CRUX NOW: Tens of thousands march against gay marriage in Mexico

NORMAL HUMAN MARRIAGE WINS! -CD2000

Associated Press September 25, 2016
Via CruxNow

Demonstrators take part in a march organized by representatives of the National Front for the Family, in Mexico City, Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016. Dueling marches, in support and against Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s push to legalize same-sex marriage, gathered at the Angel of Independence monument. The two sides were kept apart Saturday by hundreds of police and barriers erected around the city's iconic monument. (Credit: AP Photo/Marco Ugarte.)

In Mexico City on Saturday, tens of thousands of people marched through the city streets to demonstrate their opposition to the legalization of gay marriage, in a protest that many Mexicans saw as the country's powerful Catholic Church flexing its muscles.

MEXICO CITY - Tens of thousands of people marched through Mexico City on Saturday in opposition to President Enrique Pena Nieto’s push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Organizers of the National Front for the Family estimated at least 215,000 people participated, and while that number could not be immediately confirmed, it was clearly one of the largest protest marches in Mexico in recent years.

Dressed mainly in white and carrying white balloons, the marchers held banners warning against same-sex marriage and demanding parents’ right to control sex education in schools.

“We are not against anybody’s (sexual) identity,” said Abraham Ledesma, an Evangelical pastor who traveled from the border city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, to participate in Saturday’s march.

“What we are against is the government imposition … of trying to impose gender ideology in education,” Ledesma said. “As religious leaders, we don’t want to be forced to marry same-sex couples and call it marriage.”

Others carried signs saying “an adopted child deserves a mother and a father.”

On the other side of a police barricade separating the two sides at Mexico’s Independence Monument, a far smaller crowd of same-sex marriage supporters - perhaps a couple hundred - listened to music and speeches.

“They may be the majority,” said Felipe Quiroz, a gay activist and school teacher. “But just because they are the majority, doesn’t mean they can take rights away from minorities. That would lead us to a dark period, to fundamentalism.”

Many saw the massive march as the Roman Catholic church flexing its political muscle in a country where about 80 percent of people identify as nominally Catholic. In May, Pena Nieto proposed legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. It is currently legal only in some places such as Mexico City, the northern state of Coahuila and Quintana Roo state on the Caribbean coast.

But in June, Pena Nieto’s party suffered unprecedented losses in midterm governorship elections, and his party has since put the proposal on the back burner in Congress.

Activists say opposition to same-sex marriage played a role.

Jose Medrano, a university professor, came to Saturday’s march from the northern state of Chihuahua, where the ruling party lost the governorship in June to the conservative, pro-Catholic National Action party.

“We may have influenced this, because the proposal (for same-sex marriage) was presented just a few weeks before the elections, and a lot of people were against it,” said Medrano.

The Historic Christian Teaching Against Contraception: A Defense by Sherif Girgis

Photosource: Carribean360

By Sherif Girgis
The Public Discourse
August 10th, 2016

The Catholic Church’s teaching on contraception, common to all Christian denominations for 1900 years, is not arbitrary. It reflects a moral truth. And the Catholic Church can never revise it. Part one of two.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Forty-eight years ago last month, our story reached a dramatic climax. But it began in the dawn of Christianity, with a document called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (or Didache). Written thirty to fifty years after Christ’s death, it gives the earliest evidence of a Christian condemnation of contraception. For the next 1900 years, it was the view of every Christian body—East and West, Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—that contraception by spouses was immoral. (Its use outside of marriage wasn’t much discussed since non-marital sex was deemed sinful anyway.) It was even denounced, vociferously, by Reformers such as Luther and Calvin. In 1930, but only then, a single Protestant denomination cracked open the door to spousal contraception—but only for serious reasons. Soon, however, that and almost every other denomination had flung it wide open.

And the Catholic Church held firm. As the sexual revolution spread and “population bomb” panic swept the West, there were rumors and fervent hopes that the Church would change. The birth control pill had just been invented, and some thought it different in kind from condoms and other barriers. Perhaps (they reasoned) it wasn’t really contraceptive. A commission established by Pope Paul VI to study the question tried to split the difference. Its 1966 report concluded that any effort to sterilize spouses’ sex acts would fall within the ancient teaching against contraception; but it urged abandoning that teaching.

Two years later, in 1968, Pope Paul VI stunned the world. His encyclical letter Humanae Vitae affirmed the historic Christian teaching against “any action which is done—either in anticipation of marital intercourse, or during it, or while its natural effects are unfolding—so as to impede procreation, whether that is intended as an end … or as a means.”

What he taught, in other words, is that it’s always immoral to act with the intent to sterilize spouses’ sexual acts, by any means and for any reason. And for good measure, he warned that a wide embrace of contraception would spell disaster for marital fidelity and public decency, for men’s respect for women and governments’ respect for the family. These words earned him the derision of Western cultural leaders in thrall to the ideology of sexual liberation, but they proved prophetic.

Paul VI also wrote—as John Paul II would reaffirm—that this principle was no mere regulation for the day-to-day life of the Catholic community, subject to change. It wasn’t like the requirement to give up meat on Fridays in Lent. It was required, they taught, by the “natural moral law.”

Why? Because a married couple’s choice to contracept goes against the human good. But there isn’t just one right account of why and how. The Church is in the business of preaching the Gospel, not running philosophy seminars. It doesn’t usually endorse particular philosophical arguments.

