Archive for April, 2015

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Pope Francis Stresses Difference, Complementarity of Genders

By Caitlin Bootsma

pope francisWhether the mainstream media chooses to cover it or not, Pope Francis’ General Audience yesterday (http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/general-audience-on-man-and-woman) confirmed once again that he upholds the Church’s teaching on marriage. In fact, he unabashedly challenges us saying that it is the “great responsibility of the Church, of all believers, and first of all of believing families, to rediscover the beauty of the creative design that inscribes the

image of God also in the alliance between man and woman.” There are those who would dismiss Pope Francis’s previous statements that he is a “son of the Church” when it comes to traditional, sacramental marriage. I’ve heard it claimed that he is just biding his time, waiting to introduce a more “tolerant”, more “accepting” teaching when it comes to marriage.

But those who are hoping that the Church will open the door to homosexual “marriage” and other unions will surely be disappointed. He says, “I wonder, for example, if the so-called gender theory is not also an expression of a frustration and of a resignation, which aims to cancel the sexual difference because it no longer knows how to address it.” He goes on to lament that intellectuals have—for the most part—ceased to explore the importance of family and marriage bonds because they wish to pursue what they see as a more “free” and more “just” society.

God is the author of marriage and the author of the family. This fact, the Pope explains, can not be underestimated: “God has entrusted the earth to the alliance of man and of woman: its failure makes the world arid of affections and darkens the sky of hope.”

The Pope encourages us to fight against this tendency in society to forget (or even to attempt to erase) the difference between sexes. The first action he suggests highlights one of the traits I like best about the Pope. He is unafraid to look at reality and Church teaching in a way that may not fit people’s stereotypes of him and of the Church. In this audience, he encourages us to give more weight to women’s voices. He draws our attention to the way that Jesus treated women and reminds us that “We have not yet understood in depth what things the feminine genius can give us, which woman can give to society and also to us.”

What I love about this statement, though, is that while some might be tempted to label Pope Francis as a progressive, he is not buying in to that agenda. He points out that recognizing this feminine genius is not an end in itself. Rather, he argues “we must do much more in favor of woman if we want to give back more strength to the reciprocity between men and women.” Giving more recognition to the unique talents and

gifts of women should not make women the same as men, but instead add to the richness of human society by recognizing the essential difference and complementarity of men and women.

His second recommendation reflects centuries of Church teaching, but applies it to our modern understanding of “marriage”. He points out that the union between man and woman is supposed to reflect communion with God. “The loss of trust in the celestial Father generates division and conflict between man and woman,” the pontiff said.

He urges us to more fully recognize the unique gifts of each sex, the way in which they complement each other. Further still, the only successful unions are ones that are first entrusted to God. He gives us hope, saying, “The earth is filled with harmony and trust when the alliance between man and woman is lived well.”

With these words, Pope Francis looks not only at theology or the world as a whole, but at each person, marriage and family. As usual, he speaks directly to the hearts of each one of us. We are reminded that we can make a difference in the world by the way we strengthen our relationship with God, living out our lives as a man or woman created in His image.

Caitlin Bootsma is the editor of

Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. Mrs. Bootsma received a Licentiate in Catholic Social Communications at the

Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome as well as a Master’s of Systematic Theology from Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College. She lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband and two sons.

“You are God’s child!”‏

Beloved, see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure. I John 3:1-3

 

We were in Los Angeles over Easter because our brother-in-law was received into the Church. It was so wonderful, so happy, so holy! We went to lunch one day with the family and I asked my niece’s son if he know who he was. I told him he was “God’s child.” It’s true!

I told Marcia’s sister and other Brother-in-law that I always ask the grandchildren who they are and they answer “God’s child” and I tell them to never forget it. I told them that through their Baptism they were God’s children too. It’s true!

At Easter Dinner I thanked my brother-in-law for allowing Marcia and I to be his Godparents. I told him to remember who he is through Baptism he is “God’s Child” and will be forever. It’s true!

We had dinner the other night with some old friends we hadn’t seen for years and in our conversation I told them the story of our grandchildren and about reminding them every chance I get that they are “God’s children.” They liked it and I let them know that they are too. It’s true!

At the “Growing Our Faith” meeting, a church group, I asked one of the members if she was a saint and she said yes because I had told her once, and praise the Holy Spirit who nudged me and caused her to believe it. I then asked everyone at the meeting if they were saints and they said yes. It is through there baptism that they are saints and “God’s children.” It’s true!

At Saturday night Mass Father reminded us that everyone is “Gods Children.’ It’s true!

Not only is it true it is our responsibility to remind each other often of this great gift of being God’s sons and daughters which makes us brothers and sisters. We have a responsibility to “Love one another” and help each other get to heaven.

Jesus commands us to be “Perfect as our heavenly father is Perfect.” Only Satan tells us we can’t … HE IS WRONG … HE IS A LIER!!

I’m telling all of you, especially my children, that they are “God’s children and never forget it.” Tell yours today because it’s true.

Be a saint today … tomorrow may be too late.

Jesus, make my family and friends holy.

Jesus let the babies cry.

A War on Maternity Waged in the Name of Mother Earth

mother earth daySteven W. Mosher and Anne Morse, 21 April 2015

I often come across persons who attempt to justify forced abortion, sterilization, and contraception because “We (that is, human beings) are destroying the planet”. They view people as pollution, and argue that it is necessary to violate reproductive rights to protect the planet from the beings who are despoiling it. Yet that logic is intrinsically flawed.

Let us put it this way. Which of these do not belong: nitrous oxide, methane, Homo sapiens, or carbon dioxide?

The obvious answer is : “Homo sapiens.”

Pregnant women do not produce nitrous oxide. Childbirth does not generate methane. A newborn baby does breathe out carbon dioxide, but this is not a “pollutant” at all but a trace gas on which most life depends.

Yes, any given infant may grow up to be a notorious polluter, just as he may grow up to, say, recklessly endanger the lives of others by driving drunk. But such behaviors are not foregone conclusions. Unlike nitrous oxide, methane, or carbon dioxide, human beings have free will.

It is simply not true that more people equals more pollution. We have twice as many people living in the United States as we did in the early seventies, yet the skies over our major cities are clearer now than they were a half century ago. This is because the internal combustion engines that power our motor vehicles are no longer spewing out thousands of tons of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants into the atmosphere as we drive. And this in turn is because we made a conscious decision to switch to cleaner burning fuels and install catalytic converters downstream from our engines.

As this example suggests, pollution is created by particular human behaviors such as the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels or the indiscriminate spraying of harmful pesticides. It can be corrected by altering that same behavior. Reducing the number of babies born will not solve these and other environmental problems.

No one would suggest that every baby born into a tech-savvy household will indubitably mature into a cyber-terrorist. Yet there are those who seem to believe that every baby human born will mature into a waste-creating, polar-bear-murdering, earth-destroying eco-terrorist. This is completely unreasonable. To be sure, some infants will grow up to secretly dump raw sewage into fragile estuaries, but many others will start compost piles and grow their own vegetables in backyard gardens.

No one can guarantee that any given infant will grow up to be a good conservationist, any more than anyone can guarantee that any given infant will grow up into a happy well-adjusted adult. Everyone, as we noted above, enjoys free will.

