(LifeNews.com) Planned Parenthood is in the news again this week … as the federal
investigation into harvesting and trafficking aborted baby body parts
heats up.
A recent poll showed that
50% of Americans do not know that Planned Parenthood does abortions.
That’s a frustrating statistic, since they are the largest abortion
business in the United States. They do more than 325,000 every year!
However, you can do something about that!
Here’s
how three 40 Days for Life teams that hold their peaceful vigils
outside Planned Parenthood facilities are drawing their communities into
the campaign.
“We are off to a great start!” said Monica in Bloomington, Indiana.
“We have no reports of babies saved … because we’re not even sure if
they did abortions last week!” The business was closed several days.
The Bloomington team did stage a major event outside Planned
Parenthood – a Doctors for Life rally. About 200 people attended, Monica
said, including “28 local physicians who put their names out there as
being pro-life and committed to the protection of the unborn child. What
an inspiration these doctors were to all of us!”
Some of the doctors were photographed near a mobile help center that offers free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds.
“As fruit from our 40 Days for Life campaigns, we announced that we
are getting our own unit, paid for by a generous donor,” Monica said.
“We can’t wait to have it there regularly to help the women going in!”
LifeNews.com Note: Shawn Carney is the campaign director for the 40 Days for Life pro-life prayer campaign against abortion.
(LifeNews.com) The president of the largest chain of abortion clinics in the United States is thanking “Faith Leaders” for standing with them.
In a tweet by Planned Parenthood president, Cecile Richards, recently
released she states, “So grateful to the many faith leaders who stand
with Planned Parenthood and our patients. http://ppact.io/1IIU4QF Thank you, @awkukla!”
@awkukla is Andrew Kukla, who describes himself
as a , “Presby minister, love philosophy and Kierkegaard in particular,
dad of four young kids, and I live in Boise, ID,” on his twitter page.
The link takes you to a post written by the Presbyterian pastor which calls what Planned Parenthood does “a ministry“.
He titled the blog post, “I (heart) Planned Parenthood.” Hard to believe? Read for yourself:
“I heart Planned Parenthood. I love these people who do not care what
others will label them or say about them or even say to them. They care
too much about people and too much about life to let hate and ignorance
hold them back. As a Christian I am called to grace, forgiveness,
mercy… and building up of those who life has torn down. And from all I
learned today, some of the greatest practitioners of that are the people
working at Planned Parenthood. So I say it proudly: I love Planned
Parenthood. I love the people that are Planned Parenthood. I love their
ministry”.
Planned Parenthood has proudly posted about this this Pastor on a blog they entitled, “Pastor loves Planned Parenthood.”
The blog makes it clear that the Rev. Andrew Kukla loves the killer of unborn children and some women like 24 year-old Tonya Reaves who was left to bleed for 5 hours after her abortion.
And, why does the delusional Rev. Kukla “love” Planned Parenthood? For “fighting for life.”
REALLY?
“What I love is the dedicated staff of people who are
doing the ministry of caring for people. Fighting for people. Fighting
for life,” he writes.
He then calls Planned Parenthood “resurrection workers.”
“I walked out of a meeting this morning at a Planned
Parenthood office/clinic and saw a lone protestor holding a sign that
said, “They kill babies here.” I have a lot of thoughts about that sign
but I will restrain myself. Here is what I thought that is most
relevant: This is resurrection work. No, not the sign carrier. The
people I love at Planned Parenthood. They are resurrection workers.”
Despite that the Word of God is full of scriptures against the
killing of the innocent, this Pastor supports Planned Parenthood. Even
more ironic, is that one of his recent blog posts was entitled, ““Cherry Picking” Scripture.” This man will have to answer to God for what he is doing.
In the words of our Lord Jesus Christ from Matthew 18, “If anyone
causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it
would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their
neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Unfortunately, this heretic pastor and church is not alone.
(LifeNews.com) A mother in England is filing suit against a hospital where doctors told
her she should have an abortion of her supposedly “brain dead” unborn
baby. Sarah Hagan is now suing City Hospitals Sunderland after giving
birth to a healthy child.
Hagan says that, after a 24-week ultrasound scan of her unborn baby,
doctors told her that her son Aaron was “brain dead,” had just one eye
and no chance of survival.
The mother of two says physicians adviser her to take an abortion
drug, even though the mifepristone abortion pill is only authorized to
be used to destroy the life of an unborn baby much earlier in pregnancy.
