Archive for August, 2015

How DO you to talk to kids about sex?

MISSISSAUGA, ON, August 27, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Talking to their children about sex is “anxiety provoking to say the least,” for parents, says American sex-ed expert, Dr. Miriam Grossman.

“Some people just can’t even do it, and that’s okay,” the New York-based psychiatrist told the crowd of 1,000 who packed a Mississauga conference hall August 18 to hear her critique of the Ontario Liberal government’s controversial sex-ed curriculum.

After Grossman explained how the Liberal sex-ed curriculum is dangerously flawed and ideologically driven, she used the question-and-answer session to give parents much appreciated and sometimes humorous practical advice on how to teach their children about “the birds and the bees.”

“If you feel you can’t do it, maybe there’s someone else in the family or in the constellation of people that you know you can trust that could do it,” said Grossman, author of “You’re teaching my child WHAT?” and an internationally sought-after speaker on sex education.

A child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist with 12 years’ clinical experience treating students at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) clinic, Grossman said explaining sexuality and procreation to children is “a process,” that “shouldn’t ideally happen all at once. A child is not a miniature adult, and absorbs…new information differently than adults do.”

And parents need to be sure just what their child wants to know.

To illustrate this, Grossman referred to her earlier story about a father who gave his son every detail on human procreation after the boy asked him, “Dad, where do I come from?”

After the father finished, his son replied, “Well, that’s funny, because Johnny told me that he came from Montreal.”

“Try to find out what your child is really getting at, and, don’t give it all at once,” Grossman said. “You start with a little bit at a time…and you know, there’s so many variables here, and people have their own traditions and their own ways of explaining things, and something that might be right for my family might not be right for your family.”

She also advised that, when confronted with a four, five, six or seven-year-old asking about a pregnant woman, or where babies come, a parent can ask, “What a good question that is. What do you think?”

And parents can also legitimately put off the discussion when appropriate, telling the child, “That’s really not something you need to know about right now.”

“Wow, what a novel idea: Telling a child that they could wait until they’re older to discuss that subject,” Grossman said, adding that parents wouldn’t brook a six- or even fifteen-year-old child asking how much money they made or had in the bank. “Excuse me? Not every subject has to be an open book.”

However, the time will come when a child needs to know “about how her body’s going to change, about reproduction, about how a new life is created.”

That time, Grossman advised, is puberty, or “as puberty is beginning,” and this is especially so for girls, who, if unprepared for the surprise onset of menstruation “might think [they’re] dying.”

“The actual nitty-gritty about the birds and the bees and intercourse” can “be told in bits and pieces, or it can be told all at once, if you feel it’s necessary,” she said, adding that it’s beneficial if the parent acknowledges his or her awkwardness, because the child will think: “This must be such an important subject that my mother or my father is sitting there squirming, but he’s doing it anyway. I’m really loved.”

“And the children need to understand that as you grow up, you change a lot, not only physically but emotionally,” Grossman said, “and what may seem odd or disgusting when you’re ten years old, or whatever age, it becomes something very special and beautiful when you’re older and you’ll understand it later. You don’t have to understand it now.”

Know your child and guard your home

But as an essential foundation for this discussion, parents must both know their children and guard their home from the encroachments of a culture that Grossman described as “very, very sexualized” and “really horrible.”

“Children need parents who are loving but are also firm and authoritative,” she asserted. “They don’t need best friends. They need us to guide them, to know what they’re doing, to be on top of what they’re doing.

So parents need to be aware of whom their child is “hanging around with, and what kind of movies are they watching…what’s going on with your child.”

“You need to know that anyway, even if it’s not about sex education,” she pointed out. “Try and know your child. Every child is different.”

And Grossman emphasized that it is “extremely important to be careful about what your child is exposed to in the home, in terms of television and Internet, obviously.”

Children need to understand that “just like you have garbage you take out of the house, you put it in the garbage bin, it’s dirty, it smells…there are other things that also don’t belong in the house.”

And children learn quickly what is, and is not, permissible inside the home, Grossman said. “Me, I keep kosher…If I go into a store, my kids know from a very young age, we don’t eat that.”

So they are used to the idea of “the world outside and the inside world, of inside your home, and inside your heart as well.”

Parents can also convey this by telling their children that “the world is an upside-down place, and sometimes the most special, holy subjects are…just thrown in the gutter. And that’s a bad thing. In our family, in our tradition, we don’t do that.”

“Sexuality is one of the subjects that in this upside-down world, it is sometimes just in the gutter,” she said. “And so I want you to tell your child to come to me when you have questions, I will give you the straight story about it.”

Grossman herself is “not even sure,” as she stated in her seminar, that sex education should be in the schools: “I believe sex education should be at home for those parents that want to do it.”

She also noted that parents “can make mistakes. We all make lots of mistakes but it’s okay, you can always come back and do it differently,” adding that this is “another wonderful message for your child. You know what, it’s okay to make mistakes, you can always go back and try and fix it.”

Grossman urged parents to visit her Facebook page, website and blog. “I have so much information you can get there that you’ll find useful,” and added that she will be publishing books for children, and has posted her critique of New York City’s sex-ed curriculum, which is similar to Ontario’s.

The parental backlash to that sex-ed curriculum, set to roll out in the province’s publicly funded schools this September, has been “amazing” Grossman noted.

Grossman’s seminar was sponsored by Mississauga-based HOWA Voice of Change along with the Canadian Families Alliance, an umbrella group representing more than 25 associations and 200,000 Ontarians opposed to the curriculum. The report on her devastating critique of the sex-ed curriculum can be found here, and the video here.

US must repent for funding Planned Parenthood’s eugenics program: Catholic bishop

SPRINGFIELD, IL, August 26, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic bishop of Springfield, Illinois, is urging America to repent for massively funding Planned Parenthood despite its eugenic roots.

“Let us ask forgiveness for our nation giving half a billion dollars every year of taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood,” said Bishop Thomas Paprocki, “founded by Margaret Sanger, a proponent of eugenics who urged Americans to ‘restrict the propagation of those physically, mentally and socially inadequate’ and said that the ‘most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.’”

Bishop Paprocki likened America today and its current prevalent disregard for unborn life to the period in history with slavery in force when President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer.

“President Lincoln lived in a time when many people thought that African-Americans were not fully human. The United States Supreme Court in fact declared as much in its infamously erroneous Dred Scott decision of 1857,” he said. “But in our own time the Supreme Court continues to make wrongful decisions, as it did in 1973 in Roe v. Wade in deciding that unborn babies do not deserve the protection of the law, as well as this past June in attempting to redefine marriage contrary to the plan of God as described in the Book of Genesis.”

“As a result, our nation is in need of ‘national humiliation, fasting and prayer’ now as it was in the time of President Lincoln’s Proclamation,” the bishop continued.

Bishop Paprocki quoted Lincoln throughout his August 23 message, stating that we as a country have forgotten God.

“Let us humble ourselves and pray to Almighty God to forgive our sins, especially the sins of abortion, sins of racism, sins against the divine and natural law of marriage, sins of greed, gluttony, anger, envy, lust, laziness and pride.”

The Springfield prelate also quoted Ephesians 5:15, when St. Paul warned them in his letter to “watch carefully how you live.”

“He does this not because he wants to control their lives, dictating what they can and cannot do,” he said. “Rather, he provides this guidance to them so that they can experience the joy of living a Gospel-centered life.”

“St. Paul knew well that those to whom he was writing were living in a culture that was not rooted in Christian values” Bishop Paprocki continued. “The message that they were receiving from the world around them, the popular opinion if you will, is the same message being promoted today in our secular culture: to live for themselves, to strive for those things which will maximize their satisfaction and happiness. But that happiness is rooted in the things of the world, and not on those of God, which promise true and lasting joy.”

He closed his message on the country’s need for forgiveness with another passage from Ephesians (5:17), where St. Paul encourages people to “try to understand what is the will of the Lord,” so “set aside what so-called worldly knowledge and understanding propose as truth, and seek to see things from the perspective of God and his loving design for the world and human life.”

Bishop Paprocki has been a devoted supporter of life and marriage, condemning the Obama administration’s silence in the Planned Parenthood human remains trafficking scandal, conducting a public exorcism over the state of Illinois’s 2013 decision to redefine marriage and running a marathon in 2011 to raise awareness and support for life.

Culture of Life is growing! New Gianna Clinic opens in Louisiana

http://deaconforlife.blogspot.com

Dear Friends,

I have some wonderful news to share with you!

As we witness the horrific atrocities committed by Planned Parenthood, as documented in the many videos released by the pro-life Center for Medical Progress, it is time to stop the culture of death! And the best way, is to replace it with The Culture of Life!
This is exactly what is happening! As part of this growth, another pro-life Gianna clinic has opened in Louisiana.

Click here to read about the beautiful event lead by Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans and the director of the new clinic, Dr. Christine Hamphill.
St. Gianna Physicians Guild, an initiative of Catholic Action for Faith and Family, conducted an enshrinement ceremony of an image of St. Gianna Molla. An important step of the enshrinement witnessed Dr. Hamphill officially read and sign the Catholic Hippocratic Oath promoted by St. Gianna Physicians Guild.
It is so uplifting to see such wonderful and sincere care provided for women and for babies at the Gianna clinics. I hope you take a moment to read this important report.

St. Gianna Physicians Guild continues to do its part to help spread the Culture of Life! In order to make this happen, we need your help!
Please sign petition to tell the US Congress to defund Planned Parenthood and use the money to fund the thousands of pro-life clinics, like the Gianna centers, throughout America.
If you have already signed, please get your friends and family to do so also. Just forward this link to them: Defund Planned Parenthood!

There is absolutely no excuse for taxpayer’s dollars to be used to fund the butchery and the evil perpetrated by Planned Parenthood and the culture of death.
Let’s continue together to do everything we can to stop the culture of death and to spread the Culture of Life!

May God bless you and your family for your efforts! And may St. Gianna look down with love upon you and your loved ones.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Thomas J. McKenna
Founder and President

 

Natural Family Planning as a ‘way of life’

By: MARIA LUISA TORRES

When Pablo and Véronique Gaeta met and fell in love, they both knew it was a love connection that was meant to last a lifetime. And, from the start, this couple shared far more than just a loving bond; as devout Catholics, they also embraced the same outlook on faith and family, and before their “I do’s” they made the joint decision to make Natural Family Planning part of their marital and spiritual lives.

Today, more than 18 years after exchanging wedding vows at their home parish, Our Lady of Grace Church in Encino, the happy couple now has three children — Céline, 15, Emilie, 11, and six-year-old Gabriel — and they regularly discuss the “blessing” of Natural Family Planning (NFP) with engaged and married couples through their teaching ministry at Our Lady of Grace and across the archdiocese.

