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Cuffy from Perfunction has put together this video... and asks the same question I have asked. Where is John McCain, and why is he silent on his staffers bashing Sarah Palin?
What happened to "never leaving a buddy behind"?
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/08/2008 07:19:00 PM
4 comments
I am absolutely furious about 'anonymous sources' suddenly making spurious allegations about Governor Sarah Palin.
I think to have given this air time is absolutely GOSSIP, and sickening. It isn't dealing with any policies. It is cowardly, anonymous, vicious comments that have nothing to do with news. And I am very disappointed in Carl Cameron. Very much so.
Bill O'Reilly can defend this as news, if he so chooses, but it is rumor, gossip, innuendo.
I am in TOTAL agreement with Laura Ingraham.
And her close friend responds.
Sarah Palin will be on Greta Van Susteren's program on Monday. Whether she chooses to go on Bill O'Reilly or not is entirely her right, and would not in the LEAST bit make his airing of this 'news' any less despicable, in my humble opinion.
Governor Sarah Palin is smart enough to have gone to College. She is smart enough to have been a MAYOR of her city. She was smart enough to have taken on job, recognized things being done that were not 'kosher' and DID something about it, and also became GOVERNOR of her State. She is not a dunce.
She WALKS her talk, in her personal and in her professional life. In a time when many doubted McCain's ability to win, she brought enthusiam for his ticket when he selected her as his running mate. SHE caused many who were not sure about voting for him to change their minds, and back him, including ME.
So now, I want to know where HE is! When is HE going to stand up to those 'anonymous sources' and tell them to let her alone, instead of allowing them to attempt to ruin this woman?? SHE did not cause him to lose this election. He chose her, and he has a duty to defend her from DETRACTION and/or CALUMNY.
Again, this has nothing to do with policies of a candidate, nor of propaganda-style advertising. It has nothing to do with taking the words of a candidate and giving an opinion on what those words mean. This is gossip.
God bless!
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/08/2008 06:44:00 AM
2 comments
More indoctrination of children. This teacher cannot defend her words, her actions, her obvious disapproval of Senator John McCain. All one has to do is watch her, and LISTEN to her.
And THIS one is false information, using children to deliver it. Some of these children are much too young to know about what they are saying, but a few of them look like they COULD be old enough to vote in the next Presidential race. The worst part of this is that there is no documentation of who made this, and who is responsible for it.
This is indoctrination. I do not like to see children used in MANY of the ads today, but especially like this.
God bless!
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/08/2008 06:27:00 AM
0 comments
The banner doesn't always fit on my blog...
Wonder how long it will take before it is a 'duty to die'....
God bless!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation
Washington Approves Assisted Suicide
November 5, 2008 (Seattle Times)
Voters approved Initiative 1000 on Tuesday, making Washington the second state to give terminally ill people the option of medically assisted suicide.
The ballot measure, patterned after Oregon's "Death with Dignity" law, allows a terminally ill person to be prescribed lethal medication, which would be self-administered.
With about 43 percent of the expected vote counted Tuesday in unofficial returns, I-1000 was being approved by a margin of about 58 percent to about 42 percent.
Supporters, led publicly by Democratic former Gov. Booth Gardner, said the initiative would provide a compassionate way for terminally ill people to die.
(continue reading...)
(remarks from Wesley J. Smith...)
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/05/2008 12:54:00 PM
2 comments
---------- Forwarded message ----------
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/05/2008 11:32:00 AM
0 comments
Our Lord asks us to follow him not only in word and promise, but in deed and action, even when that action requires heroic courage. In this regard I would like to speak about a hero of mine: Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Munich from 1917 to his death in 1952. (As an interesting side note, the last man Faulhaber was to ordain to the priesthood was one Joseph Ratzinger, our present Holy Father.)
As you might imagine, the years between 1933 and 1945, marked by the reign of Hitler, were especially difficult for Faulhaber. However, rather than choose to remain quiet out of fear of the Nazis, Faulhaber instead chose courage. At every opportunity, he spoke out against the crimes of the Nazis, on occasion risking his own life to do so.
His Advent sermons of 1933, delivered in the vast Munich Cathedral, the Frauenkirche, drew thousands of Munich citizens—standing room only—who came to listen to the Cardinal fearlessly challenge National Socialism, to assert the rights and freedoms of the Catholic Church, and to call for the protection of the Jewish People.
By the 1940s when Hitler's final solution became clear to all, Faulhaber ordered yellow armbands with the Star of David to be placed on the statues of Christ and Mary throughout his archdiocese, in specific response to the Nazi treatment of Jews. Faulhaber's courage made the Nazis cower. No one in the Gestapo dare take these yellow arm bands down. So, Munich, the birthplace of the Nazi movement, became the center of Nazi resistance. And although Dachau was located just ten miles outside Munich's city limits, within Munich Hitler and his policies were weakened severely by the courage of a single man.
