Do we need the White House in our faith journey?

"Trump said on Thursday he would create a White House faith office and direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead a task force on eradicating what he called anti-Christian bias within the federal government." (Glenn Beck website)

 
I'm not a fan of this idea. There was a fairly prominent faith office in the Bush Administration which as I recall Obama continued, but with much watering down. "President Bush created the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives and Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in eleven Federal agencies to lead a determined attack on need by strengthening and expanding the role of FBCOs in providing social services." (old White House document). In my opinion, this led to many truly service centered ministries accepting government money. I don't know if it was continued.

 
Let the First Amendment handle it--try enforcing it. When government interferes in religion in the name of help or protecting, especially Christianity, bad things happen. I don't mean wars or jail time, but general all around bad feelings. We have over 35,000 Protestant and non-denominational church organizations and most can't agree on the basic points of theology, they don't like each others worship services or social services, and most of them don't like Catholics, and probably haven't heard of all the varieties of Orthodox, or the African and Middle-eastern groups. They all "stand on the Bible," but not which translation of which canon. And the politics! Oh my.

Edith Stein, August 9 memorial

Today, August 9, we Christians and Jews memorialize the death of Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was killed in Auschwitz on August 9 for both her ethnic Jewish heritage (had converted to Catholicism in 1922 after being an atheist) and her Catholicism. After the Dutch Catholic Bishops had condemned the Nazis for the persecution of the Jews in 1942, Roman Catholics were rounded up and sent to the death camps.

 
The Collect for her memorial in the "Episcopal Book of Common Prayer" reads as follows:

"Pour out your grace upon thy church, O God; that, like your servant Edith Stein, we may always seek what is true, defend what is right, reprove what is evil, and forgive those who sin against us, even as your Son commanded; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory, now and forever."

Yad Vashem, the memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, commemorates Edith Stein as a Jewish woman murdered by the Nazis: “Edith Stein was born in Breslau, Germany in 1891. Prior to WWII she lived in Koeln, Germany. Edith was murdered in the Shoah.”

 
Pope John Paul II canonized her in 1998.
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Let's remember on this day that Nazi (National Socialists) totalitarianism was against Christians as well as Jews. To revere God as higher than the state is a crime in totalitarian societies. Today we need to watch for that evil as the creeping socialism in our own country becomes an open, in-your-face marathon. We see attacks on Jews in our elite universities and the FBI has been found spying on traditional Catholics. Parents lose their rights for fighting against the agenda of radical trans activists who deny God's plan of Creation of male and female.

(Information from Magnificat, August 2023, pp. 117-118 and Praytellblog,com)

A church joke from an internet friend

Subject: Squirrelly

The Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they concluded that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and they should not interfere with God’s divine will.

At the Baptist church, the squirrels had taken an interest in the baptistry. The deacons met and decided to put a water-slide on the baptistry and let the squirrels drown themselves. The squirrels liked the slide and, unfortunately, knew instinctively how to swim, so twice as many squirrels showed up the following week.

The Lutheran church decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist church. Two weeks later, the squirrels were back when the Baptists took down the water-slide.

The Episcopalians tried a much more unique path by setting out pans of whiskey around their church in an effort to kill the squirrels with alcohol poisoning. They sadly learned how much damage a band of drunk squirrels can do.

But the Catholic church came up with a more creative strategy! They baptized all the squirrels and made them members of the church. Now they only see them at Christmas and Easter.

Not much was heard from the Jewish synagogue. They took the first squirrel and circumcised him. They haven’t seen a squirrel since.

Catholic candidates and abortion

 

The Dear John letter

This isn't exactly a Memorial Day tale, but. . . I was talking to a Vietnam vet today about church. He’d never heard of Lakeside, Ohio, which is a Chautauqua community originating as a Methodist Campground.  He said he grew up Catholic--attended church 6 days a week. I asked him when was the last time he'd been to confession, and he said 1967. He was in Vietnam and went to confession. The next day he got a "Dear John" letter from his fiancé who had become pregnant by another man while he was gone. He never went back to church, and he has no idea what became of his fiancé or the baby, except the new boyfriend dropped her.  He must not have grown up in a small town—people never forget those things, or what happened to whom, when and why.

