Pro Life: April 2009 Archives

Yesterday (April 29, 2009), Tom McFeely, of the National Catholic Register posted a brief story relating the "back story" to Mary Ann Glendon's declining the Laetare Medal.

Catholic writer and art historian Elizabeth Lev is Mary Ann Glendon's daughter.

In a post at PoliticsDaily.com, Lev -- who lives in Rome and is a regular contributor to Zenit news service -- discusses her mother's decision to refuse to accept Notre Dame's Laetare Medal.

Lev explains that Glendon's action, undertaken because of Notre Dame's honoring of pro-abortion President Barack Obama, must be considered in the context of Glendon's proven commitment to defending the human rights of all vulnerable people, born and unborn.

And, Lev said, in light of that commitment it's silly to dismiss her mother's principled action as merely a gesture by someone who cares only about the pro-life cause.

"Professor Glendon was to have been honored for not only for her scholarship, but for her second career, her pro-bono work -- ranging from the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the great civil rights issues of the present day -- namely, the defense of human life from conception to natural death," writes Lev. "Her concerns range from the aging and dying population to the unborn to the well-being and dignity of every life, regardless of race, religion, or economic status. Her outstanding work in this field has earned her the respect of the most brilliant minds of the international community, regardless of whether they agree with her position. So again, to see her merely as 'strongly anti-abortion' instead of as a tireless defender of the dignity of life, is to reveal not only a lack of understanding of the subject's work, but also the writer's real interest in this question."

The University of Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture establishes "The Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life," a fund to support pro-life activities. Here's the summary of this new initiative and the press release.

PS: poke around the Center's website, especially the list of Board of Advisors and notice the names of those who lend their political & religious influence to this project.

The headmistress of Purísima Concepción y Santa María Micaela school, a parochial school in Logroño in northern Spain, Sister María Victoria Vindel gave this presentation to her students about horror of abortion. The slideshow is provocative and graphic

Spain's very left leaning government is trying to overturn its country's abortion laws. To procure an abortion in Spain is currently a crime. Sister Vindel is being attacked by those who want to "progress" into the 21st century of nihilism. Pray for her and the others taking up the fight against abortion.

Turn, O Lord, and deliver their souls for there is none in death who will be mindful of You!

The dead from Italy's earthquake last week are mourned. A Mass of Christian Burial was offered on Good Friday by Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, Secretary of State to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI with the bishops and priests of the region.

We beseech Thee, O Lord, deliver the souls of Thy servants, that being dead to this world, they may live to Thee and whatever sins they have committed through human frailty, do Thou wipe away by the pardon of Thy merciful goodness.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace. Amen.

The gloominess of today's weather leads to a gloomy feeling that all is not well in the world. Of course, it is Holy Saturday which in itself is a bittersweet experience: the Paschal Mystery is intense and the drama of the sacred Liturgy causes me to reflect more deeply on important matters: human desire, cooperation with truth, faithfulness, interior and exterior peace, love, salvation, God, Chris't atonement, etc.

The spiritual intensity of the day has led me to think of how some cultural commentators are looking at life through the lens of Christian faith seeing a dismal experience of Christianity and the reduction of man and woman to the courseness of existence. I am beginning to see that we are living a dark period of history. Let me give three examples that depress me, all come from today's edition of the New York Times: "Washington Churches Eye a Prize: The Obamas," "In Another Recession Sign, an Uptick in Vasectomies" and "Spain Steps Into Battle With Itself on Abortion." For me, these articles show to what extent that many people are willing to go to reduce the experience of faith to a commodity, life to a matter of "rights and progressivity" and the sexual intercourse to economy and self-centeredness. All three articles strike me as examples of desperation because know of them really demonstrate to me that following Christ (or any religious sensibility) means anything. Has truth, the dignity of human life and a healthy sexuality been totally replaced by radical subjectivity, nihilism and hedonism?

The Spanish interlocutors make the claim of trying to change the current abortion law as a matter of humanity suggesting that not to change the law is to live in a barbourous society. It's quite the opposite: you're humanity is diminished by acting selfishly and cruelly toward the unborn. How is killing the unborn giving a woman a dignified humanity when abortion is part of the matrix? The abortion proponents argue that they want a state that is "progressive," like other Western nations except Ireland. To what are they progressing? Death? A culture where death is the hallmark and not life.

On Holy Saturday I have to say that our society is leaping toward madness and not to great freedom and certainly not toward communion with God and life with Him.