.

LINK TO ARTICLE:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/controversial-painting-of-obama-trampling-constitution-resurfaces-artists-new-work-tells-enslaved-americans-to-wake-up/

]]> http://brownpelicanla.com/archives/84641/feed 0 http://brownpelicanla.com/archives/84628 http://brownpelicanla.com/archives/84628#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:38:55 +0000 scribe http://brownpelicanla.com/?p=84628    Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD,  Townhall, Dec 04, 2006

Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history’s lessons on the evils of collectivism.

What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”

The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is a government everywhere doing everything for everyone. The liberal motto is “In Government We Trust.” To rescue the people from their troubled lives, the agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions. With liberal intellectuals sharing the glory, the liberal politician is the hero in this melodrama. He takes credit for providing his constituents with whatever they want or need even though he has not produced by his own effort any of the goods, services or status transferred to them but has instead taken them from others by force.

It should be apparent by now that these social policies and the passions that drive them contradict all that is rational in human relating, and they are therefore irrational in themselves. But the faulty conceptions that lie behind these passions cannot be viewed as mere cognitive slippage. The degree of modern liberalism’s irrationality far exceeds any misunderstanding that can be attributed to faulty fact gathering or logical error. Indeed, under careful scrutiny, liberalism’s distortions of the normal ability to reason can only be understood as the product of psychopathology. So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as disorders of the psyche. The modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities.

As is the case in all personality disturbance, defects of this type represent serious failures in development processes. The nature of these failures is detailed below. Among their consequences are the liberal mind’s relentless efforts to misrepresent human nature and to deny certain indispensable requirements for human relating. In his efforts to construct a grand collectivist utopia—to live what Jacques Barzun has called “the unconditioned life” in which “everybody should be safe and at ease in a hundred ways”—the radical liberal attempts to actualize in the real world an idealized fiction that will mitigate all hardship and heal all wounds. (Barzun 2000). He acts out this fiction, essentially a Marxist morality play, in various theaters of human relatedness, most often on the world’s economic, social and political stages. But the play repeatedly folds. Over the course of the Twentieth Century, the radical liberal’s attempts to create a brave new socialist world have invariably failed. At the dawn of the Twenty-first Century his attempts continue to fail in the stagnant economies, moral decay and social turmoil now widespread in Europe. An increasingly bankrupt welfare society is putting the U.S. on track for the same fate if liberalism is not cured there. Because the liberal agenda’s principles violate the rules of ordered liberty, his most determined efforts to realize its visionary fantasies must inevitably fall short. Yet, despite all the evidence against it, the modern liberal mind believes his agenda is good social science. It is, in fact, bad science fiction. He persists in this agenda despite its madness.

 Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD is the author of The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago and served for two years as a psychiatrist in the United States Army. He is currently in private practice in the Chicago area.

http://townhall.com/columnists/lylehrossiterjrmd/2006/12/04/the_liberal_mind_the_psychological_causes_of_political_madness/page/full/

….It may have taken a few days to sink in, but by now you should all have realized that President Obama has opened a massive assault on the Roman Catholic Church in America the likes of which none of you have ever experienced and for which few of you have prepared…..

   By Thomas Peters, American Papist, Feb. 3, 2012

.

What a crazy week it has been, between the Obamacare/HHS mandate, over 150 bishops speaking out against it, and the battle between Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood.

A great many people are visiting this site today because of my comments on the Komen situation — my most recent thoughts on that can be found here (ongoing updates can be found at my twitter page @AmericanPapist — the story is very fast moving and complex).

But I don’t want to lose track of the “bigger” story – Obama’s war against religious liberty in this country and the Catholic effort to win this war definitively.

Peggy Noonan calls this a “battle the President can’t win” in her syndicated column today for the Wall Street Journal and says “President Obama just may have lost the election” because, in going after the religious liberty of Catholics, he has “awakened a sleeping giant”:

If [Catholics] stay strong and fight, they will win. This is in fact a potentially unifying moment for American Catholics, long split left, right and center. Catholic conservatives will immediately and fully oppose the administration’s decision. But Catholic liberals, who feel embarrassed and undercut, have also come out in opposition.

The church is split on many things. But do Catholics in the pews want the government telling their church to contravene its beliefs? A president affronting the leadership of the church, and blithely threatening its great institutions? No, they don’t want that. They will unite against that.

I hope and pray she is exactly right.

Stephen White (a valued CV contributor) writes in National Review about the brazen politics behind Obama’s decision — exploding the myth that this was about helping women. It wasn’t. It was about asserting the raw power of the state over people and institutions of faith:

Perhaps the most telling moment in the [White House briefing] call came when one official conceded that the administration has no idea how many people this exemption is expected to “help.” In other words, in all HHS’s “careful considerations,” there was no comparison of the “benefit” (however marginal) of this exemption versus possible alternatives.

It mattered not at all whether this narrow exemption, when compared to a more robust exemption, expanded coverage to one more woman or one million more women. Coverage simply had to be expanded as a matter of principle. Whoever meets the requirements of the narrow exemption, and decides to take advantage of it, should be grateful they are allowed even that.

… Overall, the administration’s defense of the HHS mandate has been an exercise in condescension. In their eyes, the “religious exemption” wasn’t carved out so the government could protect constitutional rights while it addressed what it saw as a compelling interest — those rights, we are told, are not even at issue. In the eyes of this administration, the “exemption” is a benevolent, even gratuitous, concession. HHS even allows a whole year for certain cultural laggards (read: Catholics) to bring their “religious beliefs” up to speed. Is that not generous?

No kidding.

Luckily, a rising chorus of voices (in addition to all those I have already cited over this past week) are speaking out. Radio pundit Hugh Hewitt writes a “memo” to the U.S. Bishops:

It may have taken a few days to sink in, but by now you should all have realized that President Obama has opened a massive assault on the Roman Catholic Church in America the likes of which none of you have ever experienced and for which few of you have prepared.

He goes on to interview Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who says he has condemned the Obama/HHS decision “in every speech I’ve given today.” And that Catholics should respond to the law with “civil disobedience.”

GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has published an op-ed in the Washington Times on the subject of standing up for Catholics and religious liberty:

I stand with the Catholic Bishops and all religious organizations in their strenuous objection to this liberty- and conscience-stifling regulation.  I am committed to overturning Obamacare root and branch. If I am elected President, on day one of my administration I will issue an executive order directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue a waiver from its requirements to all 50 states. And on day one I will eliminate the Obama administration rule that compels religious institutions to violate the tenets of their own faith.

Imagine that: we have the possibility of electing in November a President who will respect the constitutional right of American citizens to be, to live, Catholic.

That’s a battle worth winning. Let’s not forget it.

http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=26067

By Mark Steyn
Celebrate conformity — or else.

The Komen Conflagration
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
As “women’s health” advocates shriek about Komen, their radical slip shows.

RELATED ARTICLES FROM NATIONAL REVIEW

New: Vicious, Not Victorious

Daly: Komen Gets Bullied

Foster: Writing Checks and Telling Lies

Cooke: PP Defenders and Free Speech

Lopez: From Pink Ribbon to White Flag?

Charen: Komen and ‘Women’s Lives’

Editors: A Pink Ribbon for the Win

.

