Brown Pelican Society of Louisiana

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

– C.S. Lewis

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

–Thomas Jefferson

“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, and straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters Papers from Prison

Bonhoeffer in Germany, circa 1930s

By Mike Brownfield, The Heritage Foundation, May 22, 2012

Back in 1982, President Ronald Reagan decided not to sign a treaty known as “Law of the Sea” (LOST), a United Nations convention that would raid America’s treasury for billions of dollars, then redistribute that wealth to the rest of the world by an international bureaucracy headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica. But today, the Obama Administration has revived that treaty, and tomorrow Senator John Kerry (D-MA) will hold hearings designed to illustrate its supposed benefits and generate support for its ratification.

Without a doubt, Reagan’s decision should stand, and LOST should remain relegated to the trash bin of history.

The rationale for LOST is that it supposedly brings order to the world’s oceans, defines the rights and responsibilities of nations as they navigate and conduct business across the seas, protects the marine environment, and allows for the development of natural resources of the deep seabed. On the surface, these all sound like worthwhile goals. The thing is, the United States doesn’t need to join another United Nations treaty to make it happen.

For more than 200 years before LOST was adopted in 1982 and for 30 years since then, the U.S. Navy has successfully protected America’s maritime interests regardless of the fact that the United States has not signed on to the treaty. The United States’ navigational rights and freedoms have been secure, and they are best guaranteed by a strong Navy.

LOST is not without consequences, either. One of the more nefarious and insidious of its provisions is Article 82, which requires the United States to forfeit royalties generated from oil and gas development on the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles – an area known as the “extended continental shelf.” That money, which one estimate says could be worth many billions, if not trillions of dollars, would go to the International Seabed Authority, a new international bureaucracy created by the treaty and based in Jamaica. Heritage’s Steven Groves explains that from there, America’s money could be shipped to the Middle East, Africa, China, and even state sponsors of terror:

LOST directs that the revenue be distributed to “developing States” (such as Somalia, Burma … you get the picture) and “peoples who have not attained full independence” (such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization … hey, don’t they sponsor terrorism?). The assembly – the “supreme organ” of the International Seabed Authority in which the United States has a single vote to cast – has the final say regarding the distribution of America’s transmogrified “international” royalties.

The assembly may vote to distribute royalties to undemocratic, despotic or brutal governments in Belarus, China or Zimbabwe – all members of LOST. Perhaps those dollars will go to regimes that are merely corrupt; 13 of the world’s 20 most corrupt nations, according to Transparency International, are parties to LOST. Even Cuba and Sudan, both considered state sponsors of terrorism, could receive dollars fresh from the U.S. Treasury.

In addition to shipping America’s money overseas to unsavory recipients, LOST could have other negative consequences, as well, by exposing U.S. industry and manufacturing to baseless international lawsuits. In fact, environmental activists and international legal academics are actively exploring the potential of using international litigation against the United States to advance their agendas. And for those who say LOST is a tool for mediating international disputes, take a look at the Philippines, which signed on to the treaty and yet today is finding itself browbeaten by China and its claims in the South China Sea.

If America truly wants to preserve its rights on the sea, then it needs to bolster the one tool that has guaranteed those rights throughout history — a strong U.S. Navy. Unfortunately, under President Obama’s watch, the United States is seeing its fleet diminished in size and ability. A lone piece of paper will not defend America’s interests on the sea, and neither will transferring billions of dollars to an international authority in Jamaica for redistribution the world over. LOST should not be ratified and signed, and instead Washington should turn its attention to ensuring that the U.S. Navy has the resources it needs to protect America’s interests on the high seas.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/22/morning-bell-the-danger-of-article-82-and-obamas-latest-treaty/?roi=echo3-12082713775-8715050-768abaf98b6908843a0ff84b93f16506&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

By Dr. Paul Kengor, Catholic Exchange, May 22, 2012

An insightful new audio commentary by Dr. Paul Kengor: 

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here ^[1]. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    For too long, this country has suffered from a severely misguided understanding of church-state separation, fostered by secular liberals/progressives. And now, those same forces—or at least those devoted to President Obama and so-called “abortion rights” above all else—are employing that very misunderstanding in an assault upon the religious freedom and consciences of Catholics. They are doing so, of course, via the Obama mandate on contraception and abortion drugs.

The problem begins with the very notion of “separation of church and state.” Huge numbers of Americans mistakenly believe those words are chiseled into the Constitution, ascribing to them a tremendous weight and power that plainly do not exist. In fact, those words are not found in the Constitution at all.

To the contrary, the First Amendment ensures “the free exercise” of religion.

Well, if the words “separation of church and state” appear nowhere in the Constitution, then where are they?

The phrase is found in an 1802 letter ^[2] from Thomas Jefferson, written to the Danbury Baptist Association ^[3] of Connecticut.

Jefferson, the newly elected president, assured his Connecticut friends that they had no fear from the federal government, which would not intrude upon them and the practice of their faith—nor, as Jefferson put it, their “rights of conscience”—given that their relationship with God was between them and God. The purpose in this historic Jefferson-Baptist exchange was to protect not government from religion but religion (that is, religious people) from the intrusion of government.

And now, 200-plus years after Jefferson’s letter and the signing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we are left with too many liberals/progressives too often incorrectly telling us that at the crux of religion in America is a sacred “Constitutional” anchor called “separation of church and state,” which means that your individual faith should not disrupt or disorder society and the state. You must take your faith out of the public square and confine it to yourself, your home, your church.

That’s wrong. And that wrong is now breeding yet more wrongs.

For Catholic Exchange and Ave Maria Radio, I’m Paul Kengor.

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values. His books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and “Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

http://catholicexchange.com/paul-kengor-on-churchstate-separation/

Robert P. George, First Things, May 14, 2012

Constitutional scholar and lawyer Robert P. George recently presented an oral argument in one of the cases considering the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which allows each state to determine for itself the definition of marriage. The text of his argument follows this note. In an unusual move, the Obama Department of Justice declined to defend DOMA, even as Obama has stated (for example, in a May 9 interview with ABC news) that he favors allowing states to decide the definition of marriage for themselves. The case in which George presented the oral argument (which was in support of a written brief he filed together with Sherif Girgis and Ryan Anderson) is Cozen O’Connor, P.C. v. Tobits, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. –ed.

A key question, perhaps the key question, this Court is being called on to address is whether the Constitution of the United States chooses between competing moral understandings of the nature, value, and social purposes of marriage, thus settling the question of how marriage is to be defined. On reflection, I believe your honor will see that it does not. Rather, the Constitution leaves the matter, as it leaves most matters of substantive law where choices between competing moral understandings must be made, for resolution in the forums of democratic deliberation and decision-making, including, in the case of federal law, the Congress of the United States.

Laws characteristically embody and reflect moral judgments. This is true of the law of contract and the law of murder, and it is no less true of the law of marriage. Laws should be made carefully so that they embody sound understandings of good and bad, right and wrong, justice and injustice; but as careful thinkers about law from Aristotle in ancient Greece to Dr. Martin Luther King in our own time have made clear, laws cannot be morally neutral, nor should we try to make them so. Efforts to mask the moral judgments embodied and expressed in our laws have no effect other than to wrap those judgments in a cloak of obscurity—creating a mere illusion of neutrality.

The historic law of marriage reaffirmed in the Defense of Marriage Act embodies the moral judgment that marriage is the conjugal union of husband and wife united in a form of relationship—a comprehensive sharing of life at every level, including the bodily-biological level—that is in principle apt for, and would naturally be fulfilled by, procreation and the rearing of children. This distinctive type of union is, and has always been understood to be, distinguishable from ordinary friendships and even from sexual-romantic domestic partnerships in its social function of binding men and women together in a way that, overall, best serves the interests of children who are born as a result of their sexual union, and serves society as a whole, which vitally depends on the marriage-based family for its stability. The conjugal conception of marriage is, to be sure, articulated in the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity as well as other faiths, but it was also articulated and defended by thinkers such as Plato and Plutarch in the ancient traditions of Greek and Roman thought with no reliance on the concept of divine revelation.

