Ireland's attempt to persecute the Catholic Church

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/09/04/ireland.vatican.sex.abuse/index.html

This law will pass.
More laws like this in other countries will pass.
Priests will be thrown in jail because they will obstruct justice rather than break the seal of confession.

Also related to the persecution:
Priest will not marry gays and be thrown in jail.

Already happend:
Catholic adoption agencies forced to close down because they do not adopt to gay couples.
Catholic sports announcer in Canada was fired because of his beleifs about gay "marriage", which he posted in his own personal time.
Priest in Croatia serves three month jail sentence for anti-gay "hate speech".

It will get worse. Just wait. You can tell by the comments below the CNN article.
John 15:18

Christian politicians

The other day I was listening to a program on public radio and the topic was about the Republican and Tea Party presidential candidates and their Christian faith, in particular Bachman and Perry. The program consisted of the host and the guests were two commentators, one liberal and the other conservative.

It was inevitable that the topic of Church and State would come up and I was pretty disturbed by what the liberal commentator had said. In essence she was saying that both candidates were dangerous because of their Christian faith and that they would force their Christian values on Americans if they were to be elected President. She went on to say that there is a conflict because of the candidate’s beliefs and the separation of Church and State. Pretty crazy, huh?

When you are in politics, moral issues are front and center, i.e. abortion, the death penalty, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, etc. For a Christian, our morals are defined by God and our Christian faith is not an add-on or something we can just take out of the closet and put on when ever we feel like it. Our faith defines us, it makes us who we are and the Judeo-Christian moral standards are what we live and die by.

Are Christians to stay out of politics because there is a conflict between Church and State and we might “force” our Christian values on others? That to me is absurd. I get the feeling that any chance a secular liberal can get they will throw the “Church and State” card and use it as a signal that the “religious right” with their superstitions are trying to turn America into a theocracy as if we are going on the same path as Iran.

Why do they think our morals are so oppressive? What is so oppressive about, “Thou shall not kill?” The liberals answer to that is this, “The religious right is interfering with women’s health because they do not want to federally fund abortion clinics”. Now “thou shall not kill” becomes an issue of women’s health. Go figure. Federal funding of embryonic stems cells is in the same realm of killing because of the dismantling of the embryo for scientific experiments. Now the accusations will fly that the Christians are ignorant and against science.

What about “thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife or goods”? Turn on the TV for less than a minute and you will see what I am referring to. The secular liberal will argue that we must protect the right to expression and freedom of speech. I think in the past when I was younger I would see programs and be able to comprehend what on TV is exaggerated fiction and reality. I would know that certain things on TV do not represent the real world. Now with “reality TV” we see life imitating art (if we can call it that) instead of art imitating life and the more obscene and absurd the better the ratings. More sex, adultery, fights, money and violence, the better the ratings. Ultimately is boils down to money, or the love of money, which brings us way back to the first, second and third commandments.

You shall love God above all things and have no false idols and keep the Lords day holy. How is that oppressive? You shall love and honor the one who is responsible for your very existence. Instead we have our false idols. We even become our own gods and worship ourselves, thinking that all of our accomplishments are because of our own doing. This is pride at its worst. When all our dreams and accomplishments are gone, where does that leave us but in a pit of despair and have an overwhelming feeling of failure? While in times of suffering the Christian has hope when all seems lost. Just look at a crucifix.

Honor your father and mother, oppressive?

Thou shall not steal, oppressive?

Thou shall not commit adultery, oppressive?

Thou shall not bear false witness, oppressive?

The secular liberals answer to that is, yes to all of the above and any law that restricts my own idea of freedom is oppressive unless I have the liberty to make up my own set of arbitrary standards that are not based on anything except my own opinion is deemed oppressive.

So the difference between the secularist and the Christians is that the secular lives by their own arbitrary rules and the Christian lives by a set of universal laws that were not of his own creation but of Gods and therefore can only lead us to true freedom.

God did not lead the Israelites out of Egypt to escape slavery only to lead them into the desert and give them the Ten Commandments only to make them slaves again. God is the arbitrator of what is moral and it is from Him that we get our own moral foundation. Therefore it is impossible for a Christian politician to abandon his morals because they were set by God and not by any politician.

Baptism now saves you

Non-Catholic Christians will say that as long as we have faith and confess with our lips that Jesus is our personal Lord and savior that we will be saved. Catholics do agree with that but that is not the whole story.

Does baptism save us? Yes.

Where in Scripture does it say baptism saves us?

1 Peter 3:20-21

“…in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. 21 This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…”

John 3:4-5

Nicodemus said to him (Jesus), “How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?” 5Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water (baptism) and Spirit.

