Catholic Action for Faith and Family

THE FORTRESS WALLS HAVE FALLEN

June 24th, 2022

If the protective power of the law can be likened to a castle, then the walls of the fortress protecting the “right” to abortion in this country have just fallen.

The Supreme Court just undid the immense damage that had been done in law and culture by the 1973 abortion decision, Roe v. Wade. The Court abolished the legal protection of a previous high court decision and removed the legal justification for the blood sacrifice of abortion.

We are elated, and our nation is blessed by such a shocking reversal!

Catholic Action for Faith & Family joyfully commends this unbelievable act of courage on the part of the six justices who voted in the majority. These Justices will be seen by history as the righteous counterpoint to the seven lawless men of the Court in 1973 whose decision condemned sixty million babies to violent deaths.

Justice Alito, who wrote the opinion, stated the legal case with almost acerbic poignancy:

“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. [The previous decisions of] Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives."

In one terse statement, the truth has finally come to light: Roe was wrong and illegitimate from the beginning. Now, the case has been clearly stated to the nation and to the world.

Above all, a decision like this fills our hearts with hope. In the darkest hour of our nation, when all seems lost to the radicals – God came to our aid. He heard fifty years of prayers and sacrifice, reminding us once again of the Church’s constant refrain: “In you, Lord, is our hope, and we shall never hope in vain.”

Something so positive both endorses the position of the pro-life movement and will energize all of us for the battles ahead. That’s because the reality of this decision does not mean that abortion has been outlawed. We wish that were true, but it is not what the decision means.

It simply means, as Justice Alito stated, that all decent, pro-life Americans now have fifty battlegrounds to fight on in order to root out this terrible injustice from our land.

Still, as noted, this victory is nothing less than the fruit of millions of prayers offered by the faithful for half a century. It is also the fruit of the long-suffering work of our amazing pro-life organizations and the many thousands of humble, life-loving citizens who have persevered in the hard work of saving babies through sidewalk counseling and crisis pregnancy work.

This decision also represents the cumulative cultural effect of several generations of pro-life teachers, churchmen, activists, and even legislators who have made efforts to chip away at the fortress for decades now.

At Catholic Action, we are profoundly grateful for everyone who has contributed to the pro-life cause over the past five decades, but the battle is not over!

Now we exhort every man, woman, and child of good will to double down, put on their armor, and go to the walls of any of our state fortresses that still protect this evil.

Above all, we offer our deepest gratitude to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, on whose Solemnity the walls of the Roe fortress have been utterly vanquished!

THE DANGER OF PASSIVITY AFTER DOBBS

June 9th, 2022

In our last comment on the upcoming Supreme Court decision (re: the Dobbs case that may overturn Roe v. Wade), I spoke of the need for the spiritual vigilance called for by the Gospel: “…we watch, we wait in hope…and we pray.”

We are now on the cusp of that new decision – some say it will come down this very week – and I’d like to ask all our Catholic Action allies to focus on where we go from here if Roe is actually overturned.

We should take into account three stark realities to help us focus our minds and avoid the danger of a kind of deadly passivity about the reality of abortion in our culture:

Abortion in any form – surgical, chemical, or medical – is a crime against humanity. Period. No amount of explanation can sanitize it, and nothing in our Church’s teaching gives even the slightest justification for it. Under no circumstances is a Catholic ever to embrace, endorse, promote, or even agree with it. Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter, The Gospel of Life contains the clearest statement our Church has ever issued on the Catholic attitude toward abortion:

“The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit either as an end in itself or as a means to a good end. It is in fact a grave act of disobedience to the moral law, and indeed to God himself, the author and guarantor of that law; it contradicts the fundamental virtues of justice and charity” (Gospel of Life, 57).

As most already know, the overturning of Roe will not outlaw abortion as such. The new battlegrounds will be the states, and that means we will still be obliged to oppose abortion in any form in our local community and state houses.

The lack of legal protection for innocent unborn members of our society has opened a Pandora’s Box of evils that victimize the born members of our society: primarily our children. We must face the brutal facts fearlessly.

Fifty years after the legal protections for innocent life were removed, we are now witnessing a literal open season of moral and physical violence on children: drag queens are allowed to dance half-naked in front of children and read them stories in public. Grade school children are gunned down by young fanatics from broken families who are off their meds and who have been propagandized for years by the communist-style indoctrination of government schools. Hedonistic sex ed has had such a corrosive influence on kids that adolescents are now having their very genetic identities annihilated by transgender activism.