Of course, the conjugal understanding of marriage, though by far the dominant one not only in our own culture but in cultures generally, is not the only possible one. Insert a different moral understanding, and marriage could be defined, as it has been in some cultures, to accommodate polygamous partnerships and even, as some wish to define it today, to include multiple partners in polyamorous sexual unions of more than two persons.

In the case currently before your honor, the Court is being invited to replace the moral understanding at the heart of the historic conjugal conception of marriage with a competing moral understanding according to which marriage would be redefined as sexual-romantic domestic partnership—thus rendering sexual-reproductive complementarity unnecessary and irrelevant. Marriage, on the new moral understanding, would be an emotional union—a union of hearts and minds—but not a bodily union of the type made possible by the biological complementarity of husband and wife.

There are many good arguments for favoring the conjugal conception of marriage over the revisionist conception being proposed. The former moral conception can, and the latter moral conception cannot, provide an intelligible basis for the belief that marriage is, foundationally, a sexual partnership, as opposed to a partnership that could as well be integrated around any of a number of shared interests having nothing to do with sexuality. By the same token, the conjugal conception can provide an objective moral basis for norms of exclusivity, fidelity, and permanence of commitments—norms that on the revisionist conception can be affirmed, if at all, only on the basis of subjective sentiment, not moral principle.

However, this Court should not choose between the competing moral understandings on offer from supporters of the conjugal conception of marriage and the revisionist conception. This is because nothing in the Constitution settles the issue between them. It is left, rather, to the people acting on their own in referenda and initiatives in states that provide for those decision-making procedures, and through their elected representatives in the state legislatures and the Congress. It is up to the democratic process, not the courts purporting to act in the name of the Constitution, to make the moral judgment that marriage should be retained as a conjugal partnership, or to make the competing moral judgments that would redefine marriage, whether to accommodate polygamous, polyamorous, or same sex partnerships.

Robert P. George is McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and a member of the First Things advisory council.

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/05/the-constitution-doesnrsquot-settle-the-marriage-debate

SOUTH BEND, INDIANA, May 21, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a coordinated defense of religious liberty, at 11 a.m. 43 Roman Catholic organizations filed a dozen lawsuits nationwide to strike down the HHS mandate.

The plaintiffs include some of the most significant organs of the U.S. church, including the Archdioceses of New York, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis; the Dioceses of Dallas, Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ft. Worth, the Michigan Catholic Conference, Pittsburgh, and Rockville Centre; the University of Notre Dame, Catholic University of America, and the Franciscan University of Steubenville; and Our Sunday Visitor.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, said the step was necessary “to protect our religious liberties from unwarranted and unprecedented government intrusion.”

The Archdiocese of Washington has created a website dedicated to the new lawsuit. Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., called the mandate a “government attempt to force the Church out of the public square.”

“The Catholic rebellion has begun,” said Catholic League President Bill Donohue in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com.

The HHS mandate “amounts to nothing less than a grave threat to our constitutionally protected First Amendment right to freedom of religion,” said Franciscan University President Father Terence Henry, TOR. He added, although they never envisioned taking such a step, the board of trustees unanimously approved the lawsuit.

Our Sunday Visitor linked its involvement to the legacy of its founder, Fr. John Noll, who fought the political clout of the Ku Klux Klan as that organization attempted to impose anti-Catholic policies at the turn of the 20th century. “Today, Our Sunday Visitor stands proudly with our fellow Catholic apostolates and with our bishops in resisting this challenge,” the publication announced in a press release.

The lawsuit has admirers well outside the Roman Catholic Church. These 43 Catholic institutions “are fighting back to protect the religious liberties of all Americans,” said Family Research Council president Tony Perkins this afternoon. “We stand with these Catholic organizations that have refused to give up their long held constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.”

Perhaps nothing so encapsulated President Obama’s fall from grace with American Catholics than the participation of the University of Notre Dame, where his invitation to deliver the 2009 commencement address stirred controversy.

“We have filed this lawsuit neither lightly nor gladly, but with sober determination,” wrote Notre Dame President Fr. John Jenkins in a letter explaining his actions. “Let me say very clearly what this lawsuit is not about: it is not about preventing women from having access to contraception, nor even about preventing the [g]overnment from providing such services…We do not seek to impose our religious beliefs on others; we simply ask that the [g]overnment not impose its values on the University when those values conflict with our religious teachings.”

Notre Dame does not qualify for the administration’s religious exemption because, although it is “firmly grounded in the tenets of Catholicism,” it does not primarily employ or serve other Roman Catholics.

“Notre Dame cannot be forced to give up its beliefs on abortifacients, sterilization, or contraception, nor its devotion to serving all mankind, without violating its religious beliefs and compromising its religious purpose,” the university’s legal complaint states.

Fr. Jenkins writes that he had registered his objection to the administration’s overly narrow religious exemption numerous times without satisfaction.

The university’s legal complaint states that after Obama announced an “accommodation” that would require insurance companies to directly provide contraceptives to employees and students for “free,” college officials “informed the White House that such a policy would not help Notre Dame, which is self-insured, and would not protect its religious liberties.”

The lawsuit argues the government has no compelling interest in the mandate, that forcing a religious institution to finance abortifacient drugs is not the least restrictive means of providing them, that the rule burdens the university’s free exercise of religion, and that it favors those religions that either favor abortion or have no interest in serving members of other religions.

The university’s health care plan is not grandfathered, and officials maintain they are not certain if it qualifies for the one-year “safe harbor” that extends the implementation of the HHS mandate past the election, into August 2013. The uncertainty over future regulations makes it impossible for the university to plan for its future.

If religious institutions fail to comply with the regulations promulgated next year, they could face a penalty of $100 per day per individual covered. In an online video, Chancellor Jane Belford of the Archdiocese of Washington said that could cost that diocese $4.2 million a year.

Although Fr. Jenkins does “not question the good intentions and sincerity” of administration officials, he warned if the HHS mandate were accepted, it “will be the end of genuinely religious organizations in all but name.”

Even some liberal Catholics have greeted today’s lawsuit as a positive step. Michael Sean Winters writes at the dissenting National Catholic Reporter, “The lawsuit, and Jenkins’ commentary, are very good news.”

“First, I doubt there is anyone who could charge Notre Dame with being unreasonably hostile to the Ibama [sic] administration,” he wrote. Yet “the administration has still refused to back off the four-part test” to grant an institution a religious exemption “that was, and is, for many of us, the principal difficulty in finding a solution.”

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-43-catholic-organizations-including-notre-dame-sue-obama-administr

By David A. Patten, NewsMax, 21 May 2012

The Obama administration’s definition of what constitutes a religious organization is so narrow that Mother Teresa herself would have not have qualified, a prominent Catholic official told Newsmax on Monday.

That startling perspective was offered by Chancellor Jane Belford of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

Her remarks reflect the growing controversy over the administration’s effort to force religious-affiliated charitable organizations — or their insurance companies — to cover birth-control pills, morning-after abortion pills, and sterilization procedures that the Catholic church finds morally objectionable.

On Monday, the Washington Archdiocese filed one of 12 lawsuits nationwide representing the interests of 43 separate Catholic institutions.

The lawsuits claim that new Health and Human Services rules, which mandate what services must be offered in healthcare insurance policies, violate the organization’s religious-liberty rights under the First Amendment.

“Mother Teresa in her work of caring for the poor and trying to deal with misery and suffering, Mother Teresa’s work was not religious. That’s what this says, and that is now the law,” Belford told Newsmax.

Belford’s point is that Mother Teresa — who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her self-sacrificial charitable endeavors in India and other nations — served the poorest of the poor without regard to whether they were Catholic. That would disqualify her work for an exemption from the Obamacare mandates that Catholics find objectionable.

