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Spirit & Life®
"The words I spoke to you are spirit and life." (Jn 6:63)

Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 01, Number 88 | October 12, 2007

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www.hli.org

Green Martyrdom

Several months ago I heard a provocative description of martyrdom from Fr. Robert Cook, President of the new Wyoming Catholic College. His idea was that martyrdom in the modern age is not necessarily one of bloody (red) martyrs who die violently for the Faith. Neither is it the daily, silent and sacrificial (white) martyrdom of humble believers. He says that modern martyrs will manifest their heroic courage economically; that is, we will be called to pay dearly for our principles, not necessarily at the cost of lives, but at the cost of dollars. This is "green" martyrdom, and it has nothing to do with the environmental movement.

The pagan enemies of Christianity today are not honest enough to put a gun to our heads and demand that we renounce Christ, even though they often express their unmitigated contempt for us in various ways. One has only to witness the blasphemy of the recent Fulsom Street homosexual festival in San Francisco to know that vitriolic hatred for Christianity is alive and well in our society. Our enemies know, however, that even though many Catholics would undoubtedly give up their lives for Christ, people find it much harder to give up their jobs for Christ. When faced with a choice between fidelity to a clear teaching of the Faith or compromising on that principle for the sake of "keeping peace at home" or saving one's reputation, etc., the pagans know that it takes a heroic person to choose the abstract principle. Yet, a sacrificial commitment to principle is where the call to martyrdom lies in the modern age, and increasingly so, for Catholics and all men and women of good conscience. Standing on principle costs us dearly.

Nowadays, Catholics are facing all types of persecution of our values: Catholic healthcare professionals are being intimidated into cooperation with intrinsically evil practices in medical facilities; Catholic pharmacists are being run out of their profession for refusing to dispense abortifacient contraception; Catholic businessmen are being asked to look the other way when certain immoral practices are standardized in their workplaces, and they feel that they can't object without serious repercussions. Catholic parents not towing the line on sex education programs in the schools fear that their kids will be the ones who are ostracized and ridiculed, and Catholic married couples are roundly mocked for having more than the culturally-acceptable number of children in their families. These situations are just the tip of the iceberg and are only going to get worse.

Even the bishops are not safe from values coercion. The Supreme Court recently refused to hear a case of the Archdiocese of New York seeking to avoid paying for contraception for its employees. They have now been ordered by a court to pay for other people's immorality, and to disobey that order is going to cost them. I also noted when the Connecticut bishops agreed to allow Plan B in the Catholic hospitals that from the top of the hierarchical ladder on down we must be willing to fight our pagan persecutors if our values are to mean anything. That will sometimes mean bleeding green in lawsuits, financial losses, firings and confiscations for the sake of the Kingdom. So be it. Doesn't the Lord say that it is "better to lose part of your body than to have it all cast into Gehenna"? Well, Gehenna is here, and we have to choose.

In a time of economic prosperity, the pagans in charge of our society's institutions only tolerate us, but ultimately, they will not allow us to stand in the way of their agenda to remake the culture in their image and likeness. The heroism of our modern-day martyrdom will be found in our willingness to sacrifice, even financially, to preserve the integrity of our values. We will be tested, but the rewards promised to the faithful will be ours: "Everyone who has given up home, brothers or sisters, father or mother, wife or children or property for my sake will receive many times as much and inherit everlasting life."

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International

STEADFASTNESS

In last Sunday's homily I heard once again the message that we knew as standard fare prior to Vatican II. It had no hint of the happy-clappy Catholicism that has been around homilies in recent years. There were no jokes, because it isn't a laughing matter. There was no charismatic enthusiasm. The virtue it conveyed was steadfastness--the cross that is our heritage. It's what I think of when I think of authentic faith. It is the core of "till death do us part", the secret substance that says "I will not give up on you".

It's what friendships are made of. Ultimately it's what faith is made of. It can take us soaring to the heights of happiness, but it can, and more frequently does, take us to the depths of despair as we see our greatest desires crumble to dust before us. It brings us to "Thy will be done" when it has done its work within our soul. It is a very sober virtue.

I don't find this virtue in "celebration", and "celebration" is what we are told our Mass is about in these modern times. Celebration is for the special times when things are going right, when we think we see our way to heaven opening before us. It belongs to the wedding march and the baptism waters and the first communion dress. Celebration belongs to beginnings that are always filled with happiness. But what is going to sustain us when the hope is not fulfilled, as invariably at times the hope will not be? What keeps us together and going forward when the difficulties start--when the husband takes up gambling or the wife has yet another miscarriage? What gets us through the newborn baby who has cerebral palsy or the teenager who walks away from faith and family? Celebration won't cut it then. Then it is the cross, and only the cross, that keeps us going. Then the Mass as sacrifice is what holds us together. Then it is knowing that if we find it hard, He found it hard before us and yet He was still loved. Steadfastness may be born in celebration, but it lives in sacrifice, and so a priest who reminds us of this core of our faith does us a far greater service than one who makes us smile.

I found this same message in Matt Abbott's column today. His column is about the homosexual ministry called Courage, and most of the column is written by a member of that ministry, David Morrison. He is speaking to gay people with his message, but he is also speaking to me, because he is speaking about the cross that love places on our shoulders and tells us to carry.

The beginning sacraments of celebration that bring us so much joy are followed by the sober sacraments of steadfastness--penance and anointing of the sick. None of us gets out of here alive. Death and judgment come after the celebrations. Trials and tribulations are the human lot. And failures. There are always failures. Others disappoint us and we disappoint ourselves. We hide our face before the face of God. It is then that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with its sober message of the cross is the balm for our soul that the happy-clappy celebration can never be. And it is then that we are most in need.

