John Steel Gordon: The Anti-Science Certitude of Global Warming

John Steele Gordon wrote an essay in today's Wall Street Journal in which he reflects on the Liberal meme: "the science is settled," and wonders how that would have worked in the days of the Greek philosopher Aristarchus, whose belief in "a heliocentric model of the solar system" in the third century B.C. was overridden by Ptolemy's geocentric model a century later, and finally resolved satisfactorily in the mid-19th century.

Gordon provides other compelling examples from history proving, unequivocally, that science is constantly evolving, and wonders why, as so many questions remain unanswered, are "many climate scientists, politicians - and the Left generally- so anxious to lock down the science of climatology and engage in protracted name-calling."  He hazards the following guess:

If anthropogenic climate change is a reality, then that would be a huge problem only government could deal with. It would be a heaven-sent opportunity for the left to vastly increase government control over the economy and the personal lives of citizens.  

You can read the entire Gordon essay by clicking HERE.

Matt Walsh and Cecil the Lion

There was no question that Matt Walsh would weigh in on the most talked about story in the nation.  He didn't disappoint.  His piece, at "The Blaze," is a justified indictment of all the bleeding hearts screaming for the head of the dentist who shot and killed Cecil the Lion, and the media giving them voice.  The indictment, especially of the media, is justified because there is never such concern manifested at the horrible death of babies every day.

Here's a sample of Walsh's indictment:

It’s no coincidence that progressivism advocates abortion to deal with children, and euthanasia to handle the old and the infirm. If it is going to pretend to love human beings at all, it must first get rid of the most burdensome types.

It can be hard to love people. And if you say you love people, life is going to constantly demand that you prove it. If you say you love people, you certainly can’t kill your own child, and you can’t support the killing of children, and even if you don’t have kids, you have to be patient and kind with other people’s kids, and other people generally. This is very different from loving lions. You can love lions passively, in the abstract; people must be loved actively, in reality.

You can read the whole piece, entitled, "Sometimes It’s Just Easier To Care About Dead Lions Than Dead People," by clicking HERE.

(photo via NYDailyNews)

Fr. Barron on Planned Parenthood and the Loss of Human Dignity

Fr. Barron on Appointment as Bishop

Matt Walsh: Planned Parenthood Selling Body Parts Should Not Shock Anybody

By now, unless you've been living under a rock, you must know of the horrendous news emanating this week from the world's largest and most active baby killing organization: they've been selling parts of the aborted babies for profit.  But the inimitable Matt Walsh tells us that news shouldn't shock us:

Indeed, it is time to stop being surprised by the cruelty and barbarism of the abortion industry. Unless you are a liberal, or a pitiful, emasculated, “socially moderate” conservative who justifies your own moral cowardice by pontificating about the “gray areas” surrounding the wholesale butchery of infant humans, you really should not be shocked by anything these infanticide merchants do.

Read the entire essay HERE.

Here are the two videos of the undercover interviews conducted undercover by The Center for Medical Progress.






Finally, you can read more from Matt Walsh on this horrifying tale by clicking HERE.

John Kerry's Lies to Congress Exposed by James Rosen

This is from Western Journalism Blog today:

WATCH: If Not For This Report, ‘Nuke Deal’ Kerry Might Have Gotten Away With Lying To Congress

Click on this link to watch the video.

photo via wikipedia

Robert M. Morgenthau at "Stop Iran Now Rally," Times Square, July 22, 2015

Former Manhattan District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, the paradigmatic prosecutor of our time, spoke at the Stop Iran Now Rally in New York's Times Square two days ago.  His remarks were encapsulated today in the Wall Street Journal:

July 23, 2015 7:05 p.m. ET

From former Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau’s prepared remarks for the Stop Iran Now rally in New York’s Times Square, July 22:

The proposal would give Iran access to $150 billion in frozen assets. That provision is particularly galling. Over the years, survivors of Americans murdered in Iran’s terrorist acts have sued Iran, and often won large judgments. The problem is, Iran refused to pay. I fail to see the logic in returning those embargoed funds without first requiring Iran to make good on the debts it owes to those survivors.