“Catholic charities do not inquire as to the faith of the people they hire,” Belford said. “And I can assure you it never inquires as to the faith of the people it serves.

“We say, ‘Are you hungry?’ ‘Are you homeless? Are you sick?’ But we don’t say first, ‘Are you Catholic, because if you’re not we can’t be Catholic and help you,’” Belford said.

Chancellor is the highest ecclesiastical or decision-making office a layperson can hold in the Catholic Church. Belford is the first woman and the first layperson to hold this position in the history of the Archdiocese. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick appointed her to that post on March 23, 2001.

Belford is also an accomplished attorney who earned her law degree with honors from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. She practiced law for many years in Washington, D.C. and was formerly a partner in the firm of Foley & Lardner.

The lawsuits stem from the same controversy that forced President Barack Obama in February to back off of a plan to require faith-based charities to cover the controversial procedures for their employees.

Obama later decided the government would require the insurance companies, rather than the faith-based charities themselves, those procedures.

Catholic leaders at the time said the “accommodation” was inadequate because many Catholic organizations are self-insured, meaning they act as their own insurance carrier. Also, because insurance companies stay in business by passing along their costs to their customers in the form of higher premiums, they objected they would still be paying for procedures that violate their religious beliefs, albeit indirectly.

Belford emphasized the lawsuit is not about contraception, but rather religious liberty.

“What we’re challenging is the right of the government to tell us, as bona fide religious organizations, that we have to act in conflict with our religious beliefs,” she told Newsmax. Continue reading →

The left craves power not money, and that makes it much more frightening.

   Dennis Prager, National Review,  May 22, 2012

You cannot understand the Left if you do not understand that leftism is a religion. It is not God-based (some left-wing Christians’ and Jews’ claims notwithstanding), but otherwise it has every characteristic of a religion. The most blatant of those characteristics is dogma. People who believe in leftism have as many dogmas as the most fundamentalist Christian.

One of them is material equality as the preeminent moral goal. Another is the villainy of corporations. The bigger the corporation, the greater the villainy. Thus, instead of the devil, the Left has Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Oil, the “military-industrial complex,” and the like. Meanwhile, Big Labor, Big Trial Lawyers, and — of course — Big Government are left-wing angels.

And why is that? Why, to be specific, does the Left fear big corporations but not big government?

The answer is dogma — a belief system that transcends reason.   No rational person can deny that big governments have caused almost all the great evils of the last century, arguably the bloodiest in history. Who killed the 20 to 30 million Soviet citizens in the Gulag Archipelago — big government or big business? Hint: There were no private businesses in the Soviet Union. Who deliberately caused 75 million Chinese to starve to death — big government or big business? Hint: See previous hint. Did Coca-Cola kill 5 million Ukrainians? Did Big Oil slaughter a quarter of the Cambodian population? Would there have been a Holocaust without the huge Nazi state?

Whatever bad things big corporations have done is dwarfed by the monstrous crimes — the mass enslavement of people, the deprivation of the most basic human rights, not to mention the mass murder and torture and genocide — committed by big governments.

How can anyone who thinks rationally believe that big corporations rather than big governments pose the greatest threat to humanity? The answer is that it takes a mind distorted by leftist dogma. If there is another explanation, I do not know what it is.

Religious Christians and Jews also have some irrational beliefs, but their irrationality is overwhelmingly confined to theological matters; and these theological irrationalities have no deleterious impact on religious Jews’ and Christians’ ability to see the world rationally and morally. Few religious Jews or Christians believe that big corporations are in any way analogous to big government in terms of evil done. And the few who do are leftists.

That the Left demonizes Big Pharma, for instance, is an example of this dogmatism. America’s pharmaceutical companies have saved millions of lives, including millions of leftists’ lives. And I do not doubt that in order to increase profits they have not always played by the rules. But to demonize big pharmaceutical companies while lionizing big government, big labor unions, and big tort-law firms is to stand morality on its head.

There is yet another reason to fear big government far more than big corporations. ExxonMobil has no police force, no IRS, no ability to arrest you, no ability to shut you up, and certainly no ability to kill you. ExxonMobil can’t knock on your door in the middle of the night and legally take you away. Apple Computer cannot take your money away without your consent, and it runs no prisons. The government does all of these things.

Of course, the Left will respond that government also does good and that corporations and capitalists are, by their very nature, “greedy.”

To which the rational response is that, of course, government also does good. But so do the vast majority of corporations, private citizens, church groups, and myriad voluntary associations. On the other hand, only big government can do anything approaching the monstrous evils of the last century.

As for greed: Between hunger for money and hunger for power, the latter is incomparably more frightening. It is noteworthy that none of the twentieth century’s monsters — Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao — were preoccupied with material gain. They loved power much more than money.

And that is why the Left is much more frightening than the Right. It craves power.

 — Dennis Prager, a nationally syndicated columnist and radio talk-show host, is author of Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. He may be contacted through his website, dennisprager.com.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300669/left-s-misplaced-concern-dennis-prager

A student naps during the address to graduates at Boston College commencement ceremonies in Boston on May 21, 2012. All of the men shown here received Bachelors of Science degrees from the university’s Carrol School of Management. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration is reminding college graduates that as they focus on paying back their student loans in a tough economy, they don’t need to worry about paying their own medical bills.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to university presidents and student associations, urging them to spread the word: “The new health care law makes it possible for young adults under age 26 to remain on their parents’ health care plan if the policy covers dependent children.”

Duncan and Sebelius are using the reminder to plug Obamacare, whose fate now rests with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Their letter notes that because of Obamacare, graduating students are now “free to make career choices based on what they want to do, not where they can get health insurance. That is why we are encouraging you to ensure that your graduating students are aware of this new option to get health care coverage.”

Duncan and Sebelius noted that before Democrats passed their health care law in 2010, students often lost their health insurance coverage on graduation day.

“By partnering with school leaders, we hope more young Americans are aware of their options so they can access the care they need to stay healthy,” said Education Secretary Duncan in a news release. “Many graduates are focusing on paying back student loans in a tough economy – they don’t need to take on the cost of high medical bills, too.”

Sebelius said the Affordable Care Act gives students and their families “peace of mind about their health insurance.” She refers to the Affordable Care Act as “the President’s health law,” saying it “gives hard-working, middle-class families the security they deserve.”

The letter to colleges and universities lists steps that colleges and universities can take to help deliver health care information to students, as follows:

– Place a “badge” on the home page of your Web site that automatically links to information about how students can remain on their parents’ plan.

– Distribute a flyer or brochure to students and their parents about this benefit along with graduation and career materials.

– Encourage staff to talk with students about other health insurance options—including improvements to student health plans starting this summer thanks to the health care law—by visiting www.HealthCare.gov.

– Host a session to explain insurance options to your students.

– Encourage students to visit HHS’s Facebook page with information for young adults and parents about health coverage for individuals under age 26.

“Working together, we can help ensure that even more students and new alumni are protected in case of a health emergency and have the coverage they need to stay healthy,” the letter concludes.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/administrations-message-graduates-hey-kids-don-t-worry-about-getting-your-own-health

By Thomas Sowell

….Among the biggest lies of the welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic is the notion that the government can supply people with things they want but cannot afford. Since the government gets its resources from the people, if the people as a whole cannot afford something, neither can the government…..

…Promising benefits that cannot be delivered . . . The day of reckoning is postponed for another election cycle….

The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, but a reflection on us. When people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them, and only in the short run. The current outbreaks of riots in Europe show what happens when the truth catches up with both the politicians and the people in the long run.

Among the biggest lies of the welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic is the notion that the government can supply people with things they want but cannot afford. Since the government gets its resources from the people, if the people as a whole cannot afford something, neither can the government.

