Can Catholics Trust Romney, the White Obama?

If Romney is the GOP Presidential Candidate, I will not vote for him. Why vote for a white Obama.

Fred

Romney shifted on 'conscience' issue

’05 contraception stance similar to Obama’s now
C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League said Mitt Romney has a ‘very mixed record’ on the contraception issue.

By Tracy Jan
Globe Staff / February 3, 2012
E-mail| Print| Reprints| Text size – + E-mail E-mail this article To: Invalid E-mail address Add a personal message:(80 character limit) Your E-mail: Invalid E-mail address
Sending your articleYour article has been sent. WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney accused President Obama this week of ordering “religious organizations to violate their conscience,’’ referring to a White House decision that requires all health plans - even those covering employees at Catholic hospitals, charities, and colleges - to provide free birth control. But a review of Romney’s tenure as Massachusetts governor shows that he once took a similar step.

Related

Romney regains protection from Secret Service
Trump endorses Romney in Las Vegas
Gingrich: Romney, Obama do not care about the poor
Gingrich asks Fla. GOP to change its delegate allocation

Raise Your Voice
Care about the campaign? Click to write to the candidates.In December 2005, Romney required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, even though some Catholics view the morning-after pill as a form of abortion.

He said he was acting on his legal counsel’s interpretation of a new state law - one passed by lawmakers despite his veto - but he also said that “in his heart of hearts,’’ he believed that rape victims should have access to emergency contraception.

Some Catholic leaders now point to inconsistency in Romney’s criticism of the president and characterize his new stance as politically expedient, even as they welcome it.

“The initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama administration but from the Romney administration,’’ said C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. “President Obama’s plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics, but I’m not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.’’

Other Catholic leaders say they are inclined to give Romney the benefit of the doubt and have faith he will uphold his promise to overturn federal health regulations that they say impinge on religious organizations’ rights.

Romney’s more recent position on the issue - as reflected at his Tuesday night victory party in Tampa, where he vowed to “defend religious liberty and overturn regulations that trample on our first freedom’’ - is echoed by many Republicans. Among them is House Speaker John Boehner, who yesterday called upon the Obama administration to reconsider the decision to make most religiously affiliated employers cover contraception in their health plans.

Romney’s campaign has touted endorsements from prominent abortion foes such as Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and founder of Women Affirming Life.

But GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, a Catholic, has accused Romney of trampling on “religious liberty’’ at Catholic hospitals, apparently for his 2005 decision as governor.

“You want a war on the Catholic Church by Obama?’’ Gingrich said at a rally earlier this week in Tampa. “Guess what: Romney refused to allow Catholic hospitals to have conscience in their dealing with certain circumstances.’’

The Romney campaign, asked this week about his past actions on the issue, issued a statement Wednesday noting that he had originally vetoed the bill giving rape victims access to emergency contraception.Continued...

“The governor’s position on this law was that it never should have gone into effect in the first place, which is why he vetoed it,’’ the statement said. Asked yesterday to explain his 2005 comments in a Globe interview about believing in his “heart of hearts’’ that rape victims were entitled to emergency contraception, the campaign did not respond.

The series of events in 2005 involved several legal and political turns at a time when Romney was shifting from moderate positions on social issues he had taken when running for governor to prepare to run for president in a Republican Party that is far to the right of the Bay State electorate.

Romney had angered reproductive rights advocates in July 2005 when he vetoed a bill to make the morning-after pill available over the counter at Massachusetts pharmacies and to require hospitals to make it available to rape victims, even though he had supported emergency contraception during his 2002 campaign for governor. He justified his veto in a Globe op-ed article in which he clearly accepted the view of some opponents of emergency contraception that it can be a form of abortion. Nonetheless, the Legislature overrode his veto.

In December of that year, days before the law was to go into effect, Romney’s public health commissioner determined that a preexisting statute saying private hospitals could not be forced to provide abortions or contraception gave Catholic and other privately run hospitals the right to opt out of the new law on religious or moral grounds.

That ruling sparked widespread criticism, including some by Romney’s lieutenant governor, Kerry Healey. Days later the Romney administration reversed course. His legal counsel concluded the new law did not provide any religious exemptions.

Further confusing voters on his position, Romney said he supported the use of emergency contraception by rape victims. “My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information,’’ he said.

Doyle, of the Catholic Action League, said that Romney should have fought harder to reinstate the religious exemption and that he now doubts Romney’s sincerity in advocating for religious freedom if he becomes president.

“Governor Romney afterwards lamented that and campaigned around the country as someone in favor of religious freedom and traditional morality,’’ Doyle said. “He is very consistent at working both sides of the street on the same issue at the same time. His record on this issue has been one of very cynical and tactical manipulation.’’

Other Catholic leaders praised Romney’s evolution.

Matt Smith, president of Catholic Advocate, a national grassroots organization with the goal of motivating Catholics to support policies and candidates consistent with church teachings, said that although he has not endorsed a candidate, he applauds Romney for his “progression on these issues’’ over the last seven years and “for recognizing that you’ve got religious organizations being forced to violate their conscience.’’

“I try to be charitable in this regard,’’ Smith said. “You better hope that he’s going to stay true to his word.’’

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, also said she does not doubt Romney’s evolution and does not fault him for the 2005 position his legal counsel recommended. She plans to back whoever ends up being the Republican nominee.

Senior Obama administration officials said yesterday their decision to require Catholic institutions to provide birth control in their insurance plans struck the appropriate balance. It both respects religious beliefs and ensures women have affordable access to birth control, given that 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception. Churches are exempt from the requirement.

A spokeswoman for the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, whose members include the College of the Holy Cross and Boston College, said yesterday that the association does not support the White House mandate.

The decision “violates a basic right of religious freedom,’’ the association said in a statement. “For our Jesuit faith-based institutions, this regulatory mandate violates the very essence of our mission and deeply held beliefs.’’

Other Catholic-affiliated organizations, including the six former Caritas Christi Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, offer birth control as a part of their employee health insurance plans.

The six hospitals, now owned by Steward Health Care System, also provide emergency contraception to rape victims following a pregnancy test to ensure they are not already pregnant, said Chris Murphy, spokesman for the hospital system.

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.

© Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.
Single Page 1 2
Page 2 of 2 --
“The governor’s position on this law was that it never should have gone into effect in the first place, which is why he vetoed it,’’ the statement said. Asked yesterday to explain his 2005 comments in a Globe interview about believing in his “heart of hearts’’ that rape victims were entitled to emergency contraception, the campaign did not respond.

Related

Romney regains protection from Secret Service
Trump endorses Romney in Las Vegas
Gingrich: Romney, Obama do not care about the poor
Gingrich asks Fla. GOP to change its delegate allocation
Raise Your Voice
Care about the campaign? Click to write to the candidates.
The series of events in 2005 involved several legal and political turns at a time when Romney was shifting from moderate positions on social issues he had taken when running for governor to prepare to run for president in a Republican Party that is far to the right of the Bay State electorate.

Romney had angered reproductive rights advocates in July 2005 when he vetoed a bill to make the morning-after pill available over the counter at Massachusetts pharmacies and to require hospitals to make it available to rape victims, even though he had supported emergency contraception during his 2002 campaign for governor. He justified his veto in a Globe op-ed article in which he clearly accepted the view of some opponents of emergency contraception that it can be a form of abortion. Nonetheless, the Legislature overrode his veto.

In December of that year, days before the law was to go into effect, Romney’s public health commissioner determined that a preexisting statute saying private hospitals could not be forced to provide abortions or contraception gave Catholic and other privately run hospitals the right to opt out of the new law on religious or moral grounds.

That ruling sparked widespread criticism, including some by Romney’s lieutenant governor, Kerry Healey. Days later the Romney administration reversed course. His legal counsel concluded the new law did not provide any religious exemptions.

Further confusing voters on his position, Romney said he supported the use of emergency contraception by rape victims. “My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information,’’ he said.

Doyle, of the Catholic Action League, said that Romney should have fought harder to reinstate the religious exemption and that he now doubts Romney’s sincerity in advocating for religious freedom if he becomes president.

“Governor Romney afterwards lamented that and campaigned around the country as someone in favor of religious freedom and traditional morality,’’ Doyle said. “He is very consistent at working both sides of the street on the same issue at the same time. His record on this issue has been one of very cynical and tactical manipulation.’’

Other Catholic leaders praised Romney’s evolution.

Matt Smith, president of Catholic Advocate, a national grassroots organization with the goal of motivating Catholics to support policies and candidates consistent with church teachings, said that although he has not endorsed a candidate, he applauds Romney for his “progression on these issues’’ over the last seven years and “for recognizing that you’ve got religious organizations being forced to violate their conscience.’’

“I try to be charitable in this regard,’’ Smith said. “You better hope that he’s going to stay true to his word.’’

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, also said she does not doubt Romney’s evolution and does not fault him for the 2005 position his legal counsel recommended. She plans to back whoever ends up being the Republican nominee.

Senior Obama administration officials said yesterday their decision to require Catholic institutions to provide birth control in their insurance plans struck the appropriate balance. It both respects religious beliefs and ensures women have affordable access to birth control, given that 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception. Churches are exempt from the requirement.

A spokeswoman for the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, whose members include the College of the Holy Cross and Boston College, said yesterday that the association does not support the White House mandate.

The decision “violates a basic right of religious freedom,’’ the association said in a statement. “For our Jesuit faith-based institutions, this regulatory mandate violates the very essence of our mission and deeply held beliefs.’’

Other Catholic-affiliated organizations, including the six former Caritas Christi Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, offer birth control as a part of their employee health insurance plans.

The six hospitals, now owned by Steward Health Care System, also provide emergency contraception to rape victims following a pregnancy test to ensure they are not already pregnant, said Chris Murphy, spokesman for the hospital system.

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.

© Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/02/03/mitt_romney_caught_in_inconsistency_in_blast_at_barack_obama_for_forcing_catholic_institutions_to_provide_insured_birth_control/

Obama Kills Bill of Rights:"Americans completely stripped of all rights under Section 1031"

-In signing this, Obama has proven himself to be the most criminal of all U.S. Presidents, far worse than George W. Bush and a total traitor to the nation and its People. Remember, Obama swore upon a Bible that he would “protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and yet he himself has become the enemy of the Constitution by signing a law that overtly and callously nullifies the Bill of Rights.
http://dprogram.net/2012/01/02/r-i-p-bill-of-rights-1789-2011-mike-adams/

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2011/12/%E2%80%98indefinite-detention%E2%80%99-bill-passes-senate-93-7

Indefinite Detention’ Bill Passes Senate 93-7

Americans completely stripped of all rights under Section 1031

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, December 2, 2011

The Senate last night codified into law the power of the U.S. military to indefinitely detain an American citizen with no charge, no trial and no oversight whatsoever with the passage of S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act.

One amendment that would have specifically blocked the measures from being used against U.S. citizens was voted down and the final bill was passed 93-7.

Another amendment introduced by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein that attempted to bar the provision from being used on American soil, an effort to ensure “the military won’t be roaming our streets looking for suspected terrorists,” also failed, although Feinstein voted in favor of the bill anyway.

Feinstein was able to include a largely symbolic amendment which states that “nothing in the bill changes current law relating to the detention of U.S. citizens and legal aliens,” but this measure is meaningless according to Republican Congressman Justin Amash, a fierce critic of the bill.

“Some have asserted that Sen. Feinstein’s amendment, S Amdt 1456, protects the rights of American citizens and preserves constitutional due process. Unfortunately, it does not. It’s just more cleverly worded nonsense,” Amash wrote on his Facebook page.

Though the White House has threatened to veto the bill, the fact that Obama administration lawyers yesterday reaffirmed their backing for state sponsored assassination of U.S. citizens would suggest otherwise. Not voting for the bill, or in other words upholding the oath to protect the Constitution, has been described over and over again as “political suicide”.

“The bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent, American citizens and others are at greater risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial,” said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

As Spencer Ackerman highlights, the bill completely violates the sixth amendment in that it allows American citizens to be locked up indefinitely, including in a foreign detention center, without any burden of proof whatsoever. An American merely has to be declared a terrorist and they can be abducted off the streets and never seen again.

“The detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn’t limited to foreigners. It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority,” writes Ackerman

http://www.prisonplanet.com/indefinite-detention-bill-passes-senate-93-7...




R.I.P. Bill of Rights 1789 – 2011 – Mike Adams
January 2nd, 2012

(NaturalNews) – One of the most extraordinary documents in human history — the Bill of Rights — has come to an end under President Barack Obama. Derived from sacred principles of natural law, the Bill of Rights has come to a sudden and catastrophic end with the President’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a law that grants the U.S. military the “legal” right to conduct secret kidnappings of U.S. citizens, followed by indefinite detention, interrogation, torture and even murder. This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law, with no jury, no trial, no legal representation and not even any requirement that the government produce evidence against the accused. It is a system of outright government tyranny against the American people, and it effectively nullifies the Bill of Rights.

In what will be remembered as the most traitorous executive signing ever committed against the American people, President Obama signed the bill on New Year’s Eve, a time when most Americans were engaged in the consumption of alcohol. It seems appropriate, of course, since no intelligent American could accept the tyranny of this bill if they were sober.

This is the law that will cement Obama’s legacy in the history books as the traitor who nullified the Bill of Rights and paved America’s pathway down a road of tyranny that will make Nazi Germany’s war crimes look like child’s play. If Bush had signed a law like this, liberals would have been screaming “impeachment!”

Why the Bill of Rights matters
While the U.S. Constitution already limits the power of federal government, the Bill of Rights is the document that enumerates even more limits of federal government power. In its inception, many argued that a Bill of Rights was completely unnecessary because, they explained, the federal government only has the powers specifically enumerated to it under the U.S. Constitution. There was no need to have a “First Amendment” to protect Free Speech, for example, because there was no power granted to government to diminish Free Speech.

This seems silly today, of course, given the natural tendency of all governments to concentrate power in the hands of the few while destroying the rights and freedoms of their own people. But in the 1780′s, whether government could ever become a threat to future freedoms was hotly debated. By 1789, enough revolutionary leaders had agreed on the fundamental principles of a Bill of Rights to sign it into law. Its purpose was to provide additional clarifications on the limitation of government power so that there could be absolutely no question that government could NEVER, under any circumstances, violate these key principles of freedom: Freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, freedom from illegal searches, the right to remain silent, the right to due process under law, and so on.

Of course, today’s runaway federal government utterly ignores the limitations placed on it by the founding fathers. It aggressively and criminally seeks to expand its power at all costs, completely ignoring the Bill of Rights and openly violating the limitations of power placed upon it by the United States Constitution. The TSA’s illegal searching of air travelers, for example, is a blatant violation of Fourth Amendment rights. The government’s hijacking of websites it claims are linking to “copyright infringement” hubs is a blatant violation of First Amendment rights. The government’s demand that all Americans be forced to buy private health insurance is a blatant violation of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution — the “commerce clause.”

Now, with the passage of the NDAA, the federal government has torpedoed the entire Bill of Rights, dismissing it completely and effectively promising to violate those rights at will. As of January 1, 2012, we have all been designated enemies of the state. America is the new battleground, and your “right” to due process is null and void.

Remember, this was all done by the very President who promised to close Guantanamo Bay and end secret military prisons. Not only did Obama break that campaign promise (as he has done with nearly ALL his campaign promises), he did exactly the opposite and has now subjected all Americans to the possibility of government-sponsored kidnapping, detainment and torture, all under the very system of secret military prisons he claimed he would close!

“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Obama’s signing statement means nothing
Even while committing an act of pure treason in signing the bill, the unindicted criminal President Obama issued a signing statement that reads, in part, “Moving forward, my administration will interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that best preserves the flexibility on which our safety depends and upholds the values on which this country was founded…”

Anyone who reads between the lines here realizes the “the flexibility on which our safety depends” means they can interpret the law in any way they want if there is a sufficient amount of fear being created through false flag terror attacks. Astute readers will also notice that Obama’s signing statement has no legal binding whatsoever and only refers to Obama’s momentary intentions on how he “wishes” to interpret the law. It does not place any limits whatsoever on how a future President might use the law as written.

“The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield,” says the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-s…).

What this means is that the next President could use this law to engage in the most horrific holocaust-scale mass round-up of people the world has ever seen. The NDAA legalizes the crimes of Nazi Germany in America, setting the stage for the mass murder of citizens by a rogue government.

United States of America becomes a rogue nation, operating in violation of international law
Furthermore, the NDAA law as written and signed, is a violation of international law as it does not even adhere to the fundamental agreements of how nations treat prisoners of war:

“…the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war” says the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-s…).

In 1789, today’s NDAA law would have been called “treasonous,” and those who voted for it would have been shot dead as traitors. This is not a call for violence, but rather an attempt to provide historical context of just how destructive this law really is. Men and women fought and died for the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. People sacrificed their lives, their safety and risked everything to achieve the freedoms that made America such a great nation. For one President to so callously throw away 222 years of liberty, betraying those great Americans who painstakingly created an extraordinary document limiting the power of government, is equivalent to driving a stake through the heart of the Republic.

In signing this, Obama has proven himself to be the most criminal of all U.S. Presidents, far worse than George W. Bush and a total traitor to the nation and its People. Remember, Obama swore upon a Bible that he would “protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and yet he himself has become the enemy of the Constitution by signing a law that overtly and callously nullifies the Bill of Rights.

This is nothing less than an act of war declared on the American people by the executive and legislative branches of government. It remains to be seen whether the judicial branch will go along with it (US Supreme Court).

Origins of the Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights, signed in 1789 by many of the founding fathers of our nation, was based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted in 1776 and authored largely by George Mason, one of the least-recognized revolutionaries who gave rise to a nation of freedom and liberty.

Mason was a strong advocate of not just states’ rights, but of individual rights, and without his influence in 1789, we might not even have a Bill of Rights today (and our nation would have slipped into total government tyranny all the sooner). In fact, he openly opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution unless it contained a series of amendments now known as the Bill of Rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George…)

SECTION ONE of this Virginia declaration of rights states:

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” (http://www.constitution.org/bcp/vir…)

Section Three of the declaration speaks to the duty of the Citizens to abolish abusive government:

“That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.”

By any honest measure, today’s U.S. government, of course, has overstepped the bounds of its original intent. As Mason wrote over 200 years ago, the People of America now have not merely a right but a duty to “reform, alter or abolish it,” to bring government back into alignment with its original purpose — to protect the rights of the People.

Obama violates his Presidential Oath, sworn before God
Article II, Section I of the United States Constitution spells out the oath of office that every President must take during their swearing in:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

In signing the NDAA law into office, Obama has blatantly and unambiguously violated this sacred oath, meaning that his betrayal is not merely against the American people, but also against the Divine Creator.

Given that the Bill of Rights is an extension of Natural Law which establishes a direct heritage of sovereign power from the Creator to the People, a blatant attack upon the Bill of Rights is, by any account, an attack against the Creator and a violation of universal spiritual principles. Those who attempt to undermine the Bill of Rights are attempting to invalidate the relationship between God and Man, and in doing so, they are identifying themselves as enemies of God and agents of Evil.

Today, as 2012 begins, we are now a nation led by evil, and threatened with total destruction by those who would seek to rule as tyrants. This is America’s final hour. We either defend the Republic starting right now, or we lose it forever.

Read the language analysis of WHY and HOW the NDAA applies to American citizens
Many people have been fooled by the obfuscated language of the bill, and they wrongfully believe the NDAA does not apply to American citizens. They have been hoodwinked!