For clarification purposes I inserted the text in parenthesis.

Romans 6 tells us that in our baptism we died with Christ but just as Christ was raised from the dead in glory, we too might live in the newness of life.

Or how about Acts 2:35 when Peter says, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. See here, repentance and baptism is necessary for the forgiveness of sins and receiving the Holy Spirit.

There is nothing symbolic taking place here. Something happens when we are baptized.

What about if I am not baptized? Am I saved? Short answer: depends.

We can even loose our salvation after we are baptized.

What baptism does is cleanse us from our sins. But as time goes on, we sin again and just because we sin again does not mean that we need to be baptized again because as mentioned above, Christ died once and was raised and we die once with Him in our baptism. In order for us to be reconciled to Him again we need the sacrament of reconciliation.

Each time Jesus institutes a Sacrament, he is not telling us, you must obtain this sacrament or else you are going to hell. Rather he tells us, here is a way to receive sanctifying grace in other words here is what you will need to have supernatural life, the “equipment” necessary to live in Heaven. God is not bound by the sacraments so the un-baptized will not go to hell just because they lack that sacrament.

I always refer people to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church - Lumen Gentium when they have questions on salvation, specificlly paragraphs 14 though 16. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

There is also so much more that needs to be said about baptism besides the cleansing of personal and original sin. One example, why catholics Baptize babies and how when we are baptized we become a member of the body of Christ which is His Church. I will have to post that later.

Our Children

This was in our Church Bulletin and I just had to post this. Couldn't agree more. 

SEXUALIZING OUR CHILDREN— excerpt from an article by Michael Brown

How many children watch MTV and VH1, mimicking the moves and memorizing the lyrics of the latest song by Britney Spears or Lady Gaga, having no clue that the moves they are making and the words they are mouthing are sexually charged. These kids are too young to have any understanding of sexuality, and yet it is no secret to the TV execs that these same children are a major part of the viewing audience.

And was anyone really surprised when Miley Cyrus outgrew Hannah Montana and discovered pole dancing instead? What are her youthful followers to make of her now? Perhaps they’ll follow her lead? Perhaps they’ll ask mom and dad for a pole of their own at home?

There is the sexualizing of our children in the public schools, and I’m not talking about sex-ed classes. I’m talking about teaching gay history to elementary school children, as now mandated by law in California with the recent passing of SB 48, thereby introducing sexual categories to little ones who haven’t the slightest clue what sexual orientation is, let alone have the ability to wrap their minds around "bisexual" or "transgender."

To add insult to injury, parents will have no right to opt their kids out of these classes, a hard lesson parents in other states have already learned, where the courts have sided with the schools rather than the parents. Already in Massachusetts, a couple was so upset with this state-sponsored sexualizing of their first grader that they took their battle to court, where Judge Mark Wolff of the US Court of Appeals ruled that the schools have a greater responsibility to teach "diversity" than to honor the requests of the parents. In other words, "Sorry, moms and dads. We know what is best for your children, and when we decide it’s time to introduce them to ‘diversity’ – our codeword for gay activist curricula – we will do so. You, on your part, have no right to interfere, so don’t even think about it." (For more details, see Chapter Three of my book A Queer Thing Happened to America.)

What is unique in California is not that gay-themed lessons will be taught to little children. Rather, it is that these lessons will be mandated across the entire state for all schools and all classes, which, of course, will be reflected in the textbooks that will be used. And, as is well known, what happens in California doesn’t stay in California, meaning that the textbooks printed for our most populous state will be used throughout the nation.

In the specific language of SB 48, the bill amended "the Education Code to include social sciences instruction on the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people." And note that previous bills relating to LGBT issues – including AB 537, AB 1785, AB 394, SB 777, SB 572 – were not enough. SB 48 had to go one step further.

What exactly will this mean? For starters, it will demand that the categories of "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender" be introduced to six year-olds. I have watched videos of classes taught in different parts of the countries where elementary school children are shown pictures of artists or musicians or politicians or other famous figures and are told, "He (or she) was gay," as if they had the slightest real concept of what "gay" actually meant. (As I recall, in the early years of elementary school, boys like boys and girls like girls. Does that make all of them "gay"?)

Of course, we are told that introducing this curriculum will reduce bullying of LGBT kids in schools, but the best way to reduce bullying is to teach that bullying is bad rather than gay is good. And does anyone really think that, say, showing kids images of a fat Buddha will stop the bullying of fat kids? More to the point, who gave the public schools the right to sexualize our children?

But this is just the beginning. It gets worse. Stay tuned for more.

