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Spiritually Adopt a Radical Liberal for Lent

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The radical liberals are coming for your children.  It’s time to wake up, people.  These extremists have become emboldened by the decaying morals and rising apathy in America and they are now hard at work re-programming your children through our educational system.

A recent article  from the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute included several disturbing quotes from Diane Schneider, a representative of the NEA (National Teacher’s Association— the largest teacher’s union in the US).  She actually stated, “Oral sex, masturbation, and orgasms need to be taught in education.”  She’s not just talking about the colleges and universities, which sadly already include such topics in their curriculum. 

Ms. Schneider is concerned about younger children because too many “are stuck in a binary box that religion and family create.”   To reduce these pesky influences, she wants to include mandatory classes on comprehensive sex education in the middle and high schools.  This is all in the spirit of promoting tolerance, or course.  At least that’s the cover story.  Ms. Schneider feels that sexualizing our children at a young age will help “combat heterosexism and gender conformity,” thus somehow reducing criticism of homosexual and transsexual lifestyles. 

Although my middle school-age children will likely not be forced to take Orgasm 101 or Basics of Masturbation next fall, I still feel a need to DO something to protest this twisted philosophy that is slowly but surely creeping into our society.  As I searched for contact information for Diane Schneider and the NEA, an interesting thought crept into my mind.  I could express my outrage in a strongly-worded email that will probably never be read by either Ms. Schneider or anyone influential within the NEA, or I could pray to change her heart and mind. 

In fact, I could “spiritually adopt” Ms. Schneider during Lent just as I have “spiritually adopted” six babies in danger of abortion over the last five years, praying daily for nine months each to change the hearts and minds of the mothers who considered aborting them. 

It’s one thing to pray each day for an innocent unborn child but quite another to sacrifice time and effort for a woman I’ve never met who wants to unravel the values I’ve taught my children.  It makes giving up desserts seem easy!  Yet Lent is all about doing what is difficult to help us grow spiritually.  Jesus challenges us to “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28)   

During Lent (in addition to giving up desserts), I’m going to pray and sacrifice to change the heart and mind of Diane Schneider.  I will pray Rosaries for her, offer up Masses, even fast for the intention of her conversion of heart.  Perhaps one day I’ll watch her on The Journey Home or read her best-selling book on abstinence education. 

I hope you’ll join me in “spiritually adopting” a radical liberal for Lent.  We can all do our part to change hearts and minds, one person at a time.

(© 2011 Peggy Bowes)

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  • Kmbold

    The best advice! I’ll add her and others like her to my prayer list today. What wonders have been wrought by prayer.

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  • The hardest part will be holding the right intentions in prayer. We do not seek to “fix” people or even to change them per se, we seek that others have a radical, life-changing encounter with Christ. He’s the doctor and will do whatever fixing is necessary, in his own way.

  • K8-EEE

    As an ex-Catholic who is so happy to be freed from all this superstition, I will hope that you all find your way out of it and into the real world, which is beautiful. Look at the strength, courage, and kindness of the Japanese people right now if you need an example of how wonderful human beings can be without Jesus myths.

  • Jann

    I doubt if K8-EEE frequents this site, but K8-EEE, I prayed for you at Mass this morning.

    I am saddened that that you left our faith and that you know very little about the Japanese and their culture. A massive natural disaster will often rally people around each other. BUT look closer. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, with one Japanese person taking his or her own life every 15 minutes. This is clearly a people in desperate need of Jesus!

  • K8-EEE

    Folks, your prayer lists accomplish absolutely NOTHING except to give you delusions of grandeur. This idea of God working a request line in the sky so he can change events on earth is really so childish. And once people are born again into rationality, good luck on “praying” them back into the dark ages.

  • Mary Kochan

    Hi, K8-EEE, so glad you are back. We agree: if we thought that God was “working a request line in the sky” that would be childish. In fact if you thought that was what prayer was, or how it worked, then you never grew beyond a childish understanding of the Catholic faith and we completely understand why you would reject that as you grew in understanding. Adults need an adult, not childish, faith.

