GOSPEL & MEDITATION: Ready or Not!
Father Richard Gill, LC
Matthew 25:1-13
Jesus told his disciples this parable: “The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps. Since the bridegroom was long delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight, there was a cry, ´Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!´ Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ´Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.´ But the wise ones replied, ´No, for there may not be enough for us and you. Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.´ While they went off to buy it, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went into the wedding feast with him. Then the door was locked. Afterwards the other virgins came and said, ´Lord, Lord, open the door for us!´ But he said in reply, ´Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.´ Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I come to you again in prayer. Even though I cannot see you, I know through faith that you are present in my life. I hope in your promise to be with me. I love you, and I know you love me. Accept this prayer as a token of my love.
Petition: Lord, make me long for and strive to enter the kingdom of heaven.
1. A Severe Oil Shortage The Gospel invites us to have oil for our lamps, that is, to be always ready for the coming of the Lord. He appears in moments and ways we do not expect and at all times throughout our day. The foolish virgins failed to anticipate when and how the Lord would come to them, and they were not prepared. So often we, too, get caught up in a thousand affairs and worries, and we can miss what is essential. We miss the presence of Christ in the people around us, in the circumstances in which we are living. Sometimes, Christ comes to us through some sacrifice or suffering; but we do not recognize him in it, and we reject it. We need to strengthen our faith and see how the Lord may appear in our lives.
2. The Door Closes Over and over in the New Testament, Jesus makes clear that there is a real possibility some people, due to their own choices, may not be saved. The most terrible thing that could happen to any person would be to hear those words from the Lord who created us and died to save us: “I do not know you.” The Lord takes our freedom to choose very seriously. He never forces our will. He never imposes himself on us. Rather he invites us to make a free response of love and obedience to him and the way of life he taught us. We must choose to remain steadfast in the way of the Christian life. God cannot save us without our cooperation.
3. Stay Awake Saint Augustine said, “Beware of the grace of God that passes and does not return.” We need to perceive God’s presence in the little things of each day and never let the opportunity to love and serve him pass us by. Our faith must be ready and watching for him. If we take him for granted, or presume that we are already saved, we can miss our chance to be with him.
Conversation with Christ: Jesus, thank you for teaching us so clearly about the seriousness of our choices. How terrible it would be to opt for death instead of eternal life with you! I want to choose you and your ways, but I am weak. Make me watch and wait always, ready to see you in all things and do your will.
Resolution: I will actively look for signs of Christ in others today.
http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302
GOSPEL & MEDITATION: ST. AUGUSTINE
The story of his life, up until his conversion, is written in the autobiographical Confessions, the most intimate and well known glimpse into an individual’s soul ever written, as well as a fascinating philosophical, theological, mystical, poetic and literary work.
He was the first son of Saint Monica and a pagan father named Patricius, who was baptized just before his death, leaving his mother the widow whose tears and prayers for the conversion of her wayward son are known to us through the Confessions.
Augustine, though being brought up in early childhood as a Christian, delayed being baptized, lived a dissolute life of revelry and sin, and soon drifted away from the Church – thinking that he wasn’t necessarily leaving Christ, of whose name he acknowledges “I kept it in the recesses of my heart; and all that presented itself to me without that Divine name, though it might be elegant, well written, and even replete with truth, did not altogether carry me away” (Confessions, I, iv).
He went to study in Carthage and became well known in the city for his brilliant mind and rhetorical skills and sought a career as an orator or lawyer. But he also discovered and fell in love with philosophy at the age of 19, a love he pursued with great vehemence.
He was attracted to Manichaeanism at this time, after its devotees had promised him that they had scientific answers to the mystery of nature, could disprove the Scriptures, and could explain the problem of evil. Augustine became a follower for nine years, learning all there was to learn in it before rejecting it as incoherent and fraudulent.
He went to Rome and then Milan in 386 where he met Saint Ambrose, the bishop and Doctor of the Church, whose sermons inspired him to look for the truth he had always sought in the faith he had rejected. He received baptism and soon after, his mother, Saint Monica, died with the knowledge that all she had hoped for in this world had been fulfilled.
He returned to Africa, to his hometown of Tagaste, “having now cast off from himself the cares of the world, he lived for God with those who accompanied him, in fasting, prayers, and good works, meditating on the law of the Lord by day and by night.”
On a visit to Hippo he was proclaimed priest and then bishop against his will. He accepted it as the will of God and spent the rest of his life as the pastor of this north African town, from where he spent much time refuting the writings of heretics. Augustine also wrote, The City of God, against the pagans who charged that the fall of the Roman empire, which was taking place at the hands of the Vandals.
On August 28, 430, as Hippo was under siege by the Vandals, Augustine died, at the age of 76. His legacy continues to deeply shape the face of the Church to this day.
FEDS WILL HAVE TOO MUCH INFORMATION! Say Good-Bye to Privacy From the Federal Government
“Democratic Health Care Bill Divulges IRS Tax Data”, Posted by Declan McCullagh
Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”
Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details — there’s no specified limit on what’s available or unavailable — to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify “affordability credits.”
Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy” but has not applied for it.
Over at the Institute for Policy Innovation (a free-market think tank and presumably no fan of Obamacare), Tom Giovanetti argues that: “How many thousands of federal employees will have access to your records? The privacy of your health records will be only as good as the most nosy, most dishonest and most malcontented federal employee…. So say good-bye to privacy from the federal government. It was fun while it lasted for 233 years.”
I’m not as certain as Giovanetti that this represents privacy’s Armageddon. (Though I do wonder where the usual suspects like the Electronic Privacy Information Center are. Presumably inserting limits on information that can be disclosed — and adding strict penalties on misuse of the information kept on file about hundreds of millions of Americans — is at least as important as fretting about Facebook’s privacy policy in Canada.)
A better candidate for a future privacy crisis is the so-called stimulus bill enacted with limited debate early this year. It
mandated the “utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014,” but included only limited privacy protections.It’s true that if the legislative branch chooses to create “affordability credits,” it probably makes sense to ensure they’re not abused. The goal of curbing fraud runs up against the goal of preserving individual privacy.
If we’re going to have such significant additional government intrusion into our health care system, we will have to draw the privacy line somewhere. Maybe the House Democrats’ current bill gets it right. Maybe it doesn’t. But this vignette should be reason to be skeptical of claims that a massive and complex bill must be enacted so rapidly as its backers would have you believe.
The Current Crisis: Obama’s Carrousel of Incompetence
….How else do we explain the ravening push on all fronts, healthcare, the environment, fiscal reform, intelligence reform, and a foreign policy of humility and apology? Unsurprisingly, on every front the President is in trouble. Remember chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s, callous enjoiner, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste”? This White House is a serious crisis…
The White House Politburo runs a listing ship.