Although the proposal was negotiated in good faith, even the administration worries that some of those billions would go toward sponsoring terrorism—what the State Department euphemistically calls “destabilizing actions.” This is not only a strategic issue, but a moral one. We simply cannot give terrorists the means to destroy innocent lives. Until Iran renounces terrorism, we cannot release those funds. And make no mistake: Neither side to this deal predicts that it will reduce Iranian terrorism. An Iranian newspaper that serves as a mouthpiece for the Iranian supreme leader put it this way: “In spite of various pretensions and fantasies, this agreement will not lead to cooperation between Iran and America on regional issues.” And even President Obama, at his recent press conference, conceded that try as we might to curb Iran’s destructive policies, he’s “not betting on it.”

With respect to Iran, an effective international sanctions regime is the only real alternative the world has to war. We must not dismantle those sanctions until we are assured that Iran’s hostile intentions have been thwarted.

As district attorney, some of my most important cases were those in which we ensured that the sanctions against Iran were obeyed. I took on those cases because I believed the sanctions were crucial to prevent Iran from spreading even wider mayhem. We should keep those sanctions in place so long as Iran threatens the survival of its neighbors, and sponsors terror around the world. Near the end of his life, President John Kennedy delivered a speech in which he told Americans of the peace he hoped to bring to the world. He called it “genuine peace . . . not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time, but peace in all time.”

This proposal does just the opposite.

 PHOTO: Via Wikepedia

Tomi Lahren on The Slaughter of Four Marines by another "Mohammed"

Anthony Esolen: Reform and Renewal Starts with Us

Professor Anthony Esolen, writing today at Crisis Magazine:

Let’s get straight to the point. We no longer live in a culturally Christian state. We do not live in a robust pagan state, such as Rome was during the Pax Romana. We live in a sickly sub-pagan state, or metastate, a monstrous thing, all-meddlesome, all-ambitious. The natural virtues are scorned. Temperance is for prigs, prudence for sticks in the mud who worry about people who don’t yet exist. A man who fathers six children upon three women and now wants to turn himself into a “woman” attracted to other women—he is praised for his courage. Justice means that a handful of narrowly educated and egotistical judges get to overturn human culture and biology, at their caprice.

Professor Esolen does more than lament the current problems in our society, he offers nine concrete suggestions that, if followed, could at least begin to stop the advance of the decay in our culture.  To read more about his suggestions, click HERE.

Under his suggestion on what can be done to counter the sexual revolution, he offers the following on what Christians need to understand to confront the hedonists surrounding them.

We have to tell ourselves and our children the truth. There is no way to make it sound nice. “We are Christians, they are not. How God judges them is not ours to know. Our first task is to follow God’s law ourselves, before we can witness to them. We do not fornicate. We do not divorce. We do not engage in sodomy. We do not use porn. We do not flood women’s bodies with synthetic and carcinogenic hormones. We do not care for obscenities in film. We do believe in marriage according to the evident design of God, imprinted upon our bodies male and female. We encourage boys to be boys and girls to be girls.” 

 

Fr. Barron on Pope Francis and Catholic Social Teaching

Nigerian Bishops on The Propagation and Globalization of the Homosexual Lifestyle

From the Catholic World Report yesterday on the recently released statement by the Nigerian bishops:

The statement remarks on the recent vote in Ireland and the SCOTUS decision and warns of the influence Western countries have on Nigerian leaders and citizens

Here's a quote to remember from the statement:

On our part we hereby re-emphasize that Marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman for the begetting and care of children. It forms the core of the family which is the bedrock and foundational cell of our civilization and as such it is sanctioned by God, upheld by our culture, celebrated in our society and protected by our government.  The family deserves the protection from all civilized institutions as it predates society and is not subject to it. So our role is to promote it, protect it and preserve it at a time like this when many countries have unfortunately chosen a different path. 


