Is Pope Francis Promoting Contraception?

Birth control is the single biggest contributor to the immorality which is so prevalent in our world today.  Since the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960, sex has become nothing more than a way for two (or more) people to masturbate with one another.  Sex is no longer a means of expressing love between a husband and wife, and from that expression of love, to create new life.  Sex is now just another way to feel good.  Sex has become no different than alcohol, drugs, eating a good meal, or any other way people find pleasure in life.  Not only is love or any kind of concern for the other not a necessary component of sex, you don't even need to know or have any intention of ever seeing your partner again.

Prior to the widespread use of birth control, the element of procreation was an integral part of the sex act, as God meant it to be.  God did not give us sex just so we could experience pleasure.  Sex was meant to be a primary means of bonding a husband and wife together, and through that bonding, bring children into the world who would have the security and love of a mother and father in their lives.  With the introduction of birth control, people could engage in sex without creating new life, and thus sex lost all meaning.

Happy New Year?

Is anyone else as overwhelmed by the bad news in this world as I am?  Here in the United States our government is playing with our financial future, fighting and squabbling with each other while the US economy hangs in the balance.  We have been warned for months about the "fiscal cliff", but here it is only a few hours before it happens, and Washington is still fighting about it.

And that is actually some of the least of the bad news.  There is the ongoing persecution of Christian beliefs by our government in which we are being told that we must abide by the law no matter how it goes against our religious doctrines.  Hobby Lobby, which is valiantly standing up to the federal government and refusing to pay for birth control for its employees, will now be fined over $1 million a day for choosing to obey God rather than man.  Same sex marriage and homosexual rights are making vast inroad into our culture, and now even catholic politicians like Newt Gingrich are telling us we have to get with the program.  From gingpac.org:

According to Gingrich, the GOP and conservatives are just going to have to accept same-sex marriage as a political reality in America.

Gingrich, who is currently on his third wife, after having committed adultery against the previous two, says that we must accept gay marriage because it “is in every family, it is in every community.”

He continues: “The momentum is clearly now in the direction in finding some way to… accommodate and deal with reality. And the reality is going to be that in a number of American states — and it will be more after 2014 — gay relationships will be legal, period.”

And speaking of catholic politicians caving, Bobby Jindal, catholic governor of Louisiana, recently wrote an Op Ed for the Wall Street Journal saying that, for the good of the party, the GOP needs to get on the birth control bandwagon as well.  From the New York Daily News:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is recommending that the GOP endorse over-the-counter birth control as a prescription for the Republican Party’s political health.

In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, the Republican governor argued that allowing birth control pills to be sold without a prescription — as recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists — “would take contraception out of the political arena.”

“As a conservative Republican, I believe that we have been stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptives issue and pretend, during debates about health-care insurance, that Republicans are somehow against birth control,” Jindal said. “It's a disingenuous political argument they make.”  [So what else are Republicans "pretending" to be against??] 

He said requiring a prescription for birth control only drives up health care costs and boosts pharmaceutical company profits.  [Gov. Jindal, the fact that you're Catholic and your church teaches that birth control is intrinsically evil has no bearing on anything?  "Cost" is the only thing that matters?] 

Things are much worse in other parts of the world.  A judge in England just ruled that "Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a 'core component' of their beliefs."  From The Telegraph:

A new ruling by a High Court judge - the first on the issue in nearly a decade - says that Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a “core component” of their beliefs.

The judgment - which upholds an earlier decision - means that individual Christians do not have any protection from being fired for not working on Sundays.

Campaigners said the decision puts Christians at a disadvantage to other religions and means the judiciary are deciding what the core beliefs of Christians can be, which they say is an interference in the right to practise religion.

The really sad part about this is that most Christians really aren't even going to notice because Sunday is just another day to them anyway.  Only about 2% of Anglicans go to Church on Sunday, and about 25% of Catholics attend.  Nonetheless, this ruling definitely represents an attack against Christianity and as stated in the article, the UK government is now deciding the validity of Christian beliefs, just as they are doing here in the United States.

Persecution of Christians has gone much further in other parts of the world.  From cnn.com:

At least 22 people have been killed in three separate attacks in northeastern Nigeria since Friday, including 15 Christians shot Sunday inside a church, according to officials.

In Sunday's attack, gunmen entered a church in Chibok, also in Borno state, and killed at least 15 worshipers, said Mohammed Kana, a regional official for the National Emergency Management Agency.

"Some of the people had their throats slit," Kana said, citing NEMA staff who responded to the scene.

Sunday's violence comes six days after attackers raided two churches during Christmas Eve services, killing 12 people.

