The always insightful Sandro Magister in Rome recently wrote the on the contradiction of what the media thinks regarding our Holy Father versus the real effect of this gentle and holy man on the Church he leads:

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Despite being rocked by criticism, this pope continues to enjoy the trust of the masses. His trip to Africa and a survey in Italy prove this. The reason is that he speaks of God to a humanity in search of direction.

On the one hand, the almost exuberant hospitality and the joy of a festive Africa. In the pope, they saw the personification of the fact that we are all children of God and his family. This family exists, and we, with all of our limitations, are in this family, and God is with us.

"On the other hand, there was the spirit of recollection at the liturgies, the strong sense of the sacred: in the liturgies, there was no self-representation of groups, no self-promotion, but the presence of the sacred, of God himself. Even the movements, the dances, were always respectful and cognizant of the divine presence."

Popularity and presence of God. The interweaving of these two elements is the secret of Joseph Ratzinger's pontificate.

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That Benedict XVI is a popular pope might seem to be contradicted by the storm of hostile criticism rained down on him daily by the media all over the world. Over the past month, these criticisms have reached an unprecedented crescendo. Even official government representatives no longer hesitate to accuse the pope.

But the impression gathered from looking at the big numbers is different. On his voyages, Benedict XVI has always demonstrated levels of popularity beyond expectations. Not only in Africa, but also in difficult venues like the United States or France. In Rome, at the Angelus on Sunday at noon, St. Peter's Square is more packed, every time, than during the years of John Paul II.

This does not mean that these same crowds consistently accept and practice the teachings of the pope and of the Church. Countless surveys show that on marriage, sexuality, abortion, euthanasia, contraception, the views of a large number of people are more or less distant from the Catholic magisterium.

At the same time, however, many of these same people demonstrate a deeply rooted respect for the figure of the pope and the authority of the Church.

Italy is a case in point. On March 25, in "la Repubblica" – the leading progressive newspaper, and very caustic in criticizing Benedict XVI – the sociologist Ilvo Diamanti provided yet another confirmation of the high levels of confidence that Italians continue to show toward the Church and the pope, in spite of widespread disagreement on various points of their teaching.

For example, when asked to say whether they are for or against the pope's statement that condoms "do not resolve the problem of AIDS, but aggravate it," three out of four say they are against.

But the same respondents, when asked whether they trust the Church, respond "greatly" or "very much," to the tune of 58.1 percent. And confidence in Benedict XVI is also very high, at 54.9 percent.

Not only that. From the same survey, it emerges that trust in the Church and in Benedict XVI has not fallen, but has risen since a year ago.

This is how professor Diamanti explains the apparent contrast:

"The Church and the pope speak out on sensitive topics of public and private ethics in an open and direct way. They offer answers that are debatable, and are often debated, contested by the left or by the right. Nonetheless, they offer certainty to an unsure society, in search of points of reference and values. For this reason, 8 out of 10 Italians, among the non-practicers, consider it important to give their children a Catholic education, and enroll them in the hour of religious instruction. For this reason, a very large majority of families, close to 90 percent, choose to direct 0.8 percent of their income taxes to the Catholic Church."

And it is for this same reason – one might add – that Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has not joined in the recent chorus of criticisms against the pope from representatives of France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, etc. On the contrary, he has taken the opposite approach.

On March 21, he said that the Church must be respected, and that its freedom of speech and action must be defended "even when one finds it proclaiming principles and concepts that are difficult and unpopular, far from the fashionable opinions." With this, Berlusconi simply expressed the view shared by many Italians.

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More here.

Well, when you can't get everthing you want, you start whining loudly and complaining that your 'choice' is the more honorable of two divergent paths.

Tim Kaine, the Virginia governor and Obama’s hand-picked choice as the head of the Democratic National Committee, infuriated abortion-rights groups Monday by signing legislation that gives abortion foes a long-sought victory.

Kaine brushed off intense lobbying by abortion rights supporters in Richmond to sign a bill that allows Virginia motorists to advertise their anti-abortion views by sporting “Choose Life” specialty license plates. …

“It is surprising that Governor Kaine would do this, but it’s all the more surprising that he would do it as chair of the DNC,” said Paulette McElwain, the president of the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood.

McElwain exchanged numerous calls with the governor’s office over the license plates and organized a grass roots effort that logged more than 2,000 calls to the governor’s staff.

“We provided him with abundant information,” she said. “We’re terribly disappointed that he decided to sign it.”

In Washington, NARAL/Pro-Choice America channeled more than 17,000 emails and 200 calls to the DNC urging Kaine to veto the bill.

“It is unfortunate that, even after receiving thousands of messages from Virginians and pro-choice activists across the country, Gov. Kaine has opted to sign a bill that advances a divisive political ideology at the expense of women’s health,” NARAL/Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan said in a statement.

The license plate doesn’t say, “Stop abortion” or “Make women sick”. It says “Choose Life”, and shows a simple drawing of the faces of two children. How is that a “divisive political ideology”? Successful gestation is an ideology?

More to the point, why is the phrase “Choose Life” such a threat to NARAL and Planned Parenthood? At least for the latter, convincing fewer women to have abortions cuts into their revenue stream. They’re going to lose money if women “choose life” and they’ll get to kill fewer fetuses. You do the math. $3-5,000. per dead baby. 1 million dead a year. How much is going into the coffers of the likes of PP, NARAL, Dr Tiller? This butcher's bill is a big revenue stream. THAT is what is driving this. Not anything else. There is Real Money (tm) to be made in dead children.