But it is true that—thanks to technological advances, reasonable environmental regulations, and education that emphasizes good stewardship—we have made great strides in recent decades. Very large populations can actually have a much smaller

environmental footprint than a much smaller population did a century or two ago. Population control has no part to play in these successes.

Sadly, not everyone has gotten this message. The anti-people argumentation continues to insist that babies equal pollution. The population control movement continues to receive billions of dollars in funding each year. Women’s fertility continues to be attacked in the name of the environment and “sustainable

development.”

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) continues to cheerlead China’s one-child policy, ignoring the forced abortions and forced sterilizations that follow. The UNFPA continues to distribute 40 million doses of Depo-provera each year to unsuspecting women—despite the fact that this product is so unsafe that the FDA recommends against its use.

India still sterilizes over 4 million women annually under a system of statewide sterilization targets, ignoring the rising death toll of women who have died in such campaigns. And the developed nations—chief among them the United States—still continue to fund these programs in the name of achieving a mythical “sustainable population,” all the while ignoring the massive human rights abuses that they entail.

We agree that pollution sometimes constitutes an offense against other human beings. Those who wantonly and grossly pollute the water we drink and the air that we breathe endanger the rest of us, both those who are alive now and those who will come later.

But we also insist that forced abortion, forced sterilization, and forced contraception always constitute a grave violation of human rights. These actions are never justified, least of all by irrationally claiming that they are necessary to “protect the environment.”

We look forward to a future where our children and grandchildren enjoy a planet with clean air, clean water, and luxuriant greenery. We have already, in the U.S. and elsewhere, made great strides towards the realization of this future.

But we also hope and pray that our children and grandchildren grow up in a world without population control. We are working towards the day when they are valued for themselves, and are not seen by many in the environmental movement as a threat to their dream of a world without people.

After all, as Shakespeare remarked, “The world must be peopled.”

PRI is hosting an “Earth is for People Day” event on Wednesday the 22nd where people can ask the president of PRI questions about the environment and population. PRI will be answering your questions from 10 am to 4 pm EST on Earth Day.

You can access the event here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/375309469320756/

After vision of Christ, Nigerian bishop says rosary will bring down Boko Haram

Rome, Italy, Apr 21, 2015 / 02:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Nigerian bishop says that he has seen Christ in a vision and now knows that the rosary is the key to ridding the country of the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram.

Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme says he is being driven by a God-given mandate to lead others in praying the rosary until the extremist group disappears.

“Towards the end of last year

I was in my chapel before the Blessed Sacrament… praying the rosary, and then suddenly the Lord appeared,” Bishop Dashe told CNA April 18.

In the vision, the prelate said, Jesus didn’t say anything at first, but extended a sword toward him, and he in turn reached out for it.

“As soon as I received the sword, it turned into a rosary,” the bishop said, adding that Jesus then told him three times: “Boko Haram is gone.”

“I didn’t need any prophet to give me the explanation,” he said. “It was clear that with the rosary we would be able to expel Boko Haram.”

The bishop said he didn’t want to tell anyone, but “felt that the Holy Spirit was pushing him to do so.”

He started with the priests of his diocese, and then told participants in the April 17-19 #WeAreN2015 congress in Madrid, Spain. The event is being sponsored by the Spanish Catholic sister groups hazteoir.org and CitizenGo to gather ideas on how to preserve the Christian presence in nations where they are most persecuted.

Bishop Dashe leads the Diocese of Maiduguri, in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State. In 2009, there were around 125,000 Catholics under his guidance. After a surge in violence from the Islamist extremist group called Boko Haram, today “there are only 50 to 60 thousand left,” he said.

Most of those who fled sought safer areas in other parts of Nigeria, he said. Some of the same families are now returning home as armed forces from Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon liberate their homes.

In 2014, Boko Haram became known worldwide when members kidnapped nearly 300 girls from a school in Borno State. On March 7, 2015, five suicide bombers killed 54 and wounded nearly three times as many in the capital city of Maidaguri, where the bishop lives and works.

The group has killed 1,000 people across Nigeria in the first three months of 2015, according to Human Rights Watch, which reports that more than 6,000 have died in Boko Haram-led violence since 2009.

Just last month, the group pledged its allegiance to ISIS – also known as the Islamic State – which launched a bloody campaign in Iraq and Syria last summer.

Meanwhile, Bishop Dashe has just completed a “consolation tour” to communities in his diocese, promoting forgiveness and continued faith. He believes he was asked by Jesus to spread devotion to the rosary in order to aid them as they do so.

“Maybe that’s why he did it,” said the bishop, referring to Jesus in his vision.

Bishop Dashe said he has a strong devotion to Christ’s mother, and that “I never joke with ‘Mamma Mary.’ I know she is here with us.”

And he is not the only Nigerian bishop putting the future of the country in the hands of Mary. The nation’s bishops’ conference has consecrated the country to her twice in recent years.

Bishop Dashe believes that one day his diocese will completely recover and grow thanks to her intercession.

“These terrorists… think that by burning our churches, burning our structures, they will destroy Christanity. Never,” Bishop Dashe told several hundred people from the dais of the #WeAreN2015 congress.

“It may take a few months or a few years … but ‘Boko Haram is gone.’”

He later told CNA that “prayer, particularly the prayer of the rosary, is (what) will deliver us from the claws of this demon, the demon of terrorism. And of course, it is working.”

Nigerian Bishops March, Sing and Train at Pro-Life Conference

IBADAN, April 17 (C-Fam) “We had to limit the number of people in each diocese who could come,” said one organizer of a pro-life and pro-family conference in Ibadan, Nigeria. Over 1,500 filled the auditorium, and even then people spilled outside.

One region with a small Christian population extended invitations to their Muslim neighbors who gladly attended. Bishops in this city near Lagos hosted the forum – and the joyful team of bishops and the archbishop led or participated in all the activities.

“We could never get so many bishops” at a pro-life event in Europe, exclaimed one British speaker.

Archbishop Gabriel Abegunrin explained his enthusiasm for putting on the two-day event.

New technology, attitudes and lobbies backed by powerful interests “challenge traditional beliefs, established faith and conventional practices,” he said. “We can together with experienced people from around the world identify contemporary challenges to human life, marriage and family and educate our people better on how to recognize and surmount those challenges in order to live integral, credible Christian lives.” “The icing on the cake was the march,” said Jerry

Okwuosa, a pro-life activist for 20 years. Marchers sang, “Yes, yes to life. No, no to death,” a song written for the conference as people in an outdoor market cheered them on and joined the march.

One nurse who attended used to work for Pathfinder, an international group that promotes abortion and sexual rights by weakening moral beliefs, especially of health care providers. Her son would play with the hordes of excess condoms at their house, more than could be distributed. Later he challenged her on Pathfinder’s work, and she resigned. Now he is a priest and helped organize the conference.

Most of the speakers were Nigerian professionals and religious leaders, covering topics like engaging in social media, trends in assisted reproductive techniques, sexuality education, secular humanism, domestic violence, and understanding legislation. Speakers from the UK, US and Ghana described international pressures to spread abortion and sexual license, and ways to counter them.

