Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

I saw an article on LifeSiteNews the other day about an abortionist who, in the midst of extracting the parts of an 18 week old baby she had just killed, felt her own 18 week old baby kick in her womb for the first time.  She describes how tears just started to flow down her face.  The whole article is about her admission of the violence of abortion and its negative impacts on abortionists. She mentions:

“serious emotional reactions that produced physiological symptoms, sleep disturbances (including disturbing dreams), effects on interpersonal relationships and moral anguish.”

If one only quickly skims the article he might leave with the impression that this is a confession of a repentant abortionist.  It is not.  Rather,  the article, it seems to me, is an attempt to bring the suffering of abortionists into the public sphere in the vain hope that public expression of the truth of the violence of abortion will some how provide healing to those who continue in the destruction of unborn lives.

This article, it seems to me, is this doctor’s attempt to justify what she realizes at some pre-conscious level to be a grave moral transgression.  However, it is more effective in revealing the tortuous thinking that our times have brought us.  She relates an experience of running from a D&E abortion where she had just reassembled the parts of the baby she had dismembered, to another room in which she was trying to help save the life of a premature baby of the same age.  She asked the question about the moral difference between the two situations, in which she said it would be unthinkable to do to the prematurely born baby what she had just done to the unborn one.  Her answer was based upon the location of the baby and, “most importantly,” the hopes and wishes of the mother for the baby.

It is the mother’s will which determines whether it is legitimate to kill a child or not.  Instructive also is that this doctor talks about the discord between her experiences of abortion and her chosen values:

“caught between pro-choice discourse that, while it reflects our values, does not accurately reflect the full extent of our experience of abortion and in fact contradicts an enormous part of it, and the anti-abortion discourse and imagery that may actually be more closely aligned to our experience but is based in values we do not share.”

This doctor’s axiology is very post-modern.  It is the mother’s will that determines the status of the baby.  It is this capriciously chosen value disconnected from a contradictory reality, even when that reality is confirmed by her own personal experience, that allows this tormented soul to justify continuing to destroy lives: those of the unborn, of the mother, pf the father, of their families, and of all of those involved in the abortion industry.  This is indeed, a very perverse axiology and this is the value system of those who are trying to bring us “humane” healthcare reform.  Be afraid…be very afraid…

Everyone who is concerned with fighting the culture of death should be a regular reader of Wesley J. Smith’s blog at First Things: Secondhand Smoke. No one in the realm of public punditry understands better than he the ethos and tactics of the eugenicists in our midst. And, unlike prevaricators of Rod Dreher’s ilk, who think that it is more appropriate to target Glenn Beck for public recrimination than, say, John Holdren, he does not sugarcoat the perfidious direction in which the Barack Obama administration is taking our nation.

His most recent posts, this one on the New Republic’s Greg Easterbrook, in particular, are bringing to light the truly despicable anti-humanism that is now, with the advent of leftist supremacy in the White House and in congress, coming out into full display. And where are the David Frums, Rod Drehers, and paleo-conservative pundits in general in taking note of this flourishing anti-humanism of the left? They are nowhere to be found. Here’s a tidbit from Wesley Smith’s most recent post, where he makes a connection between the biotech revolution and scientific anti-humanism (part of the ethos that supports eugenics):

The biotech agenda has never been about stem cell research. That is only a stage. The ultimate agenda is Brave New World, e.g. genetic engineering, reproductive cloning, post humanism, and anything goes.  This has been hidden for political reasons, but with the hated Bush’s stem cell funding restrictions now defunct, we are beginning to see some truth in advertising.Greg Easterbrook of the New Republic fame spills some beans over at Wired.  From his column “Embrace Human Cloning:”

Others argue that cloning is “unnatural.” But nature wants us to pass on our genes; if cloning assists in that effort, nature would not be offended. Moreover, cloning itself isn’t new; there have been many species that reproduced clonally and a few that still do. And there’s nothing intrinsically unnatural about human inventions that improve reproductive odds—does anyone think nature is offended by hospital delivery made safe by banks of machines?

This does not necessarily make human cloning desirable; there are complicated issues to consider. Initial mammalian cloning experiments, with sheep and other species, have produced many sickly offspring that die quickly. Could it ever be ethical to conduct research that produces sick babies in the hope of figuring out how to make healthy clones? And clones might be treated as inferiors, rendering them unhappy.

Still, human cloning should not be out of the question. In vitro fertilization was once seen as depraved God-playing and is now embraced, even by many of the devoutly religious. Cloning could be a blessing for the infertile, who otherwise could not experience biological parenthood. And, of course, it would be a blessing for the clone itself. Suppose a clone is later asked, “Are you glad you exist even though you are physically quite similar to someone else, or do you wish you had never existed?” We all know what the answer would be.

