Canada’s Evangelicals urge Toronto schools to uphold Catholic identity

by Patrick B. Craine

TORONTO, Ontario, August 30, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canada’s Evangelical Christians are calling on the trustees at the Toronto Catholic District School Board to uphold a vigorous and authentic Catholic identity as they prepare to pass judgment Wednesday on crucial amendments to a controversial equity and inclusive education policy.

“We … encourage you to make your decision in a way that recognizes the raison d’être for the existence of the TCDSB and not to allow the unique nature and character of a Catholic education to be infringed upon by the actions of the Government of Ontario,” wrote Don Hutchinson, vice president and general legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, in an open letter Tuesday.

The school board’s equity policy, passed earlier this year as part of the Ontario government’s sweeping equity and inclusive education strategy, has sparked an unprecedented mobilization of parents over fears that the policy will give homosexual activists a foothold in order to further subvert already weak Catholic sexual teaching in the schools.

In response, trustees Angela Kennedy and John Del Grande put forward amendments designed to ensure that “equity” and “inclusion” are interpreted in a manner consistent with Catholic teaching.  Those amendments will be voted on at a meeting Wednesday evening at 7:00 p.m. at 80 Sheppard Ave. E.

Hutchinson told LifeSiteNews that he was not commenting on the amendments themselves, but calling on the trustees to consider them carefully in order to maintain the Catholic nature of the school board.  “That, I think, is critical to maintaining the sincerity of the diversity in our education system and in our country by retaining the unique identity, character, and principles of the Catholic faith,” he explained.

He said he believes that in a “pluralist democracy,” if parents choose to enroll their children in a faith-based school, “the school should be able to function from that religious belief, and educate from that religious belief without having their religious beliefs infringed upon by the policies of the Ministry of Education.”

Critics of the government’s equity strategy have pointed out that the Ministry’s documents recommend that schools celebrate the Gay Pride Parades, use texts by homosexual authors, and promote homosexual clubs such as gay-straight alliances.

Hutchinson expressed concern that the Ministry has focused on sexual orientation “without taking the time, and making the effort, to engage a broader policy dealing with discrimination on the basis of grounds prohibited under the human rights code. … It’s not balanced.”

In his letter to the trustees, Hutchinson urged them to “consider that such policies should not favour one group over another.”

In the effort to be welcoming of students, a school should not be “required to compromise the principles upon which [it] is established,” wrote Hutchinson.

“In a diverse, free and democratic society Catholic schools are expected to be distinctively Catholic,” he continued.  “Your existence as ‘Catholic’ benefits not only Catholic students and parents, but contributes to a genuine diversity in Canada by retaining an identity founded in the character and principles of your creed.”

Homosexual students automatically eligible for scholarship: Elmhurst college

by Christine Dhanagom

ELMHURST, ILLINOIS, August 30, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - High school students applying to Elmhurst College in Illinois this fall will be asked whether they consider themselves “a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community,” the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

The liberal arts college, located just outside Chicago, is boasting on its website that it is the first undergraduate program to ask that question of its applicants.

Answering the question is optional, Gary Rold, Elmhurst’s dean of admissions, told the Sun-Times. Checking “yes,” however, could make a student eligible for scholarship assistance of up to 30% of tuition.

Rold also said that including the question is intended to help the college direct its homosexual students to services and organizations targeted for them.

“Increasing diversity is part of our mission statement,” he told the news service. “This is simply closing the loop, in many ways, of another group who has a very strong identity.
It may not be race and religion but it’s an important part of who they are.”

The application includes optional questions about religious affiliation and language spoken at home alongside the question about sexual orientation.

President S. Alan Ray called the revised application “entirely consistent with our mission and vision to prepare students to ‘understand and respect the diversity of the world’s cultures and peoples.’”

In a recent statement, David Smith, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, criticized the college’s comparison between sexual orientation and ethnic identity

“In defending their decision to include a question about ‘sexual orientation,’ by asserting an offensive and absurd comparison of race to a condition constituted by subjective desire and volitional sexual acts, Elmhurst College administrators reveal their own ignorance,” said Smith.
Elmhurst is affiliated with the liberal leaning United Church of Christ, which became the first denomination in the country with an openly gay minister when it ordained William Johnson in 1972.

The college sponsors an annual LGBT guestship in honor of Johnson, who is an Elmhurst graduate.

Over 1,000 hairstylists commit to talk about abortion at their shops

by Thaddeus Baklinski

ATLANTA, Georgia, August 30, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new approach to get information about the high abortion rate among black women in the U.S. to thousands of people was launched at a trade show for barbers and hair stylists in Atlanta over the weekend, reports Christina Martin of Bound4Life.

Over a thousand hairdressers told organizers of The Samson Project that they would talk about abortion in their shops.

According to the organizers of the “Samson Project” - named for the long-haired Nazirite of the Old Testament - over 1,000 people committed to watching their DVD, and talking about abortion’s tragic impact on the black community in their shops.

At a booth set up among displays of blow dryers, hair buzzers and samples of creams and lotions at the Bronner Brothers Int. Hair show, the Samson Project offered something completely different. Under a banner reading “Life Talks,” pro-life workers handed out folders with information on the disproportionately high abortion rates for black women, a copy of MAAFA 21, the documentary on black genocide in 21st century America, and a window decal for their shops.

“If those passing agreed to watch the movie and talk about abortion in their shops, they would receive the folder and the decal to put in their window declaring to their customers they were willing to talk about this issue,” said Christina Martin, who is the director of Bound4Life Atlanta, and who worked the crowd at the trade show.

Black pro-life leaders Alveda King, Dean Nelson, and Arnold Culbreath from Protecting Black Life, all joined Christina during the three-day event to talk with people and pass out information.

Christina observed that for many women a trip to the beauty salon something that they do regularly, and countless men find “rest and comfort” as they sit back in their barber’s chair, listening to the conversations and laughing with friends.

“There’s a real sense of community and togetherness as conversations ring high over the noise of blow dryers and buzzers,” Christina remarked. “I’ve heard a variety of topics discussed, celebrity marriages, family issues, frustrations with government and whatever else captured their attention, but one thing that was never brought up was the issue of abortion. That was something they simply didn’t talk about. Thankfully, that is now about to change in shops across our nation.”

“I was taken aback by how many people wanted to hear about abortion’s impact on the black community. Many gasped when they saw the statistics and shuddered to hear the news that as a race we are decreasing at an increasing rate,” she said.

Many of those she spoke to, she said, were “unaware that abortion is the #1 killer in Black America,” while others, who were Christian, did not realize the evil of abortion.

Talking with those who stopped at the “Life Talks” booth was sometimes a gut wrenching experience for the pro-lifers handing out information.

“One man admitted in pain, that his friend had eleven abortions. Two older black women came to the booth in tears. Both had pressured their children to abort, and both daughters refused. When they saw the booth, they were instantly convicted and had to confess what they’d done,” Christina recalled.

In another conversation Christina related, “One older woman told me she just quit her job as a security officer at an abortion clinic, the week before the hair show. When I asked her why, she told me it was too hard to watch the girls going in get younger and younger. She said some were as young as eleven, and she couldn’t take it anymore, so she left. She was eager to get the Maafa DVD and share it with her friends and church family.”

Christina herself admits that she was almost a victim of abortion. She relates in her biography that “28 years ago her mother was sitting in a hospital room, waiting for the abortion doctor to call her into his office. An elderly black janitor saw her mom crying and asked her one question ‘Do you want to have this baby?’ Her mom said yes, and the rest was history. She walked out of that clinic with hope in her heart and Christina still safely in her womb.”

“Do your part and share the truth about abortion with your stylist or barber,” Christina urged her readers. “I did, and she was eager to hear the information. She even asked me for a DVD. Let’s take every step we can to get this conversation beyond the four walls of the church and into every sphere of society!”

Protect Catholic teaching on homosexuality in schools, trustee urges colleagues as vote looms

by Patrick B. Craine

• TORONTO, Ontario, August 30, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Parents are “longing” for the Toronto Catholic District School Board to ensure that the Catholic Church and its moral teachings remain the “compass for Catholic schools,” a trustee with the board has told her colleagues as the battle to protect Catholic sexual teaching in the schools comes to a head this week.

In an impassioned letter, Trustee Angela Kennedy urged the board to protect the role of Catholic teachings in the schools as the board prepares to pass judgment on crucial amendments to its controversial equity and inclusive education policy at a meeting Wednesday evening.

“As Catholic trustees, our mission is not so much political, as it is evangelical.  We have a sacred duty to God, to inculcate in the children entrusted to us, love for Jesus Christ, His Church and all her precepts,” she wrote.

