Showing posts with label Marxism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marxism. Show all posts

Friday, February 25, 2011

Two German Attorneys Charge Benedict With Crimes Against Humanity in World Court

Once again invoking the rare instance of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, they have an agenda to promote.  It's the only institution left in the world which is standing against their dictatorship of relativism. 
TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity.

Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, based at Marktheidenfeld in the Pope’s home state of Bavaria, last week submitted a 16,500-word document to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Dr Luis Moreno Ocampo.

Their charges concern “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.

Read further...

Monday, December 27, 2010

USCCB Promotes Socialist Causes: Often Silent about Catholic Ones

Editor:  The USCCB is good good at undermining things, making useless pronouncments, creating the conditions of the decline and obsolescence of the Catholic Church in America.  Their agendas are out of the Marxist playbook: disarmament, false ecumenism, updating, diversity, "peace and justice" stuff and so on and so forth.  The only thing the USCCB can be counted on doing is attacking the Catholic Church, so Tom Roesser, thanks to Tom at AQ.

How’s the USCCB Doing? Lobbying for the DREAM Act but Not a Word Against DADT. Parse-Parse. What Else Is New?


         The only time in the New Testament when the apostles of Christ…later to become the first bishops… turned collegial came at Gethsemane after the chief priests and Pharisees arrived to arrest Jesus. The four gospels agree and say the same thing:
       “they all fled.”   [Hat tip: Michael Voris].
         Of course that was before the intercession of the Holy Spirit.  After the coming of the Holy Spirit most of them held so courageously for the Church they  went on to martyrdom.   Since then things have been, oh, so-so.   For example when England turned Protestant with a vengeance (sufficient enough to behead Thomas More) all the bishops fled…accepting the clerical domination of the King instead of the Pope,  except one—St.  John Fisher. 

Read further, here...

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Chinese bishops deported to attend Patriotic Assembly

CHINA – VATICAN

by W. Zhicheng - Z. Yuan
The gathering, incompatible with the faith of Catholics, aims to elect the Presidents of the Patriotic Association and the Council of Bishops. Some bishops have gone into hiding to avoid having to participate, while others have been taken against their will. The bishop of Hengshui, seized and torn from the safe cover of the faithful, dragged to Beijing.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - AsiaNews sources say that dozens of bishops of the official Church have been forcibly deported to the capital to ensure their participation at the Assembly of representatives of Chinese Catholics, which the pope considers incompatible with Catholic faith.

The Assembly opened today in Beijing on a low profileand is being shrouded in secrecy: it is impossible to contact anyone and not even Xinhua is reporting on the event. The meeting should lead to the election of the national president of the Patriotic Association and president of the council of Chinese bishops, two bodies that are unacceptable to the Catholic Church because they aim to build a separate Church, detached from the pope. "It's just an election of a new round of leadership," said Liu Bainian, vice president and chairman of the PA Assembly. In fact, the gathering is the "sovereign body" of the official Chinese church in which bishops are a minority among Catholics and government representatives. Ecclesial decisions are made on the basis of rigged elections. Ahead of today's meeting, Liu Bainian had sent all participants clear indications of what to do and what to vote.

Monday, October 4, 2010

"Catholic" Charities Gets 66% From Government


Catholic Charities rakes in more than 3.83 Billion, and they spend more than that.

We always thought Catholic Charities was a bad idea. No wonder the Bishops like this hush money. Don't talk about the Catholic Faith too much, or at all if you can help it, and we'll keep you on the gravy train, they seem to say.



Read rest of article at Forbes...

Thursday, February 4, 2010

WIRE: Backdoor taxes to hit middle class...

« on: Today at 08:34:58 AM »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100201/bs_nm/us_budget_backdoortaxes

By Terri Cullen Terri Cullen – Mon Feb 1, 4:09 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.

While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.

If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.

Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 -- though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.

Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue.

Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year's levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy -- the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.

Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them:

* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;

* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;

* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;

* Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;

* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.

h/t: Michael Savage

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Beatify Archbishop Romero Now!


Beatify Archbishop Romero Now!

Not too much enthusiasm for +Romero, but this painting showing affinities to Diego Rivera's Mexican Muralism Style is telling. The enemies within the Church can use a Saint to give their cause of Liberation Theology a boost. Archbishop Romero, like the USCCB back in the 70s was trying to tell landowners how to dispose of their property; never mind that the land schemes envisioned by the +Romero and the Government and reformers actually put people out of work and made the El Salvadoran agricultural less efficient.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Bishop Hubbard is Promoting Needle Exchange

Surely you might recall this Neo-Marxist Bishop's recent support for the Nicaraguan "martyrs", Illegal immigration, supporting our enemies by promoting "No Nukes" and the mysterious death of one of his priests after said priest signed a document denying the allegations he made against Bishop Hubbard.

Now he's engaging in other policies that have done so much to make Holland the wonderful place it is today, needle exchange.

[Catholic Culture] Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, who serves as chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, has approved a proposal by diocesan Catholic Charities to distribute free needles to drug abusers in the hope of preventing the spread of AIDS.

“I understand there will be questions, but this is common sense,” said Sister Maureen Joyce, CEO of Catholic Charities. “I strongly believe in this. It will save lives.”

