"Walter is a Still, Small Voice in the Turmoil of the Abortion Debate"

His voice may be quiet, but the effects of his witness, faith, and courage are momentous and ongoing. What a shepherd!

Our good friend, the Reverend Walter Hoye, has received the Life Issues Institute's "Hero at Heart" award. Reverend Hoye joins such past recipients as Senator Henry Hyde and Abby Johnson.

WASHINGTON, DC, October 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "An African-American pastor who spent 18 days in jail for peacefully picketing in front of a California abortion clinic has been awarded the Life Issues Institute’s 2011 Hero at Heart award.

Rev. Walter Hoye, accompanied by his wife, Lori, accepted the award before a gathering of pro-life leaders in Washington, DC.

'Walter is a still, small voice in the verbal turmoil of the abortion debate. Yet his humble and loving actions are turning the hearts and minds of women against abortion. Life Issues Institute is honored to give him this award,' Life Issues Institute Executive Director Bradley Mattes commented, after presenting Hoye with the award.

Past recipients of the Hero at Heart award include Congressman Henry Hyde, Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, former Kansas state Attorney General Phill Kline, Abby Johnson and Olympian medal winner Tasha Danvers-Smith."

Congratulations, Reverend Hoye, on this well-deserved honor!

Betrayed

We put him in office--promises broken.
Here's part of a brilliant article from the St Louis Dispatch.

...Among Catholics, the most egregious example of Obama's broken promise of religious tolerance is the one dominating diocesan headlines now: His administration's push for a mandate that would require Catholic institutions to violate the teachings of their church by covering contraceptives in their health care plans – including sterilization and drugs that induce abortions.

The mandate would be controversial even if accompanied by the standard religious exemption that allows faith-based organizations to opt out of government regulations that violate their religious beliefs. But the Obama administration has gone a step further, by crafting a religious exemption for the mandate so narrow that it excludes nearly all Catholic hospitals, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities and charitable organizations – virtually everyone, it seems, except Catholic parishes and religious orders. The upshot: Catholic colleges that teach abortion is evil must pay for abortifacient drugs for their students and Catholic hospitals that refuse to sterilize patients must subsidize sterilization for their employees.

The mandate and its lack of conscience protection is a blatant attack on religious freedom and a far cry from the promise Obama made at the University of Notre Dame in 2009. Back then, when the president was peddling his health care plan and pledging to seek "common ground" with pro-life Catholics, he vowed to "honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause." Now that Obamacare has passed, the president and his surrogates are singing a different tune.

Sebelius followed her martial rhetoric with a sarcastic swipe at pro-lifers who fail to see church-funded contraception as a cure-all for America's astronomical abortion rates. Apparently, the secretary has not read the 2011 Guttmacher Institute report that found a majority of women who abort their babies were using contraception the month they conceived.

Obama displays a similarly dismissive attitude toward his pro-life and Catholic critics. At a fundraiser here in St. Louis last week, he offered a flippant "darn tooting" rejoinder to an audience member who called out support for his unyielding enforcement of the contraceptive mandate. He answered a recent invitation to dialogue from U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops President and New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan with stony silence. And he has ignored pleas for compromise from the likes of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins and Catholic Health Association President Sr. Carol Keehan, two former Obama cheerleaders who now look like Obama's dupes.

The president's hard-line, anti-freedom stance threatens to alienate millions of Catholics, including many who disagree with their church's teachings but resent the prospect of government officials dictating which doctrines Catholic institutions may follow and which ones they must violate. For these voters and millions of their fellow travelers of other faiths, Obama's election in 2008 is looking more and more like a mistake – one they do not intend to repeat in 2012.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Colleen Carroll Campbell. "Obama is alienating Catholic voters." St. Louis Post-Dispatch (October 13, 2011).

Bl. Luigi Guanella Canonized!

Wonderful news about a wonderful saint! Blessed Luigi Guanella, who worked closely with and was influenced by St. John Bosco, the founder of the Salesians, was canonized today by the Holy Father. Of his years with Don Bosco, Don Luigi said "Being with Don Bosco was to me like being in heaven."

