklin was turning out his free speech daily newspapers. These were not the problem in 1776.

Another very interesting point Levine made was that our Constitution is a bedrock set of principles that can not be open to each generation's interpretation. The Liberal's bogus, “Living, breathing document” claim is just that:

"The Conservative may ask the following questions: If words and their meaning can be manipulated or ignored to advance the Statist's [read Liberal] political and policy preferences, what then binds the allegiance to the Statist's words? Why should today's law bind future generations if yesterday's lawy does not bind this generation? Why should judicial precedent bind the nation if the Constitution itself does not?"

The argument is that if one generation interprets the Constitution in a certain way, and the next generation then comes and interprets it in a completely opposite way, the legal document then conflicts itself and has no true meaning. He points out The U.S. Constitution is in fact a legal document with words that have a bedrock, absolute and a contractual meaning.

I would highly recommend this book for your beach reading.

My Love Affair with Unions

2009-07-10T18:16:00.014-04:00

One hundred years ago, unions served such a vital and necessary role in our society. They prevented low-level employees from being mangled in heavy machinery and made sure that the owners of businesses did not view human employees as a disposable, replaceable commodity and just a means to their financial wealth. “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work ,” or something like that…

Today, the very unions that once protected people from be exploited, now have become the exploiters themselves.

For two of the last three weeks on my way to work, I passed union members making a significant presence outside a local business that is apparently not in any rush to negotiate a new contract with them. These members have blown up about six 10 ft.-tall inflatable rats on the business’ lawn, hoping to draw attention to this business and embarrass the management into signing their probably over-reaching contract.

Unbeknownst to these members, is that the general perception of those of us who work in the non-union sector have towards unions is being reinforced 10-fold by their protest.

Each morning, I, and all other numb commuters, drive past this protest and see all the union members sitting on their comfy fold-out chairs, chatting to each other as they slowly drink their morning coffee. Not a care in the world. To expand any effort to even form a picket circle and exert any spec of energy is completely out of the question. Too much sweat. Not their gig.

I think it is a good time here to draw a comparison from one of my past experiences.

While attending a Catholic college during my formative years, a large donation was received by my college from a donor who was involved with U.S.’s campaign in Nicaraguan. Due to some horrible violence towards some nuns in this country, the Dominican Sisters at my college were enraged and all up in arms. They planned to picket everyday in front of the college to show their extreme displeasure at the college accepting this contribution. Needless to say it is a Public Relations nightmare to have nuns picketing in front of your establishment. They get paid next to nothing, and spend most of their time praying for others. Most of these dear sisters were in their later years, and had to hobble with their self-made picket signs (might I say with excellent penmanship) as best they could because of their declining health. They were very determined to forcefully and energetically show their displeasure by a lot of effort!

It was such an upsetting scene, that some students who could not watch anymore of this spectacle decided to help these sisters carry their picket signs, not even understanding where Nicaragua was or what their beef was. Nothing less than a visual on this could do this scene justice, believe me...once again a complete P.R. nightmare.

Getting back to our IHOP-rat-inflators, now compare those seventy-year-old nuns to these group of thirty and forty-year-old men sitting on their , er…., lawn chairs eating a buttered bagel as traffic rolled by going to their livelihoods. On one morning, I saw all of these protesters finally display significant movement as they abandon their posts to attempt to form an orderly line - - at the coffee truck. (Hence my IHOP reference)

Finally, this protest ended last week. My morning commute was met by the first morning in two weeks without the enormous snarling rats lunging at my car as they bounced on the lawn. No one missed them except for the guy who owned the coffee truck. I sadly concluded the business must have buckled.

Imagine my surprise when this last Monday morning, the rats were back with all of their helium glory. Each protester found their chair-leg-marks in the lawn from 10 days prior and once again set up their defiance "sit-in" (bonus points on the pun) on the same exact spot where each member sat previously. This week of absence didn't make sense to me, then it hit me. It was like a light bulb going off. Last week was a holiday week. The union couldn’t get enough men to picket on days that would interfere with their member’s own holiday plans, or even worse their union did not want to pay these men time-and-a-half for picketing and working on a quasi-holiday (July 4th was a Saturday, making the prior Friday the observance), a condition that I am sure is in the contract that they are demanding from the targeted business.

