X-Rated Catholic Campuses -- Run by Jesuits (No Surprise)

One has to wonder about the sexual orientation of many Jesuits in view of the horrible scandals on their campuses. Most of the Catholic schools featuring the V-Monologues this year were Jesuit. They included USF, Santa Clara, Georgetown, Seattle U., Holy Cross, Fairfield, Fordham, John Carroll, and Loyola of Chicago.

And now, as Lent begins, we have three more examples of Jesuit lust and perversion exploiting students. Georgetown, Loyola of Chicago, and Seattle University have given the penitential season new meaning. Instead of the traditional time of repentence, these campuses will fill the weeks of Lent with talks by porn writers and directors, a "Color of Queer Film Series," and gender-bending activities including interpreting Biblical heroes and heroines as transgendered. Read more...

It's all so relentlessly predictable and evil. But will we hear anything from the local prelates whose dioceses are polluted by these so-called institutions of higher learning? Don't hold your breath. Unlike Bishop Martino who addressed the scandal at Misericordia where a gay activist was invited to speak and has urged disbanding of the "diversity institute," most bishops act like the three monkeys covering their eyes, ears, and mouths so they won't have to do anything. Perhaps they are just imitating the monkeys at these institutions who pass for college presidents. Pray for bishops who let the monkeys rampage among the sheep. I suspect it's part of the "diversity" plan to transform the sheep into goats. The monkeys in the president's offices and the monkeys in the chanceries seem to be doing a pretty good job on that score. Unfortunately, it's one they will have to answer for on judgment day.

P.S. I apologize to the two good Jesuits I know for the evil antics of their bastard brethren. Please excuse the coarse language, but these men certainly can't be authentic sons of St. Ignatius.

George Will Takes on His Critics

George Will has been in the liberal crosshairs ever since he published his article, Dark Green Doomsayer, comparing the 1970s hysteria over the coming ice age with today's global warming mania. Today he published a response to his critics, Climate Science in a Tornado, which is also being attacked. I'm sure he's enjoying the excitement. Nothing like being a tornado watcher. The only thing better is being inside the tornado and surviving it. Go, George, go. And thanks for the smack at the New York Times. I still get occasional phone calls urging me to subscribe. I tell them I don't eat enough fish to use it. The so-called paper of record is nothing but a record of unleashed one-sided liberalism masquerading as journalism. Every page is the editorial page, but without being honest enough to admit it. No wonder they're losing business to The Wall Street Journal.

Bishop Martino, Our (Super) Hero

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Bishop Martino warning pro-abortion Catholic politicians to defend truth, justice, and the American way -- well, Catholic truth and justice anyway; the American way these days is unfortunately X-rated.

The good bishop of Scranton increasingly is the hero of pro-life Catholics who have been calling for Church authorities to enforce Canon Law 915 (denying Communion to obstinate sinners). The purpose of 915 is threefold: to preserve the Eucharist from sacrilege, to limit scandal, and to be a medicine to those with sick souls who don't have the integrity to stop receiving Communion on their own.

Bishop Martino's directive is clear: "Those whose unworthiness to receive Holy Communion is known publicly to the Church must be refused Holy Communion in order to prevent sacrilege and to prevent the Catholic in question from committing further grave sin through unworthy reception." While the document didn't name anyone specifically there's no doubt of at least one intended politician. The same day the chancery released the directive on Communion (which is an instruction to ministers of Holy Communion), Bishop Martino sent a second letter of warning to Pennsyvania Governor Bob Casey. Bishop Martino's intention could not be more clear. The question is will Casey obey? Pro-abortion politicians generally believe they are above the law, both Church and state. But for once a pro-abortion Catholic politician is facing an adversary who's a man of steel.

Thank you, Bishop Martino, from the bottom of our hearts. We pray for you and for the obstinate public sinners you correct. May your strong medicine bring them to their senses and back to the Communion rail with repentant hearts.

RELATED ARTICLES

Bishop Martino could take church affiliation from Misericordia

Bishop Martino accuses Sen. Bob Casey of “cooperating with … evil”

Biden risks refusal of Holy Communion

Is Catholic Charities Catholic? Follow the (government) money!

Fr. Larry Snyder, the head of Catholic Charities USA will serve with the Obama administration's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. There's no question that Father's decision is good for the administration. They continually play the game that pro-death liberals are really pro-life as they mandate abortion-on-demand for third world nations and plan to promote abortion full speed ahead with no brakes whatsoever here in the U.S. It's 1984's newspeak Love is hate and hate is love; black is white and white is black. Get used to the double-talk, even from men in Roman collars.

While acknowledging there are "disagreements" with the administration, Snyder says there are places where their policies "converge" especially with the "poor and the marginalized." Translation: We'll use your tax dollars to "do charity" like supporting bad loans and facilitating illegal immigration.

Father also claims, “There can be no doubt that Catholic Charities is a firmly pro-life organization." Really?

Excuse my cynicism, but is that the same Catholic Charities that arranged the abortion of a 16-year-old in Richmond, VA not long ago? Is it the same group that took federal funding in my own diocese in the mid 80s for a horrible sex ed program for middle schoolers that used Planned Parenthood materials and speakers who said there was "no problem with masturbation?" Is that the Catholic Charities that in San Francisco joined with "Family Builders" so they could continue adoption services to gays? (Fortunately they did not renew the contract in 2008. One suspects the earlier decision cut into their donations.) And what about the CC employees who support the culture of death? Diogenes from Catholic World News listed a number of them in a 2003 Off the Record article.

Catholic Charities has become an arm of liberal, big-tax-and-spend government. How much CC money goes to lobby for more federal and state funding (not to mention fundraise)? It's no wonder Fr. Snyder accepted the position. CC is already on the government payroll bigtime and we gotta keep the money flow coming. So cozy up to the most pro-abortion, pro-infanticide administration in history. What if it does give Obama and company cover for their evil agenda...as long as the money tree keeps producing!

For dozens of article on Catholic Charities' unsavory history, visit Catholic Culture. And give your hard-earned money to a real charity, for example the Missionaries of Charity or a local crisis pregnancy center. The phrase "government charity" is an oxymoron.

Pepsi Promotes Perversion - Buy Generic!

Pepsi is an in-your-face (literally) promoter of the sodomite lifestyle. The company has two TV ads out now that promote same-sex hookups. Both start by playing on the natural attraction between attractive men and women and end in the punch-line of men lusting for men. Oh, it's low key for now -- no kiss, not even physical contact. But it's using sex (gay sex) to sell a product.

Ah well, Madison Avenue has done that for years with the gorgeous model sprawled on the hood of the car or a bikini clad beach bunny drinking a particular soft drink while a handsome guy slathers on the right suntan lotion. Levis actually had two versions of an ad for jeans awhile back -- one with a same-sex couple and the other with a normal couple. (I use the word normal very deliberately. Perversion will never be normal no matter how many people buy the lie.)

Lent calls us to repent from sin and return to the Lord. Lust, no matter how it shows its ugly face is lust, one of the seven deadly sins. It's endemic to our culture (along with greed). The devil will gladly rope in the adulterer, the fornicator, the sodomite, the stripper, and those committing sins of impurity in all its forms.

The devil is devious. He takes what makes us most like God - our power to co-create with Him a new human life, and perverts it. In the garden he told Eve, "If you eat the apple you'll be like God." Today he tells us "If you worship pleasure, you'll find heaven on earth." It was a lie then; it's a lie now, but many are taken in by it... and create their own hell on earth. Ask someone dying of AIDS or a suffering post-aborted woman who says, "I regret my abortion" whether her "choice" brought happiness.

Classic literature is filled with the tragic outcome of lust. Read Anna Karenina, Kristin Lavransdatter, Troilus and Cressida, The Scarlet Letter, and scores of others. Lust always wears glimmering garments, but underneath is corruption.

Lent is a time to achieve true freedom from sin. Mary Magdalene, the harlot, becomes a saint. Hawthorne's fictional Hester Prynne is transformed. Every day is new in the Lord's time and he promises to remember our sins no more -- but only if we repent. So "if today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts."

Spend some time this Lent refelcting on the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. The first meditation could well begin with the words of the priest as he applies ashes. "Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou must return."

And drink water -- not Pepsi.

