Bishop of Scranton bars pro-abortion officials from St. Patrick’s Day Masses

Scranton, Pa., Feb 20, 2009 / 05:53 pm (CNA).- Explaining that he is determined to “prevent scandal,” Bishop of Scranton Joseph Martino has said that he will cancel Masses for St. Patrick’s Day or for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade if any pro-abortion officials are honored at the holiday events.

The bishop said that scandal could arise if the Catholic Church is seen to be involved in honoring such officials.
John M. Dougherty, the Auxiliary Bishop of Scranton, explained Bishop Martino’s views in a Feb. 6 letter to John Keeler, President of the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick of Lackawanna County.

Saying that St. Peter’s Cathedral plays “no small role” in the local observance of St. Patrick’s Day, Bishop Dougherty noted that local celebrations often honor elected public officials. This honoring takes place when they are given parade positions or dais opportunities.

“While some of the officials have merited the pride our local people take in them, others have positions and voting records that have contributed to the daily killing of the unborn by abortion,” Bishop Dougherty wrote.  (Full story at CNA)

Pro-Life Pastor Hoye Gets 30 Days in Jail for Helping Women at Abortion Center

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor

Oakland, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-life African-American pastor has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for sharing a pr-life message outside local abortion centers. Walter Hoye was previously found guilty of violating what pro-life attorneys call an unconstitutional city law designed specifically to target him.
 
Oakland officials had enacted the law, which has been heavily criticized as an unconstitutional limit on free speech.
The ordinance prohibits contact within eight feet of women entering abortion businesses without their consent.
Today, Hoye was sentenced by Judge Hing of the Alameda Superior Court to serve 30 days in county jail . The court will allow Hoye to serve his time by an alternative method such as community service.

However, Hoye will be forced to pay a $1,130 fine and has been ordered to stay away from the abortion business and no longer help women find abortion alternatives.  (Full story at Lifenews.com)

Hope and Change Marched on Washington

This article includes an interesting insight to madam speaker's "Catholic" beliefs.

BY Kathryn Jean Lopez 

February 22-28, 2009 Issue | Posted 2/13/09 at 12:43 PM

The new era of “hope” and “change” in Washington, D.C., wasn’t a week old before Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, was defending a contraceptive-funding measure in a proposed economic stimulus bill the president had been pushing before Congress.

On one of the Sunday morning political shows, Pelosi defended the plan, arguing: “ The family-planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those — one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”

Nancy Pelosi, boldly marching the Beltway deeper into a Brave New World, is, by the way, a Roman Catholic.

(Full story at NCRegister.com)l

A Nation of Cowards?

By Matthew May

Of course, Eric Holder is correct.

When it comes to race we Americans are, for the most part, a nation of cowards. This cowardice was on full display during the most recent presidential election and continues today.

As they are in so many other areas of life, chief among our American cowards are the representatives of the national political media. During the presidential campaign, there was a maniacal effort on the part of the national media to find whites who would not vote for Barack Obama, never mind the reasoning for choosing so. Whites who were not for Mr. Obama were automatically racist in outlook and action, you see. (Full story at American Thinker)

Men’s Abortion Wounds

Pro-lifers have become familiar with the image of sad women displaying “I Regret My Abortion” signs. At the March for Life, they are given a privileged place at the pre-march rally on the Mall and a special station on the steps of the Supreme Court building, from which they tell their stories.

They are living witnesses to an important truth: The pro-life position is the pro-woman position.
At the 2009 March for Life, there was a new sign in evidence: “I Regret Lost Fatherhood.” The pro-life movement is increasingly reminding the world that men, too, suffer from abortion.

As Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, put it, there are “three victims of every abortion, the child and both of his or her parents.”

The Knights recently held two conferences to promote forgiveness and healing for men after abortion. There, therapists and other experts outlined the damage abortion does to men’s spirituality, mental health and confidence as future fathers. They also spoke on the reasons post-abortive men come for help — and explained why many who should don’t.

(Full story at NCRegister.com)

Team Nancy and the Vicar of Christ

from First Things by Amanda Shaw

 

Earlier this week at NRO, George Weigel offered some commonsense commentary on Nancy Pelosi’s Wednesday meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. Commonsense commentary about what should be commonsense morality:

[Pelosi's] office’s statement on today’s meeting makes it clear something else was afoot: that Pelosi, who shamelessly trumpets her “ardent” Catholicism while leading congressional Democrats in a continuing assault on what the Catholic Church regards as the inalienable human rights of the unborn, was trying to recruit Benedict XVI (“Joseph Ratzinger, D., Bavaria”?) to Team Nancy.

His Holiness wasn’t buying it.

He told Pelosi, politely but unmistakably, that her relentlessly pro-abortion politics put her in serious difficulties as a Catholic, which was his obligation as a pastor. He also underscored—for Pelosi, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barbara Mikulski, Rose DeLauro, Kathleen Sebelius, and everyone else—that the Church’s opposition to the taking of innocent human life, at any stage of the human journey, is not some weird Catholic hocus-pocus; it’s a first principle of justice than can be known by reason. It is a “requirement of the natural moral law”—that is, the moral truths we can know by thinking about what is right and what is wrong—to defend the inviolability of innocent human life. You don’t have to believe in papal primacy to know that; you don’t have do believe in seven sacraments, or the episcopal structure of the Church, or the divinity of Christ, to know that. You don’t even have to believe in God to know that. You only have to be a morally serious human being, willing to work through a moral argument—which, of course, means being the kind of person who understands that moral truth cannot be reduced to questions of feminist political correctness or partisan political advantage.

. . . Whatever the source of her confusion, Pelosi has now been informed, and by a world-class intellectual who happens to be the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, that she is, in fact, confused, and that both her spiritual life and her public service are in jeopardy because of that.

Catholic League: Sebelius - Enemy of the Unborn - to HHS?

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (www.catholicleague.org/)

Sebelius’ support for abortion is so far off-the-charts that she has been publicly criticized by the last three archbishops of Kansas City.

 

NEW YORK, N.Y. (Catholic League) - Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a front-page story in today’s New York Times that says Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is the president’s top choice as secretary of health and human services:

“Almost all of those working in the Obama administration are pro-abortion, and the expectation is that almost all future appointees will be champions of abortion rights, as well. Fortunately, most are not in a position to affect abortion policy. One glaring exception is the secretary of health and human services. Unfortunately, Gov. Sebelius, a Catholic, may get the job.

“Sebelius’ support for abortion is so far off-the-charts that she has been publicly criticized by the last three archbishops of Kansas City. In 1992, when Sebelius was a state legislator, Archbishop Ignatius Strecker rebuked her for leading what he dubbed a ‘death-march of the unborn.’  (Full story at Catholic Online)