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http://www.breitbart.tv/santorum-rips-romney-obama-gets-cpac-standing-ovation/

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By Cardinal James Francis Stafford, California Catholic Daily, July 29, 2008

(Editor’s Note: It is rare that California Catholic Daily publishes an article as lengthy as the one below – more than 4,000 words. But in this case, the story is so compelling and so important that we decided to make an exception. This article was made available to us courtesy of Catholic News Agency, and is a piece written by Cardinal James Stafford at the request of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. We believe it is well worth the read.)

Humanae Vitae
The Year of the Peirasmòs — 1968
By Cardinal James Francis Stafford

“Lead us not into temptation” is the sixth petition of the Our Father. Peirasmòs, the Greek word used in this passage for ‘temptation,’ means a trial or test. Disciples petition God to be protected against the supreme test of ungodly powers. The trial is related to Jesus’s cup in Gethsemane, the same cup which his disciples would also taste (Mk 10: 35-45). The dark side of the interior of the cup is an abyss. It reveals the awful consequences of God’s judgment upon sinful humanity. In August 1968, the weight of the evangelical Peirasmòs fell on many priests, including myself.

It was the year of the bad war, of complex innocence that sanctified the shedding of blood. English historian Paul Johnson dubs 1968 as the year of “America’s Suicide Attempt.” It included the Tet offensive in Vietnam with its tsunami-like effects in American life and politics, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee; the tumult in American cities on Palm Sunday weekend; and the June assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Southern California. It was also the year in which Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical letter on transmitting human life, Humanae Vitae (HV). He met immediate, premeditated, and unprecedented opposition from some American theologians and pastors. By any measure, 1968 was a bitter cup.

On the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, I have been asked to reflect on one event of that year, the doctrinal dissent among some priests and theologians in an American archdiocese on the occasion of its publication. It is not an easy or welcome task. But since it may help some followers of Jesus to live what Pope Paul VI called a more “disciplined” life (HV 21), I will explore that event.

The summer of 1968 is a record of God’s hottest hour. The memories are not forgotten; they are painful. They remain vivid like a tornado in the plains of Colorado. They inhabit the whirlwind where God’s wrath dwells. In 1968, something terrible happened in the Church. Within the ministerial priesthood, ruptures developed everywhere among friends which never healed. And the wounds continue to affect the whole Church. The dissent, together with the leaders’ manipulation of the anger they fomented, became a supreme test. It changed fundamental relationships within the Church. It was a Peirasmòs for many.

Some background material is necessary. Cardinal Lawrence J. Shehan, the sixth Archbishop of Baltimore, was my ecclesiastical superior at the time. Pope Paul VI had appointed him along with others as additional members to the Papal Commission for the Study of Problems of the Family, Population, and Birth Rates, first established by Blessed Pope John XXIII in 1963 during the II Vatican Council. There had been discussions and delays and unauthorized interim reports from Rome prior to 1968. The enlarged Commission was asked to make recommendations on these issues to the Pope.

In preparation for its deliberations, the Cardinal sent confidential letters to various persons of the Church of Baltimore seeking their advice. I received such a letter. My response drew upon experience, both personal and pastoral. Family and education had given me a Christian understanding of sex. The profoundly Catholic imagination of my family, friends and teachers had caused me to be open to this reality; I was filled with wonder before its mystery. Theological arguments weren’t necessary to convince me of the binding connection between sexual acts and new life. That truth was an accepted part of life at the elementary school connected with St. Joseph’s Passionist Monastery Parish in Baltimore. In my early teens my father had first introduced me to the full meaning of human sexuality and the need for discipline. His intervention opened a path through the labyrinth of adolescence.

Through my family, schools, and parishes I became friends with many young women. Some of them I dated on a regular basis. I marveled at their beauty. The courage of St. Maria Goretti, canonized in 1950, struck my generation like an intense mountain storm. Growing into my later teens, I understood better how complex friendship with young women could be. They entered the springtime of my life like the composite rhythm of a poem. To my surprise, the joy of being their friend was enriched by prayer, modesty, and the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist.

Later education and formation in seminaries built upon those experiences. In a 1955 letter to a friend, Flannery O’Connor describes the significance of the virtue of purity for many Catholics at that time: “To see Christ as God and man is probably no more difficult today than it has been … For you it may be a matter of not being able to accept what you call a suspension of the law of the flesh and the physical, but for my part I think that when I know what the laws of the flesh and physical reality really are, then I will know what God is. We know them as we see them, not as God sees them. For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church places on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified. I have always thought that purity was the most mysterious of the virtues, but it occurs to me that it would never have entered human consciousness if we were not to look forward to a resurrection of the body, which will be flesh and spirit united in peace, in the way they were in Christ. The resurrection of Christ seems the high point in the law of nature.” O’Connor’s theology, with its remarkably eschatological mark, anticipates the teaching of the II Vatican Council, “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light.” (Gaudium et Spes, 22.) In those years, I could not have used her explicit words to explain where I stood on sexuality and its use. Once I discovered them, she became a spiritual sister.

Eight years of priestly ministry from 1958 to 1966 in Washington and Baltimore broadened my experience. It didn’t take long to discover changes in Americans’ attitudes towards the virtue of purity. Both cities were undergoing sharp increases in out-of-wedlock pregnancies. The rate in Baltimore’s inner city was about 18% in 1966 and had been climbing for several years. In 1965-1966, the Baltimore Metropolitan Health and Welfare Council undertook a study to advise the city government in how to address the issue. At that time, the board members of the Council, including myself, had uncritical faith in experts and social research. Even the II Vatican Council had expressed unfettered confidence in the role of benevolent experts (Gaudium et Spes, 57). Not one of my professional acquaintances anticipated the crisis of trust which was just around the corner in the relations between men and women. Our vision was incapable of establishing conditions of justice and of purity of heart in which wonder and appreciation can find play. We were already anachronistic and without hope. We ignored the texture of life.

There were signs even then of the disasters facing children, both born and unborn. As a caseworker and priest throughout the 1960s, part of my ministry involved counseling inner-city families and single parents. My first awareness of a parishioner using hard drugs was in 1961. A sixteen-year old had been jailed in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. At the time of my late afternoon visit to him, he was experiencing drug withdrawal unattended and alone in a tiny cell. His screams filled the corridors and adjoining cells. Through the iron bars dividing us, I was horror-stricken watching him in his torment. The abyss he was looking into was unimaginably terrifying. In this drugged youth writhing in agony on the floor next to an open toilet I saw the bitter fruits of the estrangement of men and women. His mother, separated from her husband, lived with her younger children in a sweltering third floor flat on Light Street in old South Baltimore. The father was non-existent for them. The failure of men in their paternal and spousal roles was unfolding before my eyes and ears. Since then, more and more American men have refused to accept responsibility for their sexuality.

In a confidential letter responding to his request, I shared in a general fashion these concerns. My counsel to Cardinal Shehan was very real and specific. I had taken a hard, cold look at what I was experiencing and what the Church and society were doing. I came across an idea which was elliptical: the gift of love should be allowed to be fruitful. These two fixed points are constant. This simple idea lit up everything like lightning in a storm. I wrote about it more formally to the Cardinal: the unitive and procreative meanings of marriage cannot be separated. Consequently, to deprive a conjugal act deliberately of its fertility is intrinsically wrong. To encourage or approve such an abuse would lead to the eclipse of fatherhood and to disrespect for women. Since then, Pope John Paul II has given us the complementary and superlative insight into the nuptial meaning of the human body. Decades afterwards, I came across an analogous reading from Meister Eckhart: “Gratitude for the gift is shown only by allowing it to make one fruitful.” Some time later, the Papal Commission sent its recommendations to the Pope. The majority advised that the Church’s teaching on contraception be changed in light of new circumstances. Cardinal Shehan was part of that majority. Even before the encyclical had been signed and issued, his vote had been made public, although not on his initiative.

As we know, the Pope decided otherwise. This sets the scene for the tragic drama following the actual date of the publication of the encyclical letter on July 29, 1968.

