Reflections from the pastoral ministry of an Evangelical Catholic Priest.
30 April, 2015
29 April, 2015
28 April, 2015
27 April, 2015
26 April, 2015
25 April, 2015
24 April, 2015
23 April, 2015
22 April, 2015
Dad gets parental rights: Shockingly, law not on side of a woman who used turkey baster to impregnate herself | National Post
Yes... you read that right... a 'turkey baster'! The best comment that accompanied this news story is even better:
"Memo to all her friends: do not attend Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner at her house ..."
You know the drill. Click on the link below if you want to read the rest of the article and the hilarious comments that follow.
Dad gets parental rights: Shockingly, law not on side of a woman who used turkey baster to impregnate herself | National Post
"Memo to all her friends: do not attend Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner at her house ..."
You know the drill. Click on the link below if you want to read the rest of the article and the hilarious comments that follow.
Dad gets parental rights: Shockingly, law not on side of a woman who used turkey baster to impregnate herself | National Post
The world is going to 'hell in a handbasket' - end of April edition
Reading the news can be hazardous to one’s sense of hope for us as a species or as a just and vibrant culture. This past couple of weeks offered a perfect illustration of this with two stories. One dealing an imprisoned priest fighting to clear his name while the other deals with two chimpanzees named Hercules and Leo.
Fr. Gordon MacRae has been in prison in the United States for the past 20 years. The crimes for which he was accused and convicted are claimed to have occurred when he was between 25 and 30 years old. Brought with no evidence or corroboration whatsoever, the claims were accompanied by lawsuits settled by his Diocese for hundreds of thousands of dollars despite evidence of fraud. Father MacRae maintains his innocence of these crimes, and could have left prison 16 years ago had he accepted any of the “plea deals” presented to him before trial. In the years since the panic-driven and selective release of files and other accumulated claims and demands for money – but no evidence – some began to take a closer look under the surface of the case against Father Gordon MacRae. What is found there is troubling to anyone concerned for the state of due process, justice, and liberty in America.
In 2005, Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and member of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, published an account of the travesty of justice by which Father Gordon MacRae was convicted. It is a story, as described by Father Richard John Neuhaus in First Things magazine, of “a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”
On March 17, Saint Patrick’s Day, at 10 A.M., Chief Judge Joseph LaPlante was scheduled to hear oral arguments in the ‘Habeas Corpus’ appeal filed on behalf of Father MacRae in U.S. District Court in Concord, NH. (Habeas corpus -Latin for you [shall] have the body- is a legal action or writ by means of which detainees can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment.) Allowing neither a hearing on the merits nor testimony of witnesses, Judge LaPlante denied the petition of Fr. MacRae, relegating him to continue his sentence in prison despite a virtually overwhelming mountain of evidence pointing to his wrongful conviction. Evidently Judge LaPlante was more concerned with protecting the perceived integrity of the initial prosecution that he was with respecting Fr. MacRae’s most basic human and legal rights of justice and freedom from unlawful imprisonment.
Too bad Fr. MacRae couldn’t have had his case heard by Judge Barbara Jaffe, a New York Justice of the Manhattan Supreme Court, who has granted a Habeas Corpus hearing to two chimpanzees belonging to Stony Brook University. The case, launched by the 'Nonhuman Rights Project' is to determine whether they should be freed from their ‘imprisonment’ on the basis of their legal rights as ‘persons’ under the law. This right that Judge Jaffe has extended to Hercules and Leo is the same right denied to Fr. MacRae by Judge LaPlante.
So there you have it. On the one hand, a priest is denied his motion to prove his innocence before a court, thereby denying him of a basic human right. While on the other hand, a different judge extends that same right to two chimpanzees so that a group can argue for their freedom. That leaves the score at Chimps - 1, Humans - 0 when it comes to deciding who is or is not a person in the opinion of the American judicial system.
The world is clearly going to hell in a handbasket.
Fr. Gordon MacRae has been in prison in the United States for the past 20 years. The crimes for which he was accused and convicted are claimed to have occurred when he was between 25 and 30 years old. Brought with no evidence or corroboration whatsoever, the claims were accompanied by lawsuits settled by his Diocese for hundreds of thousands of dollars despite evidence of fraud. Father MacRae maintains his innocence of these crimes, and could have left prison 16 years ago had he accepted any of the “plea deals” presented to him before trial. In the years since the panic-driven and selective release of files and other accumulated claims and demands for money – but no evidence – some began to take a closer look under the surface of the case against Father Gordon MacRae. What is found there is troubling to anyone concerned for the state of due process, justice, and liberty in America.
