Jan 31, 2010

Our U.S. Catholic bishops are still lobbying for socialized medicine

Yes, just when Obamacare socialized medicine is having problems, our U.S. Catholic bishops are lobbying as hard as they can to revive it and inflict it upon us. Click on this post's title to see what they admit they are up to.

There are many and grave problems with what the bishops are doing. Here are a few:

The bishops are saying they want the socialized medicine as long as it doesn't fund baby-aborting and includes conscience protections for pro-life medical personnel. They are ignoring other ways in which the SOCIALIZED MEDICINE VIOLATES CATHOLIC TEACHING.

Excuse me for "shouting" by using those capital letters. But this is a serious situation.

First of all, as Pope Pius XI wrote, "No one can be at the same time a true Catholic and a true socialist." The socialized medicine will exercise totalitarian control over every one of us and over our loved ones. It will also take control of our gigantic Catholic hospital system.

Next, the Obamacare socialized medicine is unconstitutional. Nowhere does the Constitution give the federal government any authority over medical care, or give it any authority to make the American people buy anything at all, let alone health insurance. The Constitution's 10th Amendment reads:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The socialized medicine violates the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which affirms that people should be able to handle their own affairs, with the help of their local institutions if needed, but not any more remote and centralized government bodies. More than 50 U.S. bishops have already individually condemned the socialized medicine on this basis.

The socialized medicine will give $750 million to Planned Parenthood, the abortion giant that admits its abortionists took the lives of 305,310 American babies in their 2007-2008 year. The socialized medicine will also institutionalize Planned Parenthood as a basic community resource and the operator of pro-abortion, pro-contraception "clinics' in government (public) schools.

The socialized medicine will also inflict soul-killing, pro-abortion, anti-life sex miseducation upon students in America's government (public) schools.

The socialized medicine bill would create a new, gargantuan government bureaucracy that will regiment everyone, crush our individual freedom, and subject us to "rationing" (read: "DENIAL OF") needed medical care -- and, for many vulnerable Americans, even of food and water.

The socialized medicine will necessitate the infliction of new and completely unjust massive tax burdens upon American families and individuals.

Worst of all, even if a socialized medicine bill did not include paying for baby-aborting and did include conscience protections, literally AS SOON AS that bill would be signed into law, and before the ink was even dry, the pro-abortion industry and lobby would file suit in federal court and get the federal judges to file injunctions against, and invalidate, the pro-life provisions on the grounds that they violate Roe vs. Wade and women's "right" to baby-killing.

So the socialized medicine bill that the bishops are lobbying for would end up being totally anti-life.

There is more wrong with the socialized medicine, but that is enough for now.

Our bishops should not be giving CPR to the socialized medicine. They should be hanging a "Do Not Resuscitate" sign on it.

Jan 25, 2010

Rumor: Coadjutor bishop coming as successor to Cdl. Mahony

On January 21, "American Papist" blogger Thomas Peters wrote the following (click on this post's title):

"I am hearing, on reliable authority, that the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, has approved a coadjutor bishop recently selected for him by the Holy See. This news – and the name – will be publicly announced 'soon.'

"This new bishop, once announced and appointed, will automatically succeed Mahony as the Archbishop of Los Angeles as soon as Mahony retires, presumably before Mahony’s mandatory retirement at age 75 (February 27, 2011). Mahony has said that the current class of seminarians will be the last one he personally ordains..."

Thomas Peters quotes archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg as calling the rumor "speculation" -- but that is not a denial.

Thanks to today's (January 25) online New Oxford Review Daily Feed for reporting about this.

Jan 24, 2010

Msgr. Charles Benoit died saving the Host in the Haiti quake

You and I must forever revere the memory of Msgr. Charles Benoit, the archdiocesan vicar general in Port-au-Prince. When his body was found in the destroyed cathedral some days after the January 12 earthquake, in his hands was a reliquary containing the Host.

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Here are quotes from a Catholic Relief Services (click on this post's title) article today (January 24):

"Leaders of Catholic Relief Services joined mourners at the [January 23] funeral Mass of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot of Port-au-Prince, who died in the January 12 earthquake.

"Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, chairman of the board of Catholic Relief Services, was a celebrant at Saturday's Mass.

"More than 1,000 people came to the grounds of Port-au-Prince's cathedral and gathered in front of two coffins holding the remains of two Haitian clergy, Archbishop [Joseph Serge] Miot and Monsignor Charles Benoit, the vicar general...

"Behind the mourners—in full view of the Mass celebrants—were the ruins of Port-au-Prince's impressive cathedral, destroyed in the quake. Many Haitians were celebrating Mass and died there when the quake struck. A statement from Caritas, the Church's organization of humanitarian aid agencies, said that when Monsignor Benoit's body was found in the cathedral ruins, his hands were around a reliquary with a [H]ost inside. Archbishop Miot was killed when he fell from a balcony at his nearby residence when the quake struck..."

This year's gigantic March for Life in our Nation's capital was the biggest ever

Click on this post's title to see a photo of this year's leadoff marchers -- all young women, contrary to some pro-aborts' preposterous and demonically evil lie that NO young women took part in the 400,000-strong march -- and a brief paragraph about the success of this year's March.

