Rosary Turns Women Away from Abortion Clinic in Dallas

We prayed several rosaries at this location. But the abortion "escorts" were not happy. One of them came over to our side of the street during a break between rosaries and complained that we were sitting on a sturdy four-inch metal railing near the parking lot. Taking the life of unborn children is apparently ok; yet sitting on a railing is not. During the entire time that we were there, people inside the clinic would peer out in amazement. In fact, in only a few hours, four young women were diverted away from the abortion center to a nearby pregnancy counseling office where they were given advice against abortion.

Cooler of cold water

After leaving the abortion clinic, we headed once more to the streets for a campaign against socialism. Finding a busy corner near the mall in Grapevine, we started with the addition of two local volunteers, James and Matthew Miller. The heat was stifling. Several of our younger volunteers were really struggling when a kind family stopped and donated a white cooler full of cold water.

The public was very diverse and the people had mixed reactions. This was clearly demonstrated by one car where the driver was honking and giving thumbs up while his passenger shouted profanity. There were no people on the sidewalk because of the heat but many stopped their cars to take a flyer, "10 Reasons to Reject Socialism."

Finding True Role Models at TFP Camp

By Kenneth Murphy

 

Who should young Catholic men emulate? Rock stars, football players or actors? At the annual TFP Louisiana Call to Chivalry Camp, boys are presented with true Catholic role models to admire and imitate.

Each camp has its own theme and this year's 10-day program held from June 28 to July 7 focused on the historical figures of the British Isles. Many skits, lively presentations and a challenging treasure hunt brought life to heroes like St. Patrick, St. Kevin, St. Columba, St. Brendan and St. Thomas More. The participants followed St. Brendan on his voyage to the New World 300 years before Christopher Columbus discovered America. They met Sir William Wallace, who was not a barbarian as depicted by Hollywood, but a champion and guardian of good in Scotland. Camp participants even helped St. Patrick "rescue" a fellow camp member who had been captured by druids. Armed with prayer and sheer numbers they chased the druids away.

The camp encourages its participants not only to look up to true role models but to follow their heroic example in their own daily lives. Canoe runs, obstacle courses, and group problem solving drew out the leader in everyone. Games like French football, shield ball, and capture the flag can only be won through teamwork and strategy.

Essential to true formation the camp fostered manly piety with the frequent reception of Holy Communion, the availability of Confession and by concluding each day with an outdoor rosary procession. Like the crusaders of old, every camp member participated in a Vigil of Arms before a relic of the True Cross.

The high points of the summer course were the closing medieval games and banquet. From richly sewn banners to delicious Cajun cooking, the atmosphere at the final medieval banquet was unforgettable. Parents joined their sons who displayed their knightly manners at the dinner presided over by Msgr. Robert Berggreen. Suddenly, trumpets sounded. A herald announced the arrival of King Henry V. The noble king made a surprise appearance and delivered a rousing rendition of St. Crispin's Day Speech.

"We tried to instill in the boys the idea that heroism is not a thing of the past," said Thomas Drake, head of TFP—Louisiana. "I could not be happier at their response to this challenge."

The motto of one of the military religious orders at the time of the Crusades was: "The most beautiful adventure in the world is ours." As the final evening finished, that motto appeared to express the sentiments of the participants as they left ready to defend the Faith amid today's hostile culture.

Our youth need good role models not bad ones. If you are interested in learning more about the TFP's Call to Chivalry camps please call Cesar Franco at (717) 521-8013.

Texas court clerk, judge scuffle over striking prayer from record

by Kathleen Gilbert

BOWIE COUNTY, Texas, July 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A dispute between a Texas county judge and clerk over mentioning a preliminary prayer in official records has hit national media after the clerk complained that her moral stance could send her to jail.

According to Fox News, Bowie County Commissioner’s Court Judge Sterling Lacy told clerk Natalie Nichols at a recent meeting that the court would omit record of the prayer and pledge with which the meeting normally beings. The judge allegedly said she should do so “for fear of being sued by an organization such as the ACLU” and in order not “to give the impression that it is the court’s official stance.”

Nichols says Lacy physically crossed out mention of the prayer and pledge in her official record of the minutes of a Commissioner’s meeting in May. After Nichols spoke up in protest during the meeting, Lacy lodged a complaint with the County Sheriff alleging that Nichols disrupted proceedings. Nichols also lodged a complaint saying that Lacy had barged into her office and prevented her from keeping him out. 

Nichols told Fox and Friends that she found the striking of the record offensive.

“That’s not going to happen on my watch, I’m sorry,” Nichols said. She also contended that Lacy’s defense was erroneous.  “If somebody was going to sue you, they’re not going to sue you because you wrote down that you said the prayer and the pledge, they’re going to sue you because you said it,” said the clerk.

Nichols also claimed Lacy was “lying” about the affair and had denied crossing out the items.

“If I need to go to jail for standing up for this country and for God, I will do so. There’s a lot of people who’ve bled and died for this country and I’m risking a little bit of jail time. I’m OK with that,” she added.

But in a statement emailed to LifeSiteNews.com, Judge Lacy said that the alteration was intended to represent the proceedings of the court more accurately.

“On several occasions, records of the minutes failed to accurately distinguish between what we did before we called the court to order and what we did after we called the court to order,” said Lacy. “We did have a devotional, prayer and pledge on May 23rd before the call to order but the amended minutes which are called an ‘Order of the Court’ no longer reflected that.”

“Of course if I’d had an inkling of an idea that we could have been demonized as being ‘unchristian and unpatriotic’ I never would have done that,” said the judge.

Lacy also defended the court’s conservative reputation. “This is the Commissioners Court that moved an American flag to the Courtroom in January and introduced the pledge of Allegiance to our court sessions ... In fact, 3 months ago, I started having a devotional ahead of the prayer and pledge,” he said.

“We are not unchristian in Bowie County, TX.”

Incredible: five million sign petition to outlaw abortion in Colombia - over 10% of population

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

July 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Colombian pro-lifers, led by the nation’s Conservative Party, say they have now gathered five million signatures for their petition for a constitutional amendment prohibiting all abortions.

The figure was reported yesterday in Colombia’s El Espectador newspaper, and attributed to the leader of the Conservative Party, José Darío Salazar.

“These signatures clearly say that the population is against abortion,” said Salazar, a theme that the senator has repeated throughout his campaign to re-criminalize the deadly procedure.

If the count is accurate, it indicates that over ten percent of the country’s population has signed the petition in favor of the amendment, which states: “Life in Colombia is inviolable, and will have the same protection from fertilization until natural death.”

Although the Constitution already states that the right to life is “inviolable,” the Constitutional Court eliminated criminal penalties for abortions in rape and incest cases in 2006, after years of pressure by organs of the United Nations and other pro-abortion groups. The government then began ordering hospitals to perform them, and levied at least one fine against a Catholic hospital that refused to do so.

As LifeSiteNews reported recently, the initiative is backed by members of other political parties and numerous religious leaders, who have aided in the petition drive, including Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.

Protest Against Unbelievable Ban against God at Houston National Cemetery

A radical communist-socialist measure was recently enforced in Texas at America's 2nd largest cemetery for veterans no less. The name of God and Jesus were banned. Veterans and volunteers were told not to use the word "God," "God bless," or "Jesus." Such words have been called "offensive."

For that reason, the Houston National Cemetery, where 70,000 veterans are laid to rest, seemed like the right place to hold a campaign against socialism, while honoring God and our fallen heroes.

As we campaigned under an overpass, shielded from a heavy rainfall, an older Catholic Vietnamese man pulled his car onto the shoulder. He was very emotional and took pictures of the campaign. His wife stayed inside the car, smiling and bowing with her hands folded in prayer. He identified himself as Mr. Duc Do and told us in broken English about his 9-year experience in communist concentration camps. He finally managed to flee with his family and has been living as a refugee in America ever since. He was happy to see us fighting socialism. "I do not want to see America fall into the same type of regime as the one I fled from," he said.

At this location, a Catholic lady came out with her two sons to visit the campaign. One of her sons is a cancer survivor who is undergoing treatment. Between trips to the hospital he joined us for the good fight. Pray for him and for his recovery.

A one legged homeless man who was asking for alms nearby said that he was strongly against socialism. Curious. Those who are promised "benefits" from socialism...the poor, know the truth about socialism. It was also somewhat unsettling to see people driving expensive cars call for the abolition of private property.

After a fruitful campaign, we headed to the cemetery to invoke God's help in the fight against socialism and atheism. Inside the cemetery, we sang "God Bless America!" as loud as we could. It was loud.

