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October is Respect Life Month! 

The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.” EV 13

One More Soul believes that abortion will continue as long as contraception is widely accepted.

The connection between contraception and abortion, as well as the connection between contraception and other social and moral evils, has been recognized by the US Supreme Court (Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992) and affirmed by two great prophets of the latter 20th century: John Paul II and Paul VI. With the keen perception of John the Baptist, these two men have seen what so many intellectuals have completely missed.

In the Gospel of Life, number 13, our present Holy Father says that although “they are specifically different evils” both abortion and contraception are “fruits of the same tree,” rooted in “a self-centered concept of freedom.” Marvelously put! In other words, at the root of both abortion and contraception is pure, unadulterated human selfishness. The person using contraception says to his or her spouse, “You exist for me. Your purpose is to give me pleasure–to satisfy my desires.” (The action itself proclaims that message.) The advocate of abortion says, “Pregnancy is a disease and children are a nuisance. I should not have to be bothered dealing with either one.”

The close connection which exists, in mentality, between the practice of contraception and that of abortion is becoming increasingly obvious. It is being demonstrated in an alarming way by the development of chemical products, intrauterine devices and vaccines which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, really act as abortifacients in the very early stages of the development of the life of the new human being. 

Evangelium Vitae 13

And then in 1968, that much-persecuted prophet Paul VI clearly annunciated the perennial teaching of the Church–that there are two purposes of marital sex: to have children and to establish a loving union between the spouses. And he indicated that whenever these two purposes are separated through a contraceptive act, it actually harms the relationship between a husband and wife.

Back then of course, most people laughed at such an idea. They said, “Holy Father, you’ve got to be kidding. Don’t you realize–artificial birth control is a great blessing! It will make for stronger marriages. Couples wont have to worry about unwanted pregnancies anymore. It will lessen marital anxiety. It will make for happier relationships and stronger families.”

The Pope said, “Don’t be fooled!” He warned that if artificial contraception ever became accepted and widespread, there would be many negative consequences: he said that there would be more infidelity in marriages; he said that women would be treated more and more like objects by men; he said that morals would be lowered in society as a whole; and he predicted that some governments would try to push birth control on poor countries–just like the United States does today.

On every count, he was right! He had the perception of the Baptist when so many others were blinded by their hormones! Praise God, some [50] years later, many are now finally seeing the truth and embracing it–so there is hope!

Perceiving the Contraception Connection « One More Soul

October is Respect Life Month. Here are some ideas on how you can participate and help our ministry:

  • Visit a local parish and spend an hour adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and pray for the protection of human life from conception to natural death.
  • Visit our Online Store and get some resources about the blessings of children, chastity, and the harms of contraception.
  • Donate to our ministry. One More Soul depends greatly on the generosity of our supporters. Our donors have made it possible for us to send life-changing materials for free to seminarians, missions, third-world countries, and others who need this message and are unable to contribute.

 Spiritual Bouquet for Mothers

This month of May please join us in offering a spiritual bouquet to Our Blessed Mother to ask for the protection of all mothers.

For Expectant Mothers

We pray for all expectant mothers, that Our Lady will intercede on their behalf that they, too, may nourish the life of their child with love, joy and humility.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

For biological and non-biological mothers

“Mary’s greatest work was her collaboration with the Holy Spirit in bearing and raising the Son of God.” Let us pray for all biological and non-biological mothers that Our Lady will intercede for them in their toil. Let us pray, too, that the Holy Spirit will give them the grace to fulfill their greatest work of collaborating with him to build Domestic Churches.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has looked with favor on His lowly servant.

For mothers with babies in heaven

 Let us pray for all mothers who are suffering, especially those who are suffering the loss of a child. May Our Lady give them comfort and sustain them in faith.

Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word.

For all the mothers in heaven

Let’s us pray for all the mothers in heaven “All-powerful and ever-living God: You raised the sinless Virgin Mary, mother of your Son, body and soul, to the glory of heaven. May we see heaven as our final goal and come to share her glory.”

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

For all who have a mothering heart

Let us pray for all women, whether married or single, who desire motherhood but have not received it. May they be assured of the love of Jesus and take comfort in his words and may their hearing and acting on the word of God bear fruit for His Kingdom.

From this day, all generations will call me blessed. The Almighty has done great things for me, and Holy is His name.

Depression, Mood Disorders, Suicide

This information was taken from

‘Petition on Hormonal Contraceptives’:
The Real Effects of Hormonal Birth Control
By Susan Ciancio

According to the study group, “The largest study of incident depression and use of anti-depressant medication (Skovlund 2016) indicates significantly increased risks for both COCs and POCs for both outcomes. The same group studied suicide attempts and suicides (Skovlund 2018). Elevated risks were seen, and this was the case for both COCs and POCs. The recent NCHA study (Gregory 2018) showed a similar trend.”


The authors claim that their research has shown an “increased risk for depression, suicide risk, and suicide within 3 months of beginning to use the drugs and tapering off after 6 months, partly due to attenuation of symptoms, partly due to discontinuation due to adverse effects.”


The comments section of the website paints a dismal picture and offers evidence that these hormones cause new mental health problems and exacerbate existing or latent ones.

Julie Baltz, a family practice clinician who has practiced medicine for over 20 years, states that she has seen the psychological harm caused by hormonal contraceptives. She wrote: Even more subtle and underreported are the psychological effects. These patients simply state “I didn’t feel right” and often think that there is something wrong with them and that they don’t tolerate this type of medication. I’ve seen insomnia, anxiety, depression, anhedonia, anorexia, and poor libido directly improve within my clinical office by discontinuing a combined OCP. Another person, known only as TF, wrote in to say:


“In 2011 I was prescribed hormonal birth control to “fix” a very irregular cycle. Three
months later I started to struggle with crippling fatigue, loss of appetite, and disinterest
in everything except sleeping. I was shortly after that diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, and still to this day have to be on medication to remain functional. I still struggle with my energy levels, unfortunately, medication can’t cure depression and make it disappear. My doctor and I both believe that the hormonal birth control was likely a trigger to a predisposition for Major Depressive Disorder.”

A woman who wishes to remain anonymous stated: “In my early twenties I was prescribed birth control pills. The first cycle I took the pills as prescribed. I began to feel depressed, anxious, and crying daily, with mood swings. Prior to beginning the oral contraceptive pills,I had none of these symptoms. After completing the first 2 weeks of the medication packet, I called the nurse practitioner at the OB/GYN clinic where I originally got the prescription. She told me that the changes in my mood, depression, and anxiety among others, could not be due to the new medication, that it must have just been life. She changed me to a lower-dose contraceptive pill. After three weeks of taking the second prescription pack as directed, I decided to discontinue use of oral contraceptives due to the side effects. I had gained 15 pounds and felt terrible. “

The site is filled with story after story of people who have suffered—mentally and physically— because of these drugs. The authors want a black box warning about this side effect and warnings on patient-related materials.

Emergency Contraception or Emergency Abortion

A recent article published by Contemporary OBGYN presented an update on Emergency Contraception. The authors mentioned the need for accurate information about emergency contraception pills anticipating legal changes in reproductive health after Roe and Wade reversal. Following the high court’s decision pharmacies have reported an increase of up to 3000% in the sales of emergency contraception.

The FDA has approved two types of oral emergency contraception pills: levonorgestrel 1.5 mg (Plan B One-Step or generic equivalents) and ulipristal acetate 30 mg as a single dose (Ella). We will focus here on the mechanism of action of Plan B.

The principal mechanism of action of Levonorgestrel (a synthetic progestin ) is believed to be the inhibition of ovulation. The Contemporary OBGYN article mentioned that Levonorgestrel “does not harm or disrupt an existing pregnancy” but later affirms that “The drug may also alter the endometrium to inhibit implantation“.

In order to understand what is an existing pregnancy, we need to review what is needed for a new human being to enter into existence. Fertilization (the union of the ovum and sperm to form a zygote) normally occurs in the fallopian tube after ovulation. The new human being (blastocyst) moves from the fallopian tube to the uterus where it implants 5-7 days after conception. A receptive endometrium provides the embryo with the opportunity to attach and develop in the woman’s womb. Research has demonstrated that Levonorgestrel given in high doses caused obvious alteration of the endometrium (loss of ciliated cells, and pinopodes disappeared). Another study found that Levonorgestrel altered endometrial glycodelin-A levels, which could affect implantation. A drug or device that alters the endometrium will disrupt the implantation and cause an early abortion. Following this logic Levonorgestrel can harm and disrupt an existing pregnancy by inhibiting implantation. 

In summary labeling Plan B as emergency contraception, or non-abortifacient drug is not accurate information. Emergency Contraception Plan B is available for purchase without any restrictions due to age, gender, or insurance status. It is imperative that accurate information is given, and people receive fully informed consent about the probable abortifacient mechanism of action of emergency contraception pills.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15914136/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12499036/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4313438/#C68

Contraception and NFP

Purity: Reverence for Mystery

By: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

The two words most often abused today are “freedom” and “sex.” Freedom is often used to mean absence of law, and sex is used to justify absence from restraint. Sometimes the two words fuse into the one, “license.” Reason, which should be used to justify God’s law, is thus invoked to justify human lawlessness and carnality with two spurious arguments. The first is that every person must be self-expressive, that purity is self-negation; therefore, it is destructive of freedom and personality.

The second argument is that nature has given to every person certain impulses and instincts, and that principal among them is sex. Therefore, one ought to follow these instincts without the taboos and restrictions which religion and custom impose. Consequently, purity is looked upon as negative and cold, or as a remnant of Puritanism, monasticism, and Victorian strait-lacedness, despite the fact that the Lord of the Universe in the first of the Beatitudes said: “Blessed are the clean of heart; they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:8)

Purity is as self-expressive as impurity, though in a different way. There are two ways in which a locomotive can be self-expressive: either by keeping its pressure within the limits imposed by the designer and the engineer, or by blowing up and jumping the tracks. The first self-expression is the perfection of the locomotive; the second is its destruction. In like manner, a person may be self-expressive either by obeying the laws of his nature, or by rebelling against them, which rebellion ends in slavery and frustration. Suppose the same argument of self-expression were used in war as is used to justify carnal license. In that case, a soldier at the front who, on hearing screaming shells, dropped his gun and ran to the rear line, would be greeted by a captain full of modern self-expression and told: “I commend you for throwing off Victorian convention and moral scruples. The trouble with the rest of the army is that they are not self-expressive; they overcome their fear and fight. I shall recommend a medal of honor for asserting your personality.”

There is no quarreling with those who say, “Be yourself.” The point is, which is your true self: is it to be a beast, or to be a child of God? Those who get over the wickedness of licentiousness say: “Thank God, I am myself again.” This is real self-expression.

Taken from Three to Get Married, Chapter 8

Young Girls Are Over-Prescribed Birth Control Pills

This common medical practice can interfere with normal hormones and lead to side effects

BY JENNIFER MARGULIS

Young Girls Are Over-Prescribed Birth Control Pills (theepochtimes.com)

Some 14 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 49 are currently taking hormonal birth control pills in America, according to government data. That’s more than 10 million people, about the equivalent of the entire population of Portugal.

According to a 2019 United Nations report, about 151 million women take the pill worldwide.

Kristin, a mom of two, was one of them. She was prescribed birth control pills when she was still in high school. While her doctor told her the pills would help with her headaches and irregular and heavy periods, no one talked to her about the risks associated with taking them.

However, when she was 20 years old, she had an elective surgery. Although Kristin had no complications from the surgery itself, a few days later, she was unable to take a full deep breath and she felt a pain in her arm. She knew something was seriously wrong, but she had no idea that she was having a pulmonary embolism.

A pulmonary embolism, which can be lethal, happens when a blood clot gets logged in an artery in the lungs.

This medical crisis, which kept her hospitalized for six days and on medication for six months afterward, was from taking hormonal birth control pills as a teen, Kristin told me.

“Everyone has been in agreement that it was from the birth control,” said Kristin, who asked not to use her last name because she’s currently part of a class-action lawsuit.

Oral Contraceptives Increase Risk of Death

Indeed, in 2018 a team of researchers, led by Dr. Lynn Keenan, M.D., at the University of California–San Francisco’s Fresno campus, found that women who use oral contraceptive are between three and nine times more likely to have of blood clots in the lungs, legs, and brain than women who don’t take oral contraceptives.

They also face a much higher risk of death because of blood clots. The same study found that between 300 and 400 healthy young women die unnecessarily every year due to hormonal birth control.

“Women should be informed of these risks,” the researchers concluded.

Pill Linked to Depression, Bloating

Taking hormonal birth control is also associated with a host of other negative health outcomes.

For example, a 2016 study of a million women in Denmark found that taking hormonal contraception was associated with depression, especially in teenagers.

Oral contraceptives have also been linked to lower levels of the steroid hormone DHEA in the blood and a decreased ability to gain muscle during exercise, according to a 2009 study.

Another older study, from 2008, found that these pills can cause bloating, while an earlier study found that oral contraceptives lead to women having more subcutaneous fat and other changes in the way the body stores fat.

Though many women report gaining weight while taking the pill, the peer-reviewed literature on this seems to be inconclusive, according to a 2014 Cochrane review.

It’s clear from the scientific literature, however, that oral birth control use also increases a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer and cervical cancer.

Routinely Prescribed, Not for Birth Control

“Neither of my daughters can menstruate on their own,” a mom of two young adults, ages 21 and 23, told me recently. “They’ve both been on the pill since they were teens.”

While girls in the United States usually begin menstruating around age 11 or 12, the onset of menses is widely variable and precocious puberty (before age 8) is becoming more common. Recent research from Italy has found that precocious puberty has increased during COVID-19. One team of researchers hypothesized that this may be due to stress, lack of sunlight, lack of exercise, and exposure to a higher number of environmental toxins, especially endocrine disruptors.

Doctors routinely prescribe birth control pills to tweens, teens, and young adults who are menstruating but not sexually active to treat the following conditions:

  • Acne
  • Amenorrhea (lack of menstruation)
  • Cramps and other menstrual pain
  • Endometriosis
  • Heavy periods
  • Headaches
  • Migraines
  • PMS and mood swings

I found this out when my oldest daughter, who is 22 now, was still in middle school.

“Mom,” she said to me one day, “I think I should take the pill to help me with my acne. That’s what my friends are doing and they say it works.”

Harms of Hormonal Birth Control Pills

Birth control pills disrupt the endocrine system, essentially fooling the body into believing it is pregnant, in order to stop ovulation.

We know we should try to avoid disrupting children’s hormones. As Joseph Braun, Ph.D., an associate professor of epidemiology at Brown University, explained in a 2017 peer-reviewed article, endocrine-disrupting chemicals increase the risk of childhood diseases “by disrupting hormonally mediated processes critical for growth and development,” and may be contributing to obesity and neurodevelopmental problems.

“In residency, you learn to use birth control like you learn to wash your hands,” said Nathan Riley, M.D., who is unabashedly critical of the practice of prescribing contraceptives to young woman to treat menstrual problems.

“You bring it out anytime that anyone has an issue,” Riley said. “We use it for everything. You’ve got a quote ‘lady problem’? Let’s put you on birth control.”

Then, he said, if the birth control pills themselves cause side effects, doctors add more prescription medications to the mix.

“Synthetic hormones lead to mood disorders, depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders, among other things, all of this is well documented,” Riley said. “Women have complained about everything under the sun. But their doctors say it’s not the birth control. And instead of stopping the medication that started the problem, their doctor gives them an antidepressant.”

He believes this is harmful, arguing that the practice of rushing patients through appointments and writing prescriptions for the pill makes the pharmaceutical industry richer, while making female patients sicker.

Hormonal birth control alleviates symptoms without treating the underlying problems, he said. The key, he insisted when we spoke, is to treat the root cause of the menstrual irregularities.

For instance, a woman’s periods may be irregular because she’s severely anemic, either because she is not eating iron-rich foods or suffering from malabsorption.

Thyroid malfunction can also be at the root of menstrual irregularities, Riley said. As can poor liver function and disrupted gut health.

All of these health problems are treatable, he said. While prescription medications can help for the short-term, the goal is to get the body back in balance. To do so, he talks to his patients about making lifestyle changes, including dietary improvements, engaging in daily movement and exercise, getting adequate and high quality hydration, improving sleep, limiting exposure to electromagnetic fields, learning to do breathwork, and improving both your attitude and your emotional intelligence.

“Sometimes you do need a temporizing measure like birth control,” Riley said. “But it shouldn’t be used for long.”

Marie (her middle name) is a 32-year-old lawyer based on the East Coast. She was first prescribed birth control pills for endometriosis when she was 15, and it seemed to help.

Besides, she really liked taking the pill: It made her breasts bigger and cleared up her acne. So when her periods suddenly became more painful, even on the pill, and her doctor told her to start taking it continuously (so she would not menstruate at all), she didn’t think to question it.

Her doctors said taking the pill would help her avoid surgery for endometriosis. But she ended up having surgery anyway, in 2018, to cauterize tissue in her pelvic cavity.

It wasn’t until Marie had a miscarriage at age 27 and it took 15 months to get pregnant again—and only with the help of fertility drugs—that she started to regret taking hormonal birth control for so many years.

The science is inconclusive about whether the pill negatively affects fertility. In fact, some studies, such as one published in 2002 in Human Reproduction, show it may increase the odds of getting pregnant after quitting the pill.

But when I interviewed the late science writer Barbara Seaman, who had written several books about women and hormones, several years ago, she insisted that hormonal birth control is a causative factor in infertility and that it can take women as long as 12 to 24 months after taking the pill to become pregnant without assistance.

Marie, like many other women, is convinced her long-term use of birth control for endometriosis contributed to some of her continuing health challenges, including fertility issues.

“I was just not healthy as a teenager,” she confessed.

For Kristin, the decision to go on birth control as a teenager and subsequent pulmonary embolism made her two pregnancies more dangerous. She was considered high-risk and had to inject herself with anticoagulants during the pregnancy and for one month afterward.

“I will never be on any hormones ever again,” Kristin told me. “I really wish I knew of alternate, more natural ways to have treated my adolescent issues. The psychological damage it’s caused is irreversible. I hate how doctors are so quick to take out that pen and pad and throw meds at teenagers.”

Reprinted with permission from The Epoch Times (www.theepochtimes.com)

Why Do Few Women Know the Dangers of the Pill?

