Catholic ethicist calls for transparency in organ donor controversy

Philadelphia, Pa., Sep 24, 2011 (CNA).
A top Catholic ethicist is calling for donor guidelines that are clear to the public after a proposal was made to allow surgeons to retrieve organs from donors less than two minutes after their hearts stop beating.
“The tendency to want to shorten the waiting period, admittedly out of a desire to help those in need of organs, raises the danger of using the dying to benefit others,” said Dr. John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pa.
“It is important that the facts of the case are clearly and consistently articulated by the transplantation community,” he underscored. “There will be no organ transplantation without the trust of the public.”
On Sept. 19, the Washington Post highlighted the United Network for Organ Sharing's new proposed rules that would permit surgeons to proceed with organ removal before the current deadline of two minutes after a donor’s heart stops beating. The move would decrease the chance that a patient's heart could spontaneously restart.
Supporters of the new rules argue that the guidelines will ensure that a patient's wish to donate his organs will be respected. Critics, however, state that the proposed changes run the risk of dehumanizing patients into mere sources for materials.
In an interview with CNA on Sept. 21, Haas was wary of media hype potentially obscuring the real facts in the situation. He said that the Catholic Church and organ transplant professionals in the U.S. have been very clear about the importance of maintaining the “Dead Donor Rule,” which states that there must be “moral certitude” that a person is dead before the removal of organs for transplant.
However, he also said that the National Catholic Bioethics Center sides with the Institute of Medicine, which recommends waiting five minutes after the heart has stopped beating to declare a patient's death.
“It is critically important to develop consistency with respect to the waiting period after the cessation of heart beat,” Haas said, adding that some transplant centers in the U.S. are pushing for the waiting period to be shortened to as little as 75 seconds. 
“The greatest bioethical danger in our day is the tendency to depersonalize and dehumanize the individual person,” he noted, “particularly the weak and vulnerable, so that they become the source of biological material for research or for the benefit of others.”
Haas explained that the Church and all 50 states hold that death can be determined using cardio-pulmonary or neurological criteria.
“Traditionally a person was declared dead when the heart stopped beating and he or she stopped breathing,” he said. “A person could also be declared dead if it was determined that the brain had died, that is, there was no blood flow or electrical activity.”

However, because of highly controlled situations in hospitals, Haas said there was an eventual return to the traditional cardio-pulmonary criteria for declaring death.
“If life support was removed from a person who was dying and could no longer be helped by it, physicians would wait until the heart stopped beating, wait a specified period of time and declare death.” 
Haas said that the new proposal to change the language in the guidelines is actually more in line with the statutes defining death as the “irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions.” 
“The old language 'Donation after Cardiac Death' was a bit of a misnomer because the heart was not dead,” he said. “Otherwise it could not be transplanted and restarted.” 
“The death of the person can occur without individual organs being dead,” he explained. “Otherwise, life-saving organ transplantation could not take place. The proposed change of language is actually more consistent with the facts of the case and of the law.” 
However, in his view, the new language proposals are  “not entirely satisfactory,” given that the term “Donation after Cardiac Death” is now redefined as “Donation after Circulatory Death.”
“Organisms and organs die,” Haas observed, “Circulation doesn't die. One can understand the desire to have the terminology shortened for practical purposes but it seems it would be more accurate to speak of 'Death by Cardio-Pulmonary Criteria.'” 
Ultimately, Haas said, it's “absolutely essential that the transplant community adhere resolutely to the 'Dead Donor Rule' and not engage in practices which suggest that they are ready to sacrifice the weak and the dying for the benefit of others.”
“Even if the changes reflect the reality of the situation more accurately,” he added, “there is the danger of misunderstanding on the part of the public if the language and terminology keep changing. It can raise suspicions that there are hidden agendas at work.”

September 23rd: St Pio of Pietrelcina

Prayer of St. Pio of Pietrelcina after Holy Communion

Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You.

You know how easily I abandon You.

Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not fall so often.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life, and without You, I am without fervor.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and without You, I am in darkness.

Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.

Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You.

Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You very much, and always be in Your company.

Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.

Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of love.

Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late and the day is coming to a close, and life passes; death, judgment, eternity approaches. It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You. It is getting late and death approaches, I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows. O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile!

Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all it’s dangers. I need You.

Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of the bread, so that the Eucharistic Communion be the Light which disperses the darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.

Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to You, if not by communion, at least by grace and love.

Stay with me, Jesus, I do not ask for divine consolation, because I do not merit it, but the gift of Your Presence, oh yes, I ask this of You!

Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for, Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.

With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity. Amen

Pope Benedict addresses the German parliament

2011-09-22 Vatican Radio


On the first day of his state visit to his native Germany, Pope Benedict addressed the Lower House of the nation's parliament, the Bundestag. Here is the English translation of the full text of his speech:

"Mr President of the Federal Republic,
Mr President of the Bundestag,Madam Chancellor,
Mr President of the Bundesrat,Ladies and Gentlemen Members of the House,
It is an honour and a joy for me to speak before this distinguished house, before the Parliament of my native Germany, that meets here as a democratically elected representation of the people, in order to work for the good of the Federal Republic of Germany. I should like to thank the President of the Bundestag both for his invitation to deliver this address and for the kind words of greeting and appreciation with which he has welcomed me. At this moment I turn to you, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, not least as your fellow-countryman who for all his life has been conscious of close links to his origins, and has followed the affairs of his native Germany with keen interest. But the invitation to give this address was extended to me as Pope, as the Bishop of Rome, who bears the highest responsibility for Catholic Christianity. In issuing this invitation you are acknowledging the role that the Holy See plays as a partner within the community of peoples and states. Setting out from this international responsibility that I hold, I should like to propose to you some thoughts on the foundations of a free state of law.
Allow me to begin my reflections on the foundations of law [Recht] with a brief story from sacred Scripture. In the First Book of the Kings, it is recounted that God invited the young King Solomon, on his accession to the throne, to make a request. What will the young ruler ask for at this important moment? Success – wealth – long life – destruction of his enemies? He chooses none of these things. Instead, he asks for a listening heart so that he may govern God’s people, and discern between good and evil (cf. 1 Kg 3:9). Through this story, the Bible wants to tell us what should ultimately matter for a politician. His fundamental criterion and the motivation for his work as a politician must not be success, and certainly not material gain. Politics must be a striving for justice, and hence it has to establish the fundamental preconditions for peace. Naturally a politician will seek success, as this is what opens up for him the possibility of effective political action. Yet success is subordinated to the criterion of justice, to the will to do what is right, and to the understanding of what is right. Success can also be seductive and thus can open up the path towards the falsification of what is right, towards the destruction of justice. “Without justice – what else is the State but a great band of robbers?”, as Saint Augustine once said . We Germans know from our own experience that these words are no empty spectre. We have seen how power became divorced from right, how power opposed right and crushed it, so that the State became an instrument for destroying right – a highly organized band of robbers, capable of threatening the whole world and driving it to the edge of the abyss. To serve right and to fight against the dominion of wrong is and remains the fundamental task of the politician. At a moment in history when man has acquired previously inconceivable power, this task takes on a particular urgency. Man can destroy the world. He can manipulate himself. He can, so to speak, make human beings and he can deny them their humanity. How do we recognize what is right? How can we discern between good and evil, between what is truly right and what may appear right? Even now, Solomon’s request remains the decisive issue facing politicians and politics today.For most of the matters that need to be regulated by law, the support of the majority can serve as a sufficient criterion. Yet it is evident that for the fundamental issues of law, in which the dignity of man and of humanity is at stake, the majority principle is not enough: everyone in a position of responsibility must personally seek out the criteria to be followed when framing laws. In the third century, the great theologian Origen provided the following explanation for the resistance of Christians to certain legal systems: “Suppose that a man were living among the Scythians, whose laws are contrary to the divine law, and was compelled to live among them ... such a man for the sake of the true law, though illegal among the Scythians, would rightly form associations with like-minded people contrary to the laws of the Scythians.”
This conviction was what motivated resistance movements to act against the Nazi regime and other totalitarian regimes, thereby doing a great service to justice and to humanity as a whole. For these people, it was indisputably evident that the law in force was actually unlawful. Yet when it comes to the decisions of a democratic politician, the question of what now corresponds to the law of truth, what is actually right and may be enacted as law, is less obvious. In terms of the underlying anthropological issues, what is right and may be given the force of law is in no way simply self-evident today. The question of how to recognize what is truly right and thus to serve justice when framing laws has never been simple, and today in view of the vast extent of our knowledge and our capacity, it has become still harder.How do we recognize what is right? In history, systems of law have almost always been based on religion: decisions regarding what was to be lawful among men were taken with reference to the divinity. Unlike other great religions, Christianity has never proposed a revealed body of law to the State and to society, that is to say a juridical order derived from revelation. Instead, it has pointed to nature and reason as the true sources of law – and to the harmony of objective and subjective reason, which naturally presupposes that both spheres are rooted in the creative reason of God. Christian theologians thereby aligned themselves with a philosophical and juridical movement that began to take shape in the second century B.C. In the first half of that century, the social natural law developed by the Stoic philosophers came into contact with leading teachers of Roman Law. Through this encounter, the juridical culture of the West was born, which was and is of key significance for the juridical culture of mankind. This pre-Christian marriage between law and philosophy opened up the path that led via the Christian Middle Ages and the juridical developments of the Age of Enlightenment all the way to the Declaration of Human Rights and to our German Basic Law of 1949, with which our nation committed itself to “inviolable and inalienable human rights as the foundation of every human community, and of peace and justice in the world”.
For the development of law and for the development of humanity, it was highly significant that Christian theologians aligned themselves against the religious law associated with polytheism and on the side of philosophy, and that they acknowledged reason and nature in their interrelation as the universally valid source of law. This step had already been taken by Saint Paul in the Letter to the Romans, when he said: “When Gentiles who have not the Law [the Torah of Israel] do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves ... they show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness ...” (Rom 2:14f.). Here we see the two fundamental concepts of nature and conscience, where conscience is nothing other than Solomon’s listening heart, reason that is open to the language of being. If this seemed to offer a clear explanation of the foundations of legislation up to the time of the Enlightenment, up to the time of the Declaration on Human Rights after the Second World War and the framing of our Basic Law, there has been a dramatic shift in the situation in the last half-century. The idea of natural law is today viewed as a specifically Catholic doctrine, not worth bringing into the discussion in a non-Catholic environment, so that one feels almost ashamed even to mention the term. Let me outline briefly how this situation arose. Fundamentally it is because of the idea that an unbridgeable gulf exists between “is” and “ought”. An “ought” can never follow from an “is”, because the two are situated on completely different planes. The reason for this is that in the meantime, the positivist understanding of nature and reason has come to be almost universally accepted. If nature – in the words of Hans Kelsen – is viewed as “an aggregate of objective data linked together in terms of cause and effect”, then indeed no ethical indication of any kind can be derived from it. A positivist conception of nature as purely functional, in the way that the natural sciences explain it, is incapable of producing any bridge to ethics and law, but once again yields only functional answers. The same also applies to reason, according to the positivist understanding that is widely held to be the only genuinely scientific one. Anything that is not verifiable or falsifiable, according to this understanding, does not belong to the realm of reason strictly understood. Hence ethics and religion must be assigned to the subjective field, and they remain extraneous to the realm of reason in the strict sense of the word. Where positivist reason dominates the field to the exclusion of all else – and that is broadly the case in our public mindset – then the classical sources of knowledge for ethics and law are excluded. This is a dramatic situation which affects everyone, and on which a public debate is necessary. Indeed, an essential goal of this address is to issue an urgent invitation to launch one.The positivist approach to nature and reason, the positivist world view in general, is a most important dimension of human knowledge and capacity that we may in no way dispense with. But in and of itself it is not a sufficient culture corresponding to the full breadth of the human condition. Where positivist reason considers itself the only sufficient culture and banishes all other cultural realities to the status of subcultures, it diminishes man, indeed it threatens his humanity. I say this with Europe specifically in mind, where there are concerted efforts to recognize only positivism as a common culture and a common basis for law-making, so that all the other insights and values of our culture are reduced to the level of subculture, with the result that Europe vis-à-vis other world cultures is left in a state of culturelessness and at the same time extremist and radical movements emerge to fill the vacuum. In its self-proclaimed exclusivity, the positivist reason which recognizes nothing beyond mere functionality resembles a concrete bunker with no windows, in which we ourselves provide lighting and atmospheric conditions, being no longer willing to obtain either from God’s wide world. And yet we cannot hide from ourselves the fact that even in this artificial world, we are still covertly drawing upon God’s raw materials, which we refashion into our own products. The windows must be flung open again, we must see the wide world, the sky and the earth once more and learn to make proper use of all this.
But how are we to do this? How do we find our way out into the wide world, into the big picture? How can reason rediscover its true greatness, without being sidetracked into irrationality? How can nature reassert itself in its true depth, with all its demands, with all its directives? I would like to recall one of the developments in recent political history, hoping that I will neither be misunderstood, nor provoke too many one-sided polemics. I would say that the emergence of the ecological movement in German politics since the 1970s, while it has not exactly flung open the windows, nevertheless was and continues to be a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored or pushed aside, just because too much of it is seen to be irrational. Young people had come to realize that something is wrong in our relationship with nature, that matter is not just raw material for us to shape at will, but that the earth has a dignity of its own and that we must follow its directives. In saying this, I am clearly not promoting any particular political party – nothing could be further from my mind. If something is wrong in our relationship with reality, then we must all reflect seriously on the whole situation and we are all prompted to question the very foundations of our culture. Allow me to dwell a little longer on this point. The importance of ecology is no longer disputed. We must listen to the language of nature and we must answer accordingly. Yet I would like to underline a further point that is still largely disregarded, today as in the past: there is also an ecology of man. Man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he listens to his nature, respects it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled.Let us come back to the fundamental concepts of nature and reason, from which we set out. The great proponent of legal positivism, Kelsen, at the age of 84 – in 1965 – abandoned the dualism of “is” and “ought”. He had said that norms can only come from the will. Nature therefore could only contain norms if a will had put them there. But this would presuppose a Creator God, whose will had entered into nature. “Any attempt to discuss the truth of this belief is utterly futile”, he observed. Is it really? – I find myself asking. Is it really pointless to wonder whether the objective reason that manifests itself in nature does not presuppose a creative reason, a Creator Spiritus?
At this point Europe’s cultural heritage ought to come to our assistance. The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions. Our cultural memory is shaped by these rational insights. To ignore it or dismiss it as a thing of the past would be to dismember our culture totally and to rob it of its completeness. The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome – from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history.As he assumed the mantle of office, the young King Solomon was invited to make a request. How would it be if we, the law-makers of today, were invited to make a request? What would we ask for? I think that, even today, there is ultimately nothing else we could wish for but a listening heart – the capacity to discern between good and evil, and thus to establish true law, to serve justice and peace. Thank you for your attention!"

Islam set to be dominant religion in France

Paris, France, Sep 17, 2011 (CNA/EWTN News).
New research suggests there are now more practising Muslims in France than practising Catholics.
While 64 percent of French people describe themselves as Roman Catholic, only 2.9 percent of the population actually practice the Catholic faith. That compares to 3.8 percent of the population who practice the Muslim faith. The research was carried out by the French Institute of Public Opinion on behalf of the Catholic newspaper La Croix.

