Category: Catholic

Our nation again approaches the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, and I will again be with Dr. King’s family on that day.

Many people understand the connection between the civil rights movement and the pro-life movement thanks to the work of Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr. Her father, Rev. A.D. Williams King, was Martin’s brother. She began working with me full time at Priests for Life as our Director of African-American Outreach in 2004.

She and I have been together with her family at many events both happy and sad, including the annual observances of the national Martin Luther King Jr. holiday at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and the 50th anniversary celebration of the “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. On these occasions, we have been privileged to enjoy some of the most soaring oratory of our day, and some of the most articulate speeches about civil rights, justice, equality and freedom that one can ever hear. Time and time again, I have been energized and inspired by these speeches, and moved to recommit myself to the pursuit of justice and equality for every human being.

But therein also comes the pain and a glaring disconnect. The deepest human emotion and commitment to justice is evoked as speaker after speaker decries violence in the streets, senseless shootings, vast numbers of young people in prison, social inequities and economic injustices, and the horrors of war — to mention a few. But what is never mentioned is the violence of abortion, and the need to secure justice and equality for the child in the womb. Alveda and I have both felt the disconnect so intensely at these gatherings that, amidst the loud applause, we sometimes say out loud, “And the children too! Don’t forget the children in the womb!” We were indeed gratified when, on a single occasion (the MLK Holiday observance at Ebenezer in January of 2013), the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, in his keynote address, mentioned the need to protect all life, including the womb.

That is the kind of consistency that then gives credibility to the cry for justice and equality in all the other contexts that are mentioned.

At that recent 50th Anniversary celebration, we heard the assertions,  “There are still too many lives taken by violence… I dream of a world that does not hold anyone back…We can’t move ahead while some people are falling behind…We must protect the most fundamental rights we have…” No reference was made to the right to life of the youngest children.

And hence the pro-life movement declares today, “There are indeed too many lives taken by the violence of abortion… We dream of the world that does not hold the unborn back…We can’t move ahead while children in the womb are falling behind…We must protect the most fundamental right we have, the right to life.”

On Christmas of 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. preached the following words: “The next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God…Man is more than …whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke …. Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such….And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won’t exploit people, we won’t trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won’t kill anybody.”

Indeed, we won’t kill anybody, including the children in the womb.

Father Pavone’s website can be found here.

A Novena in Reparation for Roe vs. Wade is being held through Jan. 22.  The prayer is:

God and Father of Life,
You have created every human person,
And have opened the way for each to have eternal
life.

We live in the shadow of death.
Tens of millions of your children have been
killed
because of the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing
abortion.

Father, have mercy on us.
Heal our land
And accept our offering of prayer and penance.
In your love for us,
Turn back the scourge of abortion.

May each of us exult in hearts full of hope
And hands full of mercy
And work together to build a culture of life.

We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

It’s Christmas time again, and the Church focuses on the Incarnation, a word coming from the Latin “in carne,” which means, “in the flesh.” Christmas is God in the flesh: no longer only an eternal Spirit who fills the universe, but our brother, whom we can hear, see, and touch.

One of the reasons he did this was to empower us to love him, and to love our neighbor.

The first Christians learned how to love, because the source of love, the Christ who sacrificed himself, was personally known to them. They saw and touched him.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.  The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it…” (1 John:1:1-2).

And when commanded not to speak about Jesus, they replied, “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.’” (Acts 4:20).

This contact with the humanity of Christ speaks to us of what we are to do now for the unborn. It is the contact with the human reality of their lives, and the human tragedy of their deaths, that is to impel us in our self-sacrificing love for them.

It is not the “nuance” of the super-sophisticated that impels self-sacrificing, life-giving action. It is contact with the humanity we serve. It is facing the injustice that oppresses human lives, and then making a human response to it that springs from the depths of our own humanity, grounded in the God who gave that humanity to us.

That is why we need to look at the pictures of the victims of abortion — Not simply at the pictures of the living baby in the womb, but the pictures of what abortion does to that baby (see both at Unborn.info).

The last thing supporters of abortion want to talk about is abortion. You will not hear them describe the procedure, much less show people what it looks like.

