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NY Times writer defends Church teachings in online series

By Benjamin Mann

Washington D.C., Apr 25, 2012 / 02:04 am (CNA).- New York Times writer Ross Douthat has defended Catholic theological and moral teachings, in a series of articles explaining how the Church is not “fundamentalist” but simply “orthodox.”

“What I describe as 'Christian orthodoxy' is not identical to everything that calls itself conservative Christianity in the United States, and it’s certainly not identical to Christian fundamentalism,” wrote Douthat, a Catholic convert known for his conservative social and political outlook, in an April 16-19 online exchange with Slate magazine author William Saletan.

In his new book “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics” (Free Press, $26.00) Douthat advocates a return to authentic Christian traditions and doctrines. He argues that distorted forms of religion, focused on self-gratification and worldly aims, threaten the country's common good.

In his exchange with Saletan, Douthat defended Catholic teachings on subjects like sexuality and marriage, while urging secularists and skeptics to rethink their identification of traditional Christianity with “fundamentalism.”

The Catholic columnist pointed out that Biblical “fundamentalism” is actually a modern phenomenon, originating in the 19th and 20th centuries. By contrast, Christian orthodoxy “is an ancient thing, dating back to the early centuries A.D., when Christian doctrine was first codified.”

While Christian orthodoxy accepts Scripture as inspired by God, it does not employ it for inappropriate purposes – such as predicting the end of the world, ruling out scientific discoveries, or interpreting natural disasters as forms of divine retribution.

After distinguishing authentic Christian faith from “fundamentalism,” Douthat went on to defend Catholics teachings on subjects like contraception and homosexuality – which were also prohibited by most other Christian groups until the 20th century.

The New York Times columnist observed that the Church's view of sexuality does not come from a select few verses of the Bible, but “is rooted in the entirety of the biblical narrative, from the creation story in Genesis down through Jesus’ words in the New Testament.”

While this vision of human life does not reduce sexuality to biology, it does mark out the purposes of sex within God's plan for creation – including “the reunification of the two equal-but-different halves of humanity … and the begetting of children within a context that’s intended be a kind of microcosm of humanity as a whole.”

“This narrative of one-flesh complementarity,” Douthat told Saletan, “explains why Christians have traditionally rejected both the sexual authoritarianism inherent in polygamy and the sexual individualism that’s become such a powerful force in our society today – and why they’ve refused to bless homosexual relationships as well.”

Douthat also urged Saletan, and others who dismiss the Church's teachings on sexuality, to take an honest look at the consequences of contraception.

“The world that contraception has made is a world that de-emphasizes the moral weight of the sexual act, while insisting on the centrality of a perpetually-fulfilled libido to human contentment,” he observed.

Contraception, he said, has created a world “characterized by steadily declining marriage rates, steadily rising numbers of children born out of wedlock, birthrates that have fallen well below replacement levels across the developed West … and millions upon millions upon millions of abortions.”

“In general, the sexual culture that contraception has created is a culture that treats the stuff of human life and even life itself as a commodity to be bought, sold, mass produced, experimented upon and kept on ice when necessary.”

For the rest of the article click here: Catholic News Agency

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Recommended by Grand Knight Gary Hoeger

Army Silences Catholic Chaplains

By Todd Starnes/TWITTER

The Obama administration has been accused of telling Catholic military chaplains what they can and cannot say from their pulpits after the Army ordered Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners from their archbishop.

The Secretary of the Army feared the letter could be viewed as a call for civil disobedience.

The letter called on Catholics to resist the policy the Obama Administration’s policy that would force institutions affiliated with religious groups to provide coverage for birth control, sterilization and “abortifacients.” The Catholic Church believes the mandate represents an unconstitutional violation of freedom of religion.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told Fox News Sunday the Army violated its chaplains’ constitutional rights by barring them from reading the letter – calling for resistance to the contraceptive coverage mandate.

“The Army and the Obama administration said they couldn’t even issue the letter to complain about the Obama administration’s plan on this policy,” Santorum said, calling it a violation of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

“This is the problem when government tells you they can give you things,” said Santorum, a Catholic. “They can take it away but even worse they can tell you how they are going to exercise this new right consistent with their values instead of the values guaranteed in the Constitution.”

On Jan. 26, Archbishop Timothy Broglio emailed a letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit.

A portion of the letter was obtained by Business Insider. It reads:

“In so ruling, the Obama  Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Obama Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.”

The following day, senior chaplains received an email from the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains advising them that the archbishop’s letter was not coordinated with their office – and instructed chaplains not to read it from the pulpit.

The Chief’s office ordered that the letter was to be mentioned in the Mass announcements and distributed in printed form in the back of the chapel.

“Archbishop Broglio and the Archdiocese stand firm in the belief, based on legal precedent, that such a directive from the Army constituted a violation of his Constitutionally-protected right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, as well as those same rights of all military chaplains and their congregants,” read a statement provided to Fox News from the Archdiocese of the Military Services.

According to the AMS, Archbishop Broglio had a telephone conversation with Secretary of the Army John McHugh.

“It was agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the Archbishop’s letter,” the statement read. “Additionally, the line: “We cannot-we will not-comply with this unjust law” was removed by Archbishop Broglio at the suggestion of Secretary McHugh over the concern that it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience.

The issue raises a question among critics: did administration official tell the Catholic Church what it could and could not say in the pulpit?

