I firmly believe ( after the Nicean Creed and in One Holy Apostolic Church, the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrection of the body and the Life of the World to Come) that the chant beginning with Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho should be punishable in the most cruel and unusual manner. But that is for another day. I really want to work up enough spit and bile to do that mind pummeling commie ditty the justice it warrants with my full arsenal of invective, malediction and vocabulary in my limited capacity to hurl in its direction. All in good time, Brothers and Sisters,
Rather, my topic this early Sunday morning will concern rock-solid Progressive Public School hypocrisy and the continuing secular Fatwa leveled on American Catholics.
After chores and study, I hit Saturday 4:00 PM Mass and heard about the posted nonsense in the news pasted below from a lovely, witty, devout and elderly woman. We chatted about the Thug funerals plaguing my our neighborhood and the previous day's Lil JoJo Going Home Gunfire and Black Gangster Disciple Parade at Mt. Hope Cemetery. As south side chat will do, branches segued from the root topic -sadness for the death of young person, contempt for thug culture, gang hegemony boosted by our PC media and spineless politicians, and gang culture.
The woman told me, " a public school in Colorado banned rosaries* and a boy had his rosary confiscated." As this woman was not a City, County, or State employee afflicted with the uniquely Cook County work-place malady splenetic -dysphobia - Fear of Badness, which manifests itself in statements like, " I hear that Rahm is firing all the Croatian sounding names in the Water Department and that any one who has cable and watches Boss on Starz has his e-mails turned over to Andy Shaw of BGA." As such, I went home and studied up on the Rosary snatching in Loveland** ( I have heard all about Loveland . . .) Colorado
LOVELAND, Colo. — A student is questioning whether his faith or his fashion is under fire at his high school in Loveland.
Thompson Valley High School officials have confiscated his rosary beads twice since school started three weeks ago.
And he says they never told him, or his family, why.“They tell me I can’t wear them,” says Manuel Vigil, showing us an identical rosary to the one seized by his school.
The junior says he wears rosary beads to protect himself from harm.
But his school district thinks the religious necklace will harm students.
“That’s typically not what we want for a safe environment for school,” says Thompson Valley School District spokesperson Margaret Crespo.
The district says they can be affiliated with gangs, and disrupt learning.
“Are you in a gang? I ask Vigil. ‘No. I’m not in a gang,’ he says. You’re a good student? ‘I’m a good student,’” he says.
The 16-year-old says he and his family are strong Catholics.
“I use them for prayer. I feel safe when I have them on.”
The district says it gave Vigil options before seizing the beads.
“We’ve given you two opportunities to take it off or to put it inside your shirt. That’s not something you’re interested in doing. You’re not giving us an alternative than to remove it,” Crespo says Vigil was told.
But Vigil says he only got a demand.
“If he would have given me that option, I would have put it in my shirt,” he says.
Those who can't teach, become public school Administrators, Superintendents and University Educators!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not always, but a very safe bet.
I carry the Rosary in my pocket all of the time. Gang banger I? I think not.
Gang members are known by their deeds more than their beads. Some carry shiny objects -guns, rims, bling, beads, and plastic coated Nike wheels. Some openly manifest their devotion to thuggery, more do not. Numbers, symbols, letters, colors and flash fingers, mean less than open acts of thuggery and no more so than a bead rattling Catholic is threat to Sandra Fluke's rubber supply.
The rosary comes in many forms. My Dad gave my son Conor his oxidized- steel one decade Rosary disc which he carried all through the South Pacific and home from 1943-1945.
A principal in Washington state went to her Fox affiliate last may to justify her own ban the rosary. Notice the local Fox logo?
Now, how about that Fox affiliate "take down the Crown!" The Crown - Symbol of the Latin Kings of People Nation? They are "flashing the Crown Mang" all over Washington State.
Lay off the rosary.
As a special treat, because you paid full attention all the way down here - here is Loveland by Charlie Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rythmn Band!!!
" Hey,Hey! Ho,Ho! Spell Czecher Haz Gotta Go! ( repeat as obnoxiously often as if Andy Thayer were Thay-er"
The CPS Strike may be history. Maybe. I don't believe so,
I do not believe that the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union, Karen Lewis and her ISO guru Jesse Sharkey, have had anywhere near enough face-time on camera to work their gums.
National labor activists who embarassed themselves in Madison Wisconsin last year are trucking to Chicago tomorrow for an MSNBC flavored bongo and gong sing-along in Union Park near Pilsen.
CTU members and CPS teachers are frustrated and rightly so. I know many excellent CPS teachers who are burdened by the clowns from both CTU and CPS. Policies and practices get heaped on them like taxes showered on Chicago citizens and they are expected to not only teach, care for, keep-track of and love their students, but also change the social order and tuck-point the dysfunctional families who send their children to spend hours of the day in their charge.
God love them! Rahm is playing to cash-cows and public relations at the expense of common sense, whether that means tossing a million dollars to the gang-banger pensioners of CeaseFire, turning Gresham, Englewood and Grand Crossing neighborhoods into the care of Calypso Louis' Bow-tie Precision Marching Teams, or Draconianly changing the schedules of some schools, while appeasing the Mommies and Daddies of Magnet School kiddies, or TIFing more schools into Charters. He wants to be President.
Then there is Karen Lewis. Ms. Lewis is a face of CTU, the heart of CORE and soul of ISO. CORE is the Caucus of Rank and File Educators. ISO is the International Socialist Organization*. The VP of CTU is Jesse Sharkey an ISO wheel and one time teacher at Senn High School - not listed on staff these days.
Karen Lewis and Jesse Sharkey have "Hey,hey'd and Ho, Ho'd" everyone else in CTU to an Occupy TV moment. They are not about the money, they are about ending the capitalist-running-dog 1% patriarchal hegemony. Got that? T'aint too hard. Bill Ayers understands it and Carol Marin and Eric Zorn eat it up.
So do the loud-mouths and layabouts. This week John Kass praised Leo High School that Karen Lewis had smeared as not a real school, as this Catholic college prep school for inner city men was open on Monday. It was a very nice and accurate contrast to the Karen & Jesse Show.
