Two stories were brought to my attention yesterday and they seem to fit together like a glove.
The first comes our way via MercatorNet:
At Shippensburg University, female students who hook-up for drunken sex on Saturday will find it easy to dispose of just-conceived babies on Monday or Tuesday. A quick trip to the vending machine is all it takes.
Easy. Kind of like buying a bag of Doritos.
Women who wake up in unfamiliar beds or sober up and wonder, “What were you thinking, girl?” needn’t worry much. Stride across campus, past the dining hall (grab a doughnut for later), and into the University Health Center. Flash a student ID and head to the vending machine in the “self-help” area. There, next to the cough drops and Mucinex, in discreet, feminine packaging, is Plan B One Step. No questions asked. Feed the bills into the slot, grab and go. Empowered with “choices,” these women pop the package blister, swallow the pill, and breathe easy.
Problem solved. Glad that’s over.
Only it’s really not.
Billed as “emergency contraception,” according to the package insert, Plan B inhibits ovulation and thus prevents conception. But it also alters the lining of the uterus, preventing a newly conceived child from implanting in its mother’s womb. Without implantation, that tiny human being cannot draw nourishment and will die. (Occasionally, Plan B fails and the pregnancy continues.)
In most cases, however, Plan B succeeds.
But “success” is not pretty. Our Shippensburg student will have a one-in-three chance of heavy bleeding. And 13% of women who take Plan B One Step end up curled up in bed with nausea, abdominal pain, and fatigue. Worse, nearly one in ten women who use emergency contraception (compared to 2% of pregnancies in the general population) develop severe abdominal pain and require emergency treatment for an ectopic pregnancy.
But no worries, this is a private decision between a woman and her vending machine.
And none of our business. That's the mantra. What a woman does to her body is no one's business but her own.
That mindset forms the basis of the notion seeking to paint anyone opposed to contraception as religious loons attempting to subjugate women and deny them their rights.
Which brings us to the second piece I came across, a piece that I find hopeful and helpful. Hopeful in that Jennifer Fulwiler is strongly suggesting we may've turned a corner... and helpful in that she includes detail that sheds light on a subject many of us are quite ignorant about:
A couple of weeks ago, our priest gave a homily about contraception. While speaking about the Health and Human Services mandate, our associate pastor, Fr. Jonathan Raia, made a few allusions to the fact that the Church believes that contraception is bad. There were over a thousand people packed into the building, and a slight but noticeable tension developed as he inched closer and closer to the subject. This most controversial of Catholic teachings had been splashed all over the news in recent days, ridiculed and denounced throughout popular culture, and the question hung in the air: “Is he going to go there?”
He did.
You can hear the whole homily on our parish website here. In the second half of his talk, he gently but unflinchingly explained that the Catholic Church teaches that contraception is wrong. He gave a bit of background about the reasoning behind this stance, cleared up some common misconceptions, and pointed people to resources where they could find out more about methods of Natural Family Planning. As he spoke, the thought came to mind:
I think we’re finally ready for this.
In the seven years that I’ve been going to Catholic churches, I’d never heard a priest speak so directly about the Church’s teaching in this area—and I can understand why. For decades our culture has perceived contraception as being akin to air or water: a universally good resource with no downside. Only an institution with the most nefarious motives would oppose everyone incorporating this invaluable blessing into their lives, the thinking went. And so I’m guessing that many of our priests felt like the misunderstanding on this topic was so deep and so widespread that they’d need hours of speaking time to even begin to address it properly, and thus avoided it in homilies. (I’ve seen quite a few parishes, for example, where it may not be preached from the pulpit, but parishioners are encouraged to get involved in marriage and family ministries, where the issue is discussed in a more interactive, personal setting.)
But things are changing now. Just as the tide has turned on the issue of abortion, I see it turning with contraception too. Even non-Catholic publications are conceding that that the Church may not be totally crazy when it says that artificial birth control is neither good for the individual nor for society. More and more couples are realizing that contraception does not make marriage easier; they’re coming to see that, while Natural Family Planning has its challenges, the grass is just as complicated on the other side. After forty years of collective experience, it is dawning on people that contraception does not give women freedom over their bodies. Rather, it takes it away, as we see when we consider the data that over half of women who seek abortions were using contraception at the time they conceived. And while it may or may not be true that 98 percent of people sitting in the pews at Mass use contraception, I’m willing to bet that 98 percent of them also know someone who has ended up in an abortion clinic because of failed contraception.
