Clown of the Week----Cardinal Joachim Meisner

      Before I sat down to write this blog, I hesitated.  I could almost hear the sighs from my few readers..."Ugh.  Another article about birth control!"  It's tired.  I know.  But at least once a week, a Catholic in a position of authority says something publicly about contraception that is so utterly stupid and ridiculous that I just can't hold my tongue.
     This week the Clown of the Week Award goes to the German Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne.  What, you say, did the good Cardinal do to deserve such an award?  He issued a statement in response to the "controversy" surrounding two Catholic hospitals in Cologne who refused to dispense "emergency contraceptives" to a rape victim.  What exactly was that statement?  Read it and weep, good and faithful Catholics.  "If, after a rape, a supplement is used with the intend of preventing fertilization, that is in my view justifiable."  Congratulations Herr Meisner!  You have just declared utter nonsense, and confounded and confused another generation of Catholics!   
     Since many of today's Catholics are being led around and spoon fed by these clowns, I think it's time for another primer on the absolute absurdity of such a statement.  Good and faithful Catholics should be outraged every time one of these statements comes to light in the media.  Why?  Because many Catholics are blinded by obedience and will believe every single word they say without hesitation, thus finding themselves fast on the path to Perdition!  Enough!  Let's see if we can clarify, then.

1)  If, after a rape.....Yes, rape is a horrible crime against a woman.  Woman who are raped feel shame, quilt, anger, sadness, confusion, despair, remorse, disgust, and hatred.  What makes the situation worse is that most women are raped by someone they know or are at least familiar with.  After women are raped they feel so many emotions for months, perhaps even years, that it is sometimes difficult for them to even think straight.  And that is precisely the problem.  These women who have been raped and have come to a medical facility are not thinking straight at all.  They are over-run with pure emotion. In such a state of raw emotion a woman couldn't possibly consider the idea that she might have fallen pregnant with a man whom she feels nothing but disgust. Difficult dilemma, yes?

2)  ...a supplement is used with the intend of preventing fertilization.....This is called contraception.  Period.  Even the FDA, which is not noted for honesty or transparency regarding pharmaceuticals, identifies "the Pill" and the "emergency pill" as contraceptives, or methods where hormones are used to prevent ovulation or the fertilization of the egg.  There are many natural supplements that have been around for millennia that women have to prevent fertilization---pomegranates, neem oil, Queen Anne's Lace seeds, rutin, smartweed, and apricot kernels.  You see, contrary, to popular belief, ours is not the first society who desired not to have offspring.  There were many people before who discovered certain herbs and flowers could bring on a menstrual cycle, prevent fertilization, or cause a miscarriage.  Why not use one of these supplements instead of hormones which are known cancer agents? 

3)  ...in my view....It seems the good Cardinal's view is the same view as the "experts" and "scientists."  But what about God's view?  And the Church's view?  You see, the Cardinal's view doesn't really matter does it?  The only view that actually counts is God's and He left the Catholic Church solely responsible for teaching everyone what that view is.  Sorry Herr Meisner.

4)  ...justifiable.  This one word, alone, is what qualifies Herr Meisner for the Clown of the Week Award.  What exactly does this word mean?  When a decision or action is justifiable, it must be proven that the action is just, right, or reasonable.  Is preventing fertilization with a supplement in any case just, right, or reasonable?  Not according to God!  Not even in the case of rape.  What is just about denying a child created by God his natural right to live?  What is right about intentionally and willfully suppressing a woman's fertility so that she will not fall pregnant?  What is reasonable about telling a woman that it is okay to take a "supplement" to prevent a child from being conceived or born?  


     What's the big deal, you say, about Cardinal Meisner anyway.  Well, he is in a position of authority.  Faithful Catholics see him as a representative of the visible Church.  Those Catholics who are still attending Mass and who still listen to their priests and bishops will take what the Cardinal says and actually believe it is true.  This is what makes his statement absolutely absurd and dangerous.  And this is precisely why the Catholic Church is in the rotten state that it is in!  The hierarchy is rotten and they are liars.  And while they may or may not hold legitimate places of authority, one just cannot believe a word they say.  Period.  In these times, it's best not to listen to them at all or measure everything they declare with what the Church actually teaches. 