A web-paper that publishes my stuff, Chicago Daily Observer linked John Kass' article: Here is one comment from an anonymous goof -DMLawyer:
DMLawyer said:The school will be closed in a couple of years.
White flight to the burbs (Br. Rice, Marist, etc.) was the start of its demise.
I have heard that Leo was on its last legs from guys- in-the- know since 1966. White flight? How about that Viking ship in Lincoln Park? So, I responded.
Pat Hickeysaid:Where have you been genius?
White flight occurred in the late 1960′s.
Too piquant? Sorry, that's how I roll when confronted with a spitting bi-ped purported to have been educated somewhere.
Not to be outdone, the pettigogger rose to his full height and rejoined -
DMLAwyer said:
And the effects are still being felt.
At least you finally acknowledge its occurence and have stopped making excuses for racism.
At Least I did that. Yes, yes, and a chastened Honkey-ass bigot I be there, DM. Lord, forgive my bull-whipping of colored folks. Old habits, I guess.
Sorry. There I go again. Now, I am just as bad as DMLawyer and would not deem to take a back-seat to any man when an old-timey micturating party is afoot and I responded, thus -
Pat Hickeysaid:Write check to Leo, DML. All them folks you like to tag as racist do. Nothing kills racism like involvement. Step up; the sidelines are way to thick with talkers. Leo is all about doing -Facta Non Verba. Or do you just like to talk?
I am a pretty nice guy. Unless someone insults people I love. Why would anyone publicly ridicule people who do good, without any prompting and also do it so very badly. Imagine pushing your shopping cart down the aisle and catching the eye of a stranger, give the wink and smile and salute him or her with a cheery greeting of " 'Morning!" only to be acknowledged with a "#$% You and all you White Flight #$%^-ers!" -
( that actually happens to me all the time, but only with family and close friends -never total strangers in my neighborhood) Why would one do such a thing? Because they feel that they can and, in my experience, these people happen to be educated, wealthy and Progressive. That is when, I wear my guts on my sleeve and can be singularly unpleasant and even, God forgive me, sarcastic.
Now, I talk . . .in my sleep, Y'all! My mouth goes like duck's ass when given have the mereest chance . . .No, really. I do chat some.
I also do. I do what I can and often a bit more. I teach black kids, white kids, Mexican kids and, when the moon sits just right, my very own kids. I can work a mop, turn on the boilers at Leo, fix the sump pump, chauffer the Canaryvillains, raise money, write grants, write articles, ask for help, make friends, fix bridges and buy lunches. So does Dan McGrath, Mike Holmes, Mike Joyce, Aurora Latiffi, Mrs. Townsend, Gunny Frank Wilson and most everyone who draws a modest pay check at Leo every two weeks.
Most importantly, I can ask for money. When I make a phone call, the person on the other side of the line knows I am about to lift his wallet, or rummage her purse. Most people are willing to step in and help the mission. We have millionaires, but mostly working stiffs. Some of our most loyal givers are on a fixed income. All participate. They mentor the kids, come to assemblies and games and love our lads. I value their gifts.
Karen Lewis has the luxury to slap people who have volunteered to help the public schools. Today in the Tribune. Karen Lewis insults CPS donor Bruce Rauner. Mr. Rauner is what we at Leo call a "Big Hitter" - someone with oodles of the long-green-difference. If my Rauner were giving to Leo and he told me that rotting dead alewife made a great deoderant, I'd be smelling like the dumpster behind DiCola's Fish on a hot August afternoon and happy about my new found scent.
Karen has her own distinctive air - here is some of her gut-wind in today's Tribune
Rauner's solution to all these problems is to increase the number of Teach for America interns in CPS schools, to expand charter schools and to increase standardized testing. Obviously he knows absolutely nothing about education. If he even subscribed to any of the numerous education newspapers, like Education Week, he would know studies are showing Teach for America is not improving educational outcomes at low-income schools, that charter school performance nationwide is only on par with public school counterparts and that excessive standardized testing can have an adverse effect on students.
How much money has Bruce Rauner personally invested in all of these "solutions"?
Well, Bruce???? Tongue got your cat?
Mr. Bruce Rauner is being impugned as a fat-cat capitalist opportunist by the ethically challenged leadership of CTU in preparation for the Big Labor Pay-Back for Walker Thru Rahm Rally tomorrow. Money, marbles or chalk ? Jesse Sharkey, a practiced Commie scribe with many articles on his belt for ISO, wrote this piece for the svelt-talented Ms. Lewis.
Karen Lewis does not get direct dough for CTU from Mr. Rauner. Mr. Rauner is about improving public education. He is a doer. I disagree that Mr. Rauner's money is well-spent and that it is certainly misdirected. Bruce Rauner should pop his dough into The Big Shoulders Fund and support Catholic Schools. I'm just sayin'!
Karen Lewis is educated, wealthier than most people I live near, and very Progressive.
* Now a strike by the CTU over issues that are murky and confusing to the average citizen threatens to distract the electorate just as the Obama campaign picks up lost momentum.How could this have happened?
The ironic answer is that President Obama himself deserves some of the blame. At the top of the CTU leadership is a group of political activists for whom the health and well being of students is not the top priority much less the bread and butter concerns of their fellow union teachers. Instead, they are the hard core of a highly ideological milieu that has over the last decade or more burrowed their way into the teachers’ union.
Now they have their hands on the levers of power of a large urban union and are doing what no sane union leader would do, namely striking at a point where they are least likely to gain allies among Democrats and others on the left whom they normally could, and should, count on in a battle of this magnitude.
Only a group with a different agenda than that of the genuine labor movement would take such a huge risk. Actually, from their standpoint – one which advocates “r-r-radical” change – it makes a peculiar kind of sense because it appears to demonstrate their intransigence. While stalwart militancy can be a valuable trait in a labor leader, mindless militancy of the sort on display among the top leaders of the CTU is dangerous. For too long the democratic left inside the AFT and elsewhere hasignored these risks.
What animates this “mindless militancy”? It is the so-called “social justice” ideology propagated by a sectarian element in American schools of education and among their teacher graduates by individuals like Linda Darling-Hammond, Bill Ayers, Mike Klonsky, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Peter MacLaren and others. Thus, Karen Lewis, the new “fist in the air” fire brand president of the CTU in the words of her ally the Maoist education activist Mike Klonsky. Lewis recently traveled to Seattle not to discuss the tragedy of poor student outcomes in our nation’s schools but to rally the “Shock Doctrine” troops among the social justice crowd to take over the teachers’ union.
