Here's the entire Omaha Rally

Be prepared to turn up the sound.

Shoved to Them: Putting It That Way

Shoved to Them: Putting It That Way

I read Mary Eberstadt's amazing  Adam and Eve after the Pill yesterday.  This conversation needs to happen in every home.  Not just with girls, but with all children.  Read the book, then have your older teens and young adults read it too.  The War is ON. 

That's Not What Santorum Said

That's Not What Santorum Said

Thoughts from Family Members About Religious Freedom Rallies

As Christian women trying our best to live our Catholic Faith, we are very aware of the immorality of using artificial contraceptives.

We were discussing the unprecedented rise in breast cancer with a good friend,a bit younger than us, who happens to be a Radiologist. He said that when he was in Med school and the early years of his practice, cancer of the breast was seen rarely; in fact, about equal in both men and women.  With the introduction of 'the Pill' in our society,breast cancer in women has sky-rocketed, and has become a major issue. It doesn't take a genius to figure this one out - -however, the drug companies and our government want to lead us like sheep to the slaughter. It creates a whole lucrative business for many, including physicians who are greedy and immoral themselves.

This breast cancer fundraising foundation is a sham, because those in charge already know "the cure" to quickly bring down the numbers of victims.

Yes, this disease can run in families. My own Aunt Margaret had a radical mastectomy because of it (long before the existence of the pill!), but she died years later of heart disease.

If you know any women you care about, please let them know that ingesting birth control pills is playing with fire, and absolutely not worth the physical consequences, to say nothing of the moral.

Hey, if everyone quit taking the Pill, it would really upset Obama's apple cart! And the results would be  better health for all.....                     

                               Joan M. Dunlap  (My Mother, Mother of 12, Grandmother of 33)

A brief response from one of my sisters:

You should send this also to your grandsons. When married, it is their shared responsibility to make sure they do not let their wives take these poisonous chemicals. 

An Award Winning Essay from my niece Claire D'Costa in Denver.  She won First Place in the Archdiocese of Denver's Pro-life Essay Contest:

My knees were aching as the stones penetrated through my skin;  I was kneeling in prayer at the parking lot across the street from Planned Parenthood. In my heart, I knew this pain was nothing  compared to the suffering inside that building. I knew that the power of my prayers were helping a mother feel love and compassion for the child in her womb. 

             Human life is created when a child is conceived in their mothers womb. Therefore, by definition, an abortion is an election to terminate a human life.(1) “Doctors” at abortion clinics tell women that it is okay to have an abortion because the child is not alive, but they are wrong. In fact, many of these same “Doctors” took the Hippocratic Oath to practice medicine ethically and yet they prescribe an unethical and immoral answer to these women.  In our society, killing an innocent human being is wrong and illegal - but why is killing an innocent baby not wrong?  In 1973, the right to have an abortion became legal in the United States. In the U.S. Supreme Court case of  Roe v Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), the highest Court in our land ruled that a woman had the right to have an abortion. (2)  And even though the Court made this ruling based on its interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, we as a country struggle with the weight of this cross from an ethical, moral and  psychological point of view. How do we reconcile the Laws of Man versus the Laws of God. Here are some real stories for life.

            During the last year,  I was able to go to the Planned Parenthood building and pray outside. While I was there, I realized how sad an abortion is and how the abortion center was a hopeless place.  In my heart, I felt like women only entered this place because they had lost hope.  There were two people with us in prayer and they shared their personal stories. One man told us about his mother, who was pregnant with him as a teenager. She seriously considered an abortion, but somehow she had a change of heart and had her child. Now this man has six children of his own and if his mother had gone through with the abortion her grandchildren would never have been born. (3) The second story was told by a  close family friend. She and a group of women were kneeling in prayer outside the abortion clinic. One of the women in the group had read that kneeling while praying the rosary had a big impact on people who passed by. While they were reciting the rosary a man drove by and honked and gave them a thumbs-up. Later the same man drove up again, but this time he got out of his car. He told the women that 25 years ago he had brought his girlfriend to this same clinic to have an abortion. This was the only baby that this man has ever had, and he had great regret and sadness about that decision.(4) Many people think that women are the only ones effected by abortion, but as this story indicates, an abortion has a profound effect on the man as well.  Finally, my father also told me a story of a woman who was considering abortion. When she was driving into to the abortion clinic, she saw people praying outside, and she realized that they were praying for her and her baby. This had a very huge impact on her, and she decided not to give up and have the abortion. A few days ago she brought her 12 day old baby to meet the group that had been praying for her and her child.(5) It was an incredible experience.

