I want to highly recommend the latest issue of Touchstone magazine. Why? Not because I wrote an article in it, but because Nathan Schlueter did. As the Touchstone blog notes:

Nathan Schlueter writes insightfully and poetically on “The Romance of Domesticity: Marriage Thrives in Reality, Not in Our Dreams,” something Madame Bovary never knew, but we can.

You might be asking, who is Nathan Schlueter? He is a professor at Hillsdale College, but more importantly (at least to me), he was my roommate during my undergrad days at Miami University and the most proximate reason I am a Catholic. It was Nate who first introduced me to the truths of the Catholic faith, and ended up being my sponsor when I was received into the Catholic Church.

I haven’t read the Touchstone article yet, but I’m sure it is fantastic – go buy your copy now!

As I mentioned on this blog a few times last week, the big news in this area is late-term abortionist Leroy Carhart setting up his barbaric practice in nearby Germantown, Maryland. I have now attended two prayer vigils at the clinic – Monday’s drew over 300 people and Saturday’s brought in over 600. I am convinced that prayer is necessary to stop such evil, and all of our activities are worthless without deep prayer support. But I also think something else is desperately needed, something that is often neglected when we think about what we can do to stop legalized abortion in this country. That would be reparation.

What is reparation? The Catholic Encyclopedia defines it as

a theological concept closely connected with those of atonement and satisfaction, and thus belonging to some of the deepest mysteries of the Christian Faith. It is the teaching of that Faith that man is a creature who has fallen from an original state of justice in which he was created, and that through the Incarnation, Passion, and Death of the Son of God, he has been redeemed and restored again in a certain degree to the original condition. Although God might have condoned men’s offences gratuitously if He had chosen to do so, yet in His Providence He did not do this; He judged it better to demand satisfaction for the injuries which man had done Him. It is better for man’s education that wrong doing on his part should entail the necessity of making satisfaction. This satisfaction was made adequately to God by the Sufferings, Passion, and Death of Jesus Christ, made Man for us. By voluntary submission to His Passion and Death on the Cross, Jesus Christ atoned for our disobedience and sin. He thus made reparation to the offended majesty of God for the outrages which the Creator so constantly suffers at the hands of His creatures. We are restored to grace through the merits of Christ’s Death, and that grace enables us to add our prayers, labours, and trials to those of Our Lord “and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ” (Colossians 1:24). We can thus make some sort of reparation to the justice of God for our own offences against Him, and by virtue of the Communion of the Saints, the oneness and solidarity of the mystical Body of Christ, we can also make satisfaction and reparation for the sins of others.

Please note that last sentence of the definition: “by virtue of the Communion of the Saints, the oneness and solidarity of the mystical Body of Christ, we can also make satisfaction and reparation for the sins of others.” We can and should make reparation for our own sins, but we also can make reparation for the sins of others. And what sin today is crying out the loudest to heaven for justice? The killing of innocent unborn life through abortion.

Let me use an example. Let’s say that my children were playing roughly in the house and damaged the piano. They might be truly sorry and I might forgive them. They might ask very nicely that I pay to have the piano repaired, but until money is raised to pay for the repairs, my children will not be able to play the piano. Their contrition and their requests for repair must be combined with reparation in order for the piano to be restored. Only when they pool their money together, sacrificing their own good for the piano’s restoration can the problem be overcome. It is true that I could just use my own money to repair the piano, but by making my children use their money, I showed them the consequences of their actions.

The same is true in the spiritual life. As the Catholic Encyclopedia states, “God might have condoned men’s offences gratuitously if He had chosen to do so, yet in His Providence He did not do this.” God asks for reparations from us for our sins and the sins of the world, but too often we think that by asking for God’s assistance, He will swoop in and solve our problems for us. Abortion is legal in this country because of the sins of this nation, and it is not until we make reparation for those sins that it will once again be illegal and abortion clinics will be shut down.

What are some ways we can offer reparation? It can be any and every sacrifice:

• Take the most uncomfortable chair when you enter a room.
• Deny yourself treats after dinner.
• Do the dishes for your wife without being asked.
• Fast at least once a week.
• Go to adoration an extra hour each week.
• Get up early to pray an extra 15 minutes each day.
• Give extra help to that annoying co-worker on a project.
• Pray the Rosary in front of an abortion clinic each week.
• Give more than 10% of your income to charity.

As you can see, there are countless ways to offer reparation, and every day offers opportunities for it. If we really are serious about ending the evil of legalized abortion in this country, we need to be really serious about offering reparations.

A reminder: I have a book signing scheduled for tomorrow, 12/14, at the Catholic Information Center in downtown DC at 5:30pm 6:00pm. Stop by if you can!

And while we are speaking about my book, might I mention that it would make a great Christmas gift? I noticed that Amazon currently has it at its lowest price yet! (Speaking of Amazon, they just started showing authors their geographic sales statistics – thanks to the Cedar Rapids/Dubuque region for being my highest-selling region in the country).

