The investigative pro-life group Live Action, which has released videos exposing the abuses at the Planned Parenthood abortion business across the country, has released a new video today showing a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Austin, Texas encouraging a woman to get a sex-selection abortion.
The video shows a Planned Parenthood staffer encouraging the woman to obtain a late-term abortion because she was purportedly carrying a girl and wanted to have a boy. The video is first in a new series titled “Gendercide: Sex-Selection in America,” that Live Action tells LifeNews will be exposing the practice of sex-selective abortion in the United States and how Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion industry facilitate the selective elimination of baby girls in the womb.
“I see that you’re saying that you want to terminate if it’s a girl, so are you just wanting to continue the pregnancy in the meantime?” a Planned Parenthood counselor named “Rebecca” offers the woman, who is purportedly still in her first trimester and cannot be certain about the gender.
“The abortion covers you up until 23 weeks,” explains Rebecca, “and usually at 5 months is usually (sic) when they detect, you know, whether or not it’s a boy or a girl.”
Live Action says the late-term abortion is offered for gender selection even though doctors agree that the later in term a doctor performs an abortion, the greater the risk of complications.
In the video (seen below), the Planned Parenthood staffer suggests that the woman get on Medicaid in order to pay for an ultrasound to determine the gender of her baby, even though she plans to use the knowledge for an elective abortion. The abortion facility staffer also tells the woman to “just continue and try again” for the desired gender after aborting a girl, and adds, “Good luck, and I hope that you do get your boy.”
Lila Rose, the president of Live Action, condemned Planned Parenthood for its willingness to facilitate sex-selection abortions.
“The search-and-destroy targeting of baby girls through prenatal testing and abortion is a pandemic that is spreading across the globe,” she said. “Research proves that sex-selective abortion has now come to America. The abortion industry, led by Planned Parenthood, is a willing participant.”
A few years ago, a national study showed the possibility that the practice of sex-selection abortions has made its way from Asia to the United States. Researchers Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund of the National Academy of Sciences say their analysis of the 2000 Census shows the odds prematurely increasing for Asian-American families from China, Korea and India to have a boy if they already have a girl child.
On Wednesday, Congress will debate the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PRENDA), which would ban sex-selective abortions nationally.
“Planned Parenthood and their ruthless abortion-first mentality is the real ‘war on women’,” says Rose. “Sex-selective abortion is gender discrimination with lethal consequences for little girls.”
The complete, unedited video and transcript can be viewed at www.ProtectOurGirls.com, a hub of research and information on sex-selective abortions that Live Action has started.
Planned Parenthood has already attempted to run damage control regarding the video expose’. The abortion business worked its contacts int he media in recent weeks.
Weeks ago, Planned Parenthood went to the liberal Huffington Post to try to do damage control before the results of any possible Live Action investigation are made public. Planned Parenthood told the Huffington Post it may be facing another campaign from Live Action to expose its practices on how it would handle someone seeking a sex-selection abortion.
According to Planned Parenthood spokesperson Chloe Cooney, clinics in at least 11 states have reported two dozen or more “hoax visits” over the past several weeks, in which a woman walks into a clinic, claims to be pregnant and asks a particular pattern of provocative questions about sex-selective abortions, such as how soon she can find out the gender of the fetus, by what means and whether she can schedule an abortion if she’s having a girl.
While patient privacy laws prohibit Planned Parenthood from offering specific details about the visits and where they occurred, Cooney told The Huffington Post that the incidents are so unusual and so similar to each other that they have raised concerns among the organization’s executives that the visits are being recorded as part of a concerted anti-Planned Parenthood campaign.
“For years opponents of reproductive health and Planned Parenthood have engaged in secret videotaping tactics with fictitious patient scenarios and selective editing in an attempt to promote misinformation about Planned Parenthood and our services,” Cooney said. “As with the prior instances, we anticipate that once again this group, likely in coordination with a broad range of anti-abortion leaders, will soon launch a propaganda campaign with the goal of discrediting Planned Parenthood, and, ultimately, restricting women’s health.”
While Planned Parenthood has no proof that Live Action is behind the current series of encounters, Cooney said the group is the most coordinated in their operations and that the recent string of incidents “follows their pattern exactly.”
Planned Parenthood’s attempt here to head off the results before the Live Action releases them was not the first occasion on which it attempted to do so. Planned Parenthood representatives spoke with the Washington Post just a short time before Live Action released the sex trafficking videos showing Planned Parenthood staffers arranging abortions for victims. The abortion business also spoke with the Washington Post to put its spin on the breaking of the story of Komen for the Cure cutting its funding — causing a massive backlash and an eventual reversal in its decision.
A handful of states specifically prohibit sex-selection abortions — Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois — but Planned Parenthood’s representative made it appear the abortion business would have no problem with doing abortions for those reasons. In fact, comments from Planned Parenthood’s representative make some wonder whether the abortion business would ever ask if a woman or couple wanted an abortion for that reason.
“Decisions about whether to choose adoption, end the pregnancy or to raise a child have to be left up to a woman, her family and her faith, with the counsel of her doctor,” Cooney said.
The Post also quoted one Asian-American activist who appeared to oppose legislation to ban sex-selection abortions.
“Abortion restrictions are a non-solution, and Planned Parenthood and others who have been providing necessary women’s health care for gazillions of years are not the perpetuators of the war on women.”
Later, Americans United for Life attorney Anna Franzonello, in a new column at the Washington Times, provided more evidence showing Planned Parenthood may be willing to tolerate such gender-based abortions.
For example, in opposition to a Missouri bill that would ban sex-selection abortions, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist recently testified that the organization “condemns” sex-selection abortions. However, when a legislator asked her to answer whether Planned Parenthood would refuse to perform such abortions if asked by a patient, she dodged the question with political rhetoric. Three times she refused to answer the question, even when asked directly to give a “yes or no” response. Americans United for Life was there, testifying against the discrimination against women inherent in sex-selection abortions.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Leslie Kantor and Dr. Carolyn Westhoff penned an article in which they, too, claimed the abortion chain “condemns” sex selection. However, their article also tellingly admits, “That doesn’t mean we always agree with the decisions made by people who seek our help.” Thus, it appears that in Planned Parenthood-speak, “condemnation” of sex selection does not include “will not participate” in the abortion.
As reported by the Huffington Post, “None of [Planned Parenthood‘s] clinics will deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one, except in those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selection abortion.”
It seems fairly clear, despite Planned Parenthood’s claimed “condemnation” of sex selection, it is a willing participant in sex-selection abortions unless it becomes illegal.
Franzonello suggests Planned Parenthood, if it turns out to have been a subject of another undercover expose’, will likely dismiss the probe as biased and misleading rather than answer the charge that it tacitly supports sex-selection abortions.
