It’s timely again. And, since it’s the Autumnal Equinox and the One Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, this is about justice and equanimity. And the danger of fanatics.
click for larger image
Once upon a time, I guarded all of Southern Oregon for a Woman’s Right to Choose, one day a week …
This originally appeared on Saturday, October 01, 2005
RED MASS or, THE DEATHSCORT AT THE ABORTUARY
He rather looked like he’d been caught in a time warp, circa 1973: the “Prince Valiant” disco haircut; navy blue dockers, not yet threadbare; a seeming Ralph Lauren knockoff or second shirt, navy blue with a “USA” emblazoned across the chest, American flags on both (white) collars, and “USA” across the back. There was a small flag-embroidered patch on his left shoulder, at the bicep/deltoid interface. He wore cheap, brown loafers.
He was of indeterminate age, except that he was somewhere in his thirties, perhaps. He was holding his pamphlets and shuffling slowly back and forth across the driveway with a whippet-thin woman, her rosary beads in hand — the beads were cheap, plastic, pseudo-jewels — her lips were constantly moving, soundlessly; there was a stack of seemingly-hand-collated pamphlets, with a sepia-tint photo of an aborted fetus lovingly paper-clipped to each one in her other, non-rosary hand. Her face was furrowed with deep worry lines, and a sort of perpetual expression of having just bit into a lemon, thinking it had been an orange.
And they didn’t like me.
They seemed to be operating on the Chicago method:
Fr. Frank Pavone of ‘Priests for Life’
http://www.priestsforlife.org/articles/chicagomethod.html
A Description of the Chicago Method:
When you approach the pregnant woman and her escort, say, “Excuse me. Are you going to the medical center here? Did you know about the medical malpractice lawsuits against this place?”
Give the pregnant woman and her escort factual information about the specific abortuary they are about to enter. Repeat this information until it produces the desired effect of disturbing them. Develop visual aids, such as a sheet that summarizes the malpractice lawsuits against the mill, especially the abortion-related lawsuits. Newspaper articles about scandalous conditions in the abortion mill are also helpful.
[…]
It is important to meet potential turnaways as far away from the abortuary door as possible. Walk up the sidewalk or street to meet them whenever you can. The closer the pregnant woman gets to the abortuary door the greater the temptation is for her to rush past you and go in. This is especially true if she is being led in by a deathscort or boyfriend.
And I was the “deathscort.”
They were angry. The anger etched their faces. And I, as the personification of their pique, was the object of most of it. Through the morning, I blocked, ran interference and otherwise frustrated their efforts. Only one pamphlet was handed out, to a young Hispanic husband, who was trying to be polite.
It didn’t do any good. Later, when I went inside, I noticed that it was in the plastic wastebasket in the waiting room.
As confrontations went, it was a wash.
They had girded their loins with Jesus. I was fortified, on the other hand, by my Walkman and a pair of mirrored sunglasses. I was wearing my day-glo orange “escort” plastic lobster bib.
They marched, waiting for victims. Waiting to potentially convince a pregnant woman not to go through with the abortion.
The first woman’s car drove up and entered the lot as they were discussing strategy at the other end of the sidewalk. They had missed her completely. This seemed to anger them still further. They cast furtive glances in my direction, as if I had somehow magically engineered the stealth car.
They never knew when I was looking, and assumed that I couldn’t hear them. They were wrong, of course. Several times, I surreptitiously turned off the Walkman and listened to them conspiring in front of me.
It wasn’t really worth listening to, so I turned the radio back on for good. And Rouge sang the middle-eastern-tinged “Hey Mr. DJ.” The morning progressed, threatening to rain, threatening to clear. It did neither.
No matter. They made not a dent, although they did manage to bring one girl to tears. She wasn’t wavering in her decision; she was just distraught that, already having made a very difficult decision, these emotional vultures, these self-appointed guardians of morality and the “culture of life” had managed to slip some very ugly words to her before she could flee into the sanctuary of the clinic.
Funny, I didn’t see them at the war protest last week. I guess it’s a selective “culture of life” (although, to be fair, a LOT of Catholic priests showed up in D.C. last Saturday).
