Pro-Life leaders see genuine hope for Obama’s conversion

John Henry Weston at LifeSite News has a piece about how Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR, Joe Scheidler and Nellie Gray (foundress of March for Life) have all expressed genuine hope that prayers for President Barack Obama’s conversion could be rewarded.

Part of me really wants to believe that, just like party of me really wanted to believe that George W. Bush meant what he said in his campaigns and his wonderful speeches.

However, many of the “positive” signs they point to are the same ones that could just as easily indicate that Obama is master-deceiver, disarming the opposition by his “niceness.”

Obama’s warm reception and engagement with Evangelical Pastor Rick Warren did
much to render that image. ‘If he can get along with pro-life and
pro-family Rick Warren’, the logic goes, ‘then he can’t be all that bad.’ Indeed
Obama is not a raving anti-Christian lunatic who wouldn’t give the likes of
Warren the time of day. Rather Obama is measured, friendly, even
“spiritual,” a hero for worldly wisdom, if you will.

Contrast to this article, which points specifically to the opposite: Obama’ strategy is to disarm the opposition with his niceness, to pain himself as the “good guy,” and those of us who oppose him as “mean-spirited” upstarts who cause “disunity”.

The following point from the LifeSite piece can lend to either conclusion:

Scheidler talked to a group of pro-life activists gathered for the March about Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope; and he concluded that the President is
“obsessed with abortion.” The book mentions abortion 26 times.

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Kudos to Yahoo for making this a headline

In the wake of all this brouhaha over holocaust denying (or doubting?) priests, here’s an article on a Catholic priest who’s doing work to raise awareness of a lesser-known aspect of the holocaust: Jews who were just shot on the spot.

Benedict is on the Move: first SSPX, now Traditional Anglicans

The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has refused the request of the Traditional Anglican Communion to be recognized as a sui iuris local church, an “Anglican Rite,” as has often been discussed and anticipated.

However, it *has* offered to accept the TAC as the second personal prelature in the Church.

One of the main questions raised by traditionalist Anglicans who want to become Catholic is not just the permission of their married priests to stay priests, but the permission to continue ordaining married men.

This Austrialian article inaccurately says that Eastern Catholic Churches do not ordain married men: while they are traditionally not allowed to do so in “Western” countries, Rome has actually granted wider permission in that regard.

While the TAC has made requests, it has made no demands, and has openly agreed t0 accept Rome’s decision, whatever it is. The TAC also made an oath of fidelity to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

This is in the “rumor stage” now. But it makes sense. Year of St. Paul; Christian Unity Week and all that.

Fr. Thomas Reese, SJ, is such a jerk

“In general, the Vatican loathes giving the appearance that it is bending to pressure,” said the Rev. Tom Reese, a Jesuit political scientist and author of “Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church.”

Why does this guy get the press he does? One day, it’s “laity rule”; next day it’s “the Vatican kowtows to influential conservatives”; next day it’s “The Vatican loathes giving the appearance that it is bending to pressure.”

Which one is it???

Anyway, I for one am glad Benedict’s taking his time and appointing good bishops (the article is about a petition a bunch of liberals have sent to the Vatican demanding the replacement of their wonderul, post-retirement age Archbishop Alfred Hughes.

This is absurd!

50 “Catholic” US Congresspersons (the article does not identify which 50 they are, but I can guess most of them had a (D) after their names) have written to the Pope, demanding that he directly repudiate Bishop Williamson.
????

OK, Bishop Williamson is a “holocaust denier,” but we have lots of so-called Catholics in Congress today who deny today’s holocaust. They have absolutely no moral ground to stand on.

Hasn’t the Pope already repudiated Williamson? And isn’t Bishop Fellay’s “direct repudiation”, in some ways, more important than that of the Holy Father?

In either case, it would be nice if the Holy Father condemned Williamson and all the pro-abortionists in Congress.

Besides, would any of those “Catholics” have the courage to write such a humble apology as this one ? While not actually renouncing his views, Bishop Williamson has written a letter to Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, and the Holy Father, begging forgiveness for his “imprudent” remarks.

Now that the seminary report is in, the Vatican is gonna start probing the formation programs of convents

Yay! Michael Steele is the new chairman of the GOP!

Deal Hudson wrote about him a few days ago. Steele is a pro-life, African American, Catholic Republican. He happened to be a part of Christine Todd Whitman’s Republican Leadership Committee, which advocates a “big tent” party, but he resigned from that group this past June, and he gave a strong pro-life message at the meeting Hudson organized with the USCCB in 2003.

Big family? Great. Refusing abortion? Great. IVF? Evil

A woman who already had six kids has just given birth to octuplets, all the result of in vitro fertilization. The nice thing is that, when the doctors suggested “selecting” embryos, she refused. However, why is a woman with six kids using IVF to begin with?

FDA puts Darvocet under review

The Silent Scream

A neat letter to the editor responding to article about Bishop Vigneron

Government Funds Georgetown’s Rhythm Gimmick

Good news:

A three-year award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs to Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health will enable federally supported programs in California and Massachusetts to offer the Standard Days Method®, a highly effective, easy-to-use natural family planning method developed by Institute researchers.
In addition to making scientifically based natural family planning methods developed by the Georgetown researchers available to Title X clients, the $600,000 award will enable the researchers to test strategies to overcome barriers that limit the availability and use of natural family planning methods by individuals who get their heath care through this government-funded program.

Proves that the main objections to NFP from the Establishment are its lack of profitability. They want “cheap and affordable” birth control, but they won’t actually promote NFP unless there’s something they can sell.

Which raises the issue of why they won’t allow ClearPlan’s NFP test into the US.

An abortionist describes a dilation and extraction

From Priests for Life:

The Washington Post: Anti-Christian

Interesting piece from Quin Hillyer in the American Spectator on two articles in a recent Washington Post.

