The Truth Behind the Myth of Tuam's Septic Tank Babies

Thanks to Paul Barry at ABC's Media Watch.

The Young Turks Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur Spread some Anti-Catholic Lies.

A Commentary on another Young Turks Mental Meltdown

Fourteen Lies in Four Minutes.

 

A Summary: Regardless of what the Young Turks'Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur would lead you to believe, Catholic nuns in Ireland didn't stuff the bodies of 800 dead children into a septic tank.

The lies:
1. (0:12). No Ana, the home wasn't shut down because of, as you falsely claim, a significant number of children would die in the home. From page 7 of the Catholic League report, Bill Donohue states that:

"In 1961, the building was falling apart and needed to be renovated. But no funds were available, so it closed. The nuns handed over all the records to the authorities, which today is called the Health Service Executive in Galway. In the early 1970s, the building was demolished to make way for a new housing complex."

 2. (0:20). Really Ana? Who? Who often wondered about the bodies?

3. (0:27). No Ana, Catherine Corless never said she found any bodies of dead babies let alone 800 of them in a septic tank.

4. Again Ana, you're wrong. There is no evidence that dead babies were disposed of in a septic tank. Back in the 1970s a couple of young boys found some skeleton remains (15-20) in what has been variously described as an old concrete water tank, or a crypt.

* (0:44).  Seriously Ana, you're quoting a story for the notoriously anti-Catholic Washington Post on a matter regarding the Catholic Church! That's a bit like asking the Westboro Baptist Church about homosexuality.

5. (1:09). No Cenk, there is no evidence that a lot of these children died as a result of malnutrition. This time quoting from a retraction given by the Associated Press (AP):

"Contrary to the allegation of widespread starvation highlighted in some reports, only 18 children were recorded as suffering from severe malnutrition."

6. (1:19). Cenk, I'm guessing that because you are a person who believes that killing human life within a mother's womb is an acceptable practice, you then have a need to demonize those with a contrary view. But according to historical accounts the nuns provided love and care to these women and children. See pages 9 and 10 of the Catholic League report.

7. (1:23). Again Ana and Cenk, 800 baby bodies have not been found, and even if they are found at some time in the future, so what? That doesn't prove anything other than the fact that 800 dead babies, who died over a 36 year period were buried in a plot on the site where they lived. So what, how is that even a story?

8. (1:29). Oh come on Cenk! Haunted by it? On a positive note, at least you're now bringing in some light relief.

9. (1:41). Really Ana? Have you ever spoken to the parents of these girls who were sent to these homes? How on earth would you know these parents thought their daughters were promiscuous? I'm guessing you got this intimate knowledge from the same people who told you the lie that some Irish nuns dumped the bodies of 800 dead babies into a septic tank!

10. (1:45). Again Ana, how the hell would you even know the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy of these women? You just seem to be making this up as you go!

11. (2:00). Actually Ana, the reports of the day seem to indicate that considering the circumstances at the time, the children were actually well looked after. Again, see pages 9 and 10 of the Catholic League report.

12. (2:12). Again Ana, there is no hypocrisy. The Catholic nuns were pro-life and they dedicated their lives to helping some of the most disadvantaged people in their society at the time -- abandoned single mothers and their children, and all for no material gain to themselves. If, as you say Ana, "these nuns had disdain and hatred for these children born out of wedlock", why did these same nuns dedicate their lives to helping them. You should be praising these nuns, not tearing them down. But then, anti-Catholicism is always hateful and irrational isn't Ana.

13. (2:23). Hang on Cenk. Your original claim was that 800 babies died over a 36 year period from 1925 to 1961. Now, given that Atheists like to continually tell the rest of the world how intelligent they are, how is it you didn't pick up the obvious mathematical error? If two babies died every week for 36 years than that would equal 3744 dead babies. So it's not just the whole theme of your anti-Catholic rant that doesn't compute, neither does your basic math.

* (2:33). Cenk, you can't crap all over anti-abortionists and than suddenly turn round and say you're not. By the way, do you ever say anything critical of those who support the killing of human life in the womb? Ever.

* (2:57). Yes Cenk, those Catholic nuns helping those abandoned women and children probably were with God. If there is a God don't you think God would have wanted people to help those women and children? Of course if there is no God, then there is not moral demands on anyone to care for another human being. Hence your belief that killing a human being through abortion is okay.

