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Dr. Deal Hudson of "Inside Catholic" reports that Dr. Nicholas P. Cafardi, noted legal scholar, former Dean of Duquesne University Law School and now prominent Catholic supporter of the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama has just resigned from his position as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Deal reports that the President of the University, Fr. Terrence Henry, TOR,received a letter of resignation from the former Dean on Monday, October 6, 2008. Cafardi was once hailed, along with fellow legal scholar Doug Kmiec, as a leading Pro-Life voice among Catholic academics.

The following is a tongue-in-cheek reply to Nick Cafardi's article, "I'm Catholic, Staunchly Anti-Abortion, and Support Obama.": I believe racism is an unspeakable evil, yet I support David Duke, who is pro-racism. I do not support him because he is pro-racism, but in spite of it. Is that a proper choice for a committed Catholic? As someone who has worked with minorities all his life, I answer with a resounding yes. Despite what some say, the list of what the Catholic Church calls "intrinsically evil acts" does not begin and end with racism. In fact, there are many intrinsically evil...

A Maoist leader has again claimed responsibility for the death of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, whose assassination unleashed the pogrom against Christians in Orissa.He affirms that the authors of the killing left two letters at the scene of the crime, but the government kept them quiet in order to blame the Christians and allow them to be killed "for electoral purposes." ...

I am convinced that it is not accidental that the financial markets in the United States and throughout the world tumbled as the Bishops gathered to study the Bible. It is prophetic. Pope Benedict XVI selected the first session of the Synod to deliver one of his increasingly frequent, spontaneous pastoral teachings. The Holy Father told the Council fathers, and a nervous world watching the various financial indicators plunge: "We now see in the collapse of the great banks: money disappears, turns to nothing…And all these things, which seem like the true reality on which we can count, are realities...

As the Roman Catholic Church observes its annual “respect life” Sunday in this heated presidential election season, the unusually pitched competition for Catholic voters is setting off a round of skirmishes over how to apply the church’s teachings not only on abortion but also on the war in Iraq, immigration and racism. ... The escalating efforts by more-liberal Catholics are provoking a vigorous backlash from some bishops and the right. In Scranton, Pa., every Catholic attending Mass this weekend will hear a special homily about the election next month: Bishop Joseph Martino has ordered every priest in the diocese to...

As Archbishop Naumann and I stressed in our recent Pastoral Letter, “Our Moral Responsibility as Catholic Citizens,” we can never vote for a candidate because of his or permissive stand on abortion. At the same time, if we are inclined to vote for someone despite their pro-abortion stance, it seems we are morally obliged to establish a proportionate reason sufficient to justify the destruction of 45 million human persons through abortion. If we learn that our “candidate of choice” further pledges – through an instrument such as FOCA - to eliminate all existing limitations against abortion, it is that much...

The YouTube controversy involving Hate Speech against Catholics continues with the the apparent reposting of sacriligious, blasphemous videos of a student desecrating the Blessed Sacrament. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines sacrilege with these words: "2120 Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us." The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. The Catholic League...

Doug has made what I believe is a truly incorrect moral analysis. It has all now been compounded by his having written a book which misstates the process of how one makes a moral analysis as a faithful Catholic.He seeks to lead Catholics to follow his own path.He needs to be engaged with more than shouting.My articles on Catholic Online have addressed my disagreements with Doug on many of the issues he raises. In this article I simply want to shed some light on the tactical approach now being taken by Doug in his public appearances so that we can...

Catholic Online offers the opportunity for our readers to comment on many of our articles. There have been numerous responses to our continued coverage of the horrid persecution of Catholics and other Christians by militant, extremist Hindus in India. Here are just a few: “Please influence CNN and bring this news in public press and TV.” “Let's all ask our Pastors and Priests what we can do as a Catholic community to bring attention to these atrocities. I never see this mentioned in the NY Daily News, Post or WSJ.” “Where are the protests from our democratic form of government...

