Digest of Today's Posts (31 March 2010)

Creative Minority Report on Why "a Lot of People Owe Sarah Palin an Apology"

5 Years Ago Today: Terri Schindler Died at the Colluding Hands of a Faithless Husband and a Florida Judge

A Little Hank Williams for Spy Wednesday: "30 Pieces of Silver"

Catholic Blogger Gives Lying, Embittered, Anti-Catholic Spinster the Only Response to Which She is Warranted

Bishops Fight Back Against Media's "Well-Oiled" Smear of Holy Father

Bishop Tells Pro-Life Democrat: Nuns Can’t Absolve ObamaCare Vote

Creative Minority Report on Why "a Lot of People Owe Sarah Palin an Apology"

Patrick Archbold gives the details in "Krugman: Death Panels Will Save Money".

5 Years Ago Today: Terri Schindler Died at the Colluding Hands of a Faithless Husband and a Florida Judge

My blog posts from that day:

Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, Rest In Peace

What Has Our Country Done Unto "The Least of These"?

A Little Hank Williams for Spy Wednesday: "30 Pieces of Silver"

(Hat tip: The Son Rise Morning Show with Brian Patrick)

Catholic Blogger Gives Lying, Embittered, Anti-Catholic Spinster the Only Response to Which She is Warranted

Here ya go, Mo Do:





Have a blessed Holy Week, girlfriend.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Mo Do Attacks My Bishop

Bishops Fight Back Against Media's "Well-Oiled" Smear of Holy Father

Whispers in the Loggia reports:

In the latest salvo of a church-press war over sex-abuse coverage that's already gotten far more heated than it ever was in 2002, the archbishop of New York has lowered the boom anew in a freshly-published, extensive blog-post....

Here's the close:

Let me be upfront: I confess a bias in favor of the Church and her Pope.

I only wish some others would admit a bias on the other side.

A blessed Holy Week.

[More]

Bishop Tells Pro-Life Democrat: Nuns Can’t Absolve ObamaCare Vote

From LifeSiteNews:

EVANSVILLE, Indiana, March 30, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Catholic nuns cannot absolve U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.) for voting for the Senate’s health care reform bill and failing to protect the sanctity of life, says Ellsworth’s own bishop.

Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger of Evansville went after Ellsworth, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and other “skitterish” pro-life politicians for using the statements of Network, a pro-abortion "social justice" lobby of Catholic nuns, and the Catholic Health Association to “digress and absolve themselves from the constant position of the bishops of this country of which I am one!”

Gettlefinger said the statements of Network and the Catholic Health Association were both “divisive” and either “beclouded ‘skitterish’ pro-life politicians or gave them a cloud to hide under,” including Ellsworth.

“In recent months I have worked very closely and personally with Congressman Ellsworth. However, he has not been in touch with me even after my effort to encourage him to ‘stay the course’ with the USCCB on this last vote,” said the Evansville bishop.

“I am personally and greatly disappointed in Congressman Ellsworth in the published report that he, instead, ‘hung his apology’ on the published positions of Network and the Catholic Health Association,” said Gettlefinger. “In doing so, Congressman Ellsworth excused himself by sidestepping the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who have worked exceedingly hard with him on these very critical moral matters."

“In any case, let us pray for Congressman Ellsworth and all in the political arena elected on our behalf to protect the life of the unborn and the poor!” the bishop concluded.

Dozens of other U.S. Catholic bishops, in agreement with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have condemned the health care reform legislation that passed March 21 for unleashing federal abortion funding, and lacking adequate conscience protection provisions for pro-life health care professionals...

[More]

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
This particular Bishop is hardly some "right-winger" either.

(Hat tip: PewSitter.com)


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Evansville Bishop Won't Attend Pro-Life Banquet with GOP's Steele as Speaker

MSNBC Libels the Pope

Matthew Archbold has the details at Creative Minority Report.

Stupak's Last Stand

There was one editorial response (written by a "pro-choicer", no less) to Bart Stupak's health-care sellout that was so devastatingly brutal in its assessment of Stupak's perfidy that the Michigan Democrat felt compelled to defend himself in the pages of The Washington Post.

My friend the Cranky Con dissects Stupak's apologia brilliantly.


UPDATE
I have to agree with the commenters here that Stupak's sellout is not NEARLY as blameworthy (although the effects are likely to be more serious and far-reaching) as Doug Kmiec's skullduggery, which, in terms of treachery, harlotry, and mendacity, would be difficult to top.

Digest of Today's Posts (26 March 2010)

Bishop Blair Speaks Recently at Theology on Tap

Bishop Morlino: “Speaker Pelosi is Not Called by Jesus Christ to Lead the Catholic Faithful”

Sister Carol Disinvited from D.C.-Based John Carroll Society Speaking Gig

This Week's Highlights:

Establishing the "Alternative Magisterium"

The Smear, Part 2: Stupak Attacks Catholic Bishops

The Smear

Stupak Sells Out ... [UPDATED]

Bishop Blair Speaks Recently at Theology on Tap

From The Catholic Chronicle:

FOSTORIA—Bishop Leonard P. Blair recounted his memories of Pope John Paul II, discussed the issue of parish closings and shared his reasons for being Catholic with an audience of about 75 people in Fostoria March 4.

The bishop discussed these and other topics during an hour-long question and answer session at The R Place as part of Theology on Tap, a monthly Catholic program for young adults that was introduced in Fostoria last fall.

[...]

Bishop Blair was also asked to share his reasons for being Catholic during the program.

“Why should anybody be a Catholic? Because of the thing that the modern world doesn’t believe exists anymore, and that is truth,” said Bishop Blair.

“Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict have spent all their time talking about this. But our world is skeptical about truth; it doesn’t believe there’s any absolute truth. You have yours, I have mine, who’s to say? But to be a Catholic, and I would submit to be a Christian, you are a Christian because you believe the truth of Jesus Christ — that He is the Way, and the Truth and the Life; and furthermore, to be a member of the body of Christ and to be a part of Christ, you have to be a member of His body; and to be a member of His body is to be a member of the Church. He said you cannot have life within you unless you eat my body and drink my blood, and where are you going to get that, except in the church?