    Since you are so into “rationality,” what is your rational explanation for the demonstrated phenomena of people who are prayed for having better medical outcomes than people who are not prayed for — even when the patients don’t know they are being prayed for? http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=72734

    As for your earlier comment on Japan, your premise is flawed because you are assuming what is at issue AND you are also misrepresenting the position you are arguing against. We agree that people without faith in Christ may exhibit many natural virtues; Christians do not claim that virtue requires belief in Christ. So seeing virtue in people who are not believers does not somehow rock our faith or challenge what we believe, as you seem to think.

    When you show such ignorance of the Catholic faith you claim to have once belonged to, it really calls your credibility into question.

  • K8-EEE, if you grew up Catholic then you have the graces of Baptism and probably Confirmation at work in your soul. I know I did, the ten years I was away from the Church. I knew God was real; I knew it was wrong to call myself a “recovering Catholic”; and I knew it was wrong to slam Christians for their faith. I didn’t know why I believed these things, but I did. You still have God at work deep inside you; don’t be afraid to let Him in. Does the world at some level make sense? Then there is a Source to the order, there has to be.

    • K8-EEE

      Yep I grew up Catholic and went to Catholic school for 12 years but I never really believed it deep down and finally in my 40’s got the courage to “make waves” in my family and say it out loud. I was surprised that everyone was supportive including my mom who had been struggling with the pedo priests in our archdiocese and the Cardinal’s effort to cover it up. More and more people are leaving, so it seems my hopes are more effective than your prayers!

      • If you “never really believed in it deep down,” I can say with certainty that you were never properly formed in the Catholic faith to begin with (unfortunately, there’s a lot of that going around). Yet here you are on Catholic Lane, fallen in with a motley crowd of catechists, Catholic writers and editors, and lay witnesses of every stripe. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I just want to extend a welcome to you and let you know that if you have any questions, all of us are here. God bless you.

  • And actually, I’d get a real kick if someone really could “pray me back to the Dark Ages.” Have you ever watched Brother Cadfael? PBS reruns the show every once in a while. He’s a former soldier in 11th-century England, a worldly man, who in his retirement became a monk. People are always turning up dead in the vicinity of his monastery and he solves the murders. It’s great fun.

  • Mary Kochan

    K8-EEE, what happened with those priests is terrible, but you are surely “rational” enough to know that that does not represent by any means most priests. As for the idea that more and more are leaving, well, more and more are coming too. The Church is growing — not shrinking. So the statistics say that our prayers are more effective than your hopes.

    But really what kind of hope is that would want people to lose their faith? That would want to weaken the institution in the world that does the most charitable works? That most strongly defends the dignity of human life? What kind of a sick hope is that? That’s what you hope for? Surely you are kidding.

    • K8-EEE

      Yes, what happened with those priests is horrible but so is the systematic mechanisms without the hierarchy of the church to enable it and cover it up. Any secular organization with their kind of record of horrific child abuse would be shut down. So how is it that you are praying for us rationalists when you have a lot of evil right there in your religion that is not even close to settled and prayer didn’t seem to help those poor children any. Take out the splint in your own eye; IMO this “spirtital adoption” idea is as presumptious, and cultish, as Mormons baptizing dead people.

      • Mary Kochan

        Once again K8-EEE, the facts simply do not bear you out. The record of abuse and cover up within public school systems has been shown to be worse, yet they are not shut down. I am not excusing either situation, just responding with facts to your claims.

        How do you know prayer didn’t help those children? (Btw, most of the abuse was NOT againnst young children, but was homosexual abuse of adolescent boys which is not technically pedophilia.) I know many people who have been victims of child abuse of various kinds and who themselves say that prayer is a great help to them. But prayer does not control human beings, because God does not control human beings, K8-EEE. God is not a dictator. For example, when you do something wrong, God does not swoop in from heaven and stop you. Or do you want to claim that you are perfect and have never in your life hurt another human being?

        God does not keep us from hurting one another. God does not even keep us from hurting him. God did not even keep us from killing him. He has total respect for our free will.

        But I will tell you one thing about those victims, and every victim of crime and injustice in all of human history past or to come. God is going to make it all up to them. He will completely heal them.

        Rationalism apart from God hurts people, too. Atheistic communists slaughtered millions in the last century. So it is not as though getting God out of the picture keeps people from being hurt. What it does though is remove hope for justice ever being done, for healing ever happening.

