Tag Archives: pro-life

IF YOU’RE CATHOLIC, DORITOS ARE NACHO CHIP…

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

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For the last several years, Frito-Lay, the company that owns Doritos, has sponsored the Crash the Super Bowl contest. Consumers are invited to create their own Doritos ads and at least one fan-made commercial is guaranteed to air during the Super Bowl. Over the years Doritos offered bonus prizes ranging from $400,000 to $1,000,000 making the Crash the Super Bowl contest the largest online video contest in the world.

During this year’s Super Bowl, a Crash the Super Bowl Doritos commercial aired that riled up both the pro-life and the pro-abortion factions.

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If you haven’t seen it, a mother is lying on an exam table looking at the ultrasound image of her baby while the baby’s father is standing alongside crunching on the contents of a bag of Doritos.

The next thing we see is the father waving a chip in front of the ultrasound image of the baby who, in turn, darts after the chip, eventually rocketing out of the womb in an attempt to grab the snack.

NARAL's Tweet during the commercial. Absurd.

NARAL’s Tweet during the commercial. Absurd.

NARAL (National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) disliked the ad because it “humanized the fetus.”

An absolutely absurd statement that merits no further discussion here.

What happened after the commercial aired was interesting, albeit not entirely surprising; the pro-life community felt validated, stories about the real baby in the ultrasound (the director used the ultra sound of his own son, Freddy), and a great and growing vocal show of support for Doritos emerged on Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and grassroots efforts of the faithful to show Doritos how much the pro-life contingent appreciates their pro-life stand.[insert sound effect of needle scratching across record here…]

While I am, indeed, very happy that a human fetus was shown on national television, during the most highly watched broadcast of the year, for what it, in fact, is–a living human being; and while I’m very happy to show support for any corporate entity that will, at least, not negate the humanity of a baby in the womb, I’m a tad apprehensive about crawling up on that “DORITOS: FRIEND OF THE FAITHFUL!” bandwagon.

Here’s why…

Pride in their chips…

EXHIBIT A:

Last year Doritos decided to jump on the LGBT bandwagon (while we’re talking about bandwagons) and it released limited-edition rainbow colored chips.

The company produced the chips in order to “celebrate and support the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the boldest, most colorful way possible.”

The Roy G. Biv chips were inspired by the gay pride flag and were only available to consumers who donated $10 to the It Gets Better Project.

What is the It Gets Better Project? In theory, the mission of the organization isn’t altogether horrible. It’s an organization that supports LGBT youth around the world. Basically, life as an LGBT youth is terribly difficult (which I’m sure it its) and the IGBP was formed “In response to a number of students taking their own lives after being bullied in school, they wanted to create a personal way for supporters everywhere to tell LGBT youth that, yes, it does indeed get better.” Unfortunately instead of leading these youth in a direction similar to that of the Catholic apostolate, Courage:

“The heart of Courage and EnCourage spirituality, based on the writings of Saint Francis de Sales and The Five Goals of Courage, is the belief that sanctity is possible in everyday life. Through the Courage Apostolate those persons experiencing same-sex attractions are encouraged to deepen their Christian discipleship through participation in the sacramental life of the Church, particularly through the frequent reception of the Eucharist and frequent confession, as well as through a regular prayer life, witness, counsel, service, and self-giving. By developing a dedicated prayer life and seeking meditative and prayerful union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we come to recognize our true identity as children of God, men and women in Christ, understanding and experiencing the unconditional love of God, thus conforming ourselves to His will for our lives. Fr. Harvey recognized this transformation as a process requiring great patience and perseverance, where “white-knuckled chastity” will give way to “interior chastity of the heart,” when a soul truly seeks wholeness and holiness in Christ.”

the IGBP’s mission is to be, “a place where young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender can see how love and happiness can be a reality in their future. It’s a place where our straight allies can visit and support their friends and family members.”

EXHIBIT B:

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In 2010 a filmmaker from Pennsylvania produced a Crash the Super Bowl entry that featured the products Doritos and Pepsi Max. The commercial was entitled “Feed Your Flock” and the story featured an older man in a Roman collar and a younger man in a Roman collar discussing how they might pay all of their invoices and get the church out of debt. 

