Go Take a Flying Leap

1. Bishop Loverde of Arlington to those who would try to force him to close Catholic institutions under the guise of FOCA: "Go take a flying leap". Is that a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 16:22?

2. The struggle continues at the United Nations, where the Holy See has announced its opposition to a measure that would call for the end to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (a precursor to pressuring countries to legalize same-sex "marriage"). This is, of course, the brainchild of the European Union, but I wonder what the position of our incoming administration will be on this? Gee, I'll give you one guess.

3. There's an interesting debate going on in the conservative movement about the role of religion, and whether religious "social conservatives" are a net plus or minus for the conservative (and Republican) electoral coalition. Here's a piece from National Review Online that lays out some important facts that must be kept in mind during this debate, namely that there is no factual basis for the claim that dumping social conservative positions -- our positions -- would gain the conservatives and Republicans any more votes. For my part, I hope the Republicans keep in mind the fate of the Whig Party, which fell apart over internal disputes about the abolition of slavery, leading to the creation of a new party that was unequivocal on the issue. Will history repeat itself?

4. It's worth recalling every so often that "abortion rights" mean that fathers are losing their children, and they have no legal right to do anything about it except mourn the loss. And apropos of that, don't forget to spread the word about Abortion Changes You, which offers hope to all those -- mothers, father, siblings -- suffering after an abortion.

5. Any budding script writers out there? There's a contest to come up with a script for a short film on a Theology of the Body theme. Let's see, how can I portray the internal communion of the Trinitarian love in dramatic form in 5 to 10 pages?

6. I received a very nice award the other night, the Pontifical Medal Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice. I'm going to blog about it later today on my official ArchNY blog.