There is, of course, the perennial fallacy that the government can simply raise taxes on “the rich” and use that additional revenue to pay for things that most people cannot afford. What is amazing is the implicit assumption that “the rich” are all such complete fools that they will do nothing to prevent their money from being taxed away. History shows otherwise.

After the Constitution of the United States was amended to permit a federal income tax in 1916, the number of people reporting taxable incomes of $300,000 a year or more fell from well over a thousand to fewer than three hundred by 1921.

Were the rich all getting poorer? Not at all. They were investing huge sums of money in tax-exempt securities. The amount of money invested in tax-exempt securities was larger than the federal budget, and nearly half as large as the national debt.

This was not unique to the United States or to that era. After the British government raised their income tax on the top income earners in 2010, they discovered that they collected less tax revenue than before. Other countries have had similar experiences. Apparently the rich are not all fools, after all.

In today’s globalized world economy, the rich can simply invest their money in countries where tax rates are lower.

So, if you cannot rely on “the rich” to pick up the slack, what can you rely on? Lies.

Nothing is easier for a politician than promising government benefits that cannot be delivered. Pensions such as Social Security are perfect for this role. The promises that are made are for money to be paid many years from now — and somebody else will be in power then, left with the job of figuring out what to say and do when the money runs out and the riots start.

There are all sorts of ways of postponing the day of reckoning. The government can refuse to pay what it costs to get things done. Cutting what doctors are paid for treating Medicare patients is one obvious example. That of course leads some doctors to refuse to take on new Medicare patients. But it takes time for the full impact of this process to be felt — and elections are held in the short run. This is another growing problem that can be left for someone else to try to cope with in future years.

Increasing amounts of paperwork for doctors in welfare states with government-run medical care, and reduced payments to those doctors, in order to stave off the day of bankruptcy, mean that the medical profession is likely to attract fewer of the brightest young people who have other occupations available to them — occupations that pay more money and have fewer hassles. But this too is a long-run problem — and elections are still held in the short run.

Eventually, all these long-run problems can catch up with the wonderful-sounding lies that are the lifeblood of welfare-state politics. But there can be a lot of elections between now and eventually — and those who are good at political lies can win a lot of those elections.

As the day of reckoning approaches, there are a number of ways of seeming to overcome the crisis. If the government is running out of money, it can print more money. That does not make the country any richer, but it quietly transfers part of the value of existing money from people’s savings and income to the government, whose newly printed money is worth just as much as the money that people worked for and saved.

Printing more money means inflation — and inflation is a quiet lie, by which a government can keep its promises on paper, but with money worth much less than when the promises were made.

Is it so surprising voters with unrealistic hopes elect politicians who lie about being able to fulfill those hopes?

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. © 2012 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300617/medicare-pensions-and-other-false-promises-thomas-sowell

Mother Teresa and a baby girl. (AP Photo/Eddie Adams)

(CNSNews.com) – Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., said in an open letter on Monday and in a videotaped message that the Obama administration would not have considered the work of Mother Teresa as “religious” and thus would not have exempted her charitable organizations from a new federal regulation, issued under Obamacare, that will force Catholics to act against their faith.

“Under the mandate, even the work of Mother Teresa wouldn’t be qualified as religious,” said Cardinal Wuerl in the video.

“Contrary to America’s great tradition of religious freedom, embodied in the First Amendment, Catholic institutions will now be forced to act against their conscience and provide coverage for drugs and procedures they believe are morally wrong, simply because they serve people of all faiths or no faith equally,” said Cardinal Wuerl.

Mother Teresa founded a hospice in Washington, D.C., where members of her order, the Missionaries of Charity, care for people with advanced AIDS.

The administration’s new regulation includes a “religious” exemption, but that exemption is narrowly drawn and does not extend to Catholic lay persons or to Catholic hospitals, schools or charities.

In his open letter, Cardinal Wuerl said that this narrow exemption would not only exclude Mother Teresa’s work from what the federal government defined as “religious” but would also say that Catholic schools were not “religious.”

“The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom, however, was not meant to protect merely the right to worship, but also the right to contribute the fruits of our faith to the common good,” said Cardinal Wuerl. “And until now, our government had chosen to honor that guarantee. Never before has the government contested that institutions like Archbishop Carroll High School or Catholic University are religious. Who would? But HHS’s conception of what constitutes the practice of religion is so narrow that even Mother Teresa would not have qualified.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius first announced the new health-care regulation—part of the implementation of Obamacare—last August. She finalized the regulation in January.

The regulation exempts “religious” organizations only if they meet four criteria:  1) their primary purpose is the inculcation of religious values, 2) they primarily employ people who share their religious tenets, 3) they primarily serve people who share their religious tenets, and 4) it they are organized under the section of the Internal Revenue Code used by churches per se.

On Monday, Cardinal Wuerl announced that the Archdiocese of Washington–along with 42 other Catholic dioceses and organizations (including the Archdiocese of New York and the University of Notre Dame)–is suing the administration in federal court arguing that the HHS regulation is a violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of religion. Twelve different suits are being filed around the country with different combinations of plaintiffs.

The Archdiocese of Washington is joined in its particular suit by Archbishop Carroll High School, Catholic Univesity of America, Catholic Charities of Washington, D.C., and a consortium that includes four local parochial schools.

In November 1986, Mother Teresa opened a hospice for AIDS victims in Northeast Washington. “Let us thank God for giving us this beautiful gift, this home,” the Associated Press reported her as saying at the Mass celebrating the opening of the hospice.

Archbishop James A. Hickey, who then led the Archdiocese of Washington, said that the hospice would be “a loving home for out brothers and sisters who face this dreaded disease alone.”

“The Missionaries of Charity will offer love and peace to those who have been forgotten as they face death,” said Archbishop Hickey. “Here they will find peace.”

Mother Teresa said at the time: “The greatest disease today is being unwanted, unloved.”

The Missionaries of Charity’s Washington, D.C. hospice serves people regardless of their faith. As The Washington Post reported two months after it opened: “Not all residents, whom the nuns call ‘guests,’ are Catholic.”

Cardinal Wuerl said that the administration’s defintion of what is and is not “religious” runs contary to 2,000 years of Catholic practice.

“Thus, for two millennia, Roman Catholic entities have been engaged in charitable works–serving not just Catholics, but non-Catholics as well, with the understanding that these works are an essential part of Christian love and the practice of the Christian faith,” Cardinal Wuerl said in his letter today.

“As our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has recently put it, ‘love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to [the Catholic Church] as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel. The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word,” said Cardinal Wuerl.

“Considering the dedicated efforts put into these good works, it is understandable to feel somewhat disheartened to see our government attempt to force the Church out of the public square,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “To be clear, that is the message that the HHS mandate conveys: our beliefs are not welcome. Those who have the temerity to hold onto their convictions will be fined.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/cardinal-wuerl-mother-teresa-wouldnt-qualify-religious-under-obamacare-rule

By Jill Stanek, LifeSiteNews, May 21, 2012

Read my previous post here.

Only four days after former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline filed a blistering motion asking that two Kansas Supreme Court justices recuse themselves from deciding whether to suspend his law license, the Supremes announced yesterday that FIVE of the seven would be doing so.

Their rationale, according to the The Topeka Capital-Journal:

The five justices voluntarily stepped aside, citing the Kansas Code of Judicial Conduct rule that requires recusal when a judge “previously presided as a judge over the matter in another court.”

Without ever mentioning Kline’s motion, the five stated it “would not be possible” for them to give Kline an unbiased trial, since they had ordered the very disciplinary hearing that resulted in Kline being brought before them.

Court spokesperson Ron Keefover acknowledged the mass exodus was “unprecedented.” Former Chief Justice Kay McFarland said it was “unheard of.”

Kline attorney Tom Condit proclaimed a victory but added in a statement the move only demonstrated the case was “irretrievably flawed.”

This is because the two left to decide Kline’s case are Sebelius appointees, and the five recusers will choose their own replacements from a lower court.

