WARNING: The video below is graphic and upsetting.
January 28, 2019 (Live Action News) – In a disturbing and heartbreaking video shared to Facebook by In His Image Ministries, an abortionist can be seen siphoning through the body parts of a preborn child he has just moments before killed through abortion. He even holds the head of the preborn baby up for camera and measures a tiny foot.
“Basically, piecing the fetal tissue back together,” the abortionist said, describing his actions. “Make sure that we have all of the fragments.” The abortionist claims that too much focus is placed on the preborn baby and the “gory” parts of abortion, but the child’s brutal death isn’t what matters to him.
“The really important thing is that we’ve been able to help this young lady get on with her life,” he said. “She’s planning to go on to school and she doesn’t have to take on the responsibilities of parenting.”
What this abortionist ignores is that he is killing a human being so that another can attend college. In reality, no one had to die for this young woman to attend school, as many families would have welcomed her baby through the gift of adoption. Pregnancy help centers offer resources and connections to maternity homes to help young women in similar situations. Killing one’s baby doesn’t make one a successful college student; in fact, abortion puts women at a higher risk for drug use, depression, and suicide.
While measuring the now-deceased baby’s foot, still attached to the leg, the abortionist can be heard claiming that most of the children he aborts are in the first trimester. This is little comfort, as these children are still very much human beings and are amazingly complex.
At the end of the one-minute video, the abortionist is shown telling the mother of the child he has just dismembered that she was 20 weeks pregnant, as they had thought.
In the video below, former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino describes the abortion procedure that was used to brutally kill this preborn child:
At 20 weeks gestation, a preborn child is nearly fully developed and only needs more time to gain weight and grow stronger in the womb. In fact, children born just a week later, at 21 weeks gestation, can survive with assistance.
There is real help available to women which doesn’t include ripping their children’s limbs from their torsos. Abortion doesn’t solve problems; it kills a child and drops a mother back in the same place she was before the abortion, this time with the guilt and regret that often accompanies taking the life of your preborn child.
On February 1, 2019, Garabandal, Only God Knows will be premiered in 11 locations throughout the United States in the cities where the largest number of request forms to see the movie have been received through the movie’s website. These cities are: Los Angeles, New York City (downtown Manhattan), Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando, Houston, Chicago, Waterbury Ct, Phoenix and Denver.READ MORE: PREMIERE OF GARABANDA
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There was a literary symbiosis between G.K. Chesterton and Henri Ghéon somewhat like the musical one between Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky. Ghéon’s biography of Saint John Vianney, The Secret of the Curé d’Ars, is enhanced by the brief commentary that Chesterton added to it. Chesterton mentions a mayor of some French town who not only commissioned a statue of the rationalist Emile Zola, but, intent on further provocation, ordered that the bronze for it be forged from the bells of a church. This rings a bell, if you will, when reminded that an ecstatic Governor Andrew Cuomo chose to sign into law our nation’s most gruesome abortion bill on January 22, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, to raucous applause and cheering in the state capitol. In a fallen world, dancing on graves requires no instructors. Then Cuomo ordered that One World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Alfred E. Smith Building in Albany be illuminated in pink lights. The ancient Caesars dressed in red as the token of victory. Cuomo chose pink.
Mark the ironies: the Freedom Tower is at the site of the memorial to the dead of 9/11, and listed on that somber shrine are eleven “unborn babies” killed with their mothers. As for Al Smith’s building, that chivalric Catholic personality would have resigned rather than endorse infanticide.
In Orwellian “Newspeak,” just as a concentration camp is called a “Joycamp,” the killing of innocent unborn infants is sanctioned by a “Reproductive Health Act.” This macabre euphemism declares that it is legal to destroy a fully formed baby seconds before birth and, should it survive a botched attempt to cut it up, attendants are allowed to let it die. The abortionist does not even need to be a medical doctor. Under certain conditions an ambiguously defined “authorized practitioner” might qualify.
The legislation was deferred over the years by politicians who, if not paragons of empathy, were appalled by its excess. It has only passed because the Democrats now control both houses of the New York state legislature. Politics aside, the governor teased a religious question. Not only did he mention that he once was an altar boy, but he concluded the signing celebration by praying for the legislators: “God bless you.” It was an echo of the time that Barack Obama invoked God’s blessings over a national gathering of Planned Parenthood. A popular singer, Charlie Daniels, was so taken aback by this that he tweeted: “The NY legislature has created a new Auschwitz dedicated to the execution of a whole segment of defenseless citizens. Satan is smiling.” Theologians may differ as to whether the Prince of Darkness can laugh, but he certainly can smile as a way of showing that, in a Miltonian sense, evil is his good. Meanwhile, the bleak visage of Governor Cuomo should be shielded from children allowed to live, for it resembles with each declining day a grotesque icon of the Giver of Life in reverse.