Why Do Few Women Know the Dangers of the Pill? (theepochtimes.com)

BY MARTHA ROSENBERG

Mike Gaskins is a women’s health advocate, independent researcher, and author who spent much of the past decade exploring the dubious history and science of birth control. In a recent interview, Epoch Times contributor Martha Rosenberg asked him about his 2019 book, “In the Name of the Pill,” the culmination of his investigation, which was recently updated in its audiobook release.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/why-do-few-women-know-the-dangers-of-the-pill_4325857.html

Job posting

One More Soul is in great need of a new executive director and a part-time bookkeeper.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR JOB DESCRIPTION

POSITION: Executive Director 

REPORTS TO: Board of Directors

SUPERVISES: All paid staff and volunteers

Organizational Overview: Do you want to lead a mission-minded organization?

One More Soul is a 503(c) non-profit organization that exists to foster God’s plan for love, chastity, marriage, and children. The new Executive Director (ED) will drive initiatives for the growth of our organization.

The Executive Director will:

  1. Oversee and assist with the daily activities of One More Soul. Periodically report to the Board on One More Soul activities and recommend actions based on these findings.
  2. Suggest, develop, and help implement new One More Soul projects.

Qualifications:

  1. Be a committed Catholic.
  2. Good understanding of life issues, particularly of the specific ways in which contraception drives the culture of death, and in which family life drives the Civilization of Love. 

The ED is a part-time, volunteer position until such time as development allows it to become full-time and paid.

Send us your resume at: omsoul@omsoul.com

BOOKKEEPER JOB DESCRIPTION

POSITION: Bookkeeper

REPORTS TO: Executive Director 

Qualifications:

  • Experience with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets
  • Ability to access and use websites of banks, IRS, Ohio Department of Taxation, the City of Dayton tax department, and the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.

Other helpful skills:

  • Experience with Intuit’s Quicken software.
  • Experience with database programs such as Microsoft Access.

The bookkeeper is a part-time paid position.

Send us your resume at: omsoul@omsoul.com

Pregnant women and Covid vaccinations

The review of the data of a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that when pregnant women are given covid vaccinations during their first or second trimesters, they suffer an 82% spontaneous abortion rate.

Although the authors of the study did not reveal that fact in their conclusions, Table 4 exposes that 4 out of 5 unborn babies are lost. Table 4 shows that a total of 827 pregnant women were included in the study. Out of the 827 women, 700 of them received their first vaccine in their third trimester of pregnancy. This means 127 women (which is 827 – 700) received a vaccine during their first or second trimesters. The authors of the study claim the spontaneous abortion rate is only 12.6%. Why this difference? The authors of the study used as denominator 827 vaccinated women in their “spontaneous abortions” calculation. That is wrong because they should have used a denominator of 127, which is the number of women receiving vaccines during their first or second trimesters.

(Read the fine print below the table to see this disclosure.)

More studies are needed to evaluate the risk and benefit to implement experimental therapies in pregnant women and it is necessary that women comprehend maternally, pregnancy, and infant outcomes, for informed consent.

Listening to Your Body

By John Littell MD

Each day I have the pleasure of visiting with many wonderful people who have a wide variety of issues and concerns I make it clear to all of them that my ultimate goal as their physician is to ensure that they see me as little as possible in my office; much better that we meet each other at church or the grocery store. The fact is that people typically do not need a physician in order to achieve wellness, and all too often I find myself undoing the damages done to patients by other, well-meaning physicians. For women, being healthy means first and foremost that the natural levels of hormones are allowed to function in their bodies. Altering that normal hormonal mix brings a host of unintended consequences, with real, long-term, and adverse effects on the brain (strokes, depression), the bloodstream (blood clots and heart disease), breast tissue (cancer), and bones (osteoporosis), as well as the cervix (cancer). Most, if not all, of these illnesses are due to unrecognized deficiencies in key vitamins and minerals such as folic acid, vitamin B12, and magnesium, brought on by the use of the artificial steroids found in contraceptives.

In encouraging women to listen to their bodies and maintain a normal balance of hormones by avoiding contraceptives, some have accused me of forcing my moral viewpoint on my patients, as if giving advice for optimal health is moralizing. I have even been accused of being “judgmental” while counseling patients about human sexuality. Yet, if encouraging women to become healthy by listening to their bodies and letting themselves observe the laws of nature is considered “moralizing” or being “judgmental,” then I am guilty as charged. Women have become accustomed to allowing those of us in the medical profession to alter the normal so as to create a better “product,” both for their presumed benefit as well as for the alleged greater good of society. And in so doing, normal processes such as fertility are now viewed as pathology, while the abnormal (e.g., eliminating the menstrual period altogether) has become the norm, even the goal of medicine. Making the normal the abnormal is neither healthy nor natural.

Day in and day out, I see women whose systems and often lives, have been thrown out of balance by a forced “chemical divorce” from their natural, normal selves.

When little Adeline, conceived in rape, was born, her grandfather ‘fell in love in one second’

  |

(Save The 1) “Is Kristi pregnant?” That was never a question I expected my pastor and friend to ever ask me over the phone on a Sunday afternoon after we arrived home from church the morning of April 22nd, 2018. I thought, if my 18 year old daughter was pregnant, he would have heard it from me, or from us, right?

I answered with a slow, “No… Ah… I don’t know… Let me call you back.” It seemed my words sounded as if they were purposely edited as special sound effects for a film. I felt as if my head for the first time completely emptied itself. The only thought or sound left was like a very far off siren that rang “Kristi’s pregnant, Kristi’s pregnant, Kristi’s pregnant.” How could that be? And suddenly, I knew she was.

It was one more crisis to deal with. My mother had just died of cancer a month earlier. A few months before that, my father fell down some icy steps walking outside a restaurant in Munich, breaking up the right side of his body: shoulder, arm, hip, knee and leg. After he got out of the hospital, I went to Munich to help take care of him for a few months.

Prior to that, we’d had a busy year, having just premiered our first full-length feature film in our local town. We produced, wrote, directed and acted in it —  a true story about our personal testimonies surrendering our lives to the Lord. It was 15 years ago that I learned I had a 3-year-old daughter named Kristi and was struck with awesome joy, even though I knew nothing about her, her mother, or even if she really was my daughter until DNA testing was complete. We spent a year non-stop making that film and had a crew of about 40 people using our house as a full-time production office.

The day following our premiere, we were given notice we would have to move from our rented rural Montana house where I’d lived for 19 years. I loved that house — a 4-acre property by the edge of the woods and near the river, 6 miles out of town. As a single parent, I raised Kristi there most of her life. The property was old and going to be torn down to be commercially redeveloped.

Within 12 hours of completing the move into our new house, I lit a fire in the fireplace, and after I fell asleep, the rafters in the attic caught on fire. Everything was ruined and uninhabitable, but thank God Kristi was away at a dance that evening. The Fire Captain told me the smoke detector saved my life.

Whatever we had left was moved into storage and during the next few months, we moved in and out of several motels, various friends’ houses and eventually a small camp trailer with a door which wouldn’t completely shut.

With all of that going on, it’s no wonder I didn’t know Kristi was pregnant. She was very small and didn’t show for the first 6 ½ months, especially through her winter clothes.

After the call from my pastor, I hung up the phone, waited a moment, took a deep breath, looked up at God saying in my heart, “I need you again please” and walked into Kristi’s room. Immediately, I was emotionally struck and began hugging her telling her how much I love her and how proud I am of her. Even though I didn’t mention anything else, nor did I know any of the details, she instantly realized I knew she was pregnant and we both started crying together. For me, it became tears of joy.

We cried and talked for a long while as I learned she was almost 7 months into her pregnancy. I spoke to my grandchild in the womb, introducing myself as Papa. Kristi hadn’t filled me in yet about having been raped, and was vague in talking much about the father. I do remember having felt something wasn’t right about it, but didn’t want to spoil the moment. I happily knew Kristi would keep her baby, no matter what.

I learned later that she wanted to tell me all along about the pregnancy, but with so much tumult going on in our lives, she didn’t want to just blurt it out. Kristi still had high school graduation ahead and couldn’t seem to find the right time to tell me. She was one of the top students in her school, but the only known girl in that small Christian school ever to graduate pregnant. Still, they supported and loved her through it all.

But most significantly, she was pregnant by rape — a young man who was someone we knew, whose family attended our small church. Of course, no one else knew Kristi had been raped or that she was pregnant. Kristi was afraid to share the details out of fear I would do something bad to this young man and get myself in trouble, and perhaps she was right. As you can imagine, there were in fact bad thoughts going on in my head once I learned what he’d done to my daughter.

In time, my daughter explained how at 17, she had been forced to have sex while locked in this 19-year-old’s car. Kristi had been afraid to go to the police due to being young and under peer pressure, which I understood. This young man supposedly was well-liked and popular, and we were living in a very small mountain town community.

I brought the matter up with the pastors of our church. The rapist, both of his parents, two of the pastors, Kristi and myself had a meeting at the church office one evening where the young man willingly admitted what he had done. While I appreciated his truth-telling and hoped I could find it within me to extend forgiveness, there was no true sign of any remorse on his part.

What really surprised me was that one of the pastors (not the one who had called me) recommended that Kristi and her rapist try marriage counseling “just to see if they could become compatible to raise a baby together!” Of course, Kristi said no, and I wholeheartedly agreed, but then we were told that if she wouldn’t follow the recommendations of the church leaders, she was being selfish and would no longer be welcomed in their church.

At first, we were devastated. We had been attending, serving and being served in that church for over 12 years. It was my first church ever. It had been our extended family. We loved everybody and were loved, until that time. We were there every time the doors were open and involved with several of its ministries. I even headed a couple of ministries and had started a prison ministry there.

But now they wanted us to conceal a crime which had been committed — a crime against my daughter which would change her life forever! So, we left.

On July 27th, 2018, I got to witness Adeline Marie Kollar being born early in the morning at 6:31a.m.. I was the first person she opened her eyes to and smiled at having recognized my voice. I fell in love in one second! It was my gift from God having not known about and missed the first three years of Kristi’s life.

The rapist refused to sign Adeline’s birth certificate, so she was thankfully given our last name; however, his parents tried to start a custody case, while I finally convinced Kristi to file for child support. After our attorney listened to Kristi’s story, he strongly recommended she meet with Victim’s Services. The nice young counselor there convinced Kristi that she really should report the crime to the police — even though it had been 10 months — just so the police would have the young man on their radar, against other possible assaults.

At the police station, I too was interviewed by a young female detective who seemed like she wanted to charge the young man after learning about the story, but that would now depend upon the State. Meanwhile, the detective went to interview the pastors of our former church, the young man, and his parents. She later contacted us and said everyone denied that the young man had made that confession back at the church office meeting….

Continue reading story in full at Save The 1.

BIO: Robert Kollar is a single father, grandfather, post-abortive, and pro-life speaker / blogger for Save The 1. He is also a filmmaker, writer, prison minister, and fatherhood speaker. For more info on his film projects, go to mwmcornerstone.com

Editor’s Note: This article was published at Save The 1 and is reprinted in part here with permission.

NFP WEEK 18

Father’s Day 18

Humanae Vitae 50

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Annunciation 18

Amazing Grace Couples

Lent 18

CSSM

MARRIAGE WEEK

Vanlentines 18

Winter Newsletter

Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Pro-life Movement

Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director PRist For Life

A Surprising Image

If you are involved in the pro-life movement for any length of time, you will encounter the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There are many connections between this particular image of Our Lady and the pro-life cause.

On December 12, 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego and requested that a shrine be built and dedicated to her on the Hill of Tepeyac. Juan Diego, upon reporting this event to the bishop, was disappointed because the bishop didn’t seem to believe him. Juan returned to the place of the apparition where Our Lady again appeared. She told him to return the next morning when she would give him a sign that would convince the bishop of the truth of her appearance and her request.

The following morning Our Lady told Juan to go to the top of the hill and gather Castilian roses that he would find there. Although he knew that only cactus grew there, he obeyed, and his simple faith was rewarded by the sight of beautiful roses growing where she had told him they would be. He gathered them and showed them to Our Lady who rearranged them for him. Juan returned to the bishop. As he opened his tilma (a type of pancho), the roses fell to the floor. All who were present were startled to see an image of Our Lady on the tilma. Today this image is still preserved on Juan Diego’s tilma, which hangs over the main altar in the basilica at the foot of Tepeyac Hill just outside of Mexico City. In the image, Our Lady is pregnant, carrying the Son of God in her womb. Her head is bowed in homage, indicating that she is not the Goddess, but rather the one who bears and at the same time worships the one true God. Many articles have been written on dozens of other theological lessons drawn from the details of the image.

When asked who the lady was, Juan replied in his Aztec dialect, “Te Coatlaxopeuh,” which means “she who crush the stone serpent.” His answer recalls Gen. 3:15 and the depictions of Mary as the Immaculate Conception, her heel on the serpent’s head. The devil exalts himself above God and above God’s law (see Isaiah 14:12-15), whereas Mary submits to God (see Luke 1:38). Some promote abortion as a “choice.” Self-will is exalted. We reject abortion because we, like Mary, submit all our choices to God. That spirit of obedience crushes evil and sin. Our Lady’s image reminds us to live in that obedience each day.

Human Sacrifice Then and Now

Some nine million Aztecs were converted to Christ by the power of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. At that time, the Aztec peoples were practicing human sacrifice. As a result of the image’s presence among the people, their hearts were converted to the true God and the practice of human sacrifice was abolished. A key theological dynamic operating here is that Our Lady turned the Aztecs from a worldview of despair to one of hope, from a conviction that the gods were against them to a conviction that God was so much for them that He became one of them.

We can listen to stories of Aztecs cutting out their victims’ hearts or placing their heads on poles and say, “Oh, how terrible that was!” But America is not doing any better, as the hearts and heads of innocent babies are destroyed by abortion! The image is therefore being used again to change the hearts of our people.

A Theology of Despair

The Aztects had a complicated mythology-theology. The universe for them was essentially unstable, and in that universe humans played a very small role. This view led to pessimism, and a fear that they needed to always appease the deities. Their view was that the present world was the “Fifth world,” made by the “Feathered Serpent.” The previous four worlds had been destroyed by gods who turned people into monkeys or dogs. The present world, they thought, would be destroyed by an earthquake, as a result of which skeleton creatures would come out of the ground to destroy the surviving inhabitants of earth.

This is a theology of despair. Whatever moral aversion they may have had to human sacrifice, their despair made them feel they had no choice but to practice it.

The dynamics behind abortion are essentially the same. While there may not be a mythology of feathered serpents and skeletons, there is real despair. People do not get abortions because of “freedom of choice”; they get them because they feel they have no freedom and no choice. They feel trapped, abandoned, desperate, and afraid. The thousands of case-studies that Priests for Life has collected from post-abortive women are permeated by the theme expressed by the woman who said, “My friends told me I had no other option. The clinic did not offer me any alternative, and I was almost crying out for one.” As author Frederica Mathewes-Green has said, a woman does not choose an abortion like she chooses a Porsche or an ice-cream — rather, she chooses it like an animal caught in a trap chooses to gnaw off its own leg. Her experience is that she either chooses to end the life of this baby, or her own life will end. “I cannot handle it, I can’t do it, nobody will support me, it’s impossible.”

The rationalizations offered for abortion are also full of despair for the child. “Why bring a child into this world, into these circumstances, where he/she will have to suffer so much?”

From Despair to Hope

How does the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe answer the theology of despair, both for the Aztecs and for the Americas?

Our Lady is carrying God within her womb. The God of the Universe has now become a human being. No longer is there any question as to whether God is on our side. He is not a God who will destroy us; He is a God who has become our brother. He is not a God far away who waits to be appeased by blood. He is a God who shares our own flesh and blood, and is as close to the human family as an unborn child to his mother.

In this framework, human beings no longer play a small part in the universe. On the contrary, as the Second Vatican Council proclaimed, “By his incarnation the Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every human being” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 22). The result of that is the promise of Revelation 3:21, “I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne.”

The universe into which Our Lady of Guadalupe invites us is no longer an unstable universe. God clearly reveals Himself as the only God, who is and shares both love and life. This truth brings hope. There is no longer need for human sacrifice, whether on pagan altars or in abortion clinics, because both the present and the future are in the hands of a God who is “God with us.”

The Image and the Pro-life Movement

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe which converted the Aztecs has been replicated and travels the United States on an explicit mission to end abortion. It is carried into Churches and it is brought in front of abortion clinics nationwide. I have been with the image many times in these settings. In one instance in Florida, a Catholic girl who was already in the clinic’s waiting room looked outside and saw us praying, and decided to cancel her abortion. She came out to talk to us. We arranged for all the assistance she needed, and later that year I had the joy of baptizing her baby, whom she named “Guadalupe.”

The image speaks to these girls a message of hope. It also speaks to the pro-life people a message about the task before us. We who fight abortion do not see abortion walking down the street. Instead, we see a girl, frightened and in the grip of despair. We, the Church, are to reach out to her in what is the most critical pastoral mission of our day.

That mission is illustrated by the Annunciation and the Visitation. When Mary is told she will be the Mother of Christ, she does not get wrapped up in herself, thinking about what has just been said and isolating herself from others in order to absorb some unique spiritual experience. Rather, she seems to pay more attention to what Gabriel said about Elisabeth, Mary’s cousin, that about Mary! She runs in haste into the hill country and tends to Elisabeth’s needs during her pregnancy. The message for us is that authentic religious experience and true worship never turn us in on ourselves. Rather, the more real our encounter is with God, the more attentive and responsive we are to the needs of our brothers and sisters.

Our Lady of Guadalupe has been declared the “Patroness of the Unborn.” They will be saved by the message of hope she brings, and by the message of concrete charity with which she challenges the Church. Among the many and varied groups that carry out this pro-life mission, one of special note in this context is “Indians for Life.” The outreach department of the National Right to Life Committee, as well as Priests for Life, have fostered and encouraged the growth of this yet small organization, coordinated by Clementine “Little Hawk” Hernandez. Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap., has been among the strong supporters of this effort, which gives concrete expression to the reverence of Native Americans for the gift of life.

Conclusion: For the little ones, for us

When Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego, she addressed him as “Juanito” (signifying the weakest or smallest member of the family), and as “Son”, and spoke of herself as both his “Mother” and the “Mother of the One, True living God.” All of this indicates another reason why Our Lady of Guadalupe should be entrusted with the unborn.

