Does Quebec priest Father Gravel have the Pope’s Permission to Enter Politics?

LifeSiteNews reported on Oct. 24th that Rev. Raymond Gravel had announced his candidacy for the Bloc nomination for Repentigny, Quebec, in a coming federal by-election.

Canada. com reported on the story the next day.

Fr. Gravel is a longtime dissenter of official Church doctrine and has made his own support for abortion and homosexuality a matter of the public record.

The Vatican had emphasized in its 1983 Code of Canon Law that there was an irreconcilable and dangerous conflict between a priest’s vocation and the holding of office and the Code stated that “clerics are forbidden to assume public offices which entail a participation in the exercise of civil power.”

LifeSiteNews left Vatican contact information in its news report for those wishing to protest Fr. Gravel’s plans to enter politics.

On Oct. 27th, the Toronto Star implies in its report that Fr. Gravel has sought and received the Vatican’s approval to enter politics.

The Star reports that the rebel priest had at some time in the past “received a disciplinary letter from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XIV.”

I wonder why?

Can you imagine Papa Benedict granting permission to enter politics for ANY priest, let alone a priest who “has also been vocal about abortion rights” and who has “publicly decried the Roman Catholic Church’s position on same-sex marriage?”

So has Fr. Gravel received permission or not, and if so, from exactly whom?

Sadly, LifeSiteNews reported also that Fr. Gravel’s Bishop, Msgr. Gilles Lussier “is in a period of reflection and consultation and no decision has yet been made.” Who could blame someone for wondering what exactly is there in this case that demands reflection and consultation? There has been no public repentance on the part of Fr. Gravel nor any public renunciation of his past heresies. The scandal created by Fr. Gravel and which appears to be sustained by his Bishop is now reaching into the Vatican.

God help Bishop Lussier to put a stop to this, or failing that, God help his fellow Bishops to strengthen and restore him, and failing that, God help Pope Benedict XVI to bring the escalating scandal to a full stop.

This is another tragic and heartbreaking picture of the state of corruption in the Catholic hierarchy in Canada.

God have mercy.

Communion of Saints and Purgatory

This Bishop’s latest message to his flock is worth reading!

Bishop Blair of the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio gets the faithful ready to appreciate and celebrate the month traditionally devoted to the prayerful remembrance of the dead. All Saints Day, November 1, honours the saints in heaven and is followed by All Souls Day, November 2, whose focus is on those still being purified in purgatory.

Uhhh? Purgatory? Am I kidding?

No, that’s just the point. Bishop Blair is trying to instruct Catholics in the teaching of the Church on these matters so that their souls might be edified and there might be real benefit to Christ’s followers from these specially appointed occasions.

As the Bishop says,

Today there are spiritual and cultural changes at work pulling us away from Catholic doctrine and piety concerning the dead. The reality of purgatory, the resurrection of the body, and the importance of praying for the dead and offering Masses for them, are not always given the attention they deserve.

Bishop Blair also gives needful guidelines on Catholic funeral rites as well since in our day there is much confusion and a tendency to irreverence regarding such rites.

If you are not a Catholic, this is a great opportunity to inform yourself on the important Christian doctrines of the communion of the saints and purgatory. Don’t allow fear and bias to rob you of the beauty of these teachings. Simply click through on these links and discover some of their richness!

h/t Amy Welborn

What Catholics Do Not Believe

The following is an excerpt from Catholic Belief: or A Short and Simple Exposition of Catholic Doctrine, by the Very Rev. Joseph Faa Di Bruno, D.D.

Catholics do not believe that Protestants [or other non-Catholic Christians] who are baptized, who lead a good life, love God and their neighbor, and are blamelessly ignorant of the just claims of the Catholic Religion to be the one true Religion (which is called being in good faith), are excluded from Heaven, provided they believe that there is one God in three Divine Persons; that God will duly reward the good and punish the wicked; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God made man, who redeemed us, and in whom we must trust for our salvation; and provided they thoroughly repent of having ever, by their sins, offended God.

Catholics hold that Protestants who have these dispositions, and who have no suspicion of their religion being false, and no means to discover, or fail in their honest endeavors to discover, the true Religion, and who are so disposed in their heart that they would at any cost embrace the Roman Catholic Religion if they knew it to be the true one, are Catholics in spirit and in some sense within the Catholic Church, without themselves knowing it. She holds that these Christians belong to, and are united to the "soul," as it is called, of the Catholic Church, although they are not united to the visible body of the Church by external communion with her, and by the outward profession of her faith.

Very different is the case of a person who, having the opportunity, neglects to learn from genuine trustworthy sources what the Catholic Religion is and really teaches, fearing, that were he to become convinced of the truth of the Catholic Faith, he would be compelled by his conscience to forsake his own religion, and bear the worldly inconveniences attached to this step. This very fear shows a want of good faith, and that he is not in that insurmountable ignorance which could excuse him in the sight of God, but that he is one of those of whom it is said in Psalm xxxv. 4, "He would not understand that he might do well."

Fairness, no less than common sense, teaches that a man should study and examine the teaching of the Catholic Church from Catholic sources before condemning her. Surely no man ought to reject Catholic doctrine if he has not made himself well acquainted with them. Nor is it fair to form a judgment from misrepresentations made by ill-informed, interested, or prejudiced persons; one should rather, by the study of authorized Catholic works, judge of the truth with that calm and unprejudiced mind which the all-important subject of Religion deserves. Thus having heard both sides, you will be in a state to pass a right judgment and not in danger of being misled by prejudice.

Michael J. Fox and Stem Cell Research

Michael J. Fox is much in the news lately promoting embryonic stem cell research. Following his emotional pleas, other celebrities such as Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ star) and Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond and honorary chair for Feminists for Life) have entered the fray.

This ongoing controversy deserves a separate post (which I hope to undertake) but there are very important facts about stem cell research that the average citizen urgently needs to know in order to safeguard society. This may sound extreme but the principles at stake in this debate are very weighty.

Perhaps I can help to sketch out for you the landscape of stem cell research in this posting. If you are in the dark on this subject, please take a few minutes to hear me out.

Embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) requires that stem cells be taken from five day old human embryos, directly resulting in the destruction of that embryo. However, stem cell treatments can originate from sources other than human embryos. Adult (non-embryonic) stem cells are available from placentas and umbilical cord blood and have already proved successful in treating more than 70 different diseases and conditions. By contrast, ESCR has produced no successful medical therapies in humans. Yet those who promote ESCR make bold (and misleading) claims that it is immensely promising and that it has the potential to relieve or cure dozens, even hundreds, of serious human illnesses such as cancer, Parkinson's and diabetes.

