I just heard that today, Monday, April 7, Thomas Shibler took a turn for the worse.
The doctor said he is no longer responding to pain treatment, and has developed pneumonia.
This is very worrisome since Thomas is a coma.
So please increase your prayers and, if you feel inspired, make promises of sacrifices and pilgrimages to Our Lady of Confidence.
With God, all things are possible!
This is the Jordan Family. They are good friends from Marysville, California.
Mr. and Mrs. Jordan (Michael and Theresa) are long time supporters of TFP-America Needs Fatima. Their children are Joseph 15, Gabriel 13, Dominic 12, Marie 10, and Kathleen 8.
Kathleen is my Goddaughter. She is in the forefront of the picture. She goes to public school right now and is soon to receive her first Holy Communion.
Kathleen says she doesn't have many friends at school because she wears a dress and most of the girls dress like Britney Spears.
I imagine how hard it is for a little innocent girl to be virtuous in a public school. But she is a trooper and, in my opinion, Michael and Theresa are doing a great job in teaching her how to be a strong Catholic in very adverse circumstances.
Like Saint Dominic Savio used to say: "I'd rather die than commit a mortal sin."
May Our Lady of Purity help Kathleen and all children in today's world be good by fighting evil as much as possible according to their age and conditions.
If you'd like, please send me your pictures and comments to reritchie@juno.com.
Commenting on President Bush's Condemnation of Yalta
By Michael Whitcraft
The most recent Chinese import scandal is settling down, but the affair has again raised questions about the privileged treatment the West pays to the communist country. This includes: granting them “most favored nation” trade status, increasing importation of substandard and even dangerous goods that enter the US with little or no quality control and giving them sponsorship of the 2008 Olympic games.
In many ways, the economic advantages of dealing with China have created a world in which inhuman work conditions and corruption are veiled by end-of-quarter reports in the black. However when the veil drops, the harsh results of China’s immoral practices are often imported home, where the epithet: “Made in China” is increasingly suitable for the warning section of product labels.
Hazardous Heparin
Such is the case with the scandal surrounding heparin, a widely used blood-thinner made from pig intestines and other tissues. Chinese produced doses of the drug recently caused major allergic reactions in over 700 Americans and killed as many as 21 of them.
More accurately, it was not heparin itself that caused the trouble, but a substance called hypersulfated chondrotin that contaminated 20 out of 28 FDA tested heparin samples imported from China.
Some of the samples contained as much as 50% of the foreign substance. Furthermore, the scale of the contamination was enormous, since a large percentage of the one million multi-dose vials of heparin purchased each month in the US originate in China.
Hypersulfated chondrotin must be artificially manufactured since it does not exist in nature. It has not been approved for human consumption by the FDA, and certainly had no place in imported vials of heparin.
However, the molecular structure of the contaminant is so similar to that of heparin, that only very sophisticated testing can detect the difference. This explains why the drug originally passed distributors’ inspections.
However, it does not explain how the substance got into the heparin in the first place.
Intentional Sabotage?
As mentioned above, hypersulfated chondrotin is not a natural substance, so it could not have been present in the animal tissues from which heparin is made. However, since its production cost is a fraction of that of pure heparin, strong suspicions have been raised that it was added to the drug, intentionally to boost profits.
So far, investigations into the exact source of the contamination have been fruitless, since there is little transparency in China’s economy. There are so many suppliers, producers and middlemen involved in production that it is nearly impossible to pinpoint where the foreign agent was introduced into the blood thinner.
In many cases, small-scale farmers working under deplorable sanitation conditions conducted the primary manufacturing of the drug. A recent plague that decimated China’s pig herds made it particularly lucrative for mom-and-pop farmers to try their hand at making heparin.
The conditions where some of it was produced are so deplorable that the first FDA investigators believed that merely this could account for the violent reactions the drug was causing.
Insufficient FDA Testing
These conditions were not caught earlier due to a scandalous lack of FDA control on all Chinese imports. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) complained in a recent letter to the FDA that in 2007, the organization had only inspected 11 of the “hundreds if not thousands” of China’s pharmaceutical plants that import to the US.
FDA director Joe Famulare admitted that the number of Chinese plants that had been inspected was “within the general range” of what Senator Grassley claimed.
