Want to get involved in a very in your face pro-life effort? October 8, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, contraception, Dallas Diocese, disaster, Ecumenism, foolishness, General Catholic, North Deanery, sadness, scandals, sickness, Society.comments closed
Jill Stanek has blogged on this guy Todd Bullis and his associates a number of times in the past. Starting a few years ago, Bullis started protesting with graphic signs outside pro-abort, ostensibly Christian churches (I say ostensibly because, Unitarians, etc, in addition to the whole abortion thing). Since relocating from California a year or so ago, Todd has been setting up shop right outside Custer Road United Methodist Church in Plano. The methodists, it can be irrefutably shown via their own website and other online statements, support a woman’s right to choose (to murder her baby), at least at the national level. I can’t imbed the videos, unfortunately, but go to Stanek’s site and read her post, and if you feel the call, go out there with Bullis and point up the hypocrisy of Christians who reject a Church Doctrine that’s only been extant since the 1st century Didache.
I’m always intrigued by the responses pro-lifers get for showing graphic photos of aborted babies in front of pro-abortion churches on Sunday mornings. I hope these protests continue and expand. Parishioners may not understand, but pro-lifers are trying to help them. Their worship services are repugnant to God. Just read Isaiah 1:10-17. [Stanek is protestant. There is way too much to unpack here. Move along…….]
In September World Life Organization’sTodd Bullis and Andy Moore and their team stood for the 11th and 12th time in front of the Custer Road United Methodist Church in Plano, Texas. I’m always impressed by the wise, Godly words they have ready to offer.
Church members walking past the signs either ignored them, expressed support for abortion, or got angry, such as one man you’ll see on the first video who absolutely refused to believe UMC is pro-abortion. Todd told me the man followed up with a phone call but still denied the truth even after Todd led him online to the denomination’s statement.
The pastor at Custer Road, Dr. Ronald D. Henderson (pictured left), engaged in the worst form on deception, claiming from the pulpit his church and denomination “support(s) life and we believe in the sacredness of life and the sanctity of life… from the cradle to the grave.”
Pro-lifers will immediately pick up on the bait and switch. “Cradle” is post-birth, of course.
But did his parishioners? I doubt it.
Me, too. I would wager a large number of CRUMC’s members believe they are pro-life. Maybe even a majority. But there’s pro-life, and then there’s pro-life. Pro-life people probably wouldn’t personally have or take part in an abortion, and might try to talk their loved out of one, to a point. Or, they might cave and panic and tell their 17 year old daughter her life will be ruined including the scholarship to Dartmouth if she doesn’t have an abortion RIGHT NOW! Pro-life people, however, hate abortion with a passion, recognize it as probably the greatest moral evil in the world today, a new form of human sacrifice very acceptable to satan, and take frequent concrete steps to fight against abortion. Viewing the videos at Stanek’s site makes plain the difference – let alone the pastor’s parsing words.
Money says he’s an old Aggie.
How does the, still (and this is even taught from most pulpits, in my experience) pro-life Catholic Church engage in “ecumenism” with the pro-abort Methodists? If you can’t agree on the sanctity of life, do you think you can hammer out a statement on Justification or the Real Presence?
UPDATE 01/13: I no longer support this. See post on March for Life 2013.
Congrats to SpaceX! October 8, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, awesomeness, fun, Society.comments closed
After having proven both the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the Dragon spacecraft in technology demonstration flights, SpaceX has made its first operational flight of the Dragon. The launch last night was completely successful – now, Dragon must spend a couple of days catching up with the International Space Station before it docks.
You can skip ahead to about 10 minutes into the video, unless pre-launch countdowns are your thing.
Hopefully, SpaceX will win the contract to provide manned spaceflights to the ISS and beyond with the Dragon, which was always designed to be man-rated.
SpaceX has developed these capabilities at a fraction of the cost of a regular NASA program. Like, a 1/5-1/10 kind of fraction.
Latin Mass at St. Mark October 8, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, Dallas Diocese, fun, General Catholic, Glory, Holy suffering, Latin Mass, North Deanery, Virtue.comments closed
Novus Ordo Latin Mass tonight at St. Mark in Plano at 7pm. This is the monthly requiem-type Mass, so offer up many intentions for your deceased loved ones!
The dread responsibilities of abbots, priests, and bishops October 8, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, disaster, episcopate, error, General Catholic, horror, North Deanery, priests, religious, Saints, scandals, true leadership.comments closed
There is a priest I know – one of the very, very best priests you can imagine – who is very happy to be where he is, as an assistant pastor. He has no desire to be a pastor, and certainly nothing beyond that! He has no ambitions whatsoever in that regard. Why? Because, he knows that he will be judged based on how well he performs his duty as priest, and he knows that the “higher” he goes in ecclesial office, the more responsibility he has for the souls under his care. The pastor has more responsibility than the assistant, and will be judged by God accordingly. God is infinitely merciful, but also infinitely just. And as Christ told us infallibly, inerrantly, there will be a great separation, where those who failed to live up to the counsel of the Gospel will be put on the left, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
But it seems today, by their actions, that many priests and bishops no longer believe in this individual 
reckoning we will all face. It is difficult to explain their actions otherwise. St. Benedict – the founder of western monasticism – wrote about this topic 1500 years ago from Subiaco, directing his counsel at abbots, but the advice remains for all those called to ecclesial office. We must pray for our priests and bishops, constantly:
An Abbot [or priest, or bishop] who is worthy to be over a monastery should always remember what he is called, and live up to the name Superior. For he is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery, being called by a name of His, which is taken from the words of the Apostle: “You have received a Spirit of adoption as sons, by virtue of which we cry, ‘Abba – Father!'”