Record support in Sugarland

The second campaign was in Sugarland. Here the honking was deafening and continuous. Long lines of traffic heading in every direction gave ample time for people to read the banners. The few discordant voices were drowned in a flood of honks and cheers from the cars that passed.

After visiting St. Therese Church, where we met several America Needs Fatima members, we returned to the same place. This time people started honking even before we set up. The honking crescendo kept up for the duration of the campaign.

Praying at massive Houston Planned Parenthood facility

The first campaign today was at one of the largest Planned Parenthood abortion facilities in the country. As we prayed the rosary aloud for the end of abortion, an abortion deathscort approached to demand that a TFP volunteer remove his camera bag which had been placed on the grass only inches away from the public sidewalk. Apparently, the grass belongs to Planned Parenthood. The bag was removed and we continued the rosary.

Planned Parenthood escorts here are brazen. One of them, we were told, was arrested for manhandling a small child who was in front of the clinic peacefully protesting with his family. He is also known to step on the legs of those who are in front of the clinic kneeling and praying. And more recently, a pro-abortion deathscort hit a pro-lifer with his car and fled the scene.

Close to the Planned Parenthood was parked a mobile sonogram and screening facility for pregnant women. Inside there are four rooms where people can have private counseling and get advice about healthy alternatives to abortion. Adoption and purity are high on the list of alternatives. The pro-life bus is fully equipped with a sonogram and pregnancy testing facilities. The young women who give their time here were very knowledgeable and helpful. It was beautiful to see the dedication and self-sacrifice of these volunteers who spend so much of their time and talent at the service of God in the pro-life cause. God bless them.

Campaign in Beaumont

After praying several rosaries at this huge abortion facility, we pressed forward to Beaumont, where pro-lifers awaited us. But instead of describing the campaign myself, I'll let one of the motivated pro-life ladies who coordinates the 40 Days for Life effort in the area tell you about it.

She sent this kind message:

"Thank you so much for your awesome, soul stirring prayer rally in front of Whole Woman's Health here in Beaumont. I don't believe we have ever heard so many long honks for life. And the smiles were contagious from passersby.

"There is hope for America still through your group's presence. Your youthful exuberance was a shot in the arm for us "elders" who seem to lag a little at the length and duration of this pro-life struggle. Surely the Good Lord and His Most Holy Mother sent you as a balm for our wounded hearts. We so appreciate your stopping and portraying such an unforgettable scene that will surely be freeze-framed in our memories for some time to come.

"On behalf of all the pro-lifers in this entire area, we say "thank you" for your fine display of chivalry and youthful innocence in the face of such hideous evil as abortion on the streets of this town. It's always said we are not fighting people but principalities of darkness. God bless you."

After nine full days on the road, traveling from city to city, meeting outstanding Americans, facing opposition, praying with dedicated pro-lifers at several abortion centers, and standing against the threat of socialism in America, the caravan came to a successful close.

May God reward all the kind souls who along the way provided us with food, support and lodging. May their dedication attract God's blessing on America and awaken more brave souls to peacefully fight the good fight in defense of moral values.

Until the next caravan tour, let's pray for one another.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us!

Showdown: 4,000 families threaten to leave Toronto Catholic schools over homosexual equity policy

by Patrick B. Craine

TORONTO, Ontario, July 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Coptic Orthodox Churches in Toronto are threatening to withdraw 4,000 families from the Toronto Catholic District School Board if it does not amend its controversial equity policy to protect Catholic teaching in the schools.  According to one expert in Ontario education, if the threat were carried out, the board could lose upwards of $40,000,000 in annual public funding, and over 150 teachers.

If the board implements its policy, wrote Fr. Jeremiah Attaalla on June 22nd, “we will not hesitate to withdraw our children at once from attending any Catholic school within Toronto or [the Greater Toronto Area].”

The equity policy, passed earlier this year as part of the Ontario government’s sweeping equity and inclusive education strategy, has sparked an unprecedented mobilization of parents who fear that it will give homosexual activists a foothold in order to further subvert already weak Catholic sexual teaching in the schools.

In August the board will be considering a set of amendments to the policy promoted by trustee John Del Grande and Angela Kennedy to ensure that equity and inclusion are interpreted consistently with Catholic teaching.

Fr. Attaalla wrote in his letter, which was addressed to Director of Education Ann Perron, that they will withdraw their children “if the requested amendments are not implemented.”  He said the amendments are “faithful to the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

The priest explained that he was writing on behalf of the parishes of St. Mark (Scarborough), St. George and St. Ruiess (North York), St. Mourice and St. Verena (North York), and Ti Agia Maria and St. Demiana (Etobicoke).

He said these parishes have a population of at least 5,000 families, not one of which support the public schools because of their implementation of the government’s controversial equity agenda.  He said at least 80% of those families attend the Catholic schools and the rest attend private schools.

The school board reportedly receives about $10,000 in public funding for every child and it requires approximately 19 children to support one teacher.

See a copy of the official Coptic statement here.

Contact information:

For trustees of the Toronto Catholic District School board click here.

Catholic Bishops of Toronto Archdiocese:
Most Rev. Thomas Collins,  (416) 934-0606,  archbishop@archtoronto.org
Mgr Vincent Nguyen, 416 724-0900,  eastern.region@archtoronto.org
Mgr William T. McGrattan,  (416) 769-6001,  central.region@archtoronto.org
Most Rev. John Boissonneau,  (416) 207-4983, bishop.boissonneau@rogers.com

Director of Education, Ann Perron: 416.222.8282 ext. 2296, ann.perron@tcdsb.org

Mexican bishop under Vatican investigation for supporting homosexualist organization

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

SALTILLO, Mexico, July 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Raul Vera, the Catholic bishop of Saltillo, Mexico, is under investigation by the Vatican over his sponsorship of an organization that condones sodomy, according to Mexican press sources.

Saltillo area newspapers are reporting that Vera has received an inquiry from unnamed Vatican officials regarding the Gay and Lesbian Community of Saint Aelred (San Aelredo).

The Saint Aelred group, which professes to be Catholic, teaches members that they may engage in homosexual relations, but encourages them to do so with a single partner.  It also holds film festivals featuring productions that condone homosexual behavior.

Bishop Vera has publicly affiliated his diocese with the group and has promoted its activities, including sponsoring its film festivals, according to reports in the Mexican media. The organization is also involved in a number of diocesan parishes.

LifeSiteNews (LSN) first reported the activities of the Saint Aelred group in 2008, after an investigation that included interviews with the group’s leader, Noe Ruiz, as well as diocesan priest Robert Coogan, who acts as a “spiritual guide” for the group.  Both Ruiz and Coogan admitted to LSN at that time that the organization condones homosexual behavior.

LSN published contact information for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for the Clergy in its 2008 article. However, Vatican officials did not act until a new series of articles began to be published by the Spanish Catholic news agency ACI Prensa.

Acknowledging to the Saltillo newspaper Zocalo that he has received a “call from the Vatican” and “I have to clarify things,” Vera added, “I have to respond a series of questions from Vatican City that they are asking regarding my work with homosexuals, but it is due to this Catholic information agency that has been saying barbarities.”

Vera complains that the agency had made “unfounded” accusations, “that I promote homosexual relations.”

“And I, in my life, never have worked for that. In the Diocese of Saltillo we have very clear objectives. We work with them [the homosexual community] to help them to recover their human dignity, which is injured for many of them beginning in their homes, in the society, and they are treated as a scourge.”

However, following the Vatican inquiry, Bishop Vera has announced to the press that he is “restructuring” the group, and has removed Ruiz from his position as group coordinator.

‘Unconstitutional’: pro-life pastor wins challenge against California ‘bubble zone’

by Jeremy Kryn

Rev. Walter Hoye

(Co-authored with Thaddeus Baklinski)

SAN FRANCISCO, California, July 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A constitutional challenge against the City of Oakland’s 2008 ‘bubble’ ordinance, which prohibits pro-life sidewalk counselors outside abortion facilities from standing within 8 feet of women seeking abortions, has resulted in a ruling that the city’s law is unconstitutional.

Pro-life witness Rev. Walter Hoye brought the constitutional challenge forward.

On July 28, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the city erred when it was disclosed that the enforcement of the bubble ordinance only applied to those who tried to dissuade women from abortion and not to those who encouraged them.

