How did you spend your March 21?

How did you spend your Sunday, March 21?

The online California Catholic Daily reports that Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles says he spent part of his March 21 addressing a big amnesty-for-illegals rally in Washington, D.C.

On his blogspot, the Cardinal tells about his day, praises the rally, and writes this:

"Health care reform passed on Sunday night, and brought millions of people out of the shadows of living without health care coverage. We have reached out to them precisely to include them fully into American life and protections."

As we know, many Catholics spent part of their March 21 praying that the "health [sic] care [sic] reform [sic]" would not pass.

That is because the massive federal takeover of U.S. medical care is extremely anti-life, blatantly unconstitutional, and, some bishops say, against Catholic teaching in many ways.

The federal takeover of medicine will not provide "protections" to lots of Americans, such as the USA's millions of abortion-targeted babies but also the many elderly, ill, and vulnerable people to whom it will deny (ration) necessary and even life-saving treatment.

Maybe the Cardinal mentioned the right to life in his address on March 21. But his blog post does not say so.

What did you do on your March 21?

U.S. Catholic bishops are complicit as the anti-life Catholic politicians run wild

Ole Q said it last week: If socialized medicine passes, our Catholic bishops are to blame, because they keep enabling all the defiant Catholic anti-lifers in Congress, just as they have for decades.

Of 136 Catholic Democrat politicians in the House, 127 voted for the anti-life socialized medicine bill last Sunday, March 21. Only nine voted pro-life. That's 94% anti-life, 6% pro-life. (Thanks to Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com for the tally.)

Our Catholic bishops are fine with that, obviously. They never actually do anything to the anti-life Catholic politicians. Do they?

Our bishops' inaction constitutes complicity.

Imagine if even just a few more of the Catholic Democrats had voted pro-life. They would have saved the lives of many unborn babies and elderly and vulnerable Americans. And they would have saved all of us from anti-life tyranny.

By the way, big among the Catholic politician anti-lifers, as we know, is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California), shown above (photo from WorldNetDaily).

Did you hear that last Friday, March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph, Nancy Pelosi announced to the USA that the day was the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker! Never mind that the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, of course, actually is May 1.

Anti-life fanatic Nancy Pelosi was blasphemously implying that St. Joseph, the spouse of the Blessed Mother and the foster father of Baby Jesus, must be for the Democrats' anti-life socialized medicine tyrannical monstrosity because it would help (hah!) workers.

Like I say, our Catholic bishops are complicit as the anti-life Catholic politicians run wild.

Plans to wreckovate beautiful, traditional St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood

Today's (March 22) online California Catholic Daily reports that another of Cardinal Roger Mahony's wreckovations of traditional Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of L.A. is afoot.

The target of the jack-hammering this time is a real treasure: Beautiful, venerable St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood.

The parishioners protested another plan in 2002 and preserved the church until now.

The St. Charles Borromeo Preservation Guild (click on this post's title), which is trying to preserve the church's priceless interior, says the wreckovation plan is to "remodel" the interior and demolish most of the altar rail.

The Guild says:

"We are St. Charles parishioners who love our church and the parish. We want to preserve and retain the following: the current configuration of the sanctuary, including the baldacchino and crucifix; keeping the altar within the sanctuary as it is at present; the altar rail; the forward facing orientation of all pews; kneelers for the pews; private confessionals; the choir loft; the stained glass windows; the baptismal font; all side altars and statues; and the stations of the cross. We further seek restoration of the Blessed Sacrament to its place of honor in the tabernacle behind the altar."

To fight the mayhem, the Guild has a "What you can do" page.

By the way, see the following informative article about what the Holy See said (and did) in 2001 about the notorious Archbishop Rembert Weakland's plot to wreckovate Milwaukee's cathedral:
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=20489

Two books you can look for are:

Ugly as Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces -- and How We Can Change Them Back Again, by Michael S. Rose

The Renovation Manipulation: Church Counter Renovation Handbook, by Michael S. Rose

On a related note, have you heard about the liberals closing the, I believe, five beautiful traditional churches in Clinton, Iowa, some time ago? They have bulldozed one or more by now and are planning to keep one of the churches -- as a museum of Catholicism.

+ Fr. Paul Marx, O.S.B., Ph.D., the pioneering pro-life missionary, has entered eternal life +

Let us pray for the repose of the soul of the great pro-life missionary, Fr. Paul Marx, O.S.B., Ph.D., who entered eternal life at 8:10 U.S. Central Time this morning, Saturday, March 20.

Steve Mosher, founder of the Population Research Institute, reports that those who were at Fr. Marx's bedside say that at the moment of his death, he stretched forth his hands to Heaven and said, "Take me home."

Click on this post's title to read about Fr. Marx. You can also read about him at the websites of the Population Research Council and Human Life International.