His Holiness also canonized Archbishop Guido Maria Conforti, founded the St. Francis Xavier Foreign Missions Society, and Sr. Bonifacia Rodriguez De Castro who co-founded the Congregation of the Siervas de San Jose, which helped poor women in Spain in the 19th century

Here is a short video about Saint Luigi Guanella:



Saints Luigi, Bonifacia, and Guido Maria, pray for us!

San Francisco Rosary Rally Video--Great!

What a blessed day it was! Here is the official video of San Francisco's Family Rosary Crusade 2011, by Gino & Nyna Caputi:



Gino & Nyna are also the producers of "Petals in the Dust," a film about India's missing girls--millions of whom have been murdered through abortion and infanticide. You can learn more about their work here:

http://www.petalsinthedust.com/

We have posted about their efforts. Our past posts are here.

SF's Catholic Supervisor Mark Farrell on His Crisis Pregnancy Center Vote

The greatest issue facing “a Catholic in elected public office” in the United States is legalized abortion. On October 18, the Catholic Supervisor Mark Farrell was one of 11 San Francisco Supervisors to vote on legislation restricting the message of crisis pregnancy centers. His vote, and his statement about his vote, are interesting because on Tuesday, November 15, he will address the Young Adults Group of St. Vincent de Paul Church in San Francisco. The Young Adult’s calendar of events states: “Supervisor Mark Farrell will be joining the group to share some of his personal stories and reflections as a Catholic in elected public office.”

Here is his statement, taken verbatim from the caption notes to the video of the meeting and vote. Typography in the original; interpolations in brackets added:

"Supervisor farrell: “this has been a tough one for me and I will be supporting the legislation. First, this is not about first resort."

(Who, then, is it about? The only other crisis pregnancy center in San Francisco is the Alpha Pregnancy Center, a much smaller organization).

"I know lot of people have insinuated that. I have a lot of friends involved with the organization and I have great things to say about it. Second, this is a cautionary warning."

(Who is being cautioned? Read on.)

"At the end of the day, I don' t have a problem or regulating advertising and saying false or misleading advertising is wrong. I have no problem doing that and why I will be supporting this today. I have seen a lot of evidence in e-mail change going around looking at google search results and algorithms. All lot of that stuff is not controlled by people to advertise. A clear warning -- I think you could go down a very slippery slope."

(Who is the “you” that Supervisor Farrell is addressing? It can only be his fellow board members--and himself. What is the slippery slope? As Farrell’s colleague, Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, the only Supervisor to vote against the ordinance, pointed out: “Four cities have passed ordinances like this. Three of those cities have seen those tossed out. The fourth is in the middle of litigation right now. I do not believe the record is sufficient to beat that threshold.”)

"Google has a provision against false or misleading advertising. To say that by buying certain key words you are doing false or misleading advertising, you' re going after google itself, and we need to take a hard look at the ways we' re going to enforce this law going forward, but I will be supporting it today.”

So, according to Supervisor Farrell:

1) First Resort is a great organization.

2) Google already “has a provision against false or misleading advertising.” Supervisor Farrell’s clear implication is that if First Resort or Alpha Pregnancy were engaged in “false or misleading advertising”, Google, a far more capable organization than the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, would have nailed them already.

3) Supervisor Farrell offers his colleagues (and himself): “A clear warning -- I think you could go down a very slippery slope.”

4) Supervisor Farrell then proceeds to vote for the legislation.

Supervisor Farrell’s statement is hardly a model of clear thinking or a profile in courage. After listing all the problems with the legislation, he then proceeds to vote for it. Hardly a good message for the Catholic Young Adults.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Thanks, But No Thanks--High Schoolers Walk Out of Homosexual Propaganda Play

A good sign! From LifeSiteNews:

"HARTFORD, October 18, 2011 - Several students at a Hartford high school expressed horror and left the auditorium when two male members of a city-funded school play shared a passionate kiss onstage on Friday. School officials said they opted against informing parents about the event ahead of time, saying that the students needed exposure to homosexuality, and hailed the “chaotic” reaction as a victory for raising the gay issue."