Recently, a confusing Toronto Star editorial which condemned President Bush’s recent veto (which blocked legislation that would have required taxpayer money to fund ESCR) stated that Canada would be hurt by this. The claim was made that “Canada wisely has gone a different route, cautiously and under very strict rules approving the research use of stem cells from embryos…” The truth is that very recently the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced that it will allow the creation of living human embryos specifically for research purposes and approved a $523,000 project to do just that. The CIHR unashamedly stated that it does not consider that a human being at the embryonic stage has any inherent moral status. One of the chief researchers on the project said he sees no problem with the research. “There are embryos going down the drain all the time.”

Here’s the important question. Even if the extravagant claims of ESCR materialized over time, would it be right to do research on embryos? Science, philosophy, moral common sense and Christian teaching argues that the embryo qualifies as a human being. From the moment of conception a unique individual is created, distinct from its father and mother and every other living thing, first in the form of a zygote, then an embryo, then a fetus.

Moral logic for judging this unborn human life must be applied by a truly just society. It’s wrong to kill innocent human beings. ESCR (and abortion) kills innocent human beings. Therefore ESCR (and abortion) is wrong. If the zygote or embryo or fetus is not a human being, no justification for either abortion or ESCR is necessary. However, if it is a human being, no justification for taking his or her life is adequate.

Human beings have intrinsic value and their worth cannot be evaluated in terms of how useful one thinks them to be or what one thinks of their future or current quality of life. Arguing the benefits of ESCR ("Think of all the people it will help"), even if true, holds no merit. If embryos are in fact human beings (and therefore intrinsically valuable), then the end does not justify the means in the case of ESCR. We do not sacrifice human beings for medical purposes regardless of the good it might bring others. Human beings, unborn or born, deserve the same legal protections.

What should we do with the “leftover” embryos? Simple, really. Because each embryo is a valuable human being, we should treat him/her like anyone else. Each one should be protected from being destroyed or sold off as a medical experiment or pillaged for valuable body parts. Find mothers who are willing to adopt them (by implantation) or failing that, allow them to die naturally. To prevent a similar dilemma in the future, in vitro fertilization should be restricted to the number of eggs that can safely be carried by the mother without risking "selective reductions" which is medical jargon for abortion.

A careful analysis of the funding of ESCR will show that it is actually morally worse than legal abortion. No woman purposely sets out to kill her unborn child through abortion. Many factors are brought to bear upon her before she makes such a decision. By contrast, those who advocate public funding for ESCR purposefully aim to destroy human embryos and seek to convince the public to pay for it, even though the prospects for cures are very distant and unproven, and even though adult stem cell research is daily proving itself and is unquestionably ethical. Furthermore, when parents of these living human embryos donate them to science, they deny the humanity of their own offspring and reduce them to scientific objects and commodities.

We as Canadians must do our best to care for those who have difficult diseases but we must do it without hurting others in the process. Aggressively promoting and funding the scientific research of somatic (adult) stem cells is the wise, just and decent path to follow. All prolifers should be calling on the government of Canada to do exactly that and to immediately stop the creation and funding of human embryos and ESCR.

[Short video primer on stem cell research by Family Research Council, entitled Beyond Hype, Real Hope.]

"Difficult Decisions" Don't Matter in the End

In a blog posting, Melinda at Stand to Reason makes an extremely needful distinction regarding the correct understanding of personal conscience. She immediately points to the dishonesty of pro-abortionists, liberal MSM (main stream media), and cowardly politicians.

Here’s the entirety of her posting:

"Difficult Decisions" Don't Matter in the End

I've noticed a trend to substitute angst for morality to justify decisions.

People advocating abortion rights often defend their moral claim by pointing out how difficult a decision it is for a woman to exercise her "choice" to abort her child. CNN has explained the decision to show video footage made by terrorist snipers killing an American soldier by describing how difficult the decision was. Politicians often give a moral veneer to their controversial moral positions by pointing out that they must follow their conscience.

Frankly, I don't care how hard the decision-making process was. What matters is the conclusion - it's morality or soundness. All this tactic is is emotivism, biographical detail, which doesn't change the morality of the decision itself. It's not enough that someone follows their conscience; what matters is how well-informed their conscience, their moral framework, is. Conscience has to be informed by moral guidelines rather than personal preference.

The Catholic bishops of Colorado issued a statement with their guidance for how Catholics should vote on two state initiatives. Their explanation is morally informative, but one phrase stood out to me. They encourage people to allow their "Catholic conscience" to guide them. Now this isn't just a vague reference to conscience, leaving it to individual preference. They are making a specific reference to an informed conscience, a conscience educated and guided by an external standard. And on the particular topic of this letter, I completely concur with the moral reasoning they offer to guide the conscience of their flock to the proper conclusion.

In our pluralistic, vaguely spiritual culture, appeals to angst and conscience are becoming more common justifications for bad conclusions. It's really a way to mask moral relativism. What actually matters is the moral conclusions we come to, and those should be made by an informed conscience guided by an objective standard of what is good and right. Don't tell me about your angst, it doesn't matter. Tell me what informs your conscience.

Great posting Melinda!

Little does Melinda realize that, in referencing a statement by the Catholic bishops of Colorado and their insistence on following an "informed" Catholic conscience, she highlights the authoritative nature of the voice of the Church and the Church’s ability to protect her flock in matters of faith and morals.

This is no small matter. It is in fact the very reason that no Christian outside the communion and protective limits of the Church can be sure of not being led at some point(s) into error, for example, the error of moral relativism.

More insight on correcting the modern misconceptions of conscience here, here and here.

The Meaning of Sex

Great article here, one of the best I've seen, on recovering true human sexuality.

Intro:

Few dare talk about it, but beneath the surface of elite opinion there's growing unease about the sexual revolution. Not only hasn’t it delivered happiness, it’s brought the opposite. Juli Loesch Wiley explains why misery is the natural result of severing the connection between sexual fulfillment and fertility, and what it will take to restore whole sexual love between men and women.

Fundamentalists, Catholics and Christ

Catholics may be tempted to think this article by Peter Kreeft, a professor of philosophy at Boston College, is not for them. After all, is there anything useful for a Catholic to know about Fundamentalists?

I found it very interesting because of course I was associated for many years in the past with fundamentalists and evangelicals. In fact I was one of each and a mixture of both. And certain friends and family have been known to occasionally check up on me by visiting my blog.

