What?

Well, I believe that no one should use the Church setting to voice or air complaints, be it rainbow sashers or pro-lifers. I really understand why they were initally barred–they were not entering as mass-goers, they were entering as protesters.

Obviously, the issue of a Catholic Mayor being pro-abortion is a problem, but the place to deal with that is not during a mass or in a ceremony taking place in a church, don’t you really think so?
It is unfortunate that this ceremony was taking place in a church, they should have protested long before today and moved the place of inauguration.

Unless there’s more to this that I’m seeing, I have to agree that this wasn’t the place for the t-shirts.

Can’t the Pope create a Congregation for Greeting Cards or something else innocuous for Cardinal Mahony to head? Anything, as long as it gets him to Rome where he can be closely watched.

And what ever happened to the separation of Church and State?

I’m sure the ACLU is right on this one.

Who’s Mahony fooling? Only himself. I think he’d be a lot happier of a prelate destroying some other religion. With the weekly earthquakes and then on-going threat of being washed into the sea, I think LA has enough in her hands. Cast out the pro-lifers, but bring on them raindbow-sashers and let’em sashe ’til their little hearts content. Honestly! I still think Mahony should be appointed president of the Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People; there’s little he could screw up there and he surely has had experience with that sort of thing in LA.

I just wrote the Cardinal my views and I urge others to do the same. Kids wear t-shirts all the time to church with various messages, most of which are either political or just stupid. The point is why discourage a group of young Catholics who have given up their entire summer to promote the Church’s teaching on human life? What kind of image will they have of the Cardinal or even his support for the sanctity of human life? Where is the compassion or worse, where is the pastoral sensitivity or human justice?

My first thought was of course there is separation of Church and State in Los Angeles, because there is no Church to separate from.

I wonder if the Pope will ever hear about this. He would never interfere, but I wonder if he even knows what a mockery of the Faith this New Age prelate has created.

Why were “inauguration ceremonies” for a mayor being held in the cathedral in the first place? Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, but I would think there’d be howls from every non-Catholic in the area.

I think it is appalling that people would be denied admittance to a Catholic church because they were wearing tee-shirts with messages in line with Catholic teaching. If they tried to disrupt mass, that is another story, and they should be made to leave.

A good many of the teenagers in this town wear pro-Catholic tee-shirts to mass. I grew up among Baptists, who dress up for church, so I never saw tee-shirts in church as a child, but I must admit I like seeing the pro-Catholic tees.

Separation of Church and State? Where, pray tell, is that written in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, or any of the subsequent Amendments?

I’m SOOOOOOO worn out at hearing that hackneyed and incorrect phrase. There IS NO SUCH LAW IN THE UNITED STATES. PERIOD. The Bill of Rights says the following in the opedning words of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That’s it, folks – no national religion, and no laws prohibiting the exercise of religion. The words “separation”, “church”, and “state” never appear.

The term “Spearation of Church and State” has been misquoted from a letter written in 1802 by Thomas Jefferson while he was President. He was responding to a letter from the Danbury Baptist Association, a group of liberty-loving Connecticut Baptists who were concerned about maintaining their religious freedoms. President Jefferson�s letter included this phrase:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith and worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people that declared that their Congress should make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

This “separation of Church and State” was a one way street favoring Churches – as in the First Amendment, the Government cannot interfere with religion. It’s been inverted by ACLU types for many, many years, and every time I see it crop up I take the time to write this blurb in the hope that perhaps word will spread about the true meaning of Jefferson’s words.

Those ALL students are on a March for life,traveling light. It is my understanding that T-shirts stating that you can’t be Catholic and pro-abortion are all that they wear.

As for them not being Mass-goers, I believe that they attend Mass wherever they are, effectively combining their message, their lives, their faith, and their witness. The Church calls them simple as in effecting Jesus’ simplicity, what you see is what you get.

I say that they have integrity–fully integrated faith, consciences, and lives, the antithesis of the Clinton-made-famous compartmentalization that was once known to be pathological.

I’m also tired of everyone screeching separation of Church and State as an excuse to curtail Americans’ freedom to practice their faith without compartmentalization. First a right to privacy that protects the murder of our unborn children, then a cutailment of our religious freedoms, now the loss of the right to own property without the local government taking it away to give to wealthier private citizens.

And they say that the slippery slope doesn’t exist. America was placed in the pot when the water was tepid, just before they turned the heat up…

May we all be at one with the Gospel, and may Christ through Mary grant us the grace we need to be effective witnesses, and to persevere!

In Christ’s peace and joy,

Robin L. in TX

I truly laughed out loud 3 times while reading these comments. “crispy vs. original”, “Congregation for Greeting Cards”,…and ALL of Der Tom’s last post! Would that I could come up with such witticisms. God bless the ALL youngsters, they have their work cut out for them, and I pray that adversity makes them stronger in their resolve.