Predicting the outcome of rumored current investigations, Planned Parenthood has said, “We expect that the materials eventually released will focus on Planned Parenthood’s nonjudgmental discussions with the various women who posed as possible patients [seeking sex-selection abortions].”
Employing the term “nonjudgmental,” Planned Parenthood hopes that readers will think “innocuous” and move on. But step back a second. Think about what “nonjudgmental” is being applied to: “discussions” about killing a baby girl because she is female. Not “judging” gender-based killing is taking a side.
Moreover, engaging in “nonjudgmental” discussions about sex selection undermines Planned Parenthood’s assertion that “Gender bias is contrary to everything our organization works for daily in communities across the country.” The veracity of Planned Parenthood’s statement that it “finds the concept of sex selection deeply unsettling” should be found in any of its “discussions” about sex selection.
The mere fact that Planned Parenthood is mounting a public relations campaign before new allegations of bad behaviors casts doubt on those claims. If Planned Parenthood’s “discussions” were in accord with mainstream American values that reject gender-based killing, it would have nothing to fear from their public release. There would be no story to get in front of, no need for damage control.
What is important, though, is that Planned Parenthood’s participation in this war on women does not end with its “nonjudgmental” discussions. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, appears willing to carry out sex-selection abortions.
If Planned Parenthood is indeed arranging sex-selection abortions for women and couples who want boy babies over girls, the further public damage to its tenuous reputation may be hard to calculate.
Live Action has been instrumental in exposing how the nation’s biggest abortion business covered up cases of statutory rape and sex trafficking by arranging abortions on girls who were victimized. Live Action also exposed how Planned Parenthood would provide erroneous information about fetal development and abortion’s risks and alternatives to women.
Live Action also released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, told the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admitted that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Today on "Kresta in the Afternoon" - May 25, 2012
Talking about the "things that matter most" on May 25
4:00 – The Heart of Catholic Prayer: Rediscovering The Our Father And The Hail Mary
It's no coincidence that the Our Father and the Hail Mary are closely intertwined in the heart of the Church. At once meditative and catechetical, Mark Shea dissects these two anchors of our faith, line by line, in a journey into the Church's rich tradition of prayer, drawing us more deeply into the heart of the mystery of God's love. Mark is here.
4:30 – HHS Mandate Fight Continues
The Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandate has fueled debates over the Obama Administration's unwillingness to grant the necessary exemptions to religious institutions, forcing these institutions to pay for medical procedures that go against their religious beliefs. Ave Maria Law School Dean Eugene Milhizer is here to explain the HHS Mandate, its constitutional implications, and what part legal action plays.
5:00 – Wish You Were Here: Travels Through Loss and Hope
Wish You Were Here: Travels Through Loss and Hope is the story of Amy Welborn’s trip to the island of Sicily with three of her children five months after her husband’s sudden death from a heart attack. Her journey through city and countryside, small town and ancient ruins, opens unexpected doors of memory and reflection, a pilgrimage of the heart and an exploration of the soul. It is an observant and wry memoir and travelogue, intensely personal yet speaking to universal experiences of love and loss. Along the narrow roads and hairpin turns, the narrative reveals the beauty of the ordinary and the commonplace and asks stark questions about how we fill the empty places that a loved one leaves behind. Amy joins us.
4:00 – The Heart of Catholic Prayer: Rediscovering The Our Father And The Hail Mary
It's no coincidence that the Our Father and the Hail Mary are closely intertwined in the heart of the Church. At once meditative and catechetical, Mark Shea dissects these two anchors of our faith, line by line, in a journey into the Church's rich tradition of prayer, drawing us more deeply into the heart of the mystery of God's love. Mark is here.
4:30 – HHS Mandate Fight Continues
The Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandate has fueled debates over the Obama Administration's unwillingness to grant the necessary exemptions to religious institutions, forcing these institutions to pay for medical procedures that go against their religious beliefs. Ave Maria Law School Dean Eugene Milhizer is here to explain the HHS Mandate, its constitutional implications, and what part legal action plays.
5:00 – Wish You Were Here: Travels Through Loss and Hope
Wish You Were Here: Travels Through Loss and Hope is the story of Amy Welborn’s trip to the island of Sicily with three of her children five months after her husband’s sudden death from a heart attack. Her journey through city and countryside, small town and ancient ruins, opens unexpected doors of memory and reflection, a pilgrimage of the heart and an exploration of the soul. It is an observant and wry memoir and travelogue, intensely personal yet speaking to universal experiences of love and loss. Along the narrow roads and hairpin turns, the narrative reveals the beauty of the ordinary and the commonplace and asks stark questions about how we fill the empty places that a loved one leaves behind. Amy joins us.
Commencement speaker at Catholic university: “Christianity is the most dangerous of devotions”
By Ben Johnson
The nation’s largest Catholic university will feature a commencement speaker who believes “the rest of life would benefit enormously” from the extinction of mankind, considers Christianity “the most dangerous of devotions,” and boasted about weakening the “dissolutive, oppressive institutions of organized religion.”
Population guru E.O. Wilson will address a combined ceremony of DePaul University‘s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and its College of Science and Health on June 10. The date is his 83rd birthday.
Although he is by training a myrmecologist who has discovered 450 different kinds of ants, the Harvard professor made his name as the father of sociobiology in the 1970s.
Along the way, he has expressed his enthusiasm for “population control,” internationalism, and displacing the “oppressive” force of religion.
While being interviewed for the 1999 Canadian radio series “From Naked Ape to Superspecies,” Wilson stated “if all humanity disappeared the rest of life would benefit enormously…the forests would grow back, the whole Earth would green up, the ocean would teem, and so on.” However, “If the ants were all to disappear, the results would be close to catastrophic.”
Population, he believes, has reached a catastrophic breaking point. In 2002, he told PBS’s Ben Wattenberg, “We all, or most all, realize that humanity has pushed its population growth pretty close to the limit. We really are at risk of using up natural resources and developing shortages in them that will be extremely difficult to overcome.” He added, “We have this bright prospect down the line that humanity is not going to keep on growing much more in population…and then begin to decline.”
In his 2003 book The Future of Life, he wrote, “The encouragement of population control by developing countries comes not a moment too soon.” Wilson was optimistic that “we are draining away the instinctual energy from nationalism — that’s a big help.”
“I think we’re seeing the beginning of the draining away from the dreadfully dissolutive, oppressive institutions of organized religion,” he said.
The twin forces of atheism and internationalism are “part of the reason for the Tea Party and the populist revolt now that has kidnapped the Republican Party. There’s a resentment about the old bonds and the old groups dissolving and new groups being formed.”
“Organized religion,” he wrote, “is where all the trouble comes from,” particularly “Evangelicals for whom the Bible is their creation story,” as they “can’t accept evolution.”
