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Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
So it is written so shall it be done?
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
The wilderness or desert, formed the backdrop for the prophets, the Psalms, and the Exodus. John the Baptist preached in the wilderness, and the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted…The Spirit urges us to seek time alone with God…Our desert and wilderness can be a meaningless job, chronic illness, a crumbling relationship, or the loss of a loved one. Whatever wilderness we travel into, God is ever inviting us to depend on the love poured out in Jesus…In the midst of the desert, we might grumble and rebel…We might temporarily abandon the God who truly liberates us from our slavery, the God who loves us totally. God understands this rebellion and anger as our attempt to control our own destiny, to call all the shots. God trusts that once we have faced the desert, confronted the reality of our vulnerability, we will rush into the Divine embrace.
Wayne Simsic
http://www.padrepiodevotions.org/reflection.asp
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
Why don’t the social justice people go socially justify some place else?
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
The answer will shock you!
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
Michelle Obama, take note: detainees at Guantanamo are being fed 6,000 calories a day.
Ben Lerner, American Spectator, March 12, 2010
I recently returned from a week-long media tour in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some of our finest soldiers and sailors are tasked with a difficult and thankless job: guarding dangerous detainee enemy combatants captured in the course of the Global War on Terror. In the same week, Reps. Burton (R-Ind.) Rohrabacher (R-Cal.) and Gohmert (R-Tex.) presented Pentagon officials with 170,000 signatures from Americans asking that courts-martial proceedings against three Navy SEALs be dropped. The charges: after the SEALs apprehended Ahmed Hashim Abed, the al Qaeda terrorist wanted for the torture and murder of four American contractors in Fallujah in 2004, one of them allegedly punched him, while the other two allegedly made false statements about the incident.
Although the personnel at Gitmo and these Navy SEALs are serving their nation at opposite ends of the globe, an unfortunate and troubling thread connects them. In both settings, our government has deliberately decided to overlook the exemplary job that these military professionals have done in service to the United States, under extremely difficult circumstances. Instead, our government has chosen to give the benefit of the doubt to the enemies of our nation and the critics of its self-defense, by prosecuting the SEALs who risk their own lives to apprehend jihadists, and pushing the false narrative that has come to define detention operations at Gitmo.
While the three Navy SEALs await the opportunity to answer the charges against them, the Obama administration and its supporters have already passed judgment on those handling detention operations at Guantanamo Bay for the past eight years. The president himself has referred to Guantanamo as a “sad chapter in American history,” and has lamented that Guantanamo has “set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world.”
After one sees firsthand how the detainees are really treated at Gitmo, it becomes evident that these characterizations are entirely unfounded. (more…)
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
Street clashes broke out between rioting youths and police in central Athens today as tens of thousands demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government.
Hundreds of masked and hooded youths punched and kicked motorcycle police, knocking several off their bikes, as police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades.
The violence spread after the end of the march to a nearby square, where police faced off with stone-throwing anarchists and suffocating clouds of tear gas sent patrons scurrying from open-air cafes.
Police say 16 suspected rioters were detained and two officers were injured.
Stand off: Greek police dodge petrol bombs hurled by rioters on the streets of Athens as protests against new measures to boost the economy turn violent
Rioters used sledge hammers to smash the glass fronts of more than a dozen shops, banks, jewelers and a cinema.
Youths also set fire to rubbish bins and a car, smashed bus stops, and chopped blocks off marble balustrades and building facades to use as projectiles.
Organisers said some 60,000 people took part in the protest. But an unofficial police estimate set the crowd at around 20,000 – including those that took part in a separate, peaceful march earlier Thursday. Police do not issue official crowd estimates for demonstrations.
Thursday’s strike – the second in a week – brought the country to a virtual standstill, grounding all flights and bringing public transport to a halt.
State hospitals were left with emergency staff only and all news broadcasts were suspended as workers walked off the job for 24 hours to protest spending cuts and tax hikes designed to tackle the country’s debt crisis.
Riot police made heavy use of tear gas during the start-and-stop clashes throughout the demonstration, including outside Parliament.
Strikers and protesters banged drums and chanted slogans such as ‘no sacrifice for plutocracy,’ and ‘real jobs, higher pay.’
People draped banners from apartment buildings reading: ‘No more sacrifices, war against war.