I'm not especially attached to the Tridentine, but if it were to come to my area on a weekly basis, I'd give it serious consideration because of that message of sacrifice and because of the sober environment of steadfastness that it conveys. It is a message that is missing from contemporary Catholicism.

SAY A PRAYER FOR STEPHEN BRADY

From the Journal Register:

PETERSBURG — Stephen Brady was upgraded to serious condition Wednesday at St. John’s Hospital, where he is recovering from injuries suffered when his motorcycle collided with a deer Tuesday night.

Brady, 55, of rural Petersburg, is a longtime Catholic-issues activist and founder of Roman Catholic Faithful, an organization that promotes conservative theological views and attempts to expose corrupt priests.
The accident happened just before 7 p.m. on Illinois 97 north of Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site. Brady was driving a 2004 Harley-Davidson XL northbound when a deer ran onto the road. Brady was unable to avoid hitting the animal.

Brady’s son, Daniel, 20, died last summer after a head-on collision on the same road just a few miles to the south.

Thanks to a reader for the link.

HIP-HOP MASS

I suppose it's not nice to pick on the Episcopalians, but this website, linked at Catholic Light simply must be seen to be believed:

Hip Hop Schoolhouse
Saturday, October 13, 2007 - Sunday, October 14, 2007
Location: St. Paul's Cathedral, Boston MA
All are welcome at St. Paul's Cathedral in Boston, Massachusetts on October 13 at 5:30 p.m. for the HipHopEMass 'Big Bean' Celebration with the newest Hip Hop Bishop, 'Great Momma' Gayle Harris.

On October 14, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m., the Cathedral will then host HipHopEMass Schoolhouse where the elements of Hip Hop, theology of Hip Hop, Hip Hop liturgy and evangelization will be introduced.

BISHOP NIEDERAUER OFFERS APOLOGY

California Catholic Daily has Archbishop George H. Niederauer's apology for giving communion to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence posted on its website:

At Communion time, toward the end of the line, two strangely dressed persons came to receive Communion. As I recall one of them wore a large flowered hat or garland. I did not recognize either of them as wearing mock religious garb.

Afterward it was made clear to me that these two people were members of the organization "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence," who have long made a practice of mocking the Catholic Church in general and religious women in particular. My predecessors,
Cardinal William Levada and Archbishop John Quinn, have both denounced this group's abuse of sacred things many times in the past. ...

Although I had often seen photographs of members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, I had never encountered them in person until October 7th. I did not recognize who these people were when they approached me.

After the event, I realized that they were members of this particular organization and that giving them Holy Communion had been a mistake.

I apologize to the Catholics of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and to Catholics at large for doing so.

The manner of dress and public comportment of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is deeply offensive to women religious and to the witness of holiness and Christian service that women religious have offered to the Church and to the world for centuries.

Read all of it...

Hmmmmm. Let's take another look at that picture, shall we? Perhaps the Archbishop needs to have an eye examination. I'm not sure what more this "nun" could have done to "her" costume to be convincing. Is it that the archbishop wasn't paying attention to what he was doing, perhaps?

More likely the explanation offered in the LifeSite article comes closer to the truth.

Anthony Gonzales of St. Joseph's Men Society, one of the groups which filmed the Archbishop giving the 'sisters' Communion, told LifeSiteNews.com that he was pleased with the apology. Gonzales, who will be discussing the matter on Fox's O'Reilly Factor tonight, added, however, that "The Archbishop has a history of "mistakes" especially where homosexuality is concerned."

The article goes on to list several instances of the Archbishop's "mistakes".

ST. THOMAS REVERSAL

The Star reports that the University of St. Thomas has reversed its decision to bar Desmond Tutu from speaking on campus.

AMUSING

Renting a facility on its campus to a teen pregnancy group that supports contraception and abortion rights for teenagers has created a dust-up at the College of Holy Cross, after Bishop Robert J. McManus expressed his opposition to this business decision, The Boston Globe website reports.

Amusing is the comment by group spokeswoman Patricia Quinn:

We were surprised by the response, because this is just a business relationship.

The comment reveals the underlying assumption that Jesuits hold Catholic moral values on Sunday morning, and secular moral values during the rest of the week--a thought process that apparently was in effect at Holy Cross during the last several years since the Holy Cross spokeswoman was

not sure why the conference drew attention this year. Planned Parenthood and NARAL both had participated in the past...

Apparently being Catholic on Monday is a concept beyond the ken of Holy Cross representatives, since John P. Hamill, chairman of the college's board of advisers, said "

I find it very hard to understand why this is an issue of great concern after six years.

Poor man. He is just waking up and getting a whiff of Catholic, and doesn't seem to know what to make of it.

Adding to the humor is the response from Jack Dunn, Boston College spokesman:

As a fellow Jesuit university, we do not judge Holy Cross and are not aware of the circumstances that led to the decision...However, as a matter of policy, Boston College does not allow its facilities to be rented by groups in opposition to church teaching.

Given the many controversies surrounding Boston College, this is a pot calling the kettle black if I ever saw one. But the decision to let Holy Cross go it alone is akin to rats running out of a burning building.

The title of the proposed program scheduled for the campus is "Messages that Matter: Strengthening Prevention and Supporting Young Families". Looks like everyone got a Message that Matters, though not the one they planned to deliver.

This has to top the list of Friday funnies for October!

MUSLIMS WANT TO PRAY IN CATHEDRAL

Madrid, Oct 11, 2007 / 10:41 am (CNA).- During a summit on “Islamophobia” organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Arab League of Cordoba in Spain, the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, demanded Muslims be granted the right to hold religious services at the Cathedral of Cordoba.