“So ultimately the simple answer is, I am a Catholic because I believe it’s true,” said Bishop Blair. “And I don’t believe that there’s any other place to find the fullness of that truth.”

Bishop Morlino: “Speaker Pelosi is Not Called by Jesus Christ to Lead the Catholic Faithful”

Bishop Morlino takes issue with the "Alternative Magisterium" that Pelosi, Obama, and the Catholic left have established for the purpose of doing an end run around the Bishops' authority:

In the midst of a wide-ranging column today, Madison Bishop Robert C. Morlino turns his attention to who speaks for the Church and reminds readers that “Speaker Pelosi is not called by Jesus Christ to lead the Catholic faithful, any more than the religious Sisters in Network are, any more than the leadership of the Catholic Health Association is.”

[...]

I cannot pass over the actions of the Catholic Health Association and an organization called Network, a lobby of American religious Sisters, who said, quite publicly, that what the bishops have taught is false. They said that the legislation does provide an adequate framework for a Catholic to follow his or her conscience about abortion. So, we had a trade organization — the Catholic Health Association — which calls itself “Catholic” and we had religious Sisters who call themselves Catholic, saying, “Sorry, bishops, you got it wrong, here is the teaching of the Church.”

The Lord Jesus Christ, unworthy though the bishops are, called the bishops to lead the people in faith; He did not call anybody in the Catholic Health Association and he did not call any of the Sisters in Network. To boot, those Sisters who signed the Network document said that they speak for 59,000 American Sisters — that would be every last Sister in the U.S. Yet, another grouping of Sisters came out publicly expressing their disagreement with Network. Unfortunately, the claim that these Sisters in Network represent all Sisters is actually what is false, not the teaching of the bishops.

And, of course, people like Speaker Pelosi could not do enough to wave the letter from the Catholic Health Association and the letter from Network to provide cover for Democratic legislators who wanted to waffle in protecting innocent human life. Speaker Pelosi is not called by Jesus Christ to lead the Catholic faithful, any more than the religious Sisters in Network are, any more than the leadership of the Catholic Health Association is.

The bishops are called to teach, sanctify, and govern. But, as I said before, with regard to the Holy Father, if people will not recognize authority, then they cannot lay responsibility at the feet of those to whom they are disobedient. The pope and the bishops are only responsible when their authority is accepted. The then-Cardinal Ratzinger himself has said, in our contemporary world, the word “obedience” has disappeared from our vocabulary and the reality of obedience has been anathematized.

In this way, very serious harm is being done to the Church because people in the Church wonder, “Who speaks for Christ? Does the Catholic Health Association speak for Christ? Does Network, an organization of religious Sisters, speak for Christ? Do they teach with the authority of the bishops? Is the bishops’ teaching just another opinion?”

To read the full text of Bishop Morlino’s remarks published in the Catholic Herald, the Madison, Wisconsin, diocesan newspaper, Click Here.

(emphasis added)


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Establishing the "Alternative Magisterium"

Archbishop Chaput: A Bad Bill and How We Got It

Archbishop Chaput: Those Confusing the Catholic Stance on Health Care Will Bear the Blame for Anti-Life Effects of Heath Care Bill

Catholic Obama Supporters More Interested in Providing Cover Than Holding Obama's Feet to the Fire

Catholic Nuns Urge Passage of Obama's Health Bill

Obama's Catholic Strategy: Divide and Conquer

Sister Carol Disinvited from D.C.-Based John Carroll Society Speaking Gig

American Papist first reported the news yesterday that Sister Carol Keehan (who just last week worked overtime in undermining the official Catholic stance of the U.S. Bishops opposing federally funded abortion as part of the health care bill) had been invited to speak at the John Carroll Society's Annual Dinner & Awards event in Washington D.C. on April 16th:

... The John Carroll Society operates “in service to the Archbishop of Washington”.

Sr. Keehan has spent the last months actively serving against the bishops of the United States. She has conspired against them, been rewarded for her services to the other side, and has confused Catholics across the country. When Catholic unity in defense of life was most needed, she abandoned it for personal, ideological and financial reasons.

Obviously the JCS extended this invitation to Sister Keehan’s before knowledge of her activities on behalf of the Democrat leadership became known. However, just as the Susan B. Anthony List has had to change their decision to honor Rep. Stupak after his 11th-hour betrayal, so should the JCS dis-invite Sr. Keehan after her harmful campaign against Catholic public unity and advocacy during this critical debate...

Today comes word that Sister Carol has now been disinvited from the event:

... This message was sent to members of the society:

Sister Carol Keehan has decided that our annual dinner this year is not the appropriate time to address our Society and friends. We continue to be grateful to her for her many years of service to the Church and especially the poor and those in need.

Of course, this was an incredibly diplomatic way to avoid any further tensions. I’m satisfied with this solution, but I dislike the implication that there could be an appropriate time for Sr. Keehan to again address a Catholic gathering.

If any time would be appropriate, it would be after or during her public apology to the faithful.

I'm actually a little surprised by this turn of events.

Establishing the "Alternative Magisterium"

Need "Catholic" sign off on your agenda, regardless of whether it actually meets the criteria of fidelity to the Church's teaching? No problem.

Don't bother with the Bishops. Do an end run. Get the imprimatur of the "alternative Catholic magisterium".

A phone call to Father Hesburgh is helpful. A letter of support from a group of women religious currently under investigation by both the Vatican and the U.S. Bishops invokes just the right amount of radical chic yet also "Bells-of-St.-Mary nun nostalgia" to appeal to a broad range of "Catholic" sentiments. A visit from Sister Carol to key politicians to work against and undermine the Bishops' stance is absolutely essential. An award of an honorary law degree from America's flagship Catholic university ought to give just the right aura of "Catholic" legitimacy. Lining up a bunch of "Catholic" politicians to vote for the thing makes it all look downright "official Church policy". Throw in a dead Kennedy or two for you to lionize on behalf of your cause, and that's just icing on the cake.

