This painting is so consoling, I just have to share it again since Advent brings us closer and closer to the precious moment of our Savior’s birth. He comes to save Fallen Man, and with such a gentle hand.
“Virgin Mary Consoles Eve”
Crayon and pencil by Sr. Grace Remington, OCSO
Copyright 2005, Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey
Brian Burch and CatholicVote.org put together this video to show you what the Catholic vote looks like.
We are willing to discard the person for the part.
“We’ve made great strides”, “…a long way, Baby.”
You and Your creation shall serve us.
Yes, that is our “Way”.It makes perfect sense to us.
After all, You are invisible,
as invisible as a child within the womb,
…that is, until the flesh is torn away.
We have the technology.See, no cringing here. “Just do it!”
We’re tough as nails.
You are familiar with nails?
Yes, tough as nails.
In this world you have to be!by Jobolai/photobucket
Hello, (knock,knock). Are You there?
…. See, He doesn’t care.
You hold Your anger, so we say,
“Where is this God of yours?”.Our world crumbles,
Chaos all around.
Evidence of Your absence or Your ire?
It doesn’t matter.
You are the Past. We are Now!If I pull Your beard, will You awaken.
Are You like us?
Will You take a poll
or turn Your blind eyes?In Your retirement or death,
we’ve found our voice. We’ve found our fist!
Not to worry. We’ve come a long way;
Crowned ourselves God!By Joann Nelander
Image via Wikipedia
Susan B. Anthony List is running this ad in the district of Rep. Steve Driehaus, the Congressman who is trying to take away our free speech because he doesn’t want his constituents to know that he voted for taxpayer funding of abortion:
What Steve Driehaus doesn’t want you to know about his vote for tax payer funding of abortions through Obamacare.
Joseph Bottum writing in Bad Medicine grieves:
…….I was utterly mistaken. I did warn that Stupak and his fellow pro-life Democrats in the House are, after all, people who have always favored health-care reform—and they were going to vote for the Democratic program if they possibly could. But after Stupak stood firm during the debates over the House version of the bill, forcing his amendment through even while enduring the fury of what seemed like every mainstream editorial page in the nation, I thought he would not desert the pro-life organizations when it came down to a vote on the Senate’s version. But desert he did. Praise Bart Stupak now, I demanded—and, like many other pro-lifers, I was left with nothing to show for it.
Bottum writes of arguments that were used to give cover to the Democrats who call themselves pro-life, from Harry Reid and Bob Casey in the Senate to Bart Stupak in the House.
The first was the claim that, through its complicated payment procedures, the Senate bill ensured that the government portion of the new insurance program wouldn’t actually fund abortions. The second was that nationalizing the health-care system would result in a net drop in the number of abortions performed. And the third was that an executive order from the president would ensure that abortion funding would not follow from the new bill.
Bottum concludes:
Meanwhile, the desertions of Harry Reid and Bob Casey and Bart Stupak mean that the pro-life cause must look entirely to the Republicans for leadership. Oh, they may pick up a few Democratic votes along the way for pro-life measures, but we now know that those Democrats will not take the lead in a pro-life fight. This is a bad result for the pro-life movement—in part because the Republican party platform is not a unified whole: People can oppose abortion while rejecting all the rest. But it’s also bad for the pro-lifers because it weakens the leverage they have within the Republican party.
NPR staff memo quoted by La Shawn Barber in NPR Drops ‘Pro-Life for’”Abortion Rights Opponents’:
NPR News is revising the terms we use to describe people and groups involved in the abortion debate.
This updated policy is aimed at ensuring the words we speak and write are as clear, consistent and neutral as possible. This is important given that written text is such an integral part of our work.
On the air, we should use “abortion rights supporter(s)/advocate(s)” and “abortion rights opponent(s)” or derivations thereof (for example: “advocates of abortion rights”). It is acceptable to use the phrase “anti-abortion”, but do not use the term “pro-abortion rights”.
