It Gets Curiouser and Curiouser

Remember the White House party crashers?




Seems these two are not strangers to the president after all. Check out this 2005 photo and the accompanying blog post.



Here's an excerpt.

Tareq and Michaele Salahi snapped the pic above with Obama at a “Rock The Vote” event on June 9, 2005 (also attended by John McCain…with whom the Salahi’s also took a pic). McCain won an award for his work on campaign finance reform. Obama won an award for “forming a multiracial coalition in winning his seat.”... Michaele Salahi is getting quite a ribbing in the press for lying about being a Redskins cheerleader, but Tareq is the more interesting of the two to me. He has ties to Palestinian terrorists. Tareq is a board member of the ATFP- American Task Force on Palestine , which has quickly scrubbed it’s site of the fact.The Secret Service has already apologized for the incident, but they may clear their names if the Salahis start singing... If someone with ties to the American wing of Hamas can get face to face with the President without the Secret Service realizing it…that is a major security lapse. However, if Obama’s people knowingly allowed Salahi in and are now throwing the Secret Service under the bus to cover themselves, that would be a major scandal. Some in Congress are calling for an investigation.

The Oasis vineyard, owned by these two, is practically in my "back yard" and I attended a wedding reception there several years ago. There were no party crashers as far as I know, but it was a big wedding. This story has legs and, like Alice following the white rabbit, it just gets curiouser and curiouser. Stay tuned.

The Tea Party Activists: They're not Rodney Dangerfield Anymore!

Tea party activist finally getting respect!

When Children become Pawns of the "Gay" Agenda

The Lisa Miller Case:Cultural Revolution, Judicial Tyranny and Our National Future

Brit Hume Urges Tiger Woods to Find Jesus

Brit Hume deserves congratulation for what he said on Fox. Jesus Christ offers hope, forgiveness, and renewal. Pray that Tiger listens. You can send an email thanking him for his public witness to the addresses below. I understand his personal email address has been overloaded. If your message rebounds try one of the others.

brit.hume@foxnews.com

yourcomments@foxnews.com

ailes@foxnews.com (Fox News CEO Roger Ailes)

oreilly@foxnews.com

When will they stop lying to women about breast cancer?

Another study released NINE months ago shows the link between breast cancer, oral birth control, and abortion. Despite the data, which shows a significant link to triple negative breast cancer, the most agressive kind, the silence from breast cancer groups has been deafening.

One of the most significant things about the study is that one of the researchers was Louise Brinton of the National Cancer Institute. Brinton organized a workshop on breast cancer in 2003 promoting the position that there is NO LINK between abortion and breast cancer. In fact, however, the current study shows a 40% increase. So including her name in the study represents a shift in position for her.

Read the press release from the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer at this link. You can read a summary of the study here.

The population studied was under 45 years of age. Many of the women who experienced the aggressive form of treatment-resistent breast cancer no doubt bought into the feminist bias toward contraception and abortion believeing it would "free" them from the "slavery" of mandatory motherhood.

As a breast cancer survivor, I am so grateful that I am a Catholic. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1986 at age 39 with no risk factors. I was a non-smoker, began my first pregnancy at age 22, breast fed, and never used the pill or had an abortion. I was fortunate though considering I married in the middle of the sexual revolution when, it seemed, the whole world embraced the pill.

Before our wedding, I went to a doctor for a gyn checkup and then spoke to him about NFP. I didn't know much about it at the time, but had been charting my temperature for several cycles. I showed them to the doctor who glanced at them with contempt, threw them at me across the desk, and said, "I'm a pill man. If you want me to prescribe the pill I will. And don't come back to me in two months pregnant."

Thank God I was enough of a Catholic not to follow his advice. I got pregnant on our honeymoon and didn't go back to him.

My current doctor says if I'd ever taken the pill, I probably would have had cancer at age 29 instead of 39. Chances are it would have been the more aggressive type and I might very well be one of the casualties of the feminist revolution. I know too many women who died in the prime of life from breast cancer. I always wondered if they took the pill and/or had an abortion.

As far as I'm concerned, the facts coming out about contraception, abortion, and breast cancer are more proof that the Catholic Church is the one true Church. When the Protestant denominations began to cave in to the prevailing secular culture following the 1930 Anglican Lambeth Conference, the Catholic Church held out. Even as the Catholic Birth Control Commission and dissenting priests lambasted Pope Paul VI over Humanae Vitae (most of them without reading it), he did not waver. The ONLY church to hold out against The Pill and other immoral birth control was and remains, the Catholic Church.

Consider the difference to Catholic women if, instead of counseling them in confession to follow their own consciences, priests had preached the truth. I remember raising the question in confession with a dear elderly monsignor who said, no, contraception could not be justified. I wasn't happy at the time, but that dear priest may have saved my life, allowing me to live long enough to play with my 18 grandchildren and getting ready to welcome another next summer.

