Author: lifenetwork

Healing the Wounds of the Culture of Death

Every January our attention is turned in a particular way to the pro-life message. It is the time when we recall in a particular way the tragic anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decisions that legalized abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy for virtually any reason. Contemplating this blight on the American soul can be pretty staggering.

Approximately 57 million abortions have occurred over the past 42 years, a number that is difficult to fathom. How can we picture these numbers? One way is to think of it as one-in-three. In speaking to high school students, for example, they are often impacted by the notion that for every three of them in the classroom, there is a missing person: one-third of their potential classmates that they will never get to know in this life.

It’s also been said that if we were to look out at our congregation on a Sunday morning, there might be, on average, one person in every pew who has somehow been affected by abortion – whether themselves directly, or a friend or loved one who has suffered so much pain.

Baby Screamed During Live-Birth Abortion, We Can’t Forget This Baby’s Cries

Members of Congress next week have an opportunity to right a travesty of injustice. Every day in the United States, babies are silently screaming in late-term abortions that deprive them of their right to life.

As Congressman Trent Franks told LifeNews.com recently, “More than 18,000 ‘very late term’ abortions are performed every year on perfectly healthy unborn babies in America. These are innocent and defenseless children who can not only feel pain, but who can survive outside of the womb in most cases, and who are torturously killed without even basic anesthesia.”

“Many of them cry and scream as they die, but because it is amniotic fluid going over their vocal cords instead of air, we don’t hear them,” he said.

Not all babies scream silently during abortions. The cries of some babies are hear loud and clear.

A former employee at the abortion clinic Kermit Gosnell ran in Philadelphia described how she heard a baby scream during a live-birth abortion. Abortion clinic employee Sherry West described an incident which “really freaked (her) out” and related to the jury how she heard a child scream who was born alive following an abortion.

West remembered how she referred to the dead children killed in these gruesome abortion procedures as “specimens” so she could avoid the mental trauma associated with knowing how they died. As local media reported:

Sherry West, of Bear, said she was loyal to Gosnell – who is now facing multiple counts of murder for allegedly killing children after they were delivered alive at his clinic – but said the incident “really freaked me out.”

When Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore pressed the 53-year-old West for specifics about the incident, West struggled to answer, clearly uncomfortable with the memory.

“I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” West testified, telling a judge and Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury that the body of the child was about 18 to 24 inches long and was one of the largest babies she had seen delivered during abortion procedures at Gosnell’s clinic.

West said she saw the child, whose face and features were not yet completely formed, lying on a glass tray on a shelf and she told a co-worker to call Gosnell about it and fled the room.

Congress has an opportunity next week to hear the screams of aborted babies and take action. Republicans in the House of Representatives will hold a vote on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade late this month on a marquee bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy because unborn children feel intense pain in abortions.

This Mother of Four Was Fired From a Catholic Hospital Because of Her Pro-Life Views

In July 2013, Montserrat Balselles was dismissed from her job at a Catholic hospital because she didn’t want to participate in abortions and openly expressed her pro-life views. The medical facility she worked at, Hospital de la Santa Creu, is located in Spain and hired Balselles as an X-ray technician.

At the time of her dismissal, Ballsells had worked at the hospital for five years and had good relationships with her coworkers. However, when she started shared her pro-life views they began making fun of her faith and convictions.

Ballsells said,” They always joked and taunted me. They laughed at the church and said really offensive things to annoy me.”

Balselles, who describes herself as a Catholic activist, said she couldn’t believe that after five years at the hospital she was facing discrimination because of her views on abortion. She also explained that before the incident she hadn’t received any complaints about her work because of her willingness to do everything. Unfortunately, because of the loss of employment, Balselles and her four children were forced to move out of their home and onto the streets.

