An Example of the Dark Side of Secularism—attacking the Knights of Columbus

Knights of Columbus Color Guard                                  courtesy Our Lady of the Rosary Council 12982   Gainesville, VA

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME 

By Larry Peterson

I am not going to use any names here. There is no point. Everyone knows who is who.

The Epiphany of the Lord for 2019 will be celebrated on January 6. The entrance antiphon  will read, “Arise Jerusalem, and look to the East and see your children gathered from the rising to the setting of the sun.”  Baruch 5:5

How fitting as we hear how the three wise men from the East, followed the brilliantly shining Star using it as their guide to lead them to the Savior of the world. They were seeking out Goodness and Love, and all they wished to do was worship the One who brought it.

Flash forward 2000+ years and  we head into the year 2019.  Two political “rising stars” from the West (who also happen to be United States Senators; one from California and one from Hawaii)  have decided to attack a man who has been named for consideration for a seat on the United States District Court in Nebraska. They are pounding the print and media with their message saying this man is not qualified to be a judge because his views are “extreme.” They know this because he is a member of the Knights of Columbus. Herod would be proud.

The Senator from Hawaii has decided that the Catholic views on abortion and same-sex marriage held by the Knights of Columbus are “extreme.” The Senator from California depicted the Knights as “an all-male society” and asked the judicial nominee if he was aware that the Knights of Columbus “opposed a woman’s right to choose” and were against “marriage equality.” In the new democratic party approving of abortion and same ex-marriage seems to be the litmus test as to whether or not you are “good or bad.”

Those two senators are not the only two trashing the judicial candidate for being Catholic and a member of the Knights of Columbus. Most of those who call themselves “Democrat” are too. These people seem to think that the desire to honor and protect life and traditional marriage (you know, between a man and a woman) makes you an ‘extremist."

Why even the incoming Speaker of the House, a “devout” Catholic, proudly teaches that abortion is a woman’s “sacred right.”  This flies into the very core of Catholic teaching and is an abomination created for political gain. What has happened to truth, honor,  and integrity?

Here is the thing; I am a member of the Knights of Columbus and have been a member since 1964. I also have another 1.9 million men around the world whom I call “Brother.” You see, we Knights are all Brothers and proud of it.

We proudly proclaim our core principles of Charity, Unity, Fraternity, and Patriotism without shame or hesitation.   We respect and defend life all over the world. We (the Knights of Columbus) donated over $185 million and  K of C Service hours valued at $1.9 billion in 2017.

Our charitable activities include the Christian Refugee Relief Fund, Disaster Relief, the Ultrasound Initiative, Coats for Kids, Special Olympics, the Global Wheelchair Mission, and Habitat for Humanity. Plus so much more at the local levels by so many K of C Councils spread from coast to coast and around the world.

So you see, when these very important people decide they do not like our principles and beliefs and think they are picking on only one person (Re: Brett Kavanaugh) they are not. They are trashing millions of people and 1.9 million of them are members of the Knights of Columbus.

One final thought, the senator from California, suggested that the Knights of Columbus is  “an all-male society. She might do a bit more research. because she obviously has never heard of the Columbiettes. They are the women's' branch of the Knights of Columbus and this year they celebrate their 80^th anniversary.  Yes, we Knights work hand in hand with our Columbiette Sisters and together, we do great things for others.

From Venerable Fulton J Sheen:   There is no word more "dangerous" than liberalism, because to oppose it is the new "unforgivable sin."

©Larry Peterson 2018

About Pro-Choice: Baby Turtles vs. Baby People—and the Winner is?

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

Loggerhead Sea Turtle   wikipedia2common

In Florida, sand as white as snow curls up the Gulf Coast from Naples north to the panhandle area with some of the most beautiful beaches on the planet. People come from all over the world to visit these beaches and bask in the brilliant Florida sun and fish and swim in the calm and clear Gulf waters. But there is one thing these folks and all folks had better not do while visiting these beaches. If they do not want to wind up in jail, they had better avoid the Loggerhead Sea Turtles. They are on the Endangered Species List and they nest on the beaches.

We have in place in this country a law called the Endangered Species Act. Under this act wildlife considered "endangered" are protected by law from being killed, maimed or harmed in any way. There are many good points to this law as some of our most revered wildlife, like the Bald Eagle, have been saved from possible extinction. But, what about the "Baby People"? Don't they count?