What a blessing it is to be Catholic! No wonder we call her Holy Mother Church! May we all listen to and follow her teachings. They can save us from a lot of misery.

Education Week in the Church Calendar

The saints this week seem to draw our attention to the search for wisdom. Sunday showed us the three wise men who bowed to the infant savior. They looked for him first in the palace of King Herod, but weren't too high and mighty to bend the knee before the baby enthroned in a feedbox for animals. What does that tell us about wisdom? It's humble.

My favorite pictures of the three kings illustrates an elderly king, crown removed, kneeling and kissing the Christ Child's foot as if to say, like St. John the Baptist, "I am unworthy to go higher than the sole of his foot." We grow in wisdom through humility.

Then on Monday and Tuesday the Church sets before us St. Elizabeth Seton and St. John Neumann, pioneers of Catholic education, especially for the poor. Education in the faith is crucial, these saints show us, to grow in wisdome and holiness in imitation of Christ. Then tomorrow we are brought back to humility with the optional memorial of Bl. Andre Bessette, a humble brother who could barely read or write. He was the doorkeeper for 40 years at the College of Notre Dame and then at St. Joseph Oratory in Montreal for the rest of his life. He was so sought after for spiritual counsel that he was assigned secretaries to help him answer his correspondence. This teaches us that education is not primarily a matter of degrees, but of humility of heart. The charwoman who cleans the college offices may be theologically smarter than the apostate head of a Theology Department or the Catholic Theological Society.

St. Raymond of Penafort is the final saint for the week. He was a brilliant Dominican priest who was an authority in canon law and a college professor. At the time, the writings on canon law were confusing and contradictory. St. Raymond's work was so clear that the pope declared in a papal bull that they should be the only ones taught in the schools. (Doesn't this remind you of the battle in catechesis with the coloring books published by Benziger and Sadlier with the marshmallow Jesus who taught about luv, without doctrine?) It was at the suggestion of St. Raymond that Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa Contra Gentiles.

With all these wonderful saints, this week is a great one to contemplate the importance of Catholic education and to remember that fear of the Lord (being humble before God) is the beginning of wisdom. These saints had different talents, but they used them to advance the knowledge and understanding of the faith. Wouldn't they be great friends to take into final examinations?

More on the French Revolution at Thiberville in Normandy

Fratres has two videos this morning from the battle at the Thiberville parish in the Diocese of Evreux. They're in French, but you don't need to understand the language to see what's going on. The bishop comes in wearing rainbow vestments! (Take that you orthodox Catholics. We are an inclusive church. I am a canon for the Anglicans and bosom buddies with my gay friends.) Note the older woman who puts on a stole - one of the bishop's supporters, no doubt, who probably showed up for the event.

This bishop is either a totally clueless fool, in which case he is incompetent to be bishop, or he is an evil man with an evil agenda which also should preclude him as bishop. Please, somebody pressure him to resign for "health" reasons. (Mental health perhaps?) No wonder some saints say the floor of hell is littered with the skulls (or mitres) of bishops.

Spare us, O Lord!

Pray for the pastor, Fr. Francis Michel, who appears to be truly the father of his people. And thank God for the parents who removed their children from the bishop. They are teaching their children to discern the spirits. Blind obedience to bad bishops is no virtue! Teach your children that a roman collar doesn't guarantee a holy heart.

Bishop of Evreux Attempts to Suppress Motu Proprio in Normandy

Reading this article about the Catholic bishop of Evreux in Normandy, France reminded me of the French uprising in the Vendee during the French Revolution. Of course, the Catholics of the Vendee were rising against the anti-clerical relativism of the Reign of Terror.

Unfortunately, today's reign of terror in the Church is often led by members of the hierarchy determined to enshrine the spirit of the world on our altars. Here in the U.S. we are certainly no strangers to this clerical abuse. The rolecall of bishop-barbarians includes cardinals of the most powerful dioceses. Cardinal Bernardin was a champion at undermining the faith while pretending to defend it. Cardinal Mahony walks in his footsteps, though less nimbly. He is a hatchet man compared to the scalpel-wielding Bernardin.

I had to laugh when I got to the part of the story about the bishop saying Mass while his congregation and altar servers disappeared to protest his abuse of the Mass. They simply removed themselves to another Church where the bishop was denied entry to the sanctuary. And I'm delighted that the pastor is fighting. Obedience is not an absolute when the bishop violates his authority.

Perhaps we should imitate our brothers and sisters in France. If the bishop or priest is messing with the Eucharist and undermining the faith, walk out and keep walking until you find true worship. And certainly, stop financially supporting these faith wreckers!

The faith is virtually dead in France. You would think this bishop would be calling in a priest who is so successful to get instructions on how to save his other failing parishes. But destroying the faith seems to be what many of these men are about. And perhaps he follows the same strategy of his U.S. brothers (like Gumbleton, Clark, Sullivan, etc.) who suppressed vocations to stir up support for the ordination of women. I found an interesting press release that shows the bishop is a "progressive" when it comes to ecumenism and also indicates the miserable status of his diocese where lay people are taking over many parish functions because of the lack of vocations.

