The Public DOMAin

Never a big fan of family issues, Florida Rep.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) has joined the dark side by becoming the first
Republican to co-sponsor bills that boost counterfeit marriage while
effectively closing down most Christian adoption services. Last week,
Ros-Lehtinen became the only Republican sponsor on a bill that seeks to
overturn the bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This new legislation’s
ultimate target is to overturn the state laws and 42 state constitutional
amendments in by redefining marriage at the federal level. This follows on the
heels of her co-sponsorship of a bill from liberal Democrat Pete Stark
(D-Calif.) that bans federal funds from going to adoption agencies that
prioritize child placement to couples that are married and heterosexual.

Already, Catholic adoption offices have been
closed in Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the Diocese of Rockford, Illinois
thanks to the passage of anti-religious legislation. In Illinois, after placing
3,700 abused and neglected children with loving families over the past 10 years
and providing about 20 percent of the adoption and foster-care services in the
state, Catholic Charities could close its doors statewide. Agencies in Rockford,
Illinois have already shut down after the state denied them a chance
to renew their license, causing the loss of 58 Catholic Charities jobs. The
Rockford Diocese had been handling approximately 350 foster family and adoption cases in
northern Illinois.

What the Stark/Ros-Lehtinen bill, (deceptively
named “The Every Child Deserves a Family Act”) would do is shutter
Christian adoption agencies nationwide, despite the large number of lives these
organizations impact. Put in a dramatic but truthful way, supporters of the
bill would rather see orphans kept without parents than to see them placed in
loving homes with a mother and father! While liberal Republicans exist in the
party, this one is part of the leadership. As Chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, Ros-Lehtinen has not had one investigation into the pro-abortion/pro-homosexual
focus of the State Department, despite the sacrifice of religious liberty
issues in favor of abortion on demand and a policy of forcing homosexual
“rights” on our allies. She’s has been reluctant to even move
legislation that would defund the U.N. Population Fund, which contributes to
countries that utilize forced sterilization and coercive abortion for
“population control.”

The GOP leadership has done a lot to protect
marriage, mostly by appointing a top-notch lawyer to defend DOMA in the courts
after the Obama administration refused to. However, having a member of the
Republican leadership undermine everything they’re doing on the marriage issue
sends the wrong message, especially when her current actions specifically
target Christian services. Is the Republican Party ready to be turned into a
party that sacrifices religious liberty on the altar of unrestrained sexual
license?

Family Research council  September 26, 2011

For Life

Bob

ABORTION HAS BEEN LEGAL nationwide for nearly 40 years, and contrary to promises
that it would free women, there is growing evidence that many women who have had abortions are suffering
from a range of physical, emotional and spiritual burdens. We are only now starting to un­derstand the profound impact it has had on the fa­thers and grandparents of aborted children, too.

Abortion supporters do not want to acknowledge this suffering and regret, but pro-lifers offer heal­ing. For over 25 years, Catholic dioceses across the United States have provided healing and reconciliation to women and men who are suf­fering in the aftermath of abortion through the Project Rachel ministry. Project Rachel (www.HopeAfterAbortion.org) counselors and priests share the good news that God’s mercy is greater than any sin, including abortion.

Because the Church’s opposition to abortion is so well-known, some “pro-choice” people are sur­prised to hear that the Church offers compassion­ate assistance to those involved in a past abortion. They expect the Church to condemn and aban­don them rather than invite and welcome them home. Project Rachel offers a chance to heal.

Plan to emphasize the Stand Up for Life March and Rally in Columbia, Jan. 2012 

Bring Council Banners, Chaplin, and family members.
Silver Rose Award for Council with best attendance. (Register you
Council at K of C table)      Silver RoseAward for Catholic High School with best attendance.

Each council  to send2 brothers to Washington DC, Pro-life March, Jan 2012  Bus & Hotel
arranged by Diocese (Individual’s own expense)…..Register for bus EARLY !

Each local council NEWSLETTER establish a pro-life section

Day of the Unborn Child, March 25, 2012, Prayer Service in Parish.  Dedicate or rededicate a
Memorial.

Special New
Project: Each council sponsor a local, pro-life outdoor billboard in hometown.  Send us a
photo of your outdoor billboard and we will post in the State Newsletter!!

McGowan noted that the Sisters of Life, a 20 year old small order of nuns take traditional vows  but
they also take a fourth vow “to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.”