Wait a minute! Divine intervention! We’ll have a “Free Doritos and Pepsi Max Sunday!”

Now, the imagery throughout this commercial is a mish-mash of Protestant, Catholic, and non-denominational, so it’s difficult to say that which particular faith is being mocked; however, the climax of the commercial features the congregation all lining up, approaching the “priests” and receiving a Dorito chip and a small glass of Pepsi Max in what is clearly a mockery of the reception of Holy Communion.

Communion: A perfectly fine thing to mock!

Communion: A perfectly fine thing to mock!

If you want to watch the whole thing for yourself, you can find it on YouTube here

Word leaked out about this entry and a number of Catholic blogs and websites put out the word to pray for reparation. Calls and emails flooded Pepsi demanding that Feed your Flock not win the Crash the Super Bowl contest.  Finally, CatholicMom.com blogger Victoria Gisondi, posted the following: “Great News! Thanks to all the phone calls, prayers and comments, Pepsi has informed a friend that the commercial didnt [sic] make the cut. I still need to verify this but it’s great news. Thanks for your help.”

Here we are, six years later, and we’re in love with Doritos.

It is very difficult to be a Catholic in today’s culture.

Adobe, American Cancer Society, American Express, AT&T, Avon, Bank of America, Bath & Body Works, Ben & Jerry’s, Clorox, Converse, Deutsche Bank, Dockers, Energizer, Expedia, ExxonMobil, Fannie Mae, Groupon, Intuit, Johnson & Johnson, La Senza, Levi Strauss, Liberty Mutual, Macy’s, March of Dimes, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Nike, Oracle, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Progressive, Starbucks, Susan G. Komen, Tostitos, Unilever, United Way, Verizon, Wells Fargo are all companies that have directly funded Planned Parenthood. Do we boycott them all? We should. But we don’t.

So Doritos ran a contest-winning commercial that showed a baby in the womb. Just because they didn’t show it being destroyed by saline and then dissected and vacuumed out doesn’t mean they’re a new champion of life.

All I’m saying is just proceed with caution.

OH THE HUMANITY…

28 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Catholic, Church Militant, pro-life, Ugh..., Uncategorized

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The following is just my own version of the somewhat hackneyed phrase, “Oh the humanity!” that was uttered by American radio reporter, Herbert Morrison; overwhelmed at the sight of the Hindenburg exploding above his head. There is simply too much to try to process regarding the recent videos that have finally brought to light the enormity that is Planned Parenthood. So, please excuse this blog. Try as I might, I find that I cannot organize my thoughts about this topic enough to have them make much sense. –Elizabeth

 

In the last couple of weeks, videos have surfaced of Planned Parenthood “medical” officials casually discussing the harvesting and sale of body parts from aborted babies over casual lunches and matter-of-factly separating the wheat from the chaff of the tiny, harvested body parts.

Almost as soon as the videos started going viral on social media, so, too, did the rebuttals that the videos were fakes, that the means by which they were attained were unethical, that we should be careful in our approach to discuss these videos.

The fact of the matter is that we as human beings, and certainly we as Catholics, should be so horrified, so disgusted, so ashamed by what we heard discussed and what we have now seen in these videos, that we should be rendered speechless, both from terror and from tears.

We No Longer Fear

As a society, we no longer fear anything.

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There was a time when stories about and images like these here horrified and frightened man. Not quite in the same way that horror movies of today frighten us, but in a way that forced the viewer to look into his own heart and consider, even if just for a moment, whether or not what he saw within that organ was the same sort of evil he had just heard in the story or saw in the image before him.

Today we, who are ever so sophisticated, who have smugly intellectualized God right out of existence, look at these images and find them cartoonish and over the top.

We, all of us, have become anesthetized, to one degree or another, to the horrific, to the dreadful, perhaps even to evil itself.

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Francisco Goya: Saturn Devouring His Son

Now, more than ever, we should be afraid–very afraid. “Vengeance is Mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will slip; For the day of their calamity is near, And the impending things are hastening upon them.” –God

 

We are the sum of our whole and our whole is currently rotten to the core and the collective is too blind and too ignorant to see it.

