Rome, U.S. hierarchy to punish bishops?

Is the Vatican finally ready to get tough with U.S. bishops who covered up sex crimes and shuffled molester-priests from parish to parish?

Could be, says the March 31 LifeSiteNews.com. The pro-life/family news service reports that the U.S. hierarchy and Rome are talking about disciplinary action against unnamed guilty bishops.

According to the article, canon law stipulates that only the Holy Father can punish a bishop. So far, no U.S. bishop has actually been punished, unless you count early resignation. USCCB head Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane asserts the Vatican has "taken action" against Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston by accepting his premature departure.

LifeSiteNews.com recalls that Cardinal Law resigned in 2002, four years before reaching mandatory retirement age, when the media revealed the extent of his cover-up of sex crimes. Bishop Skylstad says several other bishops directly involved in abusing minors also bowed out early.

Hmmm.....remember what Cardinal Mahony said in early 2002--that if he had swept as many molester-priests under the rug as Cardinal Law, he would resign? Well, more than 100 priests of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles might be sex criminals, and the July 18, 2002, issue of The Wanderer said Cardinal Mahony's scandal "threatens to dwarf...Law's mess."

With 560 sex-abuse lawsuits in the works against his Archdiocese, isn't it time for the Cardinal to stop postponing the inevitable and pen a letter to Pope Benedict XVI?

Chat with the Cardinal on Friday. This is post #700, by the way

Cardinal Mahony will be on the Net and hosting a live chat directly from the Religious Education Congress on Friday morning, March 31. We can ask him questions, although Ellie Hidalgo of The Tidings will be the moderator.

Click on this post's title, and once you are at the site you can click on the link that reads, "Ask the Cardinal a question." We can get in on the chat starting at 11 a.m., and the Cardinal will weigh in from 11:15 a.m. to 12 noon.

You can probably think of any number of questions the Cardinal should answer!
---------------------------------------------------------
On another front: This is post no. 700, so Happy Anniversary to us all, felicidades, and many happy returns. Let's start on the next 700 posts right away. Thank you for your friendship and support, and for your prayers. May God bless us and help us all reach Heaven; and the same for everyone for whom we pray. Amen!

REC -- as in "wreck"

The time has come: The Archdiocese's annual Religious Education Congress (REC) runs March 30-April 2, this Thursday through Sunday, at the Anaheim Convention Center. I really hope you will join our prayerful brothers and sisters in picketing there this Saturday, April 1, from 9 a.m. to around 6 p.m., at the two main entrances.

Sure, the REC will have many good speakers -- but just as sure, there will be many bad ones, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual subverters of Catholic doctrine, morality, the priesthood and the papacy; and they will deceive the elect with vile heresy couched in seemingly innocent-sounding language.

Please come and join the prayerful picket in order to alert attendees to not swallow any heresy themselves and to not inadvertently take any heresies home and repeat them to their students, families, friends and fellow parishioners.

You might save someone's soul, or even many souls! Anyway, you will be witnessing for Catholic truth, you will be doing good Lenten penance, and you will be meeting fun, sharp, committed Catholic activists who have a lot in common with you.

Cardinal Mahony once termed the picketers "simple people, without influence." Now is your chance to show him how much influence "simple" Catholics can have.

For more information, e-mail organizer Ken Fisher at crcoa@dslextreme.com or call him at 714-491-2284. Bring your rosary, and bring a friend or two with you!

Cathedral sendoff for a pro-abortion politician

On Monday, March 27, Cardinal Mahony's Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels was the site of a large funeral for a pro-abortion Latino politician. He was Democrat former Assemblyman Marco Antonio Firebaugh, 39, who was running for a State Senate seat until influenza and an unspecified liver disease claimed his life.

The L.A. Times reported Tuesday that "about 2,000" attended the funeral, including prominent pro-abortion politicians such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina.

A Times photo shows "a church worker" as he "sets up a photo" of Mr. Firebaugh.

A Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California "Pro-Choice Scorecard" for 2004 (click on the title of this post to see it) listed Mr. Firebaugh as "100% pro-choice."

We should pray for the repose of Mr. Firebaugh's soul, of course, but what message does a high-profile Cathedral funeral for him send Catholics and the rest of the general public?

