One of the key rallying cries of the first Protestant Reformers was that they were resisting the “Pelagianism” of the Roman Catholic Church. Pelagianism is the belief that man, under his own power, is able to obtain salvation; the grace of God is superfluous to this process. The Reformers believed that the Catholic Church of their time, with its emphasis on works in the process of salvation, was preaching a doctrine dangerously similar to the 4th century Pelagius. They, on the other hand, believed that our works were useless for our salvation and instead believed God alone saves us without any involvement of ours.

Thus, on the surface, these two belief systems – Protestantism and Pelagianism – appear to be in complete opposition. But I would posit that they share an underlying error, and that is presumption. Presumption is the sin in which one believes that it is guaranteed that he is going to heaven. As Joseph Pieper once wrote, it is a “perverse anticipation of fulfillment.” Instead of hoping that one will be saved, the presumptuous person assumes it as fact. But of course no one can know with 100% surety that he will be saved until after his death occurs.

So how do both Pelagians and Protestants presume their salvation? A Pelagianist believes that by his own power he can guarantee salvation and the forgiveness of his sins; God “owes” him salvation based on his good works. A Protestant believes that God alone, without any work of his, will effect his salvation with absolute certainty; in this case God “owes” him salvation based on His supposed promises: he is “assured of his salvation.” In both cases, the person presumes more than he can know.

Both of these attitudes, of course, are erroneous. The proper attitude of the Christian is hope, not presumption. The Christian believes “in hope we are saved” (Romans 8:24). Although we are great sinners, we trust in God’s mercy to save us, but we also know that we must cooperate with this mercy in order to one day see Him face-to-face. Our life as pilgrims here on earth is full of tension between the possibility of damnation and the promise of salvation. And hope is the proper Christian response to that tension, as it recognizes with humility our great sins, but trusts in the even greater mercy of God.

Note: The basis for this post came from Joseph Pieper’s wonderful book “On Hope.”

Last month my family went on vacation in New York and while there we took a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs. I wrote an article about this trip for the latest issue of OSV Newsweekly:

My family descended into the ravine, following the footsteps of one martyr-saint who had searched there for the bones of another. As we traced the downhill path alongside a small stream, we read the words of St. Isaac Jogues describing his search for the body of his Jesuit companion, René.

Killed at the hands of the Iroquois Indians, St. René Goupil would become the first canonized martyr of the United States. We were passing over the holiest ground in our country, we realized, in this out-of-the-way valley in New York.

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If you are able to get a copy of the print version of this issue, be sure to check out the photographs which accompanied my article – they were taken by my daughter Lucy!

One thing I have noticed about strong religious orders, such as the Franciscan Friars (and Sisters) of the Renewal or the Sisters of Life, is that their members are joyful. Whenever I talk to one of them, I can’t get a smile off my face, because their joyfulness is so contagious. This joyfulness is attractive and is one of the best means of evangelization; after all, who wouldn’t want to be part of something so full of happiness and fun?

Joy, however, is often an overlooked virtue in the Christian life. But Fr. James Martin gives a great (and hilarious) defense of joy in this speech he recently gave (note: the talk is almost 30 minutes and the audio quality at times is poor, but it is worth it):

James Martin, SJ from The Leadership Roundtable on Vimeo.

H/t: OSV Daily Take

One hundred years ago in this country, there were two factors which determined what parish a Catholic would attend: his geographic location and his ethnicity. If you were a recent immigrant, you went to the closest parish that served your people; if not, you just went to the closest non-ethnic parish. But this is not the case today: many Catholics shop around for a parish that suits their needs and then hop to the one that they like the best. Is this allowed? What are we to make of all this?

It should first be noted that lay Catholics are free to go to whatever parish they desire; they are not bound under canon law to attend their territorial parish. However, canon law does stipulate that a pastor of a parish is responsible for all the souls in that parish’s geographic territory, regardless of whether they attend his parish or not (or even if they are Catholic or not). So, in a certain sense, the pastor of your territorial parish is your pastor no matter if you attend his parish or not.

But even if it is allowed, is it a good idea to do the parish “shop and hop”? Should Catholics just attend their territorial parish or should they search around for a “good” parish? Opinions abound. My in-laws, who grew up before Vatican II, would never have dreamed of attending any parish but their “proper” one; they felt that a Catholic was supposed to support their local parish, no matter their personal opinion of it. However, many Catholics feel that it is necessary for their spiritual well-being to attend the “best” parish they can find.

