Cookie Monster on Friends

A Bit of Brooding About Born Never Asked

It is fascinating to witness how the gory details of the Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s capital murder case has made pro-choice people uncomfortable.  The elite liberal media had to be shamed to cover the serial killing string infanticides of seven babies who were born but had their spinal cords “snipped” to “ensure fetal demise”.   The New York Times, whose mast proclaims “All the News that is fit to print”, which tends to be the vanguard for the mainstream media (really the elite liberal media) stopped covering it because it had already published six articles.  The New York Times’ editorial editor Andrew Rosenthal rationalized the Old Gray Lady’s lack of curiosity over the gruesome details of Gosnell by opining: 

What does the trial of a Philadelphia doctor who is accused of performing illegal late-term abortions by inducing labor and then killing viable fetuses have to do with the debate over legal abortion?

That rhetorical question is easy to answer– it gives insights how some of our high ranking elected officials actually hold political positions which condone Gosnell’s acts of infanticide and how government officials and medical turn a blind eye to existing law protecting the newly born to ensure the viability of their perceived sacred right of abortion on demand.

  ***

Although this author is appalled by abortion, it is currently the law of the land with some caveats (like the 24 week rule, and Born Alive).  But consider the appalling medical conditions described in the Gosnell trial, and the aforementioned Orlando abortion instance and the lack of regard for the Born Alive Protection Act.  Does this type of treatment represent the sentiments which President Obama alluded to when quoting President Bill J. Clinton that “Abortion should be rare, safe and legal”.

***

If abortionists routinely skirt the law on infants born alive and give sub-par medical treatment to women wanting abortions on the cusp of legally recognized viability, then how does it bode for other medical treatment, especially under Obamacare? 

Those who oppose abortion know that pro-choice people become uncomfortable when the ghastly  facts about abortion as practice are exposed.  That is why the Lamestream Media ignores cases like Gosnell and Hollywood stereotypes pro-lifers as hayseed, obsessed bitter clingers.  But as we are all being fed into the machine of Obamacare, people should be fully cognizant how medical ethics are being skirted for profit and professional integrity as well as the ethics of removing the voice for the defenseless such as  the unborn may soon imperil you.

SEE MORE at DCBarroco.com 

Dorothy Day on Raison d'etre

G.K. Chesterton on Morals

Snips of Truth About Ignoring Infanticide in America

Some may be scandalized by comparing the unsavory actions of abortionist Kermit Gosnell and President Barack Obama.  Yet the facts hold out that as a legislator in the Illinois Senate, Mr. Obama twice opposed the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.

In 2008, Presidential Candidate Obama  lashed out against "liars" when his legislative positions were questioned.  He issued a statement that he was deeply insulted and offended as the proud father of two girls that he was in favor of infanticide.  Even the Washington Post would award Mr. Obama four pinocchios for this misleading statement, as Obama was impeached on a Christian Broadcasting Network video, but that was so four years ago. 

But listen to the legislative colloquy that then State Senator Obama had on the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.

That if that fetus, or child, however you want to describe it, is now outside of the mother's womb and the doctor continues to think that it's non viable but there's lets say movement or some indication that they're not just coming out limp and dead that in fact they would then have to call in a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved?

The salient point is that the requirement to have a second physician on call was an undue burden that would inhibit access to an abortion.   Furthermore, Mr. Obama dismisses the notion that physicians would not attend to mistakes and have a fetus outside of the mother's womb that was viable.

Consider the gory facts exposed in the Gosnell capital murder case in Philadelphia.  Abortionist Gosnell's special technique, which he instructed other unlicensed staff in his office to also perform, was to snip the spinal cord of a just born-alive child in an illegal late term abortion so that it "ensured fetal demise".  Does that give Mr. Obama some cause for pause?

Mr. Obama's contradictory comments make as much sense as when President Obama recently said "God Bless Planned Parenthood"  to a conference of the nation's largest abortion and "family planning" providers.  

The media continues to ignore the inconsistencies in Obama's extreme abortion stance as well as the details of the Kermit Gosnell trial because facts challenging their secular shibboleths exposes the hypocrisy of doing everything "for the children" and exposes the callousness of their "choices". And to add insult to mortal injury,  both Gosnell and Mr. Obama justify their actions to help the poor and marginalized, with little regard for the law, ethics, or the ultimate consequences.

