Pray for baby-savers, especially on Saturdays

Every day of the week and especially on Saturdays, we should all keep praying for many baby "saves" by the valiant pro-life sidewalk counselors, prayer warriors and picketers at many of the abortion mills in our Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Here is a prayer to say:

PRAYER FOR THE CLOSING OF AN ABORTION MILL
By Fr. Frank Pavone, M.E.V.

Father, all life is in Your care.
You have entrusted us to one another,
that we may show our brothers and sisters
the same love You have for us.
We pray, then, for the least among us,
the children in the womb.
Protect them from the violence of abortion.
We pray for those who are scheduled to die at
(Name the abortion mill assigned to you).
Save them from death.
Give new hope to their parents, that they
may turn away from the desperate act of abortion.
Grant conversion to the abortionist
and to the staff.
Show us how we are to respond to the bloodshed
in our midst,
And lead us to the day when this place of death
Will be transformed into a haven of life.
Guard us with Your joy and Your peace,
For in You, life is victorious.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

More on Life Chain this Sunday, Oct. 1

If you've never been in a Life Chain, here is what it looks like. It is a tremendous witness that reaches thousands and thousands of motorists as they drive along block after block of pro-lifers.

Click on this post's title to go to the National Life Chain site and find out which of the many towns and cities in our Archdiocese you can go to.

You don't have to bring your own sign, either. The organizers supply all the signs for us.

Haz lo correcto -- Do the right thing.

"I'm a human being" and Oct. 1, Life Chain Sunday

Okay, I was extra-busy today and did not hear anything on radio or TV about the scheduled protest and "civil disobedience" at Century Boulevard near LAX during this morning's rush hour. Nor did I drive anywhere near the whole area.

So far tonight, the L.A. Times and other local news sites only have a story (click on this post's title) that was written before the event.

One thing in that story struck me, though: Some of the people who planned to get arrested were going to wear signs that said, "I'm a human being."

Now, if only they, and our clergy and hierarchy and everyone, would apply those words to preborn babies: "I'M A HUMAN BEING!"

And if only we would all put those words on picket signs along with pictures of the babies in the womb, and then go by the hundreds and the thousands to pray and picket and sidewalk counsel at the abortion mills, we could save so many babies and help so many moms!

Probably you already do something like this, or you have done it in the past, so congratulations and please keep up the good work. We have a chance to do something this Sunday, Oct. 1.

National Life Chain will line sidewalks all around our Archdiocese and in more than 1,200 North American cities and towns this Sunday afternoon, October 1, 2:30 – 3:30 in each time zone.

For the time, location and contact person in each city, see www.LifeChain.net

Committed to the sanctity of human life, participants will stand silently and pray, while holding signs that include Abortion Kills Children; Adoption: The Loving Option; Lord, Forgive Us and Our Nation; Abortion Hurts Women; and Jesus Forgives and Heals.

A great way to spend an hour this Sunday afternoon, no?

Another proud pro-abortion Catholic pol

When pro-abortion Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown was governor of California, then-Bishop Roger Mahony served as head of his Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

At Brown's Web site (which I refuse to provide here) for his current 2006 campaign for California attorney general, on his "Record" page (and note his subhead, "Choice"), he brags:

"Choice
Throughout his career in public service, Jerry Brown has been an uncompromising champion of a woman's right to choose and remains committed to preserving this fundamental right."

Brown also brags on his Web site that he has a TV ad in which the California president of the abortion giant Planned Parenthood, Kathy Kneer, praises him for being pro-abortion and slams his opponent, pro-life Chuck Poochigian, for wanting to "outlaw abortion and overturn Roe v. Wade."

Why do California's pro-abortion Catholic politicians such as Brown feel free to brag and bray all they want about how they back aborting millions of God's precious babies? Because they know they face no sanction from Cardinal Mahony and his fellow California bishops.

