Real Catholic Blog

As I’ve noted before, it is vital that parents take an active role in the formation of their children. As important as bringing them to Mass is, sending them to Catholic school, and registering them for classes offered by your parish and other Catholic educational opportunities, it all starts in the home.

Here’s a great example. It is from Gelsi, a young girl with her own YouTube channel. In fact, it is the only youth Catholic YouTube channel. Not only is she being raised well and right, she is enterprising! What a spirit! As you can read here, she writes her own scripts — with some “help from my dad.” I realize not all families are going to be able to help their children start a YouTube channel to advance the faith, or better instill it to other children, but only one? Even Pope Benedict recently extolled the virtues of social media. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come as well as an indication that parents are, indeed, more active now than in previous generations in the Catholic formation of their children.

In this video Gelsi explains why the Blessed Virgin Mary is Important:

Gelsi is young enough, but can teach us all a whole lot! 

Here is an appeal from Brian Burch and Thomas Peters of CatholicVote.org and American Papist, two of the leading traditional Catholic leaders in America — and refreshingly young, too. It’s about pressure CBS now is receiving from pro-abortion groups to pull the pro-life Super Bowl ad from Focus on the Family that stars Heisman Award winning quarterback Tim Tebow and his mom, who refused to have an abortion when she was pregnant with him, despite advice to do so.

The pair encourage us to counter the pro-abortion pressure with encouragment to CBS to stick their guns. After all, what a great change of pace from one of the mainstays of the Mainstream (secularist) Media — to air a pro-life Super Bowl ad!

Dear CatholicVote Member,

Last year we fought hard to have our “Life: Imagine the Potential” ad shown during the Super Bowl. After several days of negotiations, NBC rejected the ad.

This year Focus on the Family has had success with a different network, as CBS is poised to show their own ad celebrating the accomplishments of college football star Tim Tebow next Sunday.

In 1985, Tebow’s mother Pam was advised to abort her child. She decided against it citing her Christian faith as a source of hope that her son would be ok. Her son, Tim Tebow, won the Heisman Trophy in 2007.

While the ad has been approved, pro-abortion groups are now urging CBS to censor the Super Bowl ad!

Sign our group letter to CBS. Tell them not to give in to pressure and show the ad!

And tell your friends to visit http://www.CatholicVote.org to join us!

It still amazes us how vicious pro-abortion advocates can be, especially when they don’t get their way, or sense that their “cause” is being threatened in a serious way.

For all their talk about respect of mothers, of choice, and of differences of opinions, none of those things apply to actual pro-life people. Or in this case, the mother of Tim Tebow.

Here is just one example. It’s important for us to read this and realize the level of anger we are facing. This from Tommy Craggs at DeadSpin:

“I’m guessing the Tebows’ ad, for spanky Jim Dobson’s Focus on the Family, will extol the glories of family and motherhood and the value of children and other seemingly innocuous fare; it will also be 30 seconds of anti-abortion dog-whistling to the Christian right on a frequency somewhere beyond the range of only CBS executives. The moral, implicit or otherwise, will be: don’t terminate your pregnancy; that blastocyst might turn into Tim Tebow.

“… But the Tebows’ message should be called for what it is, and what it is is outright quackery that doesn’t differ appreciably from my going on television with a toy stethoscope and urging America to start treating itself with leeches.”

Breathtaking, isn’t it?

And this sort of vitriol is not even limited to individuals. As Matt Archibold points out, the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a letter to CBS, is flat-out claiming Tebow’s mom is a liar!

The wider audience however — those who are not passionately pro-life or pro-abortion — are seeing both sides of this issue for who they are, and that’s always a good thing for pro-lifers.

Here at CatholicVote, we believe in supporting Tim Tebow, the brave choice of his mother, and the smart decision made by the CBS executives.

Please click here to tell CBS you support their decision to air the Tim Tebow Commercial (and tell your friends, too!)

Sincerely,

Brian Burch and Thomas Peters,

CatholicVote.org

P.S. The fact that we are talking about a successful pro-life ad airing during the Super Bowl speaks volumes about our movement. We are growing more confident and more effective every day. Anyone involved in efforts to affirm the dignity of human life should feel proud next Sunday when this ad is broadcast to hundreds of millions around the world.