Philadelphia Fallout From the Abortionist Kermit Gosnell Trial

The horrific testimony about Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who is being tried for
the murder of seven newborns and a Bhutanese female refuge after a botched abortion has shown that ideology isolates opinion on mass murder.  While America is outraged over the cruel killing and maiming that the Boston Marathon Bombers inflicted, the media had to be shamed into briefly covering a doctor who's groundbreaking technique was to snip the spinal cords of infants after being born to "ensure fetal demise" and storing dozens on jars of dismembered body parts on shelves.

Kermit Gosnell's attorney Jack McMahon

Through his lawyer Jack McMahon, Gosnell claims  that: "Everybody's made him the butcher, this, that and the other thing without any trial, without anything being exposed to the public and everybody's found him guilty, that's not right"..  Furthermore, the Gosnell's legal mouthpiece asserted that: "This is a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution of a doctor who's done nothing but give (back) to the poor and the people of West Philadelphia."  If that were the case, why did Gosnell's defense not bring it up in trial--after all, the two year gag order was moot in court.   Instead, the  Gosnell defense rested without calling a single witness.


The lack of curiosity in the Lamestream Media over the testimony for the  House of Horrors at 3801 Lancaster is understandable as political partisans who do not want the sacrament of abortion on demand to be endangered.

 But even for those who fervently support the right of a mother to an unborn baby, they should be concerned at the basically unregulated health and sanitary conditions and disparate treatment of their desperate customers.

Public health officials found unsterile medical instruments, with rusty and outdated equipment covered with dust. Gosnell admitted that perhaps 20% of his procedures were on women after their 24th week, which is in violation of Commonwealth of  Pennsylvania law. In fact, during trial a worker at the clinic testified that Gosnell joked that one baby that he aborted was big enough to walk him home.

The clinic had a string of violations which were never corrected. Then Pennsylvania Health officials stopped inspecting for ten years for what observers might conclude were willful political ignorance about protected procedures.

There was testimony that rang of medical malpractice of women being injured by careless surgical technique on the cervix. And then the clinic had non-licensed individuals, including a 15 year old high school student aiding in surgeries.

When Gosnell applied to become a member of the National Abortion Federation, the Evaluator reported that the records were a mess, that patients were not properly informed of medical risks, that anesthesia was misused and that equipment was not available.  While the invigilator from NAF rejected Gosnell's establishment terming it the worst abortion clinic that she ever inspected, this cornucopia of snafus was not reported to authorities.  So much for caring about womens' health or civic duty.

 It is rich to hear Gosnell's defense talk about racism and targeted treatment when Gosnell himself gave disparate treatment to white women as it was the "way of the world" because they might report him, unlike his Black and Asian clientele.

Pro Life people were dismayed when the trial court judge threw out three counts of the first degree murder for newborns as not having enough evidence to present at trial.  This was probably aided by the documented fact that  Gosnell' destroyed clinic records before he was raided.  The trial judge later reinstated one count on the newborn thrown in a shoe box. Thus Gosnell is still being tried for five first degree murders and the third degree murder of the botched abortion. While this records cleansing may spare him some jail time, the publish should know his record.

If the Lamestream Media would do its job, there would be little need to have a slew of summer Horror flicks as all one would need to do is review Gosnell trial coverage. However the elite liberal media reports on what it cares about, ignores the rest while disparaging journalists who do not follow the party line. For those who can stomach the gory details, it is worth watching the documentary 3801 Lancaster (2013)  by director David Altrogge.



 


h/t: Conrad Friedersdorf, the Atlantic

Ideology Isolates Opinons on Mass Murder

Between the Lamestream Media reactions to Sandy Hook, the Pop Gun primary school suspension and the willful ignorance about the Dr. Kermit Gosnell slaughterhouse, it's no wonder that Mark Steyn thinks that America is doomed. 