As the Republican presidential race goes on, front-runner Mitt Romney and long shot Ron Paul are said to be forging a “strategic alliance between establishment and outsider.”

The Romney-Paul alliance “is more than a curious connection,” The Washington Post reports. “It is a strategic partnership: for Paul, an opportunity to gain a seat at the table if his long-shot bid for the presidency fails; for Romney, a chance to gain support from one of the most vibrant subgroups within the Republican Party.”

A senior GOP aide in Washington told the Post: “Ron Paul plays a very valuable part in the process and brings a lot of voters toward the Republican Party and ultimately into the voting booth, and that’s something that can’t be ignored.”

During the often contentious Republican debates, Romney and Paul have refrained from attacking each other, and Romney has complimented Paul, praising the Texas congressman’s religious faith.

The two campaigns have coordinated their efforts at times, such as staggering the timing of the two candidates’ appearances on television the night of the New Hampshire primary.

In the Florida primary on Tuesday, Romney won easily with 46 percent of the vote but Paul pulled in 7 percent — more than twice the percentage he got in the 2008 primary.

There is a “growing recognition” that Paul intends to stay in the race over the long term, and “that accommodating him and his supporters could help unify Republican voters in the general election against President Obama,” the Post noted.

“Ron Paul wants a presence at the convention,” a GOP adviser told the Post — and Romney, if he is the nominee, would grant it.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/romney-paul-alliance/2012/02/03/id/428425

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) vowed today that she will join with the Obama administration in standing up against the Catholic Church in defending a new regulation that will require Catholic individuals to buy, and Catholic institutions to provide, health insurance plans that cover sterilizations and artificial contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.

The Catholic church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally wrong and the Catholic bishops of the United States have argued that forcing a Catholic individual to purchase a health insurance plan that covers these things–or forcing a Catholic institution to provide such a plan–forces Catholics to act against their consciences and is a violation of the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

In letters being read from the pulpit in Catholic parishes across the nation, Catholic bishops are saying: “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”

At her Wednesday press briefing, CNSNews.com asked Pelosi: “The administration has issued a regulation that will require all health-care plans to cover sterilization and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions. This would force Catholic individuals and institutions to act against their consciences. All across the nation, Catholic bishops are saying:–

Pelosi responded: “Is this a speech, or do we have a question in disguise as a speech?”

CNSNews.com continued: “‘We cannot–we will not—comply with this law.’ Catholic bishops are saying they will not comply with this law. Will you stand with your fellow Catholics in resisting this law or will you stick by the administration?”

Pelosi: “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius first announced the proposed regulation in August as part of the initial implementation of Obamacare. The regulation, as proposed, was set to take effect on Aug. 1 of this year. In September, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent public comments on the regulation to HHS. In these comments, the bishops called the regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious freedom” and urged that it be rescinded.

In November, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with President Obama and personally explained to him the Catholic Church’s objections to the regulation.

On Jan. 20, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the regulations would go forward and will take effect for most health care plans as of Aug. 1. However, Sebelius gave religiously affiliated non-profit organizations—such as Catholic hospitals, universities, and charitable organizations—an additional year to “adapt” to the mandate. For them, it now set to take effect on Aug. 1, 2013.

Following Sebelius announcement, the Catholic bishops put out a statement calling the regulation “literally unconscionable.” Meanwhile, Catholic bishops around the country have been calling on Catholics to oppose the regulation.

Many of the bishops have published letters that priests are reading to their congregations. The letters explain the Catholic objections to the regulation and call for Catholics to resist it.  Many of these letter include the following passage from the letter Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, Va., and Bishop Francis DiLorenzo of Richmond, Va., have asked their priests to read at Mass this coming Sunday:

“In so ruling, the Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing do). The Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.

“We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-vows-stand-obama-against-catholic-church-says-decision-forcing-catholics-act

   By Thomas Peters, American Papist, Feb. 3, 2012

First of all, everyone needs to take a deep breath.

About an hour ago my twitter feed exploded with headlines of “KOMEN CAVED!!!”, etc, etc.

No, they didn’t.

They released a very carefully scripted statement today which echoes what their President Nancy G. Brinker said yesterday on MSNBC.

They didn’t cave. They apologized for how their previous statements were misconstrued, but that’s different. In terms of their actual operating procedure, they are saying the same thing they’ve always been saying in terms of implementing a new award protocol, just in a more nuanced way that appeases some of their most vitriolic critics, all in an effort to beg for space and a break from the incessant threat by liberal elites and attacks by the mainstream media (GetReligion has good commentary) and left-wing activists.

Make no mistake, Susan G. Komen is in a fight for its life. WSJ columnist James Taranto describes what is happening to Komen as a mafia shakedown:

Planned Parenthood’s bitter campaign against Komen–aided by left-liberal activists and media–is analogous to a protection racket: Nice charity you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it. The message to other Planned Parenthood donors is that if they don’t play nice and keep coughing up the cash, they’ll get the Komen treatment.

There’s one crucial difference, however. In a real-life protection racket, the victim never pays voluntarily. The threat is present from the get-go. By contrast, Komen presumably was not under any duress when it made its grants–and it could have avoided all this nasty publicity by never dealing with Planned Parenthood in the first place.

Thus smart prospective donors–especially ones that are apolitical, like Komen–are getting the message that supporting Planned Parenthood is a trap. Give once, and you will give again–or else you will pay.

This is more than a pro-life, pro-abortion debate. It’s a culture war between the powerful liberal elite and grassroots pro-life conservatism. It’s also a battle of identity for the pro-life movement. Will we listen to our own, trust our instincts and remain focused? Or will we allow the pro-abortion forces to knock us off our game and play by their rules?

As I’ve been saying since this story broke, we need to be doing two essential things: 1) support Komen in their bid to cut Planned Parenthood out of their funding streams and 2) keep the focus on Planned Parenthood‘s hypocrisy and lies.

If we do these two things, we win. If we get distracted and cease supporting Komen or stop focusing on Planned Parenthood, we lose. It’s as simple as that.

As for what is happening at Komen: I’ve received a crash-course education in the foundation over the past couple days and I can say without doubt that one thing motivates their President Nancy Brinker: ending breast cancer. That’s why she decided to cease funding Planned Parenthood, because they are about the lousiest group to help if you are serious about ending breast cancer. Second, that’s why their President is worried about the damage to the Komen brand being done by Planned Parenthood and its pro-abortion allies. President Brinker knows if Komen is weakened it will be less able to pursue its objective of ending breast cancer. She’s not throwing pro-lifers under the bus, she’s trying to save an organization she built to honor the memory of her sister (who died from breast cancer) and prevent it happening to others.

That’s why we need to make common cause with Komen and support their pro-woman goals. That’s why we need to expose Planned Parenthood’s scurrilous move to destroy Komen.

I mean, just pause for a moment: if Planned Parenthood is so serious about protecting women’s health, how does it justify leading a crusade to destroy the world’s leading breast cancer research foundation over these past days?? It’s simply incredible, and we need to make sure it’s never forgotten!

One last thing: we need to remember the big picture. Over the past 48 hours, not only did Planned Parenthood reveal itself as willing to seriously damage and attempt to destroy the pro-woman Komen foundation, but also, thousands and millions of people potentially learned for the first time that Komen doesn’t believe Planned Parenthood is an ideal provider of health care for women. So even if Planned Parenthood wins this battle (an outcome very much in doubt), I would argue they have seriously weakened themselves for the wars ahead. This will be a long fight, so take the long view.

