Why do Our Bishops Exile Fellow Pro-Life Bishops?

Answer: The Scourge of Conscience

When the USCCB demotes and attempts to isolate outspoken pro-life bishops, they do so because they are reminded that they are duty-bound to lead with the same manliness, and not simply 'smile and wave with the mob'. According to the Washington Times, Pro-life bishops, that is, those courageous few bishops who put their money where their mouth is and walk the talk are continually relegated to lower positions within the USCCB. Those heroic bishops, by denying Communion to obstinate pro-abortion policy making Catholic dissenters until they have repented of their pro-abortion stances, are the modern Thomas More's of our time. May our entire USCCB exhibit the same manliness in the coming persecutions as those saintly men of God currently leading by example.

Gay Marriage Protesters - Exhibit Their Intolerance

Tom Brokaw wrote a book about that generation that cherished wholesome family values. His book, The Greatest Generation honored our once great American generation that believed in God, prayer, honor . . . and family.

Today however, this nation has turned upon itself. Like ancient roman Emperor Nero, the protesters who took to the California streets immediately after the passing of Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, are blaming Christians. The question that should be asked is why? The majority of voters in California voted for an abortion supporting liberal named Obama, and on the same ballot also voted for keeping traditional marriage defined as between one man and one woman. Are 61% majority of Californians who supported Obama also "extreme right wing Christians"?  Does California really have 61% of its voting populace attending a right wing conservative Christian Church? I highly doubt that. 61% of California voters aren't conservative right wing Christians. Yet the pro-gay marriage protesters are exploiting this opportunity to unleash their hate against God and subsequently against those who defend Him. Carrying signs reading 'fight hate with hate', it is not the Churches protesters are fighting against, but the One Who created them and continually seeks their return.

The argument we keep hearing is that such and such Church spoke out and encouraged their congregation to vote against it. So what? Didn't Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg, and Matt Damon contribute tens of thousands of dollars and campaign against Proposition 8? According to MSN and Associated Press News:

NCIS actress Pauley Perrette donated $3,000. Brad Pitt donated $100,000 to fight the ballot initiative. Trevor Neilson, Pitt's political and philanthropic adviser, said the actor continues to be surprised that his colleagues in the entertainment industry have not donated more money to support the battle against Proposition 8. Among the other famous contributors: "Point of No Return" actress Bridget Fonda ($200); "One Life to Live" actor Jason Tam ($100); "In Plain Sight" actress Mary McCormack ($200); "Good Will Hunting" director Gus Van Sant ($2,500); "Brothers & Sisters" executive producer Greg Berlanti ($5,000) and "Star Trek" actor George Takei ($2,600). "The Real World" co-creator and executive producer Jonathan Murray donated $10,000 to support gay marriage. Orson Bean, perhaps best known for his frequent appearances as a panelist on "To Tell the Truth" donated $200. Tinseltown put on party fundraisers including Melissa Etheridge and Mary J. Blige which required a minimum donation of $1,000. The bash, which was attended by such celebs as Barbara Streiesand, David Hyde Pierce and Rob Reiner, raised over $4 million for the campaign, according to Lorri L. Jean, CEO of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center. That money was used to purchase air time for campaign ads.

If hollywood could raise and donate an exorbitant amount of wealth to the gay and lesbian agenda using their glamor, popularity, and entertainment, (and still lose) then why couldn't Church members scrape their rainy day funds to defend God's agenda? It seems only fair:

Hollywood wealthy supports evil and social decadence with the money they've acquired from movie and concert goers

VS.

Churchgoing citizens support social order, goodness, and traditional family values with the money they've earned by the sweat of their own brow. Tom Brokaw called the generation who embraced these same principles, The Greatest Generation.

I suppose the lesson we should learn here is that liberals aren't about a fair fight. They're only about getting what they want - and getting it now. When Obama won, I didn't see anyone on the news protesting the most liberal senator's election win to the highest office of our nation. No, what I saw on the news after liberal Obama's victory, was liberals protesting . . . ???? Protesting they didn't get it ALL. Even with Tinseltown throwing over $4 million dollars at the gay marriage agenda, the people of CA voted to keep the Greatest Generation alive and keep marriage between one man and one woman. Since 2004, every gay marriage ballot initiative across the country has unanimously voted for keeping the traditional definition of marriage. Even in states that had election outcomes producing wins for liberal politicians, even these states voted against gay marriage.