        Oh, and btw, since you think the Japanese are so moral w/o Jesus and you are so upset about child abuse, you really need to read up on the rape of Nanking.

  • Sins committed by priests are more horrific than sins committed by ordinary people. This is because of the sacramental nature of their office and because we tend to hold them to a higher standard, as we should. There is no excuse for abuse of children; the Pope himself has said as much, and the perpetrators need to be brought to justice.

    Having said that, take a look at the 12 disciples Jesus had gathered around him at the Last Supper. One betrayed him outright, for 30 pieces of silver, and another (the head and first Pope, St. Peter), proved himself a coward by denying Jesus three times. He and nine of the others fled Jesus before the crucifixion took place.

    Only one, St. John, stayed by Jesus’ side all through his ordeal, and was present at the foot of the Cross with Jesus’ Mother. One out of twelve of Jesus’ inner circle managed to remain faithful? I’d say that’s pretty pathetic.

    But that’s fallen human nature, and that’s the Church we belong to. We shouldn’t be inordinately shocked when sin happens, because it’s been happening since Day One. The sin of the Apostles foreshadowed virtually every imaginable kind of sin on the part of the hierarchy; one Renaissance Pope even wanted to make the Papacy hereditary!

    The question is, I think, not are these Christians particularly virtuous (though many are, and that’s an interesting observation); rather, the question is, is what they are saying about God possible? Is it true? Jesus demands a judgment, a demand echoed by his Church: could this be true? Is it possible? And if it is, what are the implications for me? These are the questions I think you need to be asking.

  • K8-EEE, based on your comments, I imagine you grew up like me with a very watered-down Catechism. We were never really taught the truths and doctrine of our faith but were given a “feel-good” type of education that was not a true faith foundation.

    I am also guessing that you are an elementary school teacher (K8 = kindergarten through 8th?) and that you have probably received much indoctrination into the liberal way of thinking. You probably see many students who need lots of love and attention but are not receiving it. You might think that a rational, non-faith-based education has all the answers for “fixing” the problems of these children, but actually the opposite is true. If children were taught true charity, to truly recognize the presence of Christ in every single person, then so many problems would be resolved.

    I was a very lukewarm Catholic for many years and did not live a very Christina life, but I went to Mass and Confession only as an “insurance policy” against hell. I often wondered what the point of religion was. It was not until I started reading and studying the Bible and learned to pray that I truly understood the wonderful depth of the Catholic faith (ironically in my 40s, the same time you turned away from faith).

    I assure you that I have been praying for Diane Schneider (my “spiritually adopted” liberal) every day this Lent. I have fasted and offered Masses for her as well. Each day, I grow to love her more and more, and I see her as a wounded soul rather than as an enemy.

    I will pray for you too because you seem to be searching for something that is missing in your life. Why else would you keep returning to this site? I challenge you to do this: Pray to God with an open heart and ask Him sincerely to show that He exists. He will take your breath away with the answer.

    God bless!

    • K8-EEE

      I am not searching for anything that is missing in my life. However I am not angry at all these condescending comments because I would get the same from the followers of Reverend Moon or any cult, they simply cannot picture a reality-based life not devoted to cult rituals and their “one true God.” It’s very sad to me but I suppose some people need it. However, when it comes to “spiritutal adoption,” baptism of the dead and that sort of thing, there is such a lack of respect to those who come to different conclusions than yourselves, it is the very opposite of the humility you are supposed to be practicing.

      • K8-EEE, I did not at all mean for my comments to be condescending, and I apologize if that’s how they came across. On the contrary, I was trying to understand where you were coming from.

        Catholicism is not a cult. Our rituals are part of a long-established religion that is still going strong 2000 years after it was founded despite many persecutions and attacks. It will always exist until the end of time because Jesus Himself told us “that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

        You do have to realize that the human aspect of the Church will always be flawed because mankind is sinful by nature. There will always be priests, bishops and even popes who will let us down. Have you yourself never let anyone down or disappointed someone? Our true faith and hope is rooted in God, who will never fail us.