The first day of the summit quickly became controversial when Moussa demanded that the Cathedral, which was once a Mosque, be made available for Muslim prayer.

“All churches and mosques are built for prayer and to be used for this end; I think there wouldn’t be a religious clash at all; the clash would be instead of a political nature,” Moussa said. However, he ignored questions pertaining to why Christians are not only forbidden to pray in mosques but are even prohibited from building churches in some Muslim countries.

Continue reading...

Once Benedict prayed in a mosque, this request was inevitable. Benedict put Cordoba's Bishop Juan Jose Asenjo in a difficult position.

JEWS SHOULDN'T TRUST THE POPE

according to a story in "The Trumpet", a publication of the Philadelphia Church of God. The article on the meeting of the leaders of the World Jewish Congress with Benedict XVI closes with the following:

Just this year, Benedict lifted the restriction on the use of an old form of the Latin mass which calls for Jews to be “delivered from their darkness” and converted to Catholicism.

Has the Vatican really changed?

According to biblical prophecy, the Jews would do well to heed history’s many warnings about relations with the Catholic Church. In going to the pope for help and putting their trust in a soon-to-be Vatican-dominated European Union, the Jews are lining themselves up for a betrayal worse than what they suffered in World War ii. For more information on this subject, read Jerusalem in Prophecy.

Read all of it...

GAY PRIDE PARADE SATANIC

UK Gay News reports:

MOSCOW, October 11, 2007 – Moscow City Court has today dismissed the appeal of Moscow Gay Pride organisers Nikolai Alekseev and Nikolai Baev against the decision of Tverskoi district court which considered their claim against Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s statement earlier this year that gay parades are “satanic gatherings”.

In January, the Moscow Mayor said during his speech at the opening of the XV Christmas readings in Kremlin that “last year there was unprecedented pressure on Moscow in order to conduct a gay parade here, which can only be called a satanic gathering. We did not allow this parade and will not allow in the future”.

Read the rest...

COMMUNION FOR TRANSVESTITES

If you are only going to read one Catholic news story today, make it this one at LifeSite where the pictures of Archbishop George Niederauer giving communion to transvestite "nuns" in drag are very colorful (think rainbow),just in case you may still be under the delusion that the pope is appointing Catholic Bishops for America.

For me these pictures say more about Benedict than they do about anyone else.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

____________________________________________

UPDATE

Randy Engel has a story about Holy Redeemer, together with pics, on the Tradition in Action website.

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SECOND UPDATE

Matt Abbott's column on this travesty includes quotes from a blog that calls Bishop Niederauer a liar and claims that he and Levada own a condo together in Long Beach. I wonder if Benedict knows that?

MOVIE BAIT FOR BOOKS

According to William Donohue of Catholic League, "The Golden Compass" starring Nicole Kidman, is a watered down version of Philip Pullman's first volume in the trilogy "His Dark Materials" that will entice parents to buy Pullman books for Christmas. Donohue charges that Pullman, a "militant English Atheist", targets children and adolescents with his anti-Christian message, which becomes progressively darker as the series advances.

Catholic League offers a booklet titled "The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked" at their website.

Read the Catholic News Agency article here.

HOLY CROSS DEFIES THE BISHOP

Bishop Robert McManus, Diocese of Worcester, Mass., "wants Holy Cross to revoke a rental agreement for a conference that will feature groups promoting abortion rights and artificial contraception." The college has refused. Ellen Ryder, spokesperson for Holy Cross claims "no Holy Cross officials are involved in developing the conference's content.

Read the details here.

ARGENTINE PRIEST IMPRISONED AFTER BREAKING SEAL OF CONFESSION

Christian Von Wernich's story is one of the darkest chapters of the 'Dirty War'. He was the priest who heard the confessions of political prisoners, passed them on to the police, and then stood by as the detainees were tortured. David Usborne reports on the day justice was done

Read it here.

POLISH NUNS EVICTED

POLICE pushed their way into a Polish convent to begin evicting about 65 rebellious ex-nuns and a monk who occupied the complex illegally for two years.

The women had taken over the building in a rebellion against the Vatican, which had ordered the replacement of their mother superior, Jadwiga Ligocka.

"They were disobedient," said Mieczyslaw Puzewicz, a spokesman for the Lublin diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.

Police arrested Mother Jadwiga and a former Franciscan friar, Roman Komaryczko, who had been living with the nuns, police spokesman Mariusz Sokolowski said. He would not specify the charges.

A locksmith had opened the gate to the walled convent in the town of Kazimierz Dolny and police in riot gear pushed forward, encountering an onslaught of verbal aggression from some of the former nuns, Mr Sokolowski said.

Read the rest...

GEORGE SOROS FUNDED SOLIDARITY

From ZWiki:

“From 1979, George Soros distributed $3m a year to dissidents including Poland’s Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union. In 1984, he founded his first Open Society Institute in Hungary and pumped millions of dollars into opposition movements and independent media. Ostensibly aimed at building up a ‘civil society’, these initiatives were designed to weaken the existing political structures and pave the way for eastern Europe’s eventual colonisation by global capital. Soros now claims, with characteristic immodesty, that he was responsible for the ‘Americanisation’ of eastern Europe.”[1]

ANOTHER BIT ON GEORGE SOROS AND THE WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS

This comes from a communication from the Institute of the World Jewish Congress and is dated December 2002. (If you don't have time to read all of it, skip to the last paragraph:

The largest Jewish community in East Central Europe

Estimates of the number of Jews in Hungary range from some 60,000 to 80,000 and even higher; the overwhelming majority are concentrated in Budapest, the capital. What is clear is that whatever their actual number the great majority is unaffiliated with the official community or its institutions. According to some sources only 6,000 are members of the Jewish community and another 20,000 even if they are not members have some tie with a Jewish body or institution that requires registration. In recent years many persons have rediscovered their Jewish origins and reasserted their Jewish identity.