The demonstrators included hundreds of black-clad anarchists in crash helmets and ski masks, who repeatedly taunted and attacked riot police with stones and petrol bombs, at one point spraying officers with brown paint……….CONTINUED………. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1257243/Greek-riots-Up-60-000-people-streets-protest-government.html#
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
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I’ve spent the last week traveling across Israel as part of a delegation from Christians United for Israel (CUFI). I’ve had individual meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Ehud Barak, President Shimon Peres, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and others. As always, it has been an eye opening experience. Vice President Joe Biden also spent the past few days in Israel, consorting with many of the same leaders I met with, visiting some of the same historic sites and perhaps walking many of the same streets in Jerusalem and elsewhere. But what he seems to have missed on his trip is at the heart of the troubles that the Obama administration is having in the Middle East. Despite having similar itineraries, Biden and I come to strikingly different conclusions about America’s relationship with Israel, and what it will take to resolve the world’s most intractable conflict. The vice president (and the administration he works for) treats Israel as the primary obstacle to peace in the Middle East. They seem blind to the Islamic fundamentalist who want Israel and the U.S. wiped off the map. But I regard the Jewish state as a lonely outpost of Western Civilization deserving and in dire need of our unwavering support. Biden’s trip has been dominated by controversy over new settlements. The Israeli government this week revealed plans to build 1,600 new housing units in response to a housing shortage in an Orthodox community of East Jerusalem. Because much of the so-called “international community,” including the U.S., refuses to recognize Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem, the new settlement plan has prompted the usual anti-Israel outrage. In a particularly harsh condemnation, Biden said, “The substance and timing of the announcement…is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now.” But the timing of the new housing announcement was drafted three years ago and is under the authority of district planning committees, not Israel’s political leadership. And according to Ehud Barak, the settlement area “is an ultra-Orthodox city very close to the green line, and these are housing units for people who are struggling and cannot buy elsewhere.” Biden’s blistering response is emblematic of the Obama administration’s antipathy toward Israel. Obama, who has made outreach to the Muslim world a feature of his presidency, has left Israelis skeptical about his support for them. A poll last August found that just four percent of Israelis viewed Obama’s policies as more “pro-Israel” than “pro-Palestinian” or neutral. Many Israeli Jews are Americans too. More than 110,000 American Jews have immigrated to Israel, and 2009 saw the most immigrants from North America in 36 years. Most of those who come do so for religious, ideological and political reasons; not financial ones. They come, risking death and enduring the constant anxiety of knowing that they are rich targets of Muslim hatred, to live in solidarity with fellow Jews. They come also because, in the middle of a region dominated by tyrannical regimes, Israel stands as the lone beacon of democracy. And that’s the reason I, with hundreds of other Christians, have come to Israel. We recognize that abandoning Israel would not only seriously threaten Israel’s existence, but also imperil the United States. One of the most moving activities I participated in this week was a solidarity march through Jerusalem’s Old City. We marchers were met with the astonished faces of city residents more accustomed to witnessing anti-Israel rallies. Some passersby began weeping at our display of support, and one man threw rose petals at our feet. Many ran up to offer their heartfelt “thank-yous.” I wish Joe Biden had been able to witness the outpouring of love and appreciation we’ve received from the Israeli people. In late January, President Obama tried to explain his lack of success thus far in brokering Middle East peace by saying, “This is just really hard.” Middle East peace will remain really hard for the Obama administration until it stops accommodating those who seek to destroy both Israel and the United States and begins treating Israel like the “no better friend” Joe Biden insists it is. |
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35995
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
AP (FOXNEWS), March 12, 2010
AP – Mar. 10: People opposed to President Obama’s health care overhaul demonstrate before his arrival at St. Charles High School in Mo.
WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders Thursday abandoned a long struggle to strike a compromise on abortion in their ranks, gambling that they can secure the support for President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care legislation with showdown votes looming as early as next week.
In doing so, they are all but counting out a small but potentially decisive group whose views on abortion coverage have become the principal hang-up for Democrats fighting to achieve the biggest change in American health care in generations. Congressional leaders are hoping they can find enough support from other wavering Democrats to pass legislation that only cleared the House by five votes in an earlier incarnation.