The society-wide experiment of artificially severing the sexual act from its life-giving potential has been going on for four decades now, and people have had time to see that it’s not the cure-all solution they were told it would be. The tension is building as more and more men and women are disappointed by the “solution” of contraception, and the time is ripe for the message that there’s another way. I’m not naive enough to think that one homily would be enough to inspire everyone in the pews to throw out their birth control pills the moment they get home; but I do think it could get them to consider it.
Do yourself a favor. Take the few minutes it takes to listen to the sermon. Listen to it with the vending machine story as backdrop. Listen to it while understanding the impact on society that vending machine story is telling.
Listen to it and pass it on.
It's unabashed truth presented well... and hopefully, effectively.
He went against the grain and criticized Obama policy. You know Obama will take revenge:
By Chuck aka XtnYoda
Wow!!!
Joe Bastardi (formerly of the "Weather Channel" until he couldn't stomach the global warming mantra they are pushing any longer!) is weighing in on the "global warming alarmists over at Real Science ... and he is naming names and exposing agendas! Amazing work Joe and Steve! (Mr. Bastardi's comments are in the "comments" section of Steve's post.)
Thanks for the kind words, but most of us ( Steve included) know where this is going overall the next 20-30 years. N America has been the warm heart of a cooling planet. For the record, I expect a weak to perhaps moderate el nino to evolve this summer into winter, and while that will push global temps up a bit, double la ninas followed by el ninos with a cold PDO means the break we had this year in N America is not likely to repeat next year. Europe is likely to have another severe stretch, which would make it 4 winters in a row year to deal with a cold extreme. While I officially have forecasted global temps , as measured by objective satellites, to return to the temps of the late 70s by 2030, I must confess that some of the more extreme forecasts due to solar cycle theory certainly have reason to have a seat at the table.
The real shame is that we are now handcuffed by out of control warmingistas that have choked the lifeblood of our nations economy and find ourselves in a real bind as far as energy because of a ghost that never existed, and a reality that has a good chance of proving the opposite. Its amazing how many problems would be solved if we were just drilling without the paranoia about global warming. A more prosperous economy, less unemployment, more national security, and right on down the line. Years from now, people will marvel at how all this actually went on, perhaps with the same morbid fascination we look at what happened at Europe in the 30s. Tell a big enough lie loud enough , and people believe it.
.... One more thing, sorry I forgot.. A Hansen Super Nino watch is in effect. Once he realizes that the Nino is coming on (I posted last year when he was screaming about one for this past winter to wait till the following winter.. the one coming up in 12-13, though it would be weak) he will yell from the roof tops about a super nino, oblivious to the fact that we have a cold PDO and ninos are shorter lived and weaker.
I guess the 1 million or so he gets on the side of his government job by doing all this consoles him, but the watch is in effect anyway
The global warming house of cards is falling. The unfortunate thing, as Joe points out, is that millions, alas billions of humans will suffer due to the charade of "global warming" by governments and "global warming scientists."
And who will hold them accountable for the misery and loss of life so they can line their pockets?
Yahweh will hold them accountable.
The behavior of adults who succumb not to the tyranny of hip:
Those unwilling to wait that long can turn directly to [Charles] Murray, who tends to go blithely about getting things right even as the left excoriates him. Murray understands that the debilitating shifts of poorer people away from marriage and religion are culturally induced and that the prescriptions to reverse them must be cultural as well. Among those fixes, as he said in a recent article in the paper of record (the Wall Street Journal):
The best thing that the new upper class can do… is to drop its condescending “non-judgmentalism.” Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn’t hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices.
This is so clearly true that the only real question is: why don’t they? If marriage and religion give smart people joy and improve their living standards, why don’t they spread the word?
