Fixing Catholic Relief Services

When one donates to an organization calling itself "Catholic," they typically expect certain things.  They expect that it serves the needs of the poor in a way typical of Christian Catholic values.  They do not expect it to employ those who abhor those values, or for it to take money or give money to those who support abortion.
      LifeSite News of August 1, 2012 has an article by John-Henry Westen that reports that Catholic Relief Services is accepting money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which supports contraception and abortion in developing countries.  It gave the pro-abortion group CARE International $5.3 million.  Catholic Relief Services is a member of the pro-abortion CORE group, to which it pays $3,000 in membership fees.  CRS employees Mary Hennigan and Shannon Senefeld sit on CORE's board of directors and HIV/AIDS working groups respectively.
      LifeSite News of August 21, 2012 has an article by Patrick B. Craine that is even more explosive, detailing that several employees of Catholic Relief Services have pro-abortion backgrounds.  Daphyne Williams interned at Pro-Choice Resources before joining CRS in 2008.  Dr. Amy Ellis came to CRS after working for Population Services International.  While working for CRS, she gave a presentation at the International Conference on Family Planning.  Dr. Pun Sok came to CRS from CARE, which, as before stated, promotes abortion.  Finally, CRS employee Charisse Espy Glassman was such a dedicated pro-abort that she, while employed by Catholic Relief Services, deliberately drove her car into marchers at the DC March for Life in January 2011.  Clearly, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to reform Catholic Relief Services every bit as much as it needs to reform Campaign for Human Development, so that the faithful are not gulled into funding causes they detest.

The Scapegoats

The Primrose League is trying to disavow social conservatives again.  Riehl World View has a piece about how social conservatives need to figure out which side they're on.  This is a disingenuous statement;  social conservatives know damn well which side they're on.  Either it's Republicans or a party that is openly contemptuous of people of faith.  Either it's Republicans or people who want to force Catholics to bankroll contraception.  I could go on, but you get the point.  The real issue is that the Primrose League knows social conservatives have no where else to go.  This is the reason why they think they are an embarrassment, the country cousins whose votes they need, but whom they wish to disavow and blame for their image problems.  So when an idiot like Todd Akin puts his foot in it, this gives the Primrose League a fit.  They would rather run on pure economic policy, which is rather different than the attitude of Democrats.  Democrats love NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and all the rest of the culture of death.  When the abortion industry is embarrassed, the Democrats don't abandon them the way the Primrose League wants to jettison social conservatives.  So as abominable as the Democratic Party is in what it aims to do, they at least have more loyalty to their own than Republicans show their own.  Maybe Akin should step out of the way, but Republicans are almost buying into the idea the Democrats are fostering that Akin is somehow typical of social conservatives.  It isn't surprising that liberals would think social conservatives are bumpkins, but it is rather disturbing when the Primrose League thinks so.

The Clue Batting Cage: Akin's Achin'

The Clue Batting Cage: Akin's Achin'
A good comment on someone who may not be perfect, but also isn't Claire McCaskill.

Three Irreverent Songs, From Worst to Best

Three examples of songs disrespectful of religion immediately come to mind.  The first, and worst, is Joan Osborne's "One of Us," which is a nearly atonal ditty wherein Ms. Osborne opines God might be a "slob" riding a bus, whose only communication is with the Pope.  Thus, "One of Us" is the Rock for Choice anthem of disbelief.  Second, Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach" begins with mock classical instrumentation that leads into a typical 80s pop song.  What is remarkable about the Madonna song to Estase is that the character in the song apparently intends to have her baby.  Given the star's personal life, it is surprising that the song doesn't point to an abortion.  And for all its debatable morality, the Madonna song has more going for it than the Joan Osborne one.  Third is my favorite, the Electric Light Orchestra song "King of the Universe," which is only slightly disrespectful to religion.  As a matter of fact, I have more religious feeling from "King of the Universe" than from such dreadful ecclesiastical offerings as "Gather Us In."  Lyrically, nothing is truly heretical about "King of the Universe," and only the song's grandiosity suggests it is a tongue-in-cheek song about the Almighty.  Appearing on the 1973 album On the Third Day, "King of the Universe" can be seen in its context of songs about death as a reflection on mortality and the meaning of life.

Commentarius de Prognosticis: What Is Wrong with the Roman Jurisdiction in America

Commentarius de Prognosticis: What Is Wrong with the Roman Jurisdiction in America
This says it all.

