Baby Joseph Goes Home to the Lord

Little baby Joseph Maraachli has passed away.

Earlier this year, we had followed his family's battles against the Canadian Healthcare system. The family was seeking the right to have the little fellow come home, so that he could die surrounded by those who loved him. Many people helped the family in that battle, formeost of whom was probably Fr. Frank Pavone.

Play with the Lord, little guy!





Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Catholic Voters Get New App

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, SEPT. 28, 2011 (Zenit.org).

The company that put confession preparation on the iPhone now has a tool for Catholic voters: CatholicVote Mobile, aimed to mobilize and unify those who want to get the Church's view to Congress.

Little i Apps, LLC, makers of Confession: A Roman Catholic App, collaborated with CatholicVote.org in the development of the new app.
The service provides a method to contact members of Congress, as well as offering mobile access to CatholicVote.org's blogs and news.

A one-touch method allows Catholic voters to more easily participate in the political forum. Based on a user's GPS location or zip code, the app generates the contact information for their representative and senators. Users can select to automatically add this information to their contact lists or simply tap to connect."It was an incredible opportunity for Little i Apps to be a part of this project. We are excited about the potential impact an app like this could have on American politics," said Patrick Leinen, co-founder of Little i Apps. "Imagine what could happen if every Catholic voter used the Contact My Representative option to contact their congressional representative or senator before a critical vote. With the launch of this app, CatholicVote.org has given voters an incredible tool. We can’t wait to see how they use it!"

CatholicVote Mobile is free and is available on the Android Market and the iTunes Store.

Even Jesus Wouldn’t Qualify as ‘Religious’

Catholic Bishops on Obamacare Reg: ‘Unprecedented Attack on Religious Liberty,’ by Stephen Frank on 09/27/2011

Barack Obama has made sure that Catholics will be embarrassed and forced to either close hospitals or allow the killing of babies in their facilities–if the government is to allow them to keep their hospitals open.

” In an “urgent” call to action distributed as a bulletin insert at Catholic churches across the country on Sunday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that a new federal regulation proposed under President Barack Obama’s health-care law “poses an unprecedented threat to individual and institutional religious freedom.”

The proposed regulation would require all private health-care plans to cover sterilizations and “all FDA-approved contraceptives”–which include “emergency” contraceptives such as ulipristal (or “Ella”) that can cause an abortion both before and after an embryo implants in the mother’s womb.”

We already know the answer, the Catholic church will close the hospitals, making health care even more difficult. it also shows that BO has no shame when he is trying to kill religious freedom, like any other run of the mill totalitarian.
Obama believes dead babies are more important than religious rights and freedom. This is the change he is bringing to our nation–a nation without religious freedom.

This is what Nancy Pelosi, herself a Catholic did not want you to know–San Fran Nan and Barack have conspired to kill the Catholic church in America.

SF Crisis Pregnancy Centers: "False & Misleading Advertising" Not Demonstrated

Today the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors heard testimony about the proposed law that would "prohibit pregnancy centers from engaging in false or misleading advertising practices."

The legislation was introduced by Supervsor Malia Cohen and City Attorney Dennis Herrera. We had posted on this story back on August 2 & 3, where we wrote:

"The real purpose of the proposed ordinance is twofold: first, to harass the crisis pregnancy centers at public expense. That's because they threaten the Democrats' sacred cow, Planned Parenthood. It's just a fact that every baby born represents a financial loss for Planned Parenthood, and centers such as First Resort and Alpha Pregnancy help babies to be born and raised. Secondly, Dennis Herrera is running for mayor, and he thinks this will help his campaign."

Today, the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

"Two San Francisco supervisors, concerned over First Amendment issues, were hesitant about moving forward with a proposed law that would prohibit pregnancy centers from engaging in false or misleading advertising practices.

Centers that break the the law could face civil action by the city and fines up to $500 per violation.

The legislation takes aim at pregnancy centers that oppose abortion. The concern is that women with unplanned pregnancies are tricked into thinking that certain pregnancy centers will give them information on all of their options, including abortion, when that’s not the case.
“This legislation has been carefully crafted to ensure a balance between protecting the most vulnerable members of our communities and protecting the constitutional rights of everyone,” said Supervisor Malia Cohen, chief sponsor of the legislation, which has the backing of pro-choice advocates.

