A Sight for Sore Eyes

A billboard advertising the Walk for Life West Coast’s signature slogan “Abortion Hurts Women” is now displayed near the approach to one of the most traveled bridges in the U.S. The San Francisco Walk, which drew 25,000 people last year, is Saturday, January 24.

The 20' x 60' billboard is easily visible to the more than 100,000 cars driving the freeway daily on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge approach and includes a phone number for a post abortion help line. The help line is staffed by women who have themselves experienced abortion, explained Walk for Life co-chair Eva Muntean. The billboard went up December 31.

“San Francisco is a beautiful city but there is a lot of sadness beneath the surface--until recently we had more abortions than live births, and a high percentage of our population has experienced abortion,” Ms. Muntean said. “We need to reach those women (and men) who are hurting, and this seemed like the most effective method.”

The billboard is located at Fourth and Bryant Streets in San Francisco. The Bay Bridge carries approximately 270,000 cars a day, according to state Department of Transportation statistics.

To learn more about the Walk for Life go to http://www.walkforlifewc.com/

Begin the Year with a Smile

Click Here: Check out "YouTube - Uncle Jay Explains: Year-end! 12-22-08".

Take Heart

Benedict XVI is inviting Christians to "be not afraid," despite economic shadows hanging over 2009.

The Pope made this exhortation Wednesday during his homily at a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica that included first vespers for today's feast of Mary, Mother of God, and the singing of the Te Deum in thanksgiving for the graces of 2008.

"This year closes with the awareness of a growing economic and social crisis that already concerns the entire world," he said. "Though not a few shadows are appearing on the horizon of our future, we should not be afraid.

"Our great hope as believers is eternal life in communion with Christ and with the whole family of God. This great hope gives us the strength to confront and overcome the difficulties of life in this world." (Zenit.org).-

Catholic Charities/Most Holy Redeemer Update.

Back on November 25, 2008 we posted on the upcoming “Salute to Brian Cahill” which took place in San Francisco on December 1.

We noted that the Honorary Committee was filled with opponents of the Catholic Church, and included people like Supervisors Ammiano, Mirkirami, and Sandoval, all of whom signed Resolution 168-06 which condemned the Church for daring to say a child should be brought up in a home with a mother and father; City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who sued the state of California to legalize same-sex marriage; plus other luminaries who have contributed to and worked for the legalization of same-sex "marriage."

He wasn’t on the honorary committee but Supervisor Bevan Dufty showed up and addressed the gathering. Dufty is the man who, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, acted as a consultant to Catholic Charities at the time the disastrous partnership between Catholic Charities and Family Builders by Adoption was created.

I wonder what all those churchmen thought as they were being addressed by a man who: a) is openly homosexual; b) voted to condemn the Catholic Church as “hateful” and “discriminatory”; c) champions the legalization of same-sex “marriage”; d) is on record as supporting pornography; and e) is a “homosexual” man who had a daughter with a “lesbian” mother via artificial insemination? (I put the words “homosexual” and “lesbian” in quotes, since, like everybody, Dufty and the mother are biologically heterosexual—the adorable little girl is the proof of that. Sometimes our bodies are wiser than our minds--see footnote 1.) No pictures of Dufty appear on the Catholic Charities photo page covering the event, but his presence is well documented on the site of Drew Alitzer. Mr. Alitzer photographs many “society” functions in San Francisco, including this one.

Most Holy Redeemer was represented, too. Here’s a photo, from the Catholic Charites website, of Monsignor Harry Schlitt with Nanette Miller and Olga Barrera.

As readers of “A Shepherd’s Voice” know, Ms. Miller is an open lesbian who also happens to be Treasurer of Catholic Charities. According to the “Bay Area Career Women” website (a now defunct lesbian networking site) Miller and Barrera were “LGBT Newlyweds” on February 22, 2004—back when Mayor Gavin Newsom was “marrying” same-sex couples. At Most Holy Redeemer Church, Miller serves at Mass as a lector and acolyte, and is also a member of the Liturgy Planning Committee. Ms. Barrera serves Mass there as a Eucharistic Minister. That’s a direct violation of Redemptionis Sacrementum #46, but the folks at MHR hold that teaching in contempt. We've shown that here and here. Ms. Miller herself honestly laid out the agenda in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle on September 27, 2005:

"I'm someone who believes you have to live how you believe, and by doing that people will change"

One wonders if the Monsignor was aware of these facts. But is Ms. Miller right? Mr. Cahill is gone from Catholic Charities and that's good. But why is an openly lesbian, same-sex "married" lady still serving as treasurer of an Archdiocesan organization? Is there not a single faithful Catholic in the entire Archdiocese capable of reading a balance sheet? Ms. Miller's presence as treasurer would only be absurd if it were a mistake, but it is not a mistake.

