Saturday, January 31, 2009

Why the Slaughter of the Innocent Continues

Catholic The reason why child-killing is still legal in this country is because Catholics have not stood up and demanded, "ENOUGH!" The following article proves this. If we are to end this holocaust, we must demand from our Congressmen to not receive money from PP or other abortion-minded business, and to only vote in support of bills that will protect the lives of the unborn. Or...we threaten that we will do everything in our power to make sure that they don't get re-elected.

Or...this will continue, and we will have to answer to God Almighty for our inactivity.


Pathetic:


ONLY 6 OF 24 CATHOLIC SENATORS VOTE TO RESTORE MEXICO CITY POLICY


by Deal Hudson
Inside Catholic

Only 6 of the 24 Catholic Senators voted “yea” yesterday to restore the Mexico City Policy. Last week President Obama rescinded the policy of President Bush, and first instituted by Reagan, not to provide federal funds to organizations doing abortions overseas.

Six of the eight Catholic Republican senators voted "YEA," to restore the policy: Martinez (FL); Brownback (KS); Bunning (KY); Vitter (LA); and two newly elected senators: Johanns (NE) and Risch (ID).

Two Republican Catholic senators who frequently vote anti-life with Democrats on life issues voted against restoring the policy, thus allowing federal funds to be given to groups providing abortions overseas: Murkowski (AK) and Collins (ME).
These two Republians joined 16 Catholic Democrats voting "NAY," including the “pro-life” Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. (PA). Not voting was Sen. Kennedy (MA).

Does it get any more pathetic than this?

My friend Lisa Correnti over at http://www.onenationundergod.org made this comment:

"The erosion of our Catholic culture is evident in the voting results of these Catholic senators. We have two choices: to bring them to the truth and beauty of the Church’s teachings through prayer, and spiritual direction with their local ordinary, or to vote them out of office.

"Now more than ever, faithful Catholics must encourage their elected officials to defend life and ask their bishops to bring these wayward Catholic politicians into communion with the Church."

Please go to Correnti’s web site http://www.onenationundergod.org and sign the petition to Cardinal George, president of the USCCB, asking him to tell Catholic politicians to stop receiving campaign donations from pro-abortion organizations like NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Emily’s List, and NOW.

$9,000,000 has been received by sitting Catholic members of the present Congress!

Here is a list of the other Catholic Democrats who voted not to restore the Mexico City Policy: Gillibrand (NY); Reed (RI); Leahy (VT); Cantwell (WA); Menendez (NJ); Murray (WV); Begich (AL); Dodd (CT); Landrieu (LA); Harkin (IA); Kerry (MA); McCaskill (MO); Mikulski (MD); Durbin (IL) and Kaufman (DE).

Here is a list of the total contributions made to the senators who voted against the bill to restore the Mexico City Policy.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who assumed office only in January 2007, has accepted $986,619 from the pro-abortion lobby.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) has received $205,768

“Pro-life" Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA), $327,914.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), $1,043,301

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), $17,400

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), $303,014

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), $44,585

Sen. Christopher Dodd (CT), $31,235

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), $326,996

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), $191,057

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), $367,491

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), $77,216

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), $24,435

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), $244,360

Question: How many of the ordinaries ("ordinary" is another word for "bishop") of these Catholic politicians will make a public statement rebuking the Catholic senator from their diocese for voting against restoring the Mexico City Policy?

Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Blind Leading the Blind

What a past couple of weeks it has been for the pro-abortion forces. First, Barack Obama was sworn in (apparently incorrectly at first, where Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed the words of inauguration. This was remedied later when Obama correctly repeated the words of the oath, this time without the Bible). Now the most extreme candidate ever on the issue of child-killing is seated in the most powerful office in the world.

Next, the March for Life occurred two days later, where in the same place that President Obama gave his inaugural address, hundreds of thousands of Pro-lifers were present to mark the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision which has consequently ushered in 50 million brutal American deaths (and that’s not even counting chemical abortions; only God knows the amount of children that we’ve lost because of so-called “safe” over-the-counter prescriptions for women). Instead of giving this event the coverage it deserves (in truth, any other event of the same amount of people would have been covered heavily by every major national news outlet), the proponents of the abortion movement who have control of the media pretended that this affair didn’t even exist. That’s journalistic integrity for you.