Brutal fact: Explicit evil has achieve a supremacy in our culture that we have never seen before, and its victims are primarily kids.

We are in the midst of a vast war. Whether we want to admit it or not, a cultural and spiritual war is upon us, and it is no longer possible to remain neutral to its advances. Everyone is or will be affected by it in time, which means we no longer have the twin luxuries of denial or complacency in the face of it.

The proper mindset for fighting a war is first to open our eyes and see the enemy clearly. The three traditional enemies of our souls – the world, the flesh, and the devil – are now reduced essentially to one: the devil. Satan himself is walking upright and proudly in our society, and we must see him for who he is and not call him by any other name.

Our Baptismal oath to “reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises” still applies.

Likewise, we must recognize that the battle – in spite of its negative cultural manifestations – is primarily a spiritual battle, and Catholics must be on the front lines of the fight. We cannot just “watch and wait” any more. We must gird our loins and put on the armor of God (Ephesians 6) with all the implications for spiritual combat these imply.

In fact, only the Church can gird us for the type of spiritual warfare we are involved in. The Church gives us the correct teaching to sanctify our minds in the Truth of Christ; the Church gives us prayer and the sacramental life to heal us from battle wounds and to strengthen our hearts for battle; the Church fortifies us with grace and the example of the saints to teach us that the ultimate goal is not worldly happiness but the salvation of our souls.

This is a way of saying that even when Roe is overturned, we must not develop a false sense of security in some vain belief that the killing will stop or that we won’t have to worry about it anymore. One pointed battle will be over, yes – and for that we will be extremely grateful – but new stages of the war in the defense of life, marriage, and family will just be starting. The soldier of Christ has no cause for complacency or passivity today.

Yet, we are not without encouragement. In the face of all the warfare, Our Blessed Lord promises us that the devil will not have the last word in these fights:

“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world” (John 16:33).

DANGER OF A PREMATURE BIRTH ON ROE DECISION

May 3rd, 2022

Since last night's news has been running like wildfire about the “leak” of a draft of a decision by the Supreme Court that allegedly overturns the infamous 1973 abortion decision Roe v. Wade and its 1992 companion decision Planned Parenthood v Casey. Here at Catholic Action, our attitude toward this leak is a simple one: realistic hope with extreme caution.

There are a number of things to consider about the leak itself.

First, in a highly polarized political environment where information is used to punish and malign people’s reputations, we’ve grown used to leaks of sensitive and classified information. This doesn’t make them right. The person who leaked this information is guilty of a serious violation of public trust and possibly a criminal act. A writer at Breitbart News called this “one of the greatest scandals to ever hit the nation’s highest court,” and he is right. I for one am tired of our government being run by people who lack any shred of integrity or concern for the common good.

Second, leaks are routinely used by the radical left to shape public opinion, to intimidate, or to create expectations that further their agendas. We can never trust information that is leaked like this because it is partial and likely jaded by politics. In this case, it seems clear that the leak is an effort to intimidate the Justices in favor of overturning Roe with the prospect of a public backlash. While the leaked document may turn out to be a faithful snapshot of the real decision, we must reserve judgment until the truth of the matter is revealed. Leaks are not the whole truth, and are often despicable manipulations.

Third, for those who are rejoicing at the prospect of ending Roe, we have to caution that it is way too early to presume the matter is concluded or even settled. Supreme Court opinions circulate among the members in drafts and in a long consultative process before they are issued as final judgments. Draft opinions are sometimes the subject of intense negotiations up to the very day they are issued with members withholding their votes until the final hour. Only the final decision matters.

Chief Justice John Robert’s last-minute manipulation of the Obamacare decision was just the most obvious example of how flimsy the decisions, and the Justices, can be until the very end. Essentially, it isn’t over ‘til it’s over.

So we need to continue to storm heaven with prayers for this intention!

While the high court supposedly has a majority who are sympathetic to overturning Roe – a decision that has caused the deaths of more than 60 million unborn innocents – its reversal is not guaranteed, and we should be extremely cautious of a premature birth of enthusiasm before the decision is officially released at the end of the Court’s session (likely sometime in June.)

More realistically, we watch, we wait in hope…and we pray.

