Spirits High, Crowds Huge in DC for 38th March for Life

From Catholic World News

38th Annual March for Life in Washington, D. C.

Braving bitter cold in Washington, DC, and virtually ignored by America’s mainstream media, hundreds of thousands of pro-life activists joined in the 38th March for Life. 

At a rally on the Mall before the March itself began, enthusiastic participants heard members of the newly installed Republican majority in the House of Representatives pledge their support for the pro-life cause. “Without respect for life, freedom is in jeopardy,” said the Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

Rep. Eric Cantor, the majority leader, told the cheering crowd that a bid to ban taxpayer funding for abortion would be the “number one priority” for Republicans in the House. Democratic majorities have steadily advanced abortion funding in past years, he said, but “now the tide has turned.”

An estimated 10,000 people had packed the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for a vigil Mass on the evening before the March. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, of Houston, the chairman of the US bishops’ pro-life committee, was the main celebrant; 4 other cardinals and 39 bishops concelebrated with hundreds of priests. Remarking on the heavy proportion of young people in the congregation, Cardinal DiNardo said: “We your elders become exhausted just watching you.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• GOP House Leader at March for Life: permanent ban on taxpayer funding of abortion top priority (LifeSite News)
• 5 Cardinals, 39 Bishops, 10,000 faithful pack basilica for Vigil for Life Mass (LifeSite News)

Michelle Bachmann Should Not Be Overlooked

Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann

It was an oversight to have not included Michelle Bachmann in our currently running poll on possible 2012 Republican presidential primary candidates.  

We have great admiration for Mrs. Bachmann and will certainly include her in any future polls.  We could not agree more with the following column.  A Bachmann candidacy could be the spark for a greatly needed re-dedication to Constitutional government.

Bachmann: Reagan in Pumps

From CNSNews

By J. Matt Barber

From the instant his fruitful eight-year reign ended, Republicans have pined for the next Ronald Reagan. To date, no man has succeeded in filling the conservative standard-bearer's legendary boots. Well, maybe it's time to swap boots for pumps. Could he be a she?

Sarah Palin, you say? Perhaps, but there's actually another outspoken, attractive, fearlessly conservative Tea Party favorite firing up the center-right grass roots: Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican.

Forget a Senate run. The buzz inside the Beltway is that Mrs. Bachmann may be looking to add a woman's touch to the Oval Office (beyond just sprucing up its temporary occupant's eyesore decor). Her spokesman, Doug Sachtleben, has confirmed to media that the congresswoman is considering a potential presidential run, saying: "Nothing's off the table."

Mrs. Bachmann also hinted at the possibility, recently telling MinnPost.com: "We're going to have a deep bench for 2012, I have no doubt, and I think what people are asking for is a bold, strong, constitutional conservative."

Mrs. Bachmann is all that and more. Let's put aside for a moment the delightful prospect that the mere chance of a President Bachmann would be worth the price of admission if only to watch Chris Matthews' punkin burst about the set of his ratings-scraping MSNBC sideshow. The truth is that a Bachmann presidency could be just the shot in the arm Republicans - and our worse-for-the-wear republic - desperately need.

Mrs. Bachmann has shown unwavering commitment to the same conservative precepts - be they fiscal, national defense or social - held near and dear by the Gipper himself. Precepts that, when properly applied, took us from a deep Carter recession - a tiny scale model of the Obama recession - to abiding prosperity.

Abiding, that is, until the Reagan Revolution dust settled and godless, big-government "progressives" wormed their way back into leadership.

Mrs. Bachmann has been a stalwart in advocating on behalf of constitutional conservatism. She's chairman of the House Tea Party Caucus and has put her money where her mouth is, voting consistently in Congress to limit the size and scope of government, fortify national security and protect life, liberty and the natural family. National Journal rated Mrs. Bachmann among the most conservative members of Congress in 2009.

Moreover, as with Reagan, it's principle over popularity with the feminine firebrand. She's evidently indifferent to what the moonbat media and the larger loony left think about her. This is an indispensable quality in a leader "We the People" can get behind. She's a maverick's maverick, not the media's.

Still, Mrs. Bachmann is not afraid to shake things up in her own Republican Party. What she lacks in physical stature, she makes up for in - to borrow one of the mainstream media's favorite terms - gravitas. If it takes a step stool to kick a moderate Republican in name only's tail into line, the counterestablishment lawmaker will climb it and kick it.

True, a House member hasn't been elected president since James Garfield, and a woman never has. But as Barack Obama, our first black president, might tell you: We live in an age of firsts.

And speaking of Mr. Obama: In the unlikely event that you could untether him from his tele-prompter binky long enough to debate Mrs. Bachmann, I'd bet my share of the stimulus money that she'd mop the floor with him.

Will she run? Could she win? It remains to be seen. But one thing's for sure: The fireworks leading up to the 2012 presidential election will be something to behold. Based on her penchant for telling it like it is, her existing widespread Tea Party support and her fast-growing national popularity, if this intelligent, principled, bomb-dropping bombshell were to run, I suspect her campaign might just catch fire.

