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Perspective, Political, ,

A nuclear wait a minute here

From the Scotsman (as well as other sources): Clinton: I’ll obliterate Iran if it launches nuclear attack on Israel

THE Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton warned Tehran yesterday that if she were in the White House, the United States could “totally obliterate” Iran in retaliation for a nuclear strike against Israel.

On the day of a crucial vote in her nomination battle with fellow Democrat Barack Obama, the New York senator said she wanted to make clear to Tehran what she was prepared to do as president in the hope that the warning would deter any Iranian nuclear attack against the Jewish state. “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel],” she told ABC’s Good Morning America programme.

“In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them,” she said…

This is really really sick, coming from a person who wishes to be the President of the United States.

This issue first emerged during the last Democratic debate, and I thought it was sick when Ms. Clinton said it then. Now this?

The person elected as President usually tasks a rather reticent approach toward such issues. They make general statements, things like, “We will consider our options,” or “We will defend our allies,” etc. Even our current president, while engaging in a lot of rhetoric that is unfortunate, doesn’t promise actions like this.

For my part, let Israel take care of itself. Israel has nuclear weapons, and tons of military hardware provided by this country. Why should we get involved. Are we, as a county, so bent on defending a foreign land that we would initiate a nuclear holocaust on their behalf?

A 2006 census pegs Iran’s population at over 70 million, with about 10.5 million being age 15 or under. We would kill them all, either in direct nuclear hits or in the radioactive aftermath? Really? The United States would do this? This is what we want from our leaders?

Beyond the obvious meaning of obliterate, we would irradiate the Middle East – Saudi Arabia, Turkey, much of the Persian Gulf, Pakistan (they have nukes too), Armenia, and he former Soviet Republics. Do we think that Russia and Pakistan and India would say, “Ok, you’ve irradiated our populations and now they are going to die horrible deaths, but we won’t do anything about it?”

That radioactive cloud won’t stay there either. We better lay in a big supply of iodine because our sons and daughters, right here in North America, will be dying in their 20’s from bone cancer and leukemia.

Our politics are sick and sad if our leaders can casually say that they will obliterate a country – and no one calls them to account for saying it. I lived through enough of the Cold War to know that living under the specter of a nuclear holocaust was no fun. Living in Western New York meant we were target one in a dual nuclear hit. As a former member of CAP I used to take part in radioactivity monitoring exercises – to prepare for the day. In reality I would have been dead – and even as a child I knew that. No child should have to live like that.

It may take a village to raise a child, but only one crazed leader to obliterate the village.

Everything Else, ,

Mass For Anyone Touched By Adoption

A Mass for anyone touched by adoption will be celebrated by Rev. Msgr. Paul Burkard on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. All are welcome to attend, Birth Parents, Adoptees, Adoptive Parents, Grandparents and other relatives.

Our Lady of Victory Basilica
Ridge Road & South Park Avenue
Lackawanna, NY 14218

Reception to follow the mass.

For more information, please call the Baker Victory Services at 717-828-9500 or the R.C. Diocese of Buffalo’s Pro-Life Office at 716-847-2205.

Christian Witness, Perspective, Political,

George Bush – Convert, Heretic, Both?

I ran across a rather interesting (in the sad sense) point of view expressed in a blog post at Good Jesuit, Bad Jesuit called George W. Bush’s Warm Embrace Of The Catholic ChurchIt also links to an article from the Deacon’s Bench. The comments below that article are of note.. It delivers the typical neocon Roman Catholic fringe thinking you find in certain R.C. blog circles. These folks are typical Bush supporters, or people who believe that politics and politicians are our saviors. What is unfortunate is that they fail to see they they are supporting a president who has told their Church and its leader, the Bishop of Rome (large picture attached to the post – I guess he’s giving Mr. Bush a blessing?) to go jump in the Tiber.

The Bishop of Rome has elucidated – very clearly – that the things Mr. Bush is engaged in are improper and sinful. Mr. Bush chose to ignore the Bishop of Rome on issues surrounding Iraq and the Just War doctrine. He chose to tell the Bishop of Rome’s delegation to get lost. He has ignored Rome on torture and other issues as well.