Fr. Marx was born in 1920 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1947. He was a sociologist, and he taught marriage and family life in college. From the start, he was a loyal supporter of Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, and he was a pioneer in pointing out the contraception-abortion link and slamming the contraceptive mentality.

Fr. Marx founded Human Life International three decades ago. He held annual international conferences that drew thousands; and through those meetings and his travels to dozens of countries, he organized effective right to life movements all over the world.

Catholic liberals, including some right here in L.A., disliked and criticized Fr. Marx for upholding Catholic doctrine on contraception, for his fearless and tireless pro-life activism, and for his opposition to Catholic anti-life politicians and their cronies in the hierarchy and clergy.

Fr. Marx used to go right into abortion mills and start counseling the moms in the waiting rooms. When the abortion staffers would ask, "Who are you?" he would reply, "I'm the chaplain."

I don't think Fr. Marx ever actually sat in at a rescue, but he was present at some, and several times he was arrested. One time, the cops who were driving him away said, "Our wives will give us hell for this. Do you think we'll go to hell?" and Fr. Marx replied, "I wouldn't rule it out."

Pope John Paul II received Fr. Marx more than once. The first time, he mischievously asked Fr. Marx, "Is there any of Karl [Marx] in you?" and Fr. Marx replied, humorously, "Only through Adam." Another time, His Holiness called Fr. Marx "The Apostle of Life" and told him, "You are doing the most important work on Earth."

Think of all the little babies welcoming their champion, Fr. Paul Marx, to Heaven.

God rest the soul of heroic and faithful Fr. Paul Marx and raise up many worthy successors to him in the hierarchy, clergy, religious, and laity. Amen.

Did you know Fr. Marx, ever meet him, ever hear him speak, or ever pray with him outside an abortion mill? If you have a chance, please tell us about it.

Hey, liberals, what about our fellow Catholics who are being persecuted by the Vietnamese Red regime even as we speak?

Did you hear the news -- at http://wwrn.org/articles/32879/ -- that the vile and illegitimate Vietnamese Communist regime this week let Catholic hero Father Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly, 62 (above, being forcibly silenced by cruel Red thugs in court in 2007), out of one of their prison hell-holes -- temporarily, note! -- because they do not want him to die in their hands?

In the atheistic, totalitarian, Catholic-hating Reds' custody since 2007, brave Father Nguyen has gotten a brain tumor and has suffered three strokes. Now he is outside the prison walls, but he still is not free: The merciless Reds have him under house arrest and they want him back in prison a year from now, after he supposedly gets medical treatment and if he is still alive.

Father Nguyen was serving an eight-year prison sentence given him in 2007 and had previously served 14 years. His crimes were being a faithful Catholic and a defender of individual liberty.

So it is sad indeed that Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony's archdiocesan newspaper, The Tidings, this week runs an essay (click on this post's title), previously published elsewhere, that criticizes liberty-loving Vietnamese exiles.

The essay is by Dr. Michael Downey. The Tidings identifies him as "the Cardinal's Theologian, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and Professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality at St. John's Seminary."

A note says the essay "appears in The Tidings at the request of Cardinal Roger Mahony, Auxiliary Bishop Alex Salazar, Vicar for Ethnic Ministries, and the Archdiocesan Office of Justice and Peace."

Downey's essay accuses unnamed Vietnamese exiles of unfairly criticizing Cardinal Pham Minh Man of Saigon because in June 2008 he counseled three Vietnamese bishops against, as the essay puts it, "waving the flag of the [anti-Communist former] Republic of Vietnam" at the Sydney World Youth Day later that year, on the grounds that anyone's flying the flag of Free Vietnam is, the essay says,"a sign of disunity at odds with the spirit of World Youth Day."

The essay says, "[Cardinal] Pham wondered aloud [in a talk with the author]: If Christians are drawn together by the love of Christ, can they not in that love overlook political differences?" [emphasis added]

Sorry, but totalitarianism and hatred of the Faith are far more than "politics."

The essay actually criticizes Vietnamese exiles for their "unequivocal demands for religious freedom in Vietnam." I am not making this up.

The essay also accuses Vietnamese exiles of "efforts...to fuel hatred for 'the Communists' in Vietnam..." It puts the word "Communists" in quotation marks!

And notice the characterization of opposition to Communism as "fuel[ing] hatred."

Now, I am not saying whether anyone's supposed criticism of Saigon's cardinal is correct or incorrect, just or unjust. My concern is that the essay contains not one syllable of mention of, let alone sympathy or admiration for, any of the Vietnamese Reds' prisoners of conscience today.

Maybe the cardinal of Saigon does defend prisoners of conscience and does stand up to the Reds. That would be great. But the essay in The Tidings certainly does not tell us anything about that.

The essay proceeds to say that "the way forward" is in using "gracefulness, moderation, balance and respect for the other."

Don't look now, but that's what Jimmy Carter tried, and on his watch international Communism and its ruthless oppression of the people of the world progressed.

