Evil Beyond Belief: New York States Passes Bill Allowing Abortion Up To Due Date

This morning at Mass our priest told us that New York State just passed a new abortion law with the Orwellian title of Reproductive Health Act.

This bill has nothing to do with "reproduction" or "health."  It is all about expanding the law to legally kill babies.

This bill should be rightly called the Kill The Babies Act.

The new abortion law in New York allows women to kill their babies right up to the time of delivery.  Gov. Cuomo said he wanted this because he fears that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, thus leaving it up to each state to decide on legalized abortion.  He wants to be sure New York will be ready with the most liberal abortion laws possible.

Thoughts on Irish Legalization of Abortion: The Church has blood on her hands

It is now official.  Ireland, once the most Catholic of all countries, has legalized the killing of their unborn children.

Abortion goes against nature itself.  Nature is all about survival and propagating the species.  Birds and animals will give their lives to protect their young.  Yet we humans will destroy our young merely because they are "inconvenient."  Yes, we hear stories about rape and incest and medically deformed fetuses.  But that is all a smokescreen.  The vast, vast majority of abortions are performed because the babies are not wanted by one or both of the parents.  Below is a chart showing reasons for abortion:

Part III: The Papal Posse/Papal Hanging Mob Attacks Pope Francis

This is the third in a series of posts I am doing in an analysis of an EWTN "Papal Posse" attack on Pope Francis and the Apostolic Exhortation, GAUDETE ET EXSULTATE.  I have renamed the "Papal Posse" as the Papal Hanging Mob, because that is a much more apt description of their actions.  As I have shown in my previous two posts (HERE and HERE), Raymond Arroyo and his two buddies, Robert Royal and Fr. Gerald Murray, have completely missed the meaning of this papal document, and are doing a grave disservice to all who listen to them.  They are spreading dissent and division in the Church, and they will have much for which they will have to answer.

Here, once again, is the video of the "discussion" by the Papal Hanging Mob.  We begin at the 19:49 mark.

At this point in the "discussion", Arroyo complains that the Aposotolic Exhortation equates the pro life cause with caring for migrants. Arroyo tells us that Pope Francis "puts them on the same plane". Arroyo and the Papal Hanging Mob obviously do not feel that the oppression and slaughter of those outside of the womb is as great an evil as the death of the unborn. Arroyo, as his custom, gives us a manipulated, partial quote, spliced together from different paragraphs of the Exhortation, obscuring the true meaning of the statements:

Some Catholics affirm that it is a secondary issue with respect to the 'serious' issue of bioethics . . . Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute the abandoned.

Why I Don't Support or Attend the March for Life

I am staunchly pro life. My political and religious beliefs have changed many times throughout the decades of my life, but I have always been against abortion. I am old enough to remember when the Supreme Court legalized abortion. I cried when I saw the headline in my local paper. I could not believe we were now going to kill our babies.

For the past nine years, I have been praying almost every week in front of an abortion clinic. I stand in front of the abortion clinic because, out of all the great evils in our world, I don't believe there is a greater evil than than killing innocent, defenseless life. Abortion kills not only the babies, but is spiritually, emotionally and mentally lethal to all of those involved: the parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, potential friends and spouses of the aborted babies, and harms society and the world in general. We will never know how much we have lost in the deaths of all the hundreds of millions and maybe billions of aborted babies throughout the world.

New York Times: Abortion Is A Terrible, Traumatic Event, And It Must Remain Legal

There is a really interesting editorial in the Opinion Section of the New York Times.  It is an intensely personal piece written by a woman who had an abortion 20 years ago.  She had become pregnant as the result of an affair with a married man.  She had always been very supportive of abortion rights, and she actually planned to film her abortion and show what a good option this is.

As she writes, she was in for a rude awakening.

You can read the article HERE.   Below is the text of her opinion piece.

I Couldn’t Turn My Abortion Into Art

By LISA SELIN DAVIS

 JULY 2, 2014 8:01 PMJuly 3, 2014 4:15 p

I’d had only one serious boyfriend by this time and recently had been asked for the first time, “Can I buy you a drink?” by a man. (He was an actor in a film I’d worked on the summer before; he asked everybody that question, but still it felt like progress.) Somehow, by that tender age, I had convinced myself that I should take what I could get. So I took the married sound mixer. I had just turned 22 and I had the self-esteem of a squashed toad. This may explain why I was having an affair with a married 36-year-old sound mixer whom I’d met on a film shoot a couple of months earlier.

And then, a few months later, I rolled out of bed at an unreasonably early hour and vomited.

This didn’t seem as big a problem to me as it might have for other young women. This was the mid-1990s. Reared on protest marches, I had a NOW poster affixed to my bedroom wall. I was an unwavering believer in the fierce rhetoric of pro-choice. And now: a poster child.

In addition, in college I had essentially majored in experimental feminist video. I could make art out of anything.

I called my boss — a pretty, perpetually single 35-year-old art director — and confided my situation. She gave me the name of a clinic on Park Avenue. “Whatever you do, don’t go alone,” she said. 

I called. I made an appointment for the next day and checked the price: $350 — slightly more than a week’s pay.

The money intimidated me but the mission didn’t. Not only was this the right I’d marched for, it was an opportunity. It could provide material for the kinds of film I’d voraciously consumed in college, in which women transformed their most traumatic experiences into emotionally stirring and awareness-raising images: Margie Strosser’s “Rape Stories” or “The Body Beautiful” by Ngozi Onwurah, about a mother undergoing a radical mastectomy. An abortion today, a debut at Sundance tomorrow.

The next day was perfect movie material. A blizzard had hit New York City, shutting down the trains. I did something that I considered extravagant at that time: I called a car service. I added it to the mental tally, the bill I’d present to the married man when he returned from working on a film overseas.

I stuffed my Ricoh Hi8 video camera in my backpack, and I went alone.

The driver was Middle Eastern, from some hot and weather-less country, but he did a fair job of steering into the skids. He kept asking me why I was going out in such weather.

“I have to go to the doctor,” I kept telling him.

“Why? You don’t look sick.”

“I have to have a procedure.”