Today she addresses to us who defend life the same words she addressed to Juan Diego:

“Hear and let it penetrate your hearts, my dear little ones. Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you; let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Do not fear vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here, your Mother? Are you not in the folds of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need?”

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‘Right to life’ means right to abortion and euthanasia, says UN committee

Jonathan Abbamonte | Nov 2 2017 |

As reported earlier this year, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has been attempting to redefine an important international human rights treaty by claiming that the “right to life” means that states should legalize abortion under expansive terms.

This past July, the committee released a document called General Comment No. 36 which seeks to reinterpret the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to say that states “must” provide access to abortion, and permit states to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia.

However, the ICCPR never mentions abortion or euthanasia. On contrary, the treaty explicitly recognizes that “Every human being has the inherent right to life.”[1]

In response, the Population Research Institute (PRI), in concert with other pro-life organizations and academics around the world, has called upon the Human Rights Committee to protect the right to life at all stages of development.

We made clear to the committee that neither the ICCPR nor the customary norms of international law obligate any state to legalize abortion. We further endeavoured to debunk some widely held myths pro-abortion advocates commonly use in justifying an invention of a “right” to abortion. My full written comment on behalf of PRI to the Human Rights Committee can be viewed here.

Several countries have also responded to General Comment No. 36, condemning the committee’s pro-abortion activism.

While the Human Rights Committee has gained a reputation for routinely subjecting countries to rebuke for their pro-life laws, General Comment No. 36 would permit the committee to place considerably more pressure on states to legalize abortion.

The quasi-official document states that countries “must provide” access to abortion in cases of health, rape, incest, fetal disability and “in situations in which carrying a pregnancy to term would cause the woman substantial pain or suffering.”[2]

The same document also calls on independent states to remove criminal sanctions for abortionists that break the law, and to repeal laws which place “humiliating or unreasonably burdensome requirements on women seeking to undergo abortion.”[3]

There would be much at stake if the comment is adopted.

The ICCPR is one of the oldest, most revered and widely adopted United Nations human rights treaties. States that have adopted the ICCPR (i.e. “state parties”) are bound by international law to faithfully observe the treaty’s terms. The United States, as a state party to the ICCPR, is bound by the U.S. Constitution to abide by the treaty.

General comments are essentially official statements by the committee on how they interpret the treaty.

And while their legal status is subject to much debate among international law scholars, most observers agree that general comments are highly esteemed, authoritative, quasi-juridical statements that play an ever increasingly important role in the development of “soft” law.[4] They have been invoked by various international courts including the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and have, on occasion, even been cited in decisions by domestic courts, including a federal district court in the United States.[5],[6]

While states are free to ignore the parts of general comments that do not accord with their obligations under the ICCPR, they are widely recognized as authoritative and can place increased pressure on state parties to comply.

The Human Right Committee is tasked with monitoring the implementation of the ICCPR, with writing general comments, and with offering non-binding recommendations to state parties on fulfilling their obligations under the treaty.

But, as we were keen to point out, the committee has no authority to create new obligations or to reinterpret the treaty in manner contrary to the text of the ICCPR.

According to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), treaties must be interpreted “in good faith” and according to “the ordinary meaning” of the text in its “context and in light of its object and purpose.”[7] Many of the framers of the ICCPR understood this well and carefully crafted the language of the treaty under the assumption that the treaty would “not admit of progressive implementation of its provisions.”[8]

As mentioned already, article 6(1) of the ICCPR explicitly recognizes the right to life of “every human being” and that this right should be “protected by law.”[9] Article 2 of the covenant declares that this right should respected “without distinction of any kind” including by “birth or other status.”[10] Article 7 further prohibits anyone to be subjected to “torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Abortion procedures crush, poison, or dismember the unborn child, many of whom are able to feel pain, and clearly constitute the most cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment imaginable.

Article 6(5) even specifically recognizes the right to life of the unborn child as distinct from the life of its mother. Article 6(5) prohibits the death penalty to be carried out on a pregnant woman:

“Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.”[11]

During the drafting process for the ICCPR, state parties made it clear that article 6(5) was included in the treaty precisely to protect the life of the unborn child. The Official Record of the proceedings of the 819thmeeting of the Third Committee summarized the comments of the Israeli delegation as follows:

“…the authors of the original text had specified that sentence of death should not be carried out on a pregnant woman principally in order to save the life of an innocent unborn child.”[12]

The Japanese delegation echoed this sentiment at the following meeting, saying to the effect, “the main reason for inserting the provision concerning pregnant women was to avoid involving in the death penalty a person who was not connected with the crime.”[13] It is thus impossible to read any “right” to abortion into the ICCPR.

Moreover, international law does not create any obligation on states to legalize abortion. The U.N. Charter seeks to promote “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction.”[14]The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes that “every child has the inherent right to life”[15] and that the “child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.”[16] The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while not in and of itself constituting a customary norm in whole or in part, is nevertheless highly esteemed and provided the inspiration for the ICCPR. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims without qualification that “everyone has the right to life.”[17]

It is impossible for the Human Rights Committee to claim that states are obligated to legalize abortion under customary international law. A significant number of countries protect the right to life for the unborn child by law, several of them from the moment of conception. In fact, a majority of U.N.-recognized states (56%) have not legalized abortion under even the minimum cases the committee is now demanding that they be provided.[18]

It is clear that no so-called “right” to abortion exists in either the ICCPR or in states’ obligations under international law. On the contrary, the ICCPR recognizes the right to life for “every human being,” including the unborn child, the sick, the elderly, and the disabled.

The Human Rights Committee must abide by its mandate and must cease its attempts to reinterpret the covenant in a manner never intended by state parties.

Jonathan Abbamonte is a research analyst at the Population Research Institute. 

Chastity

Thanks

‘There is hope’: Man comes out of ‘permanent vegetative state’ after 15 years

LYON, France, October 2, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — No human being is ever a “vegetable,” but the phrase “Permanent Vegetative State” certainly described “Jack.”

If someone falls into a “Persistent Vegetative State” (PVS), being completely unaware and unresponsive for a whole year, their condition is diagnosed as permanent.

Colloquially speaking, Jack (a pseudonym) looked awake, but he “wasn’t there.” Now, French doctors have shattered that medical conviction by reviving the 35-year-old man who spent 15 unresponsive years after a severe car accident.

Doctors implanted a device to stimulate Jack’s vagus nerve, the longest of the involuntary nerves that runs from the base of the brain to the abdomen. Besides helping regulate heart, lungs, and digestive tract, the nerve has a lot to do with wakefulness and attention.

They artificially stimulated Jack’s vagus nerve every day for a month. The results produced a medical science breakthrough perhaps greater than the discovery of penicillin.

Their subject responded for the first time in 15 years.

Jack didn’t gain full awareness, but he responded to simple requests. He followed objects with his eyes. He could turn his head when asked. He stayed awake listening to a therapist read a book. His eyes opened wide when someone suddenly got in his face.

In medical terms, he went from a “permanent vegetative state” to a minimally conscious state. “He cannot talk, but he can respond. Now he is more aware,” study leader Angela Sirigu of the Institute of Cognitive Science in Lyon said.

His dramatic change was documented in brain scan “before” and “after” comparisons. (PIC of brain scan comparison)

To the pro-life layman, this is a major vindication.

“Ever since Terri Schiavo, writing about the wrongness of removing feeding tubes from patients diagnosed with persistent unconsciousness (PVS) … is like spitting in the wind,” columnist Wesley J. Smith wrote. “Patients in this condition are often dehydrated to death by having their feeding tubes removed, which takes up to two weeks. … People with minimal awareness are legally dehydrated in all 50 states.”

“This should be good news that should cause us to pause in removing feeding tubes from the unconscious,” Smith advised. “Some bioethicists even want such removals to become standard” after a year or two, he warned.

Some still defend starving or painfully dehydrating patients “because they may be in horror at their impaired condition or otherwise suffering.” But Smith said a major study of patients who appeared completely unconscious but proved later to actually be awake and aware “shows that most are ‘happy,’ and majorities would not want euthanasia.”

“Let’s care for these seriously disabled patients — both apparently unconscious and conscious — as full and equal members of the moral community,” Smith concluded.   “And let’s think twice before removing sustaining treatment that can only have one result: a protracted and perhaps painful death.”

Smith noted that 40 percent of PVS diagnoses are wrong, but it now seems possible, at least thinkable, that some who actually do fall into such a state may be revivable.

Jack’s results were published in the journal “Current Biology.”

Niels Birbaumer of the University of Tübingen pointed out that “many of these patients may and will have been neglected, and passive euthanasia may happen often in a vegetative state.” Jack’s example, Birbaumer said, “is a warning to all those believing that this state is hopeless after a year.”

National Geographic’s Karen Weintraub speculated that “if the method is shown to work in a broader population, vagal nerve stimulation could give people with limited consciousness at least a bit of free will and the ability to communicate.”

Hannah Devlin of The Guardian wrote that Jack’s success “offer(s) hope to the families of patients in PVS that it may one day be possible to re-establish some basic form of communication.”

University of Birmingham cognitive neuroscientist Damian Cruse called Jack’s story “pretty exciting.” “If you can just push the patient over the threshold so they can start responding to external stimulation you can maybe help them follow speech therapy and get them to a level where they can start to communicate,” he said.

In recent years, a brain-computer interface has been developed that facilitates paralyzed patients previously thought in a “vegetative state” to communicate basic “yes” or “no” answers to let loved ones know what they want, feel and need.

Vagal nerve stimulation has been used with epileptics, those with neurological disorders, and those suffering from recent brain injury.

Smith exhorts pro-lifers to “never call (human beings) ‘vegetables,’ a term as denigrating and dehumanizing as a racial epithet.”

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Be men and women of life, Pope Francis says Easter Monday

.- On Easter Monday, Pope Francis stressed that Christ’s resurrection calls each of us to bring the message of Easter – a message of hope and life – to the world.

“There is life!” the Pope said April 17. Now, following the Resurrection, “we will be resurrection men and women, men and women of life.”

We are called to show solidarity, welcoming, and peace to people “in the midst of events that afflict the world – there are many today – in the midst of worldliness that is distant from God,” he said.

These are only human signs that we can give, he continued, but “inspired and sustained by faith in the Risen Lord,” we can gain effectiveness “well beyond our capacity.”

Pope Francis gave his message Easter Monday before leading pilgrims in the Regina Coeli prayer from a window overlooking St. Peter’s square.

It is customary for the Pope to lead this traditional Marian prayer on the Monday following Easter Sunday, also sometimes called the “Monday of the Angel” for the angel which announced Christ’s resurrection to the women at the tomb.

During the fifty days of Easter, the Regina Coeli will replace the usual recitation of the Angelus on Sundays.

In the message of the Angel to the women on Easter morning, “Go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead,’” we hear our directions as well, Pope Francis said. The angel invites us as well to “act quickly” and to go “proclaim to the men and women of our time this message of joy and hope.”

This message is hopeful because on the dawn of the third day, Jesus was risen from the dead, therefore “the last word is not death, but life! And this is our certainty. The last word is not the grave, is not death, it is life!”

And our Mother Mary can help us to live this out, Francis said.

“The Virgin Mary, silent witness of the death and resurrection of her son Jesus, helps us to be clear signs of the risen Christ among the events of the world.”

“Those who are in distress and difficulties,” he explained, can “find in us so many brothers and sisters who offer them support and consolation.”

“And this is so because Christ is alive and active in history through his Holy Spirit, redeems our miseries, reaches every human heart and gives hope to anyone who is oppressed and suffering,” he said.

“Our Mother, help us to believe strongly in the resurrection of Jesus: Jesus is risen, he is alive here, among us, and this is a wonderful mystery of salvation with the ability to transform hearts and lives,” he prayed.

“And intercede in a particular way for the Christian communities persecuted and oppressed as they are today, in many parts of the world, called to a difficult and courageous witness.”

Minority health add

April: National Minority Health Month 2017

National Minority Health Month is celebrated in the United States during the month of April. The objective of this event is to create awareness about health disparities that continue to affect racial and ethnic minorities.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, health disparities are usually defined as a number of significant differences between one population and another. This article will focus on disparities in reproductive health issues affecting the African American and Hispanic communities.

Although unintended pregnancies have declined in general, African American and Hispanic women have been disproportionately affected by unwanted pregnancies and abortion. A 2011 study reported that the rate of unintended pregnancies per year is 18 per 1000 for white women, 79 per 1000 for black women and 33 per 1000 for Hispanic women. Of these pregnancies 42% (excluding miscarriages) ended in abortion. More babies from minorities, black and other racial and ethnic groups, were killed choosing in abortion. We merely need to see the statistics to identify the disparities.

The response to the high rates of unwanted pregnancies and abortions has been to encourage increased contraceptive use among minorities. It is known that 91% of Latino and at least 83% of African American women who have had sex have used contraception. More than half of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method in the month they became pregnant. This shows that the widespread use of contraception does not reduce abortion rates, but in fact appears that high contraception use correlates with high abortion rates.

Furthermore, it is known that the contraceptive mentality has its roots in the eugenics movement. This movement is founded on the assumption that there are certain people who are not fit to live, particularly poor minority populations. These people are scornfully referred to as “human weeds.”

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood–the largest provider of abortions in the United States–advocated eugenics and considered blacks as “human waste.” It is no coincidence that Planned Parenthood abortion mills are located close to the vulnerable Hispanic and African American communities.

Planned Parenthood may consider the prevalence of this mentality a “success,” because the use of contraceptives is seen as the “responsible attitude” and the only way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Although minorities are often portrayed as an example of people who benefit most from contraception, the statistics above speak otherwise.

Little is said about how contraceptive hormones can cause abortions. Birth control hormones thin the endometrium (lining of the uterus), making implantation less likely, resulting in early abortion. The use of contraceptives not only directly causes abortion, but also promotes the culture of abortion.

Paraphrasing Martin Luther King, Jr., the black [and perhaps also the Hispanic] could not win, while willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety. How can Rev. King’s “American Dream” survive if we kill children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in his mother’s womb. The mother decides his/her fate.

We need your help to combat health inequalities, especially reproductive health disparities in minorities. One More Soul has resources to help communities understand the harms of contraception and abortion and the benefits of chastity and openness to life in marriage. Join us during Minority Health Month to distribute our brochures, books, and resources for the Hispanic community and other minorities.

To see resources in Spanish click HERE

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Dear Friends of One More Soul,

The election of Donald Trump and the potential for radical cultural change that he envisions gives me great joy. I firmly believe that God has blessed America in a very unique way.

I praise Him in the Trinity—Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. And I so appreciate that our common Mother Mary pled for the mercy that provides us the opportunity to skewer the Culture of Death and raise up a resurgent Culture of Life.

With this end-of-year One More Soul Newsletter, we are inviting, encouraging and begging for a unification of Church, State and Healthcare in a common goal of doing what is right. What is right, you may ask. The answer is found in the Our Father that Jesus taught us many years ago—

Thy will be done.

Embrace opportunities to explain Truth with Love—the Truth of the Commandments and the Love Jesus has for everyone. Let us be as bold and courageous as President-Elect Trump was when he decided to run for President without any prior experience inside government, and then pursue that unlikely dream through mountains of media ridicule, ferocious attack from opponents left and right,his own weaknesses and obvious mistakes.

WE TOO MUST BE BOLD in following God’s will!

I believe that in writing this OMS Newsletter I am following God’s will with a broad focus on the Quest for a Culture of Life in America —the title of my Tuesday Noon ET Radio Maria USA Program, which I invite you to join by tuning to radiomaria.us.

Please rest assured that One More Soul’s fundamental mission remains to convince everyone that:
a) children are a blessing—the supreme blessing to marriage and all the world, and

b) contraception is the root cause for abortion, and marital unhappiness that often leads to divorce.

Please help us financially with a one-time gift of $30, $60, $100 or $______.

OR, a monthly gift of any amount $____/month.
Thank you for your generosity. May God continue to bless America and each of us!

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Gary Bauer: The Pro-Life Case for Donald Trump

garyGary: How can you as a Christian and a conservative ever consider voting for, much less endorsing, Donald Trump for president?”

This question, or some variation of it, has come through my Inbox or been asked of me in person many times over the last couple of months. It’s a question I have thought long and hard about, and my decision to support Trump for president is not one I came to lightly. But let me explain my reasoning as it relates to the most important issue we face: the defense of unborn human life.

First, let me state that in the primaries, I endorsed Ted Cruz, because I felt he would do the most to advance conservative values, and I felt he could win. I also felt several other Republican candidates — including Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina — had what it takes to be effective presidents who would advance the conservative cause.

But Donald Trump won the Republican nomination. He is the nominee of the party of Lincoln and Reagan and the only person standing between Hillary Clinton and four or eight more years of radical policymaking, particularly on abortion.

Barack Obama has often been called the most pro-abortion president in American history. But Clinton would be even worse. Dawn Laguens, vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, has said Clinton would be an abortion “champion” and that “She’s … hands down, the strongest nominee we’ve ever seen on women’s health and rights,”

Regarding the more than half-billion dollars of taxpayer funds Planned Parenthood receives annually, Clinton has said, “I would like to see Planned Parenthood even get more funding.”

Clinton wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of taxpayer funds for most abortions. The amendment enjoys strong majority support among the public and has typically gotten bipartisan support in Congress. But this year, Clinton added repealing Hyde to the Democratic National Platform and has pledged to eliminate it if she becomes president. By one estimate, the Hyde Amendment is responsible for saving 2 million unborn lives.

On a narrowly divided court, the next president will have an unprecedented opportunity to shape the Supreme Court for decades. Either Trump or Clinton will nominate one justice at the outset of his or her term. And, with two justices in their 80s, Trump or Clinton will likely get at least two more picks, and as many as four total. Hillary has made it clear that she would support only justices who would uphold Roe v. Wade and support abortion on demand.

She has said, “The only people that I would ever appoint to the Supreme Court are people who believe that Roe V. Wade is settled law.”

Trump, meanwhile, has produced a list of 21 conservative jurists, all of whom have been vetted by the conservative Federalist Society.