In his memoirs, Cardinal Shehan describes the immediate reaction of some priests in Washington to the encyclical: “[A]fter receiving the first news of the publication of the encyclical, the Rev. Charles E. Curran, instructor of moral theology of The Catholic University of America, flew back to Washington from the West where he had been staying. Late [on the afternoon of July 29], he and nine other professors of theology of the Catholic University met, by evident prearrangement, in Caldwell Hall to receive, again by prearrangement with the Washington Post, the encyclical, part by part, as it came from the press. The story further indicated that by nine o’clock that night, they had received the whole encyclical, had read it, had analyzed it, criticized it, and had composed their six-hundred word ‘Statement of Dissent.’ Then they began that long series of telephone calls to ‘theologians’ throughout the East, which went on, according to the Post, until 3:30 a.m., seeking authorization to attach their names as endorsers (signers was the term used) of the statement, although those to whom they had telephoned could not have had an opportunity to see either the encyclical or their statement. Meanwhile, they had arranged through one of the local television stations to have the statement broadcast that night.”

The Cardinal’s judgment was scornful. In 1982 he wrote, “The first thing that we have to note about the whole performance is this: so far as I have been able to discern, never in the recorded history of the Church has a solemn proclamation of a Pope been received by any group of Catholic people with so much disrespect and contempt.”

The personal Peirasmòs, the test, began. In Baltimore in early August 1968, a few days after the encyclical’s issuance, I received an invitation by telephone from a recently ordained assistant pastor to attend a gathering of some Baltimore priests at the rectory of St. William of York parish in southwest Baltimore to discuss the encyclical. The meeting was set for Sunday evening, August 4. I agreed to come. Eventually a large number of priests were gathered in the rectory’s basement. I knew them all.

The dusk was clear, hot, and humid. The quarters were cramped. We were seated on rows of benches and chairs and were led by a diocesan inner-city pastor well known for his work in liturgy and race relations. There were also several Sulpician priests present from St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore to assist him in directing the meeting. I don’t recall their actual number.

My expectations of the meeting proved unrealistic. I had hoped that we had been called together to receive copies of the encyclical and to discuss it. I was mistaken. Neither happened. After welcoming us and introducing the leadership, the inner-city pastor came to the point. He expected each of us to subscribe to the Washington “Statement of Dissent.” Mixing passion with humor, he explained the reasons. They ranged from the maintenance of the credibility of the Church among the laity, to the need to allow ‘flexibility’ for married couples in forming their consciences on the use of artificial contraceptives. Before our arrival, the conveners had decided that the Baltimore priests’ rejection of the papal encyclical would be published the following morning in The Baltimore Sun, one of the daily newspapers.

The Washington statement was read aloud. Then the leader asked each of us to agree to have our names attached to it. No time was allowed for discussion, reflection, or prayer. Each priest was required individually to give a verbal “yes” or “no.”

I could not sign it. My earlier letter to Cardinal Shehan came to mind. I remained convinced of the truth of my judgment and conclusions. Noting that my seat was last in the packed basement, I listened to each priest’s response, hoping for support. It didn’t materialize. Everyone agreed to sign. There were no abstentions. As the last called upon, I felt isolated. The basement became suffocating. By now it was night. The room was charged with tension. Something epochal was taking place. It became clear that the leaders’ strategy had been carefully mapped out beforehand. It was moving along without a hitch. Their rhetorical skills were having their anticipated effect. They had planned carefully how to exert what amounted to emotional and intellectual coercion. Violence by overt manipulation was new to the Baltimore presbyterate.

The leader’s reaction to my refusal was predictable and awful. The whole process now became a grueling struggle, a terrible test, a Peirasmòs. The priest/leader, drawing upon some scatological language from his Marine Corp past in the II World War, responded contemptuously to my decision. He tried to force me to change. He became visibly angry and verbally abusive. The underlying ‘fraternal’ violence became more evident. He questioned and then derided my integrity. He taunted me to risk my ecclesiastical ‘future,’ although his reference was more anatomically specific. The abuse went on.

With surprising coherence, I was eventually able to respond that the Pope’s encyclical deserved the courtesy of a reading. None of us had read it. I continued that, as a matter of fact, I agreed with and accepted the Pope’s teaching as it had been reported in the public media. That response elicited more ridicule. Otherwise there was silence. Finally, seeing that I would remain firm, the ex-Marine moved on to complete the business and adjourn the meeting. The leaders then prepared a statement for the next morning’s daily paper.

The meeting ended. I sped out of there, free but disoriented. Once outside, the darkness encompassed me. We all had been subjected to a new thing in the Church, something unexpected. A pastor and several seminary professors had abused rhetoric to undermine the truth within the evangelical community. When opposed, they assumed the role of Job’s friends. Their contempt became a nightmare. In the night, it seemed that God’s blind hand was reaching out to touch my face.

The dissent of a few Sulpician seminary professors compounded my disorientation. In their ancient Baltimore Seminary I had first caught on to the connection between freedom, interiority, and obedience. By every ecclesial measure they should have been aware that the process they supported that evening exceeded the “norms of licit dissent.” But they showed no concern for the gravity of that theological and pastoral moment. They saw nothing unbecoming in the mix of publicity and theology. They expressed no impatience then or later over the coercive nature of the August meeting. Nor did any of the other priests present. One diocesan priest did request privately later that night that his name be removed before the statement’s publication in the morning paper.

For a long time, I wondered about the meaning of the event. It was a cataclysm which was difficult to survive intact. Things were sorted out slowly. Later, Henri de Lubac captured some of its significance, “Nothing is more opposed to witness than vulgarization. Nothing is more unlike the apostolate than propaganda.” Hannah Arendt’s insights have been useful concerning the dangerous poise of 20th century Western culture between unavoidable doom and reckless optimism. “It should be possible to discover the hidden mechanics by which all traditional elements of our political and spiritual world were dissolved into a conglomeration of where everything seems to have lost specific value, and has become unrecognizable for human comprehension, unusable for human purpose. To yield to the mere process of disintegration has become an irresistible temptation, not only because it has assumed the spurious grandeur of ‘historical necessity,’ but also because everything outside it has begun to appear lifeless, bloodless, meaningless and unreal.” The subterranean world that has always accompanied Catholic communities, called Gnosticism by our ancestors, had again surfaced and attempted to usurp the truth of the Catholic tradition.

An earlier memory from April 1968 helped to shed further light on what had happened in August 1968 along with de Lubac’s words about violence and Arendt’s insights into the breaking point reached by Western civilization in the 20th century. During the height of the 1968 Baltimore riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I had made an emergency call to that same inner-city pastor who would lead the later August meeting. It was one of numerous telephone conversations I had with inner-city pastors during the night preceding Palm Sunday. At the request of the city government, I was asking whether the pastors or their people, both beleaguered, might need food, medical assistance, or other help.

My conversation with him that April night was by far the most dramatic. He described the view from the rectory while speaking on the phone. A window framed a dissolving neighborhood; his parish was becoming a raging inferno. He said, “From here I see nothing but fire burning everywhere. Everything has been set ablaze. The Church and rectory are untouched thus far.” He did not wish to leave or be evacuated. His voice betrayed disillusionment and fear. Later we learned that the parish buildings survived.

‘Sorting out’ these two events of violence continued throughout the following months and years. The trajectories of April and August 1968 unpredictably converged. Memories of the physical violence in the city in April 1968 helped me to name what had happened in August 1968. Ecclesial dissent can become a kind of spiritual violence in its form and content. A new, unsettling insight emerged. Violence and truth don’t mix. When expressive violence of whatever sort is inflicted upon truth, the resulting irony is lethal.

What do I mean? Look at the results of the two events. After the violent 1968 Palm Sunday weekend, civil dialogue in metropolitan Baltimore broke down and came to a stop. It took a back seat to open anger and recriminations between whites and blacks. The violence of the priests’ August gathering gave rise to its own ferocious acrimony. Conversations among the clergy, where they existed, became contaminated with fear. Suspicions among priests were chronic. Fears abounded. And they continue. The Archdiocesan priesthood lost something of the fraternal whole which Baltimore priests had known for generations. 1968 marked the hiatus of the generational communio of the Archdiocesan presbyterate, which had been continually reinforced by the seminary and its Sulpician faculty. Priests’ fraternity had been wounded. Pastoral dissent had attacked the Eucharistic foundation of the Church. Its nuptial significance had been denied. Some priests saw bishops as nothing more than Roman mannequins.

Something else happened among priests on that violent August night. Friendship in the Church sustained a direct hit. Jesus, by calling those who were with him his ‘friends,’ had made friendship a privileged analogy of the Church. That analogy became obscured after a large number of priests expressed shame over their leaders and repudiated their teaching.

Cardinal Shehan later reported that on Monday morning, August 5, he “was startled to read in the Baltimore Sun that seventy-two priests of the Baltimore area had signed the Statement of Dissent.” What he later called “the years of crisis” began for him during that hot, violent August evening in 1968.