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

"Pro-Life Aristotle"

In the Corner, Katherine Jean Lopez interviews professor Christopher Kaczor of Loyola Marymont University. They discuss his new book, The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice.

"I know that many women face unbelievably difficult circumstances in their pregnancy. For this reason, I think that all people of good will have an obligation to help them, to celebrate their heroism when they choose life, and to love them even when they do not. I can think of one case in particular: a young student, not yet finished with her education, who found herself pregnant with a man she did not know well. With so many responsibilities, both to her extended family and to her studies, she felt desperate, alone, and trapped. It was truly an act of heroism for that woman to decide to place that child for adoption. I know the woman in the story very well. She is my birth mother."

Read the whole thing.

Obama alienates Catholics

Catholics make up about a quarter of the American electorate and have backed the popular-vote winner in every presidential election since 1972.
That track record continued through 2008: While weekly churchgoing Catholics slightly favored Sen. John McCain, Catholics as a whole backed President Barack Obama by a margin of 54 to 45 percent.
Given the role Catholics played in Obama's 2008 victory and their habit of picking presidential winners, you might think that an embattled president with a 40-percent approval rating would be working overtime to solidify his support among this crucial voting bloc. Instead, Obama seems intent on convincing Catholics that their faith in him was unwarranted.
While other voters have been disappointed by Obama's economic failures and arrogant, ham-handed approach to everything from health care reform to the Solyndra scandal, swing-voting Catholics have special reason to feel betrayed. A candidate who won their support by pledging to respect the religiously grounded views of those with whom he disagrees has morphed into a president whose administration relentlessly attacks religious liberty.
In the past year, Obama's Justice Department has argued in court that defenders of traditional marriage – the most visible segment of which are observant Catholics and bishops – should be regarded in law as the equivalent of racists. His National Labor Relations Board has issued rulings against two Catholic schools, St. Xavier University in Chicago and Manhattan College in New York, saying that they are not sufficiently Catholic to warrant religious exemptions from federal labor law – a stunning breach of the precedent in which religious bodies, not government officials, decide who qualifies as a member of a particular church. Those rulings followed on the heels of a highly publicized crusade by Obama's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to punish North Carolina's Belmont Abbey College for removing contraception coverage from its employee health plans, a move the Catholic school made to conform to church doctrine.
And just last week, Obama's Justice Department argued before the Supreme Court for the effective gutting of the longstanding "ministerial exception" that allows religious bodies to hire and fire employees without government interference. The administration's extreme position has drawn criticism from nearly every major religious organization in the country, from the liberal National Council of Churches to the conservative National Association of Evangelicals, all of whom fear that their churches could be the next targets of an overzealous, First-Amendment-trampling Uncle Sam.
Among Catholics, the most egregious example of Obama's broken promise of religious tolerance is the one dominating diocesan headlines now: His administration's push for a mandate that would require Catholic institutions to violate the teachings of their church by covering contraceptives in their health care plans – including sterilization and drugs that induce abortions.
The mandate would be controversial even if accompanied by the standard religious exemption that allows faith-based organizations to opt out of government regulations that violate their religious beliefs. But the Obama administration has gone a step further, by crafting a religious exemption for the mandate so narrow that it excludes nearly all Catholic hospitals, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities and charitable organizations – virtually everyone, it seems, except Catholic parishes and religious orders. The upshot: Catholic colleges that teach abortion is evil must pay for abortifacient drugs for their students and Catholic hospitals that refuse to sterilize patients must subsidize sterilization for their employees.
The mandate and its lack of conscience protection is a blatant attack on religious freedom and a far cry from the promise Obama made at the University of Notre Dame in 2009. Back then, when the president was peddling his health care plan and pledging to seek "common ground" with pro-life Catholics, he vowed to "honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause." Now that Obamacare has passed, the president and his surrogates are singing a different tune. "We are in a war," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a NARAL Pro-Choice America crowd in Chicago last week.
Sebelius followed her martial rhetoric with a sarcastic swipe at pro-lifers who fail to see church-funded contraception as a cure-all for America's astronomical abortion rates. Apparently, the secretary has not read the 2011 Guttmacher Institute report that found a majority of women who abort their babies were using contraception the month they conceived.
Obama displays a similarly dismissive attitude toward his pro-life and Catholic critics. At a fundraiser here in St. Louis last week, he offered a flippant "darn tooting" rejoinder to an audience member who called out support for his unyielding enforcement of the contraceptive mandate. He answered a recent invitation to dialogue from U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops President and New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan with stony silence. And he has ignored pleas for compromise from the likes of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins and Catholic Health Association President Sr. Carol Keehan, two former Obama cheerleaders who now look like Obama's dupes.
The president's hard-line, anti-freedom stance threatens to alienate millions of Catholics, including many who disagree with their church's teachings but resent the prospect of government officials dictating which doctrines Catholic institutions may follow and which ones they must violate. For these voters and millions of their fellow travelers of other faiths, Obama's election in 2008 is looking more and more like a mistake – one they do not intend to repeat in 2012.
Catholic Education Resouce Center: COLLEEN CARROLL CAMPBELL