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests For Life, has created a new Web site for people to discuss their pro-life strategy. He’s looking for new, innovative and creative ideas in which to educate, motivate and activate people to the defense of the unborn. It’s ProLifeStrategy.com. Watch Father Pavone explain this new tool in mobilizing and expanding the pro-life movement in America.

Father Frank Pavone wants your ideas and strategies.

We’ve followed two events this week: The March For Life and the Week of Christian Unity. Here is a report on Pope Benedict’s celebration of Vespers of the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul Apostle, on January 25th in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. According to the Vatican’s news service:

Recalling in his homily the theme for this year’s week of prayer — You are witnesses of these things (Luke 24:48) — the Holy Father said that the communion and unity of Christ’s disciples are elements of singular importance for a credible and effective proclamation of the Gospel. 

Pope Benedict: “May we all be one so that the world may believe.”

Catholic Congressman, U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-N.J.), gave this “special order” speech from the House floor in honor of the 2010 March For Life and to commemorate nearly 40 years of America’s surrender to the killing of unborn babies.

U.S. Representative Chris Smith unveils the falsehoods of the unregulated abortion industry.

Today, at his Angelus prayer, Pope Benedict XVI commented on today’s Epistle reading at Mass, in First Corinthians, where Saint Paul illustrates the Church as one body with many parts, and Christ as its head. It is through “the sacraments, the Word of God, charisms and ministries that the Church continues the presence of the Risen Lord in history.” Monday marks the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Pope Benedict reiterates the imporance of the sacraments, The Word of God and ministries in continuing the presence of the Lord in the current age.

As we’ve noted before, Pope Benedict XVI endorses new media and digital technology as a vital tool in reaching and teaching people about God, our faith and the Church. Now, he’s taking it a step further. In a recent message, he promoted the 44th World Day of Social Communications, and calls “urgent and unavoidable task for priests and consecrated men and women,” to communicate through this new avenue of reaching people not before available through traditional forms of communication. He practices what he preaches — the Vatican has an excellent YouTube channel and Web site, for example. We would add that lay people have their own responsibility to reach out to those who are not familiar with the Church; or those who are, but who have declined the Lord’s invitation to come home.

Pope Benedict says: Get online, log on and log into the Word of God!

Catholics Come Home posted the video below on its YouTube Channel. It’s entitled, “The Bible proves Catholic beliefs that most protestants deny.” Although it is short, it is powerful, and debunks a few of the primary objections some protestants have toward Catholicism.

Of course, the fact that Catholic teaching comes from the Bible (and not from “some old men in Rome”) should not come as a surprise to anyone. Still, some people (Catholic and protestant) have been conditioned to believe otherwise. But, the fact is, every teaching of the Catholic Church is grounded in Scripture. Otherwise, we could not be one, true, apostolic, universal church. As CCH explains, the video proves Catholic teachings, using Biblical passages, that most protestants deny, including: 

Peter was the first Pope, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Confession, The Bible alone is not sufficient, and justification by faith and works.

It should be noted that Catholics do consider protestants our separated brothers and sisters. And anyone who is Baptized “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” and believes in Jesus Christ is considered a Christian. But it is within the Catholic faith that the fullness of God’s revealed truth is found.

This video is a great primer on apologetics. Always remember, everything we believe is the Truth and it is the Truth because it is directly from Scripture. 

This is a very interesting ritual of Church tradition: According to the Vatican . . .

This morning, for the Memorial of Saint Agnes, two lambs whose wool will be used for the weaving of the sacred pallium, were brought to the Pope. The pallium is a stole of white wool with six black crosses, which is kept in an urn at the Tomb of Saint Peter and conferred by the Pope on June 29th, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, to the new metropolitan archbishops, so as to remember the special communion that binds them to the Apostolic See. The lambs are raised by the sisters of the Roman convent of San Lorenzo and offered to the Pontiff by the Canons Regular of the Lateran on the day of the Memorial of Saint Agnes, the Roman martyr traditionally depicted with a lamb. 

Pope Benedict XVI blesses the lambs for use in the sacred pallium.

Earlier this week, at his general audience, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, received a lot of attention — and admiration — for his talk on the ecumenical movement. His central message during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity:

Christians must still strongly rely on the divine gift of unity, because the world needs a common witness and a renewed fidelity to Christ, the Son of God died and rose again for the salvation of man.

Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the importance of centering one’s life in Christ, the risen Lord, who humbled Himself by His human nature and died for our sins, as a common witness for salvation.