For the rest of the article click here:  Fox News and Commentary

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Saint of 9/11: Fr. Mychal

A Compilation of Tributes & Memories
by Bridget Haggerty


He was administering the Last Rites to a fallen firefighter when he himself, was struck down. There was no priest available to give Fr. Mychal Judge the final sacrament of his faith. It was up to one of his own, a NYC firefighter, to give him a traditional Roman Catholic spiritual farewell.
Even before 9/11, many people considered Fr. Mychal a hero: the firefighters for whom he served as chaplain, the homeless to whom he gave winter coats, people with AIDS to whom he ministered. But after 9/11, his hero status became official, when Fr. Mychal became the first official recorded victim of the attacks on America that day. Also, according to all accounts of his life, he possessed that rare combination of qualities that are usually attributed to saints: nobility and humility.

On September 10, 2001, less than 24 hours before he died, Fr. Mychal Judge re-dedicated Chief Von Essen's old firehouse in the Bronx. The department has the ceremony on videotape. "Good days, bad days," says Fr. Mychal, clad in a bright white robe. "But never a boring day on this job. You do what God has called you to do. You show up, you put one foot in front of the other, and you do your job, which is a mystery and a surprise. You have no idea, when you get in that rig, what God is calling you to. But he needs you . . . so keep going. Keep supporting each other. Be kind to each other. Love each other. Work together. You love the job. We all do. What a blessing that is.”


It was about 8:50 a.m. on September 11 when word reached the firehouse on West 31st Street about the tragedy in lower Manhattan. Thick, black smoke was already billowing skyward. At Engine Co. 1/Ladder Co. 24, the firefighters climbed into their gear and headed downtown. Across the street at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, Mychal Judge did the same. Fellow Franciscan Fr. Brian Carroll went up to Fr. Mychal's room to inform him that a plane had just crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Fr. Carroll recalls that Fr. Mychal quickly took off his Franciscan habit, changed into his chaplain's uniform - and paused to comb and spray his hair. It was his one small nod to vanity - how proud he was of that silver mane! He then headed for the door. The trip from the firehouse to the friars' residence is maybe two dozen steps. It was a trip that Fr. Mike--as he was known among both the homeless and the famous-made many times since becoming FDNY chaplain in 1992.


As thousands of New Yorkers ran for their lives toward midtown, Fr. Mychal jumped in his Fire Department car. With firefighter Michael Weinberg at the wheel and the siren wailing, they sped downtown toward the World Trade Center. He arrived at the burning 110-story towers, where Mayor Giuliani spotted him. Mayor Giuliani recalls grabbing his arm and saying, 'Mychal, please pray for us.' And Mychal just looked at him with a big grin and said, 'I always do!' And then he turned and ran off with his firefighters.


Firefighters found Fr. Mychal’s lifeless body beneath a smashed fire engine and took him to St. Peter’s Church on nearby Barclay Street. They laid him in front of the altar, covered him with a white cloth and his priest’s stole before placing his helmet and chaplain’s badge on his chest. Later, he was taken to Engine 1 and Ladder 24 on West 31st Street, the location where he kept his chaplain’s car.

Nearly 3,000 people attended Fr. Mychal’s funeral Mass; immediate family, hundreds of Franciscans from Holy Name Province, other religious, uniformed members of the fire and police departments, politicians, city and state officials, and friends from all walks of life.


For the rest of the article click here:  Irish Culture and Customs

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Komen Gave $569K to Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz in 2010

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 8/25/11 12:28 PM

New figures directly from the Komen for the Cure foundation show 18 affiliates of the breast cancer charity gave a total of more than $569,000 to the Planned Parenthood abortion business in 2010.

The donations will certainly prompt the continued boycott of the Komen breast cancer group by millions of pro-life Americans who find it disingenuous that the women’s organization would partner with an abortion business when abortions are linked to an increase in breast cancer and when Planned Parenthood has been proven to mislead the public by falsely claiming it performs mammograms.

The new figures come from an American Life League study of Susan G. Komen affiliates’ federal forms 990 and they show 18 Komen affiliates gave $569,159 to Planned Parenthood in 2010, the latest year for which figures are available. That’s down from the $731,303Komen officials publicly confirmed in October 2010, when they acknowledged that 20 of the 122 Komen affiliates gave to Planned Parenthood during the 2009 fiscal year.

Komen affiliates in Austin, Texas; Central New Mexico; El Paso, Texas; Greater Amarillo, Texas; Los Angeles County, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Salt Lake City, Utah stopped giving to the abortion business while affiliates in Dallas County, Texas; Denver, Colorado; North Carolina Triad; North Carolina Triangle; and Puget Sound, Washington all began new relationships with Planned Parenthood.

“Komen’s support of Planned Parenthood is defeating its own mission of fighting breast cancer,” Rita Diller, the director of ALL’s STOP Planned Parenthood International program, told LifeNews.com in exclusive comments. Diller added that Planned Parenthood — beyond the issue of abortion — is not the best place for Komen to send hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations if it truly wants to help women prevent or combat breast cancer.

“In the first place, Planned Parenthood is not licensed to do anything beyond Level 1 breast examinations – the same exam that can be done by a woman in her shower, or in any clinic or physician’s office.  They do not perform mammograms,” Diller explained. “Add to that the fact that Planned Parenthood’s two big money-makers, abortion and contraceptives, are directly linked to breast cancer by numerous studies conducted from the 1960′s through the present.”