Keep in mind that I put quotes around “social justice” because this crowd’s “social justice” ideology has nothing to do with the social justice agenda of the genuine labor movement or the civil rights movement. This is, instead, an agenda about gaining political power, not for the students and teachers of our blighted urban schools, but for the advocates of “social justice” and its allied ideas such as multiculturalism and identity politics.
While proposed as something radical it is important to keep in mind how conservative and reactionary this ideology is, in fact. It represents a retreat from the genuinely progressive and radical agenda of the civil rights movement and the labor movement. And it is therefore not a surprise to realize that this new “social justice” agenda emerged in the wake of the defeat of those earlier democratic movements in the late 70s and early 80s.
The ideology actually leads the labor movement backwards into the divisive morass of politically correct identity politics. In the world of education, for example, it actually helped support the pro-corporate school “choice” movement by the formation of politically correct small schools like the “Social Justice” high school in Chicago. Not a surprise that figures like Ayers and Klonsky back the same idea as one supported by the Gates Foundation.
Thus, instead of creating democratic, transparent institutions that can lead us out of the crisis in our schools, this “social justice” crowd functions like a mirror image of the corporate education reform crowd they so loudly denounce. This faux radical milieu has, in fact, given up, sometimes explicitly, on wider social solutions, such as integration, to the problems of city schools. They promote absurd arguments that the schools are the moral equivalent of apartheid and promote a form of reparations for slavery in the name of repaying what they call the “education debt” that allegedly has accumulated over 400 years. Professor Stephen Diamond: Santa Clara University School of Law
Francis Cardinal George Our Great Shepherd -with Leo Board Member Tamara Holder and the Leo Guys -Bobby Sheehy, Bill Hessian
I remain a Roman Catholic in America for the exact same reasons that I wake up at 3 A.M. and look in on my kids even though two are adults and the youngest seventeen, pray the Memorare and the Novena of the Little Flower on my knees an hour and a half later, read as much as I can, write about what I have read or thought about, try to do a few laps on the Rosary looking for all the world to be playing Master's Level pocket pool while waiting at Dunkin Donuts for Miss Lou, Kim and her daughter Kameron. Lou takes Kameron to Day Care for Kim while Kim works at U of I Med Center in the cafeteria. I take Kim to the terminal at 79th & Western, as it is on my way to Leo High School.
Kim is a single mom with two daughters. The elder girl is nineteen and ebony goddess Kameron is eight years old with designs on capturing America's heart on the Disney Channel. I was easy. Kim works a brutal day preparing salads for the Medical staff at U of I ChicagoMed Center. Last year, I began driving Kim and spending real quality time with these three African American women, along with the cops, firemen, skilled tradesmen, City of Chicago white collar folks, nurses and cousins at Kareem's Dunkin Donuts.
These tasks, like my prayer ritual, are part of me. I was taught to pray and then forgot how, until times of trouble or when I had managed to piss off every carbon foot-print within my five mile radius. Prayer is not only a public ritual, but should be a reflexive action that underlies our waking hours and balms our sleep.
Being Irish, I am embarrassed to make a public display of prayer - that kiss of Peace at Mass ( 'Peace Be with You!' - Uh-huh, thanks. Back at you.) really tossed Irish Americans into a spiral. Some of the more pious took to it like duck's to Cheetos and evolved into the folks who extend arms with palms up like ad hoc Melchizedeks I belong to a subsection of Irish Catholic America that winces when publicly hugged, touched, or complimented. I like traditional prayers and go absolutely Bat Guano when Catholic educators begin every Goddam meeting with the distribution of xeroxed copies of personal prayers to be read out loud. We got plenty good prayers, but we insist on being the center of the show with a presentation of badly formed words and phrases - "Dear God, the sexually ambiguous Trinity, bless our actions this day as we bring about an end to universal poverty, racism, torture with this day's breaking into groups for discussion and sharing and all kinds of passive aggressive gamesmanship . . .!"
Prayers get answered in God's own manner and with his own brand of theological larceny - "Hickey, the door to back . . .right is open and you already signed in . . .pull a Murphy . . .let Dan know . . . there, see behind the faculty from St. Benedict's? Yes, the doors with exit sign . . . Really, how do you get a fork to your mouth without mutilating yourself? Now, you guys go . . .clear the exit to parking lot . . .wait for the signal . . . the command for heads to drop in Humble supplication . . .Go!"
I am proud on my Church and more than proud to find a pew in the back and off to side at Mass on Sunday and a few days of the week. For the last twenty or thirty years, Catholics have been goaded into becoming Unitarians - Let's call Blessed Virgin Mary Hospital - All Faiths Health Services! No, let's not. Most of the kids at Leo High School are non-Catholic, but they all take Catholic instruction and attend Catholic Mass. Leo High School prays every day, because it is Catholic.
The American Catholic Church in America and every other faith is under attack. The new Pastoral by the American Catholic Bishops clearly road-map the paths to the situation and identify assaults. In subsection of this pastoral the government handcuffs on religious liberty are here -
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty
Religious Liberty Under Attack—Concrete Examples
Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Sadly, it is. This is not a theological or legal dispute without real world consequences. Consider the following:
HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs.The mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services has received wide attention and has been met with our vigorous and united opposition. In an unprecedented way, the federal government will both force religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching and purport to define which religious institutions are "religious enough" to merit protection of their religious liberty. These features of the "preventive services" mandate amount to an unjust law. As Archbishop-designate William Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified to Congress: "This is not a matter of whether contraception may beprohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs."3
State immigration laws. Several states have recently passed laws that forbid what the government deems "harboring" of undocumented immigrants—and what the Church deems Christian charity and pastoral care to those immigrants. Perhaps the most egregious of these is in Alabama, where the Catholic bishops, in cooperation with the Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Alabama, filed suit against the law:
It is with sadness that we brought this legal action but with a deep sense that we, as people of faith, have no choice but to defend the right to the free exercise of religion granted to us as citizens of Alabama. . . . The law makes illegal the exercise of our Christian religion which we, as citizens of Alabama, have a right to follow. The law prohibits almost everything which would assist an undocumented immigrant or encourage an undocumented immigrant to live in Alabama. This new Alabama law makes it illegal for a Catholic priest to baptize, hear the confession of, celebrate the anointing of the sick with, or preach the word of God to, an undocumented immigrant. Nor can we encourage them to attend Mass or give them a ride to Mass. It is illegal to allow them to attend adult scripture study groups, or attend CCD or Sunday school classes. It is illegal for the clergy to counsel them in times of difficulty or in preparation for marriage. It is illegal for them to come to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings or other recovery groups at our churches.4
Altering Church structure and governance. In 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut Legislature proposed a bill that would have forced Catholic parishes to be restructured according to a congregational model, recalling the trusteeism controversy of the early nineteenth century, and prefiguring the federal government's attempts to redefine for the Church "religious minister" and "religious employer" in the years since.
