This saint forced the devil to build a church

St. Wolfgang

Bishop of Ratisbon (972-994), born about 934; died at the village of Pupping in upper Austria, 31 October, 994. The name Wolfgang is of early German origin. St. Wolfgang was one of the three brilliant stars of the tenth century, St. Ulrich, St. Conrad, and St. Wolfgang, which illuminated the early medieval period of Germany with the undying splendour of their acts and services. St. Wolfgang sprang from a family of Swabian counts of Pfullingen (Mon. Germ. His.: Script., X, 53). When seven years old he had an ecclesiastic as tutor at home; later he attended the celebrated monastic school on the Reichenau. Here he formed a strong friendship with Henry, brother of Bishop Poppo of Würzburg, whom he followed to Würzburg in order to attend at the cathedral school there the lectures of the noted Italian grammarian, Stephen of Novara. After Henry was made Archbishop of Trier in 956, he called his friend to Trier, where Wolfgang became a teacher in the cathedral school, and also laboured for the reform of the archdiocese, notwithstanding the enmity with which his efforts were met. Wolfgang’s residence at Trier greatly influenced his monastic and ascetic tendencies, as here he came into connection with the great reformatory monastery of the tenth century, St. Maximin of Trier, where he made the acquaintance of Ramwold, the teacher of St. Adalbert of Prague. After the death (964) of Archbishop Henry of Trier, Wolfgang entered the Order of St. Benedict in the Abbey of Maria Einsiedeln, Switzerland, and was ordained priest by St. Ulrich in 968.

Statue of St. Wolfgang in the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht.

After their defeat in the battle of the Lechfeld (955), a victory gained with the aid of St. Ulrich, the heathen Magyars settled in ancient Pannonia. As long as they were not converted to Christianity they remained a constant menace to the empire. At the request of St. Ulrich, who clearly saw the danger, and at the desire of the Emperor Otto the Great, St. Wolfgang, according to the abbey annals, was “sent to Magyars” as the most suitable man to evangelize them. He was followed by other missionaries sent by Bishop Piligrim of Nassau, under whose jurisdiction the new missionary region came. After the death of Bishop Michael of Ratisbon (23 September, 972) Bishop Piligrim obtained from the emperor the appointment of Wolfgang as Bishop of Ratisbon (Christmas, 972). Wolfgang’s services in this new position were of the highest importance, not only for the diocese, but also for the cause of civilization. As Bishop of Ratisbon, Wolfgang became the tutor of Emperor St. Henry II, who learned from him the principles which governed his saintly and energetic life. Poppe, son of Margrave Luitpold, Archbishop of Trier (1016), and Tagino, Archbishop of Magdeburg (1004-1012), also had him as their teacher.

St. Wolfgang deserves credit for his disciplinary labours in his diocese. His main work in this respect was connected with the ancient and celebrated Abbey of St. Emmeram which he reformed by granting it once more abbots of its own, thus withdrawing it from the control of the bishops of Ratisbon, who for many years had been abbots in commendam, a condition of affairs that had been far from beneficial to the abbey and monastic life. In the Benedictine monk Ramwold, whom St. Wolfgang called from St. Maximin at Trier, St. Emmeram received a capable abbot (975). The saint also reformed the convents of Obermunster and Niedermunster at Ratisbon, chiefly by giving them as an example the convent of St. Paul, Mittelmunster, at Ratisbon, which he had founded in 983. He also co-operated in the reform of the ancient and celebrated Benedictine Abbey of Altach (Nieder-altach), which had been founded by the Agilolf dynasty, and which from that time took on new life. He showed genuine episcopal generosity in the liberal manner with which he met the views of the Emperor Otto II regarding the intended reduction in size of his diocese for the benefit of the new Diocese of Prague (975), to which St. Adalbert was appointed first bishop. As prince of the empire he performed his duties towards the emperor and the empire with the utmost scrupulousness and, like St. Ulrich, was one of the mainstays of the Ottonian policies. He took part in the various imperial Diets, and, in the autumn of 978, accompanied the Emperor Otto II on his campaign to Paris, and took part in the great Diet of Verona in June, 983.

Sankt Wolfgang im Salzkammergut parish church ( Upper Austria ). Saint Wolfgang´s chapel: Fresco at the ceiling - Saint Wolfgang making the devil build a church.

St. Wolfgang withdrew as a hermit to a solitary spot, now the Lake of St. Wolfgang, apparently on account of a political dispute, but probably in the course of a journey of inspection to the monastery of Mendsee which was under the direction of the bishops of Ratisbon. He was discovered by a hunter and brought back to Ratisbon. While travelling on the Danube to Pöchlarn in Lower Austria, he fell ill at the village of Pupping, which is between Efferding and the market town of Aschach near Linz, and at his request was carried into the chapel of St. Othmar at Pupping, where he died.

His body was taken up the Danube by his friends Count Aribo of Andechs and Archbishop Hartwich of Salzburg to Ratisbon, and was solemnly buried in the crypt of St. Emmeram. Many miracles were performed at his grave; in 1052 he was canonized. Soon after his death many churches chose him as their patron saint, and various towns were named after him. In Christian art he has been especially honoured by the great medieval Tyrolese painter, Michael Pacher (1430-1498), who created an imperishable memorial of him, the high altar of St. Wolfgang. In the panel pictures which are now exhibited in the Old Pinakothek at Munich are depicted in an artistic manner the chief events in the saint’s life. The oldest portrait of St. Wolfgang is a miniature, painted about the year 1100 in the celebrated Evangeliary of St. Emmeram, now in the library of the castle cathedral at Cracow. A fine modern picture by Schwind is in the Schak Gallery at Munich. This painting represents the legend of Wolfgang forcing the devil to help him to build a church. In other paintings he is generally depicted in episcopal dress, an axe in the right hand and the crozier in the left, or as a hermit in the wilderness being discovered by a hunter. The axe refers to an event in the life of the saint. After having selected a solitary spot in the wilderness, he prayed and then threw his axe into the thicket; the spot on which the axe fell he regarded as the place where God intended he should build his cell. This axe is still shown in the little market town of St. Wolfgang which sprang up on the spot of the old cell.

Inside the Baroque house contains the cell of St. Wolfgang, inshrined in Sankt Wolfgang Church in Salzkammergut.

At the request of the Abbey of St. Emmeram, the life of St. Wolfgang was written by Othlo, a Benedictine monk of St. Emmeram about 1050. This life is especially important for the early medieval history both of the Church and of civilization in Bavaria and Austria, and it forms the basis of all later accounts of the saint. The oldest and best manuscript of this “Life” is in the library of the Abbey of Maria Einsiedeln in Switzerland (MS. No. 322), and has been printed with critical notes in “Mon. Germ. His.: Script.”, IV, 524-542. It has also been printed in, “Acta SS.”:, II November, (Brussels, 1894), 529-537; “Acta SS. O. S. Ben.”, V, 812-833; and in P.L., CXLVI, 395-422.

Der hl. Wolfgang, Bischof von Regensburg, hist. Festschrift z. jahr. Gedachtnisse seines Todes, ed., in connection with numerous historical scholars, by MEHLER (Ratisbon, 1894), among the chief collaborators on this work being BRAUNMULLER, RINGHOLZ (of Einsiedeln), and DANNERBAUER; KOLBE, Die Verdienste des Bischofs Wolfgang v. R. um das Bildungswesen Suddeutschlands. Beitrag z. Gesch. der Padogogik des X und XI Jahrhunderis (Breslau, 1894); WATTENBACH, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, I (Berlin, 1904), 449-452; DETZEL, Christl. Iknographie, II (Freiburg, 1896), 683; POTTHAST, Bibl. medii aevi, II (Berlin, 1896), 1641.

ULRICH SCHMID

72% of Canadians want legal protections for the unborn: poll

by Patrick B. Craine

• OTTAWA, Ontario, October 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new Environics poll shows that 72% of Canadians want legal protection for children in the womb, with 28% supporting protections from conception.

The national pro-life educational group LifeCanada, which commissioned the poll, says it is further evidence that Canadians oppose the status quo of state-funded abortion-on-demand and are calling on the government to act immediately.

“There is clearly a considerable gulf between government policies on abortion and Canadians’ opinions,” said LifeCanada President Monica Roddis. “Canadians strongly oppose abortion being legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy and they don’t want to pay for them except in exceptional circumstances.”

“Yet our governments refuse to deal with this issue,” she continued. “They won’t reopen the debate as they like to say. Is that because the more Canadians consider this issue, the more likely they are to disagree with the status quo?”

