October 19, 2012 / MariaNews.com 

Newlywed woman beheaded for — chastity

By Catholic Online

September 30, 2012 / MariaNews.com 

The Natural Law – The Only Basis for International Order

By Andrew M. Greenwell
CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) – There was much chatter in the press about the speeches of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Barack Obama, but the press was sparse about the Statement of Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States and Head of the Holy See’s Delegation to the United Nations given on September 24, 2012.

In his intervention, Archbishop Mamberti stressed the importance of the rule of law, and called for its extension across the globe, since the rule of law is what protects human rights.  There is, he noted, an “unbreakable link” between the rule of law and human rights.

The rule of law, of course, has both procedural and substantive components.  Law is not only a verb, but also a noun.  Not only must process be lawful and transparent, laws must also be substantively good, they must contain “substantial principles of justice” which cover “all spheres of social life.”

The word “law” in the phrase “rule of law,” “should be understood as ‘justice’–what is just, what is a just thing, an element which is proper and inalienable to the nature of every human being and of fundamental social groups.”  For this reason, no person, no private or public institution, and, indeed, no state or international organization can be lawless or unjust, including–one must believe–religions, and so one and all “must be subject to law that is ‘just, fair, and equitable.’”

Procedures alone, even democratic procedures, are not sufficient to assure the rule of law, since procedures or processes alone do not guaranty the substance of law.  Democratic procedures can easily be manipulated to result in laws being “an expression of the will of a few,” and hence result in injustice.

Moreover, without some substantive standard, we invariably confront “a proliferation of norms and procedures, susceptible in their turn to multiple applications and interpretations even to the point of contradicting each other and placing the certainty of law itself in jeopardy.”

A cacophony of voices of what is good and right leads to disregard of law and, ultimately, to the weakening of the rule of law.

There is therefore need of “objective criteria as a basis and guide for legislative activity.”  Without such “objective criteria,” the “rule of law is reduced to a sterile tautology, to a mere ‘rule of rules,’ and not the “rule of law.”

In some cases, the failure to recognize objective criteria has lead to a “legalistic mentality,” one based upon a philosophy of law called legal positivism, which results in a “formal and uncritical adherence to laws and rules.”  This can quickly result in the abuse of human dignity, as happened in the “totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.”

Therefore, the “rule of law” requires a foundation.  And that foundation must be, and can only be, “a unified and comprehensive vision of man.”  This vision of man must be one that appreciates “the complexity and richness [of] how people relate to each other.”  That is, it must be both personal and social in expanse.

Where, then, are individuals, social and political institutions, and indeed governing bodies, including the United Nations and its member states, to go to understand what is “just” or what is a “just thing” so that the rule of law can be furthered?

While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides some “points of reference,” the human rights therein referenced “are not of themselves sufficient,” particularly if we fail to understand them “in the spirit in which they were formulated and in their historical context.”  The Declaration notoriously prescinded from giving the basis of those rights.

But in fact, the underlying basis for the Universal Declaration of Human rights is the “result of a lengthy juridical and political process,” one that found in the philosophy and theoretical thinking of the Greeks and the juridical and practical reasoning of the Romans.  Added to this mix were “other elements, such as Judaeo-Christian wisdom, the laws of other European peoples, canon law,” Scholastic and Enlightenment philosophies based in large part on Aristotle, and “the political developments” found in the French and American as well as other revolutions.

It is this uniquely Western contribution, this “complex, rich, and intricate edifice, which is simultaneously historical, juridical, and philosophical,” upon which the “inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person can and must be appreciated as the essence of the law and to which the rules must refer.”

To a certain degree, one must have “faith” in the rule of law, which means necessarily that one must have faith in something “transcendent, something which does not depend on feelings, concessions, recognitions, or accords.”  Faith in man’s transcendence “becomes the fundamental and indispensable key to understanding rights,” including those in foundational documents of the United Nations.

While the rule of law requires faith in this transcendent reality, it is not religious faith that is involved, but rather a faith based upon “philosophical reasoning.”  This “philosophical reasoning” allows us access to the “meaning of human existence and of the universe,” and allows us to grasp “the existence of human nature,” which is what “offers a true and solid basis to the rule of law,” namely, the natural law, since human nature is “prior and superior to all social theories and constructions.”

Here is the basic fact: “Man is not merely self-creating freedom.  Man does not create himself.  He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it, and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself.”

It is only through the acceptance of his created human nature, and in no other way, that one may “speak truly of the rule of law.”  Without acknowledgment of our created human nature as the undergirding of law, the rule of law is a farce, and we lapse into mere legal positivism.

