Just wondering about budgeting

Several post day again. I just have a question. When a family experiences financial difficulties, do we not cut back on expenses, cutting dinners out, vacations, new clothes or jewelry, other luxury items, and even budgeting on the food, lights, heat, and daily needs? So, why can't nations do this? Just wondering....

As a teacher, I need to stand before God on my judgement day and hear His verdict on my teaching and example

LifeSiteNews has shown the depth of the rot in Catholic higher ed in some universities in a small but excellent snapshot of articles on schismatics in the Church. Check it out.  Hubris.....on the part of these academics lead many students to put their souls in danger. I would not want to be a teacher standing in front of Pure Justice and Love and be told how many young ones I had led to sin, and even eternal death.


 A snippet--“[Cardinal Timothy] Dolan and the United States Catholic Conference are misrepresenting ‘Catholic teaching,’ and are trying to present their idiosyncratic minority view as the ‘Catholic position,’ and it is not,” said said Daniel Maguire, a Marquette University professor and former priest who supports legalized abortion, according to Catholic World News.

“The bishops will stand with Dolan and the US Catholic Conference, but on this issue, they are in moral schism since most in the Church have moved on [to] a more humane view on the rights of those whom God has made gay.”

Umm, nope, the Bishops are not schism, folks. So, when have we believed that God makes gays---God does not make sin or temptation. Heresy, as well as mushy thinking does not help the conversation. And, by the way, America is not the only country which has seen the exodus of higher education institutions and professors from the Church's Teaching Magisterium.

Of Course, His Eminence is Right...

Tim Stanley on his blog yesterday has a post on a talk given by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor on the decline of tolerance for Christianity in Great Britain. Here is the link. 


If you do not follow Dr. Stanley's blog, I recommend it. Part of the post states, 


What (Cardinal) Murphy-O’Connor is really talking about is the decline of Christianity as an institution. His list of complaints are linked to the special privileges that Protestant and Catholic churches have hitherto enjoyed: gay marriage removes the Church’s right to define unions as a sacrament, gay rights subverts its authority in the moral education of children, rules against the wearing of the cross at work undermines the Church as a visible presence. As a Roman Catholic, I’m sympathetic to Murphy-O’Connor’s concerns. But it’s perfectly possible to be a Christian within a society that regulates or proscribes religious practices. The Christians in classical Rome or the Catholics in communist Poland proved that.


Now, I do not always agree with Dr. Stanley, but his points are good and based on an understanding of Catholicism, at least from a historian's point of view. 


Here is more: Our society is intolerant towards faith because it seeks to create an artificial, neutral public sphere that doesn’t preach to individuals about how to lead their lives. The problem is that in rejecting the authoritarian strictures of the established church it also rejects the utilitarian benefits of the Christian message. A society that has no moral point of reference beyond the reason of the individual (and who, in their right mind, would trust that?), or the ever shifting law of the land, is bound towards selfishness and tyranny. With its sexualisation of children, disregard for the sanctity of life and its confusion of desire and happiness, Britain isn’t just squeezing Christianity out of everyday life. It’s also killing itself.


Of course, for those of you who follow my blog, I blame the capitulation of Catholics themselves, who have voted socialist, voted money over morals, and have become soft in the head regarding religion. As I have noted here over and over, British Catholics are increasingly anti-intellectual and therefore, lose the battle of wits and argument in the public sphere. It seems to me that the country needs moral and intellectual Catholic leaders NOW. Of course, His Eminence is right.

Another Timely Re-post from Father Z, November, 2008

We fell asleep.........................................................We will know Gethsemane. I have used this link, as the original from the magazine from Catholic University is no longer online.


from What Does the Prayer Really Say  Posted on 17 November 2008 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A reader sent me this from the magazine of the Catholic University of America.

This is from the magazine of Catholic University of America.  My emphases and comments.

Cardinal at CUA: Obama is ‘Aggressive, Disruptive and Apocalyptic’

Posted By Elizabeth Grden On November 14, 2008 @ 7:58 am In News

His Eminence James Francis Cardinal Stafford criticized President-elect Barack Obama as “aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic,“ and said he campaigned on an “extremist  anti-life platform,” Thursday night in Keane Auditorium during his lecture “Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul.“

“Because man is a sacred element of secular life,” Stafford remarked, “man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person’s life cannot ultimately be controlled by government.”