In this follow-up article, I parse the language of the NDAA and explain, in plain language, how and why the NDAA does apply to American citizens:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034538_N…

Also, read this explanation by Rep. Justin Amash, who voted against the bill:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?no…

Make no mistake, folks: The U.S. government has just declared all Americans to be “enemy combatants,” and that the USA is now a “battleground” over which the military has total control. We are now a nation living under military dictatorship, whether you realize it or not.

Source: Natural News

Jesse Romero:"No book compares with watching the [Viva Cristo Rey!] play... [it's]absolutely riveting"

Thought you might be interested in this review from Jesse Romero.

Cathal (Cal) Gallagher

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Angel Duran Subject: just got this blurb from Jesse Romero
Jesse Romero:"No book compares with watching the [Viva Cristo Rey!] play... [It's]absolutely riveting"

Here is one of the blurbs I just recieved for a new letter I am creating. I am waiting for more, but this one is great!


"Although I have read the story of Fr Miguel Pro and his martyrdom, no book compares with watching the play perfomed by the GK Chesterton Theatre Company. Absolutely riveting, I was on the edge of my seat. When it was all said and done, my faith was renewed, revived and taken to another level. This play transported me back in time and I felt like I was there. What a roller coaster ride!"
Jesse Romero- Radio Talk Show Host and Catholic Lay Evangelist

Angel Duran
Director/Producer Viva Cristo Rey - Live Stage Theatre Production
Executive Board Member
The GK Chesterton Theatre Company


Play this weekend in Long Beach about Blessed Miguel Pro, martyr of Cristero War

In the 1920s, Mexico entered a dark period of religious persecution known as the Cristero War, during which 40 priests were killed and hundreds of others fled the country.

Among the Cristero martyrs was Bl. Miguel Pro, a Jesuit priest executed by firing squad on Nov. 23, 1927. Just before he was shot dead, the 37-year-old priest shouted Viva Cristo Rey! (“Long live Christ the King!”)

This Saturday, Dec. 3, at Holy Innocents Catholic Church in Long Beach, there will be two performances of the play “Viva Cristo Rey,” which presents the story of Bl. Miguel Pro, a beloved Mexican hero of the faith.

The play, written by Cathal Gallagher and Fred Martinez and directed by Angel Duran, will be presented by the GK Chesterton Theatre Co.

The theatre company describes its mission as to bring plays to families “that explore issues of conscience, faith and heroism with a special emphasis on the men and women who stood against the current tide of their time. Great plays can shape character in positive ways; our Company feels a special obligation to produce inspiring works, based on true stories.”

Saturday’s performances of “Viva Cristo Rey” are scheduled for 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Holy Innocents Catholic School, 2500 Pacific Ave., Long Beach.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. To order tickets online, Click Here.

Tickets can also be purchased at Holy Innocents parish. For more information, call (562) 591-6924.



READER COMMENTS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2011 2:48 AM By daryl
Very timely play, in view of Cardinal Burke's recent comments published November 28, 2011 by LifeSiteNews.com. He said that the United States is “well on the way” to the persecution of Christians. Catholic League President Bill Donohue declared the Cardinal’s remarks were accurate and not exaggerations. November 23rd was the feast day of blessed Fr. Miguel Pro, publicly executed in 1927 in a demonstration of State Terrorism against the Christian religion. Pictures of his death distributed by the State to terrorize Catholics were converted by them into prayer cards. Deeply Catholic Mexico experienced a fierce persecution by secularist elites in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly during the Presidency of Plutarcho Calles. Every cruel excess of Secularism, from the suppression of the Christian religion and the massacre of priests and religious to the institution of Reigns of Terror, secular God-Hero-Emperors, and the Gulags, was anticipated in the French Revolution. Why do the godless elites of the world seem obsessed with proving themselves to be no more than really bad Frenchmen? Really bad secular education?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:41 AM By Paul
1973 "Our Lady of Akita" - pronounced worthy of belief by the Church in 1988. Also read the Bible - its all there.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2011 8:31 AM By Peggy
It's so refreshing to read something positive like this. Too bad this theater group doesn't travel around the state. Maybe Bp. Vasa (Santa Rosa) could get them to perform??

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2011 9:44 AM By Tony
GK Chesterton Theatre Co. is willing to travel, this is their first road show. It is being held at Holy Innocents Catholic School in Long Beach.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2011 11:24 AM By Philippe
I have never seen a better explanation for the recurring universal hatred of the Church and of Christ and the recurring and abiding "spirit" of the French Revolution than that the historian. William Thomas Walsh, wrote in his book Philip II, it is really very simple:: "There is no doubt of the laxity of faith and morals of Marguerite's court (Marguerite d'Angouleme) or of the instant appeal that Luther's teaching made to persons already anxious to escape from the reproach of a divine standard with which the Catholic Church persisted in confronting human guilt."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2011 12:26 PM By Clinton
And there still is a persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico. They have legalized homosexual unions, worship pagan deities, disregard Church teachings in all matters and as a result look at how terrible things are there. May Our Blessed Mother pray for the faithful. +JMJ+

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2011 6:49 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Clinton, Mexico City is not Mexico. As far as I know it is only there in that city that these aberrations have been legalized. I saw the Play, and it is excellent. I highly recommend it to all. God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2011 9:07 PM By Elodia Corona
Highly reommend it ' What a Blessings for Long BEACH ' Viva La Paz

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Thursday, December 01, 2011 5:05 AM By MIKE
" There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church. ....As a matter of fact, if we Catholics believed all of the untruths and lies which were said against the Church, we probably would hate the Church a thousand times more than they do. " - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. We must all do everything we can to promote the reading of the "CATECHISM of the CATHOLIC CHURCH, Second Edition" for the TRUTH to be known.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Thursday, December 01, 2011 7:16 AM By Maryanne Leonard
Thanks for the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen quote, Mike; I had not heard it in years, and it is so apt. We may not be able to induce our detractors to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but Father Robert Barron's new documentary, "Catholicism," is likely to attract the attention of many people around the world and perhaps disabuse some of them of their inaccurate notions of our amazing faith. I think anyone who can afford it should make a gift of this 10-part documentary series to their local library and to any friends or family members whose souls you would like to see saved.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Thursday, December 01, 2011 11:58 AM By Cathal Gallagher
G.K. Chesterton Theatre is a Los Angeles based Company. We can bring this play only to venues that are reasonably close to LA. (Many of our actors work full time) However, we can send the scripts to theatre groups anywhere. This includes College and High School theatres. For further information go to "click here" in the article above and log on to "Plays for Sale."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Monday, December 05, 2011 6:17 PM By JLS
This play seems well suited for the situation shaping up in the USA, of persecution of the Church. A. I wonder how the sodomite forces played any part in the persecution in Mexico. B. How did the Church eventually gain the upper hand ... Was it because of all the faithful resisting and making it impossible for the repressive govt to manage anything?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted Monday, December 05, 2011 9:41 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
JLS, I am not aware of any influence the sodomites had in the Mexican persecution, only the Masonic Communist influence. The Faith has been preserved in Mexico because the people refused to submit, even now you are witnessing the influences of the secularist in Mexico City, but the rest of Mexico, thank God and His Mother, are resisting far better than we are and than there relatives here now in the US are! God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher




Post your Comment
Name:
Email: (Optional: Will not display)
Comment:

Comments are limited to 1500 characters, and cannot contain offensive or libelous language. For security, comments cannot contain html tags, including < and > symbols - and NO URLS or LINKS. Comments will appear after they have been approved by the editor. Inclusion of your email address is optional so the editor may contact you.

© California Catholic Daily 2011. All Rights Reserved.





Calcatholic Mobile
Optimized for your
mobile device















Visitors since January 1st, 2009:

I am struggling with the idea of “practicing the presence of God” – what can I do?

Posted on February 7th, 2011 by Father John Bartunek Q: I have had a pretty regular prayer life for a few years, and have been going to confession regularly as well, and receiving Communion frequently. In my spiritual reading, though, I keep coming across the idea of “practicing the presence of God.” This means staying aware of Jesus throughout the day’s activities, right? Well, I have been trying to do this, but can’t seem to make any progress. The end of the day comes around, and then I remember that I should have been aware of his presence. Is this something I should be worried about?

A: A beautiful question. Beautiful for two reasons: 1) If “practicing the presence of God” keeps coming up in your personal reading and reflection, you can be sure it’s because the Holy Spirit wants you to keep this on your spiritual agenda. This is how he coaches us – he puts something on our minds or hearts, and he keeps insisting on it. And if God is drawing you towards this rather advanced spiritual discipline, it means that he is already helping you grow in it. This is good stuff, altogether; 2) “Practicing the presence of God” will draw you closer to Christ than you ever dreamed possible, and that’s what it’s all about. Now onto the answer.

No, you should not be worried about your difficulty or confusion in this area, you should be excited about it: God is teaching you something new! Worry doesn’t come from God (if you mean by worrying a preoccupation that causes turbulence, doubt, and frustration in your soul). It comes from our pride, our tendency to think that we can make ourselves perfect and save the world by our own efforts. Remember, our Lord reminded us: “Do not fret about tomorrow, let tomorrow fret over its own cares. For today, today’s troubles are enough” (Matthew 6:34).

On the other hand, your instinct is right: this is a point of spiritual work that you should pay attention to at this point in your journey; this is why God has put it on your agenda. And here are some considerations that may help you do that.

What does it mean? “Practicing the presence of God” means not only staying aware of Jesus throughout the day, as you mention. That’s part of it, but not all of it. Practicing God’s presence means living every activity of the day with Jesus, by his side, sharing every experience with him. Remember in your school days, how it was always more enjoyable to do your homework together with a good friend instead of all by yourself? You didn’t have to be doing the exact same assignments, and you didn’t even have to be helping each other, but the mere fact that you together, that you were sitting in the same room, maybe at the same table, that you were in each other’s presence and could throw a couple words or looks back and forth every once awhile – that was enough to change the character of doing homework. Think of another example. How often do you go to a movie all by yourself? Not very often, most likely, unless you are a professional movie critic or some sort. You go to a movie with a good friend. And even though you don’t spend those two hours talking with your friend, sharing the experience with that other person makes the experience more valuable, fruitful, and enjoyable. This sharing of experiences – the experience of every activity of every day – with Christ, allowing him to share the experience of your life, that is the real heart of “practicing the presence of God.”

