For space, I had to cut one quote which I often cite as my favorite quote ever in the Register. Our reporter at the Republican National Convention asked Bob Dole what he thought of George W. Bush’s faith.

Said Dole: “I think Bush’s faith is authentic, and that will be useful to us.”  That says so much about the Republican establishment — but also about Bush.

In his interview with the Register, the future president’s was very much to-the-point: “I’m a pro-life candidate,” he said. “I’ve been a pro-life governor. I’m going to set the goal that all children born and unborn ought to be protected in law and welcomed to life. I will sign a ban on partial birth abortions. I will encourage adoptions.”

Thus began a stormy love affair with Catholics.

The rest of the article reminisces about some flashpoints from that first honeymoon year of Bush-Catholic story that I hadn’t thought about for a while:

• The Lepanto 2000 Rosary Crusade
• Marian Feast Days on the Recount Timeline
• The Day 6 Cardinal McCarrick Visit
• The February Catholic Do-Gooder Summit
• The JPII Center Ribbon Cutting

Then in 2001 the storms came in late August, as they so often do, and the cyclone hit in September. Anyway, it was good to reminisce about the old days. And it was good to share some of the love at the presidential pow-wow.

I counted at least four hatchet-burying moments in Dallas.

First: the “Bush as divider” hatchet.

Bush was often mocked for saying “I am a uniter, not a divider.” That never made much sense.

But the kind words of the former presidents suggest they knew he was a uniter all along — Bill Clinton discussed Bush’s calls “just to talk politics,” Obama described the letter from Bush he found on day one in the presidential desk, Carter described how Bush helped him out. And of course, Obama praised him for his reach-across-the-aisle effort to promote immigration reform.

Second: the “war-monger” hatchet.

The National Catholic Register, when I edited it, certainly took Bush to task for his Iraq war decision — but even Cardinal Ratzinger gave an implicit green light to the Afghanistan war. And isn’t it odd that behavior (Google Libya, Guantanamo and “Kill Teams” for starters) that would have been be called “war mongering” 10 years ago is given a pass when Obama does it?

But the presidents graciously praised Bush’s efforts in Africa. President Carter went a step further when he gave Bush credit for more peace in Sudan: “In January of 2005, there was a peace treaty between north and south Sudan that ended a war that had been going on for 20 years,” Carter said. “George W. Bush is responsible for that.”

Third: The “Big Oil polluter” hatchet was buried. Or it should have been.

Though he was caricatured as pro-oil and anti-tree, Bush’s personal commitment to environmentalism is real and significant. He lives in a radical conservationist dream house in Crawford, Texas, that even Snopes agrees compares favorably to Al Gore’s house.

The AP reports that the George W. Bush library is like a green home away from home for the Bushes. It is LEED-certified platinum: as green as you can get. Many materials in the building came from within 500 miles of the site; a cistern will gather rainwater to water the plants, etc.

Fourth: Maybe even the Katrina hatchet was just a little bit buried.

Bill Clinton spoke joked about getting cozy with the Bush family – and revealed that he worked with them on Katrina. “You know, starting with my work with President George H.W. Bush on the tsunami and the aftermath of Katrina, people began to joke that I was getting so close to the Bush family, I had become the black sheep son. My mother told me not to talk too long today and Barbara, I will not let you down.”

Each of these was a small thing, but it was nice. I always liked Bush. I like anyone who is willing to stand for life against sneering opponents and gain ground.

As Obama put it: “To know the man is to like the man.”

LifeSiteNews reports that the terms of employment which were approved by the union that represents Carla Hale explicitly forbid this kind of posturing: “A contract may be terminated at any time for gross inefficiency or immorality, for serious unethical conduct, or for willful and/or persistent violations of reasonable regulations of the school or the Diocesan Office of Catholic Schools.” Many disagree with the Catholic Church regarding the morality of same-sex unions, but surely they cannot disagree that lying to your employer for 19 years and then abruptly denouncing them in public is grossly immoral and seriously unethical.

Only royal trumpeters should toot their own horn. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

The Catholic Church teaches that people with homosexual feelings fully deserve human dignity and compassion. However, the media frenzy that Hale is all too happy to keep feeding is the very definition of willful and persistent violation of Catholic teaching. In the Gospel, Jesus admonishes his disciples against such public displays, “When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.”

Meanwhile, the principal and other employees of the school have received threatening emails and phone calls from Hale’s supporters. From Hale’s handling of this case, it is clear she is aggressively pushing an agenda that goes beyond simply getting her job back. Even if the school wanted to bring her back, how could they possibly do so now with the media circus and angry mob following on her heels? Far from being contrite and resolving to sin no more, Hale is poisoning whatever sympathy might have remained for her from her former employer.