It “surpassed my expectations,” said

Obianuju Ekeocha, who the Archbishop credited with inspiring the conference. It was the fourth event the Nigerian scientist and founder of Culture of Life Africa helped

plan by inviting speakers to cover topics spanning abortion, strengthening family life and resisting harmful trends.

Teachers, nurses, students and religious leaders – “people from all walks of life” – who filled the conference hall are “so important because they serve the poorest of poor – like teaching and health care in communities that other doctors will not go,” Obianuju said.

The speakers “sensitized people” to “pro-abortion organizations with innocuous names like Planned Parenthood that they never knew before were anti-life,” said Obianuju. “UN agencies, associated with morally objectionable projects will be treated with suspicion because people now know their hidden agendas and track records.

One jovial bishop – who has competed in “You’ve Got Talent” televised shows – frequently burst into song to warm up the crowd, changing the words of popular music to address God while keeping the catchy tunes.

“Just call my name,” sang Bishop Adetoyese Bedejoe to the Michael Jackson tune, “and He’ll be there.” At a private dinner to cap off the event, he told the leaders, “God mixing with man can do powerful things.”

The birth control pill shrinks women’s brains

monofasicaApril 15, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Women who use the birth control pill may be shrinking their brains and increasing their chances of developing Crohn’s disease, two new studies have found.

Neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles found that the two main regions of the brain controlling emotion and decision-making are thinner in women who take the pill.

A study published April 2 in the journal Human Brain Mapping reports that the pill’s chemicals block the body’s natural hormones, altering the brain’s structure and function.

The study concluded that oral contraceptive use “was associated with significantly lower cortical thickness measurements in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex.”

The orbitofrontal cortex controls decision-making and the posterior cingulate manages emotions. And among the, both of these two areas were smaller than average in those taking the pill.

The UCLA scientists – who studied 90 women, 44 who were on the pill and 46 who were not – found that the pill can shrink parts of the brain but stated their data pointed to no conclusive results about the effects of chemical contraceptives on female behavior.

The researchers also did not determine whether this brain shrinkage is permanent, and indicated more research is needed.

“Future studies can investigate the time course of these effects. It is currently not known whether these effects appear immediately after initiating OC use, or gradually accumulate and increase over time,” they said. “Further, it is not known how long these effects persist after OC discontinuation.”

Another report released in March says the pill triples the chance of developing the incurable digestive condition known as Crohn’s disease.

Harvard gastroenterologist Doctor Hamed Kha conducted a study of 230,000 American women who had used the pill for at least five years, finding that the synthetic hormones contained in the contraceptives can

weaken the digestive system, creating ideal conditions for Crohn’s development.

The study also concluded that the abortifacient “morning after” pill, which carries a higher dose of synthetic hormones, can also increase the likelihood of developing Crohn’s.

British researchers also found a link between chemical contraceptives and Crohn’s in 2009.

Kha said it was not likely the pill alone would cause Crohn’s, and that genetics also came into play. But he told The Telegraph that he expects women genetically predisposed to Crohn’s to be warned soon to avoid the pill.

A doctor in the UK was already doing so.

“If you have a family history of Crohn’s I would advise against starting on the pill,”

said Doctor Simon Anderson, a consultant gastroenterologist at London Bridge hospital.

Hormonal contraceptives, especially the birth control pill, have a well-documented history of physically harming the women who take them.

In 2005 a division of the World Health Organization declared chemical contraceptives to be a Group 1 Carcinogen, the highest classification of carcinogenicity, used only when there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans.

The birth control pill has been linked to social ills and many medical problems, such as breast cancer, hair loss, increased risk of glaucoma and blood clots, hardening of the arteries and cervical cancer.

A 2014 study found the pill negatively affected women’s attraction to men, and a 2011 study linked the pill to reduction in women’s memory.

A specific type of hormone pill meant to treat acne and excessive hair growth in women which has often been used off-label as a contraceptive, was implicated in the deaths of 27 women in the Netherlands in 2013.

Researchers at the University of Missouri at Columbia found in 2005 that boys exposed certain synthetic hormones in the pill had a greater risk of prostate cancer and other urinary tract problems later in life.

Chemical contraceptives finding their way into water systems have adversely affected wildlife as well, mutating the gender of some species of fish and nearly causing extinction of others.

Analysis: What went wrong in the “Religious Freedom” fight in Indiana and Arkansas?

by Brian Camenker and Amy Contrada
POSTED: April 10, 2015

The mainstream pro-family movement continues to be its own worst enemy. Back in October we wrote an article, “How the pro-family movement helped spread “gay marriage” across America.” It turns out there were more failures to come.


At the Indiana State House as the original bill was being debated.

The recent surrender on the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” (RFRA) bills by the Governors of Indiana and Arkansas can be directly tied to the myriad bad decisions and compromises by well-meaning pro-family groups and individuals, who are sorely overmatched by the homosexual lobby in strategy, tactics, and funding.

RFRA Recap: Arizona, Indiana, Arkansas

Last month the Indiana legislature passed a rather bland RFRA bill, similar to many around the country, which was then signed by Republican Governor Mike Pence. The original bill would have allowed businesses to defend themselves in court if forced by a law to violate their religious beliefs — and the government would have to show a compelling state interest before a religious-belief defense could be rejected. (Read that original bill HERE.)

In Feb. 2014, in a preview of what was to occur in Indiana, the Arizona legislature passed a similar RFRA bill to protect Christian owners of small businesses. Republican Governor Jan Brewer was about to sign it when the homosexual lobby got its big corporate friends to pressure her. The NFL even threatened to take the Super Bowl out of Arizona. Gov. Brewer caved and vetoed the bill.

So it wasn’t too surprising when the homosexual movement decided to make another example of Indiana, unleashing its full fury against the state last month. A blizzard of major corporations and activist groups (along with the national liberal media) descended on Gov. Pence and the legislature, claiming that simply to allow a wedding photographer or caterer to defend himself in court (for refusing service) would be “discrimination” and reason for corporate America to boycott the state.

The pro-family movement’s response was a flood of articles analyzing and complaining about the situation. RFRA bills had been around for decades, they pointed out. The homosexual activists and their allies were decried as hypocrites and bullies. A parade of conservatives swore they were not “anti-gay,” would never discriminate against homosexuals, but did want their religious freedom. Most of the focus was on defending the freedom of religion, assuming that was the key to controlling the monstrous expansion of LGBT censorship and control.

After several days of pressure, Gov. Pence finally gave up and directed the legislature to draft a bill that would make sure business owners could not legally fight charges of “discrimination” based on sexual orientation or gender identity – even on religious grounds. In fact, the new bill , which Pence quickly signed, is basically a “gay rights” bill.

Days later, the same scenario played out in Arkansas. That state legislature passed a similar RFRA bill on April 1. The homosexual lobby and corporate allies (including gigantic Wal-Mart) pounced. Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson rolled over without a fight and had the bill modified to sufficiently appease the homosexual activists.

The immediate pro-family problem: politicians left dangling in storm

These were shameful surrenders. On the other hand, given the state of the national GOP, expecting any Republican politician to stand up for a pro-family principle under pressure is unrealistic.