“From a theological standpoint, we're not being faithful to our mission if we don't reach out to people addicted to drugs, too,” Sister Joyce added.

An $83,000 van filled with syringes will be parked in two neighborhoods and serve as the focal point of Catholic Charities’ needle distribution efforts.


Read some more, please....

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Dealer to Junkies: "Don't Abandon Health Care"

Unelected Bishops aren't satisfied with soft-socialism, they're still bent on the ineffective the highly centralized and failed economic practices of 1848-1992. Despite the best efforts of their DNC masters, the USCCB has failed to push the Socialist agenda yet again. The problem is, however, is that they are using the spiritual capital of the Catholic Church in the United States to push the socialist agendas of others who are not friendly to the Catholic Church. Still, these bemitred denizens of heterodoxy at the USCCB are not willing to give up so easily, they are haranguing their socialist colleagues for yet another go at the freedom and liberty not only of Holy Mother Church, but also the American taxpayer.

January 27, 2010


Months after threatening to oppose the health care overhaul over abortion – and one week after the election of a 41st Republican senator cost the Democrats their filibuster-proof majority, casting passage into doubt – Catholic bishops now are urging Congress against dropping the project.

“The health care debate, with all its political and ideological conflict, seems to have lost its central moral focus and policy priority, which is to ensure that affordable, quality, life-giving care is available to all,” Cardinal Daniel DiDinardo and bishops William F. Murphy and John Wester, writing on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, say in a letter sent to members of Congress this week. “Now is not the time to abandon this task, but rather to set aside partisan divisions and special interest pressures to find ways to enact genuine reform. Although political contexts have changed, the moral and policy failure that leaves tens of millions of our sisters and brothers without access to health care still remains.”

The bishops have advocated consistently for broadening access to health care, but oppose abortion. In November, the conference took an active role in lobbying for an amendment to the House version of the health care overhaul to prohibit taxpayer subsidies for insurance plans that cover the procedure.




Related Articles:



Catholic Bishops Pursuing Liberal Policy Advocating Socialized Medicine.


More USCCB advocating Socialism

USCCB Media Blog

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Vietnam and Vatican discuss Diplomatic Ties

(February 20, 2009) The Holy See and Vietnam have laid a “good basis” for establishing diplomatic relations during annual meetings this week, although no target has been set, a Vatican envoy said on Thursday. The meeting was held in a “very frank and open atmosphere,” Monsignor Pietro Parolin, the Vatican under-secretary for Relation with States told reporters after meeting with Nguyen The Doanh, head of Vietnam's religious affairs commission. Tensions have existed between the Vietnamese government and religious organizations for years. Communist authorities closely monitor religious groups and insist on approving most church appointments. But recently, relations between Hanoi and the Holy See have begun to thaw. Talks between the government and Vatican have been held since 1990, but the latest round marked the first meeting of a working group studying the renewal of diplomatic ties. “We have already set up good basis for further progress,” Msgr. Parolin said, adding that it was impossible to say how long the process would take. “The outcome will be diplomatic relations,” he added. He also told reporters he hoped the Pope might come to Vietnam this year, although no plans had been made for a visit. The working group held its first sessions on Monday and Tuesday, when Msgr. Parolin met Vice Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Cuong. Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said this week's meeting was an “important step” in the development of relations between Vietnam and the Vatican. Msgr. Parolin's delegation is scheduled to visit two dioceses in northern Vietnam later this week before returning to Rome on Sunday. Vietnam has one of Asia's largest Catholic populations, with more than 6 million followers.


Link to original...


Link to related story about Vietnamese government oppressing Catholics, as usual.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The Lion of Belgium Meets the Jackals


Today, there has been increased criticism of Archbishop Léonard from the Belgian State, rather like the criticism levelled against Fr. Wagner in Linz and one of Holy Father's other appointments in Basque Country Bishop Blasquez in 1995, and more recently in December of 2009.

Sure enough, he's being also criticized by the faculty of Louvain, criticized rather accurately through the years as a center of dissent:

Léonard has beene a controversial figure in Belgium for his critical stands on homosexuality, same-sex marriage and condom use. He has been an outspoken opponent of abortion and euthanasia, both of which are legal in Belgium, and criticised the Catholic universities of Leuven and Louvain for their research into assisted reproduction and embryonic stem cells.


Of course, their allies in the Socialist party were also eager to put in their conerns as well:

The Socialist Party said it “insists that Archbishop Léonard respects democratic decisions taken by the institutions of our country. For the Socialist Party, the rights and duties that people take on democratically take precedence over religious traditions and commandments, without any exception.”

Catholic Culture says this about the demographics of Belgium. We predict the current languishing of the vocations under the leadership of outgoing Cardinal Daneels will become a thing of the past under the new Archbishop's administration.

The nation of 7.8 million is 73% Catholic. It has 3,928 parishes, 6,489 priests, 11,771 sisters, and 201 seminarians. The ratio of seminarians to Catholics makes Belgium one of the world's most "vocation-poor" nations.

Related Articles:

Red Basques Attack Episcopal Pick

Progressive Priests Reject Pope's Pick in Spain

Friday, January 15, 2010

American Bishops Ask Obama to Grant Hatians Temporary Citizenship

The magnanimity of the American Bishops offers yet another opportunity to expand the welfare state even beyond the boarders of our country.

