An Accidental Lenten Pun

I just received an email with I believe an unintentional pun. It said "Lent is Fast Approaching". It has a double meaning. First of all, Lent is nearby. But also, there is an approaching fast, where we refrain from food during Lent, so it's a fast approaching. I'm not sure if anyone else will appreciate this punny situation.

Will Massachusetts end Obamacare?

Tonight Massachusetts will vote for their senator: either Democrat Martha Coakley or Republican Scott Brown. This election is being watched across America, and perhaps much of the world, because if Brown is elected, then Obamacare will not be able to pass so easily. Right now, the Democrats have 59 senators, but will need 60 in order to be fillibuster-proof and allow the bill to pass.

Many people of faith would like to see Mr. Brown elected. First of all, Obama's health care plan could involve millions of dollars of donations to Planned Parenthood, which has doctors that performs abortions. Right now, abortions are not paid for by tax-payers, but if Obamacare is passed, it may start being funded, which is a bad thing.

Also, Mrs. Coakley made some disparaging comments to people of faith, suggesting they should perhaps not work in emergency rooms in hospitals because they may be against abortion and other things. This flies in the face of legislation which guarantees the right of people of faith to work in any environment and not be forced to violate their faith and morals. Anything less is tyranny. Also under this law, medical practitioners have the right to not give contraception and other things.

Let's hope that Scott Brown is elected and that he helps reduce abortion.

Pope John Paul II's would-be assassin released from prison

Mehmet Ali Agra, who attempted to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981 by shooting him was released from prison in Turkey. Agra spent almost 20 years in prison in Italy and was then sent to Turkey where he served another 10 years for a murder he committed in 1979. Pope John Paul visited Agra in prison in Italy, in a very touching moment.

Now that Agra is released, rumours about his connection to communists are re-emerging. Did the KGB hire him, directly or indirectly, to assassinate John Paul, the great voice against communism? The Pope at the time believed there was more to the plot than Agra acting alone and believed it was the work of the Soviet Bloc. JPII was instrumental in defeating communism and so such a plot would make sense. By the way, the pope credited the Lady of Fatima with saving his life.

Agra was a trained gunman and member of the Grey Wolves. The injuries sustained by the pope were very substantial. He lost nearly three quarters of his blood as he was shot several times. He lost consciousness on the way to the hospital, but just before the operation, he regained consciousness and told the doctors not to remove his Brown Scapular of our Lady of Fatima.

A little over two years later, Pope John Paul II went to the prison to visit his would-be assassin, and spoke to him for 20 minutes. He completely forgave him. We will never know what was said during the meeting.

A commission was set up in 2006 by Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and it concluded that the Soviet Union was indeed behind the assassination attempt on John Paul II.

Pope Benedict was also attacked. A mentally disturbed 25-year old woman jumped at him during Midnight Mass at the Vatican. He was uninjured. Last week, he met with her privately and expressed his forgiveness.

Chinese World Map from 1600s show Catholic involvement in Science

Yesterday an exhibit started at the Library of Congress which will showcase a rare World Map, the first in Chinese to show the Americas, which was created by Jesuit Priest Matteo Ricci. Ricci was a missionary in China, but was also heavily involved in science.

Ricci was one of the first Westerners to to master Chinese script and Classical Chinese. Ricci was invited to live in Zhaoqing when the governor there heard of his skills as a mathematician and cartographer. It was here that Ricci prepared several maps in Chinese that contained the Americas. Six survive to this day.

Ricci and his companion not only developed several Chinese maps, but also created the first European-Chinese dictionary, translating Portuguese into Chinese. Ricci's amazing breakthrough into China continued when he was the first Westerner ever to enter into the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Ricci converted many people when they heard about Our Lord. He combined his love of God with a love of science. His beatification is under review.

For more on this story, please visit: http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/10-002.html

Here's a great video about Ricci:

Archbishop of Port au Prince, Haiti killed in Earthquake

As churches and cathedrals are reduced to rubble in Haiti, the archbishop has been tragically killed. Joseph Serge Miot, the spiritual leader of over 10.5 million Catholics, died today and his body was found in the ruins. He was 63 years old. Let's pray for all the thousands of victims of this great tragedy!

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1422923.html

Victims of Haitian Earthquake

Everyone should say a prayer for the relief effort now happening in Haiti after a huge earthquake hit the country. There are many poor people there. If you can support the Red Cross or another aid organization, I would recommend you do so. Let's keep them in prayer.