SF Supes Approves Ordinance against Pregnancy Centers: "A Solution in Search of A Problem"

"A solution in search of a problem" is how San Francisco supervisor Sean Elsbernd referred to today's “false advertising” ordinance against San Francisco pregnancy centers. The ordinance was passed by the Board of Supervisors by a 10-1 vote. Elsbernd was the only dissenter.

Albert Lee, of First Resort, one of the centers affected by the ruling, said "It is a sad and regrettable thing to see the board pass this legislation despite no evidence whatsoever of false and misleading advertising by San Francisco’s two pregnancy centers. It is, as Sean Elsbernd said as the sole dissenting supervisor, 'a solution in search of a problem.'”

Sad and regrettable, yes; surprising, no. That the Board of Supervisors of the City and Couty of San Francisco would waste time and money on a non-existent issue is not news. But the Board has left the taxpayers of San Francisco on the hook for a costly legal battle that is very likely to be won by the pregnancy centers. Similar laws in Baltimore and New York have already been overturned/put on hold by judges, on First Amendment grounds. As we wrote back on August 2, the real purpose of this is law is to harass crisis pregnancy centers at taxpayer expense, and thus to service the Democrat's sacred cow, Planned Parenthood.

But this will certainly end up in court. And the already stretched taxpayers of San Francisco will get screwed again. As Mr. Lee said, stay tuned.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Wonderful San Francisco Rosary Rally!

From this morning's California Catholic Daily. All photos courtesy Darwin Sayo.


“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
California Catholics honor Blessed Mother at San Francisco Family Rosary Crusade

"Under 70-degree weather and soft breezes, the San Francisco Family Rosary Crusade was prayed on Saturday, Oct. 15, in the city’s Civic Center Plaza. The crowd, numbering in the low thousands, included the faithful from every diocese in the Bay Area, as well as the dioceses of Stockton, Sacramento, and Fresno.

Too many parishes to count were represented. One of the largest groups, around 50, came from Immaculate Heart of Brentwood, and had special T-shirts printed for the occasion. The pilgrims were led by their pastor, Fr. Jerry Brown, and parochial vicar, Fr. Carl Arcosa.The rally also attracted visitors from as far away as Idaho, Ireland, Eastern Europe, and Africa, who had one way or another learned about the rally, and who joined in the opportunity to honor Our Lady.

Religious were very well represented. Many Dominicans, Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist, and the Missionaries of Charity had large contingents. Franciscans, Jesuits, Holy Cross Fathers, and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians were present as well, as were large numbers of seminarians.



The event began with a procession from the rear of the Plaza toward the stage. The crowd filling the central portion of the Plaza parted, like the Red Sea, to allow the procession of dignitaries, rally leaders, and the families chosen to recite the rosary. The procession was led by two boys carrying the banner of the Legion of Mary, followed by the Knights of Columbus Honor Guard.

