Archive for August, 2014

This is not a conspiracy theory: Planned Parenthood is targeting black women with this dangerous drug

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Ben Johnson recently wrote a great article about the damaging effects of the Gardasil (HPV) vaccine.  In his article, he talks about women who have died, 96 to be exact. And those are just the ones that have been reported. He talks about women who have lost their fertility after receiving the highly regarded HPV vaccine. But the main focus of the article is how the Gardasil vaccine is being heavily promoted to the African-American community through ad placement on BET (Black Entertainment Television). When I read his article, my conspiracy alarms went off. Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist (although I find people who are quite entertaining). But when I heard about these ads, my memory was triggered. Of course Planned Parenthood is trying to target minorities with this vaccine…they are getting big reimbursement for injecting their low income patients with this dangerous drug! Then I knew I had to write this article about my own experience inside Planned Parenthood regarding Gardasil. When Gardasil came out, Planned Parenthood was PUMPED. “Such a wonderful way to serve women,” they said. “This will help prevent cancer for so many young women,” one of my coworkers raved. But then I heard the real reason behind the excitement, “We are going to make so much money off of this vaccine.” Bingo. Of course they were excited. Each injection was going to cost around $200, and women have to get three to be “fully protected.” Six hundred dollars for a vaccine. That was a lot of money. But then I thought to myself, “Our clients don’t have $600 for a vaccine. This is going to be a huge flop.” What I didn’t know about at that time was the “Merck Vaccine Assistance Program.” Merck is the manufacturer of Gardasil. This program would pay 100% for the cost of the vaccine itself. Our patients would just have to pay a little $30 “injection fee” per vaccine. Ninety dollars versus six hundred was definitely doable. Next we were instructed to offer Gardasil to EVERY woman age 11-26 who walked through our doors. “Oh, you are here for a vaginal infection? How about a vaccine, too?” “Oh, I see you marked that you had Herpes and need treatment. Well, you better get this vaccine so you won’t get genital warts, too.” These may seem funny, but it was seriously how we were told to sell this vaccine to our clients. So, we started signing people up by the dozens. We faxed off countless applications for the “Vaccine Assistance Program.” Almost everyone was approved (most of our clients were low income). We were running out of vaccines. Those little bottles were flying off our refrigerator shelves at around $170 a piece, for which Planned Parenthood was being reimbursed by the Merck program. I’ve never been of the belief that Planned Parenthood operates solely out of racism, but strictly sees money-making opportunities and goes for them…unfortunately, that is usually at the expense of minority women. I don’t know if any of these women came back in with complications. I don’t know if they presented to the ER with problems. It’s not like we did any follow up. Heck, I don’t even know if they got all three doses. My gut tells me that 80% of them did not. Back to the conspiracy idea. Planned Parenthood just ran a series of ads promoting Gardasil on BET (Black Entertainment Television). Ninety-six women have died, several have experienced sterility, and yet Planned Parenthood launches a big campaign targeting the African-American community? The pro-life movement has talked for years about how Planned Parenthood targets our minority community in the United States. And even if we totally scrap the fact that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a raging racist we can still look and find racism inside of the organization. I’ve written before about the document that we were NOT to talk about inside of Planned Parenthood…the “Jaffe Memo.” Here is my article about that memo and what it entailed. This document was written in the late ’60s by a high level official with Planned Parenthood. You will notice some really interesting ideas in the document. “Fertility control agents in water supply” “Eliminate Welfare payments after first 2 children” “Encourage increased homosexuality” “Compulsory sterilization of all who have two children except for a few who would be allowed three” “Payments to encourage abortion” The document was proposed to the Population Council (a eugenics-based population control organization led by its first president, Frederick Osborn, who also served as the President of the American Eugenics Society). This was one of Planned Parenthood’s first attempts (after Margaret Sanger’s shenanigans) to reduce the minority population. We also know that currently over 70% of Planned Parenthood facilities are located in low income, high minority communities. We know that more than 50% of African-American pregnancies end in abortion. We know that Planned Parenthood has dumped tons of money into “Promotora” programs that go into Latino communities and convince them that Planned Parenthood is the ONLY place they can go for health care. And now, they are targeting these same communities for the dangerous Gardasil vaccine. I mean, am I crazy? How is it that rational people can’t see what Planned Parenthood is doing here? I’ve never been of the belief that Planned Parenthood operates solely out of racism, but strictly sees money-making opportunities and goes for them…unfortunately, that is usually at the expense of minority women. And the bottom line is that this will continue to happen until these minority communities wake up to the realization that Planned Parenthood is USING them to pad their bottom line. They don’t care about health care for minorities. They care about making money off of you! This won’t stop until people stand up to this abortion giant and say “NO MORE.” What will it take for these Black and Hispanic women to simply say, “We will not be used. We will not be your pawns. We will no longer be lied to. We are better than Planned Parenthood.” Kris Ford, an African-American woman who runs Women’s Health and Justice Initiative, said it better than I can. “Planned Parenthood has ignored the voices of women of color and the organizations that women of color lead for years. Planned Parenthood continues to raise large sums of money off of issues of reproductive justice while framing the issues as a binary that leaves out the experiences of women and communities of color.” It’s time to do something about it. Stop buying the lie.

