It's a Matter of Life.13

“Speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves. Protect the rights of all who are helpless.”
Proverbs 31:8

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

These are Sanctity of Life weekly bulletin reflections.

12.29.2013 There is a current TV commercial where a very young boy watches as a mime makes a sales pitch to his parents. After listening to the interaction as he recognizes that what he witnessed can't be right, the youth looks into the camera and asks incredulously, "Does it bother anyone else that the mime is talking?" As we witness mothers willing to murder their innocent and defenseless children to defend their own so-called sexual freedoms and this willingness in the teeth of nature's strongest instinct, motherhood, shouldn't we Catholics ask the same question, "Does it bother anyone else?"

12.22.2013 “Woe unto them that call evil good…” Isaiah 5:20 Billionaires Bill & Melinda Gates, through their Foundation, advocate contraception world-wide; and others like Warren Buffett (who finances training of future abortionists in Cleveland) and so many others in the population control business do so embracing the theory that it is charitable to make sure that poor families do not have babies. Their attitudes extend to the concept that if a poor woman does experience a pregnancy, the baby should not live to be born. Their brainchild, a club for billionaires, is exclusively for those who are worth at least a billion dollars and have pledged to give no less than half of that money to philanthropic endeavors. A key aim of theirs is keeping pressure on national governments. Gates’ campaign partners, such as Planned Parenthood and Population Action International, have promised to increase their advocacy to keep money flowing from donor to recipient countries.

12.15.2013 Eighty three pro-life laws were passed in our country in 2011. Dozens of pro-life laws were passed in 2012 and estimates are 2013 may set an even bigger record. As of August, 44 abortion businesses have closed in the last 12 months and 68 abortion mills have closed in the last two years. Upset by that kind of success, abortion activists have prevailed on Congressional abortion supporters in the U.S. Senate to write “The Women’s Health Protection Act”, a law that would even invalidate a law used to convict Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell earlier this year, and it could potentially force taxpayers across the country to directly fund elective abortions for Medicaid recipients. When will we hear the outcry, “Enough is enough”?

12.08.2013 In a dark and shameful period of American history, slavery was legal, slave owners denied the humanity of slaves and maintained the right to do anything the owners wanted to do to them since they were merely property. Owners considered the objections of the abolitionists to be interfering in matters not of their concern and saw no reason that slaves could even be killed if that were the owner’s decision. The institutions of slavery then and abortion now have almost indistinguishable parallels. Killing preborn children is legal. The humanity of these children is denied. Advocates for life are characterized as extremists, fanatics, and haters interfering with a “woman’s choice”. Our "Culture of Death" encourages women to discard these innocents as though they are merely a part of the mother’s body and subject even to death if the mother so chooses. Lord forgive us. Lord have mercy on us. Lord heal our nation.

12.01.2013 In today’s increasingly secular and materialistic world, the role of women as bearers of life is deliberately and masterfully being turned upside down. Fertility is considered as if it were a disease to be prevented with dangerous contraceptives that are now considered “essential medicine"! And when the same contraceptives fail abortion called “health care” and a “woman’s right” becomes an option even though it takes another life! When children see that their mother can kill their siblings through contraception and abortion, what is there to prevent them from killing us when we become old? When we consider children as burdens easily disposed of through abortion, for sure the weak and the elderly can also be easily disposed of and euthanasia sets in. These are fruits of the same poisonous tree.

11.24.2013 Ohio's Ban on Human Cloning and Animal-Human Hybrids, H.B. 308, has been introduced in the State House of Representatives. For the past ten years Christian pro-life organizations have been working with members of the Ohio Legislature to ban human embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and in recent years, animal-human hybrids. Some medical laboratories have delved into the surreal world of intermixing animal and human DNA with no legal or moral boundaries. H.B. 308 provides common sense restrictions on human cloning and animal-human hybrids in Ohio. There are no valid medical or scientific gains that exist or will come from human cloning or hybrid techniques. Please contact Chairman Lynn Wachtmann 614-466-3760 and Vice Chairman Ann Gonzales 614-466-4847 and urge them to pass H.B. 308 out of committee.

