An unspeakable blasphemy!

Warrner Brothers distributes highly blasphemous and anti-Catholic film called “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas”

In the new movie, “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas,” there are such disgusting scenes as:

Lesbian activity among nuns
Obscenities hurled at Our Lord Jesus Christ
Priests running after an altar boy
The trashing of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Small children high on cocaine

It shows that Catholics cannot become complacent when the Faith is attacked. Otherwise, the promoters of blasphemy keep on pushing the envelope with new and more outrageous insults to the Catholic Church.

Yet they don’t attack Muhammad in this same way!

For too long, Catholics have remained silent and done nothing while the Faith was attacked. Now, we must peacefully and prayerfully protest and speak out against these mockeries of our Faith.

And please do an act of reparation for this most terrible blasphemy against Our Lord, Our Lady and the Catholic Faith.

John HorvatTradition Family Property

See, We told You So: Catholic Charities UPDATE

Bishop Thomas Paprocki, of Springfield Illinois gets it.

Us, writing on August 19, 2011:

"Catholic Charities can be true to their name by forgoing government contracts. Then they will have no worries about being Catholic, and they will be forced to once again become a charity."

Bishop Parocki, writing yesterday:

“The silver lining of this decision is that our Catholic Charities going forward will be able to focus on being more Catholic and more charitable, while less dependent on government funding and less encumbered by intrusive state policies,” said Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield."

Adult Stem-Cell UPDATE: "This could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime.''

More great adult stem-cell news. This story is from the Telegraph:

'''The results are striking,' said Professor Roberto Bolli, one of the research leaders from the University of Louisville in the US. ''While we do not yet know why the improvement occurs, we have no doubt now that ejection fraction increased and scarring decreased.'

''If these results hold up in future studies, I believe this could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime.''

The ground-breaking new treatment involved extracting cardiac stem cells (CSCs) - self-renewing cells that rebuild hearts and arteries - from patients during bypass surgery.
The cells were purified and grown in the laboratory before being injected back into damaged regions of the patients' hearts four months later.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports more good news. Geron is abandoning the field of embryonic stem-cell research:

"The company doing the first government-approved test of embryonic stem cell therapy is discontinuing further stem cell work..."

UPDATE: Hah! The great Wesley Smith on Geron's pullout:

"This is an atom bomb of a story that will have a serious effect on the entire regenerative medical sector. And it should embarrass the critics of President Bush; the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which bragged about its part in funding a scientist involved in the research; and, perhaps most of all, the fawning media that have acted as press agent for both the field generally, and Geron specifically."

And we repeat one of our mantras here at A Shepherd's Voice: "Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?"

You can read all our adult stem-cell posts here.

Catholic Charities of Southern Illinois Decides: We're the Government

On August 19, we asked "Can Catholic Charities Remain "Catholic" and "Charitable" While Accepting Government Contracts?" We showed that Catholic Charities are not really charities--in San Francisco 73% and in Chicago 86% of their revenue comes from the taxpayers. We showed that push was coming to shove in Illinois, and indicated that the deciding factor could be the institutional self-interest of Catholic Charities. We concluded:

"Catholic Charities can be true to their name by forgoing government contracts. Then they will have no worries about being Catholic, and they will be forced to once again become a charity. But in disentangling themselves from the government the biggest hitch will be what to do with all their staff: according to GuideStar, Catholic Charities of Chicago has 1,452 full-time and 1,221 part-time employees."

Well, this is from yesterday's Belleville, IL News: (emphasis added)

"The Belleville-based Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois is getting a new name and is splitting with the Catholic church in an attempt to maintain its state contracts to provide foster and adoption services.

The new organization will be called Christian Social Services of Illinois and will be ending its relationship with the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, according to a joint announcement from the Diocese and Social Services."

The story also included a confusing excerpt from a press release of the Belleville Diocese:

"Unable to remain faithful to the moral teaching of the Catholic Church while adhering to the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act, the 64-year-old social service agency chose to dissociate from the Diocese," the Belleville Diocese said in a prepared statement. 'It is hoped that this new entity will experience no interruption in its services and programs.'"