The Loggerhead Sea Turtle is one of these protected turtles. It can be found (like baby people) all over the world. However, its primary habitat is the Florida coast north to Virginia. It is estimated that these turtles build 67,000 nests a year along the beaches. The female lays her eggs in the sand and buries them. After two months they hatch, crawl to the sea and begin their lives. Of all the hatch-lings maybe 8000 baby turtles survive.  They will live close to 60 years.

It is illegal to harm, harass, or kill any sea turtles, their eggs, or hatchlings. It is also illegal to import, sell, or transport turtles or their products. It is perfectly legal to kill baby people who have not been born. In the United States, since Roe vs. Wade was passed in 1973, over 58,000,000 abortions have been performed. Fifty-eight million baby people have been vanquished from existence, many of them burned alive via the Saline Abortion method. That extrapolates out to 1,348,837 baby people a year killed in America.

In 2014 there were 3.93 million births in the United States. That means that approximately one out of every four pregnancies in our country results in a life extinguished. Sea turtles are given every chance to survive with the government going so far as to put people in prison who might interfere with their survival. On the other hand, baby people are welcomed into legalized and sweetly painted extermination camps and, unmercifully and without fanfare or emotion, eradicated.

Whatever are we doing? We civilized people have allowed a portion of our past to be destroyed. We are allowing our present to be vilified by what can only be called a great lie fabricated as the virtue of "helping" women. We have short-circuited the future of our children and grandchildren by taking away from them the possibility of another Rembrandt, or a Mozart or a Jonas Salk, or a Martin Luther King Jr., or even an Abraham Lincoln living among them.

There is a world wide abortion counter that ticks off the abortions around the world as they happen. Look for yourself. More than one life a second is being aborted. Genocide of the innocent, living in and out of the womb, is rampant on planet Earth. Whatever have we wrought?

As the great St. John Paul II said, “A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope.”                     

                                 copyright©Larry Peterson 2017 

The Little Heart Kept Beating---Beating, Beating, Beating: Then it Stopped

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

(As the parent of a daughter who was stillborn on September 6, 1978, I am fully cognizant of the LIFE that was lost to us and her siblings. My wife (who passed away from cancer in 2003) almost died that day in a valiant attempt to get to a Catholic hospital so the baby might be baptized. That is a story for another time but, as a man, I understand the insanity of treating tiny people in-utero as nothing more than "products of conception". Trust me--they are not. They are people, just like us--only a lot smaller.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The reports about Planned Parenthood's calculating, impersonal and clinically callous disposal and sale of aborted baby parts is so hard for me to fathom. Many folks feel as I do, that these actions are simply heinous. Now, with the latest revelations of Planned Parenthood's actually selling the complete cadavers of aborted babies for profit, we may have equaled the Nazis in an unparalleled cold-hardheartedness. In fact, since these tiny people have no-one to save them once they enter the sanitized and legalized death camps spread all across America, maybe we have become the most heartless and ruthless generation of all time.

What is so astonishing is that so many folks do not see anything wrong with participating in a holocaust that has claimed more than fifty million lives. Many of these people seem to be no different than me. They work,  pay their bills, mow their lawns, and celebrate Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July. Yes, and they go to church and pray too.

There are many notables among them including a sitting president, the leading Democratic presidential contender and many more "upstanding"  people such as the former Speaker of the House, and the former Senate Majority leader. There are  academicians, professional people, doctors, lawyers, even clergy and many others. The proof and fact of LIFE in-utero is all around them yet they deny it. I do not understand.

They may look like me and walk like me and laugh like me and like pizza like me but none of them are like me. For I am sickened by the actions that they condone. Yet they consider these same actions as a "constitutional right".  Maybe they need to listen to a non-American, Stojan Adasevic, a Serbian  abortionist responsible for over 48,000 abortions and  the 'regular' work day that changed his life forever. These are a few of his words (the rest are in the video trailer, The First Hour, and the following link .)

"As I pull out the mess, thinking it will be bone fragments I lay it on the cloth, I

look, and I see a human heart, contracting and expanding and beating, beating, beating.

I thought I would go mad. I can see the heartbeat is slowing, ever more slowly, and 

more slowly still, until it finally stops completely. Nobody could have seen what I

had seen with my very own eyes, and be more convinced than I was---

I had killed a human being.