The Master of Ceremonies was Fr. Lawrence Goode, chaplain of the Legion of Mary. Fr. Goode began by asking for a show of hands from those who had attended the 1961 Rally. A surprising number went up. He then asked for a response from those who came from the diocese of Oakland. A cheer went up. Then San Jose. Another cheer. Then Santa Rosa. Another cheer. Then Stockton. Another cheer. Then Sacramento. Another cheer. Then Fresno. Another cheer. Then the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Another big cheer.

Fr. Goode then introduced the bishops in attendance: Auxiliary Bishop William Justice of San Francisco, retired Bishop Ignatius Wang of San Francisco, and retired Bishop Daniel Walsh of Santa Rosa.Bishop Justice then spoke. He sent greetings from Archbishop George Niederauer, whose health prevented him from attending. Bishop Justice then read from Romans, Chapter 8, reminding the faithful that it is through Jesus that we have life, that God works all things to good, and that “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Fr. Goode then introduced the rosary as a prayer for all peoples and all times. “It is pre-Vatican II and it is post Vatican II,” he said. “It was the prayer of Nobel Prize winning scientist Louis Pasteur. It was the prayer of ‘people power’ that peacefully overturned the corrupt government in the Philippines. It was the prayer of both Italy and Poland following the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. And it is the prayer of Chinese Catholics today, imprisoned for their faith, and who make rosaries out of yarn and paper!”

As silence descended on the plaza, the rosary began. Each decade was recited by a family from one of the Bay Area dioceses. The decades were accompanied by a scriptural reading by a seminarian, and a reflection by either a Dominican Brother or a Holy Cross Father.One of the Holy Cross Fathers reflected on Mary as one who listens: “When others speak, she ponders their words in her heart. But when she does speak, she sings!”

The rosary was followed by the keynote address by Fr. Andrew Apostoli, CFR; the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, led by Bishop Ignatius Wang, and the prayer for the Beatification of the Servant of God, Fr. Patrick Peyton, led by Fr. David Marcham, vice-postulator for Fr. Peyton’s cause. In a notable coincidence, Fr. Apostoli is also currently serving as a vice-postulator for the cause of canonization of Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

“The Rosary Rally will be one day that we can be forever proud to have been part of,” said David Marten, one of the rally organizers. “The hard work and planning produced a flawless presentation. The Blessed Mother was watching over us and many graces were present.”

Many attendees expressed the hope that the San Francisco Rosary Rally will become an annual event in the city of St. Francis.

“Our blessings are beyond count,” said Eva Muntean, co-chair of the Walk for Life West Coast, who helped organizers. “Today has been a wonderful opportunity for all of us to give thanks, publicly, for the graces we have received.”

“What a beautiful witness to Our Lady and what great faith it shows,” said Vicki Evans, Respect Life Coordinator for the Archdiocese of San Francisco. “I see this as a sign of our faith that Mary will save San Francisco and our country from the dangers that threaten us.”

Despite generous contributions, organizers were still about $10,000 in debt as the day began. When the rally closed, they requested donations from the faithful. That evening, when they tabulated the donations, they received a final gift from Our Lady: the donations were almost exactly the amount needed -- and even a little more."

California Bishops "Puzzled"?

No. They are disengenuous.

Following Governor Jerry Brown's signing of AB 499, the bill that would allow minors to be vaccinated against sexually transmitted diseases without the permission of their parents, Ned Djolessi, speaking for the California Catholic Bishops sent out an email regretting the Governor's signature and professing to be puzzled by his action:

“We are puzzled and disappointed by Gov. Brown’s signature on AB 499, a bill opposed by the California Catholic Conference and literally thousands of people and community groups who support parental involvement and decry the continuing efforts of government officials and others to interfere with a parent’s right to raise their children."

There is not the slightest reason to be puzzled. Brown is a Democrat. He is the leader of the Party of Death in California. The Bishops' email continued:

“We are puzzled because on the same day he signed AB 499, the governor also signed SB 746, a ‘first-in-the-nation’ law to prevent children under 18 years of age from using tanning beds, and, just a month earlier, he vetoed SB 105, a bill to mandate ski helmets on underage youth, citing his concern with the ‘seemingly inexorable transfer of authority from parents to the state,’ saying ‘I believe parents have the ability and responsibility to make good choices for their children.’ “We recognize that it is a challenge to create good public policy, but we believe that if long-standing and generally accepted principles are upheld, the common good is served. In this case, it appears that by signing AB 499, the Governor abandoned the principle of parental responsibility he so eloquently stated earlier. We find his action both regrettable and inexplicable.”