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., American Spectator, Aug. 27, 2009
WASHINGTON – According to the Gallup Poll, the Prophet Obama’s job approval is now at its lowest since his coronation. It began at 70%. Now it is at 51%. Equally glum, his disapproval rating has climbed from 11% to 42%. So what about his golf game up there at Martha’s Vineyard? From all I have been able to ascertain it is mediocre. In other words, Mr. Obama, you are no Dan Quayle. Vice President Quayle was a really superb golfer. Moreover, he ran a competent staff. Naturally it was smaller than Mr. Obama’s, but it was competently run.
My belief, based on reports in the news and from my private network of seasoned agents and provocateurs, is that this White House is a carrousel of incompetence. How else do we explain the ravening push on all fronts, healthcare, the environment, fiscal reform, intelligence reform, and a foreign policy of humility and apology? Unsurprisingly, on every front the President is in trouble. Remember chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s, callous enjoiner, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste”? This White House is a serious crisis.
According to sources with whom I confer, the Obama White House is the most tightly controlled White House in years, with the President, Emanuel, and David Axelrod micromanaging practically everything. They compose what is called “the Politburo,” and the news story waiting to be written is that their control is as stultifying as was Jimmy Carter’s control of his White House. Stupendous failure is in the cards.
The Politburo follows no organizational flow charts. A source deeply rooted in official Washington tells me that when the President and his fellows want information from the National Security Council they may go to its head, General James L. Jones, or they may not. They may just call in one or two of his subordinates. If they do this with Jones they probably do it with other government heads. That cannot be good for morale, to say nothing of orderly decision making. Slowly some news stories are appearing that convey the harum-scarum state of things in the Obama government. Burnout afflicts staffers. The President has fewer than half his appointments in place to advance his historically unprecedented agenda. Mr. Emanuel, your crisis is shaping up nicely.
Some months back Sidney Blumenthal, then a loyal Democrat expecting an appointment over at the State Department where he would serve with his idol Hillary Clinton, inadvertently told a reporter that the Chicagoans coming in with Mr. Obama were even greener than the Arkansans who came in with the Clintons. By “greener” he was not referring to their environmental bona fides. He was referring to their governmental experience. They were provincials, though coming from a large and sophisticated city such as Chicago they were much less aware of what they did not know than were the Arkansans. Remember Blumenthal is from Chicago, and he was very close to the Clintons. His revelation is well grounded.
Blumenthal did not get the appointment the Clintons wanted for him. That brings me to still more evidence of the Politburo’s incompetence, to wit: bringing a Clinton into the cabinet. Last year Mr. Obama beat Hillary Clinton in an acrimonious competition for the nomination. She was beaten and out of the limelight. Her husband was discredited as a campaigner and revealed as a cad. The Clintons should have been history. But the geniuses in what we now call the Politburo brought Hillary back to center stage and installed her at State. Then they attempted to hem her in by appointing special envoys and ambassadors, nearly 20 composing what the Washington Times reports is “a confusing patchwork of policy fiefdoms inside the administration that lacks clearly defined lines of command and has the potential for miscommunication on a grand scale.” So they brought to the State Department the kind of confusion they brought to the White House, and they did it at a time when foreign policy has to contend with international terror, nuclear proliferation, two wars, and a dollar in decline. Moreover they have antagonized the Clintons.
During the 1990s such incompetence was not particularly dangerous. The economy was sound. The Cold War was over. We could sit back and enjoy the show as Bill and Newt entertained us. It was, as a gifted phrasemaker put it, The End of History. Now, history has begun again. Nuclear arms could fall into the hands of the kind of barbarians that attacked New York and Washington on 9/11. Other nations are prospering with modern conceptions of economic growth, while here at home the economy is weak and overseen by reactionaries with a 1930s grasp of governance and economics. Over at the White House we see three amateurs and a carrousel of incompetence.
Bob Tyrrell is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. His books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn’t Work: Social Democracy’s Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; and The Clinton Crack-Up.
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/08/27/obamas-carrousel-of-incompeten
The Face of Liberalism
….The Catholic Democrat who believed government should protect the weak from the strong . . . ended his career voting to allow even partial-birth abortion…..
By W. James Antle, III, American Spectator, 8.26.09
Ted Kennedy, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
There are two faces of American liberalism. The uglier visage was described by James Burnham, who called it the “ideology of Western suicide.” But liberalism also played a storied role in the American Century, contributing to the defeat of Nazism, the death of Jim Crow, and a political consensus that endured fifty years for better or worse.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, dead of brain cancer at age 77, personified liberalism at its most decent and its most decadent. In his personal life, “degenerate” might often have been a better word. He took the Kennedy name from the glory of Camelot to the disgrace of Chappaquiddick, vacillating between the two from his famous Democratic National Convention address in 1980 to the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in 1991.
The man who would become a beloved father figure to the sons and daughters of his slain brother, left another family’s daughter to die in an incident that would have ended virtually any other politician’s career — and should have ended his. Yet Kennedy paid less of a price for behavior that led to the death of a human being than did professional football player Michael Vick for cruelty to animals.
The senator from Massachusetts who spoke so eloquently and movingly about the right of black Americans to live free of humiliation and prejudice would go on to play sordid racial politics. Ted Kennedy often casually smeared his opponents as racists and bigots, most disgracefully during the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork. Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court was defeated in part due to Kennedy’s ululations about segregated lunch counters.
An early Cold War liberal who railed against the Viet Cong in support of the Kennedy-Johnson interventions in Vietnam was by Richard Nixon’s presidency as an ally of the Democratic Party’s McGovern wing. He would oppose the Reagan defense build-up that helped ring down the curtain on the Soviet Union and instead champion nuclear freeze.
The Catholic Democrat who believed government should protect the weak from the strong would waver when there were votes to be had from feminists but not the unborn. In 1971, Kennedy’s liberal compassion was consistent: “When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.” But he ended his career voting to allow even partial-birth abortion.
Kennedy didn’t just follow the liberal herd, however. Even after his national stock plummeted, he was one of his party’s most effective and consequential legislators. Handed his brother John’s Senate seat like a family heirloom — “If your name was simply Edward Moore,” his Democratic primary opponent noted scathingly, “your candidacy would be a joke” — he wasted no time in making use of it.
Instead Kennedy cobbled together legislative majorities (often bipartisan) that expanded the federal government’s role in health care, boosted immigration levels, raised the minimum wage, increased environmental regulations, and enhanced legal protections for the disabled. Even many conservative Senate colleagues liked and admired him. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) told an American Spectator dinner last year that Kennedy, unlike many others on Capitol Hill, kept his word. Writing more than a decade ago in National Review, John J. Miller accurately described Kennedy’s “clever mix of demagoguery and pragmatism” that made him “adept at sweet-talking the odd Republican” behind closed doors while he excoriated the GOP in public.
In Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy would also outgrow his brothers’ shadows. While the Camelot mythology has lingered longer there than in the rest of the country, Kennedy’s deep Bay State popularity had more to do with his ability to bring home the bacon. Unlike his colleague John Kerry, who is seen as aloof and disengaged from local concerns, Kennedy was as active in Massachusetts issues — even on behalf of the Boston business community — as he was the national legislative agenda. Kennedy’s staff was excellent and its delivery of constituent services legendary.