And isn’t more than a little ironic that NARAL/Pro-Choice America has such a heated reaction to the phrase “choose life“?

Many states now have specialty license plate programs that allow various groups to promote their mission. Kaine noted when he signed off on the Choose Life plate that Planned Parenthood could come up with its own, but that he had little choice but to approve the request on his desk. All they need is 350 people to prepay a $25 fee for a plate that says, “Kill your fetus,” and they’re good to go.

Kaine himself is a moderately pro-life politician, alhough he promised not to actually act on it as Governor. The pro-abortion lobby feels betrayed by a license plate. Nothing proves their radical absolutism in pursuit of abortion better than this

I'm thinking not. But, what do I know? In my opinion, Notre Dame is saying with this invitation that Obama’s 100 percent support for policies and programs that bring death to more than a million unborn children every year is no disqualification to being honored by a university dedicated to Our Lady who carried to term the Son of God.

Obama knows exactly what he’s doing. He may be completely inept at the duties of the Presidency, not to mention his new job as CEO of GM and AIG, but he is an extremely canny demagogue and politician. The selection of Biden was meant as a taunt to the Catholic Church, and unfortunately, because of a lack of unified and immediate response from the bishops, he got away with it. His technique is to put the Church in an increasingly untenable position, and he is succeeding quite well at this. Unfortunately, he gets a fair amount of help from certain people inside the Church. That an estimated 60% of the bishops probably voted for this hack...well, you reap what you sow.

Anyway, the always erudite Pat Buchanan has weighed in on the ongoing scandal of a nominally "Catholic" university inviting the most visible proponent of the Culture of Death in history, over at Townhall.com:
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By inviting Barack Obama to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins has polarized the Catholic community nationwide -- and raised a question. What does it mean to be a Catholic university in post-Christian America?

Are there truths about faith and morality that are closed to debate at Notre Dame? Or is Notre Dame like London's Hyde Park, where all ideas and all advocates get a hearing?

To Catholics, abortion is the killing of an unborn child, a premeditated breach of God's Commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill." The case is closed for all time. Any who participate in an abortion are excommunicated. Catholic politicians from Nancy Pelosi to Joe Biden who support a "woman's right to choose" have been denounced from pulpits and denied Communion.

Obama, however, is the most pro-abortion president ever. On his third day in office, by executive order, he repealed the Bush prohibition against using tax dollars to fund agencies abroad that perform abortions.

He supports partial-birth abortion, where a baby's soft skull is sliced open with scissors in the birth canal and its brains sucked out to ease its passage, a procedure Sen. Pat Moynihan said "comes as close to infanticide as anything I have seen in our judiciary."

In the Illinois legislature, Obama helped block the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, a bill to save the lives of infant survivors of abortion. He voted to allow doctors and nurses to let these tiny babies die of neglect and be tossed out with the medical waste.

Barack is committed to signing the Freedom of Choice Act, which would repeal every federal and state restriction on abortion. He has smoothed the path for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Notre Dame, a university that teaches that all innocent human life is sacred, will thus honor a leader determined to ensure that a woman's right to destroy her unborn child in the womb remains unrestricted.

There is thus a direct clash between what Notre Dame professes to stand for and what Notre Dame is doing.
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Go to the link above for more. You owe it to the unborn generation that will die because of this demonic activity.

You can't make these things up.
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[CNA] During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay.

Mrs. Clinton was received on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. by the rector of the Basilica, Msgr. Diego Monroy.

Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.

After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”

Clinton then told Msgr. Monroy that she had previously visited the old Basilica in 1979, when the new one was still under construction.

After placing a bouquet of white flowers by the image, Mrs. Clinton went to the quemador –the open air area at the Basilica where the faithful light candles- and lit a green candle.

Leaving the basilica half an hour later, Mrs. Clinton told some of the Mexicans gathered outside to greet her, “you have a marvelous virgin!”

This evening Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to receive the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America -- the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization's founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston, Texas.

This is the Secretary of State we are talking about. Wars have been started over less. As Catholics we can laugh off such and ill informed remark, other peoples are not so understanding.

Cardinal DiNardo has joined a number of bishops concerning Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama, writing in his pastoral newsletter this weekend, according to Catholic News Agency:

"I find the invitation very disappointing. Though I can understand the desire by a university to have the prestige of a commencement address by the President of the United States, the fundamental moral issue of the inestimable worth of the human person from conception to natural death is a principle that soaks all our lives as Catholics, and all our efforts at formation, especially education at Catholic places of higher learning."

The President has made clear by word and deed that he will promote abortion and will remove even those limited sanctions that control this act of violence against the human person.

The Bishops of the United States published a document a few years ago asking all Catholic universities to avoid giving a platform or an award to those politicians or public figures who promote the taking of unborn human life.

Even given the dignity of Office of the President, this offer is still providing a platform and an award for a public figure who has been candid on his pro-abortion views.

Particularly troubling is the Honorary Law Degree since it recognizes that the person is a 'Teacher,' in this case of the Law. I think that this decision requires charitable but vigorous critique."

The pressure seems to be mounting. Currently, there are over 212,000 signatures at NotreDameScandal.com. You haven't signed yet? Get over there and DO IT.