Well, here’s a cheerful piece of news (from the Drudge Report).

A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all." Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

So, let’s all enjoy the simple things for a few days.  Counting our blessigns, family love, and time together.  It may be all we have someday.

Creative Minority Report alerts us that it’s “that time of year again!”

This is a remarkably impressive story of a priest taking it upon himself to follow Church teaching and Canon Law, even when the Bishops won’t do it.  In a letter to his parishioners Father Jay Scott Newman said,

“Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.”

Wrapped up in this paragraph is the greatest truth of the Catholic Church (other than that she is the Church Jesus founded on earth): That no matter what you have done, you can be reconciled and returned to Communion with the Church, the Body of Christ.  The sacrament of penance is available (at usually inconvenient times) at every parish, and all one must do is go, confess, and receive absolution from the priest (in persona Christi, of course.)

But of course, the idea of coming back into the Church’s good graces is not nearly sensational enough…so the AP, in their infinite wisdom, used this headline:

SC priest: No communion for Obama supporters

Of particular interest is Sister Mary Anne Walsh (spokesnun of the USCCB)’s response:

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said she had not heard of other churches taking this position in reaction to Obama’s win.

What an idiotic statement…Catholics who voted for Obama would’ve been automatically absolved had Obama lost the election, but since he won, they have to go to Confession for participating in intrinsic evil? At least this isn’t a direct quote…maybe it’s the writer who decided to use the “in reaction to Obama’s win” phrase.

Catholic Democrats, a group that support allegedly Catholic democrats, had this to say:

“He is acting beyond the authority of a parish priest to say what he did. … Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Sens. Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words.”

Ok, let me get this straight.  A priest state that a person has removed themselves from Communion with the Church based on their assent to intrinsic evil via an Obama vote, and his WORDS are what will cost them spiritually?  Hello, is this thing on?  What they did will cost them spiritually, and he is doing what any loving shepherd does, he’s grabbing the shepherd’s crook and trying to pull the sheep that have gone astray back into the fold.  He’s trying to show them that there is a spiritual cost to their actions that they cannot possibly pay on their own.  A key tenet on Catholic teaching regarding sin is that you won’t be held spiritually accountable for what someone does to you – so for this guy to say that the priest’s words will result in a spiritual cost to Obama-voters shows how ignorant he truly is.  Father is simply telling his parishioners that indeed there is a spiritual cost associated with what they did and that through sacramental confession they can ask that the cost be covered through Christ’s sacrifice of Himself.

Come down to it, though…Obama-voters who claim to be Catholic simply either don’t think abortion is intrinsically evil, or they (thanks to millstone-worthy “theologians”) were convinced that Obama’s proportionally better on this issue than McCain is; therefore they don’t think they need to go to Confession.  You get into trouble when people start individually defining what a sin is.

Full Article

The Bishops had their meeting today at which, among other stuff, they discussed pro-abort politicians.  They continue to agree that such folks should not present themselves for Communion, but they are not able to come to a unified decision on whether to actually deny them Communion when they do present themselves.  Look, they excommunicated pro-slavery and anti-civil rights politicians, so why not pro-abort politicians also?

Thomas Peters’ coverage of this today is very well done.  Check it out.

Here’s a piece of news that we can guarantee will be totally ignored by the MSM as well as the race warlords civil rights leaders. My lovely wife caught it on an Australian Catholic mom’s blog and sent it along to me. I first read it at Free Republic, but it was originally posted on Lifenews.com.

Alveda King told LifeNews.com on Tuesday that the civil rights struggle for unborn children continues and noted that abortion adversely affects the black community.

“The election of an African American president sends a powerful and historic message that what was previously unthinkable can become reality,” King said.

“President-elect Obama has promised actions that will only increase the number of abortions,” she said and added that pro-life advocates “must promise to redouble our efforts to resist anti-life proposals, speak up for the babies, and, above all, pray.”

“The elections are over. The pro-life battle begins anew.”

I’m sure she’s just a house slave or an uncle tom, since she’s espousing an even remotely conservative viewpoint while at the same time being non-white.  (to be clear, that last line was sarcasm.)

I received an email from the editor of the Georgia Bulletin this afternoon, in response to my letter to the editor posted here Thursday evening.  Here’s an excerpt:

Thanks for your letter and comments. I will send it on to the Archbishop’s office. I appreciate your taking the time to let me know your thoughts on this subject.

You have probably already seen this, but Archbishop Gregory did publish a statement on the archdiocesan Web site regarding the election:

www.archatl.com/archbishops/gregory/writings/2008/11-05-08-e lection.htm

I hope that these statements address your concerns and wish you all the best.

