The World in Our Time

Louis-Édouard-François-Desiré Pie.

Cardinal Pie of Poitiers

(1815 - 1880)

It is certain that as the world draws towards its end the wicked and the seducers will increasingly have the upper hand.

Faith will hardly be found any longer on earth; that is to say that it will have all but completely disappeared from the institutions of the world.

Even believers will scarcely dare to profess their beliefs publicly and collectively.

The scission, the separation, the divorce of societies from God, which is given by St. Paul as a sign of the approaching end ("...nisi venerit discessio primum...") will become each day more absolute.

The Church, though of course still a visible society, will be increasingly reduced to individual and domestic proportions.  She who in Her young days cried out: "the place is strait: give me room wherein to dwell," will see every inch of Her territory under attack.  Surrounded on all sides, as the other centuries have made Her great, so the last will strive to crush Her.  And finally the Church on earth will undergo a true defeat: "...and it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them." (Apocalypse 13:7)  The insolence of evil will be at its peak.

Now, in this extremity, what will be the remaining duty of all true Christians, of all men of faith and courage?

The answer is this: spurred on to ever greater vigour by the apparent hopelessness of their predicament, they will redouble their ardour in prayer, their energy in works, and their courage in combat so that their every word and work cries out together:

     "Oh God, Our Father, who art in Heaven,
     Hallowed be Thy Name, on earth as it is in Heaven,
     Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven,
     Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven
     Sicut in coelo...et in terra!"

And they shall still be murmuring these words as the earth is snatched from beneath their feet.  And just as of old, after a comparable calamity, the Roman Senate and every rank of the state once went forth to greet the conquered consul Varro on his return and to honour him for not despairing of the Republic ("...quod de re publica non desperasset..."), so shall the celestial senate, all the choirs of angels and all the ranks of the Blessed come out to welcome the generous athletes who have continued the combat to the end, hoping against hope itself, "...contra spem in spem..." (Romans 4:17).

Come, Lord Jesus.

Are the Jesuits Catholic?

A review of "Passionate Uncertainty."

Passionate Uncertainty
Inside the American Jesuits
by Peter McDonough and Eugene C. Bianchi
University of California Press, 380 pp., $29.95

"MY DEAR FELLOW, we all see the difficulties that beset any notion of a revealed religion," says an Oxford philosopher in Ronald Knox's "Let Dons Delight." "You draw a blank check, as it were, by assenting beforehand to its doctrines, not knowing whether there will be enough assets to meet it when you come to look into your account."

The Catholic Church understands herself as the legatee of universal and immutable truths about God and man, claiming a divine guarantee that she never has taught, and never will teach, error. As a Basque soldier named Ignatius Loyola came to realize with particular clarity, this position is either true or insane: Only moral cowardice or intellectual muddle could make room for a middle ground. Hence no faith is more radically vulnerable than Catholicism to the shortfall intimated by Knox's skeptical don, no religion more in need of a nimble, adaptable, and ever vigilant defense.

Loyola's companions, given the sarcastic name "Jesuits" by their opponents, organized themselves on military lines with a military love for a clear chain of command, as their founding document attests. The Jesuit is to "serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the Cross, and to serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth." The Jesuit's mission is "to strive especially for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine."

It's a risky business. The blood-curdling vows by which the Jesuit binds himself perpetually to poverty, chastity, and obedience are typically made for the first time when the novice is twenty or twenty-five years old--not at the conclusion but at the outset of the ten years of training in which he will learn what precisely he has committed himself to defend. The more intelligent and idealistic the aspirant, the more spiritually precarious his position, as he comes to grips with the full power of the Church's adversaries and the all-too-human frailty of her defenders. Loyola's gamble was that, if a man's own desire for God could be made present to him, he would willingly endure the required sacrifices until he saw the truth "from inside," and was motivated no longer by discipline but by love. For four centuries the gamble worked.

No more. The recently published "Passionate Uncertainty: Inside the American Jesuits" is a quirky yet convincing depiction of the collapse of the renegade Society of Jesus: papists who hate the pope, evangelists who have lost the faith. Deprived of their reason for existence as Jesuits, they respond either by putting an end to their existence as Jesuits (deserters outnumber active members in the United States) or by indulging a willed imbecility in which the explosively divisive questions are never permitted to surface.  (more...)

Are the Jesuits Catholic?

Marion Sigaut about Sexual Revolution

In this video, Marion Sigaut explains the hidden agenda behind the sexual revolution and the consequences on the moral values and sexual behaviors in today's society.

Marion Sigaut is French historian, author of several books "Les deux coeurs du monde", "La marche rouge", "Mourir à l'ombre des lumières", "L'énigme Damien", "Acte Sud"

Socialist Studies Review: Ontario Education Scandals This Summer

The Archbishop believed that?

School resumes on Tuesday - and we should (unfortunately) have plenty more stories in the upcoming months about the rapid deterioration of the public education system.

But even though school was out for the summer, there were still plenty of scandals to blog about.

Check out the best (or worst, however you see it) stories of this summer.  (more...)

Socialist Studies Review: Ontario Education Scandals This Summer

Public Schools – Unsafe for Any Child

Last week, Steven R. Battles, a former elementary school teacher in Springfield, IL was sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually abusing one of his former students. He was first charged in February, 2011 for the abuse that took place between 1999 and 2002.

The Battles case is typical. There is nothing remarkable about it. It could be used as a case study of why our public school system has become a safe haven for pedophiles like him. The only thing unusual about his case is that he got caught. Most don’t.