I believe one reason is the Tyranny of Hip: the unwillingness of grownups to be thought of as uncool. We seem to have a horror of shedding the mantles of the heroes of romance in order to take on the roles of the crusty but wise chaperones. Even when Red State’s Erick Erickson and cultural blogger Dr. Melissa Clouthieramong others courageously grasped the nettle recently and took the girls and boys of CPAC to task for dressing like hookers and acting like johns, they were at pains to explain that they were talking about time and place appropriateness not morals — which still didn’t protect them from the usual hail of superior-sounding irony that followed.
No one wants to be the butt of the cool kids’ jokes like that. No critic who values his relevance wants to point out that Bridesmaids soiling themselves while in wedding regalia is not really funny; or that Katy Perry’s hummable hit tunes peddling alcohol abuse and cheap sex to 12-year-olds are reprehensible; or that Sacha Baron Cohen mocking ordinary people for their non-ironic faith, manners or dedication can be at once hilarious and morally wrong — like laughing at a slapstick accident that leaves someone dead. No one wants to turn into the old man waving his cane from the porch rocking chair shouting at the young folks to stop all their goldarned canoodling and quit parading around with their hoo-has and what-nots hanging out, for the love of Mike.
And yet the nation hungers for just such behavior. Witness the recent YouTube video of a father punishing his spoiled daughter for a snarky Facebook post by plugging her laptop with a .45. The thing went viral to the tune of tens of millions of viewers. Why? Because it was wonderful to see someone finally step up and be Daddy.
Mr. Klavan's piece, which should be read in its entirety, comes our way via The Anchoress, who adds with wisdom:
The government, the media and academia are all in the clutches of perpetual 14 year-olds forever chasing times and trends to maintain the aura of hipness that keeps them sitting at the lunch table with the “cool” kids. The spoiled cool kids who think they’re just entitled to everything. Which is generally what 14 year-olds do think.
A nation of perpetual 14 year olds.
Apt. Sadly.
Crossposted at Wizbang.
William McGurn is talking sex, lies and Rick Santorum at the WSJ:
When Barack Obama was campaigning for president in 2008, he declared that marriage is between a man and a woman. For the most part, his position was treated as a nonissue.
Now Rick Santorum is campaigning for president. He too says that marriage is between a man and a woman. What a different reaction he gets.
There's no mystery why. Mr. Santorum is attacked because everyone understands that he means what he says.
President Obama, by contrast, gets a pass because everyone understands—nudge nudge, wink wink—that he's not telling the truth. The press understands that this is just one of those things a Democratic candidate has to say so he doesn't rile up the great unwashed.
It's arguably the most glaring double standard in American life today. It helps explain why candidates with social views that are fairly conventional among ordinary Americans—the citizens of 31 states including California have rejected same-sex marriage when put to a vote—find themselves depicted as extreme. It also speaks to why even some who share Mr. Santorum's social views nonetheless fear that his outspokenness on these issues will only undermine his candidacy.
That has led some folks to suggest that Mr. Santorum simply drop these issues altogether. Their hope is that by concentrating his energies solely on Mr. Obama's management of the economy and foreign affairs, Mr. Santorum might avoid dividing his party and America. However reasonable the argument may be on paper, it is simply not practical.
There's more and it's enlightening. McGurn also gives some advice that at this juncture seems wise.
What's clear is that Santorum is now being targeted. The question is, can he withstand the shelling.
I'm hoping so.
Russell Shaw has a reason or two:
As the controversy over the Obama administration’s January directive to religious institutions to pay for employees’ contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs was heating up, Michael Gerson — a conservative columnist frequently friendly to the Church’s views — speculated on the reasoning behind this provocative move.
“The Obama administration seems to have calculated that, since contraceptives are popular and the Catholic Church is not, the outcry would be isolated,” Gerson wrote.
Leaving aside whether the administration actually thought that, as well as the element of exaggeration in the formulation, there’s a core element of truth here that serious Catholics need to face. In some quarters at least, the Church really is unpopular. The question isn’t whether but why.
A comprehensive answer would far exceed the space available. Countless individuals and groups have countless quarrels with the Church over countless grievances, real or imaginary. Let me speak of just one group — America’s secular establishment — which is of particular relevance in the present context.