What a difference a REAL SHEPHERD makes!

Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino warned the orgnanizers of the St. Patrick's Day Parade that the Cathedral will be closed to them if they honor pro-abortion politicians. So they won't. In 2008 Hillary Clinton participated in the parade with huge campaign signs. Let's hope the bishop's ban includes scandalous pro-abortion politicians marching or appearing in any official way in the parade.

Les Femmes applauds the bishop's actions. It's high time we have shepherds who speak with the voice of authority instead of sounding like smarmy politicians and CEOs selling soap.

Thank you, Bishop Martino. You have our prayers and our full support!

Are you ready for Lent?

Tomorrow is shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent and Mardi Gras Day. What used to be a feast to eat up all the dairy products, etc. before the great fast has become a day of bacchanalian excess for many. But for Christians who take Lent seriously, these last two days are a time to reflect on how Lent can bring us closer to Our Lord and Savior. 

Oftentimes, I'm so caught up in the daily grind that Lent is half gone before I decide what I'm going to do. Not this year. I'm thinking about it today. What are good things to do to increase prayer, fasting, and almsgiving? Prayer: daily Mass, daily rosary, and weekly holy hour are an all-year standard to aim for, especially if you're retired and don't have the family obligations of the young. For families, adding a daily Mass once a week, saying an evening decade of the rosary with the children, and attending Stations together as a family offers a great example to children. 

Weekly (or even daily) Stations of the Cross if you can will be a constant reminder of the need for personal repentance and atonement for our country. Saying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy every day or even a few times a week would also be an appropriate choice, meditating on the Lord's passion. One can combine the Stations and the Chaplet by going through the stations as you say it. During the first decade the first three stations, the second decade the next three, etc. 

 Choosing a special Lenten companion is also a great way to pray through Lent. St. Francis de Sales has a set of Lenten sermons that provide much food for meditation. Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich and Blessed Mary of Agreda both experienced revelations about the passion of Our Lord that have been published. Reflecting on the seven dolors of Mary can draw you closer to the Mother of God who shared her Son's passion more than anyone else. Magnificat offers a Lenten companion. 

Fasting: Food isn't the only way to fast and may not be the best. What are you too attracted to? Is there something that borders on an obsession? Computer games? text-messaging? TV? Fasting doesn't mean living in moderation; we should do that all year long. It really means giving up something extra that's a basic. The traditional Lenten fast is to eat one full meal a day and two smaller that don't add up to a full meal. Of course, in our land of excess, what constitutes a full meal is relative. If you already consume enough calories at one meal for an entire day, a little self-examination is in order. But even a small sacrifice can draw you closer to God. Don't make it an all or nothing situation and if you goof up one day, just start over. The Lord knows what spoiled children we are and he loves even our feeble efforts. I remember reading a book once where the author said that part of the cross we carry is the fact we carry it so badly. So if you fall, remember Jesus showed us what to do: keep getting up and putting one foot in front of the other. 

Almsgiving: Do acts of charity. Don't just give money, although that's good - give of yourself. Visit a nursing home. Join the 40 Days of Life in your city and pray outside an abortion mill. Visit a crisis pregnancy center with a bag of new baby clothes and diapers. Call your elderly aunt who hasn't heard from you in ages and tell her you love her. Make peace with an estranged family member. The ideas are endless. If you have children, get them involved in doing some secret charity. Do you know a family in trouble in these hard economic times? How about leaving a bag of groceries at their front door with an anonymous love note. 

 Don't let Easter Sunday find you regretting that you did nothing or very little for Lent. I've been there and am determined I won't be again. MORE SOURCES Personal Program for Lent EWTN FAQ's About Lent

Bishop Thomas Welsh, First Bishop of Arlington, Dies in Allentown

Diocese announces funeral services for Bishop Welsh

Clergy recall Allentown Diocese Bishop Thomas J. Welsh for commitment to faith

Former Arlington Bishop Welsh dies

When I heard that Bishop Welsh was seriously ill ten days ago, I sent the following to my email list. I post it now as a memorial to a man I considered a true spiritual father. Please pray for the repose of his soul and ask for his intercession on our poor country.

Dear Friends,

I received word last night that Bishop Thomas Welsh, first shepherd of Arlington, is in critical condition in an Allentown hospital with a serious heart ailment. Please keep him in your prayers.

Bishop Welsh is one of the most gracious men I've ever known. I was at a function once where he greeted almost everyone who approached him by name. I was amazed. He was one of the first bishops to lead a major prayer demonstration at an abortion mill, the Northern Virginia Women's Medical Center.

After he left for Allentown and after his retirement I used to see him occasionally when he was in town because he generally would visit the Poor Clares and say Mass for them. It was always a pleasure to go back to the sacristy and say hello. He always asked about the children.

He once visited our home in Alexandria after Easter and brought a giant bag of black jelly beans for the little ones which endeared him to their hearts because they liked the black ones best (like their mom). I remember that he picked out all the black olives (or was it mushrooms?) in his salad and left them on his plate. It's just a little memory that makes me smile. Somehow it made him less "bishop" and more "father." In fact, when I think about him it makes me smile. He is so kind, a quality that we could all practice better; I think it covers a multitude of sins and who among us doesn't need that? I still treasure the rosary he gave me that he said Pope John Paul II blessed during one of his ad limina visits.

And so I will be offering my Mass, rosary, and all my joys and sufferings today for this dear and gracious spiritual father. Thank you, Bishop Welsh, for being a father and a friend.

The Real Audacity of Hope

For an incredible story of hope, forgiveness, and love, visit one of my favorite blogs.

Babbling Nonsense

Living in a country that more and more resembles a lunatic asylum has its interesting moments. The flap over the monkey cartoon is just the latest babbling nonsense. First of all the monkeys who put together the spending bill sit in Congress. Like the violent baboon on a rampage, the Democratics are assaulting and raping the taxpayers (with a little help from RINOs - Specter, Snowe, and Collins). It was an appropriate comparison. One can accuse the cartoonist of poor taste, but racist? That's a real stretch. Besides...didn't we all descend from monkeys? So who is being insulted? I think the baboon is the one who has the beef being compared to Congress.

So what's the uproar about really? Opportunity. Playing the race card is a great distraction. So while Obama occupies the highest office in the land, throws Wednesday cocktail parties to woo liberal Republicans, and enjoys all the privileges of the elite, white America stands once again accused of racism. Forget the fact that Obama was elected by whites. The country is still a racial enclave ready to lynch blacks at a moment's notice. It makes great theater and that always distracts from the problems at hand -- like the fact that Obama, who talked about hope, preaches nothing but despair which is reflected every day in the Dow. Like the fact that the so-called stimulus package is nothing but a Democrats' dreamworks for liberal programs and paybacks. It's theater all right, theater of the absurd.

Which takes me back to my college days when I enjoyed being in the drama club. Since Trinity was down the street from Catholic U.'s famous drama department (Fr. Hartke was still its head.), I also occasionally acted in a student director's graded production. I particularly remember a one-act play by Eugene Ionesco called The Leader. It depicts a group following an unseen messianic-type leader. As the play progresses the mob becomes more and more frantic running around with arms outstretched calling "Leader, Leeee..der, Leee..eee...eee...eee...der." Our director had us make the call more and more a bleat until we sounded like a flock of sheep. At the end of the play the mob finally sees the leader (the audience never does) and has the terrible realization that "the leader has no head." Indeed...the mindless masses have been following an equally mindless leader.

Unfortunately, that is where we are today. Obama is in way over his head. He has surrounded himself, not with voices of change and hope, but with old retreads from the failed Clinton years. His agenda is the worst of liberalism joined to the worst of Chicago-style politics. The end result is predictably grim, but that's what happens when the lunatics are in charge of the asylum.

White House Power Grab Continues

The White House Plans to take the 2010 census away from the Commerce Department and put it under the President. Why does it matter? Because the census is used for lots of things that have political ramifications: apportioning seats in Congress, dishing out federal money, etc. We need a balance of power. Undermining the census is one more betrayal for someone who claims he wants to bring morality to government. This is just Obama's Chicago machine politics moving to Washington. It'll be interesting to see if ACORN gets the contract for conducting the census. Won't that give you confidence in its integrity? By the way, this is getting very little coverage in the mainstream media. Wonder why.