When the abortion drug didn’t work, another doctor informed Hagan her
baby needed to be delivered immediately and she gave birth to Aaron,
who was born at 1lb 7oz with both eyes and healthy other than the fact
that he was born prematurely — which has left him with chronic lung
problems he wouldn’t have had otherwise. Now Aaron is 15 months old and
Hagan is taking legal action.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed sweeping new abortion restrictions on Thursday that could shutter most of the state's clinics that provide the procedure, a final step for the Republican-backed measure after weeks of sometimes raucous protests at the state Capitol.
Supporters credited God's will and prayer as the governor signed the legislation, with protesters' chants of "Shame! Shame! Shame!" echoing from the hallway. Opponents have vowed to fight the law, though no court challenges were immediately filed.
"Today, we celebrate the further cementing of the foundation on which the culture of life in Texas is built upon," Perry told an auditorium full of beaming GOP lawmakers and anti-abortion activists. "It is our responsibility and duty to give voice to the unborn individuals."
The law restricts abortions to surgical centers and requires doctors who work at abortion clinics to have hospital admitting privileges. Only five of the 42 abortion clinics in Texas - the nation's second-largest state - currently meet those new requirements. Clinics will have a year to either upgrade their facilities or shut down after the law takes effect in October.
The law also bans abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, based on the disputed notion that fetuses can feel pain at that point of development, and dictates when abortion-inducing drugs can be taken.
Supporters argue the new law will ensure high-quality health care for women, but opponents view it as over-regulation intended to make abortions harder to obtain.
Similar measures in other states have been blocked by federal judges, and opponents in Texas said they'll pursue a similar course.
"The fight over this law will move to the courts, while the bigger fight for women's access to health care in Texas gains steam," Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement.
The action fund is the political arm of Planned Parenthood, which announced later Thursday that it would close its clinics in Bryan, Huntsville and Lufkin by the end of August. The group cited years of state budget cuts to women's health programs, not the new law. Only the Bryan facility offers abortions.
"In recent years, Texas politicians have created an increasingly hostile environment for providers of reproductive health care in underserved communities," said Melaney A. Linton, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.
Perry and other top Republican leaders made passing the law a top priority, in part to please the most conservative wing of the party before the primary election in March. But it touched off weeks of protests that saw thousands of activists on both sides of the issue descend on the Texas Capitol in an outpouring of activism unseen in at least 20 years.
After the regular legislative session ended May 27, Perry added passing the abortion measure to lawmakers' agenda for a 30-day special session. But on the last day to pass bills, Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis staged a more than 12-hour, one-woman filibuster hoping to talk past a midnight deadline and kill the legislation.
Republicans used parliamentary objections to silence Davis, but just before midnight hundreds of bill opponents in the Senate gallery screamed and cheered so loudly that all work stopped on the Senate floor below until it was too late. It launched Davis into an overnight political sensation.
But Perry called lawmakers back for a second special session - setting up the bill's final approval last week.
"When Governor Perry signed the bill, he signaled a clear break with Texas families," Davis said in a statement Thursday. She said Perry and his party's elected officials "have now taken sides and chosen narrow partisan special interests over mothers, daughters, sisters and every Texan who puts the health of their family, the well-being of their neighbors, and the future of Texas ahead of politics and personal ambitions."
The signing ceremony was moved from Perry's office on the second floor of the Capitol to a basement auditorium, surrounded by dozens of state troopers who tightly controlled who entered and braced for potentially hundreds of activists. Instead, only about two dozen showed up, clutching coat-hangers and signs that read "My Body, My Choice" and "Shame!"
Perry drew applause for warmly greeting and shaking hands with Dem. Sen. Eddie Lucio of Brownsville, the only Senate Democrat who supported the bill.
As the governor and other lawmakers spoke, protesters repeatedly chanted "shame!" loud enough to be heard. Once the bill was signed, they hooted and then sang Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It!"
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who oversees the state Senate, blamed "intentional chaos created by the radical left" for the bill not passing sooner.
That was a common sentiment among supporters. The Catholic Association said in a statement: "Rick Perry is a brave man for standing up to the mob tactics of the abortion lobby and has earned the respect of pro-life women and men across the country."
Republican Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, who sponsored the bill in the Texas House and mistakenly suggested during debate that emergency room rape kits could be used to terminate pregnancies, said: "It really was the hand of God" and prayer that helped make the signing possible. Laubenberg told Perry, who announced last week that he wouldn't seek a fourth full term as governor next year, that: "Your eternal legacy will be as a defender of life."
Sen. Glenn Hegar, a Katy Republican who sponsored the bill in the Senate, called it "a very proud day in Texas history."
"This will literally change the lives of millions of Texans," Hegar said. "Not just today in 2013, but for eternity."
NEW YORK (AP) -- In a split with U.S. bishops, a trade group for Catholic hospitals said Tuesday it can accept the Obama's administration latest compromise on birth control coverage by religious employers.