Congressman: New HHS rule is an ‘obnoxious, unprecedented government attack on conscience rights’

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U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith speaks at the Rally for Religious Freedom held in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on May 8, 2014.

The nation’s political leaders – including one of the most outspoken pro-life leaders in Congress – have dismissed the new HHS mandate revision as the latest attempt to coerce religious non-profits and closely held corporations into paying for abortifacient drugs, contraception, and sterilization that violate their deeply held religious beliefs.
The latest change allows religious non-profits to contact the government with their religious objection to the HHS mandate, and the government in turn will notify the non-profit’s insurance provider of the need to furnish women with the offending drugs “free of charge.”
The penalty for entities that fail to comply is still $100 a day, or $36,500 a year, for each employee.
Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus called the new rule “just another highly coercive regulation — a direct, obnoxious, unprecedented government attack on the conscience rights of religious entities and anyone else who for moral reasons cannot and will not include potentially abortion-causing drugs — such as ella — or contraception and sterilization procedures in their private insurance plans.”
Arina Grossu, director for the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, said the revised procedure “remains an insulting accounting gimmick does not protect the rights of Americans with sincere conscientious objections.”
The new proposal also seeks to find a way to force closely held corporations into a similar procedure, in response to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision.
Grossu sees this as an attempt to violate the religious liberty of closely held corporations and a power-grab around the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision.
Grossu says the Obama administration is still “soliciting comment on new ways to force family businesses to violate their deeply held moral and religious convictions due to the HHS mandate in an attempt to address and skirt the recent Supreme Court ruling. However, the government’s actions here still force family businesses to be complicit in what they view as morally wrong.”
“This overreach by the Obama administration is intended only to ensnare family businesses back into the web of the mandate,” Rep. Smith said.
Grossu added, “The Family Research Council urges the administration to offer a full exemption from the mandate to charities and non-profits that have sincere conscientious objections and to respect the Supreme Court’s ruling regarding family businesses like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties.”
Meanwhile, Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood objected that critics’ objections are based in fanaticism.
“Once again, we’re reminded of the great lengths opponents are willing to go to put barriers between women and their birth control,” she said. “While the Obama administration is working hard to protect women’s access to birth control in the face of harmful Supreme Court decisions, today’s notice also serves as a stark reminder of what is at stake for women in this country when it comes to affordable basic health care.”
But religious leaders say both religion and the Constitution rebuff the revision.
Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, “When it comes to these contentious issues I don’t necessarily expect those who disagree with us to ask ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ But, in this case, asking ‘What Would Jefferson Do?’ would be a good start.”

Archbishop Coakley’s Statement on Return of Stolen Host to the Catholic Church

OKLAHOMA CITY (Aug. 21, 2014) – Archbishop Coakley announced Thursday that the consecrated Host at the center of a lawsuit filed in Oklahoma County District Court has been returned.
An attorney representing the head of the satanic group presented the Host to a Catholic priest Thursday afternoon. The lawsuit sought return of the Host following multiple public statements by the head of the local satanic group that they planned to defile and desecrate the consecrated Host during a satanic ‘black mass’ scheduled next month in Oklahoma City.
With the return of the Host and an accompanying signed statement from the satanic group leader that the group no longer possesses a consecrated Host, nor will they use a consecrated Host in their rituals, the archbishop agreed to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice.
“I am relieved that we have been able to secure the return of the sacred Host, and that we have prevented its desecration as part of a planned satanic ritual,” said Archbishop Paul Coakley of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. “I remain concerned about the dark powers that this satanic worship invites into our community and the spiritual danger that this poses to all who are involved in it, directly or indirectly.”
Archbishop Coakley has made repeated requests for the city’s leaders to cancel the satanic ritual in a publicly funded facility.
“I have raised my concerns … and pointed out how deeply offensive this proposed sacrilegious act is to Christians and especially to the more than 250,000 Catholics who live in Oklahoma.”
On Sept. 21, the day the satanic ritual has been scheduled, the archbishop invites the Catholic community as well as all Christians and people of good will to join him in prayer for a Eucharistic Holy Hour at 3 p.m. at St. Francis of Assisi Church, 1901 NW 18, followed by an outdoor Procession and Benediction.
“For more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide, the Mass is the most sacred of religious rituals,” the archbishop said. “It is the center of Catholic worship and celebrates Jesus Christ’s redemption of the world by his death and resurrection.