Nevertheless, drawing on thinkers such as Elizabeth Anscombe, Alex Pruss, and Germain Grisez, I’ll venture a few moral reasons for its teaching on contraception. I’ll show how rejecting it undermines other Christian teachings on sex ethics. And I’ll end on a more concrete note, suggesting that the use of contraception isn’t just wrong in principle; it can harm real-life marriages in tragically tangible ways.

Some dimensions of our lives are sacred, good for us in themselves. Morality requires treating these basic human goods—these core aspects of our well-being—as more than mere tools for other ends. It tells us to pursue them as we can, to honor them, and never to choose directly against them—which is simply to serve and honor human beings in these different dimensions of their lives. Thus, murder and mutilation are wrong because they involve choosing directly against the basic human goods of life and health. The inherent value of personal integrity and community makes lies and hypocrisy wrong. And so on.

In other words, the natural moral law—which Christian teaching reflects and extends—is about living well, which means loving well. It’s about serving the true good of everyone touched by our actions. It is a law of love. To act immorally, to sin, is always a failure of love, of full devotion to the human good.

Contraception Violates Marriage

The conjugal union of husband and wife—marriage—is one bedrock human good, one basic form of love. By its nature, it is deepened by the bearing and rearing of new people. But to thwart what so crowns a marriage is to choose against this good itself, against marital love. And choosing against a basic good or form of love is a sin.

Did Pope Francis really say OK for gays?

Anti-Catholics out there especially the notorious anti-Catholic and anti-Christ sect from the Philippines-- the Iglesia ni Cristo®-- would rejoiced with the news that distorted what Pope Francis said about homosexuals.

"The Bible and the Catholic Church have never taught that it is a “sin” to be homosexual."  Thanks Fr. Jonathan Morris from  FOXNEWS!

What Pope Francis really said about gays -- and no, it's not new

Pope Francis doesn’t do interviews. Or at least that’s what we thought. He said that about himself just one week ago on the way to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day.

Then World Youth Day happened. And it happened in a big way.

According to official reports from City Hall, 3.2 million young people gathered on Copacabana Beach to see him, pray with him, and hear his proposal about the meaning of life.

His closing message to them was simple: Go back to your homes, and serve others without fear.

Hours later, perhaps taking to heart his own closing message about fearless service, Pope Francis offered an 80 minute, unscripted question-and-answer session with the international press corps.

In its entirely, the press conference on the pope’s plane traveling from Brazil back to the Vatican was fascinating. (For more, please look at my Twitter reports.)

But, unfortunately, if you were reading the headlines from some media outlets, you would have learned just one thing. As the Huffington Post put it: “Breakthrough: Pope OK with Gays.”

This is the worst coverage of a religious story I have seen to date.

Let’s begin with the fact that the pope has always been “OK” with homosexuals. In fact, by the demands of his own religion he is required to be much more than just “OK.” The Christian faith teaches that every person is endowed by God with an inviolable dignity and therefore deserves our unconditional respect and love.

A section of an Associated Press report also got the story very wrong. Summarizing the pope’s comments on homosexuals in the priesthood, the AP reported: “Francis was much more conciliatory [than Pope Benedict], saying gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten.”

Pope Francis didn’t say that, and the report is wrong on so many levels.

First of all, it suggests that being gay itself, is a sin. What Pope Francis really said, in response to a reporter’s question about homosexual priests who are living a celibate life was this: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

Pope Francis simply and compassionately reiterated Biblical teaching. The Bible and the Catholic Church have never taught that it is a “sin” to be homosexual. They teach it is a sin to have homosexual sex because it goes against the laws of God’s nature, specifically his plan for human sexuality.

When Pope Francis says “who am I to judge” he is saying—and I think we need to hear more of this from religious leaders—that active homosexuals deserve the same kindness, love, and mercy that all of us sinners would hope to receive from God and from others.

We don’t make judgments about anyone’s personal worth—God has already done that when he created us out of love.

I would hope next time Pope Francis offers to meet with the press, they would take to heart his message about fearless service and report to their readers what he actually said, rather than what they wish they had heard.

So stop circulating a distorted news and get the facts straight from the source!

Israel Pounded Islamists in Gaza against Egypt border attacks

Judaism and Islam both have the Law of Retaliation: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". Bloodshed will never end. Jesus came to perfect the Law. "But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well." -Matthew 5:38. Please pray for our elder brethren (Jews) and our younger brethren (Muslims) that they may finally find God in peace (Shalom-Salam). -CD2000

By Adel Zaanoun, AFP

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) - Israeli planes killed seven Palestinians and wounded another six in Gaza Friday in retaliation for suspected Islamist militants killing eight Israelis near the Egyptian border.

Two of the Gaza dead were members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a radical Islamist group that Israel blames for Thursday's fatal ambushes in the southern Negev desert. Two more were from Islamic Jihad.

Eduardo Manalo, Executive Minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo Supports RH Bill if...

“We do not support the natural family planning method and all its variants… These methods are not only unnatural and ineffective but they also are immoral since they contradict the commandment that God has given to married couples…” -Eduardo V. Manalo, Executive Minister, grandson of Felix Manalo, founder of the "Iglesia ni Cristo" (1914).

