November 2008

On The Wire... Fr. Frank Chimes in. --Pablo

  A Grave Mistake and an Abiding Hope

Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life

Americans have made a grave mistake in electing Barack Obama to the presidency. Yet America herself remains great and is not a mistake, which is why so many of her citizens will continue, with even greater energy and determination, to defend her founding principles.

The man elected to the Presidency said during the campaign that he does not know when a human being starts to have human rights. How can one govern from that starting point of ignorance? Governing is about protecting human rights; to do it successfully, you have to know where they come from, and when they begin. The President-elect has already failed that test miserably.

The American people do not share Barack Obama’s extreme and offensive views on abortion. They never have and they never will. The coming four years will see a widening gap between the people and their President on this fundamental issue. As Americans come to know how extreme his position is, the intensity of the struggle to protect these children will only increase.

The pro-life movement has made significant gains in the courts and in the law in these last eight years. For the next four, the movement will work to prevent the erosion of that progress. t would be a serious mistake for people to think that this election means the pro-life movement has no political power. All politics is local. Political power is about people. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was once told that given the political realities, civil rights legislation would be impossible to pass. “We’ll just have to see about that,” he replied. And the civil rights movement was born, stirring the hearts of the people to lead the nation to the victory of justice.

So it is with our movement. The vast majority of Americans are pro-life. They will fight abortion on the local level, opening pregnancy centers and closing abortion mills, activating their Churches and educating their children, proclaiming the message in the media and demonstrating in the streets. The pro-life movement is winning this battle in the hearts and minds of the American people, as opinion polls show and as the shrinking number of abortion mills and abortion providers prove.

Political races are always a swinging of the pendulum. As soon as you win, you begin to lose, and as soon as you lose, you begin the ascent again to winning. In the next two election cycles (2010 and 2012) the pro-life movement will make up for political ground lost in this one.

It is all right to be disappointed at the end of an election season, but one must never walk away. Amidst disappointment is abiding hope in America, where everything remains possible, and where a new chapter of the pro-life movement has just begun. The efforts that were made, and the sacrifices endured in this election season made a difference, and we will build on that difference to see another day when the work and the ballots of pro-life people will dismantle the Culture of Death. We will keep marching toward that pro-life America we seek, and won’t stop until we get there.

Priests for Life
PO Box 141172
Staten Island, NY 10314
phone: 718-980-4400
fax: 718-980-6515
mail@priestsforlife.org
www.priestsforlife.org

In The Mail Box... update for day 39 of 40 Days For Life from our friend, David Bereit. I hope you were inspired by the care and concern from David and many others.  -- Pablo

Dear Pablo,

Today is Day 39, and we’re in the home stretch of this fall’s 40 Days for Life effort.

Amazing things are still unfolding all across North America and many people are looking to keep the momentum building beyond the end of this campaign (See the press release we sent out yesterday at: http://snipurl.com/4w8j5 )

I had a daily e-mail message planned for you today until something happened a few hours ago that changed all of that... ...I watched in shock as a 16-year-old boy was hit by a car just a few yards in front of me.

Here’s what happened...

All day, our family had been visiting 40 Days for Life locations along Florida’s Atlantic coast. In the evening we finally rolled into West Palm Beach to spend the night before heading out to visit more vigil sites in the morning. A sweet local family had invited us to their house. While driving over to meet them, we stopped at a red light at a busy intersection.

As we sat there in the dark, a boy shot past us on his bicycle and rolled right out into the traffic in the middle of the busy street. Before I knew what was happening, an SUV going 40 miles an hour plowed into the young man, sending him and his bike flying through the air before they crashed to the pavement.

The driver slammed on his brakes and narrowly missed running over the boy. I jumped out of our rental car (as Margaret, Claire, and Patrick began to pray) and was the first one to the boy’s side. Within 30 seconds, nearly a dozen other people had stopped to help. The boy was injured, but thankfully not in a life-threatening way. He had cuts and scrapes all over, and his leg was in severe pain – probably broken. He told me that his bike’s brakes had failed.

The police and paramedics arrived quickly and were able to rush him to a nearby hospital to begin treatment and healing. Having seen the accident from about ten yards away, I can tell you it is a miracle he is alive. While driving away from the accident scene, Margaret and I were reflecting on what we had just witnessed, and came to two realizations...

