"To sanctify, the Church must do more than merely teach. She must rule."

"there must be zero tolerance not only for sexual abuse but for every significant form of abuse among the Church’s ministers, particularly the abuse of any of the rights of the faithful to the goods the Church offers for their salvation....The Church can never abandon the task of teaching, which is necessary to inform and inspire. But short of heaven, there will never be a Catholic golden age in which every minister of the gospel follows the good out of deep interior conviction....To do good for souls, it must keep itself institutionally on point. To sanctify, the Church must do more than merely teach. She must rule" (Dr. Jeffrey Mirus, Catholic Answers Magazine, July 2010).

There is a paucity of authentically Catholic higher educational opportunities for our children and grandchildren. 

• Pennsylvania has about two dozen colleges identified as "Catholic" (about half being in Greater Philadelphia), but DeSales University is the lone Pennsylvania college to make the Cardinal Newman Society's list of recommended colleges.

Among OBGYNs with privileges in Catholic hospitals in the Archdiocese, there is/are

• a paucity of NFP-only physicians!  (See Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #497 and #498)
• privileges for IVF specialists! (See Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #499.)
• privileges for associates of a practice involved with so-called fetal reduction! (See Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #470.)

• In addition, Holy Redeemer's Making Your Own Health Care Decisions (http://www.holyredeemer.com/Main/AdvanceDirective.aspx) fails to specify Catholic teaching with regard to nutrition and hydration, and that health care services cannot honor advance directives (e.g., non-specific directives to forego nutrition and hydration) opposed to Catholic teaching (See CDF's Responses to Certain Questions of the  United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Concerning Artificial Nutrition and Hydration and the USCCB's Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, #58.).

• As per Dr. Jeffrey Mirus, "the consistent approval bestowed on all mainstream Catholic organizations, no matter how far they had strayed from a true Catholic identity, has been the single most frustrating obstacle for those who have struggled to renew the Church. This approval has often put deeply committed laity (and many courageously faithful priests) in the nearly indefensible position of arguing that official Catholic status and episcopal approval are not enough to determine whether an organization is fully Catholic. How often have they had to say, 'Yes, but . . .' when someone insisted that some group must be a good Catholic group because it was 'in good standing,' was approved by the Church, advertised in the local diocesan paper, or had the bishop on its board of advisors?"  Email Archbishop Chaput.

Since all but a handful of pharmacies - across the country - sell abortifacients and contraceptives....

St. John the Evangelist and St. Martin of Tours should not be advertising ShopRite, especially as Shop Rite even sells the Plan B abortifacient!  
Our Lady of Angels (Trenton) should not be advertising Vizzoni's or Episcopo's. 
Our Lady of Sorrows/St.Anthony (Trenton) should not be advertising Episcopo's. 
St. Ann (Lawrenceville) should not be advertising McGrath's or Penlar.  
St. Ephrem and St. Charles Borromeo should not be advertising Riccio's.  
St. Thomas Aquinas should not be advertising Mat's.

• Email local parishes with bulletin advertisements for providers of contraceptives and abortifacients.

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of society's duty to defend the "true nature of marriage and the family" (#458) and "to created an environment conducive to the practice of chastity" (#494).  Yet we fail to demand a defense of marriage and the family, even from those elected officials who identify themselves as fellow Catholics!

As per the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "The First Amendment Defense Act (H.R. 2802, S. 1598) would bar the federal government from discriminating against individuals and organizations based upon their religious beliefs or moral convictions that marriage is the union of one man and one woman or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage. The Act provides broad protections against adverse federal actions directed toward individuals and organizations that act on such beliefs."  Representative Fitzpatrick is NOT among the 149 co-sponsors of HR2802; NEITHER Senator Casey NOR Senator Toomey are among the 37 co-sponsors of S1598.  The USCCB has an "alert" for contacts to Fitzpatrick, Casey, and Toomey, re: the First Amendment Defense Act: http://cqrcengage.com/catholicbishops/app/make-a-call?0&engagementId=113753

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference explains that "Changing the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) will jeopardize many churches and their charitable outreach if they continue to adhere to their religious beliefs.  In other states, this law has closed Catholic adoption agencies and violated religious liberty....HB 1510/SB 974 exposes even more Pennsylvanians to discrimination based solely on their religious beliefs. Simply put, this legislation is intolerant and prejudiced against people of faith. "  As per the Pennsylvania Family Council, "Stand for true tolerance: oppose Senate Bill 974 and House Bill 1510."

