Fr Z at WDTPRS has sent a call to take action about those who are attacking the Church in Denver. The issue is whether the Church has the right to choose disallow into her schools those whose parents take a public stand against Church teaching.
Read what Fr. Z has to say at the link below, and then follow up with his action items.
ACTION ITEMS
1. Right now… now… stop and pray the St. Michael Prayer for Fr. Breslin and Archbp. Chaput.
2. Immediately after pray the Memorare for the conversion of the couple of that child.
3. VOTE in that poll from the denverpost.com .
4. Then vote in the second poll farther down on the right side.
Clarification, the parish preschool in dispute is in Boulder Colorado, which is in the Archdiocese of Denver.
Rolled up to my neighborhood Catholic pharmacy this week only to be greeted with this ominous sign.
“Divine Mercy Care, the parent organization of the DMC Pharmacy announces that the DMC Pharmacy will close permanently effective 6:00 p.m. March 4, 2010 due to financial difficulties.”
So Divine Mercy Care and Tepeyac will continue to exist and care for OB/GYN needs, but the only 1-of-7 pro-life pharmacies in the U.S. will close permanently. I have become personally acquainted with Robert Semler and his wife, Pam over DMC Pharmacy’s too-short run. They are top-notch caring people and their service to our community will be sorely missed — by me and my family in the immediate future.
The larger Catholic and pro-life community will miss them as well, but not until much later (perhaps when all their real choices have dried up). I believe that DMC Pharmacy did not succeed at this time because people — and specifically Catholics — failed to care.
A number of people were excited at the inception of the pharmacy and gave time, talent, and treasure. However, the ordinary pew-sitter failed to patronize the store, failed to transfer their prescriptions, failed to see the extra-ordinary chance at building a sustained Catholic culture and presence in the shadow of our nation’s capital.
With who-knows-what on the verge of passing in the health care reform legislation (mandatory subsidization of abortion, absence of conscience clauses, government “management” of costs and procedures) this is particularly bitter.
Surely the recession played a part, even though the prices were very competitive. But the “it’s too far” or “not convenient enough” or “that’s nice, but” excuses are the real culprits. The business was growing, but not fast enough to make it. Dr. John Bruchalski said in his letter
You knew it was coming. You hoped it wasn’t, but in a society as debauched as ours, it is hardly surprising.
[ABCNews] Angie Jackson says nothing is off-limits on Twitter, not even the details of her abortion [to] chronicle her experience taking RU-486, commonly known as the abortion pill, in an attempt to “demystify” abortion for other women.
Already the mother of a 4-year-old son with special needs, Jackson, who lives in Tampa, Fla., with her boyfriend, said that after a difficult and life-threatening first pregnancy her doctors advised her to not get pregnant again.
“I had made a decision when my son was born to try to not get pregnant again, and if that failed I’d planned that I would get an abortion if I needed one,” Jackson said.
“It’s not that bad. It’s not killing a child.” she says in her YouTube post.
I’m not sure what is mystifying about the abortion drug, unless it’s the idea that it’s either safe, painless, or doesn’t kill a child. One has to be willfully ignorant to gloss over the basic science and purpose of RU-486.
Jackson adds, “I’m not trying to ignite a culture war, I’m just offering one person’s personal experience and true story.”
Here is where the story starts to unravel. Jackson’s Twitter handle is “AntiTheistAngie” — not atheist, anti-theist. She signs off her posts, “Hope everyone has a Godless day”. People who are “not trying to ignite a culture war” don’t throw grenades. I don’t believe in little green men, but I don’t spend much time and energy trying to debunk those who do.
But who is the real champion of the poor and who uses them for his advantage? It is not he who kills the goose the lays the golden eggs by over-regulating the financial industry to the point that capital investment dries up and wilts the source of a dignified livelihood. It is not he who oppresses the rich in the name of justice for justice is not brought about by injustice.
For as the Lord Jesus states, “The poor will always be around.” And people like Judas will continue to feign concern to help themselves instead. The test on whether a person is truly concerned to help the poor is through the integrity of his character. It he has lied to the people before, then the chances of him lying now is quite likely.
Did Ben Benanke’s tactics avert the recurrence of a debilitating depression or did he simply delay it’s onslaught? This video suggests imply that the economic stimulus had the same effect as a shot of morphine that numbed the pain without healing the cause. Worse, it has turned us into a junkie needing fixes until we OD or hit rock bottom.
Perhaps there is a quick rehab and will get us back on our feet sooner – like a new mix of fiscal and monetary policies or a new global approach that makes markets more efficient than ever. Until that’s found, the only way out is the old fashioned cold-turkey and pick-ourselves-up-by-the-boot-straps approach.
It starts with the humbling acceptance of the truth that we messed up followed by embracing those old school values and boring life styles that values temperance over excess, patience over instant gratification, thrift over living large, saving over borrowing and discipline over letting go.
