Liberal Mainstream Media and violence against pro-life Christians

Life Site News observes that:

"Violence against pro-life groups and individuals has been underreported by mainstream media outlets even though it occurs on a fairly regular basis and has for decades. While pro-life activists and organizations have received their share of threats (phone calls, mail, personal threats, online, etc.), more serious attacks of vandalism and even violent assault take place against pro-lifers with little mention in the press.

The false painting of pro-life groups as hateful and violent even led to a deranged gunman seeking to shoot staff at the pro-life Family Research Council. In 2009, Harlan Drake shot and murdered pro-life activist James Pouillon, while Pouillon displayed images of babies outside a Michigan school. Recently a man was indicted on federal charges after threatening to kill or rape members of Operation Rescue. Other threats to pro-lifers involving guns — including one by an abortionist — have thus far ended peacefully...

The abortion lobby, with the help of complicit pro-abortion media has portrayed pro-lifers as 'violent' with regularity."

_______________

It was Adolf Hitler, in Mein Kampf, who said that, "The chief function of propaganda is to convince the masses, who slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on their mind.........the slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. The one will be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results that such a personal policy secures."

As one website explains:

"Once they succeeded in ending democracy and turning Germany into a one-party dictatorship, the Nazis orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to win the loyalty and cooperation of Germans. The Nazi Propaganda Ministry, directed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, took control of all forms of communication in Germany: newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies, and radio. Viewpoints in any way threatening to Nazi beliefs or to the regime were censored or eliminated from all media.

During the spring of 1933, Nazi student organizations, professors, and librarians made up long lists of books they thought should not be read by Germans. Then, on the night of May 10, 1933, Nazis raided libraries and bookstores across Germany. They marched by torchlight in nighttime parades, sang chants, and threw books into huge bonfires. On that night more than 25,000 books were burned. Some were works of Jewish writers, including Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Most of the books were by non-Jewish writers, including such famous Americans as Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis, whose ideas the Nazis viewed as different from their own and therefore not to be read.

The Nazi censors also burned the books of Helen Keller, who had overcome her deafness and blindness to become a respected writer; told of the book burnings, she responded: "Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas." Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States protested the book burnings, a clear violation of freedom of speech, in public rallies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis.

Schools also played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas. While some books were removed from classrooms by censors, other textbooks, newly written, were brought in to teach students blind obedience to the party, love for Hitler, and antisemitism. After-school meetings of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls trained children to be faithful to the Nazi party. In school and out, young people celebrated such occasions as Adolf Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of his taking power."

Today, censorship is beginning to be used against Christians to silence moral opposition to abortion and homosexuality.  Today's censors do not have to gather up thousands of books, march by torchlight in nighttme parades and throw books into huge bonfires.  They have merely to strike a few keys from the comfort of their offices.

Inflated in their rebellion against the God-Man, the Sons of Satan, those committed toward the atheistic program of attacking the Church from without and undermining it from within in preparation for the Man-God, will continue to intensify their persecution of craftiness and subversion until it reaches its culmination in an explosion of hate-filled rage which will bear much blood and death. Father Livio Fanzaga, writing about the Antichrist, says that, "Catholicism alone will resist him. How then do we destroy this superstition which alone obstructs the world's self-revelation? How do we destroy this superstition which divides mankind and which prevents man from being truly brotherly and free? The true Antichrist is revealed in the replies to these questions. Here is perceived his profound being as the man of iniquity. He will not tolerate the idea of men who adore any god other than himself. His intolerance obliges him to make an exception to his pacifism and his philosophy of non-violence. He is the greatest pacifist in the history of the human race, but because peace and justice really reign on earth he will make an exception to kill and destroy the great superstition of Catholicism, once and for all time..." (Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist, p. 124).

If Francis were authentically pro-life, he would condemn the murderous Castro regime

Carlos Eire notes how Francis is once again exposing himself as a hypocrite. He writes: "Once again, Papa Che has come out swinging against an evil, heartless capitalist figure.

Yet, he remains totally silent on evil, heartless socialist and communist dictators.

Papa Che has condemned the Trumpinator for his elimination of the DACA carte blanche to illegal immigrant children.

Granted, he is constantly probed by the left-leaning press on issues such as this, so he can make pronouncements against those who don’t lean left.

In other words, he is provided with more opportunities to criticize capitalist democracies than leftist tyrannies.

So, journalists are partly responsible for prompting and reporting Papa Che’s swipes at capitalist democracies.

Yet, when he visits countries where there is plenty of heartless un-Christian totalitarian abuse of power going on, he says nothing, nada, nichts, zero, null, rien, niente…"

Mr. Eire cites The Daily Mail:


"Pope picks a fight with Trump saying president can’t be pro-life life if he ended DACA

Pope Francis has gone after President Trump over yet another controversial immigration issue, saying if the president is ‘pro-life’ then he should reconsider his order to rescind DACA."

No one can accuse Francis of being a scholar.  But even this dim light should be capable of understanding No. 2273 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . ."

If Francis were authentically pro-life, he would condemn the murderous Castro regime.  Not only has he failed to do so, but this Pharisee has welcomed Raul Castro at the Vatican with open arms. See here.

Is Francis authentically pro-life?

Is Francis authentically pro-life or does he tacitly promote the Culture of Death? At the Catholic Monitor, this question is examined.  See here.

