Todd was born into a loving family in small town Pennsylvania. His mother was Roman Catholic and his father a Methodist. While his father continued to attend Methodist church, Todd’s mother was responsible for raising Todd and his older sister in the Catholic Church. Todd’s mother ensured they attended Mass, learned their prayers, received the sacraments, and attended CCD. She even taught in the CCD program at the small-town parish that they attended. Todd has fond memories of this church, “I have a lot more appreciation for it [now]. It was a good place to be because you got a sense of community there; and the community and the parish was not that differentiated. Everyone knew everyone and there was a real concern for each other.” Todd describes himself as “One of the kids who paid more attention in CCD. For example, if we played Bible trivia, I was the kid that everyone wanted on their team.”

In 10^th grade, Todd began to serve regularly in church as a lector and an usher. People thought him to be a model young parishioner who had a marked maturity in his faith.

By 11^th grade confirmation, Todd continued to be one of the outstanding students in his CCD class, which had dwindled to about seven or eight teenagers. Before confirmation, a former CCD teacher asked him, “Do you think you are ready?” Todd confidently said “Yes.” His former teacher assured him: “We all think you are ready too”. Todd remembers, “I nodded, because I was impressed with how much I knew. Coming out of that parish I thought, ‘Well, I am doing pretty well for myself!’” However, Todd now has a different perspective, “In reality, I was well on his way to becoming the typical Catholic teen male: going to Mass when convenient, not doing anything else, but feeling good about my state of religion”.

Upon graduation, Todd went on to attend RIT. At the beginning of freshman year, an orientation assistant invited him to a Bible study for his dorm. “I figured that I might as well have something to do on a Thursday night, so I agreed,” he said. He was surprised when he saw 15 students from his small honors dorm packed into the room. “I was impressed [with the turnout]. And I wanted to impress them with my extraordinary knowledge! ” he says tongue in cheek.

Most of the students in the group were Protestant; Todd was one of only two Catholics. Being around a group of Protestant students was definitely a new experience for him. He was soon in awe of the other students’ level of knowledge regarding scripture. He remembers a time during the first few weeks of the Bible study when the leader announced they were going to study the book of Hebrews. While the other students were busy turning pages in their Bibles, she kindly leaned over to Todd to help him find it. Todd thought, “Is it that obvious that I don’t know what I’m talking about?”

This was Todd’s first real encounter with mainstream Protestantism. While his father was a Methodist, he and his dad had never really engaged in deep theological discussion about the differences between Protestants and Catholics. “I was blown away [by the other students],” Todd says. “Here were people who were my own age and they had me beaten in every single category. They had more zeal, more biblical knowledge, and some had better theological know-how. And I didn’t really know how to handle that”. However, it did inspire him to increase his own understanding of his Christian faith.

In addition to participating regularly in his dorm Bible study, Todd joined a Baptist- Campus Ministry. This group provided lunchtime discussions on the Bible, retreats, and other events. Todd was less impressed with the Catholic groups that he encountered on campus, and spending freshman year with Baptist Campus Ministries provided a more desirable alternative. These activities influenced Todd to increase and deepen his understanding of Christianity and what it means to be a Christian. He began to learn more about Scripture.

However, as a Catholic, he was usually in the minority. “For the first time, I actually had to defend my theology,” he said. Todd continued going to Mass every week with the exception of one weekend when he attended a Baptist service.

He made friends through these groups, one of which made a particular impact on Todd. This young man was also in his freshman year at RIT. He and Todd were in a lot of the same classes and switched majors early freshman year. This provided a common ground for friendship. The young man was a Methodist, and he and Todd debated from time to time about Catholic versus Protestant theology. Todd’s friend also attended Bible study sessions at the St Irenaeus Center in Rochester. He shared some of the things he was learning with Todd, and encouraged Todd to attend.

