This week on Faith On Trial (9-2-21)

Julie Blake

Should doctors be forced to perform gender transition procedures even if it violates the physician’s medical judgment or religious beliefs? “Yes,” says the Biden Administration’s Health and Human Services Department’s new rule; but “No” says the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) which has filed a lawsuit to overturn the rule: American College of Pediatricians v. Bacerra.  Julie Blake, senior counsel at ADF, will join us this Thursday to discuss the rule and the lawsuit.  

Faith On Trial airs every Thursday at 10 a.m. central on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM; 88.5, 94.5, and 90.9 FM and streaming live at IowaCatholicRadio.com.

Shocking Report Shows 621 Botched Abortions That Left Baby Parts Inside Mother - LifeNews.com

Shocking Report Shows 621 Botched Abortions That Left Baby Parts Inside Mother - LifeNews.com: A “devastating” report into abortion in Wisconsin has revealed that 11% of abortions that took place there in 2019 resulted in complications, including more than 600 incomplete abortions. Instances of incomplete abortion — where parts of the aborted baby remain behind after the procedure — numbered 621 in 2019 in Wisconsin, up by over 750% […]

Massive Israeli Study Comes to Bombshell Conclusion About Natural COVID Immunity

Massive Israeli Study Comes to Bombshell Conclusion About Natural COVID Immunity

'Indoctrination is beginning even earlier than college education'

'Campus Reform' reporter Ophelie Jacobson takes a look at questions on an AP Government and Politics Exam written by the College Board, in which the questions imply that voter I.D. laws are racist, as well as problems at Iowa State University.

 

Harold Hill In The White House

By Deacon Mike Manno

As many of you will remember I live in Iowa — West Des Moines — to be exact. My house is about 130 miles south of Mason City, the boyhood home of Meredith Willson, creator of that wonderful musical, Music Man and the artful Harold Hill, er, Professor Harold Hill, music connoisseur.

Hill, of course, was a flim-flam man who, with no music experience, tried to sell the good people of River City on the idea of a city band. That was the scam, he sold the townsfolk on the idea, took orders for band instruments and uniforms, then planned to skip town before the uniforms and instruments arrived without giving the promised music lessons.

Yet he’s caught in his lie and to get out of it he performs what can only be described as an illusion, causing the townspeople to believe their kids can actually play music. All leading to the climactic scene where Hill leads his faux band down Main Street as those watching see it as a full-dressed band playing Seventy-Six Trombones.

Now why would Harold Hill remind me of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.? I think it is their shared ability to get folks to see what is really not there. Mr. Biden and his minions have created an illusion around the president just like Harold Hill created an illusion around the townsfolk in River City that their kids could really play music and become a marching band.

The illusions created give a false impression of the man: that he is competent, a common man, and most disturbing, he is a devout Catholic. Let me take you to my starting point.

Back in May of 2019 a nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center, identified only as “Rachel,” was forced to assist in an abortion against her religious and moral reservations. The nurse had for some time indicated her objection to the procedure and was included in the center’s list of objectors. On the day in question, the nurse was asked to assist with a medical procedure, but was not told it was an abortion. It was only when she walked into the room that she found the procedure she was to assist with was an abortion.

The doctor performing the abortion knew of her objection and greeted her with the words, “Don’t hate me.” She objected to assisting, and while there were other center personnel who could have assisted the doctor, forced her to assist under threat of termination and loss of her nursing license.

The nurse filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Trump administration. The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), after an investigation reported, “UVMMC [the medical center] maintains a staffing policy that facially violates the Church Amendments because the policy admits to circumstances where UVMMC can and will force staff — on pain of adverse action or discipline — to participate in abortions against their moral or religious objections. The policy also violates UVMMC’s agreement, as a condition of receiving HHS funds, to comply with federal law, including the Church Amendments and HHS’s grants regulations.”

The Church Amendment, referenced above, is a federal statute that provides conscience protections for healthcare workers. Enacted in 1970 it protects medical persons from assisting or performing abortions or sterilizations if such would be against the individual’s religious beliefs or moral convictions.

The OCR also reported, “As part of its investigation, OCR contacted UVMMC repeatedly in a good faith effort to seek cooperation from UVMMC, but the hospital refused to conform its policies to federal conscience laws, provide all the documents requested by OCR, or produce witnesses for OCR interviews.”

Last year the Department of Justice filed suit against the center. It alleged that at least 10 nurses had been coerced into assisting in approximately 20 abortions against their will. It noted that some staff members were allowed to refuse assistance in some matters, and only the pro-life staffers were forced to assist with abortions. It also alleged that the center’s policy: “Refusing to provide care [based on conscience objections] will result in the employee being placed on paid leave while the incident is reviewed. The review may result in corrective action up to and including termination of employment” was, in itself, illegal.

Roger Severino, director of OCR at the time, said, “Forcing medical staff to assist in the taking of human life inflicts a moral injury on them that is not only unnecessary and wrong, it violates longstanding federal law. Our investigation has uncovered serious discrimination by UVMMC against nurses and staff who cannot, in good conscience, assist in elective abortions.”

According to the OCR suit, the hospital “discriminated against conscience objectors because of their religious beliefs or moral convictions opposing abortion.” UVMMC is said to have “forced and attempted to force or required conscience objectors to assist with abortions when such personnel object that assisting with abortions violates their religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

A clear case of the violation of religious and conscience rights.

But that is not the way the Biden administration saw it. Through Mr. Biden’s fellow pro-abortion Catholic, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, OCR’s lawsuit was “voluntarily dismissed” by the Department of Justice in July.

