religion – Page 5 – Blogs For Victory

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.

Will The REAL ‘post racial’ Barack Obama, Please Stand Up?

October 3, 2012Leo Pusateri59 Comments

As the Daily Caller reports, a video of a 2007 speech from Barack Obama has surfaced. An astonishing video, to be sure.

Gone is Obama’s measured midwestern, pedantic dialect. Gone is Obama’s ‘post racial’ tone. Gone is Obama’s supposed distance from Pastor Jeremiah Wright (you remember “G-d DAMN AMERICA!” Reverend Wright-you know, the guy that Obama sat in front of for over 20 years, that he supposedly never listened to). In fact, in the video, Obama embraces Jeremiah Wright, naming him as his mentor and counselor.

Class warfare rhetoric is rampant in this video, as is his allusion to the principles inherent in liberation theology.

It is said that the true character of a person can be seen by how that individual acts when he or she feels that they’re not being watched.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you Barack Obama,

unplugged and unhinged.

Prayer Works

September 8, 2012Mark Noonan12 Comments

From Fox News:

Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who was originally sentenced to death in his native country for his Christian faith, was acquitted of apostasy charges and released from custody.

Nadarkhani, 32, was imprisoned for three years and waiting execution for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. His charges were lowered to evangelizing to Muslims, which carried a three-year sentence. He was released with time served, according to the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington-based watchdog group that had been campaigning for the pastor’s release.

“Today our sources in Iran reported that Pastor Youcef was acquitted of apostasy and released from prison. After languishing in prison for almost three years, he has been reunited with his family,” Jordan Sekulow, executive director of ACLJ said in a statement to FoxNews.com…

Iran executed 600 people in 2011 and had 143 children on death row – under Sharia law, girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 15 are considered fully liable for their actions. Iran is also a place where you can be stoned to death. To nutshell it, “draconian” doesn’t begin to describe Iran’s judicial system. And here was a man who renounced the Muslim heresy and was sentenced to death for it…and who suddenly gets his “crime” changed from apostasy to evangelizing and is hit with “time served”. I don’t believe in mercy existing in Iran’s judicial system – something entirely outside of the barbarian brains running that show caused this to happen.

Anyone can say what they want, but I believe the prayers of millions were heard.

Obama’s Christianity

September 3, 2012September 2, 2012Mark Noonan101 Comments

A harsh but correct statement about Obama:

Obama and Co very much want to fool Christians, again. He managed the trick in 2008 – and not just with Catholics, as Obama did relatively well among self-identified Evangelicals, as well. As the video states, Obama is counting on our ignorance – on the ignorance of Christians, themselves – in order to sucker us to vote for him. My view: in 2012, our theme song will be “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.

The Ryan Plan and Catholic Social Teaching

August 19, 2012August 19, 2012Mark Noonan98 Comments

Our liberals have been running with a meme which goes “Ryan’s budget plan is anti-Catholic” – the basis of the liberal argument is that a letter was written under the letter head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which condemned the Ryan plan when it was first presented. Without getting in to the intra-Catholic weeds on this, the mere existence of such a letter does not either indicate Catholic doctrine nor how the Bishops, if pressed on the matter, would rule. Lots of liberals reside on the staff of the USCCB and they do take their opportunities to help liberal Democrats.

The letter, itself, held that the alleged cuts to social spending in the Ryan plan violated Catholic teaching as it relates to helping the poor. Of course, Catholic teaching is that the poor have an absolute moral claim upon the wealthy for sufficient housing, clothing, food and health care – there can be and is no argument about that. If you’ve got the means, you are morally obligated to help out the less fortunate. On the other hand, how you are to help out is not set out with precision – because it can’t be. Circumstances are so varied among both the haves and the have-nots that no one person can figure out exactly what one person should do for another in all circumstances. The bottom line is that there can be a great deal of different opinion on the best means to the end – and Ryan’s bishop, Robert C. Morlino, has written an article clarifying the Catholic view – first laying out what is required:

…It is the role of bishops and priests to teach principles of our faith, such that those who seek elected offices, if they are Catholics, are to form their consciences according to these principles about particular policy issues.

However, the formation of conscience regarding particular policy issues is different depending on how fundamental to the ecology of human nature or the Catholic faith a particular issue is. Some of the most fundamental issues for the formation of a Catholic conscience are as follows: sacredness of human life from conception to natural death, marriage, religious freedom and freedom of conscience, and a right to private property.

Violations of the above involve intrinsic evil — that is, an evil which cannot be justified by any circumstances whatsoever. These evils are examples of direct pollution of the ecology of human nature and can be discerned as such by human reason alone. Thus, all people of good will who wish to follow human reason should deplore any and all violations in the above areas, without exception. The violations would be: abortion, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, same-sex marriage, government-coerced secularism, and socialism…

So, we can say, “politician A is in favor of elective abortion and as that is an intrinsic evil, I must not vote for politician A”. But outside of the area of intrinsic evil, there is a lot more flexibility – and it becomes a matter of prudential judgement on the part of Catholics (and, indeed, everybody) to decide as best they can.