But opponents said if the legislation is approved, it would put the city at legal risk of trampling on the First Amendment.

“This law attacks one group of pregnancy resource providers, but not another group with a competing message,” said Shari Plunkett, CEO of First Resort, a pregnancy counseling center and women’s health clinic that will not perform abortions, nor tell clients where they can get the procedure done....

Supervisors, after being briefed by the city attorney, said that in order to mount a strong defense against a likely legal challenge, the city would have to produce a record of false and misleading advertising.

Imagine that--the city should have to prove what it says. But as we said, this is a "nuisance lawsuit" designed to harass crisis pregnancy centers at public expense. But as both Supervisor Avalos and Elsbernd, noted you gotta have at least some kind of a case.

But both Supervisors John Avalos and Sean Elsbernd, who serve on the committee, said such a record wasn’t demonstrated. The best legislative backers could come up with were reviews on Yelp and a search on Google when people plugged in the phrase “abortions in San Francisco” and Plunkett’s First Resort organization popped up as the second link.

“This legislative record here, to me, is empty,” Elsbernd said.

Avalos expressed a similar concern. The committee sent the legislation on to the full board without recommendation for consideration next week, with Avalos suggesting that evidence of false advertising be collected before that vote.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Crisis of faith

Published: September 26, 2011 by Caliifornia Daily Catholic

Freiburg, Germany (CNA/EWTN News) -- “The real crisis facing the Church in the Western world is a crisis of faith,” Pope Benedict XVI told a gathering of lay Catholics on Sept. 24.

“We see that in our affluent Western world much is lacking. Many people lack experience of God’s goodness,” the pope said to the Central Committee of German Catholics on the third day of his state visit to Germany. “They no longer find any point of contact with the mainstream churches and their traditional structures.”...

Using Catholicism in Germany as an example, the pope said that, while the German Church was “superbly organized,” it was perhaps lacking in a “corresponding spiritual strength, the strength of faith in a living God.”

“We must honestly admit that we have more than enough by way of structure but not enough by way of Spirit,” the pope said. “I would add: the real crisis facing the Church in the Western world is a crisis of faith.”...

This is observed, said the pope, “in the inconstancy and fragmentation of many people’s lives and in an exaggerated individualism,” such that many people “no longer seem capable of any form of self-denial or of making a sacrifice for others.”

Meanwhile others “are now quite incapable of committing themselves unreservedly to a single partner,” he said....

Hence the need for new places where those who lack experience of God’s goodness can encounter it, said the pope. He suggested that small communities could be one such path where “friendships are lived and deepened in regular communal adoration before God.” There, said the pope, “we find people who speak of these small faith experiences at their workplace and within their circle of family and friends, and in so doing bear witness to a new closeness between Church and society.”...

He concluded by praying that God “always point out to us how together we can be lights in the world and can show our fellow men the path to the source at which they can quench their profound thirst for life.”

Unspeakable Propaganda at "Catholic" University

The unspeakable is about to happen...
On October 29, a nun who blasphemed Our Lord Jesus Christ and Saint John by referring to them as homosexuals will lecture students at Catholic Fairfield University!!!

Her name is Sister Gramick. And she referred to the holy friendship between Our Lord and Saint John, saying it was “for lesbian and gay people a hope for a blessing for same-sex relationships…”

Canadian Priest Removed for Teaching the Faith

This past week, Micheal Voris has posted a series of videos about the infiltration of the Church by homosexual activists. Note the title of out last post, which is a line taken from Mr. Voris video: "The Problem only Surfaces when Chuch Doctrine is Preached."

As if on cue, comes the story of Father Donat Gionet. From LifeSiteNews:

"The Catholic Diocese of Bathurst, New Brunswick has removed an elderly priest from active ministry after he caused a storm of controversy by denouncing homosexuality, cohabitation, and abortion in an August homily."

So! He's preaching Church Doctrine--and the problem surfaces. God bless the old Priest!

"85-year-old Fr. Donat Gionet had retired to his home town of Caraquet in June to serve palliative care patients, and now laments that in his declining years he is being forced to celebrate Mass 'in secret.'"

