Abortion survivor Gianna Jessen appeared on tonight’s edition of Life on the Rock in EWTN prime time. I missed it because I was putting my daughter to bed for the night…but I will be looking to catch it via on-demand internet feed. Once that feed is posted I will add a link to it here.

HERE’S A LINK TO THE SHOW!

As a sidenote, based on what you will read in my preceding post, pro-abortion people would regard Gianna Jessen as still being a fetus since she survived an abortion.

Here’s an example of the mental gymnastics that one must perform to keep abortion from being illegal. This is from an article on Barack Obama, the man who won’t be President.

Obama — who joined several other Democrats in voting “present” in 2001 and “no” the next year — argued the legislation was worded in a way that unconstitutionally threatened a woman’s right to abortion by defining the fetus as a child.

“It would essentially bar abortions because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this was a child then this would be an anti-abortion statute,” Obama said in the Senate’s debate in March 2001.

God help us if we were to start defining the tissue mass growing in a woman’s womb as a human being! This is just one of those scary things about the pro-abortion camp – if they can define something as not human…then that means that they might be able to define something else as not human…the old and infirm come to mind…members of certain ethnic groups…and so on (don’t forget, Margaret Sanger got started because she wanted to keep certain undesirable people from reproducing.)

Catholic News Service has picked up on a story a variation of which I saw a week or so ago…it’s on the religious diversity of the new congress. Hailed as important is that Catholicism is still well-represented in the new congress. Perhaps we should put the qualifier “cafeteria” in front of the word Catholic…or the words “in name only” following it.

Catholics remain the largest denominational group in Congress, with 155 members — 25 in the Senate and 130 in the House. But there are fewer Catholic Republicans in both houses since the 109th Congress and many more Catholic Democrats.

In the last Senate, Catholic members were nearly evenly split between the parties, with 11 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Now there are 9 Catholic Republicans and 16 Catholic Democrats in the Senate.

In the House at the start of the 109th Congress, there were 129 Catholics — 57 Republicans and 72 Democrats. Although the total number of House Catholics in the 110th Congress is nearly the same at 130, the current group includes 42 Republicans and 88 Democrats.

Essentially, then, there are more Democrats than ever claiming Catholicism as their religion of choice, while either deliberately or ignorantly excommunicating themselves every chance they get. No two ways about it. You can’t be Catholic and pro-choice. And in the current climate, you can’t be a Democrat and pro-life.

Looks like Bush is bowing to the left a little more as he’s going to be talking global warming in his speech next week…

…but has not dropped his opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, the White House said on Tuesday.

“It’s not accurate. It’s wrong,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said regarding media reports suggesting that Bush would agree to mandatory emissions caps in an effort to combat global warming. Such caps could require energy conservation and pollution curbs.

I’m no dispensationalist, but by the enviro-left’s standards, the Earth’s done a lot more to warm itself on its own that we have. We do things like prevent forest fires rather than allow them to burn unabated. And somehow we can generate enough greenhouse gases with our cars to generate climate change? And somehow we can track climate change with only 150 years of records? And we are even having this debate?

With a big HT to Gerald, we have a story from Slate all about the latest sickening development in the world of designer babies. It’s the embryo trade. Yes, mass produce embryos using sex cells from two desirable donors, and then sell them off two at a time. Take a deep breath, it’s a long excerpt, but it illustrates the absurdity:

It’s temping to label Ryan a madwoman, as many critics have. But that’s exactly wrong. Ryan represents the next wave of industrial rationality. She’s bringing the innovations of Costco and Burger King to the business of human flesh.

To understand her line of work, you have to understand how she got into it. “Twenty years ago, as a single parent, I contacted agencies and attorneys in the hopes of adopting a child,” she explains on her Web site. Unfortunately, “those that were willing to help me offered me older children with emotional problems or severe physical handicaps.” These lousy offers drove her to find ways around the system. “With a background in marketing, I came upon the idea of advertising for potential birthmothers,” she recalls. “My enterprise grew so quickly, that I soon quit my career in sales and marketing to go into the field of adoption advertising fulltime. … Within 2 years, we were the largest adoption service in the United States.”

