Brown Pelican Society of Louisiana

Lunch Break: Man smuggles songbirds in pants

….Americans now believe that government and politicians are bigger problems for the country than illegal immigration, health care, disaster response or even the federal debt…..

Dr. Jacob Khushigian, using a portable computer database, checks on a patient who overdosed at the Kaweah Delta Emergency Room in Visalia, Calif. More doctors in California are using a prescription monitoring program to curb drug abuse, but the state is unable to share information with other states. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

The new regulations unveiled this week spell out what the government considers a “complete” electronic health record (EHR) and what it considers “meaningful use” of such records. To comply with federal requirements, doctors and hospitals must make meaningful use of qualified EHR systems.

Under the new regulations, a complete EHR must be able to perform 25 distinct functions relating to what information can be entered into the record and how that record can be shared with other health care providers and, in some cases, the federal government.

The EHRs are designed to be digital replications of the hard-copy, paper health records commonly in use today. They are also engineered to be easily transferable among different doctors and hospitals so as to eliminate the creation of duplicate or disparate records among different health care providers, thus allowing any health care office to access a patient’s complete medical record at each visit.

Among the content required for a complete EHR is an active medications list, vital signs, Body Mass Index (BMI) score, smoking status, comparative effectiveness data, lab test results, and insurance status. They must also record race, gender, and preferred language of patients, as well as send reminders to patients about follow-up visits and at-home care where applicable.

A complete EHR must also include a list of all past health problems, their causes, and the procedures used to treat or cure them.

The HHS envisions three stages of EHR use over time, with each stage further incorporating EHRs into the practice of medicine by 2014. The new regulations leave stages two and three undefined while the technology develops.

During stage one, EHR systems must demonstrate basic capabilities, such as transmitting public health data, checking for drug interactions, and maintaining an up-to-date list of illnesses, procedures, and treatments for 80 percent of patients.

The EHRs must also allow doctors to electronically prescribe medications as well as maintain an active list of medications taken by each patient, checking for both drug and allergic reactions for each medication.

To meet the meaningful use requirement in stage one, providers must meet at least 20 of the 25 total criteria.

They must also be portable and easily transferable between providers, in both walk-in and inpatient settings. The regulations state that records must be electronically transmittable between health care providers and emergency personnel.

However, as a CMS spokesman told CNSNews.com, due to technology infrastructure limitations, the EHRs will not have to be fully transmissible in stage one.

Accompanied by congressmen and medical professionals, President Obama talks about health care reform, July 15, 2009, in the Rose Garden of the White House. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., acting chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is second from left. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

…Pope Benedict — and the Cardinals who elected him — have long been concerned with the rapid secularization, de-Christianization and desacralization of the West….

Fr. Roger J. Landry
The Anchor
Editorial
July 16, 2010

On June 28, at the Roman basilica built over the human remains of the great apostle St. Paul, Pope Benedict announced that he was founding a new Vatican dicastery, which will be called the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. In contrast to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which is entrusted with supervising the Church’s classical missionary work in remote areas where the faith has not yet been planted or grown, the new Pontifical Council will be given the task of re-proposing the Gospel to areas that have already been Christianized but where many have given up the practice of the faith.

Pope Benedict — and the Cardinals who elected him — have long been concerned with the rapid secularization, de-Christianization and desacralization of the West. Countries or regions that fifty years ago seemed to be vibrant places of faith — European countries like Holland, Belgium and France, North American regions like Quebec and the northeastern United States— have not only seen a massive exodus of practicing Catholics in recent decades, but also experienced a radical rejection of the faith in public policy and culture through attempts to enshrine a practical atheism as the religion of their land and to push policies with regard to abortion, euthanasia, marriage and education that are total contradictions to the Christian message.

