Religious Liberty: A Commentary by Father Robert Barron

Father Robert Barron comments on the history of the Church in England, its vitality today, and the growing threats to religious liberty from secular tyrants.

A Coalition of Michigan TEA Parties Demonstrate Power of 'We the People'

MI4CS TEA Parties put Glenn on top with historic petition drive for U.S. Senate

By Cindy Gamrat

With an entire grassroots volunteer crew, Michigan TEA Parties led the way in collecting over 27,000 Nominating Signatures in just a few short months. Glenn filed 27,227 signatures at the Bureau of Elections to gain a spot on the ballot for the United States Senate primary on August 7th. Although many were saying he would not gather enough signatures to even make it on the ballot, at the time of filing, Glenn led the pack by filing the most signatures of any of the Republican U.S. Senate Candidates.

Signatures for Glenn’s petitions were collected as the result of dedicated and selfless efforts of hundreds of grassroots supporters and TEA Party Patriots from all 14 congressional districts and all 83 counties throughout Michigan. Signatures were collected in every county and at least 500 signatures were collected in each district to show the statewide grassroots strength behind Glenn.

Michigan 4 Conservative Senate (MI4CS) helped assemble the all-volunteer coalition of TEA Parties and individuals from around the State of Michigan. These volunteers were trained through conference calls, one on one, and personal phone calls. "We have been told over and over that there is no way that we could gather the required signatures through an all grassroots effort in such a short time. We've been told that it has never been done before. Well, we just did it! We are Americans and we are serious about our freedoms! The TEA Party was integral to the foundation of this country, and will also be vital in saving it."

MI4CS credits the successful framework of the Hoosiers 4 Conservative Senate and the Indiana TEA Parties strong defeat of 36 year incumbent Dick Lugar. According to Freeland TEA Party activist Catherine Zemanek, “The grassroots supporters of Richard Mourdock blazed the trail for the people of Indiana to take back their government, and we strongly believe that if it can happen in Indiana, it can happen here in Michigan. The people in the Midwest are speaking up loud and clear, and we want our values represented by true Conservatives. We are going to save this country, one state at a time.”

Utilizing the framework of the Indiana TEA party effort, MI4CS TEA Parties vetted all of the Republican candidates prior to choosing one candidate to endorse and support. Glenn won the vote and endorsement, providing the "Boots on the Ground" necessary for the petition drive, the upcoming primary, and the ultimate defeat of incumbent Senator Debbie Stabenow in November.

“Politicians from both political parties have demeaned and slandered Patriots and Conservatives repeatedly with homosexual slurs, lies, and labels such as radicals and terrorists. But in reality, we’re just concerned citizens with traditional values that nearly all Americans lived by and took for granted as normal in the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Our parents raised us to be law-abiding, fiscally-responsible people just like most other Americans then and now, and we expect our elected representatives to act that way as well,” said Mi4CS 11th Congressional District Rep Tim Bos. “The status quo is unacceptable, and we’re willing to make the sacrifices required to change it. Getting a win for Richard Mourdock, and more than enough nominating signatures for Gary Glenn is further proof that we are not alone, we are not “dead”, we are not marginal, and indeed, we are a force to be reckoned with”. 

Cindy Gamrat is founder and facilitator of Michigan 4 Conservative Senate.

Gary Glenn's TEA Party Army Shocks and Awes Michigan Political Establishment

Volunteers collect over 27,000 signatures for US Senate race -- more than Hoekstra, Durant, and Hekman, who paid staff to gather signatures

Gary Glenn

LANSING, Mich. – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gary Glenn Tuesday submitted to the Secretary of State the signatures of 27,227 registered voters gathered by an all-volunteer army of TEA Party and other grassroots conservatives to place Glenn’s name on the August 7th GOP primary ballot. The total was thousands more signatures than submitted by GOP rivals Pete Hoekstra, Clark Durant, and Randy Hekman, all of whom had paid campaign staff gathering signatures.