"We are pleased that our members now have an accommodation that will not require them to contract, provide, pay or refer for contraceptive coverage," said the Catholic Health Association.
Under President Barack Obama's health care law, most employers are required to cover birth control as a free preventive service for women workers. Churches and other houses of worship are fully exempt from the mandate. But religiously-affiliated hospitals, universities and social service groups are not.
The compromise, in a final regulation from the administration, attempts to create a buffer for these employers. It requires insurers or the health plan's outside administrator to pay for birth control coverage, and creates a mechanism for reimbursing them.
However, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are suing to overturn the entire requirement, saying it trespasses on freedom of religion.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops, said the hospital association had notified the bishops' conference about its stand late Monday.
Walsh said the bishops "did not contribute to the (group's) analysis or the statement itself." Catholic dioceses, charities and universities are among the plaintiffs in more than 60 lawsuits challenging the rule. The cases are expected to reach the Supreme Court.
The regulation has become another contentious issue in the health care overhaul Obama signed into law in 2010.
The Catholic hospitals' group, led by Sister Carol Keehan, joined other prominent Catholics in defying the bishops to support passage of the health law at a critical stage of the congressional debate.
More recently, the group had joined the bishops and leaders of other faiths in pressing the Department of Health and Human Services for a broader religious exemption from birth control coverage.
The birth control coverage requirement was widely praised by women's groups, and supported by medical societies as good for both mothers and children.
The administration's original birth control rule, introduced early last year, exempted churches and other houses of worship. However, faith-affiliated charities, universities and other nonprofits were required to comply.
After a public outcry, the Obama administration floated a series of compromises that resulted in a final accommodation June 28.
The latest version of the regulation attempts to create a buffer between the faith-affiliated charities and contraceptive coverage by requiring insurers or another third-party to provide contraceptive coverage instead of the religious employer.
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the bishops' conference, said in a statement last week that the bishops were still studying the regulation, adding that it does not appear to address all their concerns about religious freedom. The bishops have also sought a religious exemption for owners of for-profit businesses.
The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents Protestant churches across the country, announced Monday it also rejects the compromise.
The Catholic Church prohibits the use of artificial contraception. Evangelicals generally accept the use of birth control, but some object to specific methods such as the morning-after contraceptive pill, which they argue is tantamount to abortion, and is covered under the policy.
The hospital trade group's decision was first reported by the National Catholic Reporter.
(Fox news) RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia Attorney General Ken
Cuccinelli said on a radio program Wednesday that going to jail may be an
effective way to protest a mandate tied to ObamaCare that requires employers to
provide contraceptive coverage.
Appearing on on Iowa conservative radio host Steve Deace's syndicated show,
the Republican gubernatorial candidate said civil disobedience is one way to
attack the federal health care law's requirement.
The so-called contraceptive mandate is now being challenged in a federal
lawsuit by the Hobby Lobby stores. The company is primarily concerned about
coverage for the morning-after pill, which some consider an abortion-causing
drug.
Cuccinelli called the mandate an attack on the Roman Catholic Church and
religious freedom and suggested that opponents fight back by forcing the feds to
crack down on those who don't comply.
Cuccinelli, who is Catholic, said he had spoken to a bishop who suggested
he'd go to jail to protest it.
"My local bishop said he told a group, `Well, you know, I told a group I'm
ready to go to jail,' and I told him, `Bishop, don't take this personally - you
need to go to jail," Cuccinelli said, trying to balance levity with
seriousness.
Hobby Lobby and Mardel Inc., a religious book seller owned by the same
conservative Christian family, plan to defy the federal health care law that
requires employee health care plans to provide insurance coverage for the
morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception. The company risks fines
up to $1.3 million a day.
The companies are suing to block the requirement in the federal law, claiming
it violates their owners' religious beliefs. They say the morning-after pill is
tantamount to abortion because it can prevent a fertilized egg from becoming
implanted in a woman's womb.
In three years as attorney general, Cuccinelli has pursued aggressive efforts
to restrict abortion in Virginia. Last year, Cuccinelli forced the State Board
of Health to reverse a decision to exempt existing abortion clinics from a new
law that required them to meet the same architectural standards as new hospitals
by saying the board overstepped its bounds and refusing to certify the board's
regulations.
He was also the first state attorney general to file a federal lawsuit
challenging the constitutionality of the 2010 federal health care reforms. In
September 2011, a federal appeals court rejected Virginia's challenge to the
law, saying that the state didn't have the right to bring a lawsuit.
