Breaking: Conclave Rumored to Have Already Chosen Lesbian for Pope

Catchy headline, right? Since the Holy Father's announcement of resignation, there has been an explosion of scandalous suggestions, finger-pointing, and pontificating by people across all forms of media. I don't know about you, but events which have taken place over this past year has certainly been trying my patience. Think Obama winning re-election, Boy Scouts of America's waning support of traditional values, the economy, the creeping in of socialist ideals, the government's shredding of our Constitutional rights, Obama, oh - I already mentioned him. I sincerely believe with all my being that the Holy Spirit guides the Church, and having done so for 2000 years, He is more than capable of seeing us all through another papal election. If the Church survived Pope Alexander VI, I think that given the current methods of selecting a pontiff, we'll all be just fine. Some fellow Catholics quickly spun into panic mode and behaved as if as a child, they suddenly found out their father left the family. I read online where a priest  commented that a pope must never "come down off the cross." He was alluding to the fact that Pope John Paul II suffered for a very long time and remained in the Chair of Peter until he entered into eternal rest. I tried to ignore comments such as these, reminding myself that this was quite a surprise to all and that we all deal with shock differently.

I remember when I was a kid in the 1970s and woke up one morning to hear on the news that the pope had died. We watched on television as the conclave met, and celebrated the sight of white smoke spewing out of the chimney. Then just weeks later, I woke up to hear that the pope died.

"I know he died. Duh."

"No, the new one died."

"WHAT?!"

We all survived - well, except for the pontiffs who didn't. Please don't misunderstand, I don't underestimate the great love for Pope Benedict XVI that millions around the world have. I also have a realistic understanding of the aging process and know the limits of most people who are well into their eighties. He is doing what he believes to be best for our Church and has done some very remarkable things in the time he has served us as shepherd. I believe him when he says he reached the decision prayerfully. Give the man a break. And what a good man, fully human, he is.

What I find frustrating is the fact that so many feel called to weigh in on what the Church should and shouldn't do. It is bad enough when non-Catholics call for a more 'progressive' pontiff, or one who will allow priests to marry, females to become priests, gay men to be ordained, etc. - but then when fellow Catholics begin to opine similarly, it drives me batty! Add to this the uncertainty of individuals in the US who are currently without a Bishop and the people who seize upon the situation to undermine the Church, I completely shed all charitable thoughts and want to scream! What would I yell?

• If you aren't Catholic, mind your own business! 
• If you are Catholic and think women should be ordained and/or: you believe the Church teachings on the gay lifestyle, abortion, artificial birth control, clown Masses, use of Latin in the Liturgy, the Eucharist, etc. are wrong - please leave. Stop your whining, take your self-righteous and condescending opinions and go. There are hundreds of options within 100 mile radius of just about anywhere in the lower 48 states. Buh bye. See ya! 
• If you're Catholic and find yourself dipping into the realm of despair from time to time, adopt a cardinal. Pray. Trust. All shall be well. 

UPDATED: On Parental Priorities: Planned Parenthood & Popularity

Since this story was first posted, a positive ending has developed.... This is a lesson for all parents and educators.  Read on...

It's a good thing my family loves me. I'm not feeling a whole lot of love these days. As I was planning to write my third and final installment in the On Parental Priorities series, I received a permission slip from our son's school. I had already outlined my thoughts focusing on the failure of the Domestic Church in regard to the catechization of our children, and how this is affecting our Catholic Schools. The slip I was expected to sign brought the intended topic to a boil for me so I put it aside for a week or so.

The beginning of the story is probably best expressed in another entry from a year ago I called On Blood Pressure, Edmund Burke and the Domestic Church (opens in a new window/tab). You'll follow along better if you read that entry first. Just do it and I'll be right back.

Now, about that permission slip. Once again, seventh and eighth graders throughout our county were invited to a "Youth Leadership Conference" and the sponsors are as follows:

1. Our county Youth Bureau
2. Our city's Youth Bureau
3. Our local community college (they provide the location for the event)
4. Our local YMCA 
5. Planned Parenthood

I made my displeasure fury about the situation known last year. It was received with a confused expression, and the wordless message I received back was that I had lost my mind. How could I possibly be upset over Planned Parenthood's sponsorship of a conference my son was to intend? (I am purposely leaving bits of the story out to protect certain ignorant individuals involved. Yes, I said ignorant.) I felt called to instruct the ignorant, I did, and here I am. Once again, I'm a crazy person who cannot understand why a Catholic school will send their students to a conference sponsored by Planned Parenthood. There are two Catholic schools in our county and both participate. There, I said it. It is now stamped forever in some cyber-cache. So sue me.  

