Archive for the 'Culture Wars' Category

The man knows how to lead:

The Archdiocese of Saint Louis has posted a Q & A about Archbishop Burke’s opposition to outspoken abortion-rights advocate Sheryl Crow’s involvement with a fundraising event for Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital. The Archbishop also posted a video explaining why he has had to act as he has…

Archbishop Burke obviously thinks featuring such a high profile pro-abortion activist as Crow in a fundraiser for a Catholic children’s hospital might confuse people a bit and lead them to think that the Church’s stance on abortion can’t be all that important.

Read more here.

It’s hard to say enough good things about Archbishop Burke’s decision to resign from this children’s hospital’s board of directors after the hospital invited Sheryl Crow to perform for a fundraising event.

Is his decision popular? No. But was it right?

Yes.

Wendy Shalit at Modestly Yours has an eye-opening post about a “comprehensive” sex-ed class at a middle school in Thornton, IL.

Here are the details: (more…)

Hannity claims that he “studied theology”.

I wonder if he was absent the day the class learned that pride is the deadliest of sins.

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To hear more of what Fr. Tom Euteneuer has to say about contraception and its link to abortion, you can buy a CD of his talk, “The Infertile Soul: Contraception’s Influence on Faith and Society” that he gave at our Contraception Is Not the Answer conference last September.

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• “Sean Hannity’s Gospel”

For two of the past three years, Father Tom Euteneuer — the president of Human Life International — has led our annual staff retreat. If I had to make a list of my favorite priests, he’d be near the top.

His column this week, “Sean Hannity’s Gospel,” reminds me of why I have such great respect for the man.

Check it out.

Carol Everett. Anthony Levatino. Beverly McMillan. Joan Appleton. Joy Davis. McArthur Hill.

What do these people have in common?

All of them used to work in the abortion industry. Doctors Levatino, McMillan, and Hill used to perform abortions themselves. Joan Appleton was an abortion clinc nurse. Carol Everett and Joy Davis were abortion clinic administrators.

Along with many other former abortion providers, they have all spoken out publicly about how they came to be pro-life.

I thought about these former-abortion-industry-workers-turned-pro-lifers when Jill Stanek reminded me that this Saturday, March 10, is the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers. (more…)

Last year, we got an e-mail from Levi-Lucius Elebeonu, who runs Womb 2 Tomb, a grassroots pro-life group in Lagos State, Nigeria, asking us for assistance with his pro-life evangelization efforts.

I sent him a copy of our Pro-Life Curriculum, and since then, we have kept in touch periodically.

Recently, he wrote me with an update on the situation on the ground in Nigeria.

As you’ll see from his eye-opening report — which I’ve included below — the members of the Womb 2 Tomb group have their work cut out for them, but I’m sure you’ll also agree that their efforts are an inspiration.

(more…)

I spent yesterday giving talks at Proviso West High School in Hillside, IL. The presentation I gave is titled “Pro-Life 101″, and covers several different topics, including:

• Fetal development
• How abortion became legal
• Why do women have abortions?
• What effects does abortion have on women?
• What happens in an abortion?
• How can we build a Culture of Life?

It’s a talk that Annie and I have both given to classes and youth groups dozens of times before, and one that we’re continuously tweaking.

After each of the talks yesterday, I asked the students to fill out an anonymous survey — basically asking what their opinions on abortion were before and after the presentation. (more…)

Ever wonder what the terms pro-choice and pro-life really mean?  Well, wonder no longer.  Teenwire, which is a site for teens run by Planned Parenthood, has the answer.  I’m so glad cause I was just so confused.  It’s also been made clear to me that I’m not really pro-life, I’m anti-choice.  Thanks teenwire!

My cousin Matt, who lives in Indianapolis, sent me an article from the Indianapolis Star about a “sex-ed” rally at the statehouse which included the picture at right, with a little girl in a stroller holding a sign reading, “I was Mommy’s choice.” Lucky for her.

Here’s my response—a baby who wasn’t so lucky:

I was also reminded of the pictures I’ve seen of a pregnant woman with the words “My baby is pro-choice” written on her belly. I wonder what the baby thinks about that?

And by the way, if the unborn baby can have moral and political opinions of her own, doesn’t that mean she’s a real person with a right to life? Then again, how does one even begin to unpack the irony in these bizarre manipulations of children?

We know from long experience that children are naturally pro-life. You have to indoctrinate them into the “pro-choice” mentality, dismantling their natural sympathy with unborn babies. Sad stuff.

