American Supreme Court Slaps Down California Abortionists

Remarkable what happens when grownups get involved. Congratulations to our friends over at Support Circle, Alpha Pregnancy, etc.

Washington D.C., Jun 26, 2018 / 08:19 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a California law requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to post information on programs to obtain a free or low-cost abortion.

The 5-4 ruling in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra sent the case back to a lower court to be reconsidered, in light of the Supreme Court’s finding that “We hold that petitioners are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the FACT Act violates the First Amendment.”

Lower courts had rejected a petition to temporarily block the California law while it was being legally challenged. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the case against the law was unlikely to succeed on its merits.

The Supreme Court reversed that ruling, saying that the Ninth Circuit was wrong to treat the speech of pregnancy centers as a lesser category of free speech simply because it is “professional speech.”

More from Cardinal Zen on Capitulation to Communists: "It’s a complete surrender. It’s incredible.”

The great Salesian continues to battle on behalf of Jesus's Church.

Cardinal Zen Celebrating Mass

LifeSiteNews reports today:

Chinese bishops appointed by the country’s communist government are voicing support for the Vatican’s dealings with China that may allow the government to decide who becomes bishop. 

Bishop Peter Fang Jianping of Tangshan said he was confident that the Chinese government and the Vatican will soon reach an agreement on appointment of bishops, reported Eurasia Review on Tuesday. 

He noted that if mainland bishops appointed by the government obtained legal status from the church, it could promote development of what Eurasia Review called the “China Church.” The government runs the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a fake church of communist-approved and monitored clerics. The real Catholic Church is underground and is persecuted. 

Bishop Fang said that Catholics a should support President Xi proposed sinicization of religion “because we, as citizens of the country, should first be a citizen and then have religion and beliefs.”

Emphasis added, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is all you need to know. These fake bishops, whom Pope Francis and the Vatican are so eager to recognize, openly proclaim their allegiance is not to the Church but to the state.

USF Vice-Provost for Students also Board Chair of Abortion Providers

California Catholic Daily has an edited version of this story.

USF’s New Vice-Provost of Student Life Also serves as Board Chair for Abortion Providers
On July, 28, 2016 the Jesuit University of San Francisco announced the appointment of a new vice-provost of student life. From the press release announcing the appointment:

“The University of San Francisco (USF) has named Julie Orio vice provost of student life. Orio has served as interim vice provost of student life at USF since August 2015, where she has led a team of approximately 140 full-time professionals and 25 graduate students to enliven the university’s Jesuit mission through its co-curricular offices and activities that support the development and success of all students. She will begin her permanent role immediately.”

The release continued:

“Beyond her responsibilities at USF, since 2006 she has been actively involved in the Women’s Community Clinic in San Francisco, serving as board member and chair.”

“Enlivening the university’s Jesuit mission” apparently includes “serving as board member and chair” of an organization that provides birth control, ‘emergency contraception,’ and ‘Medication Abortion.’ The ‘Women’s Health Services’ page on the Women’s Community Clinic’s website page describes ‘Medication Abortion’: “ Medication abortion is a way to terminate an early pregnancy by using medications. It’s often called the ‘abortion pill’, and it’s an option for women during their first ten weeks of pregnancy. Medication abortion works through a combination of two drugs: Mifeprex and Misoprostol. Mifeprex blocks the hormone progesterone, which will stop the growth of the pregnancy; Misoprostol will then cause the uterus to contract and help your body expel the pregnancy.”

The mission statement for USF’s Office of Student Life includes the following: “While each office within Student Life holds a specialized mission, our work is in service to and collaboration with the University's mission to offer ‘the knowledge and skills needed to succeed as persons and professionals, and the values and sensitivity necessary to be men and women for others.’” How this vision of “the values and sensitivity necessary to be men and women for others” can be furthered by a person serving as board chair of an organization which describes abortion, the taking of an innocent human life, as “expelling the pregnancy” is perhaps something that only a corrupt Jesuit can understand.

It is not the first time USF and the Women’s Community Clinic have partnered. On Mar8, 2010, in the article ‘Abortionfest at USF’, CalCatholic reported that one of the featured speakers at USF’s 2010 Global Women’s Rights Forum was Dr. Eve Zaritsky, the then-medical Director of the Women’s Community Clinic. From the article “The Women’s Community Clinic ‘Services’ page offers ‘Emergency Contraception,’ which, depending on the timing, can be an abortion. The Women’s Community Clinic does not offer non-emergency contraception abortions, but will refer women to organizations that do.” That lack has obviously since been addressed. The aricle continued “The forum is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, the Sociology Colloquium, the School of Nursing, the Politics Department, the Gender and Sexuality Studies Department, and curiously, the Theology and Religious Studies Department….”

Ms. Orio is far from the only rotten apple at USF. USF Faculty includes the Reverend Vincent Pizzuto. In addition to his work as Professor of New Testament Studies, with “LGBT Hermeneutics and Theology” listed as one of his areas of expertise, Pizzuto is also the Director of USF’s Catholic Studies and Social Thought Minor and the Coordinator of the Ignatian Faculty Forum. His biographical page on the USF website lists another of his areas of expertise: “same-gender marriage.” It does not mention that Pizzuto, born Catholic, and currently a minister of the Episcopal Church, has presided at such counterfeit “marriages.”

The anti-Catholicism at USF goes right to the top. As CalCatholic reported on April 23, 2016 , USF’s president, Fr. Paul Fitzgerald, SJ, attended San Francisco’s the Gay Pride parade, in 2015. The parade is a celebration of the sin of sodomy.

Why San Francisco’s Catholic clergy and hierarchy choose to remain silent is unknown. While USF is objectively no more evil than the University of California or Stanford, its masquerade as an institution in any way connected to the Catholic Church presents a much greater spiritual danger.

David Daleiden keeps the pressure on

Here is his most recent expose of Planned Parenthood:

"The Gospel that once transformed cultures is now in danger of being transformed by them"

Here is the Intervention of Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Disciple of the Sacraments, in the ongoing Synod on the Family.

