by Ben Johnson
Sat Jan 14, 2012 14:04 EST

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, January 13, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney has been dogged by allegations that his shifting positions on abortion have been politically opportunistic. That perception will be bolstered by a new book that reveals Romney consulted polling data before deciding to campaign as “pro-choice” during his 1994 Senate race.

In the book Mitt Romney: An Inside Look at the Man and His Politics, Ronald Scott wrote that Romney commissioned former Reagan pollster Richard Wirthlin to survey Massachusetts voters on key issues. Wirthlin showed Romney a poll indicating any candidate describing himself as “pro-life” was unelectable in the state.

Before initiating his campaign against then-incumbent Senator Ted Kennedy, Romney informed the elders of his church about his decision to run as a supporter of abortion rights. In November 1993, Romney, Wirthlin, and Scott (all Mormons) presented their case to the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a courtesy. Romney, then a Mormon leader in his state, explained his would label himself personally opposed to abortion but would take no action to outlaw it, a view he later described as “effectively pro-choice.”

The meeting proved a contentious one. “I may not have burned bridges, but a few of them were singed and smoking,” Romney said of the exchange.

The Romney campaign has declined to comment on the book’s allegations.

Meanwhile, new information has come to light about the relative whose death from an illegal abortion Romney credited with making him pro-choice in that race. Ann Keenan’s brother, Loren, married Lynn Romney, Mitt’s sister, in the 1950s. Lynn Keenan died at Wyandotte General Hospital on October 7, 1963, when Mitt was just 16-years-old. Her death certificate listed the cause of death as a “criminal recent abortion.”

Sandra Nye, Keenan’s friend from Michigan State University, said, “It was all very hush-hush, because [Mitt’s father George] Romney was governor, and they really wanted this very quiet and to go away.”

The girl’s parents wrote in her obituary that, “Memorial tributes may be sent to the Planned Parenthood Association.”

In a 1994 debate against Kennedy, Romney alluded to Keenan as the inspiration for his first conversion, from pro-life to pro-abortion: “Many, many years ago, I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time that my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that.”

He later elaborated her case “obviously makes one see that regardless of one’s beliefs about choice, that you would hope it would be safe and legal.”

It would be the first of many twists-and-turns in the governor’s abortion record. The same year, his wife, Ann Romney, made a donation to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards would later say Mitt Romney “used to come to Planned Parenthood events. He asked for our endorsement.”

Kennedy would go on to defeat Romney by 17 percent of the vote in the election that saw Republicans regain control of Congress for the first time in decades.

In 2002, Romney chose to run again, this time for governor. During the campaign, he said, “On a personal basis, I don’t favor abortion. However, as governor of the commonwealth, I will protect a woman’s right to choose under the laws of the country and the commonwealth. That’s the same position I’ve had for many years.”

After his election, however, he began to change his views again, telling reporters he had been influenced by the state’s debate over creating embryos for scientific research. He stated, “When we were studying cloning in our state, I said, ‘Look, we have gone too far.’ It’s a brave new world mentality that Roe v. Wade has given us, and I changed my mind.”

Not everyone was convinced, believing Romney told Massachusetts voters what they wanted to hear in order to get elected. His adviser, Mike Murphy, would tell National Review during the 2008 Republican primary race, “He’s been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly.”

After his most recent pro-life turn, Romney said Ann’s contributions to Planned Parenthood speak “for her and not for me…Her positions are not terribly relevant for my campaign.” His wife later made substantial donations to Massachusetts Citizens for Life, becoming its co-chair.

Romney says he now favors overturning Roe v. Wade. When asked during a 2007 debate if he would sign a bill banning all abortions, he replied, “I’d be delighted to sign that bill.” He has said at various times he believes “abortion should be limited to only instances of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.”

His relationship with the pro-life movement in 2012 has at times been strained. In June he declined to sign the Susan B. Anthony List’s pro-life pledge. In October, Romney told Mike Huckabee, “I’d make sure that the progress that has been made to provide for life and to protect human life is not progress that would be reversed.” Some liken that to his pro-choice position in earlier campaigns, when he said he “was personally pro-life but that I would protect a woman’s right to choose as the law existed. ”

This has led critics in both parties to question his core convictions on the issue. Republican strategist Keith Appell stated in 2007, “It’s part of Romney’s challenge: How many epiphanies have you had?”

The statue of Bl. John Paul II that stands outside of Rome’s Termini train station

Rome, Italy, Jan 10, 2012 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- The much criticized 12-foot bronze sculpture of Blessed John Paul II that stands outside of Rome’s main train station will be revamped.

“I made a design for the sculpture that wasn’t executed well in the foundry,” explained the creator of the artwork, Italian sculptor Oliviero Rainaldi.

“It is not that we have come up with a new statue,” he told CNA on Jan. 10. “We’re correcting those details that weren’t executed well” so that “it will be more faithful to my original idea.”

