BY MICHELLE KAUFMAN, NEW ZEALAND CORRESPONDENT, Fri Apr 11, 2014

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, April 11, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com)  Six week old, baby Liam is being dubbed a “miracle baby” after his parents were told he was dying in utero and they should abort him.

Liam’s parents, Marinda Brits and Norman Holleman, were told that the routine mid-pregnancy anatomy scan showed low amniotic fluid around the baby.  Doctors told them the baby was dying and that an abortion would need to be arranged.

But the couple refused the abortion.

“We knew our baby was fighting for his life and we were going to fight with him,” related Holleman.

A visit to the Woman’s Assessment Unit at Auckland City Hospital a day later brought a small glimmer of hope.  During a consultation there they were told that it is possible for a baby to be born with little fluid, although the risk of the brain, lungs and kidneys not developing properly was high.

An amnio infusion of 600 miltres of saline was given at 23 weeks, allowing doctors to see if there was a leakage or further complications.

At 24 weeks a further scan showed that Liam’s kidneys were not developing correctly.  Brits and Holleman were told that it was likely he would die soon after birth.

Then, the news that Liam’s parents had hoped for came.  A scan on New Year’s Eve revealed properly functioning kidneys.  They were told to go home and prepare for the birth of a healthy baby.

Baby Liam has four siblings and shares his birthdate with his two-year-old brother Jayden.

“Everyone says their baby is a miracle but Liam really is ours,” says the proud father.

Kerri LenartowicRome, Italy, Apr 8, 2014 (CNA/EWTN News)

Brianna Heldt was 20 years-old when she first started taking the birth control pill. As an Evangelical Protestant, she believed in saving sex for marriage, but the young college student was planning her wedding and wanted to delay having children for a few years.

Like many young women, Heldt visited her college’s campus health clinic and got a prescription.

What followed was an unexpected and “horribly difficult” time for Heldt and her husband.

“From the time I began taking it I had severe headaches,” she recounted. “I was constantly bloated and hungry, and worst of all, I became an emotional wreck. Things that would never have bothered me before made me cry uncontrollably. Kevin (my husband) and I had always gotten along so well but we began arguing, and I was perpetually frustrated with him.”

“Intercourse was painful,” she added. “I even saw an OB/GYN about this problem who never once connected those dots for me, and just tried to tell me that it was some sort of psychological problem. But it was not.”

It turns out that Heldt’s experience was not unique. This January, 90s talk show host Ricki Lake opted to make a documentary exploring the dangers of hormonal contraceptives.

Based on Holly Grigg-Spall’s book, “Sweetening The Pill: or How We Became Hooked On Hormonal Birth Control,” the full-length film will consider the dangers of the birth control pill, as well as other contraceptives such as Yaz and Nuvaring.

“In the 50 years since its release, the pill has become synonymous with women’s liberation and has been thought of as some sort of miracle drug,” said Lake and her co-producer, Abby Epstein. “But now it’s making women sick and so our goal with this film is to wake women up to the unexposed side effects of these powerful medications and the unforeseen consequences of repressing women’s natural cycles.”

Perhaps Lake’s forthcoming documentary will not only “wake women up” but speak for those who have experienced some of the negative side effects of hormonal contraception.

Mara Kofoed – who writes the popular blog, “A Blog About Love,” with her husband Danny – recently wrote a post confessing her loathing of the birth control pill.

“You guys, I hate the birth control pill. I mean, I really, really hate it. I know it’s ‘supposed’ to be liberating to women, but I am convinced this pill is actually harming a lot of women – and therefore society at large including marriages, relationships, friendships, families, and work places,” she wrote on Feb. 26.

The Kofoeds are professed Mormons who have no moral objection to the hormonal contraceptives. Instead, Mara listed a series of side effects she had experienced, including physical symptoms such as “severe, acute pains in my heart,” as well as more general ones like a “lack of intuition & creativity,” and “numbed spirituality.”

Although the responses to Mara’s post were mixed, many women shared similar experiences, and one commenter noted her desire to avoid ingesting a substance classified as a group 1 carcinogenic by the World Health Organization, the “same group as asbestos.”

Heldt said the many side effects of the pill were reason enough to quit. “I had begun taking the pill a few months before our wedding to make sure it was working properly by the time I needed it.  And only a couple of months after our wedding, I threw the prescription into the trash.”

“I decided I’d rather be a sane, healthy mother than a miserable, insane woman without children. I wasn’t sure what we’d use going forward but I knew I couldn’t continue with the pill.”

As many women begin to share a desire to avoid hormonal contraceptives, this growing trend has led to a rise in new technologies for “natural” methods of dealing with fertility, both in avoiding and achieving pregnancy.

William and Katherine Sacks, husband and wife co-founders of the new iPhone app, Kindara, recently told Business Insider, “we founded the company because we were looking for effective birth control that wasn’t the pill.”

“Kati had been on the pill for 10 years and she didn’t like the side effects. She introduced me to the fertility awareness method and I was blown away by how little I understood about female fertility,” William Sacks explained.

For those who do want to have a baby, Kindara now boasts that it has helped 10,000 women conceive.

The Kindara app is one among many of the latest technologies in offering women an opportunity to know their own fertility.

MyFertilityMD and MyFertilityCycle.com claim to be “tools designed for women by doctors and researches. At the apex of research and technology stands an organic way for women to reclaim their fertility without birth control or dangerous hormones.”

Other app options such as My Fertility Friend and Glow offer “advanced ovulation charts” and “fertility predictors.”

Many years later, Heldt and her husband are the parents of eight children through biology and adoption, noting that becoming parents has “changed our lives in the most beautiful and profound ways.”

Heldt says that now although she knows her cycle, they “don’t use any sort of formal fertility tracking.” She’s glad that more women are now talking about the problems with hormonal contraceptives.

“I’ve met many ladies who’ve had negative experiences with the pill just like me, but even if their personal experience wasn’t bad, there is a tension there for sure. Many women sense that there’s a problem with the fact that fertility is treated like a disease to be managed.”