“For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden,” Stafford said, comparing America’s future with Obama as president to Jesus’ agony in the garden. E2On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake.” 

Cardinal Stafford said Catholics must deal with the “hot, angry tears of betrayal” by beginning a new sentiment where one is “with Jesus, sick because of love.”   [I didn't hear the speech and I don't have the full text.  But I wonder if he isn't in part referring to the betrayal of Catholic teaching both by pro-abortion Catholic politicians and also... it must be said... Catholic voters.]

The lecture, hosted by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, pertained to Humanae Vitae, a papal encyclical written by Pope Paul VI in 1968 and celebrating its 40 anniversary this year.

Stafford also spoke about the decline of a respect for human life and the need for Catholics to return to the original values of marriage and human dignity.

“If 1968 was the year of America’s ‘suicide attempt,’ 2008 is the year of America’s exhaustion,” said Stafford, an American Cardinal and Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary for the Tribunal of the Holy See. “In the intervening 40 years since Humanae Vitae, the United States has been thrown upon ruins.”

This destruction and America’s decline is largely in part due to the Supreme Court’s decisions in the  life-issue cases of 1973, specifically Roe v. Wade. Stafford asserted these cases undermined respect for human life in the United States.

“Its scrupulous meanness [what a phrase!]  has had catastrophic effects upon the unity and integrity of the American republic,” said Stafford.

Humanae Vitae (“On Human Life”) reaffirms traditional Catholic teachings regarding abortion, contraception and other human life issues. Pope Benedict XVI said in May it is “so controversial, yet so crucial for humanity’s future…What was true yesterday is true also today.”

Monsignor Livio Melina, president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, gave the opening address at the lecture and spoke about the importance of agape love to gain knowledge.

“Love itself is a form of knowledge, and this knowledge cannot be objectified,” said Melina. “It is a unique relationship between the believer and God.”

Stafford said the truest reflection of the love between the believer and God is that of the relationship between husband and wife, and that contraceptive use does not fit anywhere within that framework.

According to Stafford, the inner dynamic of a spousal relationship is much like the body itself, which ‘speaks’ in terms of masculinity and femininity.

“The experience of love introduces us in a specific way to moral knowledge,” added Melina.

If we will know Gethsemene, we will also have the consolation of seeing the Lord conformted by angels… if we do not fall asleep.

A Repeat of a Bishop's Letter from 2008--We Are Facing Ruin in the States

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2008 thanks to Catholic Key Blog

http://catholickey.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/bishop-finns-election-eve-homily.html

Bishop Finn's Election Eve Homily

Homily for the Eve of the Election
November 3, 2008 – St. Therese North Parish
Most Reverend Robert W. Finn
Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph

Judges 7:1-22
Revelation 11:19; 12: 1-6, 10.
Matthew 10: 26-33

Dear friends,

Over the next 24 hours, millions of Americans will go to the polls throughout our country to cast ballots for the leaders of our nation, state, and community. We will make decisions about amendments and propositions. This is a wonderful process and privilege of citizenship in a country that values the ideal of freedom.

But let us have no doubt about this: through this process we are more than participants in a democratic process. We are becoming participants in life and death. The candidates we choose do not arise merely on their own. We place them in office.

Clearly, all these leaders are imperfect men and women like ourselves. They will make decisions day by day, and many of the circumstances of war and domestic work are not able to be known until they happen. Nonetheless, when they tell us specifically what they will do and we are therefore able to foresee some of the likely consequences of their leadership we share in the responsibility of their acts. In this sense an election is about even more than physical life and death. It is also about your eternal salvation and mine. This is the first reason to pray. Pray that we will take seriously – that every other voter will take seriously – the meaning of our choices. In a country where we have made choice an absolute, we must remember that underlying every choice is a value; that flowing from every choice is a consequence; that we must give an accounting to God for what we decide.

Our Lord instructs us in the Gospel we have heard, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.” The enormity of this election is founded, in part, on the radical determination of some who would lead our country deeper than ever before into the darkness of the culture of death. This is a path that would certainly mean the death of countless more innocent lives. As shepherd of this Diocese I am also deeply saddened by the prospect of the cost in people’s souls, the souls of those who would place a candidate’s promise of economic prosperity above the life of the most innocent of our brothers and sisters.