In his interview with Deace, Cuccinelli said employers who want to challenge
the law may have to make the hard decision to go to jail to "provide an example
of what tyranny means when it's played to its logical conclusion."
"Abraham Lincoln has many good quotes, but one of them is `The best way to
get rid of a bad law is to enforce it vigorously," Cuccinelli said on the show,
which is carried in several states.
Democrats and abortion-rights groups blasted Cuccinelli starting Wednesday
evening after Politico reported Cuccinelli's comments from the night before.
"For Virginia's chief legal officer to suggest that citizens break the law is
not only reckless, it's dangerous," said Democratic state Sen. Mark Herring, who
is running for the office Cuccinelli will vacate.
NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, the foremost reproductive rights lobby in
Richmond, tweeted: "Ken Cuccinelli thinks ppl (people) should go to jail to
oppose better access to birth control. And he wants to be our Gov?!"
Efforts to mandate vaginally invasive ultrasound exams before all abortions
produced angry state Capitol protests in Richmond last winter and subjected
Cuccinelli, Gov. Bob McDonnell and other Republicans in an election year to
nationwide unfavorable headlines and ridicule by television
comedians.
(ChurchMilitant.TV) Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and
exposed. I’m Michael Voris.
Everything wrong with the Church throughout the world today is summed up in the
fiasco that was the Al Smith dinner in New York last night - the event where public
enemy number one of Christ and His Holy Roman Catholic Church got to use and abuse
the bride of Christ all under the watchful and supporting eye of a prince of the Church.
In the remaining couple of days before the lead up, some intrepid researchers did a little investigating - only to discover that a number of muckety-mucks who comprise the board of directors of the Al Smith foundation which sponsors the dinner are big-time Obama worshipers.
For example, exceedingly wealthy real estate developer John Zuccotti, who helped the hapless anti-Church Catholic Joe Biden when he ran for president a few years back.
John Zuccotti has all the admiration of the money people in NYC. He mingles with the in crowd.
Then there is Robert Wright who was the grand pooba of the television network NBC
for nearly 20 years right up until five years ago. That’s quite an impressive resume, that one job alone.
Next is Peter Kiernan III, a former Goldman-Sachs moneyman and investment banker
who has piloted many many projects that have assets into the billions.
And of course, we can’t leave out Al Smith IV, the chairman of the Foundation.
Federal Election Commission records he has showered donations on every pro-abortion democrat New York has offered up: Charles Schumer, Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, even the notorious Congressman Jerry Nadler who has never missed chance to support the executions of pre-born babies in every congressional vote that has come up.
All these guys bankrolled by Al Smith IV. You wonder what his great grandfather who
the event is named after would think of him.
But see, Catholic associations cozying up to and hopping in bed with rich or influential people is nothing new in America. We see it in the Knights of Columbus who refuse to expel from their midst pro-abortion and pro same-sex marriage Catholic politicians from their midst... hiding behind the canard that the bishops don’t do anything about them.. so the KofC doesn’t have the right.
Total garbage that by the way.
And of course... there is Notre Dame and the filthy rich board of trustees there... a large number of whom are big-time Chicago democratic machine operatives who are of course all in the tank for Obama and his child-murdering policies. They were the ones who orchestrated the entire May 2009 insult to the Mother of God by bringing Obama to campus to not just speak, but drape him in honors, complete with the seal of the university of the Mother of God.
But when you turn to the situation of the Al Smith dinner, you are especially revolted.
This is nothing more than a sellout of the faith presided over by a Cardinal of the
Church, Timothy Dolan, who is touted as some kind of conservative wonderman.
He has cooperated in this insult to the faith with these moneychangers... who are big time Obama cheerleaders. His Eminence has openly declared in an Wall Street Journal article that he and other bishops failed miserably to teach the faith and defend the Church in the area of sexual morality.
He and other bishops are constantly droning on about the need to re-establish a Catholic identity. You don’t establish a Catholic identity by selling out the faith for your own personal popularity and to hob nob with a bunch of wall street moguls who spend their efforts and money to ensure that enemies of the faith keep getting elected.
Cardinal Dolan is a priest who has a duty to catechize and teach these men and others like them the faith that they either never got taught properly and or simply rejected... whichever the case.
If they won’t listen, then he needs to shake the dust from his feet... the words of the Master... not mine. But he has not only not done that, he has acquiesced to their bringing in Obama and refused the pleas of tens of thousands of faithful Catholics to rescind the invitation.
He has ignored the sheep and opened the front door for the wolf... complete red carpet and all. And here is why we say... this Al Smith Dinner is a microcosm of all that is wrong in the Church.