In a letter President Barack Obama on January 15, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, asked the White House to designate the country of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

“It is clear that Haiti merits an immediate designation of TPS after suffering the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake of January 12, one of the worst in Haitian history,” Cardinal George said in the letter.

TPS permits nationals of a designated nation living in the United States to reside here legally and qualify for work authorization. TPS designation is based upon determination that armed conflict, political unrest, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions exist in a nation and that the return of that country’s nationals would further destabilize the nation and potentially bring harm to those returned.

Read further...

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Sandro Magister Deals with Copenhagen Treaty with Style

At last these journalists are asking people who know what they're talking about instead of going to the usual baddies like Fr. McBrien, Bishop Gumbleton or Sister Joan Chittister.

eurofoot

Pope Benedict XVI has denounced the failure of world leaders to agree to a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen last month, saying that world peace depends on safeguarding God’s creation. He also criticised the “economic and political resistance” to fighting environmental degradation.

The statement came in an annual speech to ambassadors in which the pontiff reflects on issues the Vatican wants to highlight.

So what will the Vatican’s foreign policy be in 2010?

Paulo Alberto from Euronews talked to Alessandro Magister, a specialist on Vatican affairs, in Rome.

Paulo Alberto: So what has come out of this meeting? What will the Vatican’s foreign policy be in 2010?

Alessandro Magister: This year, the main issue is the environment, safeguarding “the creation”. But listen carefully because the Vatican has a unique take on this. As Benedict XVI said in his speech to the diplomats, the support that the Catholic Church wants to offer towards the global effort to save the environment is very particular. In the view of Benedict XVI, this is to understand and to demonstrate that there is an unbreakable link between “ecology” and “nature” and between “ecology” and “human beings”.

Paulo Alberto: From this idea, the Pope has outlined a number of problems; terrorism for instance. Is the church trying to affirm its commitment to peace via ecology?

Alessandro Magister: No, pacifism has no connection with the church’s activities in the world. Being pacifist concerns individuals, not a complex organisation like a State or a Church. As far as the Church’s doctrine goes, the State is obliged to protect the weak, those who have been victimised, even if it takes force to do so.

Paulo Alberto: So the Church is not pacifist?

Alessandro Magister: No, absolutely not! Even John Paul II – and everyone remembers how opposed he was to the war in Iraq – even he defined himself as a non-pacifist. He said, very clearly, “I am not a pacifist.” Remember that John Paul II asked for the use of force in situations like the ex-Yugoslavia, torn apart by civil and ethnic wars, and in Rwanda.

Paulo Alberto: Thank you.

Copyright © 2010 euronews

Tags: Benedict XVI, Copenhagen Climate conference

Thursday, January 7, 2010

US Bishops Seeking Immigration Reform in '10

More Immigration "Reform" being pushed by the usual suspects at the USCCB.


WASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 6, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The U.S. bishops are seeking legislation to reform immigration policy in 2010, saying migration should be a choice, not a necessity.

The bishops' conference announced today the beginning of a postcard campaign and two Web sites to help build momentum in the effort to bring reform to immigration laws this year.

Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, Utah, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Migration, and Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, New York, chairman of the bishops' International Policy Committee, made the announcement. The campaign comes as National Migration Week is under way through Saturday, focused on "Renewing Hope, Seeking Justice."

"It is our view, and that of others, that the American public, including the Catholic and other faith communities, want a humane and comprehensive solution to the problems which beset our immigration system, and they want Congress to address this issue,” said Bishop Wester.

Read further...

h/t Saint Paul TODAY, here.

USCCB, Immigration Reform, a failure of Imagination.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Bishop Yao Liang, 87, Imprisoned in China for Loyalty to the Vatican, Dies

This is another great article by the usually very Marxist New York Times. The new owner of the paper, or the largest shareholder, who kept the paper from bankruptcy might be pro-immigration, but he might also pushign this paper to be more favoreable to the Church as well. This article owns that the Chicoms are persecuting the Catholic Church and it owns the heroic resistance of a saintly Bishop. Here's a life worth celebrating.

Published: January 5, 2010

BEIJING — Leo Yao Liang, a Roman Catholic bishop who spent 28 years in Chinese prisons during Mao’s rule for his refusal to renounce his allegiance to the Vatican, died on Dec. 30 in Xiwanzi, a town in north China’s Hebei Province.

Bishop Yao was 87 and had been ill with a severe cold for about two weeks before his death, according to Song Feng, the president of the Catholic Association of Xiwanzi Church.

The Cardinal Kung Foundation, which is based in Connecticut and advocates religious freedom for Catholics in China, stated on its Web site that the report of Bishop Yao’s death had apparently been delayed because Chinese authorities sought to withhold the news.

Short and stout, with a shock of white hair and a booming voice, Bishop Yao presided almost up to his death over daily open-air Masses that drew hundreds of worshipers, and Sunday Masses that often attracted a thousand people. [!] The Chinese authorities forbade him to carry out his administrative duties as bishop but did not overtly interfere with his clerical activities.

