Maryland March for Life, March 9

don't forget the

Monday - March 9th
5pm - 8pm

(410) 760-9166 or (301) 858-8304
www.MarylandMarchForLife.org

"I would rather go to hell"

Such satanic talk is an example of the pagan and rebellious ideology exhibited by many politicians and public leaders today:

"I would rather go to hell than take orders on how to vote from the Cardinal."

--Australian Lawmaker

Sydney, Jun 7, 2007 (CNA).- Catholic lawmakers in Australia said yesterday they will vote in favor of therapeutic cloning regardless of the directives or warnings issued by the archbishop of Sydney.

Tony Stewart of the ruling Labor Party in the New South Wales state parliament, said he would rather go to hell than take orders on how to vote from Cardinal George Pell. "Maybe I'll go to hell, but if I go to hell I'm going to do so by saving a lot of lives, because that's what this bill is about," Tony Stewart said in a radio interview.

Cardinal Pell said recently that cloning is unethical and “a serious moral matter”, which could see the creation of human and animal hybrids.

“Catholic politicians who vote for this legislation must realize that their voting has consequences for their place in the life of the Church," he reportedly said.

Cardinal Pell was soon joined by Archbishop Barry Hickey of Perth who also issued a similar warning. He said that Catholics who vote for cloning, "are acting against the teaching of the Church on a very serious matter and they should, in conscience, not vote that way; but if they do, in conscience they should not go to Communion."

The both prelates said they are considering refusing Holy Communion to Catholic lawmakers who vote in favor of the bill.

"We don't need a religious leader telling members of parliament what should be done," Stewart said in a radio interview.

Lawmakers are being allowed a conscience vote on a bill to bring the country's most populous state into line with the federal government, which overturned a ban on the so-called therapeutic cloning last year.

The new law would allow excess human embryos from in-vitro fertilization treatment to be used to create stem cells for research.

Both state premier Morris Iemma and his deputy, John Watkins, are Catholics who have said they intend to vote for the bill.

"I've already thought seriously about this legislation, and it passes all the ethical and moral issues that I need passed, and gives people hope," said Watkins, who admitted he is upset about the cardinal’s recent statements.

The Anglican Church is also asking lawmakers to vote against the bill.

-- From EWTN

(Photo: Detail, The Garden of Earthly Delights/Hell, by Hieronymus Bosch.)

"I like clarity"

"I like clarity, and there’s a reason why. I think modern life, including life in the Church, suffers from a phony unwillingness to offend that poses as prudence and good manners, but too often turns out to be cowardice. Human beings owe each other respect and appropriate courtesy. But we also owe each other the truth -- which means candor."

-- Archbishop Charles Chaput, speaking to an overflow crowd at St. Basil’s Church in Toronto last week.

(Special thanks to Don Hemke.)

Pope: Man is greater than his genetic makeup and physical perfection

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Man will always be greater than all that which makes up his body; in fact, he bears the power of thought, which is always directed toward the truth about himself and about the world." With these words, Benedict XVI has taken part in the discussion about the "New frontiers of genetics and the risk of eugenics" organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life and currently underway. Receiving the members of the Academy, on the occasion of their 15th General Assembly, he cautioned against a devastating new form of eugenics that discriminates "against the sick and disabled, or, even worse, goes so far as the selection and rejection of life in the name of an abstract ideal of health and physical perfection."

Receiving the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Benedict XVI reaffirms the absolute value of the human person, against those who would like to use eugenics to eliminate all those who are sick or imperfect. It is necessary to fight "genetic reductionism," because man is greater than his physical body.

Read the whole story here.

Coming out of "coming out"?

Giuseppe Povia, Italian pop singer, rocks the Italian music festival San Remo singing about someone escaping the same-sex attraction lifestyle, "Luca era gay".

Povia has "street cred" because the song, reportedly, is partly autobiographical.

(Photo and story by LifeSiteNews.)

Rebuked: "Get behind me, Satan!"

"His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoins all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

The Vatican released the above statement moments before Nancy Pelosi met privately with Benedict XVI following the Wednesday general audience, 18 February 2009, in Rome.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.)