Here’s what you can do to continue to support Komen in the short term:

1) email news@komen.org and say “Thank You for Defunding Planned Parenthood” and promise to buy products bearing the pink ribbon. Encourage them directly in other ways.

2) sign the petition at www.IStandWithKomen.com (this is not an effort to harvest emails, you only have to supply your name and location) and invite your family and friends to do the same.

3) blog/facebook/tweet/email/write op-eds about this. Get the word out any way you know how.

More from me later this afternoon. Please keep checking this post. Thank you!

UPDATE — This interview with a Komen Foundation board member may be helpful:

I asked Komen board member John Raffaelli to respond to those who are now saying that the announcement doesn’t necessarily constitute a reversal until Planned Parenthood actually sees more funding. He insisted it would be unfair to expect the group to commit to future grants.

“It would be highly unfair to ask us to commit to any organization that doesn’t go through a grant process that shows that the money we raise is used to carry out our mission,” Raffaelli told me. “We’re a humaniatrian organization. We have a mission. Tell me you can help carry out our mission and we will sit down at the table.”

Pushed on whether this means the new announcement wasn’t really a reversal, Raffaelli pushed back, arguing that Komen, in response to all the criticism, had removed politics from the grant-making process. “Is it really unclear that we’re changing the policy to address criticism?” he said. [WaPo's Plum Line Blog]

UPDATE 2 — Erick Erickson of RedState has an excellent update that I think gets the story right:

The major outrage against Komen funding Planned Parenthood came after an undercover sting of Planned Parenthood proving conclusively that Planned Parenthood does not offer mammogram services. Komen claimed it funded Planned Parenthood because of its mammogram services. Planned Parenthood’s dodge is that they referred women to places to get discounted or free mammograms, which itself is not true.

In walking back its denial of funds to Planned Parenthood, my understanding is that Komen will not cancel already approved grants to Planned Parenthood, but in the future will only fund organizations that provide mammograms themselves. That, in effect, still shuts out Planned Parenthood unless they actually invest in in-house infrastructures to give mammograms instead of just killing kids in-house.

http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=26022

VIEW ONLINE:  http://www.realcatholictv.com/free/index.php?vidID=vort-2012-02-03

This program is from RealCatholicTV.com

 ”Jesus had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”

Scripture:  Mark 6:30-34

30 The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them. 34 As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

Meditation: What does the image of a shepherd tell us about God’s care for us? Shepherding was one of the oldest of callings in Israel, even before farming, since the Chosen People had traveled from place to place, living in tents, and driving their flocks from one pasture to another. Looking after sheep was no easy calling. It required great skill and courage. Herds were often quite large, thousands or even ten thousands of sheep.  The flocks spent a good part of the year in the open country. Watching over them required a great deal of attention and care. Sheep who strayed from the flock had to be sought out and brought back by the shepherd. Since hyenas, jackals, wolves, and even bear were common and fed on sheep, the shepherds often had to do battle with these wild and dangerous beasts. A shepherd literally had to put his life on the line in defending his sheep. Shepherds took turns watching the sheep at night to ward off any attackers. The sheep and their shepherds continually lived together. Their life was so intimately bound together that individual sheep, even when mixed with other flocks, could recognize the voice of their own shepherd and would come immediately when called by name.

The Old Testament often spoke of God as shepherd of his people, Israel. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want (Psalm 23:1). Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! (Psalm 80:1) We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture (Psalm 100:3). The Messiah is also pictured as the shepherd of God’s people: He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms (Isaiah 40:11). Jesus told his disciples that he was the Good Shepherd who was willing to lay down his life for his sheep (Matthew 18:12, Luke 15:4, John 10). When he saw the multitude of people in need of protection and care, he was moved to respond with compassionate concern. His love was a personal love for each and every person who came to him in need. Peter the apostle called Jesus the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls (1 Peter 2:25). Do you know the peace and security of a life freely submitted to Jesus, the Good Shepherd? In the person of the Lord Jesus we see the unceasing vigilance and patience of God’s love. In our battle against sin and evil, Jesus is ever ready to give us help, strength, and refuge. Do you trust in his grace and help at all times?

“Lord Jesus, you guard and protect us from all evil. Help me to stand firm in your word and to trust in your help in all circumstances. May I always find rest and refuge in the shelter of your presence.”

Psalm 119:9-14

9 How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.
10 With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!
11 I have laid up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
12 Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes!
13 With my lips I declare all the ordinances of your mouth.
14 In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.

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

Joseph avoided the safe compromises by which people sometimes undercut the gospel. Born at Leonissa in the Kingdom of Naples, Joseph joined the Capuchins in his hometown in 1573. Denying himself hearty meals and comfortable quarters, he prepared for ordination and a life of preaching.

In 1587 he went to Constantinople to take care of the Christian galley slaves working under Turkish masters. Imprisoned for this work, he was warned not to resume it on his release. He did and was again imprisoned and then condemned to death. Miraculously freed, he returned to Italy where he preached to the poor and reconciled feuding families as well as warring cities which had been at odds for years. He was canonized in 1746.

Comment:  Saints often jar us because they challenge our ideas about what we need for “the good life.” “I’ll be happy when. . . ,” we may say, wasting an incredible amount of time on the periphery of life. People like Joseph of Leonissa challenge us to face life courageously and get to the heart of it: life with God. Joseph was a compelling preacher because his life was as convincing as his words.

Quote:  In one of his sermons, Joseph says: “Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel. This is what St. Paul says to the Corinthians, ‘Clearly you are a letter of Christ which I have delivered, a letter written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh in the heart’ (2 Corinthians 3:3). Our heart is the parchment; through my ministry the Holy Spirit is the writer because ‘my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe’ (Psalm 45:1).”

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

By Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Catholic Online, 2/3/2012

When the Nazis came to take away the Jews and gypsies and homosexuals was it okay then for the Catholic clergy to speak out or would it have been better for the church to ‘stay out of politics’? When the Catholic people, with the encouragement of their clergy rose up to overthrow the corrupt Marcos regime in the Philippines should the clergy have stayed out of politics?

Fr. Dwight Longenecker

GREENVILLE, SC (Standing on my Head) – Should religion and politics mix? Should priests speak on politics? Let’s be clear. Priests are not permitted to run for public office, and clergy are not permitted to endorse a particular candidate or seek to influence people’s votes for particular parties.

However, it is part of the duty of the clergy to inform the faithful on the moral issues the populace are facing. It is the duty of the clergy to warn the faithful not to support immoral causes. It seems strange to me when I hear people tell me to shut up and not speak out on politics. The church should stay out of politics period.

When the Nazis came to take away the Jews and gypsies and homosexuals was it okay then for the Catholic clergy to speak out or would it have been better for the church to ‘stay out of politics’? When the Catholic people, with the encouragement of their clergy rose up to overthrow the corrupt Marcos regime in the Philippines should the clergy have stayed out of politics?

When the Catholic clergy along with the people rose up to overthrow the Communist regime in Poland should the clergy have stayed out of politics? No. All Catholics, including clergy are to be involved in the fight for justice, peace and life.

