Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe
cinops be gone Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The following are excerpts from Father Frank A. Pavone’s booklet, Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Pro-Life Movement:

Our Lady of Guadalupe has many connections with the pro-life cause. On December 3, 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a Christian convert named Juan Diego. Entering the bishop’s quarters, Juan Diego knelt and explained that the Lady had provided a sign so that he would believe her message. He unfolded his tilma, and the exquisite, fragrant flowers spilled at the bishop’s feet. This was miracle enough, but the second miracle caused the bishop and those with him to fall to their knees: a stunning image of the Lady from heaven appeared on the inside of the tilma.
But the Aztecs saw that this seemingly humble woman was greater than Huitzilopochtli, their sun-god of war, for she stood in front of the sun. Her foot rested on the crescent moon, symbolizing that she was more powerful than their feathered serpent moon-god Quetzalcoatl…. As in Revelation, she is pregnant, symbolized by the black band tied in knot around her waist. She points her finger to the cross on her brooch. The Christ Child within her is the God to whom she prays. This image, still preserved on the Juan Diego’s tilma, hangs in the basilica outside Mexico City.

During this period of their history, the Aztecs received a message of hope. After the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the presence of the image among them, some nine million people converted to Christ, and human sacrifice was abolished. … Our Lady turned the Aztecs’ world view of despair to one of hope…The mythology of feathered serpents and sun-god may not be present today, but there is very real despair. People do not get abortions because of freedom of choice; they get them because they feel they have no freedom and no choice…. They feel trapped, abandoned, desperate and afraid.
Priests for Life have collected thousands of postabortion case studies from women. … No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw of its own leg.

What does the image of Our Lady of Guadeloupe say to those who suffered despair? First, Our Lady of Guadalupe is pregnant: she carries God within her womb. The God of the universe has become a human being. God has become our brother. In his encyclical, The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II states: Mary thus helps the Church to realize that life is always at the centre of a great struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness. The dragon wishes to devour “the child brought forth” (cf. Revelation 12:4), a figure of Christ …. But in a way that child is also a figure of every person, every child, especially helpless baby whose life is threatened... God and Our Lady says, “I am with you.”

The pro-life people praying at the abortion clinics also say, “I am with you.” and they stand with all women in need. The pro-life movement embraces with love and compassion all who have had or participated in abortions.

George H. Kubeck. Duplicate and or translate into Spanish or Vietnamese.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The Enemies of Traditional America - 3 - Pelosi

The Enemies of Traditional America – 3 – Pelosi
cinops be gone - Memorial St. Catherine of Siena, Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The time has come for Catholic bishops and in particularly Catholic writers to speak out on matters of the CINOP and public scandal. Stop being an enabler. Pretend Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a Republican. She’s trying to weave a mosaic to hide her true action beliefs for public view and consumption. This will help other Catholic-in-name-only politicians (CINOPS) in their reelection campaign of 2008.
This mosaic that Pelosi weaves is deliberate and diabolical:
On at least six occasions in this election campaign thus far Pelosi has used a particular passage from the Bible that is fictional. Claude Mariottini, a professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Cybercast News Service the passage not only doesn’t exist – it’s “fictional.” “People try to use the Bible to give authority to what they are trying to say,” he said. “(This) is one of those texts that you fabricate in order to support what you want to say.”

1. Here is the text in Pelosi’s April 22 Earth Day news release:
“The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.’ On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children’s children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature.”

2. In December 2005, in a Christmas message to the U.S. House of Representatives…. And as the Bible teaches us, to minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship, to ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us. Let us vote no on this budget as an act of worship and for America’s children.” (Please not that all of Pelosi’s issues are prudential not evil issues.)

3. When hearings were held on global warming, Feb. 8, 2007, Pelosi used the same quote, verbatim, as in her Earth Day release.
4. Before the Easter recess on April 6, 2007 Pelosi said, “In this Holy Week, we are reminded of these words in the Old Testament: ‘To minister …. Is to dishonor the God who made us.”

5. On April 25, 2007, in a speech to the League of Conservation voters in Washington, D.C. As it says in the Old Testament, “To minister … who made us.”
6. On Oct. 22, 2007, in a television interview with PBS host Tavis Smiley. She used it in discussion of her roots, attributing the quote to the book of Isaiah.
She continues, “I’m raised in a family in Baltimore, Maryland, my father was the mayor. He was in Congress when I was born. And we were devoutly Catholic, very patriotic. We love America. Devoutly Catholic, deeply patriotic, proud of our Italian American heritage, and in our case staunchly Democratic.” This is wonderful.

But personally a dead history as far as Pelosi is concerned. Why did she vote against the Catholic and Natural Law Position on the following: Stem Cell Research, Marriage Amendment Act, Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, Human Cloning Ban, Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, and Unborn Victims Violence Act? These are all absolute evils.

We dealing with a very clever, dangerous, despicable Trojan Horse in our midst.

Ref. Pete Winn, CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer, April 23, 2008. Culture
George H. Kubeck: Please e-mail this letter to Catholic writers in the country.

Monday, April 28, 2008

What Christians Believe? - Peter Kreeft-6- Questions

What Christians Believe? - Peter Kreeft - 6 - Questions
cinops be gone Monday. April 28, 2008
Final notes from a talk given at the C.S. Lewis Summer Conference 2003: A tape from St. Joseph Radio – P.O. Box 2983 – Orange, Ca. 92859 (714) 744-1998
www.stjosephradio.com This tape is a classic on Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity.

4. You mentioned we should be Christo-centric. Some theologians have criticized Fox for being too Christo-centric. Can we be too Christo-centric?

Only if we set up an either or; between the persons of the Trinity: But that is of course, not Christianity. Some of you have heard the story of Karl Barth’s last public lecture, before he retired. There were questions from the audience and one person said. Professor Barth most of us in this room believe you to be the greatest living theologian. Please tell us what is the profoundest idea that ever entered into your mind? He replied, “Jesus Loves Me.” That’s a profound theologian.

6. When we go into other cultures to share Christ, how can we avoid ethnocentrism and imposing culture rather than just Christ?

First of all we do not impose, we propose and secondly we do what St. Paul did in Athens. We find Christ in that other culture and start from there. And missionaries say its amazing how these benighted pagans who are worshipping idols still have some light of the true God.
Look what Paul did in Athens. His heart burned against the idolatry because the Athenians were worshipping hundreds of Gods and yet there was one of them that he commended them for the unknown God.
Socrates was a stone cutter by trade and stone cutter as distinct from sculptors just did square straight things like altars and inscriptions but not statues. Well this altar unlike the others had no statue on it because nobody knows what the unknown God looked like. Socrates may have cut that inscription himself.
So when St. Paul says in Act 16 or l7 I noticed this fascinating inscription to the unknown God and the next sentence is startling. – The God you are already worshipping – present progressive tense in Greek I am telling you about - You are worshipping him in ignorance.
I now enlighten you. God does not leave anyone without light. So you make a connection. You find a spark and you say that spark I want to tell you more about that spark.
Today, you go to China and you see a Taoist talking about the Tao. And you notice the Chinese Bible began in the beginning was the Tao and the Tao was with God and the Tao was God. Profound! How in the world Tao know so much about the way that ultimate reality worked – by self-sacrificial love – that was divine inspiration. Confused – like all the myths but good dreams.
So you look for the light and if others are looking for the light, you share the light. We know more about that light- that light became a man and those who are true to that light like Ana in the last battle will say now I see, now recognize that’s what I was worshipping.

