So now “W” is flip-flopping on “GW.”

George W. Bush on Thursday unveiled a striking about-face on global warming, calling on the world’s leading economies to join the US in agreeing a global target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions before the end of his term in office.

The US president was speaking just ahead of a G8 summit at which climate change was expected to be high on the agenda of European governments. He explained that his apparent conversion – which follows almost seven years of having rejected precisely the road he outlined – was prompted by new scientific findings.

But Mr Bush made no pledge on the size of emissions cuts that the US would be prepared to sign up to and gave no indication of a timeframe. The White House also ruled out carbon trading as the way to cutting emissions.

Please give us a real right-winger on the Republican ticket!!

More here. 

H/T once again to Gerald on the story that won’t die.  You’ll remember the CINO Democrats who attempted to repudiate B16 because he made them feel bad about being “Catholic” and pro abortion.  Well, Fr. Trigilio has released an open letter to them.

While criticizing the Pope for doing his job as supreme pastor, you yourselves betray your own duplicity as Catholic lawmakers. The supreme pastor of the universal church has jurisdiction over every Catholic Christian in the world. Canon Law makes it clear that every baptized Catholic is under the authority of the Church in matters of faith and morals. Hence, when the Roman Pontiff upholds and enforces the Divine Positive and the Natural Moral Laws, he is not interfering with man-made civil law, rather, he is reminding you of its subservience to the higher laws to which it must conform for the common good of all.

…

On the one hand you state “advancing respect for life and for the dignity of every human being is, as our church has taught us, our own life’s mission,” yet you remonstrate the spiritual leader of our one billion member church simply because he reaffirms the innate evil of abortion. How can you advance ‘respect for life’ and the ‘dignity of every human being’ without a complete and total ban on all abortions? Reducing abortions and providing moral alternatives, like adoption, are very laudatory, but they are not enough.

Read it all here!

CHT to Jimmy Akin who excerpts an interview with Frank Beckwith.  It’s well worth reading the whole thing but an excellent point it made here:

For someone like me, who was interested in both the spiritual and intellectual grounding of the Christian faith, I didn’t need the “folk Mass” with cute nuns and hip priests playing “Kumbaya” with guitars, tambourines and harmonicas. And it was all badly done.

After all, we listened to the Byrds, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, and we knew the Church just couldn’t compete with them.

But that’s what the Church offered to the young people of my day: lousy pop music and a gutted Mass. If they were trying to make Catholicism unattractive to young and inquisitive Catholics, they were succeeding.

Read it! 

I don’t know if there’s anything to this- it’s from the Children of Medjugorje website, of which I can’t confirm the credibility.  But, it’s interesting.  If true, it’s comforting to know that we still occasionally get a really tangible taste of the supernatural.  Hopefully a Vatican investigation will get underway on it (and hopefully we’ll get to see on of the photos that’s mentioned

We know that on April 24th, very sadly the Municipal Council of Mexico legalized abortion.  Mexico was one of the few remaining countries where abortion was still illegal up to now.  Something extraordinary then happened:

 

In the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, the “Tilma” of Juan Diego is on display for all to see.  It serves as a reminder of how the Blessed Mother miraculously converted thousands of Aztec Indians in the 16^th Century through her image imprinted on the Tilma.  Today, through the same Tilma, it seems that the Blessed Mother wants to speak to us again, quietly expressing her reaction to abortion.

 

The same day abortion was legalized in Mexico, after a mass offered for unborn children, a very intense light appeared suddenly on the Tilma.  At the level of the womb, the light appeared like a shiny halo, in the shape of an embryo.  Experts have testified that it is not a reflection or something added, rather it comes from the Tilma and is in the exact location of a woman’s womb. Witnesses were able to take photographs and even to film the phenomenon that went on for a full hour.

Father Luis Matos (from the Beatitudes Community) tells us:

“The engineer Luis Girault who studied one of the pictures that was taken of the light, has confirmed the authenticity of the proof and was able to specify that the proof had not been modified, nor altered with the superposition of another picture for example. He has discovered that the image is not the result of a reflection, but literally comes from the inside of the image of Our Lady. The resulting light is very white, pure and intense, different from the glow coming from the flash of a camera. This light is surrounded by a halo and seems to be floating inside the abdomen of Our Lady. This halo has the shape and proportion of an embryo. If one is to examine this picture even more closely by turning it on a sagittal plane, it is then possible to distinguish inside the halo certain shadowy areas with the characteristics of a human embryo inside the maternal womb.”

