You're Invited to Attend My Upcoming Seminar in Providence, RI

October 15, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

I’ll be speaking on Saturday, October 24th,, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., at Holy Ghost Catholic Church, 316 Judson Street, in Tiverton, Rhode Island.


Please click here for more info (including a glimpse of what appears to be one of my gradeschool pictures!), and click here for the registration form.

The ticket price (levied by the parish) is just $25 for the day, which includes lunch. Or, you can skip the lunch and attend the entire conference for just $20. If you can’t attend but would like to help the parish by making a donation of $20 or more to help sponsor those who’d like to attend but are unable to, due to cost, please contact the parish at (401) 624-8131 or via e-mail at secretary@HolyGhostCC.org.

Thanks. I hope to see some of you there on October 24th.

The Beauty and Majesty of Liturgical Dance

October 15, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

I must say, this is one of the more sophisticated and expressive examples of liturgical dance I have seen over the years. The aesthetic value of the song which the dancer interprets in this video is amply betokened by his movements.


An Abortionist Turns to Divine Mercy

October 14, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

He used to perform abortions. Then he returned to his Catholic faith. Now, Dr. John Bruchalski’s mission is to help spread the message of Divine Mercy through his medical practice. His powerful conversion story is why planners for the upcoming North American Congress on Mercy have invited him to give his witness for the historic Nov. 14-15 event.

First, he founded the Tepeyac Family Center in 1994. The obstetrical and gynecological facility in Fairfax, Va., combines the best of modern medicine with the healing presence of Jesus Christ. Then, in 2000, he founded Divine Mercy Care, a non-profit organization performing spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

Dr. John Bruchalski shares with us how he got to where he is today:

The Tepeyac Center is named after the hill in Mexico where the Blessed Mother appeared to Juan Diego in 1531. Why “Tepeyac”?

In 1987, I was studying medicine and I was trying to discern about residency programs when a friend of mine invited me down to Mexico City. At the time I was being a typical gynecologist. I believed that contraceptives would liberate women. When I visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I very distinctly heard the words “Why are you hurting me?” It was an internal voice. It was a woman’s voice — very loving, very non-threatening. It was very clear, but I didn’t entirely understand it. I believe that voice was Our Lady of Guadalupe trying to make me see what I was doing. But it would be years before I fully understood the message.

In my residency, I was working at an invetro-fertilzation center. It was also a contraceptive research and development center. While I was there, my mother took me on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in Yugoslavia, and there it became very clear to me during quiet time what I was doing. And so when I came back home, I joined a pro-life practice in Maryland. But they didn’t go far enough. They didn’t serve the underserved. I said, “There’s got to be a better way to do this,” and so I started the Tepeyac Family Center in 1994. And I put Tepeyac in the name to remind me why I was doing this. I need daily reminders [laughs].

Clearly, you yourself have been touched by Christ’s mercy.

I’ve built contraceptives. I went to university where we built IUDs [intrauterine devices, to prevent pregnancy], we did abortion services. The reality is that He can save any one of us. None of us are too far away. None of us are too lost.

Yes, Jesus’ mercy affected me. Christ doesn’t look back on my past. I have been forgiven. “Repent and believe.” The Chaplet [of The Divine Mercy] is so important to me — I have to say it over and over again for me to believe it.

We can all learn from mercy. We can all learn from the Diary. We can all learn from the Chaplet every day how to deepen our trust. Remember: the Holy Spirit does the hard work. I know that if you take time and engage Christ, He will speak to you. If you take the Diary of St. Faustina, Christ is speaking to you even though He is speaking to St. Faustina.

How did you first learn about the message of Divine Mercy?

I grew up in a great Polish family, and every morning we said a decade of the Rosary for the conversion of Russia, and it just so happened that Jezu, ufam Tobie!, the Polish version of “Jesus, I Trust in You,” was a common phrase around our house. I always believed that faith and action go together. And so as I got older and came back to the Catholic Faith, I found it to be incredibly powerful and beneficial that when you try to give your life to Christ in a more radical way, the conversion of the heart passes right through the phrase “Jesus, I trust in You.” In fact, that phrase conceptualizes, for me, everything I wanted to do in my personal and professional life.

Please explain why in your professional life you emphasize Divine Mercy.

The reason we emphasize Divine Mercy is because society is in the slop. Pessimism, skepticism, relativism, and cynicism are abundant everywhere you look. Think about the political world: Terrorism reigns throughout the political world. On a national level: We’re looking at a bad economy, the rising China, gas prices at $4 a gallon, more than $100 for a barrel of oil. Enron has stolen away our trust. You’re finding more CEOs getting multi-billion-dollar buyouts while the average person is getting hammered. In our music, in our movies, in sports with the steroids — everywhere, we’re in the slop.