“Some are concerned that the pill allows women to be used by men. And we should all be alarmed by the physical dangers inherent in using hormonal contraception, especially over a long period of years – an increased risk of blood clots, stroke, and certain types of cancer.”

“There is no doubt that women deserve better choices than the ones we’re being handed in our present society.

BY COLIN KERR, Tue Apr 22, 2014

MONTGOMERY, AL, April 22, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) –– Children in the womb should have the same legal standing as other children, the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled Friday.

The decision upheld the prior conviction of Sarah Janie Hicks for “the chemical endangerment of her child,” when she exposed her unborn baby to cocaine. The boy, referred to as “JD,” was born testing positive for cocaine.

The 8-1 decision reaffirmed the Alabama Supreme Court’sruling in a similar case last year that the word “child” includes “unborn child.”

Friday’s decision was a review of the lower Court of Criminal Appeals’ conviction of Hicks.

According to Justice Tom Parker, who wrote the majoritydecision, “It is impossible for an unborn child to be a separate and distinct person at a particular point in time in one respect and not to be a separate and distinct person at the same point in time but in another respect. Because an unborn child has an inalienable right to life from its earliest stages of development, it is entitled not only to a life free from the harmful effects of chemicals at all stages of development but also to life itself at all stages of development. Treating an unborn child as a separate and distinct person in only select respects defies logic and our deepest sense of morality.”

Fr. Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, referred to the decision as a unique instance of “common sense and logical consistency.”

“In ruling that a child is a child whether born or unborn, the Alabama justices have cut through decades of tortured, twisted rationales and issued a national call for courts to recognize the obvious – all humans have the right to life.”

Justice Parker said, “Courts do not have the luxury of hiding behind ipse dixit assertions,” which means that courts cannot rule simply to uphold the legal status quo but must, in this case, “allow the law of non-contradiction” to come into play, in order to “recognize a child’s inalienable right to life at all stages of development.”

Until this is the case, the judge added, “our grief is not for the Constitution alone; we also grieve for the millions of children who have not been afforded equal value, love, and protection since Roe.”

“In contrast to the reasoning of Roe and Casey, Alabama’s reliance upon objective principles has led this court to consistently recognize the inalienable right to life inherently possessed by every human being and to dispel the shroud of doubt cast by the United States Supreme Court’s violation of the law of non-contradiction,” said Parker.

“Utterly amazing” are the words Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett used to describe what it was like to meet Pope Francis face-to-face before a crowd of 100,000 onlookers in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome. “I’ve met presidents. Those meetings were quite impressive,” he said, “but meeting the Pope blows that away!”

Governor Corbett is a life-long Catholic, baptized at Our Lady of Lourdes, Overbrook, in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. As a former altar boy and past president of the Parent/Teacher Guild at St. Mary of the Assumption Parish and School in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, meeting the Pope was something Corbett never dreamed he would do. Last month, he had his chance.

Corbett’s conversation with Pope Francis was brief and in English. The governor and his wife shook Pope Francis’ hand, which Corbett described as strong, “like a farmer’s hands.”  The Corbetts thanked him for his ministry to the Catholic Church and to the people of the world. The Pope replied, “Pray for me.”

As governor of Pennsylvania, Corbett was in Rome to plan for the World Meeting of Families, which will be held in Philadelphia in September 2015. He also wanted to personally invite Pope Francis to attend the meeting and visit Pennsylvania. Corbett told the Pope that the people of Pennsylvania “would really enjoy it if you came to see us.” The governor’s conversation with the Pope left him feeling “very optimistic” that Pope Francis will come to Philadelphia next year. It is expected that the decision about the Pope’s attendance will be announced approximately six months in advance of the event.

Governor Corbett was part of a special leadership delegation for the World Meeting of Families also led by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., and Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter. The delegation included corporate and civic leaders who travelled to Rome to learn more about the logistics of the global event. The World Meeting of Families takes place every three years and is sponsored by the Holy See’s Pontifical Council for the Family.

The World Meeting of Families is expected to bring tens of thousands of people to Philadelphia from more than 100 different countries. People of all faiths will come together to talk about the common challenges that families face all over the globe.

Corbett thinks Philadelphia, with its roots in religious tolerance, is the perfect place to do that. “William Penn’s holy experiment is still ongoing,” he said. “Many issues stem from families not being together. How can we strengthen families through faith in God?” This important question will be part of the conversation at the World Meeting of Families.

Registration details will be posted at www.worldmeeting2015.org. Meanwhile, Governor Corbett has advice we can all follow to strengthen families – pray, volunteer in the Church and other ministries that keep families together, and get involved with public policy advocacy. “Those of us in (public) office have tough jobs,” said Corbett. “We have to make tough decisions. Your prayers are appreciated.”

For more information about current affairs that affect families and other Catholic concerns, visit www.pacatholic.org. For more information about the World Meeting of Families, visit www.worldmeeting2015.org.

– See more at: http://www.pacatholic.org/meeting-the-pope/#sthash.1DefbvKf.dpuf

BY JOHN JALSEVAC, Wed Apr 23,  2014

By Wendy Wright

Happy Earth Day!
The following article was written by several contributors from Mercatornet

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/earth_day_eco_villains_our_top_10

It’s Earth Day again, an occasion on which to reflect on our sins against the environment and make resolutions to clean up our act. We are familiar with the usual suspects: overpopulation, oil companies, overpopulation, chocolate, cattle farmers, the coal industry… and did I mention overpopulation?

Well, forget all that. Here’s our top 10 eco-villains, most of them getting away with ecological murder to date.

1. Underpopulation. Driven by the myth of overpopulation birth rates around the world, with very few exceptions are falling. Only three Western countries have total fertility rates around 2 per woman (“replacement”) and many developing countries are also below that figure. Several countries in Eastern Europe and Asia have a TFR of less than1.4. Nobody knows how to bring the birth rate back to 2 once it has fallen so low. Is this good for the environment? No. Here’s why.

