Catholic Herald: The Filipino bishops are standing up against Duterte. We should applaud them

This is what makes me prouder as a member of the TRUE CHURCH OF CHRIST!

SOURCE:CATHOLIC HERALD

The president's war on drugs is clearly illegal. The Church has to take a stand

The War on Drugs, presently being fought in the Philippines by President Duterte and his death squads, has now entered a new phase, as the New York Times reports. The Church has offered to give sanctuary and protection to those police officers who wish to act as whistle-blowers, and who have evidence of illegal actions by their colleagues.

As the chairman of the Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Socrates Villegas, explains in a pastoral letter: “Law enforcers have come forward confidentially to us, their spiritual leaders, to seek sanctuary, succour and protection. They have expressed their desire to come out in the open about their participation in extrajudicial killings and summary executions. Their consciences are troubling them.”

Christmas in Our Hearts

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.

LGBT Agenda Is a Demonic Attack on the Family, Cardinal Sarah Warns U.S.

Source: ChurchPop

François-Régis Salefran, Wikimedia Commons

Same-sex marriage, transgenderism, and divorce are demonic attacks on the family, Cardinal Robert Sarah warned in his keynote speech for the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. early on Tuesday, May 17th, 2016.

“This is about defending ourselves, children, and future generations” he said, according to LifeSiteNews, “from a demonic ideology that says children do not need mothers and fathers. It denies human nature and wants to cut off entire generations from God.”

He listed examples of this evil ideology: “Do we not see signs of this insidious war in this great nation of the United States? […] The legalization of same-sex marriage, the obligation to accept contraception within health care programs, and even ‘bathroom bills’ that allow men to use the women’s restrooms and locker rooms.”

“Should not a biological man use the men’s restroom? How simpler can that concept be?”

He also pointed to divorce and cohabitation as destructive, especially for children.

“The rupture of the foundational relationships of someone’s life – through separation, divorce, or distorted impositions of the family, such as cohabitation or same sex unions – is a deep wound that closes the heart to self-giving love [unto] death, and even leads to cynicism and despair.”

“These situations cause damage to the little children through inflicting upon them a deep existential doubt about love. They are a scandal – a stumbling block – that prevent the most vulnerable from believing in such love, and a crushing burden that can prevent them from opening to the healing power of the Gospel.”

He lamented that new problems are compounding the old ones. “Sadly, the advent of artificial reproductive technologies, surrogacy, so-called homosexual ‘marriage,’ and other evils of gender ideology, will inflict even more wounds in the midst of generations we live with.”

“This is why,” he concluded, “it is so important to fight to protect the family, the first cell of the life of the Church and every society.”

His speech is reported to have been received with thunderous applause from the audience. The program also included Speaker Paul Ryan, Fr. Paul Scalia (son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia), and Sr. Constance Veit from the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The Catholic Church was Right All The Way!

The Catholic Church was right all the way!

Time To Admit It: The Church Has Always Been Right On Birth Control

Michael Brendan Dougherty and Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Business Insider Feb. 8, 2012, 4:39 PM

Painting the Catholic Church as "out of touch" is like shooting fish in a barrel, what with the funny hats and gilded churches. And nothing makes it easier than the Church's stance against contraception.

Many people, (including our editor) are wondering why the Catholic Church doesn't just ditch this requirement. They note that most Catholics ignore it, and that most everyone else finds it divisive, or "out-dated." C'mon! It's the 21st century, they say! Don't they SEE that it's STUPID, they scream.

Here's the thing, though: the Catholic Church is the world's biggest and oldest organization. It has buried all of the greatest empires known to man, from the Romans to the Soviets. It has establishments literally all over the world, touching every area of human endeavor. It's given us some of the world's greatest thinkers, from Saint Augustine on down to René Girard. When it does things, it usually has a good reason. Everyone has a right to disagree, but it's not that they're a bunch of crazy old white dudes who are stuck in the Middle Ages.

So, what's going on?

The Church teaches that love, marriage, sex, and procreation are all things that belong together. That's it. But it's pretty important. And though the Church has been teaching this for 2,000 years, it's probably never been as salient as today.

Today's injunctions against birth control were re-affirmed in a 1968 document by Pope Paul VI called Humanae Vitae. He warned of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:

1. General lowering of moral standards
2. A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
3. The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men.
4. Government coercion in reproductive matters.