A Chicago-Style Census

White House Census Power Grab May Violate the Constitution

Only Fox News Concerned With Obama's Census Bureau Coup

White House Nabs Political Control over Census

Diiogenes on Fr. Maciel's Treachery and the Legion's Dishonesty

The Legion of Christ & its founder

Twelve Year Old Lia Saves a Life and other pro-life news

Well, little Lia, whose five minute video speech against abortion is circulating the internet like wildfire didn't win the speech competition. She did something a lot better -- she saved an unborn baby's life.

Academic Freedom? Watch college students shut down a pro-life talk at St. Mary's in Halifax. Security police had the student club disperse (not the protestors) because of the pro-abortion students' infantile behavior. So much for the right to free speech at this university. Do you think that would have happened to a gay rights club on campus? Jojo Ruba, the speaker expressed his dismay at the university's actions. Read more...

A faithful husband won't give up on his brain injured wife. Unlike Nancy Cruzan, Hugh Finn, Terri Schiavo and Eluana Englaro Erika Sotela has a loving family member who promises fidelity to his wife, "until God has the last word." Read more...

Spanish Medical Expert: Damage to Women Caused by Abortion is Scientifically Proven

More on Harry Potter

A reader sent me a fascinating article on Harry Potter after reading my post the other day. It's certainly worth a look and I appreciate the views of Catholic writer Regina Doman. I think her point that authors can write sound books while living unsound lives is spot on. I think of Oscar Wilde whose children's stories are delightful and whose Picture of Dorian Gray is a chilling description of how sin putrifies the soul. Wilde was a tortured man. It never surprised me, though, to find that he converted to the Catholic faith on his deathbed. There's an interesting article about this called The Long Conversion of Oscar Wilde by Andrew McCracken. It describes Wilde's long journey to the Catholic faith and his eleventh hour surrender.

And then there's one of my favorite authors Mark Twain who professed atheism and rejected a god that is completely alien to the One I know. If we receive our "image of God" from the Christians around us, perhaps Twain's atheism says more about the people he lived among than about God. I only know that his novel on St. Joan of Arc is a story of such beauty (It was his favorite.) that I can't imagine him not making it to heaven despite the dark works like Letters from the Earth. Besides, he had an incredible sense of humor, real humor that tickles the heart and stimulates joyful laughter. There is no such thing as humor in hell, only the filthy snicker and the snide smirk.

Enjoy Regina's article which is one more yea for Harry Potter. Her insights encourage me to pick up the series where I left off.

The Saint and the Story-Teller: Fr. Damian to be canonized

The Apostle to the lepers, Blessed Jozef Damien de Veuster, a Belgian missionary who spent most of his adult life serving the leper community on the Hawaiian island of Molokai will be canonized soon. The announcement will be made on February 21st. His story is one of incredible courage, humility, and perseverance. Fr. Damien once confessed his sins shouting from a little boat in the waters off the island while his confessor stood on board a large ship delivering supplies to the leper colony (by throwing them in the ocean). The captain of the vessle wouldn't let Damien aboard because of his association with the lepers.

After his death from leprosy Fr. Damien was reviled and slandered by people who claimed he was living a lascivious life rather than serving the people. They knew better. Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and a devout Presbyterian, wrote a spirited defense of the Catholic priest which totally defeated the malicious lies.

I've always loved Stevenson since I first read A Child's Garden of Verses as a little girl, but his defense of the beloved leper priest makes me eternally grateful for such a noble heart. He later worked on the island of Samoa for the exploited people of the British colony. The natives buried their "Great Story Teller" under the starry skies on an island mountain as he wished, just as the lepers of Molokai buried their beloved priest. The saint and the story teller -- may they be forever united in heaven.

EWTN on Fr. Damien

The strange case of Father Damien and Robert Louis Stevenson

Damien the Leper by John Farrow
Excellent biography which includes Robert Louis Stevenson's letter defending Fr. Damien.

Open Letter to the Birmingham Police Department

Chief A.C. Roper
Birmingham Police Department
Central Headquarters
1710 1st Avenue North
Birmingham, Alabama 35203

Dear Chief Roper,

I was appalled to view the video of your officers arresting young people peacefully distributing literature on the sidewalk outside Parker High School a few days ago. For a city that became a hot spot during the Civil Rights era to violate the civil rights of these pro-lifers is a sad case of deja vu. That they were held overnight is outrageous!

It was particularly ironic to see this action in view of the fact that black women have a disproportionate number of abortions. So these young people are trying to save black babies by exercising their free speech and free assembly rights. They have nothing to gain personally; they simply love unborn babies and their moms. Your officers should have been there defending their rights not interfering with them. The only things missing to take us back to the '50s were the dogs and the fire hoses.

Please drop all charges against these young people immediately and issue an apology. It would also be advisable to give your officers an in-service on the Constitution.

If these young people are forced to address this in court, please send me the dates.

Sincerely,

Mary Ann Kreitzer, President
Catholic Media Coalition
www.catholicmediacoalition.org

Les Femmes
www.lesfemmes-thetruth.org

"The first law of history is not to dare to utter falsehood; the second, not to fear to speak the truth."
Pope Leo XIII

Pope Rebukes Pelosi: Tells Her Catholic Legislators Obligated to Protect Life

Life Site News
By John-Henry Westen

VATICAN CITY, February 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Vatican Press Office released a note this morning detailing part of the conversation which Pope Benedict XVI had with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Vatican insiders inform LifeSiteNews.com that such releases are always phrased in diplomatic language and thus the correction of the Speaker who fancies herself a faithful Catholic despite her abortion advocacy can be taken as a rebuke.

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

From Catholic News Agency:
Pope Benedict strongly rebukes Pelosi over abortion

From Fox News
Pelosi, Pope Have No Meeting of the Minds

From Catholic World News
Pope gently rebukes Pelosi

Video Shows Birmingham Police Illegally Arresting Pro-Lifers on Public Property

Students arrested and held overnight several days ago in Birmingham for giving out literature on the public sidewalk posted a video of the action on YouTube. It clearly shows the students doing NOTHING but peacefully talking to students about abortion. They had two large photo boards showing fetal development and pictures of abortion. Students are fascinated and stop to observe the information. There is NO CONFRONTATION, simply a respectful exchange. The officers tell the students to disperse claiming they are trespassing on school property. They clearly are not. They are on a public sidewalk adjacent to the road.

Throughout the exchange the students are calm and non-confrontational with both the students, a school administrator, and the police officers.

That this activity resulted in arrest clearly shows an unconstitutional violation of free speech. Contact the following Birmingham officials to protest this blatant injustice against pro-lifers. For more information visit the Survivors' website.

Chief A.C. Roper
Birmingham Police Department
Central Headquarters
1710 1st Avenue North
Birmingham, Alabama 35203
205-254-1700
WEB: http://www.informationbirmingham.com/police/index.aspx


MAYOR LARRY P. LANGFORD
Birmingham City Hall
710 20th Street North
Birmingham, Alabama 35203-2216
Phone: 205-254-2277
FAX: 205-254-2926
WEB: http://www.birminghamal.gov/birmingham-mayor.aspx

We see the future and it's ours!

There's a great video circulating the internet with a pro-life speech by a twelve year old who is articulate, confident, and beautiful. My only caveat is the statement she makes about the woman's decision to have "unprotected sex." In view of the fact that many women who have abortions say their birth control method failed, the birth control mentality itself contributes to abortion.

Watch the video and see for yourself what the pro-life movement is nurturing in the cradle. The future is ours because it's the Lord's. Thank Him for the little warriors He's raising up from among the abortion survivors.

What's your soul worth, Nancy?

Nancy Pelosi meets with Pope Benedict XVI tomorrow with a U.S. delegation. This is the kind of photo op that pro-abortion Catholics love. "See, world, I'm shaking hands with the pope demonstrating that I really am an 'ardent Catholic.'"

So what are real Catholics to think? I offer this from California Catholic Daily:

"Fr. Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews.com that HLI will be briefing the Vatican 'so they are aware of her dismal record on life issues.'

