Kudos!

You will notice that this blog includes several blogrolls with links to bloggers, all of whom, to my knowledge, support a 'culture of life'. Some of these sites excel at educating about the realities of abortion for both woman and child.

Catholic Fire has posted a great example of this life advocacy !

Well done I say!

Cultural Melting Pot - NOT

Members of the 'religion of peace' express themselves in downtown FT. Lauderdale, Florida. They speak for themselves:




A bit puzzling, is the way that the liberal hordes have put their stamp of approval on these protests, and their cause - which according to the cleric in the video, is the conversion of everybody to Islam.

I'm not sure the demonstration was the best way to convert.

Thanks to Tom Trento for the live filming and commentary.

Gaza Christmas War in Perspective

MARK STEYN
"Clashing Civilizations"

So how was your holiday season? Over in Gaza, whether or not they’re putting the Christ back in Christmas, they’re certainly putting the crucifixion back in Easter. According to the London-based Arabic newspaper al Hayat, on December 23rd Hamas legislators voted to introduce Sharia — Islamic law — to the Palestinian Territories, including crucifixion. So next time you’re visiting what my childhood books still quaintly called “the Holy Land,” the re-enactments might be especially lifelike....

....when President Sarkozy and other European critics bemoan Israel’s “disproportionate” response, what really are they saying? That they expect better from the despised Jews than from Hamas. That they regard Israel as a western society bound by civilized norms, whereas any old barbarism issuing forth from Gaza is to be excused on grounds of “desperation”. Hence, this slightly surreal headline from The New York Times: “Israel Rejects Cease-Fire, But Offers Gaza Aid.” For whatever that’s worth. Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, a young Palestinian woman who received considerate and exemplary treatment at an Israeli hospital in Beersheva, returned to that same hospital packed with explosives in order to blow herself up and kill the doctors and nurses who restored her to health. Well, what do you expect? It’s “desperation” born of “poverty” and “occupation”.

If it was, it would be easy to fix. But what if it’s not? What if it’s about something more primal than land borders and economic aid?.....

Happy New Year Colby! (UPDATE)

I haven't been following that closely over Christmas, and perhaps Colby Cosh thought nobody else would be reading the National Post either. He was wrong! His anti-religious 'pro-lifers are hypocritical' rant provoked some responses!

Scott Gilbreath points out Cosh's bad memory. For good measure he links to Cosh's public error in the summer, and the upbraiding he received then.

Meanwhile, in the National Post's own blog Charles Lewis pokes more holes in Cosh's 'argument'.

And Suzanne Fortin has further refutation of Colby Cosh's blatherings at BigBlueWave .

Can't be much left of the poor fellow. I hate to state the obvious, but this kind of obtuse denial of facts in favour of political ideology is stupid.

UPDATE: Cosh can't stop hurting himself! Check out his comment thread on Scott Gilbreath's article. (You'd think if the guy was going to cite St. Jerome, he'd read him first!!)

Bit By Bit

South Carolina is still struggling to bring full information to all women seeking abortions. Abortion advocates (i.e. getting paid to provide) keep throwing out the 'curtailing women's rights' red herring, every time information is improved.

Do women not have the right to know what they are doing, and what the effect of their actions will be? DO women's services providers doubt the reasoning abilities of women? (Are they afraid of losing business...?)

Hypocrisy. Self-serving hypocrisy.

Happy 2009!

Thank-you for your interest over the last year. What started out as an experiment in blogging has become a 'culture of life' project. Please continue to support life wherever and whenever you can.

If anyone cares to make suggestions for improving this site, or any comment at all, please do!

Hope you all have a truly blessed 2009!

pax, Loretta Westin

Catholic Carnival #205

Up at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering.
Sarah has woven it all together around the theme of a Christmas Rosary-Glorious,of course!

Supporting Missionaries

Catholic Company has a project underway that supports the missionariy efforts of the M.O.P.:

"Thank you for the books and the Bibles... We have begun teaching the Catechism to our brothers, who in turn will teach our poor. I will also send copies to our communities in Africa, the Philippines, India and Haiti. I am glad that so many of the faithful are helping and supporting our need to evangelize the poor." "This project is a true blessing. We really pray that The Catholic Company will continue to evangelize the world!" - Father Richard Ho Lung, founder of the Missionaries of the Poor

Teachers and Preachers - "The Fathers"

Reading Pope Benedict's book "The Fathers" was (almost) like being there for his series of talks in person. (Of course, with the book I can re-read them at will!)

There was a lot to think about in this volume of studies on the early church leaders. A consistent theme of courage and forthrightness in the face of dissension and heresy, seems to be just as relevant to today's Catholics. Its encouraging to know that the Church has always been able to ultimately overcome these obstacles to love and conversion.

The Holy Father highlights the main struggles of the earliest Fathers, and their writings (future reading?). He threads their work together with a teacher's voice, and shows us the consistency and solid foundation of Christ's Body that we sometimes are not so aware of.