Kathleen Sebelius is the former pro-abortion governor of Kansas, now U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary. Sebelius repeatedly erected political and legal roadblocks to thwart AG Kline’s investigation of two late-abortion clinics for illegal abortions of children and fraudulent reporting to the state.

Kline’s investigation found that during a time when over 160 Kansas children 14 and younger had abortions in Kansas, late-term abortionist George Tiller and Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood each only reported one case of child sex abuse. This evidence, however, was squelched by orders from the Kansas Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Carol Beier (one of the recusers) and actions of former Attorneys General Paul Morrison and Stephen Six.

Furthermore, it was learned only last year that Sebelius’s Kansas Health Department shredded documents in 2005 that provided evidence that Planned Parenthood filed false reports to try to cover its tail after Kline launched his investigation.

On that point Condit concluded in his statement:

The recusing Justices, after reading Mr. Kline’s motion, suddenly discovered that they had previously complained about Mr. Kline’s behavior, and thus should not hear the appeal. This fact was known to them when the appeal was filed last fall – over six months ago….

The court has known its claimed reason for recusal for years and only acted four days after Mr. Kline’s motion was filed.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/blog/unprecedented-five-kansas-supreme-court-justices-recuse-themselves-in-kline

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

“What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support?”

–James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry, 1822

By Rev. Anthony Mclaughlin, JCD
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My Dear Parishioners:

As our religious liberty becomes increasingly compromised and eroded please read the following letter from our bishops entitled: “THE MOST CHERISHED OF AMERICAN FREEDOMS: Past and Present.”

In 1634, a mix of Catholic and Protestant settlers arrived in Southern Maryland from England aboard the Ark and the Dove. They had come at the invitation of the Catholic Lord Baltimore, who had been granted the land by the Protestant King Charles I of England. While Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in Europe, Lord Baltimore imagined Maryland as a society where people of different faiths could live together peacefully. This vision was soon codified in Maryland’s 1649 Act Concerning Religion (also called the “Toleration Act”), which was the first law in our nation’s history to protect an individual’s right to freedom of conscience.

Maryland’s early history teaches us that, like any freedom, religious liberty requires constant vigilance and protection, or it will disappear. Maryland’s experiment in religious toleration ended within a few decades. The colony was placed under royal control and the Church of England became the established religion. Discriminatory laws, including the loss of political rights, were enacted against those who refused to conform. Catholic chapels were closed and Catholics were restricted to practicing their faith in their homes. The Catholic community lived under this coercion until the American Revolution.

By the end of the 18th century our nation’s founders embraced freedom of religion as an essential condition of a free and democratic society. So when the Bill of Rights was ratified, religious freedom had the distinction of being the First Amendment. Religious liberty is indeed the first liberty. This is our American heritage, our most cherished freedom. If we are not free in our conscience and our practice of religion, all other freedoms are fragile. If our obligations and duties to God are impeded, or even worse, contradicted by the government, then we can no longer c l a i m t o be a land of the free. Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Among many current challenges, consider the recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring almost all private health plans to cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. For the first time in our history, the federal government will force religious institutions to facilitate drugs and procedures contrary to our moral teaching, and purport to define which religious institutions are “religious enough” to merit an exemption. This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. It is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government.

It is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception and sterilization, even when it violates our religious beliefs.

What can you do to ensure the protection of religious freedom? To learn more about our first freedom, and to send your message to HHS and Congress telling them to stand up for religious liberty and conscience rights, go to www.usccb.org/conscience today! Thank you for joining the effort to end this unprecedented government coercion of conscience and intrusion in religious affairs.

http://www.thecathedral.info/tinybrowser/files/church_bull_6_copy-23.pdf

The Third Rail 05-21

There is simply too much emphasis on preaching and teaching to get a desired political outcome, as opposed to preaching and teaching for the sake of the truth.

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Catholic News Roundup 05-21

Today’s stories:

– Chen Arrives In The US
– Exorcising Georgetown
– Priest Convicted
– A Sign Of The Times
– Gaga Gagged In Manila

Ottawa Talk
Toronto Talk

Resource page

By Don Schwger

“This is eternal life, that they know the Father the only true God”

Scripture: John 17:1-11

1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work which you gave me to do; 5 and now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory which I had with you before the world was made. 6 “I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world; they were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you; 8 for I have given them the words which you gave me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours; 10 all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

Meditation: In his Last Supper discourse Jesus speaks of his glory and the glory of his Father. What is this glory? It is the cross which Jesus speaks of here. How does the cross reveal his glory? In the cross God reveals the breadth of his great love for sinners and the power of redemption which cancels the debt of sin and reverses the curse of our condemnation. Jesus gave his Father the supreme honor and glory through his obedience and willingness to go to the cross. In times of defense the greatest honor belongs not to those who fought and survived but to those who gave the supreme sacrifice of their own lives for their fellow citizens.

Jesus speaks of the Father bringing glory to the Son through the great mystery of the Incarnation and Cross of Christ. God the Father gave us his only begotten Son for our redemption and deliverance from slavery to sin and death. There is no greater proof of God’s love for each and every person on the face of the earth than the Cross of Jesus Christ. In the cross we see a new way of love – a love that is unconditional, sacrificial and generous beyond comprehension.

Jesus also speaks of eternal life. What is eternal life? It is more than simply endless time. Science and medicine today looks for ways to extend the duration of life; but that doesn’t necessarily make life better for us here. Eternal life is qualitative more than quantitative. To have eternal life is to have the life of God within us. When we possess eternal life we experience here and now something of God’s majesty, his peace, joy and love and the holiness which characterizes the life of God. Jesus also speaks of the knowledge of God. Jesus tells his disciples that they can know the only true God. Knowledge of God is not simply limited to knowing something about God, but we can know God personally. The essence of Christianity, and what makes it distinct from Judaism and other religions, is the knowledge of God as our Father. Jesus makes it possible for each of us to personally know God as our Father. To see Jesus is to see what God is like. In Jesus we see the perfect love of God – a God who cares intensely and who yearns over men and women, loving them to the point of laying down his life for them upon the Cross. Jesus is the revelation of God – a God who loves us completely, unconditionally  and perfectly. Do you seek unity of heart, mind and will with God and unity of love and peace with your neighbor?

“If only I possessed the grace, good Jesus, to be utterly at one with you! Amidst all the variety of worldly things around me, Lord, the only thing I crave is unity with you. You are all my soul needs. Unite, dear friend of my heart, this unique little soul of mine to your perfect goodness. You are all mine; when shall I be yours? Lord Jesus, my beloved, be the magnet of my heart; clasp, press, unite me for ever to your sacred heart. You have made me for yourself; make me one with you. Absorb this tiny drop of life into the ocean of goodness whence it came.” (Prayer of Francis de Sales, 1567-1622)

Psalm 68:10-11,19-20

10 Your flock found a dwelling in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
11 The Lord gives the command; great is the host of those who bore the tidings:
19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up;  God is our salvation. [Selah]
20 Our God is a God of salvation; and to God, the Lord, belongs escape from death.

Go to | Daily Reading & Meditation Index |  (c) 2012 Don Schwager

American Catholic, May 22, 2012

Like Elizabeth Ann Seton, Rita of Cascia was a wife, mother, widow and member of a religious community. Her holiness was reflected in each phase of her life.

Born at Roccaporena in central Italy, Rita wanted to become a nun but was pressured at a young age into marrying a harsh and cruel man. During her 18-year marriage, she bore and raised two sons. After her husband was killed in a brawl and her sons had died, Rita tried to join the Augustinian nuns in Cascia. Unsuccessful at first because she was a widow, Rita eventually succeeded.

Over the years, her austerity, prayerfulness and charity became legendary. When she developed wounds on her forehead, people quickly associated them with the wounds from Christ’s crown of thorns. She meditated frequently on Christ’s passion. Her care for the sick nuns was especially loving. She also counseled lay people who came to her monastery.