The students then went home for the summer. In August, Todd received a call from his friend, with the surprising news that he had been doing a lot of praying and was planning to convert to Catholicism. Todd couldn’t help but wonder, “Why does he want to become Catholic? While I still considered myself a Catholic, I had been impressed by the knowledge and zeal that Protestants have.” It made little sense at the time, and Todd knew he had to find the out the reason for his friend’s decision.

His friend had been attending Mass, and talked about his awe of the Eucharist (though he was not able yet to receive it). Todd remembered the Baptist service that he had attended the prior school year. While Todd found the sermon inspiring and full of substance, he definitely felt the lack of the Eucharistic presence. “Despite my underdevelopment I knew something was missing.” A few years later, his friend went on to study for the Catholic priesthood.

Sophomore year, Todd began to attend Bible studies at the St. Irenaeus Ministry and met the director, David Higbee. “I was really impressed with the way David was able to present Scripture and theological topics in a way that combined Protestant zeal with a historical, Catholic perspective.”

Todd also became involved with the St. Titus fellowship at the St. Irenaeus Center, a group for young people that seeks to serve the cause of orthodox discipleship, approaching issues from the perspective of the Church’s historic understanding

Todd began meeting more and more young Catholics in the Rochester area. Through the year he was attending three Bible studies a week at St. Irenaeus. He enjoyed learning more about the various topics that were explored by the group. They discussed everything from theological subjects, to Scripture, to interesting articles. The topics were interesting and the discussion lively.

As he studied Scripture in greater detail, Todd started to realize what he had been missing, David Higbee’s sessions and clear conviction about Catholicism made a significant impact on Todd. For example, gaining a better understanding of how the prophets pointed to Jesus Christ in Scripture made him see Catholicism in whole a new light

Todd describes his sophomore year as an important step in figuring out how the Catholic faith fit into his life. “St Irenaeus and St. Titus got me to think and pray about this faith that I supposedly had. It got me to a point where I wasn’t content with just going to Mass when it was convenient, or saying a few prayers before going to bed. These young people I met [at St. Irenaeus], they weren’t my usual conception of the zealous Christian. They were real people with a strong Christian faith who happened to be Catholic. Other than the Protestants that I had met in college, I had never seen anyone with that kind of zeal.”

Todd again went home that summer. This time, “Something wasn’t the same because I was lacking the friends that I had made in Rochester. In high school I had some very good friends; friends who I would do anything for. But [at that time] I had not realized how much we were missing in that bond. There was something about this newly-discovered Catholic fellowship that I missed.”

Junior year began and Todd returned to Rochester. He remembers this as a very good year. “I really started to feel a sense of community, especially among the people at St. Irenaeus. To me the faith community had always been my parents and people I’d meet once or twice at church, but there was never a real core purpose to anything I’d been in before. But at St. Irenaeus, [I met] people with drive and people with vision. It wasn’t always directed to an immediate goal, but I could tell they were striving. That really roused something in me.”

Todd was also happy that his junior year roommate started coming to St. Titus with him. “That was probably one of the best things for me”, Todd says. He describes his roommate as, “A good man, a good Christian. [He had] a decent amount of theological savvy, so I could discuss things with him and debate a little. He was not Catholic, but we still had a great sense of common brotherhood. If there is one thing that really impressed me in college, it was the number of good, steady Protestants out there. We might not agree on everything, and I certainly hope one day we can unite under one Church. But I respect their amount of zeal and devotion.”

However, he became less enchanted with some of his other Protestant friends. “I’m not categorically blown away like I used to be” he says. “As I started to develop in this Catholic faith, I began to see a bunch of things that surprised me. They had this amazing devotion freshman year, but I haven’t seen much development. It is kind of frustrating to look at them and see the stagnation there. This was something I had always associated with myself, with young Catholics: just getting to a point and settling in. I [now] see this in a lot of my friends from college.” He still has a lot of respect for Protestants. While he is much more solid in his Catholic faith, he acknowledges, “You can’t deny the life in other denominations.”