This year, my approach was different. I simply sent an e-mail stating that our son would not attend anything that was sponsored by Planned Parenthood, and that like last year, we would attend Mass and engage in works of mercy instead. I didn't receive a reply and didn't expect to. There wasn't really anything to say. Another parent called me to discuss transportation to the conference. I told her that a conference sponsored by Planned Parenthood went against everything our family believes and she thanked me for the reminder. She had forgotten they were a sponsor. Then she went to visit a friend at the youth bureau and that friend assured her that Planned Parenthood hasn't made a presentation at the event in the past few years due to parental concerns. I corrected the parent by sending her a news link to the event where the presentation and presenter were both plainly mentioned last year. A couple of other parents contacted me after they questioned the involvement of Planned Parenthood in the conference. They had both heard through 'the grapevine' that I refused to sign the permission slip. Unlike me, they received a reply via e-mail. They were told that our children were going to be kept away from Planned Parenthood leaders and that the teachers were to make certain that the students did not attend any presentations offered by Planned Parenthood. 

Condom lollipops - creepy handouts from Planned Parenthood in Rochester, NY 

One father of a younger student shared that word substitution would better illustrate the absurdity of our attendance at the event. Substitute Planned Parenthood with KKK, Convicted Sex Offenders, North American Man Boy Love Association, Nazi Party, Adolph Hitler, and it would be more clear that our participation was preposterous. Maybe. The bottom line in this situation is simple: everyone else is doing it! I admit that I did have a glimmer of hope that some sort of Divine intervention or spiritual enlightenment would take place. I've now lost hope in this situation. I'll have to wait for the conference to be highlighted in the newspaper again, with our kids on the front page in their uniforms at an event sponsored by Planned Parenthood. All of this so that they can learn yoga, how to get along with others, and other Obama-like niceties. Yes, I am completely void of any charitable words, and to say that I am in the desert over Lent is an understatement. 

In addition to contacting responsible parties at our school, I also wrote another letter to the editor of our local newspaper. I am hoping that the reason I didn't receive a call for verification was due to the overwhelming length of it. They do suggest between 250-400 words and my contribution pushed to nearly 600 words. After a week of no confirmation call from the newspaper, I resubmitted a much abbreviated version at 250 words. Now I wait for the call and hope the letter is printed prior to the event.  My original, longer version is as follows:

If you live in Genesee County and have a child in 7th or 8th grade, you most likely received a permission slip for the annual Youth Leadership Conference to be held at GCC on March 13, 2012. Once again, Planned Parenthood is listed as a partner of the program. Few parents question their presence in a conference intended for 12-14 year old kids; most signed the permission slip without a second thought.  

Last year, a Planned Parenthood representative offered a presentation at the same conference based upon a quote attributed to the18th century philosopher Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." On their own website, they describe themselves this way: "Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care provider and advocate." Strange how a sexual and reproductive service advocate is teaching our children about good and evil, don't you think? Why would they want to be affiliated with a group of young teens? They are simply grooming future customers.

Planned Parenthood's foundress, Margaret Sanger, was a proponent of eugenics. She believed the purpose of promoting birth control was "to create a race of thoroughbreds," as she wrote in the Birth Control Review, Nov. 1921. Today, Planned Parenthood receives over 300 million taxpayer dollars per year. Your son or daughter cannot be given an aspirin without your written consent at school, yet Planned Parenthood can market sexual information and services to your child, and you can do nothing about it. It is a private matter between Planned Parenthood and your child. They provide over 1,000,000 "emergency contraceptive kits" to girls every year following unprotected sexual relations. To guarantee a failed pregnancy should one have taken place, they give the girl hormone pills that are 50 times the dosage of an average birth control pill. According to their own numbers, 11% of their healthcare clients receive abortion services. They also report providing "education" to over one million clients a year. They want to parent your children because to them, it is clear that you are not up to the task.

They recently launched a major campaign against the Susan G. Komen foundation when SGK decided to withhold future funding to certain Planned Parenthood facilities that were under Federal investigation. Planned Parenthood reacted with an all-out assault against SGK, and reportedly received much more in donations in just two days than the $680,000 they stood to lose. Mayor Bloomberg led the charge by offering a matching grant of $250,000 of his own money to Planned Parenthood. SGK's website was hacked, the organization was verbally assaulted and bullied, and their top official was pressured to resign. With their funding from SGK restored, now Planned Parenthood has directed its full attention on the Catholic Church and all who stand in the way of providing free contraceptives and "emergency birth control" to all Americans. Instead of recognizing the HHS mandate as attack on religious liberty, they accuse people with moral convictions of being "Anti-choice extremists" who "do everything they can to prevent women and men from taking charge of their lives." 