        I am certainly not going to defend any Mormon practices but “Spiritually adopting” someone by praying for that person in a charitable way is not at all disrespectful. As Prairie Hawk pointed out, it would be wrong to ask God to “fix” that person to our satisfaction. I am praying that Diane Schneider will receive the graces she needs to get to heaven. I leave the details in God’s capable hands. How is that disrespectful? Praying for another person actually helps me to practice humility. I could be fasting and praying for my own personal intentions (and I certainly do so to help overcome my sinful tendencies), but making sacrifices for another person makes me less selfish. Even a non-believing rational person understands that doing something for another person who will never know or be able to thank you helps both people. Isn’t that what the secular concept of “paying it forward” is all about?

        I hope and pray that you will return to the Church and that God will send you a person who truly leads you back by his or her example of living a holy, Christ-centered life.

  • K8-EEE

    Hope is the secular version of praying and has exactly the same results. I would hope that you would all get over turning a blind eye to what kind of organization the RCC really is but I am likely to have the same results as you will by “praying” I develop a cultish devotion to it; none. However, the more access to information people have the more truth comes out about the church and fewer and fewer people are falling for it.

  • Mary Kochan

    K8-EEE, if you want to hold the opinion that all belief in God is silly and therefor Moonies are no better off than Catholics who are no better off than Mormons, etc, that is your right. However, to assert that Catholics praying for their enemies is the same conceptually as Mormon proxy baptism for the dead is simply wrong. Mormons are attempting to cause the conversion of people, we could say “against their will” or “apart from their will” whereas that is not the case in praying for someone because we don’t believe that even God coerces the will.

    We pray for people who hate us because Jesus told us to do so. As for the efficacy of such prayers, once again, we have evidence of their efficacy. St. Augustine credited his mothers prayers with bringing him to faith; St. Therese prayed for man on death row who repented almost at the last minute, etc. God gives us the privilege of cooperating with Him through prayer — helping us to overcome our selfishness and sacrifice for others.

    I did not used to be Catholic, but the more I learned about the Church, the more I wanted to be in it. That is why so many people will be joining the Church this coming Easter vigil. That is why thousands of Anglicans in England just joined the Church.

    You have many strong assertions, but no evidence for what you say. You take a man like Mortimer Adler, who was editor of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, co-founder of the Great Books series and taught philosophy at Columbia — you think you know more about the Catholic Church than he did? He converted from being Jewish to being Catholic.

    The list of scientists, historians, jurists, etc. — persons of great accomplishment and wisdom who have been and are Catholic is just astounding, yet you dismss them all as stupid. There really is not much one can do with that.

  • If you want a “reality-based life”, let’s do a little exercise in reality. We have this fellow Jesus, who lived and died 2000 years ago. Virtually everyone who has ever studied the question agrees that he was a real, historical person. But the question everyone wants to know is, who was he?

    Some say he was a nice man who said a few wise things, and then his followers got him all wrong and attributed all kinds of craziness to him, like rising from the dead. Others say he was a lunatic, others a prodigious liar. Christians say he was the only Son of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity become human.

    Jesus himself once asked his chief disciple, Peter, this question: “Who do you say that I am?” The claim has been made that he has the power to save us from Hell and get us into Heaven for all eternity. A lot–millions and millions of people–have said this over the years. You don’t know whether it’s true or not, but the price of being wrong seems very high. It looks like the only prudent thing to do is answer the question. So, who do you say Jesus is? Was he just a man, or a figment of the Church’s collective imagination, or a lunatic, or the Son of God?

    It seems a fair question, given the claims that have been made and the importance of the issue. So what do you say?

    • K8-EEE

      I disagree that there is 100% agreement that Jesus was a “real historical person” and not a composite of various people and urban legends in the region at the time. However if he existed he was yes, of course, “just a man.”

      No, I do not believe Jesus was conceived with a “spirit” father or that his dead body flew to the sky. I’M the nutty one? Really? Nor do I believe that God “sacrificed” his “only begotten son” because God cannot sacrifice anything. He’s God. He can have a million begotten sons if he wants. He could have made us all little Gods if that’s what he wants. It is all such nonsense that I can’t believe there are people who don’t doubt it all especially given the amount of power and wealth organizations like the RCC have hoarded from imposing these myths.