If you are interested in watching Monday’s “Kick out Carhart” rally, here is a full video of the event:

Note: my wife Suzan begins speaking at the 33:45 mark.

Today we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and this feast remembers the two guiding realities of her life:

• She had complete enmity with Satan (Genesis 3:15)
• She was filled with grace, which is God’s life (Luke 1:28)

Of course, these two realities are interrelated: one cannot be at complete enmity with the devil unless he is filled with God’s life, and being filled with God’s life puts one at complete enmity with the devil.

Often we are tempted to think that Mary did not have the struggles that we have, because she was not interiorly tempted by sin; she had no attraction to sin like we do. Well, it is true that Mary did not have the struggles we have – hers were much, much greater. She had the complete and utter hatred of the most powerful being ever created: Satan. He despised her and desired nothing more than her fall. Do you not think that the one who led Eve into sin did not want to repeat his act by having the new Eve fall as well? Do you not think that he put all his considerable strength and power into leading her into sin? Yet this poor little peasant girl stood toe-to-toe in battle with Satan and defeated him by God’s grace. How frustrated the devil must have been!

We who fall to even the least tempter in Hell cannot understand what it must have felt like to have the full weight of Satan and all his armies against you. Yet Mary, by yielding to the fullness of grace that God gave her, was able to resist this terrible power and follow God completely and fully. We need to pray daily that we too might be in enmity with Satan by resisting sin in the power of God’s grace.

Immaculate Mary, pray for us!

It is generally agreed that the most influential non-biblical figure on Western Christianity is St. Augustine. It is impossible to overestimate his impact on Christian thought in the West during the Middle Ages and beyond. Thus, he is often called the “Father of the Western Church”.

But what if there was no St. Augustine? What if he remained a Manichean or simply a pagan? How would the Church be different? One thing is for sure, it would be a lot poorer. But Augustine did become a Christian, primarily through the influence of two people: his faithful mother St. Monica and St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, spiritual father to St. Augustine, and the saint whose feast we celebrate today.

St. Ambrose

Augustine moved to Milan at the same time he was struggling with his Manichean faith, and the preaching of Ambrose had a profound impact on his life. A primary way in which Ambrose impacted Augustine was in his approach to Sacred Scripture. Augustine had a very condescending view of the Bible; to his brilliant mind he believed the Scriptures to be poorly written literature which no intellectual like himself could take seriously (sound familiar?). But when he saw how Ambrose interpreted the Scriptures symbolically, understanding that often the literal sense of a passage doesn’t mean the same as literalism, Augustine’s eyes were opened to the Bible’s beauty and power. When Augustine realized that a brilliant mind like Ambrose’s could embrace Christianity, he soon did the same.

Don’t ever underestimate the power of your witness in spreading the Christian Faith – for all you know you might be influencing the next Augustine!

St. Ambrose, pray for us!

I just returned from a prayer rally at the abortion clinic where late-term abortionist Leroy Carhart started today. Hundreds of pro-lifers from around the area came out to witness to the sanctity of human life and to expose the evil practices of this abortionist to the local community. Local clergy from many Christian traditions came to lead us in prayer and to stand for life. I was especially proud that about half of our county’s Catholic homeschooling group was in attendance.

My wife, who has prayed the Rosary in front of this clinic almost every Friday for the past four years, was asked to speak at the rally. She has been begging God to shut down this clinic for years and when she first heard that Carhart was coming, her initial reaction was to wonder if God was hearing her prayers. But she quickly realized that this might be exactly how God works a miracle: by Carhart coming, now everyone in the community knows about the clinic and many are outraged and want it to be shut down. After she was finished speaking, Reverend Patrick Mahoney, a national pro-life leader who organized today’s rally, said, “Thank you for your service Suzan – and now the cavalry’s coming!”

One of the interesting things about today’s rally is that it was discovered that the board which supervises the office complex in which the clinic resides was having their regularly scheduled meeting at the same time as the rally. There are businesses in the office complex who are outraged that this barbaric practice is taking place there, and many other businesses just don’t like that there will be controversy there, which is bad for business. Hopefully today’s rally let them know what a bad idea it is to have an abortion clinic as one of their businesses – both morally and economically.

Please pray that there will be a constant and large pro-life presence at this clinic until it is finally shut down.

Some pictures from the rally:

Pro-lifers listen to the speakers

Pro-life leaders speak to the rally

Lining the sidewalk in front of the clinic

Hundreds pray in front of Carhart's clinic

To follow the efforts to stop Carhart’s Maryland practice, go to www.kickoutcarhart.com.

…so I’ll just give you the facts:

• World War III has already started
• The number 11 is homosexual and the number 23 is just plain evil
• Protestants will soon be raptured, but Catholics still have a shot at salvation (yay!)
• Pope Benedict’s recent comments on condoms is part of the End Times

Listen for yourself from the “Third Eagle of the Apocalypse”:

The other day I noted that notorious late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart will begin performing late-term abortions in Maryland starting next week. I noted that “late-term” usually refers to any abortion after 20 weeks. But how late in a pregnancy will Carhart and other abortionists perform abortions? This can be a confusing question to answer – even my original post incorrectly stated that only a very few abortionists performs abortions after 20 weeks.

