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“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 OUR "SANCTITY OF LIFE" WEEKLY BULLETIN REFLECTIONS
07.12.2020
07.05.2020 Some people believe that hastening a person’s death means that he will die “with dignity.” The lie is that we must die to retain our dignity. And it is a lie from the pits of hell because we all have inherent dignity given to us by God, and being injured, ill, or near death neither reduces nor degrades our dignity. Furthermore, voluntary euthanasia is a slippery slope which leads to the the next stage - involuntary euthanasia or killing which has already taken place in Europe. Today it is someone else, tomorrow it may be you.
06.28.2020 In the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, 32.5% of all soldiers died. Over three days, 51,112 men lost their lives.. Today in America, when a marker is present indicating the possibility of Down Syndrome, 92% of these preborn babies are killed in a manner more brutal than the deaths at Gettysburg. In our supposedly "civilized culture" it is more dangerous for those with the possibility of being born with an extra chromosome than to have fought at Gettysburg. These children, chosen by God to ignite the kindness that lies dormant in people's souls and to plant the seeds of empathy in our hearts, never get a chance to make us better people for having known them.
06.21.2020 “Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness.” Dr. Alveda King.
06.14.2020 Using "verbal engineering" to mask reality, euthanasia proponents capture our attention and hide their true intent when they speak of "death with dignity" and a "right to die." Everyone believes in death with dignity. This movement is not really about the right to die. The truth is they are talking about a right to kill. Across the world, advocates of euthanasia are asking their governments and courts to step aside and allow "mercy killings." When the basic human right to life is denied to those whose continued existence is judged to be an inconvenience, the lives of the poor, vulnerable, weak and aged are at increased risk. How we treat the elderly, the disabled and the unborn is not a measure of their humanity but of our own.
06.07.2020 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Hosea 4:6. We who know the Truth have a duty to spread that knowledge to the ignorant even when their ignorance is willful. A lack of knowledge has contributed to the loss of 62 million aborted babies; the ongoing genocide of African Americans (Planned Parenthood butchers 247 Black babies each day); couples using abortion-inducing contraceptives, but who have no problem supporting legislation that provides unjust death sentences for the "sins of their fathers" to innocent children whose mothers are the victims of rape or incest. We have constant opportunities to bring knowledge and light to others who hide in darkness and we are called to speak up and to speak out.
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05.31.2020 Examining the actual numbers of year-to-deaths U.S. deaths attributable to various causes, there is a temptation to add perspective by offering comments. Instead, for today, we will forgo that temptation and simply present the raw numbers. Please take a minute to study and compare the numbers. What conclusions do you reach? Now that you know, you can never again plead ignorance to the horror. |
05.24.2020 Today's troubles can make it seem that the world is turned upside down as the values we hold dear as Christians---the sanctity of human life, the beauty of the Biblical family modeled after the Holy Trinity, this nation gifted to us by God seem to be under attack and eroding at an alarming pace. When we are tempted to worry, we should remember that worrying is what we do when we are not sure that God has it right. Our Lord laid down the rule for us in times such as this: “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Mt 6:34). Each day has its own trials; we are not to borrow troubles from tomorrow, because that day too will have its cross. We can take comfort in the knowledge that evil may have its hour but God will have His day.
05.17.2020 Civilized societies restrict individual freedoms when that "choice" would harm an innocent person. Does a man have the freedom to rape a woman if that is his choice? After all, it is his body, why do we have a right to tell him what to do with it? Why do we have a right to impose our morals on him? By emphasizing a rapist’s right to choose, we clearly are completely ignoring the rights of the woman. The pro-choice position always overlooks the victim’s right to choose. Women don’t choose rape. Africans didn’t choose slavery. The Jews didn’t choose gas chambers. And babies don’t choose to be aborted.
05.10.2020 During the “political season” which now seems to never end, our senses are assailed with candidates openly promoting child murder as a major plank of their platform. It is not an unusual reaction to become angered when we are repeatedly exposed to their evil mantras and perhaps even to feel guilty because of the intensity of our anger. St. Thomas Aquinas, a learned theologian had an observation about this kind of situation. "He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust."
05.03.2020 When women with a crisis pregnancy ENTER an abortion mill, relief is promised by abortion salespersons. That is a lie. Relief is nowhere to be found when a woman EXITS an abortion facility. She is no longer considering or discussing abortion; she's had an abortion. The pain of abortion is followed by a coping process that can lead down dark paths. God can work with pain. As real as the pain is, the Great Physician can heal.
04.26.2020 "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence. The phrase gives three examples of the "unalienable rights" which the Declaration says have been given to all humans by their creator, and which governments are created to protect.