The column is mainly a bunch of assertions without real moral engagement.  Note, for example, that Easterbrook is unable or unwilling to say categorically that it would wrong to experiment on sick babies to perfect human cloning.  And that isn’t all it would take to make human reproductive cloning “safe.”  There would have to be many thousands of cloned embryos manufactured (raising the egg biological colonialism issue), eventually gestated into fetuses, and terminated to see how the genes are expressing and as part of the attempt to discover reliable quality control techniques.  Even successful reproductive cloning would also be  human experimentation of the rankest kind since any cloned child successfully brought to birth would be subjected to continued scientific prodding and poking to see how his/her biological systems functioned.

The ethos on display in this ”Wired” article that Smith dissects — that is, turning human persons into subjects fit only for scientific experimentation – was precisely that of the Nazi regime in Germany, in its first stages, and this is why so many on the American right are now prone to level charges of Nazism at the democrats: who uniformly support the biotech revolution. This is a legitimate connection, one that Edwin Black made quite convincingly in linking early twentieth century American eugenics and scientific experimentation to the ethos of Hitler, in his important book The War Against the Weak. Indeed, it was early twentieth century American progressivism that normalized eugenics and the reduction of the person to an experimental subject for scientific prodding. One hundred years later, little has changed.

Well, things have begun to slow from an insane pace to simply crazy busy so I have time to post something quickly that Shelray’s wife passed along.  I am hoping that once things slow further to just plain busy, I will have a chance to do more posting.  As with the previous School of Theology, this is the way of life with a new start up school.

You can read more about the movie over at LifeSiteNews, but take a look at the trailer.  I hope that it does find a distributor:

Last month Shelray posted some of his original analyses here.  These analyses focused on the relationship between states accepting/not accepting abstinence only education funds and the rate of abortion in those states.  He obtained this information from the CDC and found some very surprising results.  The results were so startling that many have picked it up, including LifeNews. com.  Good job Shelray!

Last Tuesday the County Commissioners for Bexar County, Tejas met to consider Judge John Longoria for a new position in the County Courts.  Judge Longoria had every reason to expect that this would be a simple formality.  Judge Longoria had served the San Antonio community since 1968. His impressive resume included serving as County Commissioner for Bexar County, serving in Commissioners Court for 9 years, serving multiple years as County Judge, and serving for 10 years as the State Representative of District 117 in San Antonio.  One week before the interview which was this past Tuesday, he had heard back informally from four of the five commissioners that he had their support.

Then, just before the weekend the following e-mail kicked off a flurry of similar e-mails:

From: Tracy Joseph Bogert

Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 04:41:56 -0700 (PDT)

To: <tadkisson@bexar.org>; <kwolff@bexar.org>; <mdflores@bexar.org>; <pjsmothers@aol.com>; <almallopez@hughes.net>; <amadeo2008@yahoo.com>; <arios3@sanantonio.gov>; <artahall@artah.com>; <barbaranellermoe@hotmail.com>; <carlos@carlosuresti.com>; <email@judgecathy.com>; <cmstone99@yahoo.com>; <dist1field@sanantonio.gov>; <chritian@thearchergroup.org>; <cwwalker99@hotmail.com>; <christina.bazaldua@sanantonio.gov>; <cyanas@aol.com>; <danpozza@yahoo.com>; <david.leibowitz@house.state.tx.us>; <plylar@cirodrodriguez.com>; <district6@sanantonio.gov>; <lukinforcongress@aol.com>; <drodriguez24@prodigy.net>; <district7@sanantonio.gov>; <erika@cirodrodriguez.com>; <gina@cirodrodriguez.com>; <gino12395@hotmail.com>; <glorys2u@aol.com>; <campaign@henrycuellar.com>; <hpaulcanales@juno.com>; <joaquincastro125@hotmail.com>; <jgfarias@sbcglobal.net>; <gabe@joefarias.com>; <jmenende@stewart.com>; <jose.menendez@house.state.tx.us>; <judith.zaffirini@senate.state.tx.us>; <judy.peterson@house.state.tx.us>; <julian@castroformayor.com>; <justin@jrrlawoffice.com>; <kpozza@swbell.net>; <katie.floyd@radnofsky.com>; <lsalinas925@sbcglobal.net>; <lcantu8@yahoo.com>; <leticia.vandeputte@senate.state.tx.us>; <leticiavandeputte@hotmail.com>; <leticiavandeputte@sbcglobal.net>; <lcantu2@sanantonio.gov>; <district5@sanantonio.gov>; <lukintjr@worldnet.att.net>; <mario48n07@yahoo.com>; <mrobles2@sanantonio.gov>; <mapcisne@aol.com>; <maryroman@justice.com>; <mcastro@castro-killen.com>; <michael.villarreal@house.state.tx.us>; <mreyes9927@yahoo.com>; <nicmar78@hotmail.com>; <norma.Rivera@sanantonio.gov>; <norman.garza@carlosuresti.com>; <olivarrilaw@aol.com>; <pelizondo@co.bexar.tx.us>; <petersakai4judge@yahoo.com>; <meyerlaw@swbell.net>; <rachel.kahn.johnston@gmail.com>; <raquelsakai@yahoo.com>; <richardandradem@msn.com>; <rochelleacevedo@hotmail.com>; <district1@sanantonio.gov>; <district4@sanantonio.gov>; <Roger@joefarias.com>; <district3@sanantonio.gov>; <roseann.maldonado@mail.house.gov>; <ruth.mcclendon@house.state.tx.us>; <DanGraney@stonewallsanantonio.org>; <shanti4alwais@gmail.com>; <district2@sanantonio.gov>; <support@tommyadkisson.com>; <sybil@leibowitz4legislature.com>; <syromo@aol.com>; <tessa@instructors.net>; <tessaherr@att.net>; <tim.salas@sanantonio.gov>; <vsalazar@sanantonio.gov>; <jbolds@sanantonio.gov>; <cc7bogert@yahoo.com>; <misterbalconesheights@yahoo.com>; <david@texas-patriot.com>; <MIRELES1@aol.com>; <annacaballerofordistrict6@yahoo.com>; <mcwatts@wattslawfirm.com>; <ginnysmcdavid@yahoo.com>; <gabequintanilla@yahoo.com>; <Yolanda.Byington@sanantonio.gov>; <glorisaldana@att.net>; <rosalbasaenz@hotmail.com>; <aidarojas46@gmail.com>; <luckythea@aol.com>; <tinactorres@aol.com>; <rebeca@rebeca4judge.com>; <info@voteforbarbie.com>