The poll suggests even stronger pro-life views in the country than an Abacus poll conducted in advance of the National March for Life in May, which showed 59% wanting some legal protections and 27% wanting them to begin at conception.

While the poll in May had only 8% supporting an outright ban on abortion, the Environics poll shows 26% wanting it banned even in the first trimester.

Participants in the Environics poll, conducted from September 13-25, were given details about fetal development such as the fact that the heart begins beating about three weeks after conception, brain waves can be detected within two months of conception and all organs are in place by two months.

Peter Ryan, executive director of New Brunswick Right to Life and a LifeCanada board member, said he thinks these details accounted for the high level of support for legal protections.

“The more such information we gave people, the more we could change public opinion,” he said.  “If we could get more information out there, the numbers would go right through the roof.”

When asked when human life should be protected, 28% said from conception, 17% said after two months and another 17% said after three months.  Only 20% supported the current policy in Canada of no protection for human life until birth.

An unborn child at 11 weeks

Significantly, women (74%) are more likely than men (67%) to support protection before birth. Eighty-one percent of women said abortion should generally be illegal in the third trimester.

On the funding of abortion, 54% said abortions should only be covered by provincial health plans in cases of emergency and 13% said they should never be covered.  Only 30% supported the government paying for all abortions.

The poll also asked about sex selection abortions targeting female babies, which has led to a disproportionately large male population among Indians, Chinese, and other ethnic groups.  An astonishing 92% of Canadians thought sex selection abortions should be illegal in Canada.

Just this month, the Ontario pro-life educational group Alliance for Life launched a four-month campaign called We Want the Debate, with the goal of overcoming the censorship of debate on abortion among the vast majority of Canada’s political class.

Roddis says LifeCanada hopes the poll will “add to a healthy and productive debate across this country.”

The poll was part of Environics’ National Omnibus poll, and queried 2,000 Canadians from across the country.  The margin of error is 2.2%, 19 times out of 20.

LifeCanada directed those interested in the full poll to contact them at 1-866-780-5433.

Brutal beating & torture of blind pro-life activist Chen Guangcheng

by John Jalsevac

• LINYI, China October 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Even as questions swirl about whether Chinese pro-life activist Chen Guangcheng is alive or dead, details have emerged about a vicious four-hour beating that the blind lawyer underwent in July.

According to human rights organizations closely following Chen’s case, for months there has been no reliable news about Chen, who has worked tirelessly and under constant threat of violence to oppose China’s brutal one-child policy, except for unconfirmed reports that he has died.

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng

One organization, ChinaAid, says that the July beating it has learned about was witnessed by Chen and his wife’s elementary school-age son. The couple endured a similarly brutal beating in February after they had smuggled out a videotape documenting the shocking conditions of their illegal house arrest following Chen’s release from prison.

Join a Facebook page to end abortion here. 

Now, what ChinaAid says is a “reliable source”, has informed that the July beating occurred after a storm knocked out equipment that authorities had installed in Chen’s house to cut off all their telecommunications contact with the outside world. With the equipment disabled, Chen was able to make phone calls on July 25, but the calls were intercepted by authorities. On July 28, Shuanghou town mayor Zhang Jian reportedly led a group of people to Chen’s home and beat and tortured the couple for four hours.

According to China Aid, at 2 pm. authorities cleared everyone out of Chen’s village. They then conducted a search of his home, finding a phone card in a pile of ashes.

At around 4:00 pm., authorities started the beating. Chen’s screams of pain were heard first, while his wife Yuan Weijing was heard shouting angrily and their son Kesi cried. After a while, the source says Weijing’s screams of pain could also be heard. From then until 8 p.m., the only sounds were screams of pain.

Some time later, a village doctor was permitted to give Chen some cursory medical treatment.

During the four-hour beating, Chen’s elderly mother, who lives with them, was reportedly prevented from entering their home. When she was finally allowed to go in, neighbors heard her burst into tears, and her anguished cries - described as “gut-wrenching to hear” - continued for a long time.

According to the source, Zhang tortured Chen to try to get him to tell how he got the phone card to make the calls on July 25 and to reveal where he had hidden it. When Chen and his wife refused to give any details, their house was ransacked until the phone card was found.

“We condemn the Shandong authorities for their extreme brutality against innocent blind Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng and his wife,” said ChinaAid’s founder and President Bob Fu. 

“The Chinese government’s brutality against brave individuals like Mr. Chen who promote the rule of law should certainly make the world seriously doubt the sincerity of the Chinese government’s commitment to international human rights,” Fu said.

Chen was imprisoned for four years and three months for exposing the violent measures used to enforce China’s one-child policy, including forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations that in his county alone in 2005 numbered 130,000.

Since his release from prison in Sept. 2010, Chen has been kept under illegal house arrest, denied medical treatment for serious intestinal problems and deprived of all contact with the outside world. Reporters and activists who have tried to visit him have been roughed up and turned away.

On July 21, the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed an amendment to the State Department 2012 appropriation bill supporting Chen and his wife.

Sign a petition to stop forced abortion in China here.

Christian Children Are Crucified to Force Christians to Leave Iraq

Muslim militants are crucifying children to terrorize their Christian parents and encourage them to flee Iraq, a parliamentary committee studying the persecution of religious minorities was told yesterday.

See the full story here:

http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/2011/10/children-are-crucified-to-force.html

Denmark set to introduce same-sex ‘marriage’ legislation

by Thaddeus Baklinski

• COPENHAGEN, October 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Danish government is set to introduce a bill in early 2012 that will allow same-sex couples to hold weddings in the national state Church of Denmark and be “married” under Danish law, according to a Copenhagen Post report.

Denmark was the first country in the world to legalize homosexual civil partnerships in 1989. This legislation gave same-sex couples all the legal rights of a married man and woman, but stopped short of allowing same-sex “marriage” and church weddings.

“The first same-sex weddings will hopefully become reality in Spring 2012,” said Minister for Gender Equality and Ecclesiastical Affairs Manu Sareen, a Social Liberal, to the local Jyllands-Posten newspaper, according to the Post. “I look forward to the moment the first homosexual couple steps out of the church. I’ll be standing out there throwing rice.”

If the legislation passes Denmark will become the eighth European country to give homosexuals the right to “marry.”

“I have many friends who are homosexuals and can’t get married. They love their partners the same way heterosexuals do, but they don’t have the right to live it out in the same way. That’s really problematic,” Sareen said.

“Today it would be unthinkable not to have female priests,” he added. “That’s how it will also be for same-sex weddings.”

The Church of Denmark is a state supported organization which all citizens are required to support through their taxes, yet fewer than 5% of the population attends church services. “This year alone,” the Copenhagen Post reports, “the Church of Denmark will receive an estimated 5.9 billion kroner ($1.1B US) in taxes from its registered members, plus additional tax-supported state subsidies amounting to 130 ($25 US) kroner for every single citizen, regardless of religious affiliation, sexual preference, or other beliefs.”

The bill from the left-of-centre government has caused concern, however, for Church of Denmark ministers and employees who disagree with the proposed legislation.

“Lots of people are mistaken in thinking that homosexual weddings are just the next step after female priests,” said Henrik Højlund, the parish priest for Løsning and Korning and chairman for the Evangelical Lutheran Network (ELN).

“But it is much more consequential and beyond the boundaries for normal Christianity,” Højlund told Jyllands-Posten. “The Church of Denmark is being secularized right up to the altar in a desperate and mistaken attempt to meet modern people halfway,” he said, adding he believed that same-sex “marriage” would be “fatal for the church.”

There is a wide general acceptance of homosexuality in Denmark, with recent polls showing 69 percent of the population supporting same-sex “marriage” in the state church. However, although the previous Social Liberal Danish government rejected bills to legalize same-sex “marriage” several times, in 2010 they caved in to a bill allowing homosexuals in legal civil partnerships to adopt children.

The Copenhagen Post report indicates that the new centre-left coalition government under Social Democrat Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt is likely to pass the same-sex “marriage” bill.

Contact information:

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Prime Minister
The Prime Minister’s Office
Christiansborg
Prins Jørgens Gård 11
1218 Copenhagen K
Phone: +45 33 92 33 00
Fax: +45 33 11 16 65

Abortion allowed parents to cover up repeated incestuous rapes of 12-year-old daughter

by Patrick B. Craine

• QUEBEC CITY, October 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Quebec couple was able to cover up the father’s repeated rapes of his 12-year-old daughter by taking her in for an abortion when she became pregnant, a court case in the province revealed.