But what the heck. Father Frank Pavone is on a roll since the Terri Schiavo circus. Heck, he even managed to deliver the homily at the Schindler family’s “dueling funerals” service.
Pavone takes over as media mouthpiece for the parents
during the Terri Schiavo siege/protests in 2005
But, in a little-noted afterthought to the Schiavo ‘controversy,’ Pope Joey Rats created the Missionaries for Life order:
“A daily review of religion and the press, published at the Department of Journalism and the Center for Religion and Media at New York University.
Antiabortion Order
31 March 2005The Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, a new, explicitly political, order of Catholic priests which will dedicate itself exclusively to fighting abortion and euthanasia, has been formed this week with the blessing of the Vatican. The male-only order will be based in an empty Catholic high school on the property of the Diocese of Amarillo in Texas and will train priests and seminarians, as well as lay activists, to lead demonstrations outside abortion clinics, conduct voter-registration drives, lobby politicians for abortion restrictions and make use of the media to spread a pro-life message. Order founder Father Frank A. Pavone, who also directs the antiabortion group, Priests for Life, says that the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life differs from other pro-life Catholic religious societies because it is the first church-established apostolic society for priests to concentrate solely on these issues.
No one seems to grasp the profound hypocrisy at the root of a males-committed to celibacy group being founded to oppose the choices of non-celibate women.
Pavone leading a pep rally
But that doesn’t bother Pavone. Indeed, as we’ve reported earlier, Fr. Frank Pavone was an anti-abortion zealot a full decade before his ordination as a priest. I think his priorities speak for themselves:
Marching in Washington, D.C. 2010
April 09, 2005
The Progressive Counter-Mission: Resuscitating Women’s Bodies and Choices from the Religious Right
Posted by Andrea K Rufo at April 9, 2005 02:52 PMThe death of Pope John Paul II, and the debate of Terri Schiavo alone have lead people to question where religion and questions over life decisions are headed. Enter the new society devoted to and designed for fighting euthanasia and abortion: the male-only Missionaries of the Gospel of Life. The new organization emphasizes that its purpose is to focus more on politics, and to be active instead of “contemplative.” The way to do so includes holding voter-registration drives, lobbying to lawmakers, giving press conferences, using the media to promote their message, and to stage demonstrations outside abortion and family planning offices — the latter of which has already begun.
The male-only organization, which may or may not be limited to priests (they claim to already be receiving upwards of a couple hundred correspondences from young men interested in joining) will be run by Fr. Frank Pavone, who has gained recent attention for his active involvement in the debate over Terri Schiavo. He was referred to as the Schinlder family’s Spiritual advisor, and was the priest who conducted the funeral Mass for Schiavo, in which his homily focused on both the late Pope John Paul II and the importance of promoting and protecting the “culture of life.” Fr. Pavone is also the head of Priests for Life, an association of anti-abortion priests, which employs both questionable tactics (they are sincerely devoted to publishing and passing out images of aborted fetuses at clinics, online and anywhere else possible) and questionable information (their web site contends that there is never an instance when an abortion is necessary to save a woman’s life). Prior to the incident in Florida, Fr. Pavone again gained media attention by spending his time out (not so subtly) stumping for Bush and other conservative candidates for the 2004 election (despite the fact that Kerry is actually Catholic), under the belief, that “any candidate who supports abortion has no right to hold any kind of public office.”
[…]
“Though there is much in Fr. Pavone’s history and rhetoric for one to be disturbed. He was a founder of the American Coalition of Life Activists, who were best known for targeting 13 physicians across the country who performed abortions, calling it the “Deadly Dozen” campaign. He’s advocated breaking anti-trespassing laws to protest abortion clinics, and over the past year alone, in his capacity as both the head of Priests for Life, and Spritual Advisor to the Schindler family, Fr. Pavone has managed to declare a plague on all our houses. Seriously, he really has characterized the battle against abortion and euthanasia as one where “the church finds herself battling a plague as spiritually fatal as any she has ever fought before — the plague of the culture of death.”