A group that was sponsored by the Church for 64 years, left because it was "unable to remain faithful to the moral teaching of the Catholic Church," and the Diocese hopes it will "experience no interruption in services or programs?" Hell, I hope they go out of business--but there's no fear of that. The article continued with a statement from Gary Huelsmann, Executive Director of the (former) Catholic Charities:

"'We had to make a choice,' Huelsmann said. 'It was a very difficult choice.'

The new Social Services will allow placements to civil unions, Huelsmann said. The agency also withdrew earlier this week from a lawsuit filed by Catholic Charities in response to the state's decision.

Huelsmann said his organization is currently negotiating with the state to maintain foster care and adoption contracts that were to end Nov. 30 and to start receiving new cases. Catholic Charities had not had any foster care cases transferred to new agencies since the department's decision to terminate the contracts but it hadn't received any new cases either.

The article's final paragraph gets to the pivotal issue, even (as we predicted) mentioning the number of employees who would have had to have been laid off:

"Losing the state contracts for foster care and adoption services would be a huge financial blow to Social Services, considering they account for 72 percent of the organization's annual revenue of $13.1 million, according to Huelsmann. He had said the loss of that state revenue could have forced the organization to lay off three-quarters of its 187 employees."

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

USF Update: Jesuit School Undermines Church Teaching, Honors Enemy of Marriage

Our last post spoke of activists undermining the Church from within ostensibly Catholic institutions. Here's Monday's story from California Catholic Daily, a story to which we contributed:

See a pattern here?
USF law school honors enemy of marriage (again)

On Friday, Nov. 4, the Public Interest Law Foundation of the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco honored San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Victor Hwang with a Public Interest Excellence Award at its 8th Annual Gala Awards Ceremony. Since its inception, the student-led foundation at USF’s Law School has made a nearly annual practice of bestowing the award on supporters of the homosexual agenda -- and Hwang was no exception.

Assistant District Attorney Hwang’s list of accomplishments on USF’s Public Interest Law Foundation “2011 Honoree” webpage notes: “His work includes authoring and coordinating the filing of an amicus brief on behalf of the Asian American community in support of marriage equality (Woo v. Lockyer)…”

The story then gave a rundown on past winners of USF's Public Interest Law Foundation Excellence award:

"At the first PILF Gala in 2004, then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was honored. At the time, Newsom had been in office barely 10 months. His sole 'accomplishment' consisted in directing the County Clerk of the City and County of San Francisco to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

In 2006, USF chose to honor Kate Kendall, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

In 2007, USF honored Elizabeth Cabraser of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein. Cabraser was the lead attorney for a series of friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of 40 legal institutions with the California Supreme Court. The brief recommended the Supreme Court overturn Proposition 8. Cabraser also donated $30,000 to the “No on Proposition 8” campaign.

In 2008, USF honored Shannon Price Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and SF Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart. The USF website said they were honoring the two because '…Minter and Stewart successfully argued before the California Supreme Court this year that same-sex couples have the right to marry.'

In 2009, USF honored now-retired California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno -- the sole California justice who voted to invalidate the votes of a majority of Californians by overturning Proposition 8."

"Shadow Churches:" Tom Peters Gets It

There'a a very good post by Tom Peters over at Catholic Vote called "Why We Must Stop Liberal Catholics From Handing The Church Over To the State." Tom writes:

"I now realize that looking at the current Catholic controversies through a purely academic lens is totally insufficient to the gravity of the moment.

Here’s why, to put it simply: because liberal and orthodox Catholics aren’t actually debating theology per se anymore. We’re debating the very identity of the Church vis-a-vis the State, and our competing views of loyalty to the State and the Church — to God and Caesar.

For orthodox Catholics, the Church (founded on Christ) is the ultimate moral and personal authority, it supersedes the State in every area where the Church has primacy, namely, faith and morals.