The couple reportedly began having sex in front of their children in the early 2000s and then had their daughter join them starting in 2007 when she was ten years old.

On Tuesday, the province’s Crown sought a prison sentence of three to four years for the mother after she was found guilty of sexual immorality.  The judge will announce the mother’s sentence in January.

The father was sentenced to 98 months of prison in the summer. 

At some point during the three years of attacks, occurring between 2007 and 2010, the girl began sleeping in bed with her father while the mother slept on the couch.  The Crown argued that the mother came to perceive her daughter as a sexual rival, and so, perplexingly, allowed the attacks to continue out of jealousy.

The girl became pregnant when she was 12 and her mother took her in for an abortion, and then arranged for her to go on the birth control pill.

The attacks were only discovered when the girl revealed them to a teacher when she was 13.

Gwen Landolt, national vice president of REAL Women, called it a “shocking tale of degeneracy,” and said it “shows that not only is abortion being used as a method of birth control in Canada, but is used to cover up degeneracy.”

The abortionist failed both the young girl and the child in her womb, she observed, saying his or her actions “protected degenerate and despicable parenting.”

Georges Buscemi, president of Campagne Quebec-Vie, said Quebecers and the wider population in general would consider this case as clear evidence of the need for legalized abortion, to prevent the abused girl from carrying her own brother. But he argued that Quebec’s permissiveness toward abortion allowed the child abuse to be covered up.

“Sexuality has become so trivialized in Quebec,” said Buscemi.  “We don’t even bat an eye when a 12-year-old gets pregnant.  We don’t ask ‘who did she get pregnant with?’”

“Abortion is the ultimate recourse for hiding the evidence of pedophilia,” he noted.

No matter how he or she was conceived, the unborn child is “a human being,” he insisted.  “The child is not responsible for the crimes of its father.”

Catholic university in Brazil hosts symposium defending right to ‘homo-affection’

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

• October 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Catholic university located in Brazil recently hosted a symposium on “homoaffective law” that gave advocates of the homosexual agenda a platform for promoting their ideology.

The symposium has provoked outrage among faithful Catholics, who protested the event in a signed letter delivered personally in the hours before the event to the local ordinary, Archbishop Fernando Saburido, who reportedly responded that it was too late to cancel it.

According to the homosexualist website MixBrasil, the symposium included such speakers as Fr. Luis Correa Lima, founder of “Catholic Diversity” (Diversidade Catolica), which openly seeks to normalize and legitimize the homosexual lifestyle and “gay identity.”

Other speakers included Dr. Clicerio Bezerra, the judge who carried out the first homosexual “marriage” in the state of Pernambuco, Manoela Alves and Rhemo Guedes, president and attorney, respectively, of the “Gay Lions Movement of the North,” and various public officials involved in enforcing homosexualist government policies.

Roundtable discussions included “LGBT Social Vulnerability in focus and the Criminalization of Homophobia,”  “The laity and the state and the right to a free afective-sexual orientation,” “public policy and confronting homophobia,” and “the recognition of the homo-affective union as a family entity in Brazilian law.”

The event took place in the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife, which was once famous for the pro-life leadership of Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho, who retired in 2009.

Catholic laity from the archdiocese reportedly hand-delivered a letter to the new archbishop, Fernando Saburido, asking “that the Catholic university will not carry out such a symposium, because it injures and attacks our faith, it disobeys the orders of Jesus Christ in the person of St. Paul, of Pope Benedict XVI himself…we implore you to not permit this blasphemy in a Catholic institution!”

According to Jorge Ferraz of the blog Deus Lo Vult and a resident of the same archdiocese, the archbishop “attentively received the group, but made it known that, at this point (the symposium would begin that afternoon), he could not do anything to stop the event.”

Contact information:

Arcebispo Fernando Saburido
Rua Bispo Coutinho, s/n – Alto da Sé
53120-130 Olinda – PE
Tel.:  (55) (81) 3493-1201
E-mail: aor@hotlink.com.br

Mississippi personhood amendment has excellent chance of passing, say pro-life leaders

by Kathleen Gilbert

• JACKSON, October 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A constitutional referendum in Mississippi to declare all unborn children persons, which has the potential to permanently impact the national abortion debate, is on its way to become the first successful referendum of its kind in America, according to pro-life leaders.

Proposition 26, which will appear on this year’s November 8 ballot, would declare as persons “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the equivalent thereof.” Although similar measures have failed in other states such as Colorado, leaders supporting the Mississippi measure say that the climate in their state is far more favorable towards personhood.

“It looks like it’ll be the first one to pass in this country,” Personhood USA founder Keith Mason told LifeSiteNews.com. Mason says that only one lawmaker in the state has opposed the measure, while it has found broad support among others. Lieutenant Governor Phil Bryant, who is also running for governor, is co-chair of the local personhood campaign.

In February 2010, Personhood Mississippi submitted over 130,000 signatures supporting the ballot initiative, well over the 89,285 it required, with an all-volunteer campaign fueled by over 2,000 individuals and 1,000 churches. An effort by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU to have the measure removed from the ballot was denied by a state circuit court judge in October 2010.

Personhood USA states that, across America, over 990,000 signatures have been collected in favor of personhood.

With only weeks until election day, the personhood fight has come to a head in the Magnolia State: personhood supporters reported on October 14 widespread vandalism against their signs, including one 4’x6’ sign at a church that was forcibly twisted from its metal supports. Elsewhere, owners of a southern Mississippi gas station called police when a woman attacked a Proposition 26 sign there.

“She just got out of her car, walked up to it, and started tearing it apart,” reported Personhood Mississippi Director Les Riley. “When police arrived, she told them that she was ‘exercising her First Amendment right to free speech.’”

The effort to battle down the personhood argument also hit national media this week: a New York Times editorial on Thursday blasted the effort to “grant to fertilized eggs the legal rights and protections that apply to people,” calling it “among the most extreme assaults in the push to end women’s reproductive rights.” The editors also lamented that, considering the numerous pro-life laws already passed in Mississippi, “there is a real possibility that voters will not react as wisely” as Colorado voters.

Other pro-abortion activists meanwhile slammed the “egg-as-person” initiative as an attack on “women’s rights” to end all others: Allison Korn of National Advocates for Pregnant Women compared local opposition to the measure to the communal response to rebuild in solidarity after Hurricane Katrina.

Several pro-life leaders and groups, including National Right to Life, have not endorsed the personhood strategy, fearing that the sweeping effort could prove a serious setback to the right to life movement if it is successfully challenged in court, particularly at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The only thing every side seems to agree upon is that the measure represents a dramatic challenge to the current tenor of America’s abortion debate.

Major media and pro-abortion lobbies have pointed out that the outcome of the vote could have significant implications in an area normally untouched by the abortion debate: routine birth control methods such as the IUD or “emergency” contraception, which can end the smallest of human lives.

“Personhood could represent the most audaciously successful reframing of the national abortion debate yet – in which pro-choicers have to fight over whether forms of birth control are abortion, as opposed to ensuring a woman’s right and access to reproductive choice,” wrote Irin Cameron on Salon.com Wednesday.

A 13,000 Rose Bouquet for Our Lady at Fatima!

Those who participated in the Public Rosary Rallies were remembered in a special way at Fatima on October 13.

On the huge plaza at the popular Marian shrine, over 13,000 red and white roses were displayed in honor of 7,515 rosary captains and 6,000 other rally supporters.

The 7,515 red roses corresponded to the same number of spiritual roses in the form of Public Square Rosary Rallies across the country. The rallies are a special project of TFP-America Needs Fatima.

A special delegation of campaign members went to Fatima on October 13, the 94th anniversary of the miracle of the sun to deliver the roses.

Many pilgrims from different countries were there on this special day, and helped the five-member delegation deliver the roses to Our Lady.

Together with the red roses, the delegation unfurled a large banner with the names of the7,513 Rosary Rally Captains and over 6,000 rally supporters who helped support financially this year’s Public Square Rosary Rallies. This offering closed with prayers for all involved in making the 2011 Public Square Rosary Rallies a great success.

Non-Muslim activist: crosses at Catholic U. a sign of ‘malice’ towards Muslim students

by Kathleen Gilbert

• WASHINGTON, D.C., October 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A DC-area legal activist has filed a federal human rights complaint against the Catholic University of America (CUA) for acting “probably with malice” against Muslim students for having Catholic imagery in all of its rooms that would hinder Muslim prayer - though the school says it has never heard a complaint from the students themselves.