Ryan deplores the helplessness of adoptive parents. They can’t control the child’s race, sex, or health. “There is no guarantee … that the gender is absolutely known,” she warns clients. “If you are open to different ethnic backgrounds, drug use during pregnancy, etc., there is a better chance that you will be called.” You can’t even verify drug abuse unless the birth mother consents to a test.Worse, you have to suck up to the birth mother. She can pick any adoptive parent she wants. “After years of dealing with birth mothers who decided to take [babies] back … watching poor families have to kiss these girls’ butts when they know they are using drugs and alcohol in the pregnancy,” Ryan says she began looking for ways to give clients more power over child acquisition. “It was a control thing for me,” she explains.

As with my last post, the final sentence sums it up. Over at Gerald’s blog, a commenter points out that comparing this atrocity with adoption is at best intellectually dishonest, because adoptive parents adopt children out of love for the child – and this mass-embryo-production is all about love of self.

After reading the whole article, you might feel like you need a shower…for that, please take a listen to Barbara McGuigen on EWTN’s OpenLine show today.

Archbishop Gregory, late of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, previously the president of the USCCB, delivered a presentation on immigration, and the text of his talk can be found here.

In this talk, he clarifies the Church’s position on immigration, essentially that it’s a human reality and the Church sees people as people, not as immigrants of a particular label (economic, illegal, whatever.) This is indeed a great looks at the history of the Church’s position, and taken alone it’s not offensive. What’s troublesome is that some priests, and indeed some bishops, have seemed to outright encourage illegal immigration to the United States, and have flaunted clear US law. Now, I’m not one of those who would say we should ship all the illegals out. Instead, I suggest we stop the bleeding – we close the border. Then we find those who are illegal, and figure out a way to make them legal – get them paying taxes, etc. If, in the process, we find out that they are criminals, we’ll deport them. But, realistically we simply can deport all of them, and they do have an important economic impact on our country. By the way, I do firmly disagree with the President – there are not “some jobs Americans won’t do.” They just might not be willing to do them for sub-minimum wage salaries handed to them in cash under the table. Which brings me to the next point – make it hurt for an employer to employ illegals…that’ll slow down the flow of illegals across the border significantly.

Here’s an excerpt from Gregory’s lecture:

Drawing on some classic principles of Catholic social thought, the bishops of the Church have expressed our opposition to the breaking of laws and unlawful entry into the country. The Church has long acknowledged the right of a nation-state to control its territorial borders and to regulate entry. The State has a very serious responsibility to protect its citizens and this may entail strong immigration controls. At the same time however, the Church says that human beings have a right to migrate—particularly in search of work in order to improve their human condition and to provide for the needs of their families.We bishops have called for just immigration laws that will allow generous channels of entry, good working conditions, families being able to stay together and the protection of the migrant’s dignity and human rights.

If you take that last sentence, it’s the definition of LEGAL immigration. As long as it’s done illegally that sentence just can’t be fulfilled.

It’s always encouraging when we get word that Christian leaders aren’t going to blindly support a candidate due to party affiliation. In this case, Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family has flatly stated he cannot support John McCain for President. Why? McCain’s supportive of officially recognized homosexual “marriage,” and he is also supportive of rules in current legislation that would prevent family-advocacy groups (like Focus, AFA, and others) from sending out email and phone alerts to their constituents, alerting them about pending legislation, to create action at the grass roots level. Dobson’s clearly got the right opinion here.

“Values Voters are not going to carry the water for the Republican Party if it ignores their deeply held convictions and beliefs,” he said.

“Republican leaders in Congress during this term apparently never understood, or they forgot, why Ronald Reagan was so loved and why he is considered one of our greatest presidents. If they hope to return to power in ‘08, they must rediscover the conservative principles that resonated with the majority of Americans in the 1980s – and still resonate with them today. Failure to do so will be catastrophic,” Dobson said.

Read the whole article here.

Also, find more on Congress’s attempts to silence family groups here.