Images, idols and the Crucifix

What is a graven image or idol and why do Catholics have statues and images if the Bible says, “You shall not make for your selves idols or graven images.”

A graven image or idol is an object of worship. Moses had his staff with the image of a snake to cure the Israelites from snake bites they suffered while wandering in the desert for 40 years. The Staff of Moses was broken by Hezekiah because the Israelites had started to worship it. And that is when the staff of Moses became an idol or graven image when before it was used to heal them. God gave instructions on how to build the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant has images; the two cherubim. Of course God did not contradict himself by telling them first not to make images and them tell them to make the snake on Moses Staff and then to make the Ark. This sin is to worship those things. Now it is common for idols to be money, people, ourselves or anything that we hold dearer than God.

Some fundamentalist Christians will accuse Catholics of idolatry and of worshipping images because we have icons or images such as the crucifix or statues of Mary and other saints. Well, any Catholic who knows better will know that this is a sin to worship these images or even that particular saint. We admire and look to the saints for inspiration and intercession, just as some might do when they look at a picture of their deceased parents of relatives. One of the differences is, is that we do not have photographs of Jesus, Mary or the other saints. We have paintings, icons and statues instead. Will the typical Evangelical Christian complain that we should not have the Lincoln memorial or the liberty bell because they are images? I hope not. Those are considered historical icons of our nation’s history and traditions. That same logic applies to the Catholic tradition of statues and icons. What these icons do is appeal to our senses, i.e. visual, emotional etc. This is God’s design. He made us this way and we need reminders of His work and how he worked in the lives of the saints. We can for sure, read these reminders in Sacred Scripture as well but we are not limited only to Scripture.

We have many things in Catholicism that point to God. That is what helps to make our religion so rich and beautiful. We are not stripped down solely to Scripture and to do so contradict Scripture itself.

I mentioned above some examples of why we have icons and they all pretty much are unique in their significance. I think the most meaning full image is the crucifix. I have heard from Evangelicals and secularists that it is morbid to see a man crucified on a cross and why would we even want to look at the crucifix. This is due to ignorance as to why the crucifixion had to be done in the first place. The short answer to that is so that we can have abundant life, meaning eternal life. Evangelicals can agree with that but get hung up on the idea that it is a sin to have an image/ crucifix and liken it to idolatry.

When pray the Rosary and I meditate on the Sorrowful Mysteries, especially the 5^th, The Crucifixion, it opens up an understanding and deep insight to His suffering and death. I need that constant reminder of what he did for me. That is why I have a crucifix around my neck and have them throughout my house. Have you ever seen those bumper stickers, “9/11, never forget”? I pray that I never forget what Jesus did for me, personally. He calls me by name so that I can exist and be reconciled to Him so that I can share in His divine nature. By His death I will be restored to how he originally intended me to be, eventually a gloried body only after I share in His suffering, death and resurrection, God willing.

Next time you look at the crucifix, imagine Him first praying in agony sweating blood profusely in the Garden of Gethsemane. Imagine Him getting scourged at the pillar by the hands of the Romans. Imagine the crown of thorns being placed on His head. Imagine Him carrying the cross up to Golgotha and falling three times. Imagine all the people mocking and spitting on Him. Imagine His mother who had to watch all of this. Imagine, the nails being driven in His hands and then His feet. Imagine Him hanging on the cross for three hours until he died. And now ask yourself, why did that have to happen? He did it for you.

Is that morbid to have a crucifix or a symbol of someone who loves you? We shouldn’t censor the image of the crucifix because anything less would be a lie. A cross without the body is just a cross, an instrument of torture. We do not worship the cross but we worship Him who was on it, not the image, but Him.  

"The Pill"

I figured that I would track down what secular society says about the birth control pill considering that “the pill” celebrated its 50^th anniversary.

Here is an article from the Huffington Post regarding the pill. I purposely left out the propaganda in this article that endorses “the pill” because I wanted us to look at the health risks of the pill. You can click on the link below to read the full article.

It does not mention that the pill contributes to infertility after women stop using it and is an abortifacient and the birth control pill is the only “medicine” that interrupts a perfectly normal body function. Medicine is supposed to correct an abnormal function of the body.

