Posted on 09/06/2012 7:08:34 PM PDT by bronxville
When the DNC caved and invited Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan to deliver their convention's closing benediction tonight, it presented the mainstream media with a problem. Would they cover his DNC benediction any differently than they covered his RNC benediction last week in Tampa?
There it was a mixed bag.
Fox News covered it as the last featured event of the convention, which it was. CNN merely played the audio of the benediction in the background, while MSNBC ignored it entirely.
The curiosity surrounding Cardinal Dolan's treatment at the DNC tonight was heightened by yesterday's disastrous Democratic platform "put God and Israel back in" ram-down.....
Viewers of the convention could see with their own eyes and ears that the majority of the delegates to the DNC actively booed putting God back in the platform...
Cardinal Dolan's measured, faith oriented non-partisan benediction at the RNC contained EIGHT REFERENCES TO GOD. How will the majority of delegates to the DNC react to a similar benediction from Cardinal Dolan after they reacted so vocally in opposition to the inclusion of one reference to God in the 40 page Democratic platform?
The idea that our liberties in the United States of America derive from God rather than government featured as prominently in Cardinal Dolan's prayer at the RNC as it did in the prayers offered by George Washington and Benjamin Franklin at the founding of the republic:[read RNC speech at site).....
Dolan's references to the "inalienable gift of life" resonated with the delegates at the RNC. It remains to be seen if he will make similar references in tonight's benediction, especially given prominence given to the Democratic Party's pro-abortion policies at the DNC.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
It’s been in my head all along but especially since they voted “NO” to include God and booed Him very loudly.
I’m not watching but can u imagine if they end up booing him? I wouldn’t put it past them...
One wonders who is better qualified to understand the Constitution's position on matters relating to religious expressions in publicly supported facilities -- the Founders themselves or today's politicians, judges, pressure groups, and media spokesmen?
Example: Geo. Washington, First Inaugural, April 30, 1789:
". . . it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplication to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes. . . ."
Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1789: "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor. . . ."
Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural:
"I shall need the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, Who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; Who has covered our infancy with His providence, and our riper years with His wisdom and power; and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplication, that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures, that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations."
In 1815, "We are not in a world ungoverned by the laws and the power of a Superior Agent. Our efforts are in His hand, and directed by it; and He will give them their effect in His own time."
Jefferson letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, November 2, 1822, "In our village of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with a small spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without either church or meeting-house. The courthouse is the common temple, one Sunday in the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist, meet together, join in hymning their Maker, listen with attention and devotion to each others' preachers, and all mix in society with perfect harmony. In our university you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle (point) has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny (malicious false charge). . . . In our annual report to the legislature, after stating the constitution reasons against a public establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets, on the confines of the university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures there, and have the free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other. . . and by bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality."
John Adams, 1789, soon after becoming Vice President: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
The Continental Congress, in 1777, assigned a special committee to consider the shortage of Bibles. The Committee report read: ". . . that the use of the Bible is so universal and its importance so great. . .the Committee recommend that Congress will order the Committee of Congress to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or elsewhere, into the different parts of the States of the Union. Whereupon it was resolved accordingly to direct said Committee to import 20,000 copies of the Bible."
Of more interest, however, is the fact that in 1782 another need arose, and the U. S. Congress approved the first American printing of what is now known as the "Bible of the Revolution."
Prayers were offered in publicly-owned and operated facilities (including publicly-owned and operated schools) for the most of the first 150-200 years of our nation's history. Only in recent decades have those who would control the minds of citizens attached a truly mythical significance to Jefferson's unfortunate phrasing in his letter to the Danbury Baptists--phrasing clearly intended to signify a wall that protected religious freedom from government interference, not the other way around. Jefferson's life, expressed in both his official and unofficial acts, testifies to a vastly different view than that imposed by today's mind controllers who would, in all likelihood, ban his "village of Charlottesville" from allowing church services in the courthouse, and who certainly would not approve of President Jefferson's practice of attending worship service in the U. S. Capitol Building.
The prolific writings of the Founders and early Presidents, as well as signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, contain scores of assertions which defy today's claims that government has been delegated the right to exclude religious belief and practice from the public square. Such claims are nothing but the most cowardly brand of censorship.
As late as the mid-20th Century, an American hero, defender and lover of the nation's liberty, General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, on signing law for inclusion of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, on June 14, 1954, stated: "From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."