I highly recommend this well written and illuminating book to any Christian interested in understanding 'where we come from'. Its a good introduction to deeper study of the Church as Christ began it.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on The Fathers.

Coming Soon To A Gov't Repressing You

Brussels Journal:

Communism seems on the verge of conquering Germany. Individual former Marxist-Leninists already occupy high positions in the Federal Republic of Germany. Now it looks increasingly likely that the Left Party, the successor of the East German Communist Party, might be in government in the foreseeable future.

Dieter Althaus, 50, is the Christian-Democrat prime minister of the German state of Thuringia. Before 1990, when Thuringia was part of Communist East Germany, Herr Althaus was a teacher at a Thuringian high school. Last October the German media published a letter which Herr Althaus sent to the Communist leadership on 9 November 1989, ironically the very day when the Berlin Wall fell, in the evenings. In the letter he advocated that in preparation of their “youth consecration”, a secular coming of age ceremony for 14-year olds in Communist East Germany, the children should be indoctrinated more strictly with Marxist-Leninist ideology. His ardent Marxist-Leninist fervor did not prevent Herr Althaus from becoming the Christian-Democrat leader of his state....(much more)

Anybody wondering why homeschooling is illegal? Read 'Animal Farm' lately? Have any knowledge of recent German history? WAKE UP PEOPLE! (I know, everybody has to suffer first - its human nature to be stupid, and THEN cry.)

..and I'm not just talking to the Europeans. The machinations supporting 'global government' are coming from the same place. The 'post democracy' place, where personal freedom is trumped by 'papa gov't', and its spreading like cholera. (They all drink the same water...)

Noah's Ark (Nearly) Lifesize Replica

Filed under interesting....!



Replica of Noah's Ark built by a Dutch contractor.
It was built approximately to scale, however is 1/2 the length and 1/3 the width of the Biblical dimensions. It was built to show the world how massive the Ark was and how so many animals could have been housed for a long time.

8 Christmas Columns

From eight great writers at LifeSiteNews!



Also, a run-down of the pro-life events surrounding next months 'March For Life' in Washington.

"What Would You Do?"

Lorne Gunter:

Suppose you lived in the Toronto suburb of Don Mills and people from the suburb of Scarborough -- about 10 kilometres away -- were firing as many as 100 rockets a day into your yard, your kids' school, the strip mall down the street and your dentist's office...

(h/t Great Pumpkin)

The Enemy Is Among Us

And financed by gov't 'minority' grants ....

Washington Times

KUHNER - "Papal Denunciation?"

...Yet the real issue is not the pope's supposed homophobia. It is his critics' blatant Christophobia - their rabid hatred and fanatical intolerance of basic Christian teachings. The pope is not opening some new offensive against homosexuality; he is simply restating basic Catholic doctrine based on scripture and the church's vast, accumulated intellectual heritage.

Pope Benedict opposes gay marriage not due to some burning homophobia, but for the same reason the church has for centuries: marriage and the traditional family are the bedrock institutions of any viable, functioning society. Same-sex marriage represents a fundamental assault on the very pillars of social order. The Catholic Church, as the defender and driving force of Western civilization, has a moral and religious duty to protect the sacred nature of the family....

...The debate about same-sex marriage has nothing to do with “gay rights.” Homosexuals are free to do anything they like in the privacy of their bedrooms. The relentless push for gay marriage is not about tolerance, but the legitimization of homosexual behavior - to place it beyond the boundaries of moral disapproval and social ostracism. To accomplish this, the liberal elite seek to marginalize the great traditional religions, especially Christendom's most powerful defender, the Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict understands this, which is why he continues to courageously speak out in defense of human dignity and the sanctity of the family. He is neither politically on the right or the left. He has opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, championed the rights of the unborn and the poor, criticized the inequalities of “jungle capitalism,” and railed against Islamist terror and the degradation of the environment. Above all, however, he has carried the banner of peace and civilized, rational dialogue. He repeatedly - and unequivocally - has said the Christian injunction is to love the sinner but hate the sin.

Now the pope's enemies deliberately twist his words to demonize him. There is not a hateful bone in his body. To caricature him as a homophobe, never mind as calling for a jihad against gays and lesbians, is not only dishonest but pathetic. They cannot defeat him intellectually or morally and so must resort to ad hominem attacks...

An excellent article. Reading the comments was also illuminating. Its good to know who's out there working hard against freedom - it isn't the Pope!

"40 Weeks vs A Lifetime"

David Dominguez makes a good point about what's in the balance, when discussing the 'rubrik of human value' - woman vs child.

I know, I know. I'm a man, not a woman. I don't understand what pregnancy is like, and I never will. I'm not claiming I do, nor minimizing the drama and trauma a woman endures in a normal pregnancy and delivery, let alone a childbirth complicated by medical issues. Pregnancy and delivery involve a lot more than watching 40 weeks pass. Of course, an abortion involves a lot more than a mere removal of tissue, to be sure, although few abortion advocates want to talk about this.

The fact is, a pregnant woman faces mental and physical trauma either way, whether she delivers her baby or has an abortion.