Does that sound familiar?

Because it sure sounds like what's been happening for the past 40 years.

As George Akerloff wrote in Slate over a decade ago,

By making the birth of the child the physical choice of the mother, the sexual revolution has made marriage and child support a social choice of the father.

Instead of two parents being responsible for the children they conceive, an expectation that was held up by social norms and by the law, we now take it for granted that neither parent is necessarily responsible for their children. Men are now considered to be fulfilling their duties merely by paying court-ordered child-support. That's a pretty dramatic lowering of standards for "fatherhood."

Today's moral lodestar People.com

How else are we doing since this great sexual revolution? Kim Kardashian's marriage lasted 72 days. Illegitimacy: way up. In 1960, 5.3% of all births in America were to unmarried women. By 2010, it was 40.8% [PDF]. In 1960 married families made up almost three-quarters of all households; but by the census of 2010 they accounted for just 48 percent of them. Cohabitation has increased tenfold since 1960.

And if you don't think women are being reduced to objects to satisfy men, welcome to the internet, how long have you been here? Government coercion: just look to China (or America, where a government rule on contraception coverage is the reason why we're talking about this right now).

Susan Fox: An Open Letter to Catholic Educators

Source: The Cardinal Newman Society
April 6, 2016 | By Susan Fox, JD

I consider my family a modern day “Pilgrim” story. My husband and I are both Catholic, and raised our four children in a church-going, close-knit family. We did the modern day “soccer parent” stuff: attending all the ball games, all the activities, all the sacraments — all the things that would help our children grow in mind, body and soul.

What we didn’t count on was the culture.

We lived in a very “liberal” part of the country, and when our kids hit teen years and turned to their peers, their peers were following the modern day “culture.” It is a culture that comes across as “loving” and “caring” and “tolerant.” Yet it is a culture that kills.

In Catholic high schools, our children were taught that all lifestyles were the same, and that sin did not matter. Sin was redefined as “tolerance,” and the door that prior generations kept shut to protect young from evil was flung wide open.

Sex was no longer something that was a sacred blessing to be shared in a marital bed between husband and wife. Oddly, the people in authority seemed embarrassed to be insisting that this truth was the Truth. Yet every social study, every experience, every life has borne out the reality of that Truth about sex — that it is a blessing only when used the way it was designed. It is like nuclear power: kept safely where it is supposed to be, nuclear power brings great life, warmth and goodness. When that same nuclear power is taken out of that supportive and protective structure, it scorches and destroys all it touches. The same with sex.

‘Same-sex synod’ what? By Sr. Teresa R. Tunay, OCDS

Pope Francis greets a cardinal as he leaves at the end of a mass to mark the opening of the synod on the family in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican, Rome, Italy, October 5, 2014. [Picture source: Christian Post]

…and that’s the truth [from CBCP News]

THEY are at it again—those who have an axe to grind against the Catholic Church are finding media morsels to feast upon at the ongoing Synod of Bishops in the Vatican. Further exploiting Pope Francis’ most misconstrued quote “Who am I to judge?”, these people with special interests label what is actually a synod on the family as “same-sex synod”, a “novelty”, an occasion for “hundreds of celibate men” to display once more their “obsession with sex” colliding head on with their “puritanical idealism”. It is high season for optimistic militant LGBT entities to repackage and resell their pet theories while judging the bishops and the Church as being “outdated” and woefully out of touch with reality.

I follow with mixed amusement and compassion the ways anti-Church advocates—claiming “human rights”—manipulate mainstream and social media to advance their agenda. They start with looking oppressed—as though gays were the most tyrannized people on planet Earth. But are they, seriously? At least in the Philippines, they are far from oppressed—they are not only accepted, they are loved, adored, and some are even envied for their wealth and popularity. And their gifts and talents are not just acknowledged by the Church but are welcomed and utilized in its ministry. I have heard of gay boys being rejected by their fathers, but only in the movies. All the gay persons I know have no problem with acceptance.

The earliest memories I have of gays are those about the two men in charge of our town’s Flores de Mayo. “Dalawang bakla lang ang gumagawa ng lahat diyan,” my mother would admiringly inform us, referring to the two middle-aged unmarried men—with soft wrists and hard core devotion to the Virgin Mary—who would virtually bloom whenever Santacruzan time came around. They recruited sagalas, assigned Reinas their consortes, supervised the makeup, the flower arrangements, the carroza decoration—everything! It never occurred to me that they were different—maybe I was too naïve to notice, just as I was too innocent to appreciate the biggest role in the Santacruzan given to me—Ang Babaeng Samaritana.