As a survivor of Catholic upbringing, former altar boy, choir boy, and after eight years of Catholic elementary school, four years of Catholic high school, four years of Catholic college, and umpteen years of Catholic post-graduate studies, I think I’m entitled to comment on the state of Catholicism today. When I say I’m a survivor, I don’t mean to imply that I survived anything but normal life in Catholic schools. I survived in the sense that I never succumbed to what I can call excessive Catholicity, an embrace of policies antithetical to the best interests of America. Normal Catholic schooling...

Three bodies were recovered from a river in Kandhamal, the district in Orissa state hit by a wave of anti-Christian violence for more than a month now. The bodies belong to a couple and a woman reported missing after they visited a local village to administer immunisation. Elsewhere Hindu radicals continue their rampage in areas like Raikia (Padrikia and Mondasoro), Tikabali and Didrabadi (near Daringbadi). “The situation is unbearable. A systematic plan to wipe out Christian life is underway, killing people and destroying their property,” a local source told AsiaNews. “Nothing prepared us for this.”

In this third and final article in our series, we go in search of the likely practical consequences of an Obama and a McCain presidency. With regard to the protection of the lives of unborn children, who can really lay claim to the title of the most trustworthy “Lifesaver” of the unborn? Catholic Obama supporters like Doug Kmiec contend that their man, although stridently in favor of a woman’s "right" to have an abortion, would do no worse than McCain in this regard, and probably even better. Let’s examine their main arguments...

The case for Barack Obama made by his Catholic supporters usually begins with the attempt to dispute Sen. McCain's Pro-Life credentials. Next, they hunt for an "intrinsic evil" supported by McCain that could count as "proportionate" to Obama's strong support for abortion rights, thus at least balancing the moral scales between the two, and making a vote for Obama morally permissible.Let's walk through these arguments one at a time, and see if they stand up to close scrutiny....

Justin Cardinal Rigali,the Chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Pro-Life Committee, has written a clear, strongly worded letter to the United States Congress telling Americas legislators what should be obvious, “We Can’t Reduce Abortions By Promoting Abortion” The letter was in response to the continued efforts to pass the so called “Freedom of Choice Act” or “FOCA” (S. 1173, H.R. 1964). This legislation has as its goal not only the codification of the so called "abortion right" created by the unelected Justices of the US Supreme Court in the Roe and Doe opinions of 1973, but the addition...

A pro-life Catholic group called Catholics United will begin running a cable television ad in Catholic sections of Cleveland, Youngstown and Dayton on Friday that criticizes Sen. John McCain's support for the Iraq war and his August 2007 vote against a bill to provide health care for uninsured children. "Senator McCain, when will you start defending all human life, without exception?" asks the woman in the ad, who identifies herself as a pro-life mother of three children. The Cleveland-area ads will run for a week on the CNN, Fox News, Headline News, Home & Garden and AMC networks. The ads...

Goon squads went into action last night in Hanoi. About a hundred thugs raided the prayer vigil held by Thai Ha faithful under the indifferent eye of some 500 police agents—they destroyed a chapel, sullied a statue of Our Lady with motor oil and proffered threats against the people who were praying.The same thing had happened at night on Friday when another bunch of thugs attacked the faithful, ransacked St Gerard chapel and an outdoor altar, destroying statues and images despite a police presence.

No end is in sight to the attacks and violence against Christians. In Orissa, where for more than three weeks a pogrom against Catholics and Protestants has been underway, two more killings have been recorded. Iswar Digal and Purinder Pradhan were murdered and cut to pieces. Iswar Digal, was from the the village of Gatringia in the district of Kandhamal; he was stopped on September 20 by a group of Hindu extremists while he and his wife were trying to escape to a refugee camp. Their home was burned. The other victim was from Nilungia. His body was cut to...