You can read the entire statement by clicking HERE:

Fr. Barron on Love, Tolerance, and Making Distinctions

If it sounds like a Death Panel, it probably...

The reports of the death of Death Panels might have been greatly exaggerated (to paraphrase Mark Twain).

"The federal government is proposing to pay health-care providers for talking to Medicare beneficiaries about end-of-life care after mounting calls for a better approach to conversations about dying that can both save costs and improve care," according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal article goes on:

"Efforts to provide compensation to providers who hold such consultations ran into opposition in 2009, after mostly Republican opponents of what would become the Affordable Care Act said the law would lead to “death panels” tasked with seeking out cost savings by rationing care. A provision to pay physicians for such end-of-life counseling was stripped from the final bill.

"Some doctors now hold such conversations, which often can be lengthy discussions about what type of lifesaving measures patients would want, without getting paid. The hope is that offering reimbursement will encourage physicians to speak frankly with patients about what they want and allow patients to engage in more frequent advance-care planning."

If you think this sounds like a good idea, wait until your palliative care doctor or nurse practitioner engages you in "the talk," then you might be reminded that the most important call in one's life is made by God. 

Duncan Stroik: The Crisis of Contemporary Sacred Art

Duncan Stroik, "is a professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame where he helped implement a new curriculum in classical architecture in 1990. He played a central role in the revival of interest in sacred architecture that led to the formation of the Society for Catholic Liturgy and the journal Sacred Architecture of which he is editor."

He wrote today at Crisis Magazine, a piece entitled: The Crisis of Contemporary Sacred Art," in which he describes the state of sacred art today as "mediocre, impoverished, or in crisis."   One need only enter one of today's many modern churches that can easily be confused with a waiting room at a greyhound bus station to understand Dr. Stroik's complaint.

Stroik lists the many reasons that sacred art has become almost extinct, but argues for its return:

"...why should the Church commission original art? First of all, to commission art is to acknowledge the importance of art as a living tradition. In patronizing art we speak to modern man through the vitality of the arts. We try to touch hearts and minds through beauty and originality. Portraying religious subjects in art can be likened to a sermon in paint or bronze."   

You can read the entire essay by clicking HERE.

A Retired Marine on The Desecration of the White House

Received today via email from a close personal friend and Vietnam veteran:

From an angry retired Marine:

Subject: White House, buildings across the country light up in rainbow colors to celebrate gay rights

I must confess that this subject is getting old.  When I first saw the picture of the White House in the Rainbow colors I just thought it was a joke.  Then I realized they were really doing this.... Must have had the lights, color filters etc all ready to go.      

How many times before has the White House been illuminated for any reason?  I don't think I have ever seen it or been aware. I know that there was some black bunting after Lincoln's assassination.  

 I have never seen it red and gold for the USMC birthday or awash in pink for breast cancer.  I've never seen it in green and red for Christmas or red white and blue for the forth of July. It wasn't blue and green when the Seahawks won the super bowl.  And, that is as it should be.  The White House is an icon known the world over. It is timeless and should exude dignity, grace,  class and style as the centuries old home of the President of the United States.  

From time to time some classless bastards have occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  Some have had affairs there, some have had some parties that are best not spoken of, one received oral sex from an intern in the Oval Office (how often we'll never know).  Some have had state dinners and awards ceremonies under its roof for some unsavory characters.     

The current occupant had the bad manners to put his feet up on furniture that are priceless historic pieces.  He just doesn't know better because he was never taught, I guess.  But, growing up in Malaysia I am sure he was taught not to present the soles of his shoes to others. 

But, we've never seen anything like this.  To bathe the White House in the garish colors of the most outspoken of the GLBT movement, like a cheap bumper sticker is classless and crude. A classic "in your face" move worthy of a stunt in a B rated teenage movie.  The perfect topper for a crass movement that was willing to go to any lengths to gain publicity.  For shame, for shame.  The White House as a bill board.  What is next?  Perhaps the White House in the colors of the Mexican Flag when immigration reforms fail again and another Presidential Executive Order substitutes for the law.  Or the colors of the Iranian Flag to celebrate our negotiations that insure they will never have nuclear weapons? 