For the rest of the article click here:  LifeNews.com

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When attending Mass becomes an occasion of sin
By Matt C. Abbott

From Jim Baltrinic (slightly edited):

'This post consists of excerpts from a letter I wrote to the pastor of a Catholic parish about a certain incident that occurred at his church. I have omitted all references as to the church's location. The church is semi-circular in design, and we were sitting in the last pew near the center isle, which afforded us a clear view of almost the entire congregation. I started my letter with a compliment as to how nice the newly-remodeled church looked. I then ask the pastor to please consider the following hypothetical situation. 

 'A priest enters the confessional for the usual Saturday morning or afternoon confession time. During this time a young man enters the confessional. 'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.' From the sound of the voice on the other side of the screen, the priest surmises that the person is a teenager or young adult. The confession continues: 'It was a week since my last confession. I'm guilty of many lustful thoughts, and I looked at some very immodestly dressed women more times than I should have.'

 'The priest asks, 'Were these impure thoughts related to these women you looked at'?

 ''Yes,' replies the young man.

 'The priest: 'Why did you continue to look at them? Why didn't you go someplace else, away from them?'

 ''I couldn't,' said the young man. 'They were in front of me and I was kind of hemmed in by the crowd.' 

 'The priest: 'Why were you in such a place to begin with? Do you remember that we are to avoid places that may be an occasion of sin?'

 'The young man answers, "Yes, Father, I know that, but I had to be there.' 

 'The priest, somewhat puzzled, then asks: 'Why did you have to be there, and where were you: at the beach; at a sporting event?'

 ''No, Father,' said the young man, 'I was at your noon Mass last Sunday, and two scantily-dressed girls were sitting in the pew right in front of me, along with their parents. I couldn't move because my parents were on either side of me.'

 'While I said that the above story was hypothetical, in reality it is not. The Mass in question took place this past July at a prominent Catholic parish in a town my wife and I were visiting. It was the main Mass of the day and the church was quite full. 

 'The young man in the confessional could have been any one of the many young men in the church. The two 'scantily clad' girls were real and were sitting about six pews in front of us with their parents. 

 'From the area where we were sitting, we observed, in addition to the two girls mentioned above, approximately a dozen very immodestly dressed women, with the majority of these being young girls in their teens and early twenties. Bare backs and shoulders, low-cut tops, strapless sun suits, short shorts, mini-skirts and tight-fitting tops were plainly visible.

 'Two years ago, at a parish in northern Virginia, we experienced an almost identical incident at Sunday Mass. We were sitting in our pew when a home-schooling family came in and took a place several pews ahead of us. They had two sons around age 10 and three younger daughters. A few minutes later, two young girls, of about the same age and manner of dress as the two described above, came in and sat in the pew directly in front of this family. However, in this case, the parents quickly recognized the spiritual danger these two improperly dressed girls posed for their children, and they immediately got up and moved to another part of the church.

For the rest of the article click here:  RenewAmerica

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A letter to the editor of the Catholic San Francisco written by Rob Graffio

‘Seamless garment’ view of pro-life issues is flawed

With the mention of the issues of capital punishment, war and the “sins of the federal budget” in the March 18, 2011, Catholic San Francisco (Making a Difference, Tony Magliano), it’s impor- tant to note that the flawed “seamless garment” approach to pro-life issues has caused much confusion among the faithful. Read what Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote to the U.S. bishops in 2004, one year before he became pope:  “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.” The point is: Let’s not make gray matters into black and white ones, and black and white matters into gray ones. Thus, we can answer the question, “What evil has the federal government done?” by saying: They continue to fund abortion with taxpayer dollars. That’s certainly the gravest sin of the federal budget.

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Lent: Why the Christian Must Deny Himself | Brother Austin G. Murphy, O.S.B. | IgnatiusInsight.com 

We still ask ourselves as Ash Wednesday approaches, "What am I doing for Lent? What am I giving up for Lent?" We can be grateful that the customs of giving up something for Lent and abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent have survived in our secular society. But, unfortunately, it is doubtful that many practice them with understanding. Many perform them in good faith and with a vague sense of their value, and this is commendable. But if these acts of self-denial were better understood, they could be practiced with greater profit. Otherwise, they run the risk of falling out of use. 

A greater understanding of the practice of self-denial would naturally benefit those who customarily exercise it during Lent. Better comprehension of self-denial would also positively affect the way Christians live throughout the year. The importance of self-denial can be seen if we look specifically at fasting and use it as an example of self-denial in general. Indeed, fasting, for those who can practice it, is a crucial part of voluntary self-denial. 

But since we live in a consumerist society, where self-indulgence rather than self-denial is the rule, any suggestion to fast will sound strange to many ears. It is bound to arouse the questions: Why is fasting important? Why must a Christian practice it? Using these questions as a framework, we can construct one explanation, among many possible ones, of the importance of self-denial. 

To answer the question "Why must the Christian fast?" we should first note that fasting, in itself, is neither good nor bad, but is morally neutral. But fasting is good insofar as it achieves a good end. Its value lies in it being an effective means for attaining greater virtue. And because it is a means for gaining virtue– and every Christian ought to be striving to grow in virtue–there is good reason to fast. 

Some people point out that fasting is not the most important thing and, therefore, they do not need to worry about it. Such reasoning displays a misunderstanding of our situation. But, since the excuse is common enough, some comments to refute it are worthwhile. 