The very next day, three days following the infamous opening address of the Obama Presidency, where President Obama vowed to stop those who would “slaughter innocents,” he reversed the Mexico City Policy which banned American Tax Payer money from going to fund the killing of innocent children through abortion in foreign countries. So much for the claim that he wants to unite all Americans.

Now, it wasn’t so much these things that got me upset (and I was watching/ participating/reading about all of these events). No, what really disturbed me was the fact that our “good Catholic” (at least she thinks she is) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes that the way out of this financial mess is to introduce more “family planning services” (read: contraceptive and abortion services) into American Society. How much more? 825 million dollars worth of “family planning” services to be exact (that was the original proposal; it is now reduced to $335 million for STD prevention, and awaits Senate approval). Her exact words:

“Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.” [1]

Um…I was under the impression that the way that a healthy economy is built is by producing more healthy workers than the previous generation, so that the economy can actually grow. Yet let me get this straight: she wants to provide more money to organizations like Planned Parenthood who will continue to kill off the next generation?

Have we not learned anything from what is happening in Europe, where because the countries have been committing demographic suicide for decade, some countries are actually offering couples $1000 Euros (or more) to have children (but because of their ingrained contraceptive mentality, they scoff at their government’s generosity)? Because of this, these governments are paying foreigners to come in and perform the jobs of retiring workers (of which many are from Muslim families, thus turning what used to be a vastly-populated Christian continent into an Islamic playground).

Doesn’t Madam Speaker realize that a population needs an average of 2.1 children per family to sustain a society, and that if it weren’t for the Mexican and Hispanic population, America would be in the same situation, if not worse, than Europe? Does she not realize that because of the very difficult economic times many Mexicans (possibly 3 million) will be returning to their homeland because there are no jobs available in the States [2], and we don’t have the workforce to replace their possible absence?

Perhaps she hasn’t seen the scariest movie I have ever seen in my life, Demographic Winter. Although it doesn’t explicitly reference the contraceptive and abortion movements, it lays out very clearly what is going to happen if we don’t correct immediately this dearth of births. It is happening on an international scale, and if the projections are correct, it will make The Great Depression look like a minor recession.

What is most troubling about the comments of Mrs. Pelosi was that she forgets that a contraceptive genital act is never an act of love. As John Paul the Great has reiterated in his Theology of the Body, love is always a fruitful gift. This is based on the nature of who we are as created in the image of God. God is always pouring Himself out to humanity in a profound act of love, seen most clearly in the gift of Christ on the cross.

As human beings, this gift of self is always made in and through our bodies. It is never done merely with good intentions or in some “super spiritual” way. This includes everything we do, especially in the sexual act. Each and every act must be open to life, or else it is an act of selfishness. And selfishness is directly opposed to truly making love.

Mrs. Pelosi is so concerned that children are a burden on society, that they are going to drain our resources, cause more financial burdens on the family, and wear out couples. I would go ahead and refute this, but thankfully, John Paul has done my work for me:

“[I]s it really true that the new human being is a gift for his parents? A gift for society? Apparently nothing seems to indicate this. On occasion the birth of a child appears to be a simple statistical fact, registered like so many other data in demographic records. It is true that for the parents the birth of a child means more work, new financial burdens and further inconveniences, all of which can lead to the temptation not to want another birth. In some social and cultural contexts this temptation can become very strong. Does this mean that a child is not a gift? That it comes into the world only to take and not to give? These are some of the disturbing questions which men and women today find hard to escape. A child comes to take up room, when it seems that there is less and less room in the world.