When I first became Catholic, I was in the group that felt that you should attend your territorial parish unless the pastor there was preaching outright heresy. Even if the liturgy was poorly celebrated, the music stunk, and the pastor preached a “be nice” Gospel, a Catholic should support his local parish.

Then I had kids.

As any parent will tell you, having kids changes your entire perspective; you now see everything through their eyes. And I saw a child being raised in a watered-down Catholic Faith and it scared me. After that point, I decided I would attend the best parish within a reasonable distance because I wanted my kids to experience Catholicism and the Mass in a reverent, enthusiastic environment if at all possible.

Of course, one can take the parish “shop and hop” too far and demand perfection from a parish. But a perfect parish does not exist, and frankly, that attitude is one step away from Protestantism. We cannot expect a parish to be EXACTLY what we want, and we must be understanding of the difficulties of being a pastor. Leaving a parish simply because the music isn’t Gregorian Chant or the pastor’s homilies are dry isn’t a valid reason, in my opinion. And furthermore, we should actively work to improve our parishes; too often I hear people complain about their parishes, but they do nothing to help improve them. A parish doesn’t become faithful by magic, it is done by the hard work and prayers of its members. In the end, though, I see no problem with attending the most faithful parish one can in their general geographic area. It is not an ideal solution, but it is an acknowledgment of reality.

Before anyone says it in the comments, I do understand that many Catholics in this country live in a situation in which there are no parishes around them that are strongly faithful to the teachings and practices of the Church. I sympathize with them and know that this situation can be quite a cross. I pray that they unite their sufferings with our Lord for the renewal of the entire Church, including their own parish.

An interesting sidenote: when my family moved to Gaithersburg, we started attending the closest parish to us – St. John Neumann, which was only about 1.5 miles down the road. It is a great parish and we have happily attended it for years. But about two years ago, I discovered that we actually live in the boundaries of another parish! That parish, which is about 4-5 miles away, is also a great parish, but we decided to stay at St. John Neumann, as we had become active members and had found a spiritual home there. But technically, we unknowingly hopped parishes.

A few stories about new members of the Catholic Church:

Canadian Anglican Catholic group votes to unite with Rome

Faith and Reason in the Context of Conversion – the story of an Evangelical’s conversion to the Catholic Church

The Pearl of Great Price – another Protestant minister converts to Catholicism

I was recently asked by a fellow Catholic blogger for some pointers in getting people to come to his blog. Anyone who has ever run a blog understands the desire to have people read what you write. It can become spiritually dangerous to focus too much on getting traffic, but on the other hand, if you truly believe that what you write can help others in their walk with Christ, then you want as many people as possible to read it.

I make no claim to be an expert on the topic, but I do have a few ideas that might help other bloggers to drive traffic to their site.

1) Content, Content, Content
If you don’t have interesting (and well-written!) content, people will not be interested in your blog. Sometimes blogs get popular because they espouse “controversial” views, but I think the better way to increase visitors is to have content that people want to read on a regular basis. Note, however, that this takes a lot of hard work. Emphasis on “lot” and “hard” and “work.”

2) Be yourself
Don’t try to imitate other popular Catholic blogs – write about what you care about and what is interesting to you. The only way to produce good content (see above) is to write about what you are passionate about. If you just try to pick topics that you think are popular, your writing will suffer and you won’t stand out in the crowded blogosphere. Find your niche and stick to it.

3) Promote your blog
For most of us, promoting ourselves is difficult, as we are afraid that we are putting ourselves in front, instead of Christ. And it can be a danger for bloggers. But if you have written something that you think will help people, then by all means tell others about it. Write to other bloggers and tell them about interesting posts you have written (but don’t overwhelm them with every post you ever write: only pick ones that you think that particular blogger might find interesting). No one will magically show up at your blog – they need to be told by someone they trust to go there.

4) Links
The best way to help your search engine ranking, which will allow people to more easily find you, is to have many inbound links to your blog. To do this, you have to ask people to add you to your blogroll or otherwise link to you. Some people will do so and others won’t (I don’t link to very many blogs on my blogroll, for example), but any link will help.