Of course Planned Parenthood of Vermont supported the dismissal. “The Department of Justice did the right thing by dropping this politically motivated lawsuit against UVM Medical Center. For patients, health care is personal, not political, and it is time to end government interference when it comes to abortion care,” said spokesperson Lucy Leriche.

The center’s Dr. Steve Leffler, reacting to the dismissal, said, “We are committed to meeting the medical needs of our patients, while respecting the religious and moral beliefs of our employees.”

In Congress, 84 GOP lawmakers sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary Becerra claiming that by dropping the lawsuit they had violated federal conscience protection. “Your handling of this case is a profound miscarriage of justice and a rejection of your commitment to enforce federal conscience laws for Americans of all religious beliefs and creeds — and especially for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who object to abortion,” the letter said.

The American Center for Law and Justice issued a statement: “This week, the Biden Administration has taken the unprecedented step of having the Department of Justice voluntarily dismiss its own case without obtaining anything in return….But the Biden Administration is so beholden to its extreme ‘abortion-is-awesome!’ wing that they can’t even bring themselves to recognize that conscience rights exist when it comes to abortion.”

Rachel, so traumatized by the incident, has ended her nursing career and moved to another part of the country.

Former OCR Director Severino said of the decision to drop the case: “Such a politically motivated backstab means it’s open season on pro-life doctors and nurses.” The Biden administration tried to force him out of his office even though his three-year term was not up. When he refused to resign, he was fired.

So Joe Biden is a good Catholic. Like Harold Hill he has spun that illusion, but under the surface he is a champion of abortion and will take every opportunity to expand the killing fields — even to the point of denying the conscience rights of objectors, and supporting Democratic policies, such as contained in their beloved “Equality Act” which would alter federal civil rights laws to be replaced by the requirement that even faith-based hospitals would have to provide abortions and that schools and other institutions would be forced to allow gender-mixed locker and shower facilities.

I could go on, but if you are a regular reader of this column, you know the list by now. Sufficient to say, Mr. Biden is no friend of the Church or of conscience protection. He is the Harold Hill of today’s political arena and needs our prayers before he drops too far into the abyss.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central, on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

 

Religion Clause: Suit Challenges Vaccine Mandate Without Religious ...

Religion Clause: Suit Challenges Vaccine Mandate Without Religious ...: Suit was filed yesterday in a Maine federal district court on behalf of over 2000 health care workers (all filing anonymously) challenging M...

This week on Faith On Trial (8-26)

Guest: Roger Severino, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center where he directs EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project. He is a national authority on civil rights, conscience and religious freedom.

 

Brooklyn Church Members Vindicated in Witness Outside of Queens Abortion Facility

(August 26, 2021 – Brooklyn, NY) In a stunning reversal today, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the rights of pro-life advocates to peacefully protest outside of a Queens, New York, abortion facility. The New York Attorney General’s office, under three consecutive attorneys general, falsely charged a group of peaceful pro-life supporters with making threats and harassment as they offered information on life-affirming alternatives to abortion bound women. Attorneys from the Thomas More Society represented ten members of Brooklyn’s Church@TheRock, including the pastor, Rev. Kenneth Griepp, against the unfounded charges and defended their First Amendment rights to counsel women approaching the Choices Women’s Medical Center.

“This is a great win, to be sure,” declared Stephen Crampton, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel, “but the case should never have been brought in the first place. It was always about politics, not justice. The New York Attorney General has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money pursuing bogus claims and persecuting law-abiding Christians. The real crime here is not the actions of the defendants, but the actions of the Attorney General in ever filing this case.” 

The August 26, 2021, unanimous opinion handed down by Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston, Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi, and Circuit Judge Rosemary S. Pooler, affirmed in all respects an earlier ruling by United States District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon of the Eastern District of New York. Amon had denied the state’s motion for preliminary injunction brought against the life advocates. 

Initially, the Second Circuit panel took a year and a half to rule in the Attorney General’s favor, overturning the district court decision. In an extraordinary order issued on May 28, 2021, the panel granted petitions for rehearing and vacated its opinion in the case of People of New York v. Rev. Kenneth Griepp et. al. But the panel then asked for additional briefing, and finally issued another opinion today affirming the district court opinion in all respects. 

The case will now return to federal district court for a trial on the merits and consideration of some of the unanswered questions concerning the constitutionality of the New York City Access to Reproductive Health Care Facilities Act and the Attorney General’s right to even bring suit under that act. 

The case against the peaceful pro-life advocates was initially filed in June 2017 by former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who charged the group under the state’s Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law, known by the acronym FACE. That FACE law is intended to prevent actual, intentional interference with access to a clinic by means of force, threats of force, or physical obstruction. Peaceful pro-life activity is specifically protected, just as it is in the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. 

When a sex scandal force Schneiderman out of office in May 2018, his replacement, Barbara Underwood continued the prosecution, which was assumed by her successor, current New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Thomas More Society attorneys argued that the case was without merit because it was actually an assault on the First Amendment rights of pro-life sidewalk counselors who had been coming to Choices Women’s Medical Center weekly since 2012, to peacefully speak with abortion bound women. Despite a lack of any evidence, the life advocates were falsely accused by Schneiderman of harassing and threatening women as they headed into the abortion facility. 

About the Thomas More Society

The Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, and religious liberty. Headquartered in Chicago, Omaha, Rancho Santa Fe, California, and Fairfield, NJ, the Thomas More Society fosters support for these causes by providing high quality pro bono legal services from local trial courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. For more information, visit thomasmoresociety.org.

Moral Absolutes and Biden

 

By Judie Brown, president American Life League

Sham-Catholic president of the United States Joe Biden is a total failure. In terms of the natural law he is a moral pygmy, but he was helped along the road by Catholic bishops. And whether by accident or on purpose, what they have permitted is more outrageous than what Biden himself has done.