  Contraception and abortion, contrary to popular belief, are not new ideas.  Any study of the use of contraception clearly indicates that both practices, contraception and abortion, were commonplace throughout antiquity.  In fact, an exhaustive analysis of women's health, including contraception, was published in the 2nd Century by Soranus of Ephesus, a Greek gynecologist.  His works were so important that they were read and referenced for over 1500 years.  I mention this because it is important to note that these practices were part of the life and culture that Our Lord and His Apostles were teaching against.  And since these practices were part of the general culture, Christians were in direct opposition to it.  As such, this is not a new idea that just suddenly popped up in the 1960s with the invention of a birth control pill.  On the contrary, ours is not the first culture in which men and women wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh without any consequences.

    From the beginning, Our Lord, His Apostles, and His Church have condemned the practice of contraception and abortion.  One does not need a degree in theology to know what the Church teaches in regards to these matters.  Neither are acceptable--both are intrinsically morally evil.  Period.  This concept is so simple that even the Protestants understand it.  God, and God alone, is the author of life.  He decides, in His ultimate Wisdom, when or if a child is to be created.  This is very difficult for us to understand, especially when the circumstances involved are so difficult.  But who are we to question Our Lord's Ways?  After all, they are not ours.  

   Is rape a horrible situation?  Yes.  Most definitely.  But sometimes Our Lord chooses this precise situation to bring a new human being into this world.  Why?  I do not know. It would be highly presumptuous of me to contemplate why the Lord would allow a child to be conceived in this way.  A report that come out in Ireland last year highlighted the fact that most women in this situation keep their children.  If a child conceived out of rape is so horrible, why do all these women keep their children?  Perhaps this is a question Cardinal Meisner ought to investigate.  The Cardinal might begin his research by reading the blog by Rebecca Kiessling, a woman who was conceived in rape and targeted for abortion.  I am certain she would have to disagree with Cardinal Meisner that "emergency" contraception is ever justified.  There are women there who have lovingly and courageously shared their stories in hopes that they can have an impact.  

     It is a really sad day for humanity the leaders of the Holy Catholic Church lose their faith and their marbles at the same time. For this reason, German Cardinal Joachim Meisner wins the Clown of the Week Award.

Our Lady of Good Success, Ora Pro Nobis!

St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Ora Pro Nobis!



     


     

We Have Become Death

   
~I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds~
J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1945




 On Friday, a young man, the age of my oldest son, walked into a public elementary school and brutally gunned down a classroom of children, the same age as my youngest son.  It is not only a tragedy, but a horror.  Every where we turn, there is senseless murder.  We have become death.  (Click links below.)

Shooting Mass Murders

20 Dead Children In Connecticut.

A Young Man On A Rampage In An Oregon Mall.

Shooting Rampage in Colorado Movie Theater.

The Columbine School Bombing and Rampage.

7 Killed At Sikh Temple in Wisconsin.

Several Students Killed At Christian College in California.

Gunman Opens Fire In Seattle Cafe.

Disgruntled Worker Kills 5.

Virginia Tech Shooting In 2007

Amish School Shooting 

Immigrants Killed In Binghamton, New York Shooting.

The 1966 Shooting At The University of Texas

The Long Island Railroad Shooting in 1993

Tucson Mall Shooting That Injured Congress Woman.

"Going Postal"--Postal Worker Shootings In The 1980s


     While all of these deaths were senseless and unnecessary, what are we to make about it?  This is what our secular society has truly wrought and what goes unreported every day.  In context of the people killed, these rampages have nothing on the real agents of death and destruction in our society.  Wake up, Americans!  It's not the guns that are killing!  It's this culture, this Godless culture, that has given us this legacy of death!  It will not end; it will never change unless we allow Our Lord to truly reign in our hearts and in our nation.  The only one who can end it now is Our Most Blessed Mother.  Our only weapons in these dark times are the Rosary and Our Lady's Scapular.  

Euthanasia

51 Assisted Suicide Murders in 2010 Alone.

95 People Were Assisted in Their Own Murders in Washington and Oregon.

Man Murders His Wife But Fails To Kill Himself.  Is Charged With Assisted Suicide.

Movement To Change The Definition Of Suicide To Assisted Dying.

Terry Schiavo Starved To Death For 13 Days.

