The Pope’s Decision – Peggy Noonan’s Blog – WSJ.
We will be hearing a great deal of speculation the coming weeks. We should keep in mind that it doesn’t matter all that much what insiders say about who might have an inside track. Nobody thought it would be Karol Wojtylwa in 1978, just as nobody thought his predecessor, John Paul I, would die 33 days into his papacy. Almost nobody thought Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—too old, too conservative—would succeed John Paul II in 2005.
The Pope’s Decision – Peggy Noonan’s Blog – WSJ.
We will be hearing a great deal of speculation the coming weeks. We should keep in mind that it doesn’t matter all that much what insiders say about who might have an inside track. Nobody thought it would be Karol Wojtylwa in 1978, just as nobody thought his predecessor, John Paul I, would die 33 days into his papacy. Almost nobody thought Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—too old, too conservative—would succeed John Paul II in 2005.
Pope Benedict tweeted yesterday, one day before his announcement of resignation:
"We must trust in the mighty power of God’s mercy. We are all sinners, but His grace transforms us and makes us new."
As a Church we have a great deal to look forward to in faith and a coming Lent to prepare us in a holy way for the Will of God. Pray, pray,pray!
Nearly eight years since his election, Pope Benedict XVI announced this morning that, at the end of the month, he will become the first Roman pontiff since Celestine V in 1294 to resign from the Chair of Peter.
The 85 year-old – who has quietly indicated over the years that he would take the drastic step should he feel it necessary – broke the news during a previously-scheduled consistory to approve some causes for canonization (above); originally given in Latin, the following English translation of the statement was released by the Holy See:
Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.
From the Vatican, 10 February 2013 Read more here: Whispers in the Loggia: B16 Resigns.
» We Are a Species That Kills Our Own Young | ABQ Journal
by Sid Gutierrez – Retired Astronaut
Why would it be gruesome? I recall my wife and I listening carefully in the doctor’s office for the heart beat of our unborn children. My grown daughters now proudly place ultrasound images of their unborn children on Facebook for all of their friends to see. These actions are viewed as beautiful and joyous, not as “cruel.” Click to read the full article
Sanger’s Racist Genocidal Plans and The Masque of the Red Death.
Sanger’s Racist Genocidal Plans and The Masque of the Red Death.
Do you want to know what Margaret Sanger, the great “heroine” of Planned Parenthood, and abortion-advocates and committed elitiststhroughout the nation had to say about African American and lower-income populations?
We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class, and if morality is to mean anything at all to us, we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral.
Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.
I have no doubt that Sanger would have applauded yesterday’s article of full revelation at Salon, and the admission that “Sure, abortion ends a life, so what?” That writer echoes Sanger: some lives are worth more than others. She also writes that a life in utero is a life “worth sacrificing.”
via Sanger’s Racist Genocidal Plans and The Masque of the Red Death.
Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..Pro-life…..Pro-choice…..
Ready for the truth? Google images: vacuum contents of abortion.
ARCHBISHOP AQUILA: 40 Years of the Culture of Death
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I went to college in 1968 with the idea of becoming a doctor, like my father. College campuses in the late ‘60’s and throughout the 70’s were places of turmoil. I didn’t practice my faith much in the first three years of college and I certainly never imagined that the Lord would one day make me a bishop.
I spent my first three years of college working as a hospital orderly and assisting in the emergency room, at a university student health center and in a hospital in California during summer break.
When I began the job, I hadn’t thought much about human suffering, or about human dignity.
But during my employment in hospitals, something changed. At that time, some states had approved abortion laws that I wasn’t even aware of. Because of those laws, when I was in college I witnessed the results of two abortions.
The first was in a surgical unit. I walked into an outer room and in the sink, unattended, was the body of small unborn child who had been aborted. I remember being stunned. I remember thinking that I had to baptize that child.
The second abortion was more shocking. A young woman came into the emergency room screaming. She explained that she had had an abortion already. When the doctor sent her home, he told her she would pass the remains naturally. She was bleeding as the doctor, her boyfriend, the nurse and I placed her on a table.