Of course, you need more than just big names to lend legitimacy to your "alternative magisterium". You need lots of little minions (not just mornings, but noons and nights, as well) to plant seeds of doubt regarding the collective wisdom of the Bishops and their priorities and to lay the groundwork for placing one's trust in more "enlightened" yet "still authentic" Catholic voices. You know the sort of worker bees I'm talking about: Soros-funded groups who talk about being "united" and "in alliance" and working toward the "common good", who bemoan the prominence of the unborn among the issues with which Catholics are most concerned, and who decry the "politics of division" all the while seeking to divide and conquer Catholics in an effort to separate them from their Bishops; "Catholic" publications that write about the Bishops as being out of touch with the times and impediments to "progress" and reform (i.e. the Bishops don't buy completely into the Democrat agenda); bloggers proclaiming themselves to be speaking with a "new voice" or a "Catholic sensibility".

So, why bother with the Bishops? No need to get your pet issue tied up in all the red tape and bureaucracy at the USCCB (which, anyway, everyone knows is staffed with a bunch of right-wing GOP party hacks working overtime to make the USCCB the "Republican Party at Prayer").

No, all you have to do to get "Catholic" backing for your pet cause is to get the Democrat Party to adopt it as part of its platform. As long as your cause empowers government and doesn't involve anything stodgy and traditional (and "right wing") such as organized religion, marriage, or the sanctity of life, you should have no problem at all getting your agenda into the platform. And once that happens, the "self-described Catholic" groups will just come flocking to bless your policy preferences and give them the necessary "alternative magisterial imprimatur" you need to pass your views off as thoroughly "Catholic".

If you're really lucky, and your agenda item can arguably - in some remotely tenuous way - be deemed a "quality of life" measure, you might even qualify for the added benefit of having the "alternative Catholic magisterium" declare your cause to be in furtherance of a "consistent ethic of life" and proclaim you to be "TRULY pro-life", unlike all those baby-worshipping freaks.

So, don't delay! Rush out and get your "Catholic" stamp of approval today.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
The Smear, Part 2: Stupak Attacks Catholic Bishops

Archbishop Chaput: A Bad Bill and How We Got It

Archbishop Chaput: Those Confusing the Catholic Stance on Health Care Will Bear the Blame for Anti-Life Effects of Heath Care Bill

Catholic Obama Supporters More Interested in Providing Cover Than Holding Obama's Feet to the Fire

Catholic Nuns Urge Passage of Obama's Health Bill

Obama's Catholic Strategy: Divide and Conquer

Newsweek: Obama More Catholic Than the Pope

Pope Hope I (a.k.a. "The Great")

Pope Greets "Hope"?

Of "Neo-Caths" and "Sharia Catholicism"

Notre Dame's President Jenkins: "We Are Tremendously Proud" to be Acting in Defiance of the US Catholic Bishops

The Smear, Part 2: Stupak Attacks Catholic Bishops

This is a follow-up to my post from yesterday titled "The Smear", in which we examined Bart Stupak's remarks from the floor of the House of Representatives and discovered that he had attacked pro-lifers (who were merely seeking to enact his own Stupak Amendment) utilizing the stinging words of the enemies of the pro-life movement.

In response to my post, I heard such things as "Oh, he wasn't attacking pro-lifers, he was criticizing the Republicans who were merely politicizing pro-life rhetoric in order to defeat health care."

Well, with this full frontal assault on the U.S. Catholic Bishops, I think any benefit of the doubt that Stupak might have received may now be officially removed:

Stupak says Catholic bishops and pro-life groups hypocrites for condemning health-care vote

Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat whose support for President Obama’s health bill ensured it was passed into law Sunday, on Tuesday accused the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and pro-life groups of “hypocrisy” for condemning the executive order that sealed the deal.

“The [National] Right to Life and the bishops, in 2007 when George Bush signed the executive order on embryonic stem cell research, they all applauded the executive order,” Stupak said in an interview with The Daily Caller.

“The Democratic Congress passed [a bill] saying we’ll do embryonic stem cell research. Bush vetoed it in 2007. That same day he issued an executive order saying we will not do it, and all these groups applauded that he protected life,” Stupak said.

“So now President Obama’s going to sign an executive order protecting life and everyone’s condemning it. The hypocrisy is great,” he said.

Obama will sign the order at the White House on Wednesday, the White House announced Tuesday night. Stupak and 12 other pro-life Democrats who voted for the health bill are invited to the signing ceremony.

Stupak also said he suspected groups such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Right to Life, and others were actually “just using the life issue to try to bring down health-care reform.”

“I question, did they want to protect the sanctity of life, or did they want to defeat health care?” he said. [ED.: Yeah, it's not like the U.S. Bishops have been pushing for universal healthcare for close to a century, or anything. It's rather funny in a pathetic sort of way that Stupak is now accusing the Bishops of doing exactly what the opponents of the Stupak Amendment were accusing him of doing. Besides, I thought the whole point of the Stupak Amendment, and the Bishops' involvement therein, was that protecting the sanctity of life and promoting health care were not only NOT mutually exclusive, but that you couldn't have one without the other.]

[...]

The pro-life groups said their criticism had to do specifically with Obama’s executive order, which they say can do nothing to override provisions in the health bill.

“We haven’t said anything to suggest we think executive orders are never of value,” said Douglas Johnson, NRLC’s legislative director, in a phone interview.

Johnson said that Bush’s 2007 executive order, which followed his veto of legislation that would have expanded embryonic stem cell research, did not contravene existing law, but instead supported it, making it more “airtight.”

In addition, Bush’s 2001 executive order banning the use of most embryonic stem cell research simply undid authorization that had been put in place by federal regulations, not legislative action.

The problem with Obama’s executive order, Johnson said, it is “it basically just recites what’s in the Senate bill.” [ED.: For Stupak not to recognize the distinction between Bush's executive order prohibiting federal funding of ESCR when there was no federal law in place providing for such funding and Obama's promised executive order "clarifying" a federal law regarding funding of abortion exposes Stupak either as not very intelligent or as being a mendacious fraud.]

[Read more]

It's almost as if the show of loyalty the former rebel must pay to be fully accepted back into the king's good graces is to offer up the blood of his former compatriots.

Digest of Today's Posts (23 March 2010)

Archbishop Chaput: A Bad Bill and How We Got It

The Smear

Pro-life Democrats, R.I.P.