More worrying for Islamic authorities in France is the finding that only 41 percent of the country’s 6 million Muslims actually describe themselves as “practising,” although 75 percent are happy to label themselves “believers.” Seventy-percent also claim to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Most French Muslims hail from the country’s former colonies in North and sub-Saharan Africa.
There is also further evidence that mosques are being erected at a much faster rate than Catholic churches. Mohammed Moussaoui, President of the Muslim Council of France, last month estimated that 150 new mosques are currently under construction across the country.
By contrast, the Catholic Church in France has built only 20 new churches during the past decade, and has formally closed more than 60 churches. Many of these are now destined to become mosques, according to La Croix.
Research in 2009 by the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research suggested that nearly 500 new mosques were built between 2001 and 2006, taking the present total to over 2,000. Many of these new buildings, however, were erected to re-accommodate local Islamic communities who had previously been using temporary accommodation – the so-called “Islam of the basements.”

One of France’s most prominent Muslim leaders, Dalil Boubakeur, who is the head of the Grand Mosque of Paris, recently called for the number of mosques in the country to be doubled again – to 4,000 – to meet growing demand.
The lack of building space for France’s Islamic population had led to many mosques not being able to accommodate the believers who arrive for Friday prayers, leaving many Muslims to pray outside in the streets.
But Muslims praying outside of mosques has created political tension.

In December 2010 the leader of the far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, described such scenes as an “occupation without tanks or soldiers.” She is likely to run for the French presidency next year, and her message is resonating with 40 percent of voters, according to a recent poll for the “France Soir” newspaper.

French President Nikolas Sarkozy has also recently described street prayers as “unacceptable,” adding that the street cannot become “an extension of the mosque.” Last month his Interior Minister, Claude Guéant, suggested Muslims should instead use empty barracks. Prayer in the street “has to stop,” Guéant declared.

In a bid to solve the space crisis in the southern city of Marseille, a mosque to accommodate 7,000 worshippers is currently being built. Twenty-five percent of Marseille's population is Muslim.

Last month a mosque for 2,000 worshippers opened in the eastern town of Strasbourg, where 15 percent of the population is Muslim.
France is often referred to as the “eldest daughter of the Catholic Church,” because the local Church has maintained unbroken communion with the Bishop of Rome since the 2nd century.
But some senior European bishops have long predicted the eclipse of Catholicism by Islam across the continent.
In 1999, Archbishop Giuseppe Bernardini, an Italian Franciscan who heads the Izmir Archdiocese in Turkey, recalled a conversation he had with a Muslim leader for the Synod of European Bishops, which was gathered in Rome. That leader told him, “thanks to your democratic laws, we will invade you. Thanks to our religious laws, we will dominate you.”

Pope calls on all to participate in new evangelization

Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Sep 18, 2011 (CNA/EWTN News).
Pope Benedict XVI called upon all Catholics Sept. 18 to participate in a new evangelization of the world.
“Today’s liturgy reminds us that we are all called to work in the vineyard of the Lord,” he told pilgrims gathered to pray the midday Angelus at his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome.
“He has given us diverse gifts, has assigned diverse tasks and determined diverse times for their performance. However, if we assume the work of our life with full dedication, we can expect the same pay: the joy of eternal participation the goodness of the Lord,” he said.
The Pope based his comments on today’s gospel reading in which Jesus recounts the parable of the vineyard owner who paid each of his workers the same wage regardless of how long they worked.
He also drew upon St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, written while the apostle was imprisoned and awaiting his death, in which he states that “for to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
This “new sense of life” comes from communion with Jesus Christ who, said the Pope, is “not just a historical figure, a master of wisdom, a religious leader,” but is “a man in whom God dwells personally.”
“His death and resurrection is the good news that, starting from Jerusalem, is intended to reach all individuals and peoples,” said Pope Benedict. Thus all cultures are changed by being open to the truth that “God is love, he became man in Jesus and his sacrifice has redeemed humanity from the slavery of evil, making it a trustworthy hope.”
“Today we live in an era of new evangelization,” Pope Benedict said, drawing a parallel between the era of St. Paul and today. New evangelization is also a favored theme of his pontificate – the call to re-evangelize traditionally Christian parts of the world or, as the Pope put it today, the need for “regions of ancient Christian tradition” to “rediscover the beauty of faith.”
“The protagonists of this mission are men and women who, like St. Paul can say: 'For me to live is Christ.' People, families and communities that agree to work in the vineyard of the Lord.”
These are people who are “humble and generous” and who do not “ask for any reward other than to participate in the mission of Jesus and the Church.”
“Dear friends,” concluded the Pope, “the Gospel has transformed the world, and still is turning, like a river that irrigates a huge field.”
After the Angelus, Pope Benedict addressed various language groups, including German pilgrims. He said he looked forward to his four-day visit to Germany later this week and hoped the people of his native land will “respond generously to the offer of the boundless love of God and work for the good that is in the world.”

Italian mystic who predicted fall of Mussolini beatified

Rome, Italy, Sep 16, 2011 (CNA/EWTN News).
Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, recently beatified Elena Aiello, an Italian religious woman who bore the stigmata and foretold the fall of Benito Mussolini.
The beatification Mass took place Sept. 14 in Calabria, Italy, the hometown of Sister Aiello,
During the celebration, Cardinal Amato said the heroic testimony of her life and work helped shape the region.

According to L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Amato noted that Sr. Elena, who died at age 66, taught Catholics that “it is possible to live the Gospel to a heroic degree, it is possible then to be saints … because this land needs the spiritual beauty of the saints.”

He recalled that Sr. Elena founded the congregation of the Little Sisters of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ with her philosophy of the “little way” toward holiness and her mystical participation in the Paschal mystery, with “her eyes always fixed on the crucifix.”

To those who said her charity toward the needy and the handicapped was “exaggerated,” Sr. Elena said, “The poor, the handicapped and the suffering are the best friends of Jesus, and in doing good to them, we are specifically loving the Lord.”

Her life
In March of 1922, while she was practicing the devotion of the “13 Fridays” of St. Francis of Paula in private, she received the stigmata.

From then on her stigmata bled every Friday in March, especially on Good Friday. She also experienced great pain and the gift of prophecy.

In 1928, together with Gina Mazza, she founded the Little Sisters of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, to honor the passion of the Lord and to offer spiritual and material help to the poor.

Among her many prophecies, Sr. Elena foretold the tragic end of Mussolini, the Italian dictator who was executed by firing squad on April 28, 1945, after he was caught trying to escape Italy disguised as a German soldier.

“Do you remember when you asked me last July 7 what would happen to the Duce, and I told you that if he did not remain united to the Pope, he would have a worse end than that of Napoleon?  I repeat the same words to you now: If the Duce does not save Italy by doing everything that the Holy Father says and does, he will soon fall,” Sr. Elena said.
Sr. Elena Aiello died in 1961. 
Speaking to pilgrims on Sept. 14 after his weekly general audience, Benedict XVI said that “the Church in Italy rejoices at the elevation to the altars of such an eminently Eucharistic soul.”
“May the example and intercession of the new blessed increase everyone’s love for the Sacrament of the altar,” he concluded.

September 15th: Our Lady of Sorrows

The Chaplet of the Seven Dolours of Our Lady

How to pray the Chaplet of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady

The Chaplet of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady has a total of 58 beads and a medal of the first dolor. There is a total of 7 sets of 7 beads, with 3 additional beads and a crucifix. On each of the seven beads if prayed the "Hail Mary...". On the separating beads is prayed the "Our Father...". On the 3 additional beads is prayed the "Hail Mary..." in remembrance of the tears of Mary that were shed because of the suffering of her Divine Son. These are said to obtain true sorrow for our sins.

The 7 groups of 7 Hail Mary's are recited in remembrance of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, namely:

1. The Prophecy of Simeon.
2. The flight into Egypt.
3. The loss of the Child Jesus.
4. Mary meets Jesus carrying His Cross.
5. The crucifixion.
6. Mary receives the body of Jesus from the Cross.
7. The body of Jesus is placed in the tomb.

