Brutally Honest

Times they are a changin'

Nearly two months ago, I wrote:

I'd like to change the banner on the blog.  It's served me well over the years but... I think... I need something different.

But I'm not sure at this point what to change it to.  I'd like to think I'm still a brutally honest guy though trust me when I tell you that can mean different things to different people.

My bottom line is that my focus has changed a bit in the last 2 1/2 years and those who've stuck around (not all have) can see that.  I still think that the pronouncement of faith, of religion, and particularly Catholicism can in this culture be seen to be a manifestation of brutal honesty.  I also am keenly aware that brutality can be counter-productive to themessage of the gospel.  

Here's where you come in.  Especially you regular readers.  

What can maintain the motif but also give us a new yet meaningful look?

Shortly after that post, I reached out to a friend I knew had some creative and artistic abilities.  I shared the post above with her, sent her some pictures and some of my thoughts at that point as to what I was looking for and off she went.

She ended up pretty much ditching what we initially talked about, saying she literally prayed over what she should come up with next and voila... the banner was it.

I'm loving it.  It speaks to me personally and dresses the place more than just a little bit.  I loved the old banner and appreciated it for many years (or I wouldn't have kept it for so long) but my focus has evolved and I think the banner now represents more of what I hope the focus is and ought to be.  

And by the way, she who created the banner has communicated that she's willing to help others out who are looking for her kind of talent.  Just contact me, either here in the comments or my email address and I'll pass along the interest.

Carry on.

Is modernity killing morality?

Father Robert Barron expounds on "why the Catholic Church speaking on morality is so often hard to hear, hard to take seriously."

Stay with it:

"The scandals and the negative media coverage actually increased my faith in the Church"

I remember sitting down for lunch one day a few years ago with a co-worker and the subject of Church came up.  At that time I was beginning to think about returning to my Catholic roots and I mentioned as much to my buddy across the table, someone who was devoutly Mormon though not particularly in your face about it.  

The subject of the sex abuse scandal came up and my friend, in essence, thought that because of it, the whole of the Church was corrupt and that I was a fool for considering returning and becoming part of that corruption.  

I had no real rejoinder other than to express my firm belief that though there were certainly corrupt members, that corruption could not logically in my mind be extended to the whole.  My friend was not having any of that however and stuck to his guns about it.  He did some time later suggest I check out the Mormon church and perhaps this was his motivation to stick it to Catholicism on that particular day.

Thankfully, dare I say providentially, I chose not to allow his attacks to influence my later decision to come home.  Of course, those attacks continue from a variety of quarters and I think it necessary and right to be able to defend against them.

Jennifer Fulwiler over at Strange Notions has necessarily and rightly done so:

When people hear that my husband and I began exploring Catholicism in 2005, one of the first questions they often ask is, “What about the sexual abuse scandals? Didn’t that scare you away from the Church?”

They’re usually surprised when I report that the answer is no; in fact, the scandals and the negative media coverage actually increased my faith in the Church. Here’s why:

Getting the Facts Straight

 
One of the first things I did was to look into the numbers behind the sexual abuse cases. Was I heading into an institution that was filled with sexual predators, as the media would have me believe? I was shocked to find that, by even the most anti-Catholic organizations’ estimates, only about 2 percent of Catholic priests had even been accused of sexual misconduct. And certainly the cover-ups by members of the hierarchy were deplorable, but my research led me to see that that was common in all organizations, not just the Church. To list just one of the many examples, in Washington there were 159 coaches accused of sexual misconduct with minors over a 10-year period. Ninety-eight of them continued to coach or teach. And how did the school hierarchies respond? To quote this article:

"When faced with complaints against coaches, school officials often failed to investigate them and sometimes ignored a law requiring them to report suspected abuse to police. Many times, they disregarded a state law requiring them to report misconduct to the state education office.
 
Even after getting caught, many men were allowed to continue coaching because school administrators promised to keep their disciplinary records secret if the coaches simply left. Some districts paid tens of thousands of dollars to get coaches to leave. Other districts hired coaches they knew had records of sexual misconduct."

In another example, Carol Shakeshaft and Audrey Cohan looked at 225 cases of abuse by educators in New York City. Shakeshaft reported:

"All of the accused admitted sexual abuse of a student, but none of the abusers was reported to the authorities, and only 1 percent lost their license to teach. Only 35 percent suffered negative consequences of any kind, and 39 percent chose to leave their school district, most with positive recommendations. Some were even given an early retirement package."

I could go on, but you get the idea. After investigating the issue, I found that, sadly, there is nothing different going on in the Catholic Church than in any organization where men are in contact with children, and that it’s an unfortunate fact of human nature—and not something unique within the Church—that people in hierarchy tend to look the other way when it comes to bad conduct by the people who report to them.

However, unlike the coaches or the school teachers, the Catholic clergy were supposed to be men of God. What are we supposed to make of it when even they commit atrocities like sexual abuse? Pondering that question was one of the key things that led me decide to become Catholic.

I trust you'll read the rest as she's got more and it's all educational, for those in the Church, for those wondering about her.

Check it out.

Carry on.

"On President Obama’s watch, the IRS was weaponized"

Matt Purple has a humdinger up over at The American Spectator:

When an American compound in Benghazi was attacked last year, the Obama administration targeted a filmmaker named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, accusing him of setting the Muslim world ablaze and then throwing him in prison. The government also pressured YouTube to remove his allegedly offensive video. After it became evident that Benghazi was a coordinated terrorist attack that had little to do with Nakoula, family members of those killed started asking for answers. Journalists reacted with a smattering of press coverage, followed by weary demands that we all move on.

But when we learned this week that the Department of Justice secretly collected two months of phone records from the Associated Press, suddenly bats flew out of hell, shrieking could be heard from distant castle towers, and Richard Nixon’s ghost was seen clanking about the White House. With one of their own under attack, the press, which was more than happy to ignore the parents of dead Navy SEALs, demanded that the Obama administration be held accountable.

“Journalism,” observed Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, “is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for f**koffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector.” I’ve always disagreed to an extent; there are plenty of decent members of my profession, even if they’re merely exceptions to Thompson’s rule. But this week the overweening narcissism of the Fourth Estate was on full display, hoisted from the flagpole and flapping in the wind.

The press is comparing the DOJ’s actions to Watergate. That’s all well and good, but why couldn’t any of them have sent a little affront in the direction of Nakoula, who now sits in a prison cell ostensibly for a parole violation, but eminently for making a video Muslims found offensive? And if collecting phone data is Nixonian, what about when the Obama administration chucked Delphi workers off their pensions because they weren’t unionized? Or tried to obfuscate its role in the Fast and Furious operation that left a Border Patrol agent and countless Mexicans dead? Or engaged in the unprecedented persecution of leakers for years before the AP scandal broke?

Those stories were either mostly ignored or snidely dismissed as fodder for right-wing witch hunts. Only when their fellow scribblers came under attack did journalists suddenly sit bolt upright in bed. “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel,” is a timeworn Mark Twain quote, but apparently it’s also the only rule this administration was ever expected to follow.

The AP matter is bad, and made worse by Eric Holder’s apparent decision to recuse himself from the matter and go paperless on the same day. But the real scandals here are Benghazi and the IRS’s treatment of conservative nonprofits. The latter seems to sprout a new polyp every hour. We now know that the IRS not only targeted Tea Party charities, but also conservative, constitutional, Jewish, and pro-life groups. For more than two years, the agency refused to approve any Tea Party tax-exempt applications whatsoever. Certain applications were inappropriately leaked to the left-wing news outlet ProPublica. IRS employees even tried to blackmail one pro-life group into signing a pledge not to picket outside Planned Parenthood.

On President Obama’s watch, the IRS was weaponized and used to block the growth of conservative intellectual infrastructure. This wasn’t about a couple overcaffeinated agents in the IRS’s Cincinnati office trying to adapt to an onslaught of nonprofit applications. It was a blatant attempt to stymie the spread of ideas; a very potent and unique abuse of power.

Mr. Purple isn't quite done.  What he's written is damning in every sense of the word and should be read by you, by your friends, by your loved ones and by their friends and loved ones.

This isn't really about the right against the left.

It's about the right against the wrong.

True story

Would Mark Shea lie?

