I’m going to leave the commenting on this to Danielle Bean.  Let me only say that the numbers are stark, and there is much the Culture of Death has to answer for starting with this video.  Pray.

LifeSiteNews gives us this mortifying news:

A national group that promotes abortion and homosexual rights has deep ties with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development, according to a report released Monday.

Top USCCB executive John Carr held simultaneous leadership roles, creating a conflict of interest, with the USCCB and the radical Center for Community Change.

…

John Carr’s relationship with the Center for Community Change goes back at least to 1983, serving in leadership roles from 1999 to 2006 – including as chairman of the board.  The Reform CCHD Now report details the organization’s promotion of abortion, “reproductive rights” and homosexuality as among the CCC’s core advocacy focuses.

As one commenter at Patrick Madrid’s blog put it:  “Our bishops are not stupid men; they must have been aware of this for some time.“  One would have thought that after the recent CCHD fiasco the Bishops would have performed a thorough and independent scrubbing of the ties of anyone working for the USCCB that in any fashion could affect funding or policy-making.

I only ask this:  how many women could have been helped, and abortions prevented, with the funds that instead went to CCC?  It may sound harsh, perhaps melodramatic, but when it comes down to it these kinds of decisions cost lives.

…to join the Virtual March for Life.  Even if you can’t be at one of the major Marches in person, show your support and march in this new “virtual” way.  Some day, some how, I pray I will be able to travel to Washington DC, but for now I do what I can.  And truly, some day, by God’s Grace, abortion will be looked upon as a terrible note in the history of the world; let us pray that day is soon coming!

Deborah Morlani (of NLM fame) has set up a petition with an interesting premise – to request, nay demand, politicians stop using the phrase “pro-life except in cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother:.  Some may say it’s not the opportune time for such strict language demands, but we are also faced with the fact that the corruption of our language is one of the many roots of the cultural and spiritual malaise in which we currently find our country and our world.  Even if you don’t agree with the petition, at least go and read it and we can all enter into a discussion about it.  The first step to solving the problem of abortion is, like in a twelve-step program, admitting it exists.

It’s the hot topic on the Catholic blogs right now.  The “conservative” Catholics are railing against the travesty of it all, the “progressive” Catholics are cheering about dialog and engagement.  And to the surprise and chagrin of both, most Catholics have no idea or at best only a vague idea anything interesting even happened.  I’m not about to go into the gory details of what happened as it’s pretty late and that information is available in so many different places it’s wrapped back around to being funny again.

I just wanted to take a few minutes to ruminate on the speech President Obama gave at the Commencement ceremony at Notre Dame.  It was, as should by now be expected, a speech which could be given easily and fluidly, one which touched on the controversy but never engaged it.  Wistful remembrances of days past and fond memories of earnest beginnings punctuated by the jagged edge of thinly veiled political references, it could have been given almost anywhere.  It was, to borrow a phrase, memorable but forgotten the moment you walk out the door.

It was precisely this uninterestingness (and yes, the spell-checker flagged the new word I just created) that interested me.  It is, to me, the key to unlocking the core construct of this speech and, in the end, explains what President Obama was hoping to gain here.  (For the uninitiated among us, at the political level of the Presidency nothing is done without aiming for political gain; that’s not cynicism, it’s understanding that there are too many people paid too much money to allow opportunities like this one to go to waste.)

If we want to zero in on the abortion section of the speech (which, naturally, we do, because we’re single-issue voters you know) a very simple dynamic can be found.  There is an invitation to speak with “open hearts” and “open minds” and “fair-minded words”.  This sounds utterly unpretentious and thoroughly agreeable to anyone not looking to start a fist fight, verbal or otherwise.  Also embedded in this section is the admission that “the views of the two camps are irreconcilable”.  Already you can perceive a disconnect.  He is, in effect if not in direct statement, saying that debate and discussion are fine and laudable – as long as nobody expects anyone else to change his or her mind.  “Please, argue all you like, but do use good table manners.”

A debate where one side winning is not allowed is not a debate at all, it is two groups talking at each other and neither listening.  And that is precisely what the President is calling for here.  But what is to be gained by both groups talking past each other?  The answer as I can perceive it is twofold.

First, by appearing to desire discussion and debate about the issue the President can be perceived as being above the fray, undirtied by the mud being flung by both sides.  He can lightly chide either group and be praised for leading the discussion without actually taking part in it.  That’s the political version of having your cake and eating it too.

Second, and rather worse, is this:  the longer the status quo remains the more “settled” the question can be made to appear.  Instead of being the white-hot issue it currently is, an ongoing “civilized” discussion slowly robs the issue of oxygen and moves it off of the radar screens of people already overloaded with other concerns.  Further to the point, when you control the levers of power, as the President does and particularly so with both the House and Senate comfortably in his corner, maintaining the status quo generates the same effect as winning the debate because you controls all the movable pieces.  You can make small, incremental changes over time and as long as the debate rolls on nobody will notice.  It is the same effect as the frog in the pot of water – heat it too fast and the frog jumps out, but heat it up slowly without otherwise scaring the frog and it’ll boil without even knowing it.  This is the tactic which enabled dissenting theologians to run amok in the Church for decades -  call for dialog and slow contemplation of the issues at hand all the while turning the dial further and further.