Most perilous is the fate of those Catholics who, with hardened hearts, decide to create for themselves, and preach to others, a false gospel that the “right” to an abortion must not be challenged, or that the humanity of the child need not be protected.

Most fraudulent are those Catholic leaders, or alliances of Catholics, that insist that the radically evil injustice of abortion need not be directly opposed, but rather, that somehow solving the dilemma of the poor in a sweeping act of charity will cause the foundation of this monstrous crime to crumble.

Why is this so terribly amiss? Because the foundation and cause of abortion is not poverty but a blind disregard for personal responsibility, a heinous denial and disrespect for human life, and an idolatrous worship of personal convenience. This is why even in the wealthy countries of Scandinavia the highest rates of abortions are followed by rampant euthanasia.

Friends, the poor do not hate their children any more or less than the rich. The poison of which abortion is the most dreadful manifestation is the sinful suffocation of selfishness, and it can and does affect all strata of society. Woe to those, particularly Catholics, who dare to try to convince us that their “choice” of a radically pro-abortion leader is within the parameters of conscience. God have mercy on those who exude freely this salve for their partisan cooperators. I fear that they will bear a greater responsibility than most. Against them will come not only the cry of millions of human lives savagely destroyed, but the souls of those they have sucked down with themselves. This is the very definition of scandal, and the reason that so many have spoken out with such urgency to announce the authentic teaching of the Church.

Part of the damage we have been promised is encapsulated in the Freedom of Choice Act, which has been held at bay the last eight years. When all the reasonable limits on abortion, gained in the last 35 years have been summarily swept away: parental notification, waiting periods, counseling and informed consent, the number of those killed will grow by more than 100,000 a year.

The Freedom of Choice Act will mark the beginning of a great persecution against religious liberty, because it will require tax payer money to be used for abortions. You and I will be faced with this legal trial: whether we should pay our taxes making us participants in the slaughter of Innocents or be liable for jail and fines.

And what of our Catholic hospitals? If we are forced to provide such destructive services under the Freedom of Choice Act, we will have to refuse. Catholic health care workers, and other men and women of good conscience, will risk losing their jobs when their conscience exception is lost and they are pressured to participate. I read a letter recently in our daily paper: The man said, “If you don’t want an abortion. Don’t have one.” Under a regime of such change, you and I will not have such an easy choice. By paying, it will become “our abortion.” Lord, have mercy on us, and on our country.

In the light of these clear and present dangers, I chose tonight’s Gospel, in part, because four times it tells us, “Don’t be afraid!” Let us not be afraid, dear flock. You are worth so much to God; more than sparrows, more than an election, more than any man can measure. Our first goal is this: we must get through tomorrow with our eternal souls intact. We know that God will take care of the rest.

A week ago, I wrote our diocese a letter hoping that it would be heard by all as a necessary call to prayer. Many of our pastors read it to their people. Some, I am sure, suffered a bit from doing so. Thank you, dear brave priests.

I also know that it wasn’t heard by all. Let us not be too hard on those who, for fear or even disagreement, have shrunk back even from the call to pray! It takes time for us to learn to carry our burdens, our obedience, our responsibility. I want you all to pray that – at the hour of greatest need – none will step back from the sacrifice that makes us most like Jesus Christ.

In the first reading, God tells Gideon that He is going to win a great victory. So that Gideon and the People of Israel don’t get too big a head, God determines to go against the hundreds of thousands of the enemy with only three hundred men. He even proceeds to choose those who are perhaps the least sophisticated of all, “those who lap up their water like dogs.” God certainly doesn’t pull any punches!

St. Paul says something similar when he announces that God chooses those whom the world considers foolish to shame the wise. (1 Cor 1:27) Dear friends, there is hope for us! God can use us – few and unsophisticated as we are to win the victory of life. God can choose “the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something.” (1 Cor 1: 28)

I pray this reading from about Gideon’s lopsided battle will remind God and us of the kind of victory He can win for His people. May He grant us this same mercy these days, all in accord with His will and plan; all for the glory of His name; all for the protection of human life.

In the second reading we have the image of Mary, the Woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and the crown of stars on her head. Mary, we cry out to you, O Mother of life, O Empress of America, O Star of the New Evangelization, O Immaculate patroness of our Diocese and our country: Gather us under the mantel of your maternal love. Mary, Lady of the Rosary whom we have invoked so often, particularly in the last month, “Pray for us sinners!” You, O Queen and our Mother, “despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us from all dangers, O ever-glorious and blessed Virgin.

