Maryland Abortion Mill No More!!!!!

As long as 1 abortion mill remains open it is 1 too many. & even though things seem bad at times, news like this serves to remind us that prayer does work & we must keep praying, even when the hurdles seem insurmountable.

& this isn't the only victory in recent days. Michigan Pro-lifers saw 3 Planned Parenthood sites lose their leases. (Pro-Lifers Boot Planned Parenthood from Michigan Counties) & while these 3 didn't provide on site abortions they were a part of the pipeline that is now closed down. & they did provide emergency contraceptives which do cause abortions chemically. Of course Planned Parenthood of South Central Michigan is making it sound like they are the victims rather than the victimizers. But from how they are talking, it looks like they will completely close down, not merely move.

& there have been other recent successes as well. Some involve closing sites, others involve defunding PP. As I said, we must keep praying & working to build the "Culture of Life". Things may seem dark in the short run. But God is still winning battles. & in the long run, the wear as well.

40 Days for Life Celebrates Maryland Abortion Facility Closure

Commentary by Shawn Carney, 40 Days for Life
September 29, 2010 (40DaysforLife.com) - “It’s official!” reads the message from Michael, the local 40 Days for Life coordinator in Severna Park, Maryland.
“We have confirmed that Gynecare is closed,” he wrote, “and will not reopen its doors. The office suite that Gynecare has operated in for years is already listed for rent, and we have confirmed with the listing agent that the current tenant will be completely out of the office soon!”
For the seventh time now, the Lord has responded to 40 Days for Life volunteers’ prayers by closing the doors of a place where countless numbers of innocent lives were lost!
40 Days for Life came to Severna Park in the fall of 2008, and the focus from the beginning had been this Gynecare abortion facility.
However, the campaign faced a significant hurdle. The center was located in a private development, and the closest the volunteers could get was several hundred yards away.
But they prayed … and they prayed … and they prayed, that God would end abortions at this facility.
“God has heard our prayers and has moved; but we still aren’t done yet,” said Michael. “We need to continue to sing to and praise God for the answers and grace that He has shown these past few months. Countless lives have been saved and will be saved because of the closing of Gynecare in Severna Park!”
There were MORE answered prayers this week in Texas.
A nurse walked out of the abortion center that is the site of one of the 40 Days for Life vigils in the El Paso area and gave her phone number to one of the prayer volunteers.
“Please help me find a new job,” she said. “I quit!”
When we pray at an abortion center, we’re praying for the mothers and babies, of course. But we’re also praying for the people who work at those facilities.
Some of them are determined advocates of “choice.” Others are simply people who need a job, and in these economic times, the options are often limited.
Still others don’t fully understand what they’re getting into when they sign up for work at one of these so-called reproductive healthcare centers.
That may be the case with a man who just recently took a job as a security guard at a facility where a 40 Days for Life vigil is in progress.
Over the weekend, he was approached by a young woman who had come for an abortion — and she’s pregnant with twins!
The abortion was her boyfriend’s idea — not hers. In fact, she didn’t want the abortion at all. But he was pressuring her, and she explained her situation to the guard.
His response: “Do what your heart tells you to do.”
That was amazing enough. But the guard then told the boyfriend that it was basically time to man-up and do the right thing. And, he added, if the boyfriend continued to threaten his girlfriend, she could press charges.
The young man broke down in tears and admitted he was wrong. The couple then left the abortion center.
Michael in Maryland sent a scripture verse with the story of the abortion center closing. It talks about faith. It’s worth repeating:
I tell you the truth; if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.
— Mark 11:23
Please thank God for the miracles in Maryland and Texas — and please pray for His guidance for the security guard who provided unexpected support for a young mother. And BELIEVE!

For more on the sordid story (& I DO mean sordid) of The Gynecare Center run by abortionist Romeo A. Ferrer: FACILITY CLOSES IN MARYLAND RUN BY MAN WHO KILLED WOMAN IN BOTCHED ABORTION

They Type Of Competiton Planned Parenthood Will Definitely HATE, A Crisis Pregnancy Center

Back in September of 2008, I mentioned this PP site in Sioux City as the 1st 1 in Iowa to be offering Telemed abortions. (Planned Parenthood Again Shows It Cares More About Money Than the Health of Its Victims*) At the time the term telemed abortions had yet to be coined. They were RU-486 abortions or as Iowa Right to Life labeled them when they 1st discovered what was going on, webcam abortions. At that time the Sioux City site was operated by Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa. After a merger with another PP they are now known as Planned Parenthood of the Heartland.

You can be sure that PPH is NOT happy to see this place open. The statement from the DM HQ shows that. Naturally they claim 97% of their services don't focus on abortion without mentioning that abortion provides most of their business As for those other services let's look at 1 example, pregnancy testing. They count it as a tyotally seperate service rather than as a requirement before performing the abortion.

But you will also noticed the veiled hint that they see their new neighbors as potentially violent. & for PP to imply they will break the law when PP have been doing telemed abortions in defience of Iowa law & has broken way too many other laws here & across the nation. PP that has NO respect for life, no respect for families or the law should not be lecturing on how other people behave, esp when they know it is their side, not the Pro-life side that is violent, disrespectful & lawbreakers.

Keep praying the the Iowa Board of Medicine WILL do the right thing & stop telemed abortions rather than give their PP buddies a pass & refuse to enforce the law as they should.

In the meantime this should definitely cut into their business of murdering helpless unborn babies.

(PS Something tells me the press is subtly twisting what Bishop Nickless said to make it sound lkike he is distancing himself from the center. What I suspect is that he was asked about the extent of Diocesan involvement. & they ran with it. There were 2 articles in the Globe, the diocesan paper, that talked about it as well, Rally revs up Siouxland pro-lifers, Sioux City to open pregnancy crisis center. Neither of those articles mentions any concern about people thinking the Sioux City Diocese is running it.

If you would like more information about Mary’s Choice, you can contact Mike Skaggs at (712) 253-6749 or mskaggs7@gmail.com.

Donations can be sent to

Mary’s Choice

PO Box 657

Sioux City, IA 51102.

Pro-life center slated to be built next to Planned Parenthood

SIOUX CITY – A multidenominational group working to open a crisis pregnancy counseling center next door to Planned Parenthood’s Sioux City location expects to have a facility ready to receive clients sometime in January. It will be called Mary’s Choice.
Mike Skaggs, executive director of the planned center, said that after months of prayer and planning, fundraising began in earnest in March and is continuing with visits to churches throughout Sioux City and beyond, asking for prayers and financial support.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, of which the Sioux City clinic is a part, declined a request for an interview about plans for Mary’s Choice. Instead, it released a statement from its Des Moines office, which said it provides health care services to thousands of women and men and that 97 percent of its services focus on prevention and education.
Of its anticipated new neighbor, it said, “Our hope and expectation is to have good neighbors who are law abiding and respectful.”
Support for mothers
Mary’s Choice will offer free pregnancy testing, some ultrasound tests, counseling, educational opportunities and support for mothers and their babies during pregnancy and after giving birth. That could be anything from providing diapers and baby clothes to referrals for adoption services.
Skaggs said it is not the intent of Mary’s Choice to duplicate services already available and that the center will refer women to other agencies and programs as appropriate. “Hopefully we’ll be able to complement and support the other ministries in town,” he said.
Bishop R. Walker Nickless, of the Diocese of Sioux City, said he knows Skaggs and supports his work. But he also wanted to be sure people know that Mary’s Choice is not a program of the diocese.
Skaggs emphasized that, too. “It’s open to anyone who wants to come or to donate,” he said.
Why there?
Locating right beside the Planned Parenthood facility gives girls and women in a crisis pregnancy a “visual alternative,” according to Jean Plourde, the founder and board president of Gabriel’s Corner, a similar facility in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on which Mary’s Choice is modeled.
He said Gabriel’s Corner used that strategy more than four years ago when it opened across the street from Planned Parenthood there.
Skaggs acknowledged that the location beside Planned Parenthood would provide opportunities for “sidewalk counseling” but said he didn’t think it would cause any problems. He said sidewalk counseling has been going on quite awhile and that those who do it are familiar with relevant laws and follow them.
State and federal law prohibit harassment of people entering and leaving health-care facilities and bar protesters and sidewalk counselors from private property.
Skaggs said that during a visit to Gabriel’s Corner, he expressed anxiety about what Mary’s Choice might be like in four years.
“They said you can’t worry about four years down the road. Get it going and the rest will come,” Skaggs recounted.
“That’s our model now,” he said. “Some days, it’s been rough. But things are going well and we’re on track to have things ready to go in January 2011.”