But don’t forget the other federal courts. President Obama has appointed 329 federal judges (including two Supreme Court justices), about one-third of the total. We can expect Hillary to appoint at least as many. Think the lower courts don’t matter? The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that pro-life pregnancy centers must promote abortion.

In August Clinton said, “Deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” so that women around the world can get abortions. Any Catholics, evangelicals and other people of faith who don’t believe their religious freedom will be threatened under Clinton should think again.

Some pundits have suggested that conservatives should focus on retaining control of Congress, where they can thwart any attempt by a President Clinton to pass liberal legislation. But she has pledged to bypass Congress whenever possible, just as Obama did.

Clinton has said, “If elected president, I will do everything I can to protect the president’s executive actions and go further to bring more people relief and keep families together.”

As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has argued, “Asking Christian conservatives to accept a Clinton presidency is asking them to cooperate not only with pro-abortion policy-making, but also their own legal-cultural isolation. If you can’t see why some people in that situation might persuade themselves that Trump would be the lesser evil, you need to work harder to imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes.”

Do we know what we’d be getting with Donald Trump? Not exactly, no. But we know exactly what we’d get with Hillary, because she’s worked her entire career to promote abortion and to tear down freedom of conscience, and she’s vowed to continue to do so if she wins.

Trump has come to the pro-life position late, which makes some pro-lifers worry about how committed he is to the cause. But in the first chance he had to appoint someone to an important position, he choose Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to be his running mate. Pence is not only a highly competent and consistent conservative, he is also proudly pro-life.

My supporter’s question about my support for Trump has taken on more significance now that we are only days from the election and polls show that it could go either way. This election is not about conservative purity but about which candidate is preferable to the alternative. This is especially true on abortion, an issue about which the choice could not be clearer.

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Our Lady, Catholics and Contraception

by Monsignor Charles M. Mangan

Today, it has often been said that most Cath­olics have already made up their minds about contraception. Either one believes, as the Catho­lic Church does, that contraception is intrinsically evil and, therefore, must not be practiced or one believes that contraception is permissible, given, among other reasons, the diverse economic, polit­ical and societal pressures that currently exist.

To be clear, contraception is a refusal to be open to life by means of pills, devices or other willful acts that seek to prevent the egg and the sperm from uniting. (Certain pills, injections and devices even work after conception by trying to stop the implan­tation of the newly-conceived human person. In these cases, we speak not about contraceptives but instead abortifacient [“abortion-inducing”] agents.)

Some hold that it is best to leave the decision to use contraception to Catholics themselves rather than to appeal to the Church’s long-stand­ing opposition to contraception. (In her nearly 2,000 years history, the Catholic Church has never voiced any support for contraception.)

Various voices have stated that the Catholic Church has lost the battle in persuading Catho­lics not to contracept. Others maintain that the vast majority of Catholics who use contracep­tion are not aware of its sinfulness and, hence, cannot be considered to be guilty of sin. Subse­quently, these men and women should be “left alone.” Still others recommend that the mere subject of contraception not even be addressed so as not to embarrass anyone.

As a priest, I am conscious of my sacred responsibility to adhere to Catholic teaching, to proclaim it fully and to bring understanding to those who do not presently have it.

Cover-of-POLC-300

Explaining the Church’s Teaching

For decades, the Church’s Magisterium (the “Teaching Authority” of the Pope and the Bishops in union with him) as well as incredi­bly brilliant philosophers, theologians and spir­itual authors have convincingly made the case that the very nature of the mari­tal act demands openness to the possible transmission of human life. If that openness is knowingly and willingly rejected, then mor­tal sin results, and one forfeits the privilege of receiving Holy Communion. Thus, God is deeply offended, and the soul of the indi­vidual is greatly harmed. One has placed himself in the perilous position of not being able to enter Heaven unless he repents.

What more can we do to encourage our Catholic brothers and sisters to look again at the matter of contraception?

The mystery of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary body and soul into Heaven illumines the discussion about contraception in at least two ways: 1. it presents how our Creator considers the beauty of the human body that He Himself created; 2. it provides an incentive to live virtu­ous lives here on earth, regardless of temptation, that will be transformed into the life of glory in Paradise.

Our Lady’s Assumption and the Beauty of Our Bodies

When we begin to reflect on the dogma of the Assumption, we justly fixate on its first and most basic meaning, that the Ever-Virgin Mary, upon the end of her life here on earth, was assumed body and soul by God into Heaven.

One conclusion we draw from the Assump­tion is that the human body is filled with splen­dor and dignity because it was fashioned by God, Who created it not to be abused or for selfishness, but for the glory of Everlasting Life. Our bodies are not mere shells that “house” our souls for ten or twenty or forty or eighty years. Instead, our bodies are beautiful and have as their purpose to praise God in their movements and deeds on earth and one day to be with Him in Heaven. Imagine this: the Son of God, Who is the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, took the same flesh that you and I have. And Our Lady’s virginal body is the same as our bodies, too.

If our Creator welcomed Mary’s pure body into Paradise, then we rightly infer that her human body and, by extension, our bodies are important to Him.

We often think of our souls as being des­tined for Heaven. We perform multiple char­itable acts in the Holy Name of Jesus, knowing that the good we do on earth increasingly trans­forms our souls into the image of Christ. Then, one day our souls will be rewarded in Heaven.

But we seem to forget that Heaven is also the everlasting home for our bodies, which, like our souls, also must respond to God’s invitation to Everlasting Life. Thanks to the resurrection of the body on the last day, which we refer to when we sing or chant the Apostles’ Creed during the recitation of the Most Holy Rosary or the Nicene Creed during the Holy Mass, our bodies will rejoin our souls, this time for all eternity near the throne of the Living God.

What we do with our bodies now, whether good or bad, has future implications for us. Do our bodies glorify their Creator? Or are they caught up in a sorry web of self-gratification and egoism?

Human bodies that have been involved in unrepentant sensuality and in rebuking God’s call to procreate as the Lord intended are hardly fit for the same reward that Our Lady now enjoys.

Our Lady’s Assumption and Our Lives of Virtue

The goal of our earthly existence is Heaven. We humbly recognize that it is not always easy to do the right thing—and that we have not always done the right thing. We are convinced of our sinfulness. But more than that, we are con­vinced of God’s kindness. As Saint John wrote in his First Letter (4:16), “God is love.” Our Lord created us for Heaven, which is our only true and abiding home.

We will do what is necessary to enter Par­adise. In doing so, we may be judged as “odd” or “fanatics.” But who cares? We want what Our Lady possesses: complete and lasting happiness with the Most Blessed Trinity.

Mary’s Assumption is proof positive that a fully human person can be admitted to the Father’s Kingdom. She is there because of her love and dedication in fulfilling God’s Will.

Yes, we have many hard choices before us. And we may be tempted to think that God has abandoned us…He has forsaken us…He has not granted to us the strength to persevere. Per­haps we may even believe that it is impossible to do the moral thing.

Pope Francis has shared with us his tender devotion to Mary under the title, “Undoer of Knots.” Just when we think that all is lost, the Mother of God steps in to resolve a most com­plex problem.

What if Catholics who use contraception would invoke Our Lady for a “way out?” Now assumed into Heaven, she would craft some solution that is currently unforeseen.

OLUN

Our Lady is so good. She is Our Blessed Mother. She desires our company in Paradise. Let us fly to her for help.

Holy Mary, Undoer of Knots and assumed into Heaven, we pray for all Cath­olics who have used con­traception, are using it or are tempted to use it. Please immediately resolve this dif­ficulty for them. We have confidence in You, O Mary!

Nihil Obstat: Christopher T. Burgwald, S.T.D.

Imprimatur: + Paul J. Swain, D.D. Bishop of Sioux Falls

The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

September 8, 2014

Our Lady, Catholics and Contraception

by Monsignor Charles M. Mangan

Today, it has often been said that most Cath­olics have already made up their minds about contraception. Either one believes, as the Catho­lic Church does, that contraception is intrinsically evil and, therefore, must not be practiced or one believes that contraception is permissible, given, among other reasons, the diverse economic, polit­ical and societal pressures that currently exist.

To be clear, contraception is a refusal to be open to life by means of pills, devices or other willful acts that seek to prevent the egg and the sperm from uniting. (Certain pills, injections and devices even work after conception by trying to stop the implan­tation of the newly-conceived human person. In these cases, we speak not about contraceptives but instead abortifacient [“abortion-inducing”] agents.)

Some hold that it is best to leave the decision to use contraception to Catholics themselves rather than to appeal to the Church’s long-stand­ing opposition to contraception. (In her nearly 2,000 years history, the Catholic Church has never voiced any support for contraception.)

Various voices have stated that the Catholic Church has lost the battle in persuading Catho­lics not to contracept. Others maintain that the vast majority of Catholics who use contracep­tion are not aware of its sinfulness and, hence, cannot be considered to be guilty of sin. Subse­quently, these men and women should be “left alone.” Still others recommend that the mere subject of contraception not even be addressed so as not to embarrass anyone.

As a priest, I am conscious of my sacred responsibility to adhere to Catholic teaching, to proclaim it fully and to bring understanding to those who do not presently have it.

Cover-of-POLC-300

Explaining the Church’s Teaching

For decades, the Church’s Magisterium (the “Teaching Authority” of the Pope and the Bishops in union with him) as well as incredi­bly brilliant philosophers, theologians and spir­itual authors have convincingly made the case that the very nature of the mari­tal act demands openness to the possible transmission of human life. If that openness is knowingly and willingly rejected, then mor­tal sin results, and one forfeits the privilege of receiving Holy Communion. Thus, God is deeply offended, and the soul of the indi­vidual is greatly harmed. One has placed himself in the perilous position of not being able to enter Heaven unless he repents.

What more can we do to encourage our Catholic brothers and sisters to look again at the matter of contraception?

The mystery of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary body and soul into Heaven illumines the discussion about contraception in at least two ways: 1. it presents how our Creator considers the beauty of the human body that He Himself created; 2. it provides an incentive to live virtu­ous lives here on earth, regardless of temptation, that will be transformed into the life of glory in Paradise.

Our Lady’s Assumption and the Beauty of Our Bodies

When we begin to reflect on the dogma of the Assumption, we justly fixate on its first and most basic meaning, that the Ever-Virgin Mary, upon the end of her life here on earth, was assumed body and soul by God into Heaven.

One conclusion we draw from the Assump­tion is that the human body is filled with splen­dor and dignity because it was fashioned by God, Who created it not to be abused or for selfishness, but for the glory of Everlasting Life. Our bodies are not mere shells that “house” our souls for ten or twenty or forty or eighty years. Instead, our bodies are beautiful and have as their purpose to praise God in their movements and deeds on earth and one day to be with Him in Heaven. Imagine this: the Son of God, Who is the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, took the same flesh that you and I have. And Our Lady’s virginal body is the same as our bodies, too.

If our Creator welcomed Mary’s pure body into Paradise, then we rightly infer that her human body and, by extension, our bodies are important to Him.

We often think of our souls as being des­tined for Heaven. We perform multiple char­itable acts in the Holy Name of Jesus, knowing that the good we do on earth increasingly trans­forms our souls into the image of Christ. Then, one day our souls will be rewarded in Heaven.

But we seem to forget that Heaven is also the everlasting home for our bodies, which, like our souls, also must respond to God’s invitation to Everlasting Life. Thanks to the resurrection of the body on the last day, which we refer to when we sing or chant the Apostles’ Creed during the recitation of the Most Holy Rosary or the Nicene Creed during the Holy Mass, our bodies will rejoin our souls, this time for all eternity near the throne of the Living God.

What we do with our bodies now, whether good or bad, has future implications for us. Do our bodies glorify their Creator? Or are they caught up in a sorry web of self-gratification and egoism?

Human bodies that have been involved in unrepentant sensuality and in rebuking God’s call to procreate as the Lord intended are hardly fit for the same reward that Our Lady now enjoys.

Our Lady’s Assumption and Our Lives of Virtue

The goal of our earthly existence is Heaven. We humbly recognize that it is not always easy to do the right thing—and that we have not always done the right thing. We are convinced of our sinfulness. But more than that, we are con­vinced of God’s kindness. As Saint John wrote in his First Letter (4:16), “God is love.” Our Lord created us for Heaven, which is our only true and abiding home.

We will do what is necessary to enter Par­adise. In doing so, we may be judged as “odd” or “fanatics.” But who cares? We want what Our Lady possesses: complete and lasting happiness with the Most Blessed Trinity.

Mary’s Assumption is proof positive that a fully human person can be admitted to the Father’s Kingdom. She is there because of her love and dedication in fulfilling God’s Will.

Yes, we have many hard choices before us. And we may be tempted to think that God has abandoned us…He has forsaken us…He has not granted to us the strength to persevere. Per­haps we may even believe that it is impossible to do the moral thing.

Pope Francis has shared with us his tender devotion to Mary under the title, “Undoer of Knots.” Just when we think that all is lost, the Mother of God steps in to resolve a most com­plex problem.

What if Catholics who use contraception would invoke Our Lady for a “way out?” Now assumed into Heaven, she would craft some solution that is currently unforeseen.

OLUN

Our Lady is so good. She is Our Blessed Mother. She desires our company in Paradise. Let us fly to her for help.

Holy Mary, Undoer of Knots and assumed into Heaven, we pray for all Cath­olics who have used con­traception, are using it or are tempted to use it. Please immediately resolve this dif­ficulty for them. We have confidence in You, O Mary!

POLCsp cover for web

 

This resource is available in Spanish

Nihil Obstat: Christopher T. Burgwald, S.T.D.

Imprimatur: + Paul J. Swain, D.D. Bishop of Sioux Falls

The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

September 8, 2014

‘I’d rather them take my life than to take her,’ says Jahi McMath’s mom

HERNDON, Virginia, July 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — The mother of a teenager who was declared “brain dead” and had to be transferred to a hospital across the country in order to continue receiving medical care told LifeSiteNews in an exclusive video interview that her daughter gives her the strength to continue fighting.

Nailah Winkfield, the mother of Jahi McMath, told LifeSiteNews at the 2016 National Right to Life Convention that despite having received death threats for keeping Jahi alive, God — and Jahi herself — give her the strength to move forward in the legal and medical battles surrounding Jahi’s situation.

In 2013, after routine surgery for sleep apnea and to remove her tonsils, then 13-year-old Jahi went into cardiac arrest. She lost oxygen to her brain and a lot of blood, and doctors at a California children’s hospital subsequently declared her brain dead. Jahi’s family did not want the care keeping her alive withdrawn and had to battle the hospital for their daughter’s life. After Jahi’s “brain death” diagnosis, the hospital refused to give her medical care because in California a “brain death” diagnosis legally classifies a person as deceased.

Jahi’s family was eventually allowed to move her to a hospital in New Jersey, and she is now well enough to live at home with her mother.

“To me, there’s nothing more important to me in this world than my kid, so I’d rather them take my life than to take her,” Winkfield said. “And I always tell people all the time, I’d pull the trigger on myself before I’d pull the plug on Jahi. And I’m serious about that. I would not let anything happen to her within my control.”

Winkfield said one of the underlying issues in the way the hospital treated Jahi was money. Had Jahi died, the hospital would have paid Jahi’s family $250,000, but Jahi surviving surgery with serious complications could mean a much heftier price.

“My kid’s life has no price tag on it,” Winkfield said. “So there’s nothing that they could tell me, there’s no amount of money they could give me in the world that could give me back what my daughter lost: her ability to walk, talk, laugh, smile. I miss those things. There’s no money that could give me that back.”

In order for Winkfield to be able to move Jahi from New Jersey back to California, a judge must revoke the adolescent’s death certificate.

“I’ve submitted tons of videos” to the courts of Jahi responding to what she’s asked to do, Winkfield said, along with the testimonies of neurologists and experts saying she is not brain dead.  Now the family must find a judge willing to listen.

Potential for false brain death diagnosis means ‘you’re really not safe anywhere’

Winkfield advised parents faced with a similar situation to stay strong and “just never give up.”

“If you feel that you’re doing the right thing for your kid, you keep doing it,” she said. “And get a good legal team. You have to get a good legal team because if you don’t, you won’t get anywhere.”

Winkfield told LifeSiteNews that it was “shocking” when doctors informed her she didn’t have the right to continue caring for her daughter once they had diagnosed her with brain death.

“They told me I had 72 hours to say my goodbyes to her,” Winkfield said. “I immediately told them no, I didn’t feel that she was dead, and I felt that I didn’t want care withdrew from her and it was my decision. They told me at this point it was not — it was no longer my decision or anybody else’s.”

“I gave birth to her, I’ve been taking care of her her whole life, and you’re gonna tell me I don’t have rights to [take care of] her?” Winkfield asked. “But if she was … to commit a crime or something, and go to juvenile hall, they would say, ‘You have to pay for all these expenses for her. You’re responsible for her.’ But now that I want to keep her alive, [they’re] saying, ‘no, you’re no longer responsible for her.’ We are responsible for her.”

“You’re really not safe anywhere” if your child is diagnosed with brain death, Winkfield warned, and the only state that allows a religious exemption for parents who wish to continue treatment is New Jersey.

Winkfield said that because of her decision to continue caring for her daughter, she has received death threats, people have photoshopped pictures of Jahi to make her look “like her skin is deteriorating,” and her opponents have even called the police and told them a dead girl is in Winkfield’s house.

“People go to the extreme,” Winkfield explained. “I don’t understand why, because I’m not bothering anybody, I’m not asking anybody for anything. The only thing I’m asking is for my child to have a right to live. That’s it. And I want her to have the same benefits and the same treatment as any other child with a disability. That’s all I’m asking for.”

NFP 2016

Father’s day

Mum who rejected abortion displays quintuplet babies

https://www.spuc.org.uk/news/news-stories/2016/may/mum-who-rejected-abortion-displays-quintuplet-babies

An Australian mother who gave birth to quintuplets in January has released a photo shoot of her five new babies.

It took Kim Tucci, 26, just two minutes to give birth to the massive set of new arrivals – four daughters and one son – who were conceived naturally.

Doctors had advised Kim to abort some of her five unborn children on health grounds but she refused, going on to give birth to all five babies.

Surprised by Five

Kim and her husband Vaughn, who live in Perth, already have a nine-year-old daughter and two sons aged two and four. Now their family has expanded with the arrival of Tiffany, Keith, Penelope, Beatrix and Allie!

