Dozens of Michigan Schools Close Due to Rumors of Violence

December 21, 2012 By 7 Comments

Dozens of Michigan schools cancelled classes today because of fall-out from the Sandy Hook tragedy, combined with the Mayan calendar nonsense.

This is just a symptom of how raw the people of this nation are this week.

It raises the question that I asked here. Why did our leader rush this country into a divisive debate on gun control before the victims of this latest atrocity were even buried?

Grieving our losses and trying to bring ourselves and our families together for a holy and healing Christmas are about all the people of this country can handle right now.

Aside from executive orders, which I think would be terribly unwise, there is nothing that can be done until after the New Year. Congress and the president are engaged in an insult-slinging fight over the “fiscal cliff.” Isn’t playing chicken with our economic security enough trauma from Washington for now?

A wise leader understands that there is a time for everything. I believe that opening a debate about solutions — especially when the proposed solutions are things that divide us — is poor leadership in this sensitive time. I think it is uncaring leadership. By that I mean that I think the president has focused on taking advantage of what he sees as a political opportunity and ignored  the well-being of the American people. There was no practical reason why he had to open this debate this week. None.

The Associated Press article about school closings in Michigan reads in part:

DETROIT (AP) — Dozens of Michigan schools canceled classes for thousands of students to cool off rumored threats of violence and problems related to doomsday scenarios based on the Mayan calendar, officials said Thursday.

Public schools in Genesee and Lapeer counties, neighboring counties north of the Detroit area, started the Christmas break Wednesday night rather than hold classes the rest of the week. Meanwhile, police investigated whether students made false claims about guns at the high school in Grand Blanc, saidJohn Potbury, a spokesman for the Genesee County prosecutor.

Last week’s shooting at a Connecticut elementary school “changed all of us. … Canceling school is the right thing to do,” Genesee County schools said in a statement. (Read more here.)

 

Filed Under: America, Culture, Economics, Family, Gun Violence, Politics, Uncategorized, Violence in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

Unseemly haste …

December 21, 2012 By 7 Comments

The funerals are not finished.

Why did the President rush this country into a divisive debate about gun control before the victims of this tragedy were buried?

Why the unseemly haste?

Couldn’t he have given this country time to grieve before pushing us into another political fight? Would it be so hard to wait a few days?

Christmas is in four days.

Why didn’t he at least give us time to bury our dead and be together with our families at Christmas before forcing another battle on us?

Filed Under: Advent, Culture, Family, Gun Violence, Politics, Uncategorized, Violence in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , 7 Comments

It’s December 21, 2012. Is Anybody Here????

December 21, 2012 By 8 Comments

I woke up this morning.

Let me repeat that. I woke up this morning.

From what I’ve heard, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Waking up, I mean. I wasn’t supposed to wake up because, I — along with all the rest of you — was supposed to be gone.

Our whole human saga was predicted to come to an end today. The Mayans said so, and as everybody knows, nothing unexpected ever happened to the Mayans. They knew their prophecy stuff.

Or maybe they didn’t.

After all, I did wake up this morning.

Of course, 12/21/12 will last all day and all evening, right up until the clock clicks over to 0000. We could go pouf! at any time all day long. Talk about sweating out the hours. In case we aren’t here tomorrow, let me be the first (or is it the last?) to say so long and adios. It’s been real.

Filed Under: Culture, Humor, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , 8 Comments

If You Go to San Francisco …

December 20, 2012 By 2 Comments

Instead of going to the Walk for Life in Washington, DC, I may go to San Francisco for the Walk for Life West Coast, instead.

Better weather. Much more resistance. Coals to Newkirk. Flowers to Moloch. etc.

The annual Walk for Life West Coast has faced official resistance and counter protesters from the start, but it has grown exponentially, just the same. An estimated 5,000 walkers showed up the first year. The number ballooned to 40,000 last year. This year, who knows?