"'It is our hope that the Holy Father will not grant the floundering Speaker of the House what she surely wants and expects, a quick and valuable photo-op, but will rather give her a stern lecture on contraception and abortion and let her know that her eternal salvation is in danger,' said Fr. Euteneuer. 'Further, this would be the perfect opportunity to formally excommunicate the Speaker, as she has done everything a public official possibly can to declare her lack of communion with the Holy Father and the Roman Catholic Church on every conceivable issue.'"

A little fasting and prayer is in order for this heretical Catholic. I feel a special concern for Nancy Pelosi for two reasons. We not only share the same Alma Mater, Trinity College in Washington, D.C., but we also share a birthday (I'm younger) the day after a Marian feast day. So I ask the Blessed Mother's intercession for her wayward daughter. God doesn't want the destruction of any of his children no matter how malicious they are in their evil doings. Is Pelosi malicious? I have to believe that someone publicly corrected so often by bishops knows what she's doing. No one can be that stupid. So, Nancy, please repent. To paraphrase St. Thomas More - It profits a woman not to trade her soul for the whole world -- but for Speaker of the House and the Democratic party? When the gavel drops on the last day what will be your eternal judgment?

Please pray for Nancy and the party of evil...and while you're at it pray for all the stupid Republicans who abandoned conservative principles long ago. Then work for the restoration of Constitutional principles. Have you read the Constitution today?

The Climate Change Con Artists Exposed

George Will gets my vote for the Voice of Common Sense Award. His article Dark Green Doomsayers points out that only 30 years ago the same folks wringing their hands over global warming today were running in circles hysterically warning of the coming ice age. Then and today the message was the same: massive starvation, the end of life as we know it, etc. Will aims a hit at one of my favorite Chicken Littles, Paul Ehrlich, the bug scientist who wrote the attack on babies called The Population Bomb. Well, the bomb turned out to be a dud and if all the babies aborted since 1973 were alive today we'd have a lot more taxpayers contributing to our economic base.

Read the article and laugh. These guys don't care about the climate; they love hysteria. It does two things -- 1) Makes money to SOLVE THE PROBLEM (even if it doesn't exist) and 2) Provides an excuse to expand government control.

God calls us to be good stewards of our world. That doesn't mean we have to swallow the snake oil being peddled by the likes of Al Gore.

The Heritage of Our Children: Death or Slave Labor

THE BIG LIE by Fr. Tom Collins

It seems that the promised benefits of the Economic Stimulus Act and
the Freedom of Choice Act are evolving into the biggest lie since the
"Arbeit mach frei" (work shall set you free) at the entrance to Auschwitz. As Hitler was moved to direct the SS to implement the Final Solution to the "Jewish Problem" by choosing which new arrivals were to be gassed and which were to be slave labor, so the Obama administration seems to be directing the enviromental extremists to promote a new type of "choice" in order to deal with the "pop-pollution" problem.

By these two laws, it seems that our legal system is now to doom newly-conceived children to death or to debt - death by abortion and embryonic stem cell research
(in the tradition of Dr. Josef Mengele)or slave labor to pay off a national
financial debt (which will be in the tens of trillions by the time they mature)
and a moral debt (which is the result of decades of various types of perverse
behavior being sanctioned and even subsidized by our laws and our courts).

It is interesting that the denial of the reality of this demonic dynamic is much
in vogue now, even as the disgusting denial of the reality of the Nazi Holocaust
is out of vogue in our politically correct society.

Pray for the gift of true repentance to be granted to us and to all our leaders!


Father's insights are sobering as is the assessment by Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute. He says we will see a global economic collapse the like of which has never been seen before. Celente predicts a disaster in the commercial real estate market that will dwarf the personal housing mess. "This is going to be worse than the Great Depression," he predicts. He also says there will be a tax revolt, increasing violence like what happens in third world countries. As far as Obama is concerned, he points out that the president is bringing in all the old crowd from the Clinton administration. "Look at the crew...they're strike out artists." He doesn't believe you can fix the problems with the same team that helped cause them.

Click on Celente's name above to see the video at Pat Buchanan's website; then don't spend a nickle you don't need to, get out of debt, and keep your rosary running through your fingers. As Padre Pio often said, "Pray, hope, and don't worry." The Lord who clothes the lilies of the field in such splendor won't abandon you.

Latest on Pro-Life "Survivors" Arrests in Birmingham

Pro-Life Advocates Arrested in Birmingham Say Police Hiding Camera Evidence

Harry Potter -- Yes or No?

Over the years I've read plenty of commentary on Harry Potter. Some folks think the series was spawned in hell; others love it and think it's filled with great Christian imagery. I read the first few and thought they were okay for a child to read with close adult supervision, but I found some things in the books troubling. I think the series can be a real danger for kids in troubled homes or who have little wise adult guidance. I think they can also be a danger for badly catechized adults, the same type to be taken in by The DaVinci Code. (I was appalled how many ignorant Catholics believed it.) When I got to the fourth Potter book that started with a brutal murder I knew it definitely was not for twelve-year-olds. And yet how many parents pay attention to what their children are reading?

What do you think? Here are a few articles looking at both sides.

Voting YEA --

HARRY POTTER, PAPIST? , a review of The Mystery of Harry Potter: A Catholic Family Guide by Nancy Carpentier Brown

Not the Power of Success but the Humbleness of Giving Himself (This link also pulls up the first article below.)

Voting NAY --

A Wrong Image of the Hero

Harry Potter: An Entry Point into the World of the Occult / New Age Movement

See a list of nays at Steve Wood's website. Wood has experience with the occult so his opinion carries some weight I think.

Wood also goes into Pullman's series, His Dark Materials. Pullman portrays the Catholic Church as the enemy and the demonic as the good. The series is the fulfillment of the prophecy that there will come a time when good is called evil and evil good. We're there big time. Is Harry Potter the "entry drug" into the occult?

Harry Potter: Agent of Conversion by Toni Collins This last article I found particularly interesting because the author came out of the occult and shares her views both yea and nay about the series. This is a defiinite must read for parents.

The New Civil Rights Movement: Fighting "Liberal" Persecution

I linked to an article the other day about a young man ridiculed by his California college prof for daring to stand up for traditional marriage in class. The teacher later told the students that anyone who voted for Proposition 8 was a "fascist bastard." A lawsuit is in the works. This is what passes for academic freedom on today's campuses where most professors are liberal democrats who ridicule and attack those who dare to disagree. (For a list of studies showing the liberal bias of college and university professors visit Students for Academic Freedom.)

In another case a young woman at Central Michigan University was booted off the basketball team and lost her scholarship because her lesbian coach didn't like that she wore makeup and had a boyfriend. The coach was fired from another school in 2003 for similar activities, but CMU says they'll defend the case in court.

When Crystal Dixon, Associate Vice President for Human Resources at the University of Toledo, exercised her free speech right in 2008 and penned an opinon column standing up for traditional marriage, she was put on administrative leave the same day the article appeared. Later she was fired despite the fact she had recommended both heterosexual and homosexual candidates for jobs at the university and there was no evidence of discrimination. Speaking her mind on her Christian beliefs was enough to enrage the gurus of "academic freedom."

Pro-lifers receive even more draconian treatment. Last summer a Maryland "Truth Team" was arrested for peacefully holding signs on a public highway and held overnight at the jail. All charges were dropped later showing they were spurious and unfounded violations of the free speech rights of those arrested.

In a case eerily reminiscent of the black civil rights movement a group of young people, members of Survivors (of abortion), were arrested February 12th and held overnight for standing and talking to students ON THE PUBLIC SIDEWALK outside Parker High School in Birmingham, AL. This is the city where Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The young adults were members of the Campus Life Tour team visiting schools to distribute literature and inform students about abortion. In January two members of the group were arrested at a public university, George Mason in Fairfax, VA, for simply giving out literature. In many of these types of cases the arrested females are strip searched and groped by male officers as an intimidation tactic. This is our tax dollars at work -- trying to eliminate unpopular speech and shut down the truth.

When I was arrested at the Spring of Life in Buffalo in the early 1990s I remember statements from the police about "teaching us a lesson" so we'd never come back. Most of us (about 150 women) were held for 24 days for blocking traffic, a minor offense. One of the jailers was angry because I put up a sign saying "Welcome to Stalag 13 prison camp." She said she asked for the duty so she could make sure we were treated well. That was irrelevant, I replied. We weren't being held because of our offense, but the reason behind our offense which made us political prisoners.

