Stabat Mater

The Church commemorates today the Sorrows of Our Lady. In the Holy Mass, the congregation recites or sings the Stabat Mater. This goes out to all mothers and mothers-to-be who are always heroic for us.

I'd say Mother = Heroic.

Special intentions for those mothers who are suffering at this time:

At the Cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,
now at length the sword has passed.

O how sad and sore distressed
was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.

Christ above in torment hangs,
she beneath beholds the pangs
of her dying glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep,
whelmed in miseries so deep,
Christ's dear Mother to behold?

By the Cross with thee to stay,
there with thee to weep and pray,
is all I ask of thee to give.

For the sins of His own nation,
She saw Jesus wracked with torment,
All with scourges rent:

She beheld her tender Child,
Saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.

Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?

O thou Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord:

Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.

Holy Mother! pierce me through,
in my heart each wound renew
of my Savior crucified:

Let me share with thee His pain,
who for all my sins was slain,
who for me in torments died.

Let me mingle tears with thee,
mourning Him who mourned for me,
all the days that I may live:

Let me, to my latest breath,
in my body bear the death
of that dying Son of thine.

Virgin of all virgins blest!,
Listen to my fond request:
let me share thy grief divine;

Wounded with His every wound,
steep my soul till it hath swooned,
in His very Blood away;

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
lest in flames I burn and die,
in His awful Judgment Day.

Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
by Thy Mother my defense,
by Thy Cross my victory;

When my body dies,
let my soul be granted
the glory of Paradise. Amen.

Latin text found here.

A consequence

Update:
I thought thought this would be a better lede:


Of having a saint for a mother:

Saint's daughter hopes to follow her mother's example of loving life

Laura Molla, daughter of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, is pictured during an interview with Catholic News Service. Her mother, an Italian doctor who sacrificed her own life for the life of her child, was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2004. (CNS/Nancy Wiechec)

By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Many people might say their mothers are saints but very few have an official church declaration to back it up.

Fifty-year-old Laura Molla, daughter of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, is one of those people.

St. Gianna, often called the "pro-life saint," was canonized in 2004 by Pope John Paul II for having put her unborn child's life before her own. In 1962, when she was pregnant with her fourth child, doctors discovered a large ovarian tumor that required surgery. Although surgical procedures at the time called for removal of her entire uterus, Gianna Molla, 39, insisted surgeons only remove what was necessary and allow her baby to live.

She pleaded with family and doctors: "If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate. Choose the child, I insist on it, save the baby."

Of legislated reproductive health programs. What else could it be? This did not stop "pregnancy crises" from happening.

Jill Stanek:

Planned Parenthood Naples began aborting today

This morning dawned with security guards and deathscorts ready and willing to usher mother in to the Naples, FL, Planned Parenthood to abort their babies....

After so many days

I was away in Bukidnon when I learned of Ted Kennedy's death. Even as I had wanted to check the Net for stories, the internet access there was at GPRS speed and so I did not.

Coming home from the seminar, I watched some clips of the funeral service and wondered what a great send-off it was for a man who seemed to have been on the wrong side of Catholic teaching most of his life. While I understand that we cannot judge the state of a person's soul (we read that Ted was visited by a priest many times during his last days, and so he may have 'fessed up, and that's that) and so the funeral mass was a most Christian/Catholic thing to do, I felt that perhaps some (even Catholics) would react to that liturgical event, maybe confused. But I left it at that and prayed for his soul.

Today I read Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture and the concerns I had then were given light.

In part, Lawler writes:

The great, unanswered question hanging over the congregation in Mission Church, and in the minds of the millions who watched the funeral Mass on television, was how the Catholic Church could arrange such a highly public tribute to a man who, over the years, was arguably the most powerful political opponent of the Catholic position on the central moral issue of our time: the battle to protect human life.

Read all here. Or here.