How (and why) can our Archdiocese continue to remain passive with MHR? This is no longer about gay people who are sinners like the rest of us. As I've argued before, this is about the establishment of a new religion, a religion using the trappings of Catholicism but that is actually something else.

"Is it less appropriate for gays to imagine Jesus as gay than for African Christians to picture him as black, Asian Christians as Asian?"

That's from Fr. Donal Godfrey, SJ, "Gays and Grays. The Story of the Gay Community at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church." p134.

Footnote 1) According to published reports Dufty and the child’s mother live together and are raising the little girl together. I guess this means he thinks it best for a child to be brought up by his or her parents, who are always a man and a woman. Of course, this makes him a bigot, too. Welcome to the club, Bevan—“Bigots for Reality!”

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Popular Evil

In a Reuters article published yesterday the finalists were reported. They were seeking the most popular Russian leaders.

Can you believe that Josef Stalin came in third?

Millions of Soviet citizens perished from famine during forced collectivization, were executed as "enemies of the people" or died in Gulag hard labor camps during Stalin's rule which lasted for almost 30 years until his death in 1953.

At the top of the list was 13th century prince Alexander Nevsky, who defeated German invaders.

My question is who or what is responsible for the selections of the majority? The voters in the contest were certainly victims of the media which controls minds and changes hearts. A prominent actor and film director Nikita Mikhalkov, one of the contest's judges, said:” We may find ourselves in a situation where absolute power and voluntarism that ignores people's opinions may prevail in our country, if a fairly large part of the nation wants it."

How can bad look good? Take out God and deny moral responsibility. The resulting vacuum will be filled with personal power—whoever will appear to be a good leader who can take care of us and give us all our wants.

Sad to see so many young Russians yearning for the “good ole days.” Why are they blind?

There’s a lesson there for all Americans.

Jerry Brown and Proposition 8

By now everybody has heard about California Attorney General Jerry Brown's decision not to defend Proposition 8 in court. Practically, it's no big deal because the Defend Marriage side was not counting on him anyway. The case will be argued by the Proposition 8 attorneys.

But his action and reasoning deserves a little comment. The Attorney General refuses to defend Proposition 8 on constitutional grounds--he does not want to defend a Proposition that he says amounts to the tyranny of the majority. But by refusing to exercise his sworn duty as a public servant he is engaging in a tyranny of the attorney general. One can argue the case that Proposition 8 is a tyranny of the majority. It's not true, but it is an argument. But there's no argument that a public servant has the right to refuse to exercise his office, and yet still remain in office.

Certainly, majorities can reach what one considers to be wrong decisions. But the way around that, unless one chooses to abandon our system of government altogether, is to convince the voters to reach a correct decision. It's what President Lincoln, who knew a little about such things, called "appealing to the better angels of our nature."

Arguments to the Declaration always cite the "unalienable rights." But the next sentence is often forgotten: "... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

If the Attorney General was really a serious man, he would resign his office, and then use his formidable intellectual tools to argue philosophically why Proposition 8 is wrong. But his actions here show he is unfit for his office.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

My Confession:

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a Nativity Scene, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.

I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking. Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events.. terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school The Bible says "Thou Shalt not Kill, thou Shalt not Steal", and "Love your Neighbor as Yourself." And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.
Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us. Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it.... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards,
Honestly and respectfully.
Ben Stein

Are Catholic Schools Catholic?

I received this note from a Blog reader. Unfortunately I could not access the URL provided to ascertain the original story.

