Around the Blogosphere

"Pills or dinner?" was the subject heading of Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards' email alert yesterday.

The premise is ridiculous: that due to rising prices of artificial female steroids, i.e., birth control pills, college nyphomaniacs are being forced to choose between illicit sex and eating.

Here's what happened. Legislators passed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 to save $40 billion over 5 years. A consequence, according to U.S. News & World Report:

A quirk in a new federal law, designed to save taxpayers money on Medicaid reimbursements for drugs, has effectively persuaded pharmaceutical companies to stop selling their products to these [university] pharmacies at deeply discounted rates. (If companies continue to offer such discounts, the law stipulates, they will also receive lower payments from Medicaid.)
Shock: the government isn't buying the whining. In response to one request to restore the loophole, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid wrote, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

We believe that there are already programs in place by which manufacturers can continue to make available drugs to the indigent and underinsured ...

Absolutely true. Read more from Jill Stanek.


The Last Secret of Fatima is a new book by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State that is mainly a discussion of his three visits with Carmelite nun and seer Sister Lúcia of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart. This book will be coming out on May 6th.

Not many books get an introduction written by Pope Benedict XVI, but this one does. The Last Secret of Fatima delves into the story of Fatima, the three secrets, and the various controversies that surround them - especially the third secret. Though Fatima is not the only focus of this book. The book is actually an interview by an American Adrian Walker a theologian living in Europe and who was also the translator for the English version of Pope Benedict's XVI. In some ways this book is similar to the book length interviews by Peter Seeward of then-Cardinal Ratzinger, except much more focused on one topic. Read the rest of this great review by The Curt Jester.


Last Saturday after Confession, Joey and I visited Pauline Books and Media as we sometimes do. We went looking for a movie to add to our growing Catholic movie collection. We didn't expect to be greeted by a new sister there who greeted Joey with "Have you thought about being a priest"? That opening line led to an interesting conversation with Sister Beatrice.

She asked me if I was familiar with Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan of Vietnam. Of course, I answered in the affirmative. We talked about the impressive writings of Cardinal Van Thuan while he was in prison. We both agreed that when he described celebrating Holy Mass on the palm of his hand as the altar with the consecration of the tiny piece of bread and small yet miraculous wine he was able to get a hold of, was the most moving of his memoirs. If you aren't familiar with his writings, the above story can be found in Testimony of Hope. More from Esther at A Catholic Mom in Hawaii.

I wasn’t going to write about this because - while I know it gets a lot of Catholic blood running - I can’t get that excited about it.

But between some emails I’ve gotten from angry Catholic readers, confused (or smuppity) non-Catholic readers, and a few internet forum comments I’ve read that display both astounding anti-Catholic bigotry or a clear lack of understanding, I feel like I should. Here’s a can of worms I’d prefer not to open, but in doing so, I’ll stick to the Q&A style, since they reflect (or are directly taken from) my email.

For the uninitiated, there is a scandal of sorts brewing because former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani received Communion at the Yankee Stadium mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI. Note that Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy all took communion at the mass at National’s Stadium without all this brouhaha. The reason we’re hearing about Rudy is because Robert Novak, took NY’s Cardinal Egan and DC’s Archbishop Wuerl to task, publicly scolding them for the fact that these grown-up Catholics, Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy and Giuliani, communed. Read more at The Anchoress.