At the March's web site you can also learn a lot about the history of the giant annual anti-abortion event.

Last Saturday's Walk for Life West Coast 2010 was a big success

As you can see from the photo here (and click on this post's title to see more photos), this year's Walk for Life West Coast was a big success. Our friends at johnmalloysdb.blogspot.com in San Francisco say this year's Walk was the biggest ever.

Contrary to the pro-aborts' perennial lies, half or, more likely, more than half of the marchers in San Francisco this past Saturday, as well as those at the March for Life in Washington, D.C., this past Friday, were under 25 and half or more of them were female.

Being anti-abortion has become a young women's issue nowadays, and the pro-aborts can't stand to admit that.

You heard it here: The Walk for Life West Coast 2010 had 30,000 or more pro-lifers marching. The March for Life 2010 in D.C. had 400,000 pro-lifers. A recent pro-life march in Paris had 25,000. Pro-life marches/rallies last year in Madrid had hundreds of thousands of attendees.

The news (read, propaganda) media won't tell you any of this. Last Saturday, I didn't see ANY reports on the gigantic March for Life (the D.C. one) in the online New York Times, L.A. Times, S.F. Chronicle, Boston Globe or Philadelphia Inquirer.

But let's be encouraged at the new wave of pro-lifers who are under 25. They know they are survivors of Roe v. Wade: They know that one-third of their generation has been aborted. They know they themselves could easily have been aborted, too. They are anti-abortion and will stay that way.

Let's pray they all become year-'round anti-abortion activists! Amen.

Jan 10, 2010

Attend the L.A. Archdiocesan Requiem Mass for Aborted Babies at the cathedral on Sat., Jan. 23 -- but also protect babies all year long!

Are you looking for a pro-life event to attend in our L.A. area on or around the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous abortion-on-demand-at-all-nine-months-of-gestation decision of January 22, 1973?

Here is such an event! The Tidings's schedule (click on this post's title) of events in early 2010 for our L.A. Archdiocese has this:

"Requiem Mass for abortion victims: Jan. 23

"The archdiocese's annual Respect Life Mass commemorating lives lost to abortion will take place Jan. 23, 6 p.m., at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Cardinal Roger Mahony will preside at the concelebrated liturgy with auxiliary bishops and archdiocesan priests.

"As Cardinal Mahony stated in a recent letter to campus ministers encouraging student participation in the event, 'The Shantigarh Requiem for the Unborn is a very effective way to help our people come together in prayer and in mutual support for protecting all human life from the moment of conception.'

"A candle lighting ceremony in remembrance of lives lost to abortion daily in the County of Los Angeles will take place again this year. 'Honoring these brief lives,' said the cardinal, 'is a most poignant and inspiring moment, the memory of which will remain long after all have returned home.'"

The best pro-life intention and focus at this Mass, in my humble opinion, is, as the cardinal says, "to help our people come together in prayer and in mutual support for protecting all human life from the moment of conception." [emphasis added]

That intention, which implies that each attendee must take subsequent actual action to actually protect and save abortion-targeted babies, is the only way to give concrete meaning and purpose to the Mass's other intentions of, as the cardinal says, "remembrance," "commemorating lives lost to abortion," "honoring these brief lives" and having "a most poignant and inspiring moment." [emphasis added]

What good would it be if we were to let thousands and thousands and thousands of babies be aborted in our L.A. all year long and and then once a year only "have a most poignant and inspiring moment" about them???

Our once-a-year Mass can be especially meaningful if our local hierarchy and clergy will all year long start fighting abortions as hard as possible. That means having:

* meaningful (e.g., actually anti-abortion and active) Respect Life committees in every parish

* pro-life literature racks in the vestibule

* pro-life announcements and information in the parish bulletin every week

* frequent parish prayer vigils and sidewalk counseling at L.A.'s abortion mills

* support of and cooperation with local pro-life centers and homes for unwed moms

* frequent anti-abortion homilies (that are kindly put and that mention Project Rachel)

* frequent homilies about purity and against fornication, which leads to abortions

* frequent homilies about the blessings of having babies, who are gifts from God

* anti-abortion intentions read at every Mass

* age-appropriate instruction in parish schools, high schools and CCD about the blessings and goodness of marriage and babies and the necessity of being anti-abortion

* regularly scheduled pro-life Masses, Benedictions, Adoration and Rosaries

* actual observance of Respect Life Sunday and Respect Life Month every October

* refusal to honor or appear in public with pro-abortion politicians for any reason

What do you think? With all the babies being killed around us every day, are these basic pro-life steps too much to ask of our bishops and clergy and the rest of us?

But in any case, a good start is for us to be sure to attend, if our schedules permit, our Archdiocesan Requiem Mass for Aborted Babies at the cathedral on Saturday, Jan. 23, at 6 p.m.

Amen? What do you say?

Jan 2, 2010

A good way to start the new year 2010

"Jesus, Mary, I love you, save souls!"

Use this good, wise counsel from St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622):

"Consider the past as nothing and say, like David, 'Now I begin to love my God.'"

Happy New Year!
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