Where law is concerned, “positivistic reasoning excludes and is unable to grasp anything beyond which is functional.”  At best, positivistic reasoning will “give birth to the ‘rule of rules,’ a system of norms and procedures built merely upon pragmatic and utilitarian reasons.”  This is law based upon a “tautology” a rule of rules alone, one without “permanent values,” one “liable to manipulation.”

This vision of a transcendent man, a man who has a created nature, whose transcendence and created nature must be the prior basis of any law, is under threat from two sides according to Archbishop Mamberti.

The first threat comes from those who seek to minimize the universality of human rights by advocating “multilateral norms.”  In this area we find, for example, the Islamic states, who advocate their own form of human rights which contradict the universal rights based upon the natural moral law in certain particulars.  This cannot be the source of a common governance, of a “common good.”

The other threat comes from those who seek to “promote, in the name of democracy, a materialistic vision of the human person united to a mechanistic and utilitarian vision of law.”  This is the secularist liberals.

These two–in different ways to be sure–contradict the norms of the natural moral law based upon the transcendent nature of man, and so affect the weakest among us: “children, the unborn, the handicapped, the poor,” and so forth.

Two principles must be held on to: the principle of universality of human rights and the indivisibility of human rights.  One for all, and all for one.

One of the most basic rights accorded humans is the right to life.  It is an “unavoidable premise” of the natural law based upon a transcendent and created human nature “that the right to life of every human being–in all stages of biological development, from conception until natural death– be considered and protected as an absolute and inalienable value, prior to any state’s existence, to any social grouping and independent of any official recognition.”

Another of these essential indivisible rights is freedom of religion, as this freedom is threatened by both the liberal secularists on the one hand and by the Islamic particularists on the other:

“The response to the great questions of our existence, man’s religious dimension, the ability to open oneself to the transcendent, alone or with others, is an essential part of each person and to some degree is identifiable with his or her very liberty. The ‘right to seek the truth in matters religious.’ without coercion and in full freedom of conscience, must not be treated by states with suspicion or as something merely to permit or tolerate.  On the contrary, the guarantee of such freedom, apart from its actual use, is an inalienable hinge of the rule of law for believer and non-believer alike.”

It is only if the principles of the universality and indivisibility of human rights and a “juridical order solidly based upon the dignity and nature of humanity, in other words, upon the natural law” are recognized that international cooperation can occur.  Out of the universal and indivisible rights arising out of man’s nature, we must recognize as central the “dignity of the human person, beginning with the centrality of the right to life and to freedom of religion.”

—–

Andrew M. Greenwell is an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas, practicing in Corpus Christi, Texas.  He is married with three children.  He maintains a blog entirely devoted to the natural law called Lex Christianorum.  You can contact Andrew at agreenwell@harris-greenwell.com.

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August 2, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Inspiring Story – Chinese Woman Saves 30 Abandoned Babies! 

By Daily Mail

CHINA (Daily Mail) – A woman has been hailed a hero after details of her astonishing work with abandoned children has emerged.

Lou Xiaoying, now 88 and suffering from kidney failure, found and raised more than 30 abandoned Chinese babies from the streets of Jinhua, in the eastern Zhejiang province where she managed to make a living by recycling rubbish.

She and her late husband Li Zin, who died 17 years ago, kept four of the children and passed the others onto friends and family to start new lives.

Her youngest son Zhang Qilin – now aged just seven – was found in a dustbin by Lou when she was 82.

‘Even though I was already getting old I could not simply ignore the baby and leave him to die in the trash. He looked so sweet and so needy. I had to take him home with me,’ she said.

‘I took him back to our home, which is a very small modest house in the countryside and nursed him to health. He is now a thriving little boy, who is happy and healthy.

‘My older children all help look after Zhang Qilin, he is very special to all of us. I named him after the Chinese word for rare and precious.

‘The whole thing started when I found the first baby, a little girl back in 1972 when I was out collecting rubbish. She was just lying amongst the junk on the street, abandoned. She would have died had we not rescued her and taken her in.

‘Watching her grow and become stronger gave us such happiness and I realised I had a real love of caring for children.

‘I realised if we had strength enough to collect garbage how could we not recycle something as important as human lives,’ she explained.

‘These children need love and care. They are all precious human lives. I do not understand how people can leave such a vulnerable baby on the streets.