“What? What procedure?”

Finally, I told him. Why not? I was proud and un-conflicted. I was exercising my right. I was making a video.

He pulled over to the side of the road, right there on the Brooklyn Bridge — not only illegal but dangerous. “Please don’t kill the baby,” he said. “Please don’t kill the baby.”

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t kill the baby.” He wouldn’t move the car, though horns blared all around us.

“Keep driving! I have an appointment!” I shook his headrest. This was not part of the script.

“Please don’t kill the baby,” he said again, turning around to face me. He had beautiful big brown eyes — almost black. “I will take care of you and the baby. I work two jobs.”

“Drive,” I told him.

“You are going by yourself?” he asked.

I said, “Drive.”

He drove. The camera wasn’t on. I didn’t have any of it on tape.

At the clinic’s counter, the receptionist asked me what I’d come for. I said, “Um …”

“Termination of pregnancy?” she asked in her best would-you-like-fries-with-that voice. I nodded.

They gave me pamphlets, a paper gown and paper slippers. They sat me in a room filled with women, one of whom told me she’d been there eight times before. “They used to have terry cloth,” she said, lifting her toes in the paper slippers. It had never occurred to me that people had serial abortions, but it confirmed my expectations: abortion — safe, legal, no big deal.

Yet as I looked around the room, my expectations began to shift. This wasn’t the liberating environment I’d expected to enter. The uncomplicated message of those protests led me to think that legal abortion would be light. Lite. I wasn’t prepared for the saturnine cloudiness of the room, all those sad-looking women burying their faces in tabloid magazines.

The video camera stayed sleeping in my lap.

Nurses led me and 10 other women into a room where they talked to us about our anesthetic options — local or general — and had us sign forms. Everyone opted for general except for me. “I want local,” I said. I showed the woman from the clinic my video camera. “I want to be awake and I want to record it.” I said this with a now wavering smile.

She took me aside and informed me that I could not use my video camera in the operating room for legal reasons, and that they did not approve of local anesthesia.

“Why are you giving me the option, then?” I asked.

“We have to,” the woman said. For legal reasons.

My hands shook, the camera wobbling in my grasp. I was freezing inside my paper gown. I checked the “general” box on the form. I put the camera in my bag.

The first thing I thought when I awoke from the anesthesia was that I’d never be pregnant again, that I had just squandered my only chance at motherhood. I was sobbing — I had arisen from the depths of the medication this way — as they rolled me into the recovery room where the other women were lying, almost all of them with a friend or partner or relative to brush their hair back or offer them ice chips. I could not stop crying, big heaves and gulps of it. The nurse came over at first to soothe me and then to quiet me.

“You’re upsetting the other girls,” she said.

“It hurts.”

She sent the doctor over. “Sometimes we have to massage the womb,” he said, inserting his hand inside me and pressing. This did not stop the crying, but eventually it stopped the pain.

Or, at least, it stopped the physical pain. The begging cabdriver and the woman on her ninth abortion and the shocking suction in my womb: It was too traumatic for me to make art of. Or maybe it was just that I wasn’t a good enough artist to transform that level of trauma into something that others could learn from and use. I had been taught that a woman’s right to choose was the most important thing to fight for, but I hadn’t known what a brutal choice it was.

I took a car service home, too, where my brother and his girlfriend met me and we ordered in. “We would have gone with you,” they said, “if you’d asked.”

“I was going to make a video,” I said. Reacting to the way my hands still shook, they tended to me as if I’d just walked miles in that blizzard. I knew then I’d never be a filmmaker.

About motherhood, though, I was wrong. Fifteen years later, happily coupled with a wonderful man, I gave birth to my first daughter; I now have two. I don’t wish I had a 20-year-old. I didn’t want that baby, with that man. Abortion rights, yes, I’ll always support them, but even all these years later, I wish the motto wasn’t “Never again,” but “Avoid this if there’s any way you possibly can, even if it’s legal, because it’s awful.”

I wish that someone had alerted me to the harshness of the experience, acknowledged the layers of regret that built and fell away as the months and years passed. I want my daughters to have the option of safe and legal abortion, of course. I just don’t want them to have to use it.

This opinion piece clearly illustrates the cognitive dissonance that is necessary to hold to a pro abortion position.  As this writer tells us, having an abortion "is awful."  She has illustrated very clearly what a degrading and horrific experience it is to have an abortion.  Yes, she still wants her daughters to have the option of "choice", but she never wants them to use that option. The conflict in the mind of this woman must weigh on her every moment.

The fact that this piece is written some 20 years after the abortion shows that, as Msgr. Philip Reilly often says, having an abortion doesn't mean you're not a mother.  It means you are the mother of a dead baby.  Abortion is performed once, but it never ends in the life of the mother.

Please pray for the direct victims of abortion - the babies.  At the same time, realize that although these little martyrs died horrendous deaths, their suffering has ended.  But the suffering of the mothers and fathers of these babies will continue for a lifetime, and will actually be much greater than the pain experienced by their babies.  Pray that the parents of the babies will seek the forgiveness and mercy which they need and which can only found in Jesus Christ.

The United Nations to the Catholic Church: DROP DEAD

Credit:  www.cafepress.ca

If there is anyone out there who has any doubts about the worldwide persecution of the Catholic Church and the very real attempts to destroy her, the report just released by the UN should dispel all those doubts and more. Drudge Report linked to the story on this report with the title, "UN tells Catholic Church to change its teachings on abortion." The story was on breitbart.com and entitled, "UN Committee Blasts Vatican on Sex Abuse, Abortion." You can read it HERE.

The story starts out with the following:

The Vatican "systematically" adopted policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, a U.N. human rights committee said Wednesday, urging the Holy See to open its files on pedophiles and bishops who concealed their crimes.

The UN totally disregards the fact that all those involved in the actual scandal and those who tried to cover it up were all doing so in complete disobedience to the laws and canons of the Church. If the "policies" of the Church had been followed, there never would have been a pedophile scandal.

