Bishop Robert McManus arrested

Pope John Paul II, in his book Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way, emphasizes that, "Just as a father shapes the faith of his children primarily by his example of prayer and religious fervor, so also a bishop inspires his faithful by his behavior.  That is why the author of the First Letter of Peter begs that bishops be 'a living example to the flock' (1 Peter 5:3)...A bishop is called to personal holiness in a particular way so that the holiness of the Church community entrusted to his care may increase and deepen...A bishop must guide and lead.  The faithful will listen to him and love him [to the degree that he imitates Christ, the Good Shepherd]..." (pp. 46, 48).

A bishop inspires his faithful by his behavior.  He does not inspire them by allowing dissent in his diocese or by getting arrested for DUI and hit and run - see here. 

When I learned of Bishop Robert McManus' arrest this past weekend, I was not entirely surprised.  For Bishop McManus has been very callous in his treatment of Catholics who are faithful to the Magisterial teaching of the Church.  He has ignored our heartfelt and charitably expressed letters.  He has refused to dialogue with me regarding my vocation.  He rescinded Robert Spencer's invitation to speak at the Catholic Men's Conference without contacting Mr. Spencer to allow him the dignity of making his case as to why he should be permitted to give his presentation.  So why bother to stop after hitting another automobile while driving under the influence?

Are you beginning to discern a pattern here?  The same bishop who has called upon others to increase their "spiritual stamina and fortitude" would do well to follow his own advice.  In a statement issued to the press, Bishop McManus indicated that he would accept the consequences of his actions.  This morning, standing before a judge, he pleaded "not guilty."  So much for spiritual stamina.

How do we put Bishop McManus' attitude in perspective?  Father Bede Jarrett, O.P., a master of the spiritual life - and an authentic model of holiness - explains that, "I can never value others, nor act charitably toward them, until I am fully conscious of the worth of my own soul.  Without that appreciation, I can never be of real service to any of them.  Once I have perceived my own dignity, I can perceive the dignity of others, and realizing the importance of saving my own soul, I shall be led also to help others to save theirs.  The proverb is indeed justified: 'Charity begins at home.'" (Classic Catholic Meditations, p. 100).

I pray for Bishop McManus every day while meditating on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary.  I pray that he will begin to perceive his own dignity so that he will begin to perceive the dignity of others.  Until then, he will never be able to authentically shepherd.  You cannot manage a diocese with a hit and run attitude.

Is it the official policy of the Franklin Massachusetts Police Department to categorize pro-lifers as "domestic terrorists"?

LifeSiteNews is reporting:


A pro-life activist in New England says he was unjustly beaten, arrested, and accused of a bomb plot while passing out pro-life bookmarks at a local town fair.


“I’m at peace because Our Lord and Savior was by me the whole way,” D’Attilio told LifeSiteNews in an interview. “I was shocked when it did happen. It was completely unexpected and out of the blue because I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I never got so much as a warning. They basically just grabbed me and cuffed me without a crime.”

In his account of what happened, published online by the pro-family group MassResistance, pro-life activist Peter D’Attilio says that police approached him on the evening of August 11 when he was handing out two-inch-wide pro-life bookmarks to six teenagers. D’Attilio was at the annual St. Rocco fair on the grounds of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Franklin, Massachusetts.

Peter D'Attilio with the black eye that he says he received after being punched by Officer Burchill. According to D’Attilio, the police asked him to present identification. After asking why, the police officer reportedly responded that by law D’Attilio had to identify himself when asked by an officer.

In the police report filed by Officer Robert Burchill, Burchill says that he approached D’Atillio only after the chairman of the festival, Peter Brunelli, asked him to. The officer says that Brunelli had received several complaints about D’Atillio and that he wanted him removed from the property.

The pro-life activist says that when the officer prevented him from leaving the property after he offered to leave voluntarily, “I told him he was illegally detaining me.”

“He then put his hand in my back pocket to grab my wallet, but I also put my hand in my back pocket to hold my wallet, so he gave up trying.” At that point D’Attilio was put into handcuffs.

The pro-life activist says that after he was handcuffed he suddenly found himself pushed to his knees while the police officer “started choking me,” after which the officer reportedly punched him in the face, giving him a black eye.

In the police report, Officer Burchill claimed that D’Attilio repeatedly resisted arrest. “While I was trying to place the handcuffs on him, he pulled away and had to be physically restrained and handcuffed,” he said.