It remains one of the perplexing questions of history, how it could be that a great people such as the Germans could have been fooled by a man with such a diabolical political agenda. Especially Germany, the country of the Frederick the Great the philosopher-king, which was arguably the most enlightened and free nation in Europe. Because of reparations which Germany had to repay as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's economy was in freefall. (If you think the current crisis in the Unites States is a problem, what we are enduing is nothing by comparison.). The German currency of the time, the Reichsmark which was introduced in 1924, was worth less than the paper it was printed on. Hyperinflation was so pronounced that it was cheaper to burn money than firewood.
So when Hitler came to power he fulfilled much of his agenda. He did revive the German economy, almost miraculously. Hitler also reestablished the order to a society falling into disarray, and he grave Germans a new sense of pride. So, in a sense, Hitler "saved" Germany—or so it seemed to many in 1934.
But Hitler's plan to "save" Germany was founded upon of principles of utmost evil: The killing of the innocent; genocide of neighboring peoples and the plundering of nations; eugenic activity on handicapped, the infirm and the aged, all in the name of progress toward a "master race"—a utopian ideal to create a society which would last not for 1000 but for 10,000 years.
Hitler wanted the Church to remain quiet in the face of all this, and to ultimately replace the Church with what amounted to a new religion based on German identity. Hitler's desire for the Church was a cry many of us hear today: The Church should not interfere with policies of the state.
We see through the lens of history, that there are times when the Church must speak out against the state to defend the rights of those who have no voice. When the matter at hand is the killing of the innocent, or the manipulation of human life for the purpose of a national agenda to create a master race of people who will never succumb to sickness and be as beautiful as the models and stars on the television and internet, or the objectification of women—the Church must speak out.
History has not looked with any kindness on members of the Catholic clergy or hierarchy which, during Nazi domination, did little or nothing to help the plight of the Jewish people. History has condemned them, and rightly so.
We as members of the Church are the hands of Jesus, our mouths are the instruments of his voice. Jesus, who always spoke out against injustice and oppression, asks and requires us to be agents of change in the world, to bring about policies in our own nation and in the world that will defend human life, most especially for the innocent and weak who have no one to speak for them.
As a Jew who became Catholic in my early 20s, one of the most painful issues I have had to deal with in my own soul and with speaking with my own family is how to answer the question: Why didn't the Church do more to stop Hitler and to help the Jews? Frankly, we know the Church did a great deal, probably more than any other institution in the world to help the Jewish people.
But questions remain. How could so many German Christians at the time have supported Hitler? How could they have viewed their economic prosperity, the strengthening of their public institutions and army, and the pride of their own nation as being of greater value than the killing of the innocent? Is there any way to defend that? Is economic prosperity more important that life? Is the right to a particular quality of life more important than the right to life itself? Who will define that quality? Is mass murder allowable if the state is feeding the hungry?
Looking back at the Third Reich, I think all of us in this church today, and probably everyone in the United States of America would agree that there is no excuse for what happened in Germany.
But then I ask you: When we go to the polls on November 4, why will so many Catholics not support the overturn of Roe vs. Wade? Yes, there are many issues facing our country, many of them serious. War is serious, and so is the matter of immigration, economic reform, taxation, the need for health care, and so on. But we must keep in mind that since 1973 when the Supreme Court decided that a human being in the womb was not protected because of property and privacy rights implied in the 14th amendment, we have as a nation aborted nearly 50 million people.
Let us also not forget the 30-40 million women whose lives have been scarred because they were told that this procedure would be good for them and help them, and who day after day have to convince themselves somehow that they are forgiven.
Before I conclude this long homily—and I thank you for your attention today—I want to say to anyone here affected by abortion that Jesus has the power to make all things new: It is Jesus' job to forgive sinners. God understands the pain of loss and human frailty, which is why his forgiveness and mercy towards those who have suffered through abortion is so abundant. The Father forgives as soon as you ask. But emotional healing takes many, many years, and it hurts terribly. Thank God that today, the pro-life movement has greatest love and sympathy for women and those who have gone through abortion. Project Rachel here in St. Louis is a place of tremendous comfort and peace. Thank God also that the pro-life movement and the Catholic Church has in place real programs to help women who choose not to have an abortion, so that they can survive financially and medically through such difficult times. We must never forget that our goal to stop abortion, while necessary, is only the first part of our call. The second part is for us to support with love and financial assistance the women and families who will struggle to raise their children in the face of seemingly insurmountable struggles. It takes strength to choose life in our world today, and for us to be effective ministers of the love of Jesus, not only must we protect life, we must be present and willing to help nurture that new life into adulthood; we must be there especially for the poor and for single mothers.
Moreover, the Church does not condemn those who have suffered through the abortion experience. Rather, the Church stands by such people to offer them forgiveness, compassion to know their sins are forgiven, and that God loves them dearly. The Church, however, does condemn those who willfully have made abortion the law of the land, who support its spread, and who propagate this terrible lie—this "big lie"—that causes death and personal loss.
