Patrick Ptomey is an atheist and a pro-life activist. H/T Brian Kemper.
Excerpt:
“Personally, my pro-life beliefs belong to the discoveries in science. While I am sympathetic to women’s rights and would even consider myself a Feminist as would any man who believes in gender equality, the right to life outweighs our personal discomforts. I will hesitantly concede that had I been born 10 years earlier I most likely would have considered myself pro-choice based upon the absence of scientific evidence within the pro-life movement at the time. More so, if science had proven that life began at birth I would have had no foundation for an anti-abortion belief. Thankfully for the pro-life movement, science has reemphasized the movement’s argument that abortion takes the life of an unborn child. Today, the movement has realized that science is much more likely to reach an audience which is increasingly looking for demonstrable evidence from which to base their position on social issues; not just the church’s suggestion.”
I almost forgot. This deacon’s wife has a post up at our diocesan St. Joseph Educational Center. They have a blog, Bite-sized faith which consists of concise articles to help parents pass on the faith.
I was assigned the topic and title. If it was up to me I would have written on “What not to do….”
For better or worse, this is what I turned in:
My adult son was visiting one Christmas when he realized that his parents were no longer “just in case it might be true” Catholics. He exclaimed, “You have changed!” It was an accusation, and not a compliment.
Our about face—our conversion—took him out of his comfort zone. He felt that his parents had acquired a whole new set of beliefs from when he was growing up. We had done nothing to prepare him for it. Consequently, he had difficulty meeting his new mom and his new dad.
That is why it is important to help our children prepare to meet our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, at Easter when He meets us in all of His glory. We don’t want them to be caught off guard, and so we must teach them to be ready. However, we can’t help our family prepare if we don’t first prepare our own hearts.Continue reading…“
Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna. James 3:5-6
Giving up sarcasm for Lent, as I did a few years ago, made conversation very difficult for this snarky gal. Dr. Tom Neal has a weapon for fighting a fiery tongue. Silence:
So here it goes: A 40 day fast from all complaining that is not absolutely required by justice or charity.
Or as my Mom used to say, If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything.
The Practicing Catholic reminds us that although we are fighting against an administration that is denying the Church the freedom to practice our faith, we are called to be joyful.
“Joel and I often say that the “attitude” of this blog embodies what a practicing Catholic ought to be — intentionally, joyfully, and faithfully Catholic all the time. Our blog posts attempt to be the antidote to the perception that piety is boring or that the Church is filled with “sour-faced saints,” as St. Teresa of Avila warns us of becoming.
The recent Health & Human Services’ mandate that orders almost every employer and insurer in the United States to provide sterilization and contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs, has resulted in so much debate across the country. I have seen quite enough sour-faced Catholics arguing for AND against this issue.
So lately I am constantly reminding myself: ditch the sour-face, Lisa! Be joyful, loving, and boldly share the beauty of the Church’s teaching on contraception with others. It is a gift to be freely shared — give it away and share with love.” Continue reading…
The radio show was a blast. Not that I said anything profound. It was a great opportunity to spend time with like minded Catholics who are called to evangelize. I haven’t laughed that much in a long time.
I shared a segment with fellow Iowa Catholic blogger Lisa Schmidt. Lisa and her husband Joel, host the blog The practicing Catholic. Lisa is a young, intelligent, committed, and joy filled Catholic. She is an inspiration! Check out her blog here.
Another guest was Fr. Aquinas Nichols from the Basilica of St. John here in Des Moines. He recently gave a homily that was posted on YouTube and is apparently going viral. The Basilica has a live webcast of Sunday Mass and homilies are posted on YouTube.
Many Catholic bloggers give up blogging for Lent, but I have decided to embrace the life. And no it is not because I am rebellious and need to be different. Honest.
The season of Lent is a wonderful gift from the Church. So why do I struggle every year. It is not like I don’t have a large dumpster full of sins to choose from. But, except for the year that I gave up sarcasm, I have a hard time narrowing it down to the sins that are keeping me from fulfilling my Christian vocation to agape.
Then it hit me. I am one big fraud. The topic for discussion was evangelization through technology. My last blog post was on February 11th. Gulp.
To bad that there is not a Pulitzer for procrastination, avoidance, and lack of discipline, I would win. Yes I know, that I have a demanding job. So what? Who doesn’t? Besides, according to the Wall Street Journal, days are getting longer. .
In the pursuit, therefore, of discipline I will be blogging for Lent and praying more. If I cultivate discipline perhaps I will grow in love for God, neighbor and family.
We beg God for the preservation of our great and beautiful country, and of the freedom we have all enjoyed and been privileged to share with others. The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia invite you to join with us in a novena of prayer and fasting, asking Mary, Patroness of the United States of America, to implore God’s loving mercy on us at this critical time. The novena will begin February 11 and end February 19, 2012. The sisters will be praying the following prayer each of the nine days.
Act of Consecration of the United States to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Most Holy Trinity: Our Father in heaven, who chose Mary as the fairest of your daughters; Holy Spirit, who chose Mary as your spouse; God the Son, who chose Mary as your Mother; in union with Mary, we adore your majesty and acknowledge your supreme, eternal dominion and authority.