            Each of these stories demonstrates how prayer really helped these people and made all the difference. Sometimes we doubt the power of prayer, but it is the most powerful weapon against evil in the world.

            As a young person, I sometimes feel that I cannot do anything big to stop abortion. But these wonderful stories show me that I have an incredible power to save lives. Constant prayer is the answer, and one day we will witness the power of our prayers for this great cause. Every day approximately 3,700 babies are aborted in the U.S. And since the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision, there have been more than 50 million abortions in our country. (6) In our own community we have the second largest Planned Parenthood center in the country, but right next door to  this “desert of death”, the Catholic community is building the Lighthouse Pregnancy Center as  “place for life”. (7) It is time for all of us to join together in collective prayer for our great country and the end of this culture of death. 

Work Cited

1.)                Excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Life, Abortion, and Euthanasia (#2258-2262; 2268-2279) Article 5.

2.)                Roe v Wade, 410 U.S 113 (1973) (No. 70-18) 314 F. Supp. 1217.

3.)                Anonymous man in prayer, October 10^th 2011.

4.)                Madeline Paolucci, St. Mary's Parishioner, October 10^th 2011.

5.)                Ophilino D'Costa, My father, March 10^th 2012.

6.)                Roe v Wade: the Catholic Dilemma, by Clifford Stevens.

7.)                Ophilino D'Costa, My father, March 10^th 2012.

Catholics rally against insurance rule - Omaha.com

Catholics rally against insurance rule - Omaha.com

Coverage from The Omaha World Herald.

Up-date: We received coverage on all major local news networks, Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as the Omaha World Herald.  I've linked all the video I could on-line.  I wish I could grab and posat from our DVR, but that's above my skill level.

God Bless and OOOH-RA !!!

Rally for Religious Freedom

Rally for Religious Freedom

My son's red hair and my sister's family are featured.  We are right in front!

Our Rally was Great! How was Yours

Our Freedom of Religion Rally in Omaha was great.  We had a huge turn-out including our Archbishop, George Lucas, many families, and a good representation of priests and political candidates. 

If there's one thing we need to improve on as Catholics, it's our ability to hoot and holler.  With so many priests as speakers, some of the people seemed a bit timid about cheering.  Being a veteran of  political rallies, I started a few chants, rounds of applause,  and loud responses.  My sister gave me an eye-roll a  few times.  But in my non-political family, I had a brother, two sisters, a niece home from college, and of course my son and 4 of my sister's kids. 

The best part was the speakers.   Archbishop Lucas began the rally with a prayer and comments, followed by Creighton University Law Professor, Edward A. Morse.  Morse discussed the Constitutional violations of the HHS Mandate.  He received cheers for saying that we allow this mandate at our peril.  

That started the booing and hissing at every mention of Obama and Sibelius.  Dr. Lloyd Pierre of the Sancta Familia Medical Apostolate got everyone going calling the HHS mandate the Hiss Mandate.  Father John Brancich, FSSP, roused the troops with our need to fast and pray.  Father James Buckley, used Lewis Carroll's The Walrus and the Carpenter to show how Obama's administration is chumming all of us in, only to make oyster stew.  Greg Schleppenbach, who is head of the Bishop's Pastoral Plan for Pro-life Activities spoke movingly in his explanation of the many ways in which the USCCB has been lied to by the Obama administration.  Finally, Father Michael Voithofer encouraged us to remember that Jesus will crush the head of the serpent.

Some of the news people seemed upset that we had 1500 to 2000 people in attendance, (my brother's estimate based on counting heads in horizontal and vertical lines in front and behind of where he stood).  Our local Occupy protest only had about 20 at it's height.  They learned they ignore us at their peril.  For every person there, we have hundreds who would have come if they could. 

Father Buckley asked those who could to come to the Upstream Brewery after the rally to make friends and discuss the road ahead.  My obligations made that impossible.  (One brave soul called out, "Are you buying?")   But making friends and working together, cheerfully as he and others said, is going to be very important in the next few months.

While I have been feeling like I'm banging my head against a wall hoping that others would see what I see since I read, yes I did, the first draft of the health care bill back in 2009,  I now feel differently.  I am not alone.  Catholics are waking. 