America has spoken and California has spoken. The traditional family is the nucleus of our societies and America still remembers The Greatest Generation.

Former Environmentalists Speak Out

Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace, and Bjorn Lomborg, former 4-year member of Greenpeace, Associate Professor of Statistics, and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist have disclosed that the old messages of environmental doom and gloom are nothing but exaggerations and myths. They are speaking out against what they once believed as true. That overpopulation, declining energy resources, deforestation, species loss, water shortages, global warming, and a variety of other environmental propaganda are unsupported by analysis of the relevant data.

The truth of it is that our planet is God's gift to mankind to use within the context of what God produced. The landscape God created is our gift to help us survive. To stand in the way of this noble task, like extreme environmentalists have done, is doing an injustice not only to the environment's natural function, local economies, and global demands, but most importantly to God, Who produced all of our forests, rivers, fertile fields, and streams for our sustainable utilization of the resources these environments produce.

Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, describes the litany of global doom and gloom we have all heard over the decades by the media and environmental activists from groups such as Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, and Wildlife Institute saying, "There is just one problem: it does not seem to be backed up by the available evidence." In Patrick Moore's article Trees Are the Answer, Moore explains his own position in the following excerpts:

"We cannot simply switch to basing all our actions on purely environmental values. Every day 6 billion people wake up with real needs for food, energy and materials.

When foresters create openings or clearcuts when they harvest trees, one of the reasons for doing it is so the new trees growing back can be in full sunlight. Trees are basically plants that want to be in the sun. If trees wanted to be in the shade they would have been shrubs instead, they would not have spent so much time and energy growing long wooden stems.

During the past three years I have asked the World Wildlife Fund on many occasions to please provide me with a list of some of the species that have supposedly become extinct due to logging. They have not offered up a single example as evidence. In fact, to the best of our scientific knowledge, no species has become extinct in North America due to forestry.

The spotted owl is one of the many species that was never threatened with extinction due to forestry, and yet in the early 1990's, 30,000 loggers were thrown out of work in the US Pacific Northwest due to concern that logging in the National Forests would cause the owl’s extinction. Since that time, in just a few short years, it has been shown by actual field observations that there are more than twice as many spotted owls in the public forests of Washington state than were thought to be theoretically possible when those loggers lost their jobs.

So the general public is being given the impression, by supposedly reputable sources such as the New York Times and National Geographic that forestry is a major cause of species extinction when there is actually no evidence to support that position.

The Sierra Club says, "You don't need a professional forester to tell if a forest is mismanaged - if a forest appears to be mismanaged, it is mismanaged." They want you to believe that the ugly appearance of a recently harvested forest is synonymous with permanent destruction of the environment. And yet, the unsightly sea of stumps is not nuclear waste or a toxic discharge, it is 100 percent organic, and will soon grow back to a beautiful new forest again. All the same, the fact that recently harvested areas of forest appear ugly to our eyes makes for very effective images in the hands of anti-forestry activists.

The way we think the land should look often has more to do with personal and social values than anything to do with biodiversity or science. We tend to idealize nature, as if there is some perfect state that is exactly right for a given area of land. There are actually thousands of different combinations of species at all different stages of forest growth that are perfectly natural and sustainable in their own right. There is nothing better about old trees than there is about young trees. Perhaps the ideal state is to have forests of all ages, young, medium, and old in the landscape. This will provide the highest diversity of habitats and therefore the opportunity for the largest number of species to live in that landscape.

If a person strongly believes that forestry is bad because it is ugly, no amount of technical and scientific information will cause them to change their mind. First they must understand that the look of the land is not sufficient, in itself, to make judgments about ecology.

All this controversy, political pressure, and near-hysterical rhetoric over a few percent of biodiversity, with the camera lens focused squarely in on the most recent, ugliest, burnt-out clear-cut available, as if it's going to remain that way forever. The real extreme is the parking lot and other areas of deforestation, not the recently cut forest that is soon going to grow back into a beautiful new forest again.

Greenpeace has gone before the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Forests, calling on countries to reduce the amount of wood they use and to adopt "environmentally appropriate substitutes" instead. No list of substitutes is provided. The Sierra Club is calling for "zero cut" and an end to all commercial forestry on federal public lands in United States. The Rainforest Action Network wants a 75 percent reduction in wood use in North America by the year 2015. I think it is fair to summarize this approach as "cut fewer trees, use less wood". It is my firm belief, as a lifelong environmentalist and ecologist, that this is an anti-environmental policy. Putting aside, for a moment, the importance of forestry for our economy and communities; on purely environmental grounds the policy of "use less wood" is anti-environmental.