Murder of The Disabled

Autistic Young Man Tortured and Murdered By Brother

Abuse And Death In Homes For The Disabled.

Family Murders Disabled Mother For Monthly Benefits.

Rape And Murder Of Disabled Girl.

Girl With Cerebral Palsy Murdered By Mother Hours Before Wedding

Woman Murders And Dismembers Disabled Step-Daughter.

Elder Abuse And Murder

Elder Abuse Masked Under Disguise Of Assisted Suicide

Woman Murders Bed-Ridden Mother

Woman and Daughter Allow Elderly Aunt To Die Of Neglect

Man Allows Elderly Mother To Sit And Rot In Her Own Waste.

Murder of the Unborn

In 2008, 1.21 Million Children Were Ripped From Their Mother's Wombs.

90% Of Babies With Down Syndrome Are Murdered Before Birth.

Pregnant Mothers Counseled To Murder Unborn Daughter Because She Was Not A Boy

Bill To Ban Sex Selective Abortion Defeated In Congress.

Murder Of Unborn Babies Based On Sex Is A Real Problem In The United States.


     This is what we have become!  We are a people without God.  We are a people without love.  We are a people without compassion.  When we, as a people, as a nation embraced the willful murdering of our own children in the womb, we dropped the Atomic Bomb on our society.  We can not stop the fall out.  We we can kill the children we cannot see, what is left to stop us from killing the people we can see?  If we have no God, how are we to stop ourselves from starving to death our own helpless aging parents and disabled children?

We have become death, the destroyer of worlds.

Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked,Without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness,  Traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God: Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof.  But evil men and seducers shall grow worse and worse: erring, and driving into error. But continue thou in those things which thou hast learned, and which have been committed to thee: knowing of whom thou hast learned them; 2 Timothy 3:1-5; 13-14

Our Lady Of Guadalupe, Pray For Us!

O, Emmanuel, Come, Bring Your Justice!  Show Your People Mercy!

Don't Look Now! The Emperor Has No Clothes!

     It has been some time since I posted.  I apologize.  I've had a mother to care for and a handful of children to homeschool.  It's been a rough two months.  But as issues with my mother are improving and the children are managing, I thought I'd write some more on politics as I had promised in the summer.
     I had wanted to write a lot of things, particularly about the history of Catholics in the United States, but recent events of the Catholic Bishops in the U.S have come to the forefront.  And I think it's a good opportunity to address what is wrong with the modern Catholic Church and why so many Catholics are ignorant of their faith and confused about how to cast a vote in this upcoming election.

     

