Stats

January blog hits: 982 (as of 11:21pm on the 31st.)

Though my brother is quick to add, "At least 100 don't count because you probably go to your own blog."

Faith on Tap; Long Island

"We have the most incredible and rich faith on the planet."

- So said Dr. Kevin Kulik, who was hosted this evening at Long Island's Faith on Tap. He spoke on the "Real Deal about Men and Women."

It was fantastic.

Here is a link to his site.

"What?"

No lie, I am helping at a concert for 10 year olds when...

a lady comes up to me and asks, "Is there where you're meeting your mother?"

It didn't really register at first what she was asking so I just blurted out, "What?!"

She said it again. "Are you meeting your mother here?"

"What?!!?" I exclaim a second time.

Then it registers on her face. I am not a child.

"Oh." She offers. "You're an adult."

Hot Chocolate x 2

While praying outside an abortion mill this morning a father and daughter drove up in front of me.

Then they handed out hot chocolate to myself and my friends.

I don't know who you are, but THANK YOU SO MUCH!

---

An hour or so later, a man drove up...

hopped out of his car...

and gave us all some more hot chocolate.

THANK YOU!!!

---

I don't really know what to say other than that it is so humbling when others take the time and money to let you know that they support what you're doing.

I know that standing with signs on a cold day isn't for everyone and that people often want to know what other things they can do to participate in promoting a Culture of Life.

I will tell you that it's the little things that can really make a big difference. So much of one's involvement in the pro-life movement is consumed by presenting the pro-life position to people who have great distain for you. When someone does show sincere charity towards you, the charity bolsters your resolve to keep on with the message. (I once watched a man pull his car over, take out his wallet, and hand all the cash he had in his wallet to my friend ($200) in order for the money to go to the pro-life cause. Then the man drove away.)

For the 10 year old (don't know really know her age) girl that was with her father who bought us the hot-chocolate...that girl will now have an internalized understanding of her parent's views on the dignity of human life because of having participated in this small way than after any conversation the parents could ever have with her.

In her father showing charity to us, he in fact demonstrated to his daughter that he will be there for her no matter what...

and that, is truly pro-life.

Interesting quotes...

In the article, "Abortions Battle of Messages," Francis Kissling and Kate Michelman question their very own "choice movement." My comments are in blue bold. The red is just what I'm highlighting in the original text.

In the 1970s, the arguments were simple and polarized: Abortion was either murder or a woman's right to control her body. The fetus, however, stayed largely invisible. The pro-choice movement stayed on the message offensive, tactically shifting in 1989 from women's bodies to the "who decides" question posed by NARAL Pro-Choice America. But this was rapidly parried by the anti-choice demand that we look at what was being decided, not just who was deciding. Yes, we should all look at "what" is being decided (a.k.a. A BABY).

Science facilitated the swing of the pendulum. Three-dimensional ultrasound images of babies in utero began to grace the family fridge. Fetuses underwent surgery. More premature babies survived and were healthier. They commanded our attention, and the question of what we owe them, if anything, could not be dismissed. These trends gave antiabortionists an advantage, and they made the best of it. Now, we rarely hear them talk about murdering babies. Well, it still is murdering babies.

Instead, they present a sophisticated philosophical and political challenge. Caring societies, they say, seek to expand inclusion into "the human community." Those once excluded, such as women and minorities, are now equal. Why not welcome the fetus (who, after all, is us) into our community? "The fetus" is a human being in the fetal stage of life. To say "fetus" in such a way that aims to suggest that some'thing' is less than human, is to be ignorant of basic biology.

Advocates of choice have had a hard time dealing with the increased visibility of the fetus. Duh, because it's a little baby! The preferred strategy is still to ignore it and try to shift the conversation back to women. At times, this makes us appear insensitive, a bit too pragmatic in a world where the desire to live more communitarian and "life-affirming" lives is palpable. To some people, pro-choice values seem to have been unaffected by the desire to save the whales and the trees, to respect animal life and to end violence at all levels. Pope John Paul II got that, and coined the term "culture of life." President Bush adopted it, and the slogan, as much as it pains us to admit it, moved some hearts and minds. Supporting abortion is tough to fit into this package.

If pro-choice values are to regain the moral high ground, genuine discussion about these challenges needs to take place within the movement. It is inadequate to try to message our way out of this problem. Yep. Our vigorous defense of the right to choose needs to be accompanied by greater openness regarding the real conflict between life and choice, between rights and responsibility. It is time for a serious reassessment of how to think about abortion in a world that is radically changed from 1973. Yes, please re-asses. Become pro-life!

Whose Who in the News (and why?!)