The officer said that D’Attilio again resisted when the officers were placing him into the police cruiser, and that “he had to be physically put into the cruiser.”

D’Attilio, however, denies the charge. “He claimed I tried to resist that, which I didn’t,” he said.

At the police station, D’Attilio says that the sergeant who did the booking asked him if he had planned to blow up the fair, telling him that pro-life people “are known for that kind of thing.”

When D’Attilio got out of jail, he found that his truck had been thoroughly searched with “bomb-sniffing dogs.” The pro-life activist says he has been told that he has been put on a “terrorist watch list.”

“By putting us all, every pro-life citizen, on the (Modern Militia Movement), it sends a powerful message that stereotypes all civil rights activists against abortion as terrorists,” he told LSN. The Modern Militia Movement is a government collective that identifies the warning signs of potential domestic terrorists for law enforcement communities.

D’Attilio, who still needs a lawyer to represent him, was arraigned in court before a judge on August 19, and is scheduled to appear in court again at 9:00 a.m. on September 28. He has filed a citizen’s complaint about his treatment at the hands of the police.

Neither Franklin Police Chief Stephen Williams nor Franklin Town Council Chairman Scott Mason responded to a request for comment from LSN.

I'm not surprised that Chief Williams decided not to respond to LSN.  Remember when the Obama administration issued its "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" to the Department of Homeland Security back in 2009?  The pro-life movement was defined in this lexicon as, "A movement of groups or individuals who are virulently anti-abortion and advocate violence against providers of abortion-related services, their employees, and their facilities. Some cite various racist and anti-Semitic beliefs to justify their criminal activities."

Is this the position of Chief Williams and his department?  That pro-lifers are a danger to the community?  That pro-lifers are prone to domestic terrorism?

It was the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, a man whose thought so greatly influenced my own, who said that, "Fanaticism is essentially opinion; opinion pushed to paroxysm; with everything that the notion of opinion may imply of blinded ignorance as to its own nature...whatever ends the fanatic is aiming at or thinks he is aiming at, even if he wishes to gather men together, he can only in fact separate them; but as his own interests cannot lie in effecting this separation, his is led...to wish to wipe his opponents out. And when he is thinking of these opponents, he takes care to form the most degrading images of them possible - they are 'lubricious vipers' or 'hyenas and jackals with typewriters' - and the ones that reduce them to most grossly material terms. In fact, he no longer thinks of these opponents except as material obstacles to be overturned or smashed down. Having abandoned the behaviour of a thinking being, he has lost even the feeblest notion of what a thinking being, outside himself, could be. It is understandable therefore that he should make very effort to deny in advance the rights and qualifications of those whom he wishes to eliminate; and that he should regard all means to this end as fair. We are back here again at the techniques of degradation...fanaticism is, of its very nature, incompatible with any regard for truth; and as truth itself is not really seperable from our regard for it, we need not hesitate to say that the fanatic is the enemy of truth..." (Man Against Mass Society, pp. 149-150).


The Franklin Massachusetts Police Department should be investigated.  Have other pro-lifers been treated in similar fashion? 

Five men arrested in suspected terror attack during Pope's visit

As Deacon Nick Donnelly said here:


Supporters of Protest the Pope posted a thread yesterday on the Reddit atheism group in which they discussed wanting to commit violent attacks against Pope Benedict during his state visit to the UK. The title of the thread is ‘Protest the Pope’ and it is headed by a link to the Protest the Pope website. The Reddit atheism groups has 81,803 readers.

Contributors to the thread express their sick desire to assassinate Pope Benedict, obscenely comparing him to ‘war criminals who have been executed for less’. They go on to discuss wanting to breaking ‘a few ribs at least’.

Here are excerpts from their ‘Protest the Pope’ thread:

“I apologize for going all serious all of a sudden. I think I need to make it clear that while my appeal for killing the Pope is frivolous, my reason behind that appeal is not.

With his steadfast battle against condoms, the Pope is condemning millions of human beings every year to a painful and inhumane death to AIDS. Women and children, both completely innocent, are dying. War criminals have been executed for less.

Sadly, assassinating the Pope wouldn’t even help. He’d be succeeded by another asshole who would do the same.”