Subject: Open letter to Commissioner’s Court

Dear Commissioners

I would like to let it be known that I would have an objection to any appointment involving John Longoria to a County Court at Law bench. I completely respect Mr. Longoria as a person and agree with many of his ideas and opinions. However I have known Mr. Longoria to be at odds with a woman’s right to choose and other issues that have federal legal precedent. There are many qualified candidates for these benches who would much less controversial than Mr. Longoria.

Again thank you for the excellent work you do for the County of Bexar.

If I were a journalist I would suspect that this group had been organized by an “astro-turf” anti-life mob.  Quite frankly, it is not a very strongly worded e-mail.  Unless I were already an ideologue I, or very much afraid of them, I would probably ignore even a hundred like e-mails.

In general, the e-mail appears to say that Judge Longoria  is acknowledged to be qualified except that because he is a pro-life (he is a Catholic and a Democrat).  Being pro-life makes him “controversial” and therefore, unfit to serve.

I suppose that we have a bunch of brain dead commissioners here in San Antonio because this is all it took to cause those previously supporting him to drop their support.  The die has been cast.  In Bexar County, if you are known to be a faithful Catholic you need not apply to any bench position with the County Courts.  I suppose that this is not much different from what is happening elsewhere.

San Antonio has been transformed recently into a very “blue” town.  The purveyors of death have become sufficiently organized and aware that they are working to eliminate anyone from the judicial branch that might interfere with the march toward ubiquitous abortion.

There was a late response by the pro-life community.  It is not clear how many e-mails were generated in support of Judge Longoria but it clearly was insufficient to turn the tide.  Our Lady of Guadalupe, Ora pro nobis.

When it comes to effectively reducing teen abortions, it’s apparent that there are those who “get it”, while others, not so much. In this case, I’ll obviously let the numbers speak for themselves.

CDC abortion statistics for years 2001 – 2005 found @ www.cdc.gov

Annual census adjustments were calculated into abortion statistics for each year 2001 – 2005. Source: Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau

States rejecting abstinence only funds included: AZ, CA, CO, CT, IA, MA, ME, MN, MT, NJ, NM, NY, OH, RI, VA, WI and WY.

The following states not reporting abortion statistics to the CDC for each year 2001 – 2005 were excluded from the calculation: AK, CA, LA, FL & NH

For teen girls under the age of 15 years old, from 2001 – 2005, there was a 7.5% decrease in abortions among the states which have rejected funding for abstinence only education.

For teen girls under the age of 15 years old, from 2001 – 2005, there was a 23.1% decrease in abortions among the states which have accepted funding for abstinence only education.

The states which have accepted funding for abstinence only education showed a 208% greater reduction in abortions among girls 14 years old and younger, when compared to the states which have rejected funding for abstinence only education.

Overall, the abortion rate among girls younger than 15 years old in states which rejected abstinence only funding was 37.3% higher, than in states which accepted funding

CDC abortion statistics for years 2001 – 2005 found @ www.cdc.gov

Annual census adjustments were calculated into abortion statistics for each year 2001 – 2005. Source: Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau

States rejecting abstinence only funds included: AZ, CA, CO, CT, IA, MA, ME, MN, MT, NJ, NM, NY, OH, RI, VA, WI and WY.