The invective and demagoguery surrounding this case is typical. All who defend Catholic teaching are derided as hypocrites, bigots, and simply mean-spirited. How wounding these criticisms must be to the heart of Bishop Campbell and the employees of the Diocese of Columbus and Watterson High School who so deeply love the Church and seek the best for all God’s children. Pray for them. Write them a letter to show your support. Thank them for their steadfastness and their courage in defense of the Catholic faith. Unlike Hale, these good servants of God’s people do not seek earthly recognition, but it couldn’t hurt to let them know they are not alone amidst the storm and fury of anti-Catholic persecution which is becoming so fashionable in our time.

This Thursday, President Obama will deliver the keynote address at an annual gala for the undisputed world leader in making unwanted babies “disappear”: Planned Parenthood. The President revels in spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on Planned Parenthood every year ($542 million last year), and Planned Parenthood spent millions of dollars to get the President reelected.

Now, you might think that playing booster for the abortion industry isn’t something the President of the United States should be doing. And when even pro-choice folks are queasy over the grisly details of the Kermit Gosnell trial, you might think it’s the kind of thing he wouldn’t want to be seen doing. But if you thought that, you don’t understand President Obama.

All the stars of the abortion galaxy will be in DC this week to celebrate the…er…fruits of their labors. Rocsi Diaz of Entertainment Tonight, and Planned Parenthood’s new Youth Ambassador, will be playing host. (As an aside: did you know Planned Parenthood has a “Youth Ambassador”? They do.) Lena Dunham will be receiving an award for, you know, whatever. Estelle will be performing. And of course, Obama himself is the Abortion Celebrity par excellence.

When it comes to the President glad-handing with the abortion industry’s biggest supporters and brightest stars, the question isn’t, “Why would he go?” but, “How could he resist?”

So it’s good to read an article like Victor Davis Hanson’s “Postmodern Prudes” and realize that we are not being bested after all. He catalogs some of the strange contradictions of modern morality. Here is my paraphrase of some of Hanson’s examples:

• Smoking marijuana — good. Smoking cigarettes — bad.
• Pornography in college classrooms — good. Calling a woman “honey” — bad.
• Morning-after pill on-demand for girls under 16 — good. Sex with girls under 16 — bad; illegal bad.
• Near-nude women gyrating on stage — entertainment. Calling them “hussies” — offensive.
• Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution scandal — a career-changer. Carrie Prejean’s “I’m for traditional marriage” scandal — a career-ender.
• Michael Vick’s dog-killing — big news. Kermit Gosnell’s baby-killing — not news.

It made me think of some others.

• Going hunting — bad. Going to watch gun violence set to music on a giant screen — good.
• Plastic bottles that hurt the environment — bad. Contraceptives that hurt the environment —good (read Simcha Fisher on that, by the way).
• Excessive plastic surgery to make a woman into the woman she wants to be — bad. Excessive plastic surgery to make a man into the woman he wants to be — good.
• Not having a car-seat at the hospital for your newborn — bad; illegal bad. Killing your not-yet-born at the hospital — freedom of choice.
• Religious people promoting chastity in an age of rampant venereal disease — dangerously repressive. Secular people promoting promiscuity in an age of rampant venereal disease — sexy fun!

And of course …

• Military interventionism before 2008 — bad. Military interventionism after 2008 — good.

Anyway, you get the drift. Hanson draws his own conclusions from this new morality. But I draw an additional conclusion: This can’t last. An ideology is something to take seriously: An uncompromising worldview that pulls beliefs and actions into its orbit with inexorable force. Environmentalism. Pacifism. Feminism.

But the new morality is only environmentalist until it wants to drive a car; it is only concerned about water pollution until hormonal contraceptives are the pollutant.

The new morality is for peace and domestic civil liberties only when they are threatened by a Texan.

The new morality is feminist except when it comes to pornographers and Beyonce.

The truth is, there is no new morality … just a collection of untethered beliefs “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine,” to quote Ratzinger quoting Ephesians on the way to decrying “the dictatorship of relativism.”

The problem with such a morality is that it is very vulnerable: Like a teen-ager, the new morality rushes to affirm whatever happens to be “cool” at the moment. It can easily be hijacked and used for evil by a popular figure.

