What a crazy week it has been, between the Obamacare/HHS mandate, over 150 bishops speaking out against it , and the battle between Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood. A great many people are visiting this site today because of my comments on the Komen situation — my most recent thoughts on that can be found here (ongoing updates can be found at my twitter page @AmericanPapist — the story is very fast moving and complex). But I don’t want to lose track of the “bigger” story – Obama’s war against religious liberty in this country and the Catholic effort to win this war definitively. Peggy Noonan calls this a “battle the President can’t win” in her syndicated column today for the Wall Street Journal and says “President Obama just may have lost the election” because, in going after the religious liberty of Catholics, he has “awakened a sleeping giant”: If [Catholics] stay strong and fight, they will win. This is in fact a potentially unifying moment for American Catholics, long split left, right and center. Catholic conservatives will immediately and fully oppose the administration’s decision. But Catholic liberals, who feel embarrassed and undercut, have also come out in opposition. …

Read the original post: On Obama’s Unwinnable Battle Against Religious Liberty

It does not seem like 60 years ago that my late brother said to our half-asleep parents as we departed early for school: “There was a bug in my cereal, and by the way, the King is dead.”…

The rest is here: A brilliant reign: Queen Elizabeth at 60 years on the throne

by Jill Stanek Huffington Post gleefully reported today that three Komen officials have now resigned and one more is threatening to, as the “backlash gains steam” over its decision to sever financial ties with Planned Parenthood. The fools don’t realize what is happening. Every Komen exec who quits over the Planned… …

Originally posted here: Komen officials quit as charity buried under tens of thousands of e-mails

by Alex Schadenberg An article in the Netherlands paper Reformatorisch Dagblad entitled: Churches express concern about the initiative on Free Will, concerns a joint letter written to the Government house in the Netherlands concerning proposals to allow assisted suicide for people who are “tired of living.” The letter… …

Read more from the original source: Netherlands churches express concern over assisted suicide proposal

By CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY | A new study touting the “benefits” of cohabitation is based on deeply flawed ideas about human nature and fulfillment, according to a leading scholar on the social role of families. “It’s garbage in, garbage out,” said Scott Yenor, the Boise State University political science professor whose book Family Politics: The Idea of Marriage in Modern Political … …

Original post: John Paul II’s Case Against Cohabitation

Above, in poster form, are thoughts that flashed though my mind as the solid propellant boosters on the good ship Freedom of Conscience were jettisoned. As these different scenes along the matrix of good vs. evil flashed past my mind’s … Continue reading → …

Original post: The Cinematic Good vs. Evil Matrix and a Message from Mission Control

More alarming HHS mandate news. …

Read the original post: Hushing the Army Chaplains

East Africa is currently suffering its most severe drought in sixty years. The worst-affected country has been Somalia, with famine in five districts, resulting in an outpouring of refugees to neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya. Father Frido Pfleuger SJ, regional director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Eastern Africa, has just returned from a visit to the Dollo Ado refugee camps in south-east Ethiopia, and in this interview he describes his impressions of the situation on the ground and how JRS is getting involved….

Here is the original post: Ethiopia: Education for Somali refugee children

By GERALD RUSSELLO | In a federal court in Seattle, the fight for religious liberty is entering a new phase. As we have written before (“Conscience Claws,” Register, May 31, 2010), the case, called Storman’s, Inc. v. Selecky, shows in stark relief the role of the state in infringing religious liberty in favor of secular values. Christian pharmacists are protesting a … …

View original post here: Seattle Showdown

by Jill Stanek This is all breaking news, so bear with me. I’ll tell you what I know. News organizations like the Associated Press are reporting: After three days of controversy, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer charity says it is reversing its decision to cut breast-screening grants to Planned Parenthood.… …

Read more: Decoding Komen’s supposed cave