11.17.2013 Abortion or child sacrifice was freely practiced in the times of the Old Testament. Today one of Cleveland’s two major health care organizations has partnered with the Preterm abortion mill to train the next generation of abortionists ensuring the continuation of God’s children being sacrificed on the altar of convenience. In Leviticus 20:4-5, speaking to the consequences of the sacrifice of children to the god Moloch, the Word says,” If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Moloch and if they fail to put him to death, I myself will set my face against him and his family and will cut them off from their people together with all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Moloch.”

11.10.2013 In the 1950’s solid epidemiological evidence was published linking smoking to lung cancer. Many doctors were paid to deny the link and for years, “Big Tobacco” poured money into the coffers of corrupt politicians to dissuade them from legislating against big tobacco. In 1984 the Surgeon General corroborated the link. Today, “Big Pharma” (manufacturers of hormonal birth control), “Big Abortion”, (Planned Parenthood---America’s largest abortion provider and NARAL) and “Big Pink” (the groups who ostensibly exist to promote breast cancer ‘awareness’) have taken the lesson from the tobacco industry and continue to deny the links between abortion, hormonal birth control and breast cancer. It is estimated there will be 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer in the U.S. in 2013 (www.breastcancer.org) as abortion numbers and birth control sales remain high. Women deserve renewed research into these links not continued denial by those who profit so greatly by ignoring the correlations.

11.03.2013 “All who are genuinely committed to the advancement of women can and must offer a woman or a girl who is pregnant, frightened, and alone a better alternative than the destruction of her own unborn child”
Mary Ann Glendon, Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, September 5, 1995

10.27.2013 "Some people argue that changing laws will not eliminate abortions. It is certainly true that a change of heart is more important than a change of law. What is forgotten, however, is that the law is the great teacher. Children grow up believing that if a practice is legal, it must be moral." -- Cardinal John O’Connor

10.20.2013 HELP, the Pro-Life Apostolate of SS Helen, Edward and Lucy Parishes in concert with other sanctity of life allies has added the following to our Mission Statement affirming our support for the Church’s teaching on Marriage and the Family. The added paragraph follows:

“Consistent with our mission to defend human life, we recognize that children have a right to be nurtured by their mother and their father. We defend marriage as a covenantal bond open to the procreation and education of children and designed according to God’s plan.”

10.13.2013 Sometimes we hear that graphic abortion pictures or even our White Cross memorials to the unborn victims of abortion are “insensitive to the needs of post-abortive women”. Our pro-life movement rightly needs to be sensitive to those needs. To end the attempts to make public the enormity of the injustice of abortion through our White Cross displays would be worse that “insensitive”. Since increased public awareness has resulted in most Americans describing themselves as pro-life, the increased awareness actually saves a baby’s life and at the same time prevents other women from choosing abortion sparing them a lifetime of torment. Commenting on efforts to increase public awareness, pro-life activist Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, stated: “As a woman who has had two abortions, I am grateful that the truth is being shown, so that others can avoid this pain in the first place.”

10.06.2013 When we encounter evil in our world such as euthanasia and abortion, the all to frequent action we take is to remain silent. Proverbs 31:8 “Speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves. Protect the rights of all who are helpless.” Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it."“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.” Dietrich Boenhoffer finished his statement with the warning, “God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

09.29.2013 The IVF industry–Big Fertility–is no different than Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Biotech, and Big Defense. It provides a product–in this case, a baby–for big bucks. It expands markets and technologies–egg buying, commercial surrogacy, selling extra embryos, etc.–advertises, and fights the political wars with high paid lobbyists in Washington DC and state and foreign capitals like any other industry. Big Fertility has a very dark side often not explored in the media. Women have had their health and fertility destroyed selling eggs. Poor surrogate mothers–now dehumanized as “gestational carriers–rent their maternal capacities to nurture a child in the womb and then have it taken regardless of attachments that might have been formed. Excess embryos are treated as no more meaningful than caviar. Big Fertility has also helped create a destructive view that people not only have a right to a child, but to the child they want. Wesley J. Smith