Its vulnerability is also an opportunity. I can think of literally dozens of people who I personally know who shook their heads at the absurdity of it all and left the new morality behind for firmer ground.

Let us help more people do so.

It’s not that he can’t be entertaining at times. It’s that he’s an activist in a suit whose contempt for individuals who aren’t dyed in the wool liberals makes him unbearable to watch. What’s more is that after tearing into guests he disagrees with politically, he runs for intellectual cover by disingenuously reminding his audience “I really don’t know what I’m talking about.”

The thing is, Letterman does know what he’s talking about. At least, some of the time. During an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow last week, he tried to look like he knew what he was talking about but he failed miserably.

Here’s what he said: “Humans have the right to do what humans do, that’s it. End of the story. There’s no argument. There’s no exceptions. Humans have rights and they get to do what humans get to do. Case closed. Good night.”

He is, of course, talking about redefining marriage so to include same-sex couples.

“It’s beyond embarrassing.” he added “It’s exclusionary based on, what? Well, nothing, really, other than the fear people have generated of who knows what.”

Letterman received thunderous applause from his audience for sharing his deep insight on human rights. He even got a nod of approval from Ms. Maddow, a former Rhodes Scholar.

The question Letterman must now answer is: Where do human rights come from? Do our rights come from God? And if so, do we have an obligation to exercise those rights in the way God instructed us to? Or do rights simply come from government? And if so, as Letterman intimated, do we have the right to do whatever we want whenever we want?

As a left-of-center guy, I imagine Letterman wouldn’t have displayed such a laissez-faire attitude had he and Ms. Maddow been discussing banking executives and their decision to bundle mortgage-backed securities in the mid 2000s. I imagine he would say that we have to regulate the banking industry because people might get hurt.

A fair point. But if Letterman were to actually say that, he’d contradict his libertarian-esque claim that “humans have rights and they get to do what humans get to do.”

What Letterman fails to realize is that human beings “do” a lot of things. And a lot of the time human beings “do” things they shouldn’t. For example, some people become prostitutes. Some abuse alcohol. Some abuse drugs. Some think cannibalism should be allowed. And some, like this lobbyist for Planned Parenthood, think murdering a child after a botched abortion should be legal.

Does Letterman think such behavior should be morally permissible? Even encouraged? After all, he did say that “humans have the right to do what humans do.” Is there no limit to what humans should be allowed to do, Dave? Where do you draw the line?

I hope Letterman wouldn’t support those things. Then again, I don’t know that much about him. Is he a Christian? If he is, is he familiar with the creation story? Surely he must know that God did not say to Adam and Eve, “Well, you’re human, and you have a right to do whatever it is you do. I can’t impose my values on you.”

I hope Dave comes to realize that we are made in the image and likeness of God, and that we have been given laws from God to obey for our own good. Even in our pluralistic society, where many people do not believe in God, millions of people support the notion that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. There’s nothing “exclusionary” or “embarrassing” about that, either. What’s embarrassing is that people actually think Letterman’s intellectually lazy comments represent some sort of profound philosophical insight when in reality they are as empty as the suit that sits behind the desk on the “Late Show with David Letterman.”

This photo is making the rounds this morning — it shows the empty seats that are reserved for media during the trial. This is what a media blackout looks like:

The most searched term on Politico right now is “kermit gosnell” — and that search yields no results. Kirsten Powers writes:

“The Washington Post has not published original reporting on this during the trial and The New York Times saw fit to run one original story on A-17 on the trial’s first day. They’ve been silent ever since, despite headline-worthy testimony.”

When one of the intrepid bloggers at Get Religion asked a Washington Post reporter who had intensely covered stories such as the Komen Foundation temporarily suspending its funding of Planned Parenthood why she wasn’t covering Gosnell, the reporter replied (seriously): “I cover policy … not local crime.”

That’s baloney, to put it politely.

I support the efforts of (now over 4,000) online activists to Break the Gosnell Media Blackout by tweeting updates with the hashtag #Gosnell from 12pm-12am today.

But let’s remember — we don’t have to be held hostage by the media. WE HAVE OUR OWN MEDIA. Each one of you reading this has access to email, Facebook and Twitter. So let’s use this as an opportunity to get more in the habit of informing our friends and family on topics the media ignores or distorts.

A couple months ago I taped a short video for the PIE Project (an initiative you should check out!) explaining how we can share the pro-life message online:

So, don’t wait for the media to cover stories like the Gosnell trial — do it yourself!