SEE PICTURES and read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181017/Lou-Xiaoying-Story-Chinese-woman-saved-30-abandoned-babies-dumped-street-trash.html#ixzz22PG0xMHn

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July 30, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Judge says Arizona’s abortion ban can take effect 

By Fox News

Although a small victory in this horrendous culture war, we must continue our prayers until America once again cherishes and protects each and every human life. – Staff

PHOENIX –  Arizona’s ban on abortions starting at 20 weeks of pregnancy will take effect this week as scheduled after a federal judge ruled Monday that the new law is constitutional.

U.S. District Judge James Teilborg said the statute may prompt a few pregnant women who are considering abortion to make the decision earlier. But he said the law is constitutional because it doesn’t prohibit any women from making the decision to end their pregnancies.

The judge also wrote that the state provided “substantial and well-documented” evidence that an unborn child has the capacity to feel pain during an abortion by at least 20 weeks.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/30/judge-says-arizona-abortion-ban-can-take-effect/%20?test=latestnews#ixzz22AKVv8HF

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July 13, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Group trains runners for marathons, spreads pro-life message at events

By Catherine McDonough, Catholic News Service

(Life Runners, founded by Pat Castle, are an active participant in the Law of Life Summit led by Royce Hood. Pat Castle helped plan the Law of Life Summit and was its first MC (emcee). Thank you to Life Runners and the Law of Life Summit for their diligent work to spread the message of life and love to the world. - Staff.) 

WASHINGTON (CNS) — How far would you go to defend life? Life Runners would go about 26.2 miles a race.

Founded in South Dakota by running partners Pat Castle and Rich Reich, Life Runners has been promoting Catholicism and the pro-life movement through marathons in some of the nation’s biggest cities since 2008.

Castle said Life Runners came out of a prayer group the two men co-founded in 2007 called Life Group Devotions. They decided to create an “action arm” of their ministry.

“We started with devotions from the beginning and then it dawned on us. We are training and running marathons, and we are looking for a pro-life ‘action arm,’” Castle told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from Sioux Falls, S.D. “There was none, I mean zero, organized pro-life teams represented in marathons. There are 5Ks all around but not at the major marathon level.”

Life Runners’ goal is to participate in at least one marathon a year. In 2008, it was the Chicago marathon; in 2009, St. Paul-Minneapolis; in 2010, Sioux Falls, S.D.; and 2011, Kansas City, Mo.

Castle said the group’s five-member board chooses the location. They “look for fall marathons around the country and then decide where our mission is needed most,” he said.

Life Runners, now based in St. Louis, is made up of people who pray, run and raise money for pregnancy help centers and build awareness about the abortion issue. Once the location is decided, a pro-life beneficiary is picked, and the organization’s local chapters spend the year fundraising for the designated pro-life entity.

“Every penny goes toward the beneficiaries,” Castle noted.

The runners wear blue T-shirts with the scriptural quote “REMEMBER The Unborn Jer 1:5″ across the back.

“We are certainly pro-life missionaries,” Castle said. “We are wearing a jersey like a little mini-billboard, and we are running through the streets of cities in secular races. We are bringing the pro-life message into the world. We don’t have to speak a word. We are representing Christ with that message on our back.”

Lisa Skowron, 44, a pro-life Methodist from San Antonio, joined Life Runners because of the support its members gave her. She said she had an abortion that left her searching for healing for 24 years.

“I went through post-abortive healing in 2008. Then I started running to connect with God again. I ran my first half marathon in 2008 and first full marathon in 2009. I dedicated it to the child I had aborted,” Skowron told CNS.

“At the race, standing there and looking around and seeing the other groups (running for a cause), I thought, ‘Why isn’t there anything for pro-life?’ That (run) was a personal dedication. I thought it would be so wonderful to see an organization that was for pro-life,” she added.

Skowron took some time away from running, then came across Life Runners by reading a LifeSiteNews article. She sent an email to Life Runners, sharing her story and asking about its mission. “I had prayed one day that God would inspire me to run again. Life Runners, it’s just so God,” Skowron said.

Around 500 people from across the U.S. currently belong to Life Runners. The organization’s most recent event was a marathon in St. Louis April 15, though the group often has more than just one race per year because local chapters can organize and participate in local races.

“We have just taken off,” Castle said. “We have a strategic goal of growing. In 2011, we raised $35,000 before really having an organized fundraising process. It would not surprise me if we raised close to $100,000 this year.”

Life Runners’ next race is the St. Louis Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Oct. 21. The event has one-mile, 5K, half and full marathon options. Castle estimates about 400 people will participate with Life Runners.