Charol Shakeshaft, a professor of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University, has spent her career studying our educational system. In 2004 she authored a report, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, which focused on the sexual exploitation of children by teachers. Although the findings were shocking, it didn’t get much attention. What little it got, didn’t last.

The report was issued in the midst of the furor over revelations about the sexual abuse of children by priests and the orchestrated cover-up by their bishops, so maybe her revelations simply were drowned out. According to Dr. Shakeshaft the sexual abuse of students in public schools was “100 times greater than the abuse by priests.” Additionally, Shakeshaft reported that 9.6 per cent of children are sexually abused by educators sometime during their school years. The media was largely silent about these small details.  (more...)

Public Schools – Unsafe for Any Child

On social media:

Post by Truth Alliance Foundation.

A Muslim Answers: ROTHERHAM, RACE AND “WHITE” PAEDOPHILIA

Nothing scorches the mind more than the news of innocent children being subject to abuse, be it psychological, physical or sexual.  It is a scarring which remains with the child for the rest of his or her life, impacting their ability to form relationships and inhibiting development of their mental faculties.

It is without doubt emblematic of human depravity of the extreme kind.

The right-wing, anti-Muslim racists however are doing their utmost to attach the horror that is the case of Rotherham to race (Pakistani) and religion (Islam). In the comments section of a Spectator article on the topic, commenters called for Islam to be proscribed, mosques to be bulldozed and British Isles to be cleansed, Spanish inquisition-style.  (more...)

A Muslim Answers: ROTHERHAM, RACE AND “WHITE” PAEDOPHILIA

Further commentary:

Rotherham inquiry: the ‘PC gone mad’ defence is itself a form of racism

Hundreds of suspects being investigated over South Yorkshire child abuse

Lee Crutchley, jailed for 15 years for child abuse last month

Hundreds of people in South Yorkshire are currently under investigation for suspected involvement in child sexual exploitation, it has emerged.

Police have refused to say precisely how many suspects are being investigated - but have revealed the force currently has 173 ‘live’ investigations.

The number includes 32 probes in Rotherham, relating both to historic and current cases.

It comes as the Independent Police Complaints Commission wrote to the force’s chief constable David Crompton to demand any evidence of ‘failures or misconduct’ in relation to the Rotherham abuse scandal is referred to the body.

Details on the number of investigations currently taking place have been revealed after Professor Alexis Jay’s devastating report on Tuesday revealed an estimated 1,400 children had been abused in the town between 1997 and 2013.

Her report said ‘abuse continues to this day’ in Rotherham, with only a small number of abusers being successfully prosecuted so far.  (more...)

Hundreds of suspects being investigated over South Yorkshire child abuse

This Week In Teachers Who Write ‘School Massacre’ Fiction And Want To ‘Stab Some Kids’

It’s a new school year, and already taxpayer-funded teachers in America’s public schools have made the news for doing disturbingly stupid things.

In the Eastern Shore town of Cambridge, Md., officials at Mace’s Lane Middle School have placed language arts teacher Patrick McLaw on administrative leave after discovering that he allegedly wrote a couple of interrelated, futuristic fiction books in which a major plot happens to be “the largest school massacre in the nation’s history” — killing 947 people.

The local sheriff’s office and the police department hauled McLaw, 23, away for an emergency psychological assessment, CBS DC reports.  (more...)

This Week In Teachers Who Write ‘School Massacre’ Fiction And Want To ‘Stab Some Kids’

And in the Great Dirty-White North:

British Columbia teacher quits after allegedly looking at child porn, incest at school

Former Quebec teacher sentenced to 20 months in jail

Former Maple Leaf pleads guilty to sexting teen

TORONTO - Former Toronto Maple Leaf and Portland Pirates assistant coach Mike Minard was sentenced to two months in jail after he pleaded no contest to sexual misconduct Wednesday.

Minard began an online relationship with a 13-year-old girl that he met on Twitter after a game involving the AHL club last season.

The girl first encountered Minard last November after she tweeted about not being able to take photos of the Pirates game because Minard was in the way, according to the court report.

Minard saw the tweet, responded and their communication grew from there.

According to the Bangor Daily News, citing a Waldo County Sheriff's Office report, the two began to send messages to each other, talking about the team and games, but it quickly moved to more personal text messages.  (more...)

Former Maple Leaf pleads guilty to sexting teen

Sun's Pseudo-Shrink Puts Down Parents

In another slap at social conservatives, Sun trots out an "expert" to declare parents incompetent to raise their own children. Never mind that the feminist dictatorships of Scandinavia have all but alienated children from their parents and erased fatherhood from society. Blame the parents, not the ideology. Proof that Trotskyism is just another flavor of Marxism.

Family breakdown is ‘an iceberg lurking to shipwreck society’: Anglican bishop

Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir Ali

British society is facing a “tsunami of social disintegration” after decades of rampant divorce, cohabitation, fatherlessness, and family breakdown, a prominent Anglican bishop and social critic told The Christian Institute last week.

The Pakistani-born Bishop Michael Nazir Ali said that Britain’s current and growing problems with what politicians call “social cohesion,” are “an iceberg which is lurking to shipwreck society.”

Bishop Nazir Ali placed the blame squarely on the work of the decades of social re-engineering that has seen marriage demoted and degraded as a societal foundation and divorce become readily available. He faulted the skyrocketing rates of cohabitation that has seen the practice become the accepted norm in most western societies. The practice has contributed to a fundamental destabilization of society, he said.

“For the first time since records began there are now more unmarried than married people of marriageable age and the reality is that fewer and fewer couples have stable relationships,” the bishop said.  (more...)