The concession came as House Democrats attended a lengthy meeting with White House health adviser Nancy Ann DeParle, who tried to answer questions, resolve differences and calm nerves, especially for lawmakers expecting tough challenges in November. Participants said they generally embraced White House-brokered compromises on prescription drug benefits for the elderly and new taxes on generous insurance plans. (more…)
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
Will the Democratic Congress use “reconciliation” to shove their version of health care reform down the throats of an unwilling electorate? That’s the issue grabbing all the headlines these days.
But a recent Wall Street Journal editorial points out that the majority in Congress is also ready to use reconciliation to sneak another government takeover through Congress, this time with little fanfare. The legislation would ban private lending companies from issuing federally backed student loans.
The Journal opines that universities are none too pleased about this because when it comes to customer service and in making sure borrowers don’t default on their loan, the feds don’t stack up well against private companies.
Ostensibly, by taking over student loans, the government plans to save money. But according to the Journal, the planned savings of $67 billion will be overtaken by $77 billion in new spending. No wonder Congress wants to pass the bill before the public catches on.
More disturbing is that this is yet more evidence that the administration and Congress are bent on increasing the government’s power at the expense of the private sector.
So why should you and I, or any Christian care?
We’ve talked often BreakPoint about the danger of debt—for individuals and the government. This new takeover will place additional burdens on future generations, who will pay the bill for the government’s largesse. But this episode points to a more fundamental issue: freedom and the proper role of government.
I’ve said it until I’m blue in the face, and I’ll say it until I’m purple: The biblical view of the role of government is to preserve order, restrain evil, and promote justice. Government has no legitimate interest in running car companies, the healthcare industry, or taking over student loans.
The Reformers understood this, and called it “sphere sovereignty.” Every institution—family, church, private associations, government—have legitimate roles to play in a justly ordered society.
In Catholic social teaching, it was called the principle of “subsidiarity,” recognizing that the interests of individuals are best served by the institutions closest to them. For example, which institution, the University of Virginia or the federal government, knows how best to serve students attending UVa?
In both the Protestant and Catholic traditions, government should perform only those functions which can’t be performed by these “intermediate structures.”
There is little these intermediate structures and voluntary associations haven’t done in building our nation. The great French observer of American life Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at American society—that individuals and communities could come together to promote culture and the arts, to run schools, hospitals, charities and more. Nowhere in the world did he see such vitality.
But today, we’re seeing a concerted effort by the federal government to expand its reach and power at the expense of local government and these intermediate structures. Pressures that are building against the church are very much involved in this.
This not only flies in the face of solid Christian teaching, but the same Alexis de Tocqueville warned that doing this would lead to soft despotism. So we Christians must keep speaking out.
http://catholicexchange.com/2010/03/12/128038/
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
Catholic League president Bill Donohue calls into question media coverage of Muslim violence against Christians in Nigeria:
According to The Australian, “dozens of bodies lined the streets” of three Christian villages in northern Nigeria. “Other victims of the weekend’s Muslim fury jammed a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered children tangled in a grotesque mess.” Children were scalped, “most had severed hands and feet,” and “officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by rampaging Muslim gangs.” According to one eyewitness media account, “They then set homes on fire and attacked men, women and children. Many were decapitated.”
Now here is how CNN is reporting the story. “Gangs of machete-wielding Muslims have been blamed for the weekend slaughter of hundreds of Christian villagers in Nigeria, but analysts say it would be wrong to assume the conflict was rooted in religion.” Of course: When Muslims massacre Christians, religion never has anything to do with it.
“Some analysts,” the story continues, “believe the weekend slaughter was a revenge attack for the killing of around 150 members of the Hausa Muslim community by Christian mobs in Kuru Karama south of Jos, in January 2010.” Well, let’s see. Back in January, a U.N. media outlet reported that Muslim and Christian leaders in Kuru Karama, a predominantly Muslim village, “met to make a pact with the police to defend any attacks by outsiders.” But guess what happened? “Several hours later youths armed with machetes attacked the village.” And we know who likes machetes.
Back to CNN. It cited an ugly Muslim-Christian incident in 2001 in the same area. What started the Muslim massacre back then? “A Christian woman had tried to cross the road through a group of Muslims during Friday prayers.” Yeah, that’ll do it every time.
It’s time to stop viewing Muslim-Christian violence through the lens of moral equivalency.
http://catholicexchange.com/2010/03/12/128040/
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
Pat Buchanan, Townhall, March 12, 2010
Though Bush 41 and Bush 43 often disagreed, one issue did unite them both with Bill Clinton: protectionism.
