Picking and choosing in the Bible...

In response to my blogpost on the "Jugde not" verse, a commenter by the name of Susan responded:

Your interpretation of this important and beautiful bible verse is just that---your interpretation. Your opinion, not fact. If you are a bible believer you do not pick and choose which verses to take literally and which to take subjectively. It is what it is.

Your language about people with different views than yours offends me, but you know what? I'm going to turn the other cheek and not sink to your level of name calling and not judge you for it. Because that's what MY bible says.

As someone who minored in English and has come up with this "that's your interpretation" non-sense, I think that sometimes that is bunk.

It is true that sometimes a textual passage is ambiguous or can be taken to mean more than one thing.

But that is not always true. Sometimes an interpretation can be incorrect.

That is the case with the liberal interpretation of the "Judge not" verse.

And sometimes you can find the objectively correct intpretation.

In university, I majored in history. One of the things a historian does when confronted with a text whose meaning is not obvious is eliminate all false interpretations, and come up with the correct interpretation through logical inference.

I think I eminently did that by showing that Jesus did want us to judge and that the Early Church understood his words in that sense.

Besides, it's only common sense that you do not eliminate all possibility of judging in your life.

I therefore presented the correct interpretation. It is the truth, not an opinion.

It's the correct interpretation regardless of my personal convictions. Anyone who objectively examines the Gospels in that light will come to that same conclusion.

Texts can transmit thought and intention, and the Gospels have done so to anyone who opens their eyes.

But this brings me to my second point.

She brought the notion that

If you are a bible believer you do not pick and choose which verses to take literally and which to take subjectively.

Well, guess what?

She has it wrong again, on so many points. And this gives me the opportunity to expound on them.

In order to understand to contextualize my beef with Susan's response, let me explain a few things.

When Jesus preached, he did so with the idea that he was God. (And no I don't think that proves he was God).

There are several passages in the Gospels that point to this. For instance he said

I and the Father are one (...) The Father is in me, and I in the Father." John 10:30,38

He also said.

"Before Abraham was born, I am!" (John 8:58)

"I AM" may not mean anything to you, but "I Am" is the name of God, the name that He revealed to Moses when He commissioned him to deliver the Jews from slavery.

Jesus also intended for his words to be taken seriously: not as arguments, suggestions or as a philosophy, but as a truth. For instance, after expounding on the nature of the Eucharist, and many took offense at his teaching, he said

The words that I have spoken are spirit and life. (John 6:63)

Spirit and Life. They're not just propositions. They are spirit and life.

So Jesus' words are equivalent to Divine Revelation. Jesus does not use doctrinal definitions to make his points. He uses everyday conversational language that would have been current in his day.

The fact that his language is colloquial and not academically precise can sometimes leave them open to interpretation, that is, their meaning is not completely obvious to the reader.

So an interpretation must be derived from the text.

But as Jesus' words are Divine, and as God he cannot deceive or be deceived, his words cannot contradict one another.

There is then no question then of "MY Bible" and "YOUR Bible." By that, I mean, there is no question of contradictory versions of what Jesus intended to impart to the public.

Interpretation of Revelation is not a solely individual undertaking.(Note bold emphasis!)

Revelation was not intended to be "personalized" in the sense of being "made to measure", the way you would tailor a suit to fit your personal philosophy.

Jesus entrusted his divine Revelation to the Church so that he would be able to communicate what he meant. Jesus speaks to us individually through our own understanding, but that individual understanding has to be in line with the collective understanding of the Church, because that this is the society that he founded for the purpose making his thought clear to everyone.

Let me explain.

I am a bible believer, but I do not believe in Sola Scriptura-- which is what the typical Evangelical "Bible Only" Christian believes. That is, I do not understand the Bible to be a self-interpreting text that acts as an ersatz catechism to tell believers the truths of the faith.

Divine Revelation is contained in The Bible. But it is not the Bible that is the arbiter, per se, of Revelation. It is a means of transmitting Revelation. It has no ability, of itself, to understand.

That's why Jesus did not entrust his Revelation to ink and vellum, as it were.

Jesus entrusted his Revelation to people, that is, to the Church.

I will once again refer to the Epistle of Jude:

I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.

This shows that the Early Church understood the faith to be entrusted to a body of people, not to a book.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20:)

Again, in the "Great Commission", Jesus instructs the apostles to baptize and teach all that Jesus has commanded them-- and he adds that he would be with them to the end of the age-- in other words, for all time.

Another verse shows that Jesus intended for the people to teach the faith...

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8)

Jesus did not command them to write a book. Jesus formed the Church to preach his word. It is this body of people that is responsible for preserving and transmitting Divine Revelation. And this was not some ad hoc committee. The apostles understood Jesus' formation of their group as something permanent. That is why when Judas Iscariot died, the apostles took it upon themselves to find a replacement:

So they proposed two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, "Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs." Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.(Acts 1:23-26

It was later on that the Evangelists took it upon themselves to write the Gospels-- not as a treatise or a catechism, but as a book that was intended to lead to a relationship and faith in Jesus Christ.

The Early Christians looked to the Church to understand what Jesus had preached, since the Gospels did not exist. As St. Paul writes to Timothy:

I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.

The Church is then the source of what we know about Jesus and is guided by the Holy Spirit, as indicated above.

Scripture is the product of the Church.

The authority of Scripture doesn't come from itself. It comes from the Church. The Church is what Jesus founded to teach

The point of this being that interpreting Divine Revelation authoritatively is not an individual task. It is a Church task. It is a collective task. Individuals can be correct. But Jesus did not entrust his Revelation to individuals. Jesus Christ entrusted the Church to be his witness, his interpreter (or more accurately, his messenger) of the things he said.

And it has been understood since the beginning of the Church that "Judge not, lest ye be judged" does not preclude all judgements.

And that is not my individual opinion. It is the consensus of the Church, the body Jesus founded to be the authority on his Revelation, and which he said he would be with until the end of the age.

One's individual interpretation is a fallible opinion. A universal belief of the Church since the apostolic age has Jesus' stamp of approval, so to speak.

(And I would love to go on another tangent about Sacred Tradition, but that would make this post even longer. Just read up!)

There is no "pick and choose" when it comes to the Church's understanding of Revelation. Because Revelation must be understood in its totality. Sometimes a verse is meant to be understood literally, and sometimes it is not. It is through the same textual analysis that I used above that the Church is able to make the distinction.

Liberals do as much "picking choosing" as uneducated literalist Christians do. Quoting Scripture is fine to make a point, as I've done. But quoting a Scripture verse as if it were a doctrinal statement, while it is taken out of context and considered in isolation from all other verses, is a misuse of the Bible.

That is what the liberal interpretation of "Judge not lest ye be judged" is: a misuse of the Bible.

Not to mention some of her other statements. But that's the subject of another blogpost. :)

(And yes, I do anticipate your next objection).

"Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged." The real meaning of that verse

The most misunderstood verse of the Bible, and the one that leftists love to quote the most is Matthew 7:1, which is traditionally rendered as:

Judge not lest ye be judged.

Lefties like to use that verse because they think it validates the erroneous assumption that Jesus approved of liberal moral relativism.

In fact, Jesus did nothing of the kind. And his warning about judgement is not a prohibition against all judgements, but a warning against certain kinds of judgement.

The whole context is this:

1"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

The point is not: Do not judge. The point is: If you judge, you will be judged by that measure. Therefore, take the log out of your own eye before you speak about the speck in your brother's eye.

It is a warning against making rash, hypocritical and overly harsh judgements.

It will turn on you.

How do we know that Jesus didn't mean to prohibit all judgements?

Because Jesus tells people to JUDGE in other circumstances.