Observant Catholics are returning to the Republican fold now that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has joined the GOP ticket - a shift that looks to be more enduring than a postconvention bounce. If the trend sticks, it will mark a partial setback for Democrats and the Obama campaign, who have vied vigorously for the pivotal votes of Roman Catholics. Before the national political conventions, presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain were about splitting the votes of white Catholics who attend church weekly. That was a weak showing for the GOP's Senator McCain; in 2004, President Bush carried this group...

For months, a prominent theme in the mainstream press was Senator John McCain’s alleged difficulty attracting evangelical support. After years of watching helplessly as conservative Christians handed political victories to conservative candidates, Big Media thought it had discovered a new type of evangelical voter, one for whom “fetus fatigue” had set in. This new type of believer, we were told, was tired of debates over abortion and marriage and wanted instead to discuss issues like AIDS and universal health care. But as quickly as this narrative was picked up by the media, it has been abandoned -- and for good...

The McCain-Palin ticket may be locking its huge lead on a crucial voting bloc: church-going Catholics. The development — contained Thursday in a poll by the Pew Research Center and backed by other polls — could be crucial to victory in November. Why? Catholics are the ultimate swing voters and make up as much as one-third the population of battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Moreover, some 40 percent of U.S. Catholics have no affiliation with either party. Republican presidential candidate John McCain now has opened a 16-percentage-point lead over Democratic rival Barack Obama among observant Catholics, according to...

When one approaches the figure of Pius XII "free from ideological prejudices", one must recognize his "courageous and paternal dedication" to saving, wherever possible, the greatest possible number of Jews, which included working "secretly and silently". A congress organized by the Pave the Way Foundation 50 years after the death of Pope Pacelli gave Benedict XVI the opportunity to recall the "historical truth" about Pius XII's efforts to save Jews, which were recognized after the war by many Jewish figures, including 80 delegates of concentration camp survivors. "So much has been written and said" about Pius XII, the pope noted,...

There has been some evidence during the campaign that McCain position on embryonic stem cell research was softening. I was skeptical of drawing any conclusions having discussed it with McCain several times. But now the more optimistic prediction has come to pass We have Sen. Sam Brownback to thank for this, I am sure. In response to a questionnaire submitted by ScienceDebat2008, the McCain campaign indicated a McCain administration would continue the present limitations on research instituted by President Bush and would seek to outlaw somatic cell transfer completely. The scientists quoted in the article are not too happy with...

At the beginning of 2008, Francis Kissling retired. She was the heretical dissident and foundress of a group formerly known as “Catholics for Free Choice” and now known as “Catholics for Choice”. It would have been welcome news but for the fact that she replaced herself with an equally notorious dissident named Jon O’Brien. O’Brien came to the organization from his position with the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s European Bureau in London. Archbishop Charles Chaput once rightly said of this nefarious organization that it is “a tool to use against the Catholic Church, nothing more”. He was correct. Kissling retired...

The anti-Christian violence that began in Orissa three weeks ago has still not died down; instead, it is spreading into Kerala. The situation also remains tense in Karnataka. In Orissa, weeks after the first violence and after days of curfew and a state of emergency, last night in the district of Kandhamal, the epicenter of the anti-Christian violence, a crowd of more than 500 Hindus attacked a police station and burned a number of vehicles. One policeman was killed. The attack seems to have been a retaliation against the police, who in recent days opened fire on militant Hindus in...

The second major explanation for Clinton’s Catholic success versus Obama is Obama’s alleged elitism. During the primaries, numerous political commentators compared Obama to John Kerry, whose apparent timidity in the face of scurrilous attacks, fluency in French and taste for wind surfing marked him as a snotty wimp to some voters in the presidential campaign of 2004. Worse, perhaps, many political observers compared Obama to the alleged father of recent Democratic snobbery, Adlai Stevenson. Obama was thus seen in some quarters during the primary season, and still is seen among many, as distant, aloof, unconcerned, consumed by his own moral...

