Get the Deal Done with SB 3 - "Keep the Devil Way Down in the Hole."

Pennsylvania Senate Bill 3 was designed to prevent tax payer funding of at least some "Obamacare" abortions.  Though SB 3 passed the Senate in June 2011, an identical bill (HB 1977) was put up in the House (rather than simply putting up SB 3) and passed in December 2011.  With the promise of the governor's signature awaiting, pro life advocates assumed the House and Senate would work together and get this abortion "opt out" legislation signed!  Yet, the legislative session ended with Pennsylvania still lacking "opt out" legislation!  We need our bishops and the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference to demand that Governor Corbett call the legislators back for an emergency session.  We do not want to cooperate with Obamacare crimes against humanity.

It is chilling to realize that the president actually bought votes for re-election with the promise of free contraceptives and abortifacients.  In the "Devil's Advocate," Al Pacino - as Satan - terrifyingly proclaimed:

"I've nurtured every sensation man has been inspired to have.

I cared about what he wanted, and I never judged him....

Who in their right mind...could possibly deny that the 20th century was entirely mine?....

It's my time now. It's our time."

Though he wrote and performed the song in a mocking, blasphemous manner, Tom Waits struck upon the only antidote to evil - keeping the devil "Way Down In The Hole" (1987):

"All the angels sing about Jesus' mighty sword

and they'll shield you with their wings

and keep you close to the lord

don't pay heed to temptation

for his hands are so cold

you gotta help me keep the devil

way down in the hole"

For those who pidgeon hole him as the patron of front lawns and family pets, it would come as a surprise to learn of one saint's success at keeping "the devil way down in the hole."  Francis of Assisi is both "one of the best known and least known of all saints...Francis of Assisi was not a garden gnome, or a doe-eyed hippy skipping with animals and hugging trees....He was meticulous in the ceremonials of the Mass, insisting that every sacred vessel and vestment be the best, and his Rule dismissed any friar who parted from the Pope on the slightest article of Faith....May Saint Francis be our model in how to deal with the threats of our own day: not enfeebled by sentimentality and relativism, but armed with a Franciscan zeal for the conversion of souls” (Father George Rutler, 9/30/12).

Just outside the walls of Assisi, a bare hermitage is nestled amidst incredible scenery: "St. Francis first began coming to the beautiful forest in 1205....Living in a cave, Saint Francis prayed fervently and did penance. Other men soon followed him to the mountain, finding their own caves in which to pray."  In describing a modern tour of the medieval hermitage, it is explained that "visitors look down at a quatrefoil-shaped hole in the smooth pink stone, called the 'Devil Hole,' which looks into the not-very-deep crevasse into which St. Francis is said to have tossed a troublesome demon that tempted Brother Rufino"  (Catholic Online, 11/4/11).  Tom Waits' song unwittingly touched upon this exorcism!

Please, please urge Archbishop Chaput and the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, to demand that Governor Corbett call the legislature back into session, and get the deal done with SB 3!  With God's help, we can similarly keep the devil way down in the hole!  The president has to know that Pennsylvanians reject paying for abortions!