Perhaps Mr. Bush would be a perfect fit for the “American Catholic Church.” He certainly holds to the Americanist Heresy, condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae. He refuses to subjugate himself (as many Roman Catholics in the U.S. do) to the authority and teaching of the Church, preferring rather his own “enlightened” point-of-view. Just a recap of Rome’s teaching on the issueSee also: Pope John Paul II calls War a Defeat for Humanity: Neoconservative Iraq Just War Theories Rejected:

The basis of these opinions is that, to make converts, the Church should adapt herself to our advanced civilization and relax her ancient rigour as regards not only the rule of life but also the deposit of faith, and should pass over or minimize certain points of doctrine, or even give them a meaning which the Church has never held. On this the Vatican Council is clear; faith is not a doctrine for speculation like a philosophical theory, to be relinquished or in any manner suppressed under any specious pretext whatsoever; such a process would alienate Catholics from the Church, instead of bringing converts. In the words of the council the Church must constantly adhere to the same doctrine in the same sense and in the same way; but the rule of Christian life admits of modifications according to diversity of time, place, or national custom, only such changes are not to depend on the will of private individuals but on the judgment of the Church.

So when Mr. Fromm writes:

If George Bush becomes a Catholic it will be a great day, if not then I will have lived under a President who prays to Jesus Christ and does his best to live his life as a Christian first and politician second.

…he should remember that an embrace of the Roman Catholic Church requires that the person doing so hold to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, on war, abortion, torture, the death penalty, truth, contraception, and on… An embrace of Christianity entails a whole set of life choices that go against everything the world teaches.

In other words Mr. Bush is about as Roman Catholic as ____________? Well, at a minimum, an Americanist heretic.

The real fact is that there is no single issue by which we must decide. None of the politicians who are on road to the White House are Catholic or truly Christian in any sense of the word, especially in the sense of faithful citizenship. None are for true freedom. None will desist from government intervention in our lives at home or from interventions overseas. Those who promise an end to abortion do nothing to actually stop abortion. As the Young Fogey might point out, they simply fan the flames of controversy, doing nothing in reality, but perpetuating their agenda and power above all else.

The answer is always found in the deposit of faith. I believe my Church to be correct on every issue because it teaches the true faith. That trumps politics, my country, the world, and especially my personal desires. Is it easy to be a Christian in the face of the world? No. It only happens when we take our desires, our needs out of the picture – focusing them and aligning them with Jesus Christ’s way. With that we bear witness to our faith and win true converts.

Christian Witness, Current Events, Media, Perspective, PNCC, ,

Praying for those who have not faith

There is much consternation out there over several issues that have come to the fore, seemingly simultaneously.

As I look through these events I continually ask myself – what do we as Catholics believe, what is our foundation, and why does any of this worldly stuff matter to us.

Of course our foundation – our rock – is Jesus Christ, true God, true man, the second person in the Holy Trinity. Acknowledging that, everything else becomes rather secondary. Politics – bleh. The media – huh? Sports celebrities, talking heads, pundits, actors – who they?

If that is our faith, and I am certain it is, I propose a new tactic in dealing with the idiosyncrasies of the worldly, the worldly that surround, and may indeed, outnumber us. That tactic is prayer and silence.

I will start with a few recent hot button issues.

ESPN controversy

It appears that some commentator as ESPN wishes to have intercourse with Jesus. A person by the name of Dana Jacobson went off on an anti-Christian tirade at a recent ESPN function honoring ESPN Radio personalities Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic. The vulgar speech has raised the ire of various defense and anti-defamation leagues. All the callings on the carpet, chest beating, call for apologies, and subsequent apologies do not really amount to too much. If a professional person can do something of this caliber – without thinking twice before speaking – well I am sorry for her.

