Obama at Holy Cross Cathedral

Obama, Who is Forcing Catholics to Act Against Their Faith, Speaks Today at Boston’s Catholic Cathedral

.                                                    – CNS news headline, April 17, 2013

Some main points made in the article:

• The US Catholic Bishops have made a unanimous declaration that the Obama administration is violating the civil rights of American Catholics, by forcing them to act against their faith in a matter involving the life and death of innocent human beings in the HHS Mandate.
• Obama’s position on gay marriage, should it prevail, would also criminalize the refusal of a Catholic parish to hire a “married” homosexual to teach in its elementary school.
• Pope Francis wrote that the movement for same-sex marriage was Satanic. (The implications of same-sex marriage are not obvious on the surface, but are explored at Gay Marriage and Homosexuality)

Questions and points:

• Why did the Archbishop of Boston and chairman of the bishops’ pro-life committee, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, welcome Obama to speak at his Cathedral, literally giving Obama a pulpit?
• Let us hope and pray that the good Cardinal plans to confront Obama on the Cardinal’s turf.
• Time will tell where this remarkable event will lead.
• Cardinal Dolan’s confrontation with Obama last year led to some public discussion of these important questions regarding religious freedom and civil rights.
• Let’s hope Cardinal O’Malley does the same thing.
•   This issue is far from over.

Update on Catholic Child Abuse Scandals

One of the most highly trafficked older articles on this blog, still visited by thousands of people, is an article written in April of 2010, entitled If You’re Looking for Child Abuse, the Catholic Church is the Last Place to Look.
I must admit some surprise, seeing so much traffic going to an article that is three years old.

So I re-read the article, to do a bit of updating.  As a courtesy to those who read it, it should be current.

Not much updating was needed, since the main points of the article remain as true today as they were in 2010:

• Catholic priests are the least offenders of all groups in society.
• Children are more safe with Catholic priests than they are in public schools and in their own homes.
• The media seems to report selectively on Catholic priests, misleading people into thinking that Catholic priests are prone to child abuse, when this is simply untrue.
• The few articles which exonerate the Catholic Church are often removed from the web, as in the case of the NewsMax article I originally quoted in 2010.  Whether threats of litigation similar to those used by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) are responsible for removal of these articles is not clear.
• The fact remains that children are actually in more danger of abuse in their own homes than they are with a Catholic priest.  Live-in boyfriends of divorced mothers are the highest offending group of child abusers in our society. Teachers, doctors and farmers are also high up on the list.
• Media sensationalizes the the fact that dozens of priest offenders are “loose” in the United States, when it fails to acknowledge that every town in America has hundreds of “loose” sex offenders, and that there are close to a million registered sex offenders in the United States.
• Media fails to acknowledge that sex offenders cannot be vaporized magically, either by the government or by the Church, and they do exist and live among us after their sentences have been completed.
• Media exercizes a terrible double standard, reporting primarily on Catholic priests who have abused children, and failing to report on the other groups.  They also assume guilt, failing to acknowledge that any organization believed to have deep pockets will be subject to numerous false accusations.
• For more information, see the original article at If You’re Looking for Child Abuse, the Catholic Church is the Last Place to Look.

My update to If You’re Looking for Child Abuse, the Catholic Church is the Last Place to Look included listing some of the recent supporting material which exonerates priests and exposes the liberal media bias.
One of the biggest contributors to defusing the false narrative is David F. Pierre Jr.:

Dave Pierre is one of the country’s leading observers of the media’s coverage of the Catholic Church abuse narrative. Dave is the author of two critically acclaimed books, ‘Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church’ and ‘Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories.’

Readers have cited Dave’s work as “essential reading,” “a must-read,” and “a great service to the Church.”

Dave is the creator and author of TheMediaReport.com and is a longtime contributing writer to NewsBusters.org, the popular media-bias blog of the Media Research Center.

Dave has been interviewed on National Public Radio (NPR) as well as by other radio outlets and newspapers for his work. He has also contributed to print publications.

Dave is a graduate of Boston College and lives with his wife and family in Massachusetts.

Freedom From Religion Contracting Leprosy and Dissolving in Shame?

or

A Double Standard

Truth about Wisconsin’s Freedom From Religions Foundation (FFRF) published at FindLaw.com!

FindLaw.com has alerted us to an amusing but true perspective on FFRF and it’s agenda.
Click image above to go to FindLaw.com, see original article at American Clarion, or continue below:

A Double Standard in Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Actions

March 3, 2013

By Stewart Longfellow

By now it has become obvious that when a country’s values are under attack constantly, there’s something rotten…and it’s not in Denmark…it emanates from Wisconsin, with a group that seems hell-bent on attacking Christians.

