Please make your voice heard on life and marriage/family

Take Action 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 (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)

Take Action for 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) 

Take Action for NJ

• 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.

• "in 258, the Roman Emperor Valerian a member of a noble senatorial family, issued an edict demanding that all bishops, priests, and deacons be immediately executed....The prefect of Rome then demanded that Lawrence in his capacity as deacon turn over the riches of the Roman Church. Lawrence asked the Roman prefect for three days to gather the Church’s wealth. He then turned around and began quickly distributing ecclesial property to the needy.... when the prefect ordered Lawrence to deliver the treasures of the Church, Lawrence declared: 'Behold in these poor persons the treasures which I promised to show you; to which I will add pearls and precious stones, those widows and consecrated virgins, which are the Church’s crown.' The prefect didn’t find this amusing, and ordered Lawrence to be executed. Lawrence so elicited the ire of the prefect that the Roman official ordered that a great gridiron be prepared with hot coals beneath it, upon which Lawrence was roasted. Even amid this tremendous suffering, his flesh cooking over the heat of the fire, Lawrence reportedly announced, in a cheerful voice: 'I’m well done on this side. Turn me over!'....For the good humor with which Lawrence met his martyrdom, he is the patron saint of cooks, chefs, the poor, and comedians, among many other professions....We Catholics today are faced with so many threats, both from without and within, that even if we retain our hope, we often lose our humor....a sharp and well-formed wit can serve the Church quite well—especially when enduring the attacks of those who have no joy, and who’ve lost the ability to smile or laugh. St. Lawrence, ora pro nobis!" (Crisis) 

• "The U.S. State Department is using a little-known UN mechanism to pressure governments to change their laws on sexual practices related to 'sexual orientation and gender identity'....(SOGI) is not a category of non-discrimination in U.S. law. In fact, the so-called Equality Act, which would create such a category, has never passed out of the Congress" (C-Fam, 8/9/19). 

• Anniversary of Edith Stein’s Death and Bombing of Nagasaki (August 9) 
Hiroshima (8/6/1945), Nagasaki (8/9/1945), and John C. Ford, SJ

• The Incredible History of the Miraculous Power: “Our Lady Will Save the World” (ChurchPop, 8/8/19)

• Turkish invasion of Syria would mow down Kurdish Christians. Are media tracking this? (GetReligion, 8/7/19)  

• West African slavery lives on, 400 years after transatlantic trade began (Reuters, 8/7/19)

• "Pope St. John Paul II tried to focus our attention...with his 'theology of the body' [See this link.]....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).

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 8/11/19

(signed homily)