Obama lies.  Babies die.

Freedom of Religion Rallies, 3/23/12

Are you going to a freedom of religion rally?  Which one?  I'll be at the one in Omaha on Friday at noon at the downtown courthouse with my sister, my son and a few of his cousins.

Please participate. Call local news outlets.  Take video and make it viral.

And be prepared, there will probably be a small but vocal group at each site endorsing the 'rally for reason' which is atheists fighting us.  The irony will be that we want them to share the same freedom we are advocating, while they want us to be cut out of the public square entirely.

For Slogan ideas visit Matt Archbold's column here. 

Father Z has a classier list here.http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/03/quaeritur-your-sign-slogans-for-23-march-nationwide-religious-liberty-rallies/#comment-331543

Coexist

Last year I wrote about the Tolerance bumper stickers.  My sister called me today while driving, yes, I know, but it was hands free, and there were no kids in the car.  She was calling again to complain about the coexist bumper stickers.  I hate them as well.

Whenever you see a coexist bumper sticker, imagine a person who will donate to the humane society.  This person will take in rescue dogs, cats, rabbits and small vermin to save them from the clutches of animal control authorities long enough to ensure that the animals are healthy and happy when they are put to sleep.  Then they'll spend an evening raising money and awareness for Planned Parenthood to get more money to kill more babies.  And after that, they might advocate on behalf of the Wicca practitioner down the street who just sacrificed the rescued cat to Baal.

You see, we can all coexist.  The life I save, you can kill, because we coexist with different values.  Now let's turn this around the other way.

What if I want to coexist with everyone you want to kill?  What if I want to coexist with every snowflake baby given and born to families that want them?  What if I want to coexist with every baby ever aborted, alive and well, and cared for. 

I coexist with my family.  But of course it's more than that.  I coexist with my neighbors, but it's more than that.  I coexist with my colleagues, but that's about it.  The only reason it isn't more than that with my colleagues is because I teach at a state university, and that's about all I can tolerate with most of them.

Seriously, if we just coexist, where is the concern for our fellow man?  When do we start to care about those closest to us?  When do we begin to think that we are our brothers' keepers?

Let's use coexist in some sentences as we did with Tolerance:

I coexist with my son, and that is the source of our relationship.
I coexist with my sisters because they are my family and my best friends.
I coexist with my husband because he is the best man I've ever known.
I coexist with my neighbors because I care deeply about them.
I coexist with our dogs because they are loving and loyal.
I coexist with dust-bunnies because I am a lousy house-keeper.

Okay, the last one is true.

Read these articles....

Fall-Guy Priests


Embryos in everyday products

The pain of high-tech answers to infertility.

After reading these articles, how can we not think that we are under a spiritual attack of mammoth scale?

Every human being is both physical and spiritual in nature.  We are animal and spirit.  We are made in God's image.   We are meant for eternal life, but living a mortal one.  We are all fallen and broken, since Adam and Eve.  We have knowledge of good and evil.  We know it.  We know when something is good.  We know when something is evil.  We know!  That is the curse of being fallen.  WE KNOW. 

We know when we are in contact with a priest who is more interested in psycho-babble than in absolution. If we are female, the priest will lead us to think we have been abused.  If we are male, they may lead us to think we are abusers.  Such priests are not the fall-guys depicted above.  The non-fall-guy-priests find a way to explain away every sense of guilt and shame iin confession.  They council rather than absolve.  "So you were a little tempted to look at porn or to think about a member of the same sex in a sexual way.  Forget it.  Don't give into shame and guilt.  God doesn't make junk, and God made you.  I'm okay.  You're okay.  Okay is good enough."

We know when our doctors are not being completely open with us.  "Here's this new vaccine for cancer.  Sure the only way you could get this cancer is by being promiscuous, but are you sure your child won't be?  What if they are already and you don't know?  Better safe than sorry, right.  And of course normal testing of a new drug requires that it have some kind of human testing.  But embryos are only kind of human.  They are really only human enough for laboratory purposes, not for the real world.  Testing on embryos allows a much more cost-effective way to keep your kids healthy.  And since you are having so many kids, you need the savings, right?  Treating polio or measles could be very expensive.  So could treating HPV or chicken pox."