Christian students on campus.In its over-100-year history, the University of California Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage.
Catholic foster care and adoption services. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit.
Discrimination against small church congregations. New York City enacted a rule that barred the Bronx Household of Faith and sixty other churches from renting public schools on weekends for worship services even though non-religious groups could rent the same schools for scores of other uses. While this would not frequently affect Catholic parishes, which generally own their own buildings, it would be devastating to many smaller congregations. It is a simple case of discrimination against religious believers.
Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Notwithstanding years of excellent performance by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services in administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed its contract specifications to require us to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. Religious institutions should not be disqualified from a government contract based on religious belief, and they do not somehow lose their religious identity or liberty upon entering such contracts. And yet a federal court in Massachusetts, turning religious liberty on its head, has since declared that such a disqualification is required by the First Amendment—that the government somehow violates religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in contracts in a manner consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion.
Here in Chicago, the two daily newspapers fully ignored Francis Cardinal George's statement on Rahm's Chicago Values. It is not about the chicken sandwiches at all. The media wants the Catholic Church in Chicago to obey the meme text maxim -STFU -What about the pedophile scandal? What about it? What has not been said, or done about it? The media washed the homosexuality of the scandal right out of the issue and turned its guns on administration. The pedophile priests weren't looking for Bachelor and the Bobby-Sox-er dates. It was and remains overwhelmingly Man on Boy predation.
Our politicians have all been bought by Planned Parenthood and "baptized Catholic altar boys" like Alderman Proco Joe Moreno do its bidding. Gay Marriage is an adjunct of the abortion industry. The media, never friends of Catholics, cares more about an interview with Governor Pat Quinn than with the leader of one of the largest Catholic populations in America. Chicago's President announced no compromise on contraception and abortion mandates - how about that Pat Quinn, Dick Durbin and the balance of the Illinois Personal PAC elected serfs?
I am a Catholic and I pray everyday -thoughts, words and, I hope, deeds.
America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.
America continues to subsist on a diet of Progressive bullshit - Big Labor is SEIU, Woman should be recognized with a stamp for the six lesbians who might have raised the flag on Iwo Jima and Americans should not use toilet paper. Mayor Bloomberg and other damp-brained types worry about sugar, trans fatties, salt and thick ply toilet paper, yet never once blink or squeak when the steam table of bullshit piles higher despite the ladling out by academics, ink-slingers, activists, mail-order preachers and political hacks in heaping helpings to ever more historically and rhetorically sated generations of citizens. Our President fell victim to this steady diet of deadly of nonsense, when his speech writers allowed him to read "Polish Death Camps" without a stuttered, or head shake.
The American intellectual gag reflex needs to be restored.
Yesterday, I jammed a feather down the gullet with a posting about Mary Harris "Mother" Jones*.
This was in reaction to a series of articles spewed out by Mother Jones Magazine -named in honor of the tiny, fearless Catholic woman who dedicated her life to fighting injustice. I chose one Woman's ( Feminist) Website: Women in History, as an example of how leftists have hijacked the truth about a heroic woman's life and spirit. From the get-go the presentation is nonsense and mythopoeic larceny -"She ( Mother Jones) came from a long line of social agitators. It was common in Ireland then to see British soldiers marching through the streets with the heads of Irish freedom fighters stuck on their bayonets." and it continues with more such leftist legerdemain . . .Several sources ( Chris Matthews? Pete Seeger? Albert Speer?) say her father also was one and, shortly after his father was hanged, was forced to flee Ireland with his family. Another source ( Rip Taylor? Susan Sarandon?) says he left to work on railway construction crews in the U.S. and Canada. At any rate, they did leave Ireland, eventually settling in Toronto, Ontario, in 1841." ( emphases and ridicule my own)
Mother Jones is presented as a fiery, secularist, bomb-the- NATO Bastards! Rachel Maddow. Nowhere is the word Catholic mentioned in the long offering, though a school identified as well as a eulogist for the Catholic widow's funeral in Mount Olive, IL where she is buried. Her Faith is Stalanized and her spirit is diluted with nonsense.
Mother Jones lived a long life that reads like the Book of Job her husband and children died of yellow fever and her business was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire - natural causes. Mary Harris Jones took refuge following that last test of faith and character in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church on South Wabash, in Chicago. From there she met another Irish Catholic Terence Powderly, founder of the Knights of Labor and immersed herself in the fight for others - workers, victims of injustice and especially children.
Mother Jones and Labor itself are and continue to be misrepresented in America. The diet of bullshit is far more dangerous than the outlawed fois gras, fats, sugars, and facts.
*"Mother" Mary Harris Jones
NAME: Mary Harris Jones
DATE OF BIRTH: August 1, 1837 (She later claimed it was May 1, 1830)
PLACE OF BIRTH: Cork, Ireland
FAMILY BACKGROUND: Mary Harris was born to Richard and Mary Harris. She came from a long line of social agitators. It was common in Ireland then to see British soldiers marching through the streets with the heads of Irish freedom fighters stuck on their bayonets. Her paternal grandfather was hanged by the British for being a freedom fighter. Several sources say her father also was one and, shortly after his father was hanged, was forced to flee Ireland with his family. Another source says he left to work on railway construction crews in the U.S. and Canada. At any rate, they did leave Ireland, eventually settling in Toronoto, Ontario, in 1841.