What we are not to do is to get involved in the ways of this world. We stand outside the political process. We stand outside the ways of force, revolution and military struggle. We stand outside the political system, but we must speak up and stay involved.

What are my own politics? It doesn’t matter. As a Catholic priest I stand up first of all for life. I defend human life from womb to tomb. I stand up for love and marriage and children and I defend the family and the home. I insist on a preferential option for the poor.

I am against greed and injustice and servitude. I believe the rich have a responsibility to help the poor and that all men and women have a responsibility (due to their own innate dignity) to help themselves and to help one another. I am against killing. I am against war. I am against the rape and pillage of our beautiful natural resources.

This is simply the Catholic faith, and it means that I am disappointed with all the politicians and all their parties. Too often those on the right support an economic system that encourages greed and irresponsibility and neglect of the poor.

Too often they are bellicose, warlike and frighteningly nationalistic. Too often those on the left support an economic system that encourages complacency, envy, greed and a sense of entitlement. Too often the left, in the name of freedom encourages license, immorality and depravity.

Republican or Democrat? A plague on both your houses. I’m not for politics. I’m for morality. I don’t think government has the answer. I think individuals have the answer. I don’t think the solutions are in power and politics and prosperity, but in prayer and sacrifice and personal virtue.

Fr Dwight Longenecker is parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina. He is a prolific author, blogger and sought after speaker. Visit his website and blog at dwightlongenecker.com

http://www.catholiconline.com/politics/story.php?id=44642

By David Kerr, CNA/EWTN News, Feb.2, 2012

Vatican City – Pope Benedict XVI marked the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord with vespers and explained that the presentation of Jesus in the temple reveals Christ as the light of the world.

“In the encounter between the old man Simeon and Mary, a young mother, the Old and New Testaments come together in a wondrous way in giving thanks for the gift of the light that shone in the darkness and has prevented it from prevailing: Christ the Lord.”

The Pope presided over solemn vespers at St Peter’s basilica for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Feb. 2. 

The feast recalls the occasion when Mary and Joseph, in observance of Jewish custom, presented their first born son to the priest in the temple in Jerusalem 40 days after his birth.

There they were met by the old priest Simeon who was promised that “he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” It is he who declared the infant to be “the light to enlighten the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”  

This “ritual act” of the parents of Jesus is in the “style of humble obscurity that characterizes the Incarnation of the Son of God,” said the Pope. 

He noted that the feast is “one of the cases in which the liturgical season reflects the historical because today is precisely 40 days from the feast of Christmas.”

“The theme of Christ the Light, which has characterized the series of Christmas feasts and culminated in the Feast of the Epiphany, is taken up and extended to the celebration today.”

Indeed, one of the traditional names given to today’s feast is “Candlemas” denoting the blessing of candles which often takes place and the candlelit procession that begins and concludes the liturgy of vespers.

Pope Benedict also noted that today is the World Day for Consecrated Life. The term “consecrated” applies to those Christians who have taken public vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Many monks, nuns and others who live consecrated lives were present in St. Peter’s basilica for vespers.

The Pope told them that the presentation of Jesus “is a significant icon” for those who serve both Church and world “through the evangelical counsels, the characteristic traits of Jesus, chaste, poor and obedient, the Anointed of the Father.”

He recalled how the day had been instituted by Blessed Pope John Paul II in 1987 to give “praise and thanks to the Lord for the gift of this state of life, which belongs to the Church’s holiness.”

He also said that the day is an occasion for those who live the consecrated life to give “testimony” to the world and to “renew and revitalize” their own vocation.

“This we do today, this is the commitment that you are called to carry out every day of your life,” he told them. 

He concluded by looking ahead to his Year of Faith which begins in October 2012. He told those living the consecrated life that the “most important and distinctive element” of their existence was their “deep closeness to the Lord” and that this would have a “positive influence” on everybody during the Year of Faith.

His hope was that they will “engage enthusiastically in the new evangelization,” through “the contribution of your gifts, in fidelity to the Magisterium, in order to be witnesses of faith and of grace, credible witnesses for the Church and for the world today.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-reflects-on-christ-the-light-of-the-world

ROME, February 2, 2012 – There are no marches of the “99 percent” at the Vatican; the battles are conducted by firing off letters. On Saturday, January 28, the council of ministers of the Roman curia, in the presence of the pope, dedicated part of the meeting to studying how to shore up the leaking of documents. It was just three days after the latest sensational leak: a sheaf of confidential letters written to Benedict XVI and to cardinal secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone by the then secretary of the governorate of Vatican City, now the nuncio to Washington, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

Those letters – plus other blistering papers that also threaten to come out into the open in the press or on television – are an act of accusation against one person above all: Cardinal Bertone, who introduced the aforementioned meeting of the heads of the curia dicasteries by explaining how to draft and publish the documents of the Holy See without any more of the mishaps that have proliferated of late. There needs to be, he said, more competence, more collaboration, more mutual trust, more confidentiality.

Benedict XVI listened in silence. He was reminded of the worst evidence of mismanagement in the curia that he has suffered since becoming pope: the avalanche of protests that bombarded him through no fault of his own at the beginning of 2009, after the lifting of the excommunication of four Lefebvrist bishops, including one who denied the Holocaust. Shortly after that incident, in an open letter to the bishops of the whole world, pope Ratzinger did not hesitate to write that he had received more support from “Jewish friends” than from many men of the Church and of the curia who are more interested in creating scorched earth around the pope. And at the end he cited this terrible admonition of the apostle Paul: “If you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another.”

The letters from Viganò have plenty of biting in them. First as the director of the personnel of the Vatican curia, and then as secretary of the governorate, this seventy-year-old Lombard prelate lashed out against many things that are not working, and made a great number of enemies. For starters, when he imposed an electronic card for identification and access on everyone in the curia, the revolt in defense of privacy was universal, but he held firm. At that time, Bertone was on his side. In fact, he assured Viganò, when he went to the governorate, that he was close to being promoted as president of the governorate of Vatican City-State, and as a cardinal.

There are appointments that only the pope can make, but that Bertone is in the habit of administering himself with nonchalance, as if they belonged to him. One time, for example, he guaranteed with such ironclad certainty that Archbishop Rino Fisichella would be promoted to second in command of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith that Fisichella prepared for the move and dismissed his own secretary, only to discover that the pope had appointed someone else.

Rushing the field is a constant feature of the operation of Cardinal Bertone, a great fan of soccer.

In the fall of 2006, shortly after his appointment as secretary of state, he immediately sprang into action to rearrange the leadership of the Italian episcopal conference to his liking. In order to prevent Cardinal Angelo Scola from succeeding outgoing president Camillo Ruini, Bertone proposed as the new president a second-tier man docile to him, the archbishop of Taranto, Capuchin Franciscan Benigno Papa. And he hammered it so hard that the national media echoed it as a done deal. All that was missing was the “placet” of Benedict XVI, who is alone responsible for the nomination and who instead designated the archbishop of Genoa, Angelo Bagnasco.

