Filed under: Pro-life
The Catholic Bishops have started a campaign to blanket parishes with information about the Health Care Bills going through Congress. They are asking Catholics to email and call Congress because it has become clear that abortion funding is a big part of these bills. The Catholic Bishops are joining their voices with others and are asking Catholics to tell their Senators and Congresspersons to remove Abortion Funding and Mandates from the Health Care Reform Bills.
Below are links from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website. If you know your parish Respect Life Coordinator please email this information to him or her. You can also click on the links for Bulletin Inserts and the Saving Lives Ad/Flyer and show these to your coordinator or to your Pastor.
Here is a link to email Congress:
Filed under: Pro-life
Most of my friends are pro-life and are adamantly against the passage of the pro-abortion Health Care Bill going through Congress. Surprisingly, when I ask this question: I”ve contacted Congress, have you?’ – most of them answer no. And they always add – I really should. At that point they ask me to send them information about how to get in touch with their Congressperson or Senator.
In case you have friends – who just don’t know how to go about contacting Congress. This is a newsletter to help you get that information out to them.
If you call this number you can ask for your representative by name. The Congressional switchboard operator will get you through to them. The phone number is (202) 224-3121.
If you don’t know who your Congressperson or Senators are click here . Put your zip code in the Get Involved box and the names of your representatives will be displayed – click on the name you want to contact and a box with information about your Representative will display – the tab in that box entitled contact will give you all of the information you need to write or phone your representative.
Our opinion is that a personal letter is best, but a personal phone call is also very effective and at this late date may be preferable and third it is also important to email Congress.
Americans United for Life have an online form that allows you to email your representatives with one easy quick form. Click on the icon below.
This will take you to Americans United for Life. They make it easy with one form letter that will be sent to both your Congressperson and Senators.
Why is this important?
1. The pro-abortion health care package will pass unless you call.
2. The Democrats and pro-abortion groups are getting their supporters to call.
3. It has been documented by various groups including the Catholic Bishops that the health care bill will pay for abortion. See what the Bishops say – click here.
Click here for a good link at Americans United for Life that gives information on the health care bills.
Americans United for Life have done a great job researching and documenting the health care bills coming out of Congress and showing how they will fund abortion. What is also troubling is that the Senate committee voted down a conscience clause that Orin Hatch proposed. I believe that if Congress passes the health care bill without a provision specifically outlawing abortion spending – it will be FOCA in disguise.
Filed under: Pro-life
The Visitation by Elizabeth Wang
Within the past couple of weeks I was fortunate to attend two spectacular Pro – Life fundraising dinners in the Los Angeles area ( Los Angeles Pregnancy Services and The Pregnancy Counseling Center) – both are outstanding Pro Life centers which are focused on obtaining ultrasound capabilities on site for the pregnant women who visit them. I tend to find such events a bit emotional – in a good way! – and there were numerous inspiring aspects to both evenings.
But what I would like to address here is the women who spoke who had been planning abortions for themselves (and their little unborns) but were gently persuaded to give birth instead. In every case, the woman would focus on another woman who was either a “sidewalk counselor” or a woman volunteer or staff person in the Pregnancy Counseling Center who reached out with love, offered a reason to choose life, began to uncover the beginnings of hopefulness, revealed themselves as a true friend of the woman-in-need and her unborn child.
Trust is a remarkable thing. We can see it on two levels; trust in God our loving heavenly Father, and trust in another person (or even an organization, but that is less personal). Briefly, trust in God is the foundation of all life:
“For thou, O Lord, art my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
Upon thee I have leaned from my birth;
thou art he who took me from my mother’s womb.” Psalm 71:5-6
St. Thomas Aquinas, like the Psalmist above, links the supernatural virtue of trust to the theological virtue of hope. One spiritual writer speaks of “trust’s twin wings”; humility and “an intimate and practical knowledge of God…of his goodness, of his watchful tenderness” (Rev. Paul de Jaegher, S.J.). Trusting God also shows confidence in His Providence and Will. Trusting God seems to engage the heart of the believer; it is not a merely passive thing.
