A Wonderful Way to Start Your Day

Request a Prayer for My Dad's Soul

I have been away from my blog for some time due to the death of my father.  I would request all who pay a visit to this blog, to remember my dad in your prayers and to pray for his soul.

America Rising: We're Coming After You

Bishop Malcolm McMahon: No objection to homosexuals in civil partnerships working in Catholic schools

Let me say it again: I believe that many Novus Ordo bishops are direct successors to only one Apostle, Judas Iscariot.

By Hilary White

LONDON, January 19, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Despite clear teaching from the Vatican, a member of the English Catholic Bishops conference, a member of the English Catholic Bishops conference, and the head of the Catholic Education Service, has denied that there is any Catholic objection to homosexual civil unions. Speaking to The Tablet, Britain’s leading left-liberal Catholic paper, Bishop Malcolm McMahon, the chairman of the Catholic Education Service, said that he had no objection to homosexuals in civil partnerships working in Catholic schools.

McMahon, once tipped by Paddy Power as a contender to replace Cormac Murphy O’Connor as Archbishop of Westminster, “has promised that the Church will not investigate the private lives of applicants for the headships of Catholic schools.”

The comments follow revelations of increasing difficulties faced by the Catholic school system in Britain in recruiting candidates who fully adhere to Catholic sexual teaching. Bishop McMahon told The Tablet that the Church is not interested in the “backgrounds” of “potential school leaders.”

Applicants should decide for themselves “whether they were able to live according to church teaching.”

“Their family life isn’t scrutinised,” said the bishop. “I’d be rather ashamed if the Church was doing that to people. But we do expect people in leadership in the Church to live out their Christian commitment as best they can.”

But not everyone is as sanguine as the bishop about the situation. Fr. John Boyle of Ashford, Kent, a popular priest-blogger, wrote that this announcement by the bishop is the “last nail in the coffin” of Catholic education in Britain. Fr. Boyle wrote, “The backgrounds of potential school leaders, indeed of every living soul, is of immense concern to the Church since She is concerned about the salvation, not only of those who lead our schools, but of those whom they are charged to lead and teach.”

“There needs to be some way of ensuring that our teachers are exemplary in their lives. Only in that way can they give example to the pupils and teach coherently what the Church teaches,” he continued.

Fr. Boyle quoted the Church’s Code of Canon Law that says, “The instruction and education in a Catholic school must be grounded in the principles of Catholic doctrine; teachers are to be outstanding in correct doctrine and integrity of life.”

Canon 804 says, “The local Ordinary [bishop] is to be concerned that those who are designated teachers of religious instruction in schools ... are outstanding in correct doctrine, the witness of a Christian life, and teaching skill.”

The bishop also told the Tablet that the Catholic Church is not opposed to homosexual civil partnerships. They are, he said, “precisely what they say they are. They’re not gay marriages or lesbian marriages. They’re simply a legal arrangement between two people so that they can pass on property and other rights in which they were discriminated against before.”

“We have many gay people in education and a large number of gay people in the Church, at least the same as the national average. I think a person who is leading a church school should live according to the Church’s teaching whether they are in a civil partnership or not. A civil partnership is not a marriage, it’s not a conjugal relationship.”

Bishop McMahon, head of the Nottingham diocese, is well known for his “liberal” views on Catholic teaching. In November 2008, he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that the Church should reconsider its restrictions on the married priesthood, “Marriage should not bar them from their vocation, but they must be married before they are ordained.”

“It is a question of justice for those men who want to be priests and to have a wife,” he said.

Pernell Roberts, Star of TV’s ‘Bonanza,’ Dies at 81

This is Why I Love My Country and My Military So Much!

Jean Simmons Dies at 80

OK, why am I posting this?  Because when I was a boy, and I first saw her in "The Robe," I fell madly in love with Jean Simmons.  For me, at least, Miss Simmons will always be as she was in "The Robe" and "Spartacus."

January 24, 2010

By ALJEAN HARMETZ

Jean Simmons, the English actress who made the covers of Time and Life magazines by the time she was 20 and became a major midcentury star alongside strong leading men like Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton and Marlon Brando, often playing their demure helpmates, died on Friday at her home in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 80.

The cause was lung cancer, according to Judy Page, her agent.

“Simmons is one of the most quietly commanding actresses Hollywood has ever trashed,” the critic Pauline Kael wrote when reviewing her performance as the half-genuine, half-fraudulent revivalist preacher who succumbs to Burt Lancaster’s con man in “Elmer Gantry” (1960). Indeed, she rarely found roles to match the talent so many colleagues and critics recognized in her, despite a dazzling start to her career.

