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Pro-life

Catholic school censors pro-life speaker

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Administrators at Mercy High School, a Catholic school located in Farmington Hills, Mich., abruptly canceled the upcoming appearance of best-selling author Dan Flynn, alleging the content of his speech was "inappropriate."

The lecture, scheduled for February 12 and sponsored by Young America’s Foundation, was an after school event and attendance was voluntary. Flynn’s topic, entitled "Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood," exposes the real foundations of the abortion-rights movement — the historical fact that Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was an anti-Catholic bigot who advocated concentration camps and forced sterilization.

Carolyn Witte, the school’s principal, said the lecture was unsuitable for high school students. The "content could be misunderstood," Witte told YAF. Flynn’s speech is taken from his book, Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall For Stupid Ideas, which is backed by 985 footnotes.

Witte continued by saying her students — whose ages range from 14 to 18 — were too "sensitive" to hear a topic about Planned Parenthood’s roots. "I’m not suggesting that I or the school is anti-Mr. Flynn," said Witte. "I just have not heard Mr. Flynn speak."

While Mercy High School administrators didn’t think their students were mature enough to hear a topic related to abortion, the school has brought in speakers to talk about chastity and has shown videos regarding sexual abuse.

Update: Dale Price remembers that this is the same schools that had a fundraising lunch with Catholic and pro-abortion Gov. Granholm back in 2003.

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Punditry

Edwards Campaign Reconsidering Blogger Hires

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Now the NYT has picked up on the story of Sen. Edwards anti-Catholic blogger hires.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 — Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do — expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language.

The Catholic League, a conservative religious group, is demanding that Mr. Edwards dismiss the two, Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog site and Melissa McEwan, who writes on her blog, Shakespeare’s Sister, for expressing anti-Catholic opinions.

Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, is among the leading Democratic presidential candidates.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said in a statement on Tuesday, “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots.”

Mr. Edwards’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said Tuesday night that the campaign was weighing the fate of the two bloggers.

Now you would think a presidential campaign would just possibly check out past posts when they make a hire of bloggers to run a campaign blog. Though maybe it is a case of anti-Catholic blindness – kind of like color blindness. They probably did read the past posts and saw nothing objectionable in them.

Captain Ed posts:

The New York Times gives a rather dispassionate description of the posts in question. In the case of Marcotte, her anti-Catholic screeds would make Jack Chick blush with embarrassment; the woman is an anti-Catholic bigot. Her posts on Catholicism venture far from rational opposition to its dogma and policies into screeching, obscene hatred. The examples given by the Times for McEwan appear to be of the same tenor.

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Politics

Unelectable – I hope so

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

From and NRO Article, Jester hat tip Jay Anderson.

“Murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes,” Rudy Giuliani once said. “But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other.”

Good point, Rudy.

Now, what about a climate — not to mention a Republican presidential candidate — that not only tolerates, but allows unelected judges to legalize the practice of delivering a child until only its head remains within its mothers womb so the child can be killed by sucking out its brains?

What about a climate where same-sex couples are given the same legal status as married couples, whether the resulting arrangements are candidly called “same-sex marriages,” or are semantically papered-over with terms such as “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships”?

Apply the Giuliani Continuum to fundamental issues such as marriage and the right to life, and where does it lead?

Not where conservatives want America to be.

Rudy Giuliani’s observation about the “continuum” running from graffiti to murder was quoted in a piece in the winter edition of City Journal by Steven Malanga. The title of Malanga’s piece neatly encapsulates his argument: “Yes, Rudy is a Conservative — and an electable one at that.”

I believe Malanga is wrong on both counts. Rudy is neither conservative, nor electable — at least, not as a Republican presidential candidate.

I certainly hope that is true. But for many so-called conservatives by using the magic words "National Security" you can get them to buy off on a lot. The Guliani apologists fresh off their jobs of putting wings on pigs are now trying to do a conservative makeover on Giuliani. Just as long as he says he will elect the type of judges that could overturn Roe v. Wade we are suppose to be calmed. As if having moral beliefs that put you firmly in the culture of death will have no bearing on the type of president he would be.