“Natural Family Planning has been such a blessing for our marriage that we wanted to share this gift with others,” Véronique told The Tidings. In 2002, the Gaetas became certified to teach the sympto-thermal method (one of several NFP methods endorsed by the Catholic Church), and since then, they have presented NFP information and resources with parish priests at various diocesan deanery meetings; via parish health fairs; to high school students; as part of marriage preparation classes; and with parishioners at the end of Mass at several parishes.

“We are always humbled by couples that come to our classes reluctantly, and after hearing what NFP can offer them, become advocates of the methods,” said Pablo.

“On several occasions, NFP has also served as an ecumenical tool — several couples have come to our class from different faith denominations, because their own church did not offer NFP. These couples were grateful that the Catholic Church had classes where they could learn about NFP, and they were also surprised to learn the beauty of the Church’s teaching on human sexuality.”

According to the Gaetas, the Church has always taught that artificial contraception “undermines God’s original plan for marriage between a man and a woman,” because marriage “needs to be free, total, faithful and fruitful.” Any method of family planning should respect these four traits, they explained.

“Every time a married couple has relations, the act itself must be open to the transmission of life, whether or not the act results in pregnancy,” said Pablo. “Artificial forms of contraception act as a barrier to the transmission of life. … Some forms suppress or alter a normal functioning part of the woman’s body.”

By contrast, he added, Natural Family Planning is 100 percent safe and free of any side effects, because it “works with a woman’s fertility, and not against it.”

Because the Church understands that couples may have just reasons to postpone a pregnancy, NFP offers “a morally acceptable way of family planning,” by utilizing methods that “respect the dignity of marriage as a sacrament.”

“In making any decision about family planning, however, a couple should prayerfully discern whether or not God is asking them to cooperate with him in bringing another child into the world,” explained Pablo.

The three primary NFP methods endorsed by the Church — all of which can be used either to help achieve or avoid pregnancy — are sympto-thermal (which relies on a combination of physical fertility signs, including body temperature, cervical mucus and cervical position), the Billings Ovulation and Creighton Fertility Care Model methods (both of which rely solely on mucus signs).

“They’re all equally effective,” said Véronique, adding that selecting a particular method comes down to preference, though she noted that the Creighton method is “especially useful for couples who may be having medical issues” that can impact fertility, such as PMS, endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

According to Pablo, questions and misunderstandings are plentiful during classes among couples who are learning about NFP for the very first time.

“It is important to understand that NFP is not the ‘Calendar Rhythm Method’ of the 1930’s,” he said. “Modern methods of Natural Family Planning are more accurate and precise. … And all women, regardless of whether or not they have regular menstrual cycles, can use NFP successfully.”

However, said Véronique, the real root of the problem is not in such misunderstandings, but, rather the fact that, based on their experiences over the last 13 years, a significant “percentage of married couples do not even know NFP exists.”

“We strongly believe that a lot more couples would choose to embrace NFP in their marriages if they were better informed,” she said. “Married couples need multiple exposures at both the diocesan and parish levels … and engaged couples would benefit greatly from mentor couples that are open and honest about practicing NFP in their marriages.”

Which is exactly what the Gaetas try to do, with each class they teach: act as mentors and teach by example by sharing the beauty of NFP in their own family.

“Practicing NFP in our marriage has enabled us to come to a deeper understanding of God’s plan for us,” said Pablo. “Over the years, we have grown in our love for each other because NFP is not just a method of family planning; it is a way of life. Through NFP, we have learned to respect each other’s dignity.”

Thanks to NFP, the Gaetas have also experienced improved communication as a couple, because “Natural Family Planning is a shared responsibility that requires us to communicate candidly with each other on a regular basis,” said Véronique.

And, she continued, although practicing NFP “can be challenging at times — and it may even seem restrictive to some — we have found that it affords us a certain freedom that can only be properly understood by those who experience it.”

What if Planned Parenthood Were Defunded?

students for life

Abortion advocates use fear mongering to keep Planned Parenthood federally-funded. But what would really happen if we defunded the abortion giant?

‘A baby is growing inside my belly’ – see pure joy when parents tell children!

BY STEVE JALSEVAC

This is a wonderful respite from the regular news of the day. But it does put all the other stories into perspective. These children, through their God-given natural innocence, reveal more than many books in the world about the wonder and goodness of every new life. View here:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/a-baby-is-growing-inside-my-belly-see-pure-joy-when-parents-tell-children

It is a powerful anti-Planned Parenthood video. I have viewed it three times so far and marveled as much each time. There is a message here for all of humanity and especially for the anti-life developed cultures of the world in this simple, short experience of these children’s responses to their parents’ good news. The parents as well are wonderful examples of parenthood as it should be.

Enjoy!

Over 300 Planned Parenthood Protests to Take Place Simultaneously in 47 States August 22

 

[Press Release Reprinted from ProtestPP.com]
CHICAGO, Aug. 20, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ – On Saturday, August 22 public protests of Planned Parenthood (PP) abortion clinics and facilities will take place all over the United States. Thousands are expected to attend these protests with the purpose of creating awareness of the barbaric practice of abortion and the sale of aborted baby body parts – a scandal that has erupted in recent weeks due to undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress. Currently, there are over 300 cities in 47 states and 5 countries represented in the nationwide protest.
What: Protest PP’s disrespect for human life, harvesting and selling of aborted baby parts
Where: Over 300 Planned Parenthood facilities across America. (See cities)
When:
August 22, 2015 from 9:00am-11:00am
For more information or to locate a protest in your area, please go to ProtestPP.com

Recently released videos have shown the results of Planned Parenthood’s barbarous trade of killing babies and harvesting and selling their body parts.
Mark Harrington, Created Equal’s National Director:
“We don’t just want to defund Planned Parenthood; we want to defeat Planned Parenthood. We cannot only look to Washington, DC and our state governments to end the killing. It is up to each of us individually to take ownership over our own neighborhoods to stop Planned Parenthood and end abortion altogether.”
#ProtestPP is the largest demonstration against Planned Parenthood in their 99 year history.
Eric Scheidler of Pro-Life Action League:
“These videos are exposing the American people to the truth about Planned Parenthood and the truth about abortion. How can you deny the humanity of a tiny person whose body parts are being harvested for medical use? Worse yet, how can you make jokes about it, like the Planned Parenthood doctors do in these videos? It’s time to cease all taxpayer funding of this corrupt organization.”
#ProtestPP involves prayer, speakers and holding signs that read #PPSellSBabyParts.
Monica M. Miller of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society comments:
“When PP technicians are scavenging through the body parts of aborted babies to find tissue that they hope to sell, this adds a whole new gruesome and ghoulish layer to the already highly controversial practice of abortion in America. It’s bad enough that Planned Parenthood is profiting from abortions-but on top of that they exploit the bodies of their murder victims for additional revenue. It is the abortion providers themselves who describe what they do as violence.”

Visit OperationRescue.org for an archive of stories and videos about the Planned Parenthood baby body parts trafficking scandal.

World Meeting of Families

African families gravely threatened by Western governments, international agencies and Vatican departments

August 18, 2015 (VoiceoftheFamily) — John Smeaton, Chief Executive of the Society for the Protection of Unborn  Children, and co-founder of the international coalition Voice of the Family, spoke on 7th August at a two day pro-life conference organised by the bishops of Ghana. The conference was entitled “Protecting Life and Family Values in the continuing Culture of Death”.

In his talk to the conference Mr Smeaton outlined the threat posed to Africa by the international population control movement. He also drew attention to the collaboration between leading figures in that movement and important Vatican departments. He went on to give an overview of the threat posed to families, in Africa and around the world, by the instrumentum laboris of the Ordinary Synod, to be held in Rome in October this year. His full talk can be read below:

I begin by drawing your attention to National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200). The National Security Council of the United States completed a study in 1974 entitled Implications of the Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests known in short as NSSM 200.

NSSM 200, promoted and endorsed by Dr Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s National Security Adviser, expressed the gravest fears that the political consequences of current population factors in the less developed countries might create “political or even national security problems for the US”.

A 1977 annual report on the implementation of NSSM 200 emphasises the strategic importance of using “intermediaries” such as the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), the World Bank and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), since they could operate in countries where the United States “are not now acceptable” thus avoiding the accusation of imperialism.

This is exactly what Marie Stopes International (MSI) and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and others are doing in Ghana today. According to the IPPF website, Planned Parenthood Association Ghana, IPPF’s subsidiary, delivered in Ghana in the year 2011:

5.8 million condoms

330,000 contraceptive services

526,000 other sexual and reproductive health services

606,000 services to young people under 25 years

When International Planned Parenthood Federation refer to “reproductive health” they are referring to access to contraception and abortion – according to the definition of “reproductive health” used by the UNFPA and other UN bodies, governments such the current US administration and international anti-life NGOs such as IPPF and MSI.

On 26th March 2014 in New York, the International Planned Parenthood Federation co-hosted an event, particularly targeting African nations, to “present a declaration calling for universal access to safe and legal abortion”.

Let me say a little here about President Obama because his policies affect all of us, not least the people of Ghana. On October 12th 2009 the Obama administration confirmed at the UN that it would be promoting legalised abortion throughout the world, targeting adolescents in a worldwide abortion drive.

British Prime Minister, David Cameron has threatened to withhold UK aid from poor countries that do not conform and I quote: “British aid should have more strings attached”. David Cameron was speaking here in particular of the UK government’s homosexual rights agenda.

The homosexual rights agenda in my nation and in so many other nations represents a massive attack on the sanctity of human life for many reasons. For example, as you know, same-sex couples are now demanding the right to have children– making it even more difficult for pro-life groups effectively to oppose surrogacy and in vitro fertilisation. According to peer-reviewed research, for every baby born by IVF, 23 are either discarded, or frozen, or used in destructive experiments, or miscarry.  Defending the right to life of unborn children will increasingly be viewed as an attack on the rights of homosexual couples.

Morever, the homosexual rights’ agenda is a top priority for Planned Parenthood working here in Ghana.

Make no mistake, Planned Parenthood, hugely funded by the US government, the British government and the overwhelming majority of nations worldwide, are the enemy of Ghana’s children. In 2011, at the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN in New York, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Population Council and other pro-abortion groups held a meeting to launch worldwide a massive programme of so-called comprehensive sex education entitled: “It’s All One Curriculum”.

The curriculum shows itself to be nakedly polemical rather than educational. It states:

“People can support or join movements for social change at the global level. For example: …youth-led networks for sexual and reproductive rights and services.” (p.231)

And on page 61 of their curriculum guidelines they advise educators: “Certain social movements promote greater equality and dignity within marriage. These include: movements to legalize same-sex marriage”.