I came home work this evening and as always, checked the news online.

My eyes fell upon a headline regarding the death of Heath Ledger. I actually had to re-read the link a few times.

After seeing him in Ten Things I Hate About You (which I think came out when I was a teenager...) he's remained one of those movie-stars I consider to be "pretty dream-y" (if I may borrow some super-80's jargon.)

The news of his death is sort of a big deal at the moment considering he was indeed famous and his death occurred today.

However...

The thing that gets me is that you would think that it is the only thing that happened today on the entire planet!

I'm starting to come around to completely hating news programs. The majority of it is highlights of the lives of celebrities- most of whom are famous for reasons no one can immediately recall.

Real news...say THE MARCH FOR LIFE...is virtually non-existent.

News programs simply do not reflect reality.

Good grief.

March for Life 2008

And yet another year goes by with no March for Life news on cnn.com or foxnews.com.

January 22, 2008

Look at a woman who is 5 weeks pregnant.

Can you see the unborn child?

No. But it is truly there.

---

Look at the Most Holy Eucharist.

Can you see Christ's True Presence?

No. But it is truly there.

---

Turn on your television.

Do you see coverage of the March for Life?

No. But it is truly there.

---

Why We Can't Wait

One of my favorite books is titled Why We Can't Wait, by Martin Luther King, Jr.

I've always been struck by the quote on the cover that reads,

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

I can't help but think of the contrast the current civil rights movement- the pro-life movement.

It is now the unborn who are oppressed and yet they will never be able to demand freedom.

Here we are on January 21st, celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day and tomorrow we commemorate the day Roe v. Wade was ruled, a day that set the fate of over 45 million unborn babies (and counting).

Alveda King, the niece of MLK, is a pro-life advocate. Check out her site here.

Keep Your Laws Off My Body

(Found this picture here.)

Good Quote

“Abortion is one result of the historic and deep exploitation of, and discrimination against, the female…When this exploitation and discrimination end, the practice of abortion will also end…It is a strange irony that other, pro-choice feminists embrace abortion and define it as a fundamental feminist right instead of seeing it as a fundamental and devastating exploitation. Such a feminist embraces and cooperates in her own oppression. Abortion, is the final analysis, works to the advantage of the exploitative male, not for the female…Abortion is a male sexual fantasy come true.”- Susan Maronek

The Extreme Religious Right

It is often insinuated that those who are pro-life hold such views because they are part of the 'extreme religious right.'

The truth is: there are people from all walks of life who are pro-life.

(If you go to the March for Life next week, keep your eyes out for the diversity. It's there. Not always the easiest to see...but it is...)

Anyway, the ‘extreme religious right’ is a broad and inaccurate sweeping label for those that hold the pro-life stance.

There are Democrats for Life, Feminists for Life, Atheists for Life, Dentists for Life, Gays and Lesbians for Life, Pharmacists for Life, Blacks for Life, people who Rock for Life, Jews for Life, Students for Life, the list goes on and on.

Certainly not all within these groups would appreciate their pro-life stance being stereotyped as belonging to the ‘extreme religious right.’

Assuming it was a joke...

Peter Kreeft in How To Win the Culture War, writes:

I know a doctor who spent two years in the Congo winning the confidence of a dying tribe who would not trust outsiders (black or white) and who were dying because of their bad diet. He was a dietitian, and he saved their lives. Once they knew this, they trusted him totally and asked him all sorts of questions about life in the West. They believed all the amazing things he told them, like flying to the moon and destroying whole cities with one bomb, but there were two things they literally could not believe. One was that in the West there are atheists- people who believe in no gods at all. (“Are these people blind and deaf? Have they never seen a leaf or heard a waterfall?) The other was that in one nation alone (America), over a million mothers each year pay doctors to kill their babies before they are born. Their reaction to this was to giggle, which was their embarrassed way of trying to be polite, assuming it was a joke. They simply had no holding place in their minds for this concept, and they expected every day that the doctor would tell them the point of the joke. And it is we who call these people “primitive.”

Very Moving

Because it teaches us how to love...

The best part is definitely the questioner's face at the very, very end.

Chastity? You promote Chastity?

"Chastity? You promote chastity?"

"Yep."

"How are you ever going to get a boyfriend by promoting chastity?"

"Uh..."

"It's like repellent..."

"I'm putting you on my blog!"

Another Reason to Learn Spanish...

Robot Created to Educate Spanish Youth about Sexuality.

(How liberated is our society if we need to have robots-ah! not even real robots!- give info on sex to teens? Personally, I think if we were so advanced in that category teens would feel comfortable talking with the real live adults in their lives.)