In the Encyclical Pacem in Terris, John XXIII pointed out that "it is generally accepted today that the common good is best safeguarded when personal rights and duties are guaranteed. The chief concern of civil authorities must therefore be to ensure that these rights are recognized, respected, co-ordinated, defended and promoted, and that each individual is enabled to perform his duties more easily. For to safeguard the inviolable rights of the human person, and to facilitate the performance of his duties, is the principal duty of every public authority'. Thus any government which refused to recognize human rights or acted in violation of them, would not only fail in its duty; its decrees would be wholly lacking in binding force".

The doctrine on the necessary conformity of civil law with the moral law is in continuity with the whole tradition of the Church. This is clear once more from John XXIII's Encyclical: "Authority is a postulate of the moral order and derives from God. Consequently, laws and decrees enacted in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience...; indeed, the passing of such laws undermines the very nature of authority and results in shameful abuse".

This is the clear teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who writes that "human law is law inasmuch as it is in conformity with right reason and thus derives from the eternal law. But when a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; but in this case it ceases to be a law and becomes instead an act of violence". And again: "Every law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law. But if it is somehow opposed to the natural law, then it is not really a law but rather a corruption of the law".

Now the first and most immediate application of this teaching concerns a human law which disregards the fundamental right and source of all other rights which is the right to life, a right belonging to every individual. Consequently, laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law. It might be objected that such is not the case in euthanasia, when it is requested with full awareness by the person involved. But any State which made such a request legitimate and authorized it to be carried out would be legalizing a case of suicide-murder, contrary to the fundamental principles of absolute respect for life and of the protection of every innocent life.

In this way the State contributes to lessening respect for life and opens the door to ways of acting which are destructive of trust in relations between people. Laws which authorize and promote abortion and euthanasia are therefore radically opposed not only to the good of the individual but also to the common good; as such they are completely lacking in authentic juridical validity. Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good. Consequently, a civil law authorizing abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law.

Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection*. From the very beginnings of the Church, the apostolic preaching reminded Christians of their duty to obey legitimately constituted public authorities (cf. Rom 13:1-7; 1 Pet 2:13-14), but at the same time it firmly warned that "we must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29)."

We must obey God rather than men. Does Francis believe this?  Such would not appear to be the case.

*  See here.

Pro-life Catholic school bus firebombed

It really comes as no surprise that supporters of demonic abortion would resort to firebombing a pro-life Catholic school bus.  Fr. Vincent Miceli has said that, "...violence entered creation from the rebellion of Lucifer. This rebellion arose from the heart of pride. But the sin of pride is the offspring of the vice known as hatred of truth. Hatred of truth is the result of the creature's attempt to rearrange God's hierarchy of beings and values into an order which the creature prefers to the plan of God. This attempt immediately produces the violence of disorder, the chaos of falsity and immorality. For hatred of truth is really hatred of God who creates all things wisely and governs them lovingly. Lucifer, the Morning Star, was instantly deformed into the Prince of Darkness because he attempted to live a lie. He wanted to dethrone God and become God himself..."


We live in an environment where there is a "violence of disorder" because we have abandoned truth. And hatred of truth leads to violence. It is the very root of violence. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own account, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me." (John 8: 42-45).

It is rejection of truth which leads to violence. And so we read in verse 59 of the same Chapter, "So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple." If there is exaggerated rhetoric and violence across our society, it is because many have rejected God's created order. But there is a consequence to this rejection of truth. As Dorothy Sayers reminded us, if we will not have Christ, we will have chaos.

Why is the UN censoring pro-life speech?

“They promise..freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption…” (2 Peter 2:19).




Wendy Wright, reporting for C-FAM, notes how, "Youth attending a UN conference on women’s issues this week say UN security officers confiscated their backpacks after discovering pro-life literature.

The confiscated materials were petitions to 'Stop Sexualizing Children,' and were connected to a UN approved workshop led this week by Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child psychiatrist and author of 'You're Teaching My Child What? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education and How They Harm Your Child.'

The offending flyer announced a project called the 'Girls Coalition to Protect the Health and Innocence of Children,' which is an ad hoc group that sponsored the Grossman event. At the panel, girls from China, Spain and Mexico launched a petition calling on UN agencies to 'Stop Sexualizing Children.' They charge the UN’s promotion of 'comprehensive sexuality education' is harmful to children.

The young people insist they were not leafleting, which is forbidden on UN property, though it is routinely ignored. The young students left UN grounds to make more copies. Upon their return they were stopped by UN security.

One of the students, Kalli Lawrence, said that the guards noticed the group’s distinctive green backpacks and then ordered the students to hand them over. 'The guards had this confused, angry look on their faces,' she reported, 'and they started telling all the security guards, "don’t let any of these yellow papers go through, just take them all and keep them."'

The green backpacks and literature were stored in lockers at a security checkpoint. Students and their teachers were allowed to retrieve some of the backpacks as they left UN property. According to teacher Jody Dunn, some of the backpacks were not returned, those that contained a pro-life documentary called '180'. Dunn then insisted and those backpacks were returned also.

Pro-lifers have long felt the sting of selective enforcement of UN rules. Kali Lawrence said, 'They didn’t stop anyone else that we could see passing out flyers.'

Upon questioning by the Friday Fax, the security officer in charge at the time said guards don’t 'target' items. He went on to say they were not allowed to discuss policies or procedures.

Observers speculate that someone connected to Commission organizers complained to UN security. At the Cairo conference on Population and Development in 1994, without any evidence, former US Senator Timothy Wirth told UN security that a certain pro-lifer was a violent threat. The person was detained and deported.