Dear friends, over the next 24 hours, millions of Americans will go to the polls throughout our country to cast ballots for the leaders of our nation, state, and community. We are called to be participants in life and death. May God guide us to choose life. May He make us his fearless apostles, and use us to construct a civilization of life and love.

Protectors, predators, and peter pans--a five post day

This is a five post day, so scroll down for all the goodies. Before I move on to something else, I have been thinking of raising Catholic boys to be men again, as I consider working in schools again as a substitute teacher. I always end up teaching boys....hmm. I teach boys to be men.

There are three categories of men: Protectors, Predators and Peter Pans. Now, young boys learn to be one of these types. I want to write about this from my own experience in teaching, observing and being in Confirmation prep, which, interestingly enough, allows one to watch the maturation or not of young people becoming responsible about their spiritual lives.


That phrase "becoming responsible" is the key and what every good Catholic mum wants her boys and girls to be. We raise children to become independent, responsible, with properly formed consciences and so on.


Sanctifying grace informs the virtues given through baptism, but these virtues must be accepted, trained, practiced, as in sailing a boat or being an accomplished painter. One can have gifts one never uses. Let me outline the three men types, starting with the best.


The Protector is the man who realizes that one of his responsibilities in life as a man is to protect a wife and family, or, in extension, as with a monk, a community, or a parish priest, a parish, or as a bishop, an entire diocese. 

The Protector learns to live the virtues, given to him by God through the sacraments. He embraces his role in the world as a protector, being full of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as counsel, knowledge, wisdom,piety and the four cardinal or moral virtues, fortitude, temperance, prudence and justice. Such virtues as perseverance or fortitude, and temperance are necessary daily habits, as well as the others. Of course, the first three Theological Virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity, are a given. The Protector lives the virtuous life and teaches those around him to do likewise. The man who is a Protector also knows that he must be the wage-earner, the provider, the champion of the weak and helpless.


The Predator is a narcissist who only thinks of his own pleasure and needs. He looks on women and even other men totally from his viewpoint of what he can gain from these victims, or objects. The Predator is a sexual or military aggressor. So many women do not recognize the traits-bullying is one of the most obvious.But other Predator traits include selfishness, deceit, and a lack of self-mastery.


The Peter Pan has not grown up and lives either in the malaise of victim-hood (see my January post) or in the false security of irresponsible childhood. This type of man never grows up, wants to be taken care of and does not want children or any stake in the world, of which he is afraid. Frequently, the PP only engages in self-sex, that is masturbation, a sign of his immaturity and selfishness.

Catholic parents build character in their children at home. This is one of our primary duties. We look for the opportunities to instill personal responsibility and success. We watch for the signs of maturation. We try and help the male persons in our families grow into Protectors, rather than Predators and Peter Pans. When a good father is eyeing the young men who come to date his girls, he should be able to tell immediately whether the young or not-so-young men are Protectors, Predators, or Peter Pans.


Many women have not found a Protector. These men, real men, are rare indeed, as society has preferred to nurture Predators and Peter Pans, who are politically more pliable. Only Protectors live the Catholic virtues. I pray for my sisters in Christ who, sadly, have not been married or had children, or who are lonely in this big, bad world for the lack of Protectors. Many of us go directly to God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit for our Protection. 


I think of St. Joseph. He was the Protector par excellence. Many other saints show that they were Protectors. I think of Blessed Louis Martin, St. and King Henry, St. Thomas More, and even unmarried Protectors, such as St. Pius IX, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Philip Neri. St. Damien of Molokai, and many others.There is a saying going around the Net:

Real Men do not love the most beautiful women in the world. A real man loves the woman who can make his world beautiful...that is the attitude of a Protector.


St. Paul said, Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it- see 5:25-in the Letter to the Ephesians. 


Bishop Jenky is a Protector. Those monks above are Protectors. The Catholic Men in England in the 1950s are Protectors. St. Joseph is the Protector. Do you know a Protector? Sisters, pray for at least one in your life, and if you find him, love and cherish him. He is one of a rare breed.

Sharing the Attack on Tolerance Video with My Friends

Pass it on, please...

Trivia Quiz Winner and Second Winner Update!