Therefore the Abbot ought not to teach or ordain or command anything which is against the Lord’s precepts; on the contrary, his commands and his teaching should be a leaven of divine justice kneaded into the minds of his disciples.
Let the Abbot always bear in mind that at the dread Judgment of God there will be an examination of these two matters: his teaching and the obedience of his disciples. And let the Abbot be sure that any lack of profit the master of the house may find in the sheep will be laid to the blame of this shepherd. On the other hand, if the shepherd has bestowed all his pastoral diligence on a restless, unruly flock and tried revery remedy for their unhealthy behavior, then he will be acquitted at the Lord’s Judgment and may say to the Lord with the Prophet: “I have not concealed Your justice within my heart; Your truth and Your salvation I have declared. But they have despised and rejected me.” And then finally let death itself, irresistible, punish those disobedient sheep under his charge.
Therefore, when anyone receives the name of abbot, he ought to govern his disciples with a twofold teaching, “Why do you declare my statutes and profess My covenant with your lips, whereas you hate discipline and have cast My words behind you?” ……
……The Abbot should always remember what he is and what he is called, and should know that to whom more is committed, from him more is required. Let him understand also what a difficult and arduous task he has undertaken: ruling souls……so that he may not suffer the loss of any of his flock, but may rejoice in the increase of a good flock.
——————–End Quote—————————
The above is taken from Fr. John Hardon’s compendium The Treasury of Catholic Wisdom. In a sermon yesterday that I plan to post on as soon as it becomes available online, a local priest expressed great dismay at the failure of shepherds to preach the full faith to the souls in their charge. For one, contraception has been almost totally ignored, and millions of Catholics now feel they can use contraception and remain “good Catholics.” Many have even been taught that contraception is a positive good by their shepherds. The toll of this mass dereliction of duty – emotionally, physically, economically, morally, but above all spiritually – is completely beyond calculation. This enormous failure to preach all the truth, and many times to present error as truth, is the cancer that has been rapidly destroying the Faith.
Let us pray and, above all, mortify ourselves for the sanctification of bishops and for their fortitude in proclaiming all the Truth Christ has revealed through His Church, even that which is “hard” or unpopular. And let us thank God for the small steps taken by Bishops Paprocki and Myers to correct the very ingrained, very destructive habits the faithful – so to speak – have been permitted to develop. Let us pray for more such bishops! Let us pray for the Truth given with conviction, clarity, and charity!
A correction October 8, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, Admin, contraception, Dallas Diocese, disaster, episcopate, General Catholic, horror, religious, sadness, scandals, Society.comments closed
Last week, I commented on a post at LifeSiteNews regarding the potential conflict of interest between the USCCB and the Melinda Gates contraception campaign, since Gates has contributed heavily to Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the USCCB’s charity for international aid. CRS has it’s own very serious problems with contraception, but I leaped to a conclusion in the post that I need to correct. The relevant portion of the post is below, with my comments in red:
The only US prelate who has spoken even tangentially about the campaign [Gates’ multi-billion dollar contraception/abortifacient campaign, 10/08/12 edit] is Dallas Bishop Kevin J. Farrell, in a statement that apparently sought to address the alleged endorsement of Gates’ campaign by the nuns of the Ursuline Academy of Dallas, a school within the boundaries of his diocese.
Referring only to “recent news events,” without naming Gates or the nuns, Farrell noted that “Human sexuality and sexual expression in marriage are among God’s greatest gifts” and that “Artificial contraception violates the meaning of this gift.”
However, the statement made by Farrell has now disappeared from its original web page, and Google’s database has no record of it being posted anywhere else on the site. [I’m so unsurprised by this. This is completely, totally typical. Release a meaningless statement that says nothing to placate us boobs who, oh, I don’t know, take the Faith at least slightly seriously, and then do absolutely nothing. A few weeks later, flush even that statement down the memory hole. We truly live in Orwellian times, even within the Church.]
So, my conclusion was that the letter had been deliberately deleted. I was told yesterday, however, by a someone in the know, that the letter in fact disappeared due to a technical problem.
It wasn’t, then, a deliberate attempt to delete the record of this letter, it apparently was just a software glitch. My jumping to the conclusion that it was an attempt to flush the evidence of this event was probably less than charitable, but perhaps I may be excused for my cynicism based on much recent historical evidence of dioceses – not necessarily Dallas – burying evidence of things like sexual abuse of priests, financial problems, etc.
And, it brings to mind once again that the faithful, greatly scandalized by even the implied endorsement of this horrific worldwide contraception distribution effort by the Dallas Ursuline sisters, still await some kind of notification of action taken in response to this public scandal. Are the talks with the Ursuline sisters still ongoing? Do they actually support this morally repugnant, gravely sinful effort to ensnare millions more women in the evil of contraceptive use? If so, how can these sisters be involved in running a major Catholic school in the Diocese, where their beliefs contrary to the Faith may be instilled in thousands of children entrusted to their care? This kind of public scandal demands either a public retraction, or some public notification of discipline taken against them (which would probably require the assent of their order, something, given the present state of women religious in this country, is extremely unlikely). But shouldn’t there be some kind of resolution to this, other than stating that Bishop Farrell is in “talks.”
Or did Gates misrepresent their beliefs? As doubtful as that is, given what we know of so many women religious in this country and their apostasy, but if so, they deserve to have their reputation, so publicly maligned, restored to them.
In either case, charity and prudence demand some kind of public resolution to this scandal. Neither I, nor my readers, will forget this scandalous situation.
And we do live in Orwellian times!
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