Rather than react, I propose that we pray, and bear these insults in Holy silence. That tongue biting we do is our penance for the times we ourselves have spoken callously of others. In addition it is the kind of sacrifice – the kind of silence – that brings results.

Clergy bless abortion clinic

In my neck of the woods — LifeSite News reports: Pro-Abortion Clergy Bless New York Abortion Business as “Sacred Ground”

…a group of pro-abortion clergy in Schenectady held a ceremony at a local abortion business to bless it and call it “sacred ground.” Religious officials who are pro-life call the ceremony sacrilegious by blessing a place that kills the life God creates.

Rev. Larry Phillips of Schenectady’s Emmanuel-Friedens Church dedicated the ground, according to a report in the Albany Times Union.

…

Another minister prayed for safety for the abortion business and a local rabbi blew a shofar to dedicate the building as an honorable place in the community.

My gut reaction is that this is horrible. A good dressing down of the Rev. Phillips and the others involved? Outrage? Scathing criticism? Rather, prayer and Holy silence.

Jews, and Muslims, and Hindus, oh my

The Western Confucian (thanks to the Young Fogey for the link) discusses the rage of the Hebrews. Good points in the quid-pro-quo sense. This, along with events like the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles’ apology to the Hindus (thanks again Fogey) are issues best left to God – and beyond the value of discussion.

In the PNCC we certainly pray for the conversion of all who do not believe in Christ or for that matter believe in God at all. That includes a pretty large chunk on the world. Our neighbors in the Hindu Temple – yep, them. The Jews at Chabad House in Colonie – yep. The Muslims in Albany – yes. The Mormons in Latham – them too. Unitarians, agnostics, atheists, and anyone else who does not believe in God as He revealed Himself – One and Trinitarian.

Better yet, on Holy Saturday, after the Third Exhortation we pray:

Lord God,
You are an immovable power
and an eternal Light.
Look graciously on this mystery,
which is Your whole Church,
and the vehicle of our salvation,
with unceasing direction and sufficient assistance.
May the whole world witness
that You raise up the humble,
and make old things new.
May all humanity come to know
that all things return to their pristine existence
through Jesus Christ, Your Son…

…and after the Fourth we pray:

Almighty Eternal God,
in Jesus Christ You showed us
the best example to follow.
Grant that all nations of the world
will unite in Him with love for You…

In these, and all the prayers of the Holy Church, we acknowledge God as He is – and we really do not think anyone else has a clue or insight that can beat God’s self revelation. They may well be on the road to salvation – and they are well within God’s merciful hands – something we in the PNCC acknowledge in our Confession of Faith:

I BELIEVE that all peoples as children of one Father, God, are equal in themselves; that privileges arising from differences in rank, from possession of immense riches or from differences of faith, sex and race, are a great wrong, for they are a violation of the rights of man which he possess by his nature and the dignity of his divine origin, and are a barrier to the purposeful development of man.

…and

I BELIEVE in immortality and everlasting happiness in eternity in union with God of all people, races and ages, because I believe in the Divine power of love, mercy and justice and for nothing else do I yearn, but that it may be to me according to my faith.

But still, we do not deny our faith, or refuse to offer them our prayers, our Holy silence, and our wish that they come to Christ – because doing so is Christian charity.

We truly do believe in God. We believe that He offers all that we need. As such the vices of the world cannot harm us. Our responses to provocations and the ways of the worldly must be borne of complete charity – which is love – and that love finds its fulfillment in our prayer, our sacrifice, and most particularly the ultimate prayer – the Holy Mass.

The fact is that prayer and Holy silence will actually accomplish more than our words, protests, and blogging will ever accomplish. They are proactive in the sense of calling down grace. They place us in the experience of the Divine interlude. It is the music of the place that is between heaven and earth. It is where we stand in the breech, bringing the world to God and God to the world. Couple our prayer and Holy silence with some fasting and works of charity – and most of all love toward these sad folks – folks who are angry, hate-filled, resentful, misguided, and ultimately apart from those whom they disparage – and we will be doing the work of God.

