Republicans Kirk Dillard and Bill Brady are eyelash-close for governor with downstater Brady 503 votes ahead of Dillard. Under Illinois law no recount is mandatory but you have to ask a court to order one…and loser pays.
The good news for social conservatives is that the two are virtually identical in support for pro-life. And the close-running third-up, And McKenna takes the same position. The GOP “Unity Breakfast” this morning will be great fun.
On the Democratic side, Gov. Pat Quinn has edged out challenger Dan Hynes but it’s pretty definitely Quinn—who is distinctly the less attractive candidate for the general. Only hope for Hynes would be if there are enough provisional ballots out there. Again, a recount will be asked I’m sure.
The big problem for victor Quinn is that his lieutenant governor nominee is multi-millionaire Scott Lee Cohen, a Chicago pawnbroker who bought the nomination with huge a huge last-minute media outlay. The AP has cited the fact that some years ago Cohen was accused of battering a woman who failed to show up in court. Lovely.
The night carried great news for pro-lifers. Pro-lifer Jason Plummer has taken the Lt. Governor’s slot. Also: Pro-lifer Joe Walsh is nominated in the 8th against Melissa Bean, pro-lifer Adam Kizinger facing Debbie Halvorson in the 11th and pro-lifer Randy Hultgren in the 14th against Dem Bill Foster. Regrets: pro-abort Mark Kirk won going away for Senate over Patrick Hughes who ran a valiant campaign. Pro-abort Judy Baar Topinka whose puppy (she reports) has gone wee-wee in 10 countries will be nominated Comptroller. Too bad. Pro-lifer Arie Friedman lost to Bob Dold for 10th district Congress: at least Dold is somewhat pro-life—but I’m assuaged that pro-abort State Rep. Beth Coulson, worse than even NY-23’s Dede Scozzafava (the same lefty Beth who didn’t even endorse George W. Bush for reelection in 2004) has conceded to Dold.
News that a high lay official of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Washington has also served as a leader of the ultra-radical Center for Community Change and was instrumental in siphoning bishops’ money to his outfit which is active in promoting abortion and gay rights, should be the last straw. The American Life League headed by Judie Brown, leads a coalition that’s ferreting out Lefty staffers who, paid by Catholic donors, are subverting the Church’s mission by working underground with pro-aborts, militant homosexuals and transgender types.
Up to now the goal has been to reform the USCCB. That’s ridiculous. The USCCB is not a valid organization of the Church. Always a sort of do-nothing trade association for the bishops, it became influential big-time when an Italianate bishop-pol named Bernardin took over its executive directorship. Shrewdly he used it to grease relationships with Rome professing he had the insight to recommend good candidates for the bishopric (instead he pushed such great names as the aptly named Rembert Weakland et al)…and conversely impressing potential bishops here that it would be good to make nicey-nice with Bernardin so he would give them his imprimatur.
In short, if it can be said that modern politics began with wheeler-dealers in the Church from early medieval days, the process of pat-my-back-and-I’ll-pat-yours of Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell was revived in the 20th century by Bernardin who used the USCCB to get himself a good job: archbishop of Chicago…whereupon he aced himself back to the organization as chairman and exerted great power for liberalism in public policy…including the wily-conceived and brilliantly misnamed “Seamless Garment” where he ensured that anti-capital punishment, pro-nuclear freeze and anti-“militarism” equate with opposition to abortion…ergo Walter F. Mondale who scored three out of four could call himself “pro-life” whereas Ronald Reagan who scored one out of four could be denied approbation by Catholics.
A brilliant and wildly misleading formulae which confused Catholics for years and diluted their votes to redound to the Democratic party…in recognition of which Bernardin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton shortly before Bernardin’s death...leading to a funeral Mass during which the Gay Men’s Chorus serenaded his bier at Holy Name Cathedral, a personal request from the dying prelate whose last visitor was Eppie Lederer, the hotly anti-Catholic advice columnist known as Ann Landers.
The USCCB cannot be reformed. Its current head is Cardinal George who by no means is an energetic leader anywhere he serves, so expectation of change is unrealistic. The next president will be the Bishop of Tucson, Arizona, Gerald F. Kicanas, formerly rector of Mundelein and auxiliary bishop here…notable for his statement to the Sun-Times that if he had to do it over again, he still would have ordained Daniel McCormack now doing time for pedophilia—in response to which he was promoted here, made a full bishop and elected by acclamation as number 2 to George at the USCCB. Outrageous.
Since the USCCB draws its support from unwitting people in the pews there should be promptly initiated a demand that the bureaucracy be disestablished or, failing that, a contributors’ strike. Again: the USCCB serves no purpose, is always slyly promoting liberalism and as a bureaucracy is the main propagandist tool of secular modernism in the U.S. Church. Administering euthanasia to this utterly useless appendage would be a signal act of mercy for the Church. The campaign should start with people in the pews.
*: Feast of St. Blaise. [AD 316]. Not much is known about him but that he was born of wealthy and noble parents, was educated early in Catholicism and became a physician. Because of his sanctity he became bishop of Sebastea in Armenia. During the persecution of Licinius he received a vision telling him to withdraw to the mountains where he was visited by wild beasts. Remarkably, he healed those animals injured or ill. Hunters who were seeking prey found him beloved by the animals but they captured him and took him to Agricolaus, the governor of Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia. On their way, legend has it that they met a weeping woman upset that her pig was being attacked by a wolf.
With his arms tied behind his back, Blaise urged the wolf to drop the pig, which it did and slunk away and the pig, though on the way to being devoured by the wolf, showed no wounds at all. The trip continued and Blaise was sentenced to death by Licinius. While in prison, he was visited by a woman with her son who was choking with a fishbone lodged in his throat. Blaise freed the bone. Mothers then visited him with food and candles for light. Thus a ceremony that still continues in the Church features blessings of the throats where two unlighted candles are placed in the form of a St. Andrew’s cross against one’s throat, in the early days the priest using the mother tongue, praying: “For intercessionem Santi Blasii liberet te Deus a malo gutturis et a quovis alio maloon.” . At St. John’s in 1949 my throat was blessed by Ernie himself for which I maneuvered myself around in the student lines to have it done by him.
Blaise was tortured by men who tore his flesh with iron combs after which he was beheaded. He is the patron of those with throat ailments, of wool-combers whose instruments had been perverted as instruments of torture against him and of wild animals.
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