The school board’s equity policy, passed earlier this year as part of the Ontario government’s sweeping equity and inclusive education strategy, has sparked an unprecedented mobilization of parents who fear that it will give homosexual activists a foothold in order to further subvert already weak Catholic sexual teaching in the schools.

The amendments, proposed by Kennedy and her fellow trustee John Del Grande, are designed to ensure that “equity” and “inclusion” are interpreted consistently with Catholic teaching.

Hundreds of parents turned out to board meetings in May and June demanding that these amendments be passed. Kennedy notes in her letter that trustees have been “flooded” with communications.

Notably, in May parents submitted a petition in support of the amendments signed by 2,418 Catholic stakeholders.  Then in June, the Toronto Chinese Catholic Task Force submitted a petition with a further 1,000 signatures.

The amendments are endorsed by leading Catholic education expert Dr. Robert T. Dixon, who has authored two books on Ontario’s Catholic education system and eight court affidavits on the Catholic schools’ constitutional rights.

They were supported in separate legal opinions by Oakville lawyer Geoff Cauchi and Toronto lawyer Michael Osbourne, and backed by the Toronto chapter of Ontario’s largest Catholic parents group, the Toronto Association of Parents in Catholic Education.

“What more will it take to convince you that our Catholic community wants these amendments to pass because they are longing to be sure that the Church remains the compass for Catholic schools?” asks Kennedy.

“At the end of the day we must not be afraid to [do] what we should do as protectors of our Catholic Students and our Catholic Board,” she added.  “We have only one master Jesus Christ.”

The board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, August 31st at 7:00 p.m. at 80 Sheppard Ave. E.

Find Angela Kennedy’s letter to the trustees here.

Contact Information:

For trustees of the Toronto Catholic District School board click here.

Director of Education, Ann Perron: 416.222.8282 ext. 2296, ann.perron@tcdsb.org

Catholic Bishops of Toronto Archdiocese:
Most Rev. Thomas Collins,  (416) 934-0606,  archbishop@archtoronto.org
Mgr Vincent Nguyen, 416 724-0900,  eastern.region@archtoronto.org
Mgr William T. McGrattan,  (416) 769-6001,  central.region@archtoronto.org
Most Rev. John Boissonneau,  (416) 207-4983, bishop.boissonneau@rogers.com

Bishop ‘continues to be silent’ in face of abortions at Barcelona area hospitals, says priest

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

BARCELONA, August 30, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The bishop of Terrassa, in the Catalonia region of Spain, is maintaining his silence in the face of the pro-abortion and pro-contraceptive policies of Catholic hospitals in his diocese, according to Fr. Custodio Ballester, a Barcelona priest who is leading protests against the institutions.

Ballester told LifeSiteNews that the administration of the General Hospital of Granollers, which is situated in the Barcelona-area diocese of Terrassa, “has refused to cease doing surgical abortions in the face of the order of the bishop of Terrassa last October.”

But despite the hospital’s continuing defiance of Bishop Josep Àngel Sáiz Meneses, “everything is continuing as usual,” said Ballester. “The bishop hasn’t said or done anything more. The pastor and two parochial representatives continue on the board of directors.”

“The General Hospital of Granollers announces on its website that it supports emergency contraception for its Primary Attention Centers (CAP) with the abortifacient pharmaceutical Levonorgestrel,” said Ballester. “It also specifies that it does early detection of fetal deformities with the only reason of aborting, as they themselves have declared on various occasions.”

Another medical institution linked to the diocese, the Comarcal de St. Celoni Hospital, has also done nothing to reverse its policy of performing abortions, despite the resignation of one priest on the board of directors in protest, said Ballester.

“Following the resignation of the pastor from the board of directors, the three members named by the [local] parish in the board of trustees continue in their positions because they refuse to follow the decision of the pastor and they publicly defy him,” Ballester added, noting that, in this case as well, “the bishop of Tarrasa continues to be silent.”

Ballester, in conjunction with other priests and lay organizations, is leading monthly protests outside another Barcelona-area hospital, in order to call attention to the ongoing inaction of local bishops in the face of the pro-abortion and contraceptive practices of hospitals linked to their dioceses.

Although the archbishop of Barcelona, Cardinal Lluís Martínez Sistach, has publicly ordered the Santa Creu i Sant Pau Hospital to cease doing abortions, the hospital has only recently said that it will cease to carry out the deadly procedure - except in cases in which it understands the mother’s life to be at risk.

At the latest protest, which took place at the Santa Creu hospital on August 25, Ballester told Intereconomia Television that the policy is nothing more than a “filter” to allow abortion.  Abortion advocates often use conceptions of “health risk” that are broad and vague, permitting abortions in a wide variety of circumstances.  Organizers have said that they will continue to protest outside the hospital on the 25th of each month as long as objectionable policies remain in effect.

Contact information:

Diocese of Terassa
C/ Vinyals, 49
08221 TERRASSA (BARCELONA)
Tel.: (34) 93.733.71.20
Fax:  (34) 93.733.70.95
email: bisbatdeterrassa@bisbatdeterrassa.org
web: www.bisbatdeterrassa.org

Archdiocese of Barcelona (http://www.arqbcn.org/es/contactar/formulario)
(Enter name in the first field, email address in the second, subject in the third, and text in the fourth.  Click “Enviar” to send.)

Marc Cardinal Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops
Palazzo della Congregazioni,
00193 Roma,
Piazza Pio XII, 10
Phone: 06.69.88.42.17
Fax: 06.69.88.53.03

William Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Piazza del S. Uffizio, 11, 00193 Roma, Italy
phone: 011.3906.69.88.33.57
phone: 011.3906.69.88.34.13
Fax: 06.69.88.34.09
E-mail: cdf@cfaith.va
(fax and email are most effective)

Santorum: If marriage is for people who ‘love,’ why limit it ‘to just two people? Why not 10?’

by Peter Baklinski

CARROLL, Iowa, August 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - If two people should be allowed to get married simply because they “love” one another, then why limit marriage “to just two people?” asked Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum in a recent interview. “Why not three people? Why not 10 people?  […] Why not [allow] nieces and aunts to marry?”

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

The former senator was responding to the arguments of gay “marriage” advocates, who say two people of the same sex who are in love should be allowed to “marry.”

“If marriage means ‘anyone who is in love,’ well, then, let everybody who is in love get married,” added the senator wryly.

Santorum made the remarks during an interview with Douglas Burns, co-publisher of The Carroll Daily Times Herald, last Thursday, August 25th.

Burns grilled the presidential candidate on his views about homosexual “marriage,” asking him, “How does the fact that there are a handful of gay couples married in Carroll [Iowa] affect my heterosexual life and your heterosexual life?”

“Because it changes the definition of an intrinsic element of society in a way that minimizes what that bond means to society,” retorted Santorum.

“Marriage is what marriage is. Marriage was around before government said what it was.”

The presidential candidate outlined a clear definition of marriage, saying that it is exclusively a “union between a man and a woman […] for the purposes of having and rearing children and for the benefit of both the man and the woman involved in that relationship.”

Santorum argued that marriage is an “intrinsic value to society” because it creates “stable families of men and woman bonded together to raise children.”

“Young children are being indoctrinated as to what normal is.”

He also argued that homosexual “marriage” “will have a huge impact on people’s religious freedom,” criticizing the practice in some states where “licenses [are refused] for adoptions to organizations that won’t do gay adoptions.”

Santorum pointed out that there is a conflict between the direction that the American legal system has taken by creating homosexual “marriage” and the collective morality of what the American public want.

With gay “marriage,” “we’ve created something that is not what it is. It’s coercion […] and that’s what I’ve been fighting.”

Public school board joins homosexual ‘pride’ parade

by Thaddeus Baklinski

OTTAWA, August 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Over 100 teachers, principals and trustees from the Ottawa public school board joined about 1,600 homosexual marchers in this year’s “pride” parade held in the nation’s capital on Sunday.

The public school board also provided a yellow school bus decked out in rainbow flags that led the parade.

Ottawa-Carleton District school board (OCDSB) trustee Donna Blackburn, who represents the Barrhaven-Knoxdale-Merivale area and is openly lesbian, told the media she encouraged the board to publicly support the parade.

“After I was sworn in, I approached the director and the board of education about the idea of doing this, and they were very supportive, and for me it was just a natural progression of what the board’s been doing for many, many years, supporting gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual youth,” Blackburn told CTV News earlier this month.

The school’s inclusion the parade appears to have touched a nerve with local parents. In the comments section under one CTV news report on the school’s participation, an overwhelming number of commenters decried what they said was the misuse of tax dollars, and the school board’s misguided promotion of the homosexual agenda.