Plucked out of a dancing-school class at 14, Ms. Simmons appeared in three classic movies before her 19th birthday, typically eliciting adjectives like “lovely,” “radiant” and “luminous” in the reviews.

She was Estella, the mocking girl who was raised to break men’s hearts, in David Lean’s “Great Expectations” (1946). She was the sensual native girl whom five Anglican nuns sought to civilize in a convent high in the Himalayas in “Black Narcissus” (1947). And after seeing “Great Expectations,” Olivier chose Ms. Simmons to play Ophelia to his title character in “Hamlet” (1948).

At the time, however, Ms. Simmons was under contract to the British producer J. Arthur Rank, so Olivier interviewed dozens of other actresses before he was able to pry Ms. Simmons loose for 30 days of shooting. Her performance brought her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.

“I didn’t even know what an Oscar was at the time,” Ms. Simmons once said of her nomination. She would get only one other Academy Award nomination, for best actress, as the middle-aged housewife who runs away from her marriage in “The Happy Ending” (1969).

Ms. Simmons came to Hollywood in the early 1950s after her contract was sold to Howard Hughes, a practice not uncommon at the time.

Hughes, whose affairs with young actresses were notorious, wanted more of Ms. Simmons, then 22, than a celluloid image. And as one of the richest and most powerful men in Hollywood, he was accustomed to getting what he wanted, no matter that Ms. Simmons was newly married to the swashbuckling British actor Stewart Granger.

In his autobiography, “Sparks Fly Upward,” Mr. Granger described a telephone conversation in which Hughes propositioned Ms Simmons. After Mr. Granger heard Hughes say, “When are you going to get away from that goddamned husband of yours? I want to talk to you alone, honey,” he grabbed the phone and shouted, “Mr. Howard Bloody Hughes, you’ll be sorry if you don’t leave my wife alone!”

Hughes took his revenge by refusing to lend Ms. Simmons to the director William Wyler, who wanted her to star in “Roman Holiday,” the film that would bring Audrey Hepburn an Oscar and make her a star. And, according to the Granger memoir, when Ms. Simmons refused to sign a seven-year contract with RKO, the studio Hughes had bought in 1948, he threatened “to put her in three lousy productions that would ruin her career.”

One of those movies, “Angel Face” (1952), a film noir directed by Otto Preminger and co-starring Robert Mitchum, was actually well received, with Ms. Simmons playing one of the genre’s most beautiful killers.

“I had to do four pictures for Hughes, and then I was free, Ms. Simmons told the English newspaper The Guardian. “I never signed a contract with a studio after.”

In her first movie after her contract with Hughes ended — “Young Bess” (1953) at MGM — Ms. Simmons starred as the spirited and headstrong young woman who would become queen of England. “Young Bess” was the first of two American movies in which Ms. Simmons played opposite Mr. Granger. The other was “Footsteps in the Fog,” a 1955 thriller in which she played a maid who blackmails a man who has poisoned his wife.

In 1953, Ms. Simmons also played the determined title character in “The Actress,” an MGM film based on Ruth Gordon’s autobiographical play, “Years Ago.” Then she slipped quietly into supporting roles in the shadow of strong men.

She was the noble Roman who walked to her death with Richard Burton in “The Robe” (1953), although she did not share his new religion, Christianity. In “The Egyptian” (1954), set 13 centuries before Christ, she was the shy tavern maid who secretly loved the film’s hero, a physician. As “Desiree” (1954), she was mistress to Marlon Brando’s Napoleon, and eclipsed by Brando’s clowning. And no one was more decorous than strait-laced Sergeant Sarah Brown of the Save-a-Soul Mission, who was bedeviled by Brando’s Sky Masterson in “Guys and Dolls” (1955).

One of Ms. Simmons’s better roles was the spirited slave who falls in love with the gladiator (Kirk Douglas) who leads a rebellion in “Spartacus” (1960). But that film, one of several in which Ms. Simmons was dwarfed by a cast of thousands, was teeming with great actors, including Olivier, Peter Ustinov and Charles Laughton.

Jean Merilyn Simmons was born on Jan. 31, 1929, the youngest of four children, and reared in the North London suburb of Cricklewood. Her father, a schoolteacher, died soon after the director Val Guest visited the Aida Foster dancing school and chose Ms. Simmons to play Margaret Lockwood’s precocious younger sister in “Give Us the Moon” (1944).