The Not So Great Debaters

A personal situation has led me to believe that the world consists of people who have no idea how to have a healthy debate!

Pro-lifers encounter irrational arguments all the time.

"Have you ever adopted?"

"No"

"Then you can't be pro-life!"

---

"It's a woman's right to choose."

"Choose what?"

"A right! It's a right!"

"Uh, but a right to do what?"

"You're a bigot!"

---

"Abortion should be legal."

"Why?"

"Population control."

"But who is being aborted is already part of the population."

"Nu-uh!"

"Well then...what is being taken out of the woman."

"Nothing!"

"Then why is there a vacuum?"

---

"You're pro-life?"

"Yep."

"You should stop being a pro-life activist and instead join this protest against the war!"

---

I could go on...

it's.just.so.irrational.

Maternity Leave for Students?

Should high school students be granted maternity leave?

Click here for the article.

Padre Pio

The following is an article I found here.

Padre Pio's body to be exhumed, venerated

San Giovanni Rotondo, Jan. 7, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The body of Padre Pio will be exhumed and exposed for public veneration during the coming year, the local archbishop has announced.

The plan to exhume the body of the beloved Capuchin saint has already encountered stiff resistance from some of Padre Pio's living relatives, who denounced the plan as "uncivilized."

Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio said that the body of Padre Pio would be available for public veneration in 2008, for the 40th anniversary of his death. Each year close to 1 million pilgrims travel to the shrine of the saint at San Giovanni Rotondo.

The timing of the public veneration has not yet been established. Church officials are apparently waiting for expert advice on the exhumation of the saint's remains and the preservation of his body.

But Pia Forgione, a niece of Padre Pio, has initiated legal action to stop the exhumation. In an appeal to an Italian court she argued that the archbishop does not have proper authority to put the saint's remains on public display.

Archbishop D'Ambrosio said that his plan has the approval of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He explained that he saw a "duty to allow future generations the chance to venerate the mortal remains of St. Pio of Pietrelcina." Part of the reason for the exhumation, he said, is to ensure proper preservation of those remains. Padre Pio, who lived from 1887 to 1968, gained an international reputation for holiness during his lifetime.

Thousands of people reported miracles after meeting with the famous monk, who apparently enjoyed extraordinary spiritual gifts including the stigmata and discernment of souls. The reports of miracles attributed to his intercession multiplied after his death, and devotion to Padre Pio continued to spread.

Padre Pio was canonized by Pope John Paul II (bio - news) in 2002, with an estimated 2 million people attending the Vatican ceremony.

Obama on Abortion

Does anyone else find it strange that you can't find anything on http://www.barackobama.com/ about his stance on abortion? Unless I'm missing something, there's nothing there on the subject. (Wimp!)

He's quoted on this website stating the following:

"I have consistently advocated for reproductive choice and will make preserving women's rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as President. I oppose any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling in this case."

Lightening Strikes Rudy

"My view on abortion is that it's wrong, but ultimately government can't be enforcing that decision..."

So you think that wrong things should be legal. Great.

Lead Where?

Where will she lead?

The AMERICAN FLAG IS ON THE GROUND.

Vote.

I was a student at the University of New Hampshire during the time of the 2000 election and the 2004 election campaigning season.

(It was a complete zoo...sometimes a strange zoo, sometimes a fun one. How any of us got our work done is beyond me. I once had to go through a metal detector that had been set up while I was in class because candidates were in the building.)

If there's one thing I learned, it is this: Someone is going to win.

For better or worse, it's going to be someone.

Another thing I learned is that like it or not, we live in a two party system. (Some elections have shown great support for a third party and a third party helps to raise issues, but doesn't have the funds to campaign strongly.)

We have a responsibility to vote. We may not love the total platform of a candidate and that's okay.

If you are thinking of not voting, consider this: Your "absent vote" is really a vote for the person you least want to win.

And someone will win. Even if you don't like any of the candidates!

If you don't usually vote: reconsider.

If you're not registered to vote: register.

If you're not sure where your voting place is: find out.

If you're not sure who to vote for: get educated.

Christispurestyle.com

Click here for a their site!

The Great Lobster Race

(Mine won!)

Thank you!

Thank you to all of the Faith and Family Magazine subscribers who helped make December a spectacular month with over 800 hits!

I have no idea how to keep moving forward with getting hits on this blog. If anyone has any great ideas (or, uh, knows anyone really famous!), please let me know!

Fulton J. Sheen

"Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved; there can be no world peace unless there is soul peace. World wars are only projections of the conflicts waged inside the souls of modern men and women, for nothing happens in the external world that has not first happened within a soul."

- Fulton J. Sheen in Peace of Soul