A Woman of Principle

Remember this name: Mary Ann Glendon. To learn why, watch:



Ambassador Glendon is a model of faith in action. Her adherence to her moral values and beliefs led to her declination of this year's prestigious honor from Notre Dame University, arguably the world's best known Catholic University. No doubt her name is now on the Homeland Security watchlist of "right-wing extremists" who oppose abortion on demand.

Ronald Reagan said, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

Abolitionists knew enslavement of another person was wrong. Their struggle continued through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and integration of society. Is there irony when we finally elect an African-American President that his first act in office was to eliminate the ban on federal funding of abortion? Abolition is so alphabetically close to abortion and yet the abolitionist is as far away from the abortionist as A is to Z.

A world leader who brought his country out of financial catastrophe and restored the people's sense of pride and self-worth once said, "What luck for rulers that men do not think." The ruler was Adolph Hitler. The citizens of America must remove the iPod ear buds, turn off the Playstation and Wii, and skip the tanning beds to spend some time learning and thinking about the future of America and their lives.

To my thinking, the awarding of Barak Obama an honorary degree in light of his purposeful, deliberate leadership in what Pope John Paul II called the culture of death by a Catholic university like Notre Dame is anathema to church teaching, the moral obligation of Catholic educators, and the natural law etched within all of God's creation. It requires only a modicum of "common sense" to see the fallacy of the abortionist's arguement. Each one of us was a fetus and consider ourselves human. President Reagan said it best, "Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born."

Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, wrote a series of essays collected under the appellation, The Crisis. As White House Chief of Staff Rohm Emanuel said, "Never let a crisis go to waste.", meaning to turn any crisis to further their agenda, I agree. The pre-eminient Catholic University in the US honoring a man who facilitates and promotes the deaths of thousands, no, millions of babies worldwide is a crisis of faith, morality and ethics. Paine wrote on December 23, 1776:

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

My Sons

I must be strong for my sons.
"For blessed are you who suffer
for my sake." and "Who do you
say I am?" In storms that buffet and batter,
take up your cross and follow me too.

"My yoke is not heavy, my burden light."
"Woe to the one who leads astray the least of mine."
and "Let the children come to me." So despite
the might and power arrayed as an army in battle line.

Freedom is only a generation away from extinction,
as Reagan said, fought for, protected and handed down.
The culture of death: euthansia, eugenics, abortion
is the threat to our freedom in every town.

For who of us is to say who may live or die,
that is reserved for the Creator, "In God We Trust."
The opposite of love is not hate, that is a lie!
Indifference is its antithesis, not doing what we must.

The trumpets call, the battle met.
Good must stand against evil again.
Put on your armor, there is time yet.
Speak out and stand to pass on freedom to our children.

I must be strong for my sons.
We must be strong for our children.*

As junior Senator from Illinois, President Obama often references Abraham Lincoln. The author of the Emancipation Proclamation would be appalled at Mr. Obama's promotion of what amounts to genocide in its scope. Notre Dame University is wrong. Their decision is reflective of the endemic of moral relativism advocated by some in our society.

Ambassador Glendon is a warrior in the struggle for our soul. Rise up, learn, read, arm yourself. Then join the struggle that you may pass liberty to posterity. The struggle of the moral minority is encapsulated in the civil rights movement. Writing from the Birmingham jail in 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr shames Notre Dame's decision with these words.

The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Notre Dame University is a major visible presence of the Church. It fails itself, its Church, and people by honoring the abortion proponent Barak Obama. President Lincoln wrote a dire warning to lovers of liberty, "Those who would deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it." If the most vulnerable, most innocent of society are allowed to be killed, how long can we retain our freedom for common sense tells me that God is just?





*original poem by JVidrine (c)2009