The faithful are ignored... the wicked are elevated and mingled with and supported... and the leaders are the most culpable of all. Since the Church is quite obviously in dire need of cleansing... and since those who are charged with keeping Her pure will not do the job... then Our Lord Himself will have to sweep them aside and do it Himself.
Often when the Church has been in need of purification... Our Lord has permitted
persecution to ensue. Can anyone look around at the Church today and say she is not in need of massive purification.
Bring it on. We should be happy to be victims for the Faith. Let the persecution begin!
"Notre Dame is arresting a priest," the Rev. Norman Weslin, founder of the Lambs of Christ abortion protest group, said as Notre Dame security personnel put plastic restraints on his wrists Friday. "Why are you arresting a priest for trying to stop the killing of a baby? You've got it all backward..."
Washington D.C., Apr 24, 2009 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made the “Plan B” contraceptive available to 17 year-old women without a prescription. One pro-life leader has warned the decision treats pregnancy as a “disease” and could put young women and newly-conceived human beings at risk.
The move follows a March 23 federal court order requiring the drug Levonorgestrel—also known as the “morning after pill”--be made available to girls 17 and older without a prescription. The U.S. government said it would not appeal the decision.
The drug aims to prevent pregnancy when used within 24 hours of sexual intercourse.
Deirdre McQuade, Assistant Director for Policy and Communications at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, criticized the action in an April 23 statement.
Characterizing the decision as “court-driven,” McQuade said it “flies in the face of common sense.
“Levonorgestrel is a powerful drug, taken in two doses over a 12-hour period. It is 40 times more potent than comparable progestin-only birth control pills (Ovrette) for which a prescription is required.
“Wider access to Plan B could endanger the lives of newly-conceived children, and will put minors at risk for unnecessary side effects, undermine parental rights, and contribute to higher STD rates,” warned McQuade.
“Pregnancy is not a disease and fertility is not a pathological condition, so Plan B has no authentic therapeutic purpose, and can actually cause harm to women and their newly-conceived children,” she said...
ARLINGTON, Virginia, December 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Bishop Paul Loverde of the diocese of Arlington weighed in on the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) last week, saying that if he oversaw a Catholic hospital he would neither close the facility nor allow it to perform abortions if FOCA were to become law.
Though there are currently no Catholic hospitals in the Arlington diocese, the bishop spoke defiantly against FOCA, which would force all health care providers to procure abortions at any stage of development, regardless of their moral or religious objection.
“I would say, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to close the hospital, you’re going to arrest me, go right ahead," Bishop Loverde told a group of mostly young adults at a diocesan event, according to a CNS report.
"You’ll have to drag me out, go right ahead. I’m not closing this hospital, we will not perform abortions, and you can go take a flying leap.’” [HUZZAH!]
At a 2007 Planned Parenthood conference, Obama promised that one of his highest priorities as president would be to pass FOCA, rendering illegal all state and federal limits on abortion. This would include abortion clinic regulations, parental notification requirements, bars to taxpayer abortion funding, and the partial–birth abortion ban, in addition to laws protecting doctors’ rights to conscientious objection. [Which might lead to the defining battle of our age.]
“It’s quite a title, let me tell you,” Bishop Loverde said of the Freedom of Choice Act. “It’s a misnomer, it’s neither free nor choice, so I don’t know where they got the name of the act, because it’s just crazy, because it has no freedom, and it has no choice.”
Catholic and pro-life voices have raised the alarm on the unprecedented danger the bill represents for unborn Americans, with Catholic officials particularly concerned that U.S. Catholic hospitals will be forced to close en masse in the face of mandatory abortion.
Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), issued in November a statement on behalf of all Catholic bishops warning Obama that "aggressive pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion."
One unnamed senior Vatican official recently told TIME magazine that the passage of FOCA would mean "the equivalent of a war" between Mr. Obama and the Catholic Church.
War between the President and the Catholic Church…..
MODESTO -- Father Joseph Illo, pastor of St. Joseph's Catholic Church, has told parishioners in a homily and in a follow-up letter that if they voted for Barack Obama, they should consider going to confession because of the president-elect's pro-choice position.
"If you are one of the 54% of Catholics who voted for a pro-abortion candidate, you were clear on his position and you knew the gravity of the question, I urge you to go to confession before receiving communion. Don't risk losing your state of grace by receiving sacrilegiously," Illo wrote in a letter dated Nov. 21.
The letter was sent to more than 15,000 members of the St. Joseph's parish. It is one of 34 parishes in the Stockton Diocese, which has more than 200,000 members in Stanislaus, San Joaquin and four other counties.
Though Obama's support of abortion rights angered many Catholics nationally during the campaign, Illo's letter is believed to be the first in Central California from a priest to his parishioners on the topic.