UPDATE – case in point, I tweeted the photo of the empty media seats and an hour later over 80 of you had re-tweeted it. All of us need to speak up:

Here’s what Archbishop Vigneron said that’s got everybody up in arms:

For a Catholic to receive holy Communion and still deny the revelation Christ entrusted to the church is to try to say two contradictory things at once: ‘I believe the church offers the saving truth of Jesus, and I reject what the church teaches.’ In effect, they would contradict themselves. This sort of behavior would result in publicly renouncing one’s integrity and logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury.

Archbishop Allen Vigneron

Some Catholics respond to a situation like this by arguing Holy Communion should not be used as a political weapon. If a politician who promotes principles antithetical to Church teaching presents themselves for Communion, they should not be denied, because ultimately it is God who will decide if that politicians’ actions are right or wrong. Not the priest.

This argument is wrong on a number of fronts. Archbishop Vigneron oversees the Archdiocese of Detroit, home to 1.3 million Catholics. That’s 1.3 million souls he is responsible for getting into heaven. It’s a responsibility I would not want to have at this point in my life. As the Book of James reminds us, “not many of you should become teachers… for you will be judged more strictly.”

As such, Archbishop Vigneron is responsible for doing everything he can to make sure those 1.3 million Catholics are not in danger of losing their souls to eternal damnation. He will be judged more strictly for his actions than the rest of us. Therefore, he is responsible for making sure, among other things, that the deposit of faith is upheld. He is also responsible for making sure those 1.3 million Catholics are able to go to confession on a regular basis, that they are able to attend Mass as frequently as possible, and that they are in a state of grace while attending Mass so they can worthily receive Holy Communion, lest they further compound their sins and offend God even more.

Outlets like Esquire and the Huffington Post are trying to turn this into a political issue by arguing Catholics can support redefining marriage if their conscience tells them, and that this is nothing more than a conservative Archbishop trying to punish liberal Catholics.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As Ed Peters – a professor of Canon Law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit and legal adviser to the Vatican – has pointed out on his blog over the past several weeks, Canon Law 915 explicitly states “Those…who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion.”

There is no wiggle room here. That is what the Church teaches. It is not a conservative issue. It is not a liberal issue. It is the official teaching of the Catholic Church. Period.

Be that as it may, the Detroit Free Press made Peters seem like he was but one of a handful of supporters of Archbishop Vigneron’s statement. The Free Press quotes Fr. Thomas Reese of Georgetown University as saying “Most American bishops do not favor denying either politicians or voters Communion because of their positions on controversial issues.” Fr. Reese added that only about “30 or so bishops have said that pro-choice or pro-gay-marriage Catholics should not present themselves for Communion.”

Dr. Edward Peters

Again, by citing Fr. Reese, the Free Press is attempting to undermine Archbishop Vigneron and Peters’ arguments. But as Peters points out on his blog, Fr. Reese’s statement is misleading: “Reese is commenting on how bishops act whereas I am commenting on how canon law expects bishops and others to act. Reese’s claim about bishops’ (in)action, even if true, would not make my views (actually, the 1983 Code’s views, resting on settled Church teaching) wrong, it would simply mark them as ignored.”

Interestingly enough, CNN also makes it seem like Peters – who Esquire calls a “nuisance” and claims is merely relying on his own opinions and not Canon Law – is on the wrong side of history. At the end of the CNN article, readers are conveniently reminded that “a majority of Catholics, according to polling, disagree with [Peters’] view of Communion.” To which I would respond, thank God we don’t decide what is right and wrong in the Catholic Church based on polling data.

In an effort to make Peters and Archbishop Vigneron appear even more off base, Slate interviewed the reliably left-leaning Michael Sean Winters. “The principal threat to our Catholic teaching about traditional marriage is not gay marriage,” Winters argued. “The principal threat [to our Catholic teaching about traditional marriage] is divorce. “

He’s got a point about divorce, but he’s blinded by ideology if he thinks redefining marriage won’t be disastrous for the Catholic Church.

At the end of the day, Peters simply pointed out what the Church teaches about Holy Communion. And Archbishop Vigneron is simply echoing that teaching by reminding us that, as a Catholic, you cannot say “two contradictory things at once.” One being that you believe in Jesus Christ, and two being that you believe homosexual unions are part of His plan

The Church is in the business of saving souls. It alone, and not the media, should decide who is worthy to receive Holy Communion. It is not a political issue to deny Holy Communion to someone who does not uphold Church teaching in their daily lives. It is about the eternal destination of that person’s soul. I couldn’t think a better expression of love than concerning yourself with where someone will spend eternity. As atheist Penn Jillette once asked, how much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them how to attain it?