Family breakdown is ‘an iceberg lurking to shipwreck society’: Anglican bishop

Profiling Predators

Writing for Slate, Katy Waldman characterizes the current attention we focus on narcissism as the “syndrome du jour.” Tongue in cheek (hopefully), she dedicated the article to herself, since “there was no one else so incandescent, so charming, so wittily expert in the field of personality disorders as the one who appears in my mirror every morning. . .”

Katy’s attempt at humor falls flat, at least for me. There is nothing funny about the upward trend of narcissism over the last few decades. Narcissism is toxic to any family, to any team, to any community, to any society.

Numerous studies have documented the gradual increase in narcissism. Ms. Waldman even refers to one—a 2008 study documenting that today’s college students score higher on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory than students in 1979. Dr. Jean Twenge, the same person who conducted the 2008 study, recently updated her research and reports that narcissism continues to rise. (The revision to her book, Generation Me, is due out next month.)

This is no laughing matter. As an investigator for more than 45 years, I have encountered predators of all kinds. Killers, con men, pedophiles, white collar thieves, thugs or even those who exploit others in ways that fall short of criminal, all have at least one thing in common. They are narcissists. Narcissism is a defining characteristic of predators. Thus an increase in narcissism, even if it’s not clinically diagnosable, should be cause for great concern, not light hearted joking. The more narcissists, the more predators.  (more...)

Profiling Predators

TDSB Trustee Howard Kaplan: "Jesus is a homophobe!"

TDSB Trustee Howard Kaplan: "Jesus is a homophobe!" from Sam Sotiropoulos on Vimeo.
This video was sent to me by a concerned citizen. The video was taken during the Pride 2014 event in Toronto, Ontario. Toronto District School Board Trustee for Ward 5 - York Centre, Howard Kaplan (in the khaki Tilley hat), is clearly visible in the video. Trustee Kaplan walks from right to left in the screen and repeats the slur twice: "Jesus is a homophobe."

For an elected official of a public school board to make such an irreverent, disrespectful and inflammatory remark about a religious figure is completely unacceptable. Tens of thousands of Students and Staff who attend and work in TDSB schools are of the Christian faith.Trustee Kaplan displays an astonishing capacity for bad judgement in this video clip. This man is an elected public official with the Toronto District School Board! Shame on him and the TDSB.

H/T to Socialist Studies

Even our police are blinded by liberal dogma, writes MP SIMON DANCZUK

Simon Danczuk MP asks why police, social services
and child protection agencies repeatedly fail to act
on clear evidence of abuse

Reading yesterday’s headlines about the Rotherham scandal, the question I kept asking myself was: how, in a supposedly civilised country like ours, can this possibly have happened again? And why does it keep on happening?

I’m MP for Rochdale, which lies about an hour’s drive away from Rotherham on the other side of the Pennines in Lancashire. And sadly we’re no strangers to the sexual abuse of children here either.

Cyril Smith, the town’s former MP, abused vulnerable young boys – both here and elsewhere – over the course of four decades, while more recently, in 2012, nine men were sent to prison for up to 12 years each for their part in what has become known as the ‘Rochdale grooming scandal’.

The parallels that both these cases have with what has been happening in Rotherham are hugely disturbing, and suggest that nothing has been done to improve standards of child protection in this country for more than 40 years.  (more...)

Even our police are blinded by liberal dogma, writes MP SIMON DANCZUK

Bringing Humans to Market

Last spring, a start-up company in Germany announced a new app that promises to simplify a growing aspect of urban German life: legalized prostitution.

The app operates on the same principles as those that recommend restaurants or help you find live music: you tell it what you’re in the mood for and it uses your smartphone’s location services to tell you what’s available nearby.

The app was one of the examples cited in the August 9 cover story of The Economist about “how technology is transforming the world’s oldest profession.”

The Economist waxes enthusiastic over the ways that “specialist websites and apps are allowing information to flow between buyer and seller, making it easier to strike mutually satisfactory deals.”

Now, “prostitutes can warn each other about violent clients, and do background and health checks before taking a booking,” and customers can “proceed with confidence.”

Well, if that makes hiring a prostitute a lot like hiring a plumber, that’s exactly how The Economist sees it. Its analysis of what it calls the “wealth of data available online” leads it to conclude that most prostitution is “surprisingly similar to other service industries.”  (more...)

Bringing Humans to Market

Post by Truth Alliance Foundation.

1,400 Children in Rotherham, England, Were Sexually Abused, Report Says

LONDON — A report released on Tuesday on accusations of widespread sexual abuse in the northern England city of Rotherham found that about 1,400 minors — some as young as 11 years old — were beaten, raped and trafficked from 1997 to 2013 as the local authorities ignored a series of red flags.

Some children were doused in gasoline and threatened with being set on fire if they reported their abusers, the report said, and others were forced to watch rapes and threatened with the same fate. In more than a third of the cases, the victims appear to have been known to child protection agencies, but the police and local government officials failed to act.

Within hours of the report’s publication, the leader of the local government council resigned.

“Having considered the report, I believe it is only right that I, as leader, take responsibility on behalf of the council for the historic failings that are described so clearly in the report, and it is my intention to do so,” said Roger Stone, the leader of the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council since 2003.  (more...)

1,400 Children in Rotherham, England, Were Sexually Abused, Report Says

Commentary:

Denis MacShane: I was too much of a 'liberal leftie' and should have done more to investigate child abuse

Nothing can make up for the trauma of Rotherham's abused young girls, but many more heads must roll

Catholic Psychologist Considers ‘Transgenderism’ on College Campuses

When facing new cultural challenges like “transgender” students at Catholic schools, educators must remember that “values are an integral, indivisible part of all that they are,” writes clinical psychologist Dr. Frank Moncher in an analysis published collaboratively by The Cardinal Newman Society and the Culture of Life Foundation.