China’s government does not recognize the Roman Catholic Church or its bishops. Instead, it promotes a government-affiliated faith, the Patriotic Catholic Association. But millions of Chinese are believed to remain loyal to the Vatican and attend so-called underground churches like those that Bishop Yao led. There are reported to be 15,000 Catholic worshipers in Xiwanzi diocese, where he was secretly made an auxiliary bishop in 2002.

For years after his release from prison in 1984, Mr. Song said, Bishop Yao urged his parishioners to follow a course of quiet but steadfast opposition both to the Patriotic Catholic Association and to government restrictions on their right to worship. But after Pope Benedict XVI made improved relations between the Vatican and Beijing a priority, he said, Bishop Yao began working to repair relations with the government.

The mourners at his weeklong funeral, which concludes with his burial on Wednesday, have included a number of local government officials, Mr. Song said.

Yao Liang was born in Hebei in 1923 and became a priest in 1946, according to the Kung Foundation. But after the Communist Party took power in 1949, Catholicism was outlawed, and Bishop Yao’s religious work became more and more circumscribed. In 1956 the government sent him to a labor camp, and in 1958 he was sentenced to prison for life after refusing to abandon his allegiance to the Vatican.

Bishop Yao said little about his 28 years of imprisonment.

“Only sometimes he would complain to close friends about the unspeakable experience,” Mr. Song said. “He personally witnessed people being killed by the P.L.A.” — the People’s Liberation Army — “when he was taken to prison, and he was very traumatized.”

His 1984 release came as the Chinese government relaxed many of the restrictions of the Mao era. While many Catholic priests were still persecuted and Catholicism was strongly discouraged, worshipers were tacitly allowed to congregate at underground churches.

Mr. Song said that Bishop Yao was assigned by the government to be the pastor at a remote rural church in a mountainous area 25 miles from Xiwanzi. In 1997 he came to Xiwanzi, a town of about 7,000 people about 160 miles north of Beijing, close to the border with inner Mongolia.

Even at an advanced age, his problems with the government did not end. In 2006 the authorities ordered Mr. Yao to spend two and a half years in isolation from outsiders, studying Chinese religious laws, after he was held responsible for two conflicts between the government and underground churches.

Bishop Yao was directly involved in the first incident, in which worshipers built a new Catholic church and staffed it with priests not certified by the government, Mr. Song said. But he had no role in the second, in which angry Catholics laid siege to local government offices for three days during a dispute with a Patriotic Catholic organization.

Bishop Yao’s death, not quite a year after he was released from detention, leaves mainland China with 94 Vatican-approved bishops. The authorities are reported to have stepped up security for his burial in the Xiwanzi church graveyard, a ceremony that is expected to attract thousands despite record snows in the area.

Remembering a Lasallian Missionary to Central America

Brother James Miller gave his life for God, and now the Roman Catholic Church has begun the process to make the Saint Mary's University graduate a saint.

Earlier this year, he was designated a "servant of God" and a martyr for the faith - beginning a journey that could end in canonization, the Roman Catholic process of sainthood. He is the only SMU graduate to be considered for the designation.

Miller was born prematurely - weighing barely 4 pounds - in 1944 in Stevens Point, Wis. But he grew up to tower over people, standing at 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighing more than 200 pounds. He was a farm kid with a knack for language and boisterous guffaw that could startle some.

Miller's religious studies at SMU in the mid-1960s culminated in his career teaching indigenous Latin American Indians. Many of his contemporaries in the Lasallian order describe a man perfectly suited for life in Central America - an agrarian background and fluency in Spanish and English. But most importantly, Miller felt especially strongly about educating the Indians in the classroom and in the field, where he taught agriculture.

It was there, outside a Guatemalan school where Miller was repairing a wall in 1982, three assassins took his life.

Passion for education

Miller found his passion in 1974 when he was assigned to Nicaragua.

His work there included expanding a school for indigenous tribes, doubling the faculty and the student body to 800 people.

Though not necessarily sympathetic to the political aims of the Somoza family that controlled Nicaragua, Miller maintained a close alliance with the regime because he saw it as a way to expand the school, said Brother Francis Carr, a classmate and fellow Lasallian brother. But, as unrest wracked the country, many local residents took Miller's cordial relationship with the Somoza government as tacit support.

As the Sandinista revolution spread throughout Nicaragua and the rural countryside, Miller started receiving threats. In fact, the Sandinistas rebels put Miller on a list of people to be "dealt with" when they came into power.[That's a good list to be on]

Miller fell further out of favor as he and other teachers tried to keep students out of military service.

The rebel war drew closer to his school in Puerto Cabezas, and machine gun fire could often be heard outside. Realizing the threats, Miller advanced a planned vacation to Wisconsin in which he’d help celebrate the centennial of his home parish.

“Under the pretext of being the companion of an aged nun, he was able to fly to Managua on a Red Cross plane and obtain a flight to the United States,” wrote Brother Theodore Drahmann in

his book, “Hermano Santiago: The Life and Times of Brother James Miller.”

Miller was worried his departure would be seen as fleeing out of fear and wrote to several people emphatically telling them of his return.

