Shocking New Report on Planned Parenthood

Adoptions down, abortions up. And taxpayer money up to $1.5 million per day.

Today Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) released its 2012-2013 annual report. In response, the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List has released a fact sheet on the information, revealing that while Planned Parenthood’s abortion rate declined by 2 percent, abortions still accounted for 93.8 percent of Planned Parenthood’s pregnancy services. Prenatal care services dropped 32 percent in one year, and 52 percent since 2009. Adoption referrals are also down 4.5 percent in one year. For every adoption referral, Planned Parenthood performed 149 abortions.

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NY Times Journo Can't Believe Pope Francis Named Person of Year

She's in shock.

Pitiful: Here’s what a NY Times journo focused on after Pope Francis’ Person of the Year win

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Former Anglican Priest and Army Chaplain Ordained Catholic

A Priest Life has the story:

Father Jerry Sherbourne, an active-duty U.S. Army Chaplain, and former Anglican priest, was ordained a Catholic priest Sunday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Through the invocation of the Holy Spirit and the imposition of hands, His Excellency, the Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio, J.C.D., ordained him during a 10:00 a.m. Mass. Father Sherbourne becomes a Catholic priest, incardinated in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, a special Church jurisdiction established by Pope Benedict XVI for those of the Anglican heritage entering full communion with the Catholic Church while maintaining distinctive elements of their theological, spiritual, and liturgical patrimony.

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Let Catholic Hospitals Be Catholic

The ACLU suit is not frivolous. It's a serious attempt to erase religious liberty.

At first glance, the recently filed ACLU lawsuit against the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) looks more like a publicity stunt than a legitimate lawsuit. The suit was filed in a federal district court in Michigan and arises out of the alleged negligent management of a miscarriage suffered by the plaintiff when she was 18 weeks pregnant. The complaint alleges that the plaintiff came to the emergency room of Mercy Health Partners (MHP), a Catholic hospital and the only hospital within 30 miles of her home, on three occasions after her water broke and she experienced bleeding and painful contractions. It is claimed that instead of being admitted to the hospital, the plaintiff was sent home from the hospital despite the fact that her treating physician suspected she had chorioamnionitis, a serious bacterial infection. It is also alleged that she was not informed that it was unlikely her baby would survive and that abortion was an appropriate treatment option. All of this sounds like it could be the basis for a traditional malpractice action against the treating physician and the hospital. But the hospital and the physician aren’t named as parties in this action. Instead the only defendants are the USCCB, and current and former officials of Catholic Health Ministries (CHM), a public juridic person organized under Canon law that sponsors Trinity Health, the owner of MHP. Thus instead of a conventional malpractice action, this lawsuit is a broadside attack on religious liberty.

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Have The Arians Won?

Fr. Ray Blake writes:

I am sure it is not by accident that we have two Saints who fought to defend the divinity of Christ in the first week of Advent. St Nicholas's legend tells us he tore the beards of Arians at the Council of Nicea and Ambrose confronted an Arian Emperor and an Arian court. Arianism says that the Son is less than the Father, he was not born before time began, that hence the Nicean Creed proclaims

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Pope Francis' Life Was Saved by Nun

Interesting.

In a new book, I Fioretti di Papa Francesco, (The Little Flowers of Pope Francis), Andrea Tornielli, a veteran Vatican journalist, the pontiff speaks of his gratitude to the nuns who worked in the hospital where he was ill as a young man. “I am alive thanks to one of them,” Pope Francis said. “When I had lung problems in the hospital, the doctor gave me penicillin and antibiotics in small doses. “The nun who was on the ward tripled that because she had an intuition, she knew what to do, because she was with the ill all day long,” the pope said. “The doctor, who was very good, spent his time in a laboratory, but the nun was living on the front line and talking with those on the front line every day.”

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Barbara Walters Doesn't Like Presidents Swearing in on the Bible

Don't worry Barbara, they don't mean it anyway.

As a host of the daytime talk show "The View," Barbara Walters questioned why politicians, including the presidents, swear on a Bible while taking office when there is separation of church and state.

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An Obamacare Advent Calendar

An Advent calendar you didn't see coming. Some fun. Continue reading>>>

Why Does God Let Us Suffer?

New Advent has the video:

Jesus didn't suffer so we wouldn't have to. Jesus suffered so we'd know how to. So even when you're in the darkest moments of life, when you just want to cry out to God, do you know where He is? He's on the Cross right next to you, saying...

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Two Nuns Honored for Hiding Jewish Families in WWII

Wonderful story from CWR:

Reaching out to the marginalized was and is one of the great charisms of the Bridgettine Order, as evidenced by an event at Rome’s Casa di Santa Brigida on November 14, 2013, when the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Institute gave two medals to the present abbess general of the order, Mother Tekla Famiglietti, in memory of Blessed Mother M. Elisabeth Hesselblad and Servant of God Mother M. Ricarda Beauchamp Hambrough. The medals were in recognition of what the two sisters did for two Jewish families during World War II. Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Dr. Piero Piperno, representing the families, were also in attendance.

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Sound of Music Scores Huge Ratings!!!

Everything I've read from the media was nasty about it but the ratings were huge. That's good news.

