Fight FOCA

A practicing Catholic educator sent the following.

"FOCA (the freedom of choice act)is senate bill S1173 and house bill HR1964. The full text of the senate bill can be read at: http://www.nrlc.org/FOCA/FOCA2007S1173.html

"You will see that the bill puts into law what is now just a court ruling. It would effectively REPLACE Roe v Wade. The judiciary should just interpret laws and the Supreme Court, in the Roe v Wade decision, discovered a constitutional right that does not exist in the Constitution. When FOCA becomes law, the courts do not have to make up a right or a law, it WILL BE the law of the land.

"Candidate N. promised: "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do." -- Senator N., speaking to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, July 17, 2007.

"Perhaps he will change his mind. Perhaps the Democrats will decide not to pass the law. I sure hope so!...but I would not bet on it. With the economy in a bad shape, it is easiest to pass laws that cost nothing...except for the blood and broken bodies of children.

"It is much easier to stop a law from being passed than to try to have it repealed at some later date. My guess is that if just half the Catholics in this country were to sign the petition to stop FOCA, the law will probably not pass. My expectation is that not enough people will get involved and that the law will be enacted. Regardless, we must do all we can otherwise the blood of those children will be on our hands."

Sign the petition by Americans United for Life to stop FOCA here.

Viva Uraguay!

Uruguay President Vetoes Abortion Bill

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, NOV. 14, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The president of Uruguay vetoed today a measure to allow first-trimester abortions.

Tabaré Vázquez, a medical doctor, had promised a veto for what would have made Uruguay the most abortion-permissive country in South America.

Benedict XVI had encouraged Uruguayan bishops to fight for the dignity of human life when he received them in their five-yearly visit last September.

The prelates came out with a statement during their plenary assembly that ended Wednesday, noting that support of abortion breaks the link with the Church. They appealed to canon law to confirm their position that those who support abortion should not receive the Eucharist.

Uruguayan Parliament passed the measure with a 17-13 vote. They need a three-fifths majority to override the veto.

"We'd have to close" hospitals if FOCA passes

Bishop Paprocki, auxiliary bishop of Chicago, in an intervention at the USCCB conference which came to a close just days ago, sounded the death knell for Catholic health care institutions in the U.S. should N. pass FOCA as promised.

"[FOCA] could mean discontinuing obstetrics in our hospitals, and we may need to consider taking the drastic step of closing our catholic hospitals entirely. It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell them to someone who would perform abortions. That would be a morally unacceptable cooperation in evil.

"I do not think I'm being alarmist in suggesting the need to take such drastic steps," Paprocki said, adding that his brother bishops "need to be prepared to respond in the face of increasingly militant threats to unborn life."

In the Chicago Tribune, Paprocki is quoted: "If Catholic hospitals were required by federal law to perform abortions, we'd have to close our hospitals."

"Public and Direct" Defiance of the Church

Fr. Roy Bourgeois Publicly Rejects the Magisterium; Excommunication Looms
By Deacon Keith Fournier 11/14/2008
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

COLUMBUS, Ga. (Catholic Online) - Fr. Roy Bourgeois is a Maryknoll Priest, ordained to the priesthood in 1972.

From the beginning of his priestly ministry he has worked with the poor and the oppressed. He has taken public and sometimes controversial stands against Latin American leaders who have not respected human dignity or demonstrated concern for the oppressed or the poor. He founded the “School of the America’s Watch” in 1990 to call attention to what he has long maintained was American complicity in some of the very unjust activities he had dedicated his life and ministry to expose, oppose and change. Thus far, though Catholics of various political persuasions could - and often do - disagree with him and his political leanings, he has certainly been within his rights to engage in this work. He has also not veered from Catholic teaching in so doing. However, all that changed on August 9th when Fr. Bourgeois chose to become a “concelebrant” and homilist at the attempted ordination to the priesthood of Janice Sevre-Duszynska.