Which leads us back to the woman planning an abortion for herself. When the pro – life woman reaches out in love she is an ‘Icon of Trustworthiness’ – but will the woman contemplating an abortion respond to her? This is where your prayers and mine come in!!!
The women who spoke at the two events I attended revealed that they were in a somewhat “broken” state, humbled…perhaps ready to trust in someone other than themselves. Enter the trustworthy pro-life woman reaching out with compassion and understanding. Trustworthy women save lives! Trustworthy pro-life women heal this world’s wounds, one pregnancy at a time!
Trust in God (and His weak ambassadors) is a key to the Culture of Life! Mary (and Christ within her) reaching out to help Elizabeth (pregnant with John) is God’s timeless Icon for the pro-life movement.
Rachel Campos-Duffy is an author, blogger and television personality. Click here to see her website. The other day she was on The View – you know the morning show with Whoppi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd and Barbara Walters. She was a guest host for the day replacing Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
During a discussion about President Obama’s receiving the Nobel Peace Prize she said,
“When I think of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, I think of the quintessential winner, I think of Mother Theresa. And Mother Theresa said we wouldn’t have peace until we ended abortion. I think personally for me, that its Obama’s radical abortion position that makes him the least qualified…”
Great witness to the world, Rachal Campos-Duffy. We need more woman like you who are not afraid to speak the truth.
Click here to see a beautiful video called The Secret, portraying life in the womb
“Like all unborn babies in the womb, Jesus was physically active in a secret way, but unlike other unborn babies, He was spiritually active: His redemptive activity had already begun. The tiny, young Unborn Jesus had accepted the normal limitations found by infants in the womb and made those same constraints His own. He, however, did not stop loving with a divine love because He was Incarnate ‑ to have done so would have contradicted His divine nature, and defied the very purpose of the Incarnation. St. Peter Julian Eymard wrote that: ‘This love inflamed His Heart from the first moment of His conception until His last breath and, since His resurrection, has not ceased nor will ever cease doing so.’ “
I have always admired those on the front line. Compassionate heroes who counsel women at pregnancy crisis centers and courageous pro-lifers who week after week pray in front of abortion facilities. God has a special place in His Heart for all of these dedicated pro-lifers.
If you haven’t seen this video (click here) – you might find it interesting. It shows the great evil happening at the abortion facility in Rockford Illinois. But it also shows the grace of God (through the dedication of committed pro-lifers) that is being poured into this sad situation. Here is a blog detailing the efforts made to save lives at this abortion facility during the last 40 days for life.
Another wonderful witness for the unborn that just concluded is in an annual walk for life across the country called Crossroads. Every summer a group of young people walk across the U.S. giving witness to the humanity of the unborn. Along the way: “Each walker averaged over 1,000 miles and spoke to parishes and youth groups. They also engaged in “peaceful, prayerful” protests and sidewalk counseling at abortion (facilities).” Click here to find out more about this wonderful effort.
When we are discouraged we should remember what Saint Paul said in Romans 5:20, “…where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more”. In many cities and towns across our country there are good people who have started pregnancy crisis centers. At most if not all of the abortion facilities across our country – pro-lifers come out to pray.
Grace pours forth as each of us lives with love and dedication for the unborn – with prayer for them always in our hearts and often on our lips.
The first reading in Sunday’s Catholic Mass (7-12-09) was from the 7th chapter of Amos. It recounts a well known confrontation between Amos and the established priesthood in 8th century Israel. Amos is the outsider who God sends to the powerful to shake them up and set them straight, but the powerful elite reject humble Amos, and rejecting him, they consequently are rejecting God also.
The priest of Bethel, Amaziah, who is close to King Jeroboam, tells Amos that he is not welcome. Amos responds by emphatically stressing the point that he is no “professional” prophet, not a member of some elite class of religious functionaries, rather he was recruited for this job by God Himself: “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel…”
Today, around the world there are hundreds of thousands of Pro Life prophets who God has inspired to help pregnant women, help the unborn in various ways, to speak out for a Culture of Life. These men and women can say to the “Elite” politicians, journalists, doctors, judges, lawyers, professors, social engineers and social workers, as Amos did; “I am no professional pundit… I am no establishment-paid prophet, I am a housewife, a repairman, a salesman, a clerk, and the Lord took me and said to me ‘Go, bear witness to the Gospel of Life which I have given to the people as a gift to guide them in their lives and in their families.’”