Todd spent a good part of the next summer working in Rochester. “That summer was the most blessed time in my life. I talked about the development of my faith and development of my community. For the first time, I also started to develop an honest sense of family, in the sense of a Christian family.” As to the people he has met at St. Irenaeus, “These are men who I actually look at like brothers.” In some ways, Todd feels that he and his friends are similar to the early Christians in that they have a strong faith and a “oneness of worship”.

“Of course there are the older men that frequent the Irenaeus center. Something that really helps my sense of community is seeing their involvement. I think people in my age group have a lot of idealism, and that is very good but can also crumble into cynicism when nothing seems to go right. In a lot of the older men at St. Irenaeus, I see a steady pragmatism that only comes with age and experience and that I think every young man can benefit from.”

Todd graduated college in the spring of 2008 and is beginning a new chapter in his life. This is the start of his fifth year in Rochester. He calls the fact that he has grown more in understanding of his Catholic faith, a “tremendous understatement”. His life has changed in several ways.

For one, Todd approaches the sacraments a lot more seriously. “There comes a point where it suddenly becomes a part of who you are. When you make that realization it makes you encounter the sacraments differently.” For example, receiving Communion as the full Divinity has become truly awe inspiring. And before, he had gone to Confession just once or twice a year. “I now have more of a realization about just how affected I am by sin, but not in a depressed or despairing way. One of the things I heard over and over early in college was the need to have a ‘personal relationship with Jess Christ’. I used to push that off as ‘Protestant talk’. But now, sin means offending a God who is a truly part of me had made it much more serious, much more personal.” These days, Todd attends Confession much more frequently.

He also evangelizes to others. For the past few years, Todd and a friend have run a Bible study at St. John Fisher College. Their group welcomes all denominations, but provides a Catholic perspective. Todd continues to hope for future reconciliation of all Christians under one Church.

Learning to run a Bible study requires him to continue learning and growing spiritually. He has found that being a leader in such a group is a lot different than being a student. “It made me want to look at the scripture in greater detail once I had to teach someone else about it. This forces you to understand and look at things in depth.” He often finds himself doing research in the St. Irenaeus library in an attempt to understand certain biblical passages and be able to explain them to others.

He is also learning the ropes of working with a student population where both attendance and attention can fluctuate. Often, Todd is very enthusiastic and well-prepared about a particular topic, but must figure out how to convey his knowledge in a meaningful way that captures and holds others’ attention.

He has realized that the achievement of material wealth no longer holds the same attraction for him as it did before college. He wants to focus his efforts on renewing the faith in Rochester, and bring others back to the traditional Catholic faith. Todd also sees himself getting married someday.

Todd’s parents are supportive of their son. “They can definitely see the change in who I am.” He is grateful to them. “My parents laid the foundation,” he explains. “If they hadn’t brought me up as a Christian I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

In speaking at a Men’s Prayer Breakfast a few years ago, Todd described how he was struck by the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus says:

Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants” (Luke 12:37-38).

Todd explains, “There are a lot of stories/allegories like this in the Bible. Before it had seemed to me to be kind of sneaky on Jesus’ part that if people are supposed to be waiting for you on the first watch, why not only come then? Now I thank God He didn’t come on the first watch because I would have been asleep.”

Todd also quotes Psalm. 93:17:

Were not the Lord my help, my soul would be dwelling in a silent grave‘.

“Wow. That pretty much summarizes what I would have been if it had not been for the community I found here.”

God bless Todd in his future endeavors.

Dr. Warren Hern, one of the last abortionists willing to perform very late-term abortions in the United States, has written published works describing man as a “malignant eco-tumor” destroying the earth.

Esquire magazine reports in a story entitled “the Last Abortion Doctor,” that Hern, the director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic since 1975, argued in a work called Urban Malignancy: Similarity in the Fractal Dimensions of Urban Morphology and Malignant Neoplasms that growing human populations act like a “malignant ecotumor.”

Many of the movers and shakers who favor abortion often display a near-hatred for humanity. Of course, they also see themselves as being genetically and socially superior to most people. They are just the latest manifestation of the eugenicists who believed in eliminating “undesirables” from the human population.

