"Walter is a Still, Small Voice in the Turmoil of the Abortion Debate"

His voice may be quiet, but the effects of his witness, faith, and courage are momentous and ongoing. What a shepherd!

Our good friend, the Reverend Walter Hoye, has received the Life Issues Institute's "Hero at Heart" award. Reverend Hoye joins such past recipients as Senator Henry Hyde and Abby Johnson.

WASHINGTON, DC, October 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "An African-American pastor who spent 18 days in jail for peacefully picketing in front of a California abortion clinic has been awarded the Life Issues Institute’s 2011 Hero at Heart award.

Rev. Walter Hoye, accompanied by his wife, Lori, accepted the award before a gathering of pro-life leaders in Washington, DC.

'Walter is a still, small voice in the verbal turmoil of the abortion debate. Yet his humble and loving actions are turning the hearts and minds of women against abortion. Life Issues Institute is honored to give him this award,' Life Issues Institute Executive Director Bradley Mattes commented, after presenting Hoye with the award.

Past recipients of the Hero at Heart award include Congressman Henry Hyde, Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, former Kansas state Attorney General Phill Kline, Abby Johnson and Olympian medal winner Tasha Danvers-Smith."

Congratulations, Reverend Hoye, on this well-deserved honor!

Betrayed

We put him in office--promises broken.
Here's part of a brilliant article from the St Louis Dispatch.

...Among Catholics, the most egregious example of Obama's broken promise of religious tolerance is the one dominating diocesan headlines now: His administration's push for a mandate that would require Catholic institutions to violate the teachings of their church by covering contraceptives in their health care plans – including sterilization and drugs that induce abortions.

The mandate would be controversial even if accompanied by the standard religious exemption that allows faith-based organizations to opt out of government regulations that violate their religious beliefs. But the Obama administration has gone a step further, by crafting a religious exemption for the mandate so narrow that it excludes nearly all Catholic hospitals, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities and charitable organizations – virtually everyone, it seems, except Catholic parishes and religious orders. The upshot: Catholic colleges that teach abortion is evil must pay for abortifacient drugs for their students and Catholic hospitals that refuse to sterilize patients must subsidize sterilization for their employees.

The mandate and its lack of conscience protection is a blatant attack on religious freedom and a far cry from the promise Obama made at the University of Notre Dame in 2009. Back then, when the president was peddling his health care plan and pledging to seek "common ground" with pro-life Catholics, he vowed to "honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause." Now that Obamacare has passed, the president and his surrogates are singing a different tune.

Sebelius followed her martial rhetoric with a sarcastic swipe at pro-lifers who fail to see church-funded contraception as a cure-all for America's astronomical abortion rates. Apparently, the secretary has not read the 2011 Guttmacher Institute report that found a majority of women who abort their babies were using contraception the month they conceived.

Obama displays a similarly dismissive attitude toward his pro-life and Catholic critics. At a fundraiser here in St. Louis last week, he offered a flippant "darn tooting" rejoinder to an audience member who called out support for his unyielding enforcement of the contraceptive mandate. He answered a recent invitation to dialogue from U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops President and New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan with stony silence. And he has ignored pleas for compromise from the likes of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins and Catholic Health Association President Sr. Carol Keehan, two former Obama cheerleaders who now look like Obama's dupes.

The president's hard-line, anti-freedom stance threatens to alienate millions of Catholics, including many who disagree with their church's teachings but resent the prospect of government officials dictating which doctrines Catholic institutions may follow and which ones they must violate. For these voters and millions of their fellow travelers of other faiths, Obama's election in 2008 is looking more and more like a mistake – one they do not intend to repeat in 2012.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Colleen Carroll Campbell. "Obama is alienating Catholic voters." St. Louis Post-Dispatch (October 13, 2011).

Bl. Luigi Guanella Canonized!

Wonderful news about a wonderful saint! Blessed Luigi Guanella, who worked closely with and was influenced by St. John Bosco, the founder of the Salesians, was canonized today by the Holy Father. Of his years with Don Bosco, Don Luigi said "Being with Don Bosco was to me like being in heaven."

His Holiness also canonized Archbishop Guido Maria Conforti, founded the St. Francis Xavier Foreign Missions Society, and Sr. Bonifacia Rodriguez De Castro who co-founded the Congregation of the Siervas de San Jose, which helped poor women in Spain in the 19th century

Here is a short video about Saint Luigi Guanella:



Saints Luigi, Bonifacia, and Guido Maria, pray for us!

San Francisco Rosary Rally Video--Great!

What a blessed day it was! Here is the official video of San Francisco's Family Rosary Crusade 2011, by Gino & Nyna Caputi:



Gino & Nyna are also the producers of "Petals in the Dust," a film about India's missing girls--millions of whom have been murdered through abortion and infanticide. You can learn more about their work here:

http://www.petalsinthedust.com/

We have posted about their efforts. Our past posts are here.

SF's Catholic Supervisor Mark Farrell on His Crisis Pregnancy Center Vote

The greatest issue facing “a Catholic in elected public office” in the United States is legalized abortion. On October 18, the Catholic Supervisor Mark Farrell was one of 11 San Francisco Supervisors to vote on legislation restricting the message of crisis pregnancy centers. His vote, and his statement about his vote, are interesting because on Tuesday, November 15, he will address the Young Adults Group of St. Vincent de Paul Church in San Francisco. The Young Adult’s calendar of events states: “Supervisor Mark Farrell will be joining the group to share some of his personal stories and reflections as a Catholic in elected public office.”

Here is his statement, taken verbatim from the caption notes to the video of the meeting and vote. Typography in the original; interpolations in brackets added:

"Supervisor farrell: “this has been a tough one for me and I will be supporting the legislation. First, this is not about first resort."

(Who, then, is it about? The only other crisis pregnancy center in San Francisco is the Alpha Pregnancy Center, a much smaller organization).

"I know lot of people have insinuated that. I have a lot of friends involved with the organization and I have great things to say about it. Second, this is a cautionary warning."

(Who is being cautioned? Read on.)

"At the end of the day, I don' t have a problem or regulating advertising and saying false or misleading advertising is wrong. I have no problem doing that and why I will be supporting this today. I have seen a lot of evidence in e-mail change going around looking at google search results and algorithms. All lot of that stuff is not controlled by people to advertise. A clear warning -- I think you could go down a very slippery slope."

(Who is the “you” that Supervisor Farrell is addressing? It can only be his fellow board members--and himself. What is the slippery slope? As Farrell’s colleague, Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, the only Supervisor to vote against the ordinance, pointed out: “Four cities have passed ordinances like this. Three of those cities have seen those tossed out. The fourth is in the middle of litigation right now. I do not believe the record is sufficient to beat that threshold.”)

"Google has a provision against false or misleading advertising. To say that by buying certain key words you are doing false or misleading advertising, you' re going after google itself, and we need to take a hard look at the ways we' re going to enforce this law going forward, but I will be supporting it today.”

So, according to Supervisor Farrell:

1) First Resort is a great organization.

2) Google already “has a provision against false or misleading advertising.” Supervisor Farrell’s clear implication is that if First Resort or Alpha Pregnancy were engaged in “false or misleading advertising”, Google, a far more capable organization than the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, would have nailed them already.

3) Supervisor Farrell offers his colleagues (and himself): “A clear warning -- I think you could go down a very slippery slope.”

4) Supervisor Farrell then proceeds to vote for the legislation.

Supervisor Farrell’s statement is hardly a model of clear thinking or a profile in courage. After listing all the problems with the legislation, he then proceeds to vote for it. Hardly a good message for the Catholic Young Adults.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Thanks, But No Thanks--High Schoolers Walk Out of Homosexual Propaganda Play

A good sign! From LifeSiteNews:

"HARTFORD, October 18, 2011 - Several students at a Hartford high school expressed horror and left the auditorium when two male members of a city-funded school play shared a passionate kiss onstage on Friday. School officials said they opted against informing parents about the event ahead of time, saying that the students needed exposure to homosexuality, and hailed the “chaotic” reaction as a victory for raising the gay issue."

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

"Pro-Life Aristotle"

In the Corner, Katherine Jean Lopez interviews professor Christopher Kaczor of Loyola Marymont University. They discuss his new book, The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice.

"I know that many women face unbelievably difficult circumstances in their pregnancy. For this reason, I think that all people of good will have an obligation to help them, to celebrate their heroism when they choose life, and to love them even when they do not. I can think of one case in particular: a young student, not yet finished with her education, who found herself pregnant with a man she did not know well. With so many responsibilities, both to her extended family and to her studies, she felt desperate, alone, and trapped. It was truly an act of heroism for that woman to decide to place that child for adoption. I know the woman in the story very well. She is my birth mother."

Read the whole thing.

Obama alienates Catholics

Catholics make up about a quarter of the American electorate and have backed the popular-vote winner in every presidential election since 1972.
That track record continued through 2008: While weekly churchgoing Catholics slightly favored Sen. John McCain, Catholics as a whole backed President Barack Obama by a margin of 54 to 45 percent.
Given the role Catholics played in Obama's 2008 victory and their habit of picking presidential winners, you might think that an embattled president with a 40-percent approval rating would be working overtime to solidify his support among this crucial voting bloc. Instead, Obama seems intent on convincing Catholics that their faith in him was unwarranted.
While other voters have been disappointed by Obama's economic failures and arrogant, ham-handed approach to everything from health care reform to the Solyndra scandal, swing-voting Catholics have special reason to feel betrayed. A candidate who won their support by pledging to respect the religiously grounded views of those with whom he disagrees has morphed into a president whose administration relentlessly attacks religious liberty.
In the past year, Obama's Justice Department has argued in court that defenders of traditional marriage – the most visible segment of which are observant Catholics and bishops – should be regarded in law as the equivalent of racists. His National Labor Relations Board has issued rulings against two Catholic schools, St. Xavier University in Chicago and Manhattan College in New York, saying that they are not sufficiently Catholic to warrant religious exemptions from federal labor law – a stunning breach of the precedent in which religious bodies, not government officials, decide who qualifies as a member of a particular church. Those rulings followed on the heels of a highly publicized crusade by Obama's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to punish North Carolina's Belmont Abbey College for removing contraception coverage from its employee health plans, a move the Catholic school made to conform to church doctrine.
And just last week, Obama's Justice Department argued before the Supreme Court for the effective gutting of the longstanding "ministerial exception" that allows religious bodies to hire and fire employees without government interference. The administration's extreme position has drawn criticism from nearly every major religious organization in the country, from the liberal National Council of Churches to the conservative National Association of Evangelicals, all of whom fear that their churches could be the next targets of an overzealous, First-Amendment-trampling Uncle Sam.
Among Catholics, the most egregious example of Obama's broken promise of religious tolerance is the one dominating diocesan headlines now: His administration's push for a mandate that would require Catholic institutions to violate the teachings of their church by covering contraceptives in their health care plans – including sterilization and drugs that induce abortions.
The mandate would be controversial even if accompanied by the standard religious exemption that allows faith-based organizations to opt out of government regulations that violate their religious beliefs. But the Obama administration has gone a step further, by crafting a religious exemption for the mandate so narrow that it excludes nearly all Catholic hospitals, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities and charitable organizations – virtually everyone, it seems, except Catholic parishes and religious orders. The upshot: Catholic colleges that teach abortion is evil must pay for abortifacient drugs for their students and Catholic hospitals that refuse to sterilize patients must subsidize sterilization for their employees.
The mandate and its lack of conscience protection is a blatant attack on religious freedom and a far cry from the promise Obama made at the University of Notre Dame in 2009. Back then, when the president was peddling his health care plan and pledging to seek "common ground" with pro-life Catholics, he vowed to "honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause." Now that Obamacare has passed, the president and his surrogates are singing a different tune. "We are in a war," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a NARAL Pro-Choice America crowd in Chicago last week.
Sebelius followed her martial rhetoric with a sarcastic swipe at pro-lifers who fail to see church-funded contraception as a cure-all for America's astronomical abortion rates. Apparently, the secretary has not read the 2011 Guttmacher Institute report that found a majority of women who abort their babies were using contraception the month they conceived.
Obama displays a similarly dismissive attitude toward his pro-life and Catholic critics. At a fundraiser here in St. Louis last week, he offered a flippant "darn tooting" rejoinder to an audience member who called out support for his unyielding enforcement of the contraceptive mandate. He answered a recent invitation to dialogue from U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops President and New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan with stony silence. And he has ignored pleas for compromise from the likes of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins and Catholic Health Association President Sr. Carol Keehan, two former Obama cheerleaders who now look like Obama's dupes.
The president's hard-line, anti-freedom stance threatens to alienate millions of Catholics, including many who disagree with their church's teachings but resent the prospect of government officials dictating which doctrines Catholic institutions may follow and which ones they must violate. For these voters and millions of their fellow travelers of other faiths, Obama's election in 2008 is looking more and more like a mistake – one they do not intend to repeat in 2012.
Catholic Education Resouce Center: COLLEEN CARROLL CAMPBELL

SF Supes Approves Ordinance against Pregnancy Centers: "A Solution in Search of A Problem"

"A solution in search of a problem" is how San Francisco supervisor Sean Elsbernd referred to today's “false advertising” ordinance against San Francisco pregnancy centers. The ordinance was passed by the Board of Supervisors by a 10-1 vote. Elsbernd was the only dissenter.

Albert Lee, of First Resort, one of the centers affected by the ruling, said "It is a sad and regrettable thing to see the board pass this legislation despite no evidence whatsoever of false and misleading advertising by San Francisco’s two pregnancy centers. It is, as Sean Elsbernd said as the sole dissenting supervisor, 'a solution in search of a problem.'”

Sad and regrettable, yes; surprising, no. That the Board of Supervisors of the City and Couty of San Francisco would waste time and money on a non-existent issue is not news. But the Board has left the taxpayers of San Francisco on the hook for a costly legal battle that is very likely to be won by the pregnancy centers. Similar laws in Baltimore and New York have already been overturned/put on hold by judges, on First Amendment grounds. As we wrote back on August 2, the real purpose of this is law is to harass crisis pregnancy centers at taxpayer expense, and thus to service the Democrat's sacred cow, Planned Parenthood.

But this will certainly end up in court. And the already stretched taxpayers of San Francisco will get screwed again. As Mr. Lee said, stay tuned.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Wonderful San Francisco Rosary Rally!

From this morning's California Catholic Daily. All photos courtesy Darwin Sayo.


“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
California Catholics honor Blessed Mother at San Francisco Family Rosary Crusade

"Under 70-degree weather and soft breezes, the San Francisco Family Rosary Crusade was prayed on Saturday, Oct. 15, in the city’s Civic Center Plaza. The crowd, numbering in the low thousands, included the faithful from every diocese in the Bay Area, as well as the dioceses of Stockton, Sacramento, and Fresno.

Too many parishes to count were represented. One of the largest groups, around 50, came from Immaculate Heart of Brentwood, and had special T-shirts printed for the occasion. The pilgrims were led by their pastor, Fr. Jerry Brown, and parochial vicar, Fr. Carl Arcosa.The rally also attracted visitors from as far away as Idaho, Ireland, Eastern Europe, and Africa, who had one way or another learned about the rally, and who joined in the opportunity to honor Our Lady.

Religious were very well represented. Many Dominicans, Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist, and the Missionaries of Charity had large contingents. Franciscans, Jesuits, Holy Cross Fathers, and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians were present as well, as were large numbers of seminarians.



The event began with a procession from the rear of the Plaza toward the stage. The crowd filling the central portion of the Plaza parted, like the Red Sea, to allow the procession of dignitaries, rally leaders, and the families chosen to recite the rosary. The procession was led by two boys carrying the banner of the Legion of Mary, followed by the Knights of Columbus Honor Guard.

The Master of Ceremonies was Fr. Lawrence Goode, chaplain of the Legion of Mary. Fr. Goode began by asking for a show of hands from those who had attended the 1961 Rally. A surprising number went up. He then asked for a response from those who came from the diocese of Oakland. A cheer went up. Then San Jose. Another cheer. Then Santa Rosa. Another cheer. Then Stockton. Another cheer. Then Sacramento. Another cheer. Then Fresno. Another cheer. Then the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Another big cheer.

Fr. Goode then introduced the bishops in attendance: Auxiliary Bishop William Justice of San Francisco, retired Bishop Ignatius Wang of San Francisco, and retired Bishop Daniel Walsh of Santa Rosa.Bishop Justice then spoke. He sent greetings from Archbishop George Niederauer, whose health prevented him from attending. Bishop Justice then read from Romans, Chapter 8, reminding the faithful that it is through Jesus that we have life, that God works all things to good, and that “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Fr. Goode then introduced the rosary as a prayer for all peoples and all times. “It is pre-Vatican II and it is post Vatican II,” he said. “It was the prayer of Nobel Prize winning scientist Louis Pasteur. It was the prayer of ‘people power’ that peacefully overturned the corrupt government in the Philippines. It was the prayer of both Italy and Poland following the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. And it is the prayer of Chinese Catholics today, imprisoned for their faith, and who make rosaries out of yarn and paper!”

