Catholic Politicians

King & King - An alternative fairytale nation.

2006-04-21T19:30:00.000-04:00

Recently in Lexington, Massachusetts a second grade teacher with support from the towns school administrator read "King & King" to her class of 7 year olds. The story is about a Prince who has to find a Princess to marry, however he meets, falls in love with, and marries another Prince. The story book ends with the two Princes’ kissing and of course living happily ever after.
Did I mention that the parents of those second graders were not aware that a gay marriage story book was going to be read to their children. The school administrations is sticking to it’s guns, and doesn’t believe that it did anything wrong in this incident. All in the name of tolerance and diversity.

Enough is enough already. Kid’s can’t pray in school, learn anything about God’s creation of the earth or pledge allegiance to the United States anymore, but somehow it’s okay to learn about homosexual lifestyles and gay marriage. I suppose that not teaching alternative lifestyles is somehow and infringement on somebody’s civil liberties.

Civil Rights are for American’s that suffer some sort of injustice or prejudice. The intent is to make-up for something that may be lacking in the Constitution or in Law. The intent is not to make-up Law as we go along so that every disordered lifestyle that comes along is accepted. We do not create rules to simply make one group of alternative minorities happy and delete parts of the Constitution to satisfy another.

The idea that obese people are discriminated against because they don’t fit into airplane seats or that everyone has to stop talking about God or praying in public places because it may offend an atheist is absurd. Yet, these people are suing their way into having new rights and laws.
Well, what about the rest of us, how many values and morals are we going to sit quietly by and watch one by one be taken away from us. Here’s an idea, why don’t school’s teach kids how to read and then let them choose to read whatever books they want. Children today are bombarded with homosexuality on T.V. and the internet.

Just because a few gay couples filed a class action suet in Massachusetts and our idiotic court system found in their favor doesn’t mean that We the people of these United States have to have it shoved down our throats. Worse yet, we sit there and with a smile on our faces take it because it’s the Politically Correct thing to do.

Political Correctness is Un-American and a Threat to National Security

2006-04-11T10:33:00.000-04:00

Political Correctness is Un-American and a Threat to National Security

For many years we have been conditioned to think that only priests and religious have vocations. The fact of the matter is that each person has a vocation, a "call" from God.

The majority of Christians are called to the lay state, so a knowledge of what this common state of life is essential. The Catechism (#897) tells us that: "The term ‘laity’ is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in Holy Orders and those who belong to a religious state approved by the Church." The faithful, who by baptism are incorporated into Christ and integrated into the People of God, are made sharers in their particular way in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly office of Christ. We, have our own part to play in the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church an in the world.

The lay faithful are the front-line troops in the moral battle to promote the true and the good. One of the most erroneous and subtly dangerous ideas ever is that somehow our religion and any and everything else in life should remain separate. We tend to act one way with one group of friends, and differently with another. We tend to act one way while at work, and another way at Mass on Sunday. Yet, we are called to live and witness our faith always, despite the fact that it isn’t necessary politically correct or socially acceptable to do so.

A Catholic must live, witness, and yes, vote, a well-formed Catholic conscience. As Catholics we have a serious moral obligation to form our consciences in accord with the objective and absolute norm of truth – that is, church teaching. This is quite simply another way of saying "put on the mind of Christ." One of the primary reasons that our country has largely become a moral wasteland is that we Catholics have done a dismally poor job of learning and forming our consciences. Not to mention that we then pick and choose when and which values we are going to live, teach, and vote in accordance with.

Morality is not a personal choice. Rather, it is fixed in the heart and mind of every person. It is our business to accept our moral and holy call as persons, and to act in accord with nature, not rebel against it. We run the risk today in our once largely Christian country of falling into that class of idolaters which St. Paul bitterly denounced, because of our refusal to worship God and accept his teaching, despite our knowledge of him (Romans 1:20 - 27).

Catholics today in the United States represent the single largest religious voting block in the country, yet we have had relatively little effect in recent years. The reason is that an enormous number of Catholics don’t know their faith well enough to witness it. It is estimated that 75% of Catholics do not attend Mass regularly.

The church clearly teaches that: The power of lay Christians is necessary especially when a small minority of atheist Americans are insisting that somehow prayer and religious talk is somehow infringing upon their rights. A handful of people have succeeded in removing prayer from our schools and in taking the ten-commandments out of our court houses. Somehow they’re offended that our currency reads "In God we Trust", and that we pledge to be "one Nation under God". How far are we willing to let them go before we witness our faith and exercise our power.