“At oral argument,” the court records state, “the City confirmed that it would not enforce the Ordinance against an escort who approached a patient, without consent, and said, “May I help you into the clinic?” but that it would enforce it against a sidewalk counselor who said, “May I talk to you about alternatives to the clinic?” The City explained its position as being that speech that “facilitates access” to the clinic does not trigger the Ordinance’s consent requirement, while speech that does not facilitate access does trigger it.”

The unanimous three-judge ruling is not a total victory, however, in that the court simply ordered the city to revise its enforcement of the bubble zone policy to exclude all advocacy within the eight-foot limit.

The court stated, “as to Hoye’s challenge to whether Oakland may apply the Ordinance to situations in which doing so would prevent him from communicating his message, we conclude that the success of the challenge depends on Oakland’s future enforcement policy and the particular circumstances in which that policy may be applied. We therefore do not reach that challenge but also do not preclude Hoye from bringing such a challenge in the future.”

In an interview today, Dana Cody of the Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) explained that under the ruling, “if Pastor Hoye, or anyone else, returns to the clinic and the clinic escorts misbehave by interfering with their free speech rights, the City will need to prosecute the escorts,” Cody observed. “The total impact on Pastor Hoye and others is unpredictable until the matter, which was remanded to the district court, has been dealt with by that court. ”

Rev. Hoye was arrested in May of 2008, charged, found guilty and imprisoned for peacefully counseling and picketing outside Oakland’s Family Planning Specialists Medical Group abortion mill. The Baptist pastor was charged under the bubble zone law, which prohibits pro-life protesters outside abortion facilities, but does not prohibit those who encourage women to enter to procure an abortion.

In August 2009, an appeal by Hoye to federal court failed when U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled that Oakland’s bubble zone ordinance was constitutional.  He said the law protects access to health care, while also allowing protesters to express their opinion.

At the time, one of Hoye’s lawyers, Michael Millen of the LLDF, announced his intention to appeal the ruling to the Ninth Circuit appellate court and launch the constitutional challenge.

Subsequently, the Appellate Division of the Alameda Superior Court overturned Pastor Hoye’s criminal conviction for violating Oakland’s law restricting sidewalk counseling, and eventually all charges against Hoye were dismissed.

Cody told LifeSiteNews, “Life Legal Defense Foundation is grateful for the privilege of serving Pastor Hoye as he brings a message of hope and life to women in Oakland. Myself and the attorneys who work with Life Legal rejoice in the court’s affirmation of his Constitutional right to speak on this vital topic.”

As to whether LLDF has further plans related to the decision, she said, “We may ask for a motion to reconsider, or perhaps the better word is consider, the question of whether or not outstretching your arm to hand someone a leaflet is considered an approach under the Oakland ordinance. The court had no opinion on that issue and it was a subject that was briefed in the district court.”

‘Flower on the door’ used to mark abortions at Catholic hospitals: doctor

by Kathleen Gilbert

FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, July 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - When a child is delivered stillborn, a small flower or other token often marks the door of the mother’s recovery room to help staff recognize the loss.

According to one Catholic doctor, the same symbol was used in at least one Catholic hospital where doctors routinely induced labor to hasten the death of a child diagnosed with a genetic defect - a practice she says occurs in “a handful” of Catholic hospitals across the United States.

Dr. Lorna Cvetkovich told a bioethics conference at Christendom College in Virginia this month about her experience at one Catholic hospital she declined to name, where she says abortions had been routinely performed on disabled children for twenty years. Cvetkovich currently works at the pro-life Tepeyac Family Center and is medical director of Sanctity of Life Ministries in Fairfax, Virginia.

“They would place a little flower on the door of a woman to her room to indicate the baby had died - except they also placed a flower on the door of a woman who was being induced with a live baby,” Cvetkovich told the audience. “Most of these were hydrocephalics, or genetic anomalies, that kind of thing.”

Cvetkovich said the hospital’s policies and procedures allowed for the procedure, but were written such that “you really had to read it with a fine-toothed comb to figure out that this was allowable.”

Soberingly, Cvetkovich said the hospital claimed the protocol had even been approved by the local ordinary. “One of the hardest situations I’d ever went through was sitting in the MD’s office and having him tell me, ‘I only did what your bishop told me I could do,’” she recalled.

“It’s hard to have a response to that.”

The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, a document promulgated by the U.S. Bishops’ Conference, defines abortion as “the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus,” something that is “never permitted.” http://www.usccb.org/bishops/directives.shtml The document also prohibits contraception and sterilization.

According to Cvetkovich, faithful doctors must be a “sign of contradiction” even within an ostensibly Catholic system, which have been taken over by modern sexual values and even disregard for unborn human life.

“Most Catholic hospitals, their networks, their clinics, even on the labor delivery floor, do allow prescription of contraceptives. Some also allow sterilization ... sometimes even elective sterilizations,” she said, adding that “a very few, I think a handful” perform abortions.

“On our labor delivery floor, you could go after delivery and punch in an order for depo-provera, and that is not too unusual,” she said.

After the lecture, Cvetkovich told LifeSiteNews.com that the moral theologian at her facility had justified elective sterilizations as a means of keeping patients’ business for the sake of helping other low-income patients. “He was trying to tell me that amount of money is what’s going to be their commitment to serve the poor,” said Cvetkovitch. “It’s just hogwash.”

The doctor also lamented that the problem of abortions and other immoral practices at Catholic hospitals is “very intractable” because bishops have been erroneously led to believe they lack power to reform such facilities.

“The bishops have been convinced that they have no control ove the Catholic hospitals because they are usually owned by a religious group whose authority line goes to the Vatican, not the diocese,” she said. “But that’s not really true, because there’s a canon law that says they really are responsible for every catholic entity in their diocese.”

Cvetkovich pointed to the example of Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, who took severe national criticism last year for cutting an abortion-performing hosptial out of the diocese, as proof that such action is rare.

“They [U.S. bishops] will not move against Catholic hospitals,” she said.

In a world where even Catholic hospitals push abortion on their staff - Cvetkovitch recalled watching a head nurse “roll her eyes” when a lower nurse asked to be excused from a procured abortion - the medical doctor had dire predictions for the future of conscience rights.

“We will have the choice to either practice anti-Hippocratic, pro-choice type medicine and keep our jobs - or practice Hippocratic, Catholic, pro-life medicine and lose our jobs,” she said.

LifeSiteNews.com in 2008 uncovered that the chief ethicist for the diocese of London, Ontario admitted that its St. Joseph Catholic Hospital had performed early-induction abortions on disabled children for twenty years, and that the procedure had been approved by the bishop.

Stop the Debt Fire!

 

 

 

 

 

The continuing debate over the debt ceiling raises matters of such a magnitude that it is easy to be overwhelmed and confused. Everyone can agree that there is obviously something terribly wrong about a nation that must survive by borrowing against its future.

Elementary economics teaches us that we cannot live beyond our means indefinitely. There comes a time when such spending must stop and responsible government must prevail. This is something we can agree upon in principle.

However, that is not what is at stake at the present moment.

Unfortunately, we have put ourselves in a crisis situation. We should not have done so, but we have. Like it or not, our debt obligations now weigh heavily upon us and we are constitutionally bound to honor them.

Commitments we have made to retired Americans, military men and others must also be met. At the same time, our Treasury bonds serve as one of the few stable elements for the whole global economy, which now awaits anxiously a decision that must soon be made.

In this crisis of our own making, we must take extraordinary measures to insure not only our financial survival but that of the Western world, which is heavily dependent upon our stability. At this point, the most reasonable solution lies in raising the debt ceiling and offset it by non-defense spending cuts. It is not the final or even the best solution, but it is an immediate and necessary step to keep at bay a much greater threat that looms on the horizon: the collapse of our economy.

Our situation might be likened to that of a building on fire. There are those who say we should leave the fire burning and concentrate on punishing the arsonists who caused the fire and thus insure they will not do so again. Meanwhile the building burns to the ground.

At the present moment, our attention must be focused on putting out the fire, even if it means breaking down doors and damaging the integrity of the building in which we all live. After the fire has been put out, we will be able to secure the building and take measures and we can and must insist that the arsonists be called to task.

There are those who claim that corrective measures can only be taken in an atmosphere of crisis. In our sensational times, once the fire is put out, people forget about the problem. They claim that our insistence upon raising the debt ceiling is basically “kicking the can down the road.”

We share their anguish, but reiterate that, in the present circumstances, not raising the debt ceiling amounts to allowing the building to burn down.

We do owe it to ourselves to find the arsonists and take measures outside the atmosphere of crisis. However, for this to happen we must recognize that this is not so much a budgetary problem as a moral one.

Solving this problem involves a change of mentality whereby we break with the culture of entitlement, subsidies and benefits which has dominated our lives for decades.