But is it really true that a child brings nothing to the family and society? Is not every child a “particle” of that common good without which human communities break down and risk extinction? Could this ever really be denied? The child becomes a gift to its brothers, sisters, parents and entire family. Its life becomes a gift for the very people who were givers of life and who cannot help but feel its presence, its sharing in their life and its contribution to their common good and to that of the community of the family.” [3]

In reality, a child is not someone who simply is to replace the previous generation in the work force (although this is a possible consequence of their being born). Each person who is conceived, whether intentionally or not, is a living, breathing revelation of the love of God. They are a sign to us that no matter how dark things may become, there is always hope (read: real hope from Christ, not Obama “hope.”). And that is a beautiful thing.

Yes, there are many problems involving Nancy Pelosi’s Catholicism, but when she says “I came here [to Washington]…to work for the American people, to do what is in their interest” [4], I find it very hard to believe her. As human beings and Americans, we don’t need more things that are going to destroy our relationships (if you’re looking to break up your marriage within the first 3 years, go ahead, use contraceptives), but we are in grave need of building what John Paul called a “civilization of love,” where every person is respected and treated primarily as a gift.

As John Paul has said, “a civilization inspired by a consumerist, anti-birth mentality is not and cannot ever be a civilization of love” [5]. In order to solve this economic crisis, we must recover the sense of the sacredness of life, witnessing to the pro-abortion forces that children are not the difficulty, but instead it is our own selfishness that must be rooted out.

[1] “Pelosi: Contraception is Good Stimulus for the Economy,” http://www.usnews.com/blogs/
capital-commerce/2009/01/26/pelosi-contraception-is-good-for-the-economy.html. (Date accessed: January 29, 2009)

[2] “Economy forcing many Mexicans to leave United States,” http://www.usatoday.com/ news/nation/ 2008-12-09-Mexico-immigrants_N.htm?csp=34 (Date accessed: January 29, 2009).

[3] John Paul the Great, Letter to Families, 11.

[4] “Pelosi dismisses the need for bipartisanship,” http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/ pelosi- very-happy-with-stimulus-vote-2009-01-29.html (Date accessed: January 29, 2009).

[5] Letter to Families, 13.

Steve Pokorny, the Director of Theology of the Body Ministries (tobministries.com), specializes in speaking to youth about the gift of their sexuality. Steve has an MA in Theology and Catechetics from Franciscan University of Steubenville, received training from the Theology of the Body Institute, and will be completing his studies at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Studies in 2009. He is associate editor for Catholic Exchange’s Theology of the Body Channel (tob.catholicexchange.com). You can contact him at tob_ministries@yahoo.com.

Article Originally Posted on tob.catholicexchange.com

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Alien Nation

January 20th, 2009 by Doreen Truesdell

I am a middle aged, middle income, traditional Catholic female and I don’t belong here anymore.

The nation I have loved all my life has rebelled, like some arrogant teenager who smugly tells his mother and father that he knows more than they do. It’s been coming on for some time, but I’ve always comforted myself with the thought that I stood with a silent majority that was just too busy working and striving and living and dying to voice their concerns about where the culture of our nation was headed.

Forty years or so after the cultural and sexual revolution began, the “teenagers” have won, the silent majority is a minority, and this nation — on an executive level — has become alien ground to me and many others.

This is not just inaugural griping, this is the realization that our nation has finally, officially embraced the post-modern world; that, in addition to media elitists and collegiate intellectuals spreading nihilism, we finally have a U.S. president who embodies such a culture. Propelled into office by voter greed, Barack Obama will now lead the nation that leads the world, using his successful blend of atheistic humanism and political manipulation that make for easy-to-digest sound bytes. The immoralists are no longer only in the ivory towers, they are in the White House, not to mention the courts, the educational systems and the financial industries. And most Americans don’t mind at all or are too busy or distracted to notice.

obama.jpgThe U.S. has unequivocally, unabashedly and electorally embraced a subjective reality where truth is changeable, depending upon how it can serve our pocketbooks and our uninformed consciences.

“Every generation feels the same way, and yet the nation survives,” you may say. But I say our nation is dying and it’s closer to its death throes now than ever before in its history. The United States is 233 years old and it is creaking under the weight of its own arrogance.