No, I think the LGBT champions want more than mere acceptance—they want “gay rights” to be recognized as human rights. They want marriage (just like the straights), they want their own “family” of adopted kids, and in the process they try to “revolutionize” Church teaching in the name of human rights. What’s sad is they don’t seem to understand that by fighting for “gay rights” they are seeking affirmation based on mere sexuality. In a sense they are actually asking people to measure their worth by the yardstick of sexual preference, thereby wasting their own potential as human beings.

Claiming that the only natural love they know (and the act that accompanies it) is one for and with another person of the same gender, they argue that they have a right to find happiness in love. “Kasalanan ko bang ipinanganak akong isang sirena?” (Is it my fault that I was born a mermaid?), a lot of gay men I know have jokingly asked. Like any other person they look for someone to love, be loved by, and when they do, they have sex without babies (to put it bluntly). It’s sex to please oneself and the beloved. Pleasure blinds the indulgent, and this is where their problem worsens. They drop out of Church, or in any case stop listening to “God talk”—instead they choose listen to “the other side”, and from there it’s a slippery slope to perdition.

Somebody has to remind them of their “divine rights”, to convince them that they are—like everybody else, inside or outside the Catholic Church—children of a kind and loving God. As such we have a right to ask for strength from our Father in times of temptation. As His children we all are bound by love to listen to God’s voice, to seek His will in everything we do—and certainly, wasting sexual energy is not one of them.

“Who says you have to have sex with your boyfriend to express your love?” I tell this to my gay friends who seem to flit from one fling to another in search of happiness in love. (They keep getting brokenhearted anyway). “Happiness in love is not found in human love alone—perhaps, in ‘making you a sirena’ God wants to be your siyukoy (merman)! But if you keep complaining and marching in the streets for your gay rights, how can you hear the Father telling you He loves you?”

It is said that hope springs eternal in the human breast. And so my gay friends still hope that with such a dynamic pope as Francis at the helm, the ongoing synod of bishops will maybe allow same-sex marriage. “You see,” I tell them, “you’re just listening to the noise! The Church will continue to love you dearly but it will never bless your same-sex union and call it marriage.” And that’s the truth.

Catholic teachings challenge increasingly progressive world: A Book Review

Author predicts Catholicism will not and should not change despite calls for acceptance of same sex marriage, female priests and an end to celibacy. [Iglesia ni Cristo cult members should note this!]

By Thomas Maupin Published: January 19, 2014 from NewsOK.com [all highlights are mine]

The Catholic Church has been around for roughly 2,000 years. With more than 1 billion members, it is one of the largest institutions — if not the largest institution — in the world. It has survived persecutions, heresies, the Great Schism and the Protestant Reformation. But what is its future?

Canadian writer Michael Coren, a 1985 convert to Catholicism, takes a look at his faith's future.

In the introduction, Coren looks back to the March 2013 papal election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the questions of how the new Pope Francis would shape the church. Coren says the church might change some things but cannot and will not change its teachings.

Coren write, “The book is called ‘The Future of Catholicism,' not ‘How to Make Failed Catholics Feel Good About Themselves,' or ‘A Handbook for Catholics Who Want a More Protestant Church.'”

He reminds us the church “does not exist to change the faith to reflect the world but to change the world to reflect the faith.”

Coren believes the church's stand on traditional marriage will be “a point of persecution” for Catholics.

Some other faiths allow same-sex marriage, and Coren says many Protestants have converted to Catholicism because of its defense of traditional marriage. As more faiths and governments support same-sex marriage, Coren predicts the future Catholic Church “will be as countercultural as it was in its earliest days.”

You can't write about the church and avoid abortion and birth control. Coren covers the church's position on those issues and stresses the faith will not change its teachings just because the same old arguments are brought up by the opposition. He says the church's teaching is not about denying a woman's rights; it is about “expanding life.” On these issues, he advises the church “needs to explain not what its critics think it believes but it actually believes about this so personal and delicate an issue.” He warns that misunderstanding, abuse and anger will face the church because of the issues.

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!

