Archbishop Dolan on 'Unpleasant Truths'

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has taken on the controversy over pro-life billboards in that city with civility, clarity and truth.  His most recent column is a reminder that speaking the truth, however objectionable some people may find it, is always an act of charity. The billboard he defends may have saved lives, and growing support for the pro-life cause is proof that witnesses to truth are changing hearts and saving souls.

I’ve known for a long time that I should lose some weight. So, last week, I visited my doctor, and he showed me a gross, disgusting, dripping ball of yellow wax. “This,” he said to me, “is what ten pounds of fat looks like. This is what you’re carrying around in your body.” Was it upsetting? Unnerving? Sobering? You bet it was. It was also true, and it was effective, as it strengthened my resolve to get my weight under control.

Being confronted by the truth can often be unpleasant. That’s why those who fight so hard to eradicate world hunger will show us what hunger does, with a picture of a starving child, covered with flies and sores. Does it disturb us to face that truth, an image we’d rather not see or think about? It should, even as it spurs us to action.

It’s the same with smoking. I’m sure you’ve seen those television commercials that graphically portray the effects of smoking. It’s unpleasant to look at open heart surgery, or a pair of diseased lungs, or to see a person who has lost fingers, toes, or the esophagus, all due to smoking. The ads are nauseating, even hideous, to see. But the New York State Department of Health, among many others, sponsors these kinds of ads because they know that they can help to save lives.

Another ad has been generating some fierce reactions. Here in New York, a billboard was recently displayed, that simply stated “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.” This message was accompanied by a photograph of a young, African-American girl.

Is that message unpleasant? Is it upsetting? Does it get our attention?

Yes!

Because the message is somberly true. The City of New York’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recently released its vital statistics from a year ago which showed that 59.8% of African-American pregnancies in New York City ended in abortion. That’s even higher than the chilling city-wide average of 41% of pregnancies ending in abortion. (I joined other community leaders from a diversity of religious and ethnic backgrounds at a press conference sponsored by the Chiaroscuro Foundation about this a few weeks ago.)

So why has the billboard suddenly been taken down? What was it that moved many of our elected officials to condemn this ad and call for the gag order. Are they claiming that free speech is a right enjoyed only by those who favor abortion or their pet causes? Do they believe that unpleasant and disturbing truths should not be spoken? Or are they afraid that when people are finally confronted with the reality of the horror of abortion, and with the toll that it is taking in our city, particularly in our African-American community, that they will be moved to defend innocent, unborn, human life?

Perhaps I’m more saddened by this intolerance right now because on Monday I will be celebrating the funeral mass for Doctor Bernard Nathanson, that giant of the pro-life movement, who died earlier this week. If you don’t know Dr. Nathanson’s story, you should. At one time, he fought hard to promote and expand abortion on demand in this state and in our country. He was one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League. He ran what he called the “largest abortion clinic in the Western world,” and bragged about personally performing thousands of abortions. But, when Dr. Nathanson was confronted with the undeniable truth, when he could see the unborn baby in the womb through the use of ultrasound technology, he abandoned his support for abortion and became a crusader for the protection of the life of the baby in the womb.

His courage and bravery should be an inspiration to us, especially when we have to face unpleasant and sobering truths.

Why Barack Obama Has to be Seen as an Enemy of the Catholic Church

 We need to be alert: he is not without influence, even on this side of the pond

President Barack Obama waves when he came to the graduation ceremony at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in 2009 (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

From The Catholic Herald (UK)

By William Oddie

Is Barack Obama the most anti-Catholic American president in living memory?

I don’t mean, of course, that he has openly attacked the Church (though it was noted that, at his inauguration as president, contrary to normal practice there was among the clergy invited to attend not one single Catholic, though he made a point of inviting the controversial — because openly and actively homosexual — Episcopalian (i.e. Anglican) bishop, Gene Robinson).

What I mean, though, is that across the whole spectrum of contemporary moral issues, he is passionately committed to a series of views which run directly contrary to those of the Church. All this has caused at least one Catholic bishop (there are probably others) to call him anti-Catholic.