Beatified in 1626, Rita was not canonized until 1900. She has acquired the reputation, together with St. Jude, as a saint of impossible cases. Many people visit her tomb each year.

Comment:  Although we can easily imagine an ideal world in which to live out our baptismal vocation, such a world does not exist. An “If only ….” approach to holiness never quite gets underway, never produces the fruit that God has a right to expect.

Rita became holy because she made choices that reflected her Baptism and her growth as a disciple of Jesus. Her overarching, lifelong choice was to cooperate generously with God’s grace, but many small choices were needed to make that happen. Few of those choices were made in ideal circumstances—not even when Rita became an Augustinian nun.

Quote:  For the Baptism of adults and for all the baptized at the Easter Vigil, three questions are asked: “Do you reject sin so as to live in the freedom of God’s children? Do you reject the glamor of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin? Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?”

Patron Saint of:  Difficult marriages, Impossible causes, Infertility, Parenthood

http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintofDay/default.aspx

SOURCE:  Yet More on Monika the Modernist

EXCERPT:  ….It was Pope St. Pius X who observed of the modernists: “They seize upon chairs in the seminaries and universities and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence. From these sacred chairs they scatter, though not always openly, the seeds of their doctrines; they proclaim their teachings without disguise in congresses; they introduce them and make them the vogue in social institutions” (Pascendi, no. 43)….

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=270

By Terence P. Jeffrey, CNSNews, May 21, 2012

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – The Archdiocese of New York, headed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., headed by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the University of Notre Dame, and 40 other Catholic dioceses and organizations around the country announced on Monday that they are suing the Obama administration for violating their freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The dioceses and organizations, in different combinations, are filing 12 different lawsuits filed in federal courts around the country.

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. has established a special website–preservereligiousfreedom.org–to explain its lawsuit and present news and developments concerning it.

“This lawsuit is about an unprecedented attack by the federal government on one of America’s most cherished freedoms: the freedom to practice one’s religion without government interference,” the archdiocese says on the website. “It is not about whether people have access to certain services; it is about whether the government may force religious institutions and individuals to facilitate and fund services which violate their religious beliefs.”

The suits filed by the Catholic organizations focus on the regulation that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced last August and finalized in January that requires virtually all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions.

The Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally wrong and that Catholics should not be involved in them. Thus, the regulation would require faithful Catholics and Catholic organizations to act against their consciences and violate the teachings of their faith.

Earlier, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had called the regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and asked the Obama administration to rescind it.

“We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress–and we’ll keep at it–but there’s still no fix,” Cardinal Dolan, who is also president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement released by the conference this morning.

“Time is running out, and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now,” the cardinal said. “Though the Conference is not a party to the lawsuits, we applaud this courageous action by so many individual dioceses, charities, hospitals and schools across the nation, in coordination with the law firm of Jones Day. It is also a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty. It’s also a great show of the diversity of the Church’s ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate–ministries to the poor, the sick, and the uneducated, to people of any faith or no faith at all.”

Cardinal Dolan’s New York Archdiocese filed suit today in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New York. Joining the archdiocese as plaintiffs in the suit are the Catholic Health Care Sytem, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, Catholic Charities of Rockville Centre, and Catholic Health Services of Long Island.

In their suit, these groups name HHS Secretary Sebelius, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and their departments as defendants.

The archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is being joined in its lawsuit by Catholic Charities of the Washington Archdiocese, the Consortium of Catholic Academies of the Archdiocese of Washington (which includes four parochial schools), Archbishop Carroll High School, and the Catholic University of America.

    CLICK TO WATCH–Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington said in an open letter posted online this morning. “Just as our faith compels us to uphold the liberty and dignity of others, so too, we must defend our own.”-dc-notre-dame-and-40-other-catholic-dioceses

“This morning, the Archdiocese of Washington filed a lawsuit to challenge the mandate, recently issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, that fundamentally redefines the nation’s long-standing definition of religious ministry and requires our religious organizations to provide their employees with coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington said in an open letter posted online this morning. “Just as our faith compels us to uphold the liberty and dignity of others, so too, we must defend our own.”

“The lawsuit in no way challenges either women’s established legal right to obtain and use contraception or the right of employers to provide coverage for it if they so choose,” said Cardinal Wuerl. “This lawsuit is about religious freedom.”

“The First Amendment enshrines in our nation’s Constitution the principle that religious organizations must be able to practice their faith free from government interference,” Cardinal Wuerl said.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/breaking-cardinal-dolan-ny-cardinal-wuerl-dc-notre-dame-and-40-other-catholic-dioceses

Novelist and filmmaker William Peter Blatty discusses HHS Secretary’s veto of partial birth abortion ban

….“Let me speak to the latest scandal, the invitation to Kathleen Sebelius to speak on commencement weekend,” said Blatty. “Let’s not shield our eyes or mind from the brutal details of what occurs in a partial birth abortion. First, surgical scissors are banged down into the infant’s head, after which the abortionist scrapes it around in order to widen the hole enough so it can accept a vacuum tube, which is then used to suck out the baby’s brains. You know all this? Good.

“But did you also know,” said Blatty, “that a consensus of pediatric neurologists are now agreed that by 20 weeks–and a few say even as early as six weeks!–the infant not only feels the excruciating pain, but feels it far more than would an adult? As governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill that would have banned this demonic practice! And a supposedly Catholic university, if not merely a humane one, honors her?”…..

READ MORE BELOW

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Novelist and filmmaker William Peter Blatty, who won an Academy Award for the screenplay he based on his own novel, The Exorcist, is leading a movement to formally petition the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. and, if necessary, the Vatican, to act under the authority of church law to discipline Georgetown University for violating the norms the church expects from institutions of higher learning that call themselves Catholic.

This movement is asking the church to consider taking actions against Georgetown that could include declaring “that Georgetown University is no longer entitled to call itself a Catholic or Jesuit university.”

But the movement’s highest aim is to begin a process that ends by reclaiming Georgetown as a university that is truly Catholic in that it teaches and exemplifies the true teachings of the church to which it professes to belong.

“The goal is simple,” Blatty said in an interview with the Cardinal Newman Society. “It is to do as John Paul exhorted us to do: to preserve for the Church the highest places of culture.”

Georgetown’s website currently says it “is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institute of higher learning in the United States.”

The movement Blatty is leading was ultimately triggered by Georgetown’s decision to invite Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to speak at the graduation ceremony for the university’s Public Policy Institute. The ceremony was held this morning.

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City

Sebelius’s archbishop in Kansas has banned her from taking communion until she repudiates her position in favor of legalized abortion and makes a worthy confession. Last August, Sebelius released a proposed regulation—under the Obamacare law—that would require virtually all health-care plans in the United States to provide women with sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives (including those that can cause abortion) without charging any fees or co-pay. Sebelius finalized the regulation in January.

Because the Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally wrong and Catholics cannot be involved in them, the regulation, combined with the individual mandate in Obamacare, would require virtually all Catholic lay people in the United States to purchase health insurance plans that violate the teachings of their faith. It would also force Catholic business owners and Catholic institutions–including schools, hospitals and charitable organizations—to act against the teachings of their faith if they purchase insurance for their employees.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declared Sebelius’s regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty,” and asked HHS to rescind it in its entirety. Most Catholic bishops in the United States also asked their priests to read a letter from the pulpit stating: “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”

Novelest and filmmaker William Peter Blatty

Blatty, who graduated from Georgetown in 1950, posted a letter online on Friday asking Georgetown alumni and others with a stake in the university and the Washington archdiocese to join him in “making Georgetown honest, Catholic and better.”

Specifically, Blatty is asking Catholics to sign a document appointing him as their “procurator” to pursue an action against Georgetown under Canon Law–the legal code of the Catholic Church—for violating the norms of a Catholic university as laid out by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical letter, Ex corde Ecclesiae.