For me, the highlight of the gathering of the Catholic leadership Conference was the plenary address given on the final evening by Jill Stanek, the Registered Nurse who worked in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn and exposed the practice of a modern form of “infant exposure” wherein unwanted children would be born alive and left to die. Like so many, I have read of this horror and regularly visit Jill’s web log.(http://www.jillstanek.com/) I have seen Jill interviewed on television and have been deeply moved by her heroic witness of exposing, opposing and confronting this...

On this day when the Church’s liturgy celebrates the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Gospel you have just heard reminds us of the meaning of this great mystery: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that men might be saved (cf. Jn 3:16). The Son of God became vulnerable, assuming the condition of a slave, obedient even to death, death on a cross (cf. Phil 2:8). By his Cross we are saved. The instrument of torture which, on Good Friday, manifested God’s judgement on the world, has become a source of...

This video is excellent - pass it on!! Let me know what you think. http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2008/09/new-video-from-catholicvotecom.html

Pols Talk Faith, Bishops Talk Fact There's a startling irony in the Bishop's statement concerning Senator Joe Biden's remarks on abortion on last week's Meet The Press. When asked when life begins or when rights are granted Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi all awkwardly dragged their religion into the debate. I think it's safe to say that the reason they're on the Sunday morning shows is because they're politicians. The question of when life begins is put to them because they're lawmakers, not because they're great Christian thinkers. Yet oddly, they insist on answering the question solely on...

DENVER - Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput says Democrats simply don't know Christianity if they insist on continuing to spin the Bible's teachings on abortion. "It's always important to know what our faith actually teaches," he said in a "clarification" for Catholics in northern Colorado as Democratic National Committee members met in Denver this week to hear a speaker from the National Abortion Rights Action League promote Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, as the next "pro-choice" president. Chaput's also appeared at a pro-life prayer vigil outside the massive new Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Denver, reportedly the...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said Iran bore no hatred towards the United States as he held talks with American Christians in a rare official contact with visitors from Tehran's arch enemy. State television showed Ahmadinejad meeting with a dozen American representatives from various Christian orders who are in Iran for a week-long visit to promote peace and dialogue between the foes. "The Iranian nation does not have any feeling of hatred and opposition towards the American people and we believe that all people are respectful and given the common grounds people have, they could achieve peace and justice," Ahmadinejad...

Orissa has a dark history of communal violence and hatred. There is the burning to death of Graham Staines and his two young sons in 1999. His family was engaged in the care of leprosy patients. However, this time, the intensity of the violence has grown into inhuman and unimaginable proportions. It has also done great damage to the age old coexistence and diversity of India, both at home and abroad. The gang raping of nuns, burning alive of human beings, destruction of churches, setting fire to the orphanages and houses of the poor, beating up and public humiliation of...

AND BIDEN FLIPS OFF CATHOLICS! SHADES OF MARIO CUOMO! (This is a companion piece to "OBAMA FLIPS OFF BABIES" Also from MyWaycom: “In a separate interview, the answer to a similar question [on abortion and when life begins] came easier for Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden. “A Roman Catholic, Biden said he accepts his church’s teachings that life begins at conception, but that the issue is personal for him. He said it wouldn’t be right to impose his views on others who are just as religious as he is. ” ‘I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept...

The addition of Alaska’s Governor Sarah Palin to the McCain ticket has caused groans of pain from the Left. The mainstream media, which is the Public Relations division of the Democratic Party, has gone into overdrive in its frantic attempts to downplay the wound its party has suffered. We have been barraged with wishful thinking, disguised as calm commentary, telling us what a stupid mistake John McCain made in adding Govern Palin as his running mate. The fear that Sarah Palin has generated in Democratic clubhouses is real and it is based on the numbers. It is now time to...

