Posted on 07/21/2004 6:54:05 PM PDT by Coleus
Edited on 07/22/2004 12:33:23 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Good Counsel Homes
Chris and Joan Bell
EWTN GALLERY
GOOD COUNSEL HOMES WITH FATHER BENEDICT GROESCHEL (30:00)
Fr. Benedict Groeschel hosts this half hour special about Good Counsel Homes. Good Counsel provides homeless pregnant mothers a place to stay during their pregnancies, as well as training in skills to help them get jobs and assists them in finding affordable apartments after their babies are born. This special features interviews with Executive Director of Good Counsel Homes, Mr.Chris Bell, as well as mothers who have benefited from Good Counsel's assistance.
Thursday July 29, 2004 4:30 AM Thursday July 29, 2004 6:00 PM
Hear their Story:
Chris & Joan Bell along with Amy Kerr 8/7/2003 (#320) The Good Councel Homes For Unwed Mothers w/ Chris & Joan Bell along with Fr. Groeschel 7/31/2003 Listen on REAL ONE player. Advance to 15:00 minutes to hear the interview on LIFE ON THE ROCK
While working with homeless runaways in New York's Times Square, Christopher Bell became troubled. He saw many single pregnant women on the streets who were pregnant and with seemingly nowhere to turn.
One day Chris made a remark to his spiritual director, Father Benedict Groeschel, "Somebody should do something to help these pregnant women!"
Father Benedict looked Chris directly in the eyes and said, "You are right Chris! And you are that somebody!" With that encouragement, Good Counsel was born.
Chris and Father Benedict found an abandoned convent in Hoboken, New Jersey and in March 1985, the first home for mothers and children opened its doors. Since 1985, more than 3,500 women and children have received residential help at Good Counsel.
In addition to the basics of food, clothing and shelter, single mothers benefit from many "life skill" programs including parenting classes, nutrition, career guidance, chastity teaching, spirituality and budgeting. Daycare is available in each home so that a mother may work or return to school to complete her education.
Today Good Counsel operates five homes in New York: the Bronx, Staten Island, Spring Valley, Poughkeepsie and Harrison. We hope to be able to expand into other areas of the country as well.
If you are in need of crisis pregnancy counseling, please call out toll-free national hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week at (800) 723-8331.
Catholic New York - Teen Chooses Life - testimonial
Joan Andrews Bell, Meet the Abortion Providers conference
AFFIDAVIT OF JOAN ANDREWS BELL
Site Review for Good Counsel Homes Human Life Internationals 18th World Conference
Domestic-Church.Com: Vindication: Joan Andrews Released
Joan Andrews Bell: Prisoner of Conscience
THE INTERIM NEWSPAPER ONLINE : Level 2 template
Seattle Catholic - A Champion of Life Everlasting Seattle Catholic - Of Slaves and Babies
Domestic-Church.Com: Epiphany 1998: Letters to the Editor
Then in 1991, at age 43, she married Christopher Bell, 33, a coordinator for the Respect Life Office in the Archdiocese of New York. The pair met while he was bringing her Communion in a Delaware state prison.
She immediately became pregnant and had a daughter, Mary Louise, now 5. The girl was delivered by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a founder of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, who became a pro-lifer in the 1970s.
In December 1993, the Bells adopted a handicapped Mexican boy, Emiliano, now 9, who has arthrograposis, also known as "frozen joint disease." After four operations and physical therapy, the boy now is able to walk.
California gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon (R) has had a long-standing association with Good Counsel, a New Jersey-based organization with "close ties to some of the most extreme members of the antiabortion movement," the San Jose Mercury News reports.
According to the Mercury News, in the late 1980s Simon helped Good Counsel Executive Director Christopher Bell incorporate the organization, which runs five homes in New York for unwed mothers, and Simon has served on both its board of directors and advisory board in the past.
The paper calls Bell --"whom Simon has known for about twenty years" -- an "outspoken abortion opponent" who has supported activists "known to have violated some of the laws Simon pledges to uphold" (Kurtzman, San Jose Mercury News, 6/29).
Simon opposes abortion rights but has said that he would uphold the state's "legal and constitutional protections of reproductive freedom" (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 6/7).
Good Counsel's Web site includes links to organizations that "espouse radical antiabortion views."
Statement opposing brain death criteria
Abortion, Euthanasia, Pro-Life, What's New?
