"The LORD Our Justice"

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference's "alerts" include the following:

• "Use Tax Dollars for Life Not Death" (Pa House Bill 1623)
• "Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Religious Liberty" (Pa House Bill 1510/Senate Bill 974) 

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' "Alerts Central" includes the following:

• "Protect Rights of Conscience and Religious Liberty" (H.R. 940)
• "State Marriage Defense Act of 2015" (H.R. 824, S. 435)
• "First Amendment Defense Act" (H.R. 2802, S. 1598) 
• "Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2015 (CWPIA)" (H.R. 1299, S. 667).
• "Urge House Support for Women's Public Health and Safety Act (HR 3495)"

As per the USCCB: "Action alerts for issues related to immigration reform can be found through the USCCB-led Catholic coalition, Justice for Immigrants."

 

As per the USCCB, "Action alerts for pro-life issues can also be found through our partner organization, the National Committee for the Human Life Amendment."  The NCHLA's "Current Action Alerts" include the following:

• "Protect the Rights of Pro-Life Health Care Providers! (updated on 10/23/2015)" (As per an 11/20/15 email from the NCHLA, "The next two to three weeks are critical. We must demand key conscience protections be included in the law Congress must pass by December 11 to fund government programs for the 2016 Fiscal Year. Urge Congress again to protect conscience rights. Click here now....Please go to the Human Life Action Center and contact Congress now to urge them to protect the rights of pro-life health care providers....The Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA) will close loopholes in existing law and provide a private right of action, so that healthcare providers, whose freedom of conscience is denied, can defend their rights in court.")
• "Please Support the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act! (updated on 1/22/2015)"
• "Stop Federal Funding of Planned Parenthood (updated on 9/30/2015)"

(We need our elected officials to absolutely oppose ANY monies going to Planned Parenthood.  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.)

As per a Letter to Senator McConnell, Senator Reid, Speaker Boehner, and House Minority Leader Pelosi, in support of Representative Chis Smith's HR 1150 (Ken Starr, Archbishop Chaput, Alan Dershowitz, Matthew Franck, Maryann Glendon, Senator Joseph Lieberman, Bishop William Murphy, Pastor Rick Warren, Cardinal Wuerl and others, 7/14/15):

• "....We are witnessing a tragic, global crisis in religious persecution, violence, and terrorism, with dire consequences for religious minorities and for the national security of the United States....H.R. 1150 would...give Ambassador Saperstein the status that other ambassadors at large at the Department of State enjoy, the authority to develop an interagency strategy to protect global religious freedom, and the resources he needs to implement that strategy. It would also mandate training for all foreign service officers, deputy chiefs of mission, and country ambassadors...." 

• As of 11/21/15, Representative Fitzpatrick is NOT among the 110 co-sponsors of H.R. 1150.

"Alerts" from the following also deserve your consideration:

• Family Reseach Council Action Page
• National Organization for Marriage's Advocacy Center
• National Center on Sexual Exploitation (nee Morality in Media)
• PaFamily.Org 

News Items

• "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States with Introductory Note" (11/17/15)
• "Create in Me a Clean Heart: A Pastoral Response to Pornography" (11/17/15)
• "Proposed HHS regulation could require insurers to cover abortion, transgender surgery" (11/12/15)
• "Why are we not protecting married couples from the violence of contraception — the divorce of unitive and procreative aspects of the beautiful gift of sexuality? Why are we afraid of helping our brothers and sisters to live in truth, according to their dignity?" (Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, 11/6/15)
• "the marriage act purged of impurities is the nearest thing to the beatific vision we can know....To offer the suffering of celibacy, temporary or permanent, to the Lord is to make use, in the best possible way, of man's greatest joy " (10/21/15)
• "Statement Calling for Constitutional Resistance to Obergefell v. Hodges"  (American Principles Project, 10/8/15)
• "the Sexual Revolution ushered in the scourge of abortion, pornography, and sexual abuse so rampant in recent decades. Instead of real and authentic love, this false 'liberty' offers cheap pleasures that mask a deeper loneliness and pain. Instead of the security of traditional family bonds, it leaves children longing for the stability of a mother’s and a father’s love.... Today’s attack on fatherhood, and by extension, motherhood, is multi-pronged and breathtakingly damaging. 41% of children are born into unmarried homes in our day, an increase of 700% from 1950" (Bishop Thomas Olmstead, 9/29/15).
•  re: "The Revision and Updating of the Charter for Healthcare Workers (5/6/15)"
• ''Bigotry Killed 'Conscience Law'" (BC Courier Times, 3/3/14)
• "Who is going to save our Church? "Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops, like bishops, and your religious act like religious" (Archbishop Sheen, June 1972).

Come 2016, our voices in defense of human life and marriage/family need to be MUCH better heard!

“The days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will fulfill the promise
I made to the house of Israel and Judah.
In those days, in that time,
I will raise up for David a just shoot ;
he shall do what is right and just in the land.
In those days Judah shall be safe
and Jerusalem shall dwell secure;
this is what they shall call her:
'The LORD our justice'" (Jer 33: 14-16).