Dolores Aveiro, the mother of Real Madrid (and formerly Manchester United) soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, helped author a candid autobiography with ghost writer Paulo Sousa Costa titled: Mãe Coragem "Mother Courage" which was recently had its lusophone launch in Lisbon. Aveiro had wanted to dub the book "A Woman Is a Woman" as a nod to German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht's "Man Is a Man". But "Mother Courage"'s subtitle: "The Life the Force and the Faith of a Fighter" better explains her homage to the struggles of mothers.
When Cristiano Ronaldo learned that his mother tried to kill him in utero, he seemingly took it in good spirits, joking about who pulled the purse strings in the house. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but Ronaldo was not present for the book launch, nor was one of his brothers. Dolores excused the absence, since she claims that he knew what she would say.
Had Dolores Aveiro been successful of getting rid of a pregnancy problem when she felt under mental duress, the world would have never seen the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro.
To commemorate the 62nd consecutive year of the National Day of Prayer, there certainly were different approaches. Unlike his predecessor, President Barack Obama has not hosted an ecumenical service to commemorate the National Day of Prayer, the 44th President does issue proclamations each year. Mr. Obama's 2014 proclamation paid lip service to the importance of respecting religious liberty, which struck many political observers as ironic considering the manner which the Obama Administration has rolled out the Contraception Mandate portion of Obamacare.
On the other hand, Dr. James Dobson chose to play the prophet who will tell truth to power. Dr. Dobson was quite clear in labeling Mr. Obama as the "Abortion President". Dobson detailed how President Obama gave the keynote speech at the 2013 Planned Parenthood convention to brag how an expanded "womens' health services" would be part of Obamacare. Dobson also noted that Planned Parenthood garners $250 million a year for "reproductive health".
Dobson's group "Family Talk" recently won an injunction to block the Federal government from forcing it to impose the Contraception Mandate (which includes abortifacients). Dobson tearfully proclaimed: So come and get me if you must, Mr. President. I will not blow before your wicked regulation." Dobson urged his audience to fight on as: “We can win. And keep prayer because that’s what really made a difference here.”
Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX 1st) sympathsized with his colleague Rep. Hahn but he also recognized that Dr. Dobson considers abortion to be a sin and can not separate his religious belief from politics. Dobson's pointed speech was not partisan in the sense of party politics or advocating specific legislation but he did detail real world challenges to living in a morally inspired world. Should the National Day of Prayer be full of pretty pabulum about prayer which amounts to nothing or should it be prayerfully minded people who share their faith, even when it is challenges the conventions of the day?
Is it the event itself? There are thousands of National Day of Prayer events throughout the United States, but activities in the Federal City tend to dominate the spotlight. So having issues that are uncomfortable or contentious can threaten the non-political comity of the National Day of Prayer.
While that is true, what worth is the National Day of Prayer if it is just holding hands and singing Kumbaya? Sometimes following the path of prayer is not pleasant or readily placable. President Obama had the temerity to talk about religious liberty, while his Administration seeks to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their consciences and submit to participation in the Contraception mandate which is abhorrent to their mores.
It may be that the subject matter of Dobson's defiance is the issue. Forty one years after Roe v. Wade, Americans are still uncomfortable about abortion. Pro Life and Pro Choice activists cite various polls on the acceptability of abortion. Legislatively, the trend is towards restricting abortion but the judiciary strikes such laws as threatening the progressive right. But language matters. Notice how pro-abortion politicos talk about "womens' reproductive health" or perhaps "a woman's right to choose" rather than killing a human life which has not been granted personhood.
It is easier for morally conscious people to support "womens' reproductive health" rather than deal with the gruesome realities of abortion. This may be why the Gosnell Movie troubles Kickstart in its crowd-sourcing funding efforts. The Gosnell film bills itself as dramatizing the life of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, America's most successful serial killer -- the doctor is sin. Abortion often incites a clear break among religiously oriented people, dividing social justice spirituality from traditional Bible believers.
The question is-- Did Dr. Dobson unduly politicize the National Day of Prayer?