My Irish grandmother always used to say there is always something to laugh at. She was so right. It is really comical.

So all your union protestors infront of Clare Rose in Melville, NY, try to sell your grievances with a little more effort, and just do not sit there waiting for your benefits.

July 2, 2009: The Date of the Washington Press Corp's Independence

2009-07-04T08:39:00.003-04:00

Congratulations to the Washington Press Corp for striking a blow for their Independence and finally being weened off the Obama Kool-Aid. They are getting fed up with these pre-canned press conferences where the Obama Administration has previews of the questions to be asked and personally hand selects the reporters to called on. Chip Reid from CBS opened Wednesday's confrontation with Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, then Helen Thomas woke up from her 11AM nap and drove a truck through it:

"This is an open forum for the public to ask question," said Chip Reid of CBS News. "But it's not really open?"

"Based on what?" responded Gibbs.

"Based on the information ... on how the audience and the questions are being selected," said Reid.

"How about this: I promise we will interrupt the AP's tradition of asking the first question. I'll let you ask me a question tomorrow on whether you thought the questions at the town hall meeting that the President conducted at Annandale...."

"That's not his point," interrupted Helen Thomas, correspondent for Hearst Newspapers. "That's, that's not his point. His point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House. I'm amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and control.

"You have left open the suggestion that you are pumping the answers," Thomas continued. "It's shocking. It's really shocking."

"Let's have this discussion at the conclusion of the town hall meeting," Gibbs said.

"No, no, no. We are having it now." claimed Thomas. "It's a pattern. It's a pattern. It isn't the question. It's a pattern of controlling the press."

I would highly recommend that you follow this link and watch the video of this exchange. This truly marks a turning point in Obama's relationship with the Press. Nothing will demise this Presidency quicker than losing his love affair with the press. They have been the front line in concealing all of Obama's warts.

Best of VCR: Inalienable Rights

2009-07-04T08:35:00.001-04:00

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

This is the most famous quote in American history, but sadly many people don’t understand the exact meaning of it.

If you go up to the common man on the street, and ask them what the definition of an "unalienable right" is, they would be in trouble. Normally, people say it is a right inherent to a person or they are born with it. This answer misses the true definition.

So I ask how can we understand and defend this phrase when most of us can’t define it?

The definition of this great term, "unalienable rights", that Jefferson so carefully chose in this powerful document that unleashed freedom around the world is precisely defined as a right that "can not be transferred, taken or forfeited." It is held and controlled on the Divine level; we have no control of our unalienable rights, or anyone else’s. Jefferson knew if we had any possibility of controlling these rights on any mortal level, even controlling our own, the government would sooner of later seize them and control them. Jefferson purposely put these rights on the Divine level because they would forever be out of the grasp, and control, of the man-made government.

So… by this document, we can not "transfer" these rights: Doctors, friends or spouses can not make the decision on our behalf when our life should end. Physician-assisted suicide is in direct conflict with this document.

By this document, we can not have these rights "taken": Abortion is in direct conflict with this great document. Terri Schiavo’s starvation death/Euthanasia is in direct conflict with this document.

By this document, we can not "forfeit" these rights: Capital Punishment is positioned that the guilty has forfeited his right to live. A district attorney once told me this is the legal logic behind putting someone to death. This reasoning is in direct conflict with this document.

It is worthwhile to review this document every year at this time. Unfortunately, the Declaration of Independence is just a historical document, with no legal barring. We have to work to make these absolute principles part of our lives and laws.

Enjoy the 4th of July! God Bless America!

The Catholic Case Against Obamacare

2009-06-27T07:44:00.012-04:00

I have frequently thought on many issues that the Democratic Party provides the "wrong answers to the right questions." How can we provide better assistance to the poor? How can we make sure workers are treated fairly? How can we help women with unwanted pregnancies? How can we give everyone access to needed health care...