Stojan Adasevic became the first abortionist in communist Yugoslavia to refuse to do abortions. His salary was cut, his daughter fired from her job and his son refused admission to the university. Most of us never had to destroy a child, no less 48,000 or more, before realizing we were murdering children. But in the war being waged by Satan, the master of lies and deception, sometimes his influence is so great and the deception so pronounced it takes many years of flowing graces from God before that door is cracked open and the light begins to enter. In Stojan's case the  light was brought to him personally by St. Thomas Aquinas. Click on Stojan's name and read his story. 

Some information for this story was from LifeSiteNews (Abortion; August 5,2015 by Sarah Terzo)and I thank them for giving me permission to reference it. 

                                    ©2015 Larry Peterson All Rights Reserved

The "Double Whammy" of January 22, 1973: Roe V Wade & Doe V Bolton

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

This coming Thursday is the 42nd anniversary of Roe vs Wade and  the annual March for Life will take place in Washington, D.C. Thousands upon thousands of "Pro-Life" advocates will  brave the freezing weather in defense of the unborn.  Millions more across the country will gather at state capitols, cities and small towns  lending their support to the most defenseless of the defenseless.  The hopes and prayers of all these folks (including myself) are for the High Court to overturn Roe vs Wade.  I am  a "pro-life" person who had an "up close and personal" experience with the miracle of life and the pain of death all on the same day.  If I had harbored any doubt whatsoever about the "viability of a fetus" that doubt was vanquished  forever 36 years ago.

At the beginning of Loretta's sixth month of pregnancy she unexpectedly went into labor. Bleeding profusely she was rushed by ambulance to the hospital and our fourth child, a daughter, was born. She also lived and died very quickly, within minutes.  I had called ahead to Holy Trinity Catholic Church and a priest, Father Murray, was waiting for our arrival. Our baby was baptized and buried with my parents. She was our child and was a gift from God. We had  been preparing  for the arrival but it came three months earlier than expected.  No matter, she was a real person who lived and died.  Her name is on a tombstone. It simply reads: Theresa Mary Peterson. September 6, 1978---September 6,1978.

Theresa was not simply a "fetus".  She was not "products of conception". She was not an "annoyance", or an extra pair of shoes to worry about or another potentially "sleepless night". She did not mean  less money in the bank.  No, Theresa Mary was worth far more than any of that multiplied a thousand times over.  Nothing can change the fact that she did exist, albeit for the briefest of moments. In God's world there is no "time" as we know it. HE lives in the "Eternal Now".  Theresa Mary now lives there with HIM. (I like to think she is close friends with her namesake, St. Therese)

My own daughter was born premature for unknown reasons. But she was alive and fully intact from head to toe. She only lacked  additional time in the womb.  Today she would have probably been saved. Knowing that, I cannot help but  think of the millions of little people like Theresa Mary who have been intentionally put to death in a heinous fashion because they  they might cost too much money or might interfere with a career.  Maybe they were vanquished simply because they were an unexpected inconvenience. How many have been eradicated simply because people take no responsibility for having sex, getting pregnant, and deciding that this "thing" has to go before it "ruins" their lives.

 Here is a quick "news flash" (hopefully at least a few young people will see it): You can actually wait until you are married to have sex. Then you have it with the person you are married to and expect to spend your life with. That type of relationship captures the true beauty and wonder of not only the sex act but also of having children. It is the continuation of God's plan for the human race.  It comes from the Natural Law.

Today many people mock those concepts. Self-gratification seems to be the secular battle cry for continual pleasure. This is an illusion that oftentimes simply leads to sadness. Having sex just to have sex, can be demeaning and self-destructive. In addition, it is NOT the same thing as breathing, eating, and sleeping. Those bodily functions are instinctive and necessary for us to live. We do NOT have to have sex to live. We won't die if we say NO.  Many people actually choose to live a life of celibacy.  It is OKAY to do so. And make no mistake, none of them die from NOT doing "it".

January 22nd  will be the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling known as "Roe vs Wade".  Simply put, the court, by a 7 to 2 majority, said that abortion is a citizen's fundamental right under the United States Constitution.  You are all familiar with how that ruling  has torn our nation apart.  What many people do not seem to be aware of is the other ruling that took place on that very same day.  It provided the proverbial  "double whammy" to the abortion issue. That  ruling is called "Doe Vs Bolton".  Once again, it was a 7 to 2 majority vote affirming the ruling.  The US Supreme Court had given birth to the "Roe & Doe" twins.