* (3:00). Cenk, I'm not sure what crazy interpretations of scripture you're talking about, or what crazy dogma you're talking about, but whatever it was that caused those Catholic nuns to dedicate their lives to help the less fortunate of people, and to do so for no material gain, I think that would be the opposite of crazy.
Now regarding the issue of shaming, yes it can be cruel, but it is also a normal part of societal norms used to discourage unacceptable behavior. And it can be easily argued that historically, having sex outside of marriage was bad for society. Again Bill Donohue addresses this issue well on pages 11 and 12 of the Catholic League report.

14. (3:26). Cenk, It is beyond belief that a rational person could describe a home that provided food and shelter to abandoned women and children as being a trash bin. The reality is that the alternative to these Catholic run homes was indeed living among the real trash bins in the street. And these homes didn't ruin the lives of these women and children, they instead provided a lifeline and support to these women and children who otherwise would have been left homeless and broke with no food or shelter.


* (3:52). Cenk, I'm sure even you can't miss the irony of your last comment. Nearly everything both you and Ana have said over the last four minutes were based on things that simply weren't true.
Don't they have words for that kind of speech! I think it's called BIGOTRY and HATE SPEECH -- The two core components of any anti-Catholic rant.

Additional commentary form other sources:

Australia's left wing public broadcaster, the ABC Media Watch program.
Atheist writer and commentator Brendan O'Neill, from Spiked online.
The Catholic League Report - Ireland's Mass Grave Hysteria.
Extract of Associated Press (AP) retraction regarding report on Tuam home for abandoned mothers.

The 800 Septic Tank Babies That Never Were.

Anti-Catholics are still unhinged.

From Brendan O'Neill at Spiked Online.

The Tuam tank: another myth about evil Ireland.

Science Channel Prefers Sci-Fi to Real Science

From the Catholic League.

IS THE VATICAN HIDING ALIENS?

April 8, 2014 by Bill
Filed under Latest News Releases
2014 - April Releases

Bill Donohue from the Catholic League comments on last night’s show, “Unsealed: Alien Files,” that aired on the Science Channel:

The program speculates that “new evidence may prove the Vatican is hiding actual aliens from the public.” Either that or the channel will rename itself the Sci-fi Channel.

The priest who directs the Vatican observatory, Dr. Jose Funes, was interviewed for the program, and he made the rather unexceptional remark that the universe is so huge that “it would be possible that life could evolve the way we know it on Earth.” This is soon followed by a voiceover that says, “Vatican officials have publicly acknowledged the likelihood of alien life. This dramatic reversal of Vatican policy demands an explanation. What does the Church know, or what have they found that causes them to reverse a 2000-year-old teaching?”

While we’re demanding that the Vatican provide an explanation for its “policy” on aliens, I would like to demand an explanation from the Science Channel: Must one be nuts to work there?

It gets better. Evidence of alien life, we learn, is available in the “Vatican secret archives.” But thanks to the Science Channel, it is a secret no more. “The Vatican secret archives is approximately 52 miles of shelving we’re told, and over 32,000 archives.” The guy who said this did not disclose who told him this “secret,” but who needs evidence? Then a voiceover gets really melodramatic: “But the secrets hidden within the Vatican can’t stay buried forever. Now new evidence may prove the Vatican is hiding actual aliens from the public.” That’s right—they can’t play “hide and seek” forever. Send in the Navy SEALS.

The program also claims that skulls with elongated heads and small faces, resembling aliens, were found in 1998 under the Vatican Library, but that access to the site has been denied. A voiceover asks, “Could these skulls be the remnants of aliens who once lived in the Vatican?” Either that or the Vatican employs coneheads to work in its “secret” archives.

Laurie Goodstein only interested in Sex Abuse if it's Catholic

Continue Reading at The Media Report

Another Anti-Catholic Publicity Stunt Fizzles

International Court Case Against ex-Pope Fizzles

New York, 13th June 2013, Rachel Zoll, AP.

The International Criminal Court has rejected a longshot request by clergy sex abuse victims to investigate former Pope Benedict XVI and Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity.

The tribunal, based in The Hague, told attorneys for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests that "there is not a basis at this time to proceed with further analysis."

"The matters described in your communication do not appear to fall within the jurisdiction of the court," a court official wrote in a May 31 letter to the Center for Constitutional Rights, the nonprofit legal group that represents the victims. The legal organization released the letter Thursday.