“The illogic of religions is not a weakness,” he wrote, “but their essential strength.”
In his 1998 book Consilience, he wrote, “The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world,” as belief in an afterlife weakens man’s devotion to the planet earth.
Such a notion echoes the words of Barack Obama’s Science Czar, John Holdren, who wrote in his book EcoScience, “The Christian concept of life in this world, as voiced by Saint Paul, that ‘here we have no abiding city,’ for example, conceivably could help explain why some people show rather little concern for the long-term future of the global environment or for the well-being of future generations.”
Even the “the idea of a biological God,” Wilson wrote in 1998, is “increasingly contravened by biology and the brain sciences.”
Yet he told PBS’s Wattenberg he has “a nearly religious sense of obligation” to “hold onto as much of the world’s biological diversity as we possibly can.”
“Why a Catholic institution would give a platform to a population control advocate who blasts Christianity as ‘dangerous’ is unfathomable,” wrote Matthew Archbold of the Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic university watchdog organization.
“This is the picture of Christianity that DePaul is willing to promulgate?” asked well-respected Catholic blogger Mary Ann Kreitzer. “And consider the irony of a biggest Catholic school in the country hosting a man who would be happy to kill off the students of the future.”
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Senate committee cuts Pakistan aid over conviction
The punitive move came on top of deep reductions the Appropriations Committee already had made to President Barack Obama's budget request for Pakistan, a reflection of the growing congressional anger over its cooperation in combatting terrorism. The overall foreign aid budget for next year had slashed more than half of the proposed assistance and threatened further reductions if Islamabad failed to open overland supply routes to U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Pushing aside any diplomatic talk, Republicans and Democrats criticized Pakistan a day after the conviction in Pakistan of Shakil Afridi. The doctor ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in Abbottabad where U.S. commandos found and killed the al-Qaida leader in May 2011.
"We need Pakistan, Pakistan needs us, but we don't need Pakistan double-dealing and not seeing the justice in bringing Osama bin Laden to an end," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who pushed for the additional cut in aid.
He called Pakistan "a schizophrenic ally," helping the United States at one turn, but then aiding the Haqqani network which has claimed responsibility for several attacks on Americans. The group also has ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban.
"It's Alice in Wonderland at best," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "If this is cooperation, I'd hate like hell to see opposition."
One of the most forceful statements came from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who also serves as the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. She pointed out that Pakistan has suffered at the hands of terrorists yet misconstrued what is treason in convicting Afridi. She also insisted that Afridi was not a spy.
"This conviction says to me that al-Qaida is viewed by the court to be Pakistan," said Feinstein, who said it made her rethink U.S. assistance.
The Appropriations Committee approved Graham's amendment to cut the assistance by $33 million on a 30-0 vote. The full Senate will vote on the overall bill, possibly this summer.
At the State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States believes Afridi should be released.
"His help was instrumental in taking down one of the world's most notorious murderers that was clearly in Pakistan's interest as well as ours and the rest of the world," Clinton told reporters, adding that the United States will continue to press the issue with Islamabad.
In crafting the overall legislation, the committee reduced Obama's request to aid Pakistan by 58 percent as resentment and doubts linger on Capitol Hill a year after bin Laden was killed deep inside Pakistan. Tensions between Washington and Islamabad have increased as Pakistan closed overland supply routes to
Afghanistan after a U.S. attack on the Pakistani side of the border killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.
The United States and Pakistan failed to resolve the issue at the recent NATO summit in Chicago.
The congressional anger over the conviction and the supply routes extended to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which completed a $631.4 billion defense budget Thursday. The panel added a provision stipulating that before Pakistan can be reimbursed with coalition funds, the secretary of defense must certify that Pakistan is opening and maintaining the supply routes, is not supporting the Haqqani network, and not detaining or imprisoning Pakistani citizens, according to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
He referred to the conviction as a virtual death sentence.
The fierce congressional response in various committees "shows a common outrage," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters.
Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also complained about mafia-style extortion by Pakistan in seeking truck fees in exchange for opening the supply lines. The cost had been $250 per truck prior to the attack. Pakistan is now demanding $5,000 per truck. The United States has countered at $500.
The bill would provide just under $1 billion in aid to Pakistan, including $184 million for State Department operations and $800 million for foreign assistance. Counterinsurgency money for Pakistan would be limited to $50 million.
The legislation also conditions the counterinsurgency aid on Pakistan reopening the supply routes.
Islamabad won't get any of the funds for counterinsurgency or money in prior legislation unless the secretary of state certifies to the Appropriations committees that "the government of Pakistan has reopened overland cargo routes available to support United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan, and funds appropriated under this heading can be used efficiently and effectively by the end of the fiscal year," the legislation says
If the secretary can't certify to Congress, the money would be transferred to other accounts.
The overall legislation would fund the State Department, foreign operations and other programs at $52.1 billion, which is $2.6 billion less than what Obama requested for the 2013 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 and $1.2 billion below current spending.
Wading into the dispute over Palestinian refugees, the panel approved a version of an amendment from Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., that would require the secretary of state to submit a report to Congress on the number of Palestine refugees who were displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, the number of descendants and who receives assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
The issue of whether to count refugees and their descendants is a divisive one. Some 5 million Palestine refugees receive assistance from the U.N. agency. A third of registered refugees live in camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The State Department and Jordan opposed the original Kirk amendment and it was modified by Leahy.
Fire on nuclear sub at Maine shipyard hurts 7
KITTERY, Maine (AP) — Officials vented smoke and noxious fumes from a nuclear-powered submarine at a Maine shipyard Thursday so they could get inside to assess damage from a fire that took hours to put out.
Firefighters from the shipyard and coastal departments in Maine and New Hampshire spent Wednesday night and early Thursday fighting the fire on the USS Miami. Seven firefighters and crew members were hurt, but not badly. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, commander of Submarine Group Two, said firefighters isolated the flames so they would not spread to nuclear propulsion spaces. There was nuclear fuel on board the sub, but the reactor has been shut down for two months and was unaffected.
The firefighters battled intense heat, smoke and noxious fumes in cramped spaces, Breckenridge said.
"There are a lot of heroes that worked together to save the ship," he said.
Crews responded at about 5:40 p.m. Wednesday to the USS Miami, which was in dry dock at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on an island in Kittery, near Portsmouth, N.H. It was not clear how many people were aboard at the time. The submarine is in the third month of a 20-month maintenance period.
Breckenridge said the fire started in the four forward compartments, which include living and command and control spaces.
No weapons were on board.
The USS Miami has a crew of 13 and 120 enlisted personnel. It arrived at the shipyard on March 1 to undergo maintenance work. It was commissioned in 1990 and its home port is Groton, Conn.
