Gee! Pius XII saved Jews–big surprise!

Vatican Radio has announced the publication of a 1943 letter, documenting 23 Jews who were hidden in a Roman convent per the orders of Pius XII.

Some people really thought Obama’s "pro-life" supporters might work to change his mind, . . .

but, instead, they’re working to change the minds of other pro-lifers–and to usurp the authority of bishops, says activist lawyer Matt Bowman.

Latin American Pro-Lifers beg Obama not to force abortion on their countries

Marquette University seaks 650 couples for federally funded NFP study

The “Marquette Model” involves supplementing traditional NFP methods with a fertility monitor. The University has recently received a grant from Department of Health and Human Services (last chance for grants like that, I’d say) to test the effectiveness of its method.

It will divide the couples into two groups. One group will use mucus-only method, while the other group will use sympto-thermal, supplemented by the fertility monitor.

Not sure if I agree with their protocols, though. The whole appeal of the LH testing is that it avoids the meticulous symptom checking and charting of sympto-thermal. They should really do it the other way around.

In any case, it’s a cool study, and, if you qualify, you get a $200 fertility monitor kit for free. They are looking for “committed’ couples (the federal grant will not allow them to turn away couples woh are unmarried and otherwise eligible, but the couple *must* be monogamous) who are solidly commited to avoiding pregnancy. The woman must not have recently taken chemical contraceptives, but she must not be breastfeeding, either.

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The Anchoress (aka Elizabeth Scalia) does a news round up of the "Signs of the Times"

Psychologist Asks whether Obama is a Narcissist

The real question is: what politician isn’t?

So much for technology preserving data

Following backwards on a chain of links from my last post, here is a piece on how many movies will be lost to the collective awareness because they are available on now-obsolete VHS, but they are not popular enough to support transition to digital.

Modern Day Book Burning

One of my great concerns the past few years has been the vast cultural illiteracy of what many are calling “the MySpace Generation.” Adding to that is the latest news on the “National Bankruptcy Day” Act, AKA Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Apparently, printers’ ink prior to 1985 contained too much lead by the new standards.

So, guess what? All books published before 1985 have to be burned–children’s books, in particular.

Goodbye, Baltimore Catechisms (among other things).

Has Obama declared war on America?

Who, exactly, are we in debt to?

In Leviticus 25, God commands Israel to observe a sabbath year every 7 years–not working at all–and a jubilee year every 50 years. One of the reasons for the Babylonian Exile was the failure to observe the sabbath years. Part of the Jubilee Year was the neutralization and forgiveness of debts.
Since this command has never been fully observed at the national level, in the Great Jubilee of 2000, John Paul II started calling on nations to engage in debt forgiveness.

The US population is in debt. To whom are we in debt? Corporations. But the corporations are in debt. To whom? Other corporations, who are also in debt. Who are they in debt to? Governments. Who are governments in debt to? Other governments, and big corporations.

Ultimately, all debt is to the future. In The Abolition of Man , C. S. Lewis warns against creating a future where all people are the slaves of their ancestors. One way of doing that is by our current system of usury.

The Bible is very clear on interest and usury. Traditionally, both Jewish and Christian interpreters have tried to say that the Bible condemns “usury” specifically, and that “usuary means exorbitant interest.” Yet Lev 25:36 says, “Do not exact interest from your countryman”.

Psalm 15:5 says, “[Happy the man who] lends no money at interest, accepts no bribe against the innocent.”
In Luke 12:20, Jesus says, of the man who saves his surplus rather than sharing it, “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?”

So, whom, exactly, are we, collectively indebted to? With no gold standard, money only has the value governments give it. Everyone is indebted to someone else, with a few exceptions.

The continuation of the debt cycle is absurd. Interest upon interest upon interest, charged to our children’s children. . . . Isn’t that just slavery? It’s definitely indentured servitude.

John Paul called for international debt cancellation, and no one listened. Did anyone even take the lead and engage in unilateral debt cancellation?

This is just one more way in which Holy Mother Church had the foresight to warn the world against its coming implosion.

If I ever struck it rich, I would start the Psalm 15 Foundation, and give no-interest loans to help get Catholic families out of debt.

". . . gave us back our businesses, got the English out. . . . "

Michelle Obama may not be quite Eva Peron–after all, no one knew anything about her before her husband was famous. But Barack Obama has snubbed England the way Juan Peron did, and the English are blaming his wife, saying that she is a racist.