"the bishop's primary duty"

Last November 5, Pope Benedict XVI received the Austrian bishops and spoke to them (click on this post's title) about what we should do in this time of secularization and loss of faith. Certain speakers at the upcoming Religious Education Congress in Anaheim ought to hear the Pontiff's words and take them to heart:

"There can be no doubt that what is needed is clear, courageous and enthusiastic witness to faith in Jesus Christ, Who is alive and present in His Church, and in Whom alone human beings find their true happiness...we must adopt 'missionary measures,' both great and small, in order to invert the current negative tendency."

The Holy Father continued, "It is the bishop's primary duty to bear witness to the faith. 'I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God,' said the Apostle Paul in Ephesus."

Then the Pope said these momentous words: "It is true that we must act delicately, but this must not prevent us from presenting the divine message clearly, even on those subjects that do not enjoy widespread approval, or that give rise to protest or even derision, especially in the field of the truth of faith and moral teaching...Catholic teaching presented incompletely is self-contradictory and cannot be fruitful in the long term."

Imagine a Religious Education Congress in which everyone present adopted these words as their own and then faithfully went out and acted on them! L.A. would become a different city.

These politicians are pretend-friends

Sure were a lot of people out downtown on Saturday, weren't there? All protesting the proposed federal legislation. Too bad the politicians who spoke to them were pro-abortion -- Antonio Villaraigosa, Gil Cedillo and more.

These politicians pretend to be the friends of illegals, workers and poor people. But what are their plans for them? Keep open the abortion mills that kill their babies and exploit women. Give them, and their children, sex "education," condoms, the Pill and sterilization so they will become promiscuous. Turn them into secularists so they will leave the Church.

I have said it before and I will say it again. What if our Cardinal, bishops and pastors would call in these politicians, one by one, and say, "Oye, amigo, if you really want to help the people, stop corrupting their souls and killing their babies. And it is a mortal sin for you to do that, so for the good of your immortal soul, get to Confession right away or else stop receiving Communion. Enough said."

Wouldn't it be nice to be a fly on the wall for that conversation! Oremos.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez T. in The Tidings

The March 24 issue of The Tidings (click on this post's title) carries a long Catholic News Service article on the pro-life, pro-family apostolate of Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, 70, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Cardinal Lopez T. says the Council "was born with a baptism of blood." He explains that Pope John Paul II established the Council on May 13, 1981, the day he was shot. (And did you read recently that the wounding of the Pope resulted in cancellation of a big pro-abortion rally set for that evening in Rome?)

Anyway, among its other activities, the Pontifical Council for the Family is organizing the Fifth World Meeting of Families, which will take place in Valencia, Spain, this July. The Holy Father "is expected to attend."

The article has good pro-life quotes, history and news. One of the quotes from the Cardinal: "Will the future have a human heart, or will it be dehumanized? And will the family be destroyed in some countries by unjust laws...?"

What with so many abortion mills killing so many babies every day in this Archdiocese, every issue of The Tidings ought to have major pro-life articles such as this one. It is the least they could do.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Happy Feast of the Annunciation! Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us sinners who have recourse to Thee!
-----------------------------------------------------------

Come mourn Baby Therese Rose

"There are sorrows too deep for tears," wrote R. Tagore, India's poet laureate.

On March 12, a precious newborn girl was found dead, wrapped in plastic bags, near the tracks in the 2600 block of Mission and Front Streets in Alhambra.

St. Therese Parish will hold a vigil for Baby Therese Rose on Tuesday, March 28, at 7:00 p.m. at Front Street and Edgewood. Please attend if you can, and bring your family and friends.

The next day, March 29, there will be a funeral Mass at 1:00 p.m., with burial at 2:30 p.m. at Resurrection Cemetery in Monterey Park.

As you know, to bury the dead is one of the Corporal Works of Mercy. Please come and show that this "unwanted" infant is very much wanted and loved. And please pray for the unfortunate soul(s) who abandoned her.

You can also help pay for Baby Therese Rose's burial/plot by sending a check payable to St. Therese Church in Alhambra (memo: "For Baby Therese Rose"). You could hardly make a more beautiful Lenten sacrifice. God bless you!