When a person signs up with Life Runners, he or she is told about the organization’s local chapters. According to Castle, chapter members pray together and train together. Most chapters also have a chaplain.

“If someone registering does not have a chapter close to them, I encourage them to start one. All they need is five runners,” Castle said.

Skowron, who has four children, started a chapter in San Antonio. “We have about 10 members now. We’ve done two runs together as a team so far.”

Teresa Laugeman, 43, is a chapter leader in St. Charles, Mo. She has been part of Life Runners for about nine months. “I have noticed whenever I run with a group of Life Runners, it’s always a better run,” she said. “We always say the Life Runners creed before we run and there is so much support from the people you are running with.

“We are all there for the same cause; we are running for the babies. You don’t feel like you’re competing, you’re all going toward one common goal. It’s a good feeling,” said Laugeman.

For those running a half marathon, training begins about three months before the race; for a full, about four to five months prior.

Planning for Life Runners’ next big project is under way — a cross-country race during 40 Days for Life, a national campaign to end abortion. The run starts Feb 13, 2013. Headed by Life Runner Jeff Grabosky, the race was inspired by his own run across America January to May 2011.

The Life Runners website is http://liferunners.org. Following the organization on Facebook also grants access to information on upcoming marathons, daily prayers and devotions.

“Our motto is ‘All In Christ For Pro-Life,’” Castle said. “You become the essence of what you are talking about. We have to have the courage to talk about it. We need to plant the seed. We have to make people say, ‘Hey, did you see what’s going on? I want to be part of that.’”

Read more great stories at: http://www.catholicnews.com/

Life Runners Story: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1202935.htm

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July 12, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Planned Parenthood’s Manipulative Language Strategy Leaked

By Kristan Hawkins, Executive Director, Students for Life of America

The power of words and formulating arguments is an extremely powerful and precise science. While pro-life advocates are careful to use words that accurately represent terms that surround abortion, Planned Parenthood is careful to craft their language and arguments in a way that will subtly manipulate the issue and cause confusion. In addition to manipulating confusion, documents (http://studentsforlife.org/files/2012/07/Scanned-from-a-Xerox-multifunction-device0011.pdf) that SFLA has recently obtained from Planned Parenthood of NYC also proves that the abortion Goliath knows its losing in the court of public opinion.

In one section entitled, “Talking Points,” Planned Parenthood’s goal is clear: push feelings of empathy for the woman in order to diminish the sting of abortion. They want their representatives to “evoke empathy, emphasize personal decision making, and accept ambivalence” when speaking about abortion. The most shocking bullet point on this page is when Planned Parenthood suggests that in order to win a person over to the pro-choice side your job is to make the other person feel relief that they didn’t have to have an abortion. These talking points blatantly prove that they understand abortion is not liked; a fact SFLA recently documented in our nationwide poll, showing that the plurality of 18-24 year olds view abortion as a “bad thing.”

In another section entitled, “Tips for Fielding Tough Questions”, Planned Parenthood of NYC opens by stating, “The secret to fielding tough questions is to stick to your worldview! After all, questions are simply opportunities for you to get your message out.” Or more straight forwardly interpreted: “Don’t really answer questions, just give them enough so that you can tell them how wonderful Planned Parenthood is.” Their suggested response to the question, “Why are you a baby killer?” is “I’m proud to work for Planned Parenthood. We’re a nationwide healthcare provider…” In a basic high school philosophy class, Planned Parenthood would have learned that they have just committed a logical fallacy of answering a challenge with an irrelevant conclusion. But this guide is not concerned about logic, it’s about ensuring that Planned Parenthood advocates are emotional and argument manipulators.

The good news is that we know we are winning because Planned Parenthood blatantly admits it must use emotion over fact and logical fallacies to make their case. However, we know more must be done and as pro-life advocates we must work to make sure Planned Parenthood does not succeed in steering the public eye away from the issue of abortion.  And don’t be afraid to call Planned Parenthood what it really is: an abortion Goliath, manipulator of women, criminal (http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/former-planned-parenthood-employee-sues-abortion-giant-over-medicaid-fraud), and a baby killer.

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July 10, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Unarmed Afghanistan woman gunned down while crowd cheers

By Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – In a shocking video smuggled out of Afghanistan, an unarmed burqa-clad woman is shot to death by a man as a crowd behind her shouts “God is great!” The 22-year-old woman, only identified as Najiba is repeatedly shot by the man long after she falls over dead in a sequence that is difficult to watch.