Only once, in that Republican year of 1994, was Kennedy seriously challenged for reelection. Mitt Romney briefly led him in statewide polls. But Kennedy ran an effective advertising campaign highlighting workers who had been laid off from Romney’s business enterprises. His base of senior citizens, liberals, and partisan Democrats held firm. Kennedy withstood the GOP tide and beat Romney by 17 points, even as Republican Gov. William Weld won a second term with 71 percent of the vote.
Now that Kennedy is gone, it is hard to see a Democratic leader on the horizon who possessses his unique blend of bipartisan dealmaking and unrelenting liberalism. Kennedy didn’t just bowl Republicans over — he often dragged them along with him, moving the country incrementally to the left. Democrats had better hope that their filibuster-proof Senate majority makes such skills superfluous. They wouldn’t want Ted Kennedy’s dream to die on their watch.
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/08/26/the-face-of-liberalism
By Paul Nowak
Did You Miss This One?
Is the Next Threat for Americans the Loss of ‘Free Speach’?
Talk Titans Limbaugh & Beck Team Up — Is Obama Threatening Free Speach?
“The things he is doing to shut down radio is un-American.”
CATHOLIC QUESTION OF THE WEEK!
“Finally, a more fundamental question: Where will the great Catholic universities search for a guiding light in the years ahead? Will it be the Land O’Lakes Statement or Ex Corde Ecclesiae?”
Catholic News Agency, August 25, 2009 http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=16928
Bishop D’Arcy Says Notre Dame Must Answer for Honoring Obama
Catholic News Agency, August 25, 2009
- Bishop John M. D’Arcy, whose diocese encompasses the University of Notre Dame, is not letting the issues raised by the university’s honoring of President Obama lie dormant. Instead, the Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend has penned a poignant article for the upcoming edition of America magazine that calls on the renowned university to evaluate the consequences of its failure to respect the authority of the bishops.
In an article that will be the cover story of the Jesuit-run America magazine on August 31, bishop D’Arcy writes that “as summer plays itself out on the beautiful campus by the lake where the young Holy Cross priest, Edward Sorin, C.S.C., pitched his camp 177 years ago and began his great adventure, we must clarify the situation that so sundered the church last spring: What it is all about and what it is not about.”
According to the bishop, who had asked Notre Dame’s president, Fr. John Jenkins, not to honor Obama, “it is not about President Obama… It is not about Democrats versus Republicans… It is not about whether it is appropriate for the president of the United States to speak at Notre Dame or any great Catholic university on the pressing issues of the day.”
The response of the faithful, Bishop D’Arcy writes, “is not about what this journal [America magazine] called ‘sectarian Catholicism.’ Rather, the response of the faithful derives directly from the Gospel.”
The real question posed by the situation is whether or not a Catholic university has a responsibility to give a public witness to the faith, D’Arcy states. “If not, what is the meaning of a life of faith? And how can a Catholic institution expect its students to live by faith in the difficult decisions that will confront them in a culture often opposed to the Gospel?” he wonders.
“In its decision to give its highest honor to a president who has repeatedly opposed even the smallest legal protection of the child in the womb, did Notre Dame surrender the responsibility that Pope Benedict believes Catholic universities have to give public witness to the truths revealed by God and taught by the church?” the bishop also asks.
Bishop D’Arcy then takes Notre Dame to task for its multi-year sponsorship of the play “The Vagina Monologues.”
“Although he spoke eloquently about the importance of dialogue with the president of the United States, the president of Notre Dame chose not to dialogue with his bishop on these two matters, both pastoral and both with serious ramifications for the care of souls, which is the core responsibility of the local bishop,” he says.
“Both decisions,” Bishop D’Arcy reveals, “were shared with me after they were made and, in the case of the honorary degree, after President Obama had accepted.”
Noting that he has “never interfered in the internal governance of Notre Dame or any other institution of higher learning within the diocese,” D’Arcy explains that “the diocesan bishop must ask whether a Catholic institution compromises its obligation to give public witness by placing prestige over truth.”
“The failure to dialogue with the bishop brings a second series of questions,” he says.
“What is the relationship of the Catholic university to the local bishop? No relationship? Someone who occasionally offers Mass on campus? Someone who sits on the platform at graduation?”
“Or is the bishop the teacher in the diocese, responsible for souls, including the souls of students—in this case, the students at Notre Dame? Does the responsibility of the bishop to teach, to govern and to sanctify end at the gate of the university?”
“In the spirit of Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” he says, “I am proposing these questions for the university.”
Bishop D’Arcy then points to the strong spiritual life of many of the faculty members and students at the university, and acknowledges that “the theology department has grown in academic excellence over the years, strengthened by the successful recruiting of professors outstanding in scholarship, in their knowledge of the tradition and in their own living of the Catholic faith.”
“Yet,” he adds, “the questions about the relationship of the university as a whole to the church still stand, and what happened on campus leading up to and during the graduation is significant for the present debate about Catholic higher education.”
Regarding the large number of students and faculty opposed to Obama’s commencement address and honoring, the bishop says that America magazine “and others in the media, Catholic and secular, reporting from afar, failed to make a distinction between the extremists on the one hand, and students and those who joined in the last 48 hours before graduation. This latter group [ND Response] responded with prayer and substantive disagreement. They cooperated with university authorities.”
“In this time of crisis at the university,” he notes, “these students and professors, with the instinct of faith, turned to the bishop for guidance, encouragement and prayer.”
Although he had originally intended to stay away from the graduation ceremony, Bishop D’Arcy writes that “As graduation drew near, I knew I should be with the students. It was only right that the bishop be with them, for they were on the side of truth, and their demonstration was disciplined, rooted in prayer and substantive.”
Bishop D’Arcy also takes aim at the university’s board of trustees for saying “nothing” when they met in April for their long-scheduled spring meeting.
“When the meeting was completed, they made no statement and gave no advice. In an age when transparency is urged as a way of life on and off campus, they chose not to enter the conversation going on all around them and shaking the university to its roots,” he says.
What the board must do is “take up its responsibility afresh, with appropriate study and prayer… with greater seriousness and in a truly Catholic spirit,” the bishop urges.
D’Arcy concludes his article by posing some key questions to Notre Dame “and to other Catholic universities.”
Bishop D’Arcy asks:
- “Do you consider it a responsibility in your public statements, in your life as a university and in your actions, including your public awards, to give witness to the Catholic faith in all its fullness?
- “What is your relationship to the church and, specifically, to the local bishop and his pastoral authority as defined by the Second Vatican Council?
- “Finally, a more fundamental question: Where will the great Catholic universities search for a guiding light in the years ahead? Will it be the Land O’Lakes Statement or Ex Corde Ecclesiae?”