What does it yield? As we grow in this spiritual discipline, it has a major effect on our lives. We were created to “live in communion with God, in whom we find happiness” (Catechism #45). But in this fallen world, and due to our fallen nature, we tend towards a false sense of self-sufficiency. This stifles our growth as human beings. Instead of growing in wisdom, wonder, courage and all the virtues, when we live as if we were sufficient unto ourselves, we end up taking that path that eventually turns us into crotchety old men (or women), self-absorbed and self-absorbing, like black holes. Practicing the presence of God helps us maintain and deepen our communion with God even in the midst of the trials and tribulations of life in a fallen world with a fallen human nature. This is the path to holiness, God’s term for lasting happiness.

How to do it? Since everyone’s friendship with God is unique, no generic formula will suffice for developing this spiritual discipline. Nevertheless, some common principles apply to all of us.

First of all, we need to develop the basic spiritual disciplines you mention in your question: a structured and consistent daily prayer life (this doesn’t have to be as complicated as a monastic prayer life, just sincere and substantial); regular and fruitful reception of the sacraments, especially Communion and confession (this is the objective foundation of our communion with God – God’s grace is the stuff of which our friendship with Christ is made); and a reasonable, mature effort to overcome one’s selfish tendencies and to grow in virtue (spiritual reading, a program of life, and spiritual direction are a big help here, as we’ve mentioned in other posts).
Secondly, we can experiment with practical techniques that will help us form the habit of remembering that we are never alone, that Jesus is at our side, eager to share our experiences and make them fruitful and meaningful. Here is where tactics like the spiritual bouquet come into play (choosing a phrase at the end of the morning meditation that you will use as a motto for the day, to keep in mind the insights and resolutions that came up in your meditation). Here we can also get creative: using a screen-saver that will remind you of the Lord; keeping religious articles visible in key places that you will frequent during the day; programming reminders into your email calendar; praying the Angelus whenever you get into the car to go for a drive; dropping by a local shrine, chapel, or church on your way home from work, school, or shopping… Since the current of the culture in which we live flows in the direction of self-centeredness and self-absorption, we have to make a positive effort to swim against it. Practical tactics can help. But here’s a warning: these are only means to an end, so don’t be surprised if one such tactic helps you for a while but then stops “working.” When that happens, experiment with something else. I would love to hear about some of the tactics that our readers have used and found most helpful (just add them at the end of this post as a comment).
Thirdly, and most importantly, you (and all of us, really) need to ask yourself why it has been difficult for you to “practice the presence of God.” Part of the reason will simply be the superficiality and pace of our culture. Part of the reason will also be habits of self-centeredness that you haven’t yet overcome. But a deeper reason may also be at work. When you go to a dinner party with people who are important, fashionable, and popular, but who you don’t know very well, you are a bit nervous. You are worried about making the right impression. You don’t want to commit a faux pas or inadvertently offend someone. You are excited to be invited, but the excitement is mixed in with some tension. Whether things go well or ill, at the end of the night, when you get back in the car to head home, you breathe a sigh of relief; driving home with your spouse or with an old friend, you can be yourself again. At the party you were sharing experiences with people, you were living in their presence, but you didn’t have a relationship of trust with them. With your old friend, on the other hand, you never have to worry about making a good impression; you don’t have to be anxious about what they may think of you. Your relationship is solid, resilient, familiar – you can relax together. At times, the biggest obstacle to our “practicing the presence of God” is a subtle, subconscious fear about what God thinks of us. In the back of our mind, we are concerned about making the right impression in God’s eyes, and so when we are “in his presence” we put on a show; we watch carefully over every word instead of speaking simply and from the heart; we try to live up to standards that we imagine God is expecting of us; we are afraid that if we don’t meet those extra expectations, God will be displeased with us – he won’t invite us back to the next party. This mindset discourages us from living in God’s presence, because we can’t relax, we can’t be ourselves if we are trying to live up to artificial expectations.
But God is not like that. He is not watching us like a hawk, just waiting for that faux pas, just looking for something to criticize. He knows us through and through already. He truly is the only friend who is perfect and perfectly committed to us. He wants to share every moment of our life, because he is simply that interested in our lives, like the oldest friend, the one we can always count on. That is how God is. The more deeply and fully we believe that, the easier and more natural it will be to live always in his presence.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC, ThD

THE ROSARY AND CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER

By Father Paul K. Raftery, O.P.
The Rosary, as a gift of prayer from the Mother of God, leads us to Christ in a way unique among the devotions in the Church. Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter on the Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, focuses with particular attention on the special way she is active on the soul as we ponder or contemplate Jesus through the eyes of His Mother. We put ourselves under her maternal guidance and allow her to direct our hearts. "The Rosary," he says, "mystically transports us to Mary’s side as she is busy watching over the human growth of Christ in the home of Nazareth. This enables her to train us and to mold us with the same care, until Christ is ‘fully formed’ in us" (RVM 16). What is happening through this "contemplation of the face of Christ" in union with Mary, is far more than just a dry and abstract exercise of thought. The Rosary brings us, through a devoted pondering of its mysteries, into intimate union with the very Person of Jesus. Below we will discuss this form of prayer called "contemplation," and the place the Holy Father wants it to have in the lives of the faithful through praying the Holy Rosary.


WHAT IS CONTEMPLATION?
Too often the false impression people have of contemplation is that it is some form of lofty mystical prayer that can be understood only by those versed in mystical theology. Moreover, there is the erroneous belief it is not something the ordinary Catholic can expect to experience; namely, that only monks and nuns, whose lives are completely dedicated to prayer, have the chance of advancing to such higher forms of prayer.

A wise and assuring guide in these matters, who has written extensively on the spiritual life, is Fr. Thomas Dubay. His book Fire Within (available from Ignatius Press) has been recommended in a previous article, and it will be used extensively here. From his experience he writes:

Over the years I have gradually come to the conclusion that one reason so many people assume that contemplation is reserved for a select few is that they imagine it to be what it is not. They presume that this type of prayer could not be for them because in a vague sort of way they consider it to be something other than it is. They equate it with oriental states of consciousness or with extraordinary phenomena such as divine messages and visions. Being active and busy and little inclined to any lingering reflection, natural or supernatural, they do not take seriously, as meant for them personally, the mystical expressions sprinkled freely throughout the Scripture and liturgical worship (Fire Within, 57).
St. Teresa of Avila, one of the greatest mystics of the Church, gives us a thoroughly down to earth explanation of contemplative prayer. As Fr. Dubay describes it:

For her, contemplation is an experienced, mutual presence, "an intimate sharing between friends," a being alone with the God Who loves us. Hence, this prayer is a mutual presence of two in love, and in this case the Beloved dwells within. Actually, it is an interdwelling, a mutually experienced indwelling. She relates about herself how "a feeling of the presence of God would come upon me unexpectedly so that I could in no way doubt He was within me or I totally immersed in Him" (FW, 58).

NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL
The way this takes place in the soul, St. Teresa will emphasize, is not through any efforts of the one praying. Now there is indeed a way one can speak of contemplation as an activity of the mind and heart. A person can ponder with wonder and amazement the night sky filled with stars, and be held in a kind of delightful, prayerful state, admiring the greatness of the Creator. This is a natural form of contemplation, and genuine prayer. It has come through an exercise of the human intellect and will, considering how great the Creator of all that vast starry expanse must be. When we are filled with a sense of the greatness, the goodness, the holiness of God; when we are stirred by the beauty of nature or by a magnificent celebration of the Holy Mass, we are experiencing this natural contemplative activity of the mind.

But St. Teresa is speaking above of a state of prayer that has come through an act of God on the soul. She calls this contemplation "supernatural". Another term that spiritual writers will use for it is "infused," from the Latin word meaning to "pour in". God "pours" Himself into a soul in this higher supernatural form of contemplative prayer.

Fr. Dubay, however, goes on to say:

Even though contemplation is utterly divinely given and humanly received, and as a consequence we can do nothing to force God to grant it, yet we can and must prepare ourselves for the gift. God gives only to the extent that we efficaciously desire, that is, not merely wish something to happen but take concrete means to fit ourselves to receive it.
The gift of contemplative prayer, and the wonderful closeness to God present in the soul that takes place, with the indescribable joy this produces, is indeed for everyone as far as God is concerned. But a person must show God that he is ready for and wants this kind of direct intimate contact with Him. And this is demonstrated by living in conformity with His commandments:

Advancing communion with God does not happen in isolation from the rest of life. One’s whole behavior pattern is being transformed as the prayer deepens. So true is this that if humility, patience, temperance, chastity and love for neighbor are not growing, neither is prayer growing. Hence, contemplation is not simply a pious occupation in the chapel or in some other solitude.

The ordinary details of daily life, the choices made to love God above all things and to grow in virtue and holiness, are the necessary soil into which God plants His wonderful gift of contemplative prayer. And this is why contemplative prayer should not be understood as being just for those relatively rare souls who have the ability to live in monasteries. Monasteries are indeed an ideal setting for the contemplative life to prosper; but not by any means the only mode of life. Whether it be life in the world or life in the monastery, all have the opportunity to develop that good soil of virtue and holiness into which God "pours in . . . infuses" His gift of contemplative prayer.


