Six years ago, today, around noon, I was driving to pick up lunch for the office. I heard on the radio that the smoke coming from the Sistine Chapel was white. My excitement was really, not containable. I skipped in to the deli to pick up the lunch order, when the news channel broke in to show the announcement.

(here is a clip of what I watched)

I stood there, waiting, wondering, hoping and praying.  After the proclamation of “Habamus Papem!”, I tried my best to understand the Latin that followed. I am not sure when I realized it was Jozef Cardinal Ratzinger, but I do know that I jumped up and down, there in the middle of the deli. I remember the man behind the counter said “I can’t believe they picked Ratzinger” (said with much disdain!). I know I responded, but I can’t remember what I said, all these years later.

(here is a clip from an Italian source, I don’t fully understand what they are saying, but they do sound much happier!)

This is what I spend my days keeping her from doing. She is potty trained now, but too short to open the doors, so I leave the doors open for her. This video is from a while ago, but I will tell you that today, she rearranged my toiletries.

Happy Birthday to our beloved Holy Father, Pope Benedict!  Our prayers are with you today, this your, 84th birthday.

After a date mistake on my part and a glitch on the part of the Network, Fr. Brett Brannen was finally on EWTN last night, on the show Life on the Rock. Also with him was Sam Alzheimer, Joshua’s boss. Here is the video for you to enjoy:

To order the book discussed in the video, click here.

And  for the record, it was 74 in Marion, Ohio right now and 77 in Lafayette, Indiana.

…all the pictures of Karol stored on my phone. Enjoy.

This morning I read that our government leaders came to an agreement on the budget, upon further reading of the article, I learned that the defunding of Planned Parenthood was tossed under the bus. Each year Planned Parenthood receives $363,000,000 dollars from the government, that is 363 million dollars. While it “technically” cannot use those funds to provide abortions, the money it receives from the government certainly frees up other money they have to fund, say abortion. (That’s what’s called Fungibility).

There are many reasons that Planned Parenthood should be defunded and the fine people over at the Susan B. Anthony List have written them on a blog post for us. (I was going to make my own list, but hey, why reinvent the wheel?)

1. President Obama and Senate Democrats are willing to shut down the federal government to ensure tax dollars keep flowing to one of their biggest political allies. During his run for president, Planned Parenthood Action Fund endorsed Obama, marking only the second time in their history that they endorsed in a presidential election.[i] They poured money into his campaign and churned out volunteers. Imagine the reaction if a Republican president was willing to shutdown the government in order to prevent a single organization from sharing one penny in the belt-tightening all Americans are facing.

2.  Planned Parenthood is an independently wealthy entity. According to its latest annual report, it has nearly one billion dollars in net assets.[ii] Data shows that over the last nine years, Planned Parenthood has taken in over $500 million in profits.[iii]

3. Planned Parenthood is America’s largest abortion provider. One out of every four abortions in the U.S. is performed in a Planned Parenthood facility. Data shows that since 1970, Planned Parenthood has performed at least 5.3 million abortions. In 2009 alone, Planned Parenthood performed a record 332,278 abortions.[iv]

4. Planned Parenthood’s business model is centered on abortion. Former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson has written that she was given an “abortion quota” and was even told by her superiors to double the number of abortions in order to bring in more revenue.[v] Abortion patients constitute 12 percent of Planned Parenthood clients — 332,000 of 3 million unduplicated clients in its most current report. 37 percent of all Planned Parenthood clinic income revenue is from abortion procedures, according to conservative estimates. Planned Parenthood has issued a directive instructing that all affiliates must have at least one clinic that performs abortion by 2013.[vi]