Malaysian Christians being oppressed by Muslim terrorists

In Malaysia, Muslim terrorists are attacking Christian (mostly Catholic) churches. Is it because Christians committed violence against Muslims? No, it's because Christians were using the word Allah to refer to God. You would think these groups would be happy. I've spoken to many Muslims and they insist God's name is Allah. So why are they so angry if Christians are using Allah as well?

In any event, 6 churches have so far been attacked. Many were fired bombed, others had paint thrown on them, etc. Although the constitution of Malaysia guarantees religious freedom, the minority Christians are being heavily persecuted.

Do these groups, who seem so offended by what they perceive as a faux-pas toward their religion, feel their religion also considers the use of violence, including fire-bombing churches, a proper response? Where are the protests by Muslim leaders in the country denouncing these acts?

Let's pray for the safety and religious freedom of Christians in Malaysia. Let's also pray for the terrorists that they will see the light and end their violent ways.

How we know Jesus is God

I was about to write an article on how we know Jesus is God. Then I found this video where Lee Strobel explains it very well.




I would add to this that Jesus forgave sins, something only God can do. He also changed people's names, again something only God was allowed to do.

Very good video.

Another Attack on Religion, this time in Greece

In Greece, a predominantly Orthodox country, some people are trying to have religious symbols and practices removed. Greece has been a Christians country for millenia, and this is just another attack on its identity.

A schoolmaster wonders out loud if soon there will be challenges to the Greek flag, an issue I brought up several posts ago. The flag of course contains a cross, just like dozens of others around the world.

The Christian faith is an integral part of Greek culture. Any student who is not Orthodox is not or should not be required to participate in a prayer, but to ban them outright is wrong. Christianity is an integral part of Greek culture. Removing it would be like removing their food, language, or any other aspect. If some people do not like the language or food, then do not partake, but to ban it for everyone is an attack on religion and culture.

A culture is made up of various aspects, including language, religion, food, and way of life. To remove or ban any of these things is to commit a sort of cultural genocide.

To see a video of this, please go to: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g0XI3wQ48QLUDJZZ8NlNOrEHnXIQ

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone. 2009 was a great year for my blog. I got many more followers, I wrote more articles, and had more comments and overall many more viewers. I hope this continues.

The results are in from the survey on this website asking people's religion. I am very surprised by some of the findings. This blog is obviously all about the Catholic faith and how it relates to the world, yet only 35% of my readers consider themselves Catholic. A whopping 42% of those completing the survey are atheists. Even 2% are considered "anti-theists". Nine percent are non-Catholic Christians, and 4% were Muslim. I did seem to receive a fair number of comments from Muslims.

I'm glad to have the opportunity to share my Catholic faith with many non-Catholics.

Thanks everyone for making this blog a success.

Obama no show at church

My priest once made a joke that there is a certain type of Catholic called C&E Catholic: Catholic and Easter Catholics. These are Catholics who simply do not attend Mass very often, but will still go on those two days.

However, Barack Obama didn't even go to a Christmas service. I understand he's busy, but missing the Christmas church service is going a bit far. I think he should be honest about his religion. He says he's Christian. It would seem Christians would have an obligation to attend churches services at least sometimes. Every President before him went at Christmas.

I'm not judging Obama's soul or saying he's a bad person. I'm just wondering what's going on here.

300th Post and Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone. This is Christmas day and the 300th post of this blog. Thanks for all those who have supported me, and thanks to all the contributors to this blog. Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour!

The Pope too was celebrating last night, when he was attacked by a woman named Susanna Maiolo, aged 25. She jumped out of the crowd and lunged at the Pope, causing him to fall. He was helped up and wasn't injured. This occurred at midnight Mass which the Pope celebrated at 10pm instead of the usual midnight. Ironically, I attended an actual midnight Mass yesterday rather than my usual 10pm Mass.

Unbelievably, this same woman also attacked the Pope last year at midnight mass, and she was wearing the same red sweater. It is believed she is mentally disturbed.

Here is a video of the 2009 attack:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/25/vatican.christmas.pope/index.html

Here is a video of the 2008 attack:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8430495.stm

The pope is doing alright, and seems pretty tough. He also fell in his bathroom several months ago and broke his wrist, but it didn't seem to bother him much. Blessings to Pope Benedict on Christmas!