For liberal Catholics, however, I see only increasing evidence that the State and the liberal view of the State are their ultimate authority."

That is a drum we have been beating here at "A Shepherd's Voice" for a while. You can read a couple of our posts on this issue: "Shadow 'Churches,'"

We discussed how activists enter the Church, then work with government agancies: "...the activists--in conjunction with likeminded persons both inside and outside the Church--will try to intimidate the Church from without and undermine it from within."

We are always tempted, charitably, to think people are acting in good faith. That is foolish. Earlier this year, Joseph Cardinal Zen, the heroic Archbishop of Hong Kong, visited Saints Peter and Paul Church. He attended a dinner reception hosted by our good Chinese Apostolate, and followed this up with a little talk and a short q & a. The subject was the difficulties facing the Church in Communist China, and the creation, by the Communists, of a shadow church to usurp the role of the Church of God. During his talk, the Cardinal related the story of a very intelligent and able young man who had joined the seminary. This young man studied for years and was well on his way to ordination before he confessed to his superiors that he was actually a Communist mole, sent to infiltrate the Church. The grace of God had obviously touched the young man, causing at least some level of conversion.

But it would be irresponsible to think he was the only mole sent to infiltrate the church. And what possible reason is there for considering such an action to be unique to China?

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

The Clock and the Crescent

As Muslims gather to undertake the hajj pilgrimage, the city of Mecca itself is experiencing a major transformation which seems to mirror larger upheavals in the Islamic world. A massive hotel complex featuring the world’s second tallest building has opened literally across the street from the mosque which forms the heart of the holy city. But more interesting than the intrusion of this gigantic tower is what caps off the building: the world’s largest clock face. Such a contrast of sacred and secular imagery is striking, for the clock actually represents an intrusion of modernity into a timeless place. It has also become the focal point of a movement which seeks to replace Greenwich Mean Time with “Mecca Time,” a movement partially explained by a rejection of colonialism, but one which also relies, as Salman Hameed at Religion Dispatches points out, on a growing consciousness of the need for Islam to establish its own place in the contemporary world rather than shun it.

Right now, the “Mecca Time” movement relies heavily on easily-disprovable scientific claims, which purport to demonstrate that the city of Mecca is world’s magnetic pole, among other things. But there is also a deeper change occurring here:

The urge on the part of some to show Mecca’s specialness in a scientific idiom has nothing to do with actual science. There is a whole genre in the Muslim world of claims that modern science is already in the Qur’an (such as modern embryology, the expanding universe, etc.), thus “verifying” the holy text’s truth. The claim that Mecca is the center of the world falls in this same unfortunate category. What is interesting here is the desire to use science (indeed, really bad science) as an instrument to verify religion...
Matthew Cantirino
FIRST THINGS

Parasites of "Occupy Wall Street" and their Allies

From Mark Steyn:

"Way back in 1968, after the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Mayor Daley declared that his forces were there to 'preserve disorder.' I believe that was one of Hizzoner’s famous malapropisms. Forty-three years later Jean Quan, mayor of Oakland, and the Oakland city council have made 'preserving disorder' the official municipal policy. On Wednesday, the 'Occupy Oaklan' occupiers rampaged through the city, shutting down the nation’s fifth-busiest port, forcing stores to close, terrorizing those residents foolish enough to commit the reactionary crime of 'shopping,' destroying ATMs, spraying the Christ the Light Cathedral with the insightful observation “F***,” etc. And how did the Oakland city council react? The following day they considered a resolution to express their support for “Occupy Oakland” and to call on the city administration to 'collaborate with protesters'.”

And Creative Minority Report, via Fr. Z, has this useful graphic:

Freedom?

The sense of religious liberty is being lost in America, warned Archbishop José H. Gomez in a recent article.

Writing in the On the Square section of the Web site of the magazine First Things, his Oct. 25 piece noted that both courts and government agencies are increasingly overriding conscience rights when other rights or liberties are considered to be more important.

