Up To Date Coverage of Notre Dame Disgrace

CatholiCity has a new webpage up with links to up to date articles on the notre Dame scandal. Here you may find speeches and letters by Cardinals, Bishops, priests, students, alumni, and others.

Pass It On.

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Spies Among Us

Great new ideas from the EU and the UK

EuropeNews:

'Their plans for the intercept modernisation programme were completely unworkable to begin with - and are becoming more so with every addition they suggest.

'The idea of tracking calls, texts and emails made by people in the country is unspeakably offensive.'

The social networking websites have attracted the interest of security chiefs because they are not covered by rules drafted in Brussels after the 2005 London bombings to track terrorist activity in emails and on the internet.

Social networking companies - also including Bebo - would be required to retain details of every contact a user corresponds with via their websites.

Facebook has 17million UK members while Bebo and MySpace have 10million each.

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman Tom Brake blasted the combined EU and UK proposals as a 'snooper's charter' - and pointed to the Government's track record of losing sensitive digital data...

Off The Cliff

It will be a quick and disasterous decline.

Albert Mohler:

...Speaking to a conference sponsored by the Oxford International Biomedical Centre, Professor Gardner was ostensibly speaking as an expert on stem cell research. Indeed the conference, "New Body Parts for Old: Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine," was itself ostensibly about embryonic stem cell research. Unexpectedly, Professor Gardner pushed the discussion to the next level.

Gardner's proposal is to use kidney and liver tissues obtained from aborted fetuses in order to treat organ failure in patients. Indeed, Professor Gardner's suggestion went further. He argued that fetal organs could be transplanted into adults. Experiments in mice, he said, indicate that these organs "grow extremely quickly."

This is about as scary as the news can get. Here we confront a serious proposal to use aborted fetuses as factories for spare organs and tissues. Having commodified the human embryo and then allowing its destruction in the name of medical progress, the fetus is next in line.

Professor Stuart Campbell affirmed Gardner's proposal, adding that, if fetuses are going to be aborted, "it is a shame to waste their organs."

In other words, it is just fine to waste their lives and destroy their human dignity, but it is not fine to "waste their organs."...

Hardly seems different from the use of human embryos. Next week maybe we could use premature babies with little chance of survival. The current rate of abortion is supplying more premature babies every day, and they are sooo expensive. A public health care system cannot support futile medical care. Let's make best use of our resources...

Catholics Funding Pro-Abortion Legislation

LifeSiteNews:

The official international development organization of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is funding groups in Mexico that are pressuring the Mexican government to legalize abortion, LifeSiteNews has learned. The five pro-abortion groups have received $170,000 in total this year from Development and Peace. In an interview with LSN, the Director of International Programs for Development and Peace admitted that the issue of whether or not a group is pro-abortion is not a determining factor in funding.

The money, donated through the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (CCODP), is being given to at least five different pro-abortion groups, which the CCODP calls "partners". The groups support the legalization of abortion on demand throughout Mexico, call for the government to expedite and guarantee existing legal rights to abortion for rape and other reasons, and urge the distribution of contraceptives, including abortifacient "emergency contraception".

The CCODP "partners" verified by LifeSiteNews as abortion-promoting include the "Miguel Augustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center" ($24,000 Canadian Dollars in 2007-2008 year), the "Mexican Network for Action Regarding Free Trade" ($36,000 CAD), the "Center for Economic and Political Research for Community Action" ($40,000 CAD), the "National Center for Social Communication" ($30,000 CAD), and the "All Rights for Everyone Network" ($40,000 CAD).

Mexican pro-abortion groups will receive a total of $850,000 CAD for the period 2006-2011, if last year's budget is representative of all five years in the CCODP five year plan. The money will largely come from funds donated through "Share Lent" and other diocesan fundraising programs held by the Catholic bishops of Canada...

The Catholic Church in Canada is defrauding faithful Catholics and using their well-intentioned charity for evil . THIS IS SO WRONG!!

SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!!

Catholics Don't 'Lie Down' , They Fight Back!

In what smacks of legislative abuse with the purpose of intimidating a sector of the community, the Connecticut legislature Joint Committee on the Judiciary has 'put on the fast track' a bill to restructure the financial aspects of ONLY CATHOLIC dioceses, effectively making them 'congregationalist'!