OUR COMMON VOCATION
Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding by many spiritual writers of how the gift of infused contemplation is given by God, Fr. Dubay observes that "it is not commonly considered to be an activity meant for plumbers as well as Poor Clares, for the married as well as for religious, for young and old" (FW, 57). In reality, it is for all Christian vocations. This is because contemplation is where prayer is supposed to lead every member of the Church, not just for an elite group. Like sanctity, contemplation is the goal for every Christian life, and will be the continuous state of prayer for everyone in heaven. Both holiness and contemplation are meant to be our future! The contemplative prayer God calls us to in this life is simply an imperfect prelude to the ultimate contemplation of the Face of God in heaven. As St. Thomas explains, using a quote from St. Augustine:

"The contemplation of God is promised us as being the goal of all our actions and the everlasting perfection of our joys." This contemplation will be perfect in the life to come, when we shall see God face to face, wherefore it will make us perfectly happy: whereas now the contemplation of the divine truth is present to us imperfectly, namely "through a glass" and "in a dark manner" (II-II, 180, 4).

THE CALL FOR CONTEMPLATIVES
In Rosarium Virginis Mariae Pope John Paul II begins in Chapter One with the call that all Christians have to a life of contemplation of Our Blessed Savior. As St. Paul has written, He came into this world to become "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). Through Him our minds can rise to know and love God in Himself. And this pondering of God through His Incarnation cannot be considered as an optional extra for the Christian life. It is an essential part of our calling, which is meant to culminate, as we have seen, in the contemplation of God in heaven. As the Holy Father puts it:

To look upon the face of Christ, to recognize its mystery amid the daily events and the sufferings of his human life, and then to grasp the divine splendor definitively revealed in the Risen Lord, seated in glory at the right hand of the Father: this is the task of every follower of Christ . . . (RVM 9).
Drifting away from this contemplative gaze upon the Incarnate Word is one of the great dangers of life in our modern world. The hectic pace of life, the mesmerizing power of television, cinema, and all the many forms of media we live with; the omnipresence of the market place with so many items to tantalize us into making a purchase, these can so effectively draw our gaze away from God. These can turn us from contemplatives of our eternal and glorious God into contemplatives, in a real sense, of transitory material things.

There is no shortage of examples: the young person spending hours on video games, the shopaholic browsing compulsively through store after store, the vast numbers of people in our culture spending entire days in front of the TV screen. With all these there is a profound and addictive fixing of the gaze on material things. Little do we realize how prevalent a kind of materialistic version of the contemplative life is present in our culture. We are, in this way, a very contemplative society! Unfortunately, all our loving gaze is fixed not on God but on material things.

In a culture, then, pervaded by this obsessive and disordered contemplation of materiality, Pope John Paul encourages us to return to the Rosary. Through it we must once again fix our eyes on our God made visible, the Word made flesh:

But the most important reason for strongly encouraging the practice of the Rosary is that it represents a most effective means of fostering among the faithful that commitment to the contemplation of the Christian mystery which I have proposed in the Apostolic Letter "Novo Millennio Ineunte" as a genuine training in holiness (RVM 5).

THE ROSARY AND CONTEMPLATION
It must be admitted, however, that this contemplation of the face of Christ encouraged by the Holy Father in his Apostolic Letter on the Rosary and the contemplative union of the soul with God described by St. Teresa above are not entirely the same thing. One is a meditative, loving gaze on the Savior, His life, and His work of redemption. It is for the most part an activity of the mind and heart, a natural form of contemplative prayer, arising from ourselves. This is what lies at the foundation of the Rosary, as Pope Paul VI has taught in a quote used by Pope John Paul in his Apostolic Letter:

Without contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and its recitation runs the risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas, in violation of the admonition of Christ: "In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many words" (RVM 12).
Very much different, as has been pointed out, is the infused, supernatural contemplation described by St. Teresa, and marked by a mutual indwelling of the soul in God and God in the soul. As related in the quote above, this occurred for her in such a full and rich way that "I could in no way doubt He was within me or I totally immersed in Him." No mere imaginative exercise this, but a profound encounter with the very Person of Christ Himself present in the soul.

These two forms of contemplation, however, are not unrelated. One leads to the other and is a preparation for the other. The intense and serious prayer life of infused contemplation does not begin immediately, but (usually) only after years of persevering in meditative prayer such as the Rosary. As Fr. Dubay acknowledges:

. . . a serious prayer life does not begin with fullness. It commences humbly with small steps. Oak trees emerge from acorns, and scholars first learn the alphabet. While God is supremely free to give in a divine manner when and how He chooses, He ordinarily prepares the soul through the human mode of meditation upon His works of creation and redemption (FW 49).

IN UNION WITH MARY
Nevertheless, with souls who are dedicated to prayer, and to the constant struggle to overcome sins and failings, the greater gift of infused contemplation will come. It is in the normal course of growth in the life of the Spirit. It is simply what happens when one is faithful to prayer and striving for holiness. "Infused contemplation," Fr. Dubay writes, "is the normal, ordinary development of discursive [mentally produced] prayer. The former gradually and gently replaces the latter when reasoned thought has run its course as a method of communing with the Lord" (FW 69).

One of the special contributions of the Holy Father in Rosarium Virginis Mariae is to the understanding of the powerful influence Our Lady has on the contemplative activity of the soul while praying the Rosary. In a special way, this puts us under the maternal guidance of she who, above all others, was given over to the contemplation of His Sacred Face:

Christ is the supreme Teacher, the revealer and the one revealed. It is not just a question of learning what He taught but of "learning Him." In this regard could we have any better teacher than Mary? From the divine standpoint, the Spirit is the interior teacher who leads us to the full truth of Christ. But among creatures no one knows Christ better than Mary; no one can introduce us to a profound knowledge of His mystery better than His Mother (RVM 14).
We must remember that the Rosary, as the Holy Father has pointed out, brings us into a kind of union with Mary in which we see "the mysteries of the Lord’s life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord" (RVM 12). We join her in contemplating her Son and His deeds, as she did so many times herself while on earth. Mary "kept all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Lk. 2:19). Thus, we can say that the Rosary is a form of contemplative prayer where we are receiving an extraordinary assistance from the Mother of God to ponder the Face of Christ her Son. In this she leads us, over the years, to that depth of prayer that is truly a gift from God, and a loving union with the very Person of Christ dwelling in the soul.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to Light & Life Page | Way Back to Rosary Center Home Page

Leftist Tarpley:Don’t Let Soros Hijack Occupy Wall Street

Is Occupy Wall Street the Obama/Wall Street Machine?

An Emergency Program for Anti-Wall Street Protestors: Don’t Let Soros Hijack the Movement
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net
September 29, 2011
Political mass strike dynamics have been at work in the United States since the Wisconsin and Ohio mobilizations of February and March. Now, there are demonstrations in lower Manhattan and Boston specifically directed against the Wall Street banks. Another protest demonstration is scheduled for Washington, DC, starting on October 6. Good: a political challenge to Wall Street is indeed long overdue.

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are skeptical in regard to Obama. There is no sizable constituency for Ron Paul, and the crackpot Austrian school of economics is hardly represented. Above all, there is a desire to break the power of Wall Street. This much is promising, but still not enough to win.

The demonstrations appear initially as leaderless groups, engaged in an organic process of discussion from which specific demands are supposed to emerge. But so far, these demonstrations have put forth no specific demands, reforms, or concrete measures whatsoever to fight Wall Street. This is a fatal political weakness. A movement that attempts to go forward with vague slogans like “Freedom” or “Abolish capitalism” is likely to become easy prey for foundation-funded operatives on the left wing of the Democratic Party.

If a movement pretends to have no leaders, then it is the corporate media, themselves controlled by Wall Street, who will choose the leaders. A few days ago, a Wall Street protester named Kelly Heresy was anointed as principal honcho by Keith Olbermann, who used to work for the hedge fund called General Electric, and who now works for Al Gore. This is no way to select leaders.

The demonstrations may appear spontaneous, but it is easy to see gatekeepers and countergangs operating in their midst, often with a frank counterinsurgency agenda. Occupy Wall Street in particular shows the heavy influence of union bureaucrats from the Service Employees International Union, as well as Acorn – both parts of the Obama machine. The goal of these operatives is to keep the focus of the protests vague and diffuse, so that no demands emerge that might be embarrassing to the Wall Street puppet Obama and his reelection campaign. Their ultimate goal is to absorb the protests as the left wing of the Obama 2012 effort. That means supporting an administration which not only refuses to fight Wall Street, but which is packed with Wall Street executives in its highest positions.

Dubious Hollywood figures like Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore are attempting to gain publicity for themselves by showing up at the demonstrations. Michael Moore, who is not very popular with the demonstrators, was instrumental in leading the antiwar and impeachment movements of the past decade back into the Democratic Party to support Obama. Journalist Matt Taibbi, another newly minted expert on the movement, is remembered for his hatchet jobs in favor of the Bush administration theory of terrorism.

The organizers of the Wall Street action say they want to imitate recent protests in other countries. Their favorite is the Tahrir Square agitation in Egypt in February. But if you go to Cairo today, veterans of those demonstrations will tell you that these efforts accomplished relatively little, and mainly had the effect of ousting an oppressive civilian government in favor of an even more oppressive military government of weak CIA puppets which is still operating under martial law, even as benighted religious fanatics gather strength. In Greece, it is true that the trade unions have mounted a dozen general strikes, but all of these have failed to oust Prime Minister Papandreou, the main enforcer of austerity cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund, and so the brutal austerity continues. The same thing applies to Spain, where the indignados became so self-absorbed in their discussion and consensus process that they never put forward a program to save Spanish society from the bankers. In Iceland too, the anti-bank movement was never able to go beyond mere protest to advance a series of concrete measures that would allow them to contend for power, take power, and hold onto it for the public good.

The lesson of all of these situations is that, in a severe world economic depression of the kind we have today, mere protest is not enough. Desperate populations are looking for political leadership with solutions capable of solving the life or death issues facing nations today. A movement which is incapable of specifying what it intends to fight for is an immature movement which no intelligent person will take seriously.

