Sarah Palin was baptized Catholic as baby but was raised Protestant

Time magazine's August 14 phone interview (click on this post's title) with Senator John McCain's August 29 pick as his VP running mate, pro-life Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, contains these significant questions and answers:

"What's your religion? Christian.

Any particular...? No. Bible-believing Christian.

What church do you attend? A non-denominational Bible church. I was baptized Catholic as a newborn and then my family started going to non-denominational churches throughout our life."

Okay, so let's not let anyone try to tell us that Sarah Palin is an "ex-Catholic." She is a baptized Catholic, and it was her parents' doing that she's not a practicing Catholic today.

The far-left web sites and blogspots, along with the news [sic] media, are already investigating Sarah Palin's local church, and all the way through Election Day they will be calling it crazy.

Like Obama's church-for-20-years (remember the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?) wasn't crazy!

And like Obama VP pick Joe Biden's (and Nancy Pelosi's) sacrilegious delusion of a "baby-killing-is-no-bar-to-Communion" Catholic Church isn't crazy!

Archbishop Niederauer vs. Nancy Pelosi, kind of

Nice to see that the home page of the Archdiocese of San Francisco web site reprints, front and center (click on this post's title), the usccb.org statement of Cardinal Rigali and Archbishop Lori against pro-abortion Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her misrepresentation last Sunday of the history of Catholic teaching on aborting babies.

Don't know if Archbishop Niederauer is going to make his own statement against Nancy Pelosi, but his reprinting of the usccb statement is kind of a step in the right direction for him.

The S.F. web site also carries a pro-Proposition 8 (defense of marriage) feature.

Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., has spoken out against Mrs. Pelosi. So has Cardinal Egan of New York. So have Archbishop Chaput and Bishop Conley of Denver.

No statement from Cardinal Roger Mahony about Nancy Pelosi's misrepresentation of Catholic teaching appears tonight on the home page of the web site la-archdiocese.org

Maybe there's pro-Prop 8 material there, but I didn't see it at first glance.

But one statement is there: "Cardinal Mahony calls for presidential candidates to be held accountable on immigration reform."

Says the cardinal, "A human being’s worth is defined by their [sic] God-given dignity, not by what papers they carry."

When is Cardinal Roger Mahony going to post a pro-Catholic, anti-Pelosi statement on his web site in order to give his flock guidance on true Catholic teaching about aborting babies?

Are preborn babies "human beings" with "worth" and "God-given dignity?"

How can pro-aborts claim to care about "health care for children?"

A friend says he votes Democrat because -- he's utterly wrong about this, of course -- Republicans, he claims, "are against health care for children."

So I've set him straight about George W. Bush's social spending far outdoing Slick Willie Clinton's.

And I've also told him, "Democrats should be the last people on Earth to ever bring up 'health care for children' -- because they are 100% for aborting 1.2 million American babies every year! An aborted baby is not a healthy baby!"

My friend has not come up with any answer for that. How could he?

What's not in The Tidings

You've seen a fair number of posts here that slam something in The Tidings, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. (It's so easy to find something in it that needs a corrective.)

A recent example was the Tidings cover photo of an anti-"homophobia" [sic] gaggle parading in Mexico City -- which locale, by the way, is not exactly in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

You've also seen a post here now and then that praises something in The Tidings.

Well, now it's time we talk about what's not in The Tidings. And that's a long list. Just for starters, how about cover stories on:

* the (Latin) Mass according to the Missal of 1962, and how great it is, and everywhere it is being celebrated in the Archdiocese, complete with times, directions and maps

* Pope Benedict XVI's request in Sacramentum Caritatis that seminaries teach Latin to seminarians so all priests will be able to say Mass according to the Missal of 1962 -- and the progress that Cardinal Mahony is making toward fulfilling the Vicar of Christ's request

* Cardinal Castrillon H.'s recent comment that every parish in the world should have a Mass according to the Missal of 1962 -- and the progress that Cardinal Mahony is making toward making that happen for the people of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles

* all the abortion mills in downtown L.A., how they prey on poor people, including immigrants legal and otherwise, and how Cardinal Mahony will lift restrictions, official or unofficial, on pro-life actions and sermons by his bishops and priests and will then order them to regularly pray and counsel outside every abortion chamber in the whole archdiocese and to maintain pro-life pregnancy counseling centers and homes for unwed moms in every parish

* how you can't be Catholic and pro-abortion, which major political party is pro-abortion, how Catholics are obligated to vote anti-abortion, how Canon 915 requires ministers of the Eucharist to refuse Communion to pro-abortion politicians for the good of their souls, and how Cardinal Mahony will publicly admonish all pro-abortion politicians and then order all his ministers of the Eucharist to deny Communion to the unrepentant ones.

You've got to admit that The Tidings would be a lot more interesting with cover stories like this that it is missing.

What have you noticed that is not in our archdiocesan newspaper and should be?

"Barack Obama, Change This"

Did you see the picket sign, a large one, that a pro-lifer (there were many pro-lifers there, of course) had outside the McCain-Obama forum at the Saddleback Church last Saturday?

The big sign consisted of a photo of a preborn baby's head, severed by an abortionist -- and the words, "Barack Obama, Change This."

It will take a long time for anyone who saw that sign to forget it -- and it will change hearts.

By the way, a wise friend of mine says that many members of the Saddleback Church are remarried Catholics. That figures, no? Catholics who apostasize to Protestantism get a lot of "benefits," such as being able to remarry, use contraception, etc.

The cardinal, the archbishop and the pro-abortion Democrats

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver is 63 now, so the above photo of him must have been taken a while ago. But anyway, he's in the news now, and here's what's happening.

As you might know, the Democrats are holding their presidential convention in Denver, August 25-28. Well, I've never heard of a major political party not inviting the local bishop -- until now.

That's right: The Democrat convention in Denver won't invite the Archbishop of Denver. The Democrats are such lovers of aborting babies that they know they can't afford to let a prelate as anti-abortion as Archbishop Chaput anywhere near their abortion-fest confab.

It turns out that Archbishop Chaput has something else to do anyway: On the Democrats' opening night, he (click on this post's title) will take part in a big interfaith pro-life prayer vigil outside a giant Planned Parenthood abortion chamber in suburban Stapleton.

Cardinal Roger Mahony treated things differently when the Democrats held their convention in Los Angeles in 2000. He went to the confab and gave an invocation, kind of gently pro-life, if I recall correctly, at a sparsely attended morning session. I don't know if that shunting of him to non-prime time was the Democrats' idea or his.

Presumably Cardinal Mahony thought his invocation might influence some Democrats for the better. But wouldn't it have been great if he had told them he could not attend because they are such anti-lifers? And wouldn't it have been thrilling if Cardinal Mahony had organized an interfaith pro-life prayer vigil at one of L.A.'s many abortion mills during the confab?

What will it take for Cardinal Mahony and our other bishops to start thinking like Archbishop Chaput -- to realize they need to start fighting abortion loud and clear and out in public?

Archbishop Burke: Bishops must admonish pro-abortion politicians -- and ministers of the Eucharist must deny them Communion

The Catholic News Agency today reports that Archbishop Raymond Burke, the new prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, this week told the Italian magazine Radici Cristiane (click on this post's title, although in a quick perusal I didn't see the particular article) that a politician who facilitates aborting babies "should be publicly admonished in such a way as to not receive Communion until he or she has reformed his life."

The archbishop added these bombshells:

"If a person who has been admonished persists in public mortal sin and attempts to receive Communion, the minister of the Eucharist has the obligation to deny it to him. Why? Above all, for the salvation of that person, preventing him from committing a sacrilege.

"We must avoid giving people the impression that one can be in a state of mortal sin and receive the Eucharist. Secondly, there could be another form of scandal, consisting of leading people to think that the public act that this person is doing, which until now everyone believed was a serious sin, is really not that serious - if the Church allows him or her to receive Communion.