I pray that, when historians looks back at the late 20th and early 21st century and the Catholic Church, they will be able to say that it was our Church that stopped the brutal killing of the innocent; that it was our Church that was the true voice of women's rights; that it was our Church that never abandoned young mothers and young children; that it was our Church that shone the light of Jesus' love in the world's darkness.
You and I have the obligation, therefore, to speak out against the lie that abortion is not killing; the lie that abortion is good for women.
We do this primarily by praying to end abortion; we do this by supporting women who have endured abortions; we do this by assisting women who courageously choose to endure difficult pregnancies; we do this by refraining from investing in companies that promote abortion and human manipulation; we do this by abstaining and opposing anything in the entertainment industry that treats women as objects whose feelings and personal worth are disregarded; and, finally, we do this according to our votes.
I will close this long homily now with two questions. First: If every Catholic in Germany had opposed Hitler, would have been a Holocaust? The answer requires some nuance. Many Christians were under compulsion to join the Nazi Party, lest they experience utter loss of livelihood, and often the abduction and murder of family remembers. However, Cardinal Faulhaber's courage and the example of Munich demonstrates the triumph of human dignity in the face of tyranny: If every diocese in Germany had a man as brave as Cardinal Faulhaber, I do not think the Holocaust could have happened. No tyrant, however brutal, can carry out any program without the consent of the governed; the power of a leader is proportionate to people's willingness to be led.
The second and final question, therefore, is this: If every Catholic in the United States showed the courage of Cardinal Faulhaber, and voted only pro-life, what do you think would happen?
Given Sts. Joachim and Ann Church, St. Charles,
Saturday, Sept 27, 5:00 pm Mass, and
Sunday Sept 28 7:15 am and 10:30 am Mass
(This homily, with few alterations, was also delivered
at St. Clement of Rome, Des Peres, Respect Life Sunday 2007).
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/05/2008 04:17:00 AM
0 comments
| Dear Friends, Below is an initial reflection on the Presidential race. Please join me on Wednesday night, November 5 for a national pro-life teleseminar from 9 to 10pm. You can sign up at www.priestsforlife.org/conferencecall/index.aspx. I will be joined by other pro-life leaders and we will discuss how the pro-life movement will continue to make gains in the months and years immediately ahead of us, despite political obstacles. You will be refreshed and inspired by this call! Fr. Frank Pavone A Grave Mistake and an Abiding Hope Fr. Frank Pavone Americans have made a grave mistake in electing Barack Obama to the presidency. Yet America herself remains great and is not a mistake, which is why so many of her citizens will continue, with even greater energy and determination, to defend her founding principles. The man elected to the Presidency said during the campaign that he does not know when a human being starts to have human rights. How can one govern from that starting point of ignorance? Governing is about protecting human rights; to do it successfully, you have to know where they come from, and when they begin. The President-elect has already failed that test miserably. The American people do not share Barack Obama's extreme and offensive views on abortion. They never have and they never will. The coming four years will see a widening gap between the people and their President on this fundamental issue. As Americans come to know how extreme his position is, the intensity of the struggle to protect these children will only increase. The pro-life movement has made significant gains in the courts and in the law in these last eight years. For the next four, the movement will work to prevent the erosion of that progress. It would be a serious mistake for people to think that this election means the pro-life movement has no political power. All politics is local. Political power is about people. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was once told that given the political realities, civil rights legislation would be impossible to pass. "We'll just have to see about that," he replied. And the civil rights movement was born, stirring the hearts of the people to lead the nation to the victory of justice. So it is with our movement. The vast majority of Americans are pro-life. They will fight abortion on the local level, opening pregnancy centers and closing abortion mills, activating their Churches and educating their children, proclaiming the message in the media and demonstrating in the streets. The pro-life movement is winning this battle in the hearts and minds of the American people, as opinion polls show and as the shrinking number of abortion mills and abortion providers prove. Political races are always a swinging of the pendulum. As soon as you win, you begin to lose, and as soon as you lose, you begin the ascent again to winning. In the next two election cycles (2010 and 2012) the pro-life movement will make up for political ground lost in this one. It is all right to be disappointed at the end of an election season, but one must never walk away. Amidst disappointment is abiding hope in America, where everything remains possible, and where a new chapter of the pro-life movement has just begun. The efforts that were made, and the sacrifices endured in this election season made a difference, and we will build on that difference to see another day when the work and the ballots of pro-life people will dismantle the Culture of Death. We will keep marching toward that pro-life America we seek, and won't stop until we get there. Priests for Life |
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/05/2008 02:39:00 AM
0 comments
There is also another entry on Bodie's blog which is linked to the title of this entry. This one is there as well.
I have voted. And tomorrow, I hope that you do, as well, if you have not already done so.