Pope’s Address at Meeting of Families in Manila

The angel of the Lord revealed to Joseph the dangers which threatened Jesus and Mary, forcing them to flee to Egypt and then to settle in Nazareth. So too, in our time, God calls upon us to recognize the dangers threatening our own families and to protect them from harm. Be attentive, be attentive with the new ideological colonization.

[In Spanish] There is an ideological colonization that we have to be careful of that tries to destroy the family. It’s not born of the dream that we have with God from prayer and from the mission that God gives us. It comes outside. And that’s why I say it’s colonization. Let us not lose the freedom to take that mission forward that God has given us. And just as our peoples in a moment in their history were able to say no to the period of colonization, as families we have to be very wise and very strong with fortitude to these initiatives of ideological colonization that could destroy the families and to ask the intercession of St. Joseph, who is a friend of the angel, to know when to say yes and when to say no.

The pressures on family life today are many. Here in the Philippines, countless families are still suffering from the effects of natural disasters. The economic situation has caused families to be separated by migration and the search for employment, and financial problems strain many households. While all too many people live in dire poverty, others are caught up in materialism and lifestyles which are destructive of family life and the most basic demands of Christian morality. This is the ideological colonization. The family is also threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.

[In Spanish] I think of Blessed Paul VI, in a moment of that challenge of the growth of populations, he had the strength to defend openness to life. He knew the difficulties that families experienced and that’s why in his encyclical, he expressed compassion for particular cases. And he taught professors to be particularly compassionate with particular cases. But he went further. He looked to the peoples beyond. He saw the lack and the problem it could cause families in the future.

Paul VI was courageous, he was a good pastor and he warned his sheep about the wolves that were approaching. And from the heavens, he blesses us today.

Our world needs good and strong families to overcome these threats! The Philippines needs holy and loving families to protect the beauty and truth of the family in God’s plan and to be a support and example for other families. Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of humanity, as Saint John Paul II often said, passes through the family (cf.Familiaris Consortio, 85). The future passes through the family! So protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure and nourish them always by prayer and the grace of the sacraments. Families will always have their trials, but may you never add to them! Instead, be living examples of love, forgiveness and care. Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death. What a gift this would be to society, if every Christian family lived fully its noble vocation! So rise with Jesus and Mary, and set out on the path the Lord traces for each of you.

Finally, the Gospel we have heard reminds us of our Christian duty to be prophetic voices in the midst of our communities. Joseph listened to the angel of the Lord and responded to God’s call to care for Jesus and Mary. In this way he played his part in God’s plan, and became a blessing not only for the Holy Family, but a blessing for all of humanity. With Mary, Joseph served as a model for the boy Jesus as he grew in wisdom, age and grace (cf. Lk 2:52). When families bring children into the world, train them in faith and sound values, and teach them to contribute to society, they become a blessing in our world. A family can become a blessing to the world. God’s love becomes present and active by the way of love and by the good works that we do. We extend Christ’s kingdom in this world. And in doing this, we prove faithful to the prophetic mission which we have received in baptism.

During this year which your bishops have set aside as the Year of the Poor, I would ask you, as families, to be especially mindful of our call to be missionary disciples of Jesus. This means being ready to go beyond your homes and to care for our brothers and sisters who are most in need. I ask you especially to show concern for those who do not have a family of their own, in particular those who are elderly and children without parents. Never let them feel isolated, alone and abandoned, but help them to know that God has not forgotten them.

[In Spanish]: I was very moved by the Mass today, when I visited that that home for children who had no parents. How many people in the Church work so that that house can become a home, a family! This is what it means to take forward prophetically the mission of the family.

You may be poor yourselves in material ways, but you have an abundance of gifts to offer when you offer Christ and the community of his Church. Do not hide your faith, do not hide Jesus, but carry him into the world and offer the witness of your family life!

Dear friends in Christ, know that I pray for you always! I pray today for the families. I do it! I pray that the Lord may continue to deepen your love for him, and that this love may manifest itself in your love for one another and for the Church. Don’t forget Jesus sleeping, don’t forget Joseph sleeping. Jesus slept under the protection of Joseph. Don’t forget to sleep is the prayer. Don’t forget the prayer of the family.