We are grateful for the gift of the Eucharist and pray that this threatened sacrilege will heighten our appreciation and deepen our faith in the Lord’s Eucharistic presence among us.”

We want the Blessed Sacrament back!

SPECIAL NOTE: Jesus called us to be as wise as serpents, innocent as doves. In this case, my friend Michael Caspino might be wiser than the serpents. Please read this important guest message from the attorney representing Archbishop Coakley in the fight over the planned Black Mass in Oklahoma.
Brian Burch
Dear Friend of CatholicVote,

Have you heard about the “Black Mass” that a Satanist group has planned for next month in Oklahoma City?

The fake mass mocking our Faith is bad enough. But the Satanic group behind it has bragged that they have a consecrated host and intend to use it.
This must be stopped.
My own prayer and consultation with legal friends prompted an idea. So today I filed a lawsuit on behalf of Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley demanding that that consecrated host be returned to the Church immediately.
The lawsuit is simple: a consecrated host only comes from the Catholic Church. Satanists acquired the host by theft or fraud – both of which are illegal ways of acquiring property. That means that the Satanists have a legal obligation to return the stolen property.
And guess what…
The judge has ordered the Satanists not to destroy the host.
Furthermore, the lawsuit demands that the Satanists return the consecrated host to Archbishop Coakley in 5 days — or the judge may order them to do so.
In our lawsuit, Archbishop Coakley explains that not only is the consecrated host the rightful property of the Catholic Church, it is literally priceless. No value can be placed on the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.
So this is where you come in…
I’m willing to fight these black mass efforts with the law anywhere and everywhere they pop up.
But I also know there’s one thing that Archbishop Coakley would want you to do: Pray.
The Saint Michael prayer is the prayer he has asked Catholics everywhere to pray to win this fight. Will you join me in praying this prayer for the next 5 days?
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Comment “yes” or simply “Like” this on Facebook to tell the CatholicVote.org team that you are praying.
I will let the Archbishop know that you are praying for him, and the Church in Oklahoma City.
For the Faith,
Michael W. Caspino, J.D.

Pope Francis Visits Cemetery for Babies Who Were Victims of Abortion

by Steven Ertelt | Seoul, South Korea | LifeNews.com | 8/18/14

Over the weekend, Pope Francis visited a memorial in South Korea dedicated to remembering babies who have been victimized by abortions.

The leader of the Catholic Church is inspired by something done in and around The Vatican shortly after the death of Jesus Christ. Dug into the walls of the ancient Christian catacombs in the outskirts of Rome are countless small tombs, only a foot or two across. These are the burial places of infants cast out of their pagan homes and left to die of starvation and exposure—a common practice of that time. Members of the Early Church, charged by Christ to love all their neighbors, offered these tiny victims of Roman cruelty the only act of love they could: to bury their little bodies and mourn for them in prayer.

The abortion memorial, located at the Kkottongnae home for the sick about 120 miles from Seoul, is a field dotted with white crosses and statues of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as a child. Francis paused briefly at the site, bowed his head and folded his hand in prayer, the Boston Globe reports.

Jung Kwang-ryul of the Kkottongnae community, described the site as a “one-of-a-kind memorial,” saying the Pope’s stop is “a clear testimony of his defense of life.”

“It is necessary to reiterate the strongest opposition to any direct attack on life, especially innocent and defenseless, and her unborn child in the womb is the innocent par excellence,” the pope said in April.

The Kkttongnae Home, located in the Diocese of Cheongju, was created in 1976 by Father John Oh, the founder of the Kkottongnae Brothers and Sisters of Jesus. The priest was inspired by a beggar named Choi Gwi Dong to feed 18 other sick beggars despite his own physical handicaps.

It offers assistance to the homeless, disabled individuals and alcohol addicts. Currently it can serve around 5,000 people.