Andrea Bocelli Sings Praises on Choosing Life

iHad his mother been let herself be steered by medical professionals for a simple solution to appendicitus during pregnancy, we never would have been blessed by the sweet sounds of Andrea Bocelli. Laus Deo that she chose life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Communication

A PC DOD is FUBAR

Last Thursday, President Obama posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, to Korean War Army Chaplain Emil Kapaun for his heroic bravery.  It is sad to think so soon afterwards  that we need to consider how the Department of Defense fervently seems to battle the military chaplaincy and traditional religiosity to evangelize for faith in politcal correctness. Recently, the U.S. Army proffered Equal Opportunity training for Pennsylvania Reserve Troops that included this helpful poster on “extremist groups”.  

The Army presentation stipulates that extremism is a complex phenomenon present in many religions when "some followers that believe that their beliefs, customs and traditions are the only 'right way' and that all others are practicing their faith the 'wrong way,' seeing and believing that their faith/religion superior to all others."

 It is fascinating to see how Evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Catholics were lumped in with Al Quaeda (spelled incorrectly in official Army materials), the Ku Klux Klan and Hamas as dangerous extremist groups. And being leery of the spread of Sharia over secular democratic civil lawyer is also defined as a hate group "Islamophobia".

  The American Family Association postulates that the Army relied upon propaganda from the Southern Poverty Law Center to label Catholics and Evangelicals as extremist because of this scriptural stances considering  homosexual relations sinful and opposing same-sex so called marriage.  The danger of the state imposing laws for same sex marriage is that the force of government makes opposing views anathematic, even if it is a tradition that has ordered Western society for thousands of years and is deeply held spiritual beliefs. 

 There is the fear that non-profits and churches which dissent from the state stampede of same sex marriage may lose their tax exempt status, especially based upon charters for many charity organizations which stipulate following the societal law.  ***

Lest anyone think that the PC DOD is all about hot button societal moral issues, consider the way the Obama Administration has used America’s military to advance his political agenda with little regard to national security. 

***

It is frightening to think that as we live in an increasingly dangerous world that a PC DOD is more concerned about making political points that it is about defending our nations interests.  If that is the case then it is not SNAFU but FUBAR.

SEE MORE at DCBarroco.com

Paula Poundstone on Sin

Prayers for Victims of the Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack

Boston Archbishop Sean Cardinal O'Malley

In the wake of the terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon, Boston Archbishop Sean Cardinal O'Malley received a telegram from Pope Francis which he shared with the public. The telegram reads:

In the aftermath of this senseless tragedy, His Holiness invokes God’s peace upon the dead, his consolation upon the suffering and his strength upon all those engaged in the continuing work of relief and response. At this time of mourning the Holy Father prays that all Bostonians will be united in a resolve not to be overcome by evil, but to combat evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21), working together to build an ever more just, free and secure society for generations yet to come.

C.S. Lewis on Moral Law

Praising the Valor of Medal of Honor Recipient Fr. Emil Kapaun

President Obama Giving Medal of Honor to Fr. Kapaun's nephew Ray

Father Emil Kapaun is a Kansas born US Army Chaplain who was post-humously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor six decades after his death in a North Korean prisoner of war camp. Fr. Kapuan is the fifth Catholic chaplain who has been given the Nation’s highest honor.  Fr. Kapaun has been recognized as a Servant of God, meaning that a case has been opened at the Vatican to explore beatification.

 Fr. Kapaun’s Congressional Medal of Honor was presented to his nephew Ray.  President Obama's  remarks at the award ceremony captured the valor which Fr. Kapaun displayed as well as demonstrating the value of the chaplaincy to the troops, especially in the duress of enemy

captivity. ***

Statue of Chaplain Kapaun, Pilsen, Kansas

What jumped out from this tribute was the observation from one of his POW comrades was how Fr. Kapaun’s very presence could make a mudhole seem like a cathedral.  The presence of a positive and faithful priest gives a glimpse of the Kingdom of God so the the mundane transcends into the magical.

 The humility, self-sacrifice and ridicule which Fr. Kapaun displayed followed the hard teachings of the Messiah is inspiring.  And the hope that Fr. Kapuan instilled in the internment camp gave them a reason to survive their hellish treatment by the enemy mirrors Passiontide. It is sad that the public has been conditioned to bemoan the tragedies of warfare without really appreciating the heroics of our brave troops, particularly from a chaplain 62 years later. May we all be inspired by the valor which Fr. Kapaun displayed on the field of battle and suffering in prison for righteousness.  And may we remember that we have a G.I. intercessor in heaven.

