Magdaleno

MEXICO AND ARABS

Once I was attending a conference in El Paso Texas which is just across form Juarez, Mexico where I happened to have many relatives whom I visited almost every night. When you cross the border they randomly search cars for contraband. But my car was being searched each and every time. Sending the men and dogs through my car.
One night I asked the guard…

WHY IS MY CAR ALWAYS BEEN SEARCHED

WELL he replied… YOU ARE AN ARAB AND WE ARE INSTRUCTED TO SEARCH THE VEHICLES OF ALL ARABS (and this was in the early 80’s) WE KNOW THAT YOU ALL ARE INVOLVED WITH ARMS

BUT I AM A CHICANO… I protested…

YA BUT YOU FIT THE PROFILE AND YOU LOOK ARAB SO WE HAVE TO STOP YOU…

I became an Arab in their eyes and no conjugation of Spanish verbs or history would get me out of that bind… so I enjoyed being Arab and often praised Allah in the presence of those who searched my auto…

Suitcases in Detroit.

I was at a major convention in Detroit with the Chair of the Democratic National Committee and in those days I was his special assistant. He had asked me to go down and find our contracted limo driver so that when he came down we could leave immediately for the next meeting across town. He promised to come down in ten minutes… From experience I knew this would not happen knowing the calls he had to make and the complicated conversations that would follow.

I went down to the driveway and located our limo and told the driver to be on the lookout for my signal so that he could then bring our limo to the head of long line of limos which were either delivering or waiting to pick up passengers.

There I was a brown man in a dark suit.. I noticed that the luggage traffic was extra heavy and that there were not enough bell men to handle it all. Some customer seeing me in my black suit assumed that I was a bell man… I whistled to the Bell Captain an African American who was close and when he looked at me I yelled

My brother what should I do …should I take his bags?

HEY WE NEED THE HELP AND GO AHEAD AND DO IT.

I soon was busy taking bags to the registration desk and picking up others and taking them to waiting limousines and getting good tips…

About 40 minutes later the Chairman came down to the drive way looking for me and my limo. Well he found me with two bags under each arm.

WHATS GOING ON LENNIE he asked.

WELL… WHEN YOU GOT TIED UP … I GOT ANOTHER JOB… LET ME JUST TAKE THESE BAGS INTO THE LOBBY AND WE WILL BE ON OUR WAY…

By then I had earned over $200 in tips, made many travelers happy, relieved the bell men and had yet another experience of MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

NOW FOR MY VIEW OF THE NEWS

a.    Who reads AHORA
b.    Rope a Pope
c.    DPF annual dinner
d.    Juan an innocent man Speaks

Who reads the Teachings and Preaching’s of leno?

Every week I find individuals who I did not know who are reading my AHORA messages. I would invite you the reader to send a note to others about why you read my AHORAS and if you have shared these articles with others.
As you know you can invite you family and friends to get their own AHORA by signing up through the “mailing list” tab up on the banner.

The Cardinal and the 2004 Elections..And now he is the pope ..POPE BENEDICT XVI

Today the Vatican and the Catholic Church is again embroiled in the never ending examination of answered questions of the mishandling of sex abuse cases.

I first heard of the Cardinal when we were in the midst of the 2004 elections and had a candidate John Kerry a Catholic as presidential candidate. This was when the right wing church groups still had more power.

So the Bush campaign began lying about Kerry’s military record, and got the Catholic Church to get involved and used Cardinal Ratzinger to fuel the flames about who should or should not receive communion. Ratzinger’s memo on this issue I believe kept certain people from voting for Kerry and involved the church in an American election which is wrong. And the pope at that time should have clipped his wings .. I have attached a news article of years past to help jog your memories of the actions the Cardinal took.

The now Pope should be re-questioned about his politics, about elections and the abuse of children.

The then Cardinal while asking priests to refuse communion to those who are PRO CHOICE  then should have asked priests not to give communion to all those
a.    Involved with sexual abuse ..
b.    Those who promote and believe in the death penalty
c.    Anyone who promotes war and vengeance
d.    Those who take food, healthcare and protection from the hungry, the poor and jailed in favor of the rich and the powerful

Now this list could be expanded to some of the many moral lessons of the bible. If you want to promote the moral authority and involve the church in politics then you should push all of teachings.

Cardinal Ratzinger (known to some years ago as Cardinal Rottweiler) and now known as Pope Benedict is a very political animal who has let his politics guide him instead the heart and the teachings of the church.

Today I do not see the right wing church leaders from the 
Evangelical groups rushing to the defense of the Pope.. They used him and the church in the 2004 elections and now they have abandoned their old ally.

I would like an independent body .. To investigate the current scandal and find out who knew what, when did the know it and more importantly what action did they take.

Cardinal Ratzinger lays out principles on denying Communion, voting

By John Thavis

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In a recent memorandum, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger laid out the principles under which bishops or other ministers may deny Communion to Catholic politicians who consistently promote legal abortion.

At the same time, he said it is not necessarily sinful for Catholics to vote for politicians who support abortion, as long as they are voting for that candidate for other reasons.

Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent the six-point memorandum to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, who heads an episcopal task force on Catholic politicians. It was designed to offer guidance to the U.S. bishops when they discussed the Communion/abortion issue at their mid-June meeting near Denver.

The text of Cardinal Ratzinger’s memorandum was published online July 3 by the Italian magazine L’Espresso, and a Vatican official said it was authentic. But it apparently was accompanied by a cover letter that has not been published.