“It can’t last, you know,” she remembered her father telling her. “You’ll be back here soon, just a plain Cricklewood girl again; so keep your head screwed on tight.”

But Cricklewood had lost her — to America and to marriage with Mr. Granger, a divorced actor 16 years her senior. Soon, though, the couple were drowning in debt; Mr. Granger had bought huge cattle ranches in New Mexico and Arizona with little money down. So they agreed to take any parts that were offered to them.

Between 1957 and 1960, Ms. Simmons, who had given birth to a daughter in 1956, starred in eight films. Mr. Granger, who had become a major star in the blockbuster adventure film “King Solomon’s Mines” (1950), had made the mistake of turning down a second seven-year contract with MGM, which cost him the lead in “Ben-Hur.” Most of the offers he received sent him off for months at a time to Africa and India.

Ms. Simmons had somewhat better luck, starring with Paul Newman in “Until They Sail” (1957), a melodrama about New Zealand women who fell in love with American soldiers during World War II, and “Home Before Dark” (1958), as a woman whose husband commits her to a mental hospital.

Reviewing that film, Ms. Kael, who often praised Ms. Simmons’s intelligence and grace, metaphorically threw up her hands: “Jean Simmons gives a reserved, beautifully modulated performance that is so much better than the material that at times her exquisite reading of the rather mediocre lines seems a more tragic waste than her character’s wrecked life.”

Ms. Simmons’s marriage to Mr. Granger, burdened by frequent separations and constant work, ended in divorce in 1960 when she fell in love with her “Elmer Gantry” director, Richard Brooks, who was 17 years older than she. They married that same year and had a daughter in 1961. The marriage lasted 17 years.

By the 1970s, Ms. Simmons’s career was waning. In 1974 she turned to the stage, touring the United States as Desiree in the Stephen Sondheim musical “A Little Night Music” and taking the production to London. On television she took roles in mini-series like “The Thorn Birds,” for which she won an Emmy, and making guest appearances on shows like “Hawaii Five-O.”

In 1983, Ms. Simmons checked herself into the Betty Ford Clinic for treatment of alcoholism. She spoke publicly about her addiction, saying that she did so that other women would know that they, too, could seek help.

In 1989, more than 40 years after David Lean’s production, Ms. Simmons returned to “Great Expectations,” this time a Disney remake for television and this time in the role of the malicious Miss Havisham, the demented old woman who — jilted on her wedding day — has groomed Estella to destroy men.

Two years later, when the popular gothic soap opera “Dark Shadows” was remade as a weekly prime-time series, Ms. Simmons starred as the matriarch of the Collins family, a role originally played by Joan Bennett.

She is survived by her two daughters, Tracy Granger and Kate Brooks, and a grandson, Ty Saville.

Those who knew her said she was generous, modest and unassuming. According to Mr. Granger, Ms. Simmons called Audrey Hepburn after she saw her in “Roman Holiday” — in a role Ms. Simmons might have had — to say, “I wanted to hate you, but I have to tell you I wouldn’t have been half as good.”

A Great Week for Conservatives!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

SSPX Districter Superior of Germany sends video thanks to Benedict XVI

Thanks to Fr. Z over at "What Does the Prayer Really Say?"

On kreutz.net you will find a story, in German, about a video from the former superior of the SSPX Fr. Schmidberger thanking the Holy Father for the lifting of the excommunications of the four SSPX bishop.  Fr. Schmidberger is now the SSPX District Superior in Germany/

He expressed regret for the controversy surrounding SSPX Bp. Williamson.

He expressed a positive opinion about the beginning of the theological discussions between the SSPX and the Holy See.

He said that the SSPX, with its structures in place around the world, could be very helpful in forming Christians according to the mind of the Church, if only some bishops would support them.

Das Fazit des Distriktoberen: „Falls ein Teil der Bischöfe sich dazu versteht, unser Werk zu unterstützen, und falls die Gläubigen noch vermehrt und tatkräftiger als bisher uns helfen, so kann die Kirche an Haupt und Gliedern erneuert werden und eine Christenheit aufgebaut werden, wie sie die Kirche immer gewünscht hat.“ 

If I were a bishop of a place where the SSPX was active, I would do my best to reach out to them.

I will never be a bishop, thanks be to God, but I hope some bishops reading this might open their hearts and consider what our Holy Father is trying to accomplish, the dangers of our age, and the desire of the Lord that we be one.

I am sure that the great majority of the men in the SSPX are very good and love the Church.  They would, without question, much rather be in union with Rome and the local bishop. 