To be fair to the politicians, the pro-family movement hasn’t offered them much support. The Governors needed a public outcry from thousands of angry conservatives pointing out that “religious freedom” means having the right to decide what is immoral, unnatural, perverse, and destructive – and can be openly opposed. And the Governors needed to be forced to think hard about giving special protections to people on the basis of undefined “sexual orientations” while demonizing citizens holding traditional moral values.

Instead, in each of these three states, when the homosexual media blitzkrieg marched in, the Governors were basically left on their own, untutored, swearing they opposed “discrimination” – while the pro-family movement mostly sat back and wrote commentaries. So of course our side got creamed. And now the surrender message is out there, so the same collapse will likely happen again.

The longer-term problems

As we noted in our previous article, the real problems go back a couple of decades. The seeds of disaster were planted long ago by leftists, but allowed to go unchallenged and even accepted by conservatives (including most pro-family leaders). Here are the major issues they have failed to address:

1. Conceding to the LGBT movement’s ideological concepts, language, and demands.

The concepts of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (and the umbrella acronym “LGBT” – lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) are completely phony ideas invented by the sexual radicals to conjure an identity out of sexual and psychological dysfunction. Further, the phrase “sexual orientation” has never (to our knowledge) been defined in federal or state law, so it’s poised to be put to unimaginably horrible new uses in the future. Similarly, homophobia, civil unions, tolerance, and (supposed threats to) safety are all part of the propaganda. Sadly, most in the pro-family movement have shied away from challenging these concepts, so we continue to lose court cases and legislative battles that deal with them.

2. Refusal to fight passage of LGBT anti-discrimination laws and local ordinances, or demand their repeal.

Starting in the 1990s, the homosexual movement worked tirelessly, spending enormous funds, to get state and local governments to amend their anti-discrimination laws covering public accommodations, employment, housing, public education, etc., to include “sexual orientation.” In recent years there’s been a push to include “gender identity” (cross-dressing, transgenderism, transsexuality) also.

There’s a big strategic reason for that. As Dr. Scott Lively has pointed out for years, these updated laws are the starting point for the whole, brutal legal jihad against Christians and others holding traditional values. Every outrage we’re now seeing — including the LGBT activism in the schools, targeting of businesses, men using women’s restrooms, sado-masochist/”swinger” conventions in hotels, etc. — emanates from these laws.

But pro-family people have only recently started to wake up on this. They instinctively realize that citizens should be able to discriminate and refuse to promote or celebrate perversion and “gay”  marriage. But these anti-discrimination laws now make it a crime to do so.

This group of men dressed as women threateaned a restaurant in Massachusetts that refused to let them in after patrons became upset at their use of the restrooms. (See our report.)

Moreover, because of the emotional force of such laws and the shrewd way they’re portrayed by the opposition as a continuation of the Civil Rights struggle, we now see Republican Governors and conservative commentators swearing they oppose discrimination on the basis of homosexuality or gender identity. Their acquiescence on these laws has set up the very conflict with religious freedom they’re now agonizing over.

Clearly, the targeting of conservative private businesses is part of a strategy to silence all opposition to the LGBT agenda, not because there is any shortage of businesses who will accommodate them. In fact, they publish glossy directories of such “welcoming” companies that are distributed all over the country.


At the same time that the homosexual movement is using the legal system to bludgeon Christian businesses that “discriminate,” they have meticulously published glossy booklets listing “welcoming” pro-homosexual businesses across the country– especially weddings and flowers.This booklet was passed out at the Spokane, WA airport. See their online presence here.


Why are we not surprised? This “Pride Weddings” ad is bordered by two advertisements for HIV/AIDS programs. Only in the “LGBT” community.

3. Over-focusing on “religious freedom” protections as the solution to this culture clash.

The pro-family focus on “religious freedom” as a protection against the LGBT onslaught is basically a defensive strategy that will eventually be completely eroded.

Certainly, religious freedom is constitutionally guaranteed. But who is to define what is or is not a valid “religious objection”? Or whether a person’s religious objections are due to “sincerely held” beliefs? The RFRA’s leave that up to the court system, and government prosecutors can make strong cases for a “compelling interest” to overpower one’s religious argument.

Take the parents’ rights case of father David Parker and the Lexington, Mass. schools. The federal court dismissed Mr. Parker’s demand (on the basis of his deeply held religious beliefs) to opt his young son out of classroom activities dealing with homosexuality and transgenderism. Why? Because (the court said) since “gay marriage was legal” in Massachusetts, the state needed to instruct all young children to accept homosexuality and “gay marriage” as normal … a “compelling state interest.” This will continue to happen across the country.

More important, falling back on “religious freedom” becomes an excuse to avoid confronting the other side’s destructive concepts and propaganda.

4. “The Church of Nice” versus the Destruction of Society.

If we have to listen to “Love the sinner, hate the sin, ” etc., one more time while the LGBT movement marches through our elementary schools and private businesses, we’re going to jump out the window. If you truly “hate the sin,” you’ll fight against “gay” clubs in the schools, “sexual orientation” non-discrimination laws, and public accommodations protections for LGBT persons. We don’t see that happening.

The bloody Chinese dictator Mao Tse-tung once said that “A revolution is not a tea party.” Well, it’s not a Sunday School class, either.

5. Refusal to be aggressive.

Too many of our people are deathly afraid of being called names (e.g., “bigot”). So they won’t even talk about the well-documented medical, psychological, and emotional dangers of the LGBT lifestyles for fear of offending someone. They want to appear nice and polite, hoping this will win points. They fall back on intellectual arguments. (But few are listening to reason anymore.) They use a “feel-good” political strategy while the other side uses the real thing.

Liberals and LGBT activists are vicious, bullying, lying, hypocritical, angry, and fanatically dedicated. Such a large-scale denial of reality requires it. They have no interest in fairness only force. Yes, one of their favorite tactics is to attack and brutally libel anyone who disagrees with them. Much of this also has to do with their own self-centeredness and need to feel superior.

Homosexual activists in Indiana. We can all see where the real “hate” comes from.

We need to take the gloves off and stop being sissies.

6. Not confronting corporations or politicians supporting the LGBT agenda.

Anyone who has been around people in high levels of corporate America can appreciate how loathsome and amoral (and pro-Obama) most of them are these days. It wasn’t always that way. But it is now. So the next logical step for them is aggressively supporting the LGBT agenda against conservative Americans.

Unfortunately, our side has rarely reacted to that, except for an occasional boycott. So it’s an easy choice for corporate leaders. Politicians, even Republicans, have gotten the message that there’s no downside for siding with evil.

And wealthy conservative donors, seeing all this, are afraid to donate to groups fighting this battle. Our side has a lot of work to do.

Angie’s List is one of the companies that threatened to boycott Indiana after Gov. Pence signed the original bill. So American Family Assn. and others are boycotting Angie’s List. We support the boycott. Let’s hope it’s effective!

And if all that is not bad enough …

7. Too much talk, not enough action.

We have often said that the Internet has been a crippling factor for the conservative movement. It allows thousands of individuals to sit back and write endless commentary, and regurgitate and re-send the latest bad news to other conservatives, under the delusion that they are doing something meaningful. Meanwhile, the Left is organized and actually going out and causing real change (for the worse, of course).