We have abandoned the loving support of family and community, and in its stead conservatives and liberals alike became vitiated by this culture where we turn to government to solve all problems. Any threat to this government support system immediately brings down universal protest. This overdependence on government is the opposite of the principle of subsidiarity, which requires problems to be solved at the lowest possible level.

If we are serious about solving the debt crisis, Americans must be willing to assume once again responsibility for their lives and actions. We must accept once again the suffering and sacrifices that make up our lives. And, most importantly, we must turn again to God who in His Providence will provide for our needs much better than any overdrawn government.

To solve our moral problem, we must seek outside help. This is a problem that is beyond human solutions. That is to say, we must pray for the grace to change our lives. As this involves everyone, we would do well to pray together in the public square.

Indeed, this is what the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) has been doing for four years and will continue to do.

On a given Saturday in October, the American TFP mobilizes over one hundred thousand American Catholics to pray the Rosary in the public square. In 2010, there were 5,963 Public Square Rosary Rallies.

These praying Americans use a large banner to explain their purpose to the passing public, which reads: “Praying the Rosary for America… As human efforts fail to solve America’s key problems, we turn to God, through His Holy Mother, asking His urgent help.”

May the Blessed Virgin Mary take these nationwide prayers into account now and help our elected political leaders urgently find a way to resolve the present impasse.

July 28, 2011
The American TFP

www.TFP.org

The solution for those seeking mental balance, nervous equilibrium and wisdom

The Spiritual Exercises by Saint Ignatius of Loyola are often presented as a magnificent sequence of logical arguments that can lead a person to amend his life, save his soul, choose his state in life or make important resolutions.

While all these treasures are found in this work, we need to have an even broader vision that will allow us to see yet another treasure that is rarely pointed out. That treasure is his wisdom.

If someone wants to have mental balance, nervous equilibrium and wisdom, let him read The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

His way of thinking is not just speculative reasoning. Rather there is no more sensible or logical way to think about the concrete problems of life today than that of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Anyone who becomes familiar with, and used to, his reasoning acquires a truly extraordinary and structured soul.

What is it about The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius that we should especially praise? First of all, the wisdom by which he lays out the topics. He always goes straight to the central points of a topic.

For example, his consideration of sin leads us to reflect upon the gravity of sin and the rights of God. By taking conclusions about the gravity of sin, people then gauge the gravity of their own sins. From a central point, he always develops his reasoning in a logical, simple, direct and irrefutable way.

We are left with the alternative of either admitting we have no faith or that he is right.

Saint Ignatius teaches us to be completely honest when considering our private lives. However comforting or painful this honest vision may be.

 

Secondly, Saint Ignatius teaches us to be completely honest when considering our private lives. The Exercises are laid out in such a way as to make us fully objective when considering our defects, virtues, circumstances and duties.

The saint teaches us to fight against those numerous and devious (although mostly semi-subconscious) maneuvers that we often employ to avoid knowing ourselves. His logic is like a straight arrow that forces us to look at things head on and with all honesty. We see and recognize ourselves as we are. At the time of our spiritual self-examination, we are put in a position where we will not lie to ourselves or to God.

However comforting or painful this honest vision may be, we can then draw helpful conclusions and resolutions.

Finally, Saint Ignatius supplies us with an admirable equilibrium between the intelligence and the will on the one hand, and the sensibility on the other. He bases his arguments on reason, not sensibility or feelings. Nevertheless, once reason dominates, he asks man’s sensibility to follow reason.

Thus, Saint Ignatius asks us to think about a topic and then imagine a place or situation that will help stir up good movements in our souls. That is to say, he tries to bring human sensibility into line with the logical arguments. If however, your sensibility or feelings are not moved by the argument, he advises us to carry on with the exercise without them because that is what reason indicates we should do. This is a marvelous equilibrium!

Saint Ignatius does everything possible to stir in us the right natural dispositions to accept the orientation God wishes to give us.

Saint Ignatius also strikes a balance between the supernatural and the natural. At every moment he asks us to make an act of love or make an act of the will. He asks our souls to “exercise” but he also constantly asks us to stop and ask God for an insight to consider this or that thing.

We are asked to stop and ask God to move our souls in the direction He desires for us. In other words, he bends over backward to stir in us the right natural dispositions to accept the orientation God wishes to give us. This truly shows an extraordinary fullness of wisdom.

In this regard, Saint Ignatius is so opposed to everything that our times have of arbitrary, wild and crazy. All saints are the opposite of the hippie. Charles Manson, for example, was characteristically unbalanced, with regard for neither thinking nor law, a kind of wild beast loose in the world.

In Saint Ignatius we have the exact opposite. We have composure, logic, common sense and a sense of measure. From this standpoint, he is an incomparable master of wisdom.

This piece is taken from an informal lecture Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira gave on July 31, 1970. It has been translated and adapted for publication without his revision. –Ed.

Atheist group seeks to tear down World Trade Center cross

by John Jalsevac

The two steel girders in the shape of a cross discovered in the rubble of the World Trade Center have since been moved to a museum dedicated to 9/11.

ALBANY, N.Y., July 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) — When two steel girders were found intact, in the shape of a cross, in the middle of the wreckage of the World Trade Center after 9/11, it was hailed by many as a mini “miracle” and a sign of hope for a country beleaguered by a devastating terrorist attack.

Now, however, an atheist group has filed a lawsuit that seeks to tear down that cross, which was moved recently to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City.

American Atheists filed its lawsuit, American Atheists v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in New York state court Monday.

“What we’re looking for is a remedy that honours everyone equally, with a religion-neutral display, or display of equal size and prominence,” said Dave Silverman, the group’s head.

According to the lawsuit, American Atheists’ members “are being subjected to and injured in consequence of having a religious tradition not their own imposed upon them through the power of the state.”

Officials at the 9/11 memorial museum, however, have defended the cross, saying that the mission of the museum is simply to “tell the history of 9/11 through historic artefacts like the World Trade Center cross.”

“This steel remnant became a symbol of spiritual comfort for the thousands of recovery workers who toiled at ground zero, as well as for people around the world,” museum president Joe Daniels said in a statement.

The lawsuit is also being opposed by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian public-interest law firm.

“One atheist group’s agenda shouldn’t diminish the sacrifice made by the heroes of 9/11,” said ADF Senior Counsel Byron Babione, who argued that the cross “simply does not amount to a government establishment of religion.”

“The cross is not only known far and wide as a religious symbol, but also as a symbol of death, remembrance, and honor for the dead. Americans have long recognized this. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes atheists to scour the landscape on a mission to seek and destroy memorial crosses.”

In 2005, American Atheists had also filed suit in federal court to tear down roadside crosses honoring fallen Utah highway patrol officers. ADF, which represents the Utah Highway Patrol Association, has appealed that case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In April 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that a veterans’ memorial in the form of a cross in the Mojave Desert of California did not have to be removed. In that ruling, the court wrote, “The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm….  The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion’s role in society.”

“Crosses have been used to honor fallen heroes in this country since its founding,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tom Marcelle, based in Albany. “ADF stands ready to defend the World Trade Center Cross in any way that it can, just as we have defended many other cross memorials throughout the country.”

Albany Bishop Hubbard to celebrate Mass for dissident homosexual group

by Kathleen Gilbert

ALBANY, New York, July 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The bishop of Albany has agreed to celebrate Mass for a conference held by a dissident Catholic gay rights group in the city this fall.

Thomas Peters of Catholic Vote reported Wednesday that Bishop Howard Hubbard was slated to say a Saturday vigil Mass for a September conference by the Catholic Association for Lesbian & Gay Ministry (CALGM).

The conference, “Setting the Table for LGBT People in a Diverse Church,” includes gay rights speakers such as Rev. Bob Pierson, OSB and United Church of Christ priestess Rev. Vicki Wunsch.

Peters points out that Archbishop John Nienstedt of Saint Paul/Minneapolis had barred CALGM from meeting within his diocese.

“Bishop Hubbard turns 75 in a little over two years, but he seems intent on continuing to inflict pastoral damage on his diocese until he retires,” wrote Peters.

CALGM, formerly known as the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries (NACDLGM), has earned a reputation for pushing acceptance of homosexuality as an identity and opposing Catholic ministry to help individuals overcome homosexual attractions.

One visible clash between the group and Catholic teaching took place in 2008, when the group invited then-coadjutor Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento to speak at their national conference - an invitation that the bishop accepted.

To organizers’ surprise, however, Soto took the opportunity to point out that any sexual activity outside marriage between a man and a woman is sinful.