Dating back to the early 1980s there have been bishops from the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, who have turned a blind eye to Biden’s support of abortion, homosexual marriages, and other moral evils. In fact, I recall pro-life giant and my dearly departed friend Dee Becker of Wilmington telling me time and time again that she could not convince her bishop to lift a finger to even scold Biden for his pro-death record.

Furthermore, in 2019 when Fr. Robert Morey of South Carolina did deny Biden Communion, Francis Malooly, Biden’s bishop at the time, responded to Fr. Morey’s action by saying he would not “politicize” the Eucharist; he would not deny the sacrament to pro-abortion Biden.

Add to this the large number of Catholic prelates who have made it publicly known that when it comes to Biden there is nothing they will do to instruct him on the error of his ways, including denying him the holiest of Catholic sacraments—the body and blood of Christ.

Among them we find Cardinal Blase Cupich, the same prelate who recently instructed his priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago that they may not honor requests for religious exemptions to the COVID vaccine! He says there is no basis in Catholic moral teaching for such questions, but he has also publicly criticized USCCB president Archbishop Jose Gomez for condemning Biden on his pro-abortion position.

And of course Biden has been defended by Cardinal Wilton Gregory and others who prefer not to deny the Eucharist to Biden. So when you wonder why Biden is so confused about what the moral absolutes are and why they are important, you need look no further than many of the Catholic bishops of the United States.

Biden, then senator and ever the lawyer, said during the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings on now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, that in his arrogant opinion applying natural law to the Constitution was unacceptable.

Secular newspapers such as the Washington Post concurred with Biden, reporting that “Judge Thomas has said that ‘the thesis of natural law is that human nature provides the key to how men ought to live their lives’—suggesting that natural law dictates morality to us, instead of leaving matters to individual choice.”

Prideful statements like this have been offered time and time again to defend the misguided actions of people like Biden who would not know a moral absolute if it hit him in the face. As we know, when individual choice is preferred, moral absolutes must be rejected.

But many intelligent individuals—like Professor Dianne Irving—are not steeped in political gobbledygook. Irving writes: “Natural law ethical theory aids us in understanding which human actions are morally right or wrong through the aid of human reason alone—without the use of Divine Revelation or the teachings of the Magisterium. It has been studied and refined over the centuries as a means of addressing what is the morally right thing for us to do when faced with genuine moral dilemmas. It is not some new, brash, untried or unscrutinized moral theory.”

In other words, natural law theory is knowable by human reason and yet can be and is rejected by the likes of Joe Biden. Why is that?

Well, as we know, moral absolutes do not change. Dr. Samuel Gregg, an expert in natural law theory, wrote an entire article on moral absolutes in which he pointed out the obvious: A moral absolute means “that there are intrinsically evil acts which admit of no exception whatsoever.”

And there’s the rub. For folks like Biden, Cupich, and others, the idea of adhering to moral principles that admit to no exception is just unthinkable.

And so the body of Christ will continue to be insulted. The babies will continue to die. The innocent will continue to be tossed aside, and all in the name of the “greater good.”

Hogwash!

That is why we must remember this:

Without the negative moral absolutes, however, we can have no sure knowledge of evil, when we have chosen it, and how it imperils our salvation. Considered in these terms, the moral absolutes are far from being a burden. Instead they are a tangible sign of God’s love for us. To forget that in the name of being merciful would be folly itself.

So let us pray for President Biden and all those who flirt with eternal suffering by ignoring the moral absolutes. God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That truth, of course, is Christ Jesus.

Faith On Trial this Thursday August 26

Roger Severino

This Thursday on Faith On Trial: Roger Severino, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he directs EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project. He is a national authority on civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, the administrative state, and information privacy, particularly as applied to health–care law and policy. Before joining EPPC, he was the Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (OCR), during the Trump Administration. where he protected conscience and religious freedom, and health information privacy laws.

We will discuss the case against the University of Vermont Medical Center where nurses were forced to assist with abortions against their will. Mr. Severino as the OCR director initiated the investigation which led to the lawsuit. However, the Biden Administration dismissed the suit.

10 a.m. central time Thursday on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM; 88.5 & 94.5 FM and streaming on IowaCatholicRadio.com.

Profile in Cowardice: How Catholic Leaders Botched the Abortion-Linked COVID Vaccines | The Stream

Profile in Cowardice: How Catholic Leaders Botched the Abortion-Linked COVID Vaccines | The Stream: The same Catholic bishops who begged the Trump team for a vaccine not based on abortion now force the tainted serums on their flocks.

Academic Racism?

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – When a bill is passed by Congress or a state legislature, the president or the state governor usually hosts a public signing ceremony. It is, of course, a way to get some good publicity for the executive — “See, I’m getting stuff done for you” — and it gets their names mentioned, mostly favorably, in the news.

That’s what happens most of the time. I suppose there are times when an executive is signing something very controversial where the signing is done behind closed doors, sometimes in the dead of the night, hidden in darkness. Those times are few and far between, but they do raise questions about what the legislation being signed into law really does.

This happened recently in Oregon where the Democratic governor, Kate Brown, privately signed a bill on July 14 that had passed the Oregon legislature last June. Why no public ceremony? Perhaps it is because the bill, SB 744, suspends the state’s proficiency requirements to graduate from high school for the next five years.

A spokesman for Gov. Brown said the suspension of proficiency requirements was to benefit minority students.

“Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color” will benefit, said the governor’s spokesman. “Leaders from those communities have advocated time and again for equitable graduation standards, along with expanded learning opportunities and supports.”