So much potential… such difficult times.

Pontifical Consecration of New FSSP Seminary Chapel

DENTON, Nebraska – January 22, 2010 – The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter is pleased to announce the Pontifical Consecration of its newly built chapel at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary on Wednesday, March 3rd at 10:00am (CST). Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz will celebrate the Pontifical Consecration and Mass according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

The five hour ceremony will be held in the presence of a very special guest from the Vatican, William Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter is delighted to have the presence of one of the highest ranking officials in the Catholic Church. Cardinal Levada's presence is connected with his position as President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei established by Pope John Paul II and recently expanded by Pope Benedict XVI to facilitate the full incorporation into the life of the Church of communities and individuals attached to the Extraordinary Form.

Thanks to Thomas Gordon Smith, its architect, the seminary chapel reflects a contemporary rebirth in the rich tradition of classical Catholic architecture. Upon entering through its mahogany doors, the visitor will be immersed in the chapel's beauty and grandeur which include an elevated main altar, emphasized by a 31-foot marble canopy or “baldachino”, the chapel's seven side altars and liturgical choir stalls which seat 92 seminarians and priests. These are some of the integral qualities of this chapel which, on March 3rd, will be full of the people for which it was made.

The Pontifical Consecration and Mass is open to all of the public. Any and all the faithful are cordially invited and are most welcome to attend this joyful event and enjoy refreshments afterwards.

Due to the number of guests and limited space, rooms and television screens will be provided for those outside of the chapel who wish to participate.

The Pontifical Consecration and Mass will be televised live on the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) at 11:00AM (EST). Watch the Pontifical Consecration and Mass Live Online!
www.ewtn.com/audiovideo

Has Obama Lost White America?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

If Republicans will study the returns from Massachusetts, then review the returns from Virginia and New Jersey, light will fall upon the path to victory over Barack Obama in 2012.

Obama defeated John McCain by winning the black vote 24 to one, the Hispanic vote two to one and taking a larger share of the white vote, 44 percent, than did John Kerry or Al Gore. As the white vote was three-fourths of the national turnout, Obama coasted to victory.

Now consider Massachusetts. In the 2008 election, no less than 79 percent of the voters were white, and Obama carried them by 20 points, winning the state 62 to 36.

How did Scott Brown turn that 26-point deficit into a six-point victory? By winning the white vote as massively as did Obama. While there are no exit polls to prove it, we do have exit polls from Virginia and New Jersey, which tend to corroborate it.

Bob McDonnell won the Virginia governor's race by 17, while McCain lost Virginia by six. As McDonnell did equally poorly with African-Americans, losing the black vote 90 to nine, while McCain's lost it 92 to eight, what explains his Virginia landslide?

The white vote. McDonnell won Virginia's white vote 68 to 32, though his opponent was a downstate Democrat more conservative than the Northern Virginia candidates he beat in the primary.

In New Jersey, same story. McCain won 8 percent of the black vote. Gov. Chris Christie won 8 percent of the black vote. How did Christie turn a McCain loss of New Jersey by 16 points into a five-point victory?

The white vote. McCain won the white vote in New Jersey 50 to 49, but Christie won the white vote 59 to 34, almost two to one.

Republicans have won three major races--two of them upsets and one a Massachusetts miracle--because the white share of the vote in all three rose as a share of the total vote, and Republicans swept the white vote in Reagan-like landslides.

What explains the white surge to the GOP?

First, sinking white support for Obama, seen as ineffectual in ending the recession and stopping the loss of jobs.

Second, a growing perception that Obama is biased. When the president blurted that the Cambridge cops and Sgt. James Crowley "acted stupidly" in arresting black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates--a rush to judgment that proved wrong--his support sank in white America and especially in Massachusetts, where black Gov. Deval Patrick joined in piling on Crowley. Deval is now in trouble, too.

Then there was Obama's appointment of Puerto Rican American Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Her militant support for race and ethnic preferences and her decision to deny Frank Ricci and the white firefighters of New Haven a hearing on their case that they were denied promotions they won in competitive exams because they were white caused 31 GOP senators to vote against her.

While Massachusetts is Democrat over Republican three to one, Reagan carried the state in 1984 and Hillary Clinton clobbered Obama in the 2008 primary, though the Kennedys were in Obama's corner. The Scott Brown Democrats were the Hillary Democrats were the Reagan Democrats.

But if McDonnell, Christie and Brown could roll up large enough shares of the white vote to win in three major states McCain lost, why did McCain lose all three?