Although in this article Kreeft comes out on the side of Catholics, it’s not an automatic pass for the average Catholic by any means. In fact only the well versed and fully practicing Catholic will escape criticism, so you’ve been warned.

Kreeft, who is a Catholic apologist, writes in order to answer the fundamentalist challenge and, most of all, to help Catholics understand their faith better. In this article he looks at five major points of conflict: (1) the Bible (2) the nature and authority of the Church, especially the Pope, (3) how to get to heaven, (4) Mary and the saints, and (5) the sacraments, especially the Eucharist.

Jump in…enjoy the ride.

That They May Have Life

What do evangelical leaders Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, pastor Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church, pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, have in common with Catholic Church teaching?

Excitedly, I am happy to say a new document entitled "That They May Have Life."

The Ledger reports on the new statement which, in strong language, declares

The direct and intentional taking of innocent human life in abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and embryonic research is rightly understood as murder.

The statement marks the sixth time that evangelical and Catholic leaders in the Evangelicals and Catholics Together network have issued a joint document. It comes at a time when conservative Protestants and Catholics have overcome theological differences in an effort to work together on causes of mutual concern, such as opposition to gay marriage and assisted suicide.

Now all that’s necessary is for both evangelical and Catholic leaders throughout North America to act like they truly believe these actions to be murder so that their congregations can be mobilized to protect human life through a change in our nations’ laws.

What would Christians be likely to do if they believed such a statement?

Hmmm….stuff like:

• Consistent preaching and teaching on a fundamental Christian doctrine, the sanctity of life, backed up by matching prayer efforts.

• Detailed education of church members including local, regional and national conferences and workshops on right to life issues and current laws.

• Local protests and demonstrations with special emphasis on National March for Life at nations’ capitals.

• Mobilize every Christian to make the issue of protection of human life a primary voting issue.

Just basic sensible stuff like that.

h/t LifeSiteNews

Jesus I Trust In You

"Tell sinners that I am always waiting for them, that I listen intently to the beating of their heart...My heart rejoices when they return to me." (Jesus to St. Faustina - Notebook VI, 1728)

On the 22nd of February, 1931, Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun, received her first vision of Jesus. Jesus asked her to remind the world of His unfathomable Divine Mercy and He taught her a very special Devotion to the Divine Mercy based on trust in Him.

Sister Faustina died on October 5, 1938, and on April 30, 2000 the first Sunday after Easter, on Divine Mercy Sunday, she was canonized a saint by the Church.

I find the Divine Mercy devotional prayer to be exceptionally simple, beautiful and powerful. Whether you are Catholic or non-Catholic, I would like to direct you to the Remnant Band website whose recording of the prayer is quite unique and captivating. You really MUST hear it!

Go to Remnant Radio and scroll down the song list menu on right to choose either Divine Mercy Chaplet-English or Divine Mercy Chaplet-English (Extended), both of which are about 15 minutes or more in length.

Listen online and if you like it (I’m sure you will!) go to the downloads page and for the bargain price of $1.80 you can download your very own mp3 file. Keep it on your computer or transfer it to your portable player in order to have it close by whenever you want to pray the Divine Mercy in company with the Remnant Band.

Jesus I Trust in You!

A Woman’s “Right to Choose”: Fact or Fraud?

It has been reported that Confucius was once asked what he would do to set the world right. His reply was, "I would insist on the exact definition of words." What a wise response!

To conform to Confucius’ standard, and to adopt a phrase promoted by Dr. David Reardon of AfterAbortion.org, we will henceforth refer to abortion advocates as “poor-choicers,” rather than “pro-choicers.”

Let the average citizen examine with us the reasons for this.

“But women should have the freedom to choose.”

"Abortion is acceptable because a woman has a right to choose what is right for her and her baby."

"Who are you to say what choices I can and can’t make with my body?"

“It is a woman’s right to choose because women, not men, are the ones who have abortions.”

“Those who oppose a woman’s right to choose must be exposed for who they are… anti-choicers.”

These examples of rhetorical strategy have been very successful in convincing Canadians to believe that abortion is an undeniable right that accompanies a woman’s sexuality and the ownership of her own body. Furthermore, any call for a law banning abortion on moral grounds is considered extreme, restrictive and even a challenge to Canadian freedom.

In reality, these kinds of conclusions pose great dangers to our future, to our human rights and to our freedoms. The general public needs to be reminded that no individual has an unrestricted freedom or right to choose. Consider that the most basic moral premise behind government is to protect human life. The government’s duty to do so is neither subjective nor conditional. When our privacy and our choice bring harm to another individual, our laws quickly bring an end to our right to privacy and our right to choose. Is an innocent human being damaged by a woman's choice to have an abortion? If not, no problem. If so, it is a major problem which government has a moral duty to address.

All laws impose a moral viewpoint and restrict the individual's behavior, as illustrated by laws against murder, rape, child abuse and drunk driving. When the rights of others are at stake, and particularly when their very lives are at stake, every just society restricts the individual's freedom of choice. The moral basis for our law is that our personal freedom must never deprive others of life, liberty, or property.

So let us finish the statement: Women should have the right to choose…….what? Poor-choicers would reply: “…the right to choose what is best for her and her baby.” This sounds fine except a key statement, i.e. the unborn can be disregarded, is omitted and left unsubstantiated and “the right to choose” clause gets to take its place. Presto! The issue is now switched from “Does abortion take the life of an innocent human being?” to “Can a woman choose?” The tragic, but carefully crafted, result of this distortion is that the general public is unwittingly left to imagine that the unborn in the womb, if anything, is somehow an entirely different class of being from you or me, and as long as no further discussion or details are forthcoming, the average citizen is too pre-occupied with their own affairs to inquire further.

To further illustrate the point, what would happen if pollsters asked, "Do you favor killing unborn children?" instead of "Do you believe a woman has a right to choose?" The polls would certainly report fewer poor-choicers. Again, how many would support “a woman’s choice or right to hire an abortionist to dismember the unborn she carries in her womb?"

But poor-choicers know that by using the right words, and using them consistently, the majority of people quickly lose the mental connection between a woman’s 'right to choose' and the death of a fellow human being. By consistently labeling themselves as “pro-choice” rather than “pro-abortion” they try to suggest their opposition (!!!) to abortion and their dedication to defending a woman’s right to choose (to kill her unborn). But in the end, what's the difference? Pro-choice or pro-abortion, the result is the same—dead human beings.