Almost a century before him, Abraham Lincoln asserted: "It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."
1) "Is our nation better or worse off since the courts and the pressure groups have redefined the Constitution's First Amendment protections and the Founders' oft-stated insistence on a prohibition of government interference in matters of religion (that so-called Jeffersonian 'wall of separation')?"
2) "As citizens, do we possess more liberty or less liberty as a result of their (pressure groups and courts) imposition of censorship of religious expression from the public square over the past few decades?"
Ready internet access to the writings and speeches of the founding generation make ignorance of their principles of liberty inexcusable. Liberty for future generations--the liberty inherited by us as an undeserved gift from our wise ancestors of the 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries, may depend on our willingness to confront these questions and to search out constitutional answers for ourselves from the original sources.
If they end up booing him they’re finished as a party because it’ll only confirm the notion that they truly are Godless. It’ll also take the momentum away from the EmptyChair.
Thank you loveliverty...very informative.
This is the Benediction Cardinal Dolan gave at the RNC where he got the utmost respect from all the delegates...
““With firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, let us pray. Almighty God, Father of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, we beg your continued blessings on this sanctuary of freedom, and on all of those who proudly call America home,” he began. “We ask your benediction upon those yet to be born, and on those who are about to see you at the end of this life. Bless those families whose ancestors arrived on these shores generations ago, as well as those families that have come recently, to build a better future while weaving their lives into the rich tapestry of America.” ...
Almighty God, who gives us the sacred and inalienable gift of life, we thank you as well for the singular gift of liberty. Renew in all of our people a respect for religious freedom in full, that first most cherished freedom. Make us truly free by tethering freedom to truth and ordering freedom to goodness. Help us live our freedom in faith, hope and love, prudently and with justice, courageously and in a spirit of moderation. Enkindle in our hearts a new sense of responsibility for freedom’s cause and make us ever grateful for all those who for more than two centuries have given their lives in freedom’s defense. We commend their noble souls to your eternal care as even now we beg your mighty hand upon our beloved men and women in uniform. May we know the truth of your creation, respecting the laws of nature and nature’s God and not seek to replace it with idols of our own making.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/06/How-Will-Mainstream-Media-Cover-Cardinal-Dolan-s-Benediction-at-the-DNC
Dolan was my Bishop in the Milwaukee Dioccese, and he was always labeled as conservative, and I think he is conservative, but I also think he’s not a fighter. Should priests be fighters? All I know is that he did nothing about the gay Bishop Weakland. Weakland was allowed to retire and live out his life in Milwaukee, and Bishop Dolan tried to send him out to confirmations, but the congregations wouldn’t have him. I hope he doesn’t falter tonight.
MondoQueen, I think he’ll give the same Benediction. Will they boo when he talks about an “inalienable right to life” one might wonder but I’m thinking they’ll still be in a trance from the EmptyChair that they won’t even notice.
I would love to have Cardinal Dolan give them the talk that Blessed Teresa of Calcutta gave to the Kansas legislature, I think, when Sebelius was the governor. The little nun read them up one side and then the other reducing them to silence.
Wow! Bishop Dolan gave my family a special personal blessing. “Bless those families whose ancestors arrived on these shores generations ago” My family arrived on these shores in 1620, and my ancestor was the governor of the colony, and I have heard all my life of the religious liberty they were seeking.
Salvation, she did even better at the United Nations and moreso when she got her Nobel. She spoke about Jesus Christ ever other word, abortions etc., and they didn’t dare say a word. :)
“Wow! Bishop Dolan gave my family a special personal blessing. “Bless those families whose ancestors arrived on these shores generations ago””
:)
His prayer, ignored by all but Fox News, spoke truth to power. God bless him.
the line in the prayer about protecting life was dripping with irony
and his line about protecting institutions which provide for the family. I assume he means the institution of marriage and family, which would offend the backers of homosexual marriage.
and his line about protecting institutions which provide for the family. I assume he means the institution of marriage and family, which would offend the backers of homosexual marriage.
I think it’s wrong when people have to read their prayer. I mean - where’s the heart?
Dolan:
not shown on PBS (although they discussed him while he was giving the benediction)
not shown on NBC (they immediately went to local programming 11pm news in the east)
Fox carried it live.
MSNBC had Maddow talking
CNN had Carville talking
I am surprised that they didn’t. He cut to the quick on a two or three points in his prayer.
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