At a glance
What: Mary's Choice is a crisis pregnancy counseling center being planned by a multidenominational group. It will offer services such as free pregnancy testing, ultrasound screening, educational materials and various emotional, educational and material supports and referrals for women wanting to give birth to their babies.
Where: In the 4400 block of Stone Avenue, next to the Planned Parenthood facility.
When: Plans call for a January opening.

Of Course He Is Going to Deny What He Did

I would have been surprized if he had decided to admit it. Brigham is fast becoming the East Coast poster boy for what the abortion industry really means by safe abortions. I've said it before, but this just shows the demonic roots of abortion. This is also a prime example of what jesus was talking about when he said love of money is the root of all evil. Brigham was willing to do evil, abortion, & pile more evils upon it if needed all for the money he could make murdering unborn babies.

PRACTITIONER DENIES CHARGES OF PUTTING WOMEN AT RISK IN BOTCHED ABORTIONS

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor

Trenton, NJ (LifeNews.com) -- Abortion practitioner Steven Chase Brigham is denying charges from the state of New Jersey that he put women's health at risk with botched legal abortions and taking women from one state to another to avoid health and safety regulations. Brigham severely injured a teenage girl in a botched abortion and has been accused of injuring other women as well.
Today, his attorney filed documents saying he did not break state law by using a convoluted scheme to avoid state health statutes.
Brigham is not allowed to do late-term abortions in New Jersey, one of the four states in which he owns an abortion business, because he doesn't meet the state's medical requirements. As a result, he has started late-term abortions for women there and transported them via rental care to his Maryland abortion centers to complete the abortions.
One abortion using his method went so poorly, Brigham was forced to take the teenager to a local Maryland hospital -- and she eventually had to be airlifted to Johns Hopkins Medical center because the abortion caused a perforated uterus and it required immediate surgery.
Recently, the New Jersey attorney general's office accused Brigham of violating standards of care for four additional women seeking abortions at his centers. One case involves a woman from Canada whose Down syndrome child was killed in a late-term abortion.
Attorney General Paula Dow wants Brigham's license suspended and he has already agreed to stop practicing medicine at his abortion centers in Voorhees, Woodbridge, Phillipsburg and Toms River.
Preparing for an upcoming Board of Medical Examiners disciplinary panel meeting, Brigham's attorney, Joseph Gorrell, today submitted papers rejecting the state's claim that he violated state laws saying abortions done after 14 weeks must be done in a hospital.
"The medical care provided by'' Brigham "was consistent with applicable standards of care,'' the response said, according to a State Ledger newspaper report.
Gorrell, the paper reports, also says the state has no jurisdiction on the abortions Brigham completed in Maryland.
The state's complaint also says none of the abortion centers Brigham operates are licensed ambulatory care facilities, it points out he has no admitting privileges at any New Jersey hospital and he is not trained as an obstetrician or gynecologist.
An Associated Press report indicates the new concerns revolve around an August abortion Brigham did on a 35-year-old Canadian woman who was 33 weeks pregnant at the time. The unborn child was healthy in all respects, medical records show, and was targeted for an abortion only because of the Down syndrome.
Brigham employed his technique of starting the abortion in New Jersey and he then instructed the woman to drive to Maryland herself to complete the procedure.
The medical records do not say who completed the abortion in Maryland, where Brigham is not licensed to practice medicine.
AP indicates Dr. Gary Brickner wrote an expert opinion in the investigation saying the abortion procedure "seriously violated medical standards of care and, to my knowledge, is not sanctioned by any statute or regulation." He said the abortion "did not involve a fetus with a lethal defect or a condition dangerous to the mother's health."
The document AP cites also mentions another case involving a woman who was in the 24th week of pregnancy. She was slated to complete her abortion in Maryland but began experiencing heavy bleeding while staying in a New Jersey hotel room and she eventually delivered a stillborn baby in a local hospital.

Liberal Mindset - Trans Fats Are Evil, Premarital Sex Is Good, Fur is Bad, Abortion is a Sacrament

SuperModel Just Says NO to Abortion

I am willing to bet that what she did was the exception not the rule. Esp given that she wasn't married. & that is what makes this newsworthy. Obviously I am not condoning her moving in with her boyfriend. What I am applauding is the example she set of not putting her selfish needs & wants ahead of the life of her child. She chose life for that child ahead of her career. & that is why you will never see the "pro-choice" gang applauding her. They are only pro-choice when the person choses for abortion.

Brazilian Supermodel Says U.S. Agency Pressured Her to Have Abortion

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, Latin America Correspondent
BRAZIL, September 28, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Brazilian supermodel Isabeli Fontana has revealed in a recent interview that she was pressured by a U.S. modeling agency to terminate the life of her unborn child when she became pregnant for the first time.
Fontana told Brazil's Istoé magazine that after modeling during her adolescence, she decided to leave her mother's home at the age of 18 and live with her boyfriend. When she became pregnant at the age of 19 with her first child, however, her agents in New York encouraged her to have an abortion, in order to save her career.
Noting that "adolescents are irresponsible," Fontana said that "I didn't think about anything. From the age of 15 years, I dreamed of having a child and a family as quickly as possible. My mother said I was punching at the point of a knife. My agents were saying: 'Don't have this child. You are very young. You are going to end your career."
"Your agents wanted you to get an abortion?" asked Istoé.
"In the United States, it has been legalized," responded Fontana, "and my agents there urged me to have an abortion. I was saying, ‘You are crazy, the thing that I want most is that child. I already love him.'"
Fontana's son, Zion, is now 8 years old. Despite her agents’ warnings, and the birth of a second child, Fontana has continued to have a successful modeling career, appearing repeatedly on the covers of major fashion magazines in the USA and worldwide, and starring in multiple advertising campaigns.

See original interview: Interview with Isabeli Fontana (Portuguese)

Martin Luther & Mary's Immaculate Conception

Would you believe Martin Luther firmly held to the belief that Mary was immaculately conceived even after he became a Lutheran? & that he continued to teach that belief? I don't know if Lutherans again accepting this doctrine would have the result the author suggests. But, I am sure it wouldn't hurt.

(OK, I know some would say Luther didn't become a Lutheran. But by splitting off & starting his own Church that was named after him, he technically did become the 1st Lutheran.)

Martin Luther's belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary
Posted by Taylor Marshall

Here are some surprising words. It seems that Martin Luther, that once Augustinian priest turned Revolutionary, upheld belief in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (even before it was declared a dogmatic doctrine in 1854 by Pope Pius IX). The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception holds that Mary was preserved from original sin at her conception and from all sin during her life - that she was conceived, lived, and died without any taint of sin.

The eminent Lutheran scholar Arthur Carl Piepkorn (1907-73) has also confirmed that Luther believed in the Immaculate Conception even as a Protestant. Here is Martin Luther in his own words:

"It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin"
- Martin Luther's Sermon "On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God," 1527.
"She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin—something exceedingly great. For God’s grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil.
- Martin Luther's Little Prayer Book, 1522.
Both quotations derive from Luther's writings after his break from Rome.

Far be it from me to approve of Luther. I only list these quotes to show how far Protestantism has come from it's quasi-Catholic origin. If only Lutherans would return to this single doctrine of their founder; how quickly our Lady would turn them into true Catholics!

Queen conceived without original sin, pray for us!