5. More taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood equals more abortions, fewer adoption referrals.  Claims that taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood results in fewer abortions are false. From 2000 to 2009, Planned Parenthood saw an 80 percent increase in taxpayer funding, receiving $202 million in 2000 and $363 million in 2009. In 2000, Planned Parenthood performed 197,070 abortions while making 2,486 adoption referrals. In 2009, they performed 332,278 abortions and made just 977 adoption referrals. That means an 80 percent increase in taxpayer funding resulted in a 69 percent increase in the number of abortions and a 61 percent decrease in the number of adoption referrals.[vii]

6.  Planned Parenthood is not safe for women and young girls. Recent undercover footage released by Lila Rose’s Live Action shows Planned Parenthood employees in several states willing to aid and abet in acknowledged human sex trafficking of girls as young as 14.[viii] The undercover footage resulted in the firing of Amy Woodruff, manager of the Central New Jersey Planned Parenthood clinic.[ix] It also caused Planned Parenthood to call for mandatory training sessions of thousands of its employees across the country on reporting requirements.[x

7.  Planned Parenthood opposes commonsense measures to protect women and underage girls. Presently, Planned Parenthood is fighting a bill in Illinois that would require its staff and volunteers to be mandatory reporters when they suspect the sexual abuse of minors. They’ve also consistently fought parental notification laws – all the way to the Supreme Court – which would simply inform a parent if their underage daughter is seeking an abortion. They’ve opposed state efforts to impose health and safety regulations for abortion facilities.[xi]

8.  Women have other options for seeking primary care, contraception, STI testing, and cancer screening. According to the Chiaroscuro Foundation, in addition to the tens of thousands of U.S. doctors and hospitals providing this care, there were 1,048 federally qualified health centers in the U.S. which provide women cancer screening,  contraception, and STI testing.[xii]

9.  Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms and is not a significant primary care provider to women. Despite claims made by Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards and members of the media, Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms. They are also not a significant primary care provider in general.  In recent reports, Planned Parenthood acknowledges that it provided primary care only to about 19,700 of its 3 million unduplicated clients. These services have been trending downward for years, from 21,247 in 2007 to 20,235 in 2008, to today’s 19,796.[xiii]

10.  Polling shows Americans don’t believe efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are extreme. A March 2011 poll conducted by The Hill, before Planned Parenthood became a critical issue in the budget debate, showed that Americans are virtually split in half over whether Planned Parenthood’s funding should be left alone or completely cut. Forty-six percent said it should be left alone; 42 percent said it should be completely cut. The poll has a 3 percent margin of error.[xiv] When asked specifically about taxpayer funding of abortion, polls consistently show a healthy majority of Americans, 60 to 70 percent, oppose their tax dollars funding abortion.[xv]

11. Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was a strong believer in eugenics. Following is just a sampling of her documented beliefs. “In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation…”[xvi] Referring to immigrants and Catholics, she wrote: “[They’re] an unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.”[xvii] She also wrote, “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”[xviii] Planned Parenthood is carrying on her legacy today, centering itself on population control efforts. In a recently filed tax return, Planned Parenthood stated as part of their mission statement that they are committed to “a U.S. population of stable size in an optimum environment.”[xix]

12. Planned Parenthood has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of employee time in order to protect its government handout. Planned Parenthood has flooded the airwaves with TV commercials[xx] and radio ads[xxi] in order to protect its funding. Its employees – whose paychecks are subsidized by tax dollars — have participated in bus tours and rallies across the country.[xxii]

(for footnotes, check out the Suzy-B Blog.)

Benedict turned seven months on Thursday! Seven months, where does the time go? I wanted to get pictures of him on Thursday, but he moves too quickly for pictures now. Today he finally slowed down just a bit and we were able to get a few pictures of our mover.

His brother and sisters love to play with him. They find everything he does to be fascinating.

Caecilia gave him his nickname, Bencky-Benck, in the tradition of many nicknames, because she cannot say Benedict.

Lately, they have been taking to calling him “Bencky-Benck”. I do not think they remember his real name.

He does not seem to mind though, as he is just so laid back and easy going, as long as you keep his tummy full and his diaper changed.