In a 1994 interview prior to the election, Fr. Pavone Pavone asserted that Roe v. Wade, ushered in an era like the Nazi Holocaust. He has compared pro-choice supporters to supporters of terrorism. And in March, after Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed, made two bizarre and bothersome comments, first stating, “I don’t want members of the public looking over their shoulders I want the yobs looking round in fear,” and then later following up with, “For those who are worried and feel passionate about the ‘right to die,’ I wish to give them an assurance — you won’t miss out.”
Let’s repeat that important sentence there:
‘and to stage demonstrations outside abortion and family planning offices — the latter of which has already begun.’
Which brings us to another quaint Catholic rite, handed down to us from the Middle Ages: the Red Mass, which will be held, most prominently, tomorrow, in Washington, D.C., in the St. Matthew the Apostle Cathedral, where former Chief Justice and national disgrace “Wild Bill” Rehnquist’s funerary festivities were held a couple weeks ago, with new Chief Justice and enigma John Roberts as a pallbearer. Rehnquist’s funeral was given a waiver, since, as a Lutheran a Catholic cathedral seemed odd. It was pointed out in various justifying sound bites that Rehnquist had always attended the Red Masses.
Red Mass with John Roberts, Rehnquist’s old clerk
You can catch some of it on TV:
http://www.c-span.org/resources/courtwatch.asp
THIS WEEK ON C-SPAN
Sunday, October 2
Arrivals and Audio Highlights
from the Annual Red Mass
On C-SPAN at approx. 9:30am ET
But, you might be asking, does Father Frank Pavone have to do with any of this?
Good question. Gladjasked. We’ll get there.
Bush and Roberts at Red Mass, stalked by
altar boy clone from another dimension
According to Wikipedia:
Red Mass refers to a Roman Catholic Mass celebrated annually for judges, prosecutors, attorneys, law school professors and students, and government officials. The Mass requests guidance from the Holy Spirit for all who seek justice, and offers the opportunity to reflect on the God-given power and responsibility of all in the legal profession.
The first recorded Red Mass was celebrated in Paris in 1245. From there, it spread to most European countries. Around 1310, during the reign of Edward I, the tradition began in England. It was attended at the opening of each term of Court by all members of the Bench and Bar.
The Red Mass takes its name from the red vestments worn by the celebrant and people at the Mass. In the Roman Catholic liturgy, red vestments symbolize the Holy Spirit. Additionally, Judges of the High Court of England and all doctors of law wore red robes or academic hoods.
The most famous Red Mass is the one celebrated each fall at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C. It is attended by Justices of the Supreme Court, members of Congress, the diplomatic corps, the Cabinet and other government departments and often the President of the United States.
ALSO popular at the time the Red Mass first appeared
This is fitting for Scalia, who always attends, since his legal views tend to the medieval anyway.
“Antonin Scalia: Our Next Chief Justice”?
CHRISTIAN ETHICS TODAY, SPRING 2005
By John M. Swomley, Professor Emeritus of Christian Social Ethics
St. Paul School of Theology, St. Louis, MO“Justice Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court in 1986 as its most recent appointee. He soon made a reputation as the most far-right member of the Court. He is an outspoken leader of the very conservative Federalist Society and a devoted right-wing Catholic.
Alan Dershowitz, in his book Supreme Injustice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), wrote that Scalia’s “conservatisms, according to a professor who is an expert in these matters, are ‘of the Old World European sort, rooted in the authority of the Church and the military. It is more reminiscent of French, Italian and Spanish clerical conservatism than of American conservatism with its libertarian bent.'”
According to a Washington Post story, Antonin Scalia was sent to “an elite church-run military prep school in Manhattan where one of his classmates remembered him at age seventeen as ‘an arch-conservative Catholic [who] could have been a member of the Curia‘” (Dershowitz, 168).
Scalia has generally followed the political program of the U. S. Catholic Bishops against abortion outlined in their 1974 Pastoral Letter. The Letter, which was directed to the Catholic Lawyers Association and among other groups such as the Knights of Columbus, had as its primary focus the influencing of judicial appointments so as “to reverse the decision that legalizes abortion.” Scalia has rarely if ever departed from the Bishops’ position opposing abortion and even uses the language of the Bishops in calling an embryo or fetus “an unborn child.”