And of course, the legal, systematic killing of our children continues unabated in abortion clinics throughout the United States and the entire world.  Here in New York City, 41% of all pregnancies end in abortion, with some parts of the city having a 60% abortion rate.

A dark, dark veil has descended upon this world, and it grows darker with each day.  I don't know specifically what our immediate future holds, but it sure don't look good.

Happy New Year?  I don't think so.

Another Nail in the Coffin of American Freedom

On Wednesday, August 1, the Health and Human Services Mandate, which requires that all employers cover contraception, sterilization and abortion in their employees' insurance coverage, went into effect.  The United States government is now requiring that all employers, religious or not, ideologically opposed or not, must participate in evil.  There are a few exceptions at the moment, but we can be sure the Obama administration will overcome these in a short period of time.

The Republicans give us nothing
but soundbites, and Obama
keeps destroying America

Has anyone noticed that despite all the sound and fury that came from the Republicans, they have done nothing to stop the mandate?  They throw us a bone here and there to make us think they want to stop Obama, but nothing has happened, nor will it happen. 

Many are framing this issue as a matter of religious freedom.  But it is much deeper and more serious than just our religious freedom.  This is about good versus evil, it is about life versus death.  It is about Satan versus God. 

Below is an article that was posted on lifesitenews.com on July 31, the day before the mandate went into effect, regarding the abomination that has taken place in the United States called Obamacare. 

Obamacare’s Pro-Abortion HHS Mandate Takes Effect Tomorrow

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 7/31/12 1:29 PM

Despite one positive ruling in a case allowing a company to be exempted from the Obamacare HHS mandate, the pro-abortion mandate that pro-life groups strenuously oppose will take effect tomorrow.

A memo from the Catholic Association explains how the ruling was a positive step but not sufficient to stop the mandate nationwide.

“Last week, a federal court dealt a major blow to the Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring employers to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing drugs in their healthcare plans,” it said. ” In the first-ever legal victory against the mandate, the court granted a temporary injunction to the family-owned Hercules Industries in Colorado. The Obama administration argued that employers have no conscience rights if they engage in a for-profit business, and therefore the business owners — the Newland family – ought to be subject to millions of dollars in fines per year for non-compliance.”

“While this was a significant victory, it is only applies to the Newlands, and it is only temporary [you can win a lot of money if you bet that this ruling will be overturned]. The livelihood and religious freedom of countless other private employers hangs in the balance on August 1,” the Catholic Association continued.

The mandate adversely affects three categories of businesses and organizations in different ways and the Catholic Association spells them out:

Category 1: For-Profit Employers

For-profit private employers do not qualify for the one-year safe harbor and are thus completely unprotected as of August 1. This is especially harmful to small and family-owned businesses that tend to have boutique or custom insurance plans to conform to religious or value-oriented workplace cultures. Many businesses are suing the Obama administration seeking immediate relief from the August 1 deadline. The penalty for non-compliance is $100 per day, per employee.  For the Newland family business, the fines would add up to millions of dollars per year. [This can and will break many small businesses.  This is known in the real world as extortion].

Category 2: Groups in Limbo

Some employers do not yet know if they qualify for the safe harbor. They may only object to some but not all of the services – for example, the evangelical college Wheaton, which has also filed suit against the Administration, objects to abortion-causing drugs but not contraception. These employers are left completely in the dark as to what will happen to them on August 1 and whether or not they will be slapped with crippling fines.

Category 3: Religiously Affiliated Employers

Objecting employers with a religious affiliation are essentially left with one year to scramble. The so-called accommodation, which has not been implemented, was widely rejected as an accounting gimmick. Even Sister Carol Keehan, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association (and a supporter of the President’s health care plan), originally supported the accommodation but after closer examination, called it unacceptable and unworkable. These religious entities are left with no option but to wait one more year before they have to begin violating the teachings of their faith or pay severe fines.

A one-year “safe harbor” allows some groups to not be affected until August 2013, but there is no overall religious accommodation.

Matt Smith, president of Catholic Advocate, also condemned the start of the HHS mandate implementation.

“August 1st will be remembered as the day our most cherished liberty was thrown in a government dumpster and hauled away,” he told LifeNews. “A day when family owned small businesses were forced to abandon their religious beliefs to provide products and services for free. And if they don’t, they will be taxed and fined [i.e., extorted] at a time when job creators are struggling with enough costs and bureaucratic red-tape at every level of government just to stay in business.”“While the courts have provided a reprieve for one family business in Colorado, the government will never be able to repair the broken conscience of thousands of others until this mandate is removed,” Smith said.