"If we have a public figure who is openly and deliberately upholding abortion rights and receiving the Eucharist, what will the average person think? He or she could come to believe that it up to a certain point it is okay to do away with an innocent life in the mother's womb."

Archbishop Burke also said that when a bishop prevents a pro-abort from receiving Communion, "it is not with the intention of interfering in public life but rather in the spiritual state of the politician or public official who, if Catholic, should follow the divine law in the public sphere as well."

The archbishop then made this significant point:

"Therefore, it is simply ridiculous and wrong to try to silence a pastor, accusing him of interfering in politics so that he cannot do good to the soul of a member of his flock."

So the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura says to leave pro-life pastors alone -- to let pro-life pastors be pro-life!

I'm sure that Cardinal Roger Mahony will hop right on this and publicly admonish all the pro-abortion politicians in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and then tell all ministers of the Eucharist to deny Communion to the unrepentant ones. I'm sure he will; aren't you?

I'm sure Archbishop George Niederauer will get busy, too, and publicly admonish Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and all the pro-abortion politicians in San Francisco, too.

And I'm sure all our California bishops quickly will follow their lead and admonish all their pro-aborts, too. Aren't you?

Our bishops better do something

Okay, this headline could just about be a generic one used for every post on this blogspot.

So what? Our bishops need to do something about the latest ruling of the California state supreme court. Persecution of Christians is here, and bishops' duty is to protect the flock.

You'll agree with me when you read a front-page article in today's Los Angeles Times (click on this post's title). Let the headlines (below) from the print edition sink in. They tell the story starkly and lay out what is at stake for our civilization, our Church and you and me:

"Doctors' faith must yield to gays' rights, court says"

"Anti-bias laws outweigh religion, state
justices rule in the case of a lesbian"

Always do what Bishop Sheen says

A Bishop Sheen show from the 1950s, shown on EWTN the other day, had such a good message for everyone, as usual. I might not do it justice here, but I'll try.

Bishop Sheen drew a head on his blackboard and said a compulsion can't be forced out but it can be crowded out. To crowd out a compulsion, replace it with something much better.

A real-life example of this, Bishop Sheen said, was when a lady came to him and asked for help to get rid of her alcoholism. He told her there wasn't much he could do for her -- did she love alcohol more than anything else? She agreed that she did.

Bishop Sheen spoke to the lady for an hour and a half about Divine Love. And then he asked her to do something for him and come back the next day, drunk or sober, and say what happened.

What he asked the lady to do was, when she approached one of her favorite bars and put her hand on the doorknob, to ask herself, "Do I really love alcohol more than my Dear Lord?"

That was it, said Bishop Sheen -- the end of her alcoholism. She never drank again.

We can and must each apply this golden spiritual counsel to ourselves and our own sins. Do I really love whatever sin it is more than I love my Dear Lord? Our salvation depends on our answer. Dear Lord, be with me! Jesus, Mary, I love you, save souls!

We can apply this in our Catholic moral approach to the political campaign. When a liberal steps into the voting booth and gets ready to mark his ballot, let him ask himself, Do I really love the politicians who facilitate the deaths of millions of preborn babies more than I love my Dear Lord?

That's a stark and absolutely real decision many Catholics will have to make this November. Might as well resolve now to start letting love for Jesus and His preborn babies crowd out the compulsion to love and vote for pro-abortion politicians. Amen.

A misleading caption in The Tidings

The online edition of this week's issue of The Tidings, the archdiocesan newspaper, carries a misleading caption (click on this post's title) for the cover photo: "Delegates from an ecumenical conference on religion and HIV/AIDS join a march against stigmatization, discrimination and homophobia Aug. 2 in Mexico City. photo by CNS/Paul Jeffrey"

No way to tell whether The Tidings itself or the Catholic News Service (CNS) composed the photo caption. But it is sheer propaganda to characterize the homosexual activists' march as being "against stigmatization, discrimination and homophobia."

The Tidings caption would have been much more accurate if it had simply said the homosexual activists' march was "for homosexual pressure groups' political-legal-social-education agenda."