The group, Freedom From Religion Foundation has put its’ crosshairs directly on the city of Rapid City, in an effort to silence a simple prayer before the meeting starts. (Rapid City Council and Mayor pictured at right.) Nothing severe, nothing offensive, but apparently, praying causes these peoples’ ears to bleed, contract leprosy and dissolve in shame.

Ok, embellishing a little there, but in all seriousness, just what is it that causes this group to have a classic hissy-fit over religion’s simple act of talking to God? For one, what is so offensive about the act of praying, when these people are supposed to not believe in prayer and want to deny its use in the world?

More importantly, why does this group practice a double-standard, in not attacking all religions equally?

Take for example Dearborn MI, where the Muslims control things lock, stock and barrel. Do you see these folks walking along the street, telling people who pray publicly five times a day, to not pray in public places? How about the act of wearing religious clothing? How about around the country where Native Americans have religious items like medicine wheels, tobacco usage or imagery, do they harass these people as well, or is it simply an attack on the church and it’s action of speaking with the Creator?

For what it’s worth, it also seems time to take a David vs Goliath approach to these people, who seem to enjoy being the bully of the block…and take the fight back to them.

For one, even a person uneducated in the government, can read basic English. In the First Amendment, it mentions “prohibiting the free exercise thereof” in terms of religion. Nowhere, in the Constitution does it mention the Separation of Church and state, nor does it mention silencing people praying as a right…but it does mention the freedom of speech. Since obviously that means this group is looking to deprive people of their rights, perhaps it’s time to bring legal action, and hit them where it would hurt the most…that’s right, the pocketbooks.

The freedom to practice whatever religion you wish, is a right the founding fathers put in our hands…don’t let a bunch of bullies push us around.

Thanks to American Clarion, thanks to FindLaw.com!

If everyone spoke up like this, radical bullies would get nowhere.
They are right, we need more Davids to step up to Goliath.  Especially when “Goliath” is as tiny as FFRF.

Don’t Diss My Church

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Misinformation and Why it Sticks

On the morning of the day Pope Benedict retired, February 28, 2013, an article entitled The New Inquisition appeared in the online news publication globalpost, together with a cluster of similar false attacks on the Catholic Church:

• Vatican’s Looming ‘Inquisition’ Reveals a Fractured Catholic Church

• As Pope Ateps Down, Disinformation Permeates Vatican Crackdown on Nuns

• A New Inquisition: The Vatican Targets US nuns

• Who is Father Dan Ward?

• Bishops Investigating US Nuns Have Poor Records on Sex Abuse Cases

• Theologian Hans Küng Condemns Pope’s Modern ‘Inquisition’

• On US-Mexico Border, Nuns Offer Migrants Rare Sanctuary

• Reporting on Immigration and Faith in Nogales, Mexico

Barrage of Lies

These articles represent barrage of lies so overwhelming that it’s hard to know where to begin untangling them.
Here are the falsehoods implied in the headlines alone:

• LOOMING INQUISITION- There is no “inquisition.” A doctrinal correction is not an Inquisition. A doctrinal correction is more like your teacher correcting your homework.
• FRACTURED- The Catholic Church is no more fractured than any other institution in society, including the United States.  The whole world is pretty split between liberals and conservatives, so why should the Catholic Church be any exception?
• TARGETING NUNS- The Vatican is not targeting US nuns; the Vatican simply made a doctrinal correction, as it does to all errant groups.
• INQUISITION- The original “inquisition” has been grossly misrepresented by opponents of the Church.
• SEX ABUSE- Despite very regrettable instances of sex abuse in the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church still has a lower frequency of sex abuse than any other societal group, including household members at home, public school staff and doctors.  The only reason the Church is in the news is that again, the liberal media and Church adversaries welcome any opportunity to criticize the Church.  In actual fact, every city in the United States has more child abusers released onto the streets by their own City than any Bishop or Diocese has ever released.
• THEOLOGIAN HANS KUNG- “Theologian” Hans Kung is not a faithful Catholic, but a Church adversary and heretic. A typical quotation from Hans Kung,on the occasion of Pope John Paul the Great’s beatification:
  • John Paul II is universally praised as someone who fought for peace and human rights. But his preaching to the outside world was in total contrast with the way he ran the church from inside, with an authoritarian pontificate which suppressed the rights of both women and theologians.
    