According to some sources, Najiba was having an affair with Taliban members, and “because two fighters couldn’t decide who could have her.”

The woman is reputed to have been married to a member of a hard-line Taliban militant group and was killed after being accused of adultery with a Taliban commander.

Scenes of the rifle-wielding gunman shooting the woman in the head and back execution-style took place in Qimchok village, in Afghanistan’s Parwan province.

Najiba is seen sitting at the edge of a ditch wearing a grey veil; in the right hand corner a man seem to be filming something out of frame. A man wearing white clothes and an orange beret appears pointing an AK47 rifle at her. He then opens fire at Najiba as she sits with her back towards him.

Najiba then slumps to the floor, as dozens of men on a nearby hillside cheer, “God is great!”

The unidentified assassin then continues to shoot her dead body whilst walking towards it.

Officials in Afghanistan said the killing came about due to a dispute between two Taliban members, who had argued over the woman.

Parwan province governor Abdul Basir Salangi told CNN that as both Taliban men “had some kind of relationship with the woman,” and chose to accuse her of adultery in order to “save face.”

With a look of satisfaction, the executioner walks away from her dead body. The harrowing images came from an undated video, although it is thought the Afghanistan execution took place some time in late June.

The video was handed over by a Qol villager to the Parwan provincial government. For what it is worth, it’s believed that both Taliban commanders have subsequently been executed.

The video has been condemned by the Afghan government as un-Islamic and inhuman.

Public executions of alleged adulterers were common when the Taliban regime was in power. The Taliban were in control of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, when they were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion for harboring Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.

© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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July 10, 2012 / MariaNews.com

China’s War on Children: Another Forced Abortion in China Draws Media Attention

By Catholic Online

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) – In June of this year, Jennifer Hartline of Catholic Online wrote a hard hitting article entitled Sex-Selection Abortion and China’s Brutality: Shall We ‘Gulp and Get Over It’?  It commented upon the horrid forcible abortion of 23-yr-old pregnant mother Feng Jianmei of China. The brutal act finally drew the outrage of the International Press after a photo of the mother with her dead child next to her was published throughout the West over social media.

A courageous Chinese human rights named Chen Guangcheng recently moved into Greenwich Village in New York after a long and brutal ordeal which also drew international coverage. The Chinese regime reluctantly consented to him leaving the country after the coverage could not be stopped and threatened their public relations charade. Chen is the 40 year old Chinese citizen who taught himself the law and, as a human rights lawyer, courageously stood up against the evil, inhumane and barbaric forced abortion and sterilization policies of the nation he loves, the Peoples Republic of China.

In addition to the Chinese Communist regime’s crimes against humanity, such as forced abortion and sterilization, they persecute Christians and other religious believers – with a special hatred directed against the Catholic Church. I regularly write about the persecution of faithful Catholics by the Communist Regime ruling mainland China. They have established a “Patriotic” Church which engages in illicit ordinations and persecutes Catholics loyal to Rome.

Sadly, because the Maoist Atheists ruling mainland China wear business suits, smile a lot, and hold commercial paper which represents a substantial amount of American I.O.U.’s, few politicians in either major political party have the courage to call them out for their egregious human rights abuses. With our growing economic reliance and dependence upon the Regime in China we sacrifice our fundamental obligation to defend fundamental human rights because we depend on the economic assistance of a repressive regime.

I will never forget the visit of Vice President Joe Biden to China in August of 2011. This Vice president who claims to be a practicing Catholic and presents himself as a champion of those who have no voice failed to oppose the brutality of forced abortions and sterilization. He remained silent before a brutal regime which subjects parents who have more than one child to fines, human rights abuses, beatings and imprisonment. He said during that visit that he would not “second guess” the murderous policy.

Congressman Chris Smith, a human rights hero and faithful Catholic made this statement in Congressional testimony in 2011, “Since 1979, brothers and sisters have been illegal in China as part of the barbaric one child per couple policy. And for 30 years, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has vigorously supported, funded, defended, promoted and even celebrated these massive crimes against humanity.”

“The uncontested facts are these: Any Chinese, Tibetan, or Uyghur mother without a birth permit is put under coercive pressure to abort – if need be, she is physically forced to do so. All unwed moms are compelled to abort. In what can only be described as a search-and-destroy mission, disabled children are aborted as part of a nationwide eugenics program.”