Cardinal McCarrick said in a statement July 6 that L’Espresso’s story was the result of an “incomplete and partial leak” that did not reflect Cardinal Ratzinger’s full advice to the U.S. bishops.

The cardinal said he would not release Cardinal Ratzinger’s “written materials” because the cardinal asked him not to.

”Through this continuing process, the Holy See has constantly emphasized it is up to our bishops’ conference to discuss and determine how best to apply the relevant principles and for individual bishops to make prudent pastoral judgments in our own circumstance,” Cardinal McCarrick said.

Cardinal Ratzinger’s comments on Catholic voters — in private communication briefly outlining principles for consideration rather than exploring them in depth — came at the end of the memorandum. It touched on an evolving issue that is important to many Catholics during the 2004 presidential election campaign: The presumptive Democratic candidate, John Kerry, is a Catholic who supports legal abortion.

Two U.S. bishops — Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis and Bishop Michael J. Sheridan of Colorado Springs — recently said that Catholics who knowingly vote for pro-abortion politicians would be committing a grave sin.

Cardinal Ratzinger’s note underlined the principles involved for the Catholic voter.

”A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia,” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote.

”When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons,” he said.

In other words, if a Catholic thinks a candidate’s positions on other issues outweigh the difference on abortion, a vote for that candidate would not be considered sinful.

On the question of Communion for Catholic politicians, Cardinal Ratzinger outlined a process of pastoral guidance and correction for politicians who consistently promote legal abortion and euthanasia. That process could extend to a warning against taking Communion, and in the case of “obstinate persistence” by the politician, the minister “must refuse to distribute” Communion, he said.

After discussing the issue in Colorado, U.S. bishops overwhelmingly passed a statement that sharply criticized Catholic politicians who support legal abortion. The bishops also said denying Communion to those politicians is a complex question involving “prudential judgment” in each case.

The report in L’Espresso and some other media have characterized that as a rejection of Cardinal Ratzinger’s advice. But Vatican sources said the Vatican was generally pleased with the U.S. bishops’ statement, and that Cardinal Ratzinger was not trying to dictate a policy to the bishops.

”It is right to leave a margin for prudential judgment in these cases,” said one Vatican source.

”Cardinal Ratzinger’s point was not that bishops have to use (denial of Communion) in every circumstance, but that there are principles that would allow for this to happen,” the source said.

In his memorandum, Cardinal Ratzinger began by noting that, for any Catholic, the practice of going to Communion simply because one attends Mass is “an abuse that must be corrected.”

He said that in judging their own worthiness to receive Communion Catholics should recognize that abortion and euthanasia are grave sins, and that it is never permitted to cooperate in them in a formal way.

Whatever the individual decides about his or her worthiness to receive Communion, sometimes the minister of Communion “may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone,” Cardinal Ratzinger said.

Citing church law, he said those cases include people whom the church has declared excommunicated, as well as those who show “obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.”

In the case of abortion or euthanasia, Cardinal Ratzinger said a Catholic politician manifests “formal cooperation” in those grave sins by “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws.”

In that case, the cardinal said, the politician’s pastor should “meet with him, instructing him about the church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.”

Cardinal Ratzinger then cited a principle of church law that is used to justify the denial of Communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

”When ‘these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible,’ and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the holy Eucharist, ‘the minister of holy Communion must refuse to distribute it,’” he said, quoting from a 2002 ruling on divorced-and-remarried Catholics issued by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

His apparent implication was that the same principle applies to Catholic politicians who consistently campaign for and vote for legal abortion or euthanasia: that, like Catholics who have divorced and remarried, the public nature of their situation makes possible an objective judgment on their unworthiness to receive Communion.


Cardinal Ratzinger said that denial of Communion in these circumstances is not, properly speaking, a sanction or penalty.

”Nor is the minister of holy Communion passing judgment on the person’s subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person’s public unworthiness to receive holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin,” he said.

The 2002 Vatican ruling on divorced Catholics has been a topic of discussion in Rome, in view of the Communion issue in the United States. Some canon law experts think it is more difficult to apply it in a categorical way to Catholic politicians on the abortion issue. They note that the politician’s situation may be much more complex than that of divorced Catholics who because of remarriage are considered to be living in a state of sin.

END
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Death Penalty Focus 18th Annual Dinner

Please share and ask our friends to attend or donate

Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Beverly Hilton Hotel
9876 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, California 90210
6:00 p.m. Reception • 7:15 p.m. Dinner and Program • Business Attire

For information, please contact Michael Teta Associates at 818-906-0240 or DPF@mtaevents.com.
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Witness to Innocence Speaker Featured at Portland April 14, 2010 Event

Submitted by trodello on Tue, 03/30/2010 – 02:30

It is hard for anyone to imagine spending seventeen years, eight months and one day on death row for a crime he did not commit.  That is the story that Juan Melendez-Colon will tell when he speaks on Wednesday April 14, 2010 7 PM, at the First Unitarian Church in downtown Portland. Mr. Melendez, one of 139 people exonerated for capital crimes they did not commit, will be the featured speaker at an event focused on the death penalty, sponsored by the Lewis & Clark Law School National Lawyers Guild.

Note: Juan is good a friend of Leno and an important voice you should go and listen.
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The Flowers

The spring flowers are coming out.. enjoy them .. take time to enjoy them and if possible share them with others..

My best
leno