Suggested chapters for the Cardinal's biography

Here are some chapters the Cardinal's biography will need if it is to be complete:

Why I Constantly Appeared in Public with Pro-Abortion Politicians

Why I Made Pro-Abortion Bill Clinton the Only President to Speak in St. Vibiana's Cathedral

Why the Largest Archdiocese in the USA Doesn't Need a Pro-Life Office

Why It's Pro-Life to Vote for Pro-Abortion Democrats

How Closing Our Seminaries Fosters Vocations

How My Annual Religious Education Congress Dissent-Fest Builds Up the Faith

Why I Excluded the "Courage" Group from L.A.

The Last Thing Hollywood Needs Is a Decency Code

Only 560 Lawsuits Against an Archdiocese Is Not Excessive

Time for a Female Pope, but not Mother Angelica

The Pope Needs to Wreckovate St. Peter's

Why Quoting Me Equals "Attacking" Me

Why "Southwest Indian Flying Serpent," "Energy (soul)," "Sicilian Legs (regeneration symbol)," "Serpent/Dragon," "I Ching/Ti Chi," "Celtic Monster" and "Raven Eating Man's Liver" Belong on the Bronze Doors of a Catholic Cathedral

Why Quintero and His Friends Shouldn't Expect to Receive the Cardinal's Award

Sources the Cardinal's biographer needs to mine

This might sound like twitting the Cardinal, but it is not.

His official biographer really needs to research all available sources on the Cardinal, including the unfavorable ones, if he wants to know all the facts and to know what many people think.

One source would be the past two decades' worth of back issues of The Wanderer. Another would be Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.'s online factual material about the Cardinal and the Religious Education Congress. Other sources would be the voluminous files that some indefatigable Catholics have been keeping for many years.

Cardinal Mahony commissions his biography

This week's issue of "the blogger's inspiration," i.e., The Tidings, announces (click on this post's title) that Cardinal Roger Mahony is having his biography written.

The Cardinal has chosen the author: His own Cardinal's Theologian, Dr. Michael Downey, professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality at what's left of St. John's Seminary.

Says The Tidings, "The research will begin immediately and will culminate in the publication of the volume by a nationally renowned publisher following the cardinal's anticipated retirement at age 75 in 2011."

The story says, "Downey described Cardinal Mahony as 'the most significant and influential moderate voice in the American Catholic hierarchy. So many people all across the country, and in different parts of the world, look to him as a paragon of the middle way and of moderation, an embodiment of the Common Ground so dear to the heart of his brother bishop and good friend Cardinal Bernardin.'"

"Common Ground" -- yes, with pro-abortion politicians.

Think the perfesser will include ole "L.A. Catholic" here in his research?

Lefties plot Century Boulevard rush hour shutdown on Thu., Sept. 28

Yesterday and today, Stephen Frank's web newsletter California Political News and Views -- see http://www.capoliticalnews.com -- has been reporting news that nobody else is: Lefties are planning "the largest act of non-violent civil disobedience on record in the history of Los Angeles" near the entrance to LAX during rush hour on Thu., Sept. 28.

Here is what the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, says about it:

"On September 28, 2006 the We Are America Coalition along with UNITE HERE, immigrant workers, religious leaders, community members, students, and immigrant rights leaders will march and hundreds will risk arrest to demand an end to the exploitation of immigrant workers. The march and civil disobedience will take place on the Century Corridor near the Los Angeles International Airport, an area with over a dozen hotels that employ thousands of immigrant workers. The protest will shut down Century Blvd. for several hours during rush hour traffic in the largest act of non-violent civil disobedience on record in the history of Los Angeles."
http://launionaflcio.org/news/06-09-13_civil_disobedience.html

Here is another source: http://september28th.org/

So if you are flying out of LAX on the 28th, or meeting anyone flying in, better consider switching to another day or getting there the night before.