There are always the requisite counter protesters and catcalls, alongside various attempts at resistance by elected officials. But the march organizers have persisted, the number of walkers has grown and it now looks like even San Francisco has a few of us pro-life traditional Christians around.

I wonder … if I reserve my plane ticket now, can I get a good price???

Pro-life supporters participate in the West Coast Walk for Life 2012 in San Francisco, Jan. 21, 2012. Credit: West Coast Walk for Life.

San Francisco, Calif., Dec 14, 2012 / 02:02 am (CNA).- A move by San Francisco’s city officials to support a celebration of the 40th anniversary of legalized abortion in the U.S. has been interpreted by some as an attempt to discourage a local pro-life rally.

“San Francisco City government, as well as many local residents, cannot abide the fact that the Walk for Life can attract over 40,000 participants annually to oppose a cause that their worldview holds as gospel,” said Vicki Evans, Respect Life coordinator for the San Francisco archdiocese.

Despite low attendance of a similar abortion advocacy event last year, San Francisco Supervisors Malia Cohen and David Campos introduced a resolution to the city’s Board of Supervisors to support the “Celebration of Women, Life and Liberty” event on Jan. 26, 2013.

The event, which aims to commemorate the Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade four decades ago, was approved in a resolution which passed 10-0 on Dec. 12.

In a Dec. 12 interview with CNA, Evans pointed out that the actual anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in the U.S. is Jan. 22.

However, she said, organizers of the pro-abortion rally chose Jan. 26 because it falls on the same day as the increasingly popular Walk for Life West Coast, a rally dedicated to changing “the perceptions of a society that thinks abortion is an answer.”

Since its beginning in 2005 the interdenominational pro-life event has grown substantially each year from its first crowd of roughly 5,000 participants, but it has also consistently been met with opposition from city officials.(Read more here.)

Filed Under: America, Christian Persecution, Culture, Following Christ, Freedom of Speech, Politics, Pro Life, Religious Freedom, Uncategorized, Violence Against Women, Women's Rights Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments

Internet Trolls Torment Newton Priest

December 20, 2012 By 6 Comments

Elizabeth Scalia, who blogs at The Anchoress and is one of the most generous people it has been my privilege to know, wrote today about another egregious example of internet cruelty.

The internet gives the mentally unbalanced and the just plain mean people among us a way to hit out at others. Troubling events agitate these folks and get them moving.

The Sandy Hook tragedy has been a magnet for both the good and the bad among us. Almost everyone has responded to it with compassion, grief and love. But the nasty unhinged are still out there, doing their worthless thing. Elizabeth wrote about one of the sorrier aspects of this sorry behavior: The attacks on a newly-ordained priest who has faced his personal baptism by fire in ministering to the shattered people of his parish in Newton Connecticut.

We need our pastors most in times like this. It is to Fr Suarez’ everlasting credit that he is there for these people. It is to the everlasting discredit of those who are attacking him that they are behaving this way.

I’m going to lift a hefty chunk from Elizabeth’s post. I want you to be able to read it and get the gist of what’s happening and the opportunity she offers us to help. Be sure to read the rest of the post here.

Do you remember this picture, of these priests, Monsignor Robert Weiss and Father Luke Suarez, at the scene of carnage in Newtown?