Doing Small Things Well 

First, while it is true that fasting is not the most important thing in the world, this does not make fasting irrelevant or unimportant. There are, certainly, more urgent things to abstain from than food or drink, such as maliciousness, backbiting, grumbling, etc. But a person is mistaken to conclude that he therefore does not need to fast. He should not believe that he can ignore fasting and instead abstain in more important matters. Rather, fasting and avoiding those other vices go hand in hand. Fasting must accompany efforts to abstain in greater matters. For one thing, fasting teaches a person how to abstain in the first place. 

Moreover, it is presumptuous for a person to try to practice the greater virtues without first paying attention to the smaller ones. As Our Lord says, "He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much" [1] and so can be trusted with greater things. Therefore, if a person wants to be able to abstain in greater matters he must not neglect to abstain in smaller matters, such as through fasting. 

Finally, there is a subtle form of pride present in the person who says that because something is not very important, he does not need to do it. Whoever makes such a claim implies that he does only important things. But the average person is rarely called to do very important things. Accordingly, each person is more likely to be judged on how he did the little, everyday things. Even when, rarely, a person is called to do a great work, how often does he fall short? All the more reason, then, for a person to make sure that he at least does the small things well. Furthermore, if he truly loves the Lord, he will gladly do anything–big or small–for him. So, in the end, saying that fasting is not the most important thing is not a good excuse for avoiding it. 

What, then, is the reason for fasting? To answer this let us first clarify what fasting entails. It involves more than the occasional fast, such as on Good Friday. To be effective, fasting requires disciplined eating habits all the time. There are certainly days when a person should make a greater effort at abstaining from food and drink. These are what we usually consider days of fasting and they must be practiced regularly. But, still, there are never days when a person is allowed to abandon all restraint. A person must always practice some restraint over his appetites or those periodic days of fasting arc valueless. Always keeping a check on his desires, a person develops good habits, which foster constancy in his interior life. So, in addition to practicing days of fasting on a regular basis, a person should continuously restrain his desires, such as those that incline him to eat too much, to be too concerned with what he eats, or to eat too often. [2] 

To read the rest of this article click here:  Ignatius Insight

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This is not the whole article.  If you want to read it in it's entirety please click here:  Intellectual Conservative

Wrestling with Morality: Boys vs. Girls on the Mat

By Selwyn Duke, on March 4th, 2011

Imagine that you're a young adolescent boy. Like many your age, you're shy around girls, perhaps to the point at which even talking to one might make your heart race. You also like sports, so you go out for your school's wrestling team. Then, lo and behold, you're at a meet, and something hits you like a load of bricks.

Your opponent is going to be a girl.

You're going to have to grapple with her. In front of spectators. Touching -- and being touched in -- intimate places.

You'd have to be touched to think this is okay, but it's precisely the situation that confronted sophomore wrestler Joel Northrup at the recent Iowa State Championship. His response, as many of you already know, was to default his match against 14-year-old Cassy Herkelman and relinquish the chance to win a coveted wrestling title in deference to his moral convictions.

While this story made national news, it wasn't even close to the first time a schoolboy wrestler found himself pitted against a girl. A product of Title IX, the phenomenon usually occurs in the low weight classes (Northrup's is 112 lbs), where the boys are generally quite young and not very developed, which accounts for why the exceptional girl can sometimes make headway. It also isn't the first time a boy defaulted rather than engage in impropriety.

And every time it illustrates how reality has been turned on its head in today's America. Sure, many in the media applaud Northrup -- a stellar athlete with a 35-4 record who was a favorite to win the Iowa championship -- for sacrificing success for principle. Yet few will unabashedly say what should be said: Having girls and boys grapple on mats in front of spectators is nothing short of social perversion.

... Portion of article left out.  For the entire piece click here:  Intellectual Conservative

As for allowing girls and boys to wrestle, it's only a degraded society that has to even debate the issue. First, such contact is plainly immoral, and this was widely understood until relatively recently. Also note that this is part of a phenomenon whereby the relationship between the sexes is being undermined. For example, it's the ultimate mixed message to instruct boys to be gentlemen but then say, in the name of "equality," "Oh, remember, you little chauvinist piglet, girls are just like you. Treat them exactly like anyone else." We put boys -- whose natural desire to be a knight in shining armor and protect girls should be cultivated -- in an unreasonable position: They either have to contribute to the defeminizing of the fairer sex or the emasculation of their own.

Then there is the other half of the equation, almost universally ignored because the Western man has been emasculated: At the level of population, a prerequisite for men being gentlemen is that women are ladies. To expect otherwise is like someone supposing that you'll abide by Queensberry Rules in a fight against a no-holds-barred opponent. Yet what happens if you dare talk about teaching girls to be ladies today? You're cast as a bearded mullah with an iron burka.

The result of this sexual confusion is that we have boys going to school pretending to be girls and girls acting like boys. I won't shrink from saying that a girl who wants to engage in organized wrestling simply hasn't been raised correctly. And, by the way, the Herkelmans' case only supports this assertion. Note that when Bill Herkelman, Cassy's father, addressed his daughter's wrestling ambitions he said, "She's my son. She's always been my son."

Huh?

Although I don't support it, it's one thing to give a nod to a girl's tomboy tendencies. But to characterize her as your "son"? Does it occur to this man (who looks like a hippie, mind you) that his daughter will grow up and have to find happiness as a woman? And is it a stretch to say that little Cassy might have gotten the message that to get the approval of a father who perhaps wanted a boy, she'd have to act like one? Sorry, folks, but I won't mince words: What we have here is twisted and a form of child abuse.