Fr. John, I can't find an email link to write to you directly, so I'm using this comment feature to give you the information I think would interest you. A "Catholic" high school in San Jose…, just published a parent newsletter with some disgraceful statistics from a mock election that was held among the student body. In just two examples, 80% of the students voted against Proposition 8 and 62% voted against Proposition 4. If you'd like to see the newsletter yourself and write a blog story about it, lamenting the failure of our Catholic schools, go to the url provided and look on page 6 of the newsletter.

Unfortunately I find more and more evidence that many Catholic teachers in our schools are not in line with the teachings of the Church they were established to uphold. I believe that much of this has been due to institutions of higher learning.-- including some of our own Catholic Colleges and universities-- which promote the liberal philosophy that destroys values: civic as well as spiritual.

Bishops and pastors need to step up to the plate: The only way the situation can be bettered is to demand that our Catholic school teachers be loyal to the teachings of the Church.

Fay Wong

Our friend Bill May over at Catholics for the Common Good sent the news that pro-life heroine Fay Wong went home to the Lord last Tuesday.

Fay was an elderly Chinese lady, about four and a half feet tall, with the heart of a lion. She was well known around the Archdiocese for her prayer vigils at abortion clinics and her indefatigable signature gathering drives at parishes for any pro-life or pro-marriage measure on the ballot. She'd show up with her cane and her little cart and signs and gather signatures the whole weekend long in front of our church as well as others.

Fay seldom wasted time on trivialities such as "hello." Conversations would generally open with "OK, here's what we need to do..."

While our prayers and condolences are with Fay's grieving family and friends, I personally just can't feel too sad. We'll miss Fay certainly, but if we can say for sure that any person has gone straight to heaven, that person is Fay. As Dolores Meehan, co-founder of the Walk For Life West said, "She's in heaven now, seeing the faces of all those babies whose lives she tried to save!" I don't even feel right saying "Rest in Peace"--the idea of Fay resting at all is incomprehensible.

God Bless you, dear Fay, and may we follow your example!

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

ANOTHER Same-sex "Married" Lector at Most Holy Redeemer

Back on December 4, we posted and linked to a "Wedding Announcements" article from the Bay Area Reporter reporting that a man named Philip Carrizosa had "married" another man. The article also mentioned that Mr. Carrizosa served as an acolyte and lector at Most Holy Redeemer Church.

Today, the December 19 issue of the "Catholic San Francisco" newspaper (PDF: 4.72MB; page 20) published across this letter to the editor. It opened with:

"Salt in Wounds

Archbishop Niederauer’s recent “open letter” did nothing but rub salt in the wounds for at least two members of his flock. My husband and I do not think we are alone."

and was signed:

"Michael Vargas
Martin Bednarek
San Francisco"

Michael Vargas is a Lector at Most Holy Redeemer. And in the September 9, 2007 church bulletin, "Marty" Bednarek is listed as serving in the music ministry at MHR. This now brings to seven (by our count) the number of people serving in liturgical ministries at MHR who have "married" persons of the same sex.

We repeat what we said in our post of December 4:

"It will be good here to remind ourselves of Church rules.

From 'Redemptionis Sacramentum' #46 'The lay Christian faithful called to give assistance at liturgical celebrations should be well instructed and must be those whose Christian life, morals and fidelity to the Church’s Magisterium recommend them.'"

Why in the world would "Catholic San Francisco" give a platform to persons expressing blatant contempt for the teaching of the Church? Since we are reminding people of Church rules we will remind the editors of Catholic San Francisco of this sentence from the USCCB's statement "Catholics in Political Life" :

"The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

All emphases are added.

Not only does our Archdiocese tolerate openly same-sex "married" lectors, eucharistic ministers, and acolytes serving at the Holy Mass, they are now allowing them to publish their contempt for Church teaching in the Archdiocesan newspaper. Vargas and Bednarek come right out and say it in Catholic San Francisco: We're Catholics, we're gay, we're "married," get used to it.

I cannot understand why our Archbishop is willing to take the heat for defending natural marriage yet at the same time allows Most Holy Redeemer to have people serve at Mass, who, in the most public possible way, disobey the Church on this foundational issue. MHR is directly under his authority.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

The Sacredness of Sexuality

Another fine homily, given by our friend Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P. Fr. Anselm is a Dominican Priest and Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology here in the Bay Area.