Hans Grapje was raised in a Catholic school in The Hague and, as a young man, aspired to become a priest, but was drafted into the Army during WWII and spent two years co-piloting B17s until his aircraft was shot down in 1943 and he lost his left arm.
Captain Grapje spent the rest of the war as a chaplain, giving spiritual aid to soldiers, both Allied and enemy.

After the war, he became a priest, serving as a missionary in Africa, piloting his own plane (in spite of his handicap) to villages across the continent.

In 1997, Father Grapje was serving in Zimbabwe when an explosion in a silver mine caused a cave-in. The now Archbishop Grapje went down into the mine to administer last rights to those too severely injured to move. Another shaft collapsed, and he was buried for three days, suffering multiple injuries, including the loss of his right eye. The high silver content in the mine's air gave him purpura, a life-long condition characterized by purplish skin blotches.

Although Cardinal Grapje devoted his life to the service of God as a scholar, mentor, and holy man, church leaders agree: he will never ascend to the Papacy. No one wants a One-Eyed, One-Armed, Flying Purple Papal Leader.

Mark's there all week.

Please tip your waiter.

And carry on.

Top Ten Catholic tenets

Great stuff coming our way from a blog I just added to the blogroll, Invisible Woman:

When I first began immersing myself in the study of Catholicism,  I read everything I could get my hands on.  I have already cited here on my blog The Catholic Truth Society, publishers to the Holy See, as a great resource.  My neighbor and friend Sandy was a great boon as well, with her casual dropping off of books and offers to answer questions.  But the Catechism was really the turning point.  Of course the Didache, the Church Fathers, EWTN, the many adherent and well-written blogs, and my RCIA education were keys to the door, but reading the Catechism was like finding a road map to my own mind and body, a treasure map that had been hidden underground for thirty nine years.  My most emotional moments, the ones where I had to put down the book and compose myself, came from reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Since then I have also read the Catechism of the Council of Trent and the Baltimore Catechism, but the definitive Catechism for The Church, the one that grew from these and addresses every modern issue we will confront in our day is the Complete Catechism bearing the signature of Blessed Pope John Paul II.  Herein I have compiled for you what for me are the ten most impactful passages from our Catechism. These tenets shape my thinking, my behavior toward others, my opinions on how to heal our broken and continually breaking world, my attitude toward my marriage, and how I approach my vocation as a mother. I hope they enlighten and educate you if it is your first time seeing them, or serve as a refresher if you have read them but let them get away from you. 

1.  66. No new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.   . . . yet it remains for Christian faith to gradually grasp its significance over the course of the centuries . . . Private revelations . . . have been recognized by the authority of The Church, but they do not belong to the Deposit of Faith. This was a huge relief for me.  As I explored the implications and manifestations of this , I found it to be true over and over again. Catholics were not adding anything to the Scripture and Tradition left by Christ; they were guarding it FROM additions.  That Deposit of Faith and what it precisely contains was a sacred pearl of great price.  The entire structure and personnel of The Church now struck me as a fort armed by soldiers, protecting The Truth from the many assailants from within and without who would seek to undermine, change, add to, subtract from, finesse away, politicize, and altogether pervert Her.  I soon learned about what Martin Luther *really* did and I was horrified.  As my research continued and I read from sources closer to the time of when Jesus and the earliest members of His Church walked, studied, worshipped, and preached, I was left without doubt that THIS was The Deposit of Faith He left, and that the guiding body, the Pope and the Magisterium, were divinely led by the Holy Spirit (God Himself) in order to answer modern questions that are not addressed specifically in Scripture or oral Tradition.

2. 133. The Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures.  'Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.'  Coming from Protestantism, where it was "me, Jesus, and my Bible," I did have a vestige of false belief that the Catholic Church was less "into" Scripture than were the Protestants.  Again, from hours of research into the history of the Church between the book of Acts and the time of the Reformation (a period which was previously left out of my religious education), I learned that the Catholic Church compiled and canonized Scripture, encouraged the reading of Scripture, and that the Catechism and every encyclical I read was filled with cross references and footnotes FROM Scripture.  The saints fed themselves on Scripture.  This passage from the Catechism uses very exact and purposeful language "forcefully exhorts" to communicate to Catholic Christians that we must immerse ourselves in Scripture.  I learned about Lectio Divina.  I watched as the Gospel was lifted and carried with reverence and singing at Mass.  And I saw how there were more books in the Bible than I had thought there were, not due to Catholics adding books, but to Protestants removing them! Mostly I learned that the Bible was one of the things that would bring me into the Church, because evidence of The Real Presence, Purgatory, and other doctrines, were found therein. 

3. 598. Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts (for He is in them) and hold Him up to contempt . . . when we deny Him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on Him.  As a Protestant, I heard too much back and forth about who crucified Christ.  Was it the Jews?  The Romans? Upon whom could we lay blame?  And could we, like Pilate, ever wash our hands of this act, so distant from us in history?  Converting slowly into the Church revealed to me that I joined in with those who tortured and killed Christ every time I sinned against Him.  And it seared on to my brain and heart the idea that I can never, ever, celebrate, condone, laugh at, view with pleasure, tinker with, dip my toe into, encourage and abet, throw parades for, or turn the other way from helping someone repent from the sins that my Jesus suffered whippings and humiliation for.  Never. 

4. 1395.  The Eucharist is properly the sacrament of those who are in full communion with the Church. I took pride as a Lutheran in our open rail communion.  How snobby those Catholics were, not letting anyone and everyone partake in their symbolic bread and wine. If Communion were just a symbol, then why not have an open rail?  If it demanded nothing, no adherence or loyalty, no vow, no fasting, no state of grace, then why not let anyone walk in and eat?  Understanding full communion, finally believing in the Real Presence, was like a punch in my gut.  I had distributed communion to my fellow Lutheran parishioners.  I had laughed at my friends' jokes about getting drunk on the leftover wine we had to finish.  Obviously my view of the Eucharist has changed completely, perhaps more than anything else about my theological perspective and spiritual life.  I could never leave the Eucharist.  I could never walk away from the Real Presence now, and I do not know how anyone does.  I am also acutely aware that the Eucharist must be withheld from people for the protection of their own souls, so that they do not receive it lightly or in a state of grave sin.  And since Scripture backs this up, it was not a hurdle at all to my conversion. 

She's got six more and I recommend you read them, if only to better understand what Catholics ought to be believing.

Do it.

Thanks to Mr. Shea for the find.

"An element of madness" that is "healthy" and "spiritual"

Pope Francis is suggesting that I might just be blessing the Lord:

The Pope told Christians it is better to be “annoying” and “a nuisance” than lukewarm in proclaiming Jesus Christ.

“If we annoy people, blessed be the Lord,” said Pope Francis during his morning Mass at the Vatican on May 16.

“We can ask the Holy Spirit to give us all this apostolic fervor and to give us the grace to be annoying when things are too quiet in the Church,” he said at the chapel of the Saint Martha residence, where he lives.

...

The Pope preached on today’s first reading from Acts 22 and contrasted “backseat Christians” with those who have apostolic zeal.

“There are those who are well mannered, who do everything well, but are unable to bring people to the Church through proclamation and apostolic zeal,” he stated.

The pontiff said apostolic zeal “implies an element of madness,” which he labeled as “healthy” and “spiritual.”

He added that it “can only be understood in an atmosphere of love” and that it is not an “enthusiasm for power and possession.”

Pope Francis also dwelt on St. Paul’s actions in the reading from Acts.

“Paul, in preaching of the Lord, was a nuisance, but he had deep within him that most Christian of attitudes, apostolic zeal,” he stated.

“He was not a man of compromise, no!” he exclaimed. “The truth, forward! The proclamation of Jesus Christ, forward!”

The Pope noted that St. Paul’s fate was one “with many crosses, but he keeps going, he looks to the Lord and keeps going.”

“He is a man who, with his preaching, his work, his attitude irritates others, because testifying to Jesus Christ and the proclamation of Jesus Christ makes us uncomfortable.

“It threatens our comfort zones, even Christian comfort zones, right?” he asked the congregation. “It irritates us.”

Pope Francis underscored that the Lord “always wants us to move forward, forward, forward, not to take refuge in a quiet life or in cozy structures.”

Saint Paul’s apostolic zeal, he observed, comes from knowing Jesus Christ.