If you have children, please be a parent to them. Talk with them about what issues are important to your family, teach them what values are crucial to you, and give them a firm foundation on which to grow into adulthood. Know the intentions of people and organizations who want to serve as a mentor to your children. I've provided you with quotes from Planned Parenthood, and I'll leave you with one last to consider.

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." -- G.K. Chesterton
 

If you've read this far, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know that God is with my family in this fight, though I do wish more than a few parents (among other individuals) were as outraged as I am. We continue to swim against the stream, though it does seem to be a very lonely crusade. I am so deeply disappointed in my brothers and sisters who are Catholic, yet are clearly CINO. I don't expect the secularists to 'get it,' but when our fellow Catholics miss the boat...

An advertisement on a bench for Planned Parenthood in Vermont
"We're your sexual fantasy - A discreet environment for open-minded questions and answers."

P.S.
*And the former three-part series on parental priorities will actually be a four-part series. Stay tuned.
Part One is HERE, Part Two is HERE

Edited to add: I found this quote posted online. Bishop Mansell was our previous Bishop in the DOB and he put a stop to building of a $4.6 million senior home when the Diocese found out the same builder was building a Planned Parenthood facility.

Most Reverend Henry J. MansellBishop of Buffalo, New York

13 August 2000

"We're not proceeding, because of the contractor's involvement with Planned Parenthood," said Monsignor Henry J. Gugino, head of housing development for the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, New York. The comment was made as the diocese, at the direction of its bishop, halted construction on a $4.6 million dollar home for seniors in Wheatfield, N.Y., when it found out the contractor was also building offices for Planned Parenthood. Bishop Henry J. Mansell's spokesman, Monsignor David M. Lee, said the bishop and other diocesan officials decided to put the project on hold because of "moral concerns." --SOURCE

March 9, 2012: Special thanks to ProLifeAmerica.com for sharing this post in their ProLife Daily newsfeed.
March 13, 2012: The letter to the editor was published last weekend. Find it HERE. Today is the big day for the Youth Leadership Conference. All are in our prayers. I was able to obtain a description of the program to be presented by Planned Parenthood. The Youth Bureau continued to insist that no representative of Planned Parenthood was making a presentation and they lied. It is right there in their program. They failed to identify the Planned Parenthood employee, thus continuing to pile on the lies. I chose to omit the name of the presenter. I believe that the enemy is the organization, not the people working for it.

Breaking Out of the Box: Are Some "Rules" Made to be Broken?
PRESENTER: T______ A_______

Our society has so many rules for what it means to be a guy or a girl. Music, television, magazines, parents, friends, and even toys give us messages about how we're supposed to act based on our gender! In this workshop, we're going to look at what it means to be a guy or a girl in this culture, what our society TELLS us we're supposed to be, and how assumptions about gender can lead to harassment and relationship violence. This interactive presentation will get you talking, thinking and decoding the real messages you see and hear every day about gender and relationships.

Those darn parents - making rules. Goodness knows what poor Johnny will have to endure if he wasn't given Barbie dolls to play with alongside his blocks. 

For our family, it didn't matter whether Planned Parenthood was going to make a presentation or not. It was simply offensive to have them listed as a sponsor. I suppose that I'm left to question why the Director of Planned Parenthood is on the board at the Youth Bureau. This was their excuse for having Planned Parenthood listed as a sponsor. By the way, the presenter at the conference (she specializes in Rape Crisis Counseling at PP) lists V-Day as one of her affiliations. The Rochester V-Day will be marked by the performances of The Vagina Monologues, a Drag Show, and BRAWL (Broads Regional Arm Wrestling League) - all in the name of ending violence against women. They objectify women and expect to not become objects.  Case in point, these suckers which were sold at an event last year.

Perhaps you are avoiding chocolate during Lent. You can always go to the V-Day website and purchase a vagina ring or necklace. I'm not kidding. I'll spare you the picture - you can click here to see if you're curious. Maybe a vagina warrior knit cap is more to your liking. Any man wearing that would clearly see women for more than their private parts, right?  Of course I'm being sarcastic. The absurdity, lies, and double-talk must be exposed for what it is. I am a woman and I want to be identified as a person made in God's image, with a soul, a mind of my own, interests, pet peeves, and a personality; not by my reproductive organs. And these people want to sponsor a youth conference? Remember - they're only interest is women's health care. Or so they would like you to think.

