Nigerian Bishops Speak Up for the Family

Excerpt from The National Catholic Register today:

As Synod Approaches, Nigerian Bishops Speak Up for the Family (1009)

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria — Nigeria’s bishops closed their latest assembly with a view toward the upcoming Synod on the Family, re-affirming the family while warning about homosexual activism.

The bishops said “we reaffirm the validity of the family as a divinely instituted community of persons made up of a man and a woman who are open to life in love, together with their children and relatives.”

They commended the Pope for his recent document Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus (Lord Jesus, the Meek Judge), which aimed at accelerating the process for investigating the nullity of a marriage.

“We pledge to use this new process for the pastoral and spiritual benefit of our people,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria said in a wide-ranging statement closing its second plenary meeting, held Sept. 10-18 in Port Harcourt, the capital of Nigeria's Rivers State.

The bishops also voiced “deep concern” about homosexual, bisexual and transgender activism in many parts of the world.

“We reiterate our unreserved condemnation of all acts of homosexuality as sinful and opposed to the natural law of creation,” they said. “We call on our government to continue to resist the attempt by some external governments and agencies to impose an acceptance of same-sex unions.

“Nevertheless, we maintain that persons with these orientations should be assisted pastorally, spiritually and psychologically, with respect for their dignity as human persons created in the image and likeness of God.”

Matt Walsh: #ShoutYourAbortion Proves That Modern Liberalism Is A Satanic Death Cult

Matt Walsh wrote the above titled essay at TheBlaze.com two days ago just after all but three House Democrats, joined by two despicable Republicans, voted against protecting the lives of five month old babies still in their mothers' wombs.  The whole essay is HERE, and here are some excerpts that should infuriate anyone who believes in God:

September 22, 2015

Just a few hours ago, Democrats voted down a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks. Only three Democrats voted for the bill to protect children from murder after five months of development, while two truly despicable Republicans, Susan Collins and Mark Kirk, voted against it. They should be out of a job when it comes time for reelection, and if I was in charge of these things, I’d put them both in prison, along with almost all of the Democrats, for facilitating the murder of thousands of innocent human lives. Remember, if you support late term abortion, you are in favor of killing babies who can survive outside the womb. This is a radical, insane, extremist position, and one that is considered by progressives to be not only mainstream, but mandatory...

Progressives love to say they aren’t “pro-abortion,” but that is a more and more self-evident lie. Nobody who possesses even the slightest hint of a moral qualm with abortion could actually oppose a bill to protect kids after five months in the womb. Similarly, nobody who isn’t an enormous fan of abortion could be anything but repulsed by the hip new fad that swept through the internet like wild fire yesterday...

It’s called #ShoutYourAbortion, and it encourages women to boast confidently of killing their children. The hashtag has been trending on Twitter for over a day, and many hundreds and thousands of women have taken the opportunity to “shout” with pride about the magical wonders of baby murder. I’m sure the aborted babies would have loved to participate in this campaign, but they’re all dead and decomposed in dumpsters or dissected in petri dishes...

Politically incorrect words and ideas, Confederate flags, jokes — these can all be viciously stigmatized, but child murder? That  must be greeted with nothing short of uproarious applause... 

Nobody, on either side, can really stake out a moderate position on abortion for very long. Either abortion is condemned with the fury of 1,000 suns, or it is celebrated and glorified with religious fervor. Everyone who tries to hang out somewhere between these two extremes will inevitably land on one end of the spectrum or the other. That’s because abortion is an extreme thing. It is the slaughter of the innocent. History proves that there are really, when it comes down to it, only two types of people: those radically opposed to the dehumanization and murder of entire groups of people, and those radically in favor of it...

Just a couple of years ago, abortion fetishists cooked up the viral “1 in 3″ campaign, encouraging women to tell their “inspiring” stories about abortion. Not long after that, a woman named Emily Letts became a progressive darling when she filmed herself having an abortion. She giggled and smiled through the procedure, talking about how happy and “lucky” she is. When it was all done she yelled “cool!” and “yay!” as she was wheeled out of the operating room and her child was, most likely, shipped off to a research facility for experimentation. She bragged about her abortion while it was happening, and the video received favorable coverage across the mainstream media, and eventually won top prize in an “abortion stigma-busting video competition” (leading some to believe it was staged). These #ShoutYourAbortion Tweets are nothing compared to all that...