Insisting on the exact, and consistent, definition of the word “pro-choice,” as Confucius indicated, reveals that many pro-lifers are actually and vigorously pro-choice, in the proper sense of the word. We support a woman’s right to choose her own health care provider, to choose her own job, to choose her own religion, and to choose her own career, to name a few. But just as importantly, we support a pregnant woman’s right to make informed choices about the true nature of abortion. She should know of the unrelenting heartache, clinical depression, substance abuse, marriage difficulties, increased risk of breast cancer, infertility, and future birth complications commonly linked to abortion. To help her make the best choice, she ought to also know basic facts about fetal development and fetal pain studies.

Poor-choicers object to helping women make these kinds of informed choices about their pregnancy, which disqualifies them from being truly pro-choice. Their zeal has little to do with choice or women’s heath. Since most women are pressured into abortions by other persons (including poor-choicers) and circumstances, how could anyone describe it as a healthy choice which sets women free? The woman’s predicament seems to offer "no choice" but the poor choice of abortion.

A woman’s right to choose is a fraud that must be exposed for the poor-choice reality it truly is.

Defense of the Faith

I recently discovered a wonderful Christian ministry located in Alabama.

No, it’s not EWTN.

But before I share my valuable info, let me explain.

One of the really tough things about being a convert to the Catholic Church is the HUGE difficulty in communicating to friends and family the rationale for such a “radical” re-make of spiritual affairs, particularly if one has abandoned the evangelical camp, as I did.

It is no small challenge.

Why should that be the case?

I can’t pretend to know all the answers for this difficulty but on the surface it appears to be either an issue of “cultural” life-long bias or overt and protracted denigration by “competing” religious groups. More fundamentally however I believe the problem is much deeper and a spiritual one, i.e. spiritual blindness. After all, if God and His Son Jesus Christ truly instituted one authoritative Church, then the enemy of our souls is intensely busy at blinding and deceiving souls from discovering that simple and soul saving truth.

Thus perhaps the saying “All roads lead to Rome.” That is, if we picture the honest seeker after God and His Truth progressing on a spiritual road. Yet obviously not every true Christian will reach “Rome” in the earthly portion of his/her journey (as God wills) but every Christian will know all the Truth (including the truth of His Church) when received by God in heaven.

If you’re still with me, I’m about to direct you to a website offering powerful talks and messages on explaining and defending the Catholic faith. What is unique about this site is its sole emphasis on scripture in accomplishing this purpose (evangelicals and fundamentalists TAKE NOTE!). After all, if God commissioned one authoritative Church, shouldn’t the full breadth and depth of His written Word point to and perfectly coincide with the body of official teachings of His Beloved Church?

I think yes.

So check out biblechristiansociety.com yourself. Whether you are Protestant or Catholic, you’ll find quite a few free mp3 downloads which are wall-crashers and eye-openers. If you are one of those on the spiritual road to the Celestial City, I think you’ll be helped along in your travels.

A great icebreaker to start with is the talk on What the Bible says about the one true Church founded by Jesus or a close second is Using the Bible Alone to refute Salvation by Faith Alone.

Perhaps you had questions about the Pope or Mary and Purgatory or the Rapture or the Sacraments.

There’s even a section on Two Minute Apologetics for the quick and concise answers to all the frequent questions asked by Catholics as well as non-Catholics.

Happy journeying, fellow pilgrim!

The Pope’s Challenge to Islam

Recently, I defended Benedict XVI’s challenge to Islam in his remarks at Regensberg. Despite the barrage of outrage from Muslims worldwide as well as from Western secular society, particularly the MSM (mainstream media), the Pope has not apologized for saying what he said. He has, however, offered regrets that his remarks offended so many and of course he has capitalized on the new opportunities to "strengthen the bonds of friendship and solidarity between the Holy See and Muslim communities throughout the world."

It has been all too easy to criticize Benedict XVI on this score but really, isn’t there something out of whack here? It seems his world wide critics in some sense have acknowledged him as a great personage, a man of singular influence and a true world leader, and one who, for that very reason, should know better.

Yet, if this man truly possesses the stature and influence that these opponents freely ascribe to him throughout their distress, is it not possible that his remarks were soundly and strategically placed where and when they appeared?

These blowhards really give him such little credit I think. I admit it is a much simpler matter for me to see beyond the ranting, raving and, in some cases, mad violence. I accept that Benedict is Papa Ratzinger, the chief pastor of the whole Church, the Vicar of Christ upon earth. If he speaks for the Church and at the same time speaks for Christ to men, maybe something needed to be said at this precise point in the history of mankind. I don’t have a problem thinking along those lines. Maybe it’s because I’m Catholic and because I have settled on my profession of faith.

What I’m saying really amounts to this: It was time to issue a challenge to Islam and God chose the Pope to make a statement that only he could have made. The reaction itself tells a story and in a sense corroborates what I am saying. After all, if God had something really important to say to the world, would you expect everyone to drop to their knees in adoration? As far as I know there’s been no history of that sort of response.

If you’d like to follow my line of thinking a little further still, check out the following video link to an interview with Wafa Sultan, a Muslim woman of great conviction! What I hear her saying is something incredible, something that resounds with the Pope’s remarks: Islam must be challenged in order to progress beyond the violence of its past. In fact she says Islam cannot be reformed. It needs to be transformed, but it will take tremendous boldness and courage to even speak of doing so. A polite approach is not possible she says!

Then check out another similar interview with Brigitte Gabriel, a Middle Eastern survivor of Islamic terror who calls for similar challenges to Islam, and then a most interesting article by Islamic expert Bassam Tibi on the exact theme. (H/T Michelle Malkin for the last three links.)

Then, for the knockout finish, there’s this very unique perspective Holy Challenge, an excellent article from NRO by John Cullinan on Benedict and Islam which was referenced in Amy Welborn’s latest blog entry just hours ago.

Just one final note. Who can deny that Benedict’s words precipitated a worldwide avalanche of urgent and critical dialogue? It pushed me into thinking and talking. It got you thinking too didn’t it?

Dumb luck… or the hand of God?

“Pro-Choice” Distortions Kill Human Beings

Today is Life Chain Sunday and Life Chains will be on the streets of our nation, as well as the United States, witnessing to the sanctity of human life. As a participant in the Big Blue Wave Pro-Life Blogburst, organized by Suzanne at Big Blue Wave, my goal in this posting will be to expose the evil distortions of pro-abortion "logic."

Mention the word “abortion” to most people and chances are they’ll think of anything except what abortion actually is. The word has lost almost all its meaning because “pro-choice” advocates have succeeded in crafting half truths, slogans and emotional appeals to move the focus away from the central question raised by abortion.

So what is the central question we need to ask?