From Yesterday:

Stupak Sells Out ... [UPDATED]

Archbishop Chaput: A Bad Bill and How We Got It

Archbishop Chaput on how the Catholic left undermined the U.S. Bishops and created a divided Catholic front on the most important pro-life issue since Roe v. Wade:

... the combination of pressure and disinformation used to break the prolife witness on this bill among Democratic members of Congress – despite the strong resistance to this legislation that continues among American voters – should put an end to any talk by Washington leaders about serving the common good or seeking common ground. Words need actions to give them flesh. At many points over the past seven months, congressional leaders could have resolved the serious moral issues inherent in this legislation. They did not. No shower of reassuring words now can wash away that fact.

... self-described “Catholic” groups have done a serious disservice to justice, to the Church, and to the ethical needs of the American people by undercutting the leadership and witness of their own bishops. For groups like Catholics United, this is unsurprising. In their effect, if not in formal intent, such groups exist to advance the interests of a particular political spectrum. Nor is it newsworthy from an organization like Network, which – whatever the nature of its good work -- has rarely shown much enthusiasm for a definition of “social justice” that includes the rights of the unborn child.

But the actions of the Catholic Health Association (CHA) in providing a deliberate public counter-message to the bishops were both surprising and profoundly disappointing; and also genuinely damaging. In the crucial final days of debate on health-care legislation, CHA lobbyists worked directly against the efforts of the American bishops in their approach to members of Congress. The bad law we now likely face, we owe in part to the efforts of the Catholic Health Association and similar “Catholic” organizations...

[Read the whole thing]

(emphasis added)


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Archbishop Chaput: Those Confusing the Catholic Stance on Health Care Will Bear the Blame for Anti-Life Effects of Heath Care Bill

The Smear

Let’s spell out exactly what Bart Stupak did here in his speech on the House floor.

Stupak (which I learned yesterday is “KAPUTS” spelled backward) engaged in THE smear that is ALWAYS used against pro-lifers: that we don’t care about the mothers and that we only care about the babies up until they are born.

What kind of “pro-lifer” engages in that sort of rhetoric? Doesn’t he know how hurtful it is for the pro-lifers who stood with him in favor of the Stupak Amendment to hear THOSE WORDS from someone who is allegedly one of our own? If he’s spent any REAL time in the pro-life movement, he MUST know the power and the sting of the words he used, so I can only guess that it was a calculated move to do maximum damage to the pro-life cause and to completely dispirit pro-lifers themselves.

Think about this: How does Bart Stupak look Chris Smith or Joseph Cao in the eye the next day after saying what he said on the House floor?

Pro-life Democrats, R.I.P.

In the Wall Street Journal, Bill McGurn writes that "Bart Stupak's vote for the health bill shows that in the end you can't count on prolife Democrats":

And then there were none.

When Bart Stupak announced Sunday he was now a "yes" on the health-care bill, six Democrats stood with him. Even that handful would have been enough to defeat the bill. Instead, they accepted the fig leaf of an executive order—and threw away all the hard-won gains they had made.

Amid the recriminations it's easy to overlook what Mr. Stupak had cobbled together. His amendment restricting federal funding for abortions, passed in November, marked the only bipartisan vote in this whole health-care mess. For the first time since Roe v. Wade, pro-life Democrats had seized the legislative initiative in the teeth of their leadership's opposition—and brought the party of abortion to heel.

Now Mr. Stupak has thrown it away. By caving at the last hour, he discredited all who stood with him. (What does it say about Ohio's Marcy Kaptur and Pennsylvania's Chris Carney that they had already agreed to vote yes even before the fig leaf of the executive order had come through?) In addition to undermining an encouraging partnership with pro-lifers across the congressional aisle, Mr. Stupak signaled that, in the end, you can't count on pro-life Democrats.

"The peer pressure to be part of the team can be overwhelming," says Chris Smith, a pro-life GOP congressman from New Jersey. "But sometimes it's absolutely necessary, regardless of the cost, to bend into the wind, unmovable, committed to what your heart, mind and conscience know to be right."

"For so long, Bart did that. Then he was like a runner who stopped a hundred feet before the finish line. It's a sad day for the unborn, a sad day for their mothers, and a serious setback for the culture of life."

[Read the whole thing]

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Stupak Sells Out ... [UPDATED]

Stupak Sells Out ... [UPDATED]

... and speaks out against and then votes against his own Stupak Amendment (which all the House Republicans, not to mention the U.S. Bishops, supported):



Deep down, I always had a feeling that this would happen. After all, he is a Democrat:

I have to admit that, when push comes to shove, I fear ... no ... I truly expect the pro-life Democrat contingent - including Stupak - to do what they always do: put party over pro-life principle and line up lockstep behind Pelosi and the Democrat leadership.

Any notion that there is a REAL pro-life presence in the Democrat Party ought to officially be laid to rest at this point.

Kathryn Lopez shares this view:

I think we’re witnessing Bart Stupak write the obit for the concept of the “pro-life Democrat”.

(Hat tip: Chris Blosser)

As I noted the other day:

... by undermining a solidly pro-life [ED.: cough, cough!] Catholic Democrat like Stupak, these folks have all but quashed any meaningful chance of there being a subtantial pro-life voice or presence in the Democratic Party. What pro-life Democrat is going to go out on a limb and take an unpopular stand within his or her party or against his or her party leadership after this?

Rather than fight what could have been a winnable battle to include the Stupak language in health care reform, they've sold out the unborn, they've sold out the Church and her Bishops, they've sold out their allegedly pro-life principles, and they've even sold out their own party by consigning it to perpetual "pro-choice" status. They'll never win their party back to the pro-life cause after this.

Too bad Stupak was among those selling himself out. Again, I had a feeling that, in the end, even Stupak would sell out his pro-life principles.

My friend Don McClarey aptly sums it up:

For pro-lifers the Republican party is the only game in town for meaningful pro-life legislation. This will be distasteful for pro-lifers who hate the Republican party only a little less than they love the unborn, but that is the simple truth. For people who wish to continue the effort to spread the pro-life message in the Democrat party, may you have success. I expect that you will fail, and in future I will assume that all elected pro-life Democrats are being mendacious until they prove otherwise by hard votes.

Yep.