The UN also completely disregards the governmental structure of the Church in that the Holy See, i.e., the Pope, does not have jurisdiction over individual dioceses in the Church, but that the bishop of each diocese is the person responsible for what happens in his jurisdiction.   In fact, a United States Federal Court made this ruling in August, 2012.  From the New York Times in an article dated August 20, 2012:

The Vatican won a major victory on Monday in federal court, as a judge ruled that the Holy See is not the employer of molester priests. The decision by Judge Michael Mosman of United States District Court ends a six-year question in the decade-old case and could shield the Vatican from possible monetary damages. The lawsuit was filed in 2002 by a Seattle-area man who said the Rev. Andrew Ronan repeatedly molested him in the 1960s. The plaintiffs claimed that Father Ronan and all priests are employees of the Vatican, which is therefore liable for their actions. Judge Mosman made a previous decision strictly on legal theory and determined that, if all the facts in the case were true, then the Vatican would indeed employ Father Ronan. But on Monday, the judge said he looked at the facts and did not find an employer-employee relationship.

The second paragraph of the Breitbart article gives the real reason for this ruling by the United Nations:

In a devastating report hailed by abuse victims, the U.N. committee severely criticized the Holy See for its attitudes toward homosexuality, contraception and abortion and said it should change its own canon law to ensure children's rights and their access to health care are guaranteed. 

Further:

While most attention has focused on child sex abuse, the committee's recommendations extended far beyond, into issues about discrimination against children and their rights to adequate health care, matters that touch on core church teaching about life and sexual morals.

The committee, for example, urged the Vatican to amend its canon law to identify circumstances where access to abortion can be permitted for children, such as to save the life of a young mother. It urged the Holy See to ensure that sex education, including access to information about contraception and preventing HIV, is mandatory in Catholic schools. It called for the Holy See to use its moral authority to condemn discrimination against homosexual children, or children raised by same-sex couples.

Why is the UN going after the Catholic Church and for all intents and purposes, trying to destroy her by forcing her to change her 2000 year old teachings?  Are we truly to believe that the United Nations, which wholeheartedly and unreservedly supports abortion - the intentional killing of innocent children in the womb - really cares what happens to these children when they do  manage to be born despite all efforts to kill them?   It is so obvious that their goal is to destroy the Catholic Church because Holy Mother Church will never accept their immoral agenda against life.

The Breitbart article states the following:

No Catholic bishop has ever been sanctioned by the Vatican for sheltering an abusive priest, and only in 2010 did the Holy See direct bishops to report abusers to police where law enforcement requires it. Vatican officials have acknowledged that bishop accountability remains a major problem and have suggested that under Francis, things might begin to change.

Just a couple of weeks ago, a news story came out that Pope Benedict XVI "defrocked" over 400 priests in a little over two years for molesting children. You can read this story HERE.  Why isn't this fact mentioned in the UN report? Pope Benedict usurped the authority of the bishops and without any fanfare, took matters into his own hands. And this is all that we know about. How much more went on behind the scenes that we will never know?

The pedophile scandal is obviously just an easy way for the UN to condemn the Catholic Church. They act as if the Catholic Church was the only organization in which this happens. Pedophilia is a world wide epidemic. The internet is most responsible for the spread of this evil. Why doesn't the UN say something about that?

This United Nations report shows that the Catholic Church is more and more standing alone in a world that is intent on destroying itself. Every major sin has now received worldwide approval, and is not only accepted but applauded. If anyone dares to disagree, he must be destroyed, and that is most particularly true for the Catholic Church. Less than two percent of all Catholic priests were involved in the pedophilia scandal. The percentage of Protestant ministers involved in pedophilia is around ten percent. Why isn't the UN concerned about this? Simple. Protestants for the most part (Evangelicals being the exception) are not threatening the culture of death that is promoted by the United Nations.

This UN report came out of an interrogation held by the UN on January 16. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, who headed the Vatican delegation, felt completely blindsided by this report and stated, "It seems as if the document was prepared before the committee meeting, where the Vatican gave detailed responses on various points that weren't reported in this concluding document or seem to not have been taken into consideration." Your Eminence, I think you hit the nail smack on the head.

The United Nations is a very evil organization whose main goal seems to be to stamp out Christianity and, specifically, the Catholic Church. But this evil organization is not alone. We are surrounded by evil on every side. It is in our news media, our entertainment, our government, our arts and literature, our music. Sometimes I think the only place to find peace, safety and goodness is in a Catholic Church next to the tabernacle where Our Lord and Savior resides.

But the world is trying very hard to take that away from us, and just as the Church was forced to go underground when she was born in the first century, so we may have to go underground again. There is no longer any doubt that same sex marriage will be legalized throughout the United States. It will more than likely happen before Obama leaves office in 2017. When that happens, you will hear loud and persistent calls to criminalize anyone who disagrees with it. I fully expect the Catholic Church to be outlawed in my own country, just as it was in England in the times of King Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia just recently made a statement that he would not be surprised if unlawful internment camps, such as those that held Japanese citizens during WWII, will once again be used in the United States.  Do you really think this is far fetched? Ask the Japanese who were interred during WWII. 

Who would be put into such camps? Those who are enemies of the state. And who are the enemies of the State? Look at the signs, my friend. My own governor, Andrew Cuomo, just recently made a comment that those who hold Christian, pro life, pro marriage positions are not welcome in New York. From Foxnews.com:

"Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves," he said. "Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are."

Credit:  a12iggymom.wordpress.com 

Cuomo tried to walk it back, but everyone knows he meant exactly what he said.  And the very fact that he thought there would be no consequences to such a hateful statement shows just how far into the depths of depravity our culture has descended.

Christendom - the reign of Christianity in the world - is dead. The devil has taken over and his agenda is to wipe out Christians and all they believe in, just as he tried to wipe out the Christ Child 2000 years ago. He didn't succeed then, and he won't succeed now. But he will inflict major damage, and unless you are ready, unless you are grounded in your faith and your Christian beliefs and are literally willing to die for what you believe in, the devil may win the battle over you personally.

I Peter 5:6-9

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

Credit: voiceofwarning.blogspot.com

The Lesson From Pope Francis On Preaching the Gospel to a Post-Christian World

“I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... And you have to start from the ground up.” 