But child abuse is now de rigueur. To be honest, I find it a tad embarrassing being an adult nowadays with the guidance we're giving the young. Can you look a Joel Northrup in the eye, point to our decadent culture and say we are proud to bequeath it to him? We don't teach boys to respect girls or girls to respect boys -- and kids don't respect adults. And who can blame them? An older generation will not be respected if it's not respectable.

The good news, and the bad, is that this will end. The consequence of undermining traditional sex roles is what has beset the West: Career-driven women, frivolity-obsessed men and demographic-death-spiral birth rates. I would say that this portends the death of civilization, but that's not entirely accurate. In reality, it only happens when civilization has already died.

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New Catholic Cardinal: Catholics Can’t Vote for Pro-Abortion Candidates


by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com
10/27/10 4:35 PM

The Catholic leader who Pope Benedict named a new cardinal said in a new interview that faithful Catholics can’t in good conscience vote for pro-abortion candidates.

Pope Benedict XVI named Raymond Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis, as one of two Americans who will become cardinals in the Catholic Church last week.

Burke, who is the prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s “Supreme Court” gave an interview to Thomas McKenna, President of Catholic Action for Faith and Family.

“As a bishop it’s my obligation in fact, to urge the faithful to carry out their civic duty in accord with their Catholic faith,” Burke said.

“You can never vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb or the right to a procured abortion,” he added plainly.

He said his words are not meant as a criticism of how people vote, but they are “simply announcing the truth, helping people to discriminate right from wrong in terms of their own activities.”

In the 25-minute interview, Burke reminded Catholics they are bound in conscience to vote for political candidates who oppose aborting babies, embryonic stem cell experiments, and euthanasia.

McKenna responded to the interview with her own remarks applauding and affirming Burke’s.

“Millions of Catholics have no idea it’s a sin to vote for candidates who favor these grave evils, which attack the very foundations of society,” he told LifeNews.com. “This matter-of-fact, pointed interview granted to me by Archbishop Raymond Burke in Rome last week makes it very clear what the responsibility of every American Catholic will be next Tuesday.”

Burke has taught repeatedly that Catholic politicians who support abortion rights may not receive Holy Communion and that Catholics who know of the politicians’ voting record on these issues cannot vote for them and retain “a clear conscience.”

For the rest of the article click here:  LifeNews

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Komen for the Cure Donated $7.5M to Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz in 2009

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 12, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- October is the month for breast cancer awareness, but it's difficult for pro-life advocates to lend their support to one of the primary organizations involved in the fight against breast cancer because it has provided contributions to the Planned parenthood abortion business.


The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has long denied that abortion plays any role in elevating the risk for women of contracting the deadly disease.


That's despite a wealth of research over decades showing an average increased risk of about 40 percent for women having abortions compared to those who carry their pregnancy to term.


But the contributions Komen affiliates make to Planned Parenthood, which does more than 25 percent of all abortions in the United States and aggressively promotes abortion abroad, provide another sources of frustration for pro-life people who otherwise would support the group.


In a new interview with the Daily Caller, Komen spokesman John Hammarley provided the latest figures showing the link between the two groups.


He confirmed 20 of Komen’s 122 affiliates have made donations to Planned Parenthood and, last year, those contributions totaled $7.5 million -- much higher than the $731,000 Komen's figures on its web site showed earlier this year.

For the rest of the article click here:  LifeNews

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September 13, 2010

Notre Dame Law School professor emeritus unhappy with niece Kathleen Rice's campaign statement

By Matt C. Abbott

Noted Catholic scholar and Notre Dame Law School professor emeritus Charles Rice is not happy about a Labor Day e-mail statement issued by his niece, Kathleen Rice, the Nassau County district attorney and a candidate for New York attorney general.

Sadly, Kathleen Rice is pro-abortion and pro-homosexual "marriage."

When asked by Paul Likoudis, news editor of The Wanderer, for comment on the candidate's campaign-promoting statement, Charles Rice responded as follows:

Dear Mr. Likoudis: You asked my opinion about Kathleen Rice's e-mail statement for Labor Day. Kathleen, as you know, is my niece. She is the district attorney of Nassau County and is running for New York attorney general in the Democratic primary. Her Labor Day statement said in relevant part:
'I'm the granddaughter of an Irish immigrant who came to our country alone as a teenager with $20 in his pocket. He built a business as a bricklayer and through hard work and advancing labor protections, it became possible for him to prosper and for our family to grow. Generations later, I work hard to honor his sacrifice....I am running for attorney general to honor my grandfather....'
My wife, Mary, and I have a close relationship with Kathleen. We disagree with her advocacy of the 'pro-choice' position on abortion, her enthusiastic acceptance of support from Planned Parenthood and similar groups and her strong advocacy of the legalization of same-sex marriage, including her promise to sue to invalidate the federal Defense of Marriage Act. We have discussed, amicably, our disagreements with Kathleen. Despite those disagreements, Kathleen has our love, respect and prayers for her change of heart and mind on these issues. I no longer live in New York and I have said nothing in public about Kathleen's campaign. I must, however, reject publicly Kathleen's Labor Day statement that she is 'running for attorney general to honor my grandfather.' Her grandfather, who died in 1946, is my father, Laurence J. Rice. Perhaps that statement was written by an ignorant staffer rather than by the candidate herself. I hope so, because it dishonors my father. It implies that my father, who championed the cause of the oppressed in Ireland and elsewhere and who was an exemplary Catholic family man of total loyalty to the laws of nature and of God as taught by the Catholic Church, would be honored by a political campaign invoking his name in support of the legalization of the execution of the innocent and helpless unborn child and the elevation of same-sex relations to the legal status of marriage. Both of these initiatives, I am absolutely certain, he would regard as intrinsically evil. He would object strenuously to the misappropriation of his name in support of them. My father was a man of uncompromising integrity, charity and faith. He reserved an especially withering and vocal scorn for Irish Catholic politicians who abandon the truth for political advantage. Maybe campaign rhetoric doesn't mean anything. But I must object publicly to such a hijacking of the name and reputation of my father. Sincerely, Charles E. Rice