But that night was not a total loss. The test was unexpected and unwelcome. Its unhinging consequences continue. Abusive, coercive dissent has become a reality in the Church and subjects her to violent, debilitating, unproductive, chronic controversies. But I did discover something new. Others also did. When the moment of Christian witness came, no Christian could be coerced who refused to be. Despite the novelty of being treated as an object of shame and ridicule, I did not become “ashamed of the Gospel” that night and found “sweet delight in what is right.” It was not a bad lesson. Ecclesial obedience ran the distance.

My discovery that Christ was the first to despise shame was gut rending in its existential and providential reality. “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.” Paradoxically, in the hot, August night a new sign shown unexpectedly on the path to future life. It read, “Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered.”

The violence of the initial disobedience was only a prelude to further and more pervasive violence. Priests wept at meetings over the manipulation of their brothers. Contempt for the truth, whether aggressive or passive, has become common in Church life. Dissenting priests, theologians and laypeople have continued their coercive techniques. From the beginning, the press has used them to further its own serpentine agenda.

All of this led to a later discovery. Discernment is an essential part of episcopal ministry. With the grace of “the governing Spirit” the discerning skills of a bishop should mature. Episcopal attention should focus on the break/rupture initiated by Jesus and described by St. Paul in his response to Corinthian dissenters. “You desire proof that Christ is speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful in you. For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you we shall live with him by the power of God. Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves” (2 Cor 13: 3-5).

The rupture of the violent death of Jesus has changed our understanding of the nature of God. His Trinitarian life is essentially self-surrender and love. By Baptism, every disciple of Jesus is imprinted with that Trinitarian watermark. The Incarnate Word came to do the will of him who sent him. Contemporary obedience of disciples to the Successor of Peter cannot be separated from the poverty of spirit and purity of heart modeled and won by the Word on the Cross.

A brief afterword: In 1978 or thereabouts, during an episcopal visitation to his parish, I was having lunch with the Baltimore pastor, the ex-Marine, who led the August 1968 meeting. I was a guest in his rectory. He was still formidable. Our conversation was about his parish, the same parish he had been shepherding during the 1968 riots. The atmosphere was amiable. During the simple meal in the kitchen I came to an uneasy decision. Since we had never discussed the August 1968 night, I decided to initiate a conversation about it. My recall was brief, objective and, insofar as circumstances allowed, unthreatening. I had hoped for some light from him on an event which had become central to the experience of many priests, including myself. While my mind and heart were recalling the events of the night, he remained silent. His silence continued afterwards. Even though he had not forgotten, he made no comment. He didn’t lift his eyes. His heart’s fire was colder now.

Nothing was forthcoming. I left the matter there. No dialogue was possible in 1968; it remained impossible in 1978. There was no common ground. Both of us were looking into an abyss — from opposite sides. Anguish and disquiet overwhelmed the distant hope of reconciliation and friendship. We never returned to the subject again. He has since died while serving a large suburban parish. The only remaining option is to strike my breast and pray, “Lord, remember the secret worth of all our human worthlessness.”

Diocesan presbyterates have not recovered from the July/August nights in 1968. Many in consecrated life also failed the evangelical test. Since January 2002, the abyss has opened up elsewhere. The whole people of God, including children and adolescents, now must look into the abyss and see what dread beasts are at its bottom. Each of us shudders before the wrath of God, each weeps in sorrow for our sins and each begs for the Father’s merciful remembrance of Christ’s obedience.

(Cardinal Stafford is Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Roman Curia.)

http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=2782389d-da2c-40ce-8d7f-071d2345291c

Fresh off his three-state election night sweep, Rick Santorum spoke to CPAC on Friday morning. “As conservatives and tea party folks, we are not just wings of the Republican Party,” he said. “We are the Republican Party.”

Santorum criticized the Obama administration’s health care regulation that would require Catholic hospitals and universities to provide birth control and morning-after pills to their employees as part of their health care coverage.

“It’s not about contraception,” Santorum said. “It’s about economic liberty; it’s about freedom of speech; it’s about freedom of religion. It’s about government control of your lives and it’s got to stop.”

Responding to Mitt Romney’s criticism that he is a Washington insider, Santorum said his tenure in the House and Senate were part of his qualifications for the presidency. “Some say experience is bad in this election,” he said. “I don’t think so. I think knowing the people who are the conservative leaders, knowing the people who have worked in the vineyards for decades, knowing the people who bring the ideas and the breath and the blood spring of ideas to conservatism is important.”

Echoing a theme that he has expressed for months on the campaign trail, Santorum suggested that nominating a candidate like Romney would amount to a “hollow victory” for conservatism.

“As conservatives we lost heart,” he said. “We listened to the voices who said that we had to abandon our principles and values to get things done. To win. But we hear those same voices today, that we have to learn our lesson, that we need to compromise, do what’s politically reasonable and go out and push someone forward who can win. Well I think we have learned our lesson. And the lesson we learned is that we will no longer abandon and apologize for the principles that made this country great for a hollow victory in November.”

Mitt Romney is scheduled to speak to CPAC at 12:55 p.m. ET, and Newt Gingrich’s remarks are scheduled to begin at 4:10 p.m. ET. Yahoo News will broadcast both speeches live.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/live-stream-rick-santorum-speech-cpac-151719063.html

There is a lot of misinformation floating around about NFP and the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality. Do you recognize any of the myths below? Read on to get the “straight scoop!”

Myth #1: I’m not Catholic, so the teaching against contraception really doesn’t apply to me.

Myth #2: NFP spoils spontaneity—its charts make marital relations a clinical exercise.

Myth #3: NFP harms marriage through a lack of physical intimacy.

Myth #4: NFP users have large families because the method doesn’t work.

Myth #5: If you practice NFP you should use barrier methods during the fertile time “just to be sure.”

Myth #6: NFP is only for good marriages.

Myth #7: Popes have no firsthand experience with sex, and therefore should not be considered “authorities” on the subject.

Myth #8: Doesn’t the Church teach that every sex act should have procreation as a goal, and thus a couple must have as many children as they physically can?

Myth #9: NFP is too hard to learn.

Myth #10: NFP is the same as contraception.

http://ccli.org/nfp/top-ten-myths/index.php

The other night I was having dinner and Pat Cadell, Jimmy Carter’s pollster and a very honest liberal, came up to me. He said bluntly that if his side’s front runner had lost 3 of the first 8 elections and been swept out last Tuesday, by Wednesday the Democrats would have a new candidate in the race.

He is right.

Yet the Republican Party has decided instead of finding a new guy to do what it can to get Romney across the finish line no matter how bad the limp.

On Tuesday, Santorum swept. Romney came in third in Minnesota. Counties he won big in Colorado turned on him overwhelmingly. Our “frontrunner” has one three of the first eight. With the exception of Florida, he has shown he can only win states with strong family ties like New Hampshire and states with strong Mormon participation like Nevada.

That may give him Michigan and Arizona, but it spells trouble elsewhere.

This is the seventh CPAC I have been to. The crowd is the least excited I have seen. On the first day, before the candidates have had a chance to bus in their supporters to stack the deck and straw poll, this is the least excited I’ve seen them. The crowd’s heart is with Santorum. But in their mind they do not think he can win.

Today, Mitt Romney must convince the crowd he is one of them or at least won’t betray them. Rick Santorum must convince them he can beat Barack Obama. Newt Gingrich must convince them he is still viable.

Along the way a funny thing has happened. Romney supporters are starting to be openly critical of him. The business whiz has failed to restructure his own failing organization. His support is a mile wide and an inch deep.

And he has been replaced as front runner by the crowd. They are with Rick Santorum in heart, but also in money and votes. On the horizon looms a brokered convention.

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/02/10/the-frontrunner/

Pope Benedict XVI waves as he leaves his general audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican Feb. 8. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) (Feb. 8, 2012)

VATICAN CITY (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the Italian-language catechesis Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience held in Paul VI Hall. The Pope reflected today on the prayer of Jesus dying on the Cross.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I would like to reflect with you on the prayer of Jesus as death was imminent, by considering what St. Mark and St. Matthew tell us. The two Evangelists give an account of the prayer of the dying Jesus not only in Greek, the language in which their accounts were written, but also — on account of the importance of those words — in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. In this way, they have handed down not only the substance but even the sound this prayer had on the lips of Jesus: We truly listen to the words of Jesus as they were. At the same time, they described for us the attitude of the bystanders present at the Crucifixion, who failed to understand — or who did not will to understand — this prayer.