From his rambling rhetoric, untutored diction, and scant intellectual formation, we may assume that Governor Cuomo has escaped the brush of Lord Acton’s aphorism that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Cuomo’s power may not be absolute, although it has now proven deadly, but even power that is not absolute enjoys a blithe courtship with vice. His official website now displays the cook with whom he shares a home in a relationship that would have exercised John the Baptist. This has barred him from Holy Communion as a disciplinary norm, if not a canonical penalty, and in recent times he has observed this. But, as a pre-eminent canon lawyer, Dr. Edward Peters, has indicated, Cuomo’s communicant status is further impeded by Canon 915 because of his promotion of the “Reproductive Health Act.” Dr. Peters says: “Penal jurisdiction in this matter rests with the bishop of Albany (as the place where some or all of the canonically criminal conduct was committed, per Canon 1412), and/or with the archbishop of New York (as the place where Cuomo apparently has canonical domicile, per Canon 1408).” Canonical discipline should not be caricatured as a “weapon” since it is properly punitive to promote justice and prevent scandal as well as medicinal to reform and safeguard the spiritual state of the offender.
These matters are beyond the ken or jurisdiction of a parish priest, but it is clear that it is not sufficient for churchmen blithely to suppose that an adequate response to the massacre of innocents by the inversion of reason merits nothing more than an expression of “profound sadness.” The faithful are entitled to the expectation that their bishops will qualify as vertebrates in more than a purely anthropological sense. Our Lord did not chase the moneychangers out of his Father’s House with a whimper of melancholy.
Although our Founding Fathers rejected an hereditary form of government, it roams like a ghost through various corridors of state. One is hard-pressed to convince people that Andrew Cuomo would be presiding in Albany had his father not formerly occupied his seat. Just as Andrew engages a reverie of his days as an altar boy, so Mario invoked his membership in the Legion of Mary. However, Mario rightly resented any imputation of a family connection to the Mafia. He is to be credited for his familial piety. This writer was a good friend of Mario Cuomo’s predecessor, Governor Hugh Carey, and I can attest that Carey much regretted not having blocked an abortion bill during his tenure. But when Carey was out of office, and devoting himself to Pro-Life witness, he was hounded and threatened about this by his successor Mario in a way redolent of The Godfather.
Perhaps Andrew Cuomo is succumbing to the temptation that some of the senators of classical Rome detected as evidence of decadence: the apotheosis, or divinizing, of emperors in an Imperial Cult complimentary to the traditional deities. Ignoring the objections of more than 100,000 petitioners, Andrew named the Tappan Zee replacement bridge over the Hudson River in honor of his father. The Romans also developed the custom of Damnatio Memoriae which erased the memory of disfavored predecessors. This fate was dealt out to 26 of the emperors before Constantine. The Egyptians did something similar when they erased the memorials of the pharaohs Hatshepsut and Akhenaten. In like fashion, Andrew Cuomo eliminated the name of former Governor Malcolm Wilson from the old bridge which was blown up last month.
In dark ages, there was a superstition that a bridge would only be safe if sacrificial victims, preferably children, were buried in its foundations. Peter Ackroyd mentions this in his history of London; it was more than a legend as a child’s body was found in the foundation of the Bridge Gate at Bremen. It was a ritualized practice in Japan, called Hitobashira. If Andrew Cuomo persists in ignoring the petitions of the people of Rockland and Westchester counties, and keeps the name of his father for the duration of the construction, there will be enough sacrificed bodies to ensure the soundness of the Mario Cuomo Bridge and all of them innocents. Herod Antipas could not have been prouder of his father (who did not enjoy a good reputation in Bethlehem).
One theory is that some Church leaders have been reluctant to annoy Governor Andrew Cuomo in the midst of civil investigations of the Church, given the recriminatory personality of the man. But accommodation is a weak strategy. After the Munich agreement, Winston Churchill said, “And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.” Corroborating that warning, just three days after his “Reproductive Health Act,” on January 28, Andrew Cuomo “celebrated” the passage through the state senate of the “Child Victims Act” aimed at Catholic Institutions.
While contemplating the Crucified Christ, Doctors of the Church have seen his flesh as paper, his blood as ink, and the nails as pens. So the Word of God is blotted out by the words of the morally illiterate. After Governor Cuomo signed the “Health” act, he handed his pen—having driven the nail into Christ—to a grinning and grandmotherly woman whose ample lap could have held several children. Alas, she had none.
Editor’s note: New York State governor Andrew Cuomo speaks on stage at a rally for the “Reproductive Health Act” at Barnard College on January 7, 2019. (Photo credit: Shutterstock)
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IMHO it will be a disaster for the Roman (Latin) Church to change the Church’s discipline on the celibate priesthood.
I have read and possess a booklet written by Fr. Anthony Zimmerman, STD, published by Human Life International in 1994 titled “Celibacy Dates Back to the Apostles“. The discipline was formally adopted by the Church in the 4th century. Fr. Zimmerman’s monograph was summarized in an article in Homiletic and Pastoral Review in April 1995 and available on the EWTN website which I recommend to you. THE LOGIC OF PRIESTLY CELIBACY
I have been a member of two parishes with married priests – St. Thomas Aquinas in Rio Rancho, NM and, currently, Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio. My understanding is our three married priests at OLOA who entered the Church as married Anglican priests are opposed to a married priesthood. I’d like to do an informal interview with them about this some time.
Prior to 2009, we had the Episcopalian Bishop of the Rio Grande, Jeffrey Steenson, convert to the Catholic Church and was posted as vicar to our parish, St. Thomas Aquinas in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. He was married with three children. We had a second married Episcopalian priest convert with a wife and small children assigned in Rio Rancho as well. He served in the military and during his short time in our parish, he was mostly gone on duty as a military chaplain overseas.