H/T: Patrick Madrid (Did Martin Luther believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary?)
_________________

Taylor Marshall was an Episcopal priest in Fort Worth, Texas before being received with his wife into the Catholic Church by Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth on May 23, 2006. Read more here.

College Campuses - The Pro-life Battleground for the Future

As someone who works at a college, I know how true this is. I also know how often it is the Catholic Colleges where the Pro-life message should be welcomed the most that it is often welcome the least. In some cases it is done via open hostility. But more often than not, it is done subtly. Sometimes it is done by covering abortion or birth control in health policies. Other times it is done by supporting groups like UNICEF that promote abortion (as do many other UN groups.

UNICEF denies that it doesn't support abortion. Yet if you read the statement carefully, they actually do since these days "reducing maternal mortality" is the big push used by Pro-aborts to allow it. & all the claims aside. As C-FAM, LifeSite News & LifeNews (among others), have documented time after time, UNICEF does promote it, as well as birth control. (1 example: UNICEF joins in pro-abortion drive) In fact in 1996 the Vatican withdrew its support for UNICEF. & it has consistantly spoken out in opposition to them since. (UNICEF meddling again, The Truth About UNICEF) Amnesty International is another example. Supporters use the same cop-out Susan G. Koman does for its support of Planned Parenthood, the money doesn't go to promoting abortion. Or we hear, but they do so much good. Well money is fungible & the ends doesn't justify the means.

Students for Life of America, Surivors of the Abortion Holocaust. Live Action & many other groups have sprung up among teens & young adults (Gen Y & the GenXers born after 1972) because they know they are the fortunate ones with about 1/3 of their generation wiped out by something worse than any plague, abortion.

Yes, there are many pro-aborts in the younger generation. & the battle is on for the minds of our youth. But at this point they are the hope for the future & it is our duty to support & encourage them.

A Comentary by Kristan Hawkins
September 27, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As students went back to school this month across the country, they entered into the front lines of a most contentious battleground. College campuses today are the abortion battleground. Forty-six percent of all abortions are performed on college age women and on top of this, Planned Parenthood directly targets the youth in order to further its abortion agenda. At the same time that students are being targeted by Planned Parenthood, more and more young people between the ages of 18-29 identify themselves as pro-life.
In fact, young people today are the most pro-life generation yet. With numerous new polls from the Pew Research Institute, Gallup polling and the Knights of Columbus, it is amazing to see that 47 percent of those 18-29 year olds are pro-life. The rising pro-life generation is often overlooked by the pro-life movement, and that is why Students for Life of America (SFLA) has taken the lead in educating, equipping, and activating the next generation of pro-life leaders. Since its founding, SFLA has also striven to connect college pro-lifers through our Students for Life of America National conferences and state training conferences.
Today, we work with more than 541 pro-life campus groups nationwide and, this school year alone, we will be starting an additional 80 student groups. This fall, Students for Life has hired four new field agents to identify and train pro-life students who want to start and lead a pro-life movement on their campus. One of the Field Agents, Mary Kate Cavazos, will be working in New Jersey and New York this upcoming year. She plans to visit more than 30 campuses this fall. She will meet with existing student pro-life leaders to help them cultivate and grow their group, as well as reach out to students on campuses without a pro-life presence to start new pro-life groups.
In addition to assisting students in their mission of saving lives and helping women on campus, Students for Life also connects students to the larger pro-life movement. We have established two national programs to help train students in what it takes to be a full-time pro-life leader, our Missionaries for Life internship program as well as our Wilberforce Leadership Fellowship. In addition, we also hold the largest youth pro-life conference in the world every January in Washington, D.C. Each outreach looks to connect rising pro-life stars with key decision makers like members of Congress, as well as other pro-life organizations like the Susan B. Anthony List and the National Right to Life Committee.
Just four years after launching our full-time operations, Students for Life has witnessed incredible growth and success as the need for our work becomes evident each day. This generation is pro-life and is ready to save lives; it simply needs the direction and training.
This generation has seen the first-hand effects of abortion in our nation. They have had abortions, driven friends to the abortion facility, paid for abortions, and have learned they are missing brothers, sisters, and friends because of this tragedy. They understand the personhood of the preborn child as they have seen the baby kicking in his mother's womb in real-time 4D Ultrasound technology.
This coming Friday, I will speak at St. Cecilia's Parish in Rockaway on how to activate the next generation and on how students can make a difference on their campus. It is so critical at this time in our history that we train and activate the youth, and for students to take a stand for life. It is through the next generation and the pro-life campus movement that we will end abortion.
Kristan Hawkins is executive director of Students for Life of America, Arlington, Va.

Sources: College Campuses are Abortion Battleground

COLLEGE CAMPUSES THE NEXT ABORTION BATTLEGROUND THOUGH STUDENTS ARE PRO-LIFE

Pope Fined for Refusing to Recognize Divorce

No, NOT Papa Benedetto, but the other authentic Pope, Egyptian Coptic Pope Shenouda III. Yes, there is another authentic Pope, but he is not a competitor for Papa Benedetto as head of the Catholic Church. rather Pope Shenouda III is head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. He is considered to be is the 117th Pope of Alexandria and the Patriarch of All Africa on the Holy Apostolic See of Saint Mark the Evangelist. As you can tell from the title, Alexandria's roots go all the way back to aposotolic times. & just like Papa Benedetto is considered successor of St. Peter, Pope Shenouda is considered the successor of St. Mark the Evangelist. The title of Pope has been attributed to the Bishop of Alexandria since the Episcopate of Heraclas, the 13th Bishop of Alexandria. All the clergy of Alexandria and Lower Egypt honored him with the appellation Papas, which means Our Father, as the Senior & Elder Bishop among all bishops, within the Egyptian Province. The Coptic Orthodox Church split from the rest of Christianity in 451 AD after the Council of Chalcedon. In 1973 he became the 1st Coptic Pope to meet with the Roman Pope in over 1500 yrs when he met Pope Paul VI.

Pope Shenouda is no stranger to persecution by the Egyptian government. But I bring him up more as a reminder of what we may be facing as many governments become totalitarian & exclude Christians from the public square as well as what we can expect in those countries that refuse to stand up to Muslim extremists.

Egyptian Coptic Pope Shenouda III Fined For Stand Against Divorce

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
CAIRO, September 27, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Egyptian Supreme Administrative Court has issued a decision requiring Orthodox Coptic Pope Shenouda III to pay damages of approximately 19,500 Egyptian pounds to church member Magdi William who sued the Coptic Church over its refusal to issue a certificate to re-marry after he divorced his wife.
In May, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled in favor of another litigant seeking re-marriage, Hani Wasfi Naguib, stating that under Egyptian law the Coptic Orthodox Church must allow its members to divorce and remarry.
However, after an appeal of that decision by the Coptic Church, the Supreme Constitutional Court overturned the ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court, stating that marital matters are under the sole jurisdiction of the church because civil marriage without a religious ceremony is not recognized in Egypt.
The Orthodox Coptic Church forbids divorce and re-marriage except in cases of proven adultery or religious conversion of a spouse.
In the current case, Pope Shenouda lost an appeal to overturn the court verdict in favor of William, despite the Constitutional Court ruling.
According to Al-Masry Al-Youm news service, the Coptic pope has refused to pay the fine, and instead said he would defrock any priest who allows a divorced Christian to remarry, except under the allowed conditions.
See previous LSN coverage:
Egyptian Court Orders Coptic Orthodox Church To Allow Divorce and Remarriage

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10060102.html

Catholic Tea Party, An Idea Who's Time Has Come????

Over the last few days I have come across this idea. The latest was Monday's Vortex:



The other day I read an article by Deal Hudson on the same topic: The Catholic Tea Kettle Continues to Boil . This was a follow up to his February article: "Is It Time for a Catholic Tea Party?.