Pope Francis

Pope Francis has now given what may be the most controversial interview in papal history, and it also may be one of the most important interviews ever given. The media, as expected, has colored it with their own interpretation. Bloomberg News summed it up with this headline "Pope Says Church Should Stop Obsessing Over Gays, Abortion." The New York Times headline was, "Pope Says Church Is ‘Obsessed’ With Gays, Abortion and Birth Control." Many Traditionalists and conservatives were very upset by the Pope's remarks. Others came out trying to defend the Pope's remarks. Bill Donohue of The Catholic League, in trying to defend Pope Francis, said that "people are tied up with these little micro issues on the left and the right." Father John Zuhlsdorf wrote a post, which you can read here, that he is keeping at the top of his blog in defense of the Pope's remarks. As he wrote, "I read what the Pope says. Then I try to figure out what he is really saying, apart from my own preferences about how he should say it." Father Z's basic premise is that the Pope has not said anything new. The Pope is merely repeating what the Catholic Church has always taught, which is basically hate the sin and love the sinner.

I, like most people, really didn't know what to think when this all came out.  The life issues, i.e., abortion and homosexuality and the destruction of the family, are most assuredly very grave issues and intrinsically evil.  So why should our Holy Father say we need to de-emphasize these issues in the Church?

So I took the time to read the actual interview, and I believe that Pope Francis, in this historical interview, is giving us the answers and guidelines we need to preach the Gospel to our spiritually and morally bankrupt world.  Every Catholic should read this interview, which can be found here. 

I think we should first take into consideration the times in which we live.   We live in one of the most morally and spiritually bankrupt of all times in the history of man.  If anyone has any questions about the morality, or lack thereof, of our times, look at the recent release of "Grand Theft Auto 5" which involves graphic violence and sex, including murder and rape, and which pulled in almost $1 billion on its first day of release.

We are now at a point in our culture where the only recognized sins are smoking (this is not even allowed in our entertainment anymore) and "intolerance." "Intolerance" is defined as believing in absolute truth and the difference between good and evil and trying to impose this belief on others. That is no longer accepted in our post-Christian society. Our world has accepted the philosophy of John Lennon: "Whatever gets you through the night, it's all right." The only moral commands in our society are to be "nice" and don't judge others. Nothing else really matters.

Christians, and more specifically, the Catholic Church, are now aliens in society. We are the counter culture. We are the the non-conformists. We are the ones struggling to swim against the tide. Talk of sin and hell and damnation is a language that is completely rejected and no longer understood by those around us. Methods of preaching the Gospel that were effective in a Christian-based society will not work anymore.  

Pope Francis is facing a world that most of his predecessors would not recognize.  Immorality and spiritual bankruptcy are not new.  What is new is that our world considers immorality to be normal and morality to be abnormal.    

So how do we who believe in absolute truth approach those who do not? We are commanded by our Lord to "preach the Gospel to all nations." It is our duty as Christians to bring spiritual salvation to as many people as we can. In the past, when society still believed in the difference between good and evil, we could appeal to them on moral grounds. When the Church told people that it was a mortal sin to be sexually promiscuous, people believed it even if they didn't like it. Sexual promiscuity is now considered a normal lifestyle. Homosexuality was never accepted by our society until recent years. Now you are considered a bigot if you don't accept it.

The Pope tells us that the two of the most important tools we need in approaching the contemporary world with the Gospel are discernment and humility. We should always give great thought and prayer to our actions and words. We should never feel that we have all the answers, that we can never be wrong:

I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time. The wisdom of discernment redeems the necessary ambiguity of life and helps us find the most appropriate means, which do not always coincide with what looks great and strong.

In connection with this, the Pope speaks of the importance of humility, of always leaving room for doubt in ourselves:

If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation.

“The risk in seeking and finding God in all things, then, is the willingness to explain too much, to say with human certainty and arrogance: ‘God is here.’ We will find only a god that fits our measure. The correct attitude is that of St. Augustine: seek God to find him, and find God to keep searching for God forever. Often we seek as if we were blind, as one often reads in the Bible. And this is the experience of the great fathers of the faith, who are our models. We have to re-read the Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 11. Abraham leaves his home without knowing where he was going, by faith. All of our ancestors in the faith died seeing the good that was promised, but from a distance.... Our life is not given to us like an opera libretto, in which all is written down; but it means going, walking, doing, searching, seeing.... We must enter into the adventure of the quest for meeting God; we must let God search and encounter us.

This next statement from Pope Francis shows his understanding of our spiritually lost world, and that those who wish to return to methods of the past are not seeing the real world of today:

If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists­—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.

How do we know when we've lost our way, when we are no longer serving other people but our own ideologies?  From Pope Francis:

When does a formulation of thought cease to be valid? When it loses sight of the human or even when it is afraid of the human or deluded about itself. The deceived thought can be depicted as Ulysses encountering the song of the Siren, or as Tannhäuser in an orgy surrounded by satyrs and bacchantes, or as Parsifal, in the second act of Wagner’s opera, in the palace of Klingsor. The thinking of the church must recover genius and better understand how human beings understand themselves today, in order to develop and deepen the church’s teaching.

The great moral truths of the Church can never change, but our understanding of them does grow. And the way in which we present the Gospel must change because the world changes. We must speak in a language and approach people in a way that they will understand.

St. Vincent of Lerins makes a comparison between the biological development of man and the transmission from one era to another of the deposit of faith, which grows and is strengthened with time. Here, human self-understanding changes with time and so also human consciousness deepens. Let us think of when slavery was accepted or the death penalty was allowed without any problem. So we grow in the understanding of the truth. Exegetes and theologians help the church to mature in her own judgment. Even the other sciences and their development help the church in its growth in understanding. There are ecclesiastical rules and precepts that were once effective, but now they have lost value or meaning. The view of the church’s teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is wrong.