The secret of a mass strike upsurge is that crisis conditions will propel many apolitical people into activism. This makes them vulnerable to manipulation by demagogues, including those of the extreme right. The mass strike upsurge by itself solves nothing. The question is whether any coherent group of people can intervene into the mass upsurge and push aside bankrupt and failed leaders with the kind of radical reform program that can actually get the society out of the crisis. The masses cannot discover this program on their own – they are too busy with the struggle for daily existence. College students therefore have a special responsibility to provide ideas for the benefit of the entire society. If an adequate program becomes dominant, the nation can survive. Otherwise, nothing guarantees that civilization itself will not collapse – look at the Tea Party if you don’t believe this. Soros, Koch, and the other finance capitalists have a good working understanding of how these things work, which is why they are sending in their operatives to make sure that this movement will have only the vaguest demands, or no demands at all, to fight for. Let that happen, and Wall Street will rule the day once again.

Despite what Michael Moore may think, the political power of Wall Street is considerable, and an effective attack on the bankers will demand the unified efforts of key sectors of the population. This unity must be expressed in the program itself. Students must broaden the sociological scope of the movement to include all walks of life.

In order to fight Wall Street, it is necessary for the American people to understand the basic idea of shifting the cost of the world economic depression off of the backs of working people and the poor where it is now, and onto Wall Street banks and super-rich speculators. Depressions are very expensive. Who should pay for the current depression? The bankers demand that the American people must pay. We want the bankers to pay, and we must specify how. A movement that wants to defend working people against the class warfare of the bankers has the responsibility of putting forward a program to defend middle-class and other working people. In order to win, the anti-Wall Street protests must agitate for a series of demands including the following:

1. Student Loan Amnesty. The common experience of many of the protesters is that of being crushed by an outrageous burden of high interest student loans. Today it is common for graduating seniors to carry $50,000, $75,000, or even $100,000 of debt. Add the costs of an advanced degree in teaching, law, or medicine, and the debt burden becomes astronomical. The exorbitant cost of a college education reflects the increasing immiseration of the United States over the past 40 years, as the overall standard of living has declined by two thirds or more in terms of real wages and other considerations. These debts are owed to the same zombie bankers who cashed in on the Bush bailout of 2008, and the even larger loans issued by Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve over recent years. This is a system of brutal primitive accumulation against the life chances everyone who knows that they need a college degree to be employable in the 21st century. Total students loan indebtedness is now approaching $1 trillion. This grinding debt is destroying the futures, the lives, and the hopes of college students and recent graduates.
When a debtor country like Greece is unable to pay its debts, it is normal to hear talk of a haircut for the bondholders and bankers. It is time for the Wall Street zombie banks to take a haircut on student loan debt. Most of this debt cannot be paid off, but an entire generation can be ruined by a futile attempt to pay it back.

A leading demand must therefore be a total cancellation of all outstanding student loan debt, meaning a total and immediate forgiveness of all payments of principal and interest coming from this category of borrowing. Carter granted Vietnam draft resisters an amnesty. If Obama wants to keep his job, he must deliver a student loan amnesty to save not just a single generation, but the entire future of the United States and beyond. Otherwise, dump Obama in 2012! The zombie bankers have been pampered enough. It is time for them to take a bath, so that a generation might live. This is also the best stimulus program possible.

2. Stop Foreclosures. Since students alone will never be enough to make a revolution, it is necessary to put forward additional measures to defend other parts of the population from the depredations of Wall Street. In the area of home foreclosures, the bankers have trampled on the law to seize millions of homes, some of which never had a mortgage, and many of which were current in their payments. The banks have used corrupt robo-signers, robo-cops, and robo-judges to carry out these fraudclosure thefts. The answer is to make foreclosure a federal crime, so that anyone who throws an American family out on the street will end up in Leavenworth. Again, the zombie bankers can eat the losses, which are unavoidable in any case. This is not an impossible demand: under the New Deal, the Frazier-Lemke Act stopped all foreclosures on homes, provided only that the owners could get a minimal payment plan approved by any judge in any court. With the help of popular pressure and public opinion, foreclosures virtually came to a halt. This is what we need to be demanding today.

3. Defend and fully fund the social safety net. Wall Street and Washington elites agree that the American people ought to be subjected to genocidal austerity – cuts so draconian that they will kill people. The goal is obviously to fund bigger and better bailouts of Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase when they go bankrupt the next time around. Real unemployment in the United States is now about 25%, meaning that 30 million people cannot find work, and many have been looking for years. Therefore, we need to extend jobless benefits to all unemployed, including those who have been out of a job for 99 weeks and more. 46 million Americans are now surviving thanks to Food Stamps, but the reactionary Republicans are demanding savage cuts, and Obama is more than likely to cave. We also need to defend programs that specifically help children and young. These include S-CHIP, which gives health care to poor children; Head Start, which provides breakfast and preschool for poor kids; and WIC, which provides high-protein meals for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and infants. Older people have special problems, including that Wall Street speculators have destroyed the value of their 401(k) and IRA retirement plans. This means that Social Security pensions should be increased, and not cut, as the Republicans and Obama both want. Obama has already cut $500 billion out of Medicare, but he wants to cut it even more, and the Tea Party is eager to help him. The best healthcare would be to open Medicare to all Americans, while making the investments needed to maintain quality. Medicaid gives healthcare to poor people of any age, and these payments must be maintained.

4. Pay for healthcare and social services with a 1% Wall Street Sales Tax. When they hear demands like these, Fox news commentators will demand to know how these programs can be paid for. The answer is simple: the Tobin tax or Wall Street sales tax. Today the total financial turnover of the banksters in terms of buying, selling, and other trading comes to well over three quadrillion dollars yearly – that’s more than 3,000 trillion dollars. The rest of us pay sales tax on most purchases, often including the groceries, but Wall Street zombie bankers and hedge fund hyenas pay absolutely zero on that colossal sum. The most unfair aspect of the entire US tax system is that Wall Street pays virtually no taxes. It is time for the bankers to cough up 1% of every stock, bond, and derivatives transaction, be it program trading, high frequency trading, or computerized flash trading at the rate of one million transactions per second. The total revenue could be split between the federal government and the states, and would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps even trillions – depending on how determined the speculators are to keep up their dirty deals. There is nothing impossible about this demand: the federal government had a financial transaction tax from the time of World War I to 1967. And even today, the largely right wing governments of the European Union are about to enact their own Tobin tax. Why can’t it be done here as well?

These are immediate agitational demands that can be readily understood by any person. They can form the leading edge of a struggle to break the political power of Wall Street. In addition, a full recovery from depression and the attainment of full employment for the first time since 1945 will require the nationalization of the Federal Reserve, and the issuing of successive tranches of $1 trillion of 0%, very long-term Federal credit for the building of infrastructure, with a goal of creating 30 million new productive jobs with adequate capital investment per job.

Another essential point is that Wall Street is the biggest nest of warmongers anywhere in the world. Anyone seeking to gain influence over the anti-Wall Street movement should be willing to condemn and denounce Obama’s wanton aggression against Libya, as well as to call for an immediate pullout of US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. Anyone who refuses to do this should be regarded with grave suspicion.

The alternative to such concrete demands is, whether we like it or not, to remain in the orbit of Obama’s Democratic Party. Earlier this year, students, workers, and others occupied the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin in response to attacks on working people coming from the fascist governor, Walker. The resistance against Walker was betrayed first of all by the Democratic Party, which announced that it would not fight for wages and benefits, but only for trade union rights in the abstract. That is a good program for trade union bureaucrats, but not so good for working people, who bore the brunt of Walker’s austerity. A president who was on the side of the people would have gone immediately to Madison, Wisconsin to hold a town hall on the occupied grounds of the state capitol, an event that would have looked much different than the canned, pre-screened teleprompter town halls Obama likes to address. A real president would have taken Attorney General Holder and Labor Secretary Solis along to investigate the denial of civil rights and labor violations by Walker. Obama did none of these things. Rather, he damned the movement with a few words of faint praise, and cut it loose. The lesson is that the Democratic Party is more than willing to sell out mass struggles anytime it can. And it is only by having your own program of anti-Wall Street demands that you can become independent of the rotten two-party system.



Known by the company they keep...which also includes the Marxist Unions (SEIU and NLRB as examples) now infesting the USA...


Sher Zieve
-News and Commentary-
In all things, trust God
"Thou Shalt have no other gods before me"



Subject: List of Occupy Wall Street supporters From: Dave Hollenbeck
Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2011 07:42:44 -0700
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
BCC: sherzieve@mywdo.com

List of Announced Supporters & Sympathizers


Communist Party USA
Sources: Communist Party USA, OWS speech, The Daily Caller
American Nazi Party
Sources: Media Matters, American Nazi Party, White Honor, Sunshine State News
Ayatollah Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran
Sources: The Guardian, Tehran Times, CBS News
Lisa Fithian (Left-wing anarchist – “What do I do? I create crisis.”)
Sources: RedState.com
President Barack Obama (“We are on their side.”)
Sources: ABC News, CBS News, ForexTV, NBC New York
Government of North Korea
Sources: Korean Central News Agency), The Marxist-Leninist, Wall Street Journal, Times of India

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Member of Congress/Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee
Source: RealClearPolitics.com
Louis Farrakhan Jew-hating leader of Nation of Islam
Sources: video statement (starting at 8:28), Black in America, Weasel Zippers, Philadelphia Weekly
Revolutionary Communist Party
Sources: Revolutionary Communist Party, Revolution newspaper, in-person appearance

Bill Ayers Marxist/former domestic terrorist who said to Occupy Chicago, “Every revolution seems impossible in the beginning."
Sources: BigGovernment.com
David Duke Jew-hating former Grand Wizard the Ku Klux Klan
Sources:Talking Points Memo, video statement, davidduke.com
Hugo Chavez Communist ruler of Venezuela
Sources: Mother Jones, Reuters, Examiner.com
Black Panthers Organization of radical black nationalists
Sources: in-person appearance, Occupy Oakland, Oakland Tribune

