Pro-choice and Moral Schizophrenia

Nine ways of participating in the sin of another:

1. by counsel

2. by command

3. by consent (“I’m personally opposed to it but” )

4. by provocation

5. by praise or flattery

6. by concealment

7. by being an accomplice

8. by partaking

9. by Silence!

Once you snuff out a child in its mother’s womb you have crossed the line and there is no sin off-limits to you. Society can’t hide behind our laws and our complicit politicians. Yes those in positions of authority bear the greater responsibility but their accountability does not set us free!  How deafening the silence.  Silence in our churches, our schools, our universities, our laboratories and the halls of government.

The fact that a law was passed to enable the atrocity of abortion, does not pour clean water over the scarlet decision.  It simply makes our culpablility national and places our country in the cross hairs of retribution. You can declare a human being a non-person, but the DNA, the blood and the flesh, the substance and the soul witness against our immoral “Law.”  Relativism may allow our society to lie to itself, but the law written on our hearts will condemn us. We do have freedom of choice, provides it is the right choice!

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live” – Deuteronomy 30:19

This sin too was nailed in Christ to the Cross.  It is time to leave the darkness and live in the Light.

In the Guise of Human Rights

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”.

“Moving Our Country from Democracy to Despotism,”

A call to action delivered by Cardinal Francis George:

As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we are deeply concerned that such an action on the government’s part would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism. Respect for personal conscience and freedom of religion as such ensures our basic freedom from government oppression. No government should come between an individual person and God–that’s what America is supposed to be about. This is the true common ground for us as Americans. We therefore need legal protection for freedom of conscience and of religion–including freedom for religious health care institutions to be true to themselves.”

Full text follows:

“Hello. I am Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. I’d like to take a moment to speak about two principles or ideas that have been basic to life in our country: religious liberty and the freedom of personal conscience.

On Friday afternoon, February 27, the Obama Administration placed on a federal website the news that it intends to remove a conscience protection rule for the Department of Health and Human Services. That rule is one part of the range of legal protections for health care workers–for doctors, nurses and others–who have objections in conscience to being involved in abortion and other killing procedures that are against how they live their faith I God.

As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we are deeply concerned that such an action on the government’s part would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism. Respect for personal conscience and freedom of religion as such ensures our basic freedom from government oppression. No government should come between an individual person and God–that’s what America is supposed to be about. This is the true common ground for us as Americans. We therefore need legal protection for freedom of conscience and of religion–including freedom for religious health care institutions to be true to themselves.

Conscientious objection against many actions is a part of our life. We have a conscientious objection against war for those who cannot fight, even though it’s good to defend your country. We have a conscientious objection for doctors against being involved in administering the death penalty. Why shouldn’t our government and our legal system permit conscientious objection to a morally bad action, the killing of babies in their mother’s womb? People understand what really happens in an abortion and in related procedures–a living member of the human family is killed–that’s what it’s all about–and no one should be forced by the government to act as though he or she were blind to this reality.

I ask you please to let the government know that you want conscience protections to remain strongly in place. In particular, let the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington know that you stand for the protection of conscience, especially now for those who provide the health care services so necessary for a good society. Thank you and God bless you.”

acertainslantoflight writing in Catholics in the Public Square reports the meeting of President Obama with Cardinal Francis George.  “The statement from the USCCB said: “The meeting was private. Cardinal George and President Obama discussed the Catholic Church in the United States and its relation to the new administration. The meeting lasted approximately 30 minutes.”

Private, yes, but one can guess that Obama’s attack on conscience issues in health related fields had to be in mind and mouth. The meeting followed by one day Cardinal George’s warnings of emerging “depotism” with the removal of conscience protection.

EWTN report here

That They May Be One, Father

As the 14th day of Lent draws to a close, Nelson shares these thoughts from the letter of Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch (Melkite) for  Lent that I’m passing on:

“Indeed, if the cross, with all that it represents, with all that it signifies, symbolises and indicates, of sufferings, sicknesses, disasters, various afflictions, catastrophes, pains and injuries to which all people are subject, if the cross is a constituent reality of all human life, there is an obligation for all people, like Jesus, to carry the cross together, in order to disburden the one charged with it and together to bear it with love and solidarity.  In this letter, I am urging my faithful sons and daughters of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in the Arab world and throughout the world to be in solidarity with each other and stand shoulder to shoulder with their brethren, friends, neighbours and fellow-citizens to bear the cross together on the way of the cross, especially during these days of Great Lent on our common spiritual Lenten way towards the Feast and the joy of the glorious Resurrection.”

I pray that all Christians may be one and bear faithful witness to the One who is all in all.

No People

“They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways. So I swore in my anger, “They shall not enter into my rest.”

Little Ones, you who are robbed of life this day by those who should have nurtured and protected you,  if God says to His people in the desert, “You shall not enter into my rest, ” what is He saying to our generation.  We are entering the desert of our Time; we, whose hearts go astray and do not know His way.

In our desert, we cry out, “Lord, save us!  Save our homes, our jobs, save our Nation!”  Yet, we’ve settled for gods of convenience. We hail as progress what Mary Shelley would call a  Frankenstein.  Human life for sale, for profit and for manipulation! We say, “But God, the end justifies the means.  Does it not?”  As if we didn’t know.  “They will service the good of humankind,” we say.  While God says, “They are MINE!”

We dare to answer God, “Just building blocks for health and well being, a boon to mankind, these.  You have so many more.  We will by ourselves bring about a new order of audacious Hope.”

The hallowed parts of the so, so young, and, oh so destroyed, devoured on the altar of irreverent “Progress,” bereft of human dignity or worth, save to fire an industry of blood, cry out!  The fifth seal waits it’s Time……..  This Time?

“You are a people whose heart go astray.”  You silent people, you unethical Congress, you President No People, call to your gods to save you. I look for My Son in you.  Show Me My Son.

Merit for the Unborn

They will never see the light of a birth day.  Yet accomplishment will be theirs. Because God created them, because they exist, because they have mother and father, ancestors and life, because I want eternity as much for them as for myself, I pray God grant them merit and reward.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, through Whom and for Whom all things were created, I pray the blessings of mercy and forgiveness, redemption and conversion, be bequeathed to the lineage of the Little Ones soon to die; aborted, reduced, researched and materialized. Amen.

In the world to come, may you be thanked for the mercy that flowed in answer to this prayer straight  from the throne of God to your fore-bearers countless in number.  May you be embraced in eternity as you never were in life, save for the Heart of God.