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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
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Participants at the March 23 Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally in Philadelphia
Yesterday, 43 Catholic institutions filed suit against the Obama Administration over the HHS Mandate.
News of these lawsuits shouldn’t come as a surprise. Since early March, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been all but guaranteeing that lawsuits would be filed.
A few weeks later, Dolan, appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation, said, “We didn’t ask for this fight, but we won’t back away from it.”
Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon points out in the Wall Street Journal how it’s come to this in an op-ed appropriately titled, “Why the Bishops Are Suing the U.S. Government” that is accompanied by a picture of some of the 2,300 participants at the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally in Philadelphia on March 23 (see above, right).
Professor Glendon writes:
The main goal of the mandate is not, as HHS claimed, to protect women’s health. It is rather a move to conscript religious organizations into a political agenda, forcing them to facilitate and fund services that violate their beliefs, within their own institutions. [Continue reading ...]
Despite a strong rebuke delivered to Georgetown University by the Archdiocese of Washington, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius addressed the graduates of the school’s Public Policy Institute this morning.
In her remarks, Sebelius couldn’t resist wading into the area of church/state relations. Toward the end of her speech, she said the following:
Ultimately, public policy is about making difficult choices. Today, there are serious debates underway about the direction of our country – debates about the size and role of government, about America’s role as a global economic and military leader, about the moral and economic imperative of providing health care to all our citizens. People have deeply-held beliefs on all sides of these discussions, and you, as public policy leaders, will be called on to help move these debates forward.
These are not questions with quick and easy answers. When I was in junior high, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was running for president. I wasn’t old enough to vote, but it was the first national campaign I really remember. Some of then-Senator Kennedy’s opponents attacked him for his religion, suggesting that electing the first Catholic president would undermine the separation of church and state, a fundamental principle of our democracy. The furor grew so loud that Kennedy chose to deliver a speech about his beliefs just seven weeks before the election. [Continue reading ...]
Father Norman Weslin offers Mass at the Pro-Life Action League office, circa 1992
Father Norman Weslin died Wednesday at the age of 81 at a retirement home in northern Michigan. He was a devoted friend of the Pro-Life Action League, and on multiple occasions offered Mass in our office and in the Scheidler home.
Before he was ordained, Father spent twenty years on active duty in the Army, earning the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. While in the Army he married and he and his wife, Mary, adopted two children.
In 1980, shortly after he was discharged, Mary was killed in an automobile accident.
Both of them had been ardent pro-lifers, and the tragic loss led Weslin to found the Mary Weslin Homes for Pregnant, Unwed Mothers. This home has served more than 300 single mothers and still operates in Omaha.
Following Mary’s death, Father entered the seminary and was ordained a priest of the Oblates of Wisdom in 1986. He gathered a group of activist pro-lifers in 1988 and founded The Lambs of Christ.
Although the Lambs peacefully prayed at abortion clinics, they were frequently arrested. As they were representing the unborn babies, they would not give their names when they were arrested, but knew each other by a chosen name beginning with “Baby.” [Continue reading ...]
The Archdiocese of Washington has sharply criticized Georgetown University’s decision to invite HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to address its School of Public Policy’s upcoming diploma ceremony.
A recent the editorial in Catholic Standard, the Archdiocese of Washington’s official newspaper, notes:
Founded in 1789 by John Carroll, a Jesuit priest, Georgetown University has, historically speaking, religious roots. So, too, do Harvard, Princeton and Brown. Over time, though, as has happened with these Ivy League institutions, Georgetown has undergone a secularization, due in no small part to the fact that much of its leadership and faculty find their inspiration in sources other than the Gospel and Catholic teaching. Many are quite clear that they reflect the values of the secular culture of our age. Thus the selection of Secretary Sebelius for special recognition, while disappointing, is not surprising.
Monsignor Charles Pope, a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, comments thusly on the importance of the preceding paragraph: [Continue reading ...]
The Pro-Life Action League reported last week about the stunningly powerful homily recently given by Bishop Daniel Jenky, CSC in which he excoriated President Obama’s “radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda.”