What’s in a name? Barber points us to: “How the Public is Manipulated” which gives us a heads up and out of the sand noting:
It Makes a Pro-Abortion Assumption that the Debate is About Abortion Rights, Not Abortion It Plays Word Games with the Word “Rights” It Ignores the Fact That Abortion Can Exist Without Abortion Rights It Assumes the Negative It Ignores the Concept of a Right to Life It Affirms the Concept of a Right to an Abortion
Barber makes some points of her own for the mainstream media:
- Refer to abortion supporters as “right to life opponents”
- Refer to gun control supporters as “gun rights opponents”
- Refer to “hate speech” backers as “speech rights opponents”
- Refer to racial preferences advocates as “constitutional rights opponents”
Write me if she missed any.
From:
Majorie Dannenfelser
President, Susan B. Anthony List
I know you are worn down from this battle, but the last word has not yet been spoken on healthcare reform. We cannot allow Washington to think our voices have gone silent for even one moment. Later this week, the Senate will vote on the reconciliation package to the health care bill passed by the House on Sunday, which includes federal funding for abortion. During this process, Senators will be able to offer an unlimited number of amendments. Senator Coburn plans to offer two amendments in regard to the Life issue. One amendment will prevent funding for RU-486, the abortion pill, and the other will ensure conscience protection for doctors who do not want to be involved in abortion. The amendments could be voted on as early as this evening!
Senator Coburn’s amendments are essential to ensure that your tax dollars do not go toward the purchase of the dangerous abortion pill and to allow doctors to practice medicine without the fear of being forcibly involved in an act that goes against their conscience.
Michelle Malkin » Consequences: Stupak stripped of “Defender of Life” award.
Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund President Marjorie Dannenfelser promised “to work tirelessly to help defeat Members who support this legislation and make sure their constituents know exactly how they voted.”
Dannenfelser stated:
“The executive order on abortion funding does absolutely nothing to fix the problems presented by the health care reform bill that the House will vote on this evening. The very idea should offend all pro-life Members of Congress. An executive order can be rescinded at any time at the President’s whim, and the courts could and have a history of trumping executive orders. Most importantly, pro-abortion Representatives have admitted the executive order is meaningless.”
Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President & CEO of Americans United for Life Action:
“Once again, the proposal to address the problem of abortion funding in the health care bill through use of an executive order is a tacit acknowledgement that the bill as it stands is pro-abortion legislation. Both the President and the Speaker have repeatedly denied this stark fact.
Furthermore, the AUL legal team has concluded that an executive order is not an adequate fix to mitigate the Senate bill’s establishment of taxpayer-funded abortion. For example, an executive order cannot prevent insurance companies that pay for abortions in the exchanges from receiving federal subsidies.
In addition, executive orders can be undone or modified as quickly as they are created. President Obama revoked the Mexico City Policy, through the use of an executive order, and thereby allowed federal tax dollars to finance organizations that provide abortions internationally for the first time in years.
This fact, coupled with the Administration’s repeated endorsement of the pro-abortion lobby’s agenda, force any reasonable person to conclude that this bill will clearly create the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion in American history.”
See what House members voted for the health care bill and which voted against it.
For more reaction see Nicedeb:
A clearly disgusted Doug Ross, cuts loose:
“This bill fundamentally changes the relationship between the federal government and the people; and it does so in a despicably evil way. Health care will, there is no doubt, be wielded as a political weapon to reward and punish.
Congratulations, Bart Stupak and your so-called “Pro-Life” Democrat Caucus, you’ve sentenced the unborn generations of this country to misery, poverty and economic ruin. Way to stay true to your beliefs.
You aren’t pro-life, you’re low-lives.”
Tom Price calls it “a pig in a poke” – you can’t override legislation with an executive order.
Os Guinness in his discourse “Addressing the Question of Evil In An Age of Genocide and Terror” dialogues on the questions of evil: “Where on earth does evil come from? How are we to understand evil?” Guinness asks us to consider the possibility of magnifying evil in modern times:
“The dreadful evil of the Final Solution was not carried out by monsters. Hitler was a monster. Goring was a monster. Goebbels… They were monstrous. They didn’t carry any of it out. It was carried out by millions, and millions and millions of “good ordinary people.”