For more columns by Matt C. Abbot click here:  RenewAmerica

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This article was written for The American Catholic.

Enough is Enough: The Crusades & The Jihad Are Not Equivalents

by Joe Hargrave
One of the memes – the unconscious, uncritical, lazy thoughts that spreads from person to person like a virus – that has been particularly virulent during this ground-zero mosque controversy is that Christians have no standing to criticize the violence of Islam, given a supposedly violent Christian history. And no one event is more often invoked as an example of Christian hypocrisy than the so-called “Crusades” (so-called, because no one who fought in them called them that).
The latest and most appalling example appears in the NY Times, courtesy of a Nicholas D. Kristof. Among the many absurdities one can find in this column, including definitive claims as to the intentions and desires of Osama bin Laden, Kristof writes,

Remember also that historically, some of the most shocking brutality in the region was justified by the Bible, not the Koran. Crusaders massacred so many men, women and children in parts of Jerusalem that a Christian chronicler, Fulcher of Chartres, described an area ankle-deep in blood. While burning Jews alive, the crusaders sang, “Christ, We Adore Thee.”

What could be more logical, more pertinent, more relevant, than to invoke thousand-year old wartime excesses as proof that Christians have no grounds to criticize Islam?

One can go the route of modern liberal Christianity and make statements about how either a) the Crusades were a “mistake” and never should have occurred, or perhaps b) that while they may have been justified at the time, Christianity has undergone sufficient “reforms” to prevent such things from happening again, while Islam has not.
I totally reject the first notion, and I will explain why I don’t really agree with the second either. But let’s start with the first: that the Crusades were an example of unjustifiable religious violence on the part of Christians, moreover one that can be constantly invoked to equivocate Christianity and Islam as religions that are both prone to violence.


For continued reading click here:  The American Catholic

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This was posted on the Diocese of Nashville's website.

August 20, 2010

Father Breen retracts statements, apologizes

In letters to Pope Benedict XVI and to St. Edward Parish, Father Joe Pat Breen has retracted and apologized for statements made in an internet video and subsequent media interviews that Catholics are not obligated to follow teachings of the Catholic Church as defined by the pope and bishops. In addition, he has agreed to no longer voice his private concerns publically or in the media as required by a document presented to him by Bishop Edward Kmiec in 1993.

The letter to the parish also indicated that he expects to continue as pastor of St. Edward Parish until Dec. 31, 2011.

Father Breen has shared the content of those letters with Bishop David Choby and the letter to the parish will be distributed in the next few days.

Bishop Choby offered Father Breen the choice of retracting and apologizing for his statements or face the process set forth for the removal of a pastor under canon law when a ministry becomes harmful or ineffective.

The offer came during a meeting on Aug. 19, a little more than two weeks after a video interview with Father Breen posted on the St. Edward Parish website received worldwide attention. It was the bishop’s second meeting with Father Breen about his statements contradicting Church teaching. Bishop Choby asked Father Breen to remove the video from the parish site on Aug. 6. The video was removed but copies remain available on the internet and have been viewed more than 14,000 times.

In the letter to the parish, Father Breen said “the meeting was cordial and fruitful.”

For the rest of the article click here: Diocese of Nashville

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Evangelicals ‘Crossing the Tiber’ to Catholicism

Under the radar of most observers a trend is emerging of evangelicals converting to Catholicism.

By JONATHAN D. FITZGERALD

In the fall of 1999, I was a freshman at Gordon College, an evangelical liberal arts school in Massachusetts. There, fifteen years earlier, a professor named Thomas Howard resigned from the English department when he felt his beliefs were no longer in line with the college’s statement of faith. Despite all those intervening years, during my time at Gordon the specter of Thomas Howard loomed large on campus. The story of his resignation captured my imagination; it came about, ultimately, because he converted to Roman Catholicism.

Though his reasons for converting were unclear and perhaps unimaginable to me at the time (they are actually well-documented in his book Evangelical is Not Enough which, back then, I had not yet read), his reasons seemed less important than the knowledge that it could happen. I had never heard of such a thing.

I grew up outside of Boston in what could be described as an Irish-Catholic family, except for one minor detail: my parents had left the Church six years before I was born when they were swept up in the so-called “Jesus Movement” of the 1970s. So Catholicism was all around me, but it was not mine. I went to mass with my grandparents, grew up around the symbolism of rosary beads and Virgin Mary statues, attended a Catholic high school, and was present at baptisms, first communions, and confirmations for each of my Catholic family members and friends.