“In the end Christ will triumph and the His truth will be vindicated,” you may also say, and I concur with a grateful heart. I thank God for His promises, which I know He will keep. But between now and His triumph could be the end of the great American experiment. Christ never promised the U.S.A. would be around to welcome His victory, and it’s not alarmist to say that our beloved nation may well fall before that glorious day arrives.

Stop. Before you click the “comment” link, stay with me a while longer because here’s where this article takes a surprising turn towards optimism. After two months of pondering what this new presidency and administration will wreak upon unborn babies, legitimate marriage, public education, health care and a bevy of other life-altering issues, I maintain there is opportunity alongside this heartache. In God’s universe, thanks to His mercy and providence, there always is.

The universal struggle between good and evil, between Christ and His enemies has now taken center stage in this nation. For decades most American Catholics have lived relatively comfortably by accepting shades of gray. Little by little the grays became darker as more of the Church’s moral teachings were questioned, ignored and rejected. Now, the gray areas have turned to blackness. It is no longer possible for lukewarm Catholics to remain faithful. The gray areas are gone. American Catholics will either embrace the white light of Truth or accept the darkness.

So where does this leave aliens like me? Totally reliant upon God, and for many of us it will be the first time in our lives. I used to define myself as an American Catholic, but now I realize I am a Catholic in America. The nation I used to depend upon to accept my spiritual composition is gone. No longer does our citizenship agree that our laws are, and should be, based on Judeo-Christian concepts. No longer can a Christian assume his moral beliefs will be given fair representation or even toleration in the public forum.

As aliens, we have an important role to play as keepers of the faith on hostile soil. Here’s our opportunity to get off the fence on every controversial issue that offends God and start pulling our weight as Catholics in America. Many Catholics already are very publicly defending Christ and His Gospel truths. Most aren’t. Are you defending Christ in America? Am I?

This era, just beginning, represents our time in the long history of the Catholic Church to accept suffering, offer prayers and penance, and do battle in the public forum so that the voice of Christ can be heard. It is our turn to live as Catholics who look only to the magisterium of the Church for instruction on true human dignity and authentic social justice.

We will join Catholics from around the world who “lost” their countries long ago — Italians, Greeks, Slavs, Chinese, Russians and others who have already inured themselves to the agonies of living in an atheistic nation, one that they used to love with patriotic fervor but now are estranged from. We will lean on the rich Catholic tradition of the Church Militant and go on living in an alien nation while fortifying ourselves with the Word Made Flesh, He who makes His dwelling among aliens the world over.

Are you up to this challenge? As Americans, we’ve grown undisciplined, flabby and unused to suffering. We can’t bear the pain of unpopularity; how will we bear persecution? And it is coming. With this new administration we have the makings of unprecedented Christian persecutions in our nation that will make martyrs and saints of many who stand up for Truth. You won’t have to be a political activist to have it thrust upon you: parents, clergy, health care providers, teachers, workers of all kinds will find themselves facing moral issues that assault the foundations of the Catholic faith. Which issue will be the one that forces Catholics like you and me to confront how shallow our relationship with Christ has been? Which issue will finally inspire us to make the commitment to “put out into the deep,” whatever the cost?

Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta, after visiting our great nation years ago, said she pitied us our “poverty.” She understood the seriousness of the spiritual poverty that the U.S. suffered. We may be on the brink of changing that poverty, one Catholic, one Christian at a time.

The history of the Church is one of suffering and triumph. From that perspective, the Obama presidency could be the beginning of a great renewal of Christianity in America, if each of us lives the faith the way Christ calls us to. So in an important way, this article is not about losing a nation, so much as gaining a deeper relationship with Jesus, the King of all nations. We, who have always assumed that our nation would validate our faith, now find it must be validated only by God.

“[T]he new age has begun; and…much must now pass away,” Gandalf says in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Let it pass. With prayerful renewal and faithful responses, we can find that God alone will suffice. Then maybe, in small ways that have great power, we can work to bring our beloved nation back to God.

Doreen M. Truesdell, a former newspaper journalist, is a freelance writer and editor. She and her husband, Stephen, live in upstate New York with their four homeschooled children, aged 4 to 13.