And its grade is a big fat F:

CWA: Morning-After Pill Fails Tests

Journal reports that no study found a decrease in pregnancy or abortion rates, even with increased use

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 /Christian Newswire/ — Well-known advocates for the morning-after pill have admitted that “increased access to emergency contraception pills enhance use but has not been shown to reduce unintended pregnancy rates” in a meta-analysis of studies conducted in 10 countries published this month in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. They also state the drug’s effectiveness may be “substantially … overstated.”

(more…)

Good for him!

From LifeNews:

New York Middle School Sued Over Denying Pro-Life Abortion Fliers

Albany, NY (LifeNews.com) — A New York middle school is the subject of a lawsuit from a pro-life firm after it barred a student from expressing his pro-life views. The unnamed student wanted to participate in the national Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity, where students stay silent during the day to speak up for unborn children and hand out fliers about abortion.

On October 24, Gowana Middle School’s principal told the student to turn his pro-life T-shirt inside out and cease the distribution of pro-life fliers. She allowed the student to remain silent, but prohibited him from telling anyone why, and forced him to remove a piece of red tape from his mouth that read “Life.”

Here’s the most outrageous part: (more…)

Some quick links:

Miss Kelly at Modestly Yours has a must-read post titled “Sexual Freedom Is Damaging to Students”. It’s about a new book called Unprotected, written by an anonymous psychiatrist at the student counseling center of a major American university who has seen firsthand the horrible effects inflicted — especially on women — by so-called “safe sex” and “sexual freedom”.

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Christina at RealChoice has a great post titled “Pre-Roe Mortality, Redux”:

Just about anybody that’s paid attention has heard the claim that “thousands” — or, more specifically, “5,000 to 10,000″ maternal deaths a year in the United States from criminal abortions back in the bad old pre-Roe days. In fact, Planned Parenthood’s amicus brief filed with PP v. Casey still cited this bogus “fact”.

Let’s start with the numbers. Where did they come from?

Find out here.

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JivinJ reports on some disturbing statistics from the United Kingdom about the number of teens having “two or three abortions”. (more…)

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Jim Finnegan, one of our longtime supporters, and his attorney, Tom Brejcha — who also represented my boss, Joe Scheidler, during his 20-year court battle with NOW — the trailers for the movie The Nativity Story are now playing in Chicago’s Daley Plaza:

CHICAGO, Dec. 20 — As the holiday season of Christmas looms every nearer, Catholics and other Christians welcomed the City of Chicago’s stunning reversal of its earlier denial to air film clips of the movie “The Nativity Story” at the Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago.

Earlier, Jim Law, Chicago’s Executive Director of Special Events had denied New Line Cinema permission to show a trailer for the movie The Nativity Story at a Christmas festival in downtown Chicago. Law stated that the trailer would be “insensitive to the many people of different faiths.”

Several days after this denial, the Nativity Scene Committee, led by Jim Finnegan, which has erected a nativity scene on the Daley Center Plaza for several years, amended its permit last week and demanded the Committee be allowed to show film clips of The Nativity Story as part of their religious display. Finnegan’s attorney, Thomas Brejcha, President and Chief Counsel of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, assisted by attorney John Mauck, threatened litigation, and the City backed down on its unconstitutional discrimination against this religious speech and expression on Chicago’s Daley Center Plaza.

(more…)

Today, December 14, is the 21st anniversary of the death of Catherine Doherty.

Who is Catherine Doherty, you may ask?

The Wikipedia article on her begins:

Servant of God Catherine Doherty (August 15, 1896–December 14, 1985) was a social activist and foundress of the Madonna House Apostolate. A pioneer of social justice and a renowned national speaker, Catherine was also a prolific writer of hundreds of articles, best-selling author of dozens of books, and a dedicated wife and mother. Her cause for canonization as a saint is under consideration by the Catholic Church.

Born in Russia, she and her family were nearly killed during the Russian Revolution.

A website dedicated to her cause for canonization explains its impact on her:

The Revolution marked Catherine for life. She saw it as the tragic consequence of a Christian society’s failure to incarnate its faith. All her life she cried out against the hypocrisy of those who professed to follow Christ, while failing to serve him in others.

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An interesting series of events recently in Ottawa, Canada:

1. While on the radio, Shawn Menard, president of the Carleton University Students’ Association, accuses a pro-life group, the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, of denying the Holocaust.
2. The CCBR threatens to sue Menard for making false statements and slandering their reputation.
3. Menard goes back on the radio, and says that his previous statements accusing CCBR of denying the Holocaust were “unequivocally false”.

Stephanie Gray, executive director of CCBR, commented: (more…)