The Rosary of the Unborn — The Most Powerful and Ultimate Weapon to End Abortion!

“The Rosary you see is Heaven’s way of describing to you the weapon that will overcome this evil of abortion. Heaven weeps for the cost of this great sin.”

Now Available! “Rosary of the Unborn Finger Cards”

They even have a message directly from Jesus about abortion:

“By your efforts, turn back the Hand of Judgment. Pray and sacrifice most especially for an end to the evil of abortion. This sin alone calls upon the wrath of God. He will act, if you do not act, to appease His Heart.”

But wait, there’s more!

“If your nation overturns legalized abortion, I will richly bless it by my favor. But if this sin continues with national approval, much will be stripped away.” (Message from Jesus, 10/14/2001)

I’m impressed. I’ve been trying to get an interview with Jesus for years and he’s never returned my calls. Maybe they can help me out.

If counting beads is “the most powerful and ultimate weapon to end abortion,” perhaps next they should make a Rosary for the Molested? Or does it only work for non-Catholic sins?

Oh, and if rosaries are not your thing, they also sell holy car magnets, label pins, keychains, and water bottles. Praise be to Jesus’ Mother’s Holy Hymen!

The priest told the court the internet relationship was a fantasy and a game, and he needed to release energy.

Handing down his sentence, Justice Hughes said Fuller had been sexually frustrated after a life of celibacy. He described the vow of chastity as “agonising” and “cruel”.

But the judge said children were vulnerable and sexually innocent and “for an adult to exploit them is repugnant.”

I’ve often thought that many men who desire chastity do so to punish themselves for their sexual desires. But the celibacy makes their desires worse and gives them no legitimate way to satisfy their desires. These desires keep growing and they are bent into something that is accessible to the priest — children.

That’s one of my theories, anyway.

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1. Carol Gilbert, Ardeth Platte and Jackie Hudson, peace activists who ended up on Maryland State Police’s list of terrorists and were sentenced to a total of nine years in federal prison. They broke into a nuclear missile facility and hit the warheads with hammers and painted crosses on them with their own blood. OMFG.
2. The Nuns of Rutino, Italy who kicked a restaurant owner in the stomach.
3. Odette de Pougy who stood up to the Pope in 1265 and hired mercenaries to keep him from building a church on the abbey’s property.
4. Catalina de Erauso dressed in drag as a teen and “hustled, killed, maimed, and wreaked havoc.” Then she joined the army as a dude and was finally discovered when she almost died in battle. She became a nun and was granted permission to wear men’s clothing.
5. Theodosia of Constantinople and her nuns killed two men who tried to remove icons from her church.

You know, Catholic school would have been a lot more interesting if they would have mixed these stories in.

Following a three-year investigation in the Dublin Archdiocese, the country’s largest, the report concluded that four archbishops routinely protected abusers and failed to inform police of the allegations. One priest admitted to sexually abusing over 100 children, while another confessed that he had abused on a fortnightly basis over 25 years.

“The volume of revelations of child sexual abuse by clergy over the past 35 years or so has been described by a Church source as a ‘tsunami’ of sexual abuse,” said the report….

The judicial probe discovered that the archbishops did not report abuse to police until the 1990s as part of a culture of secrecy and to try and avoid damaging the reputation of the Church.

The report said: “All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities”.

It found children who complained “were often met with denial, arrogance and cover-up and with incompetence and incomprehension in some cases. Suspicions were rarely acted on”.

Some of my Catholic friends boycott large companies because they have donated to gay rights or pro-choice organizations. Yet they give their money and loyalty to an organization that has been abusing children and covering it up for decades (though it’s probably been more like 1,700 years). It’s mind-boggling.

The rest of the videos are after the break.

At the beginning of the debate, the numbers were:

Motion: The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world.
For: 678
Against: 1,102
Undecided 346

At the end of the debate, the numbers were:

For: 268
Against: 1,876
Undecided: 34

It was a good week for separation of church and state. The “I Believe” license plate was ruled unconstitutional, the DC Council might have the courage to stand up to the Archdiocese threats, and here’s one from earlier in the week I missed – Representative Lynn Woolsey, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote an op-ed in Politico calling for greater IRS scrutiny on the way the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) influenced the healthcare bill.

The role the bishops played in the pushing the Stupak amendment, which unfairly restricts access for low-income women to insurance coverage for abortions, was more than mere advocacy.

They seemed to dictate the finer points of the amendment, and managed to bully members of Congress to vote for added restrictions on a perfectly legal surgical procedure.
…
The IRS is less restrictive about church involvement in efforts to influence legislation than it is about involvement in campaigns and elections.

Given the political behavior of USCCB in this case, maybe it shouldn’t be.

What does it say about me that I was immensely cheered up by this?

Woolsey is absolutely right on this point – trying to affect legislation through lobbying is getting into sketchy territory for a 501(c)3 like the USCCB. Such nonprofits get their tax-exempt status and are not allowed to devote significant time lobbying. That’s what a 501(c)4 designation is for.

At the Secular Coalition for America, we were a 501(c)4 because we had the express purpose of lobbying congress and the administration. As a result, donations we received were not tax-deductible. Them’s the breaks. The ACLU, by the way, is in the same boat. My monthly donations are not tax-deductible (not that it makes a difference on the scale that I donate).