After each set of seven beads is said the following prayer:

V. Pray for us, O most sorrowful Virgin.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Concluding prayer:

Lord Jesus, we now implore,
both for the present
and for the hour of our death,
the intercession of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Thy Mother,
whose holy soul was pierced
at the time of Thy Passion by a sword of grief.
Grant us this favour,
O Saviour of the world,
Who livest and reignest
with the Father and the Holy Spirit
for ever and ever.
Amen.

According to St. Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373), seven promises were made to those who medidate on Our Lady's Tears and Dolors. The Blessed Virgin grants seven graces to the souls who honour her daily by saying seven Hail Marys while meditating on her tears and dolors. These are:

1. "I will grant peace to their families."

2. "They will be enlightened about the Divine Mysteries."

3. "I will console them in their pains and I will accompany them in their work."

4. "I will give them as much as they ask for as long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my Divine Son or the sanctification of their souls."

5. "I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their lives."

6. "I will visibly help them at the moment of their death - they will see the face of their mother."

7. "I have obtained this grace from my Divine Son, that those who propagate this devotion to my tears and dolors will be taken directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness, since all their sins will be forgiven and my Son will be their eternal consolation and joy."

INDULGENCES
Benedict XIII., September 26th, 1724, granted an indulgence of two hundred days for every Our Father and every Hail Mary to those who, with sincere contrition, and having confessed, or firmly purposing to confess their sins, shall recite this Chaplet on any Friday, or on any day of Lent, on the Festival of the Seven Dolors, or within the Octave; and one hundred days on any other day of the year.

Clement XII., December 12, 1734, confirmed these indulgences, and moreover granted:

1. A Plenary indulgence to those who shall have recited this Chaplet for a month every day - Confession, Communion and Prayers for the Church, required as usual.

2. An indulgence of one hundred years to all who should recite it on any day, having confessed their sins, with sincere sorrow, or at least firmly purposing to do so.

3. One hundred and fifty years to those who should recite it on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and Holidays of obligation, with Confession and Communion.

4. A Plenary indulgence once a year, on any day, to those who are accustomed to recite it four times a week, on condition of Confession, Communion, and the Recital of the Chaplet on the day of Communion.

5. Two hundred years' indulgence to all who recite it devoutly after Confession; and to all who carry it about them, and frequently recite it, ten years' indulgence every time they shall hear Mass, hear a sermon, or reciting Our Father, and seven Hail Mary's, shall perform any spiritual or corporal work of mercy, in honor of our Blessed Saviour, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or any Saint, their advocate.

All these indulgences were confirmed by a decree of January 17th, 1747, and rendered applicable to the souls in Purgatory.

---

September 14th: Exaltation of the Holy Cross

From http://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterpentecost7.html

Roodmas ¹ -- more commonly known simply as "Holy Cross Day" -- was first begun to commemorate the Dedication of the Basilica of the Resurrection, built by St. Helena (Constantine the Great's mother), in Jerusalem in A.D. 355 -- but the true Cross was found shortly thereafter, also by St. Helena, so the two events were joined.

The story of the finding of the True Cross, from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

In the year 326 the mother of Constantine, Helena, then about 80 years old, having journeyed to Jerusalem, undertook to rid the Holy Sepulchre of the mound of earth heaped upon and around it, and to destroy the pagan buildings that profaned its site. Some revelations which she had received gave her confidence that she would discover the Saviour's Tomb and His Cross. The work was carried on diligently, with the co-operation of St. Macarius, bishop of the city.

The Jews had hidden the Cross in a ditch or well, and covered it over with stones, so that the faithful might not come and venerate it. Only a chosen few among the Jews knew the exact spot where it had been hidden, and one of them, named Judas, touched by Divine inspiration, pointed it out to the excavators, for which act he was highly praised by St. Helena. Judas afterwards became a Christian saint, and is honoured under the name of Cyriacus.

During the excavation three crosses were found, but because the titulus was detached from the Cross of Christ, there was no means of identifying it. Following an inspiration from on high, Macarius caused the three crosses to be carried, one after the other, to the bedside of a worthy woman who was at the point of death. The touch of the other two was of no avail; but on touching that upon which Christ had died the woman got suddenly well again.

From a letter of St. Paulinus to Severus inserted in the Breviary of Paris it would appear that St. Helena herself had sought by means of a miracle to discover which was the True Cross and that she caused a man already dead and buried to be carried to the spot, whereupon, by contact with the third cross, he came to life. From yet another tradition, related by St. Ambrose, it would seem that the titulus, or inscription, had remained fastened to the Cross.

After the happy discovery, St. Helena and Constantine erected a magnificent basilica over the Holy Sepulchre, and that is the reason why the church bore the name of St. Constantinus. The precise spot of the finding was covered by the atrium of the basilica, and there the Cross was set up in an oratory, as appears in the restoration executed by de Vogüé. When this noble basilica had been destroyed by the infidels, Arculfus, in the seventh century, enumerated four buildings upon the Holy Places around Golgotha, and one of them was the "Church of the Invention" or "of the Finding". This church was attributed by him and by topographers of later times to Constantine. The Frankish monks of Mount Olivet, writing to Leo III, style it St. Constantinus. Perhaps the oratory built by Constantine suffered less at the hands of the Persians than the other buildings, and so could still retain the name and style of Martyrium Constantinianum. (See De Rossi, Bull. d' arch. crist., 1865, 88.)

A portion of the True Cross remained at Jerusalem enclosed in a silver reliquary; the remainder, with the nails, must have been sent to Constantine, and it must have been this second portion that he caused to be enclosed in the statue of himself which was set on a porphyry column in the Forum at Constantinople; Socrates, the historian, relates that this statue was to make the city impregnable. One of the nails was fastened to the emperor's helmet, and one to his horse's bridle, bringing to pass, according to many of the Fathers, what had been written by Zacharias the Prophet: "In that day that which is upon the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the Lord" (Zechariah 14:20). Another of the nails was used later in the Iron Crown of Lombardy preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of Monza.

Scientific study of the relics of the True Cross show it to be made of some species of pine. The titulus crucis -- the wood on which the inscription "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" was written in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew (Matthew 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38 and John 19:19) -- is made of an olive wood. The titulus has been scientifically dated to the 1st c. and the script is still legible (interestingly, the Latin and Greek are in reverse script), though the Hebrew is missing due to the entire thing being halved, the second half having been lost in the 6th century. It is from the Latin inscription -- "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum" that we get the abbreviation "I.N.R.I." that is found on many Crucifixes.

The titulus crucis and relics of the True Cross can be seen in Rome's Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.

Footnote:
¹ "Rood" is the Middle English word for "Cross." People would once swear "by the rood," as Shakespeare's Hamlet attests with his line to Queen Gertrude, from Scene III Act IV: "No, by the rood, not so: You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife; And--would it were not so!--you are my mother."

From the old Gallican calendar there came another Feast known as "Roodmas." May 3 was a day that celebrated the finding of the True Cross, and this Feast made its way into the Roman calendar when the two were combined together. It was celebrated liturgically pre-1962, and would, then, be celebrated by priests who use pre-1962 Missals. The May feast focused on the finding of the True Cross, while the September feast focused on the the dedication of the Basilica and on the rescuing of the Cross from Persians in 629. In the 1962 Missal, all of these are combined.