UPDATE
Yeah, what Joe Hargrave said:

The viciousness with which he [Stupak] then attacked pro-life Republicans during the following vote was like a victory dance with salt-coated shoes over open wounds. And all they were trying to do was get HIS language in the bill – his reason for berating them was that he had the utmost confidence in Obama’s EO.

What a chump. What an irrational, foolish man.

(emphasis added)

When an allegedly "pro-life" Democrat would rather party with and be feted by death cultists (who just a few days ago were reviling him as "un-American") and rub his supposedly fellow pro-lifers' faces in excrement than stand firm on HIS OWN anti-abortion language, that's when I feel quite comfortable in assessing the notion of a "pro-life" Democrat to be an utter lie.


UPDATE #2
Congressman Mike Pence to Stupak:

"You traded 30 years of pro-life law for a promise from the most pro-abortion president in history."

Yeah, something like that.


UPDATE #3
Susan B. Anthony List rescinds pro-life award to Stupak:

Stupak Stripped of "Defender of Life" Award

... Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund President Marjorie Dannenfelser offered the following statement:

"This Wednesday night is our third annual Campaign for Life Gala, where we were planning to honor Congressman Stupak for his efforts to keep abortion-funding out of health care reform-We will no longer be doing so. By accepting this deal from the most pro-abortion President in American history, Stupak has not only failed to stand strong for unborn children, but also for his constituents and pro-life voters across the country."

"Let me be clear: any representative, including Rep. Stupak, who votes for this healthcare bill can no longer call themselves 'pro-life.' The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund will not endorse, or support in any capacity, any Member of Congress who votes for this bill in any future election. Now through Election Day 2010, these representatives will learn that votes have consequences. The SBA List Candidate Fund will work tirelessly to help defeat Members who support this legislation and make sure their constituents know exactly how they voted. We will actively seek out true pro-life candidates to oppose Members who vote 'yes' on this bill, whether it be in general or primary elections...

(emphasis added)


UPDATE #4
From CatholicVoteAction.org:

... [Stupak's] actions gutted any hope for a bipartisan pro-life movement that many argued would have been possible had he stood firm.

After everything we did to support Stupak and his coalition, his actions yesterday were devastating. We were betrayed.

Confronting a loss of such significance is dispiriting. The emails pouring into CatholicVote range from frustration with politics in general to questions about whether there can truly be a pro-life Democrat.

I share many of these frustrations. Our staff did everything possible to stop this disaster. We worked around the clock last week and all weekend to hold the votes together. We worked with individual bishops and staff to encourage wavering votes to hold firm. We were in regular communication with key representatives and their staffs. We ran radio ads, and launched the Stand With Stupak campaign.

We were confident that we had the votes to stop the legislation, until the end, when Stupak and his key allies folded.

The “Stand With Stupak” campaign was about a principle, not a single man. The principle was simple – no compromise on abortion.

And in the end, even Bart Stupak didn’t stand with Stupak...

(emphasis added)


UPDATE #5 (23 March)
Bill McGurn: "Pro-life Democrats, R.I.P."

Digest of Today's Posts (19 March 2010)

Nancy Pelosi ... Dumb@$$

Archbishop Chaput: Those Confusing the Catholic Stance on Health Care Will Bear the Blame for Anti-Life Effects of Heath Care Bill

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (18 March 2010))

Nancy Pelosi ... Dumb@$$

Is there any high-profile Catholic, at least who publicly invokes their Catholicism as much as she, who is as stone ignorant of her faith as Nancy Pelosi? Couple that with mendaciousness, and you have a lethal (literally) combination:

I’m sorry. Almost nothing that has come from this woman’s mouth has infuriated me like this.


This woman is a profound grotesque who gets virtually everything wrong here, from what feastday it is, to the kinds of Catholic religious sisters supporting her monster’s bastard of a bill.

[...]

First off, Nancy, this is not the feastday of “St. Joseph the Worker.” That feast day is May 1, and it is a simple (and optional) memorial. TODAY is the Solemnity of St. Joseph, in his role as the Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Provider and Guardian for the Child Jesus. A solemnity is not an optional feastday, and Pelosi, who was educated by religious sisters and went to a Catholic college, should know that.

Her ignorance is almost sublime. “Italian Americans” certainly do honor St. Joseph, but they do not “pray” to him. They ask him to pray for them, before the Throne of his most holy and almighty step-son, the Christ.

It is highly doubtful that St. Joseph, who was faced with an unimaginable event, one fraught with challenges, things unknown, social questions, difficulties and sacrifice, would be a happy endorser of a “life-affirming health care” bill that includes the federal-funding of abortions, sterilizations, contraception – undoubtedly, down the road- euthanasia.

[...]

After all of that -and in a direct attempt to smackdown the Catholic bishops who rightly oppose this bill- the Pelosi ends with yet another slander of all Catholic religious woman, with the assistance (it must be admitted) of a few perpetually adolescent useful idiots who, as I said yesterday, “delight in poking into the eyes of authoritative teaching.” Not only does Pelosi exaggerate the number of religious women who support this bill, she frankly lies when she says that “just about every order you can think of” wants “to pass this life-affirming legislation.”

What an abominable woman; what a power-mad, ruthless, mendacious grotesque she is.

[...]

... it is one thing for a Catholic to be publicly misguided, misinformed, socially maladjusted or even stupid. It’s quite another -and to my way of thinking, a genuinely evil thing- for Catholics to put on a cloak of moral authority by virtue of their church membership, and proceed to spin their deceitful webs while mindfully exploiting her greatest saints and teachings for the expressed (and unbelievably sleazy) promulgation of their legislative propaganda.

[Read the whole thing]

My Comments:
What an ignorant, blasphemous, lying &%$*# is San Fran Nan.


UPDATED
At first, I just shook my head in amusement that the theologian Nan of San Fran - who invokes Augustine and Aquinas to justify her pro-abortion view - got the feast day wrong.

But the more she said, the angrier I got. Every time the "ardent practicing Catholic" opens her mouth and mentions her "Catholic" faith to justify her policy preferences, she mocks our Faith and she mocks our Bishops (who she knows will do little more than offer doctrinal corrections in response), and she sows discord, confusion, and scandal about what the Catholic Church teaches and among the Catholic faithful.

What more does someone have to do to merit the severest form of sanction from our Shepherds, who are supposed to be protecting their flocks from wolves in sheep’s clothing like this vile woman?