What Metallica rock can make me write

She says: 

MY high school classmates and I found a very good reason to support the Reproductive Health Care bill yesterday. Our argument doesn’t need to be articulated in words; we only have to bring those who oppose the passage of the bill to a charity center in Pasil, Cebu City.

At the Missionaries of Charity, we saw how unplanned pregnancy in a poverty-stricken household can bring to a child—poor nourishment and health disease. Those of us who have children knew what to tell them when we got back, and those of us who have none knew what to tell our mothers.

I would in fact come to a different realization:  that a legislated reproductive health and population development program (as the HB 5043 proposes) will only repeat the "bitter harvest of broken homes, shattered lives and a demographic winter that has replaced the old myth of an exploding population with the grim reality of irreversible depopulation."

The babies are brought to the center to be nursed back to health, she says.  But this is the way we treat the sick and elderly, to nurse them back to health, right?.  Why should unhealthy babies require less?   Most of those who get sick do not want to become sick.  They do not plan their illnesses, but they got sick nevertheless.  And when they do, we bring them to hospital to bring them back to health.  I am sure even if the sisters have their hands full, they are happy doing what they do.

How many children there now were born because of the failure of artificial contraception?  A one-night stand that turned "awry"?    How many kids are there because neighbors (and barangay health workers) have pressured the parents that they can no longer care for the additional children?  How many children were placed there because of changes in family circumstances, and not necessarily only because of lack of means?

Is it the sight of the malnourished kids that breaks our hearts (and think of the RH bill)?  But, how many children from rich families sick in hospital now appear similarly to those kids in the sisters' care center, and yet we never think that we could be better off without them, nor think of the RH bill?

Makes me think:  If what I write disgusts people, will the world be better off if my Mom and Dad did not have me, or if they had me, and still what I write disgusts people, would the world be better off if my government shut me up? 

No need to answer.

N.B.:  I don't like Metallica rock either.  But I probably won't think of the RH bill if I hear this noise, err ... music.  80's music rock!

...............................

Barbara Lilley writes why we should have children (from Mercator via IChooseLife):.

• Children keep you honest
• Children don't care if you're the perfect height or weight, just as long as you love them 
• Children keep you young 
• A hug from a child can warm your heart 
• Children show you your own negative qualities that need to be changed 
• A child's laugh makes you smile too (and sometimes even join in) 
• Children remind you how much fun colouring can be 
• One day, your child will be toilet-trained, your dog will forever need you to pick up after it 
• Children don't leave wet furballs lying around for you to step in 
• Breastfeeding brings you closer to your baby-it is not slavery. Scratch that-feeding your baby brings you closer to your baby-whether breast or bottle-fed 
• Children only kill desire in a marriage if you let them – get creative 
• Riding the merry-go-round with your children reminds you how to be a kid again 
• Little faces that light up when you walk through the door-whether you've been gone for five hours or five minutes 
• Snuggling in bed reading together 
• Crayon drawings on the refrigerator door 
• Swelling with pride at your child's accomplishments-whether it's learning to ride a bike or graduating from high school 
• Having someone to pass on family traditions to – or creating new ones 
• Mother's Day cards that say, “You're the best Mom in the whole world!” 
• Father's Day cards that read, “To the world's greatest Dad!” 
• Hugs and kisses, just because
  

"Social control"

Update: The second part involves the right-to-reply bill pending in Congress. The thesis being that RTR could impact on internet usage similarly to proposed cyberspace regulation. I commented on RTR in a previous blogpost.

Alexander Villafania writes part one of his "‘Social control’ better than legislation" in the PDI on September 6. If not for the heading Internet in the Philippines, and that the piece falls under technology, I would have thought it was about the Reproductive Health Bill. Well, it isn't, but it talks about the moves by Congress to regulate cyberspace in the Philippines through legislation.

An issue he writes of:

More than anything else, the said bill by Senator Madrigal also opens a can of worms, according to Winthrop Yu, a director for the Philippine Internet Commerce Society (PICS) who also spoke at the DLSU forum.

