As Zero's date to desecrate Notre Dame nears, things are heating up.
Two threads by me.
SOUTH BEND, Indiana, March 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A total of 62 bishops have publicly condemned the Notre Dame scandal, with three more bishops expressing solidarity with Notre Dame's Bishop John D'Arcy and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) policy against honoring pro-abortion politicians. The University of Notre Dame has invited President Obama to give the commencement address and receive an honorary law degree May 17.
Bishop Reymundo Pena of Brownsville, TX has published an April 24 letter addressed to both President Obama and University President Fr. John Jenkins condemning the scandal. (
http://www.cdob.org/bishop/column/2009/4-24-09.htm)
Citing USCCB policy, Pena told Fr. Jenkins: "The prestige that the president will lend to your commencement is not sufficient reason to disregard these principles. There are numerous prominent public figures distinguished for their moral rectitude and record of public service from which you could have drawn."
Bishop Pena pointed to the dozens of bishops and over 350,000 petitioning Catholics who have expressed outrage at the invitation.
"Surely their collective voice has made it clear that they consider your action to be scandalously inconsistent with Notre Dame's symbolic mission to showcase how Catholic faith can positively influence modern life and culture," the bishop wrote. "Why have you refused to meet with twelve university student groups, who have asked to talk with you about your choice?
"I join my voice to this growing chorus of protesters, and I encourage Valley Catholics to express what is in their hearts to you, Father Jenkins."
In the portion addressed to President Obama, the bishop lauded the president's personal accomplishments, but acknowledged the "deep divide between you and the majority of Americans on the paramount moral issue of our time: the right to life vs. the claimed right to abortion."
"Mr. President, less than 18 months ago, Pope Benedict XVI canceled a speaking engagement at La Sapienza University in Rome, simply because some of the students reacted negatively to the announcement of his coming," wrote Bishop Pena. "Rather than risk throwing the university into turmoil, the pope humbly withdrew.
"I respectfully ask you to consider freely withdrawing your commitment to speak at Notre Dame University, for the same reason."
. . .
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South Bend, IN (LifeNews.com) -- The collection of pro-life student groups at the University of Notre Dame who have led much of the response to the Obama graduation invitation have announced their plans for commencement. Notre Dame Response will hold a peaceful protest when President Barack Obama speaks at the Catholic college.
The invitation from Father John Jenkins to the pro-abortion president to both give the graduation address and receive an honorary degree has prompted national outrage.
An ad hoc coalition of several pro-life students groups has led the official protest from UND students to the decision.
Today, the groups announced their plans for the May 17 event, saying, "ND Response has received official permission to hold a prayerful and constructive demonstration on the South Quad of the University of Notre Dame between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on the day of Commencement."
"The students of this coalition would like to extend an invitation to all those interested in joining us on campus on May 17th as we respectfully give witness to Notre Dame's Catholic identity and pro-life principles," the group added.
"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."
This an excellent piece about how Hitler's agenda is being carried out long after people thought we had destroyed Nazism.
Thread by 2ndDivisionVet.
~snip~
Our moral bluntness has reached such a point that not only do we constantly refer to physical sex in newspapers, magazines, advertisements, movies, which every child can see, but some Catholic parents irresponsibly endorse certain sex education courses approved by the local bishop (who usually rubber-stamps the evaluation of "sex experts"), which teach innocent children things which should make us blush with shame—facts which most of us, of the older generation, never even knew about when we were young because this information was both unnecessary and filthy. It is bound to destroy the child’s innocence. When a young boy of eight, watching a tennis tournament, turns to me and says, "Do you know that she (referring to one of the players) is a lesbian?" it must make the angels cry. When grammar school children are taught the standard forms of artificial birth control and various forms of sexual perversions, we ought to wake up to the fact that evil is now presented as perfectly acceptable—no, respectable. For the child, his parents and teachers are "authorities," and he will necessarily accept as "perfectly all right" sex information sponsored to him by his teachers, in programs financed by the school, and headed by "sex experts" who teach the child "the facts of life." They are in fact invited to "experiment," and children love to try things out. These little ones are too young to carry the weight of this "scientific" information.
Moreover, they are taught to be "tolerant" toward "other life styles," and perversions are put on the same level as differences of race and color. To be black, white, or yellow is not a moral question. It is morally irrelevant, and this is why racial prejudices are both stupid and immoral. But homosexual activity is morally relevant indeed (both Plato and Paul have made this strikingly clear and condemned these practices in the strongest possible terms, and the gentle Francis de Sales echoed their views when he refers to this sin as "the most detestable disorder that human flesh can commit" (Treatise on the Love of God, 11:11). We are reminded of the words of Jeremiah: "They do not know how to blush" (6:15, 8:12). The situation is so grave because we have become anaesthetized by the media and live in a state of total moral somnolence. We are now so used to abominable practices that they no longer scandalize us. Yet Christ said, "Woe to those who scandalize one of these little ones; it would be better for him to have a millstone put around his neck" (Matt. 28:6).
One of the greatest moral dangers threatening us today is that all of us, constantly exposed to the horrors shown on our television screens and the artful propaganda of "liberal" views, have become morally blunt and blind. Assisted suicide, scientific research on fetuses, abortion of millions of helpless infants, are accepted as a matter of course. Now that a democratically-elected president of the U.S., abetted by his wife, officially defends the right of a woman "to control her reproductive organs"—that is to say, makes the murder of an innocent child a "right"—and proclaims that he will veto any bill prohibiting partial birth abortions, we should realize that we have hit the rock bottom of moral decadence. The greatest political authority in the U.S. proclaims that a crime is a right.
Individuals in any given society will commit crimes. But the moment that a state legalizes crimes and lobbies for the subvention of these crimes by the state, we have, humanly speaking, reached the point of no return. God alone can save people who have strayed so far from his laws.
This is precisely what happened in Germany when Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933. He too legalized crimes of all sorts. Because the state is a powerful institution and enjoys a de facto respectability, the danger of accepting its views becomes immense. "Thus discord in religion, and untruth in religion, have come to be less odious and less alarming to men, simply because they are accustomed to them. It requires courage, both moral and mental, to believe the whole of a grand nation in the wrong" (P. Gueranger, Liturgical Year, 8:218).
There is a great danger that those whose moral sense has not been totally warped will at first reject these abominations with horror. After a while, this response of total rejection and horror will be replaced by regret, which will degenerate into tolerance, then acceptance leading to total callousness and indifference.
Once this stage is reached—the acceptance of the legalization of crimes—the fabric of the state is threatened. The state should stand for justice. Once it condones the most crying injustice, it has sapped the foundation of its authority. The worm of immorality has eaten so deeply into the apple that it is now rotten to the core and, humanly speaking, it cannot survive.
Our society is afflicted by the terrible disease of moral blindness. The physically blind person knows, at least, that he is handicapped. The morally blind person accuses those who see of being "fanatics." The great Pascal raised the question, "Why is it that, when I see a limping man, I feel sorry for his plight? But when I meet a limping mind, I am irritated beyond words?" His answer testifies to his genius: "Because the limping man knows he is limping; the limping mind accuses me of limping." The pro-abortionist and the abortionist have "limping minds," yet they accuse those who understand the rights of the unborn as limping.
This is the situation we face today. In this respect we can say that Hitler has won the war in the Western world.