“As an OCDSB employee, I think this is disgusting,” wrote one commenter. “As a parent, do you really want to see your son’s teacher dressed in chaps and a leather thong dancing to YMCA? And don’t tell me the gay pride parade isn’t like that. We are forced to see it on the news every year.”

“I am offended by this action,” wrote another. “The school board has removed the celebrating of Christian holidays or even disscussing (sic) them in schools yet other choices of religion are. They don’t properly support students who are being bullied because of a learning disability or who choose to abstain from sexual activity. But will support Gay choice.”

But while waiting for the parade to begin the principal of Cairine Wilson Secondary School, Kevin Gilmore, told the Ottawa Citizen, “I’m really proud of the board taking this position, and proud of the turnout,” pointing out that twenty years ago the school board would not have participated in such a parade.

Onlookers at the event were treated to showers of condoms, while participants, many of them dressed in leather and sadomasochistic paraphernalia, or in their underwear and in some cases topless or completely nude, marched down Wellington Street to city hall.

Ottawa media reported that prior to the parade a group of about 50 homosexuals gathered on Parliament Hill with a list of 44 demands that included freedom from criminal prosecution for individuals with HIV infections who fail to disclose their disease to partners with whom they have unprotected sex.

Homosexual activist Michael Burtch told the Ottawa Citizen that the law “does not stop the spread of HIV and in fact helps it flourish.” Burtch added that he himself is infected with HIV.

Contact info:

Jennifer Adams, Director of Education
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
133 Greenbank Rd., Ottawa, ON K2H 6L3
Phone: 613-596-8252
Fax:  613-820-6968
Email: communications@ocdsb.ca

Catholic physicians fight back against Obama birth control mandate

by Kathleen Gilbert

SAN DIEGO, August 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A group of Catholic physicians is launching a protest against recent federal guidelines that would force all insurers to provide contraception and abortifacient birth control drugs free of co-pay.

St. Gianna Physician’s Guild this week launched an online petition requesting the Obama administration and Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, to immediately withdraw the mandate to provide contraception coverage in the new “Guidelines for Women’s Preventive Services,” and provide adequate conscience protections.

The new guidelines, announced by health officials on August 1, limits the minimum package that all health insurance policies must legally provide by August 2012 under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The document was drafted according to recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, which had listed the medical benefit of birth control as “the ability to plan one’s family and attain optimal birth spacing,” and secondarily, as treatment for conditions including acne and menstrual abnormalities.

The inclusion of birth control as an essential “preventive service” followed months of extensive lobbying by Planned Parenthood, a leading contraception advocate as well as the nation’s largest abortion provider.

While administration officials pointed out a conscience clause within the guidelines for religious providers, U.S. bishops and other critics denounced the wording as dangerously flimsy, as they apply only to religious institutions that serve members of their own sect.

Particularly alarming for Christian doctors are the mandate’s implications for drugs like Ella, an FDA-approved “contraceptive” that, like its sister drug RU-486, can kill a child days after conception.

“We are going to send a message to the Obama Administration that this contraception mandate is wrong, discriminatory and violates the religious rights of Catholics all across America,” stated the Guild’s president, Thomas McKenna.

ALERT: Suicide lobbyist Katherine White Tudor teaches ethics at Catholic Seattle University

In a society that increasingly embraces the culture of death, Catholic educational institutions are not only cut out to teach the truth but bound to proclaim it loud and clear.  Sadly, however, many Catholic colleges fail to live up to their title.

The latest blow to the Catholic identity of Catholic education comes from the Jesuit Seattle University School of Law, where a professional assisted-suicide lobbyist teaches Law, Medicine, and Ethics at the End of Life.

Katherine White Tudor, adjunct professor of law at Seattle University School of Law, does more than just teach.  In fact, she works as a professional advocate for Compassion and Choices, formerly known as The Hemlock Society. The admitted mission of Compassion and Choices is to uphold the “right to seek aid in dying to avoid intolerable suffering.”

To give a platform to someone who openly opposes Church teaching flies in the face of Seattle University’s Catholic identity and duty. 

In light of the recent United States Conference of Catholic Bishops document, To Live Each Day with Dignity, this failure on the part of the university is even more blatant.  The document states: “People who request death are vulnerable… To offer them lethal drugs is a victory not for freedom but for the worst form of neglect.”

Seattle University’s decision to employ a person who openly opposes and professionally undermines Catholic teaching is a disgrace that cannot go unanswered.  America Needs Fatima invites its members to contact the university in peaceful protest.

Voice your concern today:
Fr. Stephen V. Sundborg, SJ
Seattle University, President
901 12th Ave.
Seattle, WA 98122-1090
Phone: 206-296-1891
E-mail: SUNDBORG@seattleu.edu

Related:  SHOCKER: Seattle University Helps Planned Parenthood

By William Stover

Churches and statues desecrated in NJ – blasphemy terrorism of yesterday and today

Over the last few years, there’s been a tremendous surge in the number of desecrations of Catholic churches, statues and cemeteries.

This is taking place here in the USA, for sure, but it is also taking place in many other countries throughout the world.  Venezuela has been especially hard hit.

The latest run of desecrations of Catholic churches and statues in the USA has taken place in New Jersey.  A friend who works in that state told me that 26 churches had recently been attacked, and that many statues of Our Lady and the saints had been toppled and smashed. 

                                       *             *           *

If we rewind the clock to 1566, we see that the same thing happened then: a mob of Calvinist heretics desecrated the Catholic cathedral of Antwerp.

(Statues beheaded in Utrecht.)

They started their work of desecration by smashing a beautiful statue of Our Lady.  Stained glass windows and holy chalices followed.

Next, they beheaded statues of Our Lord and the saints.

A magnificent old crucifix was also hacked to pieces, although the heretics the statues of the two thieves in the same ensemble was left untouched.

Historians tell us that this type of blasphemy terrorism spread across all the Protestant parts of Europe, although it was very violent in Holland.

In Antwerp alone more than twenty five Catholic churches were devastated in one night.

Sounds like New Jersey in 2011.  But it is also unlike New Jersey in 2011.

There is a major difference in the way heretics went about desecrating Catholic churches in 1566 from the way it is being done today.

The heretics of 1566 pillaged and gutted Catholic churches in an openly defiant manner, publicly expressing their hatred for Our Lord, Our Lady, the saints and the sacraments of Holy Mother Church.

Today’s desecrators are a different breed of people.  They are largely anonymous.  They operate in the dark, usually smashing statues at night.  They usually do not target the most important churches for desecration, but chose less known ones.

Their motives are usually unspoken.

They are called “vandals” by the press. 

What is a “vandal’?  Is a vandal a drunk teenager out for warped fun, or Satanist who deeply hates God?

These “vandals” desecrate the churches of a certain area for a few nights, then suddenly stop and seemingly disappear.

Weeks later, desecrations start happening in another city, in another state.  They seem to follow a similar pattern.  But no one knows or explains if there is any link between the desecrations. 

The Threat to the Catholic Faithful

Although blasphemy terrorism is not new to history, it represents a terrible offense against God.

It is also very grave threat to the faith of the average Catholic.

Why?

Because this blasphemy terrorism goes on and on and there seems to be no solution in sight to stop it.  

The temptation, therefore,  is for the faithful to start shrugging off these desecrations.

The person may have an initial burst of emotional disgust.  But for many reasons, they do not take the time to study this terrible phenomenon of blasphemy terrorism and to reject it with sufficient outrage.

The risk is that souls become callous to the sins of blasphemy and sacrilege.

That’s why I call it blasphemous terrorism.

The remedy is to fight the temptation to apathy with every fiber of our souls,  by:

1) Studying the deeper reasons why the sins of blasphemy offend God

2) Organizing a regular group of reparation to console Our Lord and Our Lady for such sins

3) Organizing a public act of reparation for every blasphemy that is done

4) Contacting the police and insisting that justice be done in each and every case where the law has been broken

5) Above, we must for the grace of holy indignation to fill our souls against these abominations

If our souls are filled with holy indignation, there will be no room for the callous and indifferent spirit that reigns in so many lax souls today.

If we do not react with the appropriate degree of indignation that the circumstances require, we will slowly slip into luke-warmness.

And in no way do we want to become lukewarm, because of this type of person, Our Lord said:

“But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.”

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Photo by Arktos

Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht.

Permission to reuse this file granted under under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

Fewer OB-GYNs commit abortions than previously thought: study

by Kathleen Gilbert 

August 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Although abortion is frequently labeled an essential component of women’s health care, a study published this week has thrown new light on the procedure’s actual acceptance level among America’s OB-GYNs.