Remember the Iglesia ni Cristo Manalo is an ANTI-CATHOLIC so we don't expect them to be on our side EVER. What does the CHURCH teachings on Artificial Contraceptives? Here are good articles that explains our Catholic opposition-- What does the Church Teach about Birth Control?, History on the Ban of Birth Control in the Catholic Church and the official Catechism of the Catholic Church #2370

Iglesia ni Cristo Manalo (INC) Executive Minister EDUARO V. MANALO issued an official statement of the Iglesia ni Cristo on RH Bill, received at the House of Representatives in October 14, 2010. The link is here at INC Supports RH Bill but below is the text: See how their highest authority's shifting moral stand against what was believed by early Christians almost 2,000 years before their Iglesia was founded by his "Lolo Felix".

OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE MINISTER IGLESIA NI CRISTO 12 October 2010 HON. ROGELIO J. ESPINA, M.D. Chairman Committee on Population and Family Relations House of Representatives Republic of the Philippines Dear Congressman Espina, We would like to thank the Committee on Population and Family Relations for requesting our position concerning the Bills of Reproductive Health. We are all well aware of the dire situation of our country caused by overpopulation. Many of society’s worsening ills—from homeless families starving in miserable conditions and children not in school but instead begging day and night in nearly every major street to the rapidly spreading problems with drug abuse and rising crime rates—can be traced to families growing so large that an increasing number of parents cannot provide the most basic human needs to their families. We consider it commendable that our lawmakers care enough for our fellow Filipinos that they are doing what they can do to alleviate the hardships so many of our countrymen are facing. IN what they propose, they can bring about not only an economic good for our countrymen but also a moral one. We are ready to support the Bills on Reproductive Health as long as there would be no immoral elements in them. What are the moral aspects of the proposed bills that we support? We believe that it is moral imperative for parents to watch over all their children and provide them with food, shelter, and clothing, as well as proper education and religious and moral training. Hence, parents todayhave (sic) a moral obligation to plan the number of their children and keep it under control. The Bible states that a parent who does not provide for the needs of his own household is worse than an unbeliever (I Tim. 5:8). Since modern methods of contraception—by preventing married couples from having any unplanned pregnancies—assist in supporting this Christian principle, we support their use as long as these methods are empirically not abortifacient. Abortion and the use of abortifacients involve the taking of life, which God explicitly forbids (Exod. 20:13). We do not support the natural family planning method and all its variants. These so-called birth control methods depend upon abstinence on the part of the married couple when the woman is fertile but allows marital relations only when she is not. These methods are not only unnatural and ineffective but they also are immoral, since they contradict the commandment that God has given to married couples. The Bible instructs married couples not to deprive one another of intimate marital relations for long, extended periods of time; further, any abstinence at all for a married couple is supposed to be with the mutual consent of husband and wife and not for the purpose of preventing pregnancies (I Cor. 7:3-5). We appreciate the Committee’s gesture of soliciting our stand on this timely yet controversial issue. Very truly yours, (sgd) EDUARDO V. MANALO Executive Minister

About Abortion – What They Don’t Tell You

by Ana Benderas 

The propaganda of the abortion industry (to which here I will refer as Planned Parenthood because they are fairly the face and representation of pro-choicers everywhere), is that they want to provide information for women to make the best decision for themselves, yet that information is often incomplete and misleading.

Almost anywhere that pro-choicers give information about abortion, including Planned Parenthood pamphlets, they describe it as “a simple procedure which takes about ten minutes or so. You can go home the same day…” Planned Parenthood, which supposedly makes giving information and offering choices their first priority, does not ever describe, or even touch on the subject, of what actually takes place in this simple, ten-minute procedure of abortion.

So it is my intention today to provide more thorough information for any woman who sincerely wants to know what the abortion industry will never tell her.

How they kill your baby if she is 3 months or younger

At this age, your baby is already a full, biological human being. She was one at the moment of fertilization where she had 46 chromosomes, her own set of DNA, metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli and cell reproduction. In fact, by the time she’s old enough to be killed by abortion, she already has her own heart which beats at a different rhythm than her mom. She even has her own blood type! When you go into Planned Parenthood and you ask them how developed your baby is, she will answer you that it’s nothing more than a pregnancy, or a clump of cells, or a product of fertilization. The truth is that a pregnancy is a condition of a woman, not a thing, we are all, in a sense, a clump of cells and, unless someone sprouted into life from thin air, we are all a product of fertilization. When a close friend of mine went in and asked the same question about her first-trimester baby, they lied to her that her baby did not have a heart and was nothing but a sack.

The way your baby will be killed at this stage is that they will insert you a canulla, which is a vacuum with suction power stronger than the one you have at home. The abortionist will then put all the parts of your baby’s body together to make sure that he got all of it and that there’s not an arm or a leg left inside of you, which can cause a serious infection (just imagine the damage a body part of a dead person inside of you can do). It is true that this takes about ten minutes and then you can go home.

Condoms! Condoms! Condoms!

Chicago Tribune - The Rev. Bob Barron, priest and theology professor, University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein

Now that I have your attention … One of the stupidest and most dispiriting expressions of the media culture that I have ever encountered is the “coverage” of Pope Benedict’s recently-published interview entitled Light of the World. I can’t really say that I was surprised.