      • If Jesus was an “urban legend,” how is it that he was able to found an institution that still exists, in a form essentially unchanged, from 2000 years ago? How many other human institutions can you think of that are based on legend and have lasted 2000 years (and don’t mention other old religions like Buddhism or Confucianism because they are not institutions. Not even Islam is an institution)? The reality is what you have pointed out: the Church is made up of weak, fallible, and sinful human beings; yet it has endured this long. To me this is clear evidence of its divine origin.

        It’s interesting that you mention that God sacrificed his only begotten Son. I didn’t say that. Why are you bringing it up?

        For that matter, why do you apparently feel obliged to log in and rebut our arguments every day? When you drive by your local psychiatric hospital, do you go in every day and challenge the patients to greater sanity? If we’re crazy, it seems you’d be at least as crazy for arguing with us!

  • goral

    Liberalism is a mental disorder. This statement is made by those who have the courage to say what we all experience when dealing with tragically flawed and K-8 thinking.

    The liberal will take the worst case of the topic that he or she opposes and irrationally juxtapose it against the best case of the subject that he /she is supporting.

    I, as an anti-Japanese liberal would take the example of the Bataan Death March and compare it to the American’s humane treatment of the Japanese and German civilians that were rounded-up in this country.

    My experience with those who have a big problem with the Church is that they have a big problem with their mother or father. It has nothing to do with doctrine.
    Imagine having a mom who is seriously struggling with the less than one percent of wayward priests.
    I detect a mental disorder.
    Incidentally, this statistic is lowest by far of any organizations.

    There really is no reasonable platform that is a reliable solution to address and resolve the emotional anguish that a liberal soul suffers.

    Christ’s agony in the Garden is an example for us of how to deal with mental distress.
    The prescribed solution, by the author, of prayer and fasting for your favorite liberal is the only solution with consistently good results.

    • K8-EEE

      Fasting? While I don’t believe in gluttony, the idea that fasting is going to solve any problems besides possibly being overweight is ludicrous.

      At best, it’s a recipe for mind control like saying the same prayers over and over a again, these are all things done by Moonies as well.

      And from the looks of it not too many American Christians do the fasting thing anyway. Secular Europeans and Asians are much less obese!

      • It isn’t an idea. I’ve lived it as reality and truth.

  • About liberalism, I’d say that (1) it is a condition where one tends to live from his emotions and (2) it is a condition where one lives from a preconceived notion of how the world “ought” to be. I flirted with liberalism myself when I was young. It didn’t work out.

    I joined the Greens advocacy group when I was in college. I volunteered to work on one of the issues that was at the fore in my day, the supposed “deforestation” of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Our position was that the Forest Service should stop all clearcutting in the Tongass. I was troubled, and I remember asking at one point, why are we advocating this when we’ve never even been there?

    I read a book written by the wives of two loggers, and it rang true with me. They clearly meant to take care of the forest that they had been given while still taking timber out of it. Moreover, I could tell that they loved the forest and Alaska. As my thinking evolved, I realized that I felt that the people who lived there should decide how to use their resources, not some college kids in New York.

    Soon after I left the Greens. I was disappointed that they didn’t seem to want to get a grasp of the reality of a situation before they started to advocate. That’s liberalism. Liberals proceed from an idea of how things “should” be, and never consider what actually is. For some it’s actually a defect of character; for others, they have simply bought into another’s idea without really thinking it through. We should, indeed, pray for liberals.

    • K8-EEE

      Oh of course. “The Greens!” LOL oh brother. So you concluded that “The Greens” are ALWAYS wrong and the Liberals are ALWAYS wrong and the Right Wingers and oil companies are always right I suppose? How silly. Black/white thinking is the classic mark of a cultist and I am not the one applying it here. In fact there are both left and right wings to the Catholic Church the Jesuits for instance are not down with a lot of right wing politics and nonsense, where Franco and Hitler were both card carrying fascist Catholics!

      • Raised as a Catholic, yes Hitler was. As an adult he dabbled in the occult. The swastika is a Viking pagan symbol. He threw hundreds of priests and nuns into concentration camps. Oh, and he was also a vegetarian. Card carrying fascist? Definitely. Practicing Catholic or anything close to it? Definitely not.