I held a basin as the doctor retrieved a tiny arm, a tiny leg and then the rest of the broken body of a tiny unborn child. I was shocked. I was saddened for the mother and child, for the doctor and the nurse. None of us would have participated in such a thing were it not an emergency. I witnessed a tiny human being destroyed by violence.
The memory haunts me. I will never forget that I stood witness to acts of unspeakable brutality. In the abortions I witnessed, powerful people made decisions that ended the lives of small, powerless, children. Through lies and manipulation, children were seen as objects. Women and families were convinced that ending a life would be painless, and forgettable. Experts made seemingly convincing arguments that the unborn were not people at all, that they could not feel pain, and were better off dead. Read more:
She Survived Hitler And Wants To Warn America.
December 22, 2012 – “What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or read in history books,” she likes to tell audiences.
“I am a witness to history.
“I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history.
If you remember the plot of the Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family escaped over the Alps rather than submit to the Nazis. Kitty wasn’t so lucky. Her family chose to stay in her native Austria. She was 10 years old, but bright and aware. And she was watching.
“We elected him by a landslide – 98 percent of the vote,” she recalls.
She wasn’t old enough to vote in 1938 – approaching her 11th birthday. But she remembers.
“Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.”
No so.
Hitler is welcomed to Austria
“In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent bank loan interest rates.
Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs.
“My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.’
“We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933.” she recalls. “We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living.
Austrian girls welcome Hitler
“Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group – Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone in Germany was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back.
“Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.
“We were overjoyed,” remembers Kitty, “and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.
Austrians saluting
“After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.
“Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.
“Then we lost religious education for kids
Poster promoting “Hitler Youth”
“Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school.. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,’ and had physical education.
“Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.”
And then things got worse.
“The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free.
“We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.
“My mother was very unhappy,” remembers Kitty. “When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination.
“I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing.
A pro-Hitler rally
“Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.
“It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.
“In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death.
“Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.
“Soon after this, the draft was implemented.
Read more: http://www.disclose.tv/news/She_survived_Hitler_and_wants_to_warn_America/87914#ixzz2GrhHc8qp
Marion Williams sings Where You There When They Crucified My Lord.
Pearl Harbor Attacked!
Pearl Harbor Survivors Association here.
Lessons from history are the most potent. Forgetting our history and the historical fact of our relationships with other nations and their history, will make us victims of our own stupidity. As threatening to our future and freedom as that is, the mangling of history, the distorting history and the making of history to be “politically correct” and palatable to all, endangers this and future generations who need truth not fiction and propaganda to survive.
Michelle Malkin on “never forget”: Pearl Harbor 68 years.
Get ready! Here come the Holy Days. We seem to be picking up speed as this year closes in a burst of joyous holy light. Will we be able to see it? It’s like waiting for a meteor shower. Will the clouds obscure our view? There are clouds all around, there always are, but the eye of our soul have a lens like no other. Hearts polished by prayer, by care and as always, too, by sacrifice, can see light raking the darkness. No Alice through the looking glass here. Christmas is for sober souls and vigilant seekers.
Our Veterans didn’t sleep. Thank you so very much for our freedom!
May we not let our veterans down by giving our freedom and our souls away.
American freedom’s are under attack and the enemy is within. From efforts to transform our nation into a welfare state to President Obama’s continuing tactics to constrain freedom of speech, the attack is unrelenting. American’s have never needed to be more vigilant and pro-active. Michelle Malkin warns that even our language is used to wage war against us. Words and phrases, high-sounding camouflaged rhetoric, manipulate us, while masking the word crafters’ dark intent. Michelle Malkin in Obama’s FCC, liberal churches, and the “media justice” mob points to the phrase “transformative change” meaning: “Transformative change” = a media landscape purged of the Right’s most powerful voices.”
Here is a voice we can’t ignore for America does have a “Rendezvous with Destiny”.
Congressman warning reported by Raymond Arroyo:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a case concerning whether a cross on federal park land in California which memorializes World War I veterans violates the U.S. Constitution. One congressman warned that the case could have an enormous “ripple effect” on memorials across the country including Arlington Cemetery.