Too Smart to Believe in Satan

I think I can safely say most of us don’t act upon homicidal ideation. What then of the homicidal functionaries of Planned Parenthood we see in the videos? Were they born evil? Are they possessed? Are they criminally insane? The answer I hear most often regarding the workers in this diabolic vineyard is, “No. They just don’t understand what they’re doing.”

Whether they do or do not, their actions are evil and they themselves are the purveyors of evil; carrying out their acts in the name of enlightenment, with the same cannibalistic ferocity of Saturn in the painting by Goya.

Charles Baudelaire is credited as saying, “My dear brothers, never forget, when you hear the progress of enlightenment vaunted, that the devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist!” I think we can all agree, finally, that he does, indeed, exist and resides within the walls of Planned Parenthood and within the hearts of many who do its work.

“Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Pet 5:8)

Watch these videos. I implore you. Yes, they are graphic. Yes, they are upsetting. Yes, they are going to haunt you…and they should. We must do everything we can to wake ourselves and those around us from the drugged stupor in which we are walking nowadays. We must be a witness to these lost lives. We must be a voice for them. We must be a voice crying out to Heaven!

The culture in which we now live is the excrement produced when pride and arrogance gorge on too much stupidity, ignorance, indifferentism, passivity, and moral relativism. We as Catholics must heed the words of St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein), who was witness to another great holocaust of humanity, when she tells us, “The nation doesn’t simply need what we have. It needs what we are.” Indeed.

May God have mercy on us.

I DID NOT SURVIVE ROE VS. WADE

22 Thursday Jan 2015

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RoevWadeToday is the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade. Nearly one million people will be marching in Washington, D.C. today to show their disagreement with the decision. There will be thousands of signs protesting the murder of the victims of this law, posters of cherubic babies asking that their brothers and sisters in the womb be spared, tiny gold and silver feet pinned to lapels, and banners stating “I survived Roe v. Wade.”

I don’t like that last one. I was born in 1974, so I am part of the group that supposedly “survived Roe v. Wade.” It seems to me, by stating you survived Roe v. Wade, there was a chance you wouldn’t have survived, that your mother considered aborting you. My mother did not consider aborting me.

By following the Blessed Mother’s lead in putting herself aside, by allowing God’s will to be done, by saying “I will,” my mother gave me life, she gave me the opportunity to participate in the fight against this grave evil, and she gave me the occasion to be a witness of God’s love in the world. My mother’s fiat–and every other mother’s fiat since 1973–is what must be echoed by every woman if we are ever to overturn the atrocity of Roe v. Wade.

I did not survive Roe v. Wade. I triumphed over Roe v. Wade.

Saints Gianna and Gerard Majella and Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

MARCH FOR LIFE 2013: A REFLECTION

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Catholic, Church Militant, Life, Pop Culture, pro-life

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The following is a reflection I wrote on the D.C. Metro after marching in the 2013 March For Life.

I’ve never seen anything like this. 500,000 (or MORE) human beings in the snow, bitter cold, etc. No one was fussy. No one was rude. No one was out of control. There was singing. Praying. Crying. Story telling. Prayerful silence.

FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE!!! THINK ABOUT THAT!!!! All united against against an evil that has been accepted as a norm, as a right of our society. Keep in mind, MANY of these people have come from far parts of the country, driven all night long, got off a bus and stepped out into the cold Washington DC morning and spent the day in public opposition of this horror, this enormity that has brutally taken the lives of so, so many.

Not a single news van in sight.

I was thinking this morning during Mass, that I don’t know if we who know right from wrong, moral from immoral, just from unjust, and infanticide as infanticide will ever actually see this law overturned because of anything we have done–evil, and evil of this size, is, perhaps, only really God-sized. Maybe all we’re really meant to do, the purpose we’re meant to serve, is to give a voice to those from whom a voice has been snatched. Maybe we’re just meant to be seen. Maybe we’re just meant to be that mirror that is held up to the world to reflect the evil that has been allowed to take hold. Whatever we are–I will go to my grave bring thankful I had the opportunity today to stand shoulder to shoulder with the 499,000 others who were with me.