Dr. Moncher, senior fellow of social sciences at the Foundation, analyzes two legal cases in which religious colleges have been granted exceptions to carry out their faith-based missions with regard to “transgendered” students.  (more...)

Catholic Psychologist Considers ‘Transgenderism’ on College Campuses

Same-sex Adoption: Not as Harmless as Portrayed

You may often see articles in the media claiming that "research has shown" that children of same-sex couples are thriving, in fact are physically and psychologically doing just as well as, or even better than, children of couples who are -- let me use this currently underused word -- normal.

Are these works reliable?

In July such a study, carried out in Australia, was much trumpeted by that pillar of "progressive" thinking, the Washington Post, under the headline "Children of same-sex couples are happier and healthier than peers, research shows".

Researcher Simon Crouch and his team at the University of Melbourne surveyed 315 homosexual parents with a total of 500 children across Australia.

Crouch writes:

We found that children from same-sex families scored, on average, 6% better on two key measures, general health and family cohesion…

In spite of doing well, many children did experience stigma, which was linked to lower scores on a number of scales.

In short, when children perform well it's due to same-sex parenting. When they perform not so well, it's due to stigma against same-sex parenting. A win-win situation for homosexual agitators.  (more...)

Same-sex Adoption: Not as Harmless as Portrayed

The Meaning of “Intrinsically Disordered”

There is widespread misunderstanding about what the Catholic Church teaches with regard to same-sex attraction. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding—which often construes the teaching as “offensive”—tends to isolate men and women who struggle with their sexual identity. They often feel ostracized at a time in their life when they need love from the people of God. This reception to Church teaching can be avoided by proactively offering a clear explanation of the Church’s teaching concerning homosexuality, and in particular the judgment about the sexual attraction to persons of the same sex.

The Church’s document, The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, notes that sexual attraction to persons of the same sex is “ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.” The Catechism uses nearly identical language: “Exclusive or predominant sexual attraction towards persons of the same sex … is objectively disordered.”

Chaste men who struggle with same sex attraction have conveyed to me that this choice of words, particularly the technical and precise phrase “objective disorder,” is “offensive,” “hard on the ears” or “disrespectful.” It makes many feel like a diseased outcast. I am sincerely empathetic to this reaction, as I know they face challenges everyday and do so with persistent faith and prayer. I am also sincerely convinced that the negative reaction to the Church’s language is primarily a case of misunderstanding. Therefore, we have an opportunity to bring clarity to others about the Church’s teachings regarding same-sex attraction and use of the term “objective disorder.”  (more...)

The Meaning of “Intrinsically Disordered”

Pool Mass, Rainbow Mass... What Next?

Clowns, balloons, dancers...

The Swimming Pool Mass: A Catholic Rorschach Test

Bread, Fish & Rainbows: All Are Welcome At The Lord’s Table

So, a gay stripper walks into a top children’s charity and asks for a job…

Let's suppose that a prominent child-oriented charity in a once Christian nation hires somebody to meet with teenagers to encourage them to be “shameless idealists.”  Imagine that the pedagogue is a male stripper for a gay ho-down called Boylesque.

At the Boylesque webpage, suppose you find a Mountie in a passionate kiss with a lumberjack, who is holding a bottle of beer foaming over. “Imagine your dearest Canadian icons,” say the Boylesque promoters, “stripped down and slathered in maple syrup for your viewing pleasure!”

The page features “Ray Gunn,” the Canadian “Mount-Me Police,” a rousing rendition of “O Canada” to make you “stand at attention,” an ad for a Valentine celebration of “debauch” at “our den of iniquity,” somebody named “Bruin Pounder,” somebody else named “Sigourney Beaver,” some stars of a “bisexual-athon,” and so forth.

Imagine third-rate puns, puerile fascination with the parts down under, dopey titillation, debauchery, and “putting male nudity at center stage where it belongs.”  (more...)

So, a gay stripper walks into a top children’s charity and asks for a job…

The California Birth Certificate Bill

California Governor Jerry Brown

An Open Letter to Governor Brown

Dear Governor Brown,

I work for you. I am an Associate Professor of English and Classics at California State University-Northridge.

I know that a bill, AB 1951, sponsored by Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles, may reach your desk for signature soon. It will allow for birth certificates to be issued, which indicate gay men as “mother” and lesbians as “father.” I would like you to veto it and please begin the process of reversing California’s destructive trend toward same-sex parenting homes. While you may have been led to believe that children raised by gay couples are delighted with their lives and view their guardians uncritically, the hidden truth is that many of us who were raised by gay couples are hurting and feel that our rights have been violated.  (more...)

The California Birth Certificate Bill

Catholic School Forced to Grant Exemption from Liturgies, Retreats

After a series of exchanges between a Catholic-school parent and the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District in Ontario, the Ontario Superior Court ruled in April that Notre Dame School in Brampton must exempt an eleventh-grade student from taking part in compulsory liturgies and retreats, according to The Toronto Star.

The student’s father, Oliver Erazo, had reportedly requested and was eventually granted exemption from religion classes for his son. He called on Ontario’s Education Act, which stipulates that students must be exempt from “any program or course of study in religious education” if their parents request it in writing. Erazo then pressed for his son’s exemption from liturgies and retreats as well, arguing that these activities fall under the category of “programs,” but the school refused.  (more...)

