When I was growing up, my father advised me to never sign petitions. He felt that they tied you too much to a group and could at some point be used against you. I admit that this advice stuck with me and sometimes I react negatively to petitions. At the very least, I always read them carefully and never sign unless I am 100% behind the cause.

That being said, I just signed the Manhattan Declaration. Even though it was endorsed by many outstanding Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical leaders, I didn’t want to sign it until I read it myself. Now that I have read it (download it here), I can say that it is a powerful document defending our pro-life and pro-marriage beliefs, as well as our liberty to hold to and live out those beliefs. I also note that my own ordinary, Archbishop Wuerl, signed the Declaration.

I recommend that you read the Declaration as well and urge you to consider signing it. Even if my father would recommend against it.

When I was in college during the early 1990′s, there was a great surge in pro-life activism. Led by the preaching of Randall Terry and the witness of Joan Andrews, many thousands of prolifers were praying and rescuing at abortion clinics across the country. However, after the draconian FACE law went into effect in 1995, making blockading an abortion clinic a federal crime, the number of rescues dropped to almost nothing and even those praying at clinics dropped severely. Whereas before you could find hundreds of pro-lifers at certain clinics on Saturday mornings, by the late 1990′s you only saw a handful of people – usually middle-aged and older Catholics praying the Rosary.

Fortunately, it appears that the tide is turning (or returning, as the case may be), at least here in DC. I mentioned two weeks ago that Archbishop Wuerl recently prayed outside an abortion clinic. Now, the students of Christendom College organized a massive prayer vigil in front of an abortion clinic in DC:

Shield of Roses, the pro-life student group at Christendom College, reports that it held its largest protest ever when more than 200 people protested at the Planned Parenthood clinic just north of the White House in Washington, D.C.

Students, faculty, staff and others traveled to the U.S. capital on Oct. 31. While the group protests at the same clinic each Saturday morning during the academic year, normally only 20 to 30 students participate.

Once a semester the group organizes what it calls a “Mega Shield” event to encourage as many as possible to participate. Last year’s event drew as many as 125 students, according to Christendom College…

Christendom Admissions Director Tom McFadden, an attendee at the Oct. 31 protest, said it is hard to tell the effect of the annual March for Life held on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.

In contrast, McFadden said the Saturday protest made a difference.

“Through the grace of God and our physical presence, we ended up saving the lives of two babies because their mothers chose not to enter the clinic that day. It doesn’t really get much better than that!”

That final point is why I don’t like to call these events “protests” like the article does. The term “protest” implies a political agenda, replete with slogans and chanting. These prayer vigils, on the other hand, are spiritual events whose primary purpose is to confront the unseen powers of darkness, save the lives of the children scheduled to be killed that day and convert the hearts of the women and workers at the clinic. There is nothing wrong with working within the political system to protest for the end of legalized abortion, but that is not what these prayer vigils are for.

Hopefully Christendom College will be able to continue to have many students be a prayerful presence at the abortion clinics in DC. God bless them!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

Have you ever noticed that almost no abortion clinic includes the word “abortion” in their name? Usually abortion clinics are named something like “Springfield Women’s Center” or “Family Planning Services”. Out of over 400 abortion clinics in this list, only seven actually have the word “abortion” in their name. In most cases, abortion is the clinic’s main business, yet they don’t advertise that service openly.

Yet, if you look at the typical pro-life crisis pregnancy center, most of them have the term “pregnancy” in them (see this list). They make it clear what their business is: they help women who are pregnant.

So which one is being deceptive in their advertising practices? Here in Montgomery County, Maryland, the county council has decided that it is the pro-life pregnancy centers which are deceptive, and therefore they want to pass a law requiring them (and only them) to advertise what the do NOT sell, i.e. abortions. The directors of these CPC’s are understandably not pleased:

“The people who are using our services aren’t misunderstanding what we do and what we’re providing,” said Jacqueline Stippich, executive director for Shady Grove Pregnancy Center. She said most of the center’s new clients are referred by past clients.

A similar proposal currently being considered by the Baltimore City Council.