And first and foremost, we must realize that we are dealing with the walking wounded who do not even realize just how wounded they are. We must always remember that just as God extends mercy to us, we must extend mercy to others. Pope Francis made a statement in this interview that we should all take to heart in dealing with those opposed to us. This philosophy was the guiding philosophy of all the great saints, and most particularly of one of the greatest Catholics in the 20th Century, Blessed Mother Teresa:

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.

If we see Jesus in every human being, no matter how degenerate they may be, we will be reaching out to that person with love and devotion, not judgment and damnation.

In this interview, Pope Francis gave us his idea of the way in which the church's ministers should relate to the people:

“How are we treating the people of God? I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess. The church’s ministers must be merciful, take responsibility for the people and accompany them like the good Samaritan, who washes, cleans and raises up his neighbor. This is pure Gospel. God is greater than sin. The structural and organizational reforms are secondary—that is, they come afterward. The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people’s night, into the darkness, but without getting lost. The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials. The bishops, particularly, must be able to support the movements of God among their people with patience, so that no one is left behind. But they must also be able to accompany the flock that has a flair for finding new paths.

“Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent. The ones who quit sometimes do it for reasons that, if properly understood and assessed, can lead to a return. But that takes audacity and courage.”

When we read these other statements of Pope Francis in light of our contemporary fallen world, we can understand why he would make the following statement:

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

I mentioned Mother Teresa above, and I think she is a wonderful example of how to preach the Gospel. Her main mission in life was to live the Gospel, to see Jesus Christ in every human being and treat them with dignity and love. She picked up her Cross daily. She saw Jesus Christ in the world, and, as a result, the world saw Jesus Christ in her. She preached the Gospel more effectively than almost anyone else in our contemporary times. She did it by her actions, by showing love and mercy. Then, when she had occasion, such as when she received the Nobel Peace Prize, she would tell the world where it had gone wrong, and the world listened to her. From her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize:

Let us thank God for the opportunity that we all have together today, for this gift of peace that reminds us that we have been created to live that peace, and Jesus became man to bring that good news to the poor. He being God became man in all things like us except sin, and he proclaimed very clearly that he had come to give the good news. The news was peace to all of good will and this is something that we all want - the peace of heart - and God loved the world so much that he gave his son - it was a giving - it is as much as if to say it hurt God to give, because he loved the world so much that he gave his son, and he gave him to Virgin Mary, and what did she do with him?

As soon as he came in her life - immediately she went in haste to give that good news, and as she came into the house of her cousin, the child - the unborn child - the child in the womb of Elizabeth, leapt with joy. He was that little unborn child, was the first messenger of peace. He recognised the Prince of Peace, he recognised that Christ has come to bring the good news for you and for me. And as if that was not enough - it was not enough to become a man - he died on the cross to show that greater love, and he died for you and for me and for that leper and for that man dying of hunger and that naked person lying in the street not only of Calcutta, but of Africa, and New York, and London, and Oslo - and insisted that we love one another as he loves each one of us. And we read that in the Gospel very clearly - love as I have loved you - as I love you - as the Father has loved me, I love you - and the harder the Father loved him, he gave him to us, and how much we love one another, we, too, must give each other until it hurts. It is not enough for us to say: I love God, but I do not love my neighbour. St. John says you are a liar if you say you love God and you don't love your neighbour. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbour whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live. And so this is very important for us to realise that love, to be true, has to hurt. It hurt Jesus to love us, it hurt him. And to make sure we remember his great love he made himself the bread of life to satisfy our hunger for his love. Our hunger for God, because we have been created for that love. We have been created in his image. We have been created to love and be loved, and then he has become man to make it possible for us to love as he loved us. He makes himself the hungry one - the naked one - the homeless one - the sick one - the one in prison - the lonely one - the unwanted one - and he says: You did it to me. Hungry for our love, and this is the hunger of our poor people. This is the hunger that you and I must find, it may be in our own home.

This is not to say we must never speak of the issue of abortion, homosexuality, etc.  Pope Francis has made that quite clear, when just the day after this interview was published he made a very strong statement about the evil of abortion.  Mother Teresa herself spoke of the evil of abortion on various occasions, as she did when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize:

I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child - I will not forget you - I have carved you in the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of His hand, so close to Him that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God. And that is what strikes me most, the beginning of that sentence, that even if a mother could forget something impossible - but even if she could forget - I will not forget you. And today the greatest means - the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion.

If we want the world to come to Christ, if we want to stop abortion, if we want to save our families, we must show them the Love of Christ, His mercy, His forgiveness.  Father Z put a statement from the Pope Francis interview at the top of his blog:  "I see the Church as a field hospital after battle."  I cannot think of a better way of summarizing the purpose of the Church.  Our job is to care for the sick and wounded, and we are surrounded by them.  From Mother Teresa:

There is so much suffering, so much hatred, so much misery, and we with our prayer, with our sacrifice are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do. It is to God Almighty - how much we do it does not matter, because He is infinite, but how much love we put in that action. How much we do to Him in the person that we are serving.

This, I believe is the message of our Holy Father, Pope Francis. 

I hope you will take the time to read the entire interview with Pope Francis.  It is long, but there is so much to be learned from it.

Is Racism Alive and Well in America?

MT @kirstiealley: White people used to make black people drink from separate fountains...Now we just shoot their children #Justice4Trayvon
— Liza Sabater (@blogdiva) July 15, 2013

I watched a good part of the George Zimmerman trial and I came to the same conclusion as many legal experts did. Almost all of the legal experts said that the prosecution did not have a case and that if justice was to be done in this particular case, George Zimmerman would have to be found not guilty. And that is exactly what the jury did when they acquitted Mr. Zimmerman.

Yet there is a very vocal group of people in this country who are still claiming that the acquittal of George Zimmerman proves that racism is alive and well in this country. And they are partially right - racism is more rampant, more institutionalized and more lethal in America than it has been at any time in our history, including legalized slavery. But the George Zimmerman case is a sideshow, it is nothing more than a distraction so that the Black community will not see the real insidious racism that is literally destroying them. Trayvon Martin was a victim, not of George Zimmerman, but of the institutional racism that exists in the United States of America.

What are some of the signs of this racism?