(John 7:24) "24Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment."" .

Also:

Luke 17:3 "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.

In other words, if you've judged that your brother has sinned, say so!

You can make that call.

Other passages in Scripture confirm that understanding.

"Can you not realize that the unholy will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not deceive yourselves: no fornicators, idolaters, or adulterers, no sodomites, thieves, misers, or drunkards, no slanderers or robbers will inherit God's Kingdom" (1 Cor. 6:9-10).

(...)

It was St. Paul who told the early Church: "Judge everything, hang on to what is good" (1 Thess. 5:21).

I also quoted the Epistle of Jude and by liberal standards, it's very judgemental.

It says what in effect I said: that those who want to follow Christ but do not obey his commandments are not true Christians.

Jesus said as much to those who doubted his words.

(John 8:23-24)But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins."

One final thought:

The judgment Christians are to refrain from is judgment concerning the eternal fate of anyone. Leave intentions, motives, and final worth to God. We are not to confuse the judgment of the actions of people with sitting in judgment over them as to their eternal fate. But reluctance to make judgments concerning sinful acts is to produce that type of paralysis and inactivity that has brought both contemporary society and American Catholics to their present plight.

This is What Social Conservatives Need to Hear and Act Upon

Andrew Klavan:

So all right, now we know. The media are the enemies of the people and they are protecting the culture for the proponents of the state. And now that we do know, it’s time for us to fight back. By us, I mean artists, journalists, thinkers, foundations, investors—anyone who tells stories, makes music or pictures or reacts to them with criticism, ideas, money and praise.

We need to build a New American Culture, and turn our backs on the culture of the state. We need to stop according respect or credence to reviews and awards that are used as social engineering tools to force the culture into anti-American state worship. We need to build an infra-structure of funding, review attention and awards to give praise, purpose and prestige to those artists who stand outside the MSM’s climate of opinion.

(...)

In truth, there is only one essential principle our new culture needs to remember and embody and it’s this: liberty is better than slavery. This principle alone implies a moral order and a human purpose. It makes a small state better than a big one. It makes America better than, say, Saudi Arabia. It makes a religion based on “love thy neighbor,” better than one based on submission. This principle alone will guide us away from mealy-mouthed self-abasement to balanced self-criticism and praise amidst our search for the dignity, strength and morality befitting free men and women.

If artists guided by this principle begin to create, if reviewers guided by it write reviews, if foundations give us grants and awards, if investors give us the funding we need, then the cultural infra-structure of the left will collapse of the rot and corruption of its bad ideas. We will take back the culture and if we take back the culture, we will take back the country too.

Hot Air comments:

Klavan’s words remind me of a quote by C.S. Lewis who said something along the lines of ‘what we need are not more Christian writers, but good writers who are Christian.’ I don’t quote that to suggest that only good art can come from believers, but I like the sentiment behind the statement. Too often, conservatives and Christians tend to isolate themselves from culture or create art that is too overtly political or religious while ignoring the fact that art needs to be good on its own merit in order to effectively communicate whatever message the artist is trying to send. As the abject failure of anti-Iraq war movies shows, preachiness doesn’t work.

The longer pro-lifers ignore this advice, the more our goal will elude us.

I say this without malice. The pro-life movement in Canada was built from scratch by average people who are the salt of the earth. Pro-lifers did the best they knew how.

But that "best" wasn't good enough, and we must take it to the next level.

We have a good number of activists. We have the ear of a certain number of elected officials. What we do not have is cultural clout. In other words, we do not have the ear of the people.

The only way to get that clout is to develop our own culture.

By this, I do not mean we have to make every movie about abortion. What this means is that the cultural products that we produce and consume should be related to-- and uphold-- our worldview.

We still need work on the political and activist front: no doubt about it. But practically nothing is being done on the cultural front.

I propose that on top of all the other work that is being done, pro-lifers should think about developing workshops, schools and other similar venues for artists to learn their craft and expose their works.

I also propose that we start thinking of creating a pro-life community-- a group of people who relate with one another as part of a group. We can't just be a church. The churches are unreliable. We need to be a community of people who interact with one another on a regular basis (not just twice a year at protests), who form the basis of one's social networks and who could provide an audience for our developing cultural and entertaing sector.

This must be more than just about getting a vote in Parliament. This has to be about completely re-doing culture and society. Because it's our culture that got us into this mess. We need to turn it around, not through protests, letters to the editor and such-- as important as they are-- but through the change of heart that art can effectuate.

I know that when this happens, pro-lifers will be on an equal political footing with anyone in this country.

If you believe as strongly as I do that we need this new culture, please, spread the word. Don't let this idea abort. We must talk about it. The longer we wait to act on this idea, the longer we will have to wait to see Canada restored. If you ignore this message and say nothing, you are contributing to the problem, not the solution.

Mehmet Ali Agca,Pope John Paul II's Would-Be Assassin, embraces the Catholic Faith! IMPORTANT INFO ADDED

See important info below.

I'm reading here on a French blog that Pope John Paul II's would be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, has embraced the Catholic Faith as of May 13, 2007 (note the date!) 26 years after attempting to kill the Holy Father.



There is no news of this anywhere in the anglosphere, so if you read it here, you're probably getting it first (I love a scoop!)

---

Will loosely translate This article

Agca wrote a letter from his Turkish prison cell in which he declared to have abjured the Muslim faith (oy, brave man!) and this letter was published in the Italian weekly Diva e donna.

"J'ai décidé de retourner pacifiquement sur la place (Saint-Pierre à Rome) et de témoigner devant le monde entier de ma conversion au catholicisme", poursuit-il dans cette lettre rédigée en italien, selon Diva et donna. "Je voudrais, seulement pour un jour, retourner à Rome prier sur la tombe de Jean Paul II pour lui exprimer toute ma reconnaissance filiale pour son pardon", ajoute-t-il.

Translation:

I have decided to return peacefully to St. Peter's Square and to witness to the whole world of my conversion to Catholicism. I would like, only for a day, to return to Rome to pray at Pope John Paul II's tomb to express all my filial gratitude for his forgiveness.

Interrogé par l'AFP en Turquie, son ancien avocat Mustafa Demirbag, s'est dit "très sceptique" sur cette conversion.

Questioned by the Agence France Press in Turkey, his former lawyer Mustafa Demirbag said he was very skeptical of this conversion.

(Well, his renunciation of Islam can't be that half-hearted)

Pour être reconnu comme catholique, une simple déclaration ne suffit pas et un long cheminement aboutissant au baptême est nécessaire. Ali Agca dit en outre avoir exprimé son "souhait (de se rendre place Saint-Pierre) au pape Benoît XVI", sans avoir reçu "aucune réponse jusqu'ici" et affirme avoir informé le Vatican de sa conversion

Translation:

To be considered Catholic, a simple declaration is not enough, and a long journey ending in baptism is necessary. Ali Agca said he expressed his "wish" to Pope Benedict XVI without having received, up to now, any response up to now, and affirms having told the Vatican about his conversion.

(Sounds like secular media having some kind of sour grapes over this).

"Pour le Vatican, je suis peut-être resté l'homme qui tenta d'assassiner le pape polonais, mais aujourd'hui j'ai changé, je suis un homme différent", affirme-t-il. Jean Paul II avait pardonné à son agresseur qu'il avait rencontré en prison en 1983.

Translation:

"For the Vatican, I will perhaps always remain the man who attempted to assassinate the Polish Pope, but today, I have changed, I am a different man," he affirmed. John Paul II had forgiven his attacker, whom he met in prison in 1983.

