I was most disappointed to read the write up about the local pro life
prayer service. On Wednesday, pro-life persons gathered in front of the Federal Court House in Youngstown to hold a peaceful, prayful protest in solidarity with those in Washing D.C. at the March for Life. You can read the disappointing write up here...
http://www.wfmj.com/story/24523964/right-to-life-supporters-emphasize-the-impotance-of-adoption-on-the-anniversary-of-roe-vs-wade
The following excerpt comes from write up on the WFMJ website...
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Today marks the 41st anniversary of f Roe vs Wade,
the Supreme Court ruling that struck down anti abortion laws.
Wednesday afternoon in Youngstown, right to life organizers emphasize
the importance of adoption, over their traditional anti-abortion
message............
Eh hem...First of all, adoption is ALWAYS an
anti-abortion message. Second, the signs in the photograph stated women REGRET ABORTION, highlighting the fact that pro-lifers still proudly
protest abortion. The writer clearly wishes to direct readers into
thinking that pro-life communities have shifted from an "anti-abortion" focus to
an adoption focus.
The truth? Far from it. As always, true pro-lifers remain both strong supporters of adoption and ENDING abortion. Pro-life must be anti-abortion or the movement ceases to retain its pro-life focus. The two go hand in hand. Adoption is both pro-life and anti
abortion. The irresponsibility in reporting remains shocking. The blatent attempt at twisting the truth of the pro-life movement into a media conveniant sound byte fails to shock me. We, on this side of the fence, often see the media manipulate. However, in today's world, as responsible pro-lifers with technology at our fingertips, we can do a bit of untwisting. Pro-life efforts always support adoption and are ALWAYS anti-abortion. The assertion that the anti-abortion focus among pro-life groups shifting remains absurd.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Monday, December 9, 2013
Immaculate Conception
In America today, we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Our dear Blessed Mother. This feast refers to the conception of Mary, free from original sin, in the womb of her mother. This dogma has created no small misunderstanding with non Catholics. It simply need not be. As we think about this, we can ponder the traditional way of explaining this to fellow non Catholics. We, having sinned, through the merits of Jesus on the Cross, were pulled from our sins and cleansed, out of the pit after falling, so to speak. God's timeless existence saved Mary through her Son's same sacrifice on the cross, preventing her from ever falling into the pit. How fitting, the Mother of God, prevented from falling into the pit of sin in the first place. She would, afterall, carry in her womb, the Son of God. Completely human, Mary can inspire us, also completely human, to be always living better lives.
To borrow from Kimberly Hahn, God has saved me personally from many sins in my life; times when I didn't fall into this trap or that, etc. Therefore saving his Mother is entirely within His realm.
He did it for a reason. He does everything for a reason. On this feast of the Immaculate Conception, how can we help pull some one out of a pit they are struggling in? How can we help that family struggling to live a Catholic life in today's world bear the ridicule they face day after day? How can we make that family with 5 kids feel welcome, because they have embraced and actually desire life? How can we reach out and stop that frightened teenager from making that decision to abort her child. One decision, I promise that she will regret and suffer over. Could it be a coin given to one in needy? (I don't suggest Salvation Army for their stance on abortion) Could it be a smile to someone lonely? A visit to the rest home? A simple and sincere "God Bless you." Let us keep our eyes open as we celebrate this feast of the Immaculate Conception. Mary pray for us!
To borrow from Kimberly Hahn, God has saved me personally from many sins in my life; times when I didn't fall into this trap or that, etc. Therefore saving his Mother is entirely within His realm.
He did it for a reason. He does everything for a reason. On this feast of the Immaculate Conception, how can we help pull some one out of a pit they are struggling in? How can we help that family struggling to live a Catholic life in today's world bear the ridicule they face day after day? How can we make that family with 5 kids feel welcome, because they have embraced and actually desire life? How can we reach out and stop that frightened teenager from making that decision to abort her child. One decision, I promise that she will regret and suffer over. Could it be a coin given to one in needy? (I don't suggest Salvation Army for their stance on abortion) Could it be a smile to someone lonely? A visit to the rest home? A simple and sincere "God Bless you." Let us keep our eyes open as we celebrate this feast of the Immaculate Conception. Mary pray for us!
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Check Your Rhetoric: What Common Good?
“The horrors of Bolshevik governance stemmed directly from their repudiation of the precious fruits of Western political thought.” It is a classic example of the tendency of some to promote cheap moralisms while ignoring the empirical realities of any given context, what then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger termed in 1985, “the antithesis of morality.”