Liberalism is, in the end, a death cult. I’ve long suggested that we stop calling it “liberalism” and start calling it “secular Satanism,” because that’s truly the most accurate and coherent way to describe it. Indeed, self-proclaimed Satanists are ardent abortion fans, with some reporting that they perform Satanic human sacrifices inside abortion clinics. To the Satanist/liberal, abortion is the most sacred and revered sacrament. The whole religion and ideology of Satanism/liberalism was born when Satan himself turned from God and said, “I will not serve” — and what better and more profound way for humans to reinforce that point than to ritualistically massacre His most vulnerable and precious children?...

Abortion evangelists are pro-abortion in principle, not out of some perverted sense of necessity or compassion. They believe — they have faith — that the individual is supreme. There is no power or authority above the Mighty Me, therefore nothing has the right to impose itself on Me, and nothing, not even my own child, can claim any right to my life or my body or my love or my time. My, Me, I. I am the sole point and purpose of the universe, and the highest thing I can hope to attain is my own enjoyment, convenience, and (especially sexual) pleasure. There is no Truth outside of that. There is no God beyond myself.

Find it hard to believe the part about Satanic Rituals?  Here's the LINK:

Yogi Berra Dies at 90, R.I.P.

Yogi Berra, the most famous, and, most agree, the greatest major league baseball catcher of all time, died yesterday at the age of 90.  The following is from Time.com. 

Yankees Hall of Fame Catcher Yogi Berra Dies at 90

AP

New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra poses at spring training in Florida in an undated file photo

He caught the only perfect game in World Series history

(NEW YORK) — Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame catcher renowned as much for his dizzying malapropisms as his record 10 World Series championships with the New York Yankees, has died. He was 90.

Berra died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in New Jersey, according to Dave Kaplan, the director of the Yogi Berra Museum.

“While we mourn the loss of our father, grandfather and great-grandfather, we know he is at peace with Mom,” Berra’s family said in a statement released by the museum. “We celebrate his remarkable life, and are thankful he meant so much to so many. He will truly be missed.”

Short, squat and with a homely mug, Berra was a legendary Yankee who helped the team reach 14 World Series during his 18 seasons in the Bronx.

Berra played in more World Series games than any other major leaguer, and was a three-time American League Most Valuable Player.

But his name appears almost as often in Bartlett’s Famous Quotations as it does in baseball’s record book.

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over” is among eight “Yogi-isms” included in Bartlett’s.

“When I’m sittin’ down to dinner with the family, stuff just pops out. And they’ll say, ‘Dad, you just said another one.’ And I don’t even know what the heck I said,” Berra insisted.

Berra played for the Yankees from 1949-65. His teammates included fellow Hall of Famers Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford.

In 1956, he caught the only perfect game in World Series history and after the last out leaped into pitcher Don Larsen’s arms. The famous moment was captured in photographs published in newspapers around the world.

After his playing days, Berra coached or managed the Yankees, New York Mets and Houston Astros. He led both the Yankees and Mets to pennants.

In 1985, his firing as manager by the Yankees 16 games into the season sparked a feud with George Steinbrenner. Berra vowed never to return to Yankee Stadium as long was Steinbrenner owned the team.

But in 1999, Berra finally relented, throwing out the ceremonial first pitch of the Yankees’ season-opening game.

Berra, the son of Italian immigrants, got his nickname while growing up in St. Louis. Among his amateur baseball teammates was Jack McGuire, another future big leaguer.

“Some of us went to a movie with a yogi in it and afterwards Jack began calling me Yogi. It stuck,” Berra told the Saturday Evening Post.

He was a fan favorite, especially with children, and the cartoon character Yogi Bear was named after him.

Berra, who played in 15 straight All-Star Games, never earned more than $65,000 a season.

Growing up, he was anything but a natural.

Chunky and slow, Berra was rejected by his hometown St. Louis Cardinals after a tryout in 1943. But a Yankee scout recognized his potential and signed him.

He reached the majors late in the 1946 season and homered in his first at-bat. The next year, he continued to hit well, but his throwing was so erratic he was shifted to the outfield, then benched.

His breakthrough season came in 1948, when he hit .315 with 14 homers and 98 RBIs while continuing to improve his fielding. In 1949, he compiled a .989 fielding percentage and did not make an error in the All-Star Game or World Series.

“I don’t care who the hitter is,” New York manager Casey Stengel told the New York Journal-American. “(Berra) knows just how he should be pitched to.”

