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Contents © 1997
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

October 1997

"What do you notice here? She [author Karen James] views ambiguity as a higher value than faith!... 'In fact, [Father] Ray's constant questioning is what makes the character so dynamic....'

"What about Mother Teresa? May she rest in peace. Do you think what made her so dynamic was her 'constant questioning'? Or was it her burning faith in God and her belief in the Bible? What about Pope John Paul II? May he live till 120. One of the indisputable great lives of the 20th Century. Is it his 'constant questioning' that makes him so dynamic?...

"Don't you hate it when people come to you and they say, ...'Must be real easy for you. You have this simple faith. But for me, I have constant questioning, therefore I'm on a higher level.' Namely, 'You're an idiot, you're a moron, because you might believe -- as a Jew, as a Protestant, as a Catholic -- but I'm on a higher level because I'm full of doubt.'

"This idea that people who reject God have more integrity than people who are trying to live, to the best of their ability, according to God's will, is a poisonous idea. It's an idea we've got to combat."

-- Movie critic and social pundit Michael Medved on the Rush Limbaugh radio show, September 19, 1997


HOW DO PRIESTS CONTROL the people who are usually responsible for imparting this information [that artificial contraception is sinful]: the diocesan personnel, the catechists, the NFP practitioners, and all the other folks who have occasion to "run the show" in some program or other?

This is not an easy task. You can only do so much. You can give homilies that make it obvious where you stand on issues. You can screen applicants for parish programs. You can encourage a young-marrieds club and be a frequent speaker on key issues. You can develop your own training program for catechists, both CCD and RCIA. You can offer parishioners the opportunity to be Catholic together: Bible study, youth groups, homeschoolers' groups, feast-day celebrations, novenas, rosaries, perpetual adoration. You can pray.

-- "Artificial contraception: What's a priest to do?" by Jane D. Anderson, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, August-September 1997


RECALL A VISIT TO AN ORPHANAGE run by the Missionaries of Charity in Haiti. As I walked through the door, a friendly nun told me it was mealtime; without ceremony, she pointed me toward a baby, a bottle and a chair. I could discern no interest in who I was, what I might write or how I would feel about this experience. There was work to be done, and in Mother Teresa's domain there was no room for sentimental spectators.

-- "A Life of Purity," by Philip Lawler, Wall Street Journal, September 8, 1997


Q: AFTER [FATHER RUDY] KOS' victims approached you, and you notified the Diocese of Dallas of the charges, could this case have been settled quickly and quietly?

A: ...My clients were willing to settle on the condition that prevention and detection programs to protect children be implemented by the diocese, including prohibiting overnight stays in the rectory, and [prohibiting] unaccompanied minors being taken by priests on out-of-town trips. I received no response.

-- Interview with priest-abuse attorney Sylvia Demarest by Paul Likoudis, The Wanderer, August 28, 1997


MANY OTHER REPARATIVE THERAPISTS [who believe most homosexuals can be cured of their condition] agree about the weak masculine identity, but my emphasis is a bit different. I focus more on the trauma inflicted on males by their boyhood peers because they were not athletically gifted. Usually, they could not play sports and subsequently were isolated, rejected, and ridiculed from a very early age....

A lot of fellows who can't play soccer in Spain or England or Buenos Aires, if you can't play soccer, you're viewed as being less than masculine, unfortunately. Something needs to be done about that in this sports-crazed world.

-- "The Power of Peer Rejection," interview with Richard Fitzgibbons, M.D., by Thomas Gregory, NARTH Bulletin, August 1997


ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN, twenty-five years ago come November 29, 1997, turned to a friend and said: "I tell my relatives to send their college age children to secular universities where they will have to fight for their faith, rather than to Catholic institutions where it will be stolen from them." The occasion was the final days of an International Congress of Catholic Universities, and the words were uttered in the rear of the Vatican City's papal auditorium within eyeshot of Pope Paul VI.

-- "Academics Over Bishops? The Catholic College Problem," by Msgr. George Kelly, Catholic Dossier, July-August 1997


I WE RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING true picket story from Donna Benson of South Lee County STOPP [Stop Planned Parenthood, International] in Iowa. "Went to Ft. Madison with my 'big sign' to picket a PP talk at a Methodist Church. I was picketing alone despite the fact that I had invited about 150 people to join me. As I was standing on the street corner by the church, a man in a yellow car stopped abruptly. He turned his car around in a very dangerous way, shouted obscenities at me, and drove around the block. He parked his car about 3/4 of a block away, got out, and was heading my way.

"As all this was going on, two cars with Christian people in them saw what has happening. In one car was a man who was on his way to have dinner with my former pastor. The other car contained two women who were also on their way to dinner and had two twin boys in car seats in the back of the car.

"These people stopped, got out of their cars and came up to me. They said I shouldn't be there alone. They said they would pray with me and be there in case I needed protection from the man in the yellow car...."

1) When you are asked by someone to join in a picket of Planned Parenthood or the local Death House please say yes if you can.

2) If you've tried to get people to picket with you, and no one can, pray. If you feel God wants you to go alone, do not be afraid, HE will protect you.

3) If you are driving down a street some day and you see a pro-life picketer standing alone on a sidewalk or beside the road, consider stopping for a few minutes. Just walk up to the pro-lifer and tell him or her that you just wanted to spend a couple of minutes in prayer. You presence, even if only for five or ten minutes, will be a great encouragement.

4) Donna talks of her "big sign." This is a large poster of the head of an aborted child. It is available from Chet Kilgore, N2639 Highway ZG143, Dousman, WI 53118. Price: $10 regular, $20 laminated. Use the "big sign" whenever you can -- it works.

-- "Picketing," in STOPP International's Ryan Report, May 1997


SOMEONE ASKED ME RECENTLY what is the quickest, most effective thing you can do to combat the killing of preborn babies. I replied,

-- Teach as many people as you can that today most babies aren't aborted by "surgery" but by chemical "birth control" -- abortifacients.

-- Tell every woman you know who's on the Pill (and some 10-12 million U.S. women still are) that it's an abortifacient. That is, women who swallow it are committing microscopic, early abortions on occasion....

Has you pastor warned his flock against abortifacient killings in his sermons or in the parish bulletin? Does he explain them in his marriage preparation courses? I've yet to meet a pastor who's done so. I haven't even heard of one.

Another enormity: well over 60 percent of all married couples in the U.S.A. have been sterilized by ages 44-45. A famed NBR-promoting doctor calls sterilization "the barnyard approach to birth control." And indeed it is! Has your pastor ever preached against (or even mentioned) sterilization, also known as "permanent contraception" or "getting fixed"? Have you read anything against it in his parish bulletin?

-- Human Life International Special Report No. 152, by Father Matthew Habiger, OSB, August 1997

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