Short Blogging Break.

Saturdays and Sundays are set aside to spend with my wife and son, so no blog posts on those days.

Today, I'll be working a double.....sixteen hours. Someone on another shift has to take her husband to the doctor and needs today off (she's used up all her vacation days because of his medical problems). No time for a long post today.

Things should be back to normal Tuesday. Of course, I'll be off all day Wednesday. The woman I'm working for this morning has to "pay me back". This way she won't have an absence counted against her. Yeah, I know.....weird company rules.

HLI Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy.

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, President of Human Life International says it much better than I can, so I will paste his statement here. (the link to the original can be found here.)

Human Life International's Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy

We must, as a matter of precept, pray for the salvation of heretical Catholics like Senator Edward Kennedy, but we do not have to praise him let alone extol him with the full honors of a public Catholic funeral and all the adulation that attends such an event. There was very little about Ted Kennedy's life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today.

Obviously we don't know the state of Senator Edward Kennedy's soul upon death. We don't pretend to. We are told by the family that he had the opportunity to confess his sins before a priest, and his priest has said publicly he was "at peace" when he died. For that we are grateful. But it is one thing to confess one's sins and for these matters to be kept, rightfully, private. It is another thing entirely for one who so consistently and publicly advocated for the destruction of unborn human beings to depart the stage without a public repudiation of these views, a public confession, as it were.

It is up to God to judge Senator Kennedy's soul. We, as rational persons, must judge his actions, and his actions were not at all in line with one who values and carefully applies Church teaching on weighty matters. Ted Kennedy's positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this "catholic" champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity. We now find out that President Obama will eulogize the Senator at his funeral, an indignity which, following on the heels of the Notre Dame fiasco, leaves faithful Catholics feeling sullied, desecrated and dehumanized by men who seem to look for opportunities to slap the Church in the face and do so with impunity simply because they have positions of power.

It is not enough for Kennedy to have been a "great guy behind the scenes" as we have seen him referred to even by his political opponents. It is also not praiseworthy to put a Catholic rhetorical veneer on his leftist politics that did nothing to advance true justice as the Church sees it or to advance the peace of Christ in this world. Every indication of Senator Kennedy's career, every public appearance, every sound bite showed an acerbic, divisive and partisan political hack for whom party politics were much more infallible than Church doctrines. Whatever one's political affiliation, if one is only "Catholic" to the extent that his faith rhymes with his party line, then his Catholicism is a fraud.

As the Scriptures remind us, there is a time for everything under the sun. This, now, is the time for honesty about our Faith and about those who are called to express it in the public forum. If we do not remind ourselves of the necessity of public confession for public sins such as Senator Kennedy was guilty of, then we are negligent in our embrace of the Faith and we are part of the problem. As Pope Benedict has reminded us recently, charity without truth can easily become mere sentimentality, and we must not fall into that error. A Catholic show of charity for the family must not eclipse the truth that is required of all with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Senator Kennedy needs to be sent to the afterlife with a private, family-only funeral and the prayers of the Church for the salvation of his immortal soul. He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans.

Sincerely,

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International

Anonymous Bloggers.

OK, I admit it; I spend a great deal of time on the Internet.
Most of that time is spent reading blogs and professional op-ed pieces.

I do try to keep up on the latest news, but somehow, I'd missed the story of Liskula Cohen versus Rosemary Port. I still wouldn't have known about the two if I hadn't read Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times and Kathleen Parker's column in the Washington Post.

For those of you who are - like I was just hours ago - unaware of who Liskula Cohen is, she is a professional model who has been the target of an anonymous blogger. The blogger had used her blog, Skanks in NYC, to defame Ms. Cohen by calling the Vogue model a "skank" and "ho" on more than one occasion.

Cohen sued Google for the identity of the blogger....one Rosemary Port (seen in photo).
Now, Port is, of course, suing Google as well.

