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Archbishop delivers homily to 10,000 in advance of the national March for Life

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POSTED BY MARC & JULIE ANDERSON ON JANUARY 31, 2020 IN ARCHDIOCESE, LEAVEN NEWS (Original Source - The Leaven)

by Marc and Julie Anderson
mjanderson@theleaven.org

​WASHINGTON — As chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann has a myriad of ways in which he is trying to help build a culture of life throughout the nation.

There is one, though, that perhaps he enjoys more than others — that of being among the hundreds of thousands of young people who gather annually in the nation’s capital to march for the sanctity of human life.

As part of events surrounding the March for Life, the archbishop served as the main celebrant and homilist of a Mass for approximately 10,000 pilgrims from across the nation. The Mass was celebrated in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Jan. 23 as the opening of the National Prayer Vigil for Life.

In addition to the archbishop, three cardinals, 39 bishops and 303 priests concelebrated, including the apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Christoph Pierre.
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In opening his homily, the archbishop discussed how the Supreme Court, with the twin decisions of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, “established a so-called right to an inherently evil action — the killing of innocent preborn children.”

“The high court’s 1973 decisions opened the door to a moral Twilight Zone where evil is revered as good,” he said.

 “The killing of one’s child is exalted as heroic and brave,” he continued. “Even the most modest regulation of abortion facilities for the protection of women’s health is vigorously opposed.

“Abortion is described by early feminists such as Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul as ‘the ultimate exploitation of women.’ But in this ethically topsy-turvy Twilight Zone, it’s now hailed as the cornerstone of women’s rights.”

And discipleship in the face of that, he told the gathered youth, is not always easy.
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Archbishop Naumann delivers a homily to thousands at the Vigil Mass before the March for Life in Washington, D.C. LEAVEN PHOTO BY MARC ANDERSON​
"​[Jesus] told his first disciples that in order to follow him, they must be willing to take up their cross,” said the archbishop. “We must be willing to follow Jesus all the way to Calvary. It takes heroism today to stand for the sanctity of human life.


“In this cultural, moral Twilight Zone,  to stand for the sanctity of the lives of unborn children, you may face ridicule and social exclusion. You may be penalized in the academy and the workplace.


“If abortion extremists achieve their goals, you and I can face fines and even imprisonment to cooperate with the intrinsic evil that is abortion.”


There are signs of hope, however, that the pro-life ethic is gaining traction in America.


“Thankfully, not everything is doom and gloom. In these early days of 2020, there are signs of hope. Despite a biased, secular media, decades of persistent pro-life educational efforts have resulted in our nation’s youth being more pro-life than their parents,” the archbishop said, to a round of applause.


In two months, on March 25, he said, we will celebrate the solemnity of the Annunciation.


“It also marks the 25th anniversary of St. John Paul’s landmark and prophetic encyclical, ‘The Gospel of Life.’ St. John Paul did not make reference to any Twilight Zone episodes, but he did caution us about what he termed ‘an extremely serious mortal danger: that of confusion between good and evil, precisely in relation to the fundamental right to life.’”


Pope John Paul challenged Catholics to protect human life and the dignity of the human person wherever and however it is attacked. 


“Wherever life is threatened or the dignity of the human person is diminished, we must, as individuals, and as Catholics — as a church — rise to the defense of those who cannot defend themselves,” wrote the pope.
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Archbishop Naumann celebrates Mass with fellow bishops and priests at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception the evening before the March for Life. LEAVEN PHOTO BY MARC ANDERSON
The archbishop also shared news from a meeting with a different pope — his recent “ad limina” visit with Pope Francis — a trip he made in the company of 14 other bishops from Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. In their meeting, Archbishop Naumann told the pope that the United States bishops had reaffirmed protection of the unborn.

“I told him that we received some criticism, even being accused of insulting the pope. Pope Francis appeared stunned and asked, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because we called the protection of the unborn a preeminent priority,’ And his immediate response was, ‘It is the preeminent priority.’

“Pope Francis said that if we do not defend life, no other rights matter. The Holy Father said that abortion is, first, a human rights issue. Of course, our faith enlightens and motivates our concern for the unborn, but protecting the lives of unborn children is not about our religious faith but upholding the most fundamental of all human rights.

“Pope Francis was aware of this March for Life in the United States and was delighted to the know the anticipated large numbers of pilgrims, especially the participation of so many young people.”
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Archbishop Naumann talks with students from the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas during the March for Life in D.C. LEAVEN PHOTO BY MARC ANDERSON
At the beginning of the meeting, Archbishop Naumann said, the Holy Father asked the conversation be kept confidential so everyone could speak freely.

But then “the Holy Father urged me, and I daresay, ordered me, to please tell the pilgrims at the March for Life — and the entire pro-life community — that the pope is with you.

