Our bishops and clergy need to march in the streets...like they used to

Remember, not so long ago, when Cardinal Roger Mahony marched in the streets in celebration of the inauguration of pro-abortion Los Angeles Mayor Tony Villar (Antonio Villaraigosa)?

And think about all the photos you've seen of Catholic bishops and clergy proudly marching in the streets during the civil rights movement of the 1960's and in support of lefty Cesar Chavez.

To this day, those bishops and clergy are revered for...marching in the streets.

Now, let's ask ourselves if we wouldn't like to see our Catholic bishops and clergy marching in the streets once again -- this time, to save the lives of preborn babies from abortionists.

Cardinal Mahony, the babies and moms of L.A. are waiting for help -- life-saving help. We'll follow, if you and our other bishops and the clergy will lead. Please?

California liberals now plan to tax...children!

The liberals who run our state government are plotting to cut the annual $300 state tax credit per child (and other dependents) by $210, the Family Research Council reported last Friday.

Obviously, cutting $210 from a $300 tax credit per child is a huge tax increase on families.

Economists have a rule: If you want more of something, subsidize it; and if you want less of something, tax it.

Anybody who would tax little kids wants fewer of them.

Cardinal Mahony and the rest of our California bishops need to denounce this anti-child, anti-family, mammoth tax increase publicly and loudly, don't you think?

P.S. Sorry I haven't been able to post anything for the past nine days. Pressures of earning a living are the reason. Thank you for remaining loyal to onelacatholic.blogspot.com

The Year for Priests

Maybe you have already read the letter that Pope Benedict XVI wrote to his brother priests to proclaim a Year for Priests. But if not, click on this post's title to see it.

The Year began on June 19, now the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Holy Father is calling to mind the priesthood and example of the patron saint of parish priests, St. John Vianney, the Cure d'Ars.

May you and I always pray for priests and be good to the ones we know.

May we pray for all the priests ordained this year, and for the seminarians ordained to the deaconate this year, just one year away from their ordination to the priesthood.

May we be sure to remember all priests who are now in eternity. A holy priest once told me that people always assume a priest who has died has gone straight to Heaven, so they do not pray for him as much as they should.

Dear God, we thank You from the bottom of our hearts for our priests, and we promise to support them with our prayers and with our kindness to them. Amen.

The Eucharist and the Priesthood, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI

Do you receive the daily news messages from the Vatican Information Service? They are free, and you can click on this post's title to go to the VIS site and sign up for them.

Here is an excerpt from one of the VIS news features:

RENEWING FAITH IN REAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN EUCHARIST

VATICAN CITY, 11 JUN 2009 (VIS) - At 7 p.m. today, Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Benedict XVI celebrated Mass on the square in front of the basilica of St. John Lateran, then led a Eucharistic procession to the basilica of St. Mary Major.

In his homily, the Pope commented on the words pronounced by priests at the moment of consecration: "this is My Body, ... this is My Blood".

Addressing his remarks to priests, the Holy Father said: "Becoming the Eucharist: let this be our constant desire and commitment! So that the offer of the Body and Blood of the Lord we make upon the altar may be accompanied by the sacrifice of our own lives. Every day we draw from the Body and Blood of the Lord the free and pure love that makes us worthy ministers of Christ and witnesses to His joy. What the faithful expect from a priest is the example of authentic devotion to the Eucharist. They like to see him spend long periods of silence and adoration before Jesus, as did the saintly 'Cure of Ars' whom we will especially recall during the imminent Year for Priests"... [fromVIS 090612 (470)]

More proof that liberal Catholics do not care about preborn babies

U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) has met with Barack Hussein Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor -- and the results say something about liberal Catholics. I'll explain.

Today, in a press release (click on this post's title) about his meeting with Judge Sotomayor, Senator DeMint said the following:

“When I asked [Judge Sotomayor] if an unborn child has any rights whatsoever, I was surprised that she said she had never thought about it. This is not just a question about abortion, but about the respect due to human life at all stages, and I hope this is cleared up in her hearings.

“Those who serve on the highest court in America must have an unwavering commitment to the Constitution and equal justice for all Americans. I will continue to review Judge Sotomayor’s decisions and public statements and will watch her hearings closely.”

You have heard me say here in the past that preborn babies are not on the radar screen of liberal Catholics at all. It is fair to call Sonia Sotomayor a liberal Catholic.