On Monday, July 9, 2012, Wang Zhicheng of Asia News, reported on another brutal incident involving forced abortion in an article entitled, Fujian, forced to abort by injection in seventh month. Family denounces Government. According to the report, the World Health Organization now estimates that 14 million forced abortions take place each year in China which are related to the one-child law, 25% of all abortions in the world.

“Pan Chunyan, 30, of Daji (Fujian) was pregnant with a baby of seven months. With her husband Wu Liangjie they already have two children: an 8 year old girl and a boy of three. Last March, a group of men of the Office for population control, traveled to Shishi (120 km from Daji), where Wu was working to threaten him with having violated the one-child law: or pay 45,300 Yuan ( about 5800 Euros) in fines or his wife was to undergo a forced abortion”.

“Returning to the village, Wu paid 20 thousand Yuan. But a month after the funds were returned, and his wife was kidnapped and locked in a room with other pregnant women. At that point, the local government asked him to pay a fine of 55 thousand Yuan (more than 7 thousand Euros). Despite having paid two days later, more than 60 people with different cars, arrived at his house, seize his wife and took her to hospital where they administered an injection to procure the abortion.”

“In an interview reported on the South China Morning Post, Wu said his wife “was on her knees pleading with them, but they did not listen.” Two days later the woman gave birth to the fetus of seven months, “at the sight of the little body she was reduced to crying and screaming.” Disgusted by this law and its use as a means of income for the bureaucrats and as a means of blackmail, Wu decided to publish his story on the internet and to denounce the local government in Daji. Since then he is hiding in Beijing with his wife, in a secret place. The local government ordered him to remove his story from the Internet or he in turn will be visited by thugs.”

The treatment of children as commodities in China, products to be accumulated only with the permission of the Central Government, seems horribly unjust to most observers, and rightly so. However, at its root, is it that different than the current abortion culture of the West? In the West, it is not the Government which issues a permit, allowing a couple to conceive. Instead the so called abortion “right”, created out of whole cloth by unelected Judges, is now enforced by the Police Power of the State.

This positive “law”, which violates the Natural Law Right to Life of Every Child, ‘allows’ the parents of a child to secure the services of a medical professional to take her life in the womb for any reason, up to and including the ninth month of pregnancy, if she is not wanted. This can be done through any number of means from dismemberment, to suction or chemical weapons which are administered in utero. The brutality of these procedures is hidden behind the wall of the womb, once the safest place on earth.

China’s One Child Policy demands our outrage! We call upon the Obama Administration to take a strong and public position decrying this horrid abuse of human rights. Of course, it is increasingly hard to take the moral high ground when the same Obama Administration continues its own governmental policy of defending the killing of children in the womb, at any time and for any reason, in our own country – calling it a “reproductive right” and seeking to fund the procedure as a medical service under the Affordable Care Act. God have mercy.

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July 10, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Phoenix Enters the Twilight Zone – Religious Freedom

By Family Research Council

PHOENIX, ARIZONA (Family Research Council) – In what can only be described as surreal, the City of Phoenix Court has sentenced Mike Salman, father of six and the owner of Mighty Mike’s Burgers to 60 days in jail. What’s the City’s beef with Salman? According to our friend Todd Starnes at Fox News Radio, it has nothing to do with his business; it is what he has been doing at home. About 7 years ago Salman began holding Bible studies in his home that sits on almost 5 acres of land. In 2007 the City sent Salman a letter saying Bible studies were not permitted in their living room because it was a violation of the construction code. In 2009 after securing all the permits, Salman constructed a 2,000 square foot building in their backyard to host the 30 or so people who attended the Bible study. The harassment of the city only continued culminating in a raid of their home by police which led to them being criminally charged with 67 code violations.

What type of violations? No Exit Signs over the doors and no handicap parking spaces in front of their home. Not only was Salman found guilty and sentenced to 60 days in jail, he faces a fine of $12,180 and three years’ probation. The City claims that because Salman was meeting on a regular basis he was operating a church and therefore had to meet zoning codes for public meeting spaces. When asked if the same would apply to someone who had a weekly poker night or a Monday Night Football gathering, the City prosecutor refused to respond.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. City governments are increasingly using zoning ordinances to trample on religious freedom. You may recall the Fromm family in San Juan Capistrano, CA that was fined by the city for violating zoning ordinances by holding a Bible study in their home. Fortunately after a public outcry San Juan Capistrano officials amended their ordinances to be faith friendly and refunded the fine. Religious freedom is our First Freedom and it recognizes our right not just to attend church services on Sunday mornings but to live out our faith in a real and tangible way. That would include the right to have a Bible Study, small group, or other “church” meeting in your own home.