St. Mark, as we just heard, writes: “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloì, Eloì, lamà sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”(15:34). In the structure of the narrative, the prayer — the cry of Jesus — is raised at the climax of the three hours of darkness that fell upon the whole land from midday until 3:00 in the afternoon. These three hours of darkness are the continuation of an earlier span of time, also of three hours, which began with Jesus’ Crucifixion. The Evangelist Mark informs us, in fact, that “it was the third hour when they crucified Him” (cf. 15:25). Taken as a whole, the account’s temporal indications reveal that Jesus’ six hours on the cross are divided into two chronologically equal parts.

In the first three hours, from 9:00 until midday, we find the mockery of various groups of persons, who demonstrate their skepticism and affirm their unbelief. St. Mark writes: “Those who passed by derided Him” (15:29); “so also the chief priests mocked Him to one another with the scribes (15:31); “those who were crucified with Him also reviled Him” (15:32). In the three hours that follow thereafter — from noon “until three in the afternoon” — the Evangelist speaks only of the darkness that has descended over the whole land; darkness alone occupies the scene, without any reference to the movement of persons or to words. As Jesus draws closer to death, there is only darkness that falls “over the whole land.”

Even the cosmos takes part in this event: Darkness envelops persons and things, but even in this moment of darkness, God is present; He does not abandon. In the biblical tradition, darkness has an ambivalent meaning: It is a sign of the presence and action of evil, but also of a mysterious presence and action of God, who is capable of vanquishing all darkness. In the Book of Exodus, for example, we read: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Lo, I am coming to you in a thick cloud’” (19:9); and again: “The people stood afar off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was” (20:21). And in the discourses of Deuteronomy, Moses recounts: “The mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud and gloom” (4:11); you “heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire” (5:23). In the scene of Jesus’ Crucifixion, darkness covers the earth, and it is into the darkness of death that the Son of God is plunged in order to bring life by His act of love.

Returning to the narrative of St. Mark, in the face of the insults hurled by the various classes of persons, in the face of the darkness that descends over all things, in the moment when He faces death, Jesus — by the cry of His prayer — reveals that together with the weight of the suffering and death in which there is seeming abandonment and the absence of God, He has utter certainty of the closeness of the Father, who approves this supreme act of love, the total gift of Himself, even though He does not hear His voice from on high, as He had in other moments. In reading the Gospels, we become aware that in other important moments of His earthly life, Jesus had seen signs joined to the Father’s presence and approval of His path of love — even the clarifying voice of God.

Thus, in the event that follows after the Baptism in the Jordan, as the heavens were rent, the word of the Father was heard: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). Then, in the Transfiguration, the sign of the cloud was joined by the word: “This is my beloved Son; listen to Him” (Mark 9:7). Instead, as death approaches the Crucified One, silence descends, no voice is heard, but the Father’s loving gaze remains fixed upon the Son’s gift of love.

But what meaning does the prayer of Jesus have, the cry He sends forth to the Father: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — doubt regarding His mission or the Father’s presence? Does this prayer perhaps not contain the keen awareness of having been abandoned? The words Jesus addresses to the Father are the beginning of Psalm 22, in which the psalmist manifests before God the tension between feeling left alone, and the sure awareness of God’s presence among His people. The psalmist prays: “O my God, I cry by day, but thou does not answer; and by night, but find no rest. Yet thou art holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel” (Verses 2,3). The psalmist speaks of a “cry” in order to express all the suffering of his prayer before a seemingly absent God: In extreme anguish, prayer becomes a cry.

And this also happens in our relationship with the Lord: When faced with the most difficult and painful situations, when it seems that God is not listening, we need not fear entrusting to Him the entire weight of what we carry in our hearts; we need not fear crying out to Him in our suffering; we must be convinced that God is near, even when He appears to be silent.

In repeating from the Cross the opening words of the psalm: “Eloì, Eloì, lamà sabachthani?” — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46); in crying out in the words of the psalm, Jesus is praying in the moment of man’s final rejection, in the moment of abandonment. However, He is praying the psalm in the awareness that God the Father is present, even in this hour when He feels the human drama of death. But a question arises in us: How is it possible that so powerful a God does not intervene to rescue His Son from this terrible trial?

It is important to understand that Jesus’ prayer is not the cry of one who goes to meet death in despair, nor is it the cry of one who knows he has been abandoned. In that moment, Jesus makes His own the whole of Psalm 22, the great psalm of the suffering people of Israel, and so He is taking upon Himself not only the tribulation of His people, but also of all people who suffer under the oppression of evil — and, at the same time, He brings all of this before the heart of God Himself, in the certainty that His cry will be heard in the Resurrection: “The cry of extreme anguish is at the same time the certainty of an answer from God, the certainty of salvation — not only for Jesus Himself, but for ‘many’” (Jesus of Nazareth II, p. 214).

The prayer of Jesus contains the utmost confidence and abandonment into God’s hands, even in His apparent absence, even when He seemingly remains in silence, in accordance with a plan incomprehensible to us. Thus, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read: “In the redeeming love that always united Him to the Father, He assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that He could say in our name from the Cross: ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’” (n. 603). His is a suffering in communion with us and for us that is born of love and already includes redemption, the victory of love.

The persons present under the Cross of Jesus fail to understand this, and they take His cry to be a plea addressed to Elijah. In a frenzied scene, they seek to quench His thirst in order to prolong His life and verify whether Elijah will truly come to His assistance. But a loud cry brings the earthy life of Jesus, and their desire, to an end. In the final moment, Jesus allows His heart to express its suffering; and yet, at the same time, He allows the sense of the Father’s presence to emerge together with His consent to His plan of salvation for mankind.

We too find ourselves again and again faced with the “here and now” of suffering, of the silence of God — we so often express it in our prayer — and yet, we also find ourselves before the “here and now” of the Resurrection, of the response of a God who took our sufferings upon Himself, so that He might carry them together with us, and give us the sure hope that they will be overcome (cf. Encyclical Letter, Spe salvi, 35-40).

Dear friends, in prayer let us bring our daily crosses to God, in the certainty that He is present and listens to us. The cry of Jesus reminds us that in prayer we must overcome the barriers of our “I” and of our problems in order to open ourselves to the needs and sufferings of others. The prayer of the dying Jesus on the Cross teaches us to pray with love for all our brothers and sisters who are feeling the burden of daily life, who are living through difficult moments, who are in pain, who receive no word of comfort; let us bring all of this before the heart of God, so that they may feel the love of God, who never abandons us. Thank you.

[Translation by Diane Montagna]

http://www.dioceseoftulsa.org/article.asp?nID=4476

O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church … give us holy priests. You yourself maintain them in holiness.

O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil’s traps and snares, which are continually being set for the souls of priests.

May the power of Your Mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring the naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priest, for You can do all things. 

http://www.courageouspriest.com/

]]> http://brownpelicanla.com/archives/85547/feed 0 http://brownpelicanla.com/archives/85536 http://brownpelicanla.com/archives/85536#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:48:48 +0000 scribe http://brownpelicanla.com/?p=85536

By Pat Buchanan, Townhall, 2/10/2012

Yes, Virginia, there is a religious war going on. It is for the soul of America. And traditional Christianity is besieged.

In a January visit to the Vatican, American bishops were warned by Benedict XVI that “radical secularism” posed “grave threats” to their Catholic faith. Your religious freedom is being circumscribed, said the pope. The U.S. government may seek to force you to collaborate in what are “intrinsically evil practices.”

No sooner had the bishops returned home than President Obama instructed them that, under Obamacare, all Catholic schools, hospitals, orphanages, nursing homes and homeless shelters must provide the “morning after” pill, contraceptives and sterilizations for all employees, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

The Church was given 18 months to comply.

Should Obama’s order stand, the Church will be forced by the state to adopt practices that it has always taught are immoral and to engage in acts it believes are intrinsically evil.

Welcome to Obama’s America.

Last week, the Komen Foundation, which funds breast cancer research, sought to extricate itself from the country’s culture wars by severing ties to America’s No. 1 abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.

As professor Robert George writes, in 2010, Planned Parenthood sold 300,000 abortions at $500 each, earning $164 million. Nine of 10 pregnant women who come into its clinics are sold an abortion.

Moreover, the organization is “under congressional and criminal investigation … for allegations including failure to report criminal child sex abuse, misuse of health care and family planning funds, and failure to comply with parental involvement laws regarding abortions.”

