Dr. J's Blog

Invite the Children of Divorce to the Amoris Laetitia Seminars

I see where Cardinal Cupich is planning a series of seminars on Amoris Laetitia. According to a letter obtained by the Catholic News Agency, the “New Momentum Conferences on Amoris Laetitia,” will “provide formative pastoral programs.” As someone who has listened to many victims of the Sexual Revolution, I am eager to learn about the “pastoral practice” these seminars will promote. I wonder if they will feature adult children of divorce or unmarried parents among their presenters.

I can still recall the first time a young person came up to me in tears after one of my talks. “This is the first time I have ever heard an adult say that divorce is hard on children.” She went on to describe her father’s intention of entering yet another civil marriage, this time, to a woman in her twenties.

My young friend was twenty-one.

Since that incident, I have heard from many people of all ages, whose parents divorced and remarried. I can remember sitting down to a post-conference dinner with one of the other speakers and his wife. She confided in me that she had run out of the room in the middle of my talk. She couldn’t bear to hear my description of children’s hurt from divorce. My talk stirred up pain from her parents’ divorce.

She was in her sixties.

I don’t see any mention of Leila Miller or Jennifer Johnson among the proposed speakers on the traveling Amoris Laetitia Road Show. Both Mrs. Miller and Ms. Johnson have written poignant works on the experiences of children of divorce. You may imagine what the adult children of divorce have to say about second “marriages.”

Or perhaps you can’t. So, let me tell you: they feel their parents’ selfishness and excuse-making made their childhoods miserable, and continue to cause problems even in adulthood. One anonymous author titled her essay, “How my parents’ divorce ruined holidays and family life forever.”

Perhaps some of the presenters at the Amoris Laetitia gabfests will offer practical tips for what a child, of any age, ought to do when their parents decide they can’t stand each other anymore. Will Cardinal Cupich “accompany” the children of divorce when they see no photos of themselves with both parents, in either of their parents’ homes? Will any of the presenters help the children of divorce “discern” where to direct their anger when their stepfather brings home gifts for his children and his wife, but nothing for them?

I wonder if Cardinal Cupich and his friends will discuss the inequalities that divorce creates among children, and between children and adults. Jennifer Johnson argues passionately that natural marriage and only natural marriage, can create and preserve equality among children, while divorce creates deep and lasting inequalities. Here is just one example:

I was the only one who had divided Christmases, divided holidays, and divided birthdays. I’ve seen this referred to as “two Christmases” or “two birthdays” in some divorce literature as a way to sugar-coat the vertical inequality. My dad wasn’t welcome on Christmas morning, and my mom wasn’t welcome on Christmas eve. I don’t think either of them would have come, had they been invited. They were too busy with their new families. When I got a little older and my parents lived further apart, I traveled alone during the holidays to see each of them. None of the adults in my life had to do any of those things. It was a requirement placed on me that made their lives easier.

No, I suppose they don’t have room for children of divorce and their lived experiences. After all, the seminars are already full of experts on women’s ordination, contraception, non-binary gender, and God knows what else.

Speaking of God: I have an idea that Jesus (remember him?) knows exactly what these children of divorce are going through. He told the apostles “in the beginning, it was not so,” when he instituted that whole one man, one woman, for life, thing. The apostles were freaked out. They thought it was too hard.

I bet Jesus saw the pain a little girl might feel when her mother asked her to be the flower girl in her second wedding. Even as a preschooler, she knew this ceremony meant that her parents would never get back together. She knew she was supposed to be happy for her mother on her special day. She faked it, but her heart was breaking.

Jesus foresaw every painful little incident, like this one:

When I was six or seven, I woke up from a bad dream in the middle of the night. I went looking for my mom but couldn’t find her. I wandered from room to room crying, disoriented and scared. But Mom wasn’t there because I was at Dad’s place, an apartment I went to once a month. My dad couldn’t understand why I wanted my mom so much. Nothing in the apartment was familiar, not even dad. He was hurt because of my longing for my mom, my house, and my own bed, so I did what a lot of children of divorce do: I bottled up my emotions to try to make one of my parents feel better.