John Banzhaf, a George Washington University Law School professor who has a history of filing suits to promote agendas on such topics as childhood obesity and tobacco, filed the complaint with the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights, Fox News’ Todd Starnes reports. Banzhaf is the same activist who filed a lawsuit against CUA president John Garvey last month for transitioning the college out of co-ed dorms, which he also called a human rights violation.

“It may not be illegal, but it suggests they are acting improperly and probably with malice,” said Banzhaf about the religious imagery in classrooms. “[Muslims] do have to pray five times a day, they have to look around for empty classrooms and to be sitting there trying to do Muslim prayers with a big cross looking down or a picture of Jesus or a picture of the Pope is not very conductive to their religion.”

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is located on the edge of Catholic U.'s campus.

Media coverage of the filing has already distorted the event as a complaint from the Muslim community. Although the Fox article headline states that “Muslims say crosses at Catholic University violate ‘human rights,’” CUA released a statement noting that the complaint does not actually come from any CUA student, but “a professor unaffiliated with Catholic University.”

Starnes notes that part of the complaint mentions that Muslims had to pray at the school’s chapels “and at the cathedral that looms over the entire campus – the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.” The same phrase appears in a Washington Post article from December 2010 that noted CUA’s refusal to authorize a Muslim group despite a growing number of affiliated students, as opposed to more liberal Catholic campuses where such groups are allowed, such as at Georgetown University.

The Post article, which interviewed several Muslim students, found none of them critical of CUA’s attitude towards their faith, and many of them complimentary. One student said his Islamic faith had matured for the better amid the welcoming campus culture.

A spokesperson for the Office of Human Rights told Fox that the investigation based on Banzhaf’s 60-page complaint could take as long as six months.

Patrick Reilly of the Catholic university watchdog group Cardinal Newman Society told Fox that the complaint was an attack, not a defense.

“This attorney is really turning civil rights on its head,” Reilly said. “He’s using the law for his own discrimination against the Catholic institution and essentially saying Catholic University cannot operate according to Catholic principles.”

Thomas Peters of CatholicVote.com and the American Papist blog noted that, while the complaint seemed outlandish, the climate against religious freedom in Washington may be fatal. “Normally I would have confidence that this lawsuit will be deemed without merit, but the way things are going these days, I just can’t be sure anymore,” he wrote.

Video shows abortion workers laughing after botched abortion, says pro-life group

by John Jalsevac

• October 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A video released recently by Pro-Life Wisconsin, shows abortion clinic workers laughing as an ambulance pulls up outside the facility to fetch a woman injured from a botched abortion.

According to the pro-life organization, this is “at least” the third time this year that an ambulance has shown up at the abortion facility after a botched abortion.

“Those who lobby for abortion’s legality claim that if abortion were made illegal, women would have to resort to dirty, back-alley abortions,” Pro-Life Wisconsin wrote on their website. “But the reverse has actually happened — as was sadly illustrated with Kermit Gosnell’s ‘House of Horrors’ abortuary in Philadelphia, the dirty, back-alley abortions are legal and no one is watching.”

“Abortion facilities in Milwaukee are not subject to health inspections,” the group continued. “Some days the smell of death — blood and flesh — can be smelled wafting out of AMS when the staff open the doors.”

Supreme Tribunal of Justice approves homosexual ‘marriage’

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

• Oct. 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Brazil’s highest appeals court for non-constitutional issues, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (STJ), has approved the “marriage” of two lesbians in a 4-1 vote.

The couple, who had been living together for five years in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, will be permitted to civilly “marry” based on an earlier decision of the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), the nation’s highest court for constitutional issues.

The STF ruled in May that homosexual couples can enter into civil unions, despite the Constitution’s explicit restriction of civil unions to “a man and a woman.” 

The Supreme Tribunal of Justice has now ruled that, given that the Constitution “facilitates the conversion of a stable union into marriage,” it must conclude that “sexual orientation cannot serve as a pretext to exclude families from the juridical protection represented by marriage.”

Although the decision is not binding in other cases, it will have profound legal repercussions in Brazil, according to Luiz Mello, coordinator of the Study and Research Group on Gender and Sexuality at the Federal University of Goiás.

“It isn’t a decision with binding effect, but it creates an important precedent,” said Mello. “Now, all of the registry offices and state courts that are thinking about denying this right must remember that the STJ has decided in favor of it.”

The STJ’s decision faces overwhelming opposition against both civil unions and “marriage” for homosexuals from the Brazilian public.

As LifeSiteNews reported in August a recent poll has indicated that Brazilians reject the STF decision permitting civil unions by 55 to 45 percent. A poll in late 2010 found that 60 percent opposed civil unions and only 35 were in favor.

Upton town official reverse course on allowing rosary rally on town common

It seems that rally captain Michael Casey may get his wish to hold a  rosary rally on Upton Commons after all.

Upton town officials said yesterday that they “misunderstood” what the founding fathers meant by separation of church and state when three selectmen denied Casey’s request to hold a rosary rally on the town common.

See full story here:

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2011_1028upton_sees_the_light_on_rosary_vigil

Aurora borealis seen in places where such northern lights are very rare

Yesterday, October 26, newspapers reported that aurora borealis were seen as far south as Arkansas.  Of course, reporters were quick to say this means nothing unusual or tragic will happen. 

However,  since this is such a very rare occurrence, it is not out of place to ask if God has some special meaning with the fact that people are able to see the aurora borealis so far south.

And in the perspective of the Fatima message, we recall the 1938 aurora borealis that announced the start of World  War II.

She specifically prophesized the outbreak of World War II. It also contained her solemn request for the Consecration of Russia.

On July 13, 1917, Our Lady told the three children:

‘You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.

Indeed, on January 25, 1938, a remarkable display of aurora borealis was visible in many parts of the world.

According to press report at that time, in many areas of Europe, panic broke out, as the populace was deeply shaken by the unusual event.

We have no way of knowing for sure if this new display of aurora borealis is another sign from God and Our Lady that new chastisements will befall the world if men continue to offend God with the sins of abortion, pornography, secularism, and homosexual “marriage.”

But what catches the eye is that secular columnists rush to report on the aurora borealis in terms that they mean nothing special.

For example, in the York Daily Record columnist Mike Argento writes:

York, PA - In the Middle Ages, people in Europe believed that the appearance of the aurora borealis in the northern sky was a bad omen, a harbinger of plagues and wars and death.

Which, when you think about the Middle Ages in Europe, was a pretty safe prediction to make at any time and not just when the aurora borealis was lighting up the sky.

In York County, of course, nobody believes that -- or the Native American lore that the Northern Lights are the spirits of shamen ascending to the afterlife. But recently, the aurora, on clear nights, has been visible in the northern sky here, a rare occurrence.

As Shakespeare would have it:

The Writer Doth Protest too Much.

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Photo credit: Photograped by Mila Zinkova. 

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license versions 3.0, 2.5, 2.0, and 1.0.

This Christian King Invaded Arabia

October 27, 2011 -- St. Elesbaan, King of Ethiopia, Confessor

St. Elesbaan, from an Ethiopian Psalter

The Axumite Ethiopians, whose dominions were extended from the western coast of the Red Sea, very far on the continent, were in the sixth century a powerful and flourishing nation. St. Elesbaan their king, during the reign of Justin the Elder, in all his actions and designs had no other desire than to procure in all things the happiness of his people, and the divine glory. The mildness and prudence of his government was a sensible proof how great a blessing a people enjoy in a king who is free from inordinate passions and selfish views, to gratify which princes so often become tyrants. This good king, however, was obliged to engage in a war. But his motives were justice and religion; and the exaltation of both was the fruit of his victory.

The Homerite Arabians dwelt upon the eastern coast at the bottom of the Red Sea, in Arabia Felix, and were either a part of the Sabæans, or their neighbours. This nation was full of Jews; and Dunaan or Danaan, a Jew who had usurped the sovereignty, persecuted the Christians. St. Gregentius, who was an Arabian by birth, and archbishop of Taphar, the metropolis of this country, was banished by him in 520. St. Aretas, the governor of the city Neogran, was beheaded, with four companions, for his constancy in the faith. His wife Duma, and daughters, also suffered death for the same glorious cause, and are honored as martyrs on the 24th of October, in the Roman, and in other Western, as well as in the Eastern and Muscovite calendars. (1)

St. Elesbaan, King of Ethiopia, at the command of the Emperor Justin, lead an army against Dunaan.

