Did you know that our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” has four stanzas? Neither did I. We went to the Portland Sea Dogs baseball game last night at Hadlock Field. (They’re the AA affiliate of the Red Sox.) It was a classic American moment: baseball, hot dogs, and fireworks. At the start of the game, we had the traditional singing of the national anthem, but this time they said they were singing all four verses. I thought it was particularly poignant and relevant, and is a humble expression of faith in God, praise for what He has given us, and a plea to remain faithful to our ideals and His will, and so I reproduce them for you, in their entirety, here:
Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Most of our bishops are just too cowardly – in manifold ways – to really take on evil in our society. It takes all their courage just state the moral truth – much less to fight for it.
Our society is being pornographied, homosexual acts are being glorified in our schools and media, sexual license is promoted to our kids, 90% of abortions are abortions of convenience, we murder fully formed babies with partial birth abortion, our society is crude and coarse, profanity is everywhere, most Catholics don’t go to Mass, most have little knowledge of our faith, marriage is falling apart, kids are being created with sperm banks and surrogate mothers, and so on. And we hear nothing, nothing in church from our priests about these things. The Church leadership in this country is failing my kids in manifold ways. Most of our bishops are so ‘nuanced’ they’re just irrelevant.
The decision of the bishops was to indiviually deal with the isue of pro-abort Catholic politicians. The liberals read this as a code word for “Bishops will tolerate and encourage dissent by focusing on dialogue and obfuscation.”
See, the liberals cannot stand the idea of a Catholic Bishop enforcing Catholic doctrine on Catholic politicians.
The Catholics have useful passive sheep for the Satanic liberals. But, like the Ents in The Lord of the Rings, they are stirring and when they come to life watch out!
Dom—
I clicked on your link and read the article. I think a sledgehammer is the only thing that could interfere with Joe Beck’s predisposition toward abortion. Most of the article is his own idiocy (death penalty for women who have abortions? do you know anyone who supports that?); very little is direct quotes from D’Arcy. And the only bishop D’Arcy criticizes is Sheridan for his suggestion that those who vote for pro-abortion pols should be denied communion, an utterly unenforceable position.
I’m apparently to the right of D’Arcy on many things, but I’m inclined to give him a fair hearing (not through the prism of Joe Beck) if only because, when he was in Boston, he was the only one on record as standing up to Law re Geoghan: “You can’t put that man back in a parish!”
Well,it appears that the US Bishops gave the Panzer Cardinal the middle finger re his note to them on pro-abortion pols receiving the Eucharist? Cowards in action.
“The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of (nuanced) Bishops.”
And this be our motto: cize one of his brother bishops for his failings, but to no avail. That is until now. No, it wasn’t a criticism of sexual misconduct or of shuffling perverts from parish to parish. The only criticism we ever see from a bishop is when actually takes a firm stance on Church teaching, thereby putting pressure on other bishops to do the same by doing their duty. In this case, Bishop John D’Arcy of Fort Wayne criticizes Bishop Sheridan of Colorado Springs for his author_IP>
2004-07-02 19:01:19
2004-07-02 23:01:19
We all have to Pray and Fast for our Bishops, the Holy Father and the end of the culture of death. I agree that proper teaching without proper discipline leads to a wishy-washy state where the Moral Authority of the Church becomes a foundation of quick sand. And who is going to take the Church seriously if pro-abortion CAtholics continue to receive the Holy Eucharist and continue to receive votes from the “faithful”.???