The following states not reporting abortion statistics to the CDC for each year 2001 – 2005 were excluded from the calculation: AK, CA, LA, FL & NH

For teen girls under the age of 20 years old, from 2001 – 2005, there was a 5.2% decrease in abortions among the states which have rejected funding for abstinence only education.

For teen girls under the age of 20 years old, from 2001 – 2005, there was a 20.5% decrease in abortions among the states which have accepted funding for abstinence only education.

The states which have accepted funding for abstinence only education showed a 294.2% greater reduction in abortions among girls 19 years old and younger, when compared to the states which have rejected funding for abstinence only education.

Overall, the teen abortion rate among girls 19 years old and younger for states which rejected abstinence only funding was 48.2% higher, than in states which had accepted funding.

The Pontifical Council for the Family provides some guidelines for sex education within the family.

We finally closed on the house but every step of the way, it looked like it would not happen.  From a loan officer whom we could not get to talk to us to a loan assistant who seemed not to be matched to her particular skill set.  Half way into the process when this became apparent we should have probably cut our losses and went elsewhere.  Any way, unless some surprise pops up (a potential eventuality I am not yet discounting) we may now be officially off the homeless rolls thanks to Shelray’s assistance.

As is usual, I have been quite busy but still have had a chance now and then to keep up on the goings on.  I have been thinking about the unsurprising response of many commentators in the media about the responsibility of the pro-life movement for the killing of notorious abortionist George Tiller along with the broader implications of this response.

Beginning with Mike Hendricks’s illuminating (though not illuminated) blathering in the Kansas City Star and then the subsequent piling on of the likeminded (if I can use the term): see Colby Cosh’s tirade in the National Post, and Ellen Goodman’s tortuous logic in the Boston Globe. The expected theme is the same in all of these: those who call abortion murder are thereby also guilty of Tiller’s murder.  If one looks at the logic flowing from these representatives of the mass media, one finds ominous signs for religious freedom and any speech that does not comport with the ruling party line.

Like BO’s speech at Notre Dame implied, these writers begin with the premise that abortion is not murder.  For BO it may be a significant moral consideration but it is not the killing of an innocent human person.  For BO dispassionate dialog can only begin on this premise.  It is not clear that those represented by the above media representatives are even open to allowing the prolife community a platform.  However, if they are, prolifers must first disavow the equation of abortion with murder.  This is the trap that so-called pro-life/pro-Obama Catholics seem to fall into.  To be invited to the table, they must be willing to reject such inflammatory language as “murder.”

The tactic of censoring speech because it is said to incite violence is nothing new.  The abortion lobby has used it for years and the homosexualist activists have adopted it as well.  However, the circumstances have changed considerably. One who shares this view now has the nation’s bully pulpit and the party most sympathetic to this view now hold dominant majorities in both houses of congress.  This is not to mention that the courts have been increasingly populated with activists who are also more and more likely to abet such a view.

Moreover, abortion is only one plank in the aggressive social restructuring agenda that the current president seems poised to attempt to enact.  His proclamation of June as LGBT pride month was also telling. In making this proclamation, BO put the office of the President squarely against natural law and the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Same sex attraction and gender identity disorders are now protected, nay, preferred and promoted lifestyle choices (see this LifeSiteNews article for an example of the results of this distorted way of thinking).  However, there is a stumbling block in the way of such an ambitious project.  We are beginning to see the administration’s strategy for overcoming this “problem.”

The actions of the Obama administration in appointing radically pro-abortion and anti-family “Catholic” zealots to executive and judicial posts, and its promoting of relationships with “Catholic” notables and organizations that are attempting to attenuate the significance of Catholic cooperating with pro-abortion policies all seem aimed at developing a dissenting “anti-magisterium” that can offset the authority of the only authoritative and organized voice against abortion and for protecting the natural family.  The Catholic Church is in fact the biggest threat to this social restructuring agenda.  No opportunity will be passed up in the attempt to marginalize, discredit, counter, or silence the truth about the human person proclaimed by the Catholic Church in the US.  The media’s response to the Tiller murder illustrates this.

Cosh’s comments are the most illuminating.  He indicates that if abortion is murder, then Tiller’s murder is justified and the pro-life community has to embrace this.  The others writers implicitly accept this when they say that calling abortion murder makes violence the logical consequence.  Obama’s response to the murder seems to imply the same.  For all of their talk of peace and justice, this logic betrays an implied threat to both.

