Shakin' My Head!

The National Posthas a perfect example of what happens when liberals are given their head - you find out there's nothing in it...

"According to Statistics Canada, a fifth of teens are not using protection during their first time, and that means sex educators are not resonating with young adults and so should consider a more "nuanced" approach, said Terry Humphreys, assistant professor of psychology at Trent University...
...During a presentation called Pleasure-Based Education for Youth, Carlyle Jansen, founder of Good For Her, a Toronto sex shop, and fellow retailer Renee Pilgrim drew the ire of their peers after they whipped out an enormous brown dildo and a plush, purple puppet shaped like an equally colossal vulva...
...Ms. Pilgrim paraded it around while Ms. Jansen illustrated how to fit a condom on the dildo --using her mouth; then the women shared tips for using the female condom.
They are just some of the explicit how-tos that the women are shopping around at Toronto high schools, universities and community centres as part of the Good for Her Sexual Health Education and Pleasure Project..."

Oh Yeah. I want MY kids to be taught about sex by these guys! "Hey kids, would you rather learn about chastity, or hear some titillating sexual details while watching role playing using velvet puppets?" Duh! (Actually, I have no doubt my kids would leave the room!)

I think our(family) method is working out a bit better:

1)Know and Love God, and appreciate the value He gives you.

2)Learn to reason, so that you can, when ready, compare your handed down tradition (it helps if there is one) with your own personal experiences and accept (or reject) them on your own terms. (In other words, own them.)

3)Don't look for a girlfriend unless you're ready to get married.No dating before you are 18!(This one was established by the oldest, and maintained by the sibling pecking order - thus far!)

We keep very close watch over our children. We know their friends' families. They go out mostly in pairs (or more). We have standards of purity that are often discussed and debated - and mostly maintained. (Includes movies,speech and clothing, as well as attitudes towards self and others.)We teach respect for life from day 0ne. No kid has any doubt that God knows each child from conception, and loves them intensely.

Although we are likely the 'strictest' family in our immediate surroundings, the kids are well known and respected, and well liked in our community. Everybody knows them - they are very friendly and open and generous. (This is possible because they are well supervised.)They are healthy, active and happy kids.

We also send the kids, so far, to at least the first year of college at a very faithful Catholic liberal arts college, where there are plenty more kids with the same outlook on life - positive and secure in the knowledge of God's love for them.

When they leave for college, we feel we have done our part. I trust that they will maintain their relationship with God and with His church. So far so good!

I cannot perceive of a better way to prepare my children for God's purpose in their adult life, including their sexuality, than to introduce them to Him, and keep Him central to our every day. Sexuality is not an item on a menu, or a subject in school. It doesn't stand alone, separate from the reality of the rest of your life. It is an intensely intimate part of God's relationship with you. To treat it as separate, is to diminish its actual importance. Its not virginity that is the 'gift', but sexuality itself - a gift from God, and shared with God and whomever God has created for you.

Why do some people love themselves and others so little, that they try to cheapen everything important and beautiful, in the name of 'sophistication'?

I'm sorry, but a 'velvet vulva' is not sophisticated, its sophomoric. The myopic idiocy of these 'educators' blows my mind. The first thing I thought of was "They're drumming up business for Planned Parenthood!"

I think I'm right about that.

The First Great Irish 'Save'

Pope Benedict reminds us of St. Columban, and the first time the Irish saved civilization (the second time being their NO vote this week!):

"With good reason," continued the Pontiff, "he can be called a 'European' saint, because as monk, missionary and writer, he worked in several countries of Western Europe."

The Holy Father added that the monk, "along with the Irishmen of his time [...] was aware of the cultural unity of Europe." He said that the monk was the first to use the "expression 'totius Europae' (of all Europe) with reference to the presence of the Church in the Continent."


How ironic, that the Irish have now to protect themselves from Europe's unity in 'Godlessness', and by doing so, once again give Europe a chance to come to their senses - before they perform cultural 'hari kari'.