“We witnessed a week ago in Indiana what it meant for a U.S. Senate candidate to have TEA Party support in a Republican primary election,” Glenn said. “Today is just the first example of what it means to have TEA Party support in the Republican primary here in Michigan.”

Glenn in February won the endorsement of Michigan 4 Conservative Senate, a coalition of 43 local TEA Party groups that has since grown to fifty, roughly 80 percent of all active TEA Party groups in the state. The coalition was modeled after Hoosiers for a Conservative Senate, whose support was considered decisive in state Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s upset defeat last Tuesday of six-term U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar in that state’s GOP primary election.

Glenn said he had collected only 1,500 signatures before receiving the TEA Party coalition endorsement on Feb. 25th, meaning TEA Party and other campaign volunteers gathered over 25,000 signatures in only eleven weeks.

“This is how a TEA Party-driven grassroots-intensive campaign can and will compete with and outperform the big-name, big-money campaigns of the two GOP establishment candidates,” Glenn said.

State law requires U.S. Senate candidates to gather a minimum of 15,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, the highest requirement in the nation, and 100 signatures from at least half of the state’s 15 congressional districts. Glenn far exceeded both requirements, submitting signatures from all 83 counties in the state and more than 500 signatures from all 15 districts.

In addition to the MI4CS TEA Parties endorsement, Glenn has also been endorsed by former Gov. Mike Huckabee and by the National Right to Work PAC. State Rep. Mike Shirkey, R-Jackson, is chairing Glenn’s campaign in Jackson County.

Number one issue: bring jobs to Michigan

“The number one issue in the U.S. Senate race is this,” Glenn said, “that in the time Debbie Stabenow has been in the U.S. Senate, Michigan has lost 800,000 private sector jobs, the worst job loss in America. It’s time to give someone else a try.”

To make Michigan and America more competitive and better able to attract and create new jobs, Glenn proposed:

• Repealing ObamaCare and other new regulations that have burdened American businesses under the Obama Administration.

• Passage of state and national Right to Work laws banning compulsory union membership or dues payment, which he said is not only an individual freedom issue but a major factor in where American and foreign companies locate new plant sites and create jobs.

• Dramatically reduce or ideally, eliminate, what is now the highest federal corporate income tax in the world, which discourages new investment in the U.S.

• Aggressively harvesting America’s estimated 1.4 trillion barrels of oil, which a study by Penn State University said will create 800,000 new American oil and gas jobs.

Directional drilling for oil beneath the Great Lakes

Glenn over the last week distinguished himself from both former Congressman Pete Hoekstra and charter schools executive Clark Durant on the issue of directional drilling from onshore for oil underneath the Great Lakes. Such technology involves a wellhead on shore at least 1,000 feet away from the water’s edge, drilling straight down roughly 1,000 feet, then drilling at an angle to access oil found nearly a mile beneath the bottom of the lakes.

In 1996, the Michigan Environmental Science Board, comprised of university and other scientists with environmental and natural resource expertise, concluded that “there is little to no risk of contamination to the Great Lakes bottom or waters through releases directly above the bottom hole portion of directionally drilled wells." http://www.mackinac.org/9712

In a debate last week in Oakland County, Hoekstra and Glenn both said they would support directional drilling for oil under the Great Lakes. Durant said he opposed it. But days later, Hoekstra reversed himself, telling the media he does not support such drilling.

“Apparently, I’m the only candidate,” Glenn said, “who’ll stand his ground and fight to bring high-paying oil and gas jobs, lower gas prices, and energy independence to Michigan, rather than run for cover as Pete Hoekstra did.”

“If every U.S. senator took the same ‘not in my backyard’ position Clark Durant does on this issue,” Glenn said, “we’d be stuck right where we are with high unemployment, high gas prices, and giving hundreds of millions of dollars for oil from countries that don’t like us and would like to blow us up.”

Congressional term limits

In a debate Monday night in Grand Rapids, Glenn also distinguished himself from Hoekstra and Durant on the issue of term limits. Glenn supports a Constitutional amendment imposing term limits on members of Congress. Durant opposes Congressional term limits, while Hoekstra in 2004 broke a term limits pledge he made when first running for Congress in 1992 that he would serve only six terms.