“He is praying for you,” said the archbishop. “He supports you. He encourages you to persevere. The Holy Father asked me to especially thank those who work in our pregnancy resource centers for helping women with difficult pregnancies for being part of these islands of mercy.

“God and 14 other bishops are my witnesses that Pope Francis was passionate in the support of the church’s pro-life efforts.”

“My friends,” the archbishop said to great applause, “the successor of Peter has our backs.”
POSTED IN ARCHDIOCESE, LEAVEN NEWS, YOUTH & YOUNG ADULT
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Kentucky’s Ultrasound Law and Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s Conversion

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By Julie Anderson
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On Dec. 9, just one day after the Hosea Initiative presented its first Courageous Life Witness Award to Secretary Ben Carson who accepted it on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear a challenge to a Kentucky ultrasound law. Some might see these events as unrelated, but with God there is no such thing as a coincidence and everything that happens here on earth happens for a reason, if only we have the eyes to see it. Allow me to explain.


In declining to hear the case, the Supreme Court offered no comment; so, because the Court took no action, it leaves the law in place. 


To understand the law myself, I went out and found the actual text of the legislation as signed into law by Governor Matt Bevin. 


Kentucky’s Ultrasound Informed Consent Act was passed in 2017. As listed in statute KRS 311.727, before performing an abortion, the law requires physicians or qualified technicians to perform an ultrasound and describe images obtained during the ultrasound to a woman thinking about abortion. It also requires doctors to listen for and amplify the heartbeat of the unborn child. Critics of the law say it forces women to look at the images and listen to the heartbeat at a time when they are most vulnerable; however, that’s not the case. A close read of the statute reveals this important section:


“When the ultrasound images and heartbeat sounds are provided to and reviewed with the pregnant woman, nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent the pregnant woman from averting her eyes from the ultrasound images or requesting the volume of the heartbeat be reduced or turned off if the heartbeat is audible.  Neither the physician, the qualified technician, nor the pregnant woman shall be subject to any penalty if the pregnant woman refuses to look at the displayed ultrasound images or to listen to the heartbeat if the heartbeat is audible.”


So, it’s clear the law does not force women to look at the screen, view the images or even listen to the heartbeat. It allows for an informed choice. That’s all. Proponents of the law also argue (correctly) that women sometimes often regret their abortions. In fact, according to the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, more than 6,000 women have joined the campaign to share their stories of heartbreak and regret in an attempt to educate others and prevent them from making such a life-altering choice. According to the same website, nearly 700 men have also joined the campaign, saying they regret the ways in which they participated in abortion, whether it be encouraging their girlfriends to have abortions, paying for them, and, in some cases, just simply, not speaking up to protect the lives of their unborn children. In other words, these individuals have changed their minds about abortion.


These individuals are not unlike Dr. Bernard Nathanson. He, too, changed his mind about abortion. And what changed his mind? Technology. Technology that was brand-new in 1973, the very year my husband and I were born, the same year Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court.


In her book What If We’ve Been Wrong, Hosea President Terry Beatley describes Nathanson’s “eucatastrophe moment, a term that J.R.R. Tolkien coined to depict ‘…the sudden happy turn in a story which pieces you with a joy that brings tears …it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth …’”


Working as chief of obstetrics at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City, Dr. Nathanson was not prepared for this “radical and revolutionary Scottish invention.” During the one and only interview she had ever had with him, Dr. Nathanson told her, “Terry, the bombshell was real-time ultrasound. It made everything come alive.”


Later, in the same chapter in her book, Beatley shares another quote from Dr. Nathanson.


“As a result of all this technology-looking at this baby, examining it, investigating, watching its metabolic functions, watching it urinate, swallow, move and sleep, watching it dream, which you could see by its rapid eye movements via ultrasound, treating it, operating on it, I finally came to the conviction that this was my patient. This was a person! I was a physician, pledged to save my patients’ lives, not to destroy them. So, I changed my mind on the subject on abortion.”


In other words, Dr. Nathanson had more information. Prior to the advent of real-time ultrasound, he did not have the full picture. He did not have all the information to make an informed decision, and that’s all the Kentucky law is about-providing information. We live in an information age, and shouldn’t we provide women all the information they need to make a truly informed decision about abortion?


I do not think it’s any mere coincidence the Supreme Court declined to hear the case on Dec. 9, just one day after the presentation of the first Dr. Nathanson Courage Life Witness Award. After all, God’s timing is never our own. The case was declined on the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated this year on Dec. 9 instead of Dec. 8 due to the fact that Dec. 8 fell on a Sunday. The feast marks an important milestone in the life of Dr. Nathanson for it was on that feast 23 years ago that Dr. Nathanson was baptized into the Catholic Church. Who could script that beautiful ending to two years’ worth of litigation? The answer, of course, is simple. The answer is God.