By “secular establishment,” I mean the cluster of people who dominate America’s secular culture and its institutions — the great universities, the national media, the big foundations and think tanks, and now of course the White House.
It’s fair to say these people for the most part subscribe to a world view in which traditional religion does not play a large role. They are not just “secular” but secularists — secular ideologues — for whom a certain coolness (I use as neutral a word as possible) toward the Catholic Church comes naturally.
They also share a particular approach to resolving ethical questions. Pope Benedict XVI famously spoke of the “dictatorship of relativism,” and that is one way to express it. Another way, highlighting the sources of antipathy to the Church, is along the following lines.The Catholic Church adheres to an ethic of substantive human purposes — things like life, truth, and justice — that establish the parameters of ethically acceptable choices and behavior. To do the right thing is to act within these boundaries; to do what is wrong is to act outside them.
The secularist mindset, by contrast, favors a libertarian ethic of process and procedure — values like democracy, equal opportunity, and that epitome of the process ethic: the “right to choose.” To be sure, most people rightly live by a mix of values of both kinds — partly substantive, partly procedural — but the differences in emphasis are real and often extremely important.
He's got more and it's interesting but he seems to me to minimize the elephant in the living room.
As a blogger who has folllowed Elizabeth Scalia for years now, I perk up when she declares some piece a must read.
Consider myself perked up after reading this Forbes column by Charles Kadlec, who states unequivocally that he is not a Catholic nor does he affirm the Church's position on contraception:
The story line that President Obama miscalculated in picking this fight with the Catholic Church vastly underestimates the man’s political skill and ambition. His initial approval of the ruling requiring the Church pay for abortion drugs and sterilization was but the first step in a calculated strategy to further his goal of transforming America.
President Obama chose to pick this fight with the Catholic Church by choosing to release the regulations first, and then, as he explained in last Friday’s statement to the press, spend “the next year (before the new regulations take effect) to find an equitable solution that would protect religious liberty and insure that every woman has access to the care that she needs.” The alternative would have been to find the “equitable solution” before announcing the regulations. In other words, this entire political fire storm is a set-up by the Administration.
The original HHS ruling put the Catholic Church into the position of choosing one of these two options:
Option A: The Church complies with the law and violates its own teachings and principles of faith. Such a choice would strip the Church of its legitimacy and make it a de facto vassal of the state. In this case, the ability of the Church to challenge the government’s political power is vastly reduced, if not completely destroyed. Faith, charity and civil society are marginalized. Government wins.
Option B: The Church as a matter of conscience refuses to obey the law, and stops offering health insurance to its employees. In this case, the Church gets crushed by hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. As a consequence, its ability to fulfill its religious mission by funding hospitals, schools and charities is sharply reduced if not destroyed. As the Church is forced to withdraw from its active role in civil society, those who believe in government will rush to fill the void. Faith, charity and civil society are marginalized. Government wins.
The risk to President Obama was the Church would create “Option C” and engage in a broad political battle to force the full repeal of the ruling or, if that fails, the defeat of President Obama in the November election followed by the repeal of ObamaCare. Under Option C, government’s power is reduced. Faith, charity and civil society win.
There's more, and I agree with Ms. Scalia. It's a must read.
The question now can arguably be boiled down to this.
Will hatred for the Catholic Church and what she allegedly stands for (and I say allegedly because so much of what fuels opposition to the Church is ignorant hogwash) get in the way of this country's defense of liberty?
Will Obama successfully couch this as a women's rights issue when in reality it's freedom's right to be recognized and affirmed?
It's time to choose sides. We are literally at a crossroads. More people are recognizing this as each day passes but not enough to quash what it is Obama and his minions are attempting.
What side are you on? Will you believe the lies or will you affirm the truth? Or putting it more bluntly, is your ability to recognize truth still existent?
I hope so. For all our sakes and the sake of the future of this country.
Crossposted at Wizbang.