KoC:

On Thursday, March 5, a bill was introduced in the Connecticut state legislature, and immediately referred to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. It targets one – and only one – church in the state, the Catholic Church, and would strip the bishops and priests of the state of any power to exercise administrative authority over their parishes.

Raised Bill No. 1098 is a committee bill and does not bear the names of any individual sponsors. Both co-chairmen of the committee, State Sen. Andrew McDonald and State Rep. Michael Lawlor, are outspoken proponents of same-sex marriage in Connecticut and have been critical of the Catholic Church’s opposition to both civil unions and same-sex marriage.

The stated purpose of the bill is to “provide for the investigation of the misappropriation of funds by religious corporations,” but it deals only with the corporate structure of the Catholic Church. No other church is mentioned, or would be subject to the bill’s requirements.

The measure has been put on a legislative fast track, with hearings scheduled for Wednesday, March 11, less than a week after its introduction. Knights of Columbus, and all concerned Connecticut Catholics, are encouraged to attend the hearing that day and express their opposition to the bill. They may also call or write the committee co-chairmen, State Sen. Andrew McDonald (800-842-1420 or McDonald@senatedems.ct.gov), and State Rep. Michael Lawlor (800-842-8267 or MLawlor99@juno.com.

Philip Lacovara(Senior Counsel, Mayer Brown, LLP):

...You now have before your Committee a bill that tests your fidelity to your constitutional duty. The bill is No. 1098, which candidly announces that its purpose is to "revise the corporate governance provisions [of the Connecticut Statutes] applicable to the Roman Catholic Church."

In more than forty years as a constitutional law teacher and practitioner, I cannot recall a single piece of proposed legislation at any level of government that more patently runs afoul of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment than does this bill.

I write to you as a Connecticut taxpayer, as a Catholic, and as a constitutional lawyer. This last capacity is most relevant for present purposes.

I have taught constitutional law at Columbia Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and Hunter College of the City University of New York. I also have served as Deputy Solicitor General of the United States and as Counsel to the Watergate Special Prosecutor. I have argued 18 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, most involving constitutional issues.

I find it utterly astonishing that Bill 1098 could be taken seriously enough to warrant a hearing before your Committee. I would find it difficult to use it as a "hypothetical" in one of my constitutional law classes, because even first year law students would have so little difficulty seeing why the bill goes well beyond the powers that the Constitution allows the States to exercise in dealing with organized churches....

Michael McLachlan:

...I'm going to focus on Senate Bill 1098 -- "An Act Modifying Corporate Laws Relating to Certain Religious Institutions." The stated purpose of this bill is "to revise the corporate governance provisions applicable to the Roman Catholic Church and provide for the investigation of the misappropriation of funds by religious corporations." The real purpose of this bill is payback to the bishops and pastors of the Roman Catholic Church in Connecticut for opposing gay marriage.

Unfortunately, I think some well-intentioned, unhappy Catholics from Darien are being used as pawns by Senator McDonald and Representative Lawlor in a thinly-veiled attack on the Church....

It goes to prove the atmosphere of totalitarian power amongst liberal lobby groups, that they feel no shame in putting forward such a bill, and even seem to have an expectation of success with it.

It occurs to me, that if not entirely serious as a bill, it still serves to use up Catholic resources that have been recently put to use fighting other legislation that endangers the good of the people.

Could this be a cynical strategy to 'busy' the Catholics? More to come, no doubt...but the liberals may learn a few things about the Catholic heart, and its willingness to sacrifice for love of God and neighbour.


Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen

Justice

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Hey Doug! #10 - Obama Is NOT A Moderate!

President Obama has been credited by Doug Kmiec, as having a desire to reduce abortions. His selection for head of the Dept. of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnsen, is not the pick of a moderate.

(Johnsen)

The[woman] is constantly aware for nine months that her body is not wholly her own: the state has conscripted her body for its own ends. Thus, abortion restrictions reduce pregnant women to no more than fetal containers.

DOUG! SMELL THE COFFEE ALREADY!!


(h/t Curt Jester)

And In Canada, Will They Fight?

Will the people of Canada waken from their somnolent stupor and give chase to Barbara Hall and her bureaucratic idiocy that threatens Canadians underappreciated freedoms? Doubtful. But the media may try to stir them...