Last spring, husband and wife veteran filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Anne McElhinney were publicizing their feature documentary Fracknation as the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell was occurring in Philadelphia. McAleer was amazed at the lack of coverage of a prolific serial killer that murdered two women in botched late term abortions in unsanitary conditions, used a brutal snipping technique to kill a thousand children beyond the legal limit for abortion and also dealt prescription drugs.
Yet the national mainstream media ignored the Gosnell case, dismissing it like a local murder case while lavishing attention on the concurrent Jodi Arias murder trial. McAleer did man on the street interviews in California to learn about what the public knew about sensational murder trials.
As Katherine Graham, the former publisher of the Washington Post, proclaimed: "What we cover and what we don't matter a lot...The power is to set the agenda." Fox News commentator Greg Gutfeld recently speculated about the reasons why most of the mainstream media (including Fox) did not cover the Gosnell trial closely:
"The reason why they don't do this one is not because the evil is so grotesque. It's that it's too close to a moral choice they've made. That's what it's about. It's not that like, ah it's so hard to do something on this man who butchered babies. It's because it's too close to the pro-choice mindset."
However, McAleer and McElhinney were so haunted by the Gosnell trial that they backed away from other crowd-source funded projects so as to make a movie about Gosnell. Yet Anne & Phelim Media encountered more velvet gloved censorship by Kickstarter, which claims to not curate projects but would not allow them to describe their dramatized movie idea as being about a mass murderer who killed a thousand children as it allegedly violated community standards which Kickstart "encourages and (selectively) enforces". McAleer believes that it is within Kickstarter's right to not facilitate funding but that it should be forthright that it is due to the project matter not a transparent lie about community standards which it does not enforce for sundry other offensive projects.
So they moved their crowd-source funding efforts to Indiegogo, where they have raised $1.2 million of a fixed target $2.1 million. If they do not make their designated funding mark by May 12th, the money reverts back to the prospective investors.
There is already an excellent documentary film 3801 Lancaster, which interviews victims of Gosnell's House of Horrors. So McAleer and McElhinney want to make dramatized version of the Gosnell story which would run on the Lifetime Movie Network rather than a feature documentary to reach a wider audience.
It is easy for seaboard elitists to dismiss a film about Gosnell as just being by religious zealots with pro-life propaganda, which is a touch charge to apply to McAleer and McElhinney. In addition, this dismissive instinct ignores how Dr. Gosnell was a racist as he gave his white patients much better and cleaner abortion services than his clients of color.
A film about Gosnell must also include a political angle. Former Governor Tom Ridge (R-PA) was elected as chief executive of the Keystone State as a moderate Republican. The governor's office made it clear that the Commonwealth should do nothing to impede abortion services, so Gosnell's clinic was not properly inspected for 17 years, despite gruesome reports and several deaths.
Gosnell's clinic was raided because Gosnell was writing prescriptions like a pell mell pill mill for Oxycotin and the ilk. That raid permitted police to stumble upon an unsanitary abortion butchery, where Gosnell kept severed limbs as trophies.
Hearing the filmmakers promote their project, it is clear that they yearn to tell a compelling true story about a prolific American serial killer and pull back the curtain on details which a progressive public would rather ignore.
If one wishes to help actuate the Gosnell movie project, one can contribute at www.gosnellmovie.com. Those who contribute $25 will get a DVD of the film. But the filmmakers also implore people to contribute anything to show that people care.