The creation of a Vatican dicastery is always an institutionalization of a priority. The creation of this new dicastery is a palpable sign of Pope Benedict’s and the Church’s commitment to respond to what Pope Benedict on June 28 called “a serious crisis of the meaning of the Christian faith and of belonging to the Church.” The principal task of the new Council, he said, will be to “promote a renewed evangelization in the countries where the first proclamation of the faith has already resonated and where Churches with an ancient foundation exist but are experiencing the progressive secularization of society and a sort of ‘eclipse of the sense of God.’” In a March 2009 letter to the world’s bishops, Pope Benedict described that the “real problem at this moment of our history” is “that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects.”

The re-evangelization of the West is not something that can be accomplished by a Vatican office, no matter how many competent and diligent staff members it will employ. It’s something that will only occur if those who still believe in Christ throughout the world collaborate in the effort. The documents of the Second Vatican Council stressed that the Church’s missionary efforts are not the task of a few specialists in missionary orders but the responsibility of all the people in the Church. During the evangelization of several African countries in the 20th century, when the Church wanted to bring the Gospel to a particular village, the first step was not to send in a team of foreign missionaries to proclaim the truths of the faith with words; it was to seek one or more Christian families that would be willing to move there in order to proclaim the truths of the faith by the way they lived each day. Likewise, for the cultures and societies of the de-Christianized West to receive the Gospel again, it is not going to happen principally by beautiful documents prepared for by the new Pontifical Council, but by Christians living a sincere, ongoing, saving encounter with Jesus Christ who invite others into that communion.

Pope Benedict made this point a decade ago, prior to being elected pope, in a powerful December 2000 address to catechists who had come to Rome during the Jubilee Year. This lengthy speech on the new evangelization crisply defines what evangelization is and isn’t, and what ought to be its structure, methods and content. His insights should serve not only as marching orders for the new Pontifical Council but for all believers called to collaborate in bringing about the new evangelization of our culture.

Evangelization does not mean to communicate isolated truths but “to show [the path to happiness], to teach the art of living,” Cardinal Ratzinger noted in that discourse. Jesus came to proclaim the good news to the poor and the “deepest poverty” is the “tediousness of a life considered absurd and contradictory. This poverty is widespread today, in very different forms in the materially rich as well as the poor countries. The inability of joy presupposes and produces the inability to love, produces jealousy, avarice—all defects that devastate the life of individuals and of the world. This is why we are in need of a new evangelization: if the art of living remains an unknown, nothing else works.” Jesus came precisely to teach the art of living by example, to say, “Follow me!,” to become the Way toward happiness. The new evangelization is needed because “a large part of today’s humanity does not find the Gospel in the permanent evangelization of the Church; that is to say, the convincing response to the question: How to live?” Christianity for them is no longer considered a way of life but often a group of teachings that fail to connect them to Jesus the Way, Truth and Life.

Cardinal Ratzinger said that the method of re-evangelizing the desecularized world cannot be just to use the new means of social communication — television, internet, Facebook and Twitter— to announce our faith in Christ, but must involve re-introducing people to the Lord. “Words and the whole art of communication cannot reach the human person to such depths as the Gospel must reach,” the future Pope said. To proclaim the kingdom of God is to proclaim that God is alive and calls us to enter into his reign, and for evangelization to be effective, those proclaiming the kingdom must give evidence of the fruits that come from union with Christ. This means at least two things. First, “the word of the announcement must always be drenched in an intense life of prayer,” which is “faith in action,” when we seek union with the God we proclaim is alive. Second, the proclamation must be united to suffering together with Christ out of love for others, by united oneself to his passion. Referring to the parable of the grain of wheat in the Gospel, the Pope illustrates that Jesus shows us that “we cannot give life to others without giving up our own lives.” It’s that witness of life, that willingness to suffer for God and for others, that makes the words credible.