La justice italienne a à son tour passé l'éponge après avoir maintenu l'ancien militant ultra-nationaliste en prison pendant 19 ans, mais l'a remis en 2000 aux autorités turques qui le réclamaient pour purger deux peines auxquelles il avait été condamné en Turquie, l'une pour une attaque de banque commise dans les années 1970 et l'autre pour le meurtre d'un journaliste turc en 1979. (belga/th)

The Italian Justice System kept this militant ultra-nationalist in prison for 19 years, but handed him over to Turkish authorities in 2000, who wanted him to go to prison for two years after being condemned for two crimes; one for an attack on a bank committed in the 1970, and the other for a murder of a Turkish journalist in 1979.

---

An acquaintance of mine, Scott Richert, does not put too much stock in the report. It seems that many people question Agca's mental stability.

I'm kind of sorry to hear that.

Liberal Christianity and True Faith

In the combox JJ criticized me for stating that liberal Christians are not real Christians.

Insofar as they do not have an authentic faith, I believe this is so.

By faith, I mean the belief in Divine Revelation (through Scripture and Scripture)-- but not on its own merits. It's good to believe that what happened in the Gospels truly did happen because of its historical veracity.

Faith is believing Divine Revelation because God said so, and God cannot lie nor be deceived.

It has to do with accepting what is revealed on God's authority.

You can believe elements of the Divine Revelation without God's authority. It's fine to believe that Jesus lived and was executed and that his followers built up community of
disciple.

But that's not faith.

Some Liberal Christians believe some elements of the Faith on God's authority. But generally speaking, their sense of faith is weak.

When you believe God on his authority, you are making a statement about who God is, and what he does.

Liberals and conservatives tend to largely disagree on that point, and that's why they have two completely different visions of what Christianity is about.

JJ implied that my opinion was not compatible with Christianity and that Jesus would not approve.

Quite the opposite. Christianity has always made faith a requirement.

John 6:29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

John 6:35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

John 8:31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

John 11:40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"

John 12:44 Then Jesus cried out, "When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me.

I can go on. But you get the idea.

But the idea is that in order to benefit from the person of Jesus, you must believe in him.

If you do not believe as above, then you do not get the benefits.

Faith is not an option in Christianity. It's a requirement.

And Liberal Christians very often do not believe. They are constantly skeptical of the claims of Christ. They pick and choose and project their liberalism onto Scripture, instead of taking Scripture at face value.

The Epistle of Jude relates that even in his day, there were people in the Church who promoted a message similar to those of Liberals:

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about[b] long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord[c] delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them.

.

Liberal Christians are the ones who use their watered-down Christian beliefs as a license for immorality. They say: don't worry, God understands. God is a nice God. He is forgiving. He doesn't really mean the nasty things he says in the Bible. Jesus was never like that.

Jesus did make requirements of us. And those who do not live up to those requirements are not real Christians. This is not some "fundamentalist fantasy", this is what Scripture truly says.

Cute Pro-Life Cartoon

H/T Grammy Cracker's Crumbs

The Preemie as Former Fetus

When Theresa was born, though she was not quite through the second trimester, she already had her own distinct personality, and we quickly came to know her likes and dislikes. She would get angry if she couldn't see us from her position in the incubator, her anger being registered not by audible cries — which she could not make due to the ventilator tube in her nose and throat — but by a jump in her heart rate measured by the monitor above her. She quite evidently hated this tube and repeatedly tried to pull it out, finally succeeding in her fourth week, when she proved able to breathe safely on her own.

Most extraordinary of all, Theresa smiled virtually from the beginning. I had always assumed that smiling was a skill acquired only a month or two after a full-term birth. But our experience with Theresa indicated that this is not so.

(...)

In short, our daughter was not simply a mass of tissue but was obviously a person in her own right, capable of knowing frustration, fear, and happiness.

Many people oppose abortion laws for late-term fetuses on the grounds that very few happen anyway.

As if statistics make such a procedure any less fatal to the individual.

Look at that baby. Born at 26 weeks. There are abortions that late in Canada.

All the criteria for killing line up, so, no problem with late-term abortion. It's not a human being: check. It's inside the woman's body: check. It's a woman's decision: check.

Somehow an umbilical cord and a placenta connected to the mother's body is supposed to make killing a baby like that okay. Like it's all an abstraction. No painful contractions, no needle inside the baby's heart, no consideration of the individual's worth: it's the complete banalization of human life. Nothing special: just a bunch of DNA.

My "favourite" justification is: there is no such thing as an unborn child.

Look at that face. Does that look like a child to you?

Add a placenta, an umbilical cord, some amniotic liquid and place her inside a woman's body.

Would that baby be any less of a "child"?

As if the placenta, the umbilical cord, and his location really changes who that baby is.

The sophistries we use to justify the dehumanization of these babies!

Feminists will point to the suffering and deaths of women to justify killing these little ones.

Here's the major difference between women and babies.

Women have power. Babies do not.

Women have the ability not to abort. They have the ability to solve their problems without killing their baby.

They just don't want to. Or doctors or other "authorities" tell them they can't, that they have no other choice, or that birth is not the compassionate solution.

Killing the baby is the seemingly easier solution.

Critics will reply that at this stage of pregnancy, an abortion is far more likely to be performed for genetic anomalies or malformations.

How does that make it any better? That baby gets killed in a cruel fashion, no matter what the justification.

What legal abortion boils down to is this: The woman's body is more important than the unborn baby's body.

That is feminist supremacy. The power of the woman is the justification to kill the powerless baby. And if the woman is not allowed to do so, she is deemed "powerless", as if stopping her from killing a baby like that were some kind of oppressive act, while killing that baby isn't.

The Liberal Resentment Against Chastity

Craig Carter quotes Pope John Paul II's Love and Responsibility:

"Resentment arises from an erroneous and distorted sense of values. It is a lack of objectivity is judgment and evaluation, and it has its origin in weakness of will. The fact is that attaining or realizing a higher value demands a greater effort of will. So in order to spare ourselves the effort, to excuse our failure to obtain this value, we minimize its significance, deny it the respect which it deserves, even see it as in some way evil, although objectivity requires us to recognize that it is a good. Resentment possesses, as you can see, the distinctive characteriatics of the cardinal sin called sloth. St. Thomas defines sloth (acedia) as 'a sadness arising from the fact that the good is difficult. . . Resentment, however, does not stop at this: it not only distorts the features of the good but devalues that which rightly deserves respect, so that man need not struggle to raise himself to the level of the true good, but can 'light-heartedly' recognize as good only what suits him. . .

Chastity, more than any other, seems to be the virtue which resentment has tended to outlaw from the soul, the will and the heart of man. A systematic case has been built up against it, which seeks to show that it is not beneficial but harmful to human beings. . . But chastity and continence are seen above all as dangerous enemies of love . . .

Absolutely. Gays and divorced people come to mind. The Church's stance in favour of chastity is seen as the enemy of love.

Craig comments:

just as Wojtyla predicted, the sinner who finds virtue too strenuous tends to blame the Church, the Law, the moral standard, (anything!), except him or herself. Through a curious moral inversion, the Church and the Bible become the problem. There is nothing wrong with me. If God just wasn't so strict, it would be easy to be good.

People often conveniently forget the fact that God's grace is there to overcome our own weaknesses.

If Christianity were that easy, it wouldn't be worth it. Why accept Christ only to live as if you never accepted him, as if he didn't require anything of you? If you want a faith that isn't "too hard", just stay a non-believer. You can still dress up your faith in Christian symbolism if you like. But it's not Christianity.

Christianity requires things overcoming our own inclinations.

Junk

If I have one weakness, it's stuff.

I don't necessarily commune with it.

But I can't bare to throw it away.

I'm not as bad as a I used to be. But I do keep a lot of useless junk around.