The Emperor Justin the Elder, whose protection the persecuted Christians had implored, engaged St. Elesbaan to transport his forces into Arabia, and drive away the usurper. The zealous prince complied with this just desire, and having by the divine blessing defeated the tyrant, made use of his victory with great clemency and moderation, re-established religion, recalled St. Gregentius, and repaired the vineyard, which a furious wild beast had laid waste. He rebuilt the church at Taphar; and, by laying the first stone, would be himself the first architect. He placed on the throne Abraamius, a pious Christian, who governed by the counsels of St. Gregentius. That holy prelate had a famous conference with the Jews,(2) and wrote a book against vices,(3) extant in Greek in the Imperial library at Vienna. St. Gregentius died on the 19th of December, in 552.

Baillet tells us, that St. Elesbaan resigned his crown soon after his return into his own dominions: but Nonnus, in his Legation(4) testifies in 527, several years after this war, that Elesbaan then resided at Axuma, a very great city, capital of Ethiopia.

Map of the empire of St. Elesbaan. Photo by Yom

At length, this good king, leaving his dominions to a son who was heir of his zeal and piety no less than of his kingdom, sent his royal diadem to Jerusalem, put on sackcloth, and retired secretly in the night out of the palace and city to a holy monastery situated on a solitary mountain, where he took the monastic habit, and shut himself up in a cell for the remaining part of his life. He carried nothing with him out of the palace but a mat to lie on, and a cup to drink out of. His food was only bread, with which he sometimes took a few dry herbs; he never drank any thing but water. He would not allow himself the least distinction above the last among his brethren, and was the first in every duty of his new state. No seculars ever had access to him, and his whole employment consisted in the exercises of penance, the contemplation of heavenly things, and conversing with God, by whom he was at length called, by a happy death, to reign eternally with Christ. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology.

Note 1. Their Acts are published in Greek by Lambecius, (Biblioth. Vindob. t. 5, p. 130, 132, et t. 8. p. 254, 260, 262,) and in Latin by Baronius Lipoman and Surius. Baillet suspects them because taken from Metaphrastes. But Falconius rightly judges that Metaphrastes gave them genuine, p. 23, which is shown by Jos. Assemani, Bibl. Orient. t. 1. p. 358, 364 et seq.) who gives us the original Syriac history of the Homerite martyrs, written by Simeon, bishop of Arsamopolis, in Persia, in a letter to Simeon, abbot of Gabula.
The Syriac historians, produced by Jos. Assemani, as Simeon, bishop of Beth-Arsamen, etc. agree in this history perfectly with the Greeks, viz. Sim. Metaphrastes, in Surius, (t. 5, p. 943.) Theophanes, Cedrenus, Procopius, Evagrius, etc. Likewise the modern historians of Abyssinia, who were Portuguese missionaries in that country, viz. Francisco Alvares, chaplain to the Portuguese ambassador in 1540, who printed that year the first and most faithful history of Abyssinia, and of his embassy; F. Bermudes, patriarch, wrote the second in 1565, but mixing many fables deserves credit only in things to which he was eye-witness; F. Peter Nais gave a third in 1627; F. Alphonso Mendez, patriarch of Ethiopia, wrote also a Latin history of that country. F. Lopo wrote another more at length, which Le Grand translated into French, adding several curious dissertations and notes, Paris, 1738. F. Balthasar Tellez compiled from these a new and more complete history of Ethiopia, in which he sets off the zeal of the Jesuits. From these and other helps Ludolph has compiled his history of Ethiopia, with a dictionary and grammar of that language.
Note 2. The Acts which we have of this conference have been interpolated.
Note 3. Lambec. in Bibl. Vindob. Cod. Theolog. 306. n. 33. p. 171.
Note 4. Ap. Phot. Cod. 3

(from The Lives of the Saints, by Rev. Alban Butler, 1866, Volume X: October.

Tagged as: Royal and Noble Saints, Saints, War

Rosary Rally Captain Denied Permission to Pray On Common

Blatant contradiction in media’s coverage of 7,515 rosary rallies on October 15. 

While the media largely ignored the 7,515 rosary rallies organized by TFP-America Needs Fatima in town squares all across the country, the Boston Herald carried this story about one Rosary Rally Captain who was denied permission to pray on the Uptown common.

“The father of two went to the town’s three selectmen last month with a simple request: to hold a peaceful prayer vigil on the town common. It was supposed to be part of about 7,500 “rosary rallies” held nationwide by America Needs Fatima, a nonprofit Catholic group.

“The selectmen put their feet down. No way, they told Casey, invoking the Constitution’s separation of church and state.”

Thank God, Casey is fighting back.

Please see the full story and picture of Michael Casey here:

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1376328

Recommended New York sex ed site offers middleschoolers tips on eating feces, bestiality, fetishes

by Kathleen Gilbert

• WARNING: very explicit content. Read with extreme caution.

NEW YORK, October 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The recommended curriculum for a mandatory sex education course to be implemented in New York middle and high schools next year directs students to a website that details “safe sex” practices regarding bestiality, coprophagia, and other extreme sexual fetishes.

The New York Post reported on Saturday that assignments in a workbook recommended by city education officials included giving middle schoolers “risk cards” to rate the safety of such activities as anal sex, oral sex, and “intercourse using a condom and an oil-based lubricant.”

Teens are also told to learn the route from school to the nearest family planning clinic and research its confidentiality policy, or to report on condom brands and features such as lubrication.

But one of the most extreme aspects of the curriculum is its referral to “Go Ask Alice,” a website run by Columbia University that offers comprehensive analysis of sex fetishes and their hygienic pitfalls.

“The idea of experimenting with scat play might heat things up in the bedroom (or bathroom, or anywhere else you choose), but it’s always a good idea to consider the risks of a behavior before acting upon (or getting action from) it,” states the website in one page entitled “‘Scat’ play — is eating feces safe?” Other areas discuss pornography, drinking urine, and “favorite sexual positions.” One page proposes to overcome lack of information on the bestiality due to “stigmatization” of the practice.

Another section of the site diagnoses “homophobia” as an “irrational fear and subsequent discrimination and/or hatred of ... sexual non-conformists” caused by strong religious beliefs that are “disapproving of sex:” “While there is no one known cause of homophobia, research has shown that having strong religious beliefs disapproving of sex and/or homosexuality and having little or no contact with lesbian and gay people can negatively influence a person’s attitudes towards homosexuals.”

The NYC Parents’ Choice Coalition has launched a campaign against the new curriculum, urging parents to opt their kids out of the program. However, the city’s Department of Education defended the information as more in-depth instruction on safe-sex practices, and noted that abstinence would also be taught.

Mayor Bloomberg defended the sex curriculum as necessary to combat the city’s STD infections and out-of-wedlock births. “We have a responsibility, when you have an out of wedlock birthrate and a sexually transmitted disease rate that we have in this city, to try to do something about it,” said the mayor on Monday. “Shame on us if we don’t.”

CNN reports that the NYC Department of Education will mandate that all schools have a sexual education curriculum by next spring.

Mom with potentially fatal tumor puts unborn baby first

by John Jalsevac

• October 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When Sadie Stout found out at 6 ½ months pregnant that she had a potentially fatal tumor on her heart, she was given three options: undergo immediate surgery to remove the tumor, have an emergency c-section and have the baby and then have the surgery, or wait longer for the baby to develop before doing both.

Each of these three options carried significant risks, reports The Toronto Star, where Stout’s story first appeared.

Surgery to remove the tumor had a 30% chance of killing her baby, having an immediate c-section delayed the surgery to remove the tumor by precious minutes, putting Stout’s own life in serious jeopardy, and the same went for waiting longer.

Stout was given just 24 hours to make up her mind – and though she made her choice immediately, it wasn’t an easy choice to make.

She told The Star that friends and family urged her to put herself first, and undergo the surgery to remove the tumor despite the risks to her child. “They intimated that Stout could always have another baby if she were healthy,” reported The Star.

“They weren’t saying it meanly,” Stout said. “They were saying that I hadn’t met the baby yet, that I wasn’t attached. But even when I was pregnant, Bentley was my whole world. I would never choose myself over him.”

Stout made the decision to undergo the emergency c-section. Though her child would be born 2 1/2 months premature, the c-section provided much better chances of survival for him than undergoing the surgery to remove the tumor while still pregnant.

“I decided I would have him before doing anything with me,” she said. “I wanted him to have a chance to survive before me. There was no way I would be able to do the surgery while being pregnant knowing there was a chance he would die from it.”