Article 4 of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter, cited in the petition, says: “The identity of a Catholic University is essentially linked to the quality of its teachers and to respect for Catholic doctrine. “ Continue reading →

    By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, May 21, 2012

When we consider the example and sacrifices of generations before us who laid the foundation for the educational systems we have today, should we not feel a sense of accountability to them?

Speaking of the importance of sound doctrinal formation for the New Evangelization and the overall impact that this teaching may have upon society, Pope Benedict emphasized that separating the education of students from authentic Catholic identity only sustains the current dilemmas facing American Culture and its moral decay:

[I]n reference to the confusion created by instances of apparent dissidence between some representatives of Catholic institutions and the Church’s pastoral leadership: such discord harms the Church’s witness and, as experience has shown, can easily be exploited to compromise her authority and her freedom (May 5, 2012, Region XIII, U.S. Bishops).

Many Catholics and non-Catholics were horrified at Notre Dame University’s decision in 2008 to honor President Obama with an honorary degree and allow him to address the graduates of this once-strongly Catholic institution. Had he accepted an invitation to a debate about those many issues where he opposes the Church, rather than simply being handed a prestigious award, many would have appreciated both the school and the president’s honesty about the real differences separating us and a real exchange of ideas. But that is not what happened. There was no exchange of ideas, simply a (now obviously) dishonest campaign speech about the need to find common ground, and a pledge (later broken) to respect religious freedom.

Sadly, the confusion and scandalous decisions of some Catholic colleges and universities continue. As noted by the Cardinal Newman Society, eleven scandalous commencement speakers at Catholic colleges and universities are scheduled for this year. One of specific case is Georgetown, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university, which honored Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, last Friday by giving her a platform to speak during one of its commencement ceremonies. Why would a prominent Catholic university provide such an opportunity for a virulently pro-abortion and anti-religious freedom Catholic to address its students and guests?

Is this the example of authentic Catholicism our Holy Father is calling for in the New Evangelization? Do we truly believe that someone like Kathleen Sebelius with her radical pro-abortion record and her flagrant opposition to the bishops on the subject of religious freedom genuinely represents the teachings of the Church and merits the ability to offer words of wisdom at a Catholic institution?

The scandals must cease! Authentic Catholic education must be protected and cultivated!

There is no easy fix for these ongoing scandals. In communities across the country, we must hold the administrators of these Catholic institutions accountable. Parents, students and the Catholic faithful that support these schools (from elementary education on up to colleges and universities) must ensure that the Faith is being protected and properly taught. I encourage you to pray for these institutions, but also to take action in contacting them directly.

See full column by Fr. Boquet.

http://cnsnews.com/blog/father-shenan-j-boquet/scandals-must-cease

…Abortion is a terrible thing and even more terrible are the repercussions that it creates. First-responders are often times the only witnesses to the death of a botched-abortion victim, yet they always remain silent. Well not today....

By Thomas Aveni, Catholic Exchange, May 21st, 2012

It has long been understood by pro-life and pro-abortion advocates that an abortion itself is devastating to everyone involved. The physical, psychological, and emotional effects of an abortion can scar the women, her family, and friends for life. But has anyone ever stopped to wonder: how does abortion affect first-responders? These men and women who arrive at the clinic or the hospital to “clean up the mess” are often overlooked.

I mean, let’s face it: abortions do not always go as planned. The operation itself is extremely risky and dangerous. I myself am a first-responder here inVirginia. I and many of my fellow paramedics have been exposed to the horrors of our city’s abortion clinic at one time or another, either directly or indirectly. Our city’s Fire and Rescue departments receive multiple 911 emergency calls from that clinic every month. Despite the fact that this clinic must be shut down due to its health and safety issues, I am simply writing this to expose to you another side of abortion and its negative fallout, particularly on first-responders. Many people believe that, besides a women’s immediate family and friends, the only other people exposed to the procedure are the doctors and nurses at the clinic and hospital. Yet, has anyone ever wondered how the bleeding woman [following a botched abortion procedure] was transported to the hospital in the first place? EMS professionals such as myself and many of my friends are the ones who have to deal with the abortion before the doctors do. We are simply providing physical care for the women as we transport her to the hospital. That explains why she is usually in a more “stable” state when she arrives.

Can you imagine what it is like arriving onto the scene of a botched abortion? One of my fellow paramedics told me just the other day that he and his crew had to run a call for a woman who had just undergone an abortion. As he started to tell me the story, he grew very quiet and eventually trailed off into silence. I won’t give any details of the accounts like this but my observations have led me to believe that no one knows just exactly how to describe dealing with a post-abortion victim. The entire ordeal is very traumatic, especially for first-responders. We are often taken for granted and some of us eventually just lose any feeling of fear, disgust, or sympathy for the victims we deal with on a day-to-day basis. It is simply by nature of our line of work: we see horrific car accidents and burn victims all the time and at one point, you just don’t feel anything for them anymore. That is why people never hear from first-responders about, say, abortion clinic victims. It’s just simply something that doesn’t cross your mind because, as a paramedic, you’re used to it.

I myself still remember to this day my first fatality. I will never forget that call. It must have been about 3 AM and we were all racing towards the hospital, jostling around in the back of the ambulance. I was performing CPR and chest compressions on a man who had just suffered a heart attack. Performing CPR in the back of a moving ambulance at 3’oclock in the morning with very little sleep and a man’s life hanging in the balance, well, let’s just say it’s not exactly the easiest thing to cope with. I was still relatively new and inexperienced as a paramedic but what struck me the most about this particular incident was what the medic next to me said. I still remember looking at the monitor on the AED and seeing his heart rate beating in time to my compressions. The guy holding this man’s IV was next to me and he pointed at the monitor as I continued CPR. He said to me: “You see that, rookie? That’s you. That’s all you. You’re what’s keeping him alive.” I don’t think that medic’s words really sunk in until later that day, after we had gotten the victim to the hospital, when I learned that the man didn’t make it. You see, ladies and gentlemen, first-responders might try to push these kinds of memories out of their heads, but we all know that we will never forget them. It is truer in cases of abortions. I once heard it described as the most traumatic thing anyone can ever witness in their lifetime. I believe it.

Abortion is a terrible thing and even more terrible are the repercussions that it creates. First-responders are often times the only witnesses to the death of a botched-abortion victim, yet they always remain silent. Well not today. You have heard my story. You now know that we hold on to these things. Please, if you or anyone you know is in touch with a firefighter or paramedic, do not hesitate to ask them if they want to talk about their experiences. It is very similar to what a soldier goes through with post traumatic stress. Oftentimes, first-responders are still hurting from traumatic abortion-related calls; they just don’t want to think about it. Abortion hurts everyone and it’s about time that first responders started speaking out. If we could get more people to give their first-hand accounts, to really open up about their darkest memories, maybe, just maybe, we can end this curse of abortion once and for all. You see, my fellow Catholics, oftentimes it is those who are there for us who are also secretly in need themselves.  Please pray for me, my fellow first-responders, and all those who stand ready to serve and protect those who are in need.

Thomas Aveni is a Lieutenant first-responder (paramedic) with the Greater Manassas Volunteer Rescue Squad. He currently resides in Manassas,Virginia.

By Edwin Mora,CNSNews

….HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius:  “Contributing to these debates will require more than just the quantitative skills you’ve learned at Georgetown. It will also require the ethical skills you have honed–the ability to weigh different views, to see issues from others points of view, and in the end, to be true to your own moral compass.”….

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Speaking at a graduation ceremony for Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius quoted President John F. Kennedy in what may have been a rebuttal to the Catholic bishops of the United States who have criticized Sebelius for issuing a health-care regulation that the bishops have described as “an unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and an “unjust law” that Catholics in good conscience cannot obey.

Towards the end of her speech, Sebelius talked about the “very serious debates underway” in America on many issues, including “health care,” and that public policy leaders are needed to move the debates forward.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

She then noted that John F. Kennedy had been criticized by some people in his 1960 campaign for president because he was a Catholic.

