WHAT? No Noted Theologian Nancy Pelosi?

I give this Executive Order one week before Biden cancels it.

 Washington D.C., Jan 18, 2021 / 03:35 pm MT (CNA).- The National Garden of American Heroes will include statues of many notable Catholic figures, including five saints and numerous people who are on the path to sainthood.

President Donald Trump announced in an executive order Jan. 18 that a garden will be built to “reflect the awesome splendor of our country’s timeless exceptionalism,” and to serve as a response to the spate of vandalism on statues during the summer of 2020.

“On (the National Garden’s) grounds, the devastation and discord of this moment will be overcome with abiding love of country and lasting patriotism,” said Trump. “America is responding to the tragic toppling of monuments to our founding generation and the giants of our past by commencing a new national project for their restoration, veneration, and celebration.”

The executive order included a list of names who will be featured in the park; Trump referred to these figures as people who embody “the American spirit of daring and defiance, excellence and adventure, courage and confidence, loyalty and love.”

“Astounding the world by the sheer power of their example, each one of them has contributed indispensably to America’s noble history, the best chapters of which are still to come,” said Trump.

Among those who will be memorialized in the National Garden of American Heroes include St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American saint; St. Katharine Drexel, the first born-U.S. citizen to be canonized; St. John Neumann; and St. Junipero Serra, the first saint canonized on U.S. soil.

Ven. Fulton Sheen and Ven. Augustus Tolton, one of the first black priests in the United States, as well as Servant of God Dorothy Day, will be honored.

Ven. Fulton Sheen

Archbishop John Carroll, S.J., the first Catholic archbishop in the United States, will also be included, as will March for Life founder Nellie Gray, poet and activist Fr. Thomas Merton, OCSO, and Fr. John P. Washington, a US Army chaplain who died helping save soldiers on the sinking Dorchester during World War II.

The first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, is one of the 17 presidents who will be featured in the National Garden. Other Catholic political figures who will be honored include Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence; William F. Buckley; 20th century playwright and Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce; and Antonin Scalia.

Catholic athletes who will be enshrined in the garden include Kobe Bryant, Roberto Clemente, Vince Lombardi, Babe Ruth, and Jim Thorpe.

Not everyone on the list was a U.S. citizen, or even lived in what is now the United States. Christopher Columbus, statues of whom were frequently targeted over the summer of 2020, is set to be honored in the National Garden of American heroes.

“The National Garden will feature a roll call of heroes who deserve honor, recognition, and lasting tribute because of the battles they won, the ideas they championed, the diseases they cured, the lives they saved, the heights they achieved, and the hope they passed down to all of us — that united as one American people trusting in God, there is no challenge that cannot be overcome and no dream that is beyond our reach,” said Trump in the executive order.

Mike Lee Sadly Takes Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein to the Woodshed

There are very few honorable men in government. Mike Lee is one of them.



I found the link to the video in an article you can find here. The article included this interesting chart that shows 1/4 of democratic support comes from people with no religious affiliation. Ergo, attacking religion (as Durbin and Feinstein did) does not really hurt liberals.

Said the Guy Who Doesn't Pay Taxes

Louisville, Ky., May 26, 2017 / 05:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The former head of the US bishops decried President Trump's budget plan, claiming its cuts to social services conflict with both the Catholic faith and American principles.

“Whether through Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps or foreign aid, our nation has recognized that our worth is judged by how we treat the most vulnerable among us,” Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky said in a May 24 article published by Courier-Journal.

“The concept is shared by many religions and has become part of the ethos of the United States.”

Thanks, Mr. President. I Guess. Maybe Not.

From David French at National Review:

Trump’s Executive Order on Religious Liberty Is Worse Than Useless

 Freedom must be written into law, not wish-cast through commands that a later president can reverse. Fresh on the heels of a budget deal that fully funds Planned Parenthood, Donald Trump has signed a religious-liberty executive order that — if reports are correct — is constitutionally dubious, dangerously misleading, and ultimately harmful to the very cause that it purports to protect. In fact, he should tear it up, not start over, and do the actual real statutory and regulatory work that truly protects religious liberty. According to the New York Times and others privy to the administration’s preview, the order has three main components: 1) a promise to “protect and vigorously promote religious liberty,” 2) a directive to “ease restrictions on political activity by churches and charities,” and 3) an order to “federal agencies to exempt some religious organizations from Affordable Care Act requirements that provide employees with health coverage for contraception.” Those directives are respectively 1) meaningless, 2) dangerous, and 3) meaningless.

Father Sirico Says"A Pox on Both Houses"

Father Sirico is the head of the Acton Institute...

Either Way, The President Will Be Unlikable

Apparently,  most Catholics have VERY low standards.

Polls show Donald Trump is struggling to appeal to Catholic voters, a longtime swing demographic. A central theme of this year’s presidential election has been Donald Trump’s failure to capture the support of key voting groups such as women, African Americans, and Hispanics. Now, he is losing by an unrecoverable margin in another key voting bloc, one that has swung between the two major political parties for over half a century: Catholics. A poll from the Public Religion Research Institute shows Trump trailing Clinton among Catholic voters by 23 points, 55–32. Meanwhile, a Washington Post-ABC News poll from early August has Trump down by 27 points, 61–34. Neither of these statistics is promising for the Republican nominee, especially given the central role Catholic voters historically have played in presidential elections.