The attempted “ordination” occurred at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington, Ky.

Now, Fr. Bourgeois has decided to engage in a new crusade, one which involves public and direct defiance of the Holy See and a repudiation of the unbroken teaching of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church concerning sacred ordination.

According to a letter which Fr. Bourgeois released to the Press, he has received a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It gave him a certain period of days within which he was to recant his “belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church, or (he) will be excommunicated.” This action followed the priests public rejection of efforts from the leadership within his own religious community to return him to fidelity with the teaching of the Catholic Church.

"Unwanted" pregnancies?

This is from an email I received recently:

"The conversion isn't necessary, what is necessary is better judgment and wisdom from the pro-lifer's. States once again overwhelmingly defeated propositions to overturn choice. What EVERY SINGLE person agrees on is the desire to reduce and eventually eliminate unwanted pregnancies and thereby...abortion.

"That is where the work for all of us together begins and where the victory over abortion can become manifest.

"The Church has almost always been a follower when it comes to social justice issues and this cause is no different.

"To the Church I say...watch and learn."

Aside from the obvious blindness to the Church's undisputed leadership in the pro-life cause, I wish to draw attention to the idea on the part of some that some pregnancies are "unwanted" and thus candidates for abortion.

A pregnancy may be "unwanted" but that does not mean one can justify ending the life which is the cause of the pregnancy. What happens when a pregnancy occurs is the one who acted to bring about the pregnancy is called to change their attitude from "not wanting" to "wanting".

This is the crux of the problem - some say they are also against abortion but use phrases like "unwanted pregnancies". You can't have it both ways. A pregnancy is a life. The decision has already been made and life has begun in pregnancy.

Effort to Steal Consecrated Hosts Thwarted by Priest

By Deacon Keith A. Fournier
11/13/2008

Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

JENSEN BEACH, Fl. (Catholic Online) – A 33 yr old man from Connecticut named John Samuel Ricci is now in Police custody. His bond was set at $2,000 and he will stay in the Martin County Jail until he appears in Court on Dec. 11, 2008.

He attempted to steal consecrated communion hosts from the priest while he was standing in line to receive the Eucharist on Saturday, November 8, 2008 at St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church in Jensen Beach, Florida.

Reports from the Martin County Sherriff’s Office indicate that he was cornered by six or seven parishioners who detained him until Police arrived at the Church. The priest and a parishioner were injured in the scuffle which ensued.

Ricci has been charged with battery, theft and disruption of a Church service. He was the last one in the line to receive the Eucharist at the Saturday Morning Mass. All of the other communicants had returned to the pews.

Carl Marszewski, 66, is a parishioner who was at the Holy Mass. He told a local reporter "Everyone else was on their way back to the pews to kneel and pray. I was approaching my pew across the church from where he was when it happened. I ran over there to stop him from running out with the communion."

Reports indicate that Ricci then cursed at Marszewski and 83-year-old Fr. James Malgano. Next he pushed them down. "It took six people to hold him down," Marszewski said. He suffered a heart attack in his valiant effort to protect the consecrated Eucharist.

As to why the man from Connecticut would attempt to steal the Body of Christ, the brave parishioner gave further insights, "He was seen on a camera we have here stealing something else from the altar two days earlier," he said. "There are so many reasons why he could have done this, especially with the issues of all of these different cults and covens that actually want to desecrate the offering to their god — the god of darkness."

Another member of the parish who was present indicated that when Ricci put the first consecrated host in his pocket, he was politely asked to put it into his mouth. He not only refused but actually threw the Body of the Lord on the floor. He then allegedly ranted about being a member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church strongly condemns this desecration of the Body of the Lord as a sacrilege: “2120. Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us.”

The Code of Canon Law indicates that such an action excommunicates the offender “Can. 1367 One who throws away the consecrated species or, for a sacrilegious purpose, takes them away or keeps them, incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See”