Israel and certain powerful neocons.  Read Pat Buchanan’s article here for the facts.

CNA reports: The archbishop who oversees global Catholic military chaplains claims the U.S. Army violated his rights by stifling a pastoral letter condemning the Obama administration’s contraception mandate. Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio stands “firm in the belief, based on legal precedent,” that the Army defied his rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, according to a Feb. 3 statement from the military archdiocese. Read more here.

LifeNews.com: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has an interesting way of helping women in the Big Apple. In response to the dustup over Komen’s decision to yank funding from Planned Parenthood, he’s giving the abortion business $250,000. More here.

LifeNews.com.: In the wake of the Komen-Planned Parenthood controversy, Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor, champion cyclist and Livestrong founder and chairman announced that his cancer group will donate $100,000 to the nation’s biggest abortion business. More here.

The New American – As tension mounts over the Obama administration’s ill-advised mandate requiring religious employers to include free contraception in their insurance coverage, one lawmaker is pushing back against the White House with a legislative countermove.

As reported by TheHill.com, on January 30 U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla., left) introduced the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (S. 2043), which would block the requirement that religiously affiliated universities, hospitals, nursing homes, and other institutions offer health plans that cover birth control — including abortion-causing “contraception” drugs such as RU-486 — without a co-pay or deductible. While churches, synagogues, and other places of worship have been exempted from the ObamaCare mandate, the President has decreed that religious employers must concur, giving them until August 2013 to comply.

Read more…

Komen for the Cure has consistently refused to acknowledge the link between breast cancer and abortion. There was speculation among pro-lifers that Komen was opening its eyes to the truth and that that was perhaps why the organization announced a hold on further contributions to PP. Sad to say, that was not the case. The leading organization claiming to be fighting breast cancer oddly enough refuses to warn women that abortion significantly increases the risk for breast cancer. Conclusion? It is not lives that matter. It’s all about  money. I do feel sorry for women who did not know Komen gave such huge sums to the number one abortion provider in the nation and to medical centers that experiment with tissue from slaughtered babies. However, with this current publicity, now they know.

Dallas news: Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said during a Friday conference call that her understanding of Komen’s announcement is that it’s a complete reversal of the decision to bar funding to her group. More on this here.

UCANews: Five “underground” priests from Suiyuan diocese in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were “taken away” by police yesterday, according to Church sources. They were arrested in Erenhot, a city near the border with Mongolia. More on this here.

It was great news to hear that Verastegui’s own Guadalupe Medical Center has opened in Los Angeles. He calls it an “oasis of life” in a “desert of death.”

CNA reports: Former Mexican soap opera star turned pro-life activist Eduardo Verastegui told a crowd of over 500 that he thinks abortion in the U.S. will one day come to an end. “I think we will see regeneration and the end of abortion in this country,” he said at a sold out Jan. 26 fundraiser for Lighthouse Pregnancy Center in Denver, Colo. Read more here.

CatholicOnline: Wal-Mart has also been proven to decimate local economies. According to some estimates, for every Wal-Mart that opens, 100 stores in the area are forced out of business. Ten years after Wal-Mart arrived in Iowa in 1990, “the state lost 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293 building supply stores, 161 variety stores, 158 women’s apparel stores, 153 shoe stores, 116 drugstores, and 111 men’s and boys’ apparel stores.” The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that Wal-Mart was responsible for 27 billion of the U.S.’s 235-billion-dollar trade deficit with China in 2006. The total deficit accounted for 1.8 million lost jobs, of which Wal-Mart was singlehandedly responsible for about 200,000 as a result of its imports from China. Read more here.

This story has been modified since I first read about it Tuesday. LifeNews has the latest information here, here, here, and here.

CNA: Catholic leaders of both religious and secular businesses across the country are denouncing the Obama administration’s contraception mandate for forcing a moral dilemma on them and negatively impacting their companies. Jonathan Reyes, president of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Denver, said that the “horrific” decision is a “violation of conscience” that will negatively impact his ability to operate his business. Read full report here.