09.22.2013 Make no mistake, abortion is big business in America --- a billion dollar business. One of the most often heard lies told to defend the ongoing carnage (often repeated by Planned Parenthood, cowardly politicians, and sadly even some catholics) is if abortion were no longer “legal' tens of thousands of women would die each year having to return to seeking the “back alley” abortions they turned to before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal. Here is the fact: any loss of life is tragic but, according to the Center for Disease Control, 39 maternal deaths occurred due to illegal abortions in 1972 the year before the court decision made it legal for the entire 9 months of pregnancy.

09.15.2013 Ireland and Chile both have laws restricting abortion and have the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world. In America where abortion on demand is legal at any time during the nine months of pregnancy, the maternal mortality rate is 700 percent higher.* The shrill rhetoric heard from supposedly pro-woman, pro-death advocates is that abortion is a woman’s right and that it constitutes reproductive health care. Since half of the 1.2 million annual deaths from abortion are “little women”, and since abortion so drastically increases the rate of maternal death, it seems obvious the real reason for the annual $1 billion abortion business is profit not any concern for women. *World Economic Forum, Global Gender Report 2010

09.08.2013 Professing to believe that abortion, euthanasia, and illicit sexual unions are mortal sins and failing to speak or act when confronted with these evils, we are like the man who would stand by and watch as another person is beaten. He can rationalize in his mind that he bears no responsibility and say, “Don’t blame me. I didn’t do anything.” His statement explains exactly why he shares in the blame for the man being beaten. He did nothing. Until we begin to take responsibility not only for not doing evil, but also for doing what is right, we as individuals, our Church, our country, and our society will never get back on the right track. When good men stand, evil men are restrained. When good men sit idly by, evil men prevail. If we fail to stand against evil, we have no one to blame but ourselves when evil triumphs. As Plato said, “The price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men.”

09.01.2013 Meditating on a little known quote by Russian author and psychologist Fyodor Dostoyevsky as he observed the role the presence of children serves in our world can focus our mind on the magnitude of loss in our spiritual lives the abortion holocaust has caused. He said, “The soul is healed by being with children". Imagine the detrimental effect this lost opportunity for healing has had upon us and on the soul of our nation due to 57 million children being prevented from taking their first breath.

08.25.2013 Pro-lifers are often asked why we do what we do, if we aren’t afraid to stand at abortion mills, and if we think what we do really makes any difference. The following quote by Peter Kreeft offers answers. "Saints always go into the ghettos, especially moral ghettos. They make waves. Moses made waves. Jesus made waves. The waves make the garbage come to the surface, and the waves of garbage often drown the saints and make them martyrs, white corpuscles that give themselves up to fight an infection. Saints are society's white corpuscles, society's saviors. If nobody wants to crucify you you're not doing your job. Or else your job isn't HIS work."it.

08.18.2013 “The devil also seeks to deceive us with 'wordsmithing'. And thus the dismemberment and murder of a child through abortion becomes 'reproductive freedom' or 'choice'. Sodomy is called 'gay' (a word which used to mean 'happy'). Our luminous faith and ancient wisdom is called 'darkness' and 'ignorance'. Fornication is called 'cohabitation'. And the redefinition of marriage as it ihas been known for some 5000 years, is labeled 'marriage freedom'. And thus, through exaggerations and outright false labeling, the devil deceives us, and we too easily connive by calling good, or 'no big deal', what God calls sinful." Monsignor Charles Pope, Archdiocese of Washington

08.11.2013 When Texas recently passed their life-saving and life-affirming ban on abortions after 20 weeks, Planned Parenthood, the politicians who lavishly fund them using our tax dollars and their friends in the main stream media went on a nationwide rant portraying pro-lifers as "extremists". National polls now show that by a margin of as much as 2 to 1, Americans oppose aborting infants after 20 weeks. An "extremist" is one who holds views or positions outside the norm. This being the case, it is not necessary to examine the situation in depth to determine that those who favor dismembering late term infants hold the "extreme" position.