As Voris points out, we can't simply throw the bums out. & there are some waiting in the wings to take the place of those who are causing the truble now. But, unlike 40 years ago, this new generation of those attempting to subvert the Catholic Church don't have the pulpit to themselves any more. There is the Catechism that came out about 15 years ago. The Vatican has a website where you can get authentic Catholic teaching. EWTN has a radio & TV presence as well as a website loaded with plenty of authentic Catholic teaching. There are publishers like Ignatius & TAN. & this is only the surface. & there are plenty of bloggers out there.

There will always be those who try to destroy the Church from within. Jesus told us that in the "parable of the wheat & the tares"*. But someday Jesus will return, & at that time He will remove the weeds & only the wheat will be left.

I do have to add 1 other thing. Until that day of death or the return of Jesus, it is possible for even the worst weed (sinner) to become a stalk of wheat through repentance.

_____________

* Tares, aka darnel, is a weed that in its early stages looks very much like wheat. Hence the danger of removing wheat with the weeds. But as the wheat & tares mature & ripen their fruit makes the difference clear. (Remember what Jesus said about knowing them by their fruit?) As wheat matures the stalk with the seed grows heavy & droops down. The wheat also turns brown. However the stalk of the tares remains tall & erect, because of how light the seed is. The seed of the tares turns black. Eating the darnel makes a person feel poisoned with drunkenness, & can cause death. Darnel is also parasitic & can kill of the wheat by crowding it out.

OK, I am sure many of you have already caught some depths in this parable you may not have realized before. 1st of all the wheat spike droops because of the heavy seed it bears & the darnel spike remains tall because of light seed. The wheat spikes could be described as bowing down in a humble, worshipful position that we as Catholics are called to have. The darnel stands up like someone filled with pride, like someone who thinks they don't need God or need to submit to His Will or teachings. The wheat seed is heavy, & it is filled with nourishment. That nourishment symbolizes God's teachings & truth. We can also see a Eucharistic connection as the bread used in all Catholic Rites must be wheat. Wheat gives life, physically as well as spiritually. Darnel is light, black seeded & poisonous. That symbolizes the bad fruit born by those who promote false teaching. Those false teachings are light on the truth & they also are poisonous. In this case, the death is eternal death.

There is 1 other interesting aspect about the proud stance of darnel. When harvest comes, those erect stalks make it easy to gather the darnel & throw it into the fire (Hell). Then the farmer is able to go back, gather the wheat & be sure that nothing harmful or evil remains. Those of us who are the wheat will be brought in the barn, a symbol for Heaven.

Archbishop Chaput Takes a Look Down the Road America Is Heading

(Here is the post about Archbishop Chaput I promised in the recent post about Bishop Vasa)

Archbishop Chaput takes a look at where we have been & where America is heading. He doesn't pull any punches about what has gone wrong & what is the future path that we seem to be going down. & it isn't a pretty picture. In fact he makes it clear that faithful Catholics can expect to be even more marginalized. & while he doesn't mention it specificly, IMHO, he is telling us to get ready for a period of possible persecution. & I wouldn't be surprized if we face martyrdom if America stays on this path.

There are 2 possible reactions to what Archbishop Chaput says about our possible future as Catholics in America. I say "possible future" because, as Archbishop Chaput points out, we may still be able to change things. But even if we are too far down the path to change, those 2 choices still remain. We can just give up. & if we do, then the "culture of death" will win. Or we can do as he says we must " to actually live what the Church teaches, to win the hearts of others by our witness, and to renew the soul of our country with the courage of our own Christian faith and integrity." He is right: "There is no more revolutionary act" that we can do. & if things change, they will change. But if not, when the time comes that we face the persecution, we will be ready as those ancestors in the faith that truly witnessed by their martyrdom.

Last Friday, 24 Sept 2010, Archbishop Chaput spoke before the Religion Newswriters Association. In that address (read here) he takes on the secular media. He makes it clear that they are not covering religion as they should. He criticises the secular media for thei abuse of their Constitutionally protected "Freedom of the Press". he goes on to say that that "freedom doesn’t excuse prejudice or poor handling of serious material, especially people’s religious convictions. What’s new today is the seeming collusion—or at least an active sympathy—between some media organizations and journalists, and political and sexual agendas hostile to traditional Christian beliefs."

Not exactly complimentary, is it?

The address also includes the theme addressed in this article & shows how they are related.

His address clearly challenges the religious media to get it right. It is clear that he doesn't assume they always do. In fact, the challenge he offers to the media is especially applicable to the religious journalists. & it is clear that he aims that challenge at them so that they will lead the way.

Catholics and the Next America
Charles J. Chaput
One of the key myths of the American Catholic imagination is this: After 200 years of fighting against public prejudice, Catholics finally broke through into America’s mainstream with the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy as president. It’s a happy thought, and not without grounding. Next to America’s broad collection of evangelical churches, baptized Catholics now make up the biggest religious community in the United States. They serve in large numbers in Congress. They have a majority on the Supreme Court. They play commanding roles in the professions and in business leadership. They’ve climbed, at long last, the Mt. Zion of social acceptance.

So goes the tale. What this has actually meant for the direction of American life, however, is another matter. Catholic statistics once seemed impressive. They filled many of us with tribal pride. But they didn’t stop a new and quite alien national landscape, a “next America,” from emerging right under our noses.

While both Barna Group and Pew Research Center data show that Americans remain a broadly Christian people, old religious loyalties are steadily softening. Overall, the number of Americans claiming no religious affiliation, about 16 percent, has doubled since 1990. One quarter of Americans aged 18-29 have no affiliation with any particular religion, and as the Barna Group noted in 2007, they “exhibit a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than did previous generations when they were at the same stage of life. In fact, in just a decade . . . the Christian image [has] shifted substantially downward, fueled in part by a growing sense of disengagement and disillusionment among young people.”

Catholic losses have been masked by Latino immigration. But while 31 percent of Americans say they were raised in the Catholic faith, fewer than 24 percent of Americans now describe themselves as Catholic.

These facts have weight because, traditionally, religious faith has provided the basis for Americans’ moral consensus. And that moral consensus has informed American social policy and law. What people believe—or don’t believe—about God, helps to shape what they believe about men and women. And what they believe about men and women creates the framework for a nation’s public life.

Or to put it more plainly: In the coming decades Catholics will likely find it harder, not easier, to influence the course of American culture, or even to live their faith authentically. And the big difference between the “next America” and the old one will be that plenty of other committed religious believers may find themselves in the same unpleasant jam as their Catholic cousins.

At first hearing, this scenario might sound implausible; and for good reason. The roots of the American experience are deeply Protestant. They go back a very long way, to well before the nation’s founding. Whatever one thinks of the early Puritan colonists—and Catholics have few reasons to remember them fondly—no reader can study Gov. John Winthrop’s great 1630 homily before embarking for New England without being moved by the zeal and candor of the faith that produced it. In “A model of Christian charity,” he told his fellow colonists:



We are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ . . . That which the most in their churches maintain as truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant practice; as in this duty of love, we must love brotherly without dissimulation, we must love one another with pure heart fervently. We must bear one another’s burdens. We must look not only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren . . . We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So we will keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.


Not a bad summary of Christian discipleship, made urgent for Winthrop by the prospect of leading 700 souls on a hard, two-month voyage across the North Atlantic to an equally hard New World. What happened when they got there is a matter of historical record. And different agendas interpret the record differently.

The Puritan habits of hard work, industry and faith branded themselves on the American personality. While Puritan influence later diluted in waves of immigrants from other Protestant traditions, it clearly helped shape the political beliefs of John Adams and many of the other American Founders. Adams and his colleagues were men who, as Daniel Boorstin once suggested, had minds that were a “miscellany and a museum;” men who could blend the old and the new, an earnest Christian faith and Enlightenment ideas, without destroying either.

