Comments. . .

I suppose I shouldn’t feel too bad about what people say to me about my blog or Facebook Posts.  Arthur Brooks has just begun a new column at the Washington Post taking Charles Krauthammer’s old spot, and some of the endearing comments were:

• Someone calling themselves Leaving weighs in with, “Well, this column is garbage.”

• dogbath adds, “The personable but warped Mr. Brooks provides a second home for psychopaths at AEI.”
• Benzaiten comments, “Ok I didn’t finish this article because it was becoming sappy nonsense.”

The internet is a cesspool.

Pastor Rich Nathan on why he opposes abortion

Pastor Nathan lists 10 points, but I’m just showing #3. http://www.richnathan.org/article/10-reasons-why-i-oppose-abortion?

The Christian church throughout history has been pro-life.

 
The Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights argues that the Bible does not forbid abortion. It is absolutely true that there are no explicit verses in the Bible opposing abortion. The reason is because during the biblical era, Jews believed that abortion was unthinkable. They regarded abortion as a form of murder and laws against murder were considered to be sufficient to cover abortion.

In the early church, Christians felt that they needed to take a stand because they were in an entirely different cultural situation. In the Greco-Roman world, both abortion and infanticide were widely practiced. The church unanimously and strongly opposed abortion from its earliest days:

• The Didache (likely written in the first century) says, “Do not murder a child by abortion nor kill it at birth.”
• The second century Epistle of Barnabas says, “You shall not slay a child by abortion.”
• Athenagoras, a second century Greek apologist, wrote, “We say that women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder… [for we] regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care.”
• In the early third century the African church father Tertullian wrote, “It does not matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. In both instances, the destruction is murder.”
• In the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea, wrote, “A woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder.”
• In the same century, John Chrysostom, the most esteemed church father in Eastern Orthodoxy said, “Why do you abuse the gift of God… and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder?”
• Jerome called abortion, “The murder of an unborn child.”
There’s an unbroken chain of witness from the earliest days of the Christian church to the 20th century voicing strong countercultural opposition to abortion.

If you are interested in reading more of the church’s history of opposition to abortion check out: Third Time Around: A History of the Pro-Life Movement from the First Century to the Present by George Grant.  https://www.amazon.com/Third-Time-Around-Pro-Life-Movement/dp/0943497655

260th party for Robert Burns

Bobby Burns parties have been celebrated on January 25 since 1801, the 5th anniversary of his death.  So with the rest of the world last night we celebrated with Dave and Donna who have such a party each year.  With many others (I think we were a total of 17) we sat around their table and enjoyed a lovely dinner, telling stories, reading poetry and singing.  I got to wear my “new” kilt.

When an apology isn’t

I don't know how it's done in confession, but I'd not consider Bishop Foys PR move an apology considering his position and the children he insulted.

“We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way by either of our statements, which were made with goodwill based on the information we had,” said Bishop Foys in the letter, which was addressed to the parents of Covington Catholic students.
“We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it.” Bishop Roger Foys, Covington, KY

How about something along the lines. . .

"I'm deeply sorry and sincerely apologize to all the students and their parents for the terrible mistake I personally made in misjudging your character and behavior. Rather than waiting and looking at the facts, as adults always tell children to do, I believed rumors and innuendo instead of my own children. I have been guilty of looking out for my own reputation, afraid of being called a racist or a Trump supporter, rather than supporting and loving my own parishioners. Please forgive me."

None of this "we" business, or "to anyone who has been offended" nonsense. That's politicianspeak, and no one trusts it.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/covington-bishop-apologizes-to-covington-catholic-students

Cheering for Death by Pro-Choice legislators—scene from Hell

Intersectionality, multiculturalism, inclusion, and diversity--all except white men

Before the Jews were rounded up and killed, there was first a campaign to demonize them--to depict them as less than human. Is the same thing happening to white men? Not that they will go to the gas chambers--they just won't be able to get a job.

Smiling while White

A white male gaze is considered sexual assault or predatory behavior by some feminists. So if you follow that reasoning, pink hat feminists are outraged by the March for Life because it protects the lives of the preborn. Now follow me here. These White boys from the Catholic school were in town to participate in the March and by wearing a MAGA hat were fair game. You can see why a smile was interpreted as a smirk, but either one, combined with staring while White is cause for feminists who control today's news media to pounce. Sometimes you just have to diagram a sentence or analyze a feminist to get a clear understanding.