Although Jews who wish to live as Jews have every facility at their disposal, catering to their spiritual and temporal needs, from the cradle to the grave as it were (including more than 20 synagogues, Jewish schools, a Jewish press, a Jewish hospital, etc) Jewish communal life in its present form does not seem to attract the masses. Echoing tendencies in the United States and elsewhere the memory of the Holocaust seems to be the most significant factor in cementing the Jewish identity of many Hungarian Jews. Both the JDC and the Lauder Foundation are active in Hungary mainly in social welfare and educational work. In recent years Chabad has been playing a greater role in the Hungarian Jewish scene, but given the community's tendency toward integration and acculturation, as well as its economic security, it seems doubtful that the ultra-Orthodox group can ultimately wield more than a marginal influence. According to sociologist Andras Kovacs, for the most part Hungarian Jews are well off. Their standard of living and education is well above the national average - and they are well integrated into the Hungarian mainstream.

Foreign ownership of and investment in Hungarian firms is widespread, with cumulative foreign direct investment totaling $23 billion by 2000. Israel is one of the country's largest foreign investors and many of the prestigious real estate developments (including mammoth shopping malls) are being financed with Israeli capital. This has drawn considerable public comment. Significantly, foreign Jewish investors (most notably George Soros and Ronald Lauder) have been targeted by the antisemitic press. (emphasis mine)

Ronald Lauder is (or was recently) President of the World Jewish Congress. He is the son of cosmetics giant Estee Lauder.

It almost sounds as though George Soros and Ronald Lauder are sharing the country of Hungary! Does this make them competitors? Is something similar happening in Poland? And if it is, does Radio Maria oppose it?

BISHOP IN CONTEMPT ?

Spirit Daily links this story:

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A judge began criminal contempt-of-court proceedings Tuesday against the Roman Catholic bishop of Orange County in a highly unusual hearing that marks the first time a U.S. bishop could face jail time in the church sex abuse scandal.

Bishop Tod D. Brown waived his arraignment for allegedly violating a court order when he sent Msgr. John Urell, a high-ranking church official, out of the country before he could complete his testimony in a lawsuit. He could face a range of punishments from a verbal reprimand to jail time if found in contempt.

Plaintiff's lawyers had expected Orange County Superior Court Judge Gail Andler to dismiss their contempt filing because the sexual abuse lawsuit that led to it was one of four sexual abuse lawsuits settled last week by the Diocese of Orange for a total of nearly $7 million.

The bishop's attorney, Peter Callahan, said outside court they wanted to go forward to "clear the bishop's name."

Continue reading...

FR. TADEUSZ RYDZYK AND RADIO MARIA

The World Jewish Congress wants Father Rydzyk censored according to Reuters. Yesterday I blogged the various viewpoints on this controversy. I want to pick up there and add a few more details..

The official Radio Maryja website is written in Polish and not much help. I did find some coverage of the allegations at this news website where you can read:

"Wprost" has revealed more fragments of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk’s lectures in which the Redemptoristine which allegedly said that Stanisław Wielgus (ex rector of the Catholic University of Lublin accused of co-operation with communist secret service in the past) was “killed" by priests and laymen; he criticised bishops and said that Poland was ruled by the American businessman of Jewish origin George Soros.

The weekly comments that, judging the contents of his lectures, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk has been distancing himself from the Polish church hierarchy with increasing openness.

On the subject of Archbishop Stanisław Wielgus, Father Rydzyk says that priests were involved in the plot against the archbishop. He also reveals that the archbishop confessed to have signed co-operation agreement with secret services in a private conversation with Rydzyk.

Director of Radio Maryja also said in his lectures that millionaire, and founder of the Stefan Batory Foundation in Poland, George Soros, an American Jew, rules Poland.

The name George Soros comes up again and again in world affairs. Lee Penn mentions him many times in FALSE DAWN. Just seeing the name sends up a red flag. I decided to look into this claim.

First, what exactly is Radio Maryja? While it is nine years old and may be somewhat out of date, "Christian Order" ran an article on the radio station in 1998 describing the station as the only voice in Poland that opposes the leftist-leaning formerly communist political structure. If it remains so today, the station is political by its very nature, whether or not Fr. Rydzyk engages in political statements. The article describes the broadcast content as mostly Catholic prayers and theology, and says the station was modeled on EWTN.

George Soros is Jewish according to the Wikipedia entry.

The umbrella organization for Soros' charities is the Open Society Institute. At their website I found a webpage dedicated to Stefan Batory Foundation. It is, indeed, a part of the Soros liberal empire.

The Batory Foundation website tells us the organization was named for a 16th century king of Poland. Their International Cooperation Program Displaced Cultural Property is

devoted to the issue of missing or displaced cultural assets...One of the hot issues debated in the framework of this project is the restitution of pieces of art from private collections seized by the state (esp. those belonging to the victims of Holocaust).

Therefore, apparently Fr. Rydzyk is not wrong in claiming that restitution for Jewish property is being sought.

A website on Ford Foundation Grant Information indicates the Stefan Batory Foundation has received a grant in the amount of $5000,000 for the program "Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom" for the purpose of "addressing anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice in Poland." The Batory Foundation lists the Ford Foundation second in their list of contributors following the Open Society Institute.

Fr. Rydzyk also claims that Soros owns Poland.

The President of the Stefan Batory Foundation is Aleksander Smolar according to a cached version of a University of Michigan website. The website also indicates that Smolar is the "Chief Advisor to Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first post-communist, democratically elected Prime Minister of Poland." Smolar is also "Foreign Advisor to the Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka", and "Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris".