Most Holy Trinity, we put the United States of America into the hands of Mary Immaculate in order that she may present the country to you. Through her we wish to thank you for the great resources of this land and for the freedom, which has been its heritage. Through the intercession of Mary, have mercy on the Catholic Church in America. Grant us peace. Have mercy on our president and on all the officers of our government. Grant us a fruitful economy born of justice and charity. Have mercy on capital and industry and labor. Protect the family life of the nation. Guard the precious gift of many religious vocations. Through the intercession of our Mother, have mercy on the sick, the poor, the tempted, sinners—on all who are in need.
Mary, Immaculate Virgin, our Mother, Patroness of our land, we praise you and honor you and give our country and ourselves to your sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. O Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pierced by the sword of sorrow prophesied by Simeon, save us from degeneration, disaster and war. Protect us from all harm. O Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, you who bore the sufferings of your Son in the depths of your heart, be our advocate. Pray for us, that acting always according to your will and the will of your divine Son, we may live and die pleasing to God. Amen.
Our Bishop is awesome. From today’s Des Moines Register:
“President Barack Obama’s abrupt policy shift aimed at defusing a national uproar over birth control didn’t go far enough for Des Moines Catholic Bishop Richard Pates, who has penned a letter he wants read from the pulpit or printed in the bulletins of 81 parishes Sunday in protest of the administration’s plan.
The Obama administration issued a declaration on Jan. 20 that religious institutions, such as Catholic hospitals and universities, would be required to offer free birth control to employees as a health care benefit.
The president on Friday announced that while workers at such institutions must still be offered free contraception, the insurance companies, not the religious employers, would pick up the tab for such services — a solution he said will protect religious liberty while also ensuring women have access to free contraception.
But such a requirement remains unacceptable to Pates, whose Des Moines diocese includes about 97,000 Roman Catholic parishioners.
“The government can’t be about engineering who we are and what we are going to believe,” said Pates, who was recently elected chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ office for International Peace and Justice, which, among other things, works to promote religious liberty around the globe. “We need to take this out of the political sphere. This is a human rights issue that is not intended to be politically aligned one way or the other.”
Similar responses have been issued by the bishops presiding over Iowa’s three other dioceses since the Obama administration’s initial decision to offer no conscience exemptions for the health care services offered to employees of church-affiliated institutions.
The U.S. Conference of Bishops is withholding its endorsement of the change until it sees the details.
Bishop Pates’ letter to be read on Sunday states that such a policy is “immoral and thus we cannot use our resources to make (it) possible.”
Msgr. Frank Bognanno of Christ the King parish on Des Moines’ south side earned multiple ovations when preaching against the mandate at mass last Sunday.
“I was really surprised the government would try to force any church to act against their conscience,” Bognanno said. “This is a very arrogant and bold step for any government to take. This is intolerance.”
The Bishops are not backing down. They issued a second statement late yesterday.
Excerpt:
Today, the President has done two things.
First, he has decided to retain HHS’s nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.
Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:
·It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.
·It would allow non-profit, religious employers to declare that they do not offer such coverage. But the employee and insurer may separately agree to add that coverage. The employee would not have to pay any additional amount to obtain this coverage, and the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer’s policy, not as a separate rider.
·Finally, we are told that the one-year extension on the effective date (from August 1, 2012 to August 1, 2013) is available to any non-profit religious employer who desires it, without any government application or approval process.
These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.
We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services. Read more…
During the last Presidential election campaign, my favorite deacon thought that Obama was an empty suit. I was concerned that he was not an empty suit. My gut kept screaming danger, danger!
Well, unfortunately, the President’s war on the Catholic Church in particular and freedom of religion in general has confirmed my worst fears.
His so called statement of accommodation has not persuaded me otherwise. I think that I will have to re-think voting none of the above come November.
(Reuters) – President Barack Obama, in an abrupt policy shift aimed at quelling an election-year firestorm, announced on Friday that religious employers would not be required to offer free birth control to workers and that the onus would instead be put on insurers.
“According to a White House statement, some religious employers will no longer be required to provide insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs; coverage for those services will instead be provided for free directly by insurance companies. However, at least three problems remain. First, hundreds if not thousands of religious organizations self insure, meaning that they will still be forced to pay for these services in violation of their religious beliefs. Second, it is unclear which religious organizations are permitted to claim the new exemption, and whether it will extend to for-profit organizations, individuals, or non-denominational organizations. Third, money is fungible, and many religious organizations may still object to being forced to pay money to an insurance company which will turn around and provide contraception to its employees for free.
“It is especially telling that the details of this supposed ‘compromise’ will likely not be announced until after the election,” said Smith. “Religious freedom is not a political football to be kicked around in an election-year. Rather than providing full protection for the right of conscience, the administration has made a cynical political play that is the antithesis of ‘hope and change.’
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are proceeding with caution. Read their statement here. We will see. I don’t think that cardinal designate Dolan will fall for this. Unless there is something in the details of the plan and a firm reason to believe that any compromise will not be rescinded if Obama is re-elected.
A Deacon's Wife 