People have been asking us about Karen's trip to DC for the Presidential welcoming ceremony and the Papal Mass at Nationals Stadium in DC.

We have put all of Karen's posts together here in one post. This post will remain at the top of the page.

The Pope Has Landed 04-15-08

Karen's Journey 04-16-08

Report from Karen 04-17-08

Update from Karen 04-18-08

Karen's interview with the Texas Catholic 04-18-08

Pictures from Pope Benedict's Papal Visit 04-22-08

CPLC Board Member on the Today Show 04-25-08

Labels: Pope Benedict XVI

Jeff Turner is a Dallas lawyer and a fellow in constitutional law at the College of St. Thomas More in Fort Worth.

Sometimes the irony pierces so straight and true that one feels no pain, just wonder and astonishment that there is still breath. Planned Parenthood of North Texas (PPNT) announced (www.ppnt.org) that James T. Roderick, its very own president/CEO, will receive the organization’s “prestigious” 2007 Gertrude Shelburne Humanitarian of the Year Award.

PPNT does not define “humanitarian” for us, but, like the great English writer, Gilbert K. Chesterton, I will “use the word in the ordinary sense, as meaning one who upholds the claims of all creatures against those of humanity.” I might add, against those of common sense.

PPNT is a regional subsidiary of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), founded in 1921 by Margaret Sanger. The first ironic arrow to hit is this: After happily preaching her birth control gospel to such enlightened and open-minded folks as the women’s auxiliaries of the Ku Klux Klan, she climbed to the mountaintop to consult the humanitarian gods. There, hemorrhaging with unbelief (she was an atheist), she touched the swastika of Ernst Rudin, and his power went out to her. She went away to enthusiastically publish in her Birth Control Review his “Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need.” Herr Rudin founded the Nazi Society of Racial Hygiene and was a close friend of the One whom Sanger must have believed was the Zeus of humanitarianism, der Furhrer himself. PPFA and PPNT have never refuted or disavowed this history of their organization and now PPNT has the impudence to give a “humanitarian” award to its own furhrer of 25 years.

The next ironic arrow to hit: PPFA and PPNT both claim to be wholesome, law-abiding citizens, ever vigilant of women’s rights. But has either the parent or its North Texas subsidiary condemned or disciplined Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region for violating that state’s laws designed to protect young women? 16-year-old Denise Fairbanks told clinic staffers that the man who had brought her there for an abortion was the same man who impregnated her. The sickening irony was that that man was her father. She also told staffers that he had been forcing himself on her (i.e. denying her freedom of choice) for five years. Staffers, upholding the finest tradition of Planned Parenthood’s compassionate care, duly proceeded with the “procedure” and, without bothering to notify the police, released her into her father’s/perpetrator’s hands with a hope-to-see-you-soon supply of The Pill.

See http://www.ccn-usa.net/news.php?id=462.

Link to http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/may/07051504.html for similar Planned Parenthood cover-up in Los Angeles.

Another arrow of irony is PPFA’s and PPNT’s status as nonprofit, charitable organizations. Nonprofits by definition aren’t supposed to earn a profit from a business enterprise; to do so would violate the tax laws. Cleverly, PPFA instead reports “excess of revenues over expenses.” For fiscal year 2005-2006, that “excess” was $55.8 million. Total assets at the end of the year came to $839.8 million. Of the $902.8 million in revenues, corporate welfare accounted for 34%, or $305.3 million in taxpayers’ money.

What’s PPFA’s and PPNT’s business anyway? Are you ready? Their business is to kill tiny, defenseless humans (some 264,943 in its latest fiscal year) and promote sexual impurity among our sons and daughter and nieces and nephews.

See http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jun/07060811.html

Congratulations, Mr. Roderick. If you’re a humanitarian, Blessed Mother Teresa must have been the devil’s daughter.

Labels: Planned Parenthood

From Fr. Frank Pavone:

Friends,

As of this morning, over 105,000 people have watched the You Tube video that I posted last month describing the D and E dismemberment abortion procedure.

Last night, I posted a new video talking about the prostaglandin method of abortion, which induces delivery. See it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDj12ffvpgY

After I briefly describe it (including the technique of killing the baby before induction via a needle to the heart), I have one of our medical advisors, Dr. Byron Calhoun, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, examine two babies who died by this procedure.

The bodies of the babies are intact, and were entrusted to us for burial. They show the bruise marks from the violent contractions. And the video ends in a powerful way as I bless the bodies and close the lid of the casket.