Montreal Gazette:

...a preposterous suggestion that every publication in the country, including "media services" websites, be required by law to belong to a national press council that could adjudicate breaches of professional standards and complaints of discrimination. Chillingly, the council would have the power to order offending media to publish its findings, along with counterarguments from complainants. And in a bit of verbal legerdemain that would make Big Brother wince, the commission claimed that this would not constitute censorship.

The most frightening thing about this bit of nonsense is that it's hard to see what possible reason the commission has for proposing such a draconian measure. Scan Canadian media from, say, This Magazine on the left to blogger Ezra Levant on the right, and you'd be hard-pressed to find anything that pushes the boundaries of reasonable discourse...

...Commissioner Hall also claims that the media have a responsibility to "engage in fair and unbiased journalism." Those are certainly ideals The Gazette and most other Canadian publications strive to achieve, with admittedly imperfect success. But that responsibility, like membership in the Quebec Press Council, is voluntary. If someone wants to start a rabidly partisan, scurrilous scandal sheet, that's fine with us, too. State-compelled norms of behaviour are censorship, not idealism.

The underlying problem here might be that liberty has once again run into one of its most formidable foes - the bureaucratic mind. Such minds recoil at the unruliness of the media - among other things - and won't rest until all participants in public discourse are fully regulated by government. They do all this "for the common good," of course.

But when they succeed, we can all kiss our precious freedoms goodbye.

(h/t Dr. Roy)

Amnesty International - Off The Deep End

In case you've been reserving judgement, waiting for further proof that Amnesty International has joined the ranks of the 'Culture of Death Squad', here they are demanding that doctors in Mexico be FORCED to perform abortions!

LifeSiteNews:

Amnesty International, a "human rights" organization that opposes the right to life of unborn children, is now demanding that Mexico force doctors to do abortions.

In simultaneous protests held last Friday in Mexico City and Madrid, Amnesty International and other pro-abortion organizations denounced the Mexican government for refusing to require physicians to perform abortions on rape victims and provide abortifacient "emergency contraception."

The protests were held in response to the decision to alter Mexico's Official Norm 046 on treating victims of sexual violence. The original text, approved by the government last July, required health professionals to perform abortions on rape victims. The final version, however, was altered by Mexico's Secretary of Health Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos, to protect the right of doctors to refuse to participate in abortions....

I'm sure their protests are as effective as always (as in NOT), but all the same, do people really give them money to pull off stunts like this?

What can I say. This world is a looney bin.

"You're In Alabama Now"

Nine young prolifers were arrested in Birmingham Thursday, and spent the night in jail, finally being released this morning.

Christian News Wire:

...All nine members of the Campus Life Tour were taken to the Birmingham City Jail, where they were forced to change into orange jumpsuits and placed in holding cells for 6 hours without water or access to a phone, as the officers ignored their requests for help. They were booked and placed in cells around 1:00 a.m., but were not released until hours later, the young women at 7:00 a.m. and the men at 9:00 a.m. The group was released without any paper citations, only bond forms stating a generic "Charge of Trespassing" with no penal code listed on the form.

As the officers questioned Blythe at the jail, she stated that the Constitution protected her right to stand on a public sidewalk. The police officers' response was clear: "You're in Alabama now."...

...At the Birmingham City Jail, in an eerie throwback to the past, Rev. Shaver was handcuffed and shackled at his feet. Despite repeated requests from his attorney to remove the shackles, guards kept the painful and restrictive shackles on Rev. Shaver for hours. Rev. Shaver and the other young men were informed during their jail stay that several of the guards at the jail also serve as security guards at a local abortion clinic.

"We were arrested yesterday because of the content of our message. It's clear from the attitudes and actions of the police officers that our message of life is not welcome in Birmingham, and prejudice is alive and well in this city. It is a shame that this historic city which saw the Civil Rights movement firsthand continues to refuse basic civil rights to peaceful activists simply on the basis of their message," states Kortney Blythe, Director of the Survivors Campus Life Tours. "We are shocked by the Birmingham Police Department's response to our peaceful actions, and we call upon the Chief of Police to initiate a thorough investigation of yesterday's horrifying civil rights abuses. The Survivors will continue to peacefully promote a culture of life and expose the truth of abortion in Birmingham and throughout the state of Alabama, regardless of the actions of prejudiced police officers."...