Walk into any minority neighborhoods in any big city, and you will first notice the many ads and billboards for beer and alcohol in those neighborhoods. These signs cannot be found in white neighborhoods. This is no accident. According to an article from Huffington Post:

Booze and binge drinking -- it's the stuff hip hop videos are made of, along with a disproportionate number of advertisements African-American youth are exposed to, a new study shows.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are shedding new light on a longstanding concern that alcohol marketers are honing in (and cashing in) on African-American youth and that this population is more exposed to the pervasive messages than any other group.

According to the report:

African-American youth receive substantially more exposure to alcohol advertising in magazines and on television, and more exposure to distilled spirits advertising on radio, than youth in general. This appears to result from two phenomena: brands that are targeting African-Americans generally expose the entire group (including youth) to more advertising per capita than the general population; and African-American media habits (including those of youth) make this population more vulnerable to alcohol advertising because of higher levels of media consumption in general.

Speaking of hip hop, this is a music form which started in the Bronx among African American youths. This was their music created by and for them.  But when it began to spread and become popular, it was taken over by white men. From an article found on Notesfromtheundergroundtv.com:

So, lets get this straight, White people been running hip-hop. Need facts, lets start here. Why do think the word “nigger,” is radio and tv friendly, while the word “bitch” gets bleeped? Understand, you can say “nigger,” nigga,” nicca,” in all kinds of ways and you will get no kind of backlash. Remember, Jadakiss said, “Stack chips like Hebrews,” on “All ABout the Benjamins,” but that Hebrews line was blurred and cut out of every TV and radio version of that song. I wonder, if he would’ve said, “I’m a nigger with an attitude,” if that line would’ve been blurred out? I’m leaning towards no, it wouldn't have been cut out. Matter of fact, it might’ve been the title of the song.

Why do you think drug dealers, pimps and thugs have been propped up to be role models for so long? Why do you think the image of the Black women has gone from being a pillar of our community to someone who twerks in the background and only looks good when they’re bent over or on their knees? Open your eyes. White people have been running this. Do you think if a African-American was running hip-hop we would’ve ever had a group called, “Niggers With Attitudes?” My father used to say, “No Black man with any understanding of where he came from would ever openly call himself a nigger.” White people were handed over the keys to the hip-hop world early. We sold it to them for some magic beans and big gold chains.

We hear over and over about how terrible crime is among the Black community.  The following is from a 2005 report the New Century Foundation entitled, "The Color of Crime":

Crime Rates

• Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
• When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
• Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
• The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.

What is the real cause of the explosion in crime in the African American community?  I think it can be traced directly to the destruction of the Black family, which was spurred on by the Welfare State.  The Welfare State, created by the Federal Government in the 1960's, took the place of the father in the home.  When fathers were displaced the family fell apart, and our entire society has been feeling the repercussions ever since.  From discoverthenetworks.org:

The rise of the welfare state in the 1960s contributed greatly to the demise of the black family as a stable institution. The out-of-wedlock birth rate among African Americans today is 73%, three times higher than it was prior to the War on Poverty. Children raised in fatherless homes are far more likely to grow up poor and to eventually engage in criminal behavior, than their peers who are raised in two-parent homes. In 2010, blacks (approximately 13% of the U.S. population) accounted for 48.7% of all arrests for homicide, 31.8% of arrests for forcible rape, 33.5% of arrests for aggravated assault, and 55% of arrests for robbery. Also as of 2010, the black poverty rate was 27.4% (about 3 times higher than the white rate), meaning that 11.5 million blacks in the U.S. were living in poverty.

Read the entire article here.   The family is the building block of any society, and when the family is destroyed, the society and the people in that society are destroyed.

But the most destructive force in destroying the Black family and community, and the most evident form of racism in the United States is, without any question, abortion.

The Federal Government gave $542 million to Planned Parenthood in fiscal 2012. That is over one-half billion dollars to the largest abortion provider in this country.  And where are the vast majority of these clinics located?  In inner cities and/or near major public transportation, giving easy access to inner city residents. Why is that?

La Verne Tolbert, Ph.D. wrote a fascinating report entitled, "Over 20 Million Aborted: WHY PLANNED PARENTHOOD TARGETS THE INNER-CITY." You can read her report here She starts out with the facts about the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger:

In her autobiography, [Margaret Sanger] expresses disdain for the poor whom she calls the wretched of humanity. Eugenics—the improvement of the race through controlled breeding—identifies certain ethnic groups as dysgenic, meaning they are biologically defective or deficient and therefore unworthy of procreation.

Sanger’s mission was to “stop the multiplication of the unfit…[for] race betterment” to guarantee “a cleaner race.” “Birth-control,” said Sanger in 1920, “is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, or preventing the birth of defectives, or of those who will become defectives.”

Sanger’s 1939 Negro Project may provide further rationale for the proliferation of Planned Parenthood clinics throughout inner-cities. The proposal, which called for hiring Colored ministers and selecting a Negro Advisory Council who would appear to run a family planning campaign, was to popularize family planning in southern black communities using community people as spokespersons. Although Sanger decried the fact that blacks believed “that God sends them children,” she believed that the best educational approach was through religion. “We do not want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

So we know that  Planned Parenthood's founder was an avowed racist who wanted to destroy the Black community because she saw them as the "wretched of humanity."  But as the author of this article points out, Margaret Sanger could never have accomplished the task of wiping out the Black community by herself.

Has her tactic of working in communities and through churches been so successful that clinics abound in our neighborhoods?

Although these combined reasons may provide a backdrop for discussion, the answer is No. Sanger’s personal mission alone did not propel Planned Parenthood to such national status. To do so involves a shared goal, multiple committed partnerships, and the sustained dedication of financial resources—a monumental strategy that only the United States government could achieve.

As Dr. Tolbert says in her report:

As an organization, Planned Parenthood met opportunity. What began with Sanger’s Birth Control Federation in 1916 had, by 1960, become a national movement. Renamed Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), popularizing birth-control for the poor had a three-fold purpose—controlling the growth of the population to preserve a quality of life; (2) producing children of higher intelligence in keeping with the ideals of the Eugenics philosophy; and (3) controlling population growth through the Malthusian strategy of monitoring one’s own fertility.