Christians need to file lawsuits in every case of persecution that arises. When Jesus said to "turn the other cheek" he was talking about forgiving our individual persecuters not the state, which was a tyranny in ancient Rome. There was no way to fight Caesar.

But in the U.S. we have a Constitutional Republic based on laws and rights. If we don't stand up for our constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly against the neo-Roman tyrants, we'll lose them. We're close to that already. So pray and fight, especially for all these persecuted Christians. St. Teresa once said that Christ has no hands but ours. The same is true of His voice. Don't let the enemies of Christ muffle His voice. Speak the truth in love and get ready for the persecution.

It's going to get worse, folks. Fight back while you can!

Have you sent the president a valentine?

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm sure most readers have heard about the red envelope project. Send an empty red envelope to the president with a note on the outside that the envelope is empty as a symbol of one dead baby killed by abortion.

Send your valentine to President Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, D.C. 20500.

Think of the meanings that can be attached to the word "empty": empty wombs, empty cribs, empty arms, empty classrooms, empty hearts.... I'm sure you can think of others. This project can go on all year as far as I'm concerned. Send envelopes to Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress. Let the red envelopes become a source of pricking consciences. Let the red symbolize the blood of the innocent and the red rose that symbolizes the pro-life movement. Let the mail handlers' hearts be touched as they see these reminders that there are still many people in America who speak out for the unborn.

Next time I'm at the store I'm buying a pack of red envelopes and I'm sending them out on a regular basis. Not only will a red envelope remind the person who receives it that the babies are not forgotten, but it will remind me as well to pray for those whose empty hearts and empty heads let them support the killing of the babies. It will remind me to pray for the mothers who, if not now, will one day hug blankets or stuffed animals, or their pets as they weep for the little ones they will never hold and rock. And I'll pray for the poor little unbaptized babies, begging the Blessed Mother to present them to her Son as little lambs made worthy by sharing in the same bloody death as the Holy Innocents.

Happy Valentine's Day to the faithful, suffering pro-life movement, to the repentant mothers and fathers, and to all who love the unwanted and rejected. Our work is never in vain.

In the News

Latest on the Legion from Inside the Vatican by Robert Moynihan

From the compassionate and tolerant halls of liberal academia: Lawsuit Filed after Professor Calls Student 'Fascist Bastard' for Sharing Beliefs on Faith and Marriage

From the paper of liberal record comes one more example of conflict of interest: New York Times Bias Exposed Again as Company Caught in Donation to Planned Parenthood

From Canada, a scandalous statement by Fr. Paul Rennick defending selection of pro-abort speaker, Cokie Roberts: Priest/Catholic U President: "Abortion is Not an Infallible Teaching"

Cardinal Rodé commenting on the Vatican examination of American religious life says some nuns, "have opted for ways that take them outside communion with Christ in the Catholic Church, although they themselves may have opted to 'stay' in the Church physically," but he sees hope in new religious communities.
America's disappearing nuns: what the apostolic visitation can and should find

V-Monologues continue to pollute Catholic campuses

According to the Cardinal Newman Society, performances of the V-Monologues, Eve Ensler's lewd play celebrating lesbianism, group masturbation, and lesbian seduction is down this year. From a high of 32 Catholic schools polluting the minds and hearts of their students, "only" 15 will engage in the scandal this year.

Don't be deceived about the nature of this play. I've read sections of it and stopped because the level of filth is so great I did not want the ideas in my head. And yet this poison is sold as "empowerment of women." One monologue has a teen minor describe her lesbian seduction as her "salvation." (She was also raped by her father. No surprise - lesbians love to demonize men, particularly dads.) And yes...we all know that the way to heal rape by incest is to commit statutory lesbian rape.

The V-monologues is one more illustration of the pornification of the culture reducing us to the level of animals, less than animals actually, because animals act in accordance with the natural law. I make my apologies to the barnyard for the comparison.

Many articles about V-M performances describe a theatre filled with coeds moaning and groaning simulating the sounds of sex. One monologue talks about the smells of female reproductive organs. This is barnyard imagery with animals sniffing each other's hindquarters and howling and grunting as they mate. But at least their mating has a purpose -- the birth of spring calves, piglets, and lambs. February's V-Monologues offer no such future hope, only the brutalization of women snuffling and grunting after one another like animals rolling in their own excrement. When all is said and done and the pigs lie satiated, however, the barnyard will be as empty as the Oklahoma dust bowl.

Why not pick a school off the list below, go to its website and protest this piece of porn being presented on campus. I'm choosing John Carroll. My dad attended the school for two years in the mid 1930s before applying and being accepted to the Naval Academy. From there he went out to the west coast, married my mom, deployed to Pearl Harbor where he, Mom, and my oldest brother survived the bombing. Daddy went on to father twelve more children; ten grew to adulthood. I wonder what he would think about the depths to which his alma mater has sunk. On second thought, I know, and it's a good thing for the president of the school, Fr. Robert L. Niehoff, S.J., that my admiral dad isn't alive to tell him.

And by the way, nine of the fifteen schools listed are run by Jesuits. Consider that their motto is Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, For the Greater Glory of God. What an obscenity to present the V-Monologues under the Jesuit banner. May St. Ignatius intercede for the repentance and conversion of the order he founded as the pope's men. If they don't, may God wipe them from the face of the earth. They have done more to destroy the innocence of Catholic students than any other single order, I believe, although the Sisters of Mercy may be a close second.

Bellarmine University
College of SaintRose
College of the Holy Cross
DePaul University
Fairfield University
Fordham University
Georgetown University
John Carroll University
Loyola University Chicago
Regis College
Saint Mary’s College of California
Saint Xavier University
Seattle University
University of San Francisco

The Twilight Zone Part III (Can't we be done?)

This is the last exchange, I promise. When the ad hominem attacks start that's when I quit engaging. We find ourselves in the last episode...

On the Outer Limits of the Twilight Zone - Where intelligent males don't interact with illogical women.

Dear Mary Ann,

"The first law of history is not to dare to utter falsehood;
the second, not to fear to speak the truth."
Pope Leo XIII

I agree but you apparently do not. My error is expecting a woman to be logical. You can find all of the arguments you want to support your position, but they are not according to right reason. I wish you well but do not pretend to teach or interpret the word of God. Jesus did not ordain any women for good reason. As for the bishops they could have stopped abortion and pedophilia a long time ago. Sodomy is rampant in the Church.

You say, "A baby bottle is a feeding tube." While I agree there is a similarity, baby bottles are being used to substitute or replace the natural source, a mother's nipples. This is an example of unreasonable thought processes. Breast milk is a natural process of life designed by God for a particular purpose.

Ask the Vatican if your baby bottle argument is reasonable.

Sincerely in Jesus Christ,
Fr. David


Dear Father,

Thanks for the laugh. Bet you think I'm a bad driver too. Your last email was so filled with irrelevancies and (dare I say it) illogic that I'm almost speechless. But, being a woman, I know that's impossible so I'll respond.

I note you didn't address the Vatican documents that have come out on this. Do you question the logic of the men who wrote them as well? I also note you didn't answer my question about whether you are a priest in good standing. As for your ad hominem attack and extraneous insult of women in general -- the ad hominem is the last ditch approach of a man with a bad argument.

The most logical human (other than Our Lord who was God) was a woman, Mary. She was also a teacher and spiritual advisor to the first priests. I think God gave the priesthood to men because He had already raised a woman to the role of co-redemptrix. And you might recall that it was a woman, St. Catherine of Siena, advising a pope. She is also a doctor of the Church as are St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux. I try to follow St. Therese's little way of humility and that of the humble saint associated with the recently-celebrated feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, St. Bernadette. Father Hardon often said only little people will get into heaven. Terri and Eluana are the little people (along with the unborn babies) whom you would kill by dehydration.

I was a little astounded by this statement, Father:

Those of you who have joined in the fight to have kept Terri Shiavo alive, or this 36 year old woman, Eluana Englaro, from the rewards of death will not have a part in rewards of God's kingdom unless you repent.

Who exactly is playing God? I can't imagine repenting for following Jesus' admonition to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty. I will serve Him in his least ones as long as I live and today the least ones aren't just in the womb, they are in hospices and nursing homes.