Sfears of Influence

I wish to introduce a new term.  Political scientists and diplomats have long discussed spheres of influence.  This term means geographical areas which are important to different states, e.g. Afghanistan is in Russia's sphere of influence.  My new term is sfear of influence.  A sfear of influence is a topic which although vitally important to a person or person, is something that circumstances make incredibly uncomfortable to acknowledge.  An example of a sfear of influence would be the issue of homosexuality to the Catholic Church.  Formally condemned by the Church, it is, nevertheless, the orientation of many of its priests.  Another example of a sfear of influence would be taxes on the rich for the Republican Party.  While economic growth requires that capitalists be able to accumulate money without it being sapped by well meaning or not-so-well meaning politicians, tax fairness for the rich is a Republican sfear of influence because the Democrats are all too willing to pretend that Republican tax policy is motivated only by a desire for people like Mitt Romney to avoid paying their "fair share," which according to President Carter meant paying 70% of one's income as taxes.

Restore-DC-Catholicism: CCHD - A Different Sort Of Prostitute

Restore-DC-Catholicism: CCHD - A Different Sort Of Prostitute
Yet another example of why Campaign for Human Development is a bad,bad cause to donate to.
On a different topic, extremists of all stripes are one reason for my retreat to the eighteenth century.  When Estase was a student at UIUC, there was a repellant character in the law school who liked to parade around in a Hitler outfit and hand out anti-Semetic pamphlets.  The College Republicans loathed him because he made our lives Hell.  Every would-be Mao Zedong liked to pretend that Matt Hale was somehow like us.  The fact of the matter is that every time there is some psychiatric case that flips out, the Salon types start talking right-wing terrorism.  Matt Hale ended up going to prison for trying to put a hit out on a Federal Judge.  So, obviously, being high functioning enough to be a law student doesn't exclude acts of utter idiocy.  Debbie Schussel claimed Holmes, the Aurora CO shooter was associated with Occupy, which may account for the media losing interest in the case.  The MSM will do anything to further their goals, even if that means soft-pedalling a story they were excited about a week ago.  The Matt Hales of the world are a boon to leftists, because they distract people from their own lunatics.

An Appeal

I received this letter from my favorite charity, Edmundite Missions www.edmunditemissions.org. Their snail mail address is 1428 Broad Street, Selma, AL  36701.

"Dear Estase,
       'What am I supposed to do?  I can't serve this kind of food to hungry people for lunch.'  Mary Gayle told me.  'The Food Bank sent us chocolate fudge sauce, diapers and gallons of distilled water.  They even sent us bags of charcoal!'  When she described the serious shortage of healthy food at a time when children are out of school, I immediately drove over to the Food Bank to see for myself.
      With temperatures well above 100 degrees and the humidity so high that it fills your lungs, Bosco provides nourishing meals to the sick and working poor with young children, for a brief lunch hour, out of the merciless Alabama sun.  Without a doubt, Bosco saves lives.
     Unfortunately, upon entering the warehouse of the Food Bank, I soon discovered the lack of food was even worse that I thought.  'We're getting less than half the USDA food products we got a year ago,' the Food Bank Director told me.  'Instead, we're receiving truckloads of questionable products and nonfood items.  Sometimes, a delivery will have no food at all,' he said, pointing to the pallets of diapers, dish soap, nondairy creamer and teeth whitening strips.
     Looking around the warehouse, I was shocked by the stacks and stacks of empty pallets, where canned vegetables once stood.  The shelves were stocked with boxes of cookies, chips and snack cakes, all empty calorie foods, not the kinds of food to keep a child or an elder strong and healthy.  Are we to feed snack foods to 320 people who depend on Bosco every day, 365 days a year?
     We walked up to a pallet filled with packages of candies, which made me cringe, as I thought of the drastic results of this food shortage.  For the last few months, I have watched the Bosco Food Kitchen bills stack up and now I wonder how we will ever pay the increasing costs, when we are forced to purchase all our meat, rice and vegetables from commercial grocery stores in Selma, at much higher prices.
     The frail and sick like 80 year-old Mrs. Mae Young, crippled with the painful curled hands of rheumatoid arthritis, spends her days on the front porch of her shack, alone and suffering through the blistering heat, far out in the country.  She tells me that her only smiles come from the sight of the Edmundite Missions truck bringing her a bag of food and a word of encouragement.  I simply cannot turn these impoverished people away and I know you would not want me to.
     Currently, the Food Bank can no longer provide the nourishing food we must have!  And I can't come up with the additional funds to purchase food at full price.  This terrible situation is why I'm humbly coming to you for your help.  Without you, it is now impossible to feed those who turn to the Edmundite Missions for life-sustaining food.  The hamburger, rice and vegetables we need to serve soup at Bosco for a month costs $30,612.  Without help from the Food Bank, it will cost an extra $167 a day, in addition to the amount it already takes to feed these hungry people.
     I join the Edmundites in daily prayers, asking God to bless you abundantly.  My prayers are filled with hope that your generosity to feed the poor, whom God loves, will continue.
                                                              In Christ, I remain,
                                                              Chad McEachern
                                                              Missions Director"