In the wake of the capital convictions of notorious Philadelphia late term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, House Minority Leader Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 12th) was asked a hard moral question. A journalist who was not content to just do public relations for the former Speaker asked her what was the moral difference between the abortions that Dr. Kermit Gosnell could legally do at 23 weeks and an medical abortion performed at 28 weeks or even a live birth. House Democrat Leader Pelosi refused to directly answer the question. First, she snarkily noted that the journlist savored asking the hard question. She later refused to answer the inquiry as the question had an agenda. But in the alluvia of excuses in between, Nancy Pelosi managed to use her Catholic faith as a shield to defend why she supports what she euphemistically refers to a “woman’s right to make decisions about her reproductive health.” Nancy Pelosi contends that she would not answer the question since “[A]s a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this. I don't think it should have anything to do with politics." Father Frank Pavone published an open letter to Ms. Pelosi on behalf of the Priests for Life noting that her June 13th answer makes a mockery of the Catholic faith and is reprehensible. Pavone elaborated:
Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life
You speak here of Catholic faith as if it is supposed to hide us from reality instead of lead us to face reality, as if it is supposed to confuse basic moral truths instead of clarify them, and as if it is supposed to help us escape the hard moral questions of life rather than help us confront them.
Whatever Catholic faith you claim to respect and practice, it is not the faith that the Catholic Church teaches. And I speak for countless Catholics when I say that it's time for you to stop speaking as if it were.
Abortion is not sacred ground; it is sacrilegious ground. To imagine God giving the slightest approval to an act that dismembers a child he created is offensive to both faith and reason.
Last year, when Rep. Pelosi pontificated that the entire Catholic Church was not against the HHS Mandate, just 43 Catholic organizations, and that these Bishops had not spoken ex cathedra, there were calls for Pelosi to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Ex-communication is not a punishment per se, but is a protection of a person’s immortal soul from unworthily receiving the Body and Blood of Christ and the unity of faith. But as Pelosi has persisted in invoking the Catholic thing to justify policy positions on abortions which are so counter to the Magesterium that is creates scandal among the faithful, it might be time for San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone to invoke Canon 915, which denies the Eucharist to someone who obstinantly persists in grave sin.
If Pelosi was a person of good character, she would either align her abortion positions with the Church when executing her office or follow the Priests for Life’s suggestion to be honest enough to renounce her Catholicism. What is more likely to occur is emulating the example of Episcopalian Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori who keeps the pageantry of high church while eviscerating the underlying ideals by applying self-serving human secularist faith.
It is fascinating to witness how the gory details of the Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s capital murder case has made pro-choice people uncomfortable. The elite liberal media had to be shamed to cover the serial killing string infanticides of seven babies who were born but had their spinal cords “snipped” to “ensure fetal demise”. The New York Times, whose mast proclaims “All the News that is fit to print”, which tends to be the vanguard for the mainstream media (really the elite liberal media) stopped covering it because it had already published six articles. The New York Times’ editorial editor Andrew Rosenthal rationalized the Old Gray Lady’s lack of curiosity over the gruesome details of Gosnell by opining:
What does the trial of a Philadelphia doctor who is accused of performing illegal late-term abortions by inducing labor and then killing viable fetuses have to do with the debate over legal abortion?
That rhetorical question is easy to answer– it gives insights how some of our high ranking elected officials actually hold political positions which condone Gosnell’s acts of infanticide and how government officials and medical turn a blind eye to existing law protecting the newly born to ensure the viability of their perceived sacred right of abortion on demand. Some people got uncomfortable with Snips of Truth which shows that when Barack Obama was in the Illinois state legislature, he vocally twice voted against the Born-Alive Protection Act, even after he had the legislative language watered down in committee. The thrust of Obama’s objections is that the need to have a second physician available is really designed to burden the abortionist if he induces labor and the unborn child is still alive. The chilling testimony from the Gosnell trial doing illegal late term abortions and joking “That child could walk me home”, and having a clinic which has a live birth and puts the newborn from a botched abortion in a shoe box until it dies. But abortion apologists will excuse these egregious actions by claiming that Gosnell is just a bad egg which spoils the bunch. The normalcy bias compels low information citizens who are open to abortions to not believe that this course culture of death is prevalent. That is why the video documentation is telling. Live Action, a pro-life group which does investigative journalism, documented an abortion clinic worker in the Bronx who advised a prospective six month pregnant mother to “flush” the baby down the toilet if he or she is delivered at home before the final stage of the two- or three-day abortion procedure. In fact, the Bronx abortion clinic strongly suggested if she was going into labor to call them as opposed to a hospital because they might make you push it out and have the baby. Another example is in Orlando, Florida when a 23 week pregnant woman gave birth to a live child in an abortion clinic. The new mother begged abortion clinic workers to call 911, but those pleas were ignored. Eventually, the woman (who was still attached to the umbilical cord) got a hold of her cell phone and called for medical help. Alas, the emergency workers did not arrive in time and her son died. As the distressed mother recounted:
Baby Rowen, victim of infanticide at Orlando, Florida abortion clinic.