Paul did not find and encounter Jesus Christ with an intellectual or scientific knowledge, but with “that first knowledge of the heart and of a personal encounter.”

According to the Pope, St. Paul was a “fiery” individual who was always in trouble, “not in trouble for troubles’ sake, but for Jesus” because “proclaiming Jesus is the consequence.”

“The Church has so much need of this, not only in distant lands, in the young churches, among people who do not know Jesus Christ, but here in the cities, in our cities, they need this proclamation of Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis stressed.

“So let us ask the Holy Spirit for this grace of apostolic zeal, let’s be Christians with apostolic zeal, onwards, as the Lord says to Paul, take courage!” he exclaimed.

Blessed be the annoyers, for they will bless God!

What is Truth?

Fr. Powell is bemoaning the disappearance of truth: 

If Truth were a commodity—like cotton or oil—its stock value would be very low these days. With the exception of the Church, no one seems to care much about what's true or false, what's fact and fiction. We are far more likely to hear that truth is a tool in the oppressor's arsenal; or that truth is a traditional fiction dreamed up by neurotics; or that truth, at best, depends on one's perspective. You have your truth. I have my truth. Who's to say what's true or false? It just depends. Rather than ask if a bit of information is true or false, we're told to ask, “Who does this information benefit? Who does it harm?” Rather than seek the truth, we are urged to “create a narrative,” or “construct a perception.” When did this sort of deception creep into our world? Sometime right after God told Adam and Eve to avoid eating the fruit of one particular tree, the world's first salesman convinced them that God was lying to them. Several centuries later, that salesman's political partner asks Jesus, “What is Truth?” And then washes his hands of Jesus' death. But before he is arrested and executed, Jesus prays to the Father, “Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.” Assuming the Father answered this prayer by fulfilling Jesus' petition, what changed? How are we different? 

Read the rest and embrace some bonafide truth.

Someone needs to... it might as well be you...

And me.

"Idolatry has played a big part in bringing us to this place"

Things seem to be spiralling out of control.  Societal decay, corruption, coarseness, immorality in general seems to be on the rise while integrity, character, virtue and the like seem to be on the decline.

Why?

The Anchoress is positing a theory:

Idols demand worshipers comfortable with illusions, and around them questions become dangerous things. Idols are formed by an idea people take into their heads and then polish with soft cloths and protect from hard questions until it reflects what they really want to see shining back at them — which is themselves. A majority of us gave the government its entry into over-reach, and then a majority of us willfully bought into an inane, idol-affirming sentiment (“we are the ones we’ve been waiting for!”) mouthed by a man who admitted that he was a “blank screen” upon which people projected their best ideas about themselves.

Idolatry has played a big part in bringing us to this place. The adoring press; the fawning parents and teachers; the fainting crowds offering adulation. Whatever Barack Obama’s natural propensities, it may well have helped him believe he is entitled to do anything he wants, and we ought thank him for it.

But idolatry could not have moved so powerfully within us, had are society not already lost its bearings about God. Ed Driscoll discusses exactly this with the great Mary Eberstadt:

MR. DRISCOLL: Mary, over the last few years, there have been several books exploring the demographic decline that the west is undergoing, including those from authors such as Mark Steyn, Charles Murray, Jonathan Last and others. What role does the decline in religion or how our religious beliefs have changed in the last century, play in this demographic decline?

MS. EBERSTADT: Great question. Well, let’s look at the big picture, for starters, of what’s been going on. We know that over the past several decades, there’s been a decline of religious belief and church attendance across the western world, most markedly in Western Europe, but also in the United States.

And up until now, there’s been one prevailing explanation for this. And the explanation comes down from the Enlightenment, and you heard it from the new atheists most recently. The idea is that religion is a superstitious thing that will eventually die out as people become sufficiently educated and rational and enlightened. And this is what a lot of sophisticated people believe, obviously.

The purpose of my book is first of all, to hold that explanation up to the light and to ask whether it’s true. And I argue that it’s not true and it’s not true for several reasons, any one of which would deep six the prevailing explanation. But just to focus on one. That explanation would suggest that religion is a function of the lower classes, that belief in God is something that poor people do. Or if you remember that famous quote from the Washington Post, it was just about ten years ago, that a reporter wrote that the followers of evangelicals were, let’s see, uneducated and easy to command. Do you remember that?

MR. DRISCOLL: Yes, easy to command, easily led, yeah.

MS. EBERSTADT: Easily led. Yeah. That beautifully summarizes the stereotype of religious believers as being people who just haven’t gotten the word yet, you know, just haven’t gotten sophisticated enough to get rid of God.

Eberstadt, of course, goes on to explain how the stereotype is untrue. Easily led? Hello, MSM; hello secularists.

You’ll want to read the whole interview. I’m already trying to get my hands on Eberstadt’s new book, How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization.

Because it’s all of-a-piece. Once the secular dominated the sacred it was only a matter of time where the void left by ousting God would be filled by idols. As Chesterton said, “Once abolish the God and the government becomes the god.”

There's much more at the link.  And oh by the way, The Anchoress expounds on this notion of idolatry in her new book, one I received yesterday and am devouring.  It's good people, very good, and it speaks to what ails us in a profound way.

What ails us today isn't going to be easily solved by a change in political leadership.

What ails us today is, put as simply as possible, sin.

And there's only one solution to sin.

The Church points the way toward that solution.  Yes, the Church.

We need to embrace her.  We need to go all in.

All of us.  You too.  Hell, you especially.

Right behind me.

“I haven’t written for them since the audit, because I was so scared”

A Catholic finds the courage to speak of her experience with the IRS in the wake of the news now being revealed as to the IRS' intimidation of those publicizing their opposition to Obama:

On Wednesday, Dr. Anne Hendershott, a devout Catholic and a noted sociologist, professor and author, exclusively told TheBlaze that she believes she may have been one of the IRS’s targets.

According to Hendershott, the IRS audited her in 2010 and demanded to know who was paying her and “what their politics were.”

...

Hendershott noted it was particularly surprising that she, alone, was audited. Her husband, who brings in the vast majority of the family’s income, was not included in the IRS’s inquiry — even though the Hendershotts always files jointly.

So when the agent explained that she would need to come alone and in person to discuss her “business” activity in July of 2010, the professor was perplexed.

“[The IRS agent] didn’t even let me decide when it would be good for me … He didn’t want my husband to come,” she said of the meeting, which was held at an IRS office in New Haven, Connecticut.

The process was a grueling one, including many questions that Hendershott felt were political in nature. Numerous records were requested before the in-person meeting, as well as during and after.

“Every question had to do with bank deposits we made. Every single question,” she said. “What is this money? And I didn’t know a lot of it. We had to go to our bank and get deposits back. We had to get records showing where the money came from.”

While asking about the deposits, the agent wanted to know if the monies came from groups and, if so, what the organizations’ politics were.

The mention of groups, Hendershott notes, is particularly interesting, as she had been writing for numerous Catholic outlets and organizations at the time. In addition to Catholic World Report and the Catholic Advocate, she also penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal. Many of these writings were critical of President Barack Obama and his policies.

And the plot thickens. Among the organizations she targeted in her writings were progressive groups highly supportive of Democratic causes, including: Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Catholics United, and Catholic Democrats.

...

Her writings for the Catholic Advocate soon ceased because, Hendershott admits, the IRS audit silenced her. If her suspicions are true, this may have been its chilling intention.

“I haven’t written for them since the audit, because I was so scared,” she said (records show her last article for the organization was on July 10, 2010 — the same month the IRS audit unfolded).

So far, she has only shared her story with friends and those close to her, but in light of the recent IRS scandal, she has decided to speak out.

“It was clear they didn’t like me criticizing the people who helped pass Obamacare,” she said of the audit,” later adding, ”The IRS is very frightening.”

In addition to creating stress and fear, Hendershott said that the experience came at a great emotional and financial expense for the family, noting that even after the audit the government sought more information from her.

“It was like they just couldn’t find what they wanted because they wanted more and more and more,” she said.

Read the whole thing.  It's chilling.

And again I remind readers of Obama's most recent statements about tyranny:

Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted.

Those that rule us today are radical ideologues and we should not in any way entrust them with governance.  Obama is but a symptom.

Hopefully more and more Americans are becoming aware of what is now known to be fact.