I don’t intend to question or bash our Bishops who have done a stellar job in educating Catholics and the public at large as to where the health care bill falls short. But those months of educational efforts are clearly insufficient when they can be undone by 2 or 3 days of so-called “Catholics” coming out of the woodwork in opposition to the Bishops and creating confusion about what the authoritative and authentic Catholic stance is.

When will our Bishops finally say “Enough!” to these voices of dissent whose words and deeds continue to make it possible to systematically victimize the least of the least of these?


(Hat tip: Opinionated Catholic)


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference Contradicts Pelosi's Claim That Senate Health Bill Doesn't Fund Abortion

San Fran Nan Gets Taken to the Woodshed: Speaker Pelosi’s Bishop Corrects Her Once Again

Boston-Area Priest: Pastoral/Teaching Approach Has Failed Miserably in Persuading "Pro-Choice" Catholics of Their Error

"Ardent Practicing" Conservative Catholic Grandmother™ Calls Opponents of ObamaCare Nazis

Pelosi Accused of Muzzling Opposition to Taxpayer-Funded D.C. Abortions

Wuerl: Why I Won't Deny Pelosi Communion

Pope to Speaker Pelosi: Reject Abortion Support [UPDATED]

"Conservative Catholic Grandmother"™ Pelosi Backs Down: Contraception Removed from "Stimulus Package"

"Conservative Catholic Grandmother"™ Pelosi Says Birth Control a Boon for the Economy [UPDATED]

More U.S. Bishops Issue Statements on Abortion

LA Times Columnist Lies to Cover for Pelosi

Obama Camp to Speaker Pelosi: "Shut Up, Already!"

The Follow-Up Question Brokaw Should've Asked

Pelosi: St. Augustine Agrees With Me - That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It [UPDATED]

Archbishop Chaput on Speaker Pelosi: "On the Separation of Sense and State" [UPDATED]

Biblical Scholars Challenge Pelosi's "Scripture" Quote

Pro-Abort Catholic Politicians to Receive Communion at Papal Mass [UPDATED]

"Conservative Catholic Grandmother" Pelosi Defends Removal of "God" from Flag Certificates

President Bush to Veto Stem Cell Bill

Never Mind Church Teaching, Catholic Nancy Pelosi Says ESCR "a Gift of God"

"Anti-Catholic" Pelosi Accused of Promoting "Culture of Death"

Pelosi Sings Praises of Embryo Destruction

Bishop Vasa on Nancy Pelosi: It's "Categorically Impossible" to be Catholic and Hold Abortion is "Just a Choice"

Worth a Thousand Words

Nancy Pelosi: "My Family is Very Pro-Life"

Catholicism, Pelosi style

Archbishop Wuerl's Stand on Lawmakers Who Back Abortion Angers Some Conservative Catholics

NARAL Pro-Choice America Salutes Nancy Pelosi on Her Inauguration as Speaker of the House

More on Speaker Pelosi at Open Book

A Catholic Speaker in the House

American Life League's Judie Brown: Pro-Abortion Pelosi Insults Catholic Faith

Archbishop Chaput: Those Confusing the Catholic Stance on Health Care Will Bear the Blame for Anti-Life Effects of Heath Care Bill

From Catholic News Agency:

Denver, Colo., Mar 19, 2010 / 01:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a column published today on the website of First Things, Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput has commented on how certain “Catholic” groups are working to undermine the U.S. bishops' stance on health care reform. Should the morally deficient Senate version of health care reform be passed into law against the will of the American people, he said, the dissenting “Catholic” voices will be among those responsible.

The archbishop noted that groups such as Catholics United, NETWORK and Washington Post writer E.J. Dionne [ED.: and Commonweal and Vox Nova] are aggressive in attacking those of a different political persuasion and at the same time display a disregard for debasing Christian social teaching. These actions and campaigns cause “grave damage to the believing community,” and spread confusion as they promote the morally flawed Senate health care bill, the archbishop said.

The full text is as follows...

[...]

What lessons can we draw from these three examples—each, in its own way, rich in alibis? First, the captivity of some Catholics to the agenda of current congressional leaders and the White House proves that faith partisans are not a monopoly of the political right, and that some Catholics have an almost frantic unwillingness to see the abortion issue for what it is—a foundational matter of social justice and human rights. It can’t be avoided in developing our public policies without debasing the whole nature of Christian social teaching. No rights are safe when the right to life is not.

Second, people who claim to be Catholic and then publicly undercut the teaching and leadership of their bishops spread confusion, cause grave damage to the believing community and give the illusion of moral cover to a version of health care “reform” that is not simply bad, but dangerous.

Third, for supporters of health care reform at any cost, facts don’t seem to matter when a coveted goal seems within reach. The American bishops have repeatedly shown their support for good healthcare reform. They’ve worked tirelessly and honestly for more than seven months to help craft acceptable legislation. But they’ve also shown—and posted readily on the web—how and why the current Senate version of reform fails in at least three vital areas: abortion and its public funding; conscience protections for medical professionals and institutions; and the inclusion of immigrants. Congressional leaders have no one to blame but themselves for the opposition they’ve had to face. And this makes the arguments of columnists like Dionne—whose March 18 article was little more than a mixture of emotion and disinformation—all the more baseless. Blaming the bishops is a cheap and useful way to divert attention from one’s own embarrassing partisanship.

If the defective Senate version of health-care reform pushed by congressional leaders passes into law—against the will of the American people and burdened by serious moral problems in its content—we’ll have “Catholic” voices partly to thank for it. And to hold responsible.

[Read the whole thing]

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
Archbishop Chaput writes:

If the defective Senate version of health-care reform pushed by congressional leaders passes into law—against the will of the American people and burdened by serious moral problems in its content—we’ll have “Catholic” voices partly to thank for it. And to hold responsible.

I don't think they care if they're held responsible. They want health care "reform" no matter what ... the Bishops and the unborn be damned.

But one thing is clear about those who, rather than impressing upon their Democrat allies the need to include the Stupak language in the health care bill, worked overtime in opposing, undermining, and detracting against the Bishops who, but for the small matter of retaining the House's Stupak Amendment, otherwise support the health care reform effort: what these dissenting voices ARE NOT is authentically Catholic.