Generally speaking, population controllers are people who have a twisted outlook on life. They believe certain groups of people should be eliminated so that we can have a master race of super humans. They are really nothing more than sophisticated Nazis. Instead of gas chambers, they use abortifacients and abortionists to do their dirty work. Unfortunately, their true agenda is too often concealed or ignored by those in government and media. Oh, and I can’t leave out the far too many priests and bishops who refuse to speak-out.

Someday, the history books will document the horrors that have been committed by these new eugenicists. And someday historians will marvel at the fact that so few people spoke out against it.

The USCCB needs to be either reformed or disbanded before they can cause any more harm. I vote for the latter.

Recently, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development released a statement made to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate stating that “health care is not a privilege but a right and a requirement to protect the life and dignity of each person.” They couldn’t be more wrong.

Failure to differentiate between what is a fundamental human right and an opinion of what is deemed to be good by some — and the confusion over what is morally binding and what is not — has had deleterious effects on America’s Catholics and on the country as a whole. This failure in such statements distorts the truth. Furthermore, they divide the faithful and affect the political process.

Moral authority and suasion therefore cannot be squandered on social preference. This is especially true for the Catholic bishops, since they are called to proclaim God’s law and not to promote a political agenda. To confuse what is morally right with a perceived social good, no matter how meritorious their intentions, is to abuse their office causing grave intra-Church and societal consequences.

To promote health care as a right under the aegis of Catholic morality by the USCCB is not the truth. As a matter of fact, it is not even charity because, as the Pope says, “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way.”

Such carelessness with the truth, whether intentional or unintentional, by the USCCB undermines both the Catholic Church and American society.

Pope Benedict XVI does not want the faithful receiving Communion in their hand nor does he want them standing to receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. According to Vatican liturgist, Monsignor Guido Marini, the pope is trying to set the stage for the whole church as to the proper norm for receiving Communion for which reason communicants at his papal Masses are now asked to kneel and receive on the tongue.

I can’t imagine this news will be looked upon favorably by the diocese. If true, they will have to admit that the practice of Communion in the hand has been an exception (indult) to the universal law of the Church. The norm is and has been Communion on the tongue. If the Vatican revokes this indult, the United States, Canada, and Mexico will have to return to the standard practice of Communion on the tongue.

One of the primary apostolates of the Sisters of Reparation is to spread the message of Divine Mercy in missions all around the country. They also run two annual week long “nun camps” for girls aged 12 to 18. These girls spend a week at the convent learning about life in a religious community. The camps are so popular that they have waiting lists of hopeful participants from all around the United States.

Apart from the sisters loving and joyful attitudes, the thing I found most impressive was that they are always seen in full habit. Not a pantsuit among them. And, the sisters wear their habits for everything-working in their garden, driving their tractor, cooking, housework, etc. For Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s church, they sat up in the front in their “Class A” (formal) habits. What an impressive sight. And what a wonderful testimony.

I strongly encourage you to visit the sister’s website. If you have younger daughters, encourage them to attend one of their nun camps. And please send them a generous donation. I guarantee it will be money well spent.

In truth, though, Obama’s pragmatic approach to divisive policy (his notion that we should acknowledge the good faith underlying opposing viewpoints) and his social-justice agenda reflect the views of American Catholic laity much more closely than those vocal bishops and pro-life activists. When Obama meets the pope tomorrow, they’ll politely disagree about reproductive freedoms and homosexuality, but Catholics back home won’t care, because they know Obama’s on their side. In fact, Obama’s agenda is closer to their views than even the pope’s.

The hierarchy ignores women’s equality and gays’ cry for justice because to heed them would require that it admit error and acknowledge that the self-satisfied edifice constructed around sex and gender has been grievously wrong

Notre Dame awarded the president an honorary degree because it saw the need to highlight the best of Catholic teaching as applied to politics: the ability to open the eyes of those who would prefer to keep them closed, and to open the hearts of those who would prefer not to know the pain that their actions cause. The pope has a lot to learn about Catholic politics in America. Barack Obama can teach him.