With regard to the content of the message being proclaimed by words and witness, Cardinal Ratzinger specified four essential parts: conversion, the kingdom of God, Jesus Christ and eternal life. To convert means “not to live as all the others live” but to seek to live like Christ, to live for love of God and love of others. Living in the Kingdom means that “God exists, God is alive, God is present and acts in the world, in our — in my — life.” To preach Jesus means not merely to say we need to imitate him but rather to be “assimilated into” him, to “attain union with him.” That’s why the sacraments can never remain “a secondary theme,” but must be presented and lived as the “realization of our relationship with God.” Finally, to preach eternal life means that God “enters into history to do justice,” and that our and others’ actions matter; they have eternal consequences. “Only if the measure of our life is eternity,” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote, will “this life of ours on earth” become “great and its value immense.”

Evangelization in short is not to speak about “whole lot of things” but simply to “speak about God and man,” and to bring God and man together. This is the task of the Church. This is our task, which, God-willing, the new Pontifical Council will catalyze.

http://www.catholicpreaching.com/index.php?content=articles&articles=20100716anchor

Since the initially strong language on religious freedom used in President Obama’s Cairo speech, presidential references to religious freedom have become rare, often replaced, at most, with references to freedom of worship. A purposeful change in language could mean a much narrower view of the right to religious freedom.

“Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”

In her article for “First Things” magazine, Ashley Samelson, International Programs Director for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, stated, “To anyone who closely follows prominent discussion of religious freedom in the diplomatic and political arena, this linguistic shift is troubling: “The reason is simple. Any person of faith knows that religious exercise is about a lot more than freedom of worship. It’s about the right to dress according to one’s religious dictates, to preach openly, to evangelize, to engage in the public square. Everyone knows that religious Jews keep kosher, religious Quakers don’t go to war, and religious Muslim women wear headscarves-yet “freedom of worship” would protect none of these acts of faith.”

In the administration’s defense, Carl Esbeck, professor of law at the University of Missouri, is quoted by Christianity Today as saying, “The softened message is probably meant for the Muslim world, said. Obama, seeking to repair relations fractured by 9/11, is telling Islamic countries that America is not interfering with their internal matters.”

Let’s be clear, however; language matters when it comes to defining freedoms and limits. A shift from freedom of religion to freedom of worship moves the dialog from the world stage into the physical confines of a church, temple, synagogue or mosque. Such limitations can unleash an unbridled initiative that we have only experienced in a mild way through actions determined to remove of roadside crosses, wearing of religious t-shirts and pro-life pins as well as any initiatives of evangelization. It also could exclude our right to raise our children in our faith, the right to religious education, literature or media, the right to raise funds or organize charitable activities and the right to express religious beliefs in the normal discourse of life.

In the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration of Religious Freedom entitled “Dignitatis Humanae”, the Church summarizes this right: “Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”

As we can see, the practice of religion permeates the very fabric of our lives. It cannot and should not be separated into approved and non-approved expressions. Unfortunately, such limits are being instituted across the globe. Samelson writes, “The effort to squash religion into the private sphere is on the rise around the world. “ And it’s not just confined to totalitarian regimes like Saudi Arabia. In France, students at public schools cannot wear headscarves, yarmulkes, or large crucifixes. The European Court of Human Rights has banned crucifixes from the walls of Italian schools.”

The list of countries and limits is growing constantly.

Michelle Boorstein, religion reporter for the Washington Post, notes that “Knox Thames, director of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom — a Congress-controlled body tasked with monitoring religious freedom abroad – spoke at a recent briefing about the worry, reportedly saying he sees a change in lingo and that it’s not an accident.”

In presenting a forecast of religious freedom for 2010 to the House Subcommittee on International Religions, Human Rights and Oversight, Georgetown professor Thomas Farr stated, “Those of us in the business of sniffing out rats know that this is a rhetorical shift to watch.” Farr was the former head of the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Office.

Human rights lawyer Nina Shea, who is a Senior Scholar at the Hudson Institute, is also concerned. “I’m very fearful that by building bridges, we’re actually stepping away from this fundamental principle of religious freedom.   It is so critical for Western, especially American, leaders to articulate strong defense for religious freedom and explain what that means and how it undergirds our entire civilization.”

