Commentarius de Prognosticis

Are Homosexual Acts Right or Wrong?

2012-02-01T20:20:00.000-05:00

Are Homosexual Acts Right or Wrong?
by Fr. Michael Rodríguez; January 31, 2012

Address to El Paso City Council

In the middle of our dark, secular, godless society, there is a light. This light is the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Jesus Christ and His Church teach the truth about homosexuality, and we can summarize this truth in three points:

(1) Homosexual acts are acts of grave depravity; they are mortal sins which cry to heaven for vengeance. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

(2) Homosexuality is an objective disorder.

(3) Homosexual persons are to be treated with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.

In the debate over homosexuality, the dark side seeks to frame the issue as one of discrimination and civil rights. This makes no logical sense. No one has a civil right to do something morally wrong. I don’t have a right to steal. I don’t have a right to lie. I don’t have a right to commit adultery, and I don’t have a right to engage in homosexual acts. As for discrimination, discrimination exists when one is against a person not when one is against actions on the part of a person. The Roman Catholic Church condemns actions of a homosexual nature. She does not discriminate against homosexual persons.

Thus, before anyone speaks about discrimination and/or civil rights, the following questions must be answered:

(1) Do you believe in right and wrong?

(2) How do you determine what is right and what is wrong?

(3) Does society have an obligation to establish law and order in accordance with its best effort to determine right and wrong?

Thus, before anyone speaks about discrimination and/or civil rights, the following question must be answered:

(1) Are homosexual acts right or wrong?

If a Catholic does not believe and hold fast to the truth that homosexual acts are wrong, one is no longer Catholic. Such a “Catholic” must refrain from receiving our Blessed Lord in Holy Communion, because one is no longer in communion with the moral truths taught by Jesus Christ and His Church.

In conclusion, no one on the face of this earth has a greater love for homosexuals that the glorious Roman Catholic Church. But it is never loving to lie. If you lie to homosexuals and tell them that “homosexual acts are o.k,” then you are the one who is showing disdain for homosexuals, because you don’t care about their true good, happiness, and salvation.

Sancta Dei Genetrix, ora pro nobis.

An Army with No Soldiers

2012-02-01T07:23:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Please pray for and stand with our Bishops and other religious leaders. The crisis facing the Church over Obama's mandate for religious organizations to provide insurance coverage for abortifacients and contraception affects us all: Orthodox Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Charismatic Episcopals, Eastern Orthodox, Southern Baptists, Pentecostals, etc. Jesus asked in Luke 18:8, "Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"

An Army with No Soldiers

How Did They Get In There?

2012-01-31T22:43:00.000-05:00

Folks,

The attached photograph says it all. But while I have pity and compassion for the horse, the donkey and the cow, there is none left for the jacka$$ in the lower right corner. ;-) I guess it's time to go back to the Confessional with Fr. Tom again!

Occupy Bigots

2012-01-31T06:34:00.000-05:00

Occupy Bigots

As I have repeatedly stated, the OWS Fleabaggers deserve nothing but than 39 lashes across the back and a thorough cleansing with lye soap and pressurized cold water from a fire hose, preferrably now at the end of January.

The Pope Told You So

2012-01-31T06:28:00.001-05:00

The Pope Told You So

"At the time of the last presidential election, some may have thought that I overstated things in finding parallels with the dystopian world described in Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World in 1907, in which Julian Felsenburgh makes eugenics 'a sacred duty.' Felsenburgh was a previously unknown man from the American Midwest who suddenly appears with enormous financial backing to promote a One World government, something like the European Union metastasized. In spite of no record of any sort of accomplishment, he cuts a swath through the populations of nations with a cold condescension, reading carefully crafted speeches that cause people to sob and faint. He promotes himself as an arbiter of cultures, with himself as a universal president. He proposes pacifism, pantheism and the eradication of poverty by distribution of wealth. His chief obstacle is Christianity. He employs the useful idiocy of treasonable clerics: those utopian idealists who had grown impatient with the religion they were ordained to serve."

"The Church of God on earth will be greatly reduced, as we may well imagine, in its apparent numbers, in the times of Antichrist, by the open desertion of the powers of the world. This desertion will begin in a professed indifference to any particular form of Christianity, under the pretense of universal toleration; which toleration will proceed from no true spirit of charity and forbearance, but from a design to undermine Christianity, by multiplying and encouraging sectaries… For governments will pretend an indifference to all, and will give a protection in preference to none."

Second Letter to the President of the United States

2012-01-30T22:41:00.003-05:00

Folks,

I have posted the following at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

Mr. President,

I want you to know that we are going to fight you and your diabolical legions of damnation by every peaceful means possible. You are a murderer of unborn babies, a sanctifier of homosexual filth, and a thief of the public treasury. And being a murderer, a pervert and a thief, you will not stop until you first imprison and then martyr Roman Catholics and other Christians faithful to the Gospel whose message of life, sexual purity and holiness you reject by your actions. Yes, you say you believe Jesus is Lord and St. James in his epistle pointed out that even the demons believe and shudder. Your spiritual forefathers are Maximilien Robespierre, Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Mao Tse Tung. And except that you repent of your godless wickedness, God will treat you exactly as He treated King Manasseh of Judah. It took 12 years in a dungeon in Assyria for him to repent; what will it take for you? Is that what you want for this nation? May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on your eternal soul even though you yourself have no mercy on the unborn.

Pray for the Best, Be Prepared.

2012-01-30T22:24:00.002-05:00

Folks,

In response to the recent threat to religious freedom that the Obama Administration has made, a commenter to a post at The American Catholic blog site said: "Pray for the best. Be Prepared."

Such prepartion is described in the accompanying picture which I borrowed from a friend on Facebook: "A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." It is said that those words came from George Washington. Pursuant to these words, I have a mini 14 in my closet that I haven’t used in years, and ammunition stored in an otherwise unused jewelry box. I hope and pray to God that it doesn’t come to that. But both Sacred Scripture and history say otherwise.

‎"I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." Luke 17:34-37

This isn’t a prediction of the Rapture as so many Evangelicals and Pentecostals think. Rather, it’s a prediction of what Caesar does and those who are left behind are the lucky ones.

Think about it. What did the Nazis do? They came in the night exactly as Jesus describes and took one while leaving the other. And the disciples ask where this would occur. Jesus response: where the body is, there the eagles will gather. And wasn’t the golden eagle the bird of prey displayed above the SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romae) banners? In His life on Earth in the early 1st century AD, Jesus saw those banners every place where Roman soldiers came to take away people to be tortured and crucified. One was taken and one was left behind. And did not the Nazis have similar banners of the swastika with the emblem of a golden eagle above? And what exactly is the US national emblem that sits above the American flag? Not the golden eagle, to be sure, but an eagle nonetheless – the bald eagle, even more regal and royal.

"And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." Remember: the eagles now serve Obama.

Bishop Jenky, Saint Michael and the Obama Administration

2012-01-30T21:07:00.001-05:00

Bishop Jenky, Saint Michael and the Obama Administration

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection
against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout
the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.

Now war arose in heaven,
Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon;
and the dragon and his angels fought,
but they were defeated
and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
And the great dragon was thrown down,
that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan,
the deceiver of the whole world--
he was thrown down to the earth,
and his angels were thrown down with him.
Revelation 12:7-9

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse!
He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True,
and in righteousness he judges and makes war.
His eyes are like a flame of fire,
and on his head are many diadems;
and he has a name inscribed
which no one knows but himself.
He is clad in a robe dipped in blood,
and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.
And the armies of heaven,
arrayed in fine linen, white and pure,
followed him on white horses.
From his mouth issues a sharp sword
with which to smite the nations,
and he will rule them with a rod of iron;
he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed,
King of kings and Lord of lords.
Then I saw an angel standing in the sun,
and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in midheaven,
"Come, gather for the great supper of God,
to eat the flesh of kings,
the flesh of captains,
the flesh of mighty men,
the flesh of horses and their riders,
and the flesh of all men,
both free and slave,
both small and great."
And I saw the beast
and the kings of the earth with their armies
gathered to make war against him
who sits upon the horse and against his army.
And the beast was captured,
and with it the false prophet
who in its presence had worked the signs
by which he deceived those
who had received the mark of the beast
and those who worshiped its image.
These two were thrown alive
into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur.
And the rest were slain by the sword of him
who sits upon the horse,
the sword that issues from his mouth;
and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.
Revelation 19:11-21

Great and terrible will be the day of the fall of Barack Hussein Obama and his demonic legions of darkness.

The Culture War

2012-01-30T20:13:00.000-05:00

Folks,

There is a most timely article by Paul Zummo at The American Catholic blog site entitled, "The Culture War."

To all you liberal progressive Democrats out there, Jesus Christ and His Only Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church will triumph over your infanticide of the unborn, over your sanctification of the filth of homosexual sodomy, and over your thievery from the tax payers. Two thousand years of history say you will imprison and martyr us, but you will not and cannot succeed.

Theodore Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech

2012-01-30T06:54:00.000-05:00

Folks,

"Peace, Theodore Roosevelt stated, was not the highest good unless it was wedded to righteousness. Peace is evil if it is merely a mask for sloth and cowardice. Tyrants have often prattled about peace in order to silence opposition to their schemes. Individuals, and nations, must ever be ready to defend themselves."

Today's tyrant is Barack Hussein Obama, murderer of unborn babies, sanctifier of the filth of homosexual sodomy, and creator of the greatest national debt in all of human history.

Theodore Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech

Liberals - "Get The Hell Out Of The USA"

2012-01-29T18:32:00.003-05:00

Folks,

Representative Allen West Tells Liberal Leaders To "Get The Hell Out Of The USA"

I could not be more pleased. Except that Barack Hussein Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Debbie Wasserman repent, God will have them and their message of the murder of the unborn, homosexual perversion and wholesale thievery from the public treasury taken straight to hell. However, they will neither repent nor willingly depart from this our nation. Rather, they will do to adult Christians what they are now doing to unborn babies. This is the legacy of secularism, humanism and atheism. It is what Roberspierre, Stalin, Hitler and Mao - Obama's spiritual forebearers - did before him. The three dirtiest words in the English language are liberal, progressive and Democrat.

By the way, note the color of Allen West's skin. Now there is a real black man, so unlike that godless, worthless piece of fecal matter currently sitting in the Oval Office.

You liberals wanted a fight as demonstrated by your man of iniquity and depravity, and his whore in Health and Human Services, telling Archbishop Timothy Dolan to provide insurance coverage for abortion and contraception. Well, you have choosen to fight what others far better and mightier than you have fought and lost against for 2000 years. Famine, disease, heresy and apostasy within, rebellion and war without, but yet the indefectible Bride of Christ still stands! You have NOT prevailed and you will NOT prevail. You may martyr Christians by the thousands as Robespierre did in the 1790s and by the millions as Stalin, Hitler and Mao did in the 1900s. But the Church militant marches on, sadly over your corpses because you refuse to repent. You will NOT succeed. If the good Lord should tarry, then the Church will be here 2000 years from now, and your bones will be broken, buried and turned to dust while you yourselves scream in unending tormet in the depths of hell to which no one has sent you except your unrepentent selves.

In case there is any doubt as to the murderous intent of Barack Hussein Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sebelius, and Debbie Wasserman, here are a few photographs to be committed to memory:

As Representative West said to you liberals: "Get the hell out of the USA!"

Isabella Santorum Hospitalized

2012-01-29T08:40:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Please pray for the daughter of Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, the only bona fide conservative among the group of GOP candidates and the only one with a life-long record of Catholic fidelity to his wife and family.

Isabella Santorum Hospitalized

Avē Marīa, grātiā plēna, Dominus tēcum.
Benedicta tū in mulieribus,
et benedictus frūctus ventris tuī, Iēsus.
Sāncta Marīa, Māter Deī,
ōrā prō nōbīs peccātōribus,
nunc et in hōrā mortis nostrae.
Āmēn.

Bias? What Bias?

2012-01-29T07:31:00.000-05:00

Folks,

The main stream news media is nothing but the mouth piece for the culture of death that is liberal atheist Democracy.

Bias? What Bias?

George Will on Obama’s Militaristic Rhetoric

2012-01-28T14:10:00.000-05:00

George Will on Obama’s Militaristic Rhetoric

Obama the Pharoah. God dealt with one Pharoah long ago and God will deal with this latest one as he so richly deserves.

Feast Day of the Dumb Ox

2012-01-28T10:14:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Today is the Feast Day of St. Thomas Aquinas:

Feast Day of the Dumb Ox

It is ever fascinating how two opposing sides - fundamentalist Christians and secular atheists - oppose with equal vigor true reason, true logic, true science.

"According to St Thomas’ thought, human reason, as it were, “breathes”: it moves within a vast open horizon in which it can express the best of itself. When, instead, man reduces himself to thinking only of material objects or those that can be proven, he closes himself to the great questions about life, himself and God and is impoverished...At the same time, however, it is necessary to admit that the tendency to consider true only what can be experienced constitutes a limitation of human reason and produces a terrible schizophrenia now acclaimed, which has led to the coexistence of rationalism and materialism, hyper-technology and unbridled instinct…Faith presupposes reason and perfects it, and reason, enlightened by faith, finds the strength to rise to knowledge of God and spiritual realities. Human reason loses nothing by opening itself to the content of faith, which, indeed, requires its free and conscious adherence." Pope Benedict XVI

The State of the Union: An Inside Report

2012-01-28T09:05:00.000-05:00

Folks,

The following analysis at Crisis Magazine effectively debunks the disinformation within President Obama's Status of the Union address:

The State of the Union: An Inside Report.

Obama is not only a murder (for supporting abortion) and a pervert (for supporting gay rights); he is also a liar (for disseminating false information). Sacred Scripture states that murderers, sexual perverts and liars will NOT inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.

ZENIT - Whose Conscience? Which Religion? The Enemy Is Partially Us

2012-01-27T22:15:00.000-05:00

Folks,

There is much truth in the essay at the following web page:

ZENIT - Whose Conscience? Which Religion? The Enemy Is Partially Us

"Yes, there is a lot of anger over Obama's radically illiberal policy. But that anger is only rightly felt if it concerns the violation, not of legal or even constitutional rights, but the violation of truth. We need to stand up and say confidently and resolutely to Kathleen Sebelius, her thugs at HHS and her puppet-master in the White House: Your view is false and untrue; it radically violates human good and is destructive of communal integrity. Forcing persons wrongfully to cooperate in actions they judge to be evil is evil. And no president, king or emperor rightly demands others to do what is evil. We won't do it."

A Baby by any Other Name

2012-01-27T06:38:00.000-05:00

"The strong emotional reaction of Orwell’s character, Gordon Comstock, is precisely the way in which any decent human being should view abortion."

Abortionists are not decent human beings.

A Baby by any Other Name

Why Catholics Like Einstein

2012-01-26T21:42:00.000-05:00

"People who don’t believe in God don’t believe in nothing: they will believe in anything." GK Chesterton.

Why Catholics Like Einstein

Five Reasons Why Conservatives Lost

2012-01-26T19:55:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Michael Voris reports on Five Reasons Why Conservatives Lost:

Conservations were more concerned with economics and foreign policy than they were with morality, theology, philosophy or history.
The entertainment media with their subversive messages have intellectually and spiritually kidnapped the youth back in the 1970s, and have never let go.
Through public education and the entertainment industry, the secularists and liberals have reprogrammed an entire generation to vote for politicians who in turn appoint secular liberal judges without a shred of moral principle.
The innate conservative quality of obedience and almost automatic acceptance of authority has allowed leaders and judges without moral principle to have complete sway.
The one single institution - the Church (both Catholic and Protestant) - which had the moral authority to challenge the liberal secularist juggernaut did not do it.

Now that godless man of sin in the Oval Office and his Jezebel the apostate and heretic in the Department of Health and Human Services demands and commands religious institutions to provide insurance coverage for contraception and abortifacients in violation of Sacred Scripture, two thousand years of Sacred Tradition, and the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church. The liberals will never give up the murder of abortion nor the filth of homosexual sodomy without a fight. Sadly, and may God forbid this, there will likely be civil war because that is what it took to free the black slaves 150 years ago, and that is what it will take to save the unborn babies in the womb. History has not changed. Thus will liberal Democracy demand martyrdom of Christians just as Imperial Rome did so long ago. Romans exposed their unwanted babies on hill tops long ago, and today Democrats take a surgeon's knife to their women to do the same. Indeed, if Obama gives assent - even support - to the murder of the unborn, then he will inevitably order the murder of adult Christians who are brave enough to tell him as John the Baptist did King Herod so long ago, "It is NOT lawful for thou to do these things."

Remember: the Democrats supported slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War in 1860, and today the Democrats support abortion. Nothing has changed. They are still the Devil's Party of Evil. This time around we have to defeat them for good, and hopefully, God willing, that can be accomplished starting election day, November 6, 2012. If, however, the nation stays crazed on Obama's purple koolaide, then as Thomas Jefferson once said, the nation deserves the leaders that it gets: Obama the godless murderer, no different in kind or type from Caligula, Commodus, Robespierre, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin or Mao. To be a Democrat is to be a willing supporter of this evil.

The March for Life

2012-01-26T19:29:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Michael Voris reports on The March for Life in January, 2012. Basically, pro-abortionists - murdererous diabolical baboons by any other description - disrupt pro-life gatherings with nonsensical chants of brutality, while the secular news media ignores the hundreds of thousands speaking out in defense of life. Obama and his demonic legions of evil must be defeated.

Jesus Sided With The Outcasts, Which Means People I Like

2012-01-26T15:10:00.000-05:00

Jesus Sided With The Outcasts, Which Means People I Like

A Few Words About Abortion

2012-01-26T06:58:00.000-05:00

A Few Words About Abortion

Honorable Men

2012-01-26T06:55:00.000-05:00

Folks,

This picture summarizes how I feel. Let's get that accursed imposter off the throne and restore honor to this nation.

The Humility of Science, the Arrogance of Scientists

2012-01-26T06:49:00.000-05:00

The Humility of Science, the Arrogance of Scientists

The Republican Address to the Nation

2012-01-25T06:57:00.000-05:00

Folks,

The 11 minute and 50 second Republican response to Barry Soetoro's SOTU address may be found below:

Republican Address to the Nation: Gov. Mitch Daniels

The Obama Economic Record

2012-01-25T06:50:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Sin has its consequences. Indeed, there will be no social or economic justice until this nation repents of having electing Barry Soetoro, otherwise known as Barack Hussein Obama. The "peepul" get the government that the "peepul" deserve. Furthermore, all democracies fail when the plebians learn that they can vote for themselves bread and circuses from the public treasury.

Liberal Democracy and Its Abortion WILL Be Destroyed!

2012-01-24T22:04:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Hundreds of thousands of marchers showed up for the March for Life in Washington, DC on the anniversary of Roe v Wade, but we hear nary a word from the popular news media. Yet it doesn't matter. God is in control. Liberal Democracy - two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner - WILL one day be destroyed and thrown into the dust bin of history. Abortion and the filth of homosexual sodomy will pass away. Righteousness and holiness will reign supreme.

New York Times ignores March for Life for fifth year in a row: WaPo focuses on pro-aborts
Cardinal at March for Life vigil: The survival of religious liberty is at stake
California bishop: Pro-abortion politicians ‘unfit for public office’

Two Important Essays

2012-01-24T21:46:00.000-05:00

Folks,

I encourage the reader to please take the time to read the following two important essays by an individual going by the appellation of Marc Barnes:

An Open Invitation To David Crowder To Join the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church

The Terrible Weakness of Our God

Sadly, your blogmeister in unable to give a detailed analysis on everything he reads, but I heartily commend these essays to your attention.

"It's a Girl" Is Fatal

2012-01-24T21:38:00.001-05:00

Folks,

The godless man of iniquity and depravity in the Oval stated on this year's anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision in 1973 that the reason for keeping abortion legal is to ensure that girls have the same opportunities as boys:

As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right. While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue- no matter what our views, we must stay united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant woman and mothers, reduce the need for abortion, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption. And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.

Derek Bekebrede shows us in his recent article at The Harvard Crimson exactly how girls are treated in our world of infanticide on demand: "It's a Girl" Is Fatal. That diabolic man of sin who calls himself our President has got to be stopped in November's election no matter what, and sooner if at all possible. Treason, murder and the sanctification of sexual perversion are his crimes, and for these was his spiritual forefather King Manasseh led away into captivity some 2700 or so years ago.

"It's a Girl" Is Fatal

The United Nations estimates that there are 200 million “missing” women in the world today, and by “missing,” the UN means they are dead. With the advent of abortion on demand, the modern world has encouraged parents around the world to use violence against their own children in order to achieve what they want. In some nations, even if the mother disagrees, the government takes the liberty of killing her children for her. While abortion proponents argue that abortion is an issue of women’s rights and empowerment, in reality it is nothing less than the deadliest weapon of gender discrimination on a global level.

Many blame the mass sex-selective abortions on specific policies and “backwards” traditions within specific nations and cultures. However, American Enterprise Institute scholar Nicholas Eberstadt found that the growing number of “missing” women couldn’t be explained by specific cultures or government policies alone. To measure the effect of sex-selective abortions, Eberstadt examined the sex ratio at birth for each nation. Naturally, the sex ratio at birth should fall between 103 to 106 boys for every 100 girls, and child sex ratios are correlated positively with education, income and urbanization. In large portions of China and India, the sex ratio is higher than 120 and increasing as the nations continue to develop and globalize, but the problem isn’t unique to the two Asian giants. Other nations with biologically impossible sex ratios include Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Puerto Rico, Georgia, and Turkey among many others. In total, half of the world’s population lives in countries with unnaturally high sex ratios, representing nearly every one of the world’s major cultures and religions, from Buddhism to Christianity. The “missing” girl phenomenon is not a region-specific problem or statistical fluke. It is a global war on girls, driven by abortion on demand.

Unfortunately for women around the world, the progressive movement remains willing to tolerate gendercide as the collateral damage of their promotion of abortion. In response to the global war against girls, Human Rights Watch wrote, “regulating abortion may be ok but not to avoid sex-selection.” Planned Parenthood has opposed legislation aimed at limiting sex- and race-selective abortions. Liberal publication The American Prospect stated that no one should seek to stop parents from routinely aborting their female children, defending their claim with the assertion that “sometimes, freedom means we have to live with the possibility of icky things.” Genocide is not something that one lives with as a free person; it is a direct attack on freedom and, more importantly, humanity

If this remains the stance of the progressive movement, then it remains a movement committed to the defense of gendercide and the destruction of freedom. Liberals cannot attempt to empower women if they believe that baby girls are property to be kept or disposed of as parents or governments see fit. If the aborted infants were merely a few insignificant cells, then there wouldn’t be any missing women (and men) in the world today, but reality shows otherwise. The sex ratio at birth statistics demonstrate clearly that more women should be alive today but aren’t. They were sentenced to death because they were unwanted, and to permit abortions just because a child is unwanted or unintended is to permit Social Darwinism on an entirely new level. As some pro-abortion activists have argued, an unintended pregnancy is like a robber entering a home through an open window. However, unlike a robber entering a home, the infant in the womb does not have a strict moral duty not to enter the womb; to the contrary, the womb is her home, although she had no say in the matter. She and her mother are both equal persons in whom the value of life is to be respected and realized. Any direct action with the intention of ending either life is an affront to basic goodness and flagrant violation of their rights as human persons.