EDUCATION: Mary attended public schools in Toronto, and graduated from the normal school in 1854 at the age of 17. The next year, she began working as a private tutor in Maine. She received a teaching certificate in Michigan in 1857, at age 20, and taught at St. Mary's Convent school in Monroe, Michigan.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Mary only taught in Michigan for about eight months, moving to Chicago to work as a dressmaker. From there, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1860 to teach school again. It was here, in 1861, that she met and married George E. Jones, a staunch and prominent member of the Iron Molders' Union. At times, Mary traveled with George in his union organizing. Through him, Mary learned about unions and the psychology of working men. Later, she would advise women that "the wife must care for what the husband cares for, if he is to remain resolute."
Life was good for a while, as Mary and George bore four children in quick succession. But tragedy first struck in 1867, when her husband and all the children died in a yellow fever epidemic, within a week of each other. She stayed in Memphis nursing other victims until the epidemic waned, then moved back to Chicago, working as a dressmaker again. But tragedy soon followed. In 1871, she lost everything she owned in her home and seamstress shop in the great Chicago fire. It was then that Mary embarked upon the path that made her name synonymous with social justice. Probably the seeds were sown earlier, while sewing in the homes of wealthy Chicago families. She later said:
"Often while sewing for lords and barons who lived in magnificent houses on the Lake Shore Drive, I would look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking alongside the frozen lake front.... The contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort of the people for whom I sewed was painful to me. My employers seemed neither to notice nor to care."
After the great fire, Mary began to attend meetings of the newly formed Knights of Labor, held in a ragged, fire-scorched building. The fraternity and its ideals must have struck a chord in Mary, bringing forth her compassion and passion. And although she continued to work in Chicago as a seamstress, she had no fixed home. She began volunteering with the Knights of Labor as an organizer -- traveling back and forth across the country, from one industrial area to another, living with the workers in tent colonies and shantytowns near the mills. She in essence adopted the hard workers of America, and they called her 'Mother.' (One source says during a strike, a mine detective bashed the skull of a miner. While Mary cradled his head, the delirious, dying miner thought she was his mother and called her such; the name stuck.) When asked about where she lived, she said:
"My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong."
The Industrial Revolution was in full swing. America was changing from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Immigrants and displaced farmers made up the vast array of workers, digging out coal and forging steel. But they were subjected to nightmarish conditions and paid starvation wages. Mary would travel to wherever there was a strike, organizing and helping the workers. She would hold educational meetings, and bolster the men's spirits to keep up the fight. Often she was at odds with union leaders. In 1877, Mary helped in the Baltimore and Ohio railroad workers' strike in Pittsburg. In the 1880s, she organized and ran educational meetings, saying:
"Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts."
On May 1, 1886, labor unions in Chicago organized a strike for an eight-hour work day. (Two years earlier, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions had called for the eight-hour work day to begin on that day.) Two days into the strike, a fight broke out and two strikers were killed by police; others were wounded. On May 4, spurred by incendiary fliers saying the police had murdered the strikers on behalf of the business owners, thousands of workers gathered in Chicago's Haymarket Square for a rally. Although the people remained calm throughout, when the police ordered everyone to disperse and began marching in formation through the crowd, a bomb was thrown and exploded near them, killing one policeman. (Seven more policemen died later from their injuries.) The police began firing into the crowd, ultimately killing 11 people. Many of the wounded were afraid to seek treatment, for fear of being arrested.
It was because of this event that Mary "changed" her birth date to May 1, 1830 -- May 1 in honor of the strike for an eight-hour work day. This date has become celebrated worldwide as International Workers' Day (except in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand), commemorating the social and economic achievements of the labor movement and remembering the Haymarket Riot. Mary probably moved her birth seven years earlier to embellish the grandmotherly image of 'Mother' Jones.
Prominent strikes Mary participated in include the Pullman railroad strike in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1894; the Pennsylvania anthracite coal miners' strike in 1902; the Ludlow miners' strike in Colorado in 1913; and the nationwide steel workers' strike in 1919. She also helped other workers as well. In 1901, she helped form a union of domestic servants and helped silk weavers (often daughters of miners) fight for better work conditions. In 1909, she helped striking shirtwaist workers; the next year she helped organize women bottlers in Milwaukee breweries. In 1916, she helped streetcar workers in Texas and New York.
At only five feet tall and dressed in black with just a touch of lace at her throat and wrists, Mary was a perfect picture of a grandmother. Yet when she spoke, she was dynamic, energetic and enthusiastic -- bringing her audiences to tears, applause and laughter. She was a gifted storyteller with a brilliant sense of humor. Her intensity was almost explosive when she began to speak; her listeners (mostly men) sat up, fully alert, and believed that together they could do anything. She'd smile and scan the people gathered with her bright blue eyes, then say:
"I'm not a humanitarian. I'm a hell-raiser!" Another well-known quote is: "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living."
Starting in 1890, she joined the coal miners' fight, becoming an organizer for the newly formed United Mine Workers of America. First she was a volunteer, then she became a union employee. She traveled to West Virginia, Alabama and Colorado, the hardest to organize areas. The miners and their families lived in towns where everything -- the houses, stores and even churches -- was owned by the mining company. She knew the gruesome conditions and hazards of their work, and even went into the mines during strikes to convince scabs (men who worked while others were striking) to quit and support their fellow workers. She warned miners to not trust the churches because they were financially supported by the mine owners. One preacher chastised Mary for holding a union meeting in "a house of God." She said:
"Oh, that isn't God's house. That is the coal company's house. ... God almighty never comes around to a place like this."
Although Mary was raised Catholic, she never claimed allegiance, feeling the organized church had abandoned the revolutionary nature Jesus had espoused. She also felt organized religion was used as a way to keep people from asking questions about their condition. When she spoke to groups, she portrayed Jesus as an organizer of the poor, saying he chose to die rather than betray the poor. On June 20, 1902, at a rally near Clarksburg, West Virginia, Mary was arrested after her speech. When she found out she would be detained in a hotel, she demanded to be put in jail with the other miners who had been arrested. During her career, she was arrested or escorted out of town many times -- only to return again and again.
