March for Life 2014

March for Life 2014

Benedictine College students with President Minnis, Archbishop Naumann and Abbot James lead off the 2014 MArch for Life in Washington, D.C.

May Our Lady of Guadalupe, St Gianna, the Servant of God Jerome Legeune and the Servant of God Dorothy Day guide our path.

Messing with the Associated Press???

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Is the Associated Press confused now? I’m not. Neither should you be.

Earlier today this post showed up on the AP. No doubt some are confused, others awkwardly changing their underwear after yesterday’s media frenzy about the Pope changing directions.

In an address to a group of Catholic gynecologists gathered by the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, Pope Francis said in part,

The cultural disorientation has affected an ambit that seemed unassailable: yours, medicine! Although being by their nature at the service of life, the health professions are induced sometimes not to respect life itself. Instead, as the encyclical Caritas in veritate reminds us, “openness to life is at the center of true development. […] If  personal and social sensibility is lost to welcoming a new life, other forms of reception useful to social life are hardened. The reception of life tempers moral energies and makes possible mutual help” (n. 28). The paradoxical situation is seen in the fact that, while new rights are attributed to the person, sometimes even presumed, life is not always protected as primary value and primordial right of every man. The ultimate end of medical action always remains the defense and promotion of life.

The full text is here.

Student Government at Johns Hopkins University: pro-life students = white supremacists

Voice for Life, a student led pro-life group that meets at Johns Hopkins University, has been denied by the University’s student government official recognition. The student government officials are saying several crazy things about the Voice for Life group, namely that the group violates the harassment policy and that VfL is equal to the philosophy of white supremacy.

The Washington Times article is here.
No shortage of ideology to defend killing of the unborn.

Pro Life 2013 pictures in NYC

Here are photos from yesterdays pro-life Mass and rosary procession from NY’s Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. 


22 January 2013 is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion in the USA. A Catholic New York article speaks of positive signs of change.


The March for Life will happen on Friday, 25 January, Washington, DC.


Thanks to George Goss for the pictures.

At 40 we’ve expended 55 million

Remembering Roe.JPG

Human dignity is not respected: people are treated as objects and the virtual reality encourages us to see people as objects to be manipulated. While many will challenge this idea, there is no doubt that fear of living and a rejection of true happiness in this life drives us postmoderns to euthanize the self (think of the recent suicide pack of deaf twins), or the growing selection of the desired sex and traits of babies (girls aren’t wanted in this country either) or the marginalization of the elderly and mentally challenged. Members of our society kill children because the are are seen as threats to freedom, to our lifestyle, or position in society. I don’t think it is an overstatement to quote Pope John Paul II who said we live in a culture of death. Think of Newtown and Aurora, think of many cities were abortion, murder, rape, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, isolation and thievery are rampant. And sex is rarely seen as a beautiful event shared between a married couple and that we relate to one another within the family unit.


Today we recognize that Roe v. Wade is 40 years old and c. 55 million lives have been lost.

Merely remembering is not enough. We all need to work for a culture of love, a culture of life. Prayer is essential, but the Holy Spirit requires that His grace be extroverted. Contemplation and action….

Continue reading At 40 we’ve expended 55 million

Day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person

Pro lIfe girl.JPG

Let’s agree to follow the promptings of the Church and build a culture of LOVE.


Perhaps we can gather to have time for mental prayer, or to pray the Rosary and the Chaplet at 3pm.


From the US bishops we have this Mass rubric:


In all the dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when January 22 falls on a Sunday) shall be observed as a particular day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life. The Mass “For the Preservation of Peace and Justice” (no. 30 of the “Masses for Various Needs”) should be celebrated with violet vestments as an appropriate liturgical observance for this day.

General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 373

Recall Abortion


Recall Abortion.jpgPerhaps this new book on myths of abortion contributes to what Pope Benedict calls “human ecology.” In the days before the annual March for Life, Recall Abortion is fitting.

Recall Abortion, the first book by longtime pro-life
activist Janet Morana, examines the societal changes that led to legal abortion
and the lies that ensure it continues to be one of the most common medical
procedures for women. Through research, interviews with medical professionals
and testimonies of women who have had abortions, Morana takes apart the myth
that abortion is safe and necessary health-care and shows the abortion industry
for what it is: A profit-driven, unscrupulous and often criminal enterprise
that victimizes women.

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Continue reading Recall Abortion

Alexia Kelley, Obama consultor to head FADICA

Alexia Kelley.jpgAlexia Kelly is the new president of a prominent Catholic fundraising office in  Dupont Circle, Washington, DC. 

Ms Kelley holds a Masters degree in theology from Harvard Divinity School is reportedly committed to dialogue with others for the sake of advancing the common good, and interested in Catholic charitable works. Her resume includes being a former employee of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development; the executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good; the Deputy Director and Senior Policy Advisor for the Whites Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; and the First Lady’s Office, for whom she launched Let’s Move Faith and Communities. Most recently Kelley’s been the director of the Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the HHS.

Continue reading Alexia Kelley, Obama consultor to head FADICA

Connecticut lawmakers to consider physician assisted suicide


The front page
of today’s New Haven Register carried an article by Jordan Fenster,
Right-to-die bill may be discussed by legislature” by which the citizens of
Connecticut were alerted to the possibility that in the next session of the
legislature the question of assisted suicide will be on the table. Following
the defeat of Massachusetts ballot on the same subject last week, the contagion is now again flowing south. Already three US states, Oregon, Montana and Washington, allow for
physician assisted suicide. 34 states prohibit lethal doses of medication that
would end human life.

Let me say from the outset, this is not a Catholic issue. Persons of belief and unbelief ought to be concerned about the potential passing of a law that legalizes medically induced suicide. Hence, this is not a conservative issue. This is not a an anti-human dignity issue. It
is just the opposite: this is a human issue. Who we are a human beings, and how
we teach each other is a human issue that is informed by what we believe and
how we behave. Committing this legislative error is a problem of education.
Recall that in the past when a similar bill was brought to the CT voters it failed only 51-49%.

Several weeks ago there appeared in the New York Times an
intriguing OP-ED article that I believe we need to seriously consider in the
discussion of physician assisted suicide. Considering voices that differ from ours need to be thoughtfully taken into account because we are people use who reason to frame our moral lives. We can’t simply dismiss the other and therefore I appeal to people of belief and unbelief to reasonably discuss what’s at stake. When we rush the discuss without fact we always get burned.

In my opinion not enough attention has been devoted
to considering how this legislation has been lived out in this country and in
others, nor have we considered the philosophical, theological, sociological and
human consequences of such an act. Most often our heart-strings are pulled, even stretched leading us to decide weighty matters without due attention to the reality in front of us –to the person and people and intimately connected with life and death issues. We also don’t always adequately consider the eternal consequences of killing someone before natural death happens. 

Who’s life are we “making dignified” by engaging death before it’s naturally
presented? What really is human dignity? What does it mean to be truly a man or
a woman in relationship with other men and women here-and-now, and following
death? To what extent does fear, anxiety and perceived suffering dictate how we
think and act toward others? Are we sufficiently aware of and sensitive to the difference between ideology and being a person, no matter how debilitated?

Here is Ben Mattlin’s October 31, 2012 New York
Times
article published online.

Suicide by Choice? Not So Fast

Continue reading Connecticut lawmakers to consider physician assisted suicide