I can think of several reasons in my experience in parishes with married priests and from just plain common sense, why priests should not marry and have two families. Prior to the apostolic constitution establishing the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in the US (and two others in Australia/Japan and England) in 2009, there was a pastoral provision granted by Pope John Paul II in 1980 for priests from the Anglican communion to enter the Catholic Church (some married) and ordained as Catholic priests. Fr. Phillips, founding pastor of the OLOA was a pioneer founding a pastoral provision parish using the traditional Anglican liturgy modified by Pope John Paul II and the CDF under Cardinal Ratzinger for Catholic use.
Financial Costs:Our parish in Rio Rancho, NM provided for 100% of the living expenses (including homes) for the families of both priests including the time the younger priest, Fr. Jeff, was serving overseas in the Army for a year while not providing pastoral services to the parish. His family was fully supported financially in his absence.
Our three priests at OLOA have families and have three separate homes and salaries. One with children who are educated at the Atonement Academy. Parishioners essentially are supporting their families.
Two Families:We are all aware that fathers and husbands have a vocation as married men which is a full time responsibility especially when you have children at home.As a priest you are a father, a shepherd to spiritual children perhaps in the thousands, many very needy for your attention and time. Like doctors and first responders, your time is not your own when you’re called out to emergencies in hospitals, hospices, bedsides to comfort and administer the sacraments to the sick and dying, couples with domestic problems.
I’ve found that married priests are not as available or open to spending time with you because they have other pressing family matters. We can understand their obligations and would not desire that they neglect their family’s needs. The younger married priests seem to make the least time and they’re rushed; older priests with grown children have more time. It’s a difficult challenge for them to juggle these two “families” and joint responsibilities. Obedience to the Bishop and Assignments:Our bishops have challenges during this extended period in the West with the priest shortage in assigning priests to different duties. The married priest may have a serious challenge with his spouse and children resisting and unhappy with assignments to remote locations and relocations. Unmarried priests may resent these married priests because they get the “challenging” assignments while the married clergy stay in “comfortable” preferred locations due to concern for their families. Bad for morale. We’re all human.
A close priest friend of mine, unmarried, had difficult assignments traveling all the time to serve mission parishes in the boonies of New Mexico. He also was in charge of the statewide Pro-Life Center based in Albuquerque. It would have been very difficult to assign a married priest with a family to those mission posts.
Workload and Family Stress:Married priests especially with young children have a very FULL plate. Fr. Phillips was exemplary in pioneering not only a parish church but an exceptional Catholic school. But I suspect it took a toll on his family life and his accomplishments are truly exceptional. Most younger unmarried priests I doubt, could not achieve what he has done enduring terrible burdens, sacrifices, and even persecutions. What does the Church do with married priests with troubled marriages or serious problems with their children? They are human. How do they divide their time when serious problems arise with their family members at home and, at the same time, their parish family members experiencing some crisis? Who takes priority? Quality of Pastoral Care: Many married men with spouses and children at home have serious stresses and challenges balancing work and family life. But typically it’s a 40 hour week and weekends free. Married priests don’t get that break even on their days off. It is a challenge to concentrate on their spiritual growth to sustain and strengthen their priestly vocation with the challenges of their expanded obligations and responsibilities. These are some of my experiences and thoughts about married priests … these challenges are related and consequential, I believe, and will cause greater damage to a church in crisis if the doors are flung open for married men ordained as priests. Pope Francis better be careful about opening wide this Pandora’s Box. I think it will be a disaster.
Let us pray, Phil
You cannot give the right treatment with the wrong diagnosis The following comes from aJan. 24 storyon Life Site.ROME– Church leaders who reduce clergy sex abuse to “clericalism,” while failing to acknowledge how active homosexuality has contributed to the crisis, “don’t want to confront the true reasons” why “minors, boys and young men” are abused, Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said. It is widely expected that efforts will be made at the Vatican’s Pan-Amazonian Synod next October to relax the Latin Rite’s discipline of priestly celibacy, by way of an “exception” that will then open the door to married clergy in other regions of the world. Cardinal Müller said that blaming the sexual abuse crisis on “clericalism” is “very unjust [to] Jesus.” The Lord “gave spiritual power and authority to the apostles,” he said, adding that such abuse is “not due to the sacrament of holy orders, but to sexual incontinence, a false understanding of sexuality, [and] not respecting the Sixth Commandment.” “If you are a priest, you must preach the Decalogue and respect it. Where is it written in the Holy Bible or a book about the priesthood, or the Church Fathers, that because you are a priest, you are outside morality? On the contrary, you must set a good example,” he said. Asked about his hopes for the February Vatican meeting on “the protection of minors in the Church,” Müller said what’s needed is a “diagnosis of the true reasons of the crisis.” “You cannot give the right treatment with the wrong diagnosis,” he said. “We must confront reality in the light of the Gospel, the Church’s doctrine and discipline, and the spirituality of the priesthood.” He said Pope Francis was “absolutely right” when he said in a recent interview that priests who practice homosexuality should consider leaving the priesthood. “Homosexual practice is not acceptable, not with adults and absolutely not with minors. More than 80% of the victims of sexual abuse are young boys, adolescent male minors, over 14 years. This is a homosexual act,” he added. “The abuse of females is just as terrible.” The cardinal distinguished between “same-sex attraction” and “homosexual practice,” but noted that “same-sex attraction in no way justifies homosexual contact.” “We don’t need a new interpretation of this doctrine but, rather, more obedience to the word of God.