The Land O’Lakes Statement was signed in July 1967 by a group of Catholic educators led by then University of Notre Dame president Fr. Theodore Hesburgh. The famous Catholic historian Philip Gleason characterized the statement as a “declaration of independence from the hierarchy,” adding that it divorced the Catholic university from the life of faith and set in motion the decline in Catholic identity of several major institutions of higher education.
Bishop D’Arcy describes the statement as coming “from a frantic time, with finances as the driving force. Its understanding of freedom is defensive, absolutist and narrow. It never mentions Christ and barely mentions the truth.”
“The second text, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, speaks constantly of truth and the pursuit of truth. It speaks of freedom in the broader, Catholic philosophical and theological tradition, as linked to the common good, to the rights of others and always subject to truth.”
“On these three questions, I respectfully submit, rests the future of Catholic higher education in this country and so much else,” Bishop D’Arcy finishes.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=16928
A Tale of Two Kennedys (July 12, 2009)
….The sexual license that Ted Kennedy lived most of his adult life had its public policy consequence in his fervent devotion to the cause of abortion — for any reason, at any time, preferably publicly funded. The very children that Eunice devoted her life to defending are less likely to see the light of day now, in large part due to the unrestricted abortion license her brother did more than any other to defend….
Two of the last three Kennedys have taken centre stage this week. Yesterday, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics, died in Hyannis, Mass. Today, Senator Ted Kennedy is being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Eunice Kennedy Shriver
1921-2009 |
For the last of the Kennedy sons, aged 77 and suffering from brain cancer, the ceremony in Washington is something of a valedictory.
After the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the Kennedy family had two paths before it — one represented by Eunice and her husband, Sargent, and the other by the last surviving brother, Ted.
On July 20, 1968 — just weeks after RFK’s death — Eunice convened the first Special Olympics, a movement of dignity and hope for mentally disabled children. It was born of Eunice’s love for her mentally disabled sister, Rosemary; her firm defence of the dignity of every human life; and her deep Catholic faith. Eunice and Sargent (who also founded the Peace Corps and was the architect of many of the Great Society programs for the poor) changed the way we think about people with special needs.
Almost a year to the day after the first Special Olympics, Ted Kennedy drove Mary Jo Kopechne to her death at Chappaquiddick, Mass. From that point on, two paths diverged from the Kennedy compound. The Senator took the ignoble path of indulgence and irresponsibility. The Shrivers used their fame and wealth for the service of others, especially those at the margins.
In the 1970s, the Shrivers were a major political force. Sargent was the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 1972, and subsequently entertained both presidential and gubernatorial bids. Meanwhile, Ted marinated in the Senate, finally running for president in 1980 without any ostensible reason for doing so other than the fact that, as a Kennedy, he was entitled to it.
The Shrivers represented the old Democratic Party — economically liberal and culturally conservative. They were routed by the new Democratic Party — economically liberal and culturally libertine — of which Ted became the poster boy. The tortured relationship of the Catholic Church with the Democratic Party mirrored that cleavage. Eunice was the ideal of the Catholic in public life — passionately committed to the poor, defender of the weak, prolife, morally upright and a woman of faith and family. But the party followed Ted.
The Shrivers were devout Catholics who lived their faith with integrity privately before bringing its implications to the public square. Before Alzheimer’s took its toll on Sargent, he was a daily communicant, attending Mass either in Maryland or in Hyannis, Mass., a well-worn rosary often in hand. He shared his Marian devotion with his wife; in a statement upon Eunice’s death, her family noted that “she was forever devoted to the Blessed Mother. May she be welcomed now by Mary to the joy and love of life everlasting, in the certain truth that her love and spirit will live forever.”
Such lines will not be written of Ted Kennedy who, as one of America’s most prominent Catholics, blazed the trail of making religious belief an entirely private matter. His debauchery was the opposite of the Shrivers’ piety. Having broken up his own family, he degenerated into a dissoluteness that reached its nadir on Good Friday, 1991, when instead of doing the Stations of the Cross at the local parish, he took his son and nephew out for a night of bar-hopping and skirt-chasing. The details of Ted’s behaviour that night were embarrassingly sordid. It gave rise to the joke that Senator Kennedy’s religion was so private he refused to impose it on himself.
 Eunice was the ideal of the Catholic in public life — passionately committed to the poor, defender of the weak, prolife, morally upright and a woman of faith and family. But the party followed Ted.
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But Teddy’s malign influence is no laughing matter. In many ways his Good Friday licentiousness was a harbinger for the decadent age of Clinton. The sexual license that Ted Kennedy lived most of his adult life had its public policy consequence in his fervent devotion to the cause of abortion — for any reason, at any time, preferably publicly funded. The very children that Eunice devoted her life to defending are less likely to see the light of day now, in large part due to the unrestricted abortion license her brother did more than any other to defend.
As Senator Kennedy continues to withdraw from public life due to his illness, the Kennedy clan is withdrawing, too. Bypassed by the Bushes as the most successful dynasty in American politics, the second generation Kennedys have achieved relatively little compared to their parents. When Ted goes, he will be celebrated as the most influential Kennedy of them all. But Eunice, without doubt, was the most noble.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Father Raymond J. de Souza, “A tale of two Kennedys.” National Post, (Canada) July 12, 2009.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/catholic_stories/cs0391.htm
Morning-After Pill Is Abortifacient, Note Experts
EWTN, 26-August-2009 — Catholic News Agency
Managua, Nicaragua, Aug 25, 2009 (CNA) – At the “Emergency Contraceptives” symposium organized by the Nicaraguan Association for Life, various pro-life experts explained how the morning-after pill is indeed an abortifacient.
Dr. Rafael Cabrera, president of the Association for Life, said science has shown that one of the actions or effects of the pill is to block implantation of the embryo in the womb, which translates into an “abortifacient action,” since human life begins at conception.
“We can say that an abortion does not occur just because one takes the pill, since sometimes it is taken when ovulation has already passed, but if it is taken one day before or six days after ovulation, there is an 80% chance it will cause an abortion,” Dr. Cabrera said.
Regarding the legal aspects, attorney Adolfo Miranda Saenz explained that the possibility of the morning-after pill killing a newly conceived child makes this a kind of abortion, which is a crime in Nicaragua.
“Even assuming that killing a fertilized ovum not yet implanted in the uterus were not an abortion-even though for us it is-you are at least committing an injury causing offense against the unborn and that is illegal,” he said.
Founder’s Quote Daily
“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.”
–Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren November 4, 1775
GOSPEL & MEDITATION: No Sleeping on the Job
Father Richard Gill, LC
Matthew 24:42-51
Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so. Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ´My master is long delayed,´ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with drunkards, the servant´s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I come to you again in prayer. Even though I cannot see you, I know through faith that you are present in my life. I hope in your promise to be with me. I love you, and I know you love me. Accept this prayer as a token of my love.
Petition: Lord, help me to remain alert, keeping the goal of heaven always in mind.