The Most Rev. Stephen Blaire, bishop of the Stockton Diocese, disagrees with Illo. He said Catholics should not feel compelled to disclose how they voted to their priest.
Blaire said Catholics who carefully weighed many issues and settled on a candidate were not in need of confession. He said confession would be necessary "only if someone voted for a pro-abortion or pro-choice candidate -- if that's the reason you voted for them."
"Our position on pro-life is very important, but there are other issues," Blaire said. "No one candidate reflects everything that we stand for. I'm sure that most Catholics who voted were voting on economic issues.
"There were probably many priests, and I suspect many bishops, who voted for Obama."
Illo's letter states, "Many Catholics voted for such pro-abortion candidates thinking that their good positions on other issues, such as the war or health care, outweighed their deplorable stand on abortion."
Illo said in an interview, "I've gotten a lot of e-mails and phone calls. It's about 12-to-1 in favor of what I said. One person has left the parish. But I got all of these other positive things."
Across the country, Obama's nomination and campaign were divisive for many Catholics. Many priests and church officials sermonized against him because of his stance on abortion, as they did four years ago when Democratic John Kerry challenged President Bush. There were Catholic-inspired anti-Obama videos on YouTube regarding the issue.
National exit polling after the Nov. 4 election shows a majority of Catholic voters rejected the hard-line position -- 54% of them voted for Obama and 45% for John McCain, the Republican nominee.
The Papua New Guinea jungle has given up one of its darkest secrets - the systematic slaughter of every male baby born in two villages to prevent future tribal clashes.
By virtually wiping out the 'male stock', tribal women hope they can avoid deadly bow-and-arrow wars between the villages in the future.
'Babies grow into men and men turn into warriors,' said Rona Luke, a village wife who is attending a special 'peace and reconciliation' meeting in the mountain village of Goroka...
The protests began on Sunday when the Bishops statement was read from the pulpit by Rev. Tony Ruiz, Pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in downtown Dallas.
Some Catholics who support the "right" to abort children now openly disagree with the clarity of the Bishops teaching as revealed in this summary:"there are no 'truly grave moral' or 'proportionate' reasons, singularly or combined, that could outweigh the millions of innocent human lives that are directly killed by legal abortion each year."
WASHINGTON, DC (Inside Catholic) - When is the last time a bishop's statement on abortion resulted in several days of protest from pro-abortion Catholics? The joint statement issued last Friday by Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth and Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas has done just that. No doubt the forceful clarity of the bishops' message elicited the outcry.
The protests began on Sunday when the statement was read from the pulpit by Rev. Tony Ruiz, pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in downtown Dallas. Some two-dozen parishioners walked out and went to the local media to lodge their complaints about "political endorsements." The next day, the Dallas Morning News carried the story on the front page of its Metro section. "The silver lining was that the article contained a link to the bishops' statement," said Karen Garnett, executive director of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee, Respect Life Ministry of the Diocese of Dallas.
Garnett told me that the subsequent protest on Wednesday afternoon in front of the diocesan chancery attracted the same number of people who had walked out of the Mass at Holy Trinity. Bishop Farrell, who was out of town on Wednesday, has offered to meet with the protesters.
"Too many parishes do seminars on 'Faithful Citizenship' that don't put the life issues first. We've been dealing with that problem for 35 years," added Garnett.Olivia Franklin, a member of Holy Trinity for 15 years, heard Father Ruiz read the statement. "I'm thrilled that he read it, and I hurried out the door to tell him thank you. This is the truth, and we need to hear the truth."
Franklin had recently attended four seminars at Holy Trinity on "Faithful Citizenship." At these sessions she was told "one could in fact vote for a pro-abortion candidate if one was not voting for them for that reason." She raised objections to what was being taught, only to be told it was just her opinion.
There have been over 40 statements to date issued by bishops this election season. Some responded to comments made by Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, about the beginning of human life. Others responded to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's appearance on Meet the Press when she, too, misrepresented the Church's teaching on abortion.
But the biggest problem of this election for Catholics has been the bishops' own document, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship." In an otherwise admirable document, there is one section (Sec. 34-37) that has provided an open door for pro-abortion Catholics to drive through and proclaim their support for Obama, a proponent of abortion-on-demand. (I have already written about the effort to use "Faithful Citizenship" to help Obama.)
One of the problematic passages in "Faithful Citizenship" presently being spun by Obama's Catholic supporters is the following:"35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptableposition may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons.Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamentalmoral evil."