Globalists all, they rejected any federal measure to protect America’s industrial base, economic independence or the wages of U.S. workers.
Together they rammed through NAFTA, brought America under the World Trade Organization, abolished tariffs and granted Chinese-made goods unrestricted access to the immense U.S. market.
Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services has compiled, in 44 pages of charts and graphs, the results of two decades of this Bush-Clinton experiment in globalization. His compilation might be titled, “Indices of the Industrial Decline and Fall of the United States.”
From 2000 to 2009, industrial production declined here for the first time since the 1930s. Gross domestic product also fell, and we actually lost jobs.
In traded goods alone, we ran up $6.2 trillion in deficits — $3.8 trillion of that in manufactured goods.
Things that we once made in America — indeed, we made everything — we now buy from abroad with money that we borrow from abroad.
Over this Lost Decade, 5.8 million manufacturing jobs, one of every three we had in Y2K, disappeared. That unprecedented job loss was partly made up by adding 1.9 million government workers.
The last decade was the first in history where government employed more workers than manufacturing, a stunning development to those of us who remember an America where nearly one-third of the U.S. labor force was producing almost all of our goods and much of the world’s, as well.
Not to worry, we hear, the foreign products we buy are toys and low-tech goods. We keep the high-tech jobs here in the U.S.A. (more…)
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
SOURCE: Matt Towery, Townhall, March 11, 2010
“Crist-Rubio Battle Now the Bellwether for Direction of GOP in 2010″
….The “Tea Party” movement is for real. Moreover, it symbolizes the immense irritation among Republicans, who feel that both the Democrats and their own party have become big-spending elitists who are totally out of touch with the public.The problem for the GOP is that a clear and strong shift to its more conservative — and natural — base is a gamble for the fall elections. For now, it looks like the critical swing “independent” voters have run from the Democratic Party over a series of issues, including perhaps most prominently federal spending and health care reform…..
http://townhall.com/columnists/MattTowery/2010/03/11/crist-rubio_battle_now_the_bellwether_for_direction_of_gop_in_2010
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
The time for talk is over.
So proclaimed the most talkative president in modern memory. I can’t remember when Barack Obama said that. Maybe it was during the first “final showdown” on health care. Or maybe it was the third. The fifth? It’s so hard to tell when pretty much every week since the dawn of the Mesozoic Era, Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid has proclaimed that it is now Go Time for health-care reform.
So you’ll forgive me if I’m somewhat skeptical about the possibility that the health-care reform debate is about to come to an end.
The president recently said, “Everything there is to say about health care has been said, and just about everybody has said it.”
But wait. If everything, pro and con, has been said about the subject, by everybody, that means someone isn’t telling the truth, right? I mean, if you’ve said X and not-X, that means you’ve probably said something that isn’t true.
That, at least, is the impression I got this week listening to Obama make his closing arguments for health care at rallies in Pennsylvania and Missouri. It’s telling that the president — long in favor of a single-payer system — is selling his health-care plan on the grounds that it will increase “choice” and “competition,” reduce “government control” and “give you, the American people, more control over your own health insurance.”
You know your sales pitch for a government takeover of health care hasn’t worked when you have to crib rhetoric from free-market Republicans. And that’s after you’ve already tried to pin your plan’s unpopularity on the ignorance of the American people.
Obama’s talking points track reality about as well as the screenplay for “Avatar.” Indeed, the same week he was hawking competition, choice and less government, Obama backed a new Health Insurance Rate Authority that would do even more to cement big health insurance companies into their new role as government-run utilities.
This latest gambit is of a piece with the White House’s demonization of the health-insurance industry. I have no love for that industry myself, but let’s get some perspective. As of August, the health-insurance industry ranked 86th in terms of profit margins – behind anemic industries such as book publishing (38th) specialty eateries (71st) and home furnishing stores (84th), according to data compiled by Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute. (more…)
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
Parliamentarian: No Reconciliation Until after Senate Health Bill Passed
By Kathleen Gilbert, , March 11, 2010, LifeSiteNews.com
WASHINGTON, DC – Senior GOP sources cited by Roll Call Thursday said that Senate Parliamentarian Alan Frumin has ruled that the controversial reconciliation procedure can only be used to push through a bill of health care “fixes” after the president has signed the main Senate health bill into law.