In the same document, International Planned Parenthood Federation tell teachers of young children that sexual self-abuse is a human right. They say:

“Sexuality may be expressed by oneself … Sexuality — expressed alone…can be a source of pleasure and meaning in life. (p.84) “ … Masturbation is an important way that people learn about their bodies and sexuality … Masturbation is a safe sexual behavior. It is neither physically nor mentally harmful.” (p.99)]

This is the kind of thing which Planned Parenthood is delivering to your children here in Ghana. In their “Access, Services and Knowledge (ASK) programme” which IPPF describes as a “‘ what young people want, what young people need’ programme” they target your 10 – 24 year-olds including underserved groups: The specific focus – an uptake of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services. The 3 year programme targets African young people in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana and Senegal.”

IPPF Africa Region says: “ASK aims to ensure that young people … receive direct information on sexual and reproductive health and rights so that they can make independent informed decisions.” For a full appreciation of IPPF’s concept of sexual rights I urge you to study Sexual Rights: an IPPF Declaration.

Moreover, yesterday, a story in The Ghanaian Times reports that the Norweigan Development Agency is targeting thousands of your 15 – 25 year-old young women in poor and urban and peri-urban areas of Ghana to introduce them, amongst other things, to sexual and reproductive health – a term meaning access to contraception and abortion.

Powerful Western forces as I speak are seeking to control your population by corrupting your nation’s values, in particular by targeting the innocence of your children and young people.

In a book entitled Adam and Eve after the Pill – Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution, Mary Eberstadt, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, describes the teaching of Pope Paul VI inHumanae Vitae on regulation of birth, published on July 25, 1968, as “perhaps the most unfashionable, unwanted, and ubiquitously deplored moral teaching on earth”. She then goes on to show that the teaching of Humanae Vitae is in fact the “most thoroughly vindicated” moral teaching on earth “by the accumulation of secular, empirical, post-revolutionary fact”. In this connection, Mary Eberstadt cites Nobel-Prize winning economist George Akerlof. In a 1996 article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Akerlof explains “why the sexual revolution, contrary to common prediction, especially those in and out of the church who wanted the teaching on birth control changed, had led to an increase in illegitimacy and abortion.” Mary Eberstadt continues: “In another work published in the Economic Journal in 1998, Akerlof traced the empirical connections between the decrease in marriage and married fatherhood for men – both clear consequences of the contraceptive revolution – and the simultaneous increase in behaviours to which single men appear more prone: substance abuse, incarceration, and arrests, to name just three.”

Mary Eberstadt in Adam and Eve and the Pill also says: “The years since Humanae Vitae have … vindicated the encyclical’s fear that government would use the new contraceptive technology coercively”.

In this connection, who can seriously doubt the effectiveness of powerful western nations and NGOs in promoting anti-life sex education programmes which seek to eliminate the role of parents as the primary educators and protectors of their children? This is a form of coercion on families which is resulting worldwide, not least in the UK my own country, in schoolchildren being given access to contraception and abortion without the knowledge of their parents, including in Catholic schools.

Thank God for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Ghana for your witness on these fundamental matters. In particular, I congratulate and thank you for your Communiqué last November in which you said: “We also deplore in no uncertain terms a radical and faceless culture of death which promotes among other things the supply and use of the condom in our schools, the in vitro fertilization and the contraception agenda of some national and international institutions in Ghana … we urge those who represent Ghana at the United Nations and other such bodies to realise that these practices are culturally abominable and morally and spiritually reprehensible …”

Above all, as Pope John Paul II pointed out in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, there is a close interconnection between contraception and abortion. According to the manufacturers, one of the contraceptive pill’s modes of action is to cause an early abortion. Thus the use of contraception undermines respect for the sanctity of human life from conception and makes the possibility of abortion an option.

As a pro-life leader for four decades and as a Catholic layman, a father and grandfather, I believe that it is urgent and overdue that the Church reaffirm the unchangeable teaching of Humanae Vitae on the separation of the procreative and unitive dimensions of the sexual act by the use of contraceptive methods. The separation of the procreative and unitive dimensions of the sexual act which is intrinsic to the use of contraception has acted as major catalyst of the culture of death. I am certain that until the core teaching of Humanae Vitae is constantly proclaimed throughout the Church and at the highest level of authority, the pro-life movement will not prevail.

In this connection, I am grateful to His Eminence Cardinal Turkson for sensitising our pro-life conference today to the pressures on church leaders which are constantly being brought to bear to change the Church’s unchanging and unchangeable teaching on contraception and abortion.

Particularly in relation to population control in Africa, I want to draw attention to the activities of Dr Jeffrey Sachs, the special adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

Jeffrey Sachs heads the Sustainable Solutions Network, which was responsible for producing a draft for the Sustainable Development Goals, which call for increased access to abortion and contraception worldwide.

Jeffrey Sachs made a plea for legalizing abortion as a cost-effective way to eliminate “unwanted children” when contraception fails in his 2008 book Commonwealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet.

In his book The Age of Sustainable Development, published last March, Jeffrey Sachs states quite clearly that the birth rate in Africa must be reduced.

Sachs proposes three methods of fertility rate reduction, the third of which is that governments must encourage their populations to lower family size by promoting birth control and providing access to free or low-cost contraception and family planning.

In 2011 Sachs expressed his horror at Nigeria’s rising population and called for the Nigerian government “to work towards attaining a maximum of three children.”

In June this year he called for the UN to provide 1 million healthcare workers for Africa. That is 1 million UN workers travelling through Africa promoting abortion and contraception.

Sachs will be in the Vatican in November to take part in a workshop organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences which will discuss how to “use children as agents of change” in pursuing sustainable development and the environmental agenda.

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences’ workshop explicitly cites the papal encyclical Laudato Si, as the basis for its work.

I repeat: the subject of the Vatican Workshop in November us “using children as agents of change” in pursuing sustainable development and the environmental agenda.

Not only in this context, as a parent and grandparent, I am deeply concerned that Laudato Si makes no reference to parents as the primary educators of their children. Using children as agents of change in pursuing sustainable development and the environmental agenda will very soon become a required part of school curricula throughout the world. Have no doubt that the worldwide population control powers-that-be, led by people like Jeffrey Sachs, will make their influence well and truly felt in shaping those school curricula.

It is extremely disturbing that at the very moment when the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, the organization which I lead, and other pro-life organisations, have been fighting tooth-and-nail at the United Nations to protect developing countries from the pro-abortion, pro-contraception, anti-parent elements written into the sustainable development goals, that the Holy See has been seeking Jeffrey Sachs’s advice and permitting him to help shape the Holy See’s policies on sustainable development.

Jeffrey Sachs has played a leading role at Vatican conferences and workshops on these matters no less than six times in the last couple of years and has had a personal audience with Pope Francis.

I note here with great foreboding that the omission of any reference to Church teaching on the use of contraception in the papal encyclical in the environment leaves Catholics ill-prepared to resist the international population control agenda. The encyclical calls for increased international environmental action in paragraphs 173-175, while neglecting to prepare Catholics for what such action will undoubtedly involve: renewed attempts to further impose contraception and abortion on the developing world. There is now a grave danger that our children will be exposed to this agenda under the guise of education on environmental concerns. The proposed plans of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and the lack of clear teaching on these dangers in the encyclical, put us on our guard. Catholic parents must resist all attacks on our children, even when they emanate from within the Vatican.

Even more disturbing in relation to contraception is the recently published instrumentum laboris, the working document for the forthcoming Family Synod. The instrumentum laboris, clearly undermines the teaching of the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae. Paragraph 137 effectively seeks to nullify the central teaching of Humanae Vitae which declared morally inadmissable “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, [which] is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.”

Paragraph 137 of the instrumentum laboris, without in any way restating this fundamental teaching of Humanae Vitae, suggests that a balance must be reached between the “role of conscience” and the “objective moral norm” under “the regular guidance of a competent and spiritual guide”. The implication of the whole passage is that contraceptive acts may sometimes be permitted. Let me conclude this section of my talk by quoting again the timeless teaching of Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae:

“Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it …  even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general.”

Furthermore, Paragraph 86 of the instrumentum laboris contains a direct attack on the rights of parents. The paragraph states that “the family, while maintaining its privileged spot in education, cannot be the only place for teaching sexuality.” This statement is directly contrary to Catholic teaching which affirms the right and duty of parents to be the first and foremost providers of education to their children in sexual matters. Parents are entirely capable of performing this task by themselves and it is entirely their choice if they wish to involve others. Paragraph 86 of the instrumentum laboris leaves Ghanaian children, and my grandchildren, at the mercy of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

There are other major terrible and terrifying passages for families throughout the world, Catholic and non-Catholic families, in the instrumentum laboris on which I don’t have the time to comment today – but I will leave copies of an analysis of this disturbing document for your attention.

I say these things to you today to fulfil my responsibility outlined in Canon 212 of the Code of Canon Law:

According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they [the Christian faithful] have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.

The crisis in the Church is quite possibly unparalleled. So let us say a prayer for Pope Francis. May the Lord preserve him and give him life and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

In June this year, a consultative meeting of African prelates was held in Accra, Ghana, which culminated in the 45 bishops and 5 cardinals representing episcopal conferences across the continent expressing their intention to present a united determination to defend Church teaching about marriage and family at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family.

In the closing communique of the meeting in Accra, the bishops of Africa said that at the upcoming Synod on the Family they would offer “a clear affirmation of family and marriage values according to the Word of God and the doctrine of the Church.”

Thank God for the African bishops. My family and families throughout the world will be praying for you in the coming months – that you continue to be courageous apostles of the unchanging and unchangeable Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of the family, the Gospel of life.

Synod preparatory document ‘poses a very real danger to the family,’ says Voice of the Family

August 13, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — Voice of the Family, an international lay coalition of major pro-life and pro-family organizations, has warned that the Vatican’s preparatory document for the October Synod on the Family “threatens the entire structure of Catholic teaching on marriage, the family and human sexuality.” In an extensive analysis of the Vatican’s 77-page document called the Instrumentum Laboris,

[http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents /rc_synod_doc_20150623_instrumentum-xiv-assembly_en.html ] Voice of the Family points to several areas where the omissions and ambiguity in wording is leading in a direction dangerous to faith and family.

The game plan of introducing ambiguity into the texts was revealed by Cardinal Walter Kasper, the central figure of the Synod who launched the controversy with his proposals for communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. In an interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo in June he divulged an approach to overcome growing opposition to his heterodox plans.

“I get a lot of agreements, but also a lot of critiques, and there are tensions there,” Kasper acknowledged. “Now I propose to those who prepare the Synod to prepare a text which can get the agreement of the whole, of the great majority. It’s the same method also we had in the Council.” He later repeated, “My suggestion is to find now a formula where the great majority can adhere.”