Bishops Vann and Farrell demolish the arguments of leading Obama Catholic surrogate Doug Kmiec and others, that "Faithful Citizenship" can be interpreted to support Obama in the present election.Bishops Vann and Farrell explain that voting for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil like abortion is possible only if 1) "both candidates running for office support abortion or 'abortion rights,'" or if 2) "another intrinsic evil outweighs the evil of abortion."
Obama's Catholic apologists argue such a situation exists with Sen. John McCain, citing his support for the Iraq War. Bishops Vann and Farrell reject this line of reasoning in advance, saying "there are no 'truly grave moral' or 'proportionate' reasons, singularly or combined, that could outweigh the millions of innocent human lives that are directly killed by legal abortion each year."
Olivia Franklin believes God is using the bishops' statement and the controversy at Holy Trinity. "For too long authentic Catholic social teaching has been co-opted by the 'social justice' crowd, who rail about the death penalty while conveniently ignoring the real death penalty presently being carried out -- the 4,000 babies executed daily by abortionists."
------------------------------------------------------- Deal W. Hudson is the director of InsideCatholic.com and the author of Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States (Simon and Schuster).
A large number of endangered, unwanted, and unborn children held a town hall meeting on the 4th of July--alarmed at the brutal and untimely killing of millions of their brothers and sisters in recent years. That the murderous war waged on them had the full force and respectability of the law made their plight all the more terrifying.
Their complaint was humble and it was simple. They were not distressed by rising gas prices, or the deteriorating economy in general. They were not even frightened by the exponential increase of natural disasters. The threat of global warming or global terrorism did not greatly disturb them.
They had become an endangered species, and little had been done to answer their terrified and silent screams from the womb. They decided that the barbaric treatment that they and their fellow unwanted unborn human beings have had to endure for perilous decades was unconscionable and unbearable. They cried out to their Creator for inspiration and protection, and then unanimously they put forth a declaration. It began as follows:
“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS….” THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE; THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE; THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE!
The first and pre-eminent right is the right to life. This truth the Founding Fathers were sure of, and anyone with any common sense at all is equally sure of it. 232 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed the amount of common sense that seems to be operative in many spheres of influence—most notably the courts and the political arena-- can easily be poured into a very small thimble.
The United States of America seems to have a death wish, and we have traveled far down the road to having that wish realized.
When law divorces itself from common sense and spawns the illegitimate offspring of distortions of law, resulting in illegal laws—based neither on the natural law nor divine law--this undermines law itself, generating disdain for the law. Erosion of trust in the courts, or the system in general, is inevitable.
The genesis of the death wish is rooted in the fall of man that we see in the Book of Genesis. The substance of the fall is wrapped up in Lucifer’s pride, transferred to Adam and Eve—“You can be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The unholy, yet inevitable, consequence of that pride is disobedience—eating the forbidden fruit. The ultimate end is death, as God said it would be. That’s the way it was in the beginning. That’s the way it is now. That’s the way it will be until time breathes forth it’s last moment.
The prototypical sin is pride, the pride that seeks to exalt the creature above the Creator: “I can be like God.” Then, subjectively and arbitrarily, man tries to assert himself, imagining that he knows what’s good and evil for himself without reference to God and God’s law. This was the fall of the angels and the fall of man. The attempt by creatures to usurp what is only the province of God. Only God knows what is good for His creation.
In recent years it took the form of a self-inflicted heart wound when some dissident Catholics rejected the teaching of the Church, a teaching that clearly held that artificial contraception is intrinsically evil. Then, as Pope Paul VI had warned, it metastasized into abortion. From abortion it degenerated even further into partial-birth abortion. It was then a short and easy step to infanticide.
The exclamation point at the end of the death wish is that now there is yet another candidate for the office of president of the United States who has in an extraordinary way done everything possible to breathe life into all of the barbaric elements of the death wish. He and his party make no apologies for their support of abortion, partial-birth abortion, and even infanticide. It’s hard to believe that we have degenerated to the point that we’ll murder a helpless baby should it escape the violence of an abortion and be born alive. Can a Catholic vote for such persons? We are told, “yes” for a “proportionate reason.” What, I might ask, is the proportionate reason so weighty as to excuse supporting those responsible for what is tantamount to genocide?
The judges and politicians that support such barbaric practices are truly guilty of genocide: genocide—the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious, national, or social group. “What is the group so targeted?” you might ask. The group is unwanted, unborn children--tens of millions of them.
The Supreme Court justices that gave us Roe v. Wade will have to plead temporary insanity in the court of history. There will be no defense in the highest Court that is the judgment seat of almighty God if they do not repent of the incalculable evil they have wrought.