“Keep the Institute going, all of you,” he wrote. “Students, teachers and workers have the responsibility to care for the school. I will be back in one month. Remember that building the new structure was hard; now that we have it, maintain it, keep it pretty. I will see you later.”

Shortly after he left, the Somoza government fell to the Sandinistas, and the religious superiors of the Lasallian order decided Miller would not return to Nicaragua.

Trip back home, then a new assignment

Miller spent a frustrating year and a half in America, first in Wisconsin and later in the Twin Cities.

“I’m bored up here,” he wrote. “I hate snow, even the little we’ve gotten this year. I guess it’s no secret that I am anxious to return to Latin America. I just don’t function to my best potential up here anymore,” Miller wrote to Brother Martin Spellman.

In January 1981, Miller learned he would be assigned to Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

The assignment in Huehuetenango wasn’t so unlike the assignment in Nicaragua. He taught and worked on a farm that helped support an Indian school. And he helped Mayan Indians study their own culture and trained them to be teachers so they could go back to the villages and educate. But there was another reason for the education: to keep the Indians from being conscripted into the army.

“The brothers (at the school) were all about the kids, and if the government got in the way of the kids, they’d stick their noses in it,” Carr said. “And the government saw that, and it didn’t like it.”

This caught the attention of the already embattled government, which was trying to stave off insurgents. The Christian brothers and the school were seen with suspicion. Rumors began to circulate that the school was sympathetic to — even harboring — some guerrilla fighters.

Those rumors weren’t true and were probably started by the army to arouse public sentiment against the school, Spellman said. Anyone not openly supportive of the government was believed to be working against it. Yet Spellman also said that unlike his time in Nicaragua, Miller refrained from entering the political fray and instead focused more on the agricultural and teaching aspects of the job.

Still, Miller acknowledged the risky political situation.

“The level of violence here is reaching appalling proportions, (murders, torture, kidnappings, threats) and the Church is being persecuted because of its option for the poor,” Miller wrote. “Aware of the many difficulties and risks, we continue to work with faith and hope and trust in God’s providence.”

As violence spread throughout the country, Spellman and other Roman Catholic religious workers were told by credible sources that someone in a religious order — somewhere in Guatemala — would be killed. But Spellman never thought the assassination would reach remote Huehuetenango.

And nobody thought it would be the big guy from Wisconsin.

“While all the other brothers were talking about the political situation, Brother James was asking about mops and buckets for the kids,” Spellman said. “He was apolitical, really.”

Gunned down, with no justice for his death

Accounts of Miller’s death differ, but this much is clear: On Feb. 13, 1982, Miller was repairing a wall on the 100-year-old school building. He sent a young boy who was helping him inside to get a tool or some other object as he continued to work, according to interviews in Drahmann’s book. Several children looked on from a second-story window when three men stepped forward, pulled guns at point-blank range and fired.

Miller was probably dead before he hit the ground. People standing on the street saw the three men run toward the military base in town.

Calls from the American Consulate and Roman Catholic Church to investigate the murder poured in to Guatemala City. Two months after Miller’s death, the Guatemalan government expressed regret the case had dragged on for so long. Miller was one of thousands of missing or murdered people in a country ripped apart by bloodshed and political upheaval.

The Guatemalan government eventually concluded that “subversive criminal elements” had probably murdered Miller. The government then closed the case, without naming the murderers and without justice.

Spellman is still shocked and angered by Miller’s death.

“It was a senseless murder,” he said. “It was done by a goon squad.”

Spellman said it was possible to learn who committed the murders, but doing so only endangered more religious workers and residents. So, it became a simple equation: Risk more lives for the justice of one, or pass on the opportunity to close a murder.

“We had to explain to the Miller family there wouldn’t be justice for his death,” Spellman said. “Mrs. Miller (James’ mother) was strong, and she understood.”

Today, nearly three decades after Miller’s death, Spellman doesn’t doubt it was a case of mistaken identity.

Years later, a close friend of his with ties to the military confided to the brothers that Miller was misidentified.

“He said the priest we killed was by mistake,” Spellman said. “Brother James would have been the last one (to be assassinated), but to them, we all looked the same.”

Hermano Santiago’s case moves forward

Carr, the Lasallian brother, believes the push to have Miller canonized has come late because the political climate in Guatemala had been so unstable. But now the bishops of Guatemala have pressed forward with the man they call “Hermano Santiago.”

Carr is quick to point out there were other lay members who also died in Guatemala teaching the faith.

“We wanted the others to be part of the movement toward canonization,” Carr said. “But that part isn’t moving (through the process). This isn’t just about Jim Miller.

“For those of us who knew him, he was ordinary like us,” Carr said. “But if you die for something you believe in, that’s something altogether different.”

The Vatican will continue to examine Miller’s case. For example, because he was a martyr, officials will look for just one miracle, instead of the customary two usually required for canonization.

“I suppose if we knew any saint, they wouldn’t always be the easiest people to live around,” Spellman said. “And you know, they weren’t born with halos on their heads.

“But he died in the order [that should be odor of sanctity] of sanctity, and not a lot of people realized his piety,” he said. “His letters are full of asking people for prayers. That impresses me a great deal.”

Link to original...

h/t to the comrades at: Stella Borealis

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Avatar is More Agit-Prop

Why Does Cameron Infantilize Natives?