Dr. David Anders chronicles his journey from Catholic basher to enthusiastic Catholic. Good stuff:
I grew up an Evangelical Protestant in Birmingham, Alabama. My parents were loving and devoted, sincere in their faith, and deeply involved in our church. They instilled in me a respect for the Bible as the Word of God, and a desire for a living faith in Christ. Missionaries frequented our home and brought their enthusiasm for their work. Bookshelves in our house were filled with theology and apologetics. From an early age, I absorbed the notion that the highest possible calling was to teach the Christian faith. I suppose it is no surprise that I became a Church historian, but becoming a Catholic was the last thing I expected.
My family’s church was nominally Presbyterian, but denominational differences meant very little to us. I frequently heard that disagreements over baptism, the Lord’s Supper, or church government were unimportant as long as one believed the Gospel. By this we meant that one should be “born again,” that salvation is by faith alone, and that the Bible is the sole authority for Christian faith. Our church supported the ministries of many different Protestant denominations, but the one group we certainly opposed was the Catholic Church.
The myth of a Protestant “recovery” of the Gospel was strong in our church. I learned very early to idolize the Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin, because they supposedly had rescued Christianity from the darkness of medieval Catholicism. Catholics were those who trusted in “good works” to get them to heaven, who yielded to tradition instead of Scripture, and who worshipped Mary and the saints instead of God. Their obsession with the sacraments also created an enormous impediment to true faith and a personal relationship with Jesus. There was no doubt. Catholics were not real Christians.
Our church was characterized by a kind of confident intellectualism. Presbyterians tend to be quite theologically minded, and seminary professors, apologists, scientists, and philosophers were frequent speakers at our conferences. It was this intellectual atmosphere that had attracted my father to the church, and his bookshelves were lined with the works of the Reformer John Calvin, and the Puritan Jonathan Edwards, as well as more recent authors like B.B. Warfield, A.A. Hodge, C.S. Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer. As a part of this academic culture, we took it for granted that honest inquiry would lead anyone to our version of Christian faith.
All of these influences left definite impressions on me as a child. I came to see Christianity as somewhat akin to Newtonian physics. The Christian faith consisted in certain eminently reasonable and immutable laws, and you were guaranteed eternal life provided you constructed your life according to these principles. I also thought this was the message clearly spelled out in the official textbook of Christian theology: the Bible. Only mindless trust in human tradition or depraved indifference could possibly explain anyone’s failure to grasp these simple truths.
There was one strange irony in this highly religious and theological atmosphere...
Fascinating story of one who was staunchly critical to now one who is staunchly a defender of the Catholic faith.
Read the whole thing.
Sarah Hoyt is ranting righteously at her female Facebook friends and those who think (or more like emote) like them. It's good stuff:
Hold on to your hats, girls and boys, because I’m at full simmer and about to whistle.
Over the last few days it’s been impossible for me to log on to Face Book without being assaulted by postings on the “Republicans War On Women” from my female Face Book Friends most of whom are educated and many of whom work in a profession that, at least in broad theory, requires them to have the capacity for original or individual thought.
These posts, besides being headlined that idiotic way then go on to be cute. And, guys and girls, I HATE cute. I despise cute when the subject at hand is serious. And this is serious.
Let me see, the cutest ones are the picture of a pregnant woman that says something like “only a woman can decide” and the picture of a bunch of nineteenth century crones called “the panel on Viagra.”
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, but particularly ladies – if one can call you that – please engage brain before waggling fingers on keyboard.
For various reasons, but mostly because it’s really bad for women – do you want to argue facts? Like increased risk of cancer? Like major surgical procedure? Like the fact that 90% of fetuses aborted are female? Like the fact that psychologically it pretty much surrenders our armament in the war of the sexes? (And I can argue the last one at length, trust me. And don’t think you’re above it, you’re NOT. You’ve just been sold a bill of goods) – I am in general opposed to abortion. This does not mean I want it made illegal. I don’t want murder to be illegal either.
My opposition manifests itself in that if I know a young lady is contemplating abortion, I offer to adopt the child. None has taken me up on this yet, but there’s always hope. (And for those who know me, yes, that is entirely self-serving as I’d like another child or three.)