Apostolic Visitation sets up website

If Chris Korzen is so "non-partisan"

Why does he write for the Huffington Post?

Bishop Naumann speaks out on Sebelius

Knights of Malta accept Pro-abort former DC Mayor as Member

It’s the Natural Law, stupid

It’s not the economy. It’s not even “abortion reduction.” It’s about natural law. A society’s laws *have* to conform to Natural Law. Any law that violates Natural Law is automatically invalid. Any lawmaker who votes to violate natural law is guilty of derilection of duty and should be removed from office.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1956 The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:
For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused
among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its
prohibitions turn away from offense . . . . To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.9

1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history;10 it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. The rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man.

Rerun of a Key Point: JPII on "incrementalism" and "compromise"

“Catholic” Obama supporters, and now “Catholic” Sebelius supporters, like Chris Korzin’s “Catholics United” for Satan, keep repeating Obama’s’ buzzwords–which were the Clintons’ buzzwords 16 years ago–about “reducing” abortion and finding “common ground.”
Usually, when you read the fine print, their “common ground” is contraception.

Kathleen Sebelius only has two kids. She comes from a wealthy and powerful family. Her father was a Congressman; her husband is a federal judge. Even Natural Family Planning requires grave reasons. This woman apparently has none (Unless you count her obvious mental defects). And the fact that she is an ardent supporter of birth control indicates that she is not a supporter of NFP.

The fact that Sebelius’ bishop has told her to refrain from Communion doesn’t even faze Chris Korzen and his cohorts. His hatred of Deal Hudson is so all-consuming that he’s willing to sacrifice as many babies to Moloch as he can if it means making Hudson look bad.

It infuriates me that groups like “Catholics United” claim so deceptively to be pro-life, then viciously attack true pro-life groups like American Life League, Operation Rescue and Human Life International. (BTW, it also disgusts me that the NRLC and the USCCB claim to be pro-life organizations when they say the same things).

Recently, 26 alleged “Prominent Catholics” wrote an open letter endorsing Sebelius as being “pro-life.” Now, the only three names I recognize are this list are Korzen himself, Douglas Kmiec and Fr. Thomas Reese, SJ, who is himself an avid supporter of both abortion and contraception. The rest I’ve never heard of.

Apparently, all these “prominent Catholics” are ignorant of _Evangelium Vitae_ or the follow-up statement John Paul II issued five years later. So, let’s summarize: abortion and contraception are both wrong; Catholics are supposed to fight to make both of them illegal; there is no such thing as compromise on these issues.

Evangelium Vitae:

John Paul II on “common ground”:

“we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception” (paragraph 58.2; my emphasis bold).
“In the proclamation of this Gospel, we must not fear hostility or unpopularity, and we must refuse any compromise or ambiguity which might conform us to the world’s way of thinking (cf. Rom 12:2)” (82.3; my emphasis).

Two wrongs do not make a right: contraception is not “abortion prevention”
Section 13

“It is frequently asserted that contraception, if made safe and available to all, is the most effective remedy against abortion. The Catholic Church is then accused of actually promoting abortion, because she obstinately continues to teach the moral unlawfulness of contraception. When looked at carefully, this objection is clearly unfounded. “

Section 91

“It is therefore morally unacceptable to encourage, let alone impose, the use of methods such as contraception, sterilization and abortion in order to regulate births.”

Incrementalism and compromise constitute the sin of despair:

In February, 2000,Pope John Paul II gave an address to commemorate the fifth anniversary of _Evangelium Vitae_, in which he says (my emphasis bold),

“there is no reason for that type of defeatist mentality which claims that laws opposed to the right to life – those which legalize abortion, euthanasia, sterilization and methods of family planning opposed to life and the dignity of marriage – are inevitable and now almost a social necessity. On the contrary, they are a seed of corruption for society and its foundations. The civil and moral conscience cannot accept this false inevitability, any more than the idea that war or interethnic extermination is inevitable” (Address at theCommemoration of the Fifth Anniversary of the Encyclical “Evangeliumvitae”, 14 February, n. 4; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 23February 2000, p. 4).

Here’s what Fr. Thomas Euteneuer had to say about these “prominent Catholics”:

“There’s another prominent Catholic they may have heard of, and his name is Pope
Benedict XVI,” said Fr. Euteneuer. “And he has clearly taught that endorsing,
and even worse, signing into law, legislation that directly results in
the destruction of innocent human life, as Governor Sebelius has done, is a
formal cooperation with evil, and therefore itself a grave evil.”