Big Hollywood

by Kurt Schlichter

There’s no hiding that Avatar is a politically correct piece of semi-coherent agit-prop lurking behind a lot of over-praised CGI effects. While the fanboys hype it as the next great leap forward in filmmaking, it actually takes a huge step backward by employing one of the oldest and lamest of clichés – the white guy hero representing Western civilization who comes along and saves the natives while embracing their simple yet wise ways.

Read further...

Monday, December 28, 2009

CHA Denies Spilt with Bishops on Abortion

Despite previous reports of disengagement with the USCCB at the New York Times on Healthcare Reform with respect to Abortion, the head of CHA, Sister Keehan, insists that they are fully behind the US Bishop's socialist agenda and its tentative Prolife position.

'Not a shred of disagreement' between CHA, bishops on health reform

By Nancy Frazier O'Brien
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Despite a New York Times report to the contrary, the Catholic Health Association and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are working together to achieve health reform legislation that does not expand federal funding of abortion, according to the CHA president and CEO.

Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity, told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview Dec. 28 that her organization has never wavered in its commitment to health care that protects "from conception to natural death," as outlined in the CHA document, "Our Vision for U.S. Health Care."

She disputed a report in The New York Times Dec. 26 that a recent CHA statement on Senate negotiations over abortion funding in health reform legislation represented a split with the bishops.

"There is not a shred of disagreement between CHA and the bishops," Sister Carol said. "We believe there is a great possibility and probability that in conference committee we can work toward a solution that will prevent federal funding of abortion."

She said the CHA, which represents more than 600 Catholic hospitals in the U.S., "brings a lot of expertise with funding structures in the marketplace" to the debate and hopes to "bring that to bear" during the conference committee's work.

Shortly before the Senate approved its version of health reform legislation early Dec. 24, the chairmen of three USCCB committees said the bill should not be approved "without incorporating essential changes to ensure" that it "truly protects the life, dignity, consciences and health of all."

In a letter sent late Dec. 22, about 36 hours before the Senate's 60-39 vote along party lines, the USCCB leaders pledged continued efforts to incorporate needed changes during the work of the House-Senate conference committee.

"For many months, our bishops' conference has worked with members of Congress, the administration and others to fashion health care reform legislation that truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all," said the letter signed by Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston and Bishops William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., and John C. Wester of Salt Lake City.

The three chair the USCCB committees on Pro-Life Activities, on Domestic Justice and Human Development and on Migration, respectively.

"We regret to say that in all the areas of our moral concern, the Senate health care reform bill is deficient," the three chairmen added.

The bishops said their biggest problem with the Senate bill was its treatment of abortion funding, which "not only falls short of the House's standard but violates long-standing precedent in all other federal health programs."

In addition to not maintaining the legal status quo on abortion funding that has been supported by President Barack Obama and by the majority of Americans in many polls, the abortion provisions in the manager's amendment to the Senate bill would require purchasers of some health insurance plans "to pay for other people's abortions in a very direct and explicit way," the USCCB letter said.

"There is no provision for individuals to opt out of this abortion payment in federally subsidized plans, so people will be required by law to pay for other people's abortions," it added.

The Senate bill also fails to include provisions to prevent "discrimination against health care providers that decline involvement in abortion" and would not protect the rights of Catholic and other institutions "to provide and purchase health coverage consistent with their moral and religious convictions on other procedures," the chairmen said.

The letter also urged changes in the Senate bill's provisions barring undocumented immigrants from purchasing health insurance from an exchange with their own money and banning legal immigrants from federal health benefit programs for five years.

Sister Carol said Times reporter David D. Kirkpatrick based his Dec. 26 story on a Dec. 17 CHA statement which noted that CHA had not reviewed the language of various amendments on the table at the time but was "encouraged by recent deliberations and the outline" Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., was developing.

At that point, "I felt they were making progress and were getting where we needed to be," she said.

"I understand that it doesn't make a good story to say (CHA and the USCCB) are working together," Sister Carol added. "But it would have been an honest story."

In an earlier statement, Cardinal DiNardo said the USCCB would continue to oppose the Senate legislation "unless and until" it is amended to "comply with long-standing Hyde restrictions on federal funding of elective abortions and health plans that include them."

The Hyde amendment prohibits federal funding of abortion except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the woman's life.

On abortion, the USCCB had backed a bipartisan amendment sponsored by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and others. Similar to a House-passed measure sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., the amendment would have incorporated the Hyde amendment protections into the health reform bill.

When the Senate tabled Nelson's amendment in a 54-45 vote Dec. 8, Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, USCCB president, and the three USCCB chairmen called it "a grave mistake and a serious blow to genuine health reform."

Nelson joined with the 57 other Senate Democrats and two independents in voting Dec. 19 to end debate on the health reform legislation, cutting off a Republican filibuster.

Nelson told the Lincoln Journal Star Dec. 23 that he "did not compromise my pro-life principles" by supporting the Senate language on abortion funding. "We just found different language that will work," he added.

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Columbian Governor Arrests Christians

Governor outlaws Christianity, arrests believers in Colombia
28 indigenous Colombian Christians have been imprisoned since October for refusing to denounce their faith, reports MNN.