Jeffrey Lena, the U.S. attorney for the Vatican, had called the 2011 request to the court a "ludicrous publicity stunt."

Continue reading at The Seattle Times.

More from the Catholic League.

The Usual Suspects Exposed Again

From Gerard Henderson's Media Watch Dog

Issue 174, 15th March 2013

CAN YOU BEAR IT? – A SPECIAL POPE-FOCUSED EDITION

●  Chris Geraghty Casts The First Stone

Meet Chris Geraghty.  Aged circa 74, Mr Geraghty has not had the most newsworthy life. He was a Catholic priest who left the priesthood at age 38 to get married.  He subsequently became a solicitor, then a barrister and then a judge.  At the pinnacle of his career, your man Geraghty obtained the prestigious position of Judge of the NSW Compensation Court and District Court.

Normally, you would think that so brilliant a clerical and legal career would warrant, say, a brief self-published memoir. But no. Chris Geraghty has written three volumes devoted to his life and times.  An autobiographical trilogy, no less.

First there was Cassocks in the Wilderness followed by The Priest Factory followed by Dancing With The Devil: A Journey from the Pulpit to the Bench. According to Nancy’s calculations, there should be time for final missive-possibly titled “My Ultimate Life: From Womb to Tomb”. [Great. I would just love to review this in The Holy Name Monthly – if it still exists. – Ed].

On Wednesday, Chris Geragthy appeared on ABC Radio 702’s Mornings with Linda Mottram  to discuss the Pope and all that – along with a priest and a laywoman. It was not long before the retired judge spoke about child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Let’s go to the transcript:

Linda Mottram : To pick up Chris’s point, the big issue in everybody’s mind – Catholic or not – around the world is the sex abuse scandals and how the Church has, or has not, handled it. Suggestions that the Church is moving forward on this. But Chris, I think you would argue that it’s made very little progress on this. Would you?

Christopher Geraghty :  Look, I think that it’s been a disaster really. The present Pope did very little. He had the opportunity to do it and he did very little. And when he was the offsider to Pope John Paul II, he did very little then too.

So Chris Geraghty is critical of Benedict XVI for doing very little to confront child abuse in the Church when he had the opportunity to do so.

But, what did (then) Fr Geraghty do about child sexual abuse in the Church when he had the opportunity to do so? You can be the judge.  This is what Chris Geraghty told Linda Morris over a beer in the Royal Ascot Hotel Paddington in 2012.  Linda Morris’ profile of Geraghty was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 14 July 2012 on the occasion of the publication of Dancing With The Devil:

Geraghty has his own confession to make, admitting he never passed on to police or to his superiors information about a sexual relationship between a well known priest and one of the seminarians in his care. There were extenuating circumstances. Geraghty was sexually naive and the student spoke to him on condition of silence. Geraghty advised him to confront the priest, Father Vince Kiss, and to end the relationship, which had been going on since he had been about 12, and assisted him in “his search for a new life”. The two later renewed their friendship when the victim, a headmaster at a state school, came forward to testify against Kiss.

“I don’t feel remorseful about it I don’t feel guilty, but I do feel diminished. I’m regretful I was not more worldly wise, I wasn’t more informed, I wasn’t more educated; that I was never aware of the possibility that priests could be paedophiles as they were; and how to deal with it. If I’d known then what I know now and dealt with it aggressively, Vince maybe would not have interfered with a number of other boys and caused them untold trauma.”

So there you have it.  This week, Chris Geraghty used the facilities of ABC Metropolitan Radio in Sydney to bag Benedict XVI for doing “very little” to confront child sex abuse.  But Chris Geraghty neglected to mention the fact that, when confronted as a priest with one case of paedophilia, he did nothing at all.

Can you bear it?

------------------------------

●  God Fails to Deliver an ABC-Compatible Pope – to the Disappointment of Paul Collins, Michael Rowland and Bev O’Connor

What a wonderful sight to see Paul Collins, a former Catholic priest of a liberal bent who is much loved by the ABC on ABC 1’s News Breakfast, at St Peter’s Square yesterday – just after the new pope was elected. Dr Collins (for a doctor he is) called it for the Cardinal Archbishop of Genoa.  It took Lisa Millar in Rome and News Breakfast co-presenters Michael Rowland and Beverley O’Connor some time to realise that the position had gone to the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Then Mr Rowland and Ms O’Connor commenced to express surprise and disappointment that the College of Cardinals had chosen Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who opposes abortion and same sex marriage, to succeed Benedict XVI. It seems that the News Breakfast  team was so busy hoping for a liberal pontiff that they forgot that the Catholic Church is a conservative organisation which is opposed to abortion and same sex marriage.  Can you bear it?