This is so important, so lucid, and so obviously inspired by and faithful to the Holy Spirit, and to Jesus Christ, we reproduce it in full. This is the voice of the Church!

Your Holiness, Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, participants of the Synod,

I propose these three thoughts:

1. More transparency and respect among us

I feel a strong need to invoke the Spirit of Truth and Love, the source of parrhesia in speaking and humility in listening, who alone is capable of creating true harmony in plurality.

I say frankly that in the previous Synod, on various issues one sensed the temptation to yield to the mentality of the secularized world and individualistic West. Recognizing the so-called “realities of life” as a locus theologicus means giving up hope in the transforming power of faith and the Gospel. The Gospel that once transformed cultures is now in danger of being transformed by them. Furthermore, some of the procedures used did not seem aimed at enriching discussion and communion as much as they did to promote a way of seeing typical of certain fringe groups of the wealthiest churches. This is contrary to a poor Church, a joyously evangelical and prophetic sign of contradiction to worldliness. Nor does one understand why some statements that are not shared by the qualified majority of the last Synod still ended up in the Relatio and then in the Lineamenta and the Instrumentum laboris when other pressing and very current issues (such as gender ideology) are instead ignored.

The first hope is therefore that, in our work, there by more freedom, transparency and objectivity. For this, it would be beneficial to publish the summaries of the interventions, to facilitate discussion and avoid any prejudice or discrimination in accepting the pronouncements of the synod Fathers.

2. Discernment of history and of spirits

A second hope: that the Synod honor its historic mission and not limit itself to speaking only about certain pastoral issues (such as the possible communion for divorced and remarried) but help the Holy Father to enunciate clearly truths and real guidance on a global level. For there are new challenges with respect to the synod celebrated in 1980. A theological discernment enables us to see in our time two unexpected threats (almost like two “apocalyptic beasts”) located on opposite poles: on the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism. To use a slogan, we find ourselves between “gender ideology and ISIS”. Islamic massacres and libertarian demands regularly contend for the front page of the newspapers. (Let us remember what happened last June 26!). From these two radicalizations arise the two major threats to the family: its subjectivist disintegration in the secularized West through quick and easy divorce, abortion, homosexual unions, euthanasia etc. (cf. Gender theory, the ‘Femen’, the LGBT lobby, IPPF …). On the other hand, the pseudo-family of ideologized Islam which legitimizes polygamy, female subservience, sexual slavery, child marriage etc. (cf. Al Qaeda, Isis, Boko Haram …)

Several clues enable us to intuit the same demonic origin of these two movements. Unlike the Spirit of Truth that promotes communion in the distinction (perichoresis), these encourage confusion (homo-gamy) or subordination (poly-gamy). Furthermore, they demand a universal and totalitarian rule, are violently intolerant, destroyers of families, society and the Church, and are openly Christianophobic.

“We are not contending against creatures of flesh and blood ….” We need to be inclusive and welcoming to all that is human; but what comes from the Enemy cannot and must not be assimilated. You can not join Christ and Belial! What Nazi-Fascism and Communism were in the 20th century, Western homosexual and abortion Ideologies and Islamic Fanaticism are today.

3. Proclaim and serve the beauty of Monogamy and the Family

Faced with these two deadly and unprecedented challenges (“homo-gamy” and “poly-gamy”) the Church must promote a true “epiphany of the Family.” To this both the Pope (as spokesman of the Church) may contribute, and individual Bishops and Pastors of the Christian flock: that is, “the Church of God, which he has obtained with his own blood” (Acts: 20:28).

We must proclaim the truth without fear, i.e. the Plan of God, which is monogamy in conjugal love open to life. Bearing in mind the historical situation just recalled, it is urgent that the Church, at its summit, definitively declare the will of the Creator for marriage. How many people of good will and common sense would join in this luminous act of courage carried out by the Church!

Together with a strong and clear Word of the Supreme Magisterium, Pastors have the mission of helping our contemporaries to discover the beauty of the Christian family. To do this, it must first promote all that represents a true Christian Initiation of adults, for the marriage crisis is essentially a crisis of God, but also a crisis of faith, and this is an infantile Christian initiation. Then we must discern those realities that the Holy Spirit is already raising up to reveal the Truth of the Family as an intimate communion in diversity (man and woman) that is generous in the gift of life. We bishops have the urgent duty to recognize and promote the charisms, movements, and ecclesial realities in which the Family is truly revealed, this prodigy of harmony, love of life and hope in Eternity, this cradle of faith and school charity. And there are so many realities offered by Providence, together with the Second Vatican Council, in which this miracle is offered.

Translation from Italian by Diane Montagna.

Archbishop Cordileone Leads SF Protest Against Planned Parenthood!

That's where a good shepherd should be. Bless him!

Today pro-lifers in San Francisco joined people of conscience all over the country in protesting the murderous organization. Archbishop Cordileone led his flock in prayer and witness against the legal murder of the defenseless.

Photos are from Kelly Connelly, Valerie Schmalz, and SF News Feed.

Latest Planned Parenthood Video

The continuing obscenity that is taxpayer-funder abortion and the sale of fetal body parts continues to be exposed by the Center for Medical Progress. Their latest video is below.

On Monday, the Senate voted 53-46 to defund Planned Parenthood. All but two of the votes to defund the loathsome organization were from Republicans; all but two of the votes to continue funding were from Democrats.

The Democrats are the Party of Death and how any person (let alone a Catholic) can continue to vote for them indicates a moral failure on the voters part. I understand it certainly: the Democrats will give you free stuff, maybe even stuff you need, but that is not a sufficient reason.

PURE EVIL

Even I, born and raised in San Francisco, am shocked. I did not think that was possible. The story of the vicious murderers over at "Planned Parenthood" (the very name is as much a lie as "same-sex marriage") not only killing children but using them for spare body parts is all over the news. The horror was exposed by the Center for Medical Progress (whose website is down as I write).

