Dawn Eden exposes a link between Planned Parenthood and support of prostitution. Not really surprising that when sex become just a physical act between two (or more) persons without any moral component than how can a financially motivated sex act be labeled as wrong. Maybe they identify themselves with pimps who keep their women in line. PP through their counseling which is fully aimed at the result of abortion also works to keep women in line with what they want them to do. Pimps browbeat women so as to maintain a profit, and PP – well does the same thing. Pimps dehumanize women as only a vehicle for sex and PP again does the same thing; plus they dehumanize the baby also.
From the Opinion Journal’s Best of the Web Today in response to this Boston Globe article:
A Boston Globe editorial offers advice to Democrats who "are worried that the party’s traditional support for abortion rights may have contributed to their losses in the 2004 elections." The Globe opines that Democrats can reach out to pro-lifers even while continuing to oppose any and all restrictions on abortion by stressing "three areas of truly common concern that can significantly reduce the number of abortions: adoption, contraception, and compassion."
The Globe’s specific proposals are as follows:
* Reverse "outdated laws" that "still forbid adoption by unmarried or single parents and gay couples."
* Improve "access to reliable birth control," which the Globe suggests would include handing out condoms in high schools, making "morning after" contraception available over the counter, and requiring pharmacists to dispense birth-control pills even if they have conscientious objections to doing so.
* Provide poor women with "support in raising their children"–meaning more-generous welfare benefits–if they choose not to abort.
Whatever the merits of these positions, we’d venture to say that most abortion opponents are not supporters of gay adoption, high-school condom giveaways or bigger handouts for welfare moms. For that matter, many people support legal abortion and oppose these things.
Does Karl Rove now write for the Globe also? The article also has this tidbit.
There are some hopeful signs that both sides may yet reach across the abortion divide. Last month the Republican National Committee’s chairman, Ken Mehlman, who was campaign manager for President Bush, chose Joann Davidson, a member of Republicans for Choice and former speaker of the Ohio House, as his party cochair. The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, who opposes abortion, has filed the ”Prevention First Act," which would require insurance plans to cover prescription contraceptives, give emergency contraception to rape victims, and fund comprehensive sex education, including discussion of birth control, in public schools.
A member of Republicans for Choice is now the co-chair – arggggg! The Republican Party is starting to treat pro-lifers like the Democrats treat minorities. Lots of nice sentiments going your way, but behind the scenes it is a different matter. Pro-life voters are fast being taken for granted by the GOP. Besides Davidson being an abortion supporter she is also a same-sex “marriage” advocate.
David at Catholics for President George W. Bush notices the following:
On Saturday, New DNC chair Howard Dean had this to say about Catholics in America:
We have to remind Catholic Americans that the social mission of the
Democratic Party is almost exactly the social mission of the Catholic
Church.
Not in the transcript was the following line:
Except when it comes to abortion, embryonic stem cell research, same sex mariage, euthansia, and human cloning.
"
Almost exactly"? I would have agreed if he said "sometimes exactly" or "once in a great while exactly". And I have some advice for Dean over the comments he made about speaking differently about abortion and other issues (Dems are "pro-choice" vice "pro-abortion): Actions speak louder than words.
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican university is offering a course for Roman Catholic priests wishing to brush up their exorcism skills, the BBC reported Thursday.
The history of Satanism and its biblical context, psychology and the law will be part of the course at the prestigious Athenaeum Pontificium Regina Apostolorum.
There will also be seminars on the spiritual, liturgical and pastoral work involved in being a caster-out of demons.
Milan’s official exorcist for more than 20 years, Father Giulio Savoldi, told the BBC each case of possession is different and therefore requires extensive background training.
"Those studying to become exorcists should also study psychology and know how to distinguish between a mental illness and a possession," he said. "And — finally — they need to be very patient." [Source]
Over the last couple of weeks I have seen this story reported over and over in different outlets. Why exactly though is this a story. This comes under what Mark Shea would call a "Water is wet" or possibly "Dog bites dog" story. This is more of a implied "isn’t that quaint" story as if the Catholic Church still believing what it has always believed is news.
Speaking of Mark Shea does anybody have a suggestion of a saint who is the patron of rapid manuscript writing to ask intercession for?
That’s what fans of the studio’s classic cartoon characters might be asking after they get a look at the new, futuristic versions of some of their favorite animated heroes, which Warner unveiled yesterday.
The Looney Tunes characters — six in all — have been "reimagined" (in studio parlance) for a new series called "Loonatics," which is set to air next fall on WPIX/Channel 11 as part of the Saturday morning Kids’ WB program lineup.
The show features new versions of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, the Tasmanian Devil, Road Runner and Lola Bunny (the newest of the characters, who was introduced in the 1996 Michael Jordan movie "Space Jam").