        • K8-EEE

          I’m sorry but you are completely ignorant about your faith except for pro-Catholic propaganda. Read Hitler’s speeches. He did in fact brag on being “Godly” and of being a Catholic and he “dabbled in the occult” no more than the Reagans did. He did in fact persecute us Godless people because they were too smart to go along with the Nazi agenda which was HEAVILY laced with Jesus to the point where German children had prayer in public schools to pray for the victory of the their Great Leader’s war. AGAIN GREAT EXAMPLE THAT PRAYER IS IDIOTIC. Can we even aknowledge that an “infallible” Pope appologized for the Chruch’s complicity with the Nazis?

          • No Thanks, I won’t be reading Hitler’s speeches.

  • Mary Kochan

    Goral, I don’t find that to be fair. I can’t argue with your experience, but to extrapolate cause and effect from it, goes too far. And to attempt to make personal application of it to someone you don’t kow at all, is really going out on a thin limb.

  • K8-EEE, we’re getting nowhere fast, so let’s try a different approach. Do you realize that you have the power to make your life into anything you choose? It is a scandal, some would say, of God’s goodness that he has delegated this power to every human being. You can choose to become a creature of Light, more beautiful than the angels, or you can choose to become an everlasting horror and disgrace. Which would you prefer?

    What is it that you hope for? Everyone has hope. Examine your hopes, and ask yourself, what do I want? What do I find beautiful? God is waiting to give you the most beautiful thing you can imagine. You can have it. Don’t be afraid to ask. God wants a relationship with you, a relationship that will be deeply personal, satisfying, freeing, peace-giving, and that will lead you to eternal glory. You can have all these things; it’s up to you now. Which do you choose?

    • K8-EEE

      What you fail to see is that now that I have unshackled my mind from the brainwashing I got from the Church, I AM happy and enlightened. This is why I find it insulting/condescending that somebody obsessed with an archaic and rather disgraced religion would take it upon themselves to “spiritually adopt” those of us who are over it. Very vain and presumptuous. Why is it not good enough for you to be free to have your own beliefs? Do you really have as a goal world conversion to your religion? Do you realize that in itself is rather cultish? It would seem self-evident that there are many different spiritual paths that people take in this world. You say Christianity must be true because it has endured 2000 years but there are much older religions, by your standard THEY must be true.

  • BTW, if we’re a cult, why do our crummy parish staff meetings take so darn long? If we were all in lockstep with our pastor, they should be over in ten minutes! Instead once a week I am subject to a 2 1/2-hour long torture session… Ah, who would these fardels bear 🙂

    • K8-EEE

      The same reason Sunnis and Shi’ites don’t get along. The same reason Muslims, Christians and Jews squabble even though they all are obsessed with the same “God the father” character in the old testament. The nature of cults is conformity and others are never quite conformed enough “to please God.” They must be prayed for or killed or enslaved to stop them from displeasing God The Father who ironically loves everyone even though he, you know, drowned the entire world and etc.

  • @ Prairie Hawk, no, we are not a cult. K8-EEE expresses a lot of anger, apparently with the Catholic Church. That’s too bad, and sad, but doesn’t make us a cult.

    An angry person will go on and on until everyone is alienated.

  • K8-EEE, your anger that someone would pray for you is overwhelming evidence that you are not “over” your Catholic faith. When you’re over something, you have peace.

    Since you don’t want prayers, I will only ask that God’s will be done in your life. May you find the happiness you seek.

    • K8-EEE

      Your cluelessness in seeing that the “spiritual adoption” idea is a ridiculous delusion of grandeur on your part (besides being laughably ineffective as you see here) enforces my belief that you waste a huge amount of time talking to yourself and flattering yourself that it’s “God” whispering in your ear.

  • Mary Kochan

    K8-EEE: As someone who has given presentations at conferences of the International Cultic Studies Association (the only professional organization devoted to the cult phenomena) and familiar with the professional literature on the subject, I can assure you that the academics, mental health professionals, legal experts, researchers, etc. associated with it would find your suggestion that the Catholic church is a cult to be laughable. You simply lack expertise in this area.