Socialist Party USA
Sources: Socialist Party USA, IndyMedia, The Daily Caller



Nancy Pelosi Democratic House minority leader who said of the Occupy Wall Street protestors, “God bless them.”
Sources: Talking Points Memo, video statement, ABC News, The Weekly Standard




Communist Party of China
Sources: People’s Daily (Communist Party organ), Reuters, chinataiwan.org, The Telegraph




Hezbollah Anti-Jewish terrorist organization
Sources: almoqawama.org, almoqawama.org (2), almoqawama.org (3), wikipedia

Stephen Lerner Militant labor activist/leading mastermind behind Occupy Wall Street - “How do we take down the stock market?”
Sources: BusinessInsider.com



International Bolshevik Tendency
Sources: bolshevik.org, Wire Magazine




Van Jones Avowed communist/former senior advisor to Obama White House – “I’ll drop the radical pose to achieve the radical ends.”
Sources: HuffingtonPost.com


Harry Reid Senate Majority Leader (D-NV)
Source: HuffingtonPost.com
International Socialist Organization
Sources: Socialist Worker, socialistworker.org, in-person appearance


Frances Fox Piven Marxist professor/honored elder stateswoman of the Democratic party – “It’s okay to use violence.”
Source: video statement


Marxist Student Union
Sources: Marxist Student Union, Big Government, marxiststudentunion.blogspot.com


September 29th, 2011

Soros army launches Wall Street assault of its own

MoveOn.org action campaign aims to rebuild U.S. financial system


(WND) - MoveOn.org is planning to launch a protest movement of its own to compliment the Occupy Wall Street momentum with the stated goal of "make[ing] Wall Street pay" and rebuilding the entire U.S. financial system.

MoveOn.org is funded by the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation. Another grantee of Tides is the Adbusters magazine, which is reported to have come up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after Arab Spring protests toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

The new MoveOn.org Wall Street campaign serves as further evidence suggesting the anti-Wall Street movement is a well-planned campaign and not the spontaneous uprising its leaders claim.

WND broke the story last week that Fenton Communications, a public relations firm closely partnered with Tides, represented the anti-Wall Street march past millionaires' homes in New York two weeks ago.

Fenton also crafted the public-relations strategy of MoveOn.org, as well as a who's who of far-left causes, organizations and activists, from Soros himself to Health Care for America Now to a litany of anti-war groups.

Today, MoveOn.org is holding a planning meeting in Manhattan to discuss ways to take on Wall Street in coordination with Occupy Wall Street.

An email sent to Moveon.org's mailing list announced a "meeting for folks to come together to plan ways to Make Wall Street Pay in our own communities"

"We'll focus on specific targeted campaigns that hold the big banks accountable," continued the email.

Continued the email: "The Occupy Wall Street movement has put economic justice in the spotlight. The whole country is talking about how we can end the big banks' excessive influence and Make Wall Street Pay to rebuild the economy for everyone."

The email spelled out the new MoveOn campaign's connection to Occupy Wall Street:

"How is this connected to Occupy Wall Street? Our goal is to launch targeted local campaigns to complement the amazing work being done by brave Occupy Wall Street protesters – something MoveOn members around the country have been assking for. And we'll continue to do everything we can to support and stand in solidarity with #Occupy."

Proof! Occupy Wall Street no 'spontaneous movement'

MoveOn.org is funded by Tides, which acts like a massive clearinghouse of donations to a slew of liberal groups. Critics have alleged the center acts to obscure the ultimate sources of donations by collecting significant sums of money from a few large donors and then funneling the money to thousands of liberal causes.

Soros' Open Society Institute is a prominent Tides Center donor, giving the group $3.5 million between 2007 and 2009 alone.

The Occupy Wall Street march past millionaires' homes was first announced in a press release entitled, "Community Groups and Progressive Organizations Join Together to Plan 'Millionaires March' with Occupy Wall Street Protestors."

The release detailed how a group calling itself 99 New York was joining the Occupy Wall Street movement as a partner. The 99 organization is purportedly a coalition of unions and community organizations, such as UnitedNY, Strong Economy for All Coalition, N.Y. Communities for Change, and the Working Families Party.

It was the 99 New York group, which claims to represent the will of 99 percent of the U.S. population, that led last week's Occupy Wall Street march down the streets of New York.

The press release was sent to reporters and was also posted in various Occupy Wall Street affiliated websites, including StrongForAll.org.

The release listed contact information for 99 New York's spokesmen: Doug Forand of Red Horse Strategies, a firm that has represented scores of Democrat politicians; and Doug Gordon, senior vice president of Fenton Communications.

Gordon's Fenton email was provided on the release. Prior to joining Fenton, Gordon worked for years on Capitol Hill and in Democratic politics. He spent seven years as the top aide to Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich.

Soros, Fenton, Tides

Fenton Communications was founded in 1982 by David Fenton, an activist who served as a photographer for Bill Ayers' domestic Weather Underground terror group.

Fenton Communications works in conjunction with the Soros-funded Tides Center that funded Adbusters, which was reported to have started the concept of Occupy Wall Street.

Fenton used the Tides Center to set up Environmental Media Services in 1994. Tides reportedly originally ran EMS' daily operations.

David Fenton serves on the board of numerous Tides-funded groups, while his firm represents more than 30 Tides Center grantees, as well as Soros himself and the billionaire's Open Society Institute. Fenton helped to craft Moveon.org's attacks on Gen. David Petraeus.

An example of the close public relations relationship between Fenton and Tides is the Social Venture Network, which was established and operates as a project of the Tides Foundation, while its strategy is represented by Fenton. SVN's board has included Tides' founder Drummond Pike as well as Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink.

Another group, September Eleventh Families For Peaceful Tomorrows, is an antiwar organization founded by individuals who lost loved ones in 9-11 terrorist attacks. The group's campaign was coordinated by Fenton while the group was funded by Tides.

Also represented by Fenton is the Win Without War group, which was funded by Soros and Tides.

WND found more than 30 recent examples of Tides grantees whose strategy was coordinated by Fenton.

Fenton, Obama, Ayers ties

While David Fenton first photographed Ayers in the 1960s, he later served alongside both Ayers and Obama on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago nonprofit which channeled money to a slew of progressive groups, including the Tides Center and the Alinsky-style Midwest Academy training outfit. Obama served as a paid director on the Woods Fund board from 1999 to 2002.

WND recently reported Midwest's founder, Heather Booth, has been training unions on how to use the economic crisis.

Citizen Action of Wisconsin, an arm of Booth's Midwest Academy, is part of the Moving Wisconsin Forward movement, one of the main organizers of the major Wisconsin protests in February, as WND first reported.

Fenton's managing director, Ira Arlook, also served as director of Booth's Citizens Action.


Source: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=359233

What are the Principle Forms of Prayer?

Prayer and the First Commandment
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The most generic and fundamental definition of prayer: the conscious adoration of God. We might say it is expressed adoration. Adoration manifest. It is the communication of our minds and wills with God with whom we adore. Prayer is conversation with our adorable God. And my favorite definition, prayer is the voluntary response to the awareness of Gods’ adorable presence. We are still on our introduction. In the present meditation we plan to again ask ourselves the three basic questions: what, why, and how. What are the principle forms of prayer? Why must we pray? And then, this being a retreat, how can we improve our practice of prayer?



What are the Principle Forms of Prayer?
First then the main forms or kinds of prayer. The Church’s tradition distinguishes not just four but five principle forms of prayer. The adoration of submission, the prayer of adoration of love, the prayer of thanksgiving, the prayer of petition and the prayer of expiation. I found in teaching the theology of prayer it helps immediately and immensely to be clear about what we mean whatever words we use. Behind this classification is the unspoken assumption that all prayer is essential adoration as we’ve been saying. Yet we can address God in five different ways depending on the five different ways we can and should approach God.

Prayer of submissive adoration. Thus, there’s only one God. But we can approach Him, first, as our creator and Lord. And then our prayer is submissive adoration. Submissive adoration of, or shall I say to, the divine majesty. It is the humble adoration of acceptance of, and resignation to the divine will. And that is why the heart of prayer is in the will. We need to use our minds when we pray. But when we pray we are praying wit our wills. When then, our will submits to the divine will and does so consciously and willingly, we are then exercising the prayer of adoration indeed but of adoration in submitting our finite wills to the infinite will of God.

Prayer of loving adoration. We go on. We can approach God as our final destiny and then our prayer is loving adoration or the adoration of love. There is some value in distinguishing between praying to God by adoring Him and praying to God by loving Him. True whenever we adore God we are in some form or another also loving Him. But the single generic form of prayer of adoration has as we say two species. In other words, I can adore God by surrendering my will to His and I can adore God by expressing my deep love for Him and my desire to be with him.

Prayer of thanksgiving. Finally, we can approach God as our generous benefactor from whom we received and continue receiving everything we are and we possess. And then our prayer is grateful thanksgiving, or more familiarly the prayer of gratitude. I’d like to distinguish what we commonly call gratitude or the prayer of gratitude on different levels. Our prayer of gratitude begins first with what I call thanks-thinking. We must first be aware of God’s goodness to us, otherwise there cannot be gratitude. Then to be authentic gratitude our prayer should be thanks-saying to be somehow expressed in verbal form or its equivalent. Something must go out from us towards God. Then to ascend one step higher, our gratitude should be thanks-willing. We are truly grateful when we want to do something for the one who has been good to us. God being who He is, He cannot in anyway benefit. God, give him what he needs, but we had better give Him what He wants. And what does He want? He wants our will. And as we’ve been saying that’s why our will is free. We must want to give whatever He wants even though we know He doesn’t need anything. We go on. There is prayer of gratitude means thanksgiving. Not just thanks-willing. Oh, I can burst with gratitude inside of me. Oh Lord, whatever you want, I will give you. We have the opportunity of giving Him something. What happens? We freeze. Thanksgiving. And He will provide us, believe me, with plenty of opportunity for thanksgiving. You think I’m finished. Not yet. The highest form of gratitude of the prayer of gratitude for our purpose is thanks. Giving up. Letting go. Surrendering. You’ll see this at some length when we reflect on sacrifice as the highest obligation of the first commandment of the Decalogue.

