In Case You Missed It

The Obamas have no shame when it comes to being anti-Catholic.  Now, Michele is telling churches, during Lent mind you, to establish fry-free zones.

Please look at this link from Breitbart.

Now go find a fish fry.

One Hundred Reasons to Abandon Public Education Now

One Hundred Reasons to Abandon Public Education Now

This is a wonderful article.  Read it!  And for those in Catholic schools, remember that all of your chidren's certifide teachers have been indoctrinated by the same system, they just don't teach in it.  As a former public school teacher, I am still shocked at the things I was taught were true. 

Homoheresy in the Catholic Church

I have often wondered how, in such a short time-span in the history of humankind, we have become so desensitized to homosexual behavior.  Homosexuality is not just accepted, but promoted and protected by law.  Now it is celebrated in 'gay-friendly' parishes and at 'gay' Masses. I can understnad this from the culture at large, but in the church, I find it strange.

I should admit first that I have gay students in my classes, and would never speak against their sexuality in the classroom or in private meetings with students.  I have found that militant homosexuals are more likely to create a hostile class/work environments than any other group, with the possible exception of militant pro-abortion feminists.

When I am not restricted by my job, I want to be free from fear of retribution for speaking the truth of church teaching.  Shouldn't we all be able to do that?  Especially the Pope?

Please go to this link and read the article.  It is long.  Print it out.  Make notes in the margins as you recall events in your encounters with various Catholics that bothered you, but there was nothing overtly wrong.  And then share this article with as many people as you can.

And from Creative Minority Report, do you remember when Massachusetts, especially Boston, was the home of a strong Catholic Population?

Fr. Dariusz Oko needs our prayers.  And so does the Pope.

On Snow Days, Parents and Teachers

 

For teachers, snow days are the greatest gift short of brilliant, well-behaved students.  For working parents with children too young to stay home alone, they are a case study in managing priorities.  As a home-school mom and university instructor, they are pretty much meaningless, because they don't usually affect whether I teach or not.  Today is an exception.

First, some background.  Back in the early 1990's, a local public school superintendent checked the business at local Blockbuster stores to see how many teachers were able to drive to rent movies on snow days.  There were a sufficient number of rentals for the superintendent to change policy, requiring teachers to report to schools on days when children were out for snow days.  The result of this was teachers sitting in offices with  not much to do, complaining about having to be at the school, and worrying about the children they had left at home.  Morale was low and children were unattended.

Today, local schools and other businesses have closed all over Omaha because we are anticipating a blizzard.  As of now, 9:30 in the morning, there is no snow on the ground, and no snow falling.  The latest guesses from our esteemed weather forecasters suggest snow will start falling at 4:00 this afternoon, when school children would presumably be home.

But in today's culture, those children would not be home.  Parents expect schools to provide breakfast, lunch, afternoon snacks, after-school sports, tutoring, child-care, and more, leaving their children in the hands of poorly paid women, and occasionally men, so that they can be away from their children from sun-up to sun-down.  Even the teachers and care-givers have their own children cared for and taught by someone else while they care for and teach the children from another family.

Does this strike anyone else as insane?

Since I'm sitting at home, well stocked for the snow to begin, looking at a dry, snow-less backyard, I am wondering if other teachers and parents are relaxing into the snow day.  Snow days used to be a gift.  A chance to spend unexpected quiet time with our children.  Shovel the drive.  Have a snowball fight.  Build a snowman.  Provided you actually have snow on your snow day.

Let's not punish our children for their existence on a snow day.  The snow day is not a burden, it is an unexpected chance to enjoy our families.  Snow or no snow, relax, reflect.  Enjoy.

Fatherhood, from Benedict XVI

Ignatius Press GOD THE FATHER AND HUMAN FATHERHOOD
Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

Let us begin at the point where God himself began. He calls himself Father. Human fatherhood can give us an inkling of what God is; but where fatherhood no longer exists, where genuine fatherhood is no longer experienced as a phenomenon that goes beyond the biological dimension to embrace a human and intellectual sphere as well, it becomes meaningless to speak of God the Father. Where human fatherhood disappears, it is no longer possible to speak and think of God. It is not God who is dead; what is dead (at least to a large extent) is the precondition in man that makes it possible for God to live in the world. The crisis of fatherhood that we are experiencing today is a basic aspect of the crisis that threatens mankind as a whole.
 
