Punditry

Mrs Blair also revealed that every time she did not use contraception, “I seemed to have a baby” in a discussion about the Church’s attitude to birth control and abortion.

She said: “How could I have done all the things I have done if I hadn’t used contraception?”

Yeah, how could she have raised money for Planned Parenthood and all of her other efforts for the culture of death if she didn’t use contraception? We are not wonderfully made you know after all. God didn’t include a fertility off/off switch on our foreheads. Gee didn’t our creator know about careers? You can read all throughout scripture where people brag about careers and not their children. Raising up children for the Kingdom of Heaven just does not compare to a career. All of those executives when they get older lament that they did not spend more time at work instead of their family. Carl Olson has a nice quip to add

Indeed, how could she go about telling people what the Church must do to survive and grow if she hadn’t been busy ignoring the teachings of the same Church? Whatever the intentions, the logic is sterile, although apparently not purposely so.

Cherie Blair also managed to express some other silliness.

The Catholic Church is losing congregations by alienating women and failing to give them a public role, Cherie Blair said last night.

Church leaders must modernise the role of women in order to halt the decline in church attendance, she said. Mrs Blair, herself a Catholic, said: “One of the fundamental weaknesses of modern Christianity is its ambivalence to women, and particularly for Catholicism.

“Until the traditional churches fully resolve their relationship with the female half of the population, how can they expect Christianity to have a future in the modern world?

“Traditionally, it was women who passed religion on to their children and who kept the Church going through good times and bad, but when it comes to the public face of Christianity, women are virtually invisible.

You have to wonder if she has ever been to daily Mass or attended any groups meeting in a church where women are the large majority of people involved. There have been plenty of articles out there complaining about the lack of men being involved in a parish – but for Mrs. Blair facts don’t matter when it comes to feminist gripes. I guess Blessed Mother Teresa was not part of the “public face of Christianity” or the fact that Catholic churches are filled with the examples of great women saints. I guess she must of got tired of saying all those “Hail Joseph’s” – oh wait.

According to Cardinal Mahony

According to the calendar, Ash Wednesday occurs this week and we begin another Lent.

Except for this year.

Lent actually began in 2007 for many thousands of families all across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and we have been in a long and protracted season of Lent ever since. In what sense? The annual Lenten season calls us to reflect more deeply into our lives with God, to re-order our personal priorities according to the Gospel, and to live out increased personal sacrifice in our daily living.

Now no doubt for many families the downturn of the economy has lead to sacrifice and part of the Cardinal Message is to take that suffering and to unite it with Christ. Bishop Fulton Sheen said “the biggest waste in the world is wasted suffering” and that is certainly true. Though if we are going to mark the start of Lent as when suffering began I say Lent for L.A. started in 1985 when he was appointed Cardinal. He had a birthday yesterday so for L.A. Lent will only be another 2 years. Now that is pretty snarky for Lent or for anytime of the year really, but considering the state of the seminary and the lack of authentic Catholic teaching in the diocese I think appropriate.

Vasectomy has always been an unpopular operation in the dacoit-infested Chambal district of Madhya Pradesh, but it enjoyed a brief surge in popularity last year.
More than 250 men put their private parts under the surgeon’s knife through 2008; this, in a place where the male sterilisation figure had never reached double figures in the past 20 years.

They had an incentive: the government, in the form of Shivpuri District Collector Manish Shrivastava, had promised them an arms licence each if they underwent the operation. They did so in family planning camps where forms for gun licences were made available.

The jokes almost write themselves. Funny that they would allow themselves to be disarmed for guns. That they are willing to shoot blanks. These men weren’t a cut above, in fact got cut below. Though there is a vas deferens between this plan and others.

Bhupendra, a Shivpuri resident and affected party, says, “I underwent vasectomy for the gun licence but the collector is reneging on his promise.” Lalit Gupta, another disgruntled sufferer, says, “I underwent the operation only for the gun licence. The announcement appears to have been a trick.” He wanted the licence because he often has to travel to dangerous places, he says.

Adding insult to injury. “I got a vasectomy and didn’t even get a lousy t-shirt.”

“Those who underwent the operation are mounting pressure on me for arms licences. What can I do? Ninety per cent of the people visiting the camps got operated for gun licences only,” says a Health department employee, requesting anonymity.

He says no one is ready to come to family planning camps any more. Moreover, “people are calling us cheats”, he says.

Vatican City, Feb 18, 2009 / 10:18 am (CNA).- House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s photo-op with Pope Benedict XVI turned sour when the Pontiff used the 15-minute meeting to reaffirm the teachings of the Catholic Church on the right to life and the duty to protect the unborn.