Barack Hussein Obama promised to fundamentally transform this country.  We are just now beginning to see the lengths to which he'll go and has gone to keep that promise.

Carry on.

"Are we saying repentance is about our timing?"

A former Director of a Planned Parenthood clinic weighs in the Kermit Gosnell story with Godly wisdom:

I am vehemently against the death penalty. Now stay with me…this is not a post about my opinion regarding that. You can disagree or agree with me on that some other time. I did want to share a little bit about why I take the words of prolifers so seriously. I have heard so much vitriol spewed from the mouths of “Christian prolifers” since the Gosnell trial has concluded. I feel like I must address it.

When I was confirmed as a Catholic, I chose Mary Magdalene as my confirmation saint. I felt an immediate connection to her. She had sinned so much…and was forgiven in even greater amounts. She knew she didn’t deserve forgiveness…but she received it anyway. And because of this, she clung to Christ. She knew she was nothing without Him.

I have also done my fair share of sinning. And I have also been forgiven much more than I deserve. I abused and betrayed women in the worst possible way. I convinced them to kill their children. Did I slit the necks of children after they were born? No. But, I was an accomplice to murder. Thousands of times…women I knew, women I didn’t, my friends, even my family. I lied to people. I lied to women when they came to me for accurate information. I was among the worst sinners…those that help to take and destroy life. I am no better than Kermit Gosnell.

I took my own children’s lives…twice. Not because I was coerced. Not because I didn’t know better. But because I thought children would be an inconvenience to my lifestyle. I am responsible for their deaths…no one else.

So when someone talks about Gosnell and says things like, “murderers and people like him don’t deserve to breathe the same air as I do,” or “I hope he burns in hell,” it hurts a little. Because that was me. But I am still here…breathing that same air…and trying to spend my life righting my wrongs. And it’s not just me. I know they hurt others like me, as well. People who have left the abortion industry and will work every day to recover from their sins. People who are still in the industry and think they will be shunned by the pro-life movement…maybe they would reach out to us if they knew we would accept them. I am always terrified that clinic workers will see some of the words from prolifers. I have been told by several former workers that they will NEVER come forward with their stories because they are so scared of how they will be treated by us…by US…the supposed “Christian” movement. Their fears are real AND legitimate.

Please read the rest and ponder what she's saying, particularly if you're someone vehemently opposed to abortion.

Just do it.

Krauthammer to Republicans on Benghazi: "Stop calling it a huge scandal. Stop saying it's a Watergate. Stop saying it's Iran Contra. Let the facts speak for themselves."

Very. Sound. Advice.

Via RCP:

Why were the requests for security denied including the desperate ones of the Ambassador who ultimately was killed? Second, what happened on the night [of the attack]? How could America at least made an attempt of rescue? And the response by Democrats, 'Well, it wouldn't have arrived in time.' How in the hell do you know in advance that it's not going to arrive in time? How do you know it would be 7 and a half hours and not 17 and a half hours? That is is not a response. 

And where was the president that night? We've all seen the videos and pictures in The Situation Room of Obama on the night of the Osama raid. Everybody looks at that, he was really involved in that. Show me a picture of where he was on the night of the attack in Libya. Give me a time line. Who did he talk to and what did he do? 

Lastly, the talking points, which are a fiction. And compounded by the fact that the president now say, 'I said it was a terror attack on the day after.' That is not true. Even The Washington Post has said today, it was absolutely a falsehood. It's a falsehood on top of falsehood. But the one advice I give to Republicans is stop calling it a huge scandal. Stop saying it's a Watergate. Stop saying it's Iran Contra. Let the facts speak for themselves. Have a special committee, a select committee. The facts will speak for themselves. Pile them on but don't exaggerate, don't run ads about Hillary. It feed the narrative for the other side that it's only a political event. It's not. Just be quiet and present the facts.

Video at the link.

"It is among the most gruesome and horrifying actions perpetrated on innocent persons"

It... is abortion and the Kermit Gosnell trial and his subsequent conviction has opened the door to some much needed conversations:

I recently read with great interest a fascinating story by the Associated Press. The life of a young girl, Lake Annabelle Hall, was saved following surgery to remove a cyst on her left lung. Had it not been discovered it would have killed her. She received such tremendous care that four teams comprised of 43 doctors and nurses tended to her and her mother. If it had been otherwise, her doctor noted, “She wouldn’t make it out of the delivery room.”

Delivery room? Did I neglect to mention that this surgery was done before Lake Annabelle was born?

The cyst was discovered during a routine 20-week OB/GYN visit. Ten weeks later, Lake Annabelle was partially delivered and medical staff performed the life-saving procedure. Fox News reports that “Doctors pulled her halfway out of her mother’s womb, leaving her connected to her umbilical cord and placenta, which served as life support for her,” and then they cut into her little body so that they might save her life. Lake Annabelle is now 6 months old, a marvelous example of the life-saving prospects of modern medical technology.

What a stark contrast between this life-affirming story and the horrors we’ve heard in recent weeks concerning Kermit Gosnell’s murder trial. Gosnell faced numerous charges including first degree murder, third degree murder, and infanticide and he was found guilty of three first degree murder charges and numerous others including the involuntary manslaughter of patient Karnamaya Mongar. His “Women’s Medical Center” in Philadelphia has been accurately described as a “house of horrors.” The techniques employed by Gosnell to take the life of both unborn and born are too gruesome to describe here.

Usually over the top in it’s coverage of anything concerning blood, death, and mayhem, the mainstream media has virtually ignored the story, only reporting on it after being called out for failure to do so. Archbishop Chaput has noted that “the failure—the allergic disinterest—of some of our most important national media … really doesn’t surprise. It’s part of the fabric of a culture that simply will not see what it doesn’t want to see about the realities of abortion.”

The reality of abortion is that it is among the most gruesome and horrifying actions perpetrated on innocent persons. Yet abortion, and to a lesser extent, infanticide have become accepted by the so called cultural elite. In Evangelium vitae Blessed John Paul lamented that “[c]hoices once unanimously considered criminal and rejected by the common moral sense are gradually becoming socially acceptable… In this way the very nature of the medical profession is distorted and contradicted. (4) The routine infanticide done in the “Women’s Medical Center” has horrified many including the jury who rightly determined that Gosnell was guilty of murdering infants. It cannot be forgotten, however, that the primary difference between infanticide and abortion is the location of the child being killed.

Arland K. Nichols, the author of that Crisis Magazine piece, goes on to challenge every Catholic, dare I say every moral person, to no longer remain silent.  Silence is evil.  Period.

Read the rest.

Accept the challenge.

Doing nothing is in actuality doing something... on the side of embracing death, embracing wickedness.

Carry on.

What's wrong with this video?

by guest blogger, BroKen

Gerard Vanderleun at American Digest put up a video called "This is Water". It is an edited version of a commencment address given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 class of Kenyon College. It is fascinating. Take a look.

 

What do you think? Well, here is what I think...

There is a lot of very good stuff in there. Lots of great ideas and good advice. It is more and more the case that "the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about." But that is more because of how we have been taught to see and talk, than about the important realities themselves. Yes, the Water in which "we live and move and have our being" is there whether we see it or not. What that water is, is of vital importance. Unfortunately, this video leaves out what the water is.

Yes, there is a "default setting" based on our inherent selfishness; "everything is all about me". It is great that the video calls us to rise above it even though it is hard to rise and few, if any, of us do it very often. Yet what is the foundation of this call to rise above? "The only thing that's capital-T true is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it.” Oh, so it really is about me, all about ME, after all. Hmmm.

Now, in the full speech from which this video is made, Foster does tell another "didactic story" which could point more to Reality. He tells of an atheist and theist arguing about God after a few beers in a remote Alaskan bar. The atheist says, "It's not like I haven't investigated the claims of God. Just last month when I was lost in the blizzard facing certain death, I prayed for God to help me and save my life." "Well, then you must believe. Here you are!" cries the theist. "No," replies the atheist. "That was just a couple of Eskimos that happened to be passing by and led me out." Foster says, "It is easy to run this story through a standard liberal arts analysis. The exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people's belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience. Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim the one guy's interpretation is true and the other guy's is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up talking about just where these individual's templates and beliefs come from." (Emphasis mine) No, Mr. Foster, it is not fine. The fact that we don't talk about where beliefs come from and judge the reality of those beliefs is THE problem with modern education and this video. It is the foundational problem of modern liberal arts education which leads people to get it wrong every time. It is why you, Mr. Foster, fall right back into the "default setting" when you explain that freedom, education and right thinking is all about ME and MY CHOICE.