Stand To Reason, a California group devoted to clarifying the important issues of our day, uses the following illustration to identify that crucial question.

If your child comes up behind you while you’re working and asks, “Mommy/Daddy, can I kill this?” what one question must you ask before you can answer his question? Think carefully for a moment. Before you answer the question “Can I kill this?” you must first ask the question “What is it?” If it’s a spider or a cockroach, you might say it’s ok to smash it. If it’s the funny looking boy down the street, you’ll need to sit down for a long talk with your child.

This illustration plainly cautions that before we can determine whether or not it is moral to kill something, we must know what it is that we are killing. Abortion kills something that was alive. Is it right or is it wrong? Again, we must answer the question, “What is being killed?” i.e. what is the unborn? If the unborn is not a human being, if it’s simply an extraneous blob of tissue, an optional part of a woman’s body like the appendix, or even a “potential” human, then we needn’t be concerned with justifying the killing. Go ahead and have the abortion. In fact have as many as you like provided medical care ensures your continued good health.

However, this is precisely where the pro-abortion lobby is incoherent. They defend abortion on the basis of choice, privacy, economics, “It’s my body,” unwanted children, physical defect, rape, incest, etc., such defense resulting last year in the violent deaths of over 100,000 unborns in Canada alone. Nonetheless these justifications are irrelevant because they avoid the real issue, abortion itself, and the question “What is the unborn?” The people at STR once again put things in perspective for us with the following imaginary dialogue.

Abortion Advocate (AA): Abortion is a private choice between a woman and her doctor.

Pro-Lifer (PL): Do we allow parents to abuse their little children if it is done in private?

AA: That’s not fair. The children you’re talking about are human beings. I’m talking about a fetus.

PL: Then the issue isn’t really privacy, but rather whether the fetus is a human being.

AA: But lots of poor women can’t afford another child.

PL: Let me ask you a question. When human beings get expensive, can we kill them?

AA: Well, no, but aborting a fetus is not the same as killing a human being.

PL: So, once again, the real question is “What is the unborn?” Is the fetus a human being?

AA: Why do you insist on being so simplistic? This is a very complex issue involving women who are forced to make agonizing decisions.

PL: The decision may be agonizing for the mother, I admit that. But it’s not a complex moral issue. It’s wrong to kill innocent human beings simply because they’re in the way and can’t defend themselves.

AA: Killing defenseless human beings is one thing. Aborting a fetus is another.

PL: So we’re agreed: If abortion actually killed a defenseless human being, then the issue wouldn’t be complex, right? The question we still need to answer is, “What is the unborn?”

AA: Enough with your abstract philosophy. Let’s talk about real life. Do you really think a woman should be forced to bring an unwanted child into the world?

PL: The homeless are unwanted. Can we kill them?

AA: But it’s not the same.

PL: That’s the issue, isn’t it? Are they the same? If the unborn are truly human beings, like the homeless, then we can’t just kill them to get them out of the way. We’re back to my first question, “What is the unborn?”

AA: But you still shouldn’t force your morality on women.

PL: You’d feel very comfortable “forcing your morality” on a mother who was physically abusing her two-year-old, wouldn’t you?

AA: But that’s not the same.

PL Why not?

AA: Because you’re assuming the unborn are human, like a two-year-old.

PL: And you’re assuming they’re not. You see, this is not really about privacy or economic hardship or complexity or unwanted children or forced morality. It’s about whether the unborn are human beings. Answer the question “What is the unborn?” and you’ve answered the others.

And if the unborn is a real human being, then abortion kills an innocent child simply because that child is in the way and can’t defend him/herself. And if the unborn child is as fully human in his or her essential nature as you and I, then he or she deserves the same legal protections as you and I.

And let's be very clear about this: Science, philosophy, and moral common sense, to say nothing of two thousand years of Christian teaching and tradition, convincingly argue in favour of the full humanity of the unborn.

Beware of the confused logic of abortion advocates who must first destroy the humanity of the unborn before extinguishing their bodily life.

Descent Into Barbarism Steadily Continues

LifeSiteNews.com reported two days ago that a new study on population trends in Canada explodes the myth that increasing immigration will solve the country’s looming demographic crisis.

What the study fails to address, however, is the elephant in Canada’s demographic living room – that Canadians do not have enough children and government policies have greatly contributed to that state of affairs.

The collapse of the Canadian birth rate corresponds closely to the double introduction of the chemical contraceptive and abortifacient pill and legalized abortion and with the explosion of the sexual revolution and the feminist movement that took mothers out of the home and into the work force.

Statistics Canada shows that the birth rate has dropped since 1940 from a high in 1960 of 4 children per woman, to an all time low of 1.2 by 2000. In 2004, Canada's birth rate – the number of live births for every 1,000 people in the population – hit another record low from 10.6 live births for every 1,000 population in 2003 to 10.5.

It’s truly past time for the Western world (formerly Christian societies) to acknowledge the truth and do serious repenting.

You might be asking: “Repent of what?”

Follow me for a few minutes.

Consider an editorial (no longer available online) that appeared in, of all places, the Washington Post on July 6, 2003. It was entitled “The Baby Bust,” and stated:

The U.S. birth rate has been dropping and is now just below replacement level. That it remains among the highest in the developed world is not much consolation: Most of the rich nations of Europe, as well as Japan, are facing a demographic crisis because of low birthrates . . . Countries with shrinking populations may stagnate economically, intellectually, and militarily. If future generations are to carry on the American vibrancy and dynamism, the country must be prepared to embrace more babies, and more adults from around the world.

Did you catch that? The country must embrace more babies. But I think they understated the case. It’s a lot WORSE than anyone seems to be saying, except for a rare and brave reporter here and there. Isn’t anyone noticing the crisis?

Speaking about growth i.e. having babies, etc., here’s how one wise guy sums it up:

Growth is not something that can be accepted or rejected without consequences. It is rather an inexorable law of life that applies to human populations as well as individual human beings. Growing is to be desired and accepted, not feared and rejected. Growing hurts. But not growing hurts even more. Wherever there are people, of course, there are problems. But this is a description of the human condition, not a prescription for population control. In a free society, people solve more problems than they make. And, in turn, it is precisely in solving these problems that a humane, just, and good culture is created, a culture of life in which all people exist as individual persons sharing in a more abundant life.

Here’s the whole article.

If you want more evidence, look at Japan. Or America. Or Germany.

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The moral is clear…Western civilization is in decline. We aren’t making enough babies. We don’t want babies. The population is shrinking in all the industrialized countries, and even with big immigration numbers, it’s still hard to get the population levels up to where they need to be to keep a country’s economic stability intact.