------------------------------

● Phillip Adams on Kerry & Geraldine and Left-Liberal Company

While on the topic of the ABC’s coverage of the Papal Conclave, it’s notable that the public broadcaster trends to only hear the views of those who depict themselves as liberal or progressive Catholics.  Like Paul Collins and Geraldine Doogue – both of whom are currently in Rome.

On 27 February 2013, Phillip (“I was a teenage Stalinist”) Adams spent a full hour interviewing Paul Collins on ABC RN’s Late Night Live. In this interview:

▪ Adams mockingly referred to Cardinal George Pell as “our mutual friend”. Soon after, Collins said that Pell is in “the minority”.

▪ Collins mockingly said that the late B.A. Santamaria “will probably be listening” to the interview.

▪ Adams then mockingly referred to “Saint Gerard of Henderson” and then laughed loudly at his own joke.

▪ Collins then put the entire blame of the Labor Split of the mid 1950s on to Santamaria.

▪ Adams then proclaimed:

Phillip Adams:  This is “The Catholic Hour” on Radio National. Of course, the ABC is chocka with Catholics.  I don’t see why Gerard Henderson doesn’t understand that. He thinks the ABC is full of unreconstructed Stalinists but he’s overlooking St Kerry of O’Brien and St Chris of Uhlmann and of course most notably St Geraldine of Doogue.

In fact, Gerard Henderson has said that the ABC is replete with disillusioned Catholics and alienated ex-Catholics who disagree with the Church’s teachings on sexual morality.  That’s why the public broadcaster’s coverage of the Papal Conclave was so beholden to The Tablet’s  left-liberal critique of the Vatican.  And that’s why virtually all the ABC’s commentators on the Conclave got the eventual outcome so wrong. Can you bear it?

------------------------------

● Peter Munro’s Invincible Ignorance on Lent

Last Saturday, The Age’s Paul Munro wrote an uncritical profile on the Catholic priest – and Cardinal Pell critic – Fr Bob Maguire – about the Pope and all that. Maguire is much loved by critics of the Vatican.  This is how Paul Munro describes his lunch with Fr (“call me Bob”) Maguire:

It’s a Friday in Lent and the Catholic priest, known on TV and radio simply as Father Bob, orders a ham, spinach, mushroom and onion frittata with a side salad from the Let Me Be Frank cafe, in South Melbourne. I select a similarly sacrilegious BLAT sandwich. It’s big and tasty but perhaps not worth damnation.

Glaring through the window is the gothic bluestone of Saints Peter and Paul, Father Bob’s parish church for 38 years until his forced retirement in 2012. Shouldn’t Catholics be abstaining from meat today, I ask. ”Nah, not pinko leftists,” he says, his mouth full of food. ”He’s gone now, I can do what I like … I haven’t had a bloody omelette in years.”  ”He” being Benedict XVI, now merely Pope Emeritus Benedict I after retiring as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

It seems that both Mr Munro and Fr Maguire are invincibly ignorant of the Church’s rules with respect to Lent.  First, there is no longer a requirement that Catholics abstain from meat during Fridays in Lent. Second, a breach of such a rule – if it still existed – would never amount to “damnation”.  Third, it’s unlikely that Benedict XVI ever gave a toss about what Fr Maguire had for lunch.  Why would he? Can you bear it?

------------------------------

● Charles Waterstreet’s Invincible Ignorance on Papal Infallibility

The Sun-Herald’s Charles Waterstreet obviously knows as much about the doctrine of Papal Infallibility as his fellow columnist Peter FitzSimons.  That is, nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

This is what Mr Waterstreet wrote in his column last weekend:

When the rest of the Western world has long decided that absolute rule by monarchs should give way to the more democratic methods of elections, the Catholic Church maintains that not only should there be a solitary ruler, the Pope, but that on many matters he is infallible. The reports dubbed ”Vatileaks” included the findings of an investigation by a three-cardinal commission of inquiry headed by Spanish cardinal Julian Herranz Casado. They proved just how fallible 85-year-old Pope Benedict XVI had become. The Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, stole and leaked Vatican correspondence that depicted the bitchery and witchery going on under the prominent nose of the pope.