Egyptians vote amid concerns over future leader's authority
None of the top five candidates was likely to win 50%. Official results are expected to be released next week and a runoff to replace deposed President Hosni Mubarak is anticipated in mid-June.
Lines at polling stations lengthened in the cool of the afternoon and election observers reported minor irregularities.
About 40% of voters were making their minds up at the last minute, according to polls. The race appeared to be narrowing to Islamist candidates Mohamed Morsi and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and secularists Amr Moussa and Ahmed Shafik, the old regime’s polarizing last prime minister who on Wednesday dodged a crowd hurling rocks and shoes when he went to vote.
Exit polls suggested Morsi and Moussa were ahead, but such projections can be unreliable in a country prone to rumor and conspiracy. Moussa, a former foreign minister, has been a front-runner for weeks. Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate who had dropped in recent polls, appeared propelled by the Islamist group’s prodigious organizational network and the backing of clerics.
The elation over Wednesday’s first day of voting turned subdued over worries that the president will take office without a new constitution to outline his powers. The ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) has indicated that it will amend the existing constitution, a move seen as an effort to protect the army’s interests by limiting presidential authority.
“I don’t trust SCAF and I know that they will want to interfere as much as possible in politics and maintain the last say on all major decisions,” said Mohamed Abou Zeid, a petroleum industry worker who voted for Morsi at a polling station in Cairo. “But Egyptians won't stand quiet if this happens. Egyptians are feeling for the first time ever that their vote counts.”
The next president will have to be “clever and wise enough to gain his full authority bit by bit without confronting the army,” said Mohamed Hussein, who owns a car parts shop. “He needs to keep them at bay without making them angry.”
Many Egyptians warn that the democratic ideals that inspired the uprising against Mubarak last year are in jeopardy. Military crackdowns on protests have led to months of unrest and bloodshed. Young activists have been sidelined and the immediate future appears weighted toward the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls nearly 50% of the seats in parliament, and former regime officials such as Moussa and Shafik.
These fears -- along with concerns that the Muslim Brotherhood would impose strict sharia, or Islamic law, on public policy -- have strengthened the popularity of two candidates: Aboul Fotouh, a liberal Islamist who has reached out to both Christians and ultraconservative Islamists, and Hamdeen Sabahi, a socialist nationalist favored by the cultural elite.
"I don’t want a remnant from the Mubarak era or the Brotherhood to steal our revolution by winning this election,” said Iman Osama, an architect who voted for Aboul Fotouh. “I'm really dismayed by what I see and hear from some people who want to vote for Shafik or Moussa. SCAF has done a great job confusing people over the past year and triggered many incidents that made people hate anything related to the revolution.”
She added: “I'm so disappointed by people who were fooled and are coming now to willingly vote for someone who will take us backward."
Absentee dads hinder children’s understanding of God, Pope says
“Perhaps modern man does not perceive the beauty, grandeur and profound consolation contained in the word ‘father’ with which we can turn to God in prayer, because the father figure is often not sufficiently present in today’s world, and is often not a sufficiently positive presence in everyday life,” the Pope said in his weekly general audience address.
He underscored that the “the problem of a father not present in the life of the child is a big problem of our time” because it can become difficult for those children “to understand in its depth what it means to us that God is Father.”
In the U.S., over one-third of all children live apart from their biological father.
The Pope delivered his remarks to over 20,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. His reflections, which today focused on two passages from St. Paul on the Holy Spirit enabling people to call upon God with the intimate term ‘Abba,’ continued his series on the role of prayer in the story of salvation.
In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul wrote that “As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” St. Paul also wrote to the Romans, “you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’”
Pope Benedict noted that the familial Aramaic word “Abba” is also used by Jesus “even at the most dramatic moment of his earthly life,” thus demonstrating that he “never lost faith in the Father and always invoked him with the intimacy of a beloved son.”
Similarly, through baptism, every Christian also becomes a beloved son or daughter of God, “sharing by adoption in the eternal sonship of Jesus.”
In the selected passages, the Pope explained, St. Paul also demonstrates that “Christian prayer is never unidirectional, from us to God.” Instead, it is “an expression of a reciprocal relationship in which it is always God who acts first.”
Therefore, whenever we address the Father in prayer, even silently or privately, we are never alone, since “we are within the great prayer of the Church, we are part of a great symphony which the Christian community in all places and times raises to God,” he said.
It is this “prayer guided by the Spirit” that causes Christians to cry out “Abba! Father!” both “with Christ and in Christ,” Pope Benedict taught.
“It makes us part of the great mosaic of the family of God, in which everyone has an important place and role, profoundly united to all things.”
The Pope concluded his address by suggesting to pilgrims that they should “learn to appreciate the beauty of being friends, or rather children, of God,” and to invoke God the Father in prayer “with the confidence and trust of a child addressing his parents who love him.”
He then led those present in the sung recitation Our Father in Latin before imparting his apostolic blessing.
African American leaders blast NAACP 'gay marriage' support
The NAACP's recent endorsement of “gay marriage” drew harsh criticism from within the African American community for misrepresenting civil rights and undermining families.
Pastor Derek McCoy, executive director of the Maryland Marriage Alliance, said that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's “unfortunate” stance on the issue will contribute to the “further demise of the family.”
McCoy told EWTN News on May 21 that the NAACP is “endorsing an epidemic” of fatherless households, a “tragic” phenomenon in the United States and particularly in the African American community.
On May 19, the association released a statement in support of redefining marriage to include gay couples. The announcement came ten days after President Barack Obama announced his unprecedented support for “gay marriage.”
McCoy said that despite its long record of important work, however, the NAACP's latest move does not reflect the views of its constituents.
According to an April 2012 survey by Pew Research Center, only 39 percent of African Americans are in favor of redefining marriage. Voters across the country have consistently affirmed measures to defend marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
McCoy said that redefining marriage is redefining the family in a way that is “hazardous” for children.
Gay marriage” teaches that fathers and mothers are both dispensable, he explained, and “this is absolutely going to harm the family.”
The absence of a father has been linked to higher rates of crime, poverty, drug abuse and teenage pregnancy throughout the U.S. In his 2011 Father’s Day proclamation, President Obama noted the importance of fatherhood and said that his administration was making support of fathers a priority. “A father's absence is felt by children, families, and communities in countless ways, leaving a hole that can have lasting effects,” he said.
Statistics show that more than half of black children live in single-parent households, often lacking the presence of a father. Support for “gay marriage,” McCoy underscored, reiterates the message that “one of the parents is no longer valid.” Both fathers and mothers become “optional” in a society where having one father is viewed as no different from having two or none at all, he said.