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 1.) WHEN ANOTHER PERSON’S LIFE IS AT RISK, HONORABLE  PEOPLE STOP EVERYTHING ELSE AND TRY TO HELP. 

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I was impressed by how many people stopped to assist, and by the response of the  police and paramedics.

Nobody was worried about being late to where they were going. Nobody was thinking about how their stock portfolio was doing. Nobody was concerned about what church anyone else attended. Nobody was worried about each other’s political affiliations. When another person was at risk, people set aside everything else to help save a life.

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 2.) WE WERE REMINDED OF JUST HOW FRAGILE – AND PRECIOUS—EVERY HUMAN LIFE IS.

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In what seemed like a millisecond, this boy went from happily riding down the road to lying bleeding and in pain on the pavement next to the twisted remains of his bicycle in the middle of a busy intersection. He certainly didn’t expect that to happen to him. In the same way, none of us knows exactly how much time we have left on this earth and, as a result, we need to make the most of every single moment.

These two realizations made us immediately think of YOU, Pablo, and the tens of thousands of other faithful believers participating in 40 Days for Life all across North America.

When the lives of innocent, pre-born children have been at risk of death, and women have been at risk of devastation from abortion, you stopped to help by participating in 40 Days for Life. And your heroic efforts to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves” demonstrate that you ARE making the most of every moment and showing the world how precious and sacred every human life really is.

Let’s pray for the swift healing of the young boy who was hit by a car, and let’s press forward together in our efforts to protect every human life.

Here’s today’s devotional from Carmen Pate, Co-host of the “Point of View” radio talk show...

  Pray that God will continue to bless the efforts that have gone into the 40 Days for Life campaign, as we trust Him for the results.

SCRIPTURE

    Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand. O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the  prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name.

·        Nehemiah 1:10-11

REFLECTION by Carmen Pate

Nehemiah provides an awesome blueprint for volunteers in God’s service, particularly those responding to the devastation abortion has caused our nation.  Nehemiah grieved for God’s reputation as he witnessed the condition of the city walls of Jerusalem. The walls were broken down which was seen by neighboring people as a sign of weakness on the part of Jerusalem’s God. No wall meant no security for the city and its people.

We learn from his story that he covered every detail in prayer; inspired others to join the cause; organized others to help do the work; confronted opposition directly and turned to God when discouraged; and finally celebrated what was accomplished and gave God all the glory!

Like Nehemiah, we must acknowledge God’s sovereignty as we serve Him before a mocking world. We too need to be reminded that we are “fighting” for our families. We too must have an attitude of confession and repentance before a Holy God. We must pray for strength, refute slander, and not be diverted from our work.

Like Nehemiah, we will draw attention from the enemy when we are seeking to protect the well-being of God’s people. We too must stand firm and seek God’s help to persevere until the task is done. We too will be victorious.

PRAYER

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in heaven and in the earth is Yours. We pray for your continued guidance and protection throughout the remainder of this 40 day campaign. May we be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in Your work, knowing that our labor will not be in vain. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Yours for Life,

David Bereit

National Campaign Director,

40 Days for Life

In The Mail Box...  Making the wrong choice election day can cause a break-down in our American society. Vote pro-life November 4th. --Pablo

  Global Radicals Will Have Free Rein to do Whatever They Wish Under Obama Presidency
It is likely a whole slew of left-leaning treaties will be ratified and global governance movement will advance

Analysis by Austin Ruse
(Article originally published Oct. 24 on http://www.thecatholicthing.org) 

October 28, 2008 (thecatholicthing.org) –   The international social radicals do their best work away from the public gaze. These are the ones who want a global right to abortion, global same-sex marriage, and who generally want to give increasing power to international bureaucrats at the United Nations and the European Union. These people prefer it when attention is focused elsewhere.

With the global economic crisis and with war and the continuing threat of war, few are focused on their agenda. All they need to make great advances is a great leader. Enter Barack Obama. If he is the next president of the United States, the international social radicals will have free rein to do whatever they wish. And here is what they wish.

First, they need the United States to sign a bunch of treaties. It embarrasses the left that we – almost alone in the world – have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the International Criminal Court (ICC) There are other treaties they want the US to ratify, like the Land Mines Treaty, but here let’s concern ourselves only deal with social policy.