Justice Scalia is always in attendance at the annual Red Mass in Washington, D.C. The Red Mass [see CET, April, 2002, 26] is a medieval institution that has been repackaged in the United States in the twentieth century to influence judges and other lawmakers as well as the culture of the states and nation. Although it has some religious significance, the event has been used by Catholic bishops and cardinals as an opportunity to advocate the political proposals of the Vatican such as opposition to abortion and separation of church and state, support of aid to parochial schools, and reinterpreting personhood as taking place at conception rather than at birth. There is an underlying assumption that law and morality began with the Roman Catholic Church and divine revelation.
It is a total coincidence that “waterboarding” was invented
during the Spanish Inquisition to torture confessions from “heretics”
Last year, George W. Bush sent Andrew Card, his Chief of Staff, but this year, he’s zipping up from the hurricane photo-ops to be there:
AP, September 30, 2005
Bush is returning to the White House Sunday to attend the annual Red Mass, a service for those in the legal profession. And on Monday, he plans to attend the investiture ceremony for Chief Justice John Roberts at the Supreme Court …
And, Bush is paying special attention to Red Masses elsewhere:
September 1, 2005
WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR TO KEYNOTE RED MASS SEPT. 30 AT SAINT VINCENTJim Towey, Assistant to the President of the United States and Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives, will be the keynote speaker at the thirty-eighth annual Red Mass, to be held at noon Friday, September 30 in the Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica… Jim Towey was appointed in 2002 by President Bush to lead the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He also advises him on church-state and compassion issues, and reports directly to the President.
Prior to his current work at the White House, Mr. Towey spent ten years as a senior advisor to Republican U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield … In April of 2000, Mr. Towey received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Papal Cross Award from Pope John Paul II. Most significant in Mr. Toweys life, however, was his work and friendship with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He met Mother Teresa in 1985 and went on to serve as her legal counsel for 12 years.
As he saw himself, evidently
bushalo official White House photo
Oh, did I mention that John Roberts is now the FOURTH Supreme Court Justice who is a Catholic?*
[* 2012 note: while I was accused of anti-Catholic bigotry by First Things, it should be noted that nearly all of the 5-4 “conservative” majorities of the last several years — including Citizens United — have been the five Catholic justices, or, as I refer to them “The Alter Boys.” I was clearly barking up the wrong tree.]
That’s not only FAR too much influence for one (conservative) religious viewpoint in a pluralistic society, but FAR more important than the idiotic cavil that leftist luminaries raised that Roberts was a “white male.” Where were these deep thinkers when the question of one religious sect’s dominance of the Supreme Court moved a step closer to reality? Googling only noted ONE newspaper in Providence, Rhode Island that caught the significance!
At first blush, that might seem a prejudiced, or even biased sort of assertion. Certainly, it is a fact.
But I think that there is a long and deserved American political tradition of suspicion of Catholic motives in our politics. You don’t have to be anti-Catholic to have a little problem with the fact that the current Pope, Joey Rats, who was formerly the director of the Office Formerly Known as the Inquisition, and who all but excommunicated John Kerry over his (secular) pro-choice stance, and whose minion, Fr. Frank Pavone, all-but-openly campaigned for George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004, has declared war on United States law and policy that conflicts with Catholic teaching.
Since St. Augustine, the position of the Catholic
Church regarding abortion is almost exactly the
same position as Roe v. Wade. This guy, Pope
Leo XIII is notable for two things: reversing the
church’s stance to its present “pro-life” position,
and being high as a kite on cocaine-laced wine,
which he enthusiastically endorsed on its labels.
(see my single most popular blog posting EVER:
Catholic Bigotry Rides Again May 1, 2009.)
In other words, while we advocate and enshrine religious freedom as a bedrock principle of our society, Pope Joey Rats (and his predecessors) believe that’s just an invitation to proselytize, agitate and, if possible, change the law to their agenda.
Nothing particularly wrong in that, except for its tacit intolerance willing exploiting our tolerance.