He stressed that if passed with the specific section on ISPs unrevised, the Anti-Child Pornography Bill could become a control mechanism for governments to look into private records of ISP clients, with the premise that the government is merely looking into alleged child pornography.

“That makes ISPs liable for alleged child pornography, which could stifle their business,” Yu said.

Privacy is a concern indeed. But this is pretty much one of the points raised by groups that oppose the proposed RHB in its present form. The choice of parents in many aspects cannot be too different from the privacy argument of those who oppose one way or the other proposed cyberspace regulations.

Congress does not want to be inconsistent. If it wants government to dictate choices of parents and families with respect to "reproductive health", why should it desire the opposite with regard to individual's choices in cyberspace?

Let's see what part two says.

Carbon footprint: still at it?

A news report says that the Cebu subsidiary of Ayala is pushing a "green" management system. Well and good. Then comes the part that says:

Carbon footprint

As part of its sustainability program, CHI will start calculating this year the carbon footprint—or the amount of carbon dioxide one generates, measured by the amount of electricity consumed, distance traveled on a motorized vehicle (car or plane)—of each employee. The activity is meant to raise the awareness of CHI employees on how their activities contribute to climate change.

Monera said CHI will eventually require employees to reduce their carbon footprint. But the company has to educate employees before establishing benchmarks and setting targets, he added.

What? They are still at it.

I have no problem with the protection of the environement, but as Steven Milloy says, despite "lack of evidence, the solitary term "man's carbon footprint" manages to concretize the notion of mankind producing indelible damage upon the Earth while in the process of stampeding its flora and fauna."

Milloy says:

CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas in the atmosphere that is measured in parts per million, or ppm. The vast majority of CO2 emissions, about 97 percent, comes from Mother Nature.

CO2 is nowhere near the most important greenhouse gas; water vapor holds that distinction. An astounding 99.9 percent of Earth's greenhouse gas effect has nothing to do with manmade CO2 emissions.

If that's not enough, we can look at graphs of the historical relationship between carbon dioxide and global temperature. Ice core data going back 650,000 years show that global temperatures increase before CO2 levels. Data from the 20th century indicate no particular relationship between CO2 emissions and global temperature.

Finally, there is no scientific proof that the current level of atmospheric CO2 or that levels projected by the United Nations -- about 700 ppm by 2095 if no greenhouse gas regulations are put in place -- has or will cause any harm to the environment.

Alarmist gloom-and-doom forecasts also are based on nothing more than the rankest speculation dressed up as computer models that remain wholly unverifiable.

Yet, despite all this lack of evidence, the solitary term "man's carbon footprint" manages to concretize the notion of mankind producing indelible damage upon the Earth while in the process of stampeding its flora and fauna.

For any effective critique of global warming hysteria, we have to move beyond these powerful yet baseless buzz words that undermine any rational case in which they are found.

For another protest about carbon footprint, see Wendell Krossa.

In part:

CO2 does not cause dangerous global warming. Rising levels of CO2 follow warming periods and do not precede or cause warming periods. See the Vostok Ice Core research at http://www.co2science.org/articles/V6/N26/EDIT.php (http://www.co2science.org/articles/V6/N26/EDIT.php) . Oceans, which hold 90 times the CO2 that is in the atmosphere, release CO2 as they warm and this increases atmospheric CO2 levels. The CO2 increases tend to lag behind warming periods by about 800 years.

CO2 is a tiny part of the greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect ( http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html (http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html) ). The warming effect of CO2 gets lost among other much larger natural climate drivers. Human emissions of CO2 are even tinier (1 part per 100,000 parts of the atmosphere) and a human fingerprint causing warming is even more lost among natural influences. The human contribution to climate warming, if it were statistically detectable, would amount to nothing more than “a fart in a hurricane”. Natural climate drivers with strong, clear correlations to warming/cooling periods include cosmic rays ( see Henrik Svensmark’s The Chilling Stars ), solar flare cycles, related cloud cover, ocean current decadal oscillations ( changing current patterns ), earth’s 100,000 year wobble, and others.