For "Loonatics," the six characters are being projected 700 years into the future, given superpowers, and outfitted in tight-fitting, slenderizing space gear. [Source]
I have long suspected it and this clinches it. Somewhere along the way I must have had a transporter accident and ended up in the bearded Spock universe. Recently PBS CEO Pat Mitchell resigned more than likely for being busted over Buster the bunny visiting a farm with a lesbian couple. I say leave our bunnies alone.
How about this for a Catholic segue. For a more sane looney, here is a column today at Catholic Exchange on vocations by 15 year old Eddie Looney.
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The board of directors of the Catholic Theological Society of America has expressed "profound distress" at the Vatican action condemning a book by U.S. Jesuit Father Roger Haight and banning him from teaching Catholic theology."
Father Haight’s book ‘Jesus Symbol of God’ has done a great service in framing crucial questions that need to be addressed today," the board said in a statement given to Catholic News Service Feb. 16.
It said the book, sharply criticized for doctrinal errors in a notification issued Feb. 7 by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has provoked the kind of lively debate and criticism within the theological community that is encouraged by the church’s teaching authority.
"Ironically, rather than promote greater criticism of the book, the congregation’s intervention will most likely discourage debates over the book, effectively stifling further criticism and undermining our ability as Catholic theologians to openly critique our colleagues," the board said. [Source]
CTSA is the same group which was not too pleased with the Catechism and actively worked to both undermine it or to deny that it should be read by all Catholics. CTSA causes me "profound distress" with its loopy theology and dissent.
"The congregation’s intervention in this case gravely threatens the very process of serious, systematic, internal criticism which the congregation and the bishops have long been encouraging among theologians," it said. "While this process of internal critique can never replace the proper teaching and disciplinary roles of the magisterial, the intervention of the magisterium should be a last resort, reserved for situations where this process has clearly failed."
Roberto S. Goizueta, CTSA president and a theology professor at Boston College who is currently living in Spain during a sabbatical from his teaching post, told CNS in a telephone interview from Madrid that he viewed the doctrinal congregation’s notification as blurring the line between theology and catechetics. "What they’re trying to do is get him to restate the ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church,’" he said. "That’s not what theology is. Theology is about creative exploration of revelation and the doctrine of the church."
Truth has boundaries and there is nothing creative about theological speculation that is contrary to truth. True theology doesn’t create anything, but will help us to further and more deeply understand the truths of the faith. We might be creative in ways to better understand those mysteries, yet too deny truth such as the divinity of Christ is not creative but destructive. There are so many Catholic theologians who present their own "truths" (perhaps they should be called me/-ologians) and for the Vatican to take action against one of them shows just how far Fr. Haight had strayed from even the rest of the flock of his heterodox brethren.
"I just wish the congregation would let the theological community sort things out first," he said. He added that under the "principle of subsidiarity" he thought that before a public intervention by the church’s highest authorities, a number of intermediate steps might have been taken within the theological community and within the Jesuit order to address the problems in the book.
Waiting for the current Jesuit order to clean house might be the very definition of optimism. In modern times when have the Jesuits acted against a priest, unless of course they are orthodox like Fr. Fessio? When has CTSA called into question any theologian other than to shroud outright heresy as legitimate debate.
Thompson, who has written several books on Christology, said a number of reviews of Father Haight’s book by theologians, including his own in the Marquette University review, Philosophy & Theology, were quite critical of the book.
The doctrinal congregation said Father Haight denies Jesus’ divinity and eternal pre-existence as the word of God when he interprets the word of God as a metaphor rather than a reality and when he says Jesus was simply a man who mediated God’s saving presence in history as a concrete symbol of God.
Thompson called the Christology of the book "bland" and "pretty watered down." When theologians explore the Christian beliefs that Jesus was truly God and truly became a man, suffering and dying to save humanity and giving hope of eternal life by rising from the dead, "my own feeling is that there is nothing more radical than orthodoxy," he said. [Source]
Christopher Blosser previously had an excellent recap on Fr. Haight.
Update: Jamie at Ad Limina Apostolorum has some more in depth reflections on explorations in theology.
From an article in Christianity Today on Howard Dean’s faith outreach:
Dean declared that though the Democrats have tried to follow maybe 25 of the 27 main values of the New Testament, they have been poor at communicating this story. Invoking God, Dean declared, "Lord, family values—how could we possibly lose! We are the party of family values!"
Hey I only broke 8 of 10 commandments so give me a break!
Earlier in the week, congressional Democrats hosted a study session with University of California-Berkeley linguist George Lakoff on how to communicate the Democratic commitment to moral and religious values. The congressional Democrats also asked evangelical Jim Wallis, a veteran of many left-leaning causes, to teach Democratic press secretaries on how to reach evangelical audiences. Wallis told CT that he foresees a rising presence of evangelicals among Democratic leaders. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives designated Congressman James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the son of a minister, as their leader of a "faith working group.