NBC executives are toasting this morning with tea (a drink with jam and bread): “The Sound of Music Live” gave the network its biggest non-sports Thursday since the finale of “ER” in 2009. The holiday special, starring Carrie Underwood, earned a 4.6 rating/13 share the key 18-49 demographic, and 18.5 million viewers overall. That gave NBC its highest Thursday total viewership since the “Frasier” finale in 2004.

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Father Freaks at Christian School Quiz Which Says Gravity Designed by God

Wait until he hears that he was created by God too.

A debate has ensued online after a Florida man expressed his outrage over his daughter’s recent science quiz, which asserted that gravity ‘was designed by our God.’ The man, who uploaded a photo of the quiz to Reddit, declined to provide the name of the school for privacy reasons, but contended that the photo was indeed real. He said that his daughter attends a private Christian school because he and his wife believe that the public schools in their area are substandard. He stated that he does not mind the she is being taught about God, but became angry when he saw the content of her recent science quiz. “My daughter (3rd Grade) has been at this school since kindergarten and things have been going well. Most doctrinal issues were handled delicately without fundamentalism and allowed parents the option to discuss differences of opinion with their children,” he wrote. “This week she brings this monstrosity home. I am livid!”

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Father Nicholas, the Real Santa Claus

David L. writes:

When I was very young, some of my classmates would leave their shoes outside the bedroom door on the night of the fifth of December, so that Saint Nicholas would leave them treats. We never did that at our house, but I did ask Mom how it was that Saint Nicholas got to be called Santa Claus. By this time I had already determined a connection between the two.

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Man Survives Three Days At Bottom of Ocean, Credits Prayer and the Bible

This would definitely be a made for television movie...if you took out all that icky prayer stuff:

A Nigerian man who miraculously survived after spending three days at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean is crediting God for sustaining his life. In May of this year, 12 men aboard the Jacson 4 found themselves in the fight of their life when their tugboard capsized off the African coast. One man, Harrison Odjegba Okene, who was the cook for the team, was in the bathroom when the incident occurred. It was very early—approximately 4:30 a.m.

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Chris Christie Opposes Doctor Prescribed Suicide

This legislation should be stopped. I'm glad he's voice his opposition to it. I hope he pushes this hard:

At a press conference held Tuesday, Governor Chris Christie said that he opposes legislation in New Jersey that would legalize doctor-prescribed suicide. The “New Jersey Death With Dignity Act’’ is sponsored by Assemblyman John Burzichelli. The assisting-suicide advocacy group, Compassion & Choices, formerly the Hemlock Society, has been at work in New Jersey on this dangerous legislation. The bill pending in New Jersey has essentially the same language that governs both Oregon and Washington. The language, developed initially for Oregon, purports to “safeguard” the practice and restrict it to the terminally ill and the competent.

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Vandals Trash Church, Deface Picture of Pope

Tolerance.

Police are searching for answers after a Brighton church was vandalized by three teenagers. Police say sometime between 3 p.m. on November 23 and 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 25, the teens damaged three doors and broke into Our Lady Of Presentation Church on Washington Street. Residue from two fire extinguishers was found all over the church floors. A portrait of Pope John XXIII was found on the second floor, cut up and defaced with phrases such as “Devil’s Star,” “(Expletive) God” and “Scooby Doo.”

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The Four Best Beards in the History of Christendom

Melissa Keating writes a great and funny piece.

The rest of the world is buzzing about no-shave November right now. However, as Catholics, we belong to a long history of beards so magnificent they could never hope to be confined to single month. The face furniture of our early Fathers alone is resplendent enough to make Gandalf weep with envy (looking at you, First Council of Nicea). I'm not saying that God gives the best beards to Catholics. I just want to point out the long standing correlation between Christianity and luxurious lip locks. In fact, if you pay attention to hagiography, you can't help but come to the conclusion that the Church Triumphant strongly resembles an NHL team during playoffs.

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Former Baywatch Beauty Says Hollywood Thinks Religious People Are Crazy

Big Hollywood reports:

Former Baywatch beauty Brooke Burns doesn't hide her faith, but the actress admits that causes friction on the set. Burns told Fox News she grew up in a Christian family and kept her faith when she started getting work in Hollywood. She quickly learned being open about her spirituality made her persona non grata at times.

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Planned Parenthood Official: Birth Control Doesn't Reduce Unintended Pregnancies

Duh! So is Planned Parenthood ready to say the Church was right? Yeah, probably not.

The Plan B birth control pill is supposed to be a panacea for lowering the number of abortions and unplanned pregnancies — so much so that the Obamacare health care law forces religious companies and organizations to pay for such birth control in their employee health insurance plans. But a Planned Parenthood official is admitting that the Plan B drug Sandra Fluke worked so hard to force Americans to pay for is not getting the results the abortion business promised. NPR interviewed one of the top officials at the nation’s biggest abortion corporation: “While there’s a lot of data to show it can prevent pregnancy in individual women, we’ve all been disappointed that on the population level, it just hasn’t had the effect we hoped,” said Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The unintended pregnancy rate hasn’t changed at all.”

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Church Removes Pews to Make Room for Social Gatherings

I bet you wouldn't be able to find the tabernacle there if you had all day.

The Catholic Church on the campus of Jesuit-run University of San Francisco is redecorating by removing pews to make room at the back of the church, near a statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola, for “social gatherings.” The University of San Francisco celebrates its weekly 8 pm Sunday student Mass at St. Ignatius Catholic Church, which is located on the school’s campus.

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