Stephen Frank says, "It should also be noted that at the LA Labor Day breakfast at the LA Cathedral this event was pushed." He cites no source for saying that, and I have not checked with the Archdiocese about it, but he is a reliable news guy.

By the way, just because ole Quintero is citing Stephen Frank's newsletter here, that does not mean I agree with every single position he takes, naturally. But the best thing about him is that, unlike many, he is not afraid to be outspokenly pro-life, and for that he deserves our heartfelt thanks.

The guy was a big anti-Catholic

On Tuesday, LifeSiteNews.com reported (click on this post's title) that the news media are covering up inconvenient facts about Kimveer Gill, the guy who shot 20 people, one fatally, at Dawson College in Toronto last week and then killed himself.

Turns out that Gill was a big anti-Catholic and left-winger. So are some or many people in the news media; hence, their cover-up. That is just plain lying on their part.

The news media will not tell us, but Gill had posted on his weblog a list of his dislikes, some of which were:

American Government
Religion
God
Capatalists [sic]
[expletive deleted] Religious People Who Think They Know Everything...
Catholics
Church Going [expletive deleted]
Bible Thumpping [sic] Know-It-Alls
All Priests
Republicans
Homophobes

Okay, now how many people do you know right here in L.A. who share those dislikes? There are some who come to mind, aren't there?

Two lessons from this for each of us: Do not trust the news media; and do make reparation for blasphemy and all insults, invective and attacks against our flock. Jesus told Sister Consolata Betrone that one "Jesus, Mary, I love You, save souls" atones for thousands of blasphemies.

We should pray for the person whom Gill killed, and for the other victims. And in Christian charity we should pray for Gill, too. Amen.

Another lawsuit

Yahoo News reported today (click on this post's title) on a new lawsuit that accuses Cardinal Mahony and Mexico City's Cardinal Rivera of allowing Father Nicolas Aguilar to flee Los Angeles for Mexico in 1988 after the U.S. government issued a warrant for his arrest.

Cardinal Mahony spokesman Tod Tamberg called the lawsuit "preposterous." The Archdiocese of Mexico City says Cardinal Rivera "feels at ease because there was no cover-up."

Bringing the lawsuit is a man, 25, who says he is an ex-altar boy homosexually attacked by Aguilar in Mexico in 1994.

Who's having more babies?

An analysis (click on this post's title) in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle points out that political conservatives have many more babies than liberals do. The article also says four of five kids end up voting the way their parents do.

So the anti-lifers are outsmarting themselves by contracepting and aborting their babies to death and by sterilizing themselves.

But a wild card in the political future is whether the millions of Hispanic immigrants will largely stay truly Catholic and not adopt the contraceptive mentality that so many U.S. Catholics have. Also a factor is that lefties in the U.S. Church, including some we could name right here in L.A., clearly intimate to immigrants and everyone else that "left is best" among political parties.

Once again, we see that being pro-life is the best solution to everything. Now if we can only get everyone in our Catholic Church thinking and acting that way. Any ideas how to do that?

Today is...

Today is:

The 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
The 15th Sunday after Pentecost.
The Feast of St. Robert Bellarmine,
patron saint of catechists http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02411d.htm
The Feast of the Impression of the
Stigmata on St. Francis of Assisi http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06221a.htm

The following edifying passage is from the old Catholic Encyclopedia entry on St. Francis:
"Writing to a certain minister in the order, Francis says: 'Should there be a brother anywhere in the world who has sinned, no matter how great soever his fault may be, let him not go away after he has once seen thy face without showing pity towards him; and if he seek not mercy, ask him if he does not desire it. And by this I will know if you love God and me.'"

And by the way, today, Sept. 17, is also "Halfway to St. Patrick's Day." St. Patrick, pray for us!

Let's pray the Rosary for pro-life Prop 85 to win!