These are among the most widely ratified treaties in the world. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, for instance, has been ratified by every country in the world except the United States and Somalia. Talk about embarrassing, to the left anyway.

Each of these treaties has been signed by an American president: Carter signed CEDAW and ICESCR; Clinton signed CRC; Bush signed and then "unsigned" the ICC. But none has been ratified by the Senate whether under Republican or Democratic control.

Here is a snapshot of the problems with each treaty. CEDAW is used to promote abortion. CRC undercuts the rights of parents. ICESCR introduces things like a right to health and certain economic rights that Americans have found off-putting and that come with hefty price tags.

Lack of merits aside, the United States views its treaty obligations seriously. Many other countries ratify these things simply to get the United Nations off their backs. Those governments sign these treaties and promptly ignore them. We incorporate treaty obligations into our domestic laws, which can then be litigated in the federal courts. So we are cautious, but our resolve to resist may be growing weaker.

There is growing pressure both internationally and domestically for the United States to get with the new international program. The charge that America is isolationist rests largely on our refusal to ratify these treaties. Ignoring them is now seen as a remnant of the widely discredited Bush days.

Obama has endorsed CEDAW as has his vice presidential running mate Joe Biden. Both are in favor of the ICC, too. It is likely that, with a larger and more left-leaning Senate, a whole slew of left-leaning treaties will be ratified.

Besides existing treaties there is also the threat that an Obama administration will rejuvenate what has been a fairly sleepy United Nations. In the Clinton years, there were repeated global conferences on social policy. That died out in the Bush years. There is a lot of pent-up energy that will explode if Obama takes the oath of office.

But there are even larger issues than these particular treaties or new UN conferences. There is larger mischief afoot. It is called global governance.

The traditional understanding of international relations and international law is that they regulate behavior among and between sovereign states. By contrast, global governance holds that international relations and international law should have more to do with regulating the behavior of individual citizens within each state and that these decisions should not be left to sovereign states, but to international bodies like the United Nations and its various commissions and committees.

Harold Koh, a high-ranking State Department employee under President Clinton and currently the dean of the Yale Law School, writes that national sovereignty as we used to know it no longer exists. It has been replaced with a notion of sovereignty that says nations hold it as long as they are actors in good standing in the new international order. The only way to do this is to accept all of these new treaties and cede your sovereignty to international bodies. Koh will likely be high on the list for the Supreme Court under Barack Obama.

Whether Koh is elevated to the Supreme Court is not as important as whether Obama himself holds these views. Given his support of these treaties, and given the legal and ideological milieu in which Obama travels, one suspects that Barack Obama has no problem with any of this.

Austin Ruse is president of the New York and Washington DC-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute 

(C-FAM). (c) 2008

On The Wire... An open letter to Mr. Bill O'Reilly, Fox News. --Pablo

Mr. O'Reilly.

    Mainstream media cannot continue to ignore the proven facts behind the abortion-breast cancer link. Eight words can change the climate of death in America: Abortion markedly increases the risk for breast cancer. Period. Many studies have been conducted here and abroad over a period of years that support this statement.

    Susan G Komen continues to fund Planned Parenthood, the nations largest provider of abortions. SGK supporting PPFA is likened to a BB gun factory funding research for a glass replacement company. One hand washes the other, but it just doesn't make any sense. There is an obvious conflict of interest that cannot be ignored.

    The media is quick to follow the money, but is not quick to report the facts behind this horrible association. Our tax dollars are being used to help SGK with its research, but money is moveable. A general fund is just that.

    Speak out about the truth, Mr. O'Reilly. I have always admired the fact that Fox News is out there reporting the truth from the gut. Help save lives with this truth and history will prove you right.

Pablo Sanchez

Director, ProLifeJoes

 From The Archives... a Conversation With a Pastor.

I see a reflection of the weakness from the pulpit across America on the subject of abortion and the battle for life. I believe it is time that all clergy step up and shout it out loud:
Abortion is a Horrific Form of Killing, and It Must Be Stopped!  
--Pablo

On The Wire...  Happy black Obama supporters blind to the more than 13,000,000, (THILLION), and counting black babies murdered by abortion. Blind to the truth in light of the celebration of the first black man in 

Rev. Peterson: Black Preachers are Worshiping the Wrong Messiah