Hoekstra’s record on deficit spending, the Brady Bill, and Right to Work

During the debate, Glenn also criticized Hoekstra for voting for the $850 billion Wall Street bailout, the $192 billion stimulus spending package, outrageous earmarks such as the $223 million Bridge to Nowhere, five times to raise the debt ceiling, the last time to $11 trillion, and for the Brady Bill gun control law.

He also criticized Hoekstra for being endorsed and funded in past campaigns by Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters, and as a result, opposing state and national Right to Work legislation. Hoekstra in 2007 also joined Stabenow and then-Sen. Barack Obama in cosponsoring a bill that would have, by federal mandate, forced all state and local governments in America to open their police, fire fighters, and paramedics to being unionized.

Stabenow on homosexual “marriage”?

Glenn said that President Obama’s recent endorsement of so-called homosexual “marriage” will help him hold Stabenow accountable in November for her opposition to the 2004 Marriage Protection Amendment defining marriage as only between one man and one woman, which Glenn co-authored.

The amendment won nearly 60 percent of the vote statewide, including majorities in heavily African-American Democratic strongholds such as Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw. Polls at the time indicated that two-thirds of African-Americans and two-thirds of union members voted for the amendment.

Between the Lines, a homosexual advocacy newspaper in Detroit, reported in 2004 that Stabenow --during comments to that year’s state Democratic Party convention -- “denounced the ballot proposal banning equal marriage rights which is slated to hit the ballot this November."

“We’ll be asking this fall whether Sen. Stabenow on that issue stands with Barack Obama or with the people of Michigan, including African-Americans and union members, two core elements of her party’s own base,” Glenn said.

Glenn has a 33-year history of fighting for the cause of limited government and conservative values. As executive director of the Idaho Freedom to Work committee, Glenn led the successful effort to pass Right to Work legislation in that state in 1986, prohibiting compulsory union membership. He is a founding member of the Michigan Freedom to Work coalition, which is pushing to enact such a law in Michigan.

As a county commissioner, Glenn 16 years ago authored the first Health Savings Account-based health care plan for county employees anywhere in America and was invited to testify before Congress, where a top Congressional staffer in a news report called him a national “pioneer” in free market healthcare reform.

As president of the American Family Association of Michigan for the last 12 years, Glenn has promoted traditional family values, including coauthoring Michigan's Marriage Protection Amendment defining marriage as only between one man and one woman.

Glenn was an Eagle Scout, captain of his high school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and served eight years in the Army National Guard, in which he won two Army Achievement Medals and was an honor graduate of both basic and advanced individual training. He attends Midland Baptist Church, and he and his wife Annette have five children and two grandchildren.

Reichstag Event?

DHS Whistleblower says Communists will stage riots as justification for martial law.

 From Congressman Tom Tancredo

• ‘Reichstag’ event could involve false assassination attempt blamed on “white supremacists”
• Incited racial riots would lead to calls for government “crackdown”
• Civil unrest would lead to martial law, DHS travel checkpoints, indefinite delay of elections

Washington, DC – The Obama agents, through the DHS and other assorted colluders, are plotting a major ‘Reichstag’ event to generate racial riots and produce the justification for martial law, delaying the November 2012 elections, possibly indefinitely, a DHS whistleblower informed the Canada Free Press on Tuesday.

The ‘Reichstag Event’ would take the form of a staged assassination attempt against Barack Obama, “carefully choreographed” and manufactured by Obama operatives. It would subsequently be blamed on “white supremacists” and used to enrage the black community to rioting and looting, the DHS source warned.

The Obama administration would then use the violence and chaos they created as justification for the imposition of martial law in major urban cities in America, the creation of DHS checkpoints, restriction of travel, and the indefinite delay of the November 2012 elections.