08.04.2013 With the passage of the bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks, Texas became the 13th state in the country to do so. The U.S. House voted 228-196 to approve the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act on June 18 and it is now in a Senate committee awaiting further action. Most Americans favor the sweeping new national restrictions on abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy. By a margin of 2 to1, respondents to a recent Huffington Post poll said they favored the federal law. Without those who hold these “opinions” being motivated to get involved no meaningful change will happen and the status quo of abortion will continue. As Albert Einstein commented, “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

07.28.2013 Defenders of late abortions try to argue that the unborn child at twenty weeks is not capable of feeling pain, claiming the connections in the fetal brain are not fully formed. Those who know something about fetal pain physiology, however, have solid medical evidence that the child not only feels pain, but feels it more severely than an infant or an adult. At twenty weeks, the child has all the parts needed for transmitting and feeling pain. Recent Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Acts are winding their way through the legislative process at State and National levels. Big abortion provider’s most lucrative service is late-term abortions. Women and the unborn deserve better and making late-term abortions illegal is a simple step in that direction.

07.21.2013 In 1859 the American Medical Association asked state medical associations to enact anti-abortion laws because of scientific evidence establishing the humanity of the unborn. Today, using their illogical language of illusion, one of the most frequent comments heard from the culture of death crowd and the cowardly politicians who promote their evil cause, is that we are imposing our religion upon them. Because some who oppose abortion do so on religious grounds it does not logically follow that abortion is a religious issue any more than the opposition of religious people to driving after drinking makes drunk driving a religious issue. Biologists discovered when life begins, religion did not. Religion didn’t discover the uniqueness of human life from the time of fertilization, geneticists did. Abortion is neither a religious nor even a political issue. It is a human rights issue about the God-given right to life of unborn children.

07.14.2013 The recent scandals in Rome put Catholics in the position of defending our faith and using time better spent defending vulnerable human life. This scandal can lead us down to the path of spiritual suicide or it can lead to the greater good to be found in tragedy if we only have faith. It can provide us with a blessing clothed as calamity. Those involved, even though men of standing in the hierarchy are, in the end, just men who have failed in their calling. We can, and should, pray for these lost souls. For us as individuals, by focusing on our own greater mission of taking the Gospel of Life into the whole world, it can inspire us to say to God, "I want to become a saint so that I and the Church can give Your name the glory it deserves, so that others might find in You the love and the salvation that I have found."

07.07.2013 “The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in twilight of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and handicapped.” Hubert H. Humphrey

06.30.2013 In 1812, Jefferson described the threat from Britain upon our new nation’s freedom as “tyranny bearing on us in every point of either honor or interest”. Watching offshore as the entire British Navy incessantly bombarded the flag flying over Fort McHenry which was held upright by the piled bodies of men whose defenseless families hovered in fear within the Fort, Francis Scott Key was moved to write the “The Star Spangled Banner” which was joined with the music of Samuel Arnold and became our national anthem. Today, 200 years later, as our freedom is again under attack from the tyranny of arbitrary and unrestrained exercise of power, awakening Americans can begin to feel the fears of those bloodied Patriots and our sainted martyrs before them. As they did, we must find it within ourselves to muster up courage to resist and realize that courage is not the absence of fear but rather the knowledge that something else is more important than fear.

06.23.2013 "This is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition for her survival---yes, the ultimate test of her greatness --- to respect every human person, especially, the weakest and most defenseless ones, those yet unborn." Pope John Paul II

06.16.2013 Many infertile couples eventually realize that raising a child together is what’s important, and whether that is through pregnancy or adoption doesn’t matter. Their real dreams are to become parents, not pregnant. Christians are commanded by God to love others, particularly the innocent, the young, and the poor. If you have ever felt even the smallest pang of curiosity about adoption, the merest flicker of interest in an orphaned child, ask God if he wants to fan it into a flame. If you are so led, then trust him to take care of the details. In discerning His will, focus on the resources you do have. God will take care of those that you don’t have.