The Parliamentarian’s office was responding to an inquiry from Republican leadership.
To relieve mistrust brewing between Senate Democrats and their House counterparts, who are being pressured to pass the Senate measure whole and unamended, some strategists had floated the option of first passing legislation in both chambers, through the process of reconciliation, that would act as a package of fixes favorable to House Democrats.
The decision of the parliamentarian, who is the official interpreter of Senate rules, eliminates that option – meaning the House would have to pass the Senate bill with no guarantees. This puts further strain on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s quest to gain the confidence of enough conservative Democrats to push the bill through.
However, the decision did not preclude the possibility of using reconciliation to offer a fix package after the Senate bill’s success – which appears to be the option more favored by Senate Democrats and the White House.
Yet several lawmakers have expressed wariness over vows from top Democrats that a “sweetening” package would in fact follow as promised. Earlier this month, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, suggested that the House should OK the Senate measure after receiving a “blood oath” that senators would pass such a package later.
But Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.,) one of a group of Democrat House lawmakers holding out against the bill, indicated that such “blood oaths” would not suffice.
“If they say ‘we’ll give you a letter saying we’ll take care of this later,’ that’s not acceptable because later never comes,” Stupak told The Weekly Standard Tuesday.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Stupak: I Don’t Buy Promises for Later Abortion-Funding ‘Fix’ to Health Bill
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10031104.html
NRLC: Vote for Health Bill ‘a Career-Defining Pro-abortion Vote’
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10030511.html
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
By Kathleen Gilbert, March 11, 2010, LifeSiteNews.com
In response to those who suggested that Stupak might have been considering throwing in the towel on abortion funding, the congressman told The Weekly Standard Tuesday, “Obviously they don’t know me.”
“If I didn’t” cave in November, he said, “why would I do it now after all the crap I’ve been through?”
Stupak asserted that “there’s no such thing as a compromise” on the abortion-funding language in the bills. Stupak, the author of the Hyde-amendment restriction on abortion funding in the House health care bill, has repeatedly confirmed that he and a cadre of about a dozen pro-life Democrats would vote down the Senate health bill if it did not include the same language.
The Michigan lawmaker acknowledged, however, that it is unclear how such language could be incorporated into the bill at this stage in the game.
Because Democrat leaders hope to avoid subjecting the measure to another vote in the Senate – where the party recently lost its filibuster-proof majority – House Democrats have been pushed to scrape up enough votes in the House to pass the entire Senate bill unamended. Because Democrats are unwilling to amend the legislation, therefore, some have suggested that House lawmakers should simply pass the bill anyway in anticipation of a later “fix” bill that would address their concerns. (more…)
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
–Thomas Jefferson, autobiography, 1821
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
Father Daniel Polzer, LC
Mark 12:28-34
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “the first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! Your shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, He is one and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Introductory Prayer: Lord, as I prepare during this Lent to celebrate the great mystery of your resurrection, I come before you in prayer so that you can form me and direct me. I long for the sinfulness of my life to be burned away so that I can glorify you with a pure and contrite heart. You know my sinfulness. You know my pride and sensuality. I offer you my prayer today as a small token of my love. My hope is that from the little I am able to love, you will teach me to love with a magnanimous heart. I want to be part of your Kingdom. I do not want to be on the fringes but to plunge myself into the depths of your love.
Petition: Lord, teach me to love you with my whole heart, soul and mind and with all my strength.
1. The Proper Heirarchy of Laws The question concerning the first of the commandments was debated much by the scribes and Pharisees. There is a human desire to know what is first and what is second: to be able to put things in order. We are often attracted to the promise made by this or that guru about the one secret that will make us happy, healthy, or successful in business. So, our natural curiosity is attracted to know what the first commandment is, what we must do above all. We want to say, “Just tell me plain and simple what I must do, and I will do it.” Here Jesus lays out, plain and simple, how we must live our lives: loving God with everything we are and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Does his command resonate in my heart and actions?
2. Love Goes Beyond Formalism The scribe comments that these laws are greater than any burnt offering or sacrifice. A sacrifice or burnt offering without love is empty. It is love for God and neighbor that gives all of our sacrifices, trials and good works their value. Love is at the heart of our perfection, and when we are keeping this greatest of the laws – to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength – then all of the lesser things in life will fall into place. Does my life give evidence to this hierarchy of values? Is what should be first be in fact first? Are what should be second or third in importance in fact so? If not, what specifically do I need to do to bring about the proper order?