Bishop Gomez cited the denial a week before of a grant request made by the U.S. bishops' Migration and Refugee Services agency. The agency has received funding for a number of years, in order to help the victims of human trafficking.
Not long ago the government requested the agency to provide abortions, contraception and sterilization services for the women in their care. Bishop Gomez said he hoped the grant application was not denied because the agency refused to provide such services.

This and many other similar cases motivated the United States bishops to set up a committee for religious liberty.
Announcing the move last Sept. 30, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Archbishop Timothy Dolan, explained that religious freedom "in its many and varied applications for Christians and people of faith, is now increasingly and in unprecedented ways under assault in America."

Liberty problems

In his letter, dated Sept. 29, Archbishop Dolan listed six major problems regarding religious liberty in the period since June.
-- Federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations that oblige all private health insurance plans to cover contraception and sterilization. This will oblige church employers to sponsor and pay for services they oppose.
-- The HHS request regarding refugees that Archbishop Gomez referred to.
-- The U.S. Agency for International Development is increasingly requiring condom distribution in HIV prevention programs, as well as requiring contraception within international relief and development programs.
-- The Justice Department's attack on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In July, the Department started filing briefs actively attacking DOMA's constitutionality, claiming that supporters of the law could only have been motivated by bias and prejudice.
-- The Justice Department recently attacked what is known as "ministerial exception," a constitutional doctrine long accepted by courts that allows churches to make employment decisions concerning persons working in a ministerial capacity.
-- A new law in New York State allowing same-sex marriage with only a very narrow religious exemption.
Concern over the present federal administration's position on conscience rights has been building for some time.

Rescinded

Earlier this year a 2008 rule that granted conscience protection to health care providers who opposed participating in abortion and sterilization was mostly rescinded.

Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, told the New York Times in a Feb. 28 article that in recent years "we have seen a variety of efforts to force Catholic and other health care providers to perform or refer for abortions and sterilizations."

In past months representatives of the Catholic Church have made repeated appeals to federal legislators on the topic of religious freedom.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, wrote to members of Congress on the issue of the new HHS rules regarding private health insurers. His July 22 letter decried the failure to adequately allow freedom of conscience based on religious beliefs.An omission, he added, all the more notable given that the regulations allow people the right of objection if they wish to cure illness solely by prayer or for those on Indian reservations who prefer to use traditional tribal healing practices.

On Aug. 31 the Office of Counsel of the USCCB submitted a final statement to the HHS regarding the rule changes. Contraceptives, it pointed out, don't cure any health problem; rather they disrupt the normal functioning of the reproductive system, while also introducing health risks.

On the matter of conscience objection the submission said that the only ones protected are a small subset of religious employers, with no protection for individuals or insurers. "The exemption is narrower than any conscience clause ever enacted in federal law, and narrower than the vast majority of religious exemptions from state contraceptive mandates," the statement declared.
The changes will violate the religion and free speech clauses of the First Amendment of the Constitution and amounts to a specific targeting of Catholics by not allowing them to follow their consciences, the statement added.
Effectively, what will happen is that church organizations will be forbidden to practice what they preach. Such action is "an unprecedented intrusion by the federal government into the precincts of religion that, if unchecked here, will support ever more expansive and corrosive intrusions in the future," the submission warned.
Subsequently, leaders of 20 national Catholic organizations signed a joint statement to protest the HHS rule changes. They also called for a reform of health care law to protect conscience rights, the Oct. 12 press release from the USCCB explained.

The signatories included heads of Catholic universities, health care associations, domestic and international agencies.

Most recently, Cardinal DiNardo returned to the fray, with a Nov. 1 letter to a Congress committee. Referring to health care reforms in general and not just the controversy over the HHS rules, he urged that any changes to the laws on health care "must not become a vehicle for abandoning or weakening longstanding federal policies that respect unborn human life and rights of conscience."
He lamented the fact that "a failure to respect conscience rights poses a serious threat to the goal we share of expanding access to health care."