In the end, Mr. Foster cannot say with conviction, "GOD IS LOVE" and "In Him we live and move and have our being" for that is far too moralistic and judgmental. So, we are left with banal platitudes like, "Have a nice day". Just use your $100,000 education to dream up fanciful reasons to say "Have a nice day" even when, no, especially when you don't really mean it. Why? 'Cause if you don't you'll be miserable. (But don't think I'm moralizing like Dr. Laura!)

Come on, Mr. Foster! The "water" is God. Yes, He's hard to see and talk about nowadays. But it was not always so. May He help us lose this post-modern Liberal arts non-sense which is so fatal, and get back to learning and teaching what is really True and Good and Noble and Right. Yes, that means saying some things are wrong and bad and false. So be it.

"We seek Him to find Him and because we find Him, we seek Him."

I found a new blog that's been added to the blogroll.  It's called Strange Notions and here's an excerpt from their about page:

StrangeNotions.com is the central place of dialogue between Catholics and atheists. It's built around three things: Reason. Faith. Dialogue. Each day you'll find articles, videos, and rich comment box discussion concerning life's Big Questions.

...

The name "Strange Notions" carries a double meaning. The first sense comes from a colorful story in the Biblical book of Acts. The first great Christian missionary, Paul, sailed to Athens where he debated in the synagogue with the Jews, and in the public square, before being invited to the Areopagus, a prestigious hill where Athenian philosophers gathered "for nothing else but telling or hearing something new." (Sound like the Internet, eh?) Paul stood among the circle of pagan philosophers and appealed to what they all held in common—devotion, philosophy, poetry. His message intrigued the Athenian elite, who said, "you bring some strange notions to our ears; we should like to know what these things mean" (Acts 17:20).

This website is designed to mimic that first meeting of Christians and atheists, allowing both to discover intriguing "strange notions" on either side.

A week ago, the authors decided to post an excerpt of a book containing conversations between Pope Francis and Rabbi Abraham Skorka on a variety of topics.  Here's a piece of one of those conversations I found fascinating:

Cardinal Bergoglio (Pope Francis):

When I speak with atheists, I will sometimes discuss social concerns, but I do not propose the problem of God as a starting point, except in the case that they propose it to me. If this occurs, I tell them why I believe. But that which is human is so rich to share and to work at that very easily we can mutually complement our richness. As I am a believer, I know that these riches are a gift from God. I also know that the other person, the atheist, does not know that. I do not approach the relationship in order to proselytize, or convert the atheist; I respect him and I show myself as I am. Where there is knowledge, there begins to appear esteem, affection, and friendship. I do not have any type of reluctance, nor would I say that his life is condemned, because I am convinced that I do not have the right to make a judgment about the honesty of that person; even less, if he shows me those human virtues that exalt others and do me good.

At any rate, I know more agnostic people than atheists; the first are more uncertain, the second are more convinced. We have to be coherent with the message that we receive from the Bible: every man is the image of God, whether he is a believer or not. For that reason alone everyone has a series of virtues, qualities, and a greatness of his own. If he has some vileness, as I do, we can share that in order to mutually help one another and overcome it.

Rabbi Abraham Skorka:

I agree with what you have said; the first step is respecting your fellow man. But I would add one more point of view. When a person says, “I am an atheist,” I believe he or she is taking an arrogant position. He who doubts has a more nuanced position. An agnostic thinks that he or she has not yet found the answer, but an atheist is 100 percent convinced that G-d does not exist. It is the same arrogance that leads some to assert that G-d definitely exists, just like the chair I am sitting on.

Religious people are believers, but we do not know for certain that He exists. We can perceive Him in an extremely profound sense, but we never see Him. We receive subtle replies from Him. According to the Torah, Moses was the only person to have spoken directly, face to face, with G-d. As for everyone else—Jacob, Isaac, etc.—the presence of G-d appeared to them in dreams or by some messenger. Even though I personally believe that G-d exists, it is arrogant to say that He exists as if it were just another certainty in life. I would not casually affirm His existence because I need to live the same humility that I demand of the atheist. The right thing to do would be to point out—as Maimonides did in his thirteen principals of faith—that “I believe with complete faith that G-d is the creator.”

Following Maimonides’ line of thought, we can say what G-d is not, but we can never be sure of what G-d is. We can talk about His qualities and attributes, but in no way can we describe His form. I would remind the atheist that the perfection of the natural world is sending us a message. We can gain an understanding of how it works, but not its essence.

Cardinal Bergoglio (Pope Francis):

The spiritual experience of encounter with God is not controllable. One feels that God is there, one has the certainty, but he cannot control God. We are made to subdue nature; that is what God commands. We cannot, however, subdue our creator. As a result, in the experience of God there is always an unanswered question, an opportunity to be submerged in faith.

Rabbi, you said one thing, which in part, is certain: we can say what God is not, we can speak of His attributes, but we cannot say what He is. That apophatic¹ dimension, which reveals how I speak about God, is critical to our theology. The English mystics speak a lot about this theme. There is a book by one of them, from the thirteenth century, The Cloud of Unknowing, that attempts again and again to describe God and always finishes pointing to what He is not. The mission of theology is to reflect and explain religious facts, and among them, God.

I would also classify as arrogant those theologies that not only attempted to define with certainty and exactness God’s attributes, but also had the pretense of saying who He was. The book of Job is a continuous discussion about the definition of God. There are four wise men that elaborate this theological search and everything ends with Job’s expression: “By hearsay I had heard of you, but now my eye has seen you.” (Job 42:5) Job’s final image of God is different from his vision of God in the beginning. The intention of this story is that the notion that the four theologians have is not true, because God always is being sought and found. We are presented with this paradox: we seek Him to find Him and because we find Him, we seek Him. It is a very Augustinian game.

There's more and it's all interesting.

The more I'm exposed to Pope Francis, the more I'm convinced God has appointed him for such a time as this.

Carry on.

NARAL ignores Gosnell baby murder convictions

The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League released a statement yesterday in the wake of the Gosnell convictions:

“Justice was served to Kermit Gosnell today and he will pay the price for the atrocities he committed. We hope that the lessons of the trial do not fade with the verdict. Anti-choice politicians, and their unrelenting efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortion care, will only drive more women to back-alley butchers like Kermit Gosnell.

“From the lack of funding available for low-income women to access abortion services, to the sharp decline of reputable providers in Pennsylvania, to the gross negligence of authorities to enforce the law after complaints were filed against Gosnell, each aspect of this case must be a teachable moment for lawmakers: until we reject the politicization of women's medical care and leave these decisions where they belong — between a woman and her family and her doctor — women will never be safe. The horrifying story of Kermit Gosnell is a peek into the world before Roe v. Wade made legal a woman's right to make her own choices. 

“NARAL Pro-Choice America's annual Who Decides? publication has given Pennsylvania an ‘F’ grade precisely because it has passed medically unnecessary laws that restrict access to safe and legal abortion care. It is my sincere hope that the women in Gosnell's clinic did not suffer in vain and that Pennsylvania, and every state, will step up and join us in making the protection of women’s ability to get, safe, high quality, and legal abortion care a top priority.”

What's missing in the NARAL statement?

The fact that he was found guilty of the murder of 3 babies born alive.  

Nowhere is this even acknowledged, NARAL instead focusing on the need for women to continue to safely and legally have their children killed in the womb... with "high quality".

Sickening... but revealing.

As sickening and revealing as Gosnell's attorney who blamed the baby factor for the jury's decision:

He said he was confident in the legal system but blamed “The baby factor” for the convictions.

He also blamed the media which is incredible in that they were AWOL pretty much throughout the trial.

There is evil in the world, let there be no  doubt, and those involved in defending and promoting abortion are some of the biggest propagators. 

God have mercy on their wickedness.

"The choice to highlight their sacrifice may put a strain on the already fragile relationship between the Catholic Church and Islam."

