Marylanders will be able to vote against redefinition of marriage this Fall

Same-sex marriage question will be on Maryland ballot
Foes gather enough petition signatures
By David Hill
-
The Washington Times

Updated: 7:58 p.m. on Thursday, June 7, 2012
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Senate President Mike Miller and Speaker of the House Michael Busch sign the Civil Marriage Protection Act into law at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Md., on Thursday, March 1, 2012. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times) ANNAPOLIS — Organizers of a petition against Maryland’s same-sex marriage law have collected enough valid voter signatures to send the law to a November referendum, state election officials said Thursday.

The state Board of Elections announced that local elections boards have verified 70,039 signatures on the petition to force a statewide vote on the law — exceeding the 55,736 signatures that were required to be turned in by June 30.

The Maryland Marriage Alliance has led the petition effort against the law, which was passed in February by the General Assembly. The group says it submitted more than 122,000 signatures last week to the state.

“We’re ecstatic that Maryland’s citizens are guaranteed the opportunity to vote on such a critical issue,” said MMA Executive Director Derek McCoy, who added that the group will continue collecting signatures through the end of the month. “Multiple thousands of people across the state are energized by this issue and want to see it go to referendum.”

Local elections boards must still count the nearly 50,000 remaining signatures on the petition.

And they must start their review of the 28,000 signatures turned in by a group hoping to force a referendum on the state’s new congressional district map.

State officials say the petitions workload is virtually unprecedented in a state that has had just one successful referendum effort in the past 20 years, but that elections officials are up to the challenge.

“There’s no question that it’s a lot of work and it will mean extra hours,” said Mary Cramer Wagner, director of the state Board of Elections’ voter registration division. “But the [local boards] will get it done.”

Elections officials must count all of the marriage signatures by June 18 and all of the congressional redistricting signatures by June 20.

While the marriage petition easily passed the June 30 threshold, organizers of the redistricting petition hope they met the preliminary requirement of having submitted 18,579 signatures — one-third of the June 30 requirement — by May 31.

The signatures must be sorted by county before they are submitted, with no sheet containing voters from more than one local jurisdiction.

The local boards are then responsible for verifying all signatures from their jurisdiction and must do so within 20 days of when the signatures were first submitted to the state.

While the task appears daunting, Ms. Wagner said local boards are right on schedule, having processed about 74,000 signatures by Thursday.

She said workers have had to overcome the fact that some colleagues are away for an annual conference with some Anne Arundel County Board of Elections employees, even by working over the past weekend.

Harold Ruston, manager of election operations for the Prince George’s County Board of Elections, estimated that 10 to 15 employees have had to review more than 10,000 signatures.

He said a few employees are working an extra hour or two each day and are making good progress.

“We’re working on them just fine,” he said. “We have 20 days to do it and we fully expect to get them done.”

The process might sound tedious but elections officials give the petitions far more than a casual glance, typically throwing out thousands of signatures due to minor mistakes and omissions.

All signatures must come from registered voters and be accompanied by the signing date as well as the signer’s full name, permanent address and date of birth as they appear on voter records.

Signatures are often voided for reasons such as an outdated address, omitted signing date, forgotten middle initial or the use of a nickname rather than birth name.

Full story here.

Test of Fire: Election 2012. Will Jesus be Lord for you in the voting booth?

Our Catholic Faith must influence all our decisions, including the ones we make in the voting booth. We may never do evil that good may come of it, thus we may never by voting cooperate in a moral evil such as support for abortion, the redefinition of marriage,or any of the five "non-negotiables" as listed below.



THE FIVE NON-NEGOTIABLE ISSUES

These five issues are called non-negotiable because they concern actions that are always morally wrong and must never be promoted by the law. It is a serious sin to endorse or promote any of these actions, and no candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any of the five non-negotiables.

1. Abortion

The Church teaches that, regarding a law permitting abortions, it is "never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or to vote for it" (EV 73). Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide.

The child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child's, who should not suffer death for others' sins.

2. Euthanasia

Often disguised by the name "mercy killing," euthanasia also is a form of homicide. No one has a right to take his own life (suicide), and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.

In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include doing something intrinsically evil to another person (cf. EV 73).

3. Fetal Stem Cell Research

Human embryos are human beings. "Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo" (CRF 4b).

Recent scientific advances show that any medical cure that might arise from experimentation on fetal stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there no longer is a medical argument in favor of using fetal stem cells.

4. Human Cloning

"Attempts . . . for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through 'twin fission,' cloning, or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union" (RHL I:6).

Human cloning also ends up being a form of homicide because the "rejected" or "unsuccessful" clones are destroyed, yet each clone is a human being.

5. Homosexual "Marriage"

True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recognition of any other form of "marriage" undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in what is an objectively immoral arrangement.

"When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral" (UHP 10).

Celebrate and defend religious freedom in Washington, DC, on Sunday, June 24

Event Details

Take part in the Fortnight for Freedom by joining over 4,000 faithful from the Archdiocese of Washington for a Celebration of Freedom!

The event will take place at the George Washington University’s Smith Center at

4pm on Sunday, June 24, 2012.

The afternoon will include a rally of music and videos tracing the history of religious liberty

while celebrating our Catholic experience!

Cardinal Wuerl will invite attendees to join in him prayer and will conclude the event with Benediction.


Bus transportation is available from the following parishes in Southern Maryland:

Jesus the Good Shepherd Church (1601 W. Mount Harmony Road, Owings)

Saint Peter Church (3320 St. Peter's Drive, Waldorf)

Saint Aloysius Church (22800 Washington Street, Leonardtown)

Garden up!