I felt so bad. I felt so helpless. I had been so wrong to come here … I wanted to fix and change everything once I saw Rowan’s precious little face and body. All we needed was someone to get us to safety.
But considering the inconvenience that this botched abortion posed and the unsanitary conditions given (unsanitary wet blankets, dried blood on the walls, no assistance during labor), it is obvious in hindsight that no help would be forthcoming. Live Action also released an undercover investigative interview with Washington, DC Abortionist Dr. Cesare Santangelo, he told a prospective 24 week pregnant mother: “I try and sever the umbilical cord first, and we wait for that to stop pulsing, and this way the fetus is expired first.” When Santagelo was pressed if the baby was born alive, the medically licensed doctor revealed:
Technically – you know, legally we would be obligated to help it, you know, to survive. But, you know, it probably wouldn’t. It’s all in how vigorously you do things to help a fetus survive at this point. Let’s say you went into labor, the membranes ruptured, and you delivered before we got to the termination part of the procedure here, you know? Then we would do things – we would – we would not help it. We wouldn’t intubate. It would be, you know, uh, a person, a terminal person in the hospital, let’s say, that had cancer, you know? You wouldn’t do any extra procedures to help that person survive. Like ‘do not resuscitate’ orders. We would do the same things here.
When the ironically named Dr. Santangelo was caught on tape by pro-life activists, Santangelo tried to do damage control in the sympathetic Washington Post. Santangelo’s interview was double speak in which he contradicted his infamous statements by insisting that he was call 911 but that he would not do anything extraordinary and that he “would let nature take its course.” No wonder why Santangelos spokespiece now labels pro lifers "terrorists". Dr. Santangelo’s outspoken opinions raises some uncomfortable questions that should give civilized citizens a pregnant pause. When do the rights of personhood confer? At 24 weeks, the unborn baby is viable in the womb. If a child is born in a botched abortion, does the originally stated intent of the mother to kill that thing override the right to life? Dr. Santanglo likens a fetus surviving an incomplete abortion to being like a terminal person the hospital who one would not take extra ordinary procedures to give medical help. Analogizing infanticide to “do not resuscitate” orders has several flaws: 1) there is no legal instrument to act upon 2) it seemingly violates the Hyppocratic Oath 3) the child was born but not asked 4) it violates standing federal law. It seems that Santangelo does not feel that that the federal law Born Alive Infant Protection Act” 1 U.S.C. § 8 does not apply to him because the intention was abortion. Alas, the legislative language covers children born “regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.” If it offers Santangelo any solace, based upon the prior history of the Obama Administration under the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder of ignoring laws that it does not like and forgoing sure prosecutions to favored political parties. It is interesting to note that the Illinois Born Alive Protection Act was modeled after the now law Federal Act, yet Mr. Obama repeatedly voted against it as a state legislator. As President Obama conveyed in his recent speech before the Planned Parenthood conference, the right to choose is all about womens’ health. He is proud of Obamacare, which forces nearly everyone (except Muslims, the Amish, Native Americans, Christian Scientists and maybe Congress and their legislative staffs) to getting Qualified Health Plans which HHS Secretary Sebelius proscribed that had to contain abortifacients. Although this author is appalled by abortion, it is currently the law of the land with some caveats (like the 24 week rule, and Born Alive). But consider the appalling medical conditions described in the Gosnell trial, and the aforementioned Orlando abortion instance. Does this type of treatment represent the sentiments which President Obama alluded to when quoting President Bill J. Clinton that “Abortion should be rare, safe and legal”. While none of the aforementioned clinics were run by Planned Parenthood, as they were doing the medically complicated and unsavory late term abortions, Planned Parenthood certainly may have referred to them to such houses of horror like Gosnell's Philadelphia clinic. This is the cosy relationship which allows taxpayers to expend $317 million in taxpayer funds in 2011 and Planned Parenthood can claim clean hands, while referring lucrative late term abortions to unseemly referral clinics where desperate women are coerced to get rid of a "problem" child for a big chunk of change. If abortionists routinely skirt the law on infants born alive and give sub-par medical treatment to women wanting abortions on the cusp of legally recognized viability, then how does it bode for other medical treatment, especially under Obamacare? Those who oppose abortion know that pro-choice people become uncomfortable when the ghastly facts about abortion as practice are exposed. That is why the Lamestream Media ignores cases like Gosnell and Hollywood stereotypes pro-lifers as hayseed, obsessed bitter clingers. But as we are all being fed into the machine of Obamacare, people should be fully cognizant how medical ethics are being skirted for profit and professional integrity as well as the ethics of removing the voice for the defenseless such as the unborn may soon imperil you.