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Solution to Gun ControlHere is a History Lesson! In 1865, a Democrat shot and killed Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. In 1881, a left wing radical Democrat shot James Garfield, President of the United States – who later died from the wound. In 1963, a radical left wing socialist shot and killed John F. Kennedy, President of the United States.In 1975, a left wing radical Democrat fired shots at Gerald Ford, President of the United States.In 1983, a registered Democrat shot and wounded Ronald Reagan, President of the United States. In 1984, James Hubert, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 22 people in a McDonalds restaurant.In 1986, Patrick Sherrill, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 15 people in an Oklahoma post office.In 1990, James Pough, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 10 people at a GMAC office.In 1991, George Hennard, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 23 people in a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, TX.In 1995, James Daniel Simpson, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 5 coworkers in a Texas laboratory.In 1999, Larry Asbrook, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 8 people at a church service. In 2001, a left wing radical Democrat fired shots at the White House in a failed attempt to kill Pres. George W. Bush. In 2003, Douglas Williams, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 7 people at a Lockheed Martin plant.In 2007, a registered Democrat named Seung-Hui Cho, shot and killed 32 people in Virginia Tech.In 2010, a mentally-ill registered Democrat named Jared Lee Loughner, shot Rep. Gabrielle Gifford and killed 6 others.In 2011, a registered Democrat named James Holmes, went into a movie theater and shot and killed 12 people.In 2012, Andrew Engeldinger, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 7 people in Minneapolis. In Sept 2013, an angry Democrat shot 12 at a Navy shipyard. And more recently, an angry Democrats attacked and shot up a Republican Congressional baseball practice nearly fatally wounding US Congressman Steve Scalise. (He’s still in Physical Therapy due to the damage done to his upper left thigh!!) Clearly, there is a distinct problem with Democrats and guns. Not one NRAmember, Tea Party member, or Republican conservative was involved in any of these shootings and murders. SOLUTION:It should be illegal for Democrats to own guns!We don’t need gun control, we need Democrat control. Guns don’t kill people, Democrats do!
King Herod the Great King Herod of Judaea (New York State) has hit back strongly against claims that his policy of killing all children under the age of two years old could be described as barbarous, inhuman, or simply murderous.
In a tweet that set the record straight in no uncertain terms he said: In previous comments, Herod had explained that his child-killing policy was totally humane, and that the infants in question would be kept comfortable as they went to their deaths. “I love children,” he went on. “Why I have two myself!” “Four, your Majesty.” “Oh, really? Well, it’s hard to keep track of these things.”
Although mass murder of children was originally supposed to be “safe, legal and rare”, it is now increasingly seen as a policy that saves time and energy for everyone.
Elsewhere in Judaea, Governor Quasimodo has eagerly embraced the policy of caring, loving, considerate and sympathetic infanticide. We attempted to contact High Priest Dolittle (of NYC) for a comment on this, bur he was out to lunch and not expected back for six hours. “Can you remind me? Are we for or against abortion?”
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, front, speaks as House speaker, Kirk Cox, left, and State Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, right, during a press conference relating to a bipartisan agreement on a coal ash bill at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Thursday, … more >
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Wednesday defended a proposed bill that would allow abortion up until the moment of childbirth.
Virginia Democratic Del. Kathy Tran, chief sponsor of the Repeal Act, sparked headlines this week after she said her bill, which seeks to repeal restrictions on third-trimester abortions, would allow a woman to terminate her pregnancy while she’s in labor.
“Where it’s obvious that a woman is about to give birth,” Republican state Rep. Todd Gilbert asked Ms. Tran during a hearing Monday, “would that still be a point at which she could request an abortion if she was so-certified? She’s dilating.”
“My bill would allow that, yes,” Ms. Tran answered.
Virginia House Democrats propose legislation to allow abortions up until the moment of birth
Todd Gilbert (R): Where it’s obvious a woman is about to give birth…would that be a point at which she could still request an abortion?
A subcommittee voted to table the bill in a 5-3 vote Monday.DWR
Mr. Northam, speaking Wednesday morning on WTOP’s “Ask The Governor,” defended Ms. Tran’s bill and claimed that her comments were “really blown out of proportion.”
“This is why decisions such as this should be made by providers, physicians and the mothers and fathers that are involved,” the Democratic governor explained, National Review reported. “When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physician — more than one physician, by the way — and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s non-viable.
“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” said Mr. Northam, a former pediatric neurologist. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.
“We want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions, we want the decision to be made by the mothers and their providers,” he added.
Ms. Tran’s bill eliminates the requirement that two other physicians certify that a third-trimester abortion is necessary to prevent the woman’s death or impairment of her mental or physical health, as well as the need to find that any such impairment to the woman’s health would be “substantial and irremediable.”
Mr. Northam said he did disagree with the provision in Ms. Tran’s bill that would eliminate the requirement for two physicians to certify a third-trimester abortion.
“Well, I think it’s always good to get a second opinion and for at least two providers to be involved in that decision, because these decisions shouldn’t be taken lightly,” he said.
VA gov on abortion this morning:
“If a mother is in labor…the infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians & mother” pic.twitter.com/cc15pVLjIQ— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) January 30, 2019
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Ben Sasse blasted Mr. Northam’s comments as endorsing post-birth abortion or infanticide.