Berra was AL MVP in 1951, 1954 and 1955. He holds World Series records for most hits (71) and most games (75).

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1972.

“You never think of that when you’re a kid,” Berra said. “But egads, you gotta be somethin’ to get in.”

Among his boyhood friends was Joe Garagiola, who went on to a career as a major league player and broadcaster. In rejecting Berra at the 1943 tryout, the Cardinals signed Garagiola, another catcher, instead.

Lawrence Peter Berra was born in St. Louis on May 12, 1925, the son of Pietro, a laborer in a brickyard, and Pauline Berra. He grew up in “The Hill,” or Italian district, with three older brothers and a younger sister.

Berra was forced to drop out of school in the eighth grade and go to work to help support his family. He took jobs in a coal yard, as a truck driver and in a shoe factory.

He continued to play amateur baseball, which brought him to the attention of major league scouts.

In 1943, his first professional season with the Yankees’ farm team in Norfolk, Va., was interrupted by World War II.

He joined the Navy and later served on a gunboat supporting the D-Day invasion.

Berra married his wife, Carmen, in 1949. The couple, who met in their native St. Louis, had three sons, including Dale Berra, who played in the major leagues as an infielder.

Berra published three books: his autobiography in 1961, “It Ain’t Over …” in 1989 and “The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said” in 1998. The last made The New York Times’ best seller list.

In 1996, Berra was awarded an honorary doctorate from the state university in Montclair, N.J., where he and his family lived. The university also named its baseball stadium for Berra. The adjoining Yogi Berra Museum opened in 1998.

The museum houses Berra memorabilia, including what he said was his most prized possession, the mitt he used to catch Larsen’s perfect game.

He tickled TV viewers in recent years by bringing his malapropisms to a commercial with the AFLAC duck. (“They give you cash, which is just as good as money.”)

His wife once asked Berra where he wanted to be buried, in St. Louis, New York or Montclair.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why don’t you surprise me?

Anthony Esolen: Ignoring Beauty, Goodness, and Truth

Anthony Esolen, wrote today on The Catholic Thing.org, an essay that absolutely needed to be written.  It's about those among us trying to live life as it is meant to be lived, so of course it is difficult to find anything written about them.  We are inundated, by the media and certain political groups, and even encouraged by some to endorse and even embrace lifestyles being pushed on us by well funded groups interested in touting their own agendas, regardless how perverted some of those agendas might be.  We are commanded, it should be remembered, to love all people, not to embrace all lifestyles.

Professor Esolen's essay is reproduced below in its entirety.  It gives us hope.

Who Stands Up for These Marginalized?

Anthony Esolen

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2015

You want people on the margins? The neglected, the invisible?

Last Sunday I was waiting in a diner for a former student of mine, one of my favorites, and his wife, whom I hadn’t met before, and who was carrying their first child. While I was waiting, I glanced over at another table and saw something remarkable.

It was a boy and a girl who had just sat down. They couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, and they might have been as young as sixteen. He was no body-builder, but he was tall and well set up, as they used to say, clean cut, no tattoos. She was slender and pretty, with long dark hair. As he was talking to her, his cheeks were flushed with delight, and he was beaming from ear to ear. She was smiling happily and sweetly in return. They might have come to the diner straight from church, as I had. They shone out with innocence.

They might have been somebody’s father and mother, a long time ago, before they had determined that their delight in one another’s company was really love, before they had decided to make that company everlasting, and before they had sealed their love and their vows with the full-hearted and full-bodied gift of themselves.

So what was remarkable about them? Reader, friend – when was the last time you saw such a couple?

Then my young friend and his wife arrived. He had not known God at all until he experienced a sudden and shattering vision during the summer before his freshman year at college. He spent that summer reading the Bible and pitching himself with all his considerable resoluteness into a new way of life.

It is seven years later. He’s been working for the Coast Guard, hard physical work, from Nova Scotia to the Falkland Islands, and from the Dominican Republic to the Mediterranean. They don’t even have a chaplain or a small chapel on board ship, he tells me, and sometimes one of the men will mock him when they come upon him kneeling in prayer. I doubt that the mockery is ever too serious, though, because this young man has, shall we say, a formidable presence. Not that he minds it.

So I chatted with them also about their plans, and he looked upon her with pride and protectiveness, and she looked upon him with admiration and delight. Again it was purity, right and just, though purity as having come through the smoke and bitterness of the world.

Why are these sights so rare?