Health Risks

All women who are on the pill (or the patch) should know about the following effects of the pill, too, in order to be fully informed:

• Oral contraceptives have been a boon for many women, though they may contribute to suboptimal nutrition and an increased incidence of yeast infection in many (the pill has been associated with lowered serum levels of B vitamins and other metabolic changes). [3]

• OCs are associated with a slightly increased risk for cervical adenocarcinoma [4], elevated triglyceride levels [5] and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). [6] Although the announcement didn't get much press in the U.S., the World Health Organization has classified birth control pills with combined estrogen and progestin (as well as combined-hormone HRT) as carcinogenic. (The latest such designation came after the cancer research agency of the World Health Organization convened a group of 21 scientists from eight countries in France in June 2005. Reviewing the scientific literature on the pill and cancer, the group pointed to evidence for an increase in cervical cancer, breast cancer and liver cancer in making its decision, while also stressing that convincing evidence existed for a protective effect against endometrial and ovarian cancers.) [7] Yet other authorities don't think the slightly increased relative risk for breast cancer is significant. [8]

• In my experience, the pill is also associated with mood swings, weight gain and decreased sex drive in many women.

• The birth control patch Ortho Evra and the ring (NuvaRing) are also made from synthetic hormones and have roughly the same effect as the pill, though a slightly higher risk of blood clots.

Going off the pill makes many women feel much better, although not all symptoms always subside.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christiane-northrup/birth-control-pills-turn_b_544647.html

The Holy Trinity

Basic Theology of the Trinity

1. In one divine nature, there are three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
2. No one of the persons is either of the others, each is wholly himself. The Father is not the Son, the Son not the Father, the Holy Spirit not the Father or the Son and the Father and the Son, not the Holy Spirit. Each is wholly himself.
3. The Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God.
4. They are not three Gods but one God.

What we are talking about are three persons, one nature. If we ask, “What is God?” We would answer, “One source of divine operation”.

If we ask who is God, we will respond, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And if we ask each one individually who they are, we would respond, God.

How is this possible? We know the Father has a Son from reading the Gospels. The Son is distinct from the Father. There is no way the Father can be his own Son. But though they are distinct persons, they are like in nature. Compared to the son of a man, he inherits the human nature. The son of a lion is a lion. In this solitary case, the Fathers nature is infinite, so the Son must have an infinite nature too. But there cannot be two infinite natures-one would be limited by the other and by not having power over the other. Therefore, since the Son has infinite nature, it must be the same identical nature as the Father’s.

(We know that the Son was not created or made because when you make something, you make something different from yourself. For example, when a bird makes a nest, a beaver makes a dam and a man makes a chair. Begetting is different. A bird begets birds, a beaver begets a beaver and a man begets human babies. So what God begets is God and what God creates is not God. That is why men are not sons of God in the sense that Christ is. We may be like God in certain ways, but we are not things of the same kind.) 

 This would be completely dark to us if St. John had not given us another term for their relation. The second person is the Word of the first. In the first eighteen verses of St. John’s Gospel we learn that that God has uttered a Word, a Word who was with God, a Word who was God; by this all things were made.

(So God uttered a word-not framed by mouth because God does not have a mouth. He is pure Spirit. So it is a word in the mind of God, not sounding outwardly as our words sound but it is rather a thought or an idea. What idea produced in God’s mind could possibly be God? Christian thinking saw early that it could be only the idea God has of Himself.)

We know that the Word is perfect because God is perfect and that God is infinite so the Word must be infinite. The Father knows and loves; so His Word knows and loves.

In other words the Word is a person. The Word became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary and became man.

One immediate difficulty presents itself. We can hardly help thinking of sons as younger than their fathers. But this is not the case with the Father and the Son. They both are infinite and eternal and transcend time. Time is a creation of God and God is not subject to His own creation. So merely by being, he is.

This should bring some new light when we recite the creed referring to the Son and say God from God, light from light true God from true God, begotten or coming from and not made or created like an object.

Then there is a Spirit that Jesus says he is going to ask the father to send and remain with the Church until the end. The Spirit, like the Word is a person.

Father and Son love each other with infinite intensity and what we could not know if it were not revealed to us, is that they, the Father and Son unite to express their love and that expression is a third divine person. In the Son, the Father utters His self knowledge; in the Holy Spirit the Father and Son utter their mutual love. Their love is infinite and its expression cannot be less.

Now go back to the Creed. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and Son. With the Father and son he is worshipped and glorified.

This is a revelation given to the Church and written implicitly in Sacred Scripture and taught through out via Sacred Tradition. This must have been revealed because no man can make this up!

(Why is the doctrine of the Trinity important?)

An ordinary Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get in touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God-that is Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. God is the thing to which he is praying-the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him pushing him on. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole three-personal Being is reaching out to be know by the man praying in his room, on his knees.)

Disclaimer: These are not all entirley my words. This is a complitation of other sources and books that I have read.
They are:
The New American Bible
Catechism of the Catholic Church – Second Edition
Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis
Theology for Beginners – Frank Sheed