The Rise and Fall of Motherhood

I received the article below awhile back, yet just now I've gotten around to reading it. It's pretty apropos for today, for we are "celebrating" two major events: 1) The Inauguration of President Barack Obama, and 2) The Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. With both of these events, we see the cheapening of life and the degradation of the family. And one of the major ways that this has happened has been to negate women, to feed them lies that their value comes in what they do, instead of who they are, that their highest vocation is as a wife and mother.

This does not mean that every woman is to be physically a wife and mother; no, but every woman is called to spiritually bear fruit. This understanding begins with an acknowledgment of the fact that every woman needs to see their vocation as the one who is able to bring forth life to the world, and this life is first and foremost the life and love of the Trinity. Yet the only way that they can give anything to the world is first they must be receptive, and this is what their bodies speak. It is the physical body that reveals our very nature, and this receptivity of women is a good thing, because it is through receiving the love of God that the world is able to be transformed.

We, as men, must strive to defend this truth with our very lives, not striving to put women into the boxes that we think they should be in, but instead to help their lives flourish in a way that is in union with what has been revealed on the physical level. The receptivity of women is not a call to be treated as a doormat, but it is the vocation to receive genuine love and breathe this to a world that is at times very cold.




Only women can be mothers. Have we forgotten this fundamental?

Only a woman can carry in her body an eternal being which bears the very image of God. Only she is the recipient of the miracle of life. Only a woman can conceive and nurture this life using her own flesh and blood, and then deliver a living soul into the world. God has bestowed upon her alone a genuine miracle — the creation of life, and the fusing of an eternal soul with mortal flesh. This fact alone establishes the glory of motherhood.
Despite the most creative plans of humanist scientists and lawmakers to redefine the sexes, no man will ever conceive and give birth to a child. The fruitful womb is a holy gift given by God to women alone. This is one reason why the office of wife and mother is the highest calling to which a woman can aspire.
This is the reason why nations that fear the Lord esteem and protect mothers. They glory in the distinctions between men and women, and attempt to build cultures in which motherhood is honored and protected.
In his famous commentary on early American life, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville explained:
Thus the Americans do not think that man and woman have either the duty or the right to perform the same offices, but they show an equal regard for both their respective parts; and though their lot is different, they consider both of them as beings of equal value. They do not give to the courage of woman the same form or the same direction as to that of man, but they never doubt her courage; and if they hold that man and his partner ought not always to exercise their intellect and understanding in the same manner, they at least believe the understanding of the one to be as sound as that of the other, and her intellect to be as clear. Thus, then, while they have allowed the social inferiority of woman to continue, they have done all they could to raise her morally and intellectually to the level of man; and in this respect they appear to me to have excellently understood the true principle of democratic improvement.
De Tocqueville contrasted the American understanding of women, with European sentiments:
There are people in Europe who, confounding together the different characteristics of the sexes, would make man and woman into beings not only equal but alike. They could give to both the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to both the same rights; they would mix them in all things — their occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may readily be conceived that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded, and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women.