Pray often and take the fruits of your prayer into the world, that all may know Jesus Christ and his merciful love. Please, sleep also for me, pray also for me, for I truly need your prayers and will depend on them always!

Thank you very much!

[Original text: English]

© Copyright – Libreria Editrice Vaticana

http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/43610

Abortion battle at UN continues as assembly readies to negotiate new development agenda

NEW YORK — Activists and governments that promote abortion and sexual rights see a new global scheme on development as an opportunity to change national policies.

Discussions are ongoing at UN headquarters after member states reached a partial agreement in December on a new agenda to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Negotiations begin next month on the substance and format, but an agreement on how the negotiations will occur still remains elusive.

Abortion groups have failed to gain ground on new norms in the draft development agenda. Like previous UN agreements, the 17 goals and 169 targets that UN member states adopted last year, called the Sustainable Development Goals, do not recognize a right to abortion.

Click here to read more…..

Thanks to http://www.lifesitenews.com

Midwives, Second-Class – Terminating Religious Freedom in the UK

The adage goes that when it comes to social issues, the United States is at best a decade or two behind Europe. With its cathedrals collecting cobwebs, its laws enshrining all sorts of alternative sexual practices, and its widespread disregard for the sanctity of life, this once-devout home of Christendom could very well be a picture of America’s future.

Click here to read more……

(Thanks to www.Breakpoint.org)

France Pushes Abortion Rights Beyond Its Borders – Malta mentioned

In an article by Julie Bhatia and Hajer Naili of WeNews, it was reported that a French delegation is pushing an abortion resolution which will have direct effect over Europe, under the premise of ‘France developing a profile as a European leader on abortion rights’.

Malta and Poland have been mentioned in the article as having the most restrictive laws in Europe together with Ireland and Andorra.

Please read more in this article: ‘France Pushes Abortion Rights Beyond Its Borders’ of WeNews.

Are Men’s And Women’s Brains The Same?

A recent magnetic resonance imaging research study has shown that it is possible to distinguish males and females with an accuracy of 93%, just using brain images. Duarte-Caravajalino and colleagues from UCLA used diffusion tensor imaging in a study reported in the journal Neuroimage. Diffusion tensor imaging is a new process by which connections between different parts of the brain (made by the white matter fibres, that are like tiny wires) can be imaged. They found that female brain connections were more symmetrical and had more connections from the left side of the brain to the right; male brains tended to be asymmetrical and had more connections between areas on one side of the brain. The researchers found no interactions with age between the ages of 7 to 22 (the ages of the persons studied) showing that these changes are not due to different cultural experiences.

Men are known to be better at visual orientation than women and this sex difference has been found in infants as young as three months. Men are better at rotating an object in their mind. Women have better verbal fluency and a better memory for objects. They remember better where things have been put. Men are better at navigating by cardinal direction (for example going northwards) whereas women tend to navigate using landmarks.

Personality differences between the sexes have been thought to be small but Del Giudice from the University of Turin, reporting in the journal PLOS One, found extremely large differences between men and women in a large US sample of over 10,000 persons. The authors state that personality differences between the sexes have been consistently underestimated in the past because of inadequate methodology.

One commonly quoted theory is that men and women start off with a single type of “intersex” brain and that individuals’ personalities are made up of a mosaic of “masculinizing” or “feminizing” influences. Larry Cahill, Professor of Neurobiology and Behaviour at the University of California, Irvine wrote in Cerebrum in April, that there is no evidence to support this. There is a limit to how much the brain can be changed by training, as for example a left-handed person who is forced to use their right hand will never be as good with their trained right hand. People’s brains are not just a “blank slate” that is mouldable, and we are just beginning to discover how large are the inherent differences in structure and function between the sexes.