And in medicine, what are we finding? In my profession of OB/GYN, they want you to push contraceptives on kids and hormones to older women. They want to put IUDs into teenagers. They want us to abort children. They want us to selectively reduce twins and triplets to get them to single babies because of the risks of in-vitro fertilization. We are truly in the slop.

But once I began reading the Diary of St. Faustina, it was very clear to me that the answer to today’s society is mercy, and mercy involves justice and the dignity of the human person. Divine Mercy gives us hope. And when you’re in the slop, you need hope. I would encourage everyone to take quiet time. Use the Chaplet. Learn the message of Divine Mercy. Then transform into a language you can use on a daily basis and that you can use in your professional, private and family life. We have to integrate mercy into whatever we’re doing. We [at Divine Mercy Care] just have happened to do it in medicine.

[. . .]

When you were practicing “mainstream medicine,” what attitudes did you find most troubling?

I encountered four basic attitudes. The fir
st was fear — fear in the patients and fear in the practitioners of medicine. Remember, fear is a learned behavior, and fear is not of the Lord. We have a fear of “safe sex,” fear of getting pregnant. The child is often seen as a sexually transmitted disease. The fear of too many people in the world — that it’s causing global warming. In society, we’re not looking at the problem; we believe people are the problem. With doctors, there’s the fear of being sued; the fear of not paying back student loans; the fear of not making enough money. There’s also the fear of those in the Christian community — you know, “if I follow my faith, am I going to have patients?” So what happens is, science and medicine have literally confined faith into the realm of private experience. And by making it private, it deprives the world of hope. The answer to fear is “Jesus, I trust in You.”

The second thing is conscience. We began to see conscience as what we feel and not what is true. If we think something is right, it is in fact “right,” especially if no one else is hurt. And so therefore, I began to see conscience as being internally formed rather than formed through consulting with an objective agency such as the Church. As we read in Matthew 28, “Teach them to carry out everything that I have commanded you, and know that I will be with you till the end of time.” If you are a Catholic, the Church is a teaching entity; it explains things to you. Divine Mercy helps you see that.

The third thing I saw in society was the arrogance toward human life. People became objects. Think about it: Michael Vick and dog fighting received more press time than the partial-birth abortion debate. Embryos are being pitched around in scientific experiments. They’re being tested. They’re being frozen. And yet, there’s human life there.

The last thing I saw was that health was not integrated any more. It was fractured. Even though they’ve expanded health to include psychological and social factors, they left out the religious factor. . . . (continue reading)

Get details here about the upcoming Divine Mercy conference in Washington, D.C..

Check out the new "Rolltop" Computer

October 14, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

A visual history of the credit card.

October 14, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Pro-Life Mom of 6 Gives Whoopie & Baba Wawa Their Comeuppance

October 13, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

I post this excellent video clip of the feisty Rachel Campos-Duffy with gratitude to Patrick Archbold at Creative Minority Report for finding this beauty (I mean that literally and figuratively, by the way) and making me aware of her/it.

One commenter at CMR reacted to this video (BTW, I do not endorse his description of one of the viragos on “The View” as a “hag”), saying:

I HAD to watch this a second time. And when Rachel mentions the word abortion, you can actually see the ugly old hag (which one, right?) Barbara Walters’ mouth open, letting all the flies out. Her expression is like, “Did this little brat REALLY just say that on MY show?????” But because the audience is SO DUMBSTRUCK that the most beautiful woman on that panel spoke so eloquently and made such a good point, there is just silence. No booing or jeering. And Barbara can’t get it one of her pattent put-downs or sarcastic quip, at the risk of the audience turning on HER.

Why Does This Not Surprise Me? Abortionist Punches Woman in Face in Road Rage Incident

October 13, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Here’s how I figure it. This dufus has no problem slaughtering unborn children to make a buck, so why would anyone be surprised that he’d use violence to get what he wanted from this hapless woman accompanied by her two little kids who were watching in terror in the back seat as he beat up their mom? What he wanted, apparently, was revenge.


(Hmm. I wonder where all that rage could be coming from.)


Funny thing: Under the law, he’ll probably get fined and might do a little time in the slammer for punching a young mom in the face just because he was angry — Because that’s bad. It’s Baaad. See? — And yet the same law protects and exonerates him as he performs his grisly abortions which, at least in the eyes of the law, is not bad. It’s good! See how it works?

Lifesitenews.com reports:

Sandy Springs police have arrested abortionist Daniel E. McBrayer, 58, on charges of punching a woman in the face during an afternoon “road rage” incident last Monday.

Regina Ordaz says that McBrayer got out of his car at the intersection of Roswell and Abernathy roads, walked up to her car as she was stopped at a red light, and struck her in the face.