Logan Maurer with International Christian Concern says the central government gave local governors relative autonomy. "They have devolved power to a governor there who has outlawed Christianity. He has said that if anybody there is a Christian, they're going to go to prison."

With that announcement, the local governor over the Kogui (ko-gee) called the Christians together on October 27th. "He was holding a meeting to discuss this issue," said Maurer, "and he surprised these Christians by saying, 'You're all under arrest.'"

The governor wants them to maintain more of the traditional identity to the tribal region, which includes animism. The group is still being held because they refuse to reconvert.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide says at last report, two of the kidnapped infants were seriously ill. The governor and his allies also humiliated non-Christian leaders who had supported the Christians in the community and protected them from being expelled.

What's especially odd about this case is that the Colombian government has apparently refused to act on behalf of the Christians. That's prompting outcry from human rights watchdog groups. Maurer adds that the Colombian government is "willing to ignore its own Constitution and its international agreements, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ICCPR, the ICSECR, and the American Convention on Human Rights--all of which explicitly protect the right of individuals to choose their own faith and to convert of their own free will."

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Is the Left Anti-Semitic After All?

Well, the left hates Joey Liberman (I), so it must be anti-semitic, because it hates Israel. Does the knife cut both ways? Never before has supporting Israel been so much fun, because you get to trash two faulty ideologies at once.

The Examener

Ruminations, December 27, 2009

Health insurance lives saved vs. lives lost
The Institute of Medicine, the health branch of the National Academy of Sciences, issued an analysis that concluded 22,000 lives were lost in 2006 due to a lack of health insurance. Many proponents of the new health care proposals are projecting their figures across 10 years and estimating that the new Congressional health care bill will save, conservatively, 150,000 lives over 10 years.

Although this analysis is speculative, it is an interesting and worthwhile exercise to examine the potential effect of health insurance on longevity. Rather than focusing on the dollars and cents side of the health care debate, perhaps adding an additional balance sheet focusing on lives would be worthwhile.

Saving 22,000 lives per year is based upon 30 million of people who are currently uninsured obtaining insurance and thus being able to afford to see their doctors once a year. If 30 million more people will go to their doctor once a year and, according to some estimates, a doctor and an assistant (nurse, physician’s assistant, or another doctor, etc) can see and examine 2,000 people per year (one visit per person). That means we’ll need 30,000 new medical professionals to see 30 million people. Where will they come from? They won’t materialize from thin air. With current staffing levels, regardless of insurance, we won’t have enough medical professionals to see these people. So maybe, unless or until we can expand our medical professionals, the 30 million people currently uninsured still won’t be able to see a doctor and 22,000 lives we estimated that would be saved will be lost anyway.

While accepting the estimate of 22,000 lives saved in one year, let’s consider the number of lives that the new health care bill may cost. For instance, won’t cutting nearly $500 billion from Medicare over 10 years have an adverse affect on the life spans of 46 million seniors? That’s an average cut of $10,000 per person over 10 years. It seems that by reducing health care by that amount, for a group whose earning power is limited and whose advancing years makes their health precarious enough without the cuts, will contribute to the lives lost count. Will it contribute to the premature death of more than 150,000 over ten years? Could be.

And, while we are on the subject of saving lives, there is no doubt that American medical innovation over the last decades has saved millions of lives. In fact, it is so advanced and superior, that, according to Deloitte & Touche, last year 400,000 people came from foreign lands to get health care in the United States. They came from all over including places such as Canada and Great Britain, where national health care is provided gratis. Why did they come? Not to save money, that’s for sure. They came because they wanted innovative health care that was unavailable in their home countries. Many, including those with diverse political perspectives as liberal former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich and conservative Fox commentator John Stossel, believe that a new health care system will not provide new innovations and, consequently it may cause a number of premature deaths that innovation could have saved.

So, on balance, will the new health care bill in Congress save lives? Maybe not.

Lieberman and anti-Semitism
The last two members of the Democratic caucus fell into line last week and supported the Democrats health care bill. Joe Lieberman (I, CT) and Ben Nelson (D, NE) voted to end debate on the bill and proceed towards its passage.

The left has been almost apoplectic on the about Joe Lieberman (I, CT), who threatened to join Republicans and filibuster the Senate Health Care bill. But when Lieberman’s objections to the “public option” and to the provision to allow people under 65 to apply for Medicare were met, he withdrew his filibuster threat and supported the bill. Lieberman had held out on principle. And by mollifying Lieberman, the Democrats were able to secure his support. But the left still treats him as a traitor.

Ben Nelson (D, NE), the last hold out, came back to the party-line when he was offered a $100 million subsidy for his Nebraska voters and tax breaks for Nebraska insurance companies. After he came back, the left treated him like a hero.

You can agree or disagree with Nelson and Lieberman but can you hold a mercenary in higher regard than a man who stands on principle?

It doesn’t seem so for many of the left. Rosa DeLauro (D, CT) says, “I'll say it flat out, I think he [Lieberman] ought to be recalled." MoveOn.org has raised one million dollars so that when Lieberman “comes up for re-election, we'll make sure we send him home for good.” Michael Moore demands that Connecticut recall Lieberman and wants to punish Connecticut for electing Lieberman by means of a boycott. MSNBC news commentator Keith Obermann said that Lieberman was “embarrassing humanity.” And the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation has been pressured to sever relationship with Lieberman’s wife, Hadassah.