According to the study published in the Obstetrics and Gynecology journal this week, 97 percent of OB-GYNs have met patients wanting an abortion, but only 14 percent are willing to perform them.

Religious affiliation was a major predictor of abortion compliance: the study found 1 percent of evangelical OB-GYNs were abortionists, while 9 percent of Catholics/Eastern Orthodox and 10 percent of non-evangelical Protestants fell in the same category, according to NPR’s report on the study.

Despite a surge in pro-life medical groups in recent years, most notably Medical Students for Life, the pressure to normalize abortion in the medical community remains high.

Dr. Lorna Cvetkovich, medical director of Sanctity of Life Ministries in Fairfax, Va., told a bioethics conference audience in July that many medical programs in the U.S. pressure students to perform abortions as a part of their medical training.

“Many programs are not open to pro-life candidates,” said Cvetkovitch, who also noted that the issue of conscience rights now looms large on the national scene under the Obama administration.

“We will have the choice to either practice anti-Hippocratic, pro-choice type medicine and keep our jobs - or practice Hippocratic, Catholic, pro-life medicine and lose our jobs,” she said.

Thousands of faith-based doctors protested after President Obama rolled back federal health regulations instituted by President George W. Bush to help pro-life doctors assert their right not to participate in abortions, including by dispensing the abortifacient morning-after pill.

A 2009 poll found that 90 percent of faith-based doctors would leave medicine if forced to give up practicing according to their moral beliefs.

The battle for conscience rights heated up recently with the imposition of the federal health care law’s essential “preventive services” mandate, which requires private health plans to cover all FDA-approved contraceptives without co-pay. Officials representing the U.S. Catholic bishops, which lobbied vigorously to keep contraceptives out of the essential package, expressed outrage at the skimpy conscience protections included in the mandate.

“Health and Human Services must think Catholics and other religious groups are fools,” wrote USCCB Communications Director Sr. Mary Ann Walsh on her official blog August 1.

Pressure to conform stems also from within the medical establishment. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG), the nation’s leading nonprofit group of OB/GYNs, has reaffirmed that, “although respect for conscience is important, conscientious refusals should be limited if they constitute an imposition of religious or moral beliefs on patients.”

Europe is being punished by a Revolutionary myth

 

 

 

 

 

Though painful, giving up the euro is the only solution to the present economic crisis assailing the European continent.
Indeed, the way Europe now presents itself in fiscal affairs appears to be a show of mad people running about without a head.

Facing the looming crisis, indecision, uncertainty, contradiction and lack of logic prevail in European political circles, echoed by the media with scattered, incomplete and contradictory opinions, as if there was a fear to point out reality openly and in its entirety.

The Impasse
This is quite understandable, as the very survival of the European Union so cherished by the member government leaderships is at stake.  They set out to build a united Europe artificially structured according to certain norms agreed upon by the leaders of the European Parliament and the European Central Bank under the aegis of a single currency – the euro.

The promised fruit of this new Europe was to be a forward leap in the progress and socio-economic well-being of the population of its 27-member nations. All this was done without requiring those countries to give up their individual government structures.

Maintaining political and economic independence – though within certain limits – made the euro project palatable to public opinion.

However, this independence turned out to be the project’s “Achilles heel.” In a single currency regime, any monetary or fiscal imbalance or rigidity in wages and prices – resulting from domestic political pressures or mismanagement by the economic authority of a member country – necessarily and directly affects its real economy, that is, the level of employment and income.

Depending on the degree of imbalance, the “sick” country can infect all the others. At the same time, it cannot alter the exchange rate, an action that could serve as a buffer to lessen the negative consequences of those imbalances and thus avoid contagion.

In fact, it is contradictory for a group of nations to have a single currency and allow its members to maintain independent decision-making on economic and financial matters. It is a difficult problem to solve since giving up independence in favor of a central government appears to be an unattainable utopia, especially in countries with longstanding historic tradition and marked by deep and rich cultural differences and customs, as is the case with European nations.

Thus the European Union finds itself in a real conundrum. It must find out how to weather the crisis while maintaining the political and economic independence of its member countries, especially in fiscal and monetary matters.

Riots in Athens against the Greek government's austerity plan.

Reality Comes Knocking
In 2010, Greece went into a crisis because it was unable to pay its debts. At this time, Portugal and Spain are facing an imminent crisis in their balance of payments. Something similar looms in the horizon in relation to Italy.

The common denominator of them all is a lack of fiscal discipline, that is, spending more than one is allowed to and accumulating a debt which threatens to become untenable.
The market’s first reaction is to suspend new loans and make it difficult to renew standing ones, thus causing an explosion in the interest rates. This road quickly ends in default.

In order to avoid this extreme situation, the nations under pressure are forced to spend less. They “tighten their belts,” causing unemployment and a drop in income. Naturally, discontent spreads among the population, with foreseeable social and political damage.

This situation easily makes creditor banks vulnerable and generates instability in the whole financial system, particularly the European one. To avoid contagion, international financial agencies (European Central Bank, IMF and others) rush to aid creditor banks by purchasing from them the “toxic” bonds from nations in crisis in an attempt to save them from bankruptcy by assuming their unsustainable debt.

At the same time, central authorities put pressure to bear on the countries to practice fiscal discipline and balance their budgets. In this way, they hope these measures in the long term will enable the nations in crisis to pay off the bonds now in the hands of those international financial agencies.

Who pays for this financial “merry-go-round?” The countries in crisis and the whole group – and within the group, particularly the stronger and more disciplined countries. In other words, everyone carries the burden which is distributed by particular agreements and political negotiations.

Facing this situation, it is entirely reasonable for populations in the stronger and more disciplined countries to ask themselves why they should assume a large part of this cost. Even worse, who is to guarantee that once the situation is resolved, there will be no relapse? These questions are valid and difficult to answer.

The Way Out
The reader easily perceives that the political, social and economic cost stems, in the final analysis, from the keeping of the euro, the European Union’s single currency.

From what we have said so far, it is not difficult to conclude that the European Union member countries are facing this alternative: either they give up managing their own economies or give up the euro.

To give up managing their economies means, to no small degree, to renounce their own political independence. Giving up national sovereignty is totally unacceptable to most Europeans. Thus, abandoning the euro is the only hypothesis left.

This way out is not without pain. However, at least it is a step in the right direction. We should not insist on false solutions that do not address the underlying problem. It would be like taking an aspirin to cure cancer. The road of progress in Europe does not run by the euro or any other single currency.

All that is needed is a market open to products and resources and a correct individual economic policy with fiscal and monetary stability. In such a climate, the European peoples could make use of all those qualities and methods that are a fruit of ancient traditions that still survive, and they will prosper once again.

At the same time, “undisciplined” countries would be “punished” by the market. However, such sanctions would generally be softer than the present ones and without danger of grave contagion. To insist on the single currency has no relevant economic foundation. In fact, it can be justified only by politico-ideological goals.

Written by Carlos Patricio del Campo

Man has the power to choose his own good: either by subordinating his will to the divine order, or to the satisfaction of his own desires and making himself the center of the universe.

 

 

 

 

 

The destruction of a large part of the Assyrian army by God before Jerusalem in 701 B.C. only provided a brief respite for the incorrigible city. It refused to take advantage of God’s mercy and continued in its sinful ways with the predictable results.

By the final years of the seventh century, the Neo-Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar – famous for his Hanging Gardens – had replaced the Assyrians as God’s instrument of anger. The latter had been punished for its own transgressions as Isaias had predicted.

The Prophet Daniel
The Babylonian king began his campaign against Jerusalem by taking hostages in 605 including Daniel and then thousands more among the Jewish nobility eight years later. The final assault came in 587 when Nebuchadnezzar put the city to the torch and leveled the Temple. The remnant of about 20,000, hungry, desolate and parched, marched in chains under the hot, desert sun to Babylon.

The Prophet Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.

Much like Joseph a thousand years before in Egypt, Daniel worked himself into a favored, influential position in the opulent city on the Euphrates.

This allowed him to record several visions that formed a basis for subsequent apocalyptic literature which became a Christian interpretation of history and part of God’s revelation to man.
The other major prophets dealt primarily with only the problems of the Middle East, but Daniel enlarged the template to include a view of universal history. In one famous vision, Daniel saw a colossal statue made of successive layers from top to bottom of gold, silver, brass, and a combination of iron and clay, representing four empires.

The Prophet Daniel with lion.

This succession of empires gives us a broad outline of the last centuries leading to the birth of Jesus Christ.

