Come 2016, our voices in defense of human life and marriage/family need to be MUCH better heard!
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' "Alerts
Central" includes the following:
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:
(This blogger believes that we
need our elected officials to absolutely oppose ANY monies going to Planned Parenthood. Email Fitzpatrick, Casey, and 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.)
The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference's "alerts" include the following:
"Alerts" from the following also deserve your consideration:
Newsworthy
- "'During election years, there may be many handouts and voter guides
that are produced and distributed. We encourage Catholics to seek those
resources authorized by their own bishops, their state Catholic
conferences, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' (Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, paragraph 8, page 10). Heretofore, we have not been getting well served with election information from the Archdiocese or the Pa Catholic Conference" (12/1/15).
- "With 'Forming
Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political
Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States with
Introductory Note,' our bishops have updated their guidance, 'to
take account of recent developments in the United States in both
domestic and foreign policy' (p. 6). 'This statement highlights the role of the Church in the formation of
conscience and the corresponding moral responsibility of each Catholic
to hear, receive, and act upon the Church's teaching in the lifelong
task of forming his or her own conscience'....The
document concludes with some very specific policy recommendations" (11/29/15)
- re: "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?" (11/22/15)
"this beautiful, challenging, and refreshing document draws heavily from St Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. Like a loving parent, it is incredibly pastoral, AS IT TELLS IT LIKE IT IS!
....
....For the full document: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/pornography/upload/Create-in-Me-a-Clean-Heart-Statement-on-Pornography.pdf (11/19/15)
- "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)
- "....We stand with James Madison and Abraham
Lincoln in recognizing that the Constitution is not whatever a majority
of Supreme Court justices say it is.
We remind all officeholders in the United
States that they are pledged to uphold the Constitution of the United
States, not the will of five members of the Supreme Court.
We call on all federal and state officeholders:
To refuse to accept Obergefell as binding precedent for all but the specific plaintiffs in that case.
To recognize the authority of states to
define marriage, and the right of federal and state officeholders to act
in accordance with those definitions.
To pledge full and mutual legal and political assistance to anyone who refuses to follow Obergefell for constitutionally protected reasons.
To open forthwith a broad and honest
conversation on the means by which Americans may constitutionally resist
and overturn the judicial usurpations evident in Obergefell.
We emphasize that the course of action we
are here advocating is neither extreme nor disrespectful of the rule of
law. Lincoln regarded the claim of supremacy for the Supreme Court in
matters of constitutional interpretation as incompatible with the
republican principles of the Constitution. Our position is summed up in
Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address:
I do not forget the position assumed by
some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme
Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case
upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are
also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel
cases by other departments of the government. And while it is obviously
possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still
the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case,
with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent
for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different
practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the
policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole
people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the
instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in
personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers,
having to that extent practically resigned their government into the
hands of that eminent tribunal.
The proper understanding and definition
of marriage is self-evidently a vital question affecting the whole
people. To treat as “settled” and “the law of the land” the decision of
five Supreme Court justices who, by their own admission, can find no
warrant for their ruling in the text, logic, structure, or original
understanding of the Constitution, would indeed be to resign our
government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. That is something
that no citizen or statesman who wishes to sustain the great experiment
in ordered liberty bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be
willing to do" (American Principles Project, Statement Calling for Constitutional Resistance to Obergefell v. Hodges10/8/15).
- "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).
- "the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains
unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable
with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains
forbidden. The faithful who enrol in Masonic associations are in a state of
grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion. It
is not within the competence of local ecclesiastical authorities to give a
judgment on the nature of Masonic associations which would imply a derogation
from what has been decided above" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 11/26/83)
- "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).
....For the full document: http://www.usccb.org/issues-
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