The Cemetery for Aborted Children is located behind the home and includes a statue of the Holy Family surrounded by cross representing the unborn.

During the National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children next month in the United States, mourners across the country will visit the gravesites of aborted children, whose broken bodies were recovered from trash dumpsters and pathology labs and solemnly buried over the four decades of legal abortion in the United States

3 ways to defend your conservative beliefs, AND still have friends afterwards

By Jonathon Van Maren, Mon Aug 18, 2014

There is intense social pressure to avoid even bringing up any controversial moral issues, and doing so can result in ire, accusations, and marginalization.

The year of our Lord 2014 finds us in a much different era than even a few short decades ago. The belief that a corrupt and decadent cabal of academics, politicians, and celebrities are trumpeting trends that the average hard-working, moral citizen – the “moral majority” – despises, has long since crumbled.

Presidential candidate George McGovern was widely mocked in 1972 as running on a platform of “acid, amnesty, and abortion.”
The Obama Democrats in 2012 called that a winning strategy.

The Sexual Revolution has made a clean sweep. Any pretense North Americans might have of living in “godly” nations look almost humorously naive. As the moral majority fades to a distinctly despised minority, how can Christians articulate their now-despised views on anything from marriage to abortion to the hook-up culture?

There is intense social pressure to avoid even bringing up any of these topics, and doing so can result in ire, accusations, and marginalization.

The biblical book of Proverbs informs us, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.” Better advice in our current culture wars could not possibly be given.

I remember one awkward moment back in university, when I attended a Fraser Institute dinner featuring George W. Bush’s right-hand man, Karl Rove. After he finished his analysis of the 2008 election campaigns, Rove took questions from the audience. One wealthy attendee, probably assuming that it was a safe joke, made some comment about a certain Democrat—I can’t recall which—having a string of wives. Rove’s short, terse response killed every snicker in the room: “I’ve been divorced.” I sympathized with the hapless businessman. I began my own university career hopelessly unequipped to deal with any discussions articulating my Christian beliefs. I realized very quickly that the principles I had taken for granted, coming as I did from a loving home with parents married for life and with my views untainted by the sexual nihilism promoted by the television shows they did not permit in the house, were not at all the consensus. Some disagreed with these principles because they were inconvenient. Others, because they were moral relativists. Others, because they thought religion was stupid. Many of these people were my classmates. Some of them became my friends. And as I navigated the shrilly left-wing landscape of modern university, I learned a few ways of defending my principles without automatically alienating those I was debating.

1. Always ask questions. Anyone who has taken a pro-life training course will not be surprised to hear that the Socratic Method is always the best. When I was confronted by university friends and peers on some of my perspectives that they found downright incredible, questions were always helpful. One friend demanded to know why I wasn’t sleeping around. I responded with a question: “How many of the people that you were with do you wish you hadn’t hooked up with?” After a pause, the thoughtful response: “Most of them, I guess. Maybe even all of them.” Another classmate demanded to know how I could call myself “a dude” if I wasn’t “sleeping with chicks.” I simply asked him whether it took more of a man to keep one woman happy for a lifetime or dozens for ten minutes. To that one, I got an arched eyebrow, an appreciative chuckle, and no follow-up questioning. In none of these cases and many others did I end up in a verbal brawl over sexual ethics. Instead, they thought about their own views, and gained a bit of respect for mine.

2. Always see whoever you’re debating with as a person first. I know it seems trite and perhaps a bit precious, but it’s absolutely true. I remember watching a documentary on the battle over Proposition 8 in California, where gay marriage proponents and opponents screamed at each other in the streets, unstoppable force meeting immovable object. It brings to mind a few lines from Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach,” in which he explains that the world: Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. However, when you discuss things with people instead of placards, it’s amazing how the relationships that form can help others question some of their perspectives. We see this all the time debating abortion—once people realize that you’re not going to yell at them, that you just want to chat, and that you’re not judgmental monsters who are there to condemn them, they calm down. One pro-choice protestor screamed at me for ten minutes. Eventually, however, we had a three hour conversation that resulted in her tearing up her own sign. Once I was no longer a protestor but a person, she had to take me more seriously. She just had to realize that pro-lifers were people before she could grasp that pre-born children, are, too. Another time I was chatting with one of my friends, who happens to be gay, with whom I have extensively debated cultural issues. He started to talk about how support for traditional marriage is bigoted. But I interrupted him with a question: “Would you call me homophobic?” He barely paused. “I’d call you a friend,” he said, and carried on with the conversation.