Responding to Cardinal Georges Cottier’s recent article praising President Obama, Vatican analyst Sandro Magister has said the cardinal almost exalts Obama as “a new Constantine, the head of a modern empire that is also generous toward the Church.”

Magister responded by saying that Cardinal Cottier “denies that Obama can be considered ‘pro-abortion,’ and even attributes to him the desire to ‘do everything possible to make the number of abortions as small as possible’ just as did ‘the first Christian legislators, who did not immediately overturn the Roman laws that were tolerant toward practices inconsistent with or even contrary to the natural law, like concubinage and slavery.’”

Bishops who have deep theological differences with the Pope are undermining the unity of the Catholic Church, a prominent English bishop has claimed.

“The idea that there could be theological differences between a bishop and the Pope is just an incredible thing to admit but it is the truth. I suppose if priests see bishops showing disloyalty to the Pope, it is hardly surprising that they in turn should show disloyalty to their bishop. We all know what Jesus said about a divided house.”

“For example, we have witnessed a wholesale rejection of the Church’s perennial teaching against contraception. This is the litmus test of the acceptance of the obedience in the Church. How many priests support Gaudium et Spes’s crystal-clear rejection of contraception, upheld by successive popes – Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI? If we reject their teaching on this matter we are saying as priests that we know better than the successor of Peter! Is this tenable in a priest?” The Catholic Herald

The Vatican’s secret archives on Pius XII should be ready for opening in about five years and will clear him of accusations that he turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, the archives’ head said on Thursday.

“He was a great pope, who, as you know, is under attack for his presumed silence on the Shoah,” said Monsignor Sergio Pagano, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust. “But in reality he did many things for Jews and for prisoners of World War Two”.

“There will be some nice surprises, even as far as the Jews are concerned,” Pagano said, adding that the pope did not remain inactive when Jews were rounded up for deportation on October, 1943.

“Pope Pius took great risks, even very great personal risks, to save Jews. I can’t say more now but whoever wants to open their eyes in five or six years will be able to open them,” he said. Reuters News Agency

I’ve been a harsh critic of ourselves, meaning the Church leadership – priests, bishops and theologians. I don’t think we’ve done a particularly good job in my lifetime. We’ve had great popes; the top of the hierarchy has always been fantastic. But we’ve had a serious problem with “middle management.” There has been a significant problem with bishops and priests. Although, it’s better now than it was 20 years ago. However, the vast majority of Catholics aren’t even going to Church, so we shouldn’t wonder that the Church has been losing its influence on an increasingly secularized society.

You have to ask yourself why people have drifted away. I’m sure there are a lot of societal reasons. We don’t have control over those reasons, but we have control over the reasons inside the Church. You can start with the top. There is an old saying: “The fish stinks from the head down.” Lousy leadership is a disaster.

I once asked an old Carmelite nun why we have a crisis of leadership inside the Church as well as in the secular order. She never batted an eye. She had been a nun for over 60 years and a prioress for decades. She said, “That’s easy. Punishment for sin.” Why do we have bad leadership? Punishment for sin. It’s very biblical. You go back to the Old Testament and you see that leadership was removed from the people of God, the chosen people, because of infidelity to the covenant. They cried out to God because they had no priest, prophet or king. Why not? Because they were unfaithful.

And on his upcoming conference in Buffalo:

We’ve done several events in the past with Buffalo’s Catholic radio station. They wanted to do a large event, so it fell into place. This is shaping up to be the largest event that I’ve ever preached at. Already 10,000 people are registered.

The topic is going to be on the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s a powerful thing to combine Catholic teaching on the Holy Spirit in a very practical and powerful way with the troubled times we find ourselves in. These are no ordinary times. It’s not just a downturn in the economy. We’re already well into a downturn morally, economically, socially. It’s almost cataclysmic. We have the answer. The problem is that we have to convince enough of our own people that there is a problem and teach them how to solve it.