Well, while I’m sure both priests are seeing some hate it seems the young Father Suarez, who is not two years a priest, is being targeted by creatures who enthralled to the ugly and the dark. Writes his sister, in an outreach. All emphasis mine:
My friends,
All of you, I am sure, have heard so much about the tragedy in Newtown, CT. Many of you have received emails from me about my younger brother, Father Luke Suarez, who is a priest at St. Rose of Lima parish, a Catholic church just down the road from Sandy Hook Elementary. He, and his pastor, Monsignor Weiss, arrived at the school within moments of the shooting, and have been caring for the community ever since. The picture I have included was taken at the school.
Father Luke has an impossible task before him. His diocese is without a bishop right now. . .Monsignor…is personally devastated by the losses. The parish is very large…The rectory has received serious threats, and as my brother gave the homily Sunday at the noon mass, the church had to be evacuated by SWAT teams. After experiencing identity theft and online hacking incidents, he had to erase all of his internet accounts. After a weekend of endless media requests, notifications and vigils with heartbroken families, and little sleep, he now has two wakes and two funerals every day, until the fourth Sunday of Advent. Father Luke has not even been ordained two years.
My large family has been trying to send Father Luke our love and support from afar, and one of my brothers was able to visit with him briefly a couple times. All he asks for is prayer.
I have been wracking my brain, trying to think of a way that our beautiful, loving community could tangibly reach out to Father Luke, Monsignor Weiss, and the St. Rose parish, to support them in this most awful of times. I have sent many prayer requests, and I am asking for more prayers again. But I also want to ask everyone to search their hearts, and if the Holy Spirit moves you, please consider sending one of your family’s Christmas cards to the rectory, with a few words of love and encouragement. Here is his address:
Father Luke Suarez
46 Church Hill Road
Newtown, CT 06470
My brother has said over and over again that without the prayer support he is receiving, he could not keep going. And this week is only the beginning. Everyone there is still in shock. Their peaceful home has been desecrated by violence. They will need to live with this sorrow forever.
But in our weakness is His strength. Grace abounds. Can you help me carry him through this time of trial?
On a hopeful note, Father Luke did say that no media coverage has even touched the deep, beautiful awakening of faith that has occurred there. Their tiny church, where my children have received sacraments and where Luke was ordained, has been full of people in prayer without ceasing since this tragedy happened. Love is stronger than death.

Please feel free to share the address with your family, friends, and community. An outpouring of love will sustain these good priests through their impossible ministry–impossible on their own, but possible with God.
I read stuff like this and I think of Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction telling Tim Roth, “I am the tyranny of evil men, but I’m trying, Ringo, I’m trying real hard to be a shepherd.”
I’m putting cards in the mail to both priests — what a good idea — and also remembering them in my prayers. Will you, too?

Filed Under: America, Catholic, Christian Persecution, clergy, Culture, Following Christ, Freedom of Speech, Gun Violence, Religious Freedom, Uncategorized, Violence in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Biden Holds First Gun Control Meeting

December 20, 2012 By 15 Comments

Vice President Joe Biden began meetings on possible gun control legislation today.

The most interesting point, at least for me, is that the vice president indicated that he expects votes on whatever he proposes after the first of the year.

I interpret that to mean that the President has probably decided not to issue executive orders about this, at least for now.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives has announced a push to ban the sale of high capacity magazines. This is not a new idea. Senate Democrats tried to attach such a ban to an unrelated piece of legislation last summer.

What all this means to us is that we have a window of time to think about this and decide what we want our Congress and president to do. From all indications, the Democrats are focusing their efforts on gun-control and ammunition control legislation. Although they mention a more comprehensive approach in their comments, the focus and the first thing they mention is always guns.

I’m going to try to write several posts that I hope will lead Public Catholic readers into a serious conversation of all these issues. It’s our country and we need to be part of the discussion about its future.

The article concerning Vice President Biden’s meeting today says in part:

Wasting no time, Vice President Joe Biden meets on Thursday with “law enforcement leaders” from across the country to launch work on a series of recommendations to battle gun violence in the wake of the school massacre in Newtown, Conn.
The 1 p.m. meeting is to include White House officials, as well as Attorney General Eric Holder, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the White House said.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday tasked Biden with leading an administrationwide effort to craft concrete proposals for tackling what Obama called an “epidemic” of gun violence. The vice president will report back no later than January.
Obama pushed Congress to pass a series of traditional gun control measures quickly. “A majority of Americans support banning the sale of military-style assault weapons,” he said on Wednesday. “A majority of Americans support banning the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips. A majority of Americans support laws requiring background checks before all gun purchases, so that criminals can’t take advantage of legal loopholes to buy a gun from somebody who won’t take the responsibility of doing a background check at all.”
He added, “I urge the new Congress to hold votes on these measures next year in a timely manner.”
But he also embraced a broader approach, stressing that “there’s no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.”(Read more here.)