3. Don’t get angry. Trust me, I know this one is difficult sometimes. At university, I failed this one multiple times. But if you choose to engage—and you should—on cultural issues like abortion or pornography or sexual ethics in general, where people’s views are often rooted in their own experiences and those of people that they love, staying calm is essential. As defensive as you might be when your principles are under attack, always remember that the people you are discussing or arguing with are probably just as defensive as you are. The biblical book of Proverbs informs us, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.” Better advice in our current culture wars could not possibly be given. That doesn’t mean we compromise on truth, and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a time for “righteous indignation” in defence of our beliefs. But in the context of a one-on-one conversation with a university peer, many of whom will try to bait you, this advice is essential. I was involved in all sorts of campus rabble-rousing at university, and while I, being the loudmouth that I am, thoroughly enjoyed vociferous encounters, one of the lessons I learned and have learned time and time again since is that we often need less heat and more light. Keep your cool, and you might be surprised at how productive your conversations will turn out.

In summation, I always think of my discussions with university peers in the terms of one of Aesop’s Fables. The Wind and the Sun were debating as to which was the strongest, and decided to have a contest to resolve the issue. They decided to see which one of them could cause a man walking down the road to take off his cloak. The Wind howled and blew and whipped around the man, who only clung to his cloak all the harder and pulled it around him, until the Wind finally gave up in despair. The Sun simply shone brighter and warmer until the man relinquished his cloak and took it off. We have a chance on campuses to have real, meaningful discussions with our peers on the issues that matter the most. And we should

Why the Catholic Church is right to fire openly homosexual employees

By Dustgin Siggins, Monday 18 August 2014

One of the duties we take most seriously at LifeSiteNews is fidelity to the Church’s teachings. We’ve reported on the priest abuse scandal, held Catholic Relief Services responsible for its partnerships with abortion groups, and noted Catholic politicians who publicly oppose Church teachings on life and marriage.

We also report on news that is less sexy, but no less important when it comes to upholding the Church’s teachings. For example, a few weeks ago, we reported on the firing of a choir director at a Chicago parish. The man was fired over his “engagement” to another man. How do all of these stories relate? They are all about fidelity to the Church by Catholics, but they also attempt to explain to Catholics and non-Catholics alike what the Church teaches — not what dissident individuals or media interpretations pretend the Church says.
It is with this in mind that I would like to address what appear to be a few misunderstandings by hundreds of Catholics in Chicago who believe the aforementioned choir director was unjustly fired.

First, to make sure we’re all on the same page, here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches on the morality of homosexual relationships:

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

In Chicago, it appears that Colin Collete — the former choir director — does not understand that this is the Church’s teaching. In our piece on his firing, we quoted Collete: “I said, ‘I’m not going to resign. God brought me to this moment and God is saying this is why I created you. You are here to live and love,’” Collette told the Chicago Sun-Times. Likewise, the Chicago Tribune notes that Collete “received a standing ovation” when he walked into a meeting of approximately 700 people who wanted to discuss his firing.

So it appears that hundreds of local parishioners also don’t understand the Church’s teaching. Now that we’ve defined what the Catholic Church’s view of morality is, as it relates to homosexual relationships, it is important to ask why the parish fired him.

It appears that Collete’s relationship was accepted by local parishioners, as well as the priest. But when Cardinal Francis George found out that Collete got “engaged” to a man, his employment was ended.

Why did this happen?

First, to quote LifeSiteNews co-founder John-Henry Westen, “It is important that a choir director be able to sing and direct other musicians. But it’s more important that a choir directors be in line with the Church’s teachings both for their own sakes and for those in the Church who look up to them.”
In other words, the first and most important qualification to be a choir director at a Catholic Church isn’t skill at the material skill, but rather the ability to be an effective advocate and leader for the Church.

Second, the firing happened because Collete posted a picture of himself and his partner on Facebook, and that picture was brought to the attention of the cardinal. Now, not only was Collete violating the Church’s teachings in his private relationship — putting his body and soul at great risk — but he was publicly disagreeing with a core teaching of the Church. To put it another way: By promoting his relationship on Facebook, Collete was causing scandal for the Church.

A few excerpts from the Catechism, with emphasis added: Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense. Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”86 Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep’s clothing.87 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. “Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!”90

Did Collete cause scandal, as a leader in his parish who was violating the Church’s teachings on sexuality and marriage?
The answer is undoubtedly “yes,” and thus the Church could not employ someone who would lead others to mortal sin and/or a rejection of the Church’s teachings.