I learned only yesterday of the long ago events leading to the canonization of more than 800 Catholics in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday but what is familiar is the press' reaction to it:

Pope Francis canonized more than 800 Catholics in Saint Peter’s Square Sunday – the largest number to be elevated to sainthood at once in the history of the Catholic Church.

The choice of some of the new saints was also striking, touching on the already-fragile relationship between Christianity and Islam.

The new saints included hundreds of laymen from the southern Italian port town of Otranto who were slain in the 15th century by the invading Ottoman Turkish army after they refused to convert to Islam.

In 1480, after conquering Constantinople – modern day Istanbul - the Ottoman Sultan Mohammed II planned to invade Rome, and Otranto became his army’s port of entrance into Italy.

The local population fought back in a week-long siege, putting up a brave but hopeless resistance. When Ottoman soldiers finally overrun the town, they were ordered to kill every man over the age of 15 who refused to convert to Islam.

More than 800 resisted, locking themselves up into the town’s Cathedral. Their ringleader, local shoemaker Antonio Primaldo, was first to be beheaded. According  to local legend, his headless body remained standing until the last of his fellow townspeople was killed.

Since then, Primaldo and his townsfolk, who chose to die rather than betray their Catholic faith, have been hailed as martyrs. Their bones and skulls – proudly on display behind glass walls in the Cathedral of Otranto – are well-known Catholic relics and a popular pilgrimage destination.

But the choice to highlight their sacrifice may put a strain on the already fragile relationship between the Catholic Church and Islam.

Ever since his election, Pope Francis has called for greater dialogue between Christianity and other religions, in particular Islam. And so far, he has acted on that promise. He washed the feet of a young Muslim woman jailed in a juvenile prison on Holy Thursday, and reached out to the many “Muslim brothers and sisters” during his first Good Friday procession.

So why risk creating yet another inter-faith row with a celebration which some in the Muslim world may be seen as a provocation?

NBC News goes on to blame Pope Francis' predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Read the rest and shake your head along with me but more importantly, answer this question for me in the comments.

How many of you had heard about this massacre by Islamists?

“They said my name, and they said, ‘We’re here to take you home.'”

Jessica Buchanan tells of her harrowing abduction at the hands of Somali pirates and her rescue by Seal Team 6 after more than 3 months of captivity:

She was “completely surrounded” the moment she was seized by Somali pirates, she recalled Monday on TODAY. “Yelling, screaming, hitting windshields with AK-47s. Guns in my face, and then we just take off driving through the desert into God only knows where.”

Buchanan spent the next 93 days in conditions so unsanitary they ended up threatening her health. The former grade-school teacher wrote about her experience in “Impossible Odds,” a book she co-authored with her husband, Erik Landemalm.

Buchanan thought she would die every single day she was held, she told TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie.

“They were long and scary, sometimes incredibly boring,” she said about those days. “I worried that I was actually, maybe not going to necessarily lose my life, but lose my mind.”

Her abductors barely gave her any food – bread, some tuna fish, a bit of water.

“They never treated us humanely,” she said. “A lot of times I just felt like an animal put on display.”

Buchanan named her book “Impossible Odds” because of the outrageous ransom demanded by her captives. “It was a great title because it felt like the most impossible situation ever: $45 million. Where do you come up with something like that?” she said.

Meanwhile, Buchanan’s husband said he felt completely helpless, with very little information to go on.

“It was the worst kind of feeling that I have ever experienced,” he told Guthrie. “I just wanted to go in after her, but at the same time, I had to trust that the right people would do the right thing to get her back.”

The appropriate team did just that. President Obama had ordered the U.S. military to launch a secret rescue operation headed by SEAL Team 6, the same special forces group that took out Osama bin Laden. The team rescued Buchanan along with a Danish aid worker, while killing all nine of their kidnappers.

Buchanan said the rescue mission came as a total surprise. “Just complete shock and awe that these men risked their lives to come in and to save mine and give me a second chance,” she said. “They said my name, and they said, ‘We’re here to take you home.'”

But Buchanan has never had a chance to thank her rescuers since that night.

“They’re just like that,” she said. “They come in, they do their job and then they fade into the distance. Just incredible, incredible period.”

There's video at the link (if you can stomach the Obama cheering... I could but only barely).

If only the President would fade into the distance after these events.

Widening controversy

A week ago Sunday, as the commencement speaker for Ohio University's 2013 graduating class, President Obama said that graduates, and by extension all Americans, should reject those voices warning that tyranny always lurks around the corner.

Yesterday we learned that the scandal surrounding the IRS's scrutiny of conservative groups was wider than initially thought:

The Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of conservative groups went beyond those with "tea party" or "patriot" in their names—as the agency admitted Friday—to also include ones worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to "make America a better place to live," according to new details of a government probe.

The investigation also revealed that a high-ranking IRS official knew as early as mid-2011 that conservative groups were being inappropriately targeted—nearly a year before then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told a congressional committee the agency wasn't targeting conservative groups.

The new disclosures are likely to inflame a widening controversy over IRS handling of dozens of applications by tea-party, patriot and other conservative groups for tax-exempt status.

The details emerged from disclosures to congressional investigators by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The findings, which were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, don't make clear who came up with the idea to give extra scrutiny to the conservative groups.

The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax exempt status. John McKinnon reports on the News Hub.

The inspector general's office has been conducting an audit of the IRS's handling of the applications process and is expected to release a report this week. The audit follows complaints last year by numerous tea-party and other conservative groups that they had been singled out and subjected to excessive and inappropriate questioning. Many groups say they were asked for lists of their donors and other sensitive information.

Tyranny is defined as the arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power.  The IRS, the agency tasked with enforcing Obamacare, is admitting to arbitrary abuse of its power.

It's not lurking around the corner.

It's here.

It makes the following graphic making its rounds on social media more than simply revealing.

The next social injustice campaign coming our way via the enlightened

It's telling in my view that she who is proposing this idea is a reproductive rights feminist:

The age of consent for sex should be lowered to 13 years-old to end the ''persecution of old men'' in the wake of the Savile sex abuse scandal, a leading barrister has claimed.

In a controversial intervention, Barbara Hewson, a senior barrister at Hardwicke chambers in London, also called for the end of anonymity for complainants.

The lawyer, who specialises in reproductive rights also claimed crimes committed by disgraced broadcaster Stuart Hall were ''low level misdemeanours''.

Campaigners today criticised the ''outdated and simply ill-informed'' views, which it said ''beggars belief'' from a highly-experienced barrister.

Her article also provoked an internal row within her chambers, which launched an "investigation" into the claims.

But amid the storm of condemnation, she stood by her comments today as she quoted François-Marie Arouet, the 18th century philosopher, in her bid to defend her "opinion".

Her comments come as Scotland Yard operates Operation Yewtree, an investigation split into three inquiries into allegations involving deceased presenter Jimmy Savile, involving Savile and others and those involving just others.

A number of high-profile figures have been arrested under Yewtree such as entertainer Rolf Harris, former pop star Gary Glitter, DJ Dave Lee Travis, comedian Jim Davidson and PR guru Max Clifford. All deny any wrongdoing.

In an article for online magazine Spiked, she argued that ''the post-Savile witch-hunting of ageing celebs echoes the Soviet Union'' and says that it is not difficult to see why some elderly defendants ''conclude that resistance is useless''.

She added: ''But the low-level misdemeanours with which Stuart Hall was charged are nothing like serious crime.''

''Ordinarily, Hall's misdemeanours would not be prosecuted, and certainly not decades after the event.

''What we have here is the manipulation of the British criminal-justice system to produce scapegoats on demand. It is a grotesque spectacle.''

She continued: ''It's time to end this prurient charade, which has nothing to do with justice or the public interest.''

The barrister added: ''Instead, we should focus on arming today's youngsters with the savoir-faire and social skills to avoid drifting into compromising situations, and prosecute modern crime.

''As for law reform, now regrettably necessary, my recommendations are remove complainant anonymity, introduce a strict statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions and civil actions and reduce the age of consent to 13.''

Of course, lines of this sort of thinking already exist here in America, only our enlightened souls think 15 is a more mature age.

We call this progress folks.

Forward!

"By suggesting he is uncomfortable with the moral dimensions of capitalism, Pope Francis has created a mini-furor..."