It's not inexplicable at all: Repeat: Brown is a Democrat, the leader of California's Party of Death, and he is a liar. AB 499, introduced by open homosexual and same -sex "married" Assmblyman Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) is part of the LGBT movement and Democratic Party's ongoing war against the family. AB 499 is one of a trio of bills intoduced or sponsored this year by homosexual activists and California Democrats, all of which undercut family authority.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Party of Life, Party of Death

From yesterday's Life News:

"The House approved legislation, the Protect Life Act, to stop abortion funding in Obamacare. Senate Democrats are not expected to approve the bill and, pro-abortion President Barack Obama is expected to veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

Members voted 251-172 for the pro-life legislation, with 236 Republicans and 15 Democrats supporting the bill and 170 Democrats and two Republicans voting against it. (See how your member voted here)."

"Let's Call a Spade a Spade"

In his bulletin message of last Sunday, Father Gregory Coiro, O.F.M.Cap., the rector of the National Shrine of St. Francis in San Francisco, shared his thoughts on the upcoming San Francisco Rosary Rally. Fr. Coiro also had some powerful words about politicians who claim to be "ardent Catholics," yet ignore the Church's clear teaching about the rights of the unborn.

"Like many others in San Francisco, I am very excited about the Rosary Rally in the Civic Center Plaza this coming Saturday, October 15, at 12 noon. What makes the event even more exciting for the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi is that the rally’s keynote speaker, Father Andrew Apostoli of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, will celebrate Mass at 9 a.m. that day here in our church.

(When the Rosary Rally organizers contacted me to see if Father Andrew could celebrate Mass here, I thought they had in mind a private Mass—after all the church does not open to the public until 10 a.m. The next thing you know, the Mass was being announced on the Eternal Word Television Network, as well as on the Rosary Rally website. So, it will be anything but private!)

Father Andrew, like Father Benedict Joseph Groeschel and the other founding members of the Friars of the Renewal, was a Capuchin Franciscan friar before establishing their new community that seeks to live the Rule of St. Francis even more austerely but in the Capuchin spirit and tradition.

A noted author and preacher, Father Andrew is frequently seen on EWTN. Something very special about him is that he was ordained to the priesthood by the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and now serves as the vice-postulator of his cause for beatification and canonization.

The Rosary Rally marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Family Rosary Crusade led by the late
Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton—another candidate for beatification and canonization—in Golden Gate Park with over a half-million Catholics in attendance.

Father Peyton was famous for, among other things, coining the slogan, “The family that prays together, stays together.”

I have had 5,000 holy cards featuring the image of the Shrine’s statue of Our Lady and the Hail Mary printed up to mark this special occasion and I will ask the people who attend the Mass that morning to distribute them to others at the Rally.

Of course, I hope there will be many more than 5,000 people in attendance at Civic Center Plaza, but I do have budget constraints!

October is the month of the Holy Rosary and it is also Respect Life Month. We pray the Rosary every afternoon at 4:30 (except Mondays) in the Shrine’s Lady Chapel, La Nuova Porzoincola, for the intention that all Catholic public officials might be or might become authentic ally prolife.

We all know that there are elected public officials who claim to be “ardent” Catholics yet do nothing to stop the legal slaughter of 4000 innocent human beings every single day in this country. These people are liars.

They are not “ardent” Catholics at all and they do not really believe the Church’s teaching that killing unborn babies is tantamount to murder. If they did believe it, how could they possibly expect us to vote for them when they refuse to use their power and influence to stop the legal butchering of innocents? Do they really expect us to take them seriously when they, in effect, say, “I truly believe that abortion is murder but I feel no obligation to stop the murderers.”?