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Gala

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By Julie Anderson

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On Thursday, Sept. 26, NARAL celebrated its 50th anniversary, hosting a dinner during which it honored former senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with its Lifetime Achievement Award.
 

It’s hard to imagine an award being given to someone as a result of his/her work to promote the deliberate killing of a baby; yet, that’s exactly what happened in our nation that night. Here at Hosea Initiative, we would like to offer you an alternative, the first-ever Life is Beautiful Gala with the presentation of the first Bernard N. Nathanson Courageous Witness for Life award. 

NARAL, also known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, began in 1969 as the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. One of its founders was Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, but as Terry and thousands of other Americans have discovered, despite being one of its founders, the late Dr. Nathanson didn’t stay with the organization for very long.

According to its website, as an organization, NARAL boasts 2.3 million supporters with a stated mission of fighting “for reproductive freedom for every person in every state.” Elsewhere on its website, the organization claims that seven in 10 Americans “believe abortion must remain legal and accessible.” Calling themselves “the foot soldiers who work to ensure that abortion access is not only protected, but expanded for every American.”

It’s hard to accept those numbers. After all, as Hosea Initiative founder Terry Beatley details in both her Face-Check booklet and book What If We’d Been Wrong? Keeping My Promise to America’s ‘Abortion King,’ one of the founders of NARAL, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, later admitted to falsifying statistics as part of the organization’s strategy to legalize abortion in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Take for example, the number of illegal abortions. 

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Nathanson and another one of the NARAL’s cofounders, Lawrence Lader, reported to the media that one million women had illegal abortions every year in the United States. The two also told the media that somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 women died annually in “back-alley abortions.” Dr. Nathanson also claimed that more than 60 percent of Americans wanted abortion on demand. The reality was much different.

According to Dr. Nathanson, around 98,000 women had illegal abortions annually, and 250 women died as a result of abortion. Those numbers, he said, were also on the high side. And as for the percentage of Americans in favor of abortion, the number was one-tenth of one percent. As Terry says in her fact-check booklet, “It’s hard to believe, but many people bought this audacious lie.” And it was a lie that Dr. Nathanson came to deeply regret. He even contemplated suicide over the harm he had caused by unleashing abortion on the American public.

In 1973, the very year in which my husband and I were born, Dr. Nathanson experienced something that would lead to a rethinking and reshaping of his views. He saw a child in the womb via what was then a new technology-real-time ultrasound.

Just two short years later, Dr. Nathanson resigned from NARAL. His resignation letter was given to Terry. In it, he wrote, “… The judgments of the Supreme Court were never meant to be infallible or eternal. And what if we’ve been wrong-if the Court should soon reverse itself on the abortion issue in the light of changing times and/or new scientific evidence? What an incalculable injustice will have been perpetrated. What an immeasurable irretrievable loss will have been suffered.”

At the end of his letter, he wrote, “The annual dues to NARAL are ten dollars and the hubris of certainty. Regretfully, I can no longer meet those dues.”

In 1996, 23 years after resigning from NARAL, Dr. Nathanson repented of his sins and was baptized on Dec. 8 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. His name is well-known in prolife circles as the former abortionist “spoke out tirelessly all over America and in many other countries, wrote several books, and made two movies, Silent Scream and Eclipse of Reason, to help expose the brutal reality of abortion.” He is considered to be one of the greatest prolife warriors of our time.

On Dec. 1, 2009, an 83-year-old terminally ill Dr. Nathanson granted an interview with Terry. Near the end, Terry told him the following, “Dr. Nathanson, I know you are too sick to travel getting your message out. If you have something to tell America, I promise I will carry it across our nation.”

His parting words to her were powerful. “Yes. Yes, I do. Continue teaching the strategy of how I deceived America but also deliver this special message: Tell America that the cofounder of NARAL says to ‘Love one another. Abortion is not love. STOP THE KILLING. The world needs more love. I’m all about love now.’”

I cannot think of a better way to honor Dr. Nathanson than by participating in the “Life is Beautiful Gala,” and I cannot think of any day more appropriate than Sunday, Dec. 8, the anniversary of Dr. Nathanson’s baptism and reception into the Catholic faith. It’s the day the universal Church celebrates the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Mother of God. 

The gala promises to be amazing. With Michel Lindell, CEO and founder of My Pillow, as emcee and author Mallory Millet providing the keynote address, the evening will provide attendees an opportunity to learn more about Hosea Initiative and its ministry. With the 2020 election in full swing, it’s vital that every American hears the story of how abortion went from the unthinkable to harmful reality. The real highlight though will be the awarding of the first Bernard N. Nathanson Courageous Witness for Life Award. And while we cannot reveal the recipient’s name, no doubt you will agree with us that the individual has tremendous courage in proclaiming the right to life for all Americans. 

So, please consider joining us in the Life is Beautiful Gala by purchasing a ticket, sponsoring a table, or making a financial gift. No matter what you choose, please keep us here at Hosea Initiative in your prayers.
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The Roots of the “Easy To Be Bad Society”                                              by Terry Beatley President, Hosea Initiative

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Who can understand the mystery of the human heart of someone who commits a great act of evil? 

After the initial shock, grief, and disgust when learning of horrific events like the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, there is an intense desire to understand why. What led this person to do such a purely evil and destructive deed? 

Since no one can truly know the heart of another person, we are left to look through the evidence they left behind about their personal and family life, and consider the cultural context in which they lived. Police detectives will investigate the former, but the rest of us are left to ponder the latter. It is for that dimension that we all share responsibility. 

There is a well-known saying that, “A good society is a society in which it is easy to be good. A bad society is a society in which it is easy to be bad.” If we accept the logic of this statement, it is very clear we are currently living in a bad society. 

Many of us are old enough to remember an America that was a good society using this definition. As a simple example, in our schools, it used to be that chewing gum was a serious infraction. Now, chewing gum is ignored and bringing a gun to school is a serious infraction. Something very dramatic has changed in America that now provides a cultural context where it is “easy to be bad.” 

Let’s look at cultural changes in two key dimensions of life in America today that make it easy to be bad – things we put in our bodies and things that come out of our bodies: 

Drugs going in: 

It used to be that all drugs were either illegal or subject to strict laws regarding doctor prescribed use. Today, many states have legalized recreational and medical use of marijuana. This is in the face of strong evidence that about 20% of young marijuana users become violent with heavy use. 

Powerful “anti-depressant” drugs have come on the market and are widely prescribed for a whole variety of human ailments, especially to adolescents and young adults without fully knowing their impact on behavior. Powerful illegal drugs have flooded our country from outside suppliers and are easily available. 
Persons in physical or emotional distress can now simply medicate their pain with legalized marijuana, legalized anti-depressants and illegal drugs like heroine. Further, the former option to isolate, treat them, while protecting the rest of us, is now illegal. Underlying problems are not addressed, but are drugged away and the suffering continues with unpredictable results. 

Babies coming out:

It used to be that the act leading to conceiving a child was kept within the marital bond, where the child would have the greatest chance of being conceived in love, born into love, and have its character formed to live an adult life with integrity.his model, that used to be common in America, made it easy to be good, for the most people in most circumstances. 

Now, our model for bringing new life into America, makes it easy to be bad. The very act that allows for new life is now commonly performed outside the marital bond because of the widespread availability of contraception and abortion. The illusion that contraception prevents all new life leads to many unexpected pregnancies between unmarried people. It also promotes a culture where an act of intercourse on a first date is just like playing tennis on a first date. The value of that act has been completely demoted to a leisure time activity with no consequences. But, sadly, there are often consequences that cause a crisis between the biological parents. 

This unexpected crisis often leads to chemical abortion with grave risks to the woman’s health or surgical abortion with grave risks to the woman’s future child- bearing capacity, and the woman and the man’s psychological health. There is very frequently a rupture in relationship between the biological parents, so if their child is born, it’s unlikely the child will grow up in an intact home. 

This new model has led to unprecedented levels of pregnancies outside of marriage, domestic abuse towards pregnant mothers, abortion, post-abortive depression, drug and alcohol addiction and suicide, not to mention an increase in later infertility and miscarriages for the woman and a drastic increase in sexually transmitted diseases. It has also led to the dramatic decrease in families founded on marriage, and a dramatic increase in fatherlessness. Statistics reveal a high rate of fatherlessness and a high rate of abortion in the lives of people incarcerated in America‘s prisons. 

It is clear our new model of bringing new life into the world is making it very easy to be bad for the mothers and fathers of unexpected children. 

To the extent we have information about many of these mass murderers, most are illegal or prescription drug users, and have suffered from family breakdown. 

Solving the problem of how we treat human suffering and how we bring new life into the world is all of our responsibility. We are going to need to re-think long and hard the direction America has taken over the last 50 years and make some hard decisions about what kind of world we want for our children and grandchildren. 

An America where it is easy to be bad is not irretrievable. As a society we can make a collective decision to once again create an America where it is easy to be good, where those who are truly suffering are truly cared for, and those who are conceived on America soil are welcomed into the world and cared for by the people who love them the most. 
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We at Hosea Initiative are dedicated to unpacking the history that has caused America to become a place where it is easy to be bad, especially with regards to newly conceived Americans. We encourage you to visit our website (Hosea4you.org) and become informed and then be part of the solution to returning America to a place where it is easy to be good. 

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