Surprise: Americans Rate Public Schools the Worst Place to Educate Children

(CNSNews.com) - A new Gallup poll released today indicates that Americans rate public schools the worst place to educate children.

In the national survey conducted Aug. 9-12, private independent schools, parochial and church-related schools, charter schools and home-schooling all rated higher than public schools.
Gallup interviewers asked respondents: "I’m going to read a list of ways in which children are educated in the U.S. today. As I read each one, please indicate--based on what you know or have read and heard--how good an education each provides children--excellent, good, only fair, or poor. How about: public schools, parochial or church-related schools, independent private schools, charter schools, or home-schooling?"

Guess where home-schooling ranked...
To read the results of the poll, click here

"The Darkest Two Years of My Life" The Story of a Priest Falsely Accused

August 28, 2012 By TheMediaReport.com 

"Walking on air": Rev. Eugene Boland is thrilled after being exonerated

Very few priests speak publicly about their horrifying ordeals of being falsely accused of child sex abuse, but Rev. Eugene Boland is doing so after a jury in Derry, Ireland, unanimously found him not guilty in June of the flimsy claim that he had somehow "inappropriately touched" a girl over two decades earlier.

The verdict brought an end to what the priest now calls "the darkest two years of my life."
From "a priest's worst nightmare" to victory

On March 31, 2010, Fr. Boland received the phone call that every priest fears. His bishop was on the line, and he told him to contact the diocese's child safeguarding leader the next day.

"That was a bleak day," Boland told the Irish Independent. "It just came out of the blue … I was shell-shocked. I'm sitting in my home on my own. I didn't know what the allegation was, or who was making it."

"I didn't sleep that night," says the priest.

The popular priest was eventually ripped from the ministry he so loved and forced to withstand screaming front-page headlines about his case, aggressive police tactics, and a high-profile criminal trial.

Throughout the ordeal, however, Boland felt a sense of "relief" over the fact that he knew he was innocent and there would be an opportunity to publicly make his case.

When the jury returned the unanimous "not guilty" verdicts, the priest could not have been more ecstatic. "I could have skipped down the street outside the courthouse. There was an overwhelming feeling of relief – that I had been heard and I had been vindicated.

"I have been walking on air ever since," says Fr. Boland.

And even though the priest's parishioners have been "extremely angry" at the accuser for lodging her completely bogus allegation, Boland has told the Derry Journal that he has "forgiven that person because to hold bitterness or anger would weigh me down … I always believed the truth would come out in the end."

Issues still unresolved
Although this story has a happy ending, there are still some aspects are troublesome.
Even though Rev. Boland was exonerated two months ago, he has yet to return to his parish assignment, as he still awaits official word from Rome for permission to return to ministry. Why the long wait?

In addition, the media still have not addressed the patent unfairness of Catholic priests being forced into having to prove that they didn't do something decades earlier. Think about it. How does one go about this? As Joe Maher, president of Opus Bono Sacerdotii ("Work for the Good of the Priesthood"), once said, "If you think it's tough proving an allegation from 30 years back, try disproving it."

The platform for accused priests is literally "guilty until proven innocent," yet very few people seemed too worked up about this unjust predicament, especially those in the media. And if there any evidence of men from other professions having to endure these same ordeals of trying to disprove allegations from so long ago, we haven't seen it.

Our world's priests remain very vulnerable targets, as this case amply demonstrates.

Homosexual Commercial Tyranny

Written by Gary Isbell

A chill has just fallen upon the markets in Vermont as business owners can now be forced to do business against their consciences. A Roman Catholic family was recently sued by two lesbians from New York who wanted to use The Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, Vermont as the site for a homosexual “wedding” reception. An employee from the inn informed the inquirers of the owners’ feeling about hosting such a reception and politely turned them down.

That polite refusal brought down the wrath of the ACLU and Vermont Human Rights Commission upon Jim and Mary O’Reilly, who could not match the resources the two giants brought against them. They settled out of court, giving $10,000 to the commission and $20,000 to a charitable trust run by two lesbians. They also agreed not to host any more receptions.

It seems painfully clear that liberals are content with abrogating the freedoms of some in order to enforce the “freedoms” of others in the name of equality. The implications of this decision are chilling.

Business can only operate in an atmosphere of freedom, and contract without coercion. The recent decision against the O’Reilly’s demonstrates how government is dictating the terms of a contract to owners and with whom they must do business. If owners insist upon honoring their consciences, they must either conform, or get out the business altogether.

Another consequence of this decision is that it sends the message that owners can expect to see an array of disproportional powers brought against them. Small owners now know they can be punished by government and have legal action taken against them if they dare disagree with the homosexual agenda. So much for land of the free.

Finally, business owners are now feeling the tyranny of an ideological agenda that has entered into the markets and violates all the rules, exercising a kind of commercial “terrorism” against any who oppose it. Business owners in Vermont now know that all it takes is a single phone call from an out of state activist to shut down their operations. As in the case of O’Reilly’s Wildflower Inn, an activist need not even speak to the owners but to a mere employee, and they may see their life’s work threatened.

In such an atmosphere of intimidations, markets cannot be free. The chilling message taken from this case against the Wildflower Inn is that the free market in Vermont is no longer free.
 

CNN Poll: Majority of Americans Want Abortions Prohibited

by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 8/24/12 4:44 PM

CNN has released the results of a new poll showing a majority of Americans want all or most abortions prohibited — a clear pro-life majority. The survey asked: “Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal under only certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?” Some 62 percent want abortions illegal in all cases or legal only in certain instances while just 35% want abortions legal for any reason. Read more here:
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/08/24/cnn-poll-majority-of-americans-want-abortions-prohibited/

The Silent Majority Honk Against Obamacare