Advent Monday III

While in today’s Gospel we hear a debate about Jesus’ and John the Baptist’s authority, the first reading does sound already somewhat more like Christmas: we hear Balaam announcing the star, i.e., the Messiah: I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not near: A star shall advance from Jacob, and a staff shall rise from Israel.

Of course, as he said: it is not here yet, it is still a time of expectancy. Expecting is anticipation, and in some sense something that is already there, and yet not quite. We also use the word “expecting” for pregnant mothers, and that is indeed the road that our Lord chose to come into this world. Balaam says that this star shall rise from Jacob, i.e. be an offspring of the house of Jacob. It was, as it turned out, Mary who conceived from the Holy Spirit, and fittingly two Marian feasts fall into the time of Advent, the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Maybe that is also one of the reasons why the Church a few days ago chose these Marian feast days to clarify some bioethical questions in a document called Dignitas Personae, the dignity of the human person, addressed not just to Catholics but to all doctors and researchers, because this is not a matter of faith only, but of human dignity and rights. It treats of the various ethical parameters that are to be taken into account, when doing research on human embryos. It is another way of highlighting the time of expectancy, a time of Advent, in which we are attentive of something to come, and yet is already there.


This special attentiveness and attention the new document gives to the question of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) and all forms of artificial reproduction of human life, and it might be good to say a few words about this, since many people do not know about the Church’s teaching or have a hard time understanding it.


The document spells out the ways in which a human being must not be the product of someone else’s designs. We have a right not to be forced into being or even designed by someone else.

It is part of the dignity of the human person to be begotten, not made. Allowing God to arrange our genetics in the marital act of our parents is a way of giving God what is God’s. Our soul is created directly by God in the moment of conception. That is what makes that moment so special and sexual acts sacred. It is the place where the dignity of the human person emerges.

We might also want to think that although the way Mary conceived from the Holy Spirit is unusual and supernatural, there is still is an element of special divine intervention in the conception of each of us. For all of us it is true what the Gospel of John says that we are conceived not by human choice nor by a man's decision but of God (Jn 1, 13), and that we are all children of God, made in the image and likeness of our heavenly Father. We, too, are (to use the words of today’s Gospel) not just of human origins, but of “heavenly” origin.

Certainly, there are some couples who cannot conceive in the normal way. But more recently many ways have been developed in which they can be helped with legitimate medical procedures and their number is therefore actually fairly low. If nothing helps, there will certainly be a painful cross; but we also should not forget about the possibilities of adoption, especially in a time where there are so many unwanted babies.


This might be a little more plausible, if we consider the opposite possibility: in vitro fertilization. This is not only against the dignity of the human person that is to be conceived, but also against the dignity of the marriage.

Even if the sperm and egg is taken from the couple themselves (because you should not make yourself pregnant with a child unrelated to yourself), the one who is getting the wife pregnant would not be the husband, but a technician or medical engineer, while the husband is just standing by, uninvolved. The sacred act of conception would not happen in the sanctuary of marriage, but among the machines of a medical laboratory. Surrender to God’s creative act is taken over by the technological control of man – something that modern technology has been designed to do from its very beginnings in the 17th century, making us into masters and owners of nature, including human nature and life, making human beings in our image and likeness, which therefore become our property, made and discarded at will (infanticide is the next step, which is already in the discussion). It is, in so many ways, an attitude of wanting and making rather than of allowing and letting; there is, accordingly, a lot of anxiety about life, and no “let go and let God.” Someone involved in these procedures recently said in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Jesus was not conceived in the normal way either. I don't lose any sleep over what we are doing.” That is missing precisely the point that the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived by saying “let it be done to me according to your will.” Children can be received only as a gift, not a right; we are living in a time where, paradoxically, this gift is rejected by many, while others want to receive it not as a gift, but as a right and as something of their own making.

Both aspects are intrinsically related: As you are aware, the Church is against contraception, because it separates the unitive aspect of marriage from the procreative. The Church thinks holistic for a number of reasons; what God has put together, man must not divide. Contraception separates the union of the spouses from procreation, but IVF does the same in the reverse: it separates procreation from the union of the spouses. And with equally damaging results: It is not surprising that a growing number of studies find that marriage suffers from these procedures.