Yet, despite the life and death importance of this travesty of authentic law, there will be no serious discussion among political candidates, or anyone else. It is as if society has been bewitched, blind to the splendor of truth, deaf to the cries of the most innocent, most vulnerable, and most utterly helpless.
From artificial contraception to abortion to partial-birth abortion, then on to infanticide we march toward the abyss of oblivion, a society marked for death. Is it any wonder we can rationalize the killing of the elderly or the sick through euthanasia? The tragic murder of Terri Schiavo is a logical extension of a morally numb society’s mad march toward its own suicidal death. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t dying. They murdered her, starved her to death--one of the cruelest forms of death. She was innocent, yet subjected to a most cruel and unusual punishment. Why? Because she was helpless? Because she was too much trouble, too hard to look at?
As Abraham Lincoln asserted, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” We are dying by suicide, moral and spiritual suicide, and the moral demise of a nation almost always precedes the ultimate demise of a nation.
Many of our leaders, political and legal, are reminiscent of the horrid witches in Act 1 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” chanting shrilly to a morally sick public all too eager to be confirmed in their sins,
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
Good is evil, and evil is good. The truth is a lie and lies are the truth, hover through the fog of moral relativism and the filthy air of a world gone mad with the madness of sin. The words of the prophet thunder through the ages, “ Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20).
We have inverted the poles of the moral power grid. We have begun to call the negative pole the positive, and the positive the negative. This inversion of reality begets disaster: The power fails, the lights go out, darkness falls—and indeed, if your light is darkness, how deep, how very deep will the darkness be! (cf. Mt 6:23).
This death wish has marched toward its logical and inexorable conclusion with little opposition from leaders--political, legal, or religious. The world knows the Catholic Church and any self-respecting and faithful Christian roundly reject abortion and all of the other nails in the coffin of contemporary society, but the defense of life has been weak. Weak leadership, whether in society in general, or in the Church in particular, is punishment for sin. The Old Covenant has examples enough of the Chosen People being turned over to exile and their enemies because of infidelity. They lamented, “We have no priest, prophet, or king.” These were taken away because of infidelity. In recent times large numbers of Catholics and other Christians rejected Pope Paul VI’s landmark and prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae, on Human Life. A majority of the bishops of Canada did so publicly, formally, and in writing with their infamous Winnipeg Statement.
The clock is ticking. Midnight is approaching. Time is running out for our nation, a nation that once was great, and could be great again if enough of us wake up and renounce this curse of a death wish. Will God turn his friends over to His enemies as He has done multiple times in the past? Will radical Islam overrun us? Will the planet cook? Will one too many natural disasters grind us into dust? Will we collapse economically? All of the above? Perhaps these are all merely effects of the underlying cause—a death wish that chokes the life out of us.
In the end it is likely that President Abraham Lincoln had it right: “Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.” Thus forgetting that we are one nation under God, we become a nation gone under (President Ronald Reagan). And, indeed, “If destruction be our lot we ourselves will be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
May God grant us the grace to awake from this deadly moral slumber, renounce the death wish, and live like truly free men and women—in the glorious freedom of the children of God.
Washington DC, May 15, 2008 / 03:32 am (CNA).- A U.S. Coast Guard officer who refused to be injected with a vaccine derived from the remains of an aborted child has been granted an exemption from the required vaccination.
In May 2006 the Coast Guard ordered all active-duty personnel to receive one of two vaccines against Hepatitis A or show proof of immunity. The vaccines are derived from lung tissue taken from a child who was aborted at 14 weeks-old and then dissected.
Though the Coast Guard allows religious exemptions for those who hold a “religious tenet or belief contrary to immunization,” officials initially refused to grant an exemption for Lt. Cmdr. Joseph J. Healy, who is Catholic.
Healy, in compliance with Coast Guard requirements, submitted a memo requesting a religious exemption because of his Catholic faith and strong opposition to abortion. A higher-ranking officer denied the request, claiming that Catholic teaching “does not state that these immunizations are against the religious tenets of the Catholic Church.”
On Friday the Coast Guard notified the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that it will grant Healy a religious exemption.
Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which represented Healy, said they plan to file a motion to dismiss their January 2 lawsuit seeking the exemption.
Christians shouldn’t be punished for abiding by their beliefs against abortion. The Coast Guard has done the right thing in recognizing that those who lay their life on the line to defend our shores are entitled to the same freedom as anyone else not to have their particular beliefs disregarded," ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman said in a press release.
"Members of the U.S. military should never be forced to make an unconstitutional choice between honoring their country and adhering to the belief that health and medicine can prosper without exploiting the killing of preborn children," Bowman said.
Catholic Bishop: "Go Right Ahead and Arrest Me" Rather than Obey Freedom of Choice Act