06.09.2013 As we pray we pray to end the epidemic of abortion America, we recognize that act of abortion is a cry of desperation. Abortion is a failure to love and to be loved. The more abortion is understood, the more one realizes it is anti-human, anti-life, and anti-woman. The notion that we are in the business of "changing hearts and minds" sometimes sounds like only a cliché. It is nevertheless true. Abortion is different from any other modern social issue debated today and many people are suffering because of it. Prayerfully, and for the sake of women, men and their babies let us continue to offer up prayer to change those hearts and minds and always do so with compassion.

06.02.2013 In 1968 ,Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae (Latin "Of Human Life"). In the Encyclical, the Holy Father made several predictions about what would happen if contraceptives became widely available and widely used. He said there would be a general lowering of morality; a general disregard for the physical and psychological well-being of females by males; governments using family planning programs for coercive purposes; treating our bodies as though they were machines. Forty-five years later we see 57 million babies dead from abortion and a general acceptance of same-sex unions; rampant pornography and record levels of spousal abuse; the Affordable Health Care Act and the HHS Mandate; embryonic stem-cell research and In Vitro Fertilization. The consequences of ignoring his predictions continue to mount. May God forgive us.

05.26.2013 Planned Parenthood proudly announced that in 2011 their “health service” was responsible for the secret, violent deaths of 333,964 nameless American citizens or one abortion every 94 seconds. Child-murder is big business and this death machine set another record. This murder-for-hire business had an annual budget of $1.2 billion. While they always attempt to deflect the evil they do by citing that they also do other exams such as screening for STD’s and cancer, the truth is that 91% of pregnant women that PP sees have an abortion. That is like trying to defend Hitler by ignoring the millions of deaths and saying, “Yes, the deaths are true but he made the trains run on time.”

05.19.2013 The fundamental responsibility of government is to protect the life of its citizens. We now live at a time in the history of America where not only does our government not protect the lives of innocent children, it is complicit in bringing those lives to an end. Hundreds of millions of dollars are annually funneled to Planned Parenthood to insure the continued destruction of tens of millions of children. Of course, the reality of the murders are protected by a fabricated “Right to Privacy” discovered in 1973 in the penumbra (shadow) of the Constitution and couched in terms such as “choice”, “reproductive rights” and “women’s health”. And, at the recent annual gathering of Planned Parenthood, The Almighty was unbelievably asked to smile upon the evil when we heard, “God bless Planned Parenthood.” It would have been better had the speaker begged for God’s Mercy on America.

05.12.2013 Anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear knows the Church is under attack. Any given day reveals new frontal assaults on Church teachings and religious liberty. None can deny that “the wolves are at the door”. Increasingly, Catholics in the pew accept the secular worldview that contraception and abortion are merely “a woman’s right” and not really a mortal sin. Choices in their lives are based on their own personal opinions rather than foundational, objective Truths. When we only look at the external threats, we fail to recognize the greater threat coming from within that attacks the very foundation of the Church. We concentrate on “the wolves at the door” and fail to recognize the greater threat of the “termites in the floor.”

05.05.2013 Supporters of the Culture of Death fool themselves into thinking their position favoring abortion and euthanasia are the compassionate choices. For what appears like compassion is in reality terribly counterfeit. Fake compassion is a mere sentiment, looking for an easy-fix, and shirking from the personal investment that real love demands. It is much easier to drive a girl or woman to an abortion mill than to help her raise the child or go through an adoption-process. It is easier to counsel a woman to get an abortion, than help get her out of an abusive situation, deal with her alcoholism, and assist her with getting a job. It is easier to kill the child, than address a difficult family-situation. And it is easier to give a lethal injection than to accompany somebody on their last journey, and help them to find meaning in it. The face of real compassion is love. The true face of false compassion is despair and murder.