Alliance Defense Fund attorney Piero Tozzi told the Friday Fax, 'The UN cannot censor speech it does not agree with. Both the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and the Human Rights Committee have recently emphasized the need to protect this fundamental freedom. Why then is speech by respectful, clean cut kids on a topic vital to keeping young people healthy being censored at the UN?'

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom . . . to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." (See article here).

Why is speech by respectful, clean cut kids being censored at the UN?  Because, the United Nations has succumbed to demonic ideology.  If you doubt this for even one moment, consider that the same UN permits professor (and Catholic priest) Michael O'Flaherty, a radical homosexual activist, to promote the Yogyakarta Principles, a blueprint for usurping parental rights while indoctrinating children in gender-bending ideology.  See my past post here.

Satan does not want us to live in peace and harmony. His intention is to make a physical and spiritual wreckage of all God’s creation. To this end he enlists men in that attempt by their lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life. He is especially anxious to seduce the young and to corrupt them so thoroughly that they come to resemble more and more the devils they then follow.

The Catholic Church teaches that, “Educating children for chastity strives to achieve three objectives: (a) to maintain in the family a positive atmosphere of love, virtue, and respect for the gifts of God, in particular the gift of life; (b) to help children to understand the value of sexuality and chastity in stages, sustaining their growth through enlightening word, example, and prayer; (c) to help them understand and discover their own vocation to marriage or to consecrated virginity for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven in harmony with and respecting their attitudes and inclinations and the gifts of the Spirit.” (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality (Guidelines for Education Within the Family), issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, No. 3).

This requires self-control, which is why chastity is so important: “One cannot give what one does not possess. If the person is not master of self – through the virtues and, in a concrete way, through chastity – he or she lacks that self-possession which makes self-giving possible. Chastity is the spiritual power which frees love from selfishness and aggression.” (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, No. 16).

Satan knows this. And so he wages a battle against chastity through sex-education which radically separates sex from the very idea of the covenanted love of man and woman, a sex education and propaganda which the group POPE (Parents for Orthodoxy in Parochial Education) referred to as, “the spiritual, emotional rape of our children through various and devious methods of mind manipulation” (“Do Sex-Education Programs Corrupt Youth? The Wanderer, April 17, 1969).

Just as Pope John Paul II created a World Youth Day to instill Gospel values in our young people, the Evil One has enlisted men to create a World Youth Conference in which Gospel values are subverted. As Terrence McKeegan, J.D., reported for C-FAM back in 2010, "...at the World Youth Conference, organized primarily by the Mexican government and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the main event for most of [the] estimated 5,000 ‘participants’ was the Interactive Global Forum, a massive expo with hundreds of booths and exhibits. A tour of the booths revealed what passes for ‘age-appropriate’ sexual education in some UN circles. Because the venue for the World Youth Conference had considerably more exhibit space than most UN conferences, it was a unique opportunity for organizations focusing on youth to put their best face forward. In the expo hall, there were dozens of booths with pornographic or sexually explicit materials or presentations.

At the International Planned Parenthood Federation (the largest provider of abortion services in the world) booth, their table featured the sexually explicit brochure: 'Healthy, Happy, and Hot', which garnered headlines last March due to its distribution at a Girl Scouts side event at the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
At a booth by an organization named 'RECREA,' there was a table with a bowl of condoms and a wooden phallus. The walls of the exhibit booth were covered with pornographic and sexually suggestive photos. Nearby there were two glass cases featuring rubber models of male and female genitalia, as well as a bright assortment of condoms.



At the Fundacion Collectivo de Mujeres Jovenes booth,which was staffed by two middle-aged men, the presentation largely consisted of a collection of thong underwear hung up around the booth, as well as a 'snakes and ladders' floor game with puffy dice." 

Did you catch the name of that "game"?  Snakes and ladders.  Who is the serpent?

To sum up: Pro-Life literature is taboo at the UN.  But not wooden phalluses, condoms, pornographic and sexually suggestive photos.

This is the essence of the new anti-Christian sex education in preparation for the Moloch State. As George Kendall explains in Witness for the Truth, this sex education "radically separates sex from the very idea of the covenanted love of man and woman. Sex becomes merely a self-centered appetite to be satisfied and not a gift of self to another. As a result, what this kind of education produces is the lonely, autonomous individual. This is the ultimate in alienation. The autonomous individual is alienated even from his own body, which becomes to him only a thing, too - a thing to be used as a means to his autonomous pleasure. The end result is depersonalization which, if it lasts into eternity without being healed, means eternal loss.

Few have put it as eloquently as Randy Engel did: 'Is it any wonder that the state must wage war against the family? For the state requires not individuals who dream, and think, and pray, but rather what has come to be called 'the mass man' - rootless, unaffirmed, a reactor - a mere reed blowing in the wind - a thing to be manipulated, to be used, to be disposed of, but never, never, to be loved, for the giant has no heart. And since the modern state has no heart, that which men previously have done out of love, must now be done out of fear, and hatred, and brute force.' So clearly, centemporary sex education, 'Catholic' or otherwise, is a profound attack on human dignity and on the human person.." (Witness for the Truth, pp. 399-400. citing Randy Engel "The Family Under Siege," Wanderer, March 6, 1980).


And now I would add, satanic. The United Nations, spiritual headquarters for the Termite Nations of the West, is advancing the concept of the Moloch State which claims total jurisdiction over man. The Moloch State will serve as a demon-state which rejects God's Commandments and His plan for the human family. This demon-state (and make no mistake about it, our leaders increasingly have recourse to demons) denies that there is any transcendent, higher-than-human voice or authority that cares for man. R.J. Rushdoony explains that:

"The Moloch State simply represents the supreme effort of man to command the future, to predestine the world, and to be as God. Lesser efforts, divination, spirit-questing, magic and witchcraft are equally anathema to God. All represent efforts to have the future on other than God's terms, to have a future apart from and in defiance of God. They are assertions that the world is not of God but of brute factuality, and that man can somehow master the world and the future by going directly to the raw materials thereof."