The pastor explained that government has always recognized marriages in order to “look out for the best interest of the child.” Studies clearly show that a family with a mother and a father “is the best place for kids to be raised,” he noted. McCoy also said that the effort to redefine marriage “does not compare to civil rights.” He dismissed attempts to compare people who reject “gay marriage” to those who oppose interracial marriage.
“That’s not the same issue at all,” he said, reflecting that racial differences are irrelevant to marriage, but sexual complementarity is at the heart of marriage by its very nature. “The core essence of a marriage is the two sexes coming together,” he said.
Other African American leaders have also criticized the NAACP’s endorsement of “gay marriage” in recent days. Dr. Alveda C. King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said that neither her grandfather nor her uncle “embraced the homosexual agenda that the current NAACP is attempting to label as a civil rights agenda.”
“We who marched with Rev. King did not march one inch or one mile to promote same-sex marriage,” agreed Rev. William Owens, founder and president of the Coalition of African American Pastors.
He explained that redefining marriage is counter to Dr. King’s work because it is a political attempt to “declare that an act contrary to God's law and to the natural law is a civil right.”
“We call on all Americans to respect the legitimate civil rights of gay people to be free from violence, harassment, to vote, to hold jobs,” Owens said. “But none of us has a moral or civil right to redefine marriage.”
First ADULT Stem Cell Drug Approved
The Maryland Catholic Conference has praised the approval of the first stem cell drug, a therapy for a disease found among bone marrow transplant recipients. Dr. Nancy Paltell, Associate Director for Respect Life Issues at the Maryland Catholic Conference, reacted positively to the news.
"Despite all the hype about embryonic stem cell research, it’s adult stem cells that are the only stem cells saving lives," she said May 22.
The Maryland-based Osiris Therapeutics Inc. announced on May 17 that Health Canada has given market authorization to sell the company's therapy Prochymal, which treats acute graft-vs-host disease in children.
The complication in bone marrow transplantation can kill up to 80 percent of affected children, who number 3,500 to 4,000 worldwide. The newly transplanted cells attack the patient's body and can cause abdominal pain, hair loss, hepatitis, and lung and digestive tract disorders, among other symptoms.
Prochymal uses bone marrow stem cells from an adult donor and aims to control inflammation while promoting tissue regeneration and scar formation.
The Health Canada decision marks the world's first regulatory approval of a manufactured stem cell product, Osiris said. The approval of Prochymal is conditional upon further testing after it reaches the market.
Osiris plans to apply to the FDA for U.S. marketing authorization by the end of 2012.
Paltell noted that Prochymal uses adult stem cells, not embryonic stem cells harvested from the destruction of human embryos.
She added that the research was not funded by the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, which has received $79 million of taxpayer money. A "relatively small amount" of the fund has contributed to adult stem cell research, which Paltell said explains the lack of patient treatments.
Egypt: Christians convicted, Muslims acquitted for 2011 violence
An Egyptian court has sentenced 12 Coptic Christians to life imprisonment and acquitted eight Muslims, in a trial heavily criticized by human rights activists and legal experts. The ruling came yesterday, at the end of a trial called to shed light on the sectarian violence last year in the province of Minya, in the southern part of the country, about 220 km from Cairo. Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher and expert on Egyptian law, emphasizes that "the acquittal of the eight Muslim defendants" shows that "the investigations started from the beginning by the attorney general are unfair and wrong" because there was "clear evidence of guilt against them, for having set fire to Christian properties."
The accused Christians were sentenced for inciting public disorder, possession of illegal weapons and the murder of two Muslims. The incident happened in April 2011 and has helped to exacerbate a situation of deep inter-religious tension in the area of Upper Egypt, which then continued in the following weeks.
The violence erupted when a Muslim minibus driver, angered by the presence of a speed bump outside a house owned by a wealthy Christian, got into a fight with the house's security guards. Upon returning to his home village, the Muslim driver assembled a group of people to get revenge for the alleged wrong and the violence suffered.
The retaliation squad was joined by groups of Islamic extremists, who surrounded the homes of Coptic Christians, intending to launch an attack. In fear of being overwhelmed, the inhabitants opened fire from the roofs of buildings, killing two people in the crowd and wounding two others. In the days following, Muslim groups torched dozens of Christian houses and shops to avenge the dead.
The eight Muslims on trial were accused of illegal possession of weapons and having burned the Christians' buildings. However, the court ruled for aquittal of the charges.
The judgment delivered by the judges of the State Security Court is not appealable and the 12 Christians risk spending the rest of their lives in prison. Only the military council could - in what is a very remote hypothesis, moreover - request a retrial.
Second Catholic College Firced To Drop Health Care Over HHS Mandate
Statement by Jim Towey
President of Ave Maria University
May 21, 2012
Although colleges and universities in America are not bound by law to require students to have health insurance, Ave Maria University from its founding has done so and made an inexpensive group policy available to them. The University does not subsidize this plan and the entire cost of it is borne by those students purchasing the health insurance. Most students are covered under the plans of their parents, but approximately 15% of Ave Maria’s students currently are covered by this policy. It specifically excludes benefits for elective abortion, sterilization, and other morally objectionable services because the University is Catholic and follows the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Recently Ave Maria’s insurance carrier notified the University that because of the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) which require an increase in the maximum benefit per injury or illness (from $50,000 to $100,000), students would not only face a 66% increase in their premiums (from $839 to $1,392) but also an increase in their deductible (from $100 to $250 per policy year).
For any college or university like Ave Maria that requires students to have health insurance, this new cost will come as both a surprise and disappointment to the students affected. But for religiously-affiliated universities like Ave Maria, the damaging effect of the new Federal government regulations goes even further. Recently our insurance carrier notified the University that it was required by PPACA to pay all claims for “preventive care services” regardless of the fact that they are specifically excluded in the Ave Maria group plan. So while the proposed premium increase is a financial burden to our students, the PPACA-required coverage of “preventive care services,” such as abortion-inducing drugs, is an affront to our core values.
It is a sad day when Ave Maria’s students are forced to choose between enrolling in a health insurance plan that is both costly and offers morally objectionable benefits, and having no coverage at all. The University has heard from a number of our elected student leaders and they, too, find the latest twist in the Federal mandate saga unacceptable.
Effective August 15, 2012, Ave Maria University will no longer require students to have health insurance. The University also will cease making group health insurance available to them. Students who are required to have health insurance as a condition of competing in intercollegiate athletics will now make their own arrangements and no longer remit insurance premium payments to the University.
Ave Maria University will continue to vigorously prosecute its lawsuit against the Federal government’s attack on the University’s religious liberty. On Friday the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed on the University’s behalf a motion in opposition to the Federal government’s motion to dismiss the Ave Maria University v. Sebelius lawsuit. The University remains confident that it will prevail in this litigation, and is delighted that the University of Notre Dame and others have joined us in taking this battle to the courts.