The final exhibit within the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington contrasts the brave few who fought the genocide promoted by the Nazi regime with the millions of Europeans who stood by and did nothing. The implication is clear: we as human beings have a moral obligation to respect and protect the life and dignity of all of our fellow human beings. For this reason, Harvard Right to Life is joining thousands of others at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. today. They are fighting on the front line of the global war against girls, to ensure that millions of girls and boys never go “missing” again. When millions of babies are murdered and the very existence of the female sex becomes conditional, all other issues in American politics pale in comparison. On the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade which we marked yesterday, the battle lines between life and death couldn’t be clearer.

Derek J. Bekebrede ’13 is an economics concentrator in Winthrop House and the President of the Harvard Republican Club.

The Catholic Knight: The Shocking Conclusion About Genetic Homosexuality

2012-01-24T15:47:00.001-05:00

The Catholic Knight: The Shocking Conclusion About Genetic Homosexualit...: Natural Selection THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: We cannot choose our temptations in life, but we do have a choice about our actions. Those who s...

Honouring Scientist Priests

2012-01-23T21:42:00.000-05:00

Folks,

In this day and age of neo-paganism and post-modernism, it is commonly thought that Christians cannot truly be scientists, nor scientists Christians. The following essay by Father George W. Rutler should disabuse us of that incorrect notion held primary by people at opposite ends of the spectrum: secular humanist atheists and Protestant fundamentalists.

Honouring Scientist Priests

One side naively believes that science explains everything and the other just as naively believes that a very restrictive literal interpretation of the Bible explains everything. Both sides are wrong. Indeed, the best scientists will always and everywhere be Christian, and the worst are those who with great prejudice and malice deny the unexplained, the unseen, the supernatural. Furthermore, whether Truth is revealed by science or by Scripture, it nonetheless remains Truth which is not a thing but a person - the person Christ Jesus. There is no deviation between what true science reveals and what the Faith once delivered unto the Saints reveals. But the fullness of that Truth cannot be had without the Church as one's Mother. Just as God is our Father, so must the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church be our Mother. After all, She is the indefectible Bride of Christ!

Because the article at the Catholic Education Resource Center is copyright protected, the reader will have to left click his mouse cursor on the hyperlink embedded in the title above to access the document.

Yesterday's Prophetic Epistle Reading

2012-01-23T20:51:00.002-05:00

Folks,

Yesterday's epistle reading from the daily Scripture readings in the Roman Missal is quite prophetic and very appropriate for the dayand age in which we find ourselves.

I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out.
From now on, let those having wives act as not having them,
those weeping as not weeping,
those rejoicing as not rejoicing,
those buying as not owning,
those using the world as not using it fully.
For the world in its present form is passing away.
1st Corinthians 7:29-31

Interestingly, the Old Testament reading was from the prophet Jonah:

The word of the LORD came to Jonah, saying:
"Set out for the great city of Nineveh,
and announce to it the message that I will tell you."
So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh,
according to the LORD'S bidding.
Now Nineveh was an enormously large city;
it took three days to go through it.
Jonah began his journey through the city,
and had gone but a single day's walk announcing,
"Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed, "
when the people of Nineveh believed God;
they proclaimed a fast
and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.
When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way,
he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them;
he did not carry it out.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10

We need a prophet Jonah. But even if we had one, would we listen as the Ninevites did, let alone believe and repent?

Letter to Kathleen Sebelius and Michael Voris' Video

2012-01-23T20:08:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Kathleen Sebelius as President Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Resources has mandated that all religious institutions provide insurance coverage for abortifacients and contraception. She is also a self-described Catholic. I therefore wrote her the following letter at:

http://www.hhs.gov/feedback.html

Kathleen Sebelius,

For your support of abortion, abortifacients and contraception, you as a "Catholic" are an apostate and a heretic. St. John dealt with a woman exactly like you at the Church of Thyatira in Asia Minor 2000 years ago in Revelation 2:20-23. Read it. Go to confession and repent!

Revelation 2:20-23 states:

20* But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her on a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her doings; 23* and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve.

But this condition exists because our Bishops did NOT nip dissent and disobedience in the bud, just as Michael Voris describes tonight, and we have reaped the fruit of disobedience.

The government of Barack Hussein Obama has got to stopped at all costs no matter what. He and his Kathleen Sebelius are unutterably and godlessly evil.

We Told You So!

Religious Freedom

2012-01-23T18:11:00.000-05:00

Folks,

The following essays come from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

An Introduction to Religious Freedom
What Religious Freedom Means

Normally I wouldn't endorse an LDS point of view, but in this case, I am making an exception. I would like to thank a former co-worker and a friend of mine who is an LDS member and made me aware of these very important essays on Facebook. I therefore ask my readers, whether Roman Catholic, Orthodox Anglican, Protestant Evangelical or Pentecostal, to lay aside prejudice and preconceived notions, and read and study these important essays. The other day Pope Benedict XVI cited in his Ad Limina speech to visiting bishops from the US the errosion of religious liberty now occuring. In different language he explained much of the same thing as these LDS essays admonish us about. We who are of orthodox Christianity therefore don't have to agree with LDS members on matters theological, but even our right to disagree with each other in peace will be removed by the enforcement of a communistic equality mandated by the Regime in charge.

An Introduction to Religious Freedom

This article is a broad introduction for a forthcoming series of articles on religious freedom.

For many people in the world, there are few things more precious than freedom. Freedom — the power to live as one would choose — is one of the great sources of human dignity. Exercising freedom correctly is also one of the great responsibilities that humans hold. We continue to grapple with how to define our freedoms, how to understand them, and how they should be both cultivated and tempered. At the heart of these questions, we find one of the most fundamental of all freedoms: freedom of religion.

What is freedom of religion?

Contrary to what some may assume, religious freedom is not simply the freedom to worship or to believe the way one chooses, though these are essential parts of it. Neither is it just for religious people. Religious freedom is actually deeper, broader and more important than most realize.

At the most fundamental level, religious freedom is the human right to think, act upon and express what one deeply believes, according to the dictates of his or her moral conscience. In fact, religious freedom has always been understood in conjunction with “freedom of conscience” — the liberty to develop and hold moral convictions and to act accordingly. So while religious freedom encompasses the liberty of religious belief and devotion, it also extends well beyond that, incorporating the freedom to act — to speak freely in public, to live according to one’s moral principles and to advocate one’s own moral vision for society. The breadth of religious freedom and its relationship with freedom of conscience helps explain why religious freedom is important for everyone, not just for people of faith.

The United States of America has a long and exceptional tradition of freedom of religion, a virtue that was embedded in the original documents of the nation and extolled by its founders. Enshrined as the preeminent freedom in the U.S. Bill of Rights, religious freedom is the first among other essential liberties and is often referred to as the “first freedom.” It is characterized this way because it enables and protects other human freedoms, like freedom of speech. Indeed, the culture of liberty and peaceful democracy in the United States in large part emerged from its firm respect for religious freedom. Like the United States, many other nations have also come to acknowledge this most essential of liberties and made it a central premise of their own governments. The United Nations, in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and in many other compacts since then, has identified religious liberty as “a fundamental human right.”

Religious freedom and society

This fundamental right is indispensable in the diverse societies of the modern world, where the rights and interests of different parties often come into conflict. Since the potential for animosity is greatest where differences are most profound or where majorities dominate, freedom of religion is critical because it allows people with differing convictions about the deepest matters of truth to live together peacefully. A careful regard for this freedom protects all groups and individuals, including the most vulnerable, religious or not. When honored, religious freedom helps to avert violence and to mediate conflict.

Nations around the world that have nurtured religious liberty have witnessed its positive effects on society. While cases of religious extremism have blemished the public image of religion, scholars recognize that religion imparts vital benefits, including harmony and stability, to the societies that support it. Their scholarship consistently shows that religious people typically are more civically minded, more generous and more neighborly than their nonreligious counterparts. Empirical data also suggest that religiously free societies enjoy many other benefits, including higher levels of other freedoms, than do those where religion is repressed or disadvantaged. These benefits are additional reasons why religion should be free to flourish in society. [1]

Honoring religious freedom does not mean discarding other freedoms and social interests or subverting the law; religious freedom coexists with other legitimate interests in society. Government has a critical role to ensure public safety and to arbitrate the conflict of some rights with others. In the United States, we maintain a healthy independence of church and state, though we should not sequester religion’s moral influence from the nation’s public affairs. Religious freedom does not exclude other interests, but as the “first freedom,” it ought to be given due respect.

Mormons and religious freedom

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have great reason to revere religious liberty. From a history that at times has involved religious persecution, Mormons have a special appreciation for the freedom to speak and live according to their convictions and faith. Religious liberty, in fact, has been significant for Mormons since the beginning. Church founder Joseph Smith was a strong and generous proponent of this principle, and he recognized that it was critical for all parties to reciprocate in upholding it. “I am bold to declare before Heaven” he said, “that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbytarian [sic], a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination.”

In a 19th-century Mormon settlement, Smith also underlined the importance of religious freedom by introducing a city ordinance that guaranteed religious freedom for inhabitants of all faiths. Freedom of conscience and religion were incorporated into the Church’s Articles of Faith, which explain, “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” [2] Mormons are steadfastly committed to religious liberty and to its protection.

The mounting challenges to religious freedom

The condition of religious liberty and freedom of conscience in the United States is not as dire as it is in some areas of the world. Today, American people of faith and conscience do not generally face the physical violence or coercion sometimes experienced in other nations. However, freedom of religion and conscience in the United States are nonetheless at risk. Social and legal shifts are squeezing this liberty in new and deeply problematic ways. Americans who have long taken it for granted are being reminded of its value.

Challenges to religious freedom are emerging from many sources. Emerging advocacy for gay rights threatens to abridge religious freedom in a number of ways. Changes in health care threaten the rights of those who hold certain moral convictions about human life. These and other developments are producing conflict and beginning to impose on religious organizations and people of conscience. They are threatening, for instance, to restrict how religious organizations can manage their employment and their property. They are bringing about the coercion of religiously-affiliated universities, schools and social-service entities. They are also resulting in reprimands to individuals who act in line with their principles — from health practitioners and other professionals to parents. In these and in many other circumstances, we see how religious freedom and freedom of conscience are being subtly but steadily eroded. And of equal concern, the legal provisions emerging to safeguard these freedoms are often shallow — protecting these liberties only in the narrowest sense. In many aspects of public life, religious freedom and freedom of conscience are being drawn into conflicts that may suppress them.

The requirements of religious freedom

Given the depth of these conflicts and the controversy that they sometimes create, it is essential that all parties are civil as they negotiate these deeply important issues. This is only right, because the qualities of human dignity that are part of religious freedom also entitle all people to respect and to the expression of their views. Each group, including religious individuals and organizations, is responsible to state its views reasonably in order to contribute to meaningful discussion. As fellow citizens we should always speak courteously and show patience, understanding and empathy for those who disagree with us. We foster goodwill by giving it ourselves. [3]

Religious freedom, or “freedom of conscience,” has long been the bedrock of democracy. Long buried and taken for granted, it is now an elevated concern. There is need for Americans — Latter-day Saints included — to become reacquainted with this freedom and recommitted to it. A free society committed to religious freedom and freedom of conscience means that all its members are vigilant in protecting the freedoms of each other. Maintaining this most basic of human freedoms and the harmony it brings is imperative for us all.

[1] See Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (Simon and Schuster, 2010); Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke, The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

[2] See LDS Newsroom, “Selected Beliefs and Statements on Religious Freedom of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

[3] For further explanation of the commitment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to civil discourse, see LDS Newsroom, “The Mormon Ethic of Civility.”

What Religious Freedom Means

Religious freedom is a fundamental freedom that runs deeper and reaches farther than many realize.

This is Part 2 in a series of articles on religious freedom. For the series introduction, see “An Introduction to Religious Freedom.”

What Americans Know About Religious Freedom

Most Americans know that religious freedom is one of the most basic freedoms guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Frequently called the “first freedom,” freedom of religion is prominent in the American founding documents and gives rise to many other freedoms.

It is a fundamental human right — one that is now protected in the laws of many nations around the world and in global compacts like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Americans generally recognize and revere religious freedom as one of the unalienable freedoms they can claim.

Yet despite Americans’ awareness of religious freedom and a common perception that it is something of profound worth, research suggests that many Americans aren’t entirely clear about what it means. As a result, they also don’t fully understand why it is so critical and what it requires.

Studies do suggest that most Americans grasp the basic concept. For the average citizen, religious freedom is the right enjoyed by many in the free world to believe the things about God and about moral truth that they choose to believe, as well as the right to honor those beliefs in worship, if they want to. Intuitively, this makes sense. It would not be right for someone to be coerced in matters of religious belief or morality, or prohibited from worshipping according to their conscience.[1]

The Rest of Religious Freedom

But while these private and inward activities are vital parts of religious freedom, they do not encompass the whole of it. Religious freedom is actually much broader and deeper than this description suggests. More fundamentally, religious freedom — akin to “freedom of conscience” — is the human right to think and believe and also to express and act upon what one deeply believes according to the dictates of his or her moral conscience. This freedom applies to those who adhere to religious beliefs and those who do not.

The full picture of religious freedom reveals a deep liberty that goes much further than the right to believe as one chooses and that extends well beyond the right to private devotion in one’s place of worship or home. Indeed, religious freedom is not merely interior and private, to be enjoyed internally in our minds and in the privacy of personal life. It also incorporates the right to act according to one’s moral beliefs and convictions. And more than the freedom to worship privately, it is the right to to live one’s faith freely and in public.

Beliefs lead to actions, and freedom to believe, without the ability to act on that belief within the bounds of law, is no freedom at all. Most will agree that moral and religious beliefs don’t mean much if they don’t influence the way we live. In other words, we expect religious beliefs to influence the way that people behave, how they raise families and how they treat others. And indeed, religious freedom protects the right of individuals to act in line with their religious beliefs and moral convictions. Religious freedom does not merely enable us to contemplate our convictions; it enables us to execute them.

Because of this, religion cannot be confined to the sphere of private life. Certainly religious freedom protects the rights of individuals to observe their religion within the walls of private spaces. But religious and moral speech is also protected in the free air of the public domain. Whether in the town hall, in the newspaper column, on the Internet or elsewhere in the public sphere, people with moral convictions are entitled by their religious freedom to share those convictions, to reason and persuade, and to advocate their vision for society.

Research suggests, in fact, that religious people in the United States contribute to, enrich and improve society. They tend to demonstrate a disproportionate level of social virtues like neighborliness, generosity, service and civic engagement. Hence it is not only required by religious freedom for religious people and their voices to be welcome in the public sphere; it strengthens the civic fabric of society.[2]

Practicing and Protecting Religious Freedom

The fact that religious freedom is public and that it involves more than mere belief does not, of course, mean that it overwhelms all other considerations in society. The purpose of a democracy is to accommodate the diverse interests of all its members. Religious freedom and freedom of conscience are vital because they help sustain this system of peaceful coexistence, and they must be balanced against other considerations, such as the rights of others, the law and public safety. However, because these freedoms are so fundamental to human dignity, and because they contribute so much to society, they merit careful protection.

Such protection is the responsibility of all citizens who value their freedom and recognize that one’s own freedoms are only as secure as those of others. Protecting religious freedom also requires that it is understood fully and respected in its entirety. An inadequate understanding of religious freedom can be problematic if it leads, for example, to policy and laws that define it too narrowly and protect it too feebly. Ignorance of religious freedom can also, without care, allow for it to be slowly and subtly eroded, leaving this fundamental liberty exposed or compromised. A robust sense of religious freedom — an appreciation for its full meaning — is required for it to endure and to flourish.

[1]See “Survey Fact Sheet: What Americans Know About Religious Freedom,” American Religious Freedom Program, accessed January 14, 2012, http://religiousfreedom.org/research/detail/survey-fact-sheet-americans-views-on-religious-freedom; and“What It Means to Be an American,” Brookings Institute and Public Religion Research Institute, accessed January 14, 2012, http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/0906_american_attitudes.aspx.

[2]See Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010).

Letter to the US President and USCCB President Sharply Criticizes HHS Mandate

2012-01-22T09:14:00.001-05:00

Folks,

In the wake of Pope Benedict XVI's warning on January 19, 2012 over the erosion of religious liberal in these United States, and in the wake of Obama's mandate the very next day of compelling religious institutions (hospitals, parochial schools, colleges, universities, etc.) to provide insurance coverage for abortifacients, contraception and sterilization, I encourage one and all to view, hear and act on what Archbishop Timothy says in the video that can be located at the hyperlink embedded in the text below:

USCCB President Sharply Criticizes HHS Mandate

Prior to viewing (or even being aware of) this video, I had already written the following letter to "Contact the White House", and I stand by every word that I did write. We must oppose this diabolical and satanic man of evil exactly as St. John the Baptist opposed adulterous and incestuous King Herod. Liberalism and progressivism must follow Nazism and Communism into the trash heap of history.

Mr. President,

I despise and loathe you and all that you and your liberal Democrats stand for. You murder unborn babies. You sanctify the filth of homosexual sodomy. You deny Catholics the right of conscience. You are the most godless man of iniquity and depravity to yet be elected to the Presidency. You are a disgrace to the human race. You are filthy scum. You deserve what happened to King Manasseh in 2nd Chronicles chapter 33. You and your Jezebel, Kathleen Sebelius, will one day stand before the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ to answer for your crimes against humanity. May God have mercy on your soul.

U.S. Bishops Vow to Fight HHS Edict

2012-01-20T21:39:00.000-05:00

Folks,

The Bishops in the USCCB could have done much better to have prevented what is now inevitable: the liberal Democrats in power forcing Christian institutions to provide insurance coverage for abortion and contraception. But what is done is done. Pray, therefore, for our Bishops. The fight has begun, and it will eventually and inevitably escalate to martyrdom. There is no essential difference between Obama's Democrats and Robespierre's revolutionaries who slew tens of thousands of Roman Catholics by the guillotine during the bloody years of the French Revolution. Barack Hussein Obama murders babies now. History clearly shows that men like him from the time of Manasseh, King of Judah, onward never stop there.

U.S. Bishops Vow to Fight HHS Edict

January 20, 2012

WASHINGTON—The Catholic bishops of the United States called “literally unconscionable” a decision by the Obama Administration to continue to demand that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. Today's announcement means that this mandate and its very narrow exemption will not change at all; instead there will only be a delay in enforcement against some employers.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The cardinal-designate continued, “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable.It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."

The HHS rule requires that sterilization and contraception – including controversial abortifacients – be included among “preventive services” coverage in almost every healthcare plan available to Americans. “The government should not force Americans to act as if pregnancy is a disease to be prevented at all costs,” added Cardinal-designate Dolan.

At issue, the U.S. bishops and other religious leaders insist, is the survival of a cornerstone constitutionally protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics and all other Americans.

“This is nothing less than a direct attack on religion and First Amendment rights,” said Franciscan Sister Jane Marie Klein, chairperson of the board at Franciscan Alliance, Inc., a system of 13 Catholic hospitals. “I have hundreds of employees who will be upset and confused by this edict. I cannot understand it at all.”

Daughter of Charity Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, voiced disappointment with the decision. Catholic hospitals serve one out of six people who seek hospital care annually.

“This was a missed opportunity to be clear on appropriate conscience protection,” Sister Keehan said.

Cardinal-designate Dolan urged that the HHS mandate be overturned.

“The Obama administration has now drawn an unprecedented line in the sand,” he said. “The Catholic bishops are committed to working with our fellow Americans to reform the law and change this unjust regulation. We will continue to study all the implications of this troubling decision.”

Commentary on Gingrich, the Media Elite and Godless Democrats

2012-01-20T07:07:00.002-05:00

Update: a friend explained to me that there is one GOP person whom publicity of Newt Gingrich's marital failures would benefit immensely, and that is the very person against whom Obasma would prefer to run: Mitt Romney.

Folks,

There is excellent commentary below on Newt Gingrich, the Liberal Media Elite and the Godless Democrats who use Gingrich’s second wife to accuse Gingrich of something that they in their diabolical sexual perversion:

Capitalism, Mistresses and Democracy by Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor
Gingrich, Media Bias and the Mainstream Media as Morality Police By Donald R. McClarey at The American Catholic

Imagine the people who advocate the sanctification of homosexual filth and the preservation as legal the murder of the unborn, now daring to grill over an open pit Newt Gingrinch about his marital failures! But nary a word can we find about Barack Hussein Obama's past indiscretions. Even his college transcripts are sealed, his former girlfriends before marriage non-existant and his continued problem with smoking cigarettes unpublicized (though if it were George Bush or any other Republican, we would hear no end of it).

Gingrich Wins The GOP Debate In The First Five Minutes

Why I Love Religion, And Love Jesus || Spoken Word

2012-01-19T17:44:00.001-05:00

Why I Love Religion, And Love Jesus || Spoken Word

A response to the video "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus". The purpose of this video is to do a response from a Catholic perspective, in a spirit of love, but also with a spirit of passion to defend our Mother the Church. The things that are said are not meant to offend, but we do have to be direct about what we believe and what we stand for.

The Pope Warns of Threat to Religious Liberty in the United States

2012-01-19T17:38:00.001-05:00

Folks,

The Pope warns of the grave threat to religious liberty that now exists in these United States. The cause (while unspoken) is obvious: liberalism, progressivism, democracy (two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner), atheism, humanism, secularism, abortion and homosexual militancy. Until Barack Hussein Obama is removed from office, this problem will grow worse and worse. Retaliation against persons of religious conscience will start with loss of jobs. Then it will escalate to loss of medical care. The descent to evil will continue with imprisonment until final, the ultimate solution - Maximilien Robespierre's guillotine - is implemented. Democrats will do this. Being controlled of Satan, they have no choice. Martyrdom will come. God will have the unprofitable branches pruned from His tree exactly as Romans 11 describes it.

Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Bishops of the United States of America on Their "Ad Limina" Visit
Consistory Hall
Thursday, 19 January 2012

Dear Brother Bishops,

I greet all of you with fraternal affection and I pray that this pilgrimage of spiritual renewal and deepened communion will confirm you in faith and commitment to your task as Pastors of the Church in the United States of America. As you know, it is my intention in the course of this year to reflect with you on some of the spiritual and cultural challenges of the new evangelization.

One of the most memorable aspects of my Pastoral Visit to the United States was the opportunity it afforded me to reflect on America’s historical experience of religious freedom, and specifically the relationship between religion and culture. At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good, and thus about the conditions for human flourishing. In America, that consensus, as enshrined in your nation’s founding documents, was grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principles deriving from nature and nature’s God. Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such.

For her part, the Church in the United States is called, in season and out of season, to proclaim a Gospel which not only proposes unchanging moral truths but proposes them precisely as the key to human happiness and social prospering (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 10). To the extent that some current cultural trends contain elements that would curtail the proclamation of these truths, whether constricting it within the limits of a merely scientific rationality, or suppressing it in the name of political power or majority rule, they represent a threat not just to Christian faith, but also to humanity itself and to the deepest truth about our being and ultimate vocation, our relationship to God. When a culture attempts to suppress the dimension of ultimate mystery, and to close the doors to transcendent truth, it inevitably becomes impoverished and falls prey, as the late Pope John Paul II so clearly saw, to reductionist and totalitarian readings of the human person and the nature of society.

With her long tradition of respect for the right relationship between faith and reason, the Church has a critical role to play in countering cultural currents which, on the basis of an extreme individualism, seek to promote notions of freedom detached from moral truth. Our tradition does not speak from blind faith, but from a rational perspective which links our commitment to building an authentically just, humane and prosperous society to our ultimate assurance that the cosmos is possessed of an inner logic accessible to human reasoning. The Church’s defense of a moral reasoning based on the natural law is grounded on her conviction that this law is not a threat to our freedom, but rather a “language” which enables us to understand ourselves and the truth of our being, and so to shape a more just and humane world. She thus proposes her moral teaching as a message not of constraint but of liberation, and as the basis for building a secure future.

The Church’s witness, then, is of its nature public: she seeks to convince by proposing rational arguments in the public square. The legitimate separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation.

In the light of these considerations, it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

Here once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society. The preparation of committed lay leaders and the presentation of a convincing articulation of the Christian vision of man and society remain a primary task of the Church in your country; as essential components of the new evangelization, these concerns must shape the vision and goals of catechetical programs at every level.

In this regard, I would mention with appreciation your efforts to maintain contacts with Catholics involved in political life and to help them understand their personal responsibility to offer public witness to their faith, especially with regard to the great moral issues of our time: respect for God’s gift of life, the protection of human dignity and the promotion of authentic human rights. As the Council noted, and I wished to reiterate during my Pastoral Visit, respect for the just autonomy of the secular sphere must also take into consideration the truth that there is no realm of worldly affairs which can be withdrawn from the Creator and his dominion (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 36). There can be no doubt that a more consistent witness on the part of America’s Catholics to their deepest convictions would make a major contribution to the renewal of society as a whole.

Dear Brother Bishops, in these brief remarks I have wished to touch upon some of the pressing issues which you face in your service to the Gospel and their significance for the evangelization of American culture. No one who looks at these issues realistically can ignore the genuine difficulties which the Church encounters at the present moment. Yet in faith we can take heart from the growing awareness of the need to preserve a civil order clearly rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, as well as from the promise offered by a new generation of Catholics whose experience and convictions will have a decisive role in renewing the Church’s presence and witness in American society. The hope which these “signs of the times” give us is itself a reason to renew our efforts to mobilize the intellectual and moral resources of the entire Catholic community in the service of the evangelization of American culture and the building of the civilization of love. With great affection I commend all of you, and the flock entrusted to your care, to the prayers of Mary, Mother of Hope, and cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of grace and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Are Pentecostals and Evangelicals Really Adherents to Sola Scriptura?

2012-01-17T10:31:00.001-05:00

Folks,

In response to the recent posts on the almost worshipful reverence with which Evangelicals and Pentecostals treat the Bible, a reader observed the following:

The Bible was never meant to be read by itself, apart from the work of the Church. Indeed, how can you understand many parts of the Bible without someone to teach you?

For this reason, 2nd Peter 1:20-21 states:

First of all, you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Now who has the authority to interpret Sacred Scripture? The answer is given in Matthew 16:19-20:

I will give you [the Apostles and their successors] the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Indeed, St. Paul in 1st Timothy 3:14-15 makes it clear that the pillar and foundation of truth is NOT the Bible, but the Church:

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, if I am delayed, you may know how to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

St. Paul also makes it clear in 2nd Thessalonians 2:15 that there is more to the Word of God than just the written Sacred Scripture:

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

John 21:25 also indicates this:

But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Now the question to be asked is this: do Evangelicals and Pentecostals who claim the validity of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura actually adhere to this doctine? Indeed, one might ask that when one speaks in tongues (as Charismatics are wont to do) and another interprets under the impetus of the Holy Spirit, then has the Word of God been uttered? To say "yes" means that there is a Word of God outside of Sola Scriptura. To say "no" is to deny that God (i.e., the Holy Spirit) has spoken. So if then it is acceptable, right and correct for the Holy Spirit to prompt men to prophesy or to speak in tongues and interpret, thereby giving voice to the Word of God outside of Sacred Scripture, then why is it not acceptable, right and correct for the successors of the Apostles to speak through Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church as the Holy Spirit gives them impetus, for was it not to these men who (by the laying on of hands can trace their succession back to the original twelve Disciples) to whom Jesus Christ gave the keys of the Kingdom of God? Perhaps it would be well for these people to actually read something outside their small, provincial point of view for a change and see that the Church started not in 1914 but in 33 AD, that the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit determined what would be in the Bible and what would not be, and that the Church reveals the Word of God (whether Tradition or Scripture) to all men:

Dei Verbum

Why Men Don't Go To Mass

2012-01-17T06:34:00.000-05:00

Folks,

It's about time we men took the Church back from the neo-Nazi lesbian feminists and the effeminate homosexual militants of the lavender brigade.

Why Men Don't Go To Mass

Quote Cited by Canon Paul Castellano

2012-01-16T21:31:00.001-05:00

My honor is my life,
Both grow in one;
Take honor from me,
and my life is done.

Richard II

What a shame more people and leaders DON'T actually LIVE this!

Obedience

2012-01-16T21:23:00.000-05:00

Folks,

I encourage one and all to take 14 minutes of time to listen to the late Father Al Lauer's homily on today's Scripture readings from 1st Samuel 15:16-23; Psalm 50:8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23; and Mark 2:18-22. Just left click your mouse cursor on the hyperlinked text below.

Obedience

Saturday's post, "Doing the Right Thing in the Right Way", goes right along with this.

Reader Comment on "Do Evangelicals and Pentecostals Worship the Bible?"

2012-01-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

All this was driven home to me about 14 years ago when I was working at a small company owned and staffed by Oneness Pentecostals. There came a day when I was describing a book of regulations that govern the construction industry and I referred to it as the bible regarding this particular subject. The mother of one of the owners happened to be standing nearby and I was, for lack of a better word, attacked and accused of blasphemy for using the word bible apart from the scriptures. I tried to explain to her that bible really only means book and that using it as I did really honors the Scriptures by comparing this rule book to them as far as authority inside the industry is concerned. She'd have none of it. I thought that I was about to have a prayer circle wound around me and a laying on of hands to cure me of my evil ways. That, or I was about to be burned at the stake!

And the very first thing that came to my mind, and the impression that still remains, is that this women was putting the Bible in the place only God should reside in. I started paying attention to other Protestants and noticed exactly the same thing, maybe not to the same extreme but there none the less.

This is a significant part of the journey I took back to the Catholic Church. One of the things that had always seemed so illogical to me, and frankly off putting, about religion was my perception that Christians based everything on the words of a book. In my mind I couldn't see any difference between the Bible, the Koran or any other number of holy texts. They all seemed to claim divine inspiration but the reasoning used was circular. What the hell, if the phone book claimed to be inspired I'm sure we'd find a group that followed it, too. Or at least their own individual interpretation of it. And there's the other problem I kept running across. If, logically, truth cannot contradict truth then why did I find SOOO many that claimed to believe in this book with so many various belief systems or truths, many of which contradicted the others?

Fortunately, being a bit of a history geek, I was able to go in search of the historical Jesus and the organization he left behind. And I really didn't have to use the Bible very much to follow the trail. Just as you cited above, there are many, many extra-scriptural sources that can lead one to understand that, while the Bible has its place and is truly the Word of God, it is not and never was meant to be read in a vacuum. The Old Testament Jews didn't read it (at least the part of it they had) that way and the 21st century Christian shouldn't, either.

The Bible is a tool and "All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice..." (2 Timothy 3:16). Note that scripture is profitable - not sufficient. It is not God, nor does it carry the power to bring one completely to salvation. Other tools are required, tools such as the sacraments, the priesthood that offers them and the tradition that supports them. It's a rather large package, all working towards a common goal which is directed here on earth by God's organization, the Catholic Church. While it's possible to find salvation outside Holy Mother Church's guiding and protective arms (in extremis) it is not the normal path designed by the Father. And it's a whole lot more difficult. And in the end, if you make it to heaven you're going to be a Catholic.

Thy Word - Do Evangelicals and Pentecostals Worship the Bible?

2012-01-16T10:11:00.000-05:00

Folks,

This morning I was listening to a song by Amy Grant called "Thy Word," the lyrics for which are provided below:

[Chorus:]
Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet
And a light unto my path
Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet
And a light unto my path
When I feel afraid, think I've lost my way
Still You're there right beside me
Nothing will I fear as long as you are near
Please be near me to the end
[Chorus]
I will not forget your love for me
And yet my heart forever is wandering
Jesus be my guide, hold me to Your side
And I will love You to the end
[Chorus]
Nothing will I fear as long as you are near
Please be near me to the end
[Chorus]
And a light unto my path
You're the light unto my path

I really like this song a great deal because (since my return to the Church) the Bible has always been near and dear to my heart (as it should be). But a thought occurred to me: don't Evangelicals and Pentecostals, with their non-Biblical emphasis on Sola Scriptura, end up worshipping the Bible just as they incorrectly accuse Catholics of worshipping the Blessed Virgin Mary? Now yes, Catholic Christians (and here I include Roman Catholics, Orthodox Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox) should and do revere (that is, respect and hold in special honor) the Sacred Scriptures as the written Word of God. But we don't sing songs to the Bible; we sing songs to God. Of course, Ms. Grant does exactly that in her song, with which nothing seems amiss. But the question is this: if we are to honor God's Word, then why should we not honor the Mother who brought God's Word into the world?

A week or so ago I was challenged by a person near and dear to me about the primacy Catholic Christians hold for God's Sacred Word. The accusation was obvious: "People of your denomination don't read or believe in the Bible." I wrote a long letter in response, but then thought better about revealing it to this person who is 81 years old and of failing eyesight. To argue this point with an individual who has been thoroughly propagandized for a score of years less than a century with heretical teaching would avail neither of us anything. Rather, such an argument would destroy all good will and love between us. Nevertheless, the essential content of the letter should discussed without violating the either the anonymity or the confidentiality of the intended recipient.

[The other night] something greatly bothered me [in our discussion on the telephone] which I think should be addressed in all Christian charity. Specifically, it was the statement that the Catholic faith has not encouraged the reading and study of Sacred Scripture. Now yes, I realize that due to differences in our mutual theological beliefs, we will not always see eye to eye on different matters of faith, but I am hopeful that we can agree on the historical truth of the matter. Indeed, we both recognize the primacy and centrality of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

...my long-winded essay below is not a criticism of any specific Protestant denomination. Indeed, there will be Pentecostals, Nazarenes, Baptists and Presbyterians in heaven along with Catholics, Orthodox and Anglicans. So if we are all to get along together for an eternity, then we had better get along with each other in the here and now. Of course, by that same token, hell will sadly be filled with people of the same description. So we see that what gets a person into heaven (or hell, for that matter) is not the person’s religious denomination. As Scripture says, “By grace through faith are you saved” (Ephesians 2:5), and “He who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16).

Now I fully agree that without a doubt our separated Evangelical and Pentecostal brethren have a greater degree of knowledge of Sacred Scripture than most Catholics do. We who are Catholics would thus do well to emulate the zeal and fervor that our Protestant cousins have for the Word of God. But our failure in this area is mostly due to the liberalism that crept into the Church after the Vatican II Ecumenical Council in the 1960s. That is not the fault of the Council itself, but of certain small-minded people inflated with their own ego who replaced the true Gospel of conversion and repentance with a false gospel of social justice, the common good and peace at any price. Sadly, that condition afflicts not just the Catholic Church. Indeed, just because some people (in Protestantism and Catholicism) failed the Gospel does not mean that the Gospel itself is in error. And just because some people failed the Church does not mean that the Church is not the indefectible Bride of Christ. By the way, “indefectible” means “without defect”. That reflects what Revelation 19:8 describes as the Bride of Christ being clothed with fine linen, bright and pure, “which is the righteous deeds of the saints.”

So yes, I agree that not all Catholic clergy have promoted the reading and study of the Bible, and that many Catholics would do well to learn from our separated Protestant brethren. But as the discussion below will demonstrate, our Popes have always encouraged faithful Christians in their Bible studies. Sadly, however, the Catholic Church has some disobedient clergy (just as many Protestant denominations do). I cannot make excuses for this. I can only explain that this isn’t what the Popes (who are the successors of St. Peter) ever wanted. A few examples from history demonstrate this.

In the year 1893 (more the 100 years ago) Pope Leo XIII issued his encyclical entitled “Providentissimus Deus” (which means “Most Provident God” – Latin still remains the official language of the Vatican City State and all official Church documents are issued in Latin and then translated into English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, and the other modern languages). This encyclical was specifically about the study of Sacred Scripture. In this document Pope Leo XIII encouraged the Christian faithful everywhere to read and study the Bible.

Then in 1943, during the midst of Word War II when Benito Mussolini was the Fascist leader of Italy, threatening the Vatican where the Pope reigned, Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical entitled “Divino Afflante Spiritu” which means “Inspired by the Divine Spirit.” In this document Pope Pius XII repeated the encouragement of his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, 50 years before: that the faithful would read and study Sacred Scripture. And he did this while being threatened by Mussolini and Hitler. (By the way, he did more to save Jews from Hitler’s holocaust than almost anyone else had done in World War II, but that is a fact of history for another discussion.)

Finally, in 1965 Pope Paul VI issued another encyclical entitled “Dei Verbum” which means “The Word of God.” He repeated (for a third time in less than 100 years) that faithful Christians must read and study Sacred Scripture. Oh yes, all three of these encyclicals – the first in 1893, the second in 1943 and the third in 1965 – dealt with a lot more than just encouraging Catholic Christians to read and study the Bible. But this essential point remains: Popes throughout history have always encouraged Christians everywhere to embrace the Sacred Word of God. Frankly, people who state otherwise are making false claims perhaps out of ignorance at best, but surely out of malice at worst. No, that is not a reflection on you, but rather on those who have misinformed you.

Furthermore, the Church has always provided a translation of the Sacred Scriptures in the popular languages that people grew up with and used, whether they be German, Spanish, English or some other tongue. For English-speaking Catholics, that process began in earnest with the Douay-Rheims Bible translated into English in the 1500s (before the King James Protestant version came out). Now yes, the Protestant Geneva and Bishops' Bibles preceded that by a few decades. But remember that this was a time in history when very few people could either read or write, almost none of the general populace had any books, and the printing press was a new invention. Indeed, the Monarch of England (not the Catholic Church) suppressed these English translations at first (until King James had his own translation done in 1611 to reflect his political biases). Queen Elizabeth I (his predecessor and like him, a Protestant and the self-made head of the Church of England) did more to suppress the Bible than any Catholic ever did. In fact, the person who gave us the King James Version was himself a hardened persecutor of the Puritans and any others who disagreed with his particular brand of Protestantism. That is why a group of Puritans fled England to Holland, and from there sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to Plymouth, Massachusetts to become our Pilgrims [and they used the Geneva Bible, NOT the King James Version]. They were trying to escape, not the Catholic Church, but the Church of England (though of course they had little in common with either Church).

Today, in contrast to this turbulent period of history, there are many Catholic and Protestant translations into English, thanks to advances in technology and thanks to a lot more cooperation between Catholics and Protestants. We no longer try to burn each other at the stake. Yet this point remains: the accusation that the Church used Latin to hide the Bible from the people is a false one and people who spread that lie around are being unkind and vicious. They should look to King James for the source of religious hatred and bias. Indeed, these kinds of people have a personal prejudice against anything Catholic for no other reason than the word “Catholic.” That’s sad.

Now I am going to speak a little bit about Latin. First, I won’t write prayers in Latin to you any longer since you do not understand the language. Your wishes should and will be respected.

Second, the Sacred Scriptures were written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, not English, and the first language that they were translated into was Latin. In fact, we know this from historical records at the city of Pompeii in Italy. Remember that in 79 AD that city had been destroyed by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius. In the resulting debris and ash that the volcano produced to bury that city, archaeologists have found stone tablets inscribed with the Lord’s Prayer in Latin. So we know that Christians have been using Latin ever since that time. To simply throw out those prayers in that language because they are not in our popular tongue is an insult to our Christian history. I routinely pray the Lord’s Prayer in Latin because that is what St. Paul himself did when he was Caesar’s prisoner in Latin Rome in about 60 AD. The words that I am privileged to speak are the same words that he spoke to the first Christians in the city of Rome. If I could speak the Lord’s Prayer in the Greek of the New Testament, then I would.

We should remember that Christianity did not start in 1521 AD when Martin Luther tacked up his 95 theses on the door of a church in Worms, Germany, nor did it start in 1914 when the Assemblies of God were incorporated. (No, that is not a criticism of the Assemblies of God.) The Church started in about 33 AD when Jesus told Peter (whose name means “rock” in the original Greek and Latin), “Thou art rock and upon this rock I shall build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail.” The Church therefore started when Greek and Latin were the languages of the Roman Empire. Since that time, for almost 2000 years of history, the language used by the Church in the West has been Latin, and by the Church in the East Greek. Indeed, it is sacred and august to hear the prayers that the Apostles and their successors, the Early Church Fathers, said in these languages (Greek and Latin). “Kyrie Eleison, Christe eleison” means in the Greek, “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.” And “Domine Iesus, miserere nobis et totius mundi” means “Lord Jesus, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” These are the very words that the Apostles and the Early Church Fathers who succeeded them uttered. We say them at every Mass. Surely no holier words can be said, [for thus do] the words of the tax collector in Luke 18:13 come to mind.

Now yes, I do agree 100% that the Sacred Scriptures should always and everywhere be made available in the popular tongue. Not everyone understands Latin or Greek, or are able to learn them. So the Church has always provided translations. Even back in the first four centuries after Christ visited us on Earth in bodily form, the Church had translated the Scriptures that it had into Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopian, etc. By 500 AD the Bible had been translated into over 500 different languages. By 995 AD the first English translation of portions of the New Testament was made. The Church therefore never hid the Bible as some misled people falsely claim.

Now remember that it was the Church who determined under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit what books would be in the Canon of Sacred Scripture and what would not be. In fact, there was no Christian Bible (as we know it) at the time of the Apostles in the first century AD. It had not been written yet. The Apostles used the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament and it was not until about 400 AD when Saint Jerome translated the Scriptures into Latin that the Church determined the Canon of Scripture, that is to say, the Old and New Testaments. Some books that you [as a Pentecostal] probably never heard of, like the “Shepherd of Hermas” and the “Protoevangelium of Saint John”, were left out. Some books were fought over, like “Revelation” and “Hebrews”. But eventually the Church decided on what would be in the Bible and what would not be. So when some people claim that they are “only Bible” or “Sola Scriptura” people, then let them remember that if it were not for the Catholic Church, they would have no Bible.

By the way, the Old Testament version of Sacred Scripture that the Apostles used was the Greek Septuagint which included seven Sacred books that Martin Luther and John Calvin in the 1500s removed from the Canon. In fact, Martin Luther wanted to also remove the Epistle of James and the Book of Revelation from the New Testament, but his followers wisely stopped him. These two men did this on their [own] recognizance in defiance of both the Holy Spirit and the Church. Therefore, the claim that some people make in being “only Bible” people is inaccurate at best because they are missing these seven books. These books include Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach, Wisdom, and 1st and 2nd Maccabees. They were not added to the Canon at the Ecumenical Council of Trent in the 1500s as some of today’s Protestants claim. Rather, that Church Council simply affirmed what the Church had already determined under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in 400 AD. And only the Church, to whom Jesus gave the keys of the Kingdom to bind and loose as Matthew 16:19 describes, has this authority.

...you have a right to know what the historical truth is. Are there a lot of faults with people in the Catholic Church? You bet there are, and I can be their biggest critic (as well as a most faulty one)! Jesus came to heal the sick, not the healthy, so it should come as no surprise to us that the Catholic Church has a lot of sick people in Her bosom. But to claim that the Church hid the Bible in Latin and did not want the people to know or understand Sacred Scripture is not just false. It is downright hurtful. Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessors, Pope John Paul II, Pope John Paul I and Pope Paul VI, would be aghast and mortified to have the Bible hid from the people. So would Pope Leo XIII in 1893 and Pope Pius XII in 1943. And all these men of God who sat in the seat of St. Peter would be even more afflicted to learn that some (not all) in the Catholic clergy contributed to this. Sometimes the worst enemies of the Church are Her own clergymen, but then again, Christ came for the sick, not the healthy.

I do not intend to convert you to the Catholic faith. But I do hope that now you see history as it is and not as some people have revised it to be. Yes, the Church did make grievous errors when it came to indulgences and the other things that Martin Luther pointed out in his 95 theses in 1521 AD. But the Church formed the Council of Trent and corrected these abuses. By the way, there is little difference between the abuse of indulgences in the 1500s and the prosperity gospel of certain Protestant televangelists who “promise wealth and ease for just a few dollars, please.” This isn’t just a Catholic sin.

In spite of this, we have to remember Jesus’ promise: the gates of hell shall not prevail and that prophecy has always been proven true. The Church has withstood invaders from without, and heretics and apostates from within for 2000 years. Yet She still stands as the indefectible (that is, without defect) Bride of Christ. Indeed, we cannot claim God as our Father without the Church as our Mother. That’s why while He hung on the Cross, Jesus gave the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Beloved Disciple, and him to Her as John 19:26-27 tells us.