Bls. Luigi and Maria Quattrocchi, who were beatified October 2001, is the correct answer, and Anita won the Trivia Quiz. No prize, except three Hail Marys, however.....Good one, Anita.

Ah, in all fairness, Anonymous came up with SS. Cecily and Valerian, who were indeed martyred husband and wife in 320 A.D. . I think this merits another winning combo. Anita shares the Three Hail Marys with Anonymous. I hope there are no more answers, as I need to say all the Hail Marys......six and I haven't finished my rosary today.

As Europe sinks in a sea of red ink, I am reminded of Camelot

I am reminded of a scene in Camelot, which is very sad, as Guinevere and Arthur have a moment of honesty and pathos in the midst of Guinevere's sinful life with Lancelot. The scene reveals a love, which if embraced by Guinevere, could have rescued her life and that cohesion of the Round Table. I saw Camelot on stage and to me, this scene was a key to the understanding of the difference between real love and sexual passion. Passion and greed have ruined Europe, as have other irrational movements of men and women, who, like Guinevere only care about their own lives and not the lives of the community, the whole. Like Guinevere, who did not control her passions and who let her private satisfaction ruin the Kingdom, we are facing a generation of selfishness and narcissism ruin nations. The lesson is the same over hundreds of years-personal sin brings disaster. A community, a church, a nation, a state, a continental government cannot stand without sacrifice of personal interests.

What do the simple folk doTo help them escape when they're blue?The shepherd who is ailing, the milkmaid who is glumThe cobbler who is wailing from nailing his thumb
When they're beset and besiegedThe folk not noblessly obligedHowever do they manage to shed their weary lot?Oh, what do simple folk do, we do not?
I have been informed by those who know them wellThey find relief in quite a clever wayWhen they're sorely pressed, they whistle for a spellAnd whistling seems to brighten up their day
And that's what simple folk do, so they sayThey just whistle?

What else do the simple folk doTo pluck up the heart and get through?The wee folk and the grown folkWho wander to and fro
Have ways known to their own folkWe throne folk don't knowWhen all the doldrums beginWhat keeps each of them in his skin?
What ancient native customProvides the needed glow?

Oh, what do simple folk do?, Do you know?
Once, upon the road, I came upon a ladSinging in a voice three times his sizeWhen I asked him why, he told me he was sadAnd singing always made his spirits rise
So that's what simple folk do, I surmise
Arise my love, arise my loveApollo's lighting the skies, my loveThe meadows shine with columbineAnd daffodils blossom away
Hear Venus call to one and allCome taste delight while you mayThe world is bright and all is rightAnd life is merry and gay
What else do the simple folk do?They must have a system or twoThey obviously outshine us at turning tears to mirthHave tricks a royal highness is minus from birth
What, then, I wonder, do theyTo chase all the goblins away?They have some tribal sorcery you haven't mentioned yetOh, what do simple folk do to forget?
Often, I am told, they dance a fiery danceAnd whirl 'till they're completely uncontrolledSoon the mind is blank and all are in a tranceA violent trance astounding to behold

And that's what simple folk do, so I'm told

Really? I have it on the best authority

LifeSiteNews, Steubenville, and the Pope on Catholic Universities-two stories

LifeSiteNews online has the story of the catastrophe of Catholic insurance coverage being forced to shut because of the Obamacare stand.


The Franciscan University of Steubenville announced it will not furnish students with health care coverage effective this fall, specifically citing the HHS mandate as the reason.

“The Obama Administration has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover ‘women’s health services’ including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),” a statement posted on its website states. “Up to this time, Franciscan University has specifically excluded these services and products from its student health insurance policy, and we will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.

“Due to these changes in regulation by the federal government, beginning with the 2012-13 school year, the University 1) will no longer require that all full-time undergraduate students carry health insurance, 2) will no longer offer a student health insurance plan, and 3) will no longer bill those not covered under a parent/guardian plan or personal plan for student health insurance.”

The rising premiums that attend a greater government role in health care were another reason for the cancellation. “Additionally, the PPACA increased the mandated maximum coverage amount for student policies to $100,000 for the 2012-13 school year, which would effectively double your premium cost for the policy in fall 2012, with the expectation of further increases in the future,” the statement said.

The college located in eastern Ohio, which is ranked one of the best private college values by Kiplinger, noted its current student health insurance plan will expire on August 15th

See article for more.