The comments referenced at the link mentioned, in part, say

Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory joins the U.S. bishops in congratulating President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden. “I offer my prayerful good wishes on this historic occasion. The election of the first African-American President of the United States shows the degree of maturity reached by Americans and, I hope, is a definitive sign of reconciliation,” said Archbishop Gregory.

On the important issues facing the United States after the election, Archbishop Gregory stated, “The Catholic Church will continue to challenge and urge the country’s leaders to enact laws that respect human life at each stage of its existence.

I responded to the editor,

His Grace’s comments regarding the election do not come near addressing the comments attributed to him in the Times article on Thursday; a quick look at the Catholic blogosphere following the release of the article (and its subsequent headline on the Drudge Report) have led many Catholics – deep-thinking, well-Catechized Catholics, both lay and clergy, to be quite confused, and more importantly concerned with the way they appeared in the secular media, which as I said seems almost dedicated to the purpose of taking clergy’s comments out of context.

I sent a copy of my letter to His Grace myself, but I do appreciate your doing likewise – I sent it to out of a desire to submit it to your editorial board for possible publishing; I know space is limited and topicality may be as well; I wrote the letter at the urging of many Catholic bloggers and blog readers, because I believe quite strongly that we need a public clarification of the comments attributed to our shepherd.  A simple look at Google shows how big of a story this became, and quite quickly as well – a search of the terms “archbishop gregory obama” for example yields tons of results, and in fact my own blog post on the subject is fourth on the list of results.  After this story broke on Thursday morning, traffic to my post experienced a spike.  I say this not to inflate my ego, but to simply point out that this is something a lot of people are looking in to, to try and discern what the meaning of it is; I think the best case scenario would be a very public clarification from His Grace so that when someone looks for information on this subject, they find that public clarification and are able to put the issue to rest.

And we shall see what happens next.

As a response to the article posted this morning on Drudge Report, from the Times newspaper in the UK, in which Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory is quoted speaking about the potential for a black pope now that we have a (half) black president of the USA, I have sent the following letter to the editor of the Georgia Bulletin, Atlanta’s Diocesan newspaper.  If you don’t know what I am talking about, read my blog post from earlier today.

Dear Editor,

As a part of my standard morning reading regime, I read with some interest an article posted on the website of the Times newspaper from the U.K., in which Archbishop Gregory was quoted speaking about the possibilities of our next Pope being black.  In the article, Archbishop Gregory mentions the Holy Father’s statement that the election of a black Pope would “send a splendid signal to the world” about the Catholic Church.  This combined with the quote attributed to Archbishop Gregory later in the article regarding his election as head of the USCCB being an important signal, and that the same thing could happen with the papacy, seem a bit troubling at first.

As a member of Archbishop Gregory’s flock, and being well aware that the mainstream media has a penchant for misquoting and ignoring the context of statements made by Church leaders, I humbly call on him to clarify this and other statements attributed to him in this article.  Taken at face value, this statement might lead the laity and those outside the Church to believe that our cardinals do not consider experience, qualifications, or the guidance of the Holy Spirit when selecting popes and other Church leadrship, but rather consider the “signal” that will be sent through the selection of one or another cardinal as Pontiff (or head of the USCCB for that matter.)  I am quite hopeful that His Grace was simply quoted out of context with this statement by Times reporter Richard Owen.

Another statement attributed to Archbishop Gregory which is in what I believe to be dire need of clarification is this quote: “…that the election of Mr Obama was “a great step forward for humanity and a sign that in the United States the problem of racial discrimination has been overcome.”  Now I am quite sure it is extremely debatable whether the election of Senator Obama indicates anything about the state of race relations in our country, but I am even more sure that Archbishop Gregory confuses many faithful Catholics when he states that the election of Senator Obama could be thought of as “a great step forward for humanity.”  The reason I find it confusing is that under an Obama presidency, we have been promised, there will be less humanity – and not due to less reproduction, but due to more abortion.  The abortion industry’s own minions have told us that at least one million abortions are prevented every year because of various state restrictions on abortions (things like parental notification laws, waiting periods, mandatory ultrasounds, etc.)  Obama’s so-called Freedom of Choice Act does away with any such restrictions and will potentially even force crisis pregnancy centers that focus on abortion alternatives to offer abortion as an equally good alternative to an unplanned pregnancy.  Some have even said that hospitals or doctors that refuse to provided abortion services may be forced out of business due to FOCA – resulting in less accessibility to medical care, especially principled medical care, among those who need it.

