Bomb explodes in Nepal's only Catholic church during Mass

Via Domenico Bettinelli Bomb explodes in Nepal's only Catholic church during Mass. Two dead. http://ping.fm/PhBDQ
 

Police: Mom of buried NM boy says she killed him

facebook 1:55pm May 21st Police: Mom of buried NM boy says she killed him To wicatholic MY QUESTION: WHY WAS THE CHILD WITH HER IF THIS IS TRUE??? "Schultz described Toribio as a transient who was kicked out of her mother's home on May 7 because of the way she treated her son. A few days later she was kicked out of a friend's house for the same reason, he said." How very, very sad... http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/45730552.html

Crosswalk.com | Talking About Talking About Abortion

Albert Mohler wrote, in part:
Mr. Obama went on to call for "Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words." In the end, the President's comments were entirely about how Americans should discuss or debate abortion. There was no serious consideration of abortion itself. President Obama merely talked about talking about abortion.

This was a moral evasion and an insult to the importance of the issue. If the President had actually addressed the issue of abortion -- if he had actually even offered a defense or rationale for his own position -- he would have dignified the issue. Instead, Mr. Obama issued what amounted to a call for civility.

When the President called for Americans to agree that, while differing on abortion, "we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually," he failed to make clear why this is so. If the unborn baby is not a person who possesses an intrinsic right to life, why is the decision to abort so "heart-wrenching?" If the fetus is just a collection of cells, why the angst? Furthermore, does the fact that a decision is "heart-wrenching" make it right or rational?

When the President acknowledged that, in the end, the two positions on abortion are irreconcilable, he was on more solid ground. Both sides frame the issue as a question of rights -- specifically a woman's "right" to control her reproductive destiny by any means, including abortion vs. the unborn child's right to live. The weakness of the pro-abortion (or "pro-choice") position becomes evident at this point. The claimed right of control over reproduction is not commensurate with another person's right to live, and not to be killed in the womb.

If President Obama had actually spoken of abortion itself, rather than addressing abortion only as an issue of controversy, he would have found himself defending the indefensible, which explains why he avoids this discussion at all costs. Yet, now that he is President, he cannot get by with claiming that this question is "above my pay grade."

See the rest here:
http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/mohler/11603742/

Archbishop Chaput on Notre Dame & Commencement Address by Pres. Obama

I am in agreement with Archbishop Chaput.

God bless!

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Thu, May 21, 2009 at 2:21 PM

PDF Version (click here to download)

May 18, 2009
Archbishop Chaput on Notre Dame and the issues that remain

 

"I have found that even among those who did not go to Notre Dame, even among those who do not share the Catholic faith, there is a special expectation, a special hope, for what Notre Dame can accomplish in the world."

~ Reverend John Jenkins, C.S.C., May 17, 2009

 

Most graduation speeches are a mix of piety and optimism designed to ease students smoothly into real life.  The best have humor.  Some genuinely inspire.  But only a rare few manage to be pious, optimistic, evasive, sad and damaging all at the same time.  Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame's president, is a man of substantial intellect and ability.  This makes his introductory comments to President Obama's Notre Dame commencement speech on May 17 all the more embarrassing.

 

Let's remember that the debate over President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame was never about whether he is a good or bad man.  The president is clearly a sincere and able man.  By his own words, religion has had a major influence in his life.  We owe him the respect Scripture calls us to show all public officials.  We have a duty to pray for his wisdom and for the success of his service to the common good -- insofar as it is guided by right moral reasoning.

 

We also have the duty to oppose him when he's wrong on foundational issues like abortion, embryonic stem cell research and similar matters.  And we also have the duty to avoid prostituting our Catholic identity by appeals to phony dialogue that mask an abdication of our moral witness.  Notre Dame did not merely invite the president to speak at its commencement.  It also conferred an unnecessary and unearned honorary law degree on a man committed to upholding one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in our nation's history: Roe v. Wade. 

 

In doing so, Notre Dame ignored the U.S. bishops' guidance in their 2004 statement, Catholics in Political Life.  It ignored the concerns of Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, Notre Dame's 2009 Laetare Medal honoree – who, unlike the president, certainly did deserve her award, but finally declined it in frustration with the university's action.  It ignored appeals from the university's local bishop, the president of the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference, more than 70 other bishops, many thousands of Notre Dame alumni and hundreds of thousands of other American Catholics.  Even here in Colorado, I've heard from too many to count.

 

There was no excuse – none, except intellectual vanity – for the university to persist in its course. And Father Jenkins compounded a bad original decision with evasive and disingenuous explanations to subsequently justify it.