“Sexual relations between people of the same sex can be alluring for homosexuals but it deviates from the true meaning of the act and distracts them from the true nature of love to which God has called us all. For this reason, it is sinful,” he said.

Following the speech, which met with mostly silence from the audience, a board member of the association told the crowd, “on behalf of the board, I apologize. We had no idea Bishop Soto was going to say what he said.”

Georgetown U. board member has funneled millions to pro-abort, pro-homosexual cause

by Thaddeus Baklinski

WASHINGTON, DC, July 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A member of the Board of Governors of the Alumni Association at Georgetown University, a Catholic academic institution run by the Jesuits in Washington, also helps lead two organizations that have donated millions to the pro-abortion and pro-homosexual cause.

The connection was revealed by Scott Walter, a Georgetown alumnus, writing on “The Catholic Thing” blog. He reported that Melissa Bradley, a graduate of Georgetown’s class of ’89, who serves on the Board of Governors of the university’s Alumni Association, also serves on the board of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. According to the fund’s website, it has contributed over $2 million toward the election of candidates who support same-sex “marriage” and abortion.

Bradley’s main occupation has a similar leaning. She is the CEO of the Tides Foundation, which touts itself as a supporter of homosexual activism and abortion rights groups.

Tides Foundation’s list of grantees from 2010 shows that the group processed grants for the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation ($39,385), the Center for Reproductive Rights ($12,500), California Latinas for Reproductive Justice ($440,000), Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice ($322,500), and Planned Parenthood’s Action Fund ($500,000), the group’s political advocacy department, and various other PP affiliated groups, among many others.

The Tides Foundation proudly touts the fact that in 2008 it “granted $5.1 million to LGBT issues including more than $1.1 million to support educational efforts in support of marriage equality in California.” It also “granted $9.6 million to women’s rights and reproductive justice, including successful efforts to stop anti-choice ballot measures in Colorado, Oregon, and California.”

Walker, however, observed: “These millions of dollars [Bradley] wields in the trenches of America’s battles over innocent children and traditional marriage don’t bother Georgetown.”

Not only does Bradley sit on the Georgetown U. Alumni Association board, but also on the school’s “LGBTQ Initiative Working Group,” an offshoot of the university’s fully funded homosexual resource center. She also recently received the school’s Reed Alumni Award, where it was noted that she lives “with her partner/wife, Allessandra,” also a Georgetown U. alumna, and their six children.

Contact information:

President John J. DeGioia
Office of the President
Georgetown University
204 Healy Hall
37th & “O” Streets, NW
Washington, DC 20057-1789
Tel:  (202) 687-4134
Fax: (202) 687-6660
Email: via Chief of Staff Joseph A. Ferrara at jaf@georgetown.edu

Nat’l Catholic Reporter writer gushes: lesbian ‘wedding’ ceremony a ‘foretaste of eternity’

by Kathleen Gilbert

July 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A columnist at the National Catholic Reporter has published a glowing account of a homosexual “marriage” between two Catholic lesbians, describing the event as a “transcendent” experience likened to a “foretaste of eternity.”

Jamie Manson, an award-winning columnist at the prominent Catholic paper, which is known for its regular opposition to official Catholic teaching on key issues, published her observations of the event in a column entitled “Witnessing a Catholic Same-Sex Wedding.”

“The 20 people in attendance, whose ages ranged from 21 to well over 70, all shared two things in common with the couple. Every one of them is gay or lesbian, and every one of them is deeply committed to their Catholic faith,” wrote Manson.

“It was one of those moments that I have experienced rarely: a moment of genuine joy, peace, and deep communal friendship. It was at once very real, but also transcendent. Perhaps a foretaste of what eternity might be like.”

Manson went on to compare the event favorably with true marriage and criticized the Catholic Church’s position that sexual activity between persons of the same sex is “intrinsically disordered.”

“For me, one of the ironies of the Catholic opposition to same-sex relationships is the appeal to natural law, specifically the notion that same-sex relationships violate nature because they are not capable of procreation. Interpreting natural law in this way reduces human beings to their biological functions,” she wrote.

Manson lamented that it could take the Catholic Church “centuries” to recognize homosexual “marriage” as “a holy union because of the love, faithfulness and mutual respect they shared.”

“Lucky for those of us gathered in the park on that balmy, blessed, late afternoon, the presence of God is not subject to the limited, fallible men who make church law,” she concluded.

When Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex “marriage” in 2004, the National Catholic Reporter published an editorial stating: “The ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts allowing same-sex civil marriage is a beneficial step along the path of human understanding and human rights.”

Free booklets on Perfect Contrition for our brave armed forces personnel across the world (English and Spanish)

Perfect Contrition – English
Perfect Contrition – Spanish

I want to make this book readily available for free to all, but especially to the brave members of our armed forces spread all across the world. 

So, if you know someone in the armed forces who you think should receive a copy, please call us at 888-317-5571 and we will mail them a copy of Perfect Contrition!

Or, you could download it for free right now, by going here:

Perfect Contrition – English
Perfect Contrition – Spanish

This book is not a gimmick.  Trust it.  It is real.  It is the Golden Key to Heaven.

And it can open Heaven for you now, tomorrow, or at any other time in your life if you have had the misfortune to close it through mortal sin.

And why is this so important?  Here's just one example:

If someone you know is dying, and there is no priest at his or her side to hear their confession, you can help them to make an act of perfect contrition -- the dispenser of divine mercy at the hour of death.

Because perfect contrition could be the person's only hope to gain Heaven in some circumstances.

And by the grace of God, by an act of perfect contrition the golden doors of Heaven will be open to this person, even at his or her last hour.

Of course, the act of perfect contrition MUST be followed by sacramental confession at the very first opportunity, and before the person goes to receive Holy Communion. 

But all this is spelled our very clearly in the booklet Perfect Contrition: The Golden Key to Heaven.

So please learn all about it by taking advantage of my offer to get your free copy of this marvelous little book today.

Perfect Contrition – English
Perfect Contrition – Spanish

“The Miracle of ‘41” – Forgotten Prodigies Worked by the Blessed Virgin of Good Success in 1941

¨De Maria nunquam satis¨

One can never say enough about Mary. This affirmation of St. Bernard has been repeated by many Mariologists throughout the centuries.

However much one may speak about the Blessed Virgin, it will never suffice, as there will always be marvels of hers to talk about. There are so many beautiful aspects to her grandeur and sublime virtues that one could never run out of reflections on the One who outdoes all the angels and saints. And this is indisputably so, for she was chosen to be the most admirable of mere creatures, the masterpiece of creation picked to be the worthy Mother of God!

                                                   * * *

In this age of technology and unbridled frenzy, there are some forgotten truths (sometimes culpably neglected) many of which are surrounded by stunning campaigns of silence and relegated to utter isolation and abandonment.

Such ostracism has been precisely the fate assigned to what undoubtedly constitutes the greatest manifestation of the Blessed Virgin in the Americas over the last few centuries, under the prophetic title of Our Lady of Good Success.

In order to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the “Miracle of ‘41” and to exalt and give due prominence to that ineffable wonder by the Queen of Heaven, we review it below.

                                                      * * *

The statue of Our Lady of Good Success has protected the Convent of the Immaculate Conception in Quito for many centuries and has been instrumental in bringing continuing graces to protect Ecuador and its people.

Along with her pastoral crosier, She picked that name in order to always govern us successfully in all the petitions we make to her, both in the spiritual and temporal order, and She has thus undoubtedly become the Sovereign ruler of Ecuador. And so that her miraculous statue would become known all over the country and the world, the Blessed Virgin worked in these lands the most extraordinary event of the twentieth century.

In 1941 Peru invaded Ecuadorian territory, and in view of that emergency the Archbishop of Quito ordered that a Triduum of prayers be said in the various churches of Quito to honor the many invocations of the Blessed Virgin imploring her for a cessation of the hostilities.

On July 24 the Triduum in honor of Our Lady of Good Success started in the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Three days later, all Ecuadorians saw for themselves the famous predilection in which the Virgin holds their country.

Beginning at seven o'clock in the morning of Sunday, July 27, 1941, the statue continually opened and shut her eyes; her face at first took on a reddish color, then changed to one similar to that of marble. A kind of fog covered the statue and, as soon as it vanished, one could see the statue in the middle of a supernatural glow.

Her eyes, normally looking downward, would gradually and repeatedly lift up to heaven in supplication and then land once again on the faithful.