“That idea is very pleasant, but, sadly, it would make the pope (and all other collateral victims) martyrs, only giving more strength to ignorant people. I think some loud booing + some big signs demanding is arrest would be nice to see, for a start =)”

“ [When bargaining, always ask for more so you can settle for what you actually want.] How about just severely beating him? As a follower of Christ, he should appreciate having a few ribs broken, at least.”

Protect the Pope comment: Though this was not a discussion on the Protest the Pope official website, and did not involve organisers of Protest the Pope, they bear moral responsibility for creating a hateful anti-catholic climate that encourages supporters to think that this obscene and illegal discussion is acceptable.

Notice that participants in the thread justify violence against the Holy Father by using some of the false arguments disseminated ad nauseum by Protest the Pope.

These types of comments advocating violence against the Holy Father are common on secularist, atheist, and homosexual websites and networking groups. If violence occurs during the Holy Father’s visit groups such as Protest the Pope, and sections of the media, will be seen as responsible for whipping up this anti-Pope, anti-Catholic hate.

Protest the Pope, and all groups affiliated with it, have a public duty to disassociate themselves from any threats of violence during the Holy Father’s visit made by their supporters.

Offensive anti-Catholic thread here.

Archdiocese of Boston: Priest Arrested in Prostitution Sting

Bishop George Michael Wittman's prophecy: "Woe is me! Sad days are at hand for the Holy Church of Jesus Christ. The Passion of Jesus will be renewed in the most dolorous manner in the Church and in her Supreme Head. In all parts of the world there will be wars and revolutions, and much blood will be spilled. Distress, disasters, and poverty will everywhere be great, since pestilential maladies, scarcity, and other misfortunes will follow one another. Violent hands will be laid on the Supreme Head of the Catholic Church; bishops and priests will be persecuted, and schisms will be provoked, and confusion reign amid all classes. Times will come, so pre-eminently bad, that it will seem as if the enemies of Christ and of His Holy Church, which He founded with His blood, were about to triumph over her. But the priesthood will remain firm and resolute, and good people will adhere faithfully to that body. A general separation will be made. The wheat shall be winnowed, and the floor swept. Secret societies will work great ruin, and exercise a marvellous monetary power, and through that many will be blinded, and infected with most horrible errors; however, all this shall avail naught. Christ says, He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who gathereth not with Me, scattereth. Scandals will be but too rife, and woe to those by whom they come! Although the tempest will be terrible, and will turn many in their passage, nevertheless they cannot shake the rock whereon Christ has founded His Church: 'Portae inferi non prevalebunt.'.. The faithful sheep will gather together, and in unions of prayer will offer potent resistance to the enemies of the Catholic Church. Yes, yes, the flock will become small..."


Falling stars.

Culture of Sodomy: Street preacher arrested for saying that homosexuality is a sin

Criminalizing the Gospel


The darkness continues to spread. The new humanitarian religion of Antichrist will not tolerate any moral opposition to homosexuality. It must classify such opposition as "animus" and even mental illness - a phobia. But as Robert H. Bork explained in "Slouching towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline," "Moral objection to homosexual practices is not the same thing as animus, unless all disapprovals based on morality are to be disallowed as mere animus. Modern liberalism tends to classify all moral distinctions it does not accept as hateful and invalid..." (p. 113).

People today are being moulded for control and direction by the coming Antichrist. He will be welcomed by those who have rebelled against God's plan of salvation and who openly or secretly yearn for his kingdom of darkness. This is the Mystery of Iniquity. The City of God is being rejected by those who prefer to build a City of Satan. Indeed, as Mgsr Leon Christiani said in his book "Evidence of Satan in the Modern World," "The presence of Satan in our age and time, and the collective possession of whole peoples, can hardly be doubted on the evidence of Nazism, which was fortunately ephemeral in Germany, and more formidably because more lasting, menacing and arrogant, on the evidence of Communism in immense countries such as Russia and the People's Republic of China."

Satan wants to make a physical and spiritual wreckage of all God's creation. And many there are who are willing to assist him in his evil activity. God's Holy Word tells us that he will be loosed in the last days and granted permission to accelerate his plan of destruction until it reaches a crescendo in the appearance of a Man of Sin whose malice, according to St. Cyril of Jerusalem, "will surpass that combined wickedness of all the evil doers gone before him and that he will be like an ocean in which all human and diabolical wickedness shall meet."