I had received an advance copy of the book and had prepared a piece on it when I met a woman involved in organizing the publicity for its release. "They’re going to talk about condoms,” I said.

"But it’s such a minor theme and it’s mentioned on, like, a quarter of a page at the end of one chapter,” she said.

"They're going to talk about condoms,” I replied.

LIGHT OF THE WORLD. THE POPE AND THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES

VATICAN CITY, 23 NOV 2010 (VIS) - This morning in the Holy See Press Office, a press conference was held to present a new book published by the Vatican Publishing House. The volume is entitled: "Light of the World. The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times. A conversation of Benedict XVI with Peter Seewald".

The conference was presented by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, and the journalist Luigi Accattoli.

Also present were Peter Seewald, who conducted the interviews with the Pope, and Fr. Giuseppe Costa S.D.B., director of the Vatican Publishing House.

Media hype on Condom Misinterpreted Pope's Statement

Media is on hype again alleging that the Pope OKd the use of condoms in some cases putting words in his mouth saying that "Pope Benedict has suggested that the use of condoms could be justified in some exceptional circumstances" which is COMPLETELY INACCURATE.

I am a Catholic and all Catholic should know that the Pope would never go against the Moral Teachings of the Church. And before you believe, wait for the official explanation from the Vatican. See below:

Vatican spokesman: Pope not changing Church teaching on condom use

Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi

Vatican City, Nov 21, 2010 / 03:36 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Despite media claims of a revolutionary change, Pope Benedict is not altering Catholic teaching on condom use or justifying the disordered use of sexuality, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi has explained.

In a Nov. 21 statement from Vatican Radio, Fr. Lombardi discussed the Pope’s comments in Peter Seewald’s forthcoming book “Light of the World: the Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.”

In these comments “the Pope is not reforming or changing the teaching of the Church but he reaffirms it, putting it in the perspective of the value and dignity of human sexuality as an expression of love and responsibility,” the spokesman said.

In Seewald’s book, Pope Benedict says that the Church “of course” does not regard condom use as “a real or moral solution” to the problem of AIDS. According to Fr. Lombardi, his treatment of the topic considers an “exceptional situation” in which a sexual act presents a true risk for another’s life.

A Gay Catholic Voice Against Same-Sex Marriage

WASHINGTON, NYTimes — “I spent the summer before college reading Shakespeare and staring out the window and occasionally being a roadie for my friend’s band,” says Eve Tushnet, the celibate, gay, conservative, Catholic writer. That was all good fun, she says upon meeting in Union Station, but she was ready for more, although she knew not what. “I was hoping for something very different in college.”

The lesbian writer and blogger Eve Tushnet
became a Roman Catholic during her sophomore year at Yale.

It is common, this freshman urge for self-invention. The football player tries his hand at poetry; the classical violinist fiddles in a bluegrass band. But Ms. Tushnet — whose parents, Mark Tushnet and Elizabeth Alexander, are a well-known liberal Harvard law professor and a former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, respectively — did not imagine that she would become a Roman Catholic, nor that 10 years after graduation, her voice, on her blog and in numerous articles, would be one of the most surprising raised against same-sex marriage.

As the hundred or so daily readers of eve-tushnet.blogspot.com, and a larger audience for her magazine writing, know by now, Ms. Tushnet can seem a paradox: fervently Catholic, proudly gay, happily celibate. She does not see herself as disordered; she does not struggle to be straight, but she insists that her religion forbids her a sex life.

“The sacrifices you want to make aren’t always the only sacrifices God wants,” Ms. Tushnet wrote in a 2007 essay for Commonweal. While gay sex should not be criminalized, she said, gay men and lesbians should abstain. They might instead have passionate friendships, or sublimate their urges into other pursuits. “It turns out I happen to be very good at sublimating,” she says, while acknowledging that that is a lot to ask of others.

Marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals, whose “relationships can be either uniquely dangerous or uniquely fruitful,” she explained in an e-mail message. “Thus it makes sense to have an institution dedicated to structuring and channeling them.”

But same-sex marriage, she wrote in The New York Post in 2007, “can bring one of three outcomes: A two-tiered marriage culture, where heterosexual couples are asked to do the hard things (sex only within marriage, marriage for life in most circumstances) and homosexual couples work out their own marriage norms; reshape marriage into an optional, individualized institution, ignoring the creative and destructive potentials of ‘straight’ sex; or encourage all couples to restrict sex to marriage and marry for life, and hope that gay couples accept norms designed to meet heterosexual needs.”

Ms. Tushnet entered Yale in 1996 a happy lesbian, out since age 13 or 14 (she can’t quite remember). Her father, a nonobservant Jew, and her mother, a Unitarian, both belonged to progressive traditions, tolerant of her sexuality.

When, as a freshman, she attended a meeting of the Party of the Right, a conservative group affiliated with the Yale Political Union, it was “specifically to laugh at them, to see the zoo animals,” she says.

“But I was really impressed, not only by the weird arguments but the degree to which it was clear that the people making them lived as if what they were saying had actual consequences for their lives, that had required them to make sacrifices.”