A Real Explanation for how the Twin Towers and WTC7 collapsed on 9/11

Vatican gives SSPX doctrinal statement to sign

From http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/09/14/vatican-gives-sspx-doctrinal-statement-to-sign/

The Vatican has given the traditionalist Society of St Pius X a formal “doctrinal preamble” listing several principles they must agree with in order to move toward full reconciliation with the Church.
US Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave the statement to Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the society, during a meeting at the Vatican that lasted more than two hours.
Although the Vatican did not give the society a deadline, leaders are expected to study and sign the preamble “within a few months”, according to Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman.
The cardinal and bishop also discussed possible “elements of a canonical solution” for the society after “the eventual and hoped-for reconciliation”, according to a statement issued by the Vatican after the meeting.
Fr Lombardi said: “Today the most likely solution would be a personal prelature,” which is a Church jurisdiction without geographical boundaries designed to carry out particular pastoral initiatives. It is led by a prelate, who is appointed by the Pope; currently the Church’s only personal prelature is Opus Dei.
The document given to Bishop Fellay to sign “states some doctrinal principles and criteria for the interpretation of Catholic doctrine necessary to guarantee fidelity” to the formal teaching of the Church, said a statement issued by the Vatican after the meeting.
At the same time, the statement said, the preamble leaves room for “legitimate discussion” about “individual expressions or formulations present in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the successive magisterium” of the popes who came after the council.
Fr Lombardi would not respond to questions about specific Church teachings and developments listed in the preamble, but said Church tradition has always held there are varying degrees of Church teaching; some require an absolute assent while others are open to interpretation.
The talks were launched in late 2009 in an effort by Pope Benedict XVI to repair a 21-year break with the society. The Pope said that full communion for the group’s members would depend on “true recognition of the magisterium and the authority of the pope and of the Second Vatican Council”.
The Vatican statement did not mention any of the specific areas where Bishop Fellay’s group has said the Catholic Church and the popes since the Second Vatican Council had broken with true Catholic tradition. They object to the reform of the Mass, to much of the Church’s work in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, and to the council’s stand on religious freedom.
Bishop Fellay had said his society went into the talks aiming to show the contradictions between the Church’s traditional teachings and its practices since Vatican II. That is “the only goal that we are pursuing,” he had said, adding that the dialogue with the Vatican is not a search for compromise but “a question of faith”.
In addition to the society’s rejection of many Vatican II teachings, members also objected to the beatification of Pope John Paul II and, particularly, to Pope Benedict’s convocation of another interreligious meeting for peace in Assisi.
Pope Benedict cleared the way for reconciliation talks with the Society of St Pius X in early 2009 when he lifted the excommunications of Bishop Fellay and three other society bishops ordained against papal orders in 1988. The Vatican said the dialogue was designed to restore “full communion” with members of the society, which was founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The Vatican said the talks were to focus on the concept of tradition, liturgical reform, interpretation of Vatican II in continuity with Catholic doctrinal tradition, Church unity, ecumenism, the relationship between Christianity and non-Christian religions, and religious freedom.
The Vatican and the society appointed a commission to discuss the issues and members met eight times between October 2009 and April 2011, the Vatican said.
The meetings “reached the aim of clarifying the respective positions” of the two sides, it said.

COMMUNIQUE CONCERNING THE SOCIETY OF ST. PIUS X
VATICAN CITY, 14 SEP 2011 (VIS) – At midday today the Holy See Press Office released the following communique concerning the postion of the Society of St. Pius X:
“On 14 September at the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the congregation and president of the Pontifical Commission ‘Ecclesia Dei’; Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer S.J., secretary of the congregation, and Msgr. Guido Pozzo, secretary of the pontifical commission, met with Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St. Pius X, who was accompanied by Fr. Niklaus Pfluger and Fr. Alain-Marc Nely, respectively first and second assistant general to the society.
“Following the appeal of 15 December 2008, addressed by the superior general of the Society of St. Pius X to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, the Holy Father decided to remove the excommunication against the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre. At the same time, he approved the opening of discussions with the society in order to clarify doctrinal problems and to heal the existing rift.
“In order to put the Holy Father’s instructions into effect, a joint study commission was set up, composed of experts from the Society of St. Pius X and from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who met in Rome on eight occasions between October 2009 and April 2011. Their discussions, which aimed to identify and study the essential doctrinal difficulties in the controversial issues, had the result of clarifying the positions of the two sides and their respective motivations.
“While bearing in mind the concerns and demands presented by the Society of St. Pius X about protecting the integrity of the Catholic faith against Vatican Council II’s ‘hermeneutic of rupture’ with Tradition (a theme addressed by Pope Benedict XVI in his address to the Roman Curia on 22 December 2005), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith maintains that the fundamental basis for achieving full reconciliation with the Apostolic See is the acceptance of the text of the Doctrinal Preamble, which was handed over during a meeting on 14 September 2011. The Preamble defines certain doctrinal principles and criteria for the interpretation Catholic doctrine, which are necessary to ensure faithfulness to the Church Magisterium and ‘sentire cum Ecclesia’. At the same time, it leaves open to legitimate discussion the examination and theological explanation of individual expressions and formulations contained in the documents of Vatican Council II and later Magisterium.
“At the same meeting, certain suggestions were made for a canonical solution to the position of the Society of St. Pius X, with a view to achieving the desired reconciliation”.

Irish Catholic newspaper website was recently hacked

From http://www.thejournal.ie/irish-catholic-website-hacked-223821-Sep2011/

AN INVESTIGATION IS underway after the Irish Catholic website was hacked overnight.
The main page of the site was replaced by a blue and white screen and words that said ‘Site off-line. You. Got. Taken.’ as well as the following message:

The Irish Catholic – Ireland’s biggest and best-selling Catholic newspaper since 1888 is currently hacked We should be back shortly. Thank you for your patience. And wish you to continue beliveing [sic] in your false religion.

The hacker also stated:

“Gotta love false hope”

Managing editor Garry O’Sullivan told TheJournal.ie that he wasn’t perturbed by the hacking:

I’ve been dealing with and talking about child sex abuse for the last ten years so it puts everything into perspective. It just means we need to put up our security.

He said the hacked homepage emerged when his IT department restarted the site’s server while dealing with another issue.

The IT department said that they restarted the server and that [page] was in the background and it popped up again. It looks like a residue from a previous issue. But obviously it is of concern that somebody has been hacking the site.

He added:

The Irish Catholic and our readers have put up with a lot more over the last few years than hacking.

Mr O’Sullivan also said the fact the hacker chose the website “is a testament to the profile of the paper” but added that “any idiot can slag off a person for their religious beliefs”.
“I would prefer they write a letter to the editor with a more reasonable argument,” he suggested.
In April of this year, the details of more than 300 subscribers to the horse trade magazine The Irish Field – which is owned by the Agricultural Trust, which also owns the Irish Catholic – were hacked and released.

Some history behind the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary

From http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/09/12-sept-1683-the-battle-of-vienna-continues/

The Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire were at war.  Vienna had been under siege for months.  On 11 September a coalition of Christian forces, a Holy League blessed by Bl. Pope Innocent XI, arrived with Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland, to lift the siege.
When he saw that the Turks were about to breach the walls of the city, Sobieski attacked earlier than he had intended.
On 12 September at 4 am the battle was closed.   Sobieski had called on the protection of Our Lady of Czestochowa before the battle.
He sent his forces of 81,000 against the Turks’ 130,000.  In the afternoon Sobieski led a downhill charge which broke the Turkish line and then seized the abandoned tent of the Ottoman general who had fled.
The Battle of Vienna halted the spread of the Ottoman Empire eastward into the rest of Europe.
Bl. Innocent XI commemorated the victory at Vienna by extending the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, which had been observed in Spain and by the Carmelites, to the whole Latin Church.  One of the pair of churches in Rome near the Forum of Trajan is dedicated to the Name of Mary.
Today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, which in part commemorates the defeat of the Islamist Ottoman Turks by Jan Sobieski at the walls of Vienna.
Concede, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus:
ut fideles tui,
qui sub sanctissimae Virginis Mariae Nomine
et protectione laetantur;
eius pia intercessione
a cunctis malis liberentur in terris,
et a gaudia aeterna pervenire mereantur in coelis.

Incredible Abortion Rates in New York

See: http://www.nyc41percent.com/

Prince of Liechtenstein would veto measure to allow legal abortion

From http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=11684

Prince Alois of Liechtenstein has threatened to use his authority to veto legislation to liberalize the abortion laws of the small European country.
On September 18, voters in Liechtenstein will face a referendum on an initiative that would allow abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy or when the unborn child is judged to be severely disabled. But Prince Alois has announced that if the referendum is approved by the voters, he will veto it. His public opposition could influence the results of the popular vote.
(The AP coverage of the prince’s announcement conveys the impression that he is “interefering” in the referendum, and would be subject to prosecution except for his official immunity. In fact, he is acting within his prerogatives as the country’s sovereign.)
Liechtenstein is a landlocked constitutional monarchy nestled in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. The population of 35,000 is about 75% Catholic.

