Huckabee Is The "Catholic" Candidate For 2008

...according to a prominent Catholic layman. He takes issue with a Catholic publication that featured an article which he said contained distortions about Mike Huckabee. He makes a case that Huckabee is a better choice for Catholics than Fred Thompson.

But I can’t remain silent about the unanswered distortions about Mike Huckabee over Fred Thompson in the presidential race found in California Catholic Daily’s Jan. 11 posting, “Keeping the coalition together is the key to success.” It was an article covering the California Pro-Life Council's endorsement of Thompson for president. It was totally one-sided and misleading to Catholic voters. CCD is a great publication and provides a valuable service to Catholics. I can understand how things like this can slip through trying to meet tight deadlines.

Rest of story here.

Janet Folger also thinks Mike Huckabee is the one. She makes a very ambitious, even extreme, prediction in this article. Pro-lifers would be rejoicing in the streets if her predictions prove correct.

Could Monks, Monasteries and Prayer be Key in the Culture War?

Protestants and particularly Evangelicals look upon the idea of monks and monasteries, nuns and convents, with a suspicious skeptical eye. How, they ask, is that kind of lifestyle fulfilling Jesus command to go out into the world? How, they ask, will that help to rescue our corrupt society and bring God’s salvation, justice and order?

Monks in Oklahoma are creating a cloistered compound built to last 1,000 years.

Most Catholic monasteries in this country are devoted to service, operating schools and other institutions, Anderson said. "We wanted to build a community like the ancient monasteries, a place devoted to the contemplative life and prayer."

Contemplative prayer? Is that the same as centering prayer? Isn’t that mysticism? Or New Age and Emerging Church stuff? Some Christians claim that the focus should rather be on a return to the simplicity and purity of the Christian faith.

The courtyard and monks' rooms are part of the cloistered area, not open to the public, as part of the monks' discipline in separation from the world, and silence.

"This is to create an atmosphere conducive to prayer and communion with Christ," Anderson said.

That has the sound of simplicity and purity to me.

Some Christians, such as Tony Campolo, are linking this kind of prayer and communion to a spiritual revival now starting to take root in the Western world. Others, typically faith communities that take strong anti-Catholic stands, condemn such prayer practices entirely.

However, the Pope himself, along with other Catholic leaders, has also warned of certain New Age dangers in contemporary prayer movements.

There is obviously more to monks and monasteries than the issue of contemplative prayer but an open mind to the related aspects of Christian history will do wonders to dispel confusion.

Sister Margaret Vickers: The Culture of Death Wrapped in Compassion

Nurse and former nun Margaret Vickers has been named to the Order of Canada.

Vickers is director of Providence Health Care -- Canada's largest Catholic health organization, which includes Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital.

She hopes

Hillary Clinton will be the next American president even though Clinton is pro-choice.

Popular writer Anne Rice is also rooting for Hillary. Professor Robert P. George has something to say about that.

Former nun Margaret

doesn't condemn Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer who murdered his severely handicapped daughter because he could no longer bear to hear her crying out in pain and suffering. She empathizes with his having to make such an awful choice.

Instead of requiring a lifetime commitment to the Church, Vickers says

perhaps women will be able to commit to only a few years of service before going back to normal, family life.

Because

for Sister Margaret, it's the Sisters of Charity's mission of compassionate care that's more important than abiding by tradition and old rules.

Hers is a

quiet, humble life of dedicated service; a life of poverty, chastity and obedience.

"Let No One Touch the Child." Worldwide Moratorium on Abortion Gathering Steam

Sandro Magister explains that there are two words that have resounded the loudest among both Christians and secularists: family and birth.

A very interesting article.

An initiative that goes against the grain even more emerged in Italy, during the recent Christmas festivities: the promotion of a worldwide moratorium on abortion, after the moratorium on the death penalty approved by the United Nations on December 18.

It goes against the grain because it was conceived and launched by a non-Christian intellectual, Giuliano Ferrara, founder and director of the opinion newspaper "il Foglio." And because it was immediately supported by the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference, "Avvenire," but also by personalities of other beliefs, including Roger Scruton of England, "the most influential philosopher in the world" according to "The New Yorker."

