Religious symbols—a church and a Bible

Imagine a president using a church as a symbol, or holding up a Bible. Shocking. I remember when Obama went to Notre Dame. Quite a stir. The most pro-abortion politician in the history of the country at a Catholic school named for Our Lady, the mother of Jesus. It was quite a mess--liberal and conservative Catholics squabbling and conservative pro-life Protestants butting in who were clueless that Catholics lead the way in the pro-life department.

Then there was President Obama at Georgetown, another Roman Catholic institution, and the religious symbols, not exactly being used, but being covered up so as not to detract from his royal presence. Yes, it sure is a shame that President Trump is the only president to ever have made use of religious symbolism. At least he wasn't thumbing his nose at the symbols.

The lies about  the tear gas and the bunker are just ridiculous.  No matter how many times it is denied, the left just keeps chattering about it.

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/uspp/6_2_20_statement_from_acting_chief_monahan.htm

Removing the murals of Columbus at Notre Dame

It w as a bad week for Catholic education—teen boys at a Catholic high school have had their lives threatened after being accosted by both blacks and Indians,  and the most prestigious Catholic university was accused of racism, insensitivity, and worse because of murals.  We all know from the removal of the post Civil War statues of Confederate heroes, and removing the name of a modern day hero (Ben Carson) from a school because of his association with the President, that it won’t end here. Robert Royal comments:

“And there’s another side to this story [murals], because slavery and human sacrifice were common in the areas the Spaniards first explored. As Carlos Fuentes, a Mexican novelist and no great friend to Christianity, put it: “One can only imagine the astonishment of the hundreds and thousands of Indians who asked for baptism as they came to realize that they were being asked to adore a god who sacrificed himself for men instead of asking men to sacrifice themselves to gods.”

Still, I would not much defend those murals. They’re mediocre portrayals of a fantasy version of Columbus bringing the Faith to the New World. In purely historical terms, the cringing and humiliated Native Americans correspond to nothing.

My worry is that something larger is afoot.  Because if Notre Dame is going down this path, it might just as well also cover up all the crucifixes and depictions of Christ on campus. Because some might feel excluded and marginalized by them, in our current dispensation.

Jesus, after all, was a “homophobe” who warned, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law.” (Matthew 5:17) The Mosaic Law calls homosexual acts an “abomination.” It also says “male and female he created them,” clearly the source of that widespread mental illness “transphobia.””

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/01/23/our-tribal-warfare/?

Notre Dame Graduation 2017 and 2009

A few dozen students walked out on Vice President Pence at the Notre Dame Graduation in 2017. It's their right to leave history in the making. Obama also created an historic moment in May 2009 and used a Notre Dame graduation to slam the Catholic Church by announcing embryonic stem cell research would continue on our tax dollar, undoing Bush's executive order (and no one sued him). He was too late; the research had moved so quickly during the Bush years we no longer needed that death trap. Despite its availability (was never illegal or banned) embryonic stem cell research had never produced that first cure or break through. Obama was so rude and narcissistic he thought his pretty words on abortion and holding hands could undo Catholic dogma 2000 years old on the sanctity of life. All he did was make himself look foolish in his first year as president. And thereafter, in my view.

Obama’s lies, laws and fixes

The president has a record for lying to get a law passed, then lying after it is passed, then offering a fix for the law he lied about.

"The flagship Catholic university [Notre Dame], named after the most prolife Woman in history, rewarded the most pro-abortion President in history by giving him an honorary degree. On this occasion the President publicly promised to respect Catholic conscience rights by keeping a conscience clause exception in his comprehensive healthcare program. He lied. He reneged on his promise." Peter Kreeft.

Obama's fix when even liberal Catholics were outraged by his lie was to give a one year reprieve. Sound familiar? Lies. Laws. Fixes.

My comments in 2009 on his event at Notre Dame, here, and here.

The speech Notre Dame grads didn't get to hear

Here's a graduation address that could have inspired them to go forward and be their best, given to 2009 graduates of University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas, May 9, 2009 by the Most Rev. José H. Gomez, S.T.D., Archbishop of San Antonio.

Now the world you are entering into, dear graduates, sees things very differently. In fact, our society today is a lot like Pontius Pilate—it doesn’t recognize the truth. It doesn’t believe there can even be any one truth. Our culture believes instead that there are many truths—as many different truths as there are individuals, and that it’s wrong to try to decide or judge among these competing “truths.”

This sounds like a very fair and reasonable way to live in a free society where there are many different religions, lifestyles, and points of view. But in practice: when nothing is true, everything is permitted.

When the only truth is that there is no truth, then we end up with what Pope Benedict has called the “dictatorship of relativism.” What’s right or wrong, true or false, good or evil, is decided by majority vote or imposed by powerful special interests. As a result of this dictatorship of relativism, our society not only allows evils such as abortion, it also protects them under law.

Applying the Golden Rule to Abortion

Obama's speech writers just amaze me--the twisting and distorting of the English language is just stunning. I was driving home from the coffee shop this morning and wasn't fast enough to push the button when the news clip of Obama's speech at Notre Dame came on and I caught his recitation of the number of religions that cling to the Golden Rule, "Do unto others. . . " In the context of abortion it was such a distortion of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. I was afraid I might cause an accident. I'm not sure there is a major religion that gives this one a pass.