Some may be scandalized by comparing the unsavory actions of abortionist Kermit Gosnell and President Barack Obama. Yet the facts hold out that as a legislator in the Illinois Senate, Mr. Obama twice opposed the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.
That if that fetus, or child, however you want to describe it, is now
outside of the mother's womb and the doctor continues to think that it's
non viable but there's lets say movement or some indication that
they're not just coming out limp and dead that in fact they would then
have to call in a second physician to monitor and check off and make
sure that this is not a live child that could be saved?
The salient point is that the requirement to have a second physician on call was an undue burden that would inhibit access to an abortion. Furthermore, Mr. Obama dismisses the notion that physicians would not attend to mistakes and have a fetus outside of the mother's womb that was viable.
Consider the gory facts exposed in the Gosnell capital murder case in Philadelphia. Abortionist Gosnell's special technique, which he instructed other unlicensed staff in his office to also perform, was to snip the spinal cord of a just born-alive child in an illegal late term abortion so that it "ensured fetal demise". Does that give Mr. Obama some cause for pause?
The media continues to ignore the inconsistencies in Obama's extreme abortion stance as well as the details of the Kermit Gosnell trial because facts challenging their secular shibboleths exposes the hypocrisy of doing everything "for the children" and exposes the callousness of their "choices". And to add insult to mortal injury, both Gosnell and Mr. Obama justify their actions to help the poor and marginalized, with little regard for the law, ethics, or the ultimate consequences.
The horrific testimony about Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who is being tried for
the murder of seven newborns and a Bhutanese female refuge after a botched abortion has shown that ideology isolates opinion on mass murder. While America is outraged over the cruel killing and maiming that the Boston Marathon Bombers inflicted, the media had to be shamed into briefly covering a doctor who's groundbreaking technique was to snip the spinal cords of infants after being born to "ensure fetal demise" and storing dozens on jars of dismembered body parts on shelves.
Kermit Gosnell's attorney Jack McMahon
Through his lawyer Jack McMahon, Gosnell claims that: "Everybody's made him the butcher, this, that and the other thing
without any trial, without anything being exposed to the public and
everybody's found him guilty, that's not right".. Furthermore, the Gosnell's legal mouthpiece asserted that: "This is a
targeted, elitist and racist prosecution of a doctor who's done nothing
but give (back) to the poor and the people of West Philadelphia." If that were the case, why did Gosnell's defense not bring it up in trial--after all, the two year gag order was moot in court. Instead, the Gosnell defense rested without calling a single witness.
The lack of curiosity in the Lamestream Media over the testimony for the House of Horrors at 3801 Lancaster is understandable as political partisans who do not want the sacrament of abortion on demand to be endangered.
But even for those who fervently support the right of a mother to an unborn baby, they should be concerned at the basically unregulated health and sanitary conditions and disparate treatment of their desperate customers.
