Sunday, November 23, 2008

Human Freedom and Christ's Kingship

Here is a message from the pope I thought good to post today. Here is the link to the article on Catholic.org.

"He is the king of the entire universe," the pope said, "but the critical point, the place where his kingdom is at risk, is our heart, because there God encounters our freedom. We, and not only we ourselves, can block him from reigning over us, and can therefore pose obstacles to his reign over the world: over the family, over society, over history. We men and women have the ability to choose with whom to ally ourselves: with Christ and his angels, or with the devil and his followers, to use the language of the Gospel itself. It is up to us to decide whether to practice justice or iniquity, whether to embrace love and forgiveness or vengeance and murderous hatred.

"Our personal salvation depends on this, but also the salvation of the world. This is why Jesus wants to include us in his reign, this is why he invites us to collaborate with the coming of his Kingdom of love, of justice and peace. It is up to us to respond to him, not with words, but with actions: by choosing the way of practical and generous love toward our neighbor, we permit Him to extend his lordship over time and space."

As for the moment of judgment, "the Son of Man in his glory, surrounded by his angels, acts like the shepherd who separates the sheep from the goats, putting the just on his right and the wicked on his left. He invites the just to enter into the inheritance prepared for them from eternity, while he condemns the wicked to the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and for the other rebel angels. The criterion of judgment is decisive. This criterion is love, practical charity toward our neighbor, especially toward the 'least,' the people in the greatest difficulty: hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, in prison. The king solemnly declares to all that what they have done or not done toward the least, they have done or not done to Him. This means that Christ identifies himself with his 'least brethren,' and the final judgment will be the reckoning of what has already taken place in earthly life.

"Dear brothers and sisters," Benedict XVI concluded, "this is what is important to God. He does not care about historical royalty, but wants to reign in the hearts of persons, and from there over the world."


In mass today they had the reading was Mathew 25:31-46. Hope everyone has a great day!

Saturday, November 08, 2008

This election and the Republican base

For better or for worse the country has elected a new President to start off his term in the new year. No suprise on my part as to the outcome and when it came down to it, I was not horribly dissappointed either. I still have great faith in our country and pray for it's leaders. I do pray that they make sound and moral decisions and that this nation made the right decision in the end. This does not mean that I will be singing the praises of our first African American President. I am a realist and the color of his skin really does not matter to me. I find that supporting someone based on the color of their skin versus their merits is a backward step for any who do believe racism is a problem in this country. I personally believe that this country has many good people and racism was really overplayed.

I have read of the need of reorganization of the Republican Party. Some believe in the return to the party of Reagan while others believe in the progression and moderation of the party. This election does prove that the party needs to go to principles that the American people believe in or I believe it's popularity will continue to fade. I do listen to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh most days when work allows, and I have to say that it was a rarity to find an avid McCain supporter. That was why McCain lost: people firmly believed in Obama in the democratic party, the Republicans knew that they did not want Obama and thus voted for McCain out of necessity. I believe many dropped their support for the Republican party as McCain bashed conservative religious leaders at the first of the campaign. It took McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for me to back him, but that was from my morbid hope that somehow she would have taken countrol of presidency sometime during the following four years. For many others, I am sure that was not enough. McCain is far from a populist and is an honorable man, which is why I respect him, but he also is no conservative.

For now my view is to sit back and see what happens to the party. If it returns to it's religious conservative base then I may vote with them again, but if this party's leaders go further to the left I will be looking elsewhere for leadership and I am not speaking of the democratic party either.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Freedom of Choice Act

I want to point people's attention to an article that was sent to me today. This caused me to look up the Freedom of Choice Act.

I also found it on Barack Obama's site, you can google it:

When South Dakota passed a law banning all abortions in a direct effort to have Roe overruled, I was the only candidate for President to raise money to help the citizens of South Dakota repeal that law. When anti-choice protesters blocked the opening of an Illinois Planned Parenthood clinic in a community where affordable health care is in short supply, I was the only candidate for President who spoke out against it. And I will continue to defend this right by passing the Freedom of Choice Act as president.


Please read the bill yourself from what I linked to above. Here are some interesting facts that I came across that this bill would impose on the American people:

Michael Moses, legal analyst of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops called it a "radical measure" that will "go way beyond Roe [vs. Wade]." The language is so sweeping that it will wipe out any state's "conscience" clause, which is the law that allows hospitals, doctors and nurses to abstain from taking part in abortion for reasons of conscience. If abortion is a "fundamental right", according to FOCA, then every hospital must provide it.



I've come across more than one article that states that there is no longer room for conscientious objection based on religious belief.

In Maryland, Freedom of Choice-type legislation has been on the books since 1991. Since that time, Maryland law has provided for abortion on demand even late in pregnancy, granted abortionists immunity from legal action, allowed abortionists the discretion to perform abortions on minors without notifying a parent, and denied health care workers the right to refuse to make abortion referrals as a matter of conscience.[13] This has not led to a reduction of abortions in the state, but appears to actually have had the adverse effect of increasing the abortion rate in Maryland.


And there is a question of how many hospitals this will close and also how many quality health care providers will have to choose between their medical license or their faith.

Please think of these things before voting for Obama. For someone like me, this trumps everything. If McCain was a supporter of this bill and I agreed with everything else he supported, I still could not vote for him. The protection of life is of utmost importance.

Finally, this article, which I linked to in the first of the post as well had a quote I think every Catholic and everyone who supports Obama should read:

Pro-life Catholics will face different, if equally grave, dilemmas. The bishops already find themselves defending the Catholic integrity of Catholic hospitals under pressures from state governments; those pressures, as well as pressures on doctors and other Catholic health-care professionals, will increase in an Obama administration, especially if FOCA succeeds in knocking down state conscience-clause protections for Catholic health-care providers and institutions. And should an Obama administration reintroduce large-scale federal funding of abortion, the bishops will have to confront a grave moral question they have managed to avoid for decades, thanks to the Hyde amendment: does the payment of federal taxes that go to support abortion constitute a form of moral complicity in an "intrinsic evil"? And if so, what should the conscientious Catholic citizen do?



Till next time!

Saturday, November 01, 2008

New iPhone

I had the instinct till yesterday. I got the phone the day it came out. Well, I have to admit I had problems with it since the day it came out. Still, there were certain things I liked about it. For instance, downloading and playing music with the instinct is one of it's best fetures, and typing is very easy with the instinct (I could use my fingernails which I can't with the iPhone). Other than that the phone lacked the ability to multitask. If I had a text come in and my phone wrang then it would freeze. Voicemail always caused it to freeze especially when you had several in your recently missed application that popped up. For that reason it is a horrible business tool. Blackberry still has no competition there. Lastly, the battery life was horrible. I had to change the battery two to three times a day depending on how much I used it.

Now I have the iPhone. This is my first day to use it and I have to say if this posts then this is something the instinct never let me do. Blogger didn't work on it. The typing function isn't too bad with the autocorrect function, but I still wish I could use my nails. I do know already the Internet browser is better here. I am going to have to test the mail. I have 4 email accounts I use regularly.

I will have to get back to you on which is better. I just got the new phone because I hate Sprint. I just want to let you know you can have multiple lines, a business account, be a preferred customer and their customer service will still be rude. Now I just hope this product is better and that ATT is as well. Till next time!