I wish you well and will pray for you.

Sincerely in Christ,

Mary Ann

From the Twilight Zone - Part 2

Yesterday I published the first part of an email exchange with Fr. David Trosch on the case of Eluana Englaro, the Terri Schiavo of Italy. Today let's...

Go deeper into the Twilight Zone - How Would You Like To Wear a Diaper?



Mary Ann,

Nutrition or hydration given via tube or intravenously, particularly over an extended period of time, is not required by moral law. Such is unnatural. If you believe that if you were aware of everything that is going on around you and would want to live in that unnatural condition, then try it some time. Get in bed, do not move, have a tube stuck in your throat and otherwise do not eat or drink while having the bed changed for you, diapers changed, given sponge baths, etc. and see if this is a condition you would want to live in.

Abortion is murder and the souls of the aborted do not go automatically to Heaven. They must pass through tests, trials and tribulations in an altered state of existence. An abortionist discussed this topic with me on the Geraldo Show many years back. I too have sidewalk counseled, picketed, and operated a pregnancy counseling center for about eight years. Three nearby abortion clinics were closed down. There is now only one operating in Mobile, AL, Planed Parenthood.

Withdrawal of nutrition or hydration is neither murder nor suicide. It is allowing a natural occurrence to take place.

You are playing God by keeping a person alive when God has called them from this life. Dehydration is at best uncomfortable for a short period of time. After that there is no pain or suffering related to it. Many people die in this manner sooner or later. One can also suffer from third degree burns, auto accidents, etc. and then die. The concept of suffering before death is not uncommon and many times calls for a person to evaluate their lives and repent. Many who do not suffer will have much greater eternal suffering in the next.

Your concept of faith and morals is greatly misplaced.

Sincerely in Jesus Christ,

Fr. David

Dear Father,

Following your suggestion to me, if you think dehydration and starvation is so easy try it. I wouldn't recommend going without water for more than 24 hours -- but why don't you give up food for a week and see how you feel. I did it for three days when Terri was being murdered. The first day was relatively easy since I was drinking plenty of fluids. By the third day I wasn't feeling very well and was glad I hadn't made the commitment to go longer. To go without food AND WATER as Terri did for TWO WEEKS I can't even imagine. If it's so easy why do we arrest people for cruelty who starve their animals? Your rhetoric is the same as those who speak for the culture of death.

You say that my "concept of faith and morals is greatly misplaced." But my position is in accord with the Vatican's that nutrition and hydration cannot be removed from a patient in vegetative state, that they are "an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life," and "obligatory" in most circumstances.

There are rare exceptions, for example when the patient's body cannot absorb nutrition and "in very remote places or in situations of extreme poverty, [where] the artificial provision of food and water may be physically impossible." But when a healthy individual who is brain damaged is denied food and water because of her handicap -- that is the ultimate playing God. How long would you last without food and water, Father? What makes your life more valuable than Eluana's or Terri? Your mentality is what cleared out the mental hospitals in Germany under the Nazis' T4 program.

A baby bottle is a feeding tube. The parent who deprives the infant because he is handicapped is playing God. So is the doctor or parent who deliberately neglects the brain damaged adult. Your rationale would equally apply to starving and dehydrating a newborn with severe Downs Syndrome. But perhaps you support that as well?

I applaud your defense of the healthy unborn. It's unfortunate you are willing to see the elderly and mentally incapacitated hurried into eternity even if they are physically healthy as Eluana was. Even her doctor testitfied to that fact. Your claim that they are dying is wrong. Eluana's doctor said she was in perfect physical health. Terri Schiavo was in good health as well. Both had to be murdered because they WEREN'T DYING and someone wanted them dead - NOW.

With all due respect, Father, I think you are the one who has a "misplaced conept of faith and morals" and is willing to "play God." I say that based, not on my own judgment alone, but on the authority of the Church. I feel in good company since the Pope and Vatican were working to save Eluana. Who is your authority?

By the way, are you a priest in good standing? If so what diocese?

Sincerely,

Mary Ann Kreitzer

An E-Mail Exchange from the Twilight Zone

Over the past few days I've been engaged in an email exchange with Fr. David Trosch about my posts defending Eluana Englaro's right to life. You may remember Fr. Trosch. He's the priest who, a few years ago, argued in favor of killing abortionists. That should have been a tipoff.

I would have bet that anyone who claims to be pro-life would share my view that starving and dehydrating the helpless to death is seriously immoral. Well, I would have been wrong, wrong, wrong in the case of Father Trosch. Over the next few days I'll present our email debate. Think of it as a soap opera...FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Episode 1 -- Entering the Twilight Zone - Dying of dehydration can be fun

Mary Ann Kreitzer,

I know a woman who can still speak who is being dehydrated and starved to death as I write. She has gone from 180 pounds to under 120 pounds. She is 5' 6" tall. She cannot eat or drink. Medications are no longer of help. She believes it would be pointless to be fed intravenously as it would just extend the suffering she is going through on a daily basis. She has many things wrong with her and even if something could be repaired other things would kill her, probably even the operations themselves. Her hospice care doctor has told her she should call her mother and tell her that if she wants to see her daughter while still alive to come quickly.

This woman is 46 years of age. She believes in God like most could not possibly appreciate. These last few weeks Jesus has been present to her most of the time. She says He is beautiful and want s to be with Him very much.
How much do you love Jesus? Why is it that you want anyone to stay in this life if they can be happy with Jesus in the next? My own father died when he was almost 87 years old. His mouth was so dry that he could not take even a small part of a consecrated Host without great difficulty. If given the precious Blood it had to be only a drop or two otherwise his tongue would react and it would be difficult for him to receive.

Why should the government (the people through taxation) have to pay to prolong the lives of a few when the same sums could be used to feed thousands. The purpose and goal of this life is not temporal happiness or a long life here and now, but to have a long and happy life with Jesus in the next. Passing from this life should be seen as a happy event that should be understood to be joy. It is not to be thought of with sadness, although I agree that there is a sense separateness that is cause for the momentary departure of a brother or sister of Christ.

Demons thrive on the torture inflicted upon living humans. They hope to have many humans join them in their suffering in Hell. Unreasonably prolonging someone's life serves Satan, not God.

To keep a person unnaturally alive is to sin against the will of God who has already determined the destination of the one passing from this life. All forms of unnaturally keeping a person alive, particularly without reasonable hope of recovery to a useful life, is against the will of God. Keeping an unconscious person alive on feeding tubes, etc. is unconscionable and unreasonable. If God wants a person to live, that person will live. Let God be the determiner of when a person is to die.

Wether we die at an early age or at 120 is up to God. Living a long life is no guarantee that one will be in Heaven. To play God by keeping someone alive who in the natural course of events would die is a condemning sin. Those of you who have joined in the fight to have kept Terri Shiavo alive, or this 36 year old woman, Eluana Englaro, from the rewards of death will not have a part in rewards of God's kingdom unless you repent. Vatican officials who have joined the fight to keep Eluana alive will have the most severe condemnation.

Jesus made it clear when He said: "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it. [Mk 8:35] -- He gave one description of Hell as follows: "where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' " [Mk 9:48] -- Saint Paul said: "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all." [1Co 15:19]

Perhaps a thousand preborn persons could be kept alive with the amount of money that is spent upon someone who gains no merit in Heaven for having an extended life they cannot benefit from. There are millions of people who are starving to death that would otherwise live if the money spent on trying save the life of a person, who will probably die anyway, were spent on them.

By TANALEE SMITH, Associated Press Writer Tanalee Smith, Associated Press Writer – Sun Feb 8, 7:59 am ET
HEALESVILLE, Australia – Towering flames razed entire towns in southeastern Australia and burned fleeing residents in their cars as the death toll rose to 84 on Sunday, making it the country's deadliest fire disaster.

Can you imagine a worse way to die? I can, knowing that after I die in such a fashion I could spend eternity in Hell for keeping a person from passing from this life to be in Heaven or where judges the person will be (sic).

Sincerely in Jesus Christ,

Fr. David


Dear Father,

I visit a nursing home every Sunday. Some of the people have terminal diseases and are dying. Most, however, are not. They are in different stages of dementia, or have limited awareness, or they are frail and unable to care for themselves. Does the fact they are more or less helpless mean we should withdraw their food and water and let them be dehydrated to death?