Amidst the bad news, a ray of hope

They haven’t silenced everyone yet!

There is a handful of conservative pro-family voices (besides MassResistance) who are fighting this destructive trend and are at least telling the truth. This includes Scott Lively, Bryan Fischer, Laurie Higgins, Peter LaBarbera, John Biver, Stella Morabito, Cliff Kincaid, Gina Miller, Robert Knight, Peter Sprigg, Linda Harvey, Robert R. Reilly, Michael Voris, and others. We hope it’s a growing trend.

Telling the truth loudly and clearly is an absolute necessity in a battle like this. But as we’ve pointed out, it’s just the beginning.

There’s a new established religion nowadays: Christians can’t bow to it

It’s almost become a part of the weekly news cycle: American citizens publicly tarred and feathered for professing their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Just this month, we watched a family-owned pizzeria close its doors after its owners received hate mail and death threats from around the country. Their offense? Giving the wrong answer to a question about whether they’d cater a gay wedding. Keep in mind that the restaurant had never actually turned down a gay customer. They were hammered for holding the wrong beliefs about a hypothetical scenario!

Major corporations are getting into the bullying act, as well. At least two state governments have now backed down or modified religious freedom legislation in response to pressure from companies like Walmart and Salesforce. Keep that in mind next time you think about shopping at Walmart.daily_commentary_04_13_15

And this culture-wide search-and-destroy mission is only accelerating. As Princeton’s Robby George writes in First Things, activists for the new sexual orthodoxy are “giddy with success and urged on by a compliant and even gleeful media.”

The message is clear: not only should Christians remain silent about gay marriage if we know what’s good for us, but we must be made to agree with and even celebrate what Scripture calls sin. As Ana Marie Cox recently said of Christians on MSNBC, “you’re going to have to force [them] to do things they don’t want to do.”

But gay columnist Frank Bruni recently took it to the next level in the New York Times, writing that it’s time Christians get with the program and “take homosexuality off the sin list.” The lived experience of same-sex couples ought to trump what he calls the “scattered passages of ancient texts” condemning his lifestyle. Wow.

As for freedom of religion, Bruni suggests a new definition: “freeing . .  . religious people from prejudices that they . . . can indeed jettison, much as they’ve jettisoned other aspects of their faith’s history, rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity.”

Yes, he actually wrote “rightly bowing.”

I’m reminded of a scene from C. S. Lewis’ “The Last Battle,” in which Shift the Ape explains to the poor creatures of Narnia why they’re being shipped off to the Calormene salt mines.

“You think freedom means doing what you like,” says Shift. “Well, you’re wrong. That isn’t true freedom. True freedom means doing what I tell you.”

Writing at National Review, Yuval Levin says what we’re witnessing isn’t so much the suppression of free exercise of religion as it is the establishment of a new national religion; the religion of secular liberalism. And dissenters must be forced to worship at its altar and affirm its creed of anything-goes sexuality.

Given the likely outcome of this summer’s Supreme Court case on same-sex marriage, Rod Dreher asks what will it be like to be a Christian in our brave, new society—and what will become of orthodox Christianity now that the price of professing it could be our credibility and livelihoods.

The answer, Dreher says, will depend a great deal on us. Will we hold fast to biblical teaching and refuse, in a manner of speaking, to burn incense to Caesar?

Friends, the fight for religious liberty is far from over. And as John Stonestreet and I have been saying again and again, it’s time for the Church to wake up, to pray, and to publicly defend our religious rights and our brothers and sisters under assault for their beliefs.

Reprinted with permission from BreakPoint.

Nine Months with Christ in the Womb

Josh Danis is the Archdiocese of Cincinnati Family and Respect Life Office Coordinator for the Northern Area of the diocese. In that position he has authored an exciting new program for helping all Christians appreciate the dignity of each human brother and sister.  His program draws our attention to Jesus the God-fetus during the 9 months He lived within Mary.

This initiative develops over 9 months from the Incarnation to the Nativity– March 25th to December 25th.  The materials are available at the Archdiocesan web site–http://www.catholiccincinnati.org/ministries-offices/family-life/respect-life/respect-life-coordinators/nine-months-with-christ-in-the-womb/  and include:

*A “Dear Jesus of the Womb” prayer card with a depiction of Jesus in the womb on the other side.  How can you recognize the baby as Jesus?  (See PS for the answer.)
*A monthly reflection on Jesus’ physical development tied to a Biblical story and a current situation where the dignity of human life is not universally accepted.
*A brief bulletin announcement for each week of the month.

Parishes are encouraged to purchase the prayer cards and distribute them at every opportunity, publish the Monthly Reflection one weekend of the month, and include the bulletin announcement each week.  The primary purpose of this Respect Life Campaign is to foster prayer for a universal appreciation of the dignity of life at all stages and conditions.

 

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Resources in English

Recursos en español

 

 

The totally phony notion of ‘unmet need’ for contraception

By Rebecca Oas, Ph.Dfamily planning

NEW YORK, April 10, 2015 (C-Fam.org) — As the UN puts polishing touches on their ambitious global plan to curb poverty, attention shifts from the political to the technical: how to measure progress and ensure targets are clearly defined?

The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide an opportunity to reassess the “indicators” or benchmarks for reaching the expiring Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and make changes where appropriate. One outgoing indicator—“unmet need” for family planning—was controversial when it was first adopted and has gotten even more controversial in the hands of activists.

The concept of “unmet need” emerged in the wake of horrific population control programs that forcibly sterilized and aborted the children of poor women. “Unmet need” was an attempt to find common ground between women’s rights advocates and population control groups. As defined in the MDGs, “unmet need” described women who were married, presumably fertile, expressed a preference not to have a child in the next two years, and who were not currently using modern contraception.

Critics pointed out that such a definition was inadequate since it excluded women who had health, religious or other objections to using contraception. Others complained that the definition of modern methods excluded natural fertility-awareness-based methods despite their high level of accuracy and user satisfaction.

A closer look at the method used to measure “unmet need” is quite revealing.

While women’s attitudes toward childbearing and contraceptive use may be related, they are by no means equivalent. Before 2003, surveyed women expressing a desire to space births were asked a follow-up question about how strongly they wanted to avoid becoming pregnant.

Many of them said it would be a small problem or no problem at all if they found out they were pregnant in the next few weeks. That survey question is no longer asked, reducing a complex matter to a simple yes or no.

When women classified as having “unmet need” were asked why they did not use contraceptives, many were concerned about side effects, opposed using them for religious or other reasons, or cited breastfeeding or infrequent sex as the reason. In fact, only 4-8% of married women with “unmet need” in developing countries said they could not access modern contraceptives.

It is widely reported that 225 million women globally have an “unmet need” for family planning. A recent report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute and the United Nations Population Fund calls for $9.4 billion dollars annually to meet that “need.” This request is based on the assumption that “all women with unmet need would use modern contraceptives”—despite strong evidence that many of these women have no intention of doing so.

“Unmet need” does not measure women’s access to or desire for contraceptives. But most of the top organizations promoting family planning use “unmet need” synonymously with “lack of access” to contraception.

Planned Parenthood even ran a billboard in New York’s busy Times Square claiming, “Over 200 million women want access to contraception but can’t get it.”