Stout’s son Bentley was delivered healthy on September 24, weighing just 3 lbs. 

Stout was able to hold her child briefly, before being prepped for surgery to remove the tumor, which happened 36 hours later.

The surgery was successful, and five days after that Stout was discharged from the hospital and given the chance to see her son again.

“I had so much ambition to be good for Bentley that made me get up and get better sooner,” Stout told The Star.

“I knew, in my heart, he would be okay.”

Revolution and Legitimacy

There is a higher legitimacy, characteristic of every order of things in which the Royalty of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the model and source of legitimacy for all royalties and earthly powers, is effectuated.

A. Legitimacy Par Excellence
In general, the concept of legitimacy is focused on only in the context of dynasties and governments. Though heeding the teachings of Leo XIII in the encyclical Au milieu des sollicitudes, one cannot ignore the question of dynastic or governmental legitimacy, for it is an extremely grave moral matter that upright consciences must consider with all attention.

However, the concept of legitimacy applies to other problems as well.

There is a higher legitimacy, characteristic of every order of things in which the Royalty of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the model and source of legitimacy for all royalties and earthly powers, is effectuated. To fight for legitimate rulers is an obligation, indeed a grave one. Yet it is necessary to see the legitimacy of those in authority not only as a good, excellent per se, but also as a means to an even higher good, namely, the legitimacy of the entire social order, of all human institutions and ambiences, which is achieved through the disposition of all things according to the doctrine of the Church.

El Cid, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar

To fight for legitimate rulers is an obligation, indeed a grave one.

B. Catholic Culture and Civilization
Therefore, the ideal of the Counter-Revolution is to restore and promote Catholic culture and civilization. This theme would not be sufficiently enunciated if it did not contain a definition of what we understand by Catholic culture and Catholic civilization. We realize that the terms civilization and culture are used in many different senses. Obviously, it is not our intention here to take a position on a question of terminology. We limit ourselves to using these words as relatively precise labels to indicate certain realities. We are more concerned with providing a sound idea of these realities than with debating terminology.

A soul in the state of grace possesses all virtues to a greater or lesser degree. Illuminated by faith, it has the elements to form the only true vision of the universe.

Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria taking part in the Corpus Christi procession at Stephansplatz in Vienna.

Catholic civilization is the structuring of all human relations, of all human institutions, and of the State itself according to the doctrine of the Church.

The fundamental element of Catholic culture is the vision of the universe elaborated according to the doctrine of the Church. This culture includes not only the learning, that is, the possession of the information needed for such an elaboration, but also the analysis and coordination of this information according to Catholic doctrine. This culture is not restricted to the theological, philosophical, or scientific field, but encompasses the breadth of human knowledge; it is reflected in the arts and implies the affirmation of values that permeate all aspects of life.

Catholic civilization is the structuring of all human relations, of all human institutions, and of the State itself according to the doctrine of the Church.

C. The Sacral Character of Catholic Civilization

Undoubtedly, it is the Church that possesses the proper means to promote the salvation of souls

It is implicit that such an order of things is fundamentally sacral, and entails the recognition of all the powers of the Holy Church, particularly those of the Supreme Pontiff: a direct power over spiritual things, and an indirect power over temporal things whenever they have to do with the salvation of souls.

Indeed, the purpose of society and of the State is virtuous life in common. Now, the virtues man is called to practice are the Christian virtues, and the first of these is the love of God. Society and the State have, then, a sacral purpose.[1]

Undoubtedly, it is the Church that possesses the proper means to promote the salvation of souls, but society and the State have instrumental means for the same end, that is, means which, set in motion by a higher agent, produce an effect superior to themselves.

On the way home from the Baptism Painting by Heinrich Ewers

Given these conditions, and since there can be no Christian order without the knowledge and observance of the Law of God, civilization and culture par excellence are only possible within the fold of the Holy Church.

D. Culture and Civilization Par Excellence
From the foregoing it is easy to infer that Catholic culture and civilization are the culture and civilization par excellence. It must be noted that they cannot exist save in Catholic peoples. Indeed, even though man may know the principles of Natural Law by his own reason, a people without the Magisterium of the Church cannot durably preserve the knowledge of all of them.[2] For this reason, a people that does not profess the true religion cannot durably practice all the Commandments.[3] Given these conditions, and since there can be no Christian order without the knowledge and observance of the Law of God, civilization and culture par excellence are only possible within the fold of the Holy Church. Indeed, as Saint Pius X stated, civilization is all the more true, all the more lasting, all the more fecund in precious fruits, the more purely Christian it is; it is all the more decadent, to the great misfortune of society, the farther it withdraws from the Christian ideal. Thus, by the intrinsic nature of things, the Church becomes also in fact the guardian and protector of Christian Civilization.[4]

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (York, PA: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), pp. 43-46.

---

[1] Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, De Regime Principum, 1, 14-15.

[2] Cf. First Vatican Council, sess. II, chapter 2 (Denzinger 1786).

[3] Cf. Council of Trent, sess. VI, chapter 2 (Denzinger 812).

[4] Saint Pius X, encyclical Il fermo proposito, June 11, 1905, Bonne Presse, Paris, vol. 2, p. 92.

Pepsi shareholders demand company stop using aborted fetal cell lines in flavor research

by John-Henry Westen

• LARGO, FL, October 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The pro-life organization Children of God for Life announced today the filing of a shareholder resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission and PepsiCo, protesting the use of aborted a fetal cell line for the research and development of flavor enhancers for their beverages.

In August 2010, PepsiCo entered into a 4-year agreement with Senomyx for the development of artificial high-potency sweeteners for PepsiCo beverages.  Under the contract, PepsiCo is paying $30 million to Senomyx for the research and future royalties on PepsiCo products sold using Senomyx technology.

When the pro-life group wrote both companies requesting they use one of several non-objectionable, viable cell lines listed in their patents, Senomyx did not respond.  PepsiCo did reply however, saying that this research, using cell lines derived from aborted babies, would produce “great tasting, lower-calorie beverages.”

Appalled by the response, Children of God for Life launched a boycott, and was joined by over two dozen other pro-life organizations .  The boycott now includes supporters from Australia, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Poland and the UK.

Meanwhile, letters sent to all PepsiCo Board Members and Senior Management have gone unanswered.

“Shareholders have a right to know the truth about what PepsiCo is doing with their hard-earned savings,” stated Children of God for Life Executive Director, Debi Vinnedge. “PepsiCo’s lack of consideration to the public’s moral sensibilities has only served to fuel the fire and threatens stock values, retirement pensions and investments.”

The PepsiCo shareholder who filed the resolution requested that “the Board of Directors adopt a corporate policy that recognizes human rights and employs ethical standards which do not involve using the remains of aborted human beings in both private and collaborative research and development agreements.”

PepsiCo’s own Code of Conduct boasts that they “deal with customers, suppliers, the public and our competitors in an ethical and appropriate manner.”

“There is nothing ethical or appropriate in the way they are exploiting the remains of an innocent aborted child,” noted Vinnedge.

One 12-year-old Florida boy who learned of PepsiCo’s research from his mom’s prolife news reports was upset enough to take action himself.  At a 40 Days for Life kickoff, Gene spoke passionately to the audience.

“When I found out about this, I was sick to my stomach,” he said.  “I decided I wouldn’t let this happen so I came up with a way to boycott Pepsi products called United Schools for Life.  This program will attempt to remove all Pepsi products from the schools in our diocese.”  Gene hopes to spread his mission through the entire state.

Vinnedge said she was moved by Gene’s initiative and courage.

“We hope that PepsiCo senior management gives serious consideration to what this boy has done,” she noted.  “Even a child knows this is wrong. God bless him for standing up for the unborn who have no voice of their own!”

For further information see www.cogforlife.org/pepsiboycott.htm

For more information on Gene’s work contact lrosa@tampabay.rr.com

Bioethical company studying possible aborted fetal cell vaccine/autism link

by John-Henry Westen

• SEATTLE, WA, October 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - For years, pro-life donors have faced an increasingly common dilemma: a desire to support worthy biomedical research to find cures for diseases like cancer and heart disease without violating their moral or pro-life convictions.

“Unfortunately, most people would be shocked if they knew the extent to which fresh aborted fetal tissue and aborted fetal cell lines are used in biomedical research,” says Debi Vinnedge, Executive Director of Children of God for Life, an industry watchdog group.  “In fact, it is so widespread there are actually few, if any, institutions that pro-life people can donate to in good conscience.”