China's Coming Fall

Like the Soviet Union before it, much of China’s supposed boom is illusory — and just as likely to come crashing down

A police building burning in Weng’an County in Guizhou Province, China.  Other government buildings have also been burned by rioters.

From the National Post (Canada)

By Lawrence Solomon

In 1975, while I was in Siberia on a two-month trip through the U.S.S.R., the illusion of the Soviet Union’s rise became self-evident. In the major cities, the downtowns seemed modern, comparable to what you might see in a North American city. But a 20-minute walk from the centre of downtown revealed another world — people filling water buckets at communal pumps at street corners. The U.S.S.R. could put a man in space and dazzle the world with scores of other accomplishments yet it could not satisfy the basic needs of its citizens. That economic system, though it would largely fool the West until its final collapse 15 years later, was bankrupt, and obviously so to anyone who saw the contradictions in Soviet society.

The Chinese economy today parallels that of the latter-day Soviet Union — immense accomplishments co-existing with immense failures. In some ways, China’s stability today is more precarious than was the Soviet Union’s before its fall. China’s poor are poorer than the Soviet Union’s poor, and they are much more numerous — about one billion in a country of 1.3 billion. Moreover, in the Soviet Union there was no sizeable middle class — just about everyone was poor and shared in the same hardships, avoiding resentments that might otherwise have arisen.

A Sermon by Father Jay Scott Newman - 'Developments Important to the Universal Church'

Sermon of Reverend Jay Scott Newman
 
Pastor

St. Mary's Catholic Church

Greenville, South Carolina

January 16, 2011

The Philippine Madrigal Singers - 'Anima Christi'

The Anima Christi, sung here by The Philippine Madrigal Singers, is often said after receiving Communion and dates from the early 14th century.  The translation given below is by Blessed John Henry Newman. 

Soul of Christ, be my sanctification;
Body of Christ, be my salvation;
Blood of Christ, fill all my veins;
Water of Christ's side, wash out my stains;
Passion of Christ, my comfort be;
O good Jesu, listen to me;
In Thy wounds I fain would hide;
Ne'er to be parted from Thy side;
Guard me, should the foe assail me;
Call me when my life shall fail me;
Bid me come to Thee above,
With Thy saints to sing Thy love,
World without end. Amen.

From the Pastor: 'A Sign of a Special Relationship'

A Weekly Column by Father George Rutler

Pope Benedict XVI baptises a newborn baby in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

IN Baptism, the Holy Spirit unites our pasts and futures with Christ who is the Beginning and the End. Our baptismal name is a sign of that relationship. Parents choose a name for their child because they are procreators on behalf of the Creator. This is indicated in the Creation narrative when the first man and woman are allowed to name every living creature. This taxonomy is a sign of cooperation with God's plan of salvation. So the authority to name is more significant than the name chosen, but the name also is important because it symbolizes an appeal to God.

In the Bible, names are changed to signify a new circumstance. Abram became Abraham in the old dispensation, and in the new covenant Saul became Paul. The first pope to change his name was John II in 533. His name had been that of the pagan god Mercury, whose figure sculpted by Jules Coutan faces us each day over the façade of Grand Central Terminal, a fine symbol for travel as he represents speed, but not suitable as a name for a Bishop of Rome, where time is measured in centuries rather than minutes. It is not clear why his father Projectus named him Mercurius, save that it might have been fashionable. By being fashionable, fashion quickly becomes unfashionable.

Joseph Ratzinger had one of the best Christian names, but he called himself Benedict as pope in tribute both to St. Benedict, whose monasticism became a core of European civilization, and to Benedict XV, who desperately tried to save Europe from self-destruction. When he baptized 21 infants this month in the Sistine Chapel, Benedict XVI remarked on the importance of names as signs of divine adoption: "Every baptised child acquires the character of the son of God, beginning with their Christian name, an unmistakable sign that the Holy Spirit causes man to be born anew in the womb of the Church.”

There is a tendency to name children now for perfumes, celebrities and sports equipment. The retired bishop of La Spezia in Liguria, Italy, remarked that in 2008, of 500 girls baptized in his city, "not one was registered or baptized with the name Maria." Any decent name can become Christian, but the Catechism teaches that names not be given that are "foreign to Christian sentiment," and that the names of saints are models for children. "The name is the icon of the person. It demands respect as a sign of the dignity of the one who bears it" (#2158). Whatever our name, may we be faithful to our Lord who has a plan for each one of us: "To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it” (Rev. 2:17).

Fr. George W. Rutler is the pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York City. His latest book, Coincidentally: Unserious Reflections on Trivial Connections, is available from Crossroads Publishing.

Dr. Larry Arnn Opening the Hillsdale College Kirby Center

Dr. Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, delivers the opening address of the Allan P. Kirby, Jr., Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., December 3, 2010.