It is regrettable that the long-standing tradition in America, advanced by presidents and Congressional majorities of both political parties, of protecting the religious liberty and conscience rights of individuals and organizations, is now under fierce attack, and that college students, particularly those attending religiously-affiliated institutions, are among its first victims. The Obama Administration’s promised “safe harbor” for faith-based institutions is turning out to be no harbor at all. The fact that insurance carriers appear to be buckling under to the heavy hand of the Federal government and covering benefits regardless of the objections of the insured, should trouble all Americans.
Ave Maria University will not offer or pay for health insurance plans that violate our deeply-held religious beliefs. The University will continue making college as affordable as possible. The average Ave Maria student pays about $10,000 a year in tuition and fees because of the generous scholarships that we provide and this amount is dramatically lower than what is found at most private colleges and universities in America. At a time when the issue of the affordability of college education is at the forefront of the public debate, the Federal government’s mandate is hurting the cause, not helping.
Today on "Kresta in the Afternoon" - May 24, 2012
Talking about the "things that matter most" on May 24
The Best of Kresta in the Afternoon
4:00 – Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity
In his latest book Michael Coren explores why and how Christians and Christian ideas are caricatured in popular media as well as in sophisticated society. He takes on, and debunks, ten great myths about Christianity: that it supports slavery, is racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-intellectual, anti-Semitic, provokes war, resists progress, and is repressive and irrelevant. In a climate that is increasingly as ignorant of Christianity as it is good at condemning it, Coren gives historical background, provides examples of how these attacks are made, and explains the reality of the Christian response, outlining authentic Christian beliefs.
5:00 – Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
As Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seduced a nation, bullied a continent, and attempted to exterminate the Jews of Europe, a small number of dissidents and saboteurs worked to dismantle the Third Reich from the inside. One of these was Dietrich Bonhoeffer-a pastor and author. In his New York Times best-selling biography, Eric Metaxas takes both strands of Bonhoeffer's life-the theologian and the spy-and draws them together to tell a searing story of incredible moral courage in the face of monstrous evil. Metaxas presents the fullest accounting of Bonhoeffer's heart-wrenching decision to leave the safe haven of America to return to Hitler's Germany, and sheds new light on Bonhoeffer's involvement in the famous Valkyrie plot and in "Operation 7," the effort to smuggle Jews into neutral Switzerland. He joins us.
The Best of Kresta in the Afternoon
4:00 – Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity
In his latest book Michael Coren explores why and how Christians and Christian ideas are caricatured in popular media as well as in sophisticated society. He takes on, and debunks, ten great myths about Christianity: that it supports slavery, is racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-intellectual, anti-Semitic, provokes war, resists progress, and is repressive and irrelevant. In a climate that is increasingly as ignorant of Christianity as it is good at condemning it, Coren gives historical background, provides examples of how these attacks are made, and explains the reality of the Christian response, outlining authentic Christian beliefs.
5:00 – Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
As Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seduced a nation, bullied a continent, and attempted to exterminate the Jews of Europe, a small number of dissidents and saboteurs worked to dismantle the Third Reich from the inside. One of these was Dietrich Bonhoeffer-a pastor and author. In his New York Times best-selling biography, Eric Metaxas takes both strands of Bonhoeffer's life-the theologian and the spy-and draws them together to tell a searing story of incredible moral courage in the face of monstrous evil. Metaxas presents the fullest accounting of Bonhoeffer's heart-wrenching decision to leave the safe haven of America to return to Hitler's Germany, and sheds new light on Bonhoeffer's involvement in the famous Valkyrie plot and in "Operation 7," the effort to smuggle Jews into neutral Switzerland. He joins us.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Gallup poll on abortion: 'Pro-choice' position hits record low
According to Gallup, 41% identified themselves as “pro-choice,” while 50% said they were “pro-life.” The poll, conducted May 3 to May 6, was based on a sample of 1,024 adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Both results are records. The “pro-choice” position is down from 47% last July and 1 percentage point lower than the previous record. In 2006, 51% of Americans described themselves as “pro-choice.”
The latest results show a shift among people when asked about their label on the issue. But views of the legality of abortion have remained constant over the years.
“Gallup began asking Americans to define themselves as pro-choice or pro-life on abortion in 1995, and since then, identification with the labels has shifted from a wide lead for the pro-choice position in the mid-1990s to a generally narrower lead for pro-choice -- from 1998 through 2008 -- to a close division between the two positions since 2009,” the polling firm said.
“However, in the last period, Gallup has found the pro-life position significantly ahead on two occasions, once in May 2009 and again today. It remains to be seen whether the pro-life spike found this month proves temporary, as it did in 2009, or is sustained for some period,” Gallup noted.
The latest results come as abortion rights have been in the news, hence in the American public’s mind. In recent months, lawmakers have battled over congressional funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion services among other health services. And the Obama administration and the Roman Catholic Church have been engaged in an ongoing dispute over funding for health insurance that includes contraception services at church-related institutions.
Not surprisingly, the latest Gallup poll shows that 72% of those calling themselves Republican said they were “pro-life,” up from 68% last year. Democrats have run around 60% in the “pro-choice” category.
Those calling themselves independents were at 41% supporting the “pro-choice” position -- 10 points lower than in May 2011. On the flip side, those calling themselves “pro-life” were at 47%, up 6 percentage points since May 2011. “Pro-lifers” now outnumber “pro-choicers” for the second time since 2001.
A slight majority of Americans, 51%, said they consider abortion morally wrong, while 38% said it was morally acceptable, according to the poll.
Despite that split, a majority of Americans (52% in the latest poll) have repeatedly said since 1975 that abortion should be legal under some circumstances, while roughly a quarter over the same period have said it should be legal under all circumstances. Opposition to legality has been around 20% since 1975.
Iran talks show common ground, disagreement
"I believe we have the beginning of a negotiation," the official said of the talks, which opened on Wednesday and lasted late into the evening. "But still we have to come to closure...about what are the next appropriate steps."
Iran was "engaged" in the discussions, and the meeting would continue into a second day on Thursday, the official said, adding that there was "plenty to go on" for a potential further round of talks.
Earlier on Wednesday, envoys for Iran and the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany exchanged unusually detailed proposals at the talks in Baghdad in hopes of defusing a long standoff over suspicions Tehran's atomic energy programme may be a disguised quest for nuclear weapons.
Both sides have been publicly upbeat about the scope for an outline deal following a 15-month diplomatic freeze and exploratory talks in Istanbul last month.
Mitt Romney unveils education reform plan heavy on 'parental choice'
Mitt Romney called for an expansion of parental choice in America's school system Wednesday, pivoting to a subject he has discussed little so far in his presidential campaign.