I believe these rumblings to be ominous because they share the thinking of Robespierre and the purveyors of the Reign of Terror.  Declaring themselves the guardians of liberty, they mean their own liberty to act as they wish with no limitations placed upon them.  They have an implicit distrust others because their own will is made the arbiter of truth and so there is no way of adjudicating between competing wills other than through means of force.  Those who do not readily accept their assertions cannot be reasoned with for there is no defensible use of reasoned arguments in their assertions.  Thus, violence on their part is an ever looming threat.  What we are now seeing appears to be the preparations for justifying such violence (intended or not).

By no means is the majority of the country yet with this agenda.  However, neither does it have the intellectual or moral formation to defeat it on its own.  To overcome the current threat, we require the clear and unwavering voice of the Catholic Church.  This is what we began to see from the bishops during the last election and what we saw with the Notre Dame scandal.  The bishops see the impending threat and many are beginning to respond.  I think that the majority within the country is still influenced by natural law and the Gospel.  However, they require our faithful and continuing witness if we are to overcome the deleterious effects of the mass media engine and the bully pulpit of the current administration.

8 Jerusalem has sinned so gravely that she has become a thing unclean. All who used to honour her despise her, having seen her nakedness; she herself groans aloud and turns her face away.

9 Her filth befouls her skirts — she never thought to end like this, and hence her astonishing fall with no one to comfort her. Yahweh, look at my misery, for the enemy is triumphant!

-Lamentations 1:8-9

Comprehensive sex education?  Planned Parenthood’s research and education arm, the Guttmacher Institute now recommends the following:

Health care providers and health educators should discuss withdrawal as a legitimate, if slightly less effective, contraceptive method in the same way they do condoms and diaphragms. Dismissing withdrawal as a legitimate contraceptive method is counterproductive for the prevention of pregnancy and also discourages academic inquiry into this frequently used and reasonably effective method.

Does anyone remember the Consumer Reports assessment on Planned Parenthood condoms several years back?

The numbers* are indisputable, and it speaks volumes as to the mindset of the people who elect law makers who reject the common sense approach to abstinence only education. It’s an indictment of  the twisted will, which rejects the biological evidence which reveal the child’s brain is not yet equipped or developed enough to make adult like decisions.

I came across a planned parenthood news letter (pdf page 12) which attempted to prove that “comprehensive” sex education was superior to abstinence only education, based on their own generalized and vague abortion statistics from a handful of  “cherry picked” states. To test their theory, I ran the latest abortion numbers from All the states which reported to the CDC in 2005. I compared the teen abortion rates of the (17) states which reject abstinence only education funds with those ( 31) which accept them, using the 2002 census estimation. I discovered that the 2005 abortion rates for teens were 46% higher in states which reject funding for abstinence only when compared to those which accept them.

AZ, CA, CO, CT, IA, MA, ME, MN, MT, NJ, NM, NY, OH, RI, VA, WI and WY (fund rejecting states) need to stop playing politics.

Interpret from this what you will, but the numbers are just too big to be ignored.

(The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education Programs in Reducing Sexual Activity Among Youth – 2002)

* Updated with corrected numbers

I saw that Tom Hoopes had a post today over at NCRegister that really is quite moving.  It is about a little, seven year old girl named Emma whose biological mother was an unwed 16 year old who had initially planned to abort Emma but had changed her mind.  Emma’s mother said about her change of heart:

Something told me not to go through with it because God has a special plan for this little girl…

Emma is by all accounts, a very spiritually mature 7 year old.  In her innocence she teaches her adoptive parents and she also teaches me:

The report says Emma was 3 the first time she mentioned the Pope. She saw him on TV in the hospital and sat up in bed. “That’s my new pope,” she told her mother. “That’s my new pope. Do you think I can ever meet him?”

Watson didn’t pay much attention to the request. But over time she saw how serious her daughter was.

The Make-a-Wish Foundation doubted a child would request to see the Pope, Watson said. So several people wrote letters on her behalf.

“Ever since Emma began talking, she has spoken about prayer and wanting to become a nun,” wrote Dr. Hrair Garabedian, a Spokane cardiologist. “Again, I am surprised by her complete devotion to God, but it does not surprise me at all she has requested a visit with the pope.”

“Emma is a very special child and in some spiritual way, old beyond her years,” said another letter to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Watson said Emma is joyful, never complains, and has a deep faith.

Mrs. Watson told the Associated Press:

“Some small part of us thought we were doing something good by saving this sick little girl, not realizing it was God’s plan all along to save us – from selfishness, from not getting caught up in the little things of life. One of the biggest things we’ve learned is to take things one day at a time and try not to worry about tomorrow.”

Reading a bit about this little girl and was something of an integrating experience for me.  In contemplating the teaching impact of a little one whose life was spared, a life the world demands never be allowed to leave the womb alive, one is drawn to return to the mystery of Providence. Providence is often a truth that we explore only when we are forced to decide for it or against it.  That is, we have no choice but to trust in God and that He has a plan for us or to despair.