The Reichstag event refers to a fire started during Hitler’s rise to power. The fire allowed him to grab emergency powers and murder his opposition. Historians have long believed that Hitler started the fire himself, while he blamed it on the Communists.

The anonymous whistleblower elaborated on how the Obama administration is using the Occupy movement, labor unions, and other assorted subversive groups to create massive chaos within the nation.

“Using untracked campaign funds, they are paying people to infiltrate the various movements to cause physical destruction of property and disrupt commerce. That began last year, but has increased ten-fold already this year,” the DHS source shared.

“Obama is using some high profile people as pawns to foment the revolution. I heard several times through very credible sources that [Louis] Farrakhan is on the CIA payroll. Other have been named as well, but I’m not prepared to identify them yet. Farrakhan is to coordinate the Blacks and the Muslims to prepare for riots this summer, using any means necessary.”

The recent revelations appeared to complement warnings given by other government insiders, who alleged that Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson were all agent provocateurs whose mission was to inflame racial tensions and spark open conflict in the streets of America.

According to the DHS source, a global economic collapse is coming, which the Obama administration is well aware of. They wish to build a system of global governance from the ashes of the previous financial system. In order for this mission to be completed, the Obama administration needs more time at the helm of power. Their reasons for concern are justified; as recently as May 8, influential political prognosticator Dick Morris predicted a Romney landslide if the election were held today.

The shocking news also seemed to confirm recent actions taken by the DHS, such as their purchase of 450 million rounds of ammunition and their recent BlackHawk helicopters operation in Chicago, which looked frighteningly similar to a civil unrest exercise, but was described as “routine training”.

The concept of a staged assassination attempt against Barack Obama is not new as well and was first voiced by a knowledgeable White House insider known only as “WHI”.

Ulsterman:  So what is it?  Pull what off?

Insider:  A manufactured threat against the President of the United States.  Something easily digested by the media and the American public.  Not a real threat – something totally of their own making. They will use it if they need to – got no doubt whatsoever about that.  Jarrett has approved the idea…and did so a long time ago.  There were whispers of it during the 2008 campaign.  McCain was so god-awful it never reached a serious consideration…but the plan was discussed.  If needed – they were willing to go that route.  It would be the ultimate use of the race card in the history of American politics.  And…it would likely work if they got away with it.

Ulsterman:  They would go that far? Risk something like that?

Insider:  You don’t need to ask that question.  Not after what we’ve discussed this past year.  Not after what I’ve told you has proven out over and over again.  So stop asking the fu—ing question.  You need to accept the fact…if you haven’t done so yet – you need to accept the fact these people are playing for keeps.  I told you – how many times?  How many times have I said it?  These are not Democrats.  These folks are something else entirely.  And they are willing to push the country – all of us, right against the fu—ing wall.  Hard.  I’m pushing back.  Others are too.  All of this is part of that effort.  A small part, but an important one.

As with the Occupy movement, it appears as if the Obama administration executed a test-run of the plot, with a “shot being fired” at the White House. This would lend credibility when they choreographed the attempt for the masses.

As early as August 2011, WHI also predicted race riots coming in the summer of 2012. The use of the Trayvon Martin death and the subsequent incitements to violence by the media, Obama operatives, and useful idiots, followed by the subsequent threats by the NBPP of a coming “race war” appear to have been merely a sign of what’s to come.

Middle-class American citizens were shocked and appalled at the allegations, with many hoping they were not true. Some said they had harbored similar suspicions for quite some time, due to the many anomalies and inaccuracies emanating from the current operatives inhabiting the White House.

The DHS source claimed that campaign funds were being directly used to fund the incitements to violence and rioting that the Obama administration was seeking to spark.

“Using untracked campaign funds, they are paying people to infiltrate the various movements to cause physical destruction of property and disrupt commerce. That began last year, but has increased ten-fold already this year,” stated this source.

“He added that they are using some lower level DHS agents to make the payments under the context of tracking subversives, but they are the unwitting subversives.”

The use of campaign funds, funneled through DHS agents to street-level agitators for the purpose of fomenting violence, would be extremely legally questionable, if not outright illegal, certain legal experts shared.