Furthermore, by undermining a solidly pro-life Catholic Democrat like Stupak, these folks have all but quashed any meaningful chance of there being a subtantial pro-life voice or presence in the Democratic Party. What pro-life Democrat is going to go out on a limb and take an unpopular stand within his or her party or against his or her party leadership after this?

Rather than fight what could have been a winnable battle to include the Stupak language in health care reform, they've sold out the unborn, they've sold out the Church and her Bishops, they've sold out their allegedly pro-life principles, and they've even sold out their own party by consigning it to perpetual "pro-choice" status. They'll never win their party back to the pro-life cause after this.

Again, not that they give a damn.

Digest of Today's Posts (18 March 2010)

Faithful Women Religious Release Counter-Statement

Catholic Obama Supporters More Interested in Providing Cover Than Holding Obama's Feet to the Fire

Catholic Nuns Urge Passage of Obama's Health Bill

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (17 March 2010))

Faithful Women Religious Release Counter-Statement

American Papist reports:

Hot on the heels of the liberal women religious orders that released a statement yesterday in support of the anti-life health care bill, this statement was released today by the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (bold parts are mine):

In a March 15th statement, Cardinal Francis George, OMI, of Chicago, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, spoke on behalf of the United States Bishops in opposition to the Senate’s version of the health care legislation under consideration because of its expansion of abortion funding and its lack of adequate provision for conscience protection. Recent statements from groups like Network, the Catholic Health Association and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) directly oppose the Catholic Church’s position on critical issues of health care reform.

The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, the second conference of Major Superiors of Women Religious in the United States, believes the Bishops’ position is the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church.

Protection of life and freedom of conscience are central to morally responsible judgment. We join the bishops in seeking ethically sound legislation.

Mother Mary Quentin Sheridan, R.S.M.

President

On behalf of the Membership of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious

[More]

My Comments:
Unfortunately, outside of Catholic news sources, this will receive about 0% of the major media attention that yesterday's statement from the dissident nuns received.

Catholic Obama Supporters More Interested in Providing Cover Than Holding Obama's Feet to the Fire

As we see from my earlier post regarding the dissident nuns who have called the Bishops liars on health care, the Catholic left is more interested in blaming the pro-life opponents of health care reform for its possible demise rather than placing the blame where it squarely belongs: on the President and the congressional Democrat leadership for valuing federally funded abortion more than they value health care reform.

Opinionated Catholic takes the President's Catholic supporters to task:

... The Catholic Obama pro-life supporters could have used their supposed influence and made this problem go away and there would be a health care bill. It shows that Obama in his Notre Dame speech which were told we should all be happy about does not amount to much. That is the problem and the elephant in the room they do not want to talk about. THEY HAVE NO INFLUENCE so lets blame the "right"

The abortion question could have been dealt with very early but yet the Obama administration did not do it. Maybe because as we see they knew their Catholic supporters would be covering their ass. Even if that meant trying to implicate that their own Bishops were idiot stooges.

In the real political world they would be making their displeasure known against Obama and thus draw blood for betrayal. Here it seems though that "party" over rides that. CYA is the ultimate cover for folks that appears that cannot influence the President on just basics of Pro-life principles...

(emphasis added)

Opinionated Catholic follows up on the subject today with "Why The Abortion Funding In the Bill Is a A Step Backwards":

... See Why is Senate hiding from Hyde?

I agree with Sister Mary Ann Walsh as to this. That any retreat from the Hyde Amendment is a step backward and a dangerous one at that.

Bishop VASA has similar thoughts here at Seeking a health plan that does not expand abortion

Any retreat from the Hyde amendment viewpoint I think is very dangerous. The Catholic Bishops have supported National health Care since the days of Woodrow Wilson. The fact they are opposing legislation without assurance of the status quo as to the Hyde Amendment should show us that this concern is real.

The opposition of the Catholic Bishops can be easily dealt with. Make sure the bill complies with HYDE.

Those Catholics who find themselves on the opposite side of the Stupak debate from the Bishops need to ask themselves why they are trying to minimize the impact of something that the Bishops feel so strongly about that they are willing to scuttle an effort that would, arguably, further the Bishops' century-long desire for universal health care.

Could Opinionated Catholic be right that party trumps religious principle for those folks? Nah, surely not. That couldn't be it.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Because Blaming the Minority Opposition Party is Easier Than Owning Up to Having Aligned Yourself With a Party For Whom Abortion is a Sacrament

Robert P. George on "Obama and His Pro-Life Apologists"

Robert George vs Douglas Kmiec: How Should a Pro-Life Citizen Respond to Obama? [UPDATED]

Zippy: "How Can We Help?"

Catholic Nuns Urge Passage of Obama's Health Bill

And these dissidents wonder why the Vatican is investigating them:

WASHINGTON — Catholic nuns are urging Congress to pass President Barack Obama's health care plan, in an unusual public break with bishops who say it would subsidize abortion.

Some 60 leaders of religious orders representing 59,000 Catholic nuns Wednesday sent lawmakers a letter urging them to pass the Senate health care bill. It contains restrictions on abortion funding that the bishops say don't go far enough.

The letter says that "despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions." [ED.: Calling the Bishops liars, are we?] The letter says the legislation also will help support pregnant women and "this is the real pro-life stance." [ED.: Will this tired, unsubstantiated, and false meme ever end? Thank you Doug Kmiec for working with George Soros to mainstream as "pro-life" what is nothing more than fallback position of "progressives" who claim to be "pro-life" but who are really more interested in pushing a leftist Democrat agenda.]

The Bishops' view (i.e. the official Catholic position) on the health care bill was expressed yesterday by USCCB President, Cardinal George.

Digest of Today's Posts (17 March 2010)

St. Patrick's Breastplate (The Deer's Cry)

Happy Feast Day of St. Patrick - 17 March

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (16 March 2010))

St. Patrick's Breastplate (The Deer's Cry)

Sung by Rita Connolly. From "The Pilgrim" by Shaun Davey.