“You could see how in a world of bureaucracy with division of labor and diffusion of responsibility and a distancing,.. people don’t actually see the effects of the decisions they make. You can see how a modern world and its procedures and its way of doing things has made possible evil on a scale the world never imagined. (paraphrased)
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.- Edmund Burke
“America is not a secular state. As historian Paul Johnson once said, America was ”born Protestant.” It has uniquely and deeply religious roots. Obviously it has no established Church, and it has non-sectarian public institutions. It also has plenty of room for both believers and non-believers. But the United States was never intended to be a ‘’secular” country in the radical modern sense. Nearly all the Founders were either Christian or at least religion-friendly. And all of our public institutions and all of our ideas about the human person are based in a religiously shaped vocabulary. So if we cut God out of our public life, we cut the foundation out from under our national ideals.”“As Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George said recently, too many Americans have ”no recognition of the fact that children continue to be killed [by abortion], and we live therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This can’t be something you start playing off pragmatically against other issues.”
NewsMax.com reports the numbers:
Among the key findings:
86% of Americans would significantly restrict abortion. 60% of Americans would limit abortion to cases of rape, incest or to save the life of a mother – or would not allow it at all. 53% of Americans believe abortion does more harm than good to a woman in the long term. 79% of Americans support conscience exemptions on abortion for health care workers. This includes 64% of those who identify as strongly pro-choice. 69% of Americans think that it is appropriate for religious leaders to speak out on abortion. 59% say religious leaders have a key role to play in the abortion debate. 80% of Americans believe that laws can protect both the health of the woman and the life of the unborn. This includes 68% of those who identified as strongly pro-choice. Additionally, the data showed that since October nearly every demographic sub-group had moved toward the pro-life position except for non-practicing Catholics and men under 45 years of age.
Independents and liberals showed the greatest shift to the pro-life position since October, while Democrats were slightly less likely to be pro-life now than they were in October.
“The data shows that the American people are placing an ever increasing value on human life,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson. “Far from the great divide that most people think exists when it comes to the abortion debate, there is actually a great deal of common ground. Most Americans are unhappy with the unrestricted access to abortion that is the legacy of Roe
vs. Wade, and pundits and elected leaders should take note of the fact that agreement on abortion need not be limited to the fringes of the debate and issues like adoption or pre-natal care. The American people have reached a basic consensus, and that consensus is at odds with the unrestricted access to abortion that is the legacy of Roe.”
The survey of 1,223 Americans was conducted May 28 – 31 and has a margin of error of +/-3%.
Hope grows as we are willing to let in the Light.
I haven’t be able to embed this short film by the Doorpost Film Project but it well worth the click it takes to get to it.
Volition (n)- The act of making a choice. Sometimes the choice of inaction has consequences stronger than we could ever imagine. Throughout history, men have been faced with difficult choices in a world that makes it easy for them to conform. This film explores the hope that lies behind every decision made in the face of adversity; the hope that is buried in the heart of those that look beyond themselves and see something bigger worth fighting for.
This is the movie trailer:
A question of truth, a question of conversion; the Anchoress asks can Obama be converted on abortion? I ask, and I think posterity will ask, how can this black man, who knows the Black Man’s pain of Slavery, the history of popular resistance to change, who knows the history of a Stephen Douglas ignoring an Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln who finally pricked Douglas into debate by clubbing him verbally, until, as Edward T. Oakes, S.J. says, “Douglas finally had to take notice of Lincoln’s ceaseless hammering away at Douglas’ ‘pro-choice’ platform (which said, in effect, ‘I’m personally opposed to slavery but can’t impose my choice on other states, including other Norther states.’),” not only ignore but side against so utterly defenseless a part of American humanity? ” How can such a man, now President of a country, founded on the principal that all men are created equal, now consent in his heart of hearts to discriminate against the obviously created human person growing from day to day, as all men grow, just because he/she is still under the protection of a mother’s womb.
How can this President, the citizen of the greatest free nation, ever, be content while people conspire to deprive the weakest most dependent members of their civil rights; when to steal or negate life, black,white, red,yellow, male, female,old or young, is intrinsically evil and morally wrong? How can this be-gifted man standby, a blind, deaf, and mute creature, while this glaring, screaming, appealing and appalling issue of Civil Rights is left to cry in the arms of Lady Justice?