The Second Vatican Council was also faced with challenges to traditional Catholic doctrine and practice, which were opposed by large numbers of bishops. Despite this opposition, many items on the agenda of the ultra-liberal bishops were accomplished by the use of often vague, ambiguous and even apparently conflicting language that seem to have appeased both sides. These expressions were later referred to as “time bombs” which some theologians were able to exploit following the council for the purpose of undermining the Church’s traditional teachings.

The Voice of the Family analysis explains “it is clear that the instrumentum laboris fails to clearly affirm Catholic doctrine, but rather, through the use of ambiguous terms, seriously undermines it.”

John Smeaton, co-founder of Voice of the Family, said, “The document undermines the doctrine of Humanae Vitae on contraception.” The 19-page critical analysis of the Instrumentum Laboris written by Voice of the Family’s Matthew McCusker notes that that Vatican preparatory document for the Synod “refuses to use the word ‘contraception’ or make any direct reference to any contraceptive method, despite the devastating consequences of the use of contraceptives in many areas of human life, not least the killing of unborn children by abortifacient methods.”

More than that, the Instrumentum Laboris misrepresents Humanae Vitae by leaving out the fact that it condemns contraception. The Synod document states that the “two principal points” of the encyclical are first about the role of conscience and second “an objective moral norm” without ever defining that moral norm – namely Humanae Vitae declares morally inadmissible “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.”

“The Instrumentum Laboris also resurrects the discredited Kasper proposals for Holy Communion for unrepentant adulterers, reduces the indissolubility of marriage to a mere ‘ideal’, and undermines the position of parents as their children’s primary educators,” added Smeaton.

With regard to the Church’s teaching that parents are the primary educators of children, the Instrumentum Laboris suggests otherwise. Paragraph 86 states that “the family, while maintaining its privileged spot in education, cannot be the only place for teaching sexuality.” The Voice of the Family analysis notes the “statement is directly contrary to Catholic teaching,” citing the teaching of St. Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, where the pope leaves open the possibility that sex education can be done solely in the home. He wrote: “Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centres chosen and controlled by them.”

“Voice of the Family urges Catholics not to be complacent or give in to a false sense of obedience, in the face of attacks on the fundamental principles of the natural law,” concluded Smeaton. “Catholics have a duty to oppose the direction being taken at the Synod. If that direction is not reversed, the greatest victims will be those who are most vulnerable, especially children, born and unborn.”

See the full 19-page critical analysis of the Instrumentum Laboris written by Voice of the Family’s Matthew McCusker: http://voiceofthefamily.info/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Analysis-of-the-Instrumentum-Laboris-of-the-Ordinary-Synod.pdf

Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Synod document pushes agenda contrary to divine law

We are pleased to present a new interview, which has been granted to Catholic Voice newspaper by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan. Catholic Voice is one of 24 organisations that form the Voice of the Family coalition. Bishop Athanasius Schneider has risen to prominence because of his clear defence of Catholic teaching. In this interview the Bishop discusses the major threats to the family posed by the instrumentum laboris of the synod and by the actions of senior prelates who operate from within the official structures of the Church. Voice of the Family has produced an in-depth analysis of the instrumentum laboris.

Q. Your Excellency, the Instrumentum Laboris  for the 2015 Synod states that there is a “common accord” [c’è un comune accordo] in favour of a “penitential way” for the divorced and remarried ” under the authority of the Bishop, for the faithful (who have been) divorced and remarried civilly, who find themselves in a situation of irreversible cohabitation.”  Is it accurate to suggest there is a “common accord” ?

Bishop Schneider: The affirmation that there is a “common accord” on the “penitential way” is not correct. The only one public document that would permit to determine the effective opinion of the bishops on this topic, is the “Relatio Synodi” of 2014. There it is documented that 40% of the members of the Synod rejected such a “penitential way”. When faced with such a result, one can hardly speak of a “common accord”. Furthermore, there is no specification as to a concrete definition of such a “penitential way”.  

Q. In light of this use of the phrase “c’è un comune accordo” is the credibility of the Instrumentum Laboris threatened? One could even conclude there is an attempt to impose communion for the divorced and remarried at the Synod despite opposition. Do you have any comment on this?

Bishop Schneider: In the light of a careful analysis of the facts, one is left with the suspicion that the authors of the Instrumentum Laboris try to push forward the agenda of a certain clerical pressure group in order to change the Divine law of the non-admission the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion.

Q. Commenting on the Synod, Archbishop Forte has said one of the priorities should be a discussion of allowing those who have divorced and remarried outside the Church to become “godfathers or godmothers, catechists, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist.” What do you think of this idea?

Bishop Schneider: Firstly, it is necessary to remember the significance of godparents according to the constant teaching and practice of the Church: A sponsor (godfather or godmother) must help the baptized person to lead a Christian life in keeping with baptism and to fulfill faithfully the obligations inherent in it. To be permitted to take on the function of sponsor a person must be a Catholic who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on (cf. Canons 872 and 874 § 1, 3). Sponsors and those who take the place of parents are obliged to form the children by word and example in faith and in the practice of Christian life (cf. Canon 774, § 2). When a godfather or a godmother or a catechist conducts a lifestyle that publicly contradicts the Sixth Commandment and the indissolubility of the Christian marriage, then he or she surely cannot be an example of a life of faith. The same is valid for extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. The advocacy for the admission of divorced and remarried to the task of godparents and catechists cannot ultimately be for the true spiritual good of the children, but turns out to be an instrumentalization of a specific ideological agenda. This is a dishonesty and a mockery of the institution of godparents and catechists who by means of a public promise took on the task of educators of the faith. In the case of godparents or catechists who are divorced and remarried, their life however, continuously contradicts their words, and so they have to face the admonition of the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the Apostle Saint James: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1: 22). 

Q. Excellency, in the ongoing debate over same sex “marriage” some Catholic groups have become open to the notion of recognizing that same sex pairs can have long term loving relationships thus they conclude that it is possible to recognize same sex civil partnerships. It is evident that even a few bishops support this idea but could this ever be an authentic Catholic position?

Bishop Schneider: This can never be an authentic Catholic position because it contradicts directly the words of God, which says that homosexual acts and the homosexual lifestyle are a grievous offense of the will of God (cf. Gen 18:20; Lev 18:22; 20:13; Is 3:9; Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10; Jud 7). Committing evil in a long-term and even loving relationship cannot transform the same evil into good. Only true repentance that includes contrition and the firm intention to avoid the evil cancels with the grace of God the evil. It would be absurd to affirm that alcoholism will gain a positive recognition because of the long-term and loving relationship of two persons who established this relationship on the base of their propensity to alcohol. The same absurdity contains the above-mentioned affirmation about same sex unions.

Q. There also appears to be a push towards a “new language” with some saying that using the phrases “homosexual tendencies” and “intrinsically disordered” should be avoided less offence is caused – what do you make of this drive to use politically correct language?

Bishop Schneider: We have to call things by their real names; otherwise, we will deceive the others and ourselves. To call the things by their names does not mean an intention to create discrimination, provided we speak with respect and pedagogical wisdom. There exist some deficiency symptoms of a bodily or spiritual nature such as fear of heights, claustrophobia, seasickness, shortsightedness etc. No person of common sense will be indignant when we name such phenomena as a deficiency. In fact, the homosexual attraction is in itself a sexual-psychological deficiency symptom, which all civilized human history has considered as a deficiency and called by its name. Under pressure from the new gender ideology, which has its roots in the Marxist ideology, in the 1970s homosexuality was excluded from the International Handbook of Psychological diseases. In such a way, persons who suffer with homosexual attraction were taken hostages of a radical ideology, inasmuch as they are denied the opportunity to receive healing or improvement of their psychologically defective situation. To have a deficiency is not a shame, but it is a fact. Those who effectively encourage deficient persons, in our case persons who are feeling a homosexual attraction, to abuse their deficiency in order to become more deficient and to consequently become addicts, commit a grave injustice towards these persons who need and want to receive help in their spiritual and psychological deficiency.  

Q. Your Excellency, since the legalisation of abortion in Ireland in 2013, Catholic hospitals such as the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin, have issued statements indicating that they will comply with the new abortion laws. In these circumstances, what is the duty of an archbishop or bishop in whose jurisdiction these hospitals reside?

Bishop Schneider: The duty of a Catholic bishop in such a case is to deprive the hospital the title “Catholic” and remind his faithful that accomplices of the horrible crime of abortion commit a grave sin and are threatened with excommunication. The punishment of excommunication is a medicinal measure in order to prevent the guilty person from committing further crimes and so to ensure his eternal salvation. This was the method of God Himself (the preaching of judgement and punishment through the Prophets), of Our Lord Jesus Christ (the speech of excommunication in Mt 18: 15-18) and of the Apostles (the excommunication realized by Saint Paul, cf. 1 Cor 5: 4-5) and so it has to be also the method of the Church. When the Church desists of this Divine method, she will be no more faithful to God, she will be no more a real mother who punishes her child in order to save it. On the contrary, such a church will be a false mother who disastrously pampers the child to its damage or a stepmother who is indifferent about the child’s salvation. The following words of excommunication pronounced by Saint Paul and inspired by the Holy Spirit, remain valid for all periods of the Church’s history inclusively for our days: “With the power of our Lord Jesus we deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Cor 5: 4-5).

Q. During the same sex “marriage” debate in Ireland, one bishop stated that Catholics could in good conscience vote for this proposal and admonished them not to vote against it out of hate. In addition, many clergy used the media to also encourage voters to redefine marriage. This situation is repeated throughout the western world – what do you think has happened to the clergy in this respect and what should be done to correct matters?

Bishop Schneider: Those clerics who encouraged the faithful to vote for same sex marriage revealed themselves by this same fact as false prophets, as those who pervert the Word of God. They revealed themselves as public liars, to whom are fully applicable these words of Holy Scripture: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Is 5:20) and: “Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading” (Lam 2: 14). To such priests and bishops the Apostle Paul without any doubt would say today these words: “Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Cor 11:13). In order to remedy this situation it is firstly necessary that faithful Bishops teach clearly and unambiguously the truth of Christ and correct explicitly the teaching of these false prophets.

Q. Excellency, in a number of interviews you have mentioned attempts to manipulate the proceedings of the 2014 Synod. Many faithful around the world are anxious that attempts are being made to manipulate the 2015 Synod. What can be done to stop such manipulation? What can those not directly involved in the Synod do if evidence emerges of renewed manipulation?

Bishop Schneider: In order to stop such manipulations we must first of all, implore fervently Divine and heavenly intervention, so that the following words of God may be realized in our days during the upcoming Synod: “God frustrates the devices of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success. He catches the wise in their own craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end” (Job 5: 12-13).