A family member recently noted that Christians pray for the faithful. She wondered why we do not pray for those without faith – because they need the prayers. She is right. Both the faithful and the faithless need prayer – in equal amounts. The faithful so that they remain true. The faithless so that they are brought to God’s self revelation in accordance with God’s timing and God’s grace.

If we love rather than react with rage it is not capitulation. Silence is not acquiescence. Prayer is not useless. We must remind ourselves – do not volunteer yourself onto someone else’s stage, and if you are dragged there – He will give you the words. We must act on the eternal stage and bear a witness to truth that is beyond time and place. Surely we are to speak the truth, but on our stage – and on the terms set down by the Heavenly Father.

Those who hate cannot be won by argument or voices raised in protest. Only the grace of God can change their hearts. For this we pray. Lord have mercy on us. Amen.

Perspective, Political,

LDI supports Huckabee – while holding its nose at ethnic cleansing?

Received this via my Christian Newswire news feed: Catholics and Protestants Urged to Come Together to Back Huckabee:

“Governor Mike Huckabee is the only candidate for President we can support with confidence,” said Douglas R. Scott, Jr., president of Life Decisions International (LDI). “I urge my Protestant brothers and sisters to join me in doing all they can to advance Mike Huckabee’s campaign.”

“We need to back a candidate who has a consistent record of supporting traditional values,” said Thomas C. Strobhar, chairman of LDI. “Mike Huckabee is that kind of candidate. I urge my Catholic brothers and sisters to join me in doing all they can to advance Mike Huckabee’s campaign.”

…

“I believe it is the responsibility of every pro-life/pro- family American to support a candidate that wholeheartedly supports life–without apology and without compromise,” Scott said. “While the only person I agree with on every issue is me, Mike Huckabee comes pretty close. And since his positions are faith-based, one can be sure he will not sell out the Pro-Life Movement the very lives of preborn children.”

“Pro-lifers have been used and abused by too many candidates that claim to be pro-life only at opportune times,” Strobhar said. “Mike Huckabee is not worried which way the political wind blows. He’s the real deal.”

“I am thrilled that there is a candidate I can enthusiastically endorse rather than holding my nose and supporting the ‘lesser of two evils’,” Scott said. “Mike Huckabee deeply and personally cares about these issues. He is the kind of candidate pro- family Democrats, Republicans and independents can support. The choice is clear; Mike Huckabee should be the next President of the United States.”

…

Life Decisions International (LDI) is dedicated to challenging the Culture of Death…

So I wonder if they support Mr. Huckabee’s idea of deporting all Palestinians (I guess that includes Christian Palestinians) out of Israel for points unknown in other “Arab lands.” In common terms that’s called ethnic cleansing (thanks to the Young Fogey for pointing to this).

I’m not feeling all that confident in a man who supports ethnic cleansing, deportations (and the deaths that sure accompany that sort of thing – people aren’t going voluntarily), and a continuing war in the Middle East involving our soldiers; a place we should never have gone and which we must leave forthwith.

Mr. Scott, you still have to hold your nose. The stench of death is still there – only its coming from the Middle East.

Christian Witness,

Blogs4Life Conference

The Third Annual Blogs4Life Conference is scheduled for Tuesday, January 22, 2008 in Washington DC.

The Family Research Council is providing a first class meeting facility just a few blocks from the annual March for Life, the massive pro-life event which draws tens of thousands of pro-lifers (some estimate the crowd at well over 100,000) . A morning session is scheduled before the March with over a dozen well-known pro-life speakers including Kevin McCullough (MC), Jill Stanek, Judie Brown, Eric Scheidler, Barbara Curtis, Dawn Eden, Phill Kline, Michael New, Michael Illions, Maggie Datiles, Michelena Fredenburg, Peter Shinn and Rep. Chris Smith.

An afternoon session from Noon to 4 PM will be held in a luxurious room close to the Capitol building overlooking the March for Life. Internet access will be provided for live-blogging and a 50-inch flat screen monitor will broadcast the Rally and March for Life as it occurs. In addition, several pro-life leaders will be available for interviews and commentary.