Rockville Pregnancy Center Executive Director Gail Tierney said those types of legislations are singling out anti-abortion pregnancy centers to score political points.

“I just kind of find it strange as a medical clinic to make us list things we don’t do,” Tierney said. “It’s like having Home Depot having to post a sign saying: We don’t sell dresses.”

Seven years ago, John Allen Muhammad, the “Beltway Sniper”, terrorized the DC area for three weeks in October, randomly killing 10 people and wounding 3 more. I remember it well. If you drew lines between the first three locations in which people were shot, my office was in the middle of that triangle. I can remember running zig-zag across the street to get to another office building and standing behind large tarps at gas stations while I pumped. I had moved to the DC area the year before – right before 9/11 – and with the Sniper, 9/11 and the anthrax scare, I was reconsidering my move from Ohio. There is a reason we use the term “terrorist”.

Tomorrow Muhammad is to be executed by the state of Virginia for his crimes. Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington is asking that Muhammad be given life in jail rather than the death penalty. I support his call to commute the death penalty for Muhammad. In fact, I think the death penalty should be abolished in this country.

Why? It is not that I think the State does not have the right to use the death penalty. Both Scripture and Tradition make clear that legitimate governments are allowed to use the death penalty as a means of maintaining order if that is necessary. However, just because the State has the right to execute does not mean it has the obligation to do so. Like Pope John Paul II, I do not think that the death penalty is necessary in modern society. Our country is the most materially blessed nation in the history of humanity – we don’t even blink an eye at 65″ HD television sets sitting in someone’s living room – so we have the resources necessary to detain dangerous criminals and keep them from society if needed.

Furthermore, I think it profoundly sad that our culture is so incredibly violent and yet we react with surprise and indignation when we produce violent criminals. From video games to movies to popular music we pump violent imagery into the minds of our citizens and then we are shocked when some of them act out on it? Combine that “imaginary” violence with the real destruction of human life that is abortion which surrounds us, and we have a recipe for disaster. But when someone does act out in violent ways, our solution is simply more violence: let’s just kill them to rid ourselves of the problem.

I am not saying that people do not have personal responsibility. We all make choices in what imagery we consume and how we react to it. Yet I cannot help but wonder why it is that as a society we are willing to destroy people with our rotten culture yet are unwilling to spend the funds necessary to try to rehabilitate them. (I would also argue that the extreme form of separation of church and state our country has adopted in recent generations exacerbates the problem, as churches are not allowed to be directly involved in this rehabilitation effort).

Finally, I think the abolishment of the death penalty would be a strong pro-life stand in our culture of death. Abortion and the death penalty are not equivalent issues – the death of an innocent child is not the same as the death of a convicted criminal by the State – yet I think both are fundamentally saying that killing a person is the solution to a problem. In our country, where such a “solution” is never necessary, we should strive to abolish the death penalty, including for people like John Allen Muhammad.

we will win.

In my high school and early college days I was “pro-life”, but only politically. I was supportive of exceptions such as rape and incest, and to me, abortion was just one political “issue” among many, and not even the most important one at that. However, my sophomore year of college I actually went to an abortion clinic to pray, and the reality of the evil of abortion hit me in the face like a two-by-four. There were actually little children being brutally killed in that building! The shock this caused jolted me out of my complacency; I realized that legalized abortion is not simply a political issue, it is the most destructive force in the world today.

Because of my experience, I always encourage people to make the effort to go to the local abortion clinic and pray in front of it. But my words are only so effective; what is most compelling is to see our leaders take the battle to the heart of evil. This is what my ordinary, Archbishop Wuerl, did recently:

Archbishop prays rosary outside District abortion clinic

As Archbishop Donald Wuerl led a small group of mostly college age people in praying the rosary outside Planned Parenthood’s Metropolitan Washington clinic on Oct. 24, three sidewalk counselors tried to reach out to people walking into the abortion clinic.

Archbishop Wuerl then spoke quietly to encourage those praying there as part of the 40 Days for Life Campaign against abortion, which began on Sept. 23 and continues through Nov. 1.

“Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a witness. To do it quietly and in prayer is a beautiful form of witness,” the archbishop said. “Abortion may be legal, but it’s wrong. If enough people say it, someday it will cease to be a part of the fabric of our nation.”

God bless you, Archbishop Wuerl! I hope your example leads many others to take their prayers to where the killing is happening.

It was inevitable I guess. We are a culture that worships physical looks and devalues human life. Now it has come out that a bio-pharmaceutical company is using cell lines from aborted babies in their new skin care products:

Neocutis’ key ingredient known as “Processed Skin Proteins” was developed at the University of Luasanne from the skin tissue of a 14-week gestation electively-aborted male baby donated by the University Hospital in Switzerland. Subsequently, a working cell bank was established, containing several billion cultured skin cells to produce the human growth factor needed to restore aging skin.

The list of products using the cell line include: Bio-Gel, Journee, Bio-Serum, Prevedem, Bio Restorative Skin Cream and Lumiere.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

I have always believed that eventually the abortion industry will collapse upon itself; like communism, it is built on lies and as such it cannot maintain itself forever. One of the main weapons that will bring it down is science, specifically ultrasound technology.

The Endowment for Human Development has a series of incredible videos which show the development of a child in the womb. Only one who has been blinded by the Enemy cannot acknowledge the humanity of the unborn child so clearly shown in these videos. Check them out!

Here is a tradition I didn’t know: when you have your 12th child, you have a bishop baptize him or her. But that is exactly what happened here in Maryland recently, as Kolbe Peter Fatzinger, the 12th child of Rob and Cecilia Fatzinger, was baptized by Bishop Martin Holley (the Auxiliary Bishop of Washington DC who is himself the 8th of 14 children) a few Saturdays ago.

Earlier the [Bishop Holley] told participants through the beautiful sacrament of marriage, Kolbe’s parents became co-creators with God – and the new baby is a “product of that love,” Bishop Holley added.

“Out of the sacrament of marriage is born all the other sacraments,” Bishop Holley later said. “The graces from (his parents’) marriage continues to be perpetuated in the life of this young boy – who will eventually make a decision of his own life,” whether that choice be marriage, a vocation to the religious life or a faithful lay person.

As the eighth of 14 children, Bishop Holley seemed right at home in front of the Fatzinger family. A large family teaches you Gospel truths, Bishop Holley noted. Children learn about God’s love through their parents – their first teachers. Later, children are taught how to love their neighbors by learning to love their siblings. “We often refer to the family as the ‘domestic church,’” Bishop Holley told the Catholic Standard.

He pointed out the younger children in the family who were gathered around their older siblings and parents watching them intently. “All eyes are looking at their parents,” Bishop Holley said. “The graces that come from marriages, are important for society, and so important for the continuation of the Church,” Bishop Holley said. “Marriage gives life to all the other sacraments.”

Or, as Mother Teresa once said, “big family, holy family.” And the Fatzingers seem like quite a family. They have only been married 20 years, yet have 12 children and already one of them is in the Seminary!

May God continue to shower His blessings on the Fatzingers!

So the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute spends tons of money to try to show that making abortion illegal doesn’t reduce the number of abortions performed.

A smart pro-lifer spends a few brain cells to dismantle their “research”.

Really, Guttmacher never had a chance.

Over at Inside Catholic, Deal Hudson profiles Divine Mercy Care, a pro-life ob-gyn practice and pharmacy located in Northern Virginia. Divine Mercy Care is run by Dr. John Bruchalski, a well-known Catholic doctor who has appeared on EWTN and at numerous Catholic conferences around the country. From the article:

Bruchalski’s vision of pro-life medical care goes beyond the rejection of abortion and contraception as medical options. He was emphatic when he told me, “I have to see the underserved in my daily life.” As a result, Tepeyac is the largest provider of obstetric services to Medicaid patients in northern Virginia.

DMC has three pillars, according to Bruchalski: to offer excellent medicine, serve the underserved, and make daily use of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. These commitments grew out of Bruchalski’s own conversion from conventional obstetrics as a medical student and resident.