Ordaz says she thought that McBrayer was going to ask her for directions or tell her that something was wrong with her car. She also says that McBrayer had cut her off several blocks previously, but that she didn’t know why the physician attacked her. Her 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter were in the back seat at the time of the assault.

Ordaz followed McBrayer’s vehicle a short distance in order to be able to give the police a description of the car, which led to the physician’s arrest. She was treated at a local hospital.

This is not McBrayer’s first brush with the law. He was disciplined in 2001 for performing second-trimester abortions in his Marietta office despite the fact that performance of abortions after the first trimester in a non-hospital setting or in an unlicensed abortion mill is a violation of Georgia law. McBrayer paid a $5,000 fine, had his medical license put on probation for 2 years, and underwent 20 hours of training in the “area of ethics” as punishment.

McBrayer was also involved in the 1989 death of 27-year-old Catherine Pierce, whose child he aborted.
After McBrayer performed the abortion, Catherine Pierce was left unattended and went into cardiac arrest due to complications from the abortion. This left her comatose before her death in a nursing home on October 10, 1989. An investigation into the safety of the facility where McBrayer worked was launched after this death.

Rose said McBrayer turned himself in Wednesday night at Sandy Springs police headquarters, where he met with detectives. He was taken to the Doraville Jail, and was booked on a simple battery charge. . . . (continue reading)
While you’re at it, here’s another post on the subject with some additional heartburn-inducing tidbits about this story.

Fear and Trembling! Jon Stewart to lecture on Kierkegaard!

October 13, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog



No, not that Jon Stewart. But check it out anyway if you’ll be in or near the Bay Area on October 21. Drop by the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology for what promises to be an intellectually stimulating lecture. You don’t have to be a philosopher to enjoy this!

“Kierkegaard and Hegel on Faith and Knowledge”
When: Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 7:00 pm
Where:
Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley, California

One of Kierkegaard’s main objections to Hegel’s philosophy is that it misunderstands the nature of religion by placing it on a par with various forms of scholarship and knowing. Through his pseudonymous authors, Kierkegaard stubbornly insists that faith is fundamentally different from knowledge. How would Hegel respond to Kierkegaard’s objection? I wish to argue that Hegel would find Kierkegaard’s conception of faith to be a pure formalism with no determinate content.For this reason, it cannot be properly designated as Christian faith since it has no content by which it can be distinguished from the faith of other religions.

Where Are the Grownups at the Christina School District?

October 12, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog


(Photo: FNC)

If this story doesn’t aggravate you, nothing will. A pint-sized cub scout has been suspended for bringing a “weapon” to school. And the rocket scientists who are running the school district whose boundaries this child has the misfortune to reside within have sentenced the little guy to reform school because of what they deem to have been a “level three offense.” Seriously.


Six-year-old Zachary Christie was so excited to become a Cub Scout that he brought his camping utensil to school. The tool serves as a spoon, a fork and a knife, and Zachary wanted to use it at lunch.

What Zachary didn’t know was that the gizmo violated his school’s zero-tolerance policy on weapons. And now the Christina School District in Newark, Del., has suspended the first grader and ordered him to attend the district’s reform school for 45 days.

Zachary’s parents insist their son did not intend to hurt anyone, and they are fighting to overturn the ruling. . . . (source) (see also)

Archbishop Chaput on the Struggle Between "Caesar" and Belmont Abbey College

October 12, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog



Here is an important section of Archbishop Charles J. Chaput’s extraordinary address to the
Envoy Institute of Belmont Abbey College “Envoy of the Year” award banquet last Thursday, October 8th, in Charlotte. I found his words that evening to be prophetic and inspiring.


One of the Archbishop’s insights was this gem of an aphorism:

“If we stand up to evil, we may lose. If we don’t stand up to evil, we will lose.”

” . . . Today the bigots we face are different. Caesar wears a different suit. He has great media handlers. He bullies religion while he claims to respect it. He talks piously about the law and equality and tolerance and fairness. But he still confuses himself with God — and he still violates the rights of Catholic believers and institutions by intruding himself where he has no right to be.

“It‟s one of the great ironies of the moment that tiny Belmont Abbey would have the courage to challenge Caesar over its right to be faithfully Catholic in its policies, while so many other American Catholics seem eager to give Caesar honors. But God is a God of ironies, as the Philistines discovered, among others.

“One of the deepest truths of the human predicament is this: If you stand up to evil, you may lose. But if you don’t stand up, you will lose. Belmont Abbey [College], to its very great credit, has the character to stand up and defend its right to be Catholic. The Becket Fund stands with it. Patrick Madrid and the Envoy Institute have been standing up for the Catholic faith for many years.

“We have the duty to support all of them with our prayers, our financial resources and pressure on our public officials to stop today‟s government interference with the identity and policies of faithful Catholic institutions. . . . (complete text of speech)

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