"Your picket sign"

Did you see the 1961 movie "The Hoodlum Priest" on TCM the other night? I only saw the last third or so, but it is a really memorable film.

The film tells the story of real-life Father Charles Dismas Clark, S.J., who ministered to gang members and other hoods in St. Louis. Actor Don Murray plays Father Clark very well and co-wrote the script.

One of the most striking scenes takes place late at night outside the governor's mansion. Inside, "the hoodlum priest" is asking the governor to commute a death sentence at the last minute.

Outside, a lone man keeps vigil in the dark, carrying an anti-death penalty picket sign. When he pauses to take out a cigarette, the one guard on duty comes over and gives him a light.

The guard says to the man (I'm paraphrasing now), "You're not gonna change the world with your picket sign." The man replies, "I'm not trying to change the world. I'm trying to keep the world from changing me."

There's another reason for you and me to never be afraid to go out and picket, no?

Good advice from a bishop ... just 443 years ago

The old Catholic Enyclopedia reports that on October 15, 1565, after St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), above, took up residence as Archbishop of Milan, he spoke to the first provincial council, one of whose members was the future Pope Gregory XIV:

"Charles announced that the reform must begin with the prelates: 'We ought to walk in front, and our spiritual subjects will follow us more easily.' He commenced by fulfilling all things required in himself, and his wonderful clergy astonished the prelates. The council was finished on the 3rd of November, and Charles sent a minute report to the pope."

"We ought to walk in front, and our spiritual subjects will follow us more easily."

What beautiful words! I bet that if St. Charles were alive today, he would "walk in front," all right -- walk in front of L.A.'s many abortion mills, and his clergy and laity would follow him.

St. Charles Borromeo is patron saint of bishops and seminarians. No wonder!

The illustration above is from Patron Sants Index.

Bishop Jaime Soto tells the truth to a national "gay" gathering

This is remarkably good news: When Bishop Jaime Soto, coadjutor bishop of Sacramento, spoke to a conference of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries on September 18 in Long Beach, he gave the audience a courageous and beautiful presentation of Catholic teaching on sexual morality, the natural law, marriage and the sinfulness of sodomy.

So reports the online California Catholic Daily, which carries a transcript of Bishop Soto's address (click on this post's title) and a companion news story about the event.

You've got to read Bishop Soto's address. And then let's each spread it around.

It turns out that the audience was flabbergasted that a Catholic bishop would tell them the truth. One guy got up and apologized for Bishop Soto, and said they had no idea the bishop was going to say what he did.

On November 30, Bishop Soto will become head of his diocese. Looks like he is the right man for his flock. Deo gratias.

Forty years in the making: Pope replaces liturgy office's consultants

On Wednesday, it was announced that Pope Benedict XVI has replaced the consultants to the liturgy office with Legionary and Opus Dei priests and an author who is pro-ad orientem, reports the online California Catholic Daily (click on this post's title).

This really sounds like big and good news for the future of the liturgy.

Let's each say "Deo gratias" and keep following this story.

Will your parish observe Respect Life Sunday, Oct. 5? Ask your pastor and volunteer to help

Have you found out yet whether your pastor and parish are going to observe this year's Respect Life Sunday, which is October 5?

Not all of them do, as we know all too sadly from experience.

You and your pro-life friends could go to your pastor and tell him you'll help out with Respect Life Sunday and make the job easy for him.

You (and your pastor) can click on this post's title for the USCCB Respect Life resources page.

You (and your pastor) can also visit http:www.priestsforlife.org to access their bountiful Respect Life Sunday resources and more.

Let's all do our part for the babies and the right to life!

Please let ole Q know what good pro-life news happens. Thank you in advance!

Bush admin. salutes pro-life pregnancy centers

Nice to hear, via a press release from Care Net (click on this post's title), that:

"More than 150 pregnancy center volunteers and 56 pregnancy center organizations from across the country received Presidential Volunteer Service Awards on Friday [Sept. 19] at a ceremony hosted by Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Joxel Garcia, MD, M.B.A. and the White House USA Freedom Corps."

You would never, ever know it from our abortion-propagandizing "news" media, but 2,500+ pro-life pregnancy centers exist around our USA, with tens of thousands of volunteers. They outnumber the abortion chambers.

If any liberals think the abortion zealot and extremist Barack Hussein Obama would ever salute pro-life pregnancy centers the way the Bush admin. has, they are nuts.

Catholics pray for more priests as bishops shut down beautiful churches

Reuters reported yesterday (click on this post's title) on parishioners of St. James Church in the Boston suburb of Wellesley who are taking turns occupying the church to try to keep the Archdiocese of Boston from shuttering it.

The church is one of "more than 60" that the archdiocese has closed.

Outside the church, by the street, the parishioners have strung up a large banner that reads, "Searching for a Priest" -- and they have added a smaller banner with the word "Still" above it.