Jesus saw how attempts at re-partnering would create a lifetime of difficulties:

At my biological grandma’s funeral, my siblings and I were left out of the family pictures. We watched our cousins treated differently just because their parents had remained married. We stopped getting invited to family reunions. Today I’m a stranger to most of my relatives on my dad’s side because growing up I saw him so little and them even less.

Maybe this sort of thing is why Jesus made such a stink about the indissolubility of marriage.

Perhaps some adult children of divorce will just show up at one of the meetings at Boston College, the University of Notre Dame, or Santa Clara University. I wonder if anyone will let them have a turn at the microphone.

Maybe not. That might be just a little too much “accompanying” and “synodality,” even for Cardinal Cupich.

Originally published at Crisis on February 28, 2018

Your child is only your child when the government says so.

A little girl in New York is in foster care, even though her father is a perfectly fit parent. The court will not even recognize him as her father. How is this possible, you ask?

The little girl’s mother is in a same sex union. The girl is in foster care, because of neglect petitions pending against both the mother and her lover. Although the five-judge panel agreed that the fact that the child was in foster care was “relevant” and “concerning,” they nevertheless denied the father’s request to prove his fatherhood.

In the court’s logic, this man “merely donated sperm, belatedly asserting parental rights.”

In other words, he is not a father unless we say so.

The news stories about this case focus on its implications for “Marriage Equality.” The Daily Beast story has a sub-headline: “judges rule in favor of marriage equality over biology in case of 3-year-old girl.” A Canadian paper, The National Post describes the case this way:

Without legal advice, Christopher and the women drew up a contract in which he waived any claims to paternity, custody or visitation, and the women waived any claim to child support. But troubles arose, and they disagreed on Christopher’s access to the child…In April 2015, Christopher went to court, seeking an order for a paternity test, and later for custody of the child.

The Post is not too clear on what “troubles arose.” We get a clue, from the court documents (page 18), which The Daily Beast cited only in passing, that the child has been in foster care for a lengthy “period of time” since the 2015 hearing.

Perhaps this explains why he “belatedly asserted parental rights.” Maybe he saw what the child welfare authorities eventually saw. These women were neglecting the seven-month-old child.

Christopher volunteered his sperm as a “humanitarian gesture” to two women who were family friends. He evidently absorbed the Grand Gay Narrative that assures us:

biology is overrated: any two people who love each other and the child are just as good as any others and,
lesbians make the best parents ever.

If the Grand Gay Narrative is true, a man might logically conclude that donating his sperm could be a “humanitarian gesture.” He might well believe that agreeing in advance to stand down from active fatherhood was a fine thing to do, costless to himself and his child, and beneficial to these two women.

The problem is that the Grand Gay Narrative is false. Biology does matter, both parents and children care about their biological connections. Being raised by a same sex couple does present risks to kids, compared with being raised by one’s own biological parents. The people who say otherwise base their opinion on highly suspect, cherry-picked data, from small unrepresentative samples. Frankly, most of it is highly publicized junk science.

Neither of these women has pulled herself together enough to have the little girl returned to her care. I was a foster parent in San Diego. I know that child welfare agencies try to give parents every opportunity to reunify with their children. If the child has been in foster care “for a lengthy period of time,” these two women must be bad news. Christopher was trying to be a nice guy in 2014 when he donated the sperm. He has been trying to be a responsible father since April 2015 when he first petitioned the court.

Isn’t this how we want men to behave toward the children they sire?

The five-judge panel was not interested.

“We believe that it must be true that a child born to a same-gender married couple is presumed to be their child… A paternity test for an outsider, who merely donated sperm, belatedly asserting parental rights, would effectively disrupt, if not destroy, this family unit and nullify the child’s established relationship with the wife, her other mother. Testing in these circumstances exposes children born into same-gender marriages to instability for no justifiable reason other than to provide a father-figure for children who already have two parents.” (emphasis added.)