Will Cardinal Mahony defend Cardinal Levada?

Things heated up in San Francisco this week, as you probably have heard. Archbishop George Niederauer and new Cardinal (as of tomorrow) William Levada have a fight on their hands over Catholic Charities and ending adoptions by homosexuals. How will they react? And will their friend, Cardinal Mahony, speak up to defend them?

The fight began two weeks ago, when Archbishop Levada, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ordered the Archdiocese of San Francisco to stop handing adoptable little children over to pairs of homosexuals.

Last Monday, the Archdiocese's Maurice Healy said, "We've committed ourselves to being in sync with Church teaching." That infuriated Brian Cahill, head of Catholic Charities, who blasted Healy and said his agency's policies had not changed.

Also infuriated was San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, which adopted a blantantly anti-Catholic resolution on Wednesday. They insultingly called the Catholic Church "a foreign country," termed Catholic teaching "hateful and discriminatory," ripped Levada as "a decidedly unqualified representative of his former home city" and urged Arhbishop Niederauer to disobey Levada's command.

Now it is up to Levada and Niederauer to defend the Church, uphold Catholic teaching and save adoptive children from being handed over to homosexuals. It is also up to Cardinal Mahony to back them up firmly and loudly. Let's stay tuned.

The Cardinal's new op-ed piece

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times of Wednesday, March 22, Cardinal Mahony says he "stand[s] by his statement" on Ash Wednesday in which he ordered his priests to, he writes, "disobey a proposed law that would subject them, as well as other [C]hurch and humanitarian workers, to criminal penalties."

No, the Cardinal was not commanding his priests to disobey the FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act by saving babies at Southland abortion mills. The proposed law he opposes is H.R. 4437, a bill to fight illegal entry into the USA.

The Cardinal objects to the bill's outlawing of any act that "assists, encourages, directs, or induces a person to reside in or remain in the United States, or to attempt to reside in or remain in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside in or remain in the United States."

But last week a co-sponsor of the bill, Congressman Peter King (R-NY), who is Catholic, told Deal Hudson that the Cardinal is wrong about the bill. King said the bill targets gang members, smugglers and makers of fake ID cards, not priests, sisters and lay staffers of Catholic churches or agencies. King also said, "If those who are concerned about the language have better language to suggest, let them offer it and we will certainly consider it."

King's offer to consider changing the language makes the Cardinal's concern look like sensationalizing. Can we expect more of the same from the Cardinal as the abuse lawsuits mega-crisis worsens and the hot water rises around him?

"Protecting God's Children"

Today the postman brought my copy of the Archdiocese's glossy mailer, "Protecting God's Children: Facts About Abuse Prevention in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles."

"Step 5" of the listed "Five Steps You Can Take..." is, "Communicate concerns to the appropriate person in authority." A bit of irony in that one, no?

Notably, the brochure, which carries Cardinal Mahony's signature, does not cite any Vatican document or any Catholic teaching.

The text of the mailer begins, "Our children are our most valuable treasure, and every member of our Archdiocese shares in the responsibility of protecting them from potential harm..." Do you think that means the Cardinal, the bishops and the clergy will now change their ways and flock to the abortion mills to save preborn babies?

"Living" documents

Is the U.S. Constitution a compact with fixed meaning, or is it "a living document" whose meanings any 5-4 Supreme Court majority can change according to whims?

And what about any other documents? Are they "living," too?

Pro-abortion U.S. Supreme Court "Injustice" Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ex-general counsel for the ACLU, aka the Anti-Christian Lawsuits Unit, addessed the Constitutional Court of South Africa on February 7, 2006, and delivered some really sinister opinions. (Click on this post's title to see her speech.) Ms. Ginsburg:

...ripped "the view of the U.S. Constitution as a document essentially frozen in time as of the date of its ratification."

...said U.S. courts need to "read the [U.S.] Constitution as belonging to a global 21st century, not as fixed forever by 18th-century understandings."

...argued that U.S. courts should impose "dynamic versus static, frozen-in-time constitutional interpretation" on the American people.

Ms. Ginsburg bragged that the U.S. Supreme Court made new interpretations and cited foreign law in "Lawrence v. Texas" (2003), the 5-4 ruling that overturned state laws against sodomy. She quoted it: "...times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."