I don’t know if what the USCCB did was too much lobbying for a 501(c)3 – but that’s just the point, we don’t know if the IRS doesn’t investigate, and we have reason to be suspicious:

The influence the USCCB showed in the debate was considerable, the Wall Street Journal reports, calling the group “a major political force with the potential to upend a key piece of President Barack Obama’s agenda.”

The Journal reports that the USCCB swayed Congress with “behind-the-scenes lobbying, coupled with a grassroots mobilization of Catholic churches across the country.” Along with conducting private meetings with lawmakers like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the group circulated to churches a prayer supporting health care reform that included the phrase, “We will raise our voices to protect the unborn.”

Of course, we can count on other elected officials to completely miss the validity and nuance of the problem:

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who is Catholic, took to his Twitter account today to defend the USCCB, the Hill reports.

“The nerve of some citizens to petition their government,” he wrote. “In Woolsey-land, free speech is cause for retribution.”

Wow, is McHenry really calling for a complete overhaul of the non-profit system? Is he saying that even organizations getting special tax privileges should be allowed to influence government in any way they choose?

Or is he just clueless on separation of church and state?

Awkward:

A priest in the Diocese of Scranton has been removed as administrator of three Throop parishes after he inadvertently displayed four photos of what a diocese spokesman called “minimally attired adult males” before the 8 a.m. Mass at St. Bridget’s Church on Oct. 25.

The Rev. Edward P. Lyman was using his personal computer to project an informational DVD about the diocesan Annual Appeal fundraiser when he accidentally showed the “inappropriate personal photographs” that were stored on his computer, according to a diocesan statement read at the Throop Masses on Sunday.

Well, that’s one way to wake up your congregation. I’m picturing all the white-haired women from the last Catholic Church I attended. “Hail Mother Mary, full of grace, the Lord is … HELLO!”

On the plus side:

Diocese spokesman William Genello said the photos were not pornographic and did not display nudity or sexual activity. The photos were not of the Rev. Lyman, nor did he take the pictures, Mr. Genello said.

There were no pictures of minors and no evidence of illegal activity, he said.

So provided there were no heart attacks at the sudden display of masculine cheesecake, no one was harmed in the process of this massive screw-up. It appears that Rev. Lyman is off to receive “appropriate care for whatever has led to such behavior on his part,” which sounds a little ominous. This is one time where I don’t think the priest did anything wrong, other than pressing the wrong button.

I’m sure the Catholic Church would award a no-prize to anyone who could suggest a graceful way for a priest to recover from this situation.

“Stand firm, Catholics, and rush to the battle lines! We know who wins the war!”

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In November 1997, [Fr. John Conley] came home early one evening to his parish, only to find his pastor wrestling in the dark with a young boy. Conley, a federal prosecutor before becoming a priest, believed he had witnessed an act of sexual abuse. According to depositions and other legal documents, he reported the incident to San Francisco archdiocesan officials and told them he was going to file a report with civil authorities, as required by law. Conley said one official asked him, “Now, are you sure you want to do this?”

The archdiocese backed the priest suspected by Conley of molesting the boy, and Conley was soon removed from active ministry (church officials said his demotion was unrelated to his whistle-blowing). Eventually, the accused priest admitted that he had sexually abused several boys, and Conley filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the Archdiocese of San Francisco, winning a large settlement in 2002. William Levada, now a top official at the Vatican, was then the archbishop of San Francisco.

In his deposition, an angry Conley said he asked the vicar of clergy to relay a message to the archbishop: “The message was to tell the archbishop to grow some balls and start acting like a man.”

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 164-5

The Roman Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals, after intense prayer and guided by the Holy Spirit, has selected popes for nearly a millennium. Some Holy Fathers have turned out to be saints; others became murderers (Pope John XII), torturers (Pope Urban VI) and adulterers (too many to name).

Less reliance on faith and more, for example, on a democratized search for a pope might have kept the more notorious ones from office. And certainly a more practical belief that God had not ordained every pope to lead the church would have led to the quick firing of the most corrupt ones.

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 161-2

In a packed sanctuary that held hundreds, Father Mike, as he was known, stood before the congregation he had led for a dozen years. Reading from a statement, he told them that 19 years ago he had “transgressed the personal boundaries of an adolescent.” (Only later would it emerge that the diocese knew he, in fact, had been accused of sexual misconduct with several other children.)

With the diocese’s zero-tolerance policy now in place, he said he was being forced to step down. The tone of his statement made him sound like a martyr—someone who had been kicked out of ministry for a single mistake, a simple boundary violation—nearly two decades ago. As he read his short statement, the parishioners sat in stunned silence. Some women fished in their purses for tissues to wipe away their tears. As Father Mike walked out of the church, the congregation rose and gave him a standing ovation….

When the applause started, my first reaction was disbelief. A standing ovation? Though the language softened the act, I had just heard this priest admit that he had molested a minor. Diocesan officials had kept the information secret from the parishioners of San Francisco Solano, who until now would never have thought twice about leaving their children in the pastor’s charge.

As a parent, my response was outrage and disgust. Imagine that a beloved schoolteacher who had taught your children had admitted to once sexually molesting a child but the school district never called the police, kicked him out or bothered to tell the parents. Would you rally around the teacher? Or would you be angry that a predator was left in a position of great trust with easy access to children—without your knowledge? I’d guess that the school superintendent would be forced to resign under pressure from parents—and face criminal charges for aiding and abetting a criminal.

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 152-3

Only in a church would a child molesting priest get a standing ovation.