On a daily basis, on average, each of the 6 billion people on Earth uses 3.5 pounds or 1.6 kilos of wood every day, for a total of 3.5 billion tons per year. So why don't we just cut that in half and save vast areas of forest from harvesting? In order to demonstrate the superficial nature of this apparent logic it is necessary to look at what we are doing with all this wood.

It comes as a surprise to many people that over half the wood used every year is not for building things but for burning as energy. 60 percent of all wood use is for energy, mainly for cooking and heating in the tropical developing countries where 2.5 billion people depend on wood as their primary source of energy. They cannot afford substitutes because most of them make less than $1000 per year. But even if they could afford substitute fuels they would nearly always have to turn to coal, oil, or natural gas; in other words non-renewable fossil fuels.

Even in cases where fuelwood supplies are not sustainable at present levels of consumption the answer is not to use less wood and switch to non-renewables. The answer is to grow more trees.

25 percent of the wood used in the world is for building things such as houses and furniture. Every available substitute is non-renewable and requires a great deal more energy consumption to produce. That is because wood is produced in a factory called the forest by renewable solar energy. Wood is essentially the material embodiment of solar energy. Non-renewable building materials such as steel, cement, and plastic must be produced in real factories such as steel mills, cement works, and oil refineries.

But the general public and our political leaders have been confused by the misguided approach towards forestry taken by much of the environmental movement. So long as people think it is inherently wrong to cut down trees we will continue to behave in a logically inconsistent and dysfunctional manner.

By far the most powerful tool at our disposal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel consumption is the growing of trees and the use of wood. Most environmentalists recognize the positive benefits of growing trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But then they say "don't cut them down or you will undo the good that's been done". This would be true if you simply piled the trees in a heap and lit them on fire. If, however, the wood is used as a substitute for fossil fuels and for building materials whose production consumes fossil fuels, we can dramatically reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.

I believe that if forests can recover by themselves from total and complete destruction, that with our growing knowledge of forest science in silviculture, biodiversity conservation, soils, and genetics; we can ensure that the forests of this world continue to provide an abundant, and hopefully growing, supply of renewable wood to help build and maintain our civilization while at the same time providing an abundant, and hopefully growing, supply of habitat for the thousands of other species that depend on the forest for their survival every day just as much as we do. The fact is, a world without forests is as unthinkable as a day without wood."

Freedom of Choice Act

Freedom is Not the License To Do Whatever We Wish,
But, the Power to Do What is Right
- Fr. John Corapi (1998)

The Freedom of Choice Act is not a very Christian undertaking. 'Christian' politicians are leading our country, but you wouldn't know it from their actions. The self-professed 'Christians' Barack Hussein Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid all have power to do what is right, but they fall far short by doing only what is politically expedient.

It is easy to do what is popular, it is unpopular to do what is right. Unfortunately, it seems that the three 'Christian' amigos in power are more interested in tripping over themselves to be popular among the bloodthirsty mob, than they are about doing what is right - especially in light of the fact that they claim to be Christ-followers.

Fortunately the U.S. Bishops have spoken out against the proposed legislation Freedom of Choice Act. Cardinal Francis George, spokesman for the USCCB said,

"FOCA would coerce all Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortion with their tax dollars. It would counteract any and all sincere efforts by government and others of good will to reduce the number of abortions in our country.

Parental notification and informed consent precautions would be outlawed, as would be laws banning procedures such as partial-birth abortion and protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion. Abortion clinics would be deregulated.

The Hyde Amendment restricting the federal funding of abortions would be abrogated. FOCA would have lethal consequences for prenatal human life."

Perhaps the Three Amigos (Pelosi, Obama, Reid) will heed this admonition and be true and convincing witnesses to the Christian faith they so publicly claim as their own.

Catholic Bishops Vow to Hold Pro-Life Line Against the New Liberal Administration

Christ will not see anyone pushing His Bride around.

Bishops will remain steadfast in the face of the tyranny of abortion. Why should the Church step into the political arena when it comes to defending victims of injustice? Because it is their job. An abortion supporting administration or a "pro-choice" administration is dipping their ugly hand into morality. The pro-choice politicos are responsible for 50 million dead unborn children. Not something I'd want to approach the Gates of Heaven to answer for. When we hear that the Church should not meddle with politics, I say the State should not meddle with morality. This way the State will not hear from the Church.