[Sorry ole Q is a day late in promoting this 54-day Rosary Novena for Prop 85. Oremos!]
------------------------------------------------
If you wish to obtain a favor: Pray the “54-day Rosary Novena” -- Pieta Prayer B ook

Please join in the 54-Day Miraculous Rosary Novena to
Pass Prop 85 (Parental Notification)
And Elect Pro-Life Candidates

The General Election is on November 7th. Let us call on Our Blessed Mother with the secret weapon of the Rosary to help bring about a culture of life in our death-oriented society. This miraculous novena was prayed to save the [Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial] Cross with many miracles occurring throughout the novena with the last one being the unanimous vote by the U.S. Senate to transfer the property under the Cross to federal control – on the same day the judge had decided it should be removed. [Pres. Bush has signed the bill into law.]

The forgotten weapon of the Rosary is the heavenly answer to all of our humanly unsolvable problems![...]

The “Irresistible” 54-day Novena consists of reciting five decades of the Rosary each day for 27 days in Petition; then immediately, five decades each day for 27 days in Thanksgiving,
whether or not the request has been granted.

Closing Rosary: Monday, November 6th, 7:00pm
St. Ephrem’s Mother of Life Shrine
St. Ephrem’s Maronite Catholic Church
750 Medford Street, El Cajon, 92020
Adoration for one-half hour following Rosary

More info: Sue Lopez 619/276-7525 or slopez@integrity.com
The opening and closing Rosaries will include all 20 Mysteries at St. Ephrem’s.
The rest of the novena is to be prayed at home on our own.

For and against the Cross

We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee, because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world. Amen.
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Today, as we know, is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The L.A. Times reports (click on this post's title) that the state government of Nevada will have a contractor make a memorial plaque to be placed on the Veterans' Memorial Wall in Fernley, Nevada, for Nevada Army National Guard Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart, 34, who was killed in action in Afghanistan.

The news in that story is that the memorial plaque will carry a witches' "pentacle," a pentagram (the news story benignly calls it "a five-pointed star") inside a circle, because Sgt. Stewart was a "wiccan." The pentagram is a satanic symbol.

Also, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn (Republican), U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada) and Rep. Jim Gibbons (Republican-Nevada) have been lobbying the Veterans Administration, which does not allow the witch symbol on veterans' headstones, to allow one for Sgt. Stewart. The VA has not made a decision about that yet.

Interesting, isn't it, that officials and politicians fight hard for an anti-Christian symbol and much of government officialdom in our USA also fights hard against the Cross of our redemption. They even are so totalitarian, not to mention vindictive, as to persecute Christian grade schoolers and nursing home residents and to attack the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial Cross.

Our Los Angeles downtown skyline badly needs a traditional and representational (not modernist) monumental Crucifix, visible for miles in all directions and spotlighted all night. The top of the cathedral, or else its gathering-place, would be a great site for it, don't you think?
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You can view the painting above, and find an Exaltation of the Holy Cross novena prayer, at:
http://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/novena/holycross.htm

Priesthood Sunday is Oct. 29, 2006

O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine,
All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine. Amen.
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Want to support your priests? Want to foster prayer for priests? Want to encourage vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life? Here is a good way: Work with your pastor and parish to observe Priesthood Sunday (click on this post's title) on Oct. 29. The Serra Club (for vocations) is sponsoring it, and pro-life Archbishop John Vlazny of Portland endorses it.

The Priesthood Sunday website has lots of ideas and lots of ways to help.

When will "Accepting them as they are" apply to preborn babies?

Next time someone says to you, "We must accept them as they are," ask them when they are going to apply that to preborn babies.

(The baby girl or boy above is at five months of gestation. Catholic pro-abortion politicians can walk right up the aisle to receive Holy Communion from cardinals, bishops and priests while defending abortionists' "right" to dismember alive babies of this age and four months more.)

Click on this post's title to see many more photos of preborn babies.

