Joan Andrews Bell

Please see the forwarded email from Good Counsel Homes, which was founded by Father Benedict Groeschel & Chris Bell. Please note that Chris Bell's wife is the former Joan Andrews, who has been imprisoned numerous times for her efforts to defend preborn children. In Joan Andrew Bell's own words,

• "Jesus was right when He told us that our brothers and sisters are all lovable, every one of them, because they are of Him, of God....
• "hardness of heart is certainly not only with the abortionists. Probably a much deeper hardness of heart is with those who are practicing Christians and people of good will in any religion who consider themselves believers in God and believers in goodness, who are just ignoring this holocaust....
• "God gives us all a conscience and deep in our heart we do know right from wrong, but it sure helps to have good parents to spell things out....When we have good parents there helping to lead us, and good church leaders... I was a Catholic at a time when all priests preached the same thing about every evil. There was no such thing as one priest telling you one thing and another priest telling you another thing. They all told you adultery was wrong. They all told you that divorce was wrong. They all told you that abortion was wrong....
• "Even as messed-up as so many Catholics are these days, the teaching of the church is consistent, as it has been throughout the centuries, condemning abortion and all the evils. There is a faithful remnant in the church holding it together....But these people are the ones God is asking to sacrifice much because they have been greatly blessed. They have had graces beyond those the others have had....
• "The whole reason this abortion holocaust has gone on as long as it has and has devoured our whole society the way it has and has gone right into infanticide and euthanasia and fetal experimentation and pornography--its tentacles reach all of us, into our families, the whole of society and Satan has come into the church--is because those who knew better and who proclaim the name of the Lord have done nothing, or have done very, very little. I think the bottom line is that we were not willing to sacrifice and suffer, and even die for the Lord, the Truth, goodness, for love....
• "What we really are concerned about is doing God's will, and if it means suffering, we'll embrace that suffering and count ourselves blessed, deeply blessed for the privilege of suffering just a little bit for the Lord. I don't care how great the suffering is, if it's only just a little bit, it will never be what the babies have suffered because they're so young and defenseless. Even if we were ripped apart ourselves, we have lived a life on this earth, we will never experience the rejection they have experienced. Primarily, the rejection at our own hands and those who are like us, who proclaim the name of the Lord....
• "When I was a little kid I read a lot about the Nazi Holocaust in Germany, and even though it was over by the time I was born, I still could not get rid of the oppression of what happened just a few years before my time....The vast majority of the population was Christian, even though many good Christians stepped forward and rescued the Jews, and it was the Evangelicals and the Catholics and a few others who were rescuing the Jews and the other so-called outcasts of Germany and then all of Western Europe. They still were a minority doing it, and I knew as a kid that mass murder could not take place in any society without that society turning its back on the killing and allowing it to take place....
• "when the abortion holocaust came, when I was 25 years old, I was overwhelmed by shock....Had the church stood up and said, no way are you going to kill little babies, if it were pronounced from every pulpit and people were told to not just pray, but prayer and action, and get out there and stop the killing, it wouldn't happen....
• "We have to be there in gentleness and in love, but in firmness....I think we have to approach our brother and sister abortionists in gentleness and love and forgiveness, but in firmness....
• "There was a remnant, a few people who were rescuing the Jews and others who were victims in Nazi Germany and Europe. It's the same in our country....we have to be able to influence the others and the way we're going to be able to influence them is by becoming more and more sacrificial. More and more Christ-like....
• "I'm a Catholic and they refused to allow me to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass while I was in prison. One of the things as I sat there in my cell day after day and week after week, and then a couple of years went by, was that I felt very lonely. One of the impressions of prison is that you're very, very lonely. I just wanted to hug somebody. I pictured in my mind hugging my nieces and nephews often. I just had to picture it in my mind because it became such a craving. It really hurts. And suddenly I began to realize that Jesus..., in the real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, so lonely. No one goes by to visit Him. Not only year after year, but century after century. He stays there because He loves us so much. I was taught something about real love. Being there for someone, even if they ignore you.
• "How many felt ignored at an abortion mill? Especially when other Pro-Lifers never came out, when you feel that many of your churches have turned their back on you. You don't ever see a collar out there or a habit. You feel all alone. You're the only one out there day after day, week after week, year after year. You get lonely. Well, think of the Lord Jesus and He can give you the strength to continue, even if you're the only one."

This Sunday evening, the Bells and two of their children will be on EWTN with Father Groeschel.