We are not to be confused by empty rhetoric and the fallacy of what is "politically correct," especially when that is largely determined by the mind of a culture which will go down in history as grandly technological, yet strangely irrational. We should be wary of a culture, appropriately described as a "culture of death." Our social culture and courts attempt to tell us how to live by imposing laws that are illicit and mores that are immoral. Yet we choose to sit by quietly and accept and tolerate every "alternative" but humanly and morally degenerative and destructive lifestyle in fear of hurting someone’s feelings.

If we as Catholics don’t begin to learn our faith and form our consciences to the objective and absolute norm of Truth - Church teaching in faith and morals - and then live, witness, and vote that well-formed conscience, then, we may indeed find that this culture and this country will indeed, "end with a whimper, rather than a bang." For, "evil will indeed triumph if good men remain silent." For, having once too often called the truth a lie and lies the truth, having repeatedly asserted that the good is evil, and evil is good, life will cease.

For this once great country, which was originally founded upon transcendent and immutable Christian principles and morals, will simply kneel over and die, unless we Catholics live, witness, and vote what we profess!

Generation X ~ The Lost Generation

2006-04-03T16:27:00.000-04:00

Indifferent idiots and moral morons.

Generation X includes those of us born between the years 1965 and 1976. Many of us in this generation seem to be suffering from a so-called "identity crisis." We are a generation bombarded by pressure to either "Just do it," or "Just say no!"

We have the highest rates of suicide, drug addictions, gang violence, and sexual abuse to name only a few. We’re considered lazy, unfocused loosers with a big "L".

If we do beat the odds and make it away from those pitfalls of our generation, then we tend to focus only on ourselves. All we care about when we do finally have to enter the "real world"is getting a good job, and making money. We are politically and socially inactive and tend to be self centered cynics.

We just sort of go with the flow neither agreeing or disagreeing with any one point of view. Everyone is free to choose whatever they want. All we have to do is be politically correct and tolerate this, that, and the other thing.

Unfortunately, our lack of a backbone and inability to stand up for our values is leaving a huge void for generation "Y" and generations to come. It is time to wake-up, and stand up four our values and beliefs. Just as the Catholic Church has been silent on many issues, we too have failed to speak out on many moral issues. As a result of our tolerance and politically correctness, the United States is skating along on morally thin ice. History teaches us that a moral demise of a nation always precedes the ultimate demise of a nation.

9-11 was our wake-up call! We are living in a moral wasteland and our generation owns many of these mistakes. This county used to be the greatest nation on the face of the earth, and we still lead the way as a super power, but we’ve made a lot of mistakes. I think that history books will list our generation as being the most inhumane, morally inept generation of all time.

There is no excuse whatsoever for a Catholic who support such morally outrageous perversions of authentic justice such as abortion, partial-birth abortion, euthanasia, human cloning and same-sex marriage. Silence is not an option, the phones of our congress men and women and senators should be ringing off the hook, and mailboxes overflowing.

Generation X has to stop being lazy, unfocused, loosers. Its time for us to learn our faith, form our conscience, have a backbone, stop tolerating intrinsically evil things, learn from, and fix our mistakes. Shut-up, and "Just do it!"

Marriage Protection Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

2006-03-30T18:38:00.000-05:00

WEB ALERT

Marriage Protection Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

ATTN: U.S. Senate and House of Representatives:

“ Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

Sign the Marriage Petition.
If you haven’t done so, please sign AFM’s online Defense of Marriage Petition by clicking here. We have already delivered over 600,000 individual petitions to Congress and new petitions continue to put tremendous pressure on Capitol Hill to pass AFM’s Marriage Protection Amendment!
http://www.allianceformarriage.org/site/PageServer

Your state senator and respresentative need to hear from you!
We are calling on you today to call your legislators and tell them that you support marriage. Make it clear to them that whether or not they support the amendment itself, they should at least vote allow the people to make the decision on this important issue.
http://voteonmarriage.org/communicate.shtml

Thank you.

Only by our making our voices heard will we win the battle for marriage!

2006-03-16T16:30:00.000-05:00

We’re not going change 2000 years of Sacred Tradition and Magisterial teaching just so that we can be politically correct!