No photo of Nancy Pelosi and the Pope will be forthcoming, since the meeting was closed to reporters and photographers. The two met in a small room in the Vatican just after the Pope’s weekly public audience.

Immediately after the meeting, the Holy See’s press office released a statement saying, “following the general audience the Holy Father briefly greeted Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage.”

“His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in co-operation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”

A significant number of Catholic and pro-life organizations expressed concern over how Pelosi would use the meeting with Pope Benedict to further her position that it is possible to be Catholic and pro-abortion.

Last August, Pelosi was rebuked by several U.S. bishops for attempting to theologically justify her position during an interview with “Meet the Press.”

On Tuesday, Jon O’Brien, president of “Catholics for Choice,” a small, well-funded organization that provides theological arguments to pro-abortion Catholic politicians, told The Hill that today’s visit between the Speaker and Pope Benedict would be an opportunity to highlight that one can be pro-choice and Catholic, and that there are much bigger issues out there to discuss, such as the fate of the poor in the global economic downturn.

“That would be a real conversation about choice, instead of this micro-obsession with abortion,” O’Brien said.

Nevertheless, according to the Holy See’s statement, the Pope spent the whole 15 minute conversation talking with Pelosi about the right to life and the need to defend the unborn.

A spokesman for Pelosi, who is now headed to Southern Italy as part of her Italian tour, said she would issue a statement later in the day regarding her meeting with the Pope.

I already love Pope Benedict XVI, but this makes me add a double scoop of loving on top. I best Nancy Pelosi felt just as comfortable as the Clintons did at the prayer breakfast with Blessed Mother Teresa when she firmly reminded them about life.

In related news it turns out that Nancy Pelosi finally met with her archbishop on the 8th of Feb. It would give me great joy if she does turn towards protecting life – though I am not holding my breath in the main time.

The meeting with the Pope was closed to reporters. But inside sources tell me that the Speaker of the House’s expression was much like this.

Via Catholic Minority Report

With one statement a Catholic priest has tarnished both the Catholic Church and the United Nations. Pretty amazing, huh?

Fr. Miguel D’Escoto, a Catholic priest who was born in America but later joined the communist Sandanistas in Niceragua, is now the current president of the UN General Assembly. Yesterday, D’Escoto called Fidel Castro “the closest thing we have to a saint.”
In case you might think I’m taking this out of context, here’s what he said yesterday at the UN, according to The Real Cuba: “I’m still in debt – and I think all of humanity is – with Fidel Castro, who has dedicated all his life to support and promote solidarity with all the oppressed people of the world. More than a hero, Fidel is the closest thing that we have to a saint in this troubled world.”

Now, according to “The Black Book of Communism,” Castro is responsible for the firing squad murder of at least 14,000 people, tyrannical oppression, and torture.

D’Escoto, whose senior advisers are Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, has not been excoriated publicly for these comments at all as far as I can see.

I can’t help but compare the dramatic reactions our cultural elite have had to Bishop Williamson’s outrageous denying of the Holocaust to their non-reaction to a priest who is head of the U.N. General Assembly who is not only ignoring the actions of a murderous regime but in fact praising the leader of that regime. And not only is he calling Castro ‘a swell guy’ like every celebrity who goes over there but D’Escoto is calling him a saint that we are indebted to.

Will there be calls for him to step down from the U.N., be excommunicated from the Church, travel to Cuba on a listening tour? Well, let’s just say I haven’t heard anything yet.

Well maybe within U.N. General Assembly UN General Assembly, Fidel Castro is “the closest thing we have to a saint.” Seriously though, or as seriously I can take such a profoundly stupid statement, it is amazing how many murderous dictators and their murderous assistants get praised by those on the left. I guess maybe it is just me, but I doubt the Diocese of Havana will be petitioning the Vatican five years after Castro death for sainthood. Though maybe they will declare the first miracle of converting his murderous henchmen Che to a darling of the left with his iconic presence. Che has become Veronica’s veil for the left.

With so many Catholic institutions giving honors to people who support abortion and dissidents something needs to be done. The latest examples being Cabrini College giving pro-abortion pro-women preist Catholic Cokie Roberts an award and the Diocese of Miami having an eco-theology nun speak.

The USCCB previously decided

“The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

This of course is not enforced in any way and so dissident business as usual occurs. What the USCCB needs to do is to set up fines that work like what the FCC does. For each occurrence a certain fine is leveled depending on how many intrinsic evils the person being honored supports. Think of the money the USCCB could make and maybe they could even provide scripture without charging for a copyright (even considering how much as I dislike the NAB). Though certainly some bishops/cardinals would go bankrupt paying these fines. Hitting these Catholic institutions in the pocket seems to be the only way to get through to them since supporting intrinsic evils is no big deal to them. If they didn’t pay the fine then they would be taken off the list of Catholic institutions. For some reason they like saying they are a Catholic institution in the tradition of .

