Estimates suggest that here in the United States, over 60 million children have been aborted since abortion was legalized.
As I consider the newly signed legislation in New York, along with proposed legislation in New Mexico, Illinois, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Maine that would remove most restrictions, I cannot help but be concerned that we are losing any sense of what it means to be human. Fortunately, similar legislation in Virginia was defeated.
While these new laws are no doubt setbacks, they are also a call to action for all of us. We need to ask ourselves, “How am I prepared to help a woman or girl faced with a difficult pregnancy?” For example, many pro-life parents, sadly, create a perceived need for abortion when they warn their daughters that if they ever get pregnant, they will be kicked out of the house or suffer some other severe treatment. While everyone can appreciate that it’s not ideal for a dependent child to get pregnant outside of marriage, it is a challenge that the human race has faced and overcome for millennia. It’s life and we must be prepared to support women in these situations, no matter what.
I ask that you also look to yourselves as parishes. Are you ready and able to help people facing difficult pregnancies? Are you aware of local resources? Do you support them?
We are the frontlines of the abortion debate. In my experience, a woman who has an abortion feels as if she has no choice but to terminate her unborn child’s life. As the communities surrounding each one of these women, we can help them to make the choice of life. We can also work to make men accountable for the children they father.
This battle must be fought on multiple fronts. The legislative efforts are only one part of it. Each and every one of us must do what we can to create a society in which abortion is unthinkable and undesired.
Full story at OC Catholic.
Sorry Excellency, you should have said, that we are losing any sense about being Catholic. The entirety of your “surprise” is the result of moving away from what Christ taught, and what the Catholic Church believed — the form and substance of its worship — since Vatican II. In our present form, we desire to sin, to move toward the evil. Christ came to save us from sin. He said that without Him we can do nothing. That means, “nothing,” Excellency. Instead we have suffered through decades of men of the cloth refusing to teach the Faith, insulting the Holy Species by myriad liturgical experiments, and playing footsie with vile behavior, such as homosexuality. Chickens are home now, Excellency.
Exactly right.
The bishop could start with telling the REC that they are not welcome in his diocese and forbidding teachers, clergy (including himself), and administrators from attending it.
I wouldn’t hold my breath though.
St Christopher: what Christian charity you extend to the Bishop – during Lent no less! Your assertions are not in alignment with the teachings of Christ as taught by the Catholic Church. Remove the log from your eye before you try to remove the speck from the good Bishop’s eye.
Sorry “Angela,” your criticism is like someone saying (and many Catholic clergy say this), “No, you can’t talk about the evils of sodomy and homosexual sexual relationships; Christ is about “love” and they are “loving” each other. That kind of thing.
My comments to the Bishop are made with the essence of Catholic Charity. It is our bishops, after all, that are our shepherds. And, it is our bishops that refuse to assume the hard role of saying and doing the right thing to their flocks. Actually Lent is a perfect time to remind them of their lapses; even from a sinner.
I often wondered how I would react if one of my daughters ever told me she was pregnant. Well, it happened. The first words out of her mouth were,”I’m not having an abortion”. To which I replied, “Why would you even think I would think that and it’s someone else to love.” That girl grew up to graduate with honors from both high school and college and on the Dean’s list and is now a teacher in Japan. She will be 30 this year, is married and she and her husband are such a blessing. How much we would have missed had we believed in abortion.
St Christopher: in all my nearly 70 years as a practicing Roman Catholic, I’ve never heard a parish priest or Bishop preach about the “evils of sodomy and homosexual sexual relationships” in Church- even before Vatican II. Mind you, I’ve been a daily communicant for many years. The only time I heard a homily about sex was when some Irish Domicans gave a retreat back in the 60’s at St Rita’s Church. It was fire and brimstone! My opinion- these are not appropriate homily topics on most Sunday mornings.
Pro-life health clinics effectively providing proactive, effective, life-affirming services to those in need.
https://omcsocal.org/
https://obriagroup.org/
Sorry Bishop Vann but every abortive woman knows she has a choice but she simply would rather murder the baby than place it a loving adoptive couple. Abortion is the same sin as Satan, Judas and Cain and God wrote his law on every human heart. Please stop being soft on abortion.