Reasons Behind The Shift To Pro-Life

For The Bulletin

The major media seemed a bit mystified at the results of a recent Gallup Poll, showing a significant shift to the pro-life point of view.

The national telephone survey of 1,015 adults, age 18 or older, conducted from May 7-10, indicated that 51 percent of Americans now call themselves “pro-life” on abortion, as opposed to the 42 percent who self-identify as “pro-choice.” This marks the first time the pro-life side held the majority since Gallup started posing the question back in 1995.

Given the fact that America just elected a “pro-choice” president, the results might seem surprising, even shocking. However, upon further analysis, there are substantive reasons why the populace is moving to the pro-life end of the spectrum of public opinion:

The campaign against the Freedom of Choice Act — The nation’s Catholic bishops, along with a number of pro-life organizations, including the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, have been waging a very public campaign to stop the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), a proposal which would mean virtually no limits on abortion. In fact, FOCA, which President Obama supports, would mean the end of parental consent, conscience clauses, 24-hour waiting periods for abortion, along with the return of the heinous practice of partial-birth abortion. The presumed sponsor of the legislation, New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler, has indicated that the bill will be introduced soon. However, the delay in its introduction may be indicative of the pressure brought to bear by anti-FOCA campaigns.

Overreaching by the Obama Administration — A Gallup poll conducted earlier this year found that 58 percent of Americans opposed President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap the Mexico City Policy, meaning that most Americans object to their tax money being used for organizations that promote and perform abortions overseas. In fact, when Gallup asked Americans to evaluate seven major policy initiatives undertaken by the White House, the discarding of the Mexico City Policy elicited the most opposition.

Ultrasound puts a face on the abortion debate — With the advent of real-time ultrasound, there can be little debate that at the heart of every pregnancy is an actual baby, not a blob of tissue as advocates of legal abortion have claimed in the past. It’s a little hard to argue “choice” when you see a human being staring back at you.

The testimonies of women and men who have been hurt by abortion — Each abortion leads to two victims — the baby who dies and the mother who’s wounded. Women who regret their abortions are speaking out, talking about the pain, both emotional and physical, that resulted from their abortions. They trace drug addiction, alcohol abuse, eating disorders and sleep disorders to the abortions of their past. Men, too, are grieving and opening up about the devastation abortion has caused in their lives. There is nothing quite so powerful as the complaint of a dissatisfied customer, and the abortion industry has a number of former clients expressing buyer’s remorse.

For years, pro-abortion activists have been talking about a so-called “pro-choice majority.” The Gallup Poll shows that that pool of abortion supporters is now shrinking. With other polls showing that young people tend to be more pro-life than the youth of previous generations, it’s clear that we’re entering a new era in American society, where Americans freely recognize not only the sanctity of life in the womb, but our sacred obligation to protect women from the harm of abortion.

Maria Vitale is the education director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, based in Harrisburg. She can be reached at vitale@paprolife.org

From Death Into Life

As I attended the funeral of a very close cousin of mine who unexpectedly died from complications stemming from leukemia, I thought how Providential it was to occur during Holy Week.

How lovely it is that our God has given us the opposite road of Our Divine Saviour. Jesus was welcomed with palms into Jerusalem and THEN endured his Sorrowful Passion. We sometimes have to endure our own "passions" here on earth before WE are welcomed into the heavenly Jerusalem.

I think of my cousin in his final days, beaten and mocked with health problems, struggling to carry his cross to his own Golgotha - only to see it through on his own Palm Sunday welcoming into eternal life. I pray for his soul that by God's grace and mercy he can forgive him his transgressions and allow him to partake in the Eternal Mass.

Life is precious and so fragile. Endure your passions and know they only exist because God so wills it to purify you like gold.
Our Palm Sunday awaits, but not before our Passion.

"Jesus without the cross is a man without a mission and the cross without Jesus is a burden without a reliever."
- Archbishop Fulton Sheen

HE IS RISEN.

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

40 Days to a New You

Found a great site a year or so ago for a Daily Lenten Guide to grow in holiness. Join me these next 40 days and may God bless you...


http://uscatholic.claretians.org/site/News2?abbr=usc_&page=NewsArticle&id=6153

LIVE!

And now the Vatican has its own YouTube channel, recently launched. See link on sidebar or click here.

Imagine the Potential

Here's a great video I wish the MSM would run, but I think we know that would never happen...