On the other hand, President Ronald Reagan coupled resolute firmness and clear calls for liberty -- "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" -- with personal reconciliation with the Soviet dictator, and the Evil Empire soon crumpled and hundreds of millions of people gained liberty.

Study the photo of Father Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly above and see what you think about overlooking "political differences" with atheistic, Catholic-hating Communist oppressors.

Let's pray for our fellow Catholics who are imprisoned in Vietnam and around the world for Jesus and the Faith. And let's act on their behalf, through legitimate prisoner of conscience groups.

Let's remember that Almighty God tells us in Sacred Scripture: "Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment, and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you also are in the body." -- Hebrews 13:3. I don't see the word "overlook" there, do you?

If socialized medicine happens, it'll be the bishops' fault

Yes, if Congress passes socialized medicine, it'll be our U.S. bishops' fault. Here's how.

It's now more than 40 years since Catholic politicians, almost all of them Democrat, and numbering in the thousands, have been voting in our national and state legislatures to protect and pay abortionists. As we know, some 52 million babies have paid the ultimate price.

As we also know, in those more than 40 years, tens of millions of Catholic voters have been voting, nationally and locally, every election, for those pro-abortion Catholic politicians.

Our U.S. bishops have done nothing -- nothing! -- to actually stop Catholic politicians from perpetuating the mass murder of our preborn babies.

Too, the bishops have done nothing -- nothing! -- to actually stop Catholic voters from keeping the pro-abortion Catholic politicians in office over and over and over.

Too many bishops continue to peddle the discredited but still widely held "broad range of issues" / "seamless garment" rationalization that lets Catholic politicians and voters off the hook as they take the babies' lives and disregard Catholic doctrine that the sanctity of human lives is and must forever be the paramount issue.

Plus, the bishops have actually been telegraphing the message politically in recent months and years that they want the socialized medicine if aborting babies could be kept out of it -- which it can't, of course, because (1) the pro-abortion politicians are deeply wedded to aborting babies and (2) if aborting babies were kept out of it, federal judges would immediately and forever invalidate those provisions as being "unconstitutional," which they are not.

And not only that, the bishops, as a whole, have been silent on all the ways the socialized medicine violates Catholic doctrine.

The bishops, as a whole, say nothing about the socialized medicine's planned denial of care to vulnerable Americans, its government takeover of a sixth of the economy, its totalitarian regimentation of Americans and ending of their privacy and personal autonomy, and its blatant violation of subsidiarity, the Catholic principle that people should be able to run their own lives and that any government actions should be at the level closest to people.

It is absolutely disgraceful that after more than 40 years of mass baby-killing, our bishops still will not excommunicate the 150 or so Catholics in the House and Senate who vote pro-abortion.

It is also absolutely disgraceful that our bishops do not tell Catholic voters they may not perpetuate pro-abortion politicians in office.

So if Congress and Barack H. Obama impose anti-life socialized medicine on you and me and all Americans, you'll know where the blame squarely lies: Our Catholic bishops.

Tricky language

Nowadays we have to be on the alert all the time for language tricks that try to manipulate us into changing our thinking.

Whether it was intended to be so or not, one term introduced years ago amounts to a language trick: When the Mass in the vernacular was introduced to take the place of the venerable Mass in Latin, it got a title in Latin -- "Novus Ordo" ("novus" meaning "new.")

Our bishops have said all dioceses must make every Jan. 22 a day of penance for abortions

Yes, you read that right. And they said that in 2001. Here's what went down.

Ole Q has learned that Cardinal Francis George of Chicago wrote all his pastors on the last day of 2009 to ask them to hold right to life observances in their parishes on or around January 22, the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's heinous abortion ukase.

Look at what is in this excerpt from Cardinal George's December 31, 2009, letter to his pastors:

"...my brother bishops and I in 2001 received permission from the Holy See to make the following adaptations to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal:

"In all the dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when the 22nd falls on a Sunday) shall be observed as a particular day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life.

"The Mass 'For Peace and Justice'... should be celebrated with violet vestments as an appropriate liturgical observance for this day... On January 22, a 'day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life' will be mandatory in the dioceses of the U.S...."

(Okay, so it was Ole Q who put the bishops' words "shall" and "mandatory" in bold face.)

The cardinal also asked his pastors to make sure they arrange things so that "intercessory prayers, bulletin information, and homilies at all Masses that weekend focus on abortion and post-abortion healing."

Finally, Cardinal George said this to his pastors:

"I hope that every parish will offer a Holy Hour for Life or some form of prayerful activity around the January 22 date... Now is also a good time to identify a volunteer in your parish to serve as your Parish Respect Life Coordinator if you do not already have one. My hope is that every parish in the Archdiocese will have an active Respect Life Committee."

Wouldn't it be great to see all this happen in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles?

Adoremus.org is a good Catholic resource

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