In the 1950s, such an institution would be regarded as organized crime and its officers and employees would be up on felony charges or sitting in a penitentiary. We live today in a different America.

Thus, the media-political-cultural elite came down on Komen with both feet, berating the foundation for abandoning women suffering from breast cancer, until Komen caved and restored the $650,000 it contributes annually to Planned Parenthood, though that sum is not one-tenth of one percent of PP’s annual budget.

The Komen officer who advised the foundation to sever ties was cashiered on Feb. 7.

Also on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned, two to one, the democratic decision of a majority of Californians who voted in 2008 to outlaw homosexual marriage.

The people of California, said the Jimmy Carter judicial appointee and the Bill Clinton appointee, violated the 14th Amendment, which mandates the equal protection of the law.

That the Congress that took office in 1865, the year Richmond fell, meant to elevate homosexual unions to the same moral plane as matrimony when it enacted the 14th Amendment is an absolute absurdity.

What has happened to America in half a century seems, to many raised in that other America, like something out of Orwell.

Can it be that Californians must now wait on the U.S. Supreme Court — make that Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote — to tell them whether they can or cannot write their own marriage laws?

How did it come to be that we Americans must all wait for nine judges on the Supreme Court to tell us whether homosexual marriage is or is not a constitutional right?

Where did justices get the power to decide whether laws enacted by the people or their elected representatives will be allowed to stand in this republic? Where did these nine justices get the right to be sole and final arbiters of what the Constitution and the laws say and do not say?

As law professor and author William Quirk muses, in introducing the new book “Judicial Monarchs” by William Watkins, Jr.:

“‘Notes of the (Constitutional) Convention do not record Ben Franklin standing up and saying: ‘I’ve got a good idea. Let’s find nine really bright people and turn over most of our important decisions to them.’ Would the Convention authorize an institution that defines its own powers?”

Not the convention our Founding Fathers attended.

Yet since the Warren Court came into being six decades ago, the Supreme Court has usurped that power — to remake America. And the American people have meekly submitted to its tyrannical rule.

The justices used the Ninth Amendment to declare homosexuality and abortion constitutional rights, though both were crimes when the Bill of Rights was adopted. They used the First Amendment to purge Christianity from our public schools and public life and reduce our cradle faith to the same level as Santeria and Scientology.

Now the radical secularists in Obama’s entourage are so puffed up with success, so confident the future belongs to them, they have crossed the line between church and state to impose their values directly on Christian institutions.

This time they have overplayed their hand. Traditionalist Christians and their allies have been given a glorious opening to inflict a stinging defeat and humiliation on these arrogant intruders on God’s turf.

On this one, Obama ought to be forced into a public retreat.

Pat Buchanan is a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, and the author of many books including State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America .

http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2012/02/10/creators_oped

By Martin Gould and John Bachman,  NewsMax, 09 Feb 2012

Republicans cannot just attack President Barack Obama and his policies — they have to put forward bold new ideas of their own if they are to win the next election, House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.

Too many in the party want to take the easy way out, he added, but that is simply not a good enough strategy.

“There are people who would say Barack Obama is not popular, the economy’s not doing well, let’s just run against that,” said the Wisconsin Republican. “That, to me, is not good enough.

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“First of all you are subjecting yourselves to circumstances outside of your control, like the economy. Second of all, we have great ideas. We believe in these principles that built this country, we should be proud of that and we should be proud to defend the morality of free enterprise, of freedom, of the American idea and tell the country specifically how we can reclaim those things.

“That to me is uplifting, that to me is inspiring, that to me is what most Americans want. We should exercise the courage of our convictions, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it is the politically wise thing to do.

“But there are always those who counsel, ‘Play it safe, don’t take risks. If you put out ideas you are simply giving the other side a target for the other side to hit you with.’ Well, they’re going to hit us anyway, so we might as well be telling the people exactly what we hope to do if they give us the opportunity to lead the country.”

Ryan was speaking to Newsmax shortly before taking the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. He said there is plenty to attack in the Obama agenda – which he called a path of “debt, doubt and decline” – and Republicans have to highlight the dangers of a “European cradle-to-grave welfare state.”

“I would basically say that we want, and have an affinity for, the American idea in this country. Our rights come from God and nature, they’re natural; they come before government.”

He said society should be “one in which we enjoy our freedoms to make the most of our lives and we believe in growth and prosperity and upward mobility.

“That is the kind of vision that we have prided ourselves on. But the president’s direction and the vision and philosophy he applies to governing is contrary to that, it takes us away from that.

“So I believe we need to sharpen these contrasts and go to the country and let them choose what kind of country they want to have, what kind of people they want us to be for the 21st Century. Give them the choice of two futures and I would argue, in this center-right country that we are today, we’ll win that exchange.

“If we win that kind of election, an affirming election, then we have the right and the moral responsibility to actually save the country and fix these problems.”

Ryan was the author of last year’s Republican budget plan, which gained high praise because of the amount of money it would have cut from the national debt. He says a growing coalition of Republicans and moderate and conservative Democrats are coming round to his views.

“I’ve got 57 Democrats on my bill, so what I see in the making here is a bipartisan coalition to fix a lot of these problems,” said the seven-term congressman.

“I see bipartisan consensus on … Medicare reform,” he added. “I see bipartisan consensus emerging on tax reform, lower tax rates, broader-based, getting rid of loopholes.

But he said the problem is that Obama and his supporters are not part of the consensus. “What I hope we can achieve is a center-right coalition in this country, where Republicans, who are hopefully in a leadership position, invite conservative Democrats and moderate Democrats into this coalition to fix these issues.

“There is a consensus developing on fixing these things. The president is on the outside looking in, though.”

Ryan said his committee has already agreed to four out of 10 reforms for the budgeting process, one of which is to allow the president a line-item veto, whereby he can send “boondoggle spending projects” back to the House for a second look.

He described the current budget system “biased toward pork-barrel spending, toward higher taxes and overall more spending.”

“We want a budgetary process that’s more accountable, more responsible, more transparent and helps us get back to a more limited government, free enterprise system which is what we are trying to achieve, but I would argue the budget process is making it more difficult.”

He accepted that Obama’s approval ratings have started to inch up as the economy has shown slight stirrings, but that Congress’ remains at rock bottom, but said there are reasons for that.

“Number One, the president bashes Congress a lot and he’s got the bully pulpit. Number two, people don’t really distinguish between the House and the Senate. We’ve got 30 bills sitting over in the Senate that are for economic growth, the Keystone pipeline, things like that.

“We passed a budget last year. We’re going to do a budget again this year. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget in 2010, 2011, they’re not going to do one now. They are not doing anything over there. People cast a broad brush at Congress when they don’t really look at the huge difference between the Republicans in the majority in the House and the Democrats in the majority in the Senate.”

But he said if Republicans can capture both houses in November, change will come, pointing out how the House GOP caucus has moved rightward since he was first elected.

“We have people who came here for a cause not a career. That dynamic is occurring over in the Senate. You’ve got Marco Rubio and Ron Johnson and Jim DeMint. Hopefully, we will have another eight or 10 people like that over in the Senate in our majority next time, so we have a real majority of conservatives.”

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/ryan-cpac-obama-taxes/2012/02/09/id/429003

LAKE FOREST, CALIFORNIA – Rick Warren, perhaps the nation’s most influential evangelical pastor, has tweeted he would “go to jail” rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates God’s commandments.

Pastor Rick Warren, pastor of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, tweeted his defiance of the Obama administration’s requirements that religious institutions cover all forms of contraception, including abortifacients like Ella and the IUD, as part of their health care plans.

On Tuesday, Warren addressed the issue three times on his Twitter feed.

“I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a govement [sic.] mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29,” he wrote.

Pastor Rick Warren with President Obama

The second message quoted that verse of Scripture: “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name” The apostles replied “We must obey God rather than men!” Acts 5:29

Pastor Warren’s third tweet stated, “I’m not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers & sisters to practice their belief against govt pressure.”

Warren has been called “America’s most influential spiritual leader” and “America’s Pastor.” His 2002 book, The Purpose Driven Life, sold more than 30 million copies.

Warren’s words come as a particularly stinging indictment to Barack Obama, who chose Warren to give the invocation at his presidential inauguration in January 2009.

Warren’s comments come as part of a flurry of evangelical condemnation of the mandate, which goes into effect for religious institutions in 2013.