God bless!
| LORI`S WORDS OF WARNING | |
| Posted by: Lori Kalner, as told to Bodie Thoene on Monday, November 03, 2008 | |
LORI'S WORDS OF WARNING by Lori Kalner, as told to Bodie Thoene Dear Friends: Lori Kalner asked me to help her pass this message to you. These are Lori's final words of warning as the choice of Life and Death is before our American nation. "Dear Ones, you know the Word of God in the Bible is alive. In my life I have been constantly amazed at how daily scripture readings always form a perfect fit, as the Lord's instructions and warnings relate to great world events. My task (and yours) is to then recognize our personal responsibilities as Christians. I have seen and experienced how the apathy of Christians destroyed my homeland and the world. I am amazed now that so many American Christians could be still undecided about how they should vote. Now the Lord speaks to every American Christian. Will they listen? My father (a German Evangelical Pastor) taught me by example that the voting booth is a sacred altar where a Christian bares his true heart before the Lord. I have said this to you many times. Papa was among the few German Christians who did not vote for, and spoke against, Herr Hitler. For this stand he lost everything on earth, yet trusted in the Lord's promise, "Great will be your reward in heaven." How well will American Christians remember what is at stake? Not only their nation, but their souls. Their Constitution. Their children's instruction in schools. Freedom to speak publicly without fear of reprisal. Freedom to ask a question. (*Bodie's note: Lori was quite upset by the investigation and humiliation of Joe the Plumber and the ABC news reporter in Florida) It is undeniable truth that the Holocaust against European Jewry began with eugenics…choosing who was worthy to live and who would die. Abortion…sterilization…euthanasia to eliminate the disabled "useless eaters." Much of this America already participates in. Silence when evil is practiced is participation in evil. When it was over for Germany, and the nation was burned with fire and turned to rubble, the Germans who pretended to be Christians said, "We did not know." But I tell you, the German church did indeed know! And you in the church in America also know what is happening in your country. Christ is now outlawed in public places. You have elected men and women who profane the Name of Christ by claiming to follow Him while they enact laws to murder the innocent. (* Bodie's note: check the pro-abortion votes of: Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank) And now Americans believe the political propaganda that this American election is about the economy? (The same lies were told by the Nazis; blaming Jewish bankers for the German financial downturn.) I tell you, rather, there are spiritual absolutes at work here. The famine of a bad economy has come upon America because of the mass genocide of abortion. (*Bodie's note: 48 million U.S. infant deaths by abortion since Roe v. Wade) I tell you plainly, Americans are not following Christ if they vote for this Obama who has voted for the murder of the unborn…and infanticide…. I warn you clearly: destruction and misery will come upon America if Christians let this happen. And in eternity they will be held accountable before the throne of the Righteous Judge for what they do and what they do not do. Every innocent baby aborted is like a murdered child of Bethlehem as Herod seeks to kill the Christ Child. (Those who vote for Obama the abortionist have chosen the Kingdom of Herod over the Kingdom of Christ.) Silence and political inaction is not an option for a true follower of Christ. You Christian cannot ever say, "We did not know. We were not warned." Brave pastors, priests, and bishops have now sounded the clear call for every believer to choose Life. Those pastors who follow Obama are false shepherds and will be accountable and judged by God. May your heart be filled with compelling urgency to do the will of Christ by voting for LIFE! I speak for those who have no voice, Lori Kalner (as told to Bodie Thoene) (Bodie's comments continue below the readings) Reading 1 Phil 2:1-4 Brothers and sisters: If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also everyone for those of others. THE WORD OF THE LORD! Gospel Lk 14:12-14 On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees. He said to the host who invited him, "When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD! Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ! TO SUM UP (by Bodie): Today, the Lord teaches all Christians that we must join together in ONE MIND; the mind of Christ! Ask yourself, WHAT IS THE MIND OF CHRIST in regard to abortion? Was there ever an answer more obvious? Christian! You are commanded by the Lord and the teachings of the Church to put the lives of vulnerable babies before yourselves. If you do not vote, your silence gives CONSENT to the murder of the unborn. A vote for Obama places you among the jeering crowds who gathered before Pilate to shout your agreement, "WE HAVE NO KING BUT CAESAR!'…'CRUCIFY HIM!' Your VOTE for McCain/Palin is a VOICE to save the lives of multitudes of innocent children. YOUR VOTE, joined with millions of other Christian votes for the candidates who are PRO-LIFE, will turn the tide of evil back from the shores of our land! John and Cindy McCain have proven and lived their faith in Christ by adopting and raising a child. Sarah and Todd Palin have proven and lived their faith by CHOOSING LIFE and the blessing of love for their beautiful Down Syndrome baby! John McCain and Sarah Palin are two leaders you can trust in high office to protect a generation of vulnerable lives, and also to protect our children and grandchildren! Blessings in Jesus, the Lord; whose Name is above ALL NAMES…. Bodie Thoene www.familyaudiolibrary.com | |
Copyright © 2008 Thoenebooks.com |
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/04/2008 12:41:00 AM
0 comments
I am going to put the words of the person who put this video on youtube after the video. Then, I am going to refer you to FUMARE .... where I first saw this video.