Why aren’t we making enough babies? Some would quickly say that abortion is the obvious answer. Who could argue with that? But it goes further than that. It’s about our attitudes towards God, towards children, towards family. And those attitudes show up inevitably in our sexual mores. Folks, we’re moving further and further away from God... it’s a move to control the outcome of our sexual behaviour, a move to control the consequences of the sexual act itself. We’ve been making this move big time since the 1960’s. We’ve been saying to God: Let’s have the fun but not the baby.

Now then, are you ready for this? The whole demography crisis is all about the results of contraception.

Yep, contraception. It’s that simple, but also that insidious.

It’s not abortion, even though abortion and contraception are two fruits from the same tree. (Don’t believe it? Here’s one short news story to get you thinking.)

Could it be that the decline of Western Christian society hinges on its practice of contraception? Its defiance of the first commandment found in the Bible? It’s here if you forgot the chapter and verse.

If you’re really ready for serious thought on contraception check this out. This is real good stuff for Protestants…but it’ll sting Catholics even more.

This is a huge subject. HUGE.

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Are you wondering these days why Islam is so much in the news? Why are some people saying that Muslims are now a threat? Is it simply because some Muslim extremists are blowing up buildings, other people and themselves?

Well, it’s true that they are. But why, at this point in history, are they now so emboldened to do so?

The answer? It’s very largely demographics and birth rate.

Today, the Muslim birth rate in Europe is three times higher than the non-Muslim one. If current trends continue, the Muslim population of Europe will nearly double by 2015, while the non-Muslim population will shrink by 3.5 percent. [Source]

Mark Steyn spells it out with style in his piece It's the Demography, Stupid

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But let’s stay focused here. I said we had to do some serious repenting.

We’ll need to see what the Pope has to say about the crisis.

The Pope tells Christians to have more babies!

Not long ago Pope Benedict XVI reminded Catholics (and the world) of a Christian truth held almost universally for the past 2000 years—having babies brings the blessing of God.

When is the last time you heard a homily, sermon, or statement from a Christian leader that we should be having more babies?

The Pope was only reminding Catholics of age old unchangeable Catholic teaching. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2366-2372)

It’s pretty hard for Christians (clergy, pastors, etc.) to preach that message if they approve of and practice contraception. Yet it’s also true that the vast majority of Christians (disobedient Catholics are included) in North America do in fact approve of and practice contraception.

Ever since our predominantly Christian society in the early 1900’s began to shun the truth, as reiterated recently by the Pope, and embrace the contraceptive mentality, Christians have set themselves against God’s will and plan for mankind by disassociating the ‘unitive’ (pleasurable, intimate) aspect from the procreative (making babies) aspect of the sexual act. Out of this has sprung up the ‘new’ morality leading to rampant divorce and family breakdown, abortion, and yes, even homosexuality. Read more here and here.

Add to those evils the resulting alarming trends in declining population in Western societies and you’ve got a formula for societal collapse in the works, now unfolding before our very eyes.

I find it very sad and awful that in our own archdiocese of St. John’s, Newfoundland, a tremendous amount of effort has been put into the preparation of a document entitled A Challenge To Change.

This report was commissioned due to very serious problems being faced by the archdiocese because of shrinking population and shortage of priests.

A whole host of comments, suggestions and speculation was offered as to the causes and cures for this crisis, the major solution advanced being the clustering of parishes. The report clearly acknowledges that Newfoundland, a province where a high percentage of the population is Catholic, has the lowest birthrate in Canada. The report concludes with a summary of the “responses” and “other comments” offered by parties involved in the process, the very last comment stating in an eerie, prophetic sense, the following:

At best this is a stop-gap measure. With one new priest every 3-5 years the end is in sight. We need to be preparing for a non-clerical church.

But what’s the most surprising, even shocking, and obvious omission in this report? Nowhere does it even mention that Catholic failure to follow Church teaching regarding the evil of contraception is an inevitable cause of low birthrates and dwindling populations. And can there be any doubt that an apathetic and disobedient community of Catholics (as evidenced by this attitude) fails to inspire young men to the priesthood?

The Church is dying, and rather than allow the fresh breath of the Holy Spirit to speak new life by means of the Truth given to the Church, we prefer to discuss how we should dress the dead body and make final preparations for the funeral.

Will the bishops and priests of the Catholic Church repent of their past failures to call the people of God to authentic Christian and Catholic living and resolve to communicate strongly to their flock the recent message of Benedict XVI? God help them to do just that.

Here’s one bishop who is taking the crisis very seriously.

Pope Benedict XVI told Catholics to have more babies "for the good of society," saying that some countries were being sapped of energy because of low birth rates.

"Having children is a gift that brings life and well-being to society,"

He said the decline in the number of births "deprives some nations of freshness and energy and of hopes for the future incarnate in children."

The pope also spoke of "the security, the stability and the force of a numerous family."

Although the Vatican bans all forms of artificial contraception, this is widely ignored even in predominantly Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain, which have some of the lowest birth rates in the world.

The pontiff regretted that God is "unhappily often excluded or ignored" in many societies.

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Let’s acknowledge the truth, and repent of our failures. God helping us we may yet be able to recover from our current descent into barbarism.

Sister Leonella’s Death Contradicts Blindness and Hate of This World

According to the Pope, Sister Leonella exemplified the “logic of Christianity,” and in offering “the supreme testimony of blood” demonstrated the most authentic Christian witness, “a peaceful sign of contradiction which shows the victory of love over hate and evil.”

Sister Leonella Sgorbati died soon after a gunman shot her several times in the back last week in Somalia at the height of the controversy over Pope Benedict XVI’s recent remarks concerning Islam. It is believed she died as a direct result of Muslim rage over the Pope’s comments.

ICN Kenyan reported that Sister Leonella knew of the dangers surrounding her.

As she used to say, she knew that there was a bullet with her name engraved on it just waiting for her in Mogadishu. But this never deterred her or discouraged her. She was certain that God wanted her in Somalia. For her, that was the will of God. So nothing could stop her in the mission undertaken, not even the knowledge that she could be killed any time. For this reason she dedicated herself completely, sparing no effort and truly turning every stone to accomplish the mission of setting up the school of nursing, to give hope and a future to a country ravaged by war. Her love for God and the Somali people was stronger than any fear, and she strongly believed in the people she was serving.

Her dying words were uttered in Italian: pardono, pardono (I forgive, I forgive).