Have you ever noticed that calling the Constitution "a living document" is a lot like invoking "the spirit of Vatican II?" Finding "rights" to abort babies and to commit sodomy in the U.S. Constitution, even though they are NOT THERE, is much like "finding" all kinds of things in the documents of Vatican II that are NOT THERE.

In other words, ex-general counsels of the ACLU and current dissenters from the Faith are alike: They invent invisible permissions for the sins they want to commit and for the twisted versions of governing they want to impose on the rest of us.

Parce nobis, Domine! (Spare us, O Lord!)

+ Terri Schindler Schiavo + Lest we forget.

One year ago, on March 18, 2005, the court-ordered starvation and dehydration, to death, of Catholic wife Terri Schindler Schiavo began. Terri died on March 31.

Terri's family -- not including her spouse, who sought her death for years and kept a mistress in the meantime -- all said she suffered terribly. Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, who visited Terri in her last days, said the same thing.

The spouse, as you probably know, cremated Terri. And he and the mistress wed this past January. The mistress wore white; I am not making that up.

Terri's family is keeping her memory alive, and helping others who are in the same situation she was, through their Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation (click on this post's title to go to that essential pro-life website).

After Terri's death, Cardinal Mahony wrote, "Our Catholic moral tradition always calls us to give the benefit of the doubt to life, not to death." Then he wrote this shocking sentence, and see if you can count the errors in it: "[We] now need to engage more fully the moral and ethical dimensions of prolonging human life, as well as allowing a person to die peacefully according to God's design."

Here is the pro-life truth: Giving someone food and drink is NOT "prolonging human life." Starving and dehydrating someone to death is NOT "allowing a person to die." Dying by starvation and dehydration is NOT dying "peacefully." Being killed by court-ordered starvation and dehydration is NOT "according to God's design."

We should "Breathe a prayer, shed a tear" for Terri. And what with "futile care" policies and "rationing" looming over all Americans like the sword of Damocles, we should recall that what the poet John Donne wrote, he meant for everyone who would ever read his poems: "Send not for whom the bell tolls -- it tolls for thee."

Dispensations

On Wednesday, Cardinal Mahony issued an Archdiocesan-wide dispensation from the Lenten Friday abstention from meat, for this Friday, because it is March 17, St. Patrick's Day. The Cardinal is asking Catholics to substitute another day this Lent to abstain from meat, or to engage in some other penance.

St. Patrick is one of our Archdiocese's patron saints, noted Tod Tamberg, the Cardinal's spokesman.

This dispensation is a kindness to everyone who thinks they are acting Irish by having corned beef on March 17. I would still take fish and chips over corned beef any day. And fish and chips are far more prevalent in the Auld Sod, anyway.

But on the subject of dispensations: What if we each ask our Cardinal to stop giving pro-abortion politicians a "dispensation" from being pro-life as is their Catholic, American and human duty? After all, appearing with them in public, especially in the Cathedral, conveys the impression that being pro-abortion is no big deal.

And what if we ask our hierarchy, nationwide, to stop giving "dispensations" to Catholic schoolteachers from their Catholic obligations to observe Catholic parents' rights and to protect Catholic children in their innocent latency years from soul-molesting miseducation programs such as "Talking about Touching?"

St. Patrick, pray for us all!

State auditor to probe Prop. 71 institutes

This seems like good news for preborn babies and the pro-life movement, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and political expert Steve Frank: The California legislature's Joint Legislative Audit Committee today ordered the state auditor to probe the groups set up by Proposition 71, the 2004 ballot initiative that authorizes $3 billion to fund human embryonic stem cell experimentation.

As established under Proposition 71, the groups -- the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee -- are a law unto themselves. They are not subject to state oversight, and they want to parcel out some or much of the $3 billion to themselves/their own research groups.

More good news is that for almost 18 months, the ghoulish human embryonic stem cell experimentation has been on hold, thanks to lawsuits by the Life Legal Defense Foundation and another group. The anti-lifers are furious about that.

This would be a good time for Cardinal Mahony and the rest of California's bishops to speak up in defense of embryonic babies, and emphatically.