Answer: In 2008, the working and middle class had had a bellyful of the Bush-McCain Republicans. They were seen as pro-amnesty for illegal aliens and pro-NAFTA, when U.S. workers had watched 5 million manufacturing jobs disappear in a decade--and reappear in China. They were willing to give Obama a chance because Obama had persuaded them by November he was not just another big-spending utopian liberal.

So what have Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi been doing for a year? Crafting a federal takeover of health care with a vast plan that provides coverage for the uninsured--most of whom are minorities--while sticking it to Medicare recipients, 80 percent to 90 percent of whom are white.

Immigrants are 21 percent of the uninsured, but only 7 percent of the population. This means white folks on Medicare or headed there will see benefits curtailed, while new arrivals from the Third World, whence almost all immigrants come, get taxpayer-subsidized health insurance. Any wonder why all those Tea Party and town-hall protests seem to be made up of angry white folks?

What the McDonnell, Christie and Brown victories teach is that the GOP should stop listening to the Wall Street Journal and start listening to these forgotten Americans.

An end to affirmative action and ethnic preferences, an end to bailouts of Wall Street bankers, a moratorium on immigration until unemployment falls to 6 percent, an industrial policy that creates jobs here and stops shipping them to China appear a winning hand in 2012.

Another Example of a "Judas Iscariot" Successor

By Diogenes

Canadian collector of kiddie-porn and retired Bishop of Antigonish Raymond Lahey has another court date today. This is Chapter Four of … twenty? … twenty-five? in Lahey's serialized tumbling act of painful legal slapstick. Before the jester takes the stage the media bring the audience up to date by reviewing the earlier episodes:

Court documents say border officials flagged Lahey because he was a man travelling alone and his passport showed several trips to Southeast Asia, Germany, Spain and other areas known for child pornography. The documents also say Lahey's evasive answers and shifty eyes piqued their interest.

One warrant said Lahey told Ottawa police he "had no time for child exploitation, no time for child pornography." He is alleged to have told one officer he is attracted to young men, aged 20 or 21, and that he had never done anything abusive to a child and would "never have any sexual interest in a person under 18."

Never? Well … hardly ever.

Archbishop James Weisgerber, President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, has complained that Lahey is being unfairly tried "in the court of public opinion." Yet most Catholics are amply distressed by what Lahey has already conceded. Police warrants say Lahey's confiscated laptop had stored photos of young males, including some underage males, engaged in sex acts; those accusations remain to be proven. But suppose the models in the pornographic images had attained the age of legal majority, or suppose that the images were not photos but realistic paintings or computer simulations? In such case the court might regard Lahey's vice as "victimless" and judge him innocent of any wrongdoing. Would Lahey be thereby vindicated? Would Weisgerber urge that he be restored to his bishopric?

Well, one's answer to the question will hinge on whether one gauges the Catholic Church right or wrong in teaching that homosexual propensities are "intrinsically disordered" (Catechism 2358).

Flash back to 2005. The Holy See had just issued the Doomsday Doc, the instruction forbidding priestly ordination of men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies -- like a sexual attraction to males aged 20 or 21, for instance. Archbishop Weisgerber was quick out of the blocks in spinning the document against itself:

Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg, Manitoba … said the focus of the document was "narrow, perhaps too narrow. If a heterosexual presented himself with the same questions, we would look askance." He said all seminarians must live chastely and must demonstrate maturity regarding their sexual identity and their ability to control sexual impulses.

But Archbishop, you're dodging the very point at issue. Does the Catechism have it right that the homosexual orientation points in and of itself -- in a way that heterosexuality does not -- to some damage in need of remedy? Or is the Church flat out mistaken? A lot of very important decisions, in the civil sphere as well as the ecclesiastical, depend on whether one regards a man's attraction to a man as wholesome or not.

Archbishop Weisgerber said he was pleased that the Vatican makes clear that the church is not questioning the priesthood of homosexual men who already have been ordained. He said he hopes it is clear that "the church is not saying you should not have been ordained."

"So many members of the clergy, like men in the culture at large, are struggling with this," he said.

Weisgerber was here disingenuously trading on the equivocal phrase "questioning the priesthood" to suggest that, because a priest's orders aren't invalid in virtue of his homosexuality, the Church regards his propensities as congruent with spiritual paternity -- which she doesn't. Well, let's examine Bishop Raymond Lahey as our test case of affective maturity. Taking him at his word that he would never have a sexual interest in a person under 18, assuming the impounded images to be guiltless in the eyes of the law, is he fit to be a priest, fit to be a bishop, fit to have charge of a diocese and the care of souls the attends it?