The Gay Parade

LifesiteNews lists the 52 members of Congress on the 'bipartisan' House of Rep. LGBT Equality Caucus -all Democrats, so far.

No doubt the , Republicans will rush to join the 'bound to be popular' group, dedicated to promoting homosexuality at home and abroad.

Hurrah for America! Focus on the arguably best serviced demographic in the world. They REALLY need special attention. Waste public money supporting activities that have no conceivable public benefit. Plot the demise of American society .(Well, its really a bit late for that!) Join Canada and Europe in decimating your population. (Double kudos - green AND gay) Deconstruct the family so gays won't feel left out.

They still WILL be, you know. You can't really fake it. You can legislate recognition,even preference. You can punish naysayers. But you can't really fake it . Gay's will never accomplish the familial love and security, the joining in creation with the creator, the 'two becoming one',the biologically obvious. It's impossible, and they will always come up with less. It will always be a cheap copy, doomed to disappoint.


WHY PROLONG THEIR AGONY BY ENCOURAGING PEOPLE IN BEHAVIOR THAT ULTIMATELY DESTROYS THEM? Does Congress HATE homosexuals?

Now, just to be clear, I am not recommending legislating against homosexual behavior. In reality, personal behavior of that sort, like adultery, is a personal choice. A bad choice, but a choice that God has given us - to choose love and TRUTH, or to choose 'not love'. Should the State be legislating the encouragement of bad choices?

NO.

How The Irish Saved Civilization - AGAIN!

LISBON TREATY REJECTED! HURRAH for democracy and freedom!

Naturally, since the EU requires all 27 signatures on the Lisbon Treaty - Irish rejection has scuttled it- the 'leadership' of the EU is forging ahead anyway.'We regret the Irish decision but...'

(BTW, Why did only the Irish get the vote?)

No soul-searching. No wondering why the only democratic result is a NO. Just keep on going. Maybe they can convince the Irish gov't to 'overule' the referendum. Maybe they can convince the Irish to hold referenda successively until they get the result they want. Maybe they can 'dump' Ireland, or impose sanctions.

I'm sure there's no end to totalitarian suggestions being bandied about.

But just remember...it was the Irish that understood what had to be done, and did it!

MORE:

John O'Sullivan (the Corner)
AlJazeera
Brian Cowen(Breaking News)
Paul Wells(MacLeans Blog)
Jay Anderson(proecclesia)
Telegraph
O'Donnell(Hidden Ireland)

Poetry Friday

Poetry Friday is up at Chicken Spaghetti !

HRC's- Both Sides Now

Hashing it out on radio, 'The AL & Mike Show' with 'Dr. Dawg'

Live Stream at Western Standard Radio 7:30pm Eastern/ 4:30 Pacific

Leader of the Lost - OBAMA

A disturbing article by Mark Morford of SFGate gives me the heebie jeebies!:

"Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul..." (h/t custos fidei)

These people are SO DESPERATE to find something to believe in, so long as they don't have to believe in reality! Luckily , God will still be there for them when they 'come down'.

Every time I read one of these stories, I can't help but think of Michael O'Brien's 'Father Elijah'... (NOW would be a great time to make that into a movie! Hey, I think I know somebody who has a screenplay...)

Hateful

Fr. Raymond de Souza wonders "When Did the Bible Become 'Hate-Speech'?":


"Four years ago, I wrote an article entitled "Thinly Disguised Totalitarianism" for the religious journal First Things, surveying the erosion of Canadian religious liberty under various regulatory bodies, professional associations and human rights tribunals. I wrote then that "there are no restrictions on freedom of worship in Canada today." That's no longer true.

As Ezra Levant details below, the Stephen Boissoin case is an egregious assault on religious liberty, press freedom and freedom of speech. And for those of us who previously underestimated the threat to religious liberty, it serves as a rude correction..." (h/t the black kettle)

IMO..all the hate is coming in one direction, toward those who desire freedom, the kind of freedom God offers us, based on love. They hate us, because we know we are loved, and we love others.