04.28.2013 Planned Parenthood who received $542 million taxpayer dollars last year, and Family Planning Association of NE Ohio (now operating in Geauga County, and who is funded by more taxpayer dollars), both encourage young teens to explore sexual life style choices absent any parental knowledge or approval. According to the CDC in 2008, the total of 110,197,000 existing STD’s in the United States included 79,100,000 HPV infections, 24,100,000 HSV-2 infections; 3,710,000 Trichomoniasis infections; 1,570,000 Chlamydia infections; 908,000 HIV infections; 422,000 Hepatitis B infections; 270,000 Gonorrhea infections; and 117,000 Syphilis infections. The average life span of practicing homosexual males in America is 42 years while the national life expectancy for males is 75.2. How can we remain apathetic, continue financing, and exposing our children to this peril?

04.21.2013 Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel famously observes,
"The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference."
Another word for indifference is apathy.
Consider the relationship between apathy and evil.
The two work hand in hand and they are really the same.
Evil wills it; apathy allows it.
Evil hates the innocent and the defenseless most of all;
apathy doesn't care as long as it is not personally inconvenienced.

04.14.2013 ‎ Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you. No child should be deprived of the right to be born, the right to be fed, the right to go to school. Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio 2005

04.7.2013 There is the story that during the height of the extermination process in Germany, the trains on the way to the gas ovens passed close by a church. The parishioners complained to the pastor that, when in church, they could hear the pitiful screams of anguish coming from the boxcars. The pastor advised, “Then sing louder”. Thinking about this makes one shudder that Christians and their pastor could be so callous and ready to ignore the plight of innocent human beings on their way to be executed, then to leave their church and to go on apathetically with their own lives. But think about this. Don’t American Christians turn a deaf ear to the execution of 55 million and counting innocent children in abortion mills as we go about the “more important” things in our lives without a second thought to our nation’s own horror? Is what we do really any different?

03.31.2013 The Lord is Risen, Alleluia! On this day of days, on this feast of feasts, we rejoice in the victory of life! This victory is not just a hope; it is a fact. God, in Christ, has destroyed the power of death! In all its forms -- including abortion -- death can never have the final word....Never doubt the victory of life, and always find in the resurrection your strength to continue defending this greatest of all gifts!
Fr. Frank Pavone. Priests for Life

03.24.2013 The most expensive material in the world on an ounce-for-ounce basis is now a human egg that sells for an equivalent of $157 trillion per ounce. Some parents with infertility problems are willing to pay up to $50,000 for a human egg from “an extraordinary donor” they hope will produce a “smart, attractive child”. Paying a woman for her eggs to use in stem cell research has been, in the past, bioethically forbidden ground but New York State now allows it, becoming the first state to permit public money to be used in this way. Our culture stepped onto the slippery slope by permitting the harvest of human eggs for IVF use. It was and is a foregone conclusion that other sinful uses of human eggs would follow. Does anyone really think that we will not see human cloning? Catholic teaching defines IVF, embryonic stem cell research and human cloning as mortal sin because each violates Natural Law.

03.17.2013 Bethesda the House of Mercy is a confidential, post-abortion healing ministry of mercy and reconciliation. Healing from abortion is a new beginning in relationship with God and a season of reconciliation for women and men struggling with memories of their abortion experience. As Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, "Suffering, pain, sorrow, humiliation, feelings of loneliness, are nothing but a sign that you are so close to Jesus that He can kiss you”. To begin your healing journey, call 1-800-482-4100.

03.10.2013 In these times of turmoil in America, we should reflect on the words of Mother Theresa "Yours is the one great nation in all history which was founded on the precept of equal rights and respect for all humankind, for the poorest and weakest of us as well as the richest and strongest. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. I have no new teaching for America. I seek only to recall you to faithfulness to what you once taught the world. Your nation was founded on the proposition very old as a moral precept, but startling and innovative as a political insight that human life is a gift of immeasurable worth, and that it deserves, always and everywhere, to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect.”

03.03.2013 The rapid, on-going growth of the Culture of Death in America continues seemingly unchecked by the actions of either the churched or the Church. Facing the disturbing numbers of abortions that Planned Parenthood provides each year and now learning that an organization with a like philosophy, Family Planning Association of NE Ohio (FPANEO) has located for the fourth time in recent years in our County, it would be easy to give up fighting for Life and to descend into despair. Before giving up, we should pray and meditate on the wisdom of D.L. Moody “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And that which I can do, by the grace of God, I will do.” Call HELP at 440.338.8649 and join our effort to protect the sanctity of all human Life.