Enter the Man of Sin.

John 5: 43.

Is it the official policy of the Franklin Massachusetts Police Department to categorize pro-lifers as "domestic terrorists"?

LifeSiteNews is reporting:


A pro-life activist in New England says he was unjustly beaten, arrested, and accused of a bomb plot while passing out pro-life bookmarks at a local town fair.


“I’m at peace because Our Lord and Savior was by me the whole way,” D’Attilio told LifeSiteNews in an interview. “I was shocked when it did happen. It was completely unexpected and out of the blue because I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I never got so much as a warning. They basically just grabbed me and cuffed me without a crime.”

In his account of what happened, published online by the pro-family group MassResistance, pro-life activist Peter D’Attilio says that police approached him on the evening of August 11 when he was handing out two-inch-wide pro-life bookmarks to six teenagers. D’Attilio was at the annual St. Rocco fair on the grounds of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Franklin, Massachusetts.

Peter D'Attilio with the black eye that he says he received after being punched by Officer Burchill. According to D’Attilio, the police asked him to present identification. After asking why, the police officer reportedly responded that by law D’Attilio had to identify himself when asked by an officer.

In the police report filed by Officer Robert Burchill, Burchill says that he approached D’Atillio only after the chairman of the festival, Peter Brunelli, asked him to. The officer says that Brunelli had received several complaints about D’Atillio and that he wanted him removed from the property.

The pro-life activist says that when the officer prevented him from leaving the property after he offered to leave voluntarily, “I told him he was illegally detaining me.”

“He then put his hand in my back pocket to grab my wallet, but I also put my hand in my back pocket to hold my wallet, so he gave up trying.” At that point D’Attilio was put into handcuffs.

The pro-life activist says that after he was handcuffed he suddenly found himself pushed to his knees while the police officer “started choking me,” after which the officer reportedly punched him in the face, giving him a black eye.

In the police report, Officer Burchill claimed that D’Attilio repeatedly resisted arrest. “While I was trying to place the handcuffs on him, he pulled away and had to be physically restrained and handcuffed,” he said.

The officer said that D’Attilio again resisted when the officers were placing him into the police cruiser, and that “he had to be physically put into the cruiser.”

D’Attilio, however, denies the charge. “He claimed I tried to resist that, which I didn’t,” he said.

At the police station, D’Attilio says that the sergeant who did the booking asked him if he had planned to blow up the fair, telling him that pro-life people “are known for that kind of thing.”

When D’Attilio got out of jail, he found that his truck had been thoroughly searched with “bomb-sniffing dogs.” The pro-life activist says he has been told that he has been put on a “terrorist watch list.”

“By putting us all, every pro-life citizen, on the (Modern Militia Movement), it sends a powerful message that stereotypes all civil rights activists against abortion as terrorists,” he told LSN. The Modern Militia Movement is a government collective that identifies the warning signs of potential domestic terrorists for law enforcement communities.

D’Attilio, who still needs a lawyer to represent him, was arraigned in court before a judge on August 19, and is scheduled to appear in court again at 9:00 a.m. on September 28. He has filed a citizen’s complaint about his treatment at the hands of the police.

Neither Franklin Police Chief Stephen Williams nor Franklin Town Council Chairman Scott Mason responded to a request for comment from LSN.

I'm not surprised that Chief Williams decided not to respond to LSN.  Remember when the Obama administration issued its "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" to the Department of Homeland Security back in 2009?  The pro-life movement was defined in this lexicon as, "A movement of groups or individuals who are virulently anti-abortion and advocate violence against providers of abortion-related services, their employees, and their facilities. Some cite various racist and anti-Semitic beliefs to justify their criminal activities."

Is this the position of Chief Williams and his department?  That pro-lifers are a danger to the community?  That pro-lifers are prone to domestic terrorism?

It was the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, a man whose thought so greatly influenced my own, who said that, "Fanaticism is essentially opinion; opinion pushed to paroxysm; with everything that the notion of opinion may imply of blinded ignorance as to its own nature...whatever ends the fanatic is aiming at or thinks he is aiming at, even if he wishes to gather men together, he can only in fact separate them; but as his own interests cannot lie in effecting this separation, his is led...to wish to wipe his opponents out. And when he is thinking of these opponents, he takes care to form the most degrading images of them possible - they are 'lubricious vipers' or 'hyenas and jackals with typewriters' - and the ones that reduce them to most grossly material terms. In fact, he no longer thinks of these opponents except as material obstacles to be overturned or smashed down. Having abandoned the behaviour of a thinking being, he has lost even the feeblest notion of what a thinking being, outside himself, could be. It is understandable therefore that he should make very effort to deny in advance the rights and qualifications of those whom he wishes to eliminate; and that he should regard all means to this end as fair. We are back here again at the techniques of degradation...fanaticism is, of its very nature, incompatible with any regard for truth; and as truth itself is not really seperable from our regard for it, we need not hesitate to say that the fanatic is the enemy of truth..." (Man Against Mass Society, pp. 149-150).


The Franklin Massachusetts Police Department should be investigated.  Have other pro-lifers been treated in similar fashion? 

"..there was a woman who loved me deeply.."

