Media Malpractice at March for Life

Fr. Corapi and Corruption in the Church

Join the Non Nobis Network

From Patrick Archbold over at Creative Minority Report …

I want you to do something, so please read this entire post.

For many, I suppose that the true meaning of last week’s events has yet to sink in. For the last few days as I pondered the meaning of the arguably miraculous turn of events, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

As we approached the birthday of Our Lord, pro-lifers in the U.S. reluctantly realized that this momentous battle in the war on life was likely lost. The opposition had overwhelming superiority in numbers and a steely determination to institute a universal health-care regime that funds abortion. We, along with many other concerned citizens of various stripes, protested, marched, attended townhalls, lobbied, and prayed, seemingly to no avail. The Senate had passed, in complicity with ostensibly pro-life Senators, its version of the bill with its thinly disguised abortion on demand funding.

The passage of the Senate bill signaled what seemed to many, the end of the fight. Democrats huddled to hammer out any compromises necessary to achieve final passage of the bill. We watched in dismay as every day inched closer to the compromise that would seal the deal and put the bill on the desk of the President in time for the State of the Union. We had lost, there was nothing more we could do, but pray.

But God had other plans.

In a way that seemed almost impossible, the entire battle has turned. I need not go into detail here, you all know the story. We understand that the war on life is far from over, but today, at least for a while, by the grace of God, we have avoided institutionalized and tax-payer funded abortion. There will be other battles and perhaps they will be very soon, but it is incumbent upon all of us to acknowledge the great miracle that we have witnessed and to thank God for delivering us from this evil.

So what I propose is that we Catholic, Christian, and pro-life bloggers everywhere give thanks to God by way publishing the Non Nobis in gratitude for this wondrous day.

Non nobis, non nobis, Domine
Sed nomini tuo da gloriam.

Not to us, not to us, O Lord,
But to your name give glory.

I ask that any blogger interested in showing their gratitude for this victory, print the Non Nobis.

I will also encourage you to also link or show your favorite version of the Non nobis. Mine is the scene from Henry V after the battle of Agincourt (shown above).

Advertisement

Sacrilege: Liberation Enters the Church

The following is a lengthy excerpt from the book Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, authored by Leon J. Podles, Ph.D. Many thanks to Mr. Podles and Charles Eby of the Crossland Foundation for allowing me to reprint this material. (Caution: contains disturbing descriptions.)

Chapter 15: ‘New Errors’
Liberation Enters the Church

…Even in the 1950s many priests studied psychology. Priests frequently deal with disturbed people, and modern psychology seems to offer insights in how to help. Psychology tends to displace theology. Therefore, the Catholic clergy have been exposed to all the trends and fads of modern psychology, including the pernicious ones of sexual liberation. When psychologists were brought in to advise nuns about their rules or to advise bishops how to deal with sexual offenders, disaster has often been the result.

Joyce Milton, who had personal experience with the humanistic psychology movement of the 1970s and 1980s, has exposed its weaknesses in her Road to Malpsychia (a word-play on Maslow’s Road to Eupsychia). Humanistic psychology “emphasized alienation from values based on the authority of revealed religion and a need for the individual to derive meaning through his search for identity and authenticity.” Carl Rogers emphasized that “neither the Bible nor the prophets — neither Freud nor research — neither the revelations of God nor man — can take precedence over my own direct experience,”[42]   that is, his “lived experience,” a phrase that is always invoked by those who reject traditional Christian moral teaching. Presidents Higgins and Letson of St. Jerome’s University note that only three percent of young people in England think that premarital sex is wrong and criticize “the Church’s unwillingness to locate itself within the realm of lived experience,”[43]  by which they mean the Church’s unwillingness to accept the fallen reality that previous generations called “the world.”

The teaching of Carl Rogers had a massive influence on the Catholic Church in the United States, from which it has never recovered.[44] For Rogers the therapist was only a facilitator (a word that still haunts Catholic meetings) who gave unqualified acceptance (unconditional love) to the client. Rogers, an unbeliever who had been formed in a strict but affectionate Protestant home, wanted everyone to explore and accept his deepest desires. Rogers’s deepest desires were civilized and humane, but not everyone is like him. Rogers unwisely kept reassuring people that they should have no fear about “calling up and unleashing their hidden desires.”[45] The Jesuits wanted to get in on the act. They consulted Rogers’s associate William Coulson and discussed the new concept of the “third way between celibacy and marriage.” Coulson asked what they meant. A Jesuit replied, “It means you don’t have to marry the girl” …

Continue Reading …

Young Catholics for Choice attempts to normalize risky sexual behavior

Through press releases, television interviews and editorials, Young Catholics for Choice and Family Planning Health Services, Inc. recently announced they are collaborating to promote the use of the morning after pill and birth control throughout the state of Wisconsin.