Laughing at the baby’s foot in the sink: for us abortion clinic workers, the macabre was the norm

Note: Jewels Green is a former abortion clinic worker who also had an abortion herself. She recently spoke out about her experiences as an abortion clinic worker for the first time. You can read that article here. In this column she reveals more details about her five years at the clinic.

September 8, 2011 (LiveAction.org) 
So much became daily business-as-usual while working at an abortion clinic year after year: the tears, the shouting parents and boyfriends, the drivers who accompanied abortion patients who said they were “going out for a cigarette” and then disappeared—abandoning the pregnant mother they’d brought in, the jokes in the lunchroom about the one who showed up with her multiple other kids in tow (we did not allow children in the waiting room. Ever.)
Even the macabre became commonplace. The gallows humor I’d seen in movies about medical staff that work around disease and death day in and day out was right at home in an abortion clinic.
I vividly remember the cleaning lady who quit after finding a foot in the drain of the one of the sinks in the autoclave room (where the medical instruments were cleaned and sterilized after abortions) and how we all laughed and joked about it in the staff lounge for days and weeks afterward.
When the power went out one time for hours and we were all explicitly instructed NOT to open the freezer where all of the medical waste was stored (read: dead baby parts in bio-hazard bags) but inevitably, someone did open that freezer and I will never, ever forget the stench of decaying human flesh for as long as I live—but we all laughed as we gagged and joked how at least “they” had it better in that non-functioning freezer because at least they couldn’t smell it.
But one thing about the clinic never sat well with me, and maybe this is because in my heart I always knew it was wrong. All of it was wrong. Especially this: the dead baby in the refrigerator in the lab. It was touted as a “teaching tool” and a “medical anomaly” that this perfect 10-week-old fetus “survived” the suction abortion procedure perfectly intact. So he (I thought I could tell it was a he) was given the dubious honor of being preserved in formalin in a translucent plastic jar in the laboratory refrigerator. I think we called him Charlie, but I can’t really remember. I know he had a name, but blissfully I have either forgotten or repressed it. But he was there. Every day I worked there.
Occasionally I peeked in on him, fascinated by the bizarreness of it all, but also with a scientific curiosity—every other abortion resulted in parts, bits and pieces of human in the jar—but this miraculous little creature was perfectly formed and complete in every way, with the heartbreaking exception that he was dead. There was no amniotic sac, no placenta, just teeny-tiny perfect little baby. Floating in the jar. In the fridge. Forever silent witness to the march of death of his immature brethren.
How I now pray his soul rests in peace, and that someday he is given decent burial—or at the very least tossed out with the rest of the bio-hazardous waste—for that would be far more merciful than where I knew him to be.

Nativity of Our Lady

Obama admin called Catholic Church source of spreading “homophobia” in Poland

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 6, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) 
While surveying the landscape for inroads to push the homosexual agenda into Poland, American embassy officials under the Obama administration complained that the Catholic Church teaching is a major source of “homophobia” in the heavily Catholic country, according to private cables recently published by Wikileaks.
The cables from the American embassy in Warsaw, marked “sensitive but unclassified,” were part of a dump of over 250,000 official government documents last week by Wikileaks.
One cable from the American embassy in Warsaw dated August 2009 pointed to the Catholic Church as central in promoting “homophobia” in the former Soviet-controlled country.
“The Catholic Church plays a significant role in the formation and propagation of anti-gay attitudes in Polish society, especially in rural areas,” states the communiqué entitled “Gay rights in Poland: long road ahead.”
Officials did note that “the Polish Episcopate has condemned violence and discrimination against gays and lesbians,” but said that message is ignored by local priests teaching that sexual attraction to the same gender is “a deviant condition.”
“Moreover, the Church continues to label homosexual acts as sins and calls on homosexuals to practice abstinence.  Most Polish opponents of gay rights cite ‘Catholic values’ and ‘natural law’ to support their views,” the cable continues.
While largely ignored, the issue of the homosexual agenda has come onto the radar of more conservative Polish statesmen: officials note that some lawmakers are readying defenses against acceptance of homosexuality in schools by drafting legislation similar to a law in Lithuania that bans favorable depictions of homosexuality.
Despite cultural and political hurdles, the American embassy appeared optimistic that the gay rights movement would eventually take hold in Poland.
The cable concludes that acceptance of homosexuality has “a long way to go” in Poland. However, it also says the situation is “gradually improving,” pointing especially to the effects of the Catholic country’s deepening economic dependence on more progressive parts of the continent.
“As Poles’ social and economic ties to Western Europe deepen, we expect homophobia will continue to decline, as well,” it states.
Another cable notes that Poland “has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe” despite pressure from the United Nations to soften its legal barrier to abortion and contraception. The communiqué names Anand Grover, United Nations special envoy on health issues, as the official who chastised Poland for its pro-life laws.
Last Wednesday, the Polish parliament narrowly voted down a total ban on all abortions despite an immense surge of support from the Polish people for the ban.

BOOK MAKES STRONG CASE THAT A CATHOLIC PRESIDENT WAS KILLED BY C.I.A.

From http://www.spiritdaily.com/JFKCIA-2.htm

As we have seen, a strong case can be made that John Fitzgerald Kennedy -- the first and only Catholic president -- had intensely upset intelligence and military circles in the U.S. with his stated efforts to reconcile with the U.S.S.R. following the Cuba missile crisis. There was also anger over the President's desire to seek better relations with Fidel Castro, halt conflict in Laos, and -- last but not least -- end America's direct involvement in Viet Nam. That Kennedy -- with the help of Pope John XXIII -- was attempting this is not commonly known. It was done in large part through diplomatic "back channels."

But it is all documented in extraordinarily meticulous detail (including personal interviews and 96 pages of footnotes) by Catholic author and theologian James W. Douglass in his book JFK and the Unspeakable, which poses the question: Was Kennedy assassinated as a result?

And the answer, says Douglass -- whose book has been lauded by the likes of Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Professor Richard Falk of Princeton University, and Mark Lewis Taylor of Princeton Theological Seminary -- is yes: JFK was slain by American intelligence operatives.

It's no theory. He marshals tremendous evidence -- facts we have not seen before, and others we have forgotten or have not seen in proper context.

We approach this at a moment when we all recall September 11.

Before that attack, the Kennedy event was modern America's most traumatic -- and fraught with potential spiritual significance.

It still plagues us because we have never felt settled with official explanations and no one wants to think that factions in the U.S. government would kill the nation's leader (in the name of liberty, as well as for other reasons).

Yet it appears this is the case. We'll say at the outset that there is no final "smoking gun." There is no tape recording of intelligence agents meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald. There is no video of or confession from conspirators and additional gunmen.

Moreover, most conspiracy theories have strayed toward the anecdotal or hysterical. One famous case was built around a New Orleans businessman named Clay Shaw who government agencies have compellingly argued could not have been a linchpin in any such operation.

This book doesn't even mention him. Instead it first focuses on the foreign moves by Kennedy with which many military leaders -- as well as the Central Intelligence Agency -- not only disagreed but interpreted as dangerous and highly threatening to their branches of government. Indeed, Douglass recounts how, after the Bay of Pigs fiasco (whereby C.I.A. operatives were caught red-handed trying to provoke an all-out conflict with Cuba), Kennedy threatened to splinter the C.I.A. "into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. " The agency had engineered the aborted attempt to invade that nation and as it happens was also working behind his back to undermine Asian and Cuban peace efforts -- including through assassination.