When is anyone going to really, truly accept preborn babies as they are? -- and just as Holy Mother Church, founded by Jesus and guided by the Holy Spirit, acknowledges and declares they are: Namely, people like anyone else, human persons just as much as you and me, with immortal souls and with every bit of the rights, dignity and worth that everyone else has.

Of course, these days, accepting preborn babies as they are comes with a price tag. If we are going to treat preborn babies as we do everyone else, then we must save them when they are in jeopardy, just as we would rescue, say, someone about to be hit by a car or be murdered.

So right here and right now in L.A., how can we start to "accept preborn babies as they are?" Maybe you are already doing that, so God bless you, and more power to you!

Praying and counseling outside abortion mills is a very important way to accept babies.

Another good way is to visit http://www.parentsright2know.org and find out how you can help pass Prop 85, the Parents' Right to Know & Child Protection Initiative, which will save babies' lives and also protect teenage girls by requiring notification of parents at least 48 hours before an abortionist is to abort their daughters' babies.

Another way is to persuade your pastor and parish to start thinking of preborn babies as just as important and valuable and worthy of defending as everyone else. To do that, in many cases, you will have to challenge them to "accept preborn babies as they are" -- as our EQUALS and as God's little ones.

"The Priests of September 11, 2001"

Here is a photo of dust-covered Father Raymond Nobiletti, MM, ministering to other survivors after the collapse of the WTC towers on 9/11. Father Edward J. Burns has written about him and other priests of 9/11 (click on this post's title).

Somehow this reminds me of the words of solace and hope that the late Cardinal Terence Cooke spoke to Vietnamese refugees as they arrived here in the Golden State back in 1975: "Wherever you go, you will find the Catholic Church."

Thank God for our priests. Let us never fail to pray for them.

At St. Victor, "accepting them as they are"

Today's L.A. Times reports (click on this post's title) on yesterday's centennial Mass at St. Victor Parish in West Hollywood.

In case you do not know about St. Victor Parish, here is the first entry that turned up in a Web search on "St. Victor" and "West Hollywood" (I've put brackets around the entry):

[St. Victor's Catholic Church
Urban community of faith that welcomes all, regardless of race, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation.
Category: California > West Hollywood > Catholic]

Now you know. Here are excerpts from the Times report on the 100th anniversary Mass:

"On Saturday, with the church's choir and massive pipe organ in full voice, the narrative of St. Victor's was given thunderous celebration at a centenary Mass presided over by Cardinal Roger Mahony, who said the church has had a 'wonderful 100-year span.' In his sermon, he spoke of the importance of the broader church to be inclusive to all people.

"The present-day uniqueness of St. Victor's, said Msgr. Jeremiah Murphy, who is 69 and has been pastor at the church since 2000, is traceable in part to the congregation's sizable contingent of entertainment industry hopefuls and gays....

"Beginning with [former and now emeritus pastor Msgr. George] Parnassus' tenure, the parish long has been welcoming to gays.

"Catholic doctrine forbidding gay marriage and Pope Benedict XVI's declaration that men with 'deep-seated' homosexual tendencies should not be allowed to enroll in seminaries have fed the widespread perception that the church and gays are adversaries. The perception, Murphy said, is a false one.

"'I find the gay community takes religion seriously and are very faithful to religious exercise — saying the rosary, doing meditation, going to church,' he said. 'That may be the reason they're hurt more when the church is portrayed as against them.'

"Sexual orientation is irrelevant to religious belief, said church member John Aiello, a 46-year-old former casting director. Aiello is chairman of the church's finance committee and life partner of 52-year-old Bryan Smith, a lawyer and recent Catholic convert who sings bass in the choir.

"'Our faith is our faith,' he said. 'It's spiritual. It's not political. It's not an orientation thing.'

"Gay church members include those who have committed themselves to chastity — a requirement for receiving the Eucharist — as well as those who are [homo]sexually active.

"'We try to shepherd them toward the ideal,' Murphy said, 'but we also accept them as they are and honor their contributions to the church and to society.'