As for contraception, I don’t use it, but this is neither here nor there as I have the fertility rate of a small rock in the Sahara and both my sons are miracle babies – and even at my age I’d love another miracle. I’m not in general opposed to it for other people. By not opposed, I don’t mean just that I don’t want to ban it: I mean I wouldn’t cross the street to dissuade someone from using it. In fact, if you’re young and unmarried, (or young in spirit – infantile, you could say – like the people posting about the “Republican War On Women) by all means, make sure you’re fully protected against pregnancy.
But no one is discussing banning contraceptives or even abortion. The contraceptive issue was introduced in a Republican debate by George “Supine” Stephanopoulos as a means of painting Republicans as being against contraceptives.
It’s clear Mr. “Mouthpiece” Stephanopoulos had been given a heads up to the coming, completely artificial controversy – that of institutions owned by Catholic churches being forced to provide contraceptives AND abortifacient pills to their women employees, via their coverage.
(Mind you, to all the “progressive” Catholics who have been cheering on the Obamacare power grab, I HOPE this serves as a wake up call that you can’t make partway deals with the devil. Also, that if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with yersinia pestis carrying fleas.)The republicans PROPERLY have pointed out this is a violation of the freedom of religion secured to us by the constitution. BUT because they oppose taking the founding document of the United States out in the backyard and screwing it like a two bit whore, they’re being accused of starting a war on women.
Because, the Catholic church changed its doctrine yesterday, to refuse you free contraceptives, ladies. Yep, that’s the truth. And those mean, nasty, awful Republicans are conniving with the mean, evil nasty papists. And, yep, they are going to refuse to pay for your contraceptives EVEN IF YOU DON’T work for them, as the vast majority of women who in the US don’t. How nasty is that?
What kind of enormous, unyielding, painful daddy issues have you got to have to think that Uncle Sam has to force a CHURCH to pay for your contraception? Are you really that infantile? That conflicted about your sexual being? Society must cover your contraception because… you were born with a vagina and that makes you speshul? Because that absolves you of your guilt in having sex? Society must provide for your abortions because… then it’s not your fault?
Poor wittle girly-girls. Did the devil make you do it?
And this is a war on women because…
She's not finished. Go and finish with her.
With props to Matteo who is missed around these parts.
... you know who you are:
The mother of a seven-year-old boy was told to sign a school form admitting he was racist after he asked another pupil about the colour of his skin.
Elliott Dearlove had asked a five-year-old boy in the playground whether he was ‘brown because he was from Africa’.
His mother, Hayley White, 29, said she received a phone call last month to say her son had been at the centre of a ‘racist incident’.
She was then summoned to a meeting with Elliott, his teacher and the deputy head of Griffin Primary School in Hull.
Ms White, an NHS healthcare assistant, said: ‘When I arrived at the school and asked Elliott what had happened, he became extremely upset.
'He kept saying to me, “I was just asking a question. I didn’t mean it to be nasty” and he was extremely distressed by it all.’
Ms White claimed she was asked at the meeting to read a copy of the school rules and in particular its zero-tolerance policy on racism.
‘I was told I would have to sign a form acknowledging my son had made a racist remark which would be submitted to the local education authority for further investigation,’ she said.
‘I refused to sign it and I told the teacher in no way did I agree the comment was racist. My son is inquisitive. He always likes to ask questions, but that doesn’t make him a racist.’
We really can't be surprised by this... and though it occured in England, given the idiots so prevalant on this side of the pond, it could just as easily happen here.
Yes... thank you race-baiting idiots.
Tomorrow will be two weeks since we first received the news. Two weeks of ups and downs, of highs and lows, of thinking good things and bad things.
My prairie woman remains strong and hopeful, buoyed by her faith and family, her inner strength giving others strength, her outer calm relaying a message to those that love her that all will be well.
We've both been uplifted by small things. A reassuring hug and confident prayer given by our priest last week. A snail mail note sent by someone at the church who beat this same diagnosis some years ago. Quick words of encouragement from family and friends at opportune times.
We've also been carried by much bigger things. Being told repeatedly by members of the RCIA leadership team that they're praying for us. Scheduling to meet our priest on Tuesday for the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. Meeting Christ in Holy Communion and asking Him for healing as His cells meet our own in the mystery that is the Eucharist.