And, remember,last week, there was a story on the Pope's call to clean up American universities which are not being Catholic? If you missed it, here is a snippet from the article.

ROME, May 11, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Against a backdrop of institutionalized opposition to Catholic teaching in much of American Catholic academia, Pope Benedict XVI has told visiting U.S. bishops that Catholic colleges need to return to being a bastion of orthodoxy against an increasingly hostile and aggressive secular world.
While improvements have been made, Pope Benedict said, “much remains to be done,” particularly in “such basic areas” as compliance with Canon 812 of the Code of Canon Law. That section mandates that theology professors at Catholic universities be faithful to the teaching of the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI

Canon 218 says, “Those who are engaged in the sacred disciplines enjoy a lawful freedom of inquiry and of prudently expressing their opinions on matters in which they have expertise, while observing due respect for the magisterium of the Church.”
This lack of progress, the pope said, has created confusion by “instances of apparent dissidence” between academics and the bishops. “Such discord harms the Church’s witness and, as experience has shown, can easily be exploited to compromise her authority and her freedom.”
The issue of religious freedom is at the top of the American bishops’ agenda at the moment, in the midst of their fight against the Obama administration’s attempt to mandate coverage of artificial birth control by Catholic institutions. Even as the U.S. bishops have fought the Obama mandate, prominent Catholic organizations have expressed their support, undercutting the efforts of the bishops. Most recently Georgetown University, a Catholic Jesuit university, invited Kathleen Sebelius, who as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services was the architect of the birth control mandate, as a commencement speaker.
The pope called the need to reform Catholic academia the “most urgent internal challenge facing the Catholic community” in the U.S.
“Catholic identity, not least at the university level, entails much more than the teaching of religion or the mere presence of a chaplaincy on campus.
“All too often, it seems, Catholic schools and colleges have failed to challenge students to reappropriate their faith,” Benedict continued.


More on link above.

Prayer for the Success of the SSPX and Vatican Talks

I and many others have been praying for the success of the SSPX talks in Rome. Some of us have been praying to the Holy Spirit. May I share this prayer today.

Come, O Divine Spirit, fill my heart with Your heavenly fruits, Your charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, faith, mildness, and temperance, that I may never weary in the service of God, but by continued faithful submission to Your inspiration may merit to be united eternally with You in the love of the Father and the Son, Amen. Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us. St. Peter, pray for us. St. Benedict, pray for us. St. Pius X, pray for us.

Trivia quiz answers?

Not an answer to the trivia quiz yesterday is the couple SS. Isidore the Farmer and his wife, Maria de la Cabeza. The question has to do with married people being beatified together... and these two were not. I am open to other alternatives. One reader suggested SS. Henry and Cunegunda, or Kunigunde, who I have mentioned on this blog before, as patrons of Luxembourg, from which came 50% of my family members.

The first mentioned farming couple makes up two of the patrons of Madrid, which needs all the help it can get as a city today.

Their feast day was yesterday, May 15th, in some places...SS. Henry and Cunegunda have different feast days, July 13th and March 3rd. More input from readers?

Astounding Idea from Bloomberg Editorial-The Religious Right Helped American Investments Compared to Other Places--the Result of Roe v. Wade

I am not going to quote the entire article and here is the link, but an interesting and credible take on the horror of Roe v. Wade as organizing the Christian Right in the States has led this author to an interesting conclusion. I think this is worthy of debate and comment. One must not fall into cynicism, but Roe v. Wade took many of us by surprise and many Catholics were, well, sleeping politically. One may or may not agree with Edward Conard, but the ideas are stimulating and may point to what needs to happen in November, 2012--the marriage of convenience noted here. Of course, those of us who pay attention must add to this argument that the Democratic Party, since the 1999 platform, has officially been the party of death-pro-abortion and women's reproductive rights. Just look online at the platform and follow the history.

Why does the U.S. have lower labor redeployment costs, more open trade borders, lower marginal tax rates and, ultimately, more tolerance for unequal distribution of income?

By the random dint of history, the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade of 1973 brought pro-investment voters to power in the U.S. The faction of pro-investment voters, representing about 35 percent of the electorate, combined with enough of the now-mobilized social conservatives -- principally the members of the Christian Right, who vote Republican and represent 15 percent of the electorate -- to seize the majority and permanently shift the political economic center to the right.