Remembering lessons she learned from George, Mary often involved the wives and children of miners to dramatize the situation, as well as keep up the men's resolve. In 1902, she told striking miners in Arnot, Pennsylvania, to "stay home with the children for a change and let the women attend to the scabs." Then she led a march of the miners' wives from mine to mine, driving away strikebreakers with brooms and mops. She used this strategy many times at other strikes. In 1907 in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, she urged strikers' wives to stand at the picket line, with their children. If arrested and imprisoned, she told them to sing as loudly as they could so the townspeople would be happy to have them released.
As for children, Mary traveled to several Southern cotton mills, assessing the working conditions -- although cotton mills were not exclusive to the South. She hired on at some, telling the managers she had children who would be working with her. She described the typical conditions at the mills:
"Little girls and boys, barefooted, walked up and down between the endless rows of spindles, reaching their little hands into the machinery to repair snapped threads. They crawled under machinery to oil it. They replaced spindles all day long, all day long; all night through. Tiny babies six years old with faces of sixty, did an eight hour shift for ten cents a day."
In 1903, to dramatize the need to abolish child labor, she led a caravan of striking children from the textile mills of Kensington, Pennsylvania, to President Theodore Roosevelt's home in Long Island, New York. They carried banners saying "We want time to play!" and "We want to go to school!" The president refused to meet with them, but the "Children's Crusade" caught the public's attention. She is quoted as saying:
"The employment of children is doing more to fill prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, reformatories, slums, and gin shops than all the efforts of reformers are doing to improve society."
In 1898, Mary helped found the Social Democratic Party. In 1904, she resigned from the UMWA and began lecturing for the Socialist Party of America, traveling throughout the southwest. She became an organizer for the Western Federation of Miners (who mined metal rather than coal), who were much more radical than the UMWA. In 1905, Mary was a founder of the Industrial Workers of the World union -- the only woman amond 27 people signing the manifesto calling for the organization. The predecessor of this union was the Knights of Labor.
While still participating in strikes and organized drives for unions, Mary became concerned as well about the conditions of Mexicans working in the U.S. She also focused energy on raising funds to defend Mexican revolutionaries who had been arrested or deported. She supported the overthrow of the dictatorial Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, and visited his successor, Francisco Madero, until he was assassinated.
In 1911, Mary left the Socialist Party to again work for the United Mine Workers union as an organizer. It was during this time that 'Mother' Jones came to national attention through the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike in West Virginia. On September 21, 1912, she led a march of miners' children through Charleston, West Virginia. On February 12, 1913, she led a protest about mining conditions and was arrested.
At the age of 76, Mary was convicted by a military court of conspiring to commit murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. This whole ordeal created such a fervor nationally that the U.S. Senate ordered a committee to investigate conditions in the coalfields. Before the investigations began, newly elected governor Hatfield set 'Mother' Jones free. (Because of her adding seven years to her age, everyone believed she was 83 years old.) She didn't waste any time -- traveling to Colorado to help miners in a yearlong strike. She arrived in Trinidad, Colorado, and spoke at the West Theatre:
"Rise up and strike ... strike until the last one of you drop into your graves. We are going to stand together and never surrender. Boys, always remember you ain't got a damn thing if you ain't got a union!"
Mary was evicted from mine company property several times, but returned again and again. She was arrested and imprisoned twice: first for about two months at Mt. San Rafael Hospital, and later for 23 days in a squalid semi-basement cell at Huerfano County Jail in Walsenburg. This second time was in Ludlow, Colorado, after she'd been told to leave town or be arrested. After her prison term, she was escorted out of town, but she slipped back in with the help of railroad workers.
On April 20, 1914, miners and their families, 20 people in all, were killed in a machine-gun massacre at a tent colony in Ludlow. Mary traveled the country telling the story. She caught the attention of the nation, and its leaders. President Wilson and members of the House Mines and Mining Committee responded by proposing that the union and each mine's owners agree to a truce and create grievance committees.
In 1915 and 1916, Mary helped in the strikes of garment workers and streecar workers in New York. In 1919, she helped steel workers striking in Pittsburg and was arrested again. In 1921, as a guest of the Mexican government, Mary attended the Pan-American Federation of Labor meeting in Mexico -- a highlight of recognition for her role in the labor movement. The next year, she resigned from the UMWA. (Both of her resignations from the UMWA were from disagreements with the presidents; the first time being John Mitchell. She felt Mitchell had been bought off by the mining companies and was serving their interests rather than the workers'. As for John L. Lewis, the later president, she thought he was a self-promoter and detested him until she died.)
In 1924, Mary was sued for libel, slander and sedition. The next year, the publisher of the Chicago Times, a fledgling newspaper at the time, won a shocking $350,000 judgment against her. Early in that year, Mary was attacked by a couple of thugs while staying at a friend's house. She fought them off, causing one to flee and seriously injuring the other, a 54-year-old man who later died from the wounds -- which included a blunt head injury from Mary's trademark black leather boots. Police arrested her, but she was released soon after when the attackers were identified as associates of a prominent local business man.
That same year, 1925, Mary published her autobiography, which she'd probably started writing in 1922 or 1923. She dictated her stories to Mary Field Parton, a reporter, friend and mistress of Clarence Darrow. (He wrote the introduction to the first edition.) Afterwards, she continued to lecture, as her health permitted. She was now 85 years old. Her last known public speaking engagement was in Alliance, Ohio, in 1926, as the guest of honor at a Labor Day celebration. Her last public appearance was at her 100th birthday party (although she was really only 92 years old) on May 1, 1930, in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Mary lived in Silver Spring with a retired coal miner and his wife, Walter and Lillie May Burgess. Seven months after the birthday party, 'Mother' Jones died on November 30, 1930, at the age of 93. A requiem mass was held at St. Gabriel's in Washington, D.C., then her body was sent to Mount Olive, Illinois, to be buried in the Union Miners Cemetery, in the coalfields of southern Illinois -- near the graves of victims of the Virden, Illinois, mine riot of 1898. (See the website on the cemetery, below, for more on this event.) Mary had requested to be buried there, back in 1924.