Generally, I don't have a very high opinion of anonymous bloggers. There are exceptions to that, which I'll get to later. I've had a few run ins with anonymous folks leaving comments on this blog. I've gone into that in my Comment Policy.

As a rule, far too many anonymous bloggers use their anonymity to insult those they don't like with a ferocity and vulgarity that's really uncalled for. I've given up reading quite a few blogs for that very reason.

Of course, there are some bloggers who like to use the same sort of tactic on their enemies, all the while having no problem identifying themselves. Former Rome News Tribune writer Stacy McCain comes to mind.

As I said, there are anonymous bloggers who are the rare exceptions. LarryD of actsoftheapostasy is such a blogger. This speaks highly of Larry and his strong Catholic principles. Larry has a way of using humor to criticize without stooping to hateful words.

For more on the story follow these links:
blogger blames model
no apology.

Miracle Cure in Lourdes.

Antonia Raco, of a village near Potenzahas,Italy, has been confined to a wheelchair for four years due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

According to a wikipedia article on the disease;

Eventually people with ALS will not be able to stand or walk, get in or out of bed on their own, or use their hands and arms. In later stages of the disease, individuals have difficulty breathing as the muscles of the respiratory system weaken. Although ventilation support can ease problems with breathing and prolong survival, it does not affect the progression of ALS. Most people with ALS die from respiratory failure, usually within 3 to 5 years from the onset of symptoms.

Raco is different, however.

After having traveled to the shrine in Lourdes, France this past August 5th, Raco has abandoned her wheelchair and has even "gone for a run".
She said, ''I felt a voice encouraging me and a strong pain in my legs'', while bathing in the waters at Lourdes.

She will be examined by specialist Adriano Chio - who has been treating her since 2006 - at Molinette Hospital in Turin Italy.

Videos of Raco, at home, walking around her house after the miracle can be found here and here.
The videos are in Italian, but interesting, never-the-less.

News Sources:
ansa.it
catholicnewsagency

My Old Friend.

While thinking of a way of best describing my old friend and our current relationship, my opinion of him can best be summed up by a quote from Maugham's masterpiece Of Human Bondage :
"Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind."

When my old friend and I met, it was the early 1970's. We were "avant garde" and "revolutionary" and like all "non-conformists" we were generally like everyone else our age.

Our minds were molded by the likes of John Lennon. We wore our hair long, we had holes in our jeans and rode around in VW vans and beetles.

We both rejected the religion of our ancestors for the religion that advocates respect for one's ancestors.....Buddhism. I suspect our motivations for exploring Buddhist thought were quite different. His calling himself Buddhist was motivated more by his dislike of all things American. His Liberalism exacerbated his disdain for the country and our culture. Over the years, he's read countless books on the religion but hasn't taken the first step in actually practicing it in his daily life. He may protest that he is a Buddhist, but his actions prove him to be a follower of that modern religion of many "baby-boomers".....Liberalism.

My reasons for studying Buddhism so many years ago was an overwhelming desire to understand the reason behind this veil of tears. In addition to reading books on the subject, I attempted to live my life accordingly.
It might very well seem odd to many, but it was this attempt to meditate and live life as Buddha taught that eventually lead me to reject Buddhism and return to the Catholic Church. Not being afraid to get my feet wet, I jumped into the water, head first, and that has lead me to change my way of thinking and my way of living.

Even though we now have completely different world views, I can still consider him my friend. I'm sure he does not hold that view.

I've rejected the pro-abortion, anti-marriage, "open minded" Liberal cult. I have rejected Barack Obama and have committed the unforgivable sin of having voted for a Republican. Although he will speak politely in phone conversations, he will not accept invitations to have dinner with my wife and me. He doesn't openly say no; he has to check with his wife to see if they have a previous engagement.

In the end, I know he will not call back to let me know if they can make it. There will be no phone call and no knock at the door.

I can accept that we no longer see eye to eye. I believe - in spite of that - that he and I can still be friends. Obviously, he and his wife disagree with me on that idea as well.