     In case, the above image is not familiar to you, this is a photograph taken on October 18, 2012 at the 67th Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in New York.  Okay.  So what?  Who is Alfred E. Smith anyway?  And why is this dinner occasion for Bishops to cozy up to politicians?  Interesting questions, really, with answers I had to research myself.
    First just who is Alfred E. Smith?  Most notably, Al Smith was the Governor of New York in the 1920s.  He was a Catholic and he was elected 3 times in New York to guide and serve the people of that state.  Al Smith was an Irish Catholic, born in Manhattan, and a member of  the Democratic Party political machine called Tammany Hall.  In spite of his involvement in Tammany Hall, Al Smith was smart enough to separate himself from it, expose the organizations corruption, and propose necessary reforms in the State of New York.  This made him both popular and unpopular, but made him a favored candidate for President in 1928 against Herbert Hoover.  Unfortunately, the religious sentiment across the country proved doom for the Democratic party ticket with a New York Catholic at is head and a Southern Protestant underneath.  The campaign was rife with problems and it brought to the forefront anti-Catholic bias in this country, particularly in the South.
     Anti-catholic sentiment was nothing new to the United States.  The first permanent settlements in the United States were made up of English and German Protestants fleeing their own persecutions.  They brought with them the propaganda and hatred borne out of Martin Luther's Protestant Revolt.  Catholics were routinely accused of horrible crimes, banned from communities, and prohibited from owning property, home educating their children, or participating in political activities.  There was, of course, the theological prejudices accusing the Catholic Church of being the "Whore of Babylon" and the accusations that Catholics, themselves, were Satan worshippers and idolaters.  In fact, it was dangerous in the early years of our Nation to be a Catholic.  
     Aside from the theological differences, many people in the Colonies feared the secular mindset of Catholics, in general.  It is perhaps why the Protestant legislators in the colonies enacted laws prohibiting Catholics from voting or holding office.  Catholics were primarily unafraid of a monarchical form of government.  They weren't opposed to municipalities governing with Catholic ideas or theology.  In fact, from a Catholic theological and political perspective, this was necessary.  As such, the Catholics weren't necessarily in support of freeing themselves from rule of a King, even if that King was not Catholic or corrupt.  It posed a great problem for the Protestant colonists in the colonies and there was always propaganda floating around to humiliate and isolate Catholics in the United States.
     As Catholic immigrants began flooding the United States in the 1800s, anti-Catholicism reached it's peak.  Protestant preachers ignited the flames in there sermons across the country.  They called for prohibiting Catholics from settling in many places and continued to ostracize them.  Across the country, churches were burned, Catholics were killed, and tempers flared.  It was a very nasty time in American history, and one of the only ways for U.S. Catholics to defend themselves was to fight back and separate themselves from the Protestants.  The U.S. soon became a nation divided between Catholics and Protestants.  
      One way the Catholics sought to defend themselves was through the school system.  In 1875, Pope Pius IX wrote a letter to the U.S. Bishops cautioning them of the danger to the souls of their children in the public schools.  In 1897, Pope Leo XIII issued an Encyclical insisting that Catholic children be educated in Catholic schools by Catholic instructors.  And as anti-Catholic sentiment continued to rise, it was this instruction that the Catholics in New York took seriously.  Tammany Hall, the political machine in which Alfred E. Smith was made, invested millions of dollars in Catholic schools across the country.  This caused such a controversy in the United States, that political cartoons sprung up further inciting the anti-Catholic bias in this country.  This was a very dark time for Catholics.
     Yet, in spite of the Catholic hatred in the country, Alfred E. Smith won the Democratic nomination for President in 1928.  And his nomination let loose another hailstorm of anti-Catholic sentiment, particularly in the South, where the KKK rose up in loud protest.  Of course, the campaign was doomed to fail, with Al Smith receiving merely 87 Electoral College votes.  In spite of the Democratic platform of improvements in education, federal money for farmers, and an end to Prohibition, the Republicans fostered the sentiment made by a Southern preacher:  "No subject of the Pope should be allowed to become President."  Even members of his own party campaigned against him out of fear that he would make America a Catholic nation.  