But by no means did Bertone fall into line. On the day of the installation of the new president of the CEI, on March 25, 2007, he addressed a message of greeting to Bagnasco – all of it written according to his own designs, hidden even from the pope – in which he claimed for himself, as secretary of state, the “leadership” of the Italian Church as far as relations with political institutions are concerned. There was an uproar among the bishops. And since then, the suspicion has never left them that Bertone takes every chance he can get to invade their turf. The opposition between the secretariat of state and the CEI has become the obligatory refrain of any analysis of the political activity of the Church in Italy.

But with Benedict XVI as well, Bertone frequently crosses the line. Ratzinger saw his talents at work when both of them were at the congregation for the doctrine of the faith. He gave the dynamic Salesian the most intricate snafus to untangle: from the secret of Fatima to the outlandishness of African bishop Emmanuel Milingo. And in both cases Bertone seemed to pull it off with success, although in the long run both of them blew up again in his face: in the case of Fatima, with the accusation, never assuaged, that he had kept part of the secret hidden, and in the case of Milingo, with the bishop’s incredible escape from the confines to which Bertone had relegated him.

The fact is that in appointing Bertone secretary of state, Benedict XVI thought he was making use of his sincere devotion and untiring activism to have him carry out those practical tasks of management from which he, the pope-theologian and –professor – wanted to keep far away. Bertone accepted enthusiastically, but interpreted the assignment his own way. The pope didn’t travel much? He started hopping the globe in his place. The pope kept his nose in his books? He started frenetically cutting ribbons, meeting with ministers, blessing crowds, giving speeches everywhere and on everything.

With the result that the secretariat of state worked more for Bertone’s agenda than for the pope. And the cardinal slips into his agenda, once again according to his own designs, maneuvers that are sometimes very ambitious and risky.

The latest of these was aimed at the takeover of the San Raffaele, the top-notch hospital center created in Milan by the controversial priest Luigi Verzé and crushed under one and a half billion euro in debt.

To rescue it and annex it to the Holy See, Bertone made a stunning move at the beginning of last summer. He made an offer of 250 million euro, made available by the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), the Vatican bank, and by a a friend of his who is an industrialist in Genoa, Vittorio Malacalza. And for many months, the offer remained the only one on the table, with no competing bids, binding the Vatican to honor it.

But in the Vatican, at the top, the pope was not at all in agreement. San Raffaele is a hospital that practices and researches applications of biotechnology contrary to the magisterium of the Church. Not to mention the affiliated Università Vita-Salute, where some of the professors are in stark contrast with the Catholic vision, from Roberta De Monticelli to Vito Mancuso, from Emanuele Severino to Massimo Cacciari, from Edoardo Boncinelli to Luca Cavalli-Sforza, all of them already on a war footing to defend their intellectual freedom in the classroom.

So the order from Benedict XVI came immediately: don’t buy. But it was like he was speaking to the deaf. Bertone left the matter to his ally, hospital manager Giuseppe Profiti, the real strategist of the maneuver, who wanted to do anything but give up on the San Raffaele. Providentially, at the end of the year a higher offer came, for 405 million euro, on the part of a competing hospital system, that of Giuseppe Rotelli, and the Vatican was able to withdraw from the game.

But it left rubble all around Bertone. Even some who were extremely close to him are no longer his followers. Malacalza is infuriated over what he considers an about-face to his detriment. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the banker whom Bertone himself wanted as head of the IOR, after his initial openness put up a wall against the purchase of the San Raffaele, fully espousing the pope’s reservations.

On the administrative and financial side, power is being reconfigured at the Vatican. And the expert and taciturn Cardinal Attilio Nicora is the new star, in his capacity as president of the Financial Information Authority created in the curia one month ago to permit the admission of the Vatican to the “white list” of states with the highest standards of correctness and transparency in their operations.

Last November at the Vatican there was a visit from seven inspectors of Moneyval, the international body that monitors measures against money laundering. And the exam imposed even more restrictive modifications on the Vatican laws, which Cardinal Nicora introduced immediately, but have not yet been made public. These include the ability for the FIA not only to inspect every operation of any institution connected to the Holy See, including the IOR and the governorate, but also to punish each individual violation with fines of up to two million euro.

Bertone did everything he could to have the pope appoint as head of the FIA not Nicora, but one of his allies, one of the very few who have remained close to him, Professor Giovanni Maria Flick. Even this did not work out for him. His trajectory is at an end.

Used by permission of Chiesa.

SANDRO MAGISTER, called the “pope’s prognosticator,” was born on the feast of the Guardian Angels in 1943, in the town of Busto Arsizio in the archdiocese of Milan.  He writes for the magazine”l’Espresso,” specializing in religious news, in particular on the Catholic Church and the Vatican.  WWW.CHIESAis his creation. Since the fall of 2002, all of its material has been published in both Italian and English. Since the autumn of 2006, it has also been available in French and Spanish.

http://catholicexchange.com/2012/02/03/142409/

By Benjamin Mann, Catholic News Agency, Feb. 3, 2012

Philadelphia, Pa. (CNA).- The Obama administration has betrayed Catholics by refusing to expand the religious exemption in Health and Human Services’ contraception mandate, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput says.

“The administration’s only concession was to give our institutions a one-year delay to comply,” he said in a Feb. 2 letter. “This is not merely inadequate. It is dangerous. And it betrays the good faith of many Catholics who – until now – have supported the current administration with an honest will.”

Archbishop Chaput is one of over 140 U.S. bishops who have spoke out against the Health and Human Services rules finalized Jan. 20, which require most new health plans to provide contraception and sterilization – including drugs that can cause an abortion – without a co-pay.

Most religious institutions will not be able to opt out, though HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gave them an additional year to meet the requirements.

In a letter distributed to parishes to be read at Feb. 5 Sunday Masses, Archbishop Chaput said Catholic institutions “cannot comply with this unjust law without compromising our convictions and undermining the Catholic identity of many of our service ministries.”

“This is not just another important issue among the many we need to be concerned about,” he stated.

“This ruling is different. This ruling interferes with the basic right of Catholic citizens to organize and work for the common good as Catholics in the public square.”

On Feb. 1, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Muñoz issued a response to critics of the mandate. She stressed the existence of a religious exemption, cited Guttmacher Institute statistics about contraceptive use among Catholics, and said the mandate excluded abortion-causing drugs.

The exemption, however, applies only to institutions that primarily employ and serve members of the same faith for the purpose of inculcating religious values.

Meanwhile, the emergency contraceptive “Ella” – covered without a co-pay under the mandate – can prevent the survival of a living embryo, and thus qualifies as an abortifacient drug according to the U.S. bishops’ Ethical and Religious directives.

In his letter, Archbishop Chaput indicated that the issue at hand had nothing to do with any particular individual’s decision to contracept, but was primarily a matter of institutions’ right to act in accordance with religious convictions.

But individuals and non-religious institutions, he noted, would also be subject to state coercion.

“Almost all health insurers will be forced to include those ‘services’ in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies.”

He urged Catholics to educate themselves with the resources of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and said they should contact their congressional representatives in the House and Senate.