New interesting research is also beginning to emerge on differences in moral judgments between the sexes. Fumagalli and colleagues from the University of Milan studied how men and women responded to several personal moral dilemmas. For example, they were told to imagine they were a doctor and they had five dying patients who could only be saved by transplanting five organs from a young man – but against his will, and that this would kill him. They had to give a quick yes/no answer. The researchers found that men were more likely to make “utilitarian” judgments than women and would be more likely to choose to transplant in this situation.

In a separate internet study, Bouhnik from Israel, writing in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology recently found girls were more likely to make a “humane” judgment and tended towards judgments that reflected adherence to peer-group conventions than boys.

These findings have implications for the new proposed legislation on gender in Malta. What is being proposed is that individuals who feel that they have the wrong gender can freely and easily choose to change their gender. “Gender identity” is defined in the Act as “each person’s internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth” This research is telling us that we have a hard-wired brain structure which underlies the sex-specific way we act. We can change the external way we act and look into that of the opposite sex, but it is likely that a lot of the actions and decisions of trans-sexual persons will be strongly influenced by the brain structure of their original sex. The definition of “gender identity” in the proposed Act appears to be superficial and seriously lacking. Something that is so deeply written in our brain should not be changeable by a simple application to the Director of the Public Registry. An unhurried period of consultation with experts, and assessments to ensure the right decision is being made and that the individual knows all the risks and implications should be mandatory.

Dr Patrick Pullicino

Beware the Trojan Horse

The prospective Bill on ‘gender identity’ is the next move in the shabby scheme to undermine the family. The assault on the unassailable concept that a family is made up of a man and a woman has a long gestation. The powerful transgender and homosexual organisations have been working assiduously to influence public policy into discarding this self-evident reality.

We have now reached the ridiculous situation that any assertion of the obvious, that a family is formed by a man and a woman, is now branded as being homophobic. The very idea of a family is being destroyed and redefined. Anybody choosing to have a relationship with anybody irrespective of one’s sex can claim to be a family. The Bill on gender identity is the battering ram that will smash down what’s left of the integrity of marriage and the family. Divorce legislation was the first blow that knocked out the crucial significance of marriage. The dire warnings that divorce legislation was the precursor of further legislation that would further undermine marriage and the family have been proved right.

The next stage was set when the legislation of civil union was deceitfully coupled with the introduction of gay adoption. Shockingly, this controversial and far reaching law has gone through almost unchallenged. This ‘gender bill’ is now the Trojan horse that will subvert any notion that previously upheld the true meaning of what is a family. In short, marriage between homosexuals will be legalised by default.

Yet, even more is at stake. Young people are now entitled to decide their gender irrespective of their biology. We are no longer created male and female. Sex-related genes of xx and xy are now irrelevant. According to the Bill, one can choose one’s sex. The strategy to break down the time-honoured value of sexuality is being realised.

Unbelievably, this virulent attack is promoted and supported by the United Nations and other international agencies as a result of the libertarian and contraceptive culture that is suffocating the West. This insidious campaign lies at the heart of the so-called sex education that also includes the active promotion of homosexuality in young people.

One need only examine the shameful website on sexual health adopted by our government in December 2013.

We should all know where this leads to. Now, the child is no longer the fruit of the intimate relationship between a man and a woman. The child is no longer entitled to have a mother and a father. The child is now an object to which anybody and everybody has a right. Abortion, sperm donorship and surrogate motherhood will be the next consequence of these developments.

A nation that destabilises marriage and the family is doomed. No worthy civilisation has a future if the meaning of male and female is immaterial, if marriage means nothing, if it is of no consequence whether marriage vows are upheld or not.

Society depends on the stable sexual unions of man and woman that provide the necessary innate security for children. For this reason alone, society should have an interest in protecting marriage.

The government claims that it will listen to public opinion. One wonders if there is a public opinion to listen to. We all seem to be sleep walking into any alien social framework fashioned by people who have only their narrow, selfish self-interests at heart.