CO2 levels have been as high as 7,000 ppm in the past and no dangerous global warming occurred. During the Late Ordovician Period ( some 400 million years ago ) CO2 levels were 4,400 ppm and Earth was as cold as it is now.

There is no scientific reason for us to worry about contributing to increasing CO2 levels. We do not need to reduce our carbon footprint. We do not need to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere or decarbonize our economies. As the 31,000 plus scientists who signed the Protest Petition have stated, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth” ( http://www.petitionproject.org/ (http://www.petitionproject.org/) ).

To demonize carbon/CO2, as environmentalists have done, is to demonize life itself. This is ridiculous hysteria and entirely unscientific. The only way to fully understand this movement is to recognize that it is ideologically-driven extremism gone utterly mad. The real goal of green activism is to slow, halt, and even reverse economic growth and development. The anti-carbon movement uses carbon as a proxy to fight growth and the human enterprise. But the Green movement in demonizing carbon has become anti-green, anti-life, and anti-nature.

Way too much time in their hands

Or should it be: Way too much time WITH their hands.

UNESCO produced a 98-page report entitled "International Guidelines on Sexuality Education: An evidence informed approach to effective sex, relationships and HIV/STI education."

And as Foxnews reports:

U.N. Report Advocates Teaching Masturbation to 5-Year-Olds

Wednesday, August 26, 2009
By Joseph Abrams

NEW YORK — The United Nations is recommending that children as young as five receive mandatory sexual education that would teach even pre-kindergarteners about masturbation and topics like gender violence.

The U.N.'s Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a 98-page report in June offering a universal lesson plan for kids ranging in age from 5-18, an "informed approach to effective sex, relationships" and HIV education that they say is essential for "all young people."

The U.N. insists the program is "age appropriate," but critics say it's exposing kids to sex far too early, and offers up abstract ideas — like "transphobia" — they might not even understand.

"At that age they should be learning about ... the proper name of certain parts of their bodies," said Michelle Turner, president of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, "certainly not about masturbation."

Turner was disturbed by UNESCO's plans to explain to children as young as nine about the safety of legal abortions, and to advocate and "promote the right to and access to safe abortion" for everyone over the age of 15.

"This is absurd," she told FOXNews.com.

Sister Toldjah wrote about this too and I link to her comment about what is also happening in the US.

I wish I could say that I was shocked by that report on the UN, but I’m not – because it’s the very same thing advocated by SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) – an organization which boasts they they “provide countless resources to help educators, advocates, and parents secure supportive public policies, provide high quality education, and help our youth become sexually healthy” – in their “Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education (pages 51-52).”

And SIECUS aren’t the only “sex ed” organization out there that promotes the sexualization of our children at very young ages. I’ve written about others here.

While I’m deeply concerned about what the UN is pushing for, I’m even more concerned about what’s being taught on the sex ed front here in America. If you have a child who is enrolled in the public school system, it goes without saying that you should keep a close eye on what they’re studying and learning – especially as it relates to sex education. It’s unfortunate, but these days you simply can’t just trust that a school system will have the best interests of your child at heart. Stay alert, stay informed, and most importantly, stay in tune with your child’s course load. Sometimes the only thing standing between them and certain “progressive” educators who think they know best how to “prepare” your child for the “real world” is you.

I am continuing to sound the alarm on RP's Reproductive Health Bill.

Give and take

While the "demand" for hybrid engines, batteries, and cars rise, the supply for components for these engines and batteries should decrease as well. It is a give and take. What happens when the supply is lost? Reuters reports, in part:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.

That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells.

Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed. One promising U.S. source is a rare earths mine slated to reopen in California by 2012.

Among the rare earths that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines.