Eluana is not dying like your friend with the multiple problems apparently is.

She is brain damaged and has "diminished consciousness." Terri Schiavo also was not dying. She was brain damaged. The media speak about Terri (and now Eluana) as "comotose." She isn't. Pictures and videos of Terri showed her responding to her mom and tracking a balloon with her eyes, laughing at her dad's jokes, etc. How aware is Eluana? I can't say because she's been carefully hidden from view.

Some of your email is very disturbing.

Why should the government (the people through taxation) have to pay to prolong the lives of a few when the same sums could be used to feed thousands.... Passing from this life should be seen as a happy event that should be understood to be joy.

What are you saying here, Father? Are the handicapped and brain-damaged "useless eaters?" Should we do a cost benefit analysis on them and use that to determine whether we let them live or die? It's been done before. I sidewalk counseled for years at an abortion mill where a pro-abort escort argued that abortion "sends the little souls to Jesus." Your statements sound chillingly like his. They also sound like the philosophy of the gnostics who believed suicide could free one from the body.

I was with my dad, my mom, and my father-in-law when they died. I had cancer myself when I was 39. I've stared death in the face and walked up to its door with loved ones. But there is an ocean of difference between a person who is actively dying and whose body is shutting down and a handicapped person whose body is perfectly fine and able to absorb nutrition. In the first case nutrition is useless and may even increase the person's suffering. In the second nutrition is essential. Terri wasn't dying until she was deliberately dehydrated. The same is true of Eluana. She is not "unconscious" any more than a severely retarded child is unconscious. They have limited capacity. From the perspective of those who want their death, the problem isn't that they are dying, it's that they aren't. Eluana's dad wants her to die and neglect doesn't look quite as evil as the lethal injection. But actually, for Eluana, the suffering will be worse which will ultimately lead to the argument for the "more compassionate" and quick needle in the veins -- like putting an animal to sleep.

You say, Whether we die at an early age or at 120 is up to God. Exactly! But these people are taking that decision away from God and usurping His authority by indirectly killing the person by neglect. Dehydration is a hellish way to die. Read the description about it on my blog entry.

You said...Can you imagine a worse way to die? I can, knowing that after I die in such a fashion I could spend eternity in Hell for keeping a person from passing from this life to be in Heaven or where judges the person will be.

Are you serious? None of us can keep a person from "passing from this life." I can't stop death and neither can you. What we can do, that is seriously sinful (as the Church teaches), is hasten people into eternal life by directly or indirectly killing them. That's what happened to Terri, Nancy Cruzan, Hugh Finn, and is now happening to Eluana. It is a moral evil that doesn't just impact the family who does it but the entire culture. And we've seen in history where it leads. Study the T-4 program in Nazi Germany.

I'll pray for you, Father. The murder of the helpless and sick through euthanasia (whether active or passive) is the diabolical twin of abortion.

To hear a Catholic priest argue for this breaks my heart.

Sincerely in Christ,

Mary Ann

Miracles for an Unbelieving World

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick. What an appropriate combination. Our Lady appeared to a young girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in the little village of Lourdes France in 1858. During the 18 apparitions the Blessed Mother left a spring that had miraculous properties. The first approved miracle occurred on March 1, 1858 while the apparitions continued when Catherine Latapie, nine months pregnant, walked about five miles from the neighboring village of Loubajac to bathe her paralyzed arm in the spring. She was immediately healed and gave birth to a son later that day. Thirty-five miracles would be documented over the next few years before the Church announced in 1862 that Bernadette's apparitions were authentic. Miracles continue to occur at Lourdes astounding medical science. For two amazing stories click here.

While physical cures may be the most dramatic, spiritual miracles of conversion and the strengthening of faith are far more important. Fr. John Hardon, S.J. confirmed that on a retreat I attended when he shared some personal experiences of witnessing physical miracles. He then stressed that miracles of the soul were of a higher nature and more valuable. I thought of that when I read an account about a family who had a daughter with cerebral palsy. They came to Lourdes every year, not asking for a cure, but asking for the strength to live another year with cheerfulness and courage. Suffering is part of the human condition; suffering well is a miracle of grace.

For more about Bernadette and the story of Lourdes take a virtual pilgrimageand meet this humble and beautiful saint whose body remains incorrupt after 150 years.

Do Schools Own Our Kids?

Kids can be nasty to each other. When they are you don't expect a school counselor to be even nastier. But that's what happened at Seven Hills Middle School in Nevada, CA when Steve Davis heard a rumor that a 12 year old student was pregnant. He gave her a pregnancy test without her parents knowledge or permission embarrassing the child and enraging her parents. The parents are suing; the school superintendent says it's no big deal. What I want to know is what the school counselor planned to do if the pregnancy test was positive - get her teacher to give her a failing grade in sex ed?...take her for an abortion?...arrange remedial sex ed for the class?... bring in extra condoms and bananas for more practice? What exactly did he have in mind? Makes one wonder what takes place at counselor in-service training. On the other hand, considering the fact that California is the porn capitol of the world, maybe we don't want to know. Read more...

What Else is in the Porkulus Spending Bill that you don't know about?

Obama is in one heckuva a hurry to pass the gargantuan trillion dollar spending bill that has more earmarks and special interest pork barrel projects ever assembled in one place. But what else is in that big fat, mega-pages-of-print bill? God only knows, but a few things have been uncovered that should give folks pause.

Stimulus to ban religious worship "'This isn't like a convenient oversight. This is intentional. This legislation pokes its finger in the eyes of people who hold religious beliefs,' Jay Sekulow, chief of the American Center for Law and Justice, told WND today."

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan Say hello to health care rationing, especially for the elderly. Betsy McCaughey writes that, "One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective." The plan effectively tells the elderly to get lost. McCaughey writes, "Daschle says health-care reform 'will not be pain free.' Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt....Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost-effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464)." So the federal government will be making decisions about whether your hip replacement, back surgery, or cancer treatment is worth it. No treatment for older Americans (unless you happen to be Ted Kennedy - there will always be some more equal than others). Whatever happened to a decision between a patient and his/her doctor?

50 De-Stimulating Facts: Chapter and verse on a bad bill.
Seems like the primary "stimulus" of this bill is to grow government. Here's a sample:
$150 million for the Smithsonian
$34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
$500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities
$44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters
$350 million for Agriculture Department computers
$88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building
$448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters
$600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
$450 million for NASA (carve-out for “climate-research missions”)
$600 million for NOAA (carve-out for “climate modeling”)
$1 billion for the Census Bureau
There's also plenty for state government.

I vote for the pundit who said give $100,000 to every family in America and let them use it to stimulate the economy. Why should federal and state governments get all the fun?

200 Top Economists Say "Stimulus" Bill Won't Work
And it will raise taxes and likey udermine the already shaky dollar. If you think things are bad now, let Obama and his "czars" double and even triple the national debt in his first few months of office. This is the "change" and "hope" people are looking for?

Breaking News: Eluana Dies Unexpectedly

Italy's "Terri Schiavo" Dies Suddenly

Note the statement from Eluana's physician that she enjoyed almost perfect health in the 16 years since the auto accident that left her in a minimally conscious state. Will there be an autopsy to determine the cause of Eluana's unexpected death or will there be a rush to cremation?

The Latest on Eluana

Italian Senate tries to halt mercy killing

Political struggle over coma patient Eluana

For a comparison of Eluana and Terri Schiavo see my post at The Catholic Guys.

Diabolical History Repeats Itself...

Eluana Englaro may well be murdered in the next few days or weeks because of her father's desire to see her dead. She would not want to live in her current state of diminished consciousness, he says, and Italy's high court agrees. So this young woman faces the looming threat of dying from dehydration, an agonizing death despite the honeyed and consoling words of the death peddlars who claim it is a gentle way to die. Ask a woman who's experienced dehydration during her pregnancy because of excessive vomiting how gentle it is.