In light of this, as I said, I am confused.  I need to know how one can possibly see an the promises of an Obama presidency as “a great step forward for humanity.”  Logically I believe our Archbishop was being quoted out of context, and I humbly request that he clarify his meaning in this statement.

Humbly in need of clarification,

Chris Lewis

Rome, GA

Hello all, sorry I haven’t posted in a while, been kinda busy here at the seminary.

In the Obamessiah’s victory speech he promised his daughters a puppy. Apparently Mrs. Obamessiah has said that she would like to get rescued puppies. Fox news reports,

In his election victory speech Tuesday night, President-elect Barack Obama promised his two daughters that they’d be moving into the White House with a new puppy. Now the dogosphere is engaged in widespread speculation over the breed of the presidential pooch-to-be.

Or pooches-to-be. The American Kennel Club hopes that the pet will turn out to be a pair of 6-week-old toy poodles, rescued by Flora’s Pet Project/Poodle Rescue in Connecticut. First lady-to-be Michelle Obama said in an interview last month that the family was interested in adopting a rescue dog after the election.

For the rest check out FoxNews here: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/06/presidential-pooch/

I know that I will be able to sleep at night knowing that in this new reign we won’t have to worry about the homeless poodles… Wait a minute there is still something wrong about this isn’t there? What about all the unborn that are slaughtered every day? Are we really putting white balls of fur with four legs ahead of our own species?

I really hate to have to report anything on my own local ordinary, but this made it on to Drudge, reported from the Times Online (out of the UK).

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American US President could pave the way for the election of the first black Pope, according to a leading black American Catholic.

Wilton Daniel Gregory, 60, the Archbishop of Atlanta, said that in the past Pope Benedict XVI had himself suggested that the election of a black pontiff would “send a splendid signal to the world” about the universal Church.

And apparently we’re applying the same criteria to the election of popes now as we do to American presidents. Experience and qualifications don’t matter, no, it’s about “sending a signal to the world.”

It appears that Gregory is not only not thinking clearly about the purpose of a pope, but he’s also not thinking clearly about the implications of FOCA:

…said that the election of Mr Obama was “a great step forward for humanity and a sign that in the United States the problem of racial discrimination has been overcome”.  [emphasis added]

How in the heck could anyone in Church leadership think that Obama’s election is a step forward for humanity?  I can imagine several good things a flaming liberal Catholic could say about Obama, but no one in their right mind could think it’s a step forward for humanity.  Humanity devalues itself when free and unfettered access to abortion is actively promoted.

It gets worse, next he sounds like some sort of self-important guy:

“My own election as head of the US Bishops Conference was an important signal. In 2001 the American bishops elected someone they respected regardless of his race, and the same thing could happen with the election of a Pope.”

To him every time a black man is elected to anything, it’s a “signal.”  I don’t know, perhaps they thought he would be a good leader?  Maybe?  Did that group of Bishops sit there and think to themselves, “we should elect the black man because it is an important signal” ? Do we have affirmative action in the Church now?

Now, I would have no problem with Arinze being the next pope.  Not because of his skin color, but rather because he’s an orthodox, faithful shepherd of his people and the entire Church through his media ministries.

Yeesh.  What a way to start my day.

Full article

UPDATE! Read my letter to the editor of the Georgia Bulletin (diocesan paper) here.

ANOTHER UPDATE! Looking at the site stats for today, I found out that this article landed your humble blogger on the front page of Google.  If you Google “archbishop gregory obama” this blog post is the fourth result.  If you search “wilton gregory obama,” this post is the last result on the page.  Also from the site stats – greetings to the seminarians at Mount St. Mary’s!

Ok, I wasn’t going to do any more posts regarding the election, but I stumbled across this in the CCC while looking up something else:

675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.⁵⁷³ The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth⁵⁷⁴ will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh [emphasis added].⁵⁷⁵

The good news?

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.⁵⁷⁸ The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.⁵⁷⁹ God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.⁵⁸⁰

Now, I have been saying that every single generation has been absolutely convinced that theirs was the final one and it was going to be “all over” shortly, so I take with a grain of salt anyone who says that this is the end, that anything is the end.  The Bible tells us no man knows the day…therefore as soon as someone claims to know the day, I guess we can rule out that day.  That in mind, I do believe we are closer than we have ever been; obviously we are because time only moves in one direction on this mortal coil.  Does that change how I behave and what I do?  No way.  I’m not looking to “be good” at the last minute.

Still, it’s interesting reading from the Catechism.