02.24.2013 At the kick-off for the Spring 40 Days for Life Campaign, in which Christians gather for prayer vigils to witness for Life on the public sidewalks in front of area abortion mills, one of the speakers made a particularly poignant statement. He spoke of recent tragedies and observed that we frequently hear the question from non-believers, “Where is your God in all of this?” He so rightly pointed out, that wherever innocents are suffering, Jesus is always present and is waiting for His Church to show up and join Him there where His people are suffering and in need of help. During this Lenten season, won’t you consider joining in the Christian witness in defense of human life? For more information on how to do this, call HELP, the Pro-Life Apostolate of SS Helen, Edward and Lucy Parishes at 440-479-7498.

02.17.2013 The day the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision was a day to mourn — a day to mourn the loss of tens of millions of unborn children — sons and daughters, brothers and sisters lost to a world that values choice over compassion. It was a day to mourn the damage abortion does to women — the medical problems, the mental health issues, the damaging of relationships with friends and family, and the destruction of relationships with God. It was a day to mourn the culture of death abortion has brought to our nation and our world. A culture that believes death is a solution for manipulated.

02.10.2013 Hearing that the euphemistically worded “Physician Assisted Suicide” is legally offered as a solution to end-of-life illness in Montana, Oregon and Washington might seem beyond belief. We ask ourselves, “How could it come to this?” At the Vigil Mass in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on January 24th for the 2013 March For Life, Sean Cardinal O’Malley in his homily answered the question with clarity. “If a nation allows parents to kill their children, it will allow children to kill their parents.” Now that almost 56 million children have been killed in America’s abortion mills, mainly because their birth posed an inconvenience, we should not be even mildly surprised that disposing of the elderly when they also become an inconvenience is gaining acceptance.

02.03.2013 Your tax Dollars at Work! America is being overrun by the culture of death. Planned Parenthood targets young women through school programs teaching sexual promiscuity and abortion as normal and that unborn life is merely an unnecessary inconvenience. The Catholic Church and all who speak out for life and chastity are demonized and denigrated. During this past election cycle and continuing daily in the media, those who dare to speak out against murder of the unborn and the harm it causes to the mother are deemed “anti-women” by those whose own agenda causes untold physical and emotional harm. This evil is financed by American tax dollars.

01.27.2013 Eight minutes is such a brief amount of time. It represents only one 180th of a day. Yet it was all the time necessary for 20 school children to die in the senseless murders that took place in Newtown, CT. It is all the time necessary for a single suction abortion to take place in an abortion mill that exists to ostensibly guarantee a woman’s “right to reproductive health care”. And it is all the time necessary to kill 20 innocent children in America’s abortion death mills eight minutes after eight minutes, hour after hour, day after day and year after year in America.

01.13.2013 Theology of the Body is John Paul II's teaching on love, life and human sexuality. He teaches that the body has its own language. Handshakes are signs of civility. More intimate than the handshake is the kiss, a sign of trust and friendship. The marital embrace is designed by God to be a sharing of the self with the spouse... Contraception, like a Judas kiss, betrays the language of the body because it really says, ”I don’t want to share this part of myself with you. Keep your fertility to yourself. I don’t want any part of that.” Contraception contradicts the language of marital love that God intended to be spoken between married couples---the language of total sharing.

01.06.2013 The first law of moral conduct is to do good and avoid/resist evil. Life is good. Human fertility is good. Babies are good. We are to love these. It is wrong to turn against our fertility, a good, and consider it an evil. When contraception treats fertility as if it were a disease, it says that a baby is not a blessing but a curse. Children are the greatest blessing God can give to a couple and their marriage. Contracepting couples fail to do good when they deprive themselves of God’s blessing of His gift of children.

It's a Matter of life 2013