But beginning in the nineteenth century, riding a crest of scientific and industrial change, a different view of the Puritans began to emerge. In the language of their critics, the Puritans were seen as intolerant, sexually repressed, narrow-minded witch-hunters who masked material greed with a veneer of Calvinist virtue. Cast as religious fanatics, the Puritans stood accused of planting the seed of nationalist messianism by portraying America as a New Jerusalem, a “city upon a hill” (from Winthrop’s homily), with a globally redemptive mission. H.L. Mencken—equally skilled as a writer, humorist and anti-religious bigot—famously described the Puritan as a man “with the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

In recent years, scholars like Christian Smith have shown how the intellectual weakness and fierce internal divisions of America’s Protestant establishment allowed “the secularization of modern public life as a kind of political revolution.” Carried out mainly between 1870 and 1930, this “rebel insurgency consisted of waves of networks of activists who were largely skeptical, freethinking, agnostic, atheist or theologically liberal; who were well educated and socially located mainly in the knowledge-production occupations, and who generally espoused materialism, naturalism, positivism and the privatization or extinction of religion.”

This insurgency could be ignored, or at least contained, for a long time. Why? Because America’s social consensus supported the country’s unofficial Christian assumptions, traditions and religion-friendly habits of thought and behavior. But law—even a constitutional guarantee—is only as strong as the popular belief that sustains it. That traditional consensus is now much weakened. Seventy years of soft atheism trickling down in a steady catechesis from our universities, social-science “helping professions,” and entertainment and news media, have eroded it.

Obviously many faith-friendly exceptions exist in each of these professional fields. And other culprits, not listed above, may also be responsible for our predicament. The late Christopher Lasch argued that modern consumer capitalism breeds and needs a “culture of narcissism”—i.e., a citizenry of weak, self-absorbed, needy personalities—in order to sustain itself. Christian Smith put it somewhat differently when he wrote that, in modern capitalism, labor “is mobile as needed, consumers purchase what is promoted, workers perform as demanded, managers execute as expected—and profits flow. And what the Torah, or the Pope, or Jesus may say in opposition is not relevant, because those are private matters” [emphasis in original].

My point here is neither to defend nor criticize our economic system. Others are much better equipped to do that than I am. My point is that “I shop, therefore I am” is not a good premise for life in a democratic society like the United States. Our country depends for its survival on an engaged, literate electorate gathered around commonly held ideals. But the practical, pastoral reality facing the Gospel in America today is a human landscape shaped by advertising, an industry Pascal Bruckner described so well as a “smiling form of sorcery”:



The buyer’s fantastic freedom of choice supposedly encourages each of us to take ourselves in hand, to be responsible, to diversify our conduct and our tastes; and most important, supposedly protects us forever from fanaticism and from being taken in. In other words, four centuries of emancipation from dogmas, gods and tyrants has led to nothing more nor less than to the marvelous possibility of choosing between several brands of dish detergent, TV channels or styles of jeans. Pushing our cart down the aisle in a supermarket or frantically wielding our remote control, these are supposed to be ways of consciously working for harmony and democracy. One could hardly come up with a more masterful misinterpretation: for we consume in order to stop being individuals and citizens; rather, to escape for a moment from the heavy burden of having to make fundamental choices.


Now, where do Catholics fit into this story?

The same Puritan worldview that informed John Winthrop’s homily so movingly, also reviled “Popery,” Catholic ritual and lingering “Romish” influences in England’s established Anglican Church. The Catholic Church was widely seen as Revelation’s Whore of Babylon. Time passed, and the American religious landscape became more diverse. But the nation’s many different Protestant sects shared a common, foreign ogre in their perceptions of the Holy See—perceptions made worse by Rome’s distrust of democracy and religious liberty. As a result, Catholics in America faced harsh Protestant discrimination throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. This included occasional riots and even physical attacks on convents, churches and seminaries. Such is the history that made John F. Kennedy’s success seem so liberating.

The irony is that mainline American Protestantism had used up much of its moral and intellectual power by 1960. Secularizers had already crushed it in the war for the cultural high ground. In effect, after so many decades of struggle, Catholics arrived on America’s center stage just as management of the theater had changed hands -- with the new owners even less friendly, but far shrewder and much more ambitious in their social and political goals, than the old ones. Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox, despite their many differences, share far more than divides them, beginning with Jesus Christ himself. They also share with Jews a belief in the God of Israel and a reverence for God’s Word in the Old Testament. But the gulf between belief and unbelief, or belief and disinterest, is vastly wider.

In the years since Kennedy’s election, Vatican II and the cultural upheavals of the 1960s, two generations of citizens have grown to maturity. The world is a different place. America is a different place—and in some ways, a far more troubling one. We can’t change history, though we need to remember and understand it. But we can only blame outside factors for our present realities up to a point. As Catholics, like so many other American Christians, we have too often made our country what it is through our appetite for success, our self-delusion, our eagerness to fit in, our vanity, our compromises, our self-absorption and our tepid faith.

If government now pressures religious entities out of the public square, or promotes same-sex “marriage,” or acts in ways that undermine the integrity of the family, or compromises the sanctity of human life, or overrides the will of voters, or discourages certain forms of religious teaching as “hate speech,” or interferes with individual and communal rights of conscience—well, why not? In the name of tolerance and pluralism, we have forgotten why and how we began as nation; and we have undermined our ability to ground our arguments in anything higher than our own sectarian opinions.

The “next America” has been in its chrysalis a long time. Whether people will be happy when it fully emerges remains to be seen. But the future is not predestined. We create it with our choices. And the most important choice we can make is both terribly simple and terribly hard: to actually live what the Church teaches, to win the hearts of others by our witness, and to renew the soul of our country with the courage of our own Christian faith and integrity. There is no more revolutionary act.

Charles J. Chaput is the archbishop of Denver.

Planned Parenthood Aborts African Americans

I have mentioned Planned Parenthood's racist, eugenic roots & agenda many a time before. PP has done all it could to hide the truth. But more & more groups are getting the word out. Here is another 1:

'Planned Parenthood Aborts African Americans': New Mass Media Campaign

By Patrick B. Craine
AUSTIN, Texas, September 23, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new mass media campaign is hoping to shed light on Planned Parenthood’s racist roots and continued targeting of black communities. The PPAbortsAA campaign (“Planned Parenthood Aborts African Americans”) is aimed at getting the message out to a wide audience through billboards in large cities and TV ads on popular channels.



“When you look at the numbers, it’s absolutely astounding the lie that’s been given to African Americans - that this is really good for them,” said Kimberly Speirs, a spokesperson for PPAbortsAA.org.
African American babies are three times more likely to be aborted than white babies, according to data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control. Since Roe v. Wade in 1973, the black population in the U.S. has been reduced by over 25 percent.
Planned Parenthood is accused of targeting black communities because 62-78% of their facilities are in minority neighbourhoods, depending on how the data is interpreted.
PPAbortsAA.org notes that this targeting of blacks was part of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s plan from the beginning. “Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated,” said the famed eugenicist and leader of the Negro Project, which was designed to curtail the black population.
The campaign organizers have been able to get their ads on BET (Black Entertainment Television), and they are available through their website, but other mainstream media outlets in New York, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston have refused to run them.
“It looks like the mainstream media is more interested in protecting Planned Parenthood than they are in educating African American women about the truth of abortion,” said Speirs.
She said it is clear from Planned Parenthood’s own statistics that they favor abortion over other options. She noted, for example, that in 2007 they aborted 305,310 babies in the U.S., but only made 4,912 adoption referrals.
“Most women who are abortion-minded, they don’t want abortion, they just don’t know what else is out there,” she said. “Once you let them know all the positive, hopeful, beautiful alternatives available for them ... they almost always choose life.”
“It’s so heartbreaking that so many African American lives have been snuffed out because of the deception that they’ve been sold,” said Speirs. “We just think that they want to know the truth about this issue. I think Afircan American women primarily want to know that they and their babies are being targeted.”
See the PPAbortsAA.org campaign here.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Documentary Exposes Abortion as The Evolution of Racism and Black Genocide

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10061001.html
The Inherent Racism of Population Control

http://www.lifesitenews.com/waronfamily/Population_Control/Inherentracism.pdf

The Good, The Bad & the Funny

A little something for the Western fan in all of us to start the work week out:

Obama's Utter Disregard for the Human Person

Politics and the American Person

After having lived in the U.S. and then in Rome for many years, I must say that American politics intrigue me a great deal. I follow the debates and races closely, because I realize that the decisions of American voters affect not only Americans; indeed, they affect the entire world.