And let's talk to the doctors about having more children.  "Carrying multiples is dangerous.  Sure the procedure I'm giving you could produce multiple babies, but that's not why you are here.  You want to be able to have a couple of your own, because the natural way isn't working for you.  I know that's probably because of all of the contraceptives I prescribed you when you didn't want any kids, but now the situation is different.  You want one, not three, or more.  I can handle that.  After all, it's what you want that matters.  God doesn't pay me.  You and your insurance company pay me.  I have a lower calling."

No, priests, scientists, and doctors don't talk that way.  Most probably don't think that way.  But that is what is going on inside their heads that makes the stories told in the articles above possible.

What I Learned from Making Calls for Rick Santorum

I volunteered to make phone calls for Rick Santorum a few weeks back, and finally had time to make some calls yesterday. I chose to call voters in Ohio, because it is an important state in terms of delegates, and one of the bellwethers for the national mood.  Here is what I found:

Obviously I was calling undecided voters, for the most part.  Only once in the 2-hours of calling did I have someone say he was an Obama supporter.  It was odd and more than a little creepy.  It reminded me of when I asked a man at a micro-soccer match if he would volunteer at our parish festival.  Both responses were full of smarmy self-importance and superiority, like talking to a philosophy professor who believes he is Neitzsche's superman.  Neither were interested in conversation.

Two of my calls resulted in lengthy conversations of over 40 minutes.  I'm pretty sure these were very lonely elderly people.  They both said they couldn't decide between Romney and Santorum.  Both had some serious misinformation about Rick's spending record and his social policies.  Both used network news as their primary news source, and both were dissatisfied with the obvious lack of coverage for Rick.  If you want to know about Ricks spending, read this from the Weekly Standard.

Most of the people hung up in as little time as possible.  I don't blame them.  I was a telemarketer throughout grad-school to pay the bills.  I didn't relish doing that again, but extreme times call for extreme measures.

I spoke with one sweet woman for about 20 minutes.  She was sad and confused.  She wanted to vote for Rick, but wanted to be sure he could beat Obama.  I discussed the polls that showed Rick beating BHO, and we were coming to an agreement.  Then the tornado sirens went off in the background.  She said it looked like it would miss her, and seemed willing to stay on the phone.  I thanked her for her time and told her to get to a safe place.  God bless her.  I hope she's okay.

As I finished my calls, I realized how afraid so many in this country are feeling.  And the others are towering over us, giddy with power.

A Sad Day for Freedom

I wasn't a fan of Andrew Breitbart, but I respected what he was doing.  He was trying to fight the media and politicians who pander to our worst selves.  May he rest in peace.  This may be an instance where we need to look deeper than his heart problems.  I really hate conspiracy theories, but people do conspire.  He said he had video of Obama from his younger years.  And today Sheriff Joe released this.  Scroll to the end to watch the video, and watch them all.  Having used Adobe and Publisher, these are tools I recognize.

There was another death today, the final death of any last vestige of integrity in Senate Democrats.  They voted against the Blunt Amendment which would have restored freedom of religion as it relates to the HHS mandate for Catholics and their insurers to pay for contraceptives and abortion drugs.  It is now incontrovertible that Democrats see killing babies and preventing conception as more important than free excise of religious beliefs.

American Life League has a video exposing the 'education' programs for young children that are being used in schools by Planned Parenthood.  I can't bring myself to link to it here.  If you want to see it, clear your home of all young people, fill your Holy Water bottles, stock up on Blessed Salt, and plan to go to confession immediately after viewing it.  The shocking display of human genitalia and how-to's on masturbation and other sex acts is enough to disturb even the most jaded parent.  Or at least I hope it is.

The Democratic party and their well-funded shills in Planned Parenthood have crossed one line too many.  Will we stand together?  Who are we, if we don't have the stomach to fight this battle?

At one time, Peter Singer seemed tto be the lone voice advocating for 4th trimester abortions, but other 'ethicists' from Oxford University have now joined him.  I recently met a ten-day-old baby boy.  He was the length of an adult's forearm.  Why  would anyone want to rid the world of his sweet little self?

I know this blog entry is scattered and unformed.  I guess I'm just  in awe of the darkness that is seeping into the most intimate parts of our lives.  When I took my 11 year-old son for a check up recently, his doctor asked him if he drinks, smokes, does drugs, or wanted the  guardasil vaccine.  That was the death of my innocence as a parent, and the first strike against his innocence as a boy.  That day at work, I found a promotional flyer in my university mail box for a book and video called 'The Purity Myth.'

Given the state of things, perhaps purity is a myth.