While Trump’s strong anti-immigration stances have contributed to his problems with Catholic voters, particularly Hispanics, this alone does not explain the huge decline in Trump’s Catholic support. The PRC reports that Hispanic Catholics already have been largely supporting Democrats, at least since 2000, likely due to the Republican party’s immigration policy. Nor can Trump’s shaky support for the pro-life cause and uninspiring stances on religious liberty and same-sex marriage be held solely to blame. According to the PRC, most Catholics have other areas of concern. This year, their top five issues of concern are, in order of importance: The economy, terrorism, health care, immigration, and foreign policy. Abortion and “treatment of LGBT people” (a somewhat ambiguous category) rank at the very bottom of the 14 issues under consideration. In addition, white Catholic moderates tend to align more closely with liberal Catholics than conservative Catholics on social issues.

It Could Be Worse...They Could be a Jesuit School

Was it “appalling and disgraceful” that Sacred Heart University, a Catholic institution, recently allowed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to hold a campaign rally on campus?
It can be difficult to cut through the blatant opportunism of both anti-Trump critics and Sacred Heart’s president, whose defense of the event (but not Trump) only thinly disguises his university’s play for media attention and the prestige of hosting a presidential candidate. Both sides claim concern for Sacred Heart’s Catholic identity.

The Fairfield, Connecticut university has come under fire from a number of angry commenters, especially on the university’s Facebook page, expressing outrage that Sacred Heart has betrayed its Catholic identity and mission by hosting Trump. The wealthy developer has been accused of nastiness, bigotry, inciting violence and “the promotion of evil.” Trump would obviously deny any of this and claim he was misunderstood. But he does hold some positions that are clearly contrary to Catholic teaching, such as his support for abortion in certain cases.

Let's take a look around at the Sacred Heart University website....hey! An LGBTQ Resource Center!

Here at the Sacred Heart University Counseling Center, we embrace a positive view of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) identities and relationships by producing a safe space where people are free to express who they are without fear of reprisal.

On the Sacred Heart University campus, you will find a welcoming GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) and off-campus you can find resources at Norwalk Triangle Community Center. Visit http://www.ctgay.org/

How about their newsletter to employees?

■ If you want to avoid pregnancy, always use birth control. 

■■

■ Use protection that will prevent the spreading of communicable disease, such as condoms. Birth control pills will usually prevent pregnancy, but have no effect on sexually transmitted diseases

  

And at their women's center site, a link to the National Organization of Women and it's support of abortion and Hillary Clinton!

You were saying something about "Catholic identity"?

■■

I Guess It's True....You Can't Fix Stoopid

 My opinion...a pox on both their houses.


American Catholic voters lean strongly toward Hillary Clinton in this year's presidential contest, according to a new Pew Forum survey.

The Pew poll found that Clinton held a 56-39% advantage over Donald Trump among Catholic voters. That 17% margin was markedly different from the results of a similar poll in the last presidential race, when then-Senator Barack Obama was virtually even with Mitt Romney among Catholic voters in June 2012. 

 However, Clinton's margin among Catholic voters was entirely attributable to a huge (77-16%) advantage among Hispanic Catholics (thanks, amigos!). Among white Catholics, Trump had a slight (50-46) edge.
Among all voters surveyed, Pew found that Clinton had a 51-42% lead. Trump enjoyed his best results among white Evangelical voters, who gave him a massive 78-17% advantage; Clinton did best with black Protestants, who broke even more dramatically (89-8%) in her favor.
Among voters who attend church services weekly, Pew found that Trump had a slight advantage: 49- 45%. But among Catholics who attend Mass weekly, Clinton led by 57-38%.
When asked which questions they considered most important in the presidential campaign, Catholics provided answers that did not differ significantly from the overall national sample.

Hard to pick the most Christian person running, but relatively easy to pick the most pro-abortionist running.

 

Catholics for Obama...ummmm....Trump!

From Time magazine (yes, it still exists!):


Donald Trump sprinkles his stump speeches with profanity. He used to support abortion, and says he’s never sought forgiveness from God for his sins. He memorably referred to communion, the Christian sacrament commemorating Jesus’ last supper, as drinking “the little wine” and eating "the little cracker". The thrice-married mogul calls the Bible his favorite book, but when pressed he couldn’t name his best-loved verse. He says he likes the Old and New Testaments about the same.
This is not the profile of an especially devout man, let alone a presidential candidate cut out to court Christian conservatives.

Father Robert Sirico is quoted in the article and expands on his statement on the Acton Institute PowerBlog:

 
I was recently asked by Time Magazine for my general opinion on Donald Trump, his relation to Catholic ideas and White Evangelicals and any other thoughts I might have. I was briefly quoted in Time. But I thought I would include here the parts of my remarks that were not used in the article as well.
Trump’s moral positions on life and sexual morality stray widely from Catholic moral and social teaching in many respects. I would also think that conservative Catholics would have problems with him especially on abortion.
He certainly did not endear himself to Catholics when he said the pope needed to be scared into action against ISIS especially the way he said it.....

Frankly, I cannot figure out the alleged white-evangelical attraction to Trump. To my ear, he simply is not one of them. He is obviously unfamiliar with the Bible and he does not speak in any evangelical dialect with which I am conversant. I would think that in the end, religious conservatives who haven’t aligned themselves with Trump will find themselves allied behind the alternative Republican option.