Where fatherhood is perceived only as a biological accident on which no genuinely human claims may be based, or the father is seen as a tyrant whose yoke must be thrown off, something in the basic structure of human existence has been damaged. If human existence is to be complete, we need a father, in the true meaning of fatherhood that our faith discloses, namely a responsibility for one's child that does not dominate him but permits him to become his own self.
This fatherhood is a love that avoids two traps: the total subjugation of the child to the father's own priorities and goals, on the one hand, and the unquestioning acceptance of the child as he is, under the pretext that this is the expression of freedom, on the other. Responsibility for one's child means the desire that he realize his own innermost truth, which lies in his Creator. And naturally, a fatherhood of this kind is possible only if one accepts one's own status as a child.
If men are to be fathers in the correct way, they must assent in their heart to the words of Jesus: “You have only one Father, who is in heaven” (Mt 23:9). This has nothing to do with a domination that makes others one's slaves. It is a responsibility born of truth: because I have freely handed myself over to God, I can now free the other to be himself, without egoism, free for the God in whom he has his existence.

—Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

From his book “The God of Jesus Christ”. Available in hardcover and e-book: www.ignatius.com/Products/GJC-H/the-god-of-jesus-christ.aspx?src=ipfb

 I am really going to miss him!

Do you see it now?

Regarding Conversion Stories...

Did you have a great big conversion to the Catholic Faith?  Were you visited by angels in your time of need?  Has the Lord or His Mother ever spoken to you or revealed their desires to you clearly?  If so, I'm a bit envious.

At the start I should say, I know with great gifts comes great responsibility.  I do understand that.  But sometimes, while I'm slogging away in the trenches of my own faith and trust in God, I wish I could just be more certain.  I want to see the angel, hear the voice, be struck dumb by awe and gratitude.  (Those who know me personally would like to see me struck dumb for other reasons...)

And yet, I know that sometimes the answer is no, especially when we are praying for things that God knows we are not ready to receive.  Given that I struggle to get even a mustard seed's worth of faith, I couldn't really take the big stuff.

I wish I could trust God and His Mercy.  I find myself stuck going over my sins of the past, wondering if I have ever remembered to confess them.  Then I write them down in my little book, in code in case I die before I get to confession.  I confess. I receive absolution.  I do my penance. I shred the paper.  But I feel stuck in the same place.

And that's just it.  Plain old me still wants to wallow in the dirt I made.  I really don't want it, but that's where I am.  I want to trust.  I want the big faith.

So I slog along in my conversion.  It would give me comfort to know that others feel the same.  Lent is a time for slogging through the weeds.   Isn't it?

God Bless Bennedict XVI

Yes, this picture was taken in Rome today, within 24 hours of the Pope's resignation.  When I did my (admittedly meager) best  to verify it, Google showed it to be genuine and 5 hours old.

I anyone knows anything more, I'd be interested.

Does anyone think the next Pontiff will really take the name Peter?  Or be Peter the Roman?

Is this resignation a move to insure that the Vatican vipers don't get control if Benedict XVI were to be incapacitated in some way, like John Paul II?



Pray for him and all of our Cardinals.  I know you do...

Just like Fredo

It's a loser's game to ask for respect. Only an idiot thinks he can tell people he's smart and have them believe it. And just like Fredo, progressive liberals like Al Gore are trying to tell us that they are smarter than conservatives by nature.

From the Daily Mail:

"Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views, says a controversial new study.

Conservative politics work almost as a 'gateway' into prejudice against others, say the Canadian academics.

The paper analyzed large UK studies which compared childhood intelligence with political views in adulthood across more than 15,000 people.

The authors claim that people with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe."

Read more...

But that study is so last year! Now we see that there has been a proven tendency among teachers to downgrade boys for what the primarily female teachers view as 'bad behavior. So the lower IQ and test scores and class performance of so-called-right-wing-idiots is really something that is probably taught to them through the frustration of dealing with lazy, tenured, union thugs in the classroom. After all, if you buy into the anti-boy pap, you become Elton John. If you keep your dignity and your testosterone, you become a conservative.

I feel fairly confident that Fredo is alive and well and working underground to give research ideas and government grants to academics and liberal think-tanks. Excuse me for ending with an oxymoron.

The War on Boys, Documented

I saw this today in The Transom:

The grade disparities that make women more likely to head to college emerge early on, and it could be teachers’ fault for incorrectly and unfairly judging capability. http://vlt.tc/ovv  “Boys score as well as or better than girls on most standardized tests, yet they are far less likely to get good grades, take advanced classes or attend college. Why? A study coming out this week in The Journal of Human Resources gives an important answer. Teachers of classes as early as kindergarten factor good behavior into grades — and girls, as a rule, comport themselves far better than boys… The researchers found that teachers rated boys as less proficient even when the boys did just as well as the girls on tests of reading, math and science. (The teachers did not know the test scores in advance.) If the teachers had not accounted for classroom behavior, the boys’ grades, like the girls’, would have matched their test scores.” The study is here. http://vlt.tc/ovw 

I will comment on this later after having a chance to read the full study.  For now, take care of your boys!

The Transom is one of the best news sources available.  Here is the link.