3. Longing for the Experience of God’s Love Jesus congratulates the scribe for his understanding and tells him that he is not far from the Kingdom of God. It gives us occasion to ask ourselves, “How far am I from the Kingdom of God?” This scribe’s knowledge was not merely book knowledge, for it is not in simply knowing a certain number of truths that we obtain the Kingdom of God. Rather it was an intimate knowledge of love – knowing in a practical way how to give one’s heart, soul, mind and strength to God. Is drawing closer to the Kingdom of God my biggest priority? What do I need to do to get or stay on track? Have I humbly, confidently and fervently asked Our Lord for the grace to help me? Do I ponder on and recognize every day God’s loving presence and providence in my life? Do I realize and thank God for his love?
Conversation with Christ: Lord, help me to keep in mind your commandment of love and to live it with all my strength. I do not want to live my faith with a mere intellectual knowledge of your commandments; I want to live it with a deep intimate knowledge that bears fruits of true holiness.
Resolution: Before beginning each activity of the day I will stop and ask myself how I can live it with love.
http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY, MARCH 12, 2010
St. Theophanes was born at Samothrace, Greece around the year 759. He was orphaned while still a young child but he was left a large inheritance. As a young man, Theophanes’ guardian coerced him to marry but he and his wife vowed themselves to celibacy. They lived together for several years but eventually Theophanes’ wife joined a religious community and he became a hermit.
Theophanes’ wisdom and holiness were quickly noticed by others and he used his wealth to form two monasteries out of the men who sought his counsel. Theophanes became abbot of one of these monasteries and gained a greater reputation for his virtues. While he lived in the monastery, Theophanes worked to write a history of the Christian world starting at the end of the Diocletian persecution to the early ninth century. It is for this work that he gained the nickname “Chronicler.”
During the time Theophanes lived, the iconoclast heresy was causing problems in the Church. The emperor of Constantinople, who encouraged the destruction of icons, tried to gain Theophanes support through subterfuge and coercion but he remained faithful to Rome. Eventually, this fidelity got Theophanes arrested and imprisoned. He died in prison around the year 818.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint.php?n=175
Posted By scribe on March 12, 2010
Posted By scribe on March 11, 2010
Catholic Campaign for Human Development & Saul Alinsky
The direct connection between Saul Alinksky and Catholic priests and bishops may blow your mind!
SOURCE: RealCatholicTV.com
The first in a brand new series of programs from RealCatholicTV.com. The shocking truth behind the founders of the CCHD
Posted By scribe on March 11, 2010
By Scott Wheeler, Townhall, March 11, 2010
The controversial stimulus bill, as ARRA is better known, provided funds for the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), which promptly granted the New York City-based Brecht Forum $5,000 in 2009 and $9,000 in 2010. The NYSCA had previously announced in 2008 that due to state budget cuts it would no longer be able to fund 573 organizations that it had previously funded. One of the groups on the list to be slashed was the Brecht Forum. After NYSCA secured $399,000 in stimulus money, the Brecht Forum once again had funding.
The Brecht Forum is host to the New York Marxist School and displays this statement on their website:
Can society be changed significantly for the better? What kind of changes would be needed? and, Who could bring about such changes?
Questions like these are what motivated Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels to develop a method for studying the dynamics of change in societies.
In 1975, a group of civil rights, community, labor, and student activists came together to found The Brecht Forum’s New York Marxist School. They saw the study of Marxism as central, not as a dogma but as a living current of thought and as a vital tool for understanding capitalist society.
In a September 2009 lecture at the Brecht Forum, Jed Brandt, a longtime communist, political activist and outspoken atheist offered the following instructions:
“We have to bring this Government down! We have to help destroy this system and that requires increasing the alienation that working people and oppressed people feel. The way this change is going to happen is the destruction of The United States of America!”
Fox News Channel picked up on Brandt’s call to action and played clips several times the week of March 1st. My own investigation uncovered the link to federal stimulus dollars providing financial support for the Brecht Forum. The grants from NYSCA were ostensibly provided for artistic projects, for example, the NYSCA website shows the following as the description for the Brecht Forum grant:
“The Brecht Forum’s 09-10 program features workshops in the participatory theater techniques developed by the noted Brazilian director Augusto Boal. The program includes monthly workshops led by members of the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory and two master workshops led by Augusto Boal.”