Take a look, spread the video around, and let me know what you think.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDj12ffvpgY

Blessings!
Fr. Frank Pavone

Labels: Fr. Pavone

Every now and then I peruse the religion blog of the Dallas Morning News. I don't do this to keep updated on religious events, there are plenty of web sites that do that very well.

No, I look at it in order to see where the secular culture is on the topic of religion. The DMN is a great place to get a feel for what should be called "secular religion."

For example, in today's selection of blog postings we have the following:

'Harry Potter' news: Connie Neal (finally) offers a Christian defense of Dumbledore and the 'fact' that he's gay

and

Discoverer of LSD dies at 102

How these two stories relate to actual religion is any ones guess.

Labels: dallas morning news

DO YOU KNOW WHY & HOW THE CATHOLIC VOTE THIS YEAR CAN SAVE 35 MILLION UNBORN BABIES & MAY BE THEIR ONLY HOPE?

In Article #2, we referred to the reasons two new justices will likely be appointed to the Supreme Court during the next presidential term. Democrat president means pro-choice justices. Republican president means pro-life justices. The court is now neutral with four pro-choice (liberal) justices, four pro-life (conservative) justices and Justice Kennedy, the swing voter.

As mentioned, Kennedy changed his vote at the last moment to uphold Roe v Wade in 1992. The expected retirements, Ginsberg and Stevens, are pro-choice, so election of a pro-choice democrat president fails to change the status quo of the legality of abortion for 30 plus years because justices have a lifetime term limit. Result: 35 million or more unborn babies would likely die as a result of this election. Election of a pro-life republican president assures a change to a pro-life Supreme Court and then, an end to legal abortion in federal law. Result: 35 million plus unborn babies could be saved
.
The number would depend on the state regulations that follow.

Even though the life issues get very little debate from the media and the candidates, they are the number one issue in this election, especially abortion, as we will prove to you in a later article. The democrat party itself has already told us it is so.

A. WHY CAN THE CATHOLIC VOTE MAKE THE DIFFERENCE?

1) DO YOU KNOW, according to Priests for Life, there are over 301 million people living in the U.S. and 76% profess to be Christians or almost 229 million. Of those, 52.6 million are Catholics. If the usual 2/3rd is of voting age, then about 35 million are eligible to vote. In 2004, eligible voters totaled 201.4 million and 122,267,553 or 60.7% of eligible voters voted. Therefore, approximately 21.3 million Catholics voted in 2004 or 17.4% of all voters.

2) However, Karl Keating, president of Catholic Answers, the largest Catholic evangelization organization in the U.S., refines the electorate even further as follows:

a) Catholics make up 26% of the electorate, instead of 17.4% because a higher percentage of Catholics turn out to vote than do Protestants. That makes the Catholic voting block almost 31.8 million in 2004.

b) But, Catholics are more likely to vote for liberal (pro-choice) candidates: In 1992, 44% voted for Clinton, while only 34% of Protestants did so. In 1996, 53% of Catholics voted for Clinton, while only 35% of Protestants did so.

3) DO YOU KNOW only 48% of Catholics voted pro-life in the 2000 presidential election and only 52% nationally in the 2004 presidential election? Using Karl Keating’s research that’s 16.5 million Catholic pro-life voters in 2004.

4) Doesn’t that mean that there are 48%, or 15.3 million Catholic voters who actually voted pro-choice in 2004 who could and should have voted pro-life? Then you must add to that unknown millions of potential Catholic voters in the 39.3% of Americans, both registered and non-registered, who didn’t vote in 2004, but might vote pro-life if they knew the stakes. See B.3) below.

We have almost one-half of our fellow Catholic voters who vote for politicians, some are Catholic, who are destroying the moral fabric of America by consistently supporting the intrinsically immoral evils of abortion including contraception, euthanasia, destructive embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and same-sex “marriage.” Such voting in support of intrinsic evil is in direct violation of God’s commandments and, therefore, Catholic moral teaching since time began.

If Catholics were morally united first as they should be, even 30% of 15 to 25 million is an enormous voting block that could control any election outcome, but the truth is that the majority of Catholic voters identify themselves first politically as democrats, republicans, or independents, and secondarily as members of special interests, such as a union, ethnic group, veterans, taxpayers, etc. And, unfortunately at election time, some of our clergy, including bishops, segregate politically instead of uniting morally. WHY? Well, according to the pollster, John Zogby, “Catholics have lost their identity as voters because they make their choices for reasons that have little to do with their religious beliefs.” But that is a statement of the obvious. To begin with, it’s been a long time since Catholics had an identity as voters. That was the election of JFK as president in 1960 when he captured 78% of the Catholic vote, only 2% less than Alfred Smith in 1928 who got 80%.