On Wednesday, Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and one of Time magazine’s “Twenty-five Most Influential Evangelicals in America,” told LifeSiteNews.com “we will not comply” with the mandate.

“We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just like Dr. King wrote his from the Birmingham jail,” Dr. Land told LifeSiteNews.

Dr. Land urged all Southern Baptist pastors to “preach from the pulpit just how serious and dangerous this initiative by the Obama administration is,” and “encourage their parishioners to contact their congressmen and their senators and the president and let them know how deeply unhappy they are with this decision.”

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said evangelical Christians may be required to face imprisonment over the issue last Tuesday, announcing on his daily podcast, “You at least have to admire the courage of the Roman Catholic bishops in saying they are willing to go to jail rather than to comply with this. How many evangelical presidents and pastors and leaders would be willing to do the same?”

“We’re going to find out in coming months,” he warned.

Numerous Orthodox and Protestant churches have joined Roman Catholics in stating the provision, adopted as part of the president’s health care reform bill, violates religious liberty and undermines the First Amendment.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/rick-warren-tweets-id-go-to-jail-rather-than-cave-in-on-obamacare-mandate

Mother Angelica

Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN)–founded in 1981 by Mother M. Angelica, a cloistered Roman Catholic nun belonging to the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration–has filed suit against Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other senior officials in the Obama administration arguing that a new regulation requiring health-care plans to cover sterilizations and contraceptives—including those that cause abortions—is a violation of the organization’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

“EWTN’s sincerely held religious beliefs prohibit it from providing coverage for contraception, sterilization, abortion, or related education and counseling,” says a complaint the network filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The network is headquartered in Irondale, Ala.

In addition to Sebelius, the suit also names as defendants Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

EWTN says that it is the world’s largest Catholic media network. According to its complaint, it produces eight different video, radio and Internet services and reaches 217 million homes in 144 countries. The network has 175 affiliated broadcast stations in the United States alone.

“EWTN airs family and religious programming from a Catholic point of view that presents the teachings of the Catholic faith as defined by the Magisterium (teaching authority) of the Catholic Church,” the networks says in its suit.  “Additionally, it provides spiritual devotions from Catholic religious practice, and airs daily live Masses and prayers. Providing more than 80% original programming, EWTN offers talk shows, children’s animation, teaching series, documentaries, and live coverage of Catholic Church events.”

In its complaint, the Catholic TV network specifically explains its adherence to Catholic teachings on abortion, contraception and sterilization—the church teachings the HHS regulation would force Catholics to violate.

“EWTN thus holds and actively professes religious beliefs that include traditional Christian teachings on the sanctity of life,” says the complaint. “It believes and teaches that each human being bears the image and likeness of God, and therefore that all human life is sacred and precious, from the moment of conception. EWTN therefore believes and teaches that abortion ends a human life and is a grave sin.”

“EWTN’s religious beliefs also include traditional Christian teaching on the nature and purpose of human sexuality,” says the complaint. “In particular, EWTN believes, in accordance with Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, that human sexuality has two primary purposes: to ‘most closely unit[e] husband and wife’ and ‘for the generation of new lives.’ Accordingly, EWTN believes and actively professes, with the Catholic Church, that ‘[t]o use this divine gift destroying, even if only partially, its meaning and its purpose is to contradict the nature both of man and of woman and of their most intimate relationship, and therefore it is to contradict also the plan of God and His Will.’

“Therefore,” complaint continues, “EWTN believes and teaches that ‘any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation, whether as an end or as a means’—including contraception and sterilization—is a grave sin.”

The complaint then says: “EWTN cannot provide health care insurance covering artificial contraception, sterilization, or abortion, or related education and counseling, without violating its deeply held religious beliefs.”

“The Mandate and Defendants’ threatened enforcement of the Mandate violate EWTN’s rights secured to it by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the complaint concludes.

The lawsuit is being handled for EWTN by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit law firm that specializes in First Amendment cases.

“The federal government cannot force people to violate their religion like this,” said Mark Rienzi, a constitutional law professor at Catholic University of America, who is the senior counsel at the Becket Fund. “Mother Angelica founded EWTN to spread the teachings of the Catholic Church—not to betray them.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/tv-network-started-cloistered-nun-sues-sebelius

Partial Transcript:

“When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution.  What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no inalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do, and when you’ll do it…and France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but, if we do, and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, that we are headed down that road…..”
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http://www.wordonfire.org/WOF-TV/Commentaries-New/Fr-Barron-comments-on-the-HHS-Contraception.aspx

By Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Charles Colson, and Rabbi Merir Y. Soloveichik, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 10, 2012

Stories involving a Catholic, a Protestant and a Jew typically end with a punch line. We wish that were the case here, but what brings us together is no laughing matter: the threat now posed by government policy to that basic human freedom, religious liberty.

Last month the federal Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Affordable Care Act requires employers to pay for insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations and contraception. What made the announcement especially troubling is that HHS specifically declined to exempt religious institutions that serve those outside their own faiths, such as hospitals and schools.

Coverage of this story has almost invariably been framed as a conflict between the federal government and the Catholic bishops. Zeroing in on the word “contraception,” many commentators have taken delight in pointing to surveys about the use of contraceptives among Catholics, the message being that any infringement of religious freedom involves an idiosyncratic position that doesn’t affect that many people.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Catholic Church’s teaching on contraception (not to mention abortion and surgical sterilization) has been clear, consistent and public. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s decision would force Catholic institutions either to violate the moral teachings of the Catholic Church or abandon the health-care, education and social services they provide the needy. This is intolerable.

And while most evangelicals take a more permissive view of contraception, they share with Catholics the moral conviction that the taking of human life in utero, whether surgically or by abortifacient drugs, violates the basic human right to life. Evangelical nonprofits such as Prison Fellowship would therefore also have to choose between violating their consciences or paying fines that would ultimately destroy their ability to help the people they are committed to helping.

Even worse than the financial impact is the breach of faith represented by Ms. Sebelius’s decision. Her notion of an “appropriate balance” between religious freedom and “increasing access” to “important preventive services” stands the First Amendment on its head.

Associated Press–Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

In 1790, George Washington exchanged letters with Moses Seixas, the warden of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I. Seixas praised the newly formed United States for “affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship.” People who knew all too well what it meant to be deprived of the “invaluable rights of free Citizens” held religious liberty and freedom of conscience most dear.

In reply, Washington wrote that U.S. citizens had a “right to applaud themselves” for setting an example of “an enlarged and liberal policy” that enshrined freedom of conscience. He added that the ability of members of one faith to seek the benefit of all Americans is the foundation of America’s civic strength.

We see evidence of that strength all around us: If a working mother’s child needs to visit the emergency room, there’s a good chance the hospital is a Catholic one. If an ex-offender needs help readjusting to life outside of prison, there’s a good chance help will come from a Christian ministry like Prison Fellowship.

Yet instead of encouraging the different faith communities to continue their vital work for the good of all, the Obama administration is forcing them to make a choice: serving God and their neighbors according to the dictates of their respective faiths—or bending the knee to the dictates of the state.

For Jews, George Washington’s letter has always been cherished. It embodies the promise extended by America not only to them, but to all citizens. That is why many in the Jewish community are alarmed to see the very religious freedom Washington praised centuries ago endangered by Washington’s successor. “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land,” Washington wrote, “continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants.”

At this critical moment, Americans of every faith, as guardians of their own freedom, must, in the words of the First Amendment, “petition the government for the redress of grievances.” That’s why over the past two years more than 500,000 people have signed the “Manhattan Declaration” in defense of religious liberty. They believe, as do we, that under no circumstances should people of faith violate their consciences and discard their most cherished religious beliefs in order to comply with a gravely unjust law.

That’s something that this Catholic, this Protestant and this Jew are in perfect agreement about.

Cardinal Wuerl is the archbishop of Washington, D.C. Mr. Colson is the founder of Prison Fellowship and the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Rabbi Soloveichik is director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University and associate rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204136404577211601075404714.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

AP–Feb. 9, 2012: Sen. Marco Rubio addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

Republicans stepped up their campaign Thursday against the Obama administration’s controversial contraception rule, using the pulpit of the premier conservative conference in Washington to assail the policy as an unconstitutional “attack on religious freedom.” 

The sustained GOP criticism, including a letter of opposition Thursday from three state attorneys general, came as key Democrats continued to peel away from the president on the issue or at least call for compromise. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the party’s 2004 presidential nominee, told Fox News on Thursday that the policy should be adjusted to include a conscience clause. 