5) Be Patient
If you look at the most popular Catholic blogs out there, you will notice that they all have been around for years. Building an audience on the internet takes time; people usually have to visit your site a number of times before deciding to make it a regular destination and to recommend it to others. Do not expect a quick jump in traffic and be prepared to blog for years before you have any substantial audience.

And finally, don’t take your blog too seriously. Yes, blogs can address serious subjects but we have to remember that they are just blogs, after all. Ultimately, how you interact with those around you – your family, your friends, your co-workers – is more important to your spiritual life than how well-trafficked your blog is.

Satan’s greatest success is not when he gets someone to do something that they know is immoral; it is when he gets someone to do something immoral and be convinced that it is not wrong. In the first case, the person can come to repentance and ask for forgiveness, but in the second case they do not even acknowledge they need to repent of their actions.

Such is the case today with artificial contraception. When you take a step back and think about it, it is unbelievable (and diabolical) that just 100 years ago every practicing Christian, no matter their tradition, would acknowledge that artificial contraception is immoral. But today, almost none do; artificial contraception is as normal as cell phones and McDonald’s. As an Evangelical Christian, I never once gave a thought to the morality of using artificial contraception; to me that would be as silly as contemplating the morality of using a fork instead of my hands to eat. This is still the situation in most of the Evangelical world (and scandalously much of the Catholic world as well).

But perhaps the tide is turning:

(RNS) Is contraception a sin? The very suggestion made Bryan Hodge and his classmates at Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute laugh.

As his friends scoffed and began rebutting the oddball idea, Hodge found himself on the other side, poking holes in their arguments. He finished a bachelor’s degree in biblical theology at Moody and earned a master’s degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Now, more than a decade later, he is trying to drive a hole the size of the ark through what has become conventional wisdom among many Christians: that contraception is perfectly moral.

His book, “The Christian Case Against Contraception,” was published in November. Hodge, a former Presbyterian pastor who is now a layman in the conservative Orthodox Presbyterian Church, realizes his mission is quixotic.

In the 50 years since the birth-control pill hit the market, contraception in all its forms has become as ubiquitous as the minivan, and dramatically changed social mores as it opened the possibilities for women.

No less than other Americans, Christians were caught up in the cultural conflagration. In a nation where 77 percent of the population claims to be Christian, 98 percent of women who have ever had sexual intercourse say they’ve used at least one method of birth control.

The pill is the most preferred method, followed closely by female sterilization (usually tying off fallopian tubes).

“People are no longer … thinking about it,” says Hodge, 36, who had to agree with a Christian publisher who rejected his book on grounds that contraception is a nonstarter, a settled issue.

“People don’t even ask if there is anything possibly morally wrong about it.”

For more than 19 centuries, every Christian church opposed contraception.

Under pressure from social reformers such as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, the Anglican Communion (and its U.S. branch, the Episcopal Church) became the first to allow married couples with grave reasons to use birth control.

That decision cracked a door that, four decades later, was thrown wide open with the relatively safe, effective birth-control pill, which went on the market in this country in the summer of 1960. Virtually every Protestant denomination had lifted the ban by the mid-1960s.

Even evangelicals within mainline Protestant and nondenominational churches embraced the pill as a way that married couples could enjoy their God-given sexuality without fear of untimely pregnancy.

“It was a reaction to that whole Victorian thing where sex was seen as dirty,” says Hodge, who lives in Pennsylvania.

Official Mormon teaching through the late 1960s was against birth control. But by 1998, the church’s General Handbook of Instructions made it clear that only a couple can decide how many children to have and no one else is to judge.

There remains one massive holdout among major Christian churches—the Roman Catholic Church, which expressed its opposition in no uncertain terms in Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae.

To separate the two functions of marital intimacy—the life-transmitting from the bonding—is to reject God’s design, Paul VI wrote.

“The fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman,” Humanae Vitae proclaimed.

Janet Smith, a Catholic seminary professor whose writing and talks have been influential for two decades, puts it this way: “God himself is love, and it’s the very nature of love to overflow into new life. Take the baby-making power out of sex, and it doesn’t express love. All it expresses is physical attraction.”

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The central command of the Christian Faith, from which all else revolves, is to love. In fact, Christianity makes the bold statement that “God is Love” (1 John 4:16). If we want to be like God, we must love. Yet, what does it mean to love another person?