Read all here.

Babies without sex

Picked up from Jill's Quote of the Day:

A child is not a right. Unfortunately in todays society, children are seen as product to be had rather than gifts. If you don't want that product, you may abort it. If you want that product, we can create one in a lab for you. The problem that the Church has with IVF is the same problem it has with contraception; it destroys and separates the two aspects of the conjugal act, the unitive and the pro-creative. Contraception is sex without babies. IVF is babies without sex. The two go hand-in-hand, to artificially separate them goes against God's design of the conjugal act. This is so beautifully and throughly hammered out in JPII's Theology of the Body, and as I am now learning, especially in Christopher West's commentary "Theology of the Body Explained."

JillStanek.com moderator Bobby Bambino, as quoted by Stanek post Céline Dion pregnant with 8-year-old frozen embryo

Conspiracy theory

One of the reasons I don't go for legislated, big government-run health care programs may be explained in this post at CWA on the brewing health care reform in the US. Excerpts:

As the House of Representatives prepares to debate health care legislation (without reading it, of course), the term “No health care for you!” comes to mind. Liberal representatives are pushing hard for a “public option” insurance plan, a government-run insurance program that they claim would provide “a little healthy competition for private insurers.” The long-term reality of a public option, however, is that millions of Americans would be dumped by their employers on the cheaper government plan, and private insurers would eventually be run out of business. The government cannot insert itself as a competitor in a game that it also referees.

To add insult to injury (no pun intended), once the government had a majority stake in health insurance, health care would then be categorized into the overall grouping of government programs that must fight for funding. This would ultimately lead to “rationing,” or the government’s ability to regulate what kinds of treatments it deems necessary for patients. Consequently, the government could even deny procedures in the name of “cost-savings.” As we’ve seen in Canada and England, health care rationing often creates immense moral crises for those concerned with the sanctity of life. In government-run health care programs, end-of-life dilemmas arise in which older patients are deemed unworthy of treatment because of their age, or individuals die waiting for crucial treatments.

The same possible big-government interventionism on health care can happen in the Philippines. Far-fetched it would seem but allow me a conspiracy theory. The One's liberal policy changes concerning women, children, and health care are not only for domestic use. His appointments to various posts do not make me comfortable, and for good reason:

For pro-life advocates, naming the pro-abortion Tchen as the director of an agency devoted to the interests of women is yet another example of how Obama is falling short when it comes to pro-life issues.

Today's announcement comes on the heels of Obama announcing the creation of a new foreign policy position to focus on women's issues.

Melanne Verveer, an abortion advocate who served as chief of staff to former First Lady Hillary Clinton, will occupy the new post and serve as a United States ambassador.

Her role as the new Obama ambassador to women abroad? Promote abortion and overturn pro-life laws in nations across the world.

Now, shouldn't we think even harder how this impacts our RP?

The one thing that we did not know ...

... about Eunice Kennedy-Shriver was that she was a pro-lifer. Some even say that she was the only pro-lifer among the siblings. Even as I have no proof of the previous statement except that I remember reading about it sometime back, what is certain is that she would have been so much different from her brother Sen. Ted in the pro-life - pro-choice debate. Fr. Raymond J. de Sousa has a piece in National Post about the extremes that the siblings found themselves in this matter.

Excerpts:

The Shrivers were devout Catholics who lived their faith with integrity privately before bringing its implications to the public square. Before Alzheimer's took its toll on Sargent, he was a daily communicant, attending Mass either in Maryland or in Hyannis, Mass., a well-worn rosary often in hand. He shared his Marian devotion with his wife; in a statement upon Eunice's death, her family noted that "she was forever devoted to the Blessed Mother. May she be welcomed now by Mary to the joy and love of life everlasting, in the certain truth that her love and spirit will live forever."