It's all so interesting and personally awe-inspiring given that less than two years ago, we were in essence homeless spiritually. No church to draw strength from, no church to call home, no body of believers from which to be comforted or consoled.
Yet today, facing what is undoubtedly the biggest challenge of our lives, we belong to a body that acts as if we've been there all along.
I write this post for a variety of reasons.
One, to give folks a bit of an update. Two, to let people know we continue to covet your prayers (and to express here and now how much we appreciate them). But really, in the end, I write this to encourage those of you who aren't connected to a local body of believers to get connected.
Some of you may be feeling like you don't belong. Some of you might be facing challenges and trials that are scary, even paralyzing. Not belonging while facing frightening stuff is just something I can't fathom dealing with.
Find a body. Christ is there. My preference is a Catholic church where literally Christ's presence is real and tangible but I'm a little biased.
Bottom line is don't face these things alone.
Belong... and know hope.
"... that a presidential administration has purposely tried to interfere in the internal working of the Catholic Church, playing one group off against another for political gain. What isn’t always understood is that the Bishops of the Church make no attempt to speak for all Catholics; they never have. The Bishops speak for the Catholic and apostolic faith, and those who hold that faith gather around them. Others disperse. That dynamic is clear in history and became clear also in the official visit to Rome that the Bishops of our region made this week.
Our visit has reminded us that the Church enjoys divine assistance even when she is being attacked."
Someone should ask the President what he thinks about this first.
Someone should ask Nancy Pelosi, the Catholic Nancy Pelosi, what she thinks.
Someone should ask Kathleen Sebelius, the Catholic Kathleen Sebelius, what she thinks.
Don't hold your breath.
H/T to Wheat&Weeds.
Crossposted at Wizbang.
Peter Sean Bradley at Lex Communis:
Why knowing history is important.
Having recently read books on the Kulturkampf and the Nazi state's relationship with the German Catholic Church, I am struck by the fact that every single move in the Obama administration's effort to sweep Catholicism from the public stage has happened before.
The Obama's administration's argument that Catholic conscience and practice is protected only when it involves the administration of the sacraments to Catholics? The Nazis made the same distinction for the same purpose, namely to eliminate Catholic influence in "political" life. See this and this.
The Obama's administration use of Catholics who identify themselves as Democrat or liberal or progressive first, and Catholic second?That is a gambit, again, right out of Nazi Germany.
The intrusion of state power and politics into every facet of life so that dissenting from the State's policies on maters of conscience is made into a risky "political" decision? The Nazis, again.
Using State power to suppressing Catholic moral doctrines on the grounds that such doctrines are "superstitious"? The German Kulturkampf - a period of oppression and persecution initiated and sustained by German liberals.
Ludicrous you might be saying. Outrageously Godwin-ian. Far-fetched rightwing outlandishness.
To which I say... I hope you're right. I genuinely do.
The Army is ordering its hardened combat veterans to wear fake breasts and empathy bellies so they can better understand how pregnant soldiers feel during physical training.
This week, 14 noncommissioned officers at Camp Zama took turns wearing the “pregnancy simulators” as they stretched, twisted and exercised during a three-day class that teaches them to serve as fitness instructors for pregnant soldiers and new mothers.
Army enlisted leaders all over the world are being ordered to take the Pregnancy Postpartum Physical Training Exercise Leaders Course, or PPPT, according to U.S. Army Medical Activity Japan health promotion educator Jana York.
Developed by the Army in 2008, the course includes aerobics classes, pool sessions and classroom studies on the physiology of pregnant women. The NCOs learn special exercises for pregnant women, who shouldn’t push themselves too hard or participate in high-impact activities such as snowboarding, bungee jumping or horse riding, York said.
During the training, each NCO must wear the pregnancy simulator for at least an hour.
“When they first come in, the males are typically timid and don’t feel they have the knowledge to teach female soldiers,” she said. “However, after three days their confidence rises.”
Slowly but surely, America fades.
Via Mark Shea who adds:
One of our troops sent me that. He was… not pleased by this dumb piece of lefty sensitivity awareness raising being jammed down the throats of helpless soldiers.