I notice that the American president has made sure that Pope Francis, when he comes to visit the White House, will meet a man representing a group that is now always at the center of attention. Even should you descend into the depths of the newspaper, the sports pages themselves, they are there.

Not one day goes by without our hearing about their problems, their demands, their accusations, their mostly invented cultural history, and so on. Sometimes, as in the case of the man whom the president has elevated to brief celebrity, they proudly spurn the teachings of the Church. Sometimes they proudly follow those teachings but demand that everyone applaud them for doing so, and notice them, even change the way they raise children on their account.

I’m tired of it. And I grow downright angry when I consider the people about whose welfare no one ever troubles himself.

Think of the boy and girl at the other table. Now name for me one single social custom, one single local ordinance or state law, one single common work of literature read in the high schools, one single august pronouncement from the episcopal heights, one single session of prelates in council, one single social institution, one single jot of advice given to them from their teachers of “health,” one single word of encouragement or guidance or praise from the media or the mavens of art or those voluble blockheads in the academy, that will show, not even gratitude for their purity, but awareness that such young people exist?

Or if they are acknowledged to exist, here and there, are they not mocked, assaulted by the whores of pornography at a thousand virtual street corners, and rejected by their peers?

Who pays them any mind?

C.S. Lewis once wrote that if we really understood the purposes of things, we would see that all of politics and economics and technology exist so that a couple of friends can chat about good books at their leisure; or, as I’d say, so that a mother and father can sit quietly on the back porch as they watch their small children play; or so that a boy and girl, over the moon for one another, can have lunch at a diner and never once think of the lewd, the squalid, the hard-hearted, the licentious, or the base.

So also I might say about our pastoral directives as regards youth and sex. These are the people we must assist, and not take for granted that they will survive the current onslaught of falsehood and wickedness. We want every diner in every little town in the country to be graced with the laughter of innocent young people in love. What are we doing to see to it?

I might put it this way. Why are we doing all we can to ensure that such youths are as rare as diamonds? If we give all our attention to people whose desires are out of order with their bodies, smiling upon Sodom and grinning with Gomorrah, hypocritically and heartlessly saying that we wish to be merciful, we implicitly join the gang of their high school peers who laugh at them. We imply that they are chumps. And eventually, God forbid, even those last few innocents may come to agree.

Margins? Come see the deserted village.

Admiral Hyman Rickover: Man's Purpose in Life

Hyman G. Rickover (January 27, 1900 – July 8, 1986), the "Father of the Nuclear Navy,"  is the author of today's Notable and Quotable section in the Wall Street Journal, entitled: "Man's Purpose."  

Notable & Quotable: Man’s Purpose

‘Having a vocation is something of a miracle, like falling in love.’

Sept. 15, 2015 6:39 p.m. ET

From Hyman G. Rickover’s “Thoughts on Man’s Purpose in Life,” the Council on Religion & International Affairs’ annual Morgenthau Memorial Lecture in 1982, after his retirement as a U.S. Navy admiral:

Man’s work begins with his job; his profession. Having a vocation is something of a miracle, like falling in love. I can understand why Luther said that a man is justified by his vocation, for it is proof of God’s favor. But having a vocation means more than punching a time clock. It means guarding against banality, ineptitude, incompetence, and mediocrity. A man should strive to become a locus of excellence. . . .

Man has a large capacity for effort. In fact it is so much greater than we think it is that few ever reach this capacity.

We should value the faculty of knowing what we ought to do and having the will to do it. Knowing is easy; it is the doing that is difficult. The critical issue is not what we know, but what we do with what we know. The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. . . .

To seek and accept responsibility, to persevere, to be committed to excellence, to be creative and courageous, to be unrelenting in the pursuit of intellectual development, to maintain high standards of ethics and morality, and to bring these basic principles of existence to bear through active participation in life—these are some of my ideas on the goals that must be met to achieve meaning and purpose in life.