"St. Victor's also has fostered candidates for the priesthood. One of four newly ordained priests from Los Angeles County is from St. Victor's, with six other parish men in various stages along the route to priesthood."

So the parish finance committee chairman is the "life partner" of another man.

It would be nice, to say the least, if the Cardinal and the pastor would clarify in unmistakable terms for the public that "inclusive to all people" and "we also accept them as they are" must never include giving absolution in Confession, and giving Communion, to anyone who commits homosexual sins without repentance, Confession, penance and a firm purpose of amendment.

It would also be nice if the Cardinal and the pastor would clarify in unmistakable terms that anyone with "deep-seated tendencies" may not be admitted to the seminary or Holy Orders.

"Living with L.A." includes "living with driving"

For you and me and all L.A. drivers, and for drivers everywhere, here are Ten Commandments for Highway Safety, from a St. Christopher holy card.

If you can't see the commandments clearly, here they are:

I. Thou shalt not murder by motor.
II. Thou shalt not mix alcohol with gasoline.
III. Thou shalt not exceed the speed limit.
IV. Thou shalt not follow too closely.
V. Thou shalt not weave from lane to lane.
VI. Thou shalt not fail to signal.
VII. Thou shalt not lose thy temper.
VIII. Thou shalt be courteous to they fellow motorists.
IX. Thou shalt favor the pedestrian & bicyclist.
X. Honor traffic laws that thy days may be long.

To these we could add, "favor motorcyclists, too," and "avoid unsafe lane changes," and "don't run red lights."

(The card has a really tiny copyright notice, but I can't make it out. If you can, let me know and I will be glad to give full credit, of course. Also, no doubt many people sell this card; the illustration above happens to be from www.catholicstore.com)
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St. Christopher, please pray for us and for everyone we meet on the road -- other drivers and passengers, pedestrians, jaywalkers, skateboarders, bicyclists, etc., and for all animals, the innocent creatures of God. Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.
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Hi, Commenters -- Has St. Christopher ever saved you, here in ole L.A. or somewhere else? Or your Guardian Angel? Or St. Raphael? Or other patron saints of travelers? Please tell us all about it, if you want to.

Another sad chapter in L.A. jurisprudence

Today's L.A. Times reports (click on this post's title) that a suspended priest of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles against an earlier decision by a judge that his Archdiocesan personnel file must be turned over to four plaintiffs in a civil suit that charges he molested then when they were children.

The trial is set for November, but now is on hold until the appeal is heard.

The suspended priest's lawyer, Donald Steier, represents many accused priests. The appeal, reports the Times, "seeks to assert a number of individual rights, including privacy, attorney-client privilege and physician-patient privilege."

What more can we say about such news that has not been said already? Let us pray for strength for any souls whom the ongoing news of the scandals tempts to lose their faith.
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The photo above is of the Theologate at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo.

Another great American Churchman

Commenter "D" picks Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, shown above, as his "great American Churchman" nominee. "D" also notes that the wheels are turning in Bishop Sheen's canonization process. Click on this post's title to visit the official site of Bishop Sheen's cause.

Did you ever meet Bishop Sheen on his visits to Los Angeles? Do you know anyone whom he converted, here or anywhere else? Do you have any good stories about him?

Two nominees for "great American Churchmen"

If you have been following the comments on recent posts here, you have noticed some comments about which bishops are "great American Churchmen."

Here are two nominees from me: The late Bishop Austin Vaughan and the late Bishop George E. Lynch. Why? They were fearless pro-life rescuers who each went to jail many times for taking part in peaceful, prayerful sit-ins that bought time for the babies, and saved many of them, by keeping abortionists from being able to get inside and begin their bloody trade.

Bishop Austin Vaughan and Bishop George E. Lynch bore stripes for Christ and the babies. They are heroes of the Faith. Maybe you know of them. Maybe you knew one or both of them. If you have any reminiscences about them, please tell us about them. Thank you in advance!