Read the rest of the article HERE.
Read the rest of the article HERE.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Why Should Everyone Should See Les Miserables (whether you like musical theater or not)?
Because it is about METANOIA, in the most complete sense of the word.
I had mixed feelings when I heard about the film production of Les Miserables last fall. I was concerned that a film version would turn this magnificent musical into a chopped up mess. I thought movie-musicals were a lost art. I didn't think it could be pulled off.
I waited until last Sunday to see it, not by choice. I came down with that nasty influenza that swept the nation, and I was down for about a month (count your blessings if if you avoided it). As much as I was curious, though, and as much buzz that the film has generated over the last month, I completely avoided anything by way of commentary about it, because I wanted to formulate my own thoughts.
I am so glad I did. It's the best movie-musical I have ever seen.
More importantly, though, is the story itself. In a merciless world, one merciless man is shown mercy, and that one act of mercy changes him. From the moment he realizes what has been shown him, he lives a deliberately good life, even when it meant certain hardship, loss, or the possibility of death. This is the heart of Metanoia--to make the decision to live better, to try harder, to be more Christlike today than you were yesterday, and to leave yourself behind.
If you're not into musicals, this will be a tough one for you. It's nearly an opera, as much of the dialog is sung rather than spoken. Try to get past it, though, and see this film, if for no other reason than this:
"So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century--the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of women through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light--are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;--in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books [and their adaptations for stage and screen*] of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use."
Preface, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
*my addition.
I had mixed feelings when I heard about the film production of Les Miserables last fall. I was concerned that a film version would turn this magnificent musical into a chopped up mess. I thought movie-musicals were a lost art. I didn't think it could be pulled off.
I waited until last Sunday to see it, not by choice. I came down with that nasty influenza that swept the nation, and I was down for about a month (count your blessings if if you avoided it). As much as I was curious, though, and as much buzz that the film has generated over the last month, I completely avoided anything by way of commentary about it, because I wanted to formulate my own thoughts.
I am so glad I did. It's the best movie-musical I have ever seen.
More importantly, though, is the story itself. In a merciless world, one merciless man is shown mercy, and that one act of mercy changes him. From the moment he realizes what has been shown him, he lives a deliberately good life, even when it meant certain hardship, loss, or the possibility of death. This is the heart of Metanoia--to make the decision to live better, to try harder, to be more Christlike today than you were yesterday, and to leave yourself behind.
If you're not into musicals, this will be a tough one for you. It's nearly an opera, as much of the dialog is sung rather than spoken. Try to get past it, though, and see this film, if for no other reason than this:
"So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century--the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of women through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light--are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;--in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books [and their adaptations for stage and screen*] of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use."
Preface, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
*my addition.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Go Directly To Jail.
It's what Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli believes must happen in order to expose the tyranny of the HHS Mandate. From the LifeSiteNews.com article: "If citizens were jailed...it would 'provide an example of what tyranny means when it’s played to its logical conclusion.'" (Read the entire article HERE.)
Monday, June 18, 2012
Plan B
I stumbled across an article today from a poster who proports to set the record straight about plan B: A drug that claims to prevent conception by preventing ovulation after sexual intercourse. The poster goes on to claim that the drug does not cause an abortion. At the tips of your fingers lies the truth. Go to plan B website, but don't stop there. Of course, the site claims that Plan B will not end an already existing pregnancy.
However, don't satisfy yourself with window dressing. Dig a little deeper, on their site. Go to the medication mechanism of action. I will quote
"12.1 Mechanism of Action
Emergency contraceptive pills are not effective if a woman is already pregnant. Plan B One-Step is believed to act as an emergency contraceptive principally by preventing ovulation or fertilization (by altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova). In addition, it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium). It is not effective once the process of implantation has begun."
I repeat "In addition, it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium)." Their information, not mine. Window dressing, concealing an early abortion.
Let's unpack. Fertilization occurs first. The newly formed child floats around for a period of time in mom's uterus before finally implanting into the wall of the uterus sometime around 7 days post conception. Plan B, by their own mouth, can alter implantation. Note: At implantation MOM IS ALREADY A MOM. A child exists in her womb. Why do you suppose 30 some percent of women who take the drug report a heavier period? Some in the medical community desperately wish to redefine pregnancy as occuring at implantation. They can no more truly do that than they can reverse natural law. I am outraged by this mispedaling of information to the public and to our children. Stand up, stand up and fight. Lest you be forced to pay for abortions because you believed the rhetoric. Stand up and be counted at election time. Will you stand for forced conscience violations? Will you vote to pad your wallet instead of protect millions of innocent children? The power, at least right now, in our country rests with the people. Speak and speak loudly at election time. Wake up now while we still possess freedom.