Catholic School Forced to Grant Exemption from Liturgies, Retreats

Free the Children manager resigns after report on his work as gay stripper

A manager at the popular Canadian charity Free the Children who helped run the organization’s We Day events, spoke frequently at schools, and led youth trips overseas has resigned after LifeSiteNews reported he was moonlighting as a gay stripper.

Michael Lorsch, former manager of Free the Children's leadership programs in Toronto, resigned Friday after LifeSiteNews ran two stories on August 14 and August 18 about his role as a performer in the homosexual-themed troupe Boylesque, which aims to put “male nudity and sexuality back center-stage where it belongs.”

Lorsch, who performs under the stage name Mickey D. Liscious, is described on Boylesque’s website this way: “The ladies say he's a sweetheart, the gentleman know better. Mickey D is all about love.health.happiness.equality...and heavy petting.”  (more...)

Free the Children manager resigns after report on his work as gay stripper

Cyril Smith: the paedophile MP and the police and MI5 cover-up

Dispatches: Cyril Smith the paedophile MP from Incorrigible on Vimeo.
Read the full post at: http://wp.me/p3xSxU-17R

First broadcast in September 2013, this is the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary that explored the horrific scale of Cyril Smith’s sexual abuse of children and the how the police, crown prosecution service and MI5 not only knew of his activities but actively protected him from being prosecuted for his crimes.

Related article:

Cyril Smith: the paedophile MP and the police and MI5 cover-up

Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution

The government and media alliance advancing the transgender cause has gone into overdrive in recent weeks. On May 30, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board ruled that Medicare can pay for the "reassignment" surgery sought by the transgendered—those who say that they don't identify with their biological sex. Earlier last month Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that he was "open" to lifting a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Time magazine, seeing the trend, ran a cover story for its June 9 issue called "The Transgender Tipping Point: America's next civil rights frontier."

Yet policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.  (more...)

Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution

Comments at Truth Alliance Foundation:

Promoting Transgenderism — The Easy Way Out

Gender Ideology Run Amok in Canada

In the coming days, children across Canada will be heading back to school to continue their education and gain the skills they will need to access employment. In Vancouver, however, educational goals are different: A new day at school is little more than an opportunity for social experimentation.

The emphasis on academics is long gone and the higher, far nobler goal is to instil a broad understanding of tolerance related to sexual preferences.

This past June, the Vancouver School Board determined it was necessary to adopt a policy that went even further by better accommodating those with gender identity issues. Most significantly, the policy encourages children to focus on self-identification rather than biological realities. That is, the student can choose his/her own gender; the one assigned at birth and by biology is secondary.

Schools will now adopt gender-neutral pronouns to refer to children and teens who identify as not male or female. They will now be referred to using the terms xe, xem and xyr, pronouns referring to third person, plural and possessive, respectively. Should you feel the need to look these terms up, be prepared for a grammar lesson that will leave you flummoxed and reaching for aspirin.  (more...)

Martinuk: There should be no rush to reassign genders to kids

H/T to Socialist Studies

Toronto trustees running amok, former chair says (with a straight face)

Former Toronto District School Board chair Chris Bolton says some trustees are
running afoul of spending policies and the province should step in to get the
board under control until October's municipal election.

A handful of Toronto public school trustees are running afoul of spending policies and other board procedures and the province needs to step in, says the former chair of Canada’s largest school board.

Posting on Facebook, Chris Bolton said since he resigned suddenly from the board mid-June “it seems to have been drifting into areas that not just election silliness, but downright interference. Staff seem to be spending more time catering to the trustee whims of a few than the work of the board.”

He accuses unnamed trustees of “dictating expense policies against the direction of the board and province.”
  (more...)

Toronto trustees running amok, former chair says (with a straight face)

H/T to Socialist Studies

A parent's lament:

The Dismal State of Affairs at The Toronto District School Board

And another take:

Confucius Institute: Chinese for ‘conflict of interest’?

Notorious paedophile headed Scottish care home inquiry

CHILD protection experts and abuse survivors are demanding an inquiry into why one of Britain's most notorious paedophiles was put in charge of an investigation into a crimes against children at a Glasgow boys' home.

The Sunday Herald has learned that Peter Righton - one of Britain's leading care workers, and a man who lived a double life as a paedophile - headed an investigation into allegations of cruelty at the Larchgrove assessment centre for boys in Glasgow in the 1970s.

The inquiry resulted in no criminal proceedings being taken, despite 13 out of 30 allegations of violence and neglect being proved. The home, in Springboig, was under the control of Glasgow City Council, then Glasgow Corporation.

Glasgow City Council is now trying to trace all documentation in connection with the case. The council and the Scottish Government have both called on anyone who may have suffered abuse at Larchgrove to contact the police.

Although the inquiry in the 1970s focused solely on physical and emotional abuse, an investigation by the Sunday Herald in 2007 revealed that sexual abuse of children was also taking place in Larchgrove at the same time. A former director of social work said he had been aware of abuse at the home in the mid-1970s. There were claims that female as well as male members of staff were involved in the abuse of boys.

Righton, who co-led the Larchgrove inquiry in 1973, worked as a child protection expert and social care worker. However, he was also a founding member of the infamous Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) which campaigned for adults to be allowed to legally have sex with children.  (more...)

Notorious paedophile headed Scottish care home inquiry

The other paedophile at Margaret Thatcher's side

Despite his reputation as a womaniser and fondness for malt whisky, a daily habit that brought about his premature death aged just 61, the funeral of Sir Nicholas Fairbairn in 1995 was marked by an outpouring of respect and admiration.