Mourners paid tribute to Mother Jones there, both at the Odd Fellows Temple and the Ascension Church, where the memorial service was held. About 10,000 to 15,000 people attended. The Reverend John W.F. Maguire, president of St. Viator's College in Bourbonnais, Illinois, said in his address:
"Wealthy coal operators and capitalists throughout the United States are breathing sighs of relief while toil-worn men and women are weeping tears of bitter grief. The reason for this contrast of relief and sorrow is apparent. Mother Jones is dead."
Starting in 1934, the Progressive Miners of America, who owned the cemetery, raised over $16,000 to erect a monument to 'Mother' Jones. It stands 22 feet high, built of 80 tons of pink Minnesota granite. On October 11, 1936, the dedication ceremony included an estimated 50,000 people. Five special trains and 25 Greyhound buses brought people to Mt. Olive. Others came by car or hitch-hiked. West Virginia Senator Rush D. Holt spoke, as did North Dakota Congressman William Lemke and socialist leader Duncan McDonald. The final speaker was Lillie May Burgess, who said Mother Jones had wanted to live another 100 years to "fight to the end" so that "there would be no more machine guns and no more sobbing of little children."
For years, October 12 was Miner's Day, celebrated with a big gathering in Mt. Olive and a visit to the monument. Mary's work was honored throughout the 1930s, by labor activists and Gene Autry recording "The Death of Mother Jones," whose song origins are obscure. After that, her memory faded and the copyright on her autobiography lapsed. Finally, in 1972, the Charles Kerr Company published a second edition of her autobiography, folk singers revived "The Death of Mother Jones," and in 1976, Mother Jones Magazine was formed, promising journalistic muck-raking much like its namesake.
'Mother' Jones has been criticized as not being a feminist. Her focus, though, was on the rights of workers -- men, women and children. She strongly opposed the suffrage movement, feeling it supported a passive inactivity; whereas she was wholeheartedly about taking action. She pointed out that the women of Ludlow, Colorado, had voting rights in the state, but it did not stop the massacre from happening. She said:
"[Women need to realize that with] what they have in their hands there is no limit to what they could accomplish. The trouble is they let the capitalists make them believe they wouldn't be ladylike."
As a side note, the popular children's song "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" is believed to have been inspired by 'Mother' Jones. It first was sung in the late 1800s, spread throughout Appalachia (probably by coal miners), and was widely sung by railroad work gangs in the 1890s. In addition to being nicknamed 'Mother' Jones, Mary also was called 'The Miners' Angel' and 'The Grandmother of All Agitators' -- a title she was proud of, saying she hoped to live to be the great-grandmother of agitators.
DATE OF DEATH: November 30, 1930
PLACE OF DEATH: Silver Spring, Maryland
PORTRAYED BY: Ann McEvoy
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Commire, Anne, editor. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford, CT: Yorkin Publications, 2000.
Fetherling, Dale. Mother Jones, the Miner's Angel. Southern Illinois University Press, 1974.
Foner, Phillip S., editor. Mother Jones Speaks: Collected Writings and Speeches. Pathfinder Press, 1983.
Gilbert, Ronnie. Ronnie Gilbert: Face to Face with the Most Dangerous Woman in America. Conari Press, 1993.
Gorn, Elliott. Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
Jones, Mary Harris and Edward M. Steele, editor. The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones: Pittsburg Series in Social and Labor History. University of Pittsburg, 1988.
Jones, Mary Harris. The Autobiography of Mother Jones. Dover Publications, 2004.
Josephson, Judith Pinkerton. Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers' Rights. Lerner Publications, 1996.
Coal Mining and Union Activities. Oral History Collection 1970-1975, 24 items. Sangaman State University, Oral History Office. Springfield, Illinois.
“Some day the workers will take possession of your city hall, and when we do, no child will be sacrificed on the altar of profit!” Mary Harris "Mother" Jones(August 1, 1837 – November 30, 1930)
Nothing seems more profitable than the murder of children by Progressive America. Abortion is the tide that lifts every secularist boat - gay marriage, redistribution of wealth, Green everything are tied to the apron strings of the American Dowager Class - Planned Parenthood.
Progressive thought requires a collective tabula rasa - erase history and begin anew. E.G. Mary Harris Jones, or Mother Jones. Progressives have been re-writing and burning history for decades and have succeeded in hoodwinking Americans that social justice has nothing to do with the Catholic Church in America, The Progressive treatment of Mother Jones informs one-and-all that Mother Jones was born and baptized a Roman Catholic and attributes here ';hell-raising' ways to her rebel Cork, Ireland beginnings. The common Progressive thread leads the un-discerning reader to assume that she repudiated her Faith in favor of Radical Socialism and Third Wave Feminism and found solace and comfort and support in godlees Hegelian community activism. Facts are swords. Group thought is fragile. In fact, Marry Harris Jones repudiated not the Faith of her birth and baptism, but the secularist and murderous ideologies of the Progressive.
Ignored is the fact that Mary Harris Jones ended her 93 years of teaching in Catholic schools, sewing for the rich Yanks of Chicago, fighting with and for the Knights of Labor, organizing and then repudiating the United Mine Workers as well as the Socialist Party of America, with last rites of her Roman Catholic Faith and burial along side the miners of southern Illinois.
( The Roman Catholic Funeral Mass for Mary Harris "Mother" Jones at the Church of Ascension in Mount Olive, IL 1930)
Mary Harris Jones, for whom the anti-Catholic and secularist magazine is named, was buried in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church from the Church of Ascension in Mount Olive, IL - facts are such troubling things. Mother Jones would spit in the eye of the Dowager Class and its murderous self-interest.
( Pleae note the Roman Catholic Crucifix on the coffin of Mother Jones)
Last month, when forty plus Roman Catholic Dioceses brought suit against the Obama Regime's HHS Mandate, Mother Jones magazine said this -
"The ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project recently won its lawsuit against HHS over a federal grant through which USCCB provided services to human trafficking victims. The bishops had refused to allow subcontractors to use the federal money to refer women for reproductive health services. In 2009, the ACLU filed suit arguing that under the contract the USCCB (and by extension, the federal government) was unconstitutionally foisting Catholic religious beliefs on the larger public. (The Obama administration last year refused to renew the contract,prompting even more outrage from USCCB, which accused the administration of operating an "ABC policy," or "Anyone But Catholics."). . . Real religious freedom gives everyone the right to make personal decisions, ( How baout a 24 oz. Big Gulp Chalice full of grape NeHi?) including whether and when to use birth control, based on our beliefs. It doesn't give one group the right to impose its beliefs on others, (Gay Marriage?) or to use religion as an excuse to discriminate by denying employees access to vital services. The fight they are waging isn't about religious liberty at all, but about whether a woman should have insurance coverage for birth control. When you stop and think about it, it's incredible that this is an issue in 2012. Mother Jones May 22, 2012
Mother Mary? "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living." Thank you, Mother Jones! The living children about to be murdered in their mother's wombs are alive, until the Dowager Class gets more of its way with the help of sharks of the ACLU.