I had the feeling she didn’t follow these instructions. https://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Dear-John-Letter

We have a hate hoax problem--hate speech from the media

The media hate hoax which defamed a teen age boy needs some context. https://spectator.org/the-hate-hoax-industry/

"Consider, for example, “violence against women,” a problem allegedly so prevalent in America as to require federal legislation to suppress it. Yet reports of such crimes are often ignored by feminists, even when the violence particularly heinous. In 2017, a 15-year-old girl was rescued from a gang that had forced her into prostitution in the Maryland suburbs of D.C. Police say the gang had pimped out the girl since age 14 and she was savagely beaten with baseball bats when she didn’t turn enough tricks. Feminists have utterly ignored this case because the gang was MS-13, and at least one of the perpetrators was in the country illegally. “Violence against women” doesn’t interest feminists when it’s committed by illegal aliens, because calling attention to these crimes might help increase support for Trump’s border-enforcement policies — perish the thought!

The media’s anti-Trump agenda is what led them into their catastrophic blunder in the Covington Catholic incident. Because several of the students, including Nick Sandmann, were wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, the network TV producers were only too eager to agree with the Colorado teacher who pronounced them “Hitler Youth.” Plenty of liberal journalists have stated their belief that Trump is a latter-day Hitler, and by this logic the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for Trump must be crypto-Nazis. So when the video clip of Phillips in a face-off with the Kentucky students surfaced online Jan. 19, the folks at CNN, MSNBC, and other left-wing “news” operations were easily persuaded that Phillips was an innocent victim . . ."

Have the Trump haters (of him and the voters) learned anything from this.  Of course not--they were just coming of the fake Buzzfeed fiasco.

Why we need to evangelize Muslims

"Up until 9-11, I considered Islam one of the three great monotheistic religions. It was not the actions of the terrorists that roused my suspicions, but the silence or obfuscation of the rest of Islam on the matter. If a group of Catholics had done that, I knew my Church would immediately rise in righteous anger to denounce the terrorists, to condemn them and proclaim excommunication on any who adopted such poisonous doctrines contrary to the faith. That did not happen with Islam. About the best they could muster was the “street-gang” defense: “It wasn’t us.” – denying personal responsibility while remaining ambivalent – and often excusing – the act.

It was that disturbing episode that led me to study the Koran. It is not very large…only about the length of the Psalms. I was stunned. I had heard all the quotations “proving” that Islam was a religion of peace. It was a shell game. To simplify, the Koran has two very different sets of rules, one for fellow Muslims and another for infidels. All the quotations supporting the “religion of peace” fantasy come from sections on how to treat fellow Muslims with whom you are in conflict. The rules for infidels are that they must convert or die. The only wiggle room is how long you give them to convert before you kill them."

Concerning Islam

Mesrob the Armenian Monk saved Christian history

I was thinking today about the massacre of Mexican Catholics by their own government, called the Cristero War (this is a bigger problem in the world than religious wars) and wondering if the Pope would get an apology.  I think it should be a bigger deal to him than the American primaries. Then I thought about the Turks' genocide of Armenian Christians. You can call it religious wars, but the Turkish government was killing its own citizens. Armenia was the first country to make Christianity its religion, and today (Feb. 19) we memorialize the monk Mesrob, who saved their language by creating an alphabet and also rescued many documents on Christianity. 

 St. Mesrob (known as Mashdots) (438 A.D.) was born in the village of Hatsegats in the province of Daron. In his early years, he learned both Greek and Persian and served in the Armenian Royal Court. Later, he decided to enter the ranks of the clergy and went to preach in the province of Koghtn around 395 A.D. During this period he felt the great need of the Armenian people for an alphabet of their own so he petitioned the Catholicos Sahag and together they requested the aid of King Vramshabouh. 

After much research and many travels, Mesrob was able to come up with the skeleton of an alphabet. However, it did not meet the needs of the Armenian language. According to tradition, while meditating in a cave near the village of Palu, the saint had a vision in which, "the hand of God wrote the alphabet in letters of fire." Immediately after the discovery of the alphabet, the Holy Translators worked to translate the Bible and the first words in the Armenian language were from the Book of Proverbs, "To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the word of understanding." They also opened schools to teach the newly discovered alphabet.

St. Mesrob's life's works have been recorded by one of his famous students, Goriun, in his book, The Life of Mashdots  He was buried in Oshagan in the province of Vaspouragan. Beloved by all, St. Mesrob is a special inspiration to Armenian writers and poets.  Link to July 6, 2014 e-bulletin.