You can read about Bishop Vaughan here:
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Homiletic/2001-04/priest.html

http://archive.recordonline.com/archive/2000/06/30/whaustin.htm

You can read about Bishop Lynch here:
http://www.truthtv.org/newstext.asp?newsid=1388

I wish both, or at least either, of these heroic pro-life bishops could have been among our hierarchy here in L.A. I also wish our current hierarchy in L.A. would be like them.

Partly on the radar screen!

The new September/October issue of the San Diego News Notes carries an article that reminds me that Cardinal Mahony is doing some things for the babies and the right to life. So it is fair to mention those things and to say that the right to life is on the Cardinal's radar screen.

But, sadly, it is not front and center there. After all, His Eminence did NOT say in his Labor Day homily, as he could have, "I will not be voting on Nov. 7 for any candidate who supports aborting God's precious babies." He gave another issue that priority, and during Holy Mass, yet.

But fair is fair; and it is fair to point out that Cardinal Mahony, as the News Notes article says, met with the Proposition 85 Parents' Right to Know and Child Protection initiative team in June and promised to:

* Put Prop 85 flyers in the bulletin of every parish in the Archdiocese on the Sundays of Oct.
* Ask parishes to play the "Secret Tapes" in English and Spanish at the end of Masses
* Personally make an audio tape introducing those tapes.

The Cardinal also told the Prop 85 team that he would work with Latino bishops and priests in the Archdiocese to see that Latino Catholics become aware of Prop 85. And he issued a pro-Prop 85 statement in August.

For these things the Cardinal deserves our thanks. Now, if only he would stop making public appearances with pro-abortion politicians (remember when the Cardinal had Bill Clinton speak in St. Vibiana's, making him the only chief executive ever to have that honor?). And if only he would put abortion on the front burner in so many more ways.

EXTRA! - Cardinal Mahony admits preborn not his priority! - EXTRA!

It has been obvious all along in his two decades as Archbishop of Los Angeles, but yesterday, Sept. 4, Labor Day and the 225th birthday of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony finally admitted it: Abortion-targeted preborn babies and their right to life are NOT his priority.

The L.A. Times today says (click on this post's title) that at Mass in his $200 million cathedral yesterday, Cardinal Mahony intoned, "I say to the members of Congress, you do not have the right or luxury to let four weeks go by and refuse to deal with immigration reform. On Nov. 7, I'm not voting for anybody for Congress who is not supporting the legislation that we need."

There you have it. Illegal aliens are Roger's No. 1 issue. The Popes say Catholics must make abortion our No. 1 issue, but not Roger. He gives himself, and by extension us, permission (in his mind) to vote for all the pro-abortion politicians who also happen to be pro-illegal alien.

Notice, by the way, that just last night ole Q here pointed out that the babies are off the radar screen of people such as those who put out The Tidings. Was I right, or what?

Preborn babies are not even on the radar screen

The current issue of The Tidings carries a "Living Well" column (click on this post's title) by Maureen Pratt of Los Angeles that is entitled, "Giving health: Think outside the box."

Astoundingly, Tidings columnist Pratt writes, "Financier Warren Buffett's pledge of more than $30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for use in education in the United States and disease eradication in the Third World is a wonderful expression of concern and commitment to promoting the health of this and future generations."

The trouble with that fulsome praise, and what makes it astounding in a Catholic newspaper, is that both Buffett and the Gateses are notorious, major pro-aborts whose riches do some good but also promote anti-life policies and practices here in the USA and around the globe.

In the rest of her column, authoress Pratt supplies ideas for what the rest of us can do to make "the world a healthier, better place." None of her ideas involve the right to life.

How come, after 47 million aborted American babies, not only columnist Pratt but also The Tidings still do not know or do not care that the objects of their praise are pro-abortion?