This Lent was an unusually good spiritual experience for me in this regard. It began with a very humbling episode.  March 3rd was our 25th wedding anniversary and I had planned on giving my wife with a trip to Rome which we had more or less been saving for.  Instead, I had to cancel those plans and give her the news of my pink slip I had received the day before, on the first Monday of Lent.

Of course there was good that came out of this disappointment.  It caused me to contemplate how much of what I was doing was for God and how much was for me.  It allowed me to realize that I could not, of my own capacities, provide the security and protection for my family that most men feel the obligation to provide.  It shook me out of my spiritual comfort and complacency and challenged me to again surrender myself to God’s merciful Providence.

Lent this year was an experience of continual effort to trust when I could not see the pathway forward.  It was a continual effort to give myself to my students even though I would not be able to see them through to the end of their studies…and to give them even more since the time was now so short.  It was a continual challenge to continue to give myself totally to the apostolate about which I was continually tempted to separate from emotionally, the apostolate that had told me that I would no longer be able to serve with them.

This experience was in some small way, an experience of solidarity with Jesus.  Though, I did recognize that it was very small.  Previous to my own impending unemployment, I was continually drawn to thoughts and prayers for friends, like Hierothee, who have been much more affected by the lack of teaching jobs than I.  I recognized that there were many others who were coming to the end of their financial ropes and did not know where they would be living very soon.  So, it was not so much that I did not recognize or appreciate the relative magnitude of my experience, rather it was that I had not fully ascertained its personal importance for my spiritual life.

I still had not adequately recognized the increase in faith, minuscule as it might be, God had drawn from me in the experience and how he had used it to prune from me my unholy attachment to the trappings of the apostolate I was serving and the false sense of security I put in my own efforts rather than in Him.

It was the story of this little girl who wants to see “her Pope,” presumably because he manifests to her the God in whom she places all of her trust, which provided me the pure grist, separated from the chaff of the experience, I needed to see those aspects of my Lenten experience which I had permitted to purify me and those for which I still needed to permit purification.  This side of heaven there will continually be disordered attachments to the things of the world, even holy things that make use of the created order.  I can only believe that this little innocent girl will teach others even greater things about the joy and comfort that comes from putting our hope only in the Lord, but for me, one whom some call “professor”, she has taught alot.

Here’s another reason to boycott CNN…if you needed one (from Fidelis):

CNN Rejects Ad Celebrating Obama’s Life
Ad Was to Air Following State of the Union Address

CHICAGO – CNN has rejected an uplifting and positive ad focusing on the historic inauguration of Barack Obama, submitted for the State of the Union Address on Feb. 24.

CNN claims the ad “suggests a position in favor of the advocacy message, without having permission of the persons involved.”

Burch reacted to CNN’s claims: “This is absurd. Our ad does not suggest that Barack Obama is pro-life. Instead, we make the obvious point that Obama’s mother gave birth to a child that ultimately became the 1st African American President. This is a fact, not an opinion.”

The standard CNN used to reject the ad did not prevent the network from airing a 2005 ad sponsored by the pro-abortion group NARAL that suggested that then Judge John Roberts supported violence against abortion clinics.

 CatholicVote.org, Kathy Christianson of CNN’s Commercial Clearance Department announced that they would not sell a spot to run the Obama ad:

“CNN doesn’t accept advocacy ads that portray personal decisions in a manner that suggests a position in favor of the advocacy message, without having permission of the persons involved. CNN is not accepting this particular advocacy ad because it deals with a highly personal and private matter and does so without the consent of those involved.”

“There is nothing objectionable in this positive, life-affirming advertisement. We never mention the word abortion. We show an ultrasound of a baby. And we congratulate Barack Obama on becoming the first African-American President. And we simply ask people to imagine the potential of each human life,” said Burch.

The ad aired on BET in Chicago on Inauguration Day. It has become an Internet hit with over 1.6 million views since Jan. 20. The ad was in the top 10 ‘most viewed’ category on YouTube on Inauguration Day last month.

The ad reads: “This child’s future is a broken home. He will be abandoned by his father. His single mother will struggle to raise him. Despite the hardships he will endure…this child…will become…the 1st African-American President.” The ad concludes with the tagline, “Life: Imagine the Potential.” The ad is the first of several ads in new campaign launched by CatholicVote.org.

The Obama ad can be viewed at CatholicVote.org, which is a project of the Fidelis Center for Law and Policy.

As I was working out this morning I saw that CNN was covering the National Prayer Breakfast, live.  I am not sure that I recall their having done that in the past.  Does anyone know?

Any way, Melissa, our librarian, pointed out to me something interesting in the text of BO’s short talk at this morning’s prayer breakfast:

But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.