It moves one’s heart to think:

Nine months before I was born
there was a woman who loved me deeply.
She did not know what I was going to be like,
but she loved me because she carried me in her womb.
And when she gave me birth,
she took me in her arms
because her love was not just beginning –
she conceived it along with me.
A mother loves –and that is why abortion is so abhorrent:
A mother who aborts is unfaithful to the love that she should have(like God in eternity) before her child is born.

                                    Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador

Pro-Life resource here

Pro-Life Tsunami At The Polls?

Mother Teresa on abortion:

"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters"


And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign." (Mother Theresa -- "Notable and Quotable," Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14)

"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

"Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted, and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child, and be loved by the child. From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortions. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents, and have grown up so full of love and joy!"

February 1997 - National Prayer Breakfast in Washington attended by the President and the First Lady. "What is taking place in America," she said, "is a war against the child. And if we accept that the mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another."

"Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants."

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

Juda Myers: Living in the Truth?

After previously threatening me with a lawsuit because of my accurate Blog posts detailing her hateful comments about the Catholic Church, Juda Myers wrote me a new message on Facebook stating that, "..after direction from the Lord based on the bible, I am not going to pursue legal actions."

Translation: I spoke with an attorney who told me I have no case.

The legal definition of libel:

libel

1) n. "To publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others. Libel is the written or broadcast form of defamation, distinguished from slander, which is oral defamation. It is a tort (civil wrong) making the person or entity (like a newspaper, magazine or political organization) open to a lawsuit for damages by the person who can prove the statement about him/her was a lie."

The statement has to be a lie. The problem for Ms. Myers is that I have copies of our exchanges.

Now Ms. Myers is attempting to demonize me on Facebook. She has accused me of being "angry" and is asserting that I need "someone to attack." The hypocrisy is so thick it's almost unbelievable. This from the woman who wrote, "I am sorry that you have been deceived to think that the CATHOLIC church killing, stealing, overpowering, ostentatious, and filled with the greed for supremacy has any resemblance of Jesus our humble Savior who DIED for His followers. He NEVER sat on a throne on earth and NEVER even suggested for anyone to sit on a throne and be kissed and bowed to...There is a way that seems right unto a man but the end leads to destruction. Their mouths honor me but their hearts are far from me (Jesus' words) Many will say in that day, 'Lord Lord didn't I do this in your name.' and He will say 'Depart from me. I never knew you!' You'd better be absolutely sure the god you serve will save you. Pope of any kind will answer to God almighty. I will go straight to the throne for my headship..." Yes, clearly I'm the one with the anger management problem who's looking for a fight.

This is most unfortunate. For, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us, "The Old Testament attests that God is the source of all truth. His Word is truth. His 'faithfulness endures to all generations.' Since God is 'true,' the members of his people are called to live in the truth." (CCC, 2465). And again, "Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and in guarding against duplicity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy." (CCC, 2468).

This obligation is very serious. In 1 John 1:6, we are told that, "If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth."

I call upon Juda Myers to apologize for her hateful characterization of the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. To accuse the Church of evil is to accuse Christ of evil. To attack the Church is to attack Christ Jesus Himself. When the Lord Jesus appeared to Saul, who had been persecuting the Church, He asked him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4).

Greater Fitchburg for Life

There is a new Pro-Life Blog covering the ongoing moral crisis which has descended upon the city of Fitchburg. The Blog is called Greater Fitchburg for Life and may be found here. These good people who are fighting for life "feel a need to proclaim it and bear witness to it in all its marvelous newness since it is one with Jesus himself who makes all things new and conquers the 'oldness' which comes from sin and leads to death." (Evangelium Vitae, No. 80, citing St. Irenaeus and St. Aquinas).

This is an ongoing spiritual battle. It would be a grave error to believe that this battle may be won by human action alone (as important as such action is). It will only be won through prayer and fasting. This because some demons are only driven out in this manner.

Won't you offer your prayers - and especially at Holy Mass and while praying the Holy Rosary - for the success of the Pro-Life movement in Fitchburg. Together with the help of God's grace, Fitchburg can (and will) be made new.

Read this and reflect upon the fact that Mayor Lisa Wong wants Planned Parenthood in Fitchburg.

The Sentinel & Enterprise is to be commended....to a point.

"The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions." - Socrates, Phaedo 85.


In an editorial entitled "Councilor Starr, Old Glory's a symbol of freedom of speech," (Friday, March 12th edition of the newspaper, the Sentinel & Enterprise rightly chides Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr for inappropriately lashing out at pro-life advocates saying, "We couldn't disagree more with Starr's comments. First of all, one of the most important things the American flag stands for is freedom of speech. That means when people, including his constituents, take the time to show up at City Hall to speak out about an issue, they have the absolute right, and we believe responsibility, to tell city councilors how they feel. We think it's exactly the kind of discussion that should be taking place at City Hall and frankly are puzzled with Starr's comments about the issue...as a city councilor, we believe Starr has a responsibility to listen to his constituents' concerns, as long as they are presented in a civil way, even when he disagrees with them."

But then the newspaper drops the ball toward the end of this editorial when it says, "We don't believe that Starr owes anyone an apology, because we believe firmly that Starr, like the pro-life advocates he criticized and like Hughes [Rev. Thomas Hughes, Pastor of New Creation Community Church in Fitchburg], has the solemn right to say what's on his mind."

This misses the point entirely. Mr. Starr doesn't owe anyone an apology for exercising his free speech rights. He owes an apology to the community because, as an elected governmental official, he expressed a desire to restrict expression because of its message or content.