The order was a vision of the late John Cardinal O’Connor. With 70 members of various backgrounds and education help those suffering from the trauma of a past abortion and those who want to put
their children up for adoption. But their most important work is their “Visitation Mission,” a spiritual call center where sisters have contact with about 700 women a year.

50% of those counseled by the Visitation Mission remain at home while some are placed in in maternity facilities and others move in with the nuns, in the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan’s Hell’s
Kitchen.

Since 1998 150 babies have been born at the convent. Guests of every stripe including homeless, pregnant
and undocumented Tanzanian, a Trinidadian nanny a Polish immigrant and a former network journalist whose boyfriend split when she got a Down syndrome diagnosis. Another educated guest got pregnant in England returned to the U.S. totally depressed said “an abortion seems like the most practical thing in
the world. But once you do get pregnant, it’s not so easy.” She had a daughter, got a magazine job and a subsidized apartment. She married and had two more daughters. She is now managing editor of one of fashion’s top magazines…

Mr. McGowan is the author of “Gray Lady Down: What
the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America” (Encounter,
2010).

DHEC Nurse Dale Smith described Horry County’s Nurse-Family Relationship
program designed to provide expectant mothers with a relationship they can count
on for assistance. In two years they have had 700 referrals with over 100
clients at this time and 56 babies were born normal and healthy. Studies show
that recipients fare better in employment and in school. http:/www.nursefamilypartnership.org    

Tom Herron a local Media Consultant and VP of GSCL reviewed the past and
current advertising campaigns undertaken by GSCL. http://www.makethelifechoice.org/

Elissa Viele, Bethany Christian Services Myrtle Beach Manager told of
several adoptions placed by Bethany. She related several instances where “God
ordained the right family for the child”. “Life can be messy. We are called to
deal with “messy” to bring about the best result possible for mother and child.
Elissa explained that open adoptions are the rule today. They afford the birth
mother an opportunity to do right for her child. Bethany answers calls made to
the Grand Strand Citizens for Life Pregnancy Hotline. http://www.bethany.org

Mary Lou England of Georgetown Birthright office told of their outreach
program designed to strengthen their pro-life saving work. This year alone they
have had 13 “turnarounds” needed to spare the child from abortion. In the last
two years since they began their outreach they had distributed 222 Layettes
serving 279 clients with 3300 diaper packages. http://www.sc-familylife.org/beta2/pages/family%20life/birthright.html

Finally, Dennis Wolterding of Mercy Care, a non-profit Hometown Hospice,
covered the services they provided. Services range from hospice and palliative
care to grief support, children and veterans services to community
Wellness.  http://www.mercyhospice.org

For those not yet familiar with the 40 DFL campaign, it is similar to a political campaign, in that we hold rallies all over the nation, we recruit volunteers, and we seek to win people over to our side.  Also Political Campaigns budget millions of dollars to get their message out.  Well the 40 DFL campaign has a budget too, but it is has fewer zeros.

There are some other notable differences as well.  For instance, politicians have access to luxury transportation with catchy names like “the Straight Talk Express”, or “Air Force One” if you are the P.O.T. U.S.  We have access to fine transportation too, as you can see, and it has been called many things, but I like to call it “Prayer Force One.

This is my first term as a 40 DFL Campaign Director and the prayers and support that I have received has really been great.  I’m sure that their will be surprises and challenges ahead, as their have been in the past, but I am confident that this group will remain faithful in the face of whatever obstacles we encounter.  Please keep us in your prayers.

One of the perks of being the Director is that I get to be the one to announce that yesterday morning, just three days into this vigil, we had our first confirmed save!

God is transforming hearts through these campaigns not only in our fair City, but also throughout our nation and even internationally.

According to the National 40 DFL website this is the largest 40 DFL Campaign yet.  Spring campaigns are being held in 247 cities in locations from coast to coast in the United States as well as sites in Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, Spain, Georgia, Armenia and Belize.

Picture a constant stream of prayer and fasting emanating from the United States and spreading around the world.  From heavens perspective this may be the brightest spot on a very dark world.  We hear so many negative things about our nation, but we must recognize the good in our nation as well.  This great repentance now extends beyond Biblical proportions, but then so does the sin for which we repent.

We are calling upon the power of prayer to defeat a politically and culturally entrenched Goliath demon that we call the Culture of Death.