The website for the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory describes this form of art in rather revealing political terms,
“Augusto Boal has defined Theater of the Oppressed as a rehearsal for revolution.”
The website further describes its mission as using “interactive theater as an organizing tool” and works with “educators, human service and healthcare workers, union organizers and community activists” to solve perceived problems.
http://townhall.com/columnists/ScottWheeler/2010/03/11/obama_stimulating_a_marxist_revolution_using_taxpayer_money
Posted By scribe on March 11, 2010
WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) – One of my morning reads each day is the popular “inside the beltway” political publication entitled “Politico.” There is little doubt that it has at least an implicit partisan political slant but it is usually the first source for breaking political news. However, Wednesday morning one of its feature articles revealed how corrupted so much reporting has become.
Most of the media is now using deadly loaded language. In doing so it is also promoting universal deceit, that there is some “right” to kill children in the womb. We have accepted this universal deceit and deadly loaded language at our own peril. It is an example of Orwellian “New Speak” which obscures the insidious nature of an evil which is rotting our culture from the inside out.
In his 1946 essay entitled “Politics and the English Language” George Orwell wrote that “One ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.”
In an article entitled “Abortion is bill’s remaining hurdle”, written on March 10 by Patrick O´Connor, I read the following paragraph which demonstrates my point. The reporter was writing about the continuing Health care Reform effort and the disagreement between those who want to pass the Senate Bill which will fund abortions and those who insist that abortion is not health care. O´Connor wrote:
“The problem at this point is that supporters of abortion rights, including many of the speaker´s (Nancy Pelosi) closest allies, have voted to oppose any bill that includes Stupak´s (Bart Stupak, a Pro-Life Democrat) restrictions. On the flip side, Stupak has said at least 10 colleagues will oppose a bill that doesn´t include them. If both claims are true, that would make it almost impossible for party leaders in the House to get the 216 votes they need to pass the measure.”
The reporter is indicating that those who seek to defend babies trying to avoid pre-emptive lethal strikes against them are threatening these “abortion rights.” The claim of a “right” to abort an innocent child is heinous enough when it is described as a woman´s “Right to Choose.” However, that is the current state of the US positive law since the horrendous Supreme Court decisions in Roe and Doe.
That “choice” is now protected by the Police Power of the State. Rather than being outlawed like all other intentional killings, abortion has been given a status as some sort of “super right.” However, what this article demonstrates is that most of the media is using deadly loaded language to hide the evil.
The current approach to abortion on demand is no different than if the U.S. Supreme Court had somehow found a “right” to kill three week old babies after their birth in that “penumbra” pit they pulled this alleged “abortion right” from in the Roe and Doe opinions. There is no moral difference between killing a baby in the womb and killing a baby outside of the womb.
Imagine if the proponents of slavery called it a “slavery right” just because the Supreme Court said it was legal. Well they in effect did just that in the now dreaded Dred Scott decision! We look back on that case in horror, as we should. The Supreme Court cannot make a wrong a right with the stroke of a judicial quill or a keyboard!
Abortion is feticide. Its horror is being concealed by deadly loaded language intended to make it sound acceptable. Its advocates have fashioned a “rights language” to even try to make it sound noble. They have repeated the phrase “abortion rights”, “abortion rights”, “abortion rights”…. ad nauseam. Their collaborators in much of the media use this deadly loaded language without even thinking about what they are actually saying, or writing.
The notion that one method of intentionally killing an entire class of human persons should be called a “right” is despicable. Abortion is a lethal action which always takes an innocent human life. However, the phrase “abortion rights” is an example of the “decay of language” of which Orwell wrote. Actions do not have “rights”. Only human persons can have “rights.” The shorthand phrase “abortion rights” is a linguistic tool used by journalists who are themselves tools of the proponents of the abortion deception.
There is no “abortion right.” The true Right is the one being denied in every procured abortion, the Right to Life. That preeminent Right to Life is revealed in the Natural Moral Law and confirmed by Medical Science. Children in the womb are our first neighbors. It is always wrong to kill our neighbors. We all know it. We simply pretend otherwise and use deadly loaded language to cover over the evil act. (more…)
