Tweeting the Truth! Send a big thank you to Bishop Tobin.

When a bishop acts like a bishop, something all too rare today, we need to thank him. So I urge you to send Bishop Tobin a big thank you for tweeting the truth. Some are saying he apologized after a tremendous international (and hate-filled) backlash, but that isn't true.

Here's the tweet. Simple. It just tells Catholics the truth. A friend of mine from the San Francisco area describes the parades there where homosexuals go nude, masturbate in public, engage in sodomy in the street, where S&M garb as master and slave, etc. Yes indeed, "pride" events celebrate grave immorality. Bishop Tobin spoke the simple truth.

Bishop Tobin vs Kennedy with vapid commentary from Fr. Tom Reese

Bishop Thomas Tobin has instructed Patrick Kennedy to refrain from receiving Communion. While Kennedy says the bishop has instructed priests in the diocese not to give him the Sacrament, the chancery says the bishop has never addressed the issue with his priests. Other Catholic politicians privately instructed by their bishops have essentially thumbed their noses and continued to present themselves at the altar. Whether Kennedy will obey or flaunt the bishop's admonition, time will tell. It appears he is trying to make himself a martyr to gain sympathy from the secular world, a big mistake considering they have no vote on Judgment Day.

The controversy has put another figure in the limelight as well. An article from the Providence Journal quoted Fr. Tom Reese on the controversy:

“The vast majority of bishops don’t want people denied Communion” over the abortion issue, said Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit scholar at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington. [The "vast majority" also covered up the priest sex abuse issue so what's your point?] “But the problem is, every time an individual bishop does it — especially if the public official has a high-profile name like Kennedy — it’s going to make headlines across the country and every bishop is going to suffer because of it,” Father Reese said. [Good bishops doing the right thing does tend to make the bad ones "suffer" -- like the bishops in Henry VIII's England who must have been very put out by Bishop John Fisher's martyrdom revealing their cowardly infidelity!]....
Scholar Reese said the bishops have debated in previous years the issue of whether they should step beyond such appeals to the individual Catholic’s conscience. The context for the debate was the 2004 presidential candidacy of Sen. John F. Kerry, a Catholic Democrat from Massachusetts who supports abortion rights. Father Reese said fewer than 20 bishops supported a policy of denying Communion to such officials.[Faithful disciples are almost always in the minority. Look at the apostles!]...

In 2004, a large majority of bishops “tried to persuade the minority not to do this — using Communion as a weapon,” Father Reese said, but the conference could not come to a consensus view on the issue. [It's not a "weapon" any more than the surgeon's scalpel. It's a medicinal treatment to call back a soul in serious danger of damnation.]
Father Reese stressed that withholding Communion is not as grave a penalty as excommunication, which separates a Catholic from all the sacraments. If a bishop denies Communion to a Catholic, he or she “is still a Catholic,” Father Reese said. Indeed, he said “it would take a canon lawyer” to say whether a Catholic denied Communion in his own diocese would be free to receive Communion elsewhere. [Excuse us, Fr. Reese, but the Canon Law already exists -- 915 which forbids Communion to those "who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin." A number of Vatican officials including Cardinal Francis Arinze, Archbishop Raymond Burke, and indeed, the pope himself when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, have called for the penalty to be imposed.]

Reese's position is not surprising. The former editor of the liberal Jesuit magazine America (He resigned under Vatican pressure.) can always be counted on to put a heterodox spin on any story relating to the U.S. bishops' exercising their obligation under canon law to discipline "manifest public sinners." A fellow blogger described Fr. Reese as a "disingenuous, lying jerk" last May when Fr. Reese attacked the orthodox bishops who dared to criticize the reprehensible action of Notre Dame in honoring President Obama. While I prefer not to call names, I'd have to say that CMR has his adjectives absolutely right. Liars and disingenuous men in roman collars are the favorite commentators of the mainstream media. They can always be depended on when it comes to attacking the good bishops and holding up the wolves as models of christianit - just what the media is looking for.

Fr. Reese, you ought to notice that no one who really cares about the faith is listening to your vapid stupidity. You do, however, scandalize the many who are poorly catechized which is a millstone offense.

But Fr. Reese's behavior is worse than stupidity. Embracing the lie that allows the murder of millions of babies makes him a cooperator in a crime against humanity that has taken the lives of more innocents than all the atrocities of the 20th century combined. Like Joseph Goebbles, who cast Hitler's murders in a favorable light, Fr. Reese does the same for Barack Obama while he attacks the bishops who attempt to defend the innocent. God help you, Fr. Reese! You will answer for every innocent life murdered under the banner of Obama/Pelosi liberalism.

Kennedy Hubris: The Family Legacy!

Some things never change and Kennedy hubris is one of them. It's the family legacy! Patrick Kennedy, Congressman from Rhode Island, recently took the Catholic bishops to the woodshed for refusing to endorse a heatlh care plan that includes coverage for child-killing and other atrocities. (The bishops often deserve a trip to the woodshed, but never for supporting Catholic doctrine and never by one of the Kennedy bratpack!)

Kennedy had the chutpah to accuse the bishops of fanning "flames of dissent and discord....I can't understand for the life of me," he said, how they could oppose it. Well, that makes sense. How could a Kennedy imagine that anyone really believes and accepts the teachings of the Church, even her leaders. After all, the Kenndys don't and they are paragons of moral virtue...just ask them.

No one can deny that the Kennedys are experts on dissent; they get a lot of practice after all. Except for Eunice Shriver is there a single one who doesn't dissent from Church doctrine on murdering children and endorsing sodomy? Meanwhile they play Church with gusto like Daddy/Uncle Teddy who made sure the pope knew how hard he tried to be a faithful Catholic caring about the little guys (except for the little guys in the womb).

Ah...but when you are a Kennedy, dissent is in the eye of the beholder and it is dissent from the liberal political agenda that is unthinkable and beyond comprehension, not dissent from God's law. After all, God had only one Son and He wasn't nearly as popular as the Camelot boys and their offspring. Jesus certainly could never have been elected to public office coming from the ranks of the hoi poloi working class. Ugh! He actually had callouses on his hands and dirt under his fingernails. (He did know a little about choice wine, though.)

Patrick Kennedy's lecture didn't sell with his bishop as Catholic Culture reported.

Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, fired back that Kennedy's statement was "irresponsible and ignorant of the facts." He disclosed that the [sic] had written to Kennedy (and other members of the state's congressional delegation) to explain that the Church supported health-care reform, but would oppose any bill that "threatens the life of unborn children, requires taxpayers to pay for abortion, rations health care, or compromises the conscience of individuals."

"Congressman Kennedy continues to be a disappointment to the Catholic Church and to the citizens of the State of Rhode Island," Bishop Tobin said. "I believe the Congressman owes us an apology for his irresponsible comments."

I wouldn't want the bishop to hold his breath waiting for an apology from a Kennedy. Arrogance, hypocrisy, and chutpah are not the ingredients from which apologies are made.