I hope you understand that none of this constitutes a criticism of you, but a clarification of what the historical truth is. I am saddened by the lies that certain self-proclaimed preachers spread around (and yes, sometimes they are Catholic, too). Intellectually I became convince of the Catholic faith because of the writings of the early Church Fathers like Irenaeus, Polycarp, Clement, Ignatius of Antioch, and Justin Martyr. These were the men whom the Apostles and their disciples taught. It became apparent from the writings of these men that the Church which Jesus instituted has always been from the very beginning Catholic (which means “Universal” in Greek, for “Catholic” is a Greek word). They celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass exactly as it is celebrated today. They believed that the Holy Eucharist (which means “Thanksgiving” in the original Greek that the Apostles used) is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Blessed Lord and Savior. They took the words of Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse in John chapter 6 literally. That was the New Testament Church and that’s what we should be.

...I...love our Blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and His One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. So when I hear things that simply are not so, then I have to do something to correct the problem. St. Peter said in one of his epistles to always be ready to give a defense of the faith. Unfortunately, I have not always followed his advice, and made a lot of mistakes in my life. If, however, I have learned anything from your life, then it is this: without Jesus front and center, I am doomed. A failed marriage and estrangement from my children are the fruits of rebellion. If I had obeyed Holy Mother Church in following Jesus as my Savior and Lord, then perhaps I would not be in the fix that I am currently in. But I ignored [such] exhortations to my detriment. I do not intend to do that again. Jesus Himself in Matthew 16 founded one Church, and I will do my best to be obedient. I will make mistakes along the way, but at least I can try.

Prayer Request

2012-01-15T20:56:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Please pray for Michele, the mother of one of my former students, Abby. They live in a different part of North Carolina. Michele has contracted a rather virulent form of some kind of virus that has been making its way through their family.

Dear Jesus, Divine Physician and Healer of the sick,
we turn to you in this time of illness.
O dearest comforter of the troubled,
alleviate our worry and sorrow with your gentle love,
and grant us the grace and strength to accept this burden.
Dear God, we place our worries in your hands.
We place our sick under your care
and humbly ask that you restore your servant, Michele, to health again.
Above all, grant us the grace to acknowledge your will
and know that whatever you do, you do for the love of us.
Amen.

Avē Marīa, grātiā plēna, Dominus tēcum.
Benedicta tū in mulieribus,
et benedictus frūctus ventris tuī, Iēsus.
Sāncta Marīa, Māter Deī,
ōrā prō nōbīs peccātōribus,
nunc et in hōrā mortis nostrae.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritūs Sancti
Āmēn.

Doing the Right Thing in the Right Way

2012-01-14T21:36:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Father Rodriguez in his dispute with Bishop Ochoa has issued a statement detailing all the wonderful things that he has done both spiritually and temporally at the Parish of San Juan Bautista in the Diocese of El Paso. A copy of this statement may be found at The American Catholic blog site:

Fr. Michael Rodriguez Responds to Bishop Ochoa

As was asked in the comment box over there:

Did Jesus give Pontius Pilate a list of reasons – all the good spiritual and temporal works he had done – for why he shouldn’t be crucified?

There is little doubt in my mind that Bishop Ochoa is a flaming lavender liberal Democrat, but should Father Rodriguez even defend himself knowing that Christ (who was always right) never did so.

The following explanation was also provided over there and at Colleen Hammond's blog:

...there is something essential and primary that we need to look at in all of this. The suggestion that perhaps because Father Rodriguez’s intentions were good, his financial errors can be overlooked is incorrect (no, I am NOT accusing him of fiscal malfeasance – I am using this as an object lesson). I learned this from the industry in which I work: commercial nuclear power. In my job it is not sufficient that I do the right thing, but in the wrong way, nor is it sufficient that I do in the right way the wrong thing. I am required to always and everywhere do the right thing in the right way. If I do the right thing in the wrong way, then my failure calls into question before our Federal regulator, the US NRC, whether I even did the right thing in the first place to begin with. And if I obey all the regulations, codes and standards, but have done the wrong thing, then I call into question the engineering practices, procedures and programs that I used which I had claimed were the right way: are they really the right way when the result that I achieved is wrong?

Now of course everyone will say, "Hey, Ioannes, you deal with the fires of Creation in nuclear reactor cores, and what you do can affect hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives, so of course you always have to do the right thing in the right way." While that statement makes unfairly grandiose what impact my work can actually have (I am really not nearly that important), my response to this is simple, "Why wouldn't the same be true of the oversight being provided for people’s eternal souls." Using the excuse that money has nothing to do with that is to ignore what St. Paul wrote in one of his epistles, "The love of money is the root of all evil." As a nuclear engineer (my actual job title is longer and less comprehensible) I don’t have the luxury of telling a US NRC inspector (or even my own boss at my current job) that "I did the right thing." The inspector could bring civil or even criminal charges against me regardless of the happy outcome I achieved, and my boss would surely bounce my behind on the pavement outside my place of work. And if I had sequestered 31 thousand dollars outside of my department’s allocated funds, or made my mother a beneficiary of company funds (as Father Rodriguez is accused of having done), then you can bet criminal charges would be levied and I would be officially barred by the US NRC from ever working at a commercial nuclear power plant ever again. By the way, that has happened to some now unhappy jokers who thought they could play fast and loose with the regulations – you don’t want your name and photo on the inspection enforcement page at the web site of the US NRC.

As Catholic Christians we are always and everywhere required to do the right thing in the right way. No excuses. No rationalizations. No "Bill Clinton" waffling.

Logic We Can Believe In - Thought of the Day from My Older Brother

2012-01-14T14:15:00.000-05:00

Folks,

My older brother's submission for the Thought of the Day is provided in the embedded picture. I concur wholeheartedly.

Bishop Ochoa versus Fr. Michael Rodriguez

2012-01-13T20:14:00.001-05:00

Folks,

"Bishop Armando Ochoa of the Diocese of El Paso has raised serious accusations against Fr. Michael Rodriguez, the brave priest who stood up for the sanctity of marriage at the El Paso city council, by filing a legal action against Fr. Rodriguez due to alleged financial misconduct."

More may be read here:

Bp. Ochoa’s Legal Action Against Fr. Michael Rodriguez (UPDATED)

Former El Paso, TX Bishop Accuses Fr. Rodriguez and Takes Legal Action

As I posted elsewhere, we should be careful to also read the actual law suit that the Bishop filed:

Court Documents: Bp. Ochoa Lawsuit Filed Against Fr. Rodriguez

Bishop Ochoa Press Release 2012 01 11

A commenter at The American Catholic blog site observed the following:

"...some were serious complaints about missing funds ($31,000 worth) and making his mother a potential beneficiary of $200,000 in parish funds."

Perhaps I am overcome with cynicism and depression, but this may actually be a case of a two corrupt clerics, one a liberal Democrat looking for any opportunity to slam conservativism and orthodoxy, and the other a defrauder and embezzler hiding behind the cloak of conservativism and orthodoxy.

Now yes, I agree with what Saint Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 6:1-8:

1* When one of you has a grievance against a brother, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, matters pertaining to this life! 4 If then you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who are least esteemed by the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no man among you wise enough to decide between members of the brotherhood, 6 but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7* To have lawsuits at all with one another is defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 But you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren.

Let us therefore be very careful because what little facts we do have seem to indicate two fraudulent parties.

Sin

2012-01-12T22:22:00.000-05:00

Folks,

I encourage everyone to read today's Scripture Readings for the Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time (1st Samuel 4:1-11, Psalm 44:10-11, 14-15, 24-25, and Mark 1:40-45), and then to listen to the 14 minute audio recording of the late Father Al Lauer's homily on the same:

Sin

What I find particularly noteworthy is how in 1st Samuel chapter 4 the corrupt sons of the prophet Eli (that is, Hophni and Phinehas) brought the Ark of the Covenant into the battle against the Philistines to ensure a victory, but God allowed the Philistines to overpower the Israelites and thereby capture the Ark. This happened specifically because of the sin of those who were supposed to be God's holy prophets and priests. We have the same problem among the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church today. Yet God does not change. In order to clean up the sin that Pope Paul VI had once described as Satan's smoke wafting into the Church, He will allow today what He allowed 3000 years ago.

Pray for our Deacons, Priests and Bishops lest the worst does happen.

Confusing the Faithful

2012-01-12T21:08:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Cardinal George needs our prayers. What Michael Voris points out in a statement that the Cardinal recently made regarding homosexuality is most disconcerting:

Confusing the Faithful

"...it [The Church] does encourage the faithful to 'respect everyone'. The question is, 'Does respect mean that we have to change our teaching?' That's an ongoing discussion, of course... I still go back to the fact that these are people we know and love and are part of our families. That's the most important point right now."

The Cardinal is incorrect. No on-going discussion can ever change what Sacred Scripture states, and the most important point is the salvation of the souls of homosexual deviants from the fires of hell. We cannot pretend to love them with wishy-washy hand-ringing. Rather, we need to hear and teach the truth:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. 1st Corinthians 6:9-10.

Again, we need to pray very hard for all of our bishops, especially for Cardinal George.

Lord Jesus, please grant your servants wisdom and courage. We entrust them to the Maternal protection of your Blessed Mother. We humbly ask this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen!

Immigration, Politics, Bishops

2012-01-12T20:50:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Michael Voris correctly describes the difference between taking a stand on issues that involve intrinsic evil (e.g., the filth of homosexual sodomy and the infanticide of the unborn) and supporting flawed Marxist social engineering policies (e.g., illegal immigration of Hispanics):

Immigration, Politics, Bishops

Now when the Bishops come out unequivocally against intrinsic evil such as homosexual sodomy and abortion, then we are obliged and required to render them every support. But when the Bishops offer opinions and policy statements on purely political issues such as immigration reform, then we are allowed to disagree in good conscience. However, what is particularly upsetting is when the Bishops clothe their opinions on purely political matters as essential points of the Church's teaching on social justice in such encyclicals as Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, Centesimus Annus, and other similar ones. They are using the talking points of the Democratic Party which is the party of sexual depravity and the murder of the unborn. How one can expect social justice for immigratnts from a political organization that openly supports immorality and denies justice to the unborn is unfathomable, but too many Bishops in the USCCB do it time and again. That doesn't mean that the Republican Party is the party of God. Rather, it means that the Democratic Party is the party of the Devil. The Body of Christ cannot be allied with such evil.

Let us be clear. Justice for the poor and disenfranchised is not an option. That is why in Matthew 25:31-46 those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, care for the sick, clothe the naked, and visit the imprisoned are welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven, and those who don't essentially send themselves into outer darkness by their own decisions. But the responsibility to help the less fortunate is NOT government's. It is ours as Christians, members of the Body of Christ. Thus, immigration reform should start with us. Indeed, I have to wonder how many rich liberal white gringos (who call themselves Catholic) have in their employ illegal immigrants paid dirt-cheap wages that none of us would find acceptable. Thus are illegal immigrants kept in virtual servitude, and all this hand-wringing about immigration reform on the part of Bishops only serves to exacerbate an already horrible situation.

Yes, we need immigration reform, but it should not be biased towards Hispanics as it is. In fact, I knew in a previous job two people - one a beautiful Nigerian girl and the other a handsome young Iraqi - who immigrated into this country through the currently established process, and ended up as fine, competent and productive nuclear engineers. Why should the requirements for these two people to immigrate be so onerous, and the requirements for Hispanics be so lax?

Nevertheless, with all these things being so, there is still NO equivalency between immigration reform and abortion or homosexual marriage, and for the Bishops in the USCCB to make such an equivalency is misleading at best, and dishonest at worst. That being the case, we need to pray for our Bishops all the harder because theirs is a difficult duty that few if any of us could discharge with any decent level of competency.

Avē Marīa, grātiā plēna, Dominus tēcum.
Benedicta tū in mulieribus,
et benedictus frūctus ventris tuī, Iēsus.
Sāncta Marīa, Māter Deī,
ōrā prō nōbīs peccātōribus,
nunc et in hōrā mortis nostrae.
Āmēn.

A Note to Homosexuals and the Pope on the Primacy of the Family

2012-01-10T19:42:00.002-05:00

Folks,

Before we begin with the Pope's emphasis on the primacy of heterosexual union and the family, a note to homosexuals is in order. Those of you who are struggling to be faithful to our Blessed Lord and Savior, maintaining yourselves celibate and chaste, should and must be commended and confirmed in the Faith. You are examples of loyalty and fidelity to the Faith once delivered unto the Saints for all of us. The Cross you carry is not unlike what Jesus carried so long ago, and my prayers and solicitations to our Blessed Mother, the Most Holy Virgin Mary, go out for you.

On the other hand, those of you who insist you have some sort of right to homosexual behavior are to be forced back into the closet of filth and depravity from which you came. A man's reproductive organ does not belong in the orifice of another man even if animals do it. You are not an animal. You are a human being created in the image and likeness of God Almighty Himself. He expects and requires everyone (heterosexual and homosexual) outside of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony between one man and one woman to lead chaste and celibate lives. You will not die if you don't give in to the urge to titillate your genitals. God gave you brains to use, so stop acting like a wild baboon, spreading disease and filth like AIDS and other venereal infections around. And don't pretend you're so scientific and logical and rational when all you want is your organ pleased just like an animal. Your lust to insert your appendage into another man (and whatever it is that perverted women do with each other) is not a human right. It is a disgusting, filthy, dirty, perverted addiction worse than dependency on cocaine or heroine. And even if you do decide to act like a mindless wild dog in heat, you still have no right to force the rest of society to accept your disgusting and disease-spreading ways. One way or other you will be stopped. Whether an untreatable disease arises from your sexual perversion and kills you (God forbid!), or our Lord Jesus returns to Earth and sends you to where you always wanted to be, you will eventually be stopped. The sad thing is that you can prevent all this by repenting, but you would rather go to hell with your lust than to submit to our Lord. No Christian wants you to do that, but this is exactly where you are heading and where you want to send the rest of society. Of course you'll say that that is hate-speech. How oxymonic! Is it hate to wish for you Heaven? But that can only happen if you stop your dirty rotten behavior. Lord have mercy on us all, for thus does civilization perish exactly as our Holy Father describes it.

In the Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See, our Holy Father stated in part the following.

Blessed John Paul II stated that “the path of peace is at the same time the path of the young”,[1] inasmuch as young people embody “the youth of the nations and societies, the youth of every family and of all humanity”.[2] Young people thus impel us to take seriously their demand for truth, justice and peace. For this reason, I chose them as the subject of my annual World Day of Peace Message, entitled Educating Young People in Justice and Peace. Education is a crucial theme for every generation, for it determines the healthy development of each person and the future of all society. It thus represents a task of primary importance in this difficult and demanding time. In addition to a clear goal, that of leading young people to a full knowledge of reality and thus of truth, education needs settings. Among these, pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman. This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself. The family unit is fundamental for the educational process and for the development both of individuals and States; hence there is a need for policies which promote the family and aid social cohesion and dialogue. It is in the family that we become open to the world and to life and, as I pointed out during my visit to Croatia, “openness to life is a sign of openness to the future”.[3] In this context of openness to life, I note with satisfaction the recent sentence of the Court of Justice of the European Union forbidding patenting processes relative to human embryonic stem cells, as well as the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe condemning prenatal selection on the basis of sex.

What Ever Became of the Black Sheep Dog, Father John Corapi?

2012-01-10T12:54:00.003-05:00

Folks,

Inquires into the Back Sheep Dog's web site at the hyperlink embedded in the following title returns a strange response:

Black Sheep Dog

Inquiries regarding TheBlackSheepDog.US can be made to:
450 Corporate Dr. Suite 107
Kalispell, MT 59901

Additionally, Father Corapi's Facebook web page cannot be located. Let us pray for Father Corapi.

Avē Marīa, grātiā plēna, Dominus tēcum.
Benedicta tū in mulieribus,
et benedictus frūctus ventris tuī, Iēsus.
Sāncta Marīa, Māter Deī,
ōrā prō nōbīs peccātōribus,
et in hōrā mortis nostrae.
Āmēn.

Real Catholic TV Responds to Archdiocese of Detroit

2012-01-09T19:51:00.003-05:00

Folks,

Colleen Hammond and separately my friend Scotju have reported that Real Catholic TV Responds to Archdiocese of Detroit:

Official Response of St. Michael's Media regarding the Archdiocese of Detroit

Lifesite News also reports on this:

Archdiocesan canon lawyers differ on asking RealCatholicTV.com to drop ‘Catholic’ name

It is ever fascinating that Dr. Ed Peters, the Canon Lawyer who favors the Archdiocese in this claim at his blogsite but states that his is an independent analysis, is himself employed by the Archdiocese at Sacred Heart Major Seminary. Does that not constitute a conflict of interest in making statements about validity of the Archdiocese's claim? It is also fascinating that out of millions of blogs and other media outlets using the name "Catholic" (including Steve Ray's "Defenders of the Catholic Faith" and Mark Shea's "Catholic and Enjoying It" blogs), only Real Catholic TV is ordered to drop using the name "Catholic." Tell me: why should Steve Ray and Mark Shea get to use the word "Catholic" without an imprimatur or nihil obstat, but Michael Voris can't? Why does the pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage National Catholic Reporter get to use the word "Catholic", and why do pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden get to use the word "Catholic", but Michael Voris can't? "Methinks the Archdiocese be full of stink poo."

Liberal Democracy is Marxism

2012-01-07T09:21:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Thanks go to Canon Paul Castellano for pointing out this video on Facebook.

Marxism in America by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) W.G. "Jerry" Boykin on Tuesday, March 3, 2009.

Marcus Tullius Cicero:

"In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power." (Remember that democracy is simply two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner, and Cicero knew that 2000 years ago.)

"The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend."

Sarah Palin, My Heroine!

2012-01-05T19:57:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Notice that I did NOT say "hero" when describing Sarah Palin in the title to this post. She is a WOMAN and the appropriate term is NOT the masculine "hero", but the feminine "heroine". This is a distinction lost on today's androgynous and hermaphroditic populace in love with its own homosexual perversions.

By the way, there is no liberal female that is half as beautiful or half as intelligent as Sarah Palin, and that irks these masculine feminists to no end.

Sara Palin's Warnings on Obama in 2008

A Note to Liberal Democrats and Rick Santorum's Recent Essay

2012-01-05T19:42:00.003-05:00

UPDATE: to all you liberals reading this, Representative Allen West has a message for you: "Get the hell out of the USA!" Lord, Jesus, I love that man!

Folks,

Before we begin with Rick Santorum's recent essay in the National Review, a note to godless liberal Democrats is in order: you get the right to choose whether to have a baby BEFORE sexual intercourse, NEVER afterwards. Once you make the decision to copulate, then you have made the decision to have a child. If you don't want a baby, then don't copulate. You won't die from lack of sexual gratification. Furthermore, sexual intercourse isn't like a drug to be used for the mindless titillation of your genitals. You are created in the image and likeness of God Himself, so start acting like it instead of behaving like a wild baboon. You men, keep your pants zipped up, and you women, keep your legs closed. By doing that you won't produce unwanted babies. And don't babble about how much you revere reason, logic and science when all you want to do is mindlessly rut in heat like a dog, then abdicating responsibility and avoiding accountability for the consequences of your godlessly wicked sexual perversions of adultery and fornication. God gave you brains and He will hold you answerable to using those brains. The wages of sin are death, and any of us (myself included, obviously) who persist in unrepetent sin will die and go to hell to burn forever and ever. But God's gift is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. That's your choice and my choice, so let us not screw it up with lust, for we get only one life in which to make this choice.

P.S., You liberal Democrats with your support of abortion are no different than a drug addict who murders a store owner to steal money from the cash register for his habit, except in your case your addiction is to the titillation of your genitals and your victim the unborn baby whom you conceived. Just like a drug addict, you don't want consequences, but by God you will get consequences, and in spades!

My Guiding Principle: The Dignity of Life

I have been asked many times, from town-hall meetings in Iowa to diners in South Carolina, to articulate what I believe in — not just about a given issue, or even something as fundamental as the role of government, but about life and reality. Folks want to know what frames my understanding of how things are and how they ought to be, my “worldview,” in order to have insight into what will guide my decision making if the American electorate chooses me to represent them in the White House.

There are two texts in particular that have framed my worldview, my fundamental belief system, as it relates to my role as a public official. One is political and the other Biblical, and both foster an orienting belief that, more than any other, directs my decision making: the dignity of every human being.

First, I hold these truths to be self evident: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I can’t begin to count how many times over my public life I have quoted this foundational statement from the Declaration of Independence. It is the worldview that was held by and oriented our founders. It is a worldview that has been challenged for over two centuries, and even now is under attack. But it is this radical notion of God-granted rights and equality that set our course apart from other nations whose revolutions asserted that rights were derived from the will of either the majority or a small, enlightened elite. Our founders understood that human nature is deeply flawed and that over time, and without safeguards, government and other powers will exploit rather than protect life.

The second text is from Genesis 1:27: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” We do not just have rights granted to us by our Creator; even more radically, the rights we have reflect that we have been created in God’s image. Each person has been made by God’s own hand with a purpose, each with an eternal destiny, and each with equal value, dignity, and worth. Human life must be protected at all costs, as there is nothing else of equal or greater value in our created universe.

Some may discount my appeal to a Scripture passage, but not our Founding Fathers. George Washington in particular affirmed the necessity of religion to the sustenance of democracy, in a 1796 speech:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness — these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

These beliefs are essential to the foundation and future of our nation. As Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov: “If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be lawful.”

I have become a radical believer in every person’s human dignity. It is the driver of my worldview, and therefore in conclusion I believe:

Every person, whether the baby in utero, my little girl Bella with her challenges, or the AIDS orphan in the inner city, has inherent dignity, and we must do all we can to preserve and respect that dignity.

Government has to be strong enough to protect human life, but limited enough to never exploit it.

As our founders recognized religion as an “indispensable support” to the health of society and necessary for the understanding of human life, government should never inhibit or discourage its role in the public square.

My greatest concern is that we are at a crossroads of deep consequence regarding the role of government in the lives of the American people. Without correcting course, the road we are on will lead to the further devaluation of the inherent dignity of our citizens and their ability to live in freedom and safety. I am committed to doing everything possible to respect and protect that dignity, and opposing and reversing any policies and programs that undermine it.

— Rick Santorum is a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and a Republican presidential candidate.

Is Archbishop Vigneron Competent?

2012-01-05T09:04:00.001-05:00

Howdy folks! Ioannes asked me if I could post this to the blog. It's a comment I made regarding his previous post "An Observation by Colleen Hammond". So don't blame our host for any ugliness. I take full responsibility. - Catawissa Gazetteer

Canon 216:
All the Christian faithful, since they participate in the mission of the Church, have the right to promote or to sustain apostolic action by their own undertakings in accord with each one’s state and condition; however, no undertaking shall assume the name Catholic unless the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority is given.