If you plan to attend, please let us know by registering at Blogs4Life. Space in the afternoon session is limited and will be provided on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Christian Witness, Perspective

I am the tax man…

From Forex: Pope says Catholic Church wants no privilege…

BRUSSELS (Thomson Financial News) – Pope Benedict XVI said today that the Roman Catholic Church does not expect special treatment as EU competition regulators considered a probe into tax breaks it enjoys in Italy, Agence France-Presse reported.

“The Church does not seek power, does not claim privileges and does not aspire to positions of economic or social advantage,” Benedict said as he accepted the credentials of Italy’s new ambassador to the Holy See…

Certainly true to what the Church should believe and how it should act. Props to the Bishop of Rome for speaking out on this sensitive issue. He is certainly refocusing things and is upsetting apple carts.

I wonder if the collective National Bishop’s Conferences are stroking out at the fact that all those property holdings might suddenly be enrolled on the tax register?

Unfortunately, not every Bishop can withstand the juggernaut of government. From LifeSite News: American Life League Urges Connecticut Bishops to Rethink Plan B at Catholic Hospitals

WASHINGTON, October 5, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “The actions of the Connecticut Catholic Conference are an outrage and a crime,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League (ALL) reacting to the news that the Connecticut Bishops have given permission for the use of the so-called “emergency contraceptive” Plan B for rape victims at Catholic hospitals…

Current Events, Perspective, Political,

He just doesn’t get it…

Some statements from President Bush on Independence Day, 2007From the Washington Post in: President Defends War on July 4th: Bush Compares Iraq To Revolutionary War.

“We give thanks for all the brave citizen-soldiers of our Continental Army who dropped pitchforks and took up muskets to fight for our freedom and liberty and independence,” Bush said. He added: “You’re the successors of those brave men. . . . Like those early patriots, you’re fighting a new and unprecedented war.”

New and unprecedented because it was created in the mind of Mr. Bush’s neo-con advisers, those who push the commander-in-chief’s buttons. New and unprecedented because we are fighting against people who did nothing to precipitate our invasion, did not seek our help, and perfectly well don’t want us there. They want us less than the Colonists wanted their King George.

You cover your abuse of our citizen soldiers, who you are using as your personal hamburger, with faí§ades of glory. To the extent that we are involved in foreign adventures in Iraq, Kosovo, Korea, or elsewhere, our soldiers bear no resemblance to the resolute ideals of our Founding Fathers. Our founders fought for hearth, home, and self-determination… kind of like the folks in Iraq, fighting against our ill conceived venture.

Perhaps our citizen soldiers would be better successors if they were home, protecting our borders, or helping us in natural disasters.

Now for the fear mongering:

“If we were to quit Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists we are fighting would not declare victory and lay down their arms. They would follow us here, home”

All of them? Now how many Iraqis are there? Perhaps a few, perhaps one or two (I’m sounding like Dr. Seuss).

Of course they have no right to be ticked, our supporting Israel above all things (even ourselves) and our little jaunt through Iraq, leaving the country poor, in debt, with its infrastructure destroyed, its Christian population killed-off, with neighbor against neighbor, a puppet regime in place, and, and, and…

No Mr. Bush. No freedom for the Iraqis, no illusions, no allusions to our experience. No Mr. Bush, just criminal incompetence seeped in blood.

You cannot compare yourself or your adventures to anything the Founding Fathers did on that day in Philadelphia. At best you can compare yourself to a drunken and abusive father.

Homilies, ,

The Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist

All who heard these things took them to heart, saying,
—What, then, will this child be?—
For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.

Faith! Faith is about our lives and what we do with them.

As we come to the end of the month of June, a month dedicated to Sacred Vocations, it is wise to stop and consider life, and our choice of vocation, in light of St. John the Baptist’s example.

Isaiah sets the tone:

The LORD called me from birth,
from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.

As Catholic Christians we are about life. We know that the Lord creates life. We joyfully cooperate in the creative act, and we ponder the mystery of it all.