The Tidings exposes enemies of pro-marriage Prop 8

Glad to see that in its current issue The Tidings, the Los Angeles Archdiocesan newspaper, carries a news article (click on this post's title) that spotlights the mega-contributions that ultra-wealthy pro-homosexual donors are making to try to defeat Prop 8, the pro-marriage initiative that is on the California ballot fot this Nov. 4.

Let's pray that the voters pass Prop 8, and let's work to help make that happen.

The Tidings and Humanae Vitae

Glad to see that the current issue of the archdiocesan newspaper, The Tidings, carries a column (click on this post's title) by George Weigel in defense of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's pro-marriage, pro-woman, anti-contraception encyclical letter of July 25, 1968.

That alone makes this issue a lot better than the recent one that carried a typically disingenuous column by Fr. Richard McBrien that dissed Humanae Vitae without quite rejecting it.

Campaign for Yes on 4, to save babies' lives and save teens from predators

We each need to do everything we can to help pass pro-life, anti-predator Prop 4 on the Nov. ballot -- so please click on this post's title today to visit the Prop 4 / Sarah's Law website and see how you can help.

We need to donate to the cause, get and distribute literature, get bumper stickers and yard signs, and so on. We also need to write letters to the editor to the newspapers.

Prop 4 is a parental/family member notification initiative that will make abortionists notify an underage girl's parents or other family member before aborting her baby.

Right now, as we know, certain evil adult men can criminally prey on underage girls, impregnate them and then take them to abortion chambers -- and the abortionists can kill the babies for the predators without the girls' parents, not to mention law enforcement, ever being told.

Prop 4 will change all that, and the results will save babies' lives, protect underage girls and force abortionists into accountability.

So, please, let's you and I help pass Prop 4!

California bishops favor pro-marriage Prop 8, want us to help

Our California Catholic bishops have begun a campaign (click on this post's title) in favor of Prop 8, the California constitutional amendment on this Nov.'s ballot. The measure will restore the definition of marriage, and the bishops are asking you and me and everyone to join in and help.

So let's get busy! And, of course, let's remember to vote.

The bishops quote both Pope Benedict XVI and the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"Only the rock of complete and irrevocable love between man and woman is capable of acting as a foundation for a society that can be home to all human beings."—Pope Benedict XVI, addressing the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family, May 11, 2006

God himself is the author of marriage. The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life. -- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1603, 1604

Remember the convent in Santa Barbara?

Remember the convent in Santa Barbara (pictured above) -- the one that Cardinal Roger Mahony last year wrote the three Sisters of Bethany to vacate so the Archdiocese could sell it to help pay off the huge abuse / cover-up scandal payments?

Well, ole Q's norteno contacts in Santa Barbara are saying that even though the sisters are long gone, the convent has not been sold and is not up to code inside. Ole Q hears that the convent will kind of stay with the adjacent Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish and be surrounded by an extension of the church's parking lot when a planned side extension of the church is built.

By the way, let's hope and pray that the extension of the church does not involve any wreckovation -- any obliteration of the sanctuary, removal of Jesus in the tabernacle, etc.

Get your priests to read, "The Vindication of Humanae Vitae"

Quick, click on this post's title to read Mary Eberstadt's blockbuster article, "The Vindication of Humanae Vitae," in the August-September 2008 issue of First Things.

Then forward the link to your priest friends and urge them to preach about the article.

Among other things, Mary Eberstadt uses secular scholars' sociological studies to prove that those who rebelled, and still rebel, against the Pope and the Magisterium over contraception were and are w-r-o-n-g and that Pope Paul VI was right.

Don't you love the maxim, "If you disagree with the Pope about doctrine, guess who's right!"

If your liberal friends give you any guff about Humanae Vitae, give them this article.

By the way, no doubt you've noticed that ole Q has been posting less often in the last couple of months or more. That's due to ill health in the family (not me personally) and a couple of other circumstances.

Thank you for staying loyal and checking in here! I'll try to post a little more often. God bless!