Competent: Possessing the necessary reasoning abilities or legal qualifications; qualified; capable; sufficient. Free Legal Dictionary (http://bit.ly/xTuyql)

"The authority competent to consent to the use of the name "Catholic" would depend on particular circumstances...This competency pertains to the Holy See for international associations;to the conference of bishops for national associations; and to the diocesan bishop for diocesan associations."
New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law Beal;Coriden;Green
Paulist Press 2000
Page 272

I'm not a lawyer but it seems to me that the good bishop has overstepped his bounds. RCTV is an internet business (apostolate) and thus international in scope and impact, regardless of where it's physical offices exist. It would seem that the legally competent authority exists in Rome. After all, there is no way for RCTV to exist as it does on the net yet have a different name in each and every diocese in the world. Because of its global nature any decisions regarding the legitimacy of it use of the name "Catholic" must be made by an authority with global jurisdiction. The only authority competent to make that decision is the Vatican.

There is also the issue of just application of this law. As Father Z. asks, “I wonder what this scenario means for the National catholic Reporter.(sic)”

For that matter, what about all the other groups that use the name “Catholic”? The fact is that the bishop is trying to exploit the vague wording of 216 regarding competent authority. He is narrowly enforcing a law seemingly because he has some disagreement with the direction or political stance of RCTV. If RCTV is lying or distorting facts, if it is harming the Catholic brand, if it is heretical or if it is just bad TV then the bishop has every right to say so. He even has every right, even the competent legal authority to inform his diocese of his opinion. Further, he could tell his flock that they shouldn’t watch or support it. But, outside of his diocese he no more has the authority to enforce his opinion regarding RCTV on the world than he does in St. Peter’s square.

Voris and company are fighters so I imagine they won’t take this lying down. Hopefully they’ll force a fight. This issue is a perfect springboard to open the door to a serious discussion in Rome regarding the seeming apostasy of many Church leaders here in America and their love affair with progressivism, which is just a slightly watered down version of Marxism, the intrinsically evil political system of Satan which has been condemned by the Church itself.

The words of Benedict himself suddenly spring to mind:

"The Church will be reduced in its dimensions, it will be necessary to start again. However, from this test a Church would emerge that will have been strengthened by the process of simplification it experienced, by its renewed capacity to look within itself… the Church will be numerically reduced."
—Cardinal Ratzinger (POPE BENEDICT XVI), God and the World, 2001; interview with Peter Seewald

What Canon Lawyer Dr. Peters Overlooks with Regard to Vigneron and Voris

2012-01-05T07:04:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Inigo Hicks discusses what What Canon Lawyer Dr. Peters Overlooks with Regard to Vigneron and Voris in the dispute over using the word "Catholic" in the title of "Real Catholic TV":

Canon 221 states that "[t]he Christian faithful can legitimately vindicate and defend the rights which they possess in the Church in the competent ecclesiastical forum according to the norm of law." Canon 221 goes on to say "[i]f they are summoned to a trial by a competent authority, the Christian faithful also have the right to be judged according to the prescripts of the law applied with equity" (emphasis mine). A google search for "Catholic blog" yields almost 38 million hits. A google search for "Catholic media" yields more than 38 million hits. Undoubtedly, some of these are based in the Detroit Archdiocese. If the only Catholic blog or Catholic media organization, out of what is surely a total of thousands, that the Detroit Archdiocese seeks to prohibit from claiming the name of "Catholic" is the one belonging to Mr. Voris, can the Detroit Archdiocese claim to be applying canon law with equity?

Thanks again go to Colleen Hammond for pointing this out. Indeed, that 38 million Catholic blogs and Catholic media use the word "Catholic" in their title with impunity from Archbishop Vigneron simply means that he has a personal animus against uber-orthodox Michael Voris and RCTV.

An Observation by Colleen Hammond

2012-01-04T21:14:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Colleen Hammond just this evening made the following observation from Sacred Scripture:

The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things, and do not do them. (Matthew 23:1-4)

This got me to thinking about Archbishop Vigneron of the Archdiocese of Detroit and his altercation with Michael Voris over the use of the word "Catholic" in the title of "Real Catholic TV." I thus responded to her quotation of that particularly verse with the following:

Can you spell "Vigneron"?

BTW, have you noticed that the Catholic bloggers who make their money off Catholic apologetics (e.g., Steve Ray, Mark Shea, etc.) are all against Voris and all for Vigneron? As usual, money talks!

It's amazing that pro-abortion groups like "Catholics for Choice" and the "National Catholic Reporter" get to use the word "Catholic" with nary a word from Archbishop Vigneron, but uber-orthodox Voris is singled out. Methinks this Archbishop is simply another Obama lackey in the clergy of the USCCB in these United States.

The following web links provide information that I am certain Archbishop Vigneron would rather the reader not read.

Archbishop Vigneron's Manipulative Use of Canon Law 216

Father Z's Dr. Peters about Michael Voris, RealCatholic TV and the Archd. of Detroit

Dr. Pournelle on Iowa and Vindictiveness

2012-01-04T20:32:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Commentary by Dr. Pournelle at Chaos Manor on the recent Iowa Republican Caucuses follows. His conclusion is absolutely correct:

"...the election is vital, and the nation deserves better than Obama; and all of the viable Republican candidates are to be preferred to the current President. We can’t take four more years of this."

That means for those of us who are Christian that if we have to vote for Mitt Romney, an LDS member, then so be it. He is far preferrable to Obama. In fact, the only one in the Republican field who could possibly equal Obama in incompetency to be President is Ron Paul, often called "Dr. Delusional" for his support of conspiracy theories with regard to the WTC attacks, for his reprenhensible anti-Semitism and opposition to the State of Israel, and for his insane isolationist policies. (PS, liberal Democrat activist Rod Adams at the Atomic Insights blog supports Ron Paul; that a flaming liberal thinks "Dr. Delusional" would make a good President is cause enough to be concerned.)

What does it all mean?

The Iowa Caucuses are done, and about 100,000 Midwesterners out of the 300 million inhabitants of this Republic have spoken, although not with a clear voice. They have reduced the Republican candidate field from seven to five, and for a few minutes last night it looked as if it might be four: Rick Perry was certainly having misgivings when he saw his rather dismal results (10%, 5th place to Gingrich’s 4th), but this morning he made it clear that he is still in the race.

The clear winner was Santorum, who made a decidedly Presidential speech at midnight while the final numerical results were still uncertain. It turns out that the actual numerical winner, by under ten votes, was Mitt Romney, but Santorum’s ascension to the post of “Not Romney” stood out, and of course put the bullseye on his back. The attacks on Santorum as a “Big Government Conservative” have now begun.

I certainly heard nothing in Santorum’s speech that remotely reflected a preference for Big Government; indeed I heard him say that the first thing to do is examine every single federal program and determine whether this is worth borrowing money from China to continue at this time, and if it is not, eliminating it. Since that is precisely what I would do were I suddenly given the authority, and it is certainly not the act of someone who prefers government for government’s sake, I fail to see how it means “Big Government Conservative.”

What do we mean by Big Government Conservative anyway? It is, after all, a contradiction in terms. It might fairly have been applied to some of the hare brained schemes – mostly compromises and reaching across the aisle to Democrats – from the post-Gingrich days of Republican majorities; to the Americans With Disabilities Act; to No Child Left Behind; indeed to any number of compromise schemes; but on examination it is difficult to find anything Conservative about those schemes.

In the United States, Conservative means a dedication to the original Constitution of 1787; States Rights; transparency and subsidiarity as discussed by Jane Jacobs but those terms have often been usurped; and the general notion that a free people don’t need a nanny state. It also implies conceding a certain degree of local power in social matters. It does not mean anarchy and weak government. No conservative I know favors weak government. We do favor limited government and restriction of the scope of government, but that is nowhere near the same thing. Weak government and anarchy are a curse, and a temptation to tyranny. Good government is a blessing.

Conservatives differ from libertarians in degrees. Unlike most libertarians I would concede to local governments powers that I would not grant to national government, and were it in my power, I would forbid to states. I would concede local governments powers that I would strongly argue against their using anywhere I lived, and which would probably cause me to flee their jurisdiction; which is to say, I believe in the notion that governments derive their just powers from consent of the governed, and the more localized the powers, the more likely it is that those who live under that government consent to it – even if they are consenting to something I don’t care for or consider absurd. My favorite example is the Blue Bellybutton cult, which decrees that all those who go out in public on a Wednesday evening must display their loyalty by exposing their blue-painted belly button. I find that ridiculous, but if there were a town where the local inhabitants elected and installed the cult, I would either stop going out in public on a Wednesday or move to the next township. I admit that is probably an extreme example, and like most hypothetical situations might not accurately reflect what I would really do under the circumstances; still, it illustrates my point. I am prepared to have my books Banned in Boston although I would prefer they were not; I am not prepared to have the Congress ban my books throughout the United States.

On the other hand, there are actions that only government can take. In the past there were institutions that looked ahead for later generations. Monarchies, landed aristocracies, the Church and various holy orders began projects whose fruition their founders did not expect to see. Today the only institutions that can afford to invest for long term payoffs of benefit to all but unlikely of profit are governments. I have discussed this at length in the past. I do not withdraw that opinion.

Conservatives are not anarchists.

Another consequence of the Iowa Caucuses is unfortunate: as of now Mr. Gingrich, stung by the ugly anti-Gingrich ads paid for by the Romney PACS, seems to have revised his goal: from running for President, he has now become an instrument of vengeance against Romney. This is worse than unfortunate, and I wish he’d stop that. It will do neither him nor the Republic much good. Newt’s change of objectives may be responsible for Parry’s reconsidering his run: if Newt will pound on Romney, there is room for another Not-Romney, even though Parry got fewer Iowa votes than Newt.

Newt can certainly damage Romney, and indeed Romney’s acceptance of McCain’s endorsement moves Romney further into the clutches of the Establishment Republicans and the originators of the notion of “Big Government Conservative” schemes. That has to be good for Santorum, who surely sees that Ron Paul wasn’t that distant a third in this election. Santorum is now the leading Not-Romney. And the best goes on.

I remain of the opinion I have had for weeks, and which Newt publicly espoused until last night: the election is vital, and the nation deserves better than Obama; and all of the viable Republican candidates are to be preferred to the current President. We can’t take four more years of this.

It’s a long time until Novermber.

Debating an Atheist

2012-01-03T18:38:00.001-05:00

Folks,

In regard to yesterday's post, "What Is an Atheist?", the pro-life coordinator of a Deanery in North Carolina asked me if I had ever heard a certain man by the name of Frank Turek speak on atheism. The answer of course is no, much to my impoverishment (which is now being corrected - thanks, Bev!). The You Tube video of this gentleman answering the questions of a not so informed young woman demonstrates the inherent fallacy in whatever logic it is that atheists claim to use:

Frank Turek Q and A: Hannah

By the way, Frank Turek is a part of Cross Examined, a Protestant Evangelical apologetics group performing outreach work with and for today's youth who have been programmed into liberalism, progressivism, secularism, humanism and atheism by what passes for the educational establishment in these United States. While we may disagree with these Evangelicals and Pentecostals in certain theological matters, it is interesting to note that just as John the Baptist stated in Matthew 3:9, God is raising up sons to Abraham from the stones themselves to do what we Catholics have failed to do after Vatican II.

What Is an Atheist?

2012-01-02T20:50:00.002-05:00

Folks,

Today's Scripture Readings for the Feast Day of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church, include 1st John 2:22-28. Verse 22 states:

Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist.

Atheists deny Jesus is the Christ; they are therefore liars.

Atheists deny the Father and the Son; they are therefore antichrists.

History has shown us what liars and antichrists always do. The examples of Robespierre, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and the rest ring loudly and clearly. The fingers of the bloody corpses of over 100 million murdered will point to them at the Judgment Seat.

So when the reader is debating an atheist, let him beware that he debates a liar and an antichrist in the legacy and tradition of torturers and murderers who dominated the twentieth century and today murder unborn babies by the millions while sanctifying homosexual filth.

Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces. Matthew 7:6

Tonight's Humor - Democrats Throwing Snowballs at the GOP?

2011-12-31T18:31:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Enjoy!

PS, I have only one wish for this New Year: the defeat, destruction and ejection of Barack Hussien Obama from public office. Please, dear Lord God, make it so!

Kansas City Star - The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

2011-12-31T12:32:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Please take the time to read the following short article.

The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
By THOMAS E. WOODS
The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.)

I for one am getting sick and tired of revisionist history from liberal progressive secularist atheist humanists and "Sola Scripture, Sola, Fide" fundamentalists alike.

Civitates Compactae Americae ad Novam Romam

2011-12-31T10:05:00.000-05:00

Folks,

I usually don't post sales videos, but this one is quite telling in our day and age.

Ad Novus Roma: The Trailer

Brian S. Collins' book "Ad Novus Roma" (the words in the Latin title are not properly declined) may be ordered at:

http://i-proclaimbookstore.com/adnorotonewr.html

Pro-God

2011-12-27T12:15:00.000-05:00

Folks,

The placard embedded in this post succinctly summarizes your blogmeister's position on the issues.

Pro-God: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me." Deuteronomy 5:6-7

Pro-Life: "You shall not murder." Deuteronomy 5:17

Pro-Gun: "And they said, 'Look, Lord, here are two swords.' And he said to them, 'It is enough.'" Luke 22:38

Pro-Country: "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. For it is God's will that by doing right you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor." 1st Peter 2:13-17

Anti-Obama: "We will not obey the king's words by turning aside from our religion to the right hand or to the left." 1st Maccabees 2:22

Islamic Fanatics Attack Catholic Church

2011-12-26T10:37:00.000-05:00

Folks,

AP News reports that fanatical Muslims attacked a Catholic Church on Christmas:

Nigerians fear more church attacks after 39 killed

We are in dire need of leaders like Charles Martel who turned back these testosterone-crazed fanatics at the Battle of Tours in 732 AD and Pope Pius V who organized the Holy League against the Muslim Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 AD. Christendom today is in a war against Satan's dual forces of Islamic fascism and atheistic secularism, but in the end, the Babe born in a manger 2000 years ago will return as that Rider on the great white horse to set things right. (Revelation 19:11-21)

Pope Benedict XVI's Homily for Midnight Mass Christmas Eve 2011

2011-12-25T22:40:00.000-05:00

Scripture Readings for Christmas Eve, 2011

Isaiah 9:1-6
Psalm 96:1-13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14

MIDNIGHT MASS

SOLEMNITY OF THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

Saint Peter's Basilica
24 December 2011

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to Titus that we have just heard begins solemnly with the word “apparuit”, which then comes back again in the reading at the Dawn Mass: apparuit – “there has appeared”. This is a programmatic word, by which the Church seeks to express synthetically the essence of Christmas. Formerly, people had spoken of God and formed human images of him in all sorts of different ways. God himself had spoken in many and various ways to mankind (cf. Heb 1:1 – Mass during the Day). But now something new has happened: he has appeared. He has revealed himself. He has emerged from the inaccessible light in which he dwells. He himself has come into our midst. This was the great joy of Christmas for the early Church: God has appeared. No longer is he merely an idea, no longer do we have to form a picture of him on the basis of mere words. He has “appeared”. But now we ask: how has he appeared? Who is he in reality? The reading at the Dawn Mass goes on to say: “the kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed” (Tit 3:4). For the people of pre-Christian times, whose response to the terrors and contradictions of the world was to fear that God himself might not be good either, that he too might well be cruel and arbitrary, this was a real “epiphany”, the great light that has appeared to us: God is pure goodness. Today too, people who are no longer able to recognize God through faith are asking whether the ultimate power that underpins and sustains the world is truly good, or whether evil is just as powerful and primordial as the good and the beautiful which we encounter in radiant moments in our world. “The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed”: this is the new, consoling certainty that is granted to us at Christmas.

In all three Christmas Masses, the liturgy quotes a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, which describes the epiphany that took place at Christmas in greater detail: “A child is born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace. Wide is his dominion in a peace that has no end” (Is 9:5f.). Whether the prophet had a particular child in mind, born during his own period of history, we do not know. But it seems impossible. This is the only text in the Old Testament in which it is said of a child, of a human being: his name will be Mighty-God, Eternal-Father. We are presented with a vision that extends far beyond the historical moment into the mysterious, into the future. A child, in all its weakness, is Mighty God. A child, in all its neediness and dependence, is Eternal Father. And his peace “has no end”. The prophet had previously described the child as “a great light” and had said of the peace he would usher in that the rod of the oppressor, the footgear of battle, every cloak rolled in blood would be burned (Is 9:1, 3-4).

God has appeared – as a child. It is in this guise that he pits himself against all violence and brings a message that is peace. At this hour, when the world is continually threatened by violence in so many places and in so many different ways, when over and over again there are oppressors’ rods and bloodstained cloaks, we cry out to the Lord: O mighty God, you have appeared as a child and you have revealed yourself to us as the One who loves us, the One through whom love will triumph. And you have shown us that we must be peacemakers with you. We love your childish estate, your powerlessness, but we suffer from the continuing presence of violence in the world, and so we also ask you: manifest your power, O God. In this time of ours, in this world of ours, cause the oppressors’ rods, the cloaks rolled in blood and the footgear of battle to be burned, so that your peace may triumph in this world of ours.

Christmas is an epiphany – the appearing of God and of his great light in a child that is born for us. Born in a stable in Bethlehem, not in the palaces of kings. In 1223, when Saint Francis of Assisi celebrated Christmas in Greccio with an ox and an ass and a manger full of hay, a new dimension of the mystery of Christmas came to light. Saint Francis of Assisi called Christmas “the feast of feasts” – above all other feasts – and he celebrated it with “unutterable devotion” (2 Celano 199; Fonti Francescane, 787). He kissed images of the Christ-child with great devotion and he stammered tender words such as children say, so Thomas of Celano tells us (ibid.). For the early Church, the feast of feasts was Easter: in the Resurrection Christ had flung open the doors of death and in so doing had radically changed the world: he had made a place for man in God himself. Now, Francis neither changed nor intended to change this objective order of precedence among the feasts, the inner structure of the faith centred on the Paschal Mystery. And yet through him and the character of his faith, something new took place: Francis discovered Jesus’ humanity in an entirely new depth. This human existence of God became most visible to him at the moment when God’s Son, born of the Virgin Mary, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. The Resurrection presupposes the Incarnation. For God’s Son to take the form of a child, a truly human child, made a profound impression on the heart of the Saint of Assisi, transforming faith into love. “The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed” – this phrase of Saint Paul now acquired an entirely new depth. In the child born in the stable at Bethlehem, we can as it were touch and caress God. And so the liturgical year acquired a second focus in a feast that is above all a feast of the heart.

This has nothing to do with sentimentality. It is right here, in this new experience of the reality of Jesus’ humanity that the great mystery of faith is revealed. Francis loved the child Jesus, because for him it was in this childish estate that God’s humility shone forth. God became poor. His Son was born in the poverty of the stable. In the child Jesus, God made himself dependent, in need of human love, he put himself in the position of asking for human love – our love. Today Christmas has become a commercial celebration, whose bright lights hide the mystery of God’s humility, which in turn calls us to humility and simplicity. Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light.

Francis arranged for Mass to be celebrated on the manger that stood between the ox and the ass (cf. 1 Celano 85; Fonti 469). Later, an altar was built over this manger, so that where animals had once fed on hay, men could now receive the flesh of the spotless lamb Jesus Christ, for the salvation of soul and body, as Thomas of Celano tells us (cf. 1 Celano 87; Fonti 471). Francis himself, as a deacon, had sung the Christmas Gospel on the holy night in Greccio with resounding voice. Through the friars’ radiant Christmas singing, the whole celebration seemed to be a great outburst of joy (1 Celano 85.86; Fonti 469, 470). It was the encounter with God’s humility that caused this joy – his goodness creates the true feast.

Today, anyone wishing to enter the Church of Jesus’ Nativity in Bethlehem will find that the doorway five and a half metres high, through which emperors and caliphs used to enter the building, is now largely walled up. Only a low opening of one and a half metres has remained. The intention was probably to provide the church with better protection from attack, but above all to prevent people from entering God’s house on horseback. Anyone wishing to enter the place of Jesus’ birth has to bend down. It seems to me that a deeper truth is revealed here, which should touch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our “enlightened” reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God’s closeness. We must follow the interior path of Saint Francis – the path leading to that ultimate outward and inward simplicity which enables the heart to see. We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions – the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby. In this spirit let us celebrate the liturgy of the holy night, let us strip away our fixation on what is material, on what can be measured and grasped. Let us allow ourselves to be made simple by the God who reveals himself to the simple of heart. And let us also pray especially at this hour for all who have to celebrate Christmas in poverty, in suffering, as migrants, that a ray of God’s kindness may shine upon them, that they – and we – may be touched by the kindness that God chose to bring into the world through the birth of his Son in a stable. Amen.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T11:42:00.002-05:00

I only just realised I was able to post in the blog itself rather than just comment. If this is inappropriate then please remove this Ioannes (no hard feelings).

I just wanted to use this opportunity to wish all the readers of this blog a very happy Christmas!

Let's rejoice and praise Jesus on the anniversary of his birth.

God be with all of you.

(Also, as a side note, for anyone who will be 'making merry' this festive season be sure to have a designated driver or alternative means of transport. It is a sad fact that too many people try their luck and the effects this can have are devastating. Be safe everyone.)

Baby with a History by Canon Tom Gordon

2011-12-25T08:11:00.000-05:00

Folks,

'Baby with a History' is a message preached by Canon Tom Gordon+ at St Philip the Evangelist Anglican Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, on December 25, AD 2011.

Archbishop Vigneron Forbids Real Catholic TV to Use the Name "Catholic"

2011-12-24T20:00:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Archbishop Allen Vigneron of the Archdiocese of Detroit (whose photograph is at the left) forbids Michael Voris of Real Catholic TV to use the name Catholic:

Statement Regarding Real Catholic TV and Its Name

In the meantime, so-called Catholic politicians who support the murder of the unborn and the sanctfication of homosexual sodomy can parade themselves up for Holy Communion with impunity.

We need another St. Athanasius to punch that heretic Arius straight in the face once again, knocking him flat on his proverbial behind. As St. Athanasius once said, "The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops." More commentary is here:

Let's All Play the Diocesan Two Step

PS, I have zero tolerance for liberal Democrat effeminate clerics enamored with the sense of authority that they think they can wield against the conservative orthodox faithful.

Atheist Advent and Christmas

2011-12-24T10:09:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Today's news article shows the end result of the mindless materialism that today's godless atheism has resulted in.

