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Tuesday's Elections

Frank Robinson's famous quote; "Close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes," applies not only to baseball, but to politics as well. I take no solace in losing a close political race. Elections have consequences, if you lose you did not win, no matter how you spin it! Virginia's elections are a case in point, outside money supporting democrats abortion agenda won the day for the democrats in Virginia, plain and simple. Ronna McDaniel refused any cash support from the RNC to help them out. I don't understand this at all.

Ohio, passed an amendment to their constitution entitled, Issue One, that gave Ohioan's a constitutional right to an abortion without limitations or restrictions. An opinion piece in Crisis Magazine, a Catholic publication, Msngr, Richard C. Antall entitled his article, "We Live Among Barbarians." The barbarians are not at our gates they live and rule amongst us. He makes a cogent point.There was an old Latin saying that ius est ars boni et aequi. That means “law is the art of the good and the just.” In the case of Issue One, that has been turned on its head. Law has become the instrument of evil and injustice. Thanks to 50 years of Roe v Wade and the woman's "right to an abortion," this evil injustice is still inculcated into the very DNA of  progressives to the point where the ones who are vilified as evil are the people who take a moral stance against the killing of the unborn. 

Since the Dobbs decision in 2022 that overturned Roe, we have lost just about every major state election that the democrats have made about abortion, women's autonomy and reproductive healthcare. That is a sure victory for them. There is no reason to believe they won't use it in the presidential election. Republicans need to realize that every election matters and start pouring money into state and local elections and they must figure out how to turn the tide against the culture of death amongst us.

Posted by Art Flickinger

Thoughts On Tragedy

This morning while having my coffee I turned on the news and was greeted with another tragedy. Three students were killed and dozens wounded on the MSU, Lansing, Michigan campus last night. Wounded students were rushed to a nearby Trauma Center for treatment. I tuned in just as a press conference from the hospital was taking place, and the head doctor of the emergency trauma  center was speaking, overcome with emotion from treating these young people's grevious  wounds, he couldn't hold back his tears. What bolstered him, he relayed to the reporters, during the chaos were the many text messages from colleagues. "On my way," they dropped everything to respond, helping to save lives. It was the medical community that rallied around to help and the community at large that provided the information to law  enforcement to apprehend the perpetrator. Needless to say, our hearts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and friends, that have to endure the aftermath of such senseless and evil violence.

We are not strangers to this type of violence in our own community. The shootings at the Squirrel Hill Synagogue come to mind as does the shooting rampage of Richard Baumhammer that started here in Mt. Lebanon. We can never forget September 11th. whose tragedy touched even members of our own congregation at Beverly Heights. In each case a similar community response happened. After the 9-11 tragedy, national and international response was overwhelming.  Tragedy happens and people come together to help. America is always at the forefront with monetary help, relief supplies and boots on the ground, when natural disasters occur around the world. It's in our DNA as Americans. 

Why does it take a tragedy involving multiple deaths, for a community to come together? These events are "sensationalized" by media coverage and with social media platforms we learn of it as it is happening or shortly thereafter. What about the everyday tragedies that aren't  deemed newsworthy? I'm talking about children and senior citizens going hungry, homelessness, battered women, widows needing help, elderly abandoned in nursing homes, this list could go on and on. Every day we are witnesses to these tragedies taking place under our very noses but we tend to ignore them.  Where is the national and local outrage over the drive by shootings of children and young men and women in Chicago? We report the statistics and cluck our tongues only to forget about it, as it is so commonplace.

Perhaps we should do some soul searching of ourselves,  in our churches, as well as the community leaders we elect. Think of the impact we could have if we harnessed that same "DNA" into coming together as a community to help those in need around us. The Church needs to take the lead in doing so. One congregation can't come the aid of every tragedy but perhaps we can pick one or two that we are gifted to handle and some other churches pitch in looking to care in other ways. There are lots of churches we could network with, to get things done for the betterment of our communities and for the love of our fellow neighbors. Mt. Lebanon High School use to require community service hours for graduation. Elderly and handicapped residents could send in requests for help with  raking leaves, lawn mowing , snow removal, etc. and post requests on a bulletin board for the kids to take and get the hours they needed to meet their requirements. What a wonderful way to introduce young people to community service. Sadly this is no longer being done in our community and our senior citizens and handicapped are worse off for it. There are plenty of opportunities to love our neighbors, we need just to open our eyes to find them. "If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, 'Love your neighbor as yourself,' you are doing well." (James 2:8)  Let us do well together.