In Ms. Tushnet’s time, as in mine — I was four years ahead of her at Yale — the Party of the Right had a benignantly cultish quality. “Have you read ‘The Secret History?’ ” she asks, referring to Donna Tartt’s 1992 novel about a secretive student clique obsessed with Greek literature. “It was like that.”

But she found the Party of the Right students compassionate, intellectual and not terribly exercised about her homosexuality. She was drawn to the Catholics among them, who corrected her misimpression that the existence of sin “means you are bad.” It means “precisely the opposite,” they taught her. “It means you have a chance to come back and repent and be saved,” she says. She began reading books like St. Anselm’s “Why God Became Man.” She began attending church. Her sophomore year, she was baptized.

“By the time it was real enough to be threatening,” she says of her conversion, “things had gone too far. I didn’t see it coming.”

After college, Ms. Tushnet worked briefly at the National Catholic Register, a weekly magazine, but since 2002 she has made a meager living through writing, computer programming and freelance research. She lives in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of downtown Washington and volunteers two hours a week at a Christian pregnancy-counseling center. She writes for liberal Catholic publications like Commonweal, and for conservative secular magazines like The Weekly Standard.

But it is on her blog that a small but presumably learned readership finds her most ambitious writing: lengthy, often obscure, for gay love, against same-sex marriage, and serious about Scripture, saints and medieval philosophy. She writes about obscure Hungarian fiction (“Janos Nyiri’s ‘Battlefields and Playgrounds’ is one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time.”) and struggles in print with St. Anselm’s “ontological proof” of the existence of God.

It is not simple to embrace both traditional Catholicism and unrepentant, if sex-free, gayness. For example, Ms. Tushnet finds it difficult to interest fellow Catholics in their church’s theology of friendship, as articulated in books like St. Aelred’s “On Spiritual Friendship.” She says that when she talks to people about the religious importance of same-sex closeness, “they look at you like you’re trying to get married in the church.” And few of her friends share both her theology and her predilections for Edmund White, Jean Genet and the Smiths.

She may befuddle others, but for her, life is joyful. She takes obvious pleasure in being an eccentric in a tradition with no shortage of odd heroes, visionaries and saints. “You can be really quite strange, and the Catholic church will canonize you eventually,” she says. She loves eating the flesh and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, which she believes is a carnivorous meal, not a metaphor. She loves gay synth-pop bands.

“I really think the most important thing is, I really like being gay and I really like being Catholic,” she says. “If nobody ever calls me self-hating again, it will be too soon.

“Nothing is quite as great as getting up in the morning, listening to the Pet Shop Boys and going to church.”

Gay activists denied communion

By PAUL WALSH and MARIA ELENA BACA Star Tribune staff writers, Star Tribune

Archbishop Nienstedt

About 25 college students and community members at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., were denied communion by Twin Cities Roman Catholic Archbishop John C. Nienstedt because they were displaying rainbow buttons and sashes in protest of the church's stand on gay relationships.

The conflict between the archbishop and the group, mostly students from the Catholic St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict, occurred during evening mass Sept. 26.

It came amid news that the state's bishops were mailing 400,000 DVDs to Minnesota Catholics, spelling out church teachings on gay marriage.

The St. John's action was coordinated by students, including members of People Representing the Sexual Minority (PRiSM), which represents gay and lesbian students and their friends and allies. That Sunday, according to those at the mass, about two dozen worshipers positioned themselves to receive communion from Nienstedt, who was saying his first student mass at the abbey. Some reached for the communion wafer but were denied it. Rather, the archbishop raised his hand in blessing.

The archdiocese long has denied communion to members of the Rainbow Sash Movement, who wear the colors to mass in protest of the church's stance in opposition to homosexual relationships. Its leader, Brian McNeil, said the action at St. John's was not connected to his group.

Archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath said the church has told McNeil's group "for years you cannot receive communion if you wear the rainbow sash, because it's a political statement, a sign of protest. Going to the communion rail is the most sacred part of our faith, the eucharist. We don't allow anybody to make political statements or any kind of protest."

St. Benedict theology junior Elizabeth Gleich, PRiSM vice president, said, "We were making a statement during the eucharist, and many have disagreed with that. But when we have no other way of dialoguing with our church, no other way of telling him how we feel, how else to do it than in liturgy?"

She said their complaint is with church hierarchy, not with the colleges.

Another student, senior Andrew Grausam, said he sat behind the group. "It was sad to see the mass politicized like that," Grausam said. "And even though I wholeheartedly disagree with the archbishop on this issue, I was hurt to see my worship become a place of demonstration."

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which describes itself as the nation's largest civil rights organization on behalf of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people, expressed outrage at Nienstedt's actions.

"Jesus didn't play politics with communion," Harry Knox, the HRC's religion and faith program director, said Tuesday in a statement. "He offered his body and blood for everyone."

In the Twin Cities area, at least two efforts have gathered hundreds of DVDs from Catholics opposed to its message. Minneapolis artist Lucinda Naylor estimated Tuesday that she'd gathered about 600. A group called Return the DVD has received about 1,000 in its Burnsville post office box, and also has garnered about $5,000 in donations to help the poor, said organizer Bob Radecki.

The archdiocese has received about 100 DVDs back by mail, McGrath said. The campaign was made possible by anonymous donors and not by church funds, he said.