Understanding the ‘Catholic vote’

Catholics are not blind followers.  They use their consciences to vote. -CD2000

(Source:Opinion Inquirer) Many people will liken the notion of a “Catholic vote” to the alleged bloc vote of the Iglesia Ni Cristo. First, we must explain what it is not. The Catholic vote is not a bloc vote according to the dictates of the clergy. It would not be acceptable for the bishops and priests to dictate whom to vote. All this would be very alien to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Catholics are united in what the “Magisterium,” or the teaching authority of the Church, teaches regarding faith and morals. The true mark of Catholicity is this unity in matters of faith and morals combined with great respect for individual freedom and responsibility in temporal matters. Since politics is concerned with temporal matters, Catholics are free to use their own criteria, keeping in mind the common good.

Thus, the decision process of a Catholic is two-tiered: The top tier is the criteria for matters that have to do with faith and morals, and the lower tier is concerned with temporal issues. Before Republic Act 10354, there was never any need for a Catholic vote: Legislation was exclusively concerned with policymaking on temporal matters regulating civil life. The situation changed completely with the introduction of the reproductive health bill—a policy that impinged on the sacredness of human life and the sanctity of marriage. The Catholic vote was born in the hearts of the faithful as they helplessly listened to politicians they elected cast their votes in favor of RH.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says: “When the Church addresses her social teaching to issues of the common good, she has no intention of giving the Church power over the State or to impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to faith.”

Why the proposed RH Bill should be junkedl!

Disunited nation

Source: PhilStar from A LAW EACH DAY (Keeps Trouble Away) By Jose C. Sison 

Photo Source: Ipaglaban Mo

Undoubtedly, the most controversial and divisive bill ever introduced in Congress is the “Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, Population and Development” bill (RH bill). The title itself is already questionable as it covers several subjects, contrary to the universally accepted and ideal standard of statutes requiring only one subject.

The sad thing here is that this paralyzing disunity among us now is not of our own making. It is due to the machinations of international organizations and foreign entities which are trying to impose on us their own agenda of population control by means of a law (the RH bill) providing for universal access to artificial methods of birth control like contraception and sterilization.

More unfortunate is that in pushing for this RH bill, its foreign funded proponents and supporters concentrate their attack on the Catholic Church for its allegedly outmoded teachings against contraception and sterilization. And when the Church prelates responded to the attack by defending the Church teaching, they are even branded as “bishops at war”. Actually, the bishops are opposing the bill merely because, as good shepherds, they have to protect their flock from going astray or sinning, and from the known evil effects and dire consequences of contraception promoted by the bill.

This BLOG Stands with the Catholic Church ALWAYS!

Bishops: We would rather go to jail than give up promoting life

Manila, Philippines, PhilStar - Some Catholic prelates yesterday said that they would rather go to jail on charges of sedition than give up their campaign to promote life.

The statement was made in reaction to President Aquino’s threats that the anti-Reproductive Health (RH) bill groups who encourage civil disobedience through non-payment of taxes may face sedition or rebellion charges.

He can put us all in jail. We are willing to pay the price to save the unborn from modern Herods and save the executioners from the grasp of the evil one, Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles told CBCPNews, the official news service provider of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

Cotabato Auxiliary Bishop Jose Collin Bagaforo said Amen! We obey God rather than man while Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes said, Let him (President Aquino) charge all of us bishops, priests, religious, all the faithful with sedition because it is better to obey God rather than men and immoral laws.

Meantime, former CBCP president Archbishop Angel Lagdameo called on the Catholic faithful to wait and see as he emphasized the need for both sides to be calm, reasonable and consider the moral aspect of the issue.

In the end, we must obey God and not man, he said.

On Bin Laden's Death: Catholics do not Rejoice!

"Justice may have been served, but we Catholics never rejoice in the death of a human being."

-Rev. Stephen Mimnaugh, priest at Manhattan's St. Francis of Assisi

Happy Annunciation Feast. Let's RALLY for Life at the Luneta!