Tea Party Summit: A 40-Year Plan to Take America Back

Nearly 2,400 delegates from across the U.S. attended the Tea Party Patriot American Policy Summit to hear ideas about restoring America’s greatness.

Supporters stand and cheer on Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul as he addresses supporters during the Tea Party Summit at the Phoenix Convention Center on Saturday Feb. 26, 2011, in Phoenix.

From OneNewsNow

By Ed Vitagliano

It will take a while to accomplish that goal, according to Jenny Beth Martin, the national coordinator and a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, the group hosting the summit. Martin was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.

In an interview with One News Now, Martin said it took a generation to produce the “cultural shift” that has led us to this point, and it will “take a full generation to instill Constitutional principles again.”

Moscow Boys' Choir - 'Nunc Dimittis'

'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation'

Founded in 1957, the Moscow Boys' Choir is Russia's most prestigious all-boy choir. The Choir has  toured Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Poland, England, and United States. Formerly directed by Leonid Baklushin, the choir is now directed by Ms. Ninel Kamburg. 

From the Pastor - 'The Witness of Martyrs'

A weekly column by Father George Rutler

During the millennium celebrations of 2000, Pope John Paul II went to the Colosseum in Rome and remembered Christ’s martyrs: “In the century and the millennium just begun, may the memory of these brothers and sisters of ours remain always vivid. Indeed, may it grow still stronger! Let it be passed on from generation to generation, so that from it there may blossom a profound Christian renewal!” He cited the eight principal groups of modern martyrs: victims of Soviet totalitarianism, of communism in other countries, of Nazism, of Islamic ultra-fundamentalism, of violent religious nationalism in Asia, of tribal and anti-missionary hatred, of aggressive secularism, and of organized crime.

Chesterton said: “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.” A recent example was Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyên Van Thuan of Vietnam, who died in 2002. He became Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon in 1975 and was imprisoned for 13 years, nine of those in solitary confinement. His serene witness seemed to have converted some of his guards. Those who are persecuted by those who hate the faith (“odium fidei”) have great power from Heaven to strengthen the Church on earth. In 2009, a seminarian named Joseph Nguyen, whose parents had immigrated to the United States and had personally known Cardinal Nguyên Van Thuan, contracted pneumonia complicated by swine flu. He lay in a coma for 32 days, after his heartbeat had dropped nearly beyond recovery and his brain activity ceased. His parents prayed for the intercession of Cardinal Nguyên Van Thu?n. The young man regained consciousness and said that while in the coma, he had two visions of the cardinal. He is now well and back in seminary.

Father Marek Rybinski

The courage of Christ’s witnesses is an embarrassment to those for whom Christ is not a holy mystery but just an enigma. This past week, the media cast a blind eye on the murder by jihadists of a 33-year-old Polish priest, Father Marek Rybinski, who ran a Salesian school in Tunisia. In Kabul, Afghanistan, after six years of torture and deprivation in prison, Said Musa was sentenced to public execution under sharia law for converting from Islam to Christianity. The father of six children, one disabled, had been working with the Red Cross since losing a leg to a landmine while serving in the Afghan army. Save for the Wall Street Journal, our newspapers have been uninterested in this. In 2006, the intervention of President Bush saved another convert, but there has been no similar executive appeal so far in the instance of Said Musa. Indeed, the post of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom still remains vacant in the present administration.

The courage of those who suffer far outweighs the weakness of those who do nothing, and it greatly strengthens the Church. "For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

A Reagan Forum with Senator Scott Brown

A Reagan Forum featuring Senator Scott Brown on February 25, 2011.

For more information on the ongoing works of President Reagan's Foundation, you may wish to visit: http://www.reaganfoundation.org.

Conversation with a Benedictine Monk

This is a fascinating interview with Brother Giles Conacher, OSB, Prior of Pluscarden Abbey in Moray, Scotland.  Pluscarden is a Benedictine monastery and the only medieval monastery in Britain still inhabited by monks that is used for its original purpose.

The conversation provides an insight into the life of a monk, the Benedictine charism,  monasticism, and Conacher's thoughts about early Christianity, technology, time, clocks and western thought.  The interview was conducted by Alan Macfarlane, who taught in the Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University, and is now Emeritus Professor of Anthropological Science and a Life Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.