News flash to the judges: a child in foster care is already “exposed to instability.” Is letting her father be involved more disruptive than foster care?

The court’s ruling does not protect the child’s best interests. Their ruling circles the wagons to protect the Grand Gay Narrative.

“Marriage Equality” advocates assured us that removing the gender requirement from marriage was only a matter of making same sex couples the legal equivalent of opposite sex couples. This case shows that “Marriage Equality” creates a whole round of new inequalities. Some fathers are permitted to be involved in their children’s lives. Others are not: the law actively blocks Christopher from his own child. Some children have a legally recognized right to their fathers. Others, like this little girl, do not.

She only has the parents the government allows her to have. And that is way too much power for any government.

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is the Founder and President of the Ruth Institute. They recently released their special report, Marriage and Equality: How Natural Marriage upholds equality for children.

Originally published at The Stream, on February 9, 2018, under the title: “New York Court: A Girl’s Right to Her Father Doesn’t Matter. Protecting ‘Marriage Equality’ Does.”

You believe what you want, I’ll believe what I want

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Back in my parish in San Marcos CA, the celebrations today are out-of-control and over-the-top. My old parish, St. Mark’s, (St. Mark’s; San Marcos; get it?) was about one third Mexican. They went all out for this feast day. I grew to love it.

Little boy, dressed as Juan Diego, in honor of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

I went to Mass this morning feeling sorry for myself. No flowers. No portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe surrounded with Christmas lights. No cute little boys dressed as Juan Diego. sigh.

Then, Fr. Trey Ange gave his homily: one giant appreciation for the Mother of God.

On the eve of the Queenship of Mary, North America was treated to a solar eclipse. Coincidence?

A week later, Hurricane Harvey was predicted to hit landfall in Louisiana. Harvey had already devastated Houston and Beaumont. It lost strength over Louisiana.

The Catholic Church in Sulphur, Louisiana, is called Our Lady of Prompt Succor. She is the patroness of Louisiana, and of New Orleans. She protected the City during the War of 1812. Her protection is invoked against hurricanes.

Ursuline sisters praying in NOLA during the War of 1812.

Hurricane Harvey just happened to dissipate in the vicinity of her church, in a town called Sulphur. Huh. What a coincidence.

Our Lady of Prompt Succor, Patroness of Louisiana

And just to top it off, we had snow in Lake Charles. Not a blizzard. But a lovely, cheerful, fun snow day. Or should I say, Sneaux Day. On December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Click here to get in the spirit of a Cajun Christmas.

You can believe what you want to believe. I believe the Mother of God is taking care of us.

I believe I will entrust my work to her protection.

Adult Children of Divorce: Holiday Stress Relief Guide

Become Everybody’s Favorite Relative

I know a young couple who both have divorced parents. They feel obligated to drive from one house to another throughout the holiday season. The wife’s Mom can’t stand to be in the same room with Dad and his new wife. Ditto for the husband and his parents.

Sound familiar?

Los Angeles Traffic Thanksgiving 2016. Lovely, unless you’re sitting in it, with crying babies and in-laws tapping their feet, standing by the door, anxiously awaiting your arrival…

Once they started having children, holidays became an even greater nightmare. Mom and Dad, and Mom-in-law and Dad-in-law all insisted on seeing the grandchildren within the 24-hour period around Christmas Day. The “acceptable” window for visiting got crammed into a smaller and smaller period. Did I mention that this was in Southern California?

Southern California freeways, in the car, during the holidays, with small children: ho, ho, ho.

NOT!

If you or your spouse are the adult children of divorce in this situation, here are some tips.