Entire article here.

Catholic Priest Agrees That Abortion Is the Only Way Out

I’m reading Saving Those Damned Catholics. It’s a recent book by Judie Brown, President and co-founder of American Life League. The following excerpt is a sample of the contents.

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My Pastor Said the Abortion Was My Only Way Out!

Fifteen years ago I got pregnant; I wasn't married at the time. I was in college. 1 knew a terrific priest at the local parish church. His name was Father X. I went to him after I found out that I was pregnant, and we talked about how this pregnancy would affect my life. I had slept with a friend, and I never intended to get pregnant. I only had one year to go before graduation; I was engaged to a very fine man from my hometown; and I knew that if i did not have an abortion, my fiancé would leave me, my degree would be put on hold, and my life would be ruined. Father X listened to all I had to say and immediately reached out to me and said, "Pat, you have to do what is right for you in this situation. God loves you, and he will be with you regardless. Just be careful and be sure to get plenty of rest after the surgery."

For years after my abortion, I wept every time I saw a baby. I had nightmares every year when what would have been my baby’s birthday approached. I did not graduate because I felt so depressed after the abortion that I turned to alcohol. I got a job in a local bar and had more one-night stands than I can remember. I did not marry the man to whom I was engaged because I felt dirty and evil; I knew I just wasn't good enough for him. I knew that I had murdered my own baby and that a Catholic priest said I was doing what was best. My pain was so severe that I often felt that death would be superior to life.

And then one day I heard about a retreat that was dedicated to helping men and women experience healing after an abortion. So I signed up. On the second day of the retreat, I had the opportunity to go to confession. I had not been back inside a Catholic church since that day when the priest encouraged me to kill my baby. But somehow I knew that God wanted me to surrender this tragic sin to Him and tell Him how broken I was, how sorrowful I was, how much I needed my Father to forgive me.

Father Murphy, the retreat priest, was the most awesome priest I have ever met in my entire life. He shared with me the wonderful nature of Christ's forgiveness when the sinner is truly repentant. He assured me that over time I would feel not only the sense of relief but the assurance that I could also forgive myself and move on with my life. He shared his sorrow with me that Father X had not explained to me that I was a mother and that my baby would bring me joy, not pain.

For the first time in years, I felt the beginning of closure. I understood my own sin and the tragic nature of that sin. I also understood the sin of that priest, who had the chance to at least tell me why I should not murder my baby and chose instead to be an accomplice in my baby's execution. At the end of the confession, Father Murphy told me that I must forgive Father X.

Now my life is back on track; I am practicing my faith, and I pray for Father X every day. But I still wonder why any priest would do such an awful thing.

The true villain in this mother's story is the priest, not the abortionist. It is true that the abortionist used the instruments to kill the baby, but the fact is that the priest facilitated the abortion by doing absolutely nothing to stand in the way of this young woman's ultimate decision. The question in a case like this one, which is all too common, is why-why would any Catholic priest be so blasé about an act so criminal, so vile, so wrong?

Why didn't he use the opportunity to affirm this young woman's motherhood? Why didn't he explain to her that her baby's life was worth more than all the degrees in the world? Why didn't he let her know that he would visit her fiancé with her and do what he could to help this young man see the courage of her decision to carry this baby to term? There are so many positive things this priest could have done-yet he chose to commiserate with the young mother and support her decision to have an abortion.

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[Available from Amazon as well]

Deadly Ecumenism: Evangelicals and Roman Catholics in the Waiting Room

Russell D. Moore, executive director of the Henry Institute, a senior editor of Touchstone magazine and executive editor of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology presents a sad and tragic side of "ecumenism" in this article.

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The Ecumenism of the Abortion Clinic

We are accustomed to seeing Evangelicals and Roman Catholics praying together outside abortion clinics and working together for pro-life legislation. But we don't think about a less pleasant ecumenism: Catholics and Evangelicals waiting together in the lobby of an abortion facility.

A front-page article in the New York Times last September featured an inside look at the daily workings of an abortion clinic in Little Rock. The piece communicated the calloused yet tortured consciences of the women involved. They don't wish to be seen, or to make contact with others in the waiting room. Even more striking, though, are their religious commitments.