As more than 1,000 luminaries crammed into St John’s Kirk in Perth, the former Tory MP’s significance as a political figure was underlined by the presence of Lady Thatcher, who had promoted the brilliant solicitor to her first Cabinet in 1979.

While a lone Scottish piper played a lament, Britain’s first woman Prime Minister strode solemnly to the pulpit to read an excerpt from The Prophet, a book by the Lebanese poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran, who had been one of Fairbairn’s favourite authors.

Her tribute was witnessed by a host of leading politicians, judges, and Scottish aristocrats of the day.

They had come to pay respects to a uniquely colourful individual who, in a political career spanning two decades, had achieved a mixture of fame and notoriety as one the most recognisable — but also controversial — members of the Commons.  (more...)

The other paedophile at Margaret Thatcher's side

Three common strategies sexual offenders use to discredit child witnesses

A Texas high school student named Greg Kelley was recently convicted of sexually victimizing a four year old boy.  Despite the jury verdict, a small vocal group of supporters have been working hard to convince the public that this sexual offender is innocent..   Marginalizing the powerful voice of the child victim is often at the heart of this disturbing and all too common objective.   In my years as a child sexual abuse prosecutor, I discovered that offenders and their supporters use three common strategies to try and convince others to embrace their distorted definition of innocence:  (more...)

Three common strategies sexual offenders use to discredit child witnesses

Ottawa Pride honors teen for writing, directing homosexual musical at Catholic school

An Ottawa-area teen who wrote and directed a pro-homosexual musical that was recently performed in his Catholic school was honored for his accomplishment by being named  “Youth Marshal” in Ottawa’s recent Capital Pride parade.

The musical, titled “Break Before Bend,” sympathetically tells the story of a homosexual teenager and the struggles he faces while ‘coming out’ in school.

Capital pride officials awarded Elliot Wehrle, a now-graduated student from Mother Teresa High School just outside Ottawa, for being an “outstanding individual under the age of 25 who has made a significant contribution to the LGBTQ community in the National Capital Region.”

Pride officials called Wehrle’s musical a “story of a homosexual teenager who struggles in a less-than- tolerant high school. The piece deals with themes of homophobia, bullying and bystander apathy.” Ottawa Community News described it as a “story of homophobic persecution.”  (more...)

Ottawa Pride honors teen for writing, directing homosexual musical at Catholic school

Toronto Catholic Trustees Overturn Religious Testing for Grades 4 & 7

Post by Parents As First Educators.

...and evade accountability:

Post by Parents As First Educators.

Socialist Studies Skewers Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association Again

Peoples' #socialfoum2014 starts today in Ottawa - Aug 21-24 - follow the breaking news @forumsocial2014 #OECTA #onpoli #cdnpoli
— OECTA (@OECTAProv) August 21, 2014

See the Bolsheviks being martyred here:

Catholic Teachers Association Pretends To Still Be Catholic, As They Attend Political Forum That Features Prostitutes

Ontario College of Teachers Hearings - September 2014

Discipline Committee panels have ordered that summaries of these recent disciplinary cases be published in Professionally Speaking.

• A Discipline Committee panel revoked the teaching certificate of high school teacher James Alan Bliss after he was convicted of the sexual exploitation of a female student... Bliss and a student began to correspond electronically in February 2010 and developed an inappropriate relationship. They exchanged personal emails and texts, including sexual messages, and he bought her a dress and shoes. He allowed the student to stay in his hotel room and had a sexual relationship with her.

• A Discipline Committee panel ordered the publication of additional findings concerning Lambton Kent DSB teacher Dale Vincent Gerald Maheux whose certificate was already revoked in connection with a criminal conviction for sexual assault and sexual exploitation... Having been convicted of sexual assault and sexual exploitation of a young person, Maheux, while waiting for the imposition of a sentence in that matter, repeated the sexual interference with another young person.

• A Discipline Committee panel revoked the certificate of Halton DSB teacher Trace Russell Teeple for possessing child pornography... In September 2012, Teeple was found guilty of the charge that he possessed child pornography during the 2009 calendar year. He pleaded guilty in the criminal proceedings and, in April 2013, he was sentenced to 45 days in jail and 24 months' probation. He was also prohibited for 10 years from using a computer to communicate with anyone under 16.

Toronto teacher charged with sexual assault involving student

Toronto middle-school teacher Joseph Diletto has been charged
with sexual assault involving a 13-year-old male student.

A Grade 8 Toronto teacher has been charged with sexual assault involving a 13-year-old male student.

The Toronto District School Board said the teacher at Hollycrest Middle School on Renforth Dr. and has been put on home assignment while the case makes its way through the courts.

“This isn’t a disciplinary action,” said TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird. “When an allegation of a serious nature comes forward that staff member goes home pending the out come of an investigation.”

Joseph Diletto, 34, of Mississauga, faces three charges including, sexual interference, sexual exploitation, and sexual assault.

He appeared in court Thursday where he was released on bail.

Police said they are looking for more victims.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-2200 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477.

Source:

Toronto teacher charged with sexual assault involving student

H/T to Socialist Studies

That Unobtrusive "Donate Button"

Dear Readers,

I would like to draw your attention to the Donate Button on my side bar. It looks like this:

That's because it hasn't received a lot of attention from my readers. Actually, no attention. You see, there's somebody who likes to have the rent and bills paid. She's noticed that the time I spend posting here hasn't contributed to her likes. Let me introduce her to you:

Nice looking? Well, she's married. To me. And she has expectations.