Leonardo Leo, Chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom made these remarks in the presentation of their 2010 Annual Report in April: “in the world of foreign policy and diplomacy, where every word is carefully chosen to convey meaning and interest, there is an even more important situation that could be taken by some in the world community as a signal that freedom of religion or belief is not a priority for the administration.

“USCIRF notes that since the initially strong language on religious freedom used in President Obama’s Cairo speech, presidential references to religious freedom have become rare, often replaced, at most, with references to freedom of worship. The same holds true for many of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speeches.

“This change in phraseology could well be viewed by human rights defenders and by officials in other countries as having concrete policy implications. Freedom of worship is only one aspect of religious freedom and a purposeful change in language could mean a much narrower view of the right, ignoring such components as religiously motivated expression and religious education as well as ignoring incursions such as discrimination in government benefits and privileges or the creation of climates of impunity, where private religiously-motivated violence isn’t prevented and punished.”

Mark Twain used to say, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” As Catholics, this is an area where we must remain vigilant. These small changes can be used to change our perception of rights and freedoms. In retrosprect, the past hundred years gives us a number of significant issues in which this has already happened to one degree or another. Abortion, contraception, marriage, the family, and gender have all been re-engineered to fashion a new worldview.

What may seem an innocent shift in language now could possibly end up as a “tipping point” for our religious freedom. Make no mistake; this is the goal and desire of the many inside and outside our current administration.

——————

Here is the shift to which we’ve referred:

In June 2009, the president highlighted religious freedom in his Cairo speech saying, “Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. 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.”

A few months later, in November, he was delivering remarks to the crowd gathered to remember the victims of the Fort Hood shooing when he said, “We’re a nation that guarantees the freedom to worship as one chooses.”

On the heels of that speech, he then delivered another in Tokyo that same month stating, “The longing for liberty and dignity is a part of the story of all peoples. For there are certain aspirations that human beings hold in common: the freedom to speak your mind, and choose your leaders; the ability to access information, and worship how you please.”

He traveled on to China, where in speaking at a “Town Hall” with future Chinese leaders he stated, “These freedoms of expression and worship — of access to information and political participation — we believe are universal rights.”

This abrupt shift with reference to the constitutional freedom of religion was also noticed in the public discourse of Secretary Hillary Clinton. At Georgetown University in December 2009, she used the phrase three times.

“To fulfill their potential, people must be free to choose laws and leaders; to share and access information, to speak, criticize and debate. They must be free to worship, associate, and to love in the way that they choose. In China, we call for protection of rights of minorities in Tibet and Xinxiang; for the rights to express oneself and worship freely.  And when a person is too hungry or sick to work or vote or worship, she is denied a life she deserves. Freedom doesn’t come in half measures, and partial remedies cannot redress the whole problem.”

In January 2010, Clinton delivered a speech about Internet freedom at the Newseum in which she used the “freedom of worship” theme several times: “Franklin Roosevelt built on these ideas when he delivered his Four Freedoms speech in 1941. Now, at the time, Americans faced a cavalcade of crises and a crisis of confidence. But the vision of a world in which all people enjoyed freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear transcended the troubles of his day.”

[Editor's Note: In Roosevelt's famous "Four Freedoms" speech to congress on January 6, 1941, he did include term religion not worship in his list and then used "worship" later as a description - "No realistic American can expect from a dictator's peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion-- or even good business."]

“The freedom of worship usually involves the rights of individuals to commune or not commune with their Creator. And that’s one channel of communication that does not rely on technology. But the freedom of worship also speaks to the universal right to come together with those who share your values and vision for humanity. In our history, those gatherings often took place in churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. Today, they may also take place on line.

“But connection technologies like the internet and social networking sites should enhance individuals’ ability to worship as they see fit, come together with people of their own faith, and learn more about the beliefs of others. We must work to advance the freedom of worship online just as we do in other areas of life.”