The War on Motherhood

America’s glory was her women. de Tocqueville believed this when he wrote:
As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
But this birthright would be exchanged during the last century for a mess of pottage. Perhaps the greatest legacy of the 20th century has been the war on motherhood and biblical patriarchy. Feminists, Marxists, and liberal theologians have made it their aim to target the institution of the family and divest it from its biblical structure and priorities. The results are androgyny, a radical decline in birthrate, abortion, fatherless families, and social confusion.
Incredibly, the biggest story of the 20th century never made headline news [i]. Somehow we missed it. It was the mass exodus of women from the home, and the consequent decline of motherhood. For the first time in recorded history of the West, more mothers left their homes than stayed in them. By leaving the home, the experience and reality of childhood, family life and femininity were fundamentally redefined, and the results have been so bad that if this one trend is not reversed, our grandchildren may live in a world where the both the true culture of Christian family life and the historic definition of marriage are the stuff of fairy tales.
Many “isms” have influenced these trends-evolutionism, feminism, statism, eugenicism, Marxism, and more. But in the end, the philosophical gap between the presuppositions of the Atheists, eugenicists, and Marxists of the early 20th century, and the presuppositions of the professing Church in the 21st century, have narrowed dramatically. The goals of the state and the goals of the mainstream church have so merged, that the biblical family with its emphasis on male headship, generational succession, and prolific motherhood are a threat to the social order of both institutions.
Less than one hundred years ago, the architects of the atheistic communist Soviet state anticipated the death of the Christian family. They explained the need for destroying the Christian family with its emphasis on motherhood, and replacing it with a vision for a “new family.” Lenin wrote:
Lenin
We must now say proudly and without any exaggeration that part from Soviet Russia, there is not a country in the world where women enjoy full equality and where women are not placed in the humiliating position felt particularly in day-to-day family life. This is one of our first and most important tasks...Housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman...The building of socialism will begin only when we have achieved the complete equality of women and when we undertake the new work together with women who have been emancipated from that petty stultifying, unproductive work...We are setting up model institutions, dining-rooms and nurseries, that will emancipate women from housework...These institutions that liberate women from their position as household slaves are springing up where it is in any way possible...Our task is to make politics available to every working woman.
In his 1920 International Working Women's Day Speech, Lenin emphasized:
The chief thing is to get women to take part in socially productive labor, to liberate them from 'domestic slavery,' to free them from their stupefying [idiotic] and humiliating subjugation to the eternal drudgery of the kitchen and the nursery. This struggle will be a long one, and it demands a radical reconstruction, both of social technique and of morale. But it will end in the complete triumph of Communism.
Lenin’s comrade Trotsky played a key role in communicating the Marxist vision of what he called the “new family.” Lenin and Trotsky believed in the overthrow of Christianity by destroying the biblical family. They sought to build a new state, free from historic Christian presuppositions concerning the family. This meant denigrating the biblical notion of male headship and hierarchy within the family. It meant eliminating any sense that there should be a division of labor between man and wife. This required delivering women from the burdens of childbirth and childcare. It meant adopting tools like birth control as guarantors that women could be free to remain in the workforce. Trotsky said this:
Lenin’s comrade Trotsky
Socialization of family housekeeping and public education of children are unthinkable without a marked improvement in our economics as a whole. We need more socialist economic forms. Only under such conditions can we free the family from the functions and cares that now oppress and disintegrate it. Washing must be done by a public laundry, catering by a public restaurant, sewing by a public workshop. Children must be educated by good public teachers who have a real vocation for the work. Then the bond between husband and wife would be freed from everything external and accidental, and the one would cease to absorb the life of the other. Genuine equality would at last be established...

The most disturbing part of quotes like those above is how similar they sound in sentiment and spirit to voices today from individuals who claim to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ. Even more disturbing is how many of the anti-family social reforms are presuppositions of modern Christians in America. Presuppositions which have been fully accepted.

