Why We Don't Let the Neighbors Tell Us How to Raise The Kids

My dear fellow Catholics. My brothers and sisters.

We are, in fact, in a rather unique family, are we not?

Huge. Dysfunctional. Multitalented. Holy. Scandalous. Disappointing. Inspiring.

It's much like any other family, plus or minus about a billion members.

We have our quirks and our shortcomings, our saints and our sinners. We are imperfect and wonderfully weird and, first and foremost, we are universal.

That's unbelievably ambitious, by the way, for God to cobble something together from so many disparate and diverse members and call it holy and apostolic. If nothing else convinces you of the divinity behind the longevity of Catholicism, let it be this: that we haven't all killed each other yet.

And so now we have the internet. The 24/7 news cycle. The entire world up in each other's business in a way previously unfathomable to mankind. And there are pros and cons to this never-ending glut of information to process. I would offer as a giant con the seemingly global disability to process well, at least for 99% of the literate populace. We're very good at emoting and reacting. We're less adept at reasoning and reflecting.

Each era has its own challenges and triumphs. We live in the Information Age, for better or worse, and so we must learn what (and whether) to do with the information that is assaulting our eyeballs and our eardrums at literally every waking moment. Do we process it all? Filter it out? React to everything that moves us?

Social media complicates this further, because everyone has a platform and, therefore, the right to exercise it. It's the great equalizer, making would-be journalists and talking heads of us all.

But remember, not all sources of information are created equal. And not everyone with a loud microphone and a robust Twitter following has the capacity to speak thoughtfully and thoroughly on a given issue.

My biggest complaint with the Francis papacy, 2 years in, is the reaction of seemingly well-formed and practicing Catholics to the Things He Says Which Are Outrageous.

Let me back up and preface what is about to be said; it is true that this Holy Father of ours is not the most eloquent speaker. It is true that he speaks his heart readily, and that he uses culturally-hamstrung idioms and analogies. He is not an intellectual (and I don't think he would take offense at my saying so) and he is not a philosopher. His mind has not been sharpened by 40 years of rigorous theological study and debate, and his worldview was most decidedly not formed by the Western/European experience.

But he is the Pope. He is the Successor of Peter, chosen by his brother cardinals under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead the Church now, today, in the year 2015. Not in the year 2012 or 1987 or 1334. He's here for us, right now. Just as each of us were handpicked to live in such a time as this.

And if I don't agree with everything that comes out of his mouth (and I don't) and if some of what I read in his writings makes me squirm (and it does), there's one thing for certain: I'm sure as hell not going to let someone from outside the family tell me what I should think about it.

Now, there's nothing stopping my next door neighbor, my barista, or the lady at our local grocery store from commenting on how I'm raising my kids, how closely spaced they are, or what kinds of trash I'm serving up at the dinner table, but freedom of speech is not the same thing as rightful authority.

See what I'm saying?

Yes, the guy at Starbucks can comment on my mewling pack of toddlers and advise me to put a stranglehold on the flow of progeny issuing forth from our marital union, but I'm not about to invite him into our bedroom to pour over my NFP charts and help us decide if and when the time is right for another kid.

He can comment away all he likes, but I don't have to (and sure as hell shouldn't, in fact) listen.

Similarly, CNN, MSNBC, the AP, America magazine, your token crackpot SSPX blogger, and all the rest are very, very free to comment on every thing the Pope says and does, what it means, what it doesn't mean, and what you, as a Catholic, SIMPLY MUST DO ABOUT IT.

But you know better than to be getting your family business from the guy at the post office, don't you?

You're not really going to let someone outside the family - and as is often the case, utterly opposed to the very existence of the family - tell you your family business, are you?

Misquotable or not, Pope Francis is our Pope. He's our father. He's also a figure of contradiction and amusement and confusion and excitement and all the other adjectives for the rest of the world, looking on in wonder/disgust/mild curiosity. So yes, he will be in the news. And yes, all the things he says will be analyzed and dissected and translated and represented to you, the consumer, to ingest.

But it's your responsibility to monitor the quality.

I can't expect to have a well-formed opinion of or appreciation for the Pope if all I read about him comes through the secular media who simultaneously reviles the Catholic Church and desperately wants to see her fall into ruin. I can't seriously hope to allow the Holy Spirit to work through him on my little old heart if, instead of reading his encyclicals and his homilies, all I know of him is filtered through a Buzzfeed article or Rachel Maddow's stimulating commentary.

Come on.

