We Need a New Crusade: Western Civilization Under Attack

"Belguim will become an Islamic state."

VSHL Pro-Life Essay Contest

This is a great opportunity for pro-life students to profess their beliefs and win money for college. I hope all the home schoolers I know with children in Junior and Senior year will take advantage of this contest to share their pro-life beliefs and show the world that the next generation is fighting for the right to life of the innocent!

VSHL Essay Contest

Deadline for entries - December 8th postmark 

The Northern Virginia Chapter of the Virginia Society for Human Life, an affiliate of National Right to Life, is sponsoring the Helen M. Donovan Memorial Award Essay Contest. This contest is open to high school juniors and seniors.

Essay Title: Promoting the Culture of Life

1st Award: $1,000.00

2nd Award: $500.00

3rd Award $250.00

Our Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution recognize life as a God-given human right. Today, however, pro-life principles are challenged and human life and dignity are devalued by legalized abortion , euthanasia, promiscuity, media indecency and perverted attacks on marriage. Your essay should discuss how to advance pro-life principles and reverse today's moral erosion.

Using the above title your essay must be at least 400 words, double-spaced and with one inch margins. Please postmark by December 8, 2012. Include your home address, home phone number and school name. Mail to VSHL at the address below. A VSHL committee will judge each essay. Winners will be notified in January 2013. 

VSHL, Northern Virginia Chaper, PO Box 22681, Alexandria, VA 22304

Making Memories and Giving Thanks

Four of our five children and their families will be joining us for Thanksgiving. Three will be staying with us. That means six adults and thirteen children sleeping over for several days and ten adults and fifteen children for Thanksgiving dinner. Whew! But what a joyful anticipation! As a Catholic grandma I have two goals -- creating memories and reminding everybody Who needs to be thanked for all the blessings we enjoy.

Since out-of-towners are arriving on Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm hoping for good weather so we can have a bonfire Wednesday night with hot dogs, s'mores, and a rosary of thanksgiving (or at least a few decades). Wednesday the men plan to play golf and I'm searching for craft ideas for the children. I think a thanksgiving jar would be great but when do we read the entries? Perhaps Thanksgiving night as a bedtime prayer activity. How I wish we could all sit around the same table together for the feast, but even with all the leaves in the table our max squeeze is 16 which leaves another eight (and a high chair) in the mix. So we will be in two rooms. The kids will love having their own table and I expect the adults won't mind having some grown-up conversation -- one more thing for which to be thankful. We are so blessed to have a house big enough to host everyone, something we deliberately thought about when we retired to the country and

Did Obama Really Win the Election?

Not likely. But don't expect the mainstream media to do any investigating. They helped him lie and cheat his way to victory!

Joseph Farah asks the tough questions

The Five Stages of Religious Persecution

Msgr. Charles Pope has written an article about the five stages of religious persecution. It's a sobering perspective, especially when you consider that the stages coincide in many respects with Alinsky's strategy in Rules for Radicals to gain power for community organizers and Kirk and Madsen's strategy in After the Ball to advance the homosexual agenda. Here are Msgr. Pope's five stages:

Step 1: Stereotype the targeted group

Step 2: Vilify the targeted group for alleged crimes or misconduct

Step 3: Marginalize the targeted group's role in society

Step 4: Criminalize the targeted group or its works

Step 5: Persecute the targeted group outright

These steps fit nicely with Alinsky's strategy for attacking particular groups. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Since Alinsky also preaches that the "end justifies the means" and portrays the organizer's goal as a "war,"

Dumping Pieces of Dead Soldiers in a Landfill?

Remains of U.S. Soldiers Dumped in Virginia Landfill

So what's the big deal throwing our soldiers who die in combat in the landfill? We've been throwing the victims of the abortion wars there for forty years. At least the soldiers aren't flushed down the toilet or run through the garbage disposal like so many babies. 

Hey, respect and dignity went out the window a long time ago. Look for the next budget-cutting measure by Obama to be turning the elderly into Soylent Green. Think of all the savings if he starts with government pensioners and social security recipients. So what that they worked for it. Think of the savings! And the side benefit is green people crackers at the grocery store.

Another Post Election Message

Wish we heard this kind of message from our bishops. Hat tip to Suzy for the link.

God Will Not Be Mocked

A Message from Political Brambles

The next terrorist attack?

You Own It!

Heretics in the Pulpit: It's Past Time for Discipline!