You’d think this would show up on the News of the Weird. Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have announced they’re starting their own church.

Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have proposed the establishment of a broadly inclusive alternative Baptist movement to counter what they called a negative image of Baptists and to address poverty, the environment and global conflicts.

In other words, a Baptist movement without those pesky conservative values, more open to everyone, and so on.

“This is an attempt to bring people together and say, ‘What would our Christian witness require of us in the 21st century?’” Clinton said, adding that his goal is to be a “cheerleader” for the group.

Maybe it’s just me, but I would run from just about anything for which Big Bill is a cheerleader…although maybe he’s thinking about recruiting some more cheerleaders…never mind, I better not go there, it might violate St. Blog’s TOS.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Carter and Clinton “said they want to counter concerns that Baptists have been ‘negative’ and ‘exclusionary’ and promised an inclusive organization willing to debate openly on all issues.”

This is of particular interest to me, because people refer to Baptists this way, and they also refer to Catholics using the same words. Interestingly though, Catholic politicians don’t go and create their own “open, inclusive” Catholic Church. Instead, they just pretend Church teaching that they see as exclusionary doesn’t exist, and essentially discredit themselves in the process. Jimmy and Bill already discredited themselves in other ways, so I guess they’re immune from doing it again (/sarcasm).

Go get the full article!

Repetitive title to this post, don’t you think?

Jeff Miller of The Curt Jester posted regarding the Blasphemy Challenge which has been set up by the Rational Response squad. They are challenging atheists who “aren’t afraid” to record a video of themselves and put it on YouTube denying the Holy Spirit, since this is the one unforgivable sin according to their interpretation of Scripture*.

Immediately to my mind sprang that Ms. magazine cover a few months back where women talked about being proud of their abortions. From my post:

Not only must we permit abortion on demand, we must be proud of it? Seems to me that the only reason a woman would sign this would be that she’s so ashamed of her decision that she needs to abate the shame by placing herself shoulder to shoulder with 4,999 other women who did it. Strength in numbers and all that. Really sad. Essentially, “I’m proud that I murdered my baby.”

So, here we have a bunch of atheists who seem to have the same issue.

*I’ve said it before, I will say it again. Without an authoritative interpreter of Scripture, everyone is their own pope. Ironic, isn’t it? Even atheists can authoritatively interpret scripture. Yes, atheists are their own popes too. I must HT Jeff here, who as a former atheist himself does a great job of explaining the narrowness of the “say you deny the Holy Spirit” interpretation of the referenced verse.

Most of this is just dumb on so many levels and a total lack of even the basic understanding of what the sin against the Holy Spirit actually is – that it is final impenitence, perseverance till death in mortal sin. Something that can’t exactly be uploaded to YouTube. If you deny what you conscience has already accepted as not true you are not exactly sinning in the first place.

Again, see the full post.

This is an interesting development. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has now pulled a page from the Bob Puckett playbook, who you’ll remember posited that Jesus was a Democrat. He recently was the sweeping victor in what was no doubt a completely valid election. From the newspaper with the blue logo,

Chavez took the oath of office at the National Assembly after a sweeping re-election victory that has given him free reign to pursue more radical changes, including plans to nationalize power and telecommunications companies.

His right hand raised, Chavez declared: “Fatherland, socialism or death — I swear it,” invoking the Cuban leader’s famous call to arms.

Chavez also alluded to Jesus, saying: “I swear by Christ — the greatest socialist in history.”

In a speech that followed, he said the central aim of his term that runs until 2013 will be “to build Venezuelan socialism.”

Now, we all know Chavez is off his rocker, but it’s an interesting question. Was Jesus a socialist? As you may well guess, my answer is no. Why? Because Jesus talked about giving from the heart, giving for the good of others, being a cheerful giver, and stuff like that. Nowhere in that equation did He say a thing about the government forcing us to give…in fact He railed against government quite a bit. I’ve heard the arguments for socialism based on Christ’s example, but I don’t see it. I just don’t see Christ as being a fan of the bureaucracy that’s required to redistribute the wealth.