Without going into details of these studies, we would already expect that, naturally, husbands tend to feel disconnected from a child conceived in this way, especially if it is not even related to them genetically. Women feel humiliated by the procedure, estranged from their bodies and struggling with psychological difficulties. Both will feel alienated from the child: interestingly, they are less likely to tell the child about its origin than in the case of adoption. The relationship of the couple itself also suffers from this intrusion in their relationship. All of this confirms that what is truly life-giving does not come from technological control and production, but from the self-forgetful giving of two persons in marriage.

Of course, one important aspect has yet to be mentioned, and that is the fact that IVF implies abortion on a large scale: one cannot achieve the desired result without multiple pregnancies and subsequent eugenic selection (including sex selection), i.e. abortion of the superfluous ones. Alternatively, the rest can be frozen, but is rarely be used, and discarded, i.e. aborted later. Pope Benedict spoke of the “absurd fate” of the frozen embryos, absurd, because ethically nothing can be really done with them, even though they human beings with personal dignity. Women especially, more than their husbands, will be painfully aware that they have other children out there somewhere, frozen in an absurd fate.

It will not have escaped you that these are the emerging features of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; there even are experiments with pregnancy in an artificial uterus, in which the child would spend the first months of his life, deprived of the psychologically necessary prenatal relationship and bonding with his mother. (Other parts of that new world are already here: surrogate motherhood, human cloning; even human-animal hybrids are already legalized in England.)

It is also a lucrative market. Statistics show that infertile couples are likely to be: older, better educated, better off financially and desperate. Many of these procedures are expensive and complicated (involving the use of many drugs over a long time), yet they are often unsuccessful: the success rate is only 1/3, of which 9% (vs. 4.2% normal) are born with defects; and at a prize of about $10,000 per cycle (while other already living children are starving elsewhere in the world, which is not an insignificant ethical issue). Because of the low success rate, there is a pressure to get better ratings through procedures that imply more “wastage” of human embryos. Ironically, all of this trumps available medical procedures (called NaPro) that are ethically responsible, procedures that work with nature as God has designed it, and are therefore much more effective.

In Texas there is already a place where one can already order designer babies. The embryos are made from eggs and sperm from two donors who have never even met. The moment of conception occurs in the laboratory and is determined by the genetic combination the clinic thinks will best meet the needs of the paying couples on its books. For about $9,500 you can buy ready-made embryos matching your expectations, including eye and hair color; the advertisement boasts that its sperm donors have doctorates and the egg donors at least college degrees (and there are waiting lists for Aryan children). We will soon see human persons being sold in batches as “quality products”, a frozen and shipped commodity, to be ordered online. All of this is certainly not the testimony to the human dignity that the new Vatican document wants to uphold.

So, if the Church produced this document in this time of Advent, there is good reason for it. All of this is just the flipside of something positive that we are to remember. It is so that the true star will be rising in our hearts, the light of God, reflected in the dignity of his image and likeness, human nature elevated to participation in God’s very own nature in the Incarnation. It is in this time especially that we remember that God not only created natural marriage and fertility with all its dignity. We also remember that he gave conception a new title of dignity, by choosing this as his very own way of entering his creation. He graced it and elevated this way of conceiving to become the royal road to our salvation.

Freedom of Choice

Barack Obama has promised that a first act of his presidency would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. Let us pray he does not keep this sinful promise.

Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph said this in a statement "The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), was first introduced in November of 1989. […] The more recent wording of FOCA, introduced last year, is as follows: A government may not: (1) deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose -- (A) to bear a child; (B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or (C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or (2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information."Bishop Finn explained that this act applies to "every federal, state, and local statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, penalty, practice, or other action enacted, adopted, or implemented before or after the date of enactment of this act."It would thus "make null and void every current restriction on abortion in all jurisdictions," he said.

Citing an article from the Family Research Council, the bishop noted that among the laws FOCA would automatically overturn are 44 states' laws concerning parental involvement; 40 states' laws on restricting later-term abortions; and 46 states' conscience protection laws for individual health care providers; as well as 38 states' bans on partial-birth abortions. (Zenit.org).-