The U.S. Postal Service will not return bulk-mailed items. Spokesman Pete Nowacki said there's no way of knowing how many have been received and discarded.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482 Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409

St. Benedict theology junior Elizabeth Gleich, PRiSM vice president, said, "We were making a statement during the eucharist, and many have disagreed with that. But when we have no other way of dialoguing with our church, no other way of telling him how we feel, how else to do it than in liturgy?"

She said their complaint is with church hierarchy, not with the colleges.

Another student, senior Andrew Grausam, said he sat behind the group. "It was sad to see the mass politicized like that," Grausam said. "And even though I wholeheartedly disagree with the archbishop on this issue, I was hurt to see my worship become a place of demonstration."

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which describes itself as the nation's largest civil rights organization on behalf of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people, expressed outrage at Nienstedt's actions.

"Jesus didn't play politics with communion," Harry Knox, the HRC's religion and faith program director, said Tuesday in a statement. "He offered his body and blood for everyone."

In the Twin Cities area, at least two efforts have gathered hundreds of DVDs from Catholics opposed to its message. Minneapolis artist Lucinda Naylor estimated Tuesday that she'd gathered about 600. A group called Return the DVD has received about 1,000 in its Burnsville post office box, and also has garnered about $5,000 in donations to help the poor, said organizer Bob Radecki.

The archdiocese has received about 100 DVDs back by mail, McGrath said. The campaign was made possible by anonymous donors and not by church funds, he said.

The U.S. Postal Service will not return bulk-mailed items. Spokesman Pete Nowacki said there's no way of knowing how many have been received and discarded.

ATTY. MARWIL N. LLASOS RESPONSE TO CONRADO DE QUIROS AND RINA JIMENES DAVID ON CARLOS CEDRAN-RH BILL ISSUES

SOURCE: THE KNIGHT OF MARY - In today’s Philippine Daily Inquirer (October 5, 2010), columnist Conrado de Quiros lauded protester Carlos Celdran’s act of desecrating Manila Cathedral and disrupting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as “brilliant.” De Quiros went on to “canonize” Celdran for having “done this country the not inconsiderable service of drawing its attention to the real problem, which is not just reproductive health but the health of the country itself.”

The issue is no longer about reproductive health but the proper limit of protest and dissent. To De Quiros, it is alright to violate the law as long as you are able to dramatize your protest against the Church and its prelate. It is perfectly justifiable for you to disrupt the liturgical services of a religion and bring your protest inside the confines of its sacred temple as long as that religion is the Catholic Church.

Journalists, like De Quiros, are known to be jealous of their rights. But when it comes to the Catholic Church’s right not to be molested or disrupted in its religious services, De Quiros would hear none of that. This is hypocrisy and double standard in the highest order.

To follow de Quiroz’ logic to the extreme, the terrorists who attacked the Twin Tower on September 11, 2001 were justified in doing so. Those terrorists were exercising their freedom of expression anyway. Like Celdran, they wanted to effectively send their message across. To be consistent, De Quiroz should praise those terrorists to high heavens for jolting the US to its senses.

It is clear that to De Quiroz, the end justifies the means. He sanctions taking the law into your own hands. He approves of lawlessness and commission of a crime as long as it is directed to “unaccountable” prelates.

Another columnist who lambasts the Church and its leaders at every opportunity is Rina Jimenez David. For David, “the arrest and incarceration of Celdran speaks of the lingering vestiges of Church power and influence in this country.” David forgot that Celdran violated the law and he was arrested by elements of the police in flagrante delicto. Celdran committed a crime, plain and simple, for which her was arrested and detained. The “lingering vestiges of power and influence” of the Church has nothing to do with it. By deploring the arrest and incarceration of Celdran, David clearly wants impunity for the criminal acts of her pro-RH Bill champion. She condones violation of the law as long as it is directed against the Catholic Church.

It is obvious by now that we can express our opinion, dissent and protest, even lawlessly, as long as our position agrees with the views of opinionated newspaper columnists like Conrado De Quiros and Karina Jimenez-David. If we do so, we would be reaping commendations from these columnists. But if the Catholic Church and Catholics loyal to the Church’s magisterium voice their opposition to birth control, they will be branded as ignorant and superstitious who abysmally fail to read the “signs” of the times. De Quiroz and David would want us to keep our mouth shut because we are infringing on the separation of Church and State.

Freedom in this country is only for those who approve of RH Bill. Crime is condoned so long as you protest against the Catholic Church. This is now what the rule of law means.

-Atty. Marwil N. Llasos

A reaction to Emil Jurado's "The cruz of the reproductive health issue"

I am not a journalist so I am no match to our journalists who are accusing the Church of medling in politics.

But we have to admit that some of our local journalists DO NOT always tell the truth. We need to read and re-read what they said. We need to be vigilant and do our own research. Then we can only uncover that what they were saying are not always the truth.

Take for example the opinion of Mr. Emil Jurado, The crux of the reproductive health issue of
Source: The Manila Standard Today when he said:

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines certainly needs a lot of public relations advice.

Catholic Bishops DO NOT need "public relations advice(s)" because our bishops do not follow the dictates of the public and any politician. They follow the dictates of the teachings of the Church because Catholic teachings do not change by votation nor by popularity. What the bishops are doing is to DEFEND LIFE against those who are against it.

