Kim Geiger of the LA Times manipulates readership

Getting the story correct, checking facts and clear writing is not one of Kim Geiger of the LA Times better skills. Geiger’s recent article claiming that the US Bishops supported and/or told the Catholic faithful to support the Democratic bill on healthcare reform is wrong. Does the LA Times still hire fact checkers? Do reporters still speak to real people, perhaps 2-3 sources prior to publication?

What Ms Geiger confuses for legitimate Catholic authority in teaching and governing the Church is really a left-leaning group claiming to work in the ambit of the Church’s Social Teaching. It seems as though Ms Geiger does know the basics of Catholic teaching very well. Did you get that sense from her article? Catholics United support the Pelosi-Obama agenda. Catholics United does not speak for the US Conference of Bishops; neither do they speak for local pastors nor for the faithful Catholic. As Dan Gilgoff said in his US News.com article on October 28th, Catholics United “provides cover for the White House and the Democrats.”
If you want to know what the bishops are saying, read the press lease of November 9, 2009. US Conference President, Francis Cardinal George is clear on what the bishops think about healthcare reform. And form what I can gather, I don’t think the bishops completely agree with the Democratic party’s version of the healthcare reform bill.
So, Archbishop Dolan’s recent nonpublished NY Times piece is actually correct (which we knew all the time): there is verifiable proof of bias in the media against the Catholic Church in the USA. 

Gianna –The Catholic Healthcare Center for Women

My eyes were opened the other day at the Natural Family Planning seminar for clergy we had at Saint Joseph Seminary especially with the introduction of a new center for women’s health in midtown Manhattan. The Gianna Center is an incredible development –even a gift of the Holy Spirit– for the Church not only in New York, the Tri-State area but indeed for the entire United States. In fact, the brand new center is due to be launched on November 23, 2009 two blocks from Grand Central Station.

Gianna Healthcare for Women logo.jpg

Looking at the Gianna Center you will find a wholistic (comprehensive) approach to women’s healthcare. Their approach in working with issues of reproduction is to intensely pay attention to a woman’s cycle to correct problems without suppressing or destroying the ability to naturally conceive a child. The medical approach here is to work for high effectiveness that respects the dignity of person, adhering to Christ and the Church, and giving a healthy alternative to IVF (which is against all these things).
Gianna will provide a full spectrum of obstetrics and family practice medicine. It will also be a center for medical ethics that is faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Likewise, it will teach the methods of Natural Family Planning and NaProTechnology.
The Gianna Center is the convergence in medicine of faith and reason. It brings together the heart of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ today: God loves us so much that He wants us to be in relationship with Him through His Son in the Holy Spirit living in happiness. In speaking of the heart I am not indicating the subjective feelings of the person that may be as variable as there are people in the world. But what I am suggesting here is that the heart is the locus of our affection for reality as it is presented to us and not as what we want it to be. Another words, we need to deal with the God-given reality that we have in front of us, it is the condition of our happiness desired for us by God. Dealing with reality in this way is the same way we have to deal with the size of the foot we have at the end of our leg: we can’t alter its size because it is given. The reality in this case is the cooperating with God in bringing human life into this world as God has intended it to happen.
Hence, putting (keeping?) faith and reason together was the work of Pope John Paul II and it is the current work of Pope Benedict XVI. It is the daily work of the members of groups like Communion & Liberation and Opus Dei aiming as Luigi Giussani said in the Religious Sense, toward “the sense of responsibility toward destiny.” AND in my opinion the work of the Gianna Center brings together faith and reason because it has the affection for human reality as it is presented to the world because it is God-given.

Gianna founders.jpg

The Gianna Center is the brainchild of Joan Nolan and Dr. Anne Mielnik. Of course, no project worthy of mention is done in a vacuum. It’s ably assisted by Dr. Kyle Beiter, Jamey Johnston and Jena McFadden and co-funded by Saint Vincent’s Hospital and the John Paul II Center.
Contact information
15 East 40th Street, Suite 101
New York, NY 10016 USA
212-481-1219
gianna@svcmcny.org

All Saints of the Benedictine Order

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Blessed shall you be when men hate you, and when they shut you out, and reproach you, and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and exult, for behold your reward is great in heaven.