Nazi Christmas

I was just reading information on how the Nazi's celebrated Christmas. I realized two things. First of all, any myth that the Nazis retained any form of Christianity is clearly rejected. Secondly, there are some aspects of the Nazi Christmas that are mimicked in today's "modern" world.

First and foremost, Nazis wanted to remove reference to Christ completely wherever possible. Instead of celebrating Christmas in particular, they wanted to celebrate the Solstice, or a sort of catch-all celebration. They probably wanted people to say "happy holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" Sound familiar?

The words of Silent Night were changed to include no references to God, Christ or religion. Other tunes as well had references to Christianity removed. Swatstikas were placed atop Christmas trees rather than stars.

Something similar is happening in our own culture. People think it's offensive to mention Christmas or Christ or God or Jesus, etc. So they substitute it with words like happy holidays, etc. This is not even coming from other religions. It's coming from Christians themselves or people raised as Christians.

I heard a story about a university group who had an international Christmas. At first, they wanted to incorporate elements from all different cultures and religions, etc. to make this international "holiday", but the international students rejected this. They did not want a mixture, they wanted the real deal. They wanted Christmas.

Christmas is a great time of the year, so say Merry Christmas and celebrate the Birth of Christ. Never forgo these beautiful beliefs for some atheistic catch-all non-specific holiday that is meaningless.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Ban on Crucifixes overruled: but what would be next?

A couple of months ago, there was news about a woman whose daughter was in an Italian school. The woman complained because there were crucifixes in the class, and eventually she brought her case to the European court. This court ruled that these crucifixes should be removed because it could offend a non-Christian. It is important to remember that all classrooms have these in Italy, plus all courtrooms. They have a cultural heritage of 2,000 years.

A great decision was made by the Italian court, which basically says that if a European Union law contradicts an Italian law, the EU law will be invalid. So the crucifixes will stay.

But if we believe that a cross and/or crucifix has the potential to "offend" somebody and that it cannot be displayed in public, then we will have encountered an enormous problem. In Europe and around the world, MANY countries contain a cross. What if someone claimed to be offended by the cross depicted on a flag? Would the country be forced to change it?

Just to give you an idea, the following is a list of countries which depict a cross (thanks Wikipedia):

• Australia - the Union Flag in the upper hoist quarter
  
• Denmark - a Scandinavian cross
  
• Dominican Republic - a centered white cross that extends to the edges and divides the flag into four rectangles
  
• England - the St George's Cross
  
• Fiji - the Union Flag in the upper hoist quarter
  
• Finland - a Scandinavian cross
  
• Georgia (country) - the "five-cross flag"; the central element of the flag is St. George's Cross (used also in the national flag of England); there is one smaller cross within each of the four quadrants
  
• Greece - a cross in the upper hoist corner
  
• Iceland - a Scandinavian cross
  
• Jamaica - a Saint Andrew's Cross
  
• Malta - a George Cross in the upper hoist corner (in the canton of the white stripe)
  
• Moldova - in the coat of arms appearing in the center stripe, a stylized eagle is holding a cross in its beak
  
• Montenegro - two crosses appear in the two crowns depicted in the coat of arms contained in the flag
  
• New Zealand - the Union Flag in the upper hoist quarter
  
• Norway - a Scandinavian cross
  
• Portugal - Compound cross of five quinas, each one charged with five saltire-arranged bezants
  
• San Marino - a cross appears in the crown depicted in the coat of arms contained in the flag
  
• Scotland - the Saint Andrew's Cross
  
• Serbia - cross in crown and cross in inescutcheon, both in coat of arms appearing in flag
  
• Slovakia - double cross on top of mountain, appearing in coat of arms contained in flag
  
• Spain - one cross in each of three crowns, as well as a cross in the fourth quarter of the shield (for Navarre), all appearing in embedded coat of arms
  
• Sweden - a Scandinavian cross
  
• Switzerland - a bold, equilateral white cross in the center of the flag
  
• Tonga - a red cross appearing as a canton of a red ensign
  
• Tuvalu - the Union Flag in the upper hoist quarter
  
• United Kingdom - the three crosses of the Union Flag: St. George's Cross, St. Andrews Cross, and the Irish saltire
  
• Vatican City - a cross on the top of the papal tiara in the coat of arms of the right side of the flag
  
• Pitcairn Islands - Union Flag in the upper hoist quarter

This is why I say it's such a great thing that the Vatican is not a member of the EU or UN.