One Peter 5: Beware the Divider, Already in our Midst

Steve Skojec, writing today on the Blog: One Peter 5:

I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded. – Romans 16:17-18; RSV

But avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels over the law, for they are unprofitable and futile. As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned. – Titus 3:9-11; RSV

You may have guessed where Skojec is going with his essay.  Here's a little more of his piece that will make it clear:

There are those within our Catholic family who have heeded the warning of St. Paul; they have heard also the exhortation of St. Peter, from which this journal derives its name and purpose: “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in faith…” (1 Peter 5:8-9) Those who have chosen to resist the attacks of the enemy, those who have chosen to stand firm on the ground that God’s teaching is inviolate and immutable, and no prelate or hierarch, no matter how high-ranking, can alter what is sacrosanct. As Bishop Athanasius Schneider said so pointedly last November:

In fact a Divine commandment, in our case the sixth commandment, the absolute indissolubility of the sacramental marriage, a Divinely established rule, means those in a state of grave sin cannot be admitted to Holy Communion. This is taught by Saint Paul in his letter inspired by the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 11, 27-30, this cannot be put to the vote, just as the Divinity of Christ would never be put to a vote. A person who still has the indissoluble sacramental marriage bond and who in spite of this lives in a stable marital cohabitation with another person, by Divine law cannot be admitted to Holy Communion. To do so would be a public statement by the Church nefariously legitimizing a denial of the indissolubility of the Christian marriage and at the same time repealing the sixth commandment of God: “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. No human institution not even the Pope or an Ecumenical Council has the authority and the competency to invalidate even in the slightest or indirect manner one of the ten Divine commandments or the Divine words of Christ: “What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate (Math 19:6)”

You can read the whole essay by clicking HERE.

Bishop Robert Barron on His Episcopal Coat of Arms

President Reagan: A Soldier's Pledge

Fr. Pilon on Conscience and God

Fr. Mark Pilon, a priest of the Diocese of Arlingtom, Virginia, wrote an essay today at The Catholic Thing.org entitled: "When Conscience Trumps Faith and God."

In his essay, Fr. Pilon debunks the wishful thinking of the many Catholics who, in the aftermath of Vatican II, have allowed themselves to believe that their own conscience is the final arbiter of good and evil.

Here are some brief excerpts, but we would all do well to read the entire essay, and file it under "keepers."

The notion that conscience is absolute is a great anthropological and theological lie. Nothing is absolute but God. And conscience, which is an act of the intellect, declares itself absolute only if it simultaneously declares God is not God.

...while man sins if he does not follow his conscience, this doesn’t mean that he does not sin if he follows his conscience.

Indeed, where conscience deliberately refuses to be subject to the law of God, it becomes an agent of sin.

For additional reading on this topic, please read the essay written today, by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, entitled: "Conscience And Truth," by clicking HERE.

Carl Olson: Sixty percent of Catholics are Wrong on Same-Sex Marriage

Carl E. Olson, editor of Ignatius Insight.com and Catholic World Report, was interviewed on NewsMaxTV's "The Hard Line" program today, and the topics were Abortion and so-called Same-Sex Marriage.

When told by the interviewer that statistics show 60% of Catholics believe that gay couples should have the right to marry, and asked what that means, Olson responded:

"…it means that 60 % of Catholics are wrong." 

Fr. Schall: No one can be a citizen of this country and a practicing Christian at the same time.

Father James V. Schall, S.J., who taught political science at Georgetown University for many years, wrote a timely essay at Crisis Magazine.com today.  It's entitled: "Will Catholic Hospitals be the Next Target?"

Here are some excerpts:

A systematic, more and more obvious persecution of Christians has been going on for some time. Its briefest statement is that no one can be a citizen of this country and a practicing Christian at the same time. Persecution is now so obvious that it needs little emphasis. Yet, most of our citizens refuse to acknowledge it or do anything about those elected and unelected officials, from the president on down, who carry it out in increasingly ominous ways. This country itself was designed to prevent precisely this sort of public persecution. We suddenly realize that the constitutional mechanism to prevent this persecution is not working but is being used to foster, indeed justify, the persecution...

Beginning with florists, bakers, and photographers, we see an ever increasing legal demand that no opposition will be tolerated to government rules whatever their reasons, especially if they are religious reasons. At one time, we thought that, if religion had a problem with something, it was probably that there was something wrong or dangerous about it. We read Scripture as instructing us on how to live. Now, almost the opposite is the case. If it is in Scripture, it must be wrong. So we need to eliminate from the public order any influence from this source, no matter how “reasonable” unless it agree with the civil law...

In Redding, California, the lone hospital is Mercy Hospital. It belongs to Dignity Health Care, a group of some 29 hospitals in the state. The article in the Redding paper discussing this case is listed under the heading “Health Care,” a phrase that covers a multitude of sins. The hospital’s normal practice is not to allow sterilization procedures. The reason for this prohibition is not arbitrary. It is an unnecessary mutilation of a normally functioning human organ and is use simply as another form of birth control...