Furthermore, we have to expose and defend the Divine truth about marriage and family in written and oral forms, exercising hereby the service of the truth as an important gesture of our love for our neighbour. When there exists sure elements of proof one should try to unmask the machinations of the false prophets inside the Church. Saint Peter, the first Pope, wrote in his second Encyclical Letter the following words, which are applicable to those priests and bishops who teach in our days the goodness of the homosexual lifestyle and the legitimacy of receiving Holy Communion by those who live publicly in an adulterous partnership: “There will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who redeemed them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” (2 Peter 2: 1-3).

Q. Your Excellency, during this time of unprecedented confusion and disorientation in the Church are there any saints or spiritual writings to which you turn for consolation and encouragement? Could you share with our readers any sayings or insights that will encourage us?

Bishop Schneider: We have to look on those Saints who shone out as lights in particularly confused periods of the Church History. Among the clergy, I would name Saint Athanasius his sufferings and his writings about the history of the Arians; Saint Gregory VII, who intrepidly defended chastity (against clerical concubinage and sodomy) and liberty (against the interference of the civil power in spiritual affairs) of the Church, the Spouse of Christ; Saint John Fisher, who at the cost of his life was the only one English bishop of his time defended the indissolubility of the marriage and the primacy of the Pope; Saint Pius X who was in his words and his deeds extraordinarily clear and courageous and never bowed to the pressure of political correctness neither inside nor outside the Church.

Among the laity one can mention particularly: Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Thomas More, Gabriel Garcia Moreno, the eminently pious and courageous President of Ecuador, who was assassinated in 1875 in “odium fidei” immediately when he came out of the church where he spent one hour in Eucharistic adoration. The servant of God Jerome Lejeune (+ 1994): he was ostracized by the medical, academic and political elite because of his strong position against abortion; he did not receive an increase in salary for nearly 20 years;  his research grants were withdrawn and he was forced to close his laboratory. 

It would be a great spiritual help for us in our days in midst of the persecution from outside the Church and the marginalization from inside the Church to read the biographies and writings of the above-mentioned saints and servants of God and especially the life of the martyrs. I read somewhere once this phrase, which can encourage us: “It is not important what people say about us today, but what they will say about us hundred years after our death”.

Silent Action of the Heart

By Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments

Editor’s note: This article appeared in the Italian edition of L’Osservatore Romano on June 12, 2015. (English translation by Michael J. Miller for CWR.)

Fifty years after its promulgation by Pope Paul VI, will the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy finally be read? Sacrosanctum Concilium is actually not just a catalogue of “recipes” for reform, but a veritable Magna Carta of all liturgical action.

In it the Ecumenical Council gives us a magisterial lesson in methodology. Indeed, far from being content with a disciplinary, external approach to the liturgy, the Council wishes to have us contemplate what it is in its essence. The Church’s practice always results from what she receives and contemplates in revelation. Pastoral ministry cannot be detached from doctrine.

In the Church “action is directed to contemplation” (cf. no. 2). The conciliar Constitution invites us to rediscover the Trinitarian origin of the liturgical work. Indeed, the Council determines that there is a continuity between the mission of Christ the Redeemer and the liturgical mission of the Church. “Just as Christ was sent by the Father, so also He sent the apostles,” so that “by means of sacrifice and sacraments, around which the entire liturgical life revolves” they might “accomplish the work of salvation” (no. 6).

Carrying out the liturgy therefore is the same as accomplishing the work of Christ. The liturgy is essentially “actio Christi”: “the work of Christ the Lord in redeeming mankind and giving perfect glory to God” (no. 5). He is the great high priest, the true subject, the true protagonist of the liturgy (cf. no. 7). If this vitally important principle is not accepted in faith, we run the risk of making the liturgy a human work, the community’s celebration of itself.

On the contrary, the Church’s real work is to enter into Christ’s action, to join in the work for which He has been commissioned by the Father. Therefore “the fullness of divine worship was given to us,” because “His humanity, united with the person of the Word, was the instrument of our salvation” (no. 5). The Church, the Body of Christ, must therefore become in turn an instrument in the hands of the Word.

This is the ultimate meaning of the key concept of the conciliar Constitution: “participatio actuosa”. For the Church, this participation consists of becoming the instrument of Christ the Priest, for the purpose of participating in His Trinitarian mission. The Church actively participates in Christ’s liturgical work insofar as she is the instrument thereof. In this sense, language about the “celebrating community” has its ambiguities and requires true caution (cf. the Instruction Redemptoris sacramentum, no. 42). Therefore this “participatio actuosa” should not be understood as the need to do something. On this point the Council’s teaching has often been distorted. Instead it is a matter of letting Christ take us and associate us with His sacrifice.

Liturgical “participatio” must therefore be understood as a grace from Christ who “always associates the Church with Himself” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7). He is the one who has the initiative and the primacy. The Church “calls to her Lord, and through Him offers worship to the Eternal Father” (no. 7).

The priest must therefore become this instrument that allows Christ to shine through. As our Holy Father Pope Francis recalled recently, the celebrant is not the host of a show, he must not look for sympathy from the assembly by setting himself in front of it as its main speaker. To enter into the spirit of the Council means, on the contrary, to be self-effacing, to refuse to be the center of attention.

Contrary to what has sometimes been maintained, and quite in keeping with the conciliar Constitution, it is altogether appropriate, during the penitential rite, the singing of the Gloria, the orations and the Eucharistic prayer, that everyone, priest and faithful, turn together toward the East, so as to express their intention to participate in the work of worship and redemption accomplished by Christ. This way of celebrating could possibly be implemented in cathedrals, where the liturgical life must be exemplary (cf. no. 41).

Of course, there are other parts of the Mass in which the priest, acting “in persona Christi Capitis” [“in the person of Christ the Head”] enters into a nuptial dialogue with the assembly. But the only purpose of this face-to-face is to lead to a tête-À-tête with God which, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, will become a heart-to-heart conversation. The Council thus proposes other means of promoting participation: “acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes” (no. 30).

An over-hasty and all-too-human interpretation has led some to conclude that it was necessary to make sure that the faithful were constantly busy. The contemporary Western mentality, shaped by technology and fascinated by the media, tried to make the liturgy a work of effective, rewarding instruction. In this spirit, many have tried to make liturgical celebrations convivial. Liturgical ministers, prompted by pastoral motives, sometimes try to instruct by introducing profane, show-business elements into liturgical celebrations. Don’t we sometimes see a proliferation of testimonies, scenery and applause? They think that this will foster the participation of the faithful, whereas in fact it reduces the liturgy to a human game.

“Silence is not a virtue, noise is not a sin, it is true,” says Thomas Merton, “but the turmoil and confusion and constant noise of modern society,” or of some African Eucharistic liturgies, “are the expression of the ambiance of its greatest sins—its godlessness, its despair. A world of propaganda, of endless argument, vituperation, criticism, or simply of chatter, is a world without anything to live for…. Mass becomes racket and confusion; prayers—an exterior or interior noise” (Thomas Merton The Sign of Jonas [San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1953, 1981], passim).

We run the real risk of leaving no room for God in our celebrations. We fall into the temptation of the Hebrews in the desert. They sought to create for themselves a form of worship on their own scale and of their own stature, and let us not forget that they ended up prostrate before an idol, the golden calf.

It is time to start listening to the Council. The liturgy is “above all things the worship of the divine majesty” (no. 33). It has instructional value to the extent to which it is completely ordered to the glorification of God and to divine worship. Liturgy really places us in the presence of divine transcendence. True participation means renewing in ourselves that “amazement” that Saint John Paul II held in high regard (cf. Ecclesia de Eucharistia, no. 6). This sacred wonder, this joyful fear, requires our silence before the divine majesty. We often forget that sacred silence is one of the means noted by the Council for promoting participation.

If the liturgy is Christ’s work, is it necessary for the celebrant to interject his own comments? We should remember that, when the missal authorizes an intervention, this must not become a profane, human speech, a more or less subtle commentary on current events, or a worldly greeting to the persons present, but rather a very brief exhortation to enter into the mystery (cf. General Introduction of the Roman Missal, no. 50). As for the homily, in itself it is always a liturgical act that has its own rules. “Participatio actuosa” in Christ’s work presupposes that we leave the profane world so as to enter into the “sacred action surpassing all others” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7). In fact, “we claim somewhat arrogantly to remain in the human sphere so as to enter into the divine” (Robert Sarah, God or Nothing [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015], chapter IV).

In this regard it is deplorable that the sanctuary in our churches is not a place strictly reserved for divine worship, that people enter it in worldly garb, and that the sacred space is not clearly delimited by the architecture. Since, as the Council teaches, Christ is present in His word when it is proclaimed, it is likewise harmful that lectors do not have proper attire that shows that they are not pronouncing human words but a divine word.

The liturgy is a fundamentally mystical, contemplative reality, and consequently beyond the reach of our human action; even our “participatio” is a grace from God. Therefore it presupposes on our part openness to the mystery being celebrated. Thus, the Constitution recommends the full understanding of the rites (cf. no. 34), and at the same time prescribes that “the faithful… be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them” (no. 54).

Indeed, understanding the rite is not the work of unaided human reason, which would have to grasp everything, understand everything, master everything. The understanding of the sacred rites is that of the “sensus fidei”, which practices a living faith through the symbol and knows by being attuned more than through concepts. This understanding presupposes that one approaches the mystery with humility.

But will people have the courage to follow the Council this far? Such an interpretation, illuminated by the faith, is fundamental however for evangelization. Indeed, “the liturgy… shows forth the Church to those who are outside as a sign lifted up among the nations, under which the scattered children of God may be gathered together” (no. 2). It must stop being a place of disobedience to the Church’s prescriptions.

More specifically, it cannot be an occasion for divisions among Christians. Dialectical interpretations of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the hermeneutics of rupture in one direction or the other, are not the fruit of a spirit of faith. The Council did not intend to break with the liturgical forms inherited from Tradition, but rather intended to appreciate them in greater depth. The Constitution declares that “any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing” (no. 23).

In this regard, it is necessary that some should celebrate according to the “usus antiquior” [older usage] and should do so without any spirit of opposition, and therefore in the spirit of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Similarly, it would be a mistake to consider the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite as coming from some other theology which is not that of the reformed liturgy. It would also be desirable in a future edition of the Missal to insert the penitential rite and the offertory of the “usus antiquior” for the purpose of emphasizing that the two liturgical forms illuminate each other, in continuity and without opposition.

If we live in this spirit, then the liturgy will stop being a place of rivalries and critiques, so as finally to make us participate actively in that liturgy “which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, a minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle” (no. 8).

How the pill might be ruining your life

http://catholicsay.com

Depleted nutrient absorption. Long-term alterations in brain activity and ability to interact with the world. Changes in choice of mate. If a commonly prescribed drug has these side effects, should it really be commonly prescribed?

That was the question raised at an Aug. 8 symposium at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Researchers and medical professionals from across the United States and overseas gathered together to discuss the little-known risks of the birth control pill.