“Paul wants the Christian faith have a ‘responsible’, an ‘adult faith,” said the Holy Father. “The word ‘adult faith’ has in recent decades become a popular slogan. It is often used to refer to the attitude of those who no longer adhere to the Church and her pastors, but choose for themselves what they want to believe and not believe – a kind of do-it-yourself faith.”

Benedict XVI continued: “Speaking against the Magisterium of the Church is presented as courageous. In reality, however, it does not take courage for this, since you can always be sure of audience applause.”

“Rather it takes courage to adhere to the faith of the Church, even if it contradicts the ’scheme’ of the contemporary world,” said the Pope. “It is this non-conformism of the faith that Paul calls an ‘adult faith.’”

I know to raise the issue of women and married men to be considered as priests is unacceptable for some among us…not for me…I pray that wherever priests come from that we as God’s family would be open to allow people to serve…if you feel only male celibates should be ordained, fine, encourage and pray for that…wherever the vocations come from, let us just pray and accept them to serve.

My prayer for this Year of the Priest is that all our Church would be open to consider the many fine Deacons who could be ordained to ministerial priesthood…that we should not be afraid to open ourselves to other Married Men becoming candidates…that our Church would use this year to study and examine whether women should be ordained as deacons…that we should consider the possibility that God has planted the vocation to priesthood in women’s lives and we would seriously try to discern that…that even for bishops, we would return to the traditional process where the people had a say in offering candidates…I am sure that these ideas are not part of Pope Benedict’s plan for this year, but as long as we are going to focus on priests, let’s consider all the dimensions of Priesthood and the real need our Church has.

Well, I have said enough for today…

I strongly concur with Father Murphy’s last line.

The only response that is necessary to Father Murphy’s misleading discourse is this:

Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful. ( Ordinatio Sacerdotalis , Pope John Paul II, May 22, 1994)

And this:

This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.

The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, approved this Reply, adopted in the ordinary session of this Congregation, and ordered it to be published. ( Responsum ad Dubium , Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect, October 28, 1995)

More and more often, the charitable agencies run by American Catholic dioceses are doing business with the government, providing contract services to fill various social needs. The offices of Catholic Charities, at both the local and national levels, receive the lion’s share of their funding from government programs. They have become agencies of the welfare bureaucracy. The agencies themselves are no longer truly acting for the Church, carrying out the corporate charity of the faithful. They are now wards of the state.

Another problem with Catholic Charities becoming wards of the state, is the cooperative relationships that are formed with pro-abort politicians. Locally, pro-abort, pro-gay marriage Catholic Assemblyman Joe Morelle is an occasional rainmaker for Catholic Charities. Last year, he published a campaign flyer which included a photo of him with several of our diocesan priests.

These kind of photo-ops give Morelle credibility with the Catholic voter even though he consistently takes legislative positions that are contrary to the Church’s teaching. Also, perhaps because of the Catholic Charites funding, he is never publicly (or privately?) censured by the diocese for his votes against life and sexual morality.

The recent incident in Boston over the diocesan Caritas Christi health care system was a wakeup call for Catholics all across the country. More and more of these government/Church associations will be under increased scrutiny as a result of this near scandal in Boston.

One day, these corrupting government partnerships will come to an end. Then the Church in America will once again be uninhibited in its mission of proclaiming the truth.

“Praise God! After months of tireless effort from American Life League and pro-life heroes in Boston and around the country to expose a potential scandal only days away from becoming a tragic betrayal of Catholicism’s unwavering commitment to the dignity of the human person, Cardinal Sean O’Malley has heard our voices and will end the joint venture with abortion-providing Centene Corp!

“Cardinal O’Malley has answered our call and beat the clock as the minutes ticked away until the July 1 launch of the new CeltiCare Health Plan and the Catholic Church’s participation in the intrinsic evil of abortion.