Try a New Pre-Holiday Thought Process:

Understand that your family is not the only one dealing with this problem. Millions of people have divorced and remarried. Many of them have created this complicated mess in their lives and their children’s lives. You are not alone!
Understand that you are now adults. You do not have to obey your parents.
You may feel strongly that your parents’ love for you is fragile, and dependent on your compliance with their wishes. Realize that this may or may not be true.
Try giving them the benefit of the doubt. Assume they can be generous and mature with you. Try making a plan that works for your family. Offer this plan to your parents. See what they do.
If your parents’ love for you DOES depends on your compliance with all their wishes, or upon getting their own way all the time, I would like to say to you: they are bad parents. Period. Full Stop.
I would also like to say this to you: I am sorry. This should not be happening to you. Everyone deserves loving parents.
You are more obligated to your own children than you are to your parents. Given a choice between the good of your children, and the good of your parents, it should be a no-brainer. Take care of your kids first. Let your parents be adults.
Ask yourself this: will there ever be a better year for you to get a grip on this situation? Each year that goes by, your parents are getting older. One day, they will be frail, and will legitimately need for you to accommodate them. Why not try now, to obtain some peace?

Dealing with your particularly difficult relatives

You are not obligated to include every family member in your holiday celebrations. You are not obligated to spend time with people who routinely make you or your family members miserable. You can send them a card or some other greeting by mail, that does not require you to be in their immediate presence.
If there is someone whose behavior has been so egregious that you do not want to include them, then, don’t include them. But ask yourself this: if this person’s behavior is so bad that you don’t want them in your home, why would you allow them to dictate how you spend your Christmas?
BTW, “bad behavior” or “egregious behavior” includes things like, “molested me and my siblings for years.” It does not include, “my mom is uncomfortable around him for no particular reason at all.”

Make a New Plan

Let yourself dream: what plan would work for you and your family? You and your spouse brainstorm about what would be comfortable for your family, all things considered. Come up with a couple of plans that work for you. Don’t concern yourself with other family members at this point.
Make a pact with your spouse. The pact is this: “We are sticking together with this plan. Once we have made a decision together, we are going to follow through.” If you can’t agree to that, perhaps you need to reconsider the plan itself, until you have a plan you can both live with.
Plan to back each other up. Agree now that you will not call up your relatives and tell them your husband made you agree to this terrible idea. Agree now that if your mom calls you up complaining, you will not let her talk you into undermining your wife and the plan you made with her. (I’ve talked to lots of people about marriage problems. You’d be amazed at how often parents try to sabotage their children’s marriages. Especially if they are divorced themselves.)
Once you and your spouse have a plan that you really want, take some time preparing to break it to your other relatives. Spend time in prayer. Ask God to relieve you of any bitterness. Ask to be filled with love. Remind yourself of endearing and lovable traits of your difficult relatives. Take a deep breath. Only then, pick up the phone.
Propose your plan to your relatives with as little drama as possible. Your purpose here is to convey simple information. Your purpose is NOT to solve every family problem, or relieve a lifetime of hurts and disappointments.
Try something like this, “We are going to have Christmas dinner at our house this year. Everyone is welcome. We will have a turkey on the table at 4 PM. You are welcome to bring a dish to share and a guest. (This allows your dad to bring his current girlfriend.) What would you and your guest like to bring?”
Or, “We are going to have our own Christmas this year, just our little family, on Christmas Day. We will be glad to have visitors on ‘Day X.’ We will be glad to visit you on ‘Day Y.’” (Fill in X and Y with whatever works for you.)
You can add this to your invitation, if you this necessary, “By the way, if you do not behave, we will ask you to leave. Just a reminder.”
Ladies, if you have a husband who really will follow through and expel misbehaving relatives, thank him. And thank God for him. It is not a comfortable thing to have to do. But sometimes, it does have to be done.
While I’m on the subject, gentlemen, if your wife really will put you ahead of her mother, be grateful. Thank her. (See above!)
After the holiday dust has settled, make a point of reaching out to the people you were unable to see in person. Be as pleasant as possible. Tell them you missed them (if it is true.) Tell them you love them.

But what if they get mad at us!!!