A critical aspect of love is how we view our beloved, such as a spouse, our children, or our close friends. Dietrich von Hildebrand said that when we truly love someone, we give them three “credits:”

Faith
When we love someone, we firmly believe in the beauty of that person, even in areas we have not yet discovered. We do not take a critical point of view towards the beloved, but instead believe that they are beautiful in many and various ways. We are convinced that the more we know about the person, the more we will love them.

Hope
Whenever one deals with another person, there are events and actions that are open to interpretation. When we love someone, we always assume the highest interpretation, assuming the best, until we have definitive proof that our interpretation is false. We never assume the worst about those we love.

Solidarity
Of course, every person has faults, including those we love. When we discover these faults in a beloved, we mourn and grieve over them, because we feel that they betray the true beauty of that person. We continue to affirm that it is good that our beloved exists, and we desire nothing more than that they overcome their faults.

Anyone who has loved another person can easily see how they have applied these three credits to their beloved. Who assumes the worst about their spouse, or believes that their child is not beautiful, or doesn’t grieve over a close friend’s faults?

But Christ does not just ask us to love our beloved, he commands that we “love our enemies” (Matthew 5:44). In other words, we must apply those three “credits” to our enemies. We must believe in the intrinsic beauty of our enemies, assume the highest interpretations of their actions, and grieve over any faults they may have. We do this for our spouses, our children, and our friends. Do we do it for our enemies?

I’m back from my trip to Ohio! I want to thank a few people that made the trip such an enjoyable time:

Mark and Gretchen Nelson, owners of Nelson Fine Art and Gifts and Catholic to the Max (if you need any Catholic art or gifts, you’ll find it there). Our family stayed with them in Steubenville a few days, and as always they were gracious hosts.

Vito Carchedi, chairman of the Society of St. John Chrysostom Youngstown Chapter, who invited me to speak to their group last Tuesday. The Society is a great group with wonderful people, and I enjoyed meeting Vito, Richard Mattiussi, Fr. George Gage, Raymond Nakely and all the fine folks there. Hopefully my talk helped in the goal that we all “might be one” someday.

Matt Swaim, Brian Patrick, Anna Mitchell and everyone at The Son Rise Morning Show, who had me as an in-studio guest on Friday. It was wonderful to finally meet them after numerous phone interviews over the past year. I also was able to meet Rich Leonardi, who runs the wonderful blog Ten Reasons. Rich and I have corresponded for years via email and blogs, but haven’t been able to meet in person until we happened to be interviewed back-to-back on Son Rise.

Now, back to blogging!

Next week I’ll be in my home state of Ohio, and while I’m there I’ll be giving a talk and doing a radio interview.

On Tuesday, July 20th at 7pm at St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church in Youngstown, I’ll be speaking to the Society of Saint John Chrysostom, an ecumenical group composed mostly of Eastern Catholics, Orthodox and Roman Catholics. I will be talking about Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism and my recent involvement in the Orientale Lumen Conference here in DC. If you are anywhere near the Youngstown area on Tuesday, I’d love to see you there! (And if you are looking for a Catholic speaker for your group, click here.)

Next Friday, July 23rd, I’ll be an in-studio guest of the Son Rise Morning Show radio program (they are based in my hometown of Cincinnati). I’ve been a regular guest on the program for the past year, so it will be great to personally meet Brian, Matt and everyone involved in the show. I’ll try to refrain from any “WKRP in Cincinnati” jokes while I’m there.

Needless to say, blogging will be light (most likely non-existent) next week!

*Bonus points if you know the song referenced in the post title (without googling it).
**Double bonus points if you know the most likely place to hear this song today.

I thought this story of a young boy and an Orthodox priest was a perfect embodiment of today’s Gospel:

I am visiting the family back in upstate New York for a little bit and today went off to the 9:30 AM divine liturgy at one of the eight(!) local Orthodox parishes that are within a convenient drive of my father’s house. The liturgy was reasonably well attended for midsummer and was unremarkable until the time came for the last major censing by the deacon. The priest was at the altar with the doors open when suddenly a small boy, not more than four or five years old, broke loose from his parents and ran up towards the altar and… charged right through the doors and started tugging on the priests vestments.