JCJ77 wrote on July 22, 2008:
What is he talking about here?
"We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded."
And my own words... add to this Biden's comment
"Mark my words,
"It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America.
"Watch. We're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.
"And he's going to need help . . . to stand with him. Because it's not going to be apparent initially; it's not going to be apparent that we're right."
And it really makes me uncomfortable...
Lord, have Mercy!
Christ, have Mercy!
Lord, have Mercy!
God bless!
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/03/2008 11:18:00 PM
0 comments
Reminder! Also remember to Vote~ I did tonight with my mother. Thanks for the reminder, Jean!
God bless!!
November 3rd and 4th – National Days of Prayer & Fasting
Just as our forefathers did in founding this great nation, we declare that we are one nation under God, and recognize that under God's care we remain. At this crucial time of transition, please join your fellow Americans in lifting our eyes, our hearts and our prayers to our Heavenly Father, pleading for His mercy.
PRAYER and FASTING INTENTIONS
ELECTION PRAYER (Please Pray Daily)
"Ever-faithful God, we consecrate the 2008 U.S. presidential election and our entire nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Our Loving Mother, Patroness and Protectress of the Americas.
We ask that You take our Nation into Your Loving Care, reach into the hearts of the electorate, and give them the strength and enlightenment to know your Will, and to exercise Your Will in their vote. Abba, Father, Thy Will Be Done!"
Breathe in me O Holy Spirit that my thoughts may all be holy;
Act in me O Holy Spirit that my work, too, may be holy;
Strengthen me O Holy Spirit to defend all that is holy;
Guard me then O Holy Spirit that I always may be holy.
...St. Augustine
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/03/2008 09:49:00 PM
0 comments
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/03/2008 03:07:00 PM
0 comments
The Hour of Decision from Mark Mallett on Vimeo.
I need say nothing more. He has said it very well. In the video, he refers us to his blog, to this entry....
Lord, Have Mercy!
Christ, Have Mercy!
Lord, Have Mercy!
God bless
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/03/2008 02:32:00 PM
0 comments
http://www.markmallett.com/blog/?p=802
WHAT is this strange spell which seems to have bewitched America? What is this enchantment which has befallen the mainstream media? What is this strong infatuation which has inebriated a large portion of the electorate? Yet, for many others, there are enormous and very loud alarm bells ringing this eve over the next likely President of the United States: Barack Obama. I am a Canadian, and so I am usually reluctant to express my thoughts on another country's politics. However, I feel more and more that what is happening is setting the stage, in part, for many things I have written about of the trials which are coming upon the Church and the world.
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/03/2008 02:17:00 PM
0 comments
Very powerful, and hopefully read by many before they cast their vote.
All highlighted words below were highlighted by me.... The url for this newsletter is
http://studiobrien.com/site/index2.php?option=com_yanc&act=archive&task=view&cid=79&Itemid=79&no_html=1
All Saints Day, 1 November 2008
Dear Friends,
From just north of the border, we Canadians, like other people throughout the world, are observing and praying for the coming federal election in the United States of America. I would prefer to keep private my counsel about political choices, because it is not my country. However, I am receiving letters from American subscribers and visitors to my studio website asking me some rather surprising questions about Barack Obama, related to one of my novels.
During the past year I have read a number of his pronouncements, and saw the smoke and mirrors beneath the rhetoric, but couldn't understand why everyone south of the border (the other south of the border, the 49th parallel) was getting so excited about him, both pro and con. Then a few weeks ago a German friend called me immediately after Obama's speech in Berlin, to say that the presidential candidate had mesmerized the crowds, and that a commentator on German television had said: "We have just heard the next President of the United States...and the future President of the World." My friend felt that Obama bore an uncanny resemblance to the fictional character of the President in my novel Father Elijah. I have received several other letters saying the same thing and asking what I thought about it.
From my own reading of Obama's declarations and stated positions, I knew he was an ultra-liberal, a social revolutionary with visionary pretensions. But the Antichrist? No, not possible, I thought. I felt that he was too shallow a man to be the Son of Perdition, the Man of Sin, the Beast of the Book of Revelation. And I still think so. Obama is a crowd-pleaser with just the right ethos of idealistic crusader. That the crusade and the banners under which it marches are evil does not automatically prove that he is the Antichrist.
But now that I have seen the video of the Berlin speech I think there is more here than meets the eye. He is indeed a powerful manipulator of crowds, even as he appears ever so humble and wholesomely charming. I doubt that he is the long-prophesied ruler of the world, but I also believe that he is a carrier of a deadly moral virus, indeed a kind of anti-apostle spreading concepts and agendas that are not only anti-Christ but anti-human as well. In this sense he is of the spirit of Antichrist (perhaps without knowing it), and probably is one of several key figures in the world who (knowingly or unknowingly) will be instrumental in ushering in the time of great trial for the Church under its last and worst persecution, amidst the numerous other tribulations prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and letters of St Paul, St. John, and St. Peter.