The odd and oblique episcopal reactions to the Holy See's instruction are eerily similar to the odd and oblique episcopal reactions to Lahey's arrest. The sex abuse crisis taught bishops to name victims where victims could be found, but they seem unable to grasp the reflexive harm of deviant appetites on the man who owns them. Can we trust our pastors to put the right men in the right positions if we can't trust them to recognize defective maturity in the first place?

Concomitant with the issuance of the Doomsday Doc in 2005 was a letter to the bishops from the Congregation for Catholic Education that gave some additional muscle to the Instruction by insisting that homosexual men "are not to be appointed as rectors or educators in seminaries." So who was charged with carrying out this mandate?: the Weisgerbers and Laheys and Lynches and others who are unwilling or unable to give us a straight answer as to where they stand on the Intrinsic Disorder.

Feel better now?

Senate Victory Stuns Democrats (Camelot is dead)

January 20, 2010

G.O.P. Senate Victory Stuns Democrats
By MICHAEL COOPER (NY TIMES)

BOSTON — Scott Brown, a little-known Republican state senator, rode an old pickup truck and a growing sense of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary upset Tuesday night when he was elected to fill the Senate seat that was long held by Edward M. Kennedy in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts.

By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown defeated Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, who had been considered a prohibitive favorite to win just over a month ago after she easily won the Democratic primary.

With all precincts counted, Mr. Brown had 52 percent of the vote to Ms. Coakley’s 47 percent.

“Tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken,” Mr. Brown told his cheering supporters in a victory speech, standing in front of a backdrop that said “The People’s Seat.”

The election left Democrats in Congress scrambling to salvage a bill overhauling the nation’s health care system, which the late Mr. Kennedy had called “the cause of my life.” Mr. Brown has vowed to oppose the bill, and once he takes office the Democrats will no longer control the 60 votes in the Senate needed to overcome filibusters.

There were immediate signs that the bill had become imperiled. House members indicated they would not quickly pass the bill the Senate approved last month.

And after the results were announced, one centrist Democratic senator, Jim Webb of Virginia, called on Senate leaders to suspend any votes on the Democrats’ health care legislation until Mr. Brown is sworn into office. The election, he said, was a referendum on both health care and the integrity of the government process.

Beyond the bill, the election of a man supported by the Tea Party movement also represented an unexpected reproach by many voters to President Obama after his first year in office, and struck fear into the hearts of Democratic lawmakers, who are already worried about their prospects in the midterm elections later this year.

Mr. Brown was able to appeal to independents who were anxious about the economy and concerned about the direction taken by Democrats, now that they control both Beacon Hill and Washington. He rallied his supporters when he said, at the last debate, that he was not running for Mr. Kennedy’s seat but for “the people’s seat.”

That seat, held for nearly half a century by Mr. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, will now be held for the next two years by a Republican who has said he supports waterboarding as an interrogation technique for terrorism suspects, opposes a federal cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions and opposes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants unless they leave the country. It was a sharp swing of the pendulum, but even Democratic voters said they wanted the Obama administration to change direction.

“I’m hoping that it gives a message to the country,” said Marlene Connolly, 73, of North Andover, a lifelong Democrat who said she cast her first vote for a Republican on Tuesday. “I think if Massachusetts puts Brown in, it’s a message of ‘that’s enough.’ Let’s stop the giveaways and let’s get jobs going.”

Mr. Brown ran strongest in the suburbs of Boston, where the independent voters who make up a majority in Massachusetts turned out in large numbers. Ms. Coakley did best in urban areas, winning overwhelmingly in Boston and running ahead in Springfield, Worcester, Fall River and New Bedford, but her margins were not large enough to carry her to victory.

In a concession speech before cheering supporters, Ms. Coakley acknowledged that voters were angry and said she had hoped to deal with the concerns.

“Our mission continues, and our work goes on,” she said, echoing well-known remarks by Mr. Kennedy. “I am heartbroken at the result, as I know you are, and I know we will get up together tomorrow and continue this fight, even with this result tonight.”

The crowd at Mr. Brown’s victory rally, upset by reports that Democrats might try to vote on the health care bill before he takes office, chanted, “Seat him now!” Mr. Brown, for his part, noted that the interim senator holding the seat had finished his work, and that he was ready to go to Washington “without delay.” And he effusively praised Mr. Kennedy as a big-hearted, tireless worker, and said that he hoped to prove a worthy successor to him.