There is a paramount principle in American jurisprudence that "above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." Police Dep't of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92,95, 33 L. Ed. 2d 212, 92 S. Ct. 2286 (1972); see also Consolidated Edison Co. v.Public Serv. Comm'n, 447 U.S. 530, 537, 65 L. Ed. 2d 319, 100 S. Ct. 2326(1980). And that: "For the State to enforce a content-based exclusion it must show that its regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is narrowly drawn to achieve that end." Perry Educational Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators'Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 45, 74 L. Ed. 2d 794, 103 S. Ct. 948 (1983). Cannon v. Cityand County of Denver, 998 F.2d at 871-72

Just as Mr. Starr's constituents have a responsibility to present their views to him [and other government officials] "in a civil way," so too Mr. Starr owes his constituents the courtesy of remaining civil while not attempting to restrict expression because he doesn't happen to like the message.

Fr. Thomas Euteneuer: A courageous example for all

My friends, this is my idea of a courageous Roman Catholic priest. An alter Christus. And there are others like him. A man in every sense of the word. Please pray every day for Fr. Euteneuer and to the Lord Jesus Christ, that our Church may be blessed with many more like him.


Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, in his Spirit & Life e-letter, responds to Fr. Rosica:


No Deal, Fr. Rosica

Fr. Thomas Rosica, director of the Salt and Light Catholic Television Network in Canada, recently wrote a shameless condemnation of pro-life people who objected to the August 28th Canonization in Boston, more commonly known as the funeral of Senator Edward Kennedy. Fr. Rosica had a problem with good Catholics being scandalized by the public funeral of a man who lived his life utterly rejecting the Church's core principles. There was absolutely no recognition of the heroism of the thousands of faithful Catholics who have stood on the front lines of this battle for many decades or of the marvelous contribution that we have made to saving babies and witnessing to the Truth of Christ. Unfortunately, Father's criticism simply feeds the flames of anti-life sentiment against pro-lifers and ultimately against the sanctity of human life.

Now, the first of his many ironies was that, in condemning pro-lifers, Father was attempting to convince his readers not to condemn anyone. He reads the Scripture passage, "judge not lest ye be judged" with a bit of jaundice. He called pro-lifers all kinds of names that could have come right out of Planned Parenthood's verbiage for us, and he even insinuated in a subsequent interview that, of all people, EWTN's Raymond Arroyo was somehow part of this "uncharitable" problem in the Church because Raymond spoke out forcefully against the Kennedy scandal. Then he attacked the best pro-life news organization in the business, LifeSiteNews, saying that they were doing "the work of the devil" in shining the spotlight on this travesty. If this is the Gospel model of non-judgmentalism, I am reading the Good Book wrong.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Luther pastor who was killed in the Nazi Holocaust, called this kind of sell-out "cheap grace" because it costs the pious churchman absolutely nothing to say it. In fact it must apparently feel real good because so many of them indulge in it. Let these churchmen try disciplining "Catholic" dissenters who scandalize Christ's faithful, and they would see the value of their grace increase in proportion to their suffering at the hands of these renegades.

Worst of all is that people with this strange ethic of non-judgmentalism apply a standard of mercy to public Catholic reprobates that is never applied to the aborted children who will not get a funeral or graveside service offered by prelates reading pious sentiments from a very strange gospel book. What Fr. Rosica's denunciations have thus highlighted for us is the extent to which the "judge not lest ye be judged" ethic reigns in ecclesiastical circles, and for that reason our Church is in trouble. Those who come out of a non-judgmentalism Gospel ethic, lay and cleric alike, will have nothing to offer our suffering souls in the darkness that is even now hovering over our Church like a black shroud*. The pagan world is already coming after all that we hold dear and sacred, and if the murder of pro-lifer James Pouillon last week is any indication, they will soon be doing so with a vehemence that we have not experienced in our land since the days of the North American Martyrs.

To the ethic of hypocritical diatribes that defame pro-lifers, I can only say, "No deal, Father Rosica." Anyone who will use "non-judgmentalism" against faithful Catholics needs to wake up and smell the gunpowder on Jim Pouillon's pro-life t-shirt. The Church stands with all men and women of good will against the increasingly pagan and violent culture that militates against us and our values. Those who use this ethic to keep the Church totally unprepared for battle need more than a re-reading of Scripture. They need a good kick in the back end and a refresher course on Catholic bravery which St. Paul tells us makes us "strong, loving and wise." (2 Tim 1:7-8)

Sincerely,


Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
President
Human Life International
4 Family Life Lane -- Front Royal, VA 22630 U.S.A.
Phone: (540) 635-7884 Fax: (540) 622-6247
E-mail: hli@hli.org Website: http://www.hli.org/


* See my post on judging here.

Related reading here and here.

New National Poll: Majority of Americans take pro-life position or show movement in that direction

Ten Reasons Why the Pro-life Movement is Winning

by Fr. Frank Pavone, M.E.V.

We are closer to achieving our goal of winning the fight to end abortion and restoring protection to children in the womb than the mainstream media is reporting. To help you see the truth of that statement and to inspire you to renew your commitment to the fight, here are ten signs that point to the fact that the end of abortion in America will come sooner than you may think. Of this much I am certain, we will not have to wait for the next generation to plan and carry out victory celebrations. That will be our task.

This does not mean that you can relax or take anything for granted. Just the opposite, in fact. The closer we get to victory, the harder the other side will fight to keep abortion legal and the more hostile they will become. Still, we now know the key weaknesses of the abortion movement ... as well as the pro-life dynamics that the other side can do nothing to stop. So be of good cheer and stout heart! We have the devil of abortion on the ropes. And here are ten signs that point to our eventual victory.

