U.S. Priests urged to Make Abortion and Election Center of Sermons Until November

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | Tuesday August 17, 2004

[cpforlife.org]

Priests for Life Leader on Tour in South Dakota to Promote a Truly Catholic Vote

SIOUX FALLS, S.D., August 17, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) -

Fr. Frank Pavone, director of the international pro-life organization, Priests for Life, will be coming into the Sioux Falls area to give several powerful talks to the clergy and the general public on August 18th and 19th. In what is being hailed as a "whistle-stop" tour of Sioux Falls, Fr. Pavone will be speaking to thousands of area residents about the November election.

Fr. Pavone will also be leading a demonstration and prayer vigil in front of the Sioux Falls Planned Parenthood clinic, and will be meeting privately with Bishop Robert Carlson at the Catholic Pastoral Center.

The focus of Fr. Pavone's message will be that it is impossible to be a Catholic in good standing with the Church and yet vote for pro-abortion candidates. Fr. Pavone will be aggressively targeting Catholic and Christian voters, and urging them to "bring their Christian convictions into the voting booth on November 2nd." He will also be issuing the following challenge to all the priests of the diocese: "Make the abortion issue and the election the central focus of all your homilies between now and November. Urge the tens of thousands in your flock to vote pro-life candidates into office!"

Dismissing charges that he and Priests for Life are trying to unfairly influence the presidential election, Fr. Pavone stated: "All we are saying is that this year's elections are pivotal for the pro-life movement, and that it is therefore imperative that we elect more public officials who are willing to do something to restore full protection to the lives of unborn children."

[cpforlife.org]

Pro-Life PING

Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[cpforlife.org]

May 17, 2004

Fr. Frank Pavone

The Blackmun Papers
Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
With Dr. Paul Schenck

The late Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the author of Roe V. Wade, left instructions that his entire private file, consisting of more than 1500 boxes and 500,000 items spanning more than 60 years be made available to the public on the fifth anniversary of his death. When that occurred in late March 2004, a relatively small number of lawyers, journalists and researchers requested permission to review the files at the Madison Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Priests for Life reviewed the contents of the entire file. Our pastoral associate, Dr. Paul Schenck, personally read hundreds of pages of Blackmun’s notes, observations, draft opinions, memos from his staff, clerks and lawyers, and correspondence with his friends, colleagues and the public.

What emerged was a dramatic portrait of a man on a mission. In an oral history given to one of his former clerks in the summer of 1995, Blackmun began revealing his true motives behind Roe V. Wade. In one telling sentence he says, "I think it (Roe) was right in 1973, I think it is right today. It’s a step that had to be taken as we go down the road toward the full emancipation of women."

He then added, quoting Ambassador Sol Linowitz, "Do you want to be just another Supreme Court justice and be there for ten or fifteen years, write a few opinions and be forgotten, or do you want to be remembered?"

This was the first hint that Blackmun began with the idea that abortion had to become legal, and that he would play an important role in bringing that about. What the Blackmun papers show is that the highly controversial finding of Roe v. Wade was not the product of unbiased legal reasoning, but one man’s crusade to make abortion abundantly available in the US.

In a personal history dictated shortly before he died, Blackmun observed that he was up against "The ancient attitudes of... the Roman Catholic Church," and the Mormon Church, the Missouri Synod Lutherans, conservative
Protestants, and most of the so-called Born Again Christians.

Attorneys, historians, and Constitutional scholars on both sides of the abortion controversy admit that Roe was poorly reasoned. That's what happens when the focus is on an anti-religious crusade for social change rather than on Constitutional reasoning.

Fr. Clifford Stevens has done an immense amount of Constitutional research into how Roe v. Wade can be overturned. In his correspondence with one of the Justices currently on the Court, he was told that it was not the
arguments that would change the decision, but rather having the right people on the bench.

Pro-abortion members of the US Senate agree, which is why they have blocked, by unprecedented filibusters, well-qualified nominees of the President. These Senators are setting the stage for the Supreme Court nomination
battles. The public should pay close attention to what they are doing, and when they go to the polls in November, they should remember Blackmun.

[cpforlife.org]

Two great terms that are hopefully becoming common are "NON-NEGOTIABLE ISSUE" and "disqualifying issue"

From A Brief Catechism for Catholic Voters:
"A disqualifying issue is one which is of such gravity and importance that it allows for no political maneuvering. It is an issue that strikes at the heart of the human person and is non-negotiable. A disqualifying issue is one of such enormity that by itself renders a candidate for office unacceptable regardless of his position on other matters."

From Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics (An On-Line Guide):

The FIVE NON-NEGOTIABLE ISSUES are:
1. Abortion
2. Euthanasia
3. Fetal Stem Cell Research
4. Human Cloning
5. Homosexual "Marriage"

the apostate john kerry disqualifies himself on each of the 5.

[dubyas_vision]

My parents Catholic church prays every week for the unborn. When I moved and joined a new (also Catholic) church one of the first things I noticed was that they don't mention the unborn in prayer concerns. It's very noticibly absent for me; I should probably mention this to my new priest.

[franky]

I just got back from a pro-life meeting and it is a shame the apathy of many Christians including Catholics. They seem to be more concerned with their pocketbooks than with the culture of death.

And this is in Pennsylvania, a key Bush state.

[coconutt2000]

And be sure to remind people that this isn't about religion and politics, it is about morality, which is the domain of the church.