The critical importance of defending life can not be over emphasized.
Unless liberty is devoted to the defense of life, neither life nor liberty can survive. Without life, nothing else matters.
Once the truth is denied to human beings, it is pure illusion to try to set them free. Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they will perish in misery. And the tragic truth is that a nation that kills its own children has no future.
The critical importance of defending life can not be over emphasized.
Unless liberty is devoted to the defense of life, neither life nor liberty can survive. Without life, nothing else matters.
Once the truth is denied to human beings, it is pure illusion to try to set them free. Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they will perish in misery. And the tragic truth is that a nation that kills its own children has no future.
04.19.2020 During a month of upsetting events, prioritizing which one thing would be the most disturbing is difficult. Each day seems to have brought about new restrictions to our individual freedom. Churches were closed, practicing religion was deemed “Non Essential “, and we were unable to exercise one of our most precious, God endowed, First Amendment Rights. With each sacrifice we needed to make to bring the pandemic under control, we were told, “We’re all in this together.” That turned out not to be true. The abortion industry was not in it with the rest of us. When the decree was made that in order to preserve precious, protective medical equipment all elective surgery would cease. In spite of abortion being clearly an elective surgery, the lawful order was defied and babies continued to be murdered at an undiminished pace. When the action was legally challenged, the court failed to stop the carnage. A clear sign of the great brokenness of our society is that our churches are labeled as “Non Essential” while abortion mills are “Essential”. May God have Mercy on our nation.
04.12.2020 Concerning abortion and euthanasia: People of God have to elect public servants who know the difference between serving the public and killing the public, and that those who can’t tell the difference don’t belong in public office. Moral principles do not depend on a majority vote. A lie is a lie even if everybody believes it and the truth is still the truth even if nobody believes it. The truth is that, regardless of the deceptive words often used to describe them, abortion and euthanasia are the taking of a human life; each is an evil no matter what the circumstances. Unless we repent God will judge America harshly. Evil may have its hour, but God will have His day.
04.05.2020 In Ohio, a stop to all elective surgeries and medical procedures has been ordered to preserve personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical providers and hospital beds. Abortions are elective procedures. The abortion cartel, which includes political leaders and abortion mill owners howled in protest as they defied the order. They continue to operate as the battle is waged in the courts. One side values all human life and the other values none including heath care workers who desperately need the protective equipment and those victims of the Corona virus who need beds. We might ask, “How did this change in our values come about?” The value of life has not changed, our culture has. We must turn from being a culture of death to one that values life. When life is not valued inside the womb, it will not be valued outside the womb.
03.29.2020 Each day the lives of 2363 preborn babies end through a barbaric, grisly, procedure as their beating hearts and bodies are sucked out of their mother’s wombs. Hourly, we are inundated with constant updates on the crisis of the Corona Virus at the same time when numbers of innocent deaths from death mills accumulates. We have become accustomed to the abortion death count. Sadly, it has become our “normal “ and we largely ignore it. We might ask, how have we become so calloused? An observation made decades ago by Joseph Stalin holds true today. “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.”
03.22.2020 While the TV constantly reminds us of the alarming death toll due to the Corona virus, the cumulative number of fatalities still pales in comparison to the daily death number (911) due to medical abortions at Planned Parenthood. During the current crisis, killing babies has been declared by various levels of government to be an elective procedure which is to cease during the crisis to preserve such precious supplies as gowns, masks, and gloves. The abortion cabal is fighting these decisions and will continue their battle to resume child murder.
Even now with our focus almost exclusively on the virus, it is vital that we maintain our mission to protect the sanctity of all human life.
In times of crisis, it is in the DNA of Americans to protect and defend life. Since our founding, we have valued human life. Doing so has even found us repeatedly leaving our shores to save lives miles across oceans. As America faces COVID-19, we should continue the work to save human life— and that includes saving preborn children and their mothers.
Even now with our focus almost exclusively on the virus, it is vital that we maintain our mission to protect the sanctity of all human life.
In times of crisis, it is in the DNA of Americans to protect and defend life. Since our founding, we have valued human life. Doing so has even found us repeatedly leaving our shores to save lives miles across oceans. As America faces COVID-19, we should continue the work to save human life— and that includes saving preborn children and their mothers.