Wow what an intelligent way to reach out to religious voters. Sure anybody know that if you want to speak to groups like Evangelicals that you immediately go to Berkeley for advice and also hire a very liberal Evangelical who doesn’t see anything wrong with the parties current "values." Jim Walls whose cites his conversion verse as "As you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me." de-emphasizes abortion and elevates other values such as helping the poor. Why can’t we do both and why is it one or the other when it comes to liberals? I guess they really are pro-choice and you have to choose between murdering babies and helping the poor. If they really wanted to reach out to groups like Catholics or Evangelicals they would talk to people the those groups would actually identify as a representative for those groups.
Dean told Democratic committee members Friday that it’s important to learn to be more comfortable discussing the party’s core values.
"The way I hope to deal with that problem, is not to abandon our core principles, but talk about them in a different way," he said.
Democrats are not pro-abortion, but "we are the party in favor of allowing women to make up their own minds about their health care," Dean, a physician, said.
Democrats are not for gay marriage, but "we are the party that has always believed in equal rights under the law for all people," he said.
In response Powerline’s Hindrocket responds:
I think I’m beginning to understand. Dean thinks the Democrats should call themselves "pro-choice" instead of "pro-abortion." And they should never say they actually think gay marriage is a good thing, but just keep referring to "equal rights" and let the courts do the dirty work. Wow, no wonder Howard Dean is considered to be such an iconoclast! He’s coming up with some dynamite new marketing ideas for the Democrats.
This is the same line that has been used year after year as elections are lost. The American people are just too dumb to figure out what the Democratic Party’s message is so It must be fine tuned until us lesser types can finally understand it and Dean think he is the final interpreter of Demospeak so that we might finally grok the enlightened message.
Like many pundits who initially hear the word that Dean might run for the DNC’s chair I was greatly supportive of such an idea, though I was sure that they Democratic party would never fully cooperative in making this happen. Yet one by one as his rivals for the chair fell off leaving only Howard Dean as the last man standing our pundit’s dreams have come true. I had previously though who could they elect worse than Terry McCalif not expecting to have that rhetorical question resoundingly answered.
With all the supposed soul searching of the Democratic Party had after the elections and their failure to identify with values voters who do they elect? Yes Howard Dean who left the Episcopal Church over the issue of trying to get a bike path built. A pro-abortion extremist who as a doctor once interned for Planned Parenthood (but denies ever performing any abortions) and later served as an executive board member of Planned Parenthood New England. The Democratic Party lost heavily in states with anti-same-sex marriage amendments yet put in charge the Governor who signed the first same-sex partnership law in Vermont. They need to make inroads in the South and the new face of the DNC previously said southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays."
Howard Dean also during the campaign advanced the theory that the President knew about 9-11 ahead of time. All I know is that I think I will now heavily invest in tin foil stocks.
Here is an interactive flash simulation I did before.
You might also want to do some classic gaming with Deanings.
Should the Bible call God the "Father" or "Lord"? Should Jesus be termed the "Son" of God or "Son" of "Man"? Should masculine words such as "king" and "kingdom" be allowed? Should Holy Writ have so many male pronouns?
Not if militant feminists have their way, as they do in an awkward rewrite of the complete Bible issued in four volumes: The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures (three volumes subtitled The Torah, The Prophets, and The Writings) and The Inclusive New Testament (all from AltaMira).
These "degendered" Scriptures were produced for the liberal Roman Catholic Priests for Equality. The revisers say that "most scriptures read in worship services are still grossly sexist," and "the continued self-destructiveness of an all-male clergy" only worsens matters.
They don’t appear to like the Bible all that much.
The basic concept here is nothing new. In 1983-85, a National Council of Churches (NCC) panel performed similar surgery on familiar Bible readings in a three-year liturgical listing. NCC Protestants then published these in a trade edition.
Some gleanings from The Inclusive New Testament:
Start with the Lord’s Prayer — er, make that the "Teacher’s" Prayer. Since God can no longer be addressed as "Father" and his — er, make that God’s — "kingdom" cannot come, we get: "Abba God in heaven, hallowed be your name! May your reign come."
"Abba" is simply Aramaic for "father," so the change seems pointless. But it’s preferable to a proposed NCC option, "O God, Father and Mother," which sounded like two gods. "Reign" is awkward for oral readings because it hits the ear like a prayer for "rain." Elsewhere, the translation invents "kindom" minus "g" to replace the supposedly sexist "kingdom."
Euphemistic replacements for "Lord," designed to be "free of oppressive connotations," include "Our God," "Most High," "Almighty" and "Sovereign."