(85! He's a kid. Start a blog, Father! This is interesting. At Saints Peter and Paul we have three priests over 92 and five over 88--and they ain't retired, any more than Fr. Gionet will be. Every last one of them has no problem with Church doctrine. Fr. Armand was about 88 when he appeared in the Marriage Matters to Kids video. Old-style priests, for whom the collar is not a job, live just about forever).

"Fr. Wesley Wade, the diocese’s vicar general, told Radio-Canada that Fr. Gionet’s comments were consistent with Church teaching, but lacked the proper 'pastoral' sensitivity."

Yeah, right. Voris also had some words about the misuse of the word "pastoral." The episode reminds me of Fr. Malloy's going-away bulletin message at SSPP, before he was transferred:

"I am sorry if my remarks have offended anyone. My purpose has been to teach the truth and support our faith. I was ordained for that purpose."

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

"The Problem Only Surfaces When Church Doctrine is Preached"

Michael Voris has a series of videos this week highlighting the infiltration of parishes by homosexual activists, something that we have been documenting in our sister website "Homosexual Activism in the Archdiocese of San Francisco": http://www.sanfrancisco-catholic.com/

Here's his latest:

SF Rosary Rally: October 15!

From today's Catholic San Francisco:

Civic Center prayer rally to recreate spirit of Father Peyton’s 1961 Rosary Crusade

By Valerie Schmalz

Organizers of the 2011 Family Rosary Crusade on Oct. 15 at San Francisco’s Civic Center hope to recreate the greatest outpouring of prayer that anyone has ever seen here – the rosary rally led in 1961 by Father Patrick Peyton, who coined the phrase, “The family that prays together, stays together.”

Read the whole thing, and check out this Life Magazine photo of the 1961 rally. Go here to see larger version:

Jewish Boycott

A short time ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali urged the Muslim World to boycott anything and everything that originates with the Jewish people.

In response, Meyer M. Treinkman, a pharmacist, out of the kindness of his heart, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows:

"Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner.

"A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube.

Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocaine, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil.

If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege.

Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate.

Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew.

Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the "Schick" reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick.

"Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram.

They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk.

"Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease.

Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts.

"In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio, Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott."

Meanwhile I ask, what medical contributions to the world have the muslims made??

USF’s Privett to discuss “The Role of the Catholic University in the Church” at Most Holy Redeemer

On September 17, Fr. Stephen A. Privett, SJ, President of the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco, will be speaking at San Francisco’s Most Holy Redeemer Church. Fr. Privett’s subject will be “The Role of the Catholic University in the Church.” Exactly what qualifies Fr. Privett to speak authoritatively about a “Catholic” University is not immediately apparent. The ostensible qualification would be Privett’s presidency of USF, but Catholicness is not a defining trait of the University of San Francisco--and there is no sign that it is desired to be. Under Fr. Privett’s tenure, USF has moved to relegate Catholicism to just another among an aggregate of beliefs, theories, or values.

The very word Catholic no longer appears on the University’s homepage. Wiccan/Pagan holidays appear next to Christian holidays on the “Holy Days” calendar of the University’s Campus Ministry. The Director of the Catholic Studies Minor is the Reverend Vincent Pizzuto, who abandoned his Catholic faith and had himself ordained a priest in the Celtic Catholic Church. The attitude toward Catholicism was crystallized with the 2008 removal of confessionals from the university’s church, St. Ignatius. The confessionals were replaced with an art gallery. Fr. Privett himself removed any doubt on how USF views itself while discussing USF’s new logo and tagline on August 18: “We want the University of San Francisco to be the heart and soul of the city: to serve as a voice of reason tempered by compassion and driven by values.”

Pope Benedict himself could not ask for a clearer expression of the dictatorship of relativism. The statement is empty: whatever content it acquires will be “driven by values.” But what are “values”?

“Values” or “value judgments” as professor Eric Voegelin pointed out in 1947, “…were not part of the philosophical vocabulary before the second half of the nineteenth century. The notion of a value-judgment is meaningless in itself; it gains its meaning from a situation in which it is opposed to judgments concerning facts.” That opposition was created through the belief “..that only propositions concerning facts of the phenomenal world were ‘objective,’ while judgments concerning the right order of soul and society were ‘subjective’…incapable of critical verification and therefore devoid of objective validity.” But such a classification, according to Voegelin “…could be accepted only by thinkers who did not master the classic and Christian science of man. For neither classic nor Christian ethics and politics contain ‘value-judgments’ but elaborate, empirically and critically, the problems of order which derive from philosophical anthropology as part of a general ontology.”