How America’s Conscience Was Seared Toward Motherhood

But motherhood is not easily defeated. It was here from the beginning and it has always carried the Church and civilization forward. Motherhood not only perpetuates civilization, it defines it.
At first Jamestown was a bachelor society struggling for survival. But she became a civilization when the women arrived. Plymouth, on the other hand, began as a civilization-families of faith committed to fruitfulness and multiplication for the glory of God, an impossibility without motherhood.
Motherhood is not easily defeated because God has placed reminders of its importance in the very bodies of the women He created. To defeat motherhood, the enemies of the biblical family must do more than make it a social inconvenience, they must teach women to despise themselves by viewing their own wombs as the enemy of self-fulfillment. This means minimizing the glorious gift of life which is only given to womankind. It means redefining what it means to be a woman.
But even this is not enough. To defeat motherhood the enemies of the biblical family must sear the conscience of an entire generation of women. This is done through the doctrines of social emancipation from the home, sexual liberation, birth control, and abortion — all four of which cause a woman to war against her created nature. Instead of being the blessed guardian of domesticity for society, she is taught that contentment can only be found by acting, dressing, and competing with men. Instead of being an object of respect, protection, and virtue, she sells herself cheaply, thus devaluing her womanhood. Instead of glorying in a fruitful womb she cuts off the very seed of life. Sometimes she even kills the life.
Years of playing the part of a man hardens a woman. It trains women to find identity in the corporation, not the home. It teaches them to be uncomfortable around children and large families---the mere presence of which is a reminder of the antithesis between God’s design for womankind and the norms of post-Christian societies.
But women are not the only ones with seared consciences. Men have them too. Consider that fifty years ago a man would have winced to think of female soldiers heading into combat while stay-at-home dads are left behind changing diapers. Today’s man has a seared conscience. He no longer thinks of himself as a protector of motherhood, and a defender of womankind. He comforts himself by repeating the mantras of modern feminism, and by assuring himself of how reasonable and enlightened he is — how different he is from his intolerant and oppressive fathers. But in his heart, modern man knows that he has lost something. He has lost his manhood.
To be a man, you must care about women. And you must care about them in the right way. You must care about them as creatures worthy of protection, honor, and love. This means genuinely appreciating them for their uniqueness as women. It means recognizing the preciousness of femininity over glamour, of homemaking over careerism, and of mature motherhood over perpetual youth. But when women are reduced to soldiers, sexual objects, and social competitors, it is not merely the women who lose the identity given to them by the Creator, but the men as well. This is why the attack on motherhood has produced a nation of eunuchs---socially and spiritually impotent men who have little capacity to lead, let alone love women as God intended man to love woman—as mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters.

Motherhood Will Triumph

There is an important reason why motherhood will not be defeated — The Church is her guardian. As long as she perseveres — and persevere she will — motherhood will prevail.
The Church is the ultimate vanguard of that which is most precious and most holy. She holds the oracles of God which dare to proclaim to a selfish, self-centered nation: “Children are a blessing and the fruit of the womb is His reward.” Psalm 127:3.
The Church stands at the very gates of the city, willing to receive the railing complaints of feminists, atheists, and the legions arrayed against the biblical family, and she reminds the people of God: “Let the older women teach the young to love their children, to guide the homes.” Titus 2:3-5.
It is this very love of the life of children, this passion for femininity and motherhood which may be God’s instrument of blessing on America in the days to come. As the birth rate continues to plummet, divorce rates rise, and family life in America dissipates to the point of extinction, life-loving families will not only have an important message to share, but thy will have an army of children to help them share it.

The Question:

Teacher: Susie what do you want to be when you grow up?
Susie: I want to be a doctor.
Teacher: How wonderful! And what about you Julie?
Julie: I want to be a soldier.
Teacher: How commendable! And what about you Hannah?
Hannah: When I grow up I want to be a wife and mother!
Teacher: [dead silence]...
After years of society belittling the calling of motherhood, something wonderful is happening — something wonderfully counter-cultural! In the midst of the anti-life, anti-motherhood philosophies which pervade the culture, there is a new generation of young ladies emerging whose priorities are not determined by the world’s expectations of them. They have grown up in homes where fathers shepherd them, where children are not merely welcome, but where they are deeply loved. Some of these women have been home educated, which means that many of them have grown up around babies and their mothers. They have learned to see motherhood as a joy and a high calling, because their parents see it that way.
And when asked about their future, these girls know their own minds. These are the future mothers of the Church. Young women who are not afraid to say that the goal of all of their education and training is to equip them to pursue the highest calling of womanhood, the office of wife and mother.