The issue here IS NOT about condoms or pills. It's the moral principles which ultimately has a longer effect on our citizens. If we are animals, then we can have sex anywhere if we want. We can have it right inside the malls or cinemas or shopping centers and demand it's our individual rights to have sex anywhere as we wanted

Take the case of Intramuros tour guide Carlos Celdran, who became an instant celebrity when he was jailed overnight for waving that “Damaso” placard and disrupting Mass at the Manila Cathedral last week.


And for what—violating a Jurassic law against offending the sensibilities of worshippers? This is a law which has its beginnings in the Spanish period."

Thank heavens, this Carlo Celdran DIDN'T HURT the "jurasic law" against offending the "sensibilities of worshippers" in ISLAM-- thanks God he DID it in a Catholic Church, NOT in a Mosque. If he did it in a mosque, his relatives would be grieving today and may bury him the next day. (Note: Muslims also are against this RH Bill)

The problem of the bishops is that while they tell the Catholic faithful that the use of contraceptives is morally wrong, they don’t tell us why. As Catholics, are we supposed to just say amen?

Mr. Jurado lied. He DID NOT do his homeworks. He is very quick in accusing Catholic Bishoops of "not telling us" the reason why the Catholic Church is OPPOSING against artificial contraceptive methods.

Here are the reasons and I hope Mr. Jurado reads them all!

1. HUMANAE VITAE Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI in 25 July 1968
2. GAUDIUM ET SPES, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 7 December 1965
3. The Catechism of the Catholic Church
4. The Statements of Pope John Paul II on Contraception from 1978-1996
5. VERITATIS SPLENDOR written by Pope John Paul II in 6 August 1996
6. Contraception vs Abortion, a Comparison and some Implications
7. And what the Scripture says about it.
8. And he should read why the CATHOLIC CHURCH is against CONTRACEPTION HERE and HERE!

I think this is why there are more and more Catholics staying away from the Church and joining other groups like the Iglesia ni Cristo and the Born Again Christians.

The Catholic Church ISN'T WORRIED "Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ" said St. Athanasius who lived in the 4th Century A. D.

We have numerous ex-Catholics. While their lifestyles are not compatible with their lives, they shop for other "churches" that can accomodate their rantings. The best place of refuge is the Iglesia ni Cristo, a known anti-Catholic sect (cult) in the Philippines founded by Felix Manalo who preached he's the "Last Messenger", like Joseph Smith of the Mormon Church, as the "Last Prophet" re-establishing an apostate "church".

Even Mr. Jurado would jump off the fence, the Catholic Church isn't bothered. This same CATHOLIC CHURCH has attracted many people and have swam the Tiber River for the salvation of their souls.

Real Catholics are ready to defend the LIFE everyone has and the Church will stand and safeguard the TRUTH.

Some might be dismayed but we Catholic do not live by POPULARITY. We live according to the Gospel principles of Jesus Christ.

My gulay, in this age of information technology, people, especially the young, cannot be simply told: “do this, don’t do that.” They ask questions. They seek explanations. Even in school, they are taught to ask questions and seek explanations.


And in the case of a population growth rate of 2.3 percent a year, bishops telling Catholics that using condoms to prevent conception is wrong just is not enough. Bishops think all artificial contraceptives are abortifacient. And as we know, abortion in the Philippines is a heinous crime.

Mr. Jurado is right. In this "age of information technology, people, especially the young", cannot visit any sound websites. They populate social networks and other sites that promotes sex and violence.

They're very much addicted to indicency, pornography, masturbation, pre-marital sex that the likes of Mr. Jurado's OPTION for them is CONTRACEPTION.

Maybe he thinks that our youths should keep CONDOMS and PILLS ready in their wallets so that whenever they want sex, no one could trace them. No pregnancy, SAFE, no responsibility, no obligation-- they can DO it again and again.

No baby-- POPULATION IS CONTROLLED!

And when CONDOMS and PILLS fail, ABORTION is available. They call it "women's choice"-- while the baby in the womb has NO CHOICE!

No baby-- POPULATION IS CONTROLLED!

Recall that during the incumbency of President Aquino’s late mother, there were also moves to control population growth. The succeeding presidents all faced the problem. But it was not as pronounced then as it is now. This is why President Noynoy Aquino is advocating that couples should choose how they plan their families and that they should receive tools for contraception.


President Aquino is not only the President of all Catholics but of all Filipinos, regardless of their religion.

The President is not a puppet of any. He has moral obligation to promote LIFE, not to distroy it. Noynoy was voted by many because of his parents. If Noynoy relied only to his own credentials, perhaps Gilber Teodoro, his cousin would be our president today.

Since majority of our population are Catholics (78% of total population) then it is the moral obligation of the Catholic Church to remind every Catholic of the consequences of this Bill.

So I would suggest Mr. Jurado to research more since his profession is journalism before he writes. Don't put the blame on our bishops, teach our younger generation a life of purity, self-control, self-respect and to value life more than anything.

Don't blame the population and the Bishops. Blame our CORRUPT POLITICIANS and our corrupt goverment!

What RH Bill does not tell us

Exerpt from filipinoscribbles

Digging “skin-deep” into the issue now, one should realize sooner or later that the youth are actually being exploited, the same way me and Yeyette were exploited years ago. We all grow up, bound to be curious about sex, about our bodies.