      After Al Smith's humiliating defeat, he attempted to run for President once more in 1932.  Of course, he lost that nomination to FDR, and he went on to become very outspoken against that President's New Deal.  He spent the rest of his life in vocal opposition to Roosevelt's New Deal policies, hoping for reforms.  He did in 1944.  In 1946, the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Spellman established the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation in memory of Mayor Smith and all the good works he had accomplished for Catholics in both politics and public service.  The goal of the foundation was and is to raise funds for the neediest people, especially children, in the Diocese of New York.  The main fundraiser for the Foundation has always been the Al Smith Dinner, the black tie affair where the wealthiest donors come for a night of fun and entertainment, with the explicit purpose of political elbow-rubbing.  Cardinal Spellman hoped to remind people of the importance and significance of Al Smith and Catholicism in our political history.  There have been only few occasions where current presidential candidates have not participated in the dinner.  In other words, it's a big deal for politicians and it's a big deal for Catholics.
     The Al Smith Dinner has a long history, then, in American politics.  It also has a long history with Catholic Charities and collecting donations for health care, schools, and food for needy families.  Perhaps these are the reasons why Cardinal Dolan saw fit to invite both the President and his rival to the dinner this year.  But for whatever reason, the Cardinal has left Catholics scandalized and confused.  Yet, this does seem to be the mantra of the modern Catholic Church---keep the faithful ignorant, confuse them more, and lead them to believe that evil is good, no matter what the degree.
     Bloggers all over the blogosphere are rightly outraged and confused by the Cardinal's actions this year.  There was a petition out to stop the Diner completely.  Others have just questioned why Cardinal Dolan would invite President Obama.  Some retained hope that Cardinal Dolan would use this as an opportunity to confront President Obama about his abortion views.     And then you've got the Catholics giving rounds of applause to His Emminence, Cardinal Dolan.      What are Catholics to make of this whole mess anyway?
     For clarity sake let's have a look at what the stink is all about anyway.  Most of the individuals in opposition to Cardinal Dolan's invitation to President Obama has to do with his view and policies on abortion, homosexual marriage, and his Marxist ideology.  They argue that the President's pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, pro-government control of health care are incompatible with Catholicism and, therefore, he should not have been invited to the dinner at all.  These same people argue that Mr. Romney should have been the only one to speak since his views are consistent with or are at-least not as extreme as the President's.  I suppose that's their opinion.  However mine is much different.
    Until the 1980s, neither abortion, homosexuality, or Marxism had been on the radar or lips of American politicians.  Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Walter Mondale, George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, Al Gore, and Dick Cheney were at one time or currently are all supporters of abortion and or homosexual rights.  They have all been speakers at the Al Smith Dinner.  If these politicians have been invited and spoken at the Dinner, then why the outrage over Obama?  For what it's worth, Mitt Romney is also pro-abortion.  Why not be outraged that he was invited and spoke at the Dinner?  It's truly a puzzle to me.
     Why has there never been outrage before?  Simple.  Money.  The modern Catholic Church is no longer interested in saving souls or avoiding the cause of scandal.  The bishops and cardinals are only interested in one thing--political posturing to raise money for this project or that.  It's a real shame.  The Cardinal, if he had really taking his role as Shepherd seriously, could have refused to invite them both, and instead invited Rick Santorum who is both Catholic and unequivocably pro-life and pro-family.  He could have invited Mike Huckabee who is also.  Perhaps he could have invited Todd Akin.  Now wouldn't that have made a statement!  But no, His Emminence decided it would be best to continue to confuse Catholics by allowing them to think that Catholics can simply separate Catholicism from their life, from their political decisions, from the voting booth.
     This is a complete insult to the memory of Albert E. Smith.  There was a man who faced assault after assault for his Catholicism. Here was a  man who denounced the KKK, who openly tried to rid it's influence from the Democratic party.  He was ridiculed and derailed by members of his own party.  Why?  Only because he was a Catholic.  
     The Catholic Church has always been the last bastion of hope in the world.  She has always defended the helpless and hopeless.  She has always stood for Truth.  She has always protected her children from evil and guided them to the Son.  Yet, here we are with Cardinals hamming it up with two pro-abortion politicians telling you on one hand "This is a political dinner and we are raising money for a good cause." and on the other hand telling you "That both parties, both candidates are acceptable choices as long as you don't think too hard."  It is scandalous!
     So be careful, my Catholic friends.  You simply can no longer trust your Shepherds!  They are all wolves in disguise!