As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have told us, everyone deserves medical care, and it is a noble end goal. My own bishop, William Murphy, penned a letter to US Senate Committee on Finance on behalf of the USCCB citing:

"The moral measure of any health-care reform proposal is whether it offers affordable and accessible health care to all, beginning with those most in need…"

In noting this, it is still my opinion, and I do not speak for the Magisterium, that the Catholic position should be AGAINST the President’s Health Care Initiative. There is a grave devil in the details of his plan. The devil is RATIONING.

This concern is so front-and-center, that the Fourth Estate is even shining the spotlight on it. The Wall St. Journal reported from Obama’s town hall meeting this week. A concerned citizen brought up a very real-world, tangible family experience she had and asked Obama if the same respect of life would be given under his plan:

"At one point in the town hall, broadcast from the East Room by ABC news, a woman named Jane Sturm told the story of her 105-year-old mother, who, at 100, was told by an arrhythmia specialist that she was too old for a pacemaker. She ended up getting a second option, and the operation, for which Ms. Sturm credits her survival.

"Look, the first thing for all of us to understand that is we actually have some -- some choices to make about how we want to deal with our own end-of-life care," Mr. Obama replied. After discussing ways "we as a culture and as a society [can start] to make better decisions within our own families and for ourselves," he continued that in general "at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

What Mr. Obama is describing is his preferred health-care future. If or when the Administration's speculative cost-cutting measures under universal health care fail to produce savings, government will start explicitly limiting patient access to treatments and services regarded as too expensive. Democrats deny this eventuality, but health planners will have no choice, given that the current entitlement system is already barreling toward insolvency without adding millions of new people to the federal balance sheet."

So basically if someone is 65 years old and is diagnosed with a cancer that has a high mortality rate; here is your Advil according to our President.

With this statement, there is the 800-pound gorilla in the room that no one will mention. They will dance all around it, but not land on it. Obama’s health care plan will make a clear distinction between two classes of people. Those who are worthy of health care treatment, and those who are not.

Mike Kinsley, who was the original liberal-defending host of CNN’s Crossfire, also sees this reality in The Washington Post:

"But that doesn't mean rationing will be easy to avoid. Statistics on life expectancy or infant mortality are averages. The easiest way to raise your averages -- maybe even the best way, if we're being honest -- is to concentrate on the general level of care and not to squander a lot on long-odds cases. But if the long-odds case is you or a family member, you may well feel differently.

...Here is a handy-dandy way to determine whether the failure to order some exam or treatment constitutes rationing: If the patient were the president, would he get it? If he'd get it and you wouldn't, it's rationing."

Even super-liberal Mike Kinsley knows what is coming.

Now, back to my Catholic case against the President’s Health Care Plan. The danger, as mentioned, is setting up two classes of people. Some of the darkest chapters of world history began with this premise and resulted in genocide. This is not hyperbole.

If we, as a society, determine that someone who is possibly treatable does not warrant life-saving or life-extending care because of their demographics or situation- just pain medication - the next logical, expedient, cost-savings and obvious secular step is saying why should this person suffer with absolutely no hope. It’s pointless. We should put them out of their misery. Euthanasia is the demonic offspring to the rationed health care that Obama speaks of. This is my grave concern and should be yours.

The immediate front lines of this second class of people, and starting point, will be the handicapped, the elderly, the terminally and chronically ill and less-than-perfect newborns.

This is why His Excellency Bishop Murphy then follows the above statement in his letter to our government with:

"All people need and should have access to comprehensive, quality health care that they can afford, and this should not depend on their stage of life, where or whether they or their parents work, how much they earn, or where they live or where they come from,"

Obama’s Health Care Plan is in direct conflict with this second statement and therefore, in my opinion, can not be supported by Catholics. There are other, better solutions out there that do not lead to this culture-of-death end, literally.

The Blessed Mother: The Ark of the New Covenant

2009-06-24T06:30:00.000-04:00

Today is the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist.

