Happy Catholic*: Want Your Heart to Soar? Watch This.

Happy Catholic*: Want Your Heart to Soar? Watch This..

Reflections on Mayor Koch « The Gospel in the Digital Age

Reflections on Mayor Koch « The Gospel in the Digital Age.

Edward I. Koch

Introduction of Timothy Cardinal Dolan

Manhattan Institute – Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner

May 21, 2012

I am now in my 88th year.  Since my entry into politics and government service, I have had the privilege of meeting, working with, and becoming friends with four cardinals of New York – Terence Cardinal Cooke, John Cardinal O’Connor, Edward Cardinal Egan and the current cardinal, whom I have the honor of introducing to you this evening, Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

Before I make that introduction, allow me take a few minutes to comment on my friendships with his predecessors.

I was a congressman and then mayor when I first came to know Terence Cardinal Cooke.  Of the four cardinals I have known, he was the most beloved by the public.  He was a very gentle man and perceived early on as a saintly figure.  Indeed, Cardinal Cooke is currently being considered by the Vatican for sainthood, and I have given testimony in the Vatican’s extensive inquiry into such a designation.

Having nothing to do with his saintliness, but much to do with our friendship, I recall when Cardinal Cooke opened a Fifth Avenue door at St. Patrick’s Cathedral that had been closed for 100 years.  He asked me to stand with him when he unlocked the entrance.  As the sunlight poured through the open door, he said, “Mayor Ed, this cathedral belongs to you. ”  (I could never get him to call me Ed.  When he said “Mayor Ed,” I could hear the neighing of horses, there being a very popular television show at the time featuring a talking horse called “Mr. Ed,”) but at that moment, I did indeed feel as though the cathedral belonged to the cardinal and me.

Sanger’s Racist Genocidal Plans and The Masque of the Red Death

Sanger’s Racist Genocidal Plans and The Masque of the Red Death.

via Sanger’s Racist Genocidal Plans and The Masque of the Red Death.

Sanger’s Racist Genocidal Plans and The Masque of the Red Death.

Do you want to know what Margaret Sanger, the great “heroine” of Planned Parenthood, and abortion-advocates and committed elitiststhroughout the nation had to say about African American and lower-income populations?

Check it out:

We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class, and if morality is to mean anything at all to us, we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral.

Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.

I have no doubt that Sanger would have applauded yesterday’s article of full revelation at Salon, and the admission that “Sure, abortion ends a life, so what?” That writer echoes Sanger: some lives are worth more than others. She also writes that a life in utero is a life “worth sacrificing.”

the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

Let us receive the light whose brilliance is eternal

From a sermon by Saint Sophronius, bishop

In honor of the divine mystery that we celebrate today, let us all hasten to meet Christ. Everyone should be eager to join the procession and to carry a light.

Our lighted candles are a sign of the divine splendor of the one who comes to expel the dark shadows of evil and to make the whole universe radiant with the brilliance of his eternal light. Our candles also show how bright our souls should be when we go to meet Christ.

The Mother of God, the most pure Virgin, carried the true light in her arms and brought him to those who lay in darkness. We too should carry a light for all to see and reflect the radiance of the true light as we hasten to meet him.

The light has come and has shone upon a world enveloped in shadows; the Dayspring from on high has visited us and given light to those who lived in darkness. This, then, is our feast, and we join in procession with lighted candles to reveal the light that has shone upon us and the glory that is yet to come to us through him. So let us hasten all together to meet our God.

The true light has come, the light that enlightens every man who is born into this world. Let all of us, my brethren, be enlightened and made radiant by this light. Let all of us share in its splendor, and be so filled with it that no one remains in the darkness. Let us be shining ourselves as we go together to meet and to receive with the aged Simeon the light whose brilliance is eternal. Rejoicing with Simeon, let us sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, the Father of the light, who sent the true light to dispel the darkness and to give us all a share in his splendor.

Through Simeon’s eyes we too have seen the salvation of God which he prepared for all the nations and revealed as the glory of the new Israel, which is ourselves. As Simeon was released from the bonds of this life when he had seen Christ, so we too were at once freed from our old state of sinfulness.

By faith we too embraced Christ, the salvation of God the Father, as he came to us from Bethlehem. Gentiles before, we have now become the people of God. Our eyes have seen God incarnate, and because we have seen him present among us and have mentally received him into our arms, we are called the new Israel. Never shall we forget this presence; every year we keep a feast in his honor.

Outrageous imprisonment

Fox news is covering the conviction and sentencing of Said Abedini, but there’s not much from the mainstream or interest and/or outrage from other governments. Iran sentenced the  American pastor to 8 years in Iran’s notoriously brutal prison. Our State Dept. has made but a weak rebuke.  Hopefully the world will care, if we make it known:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2124703064001/convicted-for-being-christian/