Sign 1: The survivors

The surest sign of our ultimate victory is the strong and ever-growing involvement of young people in all aspects of the fight to end abortion. And if you ask them why they’ve joined our fight, they will tell you: “It could have been me!” In speaking up for the unborn, the youth of America are also speaking up for themselves. This is an awareness and motivation that abortion advocates can do nothing to stop. And as a result, our pro-life movement receives a new strength and motivation each day from these survivors.

Sign 2: The flow of conversions

Another reason for confidence is simply to look at the flow of conversions. In which direction does it go? It goes from pro-abortion to pro-life. There is, for example, an international organization of former abortion providers called the Society of Centurions. These men and women – to whom I have the privilege of ministering – once served as doctors, nurses, technicians, security guards, and other roles to operate abortion mills. Now they have repented of their killing and become pro-life. Some of them – like Dr. Bernard Nathanson and Norma McCorvey – have high-profile testimonies. But most of them try to get on with more normal lives in the privacy of their own communities.

Since when, however, have you heard of an organization of former pregnancy resource center directors who have repented of saving babies and are now pro-abortion? It just doesn’t happen. With the notable exception of politicians – individuals notorious for abandoning their principles in exchange for votes or praise from media elitists – the flow of conversions is in one direction ... and that is from death to life.

Sign 3: I regret my abortion

Another clear sign of progress is the wave of women and men across the world who are speaking out about how they regret having their child killed by abortion. The “Silent No More Awareness Campaign” – a joint project of Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life – provides these women and men an opportunity to share their testimonies in public gatherings, before the media, in pulpits, and in legislative hearings. As Jennifer O’Neill, the campaign’s National Celebrity Spokeswoman says, “Experience trumps theory.” These men and women are living testimony that abortion doesn’t work. Instead of “solving” a problem, abortion creates more problems of its own. Best of all, there is nothing abortion advocates can do to stop this tidal wave. In fact, it puts them in quite a dilemma. For decades now they have been saying, “Listen to the voices of women!” Now, if they practice what they preach, they hear those women’s voices repudiate the lie of abortion.

Sign 4: Few doctors ... fewer mills

Over half of America’s freestanding abortion clinics have closed since 1993 ... from over 2,000 at that time to roughly 740 today. That’s because, no matter how much money, political strength, and media access the abortion movement has built up, they have not succeeded in removing the indelible stigma that is attached to abortion. In fact, the abortion industry’s greatest fear is not that Roe v. Wade will be reversed. Rather, it is that abortion will remain legal but there won’t be any doctors to do it. About 86% of counties in America do not currently have an abortionist. Fewer and fewer doctors – even if they consider themselves pro-choice – want to perform the procedure. They consider abortionists to be the losers of the medical profession, and they are right. Abortionist Herbert Hodes summed it up in Glamour magazine in September of 1991 when he said: “That's how the anti's are going to win. They are going to win by attrition, because fewer and fewer doctors will perform abortions.”

Sign 5: Legal evidence mounts
In Constitutional history, the rights of groups that have been oppressed – such as African Americans, children, women, and workers – have eventually been vindicated. As Courts heard more evidence of the harm that was done to these groups, they reversed prior Court decisions. From slavery to workers’ rights to segregation to child labor laws, eventually the Courts get it right. Now it is time for the “embryonic moment” ... the recognition that the rights of the Constitution apply to the unborn child. In various cases, the evidence of the unborn child’s humanity, as well as of the harm abortion does to women, is being introduced in court. And even if a particular court decision is not favorable, the evidence that is introduced into the record becomes material that future cases can invoke. As the body of scientific evidence continues to mount, one day in the not too distant future the Courts will be forced to recognize the personhood of the unborn child and accord him with the rights and protections of our U.S. Constitution.
Sign 6: Abortion research

Another motive for confidence is the growing mountain of medical, psychological, and sociological evidence that abortion harms women, men, and families. Websites like www.AfterAbortion.org provide an excellent starting point for surveying this growing mountain of evidence. Most telling of all is the fact that even those researchers who identify themselves as pro-choice are coming to this conclusion ... and publishing their research despite the objections and criticism of the abortion industry. This growing body of evidence is one of the ways that abortion will eventually destroy itself. The more abortion continues, the more it reveals itself as an enemy of the human family.

Sign 7: No more arguments

Another sign of victory is that the other side has run out of arguments. In the years leading up to Roe vs. Wade, abortion advocates assured everyone that legalized abortion would reduce child abuse, strengthen family life, and improve society. But all the evidence shows that after three decades of legal abortion, all these problems have gotten worse. Moreover, all the arguments from medicine, science, psychology, sociology, law, ethics, and religion support the pro-life view. Finally, supporters used to call abortion a decision “between a woman and her doctor.” Now they say it’s a decision “between a woman and her God.” When abortion supporters run out of arguments, they appeal to God in order to end debate. We in the pro-life movement also appeal to God ... not as the substitute for other arguments, however, but rather as their foundation.

Sign 8: Even in politics…

We even see evidence of pro-life progress in the political arena. Voters for whom abortion matters in their decision vote in favor of pro-life candidates by a two to one margin. Even the 2006 election shows this. In a political climate that was hostile to many pro-life candidates, the data shows that it was so for reasons other than abortion. Some 36% of voters said that abortion affected their vote. Within that group, 23% voted pro-life and only 13% pro-abortion. Voters’ behavior on the abortion issue continues to be an advantage to our pro-life side as surveys show that the intensity of motivation for the pro-life side is stronger. Opinion polls also show that newer, younger voters are more pro-life and want to see abortion eliminated or more highly restricted.