The prophetic office is associated with witnessing to the truth revealed by God to His Church, but also to witnessing to the truth about human life. The Pro Life movement worldwide is thus a prophetic movement inspired by God. While we do not find our bearings through polls, yet Pro Life prophets can find some small consolation in the fact that the majority of Americans in a Gallup Poll (51%) “now call themselves pro-life rather than pro-choice on the issue of abortion”. Gallup has asked this question annually for the past 15 years and this is the first year a majority have answered this way – up from 44% last year! (Associated Press, 5/16/09)
PRO LIFE PROPHETS KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!
The most frequent representations of pregnancy in medieval and early-modern Christian art show the expectant Virgin Mary. Jesus is depicted as a child inside her transparent womb or, in sculptures, within a niche closed by glass doors. This early-18th-century oil painting is found in the Diocesan Museum, St Pölten, Austria.
With the stoning of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr “a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem” and “Saul laid waste the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison” (Act 8:1,3). Paul got authorization from the High Priest to go to other cities and round about Christians, so he set out for Damascus. The story of his conversion is well known. A light flashes around him, he falls to the ground and he and his companions hear a voice: “’Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus who you are persecuting…’” (Acts 9:1-5).
It has frequently been noted that Saul was persecuting Christians (or as they were called back then, followers of ‘the Way’). So Saul, we assume was surprised by the question posed to him; “…why do you persecute me?”…”me” as it turned out being “Jesus”. Saul probably did not think he was persecuting “Jesus” who he thought to be merely a dead controversial rabbi. Yet, it is revealed to him that in persecuting followers of ‘the Way’ he indeed is directly persecuting Jesus.
Today, in a very different set of circumstances, we see a worldwide persecution of unborn babies…an unrelenting persecution. The persecutors all have legal authorization to do their deadly deeds, in fact, in some quarters many of them are considered heroes (just as Paul probably was in his zealous roundup of defenseless Christians). These unborn children – each on his or her ‘Way’ to being born – are each personally identified with Jesus. Millions of our fellow citizens would be shocked if they heard the words from Unborn Jesus calling them by name and asking them: “Why do you persecute me?” But we have similar words from Jesus in the New Testament: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me…” (Mt 18:5) And “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
Many abortionists and women who have had abortions (and men involved with abortion) have had their own conversion on the road to Damascus when each, in his or her own way, have heard Jesus personally calling them and asking “Why do you persecute me?” And they have become inspired and eloquent defenders of the unborn, following in the footsteps of St. Paul. Let us continue to pray for those who support and promote abortion, just as St. Stephen prayed for Saul and his misguided companions (Acts 7:60).
detail of Unborn Jesus from The pregnant Virgin
Here is a new ad from CatholicVote,org. According to an article in the National Register, this new pro-life video ad has “initial acceptance” for broadcast on the closing episode of “American Idol.” Click here to read the article.
Here is a great cartoon courtesy of Jack Higgins and the Chicago Sun-Times
Mary Ann Glendon was to have received the Laetare Award at Notre Dame. Last week, she declined the award because of the controversy surrounding the University’s decision to invite pro-abortion President Barak Obama to give the commencement address. Her daughter Elizabeth Lev has written a wonderful piece which explains her mother’s decision. Click here to read the entire article.
Here is Elizabeth Lev’s answer to the claim that Mary Ann Glendon’s speech would have brought balance to the event and help facilitate an engagement with the President on the issue of life.
Your notion that her “training in diplomacy” might somehow ease this situation does not take into account that she has a five-minute acceptance speech and he will have a lengthy commencement speech. There is no “engaging” here. Diplomacy generally teaches that if you have a rapier and your opponent has a missile launcher, try not to engage.