The organization in place, opportunity surfaced when African American women, who were perceived to be particularly fecund or fertile, became the focus of the government’s national family planning efforts. Reducing the size of traditionally large black families was a priority that eventually would impact other minorities as well.

Dr. Tolbert notes that the government felt that people, and most specifically inner city people, were the enemies of prosperity.  The government felt it had to step in and regulate these people and save them from themselves.  In 1969, the Director of the Health Services and Mental Health Administration (HSMHA) of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW) (try saying that three times fast) said the following:

In a country of 200 million, a growth rate of one percent per year produces enough additional people to populate a new Washington metropolitan area every year. And we are feeling the impact—in the crowding of cities, the sprawl of suburbia, the vanishing wilderness, the trespass of pollution. Every one of us feels it where it hurts most—in the quality of our lives….

And what is most tragic and most ironic is that we, who need it least, have readily accessible to us and to our wives the means of deciding how many children shall share our large and well-spaced houses and our trips to the beach. Those who lack our ways of buffering the pressure of population on their lives also lack the means to decide how many shall share their lot.

Dr. Tolbert's report then says that these birth control clinics were strategically placed in "high risk communities"  As Dr. Tolbert writes,

“Equal opportunities for the poor” became the catch-phrase for Planned Parenthood’s services to minority women. It was acknowledged that “skill, tact, and innovation” were necessary to make services appealing and non-threatening

Dr. Tolbert says that this "social planning" was moved right into the schools, where "Sex education went hand-in-hand with providing contraceptive and birth-control services for teenagers."  School-based clinics were started.

The SBC was seen as “the best hope of reducing the incidence of the ‘unwed mother syndrome’ among inner-city children.” Schools were encouraged to “prevent unwanted births” by publicizing the “location of contraceptive services for teenagers.”

The first clinic opened in Dallas in 1973.  These clinics, which supplied contraception to teens had the exact opposite effect of preventing teen pregnancies:  there were even more teen pregnancies:

By 1986, there were 60 SBCs throughout the United States. By 1988, there were over 150 SBCs, which is surprising since researchers recognize that SBCs are unsuccessful in impacting pregnancy rates. Additionally, where there are clinics, there is an increase of 120 pregnancies per 1,000 among 15- to-19 year olds. But this did not stop their expansion. By 1991, there were 239 SBCs and SLCs—school-linked clinics (clinics located near school grounds). By 1995, there were 607.

Dr. Tolbert concludes her report:

Abortion—an enterprise that targets minority communities where blacks reside—is big business in America. School administrators lack funds to procure lab equipment or computers or fix crumbling buildings but there’s ample tax and foundation dollars for SBCs. Perhaps it’s time that the government takes another look.

Margaret Sanger, who was beloved by Adolph Hitler, would be very proud of the results of all the "efforts" of the United States government. Here in New York City, three out of every five pregnancies among Black women ends in abortion. A July 17, 2012 International Business Times  article entitled "Black Abortions:  Necessary Health Care or Genocide?" tells us the following:

As of 2006, 50 out of 1,000 black women underwent abortions, according to the Census Bureau, versus 14 for white women and 22 for women of other races.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black women account for only 13 percent of the total U.S. female population, but undergo more than one-third of all abortions.

In Mississippi, usually ranked the poorest state in the nation, blacks represent about 37 percent of the population, but comprise 75 percent of abortion patients.

A website with the inflammatory name of “BlackGenocide.com” declared that almost 1,800 black babies are aborted on average every day and that black women have had 16 million abortions since 1973 (when the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion nationwide).

That figure would represent almost half of the total black population of about 36 million currently living in the U.S.

To put that number of deaths in perspective, consider that since 1973, the number of black Americans who have died from heart disease (2.26 million), cancer (1.64 million), accidents (307,723), violent crimes (306,313) and AIDS (203,649) combined do not equal the number of lives lost to abortions.

All of those protesting about the Zimmerman trial are 100% correct when they say that racism is alive and well in America.   What they don't realize is that they are victims of a shell game.  They are looking in the wrong place.  Abortion, not the George Zimmerman trial, is the true racism of our time.

The Abortion Industry Pulls One Over..on the Pro Life Movement

According to a July 9, 2013 article in the Washington Post, 17 states have recently passed laws restricting abortion.  One state that has gotten a lot of notice is Texas, which has banned most (but not all)  abortions past 20 weeks because, according to a Reuters article, "disputed" research "suggests" a 20-week old fetus "feels pain at that point in a pregnancy".  This is a picture of a 20 week old fetus:

It took research to figure out that a baby as fully developed as this one just might feel pain?  Prior to passage of this bill, abortion in Texas was allowed up to 26 weeks.  This is a 26 week old fetus:

Can anyone look at these pictures and not realize that we have legalized murder in our society, and that it is murder of the most innocent and helpless among us?  Yet, we are suppose to be happy and satisfied when laws "restricting" this legalized murder are passed.

What kind of "restrictions" are being passed? According to the Washington Post article, the most common laws are those that "regulate abortion clinics in a specific way, such as requiring them to become certified as surgical centers." Wow. That is really going to stop abortion if we can make sure that they are certified as surgical centers. It might actually shut down a few clinics, but it certainly won't stop the largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. 

One of the main reasons that pro lifers think they are actually starting to win is because pro choice people are fighting so hard against these laws.  Abortion proponents get out there and scream and yell that abortion will be banned if any of these laws go into effect, and those who are pro life actually believe it, not realizing they are being conned.  These laws basically mean nothing.

We're suppose to celebrate the fact that it is illegal to abort a 20-week old fetus, but if a woman is able to get an abortion when she is "only" 19 weeks pregnant, it is still okay to kill that baby.  That is a reason to celebrate?  Here is a 19 week old fetus:

Does anyone think that the 19-week old fetus pictured above will not feel pain?  What is the real difference between aborting a 19 week old fetus or a 20 week old fetus?