Would you let someone talk about your biological father that way? Would you give them that same authority over your opinion of him?

I thought not.

It's an imperfect analogy, because yes, the Pope is a very public figure. But remember this: we have a responsibility before God to answer for the information we take in, be it in the form of entertainment or "news." We're not just open trash receptacles, and words and ideas have consequences. So don't let someone who doesn't have your - or your family's - best interests at heart be the one to tell you your family business.

Your mama raised you better than that.

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(Some resources I do heartily endorse for your Papal reading pleasure:)

Catholic News Agency

Vatican Information Service

Vatican Radio

Aci Prensa (Espanol)

Eye of the Tiber

Top Ten Reasons to Dislike Mitt Romney

Don't hate, participate.

At the voting booth, that is. Read on, friends.

A lot is being said in the media about Mitt Romney not being "likable" or that he doesn't "relate well" to people.  Frankly, we struggled to understand why.  So after much research, we have come up with a Top Ten List to explain this "unlikablility."

Top Ten Reasons To Dislike Mitt Romney:

1. Drop-dead, collar-ad handsome with gracious, statesmanlike aura.  Looks like every central casting's #1 choice for Commander-in-Chief.

2. Been married to ONE woman his entire life, and has been faithful to her,  including through her bouts with breast cancer and MS.

3. No scandals or skeletons in his closet. (How boring is that?)

4. Can't speak in a fake, southern, "black preacher voice" when necessary.

5. Highly intelligent. Graduated cum laude from both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School...and by the way, his academic records are NOT sealed.

6. Doesn't smoke or drink alcohol, and has never done drugs, not even in the counter-culture age when he went to college. Too square for today's America?

7. Represents an America of "yesterday", where people believed in God, went to Church, didn't screw around, worked hard, and became a SUCCESS!

8. Has a family of five great sons....and none of them have police records or are in drug rehab.  But of course, they were raised by a stay-at-home mom, and that "choice" deserves America's scorn.

9. Oh yes.....he's a MORMON. We need to be very afraid of that very strange religion that teaches its members to be clean-living, patriotic, fiscally conservative, charitable, self-reliant, and honest.

10. And one more point.....pundits say because of his wealth, he can't relate to ordinary Americans.  I guess that's because he made that money HIMSELF.....as opposed to marrying it or inheriting it from Dad.

Apparently, he didn't understand that actually working at a job and earning your own money made you unrelatable to Americans. My goodness, it's a strange world, isn't it?

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Personal Information: His full Name is: Willard Mitt Romney He was Born: March 12, 1947 and is 65 years old. His Father: George W. Romney, former Governor of the State of Michigan He was raised in Bloomfield Hills , Michigan He is Married to Ann Romney since 1969; they have five children. Education:  B. A. from Brigham Young University, J. D. and M.B.A. from Harvard University Religion:  Mormon - The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints Working Background:  After high school, he spent 30 months in France as a Mormon missionary.  After going to both Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School simultaneously, he passed the Michigan bar exam, but never worked as an attorney. In 1984, he co-founded Bain Capital a private equity investment firm,  one of the largest such firms in the United States. In 1994, he ran for Senator of Massachusetts and lost to Ted Kennedy. He was President and CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. In 2002, he was elected Governor of the State of Massachusetts where he eliminated a 1.5 billion deficit. Some Interesting Facts about Romney: Bain Capital, starting with one small office supply store in Massachusetts, turned it into Staples; now over 2,000 stores employing 90,000 people. Bain Capital also worked to perform the same kinds of business miracles again and again, with companies like Domino's, Sealy, Brookstone, Weather Channel, Burger King, Warner Music Group, Dollarama, Home Depot Supply and many others. He was an unpaid volunteer campaign worker for his dad's gubernatorial campaign 1 year. He was an unpaid intern in his dad's governor's office for eight years. He was an unpaid bishop and state president of his church for ten years. He was an unpaid President of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee for three years. He took no salary and was the unpaid Governor of Massachusetts for four years. He gave his entire inheritance from his father to charity. Mitt Romney is one of the wealthiest self-made men in our country but has given more back to its citizens in terms of money, service and time than most men. And in 2011 Mitt Romney gave over $4 million to charity, almost 19% of his income.... Just for comparison purposes, Obama gave 1% and Joe Biden gave $300 or .0013%. Mitt Romney is Trustworthy: He will show us his high school and college transcripts. He will show us his social security card. He will show us his law degree. He will show us his draft notice. He will show us his medical records. Mitt Romney's background, experience and trustworthiness show him to be a great leader and an excellent citizen for President of the United States. You may think that Romney may not be the best representative the Republicans could have selected. At least I know what religion he is, and that he won't desecrate the flag, bow down to foreign powers, or practice fiscal irresponsibility. I know he has the ability to turn around this financial debacle that the current regime has gotten us into. We won't like all the things necessary to recover from this debt, but someone with Romney's background can do it. But, on the minus side, he never was a "Community Organizer", never took drugs or smoked pot, never got drunk, did not associate with communists or terrorists, nor did he attend a church whose pastor called for God to damn the USA. _________________________________________________________________________ So this is basically my version of an email forward. I received it from a dear friend, actually read the thing in its entirety, and immediately wanted to share it with as many people as possible. So, dear readers, if you get an email from me in the next few days saying all of the above...well, you heard it here first. (Please continue to keep our family in your prayers as we head into Monday's surgery. Bl. JPII, pray for us!)