Conscience Cause, a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving the right of conscience, declared the beginning of the end of religious freedom as the HHS mandate goes into effect tomorrow. It strongly opposes the mandate because it forces businesses and organizations to pay for products and services that violate their faith or face massive fines. In phase two of the mandate’s implementation, one year from tomorrow, religious institutions will face the same devastating decision, the group complains.

“The implementation of this policy tomorrow marks the beginning of the end of religious freedom in our nation,” said Christen Varley, executive director of Conscience Cause.

“Starting tomorrow, employers with religious and moral objections must make an unimaginable choice: comply and deny your faith, or resist and be subject to crippling fines. Religious institutions have been given an absurd one year reprieve in which to decide the same. People of faith and those who believe in protecting our constitutional freedoms will continue the fight to repeal and bar any regulation that would compel individuals and institutions, including religious hospitals, schools and charities, to violate the tenets of their faith or be subject to penalty of law,” added Varley. “Conscience Cause will continue our efforts to inform the public as well as to petition Congress to overrule this devastating policy. If we do not stand up and make our voices heard, it is only a matter of time before our other liberties come under direct assault.”

At Fatima, on July 13, 1917, Our Lady told Sister Lucy that “God is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the Communions of reparation and for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart ... In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”  

What, you are probably wondering, does this message from Our Lady of Fatima have to do with the HHS mandate?  It has everything to do with it.  Our Lady of Fatima warned us:  "Russia will spread its errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions against the Church."  The "errors of Russia" is godless, oppressive Communism and socialism.  It is all about eliminating God and putting the State in His place.  And that is exactly what is happening today in the United States of America.  The HHS Mandate is the direct result of the disobedience to our Lady who asked that Russia be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.  Because this was not done, the world is devolving into an evil, godless place in which the good and righteous are persecuted.  That is why we have abortion, militant homosexuality, vulgar, profane and pornographic entertainment, the destruction of the family, wars, etc. etc.  And there is no solution to any of these problems outside of Russia being Consecrated to Mary's Immaculate Heart by the Popes and Bishops.  Our Lady originally asked that this be done in 1960.  Pope John XXIII, the Holy Father at that time, read this message of Fatima and said, "This prophecy does not relate to my time."  For various reasons, none of the succeeding popes have fulfilled our Lady's request, either. 

Our Lady told the children of Fatima:  "The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world."  There are those who say the consecration has already been done, but it is quite obvious there is no peace in the world.  So either our Lady lied to us or we are still awaiting the Consecration.  We know it is not possible for our Lady to lie.

Our part is to pray always.  In the third apparition, Our Lady revealed to the children, ""You must recite the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war for only she can obtain this." 

Pray the Rosary, offer up your sufferings, make reparations.  That is the only answer to the evil that we face in this world.  Pray for the Consecration of Russia to Mary's Immaculate Heart.

Pope Paul VI Prophesied The HHS Mandate on Contraception

Catholic Bishops and others have been railing against the Obama adminstration for attacking religious liberty by forcing Catholic institutions to go against the clear teachings of the church in supplying contraception to their employees.  Father Z's blog has one posting after another attacking the Obama administration on this issue.  But even he had a posting quoting from Humanae Vitae, which says that if contraception is allowed to be commonly used, government forces would start using it against the people.

From Humanae Vitae:

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.

If you have never read Humanae Vitae, please click on this link and do so.  It will be an eye-opening experience as to why there is so much evil in our world.  Pope Paul VI, led by the Holy Spirit, gave a sober warning to all of us.  We have no excuse.  We can try blaming Obama, the liberal media, entertainment, etc. etc., but we really have no one to blame but ourselves.  First and foremost, those Catholic authorities who told us that we did not have to follow Humanae Vitae but instead follow our consciences, will have to bear much of the blame.  The use of artificial contraception lies at the heart of most of the world's problems.

Majority of Births for Women Under 30 Are Out Of Wedlock

The following article was the headline in the New York Times on February 17.  It is actually a very distressing article explaining that for all women under 30, there are now more out-of-wedlock births than babies born to married women.  This paints a very bleak picture for both the women and children involved.  As pointed out in this article, "Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems."  And amazingly enough, this New York Times article also points out that contraception is a direct cause of this problem.  "The forces rearranging the family are as diverse as globalization and the pill." 

There doesn't seem to be any resolution to this nightmare.  The United States is fast descending into hell.  Yet I must give credit to the New York Times for printing this article and not trying to whitewash it in any way, but showing just how tragic it is. 

Again, if the world had just listened to Pope Paul VI when he gave us Humanae Vitae, we would never see headlines like this.  All of those bishops and priests who told Catholics that they could make up their own mind about using birth control have much for which they must answer. 