Shunning "Son of Man," these Catholics came up with "Chosen One" or "Promised One." That’s preferable to the NCC’s "the Human One," which sounded like an utterance by the Coneheads space aliens from "Saturday Night Live."
Or take Babylon, "the mother of harlots." Please. The famous symbol of the evil Roman Empire in Revelation 17:5 is deemed "genderist" and full of "misogyny" because "male prostitution is as old as female prostitution." The squeamish substitute: "Source of All Idolatry."
The revisers add words that are not in the Hebrew and Greek texts, inserting women’s names when genealogies name only men, for instance.
On pronouns, the revisionists de-emphasize "his" or "him" in passages that describe Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry, and bar them altogether following the resurrection.
Besides women, the inclusive Catholics are worried about "marginalized" minority groups, such as gays and lesbians. They shun "slave" and change "Jews" to "Temple authorities." "The poor" become "poorer people" or "people in need."
This Bible uses "partner" in place of traditional marriage terminology "to acknowledge and value nontraditional relationships." In the list of sinners in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, instead of the usual "homosexuals" it restricts the denunciation to "hustlers" and "pederasts." In 1 Timothy 1:10, criticism of "sodomites" is rewritten to target only "men and women who traffic in human flesh."
Overall, the theology underlying this effort runs as follows: "The Bible is not itself the Word of God, for that would be idolatry. Rather, the Bible contains the Word of God — or better yet, the Bible is the unique document of human beings’ encounters with the Living God."
Turning briefly to the Old Testament, we read of the creation of "an earth creature." Whatever this being was, it certainly couldn’t be called a "man," much less a particular fellow named Adam. But when "the woman" appears on the scene, she joins "the man," and eventually they are called Adam and Eve.
On the Priests for Equality (PFE) site they show part of the translation for Genesis 1.
"In the beginning
God created the heavens
and the earth. But the earth became
chaos and emptiness, and darkness came over
the face of the Deep – yet the Spirit of God
was brooding over the surface of the waters"
Arg, what a bad translation and they haven’t even got to the inclusive language stuff yet. PFE is made up of a couple of priests but is mainly laity and some religious so there name isn’t exactly truthful. They are part of the Quixote Center "titling at windmills since 1976" – yes that is there actual tag line. The Quixote center is linked with the suppressed New Ways Ministry Dignity and Sister Jeannine Gramick is the "chaplain" for Quixote. PFE is supported by the usual suspects such as Hans Küng and Bishop Gumbleton.
On their web site they say in their history on the inclusive bible translation that they started with some texts developed by Dignity and got permission to use them in church. This is of course a massive lie. The Vatican has never given any approval for biblical texts using inclusive language and would never give approval to any texts coming from Dignity. This is the pattern of such organizations who claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit and then use outright lies and misrepresentations to further their cause.
The Seven Deadly Sins — anger, gluttony, sloth, envy, pride, lust and greed — are out of date and should include cruelty, adultery and bigotry, the results of an opinion poll suggest.
Greed is the only one of the seven that should remain a sin in today’s Britain, according to the poll by the MORI organisation for BBC television’s "Heaven and Earth" programme.
Cruelty was ranked the worst sin by 39 percent of respondents, followed by adultery (11 percent), bigotry (eight percent), dishonesty (seven percent), hypocrisy (six percent), greed (six percent) and selfishness (five percent).
"Attitudes towards sin have changed. We’re less concerned with the seven deadly sins and more concerned with actions that hurt others," said Ross Kelly, presenter of "Heaven and Earth", a religion and ethics programme.
Of the 1,001 adults interviewed, only nine percent said they had not committed any of the sins.
Seventy-nine percent said they were guilty of anger — while 41 percent of men and 26 percent of women said lust was the sin they "most enjoy committing". [Source]
Wow nine percent ready to be canonized in England. Though you would think that those nine percent would at least be guilty of pride for saying such a thing. They also don’t seem to understand that there added deadly sins are really subsets of the seven capital sins. Lust being disordered sexual desire, such as desiring sex with a person one is not married to is the sin of adultery. Bigotry can come under pride which as Dante defined is Dante’s "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one’s neighbor." Cruelty is a subset of wrath (anger) with the inappropriate (unrighteous) feelings of hatred, revenge or even denial, as well as punitive desires outside of justice.
"Attitudes towards sin have changed. We’re less concerned with the seven deadly sins and more concerned with actions that hurt others." This statement is not surprising with the loss of sin in society where interior dispositions are divorced from actions. They seem to make the correct connections when it comes to hate crimes, but fail to make the same connections when it comes to other actions. The seven deadly sins do indeed lead to actions that hurt others. The sins they want to tack on are mostly the physically manifestation of what has already occurred interiorly in the will.
*Wikipedia has a good page on the seven Deadly Sins in which I took some of the definitions.
Update: Mouse and Keys adds some good commentary for this same article.