How and why is life given? What is the particular moment at which life is given? Once given, why is there suffering and pain?

Frankly, any answer that exists apart from faith is lacking.

Can we fathom the depths of God’s wisdom? Can we answer all the questions? Can we, in our weakness, even grasp the answers to the questions that wend their way through our lives?

God pointedly told Job:

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

God’s majesty is beyond our comprehension and His ways are far beyond our ways. The questions we ask and the answers we seek are meaningless groaning.

Yet, Isaiah found hope in God’s promise to Israel:

Though I thought I had toiled in vain,
and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,
yet my reward is with the LORD,
my recompense is with my God.

Jesus came as the fulfillment of God’s promise; as we are knit together in our mother’s womb, so too Jesus was knit together in Mary’s womb. As Paul points out:

From [David’s] descendants God, according to his promise,
has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus.

Jesus took on human life and human form, and by doing so showed us the awesome respect and dignity with which we must hold every human life.

He gave us all the answers we need.

Life is valuable. Carrying out the Father’s will is our call. Suffering, when it comes, holds salvific power.

John came to us, the forerunner of the Christ. He came to do God’s will. He came, not as an angel, but as a man, also knit together in Elizabeth’s womb. He came to suffer as well.

In light of what he knew, he suffered for seeing Israel’s corruption. In light of what he knew, he allowed himself to be subjected to ridicule, insults, arrest, and ultimately martyrdom.

His life, and his choice of God’s way holds immense value for all of humanity.

The Gospel closes with two lines.

The first:

—What, then, will this child be?—

In hindsight we know the answer to the question that haunted the hill country of Judea. He shall be the forerunner of the Messiah.

The second:

For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.

The hand of the Lord was with John because he chose to do the Father’s will.

That, my friends, is the question the Holy Church asks you. Will you do the Father’s will? Will you allow us to teach you, to show you the way to best accomplish the Father’s will?

Look around you my friends. In Iraq, our Christian brothers and sisters have the hand of the Lord upon them. Christian women are being raped. Young Christian men are being tortured and killed. The old are being held for ransom and are later made refugees, with no home to return to. All for Christ.

In North Korea and China Christians are being tortured and killed, for the name of Christ.

In this country speaking out as a Christian subjects one to derisive laughter. You are scorned because you will not allow the killing of children, the mentally ill, or the old. You believe in things like sin and God’s promise of salvation from sin through repentance and conversion of life.

Brothers and sisters,

The hand of the Lord is upon you. You need only recognize the call you have received. It is a call to conversion of heart. It is a call to build God’s kingdom. It is the call to bring all to Jesus Christ.

To our young men, and men on their second or third careers, the hand of the Lord is upon you. You are being called to serve, to proclaim the Kingdom of God, as John did. To baptize, claiming all who come, as members of Jesus’ body, His Holy Church.

Being a Catholic Christian, certainly the questions will persist, but the answers are here and they are true.

On this Solemnity ponder the third to last line of the Gospel:

All who heard these things took them to heart.

Allow St. John’s proclamation to reach you. Go, and do as he did. Leap for joy, for the Christ is among us.

Current Events,

Assistance for Darfur

My sister forwarded a link to a CHF International project that helps to protect the women and children of Darfur.

I have found CHF to be a worthy organization. At one time I had considered working in one of their housing development projects in Poland, and I have kept up with their efforts in some of the poorest areas of the world.

As you may well know, recent stories have circulated concerning gang rapes of women who must hunt down scarce firewood. These women must forage for firewood that is used for cooking.

Women must leave the (relative) safety of their refugee camps, and their husbands and children, often traveling tens of miles to find wood. The men cannot leave the camps as they would most likely be killed, or forcefully conscripted.

CHF is trying to supply special stoves that require less fuel and that use fuels readily available in the camps. I ask that you consider supporting this project.

More information and an on-line donation option is available at: Building Stoves and Saving Lives in Darfur, Sudan – The Fuel-Efficient Stoves Project.

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