1. Days and Hours None of us knows how long we have to live, nor did Jesus reveal how long human history would continue before he came again for the Final Judgment. This should make us realize we need to be always ready to meet Our Lord, to have our actions true, and our conscience always clear. We need to be living as if each day were our last, as if our eternal happiness depended on the choices and actions of this very day. Every moment is precious and important in God’s eyes, and the one necessary thing is working to attain our salvation. This is more important than anything else we can accomplish in life.
2. True Prudence The servant who is constant and steady, who does what he is supposed to do at each moment, is the truly prudent person. God wants us to be faithful and follow his will every single day. This is the path to holiness and union with God; there is no other way we can be close to God except by doing his will, out of love and gratitude. How do my actions today reflect loving obedience to God’s will? Am I putting God at the center of my life, or do I have him and his will relegated to the margins, paying attention to what he wants of me only from time to time?
3. A Long Delay Often it can seem that God is distant and not involved in our lives. It can seem that he is not coming back anytime soon, and this can lead us to become distracted with many other things. Every day we need to renew our spirit of faith in God and in his constant presence, living each day to please him, no matter how long the delay seems to be. We need to live in his presence through faith in him and his revelation, which guides us along the pathway to eternal life. We need to keep a lively, operative faith in God and in his presence every day.
Conversation with Christ: Lord, teach me to pray with real faith in you and in your word which gives life. Help me believe at every moment so that I can please you, do your will and grow in holiness.
Resolution: I will renew my faith each day, frequently making conscious and fervent acts of faith.
http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302
SAINT OF THE DAY: ST. MONICA
CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY, THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2009
Born of Christian parents at Tagaste, North Africa, in 333, St. Monica died at Ostia, near Rome, in 387.
Probably the second most famous mother of all, after the Mother of God, Monica’s life can never be separated from that of her son, the great Saint Augustine, convert, bishop, and doctor of the Church. What we know of her for the most part is the account that Augustine gives of her in his Confessions.
We are told but little of her childhood. She was married early in life to Patritius who held an official position in Tagaste. He was a pagan, though like so many at that period, his religion was no more than a name; his temper was violent and he appears to have been of dissolute habits.
Consequently Monica’s married life was far from being a happy one, more especially as Patritius’s mother seems to have been of a similar disposition.
There was, of course, a gulf between husband and wife; her almsgiving and her habits of prayer annoyed him, but it is said that he always held her in a sort of reverence. Monica was not the only matron of Tagaste whose married life was unhappy, but, by her sweetness and patience, she was able to exercise a veritable apostolate amongst the wives and mothers of her native town; they knew that she suffered as they did, and her words and example had a proportionate effect.
Monica had three children, Augustine the eldest, Navigius the second, and a daughter, Perpetua. Monica had been unable to secure baptism for her children, and was greatly grieved when Augustine fell ill; in her distress she besought Patritius to allow him to be baptized; he agreed, but on the boy’s recovery withdrew his consent.
All Monica’s anxiety now centered on Augustine; he was wayward and, as he himself tells us, lazy. He was sent to Madaura to school and Monica seems to have literally wrestled with God for the soul of her son.
Monica did receive a great consolation during this time as her husband, Patritius, became a Christian shortly before dying.
At Carthage, where Augustine had now gone to study, he had become a Manichean, news which caused Monica to kick him out of her house. She went tearfully to the bishop to ask him to help and he responded famously “the child of those tears shall never perish.”
Augustine left to Rome undercover of night in order not to hurt his mother, but she followed him all the way to Rome where she met Saint Ambrose and was able to see the conversion and baptism of her son after 17 years of tears and prayer.
Monica died at Ostia, on the way back to Africa with Augustine. The most moving the pages of his Confessions were written as the result of the emotion Augustine experienced at the parting of his mother.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint.php?n=572
TERM LIMITS ANYONE?
“National Suicide”
By Cal Thomas, Patriot Post, Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Remember when the deficit was so bad that Democrats said we (or more accurately the Republicans) were placing a terrible burden on our grandchildren?
That was several trillion dollars ago. Democrats now appear perfectly fine with extending the growing deficit and national debt to their great-grandchildren. Perhaps politicians think they will never be held accountable three generations from now because they won’t be around to explain to those not yet born why they refused to stop our financial hemorrhaging.
The Obama administration forecast a 10-year budget deficit projection of more than $7.1 trillion, but when confronted with figures from the pesky and bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, the administration was forced this week to raise that projection to approximately $9 trillion. That’s $9,000,000,000,000 dollars. For most of us who think a $1,000 deposit in our checking accounts is a large amount and a $1,000 credit card balance is too much, $9 trillion is a figure that is almost beyond comprehension. It is certainly beyond defensible. To borrow a phrase used in another context by the House leadership, it is un-American.
The philosophy of government under both parties can be boiled down to two acronyms: ATM and ASM — always take more and always spend more.
Who is clamoring for more laws to be passed, more programs to be started and more money to be spent? Let’s find him and lock him up for our financial security.
One answer is to be found in a new book by investigative reporter, educator and columnist Martin Gross. Gross summarizes in an easy to read and understandable style how and why government has failed its citizens. The book, to be released Sept. 1, is called “National Suicide: How Washington is Destroying the American Dream from A to Z.” In addition to listing some of the more outrageous pork projects that are now well-known to anyone who has been paying attention ($107,000 to study the sex life of the Japanese quail; $150,000 to study the Hatfield-McCoy feud are just two examples on a long list), Gross touches on even bigger and equally outrageous expenditures.
The Alternative Minimum Tax, which he says is “based on an accounting lie,” will cost taxpayers $1 trillion over the next 10 years. America, he writes, spends $700 billion a year on various welfare programs, amounting to $65,000 for each poor family of four, yet we still have the poor with us. Both political parties, Gross charges, secretly encourage illegal immigration (the Democrats for votes, the Republicans for cheap labor) and then reward the immigrants’ children with automatic U.S. citizenship.
Gross has discovered 1,000 duplicate programs that waste billions. The Bush administration’s signature education issue, “No Child Left Behind,” has left behind a lot of misspent money: $24 billion per year, according to Gross, even as primary and secondary education “continue to spiral downward.”
Medicare and Medicaid waste $150 billion a year dealing with doctor and hospital fraud; $45 billion a year is wasted on “improper” payments and even more on “unnecessary agencies.” The Des Moines Federal Home Loan Bank funded research, Gross writes, that found 1,399 government programs handling disappearing rural areas.
If you haven’t vented enough this summer at your local town hall meeting, this book will keep your blood pressure up and your motivation to do something about overspending high into the next election. Publisher’s Weekly wrote in its review: “A fiery A-Z compendium of government greed, chicanery, and plain incompetence. Gross enjoys a good rant, but his criticism are sound and well-supported.”
Gross does more than just list government’s sins. He offers a solution on “How to Better Govern America.” If ever there was a must-read for people who are sick of the way government operates, this is it.
http://www.patriotpost.us/opinion/cal-thomas/2009/08/25/national-suicide.html
Pope: Church Needs a Few Good Confessors & Priests Who Can Educate Consciences!