I have a button collection (or whatever you call "des macarons" in English) that I've had since grade 1. It's very special to me because a number of the pins that I bought were from a trip to England that I made at that time. I have a button of Prince Charles and Princess Diana that I bought a few weeks before the wedding (I left just before the wedding).

I have other political buttons, too. And school buttons.

I just could not bare to part with it.

I just decided recently that my poetry notebooks were not worth keeping. I've read writers advise to keep one's notebooks. The truth is, that vast majority of it is crap and will have no value. I save all the good poems and really, I just just trash everything else. I will not go over the fifth draft of the poem I wrote in Drama class in 1997. Not gonna happen.

But the toughest junk to part with is the sentimental junk. I still have a handwritten book of poetry that a boy gave me when I was 17. How could I possibly throw that in the dumpster? I'll probably have to adopt my sister's approach. Last week I was helping her de-junk her apartment because she'd completely run out of room. "Here," she said bravely, handing me a dirty old stuffed Snoopy dog from the back of the closet. "I am going to leave the room now, and you do whatever you think best."

I go to my husband for that. Because not only do I have trouble throwing away my own junk, I have throwing away the kids' junk, too. I gather up some things that I think I could do without, and I tell him: "Here. Make an executive decision."

He would throw out ninety per cent of the kids' toys, if I'd let him.

I used to think it was wise to save junk, as in "you never know when you might need it." Or "you might want to recall those memories."

The reality is, unless you're especially badly off, you won't need it or you can buy a new one. And most people are too busy for memories. It's more effort than it's worth. How often do we read photo albums or look through old letters?

All this to say that the truth, to paraphase Thoreau, is that you don't own stuff.

Stuff owns you.

Joyce Arthur's "Fetus Focus Fallacy": The Epitome of Feminist Supremacy

Julie Culshaw brought up Joyce Arthur's Fetus Focus Fallacy tract.

Joyce writes:

Focusing on the fetus always has dire legal and social
consequences for women. As soon as we give special rights to
fetuses, we separate them from their mothers and create an
adversarial relationship that hurts both.

Focusing on the fetus also devalues women, because it usurps
their moral decision-making, as well as their bodies and wombs.
The best way to protect fetuses and children
is to support pregnant women and mothers.

When we protect the interests of fetuses, we sacrifice women's rights
and autonomy, and end up harming their children in the long run.
We can trust pregnant women to act in the best interests of their
fetuses – and that can mean having an abortion.

What Joyce is stating is this: if you consider the issue, you are in fact undermining women's power for all the stated reasons.

Power is the determing criterion of truth. Desired results, not Truth, are what matter.

So if the question undermines a woman's power, it must not be considered. Therefore, do not consider the fetus. The strong able-bodied, reasoning female human being with resources must prevail over the weak, unconscious human being with no resources and no voice.

That's feminist supremacy.

She writes:

The best way to protect fetuses and children
is to support pregnant women and mothers.

The best way to protect fetuses?

How about protecting fetuses from abortionists? What's the best way to protect fetuses from them? Aren't they the number one threat?

Joyce Arthur doesn't give a damn about the fetus. She just said so herself-- focusing on the fetus devalues women. She can't be sincere.

The
practice of abortion is unrelated to the status of
the fetus—it depends totally on the aspirations
and needs of women. Women have abortions:
�� regardless of the law
�� regardless of the risk to their lives or health
�� regardless of the morality of abortion
�� regardless of what the fetus may or may not be

Therefore, do not examine the issue. Avoid it. The only party's interests who matters are the woman's.

Since they have abortions no matter what, the issue must not be considered, otherwise a woman's power might be undermined.

Again, the strong must be able to oppress the weak in order to maintain female "equality".

And consider this: she's saying it's absolutely irrelevant whether another human being is killed in abortion. The ONLY party who matters in the abortion debate is the woman's. If she dies that matters. If the fetus dies that doesn't matter.

Women will have abortions no matter what, but they can stop themselves. Abortion is self-inflicted.

Fetuses do not want abortions, no matter what. It is inflicted on them.

Women should be held somewhat responsible for the choices they make. Otherwise, that would be patronizing.

In other words, women have abortions because they’re responsible – they want to be good mothers to their existing children or to their future children.

I love how she promotes "protecting fetuses" but then turns around and says that abortions-- which do not protect fetuses-- are "responsible".

Ergo, the responsible thing is to NOT protect fetuses.

The mental gymnastics....

A woman with a born child is under no obligation to donate a
kidney or blood to save her child's life, so how can a fetus have even more rights over the woman than her born child? It can’t.

A fetus is the child of the mother. People may not have an obligation to donate a kidney, but mothers have an obligation to take care of their children.

It's all about that "best way to protect fetuses".

And I object to the notion that the person who needs the kidney is not entitled to one. While I agree that no one can be made to give a kidney, society certainly has an obligation to make the best effort to make sure that that person remains alive. For society to treat such a patient as disposable is a very callous attitude. The same goes for the fetus. We have a responsibility to protect his life.

The Problem with "Right-to-Life" Constitutional Amendments

The Dominican Republic recently saw fit to enshrine the right to life from conception.

Many pro-lifers are bouyed by this kind of success.

But I think there's reason to be cautious.

The problem is that the constitution protects life, not unborn human beings.

In the liberal mentality, human life is not synonymous with the human person.

If you're a seasoned pro-life debater, you almost have surely come across the argument that it is irrelevant that the embryo is a human being, because he is not a person. Therefore he should not have any rights.

In our day and age, human life is a thing, not a person.

But the woman is a person.

What that means is that since a woman is recognized as a person-- and the embryo is only a "life", some sneaky judicial activists will make that argument in the courts.

The rights of a person trumps the protection of human life.

Crazy as that may sound to you, that's how feminists argue.

And as it is, in many parts of Latin America, this thought process is already being applied, even in jurisdictions where abortion is illegal.

Right to life clauses in the constitution are not full scale protection against legal abortion.

The only thing that will truly protect the unborn child is for a constitution to recognize the unborn and to prohibit discrimination against the unborn.

Short of that, there will always be an open door to legal abortion, and feminists will find it.

One must also consider that in granting citizenship to the unborn, this gives more moral weight to those who fight against UN imposition of abortion.

If the UN is fighting for abortion to be legalized in your country, it's basically being discriminatory and laying the groundwork for a mass killing of your citizens.

The United Nations should not be in the business of promoting the death of the citizens of member bodies. That much should be obvious. Otherwise, how can it be the instrument of peace that it purports to be?

This is why I prefer to call myself a fetal rights activist and fight for the equality of the unborn child, instead of a pro-life who fights for the right to life. There is something of a difference.

Feminists scorn posthumous adoption of aborted babies

In response to my story about the posthumous adoption of abortion babies, Dammit Janet blogger fern hill echoes Gigi:

Is there no depth of the creepy weirdness to which you pro-lifers WON'T sink?

Let's see. There was no legal action. And it was a means to help heal from an abortion.

Hm. Sounds like feminists are being judgmental again.

A woman who was clearly wounded from previous abortions takes personal and non-legislative action to help her heal--

And they jump all over her.

How feminist of them. It just oozes with solidarity with women who've had a painful abortion experience.

It makes you wonder about what they think of women who baptize their aborted babies, or women who remember their unborn children in visions.

And what does DeBeauxOs think of this respect for the unborn?

Yeah, it's called religious zealotry disorder™

I've often found it strange that left-wingers are supposed to be the advocates of the sick and the disabled, including the mentally ill, and yet when they want to cast aspersions on a political opponent, they often resort to calling them mentally ill.

Not very progressive, if you ask me, to use a disability of sorts to stigmatize others.