2. Big cities. Small families and childless people crowd together in big cities, which gobble up open land and forest, destroy animal habitats, pollute the air and waterways, and create huge waste disposal problems requiring energy intensive solutions. Even where these things are under control, as in the big western capitals, continued growth demands massive infrastructure projects – tunnels, bridges, airports, public transport systems, sewerage… which demand equally massive amounts of raw materials and energy, and have to be periodically renewed. And you only have to look at China and its heavily polluted mega cities to see what the effects of population reduction policies are in the “developing” world.

3. Consumerism. Populations adhering to the small family norm consume more per person. People have more disposable income, which they spend on luxury goods with big environmental impacts: air travel, more powerful cars (because no-one takes the train all the time), multiple household appliances, electronic devices including touchscreens which require rare earth minerals mined from the earth or the ocean floor. People can afford to buy more than they need and they waste more, including food. Even when individuals or families are relatively poor they often emulate the habits of richer citizens and will gamble and go into debt to increase their spending on luxury goods.

4. Solo living. Divorce, delayed marriage and single living have all increased in the era of population explosion panic and widespread birth control. In Europe the number of people living alone has risen by 80 percent over the past 15 years. Widowed older people make up a significant section of singletons but they are perhaps less likely to move in with adult children living in small city dwellings, especially if the family is unstable.

Men and women find it harder to commit to each other or to remain committed, and women’s increasing financial independence has facilitated break-ups. Also cohabiting couples are more likely to break up than married. Marital or cohabiting break-ups increase the number of people living alone, at least temporarily, and therefore the demand for more housing units and household goods and services. One-person households are the biggest consumers of energy, land and household goods.

5. Big government. Small families and singletons living in big cities are more likely than their more fertile, community-oriented forebears to depend on government to support them in times of difficulty or dependency and to provide for their educational, health and retirement needs. The growth of the welfare state brings with it a vast bureaucracy of people travelling to their offices every day to pull the levers of whatever programme they are administering. Think of their carbon footprint as they commute daily by train or car, and of the meetings and conferences the managerial layer fly to on a regular basis.

6. Coffee. As you can see from the above, there is one original sin, one basic source of villainy against the ecosystem in our era, and it would not be difficult to demonstrate more downstream effects. However, I will mention just one more before turning to other culprits. In the West at least, coffee consumption has increased in inverse proportion to average family size. Besides directly reducing fertility, the daily fix at the cafe is one of the most common things that people throw their spare cash away on when they have two or less little mouths to feed.

It is no surprise, then, that this liquid gold is the world’s second most tradable commodity after oil (and we know how bad that stuff is), leading to clearing of swathes of forests for the cultivation of sun grown coffee. Sun-cultivation involves deforestation, water pollution, agro-chemical usage, huge amounts of waste, and impoverishment of soils. You could reduce your coffee footprint by looking for a café using the shade-grown variety. Good luck with that.

Now here are some other candidates for the 10 top eco-villains list, submitted by MercatorNet contributors:

7. Weather in the United States. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, February 2014 ranks 37th for coldest February on record nationwide. Despite the arrival of spring, the icy grip of winter still retains a stranglehold on much of the Midwest and Northeast. The 2013-14 winter season is one of the coldest winters in 20 years. How on earth are we going to make global warming a non-debatable issue when the weather keeps messing up the narrative?! ~ Matthew Mehan, in Washington

8. People who don’t like being cold (and that’s most of us). My candidate for eco-villains are people who don’t understand the fundamental basis of population density, and therefore rant about the “problem” that hot countries are crowded and polluted, and all the stuff “we” should do to thin out the crowd. We? Here are a bunch of human population density maps of the world. My country is the big, empty grey area at the top left. Now here is an average annual temperature range map of the world. My country is the big blue blob at the top left, the unmelted ice cube in your drink. Coincidence?

However humans came to exist, one timeless fact is that we like it hot. And humid. We say we don’t, but we obviously do. Eco-villains, even things out. Move to northern Canada. Embrace the frozenness. The Chamber of Commerce of Snowdrifts, Yukon Territory, will welcome you with open arms. He loves you. He forgives you. He is really tired of being all alone up there. ~ Denyse O’Leary is a Canadian journalist, author, and blogger.

9. Facebook. The electric use of all data centres for the information-communications-technology (ICT) ecosystem ranks– if it were a country –12th in the world. Three years ago, it would have only ranked 22. Every one of your posts on Facebook, every one of your searches on Google, uses power. And since much of that power comes from coal, you are adding to greenhouse gases. Even Facebook admits that only 19 percent of its energy mix in 2012 came from clean and renewable sources. How about your mobile phone? Sure, the handset doesn’t use much energy, but creating the infrastructure for mobile networks does. Total mobile traffic has risen more than 400-fold since 2007, with no sign of stopping. If you are really sincere about reducing greenhouse gases, pledge to one post a day, one search a day, one phone call a day. Come on! Do it now! ~ Michael Cook

10. Al Gore. A year ago, Google sponsored a summit on “How Green Is The Internet?” Al Gore was the keynote speaker. What was the carbon footprint of flying Al Gore to Mountain View, California? In fact, the inconvenient question is why is anyone flying Al Gore anywhere? Why not watch him on Skype? At a time when we are desperately seeking to reduce emissions from the internet’s data centres, it seems almost obscene to increase them in order to hear the man who invented it. ~ Michael Cook
– See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/earth_day_eco_villains_our_top_10#sthash.2tlxcEdD.dpuf