One sad farce follows another in our delusional society where one bad idea follows another and we set the stage for our own demise.  At least we won't bow out with class.  We'll go out like so much tacky, cheap garbage. 

  

Traditional Catholic Priest: The Importance of Latin in the Church

Fr. Peter Carota posted the below video on his website, Traditional Catholic Priest, the other day.  It's 22 minutes long, but it's time well spent if you're interested in learning what happened to this sacred form of the liturgy.  If you think it was Vatican II that caused the disappearance of the Traditional Latin Mass, you would be wrong.  If you think it was Pope John XXIII, you would also be wrong.  You might be shocked to learn that the Traditional Latin Mass has never been "discarded" as you might have been told by today's progressive catholics (including, unfortunately, some members of the clergy). 

In fact, Latin has been the official language of the Church since the 4th century, and Vatican II did nothing to change that.  Fr. Barone, near the end of the below video, offers the following quote: 

"Without Latin we do not know who we are or where we come from."

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI: Listening to Mozart

From Associated Press via Patheos:

Benedict XVI, emeritus pope and theologian, reflected on Saturday on classical music as an “encounter with the divine,” saying listening to Mozart helps him experience “very deeply the Lord’s presence.”

Benedict’s reflections came at a ceremony where he received honourary doctorates from the Pontifical John Paul II University of Krakow and the Krakow Academy of Music for his promotion of respect for the traditions of sacred music in the Church.

Since retiring from the papacy in 2013, Benedict has dedicated his time at the Vatican to prayer, meditation and classical music. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who served as the Vatican’s guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, he used to relax at home by playing his piano, with Mozart pieces a frequent choice.

"It remains indelibly impressed in my memory how, for example, as soon as the first notes resounded from Mozart’s ‘Coronation Mass,’ the heavens practically opened and you experienced, very deeply, the Lord’s presence,” Benedict, 88, said during his speech at the papal summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo, a hill town near Rome where he had first stayed after resigning, citing age and frailty.

Rarely making speeches as a retiree, Benedict told his audience music is born from the experiences of love, of “sadness, of being touched by death, by pain and by the abysses of existence” as well as from “the encounter with the divine.”

(Photo via Wikipedia) 

Taylor Marshall: 10 Radical Ways Catholics Can Reclaim Marriage

Taylor Marshall offered 10 Radical Ways Catholics Can Reclaim Marriage on his blog recently.

"Have no doubt about it. The legalization of same-sex marriage will change the legal status of matrimony for traditional heterosexuals. This will happen through the courts over the next several years."

You can read his entire post by clicking on the above link, but herewith his 10 ideas:

(1) Start using the term “Holy Matrimony”

(2) We must encourage Catholic Church to officially declare ex cathedra that our Holy Matrimony is a sacrament between a man and a woman

(3) The Catholic Church should consider all Western marriages “dubious” since most contemporary married people are generally lacking formal and material intent. 

(4) The Catholic Church has traditionally and charitably presumed that Protestant marriages are valid and even sacramental. The Catholic Church should rescind this presumption since most Protestant denominations believe in divorce and remarraige…and now same-sex marriage. 

(5) All Catholic marriage prep should end with a video recording of the male and the female to be married in which both personally articulate the Catholic teaching about matrimony, monogamy, indissolubility, procreation and contraception, and heterosexuality.

(6) Casual pre-marital sex should be seen as an impediment to Holy Matrimony.

(7) Recapture Holy Matrimony as a church event and this means we need to distance ourselves from the pomp of the afterparty, flowers, cake, guests, etc.

(8) We need to decouple civil marriage from Sacramental Holy Matrimony. 

(9) Hang on to your Catholic vocabulary. If you have a gay co-worker who is “married” don’t call his partner a “husband” and don’t call his union a “marriage.”

(10) Do not attend marriages that are not really marriages. 

Fr. Barron on the SCOTUS Same-Sex Marriage Ruling