February 17, 2012

For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage

By JASON DePARLE and SABRINA TAVERNISE

LORAIN, Ohio — It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.

Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.

Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.

One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.

“Marriage has become a luxury good,” said Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

The shift is affecting children’s lives. Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems.

The forces rearranging the family are as diverse as globalization and the pill. Liberal analysts argue that shrinking paychecks have thinned the ranks of marriageable men, while conservatives often say that the sexual revolution reduced the incentive to wed and that safety net programs discourage marriage.

Here in Lorain, a blue-collar town west of Cleveland where the decline of the married two-parent family has been especially steep, dozens of interviews with young parents suggest that both sides have a point.

Over the past generation, Lorain lost most of two steel mills, a shipyard and a Ford factory, diminishing the supply of jobs that let blue-collar workers raise middle-class families. More women went to work, making marriage less of a financial necessity for them. Living together became routine, and single motherhood lost the stigma that once sent couples rushing to the altar. Women here often describe marriage as a sign of having arrived rather than a way to get there.

Meanwhile, children happen.

Rick Santorum Is Hurting the Catholic Message

In a 2006 interview, Rick Santorum seems to be trying to have it both ways on birth control.  As a practicing Catholic, he knows and seems to believe that birth control is inherently evil. although he never makes this statement in this particular interview.  He is actually all over the place in this interview, seemingly trying to please all sides. 

He starts out by making a statement that goes against the plain truth of birth control: His first statement is: "I vote and have supported birth control because it is not the taking of a human life." What?????? This statement is in direct contradiction to the plain teaching of the Catholic Church and of the very nature of birth control. Most birth control is an abortifacient, which means that it does not prevent pregnancy, but simply aborts the fertilized egg, not allowing it to implant in the womb but instead dispelling it. Maybe Senator Santorum is in agreement with Speaker Gingrich who said he believed that life does not begin at conception but at implantation, although Gingrich backtracked on this one within a couple of days when the uproar began among Catholic voters. 

In the very next statement in this interview, Santorum does a Mario Cuomo (Cuomo is famous for originating the sickeningly hypocritical saying "I'm personally against abortion but I don't have a right to impose my views on others."). Senator Santorum says "I'm not a believer in birth control, at least artificial birth control." But if you combine this with his first statement, that birth control "is not the taking of human life", then what is his problem? He says birth control allows people to do what they want without taking personal responsibility. He clarifies that this is a personal point of view, and makes very clear that from a "government point of view" he has voted for contraception, although he doesn't think it works and that it is harmful to women and to our society because it promotes sex outside of marriage. Can we get any more confusing than that?

Here is the full interview:



I really have no patience for "dancing politicians"- those who try to have it both ways, especially Catholic politicians who want to appear to be supporting Church teaching and at the same time support a popular position which goes directly against Church teaching. And it usually ends up backfiring on them, as shown in this article in which Santorum is attacked by a pro-contraception author:

Posted at 12:00 PM ET, 02/15/2012

Santorum: Birth control ‘harmful to women’

By Jennifer Rubin
Yesterday I speculated on some of the reasons Rick Santorum has problems with women voters. This interview from 2006 sure isn’t going to help.For starters, does he realize that married women (men too!) use birth control? [If Santorum had stated the clear truth about birth control, that it is for the most part an abortifacient, and not tried to straddle the fence by admitting he had actually voted for it, the author of this article would have never been able to make this statement]  The impression that Santorum finds the prevalent practice of birth control “harmful to women” is, frankly, mind-numbing. If he meant to focus on teen sexual promiscuity, he surely could have, and thereby might have sounded less out of touch. [See my prior comment]

Now, he qualifies his religious views by saying he doesn’t vote against contraception “because it’s not the taking of a human life” (in other contexts he has emphasized that as a legal matter he has no problem with contraception) [this from a "good" Catholic??]. But how does that square with his professed belief that a candidate’s values are essential to understanding and predicting his behavior? [My point exactly] Perhaps that’s an abortion-only rule. (And really, where are George Stephanopoulos’s questions on this topic when you need them?)
In any event, this sort of thing undermines Santorum’s electability argument.  [I agree but for totally different reasons] (Current polling match-ups between President Obama and each of the two front runners, before the GOP has a nominee and before Santorum’s record is out there, are virtually useless.) This is how, in part, he lost Pennsylvania — by appearing extreme and schoolmarmish, too far to the right of average voters in a purple state. If he is the nominee in 2012, he might get some blue-collar fellows, but what about those women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.? And what about more secularized suburban communities? Fuggedaboutit.

Santorum has done nothing to promote the truth about how harmful contraception actually is and in fact, has given ammunition to those who support it.

For a much clearer explanation of the Catholic teaching on birth control: