in this issue:
hot button issues: BOSTON / HALL OF FAME / MTV / POST-ABORTION HEALING
defending the faith: CHAPUT / OREGON
face the truth: MARYLAND TOUR
funding death: BUFFETT FOUNDATION / MARGARET SANGER
imposed death: TERRI SCHIAVO
personhood: HUMAN EMBRYO = HUMAN BEING = PERSON
the practice: BRIGHAM / GOING OUT OF BUSINESS? / WANTED DOC AWOL
reflection for prayer: PSALM 84:11
hot button issues
BOSTON: Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, two pro-abortion Catholics included in American Life League’s roster of “Deadly Dozen” U.S. senators, were both, because of their positions as elected officials, invited to attend the installation Mass for Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley. It is reported that both senators received Holy Communion.
(Reading: “O’Malley urged to impose tough love on Kennedy and Kerry,” American Life League news release, 7/29/03)
HALL OF FAME: Gary Carter has joined baseball’s hall of fame. Carter is one of some 90 current and former big-league players endorsing Battin’ 1000, an effort by American Life League to fund purchase of property for a proposed Campus for Life south of Washington, D.C.
(Reading: “American Life League congratulates Battin’ 1000 endorser and 2003 Hall of Fame inductee Gary Carter,” American Life League news release, 7/24/03)
MTV: American Life League’s Rock for Life youth outreach joined in a protest and prayer vigil outside the MTV cable channel’s New York headquarters. Rock for Life notes, ” MTV has been promoting a Culture of Death through its vulgar and offensive programming. In addition to degrading and devaluing human persons with its programs, MTV has partnered with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion provider.”
(Reading: Rock for Life Report, 7/28/03)
POST-ABORTION HEALING: A pair of one-day clinical training sessions for those involved in the post-abortion retreats for healing sponsored by American Life League’s Rachel’s Vineyard (http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/) will be held this fall in Alberta, Canada. The sessions are scheduled for October 9 in Edmonton and October 10 in Calgary. For more information about the Edmonton event, contact at 780-469-2323. To find out more about the Calgary training session, contact at 403-218-5506. CEU credits are available for both sessions.
defending the faith
CHAPUT: The sight of pro-abortion Catholic senators grilling Catholic judicial nominee William Pryor over his views on abortion was too much for Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver. In his weekly column, the archbishop writes: “According to Senator [Richard] Durbin [D-Ill.], ‘Many Catholics who oppose abortion personally do not believe the laws of the land should prohibit abortion for all others in extreme cases involving rape, incest and the life and the health of the mother.’ This kind of propaganda makes the abortion lobby proud, but it should humiliate any serious Catholic. At a minimum, Catholic members of Congress like Senator Durbin should actually read and pray over the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the encyclical Evangelium Vitae before they explain the Catholic faith to anyone.”
(Reading: “Some things change, some things really don’t,” Archdiocese of Denver, 7/30/03)
OREGON: The Diocese of Baker says Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a pro-abortion Democrat, will not be allowed to use Holy Trinity Church in Sunriver for a fundraising appearance. The diocesan chancellor says holding a fundraiser on church property is improper. Fr. James Logan adds, however, that “his pro-choice beliefs don’t square with Catholic teaching and certainly made an appearance at a Catholic church very problematic.”
(Reading: “Diocese refuses to host governor,” Bend [Oregon] Bulletin, 7/30/03)
face the truth
MARYLAND TOUR: A weeklong series of “Face the Truth” exhibits concludes today with stops in Glen Burnie, Perryville, Annapolis, Bel Air and White Marsh. For locations and times, please check online.
funding death
BUFFETT FOUNDATION: Although billionaire financier Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate has ceased its corporate philanthropy program (see Communique, 7/11/03), Buffett’s foundation stands poised to remain a major funding source for anti-life activities. The Omaha World-Herald notes these Buffett Foundation contributions for the 2001-2002 fiscal year:
- $4.7 million to International Projects Assistance Services, a firm that develops equipment for abortionists.
- $3.5 million to the Population Council, which played a key role in gaining federal approval for RU-486.
- $2.1 million to Planned Parenthood of America and 11 local chapters.
- $1.5 million to NARAL Foundation.
- $1.4 million to Family Health International, an organization that deals with “reproductive health services.”
- $737,000 to the Center for Reproductive Rights, a legal group that helped attack Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion law.
- $700,000 to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
- $496,000 to Access Project, which seeks to expand access to abortion and birth control.
- $485,000 to GIRE, a pro-abortion group in Mexico.
- $485,000 to Catholics for a Free Choice.
(Reading: “Reproductive rights get Buffett Foundation help,” Omaha World-Herald, 7/23/03)
MARGARET SANGER: Planned Parenthood’s web site enthusiastically offers excerpts from a glowing article about the organization’s founder. The piece, originally published in The Nation, mentions Sanger’s anti-Catholic bias and her affair with author H.G. Wells: “By Wells’s own testimony, she had a quick Irish wit, high spirits and radiant common sense. And she was, in his words, ‘genuinely pagan.'”
(Reading: “Margaret Sanger,” The Nation, 7/21/03; referenced on Planned Parenthood web site)
imposed death
TERRI SCHIAVO: A state court reversed an earlier ruling and will allow additional appeals in the case of Terri Schiavo, a disabled woman who has been institutionalized for more than a decade. Her husband is asking for a court order that would permit removal of her feeding tube. In addressing the case, the Catholic Medical Association noted that removing the feeding tube is unjustified under Catholic moral teachings: “The withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from Mrs. Terri Schiavo will result in her death. The tube feeding itself does not impose an excessive burden on the patient. Discontinuing nutrition and hydration in this circumstance violates in its intention the distinction between ‘causing death’ and ‘allowing death.'”
(Reading: “Appeals court delays decision on Schiavo,” Tampa Tribune, 7/26/03; “Statement of the Catholic Medical Association on the case of Mrs. Terri Schiavo,” Catholic Medical Association, 7/28/03)
personhood
HUMAN EMBRYO = HUMAN BEING = PERSON: Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk writes, “We know exactly what the embryo is, namely, a human being, a being that is clearly and unmistakably human. It is not a zebra-type of being, a plant-type of being or some other kind of being. This is a scientific affirmation, which does not ultimately depend on religion, value systems, or imposing anything on anyone. It is a matter of simple empirical observation.
“We need only recognize that once you are constituted a human being (which always occurs at fertilization or at an event that mimics fertilization like cloning), you are an embryonic member of the human race who is to be protected unconditionally.
“The human zygote, thus, is already a being that is human, and such beings are sacrosanct entities, because that’s what we all directly spring from at the root level.”
(Reading: Letters to the editor, National Catholic Register, 6/1-7/03)
the practice
BRIGHAM: Abortionist Steven Brigham has opened a “medical office” in Erie, Pa. An associate says it’s a clinic that will test and treat people for sexually transmitted diseases. The building’s owners say that’s okay, but no form of surgery would be permitted. Brigham is still looking for a way to do abortions in Erie, a city that has been without an abortion facility for 20 years. But thus far, no hospital within a 30-minute drive has signed an agreement to provide emergency services, and none intend to. Without such an agreement, Brigham cannot offer abortions.
(Reading: “Abortion provider opens office,” Erie Times-News, 7/23/03)
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS? Staffers describe the financial situation of Portland’s All Women’s Health Services as “beyond crisis.” The Oregonian reports, “The staff hasn’t been paid in two weeks. The rent is a month overdue. And about $80,000 in back taxes is owed to Uncle Sam.” However, Planned Parenthood has five locations in the Portland area, and is looking at expansion.
(Reading: “All Women’s clinic may close next week,” The [Portland] Oregonian, 7/26/03)
WANTED DOC AWOL: Georgia police would like to get their hands on Charles Rossmann, who faces a number of charges including criminal abortion. But he’s nowhere to be found. Valdosta police think he may have traveled to the Czech Republic, his native country. Police say a woman who was 30 weeks pregnant went to Rossmann for an abortion. He reportedly induced labor, then left the woman alone in his office. She gave birth to a son, but the boy died 12 days later at a Florida hospital.
(Reading: “Doctor still on the lam,” Valdosta [Georgia] Daily Times, 7/24/03)
reflection for prayer
PSALM 84:11: I had rather one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I had rather lie at the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.