The ACLU's Alicia Gay warns that the "powerful lobbying arm of the Catholic Church" mistakenly claims that the HHS contraception mandate violates their religious liberty. ACLU February 2012
Is that a mistake Mother Mary Jones?
“Injustice boils in men's hearts as does steel in its cauldron, ready to pour forth, white hot, in the fullness of time”
You got that right Mother Dear.
Mother Jones once said, " God Almighty made Women and the . . .( Rockefeller) gang of thieves made ladies. These daughters of Rockefeller are Planned Parenthood and the Abortion Industry. They made Barack Obama President and his Government made war on Mother Jones as well as all of us Catholics. I agree with Mother Jones that "Movements to suppress wrongs can be carried out under the protection of the flag." I also believe that the current regime and its allies in the media alone decides who gets that protection and the Catholic Church does not fit the bill.
Mother Jones can be witnessed in the actions of the USCCB, Cardinal George, Cardinal Dolan and the Thomas More Society. Mother Jones Rallied for Religious Liberty in most cities of America on June 8th, 2012.
Mother Jones would spit in the collective Progressive eyes - the lot of them. She was not a humanitarian; she was hell-raiser. Watch some hell-raising from Catholics who read and remember.
In his eulogy, Father J. W. R. Maquire * said Jones would find miners living in tents, the serfs of coal companies and left them free and independent men. “Because of her great struggle for economic justice, she became a world figure.” What seems left unsaid, is her great Catholic faith
* Church of the Ascension -705 E. Main Street-Mount Olive, IL 62069-0259 US
Fr Larry Anschutz
Phone:
(217) 999-4981
Fax:
(217) 999-4036
** Six Things Everyone Should Know About The HHS Mandate
February 6, 2012WASHINGTON— The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops offers the following clarifications regarding the Health and Human Services regulations on mandatory coverage of contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. 1.The mandate does not exempt Catholic charities, schools, universities, or hospitals. These institutions are vital to the mission of the Church, but HHS does not deem them "religious employers" worthy of conscience protection, because they do not "serve primarily persons who share the[ir] religious tenets."HHS denies these organizations religious freedom precisely because their purpose is to serve the common good of society—a purpose that government should encourage, not punish. 2.The mandate forces these institutions and others, against their conscience, to pay for things they consider immoral. Under the mandate, the government forces religious insurers to write policies that violate their beliefs;forces religious employers and schools to sponsor and subsidize coverage that violates their beliefs; and forces religious employees and students to purchase coverage that violates their beliefs. 3.The mandate forces coverage of sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs and devices as well as contraception. Though commonly called the "contraceptive mandate," HHS's mandate also forces employers to sponsor and subsidize coverage of sterilization.And by including all drugs approved by the FDA for use as contraceptives, the HHS mandate includes drugs that can induce abortion, such as "Ella," a close cousin of the abortion pill RU-486. 4.Catholics of all political persuasions are unified in their opposition to the mandateCatholics who have long supported this Administration and its healthcare policies have publicly criticized HHS's decision, including columnistsE.J. Dionne. . . ,Mark Shields. . . , andMichael Sean Winters. . . ; college presidents Father John Jenkins. . . andArturo Chavez. . . ; and Daughter of CharitySister Carol Keehan. . . , president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States. 5.Many other religious and secular people and groups have spoken out strongly against the mandate. Many recognize this as an assault on the broader principle of religious liberty, even if they disagree with the Church on the underlying moral question.For example, Protestant Christian. . . ,Orthodox Christian. . . , andOrthodox Jewish. . . groups--none of which oppose contraception--have issued statements against the HHS's decision.TheWashington Post. . . ,USA Today. . . ,N.Y. Daily News. . . ,Detroit News. . . , and other secular outlets,columnists. . . , andbloggers. . . have editorialized against it.6.The federal mandate is much stricter than existing state mandates. HHS chose the narrowest state-level religious exemption as the model for its own.That exemption was drafted by the ACLU and exists in only 3 states (New York, California, Oregon).Even without a religious exemption, religious employers can already avoid the contraceptive mandates in 28 states by self-insuring their prescription drug coverage, dropping that coverage altogether, or opting for regulation under a federal law (ERISA) that pre-empts state law.The HHS mandate closes off all these avenues of relief. Additional information on the U.S. Catholic bishops’ stance on religious liberty, conscience protection and the HHS ruling regarding mandatory coverage of contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs is available athttp://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/conscience-protection/index.cfm.---Keywords: religious freedom, freedom of conscience, Catholic charities, hospitals, schools, universities, religious employers, mandatory coverage, contraceptives, abortion, sterilization, HHS mandate, health care policies, religious exemption # # # # # MEDIA CONTACT:Mar Muñoz-Visoso O: 202-541-3202 M: 301-646-8616 Emailhttp://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/aclu-catholic-religious-liberty-not-risk/362671
Dad always said that I couldn't find my butt with both hands. I can. Allow me to add this imperative -“Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you." - Pope Francis to celebrate Pro-life Mass, Vatican
"You stand up for what you believe in, even if it gets in the way of what other people think. You are proud of yourself and your accomplishments and you enjoy letting people know that."
A peach of a guy with all the sweetness one could expect from a life well-spent and in good company: short on brains but a terrific dancer!
Author:
Every Heart and Hand: A Leo High School Story
The Chorito Hog Leg, Book One: A Novel of Guam in Time of War
“They tell me I can’t wear them,” says Manuel Vigil, showing us an identical rosary to the one seized by his school.
NAME: Mary Harris Jones