Public health officials found unsterile medical instruments, with rusty and outdated equipment covered with dust. Gosnell admitted that perhaps 20% of his procedures were on women after their 24th week, which is in violation of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania law. In fact, during trial a worker at the clinic testified that Gosnell joked that one baby that he aborted was big enough to walk him home.
The clinic had a string of violations which were never corrected. Then Pennsylvania Health officials stopped inspecting for ten years for what observers might conclude were willful political ignorance about protected procedures.
There was testimony that rang of medical malpractice of women being injured by careless surgical technique on the cervix. And then the clinic had non-licensed individuals, including a 15 year old high school student aiding in surgeries.
When Gosnell applied to become a member of the National Abortion Federation, the Evaluator reported that the records were a mess, that patients were not properly informed of medical risks, that anesthesia was misused and that equipment was not available. While the invigilator from NAF rejected Gosnell's establishment terming it the worst abortion clinic that she ever inspected, this cornucopia of snafus was not reported to authorities. So much for caring about womens' health or civic duty.
It is rich to hear Gosnell's defense talk about racism and targeted treatment when Gosnell himself gave disparate treatment to white women as it was the "way of the world" because they might report him, unlike his Black and Asian clientele.
If the Lamestream Media would do its job, there would be little need to have a slew of summer Horror flicks as all one would need to do is review Gosnell trial coverage. However the elite liberal media reports on what it cares about, ignores the rest while disparaging journalists who do not follow the party line. For those who can stomach the gory details, it is worth watching the documentary 3801 Lancaster (2013) by director David Altrogge.
This was not an unexpected bundle of joy. The Lady Parts campaign was trying to be hip and capitalize on a wedge issue on social media site. When it became inconvenient, it was aborted. Sound familiar?
While the Obama “Lady Parts” campaign is gone, it is not forgotten. Social media sharing sites also posted this retort:
Maybe after Obama’s disastrous debate performance in Denver, it is reasonable to expect the endangered incumbent to come out swinging and try to rally the base by trumpeting these comfortable liberal social policy memes which worked so well in the past.
But now that Romney and Obama share a stage which gives them equal stature, it is not as easy to demonize an opponent who can not make a timely response.
Now that people are paying attention to the Presidential race in earnest, I expect that voters will use their brains when exercising their franchise.
Nellie Gray, the founder of the March for Life, died at the age of 88 on August 13. Gray was given a Requiem Mass at St. Mary, Mother of God Catholic Church in Washington, DC. Her funeral was a beautifully sung Trinentine High Mass, celebrated by Pastor Alfred Harris, with Boston Archbishop Sean Cardinal O’Malley and Washington Archbishop Donald Cardinal Wuerl in attendance. Gray had been a parishioner at St. Mary’s for sixteen years.
Nellie Gray served in the Women’s Air Corps during World War II. Afterwards, Gray earned her undergraduate degree in business, a Masters degree in Economics and went to night school at Georgetown Law School while working as a career public servant for twenty years at the State Department and the Labor Department. In fact, Gray argued cases before the Supreme Court. But she was so outraged by the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973), that she listened to God’s voice and dropped everything to oppose what she discerned was a travesty of justice. In fact, she retired on a meager government pension and never took monies from March for Life to supplement her pension.
During her eulogy, her colleague from the March for Life attorney Terry Scanlon noted Nellie’s determination once her mind was made up. Scanlon noted that Gray was the driving force in the anti-abortion movements “Respect for human life–no exceptions.” Scanlon said that Gray was actively planning the 40th anniversary March for Life when she passed away.
Cardinal O’Malley recalled working with Gray during the early days of the March for Life, when they would exhaustingly paper Capitol Hill offices with materials protesting the virtual Abortion on Demand decision. O’Malley, who is a Capuchin priest, quipped that today is the first time that he was around Nellie Gray not wearing sandals, which is the order’s customary vestment.