The bishops could tell their flock, and the rest of the public, that on February 27 the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI, told the Pontifical Academy for Life, "...the Magisterium of the Church has constantly proclaimed the sacred and inviolable nature of each human life, from conception to natural end. This moral judgment also holds at the beginning of an embryo's life, even before it is implanted in the mother's womb."

Mahony lawyer opines on the Franciscan deal

Lawyers have reached a tentative deal in the lawsuit against the Franciscan Friars of California over clergy sex abuse at St. Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara from the 1950's until 1987, reports the March 14 LA Times (click on this post's title).

The Church will pay more than $28 million to 23 men and two women who allege that Franciscans molested them. The Franciscan Order will pay most of the settlement, but the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, involved because some of the alleged attacks took place at parishes, will pay something under $2 million.

One priest, the now retired Mario Cimmarusti, was accused by 10 of the 25 alleged victims.

J. Michael Hennigan, lawyer for the Archdiocese, told the Times he was "delighted" at seeing the case resolved and he hoped the deal would prompt other orders to resolve their cases. But he also called the settlement "a little high," and he and others think the deal could set a precedent about the amounts of future payouts.

One lawyer, not mentioned in the Times article, said the Franciscans were behaving better in this case than Cardinal Mahony has been in the Archdiocesan cases.

By the way, Southern California orthodox Catholics who were around in the 1960's will tell you that St. Anthony's was a hotbed of trendy Sixties liberalism.

For parents' initiative materials in Spanish...

To get your hands on materials en Espanol for the vital Parents' Right to Know pro-life initiative petition drive now going on, please call 866-828-8355.

I can't believe yours truly left out that number in my post the other day. Thanks to Barriogirl for jogging my memory!

Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, ruega por nosotros! Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

Is it a saint's name?

Deep in the LA Times sports page, do you ever read those lists of high school athletes who lead the Southland in various stats categories in their sports?

If you do, you will find something startling: Comparatively few of the kids, even those from Catholic schools, have saints' names.

That is a big departure from decades past, and it shows a waning of Catholic culture and consciousness.

True, having a saint's name does not by itself make someone a good Catholic, or a better Catholic than someone not named for a saint. But there are a lot of reasons why giving your child a saint's name is a good idea.

A child named for a saint has a wonderful patron and has a hero to look up to. The child can pray to that saint and strive to imitate his or her virtues. Having a saint's name helps a child identify as Catholic, think Catholic and live Catholic. A child who is named for a saint has a good friend for life.

Search the Web and you will find the book "Is it a saint's name?" by Father William P. Dunne. Father Albert Nevins, M.M., also wrote on that subject.

We are always after the Cardinal, the auxiliaries and our pastors and associates for one thing and another. But wouldn't it be great if these Catholic leaders would take the initiative and suggest in the pulpit, the parish bulletin and The Tidings that people do their babies a great favor by naming them for heroes of the Faith?

And if parents are looking for suggestions...Pedro and Peter are such good names!

Please get signatures for "Parents Right to Know" initiative

Have you signed the petition to get the "Parents Right to Know" (parental notification before abortion) initiative on the ballot this year?

Do you have the petitions yourself, and are you gathering signatures?

Have you gotten your friends' and relatives' signatures? And have you asked them to circulate petitions themselves?

Have you gotten your pastor's permission to allow signature-gathering outside all the Masses? Have you asked him to make pulpit announcements? Have you asked him if you can insert petitions in the parish bulletin?

You and I each need to do our very best part for this initiative -- for the families, teens and unborn babies of LA and all this state. The organizers say the signature-gathering is lagging, so we all need to get going, fast!

Please hurry! Get copies, get signatures, and return them as soon as possible. To get petitions or for more information, phone (toll-free) 866-828-8355 or e-mail Janet@ParentsRight2Know.org

To donate, send to Parents' Right to Know, 2355 Rio de Oro Way, Sacramento, CA 95826

Visit the websites: www.ParentsRight2Know.org or www.YESon73.net

See you on the signature-gathering front lines! Thanks in advance!

The bishops, the babies and the 55 pro-aborts

Yesterday, Friday the 10th, Cardinals Keeler and McCarrick and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio issued a "Statement on Responsibilities of Catholics in Public Life." (Click on the title of this post to see it.) It is their response to the recent defiant pro-abortion statement by 55 of the 73 Catholic Democrats in the House.