Randy Sly is the Associate Editor of Catholic Online and the CEO/Associate Publisher for the Northern Virginia Local Edition of Catholic Online (http://virginia.catholic.org). He is a former Archbishop of the Charismatic Episcopal Church who laid aside that ministry to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church.
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Archbishop Wuerl noted that all Catholics are called to Christian service

Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com), 7/16/2010

The seven sacraments are an integral and identifying part of the Catholic Church and the faith life of each Catholic. To feign any sacrament would be egregious. The Catholic Church through its long and constant teaching holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times.

Archbishop of Washington Donald W. Wuerl, Chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine, said the clarification was “a welcome statement.”

WASHINGTON, DC (CNA/EWTN News) – Archbishop Donald Wuerl of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine welcomed the Vatican’s recent clarification on the canonical penalties for the attempted ordination of women, saying the action shows “the seriousness with which it holds offenses against the Sacrament of Holy Orders.”

In a July 15 statement the Vatican said that the attempted ordination of women was a “grave delict,” a Church crime that is always referred to the Holy See for adjudication.

Archbishop of Washington Donald W. Wuerl, Chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine, said the clarification was “a welcome statement.”

“The seven sacraments are an integral and identifying part of the Catholic Church and the faith life of each Catholic,” he commented. “To feign any sacrament would be egregious. The Catholic Church through its long and constant teaching holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times.”

Archbishop Wuerl noted that all Catholics are called to “Christian service.”

Women have responded to this call with “extraordinary generosity” and have had an “essential role” in the life of the Church. They now serve in “Church leadership positions at all levels,” he commented, reporting that they hold nearly half of diocesan administrative and professional positions, about 25 percent of the top diocesan positions, and make up about 80 percent of lay parish ministers.

“The Church’s gratitude to women cannot be stated strongly enough. Women offer unique insight, creative abilities and unstinting generosity at the very heart of the Catholic Church,” Archbishop Wuerl continued.

Pope John Paul II, in his 1994 apostolic letter “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis,” reaffirmed that the Catholic Church has no authority to ordain women. The issue was also addressed by the U.S. bishops in their 1998 pastoral response.

….The NAACP is trying to change the subject from Obama’s failure to Obama’s race…..

By  Patrick J. Buchana, Human Events, 07/16/2010

At its Kansas City convention, NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous declaimed:

As longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer observed, every great movement begins as a cause, eventually becomes a business, then degenerates into a racket. Time for the Ford Foundation to pull the plug on its subsidiary, whose time has come and gone a long time ago.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wants a federal health agency to guarantee that religiously affiliated hospitals provide emergency abortions.

That action stems from an incident at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, in which an ethics committee voted to perform an abortion to save a pregnant mother’s life. A nun on the panel voted for the procedure and was subsequently demoted by her bishop.

The ALL researcher concludes that Catholic bishops could easily take command of the situation by telling the government that if faith-based hospitals are going to be forced to perform abortions, they will simply close them down. That would discontinue medical care at 15 percent of the nation’s hospitals.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=1087150

A Planned Parenthood statement praises Pelosi for having “led her female colleagues in Congress as they stood strong against attempts to insert the Stupak abortion ban into the bill.” Full Story Below

There is a tradition that traces the Carmelite Order’s informal beginnings to the prophet Elijah himself, even though there is no evidence of this.

The formal beginnings are attributed to a group of monks who in the 13th century began living and praying on the mountain. They venerated the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and from thus was derived the name Carmelite.

In 1226 the rule of the order was apporved by Pope Honorius III and 21 years later St. Simon Stock, an Englishman, was elected superior of the order. On July 16, 1251, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Simon Stock and gave him the brown scapular and promised her protection to all those who wear the brown habit.

Pope Pius X decreed in the early 20th century that the blessing of the Blessed Virgin would extend to all who wear the medal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was instituted by the Carmelites between 1376 and 1386.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint.php?n=523