To go beyond the mundane, this renewed way of living is the classic spirituality of sacrifice, the way of the cross. The virtue of humility disposes us to be patient and put up with doing without or with less. It makes us temperate in living within or even beneath our means. Discipline is fortitude or the strength to say no or go, without fear of hardship and deprivation. This is the old school of asceticism; this is why people voluntarily take the vow of poverty. And after being mortified and purified, one enters into mysticism where sacrifice is no longer an uncomfortable state. Rather, it becomes transforming as a seed dies to sprout into a plant that will produce fruit. Or we join the Lord Jesus in His “kenosis” where He suffered and died to bring us eternal life.
Over the past several months, I have been planning a Respect Life Youth Rally for the youth of the Diocese of St. Petersburg. It has been a labor of love. Tonight, at the rally, as a part of the prayer service which includes Eucharistic Adoration, I will be giving a reflection. Below is that reflection the I will be giving:
Most of us here tonight are survivors. If you were born after January 22, 1973, then you are a survivor. I am a survivor. All of us born after the legalization of abortion in the United States are missing friends. We are all missing classmates. Some of you may even be missing siblings.
It is unfortunate, but we are living in a culture of death. We are living in a culture that places a higher value on polar bears and turtles than it does human life. We have elected officials that believe that it is more important to give a woman the “right to choose” than it is to protect innocent babies. We live in a culture that believes that the choice for a woman to have a baby begins after she is pregnant and not before she has sex.
For 37 years now babies have been killed. For 37 years the culture of death has been allowed to grow and permeate everything in our society. It seems as though the battle is futile—that there is so much resistance to changing the laws.
Think for a moment. How many of you think you can change the culture of death? How many of you think you can actually have an impact, that you can influence the leaders of our country to protect life from the moment of conception?
Angela talked to you tonight about how to defend a pro-life stance. She shared with you some answers
If you can’t make the March for Life, at least join the Virtual March for Life. You can join at http://www.virtualmarchforlife.com/join/. There are already over 60,000 online – this is in addition to the thousands and thousands at the main event. Join now!
You’ve probably heard about it but it bears repeating . . .
Tomorrow (Friday), the bishops have called for a National Day of Prayer and Penance for Life to coincide with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the March for Life in Washington, D.C.
Our parish is having a Mass for Peace and Justice in the morning, a Rosary for Life in the afternoon, a simple meal of soup and bread for dinner, and a Holy Hour for the Unborn in the evening. After the Holy Hour, the movie Bella is going to be shown.
Check your parish website to see what Masses and devotional activities are there for you.
If you can’t make it to Mass or a parish-organized devotion, then our pastor has other suggestions:
Make a visit to any Catholic church to spend time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament
Spend some extra time in prayer at home, e.g. pray a family rosary
Abstain from meat
Fast for the day, from a meal, or from snacks between meals
Give up television, music, video games, or some other entertainment
Donate monies saved from above to any pro-life group or agency
And finally, our pastor has suggested the following prayer to remember the millions of babies who have been aborted as well as those coping with and grieving the loss their aborted children
Lord God, we praise and thank You for the gift of our lives, and for the lives of all human beings. There is nothing more destructive to human life than abortion, yet we rejoice that You have conquered death by the resurrection of Your Son. Help us to do our part to end abortion – never to be silent, never to be passive, and never to be forgetful of the unborn. Give us strength to defend human life,
Divine Mercy Care has provided our OB-GYN and baby needs since 1998. The doctors there are fantastic and are a model of how to bring our Catholic faith into everyday life.
Divine Mercy Care is a grass roots, community-based healthcare corporation that is at at the nexus between the culture wars and the healthcare crisis.
Divine Mercy Care is not a series of programs. It is not social work.
For healthcare workers, Divine Mercy Care is our vocation in medicine: caring for all stages of the human person; fighting illness and suffering yet recognizing their role in the mystery of life; and supporting our communities by seeing all people including the weakest and most vulnerable. Divine Mercy Care is how we love God and love neighbor in our practice of medicine.
This is the foundation of our excellent care for all people.
These are true, committed Christian doctors who use the Theology of the Body in their everyday practice. They serve the poor, the under-insured, and the uninsured every day for free as part of their regular practice, as well as ordinary Joes and Janes like us.
Most of them haven’t been saints their whole lives, but their conversion to the Gospel is real and tangible. We are blessed to have them as our doctors. If you’ve never had your doctor pray with you — you’re missing out on an amazing experience.
Pray for them and for like minded doctors everywhere; contribute if you can — you are literally helping the most vulnerable and at-risk members of our society by doing so.
These events originally happened to me on April 21, 2009.
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It was a day like today.
It was neither especially warm nor cold. It was slightly overcast, but nothing to speak of. The work day had been especially average, with nothing particular to recommend it. Things were quiet, no dramas unfolded.
It was a day like today.
We were walking down the street. I had heard snippets, but I wasn’t paying particular attention. Small details flitted through my mind. It didn’t even have to do with me, just a friend of an acquaintance, really. She was on her way to pick her up after the procedure.
It was a day like today.
She turned to me. “You’re pro-choice, right?” So cavalier. A heartbeat passed. Then two. “No. Pro-life.” A taxi blocked the crosswalk. The light changed. I added, “I just think everyone deserves the chance to live.”
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