If we accept Voegelin's judgement, Privett’s replacement of truth with “values” indicates either an inability, or more likely, an unwillingness to “master the classic and Christian science of man.” Not because it is difficult—Privett is surely a superbly educated man—but because that science actually gives answers, some of which may be hard to accept.

But the puzzle of why it is Fr. Privett, of all people, who should be discussing “the role of the Catholic University in the Church” is solved once one remembers where, of all places, the lecture is being held: San Francisco’s Most Holy Redeemer. There are of course a number of ties between the two institutions, which we have documented thoroughly on our sister website "Homosexual Activism in the Archdiocese of San Francisco."

In 2006, MHR hosted the university’s “Queer Perspectives: Is it Ethical to Be Catholic?” seminar, featuring the aforementioned Reverend Vincent Pizzuto. In 2009, MHR was scheduled to host the homosexualist propaganda play “Be Still and Know” performed by the students of Sacred Heart of Atherton. When Archbishop Niederauer was made aware of this, he caused the play to be cancelled. When MHR could not host the play, USF, against the Archbishop’s wishes, allowed the play to be performed at their Presentation Theater. Fr. Donal Godfrey, SJ, author of “Gays and Grays: the Story of the Gay Community at Most Holy Redeemer Parish” served for a time as USF’s Executive Director of University Ministry until last year.

The common denominator at both USF and MHR seems to be that neither is, at bottom, oriented by Catholicism—they see the Church as one part of a larger reality, admirable in some things, useful in some things, but not an authoritative or truth-possessing institution. In fact the Church’s claim to possess truth is seen as itself a problem. Based on the actions of USF combined with the hosting of the event at MHR, we conclude that “The role of the ‘Catholic’ University in the Church ” is seen as: a) to cease being Catholic, and b) to develop theoretical arguments for the undermining of the Church.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Doubts About Brain Death?

The Catholic Church has long acknowledged the role of the medical professional in declaring death.

It is the proper competency of medicine, not theology, to identify reliable signs that death has occurred. The hardening of the body known as rigor mortis, for example, is a reliable medical indicator that death has occurred. When the heart permanently stops beating and the lungs permanently stop functioning (cessation of cardio-pulmonary function), medical professionals recognize these signs as another reliable way to assess that death has occurred. The complete and irreversible loss of all brain function (commonly known as "brain death,") is yet another reliable way medical professionals determine that a patient has died.

In an August 2000 address, Pope John Paul II took up the particular question of brain death and concluded: "The criterion adopted in more recent times for ascertaining the fact of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology." ...

Nevertheless, a certain number of Catholics today insist that brain death is not really death. One moral theologian, for example, recently expressed doubts "that ventilator-sustained brain dead bodies are corpses." Several Catholic physicians have raised similar concerns. As long as thorough and accurate medical testing is performed, however, the Church continues to support the determination of death based on neurological criteria. In addition to Pope John Paul II's address mentioned earlier, a number of other Church documents and declarations affirm this. These include statements from the Pontifical Academy of Life, the Pontifical Council for Healthcare Workers, and the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, among others. In a recent article on the Catholic News Agency website, Dr. John Haas argues that the number and common thread of these ecclesiastical statements in recent years indicates that the teaching authority of the Church has "generally resolved" the question of the acceptability of relying on neurological criteria as a means for ascertaining death.

The fact remains that the Catholic Church to date has expressed no official doubts about brain death, emphasizing instead that a health care worker can use neurological criteria as the basis for arriving at "moral certainty" that death has occurred.

In the face of clear church teaching on this issue, Dr. Haas further observes how it is not responsible for Catholics to generate uncertainty by openly and publicly disputing the suitability of neurological criteria for determining death....

Meanwhile, the Church continues to recognize the generous nature of freely-chosen organ donation, an act Pope John Paul II once called "particularly praiseworthy" and an act which can offer "a chance of health and even of life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope."

by FATHER TAD PACHOLCZYK, Director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk is a member of the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center. (CERC)