Dr. David Stevens, a doctor who has worked in Africa where the leading cause of death is dehydration from gastroenteritis describes it. "As dehydration begins, there is extreme thirst, dry mouth and thick saliva. The patient becomes dizzy, faint and unable to stand or sit; has severe cramping in the arms and legs as the sodium and potassium concentrations in the body goes up as fluids go down. In misery, the patient tries to cry but there are no tears. The patient experiences severe abdominal cramps, nausea and dry-heaving as the stomach and intestines dry out.
By now the skin and lips are cracking and the tongue is swollen. The nose may bleed as the mucous membranes dry out and break down. The skin loses elasticity, thins and wrinkles....The person stops urinating and has severe headaches as their brain shrinks from lack of fluids. The patient becomes anxious but then gets progressively more lethargic....Some patients have hallucinations and seizures as their body chemistry becomes even more imbalanced. This proceeds to coma before death occurs. The final event as the blood pressure becomes almost undetectable is a major heart arrhythmia that stops the heart from pumping."

These symptoms explain why feeding tubes are left intact so sedatives and anti-convulsives can be given, not only to reduce the pain of the victim, but the distress of staff doing the killing.

The threat to Eluana heralds a black stormcloud looming over the world and not for the first time.

I invite readers to look back to 1939. Germany was already immersed in social Darwinism's doctrines of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Since about 1920 propaganda for eliminating those whose lives were "devoid of value" flooded the German marketplace led by the views of Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding, a doctor and a jurist, not unlike those leading the culture of death today. When the Nazis came to power they continued and expanded propaganda for cleasing the gene pool producing films and novels that promoted "mercy killing" and stressed the expense of maintaining these useless lives. Catholic institutions for the incurably sick and mentally ill, which were likely to resist euthanasia, were sytematically closed.

The euthanasia program in Germany was coded T4 which stood for Tiergartenstrasse 4, the address of a villa in Berlin where the Nazis administered the General Foundation for Welfare and Institutional Care. It was managed by Philipp Bouhler, head of Hitler's private chancellery and Hitler's own doctor, Karl Brandt.

The euthanasia order was written by Hitler in October of 1939, but backdated to September 1st. It read: "Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, to the end that patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment [menschlichem Ermessen] of their state of health, can be granted a mercy death [Gnadentod)." From this quiet beginning grew a monstrous program of killing, not by Nazi thugs, but by doctors and medical staff in white coats.

Hitler believed that killing handicapped children would be accepted by the German people with little objection. The preceding May, parents of a severely deformed infant born in February (Gerhard Kretschmar), petitioned the Reich to have the child killed. A local pediatrician had refused because it was illegal so the parents sought an exception to the law. Hitler authorized not only the murder of the child, but a systematic program to register all defective children. Like the midwives in Pharoah's time, ordered to identify all the baby boys so they could be eliminated, the doctors and midwives of Germany were ordered to report all children born with severe disabilities: hydrocephaly, mongolism, spastic conditions, any kind of malformation including cleft palate, etc. the program initially targeted children under three but the tentacles soon reached out for older children including those designated juvenile delinquents as well as adults, especially the mentally ill and retarded. According to Fredric Wertham's A Sign for Cain, the Reich murdered 300,000 Aryans before they turned their final solution on the people they considered a defective race.

All evil starts with the first act. The Reich's euthanasia program began with one father, Richard Kretschmar, eager to kill his poor little handicapped son. And so it goes today. A father who cannot see beyond his daughter's physical impairment insists on dehydrating her to death. Despite the fact that the order of nuns caring for her wanted to continue, he denied their compassion and moved her to a killing center in northeast Italy more amenable to his monstrous intent. That the killing, if it is allowed, will take place a stone's throw from where the holocaust began chills the heart. Eluana's father is the spiritual twin of the ardent Nazi farm laborer, Richard Kretschmar. It is an evil history that should not repeat itself and a victory for another father, the father of lies himself.

May the Father of us all and His Son Jesus Christ protect Eluana and all those threatened by the Nazis of the present age.

P.S. Look carefully at the picture at the top of the page. Little Gunther and his two brothers had a degenerative disorder. The three little boys were gassed at Brandenburg, one of the facilities for eliminating imperfect children, but only after being studied by doctors. After their deaths, the ghouls in white coats studied their brains - all in the name of science.

Please contact the Italian Ambassador:
Ambassadors's Office Tel.: (202) 612-4401/4/5/6 Fax: (202) 518-2156 and ask for Eluana's immediate protection.
Email: (press and public affairs offices) Tel. 202- 202- 612-4440/4
politici.washington@esteri.it and stampa.washington@esteri.it

Top Vatican Judge Says No Communion for Pro-Abortion Politicians

When will the bishops of the U.S. deny Communion to the likes of radical pro-abortion House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden? It apparently can't come too soon for the head of the top Vatican court, Archbishop Raymond Burke, head of the Apostolic Signatura. Archbishop Burke told Life Site News:

"I don't understand the continual debate that goes on about it. There's not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion....The Church's law is very clear. The person who persists publicly in grave sin is to be denied Holy Communion, and it [Canon Law] doesn't say that the bishop shall decide this. It's an absolute....The Holy Eucharist, the most sacred reality of our life in the Church, has to be protected against sacrilege. At the same time, individuals have to be protected for the sake of their own salvation from committing one of the gravest sins, namely to receive Holy Communion unworthily...Individual bishops and priests simply have to do their duty. They have to confront politicians, Catholic politicians, who are sinning gravely and publicly in this regard. And that's their duty. And if they carry it out, not only can they not be reproached for that, but they should be praised for confronting this situation." (More...)

Catholics represent the largest denomination in both bodies of Congress and yet most of them are pro-abortion creating scandal and confusion as they continue to go to Communion in their parishes both in the D.C. area and in their home parishes. It's time to stop the scandal.

The Catholic Media Coalition and American Life League continue to call on the bishops to implement Canon Law 915, but little action has been taken to date by most bishops particularly those in the metropolitan Washington,D.C. area, Archbishop Donald Wuerl (D.C.) and Bishop Paul Loverde (Arlington). Joe Biden publicly received Communion several weeks ago at Holy Trinity in Georgetown. Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that she considers herself a devout Catholic and will continue to receive. Sen. Ted Kennedy had Communion brought to him at his seat during the papal Mass in D.C. last April. John Kerry and Rudy Guiliani have also been photographed receiving Communion at high profile events.

Several Bishops have taken strong action against pro-abortion politicians. Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton recently warned Bob Casey, Jr. about his vote against the Mexico City Policy calling it "an offense against life and a denial of our Catholic teaching on the dignity of every human being." He warned Casey in a letter saying, “Your failure to reverse this vote will regrettably mean that you persist formally in cooperating with the evil brought about by this hideous and unnecessary policy....As I have done several times before, I offer to make myself available to you to discuss the grave concerns that I raise here.” Bishop Martino announced several months ago that he will enforce Canon 915. Last May Bishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, KS publicly warned Gov. Kathleen Sebelius not to receive Communion. Although he did not instruct Eucharistic Ministers to deny the governor Communion he left that possibility open. According to reports, Sebelius has voluntarily refrained from presenting herself for Communion.

As of September 2008, 17 bishops had publicly stated or taken action to enforce Canon Law 915. They are to be commended for doing their duty. Please pray for these bishops and, even more, for their silent brothers.

Archbishop Raymond L Burke, Bishop Emeritus, St. Louis
Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz, Lincoln NE
Bishop Joseph A.Galante, Camden, NJ
Bishop John M. Smith, Trenton, NJ
Bishop Michael Sheridan, Colorado Springs, CO
Bishop Robert F. Vasa, Baker, OR
Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger, Evansville, IN
Bishop Robert J. Baker, Birmingham, AL
Bishop Peter J. Jugis, Bishop, Charlotte, NC
Bishop Samuel Aquila, Fargo, ND
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, Phoenix, AZ
Bishop Paul S. Coakley, D.D., Salina, KS
Bishop Joseph F. Martino, Scranton, PA
Bishop Joseph Naumann, Kansas City, KS
Retired:
Bishop Henry Rene Gracida, Bishop Emeritus, Corpus Christi, TX
Archbishop John F. Donoghue Bishop Emeritus, Atlanta, GA
Bishop John Y. Yanta, Bishop Emeritus, Amarillo, TX



CANON 915:THE DISCIPLINE REGARDING THE DENIAL OF HOLY COMMUNIONTO THOSE OBSTINATELY PERSEVERINGIN MANIFEST GRAVE SIN by Archbishop Raymond Burke