As a married man, with a son and nieces and nephews -- gosh I'm a grand-uncle now -- I've grown alert to, even alarmed about, developments in my community and culture that threaten our families. That's why I watch for them and post items exposing them here. Neighborhood watch. Sorta reprises my training as a reconnaissance squad commander in the armed forces. Get critical information back to HQ. Eyes and ears of the battalion.

So, you can help keep me in the fight by clicking that Donate Button. And get the Missus off my tail.

Writing from Nineveh,

Jonah

St. Petersburg court rules Russian gay advocacy group is a ‘foreign agent’

Citing the Russian laws against homosexual propaganda, and rules governing NGOs that receive foreign funding, a St. Petersburg court has ruled that the Russian LGBT advocacy group called Vykhod (Coming Out) must register itself as a "foreign agent."

The group is a member of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) located in Geneva, Switzerland, and is linked with the LGBT Network based in Scotland.

According to Vykhod's Facebook page, Judge Naidyonova of the Vasileostrovsky District Court of St Petersburg ruled the group is a foreign agent because it is "engaged in political activities on behalf of foreign countries," and is in violation of the laws against homosexual propaganda because its activities and publications discriminate against “persons with traditional sexual orientation.”

Legislation passed in November 2013 states that a Russian NGO that receives any funding from abroad and is involved in political activities is to register as a “foreign agent.”  (more...)

St. Petersburg court rules Russian gay advocacy group is a ‘foreign agent’

Jacques Tremblay, racy teen novel author, quits teaching after backlash

The former head of discipline for Ontario teachers, who also taught high school in Kingston, Ont., has officially resigned from teaching after co-authoring a sexually infused novel for teens in 2008.

Jacques Tremblay co-authored the 350-page novel, The Sexteens and the Fake Goddess, with his wife and son, which was published by the family's company Glowing Shadow Productions.

The novel tells the story of two Grade 9 students who rely on "cleverness and sex appeal" to confront authority figures, according to its description on bookselling website Amazon.com.

The book contains multiple descriptions of teenaged girls' breasts and buttocks, as well as scenes of stripping, bondage and sexual assault. Its cover also features a topless teenage boy and girl.

In Oct. 2011, Tremblay stepped down from his position as chairman of the Ontario College of Teachers' discipline committee and resigned from his elected membership on the College's governing council. That came after media reports revealed he co-authored the novel.  (more...)

Jacques Tremblay, racy teen novel author, quits teaching after backlash

Cyril Smith and the indelible shame of the Liberal Party

L to r: David Steel, Cyril Smith and Jeremy Thorpe

Seventy years ago, Sir Winston Churchill complained of ‘the persistent freemasonry of the House of Commons’ — a cynical readiness among MPs to protect their own. The Cyril Smith cover-up shows this freemasonry is still very much in evidence.

One of the most telling insights into why Smith’s political colleagues turned a blind eye to his abuse was given by Michael Meadowcroft, the former Liberal MP for Leeds West.

He acknowledged he’d heard rumours that Cyril ‘liked boys’, but said blandly: ‘I don’t think we did much about it. Maybe we should have done at the time, but we didn’t.

‘Essentially, as long as a colleague turns up and votes the right way, we don’t really do much about their own problems.’

This chilling confession, on Channel 4’s Dispatches spoke volumes about the rotten culture within politics. But so did an incident when the interview was over, while a cameraman was filming shots of Westminster as background for the programme.

A former Tory Cabinet minister from the Eighties walked up and asked what the film was for. When he was told, he shook his head and said: ‘We all knew, you know.’  (more...)

Cyril Smith and the indelible shame of the Liberal Party

The end is not in sight:

Women's fury as Lib Dems clear Lord Rennard: Former president returns to Lords despite claims he groped series of activists

The Marxists say it's capitalism's fault:

The rich protect their own: scandal cover-up exposes rottenness of the British Establishment

AS HIGHER ED IMPLODES, COLLEGE LEADERS ACCUSE PEERS OF DERELICTION OF DUTY

As higher education faces a crisis of epic proportions, a group of respected campus leaders from across the nation have called on their peers to proactively address the many issues plaguing universities today, saying in a detailed report that “the failure of higher education governance” has helped create the current debacle.

Problems cited in the report include: a lack of a return-on-investment with college degrees; a tenure system that “adds to cost and compromises quality”; political correctness run amok, “undermining the free exchange of ideas”; never-ending collegiate athletic scandals and binge drinking woes; studies that find grads do not leave college prepared for the real world; curriculum requirements that leave students with a “lack a fundamental understanding of their history and heritage”; tuitions that continue to soar far above inflation; and student debt that today tops $1 trillion.

Ultimately, its authors argue, the buck stops with college trustees, who need to take seriously their oversight roles.

“Too many have seen their role narrowly defined as boosters, cheerleaders, and donors,” states the report, titled Governance for a New Era: A Blueprint for Higher Education Trustees. “They should ask the questions that need to be asked and exercise due diligence.”  (more...)

AS HIGHER ED IMPLODES, COLLEGE LEADERS ACCUSE PEERS OF DERELICTION OF DUTY

Don't Lose Sight of Children's Rights at the US-Mexico Border

Much press coverage has been devoted to the fact that between 50,000 and 60,000 persons below the age of eighteen have been intercepted at the US-Mexico border, in the absence of any parent or legal guardian.  Many of these are boys between 15 and 17 years of age. Children are coming primarily from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador due to one or more of the following reasons: 1) poverty 2) violence and 3) family reunification.