Here is one report from Breitbart News:

The video is harrowing, like something out of a James Bond movie, where apparently, a top-executive at a major institution (that annually receives hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars) blandly explains how Planned Parenthood will perform abortions in special ways in order to preserve body parts that will later be sold illegally; how the forceps are used, etc.. All over a meal and wine.

“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part,” Nucatola coldly explains. “I’m gonna basically crush [the unborn child] below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact. … And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.”

Here is the video:


Lila Rose, who has done so much to expose the evil of Planned Parenthood, writes:

“This investigation by the Center for Medical Progress reveals the unimaginable horror that is Planned Parenthood. The exploitation of human life, the cover-up, and the black market profiteering by America’s largest abortion chain is not only egregious and heartbreaking, but exposes how the abortion giant is corrupt to the core — from the CEO, Cecile Richards, down to the local clinic. As Live Action has investigated through the years, Planned Parenthood’s barbaric practices reveal their contempt for rule of law and human life. This latest expose of Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of baby parts for profit should be the final nail in the coffin for the abortion giant. Congress must take immediate action to stop all taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and end the bankrolling of this horrific human rights abuser.”

AMEN! There is petition up, urging Congress to investigate Planned Parenthood for the selling pieces of aborted babies. You can sign here.

AB Cordileone: The heart of a lion, the patience of a saint

Our great Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone joins his predecessor the great Archbishop (and 'pink brick' award winner) George Niederauer in trying to open the closed heart of his lost sheep, Nancy Pelosi.

LifeSiteNews reports:

San Fran. archbishop responds to Pelosi: ‘No Catholic can dissent in good conscience’ on abortion

SAN FRANCISCO, January 26, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi repeatedly refused to say last week whether an unborn child at 20 weeks is a “human being,” her archbishop in San Francisco has responded by insisting that “no Catholic can dissent in good conscience” on abortion. 

CNSNews posed the question to Pelosi on January 22 in light of debate in the House of Representatives on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks except in cases of rape, incest, and a threat to the life of the mother. 

After twice refusing to say whether an unborn child at 20 weeks is a “human being,” she stated: “As a mother of five, in six years, I have great standing on this issue, great understanding of it, more than my colleagues.” She added that she knows more about “having babies” than even the pope. 

"It is a scientific fact that human life begins at conception," he said. "This has been established in medical science for over 100 years. Catholic moral teaching acknowledges this scientific fact, and has always affirmed the grave moral evil of taking an innocent human life.” 

“This has been the consistent teaching of the Church from the very beginning, a teaching already discernible in the natural moral law, and so a teaching from which no Catholic can dissent in good conscience,” he added.

Pastors, he said, have an “obligation … to reach out to their people who have difficulty understanding and accepting such important teachings of the Church in order to extend to them true pastoral care and, where appropriate, to establish a regular dialogue.”

“This is something I have always striven to do in the various ministries I have exercised as a priest and bishop, including now as the Archbishop of San Francisco. I ask for people’s prayers for success as I continue to strive to do this,” he said.

God bless His Excellency and His Excellency Niederauer before him.  I point out that even Don Bosco, one of the most beloved and kindest of Saints, threw a couple of boys out of the Oratory because he feared they would become a bad influence on others.

It's about 8 year's now since our dear Fr. Malloy (who was also very kind and patient) told Pelosi not to receive communion:

From the Pastors Desk

Nancy, you are fooling yourself and I fear fooling many good Catholics. You are simply not in sync with the Catholic Church. Until you change your non-Catholic positions, you should stop calling yourself Catholic. Your record shows that you support embryonic stem cell research, Planned Parenthood, contraception, family planning funding, allowing minors to have an abortion without parental consent, and are against making it a crime to harm a fetus, etc. etc.

The fact that you favor married priests and women priests certainly would not classify you as conservative, but your answer to the question are you a conservative Catholic was:

“I think so. I was raised in a very strict upbringing in a Catholic home where we respected people, were observant, were practicing Catholics, and that the fundamental belief was that God gave us all a free will, and we were accountable for that, each of us. Each person had that accountability, so it wasn’t for us to make judgments about how people saw their responsibility and that it wasn’t for politicians to make decisions about how people led their personal lives; certainly, to a high moral standards, but when it got into decisions about privacy and all the rest, then that was something that individuals had to answer to God for, and not to politicians.”

That sounds fair and tolerant, but your record belies high moral standards.

The NARAL rates you 100% pro-abortion. Your statement: “To me it isn’t even a question. God has given us a free will. We’re all responsible for our actions. If you don’t want an abortion, you don’t believe in it, [then] don’t have one. But don’t tell somebody else what they can do in terms of honoring their responsibilities. My family is very pro-life. They’re not fanatics and they’re not activists. I think they’d like it if I were not so vocally pro-choice.”

Do we not elect politicians to make laws that help people honor their responsibilities, such as protecting life itself? Can politicians not tell someone else not to kill? If you can kill a baby in the womb, Nancy, why not outside of it? Oh wait, you are in favor of partial birth abortion, so-called because the baby sticks out of the “mother” about halfway, while the “doctor” sucks out the baby's brain. That seems comparable to the choice the Nazis made killing six million Jews.

Yes, Nancy, we (together with your pro-life family) would all like it if you were not so vocally pro-choice, i.e. pro-death. Until your choice is in line with Catholic doctrine, please, Nancy, do not receive the Eucharist when you attend Mass.
Rev. John Malloy, SDB

San Francisco, CA

L.A. Media Boycotts Large Pro-Life Event

OneLife LA not covered by local press

Pro-lifers are used to media blackouts of their events. The radical under reporting of Washington DC’s huge annual March for Life (which draws hundreds of thousands every year) or San Francisco’s Walk for Life west Coast which regularly draws over 50,000 people. But even by these shoddy standards the negligence of the mainstream media in refusing to cover the January 17 OneLife LA event in downtown Los Angeles sets a new low. As of noon on January 19, a Google news search for “OneLife LA” articles over the previous 24 hours returned exactly two responses: an article from Catholic News Agency, and an article in the Rock Hill Herald, a publication based in, Rock Hill, South Carolina, which was a reprint of the OneLife LA press release which followed the event. A similar search with the term “Archbishop Jose Gomez” (who presided over the event) over the same time frame only returned one response, the Catholic News Agency article.