Posted By Vince Coglianese On 11:00 PM 04/15/2014 In
President Barack Obama is attempting to lower the rate of “births”—and separately, pregnancies—among blacks and Latinos.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists reducing “births” as one of the top goals of Obama’s “Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative.”
The language on the CDC’s website makes clear that the program seeks to reduce the rate of both pregnancies and “births” among minorities.
Specifically, the CDC says the “purpose of this program is to demonstrate the effectiveness of innovative, multicomponent, communitywide initiatives in reducing rates of teen pregnancy and births in communities with the highest rates, with a focus on reaching African American and Latino/Hispanic youth aged 15–19 years.”
Eighteen-and 19-year olds are technically adults, but Obama’s program aims to reduce births among women that age as well.
The Daily Caller discovered the abortion-suggesting language during a routine analysis of government publications.
The CDC says the distinction is one without a difference.
“On the website for the initiative there is no distinction between the two,” CDC spokeswoman Renee Brown-Bryant wrote in an email to TheDC.
Although the CDC site explaining the program makes no mention of the word “abortion,” the $110 million program—as funded for FY2010—bankrolls a range of featured “partners,” some of whom readily encourage abortion.
The Obama administration has set a goal that those partners reduce teen births in the “target community” by 10% by next year.
Advocates for Youth, for instance, is one of the program’s five “national partners.” The group, which took in over $1.5 million in government funding in fiscal year 2013 according to its annual report, advocates that teenagers consider abortion when they become pregnant.
“Young women need the right to safe and legal abortion,” the government-funded group writes, saying that a young woman shouldn’t be forced to “carry a pregnancy she didn’t want to term.”
Advocates for Youth lists ending “the stigma and shame women are made to feel about abortion” among its goals.
Hartford, Conn.’s city government received a $900,000 slice of the CDC funding alone. According to that program’s website, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England serves as a partner in their initiative. Local teens can use the city’s site to locate nearby abortion providers and arrange appointments.
Obama has made no secret of his support for abortion and how he views its role in society, marking the 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade in January by applauding “reproductive freedom.”
“And we resolve to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies,” Obama said in the statement, saying that abortions afford women the “freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.”
Even before the president’s program came into existence, teen birth rates in the U.S. had been substantially declining. The CDC notes that by 2011, teen births had dropped to a record low, with 329,797 babies born to women aged 15-19. The CDC claims that “the reasons for the declines are not clear,” but pro-life site LifeNews.com attributed the drop to a mixture of teen abstinence and an uptick in the abortion rate.
While reducing teen pregnancies receives bipartisan support, abortions have had a deep impact on blacks and Hispanics in the United States.
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recently reported that more black women in that city aborted their pregnancies (31,328) than gave birth (24,758) in 2012.
There were 22,917 abortions among Hispanic New Yorkers in the same time frame. In all, CNS News notes, black and Hispanic abortions accounted for 73 percent of the city’s total abortions that year.
The CDC is not yet prepared to share any results of the president’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative. “At the conclusion of the project, in September 2015, data will be analyzed and evaluated,” Brown-Bryant told TheDC.

URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/15/obama-program-aims-to-reduce-births-among-blacks-latinos/

By Alan Holdren and Kerri Lenartowick

Vatican City, Apr 7, 2014 / 04:29 am (CNA).- Pope Francis recently gave an interview at the Vatican to some youth from Flanders, Belgium, accompanied by the Bishop of Ghent, Luc Van Looy. The Holy See Press office has released the text of the March 31 interview in Italian. The young people posed their questions in English and the Pope responded in Italian.

Below is Catholic News Agency’s translation, done by the agency’s Alan Holdren and Kerri Lenartowick.
They are part of a group of young people that began during World Youth Day in Rio, because in Rio they wished to communicate also to the other young Flemish what they had done there; and they are a group of 12 – the others are here outside, by the way – they also came with…
Well I would like to say hello to them, the others, afterwards, yes!

Well we can organize that … And they are truly carrying out this task of entering, penetrating into media as young people, starting with their Christian inspiration. It is also in that sense that they would like to pose some questions to you. She, on the other hand, is not a believer – they are thus four from that group – she is not a believer, but it seemed important to us also, because we are a very secular society in Flanders, and we know that we have a message for everyone. So, she was very happy…

I like it! We are all brothers and sisters!

Truly, indeed. The first question is: Thank you for having accepted our request, but why did you do so?
When I hear that a young man or woman is restless, I feel that it is my duty to serve these young people, to give a service to this restlessness, because this restlessness is like a seed, and later it will go on a give fruit. And, in this moment I feel that with you I am doing a service to that which is most precious, in this moment, which is your restlessness.

(Boy) Everyone in the world seeks to be happy. But we asked ourselves, are you happy? And, why?

Absolutely, absolutely, I am happy. I’m happy because … I don’t know why … maybe because I have a job, I am not unemployed, I have work, a job as a shepherd! I am happy because I found my path in life and walking this path makes me happy. And it is also a serene happiness, because at this age it is not the same happiness as that of a young person, there is a difference. A certain interior peace, a great peace, a happiness that also comes with age. And also with a journey that has always had problems, even now there are problems, but this happiness doesn’t go away with the problems, no. It sees the problems, it suffers them and then moves on. It does something to resolve them and moves ahead. But in the depths of the heart, there is this peace and this happiness. It is a grace of God, for me, truly. It is a grace. I don’t deserve it at all.

(Boy) You have shown your great love of the poor and the wounded in many ways. Why is this so important for you?

Because this is the heart of the Gospel. I am a believer. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ and his Gospel. And, the core of the Gospel is the proclamation to the poor. When you read the Beatitudes, for example, or you read Matthew 25, you see there how Jesus is clear in this. The core of the Gospel is this. And Jesus says of himself, “I came to announce to the poor, freedom, health, the grace of God…” To the poor. Those who need salvation, that need to be welcomed in society. Then, if you read the Gospel, you see that Jesus had a certain preference for the marginalized. The lepers, the widows, orphaned children, the blind… marginalized people. And also the great sinners… and this is my consolation! Yes, because He is not even scared of sin! When he came across a person like Zaccheus, who was a thief, or like Matthew, who was a traitor to his heritage (patria) for money, He was not afraid! He looked at the them and he chose them. Also this is a poverty: the poverty of sin. For me, the heart of the Gospel is of the poor. I heard two months ago that someone said, for this reason (he is) speaking of the poor, because of this preference: “This Pope is a communist.” No! This is a banner of the Gospel, not of Communism: of the Gospel! But poverty without ideology, poverty… And for this reason I believe that the poor are at the center of the proclamation of Jesus. It’s enough just to read it. The problem is that then this attitude toward the poor sometimes, in history, has been ideologized. No, it is not like that: ideology is another thing. It is like this in the Gospel: it is simple, very simple. Also in the Old Testament, you see this. And it’s for this reason that I always place it at the center.