This comment is hopelessly wrong.  The doctrine of Papal Infallibility only applies when the Pope, speaking on behalf of the Church, binds Catholics on a matter of faith or morals.  The doctrine was last invoked over six decades ago.  Charles Waterstreet’s comments are invincibly ignorant. Can you bear it?

------------------------------

▪ The Guardian-on-the-Yarra Bashes George Pell – Without Evidence Of Course

Last Monday, The Age’s religion editor Barney Zwartz wrote yet another attack on Cardinal Pell – under the heading “Tainted Pell out of race after lobbying”. The Zwartz piece commenced as follows:

Cardinal George Pell, tainted by sex abuse scandals, has no chance of becoming the 266th pope after Australian critics campaigned to publicise allegations that have long dogged him to Italian media and voting cardinals, according to Australian commentator Paul Collins.

Barney Zwartz and his left-liberal mates at “The-Guardian-on-the-Yarra” love nothing more than bashing mainstream Catholics like George Pell.  They care little that many Catholics, and other mainstream Christians, buy and advertise inThe Age.

These are the facts:

▪ George Pell has never been “tainted by sex abuse scandals”. Nor has he been “long dogged” by personal allegations against him.

▪ There was one allegation made against Cardinal Pell in 2002 concerning an event which allegedly occurred in 1961, when Pell was 19 and the male complainant was 12.

▪ The matter was investigated by former Victorian judge A. J. Southwell who found that he was not satisfied that the complaint had been established.

▪ Writing in The Age on 14 June 2010, Barney Zwartz acknowledged that Pell had been “cleared” of any offence by “a retired non-Catholic judge”.

The full details of this matter are discussed in Tess Livingstone’s book George Pell (Duffy & Snellgrove, 2002). The matter was never referred to Victoria Police.  George Pell gave evidence under oath before the Southwell Enquiry which had the status of a royal commission.

Yet Barney Zwartz claimed that Cardinal Pell has been “tainted by sex abuse scandals” despite previously acknowledging that this is not the case. Can you bear it?

Geoffrey Robertson at Protest the Pope

Another elitist Atheist demonstrates he doesn't know what he's talking about.
The video shows the lies preached by Roberston:


Geoffrey Robertson speech at Protest The Pope march


And below, the facts Roberston chooses to ignore:

The Pope demeaning women? Demonising homosexuals? Wishing that IVF children had never been born?
The Pope has never demeaned women. As far as demonising homosexuals, here is what Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Ratzinger, said to the Catholic Bishops of the world in 1985 on the pastoral care of homosexual persons:

"10. It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law."

Hardly demonising homosexuals.

And of course the Pope never said that he wished IVF children had never been born. What the Church teaches is that most artificial reproductive methods injure the dignity of the person conceived and should not be used. However, once conceived every human being has a right to be protected.

Maybe Robertson is suffering some mental disorder???

Why do film makers have to distort the history of Christianity?

By Michael Cook, MercatorNet, 24th June 2010
Is it a sign of exhausted creativity that anti-Christian film makers are exhuming Enlightenment myths? In the arthouses this summer are two films recycling tattered canards which have been mouldering in history books for centuries, repeatedly refuted and repeatedly revived.

Pope Joan (Die Päpstin) is a German production about a female Pope who — supposedly – was elected in 853. Mediaeval legends about the Popess are sketchy, but what legend leaves out, the imagination of the director, Sönke Wortmann, fills in. …

The other film, Agora, is a Spanish blockbuster by Alejandro Amenábar which takes place in Alexandria in 415. Its heroine is Hypatia, a young unmarried and virginal woman of genius who teaches philosophy and astronomy in the Agora, the ancient world’s version of a university.
Hypatia is a pagan, one of a declining minority in a city torn by feuds between Jews and fundamentalist Christians led by the scheming Patriarch Cyril. It is a tough time for lovers of the truth, especially when Christians destroy Alexandria’s rich library. When Hypatia refuses to recant her belief that the earth revolves around the Sun and then refuses to become a Christian, the mob seizes her. To spare her the agony of being stoned, one of her admirers euthanases her. (Amenábar also directed The Sea Inside, an award-winning film about euthanasia.)
Read more at MercatorNet.com


Wikipedia entry on Pope Joan

Wikipedia entry on Hypatia

Spirituality Without Spirits (I’m spiritual but not religious)

By David Mills - May 28, 2010 First Things.