The ruling in the "Doe Vs Bolton" case is summed up here: (The link supplies the details:
The Court's opinion in Doe vs bolton stated that a woman may obtain an abortion after viability, if necessary to protect her health. The Court defined "health" as follows:

         "Whether in the words of the Georgia statute, "an abortion is necessary" is a professional judgement that the Georgia physician will be called upon to make routinely. We agree with the District Court, 319 F. Supp., at 1058, that the medical judgement may be exercised in the light of all factors-physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age-relevant to the well being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health."

Amazing as it is, if Roe vs Wade was ever overturned, Doe vs Bolton would take its place. Doe vs Bolton allows for abortion "after viability" for almost any conceivable reason. Read the excerpt above closely. According to Doe vs Bolton an abortion could be permitted at full term because the baby's crying when born might cause too much stress for someone in the house who has a psychological problem. Far fetched? Not really. Just get a doctor to sign off on it.

God help us today and tomorrow.

                                                                    copyright 2105 Larry Peterson
                                                               

January 22,1973 The United States Supreme Court Gave Birth to Twins: "Roe & Doe"

by Larry Peterson

 This coming Wednesday the annual March for Life will take place in Washington, D.C.  It is the 41st anniversary of Roe vs Wade.  Thousands upon thousands of "Pro-Life" advocates will  brave the freezing weather in defense of the unborn.  Millions more across the country will gather at state capitols, cities and small towns  lending their support to the most defenseless of the defenseless.  The hopes and prayers of all these folks (including myself) are for the High Court to overturn Roe vs Wade.  I am  a "pro-life" person who had an "up close and personal" experience with the miracle of life and the pain of death all on the same day.  If I had harbored any doubt whatsoever about the "viability of a fetus" that doubt was vanquished  forever 35 years ago.

At the beginning of the sixth month of pregnancy our fourth child, a daughter, was stillborn.  She was our child and was a gift from God.  She was baptized and buried with my parents. We had  prepared for the arrival but it came earlier than expected.  No matter, she was a real person who lived and died.  Her name is on a tombstone. It is Theresa Mary. Her birthday and date of death were Sept 6, 1978. She was not simply a "fetus".  She was not "products of conception". She was not an "annoyance", an extra pair of shoes to worry about or another "sleepless night". She did not mean  less money in the bank.  No, Theresa Mary was worth far more than any of that multiplied a thousand times over.  Nothing can change the fact that she did exist, albeit for the briefest of moments. In God's world there is no "time" as we know it. HE lives in the "Eternal Now".  Theresa Mary now lives there with HIM..

I  think of the millions of little people like Theresa Mary who have been put to death  in heinous fashion because they are unwanted, because they might cost money or might interfere with a career.  How many have been eradicated simply because people take no responsibility for having sex, getting pregnant, and deciding that this "thing" has to go before it "ruins" their lives. You know, having sex is NOT the same thing as breathing, eating, and sleeping.  Those bodily functions are instinctive and necessary for us to live. We do NOT have to have sex to live. We won't die if we say NO.  Many people actually choose to live a life of celibacy.  It is OKAY to do so. And make no mistake, none of them die from NOT doing "it".

January 22nd  will be the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling known as "Roe vs Wade".  Simply put, the court, by a 7 to 2 majority, said that abortion is a citizen's fundamental right under the United States Constitution.  You are all familiar with how that ruling  has torn our nation apart.  What many people do not seem to be aware of is the other ruling that took place on that very same day.  It provided the proverbial  "double whammy" to the abortion issue. That  ruling is called "Doe Vs Bolton".  Once again, it was a 7 to 2 majority vote affirming the ruling.  The US Supreme Court had given birth to the "Roe & Doe" twins.

The ruling in the "Doe Vs Bolton" case is summed up here:

The Court's opinion in Doe v. Bolton  stated that a woman may obtain an abortion after viability, if necessary to protect her health. The Court defined "health" as follows:

“

Whether, in the words of the Georgia statute, "an abortion is necessary" is a professional judgment that the Georgia physician will be called upon to make routinely. We agree with the District Court, 319 F. Supp., at 1058, that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.

Amazing as it is,  if Roe vs Wade was ever overturned, Doe vs Bolton would take its place.  Doe vs Bolton allows for abortion "after viability" for almost any conceivable reason. Read the excerpt above closely. According to Doe vs Bolton,  an  abortion could be permitted at full term because a baby's crying might cause too much stress for someone in the house who has a psychological problem. Far fetched?  Not really. Who needs Roe vs Wade when you have its twin, Doe vs Bolton?  Our fight for millions of little, unseen and helpless John and Jane Doe will continue. God help us today and tomorrow.