If more missionaries and other Christians were living (and dying) in heathen lands, as Sister Leonella was, to bring to lost souls the love and hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Western society would not be fighting wars against extreme militant forms of Islam in foreign lands.

If, instead of spending billions of dollars on military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Western world had been focused on regularly spending those kind of dollars on missionary activity to Muslims and other lost souls throughout the world, we’d have many more friends in the Muslim world, as well as a vibrant growing Christian Church.

Don’t believe it? Remember the earliest Christians who conquered the Roman Empire by love.

Strange today how certain so called Christian societies struggle to maintain the holy doctrine of “separation of church and state,” powerful elements crushing any kind of government initiative that would sponsor even the most trivial church sponsored program, yet these same societies believe they have the moral right to launch a war and spend mega billions in the defense of “freedom.”

Sister Leonella’s sad and tragic death is an utter contradiction to such blindness and madness.

Benedict XVI on Bishoping

Whoa. Not so fast. Wannabe Bishops take note.

These are the commitments:

Intense spiritual life. Assiduous prayer. Profound union with Christ. Tend ceaselessly to holiness.

These are the results:

Become everything to everyone. Counsel, console and support all.

Bottom line:

An act of love.

Hey, where’d the lineup go?

Here's the way one good Bishop set this forth for the faithful.

Life Chain Sunday Contradicts Status Quo

On Sunday, Oct. 1, normally between 2 and 3 pm, Canadian Life Chains will be on the streets of our nation, witnessing to the sanctity of human life.

“It is not an easy thing to witness to the truth of abortion,” noted Suzanne Fortin, a mother and pro-life activist from Ottawa, last year. “The media continue to treat those who oppose abortions as extremists and mindless zealots. However, considering the scope of the evil that plagues our countries, it is vital that pro-lifers speak up, because if they don’t speak up, no one else will.”

Fellow pro-lifer, Stefan Jetchick, who lives in the province of Quebec, recently posted useful information to his superb and unique website regarding this event. Check it out.

For information on times and locations of Life Chains in Canada and the USA, consult the internet website at http://www.lifechain.net. If you don’t have internet access, call your local right to life office or, if you are in the Greater Toronto Area, call Suresh Dominic at (416) 204-9749

If there’s a Life Chain in your area, decide now to participate. Participation is one more sign of contradiction!

Catholic Bishop Aquila Opposes Death Sentence for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.

US Bishop Samuel Aquila of the diocese of Fargo in North Dakota has come out in opposition to the death sentence levied against Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. for killing a University of North Dakota student.

This is the same Bishop who warned Catholic pro-abortion politicians that they risked the possibility of hell for their support of abortion. I commend this courageous Bishop for his stand in defending innocent unborn lives and I pray for the day when every Catholic Bishop would defend historic Church teaching on this matter as he has done.

However, the Bishop’s strong stand against the death penalty ought to generate some debate I believe. As far as I can see, Bishop Aquila is not in harmony with the age old teaching of the Church on the subject of capital punishment.

Since becoming a Catholic I have noticed that there is a strong movement of Catholic Bishops (and Pope John Paul II as well) who wish to ban capital punishment altogether. Their rationale is similar to the one offered by Bishop Aquila who stated:

"The sentence of death which was imposed today upon Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. obscures for all of society the truth of the inherent dignity of human life.”

Furthermore, another component of their argument shows up in the statement this week by Bishop Aquila:

(Capital punishment) “reinforces the false perspective of revenge as justice. In doing so, it diminishes respect for all human life, both the lives of the guilty and the innocent."

These arguments also surface in a column by Archbishop Chaput (whom I greatly respect as a truly authentic Catholic Bishop) entitled What does the Church teach on the death penalty? However, such arguments have not impressed me, perhaps because I am aware of a great number of biblical references which seem to contradict them. The concept of the shedding of innocent blood, starting with Abel, crying out from the earth for justice, not vengeance, seems to be lost on many Bishops of our day. That justice, in the words of God, demands the death of the murderer.

Genesis 9:6 says:

"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man."

I am not implying that this simple little verse entirely answers the modern controversy over capital punishment but I do believe it’s a good place to start. These are God’s words and they in fact contradict Bishop Aquila who maintains that capital punishment “obscures for all of society the truth of the inherent dignity of human life.”

In the verse above I read that the sacredness of human life, rather than being obscured by the death penalty, in fact demands that a moral society execute its cold blooded killers. Furthermore it seems obvious that if God is serious here (which I do not doubt) then the death penalty is not a matter of reinforcing “the false perspective of revenge as justice” but it is quite simply God’s prescribed form of justice.

I don’t expect every reader to automatically jump on board with me here but I’m going to suggest a couple of the best articles I’ve found to help sort out this matter. To me the big question is:

What has the Church always and infallibly taught both in Sacred Scripture and in Dogma regarding capital punishment?

We rarely need new and novel ways of dealing with societal problems. If the death penalty was just and moral in God’s eyes and in the eyes of the Apostles then shouldn’t it be the proper response for today?

Avery Cardinal Dulles offers a very helpful analysis in his essay Catholicism and Capital Punishment.

He notes that

“the abolition of the death penalty in formerly Christian countries may owe more to secular humanism than to deeper penetration into the gospel,”

and that because the Church feels herself bound by Scripture and tradition,

“it seems inconsistent for Catholics to proclaim a ‘moral revolution’ on the issue of capital punishment.”

Surprisingly, however, the Cardinal ends up by saying that he supports the current position of Pope John Paul II and the American Bishops. He says,

“The Pope and the bishops, using their prudential judgment, have concluded that in contemporary society, at least in countries like our own, the death penalty ought not to be invoked, because, on balance, it does more harm than good. I personally support this position.”

Renown professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, J. Budziszewski, in his article in First Things magazine, entitled Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice, makes a strong case for retaining the death penalty and he also addresses Cardinal Dulles’ reservations. Two of his important statements are:

“Categorical remission of the penalty for all whose crimes deserve death contradicts revealed teaching on the duty of the magistrate and has no warrant in Christian tradition.”

and

“I do not know whether our society can be brought back to believe in a transcendent order of justice, but of this I am certain: if we who recognize this standard (of “a life for a life”) do not act as though we believe in it, then no one will be brought by us to believe in it.

Budziszewski believes failure in this matter of justice is an abdication of our duty before God.

The Southern Baptist Press has a short article emphasizing and explaining that the death penalty underscores the sanctity of human life.

One further article I found interesting was Robert Bork on Scalia & Capital Punishment, a selection taken from Antonin Scalia and His Critics: The Church, the Courts, and the Death Penalty.