Benedict XVI Sends Message to Italy’s National Liturgical Week
The Church needs “wise and holy spiritual teachers” who are able not only to hear confessions, but also to educate consciences.
–VATICAN CITY, AUG. 25, 2009, Zenit.org
http://www.zenit.org/article-26685?l=english
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput: “Secularism”
A Man for Our Season
As the years passed, I have watched Archbishop Chaput’s pastoral ministry with great interest. My intuitive perception of him in 1990– that he is a good bishop and a great man — was continuously reaffirmed, especially by his courageous, outspoken leadership on critical life and family issues that form the front lines of today’s culture wars.
Patrick Madrid is the director of the Envoy Institute of Belmont Abbey College, the author of several books on Catholic themes, and host of the Thursday edition of EWTN’s “Open Line” radio program (3:00 p.m. EST). His Web site is www.patrickmadrid.com.
American Spectator Headlines!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Health Care? The Government Can’t Even Run a Railroad, Barry Goldwater, Jr. | 8.26.09And you, Mr. President, want to do what?
America’s Record Recession, Peter Ferrara | 8.26.09The failure of Keynesian economics reconfirmed as never before — not that any of it will register with our president.
ACORN in Retreat, Matthew Vadum | 8.26.09Its style of Blackjack and 21 fails to win the approval of Nevada prosecutors.
Indentured Grandchildren, G. Tracy Mehan, III | 8.26.09Federal debt as far as the eye can see — and for as long as anyone can see.
Chicago, Obama, and Health Care Reform
…If you want to understand Obama’s health care policy, you need to start where Obama starts. You need to start with Chicago. You need to look at constituent interests . . . Obama needs his newly socialized base. He needs them to keep coming to the polls. In the vein of Chicago politics, he needs to deliver benefits to them. Unrewarded, the electoral periphery will revert back to apathy. Health care is a reward to this base of people who are on the economic as well as political periphery….
By Abraham H. Miller, American Thinker, August 26, 2009
There has been no lack of writing about the influence of Marxist Saul Alinsky on Barack Obama’s political ideology. But what appears to have escaped notice is the influence of the political culture of Chicago on Barack Obama. These influences, of course, are not the same. Alinsky was a formidable opponent of the Chicago Democratic Machine. Obama was, when necessary, a consummate machine insider.
Alinsky for all his flaws would never have gotten into bed with the likes of Tony Rezko or joined a law firm that represented slum lords.
If you want to understand the political agenda of Barack Obama, forget Alinsky, stop calling Obama a “socialist,” and start thinking of Barack Obama as a guy who received his political baptism, not from the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but from the Chicago machine.
Chicago politics is not about ideology. It is about, “Who Gets What, When, and How,” to quote the inimitable Harold D. Laswell, one of the outstanding political theorists of the last century.
The sine qua non of Chicago politics is power, getting it and keeping it. Everything else is incidental. Even corruption is a byproduct of power and is functional only if it enables you to stay in power.
In Chicago politics, you don’t make waves, you don’t back losers, and you “don’t talk to nobody nobody sent.” Chicago politics is always about hierarchy and centralization.
Chicago politics is also parochial. In the City of Neighborhoods, ethnic consciousness is strong. An Irish machine, for years, ran a Polish city by making sure that the Poles got a big piece of the pie. There is seldom a perception of a common good. There is the amalgamation of different ethnic interests. In Chicago, the whole is clearly the sum of its parts, and the lubricants for the parts are political spoils.
If you want to understand Obama’s health care policy, you need to start where Obama starts. You need to start with Chicago. You need to look at constituent interests.
Obama won in 2008 because, among other things, he mobilized the electoral periphery. He mobilized young voters and minority voters, people who traditionally had a lower probability of showing up on Election Day. Chicago politics is about mobilizing the vote. “Vote early and often” is the city’s sardonic refrain.
Obama needs his newly socialized base. He needs them to keep coming to the polls. In the vein of Chicago politics, he needs to deliver benefits to them.
Unrewarded, the electoral periphery will revert back to apathy. Health care is a reward to this base of people who are on the economic as well as political periphery.
Talk-radio host Sean Hannity can trumpet medical savings accounts on one day and talk about the forty percent of Americans who don’t pay taxes the next, and he will be immune to the inconsistency because Hannity’s listeners are taxpayers. But a medical savings account means nothing if you don’t pay taxes.
If you don’t pay taxes and don’t have health insurance, you want a card in your wallet that says someone else is going to pay. You want a medical savings account and tort reform about as much as you want another Chicago winter in an unheated apartment.
If you grow up poor and minority, everyone else’s gain is ill-gotten. You expect the people you elect to take from them and give to you. If they don’t, then there is no point in electing them. You might as well stay home on Election Day.
Michele Malkin is upset that David Axelrod’s firm is doing the public relations for Obama Care. Michele Malkin is a superb intellectual analyst of Chicago politics, but she has no visceral feel for it. When Mayor Richard J. Daley was confronted about the city’s insurance business going to a sole-source brokerage run by his sons, he responded that there would be no point in being in politics if he couldn’t throw a little business to his children. Why would Axelrod be in politics if he couldn’t profit from it?
Chicagoans understood that just as Obama understands that his objective is to provide his base with the spoils of power — in this case insurance. To do this, he has to massage liberal guilt and delude the great majority of Americans, who are content with their health insurance, into thinking their insurance is not going to be changed and that they have a moral obligation to acquiesce to a remaking of health insurance.
A government option means government jobs, more rewards for the base. These jobs will be spread, as are those of all government programs, throughout the states. Each potential job holder is a voter, so too are his immediate family members.
Yes, the current health care program does have problems. To fix them requires a series of repairs — tort reform, portability, elimination of prior conditions as an impediment to insurance, and a safety net for people who don’t have insurance or lose their jobs.
Health reform does not require a complete remaking of the system. If all that Obama wanted were to insure those who fall between the cracks, he could put them into the same wonderful program that Congress created for itself by subsidizing their premiums. This would neither require a thousand pages of legislation nor a new series of bureaucracies.
But building a new power base resulting from the mobilization of the political and economic periphery requires redefining the nation’s health problems as the nation’s health catastrophe.
Health reform is Chicago politics on a national level. Welcome to the city.
Abraham H. Miller is emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati. He is the author of a novel about the Chicago machine, Vorshavsky: A Chicago Story and has written extensively about ethnic politics.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/chicago_
obama_and_health_care.html
Con Man Obama Showing True Colors: The Myth Unravels!
….a majority of the American people who now stand aghast at what they realize Obama is trying to do to this nation . . . He has made no effort to disguise his determination to remake America into a nation of citizens subservient to his vision of an all-powerful federal government presided over by an all-powerful president, his brigade of deputy fuehrers, and a Congress dominated by the extreme socialist left wing of his party . . . Mainstream Americans…are now seeing the real Obama: a narcissist with no discernable qualifications for the office he holds, a rabble-rousing former community organizer enthralled by the odious doctrines of Karl Marx and determined to impose them on the U.S…..