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July 7, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Archbishop Chaput Closes Fortnight with Powerful Homily: What We Must Render Unto God and Unto Caesar

By Catholic Online

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic online) – The Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, is one of America’s great churchmen who has gained an international recognition for his preaching and teaching on the proper understanding of Catholics and their civic duty. His courage and prophetic clarity on the authentic view of faithful citizenship have inspired thousands to a new Catholic Action which is only just beginning.

On the Fourth of July, Archbishop Chaput delivered the closing homily before an overflow crowd gathered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the campus of Catholic University. The Liturgy, along with others in major cities throughout the Nation, was to “close” the “Fortnight for Freedom” called by the US Catholic Bishops. His choice as the homilist was not accidental. Nor can the critical and essential intention of this fortnight, the protection and preservation of religious freedom, actually come to an end.

This prophetic Archbishop consistently calls all Catholics to live with what Pope Benedict XVI refers to as “moral coherence”. This is not easy under the oppressive boot of what the same Pope properly called “the Dictatorship of Relativism.” He has long challenged all of us who bear the name Catholic to avoid what the Second Vatican Council called the “greatest error of our age…the separation between faith and life”. His book “Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by living our Catholic beliefs in Political Life” is already a classic. His newest EBook “A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the next America” is another extraordinary contribution to promoting a New Catholic Action.

The books both address the duty of integrating our Catholic faith into our obligations of citizenship. They should be read by every Catholic as we enter into the most important Presidential election of our lifetime. They should also be read by all Christians, all people of faith and all people of good will who value the American experiment in ordered liberty and want to see it continue. We offer the following excerpts from the homily for our readers around the globe:

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Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput

My dear faithful people of God and people of Good will,

Philadelphia is the place where both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were written. For more than two centuries, these documents have inspired people around the globe. So as we begin our reflection on today’s readings, I have the privilege of greeting everyone here today — and every person watching or listening from a distance — in the name of the Church of my home, the Church of Philadelphia, the cradle of our country’s liberty and the city of our nation’s founding, so greetings to all of you from the people of Philadelphia. May God bless and guide all of us as we settle our hearts and minds on the Word of God.

Paul Claudel, the French poet and diplomat of the last century, once described the Christian as “a man who knows what he is doing and where he is going in a world [that] no longer [knows] the difference between good and evil, between yes and no. He is like a god standing out in a crowd of invalids . . . He alone has liberty in a world of slaves.”

Like most of the great writers of his time, Claudel was a mix of gold and clay, flaws and genius. He had a deep and brilliant Catholic faith, and when he wrote that a man “who no longer believes in God, no longer believes in anything,” he was simply reporting what he saw all around him. He spoke from a lifetime that witnessed two world wars and the rise of atheist ideologies that murdered tens of millions of innocent people using the vocabulary of science. He knew exactly where forgetting God can lead.

We Americans live in a different country, on a different continent, in a different century. And yet, in speaking of liberty, Claudel leads us to the reason we come together in worship this afternoon.

Most of us know today’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew. What we should, or should not, render unto Caesar shapes much of our daily discourse as citizens. But I want to focus on the other and more important point Jesus makes in today’s Gospel: the things we should render unto God.

When the Pharisees and Herodians try to trap Jesus, he responds by asking for a coin. Examining it he says, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” When his enemies say “Caesar’s,” he tells them to render it to Caesar. In other words, that which bears the image of Caesar belongs to Caesar.

The key word in Christ’s answer is “image,” or in the Greek, eikon. Our modern meaning of “image” is weaker than the original Greek meaning. We tend to think of an image as something symbolic, like a painting or sketch. The Greek understanding includes that sense but goes much further. In the New Testament, the “image” of something shares in the nature of the thing itself.

This has consequences for our own lives because we’re made in the image and likeness of God. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the same word, eikon, is used in Genesis when describing creation. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” says God (Gen 1:26). The implication is clear. To be made in the image of God is more than a pious slogan. It’s a statement of fact. Every one of us shares — in a limited but real way — in the nature of God himself. When we follow Jesus Christ, we grow in conformity to that image.

Once we understand this, the impact of Christ’s response to his enemies becomes clear. Jesus isn’t being clever. He’s not offering a political commentary. He’s making a claim on every human being. He’s saying, “render unto Caesar those things that bear Caesar’s image, but more importantly, render unto God that which bears God’s image” — in other words, you and me. All of us.