Well, that’s not entirely fair. With the papacy of John the XXXIII’d, and the reforms of Vatican II, the Catholic church seemed to be willing to move into the modern age. It was a more tolerant and forgiving church, and Catholic priests were on the front lines against war, poverty and disease.
But John Paul II was a resolutely authoritatian pope, and the church has slipped back into that hyper-conservative mode that engendered a deep American distrust of papal motives in the first place.
John Paul II
I will pass over the irony that they have been aided and abetted by the furthest fringes of the Protestant churches here. The kid gloves of “working together” will come off soon enough. And I will pass over the personal insult of this little piece from … Joey Rats and Frank Pavone:
http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/dicasteries/cdfexorc.htm
(Note: The following letter, issued in 1984 at the Vatican, contains important information for the pro-life movement. Some activists, in praying at abortion mills, rightly acknowledge that we must pray against evil spirits, who are very real and very active to keep abortion going…)
… Bishops are asked to guard lest those who lack the required power attempt to lead assemblies in which prayers are employed to obtain liberation from demons, and in the course of which the demons are directly disturbed and an attempt is made to determine their identity. This applies even to cases which, although they do not involve true diabolical possession, nevertheless are seen in some way to manifest diabolical influence…
your servant in the Lord,
Joseph Card. Ratzinger, Prefect
Fine. Joey Rats and Frank Pavone think that abortion clinics and, evidently, “deathscorts” are diabolically influenced. Perhaps we might feel the same.
The problem is, George W. Bush is in bed with them, and hopes that John Roberts will be suitably influenced at the Red Mass to tow the Purity Line and decide cases the “right” way, a la Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia (both faithful sons of the Most Catholic Church).
The chief alter boy
Bush has made a habit of visiting popes — an act that would have provoked the most severe controversy in the United States only a few years ago, and FROM the religious right. It was only during the Reagan Administration that we established full diplomatic relations in 1984. (And note well that Bush ignored John Paul II’s admonitions not to invade Iraq. He’s not quite THAT much in bed with them. If they’re right, he ignores them.)
Diplomatic Relations with Holy See
By Thomas J. Reese, S.J., senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center
America, March 16, 1985When the U.S. Senate approved the appointment of William A. Wilson as the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See at the end of 1983, most people expected the debate over diplomatic relations with the Vatican to fade away. Not so. The fight has merely moved from the executive and legislative branches of government to the judiciary.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., the National Association of Evangelicals, the National Association of [Catholic] Laity and a number of other organizations filed suit in the Federal District Court of Philadelphia alleging that diplomatic relations with the Holy See violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment and the liberty and equal protection clauses of the Fifth Amendment.
Obviously the Supremes rejected that (fundamentally sound) assertion. Oddly, no embassy to the Greek [Eastern] Orthodox Church has been proposed.
un-embassied, un-ambassador’d
No, Bush LOVES the Catholic agenda when it coincides with his own, and pandering to it is a hallmark of his administration. Why, he’s flying back for tomorrow’s mass, before the Supreme Court term begins on the First Monday in October, notable as the first day of Rosh Hashanah, a day before Ramadan, and beginning with a solar eclipse on the new moon at 1028 Zulu time, or 3:28 AM, PDT.
Were we a superstitious lot, this “Red Mass” preceding a solar eclipse opening the court’s term would be an ill omen indeed. But, hopefully, we’re not superstitious.
Still, you can watch THIS on Monday: whether John Roberts wears Rehnquist’s obscene stripes*, or returns to two hundred plus years of tradition that the Chief Justice is merely “first among equals.” It will be telling about his mindset to see whether he embraces a return to REAL American tradition, or embraces the naked lust for power that the “conservative” court has so blatantly coveted. (Remember that NO COURT of “activist” judges ever struck down more congressional statutes, nor have any judges ever voted more often than Thomas and Scalia to do so — the most “activist” judges in U.S. history.)
[* He didn’t.]
Wild Bill: Was he the very model of a modern
major general, or was he just little buttercup?
And John Roberts is up to his eyeballs in the Red Mass (I’m just going to quote from my July 25 blog entry:
According to “LifeSite News” http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05072101.html
Married in their forties John and Jane Roberts were unable to conceive children of their own, but have adopted a boy and a girl, and Roberts has consistently shown a deep love for his role as a father.
