Another "Would You Believe This?"

Would you believe this?! Our government is spending tax dollars to listen to the Pope and other Vatican officials. Now there is a threat for you. In the meantime while we use our resources on the Vatican, I wonder what Al-Qaeda is doing. Cardinal George, all U.S. Bishops and Catholic entities, a warning, you are being bugged. Better be mum about those bingo games and the Adoration schedule.

Oh, and did you hear: “The Department of Defense classified Catholics and Evangelical Christians as religious extremists similar to Al-Qaeda.” This is your country, you voted for these people. Remember this. Elections are around the corner again. I would vote for my cat before I will vote for my congressman, er, politician, er,… [I better not say that].

As a Catholic, I'm sure the government has a dossier on me already.

Don't forget these were extremists too. I wonder...

Pentagon Classifies Evangelical Christians, Catholics as “Extremists”

The Department of Defense classified Catholics and Evangelical Christians as religious extremists similar to Al-Qaeda, according to training materials obtained by the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.

Read the article here.

There is always truth in humor

Rediscover the Genius of Catholicism

Ohio State Band Moon Walk

Living the Gospel of Life

LIVING THE GOSPEL OF LIFE
Weekly Column by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
October 18, 2013

Exactly 15 years ago this fall, America’s bishops issued a pastoral letter called Living the Gospel of Life. Even today, with the passage of time, this remains no ordinary Church text. I believed then, and I believe now, that it’s the best document ever issued by the U.S. bishops on the priorities of Catholic engagement in our nation’s public life. In writing it, the bishops sought to apply Pope John Paul II’s great encyclical Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”) to the American situation. The heart of their statement, paragraph No. 23, stresses that:

“Opposition to abortion and euthanasia does not excuse indifference to those who suffer from poverty, violence and injustice. Any politics of human life must work to resist the violence of war and the scandal of capital punishment. Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care. Therefore, Catholics should eagerly involve themselves as advocates for the weak and marginalized in all
these areas. Catholic public officials are obliged to address each of these issues as they seek to build consistent policies which promote respect for the human person at all stages of life.

“But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community. If we understand the human person as the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’ -- the living house of God -- then these latter issues fall logically into place as
the crossbeams and walls of that house. All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the house’s foundation. These directly and immediately violate the human person’s most fundamental right -- the right to life. Neglect of these issues is the equivalent of building our house on sand. Such attacks cannot help but lull the social conscience in ways ultimately destructive of other human rights.”

This is why the right to life is not merely one among many urgent issues, but rather the foundational one. It provides the cornerstone for a whole architecture of human dignity. Nothing has changed in recent months or years in Catholic thinking about the sanctity of human life. Nor can it. As America’s bishops have stressed so many times, we have an obligation to work for human dignity at every stage and in every circumstance of human life. Here in Philadelphia, our Catholic social ministries model that dedication to the poor and disadvantaged in an extraordinary way.

But when we revoke legal protection for unborn children – when we accept the intimate violence abortion inflicts both on women and their unborn children; when we license and sacralize abortion as part of what Pope Francis calls a “throw away culture” -- we violate the first and most important human right, the right to life itself. And once we do that, and then create a system of alibis to justify it, we begin to put every other human and civil right at risk.

October is national Respect Life Month. It’s a good time to remember the preciousness of all human life, beginning in the womb and continuing through natural death.  There are really two tragedies in every abortion: the killing of an unborn child; and the killing of an opportunity to love. God made us to be better than that.

Pope Francis' Five Finger Prayer

This is a great conversation opener about faith with your children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren. After teaching them this it can be your secret sign with them, reminding them to pray. Just hold up your hand with fingers spread. I’m sure they will respond with a nod and a smile. Do the same when you wave goodbye. And, actually, it is a great memory tool for us as well.

Remember this lady Irena Sendler

I received this in a chain email today. I don’t participate in chain emails. But this message does need to be shared. Along with this little memorial for her, there is a message that people who really deserve praise and honours usually don’t get them. While the politically correct, having done nothing significant do.

Wikipedia has an article you may want to read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler

There is also a PBS documentary program entitled “Irena Sendler, In the Name of Their Mothers”. It is available from Netflix.

Irena does not need the Peace Prize. Her reward is in heaven.

Tom

Remember this lady Irena Sendler

Died: May 12, 2008 (aged 98), Warsaw, Poland

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive.

Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried. She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck, for larger kids.

Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazi's broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she had smuggled out, in a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and tried to reunite the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

Later another politician, Barack Obama, won for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” What that gobbledygook means is anybody’s guess.

In MEMORIAM – 65 YEARS LATER

It is now more than 65 years since the Second World War in Europe ended.

In memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated!

Now, more than ever, with Iran, and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth'. It’s imperative to make sure the world never forgets.  Because there are others who would like to do it again.

ObamaCare

Book Recommendation - American Church - Russell Shaw

I just got around to reading this interview in OSV from June. Though I have not read the book yet, the interview forces me to conclude it is a must read.

What is happening to the American Catholic Church is obvious, but Mr. Shaw puts it in clear terms. We Catholics are being assimilated by the secular, materialistic and relativistic Godless American culture. We shy away from religious truths, we are not teaching our children our faith. We are turning away from the teachings of our Church and picking and choosing what we will follow and what we will not. We want the church to conform to us, not conforming ourselves to the magisterium as Francis did and taught. It is in our Franciscan Rule.

Remember what happened to the lost tribes of Israel – they were assimilated by the local and surrounding anti-Jewish culture. In large part by intermarriage, but also by letting go of their faith. Will this happen to the American Catholic? For the most part it has already happened in Europe.

My answer is that we need to embrace the New Evangelization and start reminding our fellow Catholics what the Church teaches. It is not a time to be politically correct, or silent, or wishy-washy moderate. It is time to embrace our faith and make sure we are vocal. We need to be public about our faith, we need to be a model to others – our family and friends.

Shaw assesses the dangers of assimilation for American Catholics

Longtime Catholic journalist examines the state of the Church in America and how it can be renewed

By Matthew E. Bunson - OSV Newsweekly, 6/30/2013 

One of the great ongoing questions in the history of American Catholicism has been that of cultural assimilation. Has the embrace of American culture and values been a good thing or a bad thing for Catholics in the country, and, indeed, is it even possible for an American Catholic to be both American and Catholic?

It is a challenging question, and it is one worth discussing at a time when American cultural influences of materialism, secularism and relativism seem so diametrically opposed to everything we are called to be as members of the Catholic Church.

Read the rest here.

Review - Audio Lecture - The Great Courses - The New Testament

I’m a pretty big fan of The Teaching Company’s Great Courses audio lectures. I’m purchased a few and I’ve loaned a few from the library. I especially enjoyed The Catholic Church – A History, Reason and Faith, and St. Augustine – Philosopher and Saint, to mention a few.

But I must express a warning about the lecture series called the New Testament by

Professor Bart D. Ehrman. Mr. Ehrman is your preverbal secularist academic who finds nothing of positive value in the NT. He goes out of his way to constantly find inconsistencies and tried to use logic or reasoning to pooh-pooh whatever book he is addressing. We are all aware that there are inconsistencies. They were written by humans relying on either their own eyewitness of events, oral stories being passed on, and early extant and non-extant written documents. He doubts the four evangelists wrote the gospels citing they did not contain the name of the author. Yes, the common practice at the time was not to name the work or identify the author, though at times the name of the work and or author would be written on the rolled scroll. So again he argues Mark, Matthew, Luke and John did not write the gospels.

He indicates there were no living eyewitnesses when the books were written. This is not true, some of the early church fathers regularly conversed with some eyewitnesses. John the youngest apostle could have been alive we into the 90s A.D.

There is a diatribe as he argues Paul taught a completely different religion than did Jesus. Well, Paul was not an eyewitness to Jesus. What Paul learned was learned from other Christians. There was tremendous growth and development in these early years and he ignores that the church was being led by the Holy Spirit. But he tries to use this to debunk both Jesus and Paul.

Do not waste your money and time on this. His unspoken agenda is clear. This is the kind of education our children are being taught in our institutes of “higher” education. A shame. No matter why our youth are turning away from faith. And I’m sure this secularization is pervasive in academia including “catholic universities.”

The Pics Say It All

Received these in an email today and thought I would pass them on. These floats were part of the annual Carnival Parade in Germany watched by an estimated three million people in three German cities including Düsseldorf.

It is so sad we are the laughing stock around the word, but this is what happens when you make a community organizer president. Happy Obamacare to you.

Doesn't it make you so proud that the whole world is laughing at the U.S.A. ?

You can bet the pro-Obama media will never print these pictures!

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."    Ronald Reagan

Respect Life - Our unday Visitor Editorial

In that prime-time speech, President Obama used the word “children” seven times....  But, as many pro-life groups have pointed out, the president’s words stand in stark juxtaposition with his strong pro-abortion position in the abortion debate. For some reason, pro-abortion Americans can’t make the connection that the 1.21 million victims of abortion each year are the same innocent souls as those lying on the hospital floor in Syria....

Please go to Our Sunday Visitor's editorial "Our Selective Concern" of 9/29/2013 here.