In response to Bishop Jenky’s homily, some faculty members of the University of Notre Dame are calling on him to step down from the University’s Board of Fellows.
Why?
Because in his homily, Bishop Jenky said the following:
Remember that in past history other governments have tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches like the first disciples locked up in the Upper Room.
In the late 19th century, Bismarck waged his “Kulturkampf,” a Culture War, against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany.
Clemenceau, nicknamed “the priest eater,” tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century. [Continue reading ...]
Bishop Daniel Jenky of the Diocese of Peoria gave a stunningly powerful homily this weekend in which he excoriated President Obama’s “radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda.”
Celebrating Mass at a men’s conference entitled “A Call to Catholic Men of Faith,” Bishop Jenky spoke in his homily about the ever-present difficulties of being a Christian, and noted:
[It]’s not supposed to be easy! The world, the flesh, and the devil will always love their own, and will always hate us. As Jesus once predicted, they hated me, they will certainly hate you. …
For 2,000 years the enemies of Christ have certainly tried their best. But think about it. The Church survived and even flourished during centuries of terrible persecution, during the days of the Roman Empire.
The Church survived barbarian invasions. The Church survived wave after wave of Jihads. The Church survived the age of revolution. The Church survived Nazism and Communism.
And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of Hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry.
The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate. [Continue reading ...]
Flyer promoting Six Rivers Planned Parenthood's "40 Days of Prayer: Supporting Women Everywhere"
Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but sometimes it’s also rather bizarre and macabre.
Since 2007, the 40 Days for Life prayer campaign has resulted in over 5,800 babies saved from abortion, 69 abortion clinic workers quitting their jobs, and 22 abortion clinics shutting down altogether following local 40 Days for Life campaigns.
In response, Six Rivers Planned Parenthood (SRPP) in Eureka, California has decided to launch their own campaign [PDF] calling for “40 Days of Prayer: Supporting Women Everywhere.”
It’s being spearheaded by the Humboldt County Clergy for Choice, an official committee of SRPP. The Clergy for Choice page on the SRPP website begins with this explanation of who they are:
We are religious leaders who value all human life. We accept that religions differ about when life begins. We are here to help.
We believe that human life is holy. That’s why we believe in your right to choose to be a parent or not.
How to even begin unpacking that? [Continue reading ...]
Indeed He is risen!
During this Easter Week, we take special consolation in the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead. Not only is it the central event of our faith life, but it also provides us with great encouragement in our ongoing battle against abortion.
By conquering death, Jesus has also conquered abortion. As a result, we know that the outcome of the struggle that we carry on — this seemingly endless conflict between life and death — has already been decided.
We have, so to speak, been allowed to read the book’s final chapter before we actually get to it. We know that in the end, Life will be victorious.
From time to time, all of us need to remind ourselves of this, lest we lose heart.
During my 39 years in the pro-life movement, I have noticed that Good Friday has emerged as a particularly poignant day for pro-lifers.
Pro-lifers gather in front of many abortion facilities on Good Friday to pray the Stations of the Cross [PDF], to unite the sufferings of Christ with the sufferings of the unborn babies and of their mothers, and to pray for the end of abortion.
Much like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and John, the Beloved Disciple, as well as His friend and follower, Mary Magdalene, all of whom stood at the foot of the Cross, we pro-lifers stand at the modern day cross: the abortion clinic. We witness to the dignity and value of the lives of those babies whose lives are sacrificed in the clinics.
In most cases we do not save the lives of these victims any more than the three beneath the Cross saved Jesus. But our witness is nonetheless efficacious.
Just as Our Lady, John and Mary Magdalene did not save Jesus’ life, neither did they abandon Him as so many of His other friends and followers did when He was making His great sacrifice. [Continue reading ...]
The March 23 Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom was such a stunning success due in no small part to the tremendous outpouring of support from dozens of Catholic bishops—led by no less than Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York and the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Cardinal Dolan himself issued a letter of support that was read at the Rally for Religious Freedom held on Wall Street, in the heart of his Archdiocese.
The Cardinal’s Letter begins: [Continue reading ...]