The questions continue, nagging and still unanswered. How can a professor, a teacher, a sworn defender of the Constitution, forget the cries of these similarly beleaguered, disenfranchised, these who endure discrimination, these forgotten and forbidden human beings? Is it simply that they have no power, but the power to be, while Obama, himself, who knows the benefits of life, and the gifts of God and has sworn an oath in the Creator’s Name, forsake his power refusing just consideration? Could he not use his powers of rhetoric to acknowledge our posterity and his power of intellect to comprehend their potential? How can such a man claim his “pay grade” justifies the “choice” not to chose life or engage his own reason and heart and soul?
The buck Mr. President not only stops here but demands you at least use the means you possess; ears, eyes and brain to watch a simple, state of the art and science, video of life in the womb. The thumb-sucking, kicking, jumping, hiccupping creature you see before you may well declare the reality; “I am here, now. I am alive, unless you allow my life to come to naught.”
What price freedom; what price honesty? History begs you not to hide behind polls and politics. Don’t ask people with vested interests in the abortion industry, or who purchase human parts for research, who like slave owners count it lose if right prevails. Ask Martin Luther King, Jr. when you should stand for the civil right SIMPLY TO BE!
H/T Anchoress, who hopes for conversion of President Obama on issues of life. I’ll pray for that! I’m sure Obama now knows who Mary Ann Glendon is and may give ear to what she has to say he only out of curiousity, due to a well publicized run in with this woman of integrity.
From the text of the address of Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, to Pope Benedict XVI and reported by Zenit:
“We have also been mindful of the fact that in today’s world, ironically, many threats to the dignity of the person have appeared in the guise of human rights. As you pointed out in your memorable speech to the United Nations last year, there are mounting pressures to ‘move away from the protection of human dignity towards the satisfaction of simple interests, often particular interests.’ “……………
“We have paid special attention to rights that are currently under assault such as the right to life, the right to found a family, freedom of conscience and religion, and to rights that have too long awaited fulfillment such as the right to decent subsistence.”
From Pope Benedict’s response: (Full text here)
“The Church’s action in promoting human rights is therefore supported by rational reflection, in such a way that these rights can be presented to all people of good will, independently of any religious affiliation they may have”. At the same time, “insofar as human rights need to be re-appropriated by every generation and by each individual, and insofar as human freedom … is always fragile, the human person needs the unconditional hope and love that can only be found in God and that lead to participation in the justice and generosity of God towards others”.
Humanae Vitae could be called, “Truth and Consequences.” With prophetic clarity, Pope Paul VI, in his Encyclical Letter on the Regulation of Birth, delineated the changes that would overtake society with the artificial control of birth.
In 2008 the German Federal Statistics Office’s vice-president,Walter Rademacher, was quoted by Agence France-Presse saying: “The fall in the population (of Germany) can no longer be stopped.” Life Site News reported “The population losses faced by Germany reflect a trend occurring across Europe–The European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat has predicted an overall drop in Europe’s population of 7 million people by 2050.
The Population Reference Bureau’s 2008 World Population data sheet and its summary report offer detailed information about country, regional, and global population patterns.”Nearly all of world population growth is now concentrated in the world’s poorer countries,” said Bill Butz, PRB’s president. “Even the small amount of overall growth in the wealthier nations will largely result from immigration.”
Some points of interest: NoSpeedBumps writes :
… Germany has one of the largest populations of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe, with a Muslim community of over 3 million. That trend is expected to continue, leading some demographic trend-watchers to warn that the country is well on the way to becoming a Muslim state by 2050, Deutsche Welle reported.
The Brussels Journal reported last month that one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families by 2025. There are an estimated 50 million Muslims living in Europe today–that number is expected to double over the next twenty years.
With the fanaticism of religious zealots, Feminism and Planned Parenthood, continue to preach their doctrines that would set mankind free to just “be” without the hindrance of Faith, God, or social pressure. Am I paranoid wondering how free or tolerated, non-muslims will be in a world with the new demographics of 2050. Even One World enthusiasts might wonder, can the nations hold their own, their own identity or posterity and even faith?
The next generation faces many decisions and morality matters. Truth and consequences oblige even those who are disinterested, too busy to care, or otherwise engaged in life pursuits.
Lioness feed