I think it is fair to assume that those titles give Smolar a degree of power. Are other members of Batory Foundation holding high office in the Polish government?

There is a curious twist to this story, however. Soros blames the Jews for anti-Semitism.

THE POPE AND THE JEWISH CONGRESS

In addition to discussing the statements made by the president of Radio Maria, the topic of Iran was on the Pope's agenda during discussions with the World Jewish Congress:

The Pope hit out at Iran as he pledged to help world Jewish leaders in their fight against anti-Semitism.

Pope Benedict XVI told leaders of the World Jewish Congress that Iran was “an issue of big concern” to him.

At a meeting at the Vatican, the Pope spoke of his concern about rising anti-Semitism and described how he wanted to use educational tools to counter the hatred of the Iranian leadership towards the Jewish people and Israel.

Read all of it...

"RIDING WITH MARY"

Non-Catholic celebrity photographer Chris Haston discovered a weathered statue of the Blessed Virgin in the recycle bin at his apartment building, and it inspired his newest creative endeavor. His work is featured at his new website where you can see the photographs and purchase them.

ST. THOMAS UNIVERSITY IN THE NEWS AGAIN

Recently this Catholic school in St. Paul, Minn. made the headlines by barring Desmond Tutu from speaking on campus due to his alleged anti-Semitic remarks.

Today Matt Abbott's column points the way to a parents' website dedicated to the removal of the book THE HANDMAID'S TALE from required reading in all of the Freshman English classes. From the parent's website and also quoted in Matt Abbott's column is the following:

In the English Department, there is little uniformity in the books, or “texts” required. The faculty therefore, votes on a single book that they will use in all sections of freshman English. That "Common Text" this year is The Handmaid’s Tale. The book is about a future takeover of the U. S. Government by the “religious right.” The “regime” lynches abortionists and pornographers. Women can’t own property, or receive an education, they are only valued for their ability to bear children. They are ceremonially raped so that they will bear children.

The book is objectionable on several different levels:

First, the book is insultingly vulgar, boorish and obscene. It is an abuse of faculty authority to require students to read such obscenity. See Quotes , for examples.

Second, The Handmaid’s Tale is not great literature. It is politically correct agenda-driven literature that was chosen for its anti-Christian/anti-Catholic indoctrination value. For example, the totalitarian regime won’t allow abortion; ergo, the Catholic Church is totalitarian. The “commanders” read from the Bible and pray to God for help before ceremonially raping their handmaids.

Third, reading and analyzing this book is a profligate waste of the parent’s or student’s money, and a waste of the student’s time. It cheats the students of a truly quality education that includes great Western literature by Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Chesterton, etc.

If you go to the parent's website you can read the quotes from the book. But be ready to be offended. When I was college age, material like this only appeared in pornography. Truly disgusting.

Fr. Dease, the President of St. Thomas, has been made aware of the protest and stated he would not intervene. Obviously he has no fear of the bishop's censor, and must have concluded that the parents have no power.

Is the objective of St. Thomas University the de-Catholising of their students?

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

FR. RYDZYK - MORE CHARGES OF ANTI-SEMITISM

A delegation from the New York-based World Jewish Congress (WJC) met with the supreme Roman Catholic pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, in Vatican City on Monday. At the top of the agenda was a resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe, including the part played by Tadeusz Rydzyk, an influential Catholic priest and radio broadcaster in Poland.

According to a statement, World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder expressed his appreciation for the Pope's efforts in support of the Jewish people. Pope Benedict said that the issue of Catholic-Jewish relations was very close to his heart. "We have made such great progress over the last four decades that it should be possible to work even more closely together," Lauder told the pontiff.

WJC delegates said that the Pope expressed his awareness of growing anti-Semitism and his hope that it could be defeated through greater education. Neither the Vatican nor the WJC revealed if the pope made any specific commitment regarding the anti-Semitic radio broadcasts of Father Rydzyk in Poland. The WJC statement said that the delegates "called on the Pontiff to take action against those in the Church who wanted to do damage to the close and positive relationship between Christians and Jews."

Read the rest...

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a Jewish organization, offers the Jewish view of the situation:

About a month after the June arrest of the neo-Nazi Bialobrzegi worker, a national furor erupted over the anti-Semitic remarks of a Catholic priest who has built a nationalist media empire in Poland. Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, speaking in a private lecture to the journalism college he started, attacked right-wing premier Lech Kaczynski, saying he was a "swindler" who had succumbed to Jewish pressure to compensate Holocaust victims who lost their property during World War II.

"You know that it's about giving $65 billion" to the Jews, he said, according to a tape recording obtained by the weekly magazine Wprost. "They will come to you and say, 'Give me your coat. Take off your pants. Give me your shoes.'"...

Father Rydzyk, who also runs a television station, a newspaper and a major radio station called Radio Maryja, went on to call the premier's wife a "witch" who should kill herself because she has supported limited abortion rights. But Kaczynski declined to counterattack Rydzyk, who had been a major political supporter.

The Israel Hasbara Committee Reports:

8. The European Union last week proposed to donate 15 million euros to a Polish college whose Catholic priest director, Tadeusz Rydzyk, is routinely charged with spreading antisemitism. Rydzyk’s radio station, which is affiliated with the college, has been accused of welcoming Holocaust deniers to speak on its programs. The priest’s broadcasted antisemitic remarks have been covered by the press. In addition to charges of antisemitism, the institution is widely considered to be one of the European Union most antagonistic and vocal opponents. The only reason given as to why the EU would be so generous to an obvious foe is it is hopes to placate and silence this annoying if not dangerous enemy.