And that raises some unsettling questions: What do you and I, and all of us, really render to God in our personal lives? If we claim to be disciples, then what does that actually mean in the way we speak and the way we act?

Thinking about the relationship of Caesar and God, religious faith and secular authority, is important. It helps us sort through our different duties as Christians and citizens. But on a deeper level, Caesar is a creature — a creature of this world — and Christ’s message is uncompromising: We should give Caesar nothing of ourselves. Obviously we’re in the world. That means we have obligations of charity and justice to the people with whom we share it. For Christians, patriotism is a virtue. Love of country is an honorable thing. As Chesterton once said, if we build a wall between ourselves and the world, it makes little difference whether we describe ourselves as locked in or locked out.

But God has made us for more than the world. Our real home isn’t here. The point of today’s Gospel passage is not how we might calculate a fair division of goods between Caesar and God. In reality, it all belongs to God and nothing – at least nothing permanent and important – belongs to Caesar. Why? Because just as the coin bears the stamp of Caesar’s image, we bear the stamp of God’s image in baptism. We belong to God, and only to God.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul tells us, “Indeed religion” — the RSV version says “godliness” – “with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it.” My dear friends, true freedom knows no attachments other than Jesus Christ. It has no love of riches or the appetites they try to satisfy. True freedom can walk away from anything — wealth, honor, fame, pleasure. Even power. It fears neither the state, nor death itself.

Who is the most free person at anything? It’s the person who masters her art. A pianist is most free who — having mastered her instrument according to the rules that govern it and the rules of music, and having disciplined and honed her skills — can now play anything she wants.

The same holds true for our lives. We’re free only to the extent that we unburden ourselves of our own willfulness and practice the art of living according to God’s plan. When we do this, when we choose to live according to God’s intentions for us, then — and only then — will we be truly free.

This is the freedom of the sons and daughters of God. It’s the freedom of Miguel Pro, of Mother Teresa, Maximillian Kolbe, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and all the other holy women and men who have gone before us to do the right thing, the heroic thing, in the face of suffering, adversity and death.

This is the kind of freedom that can transform the world. And it should animate all of our talk about liberty – religious or otherwise.

I say this for two reasons. Here’s the first reason. Real freedom isn’t something Caesar can give or take away. He can interfere with it; but when he does, he steals from his own legitimacy.

Here’s the second reason. The purpose of religious liberty is to create the context for true freedom. Religious liberty is a foundational right. It’s necessary for the good of society. But it can never be sufficient for human happiness. It’s not an end in itself. In the end, we defend religious liberty in order to live the deeper freedom that is discipleship in Jesus Christ. What good is religious freedom, consecrated in the law, if we don’t then use that freedom to seek God with our whole mind, our whole strength, our whole soul and all that we are?

Today, July 4, we celebrate the birth of a novus ordo seclorum – a “new order of the ages,” the American Era. God has blessed our nation with resources, power, beauty and the rule of law. We have so much to be grateful for. But these are gifts. They can be misused. They can be lost. In coming years, we’ll face more and more serious challenges to religious liberty in our country. This is why the Fortnight for Freedom has been so very important.

And yet, the political and legal effort to defend religious liberty – as vital as it is – belongs to a much greater struggle to master and convert our own hearts, and to live for God completely, without alibis or self-delusion. The only question that finally matters is this one: Will we live wholeheartedly for Jesus Christ? If so, then we can be a source of freedom for the world. If not, nothing else will do.

God’s word in today’s first reading is a caution we ignore at our own expense. “Son of man,” God says to Ezekiel and to all of us, “I have appointed you as a sentinel. If I say to the wicked, ‘you will surely die’ – and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them . . . I will hold you responsible for their blood.”

Here’s what that means for each of us: We live in a time that calls for sentinels and public witness. Every Christian in every era faces the same task. But you and I are responsible for this moment. Today. Now. We need to “speak out,” not only for religious liberty and the ideals of the nation we love, but for the sacredness of life and the dignity of the human person – in other words, for the truth of what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God.

We need to be witnesses of that truth not only in words, but also in deeds. In the end, we’re missionaries of Jesus Christ, or we’re nothing at all. And we can’t share with others what we don’t live faithfully and joyfully ourselves.

When we leave this Mass today, we need to render unto Caesar those things that bear his image. But we need to render ourselves unto God — generously, zealously, holding nothing back. To the extent we let God transform us into his own image, we will – by the example of our lives – fulfill our duty as citizens of the United States, but much more importantly, as disciples of Jesus Christ.

May God bring to completion the good things he begins in us today. 

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