The bishops say some good things, but ultimately they give Cardinal Mahony and other pals of pro-abortion politicos the green light to keep on palling around with them.

The bishops actually commend the Democrat perpetrators of the bloody abortions of BABIES by the MILLIONS for their purported "recognition that Catholics in public life must act seriously and responsibly on many important moral issues."

The bishops then say, "Our faith has an integral unity that calls Catholics to defend human life and human dignity whenever they are threatened"; oddly, they underscore the word "and," as if human life and dignity could somehow be separate. They seem to be saying that pro-lifers defend human life but it is Democrat pro-aborts who defend human dignity. That obviously is a false dichotomy.

The bishops say they will keep working with politicians "in both parties who seek to act on...essential principles in defense of the poor and vulnerable."

But as we know, no one is poorer or more vulnerable than babies in the womb. And by taking babies' lives, abortion certainly attacks and nullifies their human dignity.

The bishops do quote Pope John Paul II, who wrote in his "Christifideles laici" that to call for other human rights "is false and illusory if the right to life...is not defended with maximum determination."

The bishops also note that "Catholic teaching calls all Catholics" to actively fight abortion and end it. And they remind everyone that Catholic legislators and all Catholics must form their conscience in line with the Church's moral teachings.

But the bishops' only action plan is to say that they "recommit ourselves to continued reflection and discussion on how Catholic faith and public service can work together to promote human life and dignity and advance the common good."

They close by saying, "Through dialogue, especially the irreplaceable dialogue between Catholic politicial leaders and their own bishops, we hope to promote a better understanding of how the Church's teaching on human life and dignity challenges us all."

The bishops contradict themselves by saying how terrible aborting babies is but how they will keep talking and working with those who keep the aborting legal.

So 4,000 babies a day will continue to DIE hideously, but the good news is that we'll all keep dialoguing and working together, tra-la. And darn those nasty pro-lifers who don't believe in human dignity, darn them all.

Levada and homosexual adoption

The Boston Globe reported today that Archbishop and soon-to-be-Cardinal William Levada, a friend of Cardinal Mahony, has ordered the Archdiocese of San Francisco to start obeying Church teaching by not letting any more homosexual pairs adopt children (click on this post's title to see).

"We'll be reviewing it," SF Archdiocesan spokesman Maurice Healy says of Levada's directive, according to the Globe. He did not say, "We'll be obeying it."

The Globe says Levada announced in his order that Brian Cahill, head of Catholic Charities of San Francisco (CCSF), has told him that while he was Archbishop of San Francisco, CCSF turned three children over to homosexual pairs.

Cahill told the Globe that his figures now show that in the past five years his agency handled the adoptions of 136 children and handed over five of them to homosexual pairs. Cahill told the Globe he thinks those handovers appropriate.

No word yet from new San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, a friend of Levada and of Cardinal Mahony, on what he plans to do about these developments.

We all should pray for those adopted children, of course.

Thu Mar 9 counter-picket at LA Federal Bldg

How is your pro-life Lent coming? Are you looking for a pro-life activity or prayer intention this week? LA pro-life leader Astrid Bennett has the answer for us.

She says pro-aborts are calling for a "day of solidarity" at Federal courthouses across our Nation to oppose South Dakota's just-signed abortion ban. She adds:

"Join pro-lifers in Los Angeles for a COUNTER-DEMONSTRATION to stand up for LIFE and CELEBRATE THE VICTORY in South Dakota.

Thursday, March 9, 2006
12 PM Noon
Los Angeles Federal Building
11000 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024

"Please bring signs especially graphic signs that depict what "choice" really means -the horrendous murder of our innocent brothers and sisters. Also please come spiritually prepared (armed with the Holy Rosary and holy water if possible). Let's defend this just law in SD and pray that it will become the direct challenge to Roe v. Wade that will finally end the killing.

"Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).

"Hope to see you tomorrow! God bless you and protect you all,

Astrid Bennett"

Quintero says...Sorry for the short notice about this super event on Thursday. It will be GREAT if you can show up to support our local pro-lifers and to witness for the babies. And if you simply cannot be there, it will be great if you can pray for the pro-lifers who are there; and for the closing of all abortion mills, the conversion of all pro-aborts and the nullification of pro-abortion influence -- and for conversion and help for all abortion-tempted moms and dads, and for the safety of their babies.