(Girl) I don’t believe in God, but your actions and your ideals inspire me. Perhaps you have a message for all of us, for the young Christians, for people who don’t believe or have other beliefs or believe in a different way?

For me, one must seek, in a way of speaking, authenticity. And for me, authenticity is this: I am speaking with my brothers. We are all brothers. Believers, non-believers, or those of one religious confession or another, Jews, Muslims… we are all brothers. Man is at the center of history, and this for me is very important: man is at the center. In this moment of history, man has been thrown out of the center, he has slipped out towards the periphery, and at the center – at least at this point – is power, money. And we must work for people, for man and woman, who are the image of God. Why young people? Because the young – I go back to what I said at the beginning – are the seed that will bear fruit along the path. But also in relation to that which I was saying now: in this world, where at the center is power, money, young people are chased away. Children are chased away – we don’t want kids, we want fewer of them, small families. Children aren’t wanted. The elderly are chased away. So many elderly die by way of a hidden euthanasia, because they are not cared for and they die. And now young people are chased away. Think that in Italy, for example, youth unemployment from 25 years or younger is almost 50 percent. In Spain, it is 60 percent. And, in Andalusia, in the south of Spain, it is nearly 70 percent… I don’t know what the unemployment rate in Belgium might be…
… a bit less: 5-10 percent.

That’s small. It is small, thanks be to God. But you think about what a generation of young people who don’t have work means! You can say to me, “But they can eat, because their society feeds them.” Yes, but this is not sufficient, because they don’t have the experience of the dignity of bringing bread home. And this is the moment of the “passion of the youth.” We have entered into a culture of waste. That which does not serve this globalization is discarded. The elderly, children, young people. But in this way one discards the future of a people, because in the children and youth and elderly is the future of a people. The children and the young people, because they will carry history forward: the elderly are those who must give us the memory of a people, how the path of a people has gone. If they are discarded, we will have a group of people without strength, because they will not have many young people and children, and (they will be) without memory. And, this is very grave! And, for this I believe that we must help young people so that they might have the role in society that in this difficult historical moment is needed.

But do you have a specific, very concrete message for us, so that we – perhaps – might inspire other people as you do? Even people who don’t believe?

You’ve said a very important word: “concrete.” It is an extremely important word, because in the concreteness of life you move forward. With ideas alone, you don’t move forward! This is very important. And, I believe that you young people must move forward with this concreteness in life. Often also with actions tied to situations, because you must take this, this… but also with strategies… I will tell you something. I have spoken, for my work, also in Buenos Aires, with so many young politicians who came by to say hello to me. And I am happy because they – whether from the left or the right – they spoke a new music, a new style of politics. And, this gives me hope. And, I believe that youth, in this moment, must take the tempo and move ahead. Be courageous! This gives me hope. I don’t know if I responded: concreteness in actions.

(Boy) When I read the newspapers, when I look around, I ask myself if the human race is truly capable of taking care of this world and of the human race itself. Do you share my doubt? (Translator) … We discard, as you said. Do you also feel sometimes, like doubting and saying to yourself, “But, where is God in all of this?”

I ask myself two questions about this question: Where is God and where is man? It’s the first question that, in the Gospel account God poses to man, “Adam, where are you?” It is the first question to man. And, also I ask myself now, “You, man of the 21st century, where are you?” And, this makes me think of another question, “You, God, where are you?” When man finds himself, he seeks God. Maybe he is unable to find him, but walks on a path of honesty, seeking truth, on a path of goodness and a path of beauty. For me, a young person who loves truth and seeks it, love goodness and is good, is a good person, and seeks and loves beauty, is on the good path and will surely find God! Sooner or later, he will find him! But the path is long and some people do not find it, in life. They don’t find it in a conscious way. But they are so true and honest with themselves, so good and so loving of beauty that in the end they have a very mature personality, capable of an encounter with God, which is always a grace. Because the encounter with God is a grace. We cannot make the path… Some find it in other persons… It is a path to take up… Everyone must find it personally. God is not found by being heard of (from a distance) nor can you pay to find God. It is a personal path. We must find him this way. I don’t know if I have responded to your question…

We are all human and we make errors. What have your errors taught you?

I have erred, erred… In the Bible, it says, in the Book of Wisdom, that the most just man errs seven times a day! … That is to say that everyone errs… They say that man is the only animal that falls twice in the same place, but he doesn’t learn immediately from his errors. One can say, “ I don’t err,” but he doesn’t improve. This takes you to vanity, arrogance, pride… I think that the errors also in my life have been and are great teachers of life. Great teachers: they teach you so much. They humiliate you also because you can think yourself to be a superman, a superwoman, and then you make a mistake, and this humiliates you and puts you in your place. I wouldn’t say that from all of my mistakes I have learned. No, I believe that from some I haven’t learned because I am stubborn, and it isn’t easy to learn. But from so many errors I have learned, and this has done me good. It has done me good. And also recognizing errors is important. I erred here, I erred there, I err there… And also being attentive not to return to the same error, to the same water-well… It is a good thing, the dialogue with our own errors, because they teach us. And the important thing is that they help you to become a bit more humble, humility does so much good, so much good to people, to us, it does us good. I don’t know if this was the answer…

(Translator) Do you have a concrete example of how you learned from an error? She (the girl who asked the question) ventures…

No, I will tell you. I wrote it in a book, it is public. For example, in guiding the life of the Church. I was appointed superior very young, and I made so many errors with authoritarianism, for example. I was too authoritarian, at 36 years old… And then I learned that one must dialogue, you must listen to what the others think… But you don’t learn once and for all, no. It is a long road. This is a concrete example. And, I learned from my slightly authoritarian attitude, as a religious superior, to find a path to not be so much like that, or to be more… but I still err! Is she happy?… Does she want to venture to say something else?