Then they get mad. You can’t control their feelings. You know that you spoke to them calmly, with love, and without bitterness. (See above.)
You know that you did your best to consider the good of your children. That is what good parents do: sacrifice their own comfort for the good of their children. Adults should not be asking children to sacrifice for them.
If you spoke clearly and calmly, you did not “make” anybody feel anything. You made some simple statements. Allow other people to have their feelings and reactions. If they have a melt-down, it is not really your fault.

You will be everybody’s favorite relative.

Well, maybe not everybody’s. The kind of person who insists on getting their own way all the time is not really available to be in genuine relationship with others. You won’t be their favorite relative. But that was never a realistic possibility in the first place.
But if you put a stop to some serious nonsense, some of your family members will be grateful to you. And others will be grateful later. You will become a hero to that part of your family!

That’s it! You can become Everybody’s Favorite Relative. Or at least, your spouse’s favorite!

The Church Militant Needs the Church Suffering and Vice Versa

The Church asks that we pray for the souls in purgatory, especially in November. We are the Church Militant. The Souls in purgatory are the Church Suffering. They need our help.

There’s only one door out of purgatory for the Holy Souls there. It opens only into heaven. But here’s the catch: they open it by suffering long enough and thoroughly enough to be purged from a lifetime of imperfections. They are trying to join the saints in heaven, the Church Triumphant on the other side of the door. They can get there a lot quicker if we help them with our prayers and sacrifices on their behalf.

What do you suppose will happen once they get to heaven? Those members of the Church Suffering will become members of the Church Triumphant. They will, in turn, pray for us. They will have our backs.

Remember this scene from The Return of the King?

This kind of help can be ours.

The souls in Hell have nothing to offer anyone on earth. The Evil One cannot revive corpses. He has no power to allow the dead souls he has dragged into Hell come back to life and bother the living. The Communion of the Saints, living and dead, gives us an advantage the Evil One cannot match. Let’s use it to the fullest.

Pray for the repose of the souls of the dead. Face it: we need all the help we can get right now.

Divorce Rates, State by State

The Lake Charles American Press published an article about state-by-state divorce rates.

Louisiana has the fourth highest divorce rate in the country, according to 24/7 Wall Street, a financial news and commentary website. The state rate is 20.8 divorces per 1,000 married couples. Only Arkansas, Idaho and Nevada had higher divorce rates. Oklahoma held down fifth place.

The article acknowledges that income and employment have a lot to do with a state’s divorce rate.

Louisiana’s median income of $45,146 is much lower than the national median income of $57,617 and the state had an unemployment rate last year of 6.1 percent…. Massachusetts, on the other hand, had a $75,297 median income and an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent. Also, 42.7 percent of the state’s adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, the highest percentage in the country.

This points to the growing gap between the college educated, and everyone else. The college-educated professional classes denigrate marriage, (It’s just a piece of paper), chastity (Abstinence is for losers) and celebrate divorce (Kids are resilient) and (Divorce is liberating). But when it comes right down to it, the professional class gets married before having kids, and stays married.

Professional women cannot meet their aspirations for their own children as a single mom. So they get married and stay married. But delayed childbearing is the price of entry into the professions. So the educated classes are deeply committed to the Contraceptive Ideology. (Separating sex from child-bearing is an entitlement.)

God love the working and middle classes of this country. They try to do the right thing. They are frequently the butt of jokes and the object of derision by the “betters.” Yet the good salt-of-the-earth people, like those we have here in Louisiana, still strive to do the right thing. I love them. They are in my mind and heart, a lot of the time.

“I Don’t Have to Choose!”

I just got the dearest note from a gal who works with MassResistance, the Truth-Telling group in Massachusetts that confronts the LGBT agenda in the state legislature and in school boards. She was thanking me for the column I wrote in The Stream, about the MassResistance book “The Health Hazards of Homosexuality.”

She has written a gender-affirming children’s book called “I Don’t Have to Choose.” This book supports kids in being comfortable in the bodies they were born in. Ironically, the Right-Wing Watch wrote an article about it, calling it an “anti-trans” book. But they couldn’t quite bring themselves to be nasty. They tell the story, as though it is obviously wrong. But, for any ordinary, non-ideological person, the story sounds quite charming.