If you wonder why over 50% of Catholics voted for the most evil man ever to run for president, a man who advocates infanticide for babies who survive abortion and whose administration provided guns to drug lords in Mexico terrorists in Syria (were American guns used in the embassy attack?) just check out this Baltimore priest, Fr. Richard Lawrence. This Baltimore pastor promulgated heresy in this "sermon" and according to reports received a standing ovation from his flock. Will he be disciplined by Bishop William Lori? So far the bishop's response was a general message on the diocesan website about priests not giving their own opinion from the pulpit. The correct response would have been immediate suspension. It is high time bishops were as vigorous acting against heresy as they are condemning faithful Catholics who dare to criticize their actions (and inactions). Send the bishop a message asking him to discipline Fr. Lawrence for the good of the people of God..And if you want to know why, read Dietrich von Hildebrand's The Charitable Anathema.



And now a quote from von Hildebrand:

To deplore disunity as such, instead of deploring heresies, instead of condemning these and calling them by their name, implies first of all that one would keep unity even at the cost of truth. But, of course, true unity presupposes unity in truth. Error, falsehood, can never be the basis for true unity....If we are truly concerned for unity among Christians, I submit that there is only one way to restore it, and it is the time-honored way: the anathema against all heretics. This is the way the Church has survived, kept her identity, through all centuries...True unity can be restored only by the conversion of the heretic -- or at least his submission -- or by his excommunication.

And here's a message from Jeff Mirus of Catholic Culture suggesting the proper response is to immediately defrock this heretical priest. I second it!

Was Ambassador Chris Stevens Running Guns to Syria?

One of the shocking revelations coming out about the murder of our ambassador in Benghazi, Chis Stevens, is that he was apparently involved in a gun-running scheme arming Syrian rebels. And what are the Syrian rebels doing with those weapons? Killing Christians among others. Is the U.S. arming the rebels improving life for the Syrian people? Not hardly!

Horror in Syria: Executing Christians

The Plight of Syria's Christians:

"The Haddad family had no doubts about why they had to escape from Homs. 'We left because they were trying to kill us,' said 18-year-old Noura Haddad. She is now staying with relations in the town of Zahle in the Bekaa Valley. 'They wanted to kill us because we were Christians. They were calling us Kaffirs, even little children saying these things. Those who were our neighbours turned against us.'"...

"Some in the Church are adamant about who is to blame – not just those carrying out the persecution, but those who are encouraging it to happen. For Archbishop Issam John Darwish of Furrzol, Zahle and the Bekaa, the responsibility for the attacks lay with 'an influx of jihadists in the rebels in the last six, seven months'. There is for him, as in so many such situations in the Middle East, the spectre of a 'hidden hand'. 'I think the situation is being manipulated by the USA and maybe Israel – they want this to happen,' he insisted.

U.S. backed Syrian Rebels Targeting Christians

11,000 Flee Syria in 24 Hours

As more and more evidence comes out it becomes obvious why the Obama administration had to cover up what happened in Benghazi. The stonewalling and lies become more understandable. There's plenty to hide!

How US Ambassador Chris Stevens May Have Been Linked To Jihadist Rebels In Syria:

"And if the new Libyan government was sending seasoned Islamic fighters and 400 tons of heavy weapons to Syria through a port in southern Turkey—a deal brokered by Stevens' primary Libyan contact during the Libyan revolution—then the governments of Turkey and the U.S. surely knew about it."

There's A Reason Why All Of The Reports About Benghazi Are So Confusing:

"If President Obama's position is to refrain from arming rebels with heavy weapons, but regime change in Syria is advantageous, then a covert CIA operation with plausible deniability seems to be the only answer. It's a dicey dance, especially if it's exposed."

Meanwhile, Obama is throwing everybody involved in his scandals, including the murders in Benghazi, under the bus. Petraeus resigns only days before being called as a Congressional witness because of an "extramarital affair." (When has that ever damaged Bill Clinton?) Hillary Clinton is leaving. Eric Holder (Fast and Furious) is going. Gotta clean the slate for the next four years of scandal.

Meanwhile, Obama's policies continue to decimate the Christian populations in Middle East countries and exporting the violence, a dangerous situation for the future. As Archbishop Issam John Darwish of Furrzol, Zahle and the Bekaa said:

"I have raised this with officials in the West, they must bring peace. The jihadis will not stop here, the war will spread to Europe. What will England be like in ten or 15 years?"

How close are we to World War III?