Army Chaplain Fr. Kapuan offering Mass on the Korean battlefield, Oct. 1950

Lord Jesus, in the midst of the folly of war, your servant, Chaplain Emil Kapaun, spent himself in total service to you on the battlefields and in the prison camps of Korea, until his death at the hands of his captors. We now ask you, Lord Jesus, if it be your will, to make known to all the world the holiness of Chaplain Kapaun and the glory of his complete sacrifice for you by signs of miracles and peace. In your name, Lord, we ask, for you are the source of peace, the strength of our service to others, and our final hope. Amen.

Chaplain Kapaun, pray for us.

SEE MORE at DistrictofCalamity.com

Holy Non-Sequiturs!

While Burt Ward  would not confuse the  Holy of the Holies, the Boy Wonder certainly packed some verbal punch around his super-hero cohort. 

The Dalai Lama on Life

Nuns on the Bus May Remain Stuck in the Great Pumpkin Patch

The election of Pope Francis has elicited some hope from liberal Catholics who have been wearily waiting for change in the Catholic Church.

Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B. is a Benedictine nun who was long the leader of the Leadership Council of Women Religious which has been characterized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as promoting a radical feminist agenda.  Moreover, Sr. Chittister was a cheerleader for the 2012 Nuns on the Bus tour to foist secular progressive political policies in the name of social justice. 

As the reign of Pope Francis began, Sister Chittister published a hopeful column in the National Catholic Reporter which presumed that the Portero Pope will be the answer to their wearily waiting for liberalizing changes in the Church. 

Chittister yearns for the Vicar of Christ to be blessing homosexual lifestyles,  permitting priestesses, abolishing celibacy requirements, scrapping silly doctrines like life beginning at the moment of conception or appreciating liturgical traditions.  Chittister's scorn is encompassed in her critique of the past pontiff: 

It gets spiritually exhausting to go on waiting for a pastor again and instead getting a scolding, reactionary church whose idea of perfection is the century before the last one rather than the century after this one.

Chittister took great hope that the humility which Pope Francis displayed in appearing only in a white cassock might the the sign that he was the one they have been waiting for.

But the reality may be that the Nuns on the Bus may be waiting in the Great Pumpkin Patch for a while longer.  The key phrase from Chittister's critique was "reactionary church" from two centuries before.   Consider the several times  in his month long pontificate that Pope Francis has explicitly referred to evil and the devil.  This does not sound like a typical Twenty First Century man of the cloth dedicated to social justice.  

It is reasonable to expect Pope Francis' reign to teach through example, as he has done numerous times through examples of humility and some sui generis liturgical unconventionality.  It remains to be seen if this translates into dialogue and detente with ordained individuals who dissent.  

When he was head of the Jesuits in Argentina, Jorge Bergoglio cast aside a couple of Jesuits who persisted in spouting Liberation Theology. So Pope Francis may be sympathetic to social justice and a preferential option for the poor but he may not have an open mind for dangerous dissent.

The choice of the regnal name Francis was not a sop to a rival religious order or that he wants to identify with a medieval nature loving hippie.  Pope Francis seems to be emulating St. Francis of Assisi's vision to rebuild the Lord's Church.  Presumably this will include the sexual scandals that members of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's curia sat on during the prior papacy.  The first step on this road will be the appointment of Pope Francis' Secretary of State.

If one is still waiting for the Great Pumpkin, at least it's not having the football being pulled out before kicking off against the Saints.

 h/t: Catholic Cartoon Blog

Peeps Awaiting a Confectionary Resurrection

As the Easter Octave has come to an end, and most of our baskets are empty from the confectionary delights which celebrated the Feast of the Resurrection.   So it may be a good time to highlight the winner of the Washington Post's seventh Peep Diorama competition.

Leslie Brown and Lani Hoza of Charlottesville, Virginia cooked up a tongue in cheek memorial  for the loss of a beloved mass market treat:  "Peeps mourn their Peeps: Twinkie Rest In Peace".

This dirgeful diorama also honors other tasty treats involved in the union killing of Hostess in November 2013.

It is unclear what relation the Peeps were to Twinkie the Kid.