I can now relate that the sudden and simultaneous intake of breath on the part of a couple of hundred people creates a very distinctive sound. But the silence that followed was almost painful. The parents… visibly horrified seemed not sure of whether or not to rush up and add to the chaos in the sanctuary. This was coupled with a deep silence from everyone else frantically trying to avert their eyes from what was at the least surely going to prove a terrible embarrassment if not a major catastrophe.

Then in a few seconds the crisis was ended. The priest looked over his shoulder and after a moment of visible (and understandable) shock, smiled and I thought he was going to laugh. With a quick motion of his hand he called over the deacon who had been in the process of censing and calmly relieved the deacon of his censor. He then bent over and handed the censor to the little boy, showing him how to hold it and swing it, and then directed him to finish censing the iconostasis and assorted icon stands.

Off went the overjoyed little boy, with the deacon hot on his trail, happily censing everything that looked even remotely like an icon. OK OK he almost knocked over a candle stand but the deacon saved the day. After he was done the deacon relieved him of the censor and quietly guided the happiest child in the city back to his parents.

I have no idea how many church canons or liturgical rubrics were violated today. But I can tell you that there was not a dry eye in the church.

There is a rising trend in Evangelical churches these days: pastors preaching to multiple congregations through hi-def technology:

The Sunday morning service at Fellowship Church in Dallas, Texas, was humming along with hymns and prayers when something unusual happened.

The lights in the sanctuary suddenly dimmed, and members of the church hushed as they peered at a pulpit shrouded in darkness. The parishioners then erupted in cheers and whistles as Ed Young Sr., the church’s senior pastor, emerged from the darkness with a microphone in hand.

“Please be seated, be seated,” Young said as he grabbed the Bible. “How are you guys doing today? Doing well?”

Young delivered his sermon, but he couldn’t hear or see his congregation respond: He wasn’t physically there.

Young’s parishioners were instead looking at a high-def video image of their pastor beamed into their sanctuary from a “mother” church in Grapevine, Texas.

Young is part of a new generation of pastors who can be in two places at one time. They are using technology — high-def videos, and even holograms — to beam their Sunday morning sermons to remote “satellite” churches that belong to their congregation.

The problem with this trend isn’t the technology, or even having sermons broadcast to multiple locations (EWTN essentially does this all the time). The real problem of this particular use of the technology is two-fold: (1) it encourages a cult of personality around the pastor, and (2) it diminishes the sacramental nature of Christianity, in which matter and spirit are combined in our path to salvation.

Most Protestant services revolve around the sermon, and the better the preacher, the more likely the service will be popular. Churches begin to revolve around the personality of the pastor, whose preaching ability is essential to the success of the church. But the structure of the Catholic Mass helps to prevent this problem. The focus of the Mass is not the sermon, but instead the Eucharist, in which Jesus Christ is truly present to us in sacramental form. The only cult of personality that should exist in the Church is around the person of Jesus Christ.It is great when a Catholic priest is a good preacher, but that is not the primary reason we come to Mass, and it should not be the high point of the liturgy. Instead, the miracle of the consecration is what should draw us: through the power of the Holy Spirit bread and wine are able to change  into the body and blood of our Lord.

Furthermore, we believe the “Word became flesh” thus elevating our physical natures to heights unimagined before the incarnation. This taking on of flesh by the Son of God has profound implications for our lives, and it effects how we live our Catholic Faith. The Church does not allow sacraments to occur without the physical presence of the minister (you can’t receive confession by phone, nor can a priest consecrate the bread and wine if he is not physically present). This isn’t anti-technology, it is good theology, for God uses physical matter to bring us closer to Him. As much as modern technology can help us in our walk with the Lord, nothing can replace one-on-one interaction with our pastors and fellow Christians.

Ultimately, it really isn’t very impressive that these pastors can “appear” at multiple locations at one time; Jesus Christ has been appearing at EVERY Catholic parish in the world since his Ascension! He doesn’t need hi-def technology to do it, but instead through a sacramental miracle he takes the form of bread and wine and allows himself to be received by his followers. No man-made technology will ever to able to top that!

Some people criticize Natural Family Planning (NFP) as just “Catholic birth control.” It is fundamentally no different, according to critics, than condoms, birth control pills, or other means to prevent pregnancy. These are obviously people who have never actually used NFP in their own lives, for if they did, they would know how different it really is.