Bishops Address Opportunities, Challenges for New President, Congress

January 13, 2009

The Honorable Barack Obama
President-elect
Presidential Transition Team
Washington, D.C. 20270

Dear Mr. President-elect,

As our nation begins a new year, a new Administration and a new Congress, I write to outline principles and priorities that guide the public policy efforts of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). As President of the Bishops' Conference, I assure you of our prayers, hopes and commitment to make this period of national change a time to advance the common good and defend the life and dignity of all, especially the vulnerable and poor. We continue to seek ways to work constructively with the new Administration and Congress and others of good will to pursue policies which respect the dignity of all human life and bring greater justice to our nation and peace to our world.

As Bishops, we approach public policy as pastors and teachers. Our moral principles have always guided our everyday experience in caring for the hungry and homeless, offering health care and housing, educating children and reaching out to those in need. We lead the largest community of faith in the United States, one that serves every part of our nation and is present in almost every place on earth. From our experience and our tradition, we offer a distinctive, constructive and principled contribution to the national dialogue on how to act together on issues of economic turmoil and suffering, war and violence, moral decency and human dignity.

Our nation now faces economic challenges with potentially tragic human consequences and serious moral dimensions. We will work with the new Administration and Congress to support strong, prudent and effective measures to address the terrible impacts and injustices of the economic crisis. In particular, we will advocate a clear priority for poor families and vulnerable workers in the development and implementation of economic recovery measures, including new investments while strengthening the national safety net. We also support greater accountability and oversight to address irresponsible abuses of the system that contributed to the financial crisis.

The Catholic Bishops of the United States have worked for decades to assure health care for all, insisting that access to decent health care is a basic human right and a requirement of human dignity. We urge comprehensive action to ensure truly universal health care coverage which protects all human life including pre-natal life, and provides access for all, with a special concern for the poor. Any such legislation ought to respect freedom to choose by offering a variety of options and ensuring respect for the moral and religious convictions of patients and providers. Such an approach should seek to restrain costs while sharing them equitably.

On international affairs, we will work with our leaders to seek a responsible transition in an Iraq free of religious persecution. We especially urge early, focused and persistent leadership to bring an end to violent conflict and a just peace in the Holy Land. We will continue to support essential U.S. investments to overcome poverty, hunger and disease through increased and reformed foreign assistance. Continued U.S. leadership in the fight against HIV-AIDS and other diseases in ways that are both effectively and morally appropriate have our enthusiastic backing. Recognizing the complexity of climate change, we wish to be a voice for the poor and vulnerable in our country and around the world who will be the most adversely affected by any dramatic threats to the environment.

We will work with the new Administration and Congress to fix a broken immigration system which harms both our nation and immigrants. Comprehensive reform is needed to deal with the economic and human realities of millions of immigrants in our midst. It must be based on respect for and implementation of the law. Equally it must defend the rights and dignity of all peoples, recognizing that human dignity comes from God and does not depend on where people were born or how they came to our nation. Truly comprehensive immigration reform will include a path to earned citizenship with attention to the fact that international trade and development policies influence economic opportunities in the countries from which immigrants come.

We stand firm in our support for marriage which is a faithful, exclusive, lifelong union of a man and a woman and must remain such in law. In a manner unlike any other relationship, marriage makes a unique and irreplaceable contribution to the common good of society, especially through the procreation and education of children. No other kinds of personal relationships can be justly made equivalent to the commitment of a man and a woman in marriage.

With regard to the education of children, we will continue to support initiatives which provide resources for all parents, especially those of modest means, to choose education which best address the needs of their children.

We welcome continuing commitments to empower faith-based groups as effective partners in overcoming poverty and other threats to human dignity. We will work with the Administration and Congress to strengthen these partnerships in ways that do not encourage government to abandon its responsibilities, and do not require religious groups to abandon their identity and mission.

Most fundamentally, we will work to protect the lives of the most vulnerable and voiceless members of the human family, especially unborn children and those who are disabled or terminally ill. We will consistently defend the fundamental right to life from conception to natural death. Opposed to abortion as the direct killing of innocent human life, we will encourage one and all to seek common ground that will reduce the number of abortions in morally sound ways that affirm the dignity of pregnant women and their unborn children. We will oppose legislative and other measures to expand abortion. We will work to retain essential, widely supported policies which show respect for unborn life, protect the conscience rights of health care providers and other Americans, and prevent government funding and promotion of abortion. The Hyde amendment and other provisions which for many years have prevented federal funding of abortion have a proven record of reducing abortions. Efforts to force Americans to fund abortions with their tax dollars would pose a serious moral challenge and jeopardize the passage of essential health care reform.