Filipinos! Unite Under God for Life!” 
Luneta Grandstand
March 25, 2011
The Feast of the Annunciation
Day of The Unborn

PROGRAM: Emcees (Fr. Erick Santos, Fr. Joel Jason, Ms. Gaines Rosario)

3:00 – 4:00 - Arrival and Animation -Emcees
- 70’s Beats and Pieces band -c/o Eric Manalang
- El Shaddai Choir

4:00 – 4:15 - Recitation of the Holy Rosary -youth group

4:15 – 4:45 - Stations of the Cross for Life -c/o Fr. Genie Diwa

4:45 – 5:00 - Inter-faith prayer and Declaration of Opposition
-c/o Fr. Caloy Reyes

5:00 – 6:00 - Testimonies/Declaration of Opposition
Ms. Mae Belgica
Cong. Aliah Dimaporo

- Testimonies/Declaration of Opposition
Cong. Lucy Torres-Gomez
Bro. Bo Sanchez
Video Message from Cong. Manny Pacquiao

6:00 - Recitation of Angelus/Prayer for the Unborn
-led by Sr. Pilar

6:05 – 6:20 - Animation and Inspirations Songs
-El Shaddai Chorale

6:20 – 7:00 - “Interrogation” and “I Stand” chant
-CFC Singles for Christ

- Tearing of RH bill by different sectors of society
- Youth (EJ Aguila)
- Politician (Mayor Lito Atienza)
- Religious (Sr. Pilar Verzosa, RGS)
- Medical (Dr. Angie Aguirre)
- Journalist (Atty. Jose Sison)
- Muslim Faith Sector (none yet)
- Family
- Religious (Archbishop Paciano Aniceto
(suggestion)

- Live Pure presentation - CFC-FFL

- “Masterpiece” song and dance - CFC-FFL

7:00 – 8:30 - Holy Mass presided by His Eminence Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales with Cardinal Ricardo Vidal and Cardinal Jose Sanchez, and the Bishops and the Priests

Prayers of the Faithful:
• Doctors – Dr. Oscar D. Tinio
President, Philippine Medical Association
• Catholic Physicians Guild
– Joe Yamamoto / Oca Tagulinao
• Lawyers – Justice Santiago Kapunan
President, Integrated Bar of the Phil.
• Teachers – Dr. Jojo Escalano
Principal, JP Laurel High School, Quezon City
• Filipino Families – Francis & Debbie Rodrigo & Family
• Politicians – Hon. Michael Velarde
Representative, Buhay Party List

After Post Communion Prayer

Commemoration of March 25 1984 Consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by Pope John Paul II

Consecration of the Family to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
• Fr. Yulito Ignacio

Special Address by Bro. Mike Velarde of El Shaddai

9:00 - Fireworks Display and Singing of Happy Birthday to celebrate LIFE

WARNING: Anti-Catholics off to the World Youth Day in Madrid

"Catholic for a Free Choice" is NEVER a Catholic in the first place!

Anti-Catholic Propaganda targeting Catholic Youths

World Youth Day will be non-partisan.

The Catholic faith will be attacked by both

the anti-Catholic left and the anti-Catholic right.

Fight and Defend Catholic Youths at World Youth Day! 

DONATE NOW!

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.

Unborn Child to 'Testify' on Ohio Abortion Bill

Photo Source: Women's Health

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) A fetus has been scheduled as a legislative witness in Ohio on a unique bill that proposes outlawing abortions after the first heartbeat can be medically detected.

Faith2Action, the anti-abortion group that has targeted Ohio to pilot the measure, called the in-utero witness the youngest to ever come before the House Health Committee at 9 weeks old.

Faith2Action president Janet Folger Porter said the intent is to show lawmakers who will be affected by the bill, which abortion rights groups oppose. Ohio Right to Life has not endorsed the measure.

An aide to committee Chairman Lynn Wachtmann said a pregnant woman will be brought before the committee and an ultrasound image of her uterus will be projected onto a screen. The heartbeat of the fetus will be visible in color.

Thanks to Creative Minority Report for the link.

Risa Hontiveros, one of the noisiest ladies promoting the deadly RH Bill in the House of Representatives wrote a letter to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines expressing her opposition to the Bishops unmovable stand against the RH Bill. Thanks to The PinoyCatholic

Dear Bishop Odchimar,

Peace!

I will not respond to all the points raised in the Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines which you sent us, your Filipino brothers and sisters, last 30 January. Most of them are old points that have been raised and clarified repeatedly in so many debates and too few dialogues in the past decade, though it drives me almost to tears that it seems the good Bishops have not been listening intently or understanding with empathy. 

I would like to respond to just two points.