Such lines will not be written of Ted Kennedy who, as one of America's most prominent Catholics, blazed the trail of making religious belief an entirely private matter. His debauchery was the opposite of the Shrivers' piety. Having broken up his own family, he degenerated into a dissoluteness that reached its nadir on Good Friday, 1991, when instead of doing the Stations of the Cross at the local parish, he took his son and nephew out for a night of bar-hopping and skirt-chasing. The details of Ted's behaviour that night were embarrassingly sordid. It gave rise to the joke that Senator Kennedy's religion was so private he refused to impose it on himself.

What's the matter, SJ? #?

Perhaps she is not speaking for Gonzaga University or as Jill says, she just might have been having a bad day, but Susie, how could you think this way? Is this the Jesuit way now? Crickey!

Who is?

Who would do such a thing?
The original is found here.
It comes from the website of a leftist.
What? Honeymoon's over?

Check this for context. Or this.

Joker

Reaping what they have not sown.

Update 18Aug: the original artist has been found.

9th Commandment?

Sunstar Cebu quotes one of the city's congressmen as saying: “Though shall not bear false witness against thy neighbors." The congressman apparently said this after reminding the mayor of the 9th Commandment.

Hey, I'm sure so many things, with the corresponding emotion of the press conference, clouded his mind a bit, that he made this mistake. Yep, that's it. Heh!

TIRED of being continuously accused by Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña as having abandoned the south district barangay captains, Rep. Antonio Cuenco yesterday showed reporters receipts of cash allies received during the October 2007 elections.

He also reminded the mayor of the Ninth Commandment, saying what Osmeña is doing violates the laws the Lord sets for the faithful.

False witness

“Though shall not bear false witness against thy neighbors.

A thousand words #2

What does this show?

American Thinker has a take on this. Would you agree?

When green sees red

Blood. We've said it many times. The greenies want to kill your babies. They don't want you to have babies. They don't want any people besides themselves.

Another proof is a study that Steve mentions in Green Hell Blog: "Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals" authored by Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax.

Steve quotes the Oregonian:

Some people who are serious about wanting to reduce their "carbon footprint" on the Earth have one choice available to them that may yield a large long-term benefit - have one less child.

It's bad enough to have these types lurking around, but even worse that the laws in support of bad-green initiatives might make more people see even more red (as in red figures in the financial statements). The WT has a report of a government study that shows that the US Congress bill on global warming could do more harm to employment, especially if (worst case): technology doesn't materialize and other countries refuse to cooperate on offsets. (H/T: ST)

Good luck to us all!

Who would pay P2.25M for this?

Two months ago, Toyota Philippines started offering the Prius for Filipinos. Stories here, here, and here.

The retail price is pegged at P2.25M, although I also heard that some dealers were selling at P2.5M. Who would spend that much money for a car?

Maybe the die-hard greenies? I don't think so. Perhaps the wealthy who want to take off a little of the guilt in buying a car so expensive in these trying times? Most likely.

But driving hybrids is not without problems.

A recent study of SF-based Quality Planning concluded:

Hybrid drivers typically drive farther, get more tickets, and have significantly more expensive insurance claims.

Can we risk the cons of having hybrids run in RP's streets in favor of the green agenda? These problems would take a long time still in presenting themselves, I assume, as the price to pay for a hybrid is just too hard on the pocketbook.

A similar story is that of the Indian-made Tata Nano, the USD 2T car that has raised issue whether making cheaper cars available for more people would actually be environmentally safe. It seems that there is a new spin though:

There has been some debate about whether providing inexpensive volume cars to millions of the world's currently car-less citizens is environmentally responsible. But the huge demand for safe, basic mobility seems likely to render the question moot.

H/T: Sis

SONA update

It's been a week and not much refutations still. But attacks have not stopped. Much like Michelle Malkin getting attacked for her new book.

Boy, it's been only 6 months of the One's presidency and Michelle's got a book out!

Contempt is the emotion ...

A thousand words

What's in a picture?
I thought they got past this.
H/T: Michelle