At the website of Sunday Catholic Weekly, a Polish publication, in an interview with the President of the Polish Bishop's Conference, we get the view from Poland. Responding to a question about Fr. Tadeusz Rydzyk:

as far as Father Director is concerned – he is also sometimes very tired, living in constant stress and has gaffes that should be eliminated but has great achievements as well – he has become a public person and has taken on obligations. I mentioned that in my homily in Kalwaria Paclawska (it is a proof that the bishops do not remain silent), I said that a hunted man defends himself spontaneously, sometimes reacts nervously, inappropriately, and the task of the Redemptorists’ Provincial is to admonish, be watchful, help. It is also true that this broadcasting station and the newspaper are constantly under fire of frequent vulgar, harmful and unfair attacks. Sometimes they are even grotesque. Are we allowed to close a Catholic broadcasting station when every paper and television station passes judgement on religion and the Church? Would it be fair and morally justified to destroy the Catholic media environment that has been created and has been effective? If there is some lack one should repair it, improve the work, but not to eliminate it. And the Church has its ways to find a remedy. If society is terrified by the level of the programme broadcasted by this station, what social repairers claim, I will wait when this allegedly complaining society wakes up and begins appealing to eliminate at least two television programmes that are conducted by morally, and certainly mentally unbalanced people, whose norm is to humiliate the head of the state and the people who serve common good. It is waste of time speaking about demoralisation, which simply flows from the screen. Why is the part of society that is allegedly disgusted by Radio Maryja silent concerning this matter?
The other thing is that Radio Maryja cannot divide the Church in Poland into ‘ours’ and ‘yours’. It has signed agreements with most dioceses and should set the principles of the activities of the Radio Maryja Circles and should join the pastoral programme in particular years but these are after all internal matters, which journalists are not interested in. Let us say it honestly. Radio Maryja has become a social power in Poland and it has the right to be so but it will be wrong, and this is my personal conviction, if the radio wanted to be directly a political power. I will leave it to readers’ consideration.

An article at www.haaretz.com indicates that the EU funding has been withdrawn:

Representatives of the European Commission and the Polish government met last Wednesday, and decided that only institutions with graduate programs would receive funding ? thus excluding Rydzyk's college. ...

The Commission official said the decision to require graduate programs may have been designed to specifically torpedo the college's request.

The article also adds more details to the objectionable comments made by the priest:

Rydzyk has recently received press for several anti-Semitic statements he has made on the radio station and at the college, which he founded and heads. He recently told students that Jews use the American financier George Soros' money to seize control of Poland, and regularly blames Jews of being greedy.

"Public figures in Poland have expressed sorrow for the pogrom after the war against the Jews in Jedwabne only because they received Jewish bribes ... All of the claims by Jews of the injustice that was caused to them had one goal: to extort money from the Polish," Rydzyk has been quoted as saying.

The Polish weekly Wprost published excerpts from a lecture Rydzyk allegedly delivered at the college, where he is quoted as criticizing Lech Kaczynski, the president, for bowing to pressure to compensate people - many of them Jews - for property nationalized by the postwar communist government, and for donating land for a future Jewish museum when Kaczynski was Warsaw's mayor.

Ironically nothing I've found so far has called the priest wrong. The objection seems to be based solely on the fact that he says these things, not on the fact that he is telling lies.

Is George Soros financing Jewish power brokers in Poland?

ADVERSE REACTIONS TO HPV VACCINE INCREASING

LifeSiteNews.com reports:

The adverse reports coming from the HPV vaccine are increasing daily at an alarming rate. A LifeSiteNews.com report which scanned a publicly available database of adverse affects coming from the HPV vaccine found 3,137 adverse effects reported on September 28, 2007. Today the US Government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) lists 3,779 adverse effects. 52 of the cases were deemed "life threatening" and 119 required hospitalization.

In one case highlighted by Judicial Watch a 17 year old girl who was vaccinated in June 2007 died the very day she was vaccinated. According to the report, she "was vaccinated with a first dose of Gardasil…During the evening of the same day, the patient was found unconscious (lifeless) by the mother. Resuscitation was performed by the emergency physician but was unsuccessful. The patient subsequently died."

Other serious reported side effects associated with Gardasil include paralysis, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and seizures. Says one report: "Initial and follow-up information has been received from a physician concerning an "otherwise healthy" 13 year old female who was vaccinated with her first and second doses of Gardasil. Subsequently, the patient experienced…paralysis from the chest down, lesions of the optic nerve…At the time of the report, the patient had not recovered."

NEWEST GIMMICK TO PROMOTE GAY MARRIAGE

SAN FRANCISCO Advocates for same-sex marriage are launching an ad campaign to try and change the stance of Californians who oppose allowing gay couples to wed.

The campaign comes as Governor Schwarzenegger plans to veto a bill legalizing such marriages.

The ad, from the gay-marriage group Equality California, is unusual because it doesn't feature gay people. We see a bride at a traditional wedding, meeting one obstacle after another on her way to the altar.

Finally, a tag line reads, 'what if you couldn't marry the person you love? Every day gay and lesbian couples are prevented from marrying.'

Read more...

The ad was shown to Catholics for the Common Good. Member William B. May commented: "It's purely emotional, and it really misrepresents what marriage is all about." "What is the public interest in regulating emotional relationships between people? The real purpose of marriage is to build a foundation with a mother and a father for children."

L.A. HIGH SCHOOL SACRIFICED TO PAY SETTLEMENT

The Los Angeles Archdiocese is closing a Roman Catholic high school following mounting financial pressures due in part to the settlement of hundreds of priest abuse cases.

Read all of it.

BISHOP TOD D. BROWN GOING TO COURT

Bishop Tod D. Brown is expected to appear in court today for a hearing to determine whether he should be held in contempt of court in connection with a lawsuit filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange.