O’Malley opined that it always seemed like the coldest day of winter when the March for Life. But memorializing January 22 as the day of infamy had great symbolic value and galvanized Pro-Life forces to spread the light for life in the dead of winter. The first March for Life only had a couple of hundred participants. Now, the March for Life is an annual event which the Lamestream Media either minimizes or ignores despite the fact of hundreds of thousands of participants, many young people, redress their government for this unjustice to the unborn.
Cardinal O’Malley philosophized that this world seems obsessed with celebrity, yet our real champion is a person like Nellie Gray, who discerned God’s will, abandoned all of her professional pursuits to do what she thought was right and helped build God’s kingdom.
Cardinal Wuerl offered a personal story about Nellie Gray’s outlook on life. Wuerl was on the dais for the annunal March for Life, on what he too thought was the coldest day of the year. Gray focused on Wuerl and asked “Where’s your hat?” What Wuerl took from that interchange was despite the crowds and the circumstances, Gray looked at people as individuals and she was concerned about someone in trouble. Wuerl extrapolated a probing question “Where’s your voice?” challenging people to recognize the barbarity of killing pre-born children.
When connecting scripture to the question “Where’s your voice?”, Cardinal Wuerl thought of Pentacost where the Spirit of God came down upon the Apostles, which made them bold and they began to speak. Wuerl marveled at how Gray’s righteous indignation over the Supreme Court overturning abortion laws nationwide made one woman bold and the fruits over her work seem to reconnecting young people to the spirit speaking out for unborn babies.
Preparing the High Altar for Nellie Gray's Requiem, St. Mary Church Washington, DC [photo: BD Matt]
Casket of Nellie Gray lying in repose at St. Mary's Church Washington, DC [photo BD Matt]
St. Mary's Pastor Fr. Alfred Harris celebrating Nellie Gray Requiem Mass, Wash. DC [photo BD Matt]
March for Life V.P. Terry Scanlon offering Nellie Gray Eulogy [photo: BD Matt]
Boston Archbishop Sean Cardinal O'Malley reminisces on Nellie Gray [photo: BD Matt]
Washington Archbishop Donald Cardinal Wuerl's reflections on Nellie Gray's importance [photo: BD Matt]
Washington Archbishop Donald Cardinal Wuerl offers a final benediction for Nellie Gray [photo: BD Matt]
Pall bearers for Nellie Gray's casket as Knights of Columbus look on [photo: BD Matt]
Boston Archbishop Sean Cardinal O'Malley comforting mourners for Nellie Gray [photo: BD Matt]
Pope Blessed John Paul II, during a pilgrimage to Mexico in 1979, offered a prayer which captured the driving force behind Nellie Gray’s discernment of her mission from God:
Virgin of Gaudalupe, Mother of the Americas, grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life in its beginnings. Loke upon us with compassion: teach us to go continually with Jeus through a great love for all the holy Sacraments.
Thus, with our hearts free from evil and hatred, we will be able to bring to all the true joy and true peace, which comes to us from your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen
Pope Benedict XVI (vested in white) greets then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (ironically dressed in purple), on the Papal pilgrimage to Washington, DC in 2008
House Minority Leader (and former Speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 8th) prides herself on being an ardent Catholic but she seems quite confused about her faith, yet she continues to foist her heresy in the realm of politics.
A couple of years ago, at a Capitol Hill conference, Rep. Pelosi offered that her favorite word was “The Word” and stressed how it was crucial to give voice to that scriptural word when conducting public policy. However, when a reporter during the former Speaker’s weekly press gaggle followed up on when the Word became flesh, suddenly the concept was only fit for church. Perhaps Pelosi did not want to reconcile her beliefs with the inconvenient truth that her faith teaches about human life beginning at the moment of conception.
After then Senator Obama’s (D-IL) appearance at the Saddleback Civil Forum where the successful Presidential candidate deflected a question about abortion as being “above my pay grade”, Pelosi was pressed about abortion, she insisted that the doctors of the Church had been unable to make that definition.
