TWILIGHT ZONE
***New Vatican Ambassador Ken Hackett was the CEO of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for about two decades until he retired in 2011. Hackett contributed $500 to Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, but that’s small potatoes compared to his entangling CRS in the culture of death. In 2008, CRS received a $21.8 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help farmers. Since 2003, CRS has tallied $55 million in donations for third world relief. All well and good, but a major push of the Foundation is contraception in the third world including drug implants. These methods are particularly unsafe in countries with little health care and no medical follow-up. Since 1998, the Gates Foundation has poured over $50 million into International Planned Parenthood and the Planned Parenthood Foundation of America. The population controllers at the United Nations received over $50 million as well. Additional pro-abortion groups, those that train abortionists, provide equipment, and target adolescents got tens of millions more. So why partner with CRS when the greatest enemy of their anti-life agenda is the Catholic Church? It makes sense when you think about it. Those multi-millions buy a lot of silence. When has CRS EVER challenged the Gates Foundation to abandon its anti-life positions? Never.
***Who’s Leavening the Loaf on Issues? Sadly, it’s not CRS. All the impact seems to be going the other way from CRS advocating condoms for AIDS to promoting contraception and even passing on U.S. taxpayers money to pro-abortion groups. CRS claims that their partnering is no problem, that they always stand by Church teaching, but there’s plenty of evidence out there that paints a different picture. Even the bishops provide tainted advice to employees working in developing countries through their CRS-USCC post report. “It is advisable to bring to post any medications and over-the-counter drugs used regularly and to make arrangements with a U.S. pharmacy for refills. Pharmacies are available in Port-au-Prince but often stock only European pharmaceuticals. Contraceptives are available—but not all kinds. It is preferable to bring your own.” Great advice from, eh? Bring your favorite brand of the pill, etc. with your gear.
***The Most Recent Scandal Relates to Madagascar where Archbishop Desire Tsarahazana told a Population Research Institute investigator that CRS workers were directly providing contraceptives and abortifacients to the people. Now the bishop has given his full support and confidence to CRS without repudiating his former statements but talking about “some confusion” that was “quickly resolved.” Perhaps it’s the same confusion as telling employees to bring their own plugs and drugs to their duty stations. Angle Queen has an interesting article on the bishops’ defense of CRS at http://angelqueen.org/2013/08/08/parsing-the-uscccps-defense-of-catholic-relief-services/
***HHS Contraceptive Mandate Derailed A federal judge in Florida, Elizabeth A. Kovachevich, has championed the Constitutional freedom of religion of a family business, Beckwith Electric, against the juggernaut of the state. In a 37 page decision, the judge wrote, “The First Amendment, and its statutory corollary the RFRA, endow upon the citizens of the United States the unalienable right to exercise religion, and that right is not relinquished by efforts to engage in free enterprise under the corporate form. No legislative, executive, or judicial officer shall corrupt the Framers' initial expression, through their enactment of laws, enforcement of those laws, or more importantly, their interpretation of those laws. And any action that debases, or cheapens, the intrinsic value of the tenet of religious tolerance that is entrenched in the Constitution cannot stand.” (Emphasis added) The Thomas More Law Center represented the Southern Baptistowned company.
***Hobby Lobby Also Continues to Win against administration bullies. The New American reported in July that “a federal judge in Oklahoma City granted the retailer and its sister business, the Mardel Christian book chain, a preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from enforcing the mandate against the businesses. The ruling follows on the heels of a landmark decision by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled June 27 that Hobby Lobby's owners are free to follow their religious convictions under the First Amendment, and are likely to win their case against the mandate… On its website Hobby Lobby explains that one of the main purposes of the business is to honor God ‘by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.’ The company's over 500 retail outlets are closed on Sundays, and its owners contribute generously to ministries and outreaches that seek ‘to share the Good News of Jesus Christ to all the world,’ the Hobby Lobby website reads. Hobby Lobby is represented by the Becket Fund which, according to the New American, reports that “more than 60 federal lawsuits have been filed against the HHS mandate, and courts have granted injunctions to nearly two dozen for-profit corporations while refusing to issue injunctions or restraining orders for seven companies.”