Is obdurate Pelosi on her way to Excommunication-ville?

Nancy Pelosi's desperate attempt to put a positive spin on Wednesday's encounter with the Holy Father has just a few holes in it:

1. Contrary to precedent, no photo was released. The meeting was described as "private".

2. Contrary to precedent, the Vatican press statement on the event took no pains to hide the fact that the meeting was nothing other than a rebuke:

"Pelosi's positive spin on the meeting is not being swallowed even by left-leaning Papal watchers. Vatican correspondent John Allen, who writes for the National Catholic Reporter, noted that 'routine Vatican declarations after diplomatic meetings also generally sum up the range of issues discussed rather than concentrating on a particular point. In that sense, the statement can only be read as a rejection of Pelosi's statements last summer, and, in general, of her argument that it's acceptable for Catholics in public life to take a pro-choice position.' "

News item by LifeSiteNews.

The Pope teaches Madam Speaker

Following the General Audience the Holy Father briefly greeted Mrs Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage.

His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.

(With thanks to Rorate Caeli.)

Bishop Martino to Sen. Bob Casey: "Rescind your vote."

Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania recently voted against an effort to reinstate the Mexico City policy designed to deny funding for abortions overseas. Bishop Martino of Scranton in a statement on the issue has asked Sen. Casey to do the right thing as a professed Catholic and to rescind his vote which will cause the deaths of thousands of unborn children.

(Photo: Catholic Online.

Catholics do not believe those tempted by suicide should be left without help

Would not the fire department rush to the scene with a ladder should you or I threaten to jump from a tall building with the desire to end our lives?

Those tempted by suicide, virtual or otherwise, should never be left without others to defend them in such a supreme moment of human weakness and despair.

Eluana Englaro, even if she did at one time express a desire to have food and water denied to her in the case of a vegetative state, should also not have been left without defenders.

Pray for all families, that they will never fail in their duty to give true aid and help to their loved ones, which never includes denying food and water to any human being who is able to be sustained by such nutrition, no matter what their condition or suffering. No amount of suffering or pain ever takes away the sacredness of each and every human life, made by God in His own image and likeness.

"Thou shalt not kill."

Read more about the case of the killing of Eluana Englaro.

On the Shoah

The Shoah should be "for everyone, a warning against forgetting, against negating or reductionism, because violence committed against even one human being is violence against all."

-- Benedict XVI, General Audience, 28 January 2009.

The cost of imprudent speech

Confirmed:

Williamson removed

UPDATE (1200 GMT): The official news agency of the SSPX, DICI, has now confirmed the following:

Bishop Williamson, as he declared in his interview [to Der Spiegel] does not wish to "hurt in any way the work of the Fraternity"; that is why he accepted, on January 31, the decision of the Superior General [Bishop Fellay] to relieve him of his position as director of the Seminary of La Reja (Argentina). [In French: DICI - permanent link]

Courtesy of Rorate Caeli.

A lesson for us all?

Death Watch: Eluana Englaro

Pray for Eluana Englaro.

(Photo by AP.)

"There's not a question"

"I don't understand the continual debate that goes on about it. There's not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion."

Read the whole story here.

-- Archbishop Burke to LifeSite News.

Supposed "Seamless garment" cannot condone voting FOR abortion

Exclusive Interview: Leading Vatican Prelate Says Document of US Bishops Partly to Blame for Election of "Most Pro-Abortion President"

Also says Bishop's Catholic News Service needs to be given "some new direction"

By Hilary White, Rome Correspondent

ROME, January 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) A document of the US Catholic Bishops is partly to blame for the abandonment of pro-life teachings by voting Catholics and the election of the "most pro-abortion president" in US history, one of the Vatican's highest officials said in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, named a document on the election produced by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops that he said "led to confusion" among the faithful and led ultimately to massive support among Catholics for N.

The US bishops' document, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship", stated that, under certain circumstances, a Catholic could in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports abortion because of "other grave reasons," as long as they do not intend to support that pro-abortion position.

Archbishop Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis Mo. and recently appointed head of the highest ecclesiastical court in the Catholic Church, told LifeSiteNews.com that although "there were a greater number of bishops who spoke up very clearly and firmly ... there was also a number who did not."