Slide Show - Mall Rioters

Black Eye Friday: Shoppers throw punches over new Air Jordans

"'They almost took the door off the hinges,' one shopper who didn't want to be identified said, 'there were women with babies in their hands and they on their backs.' Shoppers were in line waiting for the re-release of the Air Jordan XI Concord tennis shoe at Foot Locker, Finish Line and Downtown Locker Room."

The news article reports that this kind of rioting took place at Northlake Mall, Southpark Mall and Carolina Place Mall in Charlotte, NC. With our descent into the abyss of anti-Christianity, people have forgotten that the reason for the season is NOT gift exchange or buying and selling. The reason is the birth of our Most Holy Lord and Savior of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.

Until atheism and secularism are defeated and relegated into the dustbin of history, incidents like this will get worse and worse, and thus do we make our Lord weep tears of sadness.

Filth in Our Navy

2011-12-23T09:41:00.006-05:00

Update: Folks, I am sorry for being so vehement in my disgust, but I simply don't want the nation I love - once a Christian Constitutional Republic - turned into a moral cesspool and a breeding ground for all manner of wickedness and vice. I pray for God's mercy on our country, and for the repentance of Barack Hussein Obama, but I truly mean every word that I write below. Yes, I know that St. Paul concludes his diatribe in Romans 1:18-32 (that I quote below) with the injunction in Romans 2:1:

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.

However, I still love my country and I don't want to see its people lost to atheism and paganism as the picture embedded within this entry portrays. Yes, I too am in need of daily repentance, for we all are sinners, some "saved by grace" as our Protestant brethren describe it, and some bound for hell. Thus, I find the open display of lesbianism offensive, disgusting and perverted, because lesbianism (as with any evil) bounds a person in the shackles of slavery to sin, sending the victim to hell and that is most regrettable. Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison.

Folks,

The LA Times reports "Kiss heard 'round the world: Lesbians chosen for Navy tradition." This heinous sexual perversion is beyond description. Those women in this photograph and all like them are godless, filthy, dirty perverts who should be banned from polite and civilized society, but instead that wicked man of sin in the Oval Office glorifies in this to his eternal damnation (should he fail to repent in time). St. Paul explains this well in Romans 1:18-32:

18* For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20* Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; 21* for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23* and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. 29 They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.

Hannukah - The Festival of Lights - 2011

2011-12-22T23:47:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Hannukah is celebrated from December 20th till the 28th this year. Let us recall from 1st Maccabees 4:36-61 the event in history which led to this celebration, and let us pray for more men of God like Judas Maccabeus and his brethren, that we may stand fast against the Obamination of Desolation as they stood fast against Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

36 Then said Judas and his brothers, "Behold, our enemies are crushed; let us go up to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it." 37 So all the army assembled and they went up to Mount Zion. 38 And they saw the sanctuary desolate, the altar profaned, and the gates burned. In the courts they saw bushes sprung up as in a thicket, or as on one of the mountains. They saw also the chambers of the priests in ruins. 39 Then they rent their clothes, and mourned with great lamentation, and sprinkled themselves with ashes. 40 They fell face down on the ground, and sounded the signal on the trumpets, and cried out to Heaven. 41 Then Judas detailed men to fight against those in the citadel until he had cleansed the sanctuary. 42 He chose blameless priests devoted to the law, 43 and they cleansed the sanctuary and removed the defiled stones to an unclean place. 44 They deliberated what to do about the altar of burnt offering, which had been profaned. 45 And they thought it best to tear it down, lest it bring reproach upon them, for the Gentiles had defiled it. So they tore down the altar, 46 and stored the stones in a convenient place on the temple hill until there should come a prophet to tell what to do with them. 47 Then they took unhewn * stones, as the law directs, and built a new altar like the former one. 48 They also rebuilt the sanctuary and the interior of the temple, and consecrated the courts. 49 They made new holy vessels, and brought the lampstand, the altar of incense, and the table into the temple. 50 Then they burned incense on the altar and lighted the lamps on the lampstand, and these gave light in the temple. 51 They placed the bread on the table and hung up the curtains. Thus they finished all the work they had undertaken. 52 Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Chislev, in the one hundred and forty-eighth year, * 53 they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering which they had built. 54 At the very season and on the very day that the Gentiles had profaned it, it was dedicated with songs and harps and lutes and cymbals. 55 All the people fell on their faces and worshiped and blessed Heaven, who had prospered them. 56 So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and offered burnt offerings with gladness; they offered a sacrifice of deliverance and praise. 57 They decorated the front of the temple with golden crowns and small shields; they restored the gates and the chambers for the priests, and furnished them with doors. 58 There was very great gladness among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was removed. 59 Then Judas and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with gladness and joy for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Chislev. 60 At that time they fortified Mount Zion with high walls and strong towers round about, to keep the Gentiles from coming and trampling them down as they had done before. 61 And he stationed a garrison there to hold it. He also * fortified Beth-zur, so that the people might have a stronghold that faced Idumea.

Obama's War on Catholics - and All Christians

2011-12-22T22:35:00.000-05:00

Folks,

The following is an announcement from Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life. Time grows short and the Devil and his minions are fighting tooth and nail to take every life, every soul that they can. Obama is in the forefront of that fight.

Father Frank's Alerts

How Obama’s War on Catholics is Also a War on the Unborn!
This is a fast-breaking story that requires your immediate attention and action. New developments are coming out every day.

Furthermore, it’s a time-sensitive issue that could help STOP an insidious threat that would otherwise open the floodgates of abortion in the United States like never before.

Here’s what it’s all about…

As you probably know, the so-called “healthcare reform” legislation known as “ObamaCare” – which was narrowly passed by Congress (and only after intense pressure tactics from the White House) – is now facing its toughest challenge ever.

It’s being challenged in court over the constitutionality of its key provision of requiring every U.S. citizen to purchase health insurance or else face a penalty.

What’s more, from a pro-life standpoint, Obamacare is an atrocity because it requires health insurance plans to PAY FOR ABORTION! That means YOU would be paying for abortion coverage whether you want to or not every time you pay your insurance premium.

This alone is unconscionable. But as you know, the abortion industry desperately WANTS and NEEDS Obamacare because it would flood their coffers with untold millions of dollars -- paid by you and me, of course – at a time when the entire abortion industry is in danger of closing down because of the work of so many good pro-lifers like you.

It’s true. The number of abortion mills in America keeps shrinking – almost on a daily basis. They’re feeling the onslaught of heavy fines, lawsuits, new regulations, criminal investigations, as well as convictions and prison sentences for the baby butchers.

Bottom line? The abortion industry is hurting – BIG TIME.

And that’s why they NEED Obamacare. It will keep them afloat. It will be a source of unrestricted funding for abortion – the likes of which we’ve never seen. It will make the federal government’s subsidies to Planned Parenthood (a million dollars a day) look like chicken feed.

And even though the Obama Administration is quick to deny that Obamacare will force taxpayers to buy insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs (mistakenly called “contraception”), we now know that this is patently untrue.

Consider this recent disturbing development that’s come straight out of the Obama Administration: In a little-known amendment, the Department of Health and Human Services (under the “Catholic” pro-abortion leader, Kathleen Sebelius) is now going to require Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities to buy health insurance for their employees that cover abortifacients and sterilization – even though these are repugnant to the Catholic conscience, and a clear violation of religious rights.

The Obama Administration doesn’t care. Their goal is to force abortion – in every form – down our throats, no matter what. And Obamacare is the tool they plan to use to achieve their diabolical goals.

So this brings us to the current state of affairs – and the reason I’m writing to you today…

Right now, with the constitutionality of Obamacare soon to be ruled upon by the U.S. Supreme Court, we have a chance to STOP this abortion free-for-all legislation in its tracks.

How? It’s very simple: You see, right now the Supreme Court is fairly evenly-divided on Obamacare. Just one “swing vote” would make the difference between Obamacare getting the Court’s seal of approval, or being shot down entirely.

Now, it’s unfortunately true that the average U.S. citizen has little or no direct influence (other than prayer and fasting) over how the Court rules on any given case. We could write letters to the Justices until our hands fell off, and it wouldn’t do any good – because the Court does not “represent” the people like Congress does, and therefore isn’t receptive to voter input.

Therefore, in this case, we have to take stock of what influence we can exert over the Court and how it will vote on Obamacare.

Frankly, there seems to be only one way available to us right now – and that is to have Justice Elena Kagan recuse herself from the Obamacare case.

Everybody already knows where she stands and how she will vote. She’s strongly pro-abortion. After all, she’s an Obama appointee, AND she argued for Obamacare when she was the Solicitor General of the United States. Newly revealed documents even show that she was intimately involved in creating the legislation.

Simply put, she should not participate in any case if she worked on it as a lawyer.

And that’s her Achilles heel.

The way our justice system works, any judge who is pre-biased in any way on any case because of prior work on the case (particularly as a government official) is legally and ethically required to not to rule on that case. The judge must “recuse” himself (or herself) and step down, or “sit it out.”

This clearly applies to Justice Kagan when it comes to Obamacare. She should have already recused herself on this particular case because of her work on behalf of Obamacare when she was Solicitor General. But… she admitted in her Senate confirmation hearings that she wouldn’t.

After all, as we know too well, the “normal rules” don’t apply when it comes to abortion.

We call it “The Abortion Distortion” for a reason!

Pro-aborts simply do not play by the rules when something threatens abortion, even in the slightest way. Their hypocrisy and virulence abounds all the more, in fact.

Such is the case here.

Mind you, Justice Kagan has already recused herself on no less than THIRTY different cases that have come before the Supreme Court since she took her seat on the bench. And in each one, it was because she had previously argued for or against one side of the case while she was Solicitor General.

That means she did the right thing on those 30 previous cases.

However, because the Obamacare case involves abortion – and, most importantly, the “blank check” that will save the abortion industry from total financial collapse in the next few years – Justice Kagan is being told by the Obama Administration NOT to recuse herself.They need her vote on the Supreme Court. Because without her, the Court will almost surely vote against the constitutionality of Obamacare.

This would be bad news for the abortion industry and bad news for President Obama – because his Obamacare is basically the only accomplishment he has achieved since he entered the White House. And now it’s in BIG danger – right during the coming election season.

This is why the pro-life movement is now calling for Justice Kagan to do the right thing and recuse herself from the Obamacare case – just as she’s done on the previous 30 cases where she had a “pre-existing condition” biasing her.

But… surprise, surprise… the Obama Administration – in the form of the U.S. Attorney General’s office – is digging its heels in and refusing to demand that Justice Kagan recuse herself.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who is the one responsible for making sure there’s no conflict-of-interest on the Supreme Court, is completely “stonewalling” Congress on this matter.

He refuses to even take up the issue – stalling for as long as he can until it’s “too late” for Justice Kagan to recuse herself. Delay-and-stall tactics are the hallmark of someone who doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

Suffice it to say that something has to be done NOW to get Justice Kagan to recuse herself from the Obamacare case when it’s heard by the Supreme Court.

Fortunately, there IS something YOU can do!

Right now, an effort is being led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith – a pro-life Texas Republican – to investigate Justice Kagan’s conflict-of-interest on the ObamaCare legislation.

In fact, Congressman Smith wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder to inform him of the investigation. In his letter, Smith states…

“I write to request relevant documents and witness interviews in order to properly understand U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan’s involvement in health care legislation or litigation while serving as United States Solicitor General.

“In recent weeks, questions have been raised about whether Justice Kagan’s prior work on what became the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) while serving as Solicitor General should disqualify her from hearing challenges to its constitutionality… All parties agree the critical question is the extent of her involvement, as Solicitor General, in formulating the Administration’s legal position on PPACA, which was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010.”

Congressman Smith is being backed by at least 50 other representatives in the House – as well as by pro-life leaders around the country.

In fact, I recently signed a petition spearheaded by the Judicial Action Group – co-signed by more than 85 pro-life and citizens’ group leaders – to ensure that a proper investigation is conducted into Kagan’s qualifications (or lack thereof) to judge the Obamacare case.

Click here to read the full letter!

Likewise, I urge you to take action now and send your own e-mail to Congressman Lamar Smith so that he knows he has the full support of concerned pro-lifers like you.

You can do this quickly and easily by clicking here for the automatic e-mail we’ve already prepared for you. It takes just a few seconds, but it will be worth more than you can imagine if we’re able to get Justice Kagan to recuse herself from the Obamacare hearings when they come before the Supreme Court.

Click here to send the automatic e-mail.

I thank you, in advance, for your willingness to help with this vital and time-sensitive effort.

Wishing you a Blessed Advent,

Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life

Tonight's Humor - Merry Christmas!

2011-12-21T21:28:00.000-05:00

The Coming of the Christ

2011-12-21T16:43:00.006-05:00

Folks,

Once again after opening comments up to moderation, an atheist comes along with his garbage (which I promptly deleted). Some will say, "Oh, but that's a chance to witness to him!" Perhaps, but most likely not. Every atheist who has come here to comment has received not a word said, but rather reviled, condemned, ridiculed, and castigated the only civilizing influence on human history for the past 2000 years. As Jesus Himself commanded:

"Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you." Matthew 7:6

Atheists have had the whole of the 20th century to have had their say, and by so saying have fulfilled what Jesus said: "...lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you." Under their heroes, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung and Kim Il Jung, Fidel Castro, and innumerable others, they murdered upwards of 100 million people. Over the past 40 years they have murdered upwards of 60 million unborn babies in these United States. Everytime they get power, they murder just as their father the Devil has taught them. Robespierre was perhaps the first modern test case run by Lucifer, proving once again the old adage that a rabid dog cannot be cured. Some will say that's harsh of me. Really? Hundreds of millions of corpses say otherwise.

This is the ending of the Season of Advent and the time of the celebration of Jesus' First Coming into this world when He arrived as an innocent baby some 2000 years ago to save sinners from damnation - a damnation embraced by today's atheists. Now is the time to repent (and that is the only word to be given to them), for His Second Coming will be entirely different:

"Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself. He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses. From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords. Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in midheaven, 'Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.' And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who sits upon the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur. And the rest were slain by the sword of him who sits upon the horse, the sword that issues from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh." Revelation 19:11-21.

How Many Nuclear Power Plants to Make the Image on the Shroud of Turin?

2011-12-19T18:25:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Michael Voris this evening reports on the results of research that the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (otherwise known as "ENEA") conducted on the Shroud of Turin over the space of five years:

34 Thousand Billion Watts
Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Scientific Approach to the Acheiropoietos Images

According to Mr. Voris' report, the scientists involved in this study have concluded that a power source of some 34 thousand billion watts of ultraviolet radiation would have been required to make the image of the crucified man that appears on the Shroud of Turin.

Assuming that I have worked out the arithmetic correctly, 34 thousand billion watts is 34 trillion watts. That is equivalent to the output of 34 thousand nuclear power plants each having an electrical power production capacity of 1000 MWe. In contrast, there are only about 433 nuclear power plants on the planet, most with capacities below the 1000 MWe figure, and none above 2000 MWe. So the question is this: if the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead did not create the image imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, then what exactly did? There were no nuclear power plants (or any other electrical generating plants, for that matter) during New Testament times. Atheism again runs into the stone wall of reality.

Generation 4 Nuclear Reactor Designs

2011-12-19T15:27:00.003-05:00

Folks,

This is a continuation in our series on nuclear reactors. We have already discussed current nuclear reactor designs, new nuclear reactor designs and advanced nuclear reactor designs. In this post we will discuss Generation IV nuclear reactor designs. Material from the US DOE and Wikipedia has been freely used.

The reason for this focus on nuclear energy (aside from the fact that the reader's blogmeister works in the nuclear power industry) is to emphasize that we do not have an energy crisis nor a lack of obtaining fuel to provide electrical power and to generate hydrogen that can replace fossil fuel in motor vehicles. Rather, we have a crisis of human greed run amuk - fossil fuel companies in bed with government politicians in an orgy of profit seeking and power mongering via corporate socialism (also called croney capitalism). Corporate executive and government politician alike conspire in tightening the strangle-hold of addiction to coal, oil and "natural" gas while holding up the false promise of deliverance by shiney tin-foil solar cells or the twirling blade of wind mills, both of which by the nature of the inconstancy of weather necessitate spinning reserve from power plants that combust solid mineral rock (i.e., coal), liquid slime (i.e., oil) or the gaseous refuse of million-year old plant decay (i.e., "natural" gas). God has endowed enough thorium and uranium in Earth's crust to fuel all seven billion people on the planet at a level required to meet the consumption needs of the average American for tens of thousands of years. With access to low cost, non-polluting energy, no human being need ever starve, be homeless, or suffer from cold or excessive heat again. The reason why we do not do this is quite simply because of the love of money which St. Paul tells us in 1st Timothy 6:10 is the root of all evil. God has given us all the tools we need, and all we need is a sense of ethics and morality to use them. Nevertheless, before I am distracted onto another side-track, let us continue with the main thrust to today's entry on nuclear energy.
The evolution to Generation IV reactor designs is depicted in the diagram below.

Generation I in the 1950s and 60s in the US consisted of the Shippingport PWR and the Dresden BWR, and in Great Britain consisted of the Magnox gas cooled reactors.

Generation II in the 1970s to the present consisted of PWRs by Westinghouse, Combustion Engineering and Babcock and Wilcox, BWRs by GE and heavy water reactors in Canada called Candus.

Generation III reactor designs consisted of the Westinghouse AP600 PWR, the Combustion Engineering System 80+ PWR and advanced Candu heavy water reactors.

Generation III+ reactors designs include the GE-Hitachi ABWR and ESBWR, the Westinghouse AP1000, the Areva EPR and the Mitsubishi APWR, all of which are in various stages of design apporval before the US NRC.

The evolution to and a description of the designs for Generation IV reactors may be found in the slide show at the following hyperlinked title:

Introduction to Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems and the International Forum

A brief description of each design follows:

Gas-cooled fast reactor features a fast-neutron-spectrum, helium-cooled reactor and closed fuel cycle

The high outlet temperature of the helium coolant used in the GFR system makes it possible to deliver electricity, hydrogen, or process heat with high efficiency. The reference reactor is a 1200-MWe helium-cooled system operating with an outlet temperature of 850 degrees Celsius using a direct Brayton cycle gas turbine for high thermal efficiency.

Several fuel forms are candidates that hold the potential to operate at very high temperatures and to ensure an excellent retention of fission products: composite ceramic fuel, advanced fuel particles, or ceramic-clad elements of actinide compounds. Core configurations may be based on prismatic blocks, pin- or plate-based assemblies. The GFR reference has an integrated, on-site spent fuel treatment and refabrication plant.

The GFR uses a direct-cycle helium turbine for electricity generation, or can optionally use its process heat for thermochemical production of hydrogen. Through the combination of a fast spectrum and full recycle of actinides, the GFR minimizes the production of long-lived radioactive waste. The GFR's fast spectrum also makes it possible to use available fissile and fertile materials (including depleted uranium) considerably more efficiently than thermal spectrum gas reactors with once-through fuel cycles.

It is anticipated that GFR systems will minimise the production of long-lived radioactive waste and make it possible to utilize fissile and fertile materials (including depleted uranium) two orders of magnitude more efficiently than thermal spectrum systems. The key challenges associated with this system concern the development of new fuels and materials capable of operating at temperatures of 850°C, the core design and helium turbine. The innovative GFR technologies and design features are intended to overcome the consequences of using a high-pressure gas with poor thermal characteristics to cool down a core with a low thermal inertia during depressurization events.

Very-high-temperature reactor (VHTR) is a graphite-moderated, helium-cooled reactor with a once-through uranium fuel cycle.

The VHTR is designed to be a high-efficiency system, which can supply electricity and process heat to a broad spectrum of high-temperature and energy-intensive processes.

The reference reactor is a 600 MWth core connected to an intermediate heat exchanger to deliver process heat. The reactor core can be a prismatic block core or a pebble-bed core according to the fuel particles assembly. Fuel particles are coated with successive material layers, high temperature resistant, then formed either into fuel compacts embedded in graphite block for the prismatic block-type core reactor, or formed into graphite coated pebbles. The reactor supplies heat with core outlet temperatures up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, which enables such applications as hydrogen production or process heat for the petrochemical industry. As a nuclear heat application, hydrogen can be efficiently produced from only heat and water by using thermochemical iodine-sulfur process, or high temperature electrolysis process or with additional natural gas by applying the steam reformer technology.

Thus, the VHTR offers a high-efficiency electricity production and a broad range of process heat applications, while retaining the desirable safety characteristics in normal as well as off-normal events. Solutions to adequate waste management will be developed. The basic technology for the VHTR has been well established in former High Temperature Gas Reactors plants, such as the US Fort Saint Vrain and Peach Bottom prototypes, and the German AVR and THTR prototypes. The technology is being advanced through near- or medium-term projects lead by several plant vendors and national laboratories, such as: PBMR, GT-HTR300C, ANTARES, NHDD, GT-MHR and NGNP in South Africa, Japan, France, Republic of Korea and the United States. Experimental reactors: HTTR (Japan, 30 MWth) and HTR-10 (China, 10 MWth) support the advanced concept development, and the cogeneration of electricity and nuclear heat application.

The VHTR offers the potential for the cogeneration of electricity and hydrogen, alongside process heat applications. As the basic technology for VHTR systems has already been established in high temperature gas reactor plants, the design is an evolutionary development. However, the system’s aim of operating above 1000°C presents significant challenges in terms of fuel and materials development, as well as safety under transient conditions.

Supercritical-water-cooled reactor (SCWR) is a high-temperature, high-pressure, water-cooled reactor that operates above the thermodynamic critical point of water.

The supercritical water coolant enables a thermal efficiency about one-third higher than current light-water reactors, as well as simplification in the balance of plant. The balance of plant is considerably simplified because the coolant does not change phase in the reactor and is directly coupled to the energy conversion equipment. The reference system is 1,700 MWe with an operating pressure of 25 MPa, and a reactor outlet temperature of 510 degrees Celsius, possibly ranging up to 550 degrees Celsius. The fuel is uranium oxide. Passive safety features are incorporated similar to those of simplified boiling water reactors.

The SCWR system is primarily designed for efficient electricity production, with an option for actinide management based on two options in the core design: the SCWR may have a thermal or fast-spectrum reactor; the second is a closed cycle with a fast-spectrum reactor and full actinide recycle based on advanced aqueous processing at a central location.

As the system uses existing light water reactor technology, there is already extensive worldwide experience in constructing and operating this sort of reactor. Proposed designs are likely to enjoy high thermal efficiency and a simplified system configuration. A SCWR design could be developed with a fast neutron spectrum. Using fast neutrons with higher kinetic energies would enable the system to produce at least as much fissile material as it consumes (thereby fulfilling the sustainability goal as set out in the Generation IV roadmap). This concept’s tendency to have a positive void reactivity coefficient together with the potential for design basis loss-of-coolant accidents are likely to make this difficult to develop. The other major challenges for the SCWR are to develop a viable core design, accurately estimate the heat transfer coefficient and develop materials for the fuel and core structure that will be sufficiently corrosion-resistant to withstand SCWR conditions.

Sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) features a fast-spectrum, sodium-cooled reactor and closed fuel cycle for efficient management of actinides and conversion of fertile uranium.

The SFR is designed for management of high-level wastes and, in particular, management of plutonium and other actinides. Important safety features of the system include a long thermal response time, a large margin to coolant boiling, a primary system that operates near atmospheric pressure, and intermediate sodium system between the radioactive sodium in the primary system and the power conversion system. Water/steam and carbon-dioxide are being considered as the working fluids for the power conversion system in order to achieve high-level performances in thermal efficiency, safety and reliability. With innovations to reduce capital cost, the SFR can serve markets for electricity.

The fuel cycle employs a full actinide recycle with three major options. The first option is a large size (600 to 1,500 MWe) loop-type sodium-cooled reactor using mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel, supported by a fuel cycle based upon advanced aqueous processing at a central location serving a number of reactors. The second option is an intermediate size (300 to 600 MWe) pool-type reactor and the third a small size (50 to 150MWe) modular-type sodium-cooled reactor employing uranium-plutonium-minor-actinide-zirconium metal alloy fuel, supported by a fuel cycle based on pyrometallurgical processing in facilities integrated with the reactor. The outlet temperature is approximately 550 degrees celsius for all the three concepts.

The SFR's fast spectrum also makes it possible to use available fissile and fertile materials (including depleted uranium) considerably more efficiently than thermal spectrum reactors with once-through fuel cycles.

The SFR system already benefits from considerable technological experience, but also offers the potential to operate with a high conversion fast spectrum core, with the resulting benefit of increasing the utilization of fuel resources. The envisaged SFR capability to efficiently and nearly completely consume trans-uranium as fuel would reduce the actinide loadings in the high-level radioactive waste it produces. Such reductions would bring benefits in the radioactive waste disposal requirements associated with the system and enhance its non-proliferation attributes. Reducing the capital cost and improving passive safety, especially under transient conditions, are the major challenges for the SFR system.

Lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR) features a fast-spectrum, lead/bismuth eutectic liquid-metal-cooled reactor and a closed fuel cycle for efficient conversion of fertile uranium and management of actinides.

The LFR system has excellent materials management capabilities since it operates in the fast-neutron spectrum and uses a closed fuel cycle for efficient conversion of fertile uranium. It can also be used as a burner to consume actinides from spent LWR fuel and as a burner/breeder with thorium matrices. An important feature of the LFR is the enhanced safety that results from the choice of molten lead as a relatively inert coolant. In terms of sustainability, lead is abundant and hence available, even in case of deployment of a large number of reactors. More importantly, as with other fast systems, fuel sustainability is greatly enhanced by the conversion capabilities of the LFR fuel cycle.

The LFR was primarily envisioned for missions in electricity and hydrogen production, and actinide management. Given its R and D needs in the areas of fuels, materials, and corrosion control, a two step process leading to industrial deployment of the LFR system has been envisioned: by 2025 for reactors operating with relatively low primary coolant temperature and low power density; and by 2035 for more advanced designs. The preliminary evaluation of the LFR concepts considered by the LFR Provisional System Steering Committee (PSSC) covers their performance in the areas of sustainability, economics, safety and reliability and proliferation resistance and physical protection.

The LFR concepts that are currently being designed are two pool-type reactors:

(1) the Small Secure Transportable Autonomous Reactor (SSTAR), developed in the USA and
(2) the European Lead-cooled System (ELSY), developed by the EC.

The main advantages of the LFR system are its expected fuel efficiency, its capabilities in terms of nuclear materials management (thereby mitigating proliferation risks) and the reduced production of high-level radioactive waste and actinides.

Molten salt reactor (MSR) produces fission power in a circulating molten salt fuel mixture with an epithermal-spectrum reactor and a full actinide recycling fuel cycle.

In a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR), the fuel is dissolved in a fluoride salt coolant. Prior MSRs were mainly considered as thermal-neutron-spectrum graphite-moderated concepts. Since 2005 R&D has focused on the development of fast-spectrum MSR concepts (MSFR) combining the generic assets of fast neutron reactors (extended resource utilization, waste minimization) to those relating to molten salt fluorides as fluid fuel and coolant (favourable thermal-hydraulic properties, high boiling temperature, optical transparency). In addition, MSFRs exhibit large negative temperature and void reactivity coefficients, a unique safety characteristic not found in solid-fuel fast reactors. MSFR systems have been recognized as a long term alternative to solid-fuelled fast neutron systems with unique potential (negative feedback coefficients, smaller fissile inventory, easy in-service inspection, simplified fuel cycle, etc.).

Apart from MSR systems, other advanced reactor concepts are being studied employing liquid salt technology as primary coolant in Fluoride-cooled High-temperature Reactor (FHR), or intermediate coolant as an alternative to secondary sodium in Sodium Fast Reactors (SFR) and to intermediate helium in Very High Temperature Reactors (VHTR).

More generally speaking, the development of higher temperature salts as coolants could bring new nuclear and non-nuclear applications. These salts could facilitate heat transfer for nuclear hydrogen production concepts, concentrated solar electricity generation, oil refineries and shale oil processing facilities amongst other applications.

Fluoride-cooled High-temperature Reactors (FHRs) combine the use of liquid fluoride salt coolants (like MSRs), pool type cores and vessel configurations in common with many sodium reactor designs, and coated particle fuels similar to high temperature gas-cooled reactors (Forsberg et al., 2008). The two most developed FHR designs are the 1200 MWe Advanced High Temperature Reactor (AHTR) that employs prismatic fuel elements and the 410MWe Pebble Bed Advanced High Temperature Reactor (PB-AHTR). The better fluoride salt heat transport characteristics, as compared to helium, enable power densities 4 to 8 times greater as well as power levels over 4000 MWt with passive safety systems. Fuel cycle characteristics are essentially identical to those of the VHTR, while intermediate heat transport, power conversion and balance of plant are essentially identical to those of the “reference” MSR.

Fourth Advent Propers (1928 BCP)

2011-12-18T09:09:00.000-05:00

Fourth Advent Propers (1928 BCP)

No More Abortion - No More Liberalism!

2011-12-18T09:01:00.003-05:00

Folks,

We MUST win this next election in November of 2012. That godless man of depravity and perversion - Barack Hussein Obama - MUST be defeated.

No gay marriage.
No abortion.
No force redistribution of wealth.
Yes, nuclear energy.
Yes, an overwhelmingly strong military.
Yes, a manned space program.
Yes, the obliteration of militant atheism and fascist Islam.
Yes, an overwhelmingly strong Israel.

Liberals must be shoved back into the closet from which they came. If that means I have to hold my nose as I vote for a Republican candidate whom I would not otherwise choose, then so be it.

Four Republican presidential candidates -- Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum -- on Dec. 14 attended the Iowa screening of the anti-abortion documentary, The Gift of Life, at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines.

The Gift of Life screening with Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry and Santorum

What You Believe Makes a Difference

2011-12-16T10:37:00.000-05:00

Folks,

Father Robert Barron has issued a new video entitled, "What You Believe Makes a Difference." I encourage the interested reader to take the nine plus minutes to listen to this important discussion. The atheist dictators of the 20th century - Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc. - have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that what someone believes does make a difference, to the tune of one hundred million murdered under the cry, "There is no God but me." This is exactly why today's liberal Democrat movement of force wealth redistribution, abortion on demand and militant homosexuality is so dangerous. My advice remains the same as always: atheist dictators fear nothing so much as an armed and free people.

The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality and the Nazi Party

2011-12-16T10:07:00.002-05:00

Folks,

A commenter at this blogsite - Scotju - has kindly pointed out, in response to our recent post "Homosexual Hate Speech," a work written by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams entitled, "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality and the Nazi Party." Admittedly your blogmeister here at Commentarius de Prognosticis knows little about this book except what the web site accessed at the aforementioned hyperlinked title reveals. But the book's thesis is reasonable, "... that the Nazi Party was conceived, organized and controlled throughout its short history by masculine-oriented male homosexuals who hid their sexual proclivities from the public, in part by publicly persecuting one group of their political enemies: out-of-the-closet effeminate-oriented homosexuals aligned with the German Communist Party."

Now Adolph Hitler himself seems to have been a heterosexual, but not without the usual set of sexual perversions that afflict the godlessly reprobate. But the glorification of the Nordic male physique for which Nazism is well known is shared by today's filthy dirty sodomite perverts overrunning our society. Thus, the similarities between yesterday's National Socialist Worker's Party and today's national socialist liberal democracy cannot be denied. However, what is so ironic is that today's Adolph Hitler - Barck Hussein Obama - is a man whose mixed racial heritage would have sadly ensured his incineration in the Nazi stalags. But the devil doesn't care how he murders, so long as he murders, hence the demonism of militant homosexual sodomy.

Advanced Nuclear Reactor Designs

2011-12-16T09:07:00.001-05:00

Folks,

In continuing our series of posts on nuclear energy (Current Nuclear Reactor Designs and New Nuclear Reactor Designs), this post concerns Advanced Nuclear Reactor Designs proposed to the US NRC. Our next post will be on Generation IV Nuclear Reactor Designs. Again, the information below has been taken from the web sites of the US NRC itself, Wikipedia or those of the companies proposing the designs.

DOE Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)

The Department of Energy’s Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP), using gas-cooled reactor technology with a prismatic or pebble bed fuel design, is intended provide the blueprint for the commercial industry to manage the heat from the next generation of advanced nuclear plants for energy production and industrial processing. This high temperature gas-cooled reactor could provide heat for industrial process at temperatures from 700 to 950°C, thus enabling catalytic production of hydrogen gas for transportation fuel. This reactor could open the door for a wider range of other commercial applications than possible with the current light water reactor technology that operates near 300°C. NGNP is based on the safety of the high temperature gas-cooled reactor and would make improvements beyond the already demonstrated safety of commercial light water reactors. The high temperature gas-cooled reactor would meet and exceed current nuclear standards in reliability, proliferation resistance, waste management and security capabilities.

NuScale Reactor

NuScale is an integral pressurized-water reactor (iPWR), designed by NuScale Power, Inc. The design is based on MASLWR (Multi-Application Small Light Water Reactor) developed at Oregon State University in the early 2000s. NuScale is a natural circulation light water reactor with the reactor core and helical coil steam generator located in a common reactor vessel in a cylindrical steel containment. The reactor vessel/containment module is submerged in water in the reactor building safety related pool. The reactor building is located below grade. The reactor building is designed to hold 12 SMRs. Each NuScale SMR has a rated thermal output of 160 MWt and electrical output of 45 MWe, yielding a total capacity of 540 MWe for 12 SMRs.

Babcock and Wilcox mPower Reactor

The mPower reactor is an integral pressurized-water reactor (iPWR), designed by the Babcock and Wilcox Company. It is a light water reactor with the reactor and steam generator located in a single reactor vessel located in an underground containment. The mPower reactor has a rated thermal output of 400 MWt and electrical output of 125 MWe.

GE-Hitachi Power Reactor Innovation Small Module (PRISM)

S-PRISM, also called PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module), is the name of a nuclear power plant design by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) based on a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor. The design utilizes reactor modules, each having a power output of 311 MWe, to enable factory fabrication at low cost. The design is based on the Integral Fast Reactor. The Integral Fast Reactor was developed at the West Campus of the Argonne National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho and was the intended successor to the Experimental Breeder Reactor II. The Integral Fast Reactor project was shut down by the U.S. Congress in 1994. The S-PRISM represents GEH's Generation IV reactor solution to closing the nuclear fuel cycle and is also part of its Advanced Recycling Center proposition to U.S. Congress to deal with nuclear waste. In October 2010, GEH signed a memorandum of understanding with the operators of the Department of Energy's Savannah River site, which should allow the construction of a demonstration reactor prior to the design receiving full NRC licensing approval.

Hyperion Power Module

The HPM is a next generation design that uses a liquid metal cooled, uranium nitride fueled, fast-spectrum reactor that employs control rods for reactivity control. The reactor has been designed to deliver 70 MW of heat (25 MW of electricity) for a 10-year lifetime, without refueling. Key advantages of the HPM design are:

(1) Advanced reactor design – Use of advanced reactor concepts provides for a safer and simpler reactor, elimination of many potential accident scenarios that affect LWRs, and elimination of complex reactor systems.
(2) Small reactor – A smaller reactor is more appropriately sized for smaller generation requirements, can directly replace existing diesel fueled generators, and requires no upgrade to existing small electricity distribution systems.
(3) 10-year power module replacement – The HPM provides 25 MW(e) continuously for 10 years on its initial fuel load (compared to an 18 to 24 month cycle for current light water reactors). No on-site refueling is required. After 10 years the entire reactor module is replaced.
(4) Underground containment vault – The reactor is sited in an underground containment vault to provide isolation from the environment, prevent intrusion or tampering, and avoid harm from natural disasters.
(5) Factory-assembled transportable power modules – Factory assembly allows for standard designs, superior quality control, and faster construction and on-site deployment.

Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBWR)

The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) is a particular design of pebble bed reactor under development by South African company PBMR (Pty) Ltd since 1994. The pebble bed reactor (PBR) is a graphite-moderated, gas-cooled, nuclear reactor. It is a type of very high temperature reactor (VHTR), one of the six classes of nuclear reactors in the Generation IV initiative. Like other VHTR designs, the PBR uses TRISO fuel particles, which allows for high outlet temperatures and passive safety. The base of the PBR's design is the spherical fuel elements called pebbles. These tennis ball-sized pebbles are made of pyrolytic graphite (which acts as the moderator), and they contain thousands of micro fuel particles called TRISO particles. These TRISO fuel particles consist of a fissile material (such as 235U) surrounded by a coated ceramic layer of silicon carbide for structural integrity and fission product containment. In the PBR, thousands of pebbles are amassed to create a reactor core, and are cooled by an inert or semi-inert gas such as helium, nitrogen or carbon dioxide. This type of reactor is passively safe; that is, it removes the need for redundant, active safety systems. Because the reactor is designed to handle high temperatures, it can cool by natural circulation and still survive in accident scenarios, which may raise the temperature of the reactor to 1,600 °C. Because of its design, its high temperatures allow higher thermal efficiencies than possible in traditional nuclear power plants (up to 50%) and has the additional feature that the gases do not dissolve contaminants or absorb neutrons as water does, so the core has less in the way of radioactive fluids. A number of prototypes have been built. Active development continued in South Africa until 2010 as the PBMR design, and in China whose HTR-10 is the only prototype currently operating.

Homosexual Hate Speech

2011-12-16T07:02:00.004-05:00

"The hate speech of the homosexual agenda is becoming ever prevalent in today's society ... as activists in the movement step up to attack not only marriage, but the Saints of the Catholic Church." Michael Voris' video on this may be found at the following hyperlinked title or at the You Tube video embedded below.

Homsexual Hate Speech

And just as the militant homosexuals are attacking the Catholic Church, so they will any other Christian denomination that believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, especially Scripture condeming homosexual filth. There can be no religious freedom in a society that allows, even promotes the militant homosexual agenda.

Update

A reader made the following observation which I think constitutes a good question, "How is there no such thing as a transgender person? Michael Voris states that 'they don't exist'"

My response follows:

I am not certain what Voris meant by "there's no such thing as a transgender person." On first glance, some humans (a vanishingly small number) are born androgenous or as hermaphrodites (both mutations). Are they "transgender"? And for those born as one gender, are they "transgender" when they undergo sex-change operations? I don't know.

Nevertheless, I am opposed to "sex change" operations EXCEPT in the extreme cases of androgeny or hermaphroditism. There are also unique but rare cases when one has the sex organs of one gender and the chromosomes of the other. These are very difficult ones to deal with.

But maybe when Voris says there is no such thing as transgender, he isn't referring to those. Maybe he means that transvestitism (wearing the clothes of the other gender) doesn't make one the other gender (which is absolutely correct). He could be a bit more nuanced. And that's one of the several reasons why I haven't been posting his videos for the past few months. To his defense, though, a six minute video leaves little room for nuancing.

Christmas - from Canon Paul Castellano of the Orthodox Anglican Communion

2011-12-15T18:49:00.000-05:00

Christmas - from Canon Paul Castellano of the Orthodox Anglican Communion

Something to ponder in this Advent season:

CHRISTMAS

Christmas is not about presents, and gifts and parties. None of which are wrong in and of themselves. What has happened, unfortunately, is that THAT has BECOME the meaning and focus of Christmas. Everyone begins to anticipate, not its true meaning, but the parties, presents and gifts. This makes Christmas no more than an excuse to have another party.

Christmas, the TRUE meaning of Christmas is, 2,000 years ago, in a small barn, amidst hay, dirt, urine, manure and freezing cold, God graciously and sacrificially gave the greatest gift of all time. That gift was the answer to man's most serious and difficult problem - man's alienation from God due to sin. The gift was the birth of a baby; a tiny little infant, in whose existence rested man's ultimate Joy, Hope and Security. That baby, that tiny little child, was born King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He, the second person of the Triune Godhead, being perfect with God the Father and The Spirit, left Heavens perfection and Glory and took upon Himself the humiliation of human flesh; the degradation of soiling Himself in a dirty, smelly diaper, in order to GIVE TO US God’s greatest gift - salvation. Salvation from God's judgment and wrath; salvation from sin. It is HE upon whom we should focus on Christmas Day - not picking out the perfect gift, the best CD, the most expensive sweater. Not sharing gifts - no matter how noble that may APPEAR to be. That only cheapens His Birth and, eventual sacrifice for us if that is our focus. It distracts our focus from Him. And it is upon Him, and because of Him, and for Him we should celebrate Christmas.

Merry Christmas my friends - Truly

New Nuclear Reactor Designs

2011-12-15T09:58:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Continuing with yesterday’s post on Current Nuclear Reactor Designs, today’s is on New Nuclear Reactor Designs. These are the ones currently under review by or proposed to the US NRC, and are usually called “Generation III” to differentiate them from the “Generation II” designs currently in use. These new designs are built on lessons learned from the current fleet of nuclear reactors, and often they employ passive safety features which rely on natural circulation cooling and gravity-driven core and / or containment flooding in the event of an improbable but hypothetical accident. These reactor designs are equipped with provisions and measures against the type of accident that occurred at Fukushima Daiichi in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in March, 2011. The information provided below has been extracted from the web sites that the US NRC maintains for Design Certification of New Reactors, from Wikipedia, or from the web sites maintained by the corporations proposing the new design.

GE-Hitachi ABWR

The NRC certified the U.S. ABWR design in May 1997. The ABWR is a single-cycle, force-circulation, boiling-water reactor (BWR), with a rated power of 3926 MWt, designed by GE Nuclear Energy. The design incorporates features of the BWR designs in Europe, Japan, and the United States, and uses improved electronics, computer, turbine, and fuel technology. Improvements include the use of internal recirculation pumps, control rod drives that can be controlled by a screw mechanism (rather than a step process), microprocessor-based digital control and logic systems, and digital safety systems. The design also includes safety enhancements, such as protection against overpressurizing the containment, passive core debris flooding capability, an independent water makeup system, three emergency diesels, and a combustion turbine as an alternative power source. The U.S. ABWR design is similar to the international ABWR design, which was built at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Generation Station, Units 6 and 7 (K-6/7), by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc.

Westinghouse AP1000

The AP1000 is a two-loop PWR planned to produce a net 1154 MWe. The design is less expensive to build than other Generation III plants partly because it uses existing technology. The design also decreases the number of components, including pipes, wires, and valves. Standardization and type-licensing should also help reduce the time and cost of construction. Because of its simplified design compared to a Westinghouse generation II PWR, the AP1000 has:

50% fewer safety-related valves
35% fewer pumps
80% less safety related piping
85% less control cable
45% less seismic building volume

The design is considerably more compact in land usage than most existing PWRs, and uses under a fifth of the concrete and rebar reinforcing of older designs. In December 2005, the NRC approved the final design certification for the AP1000. This means that prospective builders can apply for a Combined Construction and Operating License (COL) before construction starts, whose validity is conditional upon the plant being built as designed, and that each AP1000 should be virtually identical.

GE-Hitachi ESBWR

The Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) is a passively safe generation III+ reactor derived from the predecessor Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (SBWR) and the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR). The passive safety systems in an ESBWR operate without using pumps whatsoever, thereby further increasing design safety integrity and reliability, while simultaneously reducing overall reactor cost. It also uses natural circulation for coolant recirculation within the reactor pressure vessel (RPV); there are no recirculation pumps and none of the associated piping, power supplies, heat exchangers and instrumentation & controls. ESBWR’s passive safety systems include a combination of three systems that allow for the efficient transfer of decay heat from the reactor to pools of water outside of containment – the Isolation Condenser System, the Gravity Driven Cooling System, and the Passive Containment Cooling System. These systems utilize natural circulation based on simple laws of physics to transfer the decay heat outside of containment while maintaining water inventory inside the reactor keeping the nuclear fuel submerged in water and adequately cooled.

Areva US EPR

The U.S. EPR is an evolutionary pressurized-water reactor (PWR), designed by AREVA Nuclear Power. It is a four-loop plant with a rated thermal output of 4,500 MWt. The U.S. EPR design features four redundant trains of emergency cooling equipment, and a containment and shield building for added protection. The main design objectives of the EPR design are increased safety while providing enhanced economic competitiveness through improvements to previous PWR designs scaled up to an electrical power output of around 1650 MWe (net) with thermal power 4500 MWt. The reactor can use 5% enriched uranium oxide fuel, reprocessed uranium fuel and 100% mixed uranium plutonium oxide fuel. The EPR is the evolutionary descendant of the Framatome N4 and Siemens Power Generation Division KONVOI reactors. The EPR design has several active and passive protection measures against accidents:

(1) Four independent emergency cooling systems, providing the required cooling of the decay heat that continues for 1 to 3 years after the reactor's initial shutdown (i.e. 300% redundancy)
(2) Leaktight containment around the reactor
(3) An extra container and cooling area if a molten core manages to escape the reactor (see containment building)
(4) Two-layer concrete wall with total thickness 2.6 meters, designed to withstand impact by airplanes and internal overpressure

Mitsubishi US APWR

The Mitsubishi Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR) is a generation III nuclear reactor developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries based on pressurized water reactor technology. It features several design enhancements including a neutron reflector, improved efficiency and improved safety systems. It has safety features advanced over the last generation, including a combination of passive and active systems. The standard APWR is going through the licensing process in Japan and two (of 1538 MWe) are being constructed at the Tsuruga plant. The next APWR+ will be of a 1700 MWe power and have full Mox core abilities. The US-APWR has several design features to improve plant economics. The core is surrounded by a steel neutron reflector which increases reactivity and saves ~0.1wt% U-235 enrichment. In addition, the US-APWR uses more advanced steam generators (compared to the APWR) which creates drier steam allowing for the use of higher efficiency (and more delicate) turbines. This leads to a ~10% efficiency increase compared to the APWR. Several safety improvements are also notable. The safety systems have enhanced redundancy, utilizing 4 trains each capable of supplying 50% of the needed makeup water instead of 2 trains capable of 100%. Also, more reliance is placed on the accumulators which have been redesigned and increased in size. The improvements in this passive system have led to the elimination of the Safety Injection system, an active system.