Then a stone cut from a mountain without hands crushed the fourfold image of world empires and grew until it filled the whole world. Daniel then explained that God will “set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed…and itself shall stand forever.” (Dan. 2:44)

City of God
Saint Augustine as anyone familiar with his Confessions knows combined a brilliant mind that always sought the truth with a sensual nature addicted to immoral pleasures in a classic example of personal, internal conflict. His quest for the truth led him to reject the wild speculations of the gnostic sect of the Manicheans to which he had formally adhered as a young philosophy student and teacher.

Through the sermons of Saint Ambrose, another great Church Father of the West, he came to grasp, while at Milan, the spiritual reality of God who was the source of being and intelligence.

While studying Saint Paul’s epistle to the Romans, he received an extraordinary grace to lead a life of chastity and sacrifice and was subsequently baptized by Saint Ambrose at the age of 32. Within a decade he was consecrated Bishop of Hippo, the second largest city after Carthage, and began his outstanding career as theologian and historian which reached its apex in one of the greatest works of Catholic literature, The City of God.

The Western Roman Empire began to collapse during the last decade of the fourth century as barbarians poured through the frontier defenses. In 410 Alaric, a Visigoth chieftain originally trained by the Romans, invaded Italy and for three days ravaged the city of Rome.

While the civilized world sobbed and lamented, Augustine saw the hand of God. The Christians, many of whom were still dominated by their pagan education and worldly impulses, lost their confidence in Divine Providence and the pagans blamed the catastrophe on the abandonment of pagan ritual.

To answer these complaints and to illustrate the relationship between the temporal and spiritual orders, the Bishop of Hippo undertook the arduous, thirteen year task of writing The City of God.

Saint Augustine with Saint Ambrose. The struggle between the City of God and the City
of Man constitutes the substance of history.

Using the testimony of pagan authors, Augustine argues that irreligion and immorality were the true cause of Rome’s downfall. Kingdoms which were created by God became evil when they departed from His holy will.

Thus the brilliant saint gives us a synthesis of universal history in light of Christian principles, from the act of creation to God’s intervention in history through a small, uncultured Semitic people to the coming of God-man which was the turning point of history.

When the great power of God was brought to earth in the person of Christ and His teaching, what was the response of those whom He created?

It fell into two categories based on the object of their love: the heavenly city or, more properly, a society built up by the love of God to the contempt of self, and the earthly society built up by the love of self to the contempt of God.

Man has the power to choose his own good: either by subordinating his will to the divine order, or to the satisfaction of his own desires and making himself the center of the universe. The struggle between these two societies constitutes the substance of history.

Written by Jeremias Wells

Most U.S. voters think abortion morally wrong most of the time: Rasmussen

by Kathleen Gilbert 

August 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - While the number of U.S. voters calling themselves pro-choice maintains a slight edge over those calling themselves pro-life, most U.S. voters still say that abortion is morally wrong, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey.

The survey, released Friday, supports a long-term trend in feelings about the moral acceptability of abortion, as well as the dividedness of voters on “pro-choice” and “pro-life” labeling.

Fifty-five percent of participants in the survey said abortion was morally wrong in most cases, while 30 percent called it mostly acceptable, with 15 percent unsure. The pollster notes that the numbers are little changed since April 2007.

Among those surveyed 48 percent considered themselves pro-choice, while 43 percent called themselves pro-life.

In 2009, the “pro-life” label broke into the lead for the first time according to Gallup, which has asked the question since the mid-1990s, topping “pro-choice” among American adults 51 percent to 42 percent. It remained in the plurality until this year, when it slipped behind by four points.

Gallup’s abortion survey has also consistently found more Americans, usually over half of respondents, calling abortion morally wrong in general than morally acceptable

Report: Susan G. Komen donated over $600,000 to Planned Parenthood in 2009-2010

by Thaddeus Baklinski 

STAFFORD, Virginia, August 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Even as scientific evidence connecting breast cancer to abortion and the use of the oral contraceptive pill continues to mount, one breast cancer cure charity, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, is funding the abortion giant Planned Parenthood to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a new report.

Stop Planned Parenthood (STOPP), a project of the American Life League dedicated to shutting down Planned Parenthood, released a report on August 24 detailing the $629,159 in funding various Komen affiliates contributed directly to Planned Parenthood affiliates across the US in 2009-2010, according to the 990 Forms Komen submitted to the IRS for those years.

While Komen has repeatedly denied the abortion-breast cancer link, numerous researchers say that the evidence is already overwhelming.

The issue arose as early as 1994 when Dr. Janet Daling, a pro-choice cancer researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington, found a connection between abortion and breast cancer.

Dr. Daling’s findings, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, revealed that women under age 18 who had an induced abortion had an increased breast cancer risk of 150%. Overall, she found, women who have an induced abortion have an increased breast cancer risk of 50%.

“I would have loved to have found no association between breast cancer and abortion,” Dr. Daling wrote, “but our research is rock solid, and our data is accurate. It’s not a matter of believing. It’s a matter of what is.”

Numerous other studies since then have corroborated her findings.

In July of this year Karen Malec of the Coalition of Abortion/Breast Cancer criticized Komen for fundraising to find a cure for breast cancer, and then giving the money to Planned Parenthood which, in her words, “is the primary cause of the breast cancer epidemic.”

“It’s more than ironic that Planned Parenthood receives contributions from an organization allegedly dedicated to the eradication of breast cancer,” Malec said. “Abortion and the birth control pill – which Planned Parenthood sells – are risk factors for the disease. It’s certainly bad for business to tell women the truth about the abortion-breast cancer link. Knowledge of that risk would cause some to turn their backs on induced abortion and cut into Planned Parenthood’s profits.”

Malec also noted that, according to Komen’s 990 Forms submitted to the IRS for 2010, the charity gave millions to at least five research and educational facilities that engage in embryonic stem cell research, research that has yet to provide even a single positive treatment or cure for any disease, yet involves the destruction of countless unborn children.

“Komen’s Parent Return for 2010 shows that millions of dollars in grants were given to research facilities that have policies supporting experiments on human embryos,” Malec said.

Kids pulled out of Catholic school after teacher denied Resurrection in class

by LifeSiteNews.com

NORTH BAY, Ontario, August 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The parents of a grade 12 student in an Ontario Catholic high school whose teacher denied the Resurrection of Christ in the classroom last year have decided to remove their children from the Catholic school board after the Catholic school denied anything inappropriate had occurred.

The teacher in question has since quit the Catholic school and moved to the public school board.

Francesca Sinicrope, who has since graduated, told LifeSiteNews in June that her sociology teacher at L’École Secondaire Catholique Algonquin told her class that “people have taken the Bible too literally.”  “He began saying that it was like a metaphor that you follow … He said that Jesus never resurrected,” she explained. 

Francesca’s mother Pauline told LifeSiteNews that the difficult decision to pull her other children from the school came only after she and her husband had exhausted every avenue to obtain assurances that the problem would be resolved.

She said the educational leaders and church hierarchy to whom she appealed had provided no response, and given them “no other choice.”

While the principal at the time had said an investigation cleared the teacher of wrongdoing, another classmate corroborated Sinicrope’s account.  “He began talking about how we as Catholics took the understanding of the Resurrection too far,” said Celine Giroux.  “The moral is right, it’s just the story is wrong,” the teacher said, according to Giroux.

The Sinicropes have enrolled their two younger daughters, Marina (going into grade 7) and Sabrina (going into grade 11), in the local public school board where the parents feel their children’s faith will be less at risk.  The move is expected to cost the Catholic board up to $80,000 based on government revenue allocation estimated at up to $10,000 per student, per year.

“The fact that my own Bishop did not respond to our concerns about heresy being taught openly in the classroom, was probably the final straw,” said Mrs. Sinicrope.  “It felt like a punch to the gut.”

The school board trustees also did not respond to her written complaints. After getting no response from these authorities, she wrote to the Papal Nuncio for Canada.

Mrs. Sinicrope said she recognizes that there are potential problems with the public school system, but that at least there her daughters know what to expect and will not have to contend with deciphering or second-guessing whether a religious teaching is faithfully Catholic or whether it is partly “heresy.” In addition, she and her husband feel they are obligated in principle to pull out their daughters as an act of protest and to avoid the risk of scandal.

“We felt that if we left our daughters in the Catholic system, just to save ourselves hassle, we might be sending a message to the Board that Catholic parents aren’t really bothered by the teaching of false doctrines in class ... and that the board can turn a blind eye the next time this sort of problem occurs,” she explained.

Mrs. Sinicrope said she was “disgusted” by the response of the school principal, Mr. Daniel Villeneuve, who has since left the position.