“Your action on this issue matters – not just today but for many years to come; and in ways that will shape the ability of the Church to witness the Gospel publicly through her ministries well into the future.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/archbishop-chaput-says-obama-administration-sold-out-catholic-supporters

By Deacon Keith A. Fournier, 2/3/2012, Catholic Online

During the last Presidential campaign many Catholics were deluded by then Senator Barack Obama. His rhetoric uses language which sounds as though he agrees with Catholics on issues such as our obligation to the poor and the needy. His administration has acted in a manner which proves the opposite. The most egregious example is his failure to hear the cry of the children in the womb. However, there are many more, including his denial of religious freedom and his failure to defend marriage and the family and society founded upon it. His words at the National Prayer Breakfast call us to pray for him. However, we will not be fooled again.

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) – President Barack Obama spoke to the National Prayer Breakfast  at the Washington Hilton on Thursday, February 2, 2012. His words were well delivered. As a Christian, a Roman Catholic, I want to give him the respect due his office. I also try to give him the benefit of the doubt because he professes to believe in the same Savior whom I also profess – but it is getting harder and harder.

I will not refrain from pointing out the blatant and dangerous contradictions between his words and his actions as the President of the United States. You can read the full text of his address on several sources. Here is one with no discernible partisan leaning.

I am sure these words will soon be on the White House web site. I am also sure they will be utilized repeatedly as his campaign for reelection moves into high gear. He will attempt once again to persuade Catholics and other Christians to support his candidacy. The campaign has a “catholic strategy”. It is precisely because of my deep concerns over that effort that I write.

President Obama has opened the flood gates to the unchecked killing of our youngest neighbors through legalized abortion. He has made it clear that Catholic and other Christian institutions will soon be forced to violate their conscience or face punitive consequences. Clearly, this administration intends to violate the constitutional rights of the Church under this unjust edict.

His Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius issued an Edict which demanded that  Catholic hospitals and institutions dispense contraceptives (some of which are abortifacients) and offer sterilization under the so called “Affordable care Act”. This government seeks to force the Catholic Church to violate conscience. Failure to do so will bring punitive measures from the new Caesar.

The unjust Edict came one day after Pope Benedict XVI addressed a group of US Bishops during their ad limina visit. He warned them of the growth of radical secularism in the United States and the accompanying threats to the fundamental Right to Religious Freedom. He was right!

Congresswomen Nancy Pelosi has stepped forward as the chief advocate for this unjust edict. Her choice and the actions of Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services – in failing to offer conscience exemptions – sent the signal of the upcoming campaign strategy of the committee to reelect the President. He will use dissident Catholics to do his bidding.

Both of these public servants are unfaithful to the teaching of their Church. They have been repeatedly corrected by their Bishops. Their choice as the Administrations “catholic spokespersons” reveals this plan. This administration intends to foment rebellion among Catholics in America in order to further its violation of the Fundamental Human Right to Life and its blatant disrespect for the constitutional rights of the Catholic Church in America.

President Obama spoke of his Christian faith at the Prayer Breakfast. He claimed he was trying to integrate his faith into his decisions saying, “We can’t leave our values at the door. If we leave our values at the door, we abandon much of the moral glue that has held our nation together for centuries, and allowed us to become somewhat more perfect a union.”

He referred to the Golden Rule, “I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” He spoke of solidarity, the teaching of the Old and New Testaments that we are our brother and sisters keeper,  “To answer the responsibility we’re given in Proverbs to “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute..Treating others as you want to be treated.”

Like a preacher in chief he spoke of “Requiring much from those who have been given so much; living by the principle that we are our brother’s keeper; caring for the poor and those in need. These values are old. They can be found in many denominations and many faiths, among many believers and among many non-believers.”

“And they are values that have always made this country great — when we live up to them; when we don’t just give lip service to them; when we don’t just talk about them one day a year. And they’re the ones that have defined my own faith journey.”

The utter hypocrisy of these smooth words reeked from that podium. I wanted to cry out, “Mr. President, what about our youngest neighbors? What about the ones who have no voice but our own? Those in the first home of the whole human race, children in the womb.”

Just weeks ago hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in Washington DC to mourn the 39th anniversary of the decisions of the US Supreme Court in Roe and Doe. With the stroke of a judicial pen, seven Justices of the United States Supreme Court consigned an entire class of persons, children in the first home of the whole human race (their mother’s womb), to the status of property.

President Barack Obama issued this statement: “As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.”

“I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right.”While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue — no matter what our views, we must stay united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, reduce the need for abortion, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.”

“And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

Our Nation allows the intentional killing of its young in the first home of the womb and calls that intrinsically evil action a “right”. With the millions of neighbors killed we have lost our national soul. Medical science confirms what our conscience has long confirmed, the child in the womb is one of us, our neighbor, and it is always wrong to kill our neighbor.

Yes, we are our brother and sisters keeper Mr. President! We do have an obligation to one another. That is what is meant by solidarity. How that truth works its way into public policy requires the recognition of the rights of our first neighbors in the first home of the womb. You fail to hear their cry and you have no moral authority to address this or many other issues! They are the poorest of the poor.

Over 50 million of our neighbors have been killed by legal abortion since Roe and Doe. Yet, President Obama released that horrid statement! What about our daughters and sons killed by legal abortion Mr. President? They did not get to fulfill their dreams! What about their rights?

This President and his administration oppose the fundamental Human Right to Life. The champions of abortion on demand as “health care” clearly have a President who is using their language and leading their effort.  The President and his administration also fails to respect Religious Freedom as a fundamental human right.

After hearing this Prayer breakfast speech, I hearkened back to another speech at a National Prayer Breakfast in 1994. This was a sincere one which reflected a Christian who had truly considered what it meant to integrate faith and life and walk in the way of moral coherence. It was  given by a little nun from Calcutta, India named Teresa. The full text of that address can be read here.

She had the moral authority to speak about our obligation to the poor, unlike President Obama. Here are a few excerpts: “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.

“And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts.”

“Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.”

“By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So, abortion just leads to more abortion.”

“Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion. I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural family planning.The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not contraception.”

“In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.”

During the last Presidential campaign many Catholics were deluded by Barack Obama. His rhetoric uses language which sounds as though he agrees with Catholics on issues such as our obligation to the poor and the needy. His administration has acted in a manner which proves the opposite. The most egregious example is his failure to hear the cry of the children in the womb. However, there are many more, including his denial of religious freedom and his failure to defend marriage and the family and society founded upon it.

His words at the National Prayer Breakfast call us to pray for him: “I have fallen on my knees with great regularity. asking God for guidance not just in my personal life and my Christian walk, but in the life of this nation and in the values that hold us together and keep us strong. I know that He will guide us. He always has, and He always will.” That is true. Let him guide you Mr. President.

This President is leading a rapidly expanding Secularist State which fails to respect fundamental human rights including the Right to life and the Right to Religious Freedom. A rising Catholic tide of resistance must not allow this infamy to continue. We can determine the outcome of the upcoming U.S. Presidential Election.

That is if we do not get fooled again. We cannot – we must not. I date myself with my closing reference. I offer the refrain from the old song by the Who entitled “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

“I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution; Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around; Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday; Then I’ll get on my knees and pray We don’t get fooled again- No, no!”

http://www.catholiconline.com/politics/story.php?id=44641

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke why policies failed to restore real job and business growth. He then discussed the value of the dollar, saying a course correction from Washington is sorely needed to get America back on track.

http://www.breitbart.tv/paul-ryan-to-bernanke-obamas-policies-have-failed/

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com | 2/2/12

Washington, DC – During a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure CEO Nancy Brinker and President Elizabeth Thompson revealed the main reason why the Planned Parenthood abortion business lost its funding. It doesn’t do mammograms.