Until now.  Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, (SCPI) of Seattle, Washington says it is the only non-profit biomedical research institute that refuses to use any morally objectionable research method at any step in the process.

Founded by world-renowned adult stem cell scientist Dr. Theresa Deisher, the organization’s mission is “dedicated to providing scientific research, education and resources to encourage safe, moral, pro-life medicines and therapeutics.”  The organization is also investigating the health consequences of aborted human DNA and cellular contaminants in medicines.

And that includes the “hot button” issue of childhood vaccines.  According to their website, www.soundchoice.org, 90% of children vaccinated in the last 10 years were most likely injected with aborted fetal DNA components. According to Dr. Deisher, there is evidence to suggest that fetal DNA contaminants could lead to serious health consequences and may be contributing to the rise in childhood leukemia, autism and other autoimmune disorders.

“SCPI has done the research to show it,” stated Dr Deisher. “We measured the level of fetal DNA in vaccines and are now researching the consequences.  Even the FDA has acknowledged the dangers of having fetal DNA contaminants present in our vaccines.  Just how dangerous remains to be seen, but it’s unconscionable not to do the research and find out.”

“The equipment and research material needed is very costly,” says Vinnedge.  “But not nearly as costly as it would be to society and to families affected by autism if they can’t continue their research due to lack of funds.”

Judie Brown, President of American Life League, a group that exposes the morally objectionable research done by some of the nation’s largest medical research charities, agrees.  “We frequently get inquiries from pro-life donors about this or that medical research organization, including some of the largest and most popular charities in the country.  Donors become disillusioned as they learn that aborted fetal or embryonic cell lines are used by their favorite charity for medical research. But not anymore thanks to SCPI.”

Brown sums it up this way: “If you support Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, you will be supporting a charity worthy of your donations. They are doing fantastic work.”

Recently SCPI introduced a new line of merchandise touting their “Prolife Produced” insignia, a certification strategy that is being marketed to companies whose products are not developed, discovered or contaminated with aborted fetal or embryonic materials.  Consumers will have peace of mind when they see that seal of approval on cosmetics and medicines they are purchasing.

All proceeds from sales of the merchandise will go toward funding their moral research programs.  For more information visit their website at www.soundchoice.org where you can also donate on line and order Prolife Produced merchandise or Dr Deisher’s new DVD on aborted fetal vaccines.

‘Baby trafficking’ scandal just the tip of the IVF/surrogacy iceberg: expert

by Kathleen Gilbert

• October 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After a CNN report this week condemned an illegal surrogacy ring run by high-profile fertility lawyers, one expert says that media and the pro-life community alike still fail to acknowledge the corruption endemic in the entire “baby trafficking” business - whether legal or not.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Sandra Endo this week reported on the surrogacy business of Hilary Neiman and Theresa Erickson, two of the most prestigious reproductive law attorneys in the world, who impregnated surrogates before adoptive parents were found. If the baby survived to the second trimester, the attorneys auctioned him or her off to the highest bidder, up to $180,000 per baby.

The line between legal and illegal surrogacy is not always clear: the CNN story notes that the attorneys offered “designer babies in race and gender,” an option advertised by several U.S. IVF clinics legally. The business’s only legal foul was its non-compliance with California law requiring adoptive parents to sign up before the baby - already created in a laboratory - was implanted in a surrogate, instead of after.

“Trafficking in human life without having a parent ahead of time is really, I think, quite troubling,” FBI agent Keith Slaughter told CNN.

But Jennifer Lahl, the founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, said the chilling aspects of Neiman and Erickson’s “baby trafficking” don’t only belong to illegal fertility operations. “Ms. Erickson and her co-conspirators violated a legal distinction without a difference,” said Lahl.

“Erickson broke the law by having the surrogate impregnated before the contracts were signed. But commercial surrogacy, whether done legally or Erickson’s way, is still selling babies. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it ethical.”

Lahl pointed out to LSN that the particular California statute violated by Neiman and Erickson was not universal, and that the loose network of surrogacy laws around the world “change all the time.”

“Babies are being bought and sold. Women are being exploited. Non-traditional families are being made with no consideration for the children created by these technologies,” said Lahl. “And in this specific case, we see that greed trumps all.”

The IVF industry operates with a presumption that babies prior to viability are expendable, a viewpoint found in the CNN story: one surrogate mom complained that she wanted out of the deal, but could not end the situation because she was near viability.

“I wanted to separate myself form the situation and you can’t do that when you’re pregnant—with a baby that’s almost viable,” she said. “She’s kicking, she’s moving, she’s a constant reminder.’

Lahl is the creator of Eggsploitation, a documentary on the victims of underregulation in the fertility industry, a movie which Erickson had strongly attacked as agenda-driven against fertility treatments before she was arrested.

“She has hammered me personally again and again in her TV show, because she put herself forward as such an ethical, above-board person,” Lahl told LifeSiteNews.com in a telephone interview this week.

“The truth has now come out and as it turns out, it is Erickson who has been doing the lying,” she wrote in August. “The public relations damage to the industry has been done, and who better to do it than the industry darling.”

Lahl told LSN that prior to Erickson’s arrest, “everybody wanted her on their board, and the moment she was busted everybody pretended they didn’t know her.” “Needless to say, the fertility industry is reeling,” she said.

“Unity Week” at St. Joseph’s University Puts Pro-Homosexual Agenda First

"Unity Week" only
provides disunity.
(Photo: perroazul)

Moral values are once again under assault at St. Joseph’s University.

Since 2001, the Jesuit university in Philadelphia has been sponsoring Unity Week, a pro-homosexual event first dubbed Rainbow Week.

This year Unity Week will sponsor speakers and events that are in direct conflict with the Catholic moral teaching and the mission statement of the university, which affirms:

“The Catholic character of Saint Joseph's University springs from its historical relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, and from its current embodiment of the great traditions of Catholic life and culture. For this University, Christ and the Church are sources of truth, guides and inspirations for life.”

However, according to the 2011 Unity Week schedule posted on the university’s web site, the following disturbing activities are planned from October 23—28:

• Photo Exhibit: “You Are Not Alone.” This exhibit features lewd images of same-sex couples posing in provocative, immoral attire.
• Film: Out of the Silence.  This film is about a same-sex wedding that “will challenge you to rethink your values…”  
• Pro-homosexual speaker:  Will Sheridan, an open homosexual athlete, will tell students about his “coming out” story

In previous years, Unity Week has promoted:

• R rated movies such as Brokeback Mountain and MILK;
• “Transgender woman,” Isis King;
• Homosexual activist Darren Manzella, advocate of open homosexuality in the U.S. Military;
• A talk by Shawn Decker, a pro-homosexual activist who promotes “safe-sex” and contraception among college students;
• A presentation by the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus, titled “Brotherly Love;”
• A talk by Shiva Subbaraman, director of the LGBTQ Center at Georgetown University;
• The Log Cabin Republicans;
• “Rainbow Week Liturgy: A Eucharistic Celebration of Unity”

St. Joseph's University: Web site screen shot
advertising Unity Week.

Although university officials at St. Joseph’s might claim that Unity Week is only meant to facilitate “dialogue,” the evidence suggests otherwise. 

For example, the student newspaper The Hawk features a pro-homosexual “Out on Campus” section.  In one issue, graduate student Katie MacTurk said: “Once you see someone come to a Unity Week event, once you see someone with that Unity Week pin, once you see someone being friends with someone that’s gay and knowing that they’re gay and being supportive of that, it’s like ‘oh okay, that’s okay.’”

In 2004, Bishop Joseph P. McFadden, a St. Joseph’s alumnus, opposed Rainbow Week.  “While the Church asks that we recognize the unique dignity of every human person, it does not mean supporting a lifestyle that is contrary to the natural law,” he said to The Catholic Standard & Times.

Unity Requires Truth

Why are the wolves
allowed in?
(Photo: S. Jurvestson)

“This event is a scandal.  There’s no unity without truth,” said TFP Student Action director John Ritchie. “And Unity Week is more about disunity from Church teaching than it is an effort to favor true unity based on the principles of our faith.  This event invites the wolves to confuse and scatter the flock -- Catholic college students -- and that’s unacceptable.”

“In our dark days, homosexual sin, ever abhorred by the Christian conscience, finds prominent apologists within Catholic universities,” Ritchie continued.  “However, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium have condemned few sins more consistently or severely.”

TFP Student Action invites its members and subscribers to contact the president of St. Joseph’s University and respectfully call for the cancelation of the pro-homosexual Unity Week.  Your voice as a student, alumni, or concerned parent or individual is important in the peaceful struggle for moral values.