That Professor Glendon “did not like that Notre Dame was claiming her speech would serve to balance the event” is again facile and simplistic. What is there to like in being the deflector screen for inviting a profoundly divisive figure to give the commencement speech? What is likeable about a Catholic University named for the most important woman in Christianity exploiting a woman who has already dedicated her life to protecting the Church’s teaching by turning her into a warm-up act for a grotesque twist on a reality show?
Thanks to Genevieve Kineke at Feminine Genius for bringing this to our attention.
Can you help Valerie Aschbacher from Mary Full of Life erect a billboard similar to the one shown above, but in in St. Joseph Country for all at Notre Dame to see? Her request for approval of the billboard has been accepted, and the price for the month of May is $800. + $100 for production costs. She is donating $300 to the cause. If you can help with a donation please contact her at this email: info@maryfulloflife.org
“We proclaim a God who became Incarnate. Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. This Jesus walked the way of every human person. That included taking that extraordinary journey into the first home of the whole human race, his Mothers womb. This new chemical concoction ensures there will be no room in the womb for millions for whom He came.”
From:‘Plan B’ for 17 year old girls: Equipping Children to Kill Children? By Deacon Keith Fournier
Father Richard Neuhaus, a great friend to the unborn died earlier this year. In 2008 he gave a memorable speech at the National Right to Life Convention. Here are a couple of excerpts from his speech.
At one point, he talks about the moment he knew that he was ‘recruited’ for the cause of the culture of life. My husband and I have often spoken about the fact that we both know the exact moment when we realized that this issue was more important than any other social issue of our time. We have even likened what happened to us as a type of conversion. Father Neuhaus speaks very eloquently about this moment.
“In that moment, I knew that I had been recruited to the cause of the culture of life. To be recruited to the cause of the culture of life is to be recruited for the duration; and there is no end in sight, except to the eyes of faith. Perhaps you, too, can specify such a moment when you knew you were recruited. At that moment you could have said, “Yes, it’s terrible that in this country alone 4,000 innocent children are killed every day, but then so many terrible things are happening in the world. Am I my infant brother’s keeper? Am I my infant sister’s keeper?” You could have said that, but you didn’t. You could have said, “Yes, the nation that I love is betraying its founding principles—that every human being is endowed by God with inalienable rights, including, and most foundationally, the right to life. But,” you could have said, “the Supreme Court has spoken and its word is the law of the land. What can I do about it?” You could have said that, but you didn’t. That horror, that betrayal, would not let you go. You knew, you knew there and then, that you were recruited to contend for the culture of life, and that you were recruited for the duration.”
Here is another excerpt from this speech that gave me great hope. I believe it describes the attitude of many pro-lifers and this is one of the reasons that I think that someday the rights of the unborn will be restored:
“We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until all the elderly who have run life’s course are protected against despair and abandonment, protected by the rule of law and the bonds of love. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every young woman is given the help she needs to recognize the problem of pregnancy as the gift of life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, as we stand guard at the entrance gates and the exit gates of life, and at every step along the way of life, bearing witness in word and deed to the dignity of the human person—of every human person.”
We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest By Richard John Neuhaus
Today, during the Stations of the Cross , Pope Benedict prayed this prayer at the Seventh Station.
“We have faith, Lord, but not enough. Help us to have more. May we never question or mock serious things in life like a cynic. Allow us not to drift into the desert of godlessness. Enable us to perceive you in the gentle breeze, see you in street corners, love you in the unborn child.
God, enable us to understand that on Tabor or Calvary, your Son is the Lord. Robed or stripped of his garments, he is the Saviour of the world. Make us attentive to his quiet presences: in his “word”, in tabernacles, shrines, humble places, simple persons, the life of the poor, laughter of children, whispering pines, rolling hills, the tiniest living cell, the smallest atom, and the distant galaxies.
May we watch with wonder as he walks on the waters of the Rhine and the Nile and the Tanganyika.”
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
T. S. Eliot
Little Gidding
(#4 of ‘Four Quartets)
People are interested in their roots. Origins have become the rage. We learn from the past. Yet, humanity today is afraid of the womb, that place of secret origins and momentous beginnings. Humanity today – shackled as it is by “political correctness” – is no longer able to think clearly about any controversial subject. Because the pro-abortion lobby has gained political control of human “reproduction”, and fears to lose control, It obstinately refuses – absolutely refuses! – any possible link between the womb and the nursery, between the unborn baby’s ultrasound image and the newborn baby’s first photograph. The pro-abortion lobby defines them as two different species: the unborn as a growing subhuman entity and the born baby as a baby human being.