Filed Under: America, Culture, Gun Violence, Politics, Uncategorized, Violence in America Tagged With: , , , , , 15 Comments

HHS Mandate Loses Big in District Court

December 20, 2012 By 16 Comments

Things are looking up in a couple of areas.

One Michigan Christian who wouldn’t stop fighting won in local court against the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Two Christian colleges won in Federal Appeals Court against the HHS Mandate.

I’m sure the HHS Mandate ruling will be appealed, but the cases are slowly turning our way on this terrible mandate. Say your prayers that this trend continues all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Becket Fund article describing the HHS Mandate victory reads in part:

Federal Appeals Court Hands Victory to Religious

Colleges, Commands HHS to Act Quickly to Fix

Mandate

Image: Federal Appeals Court Hands Victory to Religious Colleges, Commands HHS to Act Quickly to Fix Mandate

 

For Immediate Release: December 18, 2012
Media Contact: Emily Hardman, 202.349.7224

Washington, D.C. — Today, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. handed Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College a major victory in their challenges to the HHS mandate.  Last summer, two lower courts had dismissed the Colleges’ cases as premature.  Today, the appellate court reinstated those cases, and ordered the Obama Administration to report back every 60 days—starting in mid-February—until the Administration makes good on its promise to issue a new rule that protects the Colleges’ religious freedom.  The new rule must be issued by March 31, 2013.

“The D.C. Circuit has now made it clear that government promises and press conferences are not enough to protect religious freedom,” said Kyle Duncan, General Counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who argued the case.  “The court is not going to let the government slide by on non-binding promises to fix the problem down the road.” (Read more here.)

Filed Under: America, Calling Evil Good, Catholic, Christian Persecution, Christianity, Culture, Following Christ, Health Care, HHS Mandate, Politics, Pro Life, Religious Freedom, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , 16 Comments

Irish Government to Re-Write Abortion Laws

December 19, 2012 By 8 Comments

DUBLIN (AP) — Ireland’s government pledged Tuesday to pass a law soon that will allow women to receive abortions if continued pregnancy threatens their lives — including from their own threats to commit suicide if denied one.

The announcement comes after decades of inaction on abortion in Ireland, and just weeks after the predominantly Catholic country faced international criticism over the death of an Indian woman hospitalized in Ireland with an imminent miscarriage.

Health Minister James Reilly said parliamentary hearings on the issue would begin next month, lawmakers would receive a bill by Easter and they would be expected to vote on it by the summer. This would mark the first time that Irish lawmakers have ever voted on abortion, arguably the most divisive issue in a country whose constitution bans the practice. (Read the rest of the Yahoo News story here.)

Filed Under: Catholic, Culture, Politics, Pro Life, Uncategorized, Violence Against Women, Women's Rights Tagged With: , , , , 8 Comments

Just a little something to cheer your souls …

December 19, 2012 By 8 Comments

The Nativity display in Warren, Mich. after it was installed by John Satawa on Dec. 15, 2012. Credit: Thomas More Law Center.

Warren, Mich., Dec 18, 2012 / 04:01 am (CNA).- A 67-year-old tradition of placing a nativity scene on a public median in Warren, Mich. has been re-established after a four-year legal battle involving the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

“John Satawa was persistent enough to follow through,” CNA was told Dec. 17 by Richard Thompson, president of Thomas More Law Center, which represented Satawa, the crèche’s caretaker.

Satawa is “an individual citizen who was not going to disappear silently into the night, but was going to fight the decision of the road commission to maintain this tradition that had been going on since 1945,” Thompson said.

The crèche was erected again Dec. 15 by Satawa, his family and friends, and local Boy Scouts, after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decided in his favor on Aug. 1.