Despite this dubious history, a proposed indicator to measure the success of the UN’s new goals is “met demand” for family planning. This perpetuates the same underlying problem as “unmet need”: it presumes that delaying childbearing is equivalent to wanting contraception.

And it will channel billions of dollars toward family planning advocates and providers to reach an elusive goal – that every targeted women, whether she wants to or not – use contraception.

 

Can Christianity survive the Sexual Revolution?

April 2, 2015 (CrisisMagazine.com) — When was the last time anyone heard a sermon that condemned the evils of fornication, or adultery, or cohabitation, or divorce, or bearing children outside wedlock (let alone homosexuality)? Controlling these sins is a core Christian value. At one time a preacher could be expected to devote extended attention to these sins. And he could be expected to condemn them unequivocally. Yet today, even as the social and economic fallout from precisely these practices becomes ever more glaring and serious, pastors and priests seem ever more determined to avoid discussing them.

Of course, the dowdy old parson long ago became the stuff of caricature, ranting on about unspecified “wickedness.” And since no pastor wants to be seen as old-fashioned, and most want to be modern and appeal to the ubiquitous cult of youth, one never hears much today about the sins of illicit sex. Indeed, churches that consider themselves highly orthodox or biblical or traditional or conservative or evangelical—those described by themselves and others as “fundamentalist”—even these churches avoid the problem of runaway sexual freedom. Most Christian magazines and newspapers do not publish articles about it and gatherings of clergy do not discuss how to control it. No church today would dream of admonishing or reproving, let alone excommunicating a member because of sexual misconduct.

Yet ever more conspicuously, it is precisely these sins that are wreaking havoc throughout our society.

All around us we can see—if we are willing to open our eyes—the social consequences of uncontrolled sex. The sexual decadence of popular culture—in music, television, and videos—is only the most obvious manifestation, providing material for endless and often pointless moralizing.

But beyond the lamenting and bemoaning are consequences that are concrete and serious. The vast proliferation of single-parent homes is having devastating consequences on our society, economy, and politics. The epidemics of cohabitation and runaway divorce have left millions of fatherless children on the exploding welfare and foster care rolls and spread crime and substance abuse and truancy throughout our communities. These problems are now bankrupting taxpayers and future generations with a “financial crisis” that is attributable almost in its entirety to welfare spending and its multiplier effects in crime and social anomie, while driving governments to ever more authoritarian measures to slake their insatiable thirst for revenue.

Our universities and schools have become little more than orgies, with a “hook-up” culture that dominates campus life almost to the exclusion of learning. Indeed, it now dominates the learning too, with indoctrination in not only sex education but sexual political ideology through faux-disciplines like “women’s studies,” and “queer studies,” that recast all knowledge as sexual-political grievances.

The tyrannical side of this orgiastic culture is now becoming too glaring to ignore, despite years of denial. For the inevitable corollary to licentious indulgence is authoritarianism. This is now plainly manifested in a political agenda pushed by the same sexual radicals who promote the hook-up culture: Young men are now routinely railroaded before campus kangaroo courts on obviously fabricated accusations of “rape,” “sexual assault,” “sexual harassment,” “sexual misconduct” (no clear distinctions separate these vague terms), sexual this and sexual that. In the regular courts, men are imprisoned for decades on rape accusations that are known to be false. Parents regularly lose their children through spurious accusations of “child abuse” that are never proven in any court. Fathers are incarcerated without trial by divorce courts for patently trumped-up accusations of “domestic violence,” or for simply trying to see their own children, or for criticizing judges.

The response of the churches to all this has been silence. Christians, by and large, do not know what to make of this authoritarianism. They are afraid to question accusations of sex crimes, but they also know that this agenda is not theirs. Terrified of being seen to defend “rapists,” “child abusers,” “wife beaters,” and “deadbeat dads,” the church sits mute in the face of what is claimed to be a vast epidemic of sex crimes. Tempted to play it safe by perfunctorily endorsing the purveyors of the new indulgence, the church sides with falsehood against truth.

Now in turn, Christians find themselves being accused of “hatred” and “bigotry” and threatened with punishment for criticizing the homosexual agenda by the same lobby of radicals. As Martin Niemoeller warned of a similar ideology, no one speaks out for us because we did not speak out for others.

Truly diabolical is how this neglect turns back on us and corrupts us too. Because we fail to control the sin, the sin controls us. By refusing to confront the sin on God’s terms, and instead relabeling it with terms we find easier and safer to confront, we allow the sin to enlist us as its agents. This takes the form of cheap moralizing and self-righteous posturing: refusing to confront the guilty, we join witch hunts against the innocent.

For what the radicals have done is to redefine sin. Rather than the biblical definition set forth in clear biblical language, we now have ideologically redefined, government-approved definitions formulated in politicized jargon. Sexual indulgence is no longer a sin against God; it is now a crime against the leviathan state.

Pastors nowadays are much more likely to couch sexual sins in the form that has been redefined and politicized by radical secular ideology. To disguise their own irrelevance, they join the mob to register their politically correct outrage at “sexual harassment” and “domestic violence.” (I have never heard a pastor preach at any length against the “hook-up” culture, but they will endorse the fabricated and discredited feminist claims of a “rape culture,” only to leave themselves looking foolish when the charges invariably prove false.)

Pastors who parrot this jargon cannot possibly know what these terms mean, because no one knows what they mean. I have been studying them for two decades and published articles on these topics in refereed academic journals, and I do not know what they mean, because it is precisely the purpose of these terms to be so vague as to mean anything. They are devised intentionally to circumvent the clear language that the law uses to define criminal assault and safeguard the innocent with vagaries whose only possible purpose is to criminalize heterosexual men and Christians with flexible accusations that no one really understands but everyone is terrified to question.

By contrast, pastors should know precisely what constitutes fornication and adultery, because the Bible tells them. But it is safer to preach about “sexual harassment” than about fornication, because clergy are often more frightened of feminists and functionaries than they are of God.

Thus Christian faith itself is gradually transformed from theology and morality into political ideology. “Fornication” and “adultery” were biblically defined sins committed by two people and punished by God and the moral sanctions of the community. “Sexual harassment” and “sexual abuse” are quasi-crimes committed only by the man and punished by the state gendarmerie. The preachers know whom it is safe to criticize.

The effect is to transform them from preachers of God’s Word into adjunct political prosecutors.

Christian scholars churn out pointless tracts on ever more esoteric points of theology and philosophy. But the church’s crisis today is not imprecise or unsound doctrine. The church’s failing now is lacking the courage to apply its doctrine in the face of a defiant and politicized sexual immorality.

Why do pastors now evade the basic sins that plague every congregation and the most critical sins that threaten to overwhelm our society? Why do they stand mute at the very suggestion that they should do so or mumble unconvincing excuses and evasive weasel words, before nervously changing the subject or walking away? (Try it.)

The answer is that they are frightened. No pastor or priest wants to touch the subject of sexual sin, because it will anger the liberal women who control most congregations. This is not meant as condemnation; simply a recognition of reality. The same dynamic produces similar silence from our other watchdogs and gadflies: journalists and university faculty members.