THE END OF ROE IS ACTUALLY JUST THE BEGINNING

January 27th, 2022

Anyone who has ever been to the March for Life in Washington DC knows that it is like a yearly booster shot for the pro-life movement. Such enthusiasm! So many pro-life young people! One cannot help but be inspired by the massive rally in defense of the sanctity of human life. The pro-life movement is truly America’s conscience.

The 2022 March for Life in DC last week highlighted the important development which was the subject of two Catholic Action Prayer Alerts in early December. Namely, the Supreme Court is reviewing a Mississippi abortion ban that could result in the Court’s overturning the dreadful Roe v. Wade decision that sealed the death warrants of 60 million unborn children since 1973.

In other words, 2022 may be the year where this national disgrace will be undone. In fact, because of the way the Court works (with a several-month delay between the Justices’ vote and the public announcement), the decision has likely already been made. We must pray that the 2022 review will definitively end the national permission granted to legalized abortion 49 years ago.

However, even if Roe is relegated to the ash heap of history, our work is far from over!

At a Pro-Life Summit meeting that took place on the day after the March, former VP Mike Pence stressed the consequences of resting on our laurels if Roe is overturned. We should not celebrate prematurely.

Without Roe, the fight to defend the sanctity of all human life will actually be ramping up! When the authority to regulate abortion reverts to the states, we will have fifty battlegrounds on which to fight after that.

As you know, Catholic Action is not planning on sitting out this battle either. As our name says, we are made for action, but more importantly, we are made for prayer! We’ll keep you posted on the action part as things develop, but in every way we will continue to advocate the power of prayer to vanquish this great evil.

A spiritual evil must be met with a spiritual force of good. Human efforts are important, an in fact, indispensable, but they are not enough on their own to fight spiritual forces. We must call down the divine power of God to root out the unclean spirits behind the sin of abortion and all other attacks against innocent human life, marriage, and the family. We are all painfully aware that these sins are rampant in our culture.

Prayer is the answer.

I have no doubt that 49 years of the humble prayers of our country’s Christian faithful have gotten us to the point of envisioning a post-Roe America. That didn’t seem possible even a few years ago, but “For God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26)

As we go forward, we can’t afford to take our eyes off the prize of an abortion-free America, and for that, we must redouble our efforts and triple our prayer.

St. John Vianney said that God controls the world, but prayer controls God. Let that be our motto in the fight to come.

URGENT PRAYER ALERT: SCOTUS DELIBERATING TODAY/VOTING TOMORROW

December 2nd, 2021

I’m calling on you today with an extremely urgent prayer intention.

As you know, yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments concerning abortion. Tomorrow they take their preliminary vote whether or not to undo the heinous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.

We mentioned in our release yesterday that the Justices will make their ruling public at the end of their summer session (next June or July). However, the decision is actually made in a closed-door session of the nine Justices that will take place tomorrow, Friday the 3rd of December.

In other words, we stand at the very threshold of the possible undoing of a fifty year crime.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Justices this year, the sovereignty of the people in all fifty states over such a critical issue will be returned and the fight for life will be placed back in the hands of the electorate once again.

And we will fight like warriors of Christ when the legal and cultural battlefield is once again open for the fray.

But right now, we must pray. Prayer is the greatest spiritual weapon at our disposal, and everyone is capable of taking up that weapon for the cause of Justice.

Since tomorrow’s day of decision is a First Friday of the month – a day traditionally devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus – we are urging all our prayer warriors to place their greatest hope and confidence in the Lord’s Sacred Heart, the Heart that was pierced by a lance on Calvary for our redemption.

Today and tomorrow, let us all join in praying the following intentions in union with the Christian Church; we pray:

That the infinite spiritual power of the Precious Blood which flowed from the Heart of Christ will now redeem our country from the genocide of unborn children that was unleashed by Roe;
That the nine Justices of the high court will use their God-given power to restore legal protection to the most vulnerable citizens of our land;
That the people and culture of our nation, so corrupted by a half-century of blood sacrifice, will have a true conversion of heart and make abortion not only illegal in all fifty states but more importantly, unthinkable in the hearts of men and women to whom have been entrusted the great gift of life.

Since we won’t know the results of the decision for many months, we must offer these petitions to God as a pure act of faith.

Yet, we know from the Gospel that the purity of faith is what Jesus honors most, as He said to the doubting Thomas: “Blessed are those who do not see and yet still believe” (John 20: 29).

