Archive for April, 2006

I’m a Procrastinator

Saturday, April 22nd, 2006

Abbey Fest was almost three weeks ago. I posted Kerri Caviezel’s talk, but still haven’t gotten around to Jim’s. I also haven’t done my rant on Anti-Catholicism and given enough time has passed, I am not quite as angry as I was a few weeks ago. Someone from Jim Caviezel Forums found my last post and decided to share with others. Wonder if I got any new readers now.

Robin and I did the Pre-Canan last Saturday (Holy Saturday). As of today (Friday) 85 Days until the wedding. Time is flying.

Louisiana is in the process of joining states such as South Dakota and Mississippi in telling the Supreme Court that Roe v. Wade was wrong and that they need to listen to the will of the people. SB 33 would ban abortion in most circumstances. I have already contacted my state senator and representative, encouraging them to support this bill. If you are from Louisiana, you can find them here: http://senate.legis.state.la.us/senators/ByAddress.htm.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney (Democrat – Georgia – CD-4) is not worth the space that will be used to mention her. I disliked the woman long before she decided to punch a cop. See HR 4209 for details.

To help out our country, especially if you live in GA, please support Hank Johnson (D), Vernon Jones (D), or Catherine Davis (R) for GA-CD-4. (Credit Politics1 for the list of candidates.)

The pro-aborts don’t give up, so neither can we. The Radical Left has proposed the Freedom of Choice Act to Kill Your Unborn Child Act. HR 5151 and S 2593. I have written Senators Landrieu and Vitter and Representative Melancon urging them to oppose this bill as well as my opinion on several others.

Several entries ago I mentioned the Voting Rights Act requiring Louisiana and other states to requite preclearance from the DOJ when chaning the election schedule. I sent an e-mail to Representative Melancon and got a reply from him saying he will keep my wishes in mind when dealing with this bill in 2007.

A recent poll showed most Americans disapprove of President Bush, disapprove of the Republicans in Congress, and disapprove of the Democrats in Congress, but approve of their own Congressman. There is a lot of talk the Republicans will lose a lot of seats to the Democrats. As far as the House goes though, it doesn’t matter what 434 / 435 of the country thinks. As long as they make that 1 / 435 the represent happy, that is all the matters.

As far as the Duke Rape Case goes, I think the District Attorney Mike Nifong is doing this for Political Gain. I have no idea whether or not a rape occured. There are too many contradictions though at this point for me to believe the DA should have pressed charges. If you live in Durham, NC, please support Freda Black or Keith Bishop (or any other canidate I left out). On a somewhat related note, does anyone remember the name Katelyn Faber?

Please keep a friend of mine in your prayers. Becky, the wife of my friend Dennis of the KC’s, passed away Wednesday.

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Abbey Fest Part 1/2

Wednesday, April 5th, 2006

Quick Note before I get to the main post: I have modified the trackback code to include the same spam filter that was in the comment code. I have no way of testing this and only spam comes from trackback, so if I broke the trackback code, I will still consider this a success. In a week or so I will send it to http://www.bblog.com/ for upload.

My next entry will deal with Anti-Catholicism. Hopefully I can post that one soon.

This past Saturday was the Abbey Youth Festival. I also spent time on Friday helping set up. We had about 20 youth and adults attend and our Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Violet, LA which has not had a mass in 7 months. Pretty good accomplishment. It was a 12 hour event and was a bit exhausting, but we all enjoyed ourselves.

There were several great speakers and bands. Of course we were all looking forward to hearing Fr. Kyle speak who was from our Church B.K. (Before Katrina). Fr. Kyle spoke for about 10 – 15 minutes to open the Eucharistic Adoration. But the strongest speakers of the night were Jim and Kerri Caviezel. Jim Caviezel is the actor who played as Jesus in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. I did not have a video camera or anything and will post what I can remember to the best of my ability.

Kerri Caviezel spoke first. She opened with the story of how she and Jim met. She was friends with Jim’s sister and then they met in a mall where Jim worked. Her talk mostly focussed on Sex and Marriage. She asked how many people knew someone that had been married for over 50 years. Quite a lot of people raised their hands. Kerri said that she didn’t quite know that many people married for that long since she is from Washington and Jim is from California. (I may have gotten that reversed.)

She then asked what do you say during your Wedding Vows? Is it I promise to love you as long as your are beautiful? Obviously the answer is no. Fr. Frank mentioned something similar to Robin and I during Marriage Preparation. While a civil marriage can have strings attached, the Sacrament of Marriage has no strings attached. Kerri said too many people don’t mean it when they say I do to that. She then said that some people want to “sample marriage” by living together. She usually doesn’t like statistics, but one statistic that believes is the one that says couples who live together before marriage usually end in divorce. Again Fr. Frank said the same thing.

Kerri and Jim applied to adopt a child. They eventually received a phone call asking if they wanted to adopt a 5 year old Chinese boy with a brain tumor. They weren’t sure if they would be able to handle that type of situation, but they put their faith in God and accepted. Eventually the time came for the doctor’s to perform the surgery on the child’s tumor. The doctor had good news and bad news. The good news was there was a day available in May. The bad news was it was Friday May 13. But Kerri didn’t look at that as bad but rather the fact May 13 was the Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima. The adoption was finalized on another Feast Day which was also considered a sign from God.

Kerri then talked a little bit about abstinence and so called “Safe Sex”. Africa has the highest HIV rate in the world. To help fight AIDS, most countries bean to push for condoms and “Safe Sex”. Well the HIV rate didn’t go down, it went up. Because condoms are not 100% effective and they still encourage sex use. But one country, Uganda, instead of pushing for “Safe Sex” pushed for absainence education. While other countries’ HIV rate went up, Uganda’s went down.

Kerri closed by talking about the Sanctity of Life. The Declaration of Independence guarantees the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. And that is a phrase that existed long before Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. They were put together in that order. Without Life, Liberty has no value, and without Liberty, Property has no value. Therefore one person’s life comes before another person’s liberty. She also said while many women come to say the regret their abortion, she does not know of any woman who says she regrets having her child.

She ended with four extreme cases of pregnancy that people who oppose abortion in most cases may accept it. 1. A mother has 16 kids and is pregnant with her 17 and is not very rich financially. 2. A woman with an illness has 4 kids, all with some form of disability or illness themselves, is pregnant and the child is like to have some form of illness or disability as well. 3. A woman is raped and a child is conceived. 4. A teenage girl is engaged to get married and is pregnant, but that man is not the father of the child, and they live in a country where this is punishable by death. Would you allow an abortion in each of these circumstances? 1. This turned out to be Benjamin Franklin. 2. This is Ludwig von Beethoven. 3. This was an opera singer and I can’t remember the name. 4. In case you haven’t figured this one out, it’s Jesus Christ.

Kerri introduced Jim who spoke next. I will cover what Jim said in my next post and the post on Anti-Catholicism will come after that.

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