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Enemies of Traditional America - 2

The Enemies of Traditional America – 2
cinops be gone Sunday, April 27, 2008
In this election cycle we are going be bombarded with all kinds of suave political and religious books that will try to persuade you that if you are religious in any way; vote for a secular America and put your faith in Government. The following is for the archives of left-wing religious indoctrination thanks to Joseph Farah’s review of the book in the Washington Times Weekly, March 17, 2008, p. 32

The book is by Bill Clinton’s spiritual adviser. (Don’t laugh!) Tony Campolo’s Red Letter Christians. Christians have been paying enough attention to issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, homosexual indoctrination in schools etc. Start paying attention to what the Bible teaches about poverty, the environment, global warming, and social injustice.

1.) Capital punishment is wrong, despite the clear, unequivocal biblical commandments to take life for life.
2.) Most Christians are too war-like and guilty of not loving their enemies.
3.) Universal health care should be provided by the government.
4.) Poverty should be eliminated by the U.S. government, not just in the U.S. but throughout the world.
5.) The minimum wage should be increased significantly.
6.) The U.S. should sign the Kyoto Protocol as a step toward solving the phantom crisis of global warming.
7.) The U.S. should pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and address the real problem of terrorism by creating a Palestinian state and addressing the root cause: poverty.
8.) We should make condoms available throughout the Third World to fight AIDS.
9.) We should address the same-sex marriage issue by getting government out of the marriage business altogether, leaving it to churches and other religious institutions to decide who should be married and who shouldn’t. (No mention of children in this chapter or the ramifications such unions might have on them.)
10.) We should spend more on government schools.
11.) Christians should be offering sanctuary to all illegal immigrants.
12.) The U.S. should cut the military budget and expand wealth- redistribution programs.


The whole sickening new-Marxian, materialistic, utopian diatribe left me (Joseph Farah) wondering what work might be left for Jesus when he returns… Maybe you can ask Mr. Campolo when, inevitably, he or some other so-called Red Letter Christian comes to speak in your church, spreading not the good news of sacrifice, repentance, forgiveness of sin, personal accountability, spiritual renewal and rebirth but the bad news of collectivism, faith in government and moral relativism.

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.
The Enemies of Traditional America – 2
cinops be gone Sunday, April 27, 2008
In this election cycle we are going be bombarded with all kinds of suave political and religious books that will try to persuade you that if you are religious in any way; vote for a secular America and put your faith in Government. The following is for the archives of left-wing religious indoctrination thanks to Joseph Farah’s review of the book in the Washington Times Weekly, March 17, 2008, p. 32

The book is by Bill Clinton’s spiritual adviser. (Don’t laugh!) Tony Campolo’s Red Letter Christians. Christians have been paying enough attention to issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, homosexual indoctrination in schools etc. Start paying attention to what the Bible teaches about poverty, the environment, global warming, and social injustice.

1.) Capital punishment is wrong, despite the clear, unequivocal biblical commandments to take life for life.
2.) Most Christians are too war-like and guilty of not loving their enemies.
3.) Universal health care should be provided by the government.
4.) Poverty should be eliminated by the U.S. government, not just in the U.S. but throughout the world.
5.) The minimum wage should be increased significantly.
6.) The U.S. should sign the Kyoto Protocol as a step toward solving the phantom crisis of global warming.
7.) The U.S. should pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and address the real problem of terrorism by creating a Palestinian state and addressing the root cause: poverty.
8.) We should make condoms available throughout the Third World to fight AIDS.
9.) We should address the same-sex marriage issue by getting government out of the marriage business altogether, leaving it to churches and other religious institutions to decide who should be married and who shouldn’t. (No mention of children in this chapter or the ramifications such unions might have on them.)
10.) We should spend more on government schools.
11.) Christians should be offering sanctuary to all illegal immigrants.
12.) The U.S. should cut the military budget and expand wealth- redistribution programs.


The whole sickening new-Marxian, materialistic, utopian diatribe left me (Joseph Farah) wondering what work might be left for Jesus when he returns… Maybe you can ask Mr. Campolo when, inevitably, he or some other so-called Red Letter Christian comes to speak in your church, spreading not the good news of sacrifice, repentance, forgiveness of sin, personal accountability, spiritual renewal and rebirth but the bad news of collectivism, faith in government and moral relativism.

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

The Enemies of Traditional America - 1

The Enemies of Traditional America – 1
cinops be gone Saturday, April 26, 2008
According to National Public Radio, a group funded by billionaire George Soros and his wealthy friends plan to spend 100 million dollars attacking pro-life John McCain. It is no accident that there are now 400,000 fewer abortions in America each year than there were in 1990. One important reason is that we have elected lawmakers who passed hundreds of laws across America that give unborn babies a better chance to live. If pro-life loses in 2008, here is what to expect:

1. Appointment of pro-abortion justices to any vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court.
2. Passage of the so-called “Freedom of Choice Act,” eliminating all state and federal laws restricting abortion.
3. Eliminate the federal ban on partial-birth abortion.
4. Eliminate the Hyde Amendment, resulting in tax funding of abortion on demand.
5. Eliminate laws giving parents the right to know if their minor daughter is going to have an abortion.
6. Repeal conscience clause laws protecting medical professionals who oppose abortion.
7. Eliminate laws guaranteeing a woman a right to know the facts before she decides whether to have an abortion.
8. Perform abortions in military hospitals.
9. Fund abortion in federal health programs for American Indians.
10. Divert massive funding from international health care programs to international groups that advocate and perform abortions.
11. Make it a foreign policy objective to eliminate laws protecting against abortion around the world, using our aid to pressure pro-life countries.
12. Cripple or shut down crisis pregnancy centers which provide services to help women carry their babies to term.
13. Force taxpayers to pay for abortion on demand through a nationalized health care system.

Thank you for the above; Wanda Franz, PH.D., President of the National Right to Life Political Action Committee, March 26, 2008. www.nrlpac.org
++++++++++++++++++++++
If it is not one thing, it is something else. The following is from Bill May, Catholics for the Common Good. 415-651-4171 --- 415-738-0421 (Fax) Strong Response Needed to the New Kill-the-Ill Bill AB 2747 which was the focus of Catholic Lobby in Sacramento, California on April 22nd

“After a stunning setback with the demise of their physician-assisted suicide bill last year, California duo of death, Assembly Members Patti Berg and Lloyd Levine, are back with a sinister and barbaric bill designed to confuse and sneak a platform for assisted suicide through the legislature.”

What is disgusting with the above is that Patti Berg is a Catholic-in-name-only-politician. She is setting a bad example for other Catholics and authentic Catholic identity. It is another reason to vote out of office the CINOP in 2008.
On AB 2747 - Contact your legislator – http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Laura Ingraham

Laura Ingraham
cinops be gone Thursday, April 24, 2008
Before we write in detail on the many enemies of traditional America and their war against traditional America, let us focus on a breathe of fresh air in the public arena. Laura is a warrior for righteousness. She is on 340 radio stations coast to coast. In our area of Orange County she is on in the morning on KLAC Talk Radio 870 from 6 to 9 A. M.

Thank you Focus on the Family’s monthly Citizen May 2008 issue for headlining her work. Laura’s radio control room is stacked with every kind of music. Her favorite song is “Amazing Grace.” “Music helps me reward myself of what’s important, these important truths of life. It takes me away from the kind of the lunacy of the moment in politics. I think sometimes we’re so in the death struggle of this cultural, political battle we’re in that we have to … I think God wants us to proceed in our lives with as much optimism and joy a possible.”

“We’re all going to here for a blink of an eye – a very short time. So, you know, make it matter.” Many have called her “one of the brightest and most articulate observers of culture today.” Laura is a convert to Catholicism.

At Dartmouth College she was the first woman to run the university’s conservative Dartmouth Review. She earned a reputation for hard-hitting reporting that was decidedly incorrect. She did a two-year stint as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House, and then got a law degree from the University of Virginia where she was notes editor of the Law Review and after graduation; she clerked for U.S. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas.

As a host of her own show on MSNB called Watch It! the series quickly tanked, and Ingraham has since joked it should have called Watch It Get Canceled! Her time at CBS was also over quickly – but she’s rebounded quite nicely in her TV career, as a frequent analyst on shows like Hannity & Colmes and as a frequent guest host on The O’Reilly Factor.

Laura daily rails against the cultural “elites” on her radio show and in the New York Times best selling 2003 book, Shut Up and Sing. “Being an elitist is more of your state of mind …. It’s really about whether you have more trust and faith in the common sense of the American people than the Harvard faculty.”

Ingraham’s most recent book in 2007 is Power to the People which focuses on what she calls the “pornification” of America. “If you believe in your heart of hearts that traditional families and traditional values and politics that put America on the map are right, then there is no reason not to stand proudly for those principles.” “ Maybe start a book club. Start a club that gets together and talks about some of these issues that affect the country and conservatism. Try to find someone who will run for local school board or state Senate.”

For example, in our area of California it would be not voting for Catholic-in-name-only politicians State Senator Lou Correa and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez in 2008. Laura has many great ideas in her book. You can visit Laura Ingraham’s website: www.lauraingraham.com
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Catholic Excuses - 3 - 21

Catholic Excuses – 3 – 21
cinops be gone – Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Why do Catholics support the Democratic Party in spite of its strong commitment to anti-Christian agenda of secularism and moral liberalism?
Let’s us continue to check out the answers from David Carlin’s book, “Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?” # 21 from Chapter 5 - Catholic Excuses p. 109-112

25. Many Catholic Democrats have never even considered that there might be an incompatibility between their political and religious identities.

26. It’s no doubt true that by now many regular Catholics churchgoers, if they were Democrats in the first place, have abandoned the party.

27. Catholic and a Democrat have never been problematic. It’s a family trait to register Democrat.

28, But how can this be – that a serious, practicing Catholic will also be a serious, practicing Democrat?

29. Yes, people can be unaware of the agenda. (Example, California’s homosexual agenda in public elementary education and promotion of same-sex marriage)

30. When Democratic candidates for U.S. House or Senate turn up to speak to folk of your kind, they don’t emphasize their pro-abortion and pro-gay credentials.

31. They talk about social security, health care, education for your grandchildren.

32. For fund raising they save their pro-abortion talks at Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

33. You can be relatively ignorant of the Church’s strong opposition to abortion and same sex-marriage. But the Church’s opposition to contraception mustn’t be a great deal. You never hear about it in sermons. Catholics can be confused.

34. The average Catholic Democrat in the pew can hardly be blamed for concluding that the Church is barely more serious about abortion and homosexuality than it is about contraception.

Eureka! We have found the norm and the standard for our lives. It is living and loving in union with the Church as enunciated by Pope Benedict XVI’s Christ is our hope visit to America. It is also in union with the Catechism and the universal principles of common sense, reason and natural law. The CINOP is deliberately blind to all of this. His defeat in this year’s election would be part of his conversion.

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish or Vietnamese.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft - 5 Quest. - 1

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft – 5 Questions – 1
cinops be gone Tuesday, April 22, 2008
I am going to jump ahead to the questions at the end of this talk (side 2) given at the C.S. Lewis Summer Conference. These questions are appropriate for this past week of Pope Benedict’s visit to America.

1. Based on the assimilation of Christ is it important to be baptized and then receive communion or can I walk into the Church and receive communion?
The New Testament does not clearly answer that question. It does however command us to be baptized and it also commands us to receive the Lord’s Supper. So to find the answer to that question, you can do one of two things. If you are a Protestant, you go into the New Testament more deeply and secondarily you consult your Christian brethren and sister. If you are a Catholic you look at the New Testament and you see that Jesus established a Church with the authority to teach in his name and you ask where is that Church and what does the Church say?

3. Why has the Church been so fearful of the imagination?
The Church is fearful of the imagination today because she is not very good at it. She feels inferior. We have done a good job in competing with the world intellectually and morally. We have not done a good job in competing with the world in terms of beauty.

Our theology of heaven for example is very good. And our morality about the difference heaven should make for this life is very good and our morality about the difference heaven should make for this life is very good but our pictures are not moving pictures, as once they were in the Middle Ages.

Maybe it has something to do with Puritanism. I don’t know where the imagination was divorced from the rest of Christian life and of course we had to turn the clock back because it is keeping bad time.

But throughout history even in paganism, there was a suspicion of the imagination. Plato and Augustine spoke vociferously against the theatre not just because of its content but because of its form. Frankly, I don’t know whether they are right or not.

Obviously, I love Shakespeare. I love Beethoven and I dislike the Puritan suspicion of all the works of the imagination and even of the theatre as an institution. But on the other hand, it’s certainly not merely an accident that the theatre like lawyers has always had a bad reputation and the butt of jokes throughout history.
I suppose it’s like sex. It is something very beautiful and therefore very dangerous and corruptia optima passima (the corruption of the best things are the worst things). So if we see a very big bad thing like Hollywood, look for the very good thing that they are corrupting and do it better than they do, and boy will we have power?
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Monday, April 21, 2008

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft - 4

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft - 4
cinops be gone Monday, April 21, 2008
Let us jump to side 2 of this classic tape of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity.
Here are the words of Peter Kreeft: “Dying without Christ; that is not going to do it: Only Christ on the cross is going to do it.
Finally be an amateur not a professional. A professional is a prostitute…. I sell wisdom for a fee. Boston College is my (panderer). Socrates would say that. But I philosophy even if I weren’t paid for it. Now, I don’t believe there is going to economists or money in heaven, I think there is going to be philosophers in heaven so that is why I am a philosopher.

I am a conservative. I like job security even after death. So be a lover, be an amateur, and don’t be a scholar of love. I had a friend believe it or not. This sounds like a joke. This is a true story.

I had a friend who is a philosopher. He got a PH.D and didn’t take a teaching job. He wrote to me a few years later from the University of Toronto, I believe getting another PH.D in Psychology. I said why did you get a PH.D in Psychology? Well, I discovered the works of Freud. I thought that sex was important, so I should study more about it. I thought that was kind of funny.

He reminded a little bit of the bishop in chapter 6 of the Great Divorce or like the theologian in the famous story, who died and God gave him the choice of going to heaven or going to a theology lecture on heaven and of course, he chose the lecture.
Or like the Pharisees in the New Testament who Jesus said you search the Scriptures because you believe that in them you have eternal life and yet I am the life and I stand before you and you don’t come to me.
I am Juliet and you’re Romeo. You’ve got your nose in the picture of Juliet and Juliet is knocking at the door and says come to me Romeo. And you say I am too busy looking at the picture of my beloved.

Jesus says I am the truth: The three most important cultures in the ancient world were Greek, Roman and Jewish. The three that have lasted have three different words for truth.
The Greek word Alethea means not forgetfulness or remembering. It’s an intellectual word. The Roman Latin word for truth, Veritas is a practical moral word. It means rightness in thought. The Hebrew word Emet is a personal quality, a person is true, truth for himself, has integrity, and keeps his promises. It’s a quality of God.
Knowing the truth alethea is necessary but not sufficient. It would be sufficient if the truth were an idea, as Plato thought, even living the truth; doing the truth though necessary even more necessary is also insufficient. It would be sufficient if the truth were a value or a law or a good that’s abstract.
Truth is a person. So we must be that person. The Lord said I am the truth. So the meaning of life is to become little Christs and that’s the point of the final chapter of this section of Mere Christianity incorporation into Christ. It is like eating. In the Eucharist, we are assimilated into Christ and all of life is a Eucharist. And now you have paid your dues and you get to ask questions.”
George H .Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate in Spanish or Vietnamese.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

How Jesus entered Pope Benedict XVI's Life

How Jesus entered Pope Benedict XVI’s Life
cinops be gone Sunday, April 20, 2008
How Jesus entered my life: I met him first not in literature or philosophy, but in the faith of the Church. That means that from the beginning he was not, for me, an important figure from the past (like Plato or Thomas Aquinas, for example), but someone who lives and works today, someone we can meet today.

It means, above all, that I have learned to know him within the history of the Faith that originates in him, to see him as faith sees him in its most enduring formulation by the Council of Chalcedon. In my opinion, Chalcedon is a great and most courageous reduction of an extremely complex and multilayered fund of Tradition to a single, central and fundamental statement:

Son of God, possessed of one nature with God and one nature with us. In contrast with the many other possibilities that have been broached in the course of history, Chalcedon interpreted Jesus theologically; I regard that as the only interpretation that can do justice to the whole spectrum of Tradition and can bear the full implications of the phenomena.

Every other interpretation is, in some way, too restricted; every other concept includes one part of the truth and excludes another. Here, and here alone, is the whole truth revealed. Ultimately, everything else derives from this interpretation.

First of all Jesus and the Church are, for me, as impossible to separate as they are impossible to identify one with the other. Jesus is always infinitely transcendent to the Church. It was not through Vatican Council II that we first learned that, as Lord of the Church, he is also her standard. I have always regarded this truth as both consolation and challenge.

As consolation because we have always known that the scrupulosity of the rubricists and the legalists does not have its source in Jesus, in that infinite magnanimity that comes to us from the words of the Gospels like a fresh breeze and collapses all excessive literalness like a house of cards. We have always known that nearness to him is as totally independent of the ecclesiastical rank one may hold as of one’s knowledge of juridical and historical details.

That has enabled me to look upon external details with a corresponding ease of mind. To that extent, the person of Jesus has always been for me a source of optimism and liberation. On the other hand, I have never been able to ignore the fact that, in many respects, he asks more of me than the Church would ever dare to ask, that the radicalism of his words can be equated only with the kind of radicalism displayed by Anthony, the Desert Father, and Francis of Assisi in their wholly literal acceptance of the Gospel.

If we do not do that, we have already taken refuge in casuistry, and cannot escape the corroding restlessness, the knowledge, that, like the rich young man, we have turned away when we should have taken seriously the words of Gospel.

All of the above is entry April 20th from Co-Workers of the Truth, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1992, p. 20-22
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate in to Spanish or Vietnamese.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

The Pope's Pursuit of the Truth

The Pope’s Pursuit of the Truth
cinops be gone Saturday, April 19, 2008
FROM POPE JOHN PAUL II ENCLYCLICAL – VERITAS SPLENDOR

SPLENDOR OF TRUTH
Section 88: The attempt to set freedom in opposition to truth, and indeed to separate them radically, is the consequence, manifestation and consummation of another more serious and destructive dichotomy, that which separates faith from morality.
This separation represents one of the most acute pastoral concerns of the Church amid today’s growing secularism, wherein many, indeed too many, people think and live “as if God did not exist.” We are speaking of a mentality which affects, often in a profound, extensive and all-embracing way, even the attitudes and behavior of Christians, whose faith is weakened and loses its character as a new and original criterion for thinking and acting in personal, family and social life. In a widely dechristinanized culture, the criteria employed by believers themselves in making judgments and decisions often appear extraneous or even contrary to those of the gospel.

Section 112: The moral theologian must therefore exercise careful discernment in the context of today’s prevalent scientific and technical culture, exposed as it is to the dangers of relativism, pragmatism and positivism. From the theological viewpoint, moral principles are not dependent upon the historical moment in which they are discovered. Moreover, the fact that some believers act without following the teachings of the Magisterium, or erroneously consider as morally correct a kind of behavior declared by their Pastors as contrary to the law of God, cannot be a valid argument for rejecting the truth of the moral norms taught by the Church. The affirmation of moral principles is not within the competence of formal empirical methods….
In fact, while the behavioral sciences, like all experimental sciences, develop an empirical and statistical concept of “normality,” faith teaches that this normality itself bears the traces of a fall from man’s original situation – in other words, it is affected by sin. Only Christina faith points out to man the way to return to “the beginning” (cf. Mt 19:8), a way which is often quite different from that of empirical normality. Hence the behavioral sciences, despite the great value of the information which they provide, cannot be considered decisive indications of moral norms. It is the Gospel which reveals the full truth about man and his moral journey, and thus enlightens and admonishes sinners; it proclaims to them God’s mercy, which is constantly at work to preserve them both from despair at their inability fully to know and keep God’s law and from the presumption that they can be saved without merit. God also reminds sinners of the joy of forgiveness, which alone grants the strength to see in the moral law a liberating truth, a grace-filled source of hope, a path of life.

Section 113: Teaching moral doctrine involves the conscious acceptance of these intellectual, spiritual and pastoral responsibilities. Moral theologians, who have accepted the charge of teaching the Church’s doctrine, thus have a grave duty to train the faithful to make this moral discernment, to be committed to the true good and to have confident recourse to God’s grace.
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish or Vietnamese.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Thank You - Zenit.org

Thank You – Zenit.org
cinops be gone Thursday, April 17, 2008
First: You (Zenit.org) are making it possible for all Americans to read or run off almost all of Pope Benedict’s addresses on his historic visit to America. I am looking at 1) Press Conference Aboard Papal Flight 2) Bush’s Welcome to Benedict XVI 3) Pontiff’s Address at White House 4) Benedict XVI’s Address to US Bishops on Wednesday, April 16, 2008.
Secondly: Thank you Hugh Hewitt on talk radio 870AM KLAC 3 to 6 P.M. on Wednesday, April 16, 2009. We were able to listen to what Bill Maher said on his Real Time with Bill Maher on his Friday night HBO Show. Bill ridiculed in a most filthy manner possible Pope Benedict’s visit to America and the Catholic Church.
Bill is an ex-Catholic who is a deeply angry, offensive person and not a funny man. He has an attention deficit with a dirty mouth. Besides calling the Pope a Nazi and a cult leader for child abuse, this idiot is getting away with anti-Catholic hate speech and stupid bigotry. If he had said this of the Jewish or Moslem faith or even the gays, he would have been off the air the next day. This is a matter I will deal with in another letter.
Thirdly: Thank you Pope Benedict XVI for publishing Your Meditations for Every Day of the Year, “Co-Workers of the Truth.” Ignatius, San Francisco, 1992.
Your meditation for April 16th is most appropriate for today. Here are excerpts:
“… Christ is raised! In old chronicles we read how the faithful in Russia used to embrace each other with this greeting. They had undergone tangible renunciation during the period of Lent, and now that this period was over, they experience a real, immense overflowing of joy.
“By entering into the rhythm of the Church’s year they knew quite tangibly that life had triumphed and that life was beautiful. We still celebrate Easter today, of course, but the grey veil of doubt has spread over the heart of Christendom, robbing us of joy….
“What would it mean if Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus, had not taken place? Would it mean just one more corpse, insignificant among the statistics of world history, or would there be more to it? Well, if there were no Resurrection, the story of Jesus would have ended with Good Friday….
“But that would mean that God does not take initiatives in history, that he is either unable or unwilling to touch this world of ours, our human living and dying. And that in turn would mean that love is futile, nugatory, an empty and vain promise. It would mean that there is no judgment and no justice. It would mean that the moment is all that counts and that right belongs to the cunning, the crafty and those without consciences.
“There would be no judgment. Many people, and by no means only wicked people, would welcome that because they confuse judgment with petty calculations and give room to fear than to trusting love.
“This is the motivation for the passionate efforts made to remove Easter Sunday from the pages of history, to “get behind” it and stop history with Good Friday. But these escape attempts result, not in redemption, but in the dreary kind of joy of those who regard God’s justice as something dangerous and therefore wish it did not exist.
“All this makes clear what Easter does mean: God has acted. History does not go on aimlessly. Justice, love, truth – these are realities, genuine reality. God loves us; he comes to meet us.

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Pope Benedict's Christ is Our Hope

Pope Benedict’s Christ is Our Hope
cinops be gone Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Significant notes on Pope Benedict XVI’s arrival in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 from Fox News Chanel and EWTN. (In the docket for the next five days - Raymond Arroyo, Father Richard Neuhaus, and Supreme Grand Knight Carl Anderson) (Ask questions via papalvisit@EWTN.com )
Nancy Brinker, U.S. Chief of Protocol was the first person to greet the pope. She shared and was very touched with Pope Benedict’s arrival. The pope has a real presence and amazing energy. He was very engaged with everyone.
1. A choir of children was singing happy birthday to him even though his birthday is tomorrow. (81 years)
2. There were 5000 military families at the Tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base.

3. Security details are very high for Washington and New York city for the next five days of Benedict’s historic mission which is Christ Our Hope.
4. Flowers were changed by Mrs. Bush at the White House to yellow and white tulips to match the Vatican flag.
5. Also on Fox News, there was an interview with a David B. about a report that shows that 112 billion dollars is the cost to taxpayers for divorce and child care in America. Marriage is downgraded, children out wedlock, people who never marry, all of this is not normal and we pay a price. President Bush is especially committed to faith-based initiatives to strengthen marriages and families.

6. Benedict will be talking about moral issues that impact our individual lives, the country and the world. As the Vicar of Christ on earth, he is a spiritual father. He is Peter among us, the 265th pope. He builds on the world-wide mission of Pope John Paul II in America and throughout the world.
7. Americans will have a chance to get to know him better. He is a true intellect. and makes thinks understandable to you. When you are with him, it feels like you are the only person in the room. (Father Jim Lisante)
8. Raymond stated that our culture is superficial and attached to image. This pope is an authentic spiritual entity who will resonate with Americans.
9. He did not want to be pope, but now seems to enjoy it. He was always a priest and a professor at heart. He has an Augustinian approach with a quest for the absolute. “… our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
10. Benedict wants us to concentrate on the truth and Jesus who is truth, the way and the light.

11. The Church is engaged in a global dialogue with Moslems and secularist.
The Holy Spirit gives us the pope for our times. God is love, charity and reason. We react with others via the Good Samaritan and the Beatitudes and personal sacrifice for our neighbors. (Carl Anderson)
12. The rest of the week will be exciting for all Americans. Christ is our hope
and that is the center of it all.
13. Pope Benedict comes as Pope John Paul II did when he visited the White
House in 1979: “Come to help America fulfill its noble destiny for the world.” “To do what is right and not what you want to do.”
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

President George W. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI

President George W. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Interview by EWTN’s anchor Raymond Arroyo with President George. W. Bush:

Bush is planning an all-out welcome for the Pope who arrives in the U.S. on Tuesday for a five day visit. (April 15 -20) Historically, Bush will go to the airport to receive the Holy Father, a courtesy he has never extended to any visiting leader.
Why? The president says he plans to do this “because {the Pope} is really an important figure in a lot of ways. One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn’t come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith. And, three, that I so subscribe to his notion that there’s right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies, that I want to honor his convictions, as well.”

The Holy Father, Bush said, “ represents and stands for some values that I think are important for the health of the country, and when he comes to America, millions of my fellow citizens will be hanging on his every word. And that’s why it’s important.”

“One of the tenets of my foreign policy is that there is an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child is freedom. And, you know, His Holiness speaks with that kind of clarity.”

In 2001, President Bush met with then-Pope John Paul II who encouraged him not to endorse federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. President Bush was vindicated because adult stem cells have now produced 80 – cures for 80 different diseases.

There were questions about the Olympics, Iraq war and Iraq refugees who are now in neighboring countries and they number 40% Christians.

On Christian minority rights, Bush said that, “something we have doing all along, is urging the government to understand that minority religious rights are a vital part of any democratic society. And by the way, my concern isn’t just for minority rights in Iraq; it’s for minority rights throughout the Middle East.”

In closing, may I remind you about the relationship between President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II? How together directly and indirectly, they undermined and brought about the overthrow of the Russian Communist empire.
It happened. You can check it out because others have written about it.

In America, it is moral relativism that is the cancer. Pope Benedict has spoken about its effects in Europe. Also, that reason and common sense persuade that Moslem countries need to give other religions, minority rights. Finally, if you check out President Bush’s record on pro-life issues, you would give him a B+. Also, if the president sees God in the eyes of this pope, we would see a saint and we are called to be saints.

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish or Vietnamese.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Barack Obama - 1

Barack Obama - 1
cinops be gone Monday, April 14, 2008
In his own words:
At a privately held fundraiser in San Francisco, Sunday, April 6, 2008:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama said at an April 6 fundraiser; according to an audio recording on the Huffington Post Web site.
“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy to people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” said Obama.

“If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that.” Obama said in an interview with the Winston (N.C.) Journal.

The freshman senator told reporters in July that he would overcome Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lead in the polls because “to know me is to love me.” A few months later, he said, “Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama’s been there.” He was surely kidding when he told supporters in January that by the time he was done speaking “a light will shine from somewhere.” “It will light upon you,” he continued. “You will experience an epiphany. And you will say to yourself, I have to vote for Barack. I have to do it.”

In the words of this writer:

The definition of arrogance is an offensive display of superiority or self-importance; an overbearing pride. Also, for those Democrats who voted for Republican ex-Democrat Ronald Reagan in the past, Obama is no Ronald Reagan.

From Lifenews.com Washington, D.C. 3/6/2008:
Obama has come under strong condemnation from pro-life groups because he not only supports abortion but has repeatedly attempted to justify it as compatible with Christian views. “I think that the bottom line is that in the end, I think women, in consultation with their pastors, and their doctors, and their family, are in a better position to make these decisions than some bureaucrat in Washington.” “Again, I respect people who may disagree, but I certainly don’t think it makes me less Christian. Okay.” the Democratic presidential candidate added.

In the words of Thomas Sowell, Columnist, Orange County Register, April 9/08:

“Whenever I see one of Barack Obama’s smooth performances, it reminds me of a saying from my old neighborhood in Harlem: “An eel is like sandpaper compared to you…. There is no question that Barack Obama is a clever and glib fellow. There is no question that some of the most foolish, dangerous and horrific things done around the world in the past 100 years have been done by clever and glib fellows.”
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish or Vietnamese.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Catholic Excuses - 2 - 20

Catholic Excuses – 2 – 20
cinops be gone Sunday, April 13, 2008
Why do Catholics support the Democratic Party in spite of its strong commitment to anti-Christian agenda of secularism and moral liberalism? We are not talking about prudential issues in which all Christians can disagree. We are talking about absolute evils in our culture; the promotion of abortion on demand (infanticide), assisted-suicide, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research and same-sex marriage. These are moral and intellectual icebergs for anyone supporting a Catholic-in-name-only politician.

Answers from David Carlin’s book, Can a Catholic Be a Democrat? # 20 from Chapter 5 – Catholic Excuse p. 106- 109

13. We have denominational mentality. “Thinking for myself” is more important than dogma.

14. Becoming theological tolerant and un-dogmatic.

15. A weakened belief that the Catholic religion was the one true Faith; that their Catholic Church was the one true Church of Jesus Christ.

16. While not renouncing the one true Faith claim, the emphatically anti-Protestant tone that had characterized the Catholic Church since the Reformation in sixteenth century was discarded.

17. Catholics who had long been considered second-class Americans in a strongly Protestant country finally came into their own first-class Americans.

18. By 1970, American Catholics had pretty much let their “one true Faith” claim lapse.

19. Denomination mentality lessened your belief in the virgin birth, miracles, damnation and you are a decent person with any religious belief.

20. A false concept of conscience developed. It was up to you personal conscience to fornicate, divorce or have an abortion.

21. Not all Catholics adopted the denominational mentality but many Catholics did.

22. How can you call yourself Catholic when you dismiss dogma as thing of little or no consequence?

23. These think-for-yourself Catholics can come to the conclusion that abortion and homosexuality are morally permissible.

24. For the above it follows that the Democratic Party’s moral liberalism is one of its great merits.

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Living with the Church

Living with the Church
cinops be gone Saturday, April 12, 2008
Imagine living with the Church and the Catechism; living with common sense, reason and natural law: Is this an ideal and reality that we should look forward to? I believe this can be normal for any Catholic or other Christians.

This coming week a very special event will occur with the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI to America. This historic visit will be this Tuesday, April 15th to Sunday, April 20th. The whole visit will be covered by EWTN. It would be wise to listen carefully to what he has to say and the several interviews of him. He will be speaking to the United Nations and make other talks especially to the Presidents of Catholic Colleges and Universities in the United States.

Who is this Pope? May I share some comments made by Father Joseph Fessio S.J. Father Fessio is the senior theologian in residence at the Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida. (Hugh Hewitt, 870AM Talk Radio, April 1/08, 5-6 P.M.)
Father Fessio perceives Benedict as a wonderful, good and gracious man of the Church. The Pope has direction and a purpose. For him, Jesus is first and as the pope he must be faithful to Him. Benedict’s focus is on the gospel and the center of the life of the Church which is the Eucharist. The Mass and what it means with the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

On 7/7/07 with the Motu Proprio, Benedict made the old Mass much more achievable for all. He wants to establish continuity with the past.
He commits himself to lead the renewal and implement Vatican II in conformity with the 2000 year history of the Church.

We believe Jesus is the Son of the Father and is with us in a personal way. His body and blood as food and drink for us: God’s word is living and present to us in the Sacrifice of the Eucharist. Catholic worship in the Eucharist has grown.
He seeks to restore the Gregorian chant. He calls for new creativity to heal any rupture with the past. He wants to restore any loss of the sacred and traditional. Be as generous as possible to his message. Some people will hear it and others will not respond to it. He is not a prophet. He will surely commend the American people for their religiosity; will be apprehensive on any direction that is anti-life, family, and marriage.

Jesus is the Savior of all mankind. Benedict calls for religious freedom. It is common sense and freedom of conscience. During Easter, Benedict baptized a convert, a Moslem. Why are we afraid of a man choosing his religion? (Note in Saudi Arabia, you can’t bring a Bible into the country or build a Church.)
Benedict does not speak as an individual but in the name of Jesus Christ.
At Regensburg, Benedict stated that reason has to be open to the transcendent, to God. Islam believes that God is above reason and this allows for violence.
In his speech to the U.N., he may talk on moral principles accessible to all with different backgrounds. We need to fully accept God’s word, reason and the importance of natural law, justice, family life and marriage in society. Benedict is historically like Pope Leo the Great – theologically and culturally very wise. He stands firm and serene.
Finally, in closing, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson’s book, A Civilization of Love has an important message which is also normal and reasonable.
George H. Kubeck, duplicate and or translate into Spanish or Vietnamese.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Enemies of the Permanent Things

Enemies of Permanent Things - 1
cinops be gone Thursday, April 10, 2008
Dr. Russell Kirk is the author of the above book, published in 1969 by Arlington House, New Rachelle, New York. His analysis will help us understand a series of letters on The War against Traditional America and why Catholics and other Christians need to vote out of office Catholics-in-name-only politicians.
“This is a book about modern vices – that is modern flaws – and about norms, the standards by which we live…. For the most part, I am concerned with the modern defiance of enduring standards in literature and politics….my primary purpose is diagnostic…. 16
“When the moral imagination in enriched, a people find themselves capable of great things; when it is impoverished, they cannot act effectively even for their own survival, no matter how immense their material resources…. 17
“A norm means an enduring standard. It is a law of nature, which we ignore at our peril…. A man apprehends a norm, or fails to apprehend it; but he does not create or destroy important norms…. 17
“Standards erected out of expediency will be hurled down, soon enough, also out of expediency…. For half a century, we have been experiencing the consequences of moral and social neoterism: so, like the generation of Socrates and Thucydides in the fifth century, we begin to perceive that somehow we have acted on false assumptions. No, norms cannot be invented. All that we can do is to reawaken our consciousness to the existence of norms; to confess that there are enduring standards superior to our petty private stock of rationality…. 17
“With a man who maintains that he can discover no real standards for moral judgment of any sort, it is impossible to argue. Even Samuel Johnson, when told of a gentleman who maintained that virtue and vice are indistinguishable, observing, “Why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”… 19
“To awaken an apprehension of norms was the high endeavor of Socrates and Plato; it was a constant theme of the Christian divines; it weighed on the minds of the rationalists of the 18th century and the positivists of the 19th….
“Our first task here is the restoration of a proper vocabulary.
“A norm, I have said, is an enduring standard for private and public conduct. It is a canon of human nature. Real progress consists in the movement of mankind towards an understanding of norms, and toward conformity to norms.
Real decadence consists in the movement of mankind away from the understanding of norms, and away from the obedience to norms…. 20
“A norm has value, but has more than value. A norm endures in its own right, whether or not it gives pleasure to particular individuals. A norm is the standard against which any alleged value must be measured objectively.
“So much, just now, for definition. I am embarked upon a labor thoroughly conservative and thoroughly unpopular, the unabashed defender of traditional norms, and the unregenerate champion of prescriptive institutions – though they may have gained some ground in recent years – remain members of a Remnant. To be conservative is to be a conservator – a guardian of old truths and old rights. This rarely has been a popular office – not with the leaders of the crowd. 21
“George Bernard Shaw In Back to Methuselah (1912), Shaw recognized that if religion is lacking, human society becomes intolerable; for if no norms are observed, men behave like beasts from which they are ascended.”… 22
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Liberal and Marxist Bias

Liberal and Marxist Bias
cinops be gone Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Why do our students have to put up with liberal, and or Marxist bias on our campuses, high school and college? Should this be part of their education?
In some ways, their teachers are like parrots of a cult or secular religion. They indirectly indoctrinate their students with a new faith as their old faith is ridiculed and discarded. It is matter that needs to be discussed and resolved. Next to downgrading our history, I understand that the environment and global warming are two of their major beliefs and sacraments.

I recall during the Cold War with Communist Russia, we had these fellow travelers in the country, and in the teaching profession who were parroting and following the commie party line.(They were also known as useful idiots) Today’s liberals use political correctness to promote the liberal party line agenda.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had men of the caliber of the Founding Fathers in our midst? Even the wives of the Fathers are heroes. Let’s watch Abigail, the wife of President John Adams in the series now shown on HBO.
Put yourself into the footsteps of a Washington, Jefferson or Adams. They were wrong on slavery but right on almost everything else. The sad commentary of today’s America is that their writings are either ignored or depreciated by the politically correct News Media.

However, hope springs eternal. Particularly, if we want to survive the radical Islamist Jihadism and the market-improved authoritarianism of Communist China: Let us check out the article by George Weigel, The Edge: The West and the Rest .From newsletter@catholicexchange.com March 13, 2008.
In his book, Without Roots, Pope Benedict XVI deplored the addiction to historical self-depreciation rampant at the higher attitudes of European cultural and intellectual life: a tendency to see in the history of the West only “the despicable and the destructive.” The same can be said for America.