While the nativity scene was being erected, Warren police controlled traffic as well-wishers gathered, carolers sang Christmas songs, a priest from nearby St. Anne’s Catholic Church blessed the display and passing motorists sounded their horns in approval.

In 2008 the Macomb County Road Commission received a letter from the Freedom from Religion Foundation objecting to a private citizen placing a nativity scene on a 60-foot-wide median.

They claimed the crèche violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, and the county immediately ordered the display removed.

Satawa had gotten permission for the crèche several times, and in 1995 the local police department finally gave him a blanket permission to erect it in the future, so that he would not feel it necessary to ask again.

On March 9, 2009, after receiving the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s letter, a highway engineer for Macomb County, Robert Hoepfner, wrote to Satawa denying him a permit to resurrect the manger scene and only citing reasons related to the establishment clause for the denial.

Satawa then sued the Macomb County Road Commission for violating his rights under the establishment and free speech clauses of the First Amendment, and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The district court found in favor of the county, but its decision was reversed by an appeals court. (Read the rest of the story here.)

Filed Under: Advent, America, Christian Persecution, Culture, Faith, Following Christ, Freedom of Speech, Religious Freedom Tagged With: , , , , , 8 Comments

Whither we are tending …

December 19, 2012 By 12 Comments

America has suffered a series of terrible tragedies in the past 20 years.

This is a recent feature of our American history.

We went for over two hundred years without facing the insanity of repetitive mass murders of innocent civilians in public places by socially inept angry young men. There have been incidents of mass violence throughout our history, including at least one school bombing in the 1920s.

But the present-day phenomena of one shooter killing people one after the other for no reason began with the clock tower at the University of Texas back in the 1960s. There was a decades-long lull between that atrocity and the next one. Now, they are occurring at shorter and shorter intervals.

What has changed in our national psychology that we have become a people who are living in fear of mass-murdering social misfits?

That is the first question we need to ask about this problem. It would be a huge mistake to come up with a solution without first working out exactly what the problem is that we are trying to solve.

I don’t want to contribute to the word-salad propagandizing that passes for commentary these days. I honestly think that this behavior on the part of people in the media has contributed to this problem. I believe emphatically that it has contributed to the fractured, unthinking way we respond to things. This needs to stop. We the people need to start thinking things through for ourselves.

I’m going to run through the various questions that have been raised by those who are proposing solutions. I’m also going to add some observations of my own. But what I am not going to do is try to whip you up into a froth of emotion. I also will not tolerate those who try to use the com boxes to do that. I want intelligent discussion, not ugly bizarreness.

This is a Christian blog. It’s purpose is to equip Christians to deal effectively with the challenges we face and to be fruitful witnesses for Jesus. That will be our focus.

This is all I’m going to say about whither we are tending today. We aren’t going to find a solution for this problem in a day. Or a week. Unless the President does something unilateral, it will be a slow and contentious process to get anything done at all. We not only need to spend some time thinking, praying and talking this through; we are required by circumstance to let it sit for a while.

All these pundits who push, push, push at controversial issues are doing it because controversy raises their ratings. This has become such an exaggerated, all-consuming focus with many of them that they focus on controversy at the expense of the facts or of fairness. This harms all of us.

I’m going to begin tomorrow with a discussion of changes in the past quarter century which I feel might have contributed to this problem. I’m really interested to what you think is creating this problem.

Then, I’ll list the various ideas people have for reform in government. However, I am convinced that the solution to this problem is not something we can achieve by just passing laws. We need to look at more than legislative changes.

We are going to take a break for Christmas. And then begin again in the New Year. I will also begin the series I was writing on how government works again after the New Year.

Before we do anything, I think we should all take this to the Lord in prayer. I know that I am going to.

Filed Under: America, Christianity, Culture, Following Christ, Gun Violence, Uncategorized, Violence in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 12 Comments