The governor’s office released a statement Wednesday afternoon slamming critics for their “bad faith” efforts in trying to “extrapolate these comments.”
“Republicans in Virginia and across the country are trying to play politics with women’s health, and that is exactly why these decisions belong between a woman and her physician, not legislators, most of whom are men,” the statement read. “No woman seeks a third-trimester abortion except in the case of tragic or difficult circumstances, such as a nonviable pregnancy or in the event of severe fetal abnormalities, and the governor’s comments were limited to the actions physicians would take in the event that a woman in those circumstances went into labor.”
PETITION: Tell Virginia governor to retract outrageous statement allowing babies to die! Sign the petition here.
ARLINGTON, Virginia, January 31, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The staunchly pro-lifeCatholic Bishop of Arlington, Virginia, has strongly rebuked pro-infanticidecomments made earlier this week by Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam.
Bishop Michael Burbidge today called Northam’s comments a “staggering admission” that reveals just “how far abortion advocates are willing to go in taking the life of a precious child.”
Northam caused a national uproar Wednesday when he told a radio station that if a woman seeking an abortion goes into labor and the baby is delivered, the baby would be kept comfortable, resuscitated “if that’s what the mother and family desire,” and then a discussion between the mother and physician would ensue.
The comments, made in response to a question about a Virginia abortion bill that has since failed, elicited strong reactions across the country, especially from Republicans and conservatives.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted, “I never thought I would see the day America had government officials who openly support legal infanticide.”
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel described Northam’s comments as “horrific” and a defense of “born-alive abortions.”
Pro-life commentator Ben Shapiro decried the remarks as “pure evil.”
In a statement released today, Bishop Burbidge said Northam’s comments betray “a new level of deep-rooted animus against the inherent goodness of every child.” He also noted how not just in Virginia but also in New York “extreme abortion legislation” has been introduced recently. “This is a critical moment in the life of our Church and our society,” Burbidge’s statement read.
Northam, however, doubled down on his remarks despite near-universal outrage. In a tweet, Northam, a former pediatric neurologist, said it is “shameful and disgusting” to say he hasn’t “devoted” his “life to caring for children.”
Burbidge said in his statement, “This bill rightfully failed — but I am, along with so many people of good will, distraught that this bill was introduced in the first place. It could have paved the way for babies to suffer a violent and gruesome death moments before birth and could have been harmful to women.”
“My hope is that this bill failed because the elected officials of the state legislature recognized that it was an evil and impermissible offense to human life and our collective decency. Abortion of a baby in the final stage of pregnancy borders on infanticide. Our governor, however, may be willing to cross that border and go even farther.”
President Trump weighed in on the controversy as well. In an interview with The Daily Caller, the president said Tran’s defense of her bill was “terrible.”
“Do you remember when I said Hillary Clinton was willing to rip the baby out of the womb? That’s what it is, that’s what they’re doing, it’s terrible,” he said. Speaking about Northam, Trump said “I’m surprised that he did that, I’ve met him a number of times.”
Trump predicted the controversy “is going to lift up the whole pro-life movement like maybe it’s never been lifted up before. The pro-life movement is very much a 50-50, it’s a very 50-50 issue, actually it’s gained a point or two over the years.”
Extreme abortion legislation has been taken up by the Democrat Party at an alarming rate in recent weeks. Aside from New York, Virginia, and Vermont, Rhode Island is currently considering a bill that would allow abortion until birth. During her State of the State address, Catholic Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo (D)promised she would sign the legislation. Congressional Democrats also took up a billthat would have given $37.5 million to the pro-abortion United Nations Population Fund, a move the Trump administration promptly rejected. President Trump promised pro-lifers at this year’s March for Life that he would veto any legislation that comes to his desk that weakens protections for the unborn.
One of the likely reasons Democratic lawmakers are seeking to expand abortion at the state level is because they fear Roe v. Wade will soon be overturned. Such fears are compounded by rumors that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health is deteriorating and her days as a judge are numbered. Ginsburg, perhaps the court’s most liberal member, is a staunch supporter of abortion. Should she resign or die, President Trump would likely nominate a pro-life judge like Amy Coney Barrett. Such a decision could result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade. A pro-life justice would increase the conservative majority of the court from 5-4 to 6-3.
Archbishop Anthony Fisher on threats to the Seal of Confession, the youth synod and what to do about ‘bad bishops’
Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney was one of the leading protagonists at last October’s youth synod in Rome. In an outspoken address, he apologised to young people on behalf of Church leaders for the abuse crisis. Later he bluntly criticised the synod’s final document, saying that it had been “rushed” and that its focus on “synodality” did not accurately reflect the bishops’ discussions. Some, he said, were left “feeling manipulated”. We caught up with him in Washington, DC, where he took part in the annual March for Life en route to World Youth Day in Panama.
JORDAN BLOOMWhat do you make of pro-life politics in America?
ARCHBISHOP ANTHONY FISHER I would say in Australia we are not as serious about ideas in general. We don’t get as aggro about it.
JBWhat do you mean by “not as serious about ideas”?
AF I think historically there are a number of reasons why we did not have bills of rights or civil wars or anything that meant people had to nail their colours to the mast, they had to make a decision for an idea. We didn’t have anything like that happen to us in Australia. Australians also have a comfortable life. We are a very affluent society. And so you try and raise a big intellectual contest and a lot of Aussies would just say, “Oh, I’ll break open another beer and go lie on the beach. We don’t need to argue about big ideas.”