Those times seem to be slipping away at an alarming rate:
I cannot imagine the black heart of a man (or, alas, a woman) who struts before a simple little family, and steals their child away. That person, we would say, should be hauled before a court of law and then be banished from civil society. He – she – should be granted plenty of spare time to think again about the cruelty, while staring at the blank walls of a prison cell. How much worse it is, however, when the abduction involves an entire social organism: the long arm of a dull-witted and compliant police force, the convoluted brains of a corrupt judiciary, and the seething metaphysical hatred burning in the heart of politicians, who cannot abide a single little reproach, not even in the form of a happy little boy, against their claims to know what is best for everyone. So far from repenting in sackcloth and ashes, the Swedish thugs have compounded their sin by breaking their own laws, denying the Johanssons their right to choose their own legal counsel. The Swedish education domina has even written, openly, brazenly, that all homeschooled children should be abducted.
Back in the days when Swedes were men, not sheep, they raided the coasts of Europe in their long ships, burning and looting. Oh for the Vikings of old! For when they had either loaded their ship with your tribute or razed your village to the ground, they left, to enjoy their spoils; and you could go on living your life without interference, with your cow and a couple of chickens, and a field for corn and potatoes, and children, whom you would love and raise by your best lights, as mothers and fathers have done since the dawn of the human race.
And now, from the far whale-road of the Northmen, and the wintry binding of the waves, my mind returns, with the cry of a sea-bird, to my own native land. And I see something like the same misshapen hulk I saw moving across the arctic fens, now battening in warmer climes.
There was a time when certain things were considered holy. The family was holy: it was a realm of order and authority and love, not to be burst into by marauding benefactors. “A man’s home is his castle,” went the saying, meaning that the home, for father and mother and children, is as an independent dukedom, with its own traditions, its laws, its bonds of loyalty, its wisdom, and its hard-won wealth. So long as no crimes against God and man were committed, that castle was to be honored; for upon such families the whole social order was founded. One would no sooner set spies in the home to rat on mother and father, as the Soviets did, than one would burn down a church. It is not simply that one would refrain from abducting a child, as the Swedish government has done. One would not wish even to associate with someone who could conceive of so vile a thing.
The whole thing should be read and understood not so much for what it means across the pond but for what it portends right here at home.
The ideology that led to what took place in that piece is the ideology in power right here in the U.S. of A.
Recognize it.
And fight it with every breath.
Paul Rahe at Richochet on Obama's HHS decision:
On the face of it, President Obama would appear to be shooting himself in the foot. Why would he risk losing the Catholic vote? One could, of course, argue that his aim was to excite the feminists and give them a reason to turn out in November. As a rationale, however, even this seems a bit lame. The benefit that the President proposes to provide is insubstantial. The administration’s claim to the contrary notwithstanding, the pill and other birth control devices are not free. But the expense involved is not great. Among those who are employed and have healthcare insurance, no one is hard put to come up with the paltry sum required.
This suggests that there can be only one reason why Sebelius, Pelosi, and Obama decided to proceed. They wanted to show the bishops and the Catholic laity who is boss. They wanted to make those who think contraception wrong and abortion a species of murder complicit in both. They wanted to rub the noses of their opponents in it. They wanted to marginalize them. Humiliation was, in fact, their only aim, and malice, their motive.
Last week, when, in response to the fierce resistance he had deliberately stirred up, the President offered the bishops what he called “an accommodation,” what he proffered was nothing more than a fig leaf. His maneuver was, in fact, a gesture of contempt, and I believe that it was Barack Obama’s final offer. From his perspective and from that of Sebelius and Pelosi, the genuine Catholics still within the Democratic coalition are no more than what Vladimir Lenin called “useful idiots,” and, now that the progressive project is near completion, they are expendable – for there is no longer any need to curry their favor.
He's got more.
Bottom line is that the Left, as represented by the Obama, Pelosi, Sebelius wing, have utter contempt for anyone, but particularly faithful Catholics, they see to be roadblocks to their agenda.
Utter contempt.
And two of the three stooges call themselves Catholic and love to tell us how virtuous and tolerant they truly are.
Complete and total bovine fecal matter.
Thanks to Glenn for the find.
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