H/T to Susan G. in Nebraska who said this article from the Baltimore Sun would make me happy:
Photo by Owen Sweeney III / Catholic Review photo
In a move that religious scholars say is unprecedented, 10 of the 12 nuns at an Episcopal convent in Catonsville left their church Thursday to become Roman Catholics, the latest defectors from a denomination divided over the ordination of gay men and women.
………
The sisters said they converted for the orthodoxy, unity and leadership they said they could no longer find in their own faith.
“We know our beliefs and where we are,” said Mother Christina Christie, superior of the order that came to Baltimore in 1872. “We were drifting farther apart from the more liberal road the Episcopal Church is traveling. We are now more at home in the Roman Catholic Church.”
Also joining the church was the Rev. Warren Tanghe, the sisters’ chaplain. In a statement, Episcopal Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton wished them God’s blessings.
“Despite the sadness we feel in having to say farewell, our mutual joy is that we remain as one spiritual family of faith, one body in Christ,” he said.
H/T nypriest.com and Grassroots Films:
H/T Ed Morrissey for this:
In a country soaked with religion, it has fallen to an Oklahoma Baptist to turn Islam into a weapon against the Taliban.
The U.S. military, eager to hand the war over to the Afghan government, has placed mentors throughout the Afghan National Army. The Americans help commanders command, fliers fly and spies spy. U.S. Army Capt. James Hill, a baby-faced 27-year-old from Lawton, Okla., drew the job of mentoring Lt. Col. Abdul Haq, a 51-year-old army mullah who has never shaved.
Capt. Hill’s faith-based mission is to counter the propaganda of Taliban fighters, who ride motorcycles through isolated villages spreading the word that the Afghan army is led by godless communists working to purge the country of Islam. Show the people that the army is a Muslim one, and they’ll be more likely to support it against the insurgents, his theory goes.
NewsMax.com reports the numbers:
Among the key findings:
86% of Americans would significantly restrict abortion. 60% of Americans would limit abortion to cases of rape, incest or to save the life of a mother – or would not allow it at all. 53% of Americans believe abortion does more harm than good to a woman in the long term. 79% of Americans support conscience exemptions on abortion for health care workers. This includes 64% of those who identify as strongly pro-choice. 69% of Americans think that it is appropriate for religious leaders to speak out on abortion. 59% say religious leaders have a key role to play in the abortion debate. 80% of Americans believe that laws can protect both the health of the woman and the life of the unborn. This includes 68% of those who identified as strongly pro-choice. Additionally, the data showed that since October nearly every demographic sub-group had moved toward the pro-life position except for non-practicing Catholics and men under 45 years of age.
Independents and liberals showed the greatest shift to the pro-life position since October, while Democrats were slightly less likely to be pro-life now than they were in October.
“The data shows that the American people are placing an ever increasing value on human life,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson. “Far from the great divide that most people think exists when it comes to the abortion debate, there is actually a great deal of common ground. Most Americans are unhappy with the unrestricted access to abortion that is the legacy of Roe
vs. Wade, and pundits and elected leaders should take note of the fact that agreement on abortion need not be limited to the fringes of the debate and issues like adoption or pre-natal care. The American people have reached a basic consensus, and that consensus is at odds with the unrestricted access to abortion that is the legacy of Roe.”
The survey of 1,223 Americans was conducted May 28 – 31 and has a margin of error of +/-3%.
H/T Michelle Malkin:
As a public service reminder of the reason for the season, I’m reprinting the Declaration of Independence in its entirety. The transcription comes via the National Archives (thank goodness, Sandy Berger hasn’t swiped it yet!)
eCharles Krauthammer sounds the death knell for reverse racism with the Supreme Courts Ricci decision:
Ricci left Sotomayor relatively unscathed. But not affirmative action. Ricci raised the bar considerably on overt discrimination against one racial group simply to undo the unintentionally racially skewed results of otherwise fair and objective employment procedures (in this case, examinations).
Krauthammer notes (bemoans?) Sotomayor’s survival:
While overturned on Ricci, she is protected by the four dissenting justices who upheld the side of the case she had taken as an appeals court judge. Sotomayor was additionally helped by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s insistence on reading her dissent from the bench, as if to emphasize the legitimacy of her position — and, by implication, Sotomayor’s.