News from the Trenches (Editor’s Note: We reprint the item below at the request of Jack Smith, editor of The Catholic Key, official newspaper of the Diocese of Kansas City. In his blog entry below, Mr. Smith points out that a group calling itself “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good” is really a front organization sponsored by the Democratic National Committee. “This group has been treated as legitimate by CNS and other Catholic news sources,” noted Mr. Smith in an email to California Catholic Daily.) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2008 Cardinal George Slams 'Common Good' Fraud Catholics in Alliance for...

The group Catholic Democrats today issued a strong rebuke of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s sarcastic mocking of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer during the 1980s. “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” Palin, former mayor of a small town in Alaska, said during her speech to the Republican National Convention Sept. 3 in St. Paul, Minn. The speech by Palin, currently governor of Alaska, followed one by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also belittled Obama’s work as a community organizer,...

Today I would like to take a look at what I maintain is Senator Obama’s artful manipulation of sentiment to try to move past what many characterize as the “acrimonious” debate surrounding abortion. Obama told Planned Parenthood that the argument over the right to life is over, that they “can win that argument . . . .” He thinks he can do it by obfuscating the issue, by speaking generally, by “using the bully pulpit to frame the issues in a way that allows us to draw on the best impulses of the American people.” He wants to defeat the...

Fr Edward explains what happened to him: "On Monday August 25th, around 1.30 pm, as I was having lunch, there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, a huge crowd of more than 500 people were outside and asked 'Who is the priest?'. This is nothing strange, as often people come requesting my help, for my vehicle to drive them to a hospital or other such emergencies. As soon as I identified myself, they raised their arms holding all the weapons - axes, shovels, spades and iron rods.They took me outside in the courtyard and began hitting...

Fr Thomas Chellan, 57, was one of the first victims of the anti-Christian pogrom launched by the Vishva Hindu Parishad after the assassination of Swami Laxamananda Saraswati on August 23, 2008.Only after being beaten, abused, wounded and stripped was he rescued by the police.A nun was subjected to the same violence, perhaps treated with even greater brutality. The Pastoral Centre in Kandhamal was one of the first Christian institutions to be destroyed, torched. Father Thomas, who is now recovering in hospital, has agreed for the first time to talk about his ordeal. Forcing himself to speak, he is still hard...

On Friday, August 29, 2008 the 25,000 Catholic schools in India closed their doors for the entire day. The Indian Catholic Church has called for a day of prayer and fasting for the first Sunday in September, with peaceful processions all over the country. The reason is the new wave of violence that has struck the Christians in the state of Orissa. Every day, there is news of killing, wounding, rape, assaults against churches, convents, schools, orphanages, villages, carried out by Hindu fanatics. Thousands of people have had to abandon their homes and flee to the forests. The spark for...

A response to: Archbishop Wuerl on the Church and Abortion Because of Mrs. Pelosi's scandalous comments last Sunday and [then] defying the teaching of the Church, all the pro-life Democrats ought to be asked to speak in defense of life. This includes especially Senator Robert Casey, Jr., whose father was proudly a pro-life Democrat. It is now that all should witness to their beliefs and not fear reprisal from pro-abortion Democrats. These last have all but silenced pro-life Democrats. For the sake of the Catholic common good, the public stance of politicians on abortion issues must be made public. In...

You are unlikely to ever come upon a group called Mohammedans for Polytheism or Environmentalists for Seal Slaughter. A Muslim who espouses a multiplicity of deities has, ipso facto, placed himself outside the Muslim confession. Polytheism is not an Islamic thing. An environmentalist who patronizes anti-ecological activities is not an environmentalist at all, but a subversive. This is because the monikers “Muslim” and “environmentalist” mean something; they carry with them a series of necessary consequences. Certain terms — like “Muslim” and “polytheism” — simply can’t be squared, and combining them is nonsensical. The recent ecclesiastical backlash to Nancy Pelosi’s unfortunate...