All throughout this time my parents never spoke ill of the Catholic Church; though the pastors and congregants of our non-denominational, charismatic church-that-met-in-a-warehouse, often did. Despite my firsthand experience with the Church, between the legend of my parents’ conversion (anything that happens in a child’s life before he is born is the stuff of legends) and the portrait of the Catholic Church as an oppressive institution that took all the fun out of being “saved,” I understood Catholicism as a religion that a person leaves when she becomes serious about her faith.

And yet, Thomas Howard is only the tip of the iceberg of a hastening trend of evangelicals converting to Catholicism. North Park University professor of religious studies Scot McKnight documented some of the reasons behind this trend in his important 2002 essay entitled “From Wheaton to Rome: Why Evangelicals become Roman Catholic.” The essay was originally published in theJournal of the Evangelical Theological Society, and was later included in a collection of conversion stories he co-edited with Hauna Ondrey entitled Finding Faith, Losing Faith: Stories of Conversion and Apostasy.

Thomas Howard comes in at number five on McKnight’s list of significant conversions, behind former Presbyterian pastor and author of Rome Sweet Home, Scott Hahn, and Marcus Grodi founder of The Coming Home Network International, an organization that provides “fellowship, encouragement and support for Protestant pastors and laymen who are somewhere along the journey or have already been received into the Catholic Church,” according to their Web site. Other featured converts include singer-songwriter John Michael Talbot and Patrick Madrid, editor of the Surprised by Truth books, which showcase conversion stories.

Would Saint Augustine Go to a Southern Baptist Church in Houston?

For the rest of the article click here:  rd MAGAZINE

* Correction to the article:  Patrick Madrid is a cradle Catholic.

To listen to a recent conversion story see the following post.

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Outgoing CUA president laments ‘confusion’ about Catholic identity in higher education

Washington D.C., May 21, 2010 / 06:12 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic higher education in the U.S. needs more guidance because of “confusion” about Catholic identity, the outgoing president of Catholic University of America has commented. An official with the U.S. bishops’ conference says that a review of Catholic higher ed is upcoming and that many schools are trying to put their Catholicity into practice.
Msgr. David O’Connell in March had a 70-minute audience with Cardinal Zenon Grocholweski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education. The monsignor told the Washington Times he wanted to converse with the cardinal about Catholic identity, "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" and the Land O’Lakes statement.
"Ex Corde Ecclesiae", a 1990 Vatican document, outlines the requirements for the governance and structuring of Catholic universities. The Land O’Lakes statement, which claimed autonomy from the Church in the name of academic freedom, was signed in Wisconsin in 1967 by 26 Catholic university presidents and other officials, according to the Washington Times.
Msgr. O’Connell stated that the 1967 statement had introduced “confusion” into the Church.
Another source of confusion, in his view, was President Obama’s invitation to deliver the commencement speech and to receive an honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame, despite the U.S. bishops’ statement that universities are not to honor pro-abortion rights public speakers.
"Obama goes to Notre Dame and everyone gets their pants in a twist; 80 bishops pile on saying Notre Dame shouldn't have done that; the president comes and gives a speech,” he told the Washington Times. However, the university “still turns away 1,000 students; they still get a million dollars in contributions; they honor the [papal] nuncio. ... They're back in the good graces of the church - what happened as a result of this?”

To read the rest of the article click here:  Catholic News Agency

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Thanks to Ignatius Insight for the text of this address.

"God is not dead. He isn't even tired."
Christendom College Commencement Address
Dr. Charles E. Rice, Professor Emeritus, Notre Dame Law School


Editor's Note: The following Commencement Address was given at Christendom College, Front Royal, Virginia, on Saturday, May 15th. It is reproduced here by kind permission of Dr. Rice.


When President O'Donnell asked me to give this address, I expressed one concern: "Will there be a protest? And will you prosecute the protestors? Or at least 88 of them?" He made no commitment. I accepted anyway.

So what can I tell you? This is a time of crises. The economy is a mess, the culture is a mess, the government is out of control. And, in the last three years, Notre Dame lost 21 football games. But this is a great time for us to be here, especially you graduates of this superbly Catholic college. This is so because the remedy for the general meltdown today is found only in Christ and in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Let's talk bluntly about our situation and what you can do about it.

We are living through a transformation of our federal government. A one-party regime, the leader of which was elected with 54 percent of the Catholic vote, is substituting for the free economy and limited government a centralized command system of potentially unlimited jurisdiction and power. Its takeover of health care, against the manifest will of the people, not only funds elective abortions and endangers the elderly and conscience rights. It was enacted in disregard of legislative process and by a level of bribery, coercion and deception that was as open as it was unprecedented.

To find a comparable example of the rapid concentration of executive power by a legally installed regime, we have to go back to 1933. Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor on January 30. Over the next few weeks he consolidated his power. The decisive event was the Reichstag's approval of the Enabling Act on March 23, 1933, by which it ceded full and irrevocable powers to Hitler. That was the point of no return. The Enabling Act received the needed two-thirds vote only because it was supported by the Catholic party, the Centre Party.[1] Our "Health Care Reform," enacted with the decisive support of Catholic members of both houses of Congress, may be the Enabling Act of our time in the control it cedes to government over the lives of the people. It includes the federal takeover of student aid. What do student loans have to do with health care? The common denominator is control. No student will be able to get a federally guaranteed educational loan without the consent of a federal bureaucrat. This opens the way to make political loyalty a test for educational advancement, as it was in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. This confirms the wisdom of Christendom's decision to forego all federal aid.