Organizers estimated 15,000 pro-lifers in attendance, and photos of the event certainly shows thousands of people. The event also had a number of notable speakers including Hispanic movie star Eduardo Verastegui and TV actress Patricia Heaton, both of whom are pro-life. Their presence makes the lack of LA’s mainstream media coverage all the more striking, since movie/TV stars are generally catnip to the city’s celebrity-obsessed press.

Covered by media

Not covered by media

The bias is shown by comparing the response to a Los Angeles event selected at random: a December 5 protest against the killings by police of three men: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Ezell Ford. The protest was covered by CBS Los Angeles, the local affiliate of CBS News. The CBS LA screenshot shows about 21 protesters in attendance. None appeared to be movie stars. The tiny protest was also covered by mynewsla.com, the L.A. Daily News, USA News and the Eagle Rock Patch (which all published the same story as mynewsla.com), and the Los Angeles gotnewswire.com, which picked up the CBS story. The Los Angeles City and Press website also linked to the CBS story. At this point I stopped searching for more coverage, as the point has been made. The mynewsla.com story opened with the sentence “Dozens of people protesting the deaths of unarmed black men…” which correlates pretty  accurately with the 21 or so protesters in the CBS screenshot—there must have been 3 more out of site somewhere, which brings the number  up to “dozens.”

A shorter version of this post appeared in today's California Catholic Daily.

Fr. John Malloy 5K for Life in SF’s Golden Gate Park

(A shorter version of this post appeared in yesterday's California Catholic Daily).

Before you WALK for Life…RUN for Life!
Fr. John Malloy 5K for Life in SF’s Golden Gate Park


On January 24, 2015 the Walk for Life West Coast will be preceded by the Father John Malloy 5K Run for Life.

The Run for Life, which honors the Late Fr. John Malloy, SDB, the founding chaplain of the Walk for Life West Coast and first winner of the Walk’s St. Gianna Molla award for pro-life heroism, is a joint production of the Walk for Life West Coast and LIFE Runners.

The run will begin at 7:30 AM in the parking lot on the north side of the Polo Fields in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park at 1232 JFK Drive. Runners will run half-way around the Polo Fields, proceed west, then turn east for over a mile on John F. Kennedy Drive before turning south on Chain of Lakes Dr. E. The final turn will be at South Lake, west onto the trail toward a final 3/4 lap around the Polo Fields. The finish is just past the original starting line at the parking lot on the north side of the Polo Fields. All participants will find ample parking along JFK drive, near the Polo Fields.

It was Fr. Malloy’s support and hosting of San Francisco’s 2004 Rally in Defense of Marriage which gave the impetus to the creation of the first Walk for Life West Coast in 2005. In that year he was named the Walk’s original chaplain, a position he held until his death, at age 91, in 2013. Fr. Malloy’s stand for the unborn was unshakable, and he used his pulpit to preach the pro-life message. He did not shy away from calling out Catholic politicians by name when they supported abortion. One of many examples was in the Saints Peter and Paul parish bulletin Pastor’s message of July 20, 2003:

“Certain political positions increase my blood pressure every time I come across them. One of the most upsetting is the abortion issue. How anyone in his/her right mind could support abortion (murder), at this time in history, is, for me, inconceivable....You and I, my dear parishioners, are called upon to affirm the dignity of women, and to protest this attempt to force abortions and sterilizations on helpless women.”

Fr. Malloy’s association with the Walk for Life West Coast was one of his proudest achievements. We take great comfort in his eternal prayerful support for life and family.

LIFE Runners, the world’s first pro-life running team, was co-founded by running partners Dr. Pat Castle and Dr. Rich Reich in 2008 as the Pro-Life action arm of the LIFE Group Devotions which they had co-founded in 2007. LIFE Runners currently has over 60 chapters in all 50 states of the union, plus more than 20 countries worldwide. In 2013 LIFE Runners raised over $100,000 for pro-life organizations. In addition to local races, LIFE Runners sponsors the A-Cross America Relay. The A-Cross America Relay consists of four separate arms, starting at the Brooklyn Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, Corpus Christi Bay in Portland, TX, and the Red River Bridge in Grand Forks, ND. The route goes by abortion facilities, where runners will pray with 40 Days for Life groups. All 4 arms will unite on Palm Sunday at the beautiful Falls Park near St. Joseph Cathedral in Sioux Falls, SD.

To register for the Fr. Malloy 5K Run for Life, please go to the LIFE Runners sign-up page: www.liferunners.org/signup/ which will complete both your LIFE Runner and 2015 Fr. Malloy Walk for Life 5K registrations (be sure to check "Yes" for the Fr. Malloy 5K field! If you are already a LIFE Runner, please just email a quick note that you'd like to register for the Fr. Malloy 5K, put on your LIFE Runners gear and meet us at Golden Gate Park on January 24th!

To learn more about the Father Malloy 5K for Life, visit:

www.liferunners.org/race/fr-malloy-west-coast-walk-for-life-5k/

To learn more about LIFE Runners, visit www.liferunners.org/

To learn more about the Walk for Life West Coast visit www.walkforlifewc.com

At Synod, divorce IS on the table--but whose?

Going into the current Synod on the Family one of the most publicized issues (rightly or wrongly) was whether or not to give communion to divorced and remarried Catholics. I have a disturbing sense that this is because some of the clergy at the synod are trying to divorce the Church, the Bride of Christ, from her groom, Jesus.

The big news yesterday was the bizarre paragraph 50, from the recently released relation, which asserting that the Church should accept sin.

"Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?"

A church document asserting that we should value sodomy. Only a Bishop or Cardinal who has divorced himself from Jesus Christ could have written that.

The authors are now scrambling for cover.