By: Phil Brennan, NewsMax, August 18, 2009
“You can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” –Abraham Lincoln
It didn’t take long for the American people to catch on, but once they did their reaction was heated. In six short months Barack Obama has been revealed for what he is: a con man who managed to fool some of the people all of the time but has failed to fool most of the people all, or even some, of the time.
Those of us who bothered to peer underneath the iron curtain erected between the pre-election Obama and the public by a media smitten with the practically unknown Illinois senator were not the least bit surprised when the sheen wore off, only by the speed at which the myth unraveled.
There are of course those, like the pitiful Chris Matthews, who still feel a tingle run up their thighs at the very sight of Obama, but their naiveté is unshared by a majority of the American people who now stand aghast at what they realize Obama is trying to do to this nation.
He has made no effort to disguise his determination to remake America into a nation of citizens subservient to his vision of an all-powerful federal government presided over by an all-powerful president, his brigade of deputy fuehrers, and a Congress dominated by the extreme socialist left wing of his party.
The odious cap-and-trade bill, which would “skyrocket” (Obama’s word) taxes, would wreck the economy, and is languishing in the Senate, was his first major attempt to impose his authoritarian will on the nation.
It narrowly passed the Democratic controlled House, only after deputy fuehrer Rahm Emanuel applied the Chicago bludgeon to wavering Democrats from marginal districts where their “yes” votes will cost most of them reelection in 2010.
On the heels of this power grab Obama presented Congress with a demand that it pass a healthcare bill and left it up to the folks on the Hill to cobble one together. He left it up to the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the ridiculous little Henry Waxman to design a measure that would give the federal government control of one-sixth of the entire United States economy, and the health and well-being of the American people.
When the folks back home looked at what was being proposed and expressed their ire at their representatives in Congress in no uncertain terms, using local town hall meetings as their venue, the president showed his utter lack of knowledge of what the Pelosi/ Waxman bill is all about, as well as his contempt for those Americans who dared to question his wisdom and motives.
Faced with questions that exposed some of the very dubious parts of the House and Senate measures, Obama displayed his penchant for dissembling. He deliberately concealed some of the more outrageous facets of the bills, such as the demonstrable existence of death panels buried with the 1,000-plus pages of the House bill and quickly removed from some Senate measures once they were revealed.
Barack Hussein Obama now resembles the con man who was exposed when Dorothy pulled back the curtain and saw that the Wizard of Oz was just a failed snake-oil salesman posing as an all-knowing, all-powerful miracle worker.
He still has his worshippers and acolytes among the labor bosses, the thuggish Acorn gang, and the those Americans who continue to wear blinders that enable them to see only what they want to see in Obama the messiah, and not the Obama who is.
Mainstream Americans, no longer enslaved by the ultra-liberal mainstream media that worships at his feet of clay, are now seeing the real Obama: a narcissist with no discernable qualifications for the office he holds, a rabble-rousing former community organizer enthralled by the odious doctrines of Karl Marx and determined to impose them on the U.S.
We’ve peeked behind the curtain and seen the real Obama. And it’s not a pretty sight. But now we know, and not a minute too soon.
Phil Brennan writes for Newsmax.com. He is editor and publisher of Wednesday on the Web and was Washington columnist (Cato) for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He is a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association For Intelligence Officers. He can be reached at pvb@pvbr.com.
http://www.newsmax.com/brennan/obama_lincoln/2009/08/18/249308.html
HPV Vaccine – What Parents Need to Know
…Most of the problems with Gardasil (93 percent) are minor: headache, nausea, and fever. But a disturbing seven percent included hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, or death . . .Few parents would want their child to be among the 39 deaths to girls who had just taken the Gardasil shot. Nor would most parents want their child to take the risk of hospitalization, disability, or a life-threatening illness. Accurate information has not been forthcoming….
Janice Shaw Crouse, TownHall.com, August 25, 2009
I sat at a picnic table listening to various mothers discussing their hectic schedules trying to keep up with teenage daughters, all on the same sports team. When one mother told of squeezing in an appointment that morning to get her daughter the HPV shot that her doctor recommended, the conversation turned to the necessity to “protect” their girls in such troubling times. I stayed quiet, hoping to learn the values guiding these parents’ decisions. Predictably, they had not thought through the issues, nor did they know the facts.
Those mothers were merely following doctors’ recommendations and that of all the experts. Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, was approved in 2006 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for females as young as nine and up to age 26. It has been marketed as a protection against four types of the human papillomavirus (HPV). Merck, the company that makes Gardasil, claims that the drug will protect against two types of HPV that cause 70 percent of cervical cancers and two types that cause 90 percent of genital warts. Every federal health authority recommends the shots and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about a quarter of the nation’s 13-17 year olds have received the immunizations. The vaccine is on the CDC’s vaccine schedule for 11- and 12-year-old girls, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends it.
Even so, some physicians remain wary of the trend to give young children a new, largely untried drug. A study in a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research revealed that about half of the doctors in a survey of over a thousand physicians in Texas did not routinely recommend Gardasil for their pre-teen patients.
What those Texas doctors suspected, we now know for sure – that serious concerns are legitimate regarding the use of Gardasil. The highly-promoted, so-called breakthrough vaccine that was recommended for all girls and given to numerous children and teens to prevent possible future cases of cervical cancer, is related to “adverse events” experienced by thousands of girls after taking the vaccine.
In a just-released article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, federal researchers report that after analyzing 12,424 “adverse events” [out of the 13,758 reports of problems as of May 1] voluntarily reported by girls vaccinated with Gardasil that two problems are common. One – fainting – is not inherently serious, but can be if the girl falls and hits her head. The other side effect – “dangerous blood clots” – is quite troubling. Most of the problems with Gardasil (93 percent) are minor: headache, nausea, and fever. But a disturbing seven percent included hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, or death.
“Adverse events” is a terribly clinical sounding description of such tragic outcomes. Perhaps more people should read the personal account of Jenny, a University of California, Berkeley professor’s daughter who lost her life after getting the shot. (See Jenny’s blog here)
Few parents would want their child to be among the 39 deaths to girls who had just taken the Gardasil shot. Nor would most parents want their child to take the risk of hospitalization, disability, or a life-threatening illness. Accurate information has not been forthcoming, including the fact that many additional reported cases of “adverse effects” had too few details. Thus, those cases were excluded from the study.
Even with the new information, numerous questions remain about the safety as well as the efficacy of the drug. Further, there are questions about the marketing of the drug. In fact, cervical cancer is relatively uncommon in the United States. The American Cancer Society reports under 4,000 deaths per year compared to the 250,000 deaths in other areas of the world, primarily in poor countries.
Plus, there are questions about Merck’s grants to professional medical associations who promoted the vaccine’s use without fully explaining the risks involved with taking the drug. Some doctors ask if the big push to sell Gardasil is Merck’s method of making up the lost sales after their popular anti-pain medication Vioxx was banned. These facts raise questions about the appropriateness of recommending such a high-risk drug for widespread use among American children and teenagers.