Nevertheless, there are some in politics who think it is expedient for themselves to dictate to the Church and the nation their unjust "pro-choice" morality. It sends them a 'good-feeling' when they tell ruthless pro-abortion Americans that they "will not yield" to the pro-life message. When the State pushes the Church up against a wall, the Church has only to defend Herself. She is, after all, the Bride of Christ. Christ will not see anyone pushing His Bride around.

A question we need to hold Obama to was presented to him by Family Research Council President Tony Perkins who asked:

Veteran's Day Tribute

During the month of November, in which all Catholics are called to pray for the faithfully departed souls, let us also remember all faithfully departed veterans to rest with God in eternal peace. Many have lost close family and subsequent generations have lost their faith. Many veterans have no one left to pray for them except outsiders who can remember them.

Purgatory is God's merciful plan for those who because, although imperfect, their virtue, acts of charity towards their neighbor, or sincere devotion Him did not deserve punishment of an eternity without the Beatific Vision of God in Heaven. Let us then pray for all departed veterans this Veteran's Day November 11.

Let us also pray for living veterans: that they likewise attain the reward of eternal life in Heaven with their brother veterans who have gone before them.

Mansions of the Lord

"To fallen soldiers let us sing,
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing,
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the Mansions of the Lord

No more weeping,
No more fight,
No friends bleeding through the night,
Just Devine embrace,
Eternal light,
In the Mansions of the Lord

Where no mothers cry
And no children weep,
We shall stand and guard
Though the angels sleep,
Oh, through the ages let us keep
The Mansions of the Lord"

[Thanks to landsed1@yahoo.com for lyrics]

How Obama Won the Election

Simple: People's prejudice blinded them from the truth. Obama is a master of words that serve only to produce election wins - your ultimate career politician. If Obama's lack of accomplishments (other than giving speeches for votes), far left voting record, history, associations, and extreme liberalism that rank even further left than NARAL, Hillary Clinton, Planned Parenthood, and Barbara Boxer couldn't wake America up, what could? According to the National Journal:

"Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate"

Even liberals can't identify one single accomplishment by Obama:



Obama has been running for president since graduating from Harvard. He is a career politician who has not produced a thing for society. Even according to Obama's own Democrat Party, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama lacks essential qualifications:



With the liberal media and Hollywood elitists supporting him the remaining gullible voters in the country slipped into a hypnotic trance as Obama flipped promise after promise after promise of taking care of all of life's messes. The country will have a difficult time realizing that Obama is mere man and not the Divine All Knowing, All Powerful, Deity that our gullible American MTV and Oprah-watchers elected.

When reality meets Obama's Jedi-master speech skills, the country will either be taxed into bankruptcy to fulfill Barack's promises or he'll simply have to humbly admit that he just fed immature American voters empty air. Mastering political speechcraft is all Obama has a talent for. Underneath, he is really an abortion supporting liberal extremist ranking even farther left than Planned Parenthood.

Obama's Tax Plan

With Obama's moving target of who gets tax increases, I'm frankly not sure what will happen to the middle class like myself. We've got two months to brace ourselves before the new administration takes charge. In the meantime I'll be shoring up my household before Obama's hurricane of expected tax hikes.

The Three Stooges

. . . are taking charge of my country:

Obama's Fourth Reich

According to Wikipedia:

The term Nazi is derived from the first two syllables of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the official German language name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (commonly known in English as the Nazi Party). Party members rarely referred to themselves as Nazis, and instead used the official term, Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists). The word mirrors the term Sozi, a common and slightly derogatory term for members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands).

Hitler objected to Catholicism’s ungrounded and international character – that is, it did not pertain to an exclusive race and national culture. At the same time, and somewhat contradictorily, the Nazis combined elements of Germany’s Lutheran community tradition with its northern European, organic pagan past.

Nazi publications and speeches included anti-capitalist (especially anti-finance capitalist) rhetoric.

Nazism is just the short name for National Socialism. The Nazi ideology opposes capitalism, conservatism, and any 'groups that are deemed repressive of National Socialism. Like Obama, Hitler rose quickly from obscurity into power in the National Socialist Party which promised 'progress' in the name of 'change'. Hitler had no real accomplishments except his charismatic personality. Obama's running mate Joe Biden even remarked that Barack was not experienced enough for the job when they ran against each other in 2004 and added in October 2008 that Obama would be tested because of his youth and inexperience. Even fellow Democrats claim Obama is not ready to be President, very much like those near Hitler who likewise questioned his qualifications.