Via Frank Weathers, I learn that the Pope has ruffled the feathers at Forbes with the following tweet:

My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centred mindset bent on profit at any cost.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) May 2, 2013

Here's a portion of what was written by Jens F. Laurson and George Pieler:

By suggesting he is uncomfortable with the moral dimensions of capitalism, Pope Francis has created a mini-furor among both free market types who are offended, and neo-socialists seeking support from the most powerful spiritual leader in Christianity. But would it be better, if popes refrained from interceding on such highly-charged secular matters?

No, but perhaps they should better explain what they mean. Admittedly it’s hard to avoid ambiguity in Twitter’s 140 characters. Even so, the short-hand version of the Pope’s critique suggesting, as it did, that profit-seeking drives unemployment, is at best a caricature of the zero-sum anti-capitalist creed. It boils down to: profit-driven companies make more money if they have fewer workers and thus lower labor costs (our spin, not the Pope’s). The implication is that the drive for profits must be tempered by social concerns like the well-being of workers, communities, and nations. Make a little less money in profits, give someone a ‘living wage’ that keeps them out of poverty and ensures social peace.

Part of this is just a truism (no one lives by profits alone, and modern corporations spend lots of cash persuading the public how much they are ‘giving back’ in terms of charitable works, philanthropic donations, and public-spirited workplace practices (recycling, childcare, low carbon emissions, and so forth). That same cash, of course, could be deployed to creating more jobs as the Pope suggests. But we digress.

Wholly missing from the papal argument is the fact that business expansion, and the attraction of investment therein, is based on profits. Greater profits don’t necessarily guarantee more jobs in existing business and businesses of the future, but you can’t expect those jobs to materializeabsent profit.  Profit isn’t what drives poverty, profit is what overcomes poverty. The argument is easier to make where profits are invested in medical advances that can save lives and increased productivity that will make further inroads in steadily decreasing world hunger. Or where investment and experimentation made possible entire new fields of human endeavor we can’t possibly foresee (personal computing, remote health monitoring…). But the argument holds just the same if profits were to go to seemingly frivolous smart phone apps or dividends. The short of the matter is that capitalism is the engine of the general betterment of the human condition and profits its essential tool.

...

Most recently Pope Francis has returned to tweeting on core religious issues. “I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance, says Jesus.  This is where true wealth is found, not in material things!” This is not an issue of economics, but a matter of the soul. A topic squarely in the realm of Francis’ expertise.

Actually Misters Lauerson and Pieler, Pope Francis speaks within the realm of of his expertise, with matters of the soul and, to your apparent chagrin, with matters of mammon.

From the Catechism comes that which clearly buttresses, supports and gives credence to the Pope's tweet:

2432 Those responsible for business enterprises are responsible to society for the economic and ecological effects of their operations.²¹⁸ They have an obligation to consider the good of persons and not only the increase of profits. Profits are necessary, however. They make possible the investments that ensure the future of a business and they guarantee employment.

2433 Access to employment and to professions must be open to all without unjust discrimination: men and women, healthy and disabled, natives and immigrants.²¹⁹ For its part society should, according to circumstances, help citizens find work and employment.²²⁰

2434 A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice.²²¹ In determining fair pay both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. "Remuneration for work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good."²²² Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages.

2435 Recourse to a strike is morally legitimate when it cannot be avoided, or at least when it is necessary to obtain a proportionate benefit. It becomes morally unacceptable when accompanied by violence, or when objectives are included that are not directly linked to working conditions or are contrary to the common good.

2436 It is unjust not to pay the social security contributions required by legitimate authority.

Unemployment almost always wounds its victim's dignity and threatens the equilibrium of his life. Besides the harm done to him personally, it entails many risks for his family.²²³

I don't know whether the Forbes fellers are Catholic and if they are not, then they have an excuse but if they are, the sooner they each understand that the Catholic faith, and her doctrines and dogmas, cannot be compartmentalized and held in isolation, the better off they'll be and the more thoughtful perhaps they'll become.

I've come to learn, and am still learning, that Catholic thinking encompasses all that makes up life... and living that life well and with purpose.

It is why I'm striving to embrace Catholicism fully, even... and in fact especially, when it appears to rub up against some thought or process or idea I've long held as gospel.

It's that which I've come to believe makes a catholic Catholic.

Carry on.

Left To Die

Guest posted by tim, The Godless Heathen

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know what this is all about.

Remember this video, remember these lies. Uttered by a shameless and pathetic prevaricator in front of the caskets and the families of those brave souls who this administration LEFT. TO. DIE.

 

Actually, Hillary, it matters very much.

H/T Jawa Report Where there's more you may want to check out.

The plot thickens

We hope.

ABC News has in essence now reported that the Obama administration lied about Benghazi.

It's about time:

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department.  The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community.  They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012.  “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Summaries of White House and State Department emails — some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard — show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.

Who knew what when?

The American people, at least those not distracted by American Idol and Dancing With The Stars, want to know.

"Christian joy. Far from sorrow, far from simple fun ... it is something else."

Pope Francis gives every believer a challenge:

"A Christian is a man and a woman of joy. Jesus teaches us this, the Church teaches us this, in a special way in this [liturgical]time. What is this joy? Is it having fun? No: it is not the same. Fun is good, eh? Having fun is good. But joy is more, it is something else. It is something that does not come from short term economic reasons, from momentary reasons : it is something deeper. It is a gift. Fun, if we want to have fun all the time, in the end becomes shallow, superficial, and also leads us to that state where we lack Christian wisdom, it makes us a little bit stupid, naive, no?, Everything is fun ... no. Joy is another thing. Joy is a gift from God. It fills us from within. It is like an anointing of the Spirit. And this joy is the certainty that Jesus is with us and with the Father”.

A man of joy, the Pope continued, is a confident man. Sure that "Jesus is with us, that Jesus is with the Father." He asked: Can we ‘bottle up’ this joy in order to always have it with us? 

"No, because if we keep this joy to ourselves it will make us sick in the end, our hearts will grow old and wrinkled and our faces will no longer transmit that great joy only nostalgia, melancholy which is not healthy. Sometimes these melancholy Christians faces have more in common with pickled peppers than the joy of having a beautiful life. Joy cannot be held at heel: it must be let go. Joy is a pilgrim virtue. It is a gift that walks, walks on the path of life, that walks with Jesus: preaching, proclaiming Jesus, proclaiming joy, lengthens and widens that path. It is a virtue of the Great, of those Great ones who rise above the little things in life, above human pettiness, of those who will not allow themselves to be dragged into those little things within the community, within the Church: they always look to the horizon".

Joy is a "pilgrim," Pope Francis reiterated. "The Christian sings with joy, and walks, and carries this joy." It is a virtue of the path, actually more than a virtue it is a gift:

"It is the gift that brings us to the virtue of magnanimity. The Christian is magnanimous, he or she cannot be timorous: the Christian is magnanimous. And magnanimity is the virtue of breath, the virtue of always going forward, but with a spirit full of the Holy Spirit. Joy is a grace that we ask of the Lord. These days in a special way, because the Church is invited, the Church invites us to ask for the joy and also desire: that which propels the Christian's life forward is desire. The greater your desire, the greater your joy will be. The Christian is a man, is a woman of desire: always desire more on the path of life. We ask the Lord for this grace, this gift of the Spirit: Christian joy. Far from sorrow, far from simple fun ... it is something else. It is a grace we must seek".

Far from simple fun... think on that.

Carry on.

Why wouldn't this be considered child abuse?

I'm dead serious:

The lesbian parents of an 11-year-old boy who is undergoing the process of becoming a girl last night defended the decision, claiming it was better for a child to have a sex change when young.

Thomas Lobel, who now calls himself Tammy, is undergoing controversial hormone blocking treatment in Berkeley, California to stop him going through puberty as a boy.

But Pauline Moreno and Debra Lobel warn that children with gender identity disorder forced to postpone transitioning could face a higher risk of suicide.

The mothers say that one of the first things Thomas told them when he learned sign language aged three - because of a speech impediment - was, 'I am a girl'.

At age seven, after threatening genital mutilation on himself, psychiatrists diagnosed Thomas with gender identity disorder. By the age of eight, he began transitioning.

This summer, he started taking hormone-blocking drugs, which will stop him from experiencing puberty.