Lastly, Collete was quoted as talking about “love.” What is love? I could quote St. Paul, who talked about what love is and is not, but I like the definition I came up with for my own understanding: Love is putting the needs of others first, even — and, perhaps, especially — when it’s difficult.

What does that mean with regards to Collete? Like a parent who does not let his or her child do something against the child’s best interests, those who uphold the Church’s teachings on sexuality must show love to those in the Church, and to God, by holding all members of the Church accountable.
Likewise, out of love, Collete must be made aware of the sins he is committing — scandal, pride, and sexual relations — so that he can realize them and change his life accordingly.

Love is not an emotion one feels for another, which Collete’s quote indicates. It is about doing what is best for the other — even if the short-term consequences are unpleasant.

Unfortunately, Collete’s situation is not the only one facing various parishes and dioceses. Some have seen lawsuits filed, even though the Church is merely acting within the tenets of its faith. Unlike businesses — which rightly look at the bottom line as a most critical factor in making hiring decisions — the Church has a higher calling: To bring all people to Christ. And while individuals in it regularly fail — e.g. the priest scandal — that does not take away from the importance of putting God, and His Church, first.

The gift of a baby sibling

This video begins with a young girl and her brother looking at ultrasound pictures of the latest addition to their family. But they can’t quite make out what these pictures are until Dad announces that Mommy has a new baby brother or sister in her tummy. The response is magical, especially for the daughter who appears to be about 5 or 6 years old. Children seem to have an innate love for a newborn sibling, even before birth. Mom and Dad will certainly have lots of help caring for and entertaining this precious gift from God. What material gift can compare? Give the gift that keeps on giving–for eternity!

“The Quest for a Culture of Life in America”

Preparation for synods

Archbishop Schnurr urges prayer for pending same-sex marriage cases

Staff Report
On Wednesday, August 6, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Cincinnati, will review challenges to laws upholding traditional marriage in four states — Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. The court will review all the cases together.

A report by the Associated Press called Wednesday “one of the most important days yet in the wave of legal efforts around the country to overturn marriage bans.”

With such an important legal moment on the horizon, Archbishop of Cincinnati Dennis M. Schnurr released a statement urging prayer for the court, that it will act correctly to uphold traditional marriage.

“The law in our state was a constitutional amendment strongly supported by Ohio’s bishops in 2004, and for good reason,” Archbishop Schnurr wrote. “Traditional marriage, the union of one man and one woman for life, is the cradle of the family, which is the basic building block of society.”

Ohio Right to Life shared Archbishop Schnurr’s statement with their media release list along with an invitation to join others on Wednesday, from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., outside the courthouse in prayer. The Potter Stewart Courthouse is located at 200 East Fifth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.

Below is the full text of Archbishop Schnurr’s statement and accompanying prayer.

“On August 6, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati will be hearing arguments on efforts to strike down laws against “same-sex marriage” in four states, including Ohio. The law in our state was a constitutional amendment strongly supported by Ohio’s bishops in 2004, and for good reason.

Traditional marriage, the union of one man and one woman for life, is the cradle of the family, which is the basic building block of society. And at the same time, as Pope Francis said last April: “The image of God is a married couple, man and woman, not only man, not only woman, but rather both. This is the image of God: love, God’s alliance with us is represented in the alliance between man and woman.” Please join me in praying that the federal appeals court will act wisely to uphold traditional marriage. One appropriate prayer would be the USCCB’s “Prayer in Defense of Marriage.”

Prayer in Defense of Marriage

God our Father, we give you thanks
for the gift of marriage: the bond of life and love,
and the font of the family.

The love of husband and wife enriches your Church with children,
fills the world with a multitude of spiritual fruitfulness and service,
and is the sign of the love of your Son, Jesus Christ, for his Church.

The grace of Jesus flowed forth at Cana at the
request of the Blessed Mother. May your Son,
through the intercession of Mary, pour out upon us
a new measure of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit
as we join with all people of good will
to promote and protect the unique beauty of marriage.

May your Holy Spirit enlighten our society
to treasure the heroic love of husband and wife,
and guide our leaders to sustain and protect
the singular place of mothers and fathers
in the lives of their children.