The Cost of Motherhood

Once a lady went to visit her friend. During the visit the children of the friend entered the room and began to play with each other. As the lady and her friend visited, the lady turned to her friend and said eagerly and yet with evidently no thought of the meaning of her words: “Oh, I’d give my life to have such children.” The mother replied with a subdued earnestness whose quiet told of the depth of experience out of which her words came: “That’s exactly what it costs.”
There is a cost of motherhood. And the price is no small sum. And if you are not willing to pay this price, no amount of encouragement about the joys of motherhood will satisfy.
But the price of motherhood is not fundamentally different from the price of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. In fact, Christian mothers see their duty as mothers flowing from their calling to Jesus Christ. And what is this cost?
Christian motherhood means dedicating your entire life in service of others. It means standing beside your husband, following him, and investing in the lives of children whom you hope will both survive you and surpass you. It means forgoing present satisfaction for eternal rewards. It means investing in the lives of others who may never fully appreciate your sacrifice or comprehend the depth of your love. And it means doing all these things, not because you will receive the praise of man — for you will not — but because God made you to be a woman and a mother, and there is great contentment in that biblical calling.
In other words, Motherhood requires vision. It requires living by faith and not by sight.
These are some of the reasons why Motherhood is both the most biblically noble and the most socially unappreciated role to which a young woman can aspire. There are many people who ask the question: Does my life matter? But a mother that fears the Lord need never ask such a question. Upon her faithful obedience hinges the future of the church and the hope of the nation.
In 1950, the great Scottish American preacher Peter Marshall stood before the United States Senate and he explained it this way:
The modern challenge to motherhood is the eternal challenge — that of being a godly woman. The very phrase sounds strange in our ears. We never hear it now. We hear about every other kind of women — beautiful women, smart women, sophisticated women, career woman, talented women, divorced women, but so seldom do we hear of a godly woman — or of a godly man either, for that matter.
I believe women come nearer fulfilling their God-given function in the home than anywhere else. It is a much nobler thing to be a good wife than to be Miss America. It is a greater achievement to establish a Christian home than it is to produce a second-rate novel filled with filth. It is a far, far better thing in the realm of morals to be old-fashioned than to be ultramodern. The world has enough women who know how to hold their cocktails, who have lost all their illusions and their faith. The world has enough women who know how to be smart.
It needs women who are willing to be simple. The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The world has enough women who are popular. It needs more who are pure. We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right that socially correct
As we approach America’s national Mother’s Day celebration, lets remember that we are fighting for the Lord, and it is He who prioritizes motherhood and home as the highest calling and domain of womanhood “that the word of God be not blasphemed.” Titus 2:5.
May the Lord fill our churches with faithful mothers.

Persevero,
Doug Phillips
President, The Vision Forum, Inc.

Friday, January 09, 2009

My Testimony

When people ask me who I am, I tell them that I am a creation of grace. I have experienced the wounds of our culture, but I have also discovered the profound mystery of redemption in a most personal way. You can read it in a recently published book, "Freedom: 12 Lives Transformed by the Theology of the Body." Check it out.


Freedom
12 Lives Transformed by the Theology of the Body

by Matthew Pinto

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Who am I?
How do I find true happiness and fulfillment?

These are the fundamental questions in each of our lives. It quickly becomes clear, however, that the best the world can offer are counterfeits that wound us, betray us, and leave us wanting. Our longings for love, intimacy, and freedom are good, but the sexual revolution sold us a bill of goods that simply cannot satisfy.

But there is real hope, and it comes in the form of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

In Freedom, you will meet people who, through the Theology of the Body, have discovered the meaning of their very existence. They have all realized that the message of the Theology of the Body is the key to understanding their purpose in this life. They have found what we’re all looking for—the authentic path to happiness and freedom.

Through twelve real-life stories, you will:

  • See how the Theology of the Body gives you a “new lens” through which to see the world with great clarity.
  • Learn how this teaching is uniquely capable of healing past spiritual and psychological wounds.
  • Discover how the journey to sexual integration, although challenging, will actually liberate all aspects of our lives.
  • Learn the extraordinary connections between human sexuality and the entire Catholic sacramental order.
  • See why persisting in sin ultimately leads to misery.
  • Understand why “love” is the greatest of the three theological virtues.
  • Marvel at God’s powerful and healing grace in the lives of ordinary people.
  • See that God’s grace can prevail over any challenge in life.

Our world is yearning for the truth and beauty of the Theology of the Body. The good news is that a new sexual revolution is beginning to take root in the lives of men and women across the globe. Witness firsthand the power of this life-giving message, and discover how you, too, can achieve true freedom.