“As a young Catholic myself, Young Catholics for Choice does not speak for me,” said Virginia Zignego, communications director of Pro-Life Wisconsin. “The Catholic Church clearly opposes contraception and abortion. It is unfortunate that Catholics for Choice are using the label ‘Catholic’ to push their agenda and normalize risky sexual behavior.”

Science has proven that the use of the morning after pill, also known under the brand name Plan B, can result in a chemical abortion.

The morning-after pill (a high dosage of the birth control pill), the Patch, and the Pill can act to terminate a pregnancy by chemically altering the lining of the uterus (endometrium) so that a newly conceived child (human embryo) is unable to implant in the womb, thus starving and dying. This mechanism of action is termed a pre-implantation chemical abortion.

The packaging instructions, found here on the Food and Drug Administration’s Web site, state, “Plan B may also work by preventing fertilization of an egg (the uniting of sperm with the egg) or by preventing attachment (implantation) to the uterus (womb)…” Furthermore, the FDA states that Plan B is not designed for frequent use, because of its negative health consequences, which include blood clots and a high risk for ectopic pregnancy.

“When Young Catholics for Choice and Family Planning Health Services recommend women ‘should have [the morning after pill] on hand before they need it’, women’s health is not being respected,” Zignego concluded.

Source: MichNews

Oakland Athletics prospect Grant Desme retires to enter priesthood

As a top prospect for the Oakland Athletics, outfielder Grant Desme might’ve gotten the call every minor leaguer wants this spring.

Instead, he believed he had another, higher calling.

Desme announced Friday that he was leaving baseball to enter the priesthood, walking away after a breakout season in which he became MVP of the Arizona Fall League.

“I was doing well at ball. But I really had to get down to the bottom of things,” the 23-year-old Desme.

A lifelong Catholic, Desme thought about becoming a priest for about a year and a half. He kept his path quiet within the sports world, and his plan to enter a seminary this summer startled the A’s when he told them Thursday night.

General manager Billy Beane “was understanding and supportive,” Desme said, but the decision “sort of knocked him off his horse.” After the talk, Desme felt “a great amount of peace.”

“I love the game, but I aspire to higher things,” he said. “I know I have no regrets.”

In a statement, Beane said: “We respect Grant’s decision and wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors.”

Athletes and the priesthood have overlapped, albeit rarely.

Al Travers, who gave up 24 runs during a one-game career for a makeshift Detroit Tigers team in 1912, became a Catholic priest. More recently, Chase Hilgenbrinck of the New England Revolution left Major League Soccer in 2008 to enter a seminary.

Desme spoke on a conference call for about 10 minutes in a quiet, even tone, hardly sounding like many gung-ho, on-the-rise ballplayers. As for his success in the minors, he said “all of it is very undeserving.”

The Athletics picked Desme in the second round of the 2007 amateur draft and he was starting to blossom. He was the only player in the entire minors with 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases last season.

Desme batted .288 with 31 homers, 89 RBIs and 40 steals in 131 games at Class-A Kane County and high Class-A Stockton last year. He hit .315 with a league-leading 11 home runs and 27 RBIs in 27 games this fall in Arizona, a league filled with young talent.

Desme went into the AFL championship game well aware it might be the last time he ever played. “There was no sad feeling,” he said. He homered and struck out twice, which “defines my career a bit.”

The Big West Player of the Year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Desme was ranked as Oakland’s No. 8 prospect by Baseball America. There was speculation the Athletics might invite Desme to big league spring training next month.

Rather, Desme intends to enter a seminary in Silverado, Calif., in August. He said abbey members didn’t seem surprised someone who would “define myself as a baseball player” was changing his life so dramatically.

Desme said he didn’t consider pursuing his spiritual studies while also trying to play ball. His family backed his decision and he said the positive reaction to his future goal — the surprising news spread quickly over the Internet — was “inspiring.”

“It’s about a 10-year process,” he said. “I desire and hope I become a priest.” In a way, he added, it’s like “re-entering the minor leagues.”

Desme’s first two years in the minors were beset by shoulder and wrist problems. He said his days off the field gave him time to think about what was most important to him, to read and study the Bible and to talk to teammates about his faith.

In retrospect, he said, those injuries were “the biggest blessings God ever gave me.”

Source: ESPN