My favorite story involving this saint happened when the Blessed Mother traveled to visit her expecting cousin, Elisabeth. Elisabeth's child, John the Baptist, leaped in uetero upon being in the presence of the Christ child in Mary’s womb.

Many biblical scholars tie this story to King David’s experience with being exposed to the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament. For example, here are some passages from 2 Samuel 6:

A) 6:9 says, "And David was afraid of the LORD that day, and said, How shall the ark of the LORD come to me?"
B) 6:16 states, "And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD;"
C) 6:11 adds, "And the ark of the LORD continued in the house of Obededom the Gittite three months:"

Now lets parallel St. Luke’s account of Mary visiting Elisabeth with the accounts of 2 Samuel:

A) 1:43 Elisabeth says. "And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
B) 1:41 "And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb."
C) 1:56 "And Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house."

What St. Luke is saying is that just as the Ark of the Covenant served as the holding place of God’s initial promise (The 10 Commandments) with the Israelites in the Old Testament, the Virgin Mother served as the Ark (meaning shelter or refuge) of the New Covenant holding God’s fulfillment of His new and everlasting Covenant within her.

Barack Obama: Approval Diving; Deficit Rising

2009-06-21T19:41:00.006-04:00

Last week quietly Barack Obama’s approval rating dropped below 60% in Gallup. We all know what President Obama has done to the deficit in these last 5 months, but let’s look at his Gallup approval ratings from the time of his Inauguration until now:

January 21: 68% Approve; 12% Disapprove, 20% Undecided
June 17: 57% Approve; 35% Disapprove; 8% Undecided

So 11% of all those polled who approved of Obama at his Inauguration have stopped drinking the Kool-Aid and now disapprove. Likewise, 12% of those polled (or a 60% majority of all those who were undecided) went from being undecided to now disapproving of the job Obama is doing.

Here is what is happening. Gallup a week back stated that only 45% approve of how Obama is handling the deficit. The disdain for his policies is catching up to his engaging celebrity persona. It takes America some time to realize what is happening. His numbers will continue to descend unless he does something about all this spending.

Two political analysts, whom I greatly respect their insight, offered eerily the same opinion on Obama. They each said on separate interviews that in the beginning they believed Obama did not realize the consequence of his actions - all this spending - and what it would do to the future of America. But now they have both come to believe that Obama knows exactly what he is doing and wants to push America past the point of no return. He wants to load us up on so much debt that our income tax rates will have to be raised to 40% to cover just the interest on the deficit and with this increased money the government will ‘provide’ for all of our needs, aka… European Socialism.

Let me make a point to illustrate the validity of these opinions.

Last week, Obama gave partners to gays access to Social Security benefits. I read a report a year ago that stated covering homosexual partners in the Social Security system will move up the program’s insolvency 5 years. So this program will be bankrupted 5 years earlier by this presidential action.

Interestingly enough, last week President Obama used rhetoric to keep the status quo "Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell" policy of the U.S. Armed Forces:

"White House officials said the same-sex benefits changes are not designed to be a gradual step toward military acceptance of overturning “don’t ask, don’t tell” but are instead a move to recruit and retain top talent into government jobs."

Now do partners of gays deserve to uphold their "civil rights" with access to Social Security benefits and those in the Armed Forces not deserve the "civil rights" of being allowed to express who they really are? A little inconsistent, don’t you think? No, not really… here is the answer: Obama’s first action of opening up Social Security will bankrupt America quicker where the second has no fiscal consideration tied to it.

The 2009 Barack Obama World Apology Tour

2009-06-15T19:59:00.005-04:00

The 2009 Obama Apology Tour rolls on. He never met a corner of the world that didn’t deserve an offered apology on how disgusting America’s history and actions have been.

It would not surprise me if he apologized for American tanks trespassing while they liberate 5 Nazi concentration camps in 1945. One of these was Buchenwald in Germany. Obama should know this, as his great-uncle was one of the GI’s who liberated sections of this camp, although it was not a significant achievement enough for him to get his family history right, as he told America while seeking the Presidency that his uncle liberated Auschwitz.