03.15.2020 Legal abortion strips people of their inherent right to life. Abortion tells people that it is OK to put some human lives above others, that some people are “worth more “ than others. For those who say that they care about people’s rights and “social justice issues”, we need to ask them if they support abortion . . . Abortion is the ultimate social justice issue. When we place a utilitarian rather than intrinsic value on human life, we create a system in which those with power decide on who gets to live and upon what justification those who fail to qualify may be killed. Credit: Mark Crutcher
03.08.2020 We have witnessed the endless hateful actions and heard the evil rhetoric of this political season. Candidate after candidate deceives listeners with diatribes that describe child killing as legitimate "women's health care." We witness a screaming mob on the steps of the Supreme Court waving signs that declare "Protecting Abortion Access Is a Catholic Value" and threaten justices physically should they not rule in the mob's favor.
Too many dishonest leaders have, often for years and even decades, flown under the radar, unscathed by their claims to be both christian and Catholic and, simultaneously, supporters of abortion. They have been allowed to fall back on those tired phrases of being "personally opposed to abortion" but unwilling to "impose their beliefs" on others.
We have passively allowed politicians to use their "faith" as a political tool to get elected so they can cast more votes to kill children. We can no longer deny that the floodgates of anti-child, anti-family, anti-God have been opened in our country. We must speak up. We must vote. It is incumbent upon each of us to end this evil.
Too many dishonest leaders have, often for years and even decades, flown under the radar, unscathed by their claims to be both christian and Catholic and, simultaneously, supporters of abortion. They have been allowed to fall back on those tired phrases of being "personally opposed to abortion" but unwilling to "impose their beliefs" on others.
We have passively allowed politicians to use their "faith" as a political tool to get elected so they can cast more votes to kill children. We can no longer deny that the floodgates of anti-child, anti-family, anti-God have been opened in our country. We must speak up. We must vote. It is incumbent upon each of us to end this evil.
03.01.2020 The recent "cloture" votes on two pro-life bills in the U.S. Senate make millions of Americans sick to their stomachs and exemplify the fact that we are in a spiritual war against dark forces. After refusing to be present during testimony supporting the bills, like ancient Roman emperors one Democrat Senator after another entered the chamber and gave the mockingly, callous "thumbs down" gesture and voted a loud “NO” against the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act" (S.3275) and the "Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act" (S.311). When the bills were defeated, and with total lack of decorum, they joyously celebrated with high-fives and laughter.
At about 20 weeks doctors begin surgeries to save babies lives. S.3275 sought to protect the lives of babies in the womb who can feel pain. S.311 did NOTHING TO RESTRICT ABORTION. It would ONLY have guaranteed that babies who survive an abortion receive medical care and don’t spend their last agonizing minutes futilely gasping for breath only to be discarded as medical waste when they die. It wasn’t a difficult bill to support. "We won't kill babies that survive an abortion." Yet, there they were, one-by-one, voting "NO!" on a bill to stop infanticide.
Speaker Pelosi recently said that for the elections, democrat candidates should coalesce around their nominee with the mantra “Unity, unity, unity.” Since unfettered child murder, even post birth and with with no limitations is a main goal of the democrats, a more accurate battle cry for her Party of Death would be “Evil, evil, evil.”
At about 20 weeks doctors begin surgeries to save babies lives. S.3275 sought to protect the lives of babies in the womb who can feel pain. S.311 did NOTHING TO RESTRICT ABORTION. It would ONLY have guaranteed that babies who survive an abortion receive medical care and don’t spend their last agonizing minutes futilely gasping for breath only to be discarded as medical waste when they die. It wasn’t a difficult bill to support. "We won't kill babies that survive an abortion." Yet, there they were, one-by-one, voting "NO!" on a bill to stop infanticide.
Speaker Pelosi recently said that for the elections, democrat candidates should coalesce around their nominee with the mantra “Unity, unity, unity.” Since unfettered child murder, even post birth and with with no limitations is a main goal of the democrats, a more accurate battle cry for her Party of Death would be “Evil, evil, evil.”
02.23.2020 Increasingly in our culture, children are not viewed as the unique gifts from God that they truly are. They are too often seen as untimely, inconvenient interruptions to the lives and plans of their parents. It is all too familiar that we hear that family circumstances preclude the birth of a baby.
The truth is, every child is created special, with awesome purpose and amazing potential. Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in our mixed up world.
Consider this: if you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had eight kids already, three of whom were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and the woman had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion? If the overwhelming magnitude of ill circumstances had led in this case to following the recommendation for abortion, consider that Beethoven would not have drawn his first breath.
We would do well to remember some good advice to be found in Isaiah.
“My ways are not your ways, My thoughts are not your thoughts … for as the heavens are higher than the earth, My ways are higher than yours!”
The truth is, every child is created special, with awesome purpose and amazing potential. Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in our mixed up world.
Consider this: if you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had eight kids already, three of whom were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and the woman had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion? If the overwhelming magnitude of ill circumstances had led in this case to following the recommendation for abortion, consider that Beethoven would not have drawn his first breath.