Vagina shaped suckers being sold with the stated intention of stopping violence against women.
Sure - objectify them, and then teach people to eat female genitalia. Makes sense - to someone I guess.
Picture from their Facebook page

Would you like to hear some good news that has come out of this?  
I was just contacted by another parent and due to a whole lot of research and accumulation of evidence, OUR SCHOOL WILL NEVER AGAIN PARTICIPATE IN THE CONFERENCE. The lies on behalf of the Youth Bureau and/or Planned Parenthood were uncovered.  The moral of the story: whenever you see or hear that Planned Parenthood is sponsoring or presenting anything, run in the other direction and make the biggest noise you can until you get people to listen.  Thanks be to God!
Updated 2/2014: Wait! The good news was only good for one year! It is back!

On Blood Pressure, Edmund Burke and the Domestic Church

This blog entry has been ruminating for a few weeks now and was delayed until my blood pressure finally recovered to within a normal range.  Actually, I never took my blood pressure, and for all I know it never ventured into the danger zone.  I can tell you that I lost a lot of sleep and my left eye twitched with such frequency that the crow's feet are more deeply defined on one side of my face.  All due to the 'mama bear' reflex gone into overdrive.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just know that to 'mess with' me or my faith, I can calmly re-educate you. Mess with my kid... watch out for Mama Bear!

Knowing that our regular readers are just as passionate about certain sensitive topics as I am, I thought I'd update you on a topic I brushed upon HERE in an earlier entry.  From that post:

Our son who is in 7th grade came home with a permission slip for us to sign last night.  It was for a seminar to be held at our local community college this month with the main theme of tackling bullying.  The program is only for junior high students from all of the local schools and seems quite benign.  He shared that they will have a speaker and then can choose different programs to attend.  Then I found at the bottom a list of sponsors of the 2011 conference - YMCA, our local drug and alcohol abuse council, the college, other similar community organizations and at the tail end of the list was  PLANNED PARENTHOOD.  My reaction was not very contained when I read it and thankfully our son looked at me knowingly and asked, "What?  You saw Planned Parenthood is on the form?"  This was just last night and for fear of losing your interest so soon, I'll cut the details and get to the bottom line.  By 8 a.m. I already had e-mailed the school principal with my concerns and sent Alex to school without the permission slip and written a letter to the editor of the local paper. 

I was assured that Planned Parenthood was not to have any information distributed (or condoms?) to our children  and they were not making any presentations.  Were we going to be sending our son to something where Planned Parenthood was listed as a sponsor?  We could not in good conscience send him.  There were no pros to the situation no matter how deeply we looked.  Between spasms overwhelming my eyelid, I desperately tried to figure out which was becoming more upsetting to me:  Was it that Planned Parenthood was involved in this project for our children or that no other parent or adult in charge was upset about Planned Parenthood's involvement?  The more I thought about it, the more agitated I became.  I had become a three-eyed alien furious with an event that left other people looking bored to death.  There was this huge, white elephant in the room and I was the only one (beside my husband) who saw that it was about to devour our children.

Taking the lemons I was served, we made the best out of the awkwardly quiet situation.  Our parish was to celebrate the start of a 40-hours devotion on that very day.  It just so happened that my Bible study group also was to meet that day.  The day of the youth conference, our son and I had an amazingly blessed day.  We started with attending Mass that morning and then went to Bible study for two hours.  From Bible study, we went to adoration where we had signed up for a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament.  Not knowing if he would be up to an entire hour after our long morning, I told our son that if he wanted to leave the church earlier, he could just go step outside and wait for me.  I lost track of time and being without a watch, I realized that much more than an hour must have passed.  I turned to leave to find him and there he was, still kneeling in a pew in the back.  He smiled and I looked at his watch - we'd been there in prayer for well over one hour and thirty minutes.  We walked out and I asked him how his time with the Lord was.  He looked at me with a huge smile on his face and he said, "Mom, this is the best day I have had in a long time."  Wow.   God is great!  And to think of the alternative programming option for the day...