And from the Boston Globe:

Caritas Christi Health Care, the financially challenged Catholic hospital system founded by the Archdiocese of Boston, is abruptly ending its joint venture with a Missouri-based health insurer at the insistence of Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, who has decided that the relationship represented too much of an entanglement between Catholic hospitals and abortion providers.

The dramatic development, announced last night, is a setback for Caritas because it represents the undoing of one of the steps its new chief executive, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, had announced as part of his effort to turn around the hospital system’s finances. It was not immediately clear last night what the financial impact of the change is on Caritas, but the decision is a stark and public reminder from O’Malley to de la Torre and the general public that moral concerns will trump monetary issues at Catholic hospitals.

Good work, Judie!

Virginian Judge Harvie Wilkinson on partial birth abortion (LifeNews):

“The fact is that we-civilized people-are retreating to the haven of our Constitution to justify dismembering a partly born child and crushing its skull,” Wilkinson wrote. “Surely centuries hence, people will look back on this gruesome practice done in the name of fundamental law by a society of high achievement. And they will shudder.”

The proposed federal hate crime law, like all hate crime laws, politicizes crime, leading to pressure on police and prosecutors to devote more of their limited resources to certain victims at the expense of others. For example, homosexual activist groups descended on Wyoming and created a media circus around the Matthew Shepard case, costing the state heavily for public relations. Meanwhile, the story of Kristin Lamb, an eight-year-old girl who a month before Shepard’s death was killed in Wyoming and her body thrown into a landfill, received virtually no news coverage or concerns about a possible “hate crime.”

Hate crime laws lay the groundwork for assaults on freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In Canada, Great Britain and Sweden, clergy have been investigated and arrested for advocating traditional morality.

“Hate crime” laws are already being used to silence people in the United States. A pastor in New York’s Staten Island saw two billboards with a Bible verse on them taken down in 2000 under pressure from city officials, who cited “hate crime” rhetoric.

In Philadelphia, 11 Christians were arrested and jailed overnight for singing and preaching in a public park at a homosexual street festival in 2004. Five of them were bound over and charged with five felonies and three misdemeanors, totaling a possible 47 years in jail. These charges, based on Pennsylvania’s “hate crimes” law, hung over them for months until a judge finally dismissed them.

American Life League executive director Shaun Kenney announced a new campaign to investigate whether young mothers will be referred for abortions by Caritas Christi, the Boston Archdiocese-affiliated health-care provider, after its joint venture with CeltiCare goes into effect July 1.

“Caritas Christi and the Archdiocese of Boston have given reassurances that no Catholic hospitals will make abortion referrals,” stated Kenney. “After July 1, we will put that guarantee to the test.”

“American Life League and its associates will not be satisfied with a policy that provides degrees of separation between the mother and an abortion business,” said Kenney. “Catholics within the Archdiocese of Boston should be told the truth.”

“This scandal will not go away quietly so long as mothers and their babies are threatened by abortion through a supposedly Catholic health-care system,” stated Kenney. “Either our Catholic hospitals live up to our Catholic identity and protect every human being – born and preborn – or we compromise our principles and turn a blind eye for the sake of state and federal funding. Mothers and their babies deserve much better, and we will do everything we can to ensure this is the case.

Not that many years ago abortion was illegal in this country. Now we have the threat of the Catholic Church being caught up in this intrinsic evil.

Thank you ALL and Judie Brown for keeping an eye on this potential scandal. What a shame that precious resources must be expended in order to keep an eye on our own Church.

The latest from PETA (LifesiteNews article):

A spokesman for the organization(PETA) told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) in an interview that it is “loathsome” and “grotesquely hypocritical” that pro-lifers oppose abortion, but are unconcerned about the mistreatment of chickens and other animals used in the food industry.

Saying it “loathsome” that pro-lifers have “zero consciousness” on the issue of “animal abuse” in factories, Freidrich went on to say that “I would say to the pro-life movement, remove the log from your own eye, and then come after the speck in the eye of the animal protection movement. But until the pro-life movement does that, they have zero credibility in my book.”