As news of the phenomenon spread, thousands of faithful invaded the church, marveling at that wondrous portent while relegating to the background international events of great magnitude.

The maternal blinking of the sacred Statue occurred throughout that blessed day, lasting until three in the morning of the next. At ten o'clock in the morning of the 27^th there took place what was later called "the miracle of ‘41". It was witnessed by thirty thousand people. In the afternoon of that same day, the daily newspapers announced the cessation of hostilities by Peru against our country.

On July 28 and for a few days thereafter, news about the wonderful event appeared in various Ecuadorian dailies, such as

Diario El Comercio, July 28-29 and August 2, 1941

Diario El Universo, July 28, 1941

Diario El Telégrafo, July 28, 1941

Diario Últimas Noticias, July 28, 1941

Diario El Debate (evening) July 27-28-29, 1941

Diario la Sociedad, August 3, 1941

Diario la Voz Obrera, August 10, 1941

Diario La Voz Católica de Loja, October 5 & 12, 1941

                                                  * * *

"This devotion will be the lightning rod between Divine Justice and the unfaithful world to prevent the unleashing, upon this guilty earth, of the formidable punishment that it deserves.”

--Revelations of Our Lady of Good Success to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres.

What can we do to face the punishment required by the sins of today’s world, to help bring about the conversion of men, and to find our way amid the disasters that so seriously threaten us? Our Lady answers: increase our devotion to her, pray and do penance.

Seventy years have gone by since Our ​​Lady of Good Success showed her mercy in such a wonderful fashion by removing the danger of war from the international scene. However, in Ecuador - and obviously everywhere else - nothing has been seen ever since but vile impenitence and apostasy, which leads us to fear that God's punishment is becoming increasingly inevitable.

Today, the whole world groans in darkness and pain just like the prodigal son when he reached the vortex of shame and misery, away from the parental home.

The gradual leveling of the sexes towards full equality and complete libertinage; the acceptance of aggressive pornography on TV, in newspapers, magazines, movie theaters, and the Internet; the wearing of extravagant fashions for both men and women; birth control practices that defeat the purpose of the sacrament of marriage; the killing of innocent unborn; the legalization of divorce and homosexual unions. All these events, among many others that anyone today can see, beg the question: are we living the days of the imminent triumph of iniquity?

The sight of so many crimes naturally suggests the idea of ​​divine vengeance; and when we look at this sinful world, groaning amid the torture of a thousand crises and anguishes and still shrinking from penance; when we consider the terrible progress of neopaganism, about to become the governing rule of all humanity; finally, when we see the pusillanimity, improvidence and disunity of those who still have not adhered to evil, our minds are filled with dread at the idea of the disasters building up upon humanity, we also see that the days of impiety are numbered.

                                                   * * *

If God were to allow only His justice to act, it would be questionable whether the world would have existed thus far. But since God is not only just but also merciful, the door of salvation still has not been closed for us. A humanity persevering in wickedness has every reason to expect the rigors of God’s justice. But God, Who is infinitely merciful, does not want the death of sinful humanity but rather that ‘it converts and lives.” Thus, His grace insistently seeks out all men to make them leave their bad ways and return to the fold of the Good Shepherd.

If an unrepentant humanity should expect every catastrophe, a repentant humanity can expect abundant mercy. And to attain it there is no need for repentance to have accomplished its work of restoration. It suffices for the sinner, though still in the bottom of the abyss, to turn to God with a simple beginning of effective, serious and deep repentance, for him to immediately obtain the help of God, who never forgot him in the first place.

These two essential images of justice and mercy should be constantly before the eyes of modern man. Of justice, for him not to rashly assume that he will be saved without merit. Of mercy, so he will not to despair of his salvation just as long as he wishes to amend himself.

As She did in Quito in 1941, Our Lady of Good Success has continuously worked most stupendous miracles for us. Can the mercy of a Mother – the very best of mothers – ever come to an end? Who would dare to say so?

If anyone were to doubt, the miracle of 1941 should serve as a wonderful lesson in confidence. Our Lady will not fail to help us. She has actually already started to help us. At the very moment that wickedness seems to triumph, something rings hollow in its apparent victory. The days of domination by the wicked are numbered. The Miracle of ‘41 invites us to confide in Most Holy Mary of Good Success.

Beyond the darkness and punishment toward which we march, we also have before us some rays of light: sacral rays of light of the blessed dawn of the Reign of Mary: “I will dethrone proud Satan, chaining him to the infernal abyss and freeing at last the Church and the motherland from this cruel tyranny.” This is the grand perspective of a universal victory by the royal and maternal Heart of the Blessed Virgin. It is a soothing, attractive and above all majestic promise, proper to stir enthusiasm.

"I am powerful to placate divine justice and attain mercy and forgiveness for every sinful soul that comes to me with a contrite heart; for I am the Mother of Mercy, filled with kindness and love."

He was stuck dead by God for having mocked the intercession of Saint Philomena

In a great city the first feast of St. Philomena was being celebrated with much splendor.  A certain ecclesiastic, seeing the rejoicing and fervor, said contemptuously, "Did we want another Saint here? Have we not feasts enough?"

And murmuring thus, he went home. 

The bystanders were much shocked and began whispering among themselves that the Saint would not leave him unpunished.  The words were scarcely out of their mouths when they beheld his servants running in search of doctors, for he had been struck down by a mortal illness and lay as it dead upon the ground.  He shortly after expired.

(Excerpt from SAINT PHILOMENA, THE WONDER-WORKER by Father Paul O’Sullivan, O.P.)

Pro-life ‘flash mob’ in California saves lives, shuts down clinic for a day

by Stephen Muff

July 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Saturday morning, people filled Wright Street in Sacramento, California. Parents were smiling, children were laughing, and young adults gathered together and were talking to some of their best friends. Everyone held balloons. It was an unusual sight at an abortion clinic, particularly the Women’s Health Specialist.

When people hear the term “flash-mob,” some think of angry mobs bent on violence, whereas others think of pointless actions by choirs in clothing stores. This one was different. It was a prayerful, peaceful, gathering with the purpose of changing hearts and minds in Sacramento about the issue of abortion.

This was no small event. With over 150 people participating, as well as reporters from Fox 40, Univision Noticias 19, Channel 13, and the Sacramento Bee, it was well attended. However, this is just the beginning of a new wave of the pro-life movement in the capitol of California.

Before all the excitement, a group of young adults met at a local restaurant, filling up large yellow balloons with the word “LIFE” on them. One of the leaders of Dixon, California’s Theology on Tap group, Jeff Gilmore, thanked everyone for coming, and communicated our need to take a stand against this injustice.

John Johnson, another leader of Dixon’s Theology on Tap group, pointed out that the abortionist told media, “they ‘were still there for women’ despite the demonstration, but the bottom line is, due to our overwhelming presence, there were zero abortions performed that Saturday.”

In fact, the parking lot was empty except for some of the upper-level management’s cars. Also present was Women’s Health Specialist’s attorney, Mark E. Merin. Mr. Merin did not see any harassment or blocking of entrances. Instead, he saw models of unborn children at the various stages of development, a closed abortion clinic, and many smiling and happy people (except his clients). It was interesting that Mr. Merin even showed up at all, considering there were no abortions that day, no escorts or security guard, and no abortionists. Those gathered made sure to make Mr. Merin’s job boring that day, and he went home.

Perhaps Sacrament’s most faithful pro-life activist, Wynette Sills, said, “Saturdays are typically the busiest abortion mornings of the week at Women’s Health Specialist. On average, 10-20 women will arrive to terminate the life of their child, as that is the only ‘service’ they offer on Saturdays. Yet, Saturday, the clinic owners completely closed their business down, in anticipation of the pro-life prayerful presence. In the time I have been present at Wright Street, I have never observed them completely closing down their abortion business. Even when Bishop Soto led a Rosary Procession there earlier this year, the clinic only delayed their opening until later in the afternoon, but on this past Saturday, they were completely closed; no women were hurt, no lives were lost. If on average, they charge $300-$500 for each abortion, I would estimate the clinic lost several thousand dollars by closing on Saturday. Therefore, we need to maintain our presence, praying for conversion of hearts and minds.”

The pro-lifers in Sacramento do not gather to harass women— they help them. This event was not a picket or a protest. Instead, they show them how to choose life for their unborn children. Women deserve to know facts about fetal development, the risks of abortion, and the free resources that are available to them. While the abortion industry is not forthcoming about this information, Sacramento has a crises pregnancy center available, which can tell them the truth. Sacramento has come together to help mothers in need, with strollers, car-seats, baby clothes, maternity clothes, groceries, even kitchen appliances, a family car, and rental assistance for some very needy families.

