extreme Catholic 

Newborn rescued as fetus snatcher kills mom: New York Post

Complicating the case was a glitch in Missouri's Amber Alert system, which Espey said kept him from widely spreading word that someone had kidnapped a newborn.

Authorities initially refused Espey's request to issue the alert because he could not offer descriptions of the newborn or the abductors, Sgt. Keverne McCollum of the Missouri Highway Patrol's missing-persons unit told The Post.

"We had a live baby, and I thought that should qualify as an Amber Alert," Espey said. "The information I was getting was that we didn't have enough information such as hair color, eye color, skin complexion, size and weight."

Standards for Amber Alerts vary from state to state, but generally follow federal guidelines, law-enforcement officials said.

At the same time, cops in nearby Atchison County chased a red car matching the description of the vehicle spotted in Skidmore.

The driver switched off the car's lights and escaped into the back roads of rural northern Missouri.

News accounts continue to describe this living baby girl as a "fetus". I wonder what they are waiting for as the transition to call her a baby.

It was bizarre to hear television and radio accounts and read internet accounts of a living, breathing, human baby referred to as fetus.

My explanation is that we're accustomed to hear of these invasions of the womb in the context of legal abortion. What happened here is what I call the anti-abortion: The mother died and the daughter lived after the slaughter was over. Why this is called a "murder" and the opposite action is called "a woman's health care choice" is going to become part of how we think of abortion in the future.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 7:14 PM   Permalink  

I didn't read the Newsweek Christmas issue, but Patrick O'Hannigan did. And he presents a fisk of it which is worth reading on its own.

Credit: Amy Welborn.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:48 PM   Permalink  

There's a pro-life message in the story of the murder Bobbie Jo Stinnet and the living but unnamed child. Lisa Montgomery has confessed to the pre-meditated strangulation of the mother.

It was the anti-abortion: The innocent mother was intentionally killed and the baby girl was alive.

But was it a baby girl or a fetus? At what point did the unborn child cease being allowed to be killed by abortion law? I guess the question would be regarded by an abortion advocate that it would be a meaningless question, after all, because it was the Lisa Montgomery's choice and not Bobbie Jo Stinnet's. Perhaps it was in the moment the cord was cut.

• How and when did the child acquire legal rights as a person?
• In what way does the abortion of unborn child who can live outside the womb differ from this murder, except for the fact that the child and not the mother is killed and the mother's intent in abortion is to kill the child?

This tragedy puts a spotlight on the fact that post-viability children are being killed anyway in abortion.

The CNN link is "missouri.fetus", the headline is "missing infant".

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:54 PM   Permalink  

Fox News with video (very interesting)

local NBC TV

This story contains the fabulous claim that the Menorah is not a religious symbol while the Nativity scene is.

The bonus is the town's position is that the Catholic should be content with "snowflakes".

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:28 PM   Permalink  

New Jersey Nun is fired over Punch Line: New York Post

A New Jersey nun has been fired for allegedly threatening to discipline a mouthy sixth-grader by knocking out his teeth.

Sister Catherine Iaouzze, an assistant principal at St. Cecilia's School in Iselin, caught the 11-year-old boy walking down the wrong staircase on Nov. 11.

She allegedly told him he would "have no teeth left in his mouth if he had an attitude with her again," according to a harassment complaint filed by the boy's father.

The 69-year-old Iacouzze was fired Dec. 7 by the Diocese of Metuchen after an internal investigation.

I think that if my father found out that I spoke to a nun in a disrepectful tone when I was caught doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing, he'd carry out the threat and knock my teeth out.

But this isn't 1964, it's 2004.

Besides being fired, she faces a charge of harassment in s local court for this.

Reading between the lines, I think the school fired her as a way of placating the parents who I'm guessing threatened to sue the school as well as the teacher were she not fired.

It's for reasons like this that I support parochial school teachers having a union.

Other accounts have the expression "knuckle sandwich" to explain the threat.

Google has many other accounts.

Central New Jersey Home News Tribune expresses how I feel. Sister Catherine went over the line on this one, given the lack of support that teachers have from parents. But firing her is too severe a penalty for a first instance of this.

It certainly sends a signal to students that teachers are limited not only in physical punishment but in their verbal warnings.