The odds of conceiving quintuplets naturally is approximately one in 55 million. Kim documented the story of her pregnancy on her blog, Surprised by Five.

She also described how doctors had recommended that she undergo a ‘selective abortion’ – i.e. abort up to three of her unborn children in order to give the others a better chance of survival.

Refusing selective abortion

On 26 September, 2015, Kim wrote:

“After my initial ultrasound I was told I could consider the selection method [abortion] to give 2 babies the best chance in life … I watched a YouTube video on the procedure and I cried, I could never do that! Was I selfish for not giving two the chance of 100% survival?? All I knew is that I already love them and that every heart beat I heard I connect with them more.”

A team of 50 doctors and nurses assisted with the planned caesarean birth and all of the children were born healthy after spending 29 weeks in the womb.

Kim Tucci 2

Not always easy

Kim’s pregnancy with her quintuplets was often far from easy. She blogged about pain, extreme discomfort, sleepless nights, constant trips to the bathroom and a 6,000-calorie a day diet to sustain her five unborn babies.

But the mum-of-eight also said that all the aches and pains, the stretch marks and hospital stays were worth it, knowing that her babies are healthy. She also thanked her husband for his constant support through her pregnancy struggles.

Support

“My husband always reminds me I should wear my stripes with pride and that I should be proud of them and what my body has achieved. Without him I would have broken down a long time ago,” Kim wrote.

Now that the babies have come home, friends and family are organizing a fundraiser to help the Tuccis buy a car big enough to transport their entire family.

Photoshoot

Kim recently posted on her blog:

“50 fingers 50 toes, 6 hearts beating at once. My body fought the toughest of battles to get five babies here safely. Everything I did I did for them.”

Local business Erin Elizabeth Photography, which helped document Mrs Tucci’s pregnancy, organised a photoshoot for the quintuplets and their proud mum, which has since gone viral. You can see the rest of the pictures below:

Kim Tucci 1

Mother’s Day

Spring Newsletter

Spring 2016 Newsletter web page top

 

Dear Friends of One More Soul,

We welcome you to our Spring newsletter page!  You’ll find that it is filled with educational information, events, services and a resource guide highlighting some of our products.  We want this newsletter to be valuable for you so please share your feedback and suggestions to help us improve.

The Holy Father’s interview on the flight to Rome on February 17/18 has generated huge attention to what the Catholic Church does and does not teach about contraception—specifically what exceptions (if any) are permitted for the use of contraception. The supposed exception for rape-threatened-nuns in Africa was mentioned by the Pope and has since been set aside as a myth.

Most commentators have expressed alarm caused by yet another confusing off-the-cuff statement that could be interpreted as inconsistent with Church teaching. My take on this is that the Holy Spirit is working through/with Pope Francis to provide a great opportunity—obligation even— for the Catholic clergy to clarify for the masses (and preferably, at Mass) what the Church (Jesus) teaches about contraception.

Our website offers many resources to assist teachers and homilists:
“Getting Beyond I Can’t” by Fathers Matthew Habiger, OSB, PhD, and Daniel McCaffrey, STD. (Order code PGBI)
Called to Give Life, A Primer on the Blessings of Children and the Harm of Contraception, by Jason Adams, includes many sample homilies and Scriptural opportunities for use during the liturgical year. (Order code BCTG)
Janet E Smith’s translation (from the Latin) of Humanae Vitae, with introductory essay, including an important 2009 correction. (Order code KHVT)

We continue to need your financial support in the form of charitable gifts. By your purchases of our resources for sharing with pastor, family, teachers and friends you will be extending the OMS reach beyond our mailing list, which is very important.

May God bless you abundantly.

Steve

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Life-Limiting Prenatal Diagnosis: Hard Cases Close to Home

“Every mom I know in anencephaly groups who has carried to term has no regrets, while there are so many who regret early induction/ termination. It is truly amazing (and not distinctly related to the parent’s religion).”

-The mother of Baby Joseph

 

Best Choices for Families Dealing with Adverse Fetal Diagnosis

Discovering one’s child has a serious medical condition is always devastating, whether it occurs at twenty years old or twenty weeks gestation. Among the many disorders that usually shorten a child’s lifespan dramatically, causing death within the first few months of life, are various Trisomy conditions, Potter’s Syndrome, and anencephaly (a neural tube disorder). Many families confronted with an adverse prenatal diagnosis have experienced a lack of resources, information, and support, and often face unwelcome pressures as well, but those who carry to term usually find peace nonetheless.

Dum Vivimus Vivamus

“Dum vivimus vivamus…While we live, let us live” is a fitting motto for families who give their babies a chance to survive, contrasting sharply with many historical and current medical prac-tices. What follows are four stories from a limited geographical region (western Ohio) representing hundreds of regions across the country; your own communities; your own hospitals.

The life of Joseph

Diagnosed with anencephaly at 20 weeks; lived 37 weeks in the womb and 88 minutes after birth.

The ultrasound doctor who diagnosed anencephaly gave Joseph’s parents one option: “we could induce early (like next week!) and then we wouldn’t have to go through the rest of the pregnancy…I thought to myself: If my firstborn, was diagnosed with a terminal illness and had only 4 months to live, would I ask the doctors to end her life right now, or would I love and cherish every moment until God called her home? Thinking of it that way, the answer was clear. It was obvious it wasn’t a choice at all. I was incredibly sad and discouraged having to be in this position, but the only possible choice we could live with is to just love this baby as long as we can.” After their initial office visit, they were fortunate to experience the support of family and friends, as well as that of their trusted family physician, who “grieved with us, prayed with us.”

The life of James Thomas

Son of Ben and Lynn, diagnosed with Potter’s Syn-drome at 22 weeks; lived 36 weeks in the womb and 90 minutes after birth.

James’ mom shared their experence, “At the initial appointment [22 week check up] when we discov-ered the Potter’s Syndrome, the first words from the doctor’s mouth were: ‘If you choose to terminate, you need to do so by the end of the week.’ ” James’ parents were “surprised, angry and hurt by this recommendation.” So much so that, at their request, the ethics board of the hospital has changed their guidelines for doctors, instructing them to present, in a compassionate manner, a full range of options to clients. James’ parents wondered, “Why was this the first option given to us?” The only risk factor for James’ mom was a previous history of pregnancy hypertension unrelated to Potter’s Syndrome. It was treatable and only a concern closer to term when James would be viable outside the womb.

Fortunately family and close friends were very supportive. Yet “lots of other people questioned the decision. No one could give any rationale for terminating, but the gist was ‘why would you want to continue with the pregnancy [considering it an inconvenience] when you know he is going to die anyway?’ ” The response of James’ parents was, “Why not? Why not give him the best chance at life that we could?”

The lives of Elizabeth and Jacob

Children of Scott and Julie, both diagnosed with Potter’s Syndrome at around 20 weeks gestation, with different outcomes.

Elizabeth and Jacob’s parents had a significantly different experience with their first child diagnosed with Potter’s syndrome than with their second. Elizabeth and Jacob’s stories are a poignant illustra-tion of the contrast between two different decisions. With Elizabeth, their first child with Potter’s, they followed advice from doctors and other counselors, undergoing “early induction” at 23 weeks. Doctors had avoided the word “termination” so they didn’t realize the implications—until later—nor the deep regret that came with “early induction” of an essen-tially non-viable baby. Nor would they have chosen that route had they been better informed. When Jacob came along, diagnosed with the same condi-tion, they knew they didn’t have to “induce early.” This time, “we were more at peace because we had given him every chance to live.” Monitoring vital signs closely, they carried Jacob as close to term as possible, birthing him at 37 weeks after discovering he passed away in the womb. Their only living child was almost 3 as they said their goodbyes to Jacob at the birth. With both Elizabeth and Jacob, pictures from the day of birth are precious memories, even though the children had not survived. A deeper regret lingers, however, with regard to the short time leading up to Elizabeth’s last day of life: “We feel like we weren’t given time with Elizabeth like we were with Jacob between diagnosis and birth. With Elizabeth we had a week and a half to make a decision and prepare. That wasn’t enough time and made everything harder after.” They had hoped for a live birth with both children, even if the time with them alive would be limited. In both cases it was not as they had hoped, but with Jacob they were grateful for those extra 14 weeks they had with him alive in the womb. “Doctors are afraid of giving false hope,” they added, “but parents need hope. The hopes are not naive; they give parents the opportunity to try to do something to help their child.”

Safeguarding Women’s Health and Applying Moral Principles

The short lives of the children introduced in this brochure deeply touched their families, calling them to love. All of these families experienced many blessings from choosing to carry their babies to term. They were fortunate to have access to information beyond the limited options given at the hospital, and to have ample support for their decisions from friends and family. These life-lim-iting prenatal conditions primarily affect the babies, not posing serious risk to the mother.

The hypertension that doctors feared for James’ mom didn’t result from Potter’s Syndrome; she also developed it during other pregnancies. Joseph’s mom had concerns about polyhydramnios (swelling from excess amniotic fluid) but the primary concern with that (besides discomfort) is early labor or stillbirth, which again concerns the baby, not the mom. Elizabeth and Jacob’s mom did not experience complications, but was told infection could follow if the baby died in the womb. All of these complications are manageable; none are life threatening or permanently damaging to the mother. In cases such as these, some try to use the princi-ple of double effect to justify actions that end the baby’s life. But double effect can only be invoked when the primary intended effect is not morally wrong. The intended effect of “early induction” (or “termination”) is to shorten the pregnancy by birthing a non-viable child. It may be a well-mean-ing attempt to minimize the parents’ grief, but it actually does nothing to take away the pain of infant loss. Early induction does directly result in the baby dying earlier rather than later and this is the primary intended effect of the procedure, not merely an unfortunate secondary result.1 In this case, “early induction” is not the only conceivable means of relieving grief, and is mostly ineffective. In fact, there is ample evidence that abortion often causes additional emotional complications, both from the grief of loss and from disrupted hormonal balance.2 The drastic hormonal shifts have also been shown to cause dramatically increased risk for disease, notably breast cancer.3 In addition, there is evidence that termination of pregnancy (abortion) can have a traumatic effect on those involved, including medical personnel who participate or witness the event.4 In any case, what if the diagnosis was wrong, which has been known to happen?

Why Couldn’t We…?

It’s natural for parents to ask if there is anything they can do to help their child survive as long as possible. With anencephaly and Potter’s Syndrome, possibilities are extremely limited because vital organs are severely affected. Unfortunately, possibil-ities are further limited by the hopeless practice of early induction. Since Potter’s Syndrome involves inadequate amniotic fluid, most parents ask the obvious question: “Can’t we try to inject synthetic amniotic fluid into the womb as needed?” Parents are told, “No.” Yet in 2013, a US Congresswoman, Jamie Herrera Beutler, and her husband wouldn’t take no for an answer. They found a team of doctors willing to try the injections. Their daughter Abigail became the first known survivor of Potter’s Syndrome, receiving a standing ovation on the House floor a year after her birth. Abigail’s dad, Daniel, said in a Today Show interview, “There are no guaranteed solutions…for [Potter’s Syndrome], but don’t be satisfied with one opinion because there are a lot of intelligent doctors with different perspectives and experiences and opinions, so work to find one who will partner with you to find anything possible.”5

Citations

1. Principle of Double Effect, download at Catholics United for the Faith: www.cuf.org/FileDownloads/doubleeffect.pdf

2. Afterabortion.org lists physiological effects of abortion.

3. The Breast Cancer Prevention Inst. (bcpinstitute.org) presents the physiological explanation and statistical correlation of abortion to breast cancer.

4. Many former abortion providers share their stories at ProLifeAction.org/providers and ATTWN.org (And Then There Were None.)

5. Steven Ertelt, “Congresswoman’s Miracle Baby Still Doing Well After Doctors Said She’d Die,” LifeNews.com, September 6, 2013.

Text by Anne Schmiesing Right to Life—Shelby County, OH

This brochure is not intended as a resource for medical information about the conditions mentioned. Note that although Down Syndrome is included in the list (as Trisomy 21), children with Down Syndrome have a much higher chance of survival than children with the other conditions named in this brochure. The life expectancy for all of these prenatal conditions increases with advances in medical knowledge and technology.

Information for stories was collected from personal interviews and with permission from a blog about Joseph. More information from the interviews is available at ShelbyCountyRTL.org. For additional stories and resources, see PrenatalPartnersForLife.org and SufficientGraceMinistries.org.

The book, I Will Carry You by Angie Smith chronicles the creative ways one family found to spend time with their child in her short life. This is a helpful resource for families faced with a life-limiting prenatal diagnosis.

Benjamin Hartings, father of James Thomas, has written a book about his experience. Return to the Altar: A Sacred Journey through Grief and Joy is the story of a family’s loss, a death of a son, and how it transformed their view of the world. What brought the family back to the Altar was not an experience that was expected, but one that was accepted as God’s plan.

Donation page

Respect Life 2015

World Meeting of Families

Our Lady of America needs your help!‏

 

 

Our Lord and His Blessed Mother Mary visited with Precious Blood Sister Mary Ephrem on several occasions from the 1940s until at least 1959 and probably until Sister’s death in 2000. Mary identified herself as the Immaculate Conception, and also as “Our Lady of America, the Immaculate Virgin”.

On September 25th, 1956, Our Lady promised that greater miracles than those granted at Lourdes and Fatima would be granted here in America, the United States in particular, if we would do as she desires. Our Lady indicated that this promise was not for miracles of the body, but of the soul. The following morning, Mary spoke ‘very solemnly and distinctly’:  “I am Our Lady of America. I desire that my children honor me, especially by the purity of their lives.”

“Our Lady made three requests:

* That a medal be cast that bore her image as Our Lady of America, with these words around it: “By your Holy and Immaculate Conception, O Mary, deliver us from evil.” The Coat of Arms of the Christian Family is on the other side of the medal and includes a representation of the Divine Indwelling.

* That a statue be made according to the description she gave to Sister Mary Ephrem, and

* That this statue be placed, after being solemnly carried in procession, in the Shrine of The Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. She wishes to be honored there in a special way as Our Lady of America, the Immaculate Virgin. (Nov 15, 1956)

Her first two requests have been accomplished and her statue is very near to the Shrine. Her third request-made over 58 years ago-has still not been granted. In three separate messages during 1959 (February, July, and December), Our Lady made it clear that she had run out of patience and could no longer stop the persecution that Her Son promised if her requests were not granted.

Could it be that the threatened persecution actually began the following year-1960-with the introduction of the revolutionary Birth Control Pill?1 Can this persecution be stopped by granting Mary’s third request?

Pope Francis will be at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Wednesday September 23rd to canonize Fr Junipero Serra.

This may be a graced opportunity for having Our Lady’s remaining request granted. You can help make that happen by writing to Pope Francis.

Here is how to do that.

Ask Pope Francis to Advocate for, and Join in, that Solemn Procession

Write a letter to Pope Francis in which you ask His Holiness to endorse personally the devotion to Our Lady of America and to invite the United States Catholic Bishops to join Him in the Solemn Procession and permanent placement of the statue of Our Lady of America into the Basilica of the National Shrine of The Immaculate Conception at Washington, DC when he visits that shrine church in September.

You should address your letter or postcard, as follows:

His Holiness, Pope Francis c/o Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S.A. 3339 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20008-3610

[EXAMPLE POST CARD MESSAGE]

Re: Our Lady of America, Her unique request here in the USA

Dear Pope Francis,

When you come to the USA in September 2015, please encourage the United States bishops to join you in a solemn procession and the permanent placement of the Our Lady of America statue into the National Shrine

Basilica of The Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.

Please know that we pray for you faithfully.

Most respectfully,

[Your name]

[Be sure to include your return address]

______________________________

For more examples go to:

http://www.ourladyofamerica.org/PopeFrancisSampleLetters.php

1. Our nation’s laws chronicle the shifts our culture has taken:

a) Prayer in public schools determined to be illegal-1962

b) Laws against distribution of birth control overturned-1965

c) First no-fault divorce law (CA)-1969

d) Title X provides free contraceptives to low-income women-1970

e) Laws against distribution of birth control to single people overturned-1972

f) All laws against abortion declared unconstitutional-1973

g) Supreme Court reaffirms Roe vs Wade, admits that abortion is necessary for failed contraception, and gives people the right to organize intimate relationships and make choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society-1992

h) First physician assisted suicide law approved in Oregon-1992

i)Supreme Court decides Texas Law banning sodomy is unconstitutional and thus eliminates all state laws against sodomy-2003

j) Legality of same-sex “marriage” established nation-wide-2015.

 

May God bless America and each of us.

 

Summer Sale

NFP Week

New study suggests doctors push new mothers to get an IUD immediately after birth

CHAPEL HILL, NC, June 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – A new study recommends that doctors implant IUDs into new mothers’ wombs while they are still in the hospital for childbirth, in an effort to increase the number of American women fitted with the abortifacient device.

Previously, new mothers were told to wait six months after birth to have an intrauterine device implanted. But a new study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology says too often women do not return to have an IUD implanted, and as a result, get pregnant.

Patients at North Carolina Women’s Hospital in Chapel Hill were studied and researchers found that women who received IUDs during cesarean sections were more likely to have them six months later than women who were told to return to the doctor’s office to receive one.

So, the professionals say, implant IUDs at childbirth.

The American Life League considers the North Carolina study’s recommendations medically irresponsible, because women who have just given birth are far more vulnerable, physically and emotionally, than after waiting six months to consider a major life decision like surgically implanted “contraception.”

“Medically speaking, this push to implant IUDs immediately after delivery is a travesty,” Rita Diller, the national director of the American Life League’s Stop Planned Parenthood Project, told LifeSiteNews. “Abnormal bleeding, one of the signs of uterine perforation, could be missed in the days following delivery, since women are already bleeding at that point.”

“It is extremely disturbing that mothers who have just delivered their babies are being encouraged to accept IUDs,” Diller said. “Uterine walls can be softer than usual in postpartum women, increasing the risk of uterine perforation and even resultant IUD migration to other parts of the body, which can cause additional internal injuries.”

The complications with surgical implantation of IUDs are magnified when implantation takes place at a new mother’s childbirth.

“IUDs also increase the risk of ectopic pregnancies and contribute to infections like pelvic inflammatory disease. More than 70,000 Mirena IUD complications have been reported to the FDA since 2000,” Diller elaborated. “In New York and New Jersey alone, there are over 1,000 lawsuits on file for IUD injuries.”