Now as for me – at least in the Primaries – I am firmly in the Sam Brownback camp. Brownback is this years Alan Keyes – someone I really like but has about zero chance of being elected. Next time around a firm Catholic candidate should just go ahead and change their name legally to Don Quixote. Though just having someone like Brownback in the race does at least keep social conservative issues within the debates.

I do wonder if there are many Firefly fans that also like Sen. Browback. I think Browncoats for Brownback would make an awesome group.

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News

Heart doctor and seminarian – well not really

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Here is an odd story of a seminarian originally from Africa living a double life. He might have already been married there, and while here was dating and working at schemes to defraud people of money.

…At 28, Nanyumba was "industrious and cooperative," Todd said. He preached occasionally, taught religion to high school students and visited the sick and homebound.

"Before September, I would’ve said he was one of the best I’ve ever had, and I’ve had six or seven," Todd said.

But in September, a woman approached Todd with a remarkable tale.

She was not from Thibodaux, nor was St. Genevieve her regular parish, she told him. But dropping by Mass there one Sunday, she was astonished to see the heart doctor she had met in a bar — the doctor she had taken home to meet her parents — dressed in vestments and reading the Gospel in the pulpit.

Boy don’t you hate went that happens.

…So, did Jude Nanyumba begin studies for the priesthood with good intentions, then run wildly off the rails? Or was he a con man who spent years building an elaborate fake persona before cashing in?

"I’d like to think the first, but the evidence points to the second," Todd said.

"That’s tragic, because it begins to poison the water for others — for seminarians and other priests," Maestri said. "It comes back to trust. And the end of the day the only thing we have as priests and seminarians is the willingness of people to trust us to act honorably."

At the end of his report, Todd advised his parishioners not to let the allegations around Nanyumba scar their sense of generosity.

"When we love and trust someone, we take the risk of being hurt," he wrote. "When we are hurt, we are reluctant to love and trust again. However, if we do that, we will become ‘inhuman’ human beings. We need to vent our anger, forgive Jude and move on.

"God will deal with Jude."

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Humor

Avoid Worship Faux Pas

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

The Ironic Catholic has a list of worship Faux Pas and how to avoid them. I will highlight one that I found especially funny and true.

7. Kneeling etiquette: once done, sit back S L O W L Y to avoid slamming your back into someone’s folded hands.

The rest of the list is equally funny.

Well I am always game for stealing a good idea:

  • If the church actually has kneelers please slide the kneeler up when you go to Communion so others in the same row do no have to to the narrow shuffle side step.
  • If you receive Communion in the hand remember that your car keys and cell phone are maybe accessories in the Body of Christ, but can’t receive themselves – put them away first.
  • Asking the person who just came out of a confessional both after a long time in confession "What the heck did you do?" is not considered appropriate.
  • Regardless of how banal the songs the choir is singing, it is not polite to shout out requests.
  • Continuously pointing at your watch for the priest to see during the homily is considered rude.
  • Do not bring the music issue of the missal home to use as toilet paper, no matter how appropriate.
  • If you have a 103 degree temperature and your nose is running faster than Flo-Jo you might want to skip Mass and not try to shake the hands of half the congregation.
  • If your a Protestant convert please avoid yelling out "Idolater" when a parishioner touches a statue.
  • Dip your hand slowly into the Holy Water font, please don’t splash.
  • "The Mass is ended, go in peace" is not meant to be the same as a starter pistol going off indicating that you need to run out of the Mass as fast as you can to avoid traffic in the parking lot.
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Punditry

Silence is golden

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

The Vatican has silenced an outspoken Catholic bishop, forcing him to cancel two planned talks in Arizona.

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit must seek permission from local bishops anywhere he wishes to speak, by order of the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, according to local leaders of Call to Action. The group has taken a variety of positions at odds with church policy.