A further FYI...anyone 17 and over can purchase plan B without a prescription. How many children's lives do you suppose plan B can claim responsibility for ending? God alone knows. Christ have mercy, Our Lady help us!
However, don't satisfy yourself with window dressing. Dig a little deeper, on their site. Go to the medication mechanism of action. I will quote
"12.1 Mechanism of Action
Emergency contraceptive pills are not effective if a woman is already pregnant. Plan B One-Step is believed to act as an emergency contraceptive principally by preventing ovulation or fertilization (by altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova). In addition, it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium). It is not effective once the process of implantation has begun."
I repeat "In addition, it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium)." Their information, not mine. Window dressing, concealing an early abortion.
Let's unpack. Fertilization occurs first. The newly formed child floats around for a period of time in mom's uterus before finally implanting into the wall of the uterus sometime around 7 days post conception. Plan B, by their own mouth, can alter implantation. Note: At implantation MOM IS ALREADY A MOM. A child exists in her womb. Why do you suppose 30 some percent of women who take the drug report a heavier period? Some in the medical community desperately wish to redefine pregnancy as occuring at implantation. They can no more truly do that than they can reverse natural law. I am outraged by this mispedaling of information to the public and to our children. Stand up, stand up and fight. Lest you be forced to pay for abortions because you believed the rhetoric. Stand up and be counted at election time. Will you stand for forced conscience violations? Will you vote to pad your wallet instead of protect millions of innocent children? The power, at least right now, in our country rests with the people. Speak and speak loudly at election time. Wake up now while we still possess freedom.
A further FYI...anyone 17 and over can purchase plan B without a prescription. How many children's lives do you suppose plan B can claim responsibility for ending? God alone knows. Christ have mercy, Our Lady help us!
Monday, April 16, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Response to a response I read
Recently, today in fact, I came across a comment to which I felt I must respond. In a later post, the poster identifies him/her self as Catholic, a practicing Catholic in fact. Here is the original post.
"No problem, why not just tell the President that the Catholic church will not participate, which might destroy the health legislation. Then you can go back to providing your own money to take care of those people who need medical help. Also the Church will need to stop using any of the insurance companies that are doing business today. Abortion is legal as are the preventive contraceptives at present, so the Church will need to get these provisions overturned as soon as possible. All those who think that our government is at war with the Church could move to the Vatican one of the few places that abortion is illegal. But you will have to put up with the Italian State which allows abortion. The first amendment implies that no religion can be selected by the government to impose its dogma on the rest of the country. Remember you and I have freedom to choose and we can choose not to have abortion or use contraceptives, but we cannot tell other people what they must choose. The government might also take the tax loophole away from the Church for being a conservative, republican, catholic political party. God Bless you and just continue to speak our against what you do not like, but do not expect me to agree with you. By the way, I do not believe in abortion except under the current law that allows it for incest, rape and the life of the mother. "
And I repond to this writer and anyone else who claims these beliefs the following...
Your payment for the abortion makes you a particpant......and what makes the baby conceived from incest or rape less of a child than a child conceived in a wanted manner? Clearly the child can not chose the manner he or she enters the world. If you believe abortion wrong in one case, you must believe it wrong in all cases, or you are assigning worth to a child based on the circumstances to which the child enters our airspace. That is grossly unfair. The fact that a government deems a practice legal remains a far cry from the practice (abortion) being just. Not too long ago in our own country slavery enjoyed the same false legality. Do you believe that people in that time period actually possessed the right to own slaves? Would you have contributed money into a fund that allowed people to be bought as slaves even though you yourself opposed it? Turn to Germany. Once laws prevented the Jewish person from citizenship in their own country. Could that be right just because the law of the land proclaimed it? No way. When a law conflicts with God's law (catholic talking to catholic here), always go the way of God. Do you intend to stand before almighty God and honestly say that I personally do not believe in abortion, but the law passed, so I respected people's rights to follow it? In other words, to take the child He just created and destroy it. You might give some pause and thought to that. You say in your post that we have the freedom to chose. This mandate strips that freedom away. When you force me to pay any amount in any way for an abortion, when you propose to provide contraception and education privately to my daughter, when you tell employers and health care workers that they must violate their beliefs, freedom is gone. Plenty more could be discussed on other statements you lodged against the Catholic heiarchy, I simply caution you to remember they stand in need of many prayers as they are under attack. They are the modern day apostles, in so much as they stay in line with the Pope, they are the authentic teaching voice of the Church. This is a tenant of the Faith. If you disagree, perhaps you should look into yourself and ask are you really Catholic, or have you become Protestant? If you wish to follow up with a comment, you can find me at http://realmetanoia.blogspot.com/ where I will repost my comment.
