Don Feder Answers Newsweek

Don Feder sets Newsweek straight on its article claiming that the Bible favors gay marriage in GrassTopsUSA Exclusive Commentary:

IN ARGUING FOR GAY MARRIAGE, NEWSWEEK SHOULD FORGET THE BIBLE, STAY WHERE IT’S BETTER ACQUAINTED 




ADL Insults Catholics

Deborah Lauter, national civil rights director for the ADL, says there is a difference between vandals who steal Baby Jesus from a nativity scene and vandals who steal the menorah: “If Baby Jesus is removed, it tends to be seen as a prank. Vandalism or theft of a menorah is just more sensitive. You feel like you’re really being targeted for your religion.”

If Catholics turned this around—claiming the theft of a menorah was no big deal—they’d be accused of anti-Semitism. But no one from the Catholic League, at least, would ever say such nonsense.




Another Gratuitous Slam

Jason Whitlock is a sports writer for the Kansas City Star.  On the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, he decided to mock the Blessed Virgin Mary for no reason in his article, “Pass rusher would be answer to a prayer.”  In discussing the local football team’s loss, he writes, “It’s sort of like questioning Mary’s virginity.  You mention the rumors you heard about her and Joseph at Noah’s Party Cove bash, and you’re likely to be escorted out of church by force.”

This comment, which shows Whitlock’s ignorance about the Virgin birth as well as about when Mary and Noah lived, was followed by another insinuation about Mary at the end of the article: “The Chiefs might need a savior after this season.  Let’s hope Noah throws another party and Mary and Joseph disappear for a few minutes again.”

Actually, let’s hope Mr. Whitlock’s obnoxious column disappears from the Kansas City Star.




Exploiting Christmas

Gazette.net reports that the 26th annual “Christmas Revels,” a French-Canadian style celebration, will be held this month at George Washington University.  The December 3 article on the website points out that the show focuses on the longest night of the year, the winter solstice.  “Despite ‘Christmas’ in the title, this is not a religious pageant, but rather an inclusive seasonal celebration that is meaningful to the community at large, regardless of background.”

In recent years, “holiday” has been increasingly substituted for “Christmas” by the PC police.  Christians have fought back and are daring to say “Merry Christmas!” again.  However, in the case of “Christmas Revels,” it is a sham. The use of the word Christmas in the title of a show about the winter solstice is false advertising.




ESPN Gets Too Cute

Lee Corso, a commentator on ESPN, has a problem with Notre Dame.  On October 1, 2005, on the show “College GameDay,” he made a mock sign of the cross and predicted that Purdue would “beat the Catholics.”  On November 29, 2008, he struck again on the same show.  In discussing Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis’ contract, he opined:

“[T]he Catholic Church, the first collection is for the parish and maybe the priest to go on vacation, the second collection is for the poor people in Michigan, the third collection is now gonna be for Charlie Weis and to try to buyout his contact….I have a better idea.  I think they ought to call the Vatican and have them sell one of their paintings and have them give the money to Notre Dame and if they want to pay off Charlie Weis, take the money from the Vatican’s painting, give the money to Charlie and say goodbye.”




What the Catechism Really Says

Catholics for Choice is a pro-abortion group that has been twice condemned by the U.S. bishops for being a fraud.  They continue to mislead about the Church’s teachings on abortion.  In a recent letter to the editor of the New York Times, president Jon O’Brien wrote:

“Catholic tradition requires Catholics to follow their own well-formed consciences even if it conflicts with church teaching.  As the Catechism notes, ‘a human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.’

Mr. O’Brien, in selectively quoting from the Catholic Catechism, ignores the statement that followed the section he quoted which undermines his assertion:

“Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors in judgment in moral conduct.”




Kudos to Nordstrom

Nordstrom’s Palm Beach Gardens location was selling a tee shirt, which featured an image that resembled Madonna and Child; the problem was that Mary was shown as a skeleton. Shopper Judy Carbo complained that this shirt was offensive to Catholics and Nordstrom removed the shirt from its store.




Rabbi Lerner’s Chutzpah

Rabbi Michael Lerner is asking his followers to write to the Vatican objecting to the pending excommunication of Father Roy Bourgeois, a priest who recently presided over the staged “ordination” of women who consider themselves to be priests. Lerner would do well to mind his own business.

This is not the first time that Lerner has had the chutzpah to lecture the Catholic Church and brand it authoritarian. Known as the religious guru of the Democratic Party, Lerner rejects the institution of marriage and shows little respect for the autonomy of religious organizations. The National Review got it just right when it recently said that “Lerner is to Judaism what Barney Fife is to law enforcement.”

In short, Rabbi Michael Lerner is an angry left-wing radical with a penchant for sticking his nose in where he doesn’t belong.




Vatican Defends Pius

On November 6, Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said that Jewish groups who recently depicted Pope Pius XII as being “indifferent to the fate of the victims of Nazism” were “outrageous.” They are also profoundly ignorant of history and guilty of scapegoating.




Offensive YouTube Videos Removed

The videos depicting various desecrations of the Eucharist by the person calling himself ‘fsmdude’ have been removed from YouTube.  Over forty videos were voluntarily taken down by ‘fsmdude’.  He did this after YouTube responded to the Catholic League’s demand for action by age-gating his videos and placing a warning on the website for those trying to access his videos.