Now if BO would just learn his basic embryology…

For those who are interested, here is some insight  from someone within the White House office for executive branch correspondence about the potential fruitfulness and the best approach for getting your concerns to BO:

1.) President Obama does demand that each correspondence is reviewed and logged, so you will be heard if you take the time to write to him.
2.) Electronic submissions are given the same attention as a hand written letter. In fact, all paper correspondence are converted into electronic form eventually. You can submit an electronic correspondence here:    http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
3.) If you do write a letter make it short and to the point. Sign your name.
4.) If you want to express emotions, state them, don’t try to convey them in your writing. (“This decision angers me” is better than “You are a jerk”)
5.) Personal statements are better than pre-written postcard that you sign. However, if you only have time to send the postcard, it’s better than nothing.
6.) WRITE, WRITE, WRITE. There is an entire department devoted solely to correspondence, so make sure your opinion is recorded.

Here is my short and to the point letter:

1.  I want to urge you to always remember your responsibility is to serve the common good of all human beings.

2.  One does not require divine revelation to appropriate the embryological fact that the life of a human being begins when the egg is fertilized and a unique DNA comes into existence

3. Those who have employed word games to quibble about which human beings might be denied their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness include such company as Southern US slave holders, German National Socialists and Soviet Socialists.

4. Does your failure to serve the common good of all by denying the unborn these rights imply your denial of science, your affinity for some aspect of one of the above philosophies, or is it due to some peculiar religious doctrine that you wish to impose upon others?

In reading Archbishop Robert Herman’s, the Administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, recent column published in the St. Louis Review, I was reminded of G. K. Chesterton’s famous poem written in 1907, “The Secret People.”

In his article, Bishop Herman put things in the right perspective, showing that anger at BO and his administration is misplaced (do read the entire column linked to above).  Rather, our anger, or rather our focus, ought to be on the enabling of Catholics (or half of us) and of Catholic politicians who have allowed us to arrive at where we now stand.  BO did not hide what he had planned even if the MSM did its best to keep it out of public view.

It is a failure of Catholics to understand and live their faith that has allowed the country to drift into a post-Christian, post-God malaise.  Chesterton’s poem is written about events in English history that he sees as significant. Chesterton asserts that the average Englishman was/is more endowed with common sense than those leaders whose goal it was to labor for freedom from the Crown.  However, in each of these events he writes of he admonishes, it seems to me, the average Englishman for his silence being more interested in mundane niceties than fighting for what justice:

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget;
For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.
There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,
There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.
There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.
There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;
You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:
Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.

Chesterton writes of the suppression of Catholic monasteries in England while the common Englishman says nothing:

They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind,
Till there was no bed in a monk’s house, nor food that man could find.
The inns of God where no man paid, that were the wall of the weak.
The King’s Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak.

He writes about reign of Charles I in an indictment of the blindness, in fact, the tyranny of the democratic forces that opposed Charles.  Recall that Charles I was the last King of England who professed the divine right of kings and who was eventually executed for his various attempts to secure this right:

And the face of the King’s Servants grew greater than the King:
He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring.
The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey’s fruits,
And the men of the new religion, with their bibles in their boots,
We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss,
And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us.
We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale;
And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale.

He goes on to speak of Napoleon and others but ends with what he seems to find to be the sad state of political affairs of his time and the fact that the common Englishman has not spoken yet:

They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs.

We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia’s wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God’s scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.

What is common to both Bishop Herman’s column and Chesterton’s poem is that we all know, or should know, what is right and what is wrong.  We have the responsibility for standing up for what is right.

In our present circumstances, we must stand for the right of the unborn to be born and for the right of society to be free from the tyranny of disordered social structures mascarading as protected alternative lifestyles.  We have to put truth and justice ahead of convenience and social acceptance.  We have to put down our ale and stand to protest against erroneous claims of promoting freedom that in fact, deprive us of authentic freedom.

Both, perhaps could  be summarized by the dictum attributed to that 18th century Irishman, Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.”  Let us not talk of ale while our blind politicians talk of freedom.

Well, it was not a surprise I suppose, but it was still a blow.  On Friday, as expected, BO signed an executive order reversing the Mexico City policy which now allows US funded NGOs to promote abortion–and promote they will.  It is not a surprise since BO made it clear that this was his plan and he is filling his staff which will oversee life issues, with proabortion zealots.  BO has bought into the illusion that abortion is a matter of women’s rights just as he has bought into the error that the same sex attraction disorder agenda is also a matter of civil rights.  Thus, these are areas in which he will brook no compromise.

