Pres. Obama uses his daughters to promote abortion

Posted on 29 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From Life News:

Obama Criticized for Using Daughters to Promote Abortion

by Steven Ertelt

President Barack Obama is coming under criticism for invoking the names of his daughters to promote federal taxpayer funding for the Planned parenthood abortion business.

As LifeNews reported this week, Obama once again called for more taxpayer funding of the abortion business during a campaign speech in Portland.

“Mr. Romney wants to get rid of funding for Planned Parenthood. I think that’s a bad idea,” Obama said. “I’ve got two daughters. I want them to control their own health care choices.”

That’s not going over well with Daniel Allott, a writer at the conservative American Spectator publication, who also wrote about Obama’s speech.

“It’s probably not a coincidence that Obama mentioned Planned Parenthood just as it has come under fire in the wake of news of a woman dying from a botched abortion at a Planned Parenthood facility in Chicago last Friday, and after renewed calls by congressional Republicans for public hearings about the scandal-plagued abortion business,” he writes.

Allott points out that Obama has repeatedly used his daughters when it comes to controversial abortion and pro-life-related topics:

Obama invoked Malia and Sasha in March, when he explained why he had called Sandra Fluke after she was insulted by Rush Limbaugh. Fluke was the Georgetown Law School student and abortion activist who demanded at an unofficial congressional hearing that her friends receive free birth control from the Catholic institution. “The reason I called Ms. Fluke is because I thought about Malia and Sasha and one of the things that I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about,” Obama said.

On the 2008 campaign trail, Obama told an audience that he supported sex education that included information about contraception and abortion because, “I don’t want [my daughters] punished with a baby.”

In the past, Obama has declared candidates’ families “off limits” to the media and political opponents.

Obama employs a double standard when it comes to his own family and the political spotlight. That’s no example for his daughters to follow.

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Your Sunday Sermon Notes

Posted on 29 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Were there some good points in the sermon you heard during your Mass for Sunday?

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Olympic Games’ Opening Ceremony: Blech.

Posted on 28 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I loathe TV commercials.  But last night, during the short amount of my life which I will never have back, I thought the commercials were better than the Olympic Games’ Opening Ceremony.

I tuned in the first time while they were dancing around hospital beds in honor of the National Health Service.  I imagine that that was on the highlight reel the DNC and Sr. Keehan made for Pres. Obama.

The second time I tuned in, there was a rapper.  Since rap did for music what B&D did for romance, I switched channels.

From what I could tell in the Tweet-o-sphere, not many people liked what they heard and saw.

And today someone told me that they made the Queen into a Bond Girl.  Really?

As it turns out, they had a “cunning plan” for the Opening Ceremonies.

I like what Tom Hoopes wrote over at CatholicVote.org:

Olympic Opening Ceremony shows have become a way for a nation to tell the world how it sees itself. Four years ago, China told us it sees itself as “All Under Heaven.” What did Britain say?

10. Opening scenes: The British people see themselves as having gone from being Hobbits to being Orcs.

9. National Health Care is a song and dance that becomes a nightmare.

8. Modern Britain sees itself in the wildness of Caliban from Shakespeare’s Tempest, not the greatness of Henry V.

7. Their national trajectory, as displayed in the presentation: From greatness to decadence, from power to party, from class to crass.

6. It opened with the hymn “Jerusalem” and honored terrorist victims with “Abide In Me.” Even now, Christ is Britain’s only real hope …

5. The Sex Pistols were featured. Either the Sex Pistols have sold out to the mainstream’s consumerism, or the mainstream has sold out to the Sex Pistols’ nihilism … or there’s no difference.

4. China saw itself as a sea of perfectly coordinated drummers. Britain sees itself as a sea of perfectly uncoordinated partiers.

3. Danny Boyle’s presentation saw two revolutions as key to Britain: The Industrial Revolution and the sex, drugs and rock-n-roll revolution.

2. “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” is a kind of national anthem now.

1. On the positive side: Mr. Bean is truly awesome.

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Anglican Ordinariates and the Extraordinary Form

Posted on 28 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At the blog The Anglo-Catholic I read:

When I [that blogger] met him in Orlando some months ago, Monsignor Steenson [head of the US Ordinariate] held nothing back in the expression of his enmity towards Catholic Traditionalism and the so-called Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  He said the Ordinariate should have nothing to do with those people (a paraphrase, but an accurate assessment of his attitude which was made quite clear).  He even suggested that, simply because I had an affinity for the TLM that I should consider myself “out of communion” with the local Ordinary, Bishop Noonan of Orlando. [?!?]  Quite taken aback, I assured the Anglican Ordinary that I was quite Catholic, despite my intense dislike (and often horror) of the institutionalized liturgical abuses found in Latin Rite parishes almost everywhere (and unfortunately in my home diocese) and my attachment to Catholic Tradition.

I am sure that clarifications will be forthcoming.

And Benedict XVI remains the Pope of Christian Unity.