Mucking the Internet

My day starts out pretty similar to most other mamas of little people. Leisurely awakened at 6 something in the am (7 this morning, making Daddy late for work - our little alarm clock is usually so reliable) by either persistent head-banging, crying or hooting/gibberish from the room next door, followed by 10 - 20 minutes of beached whaling (mine) around in the king-sized while dear husband valiantly rescues the innocent babe from his baby cage.

I'll spare you the painful details of the ensuing breakfast/coffeeorineffectivetea/to-shower-or-not-to-shower-that-is-the-question debate, but let the record show that more often than not, 'not to shower' emerges victorious.

Here's where my workday diverges from the average SAHM duties ever so slightly.

You see, I spend approximately 4-5 hours a day combing the www for treasures like this and this...and of course the occasionally tremendously uplifting tale like this.

But you have to dig through a lot of poop to find nuggets of gold.

Especially in a sickly culture dominated by relativistic, amoral/immoral detritus such as ours.

(I know, so uplifting, so hope-filled and Christ-centered. But what can I say...it gets a little discouraging some days.)

My husband often helpfully reminds me that I'm essentially doing this:

 

Although somedays it feels like this:

Point being, it's a lot of $&*# to dig through ... and it's not a truly representative sampling of humanity or culture.

Which is tremendously helpful to me when I'm knee deep in a story like this.

God.help.us.all.

Why spend my time this way? Well, it's a job somebody's gotta do. And I have the distinct privilege to work as the content editor of Heroic News, the premier online resource for breaking, global news on all major life and culture issues, from euthanasia to abortion to the attack on marriage and the family.

It's a mixed blessing to be sure, as there are some days when I just feel the crushing weight of how utterly devalued life is in this culture...

but in the end...life wins.

It does...it has.

But in the meantime, we have to keep fighting. For truth to prevail. For charity to pervade our thoughts and our actions. And for life.

Always for life.

So dear readers, will you spread the word about Heroic News? Perhaps link it to your own website or blog, and consider liking us on Facebook and following us on Twitter.

You won't be sorry. And coming Summer 2012, you'll have yet another opportunity to engage with the issues that matter most when Heroic News the television program premiers...stay tuned for details.

Until the whole world hears.

Heroic News

I have been a bit - shall we say, infrequent in my online presence these past few months.  At least 'round these parts.  But I haven't been luxuriating on the couch eating bon bons all day.  I've been working for an amazing company called Heroic Media, running a new outreach of theirs called Heroic News.  It's a news aggregator, and for those of you not familiar with the concept, it's basically an online clearinghouse of sorts for headlines, articles and links to web resources, all gathered into one, convenient location  for you fine people.

The mission of Heroic Media is to harness various forms of news and entertainment media - be it television, internet, print advertising or radio spots - and start conversations about the most pressing issue of our times: life.  They run outreach campaigns to women in crisis pregnancies, they fund abortion awareness campaigns in major media markets, and they provide tangible, life-saving and life-affirming assistance to women and families in desperate need.  In other words, they are authentically pro life.  From the moment of conception onward.  So there's no room for the predictable, shallow criticism of pro-lifers 'dropping the ball' once the child emerges safely from the womb.

Heroic News' part in this mission is to deliver breaking news, up to the minute global coverage on wide-ranging life issues including abortion, contraception and sterilization, euthanasia, human cloning and embryonic stem cell research, and the sanctity of marriage.

So tell your family!  Tell your friends!  And visit every day... because I'm culling through allllll the crap that's out there on the internets ... so you don't have to ;)