“It was nothing they were doing wrong,” Brinker explained. “We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”

She added, later in the day on Twitter:, saying the money “will be invested in programs to serve low-income, uninsured and underinsured women.”

“Our Board approved new grants standards to improve direct services to women,” she said. “New grants standards strive for grants that provide direct services and outcomes. We have to put metrics, outcomes and measures to our grants so we can translate the science we’ve funded over 30 yrs. We will continue to provide services to vulnerable populations with care, treatment and screening.”

“We’ve decided not to fund pass-through grants. What we would like is to have clinics where we can directly fund mammograms,” she added.

Komen has known since last Spring that Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms. In emails Susan G. Komen for the Cure was sending to people complaining about their grants to the Planned Parenthood abortion business, officials claim the grants are given to help women obtain breast cancer screenings. Yet, Komen also admitted Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms.

A late March expose’ from Live Action revealed no Planned Parenthood centers nationally provide mammograms.

Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.

“We don’t provide those services whatsoever,” admits a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona while a staffer at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas tells a caller, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.”

In its email to people concerned about the Komen-Planned Parenthood connection, a Komen official admits Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide mammograms for women with its grant money. Komen makes it clear the money is merely funneled through the abortion business to legitimate medical centers that actually perform mammograms.

“When a mammogram is indicated, a patient is often referred to a local program, such as the state’s breast and cervical cancer program. In other cases, the Komen Affiliate’s grant to Planned Parenthood may include funds to pay for mammograms outright. When this happens, a local provider performs the mammogram, and is then reimbursed by Planned Parenthood using the Komen grant funds,” Komen admits.

David Schmidt of Live Action responded to the comments in the new letter from Komen.

He wondered why Komen would give grants to Planned Parenthood rather than legitimate medical centers when the abortion business doesn’t actually help women with mammograms.

“Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms themselves. Why then is Komen giving grants to Planned Parenthood to then in turn pay non-Planned Parenthood health centers to provide mammograms? Why not grant funds directly to the centers performing mammograms?” he asked.

That’s the big change Komen is making.

Brinker explained that three Planned Parenthood chapters will receive grants that were already in place prior to the decision — in Denver, San Diego, and Waco, Texas.

Austin Ruse, the president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, who has been very closely following the Komen decision-making process, told LifeNews in exclusive comments that those grants will very likely be the last Komen makes to the abortion business.

“Komen has five outstanding grants going out this year to Planned Parenthood. We have known about them all along. After that, the door is shut,” Ruse said. “Nothing has changed since the decision was made in December to defund Planned Parenthood after these grants are finished.”

“Could these Planned Parenthood groups apply for future grants? Of course they could. Anyone can apply for anything. Will they get them? Highly unlikely for two reasons,” Ruse added. “First, Komen’s new policy says they do not fund groups that are under investigation or groups that do not provide primary care of women or research.”

“Second, Planned Parenthood’s vicious attacks against Susan G. Komen for the Cure has engendered a great deal of hurt and anger inside the organization,” Ruse told LifeNews. “Quite simply, Planned Parenthood is utilizing a scorched earth policy against Komen and burning all their bridges. Funding will never come back to them. Keep in mind also, that Nancy Brinker may be trying to make conciliatory gestures to her former friends. But she is discovering what we have known all along, that Planned Parenthood are dishonest thugs.”

Related Links

Thank Komen for Stopping Funing

Related stories:

Komen to Stop Grants to Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz
Komen Decision to Yank Planned Parenthood Funds Not Temporary
Komen Also Stops Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research Centers
Komen Still Doesn’t Acknowledge Abortion-Breast Cancer Link
Planned Parenthood: Komen Stopped $ Because Pro-Lifers Hate Women
New Komen Pro-Life VP Credited for Planned Parenthood Cuts
Top Komen Official Quit Over Planned Parenthood Funding Cut
Komen for the Cure Web Site Hacked by Pro-Abortion Activists
Biden Stops Backing Komen Over Planned Parenthood De-Funding
Komen Affiliate Leaders Quit, Complain About Funding Decision
Komen Donations Jump 100% After Cutting Planned Parenthood

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/02/02/why-did-komen-stop-planned-parenthood-doesnt-do-mammograms/

The Fallacy of the Left’s ‘Fairness’ Doctrine

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”
–John Adams, 1787

Barack Hussein Obama centered his recent State of Disunion campaign speech on the worn socialist refrain of “fairness.”

“We can go in two directions,” Obama said. “One is towards less opportunity and less fairness. Or we can fight for … building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few.”

His subsequent 2012 stump speeches include a variation of these words at his most recent whistle stop in Michigan: “I want this to be a big, bold, generous country where everybody gets a fair shot, everybody is doing their fair share, everybody is playing by the same set of rules.”

Let’s briefly review our nation’s history in regard to Liberty, taxation and “fairness.”

The first American Revolution was galvanized by a Tea Party protest against a small three pence tax surcharge on imported tea.

Our Founders were uniformly concerned about government power to lay and collect taxes and, accordingly, enumerated specific limitations on taxing and spending.

James Madison addressed the issue of unlimited spending, and his words are applicable today: “It has been [said], that the power ‘to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States,’ amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or general welfare.” Rejecting that “misconstruction” of our Constitution, Madison went on to write, “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one.”

To ensure that federal taxation would be limited to these constraints, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of our Constitution (the “Taxing and Spending Clause”), as duly ratified in 1789, defined the “Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,” but Section 8 required that such, “Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” This, in effect, limited the power of Congress to impose direct taxes on individuals, as further outlined in Section 9: “No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”

That Constitutional limitation survived until 1861, when the first income tax was imposed to defray costs of the War Between the States. That three-percent tax on incomes over $800 was sold as an emergency war measure. In 1894, congressional Democrats tested the Constitution, passing a peacetime tax of two percent on income above $4,000. A year later, that tariff was overturned by the Supreme Court as not complying with the limitations set forth in Article 1.

However, the greatest historical injury to economic Liberty was dealt in the presidential campaign of 1912, when the father of Democratic Socialism, Woodrow Wilson, was elected on his mastery of class warfare rhetoric, as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto in the mid-19th century. He used Marx’s populist redistribution theme, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” to gain passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, which stated, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

The top tax rate levied under the new Amendment was just seven percent on incomes above $500,000 (about $12 million in 2012 dollars).

But the ability to impose direct taxes gave rise to a century of class warfare political rhetoric that would be anathema to our Founders and the Liberty they fought so hard to secure for their posterity.

Two decades later, Franklin Roosevelt gained acceptance of his New Deal programs via his refined classist rhetoric — and American socialist propaganda has been the bookmarked page in the political playbook of all Democrat presidents since.

Though the contrast between, and debate about, Leftist Tyranny versus Essential Liberty was boldly reinvigorated by Ronald Reagan during his two terms of office, never before the election of Barack Hussein Obama in 2008 have so many Americans fully recognized the cumulative manifestation of collectivist socialism.

A second Tea Party protest has been brewing since Obama took office, demanding tax reform — but no such reformation will succeed unless accompanied by tax conformation, ensuring that taxes collected are only for expenditures authorized by our Constitution.