Cause and effect

The February 24 and March 3 issues of The Tidings carry a two-part article by Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, "Clergy Sexual Abuse: Facts, Myths and Questions." It is two years old, having run in "America" magazine's issue of March 22, 2004.

Father Reese edited "America" for quite a while -- until last spring, when he resigned amid reports of Vatican pressure for his exit.

Father Reese cites some stats from reports by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People. He calls it a "myth" that "homosexuality caused the abuse crisis." But he cannot come close to showing that.

And unfortunately for Father Reese, "America" magazine and The Tidings, the facts say homosexuality IS a major cause of the scandals. Just for starters: The John Jay Report itself said 81 percent of clergy abuse victims were boys.

Click on this post's title to see "Child Molestation by Homosexuals and Heterosexuals," by Brian Clowes and David Sonnier, in the May 2005 issue of the Homiletic & Pastoral Review. Among the many stats they cite are that "73% of all homosexuals...preyed on adolescent or younger boys" and that, even though only 2% of men are homosexuals, "around 25-40% of men attracted to children prefer boys."

Don't expect The Tidings to reprint that article very soon.

Using the Eucharist?

Remember, in the 2004 election campaign, when several pro-abortion Cattholic politicians presented themselves for Communion "photo opportunities?"

It was great, wasn't it, when several bishops told them to stay away until they publicly repented of being pro-abortion. Bishop Raymond Burke in St. Louis was even so forceful that John Kerry stayed far away.

But it wasn't so great when other bishops, and cardinals, undercut those bishops and said, "Oh, we shouldn't use the Eucharist as a weapon."

Of course, as usual those bishops and cardinals had things backwards. The pro-abortion politicans were the ones using the Eucharist as a weapon, as a campaign tactic to make themselves appear legitimate. The pro-life bishops were not "using" the Eucharist, they were defending the Blessed Sacrament from profanation.

But anyway, my point is that on Ash Wednesday last week, Cardinal Mahony speculated about whether pending bills in Congress about churches not dispensing services to "illegals" could mean priests would have to ask communicants for their ID.

Obviously, no bill would ever mean that. So was His Eminence saying that as a scare tactic...in other words, was he "using the Eucharist as a weapon?" I think he should have said nothing about the Blessed Sacrament in the context he did.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaking of the Eucharist...are your children or grandchildren familiar with these verses?

"O Sacrament most holy, O Sacrament divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine."

"O Lord, I am not worthy, that Thou shouldst come to me; but speak the words of comfort, my spirit healed shall be. And humbly I'll receive Thee, the Bridegroom of my soul; no more by sin to grieve Thee, or fly Thy sweet control."

The St. Mary's by the Sea story is breaking

What a story in the Diocese of Orange, and it is starting to hit all over the Net now.

In St. Mary's by the Sea, the administrator is so upset at 55 parishioners who wish to keep kneeling after the Agnus Dei that he wants them out of the parish.

Let us keep track of this situation and pray for a just and Catholic resolution.

Roman collars

Notice anything about the cover photo on the March 3 issue of the Archdiocese's newspaper, The Tidings? (It pictures some participants in a symposium in Sierra Madre on "Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership.")

There are no Roman collars in the photo. The reader is going to think, "Wow/Huau, the emerging model of pastoral leadership does not include priests!"

So it is a relief to turn to the story, on page 5, and see the same photo, this time with a caption that identifies three priests among those pictured. God bless them and reward them for their goodness and their selfless service to us all.

We all support our priests, and we must all pray for them and be so good to them. But as we know, a Roman collar is an outward sign of a consecrated life. So can a reader of The Tidings be forgiven for wishing that wearing Roman collars would be part of the "emerging models of pastoral leadership" in this Archdiocese?

Undocumented

As we know, on Ash Wednesday Cardinal Mahony told his clergy not to obey any new legislation that would make institutions check to see if clients are "legals."

Also, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., has cited "Whatever you do to the least of My brethren, that you do unto Me" as a reason for helping "illegals."