But then, it's not unlike the way communist regimes would stigmatize opposition to their tyrannical rule by branding dissent as a psychiatric disorder and sending them to mental hospitals to be "cured".

I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, ideologically speaking. They have a hard time reconciling with the notion of dissent, and assume the only possible explanation is a disease which one can use to justify ridicule and isolation.

The white supremacists of old used to brand abolitionists as lunatic "n*gger lover" zealots.

It seems that I'm in good company.

Disabled Feminist Voices Her Concerns Over Selective Abortions

Victoria Al-Sharqi:

I know that a prenatal test for one of my conditions is expected within the next 10 years. It is already within the development stage. This knowledge does not exactly make me feel like a valued member of society. I wonder why? I would like to believe that the test will be used in a positive way, perhaps allowing parents to read extensively about their future child’s condition before the birth, make the necessary adaptations to their home and organise the best educational provision that they can well in advance. Call me a cynic, but somehow I doubt that this is what the test is intended for. And that makes me wonder whether all this talk of equality actually has any meaning, or whether it is simply designed to make non-disabled people feel good about themselves. How can you tell me that you value my contribution in the workplace when you support legislation that is grounded in the idea that disabled people are incapable of contributing anything? How can you laugh and joke around with me over lunch when you support a measure that is designed to protect disabled people from the vale of tears that we are supposedly doomed to inhabit?

(...)

I was proud to call myself a feminist throughout my time in the Middle East. It was only when I moved to Britain and realised the extent to which the abortion debate dominates British feminist discourse that I began to have my reservations about whether I could find a home within the movement. I was told that I wasn’t ‘qualified’ to condemn abortion on grounds of disability, and when I heard that I realised that I would be treated no less dismissively if I did support selective abortion. Then I would be turned into a token, a mascot. And I have no desire to be either of those things. I want to be a person in my own right.

Posthumous Adoption of an Aborted Baby

COSTA MESA, CA (ANS) -- A California couple signed adoption papers Monday, April 20, 2009, so the husband could adopt his wife’s two previously aborted children and give them his last name. It may be the first such posthumous adoption of an aborted child.

I didn't even know you could posthumously adopt born children.

Stoddart said that it wasn’t possible to do an adoption in the eyes of the law because there was no birth certificate for the aborted children, no legal acknowledgement that they ever existed. But it would be possible for Stan and Lisa to a ceremonial adoption, to sign paperwork with each other that reflected their desire for the adoption to take place and their desire to honor the personhood of the two children Lisa had briefly parented. Before each other, before God, and before witnesses, they would be embracing the children as a part of their marriage

VIDEO: Pro-Lifers in Their Own Words #9: Jim Hnatiuk

I went to a presentation given by Christian Heritage Party leader Jim Hnatiuk to get in touch with other pro-lifers in Ottawa.

I asked him about his start in the pro-life movement.

(Sorry about the audio...a lot of background noise)

Anti-Abortion Art

Some of these I like more than others, but I like this one best:

VIDEO: Pessimism Porn

This makes me think of how people point to Nostradamus' predictions to demonstrate his reliability and provide fodder for talk of gloom and doom.

I also don't believe the prophecies of St. Malachy.

Economists are more scientific than looking into a bowl of water, but still it's all hookum. It's looking into an astrological chart to find signs and then using 20/20 hindsight to confirm one was right.



H/T: Le Minarchiste Québécois

Sarah Mae's abortion story

Like a Warm Cup of Coffee:

The three months I was pregnant when I was 16 were probably the three hardest months of my life. I was very sick, I felt very alone, and I was being torn in directions I wasn't prepared for. Everyone had a solution to my "problem," but no one wanted to hear mine.

...

The final straw was when my other grandmother came to visit me. She convinced me that having an abortion really would be the best decision. She spoke to me so kindly and she showed me love. I was desperate for any signs that I was lovable at that point, so I agreed right then and there to have an abortion.

Pro-Lifers in Their Own Words #8 Rachel Barrett

Rachel Barrett is the National Director of Bound 4 Life, a group that seeks to end abortion in Canada through prayer. This is her story about how she got involved in the pro-life movement:

My pro-life journey started mostly during the summer of 2007. As a teacher, I had always worked through the summer but this summer was different. God gave me the privilege to set aside this summer to seek His face. The main question on my heart during this time was, “Lord Jesus, what is on your heart?” As I began to seek Him with this deep question He began to share with me how the unborn, the babies that were being slaughtered daily in my nation, Canada, but also worldwide.

This revelation was so new to me at the time. Before this time I thought very little about this issue, even though since a very young age I had conviction in my heart that life began at conception. I also always believed in my heart that I would never have an abortion. In high school, I even completed projects/papers debating and expressing my views that abortion was wrong.

I bless my parents and honour them for being ones who have been a true example to me of ones who have chosen life by having six children. They always saw each of us as a gift and a treasure from God. For this I will always be grateful because they allowed me to come into the destiny God had for me to be born by choosing life. As well, since my adolescent years, I saw my mother as one who would reach out to mothers in need while counseling those wrecked by the havoc of abortion. She has always been an inspiration to me yet all the while only God knew that I would someday walk in her footsteps in a way.

As one who has always loved children and had a heart to see them come into their full destiny. I never made a heart connection with this issue of abortion before. As Jesus began to show me His heart for the babies He also showed me how He weeps for them. At this time I asked that He would change my heart so that I would know His heart and have more of His heart in me. He began to answer the prayer of my heart and as He did I began to weep as well for the unborn. As one in my 20’s I began to weep for the 40% of my generation that never made it past the womb. I began to realize the destinies and purposes of God that had been aborted. He began to place such a groan in my spirit to pray for the ones that have no voice and those who are often striped of their right to life.

As I began to research abortion within Canada and worldwide, I came across a LIFE prayer movement called Bound4Life. It was birthed out of a dream a man named Brian Kim had in 2004. In this dream he saw many young people with red tape with the word “LIFE” over their mouths. This dream inspired a group of intercessors to stand for 31 days at the United States Supreme Court with the word “LIFE” written on a piece of red tape covering their mouths before the 2004 Elections. Since then, many intercessors all over the US and worldwide have continued to pray as they did on these 31 significant days in 2004. I learned they wore this red life tape as a representation of the silent cries of the unborn in the womb at each of their prayer meetings.

When I first learned of this movement, God began to speak to me about Ezekiel 22:30 which states, “I looked for a man among them who would build up a wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so that I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.” In a time where babies were being sacrificed to the god of Molech, just as they are now, this verse speaks of God looking for a man/woman that would stand in the gap for a nation so He would not have to destroy it. At this point, God clearly spoke to me directly about how He wanted me to be one who would stand in the gap through prayer and intercession on behalf of Canada. He showed me our need to cry out for mercy for the innocent blood that had been shed.

As He spoke these words to me I began to wonder if this B4L movement had begun in Canada yet. I remember thinking, “We need this prayer movement in Canada!” After some research online I found www.bound4life.ca and at this time Faytene Kryskow had recently begun Bound4Life Canada. On the site I watched a video called, “True Choices”. This video had statistics concerning abortion in Canada and it wrecked me even further as the alarming stats echoed through my entire being. When I found out the severity of what was happening in Canada, God immediately spoke to me and said that I was to start a Bound4Life chapter in North Bay, Ontario where I was living.

After getting in touch with Faytene, the North Bay Bound4Life Chapter was set in motion. North Bay B4L was the first chapter to have a LIFE ape Prayer Siege in Canada (Aug. 2007). Since then, every month our chapter has met at various locations throughout our city to pray for the ending of abortion in our nation, praying for women in decision, praying for women who are in need of healing from the devastating effects f abortion and anything else Holy Spirit leads us to pray.