For example, almost two years ago a majority of American voters elected a man because he breezily promised "Hope" and "Change", and too few thought to ask such basic questions as: Hope in whom? Or Change to what, precisely, and from what? A religious fervor seemed to overtake masses of people for whom actual religion has obviously become an afterthought, and they suspended all critical thought in order to float away on a sea of make believe hope and liberal change.

Yet such seas can be much rockier than the salesman leads us to believe. This man elected by Americans seems to be on an economic kamikaze mission, he acts as if he is embarrassed to represent your nation abroad, he spurns historical American allies while indicating to the scoundrels of the world that they belong among the elite, he does not attend services on Sunday, then seems surprised that some question his commitment to his faith... truly one could go on and on about the many problems that this man presents to the nation that elected him.

But the most troubling thing one notices when paying close attention to the president's actions is his utter disregard for the human person. It appears that every initiative he is enthusiastic about is designed to diminish the person, and increase his dependency on government to live his life for him.

That is, for those persons who are actually allowed to live their lives. We already know the staggering toll taken by legalized abortion, and we know that the current president has without qualification supported every expansion of the murderous procedure he has ever had the opportunity to support. Not that he would agree that killing these tiny human beings is murder: Like many, he thinks that some human beings are persons worthy of life, and some human beings are not persons, and thus may be destroyed for any reason whatsoever.

The historical, philosophical and moral problems are ones that the president, and most other proponents of abortion refuse to confront, at least openly. If we agree that all persons should be protected and allowed to live until their natural death, then to make abortion and euthanasia legal, we have to find ways to deny the personhood of those who are not wanted.

The problem for those who buy into this bifurcation between humanity and personhood is first historical: this is exactly the formula employed by every mass murderer in history. It is the semantic of oppression, a procedure through which the groups that are targeted to be destroyed or exploited are described with traits that go from having human deficiencies to even denying their humanity. Once this semantic takes hold, those in power go about destroying the newly-depersonalized.

The second problem is philosophical: What exactly determines why this human being should live, and this other one should not? Those who claim that the difference is one of an ability to demonstrate conscience and will or some other more or less measurable trait always ignore the fact that such traits are often transitory. I can be sentient one minute, non-sentient the next, then back to my old self. A baby starts life with very limited conscience and will and all of us run the risk of ending our lives with a diminished state of consciousness. These criteria are also notoriously subjective and subject to revision.

The undeniable fact is that those who defend the destruction of innocent human life in the form of abortion and euthanasia cannot confront the moral issues, nor can they confront the history that proves beyond a doubt the similarity between their reasoning and that of the most heinous murderers of history.

Either every human being is a person, regardless of his or her ability to demonstrate a particular trait or demonstrate their utility and convenience; or we can destroy any one at any time for any reason. One only needs time to come up with this reason and a story that will convince others to cooperate in or endorse the destruction.

But if, as we believe, every human being is a person with the right to live the life he already enjoys, up until the point of natural death, then we owe it to the weakest of our brothers and sisters to defend them, including, and perhaps especially, in law. Guaranteeing the personhood of every human being in law is crucial if we are to get beyond the back and forth of activist judges or politicians who must worry about their own position as much as they must the life of an elderly woman, or a disabled child.

In America, as in the rest of the world, politics is the art of the possible, with the goal of achieving the common good. And there are certainly some courageous politicians fighting for life. But if there is a chance to put and an end to the whole debate with constitutional language that would bind the enemies of life - even a slight chance - that is a chance that those who love life should be willing to take.

In the beautiful state of Colorado, I have learned that voters have a chance to affect such a change, to put language defining and defending every human person into the state constitution, up above the heads of judges and politicians: language that will force these leaders to either obey law respecting the life of the human person or to openly declare their hostility not only to life, but to the rule of law.

Many of us are watching with great anticipation. May the Lord of Life and His Blessed Mother guide the citizens of Colorado in truth and wisdom, and may American persons continue to move in the direction of embracing and defending the life of every human person.


Sincerely,

Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro-Carámbula
Interim President, Human Life International

This Is One Time Being #1 Is Not Something To Be Proud Of

Rockford's Pro-Life community is reporting that their community has earned a dubious honor. Rockford has been named by a national Christian Newspaper as the home of the “Nation’s most infamous abortion clinic”. (Rockford You’re Number One) As anyone who regular reads my posts on them, you will know that they are talking about the Northern Illinois Women's Center. The NIWC has rightly been called the "Gates of Hell". The owner, operator Wayne Webster has pretty much admitted that he has sold his soul to Satan. (Click on label below for details as well as the other horendously evil & sick activities that go on there as well as some of the stories of how Pro-Lifers are battling this evil.)

As I point out in the posts it is much more than just those who kill children at NIWC have helped Rockford to earn this title. Many City Officials are in bed with this abomination.

The Rockford Pro-Life Community has put out the following open letter to make people aware of what is going on in their community. I am sure those in the city government who are in league with the NIWC don't want the truth about what is going on to come to light. But then evil always prefers darkness to light, so that should be no surprize. But Jesus did say that those things done in the darkness would come to light. & they would have to be answered for at the Last Judgment.

So we must continue to pray for those in Rockford involved in this battle. In the end, the Pro-life side will win. Jesus promised that we could storm & take down the gates of Hell. & this place is definitely 1 of those gates. In the mean time, keep praying for those who work & operate the NIWC so that God will touch their hearts & convert them leading them out of the kingdom of darkness & "culture of death" & into God's Kingdom of Light & Life.

An Open Letter To The City Of Rockford

On behalf of the out of state abortionist who owns Rockford's abortion clinic, a thank you should be given to the city of Rockford for the effective ways they have kept the mobile ultra-sound motor-home out of Rockford.

On behalf of those who operate and work in the Rockford abortion clinic that mocks God and has had signs in its windows celebrating the deaths of children as a victory over Jesus Christ, a "job well done" to the city of Rockford is in order.

On behalf of the people who attempted to offer free help to mothers in need in Rockford and the many children whose lives may have been saved by their mothers' seeing a free ultrasound we simply ask, " Why?"

Bishop Thomas G. Doran wrote in a recent column "In our devolving and decaying morally relativistic society, there are many people who regard the killing of a pre-born child as of no consequence whatever." Nowhere in America is that more evident than in Rockford IL.

Wayne Webster, landlord of the Northern Illinois Women's Center,
in consultation with the police on September 24, 2010

In a chain of events that began over a month ago, it seems as if those in power in the city of Rockford have used every legal maneuver at their disposal to thwart any effort to help mothers in need.

This sad story began after pro-lifers seemingly had the approval of the city to bring the ultrasound to Rockford. But behind the scenes as pro-lifers were working in openness and goodwill, a letter was drafted by Chief of Police Chet Epperson. This letter was written while pro-lifers were still in contact with the police on an almost daily basis, gaining approval for the ultrasound. This is the letter (please note the date).

As you can see in many ways, it is a reasonable letter, informing pro-lifers that a problem exists, and it includes a way to solve the problem.

Three weeks after this letter was written, the mobile ultrasound was ordered to stop any activity in Rockford. All that was given the ultrasound technician was a city ordinance accusing the ultrasound motor-home of soliciting business. As far as we know, the letter was not given to any pro-lifer.

Then the wall of silence came.

Pro-lifers tried to contact the police on this issue. They were clueless. They tried to contact the city legal department on this issue, and pro-lifers were told they can only contact them "through your lawyers." We pro-lifers have a free civil rights law firm helping us in other matters, but they have nothing to do with the free ultrasound.

So pro-lifers spent the following days and weeks trying to resolve the issue with no results. We had no idea how to proceed because we were never given the letter from the police chief that explained how the situation might be resolved.

