Cardinal Burke Says Attacks On Unborn Are Rooted in 'Contraceptive Mentality'

“The attack on the innocent and defenceless life of the unborn has its origin in an erroneous view of human sexuality, which attempts to eliminate, by mechanical or chemical means, the essentially procreative nature of the conjugal act,” the prelate, who heads the Apostolic Signatura (the Vatican’s highest court), told the McHenry County Catholic Prayer Breakfast in the Diocese of Rockford, Illinois on October 31st.

“A most tragic example of the lack of obedience of faith, also on the part of certain Bishops, was the response of many to the Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae,” he said.  “If the shepherd is not obedient, the flock easily gives way to confusion and error.”

But when the bishop is obedient to the Magisterium, he continued, “then the members of the flock grow in obedience and proceed, with Christ, along the way of salvation.”

“The shepherd must be especially attentive to the assaults of Satan who knows that, if he can strike the shepherd, the work of scattering the flock will be made easy,” he added.

“The so-called ‘contraceptive mentality’ is essentially anti-life,” the cardinal insisted.  “Many forms of so-called contraception are, in fact, abortifacient, that is, they destroy, at its beginning, a life which has already been conceived.”

“Through the spread of the contraceptive mentality, especially among the young, human sexuality is no longer seen as the gift of God, which draws a man and a woman together, in a bond of lifelong and faithful love, crowned by the gift of new human life, but, rather, as a tool for personal gratification,” he explained.

Correcting this “contraceptive thinking,” he said, is “essential to the advancement of the culture of life.”

The U.S. pro-life movement particularly is facing a “period of intense struggle,” he noted, as the U.S. government under President Barack Obama has chosen to follow “openly and aggressively a totally secularist philosophy with its inherent anti-life and anti-family agenda.”

He mentioned specifically a talk by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen for the abortion lobby group NARAL on Oct. 6th.  “It is profoundly saddening to note that [Sec. Sebelius] presents herself as a practicing Catholic, while engaging in public speech which is gravely injurious to good morals,” he said.

“Catholics in public office, who obstinately persist in advocating and providing for the most egregious violations of the natural moral law, are the cause of the gravest scandal,” he continued.  “They confuse and lead into error their fellow Catholics and non-Catholics alike regarding the most fundamental truths of the moral law.”

The Church needs to stand up - especially bishops - for life, resist the Smoke of Satan, speak out against abortion and make examples of those Catholics who are anti-life instead of allowing the Smoke of Satan to corrupt their souls as well as others.  

For The Honor by Elevation Worship

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nancy Pelosi and The Missing Conscience

In an interview with The Washington Post Nancy Pelosi defended her statement when she said that The Protect Life Act claimed that this piece of legislation would allow hospitals to “say to a woman, ‘I’m sorry you could die’ if you don’t get an abortion.” Then she goes onto to defend her outrageous and false characterization by saying those who disagree with my statement “may not like the language,” she said, “but the truth is what I said.  I’m a devout Catholic and I honor my faith and love it…but they (Catholics) have this conscience thing”


Why did she use the word "they"? Doesn't she consider herself Catholic?  She claims to be a "devout Catholic" but doesn't consider herself a Catholic much less a Catholic who has a conscience. It's interesting that she recognizes that she is an immoral person.  


It is obvious that Nancy Pelosi fails to meet the criteria required to be considered a morally, decent human being which recognizes the difference between right and wrong.  She claims to be a "devout Catholic" but fails to follow Catholic doctrines. 


Is it really possible for a Catholic to be "devout" but yet reject infallible teachings of the Church? 


Nancy Pelosi believes in forcing religious organizations, hospitals etc. to provide sterilizations and contraceptives under their health care plans even if that goes against Church doctrine. What kind of "devout Catholic" would force religious institutions and persons working at these places to violate their consciences? 


Nancy Pelosi's words and actions continue to cause grave scandal to the Church.  We need to pray for her conversion, so that she attains a conscience soon. It is extremely sad that she has lowered herself to such moral depravity. 

Struggles, Piety, and The Church

What is causing the decline in church attendance while a majority of people say they believe in God? Father Ronald Rolheiser O.M.I. hypothesizes on this by saying "declining church attendance is paralleled everywhere:families and neighborhoods are dissipating and breaking down as people guard their privacy and individuality more and more. No wonder that our churches are struggling."

I definitely agree that privacy is one reason for the decline in church attendance. Individuality could be part of the reason, too. Most folks generations ago used to go to church for guidance. Do secular activities fill that vacuum today? Are people looking for guidance in the wrong places? Could part of the reason for the decrease in church attendance and the fact that it is so arduous for some people to come together in Church be that our society is so culturally divided in belief of values and worldviews today?

Has the Church ceded its influence over peoples' lives as it has become more indebted to the government? How often do you hear a sermon on abortion, contraception, sin and hell, or any of the tough or controversial issues from your parish priest today? Are priests worried about offending those who donate money? There are plenty of people who are yearning for a hard-hitting sermon and feel empty inside that may fill that monetary void if priests would just have more faith and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. With the priest sex abuse scandal and other issues involving the Church could it be that some people see the Church as having lost it's way and not leading by example, like it used to?

Some may see the Church as flawed but the Church that Christ founded is perfectly and wonderfully made. It is the fallen people within the Church who are fallible. Here is a most apropos ode to the Church from Carlo Carretto:

"How much I must criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you! You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than to anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence. You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful. Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face - and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms! No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you. Then too - where would I go? To build another church? But I could not build one without the same defects, for they are my defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ's church. No, I am old enough, I know better."