Maybe Nancy was relying too much on Senator Augustine, uh Saint Augustine's, 4th Century notion of quickening instead of acknowleding Pope Paul VI's Encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968 which makes it quite clear that the Catholic Church believes that life begins at the moment of conception. It might give context as to why the American Catholic Sees are seething about the contraception mandate embedded in Obamacare.
So by Pelosi's train of thought, the Cardinal Bishop in her Archdiocese between the beltways is not speaking authoritatively on matters of faith for Catholic Church or she bears false witness about respecting her pastor.
But to correct the record as either Pelosi's religious education at Trinity College was inadequate or it was an instance of invincible ignorance, ex cathedra statements are solemn and formal papal pronouncements on matters of faith and morals. Before the Congresswoman from California takes solace that the Humanae Vitae encyclical was only a papal teaching, she should consider what Pope Blessed John Paul II stated in a 1993 papal audience:
When the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in exercising his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians he defines with his supreme apostolic authority that a doctrine on faith and morals is to be held by the whole Church, through the divine assistance promised him in the person of St. Peter, he enjoys that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished to endow his Church in defining a doctrine on faith and morals.
But the lawsuits from 43 Catholic institutions protesting forced participation in contraception, sterlizations and abortion are rooted in natural law hence it is part of the unaltered Magesterium (teaching) of the Catholic Church.
The same is true for the Catholic Church's opposing same sex so called "marriage". The same is true of opposition to homosexual "marriage", which trumps Pelosi's puerile justification supporting same sex marriage as her Catholic faith (allegedly) teacher her that that she must oppose all forms of discrimination.
Faithful critics both instead and out of the Catholic Church grumble that former Speaker Pelosi should be excommunicated for her beliefs. Excommunication should never be used in a punitive secular sense, as it is intended to save the soul from eternal damnation. However, excommunication proclamation need not be issued by an ecclesial court under canon law (
ferendae sententiae). A Catholic's very actions may ipso facto result in a latae sententiae excommunication, which can include an apostate, a heritic or a schismatic. Often a bishop will convey this warning in private. For all we know, this may have already happened.
When former Speaker Pelosi visited the Vatican in 2009, she was granted a fifteen minute meeting with the His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, with no press or photographers present. Pelosi issued a press release which complimented the Roman pontiff for standing for religious freedom and praised the Church's leadership for fighting poverty, hunger and global warming. The Vatican press office had a chillier characterization of the brief greeting. The papal statement indicated:
His Holiness took the opportunity [of the brief greeting with Mrs. Pelosi -ed] to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoins all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.
It sounds like the Supreme Pastor of the Catholic flock was pretty clear about when life begins. This comes on top of the 2002 doctrinal note "The Participation of Catholics in Political Life," which states rather succinctly that politicians who profess to be Catholic have a "grave and clear obligation" to oppose any law that attacks human life. The brief greeting might have sotto voce also been a word to the wise.
Well, Mrs. Pelosi persists in purusing a public policies that is anathamatic to Catholics. Worse, the House Minority Leader justifies her progressive political positions in faith while misrepresenting the Magesterium. In this environment, Canon 915 seems applicable to this layman which denies the Eucharist to someone who obstinantly persists in grave sin. Even though Washington's Archbishop Donald John Cardinal Wuerl has recently been appointed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Wuerl seems chary about keeping pro-abortion Catholic politicians from participating in Communion. Based on Monsignor Charles Pope's recent reflection, it is dubious that such action would be applied.
It is galling that a Cafeteria Catholic extols spiritual junk food for mass consumption instead of the Divine Feast under the illusion of obeying "The Word". In a pluralistic representative Republic, it is not uncommon for a politician to promote positions which an individual finds repugnant. What seems unjust is that leader lying about the moral underpinnings of these positions when it directly contradicts clear tenants of Catholic faith. If she wants to rationalize her positions on abortion, contraception and same sex "marriage" through a veneer of religiosity, she would do well to swim the Tiber in reverse, as her secuclar humanist progressive political positions would be welcomed with open arms among most Episcopalians or even Unitarians.But such a principled act would fail to pander to a large voting bloc of Catholics.
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