No mention was made in the study of the fact that an IUD is not “contraception” at all, but is an abortifacient. The IUD stops implantation, not just conception, up to 95 percent of the time, according to the Life Issue Institute, based in Cincinnati.

The IUD destroys the ability of the already fertilized egg – the “conceptus” – to implant in the uterine wall. Because s/he cannot implant in the mother’s womb, the conceived child dies.

“IUDs are intended to close off all hope of life developing in the womb, and take away a woman’s ability to be open to life, and to snuff out the life of any child who may begin developing while the device is in place,” Diller explained. “The womb is intended by God to be a place of life, not a tomb.”

The Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services admitted that intrauterine devices cause early abortions. IUDs can inflame the lining of the uterus, making implantation of a newly conceived child impossible, inducing abortion.

A government report put out by the Center for Disease Control singles out the use of IUDs, calling them “as effective as sterilization.” Brian Clowes of Human Life International puts it clearly: “All of the longer-acting methods sometimes act as abortifacients…which will actually lead to an increase, not a decrease, in total abortions,” he told LifeSiteNews.

The new North Carolina study’s recommendation follows similar recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO), which encourages the use of abortion-inducing “contraception” for new mothers around the world.

Along with the new study, the publication printed an editorial by Dr. Lisa M. Goldthwaite, who wrote, “We are meeting a woman’s needs better when they get their contraception at the time of delivery.”

Dr. Erika E. Levi, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, explained, “We need to make it easier for women to get access to the kind of contraception they want as new mothers.”

In 2010, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found that four times as many women who get an IUD implanted at childbirth expel the device (eight percent), compared with those placed later (two percent).

Diller concluded, “It is unconscionable for medical personnel to pressure women, when they are extremely vulnerable following a delivery, to be implanted with devices that may have very negative long-term consequences on their health and actually take the decision to be open to life out of their hands.”

Father’s Day

Honoring Evangelium Vitae

In this book, St. John Paul II shares his profound wisdom and practical insights on the importance of human life and how best to defend it against the many attacks of the present day. This is a short book, but packed with what we need to make an effective stand for life. The pope (and saint) explains how to replace a culture of using people with a culture based on love, and points out that contraception and abortion are fruits from the same tree.

During March get the encyclical Evangelium Vitae with a discount of 20% in our Online Store

BGOL for Lili 4

Carl Djerassi, father of the pill, dies

February 3, 2015 (MercatorNet.com)

Carl Djerassi, widely dubbed “the father of the Pill”, has died at his home in San Francisco at the age of 91. Though best known for synthesizing the hormone that became the key ingredient of the contraceptive pill, the eminent Stanford University professor emeritus made a number of significant contributions to science and technology.

He was also well-known for his books, plays, art collection and cultivation of artists. Another contraceptive scientist this week called him “a true Renaissance man and scholar”. Stanford President John Hennessy hailed him “first and foremost a great scientist” who with his colleagues “transformed the world by making oral contraception effective.”

In an interview about his latest play last year Dr Djerassi told the San Francisco Chronicle that he was “sick and tired of talking about the pill”, and after 60 years who wouldn’t be? Perhaps also he had lived long enough to be disenchanted with the revolution he helped set in motion, or at least have some doubts about the social changes it fuelled.

As an Austrian-born Jew fleeing Hitler, Carl Djerassi arrived in America in 1939, with his mother, at the age of 16. His parents, both doctors, had divorced when he was six, although they remarried to assist the flight of mother and son from Austria. The marriage was annulled soon after, and the elder Dr Djerassi only emigrated to the US in 1949. Penniless in 1939, young Carl wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt to ask for help and received it in the form of a college scholarship.

He excelled in chemistry and after graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a doctorate in 1945 (still in his early twenties) went to work for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Ciba in New Jersey, where he developed the first commercial antihistamine.

In 1949 he was recruited to work for Syntex, a company established in Mexico by American chemist Russell E Marker to synthesize the pregnancy hormone progesterone from the Mexican wild yam. Marker, who pioneered this particular technique, left the company after a dispute with his partners who then hired George Rosenkranz to carry on the programme. It was Rozenkranz who hired the young Dr Djerassi and others.

Djerassi at first successfully led a programme to convert the steroid derived from the yam – diosgenin — into cortisone, then a new drug working wonders for sufferers from rheumatoid arthritis.

Syntex also competed with other drug companies in the hunt for an effective oral contraceptive, their researchers focusing on a synthetic form of progesterone, the hormone which prevents ovulation during pregnancy. This was linked with research on treatments for severe menstrual disorders, infertility and cervical cancer.

In 1951 Djerassi’s group made their breakthrough, synthesising norethindrone, the active ingredient in the first practical (economical and effective) oral contraceptive. Although G.D. Searle and Co actually marketed the first “pill” – following FDA approval in 1960 — Syntex’s product accounted for more than half the oral contraceptive market by the 1970s. In 1951 Fortune magazine headlined: “Syntex makes the biggest technological boom ever heard south of the border.”

Djerassi maintained his connections with the company, becoming president of Syntex Laboratories in Mexico City and Palo Alto, California, and growing wealthy on the strength of his shares in the company. He famously bought 1200 acres near Palo Alto, where he started a cattle ranch, began collecting art, and eventually made half the property over into an artist’s colony in memory of his only daughter, Pamela, an artist who took her own life in 1978.

At the same time he pursued an academic career, joining the faculty of chemistry at Stanford in 1959. Between then and his full retirement in 2002 he published more than 1,200 scientific papers, a rare achievement even by today’s standards, notes the Stanford obituary. It notes also his seminal contributions to molecular research and early computer modelling. In 1968 he founded Zoecon, a company that developed insect controls using modified insect growth hormones.

As a public figure, he was above all an apologist for the pill, travelling widely to promote it and also to defend it against the likes of Germaine Greer — “always a vociferous opponent of the pill,” he noted in a 2007 interview with The Guardian — and Barbara Seaman, whose 1969 book The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill exposed side effects including the risk of blood clots, heart attack, stroke, depression, weight gain and loss of libido.

He was dismissive of such claims – “everything has side effects” – and countered the feminist critique (Why not a male pill?”) by arguing that feminists, above all, should know that women could not trust men to take a pill. Scientifically, he told the Guardian, there was no difficulty; they knew how to make a male pill. But sharing the burden of contraception would take away women’s control over their own fertility, and potentially all the political gains of the previous 50 years.

It’s a comment that sheds quite a lot of light on the effects of the contraceptive revolution. The pill’s “guarantee” of sex without children is also the death of trust between spouses or partners, and between men and women generally. Sex from now on is about negotiation between two people who are (theoretically) equal in power, though equally uncertain of each other’s motives and feelings. And society is reduced to competing camps.

Djerassi’s own life experience perhaps helps to explain why such a miserable state of affairs would seem acceptable. His childhood experience of divorce was echoed in his own two divorces and three marriages. Each divorce was preceded by an affair with another woman – the first arranged when he announced that the woman who would become his second wife was pregnant with Pamela, his first child. (He is survived by her brother, Dale.) These ruptures suggest one reason why “effective contraception” would make good sense not only in terms of the population control for which it was mainly intended but also as a remedy for the social chaos it would cause.

Djerassi conceded that the pill had its downside for women. Its very “effectiveness” (did he ever acknowledge the massive abortion industry it spawned?), he told the Guardian, led men to take it for granted and not bother with condoms – “it is yet another thing that is put on women’s shoulders.” And although it facilitated women’s entry into more professions, it also meant that they postponed childbearing – with all the problems of infertility and unfulfilled dreams that go with that.

We read that in his books and plays he explored the ethical, political and interpersonal dilemmas resulting from science and technology — what really amounts, in the case of the pill, to social engineering. But nothing seems to have shaken his faith in science to provide answers and politics to make use of them. A deeper philosophical or moral perspective is lacking.

In the Guardian interview he said that the flipside of sex without children – that is, children without sex – was the way of the future: we would freeze our sperm and eggs , get sterilised (as he did after his two children were born, as his daughter did at the age of 25 and without children) and check out gametes from the bank when we wanted them later. “Then you might as well forget about contraception. I am absolutely convinced that is the direction in which we’re going in the long run in the Western world.”

Perhaps he was only playing the “agent provocateur” as he liked to style himself, but one would have liked to hear such a clever man, with the hindsight of so many years –not excluding personal tragedy – talk about what was wrong with that direction. What was soul destroying and inhuman about it. It would be too much to expect a confession that the pill itself was a wrong turn, but it is hard to believe that the idea did not occur to him. At least once.

One More Soul Christmas Newsletter 2014

 

 

 

 

 

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior, this week’s Mass readings remind us of His first coming among us at the Angel Gabriel’s “Annunciation” to Mary that she would conceive a Son. His birth publicly manifests His presence among us, His Kingship and priesthood.

One More Soul’s Christmas Newsletter reflects on this past year and the challenges we face in the upcoming year:

* We continue to provide the best educational resources to foster God’s plan for love, marriage and procreation—some new, others revised, and many available in Spanish!

* We are also using other media to spread the word (Facebook) and Steve’s program on Radio Maria, “The Quest for a Culture of Life in America.”

* In support of this year’s Extraordinary Synod in Rome, we mailed Jason Adams’ book, Called to Give Life, A Primer on the Blessings of Children and the Harm of Contraception, to all the US bishops so our clergy can have the tools for preaching the Gospel of the Family—the Church’s teachings on love, marriage and children. We are planning another mailing to include a new brochure “Our Lady, Catholics and Contraception” by Monsignor Charles Mangan and a booklet “The Language of Love” by Bishop James Conley.

* We look to the Holy Spirit for our inspiration and ask the intercession of Our Lady to help us accomplish our mission goals. We have a special love for Our Lady of America (apparitions in Indiana and Ohio) and we especially pray for her intercession in all that we do.

* Finally, we ask for your continued assistance to help us spread the word about the blessings of children and the harm of birth control.

Please take some time to follow the link to our Christmas Newsletter online for more details on the above items. Thank you for all that you do promoting the Culture of Life and may God richly bless you during this Holy Season and throughout 2015!

 

One More Soul staff

 

 

 

 

Drafted To Serve

This story is about God’s love and relationship with Pope John Paul II as witnessed and told by the author.

JPIIIn August 1993 Pope John Paul II held a rally in Denver, Colorado called World Youth Day VIII. During this time several events occurred which can only be described as miraculous. The author believes these events are the result of the relationship between God and Pope John Paul II.

So incredible was the experience of participating in these events as they happened, that the author and his friend swore themselves to secrecy afterwards. They simply did not want the publicity and notoriety of being involved in what they came to recognize, at the end, as miracles. Consequently, this story has remained untold for 20 years and only now is it being brought into the light.

The characters are captured in the pursuit of their individual business endeavors after the announcement of the rally in 1992. We follow them through their desperate efforts to capitalize on the event and watch their plans culminate in failure. Only to then be brought together in a final single enterprise, which they named ‘The Lemonade Stand,’ and end up in the service of the Pope instead of the envisioned profitable business planned.

Together they helped an estimated 20,000 young followers, who marched 20+ miles one hot Saturday afternoon to hear their beloved Pope John Paul II speak and to attend his final mass before departing Denver.

The story is structured in such a way as to provide the reader with an understanding of the characters and a moment by moment narrative of how the miracles manifested, and why later they were finally revealed.

Travel back in time with JD and his friend TP on an incredible adventure with a ringside seat to see the wonder of how God participates in our lives and see the miracle that brought this story public.

 Order Drafted To Serve HERE

Archb. Brislin: Synod finding new ways to help families

2014-10-15 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The concerns and the challenges of the family in Southern Africa have been brought to the Synod arena by the Archbishop of Cape Town, Stephen Brislin, who is also the President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC).

Pointing out how hard Synod participants are working, with long and intense sessions that require much concentration and focus, Archbishop Brislin said the Synod is a wonderful opportunity to listen to first-hand accounts of different realities across the globe with the aim of finding ways of giving pastoral help to families in crisis. “Getting away from judging and condemning” he said “we have to find ways to give support” by finding and taking “what is good, and building upon that”.

Speaking to Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni, Archbishop Brislin said the social and family reality he and his brother bishops are faced with in Southern Africa is quite particular as, according to recent research, in South Africa there is no “typical” family…

On behalf of the SACBC Brislin says he presented the input and concerns about the pastoral concerns of families, noting that in his geographical area there is no such thing as a “typical” family in the sense that only 27 % of African children grow up in families where both biological parents are present.

That – he says – is just an example: “there are many broken families, many families experience abuse, conflict and violence, and we do realize that many children are growing up in families that are characterized by trauma and violence”.

Pointing to the fact that at the opening of the Synod Pope Francis invited all participants to speak freely and to listen carefully to the input of others – and Brislin says that it is his impression that everyone is doing just that, Brislin says “There is nobody pushing a particular ideology or a particular standpoint”.

Of course – he said – people are bringing up their concerns and there is a great diversity, but he says he believes people are listening and trying to understand the particular local circumstances brought to the forum.

Brislin says that because of its history and political past, the situation in Southern Africa is quite different to the situation in other Sub Saharan African Nations, but he notes, there are common threads – not only in Africa but throughout the world.

He points to the issue of divorce and separation which is a growing problem in Africa as it is in the rest of the world. But the example of polygamy – brought up by some of the other African Bishops – is a first for a Synod and he says it is a very interesting question.

Brislin agrees that inter-religious marriage and coexistence presents issues that are, generally speaking, not a problem in Southern Africa where – he says – there is a respect for the other. And in his experience the issues that come to the surface in mixed marriages are issues that can be sorted out pretty peacefully.

The Archbishop of Cape Town speaks very positively of the testimonies provided by the couples who have been invited to speak to the Synod Fathers of their thoughts and experiences which he says have been very helpful: “we should never forget this is a pastoral synod that recognizes that there are many families in pain, many families that are failing, that are seeking help, solace, comfort and consolation”.

What we are saying – Archbishop Brislin said – is that the Church does and must teach about marriage “but this is not about laying down the law, it is about how can we reach out to people? How can we recognize that in all the imperfections of our humanity and all the imperfections that exist in families, how can we take what is good and what is positive and try to develop that even better?”

Brislin says the issue of the effects of forced migration on families is a huge one at the Synod and it is coming out from a number of countries. South Africa – he says – deals with this problem because of the legacy of apartheid where so many families were forced apart, mainly because of work (men who worked on the mines were forced to leave their families for years at a time), and he says this continues today where people have to leave their families to seek work in the cities, and from this many problems derive with a huge impact on Southern African families.

“The whole Synod in a sense is going further than family life itself in it that it is asking itself: what sort of a Church should we be?” he said. “

We should be a church that is reaching out to people, a Church that is caring, a Church that is compassionate, a Church that is not judging or condemning people, but a Church that is welcoming and accepting” he said.

And finally, asked what he will be taking back with him once the Synod comes to a close Brislin said : “What I will be taking back to Cape Town and to South Africa is the urgency about having to find ways of giving pastoral help to families in crisis”.

“We have to get away from judging and condemning and to say how can we give support? How can we build? How can we take what is good and build upon that?” he said.

And if that message can get across and into our Parish communities then I think we really will become a better Church” he said.

 

Repect Life Month

Promote abortion in Central America to solve U.S. border crisis: Yale proposal

Ben Johnson

Life site News

If the United States wants to stop the wave of minors and young adults flooding across its southern border from Central America, it should help Hispanic women in those countries abort their children. That’s the thesis of a “featured article” posted August 19 in YaleGlobal Online, a publication of Yale University.

Marisol Ruiz, a past Fox International Fellow at Yale, proposes that Congress “should attach specific conditions” to emergency aid packages designed to stop crime in Central America, “ensuring the money will implement policies focused on gender mainstreaming, highlighting the importance of transforming gender relations.”

“Gender mainstreaming” in the heavily Catholic region would “entail investing in maternal and newborn health, as well as investing in family planning and reproductive health.”

He was particularly concerned the region lacks “access to safe and legal abortions.”

“Central America is home to two of the seven countries in the world where abortion is banned in all cases,” El Salvador and Honduras, Ruiz noted. “The consequences of total criminalization of abortion” include “high maternal mortality.”

Pro-life policies and organizations instituted by Republican presidents are singled out as a cause of the current border crisis.

“U.S. partisan politics and aid policies have been complicit by discouraging family-planning resources for impoverished nations” by adopting the Mexico City Policy. The “Global Gag Rule,” as Ruiz called it, “sporadically applied since the 1980s by conservative administrations, prohibited foreign organizations receiving US economic aid the right to use non-US funding to provide information for legal abortion or advocate for the legalization of abortion in their country.”

President Ronald Reagan instituted the ban, which remained policy until President Bill Clinton repealed it. President George W. Bush reinstituted the policy in 2001, but it was against repealed by President Barack Obama.

Ruiz wrote that abortion must be promoted in the region to “avoid facing an ongoing humanitarian crisis and address its real concerns about demographics and security.”

He also cited Latinas’ “unmet need for contraception.”

He views the push for abortion and contraception as a template to be exported to other nations, particularly poor nations with a transient population seeking employment or fleeing violence. “If implementation of such policies is successful, the lessons could be applied to every other region in the world with treacherous influxes of immigration,” he wrote.

That description could apply, for instance, to the Christian minority fleeing war-torn Iraq.

The website that published Ruiz’s article, YaleGlobal Online is a publication of the Ivy League school’s Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. The center is dedicated to “globalization,” which it defines as the “increasing integration of the world’ based on its “interconnectedness and interdependence.” The center’s scholars acknowledge that deeply contested values like culture, the economic stability of the middle class, and national security – “issues like the growing anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe, the West’s farm subsidies and intellectual property rights concerns, and the tightened visa policies of the U.S. since Sept. 11” – could “could throw a wrench into the engines of” internationalists.

But they feel “the historical process of reconnecting the human community” into a one world government “is here to stay and increasingly visible.”

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

vaccine-picture

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

Vasectomy and prostate cancer

According to a recent study, vasectomy, a surgical procedure for male sterilization, not only damages the vas deferens, but poses a higher risk of prostate cancer, especially advanced or fatal prostate cancer.

The study was published this month in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The effect appears to be stronger among men who had a vasectomy at a young age, according to the study. The results support the hypothesis that vasectomy is associated with an increased risk of advanced or fatal prostate cancer.