The Bible, Inerrancy and Faith

In my post Biblical Inerrancy and The Challenge of Faith I talk about how hard it is for us to have faith and truly *believe* that certain things did in fact happen in the Bible.  There are some Catholics and Christians who assert that God did not punish the Amelakites and command Samuel to commit genocide in 1 Samuel 15 but that it is more of a fable which tells a lesson.  I know there are certain passages in the Bible where figurative language can be applied, such as in the case of the Creation Story and the number of days it took God to create the universe and all that is living but I am not sure how someone would apply a figurative meaning to the scripture in Samuel.
Some people are so certain that God would have never ordered genocide.  But then, what about Noah and the Flood? Moses and the Red Sea when he saved the Israelites?  Uza and the Ark of the Covenant?  Are we to assume that these things didn't happen in scripture?

The kind of thinking that rejects God's very words and twists the words very meaning is contrary to Church teaching with regards to inerrancy and scripture.

Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu stated:
"...Later on, this solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, which claims for these books in their entirety and with all parts a divine authority such as must enjoy immunity from any error whatsoever, was contradicted by certain Catholic writers who dared to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture to matters of faith and morals alone, and to consider the remainder, touching matters of the physical or historical order as obiter dicta and having (according to them) no connection whatsoever with faith. Those errors found their condemnation in the encyclical Providentissimus Deus..."

Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus stated:

"It is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. The system of those who restrict inspiration to things of faith and morals cannot be tolerated. AU the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost."

 and


"By supernatural power He (the Holy Spirit) so moved and impelled them (the sacred writers) to write - He was so present to them - that the things which He ordered, and those only, they first rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth."

In Dei Verbum the Church makes it know that we as faithful Catholics are supposed to believe this "Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation"

It is evident what the Church has taught throughout history with regards to Scripture being asserted by the Holy Spirit and it is without error.

Mother Cabrini - Immigrant Saint

Franciscan University Abortion Clinic Outreach

Abortion is murder.  Prayers are needed for this holocaust to end. Prayers are needed for the conversion of those who believe in the culture of death.

Veterans Day: Honoring Those Who Have Served - For God and Country

Archbishop Dolan Lays Down The Law On Same-Sex 'Marriages'

Archbishop Dolan makes it crystal clear that clergy may not participate in the solemnization of a civil same-sex "marriage" nor may properties and facilities of the Catholic Church be used for such events.

From CNA:
“Jesus Christ affirmed the privileged place of marriage in human and Christian society by raising this union to the dignity of a Sacrament when entered into by two baptized persons, the archbishop said in an Oct. 18 decree. “Consequently, the Church has the authority and the serious obligation to affirm the authentic teaching on marriage and to preserve and foster the supremely sacred value of the married state.”

The archbishop stated that no member of the clergy incardinated or assisting in his archdiocese, or any person acting as an employee of the Church, may participate in “the civil solemnization or celebration of a same-sex marriage.”

This includes providing “services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges for such events.”

The ecclesiastical solemnization or celebration of same-sex marriages is “expressly forbidden by canon law,” he added.

Under the decree, no Catholic facility or property, such as parishes, missions, chapels, meeting halls, or any place dedicated, consecrated or used for Catholic worship may be used for the solemnization or consecration of same-sex marriages. No Catholic educational, health or charitable institutions or benevolent orders may be used for such purposes.

The decree also bars items dedicated, consecrated or used for the celebration of Catholic liturgy from being used in such ceremonies. The items include sacred vessels, vestments, and liturgical books.

Archbishop Dolan said that the marital union between one man and one woman was “universally accepted by civil law as a constitutive element of human society, which is vital to the human family and to the continuation of (the) human race.”

The New York legislature’s new law is “irreconcilable with the nature and the definition of marriage as established by Divine law,” the archbishop said.

“The intimate partnership of life and love that constitutes the married state was established by God and endowed by Him with its own proper nature and laws,” he wrote. “According to Divine law, the nature of marriage is defined as a covenant between one man and one woman by which they establish a partnership of the whole life, which is ordered to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children.”

Spirit Song

Biblical Deck of Cards

I found this on The American Catholic: The story about a soldier using a deck of cards as a mnemonic device to remind himself of the Bible, set in the video above in the Vietnam War, goes back to 1778.  Versions of the story have been set in the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.  
H/T The American Catholic 

Fr Sirico Speaks on Subsidiarity a Catholic Social Teaching

You can see the entire talk here.

Illinois Catholic Bishops Response To Gov. Pat Quinn's Formal Cooperation in Advancing Culture of Death

The Illinois Bishops statement is good. But did it go far enough?  Dr. Ed Peters is impatient like many other Catholics that the bishops didn't take more action in accord with Canon 915 - which prohibits the reception of Communion by the publicly unworthy - but doesn't see it as a failure that the bishops didn't go as far in their response as they could have.  This could be a good first step but I still think the governor should have been forbidden from taking part in the reception of Communion.  What do you think?

Here is Dr. Ed Peters article:
http://canonlawblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/gov-pat-quinn-and-illinois-catholic.html

Struggling but offering it up to God

Ever since my surgery it seems like I have had one medical issue pop up or another.  For the past week or so I have had trouble breathing, felt dizzy and today I felt even dizzier than before.  I was blessed to see my doctor today.  I am so blessed to have a doctor who cares so much about me.  He gave me orders to rest.  This means no work, which means less money coming into the household.  But, I know God will help provide for us.

Here is a prayer to offer up our sufferings.


Dear Lord,
Help me to remember in these troubled times
The cross you carried for my sake,
So that I may better carry mine
And to help others do the same,
As I offer up (whatever your concern or problem here) to you
For the conversion of sinners
For the forgiveness of sins
In reparation for sins
And for the salvation of souls. Amen