Nothing wrong with that.

But with this youthful curiousness, this innocence, comes a vulnerability with which these conspirators against life are after. And they use the mass media to glamorize sex, to captivate these young people into doing the things that only a couple bound by God’s covenant are ought to be doing.

And to be safe, these conspirators against life subtly create a “sex industry”, for like military matters, sex is BIG BUSINESS. Imagine the millions and perhaps billions of money it would generate for these conspirators.

Also, RH Bill does not, and will never, inform you that many contraceptives are actually abortifacients. They cause early abortion.

Finally, RH Bill, even if enacted into law, will sooner or later show its hollow face. For in reality, contraception is already a failure. Why? Because many Filipinos, like other nationalities, have been using contraceptives long before RH Bill was even framed. The rate of unplanned pregnancy, especially among teenagers, has been rising steadily over the last 30 to 40 years. Many such cases end either in abortion or single parenthood.

Finally, RH Bill, again wittingly or unwittingly, will only promote promiscuity, something that is against the natural order of things. Besides, all promises of contraception, since it was invented during the latter half of the last century, never came through. Instead, we have more promiscuity, therefore more unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, more broken families and single parents, an alarming rise in sexually transmitted diseases, sexual crimes against women and children, pornography (that is being, bit by bit, accepted into the mainstream!), abortion trauma, etc.

So this is the kind of society you want? =(

As for Celdrán’s supporters, look at your “hero” now. He still dons his Pepe Rizal suit, smiling whenever there is a photo op for him. What has he done for you? He only created more fame for himself. And he has paved the way for a much sicker society, a society of sex-starved individuals who will one day rape their own children, notwithstanding pet dogs and goldfishes.

If only Rizal were alive —he who died a Catholic, he who died having repented from his immature ways— he would have slapped Celdrán for having maligned his memory.

Yet you call Celdrán your “new José Rizal” just because you claim that he had the balls to defend the freedom of the human genitals from what is supposed to be sacred?

Before I end this rage, let us, again, for argument’s sake, imagine that the Muslims are also against the RH Bill, and that they are the most vocal, more vocal than the Catholic Church…

Will Carlos Celdrán have the same “balls” to invade a Muslim mosque?

I will bet my life that he wouldn’t dare do so. Whatever “balls” he may have will instantly turn into wrinkled grapefruits if he dares to step inside a mosque.

Cowards like him will only attack a weary institution, such as the Church, which has been in constant attack ever since Jesus Christ was executed.

And you believe Carlo Celdan should be banned from Intramuros, sign your petition here

Basic Rights for our Children: Keep Fathers and Mothers within our Families

Photo Source: CatholicOnline.org

Q: What's ODD with this photo?
A: A baby with two fathers and without a mother.

Spanish King now Excommunicated himself!

King of Spain 'cooperating with evil' by signing abortion law, says bishop

Madrid, Spain, Mar 9, 2010 / 03:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop Juan Antonio Reig Pla of Alcala de Henares remarked this week that by signing a bill into law that dramatically liberalizes abortion in Spain, King Juan Carlos has actively cooperated with the evil of abortion.

Despite numerous requests that the Spanish monarch refuse to sign the bill, King Juan Carlos put his signature to the new measure during a private ceremony last weekend. The law will take effect in July.

During an interview with Intereconomia TV on Saturday, Bishop Reig Pla openly commented, “What (the King) has done constitutes remote cooperation with evil.”

“The King should have thought about whether or not he was cooperating with the implementation of a law that will cause the death of innocent people,” the bishop said, noting that the King could have chosen a different option. “He could have refused to sign it, saying that his conscience came before signing a law that will not bring about good.”

Bishop Reig Pla rejected claims by some bishops that the King had no choice because of the constitutional requirement that he must sign duly passed laws. The new law “will not only make the abortion situation worse, but it will also lead to the imposition of sexual education in the classroom, as well as gender ideology, which is this government’s calling card.”

More than 60,000 people singed a petition urging the King not sign the bill into law, but last Wednesday his order to move forward with the measure was published in the Official State Bulletin, naming July 5 as the date it would go into effect.

Condom for Kids in Switzerland

Condoms in 'extra small' for boys age 12 set for Britain's shelves soon (Source: MailOnline)
By Alexandra Williams


Extra small condoms for boys as young as 12 could soon be on our shelves.

The Hotshot condoms are going on sale in Switzerland after research found that not enough 12 to 14-year-old boys were having protected sex.

The condoms are likely to end up on sale in Britain, said their manufacturer Lamprecht AG.

A spokesman said the UK would be ‘top priority’ if the company expanded abroad, considering it had the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe.

Nysse Norballe said: ‘At the moment we are only producing the Hotshot in Switzerland.

‘But the UK is certainly a very attractive market since there is a very high rate of underage conception.’

A standard condom has a diameter of 52mm in comparison with the Hotshot’s 45mm. Both are the same length – 190mm.

According to a study of 13 to 20-year-olds, a quarter said that a standard condom was too large.

Hilary Pannack, of teenage pregnancy charity Straight Talking Peer Education, said: ‘We know young people are having sex and if this is what it takes to protect them, we need to go along with it.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1255126/Swiss-government-produces-extra-small-condoms-boys-young-12.html#ixzz0hPW6sR8M