 

"Lauren Markoe, discussing the film [about the Cristero War] for the Religion News Service, wrote: For Catholics enraged by the Obama administration’s proposed contraception mandate, the film about the Mexican church’s fight in the 1920s is a heartening and timely cinematic boost in the American church’s battle to preserve "religious freedom" in 2012." 

Pelosi—what part of Catholicism does she follow?

The Pelosi/Boehner smooch yesterday as he was reelected House Speaker reminded me of just how promiscuous she is. This story is 7 months old, but the history behind it is important. A "religious" 501c3 non-profit funded by Soros and promoting leftist causes. "The real story here is the betrayal of the bishops by those like John Gehring, formerly the Assistant Director of Media Relations at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who now works at the George Soros-funded Faith in Public Life/Faithful America. It is activists like Gehring who are providing the real power behind Pelosi’s threats. Faithful America is a 501c (3) organization that has been very involved in political activity during the past few years."

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/whats-behind-pelosis-attack-archbishop-cordileone

Faithful America was originally founded in 2004 by then Catholic Democratic congressman Tom Perriello. It was always a political organization—described in their literature as a “communications and organizing resource center dedicated to helping faith leaders reclaim the values debate in America for justice, compassion and the common good.” The reality was that Faithful America was created to help Perriello convince voters—especially pro-life voters—to move beyond what he called “divisive abortion rhetoric. . .

Faith in Public Life/Faithful American have implemented a strategy of attacking the teachings of the Catholic Church by directly attacking the authority of the bishops. Faith in Public Life has been flush with Soros money—although in 2010 Wallis refused to acknowledge the receipt of the funds.  Wallis finally admitted what he called “his error” when the funding was made public in an article called “Wallis vs The Truth” by World Magazine editor Marvin Olasky.”

What does she say in confession?

Nancy Pelosi supports abortion after 22 weeks and calls the recent House bill to let babies live, "disgraceful." She claims to be a "practicing and respectful Catholic." Sorry, ma'am, that would make you a Protestant. We get to declare own personal beliefs are above the church, scripture and tradition; you don't.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-banning-abortion-post-22-weeks-disrespectful-women

Why did Catholics support Obama?

Fifty seven percent of practicing Catholics (attend mass at least once a week) voted for Romney.  Forty three percent who call themselves Catholic but rarely attend services, voted for Obama, the pro-abortion president. Every U.S. Bishop opposed the HHS mandate,  and it clearly looked like Obama stabbed them in the back after they’d supported him on immigration, taxes, etc.  But they just couldn't fight the fact that Catholics have been primarily Democrats for way too long.  I can’t imagine that they couldn’t see this coming when they supported a pro-abortion candidate in 2008.  So that also means that 43% of practicing Catholics think it is OK for Catholic charities and schools and hospitals to go under because of Obama's mandates.

http://www.lifenews.com/2013/02/15/why-did-so-many-faithful-catholics-vote-for-obama-again/

Cafeteria Catholics are everywhere

         

“The University of Notre Dame has invited Dr. Thomas Quinn–who facilitates family planning and condom distribution projects at the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health–to deliver a commencement address next month,” Patrick Reilly, the president of the Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic educational watchdog  group  explained. “Moreover, Quinn will be honored as Notre Dame’s Distinguished Alumnus for 2012, apparently in violation of the U.S. bishops’ ban on such honors — and just when our bishops are fighting the Obama administration to preserve Catholic universities’ right to uphold Catholic teaching on contraceptives.”

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/04/27/catholic-colleges-notre-dame-honoring-abortion-advocates/ 

http://blog.cardinalnewmansociety.org/2012/04/25/notre-dame-commencement-speaker-aids-partnership-at-odds-with-vatican-bishops/

Maher and the Muslims

Don't you wonder how long Maher's head would stay on his scrawny neck (either on earth or on the air) if he were as insulting to Muslims as he was to the Pope and Catholics? I've never watched even 3 minutes of him. He's a twirp made of diseased sputum and fecal matter, of such filth that I'd be afraid to even step near his piles and splatters. But I do think subscribers to HBO should let the owners, producers, and stockholders know just how insulting he is to Catholics in particular, and all Christians in general. I would never say he shouldn't have a right to be an idiot or slanderer or scumbag, but I'd hit him and his owners where it hurts--his wallet. I mean, it's not like the entertainment industry protects the best interests of children by protecting porn and every imaginable filth for the big bucks.

"I'd like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult," Maher told his audience. "Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That's right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he's single."