Will Obama call his administration the 'Fourth Reich'?

"Change Has Come to America"

Obama's "Slow Steep Climb" . . . or Rapid Perilous Drop?

Compare the text from Obama's acceptance speech to Hitler's acceptance speech and it reveals a chilling similarity (see below).

Other than making mutilated babies from abortion our proud American symbol to the world's end, what Change has actually come to America? I suppose the end of the Iraq war is imminent. This is a welcome change, although things in Iraq were already winding down. With the Troop Surge's success our troops can finally return home. Barack made promise after promise to the American people including paying our way through college, providing socialized medicine and socialized medical care, redistributing the earned income of others so that we can 'benefit' from another man's handiwork. Quite the costly promises there. With this faltering economy Obama will either have to cancel his promises or drive our economy into free fall.

So what did he really mean by 'change'? Will Obama reverse those values that inspired even Tom Brokaw to coin traditional America as our 'Greatest Generation'? Changing our entire moral code and American family values into a contrived, forced, pseudo-happiness void of traditional values and virtue? Will our Church be micromanaged by Barack's government? Will Free Speech be muzzled? Will our Catholic doctors be forced into unethical practices by Obama's new policies? Will Obama inflame racial division once again like his 20 year pastor Rev. Wright? Will the new Administration demand an oath of fidelity from the Church to embrace all of the Governments moral standards or 'suffer the consequences'? Will the Catholic Church be split in two over this, as what happened in China when their government demanded fealty to the State before God? Will America have a Church called 'the American Catholic Patriotic Association' and another called traditionally the Roman Catholic Church, like in China?

Yesterday morning (election day) before Obama won, I posted what he might say to the crowds of supporters if he wins using the following quote from Adolph Hitler's election victory speech. Hitler too had a new socialist vision to forcibly mold his country and it did not fare Germany too well:

"The great time has only begun. Germany has awoken. We have won power in Germany. Now we must win over the German people. I know my comrades, it must have been difficult at times when you were desiring change which didn't come. . . You mustn't act yourself, you must obey, you must give in. You must submit to this overwhelming need to obey."

These statements were followed by 1,000 people gathered in the German Chancellory chanting "Heil Hitler, Heil Hitler!"

- Adolph Hitler (Acceptance Speech 1933)

Well, Obama won power and according to CNN News this is what he said, in comparison, to those crowds of supporters as he claimed victory Tuesday night in Chicago before an estimated crowd of up to 240,000 people:

"change has come to America."

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a people will get there"

". . . While the Democratic Party has won a great victory [I am determined to] heal the divides that have held back our progress. To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn -- I may not have won your vote, but . . . I need your help"

More than 1,000 people gathered outside the White House, chanting "Obama, Obama!"

Not much different from Hitler's 'New Government' Speech we got a bitter taste of in the 1930's. Hitler was not a right wing extremist. Like Obama, Hitler's National Socialist Party promised 'progress' in the name of 'change'. Look it up, Nazism is literally the short name for National Socialism. This ideology opposes capitalism, conservatism, and any 'groups that are deemed repressive of National Socialism.

According to Wikipedia:

The term Nazi is derived from the first two syllables of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, ^[15] the official German language name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (commonly known in English as the Nazi Party). Party members rarely referred to themselves as Nazis, and instead used the official term, Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists). The word mirrors the term Sozi,^[16] a common and slightly derogatory term for members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands).^[17]

It is obvious that he is trying to change our value system. You cannot remove an item without filling the void. So what could be our new family values?

Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act
Provide federal funding for overseas abortions
Sign the Freedom of Choice Act
Deny the rights of parents knowledge of their child having abortions
Force Catholic hospitals to perform unethical medical practices that violate their beliefs
Force doctors to perform unethical medical practices that violate their conscience

Is this a "steep climb" . . . or a rapid free fall?

Watch Live! President Obama's Presidential Acceptance Speech

Obama wasn't the only one talking change for a 'Greater [fill in country]':

"It must have been difficult at times when you were desiring change which didn't come.

. . . You mustn't act yourself, you must obey, you must give in. You must submit to this overwhelming need to obey."

- Adolph Hitler (Acceptance Speech 1933)