The Culture of Death has affected everyone of us and in ways we may never fully appreciate.  Conservative estimates place the number of abortions in the United States since the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion at over 50 million.  That’s over 50 million of our brothers and sisters that might have been our friends, our teachers, our ministers, our priests, or even our spouse.  Add to that the millions of mothers and fathers who have been physically, emotionally, and spiritually wounded by this sin.  There is no war in human history to which we can compare this devastation.

These great wounds have festered into new diseases, into rampant impurity, into broken marriages, and finally, into euthanasia for anyone deemed unworthy of treatment.  What a mess we have made.

We can not turn back this scourge, but God can.  It is precisely when all seems lost that we a called to be most faithful.

God has promised:
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin and heal their land.”
– 2 Chronicles 7:14

Humility, Prayer, and Repentance.  That’s all we need, God will do the rest.

If we have eyes to see we can recognize God’s healing, locally and globally.
Though it may seem more like a chastisement, consider all of the ways that the world has changed since these national campaigns began in the Fall of 2007.

A majority of Americans now identify themselves as Pro Life and we are gaining momentum.

The ugly truth about the abortion industry is being exposed by many sources.
Abbey Johnson, a repentant Planned Parenthood director, now turned Pro-Life, has revealed to the world that Planned Parenthood encourages their clinics to increase the number of abortions, despite their rhetoric to the contrary.
Meanwhile, the hidden cameras of Lila Rose are showing how Planned Parent hood routinely disregards ethical and legal constraints, and puts the interest of rapist, child molesters, and pimps ahead of the interest of their victims.
Even the secular press was repulsed by the “house of horrors” abortionist, Kermit Gosnel, who exposed the extreme brutality of the abortion industry and the negligence of government agencies to police it.  To quote Fr. Pavone : “ You can not practice vice, virtuously.”

The abortion industry has been wounded and will surely strike back.  Do not be surprised or ensnared by threats or shouting arguments.

The power of our effort is not in getting the last word. Our power comes from Truth, love, and steadfast prayer.  Start every vigil with prayer.  Pray when you are in doubt, confused, angry, or afraid.

But do not despise the people that you may meet at this abortion clinic even if they rebuke you.  Satan is deceiving them, and frightening them, and turning them against their very own children.  Christ commands us to love the sinner even though we hate the sin.

Offer assistance to anyone who approaches you.  Assistance is always more welcomed that mere advice.   But even if we were able to speak perfect Truth, with perfect Love, we will not always be appreciated.  Jesus said that we should expect to be treated as He was treated.

Christ said: Blessed are you when they revile you, and persecute you, and utter every kind of evil against you untruly, for my sake.  Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven will be very great.  For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you.  Matthew 5:11-12

This work is not for the faint of heart.  God protects us from Satan’s deceptions with Faith, and Hope, and He arms us with Charity and Truth. And He has not given us a Spirit of  Fear.

We know that God will triumph in the end.  But woe to us if our generation fails to defeat the “Culture of  Death”.  Future generations will curse us.

However, if we succeed, future generations will envy the opportunity for saint hood that we have been given.  Expect great things and may God be with us.

Thank you

Malcolm Brennan
The Organization, Priests for Life, says that we can not save children without helping their mothers.  And so I want to offer special thanks to everyone who contributed to the First Christmas Fund.  The purpose of this fund raiser was to aid the new mothers who have accepted the gift and challenge of new life and whom we call “confirmed saves”.   Jeanette Gordon was our emissary to these women and she is here to tell us about her experience helping these women.

The Alan Guttmacher Institute [research arm of Planned Parenthood] tells us that 42% of aborting women identify themselves as Protestant, while 28% identify themselves as Catholic. If these numbers are accurate, that leaves us with the shocking conclusion that 70% of all abortions in the U.S. are performed on women who claim the name of Jesus Christ. This is almost beyond comprehension. It is true that abortion is happening with great frequency in the church.

Let’s Crunch The Numbers!  Figuring 70% of 1.25 million abortions a year, means that professing Christians commit over 875,000 a year. Splitting it further, Catholics commit 350,000 abortions a year and non-Catholics commit 525,000 abortions a year! On a daily basis, Christians commit over 2,397 abortions a day. Catholics commit 671 abortions a day and non-Catholics claim 1726.    From the Christian action news