... the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It is no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule - the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. To serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth.

Some people's moments are a bit briefer than others, it seems.


Just what is the "Golden Rule?" Usually it's a reference to Jesus' statement in Matthew 7:12/Luke 6:31. "So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." Who in the world wishes death and dismemberment on himself?

Confucius' negative slant was "What you do not like if done to yourself, do not to others," and Isocrates said, "Do not do to others that at which you would be angry if you suffered it from others." Rabbi Hillel said, "Whatsoever you would that men should not do to you, do not that to them" and it appears in Leviticus 19:18.

For Christians, however, Jesus takes it to an understanding of the highest good, for the self and for others. He is calling us to anticipate the well-being of another--and in the context of the speech a very helpless "other." I'm often shocked when liberals, progressives, marxists and feministas will claim that the aborted child would have lived a life of poverty, pain, or disease and therefore the abortion is an act of mercy and good. Really? You mean the 40 or 50 million abortions since Roe v. Wade was all about malformed or poor children, and not malformed values and self-centered fears? I only know a few mothers who have aborted their babies, and it was with deep regret, and it certainly wasn't because of poverty or disease or mental retardation. Carrying the child to term and placing it with an adoptive family certainly would have been an option.

If death were such a great solution for poverty, why in the world are we putting all this time, money and effort into poverty programs (especially those that don't work--like the government handouts). Just kill the poor people when we know for sure they aren't viable tax payers, if that's your motivation! And you guys try to make Republicans look bad just because they suggest a welfare to work program. Talk about screwed up values!

The Obama administration has gone to a great deal of effort to destroy the livelihood of many well-off, well-educated, talented people--for no reason other than they were rich people who supplied jobs and investment opportunities for others. So if they kill off the potentially poor before they are born, and the unacceptably rich after they are successful, who will they come for next. You?

Obama at Notre Dame

Actually, if I were a student or faculty member there, I just wouldn't attend. Marching around seems a bit disrespectful to the Office of the President. And that would be last time they'd see a dollar from me during the annual alumni funds drive. Each time the U. of I. hits me up for money, I write a note on the card, "Not until you get rid of terrorist Bill Ayres," and mail it back in the envelope.

Support an honorary degree? For what? After all, he believes it is OK to stab an unborn baby in the skull and suck out her brain so that she can be technically born dead before the rest of the body emerges. No other President that I know of has ever held such a radical, inhumane view, and very, very few American law makers are feministas to that extreme. Notre Dame is a Roman Catholic institution, a church that has always protected the unborn, the sick and diseased, the aging, the mentally challenged and ill. They've lost their marbles or dropped their rosary on this one.

However, when liberals, Democrats, progressives and anarchists demonstrate on campuses, traditionally nothing happens to them. Instead, the speaker usually goes home, or is shouted down or is removed for his own safety. Perhaps I just haven't found the right source but I'm trying to find links to the pre-emptive arrests for the various Bush protests. Was it Cindy when she was camping out on his private property? Or maybe the Code Pink Chorus line dancing outside the hospital when he was visiting wounded war veterans? There are records of people getting arrested at the actual event because I'm sure that's a real crowd control and safety problem. But the people at Notre Dame are getting arrested and harassed two weeks in advance when the President wasn't even there.

"Former Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes and 21 other protesters were arrested this morning [May 8] when they refused to leave the Notre Dame campus during a protest of President Obama's upcoming commencement address there, authorities said.

"Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes and 17 others have been arrested [May 14] after marching on to the University of Notre Dame campus to protest President Obama's commencement speech Sunday."

“On May 1, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry and another man were arrested on campus while pushing strollers containing dolls covered in fake blood.

On May 8, Keyes and 21 others, many of them pushing strollers containing dolls covered in fake blood, were arrested.”

“[On May 15] About 35 people, many of them carrying anti-abortion signs, were standing on the four corners outside the school's front gate shortly before noon when a group of about 40 people led by Keyes and Terry marched up. . . After speaking, Keyes then led a smaller group onto campus. They made it about 100 yards on campus before they were stopped by campus security. Keyes was taken into custody immediately, and the others were told to leave or they would be arrested.”

Librarians, who are very brave, bold, and politically left, protested Laura Bush, a former librarian, who gave a speech at the American Library Association. I don't remember if anyone called in the cops on them. Laura and George Bush are class acts. So different from that noisy, hyper-belligerent gang of thugs in charge of the country now.

Sometimes Christians have to hold their noses

Thousands of Roman Catholics are protesting Notre Dame's honoring of the President. Story here. It does seem odd that the only pro-abortion President (public) in our history will be honored by one of the most famous Catholic institutions, but then as an ELCA Lutheran (the group that for six years has been trying to write its own mushy, obfuscating response to God's plan for marriage), I'll have to sit this one out. Any man who is the offspring of a 17 year old, unmarried at his conception, impregnated by a married man must have some self-hate and loathing either for himself or his parents to be such an advocate of murdering the unborn.