Environmentalists slam Beckhams as ‘bad example’ for having fourth child

by Kathleen Gilbert

LONDON, July 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Instead of joy and congratulations, news of the birth of English celebrities David and Victoria Beckham’s healthy baby girl has sparked criticisms from the country’s environmentalists that the couple is a “bad example.”

The birth of the footballer family’s first daughter, Harper Seven Beckham, was the inspiration for a Guardian article highlighting the push by population control advocates for families to have fewer children. 

The British paper reports that Simon Ross, chief executive of Britain’s Optimum Population Trust, said that “the Beckhams, and others like London mayor Boris Johnson, are very bad role models with their large families.” Johnson also has four children.

“There’s no point in people trying to reduce their carbon emissions and then increasing them 100% by having another child,” he said. ” We need to change the incentives to make the environmental case that one or two children are fine but three or four are just being selfish.”

“We need to have a far greater public debate about population, whether it focuses on improving family planning or reducing global inequality – and looking again at how we address the strain on our natural resources,” said Green MP Caroline Lucas.

However, Larry Jacobs, the director of the pro-life World Congress of Families, congratulated the Beckhams for “giving the gift of life to another precious child.”

Jacobs said that “Groups like Optimum Population Trust play on fear and ignorance. Over-population is based on a long-discredited 1960s paradigm and Paul Ehrlich book, “The Population Bomb.”

While population control is often pushed on the premise of reducing poverty in third-world countries, the Beckhams will have little trouble financially taking on a fourth: Los Angeles Galaxy soccer player David Beckham earned $46 million in 2008, according to Forbes, and a report this year put the couple’s total worth at about $271 million, a figure that includes Mrs. Beckham’s successful fashion line.

Increasingly, however population control advocates in first-world countries are pushing families to have fewer children as a moral obligation to help preserve the environment, an argument that has gathered steam in the international community. A 2009 report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) described the growth of the population as causing humanity to approach “the brink of disaster,” thanks to the resulting increase of greenhouse gas emissions.

Others say that arguments to reduce population, such as a supposed lack of space and food or damage to the economy, are seriously misguided and only serve to cover up human rights atrocities in areas such as China under the one-child policy.

One of the most prominent of these, The Population Research Institute, has recently published a series of videos to make the case for human population growth as both sustainable by the planet and vital to economic stability.

10,000 march for true marriage in New York – more events planned

by Jeremy Kryn

Participants march in the pro-true marriage rally on Sunday.

New York, NY, July 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This past Sunday, an estimated nearly 10,000 people participated in a New York City rally and march in support of the traditional definition of marriage. The rally, which was organized by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), took place on the same day as the first homosexual “marriages” were legally performed in New York State.

More than 200 people also attended a NOM rally organized in Buffalo, New York on Sunday. In addition to New York City and Buffalo, NOM held rallies in Albany, Rochester, and Syracuse.

“The crowds of supporters were just amazing,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s president. “The crowd in Manhattan was so large the New York Police Department asked us to begin our march early so that we could relieve overcrowding at the gathering site.”

The New York City march began in front of Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo’s New York City offices on Park Avenue and then proceeded to the United Nations. Men and women waved Bibles and sang hymns, and cries of “Jesus, Jesus” and “Let the People Vote” reverberated through the city streets.

The Wall Street Journal reported that one counter protester was present, a muscular bald white man who held aloft a sign that read: “ADVANCEMENTS: STOP DRAGGING YOUR KNUCKLES!!! CATCH UP, EINSTEINS!!!”

The nearly 10,000 people at Sunday’s rally and march was less than the approximately 20,000 who attended a similar event in New York in 2009, also organized by NOM and Democratic New York State Senator Diaz. Many of the people who attended Sunday’s rally were Hispanic members of the Bronx church run by Diaz, an ordained pastor. A quarter to a third of the crowd, according to the Wall Street Journal, was African-American.

Brown said that NOM will help organize monthly activities to keep up public pressure in support of true marriage.

“The rallies yesterday were just the beginning,” he said. “Every month we’ll be calling on supporters to take action and to help us grow our coalition. Working with leaders such as Sen. Ruben Diaz, Bishop Joseph Mattera, New Yorkers for Constitutional Rights president Jason McGuire and others, we will create the largest coalition ever assembled in New York history by the time we’re done.”

Rosary Crusade goes worldwide, with rallies scheduled from Japan to Mexico, from Brazil to Australia

Thanks to the hard work of the America Needs Fatima website staff, and to the graces sent to us by Our Lady, we are receiving the welcome and enthusiastic participation of rally captains from all over the world in our 2011 Public Square Rosary Crusade.

Please see the sign up page for international rally captains here:

http://www.americaneedsfatima.org/2011-rally-captain-signup-international.html

To see some of the places across the globe where international rosary rallies are being scheduled, please go here:

http://www.americaneedsfatima.org/component/option,com_chronoconnectivity/ST,INL/connectionname,psrc/

You will need to scroll down on the page to see the full listing.

Abortionist admits: babies sometimes born alive and left ‘wiggling around in the toilet’

by Kathleen Gilbert

Prendergaft associate Randall Whitney reportedly testified that babies are born alive all the time after failed abortions and are then left to die.

ORLANDO, Florida, July 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In disturbing testimony during court proceedings against a well-known Florida abortionist, a fellow abortionist reportedly admitted that some aborted children are delivered alive and left “wiggling around in the toilet,” where they are allowed to die.

The testimony occurred during proceedings against abortionist James Pendergraft, who was forced to pay over $36 million last week for a botched procedure that left its intended target alive, but severely disabled.

Pendergraft, who was convicted of felony extortion in 2001, was told by an Orlando County jury to pay $18 million in the civil suit itself and another $18 million in punitive damages, totaling over $36 million.

Michele Herzog of Pro-Life Action Ministries, a witness in the courtroom, said that jurors listened as abortionist Randall Whitney, one of Pendergrast’s accomplices, “cavalierly stated that yes, babies are delivered in the toilet all the time and many times are still alive, wiggling around in the toilet.”

“I would say it was eye-opening, but we all know what really goes on in these abortion mills.  But to hear the abortionist so coldly explain how they kill the children is so hard to hear and so unbelievable to think that it is allowed in our great nation,” Herzog said.

The civil suit was launched by Pendergrast’s former patient, Carol Howard, whose infant barely survived a 2004 medical abortion at his facility. The girl, now ten years old, suffers from a host of disabilities in connection with the attempted killing, including cerebral palsy, loss of function on the left side of her body, strokes, mental disability, chronic lung disease, and seizures.

Abortionist James Prendergraft

The jury last week ordered Pendergraft to pay Howard $18,255,000 in damages, as well as $462,000 in court costs, according to reports. The next day, the jury awarded Howard punitive damages of over $18 million, bringing the total to $36,766,000.

“[Pendergraft] has an abortion dynasty around the state of Florida. He only cares about money, and I say hit him where it hurts!” said Howard’s attorney during closing arguments to the jury, according to Herzog.

Although Pendergraft was still in jail for extortion in Marian County at the time, Howard said she was drawn to one of his five abortion clinics because the facility’s website touted his credentials as a board certified OB/GYN. When she got there, she was given RU-486 by a medical assistant to abort her pregnancy at over 22 weeks.

Herzog reports that, according to Howard’s attorney, Howard was given fifty times the standard dosage of Cyotec, a brand name for the labor-inducing drug misoprostol. When Howard began undergoing violent contractions and asked for pain medication, she was told by medical assistants to walk her labor off outside in the parking lot, or else leave, according to the pro-life group.  Meanwhile, there were reportedly no doctors or nurses present.

Howard wound up going home, but called 911 and managed to give birth to her baby at a hospital.

Catholic Charities hired firm founded by homosexual activist, accused of support for homosexual group

by Patrick B. Craine

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As Catholic Charities agencies across the country are fighting government efforts to shut down their adoption services, the group’s national office in Washington has employed a firm founded by a homosexual activist to lobby for them on Capitol Hill, the Washington Blade, a homosexual newspaper, reported recently.

A spokesman for Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA) confirmed to LifeSiteNews that they hired the Sheridan Group, a lobbying firm founded by Tom Sheridan.  A self-professed “gay Catholic,” Sheridan began his lobbying career with the AIDS Action Council in the 1980s, and his firm has since represented numerous AIDS advocacy groups.

At the same time, the dissident New Ways Ministry, which purports to support “LGBT” Catholics, claimed to the Blade that CCUSA and some local Catholic Charities agencies have been backing them “behind-the-scenes.”