Entitled “Contraceptive Conundrum,” the symposium explored the consequences of hormonal birth control, many of which are unknown by women and doctors alike.

Dr. S. Craig Roberts, a researcher who specializes in mate preferences, stressed that the pill can alter the chemistry of attraction.

Under normal circumstances, he said, “women express preferences for genetically-dissimilar, masculine-faced men. But the pill seems to alter these preferences.”

“Women on the pill tend to choose male partners who appear more feminine (and who are) more genetically similar to them.”

Children born from unions of genetically similar parents may have greater health risks. Furthermore, when women come off the pill – often when they decide to have kids – they may revert to their natural attraction patterns, which their partner whom they met on the pill no longer fits.

Dr. Roberts noted that “women who met their partner when on the pill are more likely to initiate divorce.”

Women’s choice of partner while using hormonal contraception is part of a larger concern – the impact of hormones in the pill on the human brain.

According to Dr. Nicole Peterson, a researcher at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, the full extent of this impact is not yet clear, and research is still being done. But there is already ample evidence that the pill creates changes that may make permanent alterations to brain pathways.

“In women on the pill the amygdala – memory making part of brain – responds less to emotional stimuli,” she explained.

This can have some desirable results, such as lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder among rape victims. However, it also drastically changes how women on the pill make choices and interact with the world around them.

Even more alarming, the pill’s effects on brain wiring can still be seen at least four months after a woman has stopped using the pill.

“If a woman is on oral contraceptives for long enough, she has a different kind of brain… there’s no guarantee that your brain remembers what the baseline is,” stressed Dr. Melissa Farmer, a post-doctoral fellow at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

She said that she finds the long-term nature of these brain changes particularly troubling.

Endocrine changes due to the pill can also have long-lasting effects, with consequences that last after a woman is no longer on hormonal contraception.

For example, if a woman stops taking the pill in order to become pregnant, the hormonal changes left over from the pill can affect her child.

“Very small changes in hormones in critical periods of fetal development can have lifelong consequences,” explained Dr. Frederick vom Saal, a researcher in developmental biology at the University of Missouri.

Another potentially long-term effect of the pill: nutrient depletion, which is associated with a whole host of other health problems.

“Oral contraceptives deplete nutrients more than any other kind of commonly prescribed drug,” said cancer researcher and nutritionist Ross Pelton. This includes depletions in all B vitamins, vitamin C, folic acid, zinc and several others.

While the onset tends to be gradual, these depletions can last even after the cessation of pill use, he noted. The result can be a negative impact on sexual health and increase risk for other problems, including heart issues.

With such serious potential side effects, some symposium participants questioned the widespread, almost automatic use of hormonal birth control.

 

Experiments on Intact Whole Live Fetuses and the Connection to Infant Formula

Dr. Stacy Trasancos, PhD
http://www.catholicstand.com

Recently the investigative journalism conducted by David Daleiden who started the Center for Medical Progress has provided a raw look into the minds of the people involved in the “human capital” abortion industry. As the videos continue to come out and lawsuits are filed threatening to suppress free speech and journalism, perhaps this is a good time to look more broadly at the sale and use of aborted fetuses in scientific research.

One does not need to conduct an undercover investigation to discover “human capital.” The facts are in the academic record, and they offer cold hard evidence that what Daleiden is revealing is not only true, but spans far, deep, and wide across time and locale.

The following information is just one example pieced together to demonstrate how ingrained this type of research is in the global scientific and industrial communities. Scientists are expected to provide meticulous accounts of their work for the sake of reproducibility and posterity. The language is thus very technical. Knowing how to read scientific literature means knowing how to decipher the scientific language. Please note: Because of the detail, however, the information in this case is also disturbing.

Let’s step through the facts.

Fetuses Presented a Special Test Case

In 1972, Pediatric Research journal published a paper submitted by researchers from the Department of Pediatric Research at New York State and Mount Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York in collaboration with a researcher from the Departments of Medical Chemistry and Obstetrics and Gynecology of the University of Helsinki in Finland. The paper was titled, “Development of Mammalian Sulfur Metabolism: Absence of Cystathionase in Human Fetal Tissues.” The fact that they used fetuses is stated right in the title. The researchers “examined the development of the transsulfuration pathway in 58 human fetuses obtained at therapeutic abortion during approximately the 2nd-6th month of gestation” as well as in premature and full term infants who died shortly after birth. They were trying to determine whether cysteine is an essential amino acid in “immature humans,” so they needed to analyze kidneys and brains at different developmental stages.

The fetuses presented a special test case. Since the fetuses were still alive at the beginning of the experiment in their mothers’ wombs, “in vivo” experiments were possible. This phrase “in vivo” is Latin and means “within the living.” With already deceased specimens, they could only measure the presence of amino acids after death. This type of analysis is an “in vitro” (in the glass, think in vitro fertilization) procedure. With the still-living fetuses, they could actually inject a known amount of amino acids, S-L-methionine and S-L-cysteine, “in vivo” into a living fetus and test how much of these substances were incorporated into fetal organs via the biological machinery of life over a set amount of time. The researchers therefore conducted the “in vivo” experiments by surgically cutting open the uterus of the mother, lifting out the living fetus with the umbilical cord still attached, and injecting the amino acids into the umbilical vein.

Then they waited 10 minutes with the heart still beating and the fetus still moving to allow the body to distribute and metabolize the amino acids. After 10 minutes, they cut the umbilical cord, dissected the brain and liver from the body of the fetus, and dropped the organs into liquid nitrogen to await analysis.

Here is the relevant description from the Methods and Materials section:

For “in vivo” experiments, each fetus immediately after removal from the uterus was injected with approximately 100 uCi of either 35S-L-methionine (specific activity 515 mCi/mmole) or 35S-L-cysteine (specific activity 31.3 mCi/mmole) contained in 0.5 ml of a 0.9% solution of NaCl at pH 7.0. In some experiments, unlabeled cysteine (2.0 /xmoles L-cysteine in 0.2 ml 0.9% NaCl, pH 7.0) as well as 35S-L-methionine were injected. All injections were made into the umbilical vein through a short Teflon catheter which was then rinsed with 0.2 ml 0.9% NaCl; the whole cord was clamped on the fetal side of the point of entry of the catheter to prevent blood loss during the experiment. After 10 min (elsewhere in the paper, “in all cases the heart continued to beat during the 10-min period and spontaneous movement was seen”), the cord was severed close to the fetus, and as much blood as possible was collected into a tube which contained heparin as anticoagulant. The fetal organs were quickly removed and dropped into liquid nitrogen.

The research was funded by the Lalor Foundation in Boston, Massachusetts, the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, and the Association for Aid of Crippled Children also in New York. The abortions appear to have been done at the Central University Hospital and Borja Womens Hospital in Helsinki, Finland because an end note offers thanks to the staffs there. A shorter communication of this work was also published in Science journal, “Absence of Cystathionase in Human Fetal Liver: Is Cystine Essential?” Science journal is arguably the most prestigious journal to have your work published in because it is not specialized in any one area and only publishes the best work across all scientific disciplines.
The Mothers and Hysterotomies

Among the details in the paper was the anesthesia procedure for the women. “Preoperative medications included Pethidine, 50-75 mg; Phenergan, 25 mg; and atropine, 0.5-0.8 mg intramuscularly. Anaesthesia was induced with 250-440 mg Pentothal intravenously and was maintained with N2O2.”

Not all the details regarding the women were recorded though. According to the Pediatric Research paper, the “mothers” (the authors called them “mothers”) were in good health but sought abortion for “social or psychological reasons.” The “mothers” apparently agreed to undergo “hysterotomies,” which seems odd. A hysterotomy is a surgery where an incision is made in the uterus, usually done for Cesarean birth or fetal surgery. A hysterotomy is a much more invasive procedure than a suction-aspiration procedure, which was certainly available in the 1970’s. Safe abortions (for the mother) are ones that reduce the risk of perforating the uterus as much as possible and reduce the risk of infection. It does not make sense to unnecessarily cut open the uterus and leave it open for an extended period of time if the safety of the mother is the first concern.

The research paper did not mention whether the mothers gave consent or were informed of the procedure. One might wonder if the mothers were told that, while they were unconscious with their abdomens laid open, their unwanted children were used as living biological machines in the only 10 minutes they would live outside the womb. It is hard to imagine that any woman would agree to such an experiment regardless of how much she did not want to be pregnant or raise a child.

Fetuses And Infant Formula

The goal of this 1972 paper was to demonstrate that cysteine is an essential amino acid in human fetuses and in infants for some time after birth. The end use of this work was to provide information about feeding newborns. In the conclusion, the authors noted that “infants of low birth weight who are fed a formula with the same quality of protein as that in human milk should grow as well.” (Proteins are large biomolecules made of long chains of amino acids.) The experiment was part of a broader set of experiments to understand the kind of protein newborns need to be fed in milk formulas. By understanding the differences in how fetuses process amino acids compared to infants and children, the researchers sought to better design infant formula especially for prematurely born infants.

The two researchers from the New York, John A. Sturman and Gerald E. Gaull, continued their work in the coming years using fetal brains, sometimes whole. Their work was funded, in part, by the National Institute of Health Clinical Genetics Grant and the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene. In 1974, they published “Polyamine Biosynthesis in Human Fetal Liver and Brain” in Pediatric Research. In that study they used many of the same samples used in the previous study. Their interests were neurological.

The Finnish researcher who was interested in infant nutrition, Niels C. R. Räihä, published “Phenylalanine Hydoxylase in Human Liver during Development” in 1973 using the livers of 18 human fetuses from 2nd-6th month of gestation. Räihä continued his work until 1985, collaborating with 55 other co-authors from around the world and publishing some 41 papers, according to internet sources.

In 1993, Räihä served as Editor of the proceedings from the Nestlé Nutrition Workshop Series held that year in South Africa by the Nestlé Corporation. The collection of chapters, which was published in 1994 and titled Protein Metabolism During Infancy (Nestle Nutrition Workshop Series: Pediatric Program), reviewed the “protein requirements of low-birthweight, very-low-birthweight, and small-for-gestational-age infants and the essential amino acid requirements of infants with inborn errors of metabolism.” The book also focused on the quality of protein in human milk and formulas, the digestibility and absorption of protein in infants, and the role of essential and nonessential amino acids in neonatal nutrition. Hence, the experimental procedures describe above have a connection to the Nestlé Corporation and development of infant formula.
Fetuses: The Value Chain Is Much Larger

If the language of the Planned Parenthood and biotech executives discussing the demand for fetal body parts over wine and salad for lunch is disgusting, perhaps one will find the experimental methods tied to the history of the development of infant formula equally, if not more so, disgusting. These facts have been in the academic record for over 40 years. Was there no outcry? No controversy? What? Did people just trust the academics blindly? I do not know. A million questions can be asked about why anyone thought this kind of research was remotely acceptable. Yet, here we are in 2015 in shock as if all of this behavior began overnight, speculating about whether it is all really true or not. It is true. Those “in vivo” experimental procedures are not speculation, indication, or accusation. They are as true as if the researchers confessed the activities to the public in their own handwriting—because they did.

