The weekly Respect Life Update from St. Ann's parish in neighboring Lawrenceville, New Jersey is being forwarded. It would be understandable for Catholics in Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district to be envious of our brothers and sisters in Mercer County, New Jersey:
- How did they become home to one of the three authors of the Manhattan Declaration?
- How come they get the nation's strongest pro-life voice in the U.S. House of Representatives & we get stuck with Patrick Murphy ?
Subject: WEEKLY RESPECT LIFE UPDATE
To: "St. Ann Friends of Life"
Date: Tuesday, August 31, 2010, 1:17 AM
We'll do another abbreviated update this week - just a "Hero of the Week," an "Anti-Hero of the Week," and the usual news on prayer witnesses, which will be held this holiday weekend. Note especially the witness at Princeton Women's Center is being expanded to four hours, from 7:30 to 11:30, which we hope will give more people a chance to stop by.
HERO OF THE WEEK
Our hero of the week is the Most Reverend Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver and staunch pro-life supporter. Here are a few excerpts from his address at the 15th symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia this past Tuesday, as reported by LifeNews.com:
"If human rights do not come from God, then they devolve to the arbitrary conventions of men and women. The state exists to defend the rights of man and to promote his flourishing. The state can never be the source of those rights. When the state arrogates to itself that power, even a democracy can become totalitarian."
"My point in mentioning abortion is this: Its widespread acceptance in the West shows us that without a grounding in God or a higher truth, our democratic institutions can very easily become weapons against our own human dignity."
"In the United States, a nation that is still 80 percent Christian with a high degree of religious practice, government agencies now increasingly seek to dictate how Church ministries should operate, and to force them into practices that would destroy their Catholic identity. Efforts have been made to discourage or criminalize the expression of certain Catholic beliefs as 'hate speech.' Our courts and legislatures now routinely take actions that undermine marriage and family life, and seek to scrub our public life of Christian symbolism and signs of influence."
"Living within the truth means living according to Jesus Christ and God’s Word in Sacred Scripture. It means proclaiming the truth of the Christian Gospel, not only by our words but by our example. It means living every day and every moment from the unshakeable conviction that God lives, and that His love is the motive force of human history and the engine of every authentic human life. It means believing that the truths of the Creed are worth suffering and dying for."
"Living within the truth also means telling the truth and calling things by their right names. And that means exposing the lies by which some try to force others to live."
"Two of the biggest lies in the world today are these: first, that Christianity was of relatively minor importance in the development of the West; and second, that Western values and institutions can be sustained without a grounding in Christian moral principles."
AND THE ANTI-HERO OF THE WEEK................
Also courtesy of LifeNews.com, we learn that true to the typical values of the entertainment industry, eg., glorifying those actors and films that promote anti-life values, Al Pacino won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Jack Kevorkian in the HBO film, You Don't Know Jack. During his acceptance speech, Pacino praised Kevorkian, a retired pathologist credited with killing more than 100 people in assisted suicides before the state of Michigan made the practice illegal.
Pacino called Kevorkian "brilliant and interesting and unique" and the euthanasia advocate received a round of applause from the audience after he stood up to accept Pacino's recognition. "It's really an honor to have had the pleasure to try to portray someone as brilliant and interesting and unique as Dr. Jack Kevorkian and the fun I had just trying to get inside his head, which, of course, I could never," Pacino said. Full story at LifeNews.com . Keep in mind the incredible influence Pacino & Company wield in our culture.
PRAYER WITNESSES
The Saturday witnesses at Princeton Women's Center and Planned Parenthood will be held as usual this weekend, and we assume the witness at Princeton Medical Center will be also.
The other big news is we are expanding the Princeton Women's Center to four hours, effective this Saturday and every Saturday, from 7:30 am to 11:30 am. That should be a help to those for whom Saturday is the one day they can sleep a little later. We are hoping also it may encourage parents to stop by with their children on the way to or from whatever is going on. The greatest gift you can give your kids is to pray with them!
Princeton Women's Center, Emmons Drive, West Windsor, 7:30 to 11:30, this Saturday morning and every Saturday morning. Park in back of the Palmer Inn on Route 1 South just past the Market Fair mall and we're right across the street. Come for as long or as little as you can.
Planned Parenthood facility at Clinton and State in Trenton at 9:45 this Saturday morning and every Saturday morning for the Rosary. That's all - one Rosary and we leave. You can park right across the street or in a state parking lot next door that is not used on weekends. On every Thursday morning from 8:30 to 9:30 the Rosary is recited at the rear of the facility. And there is also a prayer witness here next Tuesday morning and on the first Tuesday morning of each month from 10:00 to 11:00, when the Rosary is recited in front of the facility.
Medical Center at Princeton, Witherspoon Street, this Saturday morning and the first Saturday morning of each month from 9:30 to 11:00.
RESPECT LIFE MINISTRY, THE CHURCH OF ST. ANN