Of course the mystique that has grown up around him is endlessly reinforced by the liberal media, which presents him to us as a high-minded humanist, a kind of secular messiah (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 675). Yet when all the rhetoric is boiled down to its substance, the man is advocating unlimited state-sanctioned murder, and compounds it by indulging in habitual falsehood. He is well accustomed to playing loose with the truth whenever it is expedient for him to do so; or else he is the victim of the largest memory lapses in recorded history; or perhaps he is just not careful about how he expresses things—a blurring or selectivity regarding facts for the purpose of aggrandizing his public image. There is a controversy currently raging in the (admittedly unreliable) forum of the internet, prompted by an African-American talk show host in Los Angeles who listed 39 significant details that Barack Obama claimed were facts about himself, but on further investigation were proved to be simply untrue. There has been some wild-fire debunking of the debunking, and then more counter-debunking, but it remains obvious that forthrightness and clarity are not major concerns in the Obama camp.
What are we to make of a man who has appeared out of semi-obscurity and become, nearly overnight, so very much an idol of the popular imagination? That he intends to become the most effective advocate of murder of the unborn ever seen in America should give us pause. Murder and lies are as old as the lands east of Eden, of course, but when they are charmingly packaged, proposed as reasonable and just policies (with a smile, a resonant voice, and an appealing flash of the eyes), one begins to wonder just what is afoot in the modern age. It brings to mind a passage from the first Act of Shakespeare's Hamlet:
"That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain..."
The line is from a scene where prince Hamlet has just encountered the ghost of his father, who informs his son that he was poisoned by his own brother Claudius (the "smiling, damned villain"), who after murdering him, seized the king's crown and his queen.
Barack Obama is an image-maker, creating his own myth as he goes along. This would be a sad defect in any human being, but it takes on ominous proportions in a person who may become, after November 4th, one of the most powerful figures in the world. How is it possible that such a tragic turn of events may come about, if indeed a majority of Americans choose to believe the smile and the myth? Why is it that so many people have come to believe that a mirage is reality, even destiny? Do pro-Obama voters hanker for a world figure who would heal old divisions between races and religions, thus heralding a new age for mankind? During this time of near intolerable tensions, does he appear to be the one who can reconcile Islam and Christianity, Africa and America, occident and orient, black and white, rich and poor? Do they see his racial origins as a symbolic victory over the history of racial oppression? Do they see in him the good-hearted "under-dog", the gutsy street fighter who agitates for the rights of the "little guy," whose meteoric rise to a position of maximum influence represents themselves enthroned at last in the high seat of power? Is this why they ignore his every grave fault and hungrily consume his vague idealist platitudes as if these were a kind of new gospel for the third millennium? Our hero. Our visionary. Our Great Friend and spokesman in the forum of the world?
Clearly, contemporary man needs heroes. But why not choose a genuine one, why not look a little deeper and work a little harder to find a man of courage and principle, and if it helps in the historical healing process, why not a very different kind of black man, say a person like Alan Keyes, a scholar, former ambassador, experienced in different levels of government, and (it might be added) an African-American married to a woman from India. Moreover, he is a devout Catholic who believes in moral absolutes and has amply proved that he will stand firm to defend them regardless of the cost to his own career. He knows that kings and presidents cannot usurp the natural law, the moral order of the universe, without bringing down judgment upon their nations. But it need not be Keyes. It might be any number of other men and women of clear thought and clear principle. Surely there are "Ten Just Men" still out there somewhere in America. So why Obama? And why does he rise and rise as his mouth smiles and smiles, exuding sincerity as he speaks lies and death?
And why, most horribly, most shamefully, are so many Christians of malformed or unformed conscience supporting him? Is it because they have never been clearly instructed in the truth, never understood the foundation upon which the moral cosmos is built? Is morality for them merely another system of abstract "values" in a crowded playing field of such systems, from which one may pick and choose? In the case of Catholics, for example, have they been blinded by a diet of theological nuances and deadly little loopholes offered to them by the committees of national episcopal conferences — committees that have absolutely no authority over Catholics, yet which are widely revered as a kind of alternative Magisterium? Have they been deadened by a habitual dismissing or dissembling of the solid teaching given to them by the universal Church under Peter? Have they grown accustomed to listening to opinion shapers who tell them that certain excellent apostolic Bishops in America who teach the truth without compromise are merely hidebound reactionaries, moralistic extremists, contemporary manifestations of those old boogymen who still haunt the American psyche — the Chillingworths and Dimmesdales and the judges in The Scarlet Letter? And so it goes, this over-reaction to Puritanism played out over centuries, an over-reaction that breeds tragedies a thousand times worse than Salem's. Lies compounding on lies, and it all floats on an ocean of spilled innocent blood. And who can gaze at that ocean (or be splashed by it) without coming to a radical choice: One either turns away into a deeper state of denial, or one turns heart and mind toward the splendor of Truth, and changes one's life accordingly.