The redesign will involve replacing the head, modifying the Pope’s cape and touching up the outer coating of paint, since the bronze has oxidized to a light shade of green. The statue will also be raised 15 inches on a new platform, and its lighting will be improved.

When the statue was first unveiled last May, the Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano criticized it for bearing “little resemblance’’ to Pope John Paul and described the head as being “excessively spherical.”

The President of Rome’s Cultural Commission, Federico Mollicone, went further, calling it “a permanent and sacrilegious mud stain on his memory.”

The general public also disliked the statue. A poll in the Italian La Repubblica newspaper found that 87 percent of the general public did not care for the piece.

Read the full story here: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/controversial-john-paul-ii-statue-will-get-makeover/

By Fr. C. John McCloskey III

Way back in 1989 (my, how the years fly by), I wrote an an article for the Christmas edition of the old Crisis magazine entitled “Good Guys Finish First: Ten Reasons to Smile This Christmas.” Over two decades later, I remain bullish on the Catholic Church in America for the New Year of 2012, especially if the year includes persecution and further societal decline.

That’s because the Church flourishes in bad times.

Read Father’s article here: http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/desiderata-for-2012.html

What’s so awful about the 1%?
Occupy Wall Street has said it’s the 99% of ‘us’ against the 1% of ‘them.’ But many of ‘them’ started out like ‘us’ and have brought us great innovations that we embrace.

By Bradley Schiller

The class war is on. It’s the 99% of “us” versus the 1% of “them.”

In the rhetoric of this war, we are fighting the 1% because they possess most of the nation’s wealth, bankroll their handpicked political candidates, control the banks and get million-dollar paychecks and billion-dollar bailouts; yet they don’t pay enough taxes or invest their wealth in creating American jobs. They’re the “millionaires and billionaires” President Obama has called out as needing to pony up more for progressive reforms of our healthcare, banking, tax and political systems. They are the enemy of “us” — the 99% who toil at low-wage jobs, hold underwater mortgages, face foreclosures, suffer recurrent and protracted job layoffs and plant closings, and yet pay our fair share of taxes.

But there’s a flaw in this strategy. The Occupy Wall Street movement envisions the 1% as a monolithic cadre of entrenched billionaires who have a firm and self-serving grip on all the levers of the economy. But a closer look at that elite group reveals how untrue that perspective is.

Forbes magazine compiles a list of the richest 400 Americans every year. To get on that list, you must have at least $1 billion of wealth. They are the creme de la creme of the 1% — indeed, the top 0.0000013% (!) of Americans. So who are these dastardly people?

Continue reading this op-ed in the LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/04/opinion/la-oe-schiller-who-is-the-one-percent-20111204

About the least fashionable thing one can do these days is utter a kind word about the Catholic Church. The idea that the church has been an obstacle to human progress has been elevated to the level of something everybody thinks he knows. But to the contrary, it is to the Catholic Church more than to any other institution that we owe so many of the treasures of Western civilization. Knowingly or not, scholars operated for two centuries under an Enlightenment prejudice that assumes all progress to come from religious skeptics, and that whatever the church touches is backward, superstitious, even barbaric.

Since the mid-20th century, this unscholarly prejudice has thankfully begun to melt away, and professors of a variety of religious backgrounds, or none at all, increasingly acknowledge the church’s contributions.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/12/25/3337374/the-catholic-church-built-western.html#.Tvlr82SLQp4.facebook#storylink=cpy

By Brent Bozell
Dec 23, 2011

The depravity of our popular culture and our eagerness to shred traditional values manifests itself every day. Lady Gaga, the top-earning woman in the music business and deemed by ABC’s Barbara Walters to be one of the “most fascinating people,” has a new vocation in mind. She’s announced she wants to become an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church so she can marry two gay male friends.

Lady Gaga is as unattractive, in every sense of the word, as her name is stupid. She welcomed Easter with a single called “Judas” (“I’m still in love with Judas, baby.”) and arrives at Christmas as Reverend Gaga. This is the same “instant online ordination” that TBS late-night host Conan O’Brien used in November in a disgusting scene to “marry” two gay males live on his television show. Gaga and Conan are two of the real cultural losers of 2011. Here are some other winners and losers:

Read the entire article here: http://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2011/12/23/cultural_winners_and_losers_2011/page/full/

Here’s “Gaudete” performed by Anuna

He’s not just away in a manger, He’s at your local Catholic church, maybe your local hospital or in a chapel at the airport you’re traveling through.

Nothing gives me more peace than going directly to the Lord and adoring Him in person – not so much to talk, but to listen. You can go to Him any time of any day. Jesus Christ Almighty is humbly waiting for you in Catholic chapels around the world. Find chapels across the United States and Canada at this marvelous website by the Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament: http://www.acfp2000.com/Chapels/northamerica.htm

Contact the Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament and read wisdom on the following page, from where I borrowed (or stole!) the image you see to your left: http://www.acfp2000.com/Sections/sec2.htm

Happy Advent & Merry Christmas!