As silence descended on the plaza, the rosary began. Each decade was recited by a family from one of the Bay Area dioceses. The decades were accompanied by a scriptural reading by a seminarian, and a reflection by either a Dominican Brother or a Holy Cross Father.One of the Holy Cross Fathers reflected on Mary as one who listens: “When others speak, she ponders their words in her heart. But when she does speak, she sings!”

The rosary was followed by the keynote address by Fr. Andrew Apostoli, CFR; the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, led by Bishop Ignatius Wang, and the prayer for the Beatification of the Servant of God, Fr. Patrick Peyton, led by Fr. David Marcham, vice-postulator for Fr. Peyton’s cause. In a notable coincidence, Fr. Apostoli is also currently serving as a vice-postulator for the cause of canonization of Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

“The Rosary Rally will be one day that we can be forever proud to have been part of,” said David Marten, one of the rally organizers. “The hard work and planning produced a flawless presentation. The Blessed Mother was watching over us and many graces were present.”

Many attendees expressed the hope that the San Francisco Rosary Rally will become an annual event in the city of St. Francis.

“Our blessings are beyond count,” said Eva Muntean, co-chair of the Walk for Life West Coast, who helped organizers. “Today has been a wonderful opportunity for all of us to give thanks, publicly, for the graces we have received.”

“What a beautiful witness to Our Lady and what great faith it shows,” said Vicki Evans, Respect Life Coordinator for the Archdiocese of San Francisco. “I see this as a sign of our faith that Mary will save San Francisco and our country from the dangers that threaten us.”

Despite generous contributions, organizers were still about $10,000 in debt as the day began. When the rally closed, they requested donations from the faithful. That evening, when they tabulated the donations, they received a final gift from Our Lady: the donations were almost exactly the amount needed -- and even a little more."

California Bishops "Puzzled"?

No. They are disengenuous.

Following Governor Jerry Brown's signing of AB 499, the bill that would allow minors to be vaccinated against sexually transmitted diseases without the permission of their parents, Ned Djolessi, speaking for the California Catholic Bishops sent out an email regretting the Governor's signature and professing to be puzzled by his action:

“We are puzzled and disappointed by Gov. Brown’s signature on AB 499, a bill opposed by the California Catholic Conference and literally thousands of people and community groups who support parental involvement and decry the continuing efforts of government officials and others to interfere with a parent’s right to raise their children."

There is not the slightest reason to be puzzled. Brown is a Democrat. He is the leader of the Party of Death in California. The Bishops' email continued:

“We are puzzled because on the same day he signed AB 499, the governor also signed SB 746, a ‘first-in-the-nation’ law to prevent children under 18 years of age from using tanning beds, and, just a month earlier, he vetoed SB 105, a bill to mandate ski helmets on underage youth, citing his concern with the ‘seemingly inexorable transfer of authority from parents to the state,’ saying ‘I believe parents have the ability and responsibility to make good choices for their children.’ “We recognize that it is a challenge to create good public policy, but we believe that if long-standing and generally accepted principles are upheld, the common good is served. In this case, it appears that by signing AB 499, the Governor abandoned the principle of parental responsibility he so eloquently stated earlier. We find his action both regrettable and inexplicable.”

It's not inexplicable at all: Repeat: Brown is a Democrat, the leader of California's Party of Death, and he is a liar. AB 499, introduced by open homosexual and same -sex "married" Assmblyman Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) is part of the LGBT movement and Democratic Party's ongoing war against the family. AB 499 is one of a trio of bills intoduced or sponsored this year by homosexual activists and California Democrats, all of which undercut family authority.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Party of Life, Party of Death

From yesterday's Life News:

"The House approved legislation, the Protect Life Act, to stop abortion funding in Obamacare. Senate Democrats are not expected to approve the bill and, pro-abortion President Barack Obama is expected to veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

Members voted 251-172 for the pro-life legislation, with 236 Republicans and 15 Democrats supporting the bill and 170 Democrats and two Republicans voting against it. (See how your member voted here)."