We believe! We pray! We will fight to the end for God’s precious children! Join me in reciting this prayer continuously and please share with others:

Oh Jesus, filled with so much love and compassion for all your children, born and unborn, we ask you to place in Your Sacred Heart, the United States Supreme Court Justices, as they make their choice for a preliminary vote on Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health. May they receive the graces of wisdom, knowledge and truth, and may their hearts overflow with love for all of mankind, especially those in their mother’s womb. We beg mercy upon our land for all the abortions that have taken place since Roe vs. Wade was imposed upon us. Heart of Jesus, bruised for our offenses, have mercy of us! We repent of the grievous sin of abortion and all its consequences. Heart of Jesus, in Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, we give You all who are involved in this preliminary vote, as well as those who are fighting for the unborn, safeguard them from all evil. Bring us to an even greater trust of You, as we prayerfully await the outcome of this case and an end to abortion. AMEN.

WILL THE SUPREME COURT “TRUST SCIENCE” NOW?

December 1st, 2021

It goes without saying that we at Catholic Action for Faith & Family are unconditionally pro-life, believing as the Church does in the sacredness of human life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.

There is no other coherent position by which we are to be saved from the culture of death, and any other logic compromises of the ancient teaching of our Faith that has been handed down to us from Christ through the apostles. The Catholic Church has been and remains the bulwark against all enemies of life.

Yet, forty-eight years ago an arrogant US Supreme Court chose to ignore centuries of both common sense and scientific understanding about the value of life and sold the unborn child’s birthright for a bowl of pottage.

The 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade was a watershed of legal malfeasance that literally shattered the dam of protection for innocent unborn children in our country. Thus was unleashed the greatest genocide in history at the hands of the modern abortion industry.

After that, every single unborn child in America became legally abortable during all nine months of pregnancy and remains so to this day. It is a myth that Roe’s “trimester” system placed some kind of limit on the practice of abortion. Its companion decision, Doe v., Bolton, issued the very next day, made those false trimester distinctions meaningless by declaring every social and psychological reason for abortion a “medical” necessity.

The reason we bring these basic truths to the fore at this time is the Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments regarding the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. This case is based on the State of Mississippi’s statute banning all abortions after 15 weeks.

(The oral arguments are being heard in Washington today, but the Supreme Court will not rule on this case until the end of its summer term, which will probably be in late June or July of next year.)

It’s not that this legislation is perfect. It isn’t by a long shot. We must roundly condemn the practice of even one abortion at any time, and this law leaves abortion intact up to 15 weeks.

Rather, the value of this particular case is that it requires a re-evaluation of the evidence and reasoning upon which Roe was decided forty-eight years ago. The Justices (particularly Harry Blackmun who wrote the decision) ignored the clear scientific evidence for the humanity of the unborn child that was available at that time.

But today it is no longer possible to ignore the scientific arguments for human life, such as the reality of human DNA or the separateness of the newly-formed life from the life of the mother, etc. The defense of human life is so perfectly “established science” now, that the abortion industry must continue to ignore the scientific evidence in order to continue the killing.

Up to now, their standard canards have been that the unborn child is “just a blob of tissue” or “not human." Of course there is always the emotive hammer placed in women’s hands by radical feminism: “My body, my choice.”

Yet, science proves that the unborn child is definitively human. It is not a blob of tissue, and it most certainly is not the body of the mother. These are scientific facts, not conspiracy theories.

Once these masks have been torn off, any new reasons the defenders of abortion bring to the debate now ring more diabolical than ever and amount to the idea that “Yeah, it’s human, but it really doesn’t matter. I don’t want it.” In short, it’s all about power, never about respect for our most vulnerable citizens in the womb.

Isn’t this strange: in the middle of a pandemic we have been told ad nauseam that we must “trust science” and more importantly, that we must obediently “follow the science.” The authority of science is supposed to be supreme.

Today’s Supreme Court is made up of five Catholic Justices out of a total of nine. One wonders whether these Justices will act on the clear convictions of their faith, but, ironically, that is not the central issue at stake here.

But the real question is not a religious one. The real question is whether the Supreme Court will “trust science”.

Dear Friends, we will keep you updated on this issue as the debate continues. But always remember that prayer is the most potent force at our disposal. We must continue to storm heaven with our prayers, not only for the nine Justices on our Supreme Court, but for JUSTICE itself to prevail in overturning the 48-year-old decision that legalized genocide on a massive scale.