Senator Barack Obama displays that “surprising contradiction”. He leaves an entire class of persons out of his vision for America,our littlest neighbors, the girls and boys living in the first home of the whole human race. He supports an approach to those whom Mother Teresa lovingly called the “poorest of the poor” which betrays his claims of concern. His policy is to place the Police Power of the State behind protecting the right of people to reach into that first home, the sanctuary of life, and kill them, for any reason and without any consequence. Oh, I know, people like...

DENVER - Democrats have made it a priority to lure more evangelical and Catholic voters from the Republican camp into their own, but the likelihood of success is becoming more problematic given pronouncements by two Catholic archbishops and a decision by the editor of an evangelical Christian magazine. Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, the archbishop of Denver, said Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden should avoid taking Communion because of his support for abortion rights. In 2004, the Archbishop of Boston, Sean O'Malley stood by a statement he had made the previous year that pro-choice Catholics are in a state...

It didn't take long for Catholic Bishops to slap down Nancy Pelosi's ignorant comments regarding abortion and the Catholic Church. I guess Madam Speaker has been too busy scheming against the president to read her catechism. What really caught my eye though was this provocative statement in the WashingtonTimes article: "The push for the Democratic Party is to have a new position on abortion," said Steve Waldman, editor of the religious Web site beliefnet.com. "When you look at Catholics and Evangelicals, you see that they agree with 80 percent of what [Mr. Obama] says, but there's this stumbling block...

WASHINGTON -- When Democrats decided they wouldn't let the GOP be "God's Only Party," they weren't kidding. Thanks to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, none other than St. Augustine has been summoned to Denver. He was resurrected as Pelosi was trying to respond to the question that refuses to die: When does human life begin? This time, it was Tom Brokaw asking on Sunday's "Meet the Press." Citing Barack Obama's recent pass on a similar question -- "At what point does a baby get human rights?" -- Brokaw asked Pelosi what she would say to Obama were he to ask her...

The Catholic teaching against killing innocent human life throughout the entire spectrum of life, from conception to natural death, has never and will never change, period, end of discussion. It has also been taught infallibly. Therefore, every Catholic who professes the Catholic faith assents to accepting it. To pretend to be well versed in Church history and then misstate the teaching of the Church Fathers, like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi have done, is simply to lie and to deceive, or, to be woefully ignorant of the teaching of the Catholic Church. If it is the latter, they are still...

On Monday morning in Denver, where the Democratic National Convention is underway, Archbishop Charles Chaput told the Associated Press that because of support for abortion, Biden should refrain from taking Communion. DENVER (CNA) - The selection of Sen. Joseph Biden as Barack Obama’s running mate is drawing a chorus of disapproval from Catholic intellectual and pro-life leaders because of Biden’s longstanding support for abortion. Most recently, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver has said that Biden should refrain from Communion. Over the weekend, CNA spoke with several prominent Catholics regarding Biden’s nomination for the Democratic vice-presidential slot. The well-known Catholic intellectual...

A Catholic nun was burnt alive by a group of Hindu fundamentalists who stormed the orphanage she ran in the district of Bargarh (Orissa), this according to Police Superintendent Ashok Biswall. A priest who was at the orphanage was also badly hurt and is now being treated in hospital for multiple burns. Another nun from Bubaneshwar’s Social Centre was gang raped by groups of Hindu extremists before the building housing the facility was set on fire. Sources also told AsiaNews that elsewhere one priest was wounded and two other were abducted. The list of violent anti-Christian acts is thus getting...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, described herself yesterday morning on NBC’s Meet the Press as “an ardent, practicing Catholic,” then told moderator Tom Brokaw and an audience of millions that Church teaching on when human life begins is unclear. Besides, said Pelosi, even if life does begin at conception, that would not change her pro-abortion views. “The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose,” she said. “Roe v. Wade talks about very clear definitions of when the child -- first trimester, certain considerations; second trimester; not so third trimester. There's very...