My delivery wasn’t perfect, of course, but with a little humor and persistence it is possible to fairly present your views even on a tough topic and in a hostile environment:

What do you think?

The website shamelessly seeks out as many clicks as possible by posting funny memes, cat pictures (lots of cat pictures) and important cultural contributions such as “22 Celebrities You Probably Didn’t Realize Were the Same Age” (not kidding).

On any given day, I would definitely recommend steering clear of the feed.

So that said, imagine my surprise when I stumbled across an article on BuzzFeed titled “Are You Holy Enough to Receive Communion?” that was actually, um, useful!

Sure, it’s meant to be sarcastic and, yes, mocking.

One of the Buzzfeed article questions

But in her effort to poke some fun at the Church as rigid and rule-obsessed, the author (Ellie Hall, a graduate of Notre Dame) managed to include plenty of accurate information about what Catholics believe!

How? By doing her homework. She got her answers from Vatican.va, CatholicsComeHome.org, takes time to explain some of the nuances of the church’s teaching on the death penalty (for instance), and even quotes the Catechism (!), Canon Law (!!) and St. Thomas Aquinas (!!!).

At the end of the article she just goes crazy with long quotations from Canon Law and the Catechism, including what Church teaching holds will happen to you if you intentionally receive Communion unworthily.

She even responds to the common question “What about freedom of conscience?” Aren’t I free to make up my own mind about things like abortion and same-sex marriage?” (short answer: no. but she quotes Catholic Answers to give a more complete answer.).

Here’s how Ellie ends her article “Just realize that you might need to head to Confession before going to Mass on Easter Sunday? Me too. Here are some happy Catholic GIFs.” (The GIFs are good.)

I can’t emphasize enough how strange/amazing it is to see this kind of material on BuzzFeed, of all places! 

With Easter coming up and plenty of our friends (and family) possibly planning to go to Mass for the first time in a long time (or all year) this might be something we can jokingly share on our Facebook page etc. as a way of very subtly reminding them that the Church has real standards for who can receive Communion and who cannot.

Okay, now I’ll give the link to the article, but BE WARNED, some of the content on BuzzFeed is offensive and unsuitable for some ages: “Are You Holy Enough to Receive Communion?”

By the way, you might want to hop on Twitter and tell Ellie you appreciated her article. She apparently writes on BuzzFeed about Catholic-related topics with some frequency — here’s a few from the past month:

• Pope Meets Pope
• Vatican Accidentally Tweets About Batman
• Pope Francis Celebrates Inaugural Mass
• Meet the Pope’s Cute-As-A-Button Childhood Sweetheart

My takeaway here: evangelization can take unexpected forms!

In our modern age, St. Joseph’s virtues of humility and chastity are confused for weakness. Our society is obsessed with power. Our political discourse is focused on making decisions for others instead of allowing people to make decisions for themselves. Every politician is a dictator in his own mind—although they would never admit it. Therefore, it should not surprise us that the liberal feminist program places men and women in competition with one another. Wealth, ambition, and violence are powerful forces, but they do not build families.

The New York Magazine article is part of a larger conversation in the media about the role of women and increasingly, it seems that the epitaph of radical feminism is being written as a Dickensian serial novel with many plot twists and no doubt a surprise ending where the long-lost rich uncle arrives to save the day. Commentators on both the left and the right are starting to agree that men and women might actually be different and that men and women are complementary pieces of a family that together form a greater and stronger whole.

Saint Joseph with the Infant Jesus, by Guido Reni, c.1635

However, there is much work to be done. The increasing rate of single motherhood is ample proof that true manliness is in a very sorry state indeed. Accordingly, the biggest problem with the New York Magazine piece is that it approaches the family from the viewpoint that men are largely passive and disinterested observers and that they feign interest in domestic matters, as though having children is like picking out curtains or matching throw pillows.

St. Joseph is described in the Gospel as a righteous man and a man of principle, but also merciful. Before he could carry out his obligations under the Law of Moses, he instead obeys the direct commandment of God to bring Mary and Jesus into his home and care for them. Even though it means he would never have children of his own, Joseph understood that the first responsibility of all men is to protect women, children, and the helpless.

On the other hand, radical feminism is based on the premise that women need to behave more like men in order to have equality, but instead of trying to reverse the entire history of mankind, why don’t we start by demanding that men behave more like men for a change? Instead of blaming women for wanting to have children and making them the victims, we should pray to St. Joseph that our society will hold men to the same standards that he did for himself.