Adoption

Problems aren't limited to health care. Earlier this year Illinois's Department of Children and Family Services told the state's four Catholic dioceses that it would not renew their contracts for foster care and adoption services because they were not prepared to include same-sex couples among their clients.
The changed situation is a result of the ironically-named Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act, that came into force on July 1.
The new law legalized civil unions for homosexual couples without protecting religious organizations, the Chicago Tribune reported, July 5.
In a later development Catholic organizations in the dioceses of Joliet, Springfield, and Belleville, have requested that a state appellate court halt the transition of their foster care cases to other agencies, the Chicago Tribune reported Oct. 7. They have also appealed to the court to examine the state's decision to terminate the foster care contracts with the Catholic agencies, saying that this violates their religious freedom.
The court refused, however, to stay the handover of the cases. In an Oct. 27 statement Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield criticized the state government's exclusion of Catholic agencies. He said that it has created an unnecessary crisis for the children and families who could have been helped.
The court has still to rule on the merits of the case regarding religious freedom.
Pressure on the Catholic Church is not confined to state actions. The Washington, D.C., Office of Human Rights is now investigating a complaint that the city's Catholic University of America is violating the human rights of Muslim students.
In his complaint John Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University Law School, alleged that by not providing them with rooms without Christian symbols the university is offending Muslim students.

John Garvey, president of the university, said in a statement issued Oct. 28 that the charges are completely without foundation.
In fact, no Muslim student at Catholic University has registered a complaint about being able to practice their religion on campus, he said. Moreover, Banzhaf himself admitted that he has not received any complaints.

It seems that in an increasingly secularized society tolerance is to be extended to all, except churches and believers who want to live by their beliefs.

Freedom of Conscience Faces Increased Conflict in America
By Father John Flynn, LC
ROME, NOV. 4, 2011 (Zenit.org).-

"DOMA advances the common good in a manner consistent with the human dignity of all persons."

Here is the full text of the testimony provided by Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to uphold the Defense of Marriage Amendment:

November 2, 2011

Dear Member of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee:

As Chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, I urge you to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by opposing the Respect for Marriage Act (S. 598) and any other measure seeking DOMA’s repeal.

DOMA recognizes for federal purposes that marriage is defined as the union of one man and one woman. It also prevents the redefinition of marriage in any one state from forcing other states to follow suit. DOMA’s codified definition of marriage reflects a deeply rooted and enduring consensus, based on truths about the human person discernible by reason and accessible to people of all faiths or none at all. Millions of citizens have gone to the ballot in thirty states to ratify similar DOMA proposals by substantial majorities. Forty one states in all have enacted their own DOMAs. Popularity alone does not determine what is right. But in the face of such broad support in the present day, not to mention a legacy of lived experience and reasoned reflection measured in millennia in every society and civilization throughout all of human history, repealing a measure that merely recognizes the truth of marriage is all the more improvident.

I raise for your consideration two points: DOMA is rational, and its repeal would be unjust.

A. DOMA is grounded in reason and experience. It takes into account the distinguishing properties of unity and procreation that mark the relationship of husband and wife.

Marriage is a comprehensive union of man and woman, a total, permanent, faithful, and fruitful sharing of lives between husband and wife. This union is a great and unique good in itself, and is critical for the common good. There are fundamental reasons why sexual difference and the complementarity between man and woman have always been considered essential to the meaning of marriage.

The connection between sexual difference and procreation is obvious and unique. The public status of marriage owes its origin and existence to the natural capacity of man and woman to bring children into the world. Research substantiates that children thrive best when reared by both a mom and a dad married to each other. Marriage has been and should remain a child-centered institution.

Even when a marriage is not blessed with children, all husbands and wives can model for society the possibilities and potential for mutual collaboration between the sexes. They can teach children generally by their witness and exemplify for other men and women what it means to be husband and wife. They also can provide an essential service to society through adopting children, who need the care of a mother and a father.