If the published works in refereed journals are to be believed, then abortion clinics have indeed provided whole live fetuses for research, even live ones handed over to be used, killed, and dissected as a part of an experiment that feeds an industry. Apparently for decades the use of fetal material has been a research tactic that is 1) considered ethical and legal, 2) coordinated across continents if necessary, 3) funded by governments and private foundations, 4) demanded by industry, and 5) applauded by the scientific community. Planned Parenthood could shut down completely tomorrow, but the use of aborted fetuses and fetal body parts will not stop.

The value-chain, so to speak, is much longer and affects more aspects of modern life than any of us may yet realize, and Planned Parenthood is but one link. Again, this is only one example. There is more. So while the Center for Medical Progress continues to expose Planned Parenthood’s involvement, I will continue to back it up by exposing what is in the scientific literature.

Margaret Sanger Goes Bust

Black pastors are asking the Smithsonian to remove Sanger from its “Champions of Justice” exhibit

by Miles Swigart

NORFOLK, August 10, 2015 (ChurchMilitant.com) – Black pastors are demanding the Smithsonian Museum remove a bust of Margaret Sanger.

The display is part of the museum’s “Struggle for Justice” exhibit, which features various historical figures considered champions of justice. The group of pastors, known as Ministers Taking a Stand (MTS), said in their letter to the museum that Margaret Sanger was a racist and eugenicist who is on record as saying she desired the extermination of “the Negro population.” Part of her plan was to contracept, sterilize and abort them out of existence, and the ministers claim these plans are still being carried out to this day.

“Perhaps the Gallery is unaware that Ms. Sanger supported black eugenics, a racist attitude toward black and other minority babies, an elitist attitude toward those she regarded as ‘the feeble-minded’; speaking at a rally of Ku Klux Klan women; and communications with Hitler sympathizers,” the letter states.

The letter mentions the recent Planned Parenthood exposés showing high-level employees trafficking in the sale of aborted babies’ organs, saying, “The fact is that the behavior of these abortionists, their callous and cavalier attitude toward these babies, is completely in keeping with Sanger’s perverse vision for America.”

The letter also links to a map showing that 70 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics are in minority neighborhoods in order to provide evidence that Planned Parenthood is targeting minorities.

During her life, Margaret Sanger was an outspoken proponent of the eugenics movement, calling for the forced government sterilization of black people and those deemed unfit for reproduction. The pastors cited a letter written by Sanger that stated, “We do not want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out the idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

It seems Sanger’s vision is coming to fruition: A recent study revealed that more African American babies in New York City are being aborted than born. And nationwide, although African American women comprise only 13 percent of the population, they comprise nearly 40 percent of all U.S. abortions.

The dark history of racial population politics and eugenics that led to federal funding of Sanger’s organization is undeniable, and these pastors are insulted that the bust of Margaret Sanger is being housed in the same room as black civil rights leaders like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. “How can a person like Sanger, who found common cause with the racial agenda of the Ku Klux Klan, be ranked among true champions of ‘justice’?”

Intact Late-Term Aborted Baby Cadavers Available says Planned Parenthood Official in Latest Shock Video

August 4, 2015 By Operation Rescue

From diversified revenue streams to intact late-term fetal cadavers, Planned Parenthood says, “We can make that happen.”

By Cheryl Sullenger

Houston, TX — A fifth video was released today by the Center for Medical Progress, this one discussing Planned Parenthood’s willingness alter abortion procedures to procure intact late-term aborted fetal cadavers form babies that could have been born alive. This information adds a shocking new layer of insight into Planned Parenthood’s participation in the illegal sale of fetal body parts.

Today’s video focuses on Planned Parenthood’s Center for Choice Surgical Center, located on Gulf Freeway in Houston, Texas.

CMP actors posing as representatives of an organ procurement company engaged in conversation with Melisa Farrell, Planned Parenthood’s Director of Research, who explained that abortion procedures are being altered to produce “intact specimens” when orders require it. “We can make that happen,” she said.

The discussion centered on the desire for aborted baby remains, particularly intact cadavers that were in the 16 to 22 week range. If such babies were birthed intact, the possibility exists that they could be born alive during the abortions, which is illegal.

“And we have had studies in which the company, and or in this case, investigator, has a specific need for certain portions of the parts of conception and we base that into our contract and our protocol that we follow this, so we deviate from our standard in order to do that,” Farrell said, (emphasis added).

Altering a medical procedure to ensure organs are better suited for harvesting is illegal. It is also dangerous. If a woman were to be injured or die during a procedure that was altered to ensure marketable organs, it would be grossly unethical and would represent huge liabilities to Planned Parenthood.

The Houston Planned Parenthood facility has been the site of multiple documented medical emergencies, including four incidents in less than 30 days that took place in January and February, 2015. Operation Rescue obtained 911 records that show a February 6 medical emergency involved a patient with a ruptured uterus during an abortion that required emergency transport to a nearby hospital.

“Whether any of those injuries were done during altered abortions is a matter for investigators to determine,” said Newman.

The Houston Planned Parenthood employs six abortion providers that do abortions “beyond 16 weeks.” The “buyers” were reassured that the abortionists have experience conducting abortion procedures “in a way that they get the best specimens, so we know that can happen,” according to XXX.

In a startling revelation, Farrell mentioned that Planned Parenthood abortion providers in Houston have been personally engaged in their own experiments using fetal body parts from abortions they perform. In addition, Farrell shared that research group wanted Planned Parenthood to provide a large amount of fetal tissue. In this case, the research lab was requesting 120 samples, including brain, thymus, liver, spleen, femur, bone marrow, and stem cells from 14 to 22 weeks gestation. The conclusion was reached that intact fetal cadavers were preferred for sale to the lab since so much of the body was required.

“The admission that Planned Parenthood abortionists manipulate procedures in order to better harvest organs or even late-term intact fetal cadavers for human experimentation purposes conjures images of H.G. Wells’ Dr. Moreau. It is all clearly illegal,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “Are ethical standards adhered to during these private experiments? Given Planned Parenthood’s propensity for unethical, above-the-law arrogance, it is doubtful.”

Newman also serves on the Board of the Center for Medical Progress, and acted in an advisory capacity during the nearly three-year long investigation.

Farrell’s contribution to the Planned Parenthood organization, both locally and nationally is “diversification of the revenue stream.” She goes on to agree that organ procurement can be a “gold mine” that financially benefits her clinic.

“I’m glad that you have that background so you can see the financial benefits,” noted one of the “buyers” as the Planned Parenthood executive nodded her head continually in agreement.

“I think everyone realizes, especially because my department contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, even though we are one of the largest affiliates, our research department is the largest in the United States, larger than any of the other affiliates combined,” Farrell said.

“Yeah, so if we alter a process and we are able to obtain intact fetal cadavers, then we can make it part of the budget, that any dissections are this, and spitting the specimens into different shipments is this, I mean, that’s – it’s all just a matter of line items.” The scene shifts to the “POC Room” where the fetal remains, also known as the ‘products of conception’ are sorted and stored in a freezer or simply comingled in a large biohazard bag for later collection and incineration.

One technician produced from a freezer a bag of remains from an 18-20 week old fetus that was aborted earlier that day. She poured the tissue in a colander and rinsed it, then dumped the chunky lumps of flesh into a glass pan.

There, the baby’s dismembered remains were inspected. Arms with hands attached and legs with feet were clearly observed, as well as eyeballs still within the orbital pockets.

The abortionist lifted a drippy clump, noting that this was the intestines.

Planned Parenthood employees at the Houston clinic packaged the specimens for shipment, which was a different procedure that at other Planned Parenthood affiliates where organ procurement technicians employed by biotech companies usually do that work.

The abortionist and Farrell discussed an upcoming National Abortion Federation meeting where Planned Parenthood Medical Director Deborah Nucatola was to present on the varying laws on fetal tissue procurement from state to state. Another Planned Parenthood abortion provider was set to present on “fetal collection,” they said.

“This information implicates the National Abortion Federation in the illegal selling of fetal organs,” said Newman.

Evidence of alleged NAF involvement comes one day after a San Francisco judge extended a temporary restraining order on videos taken during secretive NAF national meetings, citing NAF’s arguments that their meetings are confidential and attendees must sign non-disclosure agreements.

“The NAF knows that if the public understood what really is discussed behind closed doors that there is no public relations firm in existence that could spin that in a favorable light. In order for abortion to continue, the veil of secrecy that conceals horrifying acts from the public must be maintained at any cost,” said Newman, who was named in the suit along with the Center for Medical Progress and its Director, David Daleiden. “We will continue to fight to protect our Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. The truth will ultimately come out, no matter how hard the Abortion Cartel tries to hide it.”

Guess How Many Licensed Mammogram Facilities Planned Parenthood Runs

http://thefederalist.com

August 3, 2015 By Sean Davis

Planned Parenthood is under fire for organ trafficking admissions made by its senior executives in a series of undercover videos released over the last month. The videos, four of which have been released so far, show numerous top Planned Parenthood officials acknowledging the purchase and sale of aborted baby parts and haggling over their prices.

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s top abortion provider, swears up and down that notwithstanding the numerous admissions made on tape by its top officials, the organization doesn’t buy or sell organs and body parts harvested from aborted babies. Then, in order to defend its reputation, Planned Parenthood points to other medical procedures performed by the group that don’t result in body counts. One of its top rhetorical gimmicks is to reference all the mammograms that women can receive by visiting Planned Parenthood:

Planned Parenthood helps women nationwide get access to mammograms, as part of the range of health care Planned Parenthood health centers provide to nearly three million people a year.

There’s only one problem: Planned Parenthood does not manage a single licensed mammography facility in the U.S. Not one. Of the 8,735 licensed mammography facilities in America, Planned Parenthood operates exactly zero.

How do we know this? Because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration keeps a list of every licensed facility in the country. It updates this list weekly. And the most recent list of the more than 8,700 licensed mammogram facilities in the U.S. shows that not one is operated by Planned Parenthood. The following graphic from Alliance Defending Freedom shows just how little breast cancer screening is done by Planned Parenthood, especially compared to other non-abortion providers throughout the country:

mamogram pp

Planned Parenthood has even intimated that if its spigot of federal funding is turned off, women will have nowhere to turn for vital health care and cancer screenings. But that’s also a lie, as Mollie Hemingway explains. It turns out that Planned Parenthood only qualifies as the nation’s largest health care provider for women if you think abortion — the deliberate taking of an innocent human life — counts as health care.