At issue is whether Brown should be held in contempt for sending Monsignor John Urell to Canada for psychological treatment before he could complete a deposition.

Read the whole story.

The reason this item caught my attention is contained in the final two paragraphs. Orange has settled sexual abuse lawsuits for a total of $100 million for 90 victims. That equals roughly a million dollars per victim, which appears to be or to have been the going rate in California. However according to the last sentence in the article, four more lawsuits were settled on Friday "for nearly $7 million." Does this mean that the going rate has jumped to one and three-quarter million per victim?

ANOTHER BANNED BOOK

With the start of another school year comes the inevitable conflict between schools and parents over choice of reading material. A new twist seems to have arisen in Chicago's John H. Kinzie Elementary School where, according to Dennis Byrne's commentary at the chicagotribune.com website the objectionable book is Robert Cormier's THE CHOCOLATE WAR.

The book is

about Catholic high school students being terrorized by autocratic religious brothers and an unchecked secret society of physically and psychologically brutal students. In one chapter, a bully nearly beats another student to a pulp in front of the entire student body of 400 cheering, bloodthirsty boys, with the head brother's snickering approval. ...

There's also the portrayal of the Catholic brothers who teach at the fictional high school. It takes more than a suspension of belief to think that such a sadistic, moronic faculty could be running this or any school. Or that they would sit by while letting a secret club of callous students victimize other students. Having graduated from a high school operated by the no-nonsense Christian Brothers, I see the book's portrayal of teaching brothers as hackneyed, cruel and unfair.

Sounds like stereotyping to me. Anti-Catholicism--just what every parent wants their 7th grader to pick up from the reading material being forced on them at school. Perhaps the teacher has an agenda.

Parental objections include "casual handling of sexual themes, such as masturbation." Byrne believes that a much worse fault of the book is that the "victimizing [of] boys and girls is its own reward."

The book is on the required reading list. The principal told parents "I don't tell you how to run your family" as a way of defending his teacher's choice of reading material. He makes the parent's point, since it is members of those parents family that he is trying to compel. By his own admission he hasn't the right to do so. According to the article, "at Kinzie, even suggesting that your own children can be excused from the reading is verboten. In a letter, Egan warned parents not to. Doing so, he wrote, 'could have a significant negative effect on the final course grade'."

Amazing what passes for "education" these days.

UPDATE

A review of the book at enotes offers:

The publication of The Chocolate War in 1974 is now seen as a groundbreaking event in the establishment of young adult literature as a separate genre. Robert Cormier's novel was originally conceived as an adult book, for all his previous fiction had been for adults. Nevertheless, it quickly became both an inspiration to other writers and publishers for teens and the standard by which much subsequent young adult literature has been judged.

The conclusion over there is disturbing:

One of THE CHOCOLATE WAR's principle themes is the futility of individual protests and resistance in the face of such power structures and, by implication, the importance of collective action.

Some message to give to a 7th grader! Is that what our schools are teaching?

freebooknotes.com provides a plot summary. The brothers in charge come off looking misguided and incompetent. Here is the conclusion:

Jerry has a broken jaw and possibly some internal injuries. As he is waiting for the ambulance he tells his only friend, The Goober, not to disturb the universe—that it is not worth it. The book ends as Archie displays no remorse for the past, and Jerry no hope for the future.

Certainly not a message to deliver to a 7th grader!

The book is apparently a classic. Here is a website devoted to it and to banned books. There is a picture of the author at the website.

RETURNING TO YATES

THE OCCULT PHILOSOPHY IN THE ELIZABETHAN AGE

From Part III of the book, titled "The Occult Philosophy and Rosicrucianism and Puritanism - The Return of the Jews to England":

The philosophy of Christian Cabala as expressed by Giorgi and Agrippa is very close to the so-called Rosicrucian philosoophy, as expressed in the Rosicrucian manifestos and by Robert Fludd....We can now better understand the history of Rosicrucianism by linking it with the history of Christian Cabala as carried into the Elizabethan age. (p. 195)

...Giorgi's philosophy may be closely related to the philosophy of Rosicrucianism. It is certain that Robert Fludd's vast volumes on the universal harmony...are heavily influenced by Giorgi and represent, in essence, the Giorgi philosophy in a later form. Fludd, as we know, was associated with the Rosicrucian movement. (p. 197)

It is a short step indeed from Fludd to Freemasonry. The Centre for Research into Freemasonry at The University of Sheffield tells us on their website that Robert

"Fludd defended the Rosicrucians, and Thomas de Quincey described him as the father of English freemasonry, a view which some nineteenth-century masonic writers enthusiasstically endorsed."

The symbol pictured in The Centre website is mentioned along with Fludd in an article about John Dee at the website of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia. Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi Maioris is pictured at the website of the Sacramento Masonic Lodge #40 under the heading "How old is Masonry?"

The Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M. of Canada in the Province of Ontario offers the following on their website:

John Wilkins writes a book in 1648 called Mathematical Magic, in which he explicitly mentions the Rosy Cross and pays homage to occultists Robert Fludd and John Dee. ...

"Historian Frances Yates, in her book The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, in a chapter entitled 'Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry', quotes one De Quincey, who states, 'Freemasonry is neither more nor less than Rosicrucianism as modified by those who transplanted it in England, whence it was re-exported to the other countries of Europe'. De Quincey states that Robert Fludd was the person most responsible for bringing Rosicrucianism to England and giving it its new name.

So it would appear that Jewish Kabbalah was picked up by Catholics and reworked to include Jesus Christ in a kind of Christian Cabala which was the heart of Rosicrucianism. This Rosicrucianism then became English Freemasonry. Yates explains the route from Giorgi to the Protestant adoption of Rosicrucianism as a movement opposing Catholicism:

It was certainly not called a 'Rosicrucian' philosophy in Giorgi's time...