Pray for the lay revolution in Evreux. The pastor is fighting the bishop's action in canon law. Let's pray the bishop gets the Bishop Martino treatment. We'll see if it's reserved to the orthodox defending the faith.

Elizabeth Ann Seton, Founder of the Parochial School System

Today is the feast of the Elizabeth Seton and also the first day of school for most children returning after Christmas vacation. What an appropriate alignment. Elizabeth, a widow converted from the Episcopal faith after her husband's death. She was rejected by her anti-Catholic relatives and left destitute because her husband's import business had failed. To support herself and her five children she began a school in her home, but was unsuccessful. Archbishop John Carroll encouraged Elizabeth to found a school for girls and she did, in Emmitsburg, MD. Other women joined her in the venture and she began the Daughters of Charity. The Seton shrine in Maryland and the nearby grotto tell the story of the challenging early years.

The first reading for today's Mass, taken from the first letter of St. John, provides an interesting insight into what real education should do for the soul: make us critical thinkers who "test the spirits" and recognize the "spirit of truth" from the "spirit of deceit."

Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God. This is the spirit of the antichrist who, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world. You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them, for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They belong to the world; accordingly, their teaching belongs to the world, and the world listens to them. We belong to God, and anyone who knows God listens to us, while anyone who does not belong to God refuses to hear us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

A major part of the spiritual journey is discernment of spirits. Why? Because it helps us recognize when we are being tempted toward evil or encouraged toward good. As St. Peter says, the devil is like a lion roaming the earth seeking prey. But he'd be a fool to expose himself in all his ugly evil, so he often appears as an angel of light or he dresses in sheepskin to blend in with his lunch. "This is so good for you," he says in a melodious voice pushing us toward the cliff. "Jump off; you can fly." And so we think the lustful or greedy or selfish choice is the quick road to bliss when it's a sure path to ultimate misery.

To recognize him and his tricks, we need to understand how he works, as well as knowing the good spirits who attempt to help us. Fr. John Hardon, S.J. who often gave retreats based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius wrote about Discernment of Spirits in his book All My Liberty. This chapter would make an excellent meditation for January. Think of how much you could progress in the spiritual life this year if you chose a specific spiritual subject each month to meditate on and study. Discernment of spirits would be a good place to begin the journey. And take St. Elizabeth, St. Ignatius, and Fr. Hardon along with you as mentors and teachers. As a wife and mother St. Elizabeth knew all about the struggles and hardships of family life. St. Ignatius was a master of the interior life whose Spiritual Exercises have transformed the lives of many. And Fr. Hardon was a tireless worker in the vineyard. Persecuted by his own religious order, he never failed in seeking God's will through obedience. Take these great souls with you on your journey.

P.S. Anything written by Fr. John Hardon, S.J. will lead you to God by a short path. Please pray for his canonization.

Any excuse for a riot!

I remember a number of years ago when students at the University of Maryland celebrated a basketball championship by rioting in College Park. The New Year's festivities in French cities these days include torching cars. Despite 45,000 extra cops on the beat, hundreds went up in flames. Happy New Year!

During the 60s, rioting was almost a sport. The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was the occasion for so many and the police used so much tear gas, it was reported that Hubert Humphrey at the Hilton Hotel was disturbed in his shower.

Barbarians don't have much imagination. Angry about (fill in the blank)? Have a riot! Burn your own neighborhoods, in fact! Happy about your team's championship or celebrating the new year? Have a riot! Burn up your neighbor's car!

These are the barbarians within our gates.

Now my question is: How many of these barbarians attended a local or national tea party?

My guess: nada, zip, zero, zilch.

A conservative principle is to preserve the good. Conservative hope is in God and laws based on the fundamental rights of man made in God's image. The barbarians, on the other hand, believe in no rule but their own. If it feels good do it. If you can get away with it, try it. And blame, blame, blame - especially anyone in authority: your parents, the cops, etc.

What will the barbarians bring us in 2010? Probably more of the same. They have no imagination and even less character. You'll find them flaunting obscenity laws at gay pride parades, looting shops during natural disasters, vandalizing the property of others just for the fun of it, moaning and groaning at the Vagina Monologues, etc. You'll find many on college campuses where they fill their heads, not with knowledge and critical thinking skills, but with contempt for values like patriotism, courage, honesty, and service.

How do you fight a barbarian? I'm not sure. The old barbarians could be swayed by the goodness of a saint or pope. The neo-barbarians hold relion in contempt and are so cynical and nihilistic that they are almost unreachable. But two weapons are sure-fire: the Eucharist and the rosary. St. John Bosco had a dream that evil would be defeated through those means. Pray for the barbarians and raise your children to be gentlemen and gentle women who love God and serve their neighbors. And make 2010 a year of prayer. We need it!