Reminder

Print the POLST form and read. http://www.cathmed.org/resources/polst/  Do not sign this form. 
Things are moving quickly.  It was just 2012 that President Obama was still saying that marriage was between a man and a woman.  Were President Trump to say that today it would be more shouts for impeachment.  Polygamy demands were supposed to come after same sex marriage, or incest law revocation, but the transgender lobby  jumped in to use up the coffers for the marriage fight and look how well they’ve done in a very short period of time. We now have unlimited numbers of gender and you can be fired for using the wrong pronoun.  It was just about 3 years ago that the Democrats approved 20 Billion for the wall and now they call it immoral.  So the society and cultural standards are changing quickly.

So after all states start following NY, they’ll be coming after us elderly and disabled or depressed.

Pastors, not to speak is to speak

 

Pastors and teachers, will your sermons and teachings this week engage the actual world? Or will our passivity give folly and death more ground?

Legalized infanticide in New York. Hate Hoaxes framing innocent bystanders (the Covington kids etc.). Borders open to drugs and crime, with thousands of victims.

I urge every Christian minister to step up to the plate this Sunday. Conviction and courage, friends. In time of war, silence isn't golden. It's yellow.

Be a Bonhoeffer. A Paul. Be like Jesus. Speak, stand, act - because of love. It's time to restore the garden in which we're placed to steward, and to grow.

Kelly Monroe Kullberg, author of Finding God at Harvard and A Faith and Culture Devotional and founder of the Veritas Forum www.veritas.org.

Sorry, Kelly—we’ve never heard a sermon on abortion, on marriage, on war, on drugs, on friendships and relationships destroyed by political animosity—and we never will.

Jeffrey explains how it works today

Jeffrey Varasano:  "I'm old enough to remember when vilification of a 17 year old required that he be accused of grabbing a girl with zero corroboration and an ever changing story. Oh, how I long for those good ole days. Now standing motionless and smiling on video while being provoked by someone banging a drum in your face while his friend tells you to leave the continent, is enough to vilify you, your school, parents and your culture."

In a New York minute

This is Diana’s story—a former liberal with a big heart—guest blogger

My story   . . .

I went to the most liberal university in my very liberal state and got myself a degree in sociology. I was a full believer in socialism and Bernie was my hero in 2016. I devoted my working life to helping people. My first job out of college I worked with families involved with the child welfare system hoping to help reunify them with education and advocacy. That system was a little messy and I felt like I could do more to help people so I began a job working with the homeless just before Trump was elected. More on that in a minute . . .

At this time I was studying the results of a socialized healthcare system in countries like the UK and Australia because as a supporter of universal healthcare I wanted to put my money where my mouth was and get the full story on how it would affect Americans. I wanted to be the open minded person I claimed I was. What I learned is that people were losing rights to make their own healthcare choices such as seeking alternative treatment for a child with a terminal illness. Police were barricading hospitals keeping people in. Overall the quality of care for patients was not as good and people had a lot less choices to sum it up. Only good thing was it was “free” if you don’t count the high taxes. I could certainly provide some examples to anyone interested in learning more about that though. Anyway, I realized what a disaster it would actually be for America and I couldn’t support it. I did what all grown up girls should do and admitted I was wrong. Hillary was a war criminal and my formerly leftist self would never have supported her anyway so I did the next best thing and voted for Donald Trump on 11/6/16. The next morning when I learned he had won I was overcome with a sense of RELIEF that I don’t know where it originated. I felt it was a sign.

Continuing on with my work “helping the homeless”. So I worked in a program that would essentially pay for people (anyone that could claim they were homeless) to get an apartment and pay their rent for a short time until they got on their feet. Except that never really happened. We would pay rent for people who flat out refused to work and make a living until they ended up either being given a permanent housing voucher (which they knew was coming) or they got evicted and would come back through the program again later. The program worked in a “collaboration” with other agencies in the area. But this “collaboration” was very political. You weren’t allowed to point out that the program was essentially wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars per MONTH. You were however asked to lobby at the capitol for more funding for these extremely poor performing programs. It was all a dog and pony show. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have hard feelings for the homeless. But the ideas that most people are fed about homelessness is actually a fraction of what it really is. The really vulnerable homeless people that required quality help were mostly addicts and severely mentally ill, but this comprised maybe 15% of the people we were serving. The rest were capable people who just kept making poor decisions and expecting more and more money to pick up the pieces. The most important lesson I learned here is that subsidies and vouchers and other types of government help don’t solve the problem of poverty. It enables and perpetuates it. This is something I never would have understood before, when I was walking around with my Feel The Bern hoodie on.