Meet the movement that wasn’t afraid to challenge assumptions, question authority — and change the world. See how Marquette interprets the discipline of a Jesuit education amid the chaos of modern life.

So goes Marquette Universities latest ad campaign. I hope this Jesuit 2.0 release is just in Alpha testing because it has a long way to go to get to beta and be better than Jesuit 1.0. Jesuit 2.0 looks more like the Microsoft Vista of Jesuits.

“St. Ignatius revolutionary countercultural Jesuit” is not exactly the tagline that I think he would choose. Especially odd since Marquette University is about as countercultural as the latest fad. Exactly what part of the culture does Marquette resist? Going with the flow is a more accurate description. Though certainly following the Gospel is certainly countercultural in any culture and no one is more countercultural than a saint. The term revolutionary has way too many political connotations to be a good term to use, but certainly repentance and growing in holiness is a complete and dramatic change and thus revolutionary in only that context.

Meet the movement that wasn’t afraid to challenge assumptions, question authority — and change the world.

Question authority – yes that is what the fourth vow is all about don’t you know. I always hated the stupid “Question Authority” bumper sticker. To question authority you have to become the authority to be able to do it. So you then have to question your authority to question authority and on and on Ad infinitum. Now certainly there is a prudence involved in determining who has authority. But to just blindly question authority is a bumper sticker mentality. But to put St. Ignatius and the Jesuits as a movement that questioned authority is silly. St. Ignatius was humble and obedient and such a concept certainly never made it in his teaching. Maybe “Questioning Authority” is in the lost fifth week of the Spiritual Exercises. Jesus told the Apostles “Whoever listens to you listens to me” unless of course you question authority then you can just make it up as you go.

The video than goes on to list the things a Jesuit education helps you to do. Oddly following Christ was not one of the options. Now I take no pleasure in Jesuit bashing since I am quite an admirer of the Jesuit order historically and those Jesuits who weren’t tainted by modernism, but a video and ad campaign such as this drives me crazy.

The commotion over the lifting of the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops goes on and on. It seems that no one is able to make distinctions anymore or make any investigation more than reading a headline or the top lines of a story. Once again any stick will do when it comes to beating the Catholic Church and of course some within the Church are also willing to also pick up that stick and join in.

The lifting of the excommunications does not regularize the SSPX and there are quite a few hurdles to overcome before they can be brought back into the fullness of the Church. A roadblock has been lifted to show good will in the dialog that will occur.

Yet here we are being lectured by the same people that often say “Jesus ate with sinners” or “don’t judge.” The same people that are always talking about inclusion in this case don’t want nothing of the kind when it comes to the SSPX. That because of the nutty and actually offensive beliefs of some of the members of the SSPX, prominently Bishop Williamson, that the whole reconciliation effort must be scrubbed. Commonweal decries the lifting of the excommunications while at the same time crying over Fr. Haight who denies the divinity of Jesus.

From calls for the Pope to step down to a letter from Catholic Congressman it all seems to come down to the same bit of convenient fiction. To believe this you have to accept that the Pope lifted the excommunications because he accepted holocaust denying idiots like Bishop Wiliamson. They have to totally ignore everything he has written and spoke in regards to the Jewish people both as a Cardinal and Pope. Their arguments are so faulty that it is hard to ascribe anything but ill will to those who make them. They at least have not done any due diligence in doing any basic research (hello Google) before opening their mouths or putting pen to paper.

It seems like so often that somebody sees a story and then they figure out how they can use it to advance their own agenda. The service of the truth is not a requirement. Women priests are whining that the SSPX’s excommunications were lifted and theirs were not. Their arguments which include the priest-pedophile argument is a red herring. Many members of the SSPX really do want to end the schism and move into full unity. The women priest movement will not give up their heresy. Reconciliation requires repentance. I want both the members of the SSPX and the women priest movement back fully in communion with the Church, but they both make the same error of holding themselves above the Church by thinking they know better. They both think they are saving the Church.

The letter from the 50 Catholic Democratic Congressmen starts out with the same error mentioned above.