Here are the real facts about a baby's development in the womb, from the National Right to Life website.  By day 22 of the pregnancy, the baby's heart starts to beat and pump its own blood.  By the 6th week, brain waves can be detected.  By the 8th week, every organ is in place and fingerprints begin to form.  By week 10, all organ systems are functioning. The baby has a skeletal structure, nerves, and circulation.  By week, 12, the spinal cord is completely developed, meaning this is actually the point when the baby can truly feel pain.  Vocal cords are complete and the baby can suck his thumb. This is all during the first trimester, a stage of development when abortion proponents are claiming that the baby is still nothing more than a lump of cells.

I wish I could get excited about all of the "abortion restrictions" being enacted by various states. But what difference does it really make if we kill a baby at 2 weeks, 12 weeks or 20 weeks? That is still the same baby no matter how far developed he is.  We are still killing a human being.  And does anyone really think that there won't continue to be late term abortions? Abortionists are murderers by trade, and serial killers at that. The average abortionist performs thousands of abortions.  We're suppose to trust that a serial killer will abide by any law?

The only time we who are pro life can truly celebrate is when all abortion is once again outlawed. Would there have been reason to celebrate in Hitler's Germany if concentration camps had been more "regulated" and "restricted"? Germany was engaged in killing its own citizens. No one in their right minds would trust that government. We have thousands of Auschwitz's and Dachau's in the United States which are completely approved by our government. These killing fields are known as abortion clinics, or as some states now call them, "surgical centers." Are "regulations" and "restrictions" really going to make any difference? The government is doing no more than throwing a bone at us and expecting us to be happy. Well, I'm not happy. There are still some 80,000 plus abortions in my city, New York City, every year. The abortion rate is still over 40% of all pregnancies, and over 60% in some neighborhoods.

I truly believe that we live in the most evil of any time in all of human history. Sin is no longer sin. There is no such thing as good and evil. The only thing that much of the world sees as wrong is to call sin what it is. Everything is a "choice". We are to live and let live. This, of course, does not apply to anyone who does not agree with this. Those who actually see a difference between right and wrong or good and evil are the true sinners in society. We have completely lost our way, and to use an old expression, the world is quite literally headed to hell in a handbasket.

I suppose one could say that we can't win the war in one battle and I should be happy and grateful for the battles that we do win.  But this war against legalized abortion has been going on for 40 years in the United States, and we are no closer to once again criminalizing abortion than we have ever been.  Last year when Lila Rose and her organization released an undercover tape showing that Planned Parenthood had no problem with using abortion as a way of sex selection, i.e., a woman wants to abort her baby merely because the baby is not a girl or a boy, there was a lot of public outrage.  The House of Representatives swung into action and presented a bill to make it officially illegal to kill a baby based on gender selection.  The House Republicans used House rules that limited the debate about this bill, and raised the number of votes required to pass it.  Guess what?  The bill didn't pass, but Speaker Boehner promised that they would try again.  That was in May 2012.  We're all still waiting.

Below are some horrific statistics concerning abortion in the United States that are barely affected by all of the "restrictions" and "regulations" that are becoming law in various states.  This is from an article posted on endoftheamericandream.com from February 10, 2012:

#1 There have been more than 53 million abortions performed in the United States since Roe v. Wade was decided back in 1973.  [That number has been revised up to 55 million and counting.]

#2 When you total up all forms of abortion, including those caused by the abortion drug RU 486, the grand total comes to more than a million abortions performed in the United States every single year.

#3 The number of American babies killed by abortion each year is roughly equal to the number of U.S. military deaths that have occurred in all of the wars that the United States has ever been involved in combined.

#4 Approximately 3,000 Americans lost their lives as a result of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11.  Every single day, more than 3,000 American babies are killed by abortion.

#5 It has been reported that a staggering 41 percent of all New York City pregnancies end in abortion.

#6 According to Pastor Clenard Childress, approximately 52 percent of all African-American pregnancies now end in abortion.

#7 One very shocking study found that 86 percent of all abortions are done for the sake of convenience.

#8 According to the Guttmacher Institute, the average cost of a first trimester abortion at the ten week mark is $451.

#9 The average cost of a vaginal birth with no complications in the United States is now over $9,000.

#10 A Department of Homeland Security report that was released in January 2012 says that if you are “anti-abortion”, you are a potential terrorist.  Unfortunately, there have also been other government reports that have also identified “anti-abortion” protesters as potential threats.

#11 A while back one Philadelphia abortionist [Kermit Gosnell] was charged with killing seven babies that were born alive, but witnesses claim that he actually slaughtered hundreds “of living, breathing newborn children by severing their spinal cords or slitting their necks.”

#12 Some abortion clinics have been caught selling aborted baby parts to medical researchers.

#13 Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger once said the following….
“The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

#14 In a 1922 book entitled “Woman, Morality, and Birth Control”, Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger wrote the following….“Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.”

 #15 Planned Parenthood performs more than 300,000 abortions every single year.  [Planned Parenthood's 2011-2012 report said:  "its affiliated clinics performed 333,964 abortions in fiscal 2011.  That works out to an average of one abortion every 94 seconds."  Read more here.]

#16 Planned Parenthood specifically targets the poor.  A staggering 72 percent of Planned Parenthood’s “customers” have incomes that are either equal to or beneath 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

#17 There are 30 Planned Parenthood executives that make more than $200,000 a year.  A few of them make more than $300,000 a year.  

#18 Planned Parenthood received more than 487 million dollars from the federal government during 2010.

#19 The following is one description of the five steps of a partial birth abortion….

1) Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabs the baby’s legs with forceps.2) The baby’s leg is pulled out into the birth canal.3) The abortionist delivers the baby’s entire body, except for the head.4) The abortionist jams scissors into the baby’s skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the skull.5) The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted. The child’s brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed.

When these facts start to change and society once again considers abortion to  be murder, then I will find cause to rejoice.  These little bones that are thrown to us and called "victories" are just a way of masking the fact that nothing is changing.  The killing continues unabated.

In the meantime, I mourn for the victims of abortion, both the babies and their mothers and fathers, and pray that God's mercy will lead our country and our world to repentance and a true sense of right and wrong and good and evil.