As per the Family Research Council, the so-called "Equality Act" (S. 1858 and H.R. 3185) "would essentially obliterate gender-specific designations in virtually every realm of public life in America and possibly even many private areas."

"It is painful when we see prison systems which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities. It is painful when we see people who think that only others need to be cleansed, purified, and do not recognize that their weariness, pain and wounds are also the weariness, pain and wounds of society....All of us have something we need to be cleansed of, or purified from. May the knowledge of that fact inspire us to live in solidarity, to support one another and seek the best for others" (Pope Francis, 9/26/15).

• As per The Atlantic Monthly, "The United States now accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants—and about 25 percent of its incarcerated inhabitants....In 2010, a third of all black male high-school dropouts between the ages of 20 and 39 were imprisoned, compared with only 13 percent of their white peers....The suite of drug laws adopted in the 1980s and ’90s did little to reduce crime, but a lot to normalize prison in black communities....Surveys have concluded that blacks and whites use drugs at roughly the same rates....the chasm in incarceration rates is deeply tied to the socioeconomic chasm between black and white America.”  

 As per  the NY Times,

• "Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally 'boy play,' and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records....The policy of instructing soldiers to ignore child sexual abuse by their Afghan allies is coming under new scrutiny, particularly as it emerges that service members like Captain Quinn have faced discipline, even career ruin, for disobeying it....the Army relieved Captain Quinn of his command and pulled him from Afghanistan....the Army is also trying to forcibly retire Sgt. First Class Charles Martland....'The Army contends that Martland and others should have looked the other way (a contention that I believe is nonsense),' Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who hopes to save Sergeant Martland’s career, wrote...to the Pentagon’s inspector general" (U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies, 9/21/15).  The Family Research Council has an online petition for the Senate and House Armed Services Committees:

"I, the undersigned, urge you to pressure the Pentagon to clear Sgt. Charles Martland's record on the matter concerning his intervention to protect a young Afghan boy from sexual abuse. I also ask that you investigate the policy concerning the ability of U.S. military personnel to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation."

As per the Pa Pro Life Coalition,

"3. Dismemberment Ban Legislation to be Introduced on Tuesday, October 27, 2015.  The Pro-Life Caucus in the Pa. General Assembly will be introducing legislation to ban such abortions in Pa.  The Pa. Health Department Annual Abortion Report indicated that approximately 2500 such abortions were committed in our state in 2013....contact your state legislators and urge them to support this life-saving legislation [From Bucks County, our state legislators can be contacted as follows: cstaats@pahousegop.com; tdavis@pahouse.net; gdigirol@pahousegop.com; Ffarry@pahousegop.com; Jgalloway@pahouse.net; boneill@pahousegop.com; spetri@pahousegop.com; mquinn@pahousegop.com; Ssantarsiero@pahouse.net; kwatson@pahousegop.com; sgreenleaf@pasen.gov; cmcilhinney@pasen.gov; bmensch@pasen.gov; rtomlinson@pasen.gov.]

"4. The Fight to Stop Funding for Planned Parenthood Continues. The efforts in the Pennsylvania General Assembly to stop funding PP through 'reprioritization language' are on hold because of the current Budget stalemate....We should renew our efforts to persuade Pa.'s Congressional Representatives to stop funding PP even at the risk of a 'government shutdown.'  The most important reason for this position is the principle and the reality that actions speak louder than words....We are unwilling to risk temporary unpopularity to order to stop funding this thoroughly evil organization.  Our organization is working with other pro-life organizations to prepare an apologetic that makes the case for stopping the funding of PP.  This apologetic rebuts the arguments from some pro-life organizations that Congress should not resist President Obama on this issue."

Email Representative Fitzpatrick, Senator Casey, and Senator Toomey, asking for all federal funding of Planned Parenthood to stop.    Email all of Bucks County's representatives and senators in Harrisburg, asking for all state funding of Planned Parenthood to stop.

By the way, does anyone EVER see the following resources in parish bulletins, on parish websites, or in parish vestibules? 

• The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference's "alerts",

• The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' "Alerts Central" 

(The USCCB notes that "Action alerts for pro-life issues can also be found through our partner organization, 

• the "National Committee for the Human Life Amendment" (NCHLA), and that 
• "Action alerts for issues related to immigration reform can be found through the USCCB-led Catholic coalition, "Justice for Immigrants.)?