There’s upsides and downsides to that. The upside is we don’t kill each other over ideas in Australia. There isn’t a permanent culture war going on about everything. The downside is I think we can be intellectually very lazy, and not see there are some matters that deserve your passion, and your attention, and intellectual engagement.
So from an Australian’s point of view, the seemingly endless culture wars in America seem somewhat alien, at least the degree of passion about them. But I think that’s something to teach our young ones: that some things, like the sanctity of life – we’ve got battles about euthanasia, the other end of life from the abortion debates – these things you really need to engage with. So I think if they see that here, that young people like them are willing to go out into the streets over an issue like this, I think that’s a good thing for them to see.
JBThere have been legal threats to the Seal of Confession in Australia. Could you talk a little bit about what those are?
AF The background is that we’ve had a whole series of scandals around clergy sexual abuse, just like you’ve had in the States. There’s a lot of anger in the air, especially in the media, and a desire to lash out at the Church and punish it in some way. And I think that is very much in the background of this debate about the Seal of Confession, because no one seriously thinks you’re going to address the problem of child abuse by abolishing the legal recognition of the Seal of Confession.
By any evidence there is, it’s hardly ever confessed, this sin. The perpetrators have a pathology, but they don’t even believe what they’re doing is wrong, or they blame the victim, or blame everybody except themselves. They’re the least likely people to go to Confession, I’m sad to say. You wish they did feel more shame and guilt, but that’s not, it seems, what occurs with these people.
But I do strongly believe that if the Seal of Confession is abolished, you’ll either help not a single young person or you’ll make the situation worse for young people. That’s for two reasons. First, for the rare offender who might confess, [having the seal in place] gives the confessor the chance to really emphasise how terrible this thing is that they’re doing or have done, and why they must get help – they must go to the legal authorities, to a psychiatrist, to whoever, to make sure this doesn’t ever happen again. But you effectively wipe out Confession by wiping out the seal, you lose that opportunity for someone to confront that guy, and say how bad this is and what he’s got to do about it.
And secondly, the rare victim that might bring this up in Confession, a child in Confession, the seal would not apply to the child. Whether it’s a perpetrator or a victim, the priest would have to report it to the police. If you say to children, the confessional is effectively bugged, they might not bring it up if they otherwise would. And again, it’s a chance for you to say to them: “Look you’ve got to tell this to your parents, or to a teacher, or to some adult you trust. Or to me outside of confession, because we’ve got to get you to a safe place.” And we’ll lose that opportunity if you effectively wipe out the practice of Confession, or at least in these cases.
So I think whatever the anger or irrationality is in the air to slap the Church around, or a genuine concern for these children, I think the opposite is going to happen: you’re actually going to harm some children or take away a chance to help them.
We don’t have in Australia as robust a culture of human rights protections as you have in the States. So there isn’t the immediate recoil or reaction that there is here to the state intruding into the practice of the sacraments. And I wish, again, that we had more resistance to that in Australia, because the history of America begins with the wars of religion and people fleeing intolerance and coming to this country to find religious freedom. That’s not part of our story in the same way. So there’s not the same consciousness of the risk of states intruding into religion.
JBYou made what was called an “intervention” at the end of the youth synod. Why did you feel the need to do that and do you feel your comments have held up well?
AF I got a lot of very positive comments at the time from synod fathers and people that heard the comments afterwards. I do think we’re a very diverse Church, and there are cultures that still have not faced this problem at all, regarding child sexual abuse, or aren’t aware otherwise that we’ve let young people down. And part of my intervention was to say this is a huge and horrible one, but otherwise young people have been let down too. There are parts of the Church that only see this as an American problem or an Anglo problem, and don’t realise they’re going to have it in their own backyard too. Or who perhaps have a lot of young people around so they don’t realise that there are different ways they might be letting them down.
We’re kind of ahead of the game on some of this and my hope was that we could have some things to teach people, so they can deal with the problems now and not face the sort of problems we’ve had to face.
JBWhat did you think when the stage-managed testimonies started to appear?
AF Maybe that I was a little naïve. It never occurred to me that it would be quite so staged, or some parts of it. Whereas actually that’s just politics, that’s human life, that’s what happens at big meetings. But I think that it means the discussion that happened between the synod fathers didn’t always mirror what came out in the formal results.
That’s odd, because these documents only have any authority because they are the result of the discussion and prayer of the bishops. If that’s not what appears in the documents, then that should alarm us, or at least raise questions about what’s going on. So that’s what I was indicating anxieties about.
JBWe’ve heard a lot about bad bishops. What can we do to support good bishops?
AF The very starting point I’d say is to recognise there are some. Don’t throw all bishops together as the same thing, or all priests together as the same thing. We are as diverse as other human beings, and other Christians. Some are more faithful than others. And I suppose for people to have the generosity to recognise that range, and find some way to love and support and pray for us all. And perhaps the ones we regard as bad bishops, to pray for them all the more, and to be exhorting them all the more, rather than giving up on them. And those who people think are doing their level best to be faithful to tell them so every so often. We live in a culture that doesn’t always honour that.