Let’s call a spade a spade. These public office holders are intellectually dishonest and we need to call them out for their lies. But we also need to pray that they will have a change of heart and that’s what we do in the Heart of San Francisco.

Pax et Bonum,
Fr. Gregory Coiro, O.F.M.Cap."

Will Obama Destroy Franciscan University of Steubenville?

Daniel Webster was the most famous lawyer of his day. In 1819, the "Godlike Daniel" stood before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued passionately for the right of Dartmouth College to govern itself, and not to be brought under the rule of the New Hampshire legislature. Webster appealed to the Constitution, arguing that New Hampshire's actions would violate that provision that forbade states to "impair the obligations of contract." But the emotional power of his argument caught the attention of Chief Justice John Marshall, Justice Joseph Story, and in truth, captured the hearts of the country.

Richard N. Current gives us a gripping description of Daniel Webster's defense of Dartmouth College in a 1963 American Heritage article.
"Sir, you may destroy this little institution. It is weak. It is in your hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of the country. You may put it out. But if you do so, you must carry through your work. You must extinguish, one after another, all those great lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their radiance over our land. It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet, there are those who love it. ..."

The Dartmouth College case became one of the pillars of American jurisprudence. And Webster's powerful appeal propelled him to a brilliant career in the U.S. Senate.
The Supreme Court that year ruled in favor of Dartmouth College. It recognized not only the supremacy of the Constitution, but it showed that it valued the signal role played by colleges and universities in American life.

The Obama administration is showing it values that role not at all. It is attempting to crush The Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. Mr. Obama's HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, is trying to force Steubenville to dispense abortion-producing drugs and pay for sterilizations. This is a Roman Catholic institution. Such things are strictly proscribed by the Catholic faith.
Sec. Sebelius may be aware that Catholic institutions are required by faith and fidelity to their mission to uphold these principles. It is an indispensable part of their mission and their reason for being. To force a Catholic institution to violate the consciences of its faculty, students and alumni in this fashion is like forcing a Yeshiva to serve pork to Orthodox Jewish students.
This attempt to crush The Franciscan University of Steubenville is, tragically, not an isolated example. From the first days of the Obama administration, there has been a kulturkampf (culture clash) against Catholic institutions not seen since the days of the Iron Chancellor of Germany, Otto von Bismarck. It was Bismarck who attempted to put all churches and universities in Prussia under his hobnailed boot.

Writer Charlotte Allen wrote of the "Persecution of Belmont Abbey" by the Obama administration in 2009. There, too, liberal zealots were demanding that the Catholic school, founded in 1876, provide contraception, abortifacients, and sterilizations or face federal sanctions. This, according to the institution's president, could lead to closing down the historic little college.

Chai Feldblum is a tenured professor at Georgetown University Law School. This is the oldest Catholic university in the country. Ironically, Feldblum, is also a homosexual legal activist. She was Barack Obama's choice for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She told a panel at Family Research Council that if it came to a clash between what she calls gay rights and religious liberty, religious liberty must give way. In other words: "Be Amish, or be quiet."
We have already seen this as the most anti-Israel administration in U.S. history. Never before has an American president and secretary of state stooped to counting Jews in Jerusalem.
The Obama administration is also the most anti-Catholic administration in American history. Never before have tens of millions of Catholic Americans been forced to subsidize the killing of unborn children with their taxes -- as they are under ObamaCare. But now they are also forcing Catholic institutions to take part in the destruction of innocent human lives and the maiming of others by paying for abortifacients and sterilizations. As Americans, we must defend our religious liberties -- while we still have them. Steubenville is a little college, but there are those who love it!
By Ken Blackwell (Archive) · The Patriot Post

"Our Shepherd Came!"

Good Bishop Vasa of Santa Rosa Visits Flock at 40 Days for Life

More and more Bishops are marching with, and ahead of, their flocks in the battle for the Culture of Life. On July 22, 2011 California Catholic Daily reported that on July 16 Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento led a Rosary Procession to the city’s main Planned Parenthood abortion business at 29th and B Streets. The procession followed a Mass celebrated at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Sacramento.