Father, we ask that our prayers
be joined to those of the Virgin Mary,
that your Word may transform our service
so as to safeguard the incomparable splendor of marriage.
We ask all these things through Christ our Lord,
Amen.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Vatican Official Clarifies Stand On Vaccines From Fetal Tissue

VATICAN, July 26, 2005 (CWNews.com /LifeSiteNews.com) – Although the Pontifical Academy for Life has strongly condemned the development of vaccines from fetal tissues, the president of that Academy notes that parents may still be justified in having their children inoculated with such vaccines.

Bishop Elio Sgreccia, in a July 23 interview with Vatican Radio, clarified the position taken by the Pontifical Academy for Life, in response to an inquiry from an American pro-life group. The bishop said that pharmaceutical manufacturers have a grave moral obligation to provide vaccines that do not use fetal tissues. But parents whose children may risk serious disease without inoculation may still choose vaccination, he said.

Bishop Sgreccia said that the Vatican had sent a two-part message to the American pro-life group. “On the one hand,” he said, “in a particular context such as that in the United States, it is licit to use these vaccines, because there are no others actually available.” The bishop explained that parents have a serious obligation to protect their children from disease whenever possible, and in doing so they are not signaling their approval for aborton.

On the other hand, Bishop Sgreccia continued, drug manufacturers have the choice to provide vaccines that do not use fetal tissue, so their continued use of the “tainted” vaccines does involve formal cooperation in abortion. He said that government should press the pharmaceutical companies to make other vaccines available, using morally licit means such as the use of animal tissue, and Catholic families should join actively in that pressure campaign.

In a paper published in Medicina e Morale , a journal published by Rome’s University of the Sacred Heart, the Pontifical Academy had argued that parents might have the right to refuse vaccinations. The paper argued even more strongly that parents have an obligation—and government an even stronger obligation—to press for the development of vaccines that are not developed from fetal tissues.

The Vatican document—which was made public last week by the American group, Children of God for Life—said that different actors have different degrees of moral involvement in the use of fetal tissues. While drug manufacturers are “culpable of cooperation” in abortion, the parents who are under pressure to use vaccines have only a “very remote material cooperation” in the immoral act, the paper argues.

Even if they do accept vaccination for their children, the Vatican statement argued, parents remain obligated to press for the ethical development of other vaccines.
The statement from the Pontifical Academy for Life was approved by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Vatican Condemns Vaccines Made with Tissue Obtained by Abortion
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05071801.html

Vatican Condemns Vaccines Made with Tissue Obtained by Abortion

LARGO, FL, July 18, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Pontifical Academy for Life under the direction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued an “approved” study regarding vaccines derived from aborted fetal cell lines. The study was undertaken in response to a US group called Children of God for Life, which has for years fought for the creation of ethical vaccines which are not ‘tainted’ by abortion.

In the document published in Medicina e Morale by the Center for Bioethics of Catholic University in Rome and titled, Moral Reflections On Vaccines Prepared From Cells Derived From Aborted Human Foetuses, Vatican officials put the burden of guilt 100% on the pharmaceutical industry, comparing their moral complicity to that of the abortionists themselves.

The 8-page document, which has been anxiously awaited for several years by pro-life parents and physicians nationwide states that, doctors and families “have a duty to take recourse to alternatives, putting pressure on political authorities and health systems…They should use conscientious objection and oppose by all means ” in writing, through various associations, mass media, etc, – the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared, which are not connected with the abortion of a human foetus…”

The document, which can be viewed in full athttp://www.cogforlife.org/vaticanresponse.htm also supports parents who refuse to use the vaccines, citing that those who have been forced to vaccinate experience “a moral coercion of the conscience … an unjust alternative choice which must be eliminated as soon as possible.”

Debi Vinnedge, Executive Director of Children of God for Life Executive Director, who has battled this issue for years and received the document and letter directly from Bishop Elio Sgreccia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
“We brought the matter to Canon lawyers at the St. Joseph Foundation prior to sending an appeal on to the Vatican,” Vinnedge said. “There is a serious problem when parents are denied the right to abstain from these vaccines in accord with State law, simply because there was nothing from the Vatican directly addressing it.”

Vinnedge says the Vatican document, which calls for “rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers” should also spur action on their Fair Labeling and Informed Consent Act, introduced to members of Congress earlier this year. The legislation requires that pharmaceutical companies give full disclosure whenever aborted fetal or embryonic cell lines are used in their products.

Dr Steven White, President of the Catholic Medical Association agreed. “We must demand that the pharmaceutical industry provide accurate information on the origin of all vaccines so that we are able to make informed decisions in accord with our moral conscience – and we must mobilize to support development of ethical alternatives,” he said.