I asked what changed his view of medicine. “We were taught to believe that fertility could be controlled and would lead to happiness,” he said, “but my experience changed my mind. Just the opposite was the case: diseases were becoming epidemic; relationships broke up; women using contraceptives were being hurt by being subjected to men — all leading to sadness, depression, and loss of libido.”

I am completely biased when it comes to Dr. Bruchalski and Divine Mercy Care. He delivered my fifth child, and to be honest, we would not have her if not for Dr. Bruchalski. My wife had a number of problems which led to multiple miscarriages and our previous OB could not determine the root cause. Dr. Bruchalski, however, was able to put her on a series of medications which helped her and led to the birth of child number 5. I am eternally grateful to him.

Dr. Bruchalski also told us a story about an African woman who came to his clinic after having 12(!) abortions. She had converted to Christianity and wanted to conceive a child, but of course her uterus was in terrible condition. He was able to determine a plan of medications that led her to conceive and bear a healthy child. What he does is truly miraculous.

What is so awesome about Dr. Bruchalski is that he doesn’t succumb to the powerful peer pressure that exists in the medical community. This is most obvious in his strong pro-life and anti-contraception views, but it pervades his entire outlook. He takes what is best from the medical community, but he is not afraid to do something that his own experience tells him works. Just because something is a fad doesn’t mean he will accept it blindly, and just because something falls out of favor with the medical establishment doesn’t mean he rejects it as well. I can testify from personal experience that he was able to help us when no other doctor could because he was willing to think “outside the box.” May God bless his work.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

My wife and I run a non-profit organization called Little Flowers Foundation. The meaning behind the name is two-fold. It is named after our patron, St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, whose feast we celebrate today. The name also reflects the “little flowers” that we are trying to help – children who do not have families to care for them and love them. As Mother Theresa once said, “How can you say there are too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers.”

Our mission is to assist Catholic families with the costs of adoption, especially the adoption of special needs children. It is a small practical way to combat the anti-life mentality that grips our world. In the past year alone we have granted over $30,000 to assist in bringing 11 children into their families, and over our 7-year history we have granted over $150,000 to Catholic families.

Due to a high demand for grants as well as lower-than-usual donations this year, we have very little money left in the bank; however, we have a number of very good applications for grants pending. We really need donations so that we can assist these families in bringing a child into their Catholic family. We are an all-volunteer organization (our only expenses are small mailings we send out to our donor base twice a year), so close to 100% of your donation goes directly to families.

Here is an excerpt from our latest mailing:

Now we would like you to meet two more families that have applied to us for help with their adoption expenses. One of them is adopting a child from Ukraine. This little boy has Down Syndrome and has lived in a rural orphanage since birth. He is two-and-a-half now. Children with special needs such as his are transferred at age four to a mental institution if they are not adopted. This family is asking for help with the final $5,000 of his $22,000 adoption. Can you help bring Vanya home to a loving family?

The second family is adopting a daughter from China with spina bifida and severe cognitive delays. I’d like you to read what this mother has to say about this, their second special needs adoption:

“We were told by our agency to expect a lengthy wait…Much to our surprise a few weeks later we saw a picture of a beautiful 2 year old girl, Lian, at our agency’s website and we instantly fell in love…We heard that she could not crawl, walk, feed herself or talk. We learned that she has shut herself off from the world and that she rarely plays with other children…[This] made our desire to adopt her stronger… She was abandoned by her birth parents on the day she was born and has lived her entire life at the orphanage with nannies who were unprepared to care for a child with her spinal condition. When she was a year old she was matched with a family… They had her for less than 24 hours then they returned her to the orphanage saying that…they no longer wished to adopt her. Under normal circumstances a disrupted adoption would seal a child’s fate and she would never be made available for adoption again…”

This couple calls it a miracle that they were even able to get a referral for her. However, instead of the 10-12 months they expected to have to save up for an adoption, they had only two months to pay the bulk of the money and within just a few months more will need to pay for travel and other remaining expenses. They need your help to bridge the $4,500 gap between what they are able to pay right now and what it will take to bring Lian home.

All the families we assist are solid Catholic families who plan to have their children baptized and raised in the Catholic Faith. I realize times are tough for many people, but if you are able to donate even a small amount, it would be greatly appreciated.