Wake up America! Or when you do will we be reliving Germany during WWII?
"No problem, why not just tell the President that the Catholic church will not participate, which might destroy the health legislation. Then you can go back to providing your own money to take care of those people who need medical help. Also the Church will need to stop using any of the insurance companies that are doing business today. Abortion is legal as are the preventive contraceptives at present, so the Church will need to get these provisions overturned as soon as possible. All those who think that our government is at war with the Church could move to the Vatican one of the few places that abortion is illegal. But you will have to put up with the Italian State which allows abortion. The first amendment implies that no religion can be selected by the government to impose its dogma on the rest of the country. Remember you and I have freedom to choose and we can choose not to have abortion or use contraceptives, but we cannot tell other people what they must choose. The government might also take the tax loophole away from the Church for being a conservative, republican, catholic political party. God Bless you and just continue to speak our against what you do not like, but do not expect me to agree with you. By the way, I do not believe in abortion except under the current law that allows it for incest, rape and the life of the mother. "
And I repond to this writer and anyone else who claims these beliefs the following...
Your payment for the abortion makes you a particpant......and what makes the baby conceived from incest or rape less of a child than a child conceived in a wanted manner? Clearly the child can not chose the manner he or she enters the world. If you believe abortion wrong in one case, you must believe it wrong in all cases, or you are assigning worth to a child based on the circumstances to which the child enters our airspace. That is grossly unfair. The fact that a government deems a practice legal remains a far cry from the practice (abortion) being just. Not too long ago in our own country slavery enjoyed the same false legality. Do you believe that people in that time period actually possessed the right to own slaves? Would you have contributed money into a fund that allowed people to be bought as slaves even though you yourself opposed it? Turn to Germany. Once laws prevented the Jewish person from citizenship in their own country. Could that be right just because the law of the land proclaimed it? No way. When a law conflicts with God's law (catholic talking to catholic here), always go the way of God. Do you intend to stand before almighty God and honestly say that I personally do not believe in abortion, but the law passed, so I respected people's rights to follow it? In other words, to take the child He just created and destroy it. You might give some pause and thought to that. You say in your post that we have the freedom to chose. This mandate strips that freedom away. When you force me to pay any amount in any way for an abortion, when you propose to provide contraception and education privately to my daughter, when you tell employers and health care workers that they must violate their beliefs, freedom is gone. Plenty more could be discussed on other statements you lodged against the Catholic heiarchy, I simply caution you to remember they stand in need of many prayers as they are under attack. They are the modern day apostles, in so much as they stay in line with the Pope, they are the authentic teaching voice of the Church. This is a tenant of the Faith. If you disagree, perhaps you should look into yourself and ask are you really Catholic, or have you become Protestant? If you wish to follow up with a comment, you can find me at http://realmetanoia.blogspot.com/ where I will repost my comment.
Wake up America! Or when you do will we be reliving Germany during WWII?
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Media Bias
We know it's there. They're not telling us everything. And when I say "they" I mean all mainstream and cable media outlets (yes, even your favorite cable news channel--they're all guilty).
Take a look at the Vortex episode posted below that exposes just one blaring example of media bias. (The actual video starts at about 0.30 if you want to skip the ad & intro.)
If the mainstream and cable media outlets would withhold information in order to slant Republican primary results, can you imagine what else they're not telling us? When information is withheld from We the People, how can we possibly make the right decisions for ourselves, for our families, for this nation and for the future? If we're not getting the right information, or all the information, how can we tell when we're being lied to?
There are so many examples of media bias out there that it would take years to post them all, and quite frankly, we don't have that kind of time. In the sidebar of this blog (<= that one) is a link to CatholicVote.org. There you'll get truth in journalism and plenty of resources to help you vote your conscience.
More resources from a Catholic perspective:
Catholic Culture
Notes on the Culture Wars
Catholic Online
Catholic News Agency
RealCatholicTV: Catholic News Roundup
I also recommend surfing the web for alternative, privately owned resources for current events, as far too often subsidized and publicly-traded companies have a vested interest in serving and protecting their benefactors.
And if you be unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15
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