Marco Rubio: Planned Parenthood Gets Over $500 Million in Tax Dollars. De-Fund It Now

SENATOR MARCO RUBIO AUG 3, 2015 | 9:19AM WASHINGTON, DC

As Americans we live in a nation founded on the idea that our rights and freedoms are God-given and that government’s fundamental role is to protect them. But our government today falls tragically short of this duty by failing to protect the rights of the most defenseless in our society: unborn children. Each year, over half a billion dollars in taxpayer money is given to Planned Parenthood, an organization responsible for over 300,000 abortions each year. While the provision of taxpayer money to such an organization has drawn its share of criticism over the years, the most recent revelations of Planned Parenthood’s actions reveal a new low for the organization.

Millions of Americans, myself included, have been outraged by the recently released videos showing Planned Parenthood officials matter of factly describing the harvesting and sale of limbs and organs from unborn babies in graphic detail and with a callous and cruel disregard for human life. The videos also raise serious questions about potentially criminal and unethical practices at Planned Parenthood clinics. The videos clearly indicate that these practices are not contained, but endemic to the organization.

SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must De-Fund Planned

Parenthood Immediately http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/congress-must-de-fund-planned-parenthood-immediately.html It should be noted that Planned Parenthood’s callousness does not extend merely to the unborn. The videos also reveal that Planned Parenthood views the women that they purport to serve as nothing more than profit centers for their macabre business. One of the videos shows a senior Planned Parenthood official speaking casually about the tactics she employs in order to deceive patients so that their unborn children can be better utilized for organ and limb harvesting. This is a violation of the rights of their patients. The videos are tough to watch and tough to fathom, especially for parents. It’s not something any of us want to have to discuss. And yet like many other uncomfortable topics confronting our nation, we have an obligation to not avert our eyes.

There is more than enough evidence to push forward with a serious and independent investigation into Planned Parenthood and its practices, like Governor Rick Scott has called for in our home state of Florida. I have asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services to do, but am not holding my breath for the Obama Administration to act. Congress should bring Planned Parenthood’s senior officials to testify under oath before the American people.

There can be no denying that Planned Parenthood is a morally bankrupt organization. Americans of conscience might disagree on the legality of abortion. It is a contentious issue that elicits deep passions. But as a country, we should at least be able to find common ground on acknowledging and respecting the humanity and basic dignity of both the mother and the unborn child. It is clear from the videos that Planned Parenthood long ago stopped acknowledging either. At Planned Parenthood, women are treated as paying clients, not patients. Unborn children are treated as cells and tissues, not human beings. The organs and limbs of babies are treated as commodities, for sale to the highest bidder on an open market. And taxpayers are forced to fund this.

There are countless organizations in America that provide health care, including reproductive health care, to women in need. None of them receive the undeserved political protection and taxpayer funding from the federal government that Planned Parenthood has enjoyed for decades. A purported health care organization that has allowed itself to become this callous and dismissive of the human dignity of their patients and unborn life cannot be redeemed. We must defund Planned Parenthood and make sure that taxpayer dollars are never spent on abortions or organizations that demonstrate such a callous disregard for basic human dignity. America is the freest and most powerful nation on earth, and we have done more to advance the rights of all human beings in our brief history than any society before or since. The Planned Parenthood videos, and the behavior and culture they reveal, are anathema to our very identity as a nation and run counter to the great sacrifices generations of Americans have made in the defense of human dignity here and abroad. We cannot fulfill our promise as a nation by simply turning the other way when we are confronted with difficult realities. Planned Parenthood should never receive another dime from American taxpayers.

LifeNews Note: This exclusive column is written by Senator Marco Rubio, a pro-life Florida Republican and presidential candidate.

Senate to vote tonight to defund Planned Parenthood: Pro-lifers put 7 ‘moderates’ under pressure

Urgent: Sign the petition urging Congress to investigate and defund Planned Parenthood. Click here.

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 3, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — Pro-life activists are urging moderate Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to vote to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood in the vote scheduled for Monday night.

But even their support may not be enough to ensure that the measure passes, with nearly all Democrats opposed to S.1881 and a veto promised by President Obama. A defunding bill would require 60 votes in the Senate for passage, and 66 to override a veto.

Pressure from the pro-life movement to defund Planned Parenthood has intensified in light of the release of four videos showing senior Planned Parenthood officials describing how the organization harvests fetal parts, and illegally modifies abortions to guarantee the receipt of fetal parts.

Three committees are investigating Planned Parenthood, but pro-life Members of Congress and their allies are pushing for Congress to defund Planned Parenthood before the investigations are complete.

Despite the videos and intense pressure from pro-life groups, several of the Senate’s 54 Republicans are expected to not support S. 1881, which has the backing of GOP leadership and some of the pro-life community’s top senators.

Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has remained silent — her office told LifeSiteNews that a statement would be released at approximately the same time as tonight’s vote — and Susan Collins of Maine, and Mark Kirk of Illinois have expressed outright opposition to defunding Planned Parenthood.

Murkowski supported federal funding for Planned Parenthood in 2011, the last time the issue was front-and-center in Congress.

On the Democratic side, Senators Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp are targets for pro-life pressure.

Also on the original target list was Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has since confirmed that he will support the defunding measure.

A pro-life leader told LifeSiteNews that “the seven targets are ‘swing’ votes who we think are most gettable. Of course, all 100 Senators need pressure. But the seven laid out are either on the fence or close to it.”

Five of the seven  Senators are unlikely to vote to defund, said the activist. “We are not going to get 60 votes on this. Right now, I think our floor is 50 and our ceiling is 54 [votes]. The two who are the real wild cards are Donnelly and Murkowski.”

“But keep in mind that last time we had a vote on this in the Senate in 2011, we only got 42 votes. So if we can get to 51, it’s a victory in that the majority of the U.S. Senate voted to defund PP.”

Some pro-lifers are frustrated that the GOP-controlled Senate did not include the defunding legislation in a “must-pass” bill, such as the transportation bill that passed the Senate. The theory is that this would put pressure on Democrats to pass the bigger bill in order to keep parts of the government funded.

This was a strategy implemented in 2011, when the new GOP majority in the House wanted to defund Planned Parenthood in a Continuing Resolution to keep the government running. That effort failed when President Obama called the GOP’s bluff, joining Senate Democrats in being willing to shut down the government in order to keep Planned Parenthood’s funding intact.

The pro-life activist told LifeSiteNews that a similar strategy is under discussion for the new effort to defund Planned Parenthood. “There is already talk about defunding [Planned Parenthood] being a major issue in the [Continuing Resolution]. So I don’t see stand-alone versus must-pass an either/or. We can do both.”

Donnelly’s office said that it was unlikely that the senator, who supports a congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood, would be releasing further statements today on where he will vote tonight.

Senator Joe Manchin put out a statement today affirming that he would support the measure.

“Like many West Virginians, I am very troubled by the callous behavior of Planned Parenthood staff in recently released videos, which casually discuss the sale, possibly for profit, of fetal tissue after an abortion,” he said in a statement.

“Until these allegations have been answered and resolved, I do not believe that taxpayer money should be used to fund this organization; instead those funds should be sent to other health care providers, including community health centers, which provide important women’s healthcare services. While my vote is one that will prevent taxpayers dollars from going to Planned Parenthood, I will remain committed to ensuring that all women in West Virginia and America receive the health care services they need.”

Last week, Manchin and Collins said they were working on legislation that could defund only Planned Parenthood clinics that engage in fetal harvesting. Collins told National Journal she was worried about health access for women.

The bill currently before the full Senate, which was introduced by Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, would shift Planned Parenthood funding to other providers.

‘It’s another boy!’: 4th video goes into heart of Planned Parenthood fetal body parts lab

Urgent: Sign the petition demanding that Congress investigate and defund Planned Parenthood here [ https://www.lifesitenews.com/petitions/investigate-planned-parenthood/788192].

July 30, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Workers in a lab are seen sorting through body parts on a dish: a heart, stomach, kidney, and legs.

And then a medical assistant suddenly announces: “It’s another boy!”

This is just a little of the macabre and heart-wrenching footage in the newest undercover video showing alleged harvesting and sale of body parts from aborted babies by Planned Parenthood, released Thursday morning.

The newest video also shows a Planned Parenthood medical director negotiating a fetal body parts deal while agreeing to prices for harvested parts, and suggesting ways to avoid legal consequences.

“For anyone with a conscience, the video’s entire fetal organ scene is wrenching — to the gut as well as the heart. It hearkens us back to the days of Joseph Mengele or Kermit Gosnell, who both coldly killed and dissected children without remorse,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, in a press release.

The video takes the viewer into Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, where Vice President and Medical Director Dr. Savita Ginde discusses with actors posing as representatives from a human biologics company a potential partnership to harvest fetal organs.

When one of the actors posing as a buyer asks the doctor if “compensation could be specific to the specimen?” Ginde agrees. As the camera travels to the abortion clinic’s pathological laboratory to reveal the aftermath of a real abortion of a baby boy, Ginde tells the buyer that the abortion clinic would rather receive payment per body part harvested, rather than a standard flat fee for the entire case.

“I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it,” she is heard saying on the video.

Planned Parenthood hit national headlines last month after undercover videos released by the pro-life group Center for Medical Progress (CMP) showed top officials

from the nation’s largest abortion provider discussing the sale of body parts harvested from babies aborted at their facilities. Those behind the undercover videos say that selling the body parts for profit is a violation of federal law.

Yesterday, the California Superior Court issued a narrow temporary restraining order preventing CMP from releasing further undercover video footage involving top-level staff of StemExpress, the company that purchases the body parts from Planned Parenthood.

Project Lead David Daleiden is using the fourth video to call for an immediate ending to Planned Parenthood’s funding.

“Elected officials need to listen to the public outcry for an immediate moratorium on Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding while the 10 state investigations and 3

Congressional committees determine the full extent of Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby parts.”

“Planned Parenthood’s recent call for the NIH to convene an expert panel to ‘study’ fetal experimentation is absurd after suggestions from Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Ginde that ‘research’ can be used as a catch-all to cover-up baby parts sales. The biggest problem is bad actors like Planned Parenthood who hold themselves above the law in order to harvest and make money off of aborted fetal brains, hearts, and livers,” he said.

On CNN this morning (3 August 15), Center for Medical Progress leader David Daleiden explained exactly why StemExpress is seeking to block release of secretly recorded video from a meeting he had with its top executives in May:

“In a meeting with their top leadership where their leadership admitted that they sometimes get fully intact fetuses shipped to their laboratory from the abortion clinics they work with, and that could be prima facie evidence of born alive infants. And so that’s why they’re trying to suppress that videotape and they’re very scared of it.”