Changing the definition of "Spouse"

The Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly is in the process of "updating" official laws which define spouse as someone of the opposite sex. This is largely administrative at this point, but marks a disturbing situation in our province and country.

The Bill for this Amendment officially declares:

This Bill would amend various of the province's Acts and regulations to reflect recent developments in the law respecting spouses. The principal thrust of the amendments is to change the language of provisions that currently, either explicitly or implicitly, assume that spouses must be members of the opposite sex.

Any time where there is mention of husband and wife, or the father and mother, male and female, man and woman, will be replaced with generic terms like spouses or couple or two parental units. It's ludacris to think we can change an institution by simply applying new language. There is no "romance" to these changes. A man loves his wife, not a spouse loves the other spouse. It sounds like a business contract.

I believe Canada has traveled down a terrible road. I hesitate to use a slippery slope argument, but I believe the more we treat marriage as a contractual partnership of two persons, you start to lose the real meaning of marriage. It is no longer about complementary love, but more about two people signing a piece of paper to share societal benefits. Once civil marriage becomes nothing more than a legal contract of two entities joining together for some economic reason, it won't be long before other "unions" will be accepted.

Today represents a sad day in legal history.

Torture must be completely outlawed worldwide

I just saw a movie called Law Abiding Citizen. In it, there is a scene of a criminal being tortured severely until death. It was very gruesome and sadistic. I sometimes think about torture and believe it is one of the worst things in the world. Sometimes, for example, I will wash my hands and it will get too hot and I will jerk away my hands. Then I wonder how bad it would be if I couldn't jerk them away. I imagine that momentary pain, which causes me to wave my hands in the air to cool them, continuing. It would be simply unimaginable. And this would be considered a mild form of torture.

Torture causes major psychological damage, but the pain and suffering is simply unbearable. Sometimes in our daily lives we suffer pain, but it is bearable. It is understandable. It may hurt, but we can contain ourselves. But what if it wasn't. What if it went beyond our level of comprehension? It's too horrible to imagine. Not only that, but people are often physically injuried, or damaged from the treatment. Injuries, amputations, diseases, all with the associated extreme physical and psychological pain is too horrendous to fathom.

We have made great strides, but I think it should be our top goal to eradicate torture from the face of the planet. Of course, we cannot fully eliminate it, because people will do evil things, but we can at least remove it from official use anywhere. I believe we must apply extreme pressure to any country where this happens. Forget sanctions or embargoes, countries of good will must completely and absolutely disassociate themselves from countries that torture. Cut all economic, diplomatic, and cultural ties to these countries. Forbid citizens from going there. This should be done at an international level with many or most countries participating. Perhaps the UN would be a good association to facilitate this. We cannot deal with this problem with kid-gloves. These countries must be isolated, segretated, until they completely remove torture from their official repetoire. Eventually these countries will suffer economically and once things are dire enough, they will reform their ways.

If reform cannot be achieved in this way, further action must be taken, including pro-active regime change. Anything necessary must be done. Also, no modern country has any right to send anybody to a country where torture occurs. I've heard alledged reports of this happening, and it must be stopped immediately.

Torture is useless. It provides no good information in any case. It only serves to destroy human freedom and violates humanity's most sacred rights. It has no place in our world. The objection cases of getting information from a terrorist for example, are few and far between and research shows they are pointless anyway.

I also believe movies such as Saw, Hostel, etc, which glorify torture should be banned. They serve no value in a good society. I have even noticed that some torture scenes are available on Youtube. Youtube has a strict policy against pornography, but isn't this just as damaging? Let's continue to eradicate torture in all its forms from the face of the planet.

Another Fifth Estate Journalist beats a dead horse

I wrote a letter a couple of years ago to Hana Gartner on the Fifth Estate bemoaning her lack of creativity when she did a story on priestly sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. I said the Fifth Estate should uncover news, not beat dead horses and rehash old canards. She wrote me back, to my surprised, saying she knew it was a dead horse and that she will be doing an article on teacher sexual assault. In my letter I told her teachers abuse children 4 to 10 times more than priests. That article never surfaced from her.