Have certain parallels ever occurred to these Cardinals -- for instance, that babies in the womb carry no documents to support their presence among us? That the babies are on a journey, in the trackless dark, to an unfamiliar new world? That the babies are completely destitute and totally dependent on others? That people ignore, stereotype, dehumanize, lie about, hate, betray and refuse to help preborn babies?

And has it ever occurred to these Cardinals that it is "legal" (but an unjust law is no law at all, the Church teaches us) to KILL, and BARBARICALLY SO, the undocumented babies in the womb as they struggle to reach their destination among us?

These parallels must not have occurred to the Cardinals. If they had, surely by now their Eminences would have told their clergy to protect and save the little babies.

Surely the Cardinals long since would have taken the lead and mustered their clergy and laity to stop business as usual and take prayerful and peaceful but bold, actual steps to overcome and stop the MASS KILLINGS of BABIES by the TENS OF MILLIONS.

Surely the Princes of the Church would have long ago irrevocably cut all ties with politicians who defy the Church and protect, fund and facilitate the mass killings.

So if these ideas have not occurred to the Cardinals, it must be up to us to plant them in their minds and hearts. Blogging, snail mail and pickets can do that. So let us help them see babies in the womb as truly among "the least of My brethren."

A teachable moment

Looks like none of the 55 Catholic House Democrats who signed that dishonest pro-abortion, Catholic-defying "Statement of Principals" [sic] earlier this week can spell. Yes, on their website they put "Principals" instead of "Principles" in the title of their document (click on the title of this post to see for yourself).

But the big news about their statement is that one of the signers, Bart Stupak (Michigan), says it is the result of many meetings among themselves and with others, including Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C. A spokesman for the Cardinal did not confirm this or deny it.

Cardinal McCarrick heads the U.S. bishops' panel on...bishops and politicians. Those two classes of people seem to be reversing their roles lately. The 55 Democrat politicians are acting like bishops, making moral pronouncements; and some bishops seem to be huddling in secret with the politicians.

Cardinal Mahomy likes to see "teachable moments" in current events. He ought to make the issuance of the 55 signers' document a teachable moment for them. The signers include familiar California names: Diane Watson, Lucille Roybal-Allard, the Sanchez sisters, George Miller, Hilda Solis, Xavier Becerra, Nancy Pelosi.

Think of the good that Cardinal Mahony and his fellow California bishops could do.

They could jar the 55 signers out of their illusion that they can form their conscience against the Church and without the Church's help. The bishops could tell the signers that pro-life Catholics are not, as the signers say, a narrow, right-wing minority but rather are in line with the Popes and the mind of the Church.

The California bishops could also tell the signers that they cannot have it both ways -- they cannot claim they are for social justice when they are complicit in killing BABIES. They cannot claim to want fewer babies killed but not want to outlaw any baby-killings, even partial-birth ones. Finally and most of all, the bishops could tell the politicians, "YOU CANNOT BE CATHOLIC AND PRO-ABORTION."

A nice pipe dream, no? But we can always dream. And pray. And blog on!

Lenten picket a month from today

On this Ash Wednesday 2006, a good Lenten resolution is to join the April 1 picket of this year's Religious Education Congress at the Anaheim Convention Center.

As noted here before, the REC (pronounced "wreck") features some good speakers every year but also really bad ones: even anti-lifers and dissenters. They deceive the well-meaning attendees, who return home and spread the errors they have picked up.

One of the worst speakers this year is Father Richard Sparks. Concerned Roman Catholics of America (CRCOA) says that at the REC in 2002, he uttered evil speculations about the Son of God and St. Mary Magdalene, and about the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph. CRCOA adds that in Berkeley that same year, he said, "I believe in freedom. I believe in responsibility. And so I am not anti-choice."

The picketing alerts REC attendees to the dissenters. So mark your calendar now. The date of the picket is Saturday, April 1. For the exact time and other details, phone/fax CRCOA's Kenneth M. Fisher at (714)491-2284 or e-mail them at: crcoa@dslextreme.com

The late, great Jesuit Father John Hardon said that unless we solve the catechetical problem, the Church in the United States will disappear like the ancient Churches of North Africa and Asia Minor. Let's not let that happen here!