Pictures of Clinton Street, Hoboken, home which needs to be repaired
Chris and Joan Bell have 7 Children, 6 are adopted and are Handicapped.
Volunteers are needed for the Clean up and Repair day for this crisis pregnancy center which will open whenever the work is done. There will be many repair days in the future and if you know of someone in the NY/NJ metro area who wants to volunteer in some way have them call the home. This Saturday, July 24th, 2004, 9am-1pm, optional mass at 8am in the chapel, Cleaning, spackling, priming/painting. Good Counsel Homes for Unwed Mothers, 411 Clinton Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, ( 201) 795-0637 Chris Bell is the director http://www.goodcounselhomes.org/ Pictures of Clinton Street, Hoboken, home which needs to be repaired before it can be opened, mothers are turned away daily. NJ leads the USA in Teenage abortions.
I must have known this at some point, but I've forgotten it. Any idea how much time she actually served for that? We're 99% certain she slept on our floor back in 1988 (but we could be convinced it was '89).
I maintain it is impossible to protest for too long outside an abortion clinic without praying.
**I maintain it is impossible to protest for too long outside an abortion clinic without praying.**
The voice of experience!
I'm not sure. I think all 5.
I worked for Birthright again after college and volunteered for several campaigns for prolifers, most notably Congressman Chris Smith (NJ) and Steve Friends bid for Senate against Arlen Specter and attended pro-life events locally. I met Cardinal Bevilacqua on several occasions at pro-life sponsored fundraisers.
The Catholic activists, I knew at the time were as turned off by operation rescue as I was. We literally thought they had gone off the deep end. I found myself at a couple of their meetings, there is one event in particular that I vividly recall, and thought they were the biggest bunch of loonies I had ever met.
Each of the people I referred to in my above posts were Catholic pro-life activists. Two of those I mentioned with whom I became well acquainted several years prior to Operation Rescue, were leaders in the movement at the time. While most of the women I worked with at Birthright were Catholic, many of those I worked with at Penn State were of varying Christian denominations, and several were Jewish.
This not just a Catholic movement. To treat it as such is to play into the hands of the left who have always defined it that way.(i.e Catholics imposing their will on others or the Catholic hierarchy imposing its will on the rest of the country). While priests are certainly welcome on the front lines, I do not believe their role there is as essential as do you and I would prefer that priests preach the pro-life message from the altar for reasons that I already mentioned. While we were at Penn State we became well aware that pro-lifers are of every stripe, from the deeply religious to those who believe in God but are not so religious, to avowed atheists.
I hope that answers some of your questions.
Thus, non-catholics or those who might want to protest but are not particularly religious, won't be alienated.
No, my friend, you are not wrong. But, to that I will add that modern medical advances and the efforts of Pro life activists (like you!) to publisize the truth of life many of these advances expose; are getting people up off their couches and chipping away at the apathy in the churches.
It is much harder to argue today, that life does not begin in the womb, than it was 30 years ago.
According to my TV directory, this show is NOT on, I'm not sure which right, the internet TV guide or EWTN's website. My tv guide says that "Doctors of the Church" is on and NOT the Fr. Groeschel interview. I'm going to tape it just in case.
EWTN GALLERY
GOOD COUNSEL HOMES WITH FATHER BENEDICT GROESCHEL (30:00)
Fr. Benedict Groeschel hosts this half hour special about Good Counsel Homes. Good Counsel provides homeless pregnant mothers a place to stay during their pregnancies, as well as training in skills to help them get jobs and assists them in finding affordable apartments after their babies are born. This special features interviews with Executive Director of Good Counsel Homes, Mr.Chris Bell, as well as mothers who have benefited from Good Counsel's assistance.
Thursday July 29, 2004 4:30 AM
Thursday July 29, 2004 6:00 PM
JULY 29 ~ MEMORIAL OF FATHER NELSON BAKER
I had the pleasure of getting to know Chris in the course of a campaign I was working on. These people are living Saints. God Bless them for their work.
Help mothers and babies have a home
Hi all, this is me on my 1st day at Good Counsel
...yes it was used as part of a hit piece by the MSM.
Oh I get it. An anniversary ping. I'm a little slow today.
My wife and I try to support Shield of Roses in Glendale, CA on the rare occasions when we have some spare cash. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1351645/posts
But thanks for the reminder of Good Counsel. My wife's first book is scheduled for a major bestseller-marketing plan by Random House/Ballantine next February. If we strike it big we will include Chris and Joan's group on our list as well.
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