Villeneuve told them in May that their complaint was “thoroughly investigated” and that they found that the teacher’s “beliefs and program delivery are in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church that reviewed many beliefs and practices under Vatican II.”

Several weeks after the Sinicropes finalized their decision to move their daughters, they received a phone call from the high school’s new principal.  He pleaded with Mr. Sinicrope to not remove Marina and Sabrina, explaining that the resurrection-denying teacher had quit and decided to take a teaching job in the public system starting in September.

The Sinicropes say the offer was too little too late. “The new principal still did not admit that any wrong-doing ever occurred,” said Mrs. Sinicrope. “He didn’t tell us the teacher was fired for contradicting Catholic doctrine. That would’ve restored our confidence. Instead we’re told he suddenly quit and now everything’s supposed to be ok. Well, that doesn’t inspire confidence. It just confirms that something is still very wrong in the Catholic system.”

The Sinicropes’ decision comes as school boards across Ontario face a crisis of declining enrolment with large-scale school closures as a result.  Besides pulling their kids out of the Catholic school system, the Sinicropes also redirected their taxes to the public board.

LifeSiteNews did not hear back from the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie or the school after multiple attempts.

Contact Information:

Ecole Secondaire Catholique Algonquin
555 Algonquin Avenue
North Bay, ON
Canada P1B 4W8
Phone: 705-472-8240
Email form: http://www.northbaychamber.com/index.php?module=rolodex&uop=message_member&id=459

Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie
Bishop Jean-Louis Plouffe
30 Ste-Anne Road
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada P3C 5E1
Phone: 705-674-2727
Fax: 705-675-9889
Email: chancery@diocesecentre.com

John Knox intensely hated the Blessed Virgin Mary, just like all other heretics

The recent posts on the hatred for the Blessed Virgin Mary by  famous heretics such as Henry VIII and Calvin has drawn a higher than normal readership to them.

So, let’s take a look at John Knox.

He was an apostate Catholic priest who was instrumental in establishing the new Protestant church in Scotland in the 16th century, and in getting Scotland to abandon the One True Catholic Faith.

One can sum up Knox’s heresy is these his own words:

“No pope, no purgatory, no prayers for the dead, no mass, no saints, no bishops, in Scotland.”

Others have said of him: “Others snipped at the branches of Popery, but he took an axe to the root, to destroy the whole.”

Did he also hate the Blessed Virgin Mary?

Knox’s mentor, George Wishart, had a great hatred for Our Lady and preached often against veneration of the Most Blessed Virgin.

Historians register that devotion to Our Lady was the thing that Knox most hated in the Catholic Church. 

In one case, instead of venerating an image of the Virgin Mary on a French ship were he was captive, Knox threw her into the ocean. “She is light enough.  Let Our Lady now save herself!” he said.

In May 1559, Knox gave a sermon in the city of Perth.  His  sermon against Catholic practices and devotions so incited the congregation that they left the sermon and started to smash images, statues, and crucifixes.

Unfortunately, Scotland suffers from the influence of Knox’s terrible hatred for Our Lady and the Catholic Faith until today. 

Find out if your devotion to Our Lady is disinterested

True devotion to Mary is disinterested. 

It inspires us to seek God alone in his Blessed Mother and not ourselves. The true subject of Mary does not serve his illustrious Queen for selfish gain. He does not serve her for temporal or eternal well-being but simply and solely because she has the right to be served and God alone in her.

He loves her not so much because she is good to him or because he expects something from her, but simply because she is lovable.

That is why he loves and serves her just as faithfully in weariness and dryness of soul as in sweet and sensible fervor. He loves her as much on Calvary as at Cana. How pleasing and precious in the sight of God and his holy Mother must these servants of Mary be, who serve her without any self-seeking. How rare they are nowadays!

Saint Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary

A Look at the Real Brazil - Through Communist Eyes

The establishment media seek to convey a discouraging impression of Brazil as a country where the majority of the population prefers immorality and egalitarian decadence.

However, this is a very partial view of reality that does not consider the deepest aspects of the Brazilian soul.
Geraldo Galindo, leader of the Communist Party of Brazil in the state of Bahia, looks with communist eyes at these deeper aspects of Brazil and posted his conclusions on the web site Vermelho.org, maintained by the Associação Vermelho [Red Association] by agreement with the Communist Party of Brazil.
He says:

“A majority of the people [in Brazil] are against abortion, same-sex ‘marriage,’ disarmament, secularizing laws, etc.

“This results, among many other factors, from a religious influence that is still very strong in our society, which has blocked the approval of proposals that would have made the country advance toward a more civilized state – and also from the strength of dozens of conservative parties present in the political fray.

“Here in Bruzundanga, when we talk about respect for human rights, the rightists say we are siding with bandits; when we defend quotas for blacks and the poor, they say we are rewarding ignorance; when we say that a woman’s body belongs to her and she’s the one that must decide about it, the reactionaries say her body belongs to God and the rules of that god must prevail; and they accuse us of proposing the murder of defenseless children.

“When we want to punish parents who spank their children, they argue it is government interference in family matters; when we propose union between homosexuals and combat against homophobia, they say we are campaigning to make people choose homosexuality; when we defend gun control, they affirm we want to disarm the people while leaving bandits well-armed.

“When we combat racism, they say we are preaching racial hatred; if we stand against the teaching of religion in schools, they say we are materialistic atheists who want to ban the Bible.

“When we defend social programs for the poor, they say we want a welfare state and are encouraging laziness. When we defend stem-cell research to cure illness, they say we are threatening divine laws. When we cry out against machoism, they claim it is Brazilian tradition. When we want to investigate the crimes of the dictatorship they accuse us of revanchism.…

“The worst of all is that at times persons seen as ‘leftist’ and who theoretically should support libertarian causes assimilate that kind of argumentation, as can be seen in the participation of Labor Party deputies in public demonstrations against homosexuals and abortion rights for women.…”

Our Lady of Aparecida, Queen and Patroness of Brazil.

The testimony of this communist leader shows that the Brazilian people still possess, in the innermost recesses of their soul, reserves of common sense and morality that make them react against all factors of social and religious decay.

However, they lack authentic elites that can represent them and lead Brazil toward a truly moral order and prosperity. It is also painful to say, but they often lack courageous and uncompromising prelates truly disposed to lead the fold of Jesus Christ on the paths of Christian civilization rather than the crooked roads leading to the abyss such as those proposed by the Communist Party of Brazil and their ilk.

 

---

Written by Luis Dufaur

Doc at facility where aborted baby parts were found in parking lot faces disciplinary hearing

by Christine Dhanagom 

EL PASO, TX, August 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An abortion doctor in El Paso has become the tenth abortionist in Texas to be summoned to a disciplinary hearing by the state’s medical board due to an undercover investigation by Operation Rescue, the pro-life organization announced in a press release yesterday.

Pro-lifers may remember Dr. Franz Theard’s clinic from earlier this year, when it made the news after the remains of aborted babies were found in a parking lot outside. The bodies were taken into police custody. That incident was also reported to the Medical Board by Operation Rescue. (See news coverage: Good Friday shock: Aborted baby parts found exposed in clinic parking lot)

During Operation Rescue’s undercover investigation a caller who presented herself as a minor seeking an abortion was told by one of Dr. Franz Theard’s employees to cross state lines to get an abortion in order to avoid Texas’ parental notification laws.

The incident was just one one of many violations uncovered by Operation Rescue at Texas abortion facilities during a three-month investigation that concluded this past February. The organization found evidence of numerous violations of medical privacy laws, informed consent laws, and illegal dumping of medical waste at clinics across the state. 

As a result of complaints lodged with the Medical Board, Dr. Theard now joins William Watkins West, Jr., Robert E. Hanson, Jr., Pedro J. Kowalyszyn, Sherwood C. Lynn, Margaret Kini, Alan Molson, Robert L. Prince, Douglas Karpen, and H. Brook Randal as abortionists who must appear before the Board for an Informal Settlement Conference/Show of Compliance (ISC).

Hearings for all ten are scheduled for October 28th, at half hour intervals. Depending on the outcome, the abortionists may face disciplinary action.

Two abortion clinics have also been cited for the illegal dumping of aborted baby remains.

“Theard and the other abortionists have played fast and loose with the law for far too long. Their actions have endangered women, created public health hazards, and misled young women into having preventable abortions. We look forward to seeing them held accountable to the law,” said Troy Newman, who heads the pro-life watchdog organization.

The Texas Medical Board sent Newman a letter last week informing him that Theard would be included in the hearing, and inviting him to submit a written statement or appear in person.