We beseech Thee, O Lord, grant that the example of the holy Monks [and nuns] may stir us to a better life, so that we may imitate the actions of those whose solemnity we celebrate.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini: the 1st American citizen canonized a saint

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God our Father, You called Frances Xavier Cabrini from Italy to serve the immigrants of America. By her example teach us concern for the stranger, the sick, and the frustrated. By her prayers help us to see Christ in all the men and women we meet.

Though born in Lombardy, Mother Cabrini immigrated to the USA with the permission of Pope Leo XIII. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to care for the poor children in schools and hospitals, especially the Italian immigrants. Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini is the patroness of immigrants. The Mass prayer (collect) above is a beautiful expression of how theology meets our human reality. Saint Frances Cabrini is buried* here in NYC…pay a visit to her shrine!

* Saint Frances’ body is here in NYC but a leg bone is in Chicago and her heart and head are in Rome and her home town.

Moscow & Rome to meet soon?

Patriarch & Pope.jpgDo you read the Interfax news agency from Moscow. Every now-and-again you should just to keep up with news not seemingly connected with own. Today, Interfax is reporting that Archbishop Hilarion has indicated that a meeting between Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kyrill and Pope Benedict XVI is on the table. No definite plans appear to have been made but there seem to be significant discussions pointing to a meeting. Interesting that this announcement is on the liturgical memorial of Saint Josaphat, brutally martyred by the Ordthodx (on the Latin calendar).

Saint Theodore of Studis

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God of all mercy, You transformed Saint Theodore and made him a new creature in Your image. Renew us in the same way by making [of us] gifts of peace acceptable to You.

The great monk from the East! Monastic influence was tremendous especially since he pioneered what is often called urban monasticism.

Fr Benedict Groeschel celebrates 50 years of priesthood

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This year is Father Benedict Groeschel’s golden jubilee as a priest. That’s right! He’s 50 years a Catholic priest. Many would know him as a TV personality on EWTN; others know him as the instigator of the Friars of the Renewal, to many, he’s a friend and a great priest. Friends of his put together a beautiful, brief video of Father Benedict. Watch it, the link’s below.

Pray for priests. Pray for Father Benedict. Pray for the Friars of the Renewal.

A video honoring him can be seen here.

Keeping the centrality of Christ

Monsignor Giussani, with his fearless and unfailing
faith, knew that, even in this situation, Christ, the encounter with Him,
remains central, because whoever does not give God, gives too little, and
whoever does not give God, whoever does not make people find God in the Fact of
Christ, does not build, but destroys, because he gets human activity lost in
ideological and false dogmatisms. Fr Giussani kept the centrality of Christ
and, exactly in this way, with social works, with necessary service, he helped mankind
in this difficult world, where the responsibility of Christians for the poor in
the world is enormous and urgent.


(Pope Benedict XVI, Funeral Homily for Msgr Luigi Giussani, 24 February 2005, Milan)

NFP (Natural Family Planning): formation for a fertile life

Saint Joseph Seminary – Dunwoodie was the setting today for a clergy seminar on Natural Family Planning (NFP) sponsored by the Archdiocese of New York Family & Respect Life Offices, The Couple to Couple League International and with the generosity of others as well. Some 40 clergy types (priests, deacons and seminarians) attended. It was a blessing to have Dr Theresa Notare, Dr Kyle Beiter, Richard & Vicki Braun, Dr. Jack Burnham, Fr John Higgins, Andrew & Tracey Pappalrdo, and Erik & Anne Tozzi as presenters.

So what did I learn today?
YOU can control YOUR reproductive health care sensibly and morally without spending tons of money and selling your values. The point of the day was to introduce us to the most wholistic, safe form of family planning that there is today. This approach is pro-life, pro-woman, pro-faith, and pro-humanity. NFP is totally Catholic. It shows that it’s possible for a husband and wife to communicate and to collaborate with each other on all facets of life, especially the facet of sex and reproduction.

Continue reading NFP (Natural Family Planning): formation for a fertile life