The President’s uncle, Charles Payne, was quote in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine:

"I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany. We had never talked about that before," Payne said. "Of course it came out immediately that he was wrong since there are enough people in America who know that Auschwitz is in the East and that the camp was liberated by the Red Army."

…Asked if Obama would be traveling in his footsteps, Payne said: "I don't buy that. ... This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons."

I, likewise, am wondering if President Obama will apologize for the commandeering of graves to bury 125,000 U.S. soldiers across the world as they liberated not only countries but continents.

He should also apologize for the lack of colonialization in the American heart. We are the only superpower in the history of man that have conquered and secured lands with our own blood only to return these lands to their people. France, Germany, Japan, Iraq, Kuwait, Italy, etc… should all have the American Flag flying over them. Such a shameful chapter of our country.

The Soviets deserve much less guilt considering how they rose their flags over their bounty after WWII, while we gave the French back their country. How irresponsible of us not to fly the star spangled banner on the Eiffel Tower. I mean, they dislike us enough as it is routed in the underlying realization that their sovereignty is a byproduct of American strength and benevolence. We should offer apologies for this uncomfortable French feeling.

OK, enough with the sarcasm. Pat Buchanan hits the nail on the head better than I do:

"As for Barack, he behaves on the world stage like some Ivy League kid ashamed of the people he came from, letting one and all on campus know that he is nothing like his benighted family with its sordid history…

Obama is the anti-Reagan. Where Reagan ever spoke of the greatness and glory of America, her history and heroes, her capacity to make the world all over again, Obama is like a dismal parson, forever reminding us — and everyone within earshot — of our own and our fathers’ sins.

Obama is not only demoralizing Middle America, he is driving away the God-and-country patriots who are sick of hearing this rot from professors and journalists, and prefer not to hear it from their president. He is ceding moral high ground to regimes and nations that do not deserve it.

If Obama believes he can build himself up by tearing America down, he is mistaken. Cynical foreigners will view it with snickering contempt, patriotic Americans with disgust. What kind of leader is it who talks down his own country on foreign soil?

...Obama, however — like some Hollywood actress seeking sympathy and public approbation with her tell-all biography detailing how she was abused by her father — trolls for popularity with America’s adversaries by reciting for the benefit of the world all the sins his country has allegedly committed.

When did this become the duty of the president of the United States?"

November 4, 2008, Pat.

Best of VCR: The Feast Day of St. Anthony

2009-06-13T08:00:00.001-04:00

Today is the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua, one of the most popular and venerated saints in the Roman Catholic Church. Just in case you think you are familiar with this great saint, here are some facts about this saint that you may not know:

1) St. Anthony was not Italian. He was Portuguese, born in Lisbon (1195), and was given the baptismal name of Ferdinand.

2) He was given the title "Malleus Hereticorum", the "Hammer of Heretics", because of his ability to preach the gospel with zeal and defend the faith against all of the contemporary heretics. One day, after preaching to a group of heretics in Remini, Italy, and realizing his words were not landing, he led them to the shore. Turning to the river he shouted, "From the moment in which you proved yourselves to be unworthy of the Word of the Lord, look, I turn to the fish, to further confound your disbelief". Legend has it that hoards of fish came to the edge of the water, lifted their heads out of the water and to listened to him attentively, stunning and embarrassing the heretics.

3) While preaching in France one year on Holy Thursday, the saint remembered he had to sing a lesson at the Divine Office back at his monastery. To handle this dilema he bi-located (appearing two places at once - a gift some saints have while living). He sang with the friars at the monastery in Italy and continued to preached his sermon in France simultaneously.

4) More than six hundred years before the Immaculate Conception became Catholic dogma by Pius IX, St. Anthony recognized it by saying, "The Glorious Virgin did not have a stain in her birth because she was sanctified in her mother's womb and safeguarded there by angels."