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Thou Shalt Not Have Strange gods…

March 9, 2012March 9, 2012Leo Pusateri76 Comments

Eleven million taxpayer-funded dollars. Supposedly to help 400 people in Detroit find jobs. Even if every one of those 4o0 people found a job, that would be $27,500 in taxpayer money spent, per job. Ludicrous enough, no?

Well, what if only TWO (2) of those 400 people found jobs?

A chunk of an $11 million stimulus grant meant to provide low-income Detroit residents with clothing for job interviews reportedly aided just two people — far short of the 400 job-seekers the money was meant to help.

The findings were part of a new audit on the city’s Department of Human Services, according to The Detroit News.

That, my friends, comes to a cost of $5.5 MILLION dollars. Per job. Nice return on investment there, Barry.

Fast forward to yesterday (emphases added):

In the wake of lobbying by President Obama and Senate Democratic leaders, the Senate Thursday defeated legislation to speed up construction of a U-S.-Canadian oil pipeline.The White House victory came after the president started personally calling Democratic senators Wednesday night. The vote underscored the extent to which rising gas prices and energy supply have become a central political issue.

So, to Barack Obama, a stimulus program that costs taxpayers hundreds of millions, and which is a failure by any clear-thinking person’s standards is hailed as a success; while killing a program that creates at least 25,000 jobs, all without a dime of taxpayer money, is somehow considered a ‘victory.’

To Barack Hussein Obama, nothing can be successful; nothing can be true and real unless it is a direct machination of government. No matter how big the failure a government program is, it is still a success, because to a statist like Obama, nothing is possible, nothing is real unless it has its underpinnings in government.

To Obama, Government is reality. The government is the source of all that is good and just in the world. The private sector is what is contrived. To Obama, the private sector is an anomaly; an abomination that must be controlled so as not to infringe upon the government’s influence in people’s lives. The god of Government is a jealous god. Thou shalt not have strange Gods before it. Even religion itself takes a back seat to Obama’s real religion.

(image credit here)

After all, in order to appease the god of Government and to gain its good graces, one must certainly give alms:

More than half of Obama’s 47 biggest fundraisers, those who collected at least $500,000 for his campaign, have been given administration jobs. Nine more have been appointed to presidential boards and committees.

At least 24 Obama bundlers were given posts as foreign ambassadors, including in Finland, Australia, Portugal and Luxembourg. Among them is Don Beyer, a former Virginia lieutenant governor who serves as ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

….

Obama has appointed 59 ambassadors who were not career Foreign Service officers, and of those, 40 percent were bundlers.

Welcome to the church of Obama.

God help its heretics.

On Dalliances With The Devil…

March 6, 2012March 6, 2012Leo Pusateri49 Comments

It seems that the White House is now dictating what Catholic Doctrine really means…and Cardinal Dolan isn’t liking it:

The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.

Welcome to the almighty church of Obama… Mr. Hussein, presiding.

They told the Church what to do in Maoist China… Communist Russia, Cuba… and even killed those who wouldn’t comply and staffed churches with their ‘state approved’ clergy. Obama is a Marxist. That’s what he does. What kills me is that the liberal Catholic priests and bishops actually SUPPORTED Obama, being the useful idiots that they are, even though it was widely known that Obama would be the most pro-abortion president–ever, and that he voted THREE TIMES AGAINST the born-alive protection act. But they thought their dalliance with the devil would be worth it if they could attain their unattainable ‘social justice’ nirvana fix here on earth. The same folks who brought you “liberation theology” are the same folks who have run our seminaries for too long now; the same element of folks who tolerated pedophiles in the priesthood; the same folks who not only turned a blind-eye to Marxism but encouraged it.

Even given the above, the Catholic church acts surprised–shocked–I say– when the openly Marxist President Obama starts telling them how to run things. This is a direct result of the Catholic Church worrying too much about establishing a non-attainable ‘heaven on earth’ via ‘social justice;’ via their support of Obamacare and other neo-socialist endeavors, and not enough about what was and should continue to be their true mission– the salvation of and preparation of souls for eternal life with Christ in Heaven.

I have had contact with some ‘priests’ who during the 2008 elections knew of Obama’s pro-infanticide predilections, but chose to support him anyway because of the ‘greater good’ that would supposedly result from his proposed social programs.

It was regrettably the ‘useful-idiot’ Catholic vote that helped Barack Hussein Obama first achieve presidential power.