Love is a very dangerous opposition for facists. Normal fear mongering doesn't work against love!

"Facism Has Come to Canada"

Catholic Insight editor, Fr. Alphonse de Valk, writes:

"Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian – a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer. The activity of the United Nations in recent years has ensured that public debate gives space to viewpoints inspired by a religious vision in all its dimensions, including ritual, worship, education, dissemination of information and the freedom to profess and choose religion. It is inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves—their faith—in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one’s rights. The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature. The full guarantee of religious liberty cannot be limited to the free exercise of worship, but has to give due consideration to the public dimension of religion, and hence to the possibility of believers playing their part in building the social order.

Indeed, they actually do so, for example, through their influential and generous involvement in a vast network of initiatives which extend from Universities, scientific institutions and schools to health care agencies and charitable organizations in the service of the poorest and most marginalized. Refusal to recognize the contribution to society that is rooted in the religious dimension and in the quest for the Absolute—by its nature, expressing communion between persons—would effectively privilege an individualistic approach, and would fragment the unity of the person."

Letter from a Faithful Man

Chris Coatney, Life Advocate - Detroit :

"Black folks have told me I don't know what it's like to be a black person growing up in white America. True enough, but they don't know what it's like to be a white man trying to stop black folks from killing their babies. Tell me, Janice, do you know any black folks who are cussed out, hollered at, spit upon, assaulted by white folks, and have the police called on them for trying to save white babies? You'd think they would appreciate a white man who cared about their children. I'm sure there are white folks who would kill these babies for free if given the opportunity."

Fatherhood

studiO'brien has a timely article putting Fatherhood in perspective:

"Human fatherhood gives us an anticipation of what He is. But when this fatherhood does not exist, when it is experienced only as a biological phenomenon, without its human and spiritual dimension, all statements about God the Father are empty. The crisis of fatherhood we are living today is an element, perhaps the most important, threatening man in his humanity. The dissolution of fatherhood and motherhood is linked to the dissolution of our being sons and daughters."(Pope Benedict XVI)

Uh Huh...

Are those kangaroos...or very large rats?


(lifted from small dead animals)

LISBON TREATY - VOTE NO!

Catholic Carnival #176

Catholic Carnival #176 is up at Living Catholicism! Family, Society, Government, Church ... the whole Catholic Life!

For The Love of Them

Loving our neighbor can be difficult, even unappreciated and unpopular. In some countries (Canada springs to mind) maybe even illegal - at the least, punishable. Christian love involves the TRUTH, and the TRUTH is not welcome in the world of same-sex marriage and homosexual activism.

(LifesiteNews):

"After illegal Gay Pride marches went ahead in Moscow earlier this month, homosexualist activists are condemning the Russian Orthodox Church for asserting Christian teaching on sexuality and suggesting that homosexual people do not have to live the 'gay lifestyle'.
One member of the Orthodox Church, Father Vsevolod Chaplin, recently said of homosexuals, in an interview with newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, 'Such people are deeply unhappy'.
'I know it from confessions and numerous life stories. It's not by chance that they die earlier and there're more suicides, drug addicts and alcoholics among them,' he said...
'The Church lovingly accepts everyone, including those who have passion for people of the same sex. But just because she loves them, she says unisexual love is a sin. A destructive sin,' said Fr. Chaplin..."

Not Christian

Video by Jorge Swaby, exposing Cayman's policy to support Castro. I'm assuming the rationale has to do with trade opportunities, but maybe that's naive. Interesting that Cayman still has this 'on the books' at the same time as it is seemingly SO concerned with 'human rights'. Or maybe the 'human rights' discussion is just a trade off for 'unrevealed' benefits as well...self interest puts things in perspective.

(thanks for the tip, Laurie)

"Science and the Left"

Yuval Levin dispels the myth :

"A casual observer of American politics in recent years could be forgiven for imagining that the legitimacy of scientific inquiry and empirical knowledge are under assault by the right, and that the left has mounted a heroic defense. Science is constantly on the lips of Democratic politicians and liberal activists, and is generally treated by them as a vulnerable and precious inheritance being pillaged by Neanderthals...

