Speech by Arch Bishop Chaput on the Modern Age, Art and the Nature of Man

It's long but so rich that I urge you to read it all. I'm going to have to check out the writers he mentioned. Click on the title and have a great Sunday.

Spahn, Sain and Pray for Rain*

I know why weather forecasters are almost always wrong.

It isn't the doppler radar.  It isn't because they aren't able to analyze patterns of high and low pressure.  It isn't global warming and it isn't because everyone talks about such things but no one can do anything about it. 

Predicting the weather is the simple correlation between the sport schedule of the plurality of children in a given geographic area, and the level of devotion of the parents overtaxed by their kids extra curricular activities. In short, Prayer.  

Back in the fall, my daughters played softball and I overheard many a folk sigh as they glanced at the blocked up weekends.  "What can we do?" one of them said.  "Pray for rain." I joked.  That weekend, it poured.   The next week, things looked worse.  "Should we pray again?" one of the moms asked.
"Yes!" was the emphatic response. A deluge ensued.

Things got out of hand when people began hoping to get out of practices.  It became one of the wettest autumns on record.  Games got cancelled on account of hail, lightning and cold misty black skies that seemed conjure themselves at the crack of a bat.  Practice was called once when a rainstorm literally had parked itself right over all the fields for play.  Everywhere else was cloudy but no precipitation. 

I bring all this up because today was supposed to be two basketball games and a dance.  We were expecting a light dusting and got 4-6 inches.  Not my fault.  I didn't ask but given the number of things on my schedule for next week, expect blizzard conditions. 

*Slogan for the Boston Braves in 1948 given the strength of their pitching line up.  If facing a double header, the best hope for the opposition was "Spahn, Sain and pray for rain."  Tip of the hat to my husband for the title and the trivia.  

Tebow and the Super Bowl and Commercials

Pro abortion advocates are going insane over a 30 second ad by Heisman Trophy Winner, Pat Tebow and his mom. She was counseled to have an abortion of her fifth pregnancy because of serious medical complications. Obviously, she didn't follow the Doctor's recommendations. Their family's witness to their faith is what would be showcased in this half minute advertisement.
From the Washington Post Jan 27th

"CBS's acceptance of the advocacy ad seems to mark a shift in network policy against airing Super Bowl commercials with divisive political or social content.”An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year -- an event designed to bring Americans together," Jehmu Greene, president of the Women's Media Center, said in a statement."
Personal snark, "I'm sure Greene and other members of the Women's Media Center just love to fire up the grill, cook some ribs, wings and pour cold ones while they watch the Super Bowl."

Now I love football. I like the Super Bowl and I admit I'd be upset if a Pro-abortion video came on during the game so I guess I can understand the ire. But banning ads and topics for ads because they are upsetting to some, smacks of intolerance, of a secular political censorship designed to dampen dissent, deny the existence or validity of alternative view points, and strikes me as a dangerous path for a network. If one witness is that powerful that it cannot be seen, no wonder the media never covers the March for Life as anything other than "There's an event that will affect your commute."

Some (Joy Behar in particular) tried to argue that Tebow could have been an awful person, and thus the fact that he is a talented and reverent football player should not be given any credence as an argument against abortion. Life may be about making choices, but the capacity to be, shouldn't be simply the whims of one over another, whether in war, in a laboratory, in a camp or in a doctor's office. The very existence of the possible as of yet unaired spot has already reminded people that abortion does limit the possibilities that life brings.

The arguments that having a controversial ad in the midst of a social cultural event like the Super Bowl detract from the experience smack of hypocrisy. Go Daddy Girl, Viagra and Beer for every occasion is fine family fare but a person who lived out their faith life and is willing to put dollars on the line to say that this is a good that came from being unafraid to be Pro-Life for a mere 30 seconds; that's worth a boycott, that's worth screaming and shouting.

Now, imagine all the 50 Million since Roe vs. Wade who were denied the opportunity to change the world. 1.37 Million Each year in the United States never got to have 30 seconds. That translates to 3,700 abortions a day.

One brave witness to life provoked all this with 30 seconds. Imagine what the 3,700 of just Superbowl Sunday would have done with lifetimes.