We would do well to remember some good advice to be found in Isaiah.
“My ways are not your ways, My thoughts are not your thoughts … for as the heavens are higher than the earth, My ways are higher than yours!”
02.16.2020 The awful end game when a court of men decided 47 years ago to grant property ownership of small, helpless human beings to their mothers so that they may judge them worthy of life or death is upon us. “Legally” dehumanizing these human beings was the beginning of the full-throttle of the barbarism we have now, among which is abortion doctors hoarding the tiny bodies of those they were paid to terminate. And the, unimaginable (to decent people), the grisly practice of selling the murdered babies or their body parts. For allowing these hideous practices to exist in our nation we beg forgiveness. Individually, we pray for the strength to have the courage to end our apathy and indifference to this evil and to speak up.
02.09.2020 Abortion is not "sad" and "tragic." It is monstrous and outrageous. It is not simply killing another human being. It is murder and the distiction is clear. The command from Scripture in the original language says, "You shall not murder." Exodus 20:13 The Hebrew word for "murder" literally means "the intenational, premeditated killing of another person with malice." That is a perfect description of the grisly act of abortion. It is not something to lament. It is not something a decent society should control through it's laws. It is something to work tirelessly to abolish.
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02.02.2020 After decades of defending the sanctity of human life against the culture of death and her minions in the public square, it would be easy to accept defeat and simply give up. When faced with this temptation, we must remind ourselves that we are not alone in this battle. The following quote has provided inspiration for many in the pro-life cause. "When the time comes, as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment - the final judgment - I've often thought, as Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of lonliness. You have no advocates; you are there alone standing before God - and a terror will rip your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there'll be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world; and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. they will say to God, 'Spare him, because he loved us!'"
Congressman Henry Hyde |
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01.26.2020 A society is measured by the way it treats its young, old, helpless and ill. As Christians, we are called to minister not to murder, and make no mistake, euthanasia, deviously called "mercy killing" is murder. There have been at least 3,147 deaths from euthanasia reported worldwide. Assisted suicide is now legal in Oregon, Washington, Montana, Belgium, Luxemburg, Switzerland and the Netherlands. While the state’s ears may be closed to the evil of the "mercy killings" going on in America and the world, God’s ears are not closed. His warning for us is clear in Proverbs 21: 13, “He who closes his ears to the cry of the helpless will himself not be heard.”
01.19.2020 Those oblivious to the silent screams of 62 million preborn babies, each of whom were executed in the most heinous methods - similar to those emplyed by ISIS, do not hear the agonizing screams because they are deaf, but because they plug their ears with their fingers.
01.12.2020 It can take years to correct social injustice ---the shameful fact of slavery serving as a prime example. While our generation may not see the end of abortion, the next generation is becoming increasingly pro-life and it is vitally important that we raise pro-life children. Teaching children to have a pro-life attitude is an indispensable antidote to today's selfish, "me-first" society, with many people more concerned about pleasure or material possessions than the inherent value and dignity of every human life. We should be teaching them---at each opportunity---that all human beings, at all stages of development from fertilization to life's natural end should be protected, cherished, respected, and loved at all times.
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Indeed, some people believe that hastening a person’s death means that he will die “with dignity.” The lie is that we must die to retain our dignity. And it is a lie from the pits of hell because we all have inherent dignity given to us by God, and being injured, ill, or near death neither reduces nor degrades our dignity. Furthermore, voluntary euthanasia is a slippery slope which leads to the the next stage - involuntary euthanasia or killing.
Assisted suicide means administering lethal overdoses or otherwise causing to die those whose lives are judged useless or lacking in quality. Life must be valued from conception to natural death. Life is worth defending whether in the womb or in the nursing home. |
01.05.2020 When it comes to abortion the first thing to be considered is the horrific body count. No other grave injustice in America, or in the world, has claimed as many lives. In the United States over 60 million human beings have been put to death since 1973. No other group of people perishes at the rate of 3000 per day as do the unborn. Moreover, no other group—even those who are victimized and oppressed—are formally declared by law to be “non-persons.” Only the unborn have been systematically and legally cast out of the human community. For the purposes of their right-to-life the unborn are reduced to the level of a thing; even worse than a thing, they are reduced to trash, their bodies treated as so much waste or sold for scientific research.
The unborn are the most oppressed group in America. Their oppression should shake us to the core of our souls as only these totally innocent persons are subjected to a violent obliteration protected by law. The injustice of abortion is staggering.
The unborn are the most oppressed group in America. Their oppression should shake us to the core of our souls as only these totally innocent persons are subjected to a violent obliteration protected by law. The injustice of abortion is staggering.