(Girl) I see God in others. Where do you see God?

I seek – seek! – to find him in all of life’s circumstances. I seek… I find him in the reading of the Bible, I find him in the celebration of the Sacraments, in prayer and also in my work I seek to find him, in the people, in different people… Most of all, I find him in the sick. The sick do me good, because I ask myself, when I am with a sick person, why this one yes and me no? And with those in prison I find him. Why is this person incarcerated and not me? And I speak with God, “You always make injustices, why to this person and not to me?” And, I find God in this, but always in dialogue. It does me good to look for him during the entire day. I am unable to do it, but I try to do this, to be in dialogue. I am not able to do it precisely like that. The saints did this well, I still don’t … but I am on the path.

(Girl) Since I don’t believe in God, I am unable to understand how you pray or why you pray. Can you explain how you pray, in your role as Pontiff, and why you pray? The most concrete way possible…

How I pray… Often I take the Bible, I read it a bit, then I leave it and I let myself be looked at by the Lord. That is the most common idea in my prayer. I allow myself to be looked at by Him. And I feel – but it isn’t sentimentalism – I feel deeply the things that the Lord tells me. Sometimes he doesn’t speak… nothing, empty, empty, empty… but patiently I am there, and I pray this way… I am seated, I pray seated, because it hurts me to kneel, and sometimes I fall asleep in prayer… It is also a way of praying, as a son with the Father, and this is important. I feel like a son with the Father. And why do I pray? “Why” as a cause or for whom do I pray?
Both…
I pray, because I need to. This I feel, which pushes me, as if God called me to speak. The first thing. And I pray for people, when I meet people that strike me because they are sick or have problems, or there are problems that… for example, war… Today I was with the Nuncio of Syria, and he showed me photographs… and I’m sure that this afternoon I will pray for this, for those people… I was shown photographs of those who have died of hunger, their bones were like this… at this time, I cannot understand this, when we have (everything) necessary to feed the entire world, that there are people dying of hunger- for me it’s terrible! And this makes me pray, precisely for these people.
I have my fears.

What are you afraid of?

Of myself! Fear… Look, in the Gospel, Jesus repeats often, “Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid!” So many time he says it. And, why? Because he knows that fear is a, I would say, normal thing. We are fearful of life, we are afraid before the challenges, we are afraid before God… All of us are afraid, everyone. You should not be worried about being afraid. You must feel this but not be afraid and then think, “Why am I scared?” And, before God and before yourself, seek to clarify the situation or ask help of another. Fear is not a good counselor, because it gives you bad advice. It pushes you onto a path that is not right. For this reason, Jesus said so often, “Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid!” Then, we must know ourselves, all of us. Everyone must know himself and seek where the zone is in which we may err the most, and have a bit of fear of that area, because there is bad fear and good fear. Good fear is like prudence. It is a prudent attitude. “Look, you are weak in this, this and this, be prudent and don’t fall.” Bad fear is that which you say and which nullifies you a bit, erases you. It nullifies you, it doesn’t allow you to do something. This is bad and it must be thrown out.

(Translator) She (the girl) has posed this question because sometimes it is not easy in Belgium, for example, to speak of one’s own faith. This was for her also a way, because so many don’t believe, and she said, “I want to pose this question because I also want to have the strength to bear witness.”

There it is, now I understand the root of the question. Bearing witness with simplicity. Because if you go with your faith as a flag, like the crusades, and you go out and proselytize, that doesn’t work. The best way is testimony, but humble, “I am like this,” with humility, without triumphalism. That is another sin of ours, another bad attitude, triumphalism. Jesus was not triumphalist and also history teaches us not to be triumphalist, because the great triumphalists were defeated. Testimony: this is a key, this question. I give it with humility, without proselytizing. I offer it. It is so. And this is not scary. You are not going on the crusades.

(Translator) There is a final question…
The last one? It is the terrible one, the last one, always…
Our last question, do you have a question for us?

The question I want to ask you is not original. I take it from the Gospel. But I think that after hearing it, maybe it will be the right one for you in the this moment. Where is your treasure? This is the question. Where does your heart rest? On what treasure does your heart rest? Because there where your treasure is will be your life. The heart is attached to the treasure, to a treasure that all of us have: power, money, pride, so many… or goodness, beauty, the will to do good… There can be so many treasures. Where is your treasure? This is the question I would like to ask you, but you will have to give the response yourselves, alone! At your home…
They will let you know by letter…
Have them give it to the bishop… Thanks! Thank you, thanks! And pray for me.

By Kerri LenartowicRome, Italy, Apr 8, 2014 (CNA/EWTN News)

Brianna Heldt was 20 years-old when she first started taking the birth control pill. As an Evangelical Protestant, she believed in saving sex for marriage, but the young college student was planning her wedding and wanted to delay having children for a few years.

Like many young women, Heldt visited her college’s campus health clinic and got a prescription.
What followed was an unexpected and “horribly difficult” time for Heldt and her husband.
“From the time I began taking it I had severe headaches,” she recounted. “I was constantly bloated and hungry, and worst of all, I became an emotional wreck. Things that would never have bothered me before made me cry uncontrollably. Kevin (my husband) and I had always gotten along so well but we began arguing, and I was perpetually frustrated with him.”

“Intercourse was painful,” she added. “I even saw an OB/GYN about this problem who never once connected those dots for me, and just tried to tell me that it was some sort of psychological problem. But it was not.”

It turns out that Heldt’s experience was not unique. This January, 90s talk show host Ricki Lake opted to make a documentary exploring the dangers of hormonal contraceptives.
Based on Holly Grigg-Spall’s book, “Sweetening The Pill: or How We Became Hooked On Hormonal Birth Control,” the full-length film will consider the dangers of the birth control pill, as well as other contraceptives such as Yaz and Nuvaring.