...But if this notion of a “war on science” tells us little about the right, it does tell us something important about the American left and its self-understanding. That liberals take attacks against their own political preferences to be attacks against science helps us see the degree to which they identify themselves—their ideals, their means, their ends, their cause, and their culture—with the modern scientific enterprise. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson seemed to speak for many when, in a speech in the course of his ill-fated campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, he called upon Democrats to make theirs “the party of science and technology.” This is a more positive (not to say less paranoid) way of expressing the deep connection between science—understood both as a way of knowing and a means to doing—and the agenda of liberalism and progressivism."

Free-Speechers Unite !

Ezra Levant tells us about a STAND UP GUY, MP and Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board,Pierre Poilievre :

"I share your frustration with the way in which politically correct know-it-alls have decided what the rest of us can and cannot think. There is a private members bill before the House to put an end to this out-of-control insanity.



I plan to vote for it, [redacted]. If there is anything else I can do, let me know...



P.S. I will choose free speech over political correctness every time."

Real Sex vs Faux Sex

Marriage (REAL MARRIAGE) puts it into perspective Christianity Today:

"The church, following the picture of sexuality throughout Scripture, has consistently taught that sex belongs smack dab in the middle of marriage. 'One can say that in Christianity's vocabulary the only real sex is the sex that happens in a marriage,' Lauren Winner wrote in Real Sex. 'The faux sex that goes on outside marriage is not really sex at all.' Thus, a distinctly Christian argument for premarital abstinence is ontological, not utilitarian. God keeps sex in marriage as an expression of the audacious covenant that two people make, in the context of community, to be bound together exclusively and eternally—an echo of the bond between the persons of the Trinity.

Against this backdrop, premarital abstinence is all about obeying God's statutes on sexuality, trusting that his statutes are anything but arbitrary—they're an expression of God's desire to protect the integrity of the family and to see his image-bearers experience true intimacy with each other. In the end, we can trust that abstinence really does "work," because STDs, rape, broken marriages, and souls in pain have no place in a world where everyone plays by God's rules."

Congratulations!

A wonderful thing happened this weekend - Dennis Schenkel became FATHER Dennis Schenkel. Read his story at 'Vita Mea'.

(h/t Dawn Patrol)

MISSIONARIES of the POOR , Kingston

In February I visited the MOP in Kingston, Jamaica. I spent a day in their orphanage 'volunteering' before heading up the mountain for a spiritual retreat. The time with the abandoned children of Kingston was well worth the airfare.


'Bethlehem', the nursery, had 25 children, all of them severely handicapped. The MOP brothers did their best to provide loving care, but barely had the manpower to keep them fed and clean. There were absolutely no extras - no hot water for bathing, no toys or books (no place to put them, or brothers available to supervise), no trips outside, no more than the most basic nutrition. The more aware children sat in 'strollers' and had only each other for stimulation.


Of course, the children do not actually 'miss' the extras. They accept the life they have without complaint. Many of the children were more 'uncomfortable' than was necessary, due to not having money for medical improvement. Plastic surgery to shape an unwieldy tongue, for example, would improve meal time and communication. Several children had hydrocephalus, which can sometimes be helped by an operation to put in a 'shunt'. Some children would be more aware if they had access to vision aid or hearing aid.


As I was bathing , feeding and trying to make friends, I realized that these children, in their innocence of our world, had a very important role. They help us to be human. Truly human. Loving, caring, without expectation of return, aware of the benevolence of our Creator ,FULLY human. I felt sad for Jamaica - for the lack of love exposed by the childrens' neglect and abandonment by even the government (many of the children are brought to MOP by the gov't). I did not feel sad for the children. Yes, they suffer what we do not. They suffer, in a way, for our benefit - even for our redemption. But they are not miserable sufferers. They are spared much of the 'misery' of our world. I felt grateful that they had been born (which many of them certainly would not have been in Canada) and that they were requiring and accepting my love.