Another fact is that a pregnant woman who does not wish to raise her baby has no obligation to do so, and never has. With countless couples longing to adopt a child, even an unhealthy one, it's amazing to me that any woman sees no option but to abort an unwanted baby.

Isn't it funny how different people are when they have to account for their actions face to face, rather than being able to do what they want without explanation? I have found that the "toughest" person, by this world's standards, often becomes nervous, vague, and shifty when faced with an eyeball to eyeball reckoning for his actions. The tough talk in front of his peers disappears in an instant before even the most unassuming and non-threatening questioner.

How different would the abortion debate be if someone choosing an abortion had to explain the choice to the baby, or more intimidating still, to the adult that baby would eventually grow into? Or, even, to the preschooler that baby would be in just a few years?

How would you explain to someone that, for the sake of 40 weeks out of my adult life, you can't have any life at all? (And, no, the fact that I freely received my own mother's 40 weeks makes no difference...)

Who would make such a claim to someone who could respond?

Who would accept the short end of such a trade-off, in any area of life?

For that matter, how many abortion advocates would accept the short end of that stick? I daresay they would run for relief to the same court that gave them Roe v. Wade.

40 weeks vs. a lifetime.

I just don't get it.

I don't get it either. Sacrifice, no matter how definitively limited, is not taught as a 'good' in today's society. It is taught as something to be avoided at all costs...including the cost of a life altering and traumatic 'procedure' such as an abortion. There's a lack of reason involved.

Is this the same 'lack' that denies the existence of God?

Culture Wars

To put it mildly!

RSNews:

Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seemed to have noticed. On Tuesday Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Sharia criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, the code legalizes crucifixion.
Hamas's endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time as it renewed its jihad. Here too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn't neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday Hamas lobbed a mortar at Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas.

While Hamas joyously renewed its jihad against Jews and Christians, its overlords in Iran also basked in jihadist triumphalism. The source of Iran's sense of ascendancy this week was Britain's state-owned Channel 4 network's decision to request that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give a special Christmas Day address to the British people. Ahmadinejad's speech was supposed to be a response to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional Christmas Day address to her subjects. That is, Channel 4 presented his message as a reasonable counterpoint to the Christmas greetings of the head of the Church of England.

Channel 4 justified its move by proclaiming that it was providing a public service. As a Channel 4 spokesman told the Jerusalem Post, "We're offering [Ahmadinejad] the chance to speak for himself, which people in the West don't often get the chance to see.....

But they didn't think the Sharia legalization of CRUCIFIXION was noteworty? No comments on how this is going to play out in Lebanon, for example? WHAT THE HELL!!!

Carnival of Recipes

Just in time for New Year's!

Cranberry Punch
Black-Eyed Peas
Velveeta Cheese Dip
Chicken and Corn Casserole
Feasting Dieting Can Go Together
Barbecued Spicy Turkey Burgers
Crockpot Corny Ham & Potato Scallop
Pumpkin Fudge
New York Times Recipes
Fresh Tomato Soup Recipe

.....and many, many more! Happy Cooking!!

Man of the Year ...Isn't

David Warren:

For my last Sunday column of anno MMVIII, I will announce my selection for “Man of the Year.” It was, as most, a year of thin choices in the public and political realm. Once again, Al Gore did not make my list of finalists.

I didn’t like any of the newly-elected presidents, either: not Asif Ali Zardari, “Mr. Ten Percent” of Pakistan; nor Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian place-holder; nor Ma Ying-jeou, the smooth compromiser of independent Taiwan; nor Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana (if he has indeed won); nor even Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe (who won the election, but did not become president); or Barack Obama of the United States (who won but is not yet installed).

I have invested no hope in any of them, and thus must hope to be surprised.

Among Time magazine’s rival list of candidates, I was immediately able to eliminate Steve Jobs, Bruce Springsteen, George Clooney, Rem Koolhaas, “Brad and Angelina,” Oprah Winfrey, and even Laura Bush’s library-science nominee, the Afghan novelist Khaled Hosseini—along with several dozen others among the world’s current, media-recognized, “leaders and revolutionaries, heroes and pioneers, scientists and thinkers, artists and entertainers, builders and titans,” to say nothing of their chefs. (I noticed that nobody nominated Bernie Madoff.)

I also consulted the “100 most beautiful people” of People magazine...

Read the rest....I'm not divulging!

Remember The Children...

(h/t pro-life NZ)

Holy Innocents

(Rankin Sisters- Cape Breton, Nova Scotia)

Lully, Lullay, thou little tiny child.
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay thou little tiny child
Bye, bye, lully, lullay

O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing
Bye, bye lully, lullay

Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

Then woe is me, poor child, for thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye lully, lullay.

This beautiful English lullaby carol originated in the Coventry Corpus Christi Mystery Plays performed in the 15th century. In a play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, the women of Bethlehem sing this song just before Herod's soldiers come to slaughter their children. It tells the story of the murder of the Holy Innocents, and is sung on December 28, the feast of those tiny martyrs.