My letter to the editor did not make it into the paper that day, but it was printed the following day.  Our local online news website covered the youth conference and included pictures.  They acknowledged various supporters of the event and clearly absent was the mention of Planned Parenthood.  I noted that in a comment to the author of the article and he replied to my comments noting that indeed Planned Parenthood was involved, and in fact, one of their "educators" had led a presentation that was offered to the children.  What was the topic?  Named after the quote often attributed to Edmund Burke,  the 18th century philosopher, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Please forgive my repetitive nature, but I must point out the searingly ironic information again:  Planned Parenthood taught seventh and eighth graders about GOOD AND EVIL?!  If the bold print and capital letters do not convey the image of me to your mind's eye when I first read that information, please picture a 40-something woman with a twitchy eye, head spinning and green slime flying out of her eyes and mouth.  Too vivid?  You have no idea how understated the description is.

Our son came home from school and shared that his classmates all told him that Planned Parenthood wasn't even there - he stayed home for a complete waste of time.  He had missed a lot of fun at the youth conference and a free lunch.  At this point, it had become clear that many, many adults must have been abducted by aliens and had their brains replaced with something, well, alien.  All common sense, obligation to the Domestic Church and commitment to a good quality education for our children thrown to the nearest metallic disc flying through the sky.  I would offer to give them a clue but reconsidered knowing that I had played court jester long enough and made my viewpoint amply clear.  And their viewpoint had been sadly made loud and clear - to me at least.

"The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."    --Margaret Sanger

Catholic Cemeteries a source for natural gas? You're kidding, right?

The Catholic Cemeteries Association, Pittsburgh

Apparently, there is a price for everything.  The Catholic Cemeteries Association of Pittsburgh has leased just over 1,000 acres of cemetery property (15 cemeteries are included) to a company with a five year option to drill for natural gas on the cemetery land. 

A major concern for some is that drilling shouldn't take place in urban areas due to explosion risk.  The obvious seems to evade some people, so I feel that I must just ask the question:  Is the Diocese of Pittsburgh so desperate to make a buck that they are willing to desecrate hallowed ground?  Perhaps the Bishop would not mind being planted above an operating gas well.  I would imagine most people would consider it sacrilege.

Christ on Cross Drawing Grounds for School Suspension in Massachusetts

An 8-year old boy was suspended earlier this month from his Taunton, Massachusetts school because of the 'violent' picture he drew.  He was ordered to seek a psychological evaluation due to the graphic nature of his drawing, shown above.  This after being instructed by his teacher to draw something that reminds him of Christmas.  The boy's father has since transferred his son to another elementary school.

Read the full story HERE at the Taunton Daily Gazette.  Secularism at a new height of lunacy. 

UPDATE 12/17/2009:

This press release appears on the Taunton School District website:

Taunton Public Schools - Response to Recent Allegations
TAUNTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
110 County Street
Taunton, MA 02780
Phone (508) 821-1100
Fax (508) 821-1177
Press Release
Contact: Julie Hackett, Ed.D.
Phone: (508) 821-1100
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 5 P.M. EDT, December 15, 2009
TAUNTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS - RESPONSE TO RECENT ALLEGATIONS
TAUNTON, MA, DECEMBER 15, 2009: 

It has been reported in the media that a student was suspended over drawing a rendering of Jesus Christ on the cross. This report is totally inaccurate, and the student was never suspended. This incident occurred nearly two weeks ago, it was handled appropriately, and the school staff and family had been working together in a cooperative and positive manner.

The drawing published in various media outlets is not the same drawing that was discovered by the teacher. It has not been established whether the drawing was actually completed in school. Contrary to what has been reported, there was no request or assignment by the teacher for students to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas or any religious holiday.

The inaccuracies in the original media story have resulted in a great deal of criticism and scrutiny of the system that is unwarranted.  In this case, as in any other case involving the wellbeing of a student, the administration acted in accordance with the school department’s well-established protocol. This protocol is centered upon the student’s care, wellbeing and educational success. The protocol includes a review of the student’s records, discussions with staff, central administration, school psychologists and other community resources. Decisions were made only after this protocol had been completed, including a consultation with a veteran staff member with a background in clinical psychology and a Ph.D.

It is unfortunate that the actions of our district staff have been classified as “religious” in nature when, in fact, they were based solely on the wellbeing of the student. At this time of year, Christmas is one of many religious and secular holidays. Taunton, known as The Christmas City, takes pride as a community in celebrating this Christian holiday together with Hanukah, Kwanzaa, and many others. In the school district, it is our goal to provide the opportunity for all students to be well-rounded, and it is our responsibility to help them attain their social, emotional and academic goals regardless of their religious affiliation.