The essay, as you might have guessed by now, goes on to report that the hospital caved on this issue in order to avoid a lawsuit, which was threatened by the ACLU on behalf of a patient seeking such "care."

Fr. Schall sums up the problem clearly by stating:

What the Redding case implies is that medicine is not primarily governed by what is good for the patient. Rather it is a mechanism to give the patient what he wants, whether or not it be good medicine. The government now conceives its purpose not to foster good medicine or the common good to which medicine contributes by its standing for what is right. It functions to enforce its own laws that allow us to do what we want. 

You can read the entire essay by clicking HERE.

 

Bishop E.W. Jackson: The Truth about Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood

The following is from CNSNews.com:

(CNSNews.com) - At a press conference outside the National Portrait Gallery on Thursday, Bishop E.W. Jackson said that if Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger had her way Civil Rights Movement leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks "would never have been born."

The press conference brought together a group of black pastors and pro-life leaders who are demanding that the portrait gallery, which is a part of the federally funded Smithsonian Institution, remove a bust of Margaret Sanger.

The bust is featured in the gallery’s “The Struggle for Justice” exhibit, which focuses on historical equal rights achievements in America. Depictions of King and Parks are featured in the exhibit nearby Sanger’s bust.

“So even though, for PR purposes, she went from talking about eugenics to talking about birth control, her commitment to stopping the growth of the populations of those that she considered to be unfit or defective or unworthy continued,” Jackson said. “She said this: ‘We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.'

“Planned Parenthood is nothing more than a euphemism for Planned Death for the people that Margaret Sanger thought should not exist,” said Jackson.

“To think that her bust sits alongside MLK and Rosa Parks!” he said. “If Margaret Sanger had her way MLK and Rosa Parks would have never been born.”

Jackson is the president of   STAND (Staying True to America’s National Destiny).

On Thursday, after the press conference, he delivered a petition signed by 14,000 calling for the Smithsonian to remove Sanger’s bust.

Fr. Anthony C. Neusch: On Whitewashed Mediocrity (God would never allow me to go to hell)

Fr. Anthony Neusch is a priest of the Diocese of Amarillo and Pastor of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Hereford, TX.  He was ordained to the priesthood, on May 29, 2004.

He wrote a guest column yesterday at the blog of Bellarmine Forum, entitled: The Problem with the Prevenient: Low Expectations are Killing the Faith.

I would like to offer a brief reflection about expectations and support to meet and exceed them.  I want to root these thoughts in just one word found in the Prayer Over the Gifts for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception “prevenient.”  This single word proves that I and my brother priests have, for the most part, failed generations of faithful Catholics.  I have personally heard or read several bishops and many priests use this single word to point to the failure of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal.  They say things such as, “Who uses the word prevenient anymore?” or, “The use of the word prevenient is proof enough that there is no concern about the reality of the American Church.”  Or my personal favorite, “I mean, I know what it means. But I have had eight years of seminary study.  There is no way that the normal person in the pew could even begin to understand what that word means.”  This good brother didn’t even try to pronounce it in his denunciation...

Then in a classic understatement:

      Too many of my brothers have set the bar too low...

If our expectations have been set so low, and I fear that they have, then the result is a sacramental ministerial priesthood with no zeal.  Why should I have a fire for souls when through our own lack of formation and evangelization the faithful have been assured of their own personal salvation through the virtue of niceness?  We have all heard it, “I am a good person, and I believe in God; He would never allow me to enter into Hell.”  To encourage the lowest common denominator of Christian knowledge can result only in the mediocre Christian life. 

Bishop Paprocki: Ask God to Forgive America for funding Planned Parenthood

This is from CNSNews.com:

(CNSNews.com) - Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., said in a video statement yesterday that the United States needs a “Day of National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” like the one President Abraham Lincoln called in 1863 in an era when many Americans denied the full humanity of African Americans.

“President Lincoln lived in a time when many people thought that African-Americans were not fully human,” Bishop Paprocki said. “The United States Supreme Court in fact declared as much in its infamously erroneous Dred Scott decision of 1857. But in our own time the Supreme Court continues to make wrongful decisions, as it did in 1973 in Roe v. Wade in deciding that unborn babies do not deserve the protection of the law, as well as this past June in attempting to redefine marriage contrary to the plan of God as described in the Book of Genesis.”