• NUNS HELPING MIGRANTS- The “Social Justice” for which dissident nuns advocate is a screen designed to camouflage their departure from Church teachings on more important moral teachings like abortion, marriage and religious freedom.  Focusing on how “nice” the dissidents are, or on what good deeds they are capable of is irrelevant to the fact that they have abandoned numerous Church teachings, as well as their vows of obedience.  If soldiers in the military or employees of Microsoft should tried similar stunts, public opposition to organization policies, court maritial or firing would be the expected result.  The Catholic Church is much more tolerant than that.  Some “Inquisition!”
• FATHER DAN WARD- Father Daniel Ward is a canon lawyer who helped two Benedictine nuns who rescinded their vows publicly to transfer the previously Benedictine property to themselves.    Hmmm… how’s that vow of poverty working out for those two ladies who still call themselves “Benedictine women” and “Sisters” after retracting their vows?
• SOCIAL JUSTICE- a buzz word invented by dissident nuns who ought to acknowledge instead that they have departed from Catholic Church teaching. Substituting service for immigrants and union workers does not let these nuns off the hook on abortion and marriage issues, which are even more important than immigrant and union worker problems.

Don’t have time or space here to do all these subjects justice, but there’s a blog article in the pipeline entitled Today’s Catholic Nuns: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  Stay tuned, article coming soon…

Why are liberals so anxious to damage the Catholic Church?

Why are liberals so anxious to damage the Catholic Church?
Because the Catholic Church is the largest and most organized opponent to the radical immoral “it feels good so let’s do it”  liberalization of the United States and of the world.

And why did globalpost launch the attack now?
Because those who fear the moral standards represented by the Catholic Church seem to think that the Church might be more vulnerable at this moment, as our Pope departs.

Some adversaries are clueless when it comes to Jesus’ promise: And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.- Matthew 16:18

P.S. – Why Misinformation Sticks

An Association for Pyschological Science publication clarifies why misinformation sticks:

The main reason that misinformation is sticky, according to the researchers, is that rejecting information actually requires cognitive effort. Weighing the plausibility and the source of a message is cognitively more difficult than simply accepting that the message is true – it requires additional motivational and cognitive resources. If the topic isn’t very important to you or you have other things on your mind, misinformation is more likely to take hold.

Deja Vu

History repeats itself.
Posted almost 2 years ago, by Ben Garrison at Grrraphics.com:

-A non-partisan cartoon from Ben Garrison, who resented George Bush equally for what he calls the “global elite banker ponzi scheme.”

Visit Ben Garrison’s website by clicking on this header:

From the website:

Ben Garrison and his wife Tina are freelance artists living in Montana.

We are trying to do our part by means of artwork to help raise awareness of the drift toward tyranny.
We as private citizens need to reclaim and fight for our rights as enumerated in our Constitution. It’s time to speak out and express our outrage at the growing tyranny of Big Government. That’s why we created GrrrGraphics!

Today’s NEW YOU  TUBE version of Kicking the Can:

What a lovely gift from my ‘bro on my birthday:

(the Lithuanian says ‘Happy Birthday, Syte.”)

What Kind of Young Man Wants to Become a Catholic Priest in 2012?

Thanks be to God for His goodness!

America Chooses…

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From today’s Liturgy of the Hours:

Psalm 84 (85)
Our salvation is very near

Lord, you blessed your land; you forgave the guilt of your people.

O Lord, you once favoured your land
and revived the fortunes of Jacob,
you forgave the guilt of your people
and covered all their sins.
You averted all your rage,
you calmed the heat of your anger.

Revive us now, God, our helper!
Put an end to your grievance against us.
Will you be angry with us for ever,
will your anger never cease?

Will you not restore again our life
that your people may rejoice in you?
Let us see, O Lord, your mercy
and give us your saving help.

I will hear what the Lord God has to say,
a voice that speaks of peace,
peace for his people and his friends
and those who turn to him in their hearts.
His help is near for those who fear him
and his glory will dwell in our land.

Mercy and faithfulness have met;
justice and peace have embraced.
Faithfulness shall spring from the earth
and justice look down from heaven.

The Lord will make us prosper
and our earth shall yield its fruit.
Justice shall march before him
and peace shall follow his steps.

Glory to the Father and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

Lord, you blessed your land; you forgave the guilt of your people.

For Judeo-Christian values and for the Constitution of the United States

IRS Surrenders to Pastors: Politics from the Pulpit O.K.!

“THIS AREA HAS BEEN SET ASIDE FOR NON-PROFIT GROUPS TO EXERCISE THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL 1ST AMENDMENT FREE SPEECH RIGHTS”

In a recent blog post, I described the effort of  Evangelical Pastors to challenge the IRS on Pastors’ freedom of speech with “Pulpit Feedom Sunday” on October 7th : Heckling the Rosary or Renaming the Wisconsin State Journal (scroll down to this pulpit photo).

Looks like the IRS has surrendered-
IRS Surrenders” ‘Holding Any Potential Chruch Audits in Abeyance’

and
IRS Suspends ‘Politicized’ Church Tax Audits

Here’s a message from the founder of Chesapeake, Virginia-based Exodus Faith Ministries, the Bishop E. W. Jackson, to Black Christians regarding this election: