Evangelium Vitae Novena: Join Us Wherever You Are!

March 16, 2016 will mark the beginning of the 2nd Annual Evangelium Vitae Novena. In preparation for this worldwide prolife effort, I would like to share an endorsement from a wonderfully prolife priest.

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Dear friends in Christ and in LIFE,

My warm greetings to you as we complete our observance of Lent and join Catholics and all Christians in this grace-filled Season of Renewal in our faith, and prepare for the joyful celebration of Easter 2016 and embrace our Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and as Savior of the world!

It is a joy and honor to join our wonderful pro-life brothers and sisters in encouraging Catholics and all Christians to mark the 21st Anniversary of the powerful Encyclical "The Gospel of Life" from St. John Paul the Great by praying the blessed Evangelium Vitae Novena this month of March.

In the encyclical Evangelium Vitae (Latin: "The Gospel of Life"), Pope John Paul II expresses the position of the Catholic Church regarding the value and inviolability of all human life from conception through natural death. The Pope issued the encyclical on 25 March 1995, and we join pro-life friends around the world in praying this Novena as we together renew our commitment to our pro-life ministries and to upholding and promoting the values of LIFE here in the 21st century.

I have been blessed as a lay Catholic Christian to be a leader and minister in the respect life movement since 1976, just three years after the sad anniversary of legalized abortion in the United States. And I have been blessed to continue ministry in the pro-life movement as a priest since my ordination in 1987, especially as founder and director of the international organization Marian Advocates for Life, a ministry encouraging prayer for LIFE and for all respect life ministries around the world.

Many of us are involved in various pro-life activities, such as respect life education, lobbying for pro-life legislation and helping elect pro-life government officials, ministering with pregnancy care centers, etc. But I really believe that PRAYER must be at the heart of all our ministry for LIFE, and that we must trust that God is at the center of all our ministry. So in that belief, I truly hope that YOU will join in this Evangelium Vitae Novena, and I trust that all of our prayers for LIFE together will truly be a blessing and powerful witness for LIFE March 16-25!

With my blessings and sincere appreciation for your support of this beautiful Novena , I am Yours in Christ and in LIFE,

Fr. Vincent E. Bertrand, MA, MDiv, JCL

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Many thanks to Fr. Vincent for his thoughtful introduction‬. Please join us in praying the 2nd Annual Evangelium Vitae Novena, beginning on March 17, 2016. The daily prolife petitions
can be found as a new post, each day, on this blog.

In addition, you may want to join the Evangelium Vitae Novena event page or check it out at Designs by Birgit.

Look for, and use, the official Twitter moniker as well -   ‪#‎EV2016

Sliding Deeper Into the Culture of Death

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Planned Parenthood's Culture of Death

By now most of us have seen or heard about Planned Parenthood committing abortions and using the body parts of these little victims as a commodity. The videos are presented, each one worse than the previous, by The Center for Medical Progress. They incrementally drive home the point until the depravity can only be denied by accusations that the videos were somehow forged.

They were not falsified, however. An outside firm, experienced in such matters, has authenticated that what we are seeing and hearing is indeed the brokering for aborted baby parts. In one video a tiny yet fully formed baby is actually still moving, his heart beating, as he lays in a basin waiting to be butchered.

British Culture of Death

Now enter the British government and a group of transplant surgeons. According the Life News, "British government officials are considering a new program to encourage women to consider giving birth to babies diagnosed with fatal illnesses, rather than have an abortion, so that the babies’ organs can be harvested after they die."

Upon first reading the headline to this story, my mind simply refused to process what the words were portraying. While asking these mothers to reconsider abortion, the plan to use these little ones as spare parts is as inhuman as it is inhumane. Women are being asked to bring their children to term for the express purpose of harvesting their organs.

Of course, the excuse is similar to one often given for abortion in general. The baby falls short of what society calls normal. In some form or fashion, this Child of God is considered less worthy of life because of some physical and/or mental variation.

Let that sink in, because it seems to me that we have become so inundated with the horrors of the Culture of Death, that we no longer want to ponder the issue. It is just too painful. It is just too unbelievable. It is too difficult to comprehend and still go about our normal daily lives.

There's More

As reported in the Daily Mail “In some cases, where donation has been agreed, babies could be certified brain dead but their bodies kept alive by artificial ventilation. Surgeons could then remove organs from these so-called ‘heartbeat babies’ when they are fresh, maximising what can be used and the chance of successful transplant.”

This idea presents yet another problem to the already horrific idea. Declaring someone as brain dead isn't always as clear cut as it may sound. There are many cases of injured people who have been pronounced brain dead or in a vegetative state, who later recovered and lived on to tell about it. We must remember that non-paired organs (the heart, for example) are useless unless there is a supply of oxygen to keep them viable. Brain death, then, isn't necessarily a flawlessly precise call - the reason I'm not designated as an organ donor.

A Doctor Speaks Out 

Via Life News: 

Dr. Trevor Stammers, director of bioethics at St. Mary’s University, called the proposal “a ghoulish suggestion” in an statement to the news media.

“It would be frankly abhorrent if transplant doctors were to ask women whose unborn children have been diagnosed with severe defects to let their baby go to term for the sole reason that its body can be raided for its organs,” Stammers said. “The concept reduces the baby to nothing more than a utilitarian means to an end – a collection of spare parts – rather than respecting life for its own sake.”

“Yes, I know those organs can potentially save the lives of others, but at what cost to our humanity?” he continued.

What Can We Do About the Culture of Death?

God, however, has specific plans for us. His gift of Free Will is being abused in ever increasing ways and depths of depravity. But His promise of grace and strength for those who become His Body, here on earth, remains. If our faith is stalwart and true, we will take up the gauntlet and battle the Culture of Death in His Name. We will fearlessly, armed with Faith and Hope, face the giant as did David.

Where to Start?

• Pray for inspiration

• Listen to God for instruction

• Pray for tjhe courage to act

• Arm yourself with knowledge

• Pray for the grace to act justly

• Act in charity

The entire series of eleven videos of Planned Parenthood and their baby body part commerce can be viewed here. There are also many articles that inform readers about the details of the commodification of aborted babies.

You're Kidding, Right? 5 Outrageous, True News Stories

It really cannot be argued that we live in a perverse society. On an almost daily basis, I find myself saying, "You've got to be kidding", as more and more outrageous stories unfold.

We have the number one abortion provider of our land, Planned Parenthood, spending our tax dollars with abandon - even as they are shown on tape brokering aborted baby parts. The Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts have lost their way in the new sexual 'norms' of society. Our president pushes abortion here and abroad - even attaching aid to the poor to compliance with his morally repugnant policies.

It is no wonder that I find myself shying away from the news - even from the good sources - and from much of social media. There is an overload of horrifying information that makes being in the know almost unbearable.

Occasionally, though, my eyes come across things that are so outrageous that I feel compelled to read and share, in the interest of meeting life head-on. There is much about which to be prayerful, penitent, and dependent on the hope of Jesus.

The stories below fall under that heading. How can we be faithful witnesses for Him if we are not prepared to warn others of the atrocities being committed right under our noses? How can we be a part of the solution, when we do not reach out to inform and pray?

5 Outrageous But True News Stories

1. You’re Kidding, Right? 11-Year-Olds Can Be Implanted with Birth Control Devices at School without Parental Consent - That's right. In the state (yes, this is a United States of America story) the same little girls who can't be given an aspirin without parental approval, can have an IUD implanted at school. There's more.

2.  Catholic Care Home Sued for Refusing Euthanasia - This one is from Belgium but still qualifies. Who in the world would think that a 'care' home should do anything but care for their patients? Apparently our culture of death does. It's not like we haven't already crossed that bridge here in the United States.

3. Black Lawmakers Call White Congressman Racist Because He Condemned Aborting Black Babies - As if it's not bad enough that minority children are being killed by abortion at a higher rate than white children. Now, black supporters of abortion are pulling the race card on those who want to stop the eugenics.

4. Mom Accidentally DROPS Baby At Home, Rushes Him To Hospital. Now He’s In Foster Care - This is certainly not an isolated incident. We all know that similar things are going on all over the world as well. Parents are similarly penalized for wanting to home educate, medically treat their children (or not), or for wanting to abstain from age-inappropriate sex education. 

5. Obamacare Might Force Doctors to Perform Sex-Reassignment Surgeries - By now we're all familiar with the Obamacare Individual Mandate. It requires everyone to get government-approved health insurance or face punitive IRS penalties. We also know about the Health and Human Services (HHS) contraception mandate - it requires even religious institutions like the Little Sisters of the Poor, to help provide insurance coverage for abortifacient drugs or face millions of dollars of fines. Now the HHS is considering a “Gender Identity Mandate”, which would require doctors and insurers to provide or cover “gender transition” treatments. If they refuse, they will face discrimination charges, potential loss of federal funds, and loss of Medicaid reimbursements.

Reading these stories is not uplifting. Inconceivable as they are, they are a part of our society. As human beings we may sometimes find ourselves wanting to shy away from harsh reality and focus only on the good in life. Yet, as faithful Catholics, we need to make ourselves aware of the evil in the world so that we can combat it - as a part of the Church Militant.

That is not to say that we should focus on evil or get some perverse 'train wreck' pleasure from it. We should simply acknowledge that evil, does indeed, exist and is something with which humanity battles daily.

Let us put on the armor of God, be aware of the world and warn others, and pray with a faith that cannot be cowed to evil.

Saint Michael the Archangel...

Developmental Milestones: 10 Amazing Facts About the Unborn

In light of the horrific videos exposing the nefarious deeds of Planned Parenthood and their subsequent denials, I wanted to take you on a brief journey into the amazing world of the unborn.

The meme below, showing the developmental milestones of the unborn, was created earlier this year. But the wonder at God's creation can never be shared too often - especially in relation to His human works of creation.

Genesis 1:26-27 tells us, 

"Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

As creations in His image, endowed with an immortal soul, we are indeed 'wonderfully made'.

So what would we see if we had a window into the womb and understood the magnificence of God's creation of His people?

Feel free to share this infographic on Facebook by following the link to the Designs by Birgit fan page.

Developmental Milestones by the Numbers

  1.) Unique Individual: On the first day after fertilization, the human embryo is identifiable as a specific individual human being on a molecular level. This flies directly in the face of the 'my body, my choice argument. There are two separate bodies with unique DNA - even at this early stage!

  2.) Brain: At 2 to 3 weeks, a baby’s brain is the first organ to appear. Brain waves don't usually happen in something that isn't alive, do they?

  3.) Heart: At 18 - 21 days a baby’s heart begins to beat. So if death is signalled by a heart that stops beating, how does that square with claiming a beating heart isn't life?

  4.) Kidneys and Other Organs: At only 5 weeks a baby’s kidneys are present and by 8 weeks, all of her organs are in place. From that time on they only need time to become fully developed.

  5.) Pain: As early as her 5th week, baby may be able to feel physical pain. Numerous studies have been done and cited about this. See number 6 and then wonder how it could not be so.

  6.) Sense of Touch: At 6 weeks old, baby will move away if her mouth is touched. If baby moves away, she must be able to feel, right?

  7.) Brain waves: At 6 weeks old a baby’s brain waves can be measured. Another sure fire sign of life, wouldn't you agree?

  8.) Ears: At around 6 weeks  a Baby’s Ear can begin to be seen. So a face is beginning to form and Mom may not even know that baby is in there yet!

  9.) Fingerprints: At 9-10 weeks a baby has fingerprints.  Hmmm, would someone who isn't someone have unique fingerprints?

10.) Sucking and Yawning: At 9 1/2 weeks old an unborn baby can suck her thumb and yawn. Sounds like a human baby to me!

As much as the Culture of Death has tried to hide the humanity of the unborn, modern medicine has trumped their denials with the scientific facts. These developmental milestones of the unborn speak for themselves. 

As the ugly beast that is Planned Parenthood continues to prey on these little ones, may we become their champions and shine the light of truth for all to see. Please be mindful of the fact that it's up to us to share these facts with others. Don't hide the light under a bushel!

Cursed be he that taketh gifts, to slay an innocent person: and all the people shall say: Amen. ~Deut 27:25

 God will rain down judgement in His own time and in His own way. While we aren't privy to His greater plan, we can surely be workers in His vineyard. Let's concentrate of being witnesses of His Word. Let's become one with the children we strive to defend, coming to the Lord for His embrace.

Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such. ~Matthew 19:4