“Let us ask forgiveness,” said the bishop, “for our nation giving half a billion dollars every year of taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood, founded by Margaret Sanger, a proponent of eugenics who urged Americans to ‘restrict the propagation of those physically, mentally and socially inadequate’ and said that the ‘most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.’"

Sophia Institute: Making Marriage Heaven on Earth (video)

The above video was produce by the Sophia Institute.  Herewith some background:

A Project of Sophia Institute for Teachers

Funded completely through charitable donations, Sophia Institute for Teachers provides Catholic educators with the tools and training they need to catechize students and prepare them to live out the Catholic Faith.

In the past year, Sophia Institute has either hosted or scheduled over 100 catechetical workshops for thousands of Catholic school teachers.

Sophia SketchPad was created as a free resource to help teachers, parents, and catechists articulate the truths of our Faith. In this 6-minute video, we explain why Jesus elevated marriage to a Sacrament, and how married love mirrors the life-giving, unbreakable bond of love of the Blessed Trinity. 

We hope you enjoy this new video and that it is a helpful resource in your classroom, parish, or home.

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Fr. Mark Pilon on Catholic Prelates and Prevaricating Politicians

Fr, Mark A. Pilon, a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, who received a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from Santa Croce University in Rome, wrote an essay today at The Catholic Thing.org, entitled: How Will History Judge Us?

In it, he draws a compelling parallel between the Weimark Republic (had it not become the Third Reich) and the German bishops of today, thence between the German bishops and our own American Catholic bishops.

Suppose Germany from the early 1930s through 1945 had remained the (democratic) Weimar Republic rather than become the Third Reich, a one-party dictatorship. Also suppose that many democratically elected representatives from various liberal and conservative parties had signed on to and advanced the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazis and Hitler. Further suppose that even Catholic elected parliamentarians from the opposition parties joined with the Nazi Party and voted to advance the so-called Final Solution of the Jewish question, and publicly supported its implementation. Just suppose, for argument’s sake, that all of this was historical fact.

Now, let’s go further and suppose that the German bishops had taken no action to discipline those Catholic politicians, in whatever parties, either by excommunication or denying them the sacraments. (We know that disciplinary action has recently been enforced by German bishops for simply refusing to pay the Church tax by not registering as Catholics with the government.) But suppose no such disciplines were enforced back in those evil days, and suppose polls were taken showing that more and more German Catholics were either confused on this grave moral issue or actually had begun to support genocidal racial policies...

For the past fifty years, the Catholic laity in America have heard very clear condemnations of the monstrous crime of abortion from their bishops. But at the same time, they have witnessed prominent Catholic politicians openly supporting abortion rights and fighting efforts to restrict those rights – some even defending the outrages of Planned Parenthood, about which several bishops have spoken out, but done little else. Meanwhile, the dissenting politicians continue to call themselves faithful Catholics and receive Communion publicly, sometimes from the hands of their own bishops...

How will history judge this generation of Church leaders when this human carnage finally ends? How will future generations of Catholics judge this generation’s spiritual leaders if they look back and see that that no Catholic leader was ever disciplined for voting for and positively supporting not only abortion, but now the perversion of the institution of marriage? The same Catholic politicos who have supported the right to terminate innocent lives of the unborn are now supporting the rights of homosexuals to marry and even calling on the Church to change her teaching. Undoubtedly, next will come euthanasia rights disguised as mercy.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki on Obama and Planned Parenthood

Finally an American Catholic prelate, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, has spoken out strongly about the aborted body parts scandal at Planned Parenthood exposed by the undercover videos of the Center for Medical Progress.

In a post yesterday at LifeSiteNews.com, Bishop Paprocki is quoted expounding on the gross evil being perpetrated at Planned Parenthood, and the "deafening silence" coming from the White House about it.

Dispensing with ambiguity, Bishop Thomas Paprocki used the terms “shocked,” “appalled” and “moral depravity” in his assessment of the evil revealed in the Planned Parenthood videos, and likened the callousness to human life today with the classical world of the Greeks and Romans, where abortion and infanticide were widespread and commonplace.

“Since the moral decadence of our 20th Century western world now rivals the decline and fall of the Roman Empire it should not surprise us that the nationwide abortion-provider Planned Parenthood has been exposed for trafficking and selling the body parts of aborted babies,” he stated in a July 26 video and column. “I say we should not be surprised, but we still should be shocked and appalled at this moral depravity.”