***Hurrah for our Separated Brethren While a number of Catholic groups continue to play footsy with the feds claiming their bogus accommodations are okay, most notably the Catholic Hospital Association, a number of pro-life Protestant business
owners are fighting for the freedom not to cooperate with evil. Seems our separated brethren have a lot to teach us! ***Have You Heard of Common Core? It’s the latest education fad. Remember the look-see reading program when educators dumped phonics replacing it with whole word recognition? Many kids ended up functionally illiterate, unable to sound out a word if they didn’t know it. The latest disaster is common core, an ideologically based program that trains kids to be little community organizers and makes them creatures of the state. Common core is a one-size-fits-all top down program that urges all states to sign on to a standard core curriculum, the latest dumbed-down curriculum. According to Eagle Forum “The new science standards, called ‘Next Generation Science Standards,’ were examined by nine scientists and mathematicians for content, rigor and clarity, after which the Fordham Institute gave them a grade of ‘C.’ They criticized the ‘ceiling on the content and skills that will be measured at each grade,’ the excluding of content that more advanced students can learn, the failure ‘to include essential math content that is critical to science learning’ in physics and chemistry, and the ‘confusing’ wording of the standards.” But science isn’t the only problem. English programs teach children to focus on feelings in their writing rather than rational argument. One of the most alarming facts about Common Core is that it allows the Department of Education to share children's private and identifiable information (including health information and disciplinary histories) with whomever they deem appropriate -- one more assault on privacy. ***But My Children are in Catholic School so Common Core doesn’t affect me. Think again. Over 100 dioceses have signed on to CC, a death knell for quality Catholic education. In violation of the principle of subsidiarity (responsibility at the lowest level starting with the family), CC shifts control of education from the family, parish, local community, and state to the federal government. Crisis Magazine defending the “uncommon core of Catholic education” describes CC saying, “at bottom, the Common Core embraces essentially a trade-school mentality. Even in English class—where the heart of humanist education should beat most strongly—the curriculum is to be redesigned to offer less classic literature and more nonfiction ‘informational texts.’ After all, if a student is unlikely to encounter Paradise Lost in his future job, why waste time on it now? Better to focus on the technical manuals or government documents that he might grapple with in the corporate world.
“Common Core Validation Committee member Sandra Stotsky, perhaps the nation’s premier expert on English language arts (ELA) standards, refused to sign off on the Common Core standards because they ‘weaken the basis of literary and cultural knowledge needed for authentic college coursework.’ And the math standards are similarly deficient. Stanford mathematics professor James Milgram concluded that it is ‘almost a joke to think students [who master the Common Core] would be ready for math at a university.’” CC is the new “outcome based education” a 1990s fad promoted with federal money that was supposed to improve performance through mastery learning. The program was a massive failure. It downgraded factual learning and replaced it with affective learning, i.e., feelings about learning. It also dumbed down standards to the lowest common denominator, one of the same criticisms of Common Core. In many OBE programs, children were asked invasive questions about their families. CC is just OBE repackaged. Learn more at lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com. Search “common core.”
***Fertility is Big Business! First millions of women are encouraged to delay pregnancy for decades and take birth control pills, injections, etc. pouring millions into pharmaceutical companies ($900 million a year in birth control pills alone according to the New York Times). Then, when they decide to stop and get pregnant and can’t, they spend millions on fertility doctors, more drugs, and treatments. When all of that fails, they go the in vitro route which means more big bucks for the fertility gurus despite the low likelihood of success. And then there’s hiring the surrogate, most likely a poor woman in the third world. When will women wake up and smell the coffee. Fertility is not a curse; it’s a blessing. You can’t turn it off and on like a faucet. There’s no guarantee a couple can have a baby when they want. What’s the best way to protect your fertility? Never do anything to damage it. Avoid sexually transmitted diseases by being chaste. Don’t fornicate. Wait until marriage and marry someone chaste. STDs are a big risk factor for infertility According to the Center for Disease Control, “Chlamydia and gonorrhea are important preventable causes of infertility. Untreated, about 10-15% of women with chlamydia will develop pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). Chlamydia can also cause fallopian tube infection without any symptoms. PID and ‘silent’ infection in the upper genital tract may cause permanent damage to the fallopian tubes, uterus, and surrounding tissues, which can lead to infertility.” Don’t damage your fertility with contraceptives. The drugs can do permanent damage. Don’t delay childbearing. A woman’s fertility declines sharply after thirty and if she’s married to an older man, sperm quality drops also. The best chance for children? Have your babies when you’re young and energetic. And pray because it’s God who opens and closes the womb.