From Catholic News Agency earlier today:

1) First they report what the Holy See's Press office said:

"The General Secretariat of the Synod … reiterates that it is a working document, which summarizes the interventions and debate of the first week,” said an Oct. 14 declaration of the Holy See press office on behalf of the secretariat of the Synod of Bishops."

2) But the Synod declines responsibility:

"Cardinal Napier, a moderator of one of the small circles at the synod, openly dismissed the relatio during an Oct. 14 briefing with journalists, saying, 'that’s Cardinal Erdo’s text, not the synod text.'

The cardinal questioned whether 'some expectations of the synod are unrealistic,' and underscored that 'the synod is not called to discuss contraception, abortion, same-sex marriages. It was convoked to speak about the family.'

 'How it is written, the relatio conveys that there is an agreement on issues, on which there is not in fact an agreement' the Archbishop of Durban underscored.'

3) But Cardinal Erdo says:

"Cardinal Peter Erdo of Esztergom-Budapest and general rapporteur of the synod, said the relatio may not be completely attributed to him.

When asked about legislation regarding homosexual couples, Cardinal Erdo did not respond and instead gave the floor to Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, saying 'who has written the paragraph must respond.'
However, after Archbishop Forte’s response, Cardinal Erdo wanted to point out that the relatio lacks a mention of 'the disorder' of some behavior, even though synod fathers had stressed it."
Some Cardinals, Bishops, and Priests of course still respect their vows:

"In an Oct. 13 interview, Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, told CNA the relatio 'is simply riven with very serious difficulties, and I'm deeply, deeply concerned and I'm not alone.'”

Indeed, he's not. Here's the comment of Cardinal Gerhard Muller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. From La Repubblica, via Rorate:

"Undignified, Shameful, Completely Wrong."

 Vatican Radio (again, via Rorate):
 
"The document summarizing the first week of the synod is not acceptable to many bishops - so says Archbishop Stanislaw Gądecki." 

 Archbishop Gadecki is the President of the Polish Bishop's Conference.

Msgr. Pope nails it on St. Pat's Parade--and other things as well

Via Rorate, we share the commonsensical observations of the great Monsignor Charles Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington. Apparently, that Archdiocese pulled his post from their website. 

I can't see any good reason why they would do this. Since they did do it, though, they must have a bad reason. I hope Cardinal Dolan reconsiders his foolish decision to participate in the New York parade.

Time to End the St. Patrick's Day Parade and the Al Smith Dinner?
By: Msgr. Charles Pope


The time for happy-clappy, lighthearted engagement of our culture may be nearing an end. Sometimes it takes a while to understand that what used to work no longer works. Let me get more specific.

Decades ago the “Al Smith Dinner” was a time for Republicans and Democrats to bury the hatchet (even if only temporarily) and come together to raise money for the poor and to emphasize what unites us rather than what divides us. But in the old days the death of 50 million infants was not what divided us. We were divided about lesser things such as how much of the budget should go to defense and how much to social spending. Reasonable men might differ over that.

But now we are being asked to raise toasts and to enjoy a night of frivolity with those who think it is acceptable to abort children by the millions each year, with those who think anal sex is to be celebrated as an expression of love and that LGBTQIA… (I=intersexual, A= Asexual) is actually a form of sanity to which we should tip our hat, and with those who stand four-square against us over religious liberty.

Now the St. Patrick’s Parade is becoming of parade of disorder, chaos, and fake unity. Let’s be honest: St. Patrick’s Day nationally has become a disgraceful display of drunkenness and foolishness in the middle of Lent that more often embarrasses the memory of Patrick than honors it.

In New York City in particular, the “parade” is devolving into a farcical and hateful ridicule of the faith that St. Patrick preached.

It’s time to cancel the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the Al Smith Dinner and all the other “Catholic” traditions that have been hijacked by the world. Better for Catholics to enter their churches and get down on their knees on St. Patrick’s Day to pray in reparation for the foolishness, and to pray for this confused world to return to its senses. Let’s do adoration and pray the rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet unceasingly for this poor old world.

But don’t go to the parade; stay away from the Al Smith Dinner and all that “old school” stuff that hangs on in a darkened world. And as for St Patrick’s Day, it’s time to stop wearin’ the green and instead take up the purple of Lent and mean it. Enough of the celebration of stupidity, frivolity, and drunkenness that St Paddy’s day has become. We need penance now, not foolishness. We don’t need parades and dinner with people who scoff at our teachings, insist we compromise, use us for publicity, and make money off of us. We’re being played for (and are?) fools.

End the St Patrick’s parade. End the Al Smith Dinner and all other such compromised events. Enough now, back to Church! Wear the purple of Lent and if there is going to be a procession, let it be Eucharistic and penitential for the sins of this age.

For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

How say you?

California forces Catholic Colleges to pay for abortion

The Democrats, the party of death, in action. Jerry Brown, a "Catholic", in action. Let it never be forgotten: the picture at left shows Brown with political ally and mass murderer (909 people killed at Jonestown) Jim Jones.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Gov. Jerry Brown's administration has reversed an earlier decision to allow two Catholic universities to eliminate coverage of most abortions for employees, saying state law requires health insurance plans to cover all abortions.

The state had previously allowed insurance companies to offer plans to Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount universities that denied coverage for "elective" abortions, and allowed it only for abortions needed to save a woman's life or prevent serious health damage. Loyola Marymount, in Los Angeles, implemented its policy in January, while Santa Clara's was due to take effect next year.

Urged by abortion-rights groups and university employees to reconsider the issue, Brown's Department of Managed Health Care, in letters to be sent Friday to insurers for both universities, said the exclusions violate a 1975 state law that requires group health plans to cover all basic services - defined, by the law, as those that are "medically necessary."

"Abortion is a basic health care service," the department's director, Michelle Rouillard, said in the letter.
In addition, she said, "the California Constitution prohibits health plans from discriminating against women who choose to terminate a pregnancy. Thus, all health plans must treat maternity services and legal abortion neutrally."