Is this why many of our Catholic people have become impulse-driven impressionists? Of course, the blindness is not due to the failure of pastors alone. The Ministry of Disinformation (by which I mean most modern media) has played a major role. There is also the erosion of truth in the education systems, combined with the gradual confusion and weakening of conscience through our addiction to the "soma" drugs supplied by the entertainment industry. Other factors may be the war in Iraq, or Republican economics, or the Bush administration, or the structure of Capitalism itself, or any number of prudential questions in the sociopolitical order, all of which are presently tangled nests of moral dilemma. But why do they not see that these questions are secondary to the fundamental issue of life itself? Why would they replace one reigning oligarchy with another kind of oligarchy — moreover, one that would kill vast numbers of its own citizens?
"I call on heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live...." (Deuteronomy 30:19)
May God bless and guide you,
in Jesus our Saviour,
with prayers and fasting,
Michael O'Brien
PS: For those interested in a concise examination of the moral parameters of voting in the forthcoming election, I urge you to read an excellent article by Dr. Mark Miravalle, professor of Theology at Franciscan University, Steubenville, available at the following link:
http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1531
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/03/2008 02:11:00 PM
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Tonight I was following a few links, and came across a forum where I found a statement that I would like to respond to.
PNEVAI wrote:
Sorry but you need to change the title this person did not go through the holocaust. The Holocaust was the wholesale extermination of the Jews. While germans sat by and watched. You are a Holocaust survivor only if you escaped the concentration camps or managed to live long enough to be freed. Accounts by people feelin guilty about what happened back than do not qualify you as a Holocaust survivor. they were part of the problem.
My fathers side of the family was almost totally wiped out by the Nazi's through the forced labor program (concentration camps) And I was told first hand accounts that would suggest that most people not just 1/3 (lie) more like 3/4 enthusiastically supported Hitler and his policies and the remaining 24.9% were too scared to say or do anything.
Just google brown shirts the Arrow Cross and you will get the picture.
In closing this type of smear rhetoric has no place on this board. It is beneath the lowest forms of slime. Genuine Racists are usually the ones who distribute this sort of stuff during American Elections. The Holocaust is used to remind people of what prejudice and facism can beget. And is neve used by Holocaust sruvivors to openly slime people, the sole exception of Nazi War Criminals.
Public response to Pnevai:
You have made assumptions that need to be addressed. Lori Kalner's family was very much affected by the Holocaust. Without knowing her story, you assume that she is one who is 'feelin guilty' (sic), and was part of the problem. You are in error.
Smear rhetoric is NOT what Lori's letter is. Lori is speaking of the kind of propaganda that she witnessed growing up in Germany, and she is warning us that she sees it happening again here, today, in the USA. It is NOT slime, but it is a warning. Lori is not a racist, nor am I. This letter came about because I am concerned about propaganda, and when I saw the video of children singing praises to Obama, I wrote to Bodie and asked her if she had seen the video. As a result, Lori Kalner also saw it, and the letter followed her viewing it after it brought back memories of her own experience.
I am offended by your assumptions. The Holocaust did not just happen to Jewish people. Catholics were also murdered in those camps, as were Christians of other denominations who tried to save the Jewish people, and who stood up to the Nazis. I have NOT just spoken out against propaganda for this election, but many times over the past 30 years. It is growing, and has never been as blatant as it has been in the past few years.
If you want to know more about Lori's story, read the Thoene books, and/or write to them. But do not assume that you know anything about her, her letter, or me until you do.
Read Ezekiel 3:17-21.
WI CATHOLIC
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/03/2008 01:32:00 AM
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One of my visitors came via a google search, and when I followed the link to my blog, I learned that the Hannity and Colmes link to a video no longer works. So I had to look further to try to find it. I found others, but not the original one I had used then....
Netanyahu: It's 1938 and Iran is Germany; Ahmadinejad is preparing another Holocaust
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/02/2008 11:33:00 PM
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Freedom of Choice Act. Sounds innocuous enough, but it is NOT.
Good article in The Bulletin with...and a final thought at this website....
It begins....
CFN Addendum to Bulletin article:
This aspect of Obama's candidacy has been eclipsed by endless talk about the economy.
It is tragic that our own Catholic clergy have not effectively warned the people under their charge of this danger. This could be remedied if every priest in every diocese in the country would inform their congregations this Sunday of the grave threat to the lives of the unborn, and to the continuance of Catholic hospitals, that an Obama presidency poses.
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/02/2008 10:18:00 PM
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This is the question of the day...
Check out this Catholic Online Headline
Opinion: Is there a 'Catholic Vote'? Will Catholics Decide this Election?
www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=30319
posted by WI Catholic @ 11/02/2008 10:04:00 PM
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posted by WI Catholic @ 11/02/2008 09:59:00 PM
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"Why I Don't Preach Politics"
Homily
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Fr. Augustine Wetta, O.S.B.