“In the 50 years since its release, the pill has become synonymous with women’s liberation and has been thought of as some sort of miracle drug,” said Lake and her co-producer, Abby Epstein. “But now it’s making women sick and so our goal with this film is to wake women up to the unexposed side effects of these powerful medications and the unforeseen consequences of repressing women’s natural cycles.”

Perhaps Lake’s forthcoming documentary will not only “wake women up” but speak for those who have experienced some of the negative side effects of hormonal contraception.
Mara Kofoed – who writes the popular blog, “A Blog About Love,” with her husband Danny – recently wrote a post confessing her loathing of the birth control pill.

“You guys, I hate the birth control pill. I mean, I really, really hate it. I know it’s ‘supposed’ to be liberating to women, but I am convinced this pill is actually harming a lot of women – and therefore society at large including marriages, relationships, friendships, families, and work places,” she wrote on Feb. 26.

The Kofoeds are professed Mormons who have no moral objection to the hormonal contraceptives. Instead, Mara listed a series of side effects she had experienced, including physical symptoms such as “severe, acute pains in my heart,” as well as more general ones like a “lack of intuition & creativity,” and “numbed spirituality.”

Although the responses to Mara’s post were mixed, many women shared similar experiences, and one commenter noted her desire to avoid ingesting a substance classified as a group 1 carcinogenic by the World Health Organization, the “same group as asbestos.”

Heldt said the many side effects of the pill were reason enough to quit. “I had begun taking the pill a few months before our wedding to make sure it was working properly by the time I needed it. And only a couple of months after our wedding, I threw the prescription into the trash.”

“I decided I’d rather be a sane, healthy mother than a miserable, insane woman without children. I wasn’t sure what we’d use going forward but I knew I couldn’t continue with the pill.”

As many women begin to share a desire to avoid hormonal contraceptives, this growing trend has led to a rise in new technologies for “natural” methods of dealing with fertility, both in avoiding and achieving pregnancy.

William and Katherine Sacks, husband and wife co-founders of the new iPhone app, Kindara, recently told Business Insider, “we founded the company because we were looking for effective birth control that wasn’t the pill.”

“Kati had been on the pill for 10 years and she didn’t like the side effects. She introduced me to the fertility awareness method and I was blown away by how little I understood about female fertility,” William Sacks explained.

For those who do want to have a baby, Kindara now boasts that it has helped 10,000 women conceive.
The Kindara app is one among many of the latest technologies in offering women an opportunity to know their own fertility.

MyFertilityMD and MyFertilityCycle.com claim to be “tools designed for women by doctors and researches. At the apex of research and technology stands an organic way for women to reclaim their fertility without birth control or dangerous hormones.”

Other app options such as My Fertility Friend and Glow offer “advanced ovulation charts” and “fertility predictors.”

Many years later, Heldt and her husband are the parents of eight children through biology and adoption, noting that becoming parents has “changed our lives in the most beautiful and profound ways.”

Heldt says that now although she knows her cycle, they “don’t use any sort of formal fertility tracking.” She’s glad that more women are now talking about the problems with hormonal contraceptives.
“I’ve met many ladies who’ve had negative experiences with the pill just like me, but even if their personal experience wasn’t bad, there is a tension there for sure. Many women sense that there’s a problem with the fact that fertility is treated like a disease to be managed.”

“Some are concerned that the pill allows women to be used by men. And we should all be alarmed by the physical dangers inherent in using hormonal contraception, especially over a long period of years – an increased risk of blood clots, stroke, and certain types of cancer.”

“There is no doubt that women deserve better choices than the ones we’re being handed in our present society.

By: Heather Clark, March 29, 2014

NEW YORK – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called pro-lifers ‘dumb’ during her acceptance speech this week as she received the Margaret Sanger Award from the nation’s largest abortion provider.

“When you see how closed their minds are or oblivious or whatever it is—dumb—then you know what the fight is about,” Pelosi declared on Thursday at Planned Parenthood’s annual gala. “Whatever happens with the court …we must remember these battles will not be the end of the fight.”

Pelosi was speaking about the personhood laws that have been presented in various states and the corporate opposition to the Obamacare abortion pill mandate.

As previously reported, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America recognized Pelosi with the Margaret Sanger Award for “her leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement over the course of her career.” Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1921, which was originally known as the American Birth Control League. She later changed the name as some found it offensive.

“We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all,” Sanger once said, who was reportedly a staunch advocate of eugenics. “The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

Sanger was also the publisher of the newspaper The Woman Rebel, which she subtitled “No Gods, no masters.”

“I accept this honor tonight on behalf of my colleagues, who have fought the fight for and with you,” Pelosi said upon receipt of the award. “The aim of smart public policy in our country is to advocate for opportunity and freedom—the opportunity to lead healthy lives and the freedom of Americans to make their own choices.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was also present at the gala, receiving the Planned Parenthood Global Citizen Award, as well as “minister” William Barber II, who leads a homosexual advocacy and social justice organization called “Moral Mondays” in North Carolina.

“We must build a movement knowing that those against Planned Parenthood are also against voting rights, labor rights, and immigration reform,” Barber told those gathered. “The same people trying to gut voting rights are the same people trying to remove southern states from [Medicaid] coverage, and are the same people trying to remove women’s rights. We are stronger together when we fight these injustices together.”

Bradley Bredeweg of the ABC Family show The Fosters, a sitcom that centers on children being raised by lesbians, also spoke at the event.

“Our family represents the new, loving and modern family,” he stated. “Two incredibly smart and passionate biracial lesbian women raising a family made up of a multicultural mix of biological, adopted, and foster kids. A family that is allowed to make their own choices, to decide what is best for their own family. With all of the prejudice and discrimination that we still have to fight as gays and lesbians, as women, as different races—the last thing we should be fighting for are our own bodies.”

Others present at Planned Parenthood’s gala included singer Mavis Staples, comedian Tig Notaro and BET’s Vice President of Public Affairs Sonya Lockett.

by Becca Aaronson, The Texas Tribune, March 27, 2014

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld the new abortion regulations that were passed in July by the Republican-led Texas Legislature.