Intelligence officials said that if the allegations were true, the degree to which extremists had penetrated the upper echelons of the American government, finance, and security structure was unparalleled.

“Let’s just say that we are not taking these accusations lightly,” one official remarked on condition of anonymity. “Certain figures will be placed under a microscope, along with their associates.”

Valerie Jarrett, the shadowy figure always at Obama’s side, has been accused by some of “manipulating” or “controlling’ the President. Just who does she work for? Who does she take orders from?

The possibility that Barack Obama’s operatives, under the direction of Valerie Jarrett, was actively involved in the facilitation of street violence and mob chaos disturbed citizens, with many deeming it unpatriotic, subversive, and possibly seditious.

“Isn’t this why HUAC was created?”, one middle-class citizen angrily questioned. “Congress must re-instate HUAC, hold hearings, and find out if there is any truth to this.”

The intensely close co-ordination of seemingly separate entities confirmed the suspicions of many that communist agents had infiltrated major institutions, organizations, and trade unions, and were working together to sabotage America.

Who is Valerie Jarrett?

“Their apparatus can be seen as a type of octupus, having many tentacles,” one intelligence source confided on condition of anonymity. “Occupy is one tentacle, the unions are another, the Black Panthers are another, the radical black/islamic supremacists(Wright, Farrakhan, Van Jones, Sharpton) are another, DHS and its’ umbrella agencies are another, the mainstream press is another,” the source explained. “These tentacles are all working together, seemingly separate, but eventually they are controlled by the same small group of people. They receive their directives and marching orders and mindlessly execute them.”

The intelligence official predicted that in the very near future, all of the seemingly separate entities would be clearly exposed as working together, co-ordinating their activities together, and driving for the same goal – the destruction of America as a constitutional republic, the destruction of its capitalist system, and the dethroning of the U.S. as a superpower.

Canadian Bishops Issue Letter on Religious Liberty and Freedom of Conscience

Perhaps motivated by the Obama regime's assaults on religious liberty in the United States, the Canadian Catholic bishops yesterday released a major pastoral letter on freedom of conscience and religion.  The letter addresses an "aggressive relativism" that seeks to relegate religion to the private sphere.

The full text of the letter from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is here.

South Carolina Expands Charter School Options, Allows Single-Sex Charter Schools

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed into law Monday a bill expanding charter schools, calling it a big first step in improving education by expanding options for parents who don't want to send their children to traditional public schools.

The new law allows boys-only and girls-only charter schools and requires traditional schools to open their doors for students who want to do extracurricular activities not offered by their charter school. It also allows universities to sponsor their own schools.

State Education Superintendent Mick Zais called it his chief legislative priority.

"Charter schools are not a magic bullet, but they are a tremendous step in the way to providing a personalized and customized education for every student — not a standardized and uniform education for every student," Zais said at the ceremony at Greenville Technical Charter High School.

Read the rest of this entry >>

 

Mother Assumpta Long Addresses the Graduates of Thomas Aquinas College

The Joy Filled Heart of a Thomist: Proclaiming the Gospel with Love, Life, and Learning

By Mother M. Assumpta Long, O.P.
Prioress General
Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist

Thomas Aquinas College
May 12, 2012
 

President Michael McLean, Dr. Brian Kelly and members of the faculty; Mr. Jim Wensley and members of the Board of Governors; Fr. Cornelius Buckley and priests; President Emeritus, Dr. Ronald McArthur; Founders, Dr. Jack Neumayr and Mr. Peter DeLuca; distinguished graduates, family and friends:

It is an extreme honor for me to have been invited to give the Commencement Address in such an important year for Thomas Aquinas College because, in some sense, the history of the College has been my history. I have visited and kept up with its wonderful growth from a few small trailers to your beautiful sprawling campus today. This is all due to the faith, vision, and hard work of those who love the Church and believe her mission would best be carried out by those equipped with the finest education a young Catholic could receive today.