What is the good of 'my love'? It is joined with the Creator's love, and works to the salvation of the world - just as the childrens need is joined to Christ's Passion. The Lord does not Create a new soul to be wasted. He loves them, and for that alone they are invaluable. In as much as we reach out to His poor with our love (as needful as we may be ourselves), we are cooperating in His plan to bring us all home to Him.





We have free will. We choose. We love - or we don't.



M.O.P. RETREATS: Youth for Males : June 17-22 (18-25 yr.)
Youth for Females : June 24-29 (18-25 yr.)
Lay Adults : July 18-20



For information about MOP:


http://www.missionariesofthepoor.org/index.htm

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=084f6fd79ed6d8e24b2d

Quotable

"The problem on the left is, now that Karl Marx has forsaken them, they have no philosophy. Thank goodness. Think what evil creeps liberals would be if their plans to enfeeble the individual, exhaust the economy, impede the rule of law, and cripple national defense were guided by a coherent ideology instead of smug ignorance"
(P.J.O'Rourke)

Right Hand of God

Our parish uses the 'Worship The Lord,Jamaica' hymnal. Not exclusively, but almost. While one could easily find it wanting, today's recessional hymn brought me to tears - for Canada. Canada needs these honest, humble and God fearing prayers:

" The Right Hand of God is striking in our land,
Striking out at envy, hate and greed.
Our selfishness and lust, our pride and deeds unjust
Are destroyed by the Right Hand of God.

The Right Hand of God is healing in our land,
Healing broken bodies ,minds and souls.
So wondrous is its touch with love that means so much
When we're healed by the Right Hand of God.

The Right Hand of God is planting in our land,
Planting seeds of Freedom, hope and love.
In these (Canadian) lands, let His people all join hands,
And be one with the Right Hand of God."

Together with today's Gospel and readings, I couldn't help but reflect on how much Canada is suffering from its separation from the Right Hand of God, and how much Canada needs humility and repentance.

It doesn't seem likely, yet I'm hopeful - based solely on my confidence in His love for me, a great sinner, totally undeserving.

"Ideology By The Numbers"

Peter Schweizer's new book 'Makers and Takers' gives conservatives a statistical pep-talk:


"*Seventy-one percent of conservatives say you have an obligation to care for a seriously injured spouse or parent, versus 46 percent of liberals.
*Liberals are 2 1/2 times more likely to be resentful of others’ success and 50 percent more likely to be jealous of other people’s good luck.
*Fifty-five percent of conservatives get satisfaction from putting someone else’s happiness ahead of their own, nearly three times the number of liberals: just 20 percent.
*Young conservatives are more likely to volunteer for a charity, any kind of charity, than young liberals — although young liberals are more likely to say they have attended a protest rally.
*Fifty-nine percent of those who describe themselves as “very liberal” think it’s wrong to cheat on your spouse, compared to 86 percent of those who self-identify as “very conservative.”

You mean, conservatives are human?

WHY BILL C484

Good explanation of Bill C484.

(h/t LifesiteNews)

A Helpful Hand for Obama

Worthwhile campaign advice for Obama from Terry Michael at BOOKER RISING:

"As Democrats prepare to do battle with John McCain this fall, we need to dispel two comforting but self-defeating myths about recent failed White House campaigns. These canards are also shared by many editorial page pontificators, who ascribe 1988 and 2004 losses to crafty Republicans working their negative-advertising black magic, Willie Hortonizing Michael Dukakis and swift-boating John F. Kerry, who were either excessively noble or maybe too slow or too wimpy to fight back. Evil may have lurked in the souls of those GOP operatives, and Democratic consultants may have been constrained by nominees unwilling to dirty their hands. But it wasn’t why we lost. What the Republicans really did was to rope a couple of dopes..."


(Not that I'm anxious to help out (au contraire) but I find the commentary at BOOKER RISING, from across the political spectrum, to be fairly reasonable.)