As a Catholic, it will be a sad day, indeed, should the Catholic vote allow Obama a second term. It will not be a day that I left the Catholic church; rather, it will be a day that the Catholic Church left me.

Can I Hear An AMEN?

February 6, 2012February 6, 2012Leo Pusateri57 Comments

I am a Catholic– A fallen-away Catholic, but a Catholic, to be sure. I believe in the infallible tenets of the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, Transubstantiation, and other Church doctrine; but I could no longer abide the turn for the worse in these past four decades in how the middle-heirarchy of the Church, mainly Bishops (and errant Priests) led the Flock astray, by promoting a godless, unattainable socialist utopia on earth via the “social justice” movement. They would get in bed with anyone to make it happen, including the most pro-abortion President in the history of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. They were more than willing to walk over the corpses of dead babies if it were to achieve their godless, earthly dream–

And then I saw this article, on Red State this morning, and I said AMEN!!! Someone gets it and isn’t afraid to excoriate the Bishops who have led their flock astray–

These are just a few of the paragraphs– I encourage everyone to read the whole enchilada– this NEEDS to be said to save the Catholic Church!

Quote:

Back when there was a New Ledger, I wrote a now long-forgotten piece excoriating the Bishops in this country for complicity in its passage, for not speaking up, for not excommunicating the public officials who actively fight for the abortion license despite the infallible teachings of our Church — and by extension, for enabling a culture of license that enables the Culture of Death. (Piece stolen here; TNL no longer publishes essays.)I stand by every word, and would like to add a few things. Let me start with the most basic one.

You can all, each of you, and I say this after a week of prayerful meditation and with all of the respect I can give, go straight to the darkest pit in the lowest valley of the Ninth Layer of Hell and burn there.

It was easy to sell out the unborn, wasn’t it? To just wish away an infallible teaching that — let’s be honest — has been such a headache since a Catholic Supreme Court Justice helped its mass breaking, and Catholic Democrats abandoned everything else to protect that breach, right? To let others commit a sin that our Church treats as so grave that it incurs the automatic sanction of excommunication? All in return for a goal you’ve shared with your Democrat masters since the 1940s — a chance to drive healthcare costs through the roof with the fig leaf of social caring. All so you could work with the sorts of people who are elected to office by publicly calling you theocrats and misogynists for more-or-less upholding the two-thousand-year-old Tradition of our Church.

Thirty pieces of silver must buy one Hell of a lot more for you than it does for me.

Who among you has stepped forward to say, Whoops! Or, We are infallible on matters of faith expressed through the Tradition or through an ecumenical Council, but we can err on policy, and hoo-boy, did we blow this one. Who among you spoke out last week and said, Attention my flock: I must now inform you that the Democratic Party has proven once and for all that if you vote for a Democrat in this country, you engage in material cooperation with evil. We will now be holding weekly mass Confession to handle the backlog until it clears.

Because that is truth. In 2009 and 2010, nominally faithful Catholics who value all of the policy choices you do — labor unions, forced charity, high rates of taxation, urban ghettoes, and of course, universal “health care” — and who claimed to be ardent defenders of the unborn sold out to a one, sacrificed millions of babies and betrayed the infallible teaching of their faith so they could get one gigantic step closer to the social justice you so crave.

And for that, for that moment when they put aside their baptismal and confirmation vows, repeated every Easter, and their recitation of whatever version of the Nicene Creed you’ve settled on this week, your response was … applause. Silence. Satisfaction. A professed willingness to work with the Administration.

You made all of this possible. For almost my entire life, you have given my fellow Catholics every reason to believe they can freely sin, and hey, no problem, so long as they favor higher taxation and government spending. They can murder the unborn, and I have had all of two homilies, two, in my entire time as a Catholic, which is to say from birth and for the thirty-five years after, in parishes and dioceses across the country, in which a priest has said, If you have had, caused, or aided in obtaining an abortion, and you take communion today, you will go to Hell. You look out into your emptying pews, terrified of the wood you see and the flesh you don’t, through families of one, two, or sometimes amazingly three children, and think, Well, at least they’re still coming, as if you do not understand the connection between these things.

This–the ENTIRE ARTICLE– is what should be read from EVERY pulpit this Sunday!

Bible Banned at Christian Cafe

September 28, 2011September 27, 2011Mark Noonan3 Comments

So, a customer comes in to a Christian cafe – in to a Christian cafe – and gets offended that there are Christian statements posted and complains to the police. The cops, instead of laughing at the fool, actually go to the cafe (I guess there wasn’t a single murder, rape, robbery or jaywalking case to occupy the police in Blackpool that day) and demand the statements be removed.

This is, of course, from Britain…but it is what liberals want to bring here, to America. Mark my words, they will make it illegal to in any way, shape or form express Christianity in the public square, if they can.

HAT TIP: Catholic and Enjoying It