“Catholic Charities in general have been the most progressive wing of the church other than the nuns,” said Sister Jeannine Gramick, one of the founders of New Ways, which has been condemned by both the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  “In some cases, Catholic Charities USA has supported our events. I feel they personally are pro-gay but they can’t do this publicly.”

Francis DeBernardo, New Ways’ executive director, said that while “the homophobia” is still present in Catholic Charities agencies, he believes it is “due mostly to the bishops, who have an immense amount of power over Catholic Charities [on the local level].”

However, Roger Conner, CCUSA’s communications director, told LifeSiteNews on Monday that they have “no affiliation” with New Ways Ministry, “nor are they authorized to speak on our behalf.”

Fr. Larry Snyder, CCUSA’s president, said in a statement that they hired Sheridan’s lobbying firm to promote their anti-poverty initiatives in Congress.  Specifically, he said Sheridan is promoting their Centennial project, which aims to “celebrate our first 100 years of service by imagining a better way to serve those in need throughout the next 100 years.”  According to the Blade, CCUSA paid Sheridan’s company $476,750 between April 2010 and April 2011.

Sheridan told the Washington Blade that he had no issue representing CCUSA because it is independent from the local Catholic Charities agencies that are fighting government promotion of homosexualism. 

“They’re only together as service providers on poverty issues, which is why I have no problem representing them,” he said.  “And I’m proud to represent them because they do such outstanding work.”

Ottawa Catholic parish to host Homosexual Pride gathering

by Patrick B. Craine

OTTAWA, Ontario, July 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The young adult group at St. Joseph’s Catholic Parish in Ottawa is again organizing a group to attend next month’s Homosexual Pride Parade in the capital.

The parish group is inviting people to attend the August 28th parade on its blog.  Following the parade, they are inviting marchers for refreshments at St. Joe’s Supper Table, a ministry to the poor that is run out of the parish.

“We march every year, because we want to tell the Pride Parade’s participants and viewers that it is possible to live in integrity as a person of faith, who is both gay and deeply spiritual,” the invitation reads.  “We believe that there is a place for everybody at Christ’s table.”

The event is being sponsored by the University of Ottawa’s Gay Catholics, Christians and Allies Group (GCCA).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church insists that homosexuals “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity,” and condemns any form of “unjust discrimination” against them.

At the same time, the Catechism affirms the Church’s traditional teaching that homosexual inclinations are “objectively disordered” and homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity.”  “Under no circumstances can they be approved,” it states.

The group’s promotion of the march was first reported by Suzanne Fortin on her blog, Big Blue Wave.

LifeSiteNews did not hear back from the Archdiocese of Ottawa by press time.

Contact Information:

Archbishop Terrence Prendergast
1247 Kilborn Place
Ottawa, Ontario K1H 6K9
Phone: 613-738-5025
Fax: 613-738-0130
E-mail: archbishop@archottawa.ca

Cardinal-Hero Survivor of the Gulag, dies at the age of 96

We are deeply saddened to announce that His Eminence, Cardinal Swiatek, former Archbishop of Minsk-Mohilev, died at the age of 96. 

He was famous for his heroic resistance to Communism, and for being the only priest of his diocese to survive nine years in the Soviet Communist Gulag (concentration camps).

         

While there, he endured hard labor, temperatures of -40 degrees, while sleeping in a hole in the ground that was virtually unprotected.

Cardinal Swiatek received the Fidei Testis (Witness to the Faith) award from then Pope John Paul II in September 2004. 

Here are TFP-America Needs Fatima, we are indebted to him for his kind collaboration and unwavering friendship over the years. 

For example, in 1996, His Eminence had the goodness to send me a letter of support and encouragement for our then newly released book called “Jacinta’s Story,” a Fatima storybook for children.  Here is a copy of that letter:

I hope and ask that you will pray for the eternal repose of his soul.  May God and the Blessed Mother reward him for his heroic and public resistance to Communism, and for all the suffering he endured in private in his 9 years in the Gulag.

                                                        ***

In case you are having trouble reading the facsimile copy of His Eminence’s message to  TFP-America Needs Fatima, here is that same message in clear typed out lettering:

'Dear Mr. Ritchie,

‘America and the world desperately need to turn to the Mother of God. The errors of Communism predicted by Our Lady at Fatima have harmed both our countries, even if in very different ways.

'For the future of mankind, it is of the utmost importance that her call to conversion be heard across America and around the world!

'That is why I am overjoyed to learn about the remarkable success of the America Needs Fatima campaign. I ardently pray that you receive widespread support.

'Under the protection of Almighty God, I hope that your vital apostolate continues to grow. For this intention, I give my Apostolic Blessing, imploring the Blessed Virgin Mary to protect your immense country and your important work.'

Sincerely yours,

Kazimierz Kard. Swiatek,

Archbishop of Minsk-Mohilev

                                                     ***

How we should ask Our Lady to restore our innocence

The restoration of innocence

We can and should ask Our Lady to restore our innocence and tell her:

‘There are moments, my Mother, in which my soul feels touched by an ineffable yearning. I long for the times in which I loved Thee, and Thou loved me in the vernal atmosphere of my spiritual life. I yearn for Thee, my Lady, and for the paradise which placed in me the great communication I had with Thee.

‘Doth Thou not also, my Lady, long for that time? Dost Thou not long for the goodness which existed in this son that I once was?

‘Come, therefore, the best of all mothers, and for the love of that which was blossoming in me, restore me; recompose in me that love for Thee, and make of me the complete realization of that son without stain which I would have been had I not been so miserable.

‘Give me, O my Mother, a repentant and humbled heart, and make shine anew before my eyes that which through the splendor of Thy grace I had once began to love so very much!

‘Remember, O Lady, this David and all the sweetness Thou didst place in him. So be it!’[1]

---

[1] Reflections on innocence by Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira in 1974.  Not revised by the author before publication.

Our Lady is as terrible as an army in battle array to the devil and his followers, especially in these latter times

In these latter times Mary must shine forth more than ever in mercy, power and grace; in mercy, to bring back and welcome lovingly the poor sinners and wanderers who are to be converted and return to the Catholic Church; in power, to combat the enemies of God who will rise up menacingly to seduce and crush by promises and threats all those who oppose them; finally, she must shine forth in grace to inspire and support the valiant soldiers and loyal servants of Jesus Christ who are fighting for his cause.

Lastly, Mary must become as terrible as an army in battle array to the devil and his followers, especially in these latter times. For Satan, knowing that he has little time - even less now than ever - to destroy souls, intensifies his efforts and his onslaughts every day.

He will not hesitate to stir up savage persecutions and set treacherous snares for Mary's faithful servants and children whom he finds more difficult to overcome than others.

It is chiefly in reference to these last wicked persecutions of the devil, daily increasing until the advent of the reign of anti- Christ, that we should understand that first and well-known prophecy and curse of God uttered against the serpent in the garden of paradise. It is opportune to explain it here for the glory of the Blessed Virgin, the salvation of her children and the confusion of the devil.

"I will place enmities between you and the woman, between your race and her race; she will crush your head and you will lie in wait for her heel" (Gen. 3:15).

By St. Louis de Montfort

California referendum launched to halt mandatory ‘homosexual history’ law

by Kathleen Gilbert

SACRAMENTO, July 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Conservative leaders in California are gathering support for a referendum to block the state’s new law that mandates that history curricula highlight homosexual figures, and that forbids any teaching that reflects negatively upon homosexuality.

Governor Jerry Brown this month signed SB 48, which mandates an emphasis on “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender” role models in K-12 history and social science textbooks. Because California constitutes a large share of the national textbook market, the mandate, although unique to California, would likely cause the printing and distribution of “gay-friendly” textbooks for consumption across America.

In response, the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) with several other pro-family organizations quickly launched a referendum for a SB 48 repeal. Papers have been filed with the California Attorney General’s Office, where officials will craft an official title and summary.

Once a title and summary are received from the Attorney General, supporters will have until October 12 to gather approximately 500,000 valid signatures to place the referendum on the ballot. In the meantime, SB 48, set to go into effect on January 1, is automatically suspended.

A growing coalition of pro-family leaders across the state are supporting the official campaign at StopSB48.com, according to PJI.

“We have been seeing a groundswell of opposition to the enactment of SB 48, and now it is time to act,” said Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, in a statement.

Dacus encouraged supporters to visit StopSB48.com for more information on joining the coalition. “We cannot afford to stay silent or stand on the sidelines.”