The plaintiffs, who represent the majority of abortion providers in Texas, including four Planned Parenthood affiliates, Whole Woman’s Health and other independent abortion providers, challenged the constitutionality of two requirements that the state implemented Nov. 1: that physicians obtain hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of an abortion facility, and that they follow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s protocol for drug-induced abortions, rather than a common, evidence-based protocol.

In a unanimous opinion by a three-judge panel, the court sided with the state, which argued that the rules should be deemed constitutional by the federal court because the state’s objective was to protect women’s health, and that there isn’t enough evidence to suggest that the rules create an undue burden on the majority of Texas women attempting to access abortion.

The author of the opinion, Chief Justice Edith Jones, wrote that the state’s “articulation of rational legislative objectives, which was backed by evidence placed before the state legislature, easily supplied a connection between the admitting-privileges rule and the desirable protection of abortion patients’ health.”

Jones also authored the 2012 opinion affirming Texas’ abortion sonogram law. The other justices, Jennifer Elrod and Catharina Haynes, served on another three-judge panel that reversed a lower court’s injunction on the law in October, which allowed the rules to take effect.

Meanwhile, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, who argued on behalf of the majority of abortion providers in the state, asserted that the new rules are unconstitutional because some abortion facilities can no longer perform the procedure and women in South Texas, the Panhandle and other areas of the state are being forced to travel long distances to seek abortions.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement that the group would continue to fight the law. “We will combat these laws in the courts, and our separate political arm will mobilize voters to replace lawmakers who champion these dangerous laws in the first place,” she said.

If this case continues through the court system, the plaintiffs would need to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In November, the Supreme Court justices rejected an earlier request by abortion providers to intervene in their lawsuit by reversing the 5th Circuit’s decision to lift an injunction on the rules by a lower court.

“The people of Texas have spoken through their elected leaders and in support of protecting the culture of life in our state,” Gov. Rick Perry said in a statement. “Today’s court decision is good news for Texas women and the unborn, and we will continue to fight for the protection of life and women’s health in Texas.”

Additional rules that require all abortions to be performed in ambulatory surgical centers starting in September and that ban abortions at 20 weeks of gestation remain unchallenged.
Since November, abortion facilities in South Texas, Beaumont and the Panhandle have closed as a result of the new abortion regulations. In August, before the rules took effect, there were 40 licensed abortion providers in Texas. Now there are 28 licensed abortion providers, only 24 of which still perform the procedure. When additional rules take effect in September that require abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers, the number of abortion facilities will probably drop to six.

“Texas women deserve better than to have extremist politicians endanger their health and safety by preventing them from accessing safe and legal abortion,” Brigitte Amiri, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. “The law is having a devastating impact on women in Texas.

People care about keeping tax dollars out of the hands of the abortion industry, but in the future will they be able to talk about how their legislators voted on this topic? Life Legal Defense Foundation joined the Bioethics Defense Fund and the Alliance Defending Freedom in filing an amicus brief on this very question.

As the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been implemented, it has become painfully clear that it increases federal funding of abortion in unprecedented ways. For example, consider the following: the ACA authorizes taxpayer funded abortion in newly created High Risk Pool and Community Health Center funding. It authorizes taxpayer subsidies for insurance exchange plans that cover elective abortion, and in fact applies an “abortion premium surcharge” to some of the plans offered on the exchanges.
Despite this clear evidence of expanded taxpayer funding of abortion, the outcome of two lawsuits turns on the issue of whether the ACA does in fact expand taxpayer funded abortion.

In 2009 when Congress was debating the ACA, a group of 20 Pro-Life Congressmen were set to support an amendment to the law that would provide permanent bill-wide prohibitions on taxpayer funding for elective abortion. Among this group were Congressmen Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Steve Driehaus (D-OH). Caving to political pressure from within their party, and the promise of an executive order on the topic, most of these Congressmen abandoned their resistance and voted to send the bill to the President for signature without limiting language.

Pro-life groups made it very clear that, in the absence of significant limiting language, a vote for the ACA equaled a vote for taxpayer funded abortion. During the 2010 midterm elections, the Susan B. Anthony List—a pro-life group dedicated to electing pro-life candidates—launched its Votes Have Consequences program to hold these so-called “pro-life” Democrats accountable for their votes, votes that opened the flood gates for unprecedented taxpayer funding of abortion. SBA’s efforts helped defeat 15 out of 20 of the Democrats who failed to hold firm on their pro-life principles during the vote on the ACA.

Congressman Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) cited SBA’s efforts as the reason for his defeat, and went so far as to sue SBA for defamation. In the lawsuit, Driehaus alleges that the SBA cost him his job and a “loss of livelihood” by educating constituents about his vote in favor of the ACA. One of their efforts consisted of erecting billboards in his district in 2010 stating that by voting for the ACA, Driehaus voted for taxpayer funded abortion. Currently this suit is at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on the issue of whether SBA’s actions constitute defamation.

LLDF’s Amicus brief filed Friday, March 21, 2014 argues that SBA’s statements were truthful and were protected speech and thus should not be censored by any application of the law.
“This brief lays out the numerous ways in which the ACA provides taxpayer funding for abortion,” states Dana Cody, LLDF’s President and Executive Director. “As such, SBA’s political advertisements were objectively true, and this lawsuit is exposed for what it really is—an attack on pro-life speech.”

In a related case, SBA has gone on the offensive challenging an Ohio election law that allows the Ohio Elections Commission to decide the truth or falsity of some political advertisements. The law makes it a crime to publish false statements. Here again, the truth of the statements that SBA sought to publish can be objectively established both by the legislative record and by the events that have transpired since the passage of the ACA. This case is currently being appealed by writ of Certiorari to the United States Supreme Court.

“It violates the law for a pro-life political organization to speak the truth about a Congressman’s voting record?” questions Dana Cody. “What has happened to free speech and the marketplace of ideas? We trust that this misguided Ohio law will be overturned and that SBA and others will be free to speak the truth without fear.”