Post Your Opinion: Tell us how you will act to oppose Obama’s re-election.

Laying the groundwork for his 2012 re-election bid, Obama’s SOTU was devoid of any free-market economic remedies, and every “solution” was predicated upon government engineering via intervention, regulation or redistribution — consistent with his perfected version of Wilson’s and Roosevelt’s Democratic Socialist platform.

Additionally, Obama has dumbed-down his classist “fairness” rhetoric to comport with the latest populist appeals of the “occupy movement.”

Anticipating that his opponent in the general election will be Mitt Romney, an easy-to-target “rich Republican,” Obama has rallied his own stable of uber-wealthy Leftists in support of his “Wall Street v Main Street” disinformation campaign.

In his SOTU, Obama declared, “You can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

To further advance his classist “divide and conquer” strategy, he trotted out Debbie Bosanek, the secretary of billionaire Obamaphile Warren Buffett, as a prop for invoking the Buffet Rule — “If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.”

“Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans?” asked Obama. Predictably, our Class-Warrior-in-Chief has refused to tell the American people how much Ms. Bosanek is paid in order to be taxed at a higher rate than her boss. Forbes Magazine, however, uses current IRS tax tables to estimate that she makes “well above $200,000 annually.” Clearly, Ms. Bosanek isn’t just any old secretary.

“Facts,” as John Adams noted, “are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

The fact is that Warren Buffet, like Mitt Romney and other “wealthy Americans,” pays much more than the much-maligned “15 percent” on capital gains. Before being taxed on his profits, the corporations producing them are already taxed at 35 percent — the highest corporate tax rate in the world. So, in effect, these vilified wealthy Americans are already paying more than 50 percent in taxes, far above the 30 percent rate of Obama’s beloved “Buffett Rule,” and far, far above his “15 percent” claim.

Here in our humble editorial shop, we call Obama’s deceptive prevarication, The Big Lie.

Now, Obama might make a pitch for fairness if the top 25 percent of income earners were paying a lower percentage of the nation’s tax bill than the percentage of national income they earn. But the top 25 percent are currently paying 87 percent of that bill while earning 65 percent of that income.

However, populist rhetoric trumps facts, where there is not enough “common sense” to prevail. As George Bernard Shaw said, “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

Moreover, the real tragedy is that Obama’s senseless sycophants don’t comprehend the great error of his “fairness” rhetoric. The capital Obama proposed to remove from the economy in the form of even more disproportionate taxes (for expenditures not authorized by our Constitution) will decrease the available pool of capital for economic expansion, job creation and higher standards of living for ALL working Americans.

Post Your Opinion: How can the next Republican presidential candidate best defend free enterprise?

Obama’s “fairness” farce to raise taxes and shrink capital is the last component of his macroeconomic agenda to break the back of free enterprise, in order to achieve his objective of “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” from a nation guided by Rule of Law as supported by economic Liberty, to one subdued by the rule of men under the oppression of Democratic Socialism.

In 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall famously observed, “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”

Should Obama gain a second term, he is virtually assured “an unlimited power to tax” beyond the limits free enterprise can bear. The outcome of the next election will be either a sunrise or sunset on Liberty.

While Leftists may have the constitutional authority to levy direct taxes on income, they do not have the authority to levy such taxes for expenditures not expressly authorized by our Constitution — though they have done so with impunity for generations.

In 1794, as recorded in the Annals of Congress, James Madison declared, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents…”

To this day, no constitutional articulation of such spending power exists, and challenging that authority exposes the Achilles’ heel of the generations of socialist programs espoused by Obama and his Leftist cadres.

So, can an “establishment Republican” defeat Obama with a “tax reform” platform?

No — unless he centers the debate on the fact that our Constitution provides no authority for the expenditures Obama proposes, charges him with violating his “sacred oath” to “support and defend,” and vigorously makes the case that Obama has offended American Liberty in the process.

It is just such a breach of trust that gave rise to the first American Revolution. Focusing on Obama’s Breach of Oath will ensure that Liberty can be sustained with ballots rather than bullets.

The next Republican presidential candidate must not only defeat Obama’s rhetoric with Rule of Law defining the role of government, but if he succeeds, he must devote his administration, first and foremost, to real tax reform and implementation of either a flat tax or national sales tax.

As far as the “Buffett Rule” is concerned, Buffett and his secretary, and all American taxpayers, are being overtaxed for illegal expenditures.

http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2012/02/02/defeating-obamas-socialist-propaganda/

VIEW ONLINE:  http://www.realcatholictv.com/free/index.php?vidID=vort-2012-02-02

Read the script for this program

This program is from RealCatholicTV.com

“Some said, ‘John  the baptizer has been raised from the dead’ “

Scripture:  Mark 6:14-29

14 King Herod heard of it; for Jesus’ name had become known. Some said, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; that is why these  powers are at work in him.” 15 But others said, “It is Eli’jah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” 16 But when Herod heard of it he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” 17 For Herod had sent and seized John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Hero’di-as, his brother Philip’s wife; because he had married  her. 18 For John said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” 19 And Hero’di-as had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, 20 for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. When he heard him, he was much perplexed; and yet he  heard him gladly. 21 But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and the leading men of Galilee.  22 For when Hero’di-as’ daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you  wish, and I will grant it.” 23 And he vowed to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” 24 And she went out, and said to her mother, “What shall I ask?” And she said, “The head of John the baptizer.” 25 And she came in immediately with haste to the king, and asked, saying, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” 26 And the king was exceedingly sorry; but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her. 27 And immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard and gave orders to bring his head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, 28 and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl; and the girl gave it to her mother. 29 When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

Meditation: Do you ever feel haunted by a past failure or a guilty conscience? King Herod, the most powerful and wealthy man in Judea, had everything he wanted, except a clear conscience and peace with God. Herod had respected and feared John the Baptist as a great prophet and servant of God. John, however did not fear to rebuke Herod for his adulterous relationship with his brother’s wife. John ended up in prison because of Herodias’ jealousy. Herod, out of impulse and a desire to please his family and friends, had John beheaded. Now Herod’s conscience is pricked when he hears that some think that the Baptist has risen.

When Herod heard the fame of Jesus he supposed that John the Baptist, whom he had beheaded, had returned from the dead. Unfortunately for Herod, he could not rid himself of sin by ridding himself of the man who confronted him with his sin. Herod was a weak man. He could take a strong stand on the wrong things when he knew the right. Such a stand, however, was a sign of weakness and cowardice. The Lord gives grace to the humble, to those who acknowledge their sins and who seek God’s mercy and pardon. His grace and pardon not only frees us from a guilty conscience, it enables us to pursue holiness in thought and action as well.  God’s grace enables us to fight fear with faith and to overcome the temptation to compromise goodness and truth with wrongdoing and falsehood. Do you rely on God’s grace and help to choose his way of holiness and to reject whatever would compromise your faith and loyalty to Christ?

“Heavenly Father, form in me the likeness of your Son that I may imitate him in word and deed. Help me to live the gospel faithfully and give me the strength and courage I need to not shrink back in the face of adversity and temptation.”

Psalm 18:31, 47, 50

31 For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God? —
47 the God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me;
50 Great triumphs he gives to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his descendants for ever.

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