The researchers mentioned that this study is follow up of an initial publication on vasectomy and prostate cancer in 1993, with 19 additional years of follow-up and ten times as many cases. Data from 49,405 North American men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, who were followed for 24 years from 1986-2010 were analyzed.

The results showed an increased risk of prostate cancer overall by 10 percent in men who had a vasectomy. Vasectomy was not significantly associated with the risk of low-grade cancer, but was associated with a stronger risk of advanced prostate cancer and lethal prostate cancer, with an increased risk of 20 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

Among men who received regular examinations, the relative increase in the risk of lethal prostate cancer was 56 percent.

The researchers found that the association remained even among men who received regular examinations, suggesting an increased risk of fatal cancer cannot be explained by diagnostic bias. Neither the results were not influenced by differences in the levels of sex hormones, sexually transmitted infections, or cancer treatment.

One More Soul Open House

Fortnight For Freedom

The Days of Socially Acceptable Christianity Are Over

5/19/2014 11:41:00 AM
By Laurie Higgins -Illinois Family Institute

Last week, Princeton University law professor Robert P. George delivered the following speech titled “Ashamed of the Gospel?” at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. Every faithful follower of Christ-Catholic and Protestant-should read this speech. Pastors and priests should read it from the pulpit. Adult, college, high school, and middle school Sunday school classes should read and discuss it. Give copies of it to your pastors, priests, elders-even if doing so is uncomfortable.
Anyone who claims they don’t have time to read it, should give up one television program, skip reading one newspaper, or abbreviate one workout session this week to read it. It is that important.
After reading it, think deeply and talk about what you are prepared to give up in order to be a servant of Christ who willingly chose a brutal death so that you could have eternal life.

Ashamed of the Gospel?

By Robert P George

The days of socially acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past. It is no longer easy to be a faithful Christian, a good Catholic, an authentic witness to the truths of the Gospel. A price is demanded and must be paid. There are costs of discipleship-heavy costs, costs that are burdensome and painful to bear.
Of course, one can still safely identify oneself as a “Catholic,” and even be seen going to mass. That is because the guardians of those norms of cultural orthodoxy that we have come to call “political correctness” do not assume that identifying as “Catholic” or going to mass necessarily means that one actually believes what the Church teaches on issues such as marriage and sexual morality and the sanctity of human life.

And if one in fact does not believe what the Church teaches, or, for now at least, even if one does believe those teachings but is prepared to be completely silent about them, one is safe-one can still be a comfortable Catholic. In other words, a tame Catholic, a Catholic who is ashamed of the Gospel-or who is willing to act publicly as if he or she were ashamed-is still socially acceptable. But a Catholic who makes it clear that he or she is not ashamed is in for a rough go-he or she must be prepared to take risks and make sacrifices. “If,” Jesus said, “anyone wants to be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me.” We American Catholics, having become comfortable, had forgotten, or ignored, that timeless Gospel truth. There will be no ignoring it now.

The question we face
The question each of us today must face is this: Am I ashamed of the Gospel?And that question opens others: Am I prepared to pay the price that will be demanded if I refuse to be ashamed, if, in other words, I am prepared to give public witness to the massive politically incorrect truths of the Gospel, truths that the mandarins of an elite culture shaped by the dogmas of expressive individualism and me-generation liberalism do not wish to hear spoken? Or, put more simply, am I willing, or am I, in the end, unwilling, to take up my cross and follow Christ?

Powerful forces and currents in our society press us to be ashamed of the Gospel-ashamed of the good, ashamed of our faith’s teachings on the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions, ashamed of our faith’s teachings on marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife. These forces insist that the Church’s teachings are out of date, retrograde, insensitive, uncompassionate, illiberal, bigoted-even hateful. These currents bring pressure on all of us-and on young Catholics in particular-to yield to this insistence. They threaten us with consequences if we refuse to call what is good evil, and what is evil good. They command us to conform our thinking to their orthodoxy, or else say nothing at all.

Do you believe, as I believe, that every member of the human family, irrespective of age or size or stage of development or condition of dependency, is the bearer of inherent dignity and an equal right to life? Do you hold that the precious child in the womb, as a creature made in the very image and likeness of God, deserves respect and protection? Then, powerful people and institutions say, you are a misogynist-a hater of women, someone who poses a threat to people’s privacy, an enemy of women’s “reproductive freedom.” You ought to be ashamed!

Do you believe, as I believe, that the core social function of marriage is to unite a man and woman as husband and wife to be mother and father to children born of their union? Do you hold, as I hold, that the norms that shape marriage as a truly conjugal partnership are grounded in its procreative nature-its singular aptness for the project of child-rearing? Do you understand marriage as the uniquely comprehensive type of bond-comprehensive in that it unites spouses in a bodily way and not merely at the level of hearts and minds-that is oriented to and would naturally be fulfilled by their conceiving and rearing children together? Then these same forces say you are a homophobe, a bigot, someone who doesn’t believe in equality. You even represent a threat to people’s safety. You ought to be ashamed!

But, of course, what you believe, if you believe these things, is a crucial part of the Gospel. You believe the truth-in its fullness-about the dignity of the human person and the nature of marriage and sexual morality as proclaimed by the Church-our only secure source of understanding the Gospel message. So when you are invited to distance yourself from these teachings or go silent about them, when you are threatened with opprobrium or the loss of professional opportunities or social standing if you do not, you are being pressured to be ashamed of the Gospel-which means to give up faith in the Lordship of Christ and hope in the triumph of goodness, righteousness, and love in and through Him.

Heavy costs
To be a witness to the Gospel today is to make oneself a marked man or woman. It is to expose oneself to scorn and reproach. To unashamedly proclaim the Gospel in its fullness is to place in jeopardy one’s security, one’s personal aspirations and ambitions, the peace and tranquility one enjoys, one’s standing in polite society. One may in consequence of one’s public witness be discriminated against and denied educational opportunities and the prestigious credentials they may offer; one may lose valuable opportunities for employment and professional advancement; one may be excluded from worldly recognition and honors of various sorts; one’s witness may even cost one treasured friendships. It may produce familial discord and even alienation from family members. Yes, there are costs of discipleship-heavy costs.

There was a time, not long ago, when things were quite different….Biblical and natural law beliefs about morality were culturally normative; they were not challenges to cultural norms. But those days are gone. What was once normative is now regarded as heretical-the moral and cultural equivalent of treason. And so, here we are.

You see, for us, as for our faithful Evangelical friends, it is now Good Friday. The memory of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem has faded. Yes, he had been greeted-and not long ago-by throngs of people waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David.” He rode into the Jerusalem of Europe and the Jerusalem of the Americas and was proclaimed Lord and King. But all that is now in the past. Friday has come. The love affair with Jesus and his Gospel and his Church is over. Elite sectors of the cultures of Europe and North America no longer welcome his message. “Away with him,” they shout. “Give us Barabbas!”

The days of comfortable Catholicism are past
So for us there is no avoiding the question: Am I ashamed of the Gospel? Am I unwilling to stand with Christ by proclaiming His truths? Oh, things were easy on Palm Sunday. Standing with Jesus and His truths was the in thing to do. Everybody was shouting “Hosanna.” But now it’s Friday, and the days of acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past. Jesus is before Pilate. The crowds are shouting “crucify him.” The Lord is being led to Calvary. Jesus is being nailed to the cross.

And where are we? Where are you and I? Are we afraid to be known as his disciples? Are we ashamed of the Gospel?

Will we muster the strength, the courage, the faith to be like Mary the Mother of Jesus, and like John, the apostle whom Jesus loved, and stand faithfully at the foot of the cross? Or will we, like all the other disciples, flee in terror? Fearing to place in jeopardy the wealth we have piled up, the businesses we have built, the professional and social standing we have earned, the security and tranquility we enjoy, the opportunities for worldly advancement we cherish, the connections we have cultivated, the relationships we treasure, will we silently acquiesce to the destruction of innocent human lives or the demolition of marriage? Will we seek to “fit in,” to be accepted, to live comfortably in the new Babylon? If so, our silence will speak. Its words will be the words of Peter, warming himself by the fire: “Jesus the Nazorean? I tell you, I do not know the man.”
Perhaps I should make explicit what you have no doubt perceived as implicit in my remarks. The saving message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ includes, integrally, the teachings of His church on the profound and inherent dignity of the human person and the nature of marriage as a conjugal bond-a one-flesh union. The question of faith and fidelity that is put to us today is not in the form it was put to Peter-“surely you are you this man’s disciple”-it is, rather, do you stand for the sanctity of human life and the dignity of marriage as the union of husband and wife? These teachings are not the whole Gospel-Christianity requires much more than their affirmation. But they are integral to the Gospel-they are not optional or dispensable. To be an authentic witness to the Gospel is to proclaim these truths among the rest. The Gospel is, as St. John Paul the Great said, a Gospel of Life. And it is a Gospel of family life, too. And it is these integral dimensions of the Gospel that powerful cultural forces and currents today demand that we deny or suppress.

History is not our judge
These forces tell us that our defeat in the causes of marriage and human life are inevitable. They warn us that we are on the “wrong side of history.” They insist that we will be judged by future generations the way we today judge those who championed racial injustice in the Jim Crow South. But history does not have sides. It is an impersonal and contingent sequence of events, events that are determined in decisive ways by human deliberation, judgment, choice, and action. The future of marriage and of countless human lives can and will be determined by our judgments and choices-our willingness or unwillingness to bear faithful witness, our acts of courage or cowardice. Nor is history, or future generations, a judge invested with god-like powers to decide, much less dictate, who was right and who was wrong. The idea of a “judgment of history” is secularism’s vain, meaningless, hopeless, and pathetic attempt to devise a substitute for what the great Abrahamic traditions of faith know is the final judgment of Almighty God. History is not God. God is God. History is not our judge. God is our judge.

One day we will give an account of all we have done and failed to do. Let no one suppose that we will make this accounting to some impersonal sequence of events possessing no more power to judge than a golden calf or a carved and painted totem pole. It is before God-the God of truth, the Lord of history-that we will stand. And as we tremble in His presence it will be no use for any of us to claim that we did everything in our power to put ourselves on “the right side of history.”
One thing alone will matter: Was I a faithful witness to the Gospel? Did I do everything in my power to place myself on the side of truth? The one whose only begotten Son tells us that he, and he alone, is “the way, the truth, and the life” will want to know from each of us whether we sought the truth with a pure and sincere heart, whether we sought to live by the truth authentically and with integrity, and-let me say this with maximum clarity-whether we stood up for the truth, speaking it out loud and in public, bearing the costs of discipleship that are inevitably imposed on faithful witnesses to truth by cultures that turn away from God and his law. Or were we ashamed of the Gospel?
The Gospel is true. The whole Gospel is true. Its teachings about life and marriage are true-even its hardest sayings, such as Christ’s clear teaching about the indissolubility of what God has united and about the adulterous nature of any sexual relation outside that bond.

“I do not know the man”
If we deny truths of the Gospel, we really are like Peter, avowing that “I do not know the man.” If we go silent about them, we really are like the other apostles, fleeing in fear. But when we proclaim the truths of the Gospel, we really do stand at the foot of the cross with Mary the Mother of Jesus and John the disciple whom Jesus loved. We show by our faithfulness that we are notashamed of the Gospel. We prove that we are truly Jesus’s disciples, willing to take up his cross and follow him-even to Calvary.

And we bear witness by our fidelity to the greatest truth of all, namely, that the story does not end at Golgotha. Evil and death do not triumph. Yes, it is Good Friday, but the one who became like us in all things but sin conquers death to redeem us from our transgressions and give us a full share in eternal life-the divine life of the most blessed Trinity. The cross cannot defeat him. The sepulcher cannot hold him. His heavenly Father will not abandon him. The psalm that begins in despair, Eloi, Eloi lama sabachtani, ends in hope and joy. Easter is coming. The crucified Christ will be raised from the dead. The chains of sin will be broken. “Oh death, where is thy victory? Oh death, where is thy sting?”

I grew up as a Catholic in a Protestant culture. The Protestants of my boyhood were what we today call Evangelicals. In those days, the religious differences between us seemed vast, though today the personal and spiritual bonds we have formed in bearing common witness to marriage and the sanctity of human life have relativized, though, of course, not eliminated, those differences. We now know that Evangelical Protestants are truly our brothers and sisters in Christ-separated from us in certain ways, to be sure, but bound together with us nevertheless in spiritual fellowship. Growing up, I admired the strength of their faith, and their willingness openly to profess it. And I loved their hymns. One of the most familiar ones contains a vital message for us Catholics today. You will recognize the first verse:

On a hill faraway, stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suffering and shame;
I love that old cross, where the dearest and best,
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
And the chorus goes:
I will cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it someday for a crown.

Yes, there’s the story. Christ must endure the sufferings of Good Friday to fulfill his salvific mission. But Easter is coming. And we, who cherish his cross, and are willing to bear his suffering and shame, will share in his glorious resurrection. We who cling to that old rugged cross will exchange it someday for a crown.

And then comes the next verse, and how perfectly it captures the attitude we must adopt, the stance we must take, the witness we must give, in these times of trial if we are to be true disciples of Jesus:

To the old rugged cross, I will ever be true,
Its shame and reproach gladly bear,
Till he calls me someday, to my home far away,
Where forever his glory I’ll share.
Yes.
And I’ll cherish that old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it someday for a crown.

Yes, for us Catholics and all who seek to be faithful, it’s Good Friday. We are no longer acceptable. We can no longer be comfortable. It is for us a time of trial, a time of testing by adversity. But lest we fail the test, as perhaps many will do, let us remember that Easter is coming. Jesus will vanquish sin and death. We will experience fear, just as the apostles did-that is inevitable. Like Jesus himself in Gethsemane, we would prefer not to drink this cup. We would much rather be acceptable Christians, comfortable Catholics. But our trust in him, our hope in his resurrection, our faith in the sovereignty of his heavenly Father can conquer fear. By the grace of Almighty God, Easter is indeed coming. Do not be ashamed of the Gospel. Never be ashamed of the Gospel.

Robert Peter George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, where he lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law. He also serves as the director of the James Madison Program.

To listen, beginning at about 20 minutes:


Note:
Carlo Maria Vigano, Apostolic Nuncio to the Untied States, read a prayer by Pope Francis as the closing prayer for the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, 2014. The Pope’s prayer ended this way:
“Our Lady of America, pray for us. Amen.”

Yasmin Lawsuit Nets $14 Million Award

Original article from:http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com

Chicago, IL: Women who claim they have suffered from Beyaz side effects might be watching Yasmin litigation closely, especially after a jury awarded a plaintiff $14 million in her lawsuit concerning Yasmin. Beyaz birth control is similar to Yasmin and carries similar warnings. So far, however, the focus of litigation has been on Yasmin and Yaz.

Yasmin Lawsuit Nets Million Award; Will It Affect Beyaz Lawsuits?In Yasmin litigation, a jury in Chicago recently awarded a woman $14 million in her lawsuit against her doctor, who recommended she take Yasmin. Thirteen days after she started the medication, Mariola Zapalski suffered a stroke. She survived, but was paralyzed on her left side and has a permanent brain injury, and requires round-the-clock care from her husband, who had to quit his job, according to The Associated Press (4/20/14).

The medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctor alleged that the physician did not tell Zapalski about the risks associated with Yasmin and should not have placed her on the drug because Zapalski had underlying risk factors. A lawsuit filed against Resurrection Medical Center, which referred Zapalski to her doctor, was reportedly settled for $2.5 million.

Many lawsuits concerning fourth-generation birth control such as Yasmin and Yaz allege that the drugs’ manufacturer knew or should have known about the risk of blood clot and stroke but did not adequately warm women about those risks. Zapalski’s lawsuit is different because it alleged the doctor did not inform her of the risks.

Yasmin, Yaz and Beyaz all contain drospirenone, a synthetic progestin. Beyaz is slightly different from the other fourth-generation birth control pills because it also contains folate. Drospirenone has been linked in studies to an increased risk of blood clots and stroke. In 2011, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning that birth control medications containing drospirenone could potentially carry a higher risk of blood clots than other forms of birth control.

Preliminary results of an FDA study into drospirenone-containing birth control suggests that women who take such birth control are at 1.5 times the risk of blood clots as women who take other hormonal birth control. Despite critics arguing that there are safer forms of birth control that are just as effective, the FDA has not removed Yasmin, Yaz or Beyaz from the market.

Bayer, maker of Yasmin, Yaz and Beyaz, has settled some lawsuits involving allegations about Yasmin and Yaz.

Minority Health Month

Celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation of Our Lord

Annunciation-300x253 copyOn March 25, we celebrate the moment God became man in the person of Jesus Christ. This happened when the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and announced that she had been chosen to be the Mother of Our Lord. We also celebrate Mary’s fiat—her acceptance of God’s holy plan.

This is the greatest event in all of human history. God took a full share of our life, and even our death, so that we could share in His eternal life.

At Mary’s acceptance of the Father’s invitation, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and became incarnate in her. By becoming a member of our human family, Jesus our Brother infinitely elevates the dignity of all human life. He fills all stages of life with His own majesty from conception through death and into eternal life.

Here are some ideas for celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation in your community:

•Celebrate Life! This feast is very important in the defense of the life from conception to natural death.

Practical idea: Support a prolife group. The 40 Days for Life prayer campaign to end abortion begins March 5 and ends on April 13. Help the campaign by offering up a daily prayer for an end to abortion or consider the spiritual adoption of a child in danger of abortion.
Two opportunities to celebrate in Dayton Ohio: Solemnity mass 9:30 am St. Anthony Catholic Church, and Solemnity mass 7:00 pm Emmanuel Catholic Church.

•Your Fiat? Is God asking you to be generous and be open to more children? Is God asking you to share your testimony with members of your family or friends to help them understand the blessings of children?

Practical idea: Pray for Mary’s help in saying yes to God’s plan for you. Consider ordering some of One More Soul’s materials fostering God’s plan for love, marriage, and procreation.

•Celebrate at home. Even with small children, this is a great day to begin teaching about the high value God places on human life.

Practical ideas: Pray the Angelus. The Angelus is a traditional prayer about the mystery of the Incarnation. It is usually prayed each day in the morning, noon and evening.

•Meditate on the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.