The new Bishop of the Diocese of Santa Rosa, the Most Reverend Robert Vasa can be added to this list. On September 28, Bishop Vasa led the opening prayer at the beginning of the 40 Days for Life fall vigil outside of the Women’s Health Specialists abortion business at 4415 Sonoma Highway in Santa Rosa.

40 Days for Life Santa Rosa co-Captain Judy Parcher said: “Our chapter is small… we were praying, and my husband said to me ‘Oh my gosh, isn’t that the bishop behind you?’ I turned and it was! I can’t tell you the joy that raced in my heart, and I felt how much love God had bestowed on us with this visit! I thought: he’s so busy…that he would take this time to be with us … our shepherd came!”

Bishop Vasa’s presence at a pro-life vigil should come as no surprise. He has been an outspoken proponent of the Church’s teaching on life issues. In 2010, as Bishop of the Diocese of Baker, Oregon, Vasa withdrew the Church’s official sponsorship of Oregon’s St. Charles Medical Center because the hospital performed sterilizations. In 2007, the Bishop had asked that the hospital to verify its compliance with the U.S. Bishops' Catholic Ethical and Religious Directives for Health Care Services. After discovering the church performed tubal ligations, the Bishop removed the sponsorship. On February 16, 2010, LifeSiteNews quoted the bishop: “It would be misleading for me to allow St. Charles Bend to be acknowledged as Catholic in name while I am certain that some important tenets of the Ethical and Religious Directives are no longer being observed.”

The Santa Rosa vigil is bearing fruit. Mrs. Parcher said “Less than 24 hours after the bishop joined us, a young woman, accompanied by a man drove into the abortion business. They headed down the driveway, but a little while later she came out. She came up to us and was crying, and said ‘I don’t want to have an abortion. Can you help me?’ We carry lots of information for crisis pregnancy centers and we directed her to one that could help her out.”

Great News From England: Catholic Procession in Manchester!

From Catholic News Agency:

Marian procession in Manchester ends 20 year drought
By Estefania Aguirre

"After a 20 year absence, the first official Catholic procession returned to the English city of Manchester on Oct. 2.

'I had tears in my eyes when they lifted Our Lady and it all began,' 75-year-old Mary Patricia Fehily said. 'I was walking in the love of Jesus and Mary.'

Fehily, from the city of Hale, is one of the many who were reminded of processions from her childhood years.

'It brings back so many memories of my youth because in Ireland we used to process three times a year. Hopefully this will make people think of our Creator.'

The crowd of Catholics was estimated at 1,000 people, who took to the streets of Manchester’s predominantly Muslim neighbourhood of Rusholme. Security was provided by Catholic police personnel who volunteered their services....The Marian Community of Reconciliation and the Christian Life Movement, organizers of the event, said they had expected half the turnout.

Inspector Damian O' Reilly of Greater Manchester Police said: 'It's been fantastic. I remember the old days and it's nice to get something going again and show that we're proud of our faith.

'This is just going to get bigger and bigger. This year we've had 1,000 participants, but next year we'll have 5,000,' he said."

Very nice!

Suspended

A 14 year old boy was suspended from Western Hills High School in Texas for saying he thought that “being a homosexual is wrong.”

Can you believe this?
The boy’s name is Dakota Ary, and here is his story:
According to news reports, during a German class, Dakota’s teacher started talking about religion and homosexuality in Germany, and even posted a picture on the wall of two men kissing.

Dakota turned to a friend and said he was a Christian and that “being a homosexual is wrong.”
The teacher reportedly overheard his comment and sent him to the principal's office.
Then, the assistant principal at Fort Worth’s Western Hills High School called Dakota’s mother and said her son was given an “in-school suspension,” plus two-days of full suspension for what he had said in class against homosexuality.

After several protests, the school agreed to revoke the suspension so that Dakota could play in an upcoming football game.

God fearing Americans must speak out NOW, while theirs is still freedom to do so. Otherwise, soon, everyone who disagrees with homosexuality may be forced into silence. And perhaps even punished. Or jailed.

People in Canada and Sweden have already been arrested and jailed for speaking out against homosexuality. We must not let that happen here.