Our Lady of Fatima, ora pro nobis!
      

Shut Up, You Freak! You Are Not In Command Here!

     What an outright mess of a country we live in!  The monkeys media are running the zoo.  And in cases like this recent statement by Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, the "experts" also get a big hat and a name tag.  What are they doing, really?  They are having a very good run of making Christians appear to be uneducated, backwards, unsympathetic, ignorant, rigid, and cold.  Why are they doing it?  There are two reasons, both closely related.  First and foremost, there is a call for an ever increasing secular society--a society that is not governed by religious principles or moral values.  In order to achieve that goal (and it is a real goal), the powers-that-be--the media, the elite, the political parties--must silence any meaningful discussion about moral issues as quickly as possible.  The second reason is something like that.  The political parties, fundamentally,  want to eject social issues from their platforms.  When this happens, they argue, our leaders can focus on the things that really matter, like jobs and the economy.  It's a twisted little game they are playing--and winning.  And Congressman Akin just happens to be a token to use on their playing board.
     I feel really very sorry for Congressman Akin.  Even though he was confused about the biology of how pregnancy works, I understood exactly what Congressman Akin was saying.  He was saying that it is very, very rare for a rape victim to fall pregnant.  And, in the case, that she did, it is morally unjust to murder the child for the crime of his father.  Mr. Akin is right, of course, and the media is using him to hammer into everyone's head the radical feminist agenda.  His own political party, the Republicans, are using him to pander to the secular, modernist voting bloc, because that is who they believe they need to win elections.  Personally, I think it's incredibly important to look at the issues, because many Catholics will be voting in this election.
   We have some real problems in this country and some of them stem primarily from the use or misuse of terms and language.  Mr. Akin used the term "legitimate rape."  Now any reasonable person knows perfectly well what that means.  In spite of what the media is telling you or what the law defines, there ARE different kinds of rape.  Rape is a crime, but so are theft, robbery, and murder.  There are several different types of theft all carrying penalties related to how this crime is committed and under what circumstances:  extortion, theft by deception, shoplifting, carjacking, theft of service, receiving stolen property, identity theft, etc.  Robbery, of course, is a form of theft but is more egregious because the theft happens in the owner's presence, willfully, and with violence.  There are different types of robbery, also, like armed robbery, home invasion, breaking and entering, aggravated robbery, etc.  These offenses, too, come with varying penalties and punishments regarding the circumstances.  Murder, yet again, has various classifications and punishments.  There's capital murder, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, vehicular homicide, felony murder, etc.  And while all of these crimes are terrible and horrible trespasses on our citizens, they do have varying degrees of seriousness.
     Rape, as horrible as it is, is this way as well.  There is rape by force, rape by coercion, marital rape, acquaintance rape, drug induced rape, etc.  They are all crimes, yes, but they carry with them different penalties regarding the circumstances.  Yes, all rape is horrible, but some rapes are worse than others.  But what's worse about rape than the above mentioned crimes, is that it is often difficult to prove, and often places the victim's behavior under the spotlight.  For this reason, many, many women never report that they have been raped and many rapists never are arrested or convicted.  And precisely because rape is so hard to prove, it can be hard to disprove as well.  That's the reason many women have claimed rape or faked rape out of revenge, guilt, or to cover their own sexual misadventures.  The plot of Nell Harper's To Kill a Mockingbird centers around just such an injustice.  Think my statement is unfair to women?  Here's a bit of news that the media doesn't want to bring to anyone's attention.
   Women fake rape all the time.  In 2002, a young 17 year-old football player had a bright future.  A class-mate charged him with kidnapping and rape.  He plead non-contest at the advice of his lawyer, served 6 years in jail, and the school system paid the girl $1.5 million.  10 years later, she admitted she lied.  In the spring of this year, a woman in California claimed she had been attacked from behind and sexually assaulted.  She later came forth to tell the police that she had lied about the assault.  Two women in Fort Collins, Colorado accused three men of drugging and raping them in January of this year.  Those two women have since been arrested for lying and extortion.   There is also the story of the young teenager who was charged with raping a friend.  He plead guilty on the advice of his lawyer.  After the young man went to prison, his accuser recanted.  It took the Virginia Supreme Court to finally determine that he was falsely accused and improperly counseled, allowing his name to be removed from the sex offender registry. 
      These are just a few cases that I could find easily with a Google search.  Who knows how many cases of fake rape women report each year.  The point is, it is not unheard of.  And who knows how many women, past and present, who discover they are pregnant and claim they were raped or coerced.  In fact, sometimes women get drunk, go home with men, regret it the next day and charge that they were raped.  Often, these men, who freely admit the events that happened, are found guilty and spend long periods of time behind bars.  It's a mess!  So in Mr. Akin's defense, his term "legitimate rape" makes a whole lotta sense to me.