Mr. Romney spoke in Washington, taking his message on education to a city that is home not only to his electoral rival – President Obama – but also to one of the nation's important experiments with school vouchers.
He criticized Mr. Obama for failing to pursue deeper education reforms, saying the president has been "unable to stand up to union bosses, and unwilling to stand up for kids.”
“As president, I will pursue bold policy changes,” said Romney. “Dramatically expanding parental choice, making schools responsible for results by giving parents access to clear and instructive information, and attracting and rewarding our best teachers – these changes can help ensure that every parent has a choice and every child has a chance.”
The speech comes as both Obama and Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, are starting to vie intensely for the middle-ground swing voters who will decide the election in key states. Education ranks far behind jobs and the economy on voters' priority list, but for many voters it's been on par with things like health care and gas prices, among the everyday issues they care about.
Romney's speech also coincides with fresh signs that the US is struggling to keep up with other advanced nations on schooling.
For example, US eighth-graders are doing a bit better in science than they were two years ago, but 7 in 10 still are not considered proficient, the Education Department said this month in its latest report card, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Obama has made headlines about education this year more often than Republican candidates, in part because he's been coaxing Congress to extend low-interest loans for college students getting subsidized federal aid. Since being elected, Obama has also promoted a "race to the top" in which states compete to improve their education systems, in return for extra federal dollars.
During the Republican primaries, the Education Department came up during debates as an agency ripe for budget cutting or even outright elimination. Now, as Romney is shifting toward general election mode, he's talking up ideas that he says can make the US education system stronger.
The Romney campaign released a series of bullet-point proposals alongside his speech, with many ideas framed around the appeal of parental choice and control. Its statement called for "tying federal funds directly to dramatic reforms that expand parental choice, invest in innovation, and reward teachers for their results instead of their tenure."
Romney proposes:
- Giving school choice to low-income and special needs students. He would make Title I and IDEA funds portable "so that eligible students can choose which school to attend and bring funding with them. This plan will allow the student to choose from any district or public charter school, or a private school where permitted by state law, or to use funds toward a tutoring provider or digital course."
- Providing incentives for states to increase choice.
- Expanding the District of Columbia's Opportunity Scholarship Program, reversing Obama's "efforts to eliminate this popular and effective program."
- Providing better information for parents, as a tool to hold school districts accountable for student results.
- Attracting and rewarding strong teachers using flexible block grants. States getting the grants would need to promote teacher quality with teacher tenure and evaluation reforms.
- Eliminating some certification requirements that may prevent talented individuals from entering the teaching profession.
- Simplifying federal aid for college finance, including new efforts to help borrowers have useful information about the costs and their likely future earnings.
In polls over the past decade, Americans have shown openness toward the idea of school choice.
A 2002 poll by ABC News asked, "Would you support or oppose having the government give parents in low-income families money to help pay for their children to attend a private or religious school instead of their local public school?" Some 50 percent of respondents supported the idea, although fewer gave that answer if it would mean less money money for public schools.
A study of a long-running school voucher program in Milwaukee, by the nonpartisan School Choice Demonstration Project at the University of Arkansas, concluded this year that the program has largely helped student performance, while not having adverse effects on the overall public school system.
The nation's high unemployment rate means that the election season's larger policy battle will be about things like jobs and taxes. But the contest over education policy has now been joined, and both Obama and Romney know voters see schooling as intertwined with the nation's economic challenges.
Dolan: Obama Administration Doesn't Understand Our 'Horror' Over Mandate Exemption
Dolan said he has spoken directly with President Obama regarding his concerns over the narrowness of the religious exemption, but added that he believes the Obama administration still doesn't get it.
"I worry that members of [Obama's] administration might not particularly understand our horror at the restricted nature of the exemption that they're giving us, that for the first time we can remember, a bureau of the federal government seems to be radically intruding on what the term of a church is," said Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and archbishop of New York.
The Department of Health and Human Services issued the rule in January that will require employers to provide health coverage for contraception, sterilization and some abortifacient drugs. There is a religious exemption, but the exemption is so narrowly written that many religious institutions, such colleges, hospitals and social service organizations, would not qualify. Dolan finds this narrow definition particularly offensive because the government is defining his Catholic faith for him.
"They tell us if you're really going be considered a church, if you're going to be really exempt from these demands of the government, well, you have to propagate your Catholic faith in everything you do, you can serve only Catholics and employ only Catholics," he noted. "We're like, wait a minute, when did the government get in the business of defining for us the extent of our ministry. It's almost like we're being punished for the fact that we serve a lot of people."
Lawsuits against the mandate were filed by 43 Catholic institutions on Monday.
The lawsuits could have been avoided, Dolan said, if the Obama administration had written a more inclusive exemption that covered all Catholic institutions.
"If they would simply mitigate the strangling nature of those definitions for exemptions, we would be able to say, at least we're able to preserve our ministries and services."
There are now 23 cases in 15 states, including the District of Columbia, and over 55 plaintiffs who are suing to overturn the birth control mandate. All of these lawsuits make the same legal case, Hannah Smith, senior counsel for The Becket Fund, explained in a Tuesday interview with The Christian Post.
The Becket Fund was not involved in yesterday's suits, but has filed suits on behalf of other clients for the same reasons.
According to Smith, if the suits were to be successful, "the court would tell the government that it could not enforce the mandate against our clients." Whether or not that outcome would apply to other employers would depend on how judges rule in the case, Smith explained.
"Certainly, the best possible outcome is for the court to say this is an unconstitutional mandate and it doesn't apply to anybody," she said.
In a Monday blog post, liberal Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, who is Catholic, questioned whether the timing of the suits were politically motivated and argued that Catholic leaders should have given the Obama administration more time to work out a compromise before filing suit.
Father John Jenkins, president of University of Notre Dame, one of the institutions that filed suit yesterday, addressed the timing of the lawsuits in a Monday announcement.
He wrote that "progress has not been encouraging," and current administration efforts provide "little in the way of a specific, substantive proposal or a definite timeline for resolution."
Jenkins also noted that the process to find a compromise will last months, "making it impossible for us to plan for and implement any changes to our health plans by the government-mandated deadlines."
The Ed Show: Ignorance Reigns!
Start watching this segment at about 4:10. It's is almost impossible to believe that a group of 4 people could be so absolutely ignorant. In virtually every sentence there is an example of misleading, exaggeration, or downright lie. If I was a Saturday Night Live writer who was trying to do a caricature of of the liberal talking points on the "War on Women," I would transcribe this and submit it as a skit. It's that bad.