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This 'n That

Are you happy yet, Algore? Food prices are soaring--hurting the poor. Putting corn in the gas tank to please the global warming fundamentalists is raising gas prices, raising the cost of corn that is used in a lot of products, taking some products out of production as farmers switch to the high demand for bio-fuels.

Best quote in the Republican debate was the one from Tancredo on conversions on the road to DesMoines. Fox questions are definitely better than the softball lobs the other media mavens throw.

The Lexus LS 600hL ($104,715) owner's manual has 1,097 pages, according to WSJ story. Gone with the Wind has only 960 in paperback. But it has been edited, so it could've been larger. It won't fit into the glovebox, so needs a special place in the trunk (who reads books in the trunk?). There is a supplement of 74 p. for a quick reference.

The growing middle class of China and India might have a thing or two to say to folks who think they'll turn around global warming by reducing the life style of Americans.

Jonathon Clements of WSJ advises new college grads to aim at accumulating a savings goal of 2x their projected income. He suggests funding your employers 401(k) plan and your own Roth IRA. I suggest you first look for the sound investment of a good marriage. The new financial divide isn't racial, it's marital. Nothing like the support of 2 sets of parents for a good safety net.

Washington DC ranks second (New Hampshire is first) in per capital alcohol consumption in the U.S., falling to 4 gallons/person in 2004 from 6.6 gallons in 1970. (Politico, May 14)

I overheard a woman from Bulgaria telling her co-worker that she was surprised that the planners of her high school reunion in Bulgaria were able to track her down in another country with another name (married now) to invite her to the reunion. Maybe our government could learn something about tracking immigrants from the Bulgarians?

The federal government is taking over the private Richard Nixon library which had been managed by a private foundation. Nixon's papers, 44 million pages of records and 3,000 hours of audio tapes are "secure" in the National Archives. NARA security was no problem for Sandy Berger who barely got a slap on the wrist for stealing 9/11 documents. Timothy Naftoli will be the librarian. Of course, he's not a librarian, he's a historian, more evidence of how weak and disrespected the American Library Association is. Maybe they should try being less political and more librarian?

I was listening to Catholic radio talk show today. A grandmother who has custody of her grand daughter called with concerns about what was being taught at her parochial school. They were designing mandalas in art class and being taught yoga in gym class. For this Catholics are paying money?

There's a Relay for Life in our suburb May 18-19. We're about 99.5% white; due to international adoptions and some university folk, the population mix of the schools might be 98% white. The poster must come from "headquarters," which this year has decided on a diversity push. So the poster shows 8 happy, smiling young people participating--1 Hispanic, 2 African American, 4 Asian, and 1 middle-eastern.

For Mother's Day I got the DVD of Dreamgirls.

Between 1962 and 2004 the marriage rate for black women has steadily declined from 62 to 36%; among whites, from 84% to 64%. At mid-20th century, the least educated were the most likely to be in an interracial marriage, but by the end of the century, the most educated were most likely to intermarry.

It was no surprise that Upper Arlington's library levy passed. They've raised our taxes another $800,000 even though they have more money than they know what to do with. That's $61 per $100,000 of assessed home value.

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Rosie's anti-Catholic, anti-Christian tirades

She's gone from The View (although probably not from view), but I don't think her virulently anti-Christian, bigoted remarks are the reason. A new columnist for the St. Louis Dispatch, commented on the long term affects of the Catholic compromise beginning with JFK in her February 2007 piece. So I doubt that they really bombarded Barbara Walters and Disney with their anger:

"What role should a Catholic politician's faith play in his governing decisions? After dominating U.S. headlines during the 2004 presidential contest between Catholic Senator John Kerry and Methodist President George W. Bush, the question has emerged again. The midterm elections of 2006 swept pro-choice Catholic Senator Nancy Pelosi into the third-highest position in the U.S. government, cost the pro-life movement more than a dozen House and Senate seats, and found Catholic voters migrating back to the Democratic Party despite its staunch support for legal abortion. Pro-choice Catholic and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has informally launched a presidential bid, as has pro-life Catholic Senator Sam Brownback. And the U.S. bishops recently released a statement affirming that Catholics must uphold Church teaching in public life if they wish to receive Communion." Collen Carroll Campbell

If there's a group wimpier than Republicans, it has to be Christians. The PC chat that a Lutheran pastor gave at the VA Tech memorial clearly demonstrates that.