‘we are writing to express our deep concerns with your decision to reinstate Bishop Richard Williamson to communion with the Catholic Church

Obviously there are no IQ tests for congressmen. The first thing you might want to do before signing a letter addressed to the Holy Father is to make sure you are factually correct or perhaps even in the ballpark. I guess I must have missed the announcement that Bishop Williamson was reinstated – what diocese was he assigned? It is also of course true that the majority of these same Catholic Congressman have 100 percent NARAL records. I guess they are also all holocaust deniers. They deny the holocaust of abortion that has killed 50 million children while at the same time voting to support abortion. There have more than a log in their eye when condemning the Pope, I think the Amazon was deforested to provide enough logs for their eyes.

The ignorance or dishonesty of the media is nothing new, just too bad that Catholics join into this.

Yesterday we were not giving money to organizations overseas that provided abortions, today we are – Change.

Yesterday before noon the official White House site did not promote abortion, now it does – Change.

Yesterday we had a President that did not consider that the question of human life was above his paygrade, now we do – Change

Yesterday we had a President who signed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, today we have a President who voted for infanticide – Change

This is all true so that makes it “Change we can believe in”.

Yesterday I did not blog about President Obama and the inaugural. At that point some of the things he had promised to do were not actualized. For politicians you don’t take them at their word. Certainly I had little if not zero hope that he would not get rid of the Mexico City policy by executive order, but once again a Democratic President makes this a priority with 24 hours.

Cardinal George had written to Obama saying in part:

The Mexico City Policy, first established in 1984, has wrongly been attacked as a restriction on foreign aid for family planning. In fact, it has not reduced such aid at all, but has ensured that family planning funds are not diverted to organizations dedicated to performing and promoting abortions instead of reducing them. Once the clear line between family planning and abortion is erased, the idea of using family planning to reduce abortions becomes meaningless, and abortion tends to replace contraception as the means for reducing family size. A shift toward promoting abortion in developing nations would also increase distrust of the United States in these nations, whose values and culture often reject abortion, at a time when we need their trust and respect.

So much for a “humble” foreign policy. Cardinal George is exactly right about this where often organizations offering aid have strings attached by saying the poor need abortion most. In disaster relief often you will finds containers of condoms and abortion equipment and no basic medicine. This type of imperialistic “family planning” will be back in force with government funding.

From whitehouse.gov.

* Supporting Stem Cell Research: President Obama and Vice President Biden believe that we owe it to the American public to explore the potential of stem cells to treat the millions of people suffering from debilitating and life-threatening diseases. Obama is a co-sponsor of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, which will allow research of human embryonic stem cells derived from embryos donated (with consent) from in vitro fertilization clinics. These embryos must be deemed in excess and created based solely for the purpose of fertility treatment.

Well in this evil they were one with Sen. McCain. No mention of human cloning though, but he did vote for clone and kill research before.

* Supports a Woman’s Right to Choose: President Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority in his Adminstration. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in that case.

First I guess they need to raise taxes to afford a spellchecker. Once again we get “abortion is a divisive issue” however we are going to shove it down your throat anyway. Robbery is a divisive issue, now hand over your wallet.

* Preventing Unintended Pregnancy: President Obama was an original co-sponsor of legislation to expand access to contraception, health information, and preventive services to help reduce unintended pregnancies. Introduced in January 2007, the Prevention First Act will increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. The Act will also end insurance discrimination against contraception, improve awareness about emergency contraception, and provide compassionate assistance to rape victims.

As if people don’t have enough access to contraception here. I guess they consider having to pay for it yourself is a lack of access. Of course compassionate assistance to rape victims does not mean checking to see if they are pregnant first before using an abortafacient like Plan B. The rapist does not get the death penalty, but the innocent person who might be the result of the evil of rape must die.

Some have likened Obama’s presidency as Carter II. More likely Herod II. I would love to be wrong on this and we will just have to see what the Democratic run house passes and President Obama signs.

Some critics of President Obama wish for his presidency to fail. My wish for President Obama is the same that I wish for everyone. That they grow in holiness and one day enjoy the beatific vision. I wish President Obama and his family well and will them the same good as I will for all. As for his presidency then everywhere where he and his administration promotes evil I hope that it fails miserably and is totally defeated. Where he and his administration promotes actual goods I support him totally and wish success.

Update: I just thought of this “Abortion – Change we can bereave in.”

This is going to be quite a week with lots of meaning. Today we start off celebrating Martin Luther King and the mostly successful civil rights movement. We then move to Obama’s Inaugural and then two days after that the anniversary of the murderous Roe v. Wade decision. These three days and the events associated are tied together and it is quite symbolic that Obama’s Inaugural is juxstaposed between them.