Equitable standards, okay, but eliminating standards, that’s something else.
What are those proficiency standards? Why do they matter and why are they being suspended? And how are they to be made more equitable? Those standards are described by the state’s Department of Education as “essential skills” and include:

1. Read and comprehend a variety of texts, and being able to demonstrate the ability to read and understand, critically analyze key points of the text, and be able to follow instructions from informational texts to perform tasks, answer questions, and solve problems.
2. Write clearly and accurately, which includes being able to adapt writing to different audiences, purposes, and contexts, be able to explain, summarize, and inform in business and personal communications, and able to use correct grammar, punctuation, capitalization.
3. Apply mathematics in a variety of settings, and be able to apply workable mathematical concepts where applicable, produce graphs, and communicate and defend the verified process and solution, using pictures, symbols, models, narrative, or other methods.

Kind of simple, right? Reading, writing, and arithmetic.

There are some other items listed such as being able to listen and speak clearly and coherently, and the ability to think critically and analytically, but these are the three that are first listed. Reading, writing, and arithmetic. Essential skills that educators believe that you should possess at least at a tenth-grade level before you graduate from high school — except not in Oregon, not now, not until at least until 2027. In the meantime, no standards, no essential skills because, apparently, this is the way to help minority students.

So what is really going on? You would think that if some students, due to language or cultural barriers, are not able to meet the standards of the educational establishment in the state, they would (or at least should) be working overtime to bring them up to proficiency. But alas, that is not what is being done; rather the standards are going to be modified over the next five years. How are they to be modified and why drop them completely?

I remember years ago when I was teaching at a local community college. Word came down that certain students were to pass, even if they had not turned in assignments, or taken and passed the course exams. In short, it was a no-fail policy and was in effect until the local paper got wind of it and published it in one Sunday edition. In other words, substitute a diploma for actual knowledge.

That, of course, explains why the governor signed the bill in the dark of night. Something is very wrong with this policy. And, in fairness, I should mention that there are plenty of other localities that have abandoned educational standards to make their graduation rates look more acceptable than they would if the whole truth were known.
And, in general, these lax policies, when they are defended, are defended because it is claimed that the standards somehow hurt minority students, except for the Asians — they excel despite their cultural backgrounds.

So I did a little looking at Oregon. It appears that several months ago the state Department of Education did a bit of warning about some of their standards and why they might need to be changed, especially in the area of mathematics. It was contained in an 82-page guide, A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction.

The educational culprit, the guide was happy to report, was white supremacy.
“White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions,” the guide reads. “Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics.” The guide went on to provide an outline on how to “deconstruct racism” in mathematics.

The guide alleges that certain teaching practices, which I always thought were normal, perpetuate white supremacy, such as asking students to show their work, focusing on the correct answer, tracking student progress, and grading students.

The guide explains that asking students to show their work is “a crutch” for teachers to understand what students are thinking. It is white supremacy because it reinforces “paternalism” and “worship of the written word,” an alleged foundation of white supremacy culture, which reinforces documentation and writing skills.

It continues: “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so . . . upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates objectivity.”

Okay, now I understand. This is political correctness run amok in academia.

The bill, secretly signed, orders the Department of Education to develop recommendations for changes in the “requirements for high school diplomas . . . with the goal of ensuring that the processes and outcomes related to the requirements for high school diplomas are equitable, accessible, and inclusive.”

It’s pretty obvious what the state is doing. Some students for a variety of reasons have difficulty mastering — even at a tenth-grade level — the essential skills necessary to be a high school graduate. But is this really the answer, lowering expectations? Schools should be raising expectations, demanding proficiency from students to give them a greater opportunity to succeed in real life, not in the artificial environment of Oregon’s flirtation with Never-Never Land.

“The approach for Senate Bill 744 is to, in fact, lower our expectations for our kids,” said Oregon House Minority Leader Republican Christine Drazan, and she is right.
No kid should be denied that basic education because helping them may be too burdensome or uncomfortable for the school. They are not a throwaway commodity that can be bandaged with a paper diploma. Education should demand the best from them, not the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

And we wonder what’s wrong with education today.

(You can reach Mike at DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday morning at 10 Central on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

Students Think America Oppresses Women...Then They Hear About Afghanistan

Campus Reform reporter Ophelie Jacobson talked with female students at the University of Central Florida about what is happening in Afghanistan and how that compares to the treatment women receive in the United States.

 

Deacon Mike's homily: 13th Sunday after Pentecost (Latin)

Readings: Galatians 3:16-22; Luke 17:11-19

Good evening:

            The story of the ten lepers is one that we’ve all heard before. The ten ask for mercy from Jesus, which they receive, yet only one returns to thank him. It is certainly a story that tells us a lot about human nature and the apparent world of ingratitude in which we live.

            And, of course, all those messages are true and you’ll hear them every time this Gospel passage is read.

            But St. Alphonsus Liguori had an interesting twist on the story. In case you are unfamiliar with him, Alphonsus Ligouri lived in Eighteenth Century Italy, was a writer, a lawyer, a bishop and a scholastic philosopher. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer – the Redemptorists – and was proclaimed a doctor of the church in 1871 by Pope Pius IX.

            While most of us who hear this story see a message about prayer and graduate, St. Alphonsis saw the Gospel story about avoiding bad company and sin. In his view he sees the leprosy as representing sin. Jesus, he notes, doesn’t cure the lepers immediately, but sends them off to the priests; they are only cured in route. That is because Jesus did not want to cure them at a place where there were other lepers and they might be re-infected. Thus, the trip to the priests was a way to protect them since leprosy was considered not only incurable but also contagious.