Using contraception increases breast cancer by 50%, new study finds

By Dustin Siggins

A study of 1,102 women has found that use of several kinds of birth control pills was linked to greater chances of developing breast cancer.

In a press release provided to LifeSiteNews by the American Association for Cancer Research (AARC), the study’s authors found that high-dose estrogen pills “increased breast cancer risk 2.7-fold,” while “those containing moderate-dose estrogen increased the risk 1.6-fold.”

Likewise, “pills containing ethynodiol diacetate” – such as Zovia and Demulen – “increased the risk 2.6-fold, and triphasic combination pills” – like Ortho Tri-Cyclen, Tri-Levien, and Triphasi – “containing an average of 0.75 milligrams of norethindrone increased the risk 3.1-fold.”

Pills with low doses of estrogen were not found to increase the risk of breast cancer.

The study found that recent use of oral contraceptives increased the risk of breast cancer by 50 percent when compared with those who have never used the birth control pills or are no longer using them.

Unlike a majority of other studies of the link between birth control pills and breast cancer, Beaber and her fellow authors did not rely on self-reporting or recall by women about their use of birth control. Instead, they used electronic pharmacy records to gather detailed information on the study participants.

The study, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute, is just the latest linking birth control pills to cancer and other ills. A report earlier this year found that chemicals in contraceptives are causing the feminization of male fish in Spain.

In 2013, a study found that using birth control for at least three years led to a greater chance of getting glaucoma. Teen girls who use contraceptives were found to have increased blood pressure in an Australian study done in 2012, and a Denmark study released earlier this year found birth control pills may damage the fertility of women who use them.

The AARC study, which was published by Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AARC), studied women who were at Group Health Cooperative in the Seattle area and received cancer diagnoses between 1990 and 2009. It had 21,952 controls.

According to the press release, “about 24 percent, 78 percent, and less than 1 percent of study controls who were recent oral contraceptive users filled at least one prescription in the past year for low-, moderate-, and/or high-estrogen dose oral contraceptives, respectively.”

In other words, women rarely filled prescriptions for the most dangerous of the pills — those with high estrogen doses. The odds of breast cancer across the nation are approximately 1.5 percent at age 40.

However, one of the AARC study’s authors cautioned that the study’s “results require confirmation.”

Population Control Movement Contains the Seeds of its Own Destruction (and Ours)

By Paul Wilson

One of the favorite claims of the population control movement is that the world is running out of resources: food, energy, and space. “There is plenty of evidence to suggest that humanity is already exceeding the planet’s limits and that we are reducing the earth’s capacity to support life, including human life,” purported Robert Walker, the president of the Population Institute, in a recent debate with our own Steven Mosher.

These—and similar dire predictions—have been bandied about for over two hundred years. The overpopulation drum-beaters repeatedly claim the imminent end of humanity, perpetually predicting earth-ending disaster just around the corner. These predictions, unsurprisingly, have not come to pass.

One, of course, might be tempted to dismiss the claims of population alarmists as the warnings of well-funded but harmless cranks. One might be tempted to wave them away with a rather cynical sort of amusement if government officials did not take their claims as dark gospel—and if their vision of population control was not exported to poorer countries, often by force.

It is therefore important to understand why their relentless claims of impending disaster never come to fruition. Population controllers falsely assume an arbitrarily static model of technological growth, coupled with an endlessly growing population—a “population bomb” without any advances to sustain ever-growing hordes.

In a certain sense, they are correct—if society did not advance technologically, and the population grew indefinitely, then the human race would not be able to provide enough necessities for its continued survival.

But that has never happened. The pace of technological advance has grown faster over time, making larger populations possible. In fact, the pace of advance has grown faster than the pace of population growth. Today, the world population is the largest it has ever been, yet the proportion of humans living in absolute poverty is the lowest it has ever been. This remarkable reality derives from the fact that human beings produce, as well as consume.

Because humans alone have the beautiful capacity to innovate, population control policies harm the very people they claim to help. Technological advance always comes from humans; it can never spring up from any other form of economic capital other than human capital. Alas, many in the corridors of power have bought into the claims that undesirable people (by which they often mean poor people in developing countries) must be reduced, or else the world will end in a sea of asphalt.

In short, the population control movement will create the very future it fears if its policies are adopted: a society stuck in economic stagnation, relying on the ever-diminishing resource of human ingenuity. By thinning the human population, you destroy the future. Humans are the world’s greatest resource.