Sexual freedom is the inevitable corollary to the feminization of the church because radicals understand that sexual freedom transfers power to those who can use a sexual identity as leverage: politicized women and homosexuals. “My generation let all of this nonsense of sexual confusion, radical feminism, and the breakdown of the family go on, not realizing that we … have gravely wounded the current generations,” says Cardinal Leo Burke. “The Church has not effectively reacted to these destructive cultural forces” and has instead “become too influenced by radical feminism.”

And the first casualty of feminization is courage, the courage that is demanded foremost of men, including clergy. This is why Christian faith and radical sexual ideology are today on a direct collision course, and why the radicals believe Christian faith must lose.

In The American Conservative, Rod Dreher openly questions whether Western Christianity itself can survive the revolution in sexuality, as does the former Archbishop of Canterbury in the Daily Telegraph. The question demands an answer one way or the other.

We need to ask what remains that is still Christian not only about Western institutions—that seems clear—but about the rest of us.

If we have lost our will to enforce sexual morality in our congregations, if pastors will not defend the very marriages that they themselves have consecrated—and the rest of us the marriages we ourselves have witnessed—against involuntary divorce or enforce the discipline on cohabiting couples, then in what sense does Christian faith still have any practical meaning in our common lives? We complain that Christianity is being “banished from the public square,” but we can hardly be surprised when we ourselves have lost the stomach to defend our own parishioners, congregations, and communities against violations of God’s law, whether emanating from our ecclesiastical or secular polities.

For the rest of us are no more courageous than the clergy. Few of us will express moral disapproval when we find friends cohabiting or committing adultery or inflicting unilateral, involuntary divorce on their spouses and children. And therefore few of us speak out when the state gendarmerie, filling the vacuum that we have left, imposes the order that we refuse to enforce in its own way, by taking away our brothers and sisters in handcuffs.

“Religion is central to sexual regulation in almost all societies,” writes homosexualist scholar Dennis Altman. “Indeed, it may well be that the primary social function of religion is to control sexuality.” Abdicating this responsibility to regulate it in the name of God leaves us vulnerable not only to social anomie, but also to those who will step in and regulate it for their own purposes, imposing criminal penalties and rationalizing their measures by invoking various alternative, usually politicized theologies. “Ironically, those countries which rejected religion in the name of Communism tended to adopt their own version of sexual puritanism, which often matched those of the religions they assailed.” Today’s sexual revolutionaries are simply refining the Bolsheviks’ experiment.

Perhaps it is time that we have the courage to admit that the dowdy old parson who preached against illicit sex was a wise and sensible man all along and a more faithful Christian than those of us who made endless fun of him. Perhaps we should start encouraging the self-control that he demanded and the courage he displayed. Perhaps it is also time to regain some respect for the wisdom of elders and forsake the Pinocchio world where youth (along with its urges) is worshipped as an achievement in itself, while elders, whom the Bible sets as authority figures, are expected to hold their tongues.

Perhaps it is also time to discard the politically obligatory weasel words (“No one wants to return to the bad old days when…”) and accept that open-ended sexual freedom puts us on a trajectory that will only spread chaos, ruin more lives, destroy our freedom, and weaken our civilization, until we summon the courage to speak the truth.

In short, perhaps it is time to accept that, here too, the church does not have to change with the times and that it needs to be the “rock” that Christ mandated it to be.

A reason for hope

By: Shannon Roberts

http://www.mercatornet.com/

On this day over 2 billion Christians around the world are celebrating Jesus’ resurrection and the great joy and hope the Easter season brings.  It is a hope which transcends world circumstances, such as the killing of Christians in Kenya, that we find ourselves struggling to comprehend.

On the 10th anniversary of his death (2nd April), Saint John Paul II reminds us still of the great hope Christians have.  Facing dehumanizing political systems and much resignation in the Church, the great Pontiff said “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”

Each new child that enters a family is also both a gift and a new miracle, bringing with it hope for what that child’s life is and might be.  We thought we would celebrate Easter Sunday on our blog with this clip which celebrates the miracle each new life is – a great miracle so many of us have been privileged to experience firsthand and a great reason for hope:

Preach from the Rooftops: Evangelium Vitae at Twenty

conleyhttp://www.thepublicdiscourse.com

By: James Conley 

Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Last week, a young friend of mine attempted to defend the truth about marriage among a group of peers at a secular university. She presented a meaningful argument about families, social stability, and gender complementarity. None of her classmates refuted her arguments. Instead, they accused her of being a bigot and a homophobe, called her intolerant, and changed the topic to something less intellectually taxing.

My friend’s experience is practically a cliché. Americans who offer traditional viewpoints on moral issues in the public square have become accustomed to calumny. They know that reasoned arguments will rarely receive reasoned refutation.

In California, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has become the victim of a well-funded smear campaign because he expects that Catholic teachers shouldn’t publicly undermine Catholic beliefs. Last month, a philosophy professor was suspended from a Catholic university for criticizing heterodox instruction. Even non-believers suffer this fate. Fashion house Dolce and Gabbana is being boycotted because its owners believe that children deserve mothers and fathers.

In the cultural conversation about moral issues, reasoned arguments seem increasingly drowned out by personal attacks. And twenty years ago today, Pope St. John Paul II predicted this would happen.

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of John Paul’s Evangelium Vitae, his encyclical on the mission of the Gospel of Life. Evangelium Vitae is probably the most comprehensive and compelling encyclical on moral issues I have ever read. It addresses the evils of abortion, contraception, and euthanasia. But the encyclical is fundamentally concerned with the relationships between love, truth, freedom, and justice. Twenty years after its promulgation, we must return to Evangelium Vitae. Its message becomes more relevant each year.

If we want to reverse our culture’s descent into socially accepted hedonism, we need to understand the connection between relativism, contraception, and abortion. The danger of contraception, Evangelium Vitae said, is that it fosters a “hedonistic mentality,” a “self-centered concept of freedom,” which places personal fulfillment at the center of life’s meaning and purpose. Abortion is the radical choice for personal fulfillment, convenience, or “freedom,” even at the immediate expense of another’s life. Together, contraception and abortion have contributed to a culture that believes that personal happiness is the highest possible human aim, and that it ought to be pursued by all possible means.

The consequences of contraception’s denial of the truth about human sexuality, said John Paul, have put “freedom” on the path of self-destruction. John Paul II cautioned:

freedom negates and destroys itself, and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with the truth. When freedom, out of a desire to emancipate itself from all forms of tradition and authority, shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth, which is the foundation of personal and social life, then the person ends up by no longer taking as the sole and indisputable point of reference for his own choices the truth about good and evil, but only his subjective and changeable opinion or, indeed, his selfish interest and whim.

Evangelium Vitae argued that contraception leads inevitably to the rejection of every rational opposition to unfettered sexual license. The line between our contraceptive mentality and our fights over marriage is direct, and obvious. But the social consequences of contraception go beyond even the confines of sexuality.

John Paul II said that a self-referential, subjective understanding of freedom builds cultures where “any reference to common values and to a truth absolutely binding on everyone is lost, and social life ventures on to the shifting sands of complete relativism.” Inevitably relativism leads to “the supremacy of the strong over the weak.”