We can only conclude that with people like them, abortion-targeted preborn babies, moms in trouble, and the right to life itself, are completely off their radar screen. With all due respect, may I suggest that that obtuseness is woefully inadequate for Catholics in this day and age.

Happy Birthday, Los Angeles!

Today, September 4, is the 225th anniversary of the founding of El Pueblo de Los Angeles in 1781. The current issue of The Tidings has a story (click on this post's title) about the founding and about our present-day descendientes of the founding families.

I am happy to mention that Luis Manuel Quintero, from Jalisco, was one of the founders of our beloved pueblo, although I cannot claim descent from him.

Presumably there were no pro-aborts among the pioneers in 1781 who made the nine-mile trek to the Rio Porciuncula to start a new settlement. Unfortunately, no doubt the same cannot be said of the politicians who were to join today's reenactment of that trek -- and who are more than happy to support in every way the aborting of so many Latino and other babies here.

Our Lady of the Angels, please pray for this metropolis so beautifully named for you, our only Queen, and please deliver us especially from everything that keeps so many Angelenos from saving preborn babies, helping their moms and working to reaffirm the right to life. Amen!

Just a note about bishops...and orphans

Did you see the French movie "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc" (1928) tonight on TCM? I saw the second half of it. I might as well say it: It is hard not to notice the part that bishops played in the imprisonment, trial and execution of the noble, holy martyr St. Joan of Arc (1412-1431).

They were bishops; should the people have abided by their bishops' decisions and made no protest during the serial heinous injustices done to 19-year-old St. Joan? The crowd at the execution cried out, "You have burned a saint!" Should they have kept silent?

If that crowd 575 years ago could call out, "You have burned a saint!" may we cry out to the hierarchy today, "You are doing violence to children!" in defense of the many orphans whom Catholic Charities of San Francisco will imminently help adoption-shuttle to homosexuals?

What will it take to peel the blinders from people so they open their hearts to California's orphans and OPPOSE the heinous injustice the Church will help perpetrate on them?

"Enrichment Day for Lectors"

This week The Tidings reports (click on this post's title) that the Archdiocese's Office for Worship will host an "Enrichment Day for Lectors" on Saturday, Sept. 16, at the cathedral.

What do you think the odds are that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles will tell lectors to mine the rich and ready-made resources, such as suggested Pro-Life Intercessions for Every Sunday of the Year, that Priests for Life makes available free at: http://www.priestsforlife.org/intercessions/index.htm

Obviously, lectors do not determine the Intentions for Masses; but lectors, and the rest of us, for that matter, can give the pro-life intentions to pastors and liturgy committees and urge them to use them, and to use them all the time, not just once a year on Respect Life Sunday.

How often do you hear preborn babies mentioned in the Intercessions at your parish here in ole L.A.? Or the right to life, etc.? Always, often, sometimes, rarely, never? Can you remember the best ones verbatim? Please let us know your answers to these questions. Thank you!

"Self-appointed guardians and defenders of the Faith"

A commenter's reference to "self-appointed guardians and defenders of the Faith" prompts these thoughts in me:

Should a layman or laywoman be name-called, belittled, stereotyped and denounced for reading Papal, Holy See and Conciliar instructions, orders and documents, seeing what they plainly say and then commenting publicly when local ordinaries and clergy violate them or get around them and when higher authorities do not correct the violations?

Should such lay people be called "fringe" or "extremist?'

In the particular case of San Francisco Catholic Charities now taking part in the handing over of orphans to homosexuals, would the children mind it if lay people were the ones to get the Holy See to quash the handing over? Would the children mind who it was who saved them?

Would the children say, "Sorry, I refuse to be rescued by a self-appointed guardian and defender of the Faith?"

And if those in the offices of the Holy See do not, for the time being, enforce their own order, would the orphans call that order invalid?

Who is right -- people who cite and uphold Papal and Holy See instructions and orders, or people who violate and get around those orders? People who protect kids, or people who do not?