     But, for the sake of argument, let's consider that a woman is raped and she does fall pregnant.  What in the world to do about that?  First of all, no one is certain how many actual rape victims fall pregnant at the hands of their rapist.  It is estimated that the number is between 1-5%.  Of that number, no one is certain how many of those women have abortions, how many keep their children, and how many are put up for adoption.  What is clear, though, is that induced abortions as the result of rape makes up only a small percentage of the abortions performed in this country.  In fact, the Guttmacher Institute reports that only 1% of women seeking abortion have been forced to have sex against their will.    Because facilities are not required by law to report how many abortions they perform, abortion statistics in the U.S are only estimates gathered from the CDC and Planned Parenthood.  The estimate is that 1.2 million babies died from abortion last year.  If the statistics are correct, then that means over 100,000 of those babies were babies of rape victims.  In some people's view, that is 100,000 women did not have to suffer unnecessarily at the hands of her rapist by carrying the child, the reminder of such trama, to term.  Compassionate, right?
    The fundamental issue that really lies beneath abortion and abortion laws in this country is primarily one of language and technicality.  You see, in terms of the law, unborn babies in their mother's wombs, are not people and they are not citizens of the United States.  This is a very important distinction, legally, because under the Constitution then, they are not guaranteed any rights at all.  It's called Due Process.  It's a pretty ambiguous legal term but it is that clause that permits all woman to have an abortion in this country.  Under Due Process, everyone has a right to privacy, including when it involves a pregnancy.  In other words, a woman's pregnancy is purely a medical condition and a woman has the right to seek whatever treatment she chooses to treat that condition.  It is the liberal, feminist, ace-in-the-hole, if you will.  Under these terms, already defined by Roe v. Wade, pregnancy is a health condition, the "fetus" is a blob of tissue, and the woman can "choose" to do with it what she wants.  Induced abortion, the intentional expulsion of the products of conception through medicine or instrumentation, is THE cornerstone of feminism.  In real terms, it is perfectly legal to kill an unborn child by poison, stabbing with a sharp object, burning with acid, and dismemberment to remove it from its mother's womb as long as the mother chooses to do so.  And as long as we continue to consider pregnancy as a health condition and not a process by which new human beings come into existence, we will continue to face the wrath of Our Lord over the direct bloodshed of 1.2 million innocent children.
     Personally, I think Congressman Akin is a lot braver than most politicians.  He approached the abortion issue from the only completely logical avenue can be taken.  If it is true that unborn babies are people, then there can never be one single reason to allow for their execution.  Since they are not capable of acting in any capacity, they cannot be found guilty of any crimes committed.  They are 100% innocent.  Since that is true, they cannot be convicted and found worthy of death.  They have a right, as persons, to live.  Ending their innocent lives would be willful murder, a sin most grievous that it cries out to Heaven for vengeance.  As such, no God-fearing Christian could ever in good conscience claim that abortion can and should be permitted in certain cases, particularly in the case of rape, incest, or the life of the mother.  This would in essence be saying that it is okay to willfully murder people under whatever circumstances we deem appropriate.
     I recently read in the combox of someone's blog regarding this issue.  This was a Catholic blog, I can't really remember which one now, and the author was discussing what the Catholic Church teaches regarding abortion.  Quite a few people chimed in, but one person's comment was particularly disturbing.  She was a Catholic around the age of 65 or so.  She is a cradle-Catholic, educated her entire life in Catholic institutions.  She was college-educated by the Jesuits in the 1960s and was clearly outraged to discover that the Church had changed Her teaching regarding abortion.  You see, she had been taught, as did all of her peers, that abortion was perfectly acceptable in three cases--rape, incest, and the life of the mother.  She absolutely could not believe that, suddenly, the Church changed her position.  I am not certain that the author ever corrected her there.  So I will clarify her.  The Catholic Church has never taught, nor ever will teach, that abortion, the willful murder of an innocent child, is morally acceptable in any case.  It can not teach this because our Lord did not teach this to be so.  Any Catholic who believes otherwise will suffer under pain of mortal sin.  It would be best to educate yourself and get to confession.
     I believe that the devil is at work over time in this country and particularly with Catholics.  The Catholic Church is the One True Church left to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Nothing that she teaches within the Magisterium is false.  Nothing.  It cannot be.  If it were, then Our Lord would be a liar.  And He cannot be.  But the devil can.  The devil is having his hey-day with the general population at large, including many priests, bishops, cardinals, nuns, and Popes.  Not one of us is immune.  Not one.  The only thing we can trust or depend on is the One True Church, Our Lord, and Our Blessed Mother.
     I applaud Mr. Akin.  He may have missed biology class when the professor was talking about how the female reproductive system works, but at least he has back-bone.  He is right.  Rape is not as clear cut as people would like you to believe.  Some rapes are not "legitimate."  Induced abortion is always morally reprehensible.  There is never an excuse to murder an innocent child, particularly in the case where its execution is for a crime committed by its father.
     On this Feast Day of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, let us ask her to end this scourge of humanity.  Because of Her place as Queen of Heaven and Earth, Our Blessed Mother can end this today, if we devote ourselves to Her Heart and ask her to take their unheard cries and buckets of shed blood and sorrowfully place them at the feet of Our Lord.  Otherwise, the United States is soon merit Our Lord's Justice.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Holy Innocents, pray for us!

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!