In his homily on July 3, Pope Francis said,

“We find Jesus’ wounds in carrying out works of mercy, giving to our body – the body – the soul too, but – I stress – the body of your wounded brother, because he is hungry, because he is thirsty, because he is naked, because he is humiliated, because he is a slave, because he’s in jail because he is in the hospital…Those are the wounds of Jesus today. …We need to touch the wounds of Jesus, we must caress the wounds of Jesus, we need to bind the wounds of Jesus with tenderness, we have to kiss the wounds of Jesus, and this literally. Just think of what happened to St. Francis, when he embraced the leper? The same thing that happened to Thomas: his life changed. ”

Let us touch the sufferings of the baby who is in danger of abortion, and be changed into fearless warriors for them.

Read and listen to this column online at Priestsforlife.org/columns/4824-our-physical-god

Comments on this column? Go to Askfrfrank.com

Fr. Frank’s columns are podcast. See Priestsforlife.org/podcast

Remember to support our work at Priestsforlife.org/donate

 

“IRS officials have, of course, confessed that they
inappropriately targeted conservative groups — especially those with
‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their names — for extra scrutiny when they
sought non-profit status. Allegations of abuse or harassment have since
broadened to include groups conducting grassroots projects to ‘make
America a better place to live,’ to promote classes about the U.S.
Constitution or to raise support for Israel.

“However, it now appears the IRS also challenged some individuals
and religious groups that, while defending key elements of their faith
traditions, have criticized projects dear to the current White House,
such as health-care reform, abortion rights and same-sex marriage.”

Terry Mattingly, director, Washington Journalism Center; weekly column, May 22

Let’s begin this week with a simple statement of fact. America’s
Catholic bishops started pressing for adequate health-care coverage for
all of our nation’s people decades before the current administration
took office. In the Christian tradition, basic medical care is a matter
of social justice and human dignity. Even now, even with the financial
and structural flaws that critics believe undermine the 2010 Affordable
Care Act, the bishops continue to share the goal of real health-care
reform and affordable medical care for all Americans.

But health care has now morphed into a religious liberty issue
provoked entirely – and needlessly — by the current White House.
Despite a few small concessions under pressure, the administration
refuses to withdraw or reasonably modify a Health and Human Services
(HHS) contraceptive mandate that violates the moral and religious
convictions of many individuals, private employers and religiously
affiliated and inspired organizations.

Coupled with the White House’s refusal to uphold the 1996 Defense of
Marriage Act, and its astonishing disregard for the unique nature of
religious freedom displayed by its arguments in a 9-0 defeat in the 2012
Hosanna-Tabor Supreme Court decision, the HHS mandate can only
be understood as a form of coercion. Access to inexpensive
contraception is a problem nowhere in the United States. The mandate is
thus an ideological statement; the imposition of a preferential option
for infertility. And if millions of Americans disagree with it on
principle – too bad.

The fraud at the heart of our nation’s “reproductive rights”
vocabulary runs very deep and very high. In his April 26 remarks to the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the president never once used
the word “abortion,” despite the ongoing Kermit Gosnell trial in
Philadelphia and despite Planned Parenthood’s massive role in the
abortion industry.

Likewise, as Anthony Esolen recently noted so well,
NARAL Pro-Choice America’s public statement on the conviction of
abortionist Gosnell was a masterpiece of corrupt and misleading
language. Gosnell was found guilty of murdering three infants, but no such mention was made anywhere in the NARAL Pro-Choice America statement.

None of this is finally surprising. Christians concerned for the
rights of unborn children, as well as for their mothers, have dealt with
bias in the media and dishonesty from the nation’s abortion syndicate
for 40 years. But there’s a special lesson in our current situation.
Anyone who thinks that our country’s neuralgic sexuality issues can
somehow be worked out respectfully in the public square in the years
ahead, without a parallel and vigorous defense of religious freedom, had
better think again.

As Mollie Hemingway, Stephen Krason and Wayne Laugesen
have all pointed out, the current IRS scandal – involving IRS targeting
of “conservative” organizations – also has a religious dimension.
Selective IRS pressure on religious individuals and organizations has
drawn very little media attention. Nor should we expect any, any time
soon, for reasons Hemingway
outlines for the Intercollegiate Review. But the latest IRS ugliness is
a hint of the treatment disfavored religious groups may face in the
future, if we sleep through the national discussion of religious liberty
now.

The day when Americans could take the Founders’ understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up.

American Catholics are called to observe a second annual
“Fortnight for Freedom” through July 4. For  information, see
the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Hat tip Cathy Craddock

 

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