I'd like to know who put the police up to it. Somebody missed the turn of the century...last century!

PC Stooges *UPDATE*

*UPDATE from Edward Feser

Another example of a PC cave-in.

NRO:

Wiley-Blackwell, a major academic press, was set to release its four-volume Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization this month. According to the encyclopedia’s editor, George Thomas Kurian, the set had been copy-edited, fact-checked, proofread, publisher-approved, printed, bound, and formally launched (to high praise) at the recent American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature conference. But protests from a small group of scholars associated with the project have led the press to postpone publication, recall all copies already distributed, and destroy the existing print run. The scholars’ complaint? The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, they have reportedly argued, is “too Christian.” “They also object to historical references to the persecution and massacres of Christians by Muslims,” Kurian says, “but at the same time want references favorable to Islam.”

Political correctness in academic publishing is nothing new, but it would be unusual, to say the least, for ideological pressure to lead a publisher to reverse itself so late in the process, especially given the significant financial losses involved in pulping a print run of a gigantic four-volume encyclopedia. As Kurian puts it, “This is probably the first instance of mass book-burning in the 21st century.”...

(h/t blackkettle)

Ezra Levant vs Andrea Calver : Free Speech

On the Michael Coren Show. Not really a fair match-up!




Pictures of Muhammed 'vilify Muslims' (Calver). That sounds rather insulting! Have the Muslim community filed their HRC suit against Ms. Calver yet?

All The News From Steyn and Company (hearing on HRC )

(h/t Kathy Shaidle)

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EU and Human Rights

Here's one for the history books. The EU Human Rights Court has decided that Portugal contravened 'article 10' by refusing to allow the 'floating abortuary' to enter its harbours in 2004 - when abortion was illegal in Portugal.

... Abortionist and foundress of the "Women on Waves" project, Rebecca Gomperts, said she is delighted with the finding. "We shall use the judgment for new campaigns outside Europe," she said.

In 2004, the abortion ship was denied access to Portuguese ports by politicians and the courts. Portuguese officials ordered two naval vessels out to ensure that it would not enter Portugal's sovereign waters. At that time, Portugal had some of the strongest legal protections for unborn children anywhere in Europe.

The Court unanimously decided that there was a breach of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court ruled that in seeking to prevent disorder and protect public health, the Portuguese authorities could have resorted to other means that were less restrictive of "Women on Waves'' human rights. Article 10 is the section of the Convention dealing with "expression"...

How did the group instituted after WWII to prevent further human rights calamities become so separated from reality? A floating baby killing business has human rights? Talk about depreciating the value of a human right!

Can't wait to see whose sovereignty "Women on Waves - Baby Assassins" attacks next!! (Any bets as to who this group gets big funding from??)

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!!!

"It's Called Christmas!"

PTBC has its naughty and nice (and marginal) list up with commentary:

....Christmas is in fact a legal federal holiday. It’s not just another day. It’s not just “the season” or another “holiday”. It’s Christmas. I’m sorry for those Canadians who dislike Canada and its heritage and history and traditions so much that they seek to change Canada to be to their liking. Sadly, they’re making a lot of headway. But sorry as I am, I’m going to push back and fight them back. It’s a war they’ve launched. A culture war of sorts. And they attacked first. So let’s deploy the citizens—the sane, rational defenses of the citizenry. “Yes we can!“

Do we want to mock and ridicule them, here? Why yes. Yes we do. Of course we do. They are mock-worthy and ridiculous. And they don’t deserve our business and hard-earned dollars.

Do we want to give a little free advertising to businesses and organizations that openly celebrate CHRISTMAS? Yes.

We call it Christmas proudly and happily and like normal folks do. Let them schlep away in their quagmire of ugly left-wing politics and ideology in their own dark ugly and probably undecorated homes...

Carleton U. (Home of a School of Journalism!)

David Warren on "Equality":

....Last Monday, the student council of Carleton University attracted much attention to their university and to the city of Ottawa—around Canada and the world—with their decision to cancel their annual Shinerama fundraising efforts on behalf of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Their argument was that this disease afflicts “white people and primarily men.“ They would rather choose a charity that is more “inclusive.“....