Lack of inspections are due in part by a dreadfully undersized FDA. As Gardiner Harris and Walt Bogdanich reported in a March 6 article from the International Herald Tribune:
A series of independent assessments, including one by the agency’s own science board, have found that the FDA is increasingly overwhelmed by its many responsibilities and is incapable of protecting the public from unsafe drugs, medical devices and food particularly from China.1
The rapidly growing amount of food and drug imported from China exacerbates the problem. In fact, American imports of Chinese food grew 20% last year alone.
However, FDA inspector shortages do not explain the disproportion in the number of inspections of Chinese goods as compared to imports from other nations. A March 20 Los Angeles Times article reported that although China currently supplies 22% of drug imports to the US, they received only 6% of the FDA inspections between 2002 and 2007.
Given China’s track record, letting them off the hook so lightly is unacceptable. As an editorial on LawyersandSettlements.com opined:
Given previous alleged, and substantiated concerns over recent imports from China, it is unconscionable that government regulators did not take a closer look at any and every product, raw or finished, coming into the country to be consumed by innocent and well-meaning Americans.2
A Chinese Solution?
Furthermore, FDA officials plan to increase the number and authority of Chinese inspectors to resolve their shortages. FDA deputy commissioner for international and special programs, Murray Lumkin, M.D. stated: “our efforts to fill permanent positions in China are a significant step toward ensuring access to safe food, drugs, and medical devices in the global market.”
He further explained:
In an age when a border is not a barrier, the globalized economy demands nothing less than heightened regulatory interoperability, information exchange and cooperation, especially on product quality and enforcement matters.3
A Wake up Call for the West
However, such a solution disregards the differences between Chinese and American standards and puts undue confidence in the corruption-laden communist government.
Unsafe worker conditions, dangerous imports and communist corruption will never be dealt with effectively until the West stops treating China as a friendly business partner and recognizes it as the corrupt and conscienceless regime that it is.
The West must look beyond economic advantages and consider the plight of Chinese workers and the threat that China poses to the future of Western civilization. It should refuse to trade with the communist country, no longer recognize China as a legitimate government and boycott this year’s Olympic games in Beijing.
Although these drastic steps will not be taken in the foreseeable future, the West must start to recognize China as an evil empire and take concrete steps to arrest its increasing growth and influence in the world. The safety of its people depends on it.
________________
1. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/06/business/06heparin.php
2. http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/10245/
heparin-recall-expanded.html
3. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/101127.php Emphasis ours. 
This page printed from: http://www.tfp.org/TFPForum/TFPCommentary/wake_up_call.htm
Meeting Together in St. Louis
On March 30, the American TFP held a regional one-day conferences in St. Louis. Nearly fifty people attended the program held at the St. Agnes’ Home of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus in the suburb of Kirkwood. The afternoon consisted of three talks and a buffet brunch.
TFP Speaker Norman Fulkerson started off the event with a talk titled “The Life of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: Explaining Why We Promote Fatima.” Since 2008 marks the 100 year anniversary of the birth of Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, the speaker related the life of Prof. de Oliveira and his sacrifices to uphold Catholic teaching and how this later led to the founding of the TFPs and their promotion of the Fatima message.
The second meeting, “What Does it Mean to be a Militant Catholic 90 years After Fatima?” explain the difficulties of following the Fatima Message in the modern world. TFP member John Horvat delivered the talk which stressed the changes in society since the sexual revolution of the sixties. He explained how these changes require Catholics to adjust their strategies in fighting the Culture War.
The regional conference was also an occasion to launch the book: Fatima: A Message More Urgent Than Ever, written by TFP author Luiz Sérgio Solimeo. Despite the fact that the Fatima apparitions took place 90 years ago, Mr. John Horvat explained how the Fatima message was more urgent than ever given the present state of world affairs. Those who attended also had the opportunity to purchase copies of the book and other Fatima materials.
The event was well organized by the TFP’s local coordinator Mr. Mark Serafino and provided an excellent opportunity for friends to get together and discuss Our Lady’s message.
The Book of Confidence
by Father Thomas de Saint Laurent
This little book is big on content. Drawing on Sacred Scripture and the lives of the saints, the masterful pen of Father Thomas de Saint Laurent carries us to the serene realm of confidence.
Order here or call 1-888-317-5571 and get a free copy when you tell Maria or Lucilia that you saw this on Robert Ritchie's blogspot!
Order your Book of Confidence.
Australian Edition of “The Book of Confidence” (Abbé Thomas de Saint-Laurent)
FOREWORD
To the superficial observer, a book specifically destined to increase the confidence of the faithful in God and the Blessed Virgin Mary might seem superfluous.