“Some of then-Senator Kennedy’s opponents attacked him for his religion, suggesting that electing the first Catholic president would undermine the separation of church and state, a fundamental principle in our unique democracy,” Sebelius said. ”Now the furor over the course of the campaign grew so loud that Senator Kennedy chose to deliver a speech about his beliefs just seven weeks before that November election.”

Kennedy delivered the speech on Sept. 12, 1960.

“In his talk to Protestant ministers,” Sebelius said, “Kennedy talked about his vision of religion and the public square, and he said he believed in an America, and I quote, ‘where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against us all.’”

“And here we are more than 50 years later and that conversation, about the intersection of our nation’s long tradition of religious freedom with policy decisions in the public square continues,” said Sebelius.

Sebelius told the students that to engage in debates, such as ones dealing with religion and public policy, will require them to follow their “own moral compass.”

“Contributing to these debates will require more than just the quantitative skills you’ve learned at Georgetown,” she said. “It will also require the ethical skills you have honed–the ability to weigh different views, to see issues from others points of view, and in the end, to be true to your own moral compass.”

Georgetown University President John DeGioia. (AP Photo)

“These debates can also be contentious. But that’s a strength of our country, not a weakness,” she said, adding, “The conversations can be painful, But it’s through this process of conversation and compromise that we actually move forward, together, step by step, towards that ‘more perfect union.’”

The regulation issued by Sebelius will require virtually all health-care plans in the United States to cover, without any fees or co-pay, sterilizations for women as well as all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortion. This regulation will force Catholics individuals to purchase health care plans that violate the teachings of their faith and Catholic institutions and business owners to either violate church teachings of drop health-care coverage for their employees.

Some Catholic institutions–including EWTN and Ave Maria University–have already sued the federal government saying that the regulation violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religions.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, who heads the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s highest judicial authority, has said that Catholic employers cannot obey the regulation because doing so would constitute “formal cooperation” in evil. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked Sebelius to rescind the regulation but she has refused. Both President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have boasted about the regulation in campaign speeches.

The bishops have argued that the amendment is a straightforward violation of the basic constitutionally protected right of the individual not to be ordered by the government to act against his or her conscience or religious beliefs. Advocates of the regulation have depicted the bishops’ opposition to it as an effort by the bishops to impose on American women their views on sterlization and contraception.

This week, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., where Georgetown is located, criticized the university, which describes itself as a Catholic school, for honoring Sebelius by inviting her to give a graduation address.

In a May 15 statement, the office of the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., said, “Given the dramatic impact this [health care] mandate will have on Georgetown and all Catholic institutions, it is understandable that Catholics across the country would find shocking the choice of Secretary Sebelius, the architect of the mandate, to receive such special recognition at a Catholic university. It is also understandable that Catholics would view this as a challenge to the bishops.” (Note: the statement from the archdiocese was not signed by Archbishop Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who oversees the diocese.)

In its May 10 editorial, the The Catholic Standard (Archdiocese of Washington) said,  “As is well known, Secretary Sebelius is the architect of the ‘HHS mandate,’ now federal law, which requires all employers — including religious institutions — to provide health insurance coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraceptives for its employees and redefines religious ministry to exclude Catholic social services, hospitals and universities if they serve or employ non-Catholics. Given her position, it is disappointing that she would be the person that Georgetown University would choose to honor.”

“… Georgetown has undergone secularization, due in no small part to the fact that much of its leadership and faculty find their inspiration in sources other than the Gospel and Catholic teaching,” stated the editorial. “Many are quite clear that they reflect the values of the secular culture of our age. Thus the selection of Secretary Sebelius for special recognition, while disappointing, is not surprising.”

The editorial in The Catholic Standard, which was unsigned, accused Georgetown of not standing with the Catholic bishops.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and President Barack Obama at the White House on Feb. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

It read: “With all of the people struggling so hard to preserve freedom of religion, and with all that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has said in defense of this important value, Georgetown’s choice of the architect of the radical challenge of such freedom for special recognition can only be seen as a statement of where the university stands — certainly not with the Catholic bishops.”

“One can only wonder how the selection of Secretary Sebelius for such a prominent role as a featured speaker can be reconciled with the stated Catholic mission and identity of Georgetown University,” said the editorial.  “Secretary Sebelius’ vision on what constitutes faith-based institutions presents the most direct challenge to religious freedom in recent history.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has said the HHS contraceptive mandate is an “unprecedented” attack on religious freedom and therefore it should be rescinded. In a Mar. 2 letter, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, head of the USCCB, wrote: “religious freedom is under attack, and we will not cease our struggle to protect it. … We have made it clear in no uncertain terms to the government that we are not at peace with its invasive attempt to curtail the religious freedom we cherish as Catholics and Americans. We did not ask for this fight, but we will not run from it.”

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Catholic archbishop for the archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

In a May 14 statement, Georgetown President John DeGioia said, “Some have interpreted the invitation of Secretary Sebelius as a challenge to the USCCB. It was not.”

“The Secretary’s presence on our campus should not be viewed as an endorsement of her views,” he added.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/sebeliuss-rebuttal-catholic-bishops-jfk-believed-america-where-no-religious-body-seeks

By David Kerr, Catholic News Agency, May 20, 2012

Vatican City  (CNA/EWTN News) -  The Ascension of Jesus should remind Christians of the promise of Heaven and the power of earthly prayer, Pope Benedict XVI said at the Sunday Angelus.

When he ascended into heaven, Jesus “did not separate himself from our condition, in fact, in his humanity, he took mankind with him in the intimacy of the Father, and so has revealed the final destination of our earthly pilgrimage,” the Pope told pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on May 20.

“Just as he came down from heaven for us, and for us suffered and died on the cross, so for us he rose again and ascended to God, who therefore is no longer distant, but ‘Our God,’ ‘Our Father.’”

The Pope spoke to several thousand people who gathered to hear his midday Sunday address, followed by recitation of the Regina Coeli prayer.

He noted that in many countries the feast of the Ascension – which occurs 40 days after the Resurrection – is celebrated today, rather than on Thursday.

“The Ascension of Our Lord marks the fulfillment of salvation which began with the Incarnation,” the Pope explained. It is “the ultimate act of our deliverance from the yoke of sin.”

“Not only is the immortality of the soul proclaimed, but also that of the flesh,” he said, quoting Pope St. Leo the Great. “Today, in fact, not only are we confirmed possessors of paradise, but in Christ we also penetrated the heights of heaven.”

The Ascension also tells us that when we pray, “our humanity is brought to the heights of God, so every time we pray, the earth joins with Heaven.”

“And like burning incense, its fragrant smoke reaches on high,” the Pope said of prayer, adding that “when we raise our fervent and trusting prayer in Christ to the Lord, it crosses the heavens and reaches the Throne of God, it is heard by Him and answered.

“Let us beseech the Virgin Mary to help us contemplate the heavenly things, which the Lord promises us, and become more credible witnesses of divine life.”

After the Marian prayer, Pope Benedict issued a series of greetings and appeals.

The Pope asked people to pray for the Church in China, “that they may announce with humility and joy the Risen Christ, be faithful to his Church and the Successor of Peter and live their daily life in a manner consistent with the faith we profess.”

Also on the pontiff’s mind was a bomb attack that hit at a high school in the southern Italian town of Brindisi on Saturday. The blast seriously injured several students and took the life of a 16-year-old girl named Melissa. Pope Benedict described the attack as “cowardly” and asked everyone to pray for the victims of the “brutal violence,” especially for Melissa and her family.

Finally, he offered his “affectionate thoughts” and said he is “spiritually close” to the victims of a 6.0 earthquake that hit northeastern Italy at around 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. The quake killed at least four people and caused millions in damage to historic buildings.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-says-jesus-ascension-confirmed-promise-of-heaven/