Many suggestions as to the origin of the name have been made, but in moving along the historical line which we are following the suggestion which seems most likely is that the Giorgi type of Christian Cabala acquired this name when it became associated with Elizabethanism, with the Tudor Rose, with Dee's scientific British imperialism,
with a messianic movement for uniting Europeans against the Catholic-Hapsburg powers.

With the Giorgi type of Christian Cabala was associated in the Dee movement the Agrippa type, more deeply magical, alchemical as well as Cabalist. The Agrippa movement may have been a secret society type of movement from the start. The Dee movement as a whole took on an English and Protestant flavour. Protestant in the sense of a movement of protest of the Renaissance occult traditions against the Catholic reaction. (p. 198)

The Jesuits opposed it. Yates tells us:

[Marin] Mersenne writes from an atmosphere of horror and dread of 'the Rosicrucians' whom Jesuit propaganda had depicted as frequenters of witches' sabbaths...Mersenne's attack on Giorgi, Fludd, and the Rosicrucians is an attack on Christian Cabala with its heretical associations, and which appeared in a very different light to Mersenne to that with which it had been invested by Spenser and the Elizabethan poets. (p. 203)

Yates claims

The Rosicrucian revolution had not materialised; the Puritan revolution, its successor in ideology, succeeded, at least for a time. (p. 207)

In the Epilogue, Yates points to gaps in the research still waiting to be filled:

What seems to be particularly lacking is any sustained attempt, from any quarter, to define Christian Cabala in relation to genuine, or Jewish, Cabala. (p. 219)

The early Christians appropriated a Christianised form of the Jewish religion. Similarly, the Christian Cabalists of the Renaissance appropriated Jewish mysticism or Cabala and used it for their own religious ends. ...

What was the effect on Christian Cabala of the fact that the Christian Cabalist was not expecting a Messiah to come, but a second coming of the Messiah who had already come, as Cabala had proved, so the Christian Cabalist believed? This certainly basically differentiated Christian from Jewish Cabala, but how did the difference work out in practice? What was the effect of the yoking together of Cabala and Hermeticism, of Hermes Trismegistus and Moses, by Pico della Mirandola through which Christian Cabala was again quite differentiated from Jewish Cabala, an entirely different movement, one would say, and yet one closely reflecting the Jewish original? (p. 220)

A significant question still to be answered is whether crypto-Jews took up Christian Cabala as a means to practice their religion in territory that was hostile to Judaism. The closest Yates comes to an answer is the following:

Since 1290 when Edward I expelled the Jews from England, there had been, officially, no Jews in the country. The reigns of Henvy VII, Henry VIII, Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I passed by without any acknowledged settlement of Jews being made. There certainly was some Jewish presence in the country during this long period, but a clandestine one and Jews were probably few in number. Only as a converted Jew, was it possible for a Jew to live openly in England, and even then possibly at some risk. In spite of the fact that Christian Cabala, actually representing an influence of Jewish mysticism on Christianity, was a strong influence in the Renaissance period, no Jew would have been officially allowed to practice his faith. (p. 213)

There is one other remote possibility:

Puritanism, with its Biblical inspiration and concentration on the Old Testament, encouraged the growth of philosemitism, but in spite of this, the settlement of Jews in Puritan England under the Protectorate was still not officially recognised, though Oliver Cromwell earnestly tried to have it authorised, and the Amsterdam rabbi Menasseh ben Israel came to England to urge it. It was not until after the Restoration that Charles II unobtrusively allowed Jews to live in England, the first recognition of their presence since the expulsion of 1290.

The extraordinary fact is that the whole movement of Christian Cabala in England - ultimately an influence of Jewish mysticism as adapted to Christianity in the Renaissance - passed without the presence of Jews being acknowledged, though there were...undoubtedly refugees from the Expulsion of 1492 from Spain in the country, New Christians or marranos, small in number but influential. Even more surprising, the whole Puritan movement, and the Puritan Revolution, with its strongly Hebraic religion and culture, took place without the presence of Jews being acknowledged in England. The return of the Jews to England, and the preparation for their return by Menasseh ben Israel during the rule of Oliver Cromwell, was thus virtually a culmination of the gradual movement of a new attitude towards the Jews and their religion. (p. 213-214)

IT DOES WORK BOTH WAYS

A reader sent in a link to an article in the UK Telegraph quoting Cardinal George. In an interview with John Allen, the Cardinal was speaking in reference to the Jewish request that Catholic Good Friday services stop including a prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Here are his words:

“What my Jewish rabbi friend down the block finds insulting is different from what Abraham Foxman [national director of the Anti-Defamation League] finds insulting. Also, it does work both ways. Maybe this is an opening to say, ‘Would you care to look at some of the Talmudic literature’s description of Jesus as a bastard, and so on, and maybe make a few changes in some of that?’ ”

It is certainly a reasonable request.

JEWISH OPPOSITION TO CHRISTIANITY CONTINUES...

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain sparked outcries from Jewish organizations this week, after saying in an interview that he would rather see America led by a Christian, and that "the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation."

Asked if a Muslim candidate could be a good president, McCain replied, "I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles ... personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith,"

In what was probably intended as a recovery, McCain added in the interview with Beliefnet.com: "But that doesn't mean that I'm sure that someone who is Muslim would not make a good president."

The video interview, which first appeared on Saturday, stirred strongly negative responses from American Jewish figures.

"Senator McCain's statements were disappointing and disturbing to say the least," wrote Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham H. Foxman in a letter to McCain.

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