Perhaps you can see more clearly than I what compels Bishops today to take a seemingly contradictory attitude towards the death penalty than all their predecessors.

Comments would certainly be welcome!

Profession of Faith

This blog is about a hope and a future—spoken of in Jeremiah 29:11—that starts with Jesus, the God-Man.

Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before. Acts 3:19-20

My personal profession of faith appears below. My blogger profile can be found here.
_______________________

I, Eric Alcock,

with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the Symbol of faith, namely:

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.

I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.

Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.

Pope Benedict XVI and the Regensburg Address

Pope Benedict XVI's full address available here in PDF.

No doubt the Pope’s address is a story that’s getting worn thin right now…or is it? I’ve been following it very closely, trying to understand the important aspects of Benedict’s address as well as the shocking reaction of Muslims.

There’s a couple of personal observations I’d like to make and then I’d like to refer you to the two articles on this story which I found most helpful, balanced and insightful.

This chain of events since Benedict’s visit to Regensburg has reminded me to be very careful in my judgment of the Pope. Initially I thought the Holy Father’s remarks concerning Islam were some sort of miscalculation or error in judgment. However after much reading of the reports, my respect and admiration for Pope Benedict has increased enormously. I was too hasty in my judgment. I was the one mistaken.

I believe His Holiness fully intended to engage the world on the subject of faith and reason, the topic of his Regensburg address. This engagement extended primarily to Western secular society, to its Protestant component, to all world religions, and especially to Islam at this juncture of time.

I believe this was an introductory foray into his war against the “dictatorship of relativism.” And by striking at the very heart of the problem, the relationship of reason to faith in religious expression, it may have been the most powerful offensive of that war. Who knows…it might have been a mortal wound to that enemy. It certainly caught the whole world’s attention and has already sparked an immense degree of dialogue, probably enough for many years of follow up.

Think about it. Who else but the Pope, Christ’s representative on earth, could have launched such a challenge against the principalities and powers of our day? If it were possible for any one speech or sermon to turn the tide of human events, the one delivered at Regensburg has the potential to right this upside down world if every rational Christian and other honest seeker after God would pay serious attention. And who else but the Pope could have garnered such a response?

Give this address your close consideration. And also make a point of reading the Holy Father’s first encyclical on "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love"), which is an urgent and timely message to this world on Love and Reason. Perhaps this encyclical and the Regensburg address are more intricately linked to the solutions of modern man than we have imagined.

Read the encyclical online here, PDF here

The two articles that I thought to be most helpful and that I referred to above can be found at:

Is Dialogue with Islam Possible? by Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.

and

In Defense of Pope Benedict, by Justin Raimondo. Incredibly, as far as I can determine, this writer is an atheist and considered by some to be on the far left fringes, and near lunacy. However, I found his essay very impressive. Your thoughts would be most welcome.

I have one final point to make. After lengthy searches online for Protestant evangelical reaction to Pope Benedict’s address I was able to find virtually nothing significant. Does this group of Christians have no comment on such a momentous event? Or is this event not regarded as very weighty or worthy of comment?

The only article I found which carried a few lines about Benedict’s address was located on Albert Mohler’s blog. Mohler is President of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and he has recently written some interesting articles concerning the contraceptive mentality. Mohler prefaces his comments on the Regensburg address with about a page of biased criticism of the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy and then proceeds to write only two very short paragraphs related to Benedict’s actual comments.

It was a disappointing show to say the least, but I do think it is illustrative of the evangelical tendency to simply ignore or berate the significance, validity and impact of other Christian bodies, particularly the Catholic Church.

Remember to pray for Benedict XVI at this time when he is being unjustly reviled and threatened. And be sure to speak up for him and his holy office whenever possible!

Penitential Pilgrimage 2006 Flatrock

On Saturday September 9, 2006, I participated in the second historic penitential pilgrimage to the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Flatrock, Newfoundland. One of the stated goals of this pilgrimage is “…giving God a chance to break through to us amid the distractions of daily life.”

As I reported in my previous post, September 2005 was the first such visionary pilgrimage.

Approximately 60 pilgrims joined in the four kilometre procession but nearly 100 souls were in attendance at the 4PM Mass. This represented a wonderful increase in attendance of about 50%, and, through eyes of faith, we pilgrims believe that it represents a similar fruitfulness in the spiritual realm.

Once again, the procession included three stages and stops, each of which was characterized by song and prayer. The last kilometer of the procession was completed in silence.

Upon arrival at the Grotto, pilgrims enjoyed a half hour or so of refreshments and fellowship at the parish hall followed by about an hour of quiet time at the Grotto. There was sufficient time to pray, to complete the Stations of the Cross and then to move into the Church for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. At 4PM Mass was celebrated by His Excellency Archbishop William Aquin Carew, followed by Benediction.

Although pilgrims sought to inwardly observe the serious spiritual demands of the day, all appeared enthusiastic and happy throughout the pilgrimage.

Weather was generally overcast and breezy but reasonably warm, with a couple very slight sprinklings during the course of the walk.

Quoting from the pilgrimage website, I bring the following to the reader’s attention:

WHAT'S A ' PILGRIMAGE ‘?
A pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place, undertaken for the purpose of worship, thanksgiving, petition or penance.

WHY IS IT ' PENITENTIAL ' ?
Because being 'penitent' is an absolute requirement if we wish our sins to be forgiven, so that we might restore ('reconcile') our relationship with God, our Creator, our loving Father whom we have offended by our sins. And to be 'penitent' requires the virtue of Humility ... the antidote to the cardinal sin of Pride.

That restoration or reconciliation requires a correct understanding of the relationship: He is the Creator, we are the creatures (the word 'reconciliation' is, in some ways, unfortunate, because it may suggest a relationship between equals).

One pre-requisite for the forgiveness of our sins is that we should have a genuine sense of sorrow (contrition) for those sins, a firm intention to amend our lives and avoid sin in the future ... and a willingness to do the penance necessary, as a matter of Justice, to restore our relationship with God our Father. It is spiritually healthy to cultivate such a sense of contrition ... it leads to a positive desire to DO penance, so that we can be 'reconciled' with the Father whom we have offended.

If our great country of Canada is to experience the forgiveness of God for it’s great sacrileges and to receive the subsequent spiritual healing, a series of sweeping spiritual exercises akin to those that accompany this pilgrimage must take place throughout Canada.

The grace of God permitting, let affliction of spirit, penance, and supplication begin here in Newfoundland!

“Then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.”

A photo gallery of this year’s event can be viewed here.