And to be praying for courage and wisdom, because it is a hard time to lead in the Church. There is a risk that people are not going to put themselves forward as Church leaders because it’s so hard. And that’s not going to make the situation better, that’s going to make things worse.
Jordan Bloom is a freelance journalist based in Washington, DC
A sign reading ‘This was not okay’ is seen in front of Covington Catholic High School in Park Kills, Kentucky, Jan 20. (AP photo/Bry
| JAN. 29, 2019Dallas Charter Culture and the Covington ControversyCOMMENTARY: That new culture has achieved a lot of good. But it makes things worse for the falsely accused.Father Raymond J. de Souza
How could the bishops of Kentucky get it so wrong?
It’s partly another consequence of the sexual-abuse crisis, wherein the protocols for handling allegations have created an environment where immediate action precedes investigation. That post-Dallas Charter culture is well-known inside the Church, but can be a bit surprising when encountered by the general public.
And it was only because there was video evidence to exonerate the students that the bishops were forced to reverse themselves. Otherwise, an investigation would have ground on for weeks or months while the students’ reputations were effectively destroyed. That would not have been an accident, but business that now is usual.
Still, despite the quick exoneration, it was a very bad week for the boys of Covington Catholic High School. It was a worse week for the bishops of Kentucky. It is a terrible thing to be the victim of slander due to rash judgment. It is morally worse to perpetrate slander because one is guilty of rash judgment.
The bishops of Kentucky were lightning-quick to condemn the conduct of the Covington Catholic students after the March for Life. The Diocese of Covington, led by Bishop Roger Foys, and Covington Catholic High School condemned the students the very day the original video came to light, without waiting to view the entire recording or even hear alternative explanations.
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville piled on within hours. Later in the week, Bishop John Stowe of Lexington wrote an entire op-ed for his local paper, castigating the boys for their general political views, while declaring that whether they had been falsely accused or not was secondary.
It was an error-ridden performance, acutely embarrassing for Kentucky Catholics.
More than embarrassing and unjust, it might be costly. On Jan. 24, lawyers for Nick Sandmann, the young man at the center of the controversy, served Bishop Foys with a “preservation of evidence” order, laying the legal groundwork for a libel suit against the bishop, part of what they promised was a “multitude of civil lawsuits” to come.
Archbishop Kurtz, who associated himself with the initial rash condemnation, likewise associated himself with the apology. Bishop Stowe has made no public comment on the mistreatment of the Covington students by the media or the Church.
So how could it have happened? Why were the bishops so eager to condemn the alleged behavior before it was possible to make any further inquiries? Why did they have more sympathy for accusations from strangers than they did for their own Catholic schoolboys?
It is necessary to understand that the Dallas Charter has had an impact beyond its immediate requirements. The unforgiveable sin for a bishop who receives an allegation of sexual misconduct is any delay in reporting it — to civil authorities and to his own diocesan review board. The only requirement is that the allegation be “credible,” which does not mean “plausible” or “probable,” but only possible and not obviously false.
And immediate consequences for the accused priest follow. He can be removed from his parish, suspended from ministry and thrown out of the rectory within 24 hours. None of this is to be understood as a canonical punishment; they are “precautionary” measures only. But for the wrongly accused it can feel like the sentence comes first, with the trial to follow.
While the limitations of these protocols are well-known, they have been widely accepted, largely because false accusations are rare. More to the point, severe measures that do not allow for any discretion on the part of bishops are precisely needed to make up for the credibility lost in previous decades, when allegations were effectively ignored or covered up and priests guilty of misconduct were not punished.
The purpose of the Dallas Charter was not only to enhance the protection and safety of minors, but to effect a culture change when there were allegations, or even suspicions, of sexual abuse. The protection-and-safety measures have been massively successful; the incidents of priestly sexual abuse have fallen so dramatically that in some places it has been many years since any allegations, founded or unfounded, have been made.
The culture has changed, too. The days when a bishop would automatically believe “his” priest over the allegations of a layperson, a journalist or even the police are long over. Indeed, there are now cases where both law enforcement and the lay-led review panels judge an allegation to be unfounded and still the bishop is reluctant to return a priest to ministry. The pendulum swings and still seeks for the center.
The Covington Catholic controversy met a new culture among the bishops of Kentucky. They were ready to give credence to the allegations of others over the protestations of innocence from “their” own. They were quick to raise the specter of punitive sanctions, including expulsion. They were quick to be as public as possible, lest they be accused of hiding anything.
Those are the Dallas Charter instincts. And they extend well past bishops to parish priests, schoolteachers and camp counselors. If you see something, say something — preferably as soon and as loudly as possible.
That new culture has achieved a lot of good. But it makes things worse for the falsely accused. And, in this case, for the bishops who falsely accused them.
The media, and now even a polling company, are to blame for keeping New Yorkers ignorant about the new abortion law signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Consider the following.
In the January 30 edition of the New York Post, there is a news story on the New York State abortion law. “In the most recent Siena survey,” it says, “59 percent of Catholics backed Albany’s push for an updated abortion law, while only 30 percent were opposed.”
When I read that sentence, I knew it was inaccurate. Non-Catholics, never mind Catholics, would not support the law if they had an accurate understanding of what it says. They do not, thanks to the media. Siena College Research Institute is also to blame.