We are witnesses to the supremacy of the strong over the weak. The tyranny of evil is shrouded today in trappings of “democratic consensus.” We equate moral goodness with popular consensus. We’re shamed into tolerance of evil.

And because truth seems to have little to do with our sense of freedom, we watch the unborn be eradicated for the sake of convenience. We watch the elderly and terminally ill be coerced into suicide. We watch the rights of children be trampled to satisfy the pleasures and preferences of adults. The homes and cities of the West are built on the “shifting sands of relativism,” and we pretend, too often, that popular consensus makes goodness from evil.

Last week, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia explained that divorcing freedom from truth puts believers in grave danger. He pointed out that across the globe, the rights and safety of religious people are trampled by hedonism and greed, veiled beneath the language of human rights and civic tolerance. Evangelium Vitae‘s point was that contraception fosters the attitudes that lead to religious oppression and persecution. And thwarting that persecution requires exposing the lies of the contraceptive mentality.

In short, we can’t address the great cultural unraveling we’re experiencing if we do not address the consequences of contraception and abortion. “It is precisely the issue of respect for life” according to John Paul, “which shows what misunderstandings and contradictions, accompanied by terrible practical consequences, are concealed” in positions of positivistic relativism.

We have not successfully convinced most Catholics, or anyone else for that matter, that contraception has grave social consequences. Nor have we yet convinced enough Americans that abortion is a real social injustice. Until we do that, we can expect to see the contraceptive mentality continue to foster and encourage libertine social tyranny, religious persecution, and family disintegration.

But relativism is not immediately overcome by rational conversation in the public square. Rational conversation is important. But among the effects of relativism is a popular culture increasingly less capable—and less willing—to engage in rational discourse at all.

Evangelium Vitae made clear that the dignity of human life is best understood by disciples of Jesus Christ. The Holy Father’s proposal for eradicating the social evils of abortion and contraception—and their profound social consequences—is evangelization.

The Gospel of Life is the Christian gospel. John Paul said that we only understand human dignity in this life if we understand the human potential for eternal life.

I remember vividly John Paul II’s homily in Denver, at World Youth Day in 1993, less than two years before he wrote Evangelium Vitae. I was a young priest who had traveled there with pilgrims from Wichita, Kansas. John Paul outlined the culture of death’s grave social dangers. And he proposed this solution:

Do not be afraid to go out on the streets and into public places, like the first Apostles who preached Christ and the Good News of salvation in the squares of cities, towns and villages. This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops!

Evangelium Vitae proposed the urgency of transforming human hearts—and human culture—through the Gospel of Life. Cultural transformation will take time. It is likely that successive generations will be called upon to re-Christianize the western cultural tradition. But restoring Christian culture must begin by restoring hearts—through transformative, kerygmatic encounters with Jesus Christ. Recognizing that fact was the truest genius of Evangelium Vitae.

It is time to preach the Gospel from the rooftops. The culture of death still gains ground, and the weakest among us suffer. Their suffering will be relieved when courageous men and women proclaim Jesus Christ, and witness to the real dignity of human lives made for eternity with Him.

After thousands of complaints, FDA will consider banning dangerous Essure sterilization device

April 1, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) — After thousands of injuries and several deaths of women implanted with the Essure sterilization device – touted as a safer, less invasive alternative to surgical tubal ligation – the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is finally taking action.

In response to a petition signed by more than 2,100 women urging the agency to remove Essure from the U.S. market, the FDA announced last week that it will launch an investigation into the allegations made by the petition’s signers.

The Essure device consists of a pair of metal coils designed to be implanted in a woman’s fallopian tubes, where they induce sterility by irritating the sensitive lining, causing a buildup of scar tissue that blocks passage of sperm and ova between the ovaries and the womb.  The device was given conditional pre-market approval (PMA) by the FDA in 2002, a process that grants the manufacturer lifetime immunity from lawsuits related to the device, as long as the company upholds the terms of the approval.

The FDA says this practice – known as “preemption” – is fair because the scrutiny manufacturers must undergo to qualify for PMA is so rigorous that any significant risks would be caught long before the device ever hit the market.  But the petitioners say Essure’s PMA process was unusually rushed, and ultimately rendered invalid by the numerous lies and cover-ups its manufacturer used to fool the FDA into thinking the device was safe.

According to the petitioners, Essure’s original manufacturers, Conceptus, Inc., falsified data during clinical trials in order to hide adverse reactions and injuries caused by the device.  Multiple cases of uterine perforation – caused by coils drifting out of place and resulting in hysterectomies for the victims – were allegedly completely hidden from the FDA.  Women who reported severe pain had their medical records altered to say that they were happy with the device and had no trouble at all.  Later, in the interest of boosting sales, the company would successfully convince the FDA to allow the removal of a safety notice warning women with nickel allergies – up to 15 percent of the female population – not to use the device, which is made of a nickel-titanium alloy.

Conceptus is also accused of violating not only the terms of the PMA, but federal law by using unapproved materials to manufacture the Essure devices at unlicensed facilities, and by failing to notify the government of more than 16,000 complaints from women injured by the device, as well as several deaths.

Pharmaceutical giant Bayer bought out Conceptus in 2013, but according to the petitioners, the lies continued.  The petition accuses Bayer of knowingly misleading its customers by promoting Essure as safe and “worry-free” while concealing numerous life-threatening injuries suffered by women during Conceptus’ clinical trials.  It also accuses Bayer of exaggerating the device’s effectiveness, claiming that “no pregnancy can occur” with Essure even though the company’s own records show that between 1997 and 2005, 64 women became pregnant after having the device implanted.  Today, the total number of Essure pregnancies stands at more than 700 – including former celebrity spokeswoman Picabo Street, who lost her endorsement contract after becoming pregnant.

Essure pregnancies are dangerous to both baby and mother, and doctors often urge women who become pregnant after Essure implantation to abort. For women who choose to give their unplanned babies a chance at life, the journey they face is fraught with peril.  Adverse events reported by Essure moms include miscarriage, ectopic pregnancies, premature birth due to membranes ruptured by loose coils, and birth defects caused by nickel poisoning.

“Full disclosure is a necessity when deciding to implant a foreign device into one’s body,” wrote the petition’s authors.  “Bayer should not be able to market and sell a medical device that was approved by the FDA on fraudulent results of its clinical trial and altered medical records. This puts the public in grave danger.”

“How can the public expect Essure to be safe and effective when … there is evidence of fraud in the preapproval process; … adverse events are not being reported; … complaints are not being considered in Essure’s risk analysis; … CAPA activities are not being documented; … Essure’s risk analysis is incomplete; … quality assurance forms, used for tracking non-conforming product, were not used; and … Essure violated its own PMA Order and federal law?” the signers asked.

The petitioners are asking that the FDA revoke Bayer’s PMA, opening the door for victims of complications from Essure to sue the company.  Additionally, they want the FDA to order the company to publicly disclose all the adverse events it hid from the government and consumers.  In the meantime, they say, the FDA should either recall Essure or require a black box warning on all packaging notifying consumers of the fraudulent safety data until Bayer carries out a new round of studies, this time factual and non-doctored.

The FDA said it has referred the case to its “Office of Compliance,” which will “investigate the complaint” and “pursue actions as deemed necessary.”