Perhaps Sister Catherine should have just suspended the kid on the spot.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:55 PM   Permalink  

As a Catholic political it looks that I'm obligated to stay on this story as long as it lasts.

I don't say that this ends Rudy's chances, but it certainly erases the debt that the national Republicans owed to him for his support of Bush and the party. paid in full

This is an interesting new spin that I caught in the New York Post Page Six and was blogged by Kathryn Jean Lopez in NRO Corner

The biggest loser in the ruination of Bernie Kerik — besides Kerik himself — could be state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. When Kerik was picked by President Bush to be Homeland Security chief, it looked like a positive for his mentor Rudy Giuliani, who had promoted Kerik from chauffeur to police commissioner. But then Kerik had to withdraw. And the daily revelations — about Kerik's illegal nanny, his multiple mistresses and unsavory business dealings — are increasingly damaging to Giuliani's dream of running for president in 2008.

"How can Giuliani run where he'd be selecting Cabinet members and federal judges, after showing the bad judgment of promoting Kerik for Homeland Security?" one Republican insider wondered. "His only choice now is to run for governor" — presumably an easier goal, thanks to his local popularity.

So Spitzer, who expected only token Republican opposition, is now faced with a potential showdown against America's Mayor" and the hero of 9/11. A friend of Giuliani said, "He's not thinking about his political future. Any speculation is just plain silly."

As the discussion continued in NRO, the view on Rudy was grim.

I think Rudy should run to oppose Hillary.

Rudy's support of partial-birth abortion would make me a "anyone-but-Rudy" supporter in the Republican primary.

I can't imagine any appointed position that would be a good fit for the former mayor so running for Senator against Hillary Governor aganist Spitzer, both in 2006.

Kerik didn't file some disclosure forms at the time he became Corrections Commissioner. I think his current job at the time was NYPD Detective which a job covered by union rules.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:36 PM   Permalink  

U.S. Mission Ignores Cuban Warning Over Christmas Decorations: AP

U.S. diplomats on Wednesday ignored a warning from the Cuban government to immediately take down Christmas decorations outside its offices or face unspecified consequences.

The trimmings of Santa Claus, candy canes and white lights wrapped in palm trees still stood on the mission's seaside lawn a day after the warning. The element that irked the Cuban authorities most was a sign among the decorations that reads "75" - a reference to 75 Cuban dissidents jailed last year, according to U.S. Interest Section Chief James Cason.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:11 PM   Permalink  

To be comfortably wealthy in Southern California, to be married to a beautiful woman who loves you and has your baby growing inside her.

How can God's grace make this earthly life any more pleasant?

This is where original sin connects to the personal sin of Scott Peterson: We project pride and ingratitude onto him for his rejection of life and love: His life, his wife's life, his child's life.

If we put the man who steals a loaf of bread to save his starving child on one end of the scale of evil and the betrayal of Jesus on the other end. I put the double murder of Scott Peterson close to Judas at the frozen core of Hell in Dante's framework.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:24 AM   Permalink  