Grandmas and grandpas, consider this for Christmas gifts.

Transgender Policy Rescinded: Novena for Our Nation

LifeSiteNews reports:

In a reversal of federal policy that pleased marriage advocates and angered LGBTQI groups, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a memo interpreting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as not intended to apply to transgenders….

Sessions explained that the word “sex” in the 1964 law means “biologically male or female,” so that particular statute says nothing about “discrimination based on gender identity per se, including transgender status.”

Naturally, the LGBT Legal Establishment and their friends in the media have a different interpretation. BuzzFeed’s headline tells its own story:

This headline is accurate as far as it goes. But, it does not point out that:

Congress never passed a law including gender identity as part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Existing discrimination law was built around the prohibition of discrimination against people for immutable characteristics, such as race.
“Gender identity” is not an “immutable characteristic:” an individual does not need a medical or psychological diagnosis, in order to define themselves into the classification of “transgender.”
Eric Holder, Attorney General under Obama, issued his own memo back which held that the 1964 law includes gender identity.
Therefore, current Attorney General Sessions’ memo simply returns federal policy back to what it was in those dark medieval days before 2014.
The steady expansion of discrimination law from race to a category into which a person can define themselves, is not self-evidently “progress.”

The idea that the sex of the body is a social construct, which can be socially reconstructed, and now, personally, reconstructed through a combination of hormone therapy and surgery is a full-out assault on our existence as bodily creatures. We are mammals. Sexual differentiation between male and female is a reality of the entire mammal class.

The sexual radicals resent the fact that we are created male and female. The transgender ideology is a reflection of that resentment. This is not a small, harmless idea. Nor is it something that is so crazy it will naturally burn itself out. We must oppose the ideology and the ideologues, while showing love and compassion to the people in its grip.

One more thing: this memo was issued on October 4. Thousands of people have been praying a 54 Day Novena for our Nation, that ends today, October 7.

Coincidence? You believe what you want to believe. I’ll believe what I want to believe.

Should Faithful Christians do business with Vanco? Draw Your Own Conclusions.

Vanco was the Ruth Institute’s payment processor for donations from 2015 until August 31, 2017. We have recorded many of the news stories as well as our press releases in this space. We want to let our friends know that we received additional correspondence from them. We record it here in its entirety, without comment. You may draw your own conclusions.

On Tuesday, September 26, the CFO of Vanco called and left a message for the Ruth Institute. I returned her call. She informed me that they would be willing to reinstate us. I was polite, and asked her for the details of what she proposed. This is what she sent me, the following day:

Wednesday, September 27:

Jennifer, thank you for the conversation yesterday. As discussed on our call, Vanco has completed our re-underwriting process with our Banking partner and secured the ability to reinstate The Ruth Institute as a client. If you would like to reinstate your account, please contact me at the email above.

Also, if desired, we can restart your recurring transactions.

Your previous pricing for our services was a historical pricing plan that provided the following rates:

Monthly fee $5.00
Card fees: 2.75% processing fee + $.45 per transaction
ACH fees: 2.00% processing fee + $.35 per transaction

Our current published rates may be more advantageous for you depending on your forecasted mix between card and ACH and number of transactions. We are willing to reinstate you at your historical rate or you may choose from our current published plans. I’m happy to discuss if you have any questions.