Now another Fifth Estater has written about priestly abuse. His groundbreaking, original story has uncovered new facts and details which no one could have ever imagined... NOT. Lyndon MacIntyre continues to harp on a worn out issue that's well past its expiry date. Why not do something original? If I were a journalist, I would feel bad if the only thing I could do was rehash old canards. The fiction written by MacIntyre called The Bishop's Man talks about a priest who does the dirty work of a cold-hearted bishop. The bishop (of course) is moving around pedophile priests in order to protect the church and allow them to abuse again. The priest is in charge of keeping things hushed up for the Bishop. I guess MacIntyre felt the media hadn't covered this issue quite enough and felt compelled to offer his two cents worth.

Did priests abuse children? Yes. And it's very very terrible and ought to be condemned. But journalists like MacIntyre want people to think priests are far more likely to abuse people than others in society, which is simply untrue. The stereotype of pedophile priest is completely unjustified. Teachers, for example, are 4 to 10 times more likely to abuse children. In order to avoid this criticism, people like MacIntyre say they are not just talking about the abuse, they are talking about the leadership moving priests around. This is usually where people go when you point out that priests are no more likely to commit pedophile acts than anyone else. To respond to that accusation, we must look at some things. Nearly all of the accusation against priests emerged relatively recently, but actually occurred prior to the 80s. In those times, there was a different societal opinion of what should be done with sex offenders.

It was the prevailing professional opinion of psychologists and others at the time that people who committed these acts could be reformed and their behaviors changed and then they could be relocated. Most priests who were not taken away from their active roles or persecuted were sent for rehabilitation for a year or more then reintroduced, ostensibly cured from their psychological issues. It was not a nefarious plot by the hierarchy to abuse more children. The suggestion of this is absurd. A good point to make is that a parallel example occured in the education system. Teachers abused many more children than priests by a factor of at least 4 and perhaps higher than 10. In a whopping 98% of cases, teachers accused of abusing children were put back into their teaching position after a period of time, often in the same school. People would never claim a malicious plot by school administrators to abuse kids.

The point is there have been a million books, movies, documentaries, novels, etc. written on this topic and it's about time authors looked to other, more original topics. This is especially so when two of the fifth estates' top journalists cover the exact same issue. Perhaps "originality" should be added to the hard hitting reports of these journalists.

The cost of abortion is quite vaste in Canada

I have recently been considering the true cost of abortion in Canada. Of course, the main cost is the lives of the children who lose their lives, but let's consider the financial and human costs.

1) Tax dollars. All abortions in Canada, whether it's a woman's first or tenth, are paid for by tax payers. Those who receive the abortion pay absolutely nothing. All associated hospital fees, etc. are paid for by the government, which indirectly I am forced to pay. Where's my "choice" not to pay for this? In Canada there are around 100,000 abortions per year. If the total cost associated with an abortion, and any possible follow-up costs an average of $800, then Canadians fork over $80 million per year for this procedure. This is Life Canada's estimate, and they believe it is conservative, because there are in fact more than 100,000 abortions per year in Canada, and many abortions cost more than $800 (while some may cost less).

2) Opportunity cost. Abortion occupies a privileged status in Canada's health care system. Unlike certain life-saving procedures, abortions are performed on-demand or within a few days. Virtually no abortions are done for medical necessity, yet they take precedence over procedures which save lives. We've all heard horror stories of people who were waiting months or years for a life-saving procedure, but because there were so many waiting, their health was jeorpardized. Some have even lost their lives. Part of the reason for this is lack of facilities, many of which are being occupied for abortion. If a hospital has 4 operating rooms but one is in almost constant use for abortions, then only 3 remain to perform life-saving procedures. Freeing up this additional room would allow 33% life-saving operations. Many people will object to this logic by saying if someone was rushed to the hospital and had to be operated on, an abortion would wait. I'm not talking about acute medical conditions. I'm talking about waiting lists for very important non-elective procedures which are bottle-necked by abortion.

3) Also, if people having an abortion had to pay for their own, that would free up almost $100 million to use on other programs. There is much good that can come from that much money. Perhaps we could hire more doctors and further reduce wait times. Remember, an abortion is by definition an elective procedure. The only exception is the almost non-existent possibility of a mother's life being in danger. But even without legal abortion, this option was always available. Pregnancy is not a disease, it is the normal functioning of a female body. An unborn baby is as natural in a woman's uterus as anything else.

The costs mentioned above are only financial, and do not include moral, social, personal, and other costs. Let's stop using hard-earned tax payer dollars to fund the killing of children.