I have no doubt in my heart that God has heard and will continue to hear our every prayer and knows our every groan. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that as we, The Body of Christ in Canada, rise up to pray 24-7 for the ending of abortion we will see this evil brought down by the power of God Himself!

On a more personal note, during this initial encounter and revelation God began to speak to me about how my husband and I needed to make some changes for we had been aborting the plans of God to have children. It was interesting because as He began to speak to me about this He also began to speak to my husband at the same time. He spoke to us saying that we had bought into the lie that we needed to have our lives in order before having children. Also, He shared with us that we had been allowing fear and selfishness to prevent the process of having children. He told me to immediately get off the pill and allow His plan for life to manifest itself in every area of our lives. To our delight, only a few months later, we found out that we were expecting our gift from God himself. Our daughter, Esther, as far as we know, was the first child in the womb that took part of the Life Tape Sieges in Canada.

In August 2008, Faytene asked me to take on the leadership of Bound4Life Canada. I accepted this position after seeking God about whether or not this was His desire for me or not. It has been my pleasure and an honour to serve our nation through mothering this prayer movement and being apart of what God is growing through His spirit.

My prayer is that every city, town and province would have a Bound4Life chapter that would come along side those who have been standing for LIFE through prayer and action for many so many years. I honour those who have been in this so much longer than myself. My prayer is that as we stand together in unity and agreement through intercession, we will see this evil end in our generation. It has been amazing to see how God is raising up a generation (young and old) to cry out on behalf of the ones whose voices have been silenced on earth. I know that their cries have been and will continue to be heard in the heavenly realm. God will bring His justice and His kingdom will come to this earth.

Jesus, we plead your blood over our sins and the sins of our nation. God end abortion and send revival to Canada!

Rachel Barrett
National Director of Bound4Life Canada

Other entries in the series:

Vicki Gunn, Executive Director of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada.

Maria Slykerman, head of Campaign Life Coalition Manitoba

David MacDonald, singer and pro-life activist

Denise Moutenay, founder of Canada Silent No More

Bill Whatcott, activist

Reverend Ed Hird, Rector of St. Simon's Anglican Church

Father Ted Colleton, activist, missionary.

On Choice, Autonomy and Freedom

A reflexion frome Oz Conservative:

The conservative position should be this: we cannot be free as radically autonomous, self-created individuals. If we are to be free, it will be as men and women, as husbands and wives, as fathers and mothers and as members of distinct human communities and traditions.

Note the word "autonomous".

Autonomy is the concept used to oppress the unborn. Because they are not "autonomous" they are nothing.

One final, important point. If we do not do battle on these grounds, then it is likely that an older concept of rights, one focused on limiting state power, will give way to state interference and coercion.

Why? If it is accepted as true that we become human through the power to self-create our own autonomous lives, then it will be thought terribly unjust for there to be any inequalities in this power of autonomy. It would mean accepting that some people were more human than others - a serious breach in human equality.

Exactly. And this is the philosophy that justifies killing the unborn. They are not autonomous, therefore, not human.

For instance, if careers help our autonomy by making us financially independent, then how can we justify men spending more time in careers than women. If the liberal view of personhood is true, then this would mean that women were being relegated to a less human status than men.

And since women are less autonomous than men when pregnant, the right to kill one's fetus must be upheld in the name of female equality.

This will seem so immoral and so unjust to liberals, that it's unlikely that the state would not interfere coercively to achieve "gender equity".

Which is exactly what Status of Women and their Gender Based Analysis want to achieve.

At the very least, we have to make sure that a new generation of conservatives is brought up to reject not only the particular forms of coercion enacted by the liberal state, but also the underlying principles justifying them.

I agree. Our worldview can be Judeo-Christian, but it cannot be uniquely religious or biblicist. We must be able to contend on the philosophical level.

VIDEO: Second Trimester Abortions Illustrated

This is the kind of video that shows what it's all about. What pro-lifers are protesting, and what feminists support.

Feminists say-- the little baby suffers? Oh well. Tough luck kid. Your mother's desires are far more important than your pain and suffering.

I notice that none of the feminists who comment never deny this. They always side with the mother's "right", no matter what the result.

Human rights for humans? It seems some humans ARE more equal than others.



H/T

Former Abortion Counsellor Kathy Sparks Tells Her Story

It's a long read, but very interesting. The day after she gave her life to Christ, she went back to work at the abortion clinic:

The next day I went into the abortion clinic. It was so completely different than the very day before. It was freezing cold. I could not get warm. I was chilled all the way down to my bones. I just couldn't get warm. I had a sweater on, and it was incredible because no one else seemed to notice. There was a smell, a stench in the air that I couldn't get away from. I kept breathing it and breathing it and it was making me nauseous. One of the first abortions done that day was on a woman who was 23 weeks pregnant. This woman should have had a saline or a laminaria abortion, or even a hysterectomy. Anything would have been better than to try to do a D&C on a woman who was that far along. You have to realize that in this particular abortion clinic, what would be done was she would be examined one side; a pelvic exam by one doctor; then she'd come over and go through all the blood work and sign a release paper, etc. Then, by the time it was time for her abortion, she would be examined a second time. So we're talking about two different doctors doing a pelvic exam who knew this lady was farther than certainly 12 weeks along. She lay on the table. She was a regular-built person, and she had a belly. And I thought, no way! That couldn't be the baby! So the doctor did the pelvic and sat down on his chair and mouths up to me, "very big." I'm thinking, very big, what are you going to do this for? I was trembling and getting a little bit nervous. But he began the procedure. He started to dilate her with the dilating rods and the water broke. He began to do a procedure that normally would take five to eight minutes, and we were in there for an hour. This woman was in so much pain, she was coming off the table. Every medical assistant and nurse was in that room. The nurse had to give her three doses of Sublimaze to try to calm her down. She was screaming; the nurse was yelling at her because everybody else was getting quite upset in the waiting area, as you can imagine, from this woman who was screaming. The doctor was trying to do the abortion, and the baby's bones were far too developed to rip them up with this curette, and so he had to try to pull the baby out with forceps, which he brought out three or four major pieces. Then he scraped and suctioned and scraped and suctioned. There this little baby boy was laying on the tray. I took the baby and I took him to the clean-up room, and I set him down, and I began weeping, uncontrollably sobbing for what I had been a part of because God showed me that was a baby, they were all babies, and I had been a part of murdering probably nearly 1,000 babies, and I cried and cried. His little face was perfectly formed, just like the sign you saw, perfectly formed; little eyes were closed, little ears and everything was perfect about this little boy.

So the recovery nurse was wondering what was taking me so long and she walked in and looked at me. She left, didn't say a word, shut the door, and went and got the director of the abortion clinic. This woman walked in, shut the door behind her, put her hands on my shoulders and grabbed me. She began to rebuke me; pull yourself together; you're a professional. She shook me. I was a limp rag and crying and crying, this baby was 23 weeks. The doctor himself had told me how far along she was. She said, when did you get your medical degree? She took the baby boy over the toilet and put him down the toilet. I was crying and crying. Finally, when she was finished, I told her I couldn't work procedure anymore, that I'd stay in cleanup. She said, fine. We worked it out and the other girls went in to work procedure for the rest of the day.

Anencephalic Baby and Mom subject of Hate Campaign

Perhaps you remember the story of Myah and her ancephalic daughter Faith.

Myah gave birth to Faith, in spite of the diagnosis. And Faith is a beautiful child, as the numerous photos and videos show. Just gorgeous.

It seems that many people do not respect Myah's choice to give birth to Faith, to show her off in her blog and demonstrate that anencephalic babies do not need to be aborted.