About twenty years ago, back when I was working as a lifeguard on the beach in Galveston, I had to pull a body out of the water—it was the body of a man who had been dead for a very long time. The tower I was working that summer was several miles from Headquarters, so when I arrived at my tower and saw the crowd on the beach, I knew that help would be a long time coming. And I remember being in a kind of a daze that morning as I walked up to the edge of the water and I remember suddenly realizing that I was very very scared, because the folks on the beach, they knew the body was out there, but they didn't know where, which meant I'd have to swim out and just keep swimming till I ran into the body. And I remember pretty clearly how warm the water was that day. And I remember calling into my radio for backup. And I remember looking around at the people in the crowd and realizing that I was going to have to find that corpse on my own. But most of vividly of all—and this is the part that I still have nightmares about—I remember thinking (realizing) that at any moment, I might just…lose it…in front of all those people—just break down and run away. And I remember saying to myself as I waded into the water that if I could just get one foot to go in front of the other, eventually it would all be over. And I remember looking out at the surf and considering the awful truth that I might not be able to do it.
Well, there have only been two times in my life when I've felt like that. That day on the beach was one. And last night when I reread this homily—that was the other.
I started writing this homily about a month ago. And back when I started it, I didn't realize how difficult it would be to actually give it. At any rate, I felt at the time that it was the right thing to do, that it was, in fact, what I needed to do, that it was in fact what Mother Church was asking me to do. Well, then my friend Fr. Noah Waldman beat me to the punch. He gave a sermon in which he dared to ask his congregation, "When we go to the polls on November 4, why will so many Catholics not support the overturn of Roe vs. Wade?" Well, someone yelled at him in the middle of his sermon, and someone else walked out in the middle of it, and then he wound up in an article in the Saint Louis Post Dispatch under the heading "Church and politics get testy". So be it. I don't know what his parish is like, and I wasn't there. But then our own Bishop Hermann gave a sermon in which he dared to suggest that Catholics "Pray their way into conformity with the teachings of …[the] Church." And he was treated similarly. He made it all the way to the Washington Post. And when Bishop Sarettelli gave a homily entitled "No Right to Life! No Freedom!" he wasn't just attacked in the press, he was brought under investigation by the IRS. Well, one thing is clear to me: that every time a Roman Catholic cleric implies that the issue of abortion should influence the way a Christian votes, that cleric is punished. I don't know why this came as a surprise to me. Even a cursory look at the scriptures should have warned me. When a prophet faces off against a king, he always loses—and loses more than his tax exempt status. So the sum total of all of this is that I don't really want to give the homily any more. Not because I don't believe it, but because I'm scared to give it.
But I will say this much. I understand that as your priest, it is not my job to tell you who to vote for. And I also understand that many good Catholics—good, loyal, loving, God-fearing, church-going, Catholics will weigh the issues and arguments of their parties and politicians and decide that the evil of abortion is outweighed by the evils at play in matters of immigration, health care, the economy…the War on Terror..." I understand that. Indeed, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops published a statement affirming that in fact "There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons." But "…voting in this way," they say, "would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons." So I can see how a serious Catholic might argue that a candidate or party that supports abortion may espouse policies so good that they outweigh that evil.
But I don't see how I can stand up here and preach on text which says, "love your neighbor as yourself." Stand up here at this pivotal juncture in our nation's history when so many Catholics find themselves so caught between so many weighty moral dilemmas—stand up here, preach on love of neighbor, and not point out that we as a nation have murdered 45 million children.
Now, when I told Fr. Ambrose that I'd be preaching on this, he said to me, "Well that's great. But just don't bring up the Nazis. I can't bear to hear another argument 'ad Hitlerum.' It's so obvious." But because it is obvious, it is unavoidable. Pius XII for all his efforts to protect and free the Jews, never published a direct attack on Hitler or his political party. And for that, history remembers him as "Hilter's Pope." So you see, if I and many of my brother priests have started to sound a little heavy-handed on this abortion issue, it's because we have inherited this burden of guilt. Many in the Catholic hierarchy failed to speak out in defense of those helpless millions. They failed. We failed. And now, its seems that we are failing again.
So you see, your priests and your bishops are in a really tight spot: if they speak out, they're politicking; if they keep silent, they're cowards.
Well, I'll tell you something I've never told anyone. That day when I walked out into the surf to get that body I never found it. Deliberately. I walked around in the shallows where I knew I'd never find it…and I kept shuffling in the shallows till my supervisors showed up. Then they went out and got the body while I pretended to help. So you see, I've thrown my lot in with the cowards once already. I've stood in the shallows while someone else swam deep and did my job. And I don't have the courage of Noah Waldman or Bishop Hermann or Bishop Saretelli, and I certainly do not have more courage than Pius XII. But I'll be damned (literally damned) if I do not stand by my brother priests and I will most certainly be damned if I do not stand definitively, resolutely, uncompromisingly for the forty five million children who cannot stand at all.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.