Ms. Coakley’s defeat, in a state that Mr. Obama won in 2008 with 62 percent of the vote, led to a round of finger-pointing among Democrats. Some criticized her tendency for gaffes — in a radio interview she offended Red Sox fans when she incorrectly suggested that Curt Schilling, a beloved former Red Sox pitcher, was a Yankee fan — while others criticized a lackluster, low-key campaign.

Mr. Brown presented himself as a Massachusetts Everyman, featuring the pickup truck he drives around the state in his speeches and one of his television commercials, calling in to talk radio shows and campaigning with popular local sports figures.

The implications of the election drew nationwide attention, and millions of dollars of outside spending, to the race. It transformed what many had expected to be a sleepy, low-turnout special election on a snowy day in January into a high-profile contest that appeared to draw more voters than expected to the polls. There were reports of traffic jams outside suburban polling stations, while other polling stations had to call for extra ballots.

The late surge by Mr. Brown appeared to catch Democrats by surprise, causing them to scramble in the last week and a half of the campaign and hastily schedule an appearance by Mr. Obama with Ms. Coakley on Sunday afternoon.

“Understand what’s at stake here, Massachusetts,” Mr. Obama said in his speech that day, repeatedly invoking Mr. Kennedy’s legacy. “It’s whether we’re going forwards or backwards.” He all but pleaded with voters to support Ms. Coakley, to preserve his agenda.

As voters went to the polls, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, made it clear that the president was “not pleased” with the situation Ms. Coakley found herself in. “He was both surprised and frustrated,” Mr. Gibbs said.

Although the race has riveted the nation largely because it was seen as contributing to the success or defeat of the health care bill, the potency of the issue for voters here was difficult to gauge. That is because Massachusetts already has near-universal health coverage, thanks to a law passed when Mitt Romney, a Republican, was governor.

Thus Massachusetts is one of the few states where the benefits promised by the national bill were expected to have little effect on how many of its residents got coverage, making it an unlikely place for a referendum on the health care bill.

On Capitol Hill, the fate of the health care legislation was highly uncertain as Democratic leaders quickly gathered to plot strategy in the wake of the Republican victory.

Sentiment about how to proceed was mixed, with several lawmakers saying the House would not accept the Senate-passed plan. Top officials had said that approach was the party’s best alternative, and many members said they still believed it was crucial that Democrats pass a plan.

“It is important for us to pass legislation,” said Representative Baron P. Hill, a conservative Democrat from Indiana.

Reporting was contributed by Katie Zezima, Danielle Ossher and Bret Silverberg in Massachusetts, and Carl Hulse and David M. Herszenhorn in Washington.

Pelosi: The Gift to the Right...that Keeps on Giving!

First SSPX-Ecclesia Dei meeting in 2010

From Rorate Caeli blog site:

French religious news agency reports (source: Petrus) that the first meeting in 2010 between the representatives of the Holy See and those of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX) took place yesterday. "We have started to deepen the themes of the agenda in the doctrinal talks".

U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret 'Jesus' Bible Codes

Pentagon Supplier for Rifle Sights Says It Has 'Always' Added New Testament References

By JOSEPH RHEE, TAHMAN BRADLEY and BRIAN ROSS

Jan. 18, 2010 —

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

'It violates the Constitution'

The company's vision is described on its Web site: "Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom."

"We believe that America is great when its people are good," says the Web site. "This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history, and we will strive to follow those morals."

Spokespeople for the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps both said their services were unaware of the biblical markings. They said officials were discussing what steps, if any, to take in the wake of the ABCNews.com report. It is not known how many Trijicon sights are currently in use by the U.S. military.

The biblical references appear in the same type font and size as the model numbers on the company's Advanced Combat Optical Guides, called the ACOG.

A photo on a Department of Defense Web site shows Iraqi soldiers being trained by U.S. troops with a rifle equipped with the bible-coded sights.

"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.

'Firearms of Jesus Christ'

"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," he said.

Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they've told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as "spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ."

He said coded biblical inscriptions play into the hands of "those who are calling this a Crusade."

According to a government contracting watchdog group, fedspending.org, Trijicon had more than $100 million in government contracts in fiscal year 2008. The Michigan company won a $33 million Pentagon contract in July, 2009 for a new machine gun optic, according to Defense Industry Daily. The company's earnings from the U.S. military jumped significantly after 2005, when it won a $660 million long-term contract to supply the Marine Corps with sights.