Bishop Paprocki also denounced the Obama administration’s complicity with the nation’s largest abortion provider, pointing out in his message how Barack Obama was the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood, when in 2013 he told the abortion behemoth it had a president who was going to be there with it fighting every step of the way.  

“What have we heard about this expose of Planned Parenthood from the White House, which was illuminated in rainbow colors when the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal throughout the country?” Bishop Paprocki asked, taking great pause. “Silence, deafening silence.”

You can read the entire post at Lifesitenews.com, and watch the video of Bishop Paprocki by clicking HERE.

Chuck Schumer shows Political Courage. Who Knew?

New York Senator Chuck Schumer, in a rare move away from his party loyalty has stated he will vote to disapprove the nefarious "Iran deal."  A skeptic might be inclined to suspect that this courageous gesture on his part is not really all that courageous.  It's possible that he was given permission to placate his Jewish base by voting against the deal, which even without his vote will surely pass or at least survive an attempt to override the promised veto if it does pass.  It would be nice to think that he is truly risking his place in the hierarchy of his party - and maybe he is.

So, in today's Notable & Quotable section of the Wall Street Journal, Schumer explains his decision to vote against this ill advised "deal."

Notable & Quotable: Chuck Schumer on Iran

The risk that the regime use the nuclear agreement to pursue its nefarious goals is too great to vote to approve it.

If one thinks Iran will moderate, that contact with the West and a decrease in economic and political isolation will soften Iran’s hardline positions, one should approve the agreement. After all, a moderate Iran is less likely to exploit holes in the inspection and sanctions regime, is less likely to seek to become a threshold nuclear power after ten years, and is more likely to use its newfound resources for domestic growth, not international adventurism.

But if one feels that Iranian leaders will not moderate and their unstated but very real goal is to get relief from the onerous sanctions, while still retaining their nuclear ambitions and their ability to increase belligerent activities in the Middle East and elsewhere, then one should conclude that it would be better not to approve this agreement.

Admittedly, no one can tell with certainty which way Iran will go. It is true that Iran has a large number of people who want their government to decrease its isolation from the world and focus on economic advancement at home. But it is also true that this desire has been evident in Iran for thirty-five years, yet the Iranian leaders have held a tight and undiminished grip on Iran, successfully maintaining their brutal, theocratic dictatorship with little threat. Who’s to say this dictatorship will not prevail for another ten, twenty, or thirty years?

To me, the very real risk that Iran will not moderate and will, instead, use the agreement to pursue its nefarious goals is too great.

Therefore, I will vote to disapprove the agreement, not because I believe war is a viable or desirable option, nor to challenge the path of diplomacy. It is because I believe Iran will not change, and under this agreement it will be able to achieve its dual goals of eliminating sanctions while ultimately retaining its nuclear and non-nuclear power. Better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other nations, and pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more, difficult as it may be.

Fr. Robert Barron on Spiritual Food

Andrew Klavan: Cecil the Lion and the Butchery and Sale of Human Babies

Andrew Klavan wrote an essay yesterday on PJMedia, entitled "Loving Animals, Loving People."  It's reproduced in its entirety below.

My dog is dying, after a long life of beaches and forests and affection. She is one of the sweetest, gentlest, most enthusiastic creatures I’ve ever met, my friend and companion for nearly fifteen years. So even before the news and social media degraded and humiliated themselves by going into hysterics over the death of Cecil the lion while covering up or excusing Planned Parenthood’s butchery and sale of human babies, I’ve had cause to reflect on human-animal relationships.

It in no way detracts from the goodness of my dog nor diminishes my devotion to her to observe that there’s a measure of narcissism in the love of animals. Our pets demand any number of little attentions from us, but they will never ask us to change our opinions. They will never challenge the validity of our inner worlds with their own.

Those competing inner visions humans have — other outlooks; conflicting opinions — that’s what narcissists can’t stand; that’s what really offends them. It’s not enough for a narcissistic tyrant that you do what he says, you also have to profess what he believes. It’s not enough that you leave him alone, you have to bake the cake for his wedding too. Narcissists can’t abide the Other. Competing inner worlds drive them to insane levels of cruelty, brutality and even murder. Animals never pose that problem for them. That’s why so many people who preen themselves on their love of animals are such rotten imbeciles when it comes to other humans. The PETA types who assault people for wearing fur, say. Philosopher Peter Singer who believes a baby may be morally killed but not a dog. Such love of animals is not love at all; just narcissism made flesh.