 

These are hard words, but they're deserved precisely because of Father Jenkins' own remarks on May 17: Until now, American Catholics have indeed had "a special expectation, a special hope for what Notre Dame can accomplish in the world."  For many faithful Catholics – and not just a "small but vocal group" described with such inexcusable disdain and ignorance in journals like Time magazine -- that changed Sunday. 

 

The May 17 events do have some fitting irony, though.  Almost exactly 25 years ago, Notre Dame provided the forum for Gov. Mario Cuomo to outline the "Catholic" case for "pro-choice" public service.  At the time, Cuomo's speech was hailed in the media as a masterpiece of American Catholic legal and moral reasoning.  In retrospect, it's clearly adroit.  It's also, just as clearly, an illogical and intellectually shabby exercise in the manufacture of excuses.  Father Jenkins' explanations, and President Obama's honorary degree, are a fitting national bookend to a quarter century of softening Catholic witness in Catholic higher education.  Together, they've given the next generation of Catholic leadership all the excuses they need to baptize their personal conveniences and ignore what it really demands to be "Catholic" in the public square.

 

Chicago's Cardinal Francis George has suggested that Notre Dame "didn't understand" what it means to be Catholic before these events began.  He's correct, and Notre Dame is hardly alone in its institutional confusion.  That's the heart of the matter.  Notre Dame's leadership has done a real disservice to the Church, and now seeks to ride out the criticism by treating it as an expression of fringe anger.  But the damage remains, and Notre Dame's critics are right.  The most vital thing faithful Catholics can do now is to insist – by their words, actions and financial support – that institutions claiming to be "Catholic" actually live the faith with courage and consistency.  If that happens, Notre Dame's failure may yet do some unintended good.

 

ARCHBISHOPS CORNER

The American Spectator: Barney Frank Lies About ACORN

WI Catholic thought you'd be interested in the following article at The
American Spectator:

Barney Frank Lies About ACORN
He lied to Lou Dobbs the other night but no one seems to have
noticed.
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/05/21/barney-frank-lies-about-acorn

Dyspeptic Mutterings: Seinfeldian Catholicism.

Dyspeptic Mutterings: Seinfeldian Catholicism.

Long, but very good! As are many of the comments!

Traditional Irish Blessing

I love this. Thank you, Rene.

God bless!

No-Fault Divorce: America’s Divorce Mill by Judy Parejko

I just realized tonight, May 28th, that I had this still in my drafts. Sadly, it should have been published the night I read the article. Too many things going on in my life right now, so please forgive me. And God bless!

A few years ago, I met an extraordinary woman who had been studying how the no fault divorce laws came about, and was transcribing the actual minutes of the meetings. It was then that I also learned that BOTH Roe v Wade and the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act became 'law' of the land in 1973, and realized that I had been right in my belief that the enemy of our souls was bound and determined to get our children one way or another. If he could not get them through abortion, then he'd get them through the drug and alcohol culture that began to spread across the land rapidly in the late sixties, early seventies. If he could not get them there, he would get them by getting Dad out of the home one way or another, deserving or not.

Abortion, drug/alcohol, divorce (and easy Nullity in Catholic circles) have taken more lives than any other plan the enemy could have devised. It is estimated that 1 in 3 pregnancies is ended by abortion. Of the surviving children, many are born to unmarried parents, and the others have a 50/50 chance of having their parents divorce. Some of those children will go on to repeat the same things that their parents did...many will leave the Church (regardless of denomination).

About the same time that I learned that abortion and no fault forced unilateral divorce became 'law' in the same yr (one in Jan, the other in Aug of 1973), I also learned that the source of the divorce law was Communist Russia.

Judy Parejko's book, Stolen Vows, is excellent in its history of forced unilateral divorce.

So is this article, written by her. And as you read it, remember that if the DIVORCE LAW is from Communist Russia... then ask yourself.... why is our American (US) Catholic Church granting so many NULL verdicts for what are probably very VALID MARRIAGES in God's eyes?



No-Fault Divorce: America’s Divorce Mill
May 18th, 2009 by Judy Parejko


Readers' comments can be viewed and submitted at Catholic Exchange.


What is no-fault divorce?

When you ask most people, they will say it’s a mutual-consent process, or that it preserves privacy , or that it eliminates blame for the failure of the marriage.

Not many people will answer that it’s a lawsuit in which one party is suing the other party. And even fewer will know that it came from the Soviet Union.


Go here for the rest of this very well researched article.

And should this link not work in the future, email me and ask for it, because I have saved it, from the author herself.