Rouillard told the insurance companies to review all health plans, including those the department had previously approved, to make sure they comply with the law.

Wesley Smith writes: "What starts in California doesn’t stay in California. Forced abortion coverage will be the next front in the war against religious freedom."

Planned Parenthood 'waging a less-than-truthful PR campaign''

An edited version of this article appears in today's California Catholic Daily.

'A less-than-truthful PR campaign’
SF’s Planned Parenthood claims ‘harassment’—but where’s the evidence?

On Sunday July 27, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on complaints from the proprietors of San Francisco’s largest abortion business. The Chronicle’s article “Planned Parenthood gripes about S.F. Protestors” covered the latest fallout from the Supreme Court’s McCullen v. Coakley ruling, which defended the First Amendment rights of pro-life activists. The article began:

“Planned Parenthood executives say San Francisco police and the city attorney aren't doing enough to protect patients and staff from ‘harassment and intimidation’ at the organization's health center on Valencia Street.

‘Each week, as the harassment and intimidation escalate ... the city's ordinances are violated ever more flagrantly,’ Planned Parenthood's Bay Area chapter leader, Heather Saunders Estes, wrote in a July 22 letter to City Attorney Dennis Herrera.

And when center staffers call police, they are told that ‘there is nothing they can do,’ Saunders Estes wrote.

The latest protest rift was brought on by last month's U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Massachusetts' 35-foot no-protest zone around clinics.

The protesters now ignore San Francisco's 25-foot buffer zone as they pass out literature, and film staffers and patients entering the building, clinic reps complain.

While other California cities ‘have come out in strong defense of their ordinances,’ Saunders Estes told Herrera, ‘your office continues to dither.’

In response, Herrera said his office shares ‘some of the understandable bitterness and disappointment’ over the Supreme Court ruling and is working with legal experts elsewhere to figure out how to respond.

The real fear, according to insiders, is that defending San Francisco's 25-foot zone could invite a suit by antiabortion activists - which could leave the city on the hook for big legal expenses if they win.”

The Chronicle also reported that San Francisco’s Supervisor David Campos is weighing in. Campos made national news in January on another free speech issue: he introduced a resolution officially opposing banners carrying the “Abortion Hurts Women” message of the Walk for Life West Coast. The banners were hung along the City’s Market Street in preparation for the Walk. Although Campos’ resolution passed—a foregone conclusion with the SF Board of Supervisors-- it was opposed by editorials in both the liberal San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco’s ABC affiliate, KGO TV.

The Chronicle reported that “Supervisor and Assembly candidate David Campos - who showed up at the clinic Thursday to see the situation firsthand - said police are awaiting a city ‘policy decision on how to proceed.’

‘I hope we stick as close to the (existing) ordinance as possible, because I think the only way to protect women's access to the clinic is to continue to enforce a buffer zone," Campos said. ‘Even if there are legal risks involved.’ ”

An obvious point was made in the comments section to the article: that if harassment really was occurring, it would not be difficult to prove. One commenter wrote: “Get the cameras rolling. As soon as one of them commits obvious battery, show it to the da/cops. If they STILL drag ass, make a citizens arrest.”

To which another commenter responded: “Trust me, they are. The cameras are rolling constantly, by both sides, at abortion clinics. The fact that you aren't seeing damning videos posted, by either side, shows that whoever is crying to the press is waging a less-than-truthful PR campaign.”

Dutch euthanasia supporter now says he "was ‘wrong – terribly wrong, in fact’"

Gee, who could have foreseen this?

From the Daily Mail:

"Don't make our mistake"

"A former euthanasia supporter warned of a surge in deaths if Parliament allowed doctors to give deadly drugs to their patients.

‘Don’t do it Britain,’ said Theo Boer, a veteran European watchdog in assisted suicide cases. ‘Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is not likely ever to go back in again.’

His native Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legal since 2002, has seen deaths double in just six years and this year’s total may reach a record 6,000.

Professor Boer’s intervention comes as peers prepare to debate the Assisted Dying Bill, promoted by Lord Falconer, a Labour former Lord Chancellor. The bill, which has its second reading next week, would allow doctors to prescribe poison to terminally ill and mentally alert people who wish to kill themselves.

Professor Boer, who is an academic in the field of ethics, had argued seven years ago that a ‘good euthanasia law’ would produce relatively low numbers of deaths....But, speaking in a personal capacity yesterday, he said he now believed that the very existence of a euthanasia law turns assisted suicide from a last resort into a normal procedure....

Euthanasia is now becoming so prevalent in the Netherlands, Professor Boer said, that it is ‘on the way to becoming a default mode of dying for cancer patients’. He said assisted deaths have increased by about 15 per cent every year since 2008 and the number could hit a record 6,000 this year.

Professor Boer admitted he was ‘wrong – terribly wrong, in fact’ to have believed regulated euthanasia would work. ‘I used to be a supporter of the Dutch law. But now, with 12 years of experience, I take a very different view.

(In about 12 years I expect to see supporters of counterfeit "marriage" saying the same thing.)

Whereas in the first years after 2002 hardly any patients with psychiatric illnesses or dementia appear in reports, these numbers are now sharply on the rise.

‘Cases have been reported in which a large part of the suffering of those given euthanasia or assisted suicide consisted in being aged, lonely or bereaved.

‘Some of these patients could have lived for years or decades. Pressure on doctors to conform to patients’ – or in some cases relatives’ – wishes can be intense.

‘Pressure from relatives, in combination with a patient’s concern for their wellbeing, is in some cases an important factor behind a euthanasia request. Not even the review committees, despite hard and conscientious work, have been able to halt these developments.’

The latest euthanasia figures for the Netherlands show that nearly one in seven deaths are at the hands of doctors.

Yuval Levin on the Hobby Lobby Case

Lots of commentary is being written on yesterday's Hobby Lobby ruling. The learned and always interesting Yuval Levin, writing at National Review, places part of the decision in a context he has written about before: how religious tolerance developed in this country and how it applies to institutions (not just individuals). This, of course, ties in to the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which is in complete opposition to the totalitarianism implicit (& explicit) in today's Democratic Party. 