Children’s rights specialists who serve on the ICRI’s Academic Council have differing perspectives on the best course of action regarding “unaccompanied minors” who do not have legal rights to be in the United States. They agree, however, on a few important points: Family reunification must be a top priority and cannot be overlooked as people scramble to define the “best interests of the child.” Moreover, decision-makers should be aware of past history when child refugees had difficult circumstances that were compounded, in fact, when custody was hastily transferred to non-parents. Legal consistency vis-a-vis children is crucial; haphazard and inconsistent enforcement of immigration law does violence to children’s rights to their natural parents and their origins.  (more...)

Don't Lose Sight of Children's Rights at the US-Mexico Border

Fordham Professor Criticizes Bishops, Accepts Award from LCWR

On Friday, August 15, professor of theology at Fordham University, Sister Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, received the Outstanding Leadership award from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), and in her acceptance speech made several remarks criticizing members of the Church hierarchy.

The acceptance speech began with thanks and several acknowledgments, including an acknowledgement to Johnson’s general superior Sister John Raymond McGann, who in a letter told her, according to Johnson, “Don’t strive to be so orthodox and safe that you sell short the ministry of the theologian and lose your way.” According to the speech, the letter was written to encourage her to “find joy in the cross of criticism” when “some bishops were not happy with an article [she] had written.”  (more...)

Fordham Professor Criticizes Bishops, Accepts Award from LCWR

Related:

The LCWR Doubles Down on Dissent

Key to Jihadi Terror Campaign Revealed at The Remnant Website

It should be worthwhile to note that the very Islamic militants who are killling Christians have been trained, armed and funded by the West, specifically America to achieve its own ends in the Middle East.

This is why the U.S. and the U.N. largely sit back and do nothing. The radicalised Muslims are useful idiots in the cause of Western goals, specifically America's. As crazy as it is for many people to accept, the U.S. or rather the Washington cabal of warmongers specifically wants and desires this state of affairs in order to maintain their grip on the monetary system and prevent trade and a shift into using currencies other than the U.S. dollar or other banking systems. Saddam Hussein, Assad and others were all planning to shift away from the U.S. currency for trade in oil for bartering for other goods or using other currencies or using gold. So they had to be taken out. And if that means the U.S. must raise and install Jihadists to power to protect their interests and Christian lives must be sacrificed for the almighty fiat Dollar, then so be it.

Don't look for the U.S. or the U.N. for help. The U.S. wants this state of affairs to control the world, and the other U.N. vassal states of America will do whatever Washington tells them.

Russia as well has much to gain from seeking stability in the Middle East, because it's precisely this stability that benefits them as more nations want to break free of American control and look to other alternatives such as that of the BRICS. And why not?

If Russia is willing to do right and try to establish actual peace and safety for Christians and the Middle East, then surely Russia deserves the obvious benefits from the productivity that comes from peaceful relations and stability and the benefits from nations freely moving away from the funny money games and market manipulation of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the IMF.

This is a big piece of the puzzle many fail to see when wondering about the state of affairs that are currently destroying and persecuting our brothers and sisters in Iraq and Syria.

Source -- Jonathan D'Souza's comment:

Islam, the Pope, and the End of Christianity in the Middle East Featured

Hockey coach Kelly Jones gets 8 1/2 years for abusing children

A victim professed his love for his abuser in court Monday before the disgraced coach and Scout leader was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for sexually assaulting 11 children between 1971 and 1997.

In an unusual move, victim Robin McMillan read a second victim impact statement before Kelly Jones, 58, was given a prison sentence that amounts to eight years behind bars after he was given credit for time served.

McMillan told court Monday about what he described as a loving relationship with his abuser, which was something he said took a very long time to admit.

“I was only 10 years old but make no mistake I loved him very much. I love him still,” said McMillan, who is one of three victims who had the publication ban on their names removed. “That love was and is very real. I know how hard that is to hear.”

Despite his love for Jones, McMillan said the court proceedings forced him to re-live the “toxic” experiences, some of which he had not yet faced. McMillan also called the abuse he suffered and its aftermath “horrific,” but said he has forgiven Jones.  (more...)

Hockey coach Kelly Jones gets 8 1/2 years for abusing children

Neo-Catholics Caught in Big Lie: Stretching the truth past the breaking point

The girl’s blue-check dress is dirty and disheveled. She is very young but it is difficult to guess her age. She has no face. Her head is gone.

You might have seen this image in the past week, shared as it has been countless times on social media via websites keen to draw attention to the unfolding threat from Islamic State militants in northern Syria and Iraq. “A distraught father in Syria holds the lifeless body of his decapitated daughter, executed by militants because she was of a Christian family,” recounts one of those sites, Catholic Online. “All humanity owes a debt to this baby girl, to find her murderers and bring them to justice, dead or alive.”

Perhaps what we also owe is the decency to accurately relate the circumstances of her killing. A year ago her image was circulated as being of a Christian girl beheaded by members of the Free Syrian Army, a group distinct from and in conflict with the IS, and the man holding the girl’s tiny body was not her “distraught father” but a “fanatic” displaying his “trophy”. Two years ago the dead girl was identified as two-year-old Fatima Meghlaj, a victim of the Syrian military’s bombardment of the town of Kafr Owaid.

Regardless, the image has been used hundreds of times as evidence IS militants have begun the systematic beheading of Christian children in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The sole source for these reports is Mark Arabo, an Iraqi-born American citizen living in San Diego who acts as a spokesperson for Chaldean Christians. “The world hasn't seen an evil like this for a generation,” he told CNN interviewer Jonathan Mann on August 6. “There's actually a park in Mosul that they've actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick."  (more...)

Neo-Catholics Caught in Big Lie: Stretching the truth past the breaking point

So what about those neo-caths:

Traditional Catholicism and the Revival of the Neo-Catholic Nomenklatura