Unfortunately, most people with families don’t have the time and money to become political activists. Most of the people who do have the time to be political activists don’t have families; the laws these people lobby for with great success represent special interest groups, but they do not represent the interests of that general interest group, the family.

As a result, most laws are very much anti-family and against the common good.

This prospective Gender Identity Bill will lead to the redefining of relationships and marriage. It will radically alter the nature and meaning of a fundamental institution so vital to society’s wellbeing.

Klaus Vella Bardon

Equality is the name of the game

The proposed Gender Identity, Expression and Sex Characteristics Act attempts to make a case for equality and human rights by redefining the real meaning of these terms. This Bill, if enacted, will try to alter the meaning of family life in Malta. It will attempt to silence the voice of the Church because it cannot accept nor tolerate its teachings. It will also try to poison our children’s minds in schools by pushing ‘sexual health programmes’, including gay sex, on some misguided ploy of discrimination or homophobia.

According to the gender ideology, a man and women are not born so, but become so. In the name of ‘free choice’, one will be having the choice of one’s sex and sexual orientation. This means to arbitrarily decide whether he or she wants to be man or woman, to try to destroy the concept of male and female. No psychological, medical or any assessment would be needed to make such a choice. No age limits either.

At the tender age of 14, which is biologically, hormonally and psychologically a challenging and stressful time for any adolescent, our youths will be encouraged to experiment and subsequently choose their sex. Gender mainstreaming asserts that the differentiation into two sexes is only a construct of society.

The public needs to be aware that this law will try to change the innermost core of our social structure in society. This law does away with the concept of the human person, with an unchangeable sexuality integrally connected to the person. It’s about dissolving the identity of man and woman step by step as well as sexual standards and social forms based on marriage, family, motherhood and fatherhood. It does away with the differences between male and female as well as the complementarity of both sexes so beneficial to child development.

This Cultural Revolution is called ‘gender mainstreaming’. Once enacted, this Bill will have many ramifications, of which I would like to mention but a few. Any direct opposition to an active homosexualisation of society will not be tolerated.

Same-sex marriage would enshrine in law a public judgment that the desire of adults for families of choice outweighs the need of children for mothers and fathers. It would give sanction and approval to the creation of a motherless or fatherless family as a deliberately chosen ‘good’. Embryos would have to be created to accommodate demand, and the Embryo Protection law, which in Malta gives the maximum protection to the embryo in IVF procedures, would be sacrificed.

According to the gender ideology, a man and women are not born so, but become so

It will put increasing pressures on our schools to implement programmes embracing ‘diversity’ in the name of ‘equality’ but negating concepts of ‘sexual difference’, ‘male and female complementarity’ and natural law. Studies from brain scan research, sociology and psychology, which show the undeniable difference and the need for complementation of the male and female sexes, will be ignored. Bullying will be ‘used’ as a pretext for inserting the ‘gender ideology’ in school programmes.

What will happen to the rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s education, particularly on moral issues? Will parents be given the right to opt out if they do not wish that their children be thought these concepts as the norm? The concept of parents as primary educators, besides being a parental right, is also taught by the Church and was given emphasis by the late St Pope John Paul II.

What about the Church? The Church teaches that sexual activity between people of the same gender cannot be reconciled with its beliefs and doctrines. Although it has condemned all forms of hostility to any individual on the basis of her or his actual or perceived sexual orientation, the Church has been precise in its moral teachings.

The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is the lifelong, faithful, indissoluble bond open to life between one man and one woman. We are already seeing a growing intolerance experienced by Christians in many countries in Europe and the US.

I call on all serious MPs to read up on the malaise of gender ideology, before they embark on the discussion. The Church authorities must speak out. Religious freedom depends on this Bill being repealed; before we get to the stage when it would take an act of ‘courage’ to even say that the child’s father is a man and a woman, the mother.