The first was a glowing book review called “Saving C.S. Lewis.” Written by foreign desk editor Elizabeth Ward, also described in the byline as “a longtime reviewer of children’s books,” the review assessed a new literary endeavor by a woman named Laura Miller called The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia.

Basically, Miller’s book discusses how the Narnia books can be enjoyed by a skeptic in spite of their Christian themes. But, more importantly, Ward, the reviewer, glowingly approves of Miller’s anti-Christian view and gives no criticism of it, nor any defense of Lewis.

The second article, in the same issue, is a weird piece written by another Miller, M. Lynn Miller, called “My Mom, the Adulteress,” in which the writer brags about her mother’s serial adultery.

Fantastic article on moral imagination

Now, I’ve grown against the idea of “Santa Claus” for other reasons, but I generally agree with what this guy is saying here. In “OK, Virginia, There’s No Santa Claus. But There Is God,” Tony Woodlief discusses the necessity of a belief in the *possibility* of fairies as an important element to belief in God.

Perhaps a more responsible parent would confess, but I hesitate. For this I blame G.K. Chesterton, whose treatise “Orthodoxy” had its 100th anniversary this year. One of its themes is the violence that rationalistic modernism has worked on the valuable idea of a “mystical condition,” which is to say the mystery inherent in a supernaturally created world. Writing of his path to faith in God, Chesterton says: “I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician.”

He notes that Christopher Dawkins says that telling children fairy tales–particularly Christian allegories–is a worse form of abuse than sexual molestation.

New research from the Université de Montréal and the University of Ottawa indicates that children aren’t overly troubled upon learning that Santa is a myth. But the researchers remained puzzled because while children eventually abandon Santa, they keep believing in God. Lewis would say this is because God is real, but Mr. Dawkins fears it is the lasting damage of fairy tales.
. . .
That’s all well and good, but it seems to miss a fundamental point illuminated by Chesterton, which is that, ultimately, belief in God is belief in mystery.
As a parent, I believe (with the older apologists) that it’s essential to preserve a small, inviolate space in the heart of a child, a space where he is free to believe impossibilities.

Fantastic article!

CNN is such a joke!

Last week, several pro-life sites pointed out the blatant lack of coverage of the March for Life by pointing out some of the ridiculous headlines on CNN’s news page.

Today, when eugenics was just passed into law yesterday, one of CNN’s headlines is about a puppy abandoned outside on a cold night.

Gag!

People, listen, I love dogs. They’re nice to look at. They’re nice to pet and play with. They serve many useful functions for human beings.

But, read very carefully,

ANIMALS DO NOT HAVE SOULS! PEOPLE DO!

One of the best argument Rush Limbaugh ever rasied is this: show me a dolphin that built a hospital.

Now, we have a duty to be responsible stewards of God’s creation. God gave us this whole world to use for our benefit, but we are not abuse. As I tell my kids, “Animals are God’s toys, and we don’t want to break God’s toys, do we?”

However, dogs are not people. People are not animals. There is a huge difference, and I am sick of that difference being blurred. A puppy left out in the cold gets national headlines?

Dogs have been bred to a variety of purposes, many of which involve enduring extreme temperatures and staying outside. They’re *animals*.

Today, 4,000 babies will be aborted.
Thousands of babies will be created and destroyed (or “frozen”) for In Vitro Fertilization.
Unknown thousands of babies will be conceived by women using contraceptives and then prevented from implanting in their mothers’ wombs, doomed to be flushed downt he toilet.

And CNN is concerned about a puppy?

Virginia House of Delegates takes on pro-life pharmacy

Divine Mercy Care (DMC) Pharmacies, the pro-life, anti-contraception pharmacy that opened last year, has been the target of a tabled bill in the Virginia House of Delegates.
The bill has been tabled and cannot be brought up again this year. But this is what it says:

“Any pharmacist who refuses to fill a prescription for contraception shall
ensure that the patient seeking such contraception is treated in a nonjudgmental
manner and is not subjected to indignity, humiliation, or breeches in
confidentiality. The pharmacist shall not confiscate a prescription for
contraception that he refuses to fill.”

“Indignity”? Contraception is an indignity.
As for nonjudgemental? Why not? As always, will they make a law saying that doctors are required to treat patients who practice NFP with a nonjudgemental and non-humiliating attitude?

This is so Orwellian.

Daschle’s health care rationing: Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER)

A few days ago, I reported that ex-Catholic Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Daschle supports health care rationing. Turns out, that is *part* of the ‘economic stimulus’ bill that passed the House of Misrepresentatives yesterday. Thanks to the Intellectual Redneck for sharing this info!

Why is the Pope being criticized for what some priest says?

OK, so there’s some priest named Father Floriano Abrahamowicz who lives in Italy, and, like Bishop Williamson, he’s a holocaust doubter/denier.

Jewish leaders are criticizing the Holy Father for this. What does Pope Benedict XVI have to do with the personal opinions of one priest?

Government Funds Georgetown’s Rhythm Gimmick

Good news:

A three-year award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs to Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health will enable federally supported programs in California and Massachusetts to offer the Standard Days Method®, a highly effective, easy-to-use natural family planning method developed by Institute researchers.
In addition to making scientifically based natural family planning methods developed by the Georgetown researchers available to Title X clients, the $600,000 award will enable the researchers to test strategies to overcome barriers that limit the availability and use of natural family planning methods by individuals who get their heath care through this government-funded program.

Proves that the main objections to NFP from the Establishment are its lack of profitability. They want “cheap and affordable” birth control, but they won’t actually promote NFP unless there’s something they can sell.

Which raises the issue of why they won’t allow ClearPlan’s NFP test into the US.