George Weigel says there are things that are right with Western civilization.
1. Openness: With the power of reason and search for truth unconstrained by political power, we have an open civilization in history that is closed elsewhere.
2. Freedom: Inalienable dignity of human life and freedom of belief and expression, the idea of human rights and that slavery is an abomination came to an end. Also the idea that women enjoy legal and political rights with men.
3. Knowledge: The Bible, universities, libraries, research and school open to all: openness and freedom of discussion, scientific inventions, living longer, thanks to the West’s technological creativity:
4. Generosity: Every major humanitarian initiative in modern human history, example the Red Cross, care for the physically handicapped, no forced marriage.
5. Beauty: Many cultures produce beautiful things only the West has produced Mozart, Bach, Michelangelo, Dante, Rembrandt, and Shakespeare….
6. Humor: Capable of making fun of itself. Mock pretensions and false piety.

Political correctness is a censorship of reason and common sense.
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate, and or translate into Spanish or Vietnamese.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Alexander Hamilton - Founding Father

Alexander Hamilton – Founding Father
cinops be gone Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Alexander Hamilton ought to be in the news again today. It would be a breath of fresh air for all America. As a Founding Father of our country, he wrote pages of wisdom in the Federalist papers.

There is so much more to this great American; his high standard of public service, his ideas, integrity and achievements.

Hamilton was an American by choice, and never owned any slaves.

During the War for Independence, Hamilton was an aide to General George Washington and was able to communicate with our French allies in their language. He was a key advisor to President George Washington’s eight years in office. He helped write Washington’s “Farewell Address.”

He was a great persuader in resolving conflicts and securing the passage of the Constitution in the various states. As Secretary of the Treasury he laid the foundation stones for our free enterprise system. He transformed the credit of the United States from the worst to the best.

His contributions to the development of the country’s justice system and freedom of the press are of the greatest significance. He was profoundly read in the law. In 1800, Hamilton persuaded the Electoral College voters to vote for William Jefferson over Aaron Burr, a certified scoundrel, as President of the United States. Four years later, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. He aimed to kill. Hamilton did not and died from the wound. We have a non-military public servant sacrificing his life for our country.

To sum Up: In the public sector Alexander Hamilton is a hero, a role model and a mentor. He was scrupulously honest. “Tis my maxim to let the plain naked truth to speak for itself.”… Perjury is no doubt, a most heinous crime.” Papers of A.H. Syrett, V. I, 65, 74. Modern historians do not like Hamilton. He is brilliant, politically incorrect, a Christian and a conservative.

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese

Monday, April 7, 2008

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft - 3

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft – 3
cinops be gone Monday, April 7, 2008
Continued from a talk given at the C.S. Lewis Summer Conference 2003. A tape from St. Joseph Radio – P.O. Box 2983, Orange, Ca. 92859 (714) 744-1998 –
www.stjosephradio.com This is a classic on Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity.

“Chapter 3 follows the image of the war; the title is, The Shocking Alternative. Here is Jesus who claims to be the son of the Emperor over the Seas who has landed to claim his rightful Kingdom and here we have perhaps Lewis’s famous effective argument in all of his works; the either God or a bad man argument about Christ himself which by the way was one of the oldest and most traditional arguments in the early Church Fathers: – Again Lewis’s secret of success is not being original:

“Chapter 4 entitled, The Perfect Penitent is really about the Church’s relation to us – about the atonement, about salvation and finally Chapter 5 Practical Conclusions is about our relation to Christ about the end of all religion as incorporation into Christ.

“Each of these 5 chapters shows a distinctive Lewis’s quality. These qualities could be expressed negatively or affirmatively. Our Culture brings 5 charges against C.S. Lewis.

“It blames him for 3 things, especially, it blames Mere Christianity not just the book but the reality. Imagine a court case. I am sure you have heard the famous saying. If you were brought to court on the charge of being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict you. Lewis answers, “Yep,” guilty as charged.

“Here are 5 charges often given to mere Christians. # 1 He is divisive. # 2 He is insensitive or unfeeling. # 3 He is simplistic. # 4 He is fanatical, probably the most withering criticism of the modern mind and there are these new F words. If you are a fanatic they will not listen to you. Finally, he is amateurish. I would like to defend these 5 characteristics.

“I would call them with nicer names. I would say he is confrontational instead of divisive; challenging instead of insensitive; clear instead of simplistic; Christ centric instead of amateurish.

“So if you like alliterative, confrontational, challenging, clear, Christ centric and concrete and more clearly, he is polemical. He gives you an either or, makes you choose. He is honest and blunt and rubs your nose In the truth. He is short and to the point and very clear. He is indeed Christo centric and finally he is utterly practical.” (To be continued)

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese

Sunday, April 6, 2008

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft - 2

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft – 2
cinops be gone Sunday, April 6, 2008

Continue from a talk given at the C.S. Lewis Summer Conference 2003. A tape from St. Joseph Radio – P.O. Box 2983, Orange, Ca. 92859 (714) 744-1998 –
www.stjosephradio.com This is a classic on Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity.

“There is another and easier way to outline, Mere Christianity by a single standard. A kind of psychological progression from what is easier to know to what is harder to know: The first part is about morality because that is easier to know than theology.
It is easier because it is about us. We have inside information which we don’t have about God. And it is easier because God deliberately left the human race much more knowledge of morality than of theology.

“The religions of the world contradicted very significantly in theology but less significantly in morality. God did this for rather obvious reasons. Morality is immediately necessary for our survival and sanity and it is the natural beginning of our knowledge of God.

“Scripture is not concerned with God’s existence but God’s character. What surprises us is not that God exists but that He is good. The knowledge of God from nature alone doesn’t lead too much of a knowledge of a true God or a good God. We see that in the book.

“Ecclesiastics for instance, where God’s existence is taken for granted but life remains vanity of vanities. Reason is also easier than Faith, more natural, a starting point. So we begin with doubly easy thing, morality known by reason than theology known by reason and experience as we are led to by that first things including reflection on the New Testament data; and then thirdly morality known by faith and finally theology known by faith.

“Within part II of Mere Christianity we have five chapters. The first is entitled The Rival Conception of God. These are the basic theological alternatives. First, Lewis forces us to choose between atheism and theism. And with some sort of theism between pantheism and creationism. And then within creationism between dualism and a single God and then in a later chapter 3 between other forms of deism and
Christian deism. He doesn’t give you a complete picture as a philosopher would; doesn’t for instance; look at agnosticism as a possibility or polytheism which is not much of a live option for modern westerners.

“The second chapter naturally follows from the moral dualism established in Chapter I where Lewis establishes the God behind the moral law and it’s entitled, The Invasion. And it’s about spiritual warfare, the warfare between good and evil.

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Pro-Life Democratic Governor Bob Casey

Pro-life Democratic Governor Bob Casey
cinops be gone Saturday, April 5, 2008
THIS IS THE GOVERNOR WHO WAS NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK AT THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION IN 1992:
On October 2, 1992, the Governor was scheduled to give a speech at the Cooper Union School in Pennsylvania. The title of his speech was titled, “Can a Liberal Be Pro-Life.” This school is a historic place where Presidents, Grant, Cleveland, Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt had spoken.

When Casey walked up to the platform, he was shouted down by pro-choice, pro-abortion protesters. He tried to silence the crowd but was unsuccessful and said, “The Democratic Convention suspended the First Amendment and tonight you did the same thing.”

It seems that every other class of underdog has enjoyed the advocacy and protection of the Democratic Party; the unborn children have been excluded.