In 2005, Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and member of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, published an account of the travesty of justice by which Father Gordon MacRae was convicted. It is a story, as described by Father Richard John Neuhaus in First Things magazine, of “a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”
On March 17, Saint Patrick’s Day, at 10 A.M., Chief Judge Joseph LaPlante was scheduled to hear oral arguments in the ‘Habeas Corpus’ appeal filed on behalf of Father MacRae in U.S. District Court in Concord, NH. (Habeas corpus -Latin for you [shall] have the body- is a legal action or writ by means of which detainees can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment.) Allowing neither a hearing on the merits nor testimony of witnesses, Judge LaPlante denied the petition of Fr. MacRae, relegating him to continue his sentence in prison despite a virtually overwhelming mountain of evidence pointing to his wrongful conviction. Evidently Judge LaPlante was more concerned with protecting the perceived integrity of the initial prosecution that he was with respecting Fr. MacRae’s most basic human and legal rights of justice and freedom from unlawful imprisonment.
Too bad Fr. MacRae couldn’t have had his case heard by Judge Barbara Jaffe, a New York Justice of the Manhattan Supreme Court, who has granted a Habeas Corpus hearing to two chimpanzees belonging to Stony Brook University. The case, launched by the 'Nonhuman Rights Project' is to determine whether they should be freed from their ‘imprisonment’ on the basis of their legal rights as ‘persons’ under the law. This right that Judge Jaffe has extended to Hercules and Leo is the same right denied to Fr. MacRae by Judge LaPlante.
So there you have it. On the one hand, a priest is denied his motion to prove his innocence before a court, thereby denying him of a basic human right. While on the other hand, a different judge extends that same right to two chimpanzees so that a group can argue for their freedom. That leaves the score at Chimps - 1, Humans - 0 when it comes to deciding who is or is not a person in the opinion of the American judicial system.
The world is clearly going to hell in a handbasket.
21 April, 2015
20 April, 2015
19 April, 2015
18 April, 2015
The Critics Rave! - by Mark Shea
As a guy who's done a bit of chatting about the Catholic Faith with folks, one of the things that has struck me over the years is the sheer fecundity of the human mind in giving reasons not to be Catholic. To a young Catholic or a new convert, such overwhelming fertility in repudiating the Faith can be rather daunting. A trip to an Internet list group, for example, can be a bit like drinking from a fire hose of anti-Catholic rhetoric. One can simply be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it all.
This is, however, all to the good for the intrepid Catholic who takes seriously the fact that "in everything God works for the good with those who love him" (Romans 8:28). So when life serves you lemons, make lemonade! I do so by keeping careful track of reasons not to believe.
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/the-critics-rave/#ixzz3Xg712h2A
17 April, 2015
Clarke, council should forget prayer at work - Letter to the Editor - Cape Breton Post
The same day the Supreme Court of Canada ordered the city council of Saguenay, Que., to stop praying inside its council chambers, Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Cecil Clarke announced: “One way or another we will do the prayer, and if I have to do that prayer in a public hallway outside of the chamber, that’s what I’ll do.”
Click on link below to read entire article:
Clarke, council should forget prayer at work - Letter to the Editor - Cape Breton Post
16 April, 2015
15 April, 2015
14 April, 2015
12 April, 2015
11 April, 2015
10 April, 2015
The abyss of mercy | Crux
“Mercy of God” is one of the most prominent themes in Christian understandings of God, it’s also the most problematic. Simply put, how can a merciful God allow so much human suffering?"
The abyss of mercy | Crux
The abyss of mercy | Crux
09 April, 2015
08 April, 2015
Last month of life costs health-care system $14K on average: report | National Post
I have been arguing that with the advent of legalized euthanasia and Doctor-Assisted Suicide we would see the building of 'evidence' to convince Canadians that there will need to be a mandatory system of obligated death enforced across the land.
I've pointed to the editorial published by the American Medical Association in last year's journal arguing that there needs to be a 'cut-off age' after which medical procedures designed to extend life should be established. (The authors suggested either 65 or 70 years of age would be an appropriate point in a person's life to cut them off from life-saving procedures.) I've pointed out as well the new policy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario which is trying to extinguish the rights of its membership from refusing to materially cooperate in procuring death services for their patients as another step in turning physicians from agents of health into instruments of death.
Now we see articles like this one which points out that the majority of funds spent on the health care of citizens is spent in the last year of their life. (As if somehow this would come as a surprise to anyone given that we are most in danger of death as we approach our end!) Clearly this is another brick in the economic argument that the only just way to deal with the terminal young or elderly is to kill them 'mercifully' and with 'dignity'. (I guess that's a small step better than putting them on an ice flow and sending them off to sea to drown or be eaten by a polar bear.)