Myah reports that she has been the target of a vicious hate campaign.

Indeed, a French newspaper has commented on the website, and suggests that Myah is manipulating Faith, as if there's some kind of exploitation in showing off your child on a blog and saying that anencephalic babies are worthy of life.

I suspect baby Faith would probably agree with that sentiment.

This epitomizes the very thing that pro-lifers fight against-- the hatred of "lesser" humans, the suggestion that they do not deserve to live, that there is some kind of right to hate or kill them.

Nice going jerks. Show yourselves for the small-minded, hateful little pricks that you are. We'll expose you.

Why nobody buys the leftist "tolerance and inclusiveness" garbage

Perez Hilton regarding Miss California's stance on marriage:

“That’s not the kind of woman I want to be Miss USA,” he said. “Miss USA should represent all Americans and, with her answer, she instantly alienated millions of gays and lesbians and their friends.”

She should represent all Americans except traditional Christians, Jews, Muslims and other people of faith.

Auxillary Archbishop of Linz tells it like it is

I nominate this man for pope!

Oh I long for the appointment of this man as a bishop. I wish there were some way to draft this guy into Canada. We need him!

Mons. Wagner even attacked the murderous abortion laws and criticized the “fabric softening” Austrian Bishops:

"I say that today in the church one may no longer say what is Catholic. Have the bishops already greatly conformed to politics as well? "- he asks rhetorically.

In addition, Mons. Wagner knows that there is a connection between spiritual pollution - such as gay perversion - and natural events.

Mons. Wagner does not believe in the cuddly God propagated by the faithless clergy: "I put all my money for it, when anyone promotes the biblical position, where the speech of God is love."

The loving God who does everything the people want, "because he is so popular, does not exist" - stresses of Mons. Wagner.

There is the God of love - but He also shows us the means of punishment."

A bishop who speaks plainly. What a refreshing change.

Father Raymond Gravel foaming mad at LifeSiteNews.com (must read!)

The Development and Peace pro-abortion scandal has reached the MSM. Le Devoir had an article about the conflict today.

And interestingly enough, Fr. Raymond Gravel, the liberal priest who stood as an MP a couple of years ago, made an extremely aggressive attack on LifeSiteNews.com in the comments section of the article.

He titled it "Catholic Fanaticism".

I have translated his comments:

M. Leclerc, while reading your article this morning, it called to mind the painful events that I experienced during the time I was a federal MP because of Lifesitenews, which is made up of fundamentalists who call themselves Catholic, but whose statements are contrary to the Gospel. Unfortunately, these extremist Catholics have influence in Rome so that when my bishop received a letter from the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy which forced me to retire from political life, attached to it was a file almost exclusively in English made up of negative comments about me, denunciatory letters which came from those ultra-conservative media which have no fear of using lies and half-truths to discredit the bishops, priests,religious and devoted Christians that do not support Campaign Life Coalition, a movement founded in Toronto, but which has ramifications in Quebec and even in the United States.

When I heard a few weeks ago the dubious story that Development and Peace, a Catholic organization, was financing pro-choice organizations in favour of abortion in Mexico, I knew already that it consisted of a hypocritical tactic and a false report on the part of these fanatical pro-lifers, who do not benefit from the financial support of this organization nor the support of the bishops, and which uses all means to discredit these bishops and their charitable movement. And as proof, the editors of LifesiteNews are always trying to sow discord between the bishops themselves, by denouncing the statements made by Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte on abortion and on condom usage, by saying these statements, taken out of context, were contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church. And the worst of it is that a good number of believers let themselves be influenced by these defamations and fund these extremists who claim to defend the Christian values of life, family and morality.

This is why that all Catholics from here and abroad, the most fervent and even those who’ve distanced themselves from the Church, come to the defense of our bishops and the organization Development and Peace. The policy of Development and Peace is to come to the aid of the poor people of the planet by supporting concrete projects that allow men, women and children to live in hope by finding their dignity. How can we be opposed to such generosity?

We must denounce LifeSiteNews and stop funding it. We can believe in life, defend it and promote it, without supporting these fanatics who call themselves Catholics, but who never stop judging, condemning and excluding all those who do not think like them. It is part of the Church’s credibility at its pastors to pursue its charitable mission in the world among the poor, exploited and completely destitute of the world.

I wonder what the Vatican has to say about all this. After all, they seemed to have been of the same opinion as Lifesite in regards to Fr. Gravel's foray into politics.

Lifesite is exposing the rot in the Church. Donations are obviously being put to good use.

I find it somewhat humourous that he's calling on Catholics reading the Devoir to stop funding Lifesite. The Devoir readership doesn't typically visit LifeSiteNews. Fr. Gravel is totally barking up the wrong tree. I bet whatever donations LifeSite loses in Quebec (and I'm willing to bet that would be about zero dollars) they could easily make up in soliciting donations from Americans.

So go ahead and rage Fr. Gravel. It's good publicity.

Surprise: feminist resorts to ad hominem

I had to laugh when I read this screed about me.



Being a little judgmental of another woman, I see. How feminist of deBeauxOs.

Who I am is really completely irrelevant to the discussions I have on this blog. It seems that some people feel that smearing others it the only way to advance their agenda. It's meant to put the target on the defensive and discuss the messenger instead of the issue.

But if there's anyone who seems to be angry, it's dBO.

I put her screed on my blog because there's no truth to it. Anyone who knows me and my family knows it's baseless.

I simply uphold it as an example of the kind of character assassination some feminists are willing to engage in. What a pity. She would rather fling crap than exchange ideas. I guess that shows the quality of her character.

I suppose that some feminists are not used to confronting strong, educated, socially conservative women seeing as they shelter themselves from any serious challenge to their beliefs. The cognitive dissonance between their prejudices and reality is too much for them to assimilate,I guess.

CBS to air special about a Catholic woman who saved Jewish Children from the Holocaust

On Sunday, April 19, 9:00pm ET/PT, CBS will air The Courageous Heart, the Irena Sendler story.

Irena Sendler is a Catholic who saved many Jewish children from deportation during World War II.

Here is a quick bio about her the CBS website.

Here's another bio:



Here are some previews:

Behind the Scenes

Irena opens up to her mother about all that is bothering her with the war.

Irena arrives in Warsaw with Stefan who wishes her well.

Irena watches as Stefan is taken away.

Irena helps a young girl.

Anna questions her mother about her grandmother.

This is the first time in a long while that I've seen something on network television that I've wanted to watch.

H/T: Holy Innocents Catholic Church, Long Beach

Speaking of hypocrisy and "the only moral abortion is my abortion"

This episode is so a propos in light of Fern Hill bringing up "The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion."

Yesterday, I had one of the saddest encounters of my life in front of the abortion clinic. A woman who had had 3 previous abortions was waiting outside the clinic. I spoke about my abortions, and how I felt now. She said, “my baby has a beating heart, I saw it’s heart beating, but I’ve got to take care of the 2 kids I have with me, I’m afraid of the Children’s Aid Society taking them and I’ve been on drugs and alcohol and I tried the morning after pill which didn’t work. So my baby is already messed up. I’ve lost 50 pounds and am not sleeping. I know it’s murder, so you don’t have to tell me that it is alive. I know it is.”

I said “I work with people with disabilities and they are very precious and happy to be alive, and there is a good chance your baby is not disabled.”

She said “You seem like a nice man who is responsible, but the father of my baby took off, and I’ve got 2 kids at home and I can’t handle another one.”

(Read the whole thing. It's so heart-wrenching).

Clearly, this woman did not want an abortion.

She didn't even think of her abortion as moral. She may not even have considered her deed to be "the exception".