"This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country," said Weinstein. "It's literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we're fighting. We're emboldening an enemy."

The 13th Day

I would urge all of you to see this new film on Fatima. Well done by all. The world needs Fatima as never before…especially because Our Lady’s 3rd Secret has yet to fully revealed by Rome.

Excalibur (1981)

Saw this flick when it first came out almost 30 years ago.  Still a great "Knights & Swords" epic.

Ode to the Abortion King

Edward Schillebeeckx: Another Disaster of Vatican II

The Rev. Edward Schillebeeckx, a Roman Catholic theologian who helped reshape Catholicism during the Second Vatican Council and whose writings were later investigated for heresy, died on Dec. 23 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He was 95.

Here are some highlights from the NY Times article:

After the council, Father Schillebeeckx continued pressing for the kind of changes it had initiated. He published and lectured widely on basic theological matters like the nature of revelation and salvation, and on issues of church discipline he argued for democratic procedures in church governance and the ordination of married people, both men and women, to the priesthood.

He helped prepare the “New Dutch Catechism,” which the Dutch bishops published in 1966 and which sold widely.

Our National Anthem as it should be

No pop stars, no vocal show offs, just the Star Spangled Banner.  Enjoy!

Things that make you say, "WTF, Over?"

A BRONZE FOR WEAKLAND?

By Charlie Sykes

It is hard to image a less appropriate image than Archbishop Weakland depicted as a protector of children....Here is a link to my column on "The Shame of Remembert Weakland."

SNAP is holding a press conference this morning.:

WHAT

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org) will hold a sidewalk news conference on the steps of Milwaukee’s Catholic Cathedral urging newly installed archbishop Jerome Listecki to explain:

--why disgraced former archbishop Rembert Weakland is being honored next Tuesday, January 12th, with giving the keynote address at the Cathedral on the renovation of St. John’s;

--why, as part of that renovation, Weakland commissioned charitable money to be used to create a bronze relief of himself pictured in the biblical scene of Jesus protecting the little children (the relief is on the pedestal of the Mary, Mother of the Church Shrine, which is on the east side altar of the cathedral); ...[In the Weakland bronze relief, which serves as a pedestal to the Mary, Mother of the Church Shrine and is the Cathedral’s east side altar, Weakland is flanked by St. John the Evangelist and St. Anne, the mother of Mary. Also in the background of the relief, according to Chicago artists Jeffrey and Anna Koh-Varilla , is a portrait of the Cathedral’s current rector, Fr. Carl Last. A recent email by Anna and Jeffery Koh-Varilla, confirms that the relief was meant to bring the biblical scene into the contemporary world of the Milwaukee church by placing Weakland in it [as protector of children].

--why, for the first time since the 2002 revelations of paying half a million dollars in hush money to a man who says Weakland sexually abused him, is Weakland being allowed to ascend the Cathedral pulpit, but not in order to explain his covering up of child sex abuse crimes; ..

-how these actions are going to help bring about the desperately needed healing and resolution of the ongoing clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis in the Milwaukee archdiocese.

**

Peter Isley forwards an email from the artist:

Here is a recent email message from the artists confirming it is Weakland and why.

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Anna Koh Varilla wrote:

Hello Peter,

Thank you for your appreciation. The relief bronze panel below Mother Mary depicts the diversity of the Milwaukee Catholic community. It is ,indeed, the tower of St. John the Evangelist Cathedral in the background and St. John is on the right with Archbishop Weakland on the left. The young mother in the foreground represents Mother Mary with today's children and Christ Child. The elderly woman praying represents St. Anne. The portrait of Father Last is also depicted in the background. You are correct that our intention was to merge the biblical message with contemporary reality.

Fatima Shrine Vandalized

FATIMA, Portugal, JAN. 12, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The church of the Holy Trinity and four statues at the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima were vandalized early Sunday morning.

In a press release Monday, officials from the shrine announced that in the early hours of Sunday morning, four statutes on the sides of the church as well as the church itself were painted with graffiti.

In the John Paul II Plaza, statutes of Popes John Paul II and Paul VI were painted. In the Pius XII Plaza, statues of Pope Pius XII and Bishop José Alves Correia da Silva were painted.

The graffiti includes the words "Islam," "moon," "sun," "Muslim" and "mosque."

According to the statement from shrine officials, "the difficult work of cleaning" is under way.

The communiqué added: "In reporting what has happened and without knowing who has done this, the shrine [officials] confirm [our] sadness and assure that the issue has been reported to the police."