Sign 9: Legislation galore

The last several years have seen unprecedented legislative progress on behalf of the unborn child. Look at the evidence. On the federal level, for the first time, an abortion procedure – so-called “partial birth abortion” – has been declared illegal. The “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act” protects the unborn from being killed after a failed abortion. The “Unborn Victims of Violence Act” protects the unborn from acts of violence other than abortion. And on the state level, laws are in place that have reduced the numbers of abortion. These include parental involvement laws, informed consent laws, and abortion clinic regulation laws. Our lawmakers are making progress!

Sign 10: Corruption uncovered

A key reason we are winning is that abortion destroys itself. The evil inner workings of abortion are being exposed for all to see ... and as more and more crimes become visible, the abortion movement loses supporters. These crimes include medical malpractice, sexual abuse, injury and death that routinely occur in so-called “safe and legal” abortion clinics, doctors not sterilizing instruments, “anesthesiologists” who have no training in anesthesia, “abortions” committed on women who were not pregnant, falsifying medical records, and much more. What’s more, the abortion industry creates a safe haven for sexual predators. Details are available at www.ChildPredator.com. Beyond the abuse of the patients, abortion clinics are rampant with violations of OSHA standards and other employment laws. A long list of details can be seen at www.ClinicWorker.com. What all this means is that the abortion industry is highly vulnerable to negative public opinion and to legal action having nothing to do directly with the legality of abortions. Clinics can be closed – and are closing – and abortionists being jailed for reasons having nothing to do with what people think about abortion ... but rather for reasons related to malpractice, abuse, and other illegal activity.

The fundamental reason why we’re winning

Above all else, the reason why we are winning the fight to end abortion is because we have already won! There is one among us who holds the keys of death and of hell. Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead! Although thought to be overwhelmed by the agents of death ... He trampled death by His death. As a result, death has been robbed of its power. “O death, where is thy sting?” Because of Christ’s Resurrection, death no longer has the final word in the human story. Our final destiny is heaven ... not the grave!

This means that the power of abortion – which takes more life than
anything else – has also been broken. Our pro-life movement does not simply work for victory ... we work from victory!
Victory is our starting point. We joyfully proclaim to the world that Christ is Risen, and that for this reason, we must choose life. We then work to apply that victory to every sector of society.

The labor is intense and the obstacles many. But we do not cower
before the culture of death and wonder how we will ever overcome it. Rather, we stand before it with victorious confidence and declare:
“Begone! You have no room here! No place here!
No further authority to menace the human family.
Your Kingdom has been conquered and Christ reigns supreme!”

The pro-life movement is waiting for a leader?

According to a conservative magazine, in an article which may be found here, the pro-life movement is "trapped" and "waiting for a leader." As I explained in a previous Blog post, abortion will only be defeated through prayer and fasting. We already have a leader as pro-lifers: "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work" (1 John 3: 8). Anyone who believes that an ordinary man would be able to lead the pro-life movement to victory over the culture of death is a fool.

The evil which weighs down upon the human race (and abortion is part of that evil) is a force so powerful that we are unable to successfully overcome it without grace, without God's help. Evil in the world has a satanic origin: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6: 12). Do we suppose that St. Paul was joking? Or that he was unstable and preaching nonsense? Since the greatest of the Apostles speaks the truth as given to him by the Holy Spirit, why do we think for one moment that an ordinary man can lead those of us in the pro-life movement (or in the Church in general) to victory? Enough nonsense! Let's instead put our faith, hope and trust in Him Who teaches with an authority so great that He even gives orders to the evil spirits and they obey Him (Mark 1: 26-28).

I have grappled with the Evil One and the evil spirits many times. Some years ago, while attending a Bible study at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary parish in Gardner, Massachusetts, I encountered a group of people who were denigrating devotion to Our Lady and attempting to introduce strange ideas about our Mother to the others present for the study. Over several weeks, I refuted their ideas using the Magisterial teaching of the Church and quoting most extensively from the Popes and various Doctors of the Church. But they only hardened. When I took the matter to prayer (and fasting) - praying many rosaries and invoking Our Lady to drive the evil out and to restore fidelity to Church teaching at this Bible study, a curious thing happened. When I returned the next week, the woman who had been serving as the "leader" of this small group arrived wearing dark sunglasses (the Bible study took place in the evening) and sat across from me with a stare which was nothing short of menacing. She said nothing. However, as I prayerfully defended the Church's teaching once more, the light fixture above the table where we all sat began to flicker on and off. Eventually it went out altogether. I continued to pray as the group disbanded.

The next week I was told that the pastor had spoken to those who had been attacking devotion to Our Lady (in a Church dedicated to her!) and that they had agreed not to do so in the future. Additionally, several of these agreed to no longer visit a local fundamentalist church where they had obtained their ideas. Prayer and fasting!

In the shortest Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, there are thirteen references to a personified Satan or to casting out demons. Among these are four exorcisms worked by Jesus. Let's recall how Jesus became angry when His disciples were unable to free the epileptic demoniac and rebuked them for their failure: "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" (Mark 9: 19).

May we not find ourselves similarly rebuked for being without faith!

The Lord Jesus blesses Vancouver

Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB (a Basilian) is a gift to the Church. He is known for his orthodoxy and commitment to pro-life and family issues. Background here.