            St. Alphonsis makes the analogy of how sin which infects one person can quickly spread to others. Thus the infection of sin spreads just as the infection of leprosy spreads. And as it grows, more and more persons will be caught up and infected with sinful ways blocking our relationship with God.  

            And, of course, we kind of already knew that.

            I remember a few years ago when I was practicing juvenile law, I was appointed to be a judge in the county’s “peer court” program. It was a very simple concept, first-time juvenile offenders could plead guilty to their “crimes” and plead their case to a jury of their peers, who would then decide the punishment.

            I remember these tiny misdemeanants would always open their stories with, “Me and my friends were …” The bad grammar was bad enough, but what always caught my attention was the group think that went into a plan to pulverize a neighbor’s mail box, it was never, “Oh I just decided to take a baseball bat to Mrs. Wilson’s planter.”

            It was always a result of that spreading infection about which St. Alphonsus warned us.

            He told his listeners that “one scandalous companion is enough to corrupt all who treat him as a friend. … They are the false prophets whom Jesus Christ warns us to avoid.” He quotes St. Ambrose as asking: “how can bad companions give you the odor of chastity, when they exhale the stench of impurity?”

            “What greater madness can be conceived than to believe in Hell and to live in sin?” he asks.  

            But beyond that there are still some questions about this story, such as: what if Jesus had not cured some of the lepers? And what about the message of giving thanks to God, where is it?

            I think those questions are pertinent since they involve real life. We know that not everyone who asks of God will receive that which he asks. What does this tell us about what we pray for?

            I think it tells us this: While we may have needs and wants, our purpose in invoking his assistance should be to promote his will first, not ours. That is why we pray every day “thy will be done.”

            I think once we focus on the larger picture, the one that God envisions; the more content we will be in our own narrow circumstances.

            And finally, the best way we can show that gratitude is to live a Godly life, to avoid sin, and to make amends when we do fall out of grace.

            Unfortunately, too many of us cannot reconcile God’s love for us with our own narrow interests. That failure leaves a block in our relationship with God.

            Shortly after World War II, the great Christian apologist C.S. Lewis wrote a short allegorical novel, The Great Divorce. The story begins with a bus ride where the travelers are residents of hell who visit the outskirts of heaven where they are given a chance to stay.

            As they wonder around the country side they are met by friends and relatives who try to convince them to continue the journey to the heavenly mountain.

            One by one, however, the lost souls refuse the invitations and take the bus back to hell. One is offended that God’s sense of justice differs from his own and thus rejects his friend’s plea to travel to the mountain.

            Another, who spent her earthly life attempting to control her loved ones, finds it offensive that God will not allow her to continue to possess others. And there is the mother who refuses to believe that God could love her son more than she; and there was even a bishop who was more concerned with theological hair splitting than simple, childlike faith.

            For all who chose to return to hell their choices were made because they had closed their hearts and their minds to the enormous love that God has for every one of them. They missed the message of the Gospels of an open heart and a resolution to amend their lives. They refused to remove that block that stands between God and the sinner.

            As Lewis points out about those lost souls, “There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery.  

            Sin is that block which breaks our relationship with God. When sin is present we need to restore that relationship.

            And one way to do that is by frequent use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I’ve seen firsthand how this sacrament can change a person’s life. I was once a chaplain at a drug and alcohol treatment program for those in trouble with the law. They weren’t always an easy bunch to work with, many were just resistant to a Gospel message to which they had never been exposed, but there were a few who were accepting.  

            Many in that later category had been baptized Catholic and asked me if, knowing their background and history, they could ever come back to the Church. My response was always the same: Just go to confession.

            But I would add to that not to just go on a Sunday morning and stand in line, let me make an appointment with a priest where you will have time to tell your full story. I’d then pick them up for their appointment and take them to the church.

            One thing I always noticed. I never took the same person back to the clinic that I had taken to confession. There was always a relief and new spirit in them when they finished. The guys would relax, the woman would sometime cry. But they all had the same experience: a great burden had been lifted from their shoulders and they could finally call God their friend again.

            I could see the power of that sacrament. It had the power to take what was crooked and make straight, what was murky and make clear, and what was fear and make safe.

            If you are looking for a way to truly express your gratitude to God that is the way to do it. Repent, reach out to heal the gulf between you and God and remove those blocks that have been a barrier to the fulfillment of your Christian identity.

            Then leave the bus behind and join the faithfully departed who have gone before you and ascend the mountain.

August 22, 2021

St. Anthony’s Parish, Des Moines

                                                                        #            

This week on Faith On Trial

At the Iowa State Fair with Maggie DeWitte, executive director for Iowans for Life

Behind The Grisly Pitt Panther

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – I don’t know if I speak for everyone, but I do think that most of us take pride in the institutions from which we have graduated. That may be a little more difficult when one of those institution is a Jesuit college, but I manage and hope that you do, too.
And like many of you I happily wear T-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with their names and images of their mascot — yes, even the blue jay!

Anyway I thought of that this morning when I read from several sources that the University of Pittsburgh would like to become the distribution hub for fetal parts. I don’t know what kind of mascot it has for that, but I don’t think I’d wear it, even though the school, I guess to show its “wokeness,” is claiming that its baby part business will conform to strict racial quotas.

Judicial Watch and the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) have reported that they have received public records from the National Institutes for Health (NIH) about government-sponsored fetal experimentation at the University of Pittsburgh. According to David Daleiden, founder and president of the Center for Medical Progress:

“The NIH grant application for just one of Pitt’s numerous experiments with aborted infants reads like an episode of American Horror Story. Infants in the womb, some old enough to be viable, are being aborted alive and killed for organ harvesting, in order to bring in millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for Pitt and the Planned Parenthood abortion business it supports. People are outraged by such disregard for the lives of the vulnerable. Law enforcement and public officials should act immediately to bring the next Kermit Gosnell to justice under the law.”