We have good reason to be afraid people. Very, very, afraid.
This is why I am convinced that the Church must begin to offer the alternative of hospice care for Canadians. I am pursuing the goal of converting the old parish rectory in Chapeau, QC into such a hospice. At this point, we are putting together the team to ascertain what physical renovations will be required to the building as well as the levels of staffing needed to run such a facility. Soon we will begin to seek out donations to complete the renovations and staff the facility. It would be very unwise to seek government dollars for these tasks as that would put the hospice in the position of being forced by the government to euthanize patients rather than caring for them in accordance with Catholic moral principles.
But keep your eyes and ears open folks, both for more stories like this one from the National Post as well as for news on our Hospice project. Either one of them might just save your life sooner than you might expect.
Last month of life costs health-care system $14K on average: report | National Post
I've pointed to the editorial published by the American Medical Association in last year's journal arguing that there needs to be a 'cut-off age' after which medical procedures designed to extend life should be established. (The authors suggested either 65 or 70 years of age would be an appropriate point in a person's life to cut them off from life-saving procedures.) I've pointed out as well the new policy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario which is trying to extinguish the rights of its membership from refusing to materially cooperate in procuring death services for their patients as another step in turning physicians from agents of health into instruments of death.
Now we see articles like this one which points out that the majority of funds spent on the health care of citizens is spent in the last year of their life. (As if somehow this would come as a surprise to anyone given that we are most in danger of death as we approach our end!) Clearly this is another brick in the economic argument that the only just way to deal with the terminal young or elderly is to kill them 'mercifully' and with 'dignity'. (I guess that's a small step better than putting them on an ice flow and sending them off to sea to drown or be eaten by a polar bear.)
We have good reason to be afraid people. Very, very, afraid.
This is why I am convinced that the Church must begin to offer the alternative of hospice care for Canadians. I am pursuing the goal of converting the old parish rectory in Chapeau, QC into such a hospice. At this point, we are putting together the team to ascertain what physical renovations will be required to the building as well as the levels of staffing needed to run such a facility. Soon we will begin to seek out donations to complete the renovations and staff the facility. It would be very unwise to seek government dollars for these tasks as that would put the hospice in the position of being forced by the government to euthanize patients rather than caring for them in accordance with Catholic moral principles.
But keep your eyes and ears open folks, both for more stories like this one from the National Post as well as for news on our Hospice project. Either one of them might just save your life sooner than you might expect.
Last month of life costs health-care system $14K on average: report | National Post
07 April, 2015
06 April, 2015
Rex Murphy: Apple and Walmart have no business casting stones
(Break out your Thesaurus people before tackling this tome. Rex's loquacious lexicography used to lambast these laggards is a little more loopy and laborious to read than you might like!)
Rex Murphy: Apple and Walmart have no business casting stones | National Post
Rex Murphy: Apple and Walmart have no business casting stones | National Post
05 April, 2015
Happy Easter!
May this Easter season be a time of great joy, hope, and grace for all who gather 'Where the Rubber Hits the Road'.
04 April, 2015
03 April, 2015
02 April, 2015
5 ways owning a dog can improve your health and longevity – Cottage Life
Alright! Now that I have two dogs sharing my life with me, I should live forever!!
5 ways owning a dog can improve your health and longevity – Cottage Life
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Not my buddies... but how could I resist such a cute photo? |
5 ways owning a dog can improve your health and longevity – Cottage Life
01 April, 2015
Growing concern over doctor suicide in Canada | CTV News
Well, at the risk of sounding hard-hearted, we tell doctors it's OK to kill babies and now we're asking them to kill people who want to end their life... and we call it all health 'care'. Should we really be surprised that a growing number of physicians are finding it too difficult to live with themselves to the point that they also choose the death option for themselves? After all, they probably went into the 'healing profession' with the goal of helping to cure people. How many expected to be turned into instruments of death instead? Even their own regulatory colleges are turning against doctors by extinguishing their conscience rights to not participate in the latest death fad/ritual that our courts and parliaments deign to transform into the latest 'right' of this suicidal generation.
Growing concern over doctor suicide in Canada | CTV News
Growing concern over doctor suicide in Canada | CTV News
Getting to the Point: An End to the Hunger Games
Getting to the Point: An End to the Hunger Games: We are once again back with the Pope’s address to the Roman Curia from way back before Christmas. I’ve been going through his ‘fifteen dise...
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- A message to ISIS from the people of the cross
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- The Critics Rave! - by Mark Shea
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- Judge Joseph LaPlante Denies Priest’s Appeal - sad...
- These nuns provide death with dignity... but it's ...
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