Something the led me to believe that history stands in opposition to the teaching of Pope John Paul II was a visit to the Historical Museum in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. I saw Pope Gregory the Great. He approved the death penalty. Moreover, this approval was memorialized in a tapestry whose production cost equaled any other work of art of that time. Roger Van der Weyden (ca. 1420) created "The Justice of Trajan and Herkinbald". Pope Gregory the Great is the central character however. In the panels on Trajan a popular legend is recalled. As Dante recorded the legend: There the high glory of the Roman prince was retold whose worth moved Gregory to intercession, and to great victory: I speak of the Emperor Trajan: and at his bridle was a poor widow, in the attitude of tearfulness and grief. A crowd, of horsemen, trampling, appeared round him, and the gold eagles, above him, moved visibly in the wind. The poor woman, among all these, seemed to say: ?My lord, give me vengeance for my son who was killed, at which my heart is pierced.? And Trajan seemed to answer her: ?Now, wait, till I return.? And she, like a person, urgent with sorrow: ?My lord, what if you do not return?? And he: ?One who will be in place of me will do it.? And she: ?What merit will another?s good deed be to you, if you forget your own?? At which he said: ?Now be comforted, since I must fulfill my duty before I go: justice wills it, and pity holds me here.? He who never sees anything unfamiliar to him, made this speech visible, which is new to us, because it is not found here. A panel shows justice being done: The murderer is executed before Trajan. Trajan stopping before the widow is depicted on the column erected to honor his triumphs. 113 AD. Fast Forward to the papacy of Pope Gregory the Great (590-604 AD) who was moved by the demonstration of justice and mercy so much so that he allowed the column to be preserved and not demolished as the triumphant Christians were not eliminating the pagan emperor's monuments. We know this much to be true as today, Trajan's Column still stands. But here's where it gets weird. Pope Gregory was so moved that he prayed for the release of his soul from Hell. As Dante continues the role of Pope Gregory in the legend: Regnum Coelorum, the Kingdom of Heaven, suffers the force of hot love and living hope, which overcomes the Divine Will, not in the sense in which man overcomes man, but overcomes that Will, because it wishes to be overcome, and once overcome, in turn overcomes, with its own kindness. The lives of the first and fifth lights, along the eyebrow, cause you to marvel, because you see them decking this region of the Angels. They did not leave their bodies as Gentiles, but as Christians, with firm belief in those pierced feet, that to the first would suffer, and to the other had already suffered. Since the first, Trajan, came back to his bones from Hell, where no one ever returns to the true will, and this was the reward for living Hope: the living Hope which added power to Gregory?s prayers to raise him, so that His will might have the power to be moved. That glorious soul, of which we speak, returning to the flesh where it lived a while, believed in Him who had the power to help, and, believing, kindled so great a flame of true Love, that it was worthy of coming here, to this rejoicing, on its second death. Perhaps Trajan died without sanctifying grace but as a virtuous pagan, his soul resided in Limbo, and not Hell. Of course, Trajan persecuted Christians, but that might be mitigated by ignorance. Accordingly, Pope Gregory petitioned God to remove Trajan from Hell to Heaven. As part of the cleanup of Rome, the remains of Trajan were discovered. The skull intact and miraculously the tongue alive. More miraculously, the animated skull of Trajan spoke to Pope Gregory: praises to God and thanks for the intercession of Pope Gregory. This wonderful scene is depicted on the panel of the tapestry. The next panels depict a dying Prince Herkinbald who is told of his traitorous favorite nephew. Upon the visit of this young man to the deathbed, Herkinbald pulls out a dagger and cuts the throat of the traitor. In the tapestry the appearance of Prince Herkinbald is identical to that of Emperor Trajan. In the next panel, Pope Gregory shows up and absolves the Prince and gives him Last Anointing. It's only a tapestry and it's only legends but it speaks to 20 centuries of law and Christianity where the death penalty, properly used, was seen as justice.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:51 PM   Permalink  

I know that everyone including me is prepping for Christmas and doing special Advent things so I expected a slower-than-usual news weekend.

It was a lazier than usual weekend for the news channels. Going into the weekend I'm guessing they were hoping for a decision on the death penalty for Scott Petersen so they beat the dead horse of Bernard Kerik's nomination.

I thought my blog on this would be that there's no news here, but Michelle Malkin has interesting stuff on her blog on Kerik.

Kerik should have come clean during the disucssions with the White House on every detail of his life. Holding stuff back, hoping it wouldn't get out was a very dumb idea.

Something Michelle doesn't mention is that like the boyfriends of "gay American" Jim McGreevey, disgraced former governor of New Jersey, and Cristyne Lategano, the mistress of Rudy Giuliani, as well as the Kerik "issues" -- they were known for a long time to the press (i.e. MSM) and some new media types as well. The new media held back because it lacked a smoking gun. The MSM likes to have leverage over public figures so that they can bend the rules in their favor with the threat to expose a story like this.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:07 AM   Permalink  

As part of its reincarnation, America Online Inc. is creating its own software for browsing the Web and playing movies and songs. It's a question of staying relevant in an increasingly broadband world.

Didn't they acquire a company to do just that a few years back and then allowed it to self-destruct? Just Google Netscape.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:30 AM   Permalink  

from the Catholic League

Itv reports that the Nativity scene in celebrity wax figures was vandalized as well.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:25 AM   Permalink