Archive for the ‘catholic’ Category

Planning Board meeting 4/13

Posted: April 14, 2010 by datechguy in abortion, local issues
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Yesterday’s planning board meeting was memorable particularly by the amount of time everyone had to wait.

This was due to an issue concerning a culvert and access to a cell tower. Three lawyers, two companies and a local citizen were involved and I suspect Chris and I will agree on the existence of God before these people settle their differences with each other.

By the time that first issue was settled it was always past 8 p.m, the board was tired and several of the people who came to speak had left.

We had several speakers on each side, as usual the lead for the group opposing Planned Parenthood was Doctor Rollo but Ted Turner, Chris Hadley, myself,

Several speakers spoke in favor of planned parenthood including Chris Lackey.

Unlike the city counsel meetings there was a fair amount of give and take and the Planning Board seemed generally interested in the opinions of all.

The general opinion was that the resolution was too broad, this was ironic since the previous proposals were criticized for their specifics.

The board will sending a written recommendation to the counsel who will vote on it May 18th. It was my feeling that 3 people on the board seemed to go for it.

All in all I’d say they treated us fairly, I’ll upload and include some video when I have access to a spot with faster uploads.

Update: The Sentinel story is here.

Tonight I will at the Planning Board meeting…

Posted: April 13, 2010 by datechguy in abortion, local issues, local stuff
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…that the Sentinel and Enterprise reported on yesterday:

The petition calls for an amendment to the city zoning ordinance, to require that medical offices acquire a special permit from the City Council before opening downtown.

The City Council heard anti-abortion advocates speak in favor of the petition in March, before sending it to the Planning Board for review. Anti-abortion advocates oppose the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts’ plan to open an office at 391 Main St.

Why do we continue to fight so hard, maybe it’s because of this:

The counselor was told that the teen was between six and eight weeks pregnant. When asked if there is a baby, she is told that there is only “fetal matter… no arms, no legs, no heart, no head, no brains”. This is a blatant lie… according to the Planned Parenthood counselor, all of this is non-existent. All that exists is “fetal matter”.

The counselor even goes so far as to try to talk the teen out of adoption, calling all of the aborted children “burdens”. The counselor clearly was making the case that, if not for abortion, we would have millions of unwanted children, presumably with no homes. Of course, as Live Action points out in the video, there are far more couples seeking babies to adopt than children who actually get adopted.

Hot air deserves the click but you need to see the video.

One of the reasons why Planned Parenthood does so well is the light isn’t shined on them, well Casey and Lila are doing their best to end this.

Will we be successful tonight? Who know but I do know that not fighting is the best way to lose.

There was a point that Ross made in

Posted: April 12, 2010 by datechguy in catholic
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the NYT, concerning John Paul II that deserves some elaboration.

When I was reading the book Saved by my enemy I was struck by a particular story. The young lady couldn’t get over the idea that George Bush wasn’t jailing or executing people for disagreeing with him. Since all she knew was how “the rules” worked in Iraq the concept that they worked differently just didn’t register to her.

In one sense that was a huge disadvantage for John Paul II. He had lived through communism and the police state, he knew their tactic and their methods it was his reality for him for decades.

One of the normal tactics of Communism was to spread rumors and calumny of people they wanted to destroy. It was a very common tactic and helped justify not only state actions but was useful in discrediting those who opposed them.

Unfortunately when the scandals broke and were promoted by those who were never friendly to the church I strongly suspect John Paul thought he recognized a tactic that he had seen countless times before.

This was played on by those who wanted to keep things quiet, those afraid of scandal or with something to hide. I believe they used John Paul’s own familiarity with one evil to to deceive him about another.

Fortunately others (such as the then Cardinal Ratzinger) thought otherwise and acted.

I see the NYT has written the closest thing…

Posted: April 12, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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…to a fair story on the pope that they will likely ever produce:

This isn’t an isolated case. In the 1990s, it was Ratzinger who pushed for a full investigation of Hans Hermann Groer, the Vienna cardinal accused of pedophilia, only to have his efforts blocked in the Vatican. It was Ratzinger who persuaded John Paul, in 2001, to centralize the church’s haphazard system for handling sex abuse allegations in his office. It was Ratzinger who re-opened the long-dormant investigation into Maciel’s conduct in 2004, just days after John Paul II had honored the Legionaries in a Vatican ceremony. It was Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict, who banished Maciel to a monastery and ordered a comprehensive inquiry into his order.

So the high-flying John Paul let scandals spread beneath his feet, and the uncharismatic Ratzinger was left to clean them up. This pattern extends to other fraught issues that the last pope tended to avoid — the debasement of the Catholic liturgy, or the rise of Islam in once-Christian Europe. And it extends to the caliber of the church’s bishops, where Benedict’s appointments are widely viewed as an improvement over the choices John Paul made. It isn’t a coincidence that some of the most forthright ecclesiastical responses to the abuse scandal have come from friends and protégés of the current pope.

I haven’t seen Morning Joe use any of the links I suggested, however this comes from the preferred source, the New York Times. Let’s see if it gets any play.

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