"In his short presidency, Kennedy began to take steps to deal with the C.I.A.," writes Douglass. "He tried to redefine the C.I.A.'s mandate and to reduce its power in his National Security Actions memoranda 55 and 57, which took military-type operations out of the hands of the C.I.A. President Kennedy then asked the three principal C.I.A. planners for the Bay of Pigs to resign: Director Allen Dulles, Deputy Director Richard Bissell, Jr., and Deputy Director General Charles Cabell." (After the assassination, Dulles was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to serve on the Warren Commission.)

JFK also moved quietly to cut the C.I.A. budget in 1962 and again in 1963, aiming at a twenty percent reduction. The "splintering" had begun. And the surreptitious foreign operations of the C.I.A., especially in Viet Nam and Cuba (where it had a special team called Alpha 66), were in great jeopardy.

Did this agency -- which beyond question had developed assassination units -- turn one of those teams on the President himself (in effect accomplishing a silent coup, as it had caused uprisings or coups in Asia, Central America, and elsewhere [see list])?

Until now, we have not been able to decide whether it was a lone gunman at Dallas or some sort of larger plot. For years -- for decades -- the notion of a conspiracy seemed out there on the fringe.

After reading this book, it seems so, perhaps, no longer.

Consider, according to Douglass:

-- That, incredibly and inexplicably, as Douglass details at length, Lee Oswald once worked at Atsugi Naval Air Station in Japan, a super-secret base of operations for the C.I.A., with the express purpose, according to former C.I.A. financial officer Jim Wilcott, of "becoming a double agent assignment to the U.S.S.R."

-- That when Lee Harvey Oswald returned to the U.S. on June 13, 1962, after his supposed "defection" to the Soviet Union, he was met at U.S. Customs not with arrest and prosecution, but by Spas T. Raikin, a representative of the Travelers' Aid Society. He was granted a passport almost immediately.

Raikin at the time was secretary-general of an anti-Communist organization with extensive intelligence connections -- an unlikely source of support for Oswald, who supposedly had been a traitor. Or had he been a C.I.A. plant?

-- That there had been an assassination program attached to Cuba and known as "ZR/RIFLE" that used documents to falsely link it with Soviets or Czechs.

-- That when in the summer of the same year the Oswalds settled in Fort Worth, Texas, they were immediately befriended by a man named George de Mohrenschildt, who had traveled around the world as a geologist, consulting for Texas oil companies and doubling as an intelligence "asset."

De Mohrenschildt admitted in a 1977 interview that he had been given the okay to meet Oswald by J. Walton Moore, the Dallas C.I.A. Domestic Contacts Service chief.

On March 29, 1977 -- three hours after his revelation of contact with Oswald -- George de Mohrenschildt was found shot to death at a home where he was staying in Manalapan, Florida. He was one of many who died suspiciously after 1963 (one from karate wounds in a shower).

-- That Oswald or an Oswald look-alike was planted in Mexico City to approach the Russian embassy and make it seem like he wanted to turn Communist again -- which set him up as a "patsy" with a motive: abetting the U.S.S.R. (a favorite C.I.A. ploy in the 1960s).

-- That when he traveled to Mexico City, Oswald's tourist card number was 824085; the preceding number, 824084, was later identified as belonging to a C.I.A. agent named William Gaudet.

-- That the same occurred in New Orleans -- where Oswald moved in April of 1963 and found work at a coffee company owned by William B. Reily, a wealthy supporter of the C.I.A.-sponsored Cuban Revolutionary Council.

Indeed, those connected to clandestine C.I.A. operations in Cuba -- operations including the undermining of JFK's effort there -- weave in and out of subsequent events, especially Alpha 66. (In 1969, it was revealed that Reily "had worked for the C.I.A. for years.") A member of this unit, which functioned for the C.I.A. office in Miami, reportedly hinted to friends in the 1970s he had been involved in JFK's assassination and later Bobby's. His name was David Sanchez Morales and he also had been involved in Bay of Pigs and allegedly a coup in Guatemala. He was by reputation the C.I.A.'s top assassin in Latin America.

-- That when an official noted Oswald's "pro-Castro" leaflets, and saw him passing them around on a street in New Orleans (which, again, set him up, in the public's mind, later, as a Communist), a local private detective who was linked to the C.I.A. told the local official not to worry about Oswald: "He's with us." (Oswald apparently didn't realize that he was to be the fall guy.)

-- That Kennedy was originally to be assassinated by Oswald and several others in the Washington D.C. area on September 26, 27, 28, or 29, 1963, but this was delayed when informants relayed information to the F.B.I.

"Please advise me as to how I contact the [Communist] Party in the Baltimore-Washington area, to which I shall relocate in October," Oswald had written.

The counterintelligence agent who revealed this, Richard Case Nagell, soon after, on November 1, 1995, was found dead in Los Angeles and a personal trunk in his home said to contain audio of Oswald and two other operatives disappeared at the same time from the home of Nagell's son -- who was seeking his father's possessions -- was ransacked.

-- That after Washington, the plan was to kill Kennedy in Chicago on November 2. There was even an Oswald-like patsy put in place named Thomas Arthur Vallee; like Oswald weeks later, he to was situated in a warehouse above Kennedy's route. (This plot was disrupted when the Secret Service got wind of Vallee and contacted local police, who put surveillance on this would-be scapegoat, a former Marine. Vallee, one must also note, had been assigned at a U-2 base at Camp Otsu in Japan; the U-2 was under direction of the C.I.A.)

-- That Oswald's job at the Book Depository was arranged through the help of a woman named Ruth Paine, who had expertise in psychology and had been introduced to the Oswalds by De Mohrenschildt. (Paine was also the younger sister of a C.I.A. employee and once had lived near headquarters. She not only helped get Oswald the job at the depository -- on October 16, just over a month before the killing -- but joined the Oswalds in New Orleans, ostensibly to drive Marina Oswald back to Texas.)

-- That Jack Ruby had ties to the C.I.A. when, among his various enterprises, he reportedly ran guns to Cuba. He also had associations with the Mafia, which long had interests in Cuba and was used on occasion by the C.I.A. (including in a famous failed plot to kill Castro).

-- That a woman named Julia Ann Mercer, who worked at a Dallas automat, claimed to have seen a pickup truck in Dealey Plaza an hour and a half before Kennedy's motorcade came through and asserted that a man on the passenger side had walked around the truck and took what looked like a rifle case wrapped in newspaper from the back before heading in the direction of what is now notorious as the "grassy knoll."

Right after the assassination, when shown photos by the F.B.I., Mercer identified the driver of the pickup -- not yet nationally know --  as one whose photo bore the name "Jack Ruby." (And a day later, when she saw him on television -- killing Oswald -- she definitively identified Ruby again.) Her report was later altered, despite her credibility: she would end up the wife of a congressman.

-- That one of Ruby's best friends was the owner of a Dallas radio station who had a background in intelligence work.

-- That a woman who used to work for Jack Ruby at his nightclub and also knew Oswald was found dead on a highway at three a.m. on September 4, 1965, with her suitcases on the road. If that was not strange enough, the results of her autopsy later disappeared.

-- That military and intelligence officials oversaw Kennedy's autopsy, which instead of occurring at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas -- as per normal protocol -- was done at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, where what initial doctors had described as a massive wound in the back of President Kennedy's head (indicating a shot from the front, not from the back, which is where it would have originated if from the Book Depository) was suddenly no longer so evident.

-- That a photographer named William Bruce Pitzer who filmed the autopsy -- and had photographic slides of the back wound -- was soon after (on October 29, 1966) shot to death, his body found on the floor of a production studio of the National Medical Center.

-- That a former Special Forces officer in the Green Berets, Colonel David Marvin, claimed he had been asked by the C.I.A. to assassinate Pitzer.

Marvin made this admission as a born-again Christian -- calling Pitzer's wife with the admission.

-- That famed newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen -- who gained an exclusive visit with Ruby behind closed doors and was subsequently hounded by the F.B.I. -- mysteriously died in her Manhattan home.

-- That the Soviet K.G.B. had gotten wind of the assassination plot.