But in the spirit of Eastertide--the Twinkie will also be resurrected.  Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co. bought the rights for Twinkies for $410 million.  Dean Metropoulos is  renowned for repositioning tired brands like Pabst Blue Ribbon.  The problem with Hostess is that the bankruptcy wiped out Twinkie manufacturing and distribution.  They promise that the Twinkies and other snacks will return to store shelves by the summer 2013.

Until then, we can appreciate the Peeps diorama.  After all, if one hasn't consumed a Peep for a day, it is so stale that it will seemingly  last forever like  Twinkie, so it well suited for diorama art.

h/t:  Washington Post

Understanding What We Must Never Forget

In the last quarter century, there has been a progressive  effort from intellectual iconoclasts to revise history about the Holocaust to besmirch the Catholic Church and particularly Pope Venerable Pius XII.  The criticism stems from charge that the Vatican did not do enough to save Jews during the Second World War, especially considering that the Giuseppe Cardinal Pacelli had been both the nuncio to Germany as well as the Vatican Secretary of State before assume the Chair of St. Peter.  In fact, historian John Cornwell charged that Pope Pius XII was Hilter’s pope, and the Vatican’s inaction weakened the Catholic Church and sealed the fate for the Jewry in Europe.

Soviet Leader Josef Stalin dismissed Papal power in the world by sarcastically quipping “How many divisions did the Pope in Rome have?”  Thus there is the reality that a Vatican condemnation stronger than Pope Piux XI 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (“On Burning Concern” originally released in German) condemning Nazi neopaganism and the “so called myth between blood and state”  would have only worsened the lot for Jews in the still publically obscured holocaust.  

This sensational charge of “Hitler’s Pope” flies in the face of contemporaneous praise of Pius XII as a righteous gentile by prominent Jewish leaders, as well as documentary evidence from the likes of historian Rabbi David Dalin that Pius XII ordered Vatican envoys to aid persecuted Jews in occupied Europe and the Catholic Church opened facilities in the Vatican and Rome to shelter thousands of Jews from the Nazis. 


In fact, it should be noted that there were prominent clergy who were aligned with Hitler–the grand mufti Hajj Amin al-Hussein.  At the Nuremburg trials of Nazi war criminals, there were allegations that the grand mufti  who advised and assisted the Nazis on carrying out Hitler’s Final Solution.  The Ba'athist party was a pan-Arab Socialist party which Ba'athist founder Michel Aflaq saw Nazi Germany as a model and were in power in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and the Assads in Syria.   It seems as if these slanderous charges against Pius XII were borne from anti-catholicism as well as exploiting a tragedy by obscuring those truly culpable. 

Holocaust historian Rafael Medoff has published “FDR and the Holocaust: A Breach of Faith” which examines the action (or lack there of), attitudes and apathy that FDR and the American government had during the Second World War as it relates to saving Jews from the Shoah.  Medoff charges that the FDR Administration failed to do relatively simple measures which would have saved many Jews, because FDR’s vision of America only encompassed having a small number of Jews.  Medoff wrote that: “In his private, unguarded moments, FDR repeatedly made unfriendly remarks about Jews, especially his belief that Jews were overrepresented in many professions and exercised too much influence and control on society.”  Hence his Administration went out of its way to discourage and disqualify would be Jewish immigrants.  

Had FDR quietly permitted immigration quotas to be filled to the legal limit, it would have saved 190,000.   But the Administration opposed legislation which would have permitted the entry of 20,000 German Jewish childen, supposedly as it would set a precedent that would take away American jobs. 

Medoff also suggests that the US could have bombed concentration (extermination) camps like Auschwitz as the US Army Air Corps would not be diverted as they were  targeting sites that were only five miles away from that infamous death camp that were gassing 12,000 victims a day. 

This sort of nationalistic antipathy towards Jewish refugees is not surprising, considering the post-war antipathy towards Aliyah Alph and Aliyah Bet Jewish immigration as fictionally depicted in Leon Uris’ 1957 epic novel Exodus.  But Medoff’s evidence indicates that FDR was not the humanitarian and champion of the forgotten man myth that has developed, at least as applied to Jews in occupied Europe. 

Medoff’s  thesis needs to be scrutinized to validate its bona fides. Trying to corroborate the slanderous charges in Cornwall’s Hitler’s Pope” discredited it to fair minded historians, but  not before the damage was done in the mind of popular public opinion.  

