Give this man a red hat!

Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, NY is one of the few bishops in America willing to stand up against a culture which calls evil good and good evil.

Bishop Murphy, writing in the Long Island Catholic says, in part:

[O]ur new governor [David A. Paterson] has decided to circumvent the legislature, the courts and any testing of the will of the people. He has decided by an administrative decree that unions of persons of the same sex which are recognized as “marriage” in another state would be recognized and honored as such here in New York. This is just plain wrong.

Put aside the questionable action of a sitting governor subverting the democratic process of discussion, debate and vote. Put aside the lack of reference to the constitution of the State of New York. Put aside the lack of consultation with the State Senate and Assembly. Put aside the total circumvention of any listening to the will of the people. All these are serious deficiencies that render the governor’s action unseemly and indefensible in a democratic society. The fact is what the truth is: this is wrong and no amount of trying to appeal to “fair play” or “equality” or “putting all relationships on the same footing” can make this right.

Amen.

His Excellency has joined ranks (in my book) with fellow bishops Chaput (Denver), Burke (St. Louis), Vasa (Baker, OR), Bruskewitz (Lincoln, NE), Sheridan (Colorado Springs), Finn (Kansas City) and a select few others who are not afraid to speak the truth in love and who bend to Christ rather than popular opinion.

By way of contrast, 'disappointing and weak' would have to be my take on Cardinal Mahony's response to the recent California Supreme Court ruling.

I say, take Mahony's red had and give it to Murphy.

Catholic Charities

This just in.

Federal authorities are investigating the actions of a Catholic charity in Richmond [Virginia] which helped a 16-year-old Guatemalan girl to receive an abortion in January, in possible violation of Virginia law.

--snip--

The unnamed girl, who already had one child, had been fitted with a contraceptive device provided by CCR two months earlier, the letter said. CCR members signed the consent form necessary for a minor to have an abortion and had someone drive her to and from the abortion clinic.

Richmond Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, with Bishops John C. Wester and Michael P. Driscoll, wrote a letter to bishops nationwide detailing decisions that preceded the Jan. 18 abortion.

It is illegal in Virginia for a social worker to sign a parental consent form for an abortion. The state's notification law stipulates that at least one parent, grandparent or adult sibling must give consent.

The girl, whose parents are missing, was a ward of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

HHS provides $7.6 million a year in contracts with the USCCB for foster care of immigrant children. The bishops group subcontracts services through agencies like Commonwealth Catholic Charities.

--snip--

"Some members of the MRS staff were not sufficiently aware of church teaching and [USCCB] policy regarding these matters to take stronger and more appropriate actions," Bishops DiLorenzo, Wester and Driscoll said in a letter to their peers.

"This incident is a most regrettable stain on the record of excellence in the work both of MRS and of Catholic Charities," they said.

CCR is a member of Catholic Charities USA, a social service network serving 8 million people.

Imagine that. The staff members who forged a signature on a parental consent form required for minors in Virginia to obtain an abortion "were not sufficiently aware of church [small c] teaching and policy."

As one reader points out, "'Catholic' Charities has not been a Catholic organization for some time now. In my own diocese, the professional do-gooders align with the Democratic party platform, with the occasional nod to Catholic teaching only when a particularly stubborn Catholic layperson threatens to expose them as the blatant secularists that they are."

I have always been reluctant to give to Catholic Charities USA. I'm always reluctant to give to Catholic Relief Services. And I'm always reluctant to give to my own Archdiocese.

Perhaps now you can see why.

No thanks. I'll continue sending my tithe to the local parish (Catholic in more than name only) and to organizations with a deep love for the Catholic faith like EWTN, Catholic Answers and the Legionaries of Christ.

At least that way I can rest assured I'm not helping some girl obtain contraceptives or procure an abortion.

Letter of Recommendation

Last November, while on the campaign trail for Democratic hopeful Barack Obama, Laurence Tribe called Obama the "best student I ever had." Not bad coming from a one-time potential Supreme Court nominee and professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School.

But wait a minute. I thought that honor had already been awarded to someone else?

Kathleen Marie Sullivan (born August 20, 1955), one of America's leading scholars in constitutional law, is a professor at the Stanford Law School and currently practices appellate litigation at Quinn Emanuel Urquart Oliver & Hedges, LLP, a law firm in California.

Born in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, Sullivan was the dean of Stanford Law School from 1999 to 2004. She was a professor of law at Harvard Law School from 1984 to 1993. She graduated from Cornell University in 1976, graduated as a Marshall Scholar from Oxford in 1978 and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1981, where her mentor Laurence Tribe called her "the most extraordinary student I had ever had."

Quote of the day

In response to the Church of England's approval of artificial birth control, Pope Pius XI issued his encyclical "Casti Connubii" on December 31, 1930, stating

"Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such away that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin."

Papal Mass

..In other news, we managed to put together an embarassing and downright shameful liturgy at our nation's capital for our Holy Father today. If you had the good fortune to miss it, let me bring you up to speed.

With music a la Marty Haugen's 'Mass of Creation,' worship and conscious participation in the Sacred Mysteries was made that much more difficult. There was a misplaced and awkward sort of bounce to the organ music(I suppose we should be grateful an organ was used at all), and of course everything was sung in minor keys.

Then there was the first reading. In Spanish, naturally. After all, this is the United States of Mexico.

The Spanish reading was done by a lay woman, and she was followed by another woman who cantored a particularly painful rendition of the Responsorial Psalm. And it was a third lay woman who read for us the second reading.

Pure happenstance, you see. Three for three; what were the odds?

I half expected to see a nun in plain clothes come up to read the Gospel.

I'm sure whoever orchestrated this shindig is quite pleased and felt they did a marvelous job. But it really is time we do us all a favor and let them go, so we can recover a true Spirit of the Liturgy.

Uh huh

Three kinds of people

There are really only three kinds of people in this world. The haves. The have-nots. And the haven't-paid-for-what-we-haves.

I'm a fellow Dave Ramsey-ite. You gotta find this guy on your radio; he's great.