In the wake of all the side effects, Merck has added warnings to the label on the drug. The warnings on all the labels state that some children receiving Gardasil have subsequent problems, such as autoimmune diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, paralysis, and seizures. Further, some doctors worry that not enough young girls were included in the clinical trials of the drug; they believe that there is really no way to know how pre-teen and teenage girls will react to such a high-powered vaccine. Merck acknowledges that the drug is effective for only five years, so giving the drug to 11 to 12 year olds hardly seems warranted.
Critics are especially concerned about the risk-benefit ratio of taking the HPV vaccine. Gardasil is very costly and most physicians recommend that women continue to get Pap smears, even if they have taken Gardasil. The known benefit of the regular Pap smear screening in preventing most cases of cervical cancer makes the benefit of the HPV risk uncertain.
In fact, Those mothers around that picnic table and the thousands of other parents concerned about the well-being of their daughters need to have all the facts and know the risks involved before subjecting their little girls to this new vaccine. States need to have these facts before discussing the possibility of mandating the vaccines for all pre-teen and teenage girls.
http://townhall.com/columnists/JaniceShawCrouse/2009/08/25/hpv_vaccine_-_what_parents_need_to_know
Jonah Goldberg Compares VA Pamphlet to Nazi Eugenics
“This goes into the realm of valuing whether
life is worthy of life as the Germans used to say.”
TED KENNEDY’S ABORTION LEGACY: WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma
By ANNE HENDERSHOTT, WALL STREET JOURNAL, JAN. 2, 2009
For faithful Roman Catholics, the thought of yet another pro-choice Kennedy positioned to campaign for the unlimited right to abortion is discouraging. Yet if Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of Catholics John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton, abortion-rights advocates will have just such a champion.
Ms. Kennedy was so concerned to assure pro-abortion leaders in New York, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported on Dec. 18, that on the same day Ms. Kennedy telephoned New York Gov. David Patterson to declare interest in the Senate seat, “one of her first calls was to an abortion rights group, indicating she will be strongly pro-choice.”
Within the first week of her candidacy, Ms. Kennedy promised to work for several causes, including same-sex marriage and abortion rights. In responding to a series of 15 questions posed by the New York Times on Dec. 21, Ms. Kennedy said that, while she believes “young women facing unwanted pregnancies should have the advice of caring adults,” she would oppose legislation that would require minors to notify a parent before obtaining an abortion. On the crucial question of whether she supports any state or federal restrictions on late-term abortions, Ms. Kennedy chose to say only that she “supports Roe v. Wade, which prohibits third trimester abortions except when the life or health of the mother is at risk.” Presumably Ms. Kennedy knows that this effectively means an unlimited right to abortion — including late-stage abortion — because the “health of the mother” can be so broadly defined that it includes the psychological distress that can accompany an unintended pregnancy.
Ms. Kennedy’s commitment to abortion rights is shared by other prominent family members, including Kerry Kennedy Cuomo and Maryland’s former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Some may recall the 2000 Democratic Convention when Caroline and her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, addressed the convention to reassure all those gathered that the Democratic Party would continue to provide women with the right to choose abortion — even into the ninth month. At that convention, the party’s nominee, Al Gore, formerly a pro-life advocate, pledged his opposition to parental notification and embraced partial-birth abortion. Several of those in attendance, including former President Bill Clinton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, had been pro-life at one time. But by 2000 nearly every delegate in the convention hall was on the pro-choice side — and those who weren’t simply kept quiet about it.
Caroline Kennedy knows that any Kennedy desiring higher office in the Democratic Party must now carry the torch of abortion rights throughout any race. But this was not always the case. Despite Ms. Kennedy’s description of Barack Obama, in a New York Times op-ed, as a “man like my father,” there is no evidence that JFK was pro-choice like Mr. Obama. Abortion-rights issues were in the fledgling stage at the state level in New York and California in the early 1960s. They were not a national concern.
Even Ted Kennedy, who gets a 100% pro-choice rating from the abortion-rights group Naral, was at one time pro-life. In fact, in 1971, a full year after New York had legalized abortion, the Massachusetts senator was still championing the rights of the unborn. In a letter to a constituent dated Aug. 3, 1971, he wrote: “When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.”
But that all changed in the early ’70s, when Democratic politicians first figured out that the powerful abortion lobby could fill their campaign coffers (and attract new liberal voters). Politicians also began to realize that, despite the Catholic Church’s teachings to the contrary, its bishops and priests had ended their public role of responding negatively to those who promoted a pro-choice agenda.
In some cases, church leaders actually started providing “cover” for Catholic pro-choice politicians who wanted to vote in favor of abortion rights. At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., on a hot summer day in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers and allies were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a “clear conscience.”
The former Jesuit priest Albert Jonsen, emeritus professor of ethics at the University of Washington, recalls the meeting in his book “The Birth of Bioethics” (Oxford, 2003). He writes about how he joined with the Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick and Charles Curran, to enable the Kennedy family to redefine support for abortion.
Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that “distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue.” It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians “might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order.”
Father Milhaven later recalled the Hyannisport meeting during a 1984 breakfast briefing of Catholics for a Free Choice: “The theologians worked for a day and a half among ourselves at a nearby hotel. In the evening we answered questions from the Kennedys and the Shrivers. Though the theologians disagreed on many a point, they all concurred on certain basics . . . and that was that a Catholic politician could in good conscience vote in favor of abortion.”
But can they now? There are signs today that some of the bishops are beginning to confront the Catholic politicians who consistently vote in favor of legislation to support abortion. Charles J. Chaput, the archbishop of Denver, has been on the front lines in encouraging Catholics to live their faith without compromise in the public square. Most recently in his book “Render Unto Caesar,” Archbishop Chaput has reminded Catholic politicians of their obligation to protect life.
The archbishop is not alone. The agenda at November’s assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops included a public discussion of abortion and politics. The bishops’ final statement focused on concern about the possible passage of the “Freedom of Choice Act,” and referred to it as “an evil law that would further divide our country.” The bishops referenced their 2007 document, “Faithful Citizenship,” which maintains that the right to life is the foundation of every other human right. In it, they promised to “persist in the duty to counsel, in the hope that the scandal of their [Catholic congregants'] cooperating in evil can be resolved by the proper formation of their consciences.”
Whether the bishops truly will persist remains to be seen. New York’s Cardinal Edward Egan, for instance, has not publicly challenged Ms. Kennedy’s pro-choice promises. This is unfortunate. Until the clerics begin to counter the pro-choice claims made by high-profile Catholics such as Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and, now, Caroline Kennedy, faithful Catholics will continue to be bewildered by their pastoral silence.
Ms. Hendershott is a professor of urban studies at The King’s College in New York. She is the author of “The Politics of Abortion” (Encounter Books, 2007).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123086375678148323.html
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“It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.”
–Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia Query 19, 1781
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