New Zealand Conservative

Sorry, everyone. Been unwell and needing a lot of down time. There's been too much stress on multiple fronts in real life and my personality is such that when things calm down, I need to hibernate. Also, it's been gardening month when the weather has been up for it. Who wants to blog when there's brilliant sunshine outside? How about that Len Brown adultery thing , then? I wasn't too impressed with the man a couple of years ago when during an interview to GayNZ he told them he was a "staunch Catholic" and then a "proud Catholic". It looks like redefining the word, "Catholic", was just the beginning for him. Is there a certain irony in Cameron Slater being the one to put all of this out in public? Yes, there is. I won't fault him for it, though. Repentant adulterers understand far more than those who are caught out and all the wannabes out there. They know what damage adultery does to the person, how it compromises them. ...

[UPDATE] Looks like the Govt has backed down and allowed masses to continue, according to an update from the   Thomas  More Law Centre , although they are continuing with the lawsuit. The Government capitulated just one day after the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, MI, filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Department of Defense’s actions which prohibited a Catholic Priest from celebrating Mass at a Naval base under threat of arrest and barred the Chapel to Catholic religious services due to the government shutdown. TMLC attorney Erin Mersino filed the lawsuit in the Federal District Court in Washington DC on Monday on behalf of Father Ray Leonard and Fred Naylor, a parishioner.  The lawsuit is the only legal challenge to the Government’s shutdown of religious services.  Other Christian denominations were allowed to continue their religious services. Late yesterday afternoon, in response to the lawsuit, three at...

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga is (or was as of Saturday) visiting New Zealand, and Kim Hill got to interview him in her morning show on Saturday. I woke up part way through it when I heard phrases such as "Vatican reform". Kim was quite argumentative in the first half, but by the end, I got the feeling she had warmed to the Cardinal, rather than just considering him to be the "Catholic enemy". NCR had him listed as Papabile (could be voted in as Pope) earlier this year when the Papal elections were about to happen. Now 70, Rodriguez was just 58 when he was named a cardinal in 2001, and he took the world by storm. We’re talking about a tall, handsome prelate who plays both the saxophone and the piano, who’s trained as a pilot, who speaks six languages comfortably, who’s got a wide smile and genuine charisma, and who’s seen as a ferocious champion of the poor. He’s a massive hit on the lecture circuit and in media circles worldwide. In Honduras itself, R...

Exactly. Our Lord was Jewish. So was his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. So were the Apostles and the first Christians. Christianity is rooted in Judaism. (Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Friday met with members of Rome’s Jewish community to mark the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the city’s Jewish population during the Nazi occupation. Among those present was the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Dr. Riccardo Di Segni, the President of the Jewish Community of Rome , Dr. Riccardo Pacifici, and the President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities , Dr. Renzo Gattegna. Pope Francis began by expressing his closeness to Rome’s Jewish community, which is the oldest in Western Europe, having a continued presence in the city of over two thousand years. “For many centuries…the Jewish community and the Church of Rome have lived in our city, with a history - as we well know - which was often transversed by misunderstandings and even true grievances,” Pope Francis said. “However, it is a...

Elephant tusks burn at the Tsavo West National Park in Kenya. Spiegal Online How did the Keyan Mall Terrorists (al-Shabab) finance their massacre?  Illegal elephant poaching for up to 40% of the costs.  Wonderful. Al Shabab is financing a significant portion of its military operations by poaching elephants. A  2011 report by the Elephant Action League , whose mission is to fight elephant exploitation and wildlife crime, dubs elephant ivory “the white gold of jihad.” An 18-month investigation by the organization into the dramatic rise in elephant poaching by “Somalian gangs” concluded that almost half of all funding for Shabab’s terrorist activities was derived from elephant poaching in Kenya . Investigations have uncovered a sophisticated network of poachers and brokers tied to Shabab; the terrorist group leverages its military arm to build contacts with international crime syndicates and illegal wildlife brokers in Asia. In fact, while it is difficult to...

There was a meeting of 11 countries at the UN last week whose aim is to promote homosexuality at the United Nations.  New Zealand was one of the countries represented. NEW YORK, October 4 (C-FAM) - Eleven countries announced they will continue to hoist the rainbow flag at the United Nations despite setbacks in recent years. U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry and officials from ten countries promised to promote homosexuality at the United Nations in a declaration issued last week. The “Core LGBT Group,” as the eleven countries are called, committed to “concerted action” for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. Gay activists are finding that promoting homosexuality at the UN is a challenge. The statement commends countries that have repealed sodomy laws, enacted hate crimes legislation and have other special protections for homosexuals. Oh dear. Does this mean hate crime legislation is on the agenda for NZ? Under National's watch?? Kerry tried to be ...

Secular blasphemy: Where the secular world seeks to define what it considers to be articles of faith, and people reject those beliefs. In this case, girls should be able to do anything boys can when it comes to the Catholic Mass. The Story: Altar servers in recent times in Catholic Masses have been allowed to be girls. This has created in many parishes, a reluctance by boys to altar serve as it's seen to be a girly activity. I have sons who altar serve and it's only been since we've moved to a parish Mass that has a tradition of mostly male servers that they wanted to altar serve. Now, when the new Catholic Archbishop in Tasmania, Julian Porteous, is seeking to reverse the trend back to boys only past primary school age, the state government considers that turning away teenage girls from altar service at Catholic Masses might be discriminatory and therefore potentially not allowed. "Altar servers, generally speaking, are primary school age, around that age,...