 It’s a great and self-serving mess, this claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” which we hear from almost anyone who talks about religion in public, outside those the worldlings define as fundamentalist (me, probably you, Joseph Bottum, David Goldman, Benedict XVI, Hassidic Jews, devout Muslims, religious families with more than four children).

It’s one of those easily remembered phrases that work like a “get out of jail free” card for anyone who feels he has to explain his lack of religious practice, and as a claim to superiority for those who care about being superior to those who practice an established religion. It’s the religious equivalent of “I gave at the office” or “There’s a call on the other line” or “I don’t eat meat.”

So we find Lady Gaga, the pornographic songstress, telling a reporter for The Times that she has a new spirituality just before taking her out for a night at a Berlin sex club. Asked by the reporter, “You were raised a Catholic — so when you say ‘God,’ do you mean the Catholic God, or a different, perhaps more spiritual sense of God?”, she responded, “More spiritual. . . . There’s really no religion that doesn’t hate or condemn a certain kind of people, and I totally believe in all love and forgiveness, and excluding no one.”

You see what I mean. To be truly spiritual—on a scale on which “the Catholic God” seems stuck in the middle—apparently means indifferently inclusive or (what is another way of saying the same thing) undogmatic.

I don’t think Ms. Gaga or anyone else who talks like this has really thought it through. That God who forgives everyone and excludes no one doesn’t object to debauches in Berlin sex clubs. A point in his favor, from one point of view. But then he doesn’t object to murderers and torturers and corrupt bankers either. A point in his favor from no one’s point of view.

Continue reading at First Things

Give Me That Old Time Atheism

By Fr. Robert Barron – Word on Fire Blog.

Recently, Chicago has been the target market for a campaign of billboards and bus placards sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation which advocate a dismissal of all things religious. Father Barron offers his thoughts on this initiative here:

I have no particular political objection to the recent advertising campaign launched by atheists and agnostics, which involves placards on the side of buses urging religious people to sleep in on Sunday morning and stop wasting their time going to church. I mean, it’s a free country, and people can express their views publicly, even on controversial matters. But what I object to is the stupidity of the view that’s being advocated.

Continue reading at Word On Fire

Pope Joan? Pioneer or Protestant plot - film revives debate about female pope

 From the Sydney Morning Herald
… a film, which last week reached the top 10 box office list in Italy, has revived the story of Pope Joan - an Englishwoman who, legend has it, disguised herself as a man and became the only female pontiff.
The film will fuel debate over whether Pope Joan really existed or whether, as the Catholic Church maintains, she was a mythical figure used by the early Protestants to discredit and embarrass Rome.

-----------------------------------

Given how gullible anti-Catholics seem to be I’m sure they’ll be flocking to see the movie.
Wikipedia provides some details as to why the “Pope Joan” story can’t be true:
"Between [Popes] Leo IV and Benedict III, where Martinus Polonus places her, she cannot be inserted, because Leo IV died 17 July 855, and immediately after his death Benedict III was elected by the clergy and people of Rome; but owing to the setting up of an Antipope, in the person of the deposed Cardinal Anastasius, he was not consecrated until 29 September. Coins exist which bear both the image of Benedict III and of Emperor Lothair I, who died 28 September 855; therefore Benedict must have been recognized as Pope before the last-mentioned date. On 7 October 855, Benedict III issued a charter for the Abbey of Corvey. Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, informed Nicholas I that a messenger whom he had sent to Leo IV learned on his way of the death of this Pope, and therefore handed his petition to Benedict III, who decided it (Hincmar, ep. xl in P.L., CXXXVI, 85). All these witnesses prove the correctness of the dates given in the lives of Leo IV and Benedict III, and there was no interregnum between these two Popes, so that at this place there is no room for the alleged Popess."^[6]

More at Patrick Madrid's Blog.

More at Catholic Encyclopedia.

IS ATHEISM RATIONAL? IS RELIGION? - New Oxford Review

By Carl Sundell, May 2010.