Australia is a privileged region, super abounding in natural riches of all kinds. Its geographic situation provides it the good fortune of being amongst the nations most protected against the whirlwinds so tempestuously and threateningly sweeping the face of the earth in our days. Its tranquil and productive population thus seems sheltered from the wars and other dramas that so strongly mark the life of nations at the end of this millenium.
Why, then, do I so especially recommend to Australians the virtue of confidence in Providence? The answer is not difficult. For them to long continue to enjoy the providential favours benefiting their country, they need to continually thank God. Evidently, nothing pleases a benefactor more than seeing the gratitude with which his gifts are received. And as gratitude is one of the least practiced of human virtues, it is of great importance to develop it through appropriate reading and meditation.
Moreover, the history of every nation proves that in this valley of tears –thus does St. Bernard qualify man’s earthly existence- everything that pleases us is unstable. Hence, the appropriateness, or, better said, the necessity for each man to insistently ask our Creator and Redeemer to protect, favour and help him to overcome the terrible spiritual and temporal battles that mark his pilgrimage upon this earth.
Abbé De Saint-Laurent does precisely that in his book about confidence. This work, flowing with a language rich in supernatural unction, teaches the reader what confidence is, how it should be practiced, and the moral benefits derived therefrom.
Providence bestowed on Fr. De Saint Laurent the gift of speaking directly to souls, making them deeply feel the value of confidence and, in a manner that would not rarely be called miraculous, calming the torments that sometimes shake even the most faithful souls.
His book is a precious spiritual aid. I emphatically congratulate the Australian TFP for putting it in circulation at this time.
With this, I beseech Our Lady, Mediatrix of all graces, to grant this little book a large distribution amongst upright and faithful people who, in Australia and in neighbouring lands, sincerely seek after God, their Creator.
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
These "10 Reasons Why Abortion Is Evil" will help you if you need to make a pro-life hand-out or write a letter to the editor of your newspaper.
1. Abortion Offends God
Abortion is never a mere personal choice but a grave offense against God and His creation. The anti-abortion struggle has always been a religious battle and foremost in its ranks have been Catholics across the country. This is because Church teaching on abortion is clear and unequivocal: Abortion is murder. There are no exceptions allowed, no compromises possible.
2. The Unnoticed War
The continuing war on terror has lead to a renewed national consciousness of the high price of war, and, for many, a heightened desire for peace. Yet, despite all this concern, the most horrible war of all has gone all but unnoticed. This is a war going on within our own borders, and it has claimed 42 million American lives in the last 31 years.
This scourge is as horrible as anything terrorists can fathom, because it strikes at the very core of humanity and our country: the family. By destroying the most basic human bond of all—that between mother and child—abortion dissolves the precious glue that binds our nation together.
While mother and child are the first victims, there is not a single element of society that is not affected by abortion. Mother, child, father, husband, aunt, uncle, friend, sibling and grandparent alike suffer the scars of the abortionist’s scalpel. Peace abroad is meaningless without peace at home.
3. Life starts at the moment of conception
This is the definition given in any respectable medical textbook. To declare a beginning of life at any point after the fusing of a wife’s egg and a husband’s contribution is irrational and an exercise in sophistical chicanery. Only machines such as clocks and cars come into existence part by part. Living beings come into existence all at once and gradually unfold their world of innate potential. A living human begins to exist at the moment of conception, even though only as a cell. What is important is not the accident of size or weight but the essence – which is fully human. The unborn baby has a distinct, unchanging and unrepeatable genetic code, unique in all of history, from the moment of conception till death. Nothing is added except nutrition and oxygen.1
4. Mankind must protect life whenever possible
The first and foremost instinct of humans is preservation of life. This begins with self-preservation, and extends to all humanity through domestic bonds and realization of a like nature. "Pregnancy termination" stops the beating heart of a growing human being and is in direct contradiction to this most basic premise of human nature. It forsakes natural law, and has left America as a country unable to repopulate itself without the aid of mass immigration.
5. Abortion is an unsafe procedure
Compared with other medical procedures, the abortion industry is largely unregulated. Although there are no exact statistics for the number of women who die from botched procedures, LifeDynamics.com compiled a list of 347 women killed by legal abortions since 1973.2 Furthermore, according to the National Cancer Institute, an induced abortion raises a woman's chance of getting cancer before age 45, by 50%. If the abortion is performed after age 30, it increases 110%; if before age 18, it goes up 150%.
