Fr. Michael Rodriguez Defends True Catholic Teaching

God Bless Father!

Fr. Barron Comments on the Wise Words of Pope Benedict

There are those outside forces in our society which are consistently attacking our moral absolutes and trying to change the norms within society.  Three examples of this are: sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, and gay "marriage".  Neither Gay "marriage", homosexuality, or sexual promiscuity follow the natural law.  Homosexuality and the sexual revolution played a big part in the priest sex abuse scandal. We must continue to fight against these evil forces in our society.

Fr. Rodriguez Defends Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality

Is Obama a Muslim?

Here is the transcript of Obama's interview with Cathleen Falsani discussing his faith:


FALSANI:

Have you always been a Christian?


OBAMA:

I was raised more by my mother and my mother was Christian.


FALSANI:

Any particular flavor?


OBAMA:

No.


My grandparents who were from small towns in Kansas. My grandmother was Methodist. My grandfather was Baptist. This was at a time when I think the Methodists felt slightly superior to the Baptists. And by the time I was born, they were, I think, my grandparents had joined a Universalist church.

So, my mother, who I think had as much influence on my values as anybody, was not someone who wore her religion on her sleeve. We'd go to church for Easter. She wasn't a church lady.

As I said, we moved to Indonesia. She remarried an Indonesian who wasn't particularly, he wasn't a practicing Muslim. I went to a Catholic school in a Muslim country. So I was studying the Bible and catechisms by day, and at night you'd hear the prayer call.

So I don't think as a child we were, or I had a structured religious education. But my mother was deeply spiritual person, and would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the world's religions, and talk to me about them. And I think always, her view always was that underlying these religions were a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself but also for the greater good.

And, so that, I think, was what I carried with me through college. I probably didn't get started getting active in church activities until I moved to Chicago.

The way I came to Chicago in 1985 was that I was interested in community organizing and I was inspired by the Civil Rights movement. And the idea that ordinary people could do extraordinary things. And there was a group of churches out on the South Side of Chicago that had come together to form an organization to try to deal with the devastation of steel plants that had closed. And didn't have much money, but felt that if they formed an organization and hired somebody to organize them to work on issues that affected their community, that it would strengthen the church and also strengthen the community.

So they hired me, for $13,000 a year. The princely sum. And I drove out here and I didn't know anybody and started working with both the ministers and the lay people in these churches on issues like creating job training programs, or afterschool programs for youth, or making sure that city services were fairly allocated to underserved communites.

This would be in Roseland, West Pullman, Altgeld Gardens, far South Side working class and lower income communities.

And it was in those places where I think what had been more of an intellectual view of religion deepened because I'd be spending an enormous amount of time with church ladies, sort of surrogate mothers and fathers and everybody I was working with was 50 or 55 or 60, and here I was a 23-year-old kid running around.

I became much more familiar with the ongoing tradition of the historic black church and it's importance in the community.

And the power of that culture to give people strength in very difficult circumstances, and the power of that church to give people courage against great odds. And it moved me deeply.

So that, one of the churches I met, or one of the churches that I became involved in was Trinity United Church of Christ. And the pastor there, Jeremiah Wright, became a good friend. So I joined that church and committed myself to Christ in that church CONTINUED

Catholic Culture Clash 8-26-10

I just happened to be talking about civility when debating politics, sociology, and theology on blogs when I came across this article on civility in public discourse (or lack thereof) at our educational institutions.

Patrick Lee and Robert P. George set the record straight as to when fertilization begins for those who are confused as to when fertilization actually begins.

Here are 15 reasons to use Natural family Planning.

It is pointed out here that some on the Left have even ceded that Obamacare won't reduce health care costs.

Bishop Ochoa seems to rebuke an Orthodox priest who espoused Church teaching on homosexuality, homosexual acts. This Orthodox priest basically told his community of El Paso like it is with regards to Church teaching on homosexuality, in a straightforward manner and didn't pull any punches.

When Obama rebuked and called out the Supreme Court Justices at the State of the Union Address and I was appalled at how publicly he did this. Nothing of this kind has been done during prior SOTU addresses in our past.  It was highly inappropriate and low-class of him to do so like he did.  Was Obama saying that all types of groups have no right to freely speak on political matters and/or contribute to political campaigns?  Aren't groups madeup essentially of many individuals gathering for a sole or primary purpose?  So, what's the beef with individuals coming together to support and donate money to a politician or a political group?  If Obama really is against ALL GROUPS funding political campaigns why isn't he calling out the unions?  Is he only against those groups who fund political campaigns on the Right or for Republicans? 
Here is an article revealing how the unions are outspending corporations 3 to 1.