2006-03-15T20:07:00.000-05:00

E-Mail to a Boston reporter - Hiller Instinct: Adoption exemptions...

To: Michael_McLaughlin
From: Andy Hiller [mailto:ahiller@whdh.com]
Subject: Re: Same Sex Adoption and the Catholic Church

thanks for your e-mail. what you written is a manifesto for one side of the culture war we're now in. ultimately, its possible there may be a split between catholics world-wide who believe as you do, and a much smaller number of american catholics who disagree with fundamental church teachings. but, even if that happens, when church law conflicts with state or federal law, i think the church law will (and should) be superceded.

with all respect, sir, the roman catholic church is just one of several institutions that claim to be divine...and the battles between are the bullet-points of human history.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Andy Hiller [mailto:ahiller@whdh.com]
From: Michael_McLaughlin
Subject: Re: Same Sex Adoption and the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is not a mere human invention, like a political or social entity. The Church is of divine institution; Jesus Christ himself instituted the Church, not mere men (Catechism # 763-766).

To reject the teachings of Peter and his successors the Roman pontiffs, together with the bishops who are united with the Holy Father in teaching the one faith which has been handed down faithfully from the apostles, is to reject the teaching of Jesus Christ, and the One who sent him, the Father (cf. Luke 10:16). There have been many splits of the Catholic church world-wide... They're called Protestant now!

The Catholic Church can never fail ultimately, although her members can and do. The Church is far more than the sum of her human members, for if that were the case the Church would surely have fallen long ago. The storms of time and the tempests stirred up by earthly kings and rulers come and go; their crowns rise, and fall, and roll in the dust, but the Church goes on. Mere personal opinions come and go. Some say this, some say that, but mere personal opinion cannot move the Rock on which the Church is built.

Indeed, to be rooted in the Rock, to be one with the Rock, keeps the Church from being swept away by the shifting sands of time. There is a spiritual principle that many of us would do well to remember: Focus on the light, not on the darkness. If we continually seek the flaws and imperfections in the members of the body of Christ, the Church, surely we shall find them. Focus on the darkness and you run the very real risk of being absorbed into the darkness, of becoming part of the darkness. Focus on the light and you will be absorbed into the light and indeed become light to the world in the one who is the "Light of the world."

The Word who became flesh still dwells among us: Emmanuel - God among us - is among us indeed, on every altar and in every tabernacle of every Catholic Church in the world. We are to become one with the Eucharistic Lord Jesus and, filled with Him, bring Him to all the world. By living his life, a life of prayer, penance and virtue, we became who we are: the body of Christ. Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth!

Da Vinci Code - Decoded by US Bishops'

2006-03-13T12:30:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Bishops’ Catholic Communication Campaign provides accurate information on the life of Jesus prior to the release of the movie based on Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code.

Resources include a Web site and a documentary which will be offered to NBC-TV television stations affiliated with the NBC Networkas part of the Horizons of the Spirit series. Also being produced is a 16-page booklet on The Authentic Jesus. On March 9, the CCC will launch an Internet Web site, www.jesusdecoded.com, to provide accurate information on Jesus, Catholic teaching, and various topics explored in The Da Vinci Code.

Tthe USCCB Committee on Communications, presents authentic Catholic teaching about Jesus and his divinity, the New Testament, Gnosticism, women and the Church, and other important topics in a convenient question–and–answer format. The Authentic Jesus will be available for individual and bulk sale from USCCB Publishing.

Further information about the documentary is available at www.jesusdecoded.com.

U.S. Bishops Issue Strong Retort to Catholic Democrats' Conscience Statement

2006-03-12T13:58:00.000-05:00

U.S. Bishops Issue Strong Retort to Catholic Democrats -

Statement on Responsibilities of Catholics in Public Life March 10, 2006 Cardinal William H. Keeler Chairman, USCCB Committee on Pro Life Activities

We need to do more to persuade all people that human life is precious and human dignity must be defended. This requires more effective dialogue and engagement with all public officials, especially Catholic public officials. We welcome conversation initiated by political leaders themselves.

Therefore, we welcome the Representatives’ recognition that Catholics in public life must act seriously and responsibly on many important moral issues. Our faith has an integral unity that calls Catholics to defend human life and human dignity whenever they are threatened. A priority for the poor, the protection of family life, the pursuit of justice and the promotion of peace are fundamental priorities of the Catholic moral tradition which cannot be ignored or neglected. We encourage and will continue to work with those in both parties who seek to act on these essential principles in defense of the poor and vulnerable.