....“Good intentions” do not excuse them, as their president, Brittany Smyth, has tried to argue with several media callers. Anti-white and anti-male prejudices are not well-intentioned; she should have been corrected publicly on that. And here is how Ms. Smyth dismissed the disgraceful preamble of Mr. Northup’s motion, to CTV News: “It’s 100 per cent their opinion. Their opinion doesn’t have to be fact or anything really. It’s just how this individual felt.“

This remark reveals an extraordinary degree of incuriosity, allied perhaps with lethargy and cowardice, on the part of the student councillors. Political correctness has numbed their brains. How has it done so? By instilling indifference to truth in their souls.

Evil and stupidity reinforce one another. Even acts which appear, on their face, to be devilishly clever, turn out not to be, with a little extra cunning. There are arguable exceptions, but in the main, the reason so many criminals get caught, even by rather flat-footed policemen, is that they suffer from cruel deficiencies of intellect. They can’t keep up with the lies they are living.....

"Tyranny of Nice"

LifeSite News:
"Yesterday Interim Publishing released the e-version of its book on Canada's human rights commission, 'Tyranny of Nice: How Canada Crushes Freedom in the Name of Human Rights (and why is matters to Americans)' by Kathy Shaidle and Pete Vere. Internationally renowned columnist and author Mark Steyn writes the introduction.

The book exposes how when it comes to the human rights commissions the 'process is the punishment,' provides a thorough account of the two major cases from the past year that have made human rights commissions a hot topic and examines some the less famous cases that eluded media attention until Ezra Levant and Maclean's were hauled before these kangaroo courts..."

OBAMA: The New Lowest

Stay tuned to Jill Stanek for the updates on Obama's desperate attack on Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor:



"In response are the following statements:

Statement from Gianna Jessen:

Mr. Obama is clearly blinded by political ambition given his attack on me this week. All I asked of him was to do the right thing: support medical care and protection for babies who survive abortion - as I did 31 years ago. He voted against such protection and care four times even though the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 in favor of a bill identical to the one Obama opposed. In the words of his own false and misleading ad, his position is downright vile. Mr. Obama said at the recent Saddleback Forum that the question of when babies should get human rights was above his pay grade. Such vacillation and cowardice would have left me to die if his policies were in place when I was born. Thank God they were not.


Statement from Jill Stanek:

It is despicable, repulsive and beneath contempt that Barack Obama would attack Gianna Jessen. She is a courageous abortion survivor and living miracle who would not be with us today if Obama's policies had been in place when she was born. Mr. Obama continues to mislead the American people on this issue, he voted four times against medical care and protection for babies who survive abortions in the Illinois State Senate, while the U.S. Senate was voting 98-0 to pass an identical bill. Mr. Obama needs to come forward and tell the American people that he understands people like Gianna Jessen, and that he will support and enforce Born Alive Infant protections -- that these are living, breathing human beings who have come into our world and deserve protection in the law and should receive medical care at health care facilities. These babies have the same rights as the rest of us."

The UN Is Good For What?

Please remind me. It seems I can only think of their absurdly inhuman attitudes toward mankind and their propensity to bully vulnerable nations into inhumane practices.

Yet another example of their decreptitude is posted in LifesiteNews:

"At United Nations headquarters last week, UN Population Fund (UNFPA) executive director Thoraya Obaid called for more funding for population programs, including reducing fertility, promoting “reproductive health services,” and “de-stigmatizing” sodomy..."

Coupled with example after example of financial corruption and intellectual fraud, the UN is an insult to taxpayers world-wide. Membership does not seem justified.

"Obamacide"

American Thinker writer J.M. Barber :

" Barack Obama has properly earned the dubious distinction as the single most liberal Senator in Congress during his brief, albeit overstayed, tenure. But a cursory review of his words, deeds and associations reveals that this ivory-towered Harvard boy is no run-of-the-mill lefty. He's an extremist among extremists...

Although Obama's love affair with partial-birth abortion has served to chip away at his finely polished veneer, his opposition to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) has revealed to the world that backward extremism permeates his marrow...

The man's devotion to the pro-abortion industry is so fixed that he would rather allow the murder of newborn babies than give an inch to the sanctity of human life..."

And yet, Doug Kmiec's head has not exploded!?

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...)