But humanity needs humility and truth. And when we contemplate our first tenuous months in the womb of our mother, we see how tiny we once were, how dependent and vulnerable and unable on our own… (Indeed, our futures too, in old age, may draw comparisons…) From the moment of conception a person, an identifiable (that is, unique and growing) human being exists and journeys forward. This amazing new unborn life beckons and calls out, first to his/her mother, then to the world…
The open-minded scientist who studies prenatal life moves from marvel to mystery to Miracle! If he or she completes the “exploration”. If “exploring” gets side-tracked, as it so often does, by “political correctness” – read “bowing to the pro-abortion lobby ” – then the opportunity to “know the place for the first time”, to sense the Miracle, is lost.
The sense of awe and wonder which should surround the unborn child in the womb must be fostered. You and I must encourage it! The future of humanity depends on it! If our culture and society forsake the unborn child in his/her beauty and dignity, then forsaking respect for all human beings will not be far behind.
We must encourage exploring-with-dignity-and-proper-intention of the world of the unborn baby. The womb must always be a welcoming place and the unborn child must always be welcomed in it. In this way we will “know the place for the first time”, and know that it is a sacred place for a holy purpose and its occupant is created in the likeness and image of God.
Unborn children are bursting with potential! They are vital, full of energy, hope and promise! So says the Culture of Life.
But the selfish culture of death just doesn’t see it that way. Hence the decades-long struggle for the right to life of defenseless unborn children.
In an address to the Diplomatic Corps at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI said that “the poorest human beings are unborn children” (1/8/09). He may have been referring to their ‘poverty of (acknowledged) human rights’ which leads to a ‘poverty in human protection’.
In his January 1, 2009 annual Message for The World Day of Peace, Benedict XVI noted: “The extermination of millions of unborn children, in the name of the fight against poverty, actually constitutes the destruction of the poorest of all human beings.”
This is the contradiction of a culture of death: That the human beings with the most potential and promise are the poorest human beings of all because they have not one shred of a human right to cling to!
Mother Teresa saw the situation for what it was: “Unborn children are among the poorest of the poor. They are so close to God.”
The good news then is that God loves every innocent unborn child! As Jesus once explained:
“…do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have no more they can do…fear him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Lk 12:4-7
Filed under: Pro-life
On our last post ( February 15th) we cited a number of reasons for the Pro-life movement to have hope.
One new project mentioned was the Red Envelope Project. We got an email from a 30 year Catholic school teacher who receives our newsletter who thought that this would be an ideal project for schools. My immediate response was ‘what a great idea’. This is a perfect project not only for Catholic and Christian schools but also for Youth Groups and Confirmation programs.
I would urge those of you who know Catholic and Christian school teachers and Youth group coordinators to propose this project to them. Send them a link to the Red Envelope Project. Click here for the link.
In order for this endeavor to be successful we need to get lots of people to send 1, 10 and even more envelopes to the President.
This idea is catching on – here are some links.
One blog on family life called Parenting Freedom suggests this as a great family project.
Hawaii Right to Life and the Illinois Federation for Right to Life both spotlight the Red Envelope Project on their internet news sites. I know that Shield of Roses sent me an email alert about this project. If you run a Right to Life newsletter or e-alert you might consider mentioning this idea in it.
Many blogs like Holy Innocents Blog, Joyful Days, Jill Stanek, American Papist, the Brown Pelican Society of Louisiana, Confessions of a Catholic Mom, Overheard in the Sacristy, and Da Mihi Animas to name a few have highlighted this project.
It is also getting some news coverage, Life News.com, Examiner.com, World Christian Press , Free Republic , Catholic.net , DFW Catholic, and the National Catholic Register.
The Red Envelope Project is trying to keep track of how many envelopes people have sent – click here to go to their site and let them know how many envelopes you have sent.
UNBORN WORD of the day 