Zucchini and squash are yielding and I tasted the first peas today.
Sunflowers are blooming.

Benedict XVI: Do not exclude contemplation, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

EUCHARISTIC COMMUNION AND CONTEMPLATION ARE INSEPARABLE

Vatican City, 8 June 2012 (VIS) - At 7 p.m. today, Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in the basilica of St. John Lateran, then led a Eucharistic procession along Via Merulana to the basilica of St. Mary Major.

During the liturgical celebration, the Pope pronounced a homily in which he focused on the sacredness of the Eucharist, and in particular on the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

"A unilateral interpretation of Vatican Council II has penalised this dimension", the Holy Father explained, "effectively limiting the Eucharist to the moment of celebrating Mass. It is, of course, very important to recognise the importance of celebration, in which the Lord calls His people, bringing them together around the table of the Word and Bread of life, nourishing them and uniting them to Himself in the sacrificial offering. This interpretation of the liturgical gathering, in which the Lord works and achieves His mystery of communion, naturally retains all its validity, but a rightful balance must be restored. ... By concentrating our relationship with the Eucharistic Christ only on Mass we run the risk that the rest of time and space is emptied of His presence. Thus our perception of Jesus' constant, real and close presence among us and with us is diminished".

"It is a mistake to establish a contrast between celebration and adoration, as if they were in competition with one another. The opposite is true. The cult of the Blessed Sacrament represents the spiritual 'environment' within which the community can celebrate the Eucharist correctly and truthfully. Only if preceded, accompanied and followed by this interior attitude of faith and adoration, can liturgical activity express its full meaning and value", the Pope said.

He then went on to explain that, at the moment of adoration, we are all at the same level, "on our knees before the Sacrament of Love. The common and ministerial priesthood come together in the cult of the Eucharist. ... By remaining together in silence before the Lord, present in His Sacrament, we have one of the most authentic experiences of being Church, one that is complementary to our celebration of the Eucharist. ... Communion and contemplation cannot be separated, they go together", and if contemplation is lacking "even sacramental communion can become a superficial gesture on our part".

Turning then to consider the sacredness of the Eucharist, Benedict XVI noted that here too, in the recent past, there has been "some misunderstanding of the authentic message of Holy Scripture. The Christian novelty of worship has been influenced by a certain secularist mentality of the 1960s and 1970s. It is true, and it remains valid, that the centre of worship is no longer in the ancient rites and sacrifices, but in Christ Himself, His person, His life, His Paschal Mystery. Yet this fundamental novelty must not lead us to conclude that the sacred no longer exists".

Christ "did not abolish the sacred but brought it to fulfilment, inaugurating a new worship which is entirely spiritual but which nonetheless, as long as our journey in time continues, still uses signs and rites. These will only fall into disuse at the end, in the celestial Jerusalem where there will be no temple".

Moreover, the Holy Father went on, "the sacred has an educational function. Its disappearance inevitably impoverishes culture, and especially the formation of the new generations. ... Our Father God ... sent His Son into the world, not to abolish the sacred but to bring it to fulfilment. At the culmination of this mission, at the Last Supper, Jesus established the Sacrament of His Body and His Blood, the Memorial of His Paschal Sacrifice. By doing so he put Himself in the place of the ancient sacrifices, but He did so in the context of a rite, which he ordered the Apostles to perpetuate as a supreme sign of the true sacrifice, which is Him. With this faith, ... day after day we celebrate the Eucharistic Mystery, and adore it as the centre of our lives and the heart of the world".

Benedict Corpus Christi 2012

"Adoremus in aeternum sanctissimum Sacramentum."

The altar is prepared with lilies grown in the church garden

Ministers seated during the chanting of the Gloria

Reverencing the altar with a genuflection at the predella

Incensation

The deacon proclaims the Gospel Incensation of the priest after the Gospel

The subdeacon delivers the paten

In illo tempore: Dixit Iesus turbis Iudaeorum: Caro mea, vere est cibus: et sanguis meus, vere est potus. Iohn 6:56-59 The elevation of the chalice at the consecration of the Precious Blood

Exposition of the Eucharist in the monstrance for carrying the Lord in procession The procession begins Priests, seminarians, families and young people celebrated the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in union with the Holy Father in Rome and Catholics around the world at the parish of Saint Francis de Sales in Benedict, Maryland.
The procession returns to the church The customary procession of Corpus Christi concludes with Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament as the people both worship the Lord's Eucharistic Presence under the sign of bread and receive His blessing Prospective and current college seminarians of the Archdiocese of Washington participated Father Reutemann assisted as deacon and Greg DeStefano as subdeacon

With prayerful gratitude to MC George Walter, SFDS servers Sid Marcus, Walt and Caleb Shorts, ADW college seminarians Kevin Kayser and Greg DeStefano, prospective ADW college seminarian Greg Portner, prospective Pittsburgh college seminarian Jonathan Teeney, Jacob Zeitler, organist Bill Gilligan and cantor Steve Karsteter.

"Laudate Dominum omnes gentes: laudate eum omnes populi."

We Are Catholic

The Catholic Church is my home, and it is a beautiful place of absolute truth. Unfortunately the world has tried to define it in ways that are far from the truth. I was inspired to make this video in an effort to reach out to some truth seeking teens who are trying answer the question of what it means to be Cathttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifholic.

I don't expect this to appeal to all, but hopefully it will grab some of you and help you realize what being Catholic is... "all about."




Uploaded by DefendUsInBattleBlog on Aug 28, 2011