Further, since you will be reinstated as a new customer, we would like to offer you our current promotions that we are currently offering to new customers. They are as follows:

Monthly Fee
- First three months of 2018 monthly fees waived (January, February, March) if any new client has at least 5 individual members set-up a re-occurring transaction prior to December 31, 2017
Give+ Kiosk
- First 3 months of monthly fee waived with the purchase of a kiosk

Jennifer Dorris, CPA

Chief Financial Officer

400 Northridge Road |Suite 1200

Atlanta, Georgia 30350

Main: 404-492-6600

On Friday, September 29, I sent her the following

Dear Ms. Dorris,

I received your email of September 27, 2017, in response to our telephone call of the previous day. As you know, your company discontinued your service with us without notice on August 31, 2017. For us to consider returning to Vanco, we would require, at a minimum, the following:

An explanation of why we were terminated. What policies had we violated?
An explanation of the investigation which took place which uncovered these violations.
The appeals process a client could go through, should we, or any other client, find themselves in this position of immediate, unexplained termination.
An explanation of the “re-underwriting process with our Banking partner and secured the ability to reinstate The Ruth Institute as a client.” What exactly changed between August 31^st and September 26^th?
When we signed up in 2015, this was the service agreement in effect. Would this agreement be in effect for us now, or is there a more current version?
Who exactly is Card Brands, the company mentioned in the August 31^st message discontinuing our service?
What role does Wells Fargo play in your decision-making?
A personal, and a public apology. Neither your phone call, nor your email contained even a hint of an apology.

Ms. Dorris, we have many small monthly donors. As you well know, these are the people who pay the fees Vanco collects. We don’t pay: our donors pay. These dear people who give us $10 or $25 per month were most upset with Vanco when we had to call them and tell them about this situation. They deserve an explanation and apology. Reinstating service with Vanco without both an explanation and apology from you would be breaking faith with our friends and supporters. We simply cannot do this.

I am sure you can understand that switching credit card processing is no small matter. We finally have our new systems up and running. All things considered, it would take an extraordinary effort on your part to get us back. Your correspondence thus far, does not rise to that level.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse,

Founder and President,

The Ruth Institute

On Monday October 2, we received the following:

As discussed on the phone and via email, Vanco has secured the ability to reinstate The Ruth Institute as a client. Based on your feedback, we understand you are working with another payment processor. Please know that if for some reason that does not work out, we would welcome the opportunity to have you back as a client.

Best, Jennifer Dorris

These documents speak for themselves. I will say no more. Thank you for your support.

(This information also appears at the Ruth Institute’s blog: Ruth Speaks Out.)

Daniel Mattson explains it all — Dan Mattson. Not Fr. James Martin.

Am I the only one who is tired of Fr. James Martin? I’m not only tired of seeing him fetedby the Main Stream Media. I’m almost as tired of hearing people I agree with, attacking him, arguing with him, or otherwise calling attention to him.

Not that we shouldn’t disagree civilly and respectfully with people we believe to be in error. We should. But, I think we can do far more good by calling attention to the things we believe to be true.

K43692CARAVAG 1 — The Featured Image of Courage The Call of St. Matthew: Who Me? Follow you. Ok.

For instance: who or what, would be the opposite of Fr. James Martin and his Bridge to Nowhere? The Courage Apostolate, which helps people with same sex attraction to live chaste and holy lives. Same sex attracted men and women who are living chaste and holy lives (some of the holiest people I know, actually.) Men like Dan Mattson and Doug Mainwaring and Paul Darrow and Joseph Sciambra.

Let’s play a game. Humor me. Every time you see a post that attacks something or someone you disagree with, do more than “like and share” that post. Post about something or someone that you DO AGREE WITH on a related topic.

For instance, you could post a link to Courage, or to their film, The Desire of the Everlasting Hills. You could post a link to Dan Mattson’s book, or a review of same. You could post to Joseph Sciambra’s website: this article is particularly raw. Or this post fromthe Chastity Project. Or this blog from a Latter Day Saint who experiences same sex attraction and who married a woman and values her and their children more than his attractions to men. And so so.

Josh Weed Blog Header — Header from Josh Weed’s blog, gay Mormon man with his wife of 3 of their 4 daughters. (Find out why the 4th one isn’t there. It is a hoot.)

My point: refute James Martin if you must. But do not leave “James Martin” as the final word. Let Dan Mattson or Paul Darrow be the last word.

Or, maybe even let Jesus have the last word, “Take heart: I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)