According to the report, the NIH was the subject of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by CMP over a year ago. When the requested documents were not produced, Judicial Watch went to court on behalf of CMI to demand them.

The documents finally produced include the university’s original grant application from 2015 to become the fetal tissue distribution hub for the Genito-Urinary Development Molecular Anatomy Project (GUDMAP). In its application, Pitt touts its “over 18 years of experience” collecting fetal body parts from aborted babies and suggests that its existing fetal tissue collections “can be significantly ramped up.”

In a grisly reminder of Kermit Gosnell, Pitt’s application boasts of its ability to minimize “ischemia time” — that is, according to the NIH, “the time a tissue, organ, or body part remains at body temperature after its blood supply has been reduced or cut off but before it is cooled or reconnected to a blood supply.”

The university, in its application says, “We record the warm ischemic time on our samples and take steps to keep it at a minimum to ensure the highest quality biological specimens. We get feedback from our users and utilize this feedback to tailor our collection processes on a case-by-case basis to maximize the needs of investigators.” In other words, the school is stating that it is proficient in keeping the fetal body parts at or close to body temperature.

Which means that in reference to a whole body fetus, where the heartbeat and blood circulation continue in a labor-induced abortion, “the fetus is being delivered while still alive and the cause of death is the removal of its organs,” according to CMP.
Judicial Watch says that the documents from Pitt reveal, among other things, the following:

“The aims of the project listed in the original 2015 proposal were to ‘develop a pipeline’ to the acquisition, quality control, and distribution of human genitourinary [urinary and genital organs and functions] samples obtained throughout development (6-42 weeks gestation)…[and] generate an ongoing resource to distribute fresh developmental human genitourinary samples from various stages (6-42 weeks) to the GUDMAP.

“In the proposal, Pitt notes that it has been ‘collecting fetal tissue for over 10 years . . . include[ing] liver, heart, gonads, legs, brain, genitourinary tissues including kidneys, ureters, and bladders.’

“Pitt noted in 2015 ‘we have disbursed over 300 fresh samples collected from 77 cases. The collections can be significantly ramped up as material could have been accrued from as many as 725 cases last year.’

“Pitt boasts it has a number of internal connections as well as a ‘strong working relationship with UPMC [University of Pittsburgh Medical Center] and the Department of Pathology’ as well as three ‘laboratories in the flagship UPMC hospitals.’ This includes a lab boasting a ‘Butcherboy band saw for sectioning bone,’ and a ‘frozen section room has digital video feed to and from the operating rooms. This also allows for instantaneous discussions with the surgeons as well [as] immediate “show and tell” for them.’ The proposal ironically also boasts about the laboratories at the ‘Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.’

“The Pitt scientists note that, ‘All fetal tissue is collected through a collaborative process including Family Planning, Obstetrics, and Pathology.’ And that, ‘the numbers of consents and collections has been steadily increasing…and we are in an excellent position to expand our services to include the needs of the GUDMAP Atlas projects.’

“Pitt anticipated ‘being able to harvest and distribute quality tissue and cells…[and] do not anticipate any major problems related to the acquisition and distribution of the tissues.’

“Pitt’s target goal ‘is to have available a minimum of 5 cases (tissues and if possible other biologicals) per week of gestational age for ages 6-42 weeks.’

“Pitt’s proposal requested more than $3.2 million over a five-year period. The documents show NIH has funded at least $2.7 million so far for Pitt’s human fetal tissue harvesting and hub.”

Additionally, the university also states in its application that its harvesting program will include “Inclusion (or exclusion) of individuals on the basis of sex/gender, race, and ethnicity.” It claims that it will use only white “patients” for half of its “inventory” and of the other half of what it calls “minority patients,” half of those will be black.

“These documents show taxpayer money is being used to turn the University of Pittsburgh is a one-stop human fetal tissue shop — from procuring the tissue from elective abortions, ‘subdividing’ the human remains, to distributing and shipping the harvested tissue,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. 

Yeah, somehow, even if I went there, I wouldn’t want to wear a Pitt sweatshirt. The Jesuits are starting to look a lot better right now!

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

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Deacon Mike’s homily for the Feast of the Assumption

Good morning:

            Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. So on this feast it might be fitting to reflect on her life and her message for us.

            Our tradition teaches that after her earthly life was over, Mary was assumed bodily into heaven.

            Tradition says that after her death her body disappeared, in fact some early Christian writings say that Mary died and was buried in a site near Gethsemane, and, in fact, there is a Greek Orthodox Church near Gethsemane where it is claimed Mary’s body was placed. A more modern tradition is that Mary spent the last part of her life in Ephesus in Turkey, and died there.

            In any event, the process of her death and assumption was known as “the Dormation of Mary” which conveys the idea of “the sleep of Mary,” the idea that Mary fell asleep; that she died.

            But in the early 1950s when Pius XII officially proclaimed the doctrine of the Assumption, he stated only that “after her earthly life was over” she was assumed into heaven, leaving open the possibility that Mary was never required to suffer death. And we could easily understand that the Woman who bore the Christ-child not only was immaculately concerted – that is without original sin – but could easily have been spared physical death by her Heavenly Father.

            There is a lot that can be said about our Holy Mother, and a lot of interpretation from Scripture gives rise to numerous other ideas about her. Take our First Reading today in which is described “a woman clothed with the sun.” The woman is about to give birth and the dragon is waiting to devour her child … a male child … following which she then had to flee into the desert.

