Mark Noonan

Bishop Jenky of Peoria has ordered this letter read in all his parishes this weekend:

Dear Catholic Believers,

Since the foundation of the American Republic and the adoption of the Bill of Rights, I do not think there has ever been a time more threatening to our religious liberty than the present. Neither the president of the United States nor the current majority of the Federal Senate have been willing to even consider the Catholic community’s grave objections to those HHS mandates that would require all Catholic institutions, exempting only our church buildings, to fund abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception. This assault upon our religious freedom is simply without precedent in the American political and legal system. Contrary to the guarantees embedded in the First Amendment, the HHS mandates attempt to now narrowly define and thereby drastically limit our traditional religious works. They grossly and intentionally intrude upon the deeply held moral convictions that have always guided our Catholic schools, hospitals, and other apostolic ministries.

Nearly two thousand years ago, after our Savior had been bound, beaten, scourged, mocked, and crowned with thorns, a pagan Roman Procurator displayed Jesus to a hostile crowd by sarcastically declaring: “Behold your King.” The mob roared back: “We have no king but Caesar.” Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord. They are objectively guilty of grave sin. For those who hope for salvation, no political loyalty can ever take precedence over loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his Gospel of Life. God is not mocked, and as the Bible clearly teaches, after this passing instant of life on earth, God’s great mercy in time will give way to God’s perfect judgment in eternity.

I therefore call upon every practicing Catholic in this Diocese to vote. Be faithful to Christ and to your Catholic Faith. May God guide and protect His Holy Church, and may God bless America.

Most Reverend Daniel R. Jenky, CSC
Catholic Bishop of Peoria

Sandy: A Big Government Failure

November 1, 2012Mark Noonan40 Comments

Manhattan is a rather low-lying island barely off the coast of the mainland of the United States. A great deal of its travel is done by tunnel and subway – which is naturally on a lower level than the island, itself. You’d think that someone would have looked in to the prospect of a storm surge causing flooding of the tunnels and subways and would have worked out a way to protect from flooding as well as a contingency plan for dealing with flooding.

So, what did I hear Mayor Bloomberg advise today? That people might want to walk in to New York City because it might be quicker than any other means.

On the other hand, Bloomberg has diligently seen to it that sodas are properly regulated in the city of New York.

This is what Big Government ultimately is – micromanaging things which aren’t a government responsibility, at all, while the things governments are supposed to do wither away.

Sandy Open Thread

October 30, 2012Mark Noonan34 Comments

When I went to bed last night it was clear that Sandy was going to be devastating – but waking this morning it is clearly much worse than feared in the dark of the night.

I haven’t found any central website for Sandy relief efforts but I’m sure its only a matter of time – meanwhile, you can donate to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities or whatever organization you believe will best get the help to those afflicted. Don’t forget to pray for those who are suffering – and for those who are on fire and rescue duty under very difficult conditions.

Does Pennsylvania Matter?

October 29, 2012Mark Noonan32 Comments

It might – from Politico:

Mitt Romney’s super PAC, Restore our Future, is launching an 11th-hour ad blitz in Pennsylvania, POLITICO has learned.

ROF is going up Tuesday with a $2.1 million ad buy across every Pennsylvania market, including pricey Philadelphia…

That is a lot of money – and it wouldn’t be expended in Pennsylvania unless someone thought there was a shot at it. Also, that its going in to Philadelphia is crucial. As experts like Barone point out lately, Romney is doing very well in the affluent suburbs of major urban areas – places where Democrats tend to do pretty well and where, if they go Republican, lead to astounding GOP victories.

We’ll see how this comes out in just 8 days…

Secession Can Keep Us Together

October 26, 2012October 26, 2012Mark Noonan23 Comments

Victor Davis Hanson writes another brilliant piece and it goes along with a thought I’ve had for a while – first, a quote:

…As those who run the nation state become ever more estranged, we yearn for the safety and security of our own neighbors, who seem to think, speak, and live more as we do. In other words, we are unhappy residents of Hellenistic Greece who dream of the romance of the lost face-to-face city state, or the bread-and-circuses turba of fourth-century Rome, who feel that their fellow citizens in Gaul, Numidia, and Pontus seem hardly Roman. These days the problem is not just that an Italian wants to leave the EU, but that a Florentine or Venetian would prefer to leave Italy itself. A Texan not only wants us out of the U.N., but may feel he is already out of the U.S. Britain may want no part of the EU, but Scotland wants no part of Britain…

Hanson speaks of a return of medievalism – not in the sense of living in castles but in the sense of extreme localism. That, at bottom, is what feudalism was: local control of most of the power while the central authority had least power. This developed in the post-Roman world because the Roman government could not carry out its self-appointed, imperial tasks. The Roman government, that is, decayed – it became bloated, inefficient, corrupt (sound familiar?) and while trying to micro-manage affairs of the Empire eventually lost the ability to even defend the Empire. People were forced back on their own resources and the feudal lords were really, in origin, no more than whomever could effectively organize local people for self defense.

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Anti-Mormonism Rises on the Left

October 26, 2012October 26, 2012Mark Noonan22 Comments

Legal Insurrection has an excellent run-down on the rank bigotry developing on the left against the Mormon religion. Its all rather nauseating but very typical of the left these days – they probably don’t know much about it but they know (a) that it is socially conservative and (b) a man representing it is going to beat their guy. So, all bets are off and there is no bottom to the gutter.

To me, Romney’s religion is a non-issue – just as much as Obama’s personal religious beliefs are a non-issue. Living in a pluralist republic, there is simply no other way to go about it. Unless I want to say that I’ll only vote for a Catholic of the most orthodox stripe, I must allow that people I vote for will have various differences with me. What matters to me is whether or not, on balance, the candidate is more favorable to my views than the other candidate. In this, Romney has pledged himself to a set of policy proposals largely in tune with my view – but not in all cases. I just kind of have to lump it on the areas where I disagree with Romney while working elsewhere to advance those views of mine which Romney refuses.

Its not like that on the left – it doesn’t, for instance, matter that Mormons are tremendously generous with their time and money and that Mormon-majority communities tend to be clean, safe and law-abiding. All that is thrown over the side because Mormons dare to have the slightest disagreement with some aspects of leftist ideology. For the left it is all or nothing – you are either 100% with them or they will be 100% against you. Romney has sinned against liberal orthodoxy and must be destroyed, and his entire religion along with him. I hope Mormons have tough skins – Catholics and Evangelicals have been dealing with this for a long time (and Catholics for longer than anyone else in the United States).

At the end of the day, however, these are the actions of desperate, losing people. Their cause is foundering and their man Obama seems set to lead them off the electoral cliff. As things get worse for the left, we can expect the howls of bigotry to grow louder. Get ready for it and learn to endure it – there’s nothing we can do to stop it.