5) He was the second fastest canonization in history, declared a saint only 352 days (under one year) after his death by Pope Gregory IX. (The fastest canonization in Church history was St. Peter of Verona; 337 days after being martyred.)

6) In 1263, when his body was exhumed, his tongue was found to be perfectly in tact and not decomposed - also known as incorrupt. Upon seeing this, St. Bonaventure prayed aloud: "O blessed tongue, you have always praised the Lord and led others to praise him! Now we can clearly see how great indeed have been your merits before God!"

St. Anthony, Hammer of Heretics, Pray For Us.

"He, Who is the beginning and the end, the ruler of the angels, made Himself obedient to human creatures. The creator of the heavens obeys a carpenter; the God of eternal glory listens to a poor virgin. Has anyone ever witnessed anything comparable to this? Let the philosopher no longer disdain from listening to the common laborer; the wise, to the simple; the educated, to the illiterate; a child of a prince, to a peasant." - St. Anthony of Padua

The Holy Spirit: The Lord, The Giver of Life

2009-06-10T06:46:00.007-04:00

Many years back, my mother expressed to me that the sin of abortion was a direct affront to the Holy Spirit. I never really classified it as such in my head, but I should have easily made the connection considering in the Creed each Sunday we state he is, "the Lord, the giver of life…"

Considering this, I ask how many times have we asked for forgiveness for our country’s Culture of Death from the Holy Spirit, and do we even consider how necessary this is? We all know we should stay on God the Father’s good side, and seek His forgiveness, considering his stern role detailed in the Old Testament. Not too many of His enemies were left standing. Likewise it is easy to identify Christ as a Redeemer and worthy of our pleas for forgiveness. "Redeemer" is a known title of His, and the priest in the confessional takes on the role of Christ. Two-thirds of the Trinity lend themselves easily to an act of contrition, but do we ever plead for forgiveness to the Holy Spirit?

I believe that the steadfast changing of hearts in the abortion debate has been the working of the Holy Spirit. His gifts and tools are at the epicenter of this battle, and perfectly designed for the battle.

Have you ever been completely flustered on how you see the issue of Abortion so clearly and others can’t find their way to a truthful conclusion based in reality? Thank the Holy Spirit, He is working inside of you. As St. Jean Vianney said,

"The Holy Spirit is light and strength. He teaches us to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and between good and evil. Like glasses that magnify objects, the Holy Spirit shows us good and evil on a large scale. With the Holy Spirit we see everything in its true proportions; we see the greatness of the least actions done for God, and the greatness of the least faults. As a watchmaker with his glasses distinguishes the most minute wheels of a watch, so we, with the light of the Holy Ghost, distinguish all the details of our poor life. Then the smallest imperfections appear very great, the least sins inspire us with horror…"

And what about the burning desire inside you that leads you to an action working towards the end of abortion? That is also the Holy Spirit working in you.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen stated that when receiving the Spirit in the sacrament of Confirmation, it urges you, "to fight …against the three great enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil."

Sheen continues:

"…in Confirmation, the Christian is marked with power and boldness on the forehead [with the sign of the cross], so that neither fear nor false modesty will deter him from the public confession of Christ. Cattle are often branded with the owner's name; …Plutarch states it was a custom to brand cattle that were destined for sacrifice, as a sign that they were set apart for something sacred. … On the last day, the elect will be sealed on their foreheads in the name of the Lamb and of His Father, to protect them from destruction (Apoc. 7:3). Confirmation, then, is the sealing of a person in the army of the Lord…"

So the Holy Spirit sharpens our perceptions to reality, good and evil, and strengthens our fortitudes for actions based on this reality. The epicenter of the workings of the Pro-Life cause.

Favorite Quote from a Specific Saint

2009-06-07T20:20:00.001-04:00

With all the talk and secular praise of the term "common ground" lately, here is my one of my favorite quotes from St. Josemaria Escriva:

"To compromise is a sure sign of not possessing the truth. When a man gives way in matters of ideals, of honour or of Faith, that man is a man without ideals, without honour and without Faith." - The Way, #394"