You can make a secure online donation here or you can mail a check (made out to “Little Flowers Foundation”) to:

Little Flowers Foundation
P.O. Box 87143
Gaithersburg, MD 20886

God bless you!

St. Thérèse, pray for us!

Frequently the question is asked, “what can I do to end legalized abortion?” My answer is always, “anything.” Too often in the pro-life movement we have a tendency to think that what we are doing is the best and only way to end legalized abortion, and what other pro-lifers are doing isn’t as effective as our work. Yet this is a temptation from the devil. If you are sidewalk-counseling, running for office, working at a crisis pregnancy center, writing to your congressman, or any other host of things, you are doing the right thing. Legalized abortion is so deeply ingrained in our society that it will take a multi-faceted approach to bring it down.

That being said, I do think there is one activity that is superior to all others, but fortunately, it can easily be done in conjunction with other activities. That activity is prayer and fasting. Those who have fighting legalized abortion for any length of time will tell you that it is primarily a spiritual battle. Our enemy is not pro-abortion politicians or even abortionists. They are victims of our true enemy, which is the Father of Lies, Satan. And Satan cannot be defeated simply by activism alone; he is defeated through the power of Christ. Thus our activism must have a spiritual basis, for legalized abortion is clearly the kind of evil that can only be driven out by prayer and fasting (cf. Mark 9:29).

That is why I am excited about the International Week of Prayer and Fasting, to be held October 2-12, which has as one of its objectives to end abortion. Here are some details:

Organizers of the 17th annual Week of Prayer and Fasting comprise a coalition of Catholic and Christian organizations. They said the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Rosary are “supernatural heavenly weapons to prevent disasters, wars and degeneration.”

The goals of this week of prayer are the conversion of nations, peace and an end to abortion. Its theme is “God’s Plan for Life and Love.” Organizers are asking people to attend the week’s events in Washington, D.C. if possible and also to fast, go to confession, attend daily Mass and offer prayers such as Holy Hours, Rosaries and Divine Mercy Chaplets.

The great thing about such an event is literally everyone can participate. So next week take some time for extra prayer and be sure to involve fasting in your spiritual practices. The mothers and children in danger of being victimized by abortion will thank you for it one day.

Creative Minority Report linked to a disturbing video which shows how evil begets evil:

CMR calls the video “shocking”, but in reality it is not that shocking. Those who are directly involved in the work of abortion clinics – and their “work” is killing little children – have allowed a great evil to enter their hearts and evil is something that always grows if not fought against. Working at an abortion clinic has a tremendous impact on one’s soul – how can it not? This is not just passively supporting legalized abortion politically (as bad as that can be), but it is actively performing actions that end the life of babies in the womb.

A story from my own pro-life activist days (one of many) will reflect the depths of evil many who provide abortions will sink. When I was in college, our pro-life group went every Friday afternoon to the local abortion clinic to pray the rosary and sidewalk counsel. We would stay until they closed at 6pm and then head home. There were usually “escorts” there who would harass us and try to keep us from talking to the women going into the clinic. Also there was usually a police presence there to keep everyone in order.

One day the clock turned 6pm but we decided to stay and continue to pray the rosary. The clinic closed and the police left, but most of the escorts stayed. As the sun started to go down and we continued to pray, the escorts became more and more agitated. They always would yell and ridicule us, but the content of their yelling began to change. Instead of simply chanting some idiotic pro-abortion slogan like “Get your rosaries off my ovaries” or “Not the Church, not the State, let women decide their fate”, they began to chant more hideous things like “Kill the Christians”, “Bring back the lions” and things about Jesus which I will not repeat due to their incredibly blasphemous content. It was clear to us that if they could get away with it, they would have killed us right then and there and felt no moral compunction about it. Being directly involved in the killing of innocent children every day had a terrible impact on their souls. That is the true face of the pro-abortion movement, one that is whitewashed and cleaned up for display on the nightly news.

The answer to this evil is prayer and mortification. It is only by the power of Christ that such souls can be converted, and we should pray for these people and be willing to do reparation for such sins in whatever way we can.