There is, when you think about it, a clear connection between
Robertson’s insurgent campaign and Bush’s appointment of
‘safe’ Catholic jurists to hopefully overturn Roe v. Wade
She is, by all accounts, a “devout Catholic” and is on the Board of Governors of the John Carroll Society (named after the first US Bishop), according to its webpage: “On February 15, 1953, O’Boyle celebrated the first Society-sponsored Red Mass. In succeeding years, the congregation has frequently included the President of the United States and leading federal jurists, cabinet officials, congressmen and diplomats. Today, the Red Mass is celebrated annually on the Sunday before the first Monday in October, prior to the opening of the Supreme Court’s judicial year.”
Jane Sullivan Roberts at confirmation hearings
Here’s a piece of the “homily” delivered at the most recent “Red Mass”:
“In the face of the challenges at hand, we appeal to Catholic jurists and intellectuals and all people of good will to help rebuild consensus around the foundational principles necessary for democracy: the dignity of the human person who has both rights and responsibilities, the inalienable right to life, the relationship between truth and freedom, convictions about the common good, the centrality and importance of marriage and family, the need to nurture and protect the most vulnerable members of society, the need for solidarity among people.”
The Most Reverend Sean P. O’Malley, OFM Cap
Archbishop of Boston
Homily for the 51st Annual Red Mass, St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Washington, DC, October 3, 2004 (from their webpage)
But the Red Mass is more than just a Washington D.C. soiree: The Catholic Advocate reported in 2004 http://www.missionsun.net/tcafeb2004.htm
Bork: old creep, new Catholic. Bork and Rehnquist convinced
Barry Goldwater to vote AGAINST the Civil Rights Act, an act
Goldwater later characterized as “the worst mistake of my life.”
Boston’s Archbishop Sean O’Malley and former US Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork urged attorneys and law makers to fight the legalization of gay “marriage” and strongly oppose the ruling of Massachusetts’ November Supreme Judicial Court decision.
At Holy Cross Cathedral’s annual Red Mass, O’Malley said, “We cannot afford to be asleep at the switch. We cannot afford to run for cover. Today, at this Red Mass, I call on you, our Catholic lawyers and jurists, to live your baptismal commitment… Your baptism and your profession invest you with a great responsibility. Use your wisdom to defend the truth, to defend marriage. Do it with a passion and do what is right.”
O’Malley, who also attended a Citizens for Life assembly, said, “We live in an age when our hubris has made us blind to the madness around us, where our courts have undermined the value of life itself and now attempt to dilute the meaning of marriage”(in so doing) we risk diminishing our own humanity.”
Speaking at a Catholic Lawyer’s Guild luncheon, retired former attorney general Bork said we have entered a new age of judicial activism which is eroding the traditional separation of powers. Bork warned the US Supreme Court may be readying itself to hand down a national decision similar to that made by the Mass. court on the validity of gay marriage.
The same scene is repeated throughout the country. But tomorrow’s should be particularly intriguing. Roberts is going to be either subtly, or not-so-subtly that “U CAN’T B BOTH Catholic & PRO-CHOICE” [ibid.]
And here’s a little 2001 note from a rabid site called “excommunication.net”
FRI, NOV 9 — Attorney General John Ashcroft was in town last weekend. He attended the annual Red Mass at Holy Cross Cathedral for members of the judiciary, and spoke at the annual Catholic Lawyers Guild brunch. We decided to pass on this one, since the thought of applauding Mr. Ashcroft doesn’t feel quite right. While his enemies slur him for being a religious conservative, and pro-lifers enthuse that he is “one of us,” we still have unpleasant memories from his senate confirmation testimony when he took the “I’m personally opposed, but…” [that’s a direct quote] route. It was amazing to see then how the majority of pro-lifers made excuses for this denial, and apparently still do.
and here’s a little more of Archbishop O’Malley’s homily at last year’s Washington Red Mass:
“Too often when politicians agree with the Church’s position on a given issue they say the Church is prophetic and should be listened to, but if the Church’s position does not coincide with theirs, then they scream separation of Church and State.”