If taken at face value, Sonia Sotomayor's claim that she has never thought about unborn babies' rights is an admission of an astounding callousness and lack of critical thinking.

Yet many liberal Catholics have an attitude like hers: They never think of preborn babies and certainly never do anything to save them.

Our nation's Catholic bishops, Cardinal Mahony included, should publicly oppose someone as callous and unthinking as Sonia Sotomayor. So should everybody.

"The golden Dome has been transformed into a golden calf"

This memorable sentence -- "The golden Dome has been transformed into a golden calf" -- is from an essay (click on this post's title) at LifeSiteNews.com by attorney Michael V. McIntire, a 1957 grad of Notre Dame and a former professor at the law school there.

You can learn a lot from Mr. McIntire's essay about Notre Dame's slide downhill in the 1960's and since then as well.

For me, ole Q, the nadir at Notre Dame was not even the invitation and the sickening welcome to the mega-abortion-pushing chief executive.

No, Notre Dame's nadir was, and is, its arresting of aged Fr. Norman Weslin and dozens of other prayerful pro-lifers -- and its refusal to drop its criminal charges against them.

You see, the Catholic liberals who just love pro-abortion politicians not only betray the preborn babies, they also persecute their fellow Catholics, even priests.

So much for the "common ground" that liberal Catholics prate about. They most emphatically do not want "common ground," they want to win -- they want pro-lifers to shut up about the little babies and to go away and stop trying to reach pro-abortion voters' consciences.

We need Cardinal Mahony and all of California's Catholic bishops to end their silence. We need them to say Notre Dame was wrong to honor a pro-abortion politician and is wrong to arrest and charge Catholic priests and others for prayerfully protesting.

"The golden Dome has been transformed into a golden calf."

P.S. By the way, the title of the piece at LifeSiteNews says, "Sic transic gloria," but that should be, "Sic transit gloria."

L.A. Times editorial defends pro-lifers (mostly)

Did you see the editorial (click on this post's title) in the L.A. Times this past Tuesday?

The editorial actually defended the pro-life movement against the false and sinister accusations by the abortion lobby and its fellow travelers that it bears responsibility for acts by extremists.

The editorial correctly zeroes in on what it calls "the basic premise of the antiabortion movement" -- that "a [preborn baby] is a person."

(The editorial said "fetus," but I've corrected that here.)

The editorial is not perfect, but it's better than many another newspaper's editorials lately.

So, kudos, mostly, to the Times, and it's not often I say that.

Cardinal Bernardin himself said, "You can't vote for pro-abortion politicians!"

You can't vote for pro-abortion politicians!

That is what the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago told the National Catholic Register -- and all the way back in 1988, yet.

The Register (click on this post's title), in a May 31, 2009, post on its daily blogspot, says Dr. Elizabeth Lev, daughter of Prof. Mary Ann Glendon, has found the quote from Cardinal Bernardin as it appeared on the front page of the Register of June 12, 1988.

Here is how Elizabeth Lev quoted what Cardinal Bernardin said in the Register:

"I don't see how you can subscribe to the consistent ethic and then vote for someone who feels that abortion is a 'basic right' of the individual." He went on to say, “I know that some people on the left, if I may use that label, have used the consistent ethic to give the impression that the abortion issue is not all that important anymore, that you should be against abortion in a general way but that there are more important issues, so don’t hold anybody’s feet to the fire just on abortion. That’s a misuse of the consistent ethic, and I deplore it.”

Cardinal Bernardin came up with his "seamless garment" "consistent ethic of life issues" idea in 1983. Ever since then, pro-abortion Catholic politicians have used it over and over to excuse their multiple political and legislative betrayals of preborn babies and their right to life.

Millions of Catholic voters, too, use the "consistent ethic" to excuse their voting for pro-aborts.

So do many Catholic bishops, priests and religious use the "consistent ethic of life" to excuse their being inconsistent with Catholic morality and doctrine about innocent babies' lives.

Maybe you have experienced it: It is shocking when you talk to a cleric about politicians and the little preborn babies, and he objects, "It's only one issue."

No wonder the "seamless garment" is often called the "seamy garment."

Why didn't Cardinal Bernardin drum it into Catholics' heads through the years that, as he said plainly in 1988, don't misuse the "consistent ethic" to justify voting for pro-aborts?