The Vatican has earmarked more euros in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Elderly Woman funds abortions for others-murders of innocents. How sickening. This is appalling.  She said its 'all about the child'.  It is so immoral, unethical, against God and backwards thinking for this woman to think that murdering an unborn child is 'all about the child, helping the child, and calls abortion 'a blessing'. This is just so wrong on so many levels.

Counseling Student Pressured to Change Christian Beliefs in the Name of Diversity

Here is another instance of how diversity and tolerance are used to discriminate against individuals who believe in traditional Christian beliefs.

Here are 2 definitions of diversity:
1) diverseness: noticeable heterogeneity; "a diversity of possibilities"; "the range and variety of his work is amazing"
2) In the political arena, the term diversity (or diverse) is used to describe political entities (neighborhoods, student bodies, etc) with members who have identifiable differences in their backgrounds or lifestyles.

It seems as though that the way the term diversity is used in our society today is quite antithetical to the word's actual meaning. It seems as though progressivism has hijacked yet another word in our society to mean something it doesn't (like social justice). Do those people who claim to believe in diversity actually believe in diversity or just in acceptance of different groups with the same liberal ideology? Those people who claim to champion the cause of diversity are actually against diversity of thought. The champions of tolerance are not very tolerant. That's another misnomer. The faculty at Augusta State University are demanding that the student be tolerant of others' beliefs while they are refusing to be tolerant of her beliefs. Liberals version of tolerance equals outright intolerance of the worst kind.

Augusta State University gave a graduate student in counseling named Jen Keeton an ultimatum -- either give up your Christian beliefs or be expelled from the graduate counseling program. What happened to our right to Freedom of Religion? The student expressed her Christian beliefs on homosexuality and then ASU faculty targeted her because she refused to compromise her Christian beliefs.

"Faculty members had demanded she 'attend at least three workshops … which emphasize … diversity training sensitive toward working with GLBTQ populations.' They also wanted her to "develop" her knowledge of homosexuality by reading 10 articles and increasing her exposure to homosexuals and lesbians by attending 'the Gay Pride Parade.'"

They said that she must change her whole Christian belief system to conform to the American Counseling Association's code of ethics. But, this doesn't make sense since the code of ethics covers behavior regarding treatment of clients and not belief systems. Plus, she hadn't even seen one client, so how did she violate a client when she hadn't even seen any clients yet? It is quite apparent that Jen Keeton was being discriminiated against for her christian beliefs and not because she did anything unethical or violated any code of ethics.

Bob Unruh, BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS 'Lose Christianity or face expulsion' Georgia student told to read 'gay' lit, attend 'pride parade,' change beliefs, WorldNetDaily July 22, 2010 http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=182441

Keeton VNR from ADF Media Relations on Vimeo.

Catholic Professor Fired For Being Faithful To Church Teaching on Homosexuality

This is against our first amendment rights. Dr. Howell is a faithful Catholic who has been persecuted for his religious beliefs. He was explaining the Catholic Church's beliefs with regards to homesexuality and homesexual acts in a course on Roman Catholicism. The Catholic Church believes that homosexual acts are sinful. It was his choice to take the course. If he was so offended by Catholic beliefs then he shouldn't have taken the course.

From CatholicVoteAction.org:

"The local press has published the email of Dr. Howell’s that prompted the student complaint as well as the complaint itself. It’s pretty clear that the university chose a poorly presented student complaint (who did not even understand what was being taught) over Dr. Howell’s reasonable and rational presentation of the material.

As Catholics, we can’t allow this injustice to stand. If a university can have valid grounds for firing a professor as upstanding a this one for an opinion so universally held by the Church, other universities will be able to gradually push out faithful Catholic teachers from their institutions once they decide the positions taken by the Church and being defended by such-and-such a teacher are inconvenient or offensive.

I am happy to know that the Alliance Defense Fund is representing Dr. Howell and that they are in the process of deciding how best to proceed legally.

In the meantime, there is something we can do.

Let’s swamp the University of Illinois Public Affairs office with emails from concerned Catholics letting them know how offensive and unjust it is to fire a teacher simply for being Catholic. You can contact them at publicaffairs@illinois.edu"