This outline of USCCB policies and priorities is not complete. There are many other areas of concern and advocacy for the Church and the USCCB especially: religious freedom and other civil and human rights, news media and communications, and issues of war and peace. For a more detailed description of our concerns please see Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (USCCB 2008), pages 19-30.

Nonetheless, we offer this outline as an agenda for dialogue and action. We hope to offer a constructive and principled contribution to national discussion over the values and policies that will shape our nation's future. We seek to work together with our nation's leaders to advance the common good of our society, while disagreeing respectfully and civilly where necessary for preserving that same common good.

In closing, I renew our expression of hope and our offer of cooperation as you begin this new period of service to our nation in these challenging times. We promise our prayers for you, that the days ahead will be a time of renewal and progress for our nation and that we can work together to defend human life and dignity and build a nation of greater justice and a world at peace.

Sincerely yours,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago
President

Armed vs. the un-Armed

As I prepare to walk with thousands of my brothers and sisters next week in Washington D.C., I am reminded of Christ's passion: the unstained handed over to the stained.

I've been reading and meditating on Saint Thomas More's The Sadness of Christ, written as a commentary on the Passion while More was awaiting his own execution by the stain of King Henry VIII. More commentary than exegesis, More presents profound insight into that cataclysmic event that re-opened the doors to heaven for all of us lowly beings.

More offers the following comments on the "darkness" that handed Jesus over to the guards by all who were threatened by him:

This is the mad and ungovernable power which brings you armed to take an unarmed man, which brings the fierce against the gentle, criminals against an innocent man, a traitor against his lord, puny mortals against God.

The irony of all innocent blood participating and united in Christ's passion. The unborn, the sick, the dying- all of the unarmed. The abortionist (and the legislators and commonfolk that support him) murdering the child by unspeakable means and weaponry. He who is to defend and heal the sick as doctor, is now the aggressor. Under the natural law, written by God, this criminal who sins against the natural law.

The safest and most intimate place for any human being, has become a battleground.

The Battle Continues

The number of abortions performed in Pennsylvania in 2007 dropped slightly from the previous year's totals, according to figures just released by the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The total in 2007 was 36,663, down 0.2 percent from the number that occurred in 2006. African-American women underwent about 39 percent of the abortions, while Hispanic women accounted for about six percent of the total. The single largest age group was the 20 to 24-year-old category, accounting for about 34 percent of all abortions. The vast majority of abortions occurred in seven counties--Allegheny, Bucks, Chester, Dauphin, Delaware, Lehigh, and Philadelphia. About 45 percent of abortions were performed on women who had already had at least one abortion--in some cases, more than four. You can find the abortion statistics at http://www.paprolife.org/2007%20PA%20AB%20Stats.pdf

Merry Christmas To All

He who transcends time...

...has entered time.

Thank you, God.


Happy "Birth"day to Our Saviour.

When the Law's Not the Limit

The mainstream media are trying to cast pro-lifers as the big losers in the 2008 election.

Granted, the most pro-abortion Presidential candidate in history won the White House. Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion operation, boosted its support in Congress. And pro-life ballot issues in three different states went down to defeat.

In fact, you can even find reference in cyberspace to the pro-life movement being dead.

Some media "experts" are suggesting that the pro-life movement has to give up the goal of making abortion illegal. Outlawing abortion "can't be done" is the media rallying cry.

But the fact that abortions are legal in the U.S. is not inconsequential. In his book, "Friendship: The Art of Happiness," Dr. John Cuddeback writes, "One of the most serious ways in which the flaws of a civil society are manifested is in its laws." He adds that, "Since it speaks of the judgment of the community regarding right and wrong in action, it has a formative effect on the judgment of citizens regarding right and wrong."

Cuddeback points out that philosophers have long spoken of the teaching value of the law. In a society with a bad law, youth, in particular, can become corrupted.

Abortion-on-demand teaches young people that they should strive for convenience at all costs. It instills the frightening idea that killing is an acceptable solution to both personal and social problems. It teaches them that a child's value is less than dirt and that women are to be used, discarded, and their offspring are to be eliminated. It shatters the heart, darkens the soul, and coarsens society.

As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops states in its brochure, "A People of Life," "The Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortion--Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton--must be reversed."

No matter how long it takes.

But, I hope, sooner than we could ever expect.

By Maria Vitale, Education Director PA Pro-Life Federation

vitale@paprolife.org