She is, in the feminist optic, anti-choice.

She was willing to do what she thought was wrong to solve her problem.

To be fair, she wasn't a picketer or a member of the pro-life movement as far as we know. We don't know how far her opposition to abortion went. Still. She was obviously going against her own anti-abortion views in an attempt to resolve her issues.

This is one face of what Joyce Arthur terms "the only moral abortion is my abortion" phenomenon.

I don't know what went on in that clinic or what went on inside that woman's head. But clearly, abortion is not the truly desired option. What the woman really wanted was for her man to support her and for CAS to get off her case (I'm not saying CAS didn't have a legitamite case, only that she wanted them to not take her kids away).

This may be her "choice", but it is not what she really wants to choose.

Behind these "hypocrites" are stories of women who, in many cases, are choosing abortion as an alternative to what they really want.

Is that really pro-choice?

If you're having an abortion, but you really want to keep that baby, isn't there a problem?

How does abortion address the problem?

So how does underscoring hypocrisy really advance anything?

What the article is is in exercise in rhetoric in an attempt to smear pro-lifers. The reader is supposed to come away with the idea that since there are hypocrites in the pro-life movement, they're not really sincere-- they have ulterior motives for opposing abortion, and therefore their arguments, by extension, are invalid.

It is another attempt to steer the discussion away from the issue: that of the right to life of unborn children. Because that's what the argument is about. Pro-lifers do not fight against the legality of tubal ligations, or being childless or giving up babies for adoption or a number of other reproduction-related issues. They fight for the lives of unborn children.

Now this is an example of hypocrisy

Fern hill at Dammit Janet accuses me of goalpost moving in discussing accusations of hypocrisy against Sarah Palin.

But she fails to understand what hypocrisy is.

Hypocrisy is advocating one standard of behaviour for others, while believing that another standard applies to oneself.

In other words, what determines hypocrisy is not what the accuser thinks, but what the intended target of the accusation thinks.

But she does not want to adhere to that definition of hypocrisy.

She is moving the goalposts.

While accusing me of moving the goalposts.

That is hypocrisy. She advocates not moving goalposts, when she herself uses a false definition of hypocrisy in order to make her accusation.

She frames the issue in terms of Sarah Palin contradicting pro-choice philosophy.

When Sarah Palin never espoused pro-choice philosophy.

Sarah Palin opposes abortion.

Pro-lifers oppose abortion. Not choice.

"Choice" is the word used by supporters of legal abortion to frame the issue of abortion's legality.

Whether abortion is a choice or not a choice is irrelevant to pro-lifers. They oppose abortion.

Someone who contemplates abortion but rejects it is living up to the pro-life philosophy. The importance is not whether you chose or didn't choose to forego an abortion.

The important thing is that the abortion never happened.

Sarah Palin respected her principles.

Therefore, she is not advocating that she can have an abortion, but others cannot.

She decided that abortion would be wrong in her situation based on her pro-life beliefs.

Then Fern pulls out Joyce Arthur's Old "The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion" article, Which is essentially a string of anecdotes about alleged hypocrisy of pro-lifers.

I do not doubt that there are hypocrites in the pro-life movement. There are hypocrites everywhere. I have the honesty to admit it. Those who put forward that article do not have the guts to admit that there are hypocrites in the abortion rights movement.

Here's another example of "moving goalposts".

In the mind of the feminists being "anti-choice" means being against ANY abortion.

Any person who opposes abortion, but may allow for it in some circumstances is tarred as "anti-choice".

Thus, people who do not live up to the pro-life standard of upholding fetal rights are conflated with people who do support equality of the unborn child.

Thus, someone who may oppose abortion as "birth control" is tarred as "anti-choice" but they're not really pro-life.

How very convenient to move those goal posts.

To add to the sophism of this whole article, we are presented with undocumented anecdotes submitted by unnamed abortionists and other abortion clinic staff.

We have no means to verify what exactly was the patient's belief about abortion. There are people who picket in front of abortion clinics who may not be fully pro-life. Especially if they are younger.

Perhaps they were anti-choice. But perhaps they allowed for their exception for everyone not just themselves, all the while generally opposing abortion.

We have no way to verify if what is said in the article is true. It is thus slapdash propaganda, which the writer expects people to accept on her word alone.

But this is all rhetoric to take away from the real issue at heart.

That all human beings, including unborn children, should have the right to life.

I could just as easily say that feminists who support human rights but oppose the rights of unborn children are hypocrites. They are for human rights but oppose rights for a certain class of humans, i.e. unborn children.

But that is not what they believe.

That's the kind of semantic games Fern Hill and her ilk are playing. They do not go to the core of the issue, but use sophistries to promote their agenda.

They can't use facts. It has been shown time and again that the movement to keep abortion legal does not care for them. That's the only way they know how to con people into keeping abortion legal.

Where to get a bus for the March for Life in Ottawa May 14

From Campaign Life

Transportation by bus to Ottawa may be arranged by contacting the following people in your area

Ajax/Whitby & area Lou Gauthier (905) 668-9019

Brampton Cherish (Kathleen) (905) 846-1864

Burlington/Oakville Halton Pro-Life
Joanne Matters (905) 632-3232

Chatham Andree Quirion (519) 354-7280

Guelph Jakki Jeffs (daytime) (519) 836-6311

Hamilton Sharron Snaith (905) 528-3065

Ingersoll J & W DeBruyn (519) 485-2679

Kingston Mary Ellen Douglas (613) 389-4472

Kitchener/Waterloo Richard Marchak
(519) 578-8875 or (519) 570-3635

Mississauga Right To Life (905) 755-0090

London & area Cheryl Aspden (519) 453-1489

North Bay North Bay RTL (705) 474-3666

Newmarket Catherine Slovak (905) 898-1316

Peterborough A. Van Der Vegt (705) 745-3820

Paul Morgan (705) 741-4000

Stratford & area John Devlin (519) 271-8535

St. Catharines RTL Angela Braun (905) 680-2239

Sudbury Theresa St. Denis (705) 566-0707

Toronto C. L. C. (416) 204-9749

Toronto R.T.L. (416) 483-7869

Walkerton/Hanover Linda Freiburger (519) 881-0549 Helen Waechter (519) 364-1185

Windsor & area Beryl Caves (519) 966-4867

Whitby Pat Maclowski (905) 444-9779

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UPDATE: Got word that there are buses from universities in Toront/Hamilton area. Email: National Campus Life Network

Please help spare the life of an innocent man on death row

From Amnesty International:
Troy Davis faces execution for the murder of Police Officer Mark MacPhail in Georgia, despite a strong claim of innocence. 7 out of 9 witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony, no murder weapon was found and no physical evidence links Davis to the crime. The Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles has voted to deny clemency, yet Governor Perdue can still exercise leadership to ensure that his death sentence is commuted. Please urge him to demonstrate respect for fairness and justice by supporting clemency for Troy Davis.

The latest news from Amnesty International (received by email):

Yesterday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Troy Davis' bid for a new trial. In a 2-1 vote, the court cited technical reasons to reject Davis' petition for a hearing.

But all hope is not lost. Troy has 30 days to file another petition with the US Supreme Court.

Troy and his lawyers are doing everything they can to fight this decision from the inside. It is up to us to turn up the pressure on the outside. Even if you've taken action before, keep flooding Governor Perdue's office with emails demanding justice for Troy. And pass the action on to everyone you know. There is power in numbers and when you stand behind Troy Davis, you make the fight for justice even stronger!

Folks, it wouldn't kill you to take five minutes and write Governor Perdue a letter asking him to spare the life of this man [scroll to the bottom for the email form].

And if you could blog it and pass it on to your friends, it would be very much appreciated.