Regarding the media, virtually every news story on this issue reported that Cuomo’s law simply codifies Roe v. Wade. Many New Yorkers, like other Americans, have become accustomed to the 1973 decision, so the alarms don’t go off when they learn of a new law which makes that ruling concrete. But that summary is dishonest.
Here are three aspects of the law that the media skirted: a) the right to terminate a pregnancy through term; the right to allow babies born alive as a result of a botched abortion to die unattended by staff; and the right of non-physicians to perform abortions.
Some stories said abortions would be allowed beyond 20 weeks, but they never said that would include partial-birth abortions where the child is 80 percent born. Allowing for infanticide was never mentioned. And the public was never told that the non-physicians who are allowed to perform abortions include optometrists, chiropractors, dentists, and podiatrists.
Cardinal Dolan said it well when he said the law “drops all charges against an abortionist who allows an aborted baby, who somehow survives the scissors, scalpel, saline and dismemberment, to die before his eyes.” New Yorkers were never told that.
The Siena poll which says Catholic New Yorkers approve the law by a margin of 59 percent to 30 percent is badly flawed. It did not address any of the three aspects of the law that I noted. It simply probed whether respondents agreed if “New York’s law on abortion [should be made] consistent with the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.” That is not what Cuomo’s law is all about.
What if respondents were told the truth? They were in 2013 when Cuomo tried to get his law passed then.
A poll of New Yorkers by the Chiaroscuro Foundation found that 75 percent opposed the provision allowing non-physicians to perform abortions and that 80 percent opposed allowing unlimited abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. They were not asked about allowing a baby who survives an abortion to die unattended. Also, the poll did not disaggregate on the basis of religion, so we don’t know what Catholics might have said, never mind what practicing Catholics might have said.
No one can be expected to come to a reasonable conclusion about any issue unless he is accurately informed about its contents. New Yorkers were not informed by the media, and the Siena poll did not tap into the truth of the matter. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A LINE IN THE SAND FOR LIFE By Peter Rosenberger From one geographical extreme to another, American state assemblies strode into the viability and quality of life issue in groundbreaking ways during January. Starting with Hawaii’s new Our Choice Our Care Act launched on January 1, 2019, medically-assisted death marched closer to being considered ‘normal.’ Before January ended, New York legislators applauded the new freedom extended to the state allowing late term abortions via the Reproductive Health Act. A common thread weaves through the move by both states. An ambiguity, one could say an arbitrary line in the sand, presents itself through both actions regarding viability. Hawaii allows patients deemed to die within six months to end their life with medical assistance. Yet why six months? What group decided that six months is the cut off for a life to possess meaning rather than, say, seven months and thirteen days? In New York, the health of the mother is a factor. A Virginia legislator already introduced the dialogue of health applying to mental health. New York allows non-physicians to perform abortions. Will those non-physicians assume responsibility for evaluating the mental health of the mother? These and other unsettling questions indicate a rush to an agenda rather than to medical reality. If government can designate life as ‘qualified to terminate’ if less than six months remain, when will they adjust that line? If a child is deemed unable to exist outside the womb without care at 8 months and 28 days, can that line be moved to 9 months. What about ten months? The Governor of Virginia has already pushed the line that New York codified during a radio interview on WTOP. “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” said Mr. Northam, a former pediatric neurologist. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. – The Washington Times1/30/2019 The governor later clarified that this would only be done with infants with extenuating circumstances such as severe deformities. The Governor didn’t offer who or what committee decides which deformities served as a life worthy or not. In addition, one can’t help but notice that the Governor used the word infant – not product of conception, tissue, or fetus. He used the word “infant.” Sadly, the lines have been drawn, erased, drawn again, and now an undisguised agenda emerges. Clearly politicians desire entrance into the ‘who lives/who dies’ conversation. The more frightening aspect, other than New York’s standing ovation and pink-lit empire state building celebrating the landmark law, is that politicians seem to feel the authority and qualifications to speak into this matter. When “six-months seems to good enough to me” allows a verdict on quality and value of life, and “…infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired” are guiding principles for politicians, the question naturally arising is, “what—or who—is next on their list? How many parents at the breaking point while caring for special needs will listen to the New York state legislature or the Governor of Virginia – and see an escape clause for their heartache? How many families see a child born with a deformity and listen to elected officials as to letting that child live. Should family members of a loved one suffering from a fatal disease expected to end his life within a year —petition Hawaii to push it back from six months to twelve? When the state grasps, for whatever reasons, authority to wield or permit death, society itself suffers. History offers lengthy lessons on states assuming power to kill or allow death. Wrapped in the guise of caring for the individual, politicians nevertheless now brandish a power that no government has ever wielded responsibly. If politicians can set a date, then they can set another date. If they determine that a newborn’s opportunity to live is now up to a discussion, what else can they determine? Those (and their caregivers) living with down syndrome, cerebral palsy, chronic pain, multiple amputations, paralysis, spina bifida, Alzheimer’s, traumatic brain issues, mental illness, and a host of other challenges —now wait in the wings to learn what the state next deems as “viable.” As citizens, we now need to draw a line in the sand of our own, a line for life. The only thing deemed ‘unviable’ should be the careers of the politicians supporting these acts. Peter Rosenberger is the host of HOPE FOR THE CAREGIVER radio broadcast weekly on more than 200 stations. He has cared for his wife, Gracie, who lives with severe disabilities for more than 32 years. @hope4caregiver
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
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