Although Medoff is a prolific Holocaust scholar, but his interest is not simply in documenting what we should never forget.  Medoff has long postulated that the U.S. State Department has downplayed anti-Semitism in current diplomacy and feeds into a history of Foggy Bottom linguistic sleight of hand to achieve political objectives.  

Being informed by this critque may help pragmatic policy wonks understand the Benghazi bungling, blindness to Ba'-athist atrocities in Syria and ignoring the spontaneous 2009 Green Revolution in Iran.  It also gives context to the Janus treatment of Israel, where President Obama talks a good game about standing with our Israeli partner, but stabs Israel in the back on the Palestinian land issue  regarding the 1967 borders, existential threats from the Revolutionary government in Iran as well as quotidian provocations from the terrorist Gaza State.

h/t: The Daily Caller

St. Faustina Kowalska on Mercy

Pope Francis on Pastoring

Martin Luther King on Character

An Easter Message for Obama's Ears

President Obama and his family walked across Lafayette Square to attend Easter Sunday service at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.




The presider was the Reverend Luis Leon, who also gave the closing benediction at President Obama’s second inauguration. 

Mr. Obama & Rev. Luis Leon at DC's's St. John's Episcopal Church 

Unlike at the ceremony on the Mall, where Leon’s stated goal was to bring people together, Leon chose to preach politically partisan on the holiest day of the Christian calendar.  Leon preached from the pulpit:

The captains of the religious right are always calling us back, back back. For blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet and for immigrants  to be on their side of the border...What you and I understand is that when Jesus says you can’t hang onto me, he says you know it’s not about the past, it’s not about the before, it’s not about the way things were but about the way things can be in the now.

Really? Please cite some contemporary examples of captains of the religious right calling blacks to be at the back of the bus.  Leon did not do so during his Easter sermon.

***

The Easter message can be understood with its  parallel to the Jewish Passover. The children of Israel were freed from their slavery in Egypt by Yahweh’s power and they were put on the path to the Promised Land.  Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on the Cross conquered the ultimate wages of spiritual slavery to sin–death.  

It might be worth considering if Rev. Leon’s sermon  was truly uplifting or perpetuating continued political bonds dressed up in Easter finery or spurious scriptural sanction.  The answer may be found in Rev. C.L. Bryant's documentary Runaway Slave.   Alas, the message might not be a revelation as much as a lamentation.

SEE MORE at DCBarroco.com 

Pope Francis' Urbi et Orbi Excerpt

Pope Francis gave his first Easter Blessing to the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square for the Urbi et Orbi.  His remarks resounded in the message of the Resurrection:

We too, like the women who were Jesus’ disciples, who went to the tomb and found it empty, may wonder what this event means (cf. Lk 24:4). What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom. The love God can do this!

This same love for which the Son of God became man and followed the way of humility and self-giving to the very end, down to hell - to the abyss of separation from God - this same merciful love has flooded with light the dead body of Jesus, has transfigured it, has made it pass into eternal life. Jesus did not return to his former life, to earthly life, but entered into the glorious life of God and he entered there with our humanity, opening us to a future of hope.

This is what Easter is: it is the exodus, the passage of human beings from slavery to sin and evil to the freedom of love and goodness. Because God is life, life alone, and we are his glory: the living man (cf. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 4,20,5-7).

Dear brothers and sisters, Christ died and rose once for all, and for everyone, but the power of the Resurrection, this passover from slavery to evil to the freedom of goodness, must be accomplished in every age, in our concrete existence, in our everyday lives. How many deserts, even today, do human beings need to cross! Above all, the desert within, when we have no love for God or neighbor, when we fail to realize that we are guardians of all that the Creator has given us and continues to give us. God’s mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, can restore life to dry bones (cf. Ez 37:1-14).

Pope Francis' message of humility and the love of God transforming our lives is an interesting contrast to the Easter message by Rev. Luis Leon that President Obama heard.   Unlike the sermon at St. John's Episcopal, Pope Francis's fuller remarks  failed to include smack talk about sports however considering the trouncing the that Jumpin' Jesuits of Marquette experienced in the March Madness Elite Eight, perhaps it was better to pray for peace.

h/t: Whispers in the Loggia