Unlike Germany in 1933, we have legal means of redress. I am proud to say I am a Tea Party guy. In November, the reaction may dislodge the Congressional arm of the ruling class. But that reaction will be only temporary unless we go to the source of the evil. The root problem is not political or economic. It is religious. And that is where you come in. "The social crisis," said Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, "happens when we elect people to rule over us who are immoral. .... [P]eople who don't have a moral bearing to elect other moral people, elect immoral politicians to serve over them.... So immoral lifestyles produce immoral leaders."[2] In other words, we elect immoral, rather than moral, people because we have lost the ability, or the desire, to tell the difference. The answer, said Fr. Euteneuer, is "to turn back to God. ... What we need is a conversion of heart."

We rightly urge fidelity to the Constitution. But no paper charter can survive the disappearance of the morality that produced it. In 2001, thirteen days after 9/11, Pope John Paul II, in Kazakhstan, cautioned the leaders of that Islamic republic against a "slavish conformity" to Western culture which is in a "deepening human, spiritual and moral impoverishment" caused by "the fatal attempt to secure the good of humanity by eliminating God, the Supreme Good."

You graduates will enter a culture in which the intentional infliction of death upon the innocent is widely seen as an optional problem-solving technique. The Columbine shootings set a precedent. If you have a grievance against your classmates, fellow employees or IRS agents, the answer is to blow them away. Legalized abortion is the prime example of murder as a problem solver. And the execution of someone like Terri Schiavo occurs routinely, without public notice, when the family and caregivers agree to withhold food and water because it is time for the patient to "die with dignity." The separation of morality from killing has counterparts in the separation of morality from economics, from sex and from personal decisions in general.

There is no mystery in this. We are living through what Fr. Francis Canavan, S.J., called "the fag end of the Enlightenment," the collapse of the effort by philosophers and politicians, over the past three centuries and more, to build a society as if God did not exist.[3] That Enlightenment culture is built on three lies, secularism, relativism and individualism. They are components of what Benedict XVI called a "dictatorship of relativism... that recognizes nothing as absolute and which leaves only the 'I' and its whims as the ultimate measure."[4] Those three lies are weapons deployed by our enemy, Satan, the father of lies. Your job, for which you are well equipped, is to counter his lies with the truth. If you speak the truth, you will have an impact beyond what you know. Cardinal Edouard Gagnon described a conversation he had with John Paul II:

[T]he Holy Father... told me, "error makes its way because truth is not taught. We must teach the truth.... not attacking the ones who teach errors because that would never end—they are too numerous. We have to teach the truth." He told me truth has a grace attached to it. Anytime we speak the truth.... an internal grace of God... accompanies that truth. The truth may not immediately enter in the mind and heart of those to whom we talk, but the grace of God is there and at the time they need it, God will open their heart and they will accept it. He said, error does not have grace accompanying it.[5]

Remember that Truth, with a capital T, "is a person, Jesus Christ."[6] And Christ is not some lawyer, CEO or community organizer. He is God. Cardinal Avery Dulles described three foundational principles: "that there is a God, that he has made a full and final revelation of himself in Jesus Christ and that the Catholic Church is the authorized custodian and teacher of this body of revealed truth."[7] The Catholic faith is not a set of doctrines. It is a lived encounter with Christ, who lives in, and teaches through, the Church.[8]

The Magisterium, or teaching authority of the Church, is a great gift, not only for Catholics but for others to whose conscience it appeals "on the basis of reason and natural law."[9] The forces of evil concentrate their fire on the Vicar of Christ, who is the authoritative interpreter of the moral law. We must respond with loyal defense of him and of the Church. We are not, to borrow Fr. Euteneuer's phrase, the Church Impotent. We are part of the Church Militant. Our job is to fight for the Truth. Don't be conned by their lies:

1). The first lie is secularism: There is no God or he is unknowable. They say that is what the First Amendment means, but that, too, is a lie. On September 24-25, 1789, the First Congress approved the First Amendment and called on the President to proclaim a day of "thanksgiving and prayer... acknowledging... the many ... favors of Almighty God."[10] President Washington proclaimed that day of prayer. The First Amendment required neutrality on the part of the federal government among religious sects while recognizing the power of the state and federal governments to affirm the existence of God. The Supreme Court has now imposed a duty on all governments to maintain an impossible neutrality between theism and non-theism. The words "under God," according to Justice William Brennan's still accurate description of the Court's approach, may remain in the Pledge of Allegiance only because they "no longer have a religious purpose or meaning." Instead they "may merely recognize the historical fact that our Nation was believed to have been founded 'under God.'" [11]

At all levels of government, the suspension of judgment on the existence of God has evolved into an establishment of secularism. Today, affirmations of God are considered non-rational, and are generally excluded from the public discourse which is shaped by utility and power rather than right or wrong.

The existence of God is not self-evident. But it is unreasonable, even stupid, not to believe in God, an eternal being that had no beginning and always existed. The alternative is that there was a time when there was absolutely nothing. But that makes no sense. St. Thomas Aquinas said, "if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence--which is absurd."[12] As Julie Andrews put it in The Sound of Music, "Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could."

The only basis for transcendent rights against the State is the creation of the immortal person in the image and likeness of God. Every state that has ever existed, or ever will exist, has gone out of business or will go out of business. Every human being that has ever been conceived will live forever. That is why you have transcendent rights against the State. The person does not exist for the State. The State exists for the person. And for the family.

2). The second lie of Satan is relativism.  

For continued reading click here:  Ignatius Insight