Letters from NRC Commissioners about Chairman Jackzo

2011-12-14T15:53:00.002-05:00

Folks,

At the following web link (http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Letters/Letter_To_Daley.pdf) is a PDF file containing three letters that document the misbehavior of Obama's bully, NRC Chairman Jackzo:

The first from Representative Issa to the Whitehouse Chief of Staff
The second from the remaining four NRC Commissioners themselves to the Whitehouse Chief of Staff
The third from the four NRC Commissioners to the NRC Chairman

Again, this problem exists because of liberal Democrat pro-nuclear power activists who aided, abetted and supported that godless man of iniquity, Barack Hussein Obama. You can't play with a rattlesnake without getting bit.

Leadership Crisis at the US NRC due to Obama's Chairman Gregory Jackzo

2011-12-14T15:03:00.003-05:00

Folks,

Representative Issa of California's 49th district chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the US House of Representatives. He has issued the following statement concerning the current leadership crisis at the US NRC caused by liberal progressive Democrat Gregory Jackzo (whose picture is at the left) whom Barack Hussein Obama appointed as chairman:

This hearing will focus on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in the wake of reports that the NRC's Chairman has abused his office and mismanaged his responsibilities to the detriment of the commission's critical work. The concerns about the Chairman are shared amongst the four commissioners – two Democrats and two Republicans. Three of the four were appointed by President Obama. Their joint complaints are not about differences in policy or safety with the Chairman. Rather, their concern involves how the Chairman exercises his responsibilities, intimidates staff, and undermines the law put in place by Congress designating the commission – not the chairman – as the agency's ultimate authority.

An investigation undertaken by the committee has exposed a hostile work environment that is detrimental to the mission of the NRC. It is a detriment to the staff, the Commissioners, and the reputation of the agency. While Chairman Jaczko professes that safety is his number one priority, his leadership style is simultaneously eroding the NRC's ability to execute its mission. It is important that we understand the root cause of this problem and restore the public's confidence in the integrity of this agency.

The Hill news outlet reports that "Nuke commissioners accuse chairman of abusing staff, withholding information." Gregory Jackzo has verbally abused women working in the US NRC. He has blocked crucial safety information from getting to the other four commissioners. He has cut the budget exactly when more work needs to be done to license new nuclear power plants to keep the lights on. And he has effectively killed any sane management of spent nuclear fuel. This is Obamania - godless liberal democracy - at its very best. Indeed, Commissioner Magwood reported the following:

“One woman told me that she felt the chairman was actually irritated with someone else, but took it out on her...Another said she was angry at herself for being brought to tears in front of male colleagues. A third described how she couldn’t stop shaking after her experience. She sat, talking with her supervisor until she could calm down sufficiently to drive home.”

For all their talk about tolerance, diversity and inclusiveness, this is what liberal Democrats really do at the work place. Now I do not blame this on anti-nuclear energy Representative Ed Markey or Senator Harry Reid (for whom Jaczko once worked as a "science" advisor). Rather, I blame this on pro-nuclear power liberal progressives at Atomic Insights and at NEI Nuclear Notes who support that godless man of iniquity and depravity in the Oval Office. They ought to hang their heads in utter shame for ingratiating themselves with Obama and people of his like (but instead they are proud to be liberal). Indeed, no one should be surprised that a liberal democrat in power runs amuck, demeaning and abusing anyone who doesn't agree with him, acting like the vicious bully that most liberals are. This is what we get when we put a man of evil in the Presidency.

Think about it: Obama supports the murder of unborn babies and the sanctification of homosexual filth. Of course those whom he appoints to authority are going to be vicious, mean-spirited bullies of vindictiveness. Oh, people say that one doesn't necessarily lead to or is relevant with the other. But we know from Jackzo's rotten, childish bevaior that that isn't true. The Democrats that are in power are evil and must be removed. And the Democrats at NEI Nuclear Notes and Atomic Insights had better wise up, see the wickedness with which they have ingratiated themselves, and repent of the vile, putrid, and rancid liberalism that they support.

The three dirtiest words in the English language are: Liberal - Progressive - Democrat.

Current Nuclear Reactor Designs

2011-12-14T10:54:00.007-05:00

Update: please see the following related entries at this blog site:

New Nuclear Reactor Designs
Advanced Nuclear Reactor Designs
Generation 4 Nuclear Reactor Designs

Folks,

From time to time commenters have asked for explanations relating to nuclear energy, including its commercial utilization. This is the first of a series of blog posts to try to explain a subject that has otherwise been the victim of disinformation and ignorance within the main stream media. The discussion below pertains to current reactor designs. Yes, text from Wikipedia is used except for some minor editorializations.

Pressurized Water Reactor

Pressurized water reactors (PWRs) constitute a large majority of all western nuclear power plants and are one of three types of light water reactor (LWR), the other types being boiling water reactors (BWRs) and supercritical water reactors (SCWRs) (to be discussed in a future blog post). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) is pumped under high pressure to the reactor core where it is heated by the energy generated by the fission of atoms. The heated water is then circulated by massive reactor coolant pumps to a steam generator where it transfers its thermal energy to a secondary system where steam is generated and flows to turbines which, in turn, spins an electric generator to produce electicity. In contrast to a boiling water reactor, a pressurizer maintains primary system pressure at 2235 psi to prevent boiling of the 572 F coolant. All LWRs use ordinary light water as both coolant and neutron moderator. Control rods and boron within boric acid dissolved in the reactor coolant areb used to cotnrol core reactivity.

Boiling Water Reactor

The Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) uses demineralized water as a coolant and neutron moderator. Heat is produced by nuclear fission in the reactor core, and this causes the cooling water to boil, producing steam. The steam is directly used to drive a turbine, after which it is cooled in a condenser and converted back to liquid water. This water is then returned to the reactor core, completing the loop. The cooling water is maintained at about 75 atm (7.6 MPa, 1000–1100 psi) so that it boils in the core at about 285 °C (550 °F). In comparison, there is no significant boiling allowed in a PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) because of the high pressure maintained in its primary loop—approximately 158 atm (16 MPa, 2300 psi). Massive reactor water recirculation pumps recirculate water within the Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) to control core reactivity along with control rods that are inserted into the bottom of the RPV. Prior to the Fukushima I nuclear accidents, the core damage frequency of the reactor was estimated to be between 10−4 and 10−7 (i.e., one core damage accident per every 10,000 to 10,000,000 reactor years).

Candu Reactor

The CANDU (short for CANada Deuterium Uranium) reactor is a Canadian-invented, pressurized heavy water reactor. The acronym refers to its deuterium-oxide (heavy water) moderator and its use of (originally, natural) uranium fuel. The CANDU reactor is similar to most light water reactors in principle, (however the design has considerable differences). Fission reactions in the reactor core heat pressurized heavy water in a primary cooling loop. A heat exchanger, also known as a steam generator, transfers the heat to a light-water secondary cooling loop, which powers a steam turbine with an electrical generator attached to it (typical Rankine thermodynamic cycle). The exhaust steam from the turbines is then condensed and returned as feedwater to the steam generator, often using cooling water from a nearby source, such as a lake, river, or ocean. These types of reactors permit on-line refueling and don't require enrichment of uranium-235 as PWRs and BWRs do.

Vodo-Vodyanoi Energetichesky Reactor

The VVER, or WWER, (from Russian: Водо-водяной энергетический реактор; transliterates as Vodo-Vodyanoi Energetichesky Reactor; Water-Water Energetic Reactor) is a series of pressurized water reactors (PWRs) originally developed by the Soviet Union, and now Russia, by OKB Gidropress. Power output ranges from 440 MWe to 1200 MWe with the latest Russian development of the design. They are similar to PWRs designed by Babcock and Wilcox or Combustion Engineering in the United States.

Gas Cooled Reactor

A gas-cooled reactor (GCR) is a nuclear reactor that uses graphite as a neutron moderator and carbon dioxide (helium can also be used) as coolant. Although there are many other types of reactor cooled by gas, the terms GCR and to a lesser extent gas cooled reactor are particularly used to refer to this type of reactor. The GCR was able to use natural uranium as fuel, enabling the countries that developed them to fabricate their own fuel without relying on other countries for supplies of enriched uranium, which was at the time of their development only available from the United States or Soviet Union. The only GCR to operate commercially in the US was Fort St. Vrain in Colorado (which used helium as a coolant); it has since been shut down and decommissioned. Internationally, there were two main types of generation I GCR: (1) the Magnox reactors developed by the United Kingdom and (2) the UNGG reactors developed by France. The main difference between these two types is in the fuel cladding material. Both types were mainly constructed in their countries of origin, with a few export sales: Magnox plants to Italy and Japan, and a UNGG to Spain. Both types used fuel cladding materials that were unsuitable for medium term storage under water, making reprocessing an essential part of the nuclear fuel cycle. Both types were, in their countries of origin, also designed and used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, but at the cost of major interruption to their use for power generation despite the provision of online refueling. In the UK, the Magnox was replaced by the advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR), an improved Generation II gas cooled reactors. In France, the UNGG was replaced by the pressurized water reactor (PWR). More recently, GCRs based on the declassified drawings of the early Magnox reactors have been constructed by North Korea at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center.

Reaktor Bolshoy Moshchnosti Kanalniy

RBMK is an acronym for the Russian reaktor bolshoy moshchnosti kanalniy (Russian: Реактор Большой Мощности Канальный) which means "High Power Channel-type Reactor", and describes a class of graphite-moderated nuclear power reactor which was built in the Soviet Union. The RBMK reactor was the type involved in the Chernobyl disaster. In 2010, there were at least 11 RBMK reactors operating in Russia, but there are no plans to build new RBMK type reactors (the RBMK technology was developed in the 1950s and is now considered obsolete) and there is international pressure to close those that remain. The RBMK was the culmination of the Soviet nuclear power program to produce a water-cooled power reactor based on their graphite-moderated plutonium production military reactors. The first of these, AM-1 ("Атом Мирный", Atom Mirny, Russian for "peaceful atom") produced 5 MW of electricity (30 MW thermal) and delivered power to Obninsk from 1954 until 1959. Using light water for cooling and graphite for moderation, it is possible to use natural uranium for fuel, but the disadvantage of this design is a positive void co-efficient of reactivity (power goes up, steam voids go up, less neutrons absorb by the hydrogen in light water, more neutrons available for fission, power goes up, cycle continues). Because of the use of natural uranium as fuel and graphite as the moderator, a large power reactor (RBMK reactors at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania were rated at 1500 MWe each, a very large size for the time and even for today) can be built that requires no separated isotopes, such as enriched uranium or heavy water.

Liquid Metal Fast Reactor

A liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor, liquid metal fast reactor or LMFR is an advanced type of nuclear reactor where the primary coolant is a liquid metal which is circulated through a steam generator (or an intermediary liquid metal loop whose coolant is then so circulated) that produces steam to turn a turbine generator to produce electricity. Liquid metal cooled reactors were first adapted for nuclear submarine use but have also been extensively studied for power generation applications. They have safety advantages because the reactor doesn't need to be kept under pressure, and they allow a much higher power density than traditional coolants. Disadvantages include difficulties associated with inspection and repair of a reactor immersed in opaque molten metal, and depending on the choice of metal, corrosion and/or production of radioactive activation products may be an issue. In practice, all liquid metal cooled reactors are fast neutron reactors, and to date most fast neutron reactors have been liquid metal cooled fast breeder reactors (LMFBRs), or naval propulsion units. The liquid metals used typically need good heat transfer characteristics. Fast neutron reactor cores tend to generate a lot of heat in a small space when compared to reactors of other classes. A low neutron absorption is desirable in any reactor coolant, but especially important for a fast reactor, as the good neutron economy of a fast reactor is one of its main advantages. Since slower neutrons are more easily absorbed, the coolant should ideally have a low moderation of neutrons. It is also important that the coolant does not cause excessive corrosion of the structural materials, and that its melting and boiling points are suitable for the reactor's operating temperature. Ideally the coolant should never boil as that would make it more likely to leak out of the system, resulting in a loss-of-coolant accident. Conversely, preventing the coolant from boiling allows the pressure in the cooling system to remain at neutral levels, and this dramatically reduces the probability of an accident. Some designs immerse the entire reactor and heat exchangers into a pool of coolant, virtually eliminating the risk that inner-loop cooling will be lost.

Diversity Training and Filth in the Workplace

2011-12-12T10:44:00.008-05:00

Folks,

This blog post is more of a vent than anything else. Furthermore, out of respect for anyone with whom I work and who may read this, the name of the company for which I work will remain undisclosed. Additionally, I suspect that what is discussed below - the elevation of homosexual filth to normalcy - is something not unique to the corporation for which I work, but by Federal mandate is spread all throughout corporate America. Such is the legacy of that godless man of depravity and iniquity in the Oval Office and his demonic henchmen of doom and destruction. Lastly, while I oppose any mal-treatment of a person afflicted with homosexual inclinations, homosexual behavior is intrinsically evil and sinful, and cannot and must not be tolerated under any circumstances; this is non-negotionable.

Every employee at my place of work is required to pass an on-line training course in "Diversity" once a year. For the first time in my 35 years in nuclear energy workforce, a major focus of this training is homosexual "civil rights". Fully 20% of the course and exam questions are devoted to this. The questions aren't innocuous ones along the lines of "Do you respect people regardless of their sexual preference?" Rather, they are quite pointed ones, such as, "How would you start support groups for inclusion of LGTB people?", or "Do you encourage workers of same sex attraction to be open about their romantic relationships?" (The actual wording of the test questions is a bit more complicated, but the reader gets the general idea.) Needless to say, I am failing the test, having taken it several times already. I fully support equal treatment of persons regardless of religion, race, national origin, gender, age or even sexual orientation. I do NOT support inclusion of the homosexual lifestyle as normal. I confess that this whole thing fills me with great anger. What is even more frustrating is that several slides in the training passively denigrate being a white heterosexual man, but laud being a lesbian or gay racial minority.

There was once a time when we were a Christian Constitutional Republic and people of same sex persuasion stayed in the closet where they belonged. Today Christians have to go into the closet and dirty filthy perverts who think it's normal for them to put their reproductive organs in the mouths or rectums of other men get to not only parade their godless sexual idolatry out in the open, but force normal people to accept their filth as well. Well, I for one refuse to accept such perversion. Jesus was right: in these "Last Days" (at least the last days of Western Civilization) nations have become just like Sodom and Gomorrah, and if today's society continues, then all of it will suffer their fate.

Avē Marīa, grātiā plēna,
Dominus tēcum.
Benedicta tū in mulieribus,
et benedictus frūctus ventris tuī, Iēsus.
Sāncta Marīa, Māter Deī,
ōrā prō nōbīs peccātōribus,
nunc et in hōrā mortis nostrae.
Āmēn.

I will conclude with articles 2357 through 2359 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Taxing the Rich - An Analysis for this Past Year of 2011

2011-12-10T10:12:00.011-05:00

Folks,

This morning I received in an e-mail from a friend and former co-worker a web link to the following You Tube video that provides an analysis for 2011 of the effects that the liberal demand to tax the rich would have had.

Taxing the Rich

As usual, like most all liberal ideas, the scheme is a bust, but it does result in the murder of a great many people. The cries of atheist Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety - "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" - are shown for the hypocrisy that they are, and the only thing they fear is "right of the people to keep and bear arms." Remember the flip side of the coin whose head is Democracy is indeed Socialism.

By the way, to all those social justice advocates who point out the story of Jesus and the rich man in Matthew 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-22 and Luke 19:18-23 to justify their "tax the rich" mentality, let them consider this. The rich man asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life and Jesus quotes from the Ten Commandments. The rich man responded that he had done these things all his life. Thereupon verse 21 in chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark says:

"Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, 'One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.'"

Notice that Scripture states that Jesus LOVED the rich man, and out of his love told the rich man to remove the one thing keeping him from God his Father: his love of his own riches. It wasn't for feeding the poor that Jesus told the rich man to forsake his riches. We already known from John 12:8 that Jesus said, "For the poor you have with you always..." Rather, the rich man had to remove the stone that lay between him and heaven: love of the material things of this world. And how like this rich man are today's liberal Democrats in their covetousness for the wealth and property of others. As Jesus said in John 6:26-27:

"Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him."

Notice also in this account between Jesus and the rich man that never once did Jesus tell Caesar to take away the rich man's possessions. Rather, giving must always and everywhere be voluntary. Forced wealth re-distribution is nothing other than violating the Commandment that states, "Thou shalt not steal." Indeed, this country cannot and will not prosper by taxing the rich or any other hair-brained liberal Democrat schemes. Rather, as 2nd Chronicles 7:14 states:

"If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

Being humble - humility - is not in the lexicon of the liberal progressive. For that will liberalism perish, but sadly not before its adherents equal or exceed the 100 million dead from atheism in the 20th century. The precedence of Robespierre, the Committee of Public Safety and the guillotine speak loudly and clearly.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

2011-12-09T15:25:00.000-05:00

Folks,

I didn't get the opportunity to make a blog entry yesterday on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but better late than never. I encourage my Protestant friends to take the time to read Pope Pius IX's Encyclical, Ineffabilis Deus. I am not going to launch on another long-winded essay to explain Mariology or defend the dogma of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception. All I am going to tell the reader is this: when my former spouse demanded a divorce in early 2007 and I found myself out in the snow, I had two choices: go to the nearest bar and drown my sorrows in booze and drugs, thereby rescinding two decades of sobriety, or reach into my pocket, pray the Holy Rosary and get my behind to Confession and a 12 Step Meeting. By God's grace alone I chose the latter and I prayed to Our Lady for help. The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes. I am still sober today. My life isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination and I still make mistakes. But Our Blessed Mother interceded for me with Her Son, and in essence (no, there were no voices from Mount Sinai) said the same thing that she told the servants at the Wedding Feast in Cana two thousand years ago: "Do whatever He tells you." So there is a special place in my heart for our Blessed Mother, and there always will be.

The following six minute and 22 second You Tube video may help to concisely explain the theological aspects of the Immaculate Conception, but Our Blessed Mother's action in my own life is all the proof I need.

Immaculate Conception

If Atheism Is True, Does Life Still Have Meaning?

2011-12-09T15:03:00.002-05:00

Folks,

There is an excellent article over at the National Catholic Register entitled:

If Atheism Is True, Does Life Still Have Meaning?

This article states in part the following, and this is the crux of the matter, for among all people atheists are the most pitiable. They have nothing to live for and no where to go when they die except hell which as St. John reminds us in the Book of Revelation is the second death from which no reprieve exists. Perhaps because of the futility of their lives this is why atheists murdered upwards of 100 million people in the 20th century.

Let’s say we have the following equation, and I have the freedom to make X whatever I want it to be:

X * 0 = _____

I could do something cool like make X = (21 + 2 + 10 + 28 + 22 + 14 + 7), adding up the days of the month for family and friends’ birthdays so that their total is a number that represents the month and day my husband and I were married. Or I could carefully craft some other combination of numbers that was deeply significant to me. But the equation would still look like this:

(21 + 2 + 10 + 28 + 22 + 14 + 7) * 0 = _____

No matter how many or how few numbers I use, it would still yield the same result: Zero.

If consciousness is just a mirage produced by chemical reactions in our brains, and if the mirage permanently flickers out on the day those reactions cease, then do any of our conscious thoughts really matter? Sure, you can have an impact on others who will live on after you die, but one day they will disappear into thin air too. To my mind, all this talk of valuable life experiences adding up to something meaningful is like talking about how to make X add up to something meaningful in the above equation. In the end, it’s all for naught.

Only Jesus Christ makes life worth living, and death worth going through.

Immaculée Ilibagiza

2011-12-07T15:12:00.003-05:00

Folks,

A year or two ago I had listened to Immaculée Ilibagiza give a speech about her escape from the Rwandan Holocaust. She recounted how she survived for 91 days with seven other women during the Rwandan Genocide in a small bathroom, no larger than 3 feet long and 4 feet wide, and how her family and friends were indiscriminately murdered by rabid men of evil. Yet she still forgave them as Jesus did His executioners from the Cross. I sadly didn't get to meet her after the speech because too many people were surrounding her, but in addition to being very intelligent and very well-spoken with such a lovely accent, she was also a downright gorgeously beautiful lady. But I suppose that all women who have devoted their lives to Jesus Christ and His Church as she has are equally beautiful. That's what Jesus does to people. (It's also why in their rejection of Jesus Christ and His Church, liberal feminist women of the Demokratik Party of death are so disgustingly ugly - sorry - can't help myself!)

In any event, what brought this blog message about was my discovery of Immaculée's Facebook web page, and I remembered how touched I was when she described how afraid she had been, yet she trusted in the Lord her God and He delivered.

By the way, in repudiation of all those liberal leftists out there in cyber space who accuse me of being racist because of my opposition to the Obamanation of Desolation (who does to unborn babies what the Interhamwe Hutu soldiers did in Rawanda), let it be known that by accident of birth, Immaculée's skin color is a bautiful dark, dark brown, and that makes me (a descendent from northern European ancestors - again, an accident of birth) wish I were 15 years younger! ;-)

Guide to the Big Bang: Sifting Facts from Fictions

2011-12-07T08:17:00.000-05:00

Folks,

The following essay is by Dr. Hugh Ross at the Reasons to Believe Institute.

Guide to the Big Bang: Sifting Facts from Fictions

Please left click your mouse cursor on the aforementioned hyperlink to read this essay which incontrovertibly demonstrates from the fine tuning of physical constants and variables that favor the presence of life in a universe otherwise hostile to life the fact of God's existence. As St. Paul in Romans 1:20-21 states:

Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened.

St. Paul then goes on to describe how these godlessly wicked people who reject the evidence of God and creative attributes become filthy dirty homosexual sodomists, deceitful, murderous and idolatrous perverts. While he was writing for the Romans, Greeks and Jews in the 1st century AD, he may as well have been writing for today's worshippers of scientism (which isn't science at all) in these post modern, neo-pagan United States.

To reject the evidence of God in His creation is to reject God. Those who reject God send themselves to hell, and that is regrettable.