Comments for Thoughts from Inside the Beltway at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sun, 26 May 2013 03:37:15 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/thoughts-from-inside-the-beltway.html#comment-12125 Manfred, Those of us who had to personally deal with a morally squalid subculture in the priesthood during the 1960s and 1970s have often been in danger of using it as an escape clause in the moral contract of natural law and Catholic teaching. I supported abortion throughout my twenties, but in my thirties slowly began to ask questions and actually think about it. Prompted in no small part by women kneeling in front of a Manhattan clinic praying the rosary. Moved also by the Holy Spirit I have to believe. I was in danger, in other words, of putting my moral obligations at a far remove. Global humanism, global peace, global love, global compassion. Citizen of the World. It's how activists and artists speak. As urban ignorance, despair, violence, and hatred roil all around them. And it's worse. We have seen actress Cynthia Nixon ("Sex and the City") demonstrate for NY's public schools; actively condoning what has been documented even in the NY Times. In the end the personal is political means being cold, aloof, and dismissive of human suffering in the name of "regaining our consciousness" to borrow a phrase. We have obligations to our history. But I also live in the 21st century now and if you'll excuse me for quoting from the King James Bible, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." - Graham Sun, 24 Jun 2012 03:24:43 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/thoughts-from-inside-the-beltway.html#comment-12117 10 years ago I visited the Supreme Court building. It was my first D.C. trip. Walking up the steps into that 'temple' I was in 'tourist mindset'...simply walked in casually. The court was in recess so we were able to walk into the room where arguments are held. As I headed into the room and walked down the aisle I literally heard the Voice of God boom in my head: "THIS IS WHERE THEY MADE THE DECISION TO KILL MY BABIES." In all honesty, as a believer and pro-lifer this was not on my mind. But immediately I saw that room as God did. I started shaking, crying and my husband looked at me stunned as I told him I had, I HAD to leave immediately. I then sat on the steps outside weeping. THAT opened my eyes in a way nothing else could. Also we have a child in the military and as I walked around all the war memorials, that WAS something on my heart because I did weep at the Vietnam Wall, etc...praying over and over the prophecy found in Isaiah and Joel : And every man beneath his vine and fig tree, shall live in peace and not afraid. Into plowshares turn their swords; nations shall learn war no more." I silently found myself praying that over and over in the Mall walk. It is my intercession that more followers of Jesus pray especially as they pass these buildings and memorials - seeing them as Jesus does..."O Jerusalem, Jerusalem." - Diane Peske Sat, 23 Jun 2012 06:32:25 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/thoughts-from-inside-the-beltway.html#comment-12115 Planned Parenthood? human embryos? Msgr. William Lynn, of the A'diocese of Philadelphia, was just convicted of "endangering CHILDREN" by covering up for predatory priests. Jerry Sandusky was just convicted of sexual abuse of ten BOYS over fifteen years. The cover-up at Penn State resulted in the firing of Joe Paterno and Pres. Graham Spanier. John Adams wrote that the American experiment was very fragile and could not be exported. It is predicated on the fact that all its citizens must be RELIGIOUS as, without the curb of an informed God-fearing CONSCIENCE, society could descend into viciousness. It obviously has many years ago. Waterboarding? American troops were doing it to Filipinos in 1903. Two atomic bombs on a defeated Japan-"carpet bombing" of Japan and Europe in WW II-Agent Orange on agrarian Viet Nam where birth defects are still resulting from it today. And we are worrying about aborted fetuses? From a purely secular point of view they could be considered the lucky ones. - Manfred Sat, 23 Jun 2012 04:58:41 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/thoughts-from-inside-the-beltway.html#comment-12113 I doubt, sadly, that the young man would have had a flash of doubt in his own eyes at his remarkable statement, for he, too, is a religious believer, his religion being progressivism and statism, the Left having long ago co-opted millenial longings and arrogated to itself the belief that it can bring about a perfect state of affairs on earth. Joe is so right that more is at stake: it is time for Catholics and other Christians to reawaken to the words of St. Thomas More, "I die the King's servant, but God's first." It is time for us really to examine what does it mean to "seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness," and to reject the allures and blandishments of the easy/ier life promised by the Entitlement State. - Dave Sat, 23 Jun 2012 02:11:31 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/thoughts-from-inside-the-beltway.html#comment-12112 I like to give my wife a card and write a few thoughts to her just before she travels on a business trip as I did a few days ago. I always tell her I'll miss her. What seems a routine comment I don't consider routine, the fact is I miss when she's gone and am happy to have her back upon her return. I'll share something in that note I wrote to her based upon a conversation we had a few days ago. Starting in the 60's, this country began to get angry with itself and as time has passed, we are getting angrier and angrier at one another. Clearly, there are now discernible sides and lines that were drawn are wider and starker from their beginning. Each side thinks the they are the "keepers of the light" and the other side are "keepers of the darkness." The last time this anger came to a head, approximately 630,000 Americans died at the hands of their own countrymen at places like Manassas, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, etc etc. I hope and pray it does not come to this but the behavioral signs manifest today are getting way too close to the same behaviors and attitudes that began in the 1840's and finally met their end at Appomattox. Thus, I heartily commend Mr. Wood for engaging the young man from Planned Parenthood in such a manner; polite, to the point, plant some doubt, leave immediately and pray the Holy Spirit works in Divine Time to change the young man's heart. Changing hearts one at a time is much more preferable than massive deadly violence. And those who think it can't happen here again are whistling past the graveyard of history. - Frank Sat, 23 Jun 2012 01:57:55 +0100