“I think it can be implemented effectively in a way that protects women’s access but at the same time protects people’s rights and conscience,” Kerry said. “I think it’s an unnecessary debate.” 

Vice President Biden, who is Catholic, also said in a radio interview Thursday he’s “determined to see that this gets worked out.” 

At the Conservative Political Action Conference, a string of high-powered Republican speakers singled out the policy, which requires religious schools and hospitals to provide contraceptive coverage to employees. 

“This isn’t even a social issue. This is a constitutional issue,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said onstage. “What (the Constitution) says is that the federal government does not have the power to force religious organizations to pay for things that that organization thinks is wrong.” 

House Speaker John Boehner, who a day earlier took to the House floor to vow to repeal the policy unless the Obama administration backs off, said Thursday that a “fundamental American value” is at stake. He said at CPAC that lawmakers would debate the issue, adding: “One thing is for certain — this attack on religious freedom cannot and will not stand.” 

House lawmakers spar on contraceptives rule

Though the Obama administration has tried to allay concerns, it’s not clear how far it’s willing to go. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said President Obama discussed the issue during a closed-door retreat Wednesday with Senate Democrats and “affirmed his view.” Biden’s comments Thursday indicated more is being done behind the scenes. 

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a CBS interview Thursday that Obama called Dolan last month about the decision. “I expressed to him sincerely my disappointment and my disapproval,” he said. 

At least nine Democratic members of Congress have spoken out against the policy or suggested it should be changed. Among them, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said in a newspaper interview he has told the White House he opposes the policy. 

Other Democrats, though, have staunchly defended the president. 

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., noted Thursday that the mandate allowing access to birth control was not forcing anyone to use it. 

“We’re not coercing the Catholic Church to do anything,” said Nadler, calling the outcry the product of a “political decision.” “It is totally wrong and totally phony.” 

Nadler continued to argue that when the church steps out of its role as a church and becomes an employer or a hospital administrator they are subject to the same laws as everybody else. 

But elsewhere, top officials were lining up against the provision. In a letter Thursday to Obama administration officials, the attorneys general from Nebraska, Texas and South Carolina called the mandate “unconstitutional” and threatened to fight the provision in court if necessary.

At CPAC, former presidential candidate Rick Perry issued a call to conservatives to “win this war on faith.” 

The Texas governor accused the administration of “assaulting the Catholic Church by forcing their pro-abortion agenda.”

Related Interactive

Letter from attorneys general on contraception rule

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/09/republicans-rally-against-contraception-rule-at-conference-dems-suggest-policy/

Friday, February 10, 2012

“And you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.”

–George Washington, The Newburgh Address, 1783

  “He has done all things well; he even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak”

Scripture:  Mark 7:31-37

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decap’olis. 32 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech; and they besought him to lay his hand upon him. 33 And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; 34 and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, “Eph’phatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 And he charged them to tell no one; but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well; he even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”

Meditation: How do you expect the Lord to treat you, when you ask for his help? Do you approach with fear and doubt, or with faith and confidence? Jesus never turned anyone aside who approached him with sincerity and trust. And whatever Jesus did, he did well. He demonstrated both the beauty and goodness of God in his actions. When Jesus approaches a man who is both deaf and a stutterer, Jesus shows his considerateness for this man’s predicament. Jesus takes him aside privately, no doubt to remove him from embarrassment with a noisy crowd of gawkers. Jesus then puts his fingers into the deaf man’s ears and he touches the man’s tongue with his own spittle to physically identify with this man’s infirmity and to awaken faith in him. With a word of command the poor man’s ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

What is the significance of Jesus putting his fingers into the man’s ears? Gregory the Great (540-604 AD) comments on this miracle: “The Spirit is called the finger of God. When the Lord puts his fingers into the ears of the deaf mute, he was opening the soul of man to faith through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.”

The people’s response to this miracle testifies to Jesus’ great care for others: He has done all things well. No problem or burden was too much for Jesus’ careful consideration. The Lord treats each of us with kindness and compassion and he calls us to treat one another in like kind. The Holy Spirit who dwells within us enables us to love as Jesus loves. Do you show kindness and compassion to your neighbors and do you treat them with considerateness as Jesus did?

“Lord Jesus, fill me with your Holy Spirit and inflame my heart with love and compassion. Make me attentive to the needs of others that I may show them kindness and care. Make me an instrument of your mercy and peace that I may help others find healing and wholeness in you.”

Psalm 81:10-15

10 I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.  Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would have none of me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.
13 O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe toward him, and their fate would last for ever.

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

    By Thomas Peters, American Papist, Feb. 9, 2012

    In the past I’ve compiled a list of all the bishops speaking out on a particular controversial issue (for instance, over Notre Dame’s invitation to President Obama) — here are the bishops who have spoken out against the Obama/HHS mandate.

[See my ongoing coverage of Obama/HHS's war against religious liberty here, here, here and most recently here. I'm also tweeting more updates @AmericanPapist.]

If I have missed anyone please let me know in the comments! And please double-check that your bishop really is not there before posting.

Items in bold mean the statement was read at all diocesan Masses or included in all parish bulletins on Sunday.

 Thank you to AmP reader Matthew for helping me group these bishops by province!

SPECIAL MENTION: “The Assembly of Orthodox Bishops in North America just issued a formal statement of protest against the HHS mandate in which the Assembly, representing all 53 Orthodox bishops in North America, references their complete agreement with the statements of the USCCB.”

THANK YOU to everyone who has helped me build and correct this list.

NOTE: If you would like a statement by an Eastern Rite bishop to be included please send me the link/document or post it in the comments! Thank you. I’m trying to provide documentation for all the bishops listed and Eastern Rite bishops have been harder for me to track down. Thank you for understanding!

UPDATE: Of the 183 dioceses (by my count) in the U.S. who have a bishop currently serving as its head, 171 of them have issued statements. So more than 90% of bishops who head dioceses have spoken out against the Obama/HHS mandate.

http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=25591

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
(Matthew 16:26).

.

…Linton is mistaken when she calls her work “sacred.” There is nothing holy about extinguishing the lives of millions of unborn children as a way to line the company pocketbook.…

By Sarah Crawford, LifeNews.com, 2/9/12

Houston, TX – A Planned Parenthood affiliate’s newest president and CEO said in an official statement that she regards her work for the biggest abortion business in America to be a holy profession.

    Melaney Linton, who will now oversee Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, is determined to further the Life-ending work of Planned Parenthood:

“I am honored and humbled to be entrusted with such a sacred duty…I pledge to do everything in my power to fight back against the ideological attacks on Planned Parenthood and women, so that no teen will ever say she didn’t know how she got pregnant, no one will ever be denied basic reproductive health care, and no woman will ever be forced to bear children she cannot adequately support.”

Starting March 1st, Linton will manage 13 abortion and abortion-referring centers in Southeast Texas and Louisiana, as well as the largest abortion mill in America, located in Houston, Texas.

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast alone performed over 12,000 abortions in 2010 and banked over $17 million – 49 percent of which came from taxpayer dollars. Linton will succeed Peter Durkin, who earned over $200,000 in 2010 by performing this “sacred duty.”

Linton is mistaken when she calls her work “sacred.” There is nothing holy about extinguishing the lives of millions of unborn children as a way to line the company pocketbook. The new CEO vows to fight back against Life-affirming measures that have limited the abortion provider, because it cuts into the proceeds Planned Parenthood receives from every abortion committed.

Planned Parenthood, with their money-hungry abortion agenda, has lured women and young girls into their clinics with the promise of putting them first, but Planned Parenthood’s financial standing is all that matters to the abortion giant. The abortion business refuses to acknowledge the physical, mental, and emotional damage abortion causes, thus, abandoning women because they are no longer seen as a profit.

The Planned Parenthood abortion business is a multi-million dollar company which preys on women to drive up their bottom line. This government-sanctioned killing of children must be brought to an end. As members of the Pro-Life community, we are dedicated to ending the horror Linton and Planned Parenthood so fiercely defend. As long as Planned Parenthood remains devoted to ending innocent human life and committing these unjust moral atrocities, we are dedicated to severing the revenue stream that is responsible for the death of innocent unborn children.

LifeNews.com Note: Sarah Crawford writes for Texas Right to Life.

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/02/09/new-head-of-biggest-planned-parenthood-says-abortion-sacred/

Washington D.C.  (CNA/EWTN News) – The U.S. bishops condemned a federal court ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, saying the move defies the will of California voters and reflects “basic confusion” about the nature of marriage.