The last straw for me was seeing how the liberal media demonized each and every thing our president does! Even good things like criminal justice reform that they could have no basis for criticizing, they just simply don’t report on it. It’s disgusting. I didn’t really like Obama--he was a war criminal and a phony to me but if he did something good I gave him credit for it. And seeing all my friends and family who supposedly believed in love and tolerance and understanding, demonizing people who voted for our president. I volunteered for my state GOP this past year and I was called racist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-women’s rights, etc. JUST for being a registered Republican! People suddenly just seemed so deranged to me. I could go on forever about this really so I’m gonna stop here but I plan to make a blog post about my walk away story and will link it here when I do!

What Obama promised us

There was a time before Obama became president, that he was the ONLY politician in the nation radical enough to vote for something like what New York has just passed. Well, he did promise to fundamentally transform the country, and unfortunately, he did.

But at least when Obama cast his vote against babies, the people of Illinois did not cheer and celebrate (he was a state senator then).

Now that New York has codified the killing of full term babies, they will begin (or continue) the efforts on the other end of life—euthanasia of the elderly or disabled.   Don’t wait.  Print off the POLST form and read it carefully.  You do NOT want to sign this form. But you definitely want to read it. http://www.cathmed.org/resources/polst/

Dr. Gosnell was our biggest mass murderer until the NY legislature and Gov. Cuomo, and now will the doctor at Mt. Carmel hospital in Columbus who has killed 34 patients (more to come) with fentanyl be considered just ahead of his time in euthanasia of the elderly and disabled?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/doctor-accused-ordering-fatal-doses-dozens-patients-should-have-been-n962336

The MAGA hat and triggers for the Left

Cuomo and Pelosi

Abortion and infanticide were common in the pagan cultures where the early Christians lived and worked. Still is, and Christians still need to reject the siren call of the culture.

I'm not a Catholic, but neither are Andrew Cuomo and Nancy Pelosi for their support of killing the unborn, a violation of church teaching since the 1st century. ("Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not commit sodomy; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not use magic; thou shalt not use philtres; thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods." The Didache, a document of the church older than the Bible)

This latest crime in NY is beyond belief. Legalize the killing of a baby right up to birth (and make sure she's DOA for that last push with a shot or sucking out her brain). What can they possibly be confessing at the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation that can get them absolved of this sin against humanity and a ticket out of purgatory? They have to find a really liberal priest, is my guess.

American press

New York’s new law was cheered by ghouls

In the last 25 years I've heard the liberals/leftists/Marxists/Democrats redefine a lot of words, but cracking the skull of a baby coming through the birth canal and sucking out her brains so she's DOA then calling it "Reproductive Health" is really Orwellian. And they cheered! Dr. Gosnell will no longer hold the record for killing the most babies.

It “expands abortion for virtually any reason through the third trimester” even allowing abortion on viable babies for financial reasons. Insurance carriers will now be required cover abortion and non-physicians may commit abortions. The law even rescinds protections for babies born alive during an abortion, and will not treat preborn victims of violence as homicide victims."

And it's coming to your state, too.  This is how fearful Democrats are that their flimsy flimflam Roe v. Wade will be over turned, so they are preemptively creating new laws to make it worse.

Can you imagine the evil that undergirds the Trump hatred

A Los Angeles DJ called For Covington Catholic School in Kentucky to be burned down – with kids locked inside.

Since people who voted for Trump are called racists and homophobes, then should we say all who didn’t vote with him, who dislike or hate him or who voted for Clinton, are at the level of this DJ?  Or the person who wanted to put these teens into a wood chopper? Or the SNL writer who offered oral sex to anyone who would smash their faces.  Is that how much all DEMOCRATS hate?

And what about the lily livered Conservatives and Catholic leaders who were willing to believe all the lies? Do you Democrats now like them more?

This incident of a bunch of kids waiting for a bus accosted by a black cult has really revealed some ugliness in the media, the church, and in the Democrats, who have still not condemned this form of child abuse.

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/?

Why in this day of gender and racial dysphoria does it matter?

Why does it matter if Nathan Phillips says he's a Native American, or a VietNam vet, or if he has lost most of his teeth, or acted in films as an Indian? Why can't African Americans be a lost tribe of Israel and preach hate for gays just because they are black and protected by race? The very media who have created Phillip's fame, also tell us men can be women if they think they are and compete in their athletic events. They tell us if you don't accept a violation of your religious beliefs about marriage you're a hater and shouldn't teach at their school or buy cupcakes at their bakery.

Today, it's all about who you THINK you are. One of the newest socialists in Congress says she's a "woman of color" because she has a Spanish (from a country in Europe the last I looked) surname.