    Let me ask you a question about virtue: Do you recognize the ability to hold a reasonable discussion as a virtue? If so, do you think it is a natural virtue – one that any intelligent person can possess? Or do you think it is virtue given by supernatural grace?

  • K8-EEE, you should re-read the article. Then you would realize that Diane Schneider is trying to take away *my* free will and that of my children. If she had her way, my 6th grade daughter and 8th grade son would be force-fed liberally-slanted sex education, and I would not be allowed to remove them from class.

    This is the liberal way of doing business. They want everyone in America to conform to their values, and they will institute laws, government agencies and bureaucracy to ensure that their agenda is shoved down our collective throats. That makes me angry, but I decided to turn my anger into a love for a fellow human being by praying for Diane Schneider.

    How does prayer violate a person’s free will? If you don’t believe there is a God, then I am merely wasting my time and Ms. Schneider will never feel the effects of my prayer. If there IS a God, and I believe that there is, then my prayer still does not taker away her free will and neither will God. I am hoping and praying that God will send someone or something to her to change her heart so that she will turn to God. This is still her free will. God can appear before her in all His glory, and she still doesn’t have to believe in Him if she doesn’t want to.

    Notice that I titled the article “Spiritually Adopt a Radical Liberal During Lent,” not “PRAY for a Radical Liberal During Lent.” Adoption requires a commitment, and I am committed to praying for Ms. Schneider and now, for you too. Ironically, every time you come back here and add a comment, you keep this article on the home page and literally guarantee that more and more people will be praying for you. And we hope that you’ll keep coming back! In fact, I look forward to your replies showing up in my inbox because it shows that you still care, that you still have a void that needs to be filled. I hope and pray that you will turn back to Catholicism and see all the rich treasures it has to offer and the Truth it will always speak as an institution, DESPITE the human attempts by some of its own leaders and members to mess it up.

  • K8-EEE:

    It would appear that your grasp of history is … incomplete. To call Franco a fascist lacks certain … honesty. He was supported by fascists, primarily because of the common enemy in the Communists, but his politics, and that of Spain during his reign, lack the stamp of fascism. To say that Hitler was “Catholic” also denies how his rule was treated by both Pius XI and XII during their reign. Even a cursory read of the letters and transcripts of speeches made by the pontiffs during this time give lie to the assertion that the Catholic Church, embodied in the person of the pope, was complicit in aiding either the Nazis or Mussolini’s Black Shirts. Many have cloaked themselves in the trappings of Catholicism, but by their actions they prove that they, like you, don’t know whereof they speak.

    The myth of “Hitler’s Pope” has also been put to rest by the opening of the Vatican Archives and the subsequent publication of Curial correspondence and diplomatic communiqués from that time. Certainly some of the hierarchy was pro-Hitler, but the Church is made of weak humans who fall, as do we all, far from the ideals the Church holds, and by extension, we believe, those of God.

    You don’t need to believe in God, you say. I feel sorry for you, in that you place faith in the ephemeralalities of – what? – science (the theories of which change by the day), self (who can’t even be trusted to get her historical facts straight), humanity (which actually produced the spectral ends of both Hitler and Mother Theresa), logic (which dictates a “first cause;” unless you believe in Hawking’s endless loop – again returning to realm of mere scientific speculation).

    You seem to have been hurt by someone in the Church and for that I am truly sorry. There are people who are held to a higher expectation and are unable to live up to that.

    If you really want to change our minds, it would be best to try to understand what and why we believe as we do. You don’t need to believe it, but through the attempt you will be better able to develop your arguments. Rather than reading the counter-Church arguments of others – which aren’t your own and which you seem to have difficulty defending – come up with your own based on your read of the Bible and the commentary made on it by the Early Fathers (including Augustine), Aquinas, and the product of, at least, the first seven Councils and the current Catechism of the Catholic Church. At least at that point you will have some understanding of what Catholics actually believe, and why. Then make an appointment with a priest or the bishop of the diocese in which you reside to discuss your concerns and help clarify your position.

    Until then, both you and we are simply encouraging carpel-tunnel syndrome in typing our positions with no hope of resolution in sight.

    In Christ,
    Michael