And politics and law reflect the values and understanding of natural law of the people who make the laws. In our nation, that is "we the people." So our laws reflect on us.

[Smartass]

THANKS FOR     THE PING!

[Gerish]

What emerged was a dramatic portrait of a man on a mission. A successful mission for Satan, I believe. I remember when this Justice died and I said a prayer for his soul. After reading this, it may have taken an ocean of prayers to save his soul.

How many dead souls because of his mission? What a terrible evil man.

[cpforlife.org]

"We've staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us. . . to govern ourselves according to the commandments of God. The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded."

--James Madison, fourth U.S. president.

[NDJeep]

[AmericaUnited]

Fr. Clifford Stevens has done an immense amount of Constitutional research into how Roe v. Wade can be overturned. In his correspondence with one of the Justices currently on the Court, he was told that it was not the arguments that would change the decision, but rather having the right people on the bench.

Take this to the bank! Bush will be reelected and will put 2 pro-life justices on the court during his second term.

[Askel5]

Pavone walks the line well with the politicking to what Catholic constituency is pro-life .... but this is the part I have a problem with:

All we are saying is that this year's elections are pivotal for the pro-life movement

Not really. "Pivotal" implies an either/or, a black or white. This is just the difference in speed and handling of the same train hurtling down the Same Track.

[cpforlife.org]

"I should probably mention this to my new priest."

Yes PLEASE.

Encourage him to be bold and speak out. Bring him a copy of something from Fr. Frank and tell him that there are many who very much want to hear the Gospel of Life preached from his pulpit.

If we don't then who will.

One day when the time is right I will tell a Priest that "...tens of millions of martyred babies are waiting to hear him speak in defense of the unborn..."

[Iam1ru1-2]

[Antoninus]

The FIVE NON-NEGOTIABLE ISSUES are
1. Abortion
2. Euthanasia
3. Fetal Stem Cell Research
4. Human Cloning
5. Homosexual "Marriage"

Ping--new tag-line.

[cpforlife.org]

LOL--You are tough
Father Frank is a hero (Saint in the making IMO) working under the most adverse conditions.

Perhaps "Pivotal" is used more in the context of the duration of the holocaust could be quite different depending on who gets in?

President Bush-John Kerry Contest Could Decide Abortion for 30 Years

http://www.lifenews.com/nat712.html

by Steven Ertelt
August 10, 2004

[LifeNews.com Note: Steven Ertelt is the Editor and CEO of LifeNews.com. The following editorial is a follow-up to the Pro-Life Advocates: Vote for President Bush opinion piece that summarizes President Bush's pro-life record.]

Every election year, there's always talk about the importance of the upcoming election in terms of its impact on abortion policy. There's no doubt, each election is considerably important.

However, this time around, the stakes are higher than ever before. Here's why: The next president will have the power to determine whether abortion will remain legal for the next 30 years.

In 1973, the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion by a 7-2 vote. The current court backs abortion by a 6-3 margin.

The next president could appoint as many as four new Supreme Court justices and elevate one of the high court's members to the Chief Justice position.

This will be an exchange of power and a turnover of membership on the court like never seen before.

For those of us concerned about the nightmarish travesty of abortion, this is a shift that could have enormous potential or set the pro-life community up for decades of more heartache.

Associate Judges Sandra Day O'Connor, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who back abortion, and pro-life Chief Justice William Rehnquist are all considered likely retirees over the next few years.

President Bush has a strong record thus far of appointing pro-life judges to key federal court positions. Should he be re-elected and replace each of those four judges with pro-life advocates in the mold of Thomas or Antonin Scalia, the current 6-3 pro-abortion margin shifts to a 6-3 position in favor of overturning Roe.

Even if one of those judges turns out to be another O'Connor or Souter, defying the pro-life expectations placed on them during their nominations, a 5-4 margin against Roe still gives the pro-life community its first legitimate opportunity to protect the lives of unborn children since the early 1990s.

However, if John Kerry is elected president, and he replaces those four judges with abortion supporters, that will take the court back to the 7-2 position in favor of abortion that it had in 1973.

In other words, the pro-life movement will be right back where it started in its effort to stop abortion. We will have made no progress in more than three decades in terms of changing the makeup of the Supreme Court, if John Kerry is elected.

Furthermore, those four new judges will be lifetime appointees. They will be younger than the current members of the court and could have as many as 20 to 30 years or more of their career ahead of them.

Consider that the last four judges to leave the Supreme Court served there for decades.

Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe, and Thurgood Marshall served on the high court for 24 years. Byron White, who dissented with Rehnquist in Roe, served 31 years, and William Brennan retired after 34 years on the bench.

Whether the next four judges are pro-abortion or pro-life, several presidential terms would come and go before their likely retirement. The pro-life community would either have a fair chance to turn back Roe or no hope at all.

Pro-life voters need to keep in mind this election year that if John Kerry is elected, Roe will almost assuredly be preserved and abortion will probably remain legal for decades. That means every vote for Kerry and every vote not cast for President Bush (i.e., for a third-party candidate or by citizens who abstain from voting) is a vote to keep abortion legal for as many as thirty years.

If we truly want to see Roe thrown in the trash heap of history right next to the Dred Scott decision, we can't let that happen.

It is up to you to elect a pro-life president this November. It is up to you to re-elect President Bush. Women and unborn children are counting on you.

[cpforlife.org]

Very nice graphic. I don't think we've met? Welcome to FR.

[narses]

Good for Fr. Pavone!