One Baptist college student, having her third abortion, is quoted in the article saying: "My religion is against it. In a way I feel I'm doing wrong, but you can be forgiven. I blame myself. I feel I shouldn't have sex at all."

"I've done this once and swore I wouldn't do it again," said a woman named Regina. "Every woman has second thoughts, especially because I'm Catholic." Regina noted that she went to confession. "The priest didn't hound me," she reported. "He said, 'People make mistakes.'"

The facility's operating room supervisor, Ebony, whom the article chillingly describes as rinsing "the blood off aborted tissues," could understand Regina's story. Ebony, too, has had an abortion. "As a Baptist, she still considered abortion a sin, but so are a lot of things we all do, she said." The article closes with the Baptist's words to the Catholic undergoing the abortion: "No problem sweetie. We've all been there."

Other Ecumenisms

As we talk through the "ecumenism of the trenches" between Catholics and Evangelicals, we should remember the sad truth that there is also an "ecumenism of the waiting room." The women ushered into the death clinics are not usually secularist feminists, proudly wearing their NOW Tshirts. More often, they are girls from St. Joseph's parish or First Baptist's youth group.

They would be counted as "prolife" on the telephone survey. They know all the right answers to the sanctity of life questions, and they can be counted on, when they reach voting age, to cast ballots for pro-life candidates. But when pregnant, they wait together for the abortionist's solution.

Whatever very real soteriological debates exist between Catholics and Evangelicals, they share, at least in the waiting room, the same doctrine of grace: "Let us sin that grace may abound" (Rom. 6:1).

The challenge for our churches is not to be more condemnatory. The message of God's grace is, after all, the heart of the gospel. The atonement of Jesus forgives every sin, including that of the shedding of innocent blood. We must comfort repentant post-abortion women with the truth that "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ" (Rom. 8:1).

At the same time, like the Apostle Paul, we must remember that grace that is license to sin is no grace at all. The problem is not that "we all make mistakes." The issue is instead that judgment has fallen, in all of its fury, on a crucified Messiah who became sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor. 5:21). As we proclaim God the justifier, we must not forget that this means the proclamation of God the just (Rom. 3:26).

The challenge for our churches is to reclaim the Christian emphasis on repentance. American culture is far too familiar with nominal Catholics who prepare for Lent with a hedonistic Mardi Gras and with nominal Evangelicals who plan to "rededicate their lives" at the altar call after a weekend of decadence.

Those who claim that though I am doing this thing I deem best for me, God will forgive me later, are not only presuming upon the grace of God, they are recapitulating the sin of the first man and woman: to seek autonomy and the self as god while still wishing to remain in the presence of the Holy One. This is not a repentant disposition, but instead a deeply arrogant and satanic one.

If I follow the course of my own desires, even while looking forward to forgiveness, I am worshipping another god: the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25). Indeed, in this moment, the felt need for forgiveness itself is just another self-focused passion. The sinner seeks to be his own authority for what is best at the moment and to be his own authority for what is best in the future, reconciliation with God--but all on my terms and at my timing.

Real Repentance

Repentance, however, is about more than a formal appeal for the nullification of consequences, as though it were the equivalent of having a parking ticket expunged. Instead, repentance is a conviction that God is right in his holiness to judge this transgression with everlasting wrath. The sinner appeals to God to be merciful, not because the sin is justifiable, but precisely because it is not justifiable at all. Repentance, then, justifies not the sin, but the holiness and justice of the Creator.

Jesus sent away a wealthy politician because he loved his financial assets more than he sought to follow the Messiah (Matt. 19:16–22). In the same way, we must fear that generations of self-professing Christians value their "reproductive freedom" or their "personal authenticity" more than they treasure Christ. And all the while they, like the rich young ruler, approach the throne of Christ talking about eternal life, perhaps even singing "Amazing Grace."

The implications for the Church are stark. If we don't preach a biblical understanding of sin and grace, the local abortionist is ready to take our place in the pulpit.

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Reprinted from Russell D. Moore, for the Editors, "Sinners Together," Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, January/February 2006.

[Source]