Newman told LifeSiteNews that he intends to appear in person to testify. Another representative of Operation Rescue, who is the complainant in some of the cases, would also be present.

“My desire is they lose their medical license,” he said. “They have no respect for the law. They break it every chance they get.”

Taxpayers may have to foot the bill for criminals’ sex-change operations

by Peter Baklinski

BOSTON, MA, August 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A federal judge in Boston is on the cusp of deciding whether or not taxpayers will be forced to fund sex-change operations for convicted criminals.

In 1990, the plaintiff in the case, Robert Kosilek, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering his wife. Three years into his sentence Kosilek changed his name and appearance and now lives as “Michelle” in an all-male prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

Kosilek sued the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) 10 years into his sentence for not adequately treating his gender identity disorder (GID). In that case U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled that Kosilek could receive hormonal treatment for his disorder, but he did not permit Kosilek to undergo a surgery that would biologically alter his body to make it look more like a woman’s body.

Not happy with this ruling, Kosilek sued the department five years later, this time arguing that the hormonal treatment was insufficient to relieve his depression and anxiety.

Kosilek, now 62, is making his case on the grounds that the sex-change surgery is a “medical necessity” and that the Department of Corrections is violating his constitutional rights by refusing to provide it, reports AP.

“The greatest loss is the dying I do inside a little bit every day,” said Kosilek during his testimony.

The case appeared to turn in Kosilek’s favor after an August 15th ruling from a Seventh Circuit court in Wisconsin stated that that state’s Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act violates the Eighth Amendment.

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” American jurisprudence has interpreted the Eighth Amendment to apply to medical treatment of prisoners, so that a state may not “deny effective treatment for the serious medical needs of prisoners.”

According to the recent ruling of the Seventh Circuit Court, which may act as a precedent in Kosilek’s case, gender identity disorder “is a serious medical condition.”

Richard McFarland, a lawyer for Massachusetts’ Department of Corrections told AP that the department has given Kosilek hormone treatments, female items, and psychotherapy to help him deal with his disorder. “We argue that the treatment provided to Miss (sic) Kosilek is adequate” and the surgery is not a “medical necessity,” he said.

But Kosilek testified in his current lawsuit that the female hormones treatment had not been enough to relieve his “suffering” and that he would likely “commit suicide” if he did not get the surgery, reported AP.

Kosilek’s lawyers wasted no time in bringing the recent ruling against Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections to the attention of Judge Wolf.

If Kosilek wins his suit on the rationale that sex-change surgery is a “medical necessity,” it could open the road for numerous criminals with gender identity disorder who would gladly undergo the $20,000 sex-change operation at taxpayers’ expense.

Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who was behind a 1998 initiative to ban sex-change operations for convicted criminals, has pointed out that most private health insurers do not cover sex-change operations. He argues that taxpayers should not have to pay for such “elective” surgery for criminals, according to AP.

“I just think it would be deemed a luxury for him to have that operation. He is in there because he murdered his wife. There are no luxuries that are supposed to be available.”

Judge Wolf has requested that both sides submit additional arguments September 16th. Another hearing is scheduled for October 11th.

Teacher suspended for criticizing homosexual ‘marriage’ reinstated

by Christine Dhanagom

Jerry Buell

MOUNT DORA, FL, August 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A social studies teacher who was suspended from the classroom due to comments he made on his private Facebook page condemning same-sex “marriage” is now being allowed to return to his teaching duties.

Jerry Buell’s re-instatement was announced yesterday in a press release issued by Liberty Counsel, the non-profit organization that represented him when the Lake County School Board launched an investigation after receiving a complaint about his post.

Commenting on New York’s legalization of same-sex marriage, Buell had written: “I’m watching the news, eating dinner, when the story about New York okaying same sex unions came on and I almost threw up.”

He went on to post: “And now they show two guys kissing after their announcement. If they want to call it a union, go ahead. But don’t insult a man and woman’s marriage by throwing it in the same cesspool as same-sex whatever! God will not be mocked. When did this sin become acceptable???”

According to Liberty Counsel’s statement, the complaint was lodged by a 2002 graduate of Mount Dora High School, who had never had Buell as a teacher.

Buell is a veteran teacher at the Florida high school, and chair of the school’s social studies department. He was named teacher of the year in 2010.

After a weeklong investigation to determine whether the comments constituted an ethics code violation, Buell was re-instated three days after the school year began.

“This is a great day for the Constitution. By fully exonerating Mr. Buell, the Lake County School Board has reaffirmed what the rest of Americans already knew. The First Amendment protects the right of public servants to express their personal opinion without any fear or intimidation. It is a shame that Mr. Buell had to miss three days of teaching for his employer to learn this lesson,” Harry Mihet, Senior Litigation Counsel for Liberty Counsel, commented.

According to an Orlando Sentinel report, Buell met with Lake County School Superintendent Susan Moxley for about an hour before Moxley announced her decision. It was also announced that a “written directive,” the contents of which will be available to the public in ten days, has been placed in Buell’s file.

Although Buell has said that he is taking down his Facebook page, he told CNN in an interview earlier this week that he stands by the comments he made there.

“I stand by what I said. One of the things that make America great is the fact that we can disagree, and there’s nothing wrong with passion,” Buell said. “It was not use of bad language or anything, just passionate words.”

In response to a question about returning to a classroom that may include homosexual students, Buell said that he respected all his students “as the children of God and creations of God that they are.”

“I explain to my students, you won’t feel safer, you won’t find a place you’ll be more respected, and you won’t find a place you’ll have more fun all day, and I would challenge anybody to ask any one of my thousands of students if that has not proven to be true,” he said.

When we suffer, we naturally turn somewhere for consolation -- Christ would have us turn to Him...

There are three great truths that all Christians—who want to be called Christians—must believe:

1) that God, who created all things from nothing, exists.

2) that we possess an immortal soul and are destined for eternal life.

3) that Jesus is the predicted Messias or Christ and suffered enormously for our salvation.

There is, in reality, a fourth: that the first three are not part of a take-it-or-leave-it system. Belief is not optional! And as we shall see in this matter, Our Lord’s patience is not unlimited.

In the first three parts of this essay, we have asked the reader to consider the spiritual aspects of numerous recent tragedies, a normal request to anyone who prays to God for assistance. We should also apply a providential element to the study of ancient history. Otherwise we could not properly account for the rise and fall of so many brutal empires in the pre-Roman era, nor for the enormous influence of an obscure Jewish religious leader from the hinterlands of the latter empire who changed the direction of the world.

With the Incarnation, Divine Providence and Divine Revelation combine, come to life, and provide a Christian view of history which will record the conflict and tension between the Law of God and the spirit of evil in the world. But although the Incarnation is the central event, the linear view of history began with the prophets of the Old Testament, especially Isaias and Daniel.

Isaias
At the time of Isaias(c.700B.C.), the mighty kingdom of David and Solomon had split into two smaller, vulnerable kingdoms: Israel in the North with ten tribes and Juda with two tribes, but also the fortress of Jerusalem, in the South. Both kingdoms incurred severe denunciations from all the prophets of the period for their attachment to immorality and idolatry.

In the Northern Kingdom, Amos the earliest prophet, emphasized God’s authority over the universe, Israel’s obligation to Him and that God would protect those faithful to Him, but to no avail. With the terrible Assyrian army rampaging westward, its chaotic decline continued and its political stability deteriorated despite prophecies that Assyria had been chosen by God as His instrument of chastisement. Finally, in 721 B.C., the infamous warrior Sargon II crushed Israel’s capital city, Samaria, and after impaling most of the inhabitants, carried off the remainder.

The Ten Tribes of Israel disappeared forever from the pages of history.

Isaias’ great contribution to prophetic literature lies in two areas. The first records his heroic efforts to maintain the fighting spirit of Jerusalem in the face of Assyrian encroachment. The second is concerned with his amazing predictions of Christ’s mission and divine nature.

Assyria, the third of Mesopotamian empires, easily ranks as the most brutal and rapacious. Sumer, famous for inventing written, phonetic language around 33,000 B.C. and Babylon, noted for its lawgiver and king, Hammurabi, preceded them. The last, the Neo-Babylonians or Chaldians, we will study in connection with Daniel.
The moral and political deterioration in Juda paralleled that in the Northern Kingdom. One King, allowed his son to be butchered to appease the Canaanite god Moloch. After the fall of Samaria in 721, the situation became precarious; so much so that very existence of the chosen people stood on the brink of annihilation. At this moment God sent Isaias.