The extent to which these rights extend in his mind can be seen in his active support of FOCA and his rejection of former President Bush’s end of term executive order put in place to safeguard the right to conscience of health care workers.  The ACLU is emblematic of this disturbing thinking.  The right to act according to one’s conscience is trumped by a supposed “right” not just to “act out” on disorders (abortion, SSAD, etc.) but also by a “right” to force others to enable such behavior.  In fact, BO’s support for additional “hate crimes” legislation, as we are seeing in Canada and in Europe, suggests that religious liberties are also to be subordinated to such fabricated “rights.”

The tyranny that appears to be on our horizon, the foreshadowing of which was Friday’s executive order, is a modern form of tyranny which Monsignor Robert Sokolowski mentions in his epic tome, Phenomenology of the Human Person.  In summarizing the way that syntax reveals the human person as the agent of truth, Sokolowski asserts that the corruption of truth is the aspect of modern tyranny that makes it perhaps the greatest malady man must endure.  He refers to George Orwell’s novel 1984:

… modern tyranny is complete only when subjects are willing to disavow their own exercise of truthfulness, and to say that four fingers being held up in front of them are not necessarily four, but that they could be three, or five, or four, or even all of these at once, depending on what the Party says the are.  As the tyrannical O’Brien says to Winston in 1984, “The thought is all we care about,” and, “When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will” (96).

Clearly, the tyranny is not yet complete.  However, it seems that the groundwork is now being laid.  The majority of the US electorate either cared not enough about the threat or did not see it clearly enough.  The crisis atmosphere is now upon us which makes the possibility that the majority could willingly abandon their responsibilities as agents of truth all the more credible. We will see in the next few months how committed BO is to social reconstruction as a priority.  He has loaded his administration with abortion ideologues.  He is willing to now spend scarce US tax dollars on pushing the abortion “ideal” upon the underdeveloped world.  If he champions FOCA and hate speech legislation amidst the crises he has on his plate, the answer will be clear.

When Catholic hospitals and all healthcare workers of conscience  find that they now are obligated to cooperate with the culture of death, expect to hear again Blago’s retort to Illinois pharmacists…”it’s time to find another profession.”  When Christians, Jews, and Muslims are ordered to no longer teach that abortion is murder or that same sex attraction is a disorder, expect to hear that they have no right to promote hateful and devisive ideas. When BO holds up four fingers and asks what you see, expect to hear the Party whisper in your ear the answer you are to give before you have a chance to respond.

We may have turned the corner that we all were hoping we would not turn.  If this charismatic man who now inhabits the White House indends, as his first priority, on foisting upon us the social shennanigans he has promised, then the Church in the U.S. should be ready for persecution well beyond the threat of taxation we are now seeing in San Francisco.  With the Psalmist we should pray all the more fervently for the Church: Lord, protect Her from evil, guard Her still.

The CatholicVote.com – Grassroots video I posted on the other day is doing quite well apparently. It has already had over 5 million hits since it was debuted a few days ago. They are now running it on major networks. If you have an extra $3M you don’t know what to do with, perhaps you could contact them about helping to run it during the Super Bowl. Here is some more info over at LifeSiteNews.com.

This is the first of a 10 video campaign by CatholicVote.com. I promise to keep you informed as the next nine appear (or at least as I am informed any way). Who knows, perhaps we might even get a pre-release look.

Most everyone has seen the new viral video produced by Grassroots Films for CatholicVote.com:

It is a brilliant video by Joe Campo and his young men. Unfortunately, it will not likely sway some people. That is, the many who rabidly support abortion will certainly not get the point.

They will not ask themselves the question: when would then the first black US president would then have come about if BO’s mother had done the “sensible” thing and “terminated her pregnancy”? Sensible that is if the father had not married her or if she had known that she would soon be a single mom whose son would get in the way of her studies and later career.

They will not ask themselves what other firsts have been missed because other mothers have made that “wrenching choice” which after all, does have a “moral dimension” to it.

They will not ask these questions because when they first see the picture of the ultrasound in this video they will see the enemy. This unborn baby is what stands in the way of their “freedom” to behave as if there were no consequences to their actions.  He is the enemy who threatens their consciences when the see him and claim to see only a “lump of tissue.”

They will not ask the question: when did this particular lump of tissue transform itself from the enemy into their messiah? They will not ask because it was foreordained, though they will not ask themselves by whom, that at this auspicious point in time (i.e. that they are around to “benefit” from it) they would be given this guarantor of “hope” who promises to lead them to Nietzsche’s “great sea of endless possibilities” in which no one need be restricted by nature to a sexual identity or sexual preference or family structure or anything else that restricts their will to power.

However, there are hopefully many more people of good will who will be affected by it. Perhaps they will ask the questions. Perhaps they will follow them to the necessary conclusions.

I wonder if BO will ever get to see this video. I wonder if he will ask the questions…

Sharing some of our pics and videos from the last couple Saturdays @ the local Planned Parenthood @ 104 Babcock rd. in San Antonio, TX.