Signs in abortion clinic window showing support for the actions of
city attorney Patrick Hayes.

Then an ugly story gets even worse.

The letter from the police chief that was never given to pro-lifers was given to a local newspaper in what many feel was purely a propaganda move.

Two local pro-life leaders then began an inquiry with the police department as to the validity of the letter. Almost immediately, an order came down from the city legal department that the Rockford police are not to communicate with these two representatives of the pro-life community on these issues.

Our questions were met with silence.

Because of these effective delaying tactics by the city of Rockford, more valuable time was lost in trying to resolve the problem. Local pro-lifers wrongly assumed that this letter dated August 20, 2010 from the police chief that is directed to the operators of the mobile ultrasound was given to them long before and that they were working with the city to solve the problem following the directions of the letter.

As it turns out, this letter was never given to anyone associated with the mobile ultrasound unit. So a month after the letter was written, a week after it was given to the press, it had still not been given to pro-lifers.

This has been a sad and sordid story of pro-lifers openly and in goodwill communicating with the city of Rockford in an attempt to help mothers in need and the Machiavellian ways the city has delayed, hidden, and obscured any chance we ever had of resolving this situation in a timely way.

After these many weeks of the mobile ultrasound's being banned from Rockford, our fundraising is as dead as any child it the missing ultra-sound did not have the chance to help. From clubs and organizations who had to cancel fundraisers to individual donations that have completely stopped, the city of Rockford working with the Rockford abortion mill has probably killed this life-saving effort.

We would just like to know why?

A Human's A Human, No Matter How Small

H/T: Jill Stanek ((Prolifer)ations 9-24-10)

Coerced Abortions - More Common in the USA Than Pro-Aborts & Radical feminists Want to Admit

This is a dirty little secret those who talk about it being a woman's choice don't want to get out, that a lot of abortions are NOT the woman's choice. It is often the father of the baby (spouse or boyfriend, rapist or relative that is in an incestuous relationship with the girl, sometimes voluntary but usually forced on her) or a parent of a teen that forces the child to have an abortion, often to protect their reputation, not their daughter's.

Often the women are faced with threats of violence if they don't have an abortion. Sometimes the girl is forced to do so in order to cover up a rape or incest. Other times it is because the man doesn't want to take any responsibility for the child. & as this article points out, it is a lot more common that the people who call themselves "pro-choice" want to admit.

This is another reason who Crisis Pregnancy Centers are so important. they often help women to find an alternative & an out they otherwise don't have.

New Initiative Offers Help to Girls Facing Pressure to Abort

By Kathleen Gilbert
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, September 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pregnant teens often face pressure to undergo an abortion from parents or others - but a new resource soon to be distributed around the country will offer such young women hope and legal recourse in a seemingly hopeless situation.
While many may think of coerced abortion as a phenomenon found only in countries such as China, pro-life sidewalk counselors across America testify to routinely witnessing young girls being practically dragged into abortion clinics by fathers or mothers unwilling to handle their daughters' pregnancies.
Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League said that, from his experience as a sidewalk counselor outside abortion clinics, coerced abortion is an all-too-frequent phenomenon.
"From what I've seen outside abortion facilities, many women -- especially young women -- are being coerced into aborting their unborn babies," Scheidler told LifeSiteNews.com. "Often the young woman will clearly want to come over and talk to a pro-life sidewalk counselor, only to have her boyfriend, husband or parent push her on into the clinic, sometimes forcibly.
"Again and again, women will tell our counselors, 'I have no choice,'" he continued. "They're threatened with being abandoned or kicked out of the house. Sometimes they're even threatened with murder."
Scheidler said he expected that efforts to end such coercion, if successful, would make abortion rates "plummet."
A project of the Justice Foundation, the Center Against Forced Abortions (CAFA), hopes to put an end to forced abortion by empowering young women with their legal rights. CAFA has already found success saving lives by offering young women a letter drafted by Justice Foundation attorneys that outlines to parents the legal rights of their daughters to carry their child to term.
Justice Foundation President Allan Parker said the experience of helping teenage girls escape pressure from parents to abort provided the inspiration to draft a letter informing those who are unaware of their rights.
"What's the basic premise of Roe v Wade? It's the woman's choice ... [and] choice implies being able to say yes or no," said Parker.
The letter informs parents - or any other "concerned persons" - that, "even though abortion may be legal, you do not have any right to force, coerce, exert undue influence, or pressure your daughter to have an abortion," citing the 1979 U.S. Supreme Court case Bellotti v. Baird. Such force, they note, may "subject you to reporting and prosecution for child abuse. Besides possible criminal prosecution, if you force, coerce, or exert undue pressure, then both you and the abortionist could be held liable for various civil torts, such as battery, negligence, false imprisonment, or other claims."
Parker said that the letter could prove lifesaving to the children of young mothers unaware of their legal rights.
"Knowledge is power, and there are legal rights that they have," he said.
But not only teenage girls should receive the information in the letter, he said. The pro-life leader urged the letter to be distributed to pregnancy centers, police stations, government offices such as child protection services, and school counselors.
Jeanneane Maxon, general counsel for Care Net, said that she was "shocked" at the lack of awareness not only among ordinary citizens, but even active members of the pro-life community. Maxon told LifeSiteNews.com that Care Net "often" receives questions from pregnancy centers unaware "that parents and others cannot force their children to have an abortion."

Everything The Culture Of Death Doesn't Want You to Know About "ella"

& are afraid you might ask!



ella" Causes Abortions

Bishop Doran - Procured Abortion, Death Knell of Our Society

This is Bishop Doran's column from the 24 September 2010 edition of the Rockford Diocesan newspaper, The Observer. It pretty much speaks for itself. Bishop Doran pulls no punches but sounds a clarion call. In word & deed he has spoken out in defense of life as a good shepherd should. Bravo Bishop Doran.

The practice of abortion in our country and city holds hidden dangers

An old story has it that a priest/professor once mounted his pulpit to preach on suicide and he began: “Suicide is not only a mortal sin, but is very dangerous.” One could say with some justification the same thing about procured abortion; it is a mortal sin and is very dangerous. At least practicing Catholics know that it is sinful and many other Christians do as well.
In our devolving and decaying morally relativistic society, there are many people who regard the killing of a pre-born child as of no consequence whatever. What is hidden from the eyes of the unsuspecting, however, is that not only for its victims but also for its perpetrators and for societies that permit it, allow it and license it, it is extremely dangerous.
All of us are aware of the perilous financial condition into which corrupt politicians of both parties have cast our country. Particularly vexing to our congressional overlords are the so-called entitlements: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other such things as unemployment compensation and various types of government relief. What we are never told is that the reason these entitlements are becoming unbearable for the taxpaying public is that there are fewer and fewer people contributing funds by way of their taxes to support these needed benefits upon which many people in our society have come to rely. Ours is a rapidly aging population because the number of children born into it becomes smaller and smaller and smaller, relative to the size of our country.