Why are so many Catholics making their voting choices for reasons other than the teaching of their Church?

1) The decline of the moral leadership of the Catholic Church in America resulting from a) the cultural revolution to moral relativism in the 1960s, b) the upheaval in the Church over Vatican II, and c) the failure of the Church’s leadership in America to recognize these events as threats that required sustained reinforcement of Church moral doctrine from the pulpit to teach and protect our parishioners over the last four decades are the root causes. Two future articles will explore the book, “Decline & Fall of the Catholic Church in America.”

2) Many baptized Catholics lost belief in their faith, saw it as just another religious denomination, and weekly attendance at mass nationally declined from 74% in 1958 to 25% in 2004, according to Gallop pollsters. Those leaving the Church could be described as Authentic Catholics in 1958 who became Generic Christians or Nominal Catholics by 2004.

3) After four decades, the numbers of 2004 Catholics who don’t act like 1958 Catholics are staggering: 88% think birth control is acceptable, 67% think premarital sex is acceptable, 48% think same-sex unions are acceptable (all results of a 2005 ABC News Washington Post poll); over 85% no longer let Church teaching guide their moral decisions, over 85% no longer agree with Church teachings on faith and morals, 88% do not support Church teaching on contraception (these results were reported by “That Man Is You” program). Catholics who believe and behave thusly over many years don’t know their voting choices are wrong and immoral because nobody has been telling them they are.

4) All of this continues because in most Catholic parishes in this nation Catholics are not taught on Sunday the moral consequences of their immoral relativist life style and haven’t been effectively for 40 years. So, if they haven’t been taught the Church’s teachings on faith and morals and guided in the making of moral decisions since they were in grade school, then they don’t have the knowledge to realize that they may not vote for pro-choice candidates without committing a mortal sin and that they must get forgiveness before receiving communion. So, a question to ask is: what percentage of pro-choice voting Catholics who receive this knowledge in time for the election do you think would change their minds and vote pro-life? Would it be at least 10%? Should you be one of them?

B. SO, HOW CAN THE CATHOLIC VOTE MAKE THE DIFFERENCE?

1) The Catholic vote has the potential to make or break an election. Most political contests are won by less then 5%. The American electorate is split pretty close to 50/50 between republicans and democrats when the final tally is complete. If just 10% more Catholics voted as Catholics should, we could change the political landscape.

2) If just 10% more Catholic voters vote pro-life in the November presidential, senatorial, and congressional elections because they found out it is a grave sin to vote pro-choice, then we would make a huge difference. We’d assure the election of a pro-life president, keep the pro-choice senators below their expected increase to 60 or more, and maybe even win back the House of Representatives.

3) The 2004 presidential election set the precedent for this because an increase in the Catholic vote of 14% in Florida to 66% and 13% in Ohio to 65% of practicing Catholics for pro-life President Bush was crucial in his carrying those two states & the election. This was a result of the extra hard work done in those two states by Father Frank Pavone and his Priests For Life organization, who spent weeks enhancing the pro-life vote with new practicing Catholic registrations in those states.

4) So, what do Catholics need to know to meet their moral obligations in voting and how do they get that knowledge in an oral and/or written national massive distribution in time for the election? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has published a booklet for this year’s election called “Forming Consciences For Faithful Citizenship.” This booklet is 36 pages long and costs $1.95 per copy. The summary is 10 pages and both are too long to be read by any churchgoer even if they could be economically distributed nationwide to all parishioners. What is needed is a concise one page bulletin stuffer and pastors preaching our Church doctrine on this subject from the pulpit in order to cover all the faithful.

5) Our next Article #4 will identify the problems in “A Catholic Layman’s Assessment of Faithful Citizenship” and the solution in a one page bulletin stuffer, “Here’s What Catholic Voters Need To Know To Meet Our Moral Obligation In Voting,” that is distribution friendly, can be read in three minutes or less, and costs only two cents per copy.

Chuck Suter
St. Monica’s Pro-Life Parish Coordinator
PLEASE SEND COMMENTS TO: chuck.suter@sbcglobal.net
OR CALL: 972-401-0471

Labels: Do You Know?