But most damaging, he said, was the document "Faithful Citizenship" that "led to confusion" among the voting Catholic population. "While it stated that the issue of life was the first and most important issue, it went on in some specific areas to say 'but there are other issues' that are of comparable importance without making necessary distinctions."

Archbishop Burke, citing an article by a priest and ethics expert of St. Louis archdiocese, Msgr. Kevin McMahon, who analysed how the bishops' document actually contributed to the election of N., called its proposal " a kind of false thinking, that says, 'there's the evil of taking an innocent and defenceless human life but there are other evils and they're worthy of equal consideration."

"But they're not. The economic situation, or opposition to the war in Iraq, or whatever it may be, those things don't rise to the same level as something that is always and everywhere evil, namely the killing of innocent and defenceless human life."

Archbishop Burke also cited the work of the official news service of the US Catholic Bishops' Conference, that many pro-life observers complained soft-pedalled the newly elected president's opposition to traditional morality. "The bishops need to look also at our Catholic News Service, CNS, they need to review their coverage of the whole thing and give some new direction, in my judgement," he said.

(LifeSiteNews.)

"Bishop Williamson...will have to distance himself..."

"Bishop Williamson, for admission to function as a bishop in the Church, will have to also, in an absolutely uneqivocal and public way, distance himself from his positions regarding the Shoah, which were not known by the Holy Father in the moment of the remission of the excommunication."



Full statement today from the Vatican Secretary of State follows:


NOTE OF THE SECRETARIAT OF STATE


Following the reactions caused by the recent Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, with which the excommunication of the four Prelates of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X was remitted, and regarding the Negationist or Reductionist declarations on the Shoah of Bishop Williamson, of the same Fraternity, it is considered convenient to clarify a few aspects of past events.

1. Remission of the excommunication.

As already made public previously, the Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, dated January 21, 2009, was an act by which the Holy Father graciously responded to the repeated requests by the Superior General of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X.

His Holiness desired to remove an obstacle which prevented the opening of a door to dialogue. He now expects that an equal disposition will be expressed by the four Bishops in complete adherence to the doctrine and discipline of the Church.

The extremely grave censure of latae sententiae excommunication, in which the aforementioned Bishops had incurred on June 30, 1988, then formally declared on July 1st of the same year, was a consequence of their illegitimate ordinarion by Mons. Marcel Lefebvre.

The removal of the excommunication released the four Bishops from an extremely grave canonical censure, but has not changed the juridical position of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, which, at the current moment, does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. Not even the four Bishops, though released from the excommunication, have a canonical function in the Church and they do not exercise licitly a ministry in it.

2. Tradition, doctrine, and the Second Vatican Council.

For a future recognition of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, the full acknowledgment of the Second Vatican Council and of the Magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, and of the same Benedict XVI is an indispensable condition

As it was already affirmed in the Decree of January 21, 2009, the Holy See will not avoid, in ways deemed appropriate, discussing with the interested [party] the questions that remain open, so as to be able to reach a full and satisfactory resolution of the problems which originated this painful division.

3. Declarations on the Shoah.

The positions of Mons. Williamson on the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself remarked on the past January 28, when, referring to that brutal genocide, he reaffirmed his full and unquestionable solidarity with our Brethren, receivers of the First Covenant, and affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide must lead "mankind to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man", adding that the Shoah remains "for all a warning against forgetfulness, against denial or reductionism, because the violence against a single human being is violence against all".

Bishop Williamson, for an admission to episcopal functions in the Church, will also have to distance himself, in an absolutely unequivocal and public manner, from his positions regarding the Shoah, unknown to the Holy Father in the moment of the remission of the excommunication.

The Holy Father asks to be joined by the prayers of all the faithful, so that the Lord may enlighten the path of the Church. May the effort of the Pastors and of all the faithful increase in support of the delicate and burdensome mission of the Successor of Apostle Peter as "custodian of unity" in the Church.

From the Vatican, February 4, 2009.

[Translation corrected according to the published version -
L'Osservatore Romano, February 5, 2009.)

- Thanks to Rorate Caeli.

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