Over the years, many publications, both pro-life and mainstream, have noted that there are very few abortionists who perform late-term abortions. Usually, three men are mentioned: George Tiller of Kansas (now deceased), LeRoy Carhart of Nebraska, and Warren Hern of Colorado. Sometimes also Martin Haskell of Ohio will be mentioned, as he is the man who popularized the gruesome D&X abortion procedure known as “partial-birth abortion”. However, this small number of men, as GetReligion recently noted, seems to conflict with the reality:

I had happened to read a link to a much more recent survey than the 2001 cited by Stein in his reports last year. It appeared at the pro-life news site LifeNews. It cited a 2008 report, based on 2005 data, from The Guttmacher Institute. That institute used to be Planned Parenthood’s research arm, although it’s now independent of the country’s largest abortion provider. Anyway, the 2008 study indicates that they found 1,787 abortion doctors. Only 20 percent offer abortions after 20 weeks gestation, and only 8 percent offer abortions after 24 weeks. I think the earliest a baby has survived is around 21 weeks gestation…

So that means that some 350 doctors perform abortions after 20 weeks and more than 140 perform after 24 weeks.

What is even more confusing is that media reports suggest that Carhart himself doesn’t perform abortions after 24 weeks. An article this week in the Baltimore Sun noted,

In a 2009 interview with Newsweek, [Carhart] said that he does not perform elective abortions past 24 weeks into a pregnancy, when a fetus has a good chance of survival.

So, what is the truth? Do only a handful of abortionists perform late-term abortions, or do hundreds? Does Carhart perform the later late-term abortions, or doesn’t he? As is usual in the abortion debate, getting to the truth means translating euphemisms and digging deeper than most mainstream media reports will dig.

The reality is that Carhart and Hern (and Tiller before his death) are willing to do abortions throughout the full term of a pregnancy, even into the third trimester (i.e. after 28 weeks). Most abortionists who perform late-term abortions will only do them during the second trimester, often making their cut-off around 26 weeks. But Carhart and Hern have no such restrictions. This statement might seem to contradict the quote from the Baltimore Sun above, but we need to look at it more closely:

In a 2009 interview with Newsweek, [Carhart] said that he does not perform elective abortions past 24 weeks into a pregnancy, when a fetus has a good chance of survival.

Note the word “elective”. What that means is that Carhart will perform abortions up to 24 weeks for no reason at all – just ask for it, and he’ll perform it. However, Carhart’s website states that he offers:

Providing:

Medical Abortions

• Elective Surgical 1st and 2nd Trimester Abortions up to viability
• Advanced Gestation Abortions for Maternal and Fetal Indications

Note the second type of abortion he provides: “Advanced Gestation Abortions for Maternal and Fetal Indications”. What does that sentence mean? It means that he will provide abortions at “advanced gestation”, i.e. the third trimester, as long as there is a reason. But what kind of reason would be accepted as legitimate? That is all based on the judgement of the abortionist himself, which in practice means any reason at all is acceptable.

If the child has Downs Syndrome, that would be a “fetal indication”, thus justifying a third-trimester abortion. If the mother has a health risk from the pregnancy, that would be a “maternal indication” justifying an abortion after 28 weeks. In fact, if the mother felt that she was not able to have a baby, that too could be a “maternal indication” that Carhart could use to abort a baby in the third-trimester of pregnancy. In other words, Carhart will perform abortions throughout a pregnancy for any reason – or no reason – whatsoever. This sets him apart from even the vast majority of late-term abortionists. (And note that Maryland has one of the most permissive abortion laws in the country, so all of this is “legal”).

If you live in the DC area, please consider coming to a prayer vigil and protest being held at Carhart’s new abortion facility in Germantown, MD on Monday, December 6th (Carhart’s first day on the job and the feast of St. Nicholas – the patron of children) at 11am. Contact me if you want further details.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
St. Nicholas, pray for us!

A friend in DC writes,

I’m co-chair of a committee working on Faith Formation for Blessed Sacrament‘s Centennial. We are planning a speaker series aimed at Catholics who are not experiencing their faith to the fullest – perhaps they only go to mass occasionally, perhaps they haven’t been to reconciliation in a long time, perhaps they didn’t receive very good catechises as children and aren’t even really all that sure about the basics of the faith.

We’re actually have our first event on Thursday December 2nd at 7pm. Coming up soon! We have Fr. Jim Greenfield speaking – the topic is “Why Catholic?” meaning why do we do the things we do as Catholics and why should we even want to experience our faith more deeply.

We’re transforming the school auditorium into a pub atmosphere, with tables and votive candles. We’ll have beer and wine and hors d’oeuvres. We will also have childcare! We’re trying to create an open, inviting atmosphere for people to feel welcome and free to ask questions.

I am so grateful for my Catholic faith, and it pains me to think of all the Catholics who are not fully embracing this wonderful gift. So this project has been my labor of love.