Moving first to MLK. I was ten years old when is was assassinated. The elementary school I went to took a day off in the aftermath and this was long before the national holiday. I was told he was a civil rights leaders, though had no idea what that meant. It was not until High School that I started to get an idea about MLK and the civil rights movement when I first started to see pictures and videos of the marches and treatments of blacks in the South. Seeing pictures of segregated water fountains and stores was like seeing a whole different world that you could never have imagined possible. Though growing up in Portland we had our own injustices to blacks that showed itself in a a sort of segregation and poor public schools in those areas. It wasn’t till High Schools that I ever even seen a black person at school. At one point PBS came to my High School to do a documentary because we were the only school in the city where integration of blacks into the school via busing did not result in violence. I don’t know what factors set the school apart other than that we were a rather poor school. I do know that I never heard a racist comment from any of my friends or from others that I knew. No doubt there were problems I was unaware of, but on the whole the school was a positive example of unity.

I wasn’t until I got into the Navy that I really ran into somebody who was actually a racist. I was really shocked to hear what came out of the mouth of this recruit from Georgia. I later ran into him at A school in Memphis, but he was flunking out and being sent to the fleet with no training. Years later I worked with a guy who tried to tell me Robin Trower played the guitar on all of Jimi Hendrix record since Hendrix being black could not be that talented. I laughed in his face at this, but I was dumbfounded somebody could believe this. He also a Neanderthal opinion of women. Everybody in the shop I worked in mocked him and his opinions. Though he worked quite well with the black E-5 in the shop and others and his racist opinions seemed to be more theoretical then on the practical level. Certainly if it had been otherwise he would have been kicked out. But my limited experience has shown me that racists are not the sharpest tools in the box. Racism requires a certain level of stupidity and not thinking things through. It is quite a good thing in that progress that has been made over the year in regards to racism.

With the recent death of Fr. Neuhaus who marched with MLK and at one time was pastor of a predominantly black church in New York we are reminded that he always considered the pro-life movement to be the natural evolution of the civil rights movement. In the start of the post I labeled it the “mostly successful civil rights movement” because of the fact that the civil rights of children in the womb are violated over a millions times a year in the U.S. alone. We have made some progress in getting people to not judge others based on the color of their skin, but have gone backwards in considering a person based on their size. Horton said “A person is a person no matter how small” and their is great wisdom in this Dr. Seuss character. The right to life is the fundamental right and you can not go onto to enjoy other civil rights if you have been slaughtered in the womb beforehand. As long a human persons are discriminated against for factors they have no control over such as skin color or being in the womb at the time the civil rights movement will have a long way to go. With original sin we will always have those who treat others not as persons, but something inferior. But we don’t have to have a government or set of laws that do so and these injustices have to be repaired.

While Fr. Neuhaus correctly saw the linkage of the civil rights and pro-life movement and how they are both based on the dignity of the human person, unfortunately others have not done so. The niece of MLK, Alveda King certainly has talked about this connection. Unfortunately a large number of those who saw the righteousness of the civil rights movement are against the civil rights of those in the womb. It was OK for a Reverend like MLK to lead the civil rights movement, but a religious person being involved with the pro-life movement gets met with cries of theocracy. It was OK for religious persons to be involved in the slavery abolition movement, but they are forcing moral down your throat if part of the pro-life movement. The pro-life movement has made incremental gains, but there is still a long way to go before the need for the March for Life is not longer required.

Which brings us to the inaugural of President Obama between these two events. Some would think that his election represents the answer to the promise of the civil rights movement. There is some truth in this, though I do not think he fulfills the goal of MLK where people are based on the content of their character and not their skin color. I can’t say I am impressed with the content of his character as he called a pro-life group liars for telling the honest truth about his record. That he palled around with a domestic terrorist, listened for years to the sermons of Rev. Wright, and got a cozy house deal with a friend now in prison. But we were to look past all of that for the promise of a post-racial age. That by electing him we would be seeking healing and repairing the evils of the past. Yet they never seem to tell us how electing someone because of their racial heritage is much different from rejecting someone because of their racial heritage. Both attitudes make race the criteria. Plus somehow our post racial society required that a black person must replace Obama’s Senate seat. Sen Burris initially not being seated was described as being similar to dogs being set upon him – sound really post-racial.

As a pessimistic-optimist I will wait and see what the Obama presidency will mean for the unborn. For the man who touted hope I do not have much hope that he will give the unborn hope. An administration filled with pro-abortion supporters in every corner from the top down reminds me that the culture of death will be predominant in the celebratory parades. I trust in God totally to bring good out of evil and that even when the culture of death marches on I know that ultimately it will never triumph. In God there is neither Jew or Greek, black or white, unborn or born; we are all ultimately united in Christ as God’s creation. Though some will separate themselves from him via their own will. Soon to be President Obama needs our prayers as does everybody in his administration.