At the same time, we also need to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s constant teaching that abortion is a grave violation of the most fundamental human right – the right to life that is inherent in all human beings, and that grounds every other right we possess.

Full Story: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2006/06-050.shtml

Witness faith powerfully and without compromise.

2006-03-12T13:12:00.000-05:00

It’s very hard not to sit back and be complacent, politically correct, or take the easy road, and not speak up when it seems like everyone around us is in favor of intrinsically evil things such as abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, etc. Abortion, artificial contraception, pornography, and all types of disordered lifestyles could never exist if we would just witness our faith powerfully and without compromise.

The four Roman Catholic diocesan bishops of Massachusetts are finally making a stand on Same-sex adoption. We as Catholics’ have been quiet for far too long, and now that we are finally speaking out we need to be unwavering and united against all of the issues that we as Catholics in-fact not just in name, can not possibly support. We’ve captured public attention, because we’ve been quite about so many issues in the past. This is such a critical moment in history, we cannot fail to exercise our solemn duty. Because we at times have failed to act appropriately and decisively, should not mean that we never act.

We must call on the Church to severely criticize publically any Catholic politician who supports such morally outrageous sins such as abortion, partial-birth abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, and same-sex marriage. The sin is egregious and public. The redress must also be severe and public. A latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication in virtue of the acts themselves needs to be made public so that there is no question that these politicians are forbidden from approaching the sacraments of the Catholic Church.

Latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication

2006-03-12T13:00:00.000-05:00

Latae sententiae excommunicattion triggered when any Catholic supports intrinsically evil acts (abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, etc).

Any Catholic who is in favor of intrinsically evil things (abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, etc), votes for them, or otherwise funds or furthers their cause, cannot remain Catholic in fact.
Catholics must adhere to Catholic teaching or run the risk of separating themselves from the Body of Christ. In such egregious and chronic cases of gross moral evil such as instituting and perpetuating abortion and the structures of sin that surround it, it is quite probable that such Catholics are excommunicated in virtue of the acts themselves. A latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication is likely triggered when they support, enable, and perpetuate such obvious and egregious evil (Cf. Code of Canon Law, Canons 1364, 1398; Canon 1329, par,#2). They are in turn forbidden from approaching the sacraments as the result (Cf. Catechism of Catholic Church # 1463).

These persons must undoubtedly think that a fetus is not a human being. If they did, would they authorize and enable the wholesale and on demand execution of tens of millions of the most innocent human beings in their mothers’ wombs? If they think that there is not a human being in the womb, then they do not believe what the Church believes, and that belief is not optional. Such a rejection of so fundamental a truth is tantamount of heresy (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church # 2089), the automatic penalty for which is excommunication (Cf Code of Canon Law # 1364). No further act of a bishop is required either, since the act of unbelief in itself is what triggers the severing of the members from the Body of Christ. If, on the contrary, they think that indeed there is a human being in the womb, they are in a worse position, having knowingly and willingly fostered, facilitated, and perpetuated a human holocaust of unthinkable proportions.

If there is ignorance, instruct the ignorant. If there is obstinacy, exact the canonical penalty. To fail to do so results not only in ignorance and obstinacy, but negligence and permissiveness: the fertile soil in which a degenerating culture can multiply its errors, bear evil fruit, and die. Religious leaders are in a unique position to influence the nation and the world for the better by calling their people to high moral standards. Failure to do so ultimately results in disaster, for the moral demise of a nation always precedes the ultimate demise of a nation.

Among some Church leaders there is an understandable fear of acting decisively, now. This is, obviously, because the pain of the recent sex abuse scandals is so fresh in the mind of a rightfully indignant public. However, if the Church should fail to exercise her solemn pastoral duty at such a critical moment in history, it is likely that this further lack of decisive action will prove fatal for the last vestiges of respect remaining for the leadership of the Church. Because we at times may have failed to act appropriately and decisively in one matter shouldn’t mean that we never act.

There is no excuse whatever for a Catholic politician who supports morally outrageous perversions of authentic justice such as abortion, partial-birth abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, and same-sex marriage. The hierarchy of the Church ultimately must severely censure them and make such censure public. The sin is egregious and public. The redress must be commensurately severe and public, precisely because of that.