This magnificent prophet of God warned that if the kingdom were to escape destruction it must follow one guiding principle: confidence in God and not warlike preparation nor concessions to Assyria. But the people were obstinately attached to their evil ways. Isaias warned that the time of God’s judgment was coming and would leave the kingdom in ruins. The scourge was even then descending, and the scourge was Assyria (the rod and staff of my anger—Isa. 10:5).

Sennacherib, Sargon’s successor, reduced all the cities in Juda and then besieged Jerusalem. The people wanted to surrender, but Isaias urged them to resist. “Thus sayeth the Lord concerning the Assyrians: He shall not come into the city, nor shoot an arrow into it,” and it came to pass that night that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians tens of thousands.

The next morning Sennacherib withdrew; Jerusalem was saved.

However, Isaias’ divinely inspired pronouncements went far beyond his warnings of moral failure and imminent chastisements, for in memorable passages he proclaimed that God himself would come in His own person to redeem mankind.

With remarkable accuracy, he revealed, “behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Isa. 7:14). “For a child is born to us…and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, God the Mighty…He shall sit on the throne of David and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and for ever” (Isa. 9:66,7). Concerning Our Lord’s passion he prophesied, “Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows…he hath borne our infirmities… He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins, …and by His bruises we are healed…The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all…He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter” ((Isa. 53:3-7).

Our Lord Visits Nazareth
Several times the Evangelists quoted the prophecies of Isaias in their Gospels, but the most remarkable reference came from Christ himself. Our Lord in the early days of His Galilean ministry, visited the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth (Lk. 4:16-30).

As a visiting dignitary, He was asked to read a passage from the Old Testament and then to provide a commentary. Quite appropriately, the selection chosen came from one of the more descriptive revelations of Isaias (61:1-2).

Of the six clauses in the prediction, three require some attention, the first two and the fourth. With infinite wisdom and love and omnipotent power, Christ certainly explained that the coming Messias must become the center of life from whom all draw their vital energy. He came not to enhance the possession of worldly goods but to provide for the spiritual life by giving sanctifying grace to the soul. The fourth clause mirrors verse three of Psalm 146, “He heals the broken heart and binds up their wounds.” The primal cause of sorrow results from the fall of Adam: sin and death. Without the promise and coming of Christ, humanity’s condition would have been hopeless. Separate our destiny from Christ and life becomes a dreary waste.

Recurring tragedies throughout the world today give examples from Syria where the government fires on its own citizens at night from tanks and snipers to the terrible famine in the horn of Africa. When man suffers, he naturally turns somewhere for consolation. Christ would have us turn to Him.

At the end of the discourse, He made the astounding statement that he, in effect, the man standing in front of them, was the Christ foretold by Isaias. Instead of falling on their knees, they gave in to their superficial, carnal instincts. The congregation rose up in anger, grabbed Our Lord, rushed him out of town and attempted to throw Him off a cliff. During the melee, He mysteriously disappeared.

During the discourse, Our Lord further angered the Nazarenes by observing that in the time of the prophet Elias, a great famine spread through Israel. However he helped none of his countrymen but assisted a widow and her son in the Phoenician city of Sidon. Likewise his disciple Eliseeus ignored the lepers of Israel but cured Naaman the Syrian. By this testimony of approval, Our Lord indicated that not only were the prophesies of Isaias inspired by the Holy Ghost but also that the other prophets were also sent by God.

(By Jeremias Weels; If all goes well, in the second half of this installment we will discuss the contributions of the prophet Daniel, Saint Augustine and Saint John the Evangelist)

Crusade, statesman, saint – most honest man in Europe

 

 

 

 

 

Today, August 25, is the feast of Saint Louis IX, king, confessor of the Faith, crusader and model of a Catholic head of state. There are two different ways people picture Saint Louis IX. One is as he truly was, the other is a soft, effeminate distortion of his person.

This dichotomy is similar to the one that exists between many artists’ renditions of Saint Pius X and pictures of him. On the one hand, the photographs portray a giant of a man, strong soul and spiritual king, conscious of his dignity.

On the other hand, many artists depict a feeble old grandfather, whose face begs pardon for being pope and regrets that he is not a simple priest. There is an abyss between this limp-wristed portrayal and the historic Saint Pius X, who was the hero against Modernism.

Many artists’ renditions of Saint Pius X portray a limp-wristed distortion of his person as seen in photographs.

The same holds true with Saint Louis IX. On one hand, he is portrayed distributing justice under the famous oak tree in Vincennes, like a king that lived under the trees and preferred to sit around rather than lead the life of the castle, administrate the affairs of state and wage wars amid the pomp and ceremonial incumbent on the first kingdom of Christendom.

In these portrayals, he softly sits in judgment, certainly pardoning everyone and only dealing with simple things that do not require shrewdness, ingenuity or force of will. This has become the preponderant image of Saint Louis IX. The peasants who surround him are infected with the same softness. By association, the whole medieval world is portrayed in a clownish way, consisting of soft kings, surrounded by mountains of softness.

Likewise, many paintings of Saint Louis IX show a soft weakling that contradicts the historic reality of who he was and are in sharp contrast to other more realistic portrayals.

The enemies of Christian civilization skillfully use this representation to denigrate the kings who succeeded Saint Louis. “He was good because he was simple,” they say, “he just sat under his tree and judged.” Thus, they present Louis XIV in his glory at Versailles, surrounded by beauty and pomp, as something intrinsically wrong.

To repel this false image, it is good to remember the real Saint Louis IX, who was both a statesman and Crusader.

Saint Louis: The Statesman
Saint Louis IX was king of an organic monarchy. He was not a hands-off ruler who abandoned state affairs to his vassals, but rather one who knew his rights and responsibilities, and was protective of them. When his vassals sought to confront or diminish his authority, he resisted them to maintain royal power.

Nevertheless, he was also a great defender of the feudal lord’s autonomy in his fiefs. Once, while visiting a church, noisy patrons of a nearby pub began a ruckus that disturbed his prayer. When asked to give orders that the commotion stop, he responded: “Tell my men to find the lord of this fief and ask him to restore order.”

Although it would have been easier for him to give the command directly as king, his respect for feudal customs and all degrees of hierarchy would not allow him to interfere with the local governance. Out of love for the organic nature of society, he scrupulously maintained the feudal structure. In this, he was very different from later French kings, like Louis XVI, Louis XIII, Henry IV and even Louis XI, who systematically destroyed that same structure.

Saint Louis also protected the guilds and made them assent to a rule drafted from custom-based directives. This gave structure to these autonomous organizations. Thus, while supporting every legitimate independent power in his kingdom, he remained its gravitational center.

Saint Louis even defended his royal power against the Holy See.

He confronted the Vatican for interfering in the strictly temporal affairs of France, pressing the issue until it retreated. When this was studied during the process for his canonization, he was vindicated.

Saint Louis IX, King of France, Crusader, and Confessor. Model of a Catholic head of state
and beloved by his people.

Saint Louis: The Crusader
As a warrior, Saint Louis fought on two Crusades and died of pestilence in Tunis.

Sick and bedridden, he died defeated and tearful, while the whole world had pity on him. This sad story is historic, but not complete.

Saint Louis was also the king described by Joinville, who departed for the Crusades in all his magnificence, dominating his whole army and vested from head to foot in brilliant golden armor. When his boat first approached the Egyptian coast, his enthusiasm was such that he could not wait for the vessel to touch land. He threw himself, fully armed, into the sea and ran ashore to press the attack, before his men reached land.

This and other actions have immortalized him as a perfect warrior. This image must be considered together with the image of the wounded soldier, sick and suffering, who became venerable by imitating the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Only the combination of all these aspects can give an adequate image of King Saint Louis IX.

A King Beloved by His People
As a model statesman and crusader, Saint Louis was loved and even venerated by his people. There is touching evidence of this.
Though medieval coins are rare, the most common of all are those minted during the reign of Saint Louis. Since his effigy was on these coins, his people kept them as a medallion and remembrance of his reign. They guarded these coins so carefully, that many have survived. These outnumber all other coins of the epoch.

This demonstrates how a truly virtuous leader lifts his people up with him.

There is a beautiful prayer written to Saint Louis by Constable Du Guesclin, one of Saint Joan of Arc’s companions-in-arms. Though written years after Saint Louis’ death, it gives an idea of how great he was.

Keep me pure as the lily engraved on your coat of arms, O thou who kept thy word even when given to the Infidel. Never allow a lie to pass my lips, even should frankness cost me my life. Man of prowess, incapable of retreat, burn the bridges that lead to my excuses, so that I will always advance towards the most arduous part of the battle.

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The following text is taken from an informal lecture Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira gave on August 25, 1964. It has been translated and adapted for publication without his revision. –Ed.