The parishioners, led by Joe Elliott, 81, know the odds are against them.

The Reuters story cites Georgetown's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate as its source for saying that "More than 850 parishes nationwide have [been] shut since 1995 -- the majority since 2000..."

The article also says, "Of the nation's 18,479 parishes in 2008, 3,141 were without resident pastors, while the 480 priests ordained in 2008 is less than half the number of new priests in 1965."

Of course, church closings are not a problem out here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. We just go along gaily preparing to turn sisters and lay women into pastorettes.

(Thanks to CatholicCulture.org for the tip about the news story.)

The devastation that Catholic liberals have wrought and continue to wreak

If you want to get a sense of how badly liberal Catholic bishops and clergy treat the faithful -- how UNPASTORAL the liberals are to their flock, and all the heartbreak they create -- please read this excerpt from a letter I've received this week.

(The letter is from another state, and I've altered some names and the date, to keep the location unidentified.)

"On Oct. -- is the last closing Mass for St. --- Church. The bishop will be here to say it. It's on a Sunday and there will be a church dinner afterwards.

"It will be like saying goodbye to a very old and very dear friend. Jim and I were married there. M--- and I were both baptized there. First Holy Communion and Confirmation for me also. M--- was married there also. Also, of course, all our families' funerals there. And M---'s baccalaureate there. And our 25th wedding anniversary Mass was there as well.

"So hard to say good-bye!"

See what I mean?

Some liberals might object, "How can you say that 'liberals' caused this?"

Easy: First, the liberals said Catholics could commit contraception without sin. That has more than decimated Catholic family size and has emptied the pews.

Second, the liberals have created a largely artificial crisis -- a "priest shortage." They have done this by exiling or getting rid of many a faithful priest, and by rejecting many a faithful applicant to seminaries for opposing priestesses and active homosexual seminarians and clergy.

There you have it: When the liberals say, "Oh, we've got to close your beautiful, traditional, historic church because not enough people attend and because we don't have enough priests," they are citing problems they themselves have created, and they are punishing us for it!

The Pope and the Latin Mass

Perhaps you've seen in Zenit or elsewhere that in a press conference on his plane to France, Pope Benedict XVI made some comments about the Latin Mass that sound unfortunate.

But in context, the remarks might not be so bad. The Pope said, in reply to a question:

"This ‘motu proprio’ is simply an act of tolerance, with a pastoral objective, for people who have been formed in this liturgy, who love it, know it and want to live with this liturgy. It is a small group, given that it presupposes a formation in Latin, a formation in a certain culture. But it seems to me a normal demand of faith and pastoral concern for a bishop of our Church to have love and tolerance for these people and permit them to live with this liturgy."

That might seem to undercut what Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos and others have said about the desirability of wide availability for the Latin Mass.

It also might seem to undercut the same Pope's own motu proprio!

But the context of the Pope's remarks is that the French bishops have been extremely resistant to the Latin Mass, and he was telling them it should not be a big problem for them in France and they should be charitable and pastoral to people who want the Latin Mass.

In his same reply, Pope Benedict XVI declared that the Latin Mass "is not a regression." He said "there is no opposition" between the Latin Mass and the New Mass, and he added that the Vatican II (1962-1965) council fathers said Mass in the Tridentine Rite.

So there are no grounds for the liberals to start waving around these brief remarks of the Pope at a plane ride press conference as if they could somehow supersede, overturn or nullify the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.

But they will do that anyway, and it is up to you and me to set the record straight. As usual!

Tidings doesn't tell us Kmiec backs Obama

Isn't that cute?

Cardinal Mahony's archdiocesan newspaper, The Tidings, this week (click on this post's title) carries a guest column by Douglas Kmiec, the Catholic law professor at Pepperdine who endorsed the extremist abortion fanatic Barack Hussein Obama for president earlier this year -- and in a journalistic lapse, The Tidings conveniently fails to tell us that Kmiec is a shill for Obama.

Kmiec repeats Catholic teaching that aborting babies is intrinsically wrong. But he fails to cite Catholic teaching that aborting babies is an issue above all others.

He also falsely says conservatives took "unnecessary glee" in our U.S. bishops' rebukes to Democrat "keep abortion legal" enthusiasts Joseph Biden and Nancy Pelosi for misreprenting Catholic teaching about aborting babies.

Listen up, Kmiec: As long as your pal Obama and his ilk keep it legal to abort 3,000+ American babies every day, no pro-lifers are "gleeful" about anything.

Kmiec also intimates, or should I say pretends, that fewer babies will be aborted under Democrats than Republicans. And that leads him to his main point, a claim that "there is... more than one way to be pro-life."

Sure, Dougie: Your way to be pro-life is to elect Democrat abortion zealots such as Obama, who have all sworn to keep aborting babies legal at all costs. That's really pro-life of you.

The same issue of The Tidings does have pro-life articles. But it also has some anti-pto-life letters to the editor.

The Tidings Online covers the Pelosi saga

The Tidings Online (click on this post's title) right now has the California Bishops' pro-Prop 8 statement; an article about Archbishop Niederauer and Nancy Pelosi; Archbishop Niederauer's complete statement; and a nice Catholic News Service article about Sarah Palin.

It's interesting to speculate about possible outcomes of a meeting between the Archbishop and Nancy Pelosi. Will we find out anything before Election Day?

It's great, isn't it, that Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden keep bringing up their opposition to the right to life and thus forcing our U.S. bishops to admonish them and educate the public?

This election is about abortion. A vote for Obama-Biden is a vote for abortion, no matter how much the lefty Catholics pretend they can vote for pro-aborts without voting pro-abortion.

How can anybody vote for pro-abortion candidates without voting for abortion?

By the way, don't look now, but when Archbishop Niederauer meets with Nancy Pelosi, he should admonish her and teach her Catholic morality not just about facilitating abortions but also about facilitating the homosexual takeover agenda.

Archdiocese of L.A.: Yes on Prop 4, Yes on Marriage and Prop 8

Glad to see that on the Archdiocese of L.A. web site (click on this post's title) we can now get English-Spanish pro-marriage weekly inserts for parish bulletins.

Maybe you could get your pastor to agree to use these inserts, and you and your family or friends could volunteer to do the stuffing of the bulletins.

Glad also to see the same web site has the California Bishops' statement in favor of Proposition 4 (Parental Notification to protect minor girls from sex predators, abortion collaborators and the abortionists). ( They have both English and Spanish versions of the statement.)

And there is also the Spanish text of the California Bishops' pro-Prop 8 statement.

Archbishop Niederauer and pro-abort Nancy P.

You have probably heard by now that longtime pro-abortion zealot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat) says she will accept the invitation of San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer to a private "conversation."

He invited her to discuss what our Catholic Church teaches about aborting babies -- which is far from what she has been saying it is -- but her response mentioned only "other issues," not specifically the aborting of babies.

Archbishop Niederauer made his invitation in his column in the September 5 edition of the archdiocesan newspaper, Catholic San Francisco (click on this post's title).

He brings up the possibility that some Catholics are honestly confused about Catholic teaching.

This calls to mind Mark Twain's comment, "Suppose you were a Member of Congress. And suppose you were an idiot. But I repeat myself."

Who really believes that any pro-abortion politician is sincerely "confused" about whether it is okay to facilitate the mass slayings of preborn babies by the millions? Nancy Pelosi has a miles-wide and years-long track record of defying our Catholic Church on aborting babies.

Could Archbishop Niederauer publicly sanction Nancy Pelosi? And do so before Election Day, Tuesday, November 4?

Not likely. But it sure would create some headlines if he did.

We need a more precise concept than "Respect Life"

If you are like me, you are proud of the work that the good people in parish and diocesan and archdiocesan Respect Life committees do.

But is "Respect Life" really the best name those committees could have?

I suggest "Save Lives" instead.

That is because the word "life," in current pro-life usage, can be and often is impersonal: It does not refer to an actual individual person.

In fact, the word "life" is even unwittingly depersonalizing. People say, "We've got to protect unborn life." "We've got to protect life in the womb."

It should be, "unborn babies," not "unborn life." It should be "babies in the womb," not "life in the womb."

A wise pro-life lady once pointed out to me that we pro-lifers should always put our focus on the babies -- they are the central characters, the object of our concern, in right to life.

After all, when you go to a ballgame at Dodger Stadium or Anaheim and you see the crowd, do you say, "Look at all that life?" No. You say, "Look at all those people."

We must never forget that every preborn baby is an individual and a person, not a category or a concept such as "life."

Every preborn baby is also deserving of being saved, not just "respected" in the abstract. And the same is true of everyone who needs protecting and saving, such as euthanasia-targeted elderly, infirm, or handicapped people.

So, "Save Lives" is a more precise concept than "Respect Life." What do you think?

More about Sarah Palin

A commenter has written to claim that a Newsweek magazine article (click on this post's title) about Sarah Palin said she was Catholic until she was a teenager. That's not what the article says, though.

Here is what the article actually says:

"Palin has said she was baptized in the Roman Catholic [C]hurch. As a teenager, she began attending the Pentecostal Assemblies of God church in Wasilla and was baptized there by the founding pastor, Paul Riley."

There is no contradiction between this and what she told Time magazine in August, that she was baptized Catholic as a baby and her parents began going to Protestant churches.

There is no indication, so far, that Sarah Palin ever was a practicing Catholic.

Wouldn't a Catholic parish have records of her First Communion and Confirmation, as well as attendance at the parish school or CCD?