A similar shift in political power didn’t occur in Europe and Japan, and pro-labor, anti-investment majorities continued to control those economies. These majorities increased labor- redeployment costs and closed trade borders to slow the need for redeploying labor; supported unionism by strengthening trade barriers; failed to lower marginal tax rates as much as the U.S.; and discouraged unequal distribution of income and wealth.

The U.S. differs from Europe and Japan in four ways. Europe and Japan have parliamentary democracies where parties are represented in proportion to their share of the vote. In the U.S., it’s a winner takes all, two-party system and that makes it easier for a large minority of voters -- in this case, pro- investment tax cutters -- to join forces with another large minority of voters -- the Christian Right -- to seize power.

Roe might have had a minimal effect on U.S. politics were it not for the fact that Christian fundamentalists are a large enough portion of the country’s population to affect the outcome of an election. About 25 percent of U.S. voters identify themselves as evangelical Christians. Prior to Roe v. Wade, three-fifths of evangelical Christian voters were Democrats, and two-fifths were Republicans.

Reagan Embrace

When Ronald Reagan endorsed the pro-life movement, these proportions reversed. Reagan combined the Christian Right with the pro-investment tax cutters to create a majority. Pro- investment tax cutters maintained control of the party, selecting fiscally conservative, but socially moderate, presidential candidates such as John McCain, George W. Bush, Bob Dole,George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford.

The fact that conservative Southern Democrats controlled political power throughout the southeastern U.S. amplified Roe’s political impact. As conservative pro-life voters defected to the Republican Party because of the ruling, it became increasingly difficult for fiscally conservative Southern Democrats to win elections as Democrats. Over time, these conservative Southern Democrats changed sides, gradually shifting political power to Republicans.

Most voters don’t realize that Roe does more than legalize abortion. It legalizes controversial third-trimester abortions in certain cases and takes away the electorate’s right to vote on this issue by making the late procedures a judicial right rather than a legislative decision. Third-term abortions are illegal throughout most of the democratic world. Their legalization by Roe, even if few women chose to have them, made opposition to the ruling more tolerable to pro-choice moderates.

The court’s denial of the electorate’s right to vote on an issue where both sides have legitimate points of view -- the majority of Americans opposes third-term abortions -- further increased the tolerance for opposition to Roe by pro-choice moderates. The denial of the other side’s right to vote -- because one fears the possible outcome of that vote -- is difficult for many to swallow when they acknowledge the reasonableness of the other side’s position.

The stance of pro-investment Republicans adds to this tolerance of pro-choice voters toward their position. Pro- investment Republicans oppose outlawing abortions by shrewdly arguing that the decision should be legislative, not judicial. Studies by the Pew Research Center show that more than half the voters support Roe, and only a quarter supports a ban on all abortions. If put to a vote, support among voters for first- and second-term abortions would assure legalization in all but a handful of states. If Roe remains as a judicial matter, it is far more likely that courts will outlaw abortions.........

Capturing an additional 10 percent to 15 percent of the electorate at the center likely demands at least a 10-point increase in the marginal tax rate -- probably significantly more. Ironically, the defection of these pro-investment tax cutters to the left increases the clout of social conservatives within the pro-investment coalition -- exactly the opposite of their objective.

This permanent shift in the center to the pro-investment right had a significant effect on U.S. economic policy. Americans remember the Reagan administration using its alliance with the Christian Right to cut marginal tax rates, tame inflation, and deregulate numerous industries, including trucking, telecommunications and airlines.

Less recognized is the administration’s profound effect on labor polices and private-sector unions. By deregulating industries and leaving trade borders open to international competition, Reagan put enormous pressure on heavily unionized industries, like trucking, airlines, steel and automobile manufacturing. He fired air-traffic controllers and replaced them with non-unionized workers, symbolically signaling to business leaders that he expected them to take a more aggressive stance toward unions. His ally, Margaret Thatcher, did the same thing in the U.K., enduring a long strike to weaken the coal miners’ union......

Democratic lawmakers and their public-union supporters recognize that consumers (voters) ultimately bear the increased cost of private-sector unions, closed trade borders, and the restriction on trade necessary to maintain them. They result in higher prices, slower growth, and less employment. Why would public-sector unions bite the hand that feeds them? Unlike private-sector unions, they have not pushed for these inefficiencies.


Also, update on Greek banks.....