 

 

 

 

Posted by Art Flickinger

Statue-tory Rape

 

On October 12th, 1958 as part of the bicentennial founding of Pittsburgh celebration, a statue of Christopher Columbus was unveiled in Schenley Park. Created by the famous Italian sculptor, Frank Vittor, over 2000 people attended the ceremony. Among the attendees were leaders of the Italian American community, Pittsburgh political figures, clergy from the Catholic Diocese, representatives from the Vatican as well as Italian diplomats. The statue was gifted to the city by the Sons of Columbus of America and the proud Italian  American community of Pittsburgh.  One hundred thousand dollars was raised to commission the work of art and beautiful monument. In today's dollars that would be a little over 1.3 million dollars a remarkable achievement and gift.

If you haven't seen the statue  in its original setting, it's too late. For the past two years its been shrouded in plastic per the order of a judge. How did we get here? It all started two years ago in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.  Activists went on rampages across America tearing down monuments of any statue deemed to be racist. Ironically, they even tore down a statue of Abraham Lincoln, and of course Christopher Columbus was on the hit list. Not to be outdone by her peers, Pittsburgh activist Finn Murphy collected over 15,000 signatures to remove Columbus's monument from Schenley Park. She claimed that it was hurtful to the native American community and that Columbus was a genocidal maniac, racist, white supremacist, rapist and a slave trader. (Do you think Finn Murphy has as much Native American ancestry as Elizabeth Warren?) The petition was presented to Mayor Peduto and the Pittsburgh Art Commission. The Art Commission and the Mayor anxious to display their "woke" bona fides voted to remove the monument. The Italian Sons and Daughters of America filed an emergency injunction which was then granted by Judge John T. Mcvay. The  judge ordered the statue covered in plastic. Two years later he announced his decision that the monument needed to be removed because the city has the right to say what monuments are displayed or not, on its property calling it "government speech."

So what is the truth about Columbus? Was he really guilty of what he is being accused of? Nothing could be further from the truth. Columbus was a brave and heroic explorer as well as a devout Catholic. He did not believe the world was flat, as that had been debunked even before his time. Because the Muslim empire had taken over and blocked lucrative Italian trade routes to the east, his plan was to find a new trade route by going west. After eight years of trying to fund his expedition King Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain consented to fund Columbus, as an opportunity  to spread the faith through exploration. After 35 days at sea, keeping control of a mutinous crew that wanted to turn back, the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria landed in what we know today as the Bahama's. Columbus was received warmly by the natives and they traded and shared livestock, farming methods and foods. Columbus returned to Spain and was hailed as a hero even though he didn't find the trade route he set out for. Columbus was named governor of the new territory and he returned two more times to the New World. On his second voyage back he was accompanied by Hidalgos who were eager to profit from the new world in any way they could. They saw Columbus as an impediment to their desires of conquest and profits, and they  eventually overthrew Columbus's authority and sent him back to Spain in chains. Meanwhile the Hidalgos enslaved the peoples and forced them into mining gold and treated them as sub-human. Queen Isabella pardoned Columbus but Ferdinand stripped him of his titles and nobility. Meanwhile in order to combat the rumors from the new world of the crimes being committed and the slave trade that put Spain in a bad light, the King ordered Bartolome De Las Casas, a priest of the Inquisition, to blame Columbus for all the wrong doing. Three hundred years later Howard Zinn an avowed Marxist, resurrected De Las Casas's writings and included them in his text book used across America, The People's History of the United States. So you see whole generations of American children are learning that Columbus was an evil villain.  No longer do we hear our children proudly recite, "Christopher Columbus discovered America on October 12th, 1492. He sailed the ocean blue, in the Nina,  the Pinta and the Santa Maria!" No, what rolls off our children's tongue today is, "Christopher Columbus: racist, genocidal maniac, white supremacist." We can't continue to let this happen. Good or bad our history, is our history. We can not allow the past to be re-written by Marxist, left wing, idealogues or we will lose America, one statue at a time.

 

 

Posted by Art Flickinger

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