Is there something else at work here – something other than political opposition? When people oppose President Barack Obama, some of Obama’s supporters are quick to state or imply that the reason for the opposition to Obama is racism. Could one conclude that the reason for the strong opposition to Lieberman is anti-Semitism?

First of all, let’s set aside the lunatic fringe that will always be with us. There is no doubt that there is a small group of people who don’t like Lieberman because he is a Jew – just as there exists a small group of people who don’t like Obama because he is black. Small fringe groups, however outrageous their beliefs, are of little concern; when the group gets large or influential, that’s when it bears watching.

In Lieberman’s case, the left has other reasons to dislike him. In 2006, Lieberman returned from a fact-finding trip to Iraq and declared the war not only winnable but worth fighting. This infuriated the left and, at the Connecticut Democratic state Convention, instead of nominating the incumbent Lieberman, anti-war candidate Ned Lamont was nominated for senator. Lieberman then had the effrontery, in the eyes of the left, to run for senator as an independent against a party-line Democrat – and he won.

In 2008, Lieberman spoke at the Republican National Convention and endorsed Republican John McCain.

While many on the left urge rapprochement with Cuba, Lieberman has remained strongly anti-Castro.

And, while a significant portion of the American left leans toward Palestine in the Israeli-Palestinian controversy, Lieberman is strongly pro-Israel.

So the resentment of Lieberman for opposing the party orthodoxy has been building. Was the Health Care kerfuffle the tipping point? Is it a knee-jerk reaction to dismiss Lieberman detractors as anti-Semites? Let’s explore that notion.

There still is a remnant of anti-Semitism in the United States and some of it by seemingly responsible public figures and politicians who should know better. Former Senator Fritz Hollings (D, SC), for example, implied that President Bush initiated the war on terror in order to appease Jews.

While anti-Semitism in the United States is not at the levels it had been in the 1930s, it still exists. In November 2005, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a Campus Anti-Semitism briefing report (http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/081506campusantibrief07.pdf) that said, “Indeed, anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism flourish on college campuses because of the energetic focus of a determined minority and their willingness to dedicate themselves to this cause.” If that was and is the case, we don’t need to wonder that the attitudes of people who have been subjected to academic precepts of anti-Semitism made to sound intellectual will become anti-Semites themselves.

But according to the Commission, it is a small group of determined activists that foment anti-Semitism on campus. And who is it that leads political groups? Small groups of determined activists.

One of the Commission’s major findings is that “The assault on Jewish nationalism is embedded in the ideology of the left” and that "Anti-Semitic bigotry is no less morally deplorable when camouflaged as anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism." As was pointed out above, Lieberman strongly supports Israel.

Former Soviet dissident and Israeli government official Natan Sharansky stated that “One of the major difficulties in grappling with the new anti-Semitism is the ease with which it can be denied. Unlike in the past, post-modern anti-Semitism no longer exclusively involves such phenomena as violence against the Jews, sporting swastikas and burning synagogues. While these phenomena do indeed exist and are even increasing, especially in Europe, today they form only part of the problem.”

So, is opposition to Lieberman anti-Semitism camouflaged as politics or is it legitimate political opposition? It’s probably both. There is no doubt Lieberman has, overall, a liberal voting record. But liberal-versus-conservative voting records are hard to measure; the big issues for the left over the past year have been the war in Iraq, the presidential election and health care. Lieberman has, at times, opposed the left on all three.

Just as Lieberman has taken principled stands to oppose the left, it is fair to say that many on the left are taking principled stands in opposing Lieberman. Some of that opposition may be anti-Semitism camouflaged in principle and some, when it is expressed with venom and rancor, may not be camouflaged but blatant anti-Semitism.

The conclusion? It’s worrisome.

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Sunday, December 27, 2009

Catholic Hospitals and Church Split over Abortion Coverage

As Catholic Schools don't teach much in the way of Catholicism, so Catholic Hospitals are not very consistent in following Catholic moral teaching with regard to abortion. It's unfortunate enough that liberals, getting it wrong as they often do, fail to understand the issue outside of their quest to justify sexual license and personal "liberty" that the consequences of the normalization of this situation is higher than they understand.

As those who have been following the congressional health care bill know, the Catholic Church has played a significant role, expressing its disapproval mostly over federal funding for coverage of abortion procedures. The Church backed the House's Stupak Amendment, which "bars a new government-run insurance plan from covering abortions, except in cases or rape, incest or the life of the mother being in danger, and prohibits any health plan that receives federal subsidies in a new insurance marketplace from offering abortion coverage," and has expressed dismay at the new compromises over abortion in the Senate (ones which, ironically, pro-choice advocates are not happy with either).

From the New York Times, the new provisions allow "any state to bar the use of federal subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortion and requires insurers in other states to divide subsidy money into separate accounts so that only dollars from private premiums would be used to pay for abortions." This makes it difficult, bureaucratic, and certainly not desirable for insurance companies to cover abortions - but it still does not ban abortion coverage completely.

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