“… perhaps we might begin to suspect that the atheist's position is rooted not in the intellect but in the will. Is it possible that the atheist does not want God to exist, and that he therefore orders his intellect to supply the necessary objections? It certainly seems so. There isn't any reasonable argument why men should choose to live in a purposeless universe and be doomed to eternal death. It becomes all the less reasonable a choice when we remember that there is not and cannot be any shred of proof that God does not exist or that we exist without an ultimate purpose. Then why choose atheism? Why would anybody want God not to exist?”

Read full article at the New Oxford Review

Twisted Thinking on Abortion » Bill Muehlenberg’s CultureWatch

Those who seek to defend the indefensible have to resort to increasingly bizarre argumentation and twisted thinking to make their case. A prime example of this is the attempt to justify the killing of unborn babies. Some of the most inane and vacuous reasoning can be found coming from the pro-abortionists.
Continue reading at Twisted Thinking on Abortion » Bill Muehlenberg’s CultureWatch

Above image of the feet of an unborn at 7 weeks gestation courtesy of Priests for Life.
If the deliberate terminating of the life of the unborn wasn't such a serious issue I wouldn't feel guilt at having a laugh:

Xtreme Abortion - watch more funny videos

Of course for Catholics guilt can be a good thing. It's a reminder that something is not right. Everyone Against Abortion Please Raise Their Hand:



Rachel's Vineyard (Australia)- Repairing hearts broken by abortion.

InsideCatholic.com - Five Myths About the Rapture

From Carl E Olson writing at Inside Catholic.

About ten years ago, I mentioned to a Catholic friend that I was starting to work on a book critiquing the Left Behind novels. I explained that it would thoroughly examine premillennial dispensationalism, the unique apocalyptic belief system presented, in fictional format, within those books. Premillennial dispensationalism teaches that the "Rapture" and the Second Coming are two events separated by a time of tribulation and that there will be a future millennial reign of Christ on earth. "Why?" she asked, obviously bewildered. "No one really takes that stuff seriously."
That revealing remark merely reinforced my desire to write Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"? (Ignatius, 2003). Other conversations brought home the same point. Far too many people -- including a significant number of Catholics -- don’t recognize the attraction and power of this Fundamentalist phenomenon. Nor do they appear to appreciate how much curiosity exists about the "end times," the book of Revelation, and the "pretribulation Rapture" -- the belief that Christians will be taken up from earth prior to a time of tribulation and the Second Coming.
In the course of writing articles, giving talks, and writing the book, I’ve encountered a number of questions and comments -- almost all from Catholics -- that indicate how much confusion exists about matters of eschatology (theology of the end times), not to mention ecclesiology, historical theology, and the interpretation of Scripture. The five myths I present here summarize many of those questions.
Continue reading "Five Myths About the Rapture" at InsideCatholic.com

Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the divine.

LIKE revivalists from an alternative universe, 2500 hardcore believers in the absence of religion packed into the Global Atheists Convention in Melbourne last weekend to give a hero's welcome to the high priest of belief in unbelief, Richard Dawkins.

The bestselling author of The God Delusion was similarly fawned over by the Australian media, which uncritically lapped up everything he said.
This was even after (or perhaps because) he referred to the Pope as a Nazi, which managed to combine defamation of the pontiff with implicit Holocaust denial.
By comparison, Family First senator Steve Fielding may feel he got off lightly when Dawkins described him merely as more stupid than an earthworm.

Continue Reading at the Australian March 16th ...

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Neo-Pagans Are Giving Ancient Paganism a Bad Name

A Christian who has not at some time felt a sharp twinge of annoyance at the antics of that disparate group of humbugs who can be loosely described as “neo-pagans” can only be a Christian of the most privileged isolation or of the most phlegmatic disposition. As “Goddess” spirituality finds a secure home in religious studies departments and chain bookstores, as the “solstice” nudges Christmas out of Episcopalian cathedrals, Celtic music festivals, and PBS children’s programming, and as C.E. replaces A.D. in academic books, a Christian cannot help but suspect that there are a great number of people with a great deal of influence in public life who would like to see the name of Christ removed from any position of eminence and submerged in a sea of other names.
Continue Reading at the New Oxford Review

Parody - Dawkins discovers he can't arrest the Pope.

These parodies are funny even though they've been around for a while now. But of course Dawkins is not really like Hitler. I might see the original movie one day.

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