Normally, Catholic clergy need permission only to conduct religious services. The Vatican has penalized dissident theologians in the past, but Robert Blair Kaiser, a Phoenix author who has covered the Vatican since 1962, said he had never heard of a nuncio restricting a bishop.

A source close to Gumbleton in Detroit confirmed the nuncio’s action. A man who declined to identify himself at the nuncio’s office in Washington, D.C., said the office would not talk about any such order.

Call to Action leaders said Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio, laid down the requirement to Gumbleton several months ago, reportedly as a result of testimony Gumbleton gave a year ago to the Ohio Legislature in favor of expanded time frames for abuse victims to file lawsuits.

Bishops Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix and Gerald Kicanas of Tucson refused to grant the permission.
[Via Jay Anderson]

Of course everybody knows that if the Vatican really wanted to silence Bishop Gumbelton they would have sent Silas the albino monk assassin.

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Theology

The Tightrope of Tolerance and Tyranny

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

From a post by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

…To paraphrase G.K.Chesterton, "Tolerance is a nice word for indifference and indifference is an elegant word for ignorance." The reason for having an open mind (like the reason to have an open mouth) is eventually to close it–because it has been filled with something good.

Tolerance, on its own, is a weak virtue that eventually turns on itself with a suicidal bent. This is because the one thing tolerance cannot tolerate is intolerance, and the more tolerant a person becomes the more every little bit of intolerance becomes intolerable. So the person who puts tolerance as the highest and only virtue, finally is incapable of tolerating anyone or anything or any law that limits or defines anything because to limit or define any behavior or any sort of person is perceived as a form of intolerance.

I recently read Truth And Tolerance: Christian Belief And World Religions by then-Cardinal Ratzinger which was published in 2004. This book is highly recommended if you want to go deeper on the topic of tolerance especially on the topic of religious tolerance. This book proves once again how silly the caricature of him that was made after the publication of Dominus Iesus. Like most books of his on theology I felt the pain of normally unused synaptic muscles being strained to their utmost – but hey no pain, no gain – and this book is definitely in the category of gain.

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Pro-life

Life is the work of God

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – The celebration in Italy of the Day for Life promoted by the Italian Bishops’ Conference which starts for the diocese of Rome an annual ‘Week for Life and the Family’ offered the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI an opportunity on the first Sunday in February to reaffirm the value of human life at every stage and the importance of the family based on matrimony. “I join the Italian Bishops to renew a call to all men and women of goodwill reiterated also by my venerable predecessors- the Pope said -, to be open to the great and mysterious gift of life. Life is the work of God and it cannot be denied to anyone, not even the smallest and most helpless unborn child, not even in case of some serious disability. At the same time, in unison with the Bishops of the Church in Italy, I urge people not to by misled into thinking that man can dispose of life, to the point of legalising its interruption with euthanasia, perhaps under the guise of human pity".

The Holy Father then recalled that the family is the "cradle" of life and of every vocation, “the family founded on matrimony is the natural environment for the birth and education of children and therefore it guarantees the future of the whole human race”. Suffering today of profound crisis and faced with many difficulties, the family must be protected, assisted, safeguarded and valued. “If this task falls in the first place to the spouses- the Pope said -, it is also a primary duty for the Church and all public institutions to support the family with pastoral and political initiatives taking into account the actual needs of married couples, the elderly and the new generations”. Recalling the recent celebration of the Day of Consecrated Life, Pope Benedict XVI recalled that in a happy family, illuminated by the faith and by holy love of God, there can more easily flourish vocations at the service of the Gospel in the priesthood, in religious life and the different forms of consecrated life. Before leading the recitation of the midday Angelus prayer the Pope urged those present to pray that “through ongoing efforts to promote life and the institution of the family, our communities may be places of communion and hope which renew, despite many difficulties, the great ‘yes’ to authentic love and the reality of man and the family in keeping with God’s original plan”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 5/2/2007; righe 25, parole 383)

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