The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer reports: "28 out of 37 worldwide studies have independently linked induced abortion with breast cancer. Thirteen out of fifteen studies conducted on American women report increased risk. Seventeen studies are statistically significant, sixteen of which found increased risk. Most of the studies have been conducted by abortion supporters."3
6. Embryonic stem-cell and human cloning research: a biogenetic Tower of Babel
In a cynical but logical progression, the culture of death is now bent on engendering human life so as to destroy it. Its new frontier is embryonic stem-cell and human cloning research. In the name of science and health, human life is destroyed at its very inception and "limited" cloning is used to produce usable cells that can be manipulated and harvested to aid the living. In short, the remaining ethical barriers that preserve human dignity and God's rights in Creation are steadily coming down. The biotech revolution has as its avowed goal not just curing disease but the construction of a "brave new world" of genetic engineering, changing the very makeup and design of man himself. We cannot permit the completion of this challenge to God, a new Tower of Babel, which will be like another Pandora's box, unleashing untold ethical and moral havoc on our nation.
7. Breaking the abortion cycle
Abortion is evil because it created a horrific abortion cycle that perpetuates this sin. The abortion mentality destroys the family by making it more difficult for new Americans who survive beyond the womb to find the family welded together by the indissoluble bond of marriage solely between a man and a woman. Children need families that will nurture them, guard their innocence and develop their personalities. In particular, all children must find within their homes the Faith that enables them to know, love and serve God in this world and be happy with Him forever in the next. As long as the traditional family remains in crisis, we will never sever the power lines that supply the abortion mills. As long as the Faith remains dead in souls, we will never wipe out the moral rot of sexual immorality, which is the contaminated soil where the abortion movement grows and flourishes.
8. Roe v. Wade: 31 Years of Lies
The 31st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion-on-demand calls to mind the biggest pack of lies ever set in motion - lies that have cost the lives of more than 42 million innocent babies cruelly torn from their mothers' wombs. How can such slaughter, numerically on par with Hitler's Germany or Stalin’s Russia, be tolerated by the present United States of America, a republic purportedly based on moral values and human rights?
9. Addressing an abortionist
Once you were an enchanting child, as all babies are. Today you are an abortionist, a killer of babies. Do you not regret your wicked deeds? Do you not see the innocent blood of our children that stains your hands and cries out to God? Have you no shame as did our first parents when they sinned against God? Why do you not turn to Him today, seek His forgiveness and His strength never again to murder the innocent? Would you not rather bring children into the world than destroy them? Children you could raise with respect for life to take the place of those you robbed from God?
10. The dangerous slippery slope
Yesterday it was contraception. Today it's abortion, the murder of unborn children, and same-sex "marriage." Will it be euthanasia tomorrow? Then what...? Once abortion is universally accepted, what logical arguments will stop euthanasia and other forms of murder?
Other helpful tidbits
- The unborn baby's heart starts beating at 20 days4 and the brain gives off brainwaves at 40 days.5 If these factors are used by the law to determine death, why can't they be used to determine life?
- Babies can survive outside the womb at 21 weeks.6
- By 14 weeks, the entire body surface, except the back and top of the head, are sensitive to pain.7
- The embryo is not a blueprint that becomes a human being, any more than a paper blueprint becomes a house.8
Note: Geoffrey Mull and James Bascom contributed to this compilation.
Click here to learn more about TFP Student Action.
1. http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_books/love_them_both/why_cant_we_love_them
_both_10.asp.
2. http://www.lifedynamics.com//AboutUs/index.cfm?fuseaction=BlackmunWall
3. First Way Abortion Causes Breast Cancer, http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com
4. J.M. Tanner, G.R. Taylor, and the Editors of Time-Life Books, Growth, New York: Life Science Library, 1965.
5. H. Hamlin, "Life or Death by EEG," JAMA, Oct. 12, 1964, p. 120.
6. http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_books/love_them_both/why_cant_we_love_them
_both_13.asp.
7. S. Reinis & J. Goldman, The Development of the Brain C. Thomas Pub., 1980.
8. http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_books/love_them_both/why_cant_we_love_them
_both_11.asp.
Send To Friend | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Search | Top Of Page | Site Map
© 2007 by the American TFP. All rights reserved.