St. Joseph’s University
Fr. Timothy R. Lannon, S.J.
Office of the President
5600 City Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19131
Phone: 610-660-1200
Email: president@sju.edu
or tlannon@sju.edu

(Please be polite and respectful)
Archdiocese of Philadelphia
222 North 17th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103-1299
Phone: 215-587-3600

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TFP-America Needs Fatima Joins Pro-Life Personhood Initiative in Mississippi

A form of legal schizophrenia has attempted to deny the personhood of the unborn ever since the infamous Roe v. Wade decision.  The claim that an unborn human being is not a person is only a means to justify the slaughter of innocent life: abortion.

However, on November 8, citizens in the state of Mississippi will vote on a ballot initiative that has a good chance of restoring the right to life for the unborn.  Mississippi Initiative 26 states:  “The term ‘person’or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”

Personhood USA, together with dedicated pro-life leaders and advocates in Mississippi are working to get the Personhood Amendment 26 passed.  At the same time, abortion activists affiliated with Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are actively opposing the initiative.  

TFP Student Action is mobilizing a van load of young volunteers to join the campaign effort for the unborn this week.

“TFP volunteers will be visiting college campuses, shopping centers and public squares, rallying support for this personhood amendment,” said TFP Student Action Director John Ritchie.

Unborn child
(photo: NIH)

“The issue is simple:  Every innocent life is an unrepeatable masterpiece of God.  With the sin of abortion, that masterpiece is killed, and lost forever,” he said. “Pro-abortion activists like to be vague.  They claim personhood develops gradually.  But every medical textbook acknowledges the biological fact that human life starts at the moment of conception,” he added. “Every human embryologist will tell you that a new individual human being begins at fertilization.”

As early as April of 1992, the American TFP launched a petition drive in the state of Pennsylvania, asking that President Bush instruct the Solicitor General to secure the recognition of the personhood of the unborn in the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Robert P. Casey case then pending before the Supreme Court.  In a few short weeks, almost 50,000 signatures were gathered and delivered.

Please pray for the successful outcome of this new initiative to defend the unborn in the Magnolia State.  May God protect America from the scourge of abortion and inspire more souls to peacefully yet boldly oppose this grave sin.

Related:
Life Starts at the Beginning
10 Reasons Why Abortion Is Evil

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19-year-old daughter describes mother’s horrific late-term abortion ordeal

by Christine Dhanagom

• MELBOURNE, October 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The daughter of Pheap Sem, a forty-year-old Australian woman recently hospitalized for life-threatening complications resulting from a late-term abortion, has described the horrific ordeal that took the life of her sibling, and nearly took that of her mother.

In a recent interview with the Age, 19-year-old Chantha Sem told the news service that her mother was put in intensive care due to organ failure after abortionist Mark Schulberg performed an abortion on her at 23 weeks gestation in his clinic, Marie Stopes Maroondah.

Late-term abortionist Mark Schulberg

Chantha told The Age she found her mother unresponsive on the morning of August 18th, after a three-day course of drugs in preparation for the abortion.

Join a Facebook page to end abortion here. 

She thought about calling an ambulance, but instead called the clinic, whose personnel told her to transport her mother to Schulberg’s clinic in a taxi, rather than to the hospital in an ambulance. In the end, nurses from the clinic ended up driving out to the motel where Pheap and Chantha were staying. They brought Pheap outside in a wheelchair, laid her across the back seat of their car, and brought her in for the abortion.

Without administering pain relief or oxygen to Sem, who was still unconscious, Schulberg killed her 23-week-old unborn child.

Chantha’s boyfriend, who was present for much of the ordeal, described the clinic’s attitude as: “Just get the job done and get them out.”

When the abortion was completed, clinic staff called for an ambulance and requested a “Code 2” pick-up, meaning no lights or sirens. According to the news report, by the time the ambulance arrived, Sem was suffering from dehydration, hypothermia, low blood pressure, and liver and kidney failure.

Sem, a single mother, is now back home with her four children. Her recovery is “a miracle,” according to Chantha.

Sem now says that she has no recollection of the days before the abortion, or of the abortion itself.

While Schulberg continues his practice in Melbourne, the Medical Practitioner’s Board says it is investigating the case.

Sem is only one of a long line of woman to have developed serious medical complications after treatment at the notorious Melbourne clinic.

Dr. James Latham Peters, an anesthetist who practiced at the clinic, was charged in May with causing serious injury to over 50 patients who were infected with Hepatitis C under his care.

Schulberg himself was found guilty of “unprofessional conduct” in 2009 for performing an abortion on a mentally handicapped woman without the proper legal consent.

Five Texas abortionists to face disciplinary hearings after pro-life undercover investigation

by Christine Dhanagom

AUSTIN, Texas, October 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNEws.com) - The Texas Medical Board will conduct disciplinary hearings this week for five of the ten Texas abortionists accused of wrong-doing after an undercover investigation by Operation Rescue.

The pro-life watchdog organization filed complaints with the Board after their three month investigation uncovered evidence of a wide range of illegal activities including violations of informed consent and patient privacy laws, violations of Texas’ 24 hour waiting period, ignoring indications of the sexual abuse of minors, and illegal disposal of aborted baby remains.

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman announced in March the results of the investigation, which was conducted with the help of the pro-life group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.

“Our investigation focused on what the average woman would experience if she sought an abortion in Texas, and how the abortion clinics appeared and operated on an everyday basis,” said Newman.

“From what we found, women are subjected to a variety of abortion abuses as a matter of routine. Violating the law is standard operating procedure for abortion clinics in Texas,” he added.

According to a press release issued this morning, Newman will attend four of the five Friday hearings as the official complainant against abortionists Robert Hanson, Alan Molson, William W. West, Jr., and Franz Theard.

Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s Senior Policy Advisor, will submit a written statement as the complainant in the case of a fifth doctor, Douglas Karpen.

Hearing dates for the other five abortionists, Pedro J. Kowalyszyn, Sherwood C. Lynn, Margaret Kini, Robert L. Prince, and H. Brook Randal, have not yet been set. A final decision on all ten is expected by February of 2012.

‘Catholic’ hospital admits abortions and vasectomies continuing, priest says

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

• BARCELONA, October 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Despite orders from Cardinal Archbishop Lluís Martínez Sistach and continuing protests, Barcelona’s Holy Cross and Saint Paul (Santa Creu i Sant Pau) Hospital continues to do abortions, according to Rev. Custodio Ballester, a Barcelona priest who recently discussed the matter with a member of the hospital’s board of directors.

Ballester says that on September 6 he had a meeting with Msgr. Josep Forcada, a priest who serves on the hospital’s governing board, called the “Very Illustrious Administration” (MIA).  According to Ballester, “Fr. Forcada recognized that for more than ten years there have been, above all, eugenic abortions of embryos with deformities and Down Syndrome, although there have been other reasons as well.”

In addition, says Fr Ballestra, Forcada, who is one of three priests on the five-member board, “also recognized that, in spite of the order that the Very Illustrious Administration has given to the Medical Management to not practice abortions, they continue and will continue to carry out abortions in case of ‘danger to the health of the mother”.

The “health of the mother” is an amorphous concept often used to justify abortions in a wide variety of circumstances, including the mere presence of an illness at the same time as the pregnancy.

“Fr. Forcada had no other remedy than to recognize that one cannot trust the same medical professionals who have been deceiving them for more than ten years with these immoral practices,” according to Ballester.

The hospital’s Chief of Gynecology, whom Ballester says is “a public defender and promoter of abortion in its various forms,” is also doing vasectomies and tubal ligations in the hospital, according to Ballester, who says that Fr. Forcada admitted that the topic “hasn’t yet been addressed” by the board.

The hospital is only one of serveral in the Barcelona area that are accused of performing abortions and sterilizations despite their historic identities as Catholic hospitals and their connection to the dioceses of Barcelona and Terrassa. They include the Hospital of Granollers, the Sant Joan de Déu (Saint John of God) de Esplugues de Llobregat Hospital, which is run by the Saint John of God order, and the the Sant Celoni (Saint Celedonius) Hospital.

The St. Andrew’s Cross (Cruz de San Andres) Association will continue its monthly protest outside of the Holy Cross and Saint Paul Hospital on the 25th of October, at 8:30 pm at the hospital’s entrance, which is at the intersection of Sant Antoni María Claret 167 and Cartagena, at the end of Gaudi Avenue. Following the protest, demonstrators will march in a Rosary procession to the Holy Family Basilica.