Today on "Kresta in the Afternoon" - May 23, 2012
Talking about the "things that matter most" on May 23
The Best of Kresta in the Afternoon
4:00 - Beyond The Birds And The Bees
“The Talk.” It's one of the most daunting prospects parents face. Communicating the richness of Catholic teaching on sexuality in a faithful and effective way can be an overwhelming responsibility. But does it have to be so? In this thoroughly revised re-release of Beyond the Birds and the Bees, popular marriage and family counselor Dr. Gregory Popcak empowers parents with the tools needed to move well beyond "The Talk" by offering a comprehensive guide to raising sexually whole and holy children. He joins us.
5:00 – Sex au Naturel: What It Is and Why It's Good for Your Marriage
Sex Au Naturel: What It Is and Why It s Good For Your Marriage by Catholic Answers host Patrick Coffin is a bracing ride across the landscape of the Catholic sexual ethic. If you re looking for intellectual ammo with which to defend and explain the teaching of Humanae Vitae, or if you reject it altogether, you’ll agree that Coffin approaches the topic from a wide array of new and persuasive angles. Patrick joins us.
The Best of Kresta in the Afternoon
4:00 - Beyond The Birds And The Bees
“The Talk.” It's one of the most daunting prospects parents face. Communicating the richness of Catholic teaching on sexuality in a faithful and effective way can be an overwhelming responsibility. But does it have to be so? In this thoroughly revised re-release of Beyond the Birds and the Bees, popular marriage and family counselor Dr. Gregory Popcak empowers parents with the tools needed to move well beyond "The Talk" by offering a comprehensive guide to raising sexually whole and holy children. He joins us.
5:00 – Sex au Naturel: What It Is and Why It's Good for Your Marriage
Sex Au Naturel: What It Is and Why It s Good For Your Marriage by Catholic Answers host Patrick Coffin is a bracing ride across the landscape of the Catholic sexual ethic. If you re looking for intellectual ammo with which to defend and explain the teaching of Humanae Vitae, or if you reject it altogether, you’ll agree that Coffin approaches the topic from a wide array of new and persuasive angles. Patrick joins us.
U.N. official says deal close on Iran nuclear inspections
Yukiya Amano, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he expected to sign a deal with Iran "quite soon." He spoke to reporters in Vienna after returning from Tehran — the first time Iranian officials had been willing to meet with him in their capital since he became head of the agency in 2009.
Amano, who has pressed hard for Iran to provide better access to its nuclear sites and personnel, told reporters he considered the deal to be "an important development," according to a transcript released by the agency.
The news came as diplomats from the U.N., the United States and five other major powers prepared to meet this week in Baghdad with Iranian officials for negotiations over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Taken together, the developments appeared to ease tensions.
For months, talk of war has dominated discussions about Iran. The Tehran government insists its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes, but officials in the U.S., Israel and some European countries suspect Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. Israeli officials have strongly suggested they might bomb Iranian nuclear sites if they believe the Iranian efforts has gone too far.
Obama administration officials have suggested recently that there may be grounds for optimism about diplomatic progress. U.S. officials were encouraged by the atmosphere at a mid-April meeting with Iranian officials in Istanbul, Turkey.
Some diplomats say they have seen signs that Iran, under crushing pressure from international economic sanctions, may be open to negotiating at least a preliminary deal.
Others, however, cautioned that the Iranians often have dangled concessions as a way to buy time. Israeli officials reacted skeptically to Amano's announcement.
A senior U.S. official said Tuesday that an agreement between the IAEA and Iran would be a "good thing," but stressed that the IAEA's investigations into Iran's nuclear program "are about accounting for the past, not about the future."
The negotiations in Baghdad this week, in which Iranian officials will meet with diplomats from the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, are over future limits to Iran's nuclear efforts and are therefore more consequential, the official said.
At those negotiations, the six world powers will press Iran to stop enriching uranium to 20% purity, a level at which the material can quickly be enriched to bomb grade, and to surrender the stockpile of highly enriched uranium it already has. In return, they are promising to provide Iran fuel for a small nuclear reactor used for medical purposes and to hold off on imposing additional U.N. sanctions.
But they are not promising what Iran wants most: relief from tough sanctions on its oil exports and its central bank that have been put in place since the end of last year. Those sanctions have severely disrupted Iran's economy.
Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, said Tuesday that it was "improper" for Western nations to continue adding sanctions, government-controlled Press TV reported.
Western diplomats have expressed concern for some time that Iran might try to satisfy IAEA concerns about access to its facilities and scientists, then argue that it had done everything necessary to bring its program into compliance with international rules.
Amano, a veteran Japanese diplomat, has been demanding in particular that the Iranians open access to a military facility at Parchin. IAEA officials are concerned that the Iranians might have tested detonating devices there that would be suitable for use in nuclear weapons.
Amano didn't say that Iran would grant access to the Parchin site. He said only that the question of access "will be addressed" in the deal. He also acknowledged that differences remain between the IAEA and the Iranians, though he emphasized that those disagreements would not stand in the way of a deal.
Israeli officials were unconvinced by Amano's report of progress.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Iran appeared to be trying to create an "appearance of progress" in order to "reduce the pressure ahead of talks in Baghdad and to postpone an escalation in sanctions." He urged international negotiators to hold firm.
"Israel believes that Iran should be set a clear bar so that there is no window or crack the Iranians can proceed through toward a military nuclear program," he said. "The requirements of the world powers must be clear and unequivocal."
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former weapons inspector, also expressed caution, saying he had concerns that the U.N. agency might have yielded important ground to obtain a deal.
"I have more worries than hopes," Albright said. "I just want to see what's in the deal."
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
NBC/WSJ poll: Obama, Romney locked in tight contest
But given the public’s pessimism about the economy and the direction of the country, Romney finds himself well within striking distance in an election that has the potential to be as close as the 2004 race between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry.
“Obama’s chances for re-election ... are no better than 50-50,” says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican Bill McInturff.
“So much has happened, and so little has changed,” Hart adds. “And it tells you this is a dead-even race.”
This poll – which was taken after the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, Obama’s announcement in support of gay marriage, fresh economic worries about Europe, and last month’s tepid jobs report – shows the Democrat leading Romney by four points among registered voters, 47 percent to 43 percent.
In April, Obama’s edge in the survey was two points higher, 49 percent to 43 percent.
In the newest poll, Obama leads Romney among African Americans (88 percent to 2 percent), 18 to 34 year olds (55 percent to 35 percent), women (53 percent to 38 percent), independents (44 percent to 36 percent), and seniors (46 percent to 44 percent).
Romney, meanwhile, holds the advantage with whites (52 percent to 39 percent), men (49 percent to 40 percent), suburban residents (47 percent to 41 percent), Midwest residents (48 percent to 43 percent), and high-interest voters (47 percent to 44 percent).
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