There is far more and it is intricately -- sometimes numbingly -- detailed by Douglass in a way that smacks like nothing in the realm of conspiracists.

This is an academic work.

It is also a work of investigative reporting.

Last but not least, it is by a Catholic who puts it all in the category of actual evil -- what (quoting famed monk Thomas Merton) he calls "the unspeakable."

And so it goes. There is more.

Is it not incredible that the mainstream media -- with thousands of reporters -- have never approached this?

Where was Woodward? Where was Bernstein?

To be fair: that the C.I.A. was at least peripherally involved in some fashion seems incontrovertible but impossible to legalistically prove (in part due to the many other untimely deaths in the wake of JFK's assassination). Many of the "suspicious" deaths are disputed as being so suspicious. Some say, for example, that Kilgallen never really had a substantial talk with Ruby, and that she died twenty months afterward, falling over a railing. There are also disputes over how Pitzer died, along with others (including de Mohrenschildt, who some claim suffered mental illness and killed himself). The woman on the highway was the victim of a hit and run (she was a prostitute and drug addict). There also has been doubt cast on the account of the former Green Beret who said he was asked to kill Pitzer.

Were these deaths all coincidence?

There is always that chance. [See pro. See con.]

But it seems overwrought -- the idea of happenstance -- when it's all placed together.

Aside from the motive of bureaucratic forces wanting to stop Kennedy from ending military and Cold war conflicts, and fearful of his vow to dismantle the C.I.A. -- as well as reorder the military -- there are those who claim, with far less documentation, but still in an interesting way, that there were other influences as well. Says one: "why they didn't want him around, they being the One-World Internationalist cabal: Kennedy was warning the nation against secret societies and also had plans to place the Federal Reserve under the jurisdiction of U.S. government which the Internationalists resented. The plan wasn't only to kill him but to smear his reputation, even attributing to him the ensuing evils which they themselves had planned. The assassination marked a turning point in the history of our country. Both JFK and the U.S. were shot on November 22, 1963, and our nation has since been dying a slow death."

Was there a Masonic element? J. Edgar Hoover was a Freemason. So was Lyndon Johnson (who Jackie Kennedy suspected). Freemasonry is not exactly in tune with Catholicism.

But there is no evidence of either of those two high officials being involved and probably, if a conspiracy, as recounted by Douglass, it was basically a foreign-affairs C.I.A. thing.

This is hardly to say that President Kennedy was perfect. But it is time to get to the root. In fact, it seemed like the Sixties saw a tremendous surge of evil that remains with us. "One of the awful facts of our age," wrote Merton, "is the evidence that [the world] is stricken indeed, stricken to the very core of its being by the presence of the Unspeakable."

JFK seemed to foresee his death and was pursuing peace

From http://www.spiritdaily.com/JFKCIA-1.htm

The death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the first and only Catholic president, continues to haunt us and still yields new fascination despite the nearly five decades that have passed.

In fact, along with 9/11, it is the event that most jarred us.

Was the President killed by a lone gunman? Was there a conspiracy? If there was a conspiracy, who was behind it?

A recent book by Catholic James W. Douglass presents incredible information linking the slaying to the Central Intelligence Agency. We have wondered about this before. But before we get to that are some extremely interesting bits of information of a spiritual nature.

Few know that JFK and Nikita Khrushchev were on the verge of a major breakthrough in ending the Cold War when he was killed -- and that a secret third party to the effort was Pope John XXIII. Once militantly anti-Communist, JFK, it seems, was on the path to reconciliation -- one guided by the Vatican. This was the president who came closest -- during the Cuban Missile Crisis -- to nuclear war, but who bucked the military, C.I.A., and other hawks. Behind the scenes was a president who despite famous flaws had a spiritual and even prophetic side.

"On Sunday morning, October 28, after Kennedy and Khrushchev had agreed mutually to withdraw their most threatening missiles, JFK went to Mass in Washington to pray in thanksgiving," writes Douglass in the massively detailed book, JFK and the Unspeakable. "As he and [aide] Dave Powers were about to get into the White House car, Kennedy looked at Powers and said, 'Dave, this morning we have an extra reason to pray."

"The Cold War John F. Kennedy was turning, in the root biblical sense of the word 'turning' -- teshuvah in Hebrew Scriptures, metanoia in the Greek, 'repentance' in English," Douglass writes. "'The military are mad,' President Kennedy told Arthur Schlesinger. Yet as angry as the Chiefs were at Kennedy's handling of the missile crisis, their anger would deepen in the following year."

That anger would deepen over a number of foreign policy issues, and Kennedy had a foreboding about it. He was deeply concerned by the rage expressed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the way the Central Intelligence Agency was surreptitiously bucking him on matters from Cuba to Viet Nam and Laos (even orchestrating terrorist acts, coups, and assassinations to undermine peace talks). On the afternoon of that same October day, with the Cuban crisis over -- in reference to the death of Abraham Lincoln --  Kennedy said to his brother Robert, "This is the night I should go to the theater." (To which Bobby replied -- also prophetically -- "If you go, I want to go with you.")

It is chilling stuff. "In his final months, the president spoke with friends about his own death with a freedom and frequency that shocked them," writes Douglass in a book with 96 pages of footnotes, quoting a biographer who observed that "Kennedy talked a great deal about death, and about the assassination of Lincoln." On a slip of paper, Kennedy had kept a favorite saying from Lincoln: "I know there is a God -- and I see a storm coming. If He has a place for me, I believe that I am ready."

Meanwhile, it turns out that the 1963 papal encyclical Pacem in Terris on universal peace influenced not only the switch toward peace of John Kennedy but also -- astonishingly -- Khrushchev. "I am not religious," the Russian leader had remarked, "but I can tell you I have a great liking for Pope John. There's something very moving about a man like him struggling despite his illness to accomplish such an important goal before he dies." John XXIII died of cancer on June 3, 1963 -- a week before Kennedy gave a groundbreaking speech -- what some say was his best ever -- on peace at American University (a speech that alarmed many in the military-intelligence-industrial complex, about which President Eisenhower had warned).

Kennedy was keenly aware of the possibility of a "coup" in his own country and mentioned that "only God knows just what segment of democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment." After the debacle at Bay of Pigs, the President had threatened to "splinter the C.I.A. into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind." He seemed to sense danger. Waiting for Mass to begin one Sunday morning, the President turned to reporters sitting behind him and said, "Did you ever stop and think, if anyone tried to take a shot at me, they'd get one of you guys first?"

Referring to assassination, JFK liked to quote Ecclesiastes: "There is a time to be born, and a time to die."

Astoundingly -- as his trip to Dallas approached -- the young president repeated apprehensions about it.

"I hate to go out to Texas," he told Senator George Smathers. "I just hate to go. I have a terrible feeling about going. I wish I could get out of it." The night before leaving his sister-in-law Ethel noticed his grave demeanor and wondered what was wrong.

During the trip, in a hotel in Fort Worth, after reading a threatening newspaper ad by a group that hated him, Douglass says the President turned and said to his wife, "Jackie, if someone wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it? You know," he added, "last night would have been a hell of a night to assassinate a president."

In between stops at Fort Worth and Dallas, there are credible reports that Kennedy had a priest hear his Confession.

The Catholicism he got from his mother Rose -- a devout daily communicant who constantly prayed the Rosary and wanted the family fortune donated to monks in Massachusetts. Although admittedly an imperfect Catholic, the President also seemed to have a mystical link with the famous writer and monk Thomas Merton, who lived in total seclusion (and silence) at a Trappist monastery in Kentucky.

There, the monk had been praying in earnest that Kennedy would turn from hawkishness to peacemaking -- that unlike other politicians he would turn away from shrewdness and craftiness toward compassion and humanity. He even wrote the Kennedy family about it. And he too seemed a prophet.

Wrote Merton on January 18, 1962, to W. H. Ferry: "Kennedy will break through into that someday by miracle. But such people are before long marked out for assassination."