All this is not to say that I am against civil debate nor even that I’m against acknowledging that there are those whose minds will never change on the topic of abortion.  To acknowledge someone will never change their mind is one thing.  To say they are right because of that is entirely another.  When Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Ratzinger) warned of a “dictatorship of relativism” it was precisely this type of issue he was confronting.  Let me make a point and see how much trouble I get in:  diversity of opinion is not a laudable goal, only a recognition of an unfortunate fact.

How can I call it unfortunate?  Jesus tells us “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.”  Notice he used the singular form of each of those words – “the Truth“.  What is truth in this world?  That which is most closely conformed to God.  Jesus did not say “I am the Way and the Truths and the Life”, did not suggest pluralism as a goal in and of itself.  There is but one Truth, one goal, one End and all ought rightly to be conformed to that end.  To ask for debate without conclusion is to suggest the End no longer matters, that the debate is more important than the conclusion.  That, indeed, man’s ways are more important than God’s Way.  Let us, indeed, have debate.  But let it be spirited, hard and honest, and let us wrench from it whatever truths each side brings, that from those truths we might be able to better find our way to the Truth.

I’ll be the first to admit it.  I would never have expected to hear a supermodel use the word “biogenesis” in a sentence, let alone use it correctly.  There are times when it’s very pleasing to be wrong.

Sometimes the most potent argument against an opponent comes from someone who would normally be seen as their ally.  This article by Charles Krauthammer is one of those.  Why is it so important? When you can have this:

I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception.

in the same article as this:

How anyone as sophisticated as Obama can believe this within living memory of Mengele and Tuskegee and the fake (and coercive) South Korean stem cell research is hard to fathom.

you find Obama with a problem.  Now, to be fair, here’s the full context of those two quotes:

I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix. Moreover, given the protean power of embryonic manipulation, the temptation it presents to science, and the well-recorded human propensity for evil even in the pursuit of good, lines must be drawn. I suggested the bright line prohibiting the deliberate creation of human embryos solely for the instrumental purpose of research — a clear violation of the categorical imperative not to make a human life (even if only a potential human life) a means rather than an end.

On this, Obama has nothing to say. He leaves it entirely to the scientists. This is more than moral abdication. It is acquiescence to the mystique of “science” and its inherent moral benevolence. How anyone as sophisticated as Obama can believe this within living memory of Mengele and Tuskegee and the fake (and coercive) South Korean stem cell research is hard to fathom.

Wait, that’s not much better for those who supported Obama’s move, is it?  Well, that’s because as you draw the lens back further the picture gets continually more bleak for those who want unfettered federal funding for the purposes of “research” which has at its heart the murder of millions of babies.  Perhaps the worst part of this whole issue is that this presidency has just begun, and I somehow doubt the next three-plus years will find us doubling back on these decisions.  We.  Must.  Pray.

If this news doesn’t concern you, you’re not paying attention:

The Obama administration has begun the process of rescinding sweeping new federal protections that were granted in December to health-care workers who refuse to provide care that violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

The Office of Management and Budget announced this morning that it was reviewing a proposal to lift the controversial “conscience” regulation, the first step toward reversing the policy. Once the OMB has reviewed the proposal it will published in Federal Register for a 30-day public comment period.

“We are proposing rescinding the Bush rule,” said an official with the Health and Human Services Department, which drafted the rule change.

The administration took the step because the regulation was so broadly written that it could provide protections to health-care workers who object not only to abortion but also to a wide range of health-care services, said the HHS official, who asked not to be named because the process had just begun.

The suggestion of loose wording is nothing more than a thin veil, an excuse to re-write the rule as abortion advocates would like it.  This is not the beginning, nor will it be the end.  Contact your representatives in Congress, but above all pray.

Hat tip to Carl Olson.

Today we in America watched a twofold spectacle unfold: the bloodless transfer of power from one President to the next and the inauguration of the first African American President.  There is, as always, much more to this story and much more yet to be told.  But let us not forget this:

Now, soldiers of the Church Militant, it’s time to get on it.  Rosaries for Life is proposing a monumental effort – 68 million rosaries between today and Inauguration Day.  If you’re one of those Catholics who voted for Obama assuming his social and economic policies would reduce the overall number of abortions, this is your chance to put the full weight of your Catholicism behind it and pray that you were right.  If you voted against Obama because you feared what he promised would result in more abortions and not fewer, now is your chance to pray that you were wrong.  And if you didn’t vote or voted third-party, now is your chance to be involved in something we can all believe in – the power of prayer.

The first initiative of Rosaries for Life is going to be the Inauguration Day Rosary Novena. This Novena is going to last for 72 days – it consists of 4 sets of mysteries 9 times for the intentions, followed by 4 sets of mysteries 9 times in thanksgiving = 72 days of praying 5 decades). The novena will begin on November 10th, the feast of St. Leo the Great (as well as the first day of the USCCB meeting) and end on January 20th, Inauguration Day. If you missed the beginning of the novena, please join us anyway, and pledge either “a partial novena” until January 20th or a full 72-day novena to end sometime after Inauguration Day.