            Most of us think of the woman as Mary, and, in fact, that is a good interpretation of the passage and was the interpretation popular from medieval times. However there are a couple of other interpretations that have found favor with some theologians. One is that the woman represents Old Israel, the nation from which the Messiah came. It is suggested that the author of Revelation was not seeing Mary but Israel waiting for the coming of the promised Messiah. Another is that the woman represents the Church, the New Israel, and the mother of the faithful.

            Yet there is one thing that stands out to me, the Woman “wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.” Now, in Genesis God is punishing Eve for her disobedience telling her, “I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children.” Now since Mary was free from Original Sin you would think that the birth of Our Savior would have been painless.

            These are just a few bits and pieces of Mary’s life that I hope will raise you curiosity about her and perhaps start you to study her life and the message.  And when you do you will find that she not only teaches us by her example, but by her words as well.

            The first lesson we learn about her is that she was humble before God and surrendered herself to him completely, “let it be done to me according to your word,” she told the angel and you can see throughout Scripture how she lived that surrender: Simon told her that her soul would be pierced with sorrow, she frantically sought the young Jesus when he was lost for three days, and committed to her total surrender when he said that he had to be about his Father’s business.

            One way for us to imitate Mary’s complete surrender is through her oft repeated messages that were contained in many of her apparitions. And it was through those apparitions that she taught us in the only way the Mother of God could.

            For example, during her appearance to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830 she asked St. Catherine to have medal struck in her honor on which was to be a depiction of Mary as she appeared to St. Catherine with rays of light streaming from many of her fingers. Catherine asked Mary why light was not streaming from all of her fingers.

            Mary’s response was, “These rays symbolize the graces I shed upon those who asked for them. The gems from which rays do not fall are the graces for which souls forget to ask.”   The message, of course, is an invitation to ask our Holy Mother for the graces we need to live a more devout life.    

            In several other apparitions she begged us to do penance, and to pray for sinners. The conversion of sinners was paramount to her, and she continues to speak of the value of penance and prayer for the conversion of all.

            However, for most of us we tend to think of Mary as she is in today’s celebration: the Glorious Mary; the Mary of Guadalupe, the healing waters of Lourdes, or the miracle of the sun at Fatima.  But what we often times don’t realize that she was human, just like us. Yet she had an unusual faith in the Word of God, and perhaps this is the best lesson she can give to us.

            If you take a look on the west wall you’ll see what I mean.  There you will find probably the saddest point in our redemptive history.  Station Four: Jesus meets his mother.

             Think about that meeting.  Jesus, beaten, humiliated, and under a death sentence meets his mother.  He knew that in a few hours they would kill him, but I suspect this was his worst moment; for the beatings, the scourging, the piercings would not compare to the tears he saw in his mother’s eyes.  

            And Mary, can you imagine what was going through her mind?  Isn’t this the child that the angel told her would sit on the throne of David – whose kingdom would not end?  And now look at him.  Betrayed by a disciple, abandoned by all, save young John and a few women, he was being led to a criminal’s death by a band of roguish soldiers at the behest of their Jewish community.

             If there was time for despair; if there was time to question God, for Mary it was then. 

            Yet despite what she saw she did not abandon hope, she did not despair, she did not falter in her faith.  As hard as it was for her, we find her following her Son, and the Cross of our Salvation, to Calvary. 

She followed, station after station, she saw Simon carry the cross, Veronica wiping His face, Jesus falling two more times, her Son being stripped of his clothing and nailed to the cross:  She saw it all, and throughout all, she remained faithful.  And at the end, she could be found at the foot of His cross. 

            I think we can learn a lot from that.  Today, we are all confronted with challenges when things just don’t go right; things and events that can shake our faith; that can cause us to question our basic assumptions about God and the Church.  

            And it’s all around us today; not only in our personal lives, but in the public arena.  Our secular world is ready to crucify Christ again.  It rejects faith, prayer, and values just as the Pharisees rejected Jesus 2,000 years ago.  It rejects our spiritual heritage in favor of a worldly view that puts man – not God – at the center of the universe. 

            Just as Mary watched Christ stumble in the streets of Jerusalem, we are today watching – as the Prophet Isaiah once described – truth stumbling in the public square. 

            Like Mary we’re being called to reject the crowd and follow the cross.  And if we do so; if at the end we are found – like Mary – at the foot of the cross, then we too will experience the glory of our own resurrection; to join with Mary – and the faithful who preceded us – in the home our Heavenly Father who has, as Mary quite rightfully put it: “remembered His promise of mercy, the promise He made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.”   

             Let us close as we should begin each day, with the prayer of the Miraculous Medal, the medal that Mary asked St. Catherine Laboure to have struck:        

               “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”

 

St. Augustin Parish, Des Moines, Iowa August 15, 2021 

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Media Ignore Antifa Assault On Christians

By Catholic League president Bill Donohue

Antifa, the urban terrorists, brutally assaulted Christians who were praying in a Portland park on August 7th, and the media have almost totally ignored it. Dressed in black, with face coverings, the left-wing nihilists destroyed the sound system and assaulted the Evangelicals with pepper spray and projectiles.

Andy Ngo, the reporter who has covered Antifa better than anyone—and has been beaten up for doing so—recorded this savage event. Flash bombs were thrown at kids as young as four months old. "Where is your god now?" asked an Antifa thug.

The police were called to the scene but did nothing. They were acting rationally: The authorities have yielded power to street barbarians, handcuffing the cops. The same passive police presence is now routine in America's largest cities, thanks to no bail, no prosecutions, no insurance protection for cops, and calls to dismantle the police and empty the prisons.

Quite frankly, it is now borderline legal to kill and maim innocent persons in urban America, including those whose crime it is to pray in public, never mind the police. Anarchy reigns. And what do the media do? Nothing.