The unitive and procreative realities at stake cannot be ignored. They are not mere cultural constructs that can be discarded at will, with little or no social cost. Instead, they flow directly from the immutable nature of the human person, and so our society ignores them at great peril. By contrast, where these human realities are respected, the benefits to society are unparalleled. This explains why Congress, nearly all of the states, and millions of voters affirm marriage as an institution founded on sexual difference. DOMA furthers the common good by preserving in federal law the essential connection between marriage, sexual difference, the good of children, and public policy.

B. Redefining marriage to mean simply an arrangement of consenting adults violates justice because it interferes with basic human rights.

First, changing the institution of marriage by making it indifferent to the absence of one sex or the other denies that children have the fundamental human right to be cared by both their mother and father. Such revision transforms marriage from a child-centered to an adult-centered status to the detriment of children. DOMA maintains marriage’s proper focus on reinforcing the interests of children.

Second, redefining marriage also threatens the fundamental human right of religious freedom. Those who refuse on moral and religious grounds to accept or accommodate the redefinition of legal marriage are already being wrongly accused of bigotry and hatred, bias and prejudice. They are being stigmatized and marginalized precisely because they are exercising their religious freedom to teach and practice their values.

In places where marriage’s core meaning has been altered through legal action, officials are beginning to target for punishment those believers and churches that refuse to adapt. Any non-conforming conduct and even expressions of disagreement, based simply on support for marriage as understood since time immemorial, are wrongly being treated as if they harmed society, and somehow constituted a form of evil equal to racism. DOMA represents an essential protection against such threats to faith and conscience.

All persons have a rightful claim to our utmost respect. There is no corresponding duty, however, for society to disregard the meaning of sexual difference and its practical consequences for the common good; to override fundamental rights, such as religious liberty; and to re-define our most basic social institution. DOMA advances the common good in a manner consistent with the human dignity of all persons.

For all of the above-stated reasons, I strongly urge you to uphold DOMA and to reject any bill, including S. 598, that would repeal it.

Sincerely,
Most Reverend Salvatore J. Cordileone
Roman Catholic Bishop of Oakland
Chairman, USCCB Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage

Court Prevents NJ Hospital From Forcing Nurses to help Abort Children

A court has stepped in to prevent New Jersey nurses from being forced to participate in abortions against their will and conscience. The attempt to force them to do so is illegal.

Today, from the great Andy McCarthy, writing at The Corner:

"I am informed that a federal judge in Newark today issued a temporary restraining order protecting nurses from being coerced by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to assist in the performance of abortions. As noted here yesterday, the state hospital has been attempting to force nurses to participate in abortions despite federal and state law which holds that those who conscientiously object may refrain from participation.

The TRO extends only for two weeks — until November 18. That is, even though the TRO really does nothing other than require the state hospital to obey the law, UMDNJ did not agree to obey the law permanently — in order to promote abortion, it apparently intends to fight against the laws that safeguard freedom of conscience.

NEW YOUNG MARTYR

Egypt: Christian student murdered for refusing to remove crucifix

Ayman Nabil Labib, a 17-year-old Coptic Christian student, was murdered by Muslim classmates after refusing to remove a crucifix he was wearing, the Assyrian International News Agency is reporting.

The murder, which took place on October 16 in the central Egyptian town of Mallawi, took place after a teacher asked Labib to cover up a tattooed cross on his wrist. Labib refused, instead uncovering a cross necklace.
“The teacher nearly choked my son, and some Muslim students joined in the beating,” said Labib’s father.

“They beat my son so much in the classroom that he fled to the lavatory on the ground floor, but they followed him and continued their assault,” the victim’s mother added. “When one of the supervisors took him to his room, Ayman was still breathing. The ambulance transported him from there dead, one hour later.”

From CatholicCulture.org, a chief provider and curator of Catholic content on the web

St Ayman, pray for young people especialy those entrusted to the care of the Salesian Family.