Posted in Benedict XVI, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Our Catholic Identity, Priests and Priesthood, Throwing a Nutty | Tagged , , , , ,
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2012

Posted on 27 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

So, it’s a photoshopped image. So what?
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Federal court allows company to ignore HHS mandate

Posted on 27 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From The Hill:

Federal court allows company to ignore birth-control mandate [When will these newsies get that this isn’t a “contraception mandate”.]
By Sam Baker

A federal court said Friday that a Colorado-based company does not have to comply with the Obama administration’s birth-control mandate because of the employer’s religious beliefs. [OORAH!]

Several businesses and religious groups have sued over the policy, which requires most employers to provide contraception coverage in their healthcare plans. Friday’s temporary injunction is the first time a court has ruled against the policy. [Do I hear an “Amen!”?]

Judge John Kane emphasized that his ruling only applies to the specific company whose lawsuit he considered — Colorado-based Hercules Industries.  [Precedent.]

The company, like many others, said the contraception order violates the religious beliefs of its owner. Most of the lawsuits have been filed by Catholic groups who say they should not have to provide coverage that violates their religious opposition to contraception.

“Every American, including family business owners, should be free to live and do business according to their faith. For the time being, Hercules Industries will be able to do just that,” attorney Matt Bowman said in a statement.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the ruling. [Imagine me shock.]

“This is not religious freedom, this is discrimination,” said Sarah Lipton-Lubet, policy counsel for the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Real religious liberty gives everyone the right to make their own decisions about their own health, including whether and when to use birth control. It doesn’t give anyone the right to impose their beliefs on others.” [What a thick-headed remark.  The fact that someone with religious convictions does not want to pay for another person’s abortions through taking chemicals or for their surgical mutilations in no way amounts to an imposition of beliefs.  It surprises me that some of these opponents of religious liberty and the 1st Amendment are so thick as not to have grasped this point yet.]

Posted in Brick by Brick, Emanations from Penumbras, Our Catholic Identity, Religious Liberty, The Drill, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged , , , , , ,
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“The Church…cannot and should not replace the State. Yet at the same time….”

Posted on 27 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

“The Church…cannot and should not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper.”

Benedict XVI – Deus caritas est 26

2012!

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Benedict XVI, Religious Liberty, The future and our choices | Tagged , , , , , , ,
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Wisconsin Bishops warn about an important health care issue

Posted on 27 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the Catholic Herald of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the bishops of Wisconsin warn about an important health care issue:

Wisconsin’s Roman Catholic bishops issued a warning against the use of POLST, Physician (or Provider) Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, in a statement issued Wednesday, July 25.

In “Upholding the Dignity of Human Life,” the bishops wrote that the use of POLST has grave implications for the dignity of human life and they “encourage all Catholics to avoid using all such documents, programs and materials.”

“The POLST form should not be regarded as the standard model for designating treatment preferences,” read the statement signed by Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki, Madison Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Green Bay Bishop David L. Ricken, La Crosse Bishop William P. Callahan and Superior Bishop Peter F. Christensen.

Upon issuance of the pastoral letter, Archbishop Listecki told your Catholic Herald, “This is an important issue. As a church we are concerned about the dignity of the human person at every stage of life – from conception to natural death.”

[…]

Because use is on the rise and because increasingly Catholics are questioning the morality of this end-of-life document, Wadas said the bishops felt it was time to address the question.

A major concern regarding the form, according to a press release issued by the WCC, is the “form presents options for treatments as if they were morally neutral.

In fact, they are not. Because we cannot predict the future, it is difficult to determine in advance whether specific medical treatments, from an ethical perspective, are absolutely necessary or optional.”

“A POLST oversimplifies these decisions,” wrote the bishops, “and bears the real risk that an indication may be made on it to withhold a treatment that, in particular circumstances, might be an act of euthanasia. Despite the possible benefits of these documents, this risk is too grave to be acceptable,” they wrote.

[…]

Wisconsin Catholic Conference HERE.

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Obamacare = Euthanasia

Posted on 27 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I just saw one of the crafty Dick Morris’s “lunch-time” videos about Obamacare.

Pace the White House, the Catholic Healthcare Association, the Fishwrap and the Magisterium of Nuns, Obamacare will result in the rationing of health care. Calculations will be made about whose “Quality Life Years Remaining” balanced against other people’s QLYRs.  The cost of the procedures or care will be divided by your good QLYRs.  If your QLYRs suggest that you might merit the money to be spent more than another person, you might get the care you need. If you don’t have enough QLYRs… you won’t.

“Obamacare amounts to an early death.”

The video can’t be embedded so click HERE.

Discuss.

PS: I am reminded of the darkly hilarious book Boomsday.

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Check out a new site: CatholicEvents.com

Posted on 27 July 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My friend Patrick Madrid has started a new – free – service which might be useful to you.  Check it out.  It has a lot of potential.  I think was a niche to fill.

CatholicEvents.com

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