Not one major newspaper or wire service covered the Antifa assault on Christians. Broadcast TV networks also ignored it, and among the cable channels, only the three conservative outlets, Fox News, Newsmax and OAN profiled the story. Ngo had video footage but had few takers.

By contrast, the recent CNN interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) was covered by almost all the mainstream media: print, internet and television gave it wide attention.

She said that on the day of the Capitol riot, January 6, she feared for her life, adding that she also feared she would be raped. Yet unlike the Christians who were attacked, no one laid a hand on her. They couldn't—she was not in the Capitol when the riot occurred (she was safely tucked away in her office).

Unlike the Christian victims of Antifa, AOC's tale of woe is patently contrived. For the media to play up her phony story while dismissing the real-life Antifa riot, smacks of ideological and religious bias. No wonder the public holds the big media in such low esteem. Cub reporters earn more respect these days.  

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Middle School “Trans” Indoctrination

By Deacon Mike Manno

Lately there has been a slew of reports about how unhappy parents are confronting school officials for attempting to indoctrinate their children in ideologies the parents reject. Unfortunately, with the backing of the teachers’ unions and “woke” school administrators, the schools are fighting back sometimes even to the point of violating the law.

Unfortunately, these efforts have turned schools into war zones, whether over critical race theory, masks in the classroom, or even if the schools are to open for in-person instruction. It’s the parents vs. the academic community.

And also unfortunately, the academic community starts with the upper hand; for to them your children belong to the schools once one realizes that folks with titles and initials after their names are smarter than you, and if you persist in causing “trouble” the state can take you children away and find someone else to raise them. That’s not speculation, it has been done in the United States and even more spectacularly in Canada.

Recently, there has been one more hideous example of what the academic-industrial complex has been doing to kids.

This story comes from the great People’s Republic of Massachusetts, Baird Middle School in Ludlow, to be more specific.

It was only a few years ago that several parents exposed the school for its graphic sexual, homosexual, and transgendered themed books in the library and classrooms. According to reports from MassResistance, the outfit that is assisting the parents, the impetus came from the school’s cross-dressing librarian along with support from the school’s staff, principal, superintendent, and board.

Apparently things started leaking out when the librarian held talks with some of the children where they were given certain books to read and videos to watch — all with transgender themes. According to one of the teachers, many of the children chosen for this “education” were from troubled homes who were “easy prey for such messages.”

From there it went into the classrooms where children were asked not to use “boys” and “girls” but were given a list of non-gender specific terms that should be used instead. In addition they were asked to decide on a “preferred pronoun.” That was followed by the choosing of opposite sex names and identities. Of course, none of this was to be told to the kids’ parents.

To show how insidious this was, here is a copy of a note sent to staff about one of the girls:

“Mary has a preferred name of Michael/Mike and preferred pronouns of he and his. He understands that there will be times that ‘Mary’ and ‘she/her’ slips out and he is fine with that.

“Michael is still in the process of telling his parents and is requesting that school staff refer to him as Mary and use she/her pronouns with his parents and in written emails/letters home. When Michael has informed his parents of his preferred name and pronouns, we will change the name in the computer system if that is what he wishes to do at that time.

“I explained to him that we understand this is a complicated process and we will be as supportive as possible — but may make mistakes from time to time.”

You can probably see where this whole thing is heading: the “transgendering” of our children behind the backs of their parents.

In February of this year an 11-year-old girl sent this e-mail to her teachers and staff. See if this sounds like an 11-year-old:

“Hello everyone,

“If you are reading this you are either my teacher or guidance counselor. I have an announcement to make and I trust you guys with this information. I am genderqueer. Basically, it means I use any pronouns (other than it/its). This also means I have a name change. My new name will be Raymond. Please call me by that name.

“If you deadname me or use any pronouns I am not comfortable with I will politely tell you. I am telling you this because I feel like I can trust you. A list of pronouns you can use are: she/her he/him they/them fae/faer ae/aer ve/ver xe/xem ze/zir. I have added a link so you can look at how to say them. Please only use the ones I have listed and not the other ones. I do not like them.”

Of course I’m sure this sounds just like the little 11-year-old that is underfoot in your house. If not, what have you been teaching them?

This was followed up a short time later by the 11-year-old’s brother, 13, who then decided that he was really a girl and wanted to be called “Skylar.”

Unfortunately for the school, a teacher, identified only as “Bonnie” took a critical look at the situation and notified — against all school norms — (gasp!) the siblings’ parents.

In March, Bonnie was placed on administrative leave for “conduct unbecoming a teacher related to your inappropriate communications with the parents of a student.” In other words, according to the academic-industrial complex of the Peoples’ Republic of Massachusetts, parents had no need to know of the struggles their children face. Or, perhaps, the professional educators didn’t want the parents to know who suggested these ideas to their kids. After all, what 11-year-old knew what the words “genderqueer” and “deadname” mean, much less the wide variety of pronoun alternatives?

When Bonnie was called to attend an “investigative interview” with the school’s compliance officer she was represented by a local pro-life attorney because the teachers’ union refused to provide a lawyer. Shortly after that hearing, Bonnie got a letter from the principal stating that she was intending to terminate her employment. So much for telling the truth and respecting parental rights.

Now in a morality tale you’d expect it to end with a righteous comeuppance against the school administration. But this isn’t a morality tale. Stacy Monette, the principal of Baird Middle School who fired Bonnie, was named Middle School Principal of the Year by the Massachusetts School Administrators Association.

Yup, no morality tale here.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com every Thursday at 10 a.m. central.)

Note: See below for Faith On Trial's interview with Bonnie. This article was written before the interview.