H/T Michelle Malkin: Story you won’t hear
White House spinning again: Ed Morrissey
You had better have 5 fingers and 5 toes and the right genetics, or in this Orwellian Age you may not make it into this world. The Hippocratic oath of “Above all, do no harm” is blatantly hypocritical in this day of abortion run amuck
Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler envisioned a world of perfection according to their norms. Intrinsic Evil was still recognizable at that day. Today we have progressed. We euphemize our speech and thought and allow our consciences to waste away unformed by the pursuit of virtue and Truth. We call this progressive and liberal.
Without thunderbolts from heaven, we think we are home free, after all, can God hold the whole world accountable? In the word of the day, “Dah!” Yes He can! In scripture God asks:
“Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?”
“When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
What a person chooses to do in life makes him virtuous or not. It is not the fact that a person has a choice or chooses. All people choose. All people are not virtuous.
There is a day of reckoning; it is unstoppable. In the meantime, people eat, drink, play, marry and do mischief, just as before the Flood. The wise do not think God is asleep, blind or forgetful. The wise know God knows and remembers who He creates. There are no accidents with God. He remembers our beginnings and our end. He remembers the end of the unwanted and emptied wombs.
This is still the time of mercy. This is still a time for choosing God and turning from the idol we’ve made of “Choice.”
Obama is said to be a master of the word and speech. If this is true, then we must suppose his limp response to the murder of Pvt. William Long is very meaningful. The President had at his disposal all the elegant and convincing verbage we have come to expect from him (whether he means it or not.) It is due from the Commander-in- Chief, when one of his troops is murdered. Contrasting Obama’s response with the response he gave when George Tiller, a late term abortionist (with much blood on his own hands,) was murdered; using words like “heinous” and expressing “anger” and “outrage,” Obama was quick to respond and dramatically vocal. The absence of such sentiment, and the three day delay in any response, speaks volumes. We have to ask: Where do Obama’s loyalties lie?
Obama’s passive voice, the dispassionate euphemism, the blameless, faceless, semantic nicety; that is a far cry from a cry of truth. We get abstractions from a man avoiding the reality of a jihadist convert killing one of our troops, one of Obama’s own charges serving loyally and dutifully. No calling out his killer here, just “a sensless” act. By who? and why? we may ask? Obama doesn’t seem to want us to notice that someone, a jahadist, pulled the trigger killing one soldier and gravely wounding another, 18-year-old Private Quinton Ezeagwula.
Michelle Malkin puts it in words for all of Obama’s failure to react.
The Anchoress writes:
And yet, here we are, watching thousands of words being written about the grotesque murder of George Tiller, all of which dutifully identify his killer by name, race, religion and ideology, (Scott Roeder, white, Christian, anti-government, and anti-abortion) while the sad story of Pvt. William Long is quietly put to rest, with little-to-no-mention of the shooter:
[NPR's] news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have “religious motivations.” She did not name the suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, or tell NPR listeners what those religious motivations might be. In other words, it could have been a radical Unitarian who gunned down the soldiers, or possibly a violent Presbyterian.
The story about Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad grows more interesting by the day:
A joint FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment…said officers found maps to Jewish organizations, a child care center, a Baptist church, a post office and military recruiting centers in the southeastern U.S. and New York and Philadelphia.
And:
An FBI joint terrorism task force based in the southern U.S. reportedly had been tracking Muhammad after he traveled to Yemen and was arrested and jailed there for using a Somali passport, an official told The Associated Press. The probe had been in its early stages and based on Muhammad’s trip to Yemen, ABC News reported.
…At Tuesday’s court hearing, Deputy Prosecutor Scott Duncan said Muhammad told investigators that “he would have killed more soldiers had they been in the parking lot.”The press duly (and briefly) reports, then re-focuses on Tiller, and the evil “Christianists” who are all responsible for his murder. Meanwhile, Obama is keeping silence, even foregoing the perfect opportunity to memorialize his soldier.
When George Tiller was murdered, Obama spoke out, and then he mobilized his justice department, to deploy guards at abortion clinics. Sort of like a Commander-in-Chief might do, if he feels his beloved country is under attack. When Pvt. William Long was murdered, Obama said and did…nothing.