The great thing about NFP is that using it helps one to recognize the great gift of marital sexuality as well as the great blessing of children in a marriage. Whereas artificial birth control focuses exclusively on preventing the natural consequence of sexual relations, NFP helps a couple focus on the two primary purposes of sexual relations: procreation and marital unity. This often leads them to a deeper marriage and a greater openness to children – and even a greater appreciation of the Catholic Church, as can be seen with this couple:

Couple credits NFP for changed worldview

Chris and Christelle Hagen weren’t Catholic when they decided to use natural family planning instead of artificial birth control.

Christelle was initially attracted to NFP for health, not moral, reasons, she said. At first, Chris was surprised she didn’t want to use birth control pills, but he was happy to oblige.

Now, 13 years into their marriage, the Hagens, members of St. Michael in Stillwater, say using NFP has positively affected not only Christelle’s health, but also the way they view their marriage, intimacy and children.

NFP also opened the door to the couple’s exploration of the Catholic faith, and their eventual conversion to Catholicism from the Evangelical faith in 1999, said Chris, 34.

Learning to trust

Unlike contraception, which uses barriers or hormones to prevent the marital act from producing life or, in some cases, can act as an abortifacient, NFP ensures the couples’ marital act is always open to life. When a couple does not want to become pregant, they abstain from sex when the wife is fertile.

According to the Catholic Church, NFP is the only moral way to regulate pregnancies.

Christelle, 37, first learned of NFP while living with a Catholic family after college, and she explained it to Chris, whom she was dating. They made a decision to use NFP after they married.

But, out of fear of pregnancy, the Hagens used condoms during their honeymoon. A few nights later, however, they had a spiritual experience — something Chris said is difficult to describe.

“We both felt an intense amount of fear, we felt very vulnerable, and we both had the sense — we were experiencing this at the same time — that it was because we were using condoms,” he said.

They didn’t use a condom after that night and tried better to trust God, they said.

Their Evangelical church didn’t teach contraception was wrong, and initially, the Hagens thought that, while it was wrong for them, contraception wasn’t wrong for everyone, Christelle said.

They eventually changed their minds. Chris was persuaded by the fact that no Christian denominations approved artificial birth control until the 20th century. Although Christelle had already changed her mind, a miscarriage eight months after their wedding confirmed her beliefs, she said.

“That experience for me was really a turning point emotionally for NFP, because I realized more of what was at stake with sexuality — that it had incredible power to it, the power to create life, and after that, I’ve never looked back,” she said.

They started to teach NFP, which they did for eight years as a couple through Couple to Couple League. When Chris became too busy to co-teach, they retired from Couple to Couple League, and Christelle focused on her growing interest in childbirth and parenting.

Practicing NFP deepened their appreciation for children, they said, and today they have four, ranging in age from 2 to 9.

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God bless Archbishop Francisco Gil Hellin of Burgos of Spain:

Archbishop Francisco Gil Hellin of Burgos warned this week there is no right to kill an innocent human being and therefore no obligation to obey to the new law on abortion. Rather, “direct opposition without distinction” must be mounted, he said.

“Let’s be clear: this law is not a law, although it is presented as such by some politicians and lawmakers.  It is no law because nobody has the right to take the life of an innocent human being. For this reason it is not obligatory.  Moreover, it demands direct opposition without distinction,” the archbishop said in a letter.

He underscored that reason cannot recognize abortion as a right because it constitutes the killing “of a person who is not guilty.”  “The right of a person to exist who has already been conceived, although not yet born, is not a belief stemming from any religion.  One does not need to be a believer to hold that an innocent person has the right to be defended and respected in his or her integrity.  Common sense dictates that one cannot take a human life in order to solve another problem or to “get money or votes,” he said.

The archbishop went on to say it is a “fallacy to assert that this law was passed by a majority in Parliament and that it represents the will of the majority of citizens, or if the Constitutional Court upholds it, that opposing it would be disobedient and would warrant sanction.”

“The fallacy consists in giving politicians, judges or citizens a right they do not have.  And nobody has the right to legislate the killing of an innocent person,” Archbishop Gil Hellin said.  He urged Spaniards to help all mothers who are in difficult situations and to support motherhood “with all the means at our disposal” in order to “halt this plague of abortion that, in Spain alone has already destroyed more people than all those who live in the cities of Zaragoza, Cordoba and Burgos.”