Prayer of petition. We go on. The fourth formal prayer recognized by the Church where we approach God as our almighty hope form whom we expect to receive, provided we ask him, with an open heart, provided we ask him for what we need, and then our prayer is the prayer of petition. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the prayer of petition is only one of five basic forms of prayer. Even though I dare say for most people, only God really knows, but I believe for most people most of the time, most of their prayer is Lord give me. Now what do you want?

Prayer of expiation. Finally, We can approach and should approach God as our offended Lord from whom we have sinned, either personally or collectively then ours is the prayer of expiation. We beg for God’s mercy on ourselves and others. We plead to have restored the grace we have lost through sin, and we plead to please spare the penalty of suffering which we have justly deserved. Let’s be clear. As much and as deeply as we need to pray for God’s mercy, what are we praying for? We are praying for the grace we have lost having sinned and we pray to be spared more or less of the suffering, the pain we’ve deserved for having stubbornly resisted the will of God.

Obama "[U]shering in the Time of Great Trial for the Church"

-I also believe that he is a carrier of a deadly moral virus, indeed a kind of anti-apostle spreading concepts and agendas that are not only anti-Christ but anti-human as well. In this sense he is of the spirit of Antichrist (perhaps without knowing it), and probably is one of several key figures in the world who (knowingly or unknowingly) will be instrumental in ushering in the time of great trial for the Church under its last and worst persecution, amidst the numerous other tribulations prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and letters of St Paul, St. John, and St. Peter.

StudiObrien newsletter, The U.S. ElectionSaturday, November 1, 2008 1:20 PM
From: "studiObrien" Add sender to Contacts To: undisclosed-recipients

All Saints Day, 1 November 2008

Dear Friends,

From just north of the border, we Canadians, like other people throughout the world, are observing and praying for the coming federal election in the United States of America. I would prefer to keep private my counsel about political choices, because it is not my country. However, I am receiving letters from American subscribers and visitors to my studio website asking me some rather surprising questions about Barack Obama, related to one of my novels.

During the past year I have read a number of his pronouncements, and saw the smoke and mirrors beneath the rhetoric, but couldn't understand why everyone south of the border (the other south of the border, the 49th parallel) was getting so excited about him, both pro and con. Then a few weeks ago a German friend called me immediately after Obama's speech in Berlin, to say that the presidential candidate had mesmerized the crowds, and that a commentator on German television had said: "We have just heard the next President of the United States...and the future President of the World." My friend felt that Obama bore an uncanny resemblance to the fictional character of the President in my novel Father Elijah. I have received several other letters saying the same thing and asking what I thought about it.

From my own reading of Obama's declarations and stated positions, I knew he was an ultra-liberal, a social revolutionary with visionary pretensions. But the Antichrist? No, not possible, I thought. I felt that he was too shallow a man to be the Son of Perdition, the Man of Sin, the Beast of the Book of Revelation. And I still think so. Obama is a crowd-pleaser with just the right ethos of idealistic crusader. That the crusade and the banners under which it marches are evil does not automatically prove that he is the Antichrist.

But now that I have seen the video of the Berlin speech I think there is more here than meets the eye. He is indeed a powerful manipulator of crowds, even as he appears ever so humble and wholesomely charming. I doubt that he is the long-prophesied ruler of the world, but I also believe that he is a carrier of a deadly moral virus, indeed a kind of anti-apostle spreading concepts and agendas that are not only anti-Christ but anti-human as well. In this sense he is of the spirit of Antichrist (perhaps without knowing it), and probably is one of several key figures in the world who (knowingly or unknowingly) will be instrumental in ushering in the time of great trial for the Church under its last and worst persecution, amidst the numerous other tribulations prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and letters of St Paul, St. John, and St. Peter.

Of course the mystique that has grown up around him is endlessly reinforced by the liberal media, which presents him to us as a high-minded humanist, a kind of secular messiah (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 675). Yet when all the rhetoric is boiled down to its substance, the man is advocating unlimited state-sanctioned murder, and compounds it by indulging in habitual falsehood. He is well accustomed to playing loose with the truth whenever it is expedient for him to do so; or else he is the victim of the largest memory lapses in recorded history; or perhaps he is just not careful about how he expresses things—a blurring or selectivity regarding facts for the purpose of aggrandizing his public image. There is a controversy currently raging in the (admittedly unreliable) forum of the internet, prompted by an African-American talk show host in Los Angeles who listed 39 significant details that Barack Obama claimed were facts about himself, but on fu! rther investigation were proved to be simply untrue. There has been some wild-fire debunking of the debunking, and then more counter-debunking, but it remains obvious that forthrightness and clarity are not major concerns in the Obama camp.

What are we to make of a man who has appeared out of semi-obscurity and become, nearly overnight, so very much an idol of the popular imagination? That he intends to become the most effective advocate of murder of the unborn ever seen in America should give us pause. Murder and lies are as old as the lands east of Eden, of course, but when they are charmingly packaged, proposed as reasonable and just policies (with a smile, a resonant voice, and an appealing flash of the eyes), one begins to wonder just what is afoot in the modern age. It brings to mind a passage from the first Act of Shakespeare's Hamlet:

“That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain...”

The line is from a scene where prince Hamlet has just encountered the ghost of his father, who informs his son that he was poisoned by his own brother Claudius (the "smiling, damned villain"), who after murdering him, seized the king's crown and his queen.

Barack Obama is an image-maker, creating his own myth as he goes along. This would be a sad defect in any human being, but it takes on ominous proportions in a person who may become, after November 4th, one of the most powerful figures in the world. How is it possible that such a tragic turn of events may come about, if indeed a majority of Americans choose to believe the smile and the myth? Why is it that so many people have come to believe that a mirage is reality, even destiny? Do pro-Obama voters hanker for a world figure who would heal old divisions between races and religions, thus heralding a new age for mankind? During this time of near intolerable tensions, does he appear to be the one who can reconcile Islam and Christianity, Africa and America, occident and orient, black and white, rich and poor? Do they see his racial origins as a symbolic victory over the history of racial oppression? Do they see in him the good-hearted "under-dog", the gutsy street fi! ghter who agitates for the rights of the "little guy," whose meteoric rise to a position of maximum influence represents themselves enthroned at last in the high seat of power? Is this why they ignore his every grave fault and hungrily consume his vague idealist platitudes as if these were a kind of new gospel for the third millennium? Our hero. Our visionary. Our Great Friend and spokesman in the forum of the world?

Clearly, contemporary man needs heroes. But why not choose a genuine one, why not look a little deeper and work a little harder to find a man of courage and principle, and if it helps in the historical healing process, why not a very different kind of black man, say a person like Alan Keyes, a scholar, former ambassador, experienced in different levels of government, and (it might be added) an African-American married to a woman from India. Moreover, he is a devout Catholic who believes in moral absolutes and has amply proved that he will stand firm to defend them regardless of the cost to his own career. He knows that kings and presidents cannot usurp the natural law, the moral order of the universe, without bringing down judgment upon their nations. But it need not be Keyes. It might be any number of other men and women of clear thought and clear principle. Surely there are "Ten Just Men" still out there somewhere in America. So why Obama? And why does he ! rise and rise as his mouth smiles and smiles, exuding sincerity as he speaks lies and death?

And why, most horribly, most shamefully, are so many Christians of malformed or unformed conscience supporting him? Is it because they have never been clearly instructed in the truth, never understood the foundation upon which the moral cosmos is built? Is morality for them merely another system of abstract "values" in a crowded playing field of such systems, from which one may pick and choose? In the case of Catholics, for example, have they been blinded by a diet of theological nuances and deadly little loopholes offered to them by the committees of national episcopal conferences — committees that have absolutely no authority over Catholics, yet which are widely revered as a kind of alternative Magisterium? Have they been deadened by a habitual dismissing or dissembling of the solid teaching given to them by the universal Church under Peter? Have they grown accustomed to listening to opinion shapers who tell them that certain excellent apostolic Bishops in ! America who teach the truth without compromise are merely hidebound reactionaries, moralistic extremists, contemporary manifestations of those old boogymen who still haunt the American psyche — the Chillingworths and Dimmesdales and the judges in The Scarlet Letter? And so it goes, this over-reaction to Puritanism played out over centuries, an over-reaction that breeds tragedies a thousand times worse than Salem’s. Lies compounding on lies, and it all floats on an ocean of spilled innocent blood. And who can gaze at that ocean (or be splashed by it) without coming to a radical choice: One either turns away into a deeper state of denial, or one turns heart and mind toward the splendor of Truth, and changes one's life accordingly.

Is this why many of our Catholic people have become impulse-driven impressionists? Of course, the blindness is not due to the failure of pastors alone. The Ministry of Disinformation (by which I mean most modern media) has played a major role. There is also the erosion of truth in the education systems, combined with the gradual confusion and weakening of conscience through our addiction to the "soma" drugs supplied by the entertainment industry. Other factors may be the war in Iraq, or Republican economics, or the Bush administration, or the structure of Capitalism itself, or any number of prudential questions in the sociopolitical order, all of which are presently tangled nests of moral dilemma. But why do they not see that these questions are secondary to the fundamental issue of life itself? Why would they replace one reigning oligarchy with another kind of oligarchy — moreover, one that would kill vast numbers of its own citizens?

"I call on heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live...." (Deuteronomy 30:19)

May God bless and guide you,
in Jesus our Saviour,

with prayers and fasting,

Michael O'Brien

PS: For those interested in a concise examination of the moral parameters of voting in the forthcoming election, I urge you to read an excellent article by Dr. Mark Miravalle, professor of Theology at Franciscan University, Steubenville, available at the following link:

http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1531