And good old, pious Rep. Henry “Youthful Indiscretion” Hyde (R, IL) had the entire 2003 “homily” inserted into the Congressional Record as an extension of his remarks on November 4, 2003 (E2207).
click for larger image
Kind of makes you feel warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? I mean, Roberts’ wife helped set up the speech, and Roberts is supposed to be a devout Catholic. I’m sure our secular freedoms are safe. (Indeed, there is virtually no doubt that he was in attendance at that Red Mass).
But, you’re probably still wondering, what does Frank Pavone have to do with this?
Well, here’s their press release (from PR Newswire):
To: National Desk
Contact: Jerry Horn of Priests for Life, 540-785-4733
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 /U.S. Newswire/ — Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, issued the following statement upon the Senate’s confirmation of the new Chief Justice:
“We at Priests for Life congratulate the new Chief Justice of the United States, John G. Roberts, Jr. We look forward to this new chapter in the history of the Supreme Court. We ask the Holy Spirit to give the new Chief Justice the wisdom and prudence that this role requires.”
“We also pray that all Americans will come to a new understanding of the proper role of the Court, which is to apply the laws created by the people through their elected legislatures, rather than replace those legislatures with policy- making of its own.”
Priests for Life is the nation’s largest Catholic pro-life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. For more information, visit
If he can be there, Fr. Frank Pavone will most assuredly attend this year’s Red Mass. He seems entirely pleased. He has a new order.
Promoted to pope after running the “Office Formerly
Known as the Inquisition” as JohnPaul II’s enforcer
Here’s the press release:
May 13, 2005
Founder Dedicates New Pro-Life Society to Memory of John Paul IIRome, Italy — Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, announced today from his Rome office that the new Society of Priests he has been given permission to establish will be dedicated in a special way to the memory and teachings of Pope John Paul II. This announcement comes on the same day that Pope Benedict XVI announced that he has begun the process by which John Paul II could be declared a saint.
Fr. Pavone stated, “The Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, as a group of priests dedicated exclusively to the defense of life from attacks like abortion and euthanasia, draws its plan of action from Pope John Paul II’s teaching and example — and in particular from his encyclical, The Gospel of Life. Our efforts move forward as a living memorial of this great Pope, and we dedicate this new initiative to him, the Pope of Life.”
Actually, I sat on a folding card table chair.
In temperatures from over 100 degress to
snow and freezing. This is merely metaphorical.
Meantime, the fellow in the USA shirt yelled something most un-Christian at me when I interposed myself between him and a post-procedure patient who was trying to get back to her car, back where he had no authority to go.
What was the point in that? She had already had the abortion. She felt sick and weak. But “Mr. USA” still wanted to harass her. And as he spoke, she hugged her bag closer to her chest and walked as quickly as she could, speeding up appreciably.
He yelled at me, when I put myself between him and her, and my little trick worked. He turned his scorn and derision on me, and forgot all about her.
I don’t know what he said, because I had my headphones on. But it wasn’t very “Christian.” That much was for sure.
Later, he would, in his frustration, talk to the landlord’s leaf-raking crew, and I overheard him telling them that they should just dump the leaves, and not, I suppose, landscape our evil, satanic, demonically inspired clinic.
Yes. It was insane. But perhaps the frustration at having only managed to give out one pamphlet in several hours had driven the angry man in the USA shirt slightly mad.
The landscaper wasn’t interested in his pamphlets either. In fact, he politely pretended that the angry man in the USA shirt wasn’t actually there.
At 11:32 AM, the angry lady with the cheap plastic rosary left for the day. At 11:44 AM, the angry man in the blue USA shirt shuffled off for the day.
Thus ended another day in my life as a “deathscort” in front of an “abortuary.” Final score: Library Lions, 5 Christians 0.
It’s a tough life when you’re not as pious as allegedly celibate priests like Frankie Pavone and Joey Rats.
Posted by: harto / 10/01/2005 07:26:00 PM
And we’re back to the present. Interesting how things change. And don’t.
Happy Trails.
Your “Deathscort” pal.
Courage.
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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, an honorary Texan, Clown (ditto) and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.