Here's a long excerpt from today's column (emphases added):

"The element of the Court’s decision that most perturbed many liberals—the suggestion that corporations could effectively be bearers of rights—was actually the least controversial question among the justices themselves. Only two of the nine justices, Ginsburg and Sotomayor, argued that for-profit corporations could not be considered legal persons capable of exercising religion for purposes of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The other two liberal justices, Breyer and Kagan, declined to join that part of the dissent written by Justice Ginsburg (though they articulated no view of their own on the question), and the remaining five justices affirmed the view that rights could indeed be mediated, and so in effect put into practice, through and by for-profit corporations. .

In one sense, this is a rather obvious point. As Justice Alito argued forcefully in his majority opinion, there is no reason why people should be expected to give up their basic rights when they incorporate a business. And Justice Ginsburg’s attempt to distinguish between profit-seeking and non-profit corporations on this front, made necessary by the fact that the administration did recognize the religious-liberty claims of some corporations and not others in this case, was the very model of a muddle. (It wasn’t as disturbing as her shockingly thin idea of what constitutes religious practice, though, and of what religious institutions are for.)

But in another sense, the standing of institutions, as opposed to individuals, as bearers of rights in our civil society is a complex and much-contested question, and a very important one. This is particularly so with regard to the exercise of religion, where we are the inheritors of a long tradition—the English common-law tradition of religious toleration—that has a very mixed record when it comes to protecting institutions rather than individuals.

I’ve taken up this question a couple of times around here in recent years, but to put matters very (very) simply, that tradition was born of efforts to find a way to provide protection for Jews and protestant dissenters in a nation with an established church but specifically not to provide much protection for Catholics. It did this in large part by distinguishing between individuals and institutions. Catholicism is an exceptionally institutional religion, with massive charitable and educational arms that are Catholic but are not houses of worship and that not only employ but also serve non-Catholics. Such arms are much more rare in other religious traditions, and used to be even more so. This distinction therefore in effect once allowed for broad toleration of just about all religious minorities in Britain except Catholics. It was supported by a line of reasoning evident over centuries, and given expression even in John Locke’s great Letter Concerning Toleration, which is one of the foundational documents of the intellectual tradition of liberal toleration.

The American offshoot of this tradition of toleration has tended to think a little differently about this question, above all because we have not had an established church in the United States. We have tended to take the absence of an Anglican monopoly on legitimate religiously-rooted social institutions to mean not that there could be no such institutions at all but rather that different communities of faith could build out different institutional forms and stake out for themselves a variety of roles in civil society and the private sphere. This has meant seeing some groups of people working together, and not just individuals alone, as protected by the various forms of the right of conscience and accepting as legitimate the idea that groups of people, as well as individuals, should whenever possible be protected from forms of coercion or restraint that violate their religious beliefs. And the extension of this attitude to corporations owned and run by people with religious convictions and in the service of those convictions has been perfectly natural.

The Obama administration has been pushing up against this American form of the tradition of religious toleration (which, being Americans, we tend to call “religious liberty”) in an effort to establish a public monopoly on the aims of social action. American progressivism has always wanted to clear out the space between the individual and the state and to confer rights only on individuals, rather than encouraging people to form complex layers of interacting institutions with diverse views of the good that each pursues with vigor and conviction. The HHS mandate, like so much of the administration’s domestic agenda, is intended to turn the institutions in that space, including private corporations, into arms of the government, carrying out the will of those in power."

Hobby Lobby Ruling: "The end of the beginning."

Today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious liberty, one of the foundations of our teetering civilization. Certainly we are happy with the ruling--because anything else would have been catastrophic.

But let's step back a little, historically. The fact that a government of the United States could blithely, without a second thought, compel U.S. citizens to violate their deeply held religious convictions, is outrageous. And remember: the HHS mandate not only violates the First Amendment, but threatened conscientious objectors with fines of $100 per day per employee. And for what? Free contraceptives.

Rush Limbaugh put this in perspective today:  

"In the Hobby Lobby case, narrow though it may be, the Supreme Court, by 5-4 majority decision, defended liberty. And it should be noted that even after this decision, birth control remains widely available. It is dirt cheap no matter where you want to go get it. The fact is, if you wanted to be entirely -- well, not entirely -- if you wanted to be somewhat negative about this, you could say that the most appalling thing about today's decision is that we had to even endure it, that we had to even go through this.

We had to sit on the edge of our seats to find out if people who own a for-profit company will also be allowed to exercise their religious views under our laws. The fact that that was up for grabs is an indication of where we are nationwide and where we're heading. I think it's just amazing, given that we're supposed to have freedom of religion enshrined in the Constitution, it should never have been an issue. The only reason it is is because we have a political party today conducting an all-out assault on the Constitution because they don't like it."  Emphases added.

I think that is the correct way to view today's decision. Yes, it is a victory--but we are taking back ground that should never have been lost in the first place. Our situation reminds me of Churchill's statement after the second battle of El Alamein. The Nazis still held most of Africa and continental Europe, so the great Englishman, while happy with the victory, knew it needed to be put in perspective:

"This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Supremes Uphold First Amendment, End "Buffer Zones"

Good news for those of us who peacefully witness in front of abortion businesses, and for anyone who values freedom of speech. We'll see how wide the 9-0 decision can be applied.

The full opinion can be read here.

Congratulations to the attorney's who argued the case, and to our dear friend Walter Hoye, unjustly imprisoned under just such a law. Walter's attorneys had filed an amicus brief in the case.

Mark Steyn: The Popes versus the "Empire of Lies"

On Saturday, in preparation for the canonization of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, Mark Steyn published this excerpt from his book Mark Steyn's Passing Parade. The "empire of lies," as Mr. Steyn indicates was not only the Soviet Union, but any totalitarian regime, such as the totalitarian liberalism that now dominates the West.

Truth and Consequences

"How many divisions has the Pope?" sneered Stalin of Pius XII. Uncle Joe's successors lived long enough to find out. John Paul II's divisions were the Poles who filled the streets to cheer him on his return as pontiff to his homeland in the summer of 1979, and the brave men who founded the Solidarity union 18 months later, and began the chain of events that within a decade swept the Communists from power in Central and Eastern Europe and finally Mother Russia itself. One day we will know the precise combination of Bulgarian Secret Service, East German Stasi and Soviet KGB that lay behind the 1981 assassination attempt on the Holy Father. But you can see why they'd be willing to do it. By then the sclerotic Warsaw Pact understood just how many divisions this Pope had.

Twenty-six years ago, one young physics student summed up the hopes he and his compatriots had invested in that Papal visit in this simple declaration: "What I want to do is to live without being a liar." The Soviet Union and its vassals were an empire of lies, and, while you can mitigate (as many Poles and Russians did) the gulf between the official version and grim reality with bleak jokes, living an epic lie day in day out is corrosive of human dignity. That Polish physics student had identified instinctively what would be the great over-arching theme of John Paul II's papacy: to quote the title of his later encyclical, Veritatis Splendor – the splendor of truth.

Too many western politicians of a generation ago – Schmidt, Mitterand, Trudeau – failed to see what John Paul saw so clearly. It requires tremendous will to cling to the splendor of truth when the default mode of the era is to blur and evade.

And in that respect, across a turbulent half-century, there's more continuity between John Paul II and John XXIII than you might expect, and, indeed, with the intervening papacy of Paul VI. Shortly after John XXIII's death, Pope Paul's Humanae Vitae predicted that artificial birth control would lead to "conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality," the objectification of women, and governments "imposing upon their peoples" state-approved methods of contraception. You might conceivably claim that the collective damage they have done does not outweigh the individual benefits they have brought to many, but you can't argue that Pope Paul's summation wasn't right on the money - or that either his "liberal" predecessor or his "conservative" successor (after John Paul I's interlude) would have disagreed with him. It fell to John Paul II to defend veritatis splendor not only, politically, in the eastern bloc, but, culturally, in the western world, where it proved a tougher sell:

As The New York Times reported upon his death:

Among liberal Catholics, he was criticized for his strong opposition to abortion, homosexuality and contraception…

Shocking: a Pope who's opposed to abortion, homosexuality and contraception; what's the world coming to? The Guardian's assertion that Karol Wojtyla was "a doctrinaire, authoritarian pontiff" at least suggests the inflexible authoritarian derived his inflexibility from some ancient operating manual – he was doctrinaire about his doctrine, dogmatic about his dogma – unlike the Times and The Washington Post, which came close to implying that John Paul II had taken against abortion and gay marriage off the top of his head, principally to irk "liberal Catholics". But, either way, the assumption is always that there's some middle ground a less "doctrinaire" pope might have staked out: he might have supported abortion in the first trimester, say, or reciprocal partner benefits for gays in committed relationships.

The root of the Pope's thinking – that there are eternal truths no-one can change even if he wanted to – is completely incomprehensible to the progressivist mindset. There are no absolute truths, everything's in play, and by "consensus" all we're really arguing is the rate of concession to the inevitable: abortion's here to stay, gay marriage will be here any day now – it's all gonna happen anyway, man, so why be the last squaresville daddy-o on the block?

When Governor Jim McGreevey announced he was stepping down, he told the people of New Jersey: "My truth is that I am a gay American." That's a very contemporary formulation: "my" truth. To John Paul II, there was only "the" truth. To the moral relativists, everyone's entitled to his own – or, as the Governor continued, "one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world." Among liberal "Catholics" in Manhattan and Boston, the pontiff may be a reactionary misogynist homophobe condom-banner but, beyond those stunted horizons, he was a man fully engaged with the modern world and shrewder at reconciling it with the splendor of the eternal truth than most politicians. Western liberals claim the Pope's condom hang-ups have had tragic consequences in Aids-riddled Africa. The Dark Continent gets darker every year: millions are dying, male life expectancy is collapsing, and such civil infrastructure as there is seems likely to follow. But the most effective weapon against the disease has not been the Aids lobby's 20-year promotion of condom culture in Africa but Uganda's campaign to change behaviour and to emphasise abstinence and fidelity – ie, the Pope's position. You don't have to be a Catholic or a "homophobe" to think that the spread of Aids is telling us something basic – that nature is not sympathetic to sexual promiscuity. If it weren't Aids, it would be something else, as it has been for most of human history. What should be the Christian response? To accept that we're merely the captives of our appetites, like a dog in heat? Or to ask us to rise to the rank God gave us – "a little lower than the angels" but above "the beasts of the field"? In The Gospel Of Life, the Pope wrote:

Sexuality too is depersonalized and exploited: …it increasingly becomes the occasion and instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal desires and instincts. Thus the original import of human sexuality is distorted and falsified, and the two meanings, unitive and procreative, inherent in the very nature of the conjugal act, are artificially separated…

Had the Pope signed on to condom distribution in Africa, he would have done nothing to reduce the spread of Aids, but he would have done a lot to advance the further artificial separation of sex, in Africa and beyond. Indeed, if you look at The New York Times' list of complaints against the Pope they all boil down to what he called sex as self-assertion.

Thoughtful atheists ought to be able to recognize that, whatever one's tastes in these areas, the Pope is on to something – that abortion et al, in separating the "two meanings" of sex and leaving us free to indulge in one while ignoring the other, have severed us almost entirely and possibly irreparably from traditional impulses, like societal survival. Given what Aids has done to African mortality rates and what abortion has done to European demographics, John Paul II's eternal truths look a lot more rational than those of the hyperrationalists at The New York Times. John Paul II championed the "splendor of truth" not because he was rigid and inflexible, but because he understood the alternative was a dead end in every sense. To Karol Wojtyla, truth was not just splendid but immutable: he proved his point in the struggle against Communism; one day the west will recognize that he got it right closer to home, too.