The hormone-suppressant, implanted in his upper left arm, will postpone the 11-year-old developing broad shoulders, deep voice and facial hair. 

The couple faced intense criticism from friends and family as a result, Ms Moreno told MailOnline.

'Everybody was angry with us. "How could you be doing this? You might be ruining his whole life!"

Citing a statistic from the Youth Suicide Prevention Program, Ms Moreno noted over 50 per cent of transgender youth will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday.

And ignoring their son's incessant pleas, she said, simply was not worth the risk.

'What is so frightening to me is that you would be willing to say "no" just because you don't like it - even though your child could lose their life?'

Her son's adolescent transition, she hopes, will help him have a less conflicted adulthood.

'The whole idea now is let's stop creating a third (gender) that is neither one thing or the other, so we transitioned her,' said Ms Moreno.

'The protocol now is to transition these children as soon as you can make a diagnosis, because otherwise they end up being not one thing or the other... because they experienced puberty.'

I have nothing more to say.

Nothing.

If only Tebow were gay

Maybe then he'd play again in the NFL... or at least get some favorable press.

Right?

What is becoming clearer is that the man is being blackballed.

So sez Michael Silver, Yahoo Expert (whatever that is):

As a journalist who has consistently experienced the wrath of Tebow Nation — mostly for passing along the slings and arrows voiced by various NFL players, coaches and talent-evaluators — I'm well aware that many devotees of the world's most celebrated unemployed quarterback carry a heavy persecution complex.

Yet as Tim Tebow's career wheezes to an underwhelming halt, with less apparent interest in his services than Massachusetts funeral parlors have in Tamerlan Tsarnaev's remains, something strange is happening. Against all odds, I'm starting to wonder whether the man who helped the Denver Broncos become one of the league's most stunning success stories in 2011 is getting unjustly blackballed.

Nine days after Tebow was released by the New York Jets, it has become increasingly clear that the ultra-popular quarterback who has hijacked many a news cycle has no viable landing spot. No NFL team seems to want him — as a starter, backup, converted H-back or fake-punt decoy — and it's not like he's fending off big-money offers from Canada, either.

...

Tebow, by all accounts, is a hard worker who radiates a relentlessly positive attitude. He has obvious leadership qualities and, as Broncos fans, 2011 opponents and "Saturday Night Live" aficionadosalike can attest, an uncanny knack for getting the stars to align in his favor. (Or, perhaps, his deep Christian faith really does translate into things like Marion Barber inexplicably running out of boundsin high altitude. After the weirdness I witnessed that season, I'm not ruling anything out.)

Clearly, even after shredding what was then the NFL's top-ranked defense for 316 passing yards in that Jan. 2012 playoff triumph, Tebow still has some serious refinement to do in order to bring his game to NFL-starter standards. That was evident in his final game with the Broncos, a lopsided playoff defeat to the New England Patriots.

What I can't understand is why no NFL team has enough faith in Tebow's upside to see if he's capable of pulling it off.

...

Since that defeat to the Patriots, the guy has been treated as dismissively as Kent Dorfman in the opening scene of "Animal House".

Which is why I believe Tebow ought to consider becoming a homosexual.

Or perhaps converting to Islam.

But not both.

That could be problematic.

Meat, crockpot, pickaxe, drill bit

Words used by a late term abortionist to describe the horror of what he does to children in the womb.

This should leave you nauseous.  And if it doesn't, you should check your moral bearings because you are quite lost.

LifesiteNews:

Late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart, who made headlines in February when one of his patients died in his care, likened a dead, full-term baby inside its mother's womb to “meat in a Crock-Pot” in a new sting video released by Live Action this morning. He also tells the mother to call him instead of 911 if she faces any complications.

In the footage, Carhart jokes about dismembering the unborn baby with “a pickaxe, a drill bit.”

Two separate stings were filmed at Carhart's business in Nebraska, one before and one after the death of Jennnifer Morbelli at his Germantown, Maryland, facility.

At one point Carhart confirms to Live Action's investigator that she will be carrying a dead baby inside her for three days. When the mom asks if the baby will begin to decay, Carhart says, “No, it’s like putting meat in a Crock-Pot, OK?” The child merely “gets softer.”

Carhart counsels the woman to call him instead of dialing 911 in case of an emergency, because “they’ll take you to the hospital, right? They won’t bring you to the clinic.”

He adds he or his assistants will call emergency assistance “if we think you need 911.”

Instead, he hands the mother a packet containing “little drapes and sheets and gloves” in case she goes into labor in her hotel room or home.

It includes a bag to put the baby in. He gives no instructions about what to do if the baby is born alive, insisting, “it's not going to happen.”

But Live Action founder Lila Rose told LifeSiteNews.com that a live birth is a possibility.

“Carhart prides himself on making sure that the child is dead within three hours,” she said. “Carhart is certainly denying that infants are born alive after his abortions. He's very proud of his 'success rate,' as he calls it.”

“But...if he misses the child's heart with the Digoxin shot, if it's entered into the amniotic sack or otherwise, sometimes these children have been born alive,” she added, “We know from other testimonies and from studies done in the UK and elsewhere that children do survive abortion attempts.”

Carhart seems to acknowledge as much on tape, telling the mother if her baby “came out? Oh, yeah, it probably could” survive. “Probably.”

If a mother instead calls 911, her “baby will be given the life-saving care it deserves and that the law provides [for] it,” Rose told LifeSiteNews. “I think that this recommendation to not call 911 is very dangerous for women, because that is another layer of protection for them in case the abortion is putting their health at risk.”

Carhart is all-too familiar with one such instance. Jennifer Morbelli died in his care, after being unable to contact him.

There's more, including the doctor's denial about the woman he essentially killed.  The guy clearly missed his calling.  He'd have fit in nicely with the Nazi doctors at Auschwitz.

Sick SOB.

It's difficult for me to ask God's mercy on him.

So at this time, I won't.

Yet another Benghazi victim may turn out to be CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson

The news is wide and seriously damaging to the Obama administration and particularly Hillary Clinton.

There was this from The Guardian about Obama's recent treatment of whistleblowers.

Not really surprising to those who've been paying attention.

Then there's this must see video of Trey Gowdy's promise to the American people.

Mr. Gowdy's gained a new fan.

I doubt seriously I'm the only newbie.

Then there's this testimony from Greg Hicks describing how he was ordered not to talk to Congressional investigators.

In Watergate, when Nixon obfuscated and lied, nobody died.

Then there's the news that a request for Special Ops to come to Benghazi was denied.

It's clear that a travesty has occurred, one that cannot, must not be covered up.

And for those not paying attention, there's this lie that is arguably the first of many told since 9/11/12.

I finish with what I started with in the title of this catch-all post on a very news heavy day.

This from Politico is par for the course:

The Washington Post's Paul Farhi has written a glowing profile of Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy award-winning CBS correspondent who has been the mainstream media's most persistent investigator of the events surrounding last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Farhi's piece places Attkisson in a David-vs.-Goliath narrative, wherein the Obama administration is Goliath: "Attkisson, who holds a third-degree black belt in taekwondo, takes a fighting stance when she feels she’s being stonewalled. Which is exactly what she thinks the White House has done to her on Benghazi," Farhi writes.

But from where Attkisson is sitting, there are actually two Goliaths, one of which is almost entirely absent from the Post profile.

The second Goliath is CBS News, which has grown increasingly frustrated with Attkisson's Benghazi campaign. CBS News executives see Attkisson wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue, network sources have told POLITICO. Attkisson can't get some of her stories on the air, and is thus left feeling marginalized and underutilized. That, in part, is why Attkisson is in talks to leave CBS ahead of contract, as POLITICO reported in April.

This cannot be covered up.

This will not be covered up.

People died.

For their sake, and the sake of their loved ones, we need to get to the bottom of it.

Carry on.

Nicely done Publix, so very nicely done

A Mother's day gift from a grocery chain... perhaps poignant enough to piss off a pro-abort or two:

Via The Anchoress.

Just when we become cynical about humanity

Far too often, we're shown examples of or see for ourselves that which leaves us shaking our heads.   Here's something that might just leave you dabbing your eyes with tissue.

Via Gerard Vanderleun, proof that good abounds:

Excellent stuff.

Pass it on.

I guarantee there's someone out there who really needs to see this and who knows, perhaps it'll inspire more of it.