Since a pagan Supreme Court, overriding the Christian conscience of centuries, chose to kill children in 1973, millions of them have been butchered without ever seeing the light of day, even for a moment. Abortion also coarsens our moral discourse and brutalizes our people.
It is said that even Nazi Germany was not quite as callous with regard to nascent infant life as our unelected judges have made our country. Abortion has also contributed to the treatment of women as objects, rather than as subjects, of rights and duties, has made us more callous as regards the commission of lesser crimes and is a bullet aimed at the heart of marriage and family life. It has ruined the trust we used to have in doctors, nurses and the health care business. In short, procured abortion may well be the death knell of our society.
As with other forms of wrongful activity sanctioned or winked at by the government, procured abortion is for the killers and those who support them, immensely profitable. Abortuaries are gold mines for their operators. Killer physicians and surgeons, distaining the Hippocratic Oath, travel hundreds of miles to assassinate a few children, and you may be sure that that kind of doctor or nurse does not work for nothing.
Many courageous people have taken up the pro-life cause, and one of the things that we have found that is most helpful in dissuading mothers who are on the way to killing their children are ultrasound images of their children recumbent in the womb. To that end, Rockford advocates of pro-life causes, braving the harassment of those paid to protect the abortuaries from suffering financial ills, have arranged for ultrasound procedures at no cost to the mothers of the condemned children in the hope that some, and indeed as many as possible, might be dissuaded from that purpose.
Recently the abortuary functionaries and those publicly charged to protect them deceived the people who were willing to provide these services here into thinking they had permission to do so and then drove them off because they had not paid the license fees for so doing, the fees of which they had not been, as far as I know, apprised in the beginning. I am reliably informed that those in charge of the police department were in no way collaborators in this deception.
In a meeting of the City Council on Monday night, the Mayor of Rockford, the Honorable Lawrence Morrissey, said that the Legal Department would assist the pro-life people providing this service with the necessary licenses upon the payment of the fees exacted by our politicians for this licensure. The pro-life people in this diocese are courageous people who endure a good deal of discomfort, raillery and obloquy from those who maintain and staff the local abortuary. Nor may those people be subject to our contempt. As the Gospel of last Sunday tells us, those who serve mammon must hate God. They have chosen the master to whom they pay homage, and their master rewards them with great financial gain.
A week or so ago, one member of the pro-life movement in Rockford attempted to instruct the City Council on the anomalies of the situation. I do not know to what effect. It must be said, and tearfully, that we do not rely on our public legislators for a great deal in the way of ethical conduct (to say nothing of morally upright behavior), but perhaps some good is done. In the meantime, I ask all in the diocese to pray for the pro-life people here, in Aurora and throughout the diocese that we will be able to dissuade through the use of ultrasound procedures a few more mothers from destroying the children who have been given God’s great gift of life. Many things happen in this world for which there is no rational explanation.
Speaking of children, in the 18th Chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, we read that He called a child over, placed it in their midst and said: “Amen I say to you, unless you turn and become like children you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven . . . and whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me . . . see that you do not despise one of these little ones,” and then He adds the frightening phrase, “I say to you that their angels in Heaven, always look upon the face of my Heavenly Father.” (Mt 18:10) Foolhardy indeed are those who would court the wrath of angels.
We pray then for the pro-life people of the Diocese of Rockford to bless and encourage all their efforts to remove from our midst and indeed from society at large the peril of procured abortion. We pray for their safety and for God’s choicest graces for all of them.

Papa Benedetto Blesses Current 40 Days for Life Campaign

Of course it is no surprize that Papa Benedetto would give his blessing to their efforts.

This Fall's 40 days for Life Campaign kicked off with a record 238 locations in the US, Canada, Australia, England, Northern Ireland & Denmark. As I have mentioned in the past, these campaigns have born fruit in several ways. 1st of all, in the fact that many hundreds of unborn children have been spared by their presence. Also, as a result of prayer, several sites have closed. Also there have been people who worked there leaving because God touched their hearts & theN became pro-life.

Pope Benedict Sends Greetings to 40 Days For Life Campaign

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
LONDON, UK, September 24. 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Prior to the papal visit to England, the 40 Days for Life campaign team in London wrote to the pope, and has now received a letter in response from his office.
Monsignor Peter B. Wells, responding for the Holy Father, wrote that the pope "appreciates the sentiments which prompted you to write to him about your work."
According to the letter, the pope will be personally praying for "you and all those who seek to protect life in the womb, that their efforts might lead to a growing appreciation of the inalienable rights of the unborn child."
A scan of the exact letter is posted online here.
David Bereit, National Director of 40 Days for Life in the U.S., told LifeSiteNews, "We were encouraged by this communication" from the pope, and urged all those involved in the 40 Days for Life campaign to, "Keep up the great work!"
Information on the 40 Days campaigns in Canada is available from the Campaign Life Coalition website.
To learn more about the international 40 Days for Life campaign and locations please visit here

OK, I Know They Say We Need to Make Math Relevant, But????

My other question is why was the Police Chief e-mailing this in the 1st place?

Source: Controversial Email WIN

Military Archbishop - "Catholics for Equality" Are NOT Catholic

You can be sure this isn't going to win him any friends in the Catholyc gang. But that isn't what he is after. Instead he is trying to fulfill the duties of his office as Bishop. He acknowledges his obligation to teach the truth in love. Even if some people don't like or want to hear the truth. & part of that is calling dissident groups like this what they are. Rather than allowing them legitimacy by meeting with them, he is making it clear that they need to quit claiming to be Catholic. & because they aren't Catholic, they have no right to represent what they say as authenticly Catholic.

Homosexual advocacy group not legitimately Catholic, military archbishop says

Washington D.C., Sep 22, 2010 / 05:54 am (CNA).- After receiving a letter from the group Catholics for Equality urging a change to the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy, the Archbishop for Military Services responded, saying that the archdiocese's position is “clear.” The prelate added that the group “cannot be legitimately recognized as Catholic.”
Catholics for Equality had requested a meeting with Archbishop for the Military Services Timothy Broglio(right), claiming he offered misleading and false arguments in his June 1 statement against allowing open homosexuals to serve in the U.S. military.
Last week leaders of the group joined a lobbying effort sponsored by Servicemembers United. They lobbied Congress and asked key senators and Catholic leaders to support changing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Catholics for Equality Board Member Patsy Trujillo, a former New Mexico state legislator, said the group was confident that senators would vote to change present policy.
“Further, we trust our Catholic Senators will vote in their conscience and the will of the pro-equality Catholics in their state, and not the misinformed dictates of Rome,” she said in a Catholics for Equality press release.
On Tuesday the U.S. Senate blocked the bill that would allow changes to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. While 60 votes were required to start debate, the final vote was 56 to 43.
In a Sept. 20 statement responding to a CNA inquiry, Archbishop Broglio said the Archdiocese for the Military Services has a “clear” position on a change in the present policy concerning the service of persons who “openly manifest a homosexual orientation.”
While his latest statement did not reiterate the archdiocese’s position, in a June 1 statement Archbishop Broglio opposed the policy change. Saying moral beliefs should not be sacrificed for “merely political considerations,” he explained that Catholic chaplains can never “condone” homosexual behavior.
At the time he also voiced concern that a change in policy might negatively affect the role of the chaplain in the pulpit, the classroom, the barracks and the office.
CNA’s inquiry to the archbishop recounted CNA’s previous report on Catholics for Equality.
The organization was founded by groups such as New Ways Ministry and Dignity USA with cooperation from the homosexual advocacy group Human Rights Committee (HRC). It aims to “support, educate, and mobilize equality-supporting Catholics to advance LGBT equality at federal, state, and local levels.”
It also charges the Catholic hierarchy with favoring discrimination and having an “anti-equality voice” that does not represent Catholics.
In his Monday statement, Archbishop Broglio explained that according to canon law a group may call itself Catholic if it has been approved by a bishop or recognized by the Holy See in some manner.
“It is doubtful that the group in question has such approval. Therefore, it cannot be legitimately recognized as Catholic,” he commented.
The archbishop also challenged any indication that the Catholic hierarchy does not represent Catholics.
“By definition that is impossible. The Body of Christ, as is clearly taught, is the Church united in communion: the hierarchy with the faithful joined with the Successor of St. Peter and united to Christ our Head.
“Translating the language of political systems to the Church simply demonstrates a lack of understanding of what the Church is,” Archbishop Broglio commented.
He also insisted that Church teaching is based in love and truth.
“It is not the desire of the Archdiocese for Military Services to offend anyone, but there is an obligation to teach the truth in love, even when that truth is displeasing to some or politically incorrect to others. The Holy Father made that quite clear in Caritas in Veritate.”
Phil Attey, the present acting executive director of Catholics for Equality, is a former employee of HRC. Last year Attey created a website to “aggregate reports on every gay priest” in the Archdiocese of Washington to help them “stand up to the church hierarchy” on homosexual issues.
The Catholics for Equality website asks readers to report “anti-equality activity” in Catholic parishes, dioceses or community activities.