Practical ideas: Have children draw or make a clay model of the Annunciation scene with the Trinity present-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–as well as Mary and the angel Gabriel. Make a tableau using a box to represent Mary’s house.

Make a flower centerpiece for the dinner table using red carnations (symbolize “incarnation”), baby’s breath (innocence, spirit) and ivy (eternal fidelity). The symbolism of the flowers reminds us of the Annunciation.

Bake a special cake for the occasion–an angel food cake iced in pale blue.


•Deepen your faith
listening Catholic Radio

Practical idea:
Listen every Tuesday Noon (ET) the program “The Quest for a Catholic Culture of Life in America”, hosted by Steve Koob, Director of One More Soul. To listen on your computer go to www.radiomaria.us

Pro-marriage young people do exist, say youth fighting for Indiana same-sex “marriage” ban

BY KIRSTEN ANDERSEN, Thu Feb 13, 2014

Over 100 young adults held a press conference Tuesday at Indiana’s state House calling for an amendment protecting true marriage.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN, February 13, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “The media claims we don’t exist. Freedom Indiana claims there are none of us left. But as young Hoosiers, we are here today.”

Those were the words of Shane Weist, 33, who along with a group of more than 100 other young adults, held a press conference Tuesday in which they sought to prove that – despite media reports to the contrary – not every young person in America backs legally-sanctioned same-sex “marriage.”

Weist and his companions make up Young Hoosiers for Marriage, an Indiana-based group fighting for passage of HJR-3, an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Also at issue in Indiana are so-called “civil unions,” which give many of the legal benefits of marriage without the name or federal recognition.

The House passed a version of the marriage amendment that stripped a provision banning civil unions, but the Senate must now debate whether to add the provision back in.  A vote on the issue was expected late Thursday.  If the two houses can come to an agreement on wording, the final version will appear on the general election ballot in November for approval by voters.

Weist told reporters that Young Hoosiers for Marriage support the amendment as it was originally conceived.  He urged the Senate to add the language banning civil unions back in the bill.

“The Senate should restore the second sentence because without it, marriage remains vulnerable to redefinition and will more likely face prolonged litigation in court,” Weist explained.

“We are committed to rebuilding culture to ensure that children are not intentionally deprived of a mother and a father,” he added.

The Young Hoosiers’ public debut was met with mockery and derision by homosexual activists, who quickly launched a competing Facebook page called “Young Hoosiers 4 Marriage” serving up personal attacks on Weist and his allies, whom they dubbed “Stepford Kidz.”

Jennifer Wagner, spokeswoman for Freedom Indiana, a gay activist group fighting the proposed ban, accused the Young Hoosiers of “astroturfing,” or pretending to be grassroots when they are not. “Where have they been the last six months?” Wagner asked the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. “Some of the national groups … have realized their voice has been lacking.”

In an interview with LifeSiteNews Thursday, Isaac Cramer, 24, said neither he nor his fellow Young Hoosiers have any connections with national organizations, and if they are late to the party it is due to their very lack of organization or funding.

“It is never too late to take a stand for something you believe in,” Cramer told LifeSiteNews. “Right now Indiana is in the middle of this debate. We are the only State this year that would have a marriage amendment potentially on the ballot. Everyone is looking at Indiana. We want to show that there is a strong contingent of young Hoosiers who believe in preserving the truth about marriage.”

“It’s really hard with a grassroots, kind of organic coalition to thrive without funding and without any kind of networking outside of the people we know and the people they know, which is kind of how we grew,” Cramer said.  “We knew people who knew people, and we kind of just kept forming by word of mouth. Before we knew it, we had people contacting us, saying ‘Hey, can I participate in your group?’”

Cramer says he believes the real number of young people who oppose redefining marriage is much higher than media reports would have people believe, but that the controversy over the issue is so intense that many are afraid to speak up.  Even Cramer himself was hesitant to speak on the record for this article, citing concerns about how his employers might react.  But ultimately – stressing that his personal beliefs are his own, and should not be taken as representing his employers’ – he said he decided to go on the record because “it’s important to be willing to stand up.”

While the Young Hoosiers for Marriage are currently focused on getting the marriage amendment passed, they believe that is just the first battle in a larger war for the future of the culture.  After the vote, they plan to expand their activism from the State House to Indiana’s college campuses and church youth groups, giving talks on the importance of traditional marriage and participating in debates with supporters of same-sex “marriage.”

Cramer said he hopes that by publicizing the fact that young people who support traditional marriage do exist, Young Hoosiers for Marriage will give others the courage to stand up, too.

“I think any time there is an issue that seems controversial, other people are going to be a little bit hesitant to speak out about it,” Cramer said.  “I think that it takes somebody to be bold, and somebody to be courageous to take a stand for something, and … other people see that and they realize that, ‘You know what, I can join forces.’  There’s always strength in numbers.”

Cramer told LifeSiteNews that since Tuesday’s press conference, their group – which includes the 100+ young people at the press conference, plus “around another 100 who couldn’t make it because they worked or had class” – has received many more requests from other young people in Indiana wanting to join.  Most of them are in their early 20s, juniors and seniors in college.

Asked what he would say to young people who oppose gay “marriage” but are afraid to speak out, Cramer said, “It takes courage to stand up for something you believe in.  Sometimes you’re going to receive negative backlash for a stance you take, but that shouldn’t discourage you from taking a stand.”

Cramer encouraged young people who want the safety in numbers provided by Young Hoosiers for Marriage to start their own groups.

“You know friends, you know people in your community, you know kids in school, or college classmates who would be on your side, and that’s how you start,” he said.  “You talk to people and you get their opinions, and a lot of times, your friends will share the same positions as you.  You start small, and then you grow.  It seems like it would be really hard, but really, you find that small group, and you just kind of build from there.  That’s how we came together.”

For more information on Young Hoosiers for Marriage, you can e-mail the group at younghoosiersformarriage@gmail.com.

To read an opinion editorial supporting traditional marriage by a college student named Julie Kitchel, one of the group’s founders, see  http://www.jconline.com/article/20140212/OPINION03/302120017/Guest-column-Why-marriage-HJR-3-still-matter-young-Hoosiers?nclick_check=1

Our Lady of America Trial‏–Update

By Al Langsenkamp, Update 1/26/2014

This past week we seated our jury on Tuesday Morning.  Opening statements were made in the afternoon and Kevin McCarthy was on the stand for the remainder of the week for direct examination.  Cross examination will start tomorrow afternoon.

Anyone thinking of attending the proceedings on Monday morning, please be advised that the trail has been postponed until 1:00 PM due to weather.

God Bless you and keep praying that truth prevails in all of these proceedings.

_Al–317-713-8633 (O), 317-946-0495 (C)

BACKGROUND 1/19/2014

Dear Friends and Family,

Once again, please allow me to ask for your prayers.

Starting this past Tuesday, January 21, I have been in a Federal Court Trial (as a Plaintiff) that revolves around the question: does a certain person own a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.   This trial has certain constitutional and religious issues which have already set legal precedent (and may set more) concerning separation of Church and State issues.  The fundamental question however is does the defendant own copyrights and trademarks concerning the Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of America.

Many of you know that I have been dedicated to promoting this devotion to The Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of America.   This devotion originates with appearances of the Blessed Virgin as Our Lady of America to a Sister Mary Ephrem, C.PP.S. (8/2/1916-1/10/2000) in 1956 in Rome City, Indiana and continuing until 1960 in other locations.  The devotion was approved by the Archbishop of Cincinnati, Paul Francis Leibold.

The messages are a call to purity for our county.  There are certain requests made by Our Lady of us individually and of our Church collectively.  If we respond, she has promised graces greater than those given at Fatima and Lourdes.   During the course of these apparitions Jesus, St. Joseph, Our Lady, and St. Michael all appeared.  You can learn more about the devotion and additionally download the messages atwww.ourladyofamerica.org.

In late 2005 Kevin B. McCarthy (a friend of mine) was asked by two U.S. bishops to find out why this devotion had fallen into dormancy and to “Get it going”.    Terry and I discerned that we should help in this charge by the Bishops.

Starting in late 2005 we started collaborating with a Sr. Mary Joseph Therese, C.I.T. (Patricia Fuller) from Fostoria, OH.  She was in the cloister of the Precious Blood Sister with the visionary.  In the late 70’s the Precious Blood Sisters closed the cloister and the visionary left the Order.  Sr. Joseph represented that a new Order was founded called the Contemplative Sisters of the Indwelling Trinity that she and the visionary went to after leaving the Precious Blood Cloister and that she was the last living member of that Order.  She claimed copyrights and trademarks concerning the messages and devotionals.  Unfortunately, I never met the visionary.

Kevin & I collaborated with Sr. Mary Joseph Therese and many things were accomplished to promote the devotion from 2006-2007.  The statue of Our Lady of America attended the U.S.C.C.B. Conference in 2006.  It was displayed in the Archdioceses of New Your, Galveston-Houston, St. Louis, Newark, Indianapolis and Milwaukee.  Additionally, many Dioceses also promoted the devotion to some level.   While it was a struggle working with her, we continued our collaboration until late 2007 when the relationship broke down and we simultaneously learned that Sr. Mary Joseph Therese was not recognized as a Catholic Religious by the Holy Roman Catholic Church and did not live in a convent.  Subsequently, we also learned that Sr. Mary Joseph Therese was dismissed from religious life in 1982 for “incorrigible disobedience”.    In other words she misrepresented her status and in essence who she was.

This caused a serious threat to the devotion.   As a nun under a vow of poverty, Sr. Mary Joseph Therese could own trademarks and copyrights in her name that would through the operation of a vow of poverty belong to the Church.  However, as a lay person, if those copyright and trademarks were allowed to stand then a lay person would own, under the laws of the United States, what may be one of the greatest gifts of grace available through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin.

In 2005, Kevin McCarthy, BVM Foundation, Inc and I filed a lawsuit in Federal Court, primarily seeking to overturn these copyrights and trademarks arguing that they were either owned by the Catholic Church or were in the public domain.  Patricia Fuller and her co-defendant countersued with anything they could imagine producing a laundry list of illegal and immoral activities with which the created claims in the lawsuit.

This case has spanned over 5 years and has involved statements from 2 Bishops, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, a diplomatic note from the Apostolic Nunciature, an Amicus Curie brief from the Vatican and a successful appeal to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.  Truly this has been a battle of “Powers and Principalities”.

The trial will last 4-6 weeks and is being held in the courtroom of William T. Lawrence at the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Indianapolis.

Terry and I sincerely implore your prayers that truth will prevail in this trial and that the evil one will be prevented from influencing anything about this trial resulting in a devotion which is free for the faithful and the bishops to practice.

The trial is open to the public.  Should you be able to attend and pray silently during the proceedings, it would certainly be appreciated?  If you are not able to attend, please offer your prayers for our success.  The trial is expected to last for the next 3 weeks or beyond.

We need prayer warriors, so feel free to forward this message or post it.

May Jesus bless you and Our Lady of America intercede for you!

19 Beautiful Reminders Why Americans March for Life

PicMonkey Collage4by Kelsey Harris | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/22/14

Today, tens of thousands of people from around the country will gather in Washington to brave the cold for a cause they believe in. Some are marching for the first time, and others have been traveling to the nation’s capital since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. For the 41st year, they’ll meet again for the same reason — the sanctity of life.

We’re also celebrating life today, and we hope you will, too. Here are 19 moving reminders of the beauty of new life:

PicMonkey Collage

 

PicMonkey Collage1

 

PicMonkey Collage3

 

 

Learn more: “How to Speak Up for Life,” produced by Heritage in collaboration with Alliance Defending Freedom, Americans United for Life, Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, March for Life Education and Defense Fund, and the Susan B. Anthony List Education Fund

LifeNews Note: Kelsey Harris writes for the Heritage Foundation.

How to Help a Friend Who Has Received a Prenatal Diagnosis Choose Life

It happens every day. A couple, excited about their pregnancy and the birth of their child, receive the devastating news of a
prenatal diagnosis.

But even if the diagnosis includes those heartbreaking words – “incompatible with life” – every life deserves to be celebrated, and every baby deserves to be loved. As the friend or family member of someone who has received such a diagnosis, you have the power and the ability to help the couple cope, heal, and find joy.

Listen

Many parents who receive a diagnosis of their unborn children are being told by their doctors that abortion is the best option. Even if the parents don’t want to abort, they may be feeling a lot of pressure to do so. Some may even have doctors and family members telling that keeping their baby is selfish. It’s the hardest time in this couple’s lives, and the last thing they need from you is your unsolicited advice. It is best to listen to them. Let them cry. Let them get angry.

Let them experience the pain that this diagnosis has caused them. In the beginning, they don’t need you to tell them anything. They just need you to listen and hug them. Don’t disappear for fear of upsetting them. Make yourself available whenever your friend needs to talk, and call to check in on her. When the couple is ready to listen to your advice, be kind and non-judgmental. Remember that they want their baby, but they are afraid. Use examples of other families in similar situations to show them that loving a child is not dependent on a child’s health.

Support

Be there to support your friends’ decision to continue with the pregnancy. It’s the right decision, but they may be getting a lot of flak from doctors, friends, and even family about how others think they are doing their child a disservice. Attend doctor appointments with the expectant mom if her partner can’t be there. Be a positive, life-affirming presence in her life. Let her cry when she wants to cry. Let her yell when she wants to yell. Let her know she’s doing the right thing. Make her dinner. Take her to lunch. Help her find resources of support concerning her child’s condition.

Celebrate

Most expectant moms get a baby shower to celebrate their new bundles of joy. But when a couple receives a diagnosis for their unborn child, family and friends often worry about whether or not to throw a baby shower. They often wonder how they can possibly celebrate during such an emotionally devastating time. Before planning a Celebration of Life shower, talk with the couple and make sure they’re okay with it. If they are, help them start a baby registry. Even if they have been told their child won’t survive birth, there is always the hope and the chance that the baby will. The baby may even end up going home after all.

You can ask guests to bring gifts for the mom that include gift cards to restaurants or a spa for a day of pampering. Gifts can also include blankets and quilts with the baby’s name on them. An amazing gift would be a pregnancy photo session. And of course, include the usual gifts such as outfits and baby toys.

Just because a baby has received a prenatal diagnosis does not mean his or her life should go uncelebrated. This child, and his or her parents, need all the love and support they can get, and there’s no better way to do that than by showing how much you care for all of them.

LifeNews Note: Nancy is a work at home mom who writes about parenting, special needs children, and the right to life. She is the lucky mother of two spirited little girls, one who has cystic fibrosis, and she spends any free moment she can find fundraising for a cure for CF. You can read her personal blog at www.ChronicAdmissions.com. Reprinted from Live Action News.

One More Soul Celebrates Respect Life Month

october mini banner protect life(1)

Powerful Testimony of Horrific Abortion Abuses Ends Prosecution Case in Gosnell Murder Trial

Source: Operation Rescue

[Written on an airplane and posted from my iPad at an airport so please forgive typos. I wanted you all to have this ASAP. Thanks! Cheryl]

By Cheryl Sullenger

Philadelphia, PA — Kareema Cross worked for Kermit Gosnell for a harrowing four years helping with abortion procedures amid conditions so bad that she snapped photos to document them in 2008 — a year before the death of Karnamaya Mongar — then reported her boss to the authorities under a fictitious name. But no one listened. Two years later, authorities raided Gosnell’s clinic thinking it was a pill mill only to discover that it was frightfully so much more.

(more…)

The Annunciation and Incarnation of Jesus

Incarnation Catholic Church Centerville, OH

Incarnation Catholic
Church
Centerville, OH

Celebration of the Solemnity of the Annunciation
Monday, April 8, 2013 at 7:00 pm Incarnation Catholic Church 55 Williamsburg Lane Centerville, OH 45459

God becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ is the greatest event in all of human history. God took a full share of our life, and even our death, so that we could share in His eternal life.
At Mary’s acceptance of the Father’s invitation, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and became incarnate in her.
By becoming one of our own family, Jesus our brother infinitely elevates the dignity of all human life, from conception through death, and into eternal life.

Tune in for a live broadcast of the Solemnity Mass of the Annunciation at Radio Maria.

 

Schedule for the Evening:

6:45 Prelude Music
7:00 Solemnity Mass of the Annunciation
Rev. Lawrence Mierenfeld, Celebrant & Homilist
8:00 Refreshments and talk in Parish Center 103B
8:15 “Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace”—Gloria Dodd, STD

Dr.-Gloria-Dodd

Dr Gloria Dodd, STD
The Marian
Library/International
Marian Research

Dr Dodd will present a portion of her doctoral
dissertation: The History and Theology of the
Movement for the Dogmatic Definition of
the Virgin Mary’s Universal Mediation: 1896-1964.

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Scientists Admit IVF Has High Rate of Abnormalities

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

BONN, Germany, October 18, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Scientists announcing their success at achieving a new genetic defect-screening technique have at the same time admitted that many of the two-thirds of IVF embryos that fail to survive do so because of genetic abnormalities.

Luca Gianaroli, chairman of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), and Cristina Magli, an embryologist from Bologna, Italy, announced their success in a study of a genetic testing procedure called “comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) by microarray,” after two women gave birth to healthy children following screening of the embryos using the technique.

However, Gianaroli said in a statement that, “We have learnt from more than 30 years of IVF that many of the embryos we transfer (into the womb) have chromosome abnormalities,” and went on to explain that two out of every three embryos implanted into a woman’s womb during the IVF procedure fail to develop into a pregnancy, often because of genetic abnormalities.

“The whole world of IVF has been trying to find an effective way of screening for these abnormalities for more than a decade,” Gianaroli said. “Now we have a new technology … and our hopes are that this will finally provide a reliable means of assessing the chromosomal status of the embryos we transfer.”

The admission by the scientists of the high rate of genetic defects inherent in the IVF procedure aligns with the high rate of over-all health problems suffered by IVF children compared to naturally conceived children.

Congenital malformation rates as high as 11% have been reported by some studies of IVF children.

A recent French study found that over 4% of children born through assisted reproductive technology had some form of congenital deformity, compared to the rate of between 2% and 3% for children conceived naturally.

A large-scale study by the National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health in Helsinki, Finland, found an overall increase in poor health among IVF children, including recurring specific abnormalities such as heart diseases, cerebral palsy, and malformations of the uro-genital system.

A summary of the research published by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology is available here.

Read Full Article Here.