“The people of California deserve better. Our nation deserves better. Marriage deserves better,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan of New York City, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference.

In a Feb. 7 statement, he called marriage “one of the cornerstones of society” and stressed that the U.S. Constitution “does not forbid” its protection.

The cardinal-designate said that Wednesday’s ruling was a “grave injustice” that ignores “the reality that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.”

Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, who chairs the bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, added that the court ignored the “correctly-informed judgment” of California voters, who supported the 2008 ballot measure that defined marriage as between one man and one woman.

The people of California, he said, “justly upheld the truth of marriage.”

On Feb. 7, a panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision against Proposition 8. It said the measure “served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.”

Supporters of the measure – which received 52 percent of the vote – plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bishop Cordileone said that society does not exist in “an amoral or value-less vacuum” but must be “infused with moral direction that is grounded in the truth.”

The California Catholic Conference also weighed in after the ruling, noting that marriage “between one man and one woman has been – and always will be – the most basic building block of the family and of our society.”

Conference leaders said they were “disappointed” by the most recent ruling but noted that it has “always been clear” that the U.S. Supreme Court would likely decide the issue.

“In the end, through sound legal reasoning, we believe the court will see this as well and uphold the will of the voters as expressed in Proposition 8. We continue to pray for that positive outcome.”

Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles also criticized the Ninth Circuit’s opposition to the measure.

“Marriage, in every culture and every age, has been recognized as the lifelong union of a man and woman for their own well-being and for the creation and nurturing of children,” he said on Feb. 7.

The government has a “vital interest” in promoting marriage because it is the “foundation of society” and because the government has a duty towards the well-being of children, he said. Children “have the right to be born and raised in a family with both their mother and their father.”

Government officials also have “no competence and no authority” to redefine or “expand” the definition of marriage to include other kinds of relationships, he continued. To do so is “to say that marriage no longer exists” and this would have “grave consequences” for children and for the common good.

Archbishop Gomez pledged continued prayer for an outcome that “supports and strengthens the true meaning of marriage.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/us-catholic-bishops-reject-ruling-against-prop.-8

In his speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009 President Barack Obama stressed the importance of the freedom of religion in the United States.

“Freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion,” the president said during his speech given at Cairo University.

****  WATCH BRIEF VIDEO   ****

“That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That’s why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it.”

In 2009 in Egypt, the president was addressing the Islamic community, but currently, the Obama Administration is in a debate about the freedom of religion with Catholics here in the U.S.

The Obama administration intends to enforce a regulation that requires all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations, abortion pills and contraceptives.

Catholic hospitals, universities and charitable institutions would not be exempt from the regulation, nor would Catholic individuals, business owners, or insurers.

Because the Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception, and abortion are morally wrong and that Catholics cannot be involved in them, and because the Obamacare requires that all individual purchase health insurance and that larger employers provide health insurance to their workers or face a penalty, the regulation would force Catholics to act against the teachings of their faith and against their consciences.

As questions over this issue continue, White House Spokesperson Jay Carney says the administration is committed to the decision. The rule is not set to take effect until 2013 so officials can work with those concerned, because the president is “interested in finding the appropriate balance between religious beliefs” and the “president’s commitment” to make sure women have access to these services.

Catholic Bishops across the nation have announced they will not comply with the Obamacare rule.

http://cnsnews.com/blog/eric-scheiner/obama-09-freedom-america-indivisible-freedom-practice-one-s-religion-why-there

It is a remarkable time in current events when we witness a major media outlet calling out a liberal president for disregarding the moral tenets of the Catholic Church. But that’s exactly what happened when the USA Today editorial board concluded that the Obama administration’s so-called contraceptive mandate “not only crossed the line. It galloped over it.”

The accompanying opposing view authored by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is breath-taking in its audacity. The USA Today editorial actually did a decent job of debunking three lines of defense that the Obama administration is spouting. While a much longer treatment is called for, here’s three quick facts that everyone should know:

1) It’s an abortifacient mandate; not just a “contraceptive mandate.” The HHS rule requires large employers to provide insurance for free sterilizations, abortion-inducing drugs, and artificial contraceptives. Our side would do well to refer to it as the “abortifacient mandate.”

2) The religious exemption is absolutely meaningless. The so-called religious exemption is written so narrowly that, as one commentator noted, even Jesus and his twelve disciples wouldn’t qualify. Here’s why: A “religious employer” is defined in the rule as an organization that meets all four of the following criteria: (1) the organization’s purpose is the inculcation of religious values (Catholic food banks are out); (2) the organization primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization (Catholic universities are out); (3) the organization serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization (Catholic hospitals are out); and (4) the organization is a nonprofit that is a house of worship or religious order. Given that houses of worship and religious orders exist with a mission to serve the least amongst us regardless of their faith, that means requirement (3) is not met, so everyone is out.

3) Contraceptive drugs are carcinogenic. It’s one thing for Secretary Sebelius to champion the pill for what she sees as a requirement for women’s freedom and autonomy. That’s an argument for another day. But the secretary goes beyond that to claim that artificial contraceptives “have significant benefits for [women’s] health, as well as the health of their children.” Well. It’s hard to believe that the secretary is not aware that combined estrogen progestogen oral contraceptives (COCs) are classified as “Group 1: Carcinogenic to humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization. The American Cancer Society website has published that list, where the pill ranks along side asbestos, coal tar, benzene, and tobacco products.

Secretary Sebelius and the White House claim the HHS mandate “respects” religious liberty. They’ve shown about as much respect for the First Amendment as they have for the truth.

UPDATE: The NCI’s Q and A on oral contraceptives and cancer risk can be reviewed here.

— Nikolas T. Nikas and Dorinda C. Bordlee are the founders of the Bioethics Defense Fund, a public interest legal and educational organization. The attorneys of The Becket Fund have compiled a more in-depth fact sheet about the White House’s false HHS claims that can be reviewed here.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/290366/three-things-everyone-should-know-about-hhs-mandate-nikolas-t-nikas

The attacks on America’s core values are surging–and so is a Republican candidate who’s defending them. After a week that witnessed everything from the toppling of California marriage law to the savaging of religious freedom, voters yesterday gave a resounding victory to a candidate who appears to understand these insults best: a lifelong social conservative who stands in starkest contrast to the President’s aggressive social agenda. In a stunning three-state sweep of yesterday’s primaries, Senator Rick Santorum proved that he could harness the country’s anger and use it as momentum for the values he’s been highlighting all along.

As I’ve pointed out before, neither I nor FRC have endorsed a presidential candidate. In its near-30 year history, FRC never has. What we do endorse are the values and policies that give America the best opportunity for economic and cultural success. That’s why it’s interesting to watch the media scramble to explain Santorum’s big upset. As we see it, there is absolutely no doubt that these victories are tied to a string of recent events that threaten America’s morals. Tuesday’s contest was the first test of outrage against the President’s war on the church. In the days since the White House ordered faith-based groups to swallow its mandate on abortion and contraception pills, there has been almost universal opposition to the rule. “Freedom is at stake,” Sen. Santorum said. “We need to be the voice for freedom.”

When our troops’ rights are crumbling, marriage is getting crushed at the courtroom door, and Planned Parenthood is terrorizing organizations that won’t bankroll its ideology, who are people going to turn to? Many Americans are signaling that they don’t want a President who will stop the cultural decay. They want a President who will reverse it. And they want it badly enough to give Santorum double-digit support in states that Gov. Mitt Romney won easily in 2008. Four years ago, Governor Romney actively fought for social conservative support. This year, the Massachusetts native is adopting a more moderate model that leans more on his economic strengths.

That gamble may not pay off for the Romney camp now that President Obama is bringing social issues back into focus. If the election pivots on religious freedom, life, and marriage, Romney’s approach may drive him out of the conversation. Even now, the former Governor seems to recognize the threat from Santorum, as he reaches back to social conservatives with reactions to the Proposition 8 ruling and contraception mandate. Time will tell if this new emphasis on values gives him an opening with religious conservatives. After Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, and a belated celebration in Iowa, Sen. Santorum now has four victories to Gov. Romney’s three. And while time and money are on the Governor’s side, the Pennsylvania underdog is proving that a consistent message more than makes up for the lack. As Santorum said about his failed reelection bid in 2006, the one thing he didn’t lose is his principles. And in a campaign for the soul of America, they may be the most valuable asset of all.

This column also ran as a Daily Caller op-ed.

http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/for-gop-values-play-primary-role