"perservere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus"

"Pope St. John Paul II tried to focus our attention...with his 'theology of the body' [link added]....Nine days separate the Transfiguration [link added] and the Assumption [link added]. Would it not be an appropriate time to initiate a novena to honor the proper and balanced Catholic teaching on the body, to teach and celebrate the importance of human incarnation?" (National Catholic Register, 8/5/19).

Persevere Nationally

• Submit Your Official Comment to Say: Pro-Life Health Workers Must Not Be Forced to Assist With Abortions (Susan B Anthony List)
• Let Doctors Practice Medicine, Not Abortion (Human Life Action - Comment to HHS by August 13.).
• Oppose the Misleadingly named Do No Harm Act (cf, American Life League)
• Oppose the Misnamed Equality Act (Human Life Action)
• Support the Heartbeat Bill, HR 3985 (cf, LifeSite)
• Support the Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act (cf, USCCB)
• Born-Alive Legislation Deserves a Vote in the People's House (USCCB) 
• Tell the Senate to Reject Religion Tests for Judicial Nominees (USCCB)
• Contact your U.S. senators and representatives today and ask them to support the LIFT for Charities Act! (USCCB)
• Support the Equal Campus Access Act, HR3243/S1168 (USCCB)

Persevere for the Commonwealth of Pa

(Pa Catholic Conference Legislative Review and Voter Voice)

• Please contact your Rep, Senator, and the Governor to ask for a religious exemption for Catholic adoptions (Pa Catholic Conf)
• (See also the Pa Family Council link.)
• Call for Funding Increase for Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) (Pa Catholic Conference) 

Persevere for the Garden State

• Support the NJ Born Alive Survivors Protection Act A5287/S3905 (NJRTL)
• Vote No on A5508/ S3804 (NJ Catholic Conf)
• Protect Viable [New Jersey] Babies in the Womb (http://protectviablebabies.com/take-action/)

On the right side of the home page, you will find links to email Church leadership about "Catholic" health care, Bucks country representation in DC, Bucks County representation in Harrisburg, Central NJ representation in DC and Central NJ in Trenton.

• "....Catholic identity has, for a long time, been (I think rightly) viewed as being especially tenacious – ‘tribal belonging’, you might say. This is the idea that 'once a Catholic, always a Catholic' (which is, I might add, absolutely still the case in terms of sacramental theology): that being brought up Catholic ingrains something in you that, even if you no longer believe or practice, is hard to shake. With the growth of disaffiliation, however, we’re beginning to see how that 'Catholic difference' has, over the past couple of generations largely dissolved away. It only works if you get a sufficient dose of normative Catholic belief and practice when growing up. But that has, for all sorts of reasons, become rarer and rarer over the past decades. 'Cultural Catholicism' in this sense doesn’t survive more than one generation....

  "The whole rich tapestry of Catholic devotional life was very swiftly torn away. But a re-emphasis on things like the rosary, lighting candles for sick friends, reinstating Friday fasting (as the bishops of England and Wales did a few years ago) – all the little day-to-day things that were de-emphasized because they (supposedly) distractions from the Mass, but which in truth help the 'source and summit' to stand out even more clearly. All these are things that, I think, could be easily rediscovered...."(Stephen Bullivant, 8/10/19).
• “The  case, Sharonell Fulton, et al. v. City of Philadelphia, could have major implications as the high court continues to sort out questions of how far religious-freedom protections extend in the aftermath of its 2015 decision legalizing same-sex 'marriage' in Obergefell v. Hodges....Many Catholic adoption providers have been forced to close due to a lack of religious exemptions. Catholic adoption services have closed down in Boston, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Illinois due to state requirements that dictate providers place children with same-sex couples. Catholic Charities of Buffalo, New York, ended its adoption services in August 2018. The state of Michigan reached a settlement in April with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) mandating that all adoption agencies work with same-sex couples. Becket filed a lawsuit in response on behalf of St. Vincent Catholic Charities....
  
  
  "Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, a legal adviser for The Catholic Association, told the Register that the Philadelphia case could be 'huge' for religious liberty because it is looking at 'any kind of partnership where faith-based agencies are being asked to certify same-sex marriage as an okay model for families as a condition for working with local or state governments....
  
  
  "Picciotti-Bayer praised the perseverance of CSS and Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput in continuing the legal battle amid the closures of agencies in other states....
  
  
  “'There has already been a significant number of justices on the court recognizing the significance of the case,' she noted, pointing to three Supreme Court justices — Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito (Justice Brett Kavanagh had not yet joined the court) — who said they would have granted an emergency stay in the case last August despite such motions being extremely atypical for the court to grant...." (National Catholic Register, 8/8/19)

• Shocked, shocked! On Catholics and belief in the Real Presence (Catholic World Report, 8/8/19)
• Pew Survey shows a majority of Catholics don't believe in 'Real Presence' (CatholicPhilly, 8/8/19)
• "My flesh is true food,  and My blood true drink" (8/6/19)