“The gradual transformation to advocate for abortion rights, which began shortly after Roe, reached its pinnacle at the 1992 Democratic Convention when Governor Bog Casey was silenced. While many Democrats had left the party during the Reagan years, pro-life Democrats left in droves after 1992.”… p. 13

“Governor Casey had just been re-elected a Pennsylvania’s governor by more than a one million-vote margin, defeating a pro-choice Republican. He won 66 of 67 counties, a feat that has not been matched by any other statewide candidate…. He had an impressive reputation of advocating and caring for the weak, the poor, and disenfranchised.”… p. 14
“As governor, Bob Casey rebuilt and reinvigorated the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania.” … p. 15

“The theme of the 1992 Democratic Convention would be “unity and inclusion.”… However, “unity and inclusion” was not the message sent to pro-life Democrats, and instead the Democratic leadership sent a message that pro-life Democrats were not welcome in the big tent of the Democratic Party.”… p. 16

“In Casey’s book Fighting for Life he said, “I wasn’t looking to stir up rancor. All I wanted was a chance to speak to offer a strong dissent on the party’s historic commitment to protecting the powerless.”… A Casey aide proposed that the platform include language to make abortion rare. The language stated, “Democrats do not support abortion on demand and believe that the number of abortions should be reduced.” She, too, was cut off and treated with disrespect from other platform committee members.”… p. 18

The above from a book by Kristen Day, Democrats for Life, 2006, New Leaf Press. She is the executive director of Democrats for Life.
Please note that the son of Governor Casey is the Democratic Senator Bob Casey Jr. who is no chip off the old block? The CINOP Senator has endorsed last month a full-fledged pro-abortion presidential candidate Barak Obama.
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Liberal Game Plan for 2008

Liberal Game Plan for 2008
cinops be gone Thursday, April 3, 2008
Seven critical attacks planned against faith, family and freedom in 2008 that will require strong leadership by all and especially Family Research Council. (From a fund raiser request dated Dec. 3, 2007) frcpub@frc.org www.frc.org

1. “Hate Crimes” Legislation: In the last two sessions of Congress, left-wing leaders in the House and Senate have amended unrelated legislation as stealth covers to pass so-called “hate crimes” legislation. If they ever succeeded in getting this into law, opponents of the gospel will have a “legal” springboard to silence those who reject homosexual behavior.

2. “The Fairness Doctrine”: This regulation would require most radio stations
Severely limit or drop Rush Limbaugh, Dr. James Dobson, Sean Hannity, FRC’s Washington Watch Weekly, and other Christian and conservative hosts….

3. The Anti-Life Agenda: Partial-Birth Abortions, Embryonic Stem Cell,
and Cloning. The congressional liberal majority has sided with opponents of life on every major issue. FRC must uphold the sanctity of life on Capitol
Hill …. reaching the American public about it’s important.

4. Tax Increases: The liberal chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means
Committee, New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, just introduced the
Largest tax increase in our nation’s history. Our families will no be exempt.

5. Judicial Nominations: During 2006 and 2007, liberals succeeded in slowing
- not stopping entirely, but slowing a number of important judicial nominations. In 2008, FRC must apply heat to the Senate Judiciary Committee to fulfill its constitutional obligations to confirm judges. Also we need to be ready to act powerfully in the event of a Supreme Court vacancy.

6. “Hillary Care:” In 2007. FRC helped defeat a major expansion of federal
health care for the “poor” that would have paid for adults with substantial assets and income. One seventh of our economy is involved.

7. Religious Freedom: Throughout 2007, liberals launched attacks against
religious freedom. These included the Employment Non-Discrimination Act
(ENDA), a bill that would have elevated homosexual behavior over religious
conviction; new attacks on our nation’s Judeo-Christian memorials; the
refusal to acknowledge God on some official government certificates; an
attempt to purge many religious books from prisons; and others. In every case, FRC blew the whistle – but must remain vigilant in defense of our
most fundamental right.

Culture Up-date: One of the most flagrant insults to the citizens of San Diego and the citizens of California is when the San Diego Council voted 5-2 to honor the American Civil Liberties Union with a special day of recognition, even after the organization sued the city and collected $900,000 in taxpayer funds. From World Net Daily, Sat. March 29, 2008 – Http://www.worldnetdaily.com
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft - 1

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft – 1
cinops be gone Tuesday, April 2, 2008
Notes from a talk given at the C.S. Lewis Summer Conference 2003: A tape from St. Joseph Radio – P.O. Box 2983 – Orange, Ca. 92859 (714) 744-1998 – www.stjosephradio.com This is classic on Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity.

Introduction: One of the great things about C.S. Lewis is that he combines two things that are rarely combined – Logic and Imagination. Now the Narnia Story is the Space Trilogy and Until We have Faces which is my favorite book…. I loved his Socrates books which are published by University Press. The Unaborted Socrates and I understand that Peter is planning a new series of Socrates books in which Socrates examines some of the great philosophical figures of the past. Peter has written I think 40 odd books and has plans for a dozen more…

The Talk: Part II of Mere Christianity could be seen in context of the whole and then an overview of the contents of each of the five chapters of Part II. After that comes something a little more …. (Taping problem) almost all lectures I find are dull, almost all questions and answer sessions are interesting.

Mere Christianity is almost certainly Lewis’s most powerful book. It is also his least original and the two are connected. If you know the last page of Mere Christianity where he speaks about originality and says that the person who is the least original in all the history of the world is Our Lord himself. He says I come not to do my will but the will of my Father. When people ask me what book to read about Christianity after the New Testament, I say this is it.

There are two ways to explain the division of Mere Christianity into 4 parts. – one is from above and the other is from below. Divine Providence certainly organized it. They were written on four different occasions, four different years so they fit together not by Lewis’s planning but by God’s.

But from a human point of view … There are two ways to explain the division into four parts … On the other hand we can divide it systematically, logically and objectively, on the other hand we can divide it psychologically and subjectively.

First the logical or objective division; I shall use two standards of division corresponding to the two halves of religion, theology and morality, and the two halves of all human knowledge, theory and practice. And I shall combine this with another standard of division which could be called epistemology or how we know things and what do we know by human reason and what do we know by faith in divine revelation.

Thus the first part of Mere Christianity is morality known by reason which leads to the second part which is theology known by reason. The third part is morality known by Faith, distinctively Christian morality and the fourth part is theology known by Faith distinctively Christian theology focusing on the doctrine of the Trinity. (To be continued)

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Catholic Excuses - 1 # 19

Catholic Excuses – 1 # 19
cinops be gone Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Why do Catholics support the Democratic Party in spite of its strong commitment to the anti-Christian agenda of secularism and moral liberalism?

Answers from David Carlin’s book, Can a Catholic Be a Democrat? #19 from Chapter 5 – Catholic Excuses p. 103-106

1. Failure on the part of Catholic leadership

2, Ineffective communication to Catholics on the unequivocal Catholic
teaching on abortion and other culture of death issues.

3, Weak persuasion of CINOPS – Catholic –name-only politicians
who are supporting the secular and moral culture of death agenda?

4. Weaknesses in catechesis and liturgy.

5. Seminary formation and discipline of clergy

6. Slap in the wrist to high profile dissenters

7. Timidity and fear of offense to certain persons in the pews on matters pertaining to abortion and homosexuality.

8. Need to focus on regular Church goers. Preach the Catechism and most will applaud you.

9. Some clergy have sympathy for social justice and fairness for gay agenda items.

10. Sympathy for social justice agenda being best proclaimed by the Democrat Party.

11. Diocesan chancery is a bureaucracy with layers of liberal staff.

12. Many bishops and priests seem to be simply ignorant of the menace that secularism poses to their religion.

Election Update: Notes from Hugh Hewitt, Mon. March 31st Radio Talk Show 870 AM. 3– 6 P.M. On abortion by children: Obama who has a six and nine year old daughters said, “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

Also, Born Alive Infant Protection Act was passed in Congress years ago. A similar act was in the Illinois legislature and Barak Obama voted against it three times. (Former Pennsylvania’s Senator Santorium’s observation)

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.