I arise today through the strength of heaven
Light of sun, radiance of moon
Splendor of fire, speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind, depth of the sea
Stability of earth, firmness of rock

I arise today through God's strength to pilot me
God's eye to look before me
God's wisdom to guide me
God's way to lie before me
God's shield to protect me

From all who shall wish me ill
Afar and a-near
Alone and in a multitude
Against every cruel, merciless power
That may oppose my body and soul

Christ with me, Christ before me
Christ behind me, Christ in me
Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down
Christ when I arise, Christ to shield me

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me

I arise today
Based on the Lorica of St. Patrick.

Here's another version of "The Deer's Cry", as sung by the artist Angelina and interspersed with scenes from Ireland, that has appeared on EWTN:

Happy Feast Day of St. Patrick - 17 March

[NOTE: This is my annual St. Patrick's Day post, originally posted on St. Patrick's Day 2005]

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh!
(Happy St. Patrick's Day!)

As a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, I am, quite predictably, a big fan of St. Patrick. Long before I became Catholic, St. Patrick - with his bishop's mitre and crozier - stood there beckoning me home to the Church of my forebears. Indeed, the first rosary I ever purchased (again, before I ever became Catholic) had a St. Patrick junction and a Celtic Cross Crucifix. St. Patrick's feast day, therefore, is a cause for great celebration in our household.

But just what is it about this British-born saint - who (1) was kidnapped as a boy from his home in Britain by Irish pirates, (2) was sold into slavery in Ireland, (3) escaped from his Irish oppressors, and (4) returned to Ireland to evangelize his former captors (the same Irish who would, a century later, with saints like Columba and Aidan, re-evangelize Britain after the Anglo-Saxon invasions) - that makes his feast day celebrated to a greater extent around the world than most other saints?

Perhaps it is because of the extent of the Irish Diaspora, which stretches from Continental Europe to North America to South America to Australia, and numbers in the tens of millions - making St. Patrick not only the patron saint of Ireland, but of all Irish all over the world. Possibly, it could be St. Patrick's contribution to Celtic Christianity, an influence that can be seen in the Lorica of St. Patrick, which has been attributed to him.

For more on the story behind why St. Patrick is such a significant personage within the Church, especially where the Irish are concerned,

go here: Patron Saints Index - Patrick,

and here: The History of St. Patrick's Day,

and here: Saint Patrick's Day: An Irish Celebration,

and here: The Ultimate St. Patrick.

But unfortunately, I think the real reason this particular feast day has such resonance with so many people has nothing whatsoever to do with its religious significance. St. Patrick's Day, like Christmas, is a religious feast day that has lost much of its meaning due to over-secularization. Rather than a day to celebrate the life of this great British saint who evangelized the Irish, St. Patrick's Day has become just another excuse to get drunk and tell stupid Irish jokes.

Personally, one of the biggest problems I have with the secular celebrations of St. Patrick's Day is the ubiquitous presence of the leprechaun. On and around St. Patrick's Day, this little fairy creature can be seen on the front pages of major newspapers, on greeting cards, and on televisions selling used cars, credit cards, and beer in a cheesy Irish brogue accent.

Given the artistic legacy of beautiful music, poetry, literature, and liturgical art bequeathed to us by the Irish; given the indispensable contributions the Irish have made to Christianity and Western Civilization as documented by Thomas Cahill in his best-selling book How the Irish Saved Civilization; and given the steadfastness of the Irish in overcoming historical persecution - racial, cultural, economic, and religious; I find the use of the leprechaun on St. Patrick's Day as a symbol of the Irish people and their cultural contributions about as appropriate as a lawn jockey on Martin Luther King Day.

Some will think that is not an apt comparison. Sorry, but I think it quite apt. The leprechaun as a symbol of this holy feast day is just plain offensive, and should go the way of the kerchief-headed version of Aunt Jemima.

The Irish - that mystical race of warriors and poets, saints and scholars, who brought us great works of literature like Ulysses and Gulliver's Travels, early medieval illuminated manuscripts like the Books of Kells and Durrow, musicians like Turlough O'Carolan, Altan, U2 and Van Morrison, wordsmiths like W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney, kings like Brian Boru and ... (well, Brian's about it as far as great Irish kings go), political heroes like Daniel O'Connell and Michael Collins, and saints like Columcille (a.k.a. Columba), Brendan, Aidan, and Columbanus - deserve better on the feast day of their patron saint than to be represented by a short, ruddy (and might I add, pagan) fairy dressed in a green suit.

The University of Notre Dame is also guilty of this blood libel against the children of Erin. The University does quite a disservice to the true spirit of the "Fighting Irish" by representing that spirit in the form of a leprechaun (of course, some would argue that Notre Dame also does a disservice to Ex Corde Ecclesiae by calling itself "Catholic" while allowing such nonsense as The Vagina Monologues and Fr. Richard McBrien on campus). Bring back the Irish Terrier to represent the Fighting Irish, as it did in the days of Knute Rockne. Just get rid of that damned leprechaun!!! (Oops! Sorry about that. That should be "damned leprechaun".)

Okay. Rant over.

Hopefully, we can try to keep in mind today (1) the spiritual legacy of Ireland's patron saint, and (2) the many cultural contributions of the people he loved so dearly as to bring them the Light of Christ - which are, after all, the primary reasons we celebrate the feast of St. Patrick. Even if the rest of the world is too deep in a drunken stupor to notice.

And so I end with the following blessing:

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
(St. Patrick's Day Blessing On You!)

Recommended Reading:
Patrick: The Pilgrim Apostle of Ireland by Maire B. de Paor
The Confession of St. Patrick by John Skinner
How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill
Wisdom of the Celtic Saints by Edward C. Sellner
Sun Dancing by Geoffrey Moorhouse




Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Happy Feast Day of St. Patrick - 17 March (2009)

Happy Feast Day of St. Patrick - 17 March (2008)

What I'm Listening to in Honor of St. Patrick's Day

Don't Drink Green Beer!

St. Pat's Spat Pits Church vs. Cities

Happy Feast Day of St. Patrick - 17 March (2007)

"... The Slur of the Fighting Irish"

Happy Feast Day of St. Patrick - 17 March (2006)

Search Terms: St. Patrick's Day, Lent, Abstinence, Meat - Corned Beef, Dispensation, Indult, Catholic

Happy Feast Day of St. Patrick - 17 March (2005)