It is beautiful to see the delicate manner Our Mother from Heaven uses to express herself: in front of this new law that hurts thousands of her children and that would certainly not be a source of blessings for Mexico, she remains silent in her suffering, she does not partake in vain debates. No, she helps us re-center our eyes on the One she carries, the Light of the world, the Savior, the One who came in the world small, vulnerable defenseless, like all children before being born. By showing us the Child-Jesus alive like a unborn child inside her, she gives us an answer without words that reflects the Gospel: “What you do to the least of these little ones of mine, you do to me”. (Matthew 25:40)

H/T to the Curt Jester for this one.  It’s an odd statue of the Blessed Virgin, and Jeff notices how much it looks like Gort from the Day the Earth Stood Still.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the man known as Dr. Death, will be released from a Michigan prison next Friday. Kevorkian spent eight years in prison for participating in an assisted suicide that he had videotaped and broadcast on television.

The story goes on to explain that he won’t help with any more suicides. We’ll see.  At one time, I had the opinion that he was providing the tools to a desparate person and that the person is ultimately in charge of what happens to their body.  Now, as a Catholic, I recognize that there are much bigger problems with what he did before going to jail.

Full story

There are times when it’s nice to live in a small community with 67 Baptist churches, a few assorted others, and one Catholic parish.  Sunday, I probably won’t see any troublemakers wearing rainbow sashes, trying to receive communion while publicly scandalizing themselves by their demonstration.  That doesn’t mean I can’t get a chuckle reading about their plans!

An interesting editorial over at Catholic Exchange:

Mormon’s [sic] do believe that the Old and New Testaments — as read by traditional Christians — are packed with errors and that Mormonism is the one true faith. Mormons believe that their president is a living prophet and that faithful mortals, in the next life, can achieve godhood. Thus, Mormons reject or redefine the Trinity, teaching that this world’s Father God has both a literal body and a literal wife.

These are not the issues that obsess typical voters, but they are important to many Christian leaders who yield great influence in the public square. The Vatican, for example, refuses to recognize the validity of Mormon baptisms.

“There are valid questions that Romney will have to answer,” said veteran religion writer Richard Ostling, co-author of “Mormon America: The Power and the Promise.”

“People need to know, ‘Is this man going to take orders from Salt Lake City? Are there elements of Mormon theology that will affect public policy?’ … But before he gets to those questions, Romney may have to say, ‘We have different doctrines. We have different scriptures. … We even have different concepts of God.’ He has to know that he can’t just say, ‘We all have the same faith.’ That is not going to work.”

Real problem I have with him is his flip-flopping on abortion.  A Mormon President would be fine with me as long as he’s strong on life issues and defense (which his faith should dictate that he be.)

This is a fun one.  A few posts ago I wrote on the mini-blog-war that was going on surrounding the return of Frank Beckwith to Rome; anti-Catholic blogger James White had been trolling various blogs making comments, etc.  I mentioned this, and mentioned that I wouldn’t be surprised if White found my blog since I mentioned his name.  He did, and he commented to this effect.  Ironically, my anti-spam plugin considered his comment to be spam, so it was blocked.  Just now, I went into my spam queue and saw his comment, and permitted it to post.  You can now see his comment and my response right here:

http://romancatholicbychoice.stblogs.com/2007/05/10/beckwith s-return-to-the-church/

Once again, Gerald is on top of what comes from the USCCB on this story about the 18 democrats who “repudiated” B16’s statements on excommunication.  An excerpt:

To suggest that the Church should not clearly voice its teaching and apply it in a pluralistic society is to attack freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The Catholic Church always will and must speak out against the destruction of innocent unborn children. The right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution that all legislators are elected to uphold. Speaking and acting against abortion is not a matter of partisan politics. It is a matter of life and death.

Full story