Bonus Episode: Fetal Remains Discovered in Illinois, and the Horror of the Abortion Culture

The Catholic Association’s Dr. Grazie Christie and Maureen Ferguson discuss the recent, horrifying revelation that a late abortion doctor, who operated in Indiana, was found to have the medically preserved remains of over 2,000 fetuses hidden at his home in Illinois. Grazie and Maureen discuss the saddening details as well as the tepid response from presidential candidate and South Bend mayor Pete Buttigeig. “Our abortion culture has so dehumanized the “unwanted” pre-born child that we can’t be surprised when their remains are treated disrespectfully. The societal disregard for the dignity of unborn lives has wrought a predictable end.”

https://thecatholicassociation.org/podcast/bonus-fetal-remains-discovered-in-indiana-and-the-horror-of-the-abortion-culture/
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1. ‘Life Begins at Conception’ Not a Racist View.

The Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2019, Pg. A20, Letters to the Editor

Regarding the Sept. 16 letter from Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson responding to William McGurn’s “White Supremacy and Abortion,” Main Street, Sept. 3: People who deny the humanity of the unborn child are strangers to the truth. In her “Woman and the New Race” (1920), Margaret Sanger, the founder of what eventually evolved into Planned Parenthood wrote: “Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.” I do not see a great deal of subtlety or ambiguity there.

Mr. McGurn is to be applauded for his courageous and incisive effort to expose the perfidious origins of Planned Parenthood. Ms. Johnson’s attempt at dissimulation should be seen for what it is.

Bishop Peter J. Byrne
Auxiliary Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of N.Y. New York

https://www.wsj.com/articles/life-begins-at-conception-is-not-a-racist-view-11569359974
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2. Venezuelan cardinal: Synod document strong on ecology, weak on ecclesiology.

By Inés San Martín, Crux, September 25, 2019

According to Venezuelan Cardinal Jorge Urosa, the preparatory document for the upcoming Vatican summit of bishops on the Amazon region is “flawed, weak” because Christ is misrepresented.

According to Urosa, archbishop emeritus of Caracas, the document known as the instrumentum laboris is wrong in referring to Jesus Christ as “the good Samaritan.”

“Jesus Christ never presented himself as the good Samaritan,” Urosa told Crux Sept. 23. “The good Samaritan is the person we have to imitate by helping others. Jesus Christ presented himself as the Redeemer, as the Way, the Truth and the Life, as the Resurrection, as the Light of the World. This is a flaw, a weakness of this document that is the instrumentum laboris.”

During the interview, Urosa highlighted two “main objectives” of the Oct. 6-27 Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region: “The first is to promote an integral ecology for the Amazon area. And the second is to propose new paths for the Church in that area.”

The defense of the Amazon is very important, Urosa said, “and thank God the Church has taken a very valuable initiative” to protect it. “However, the problem of the Amazon from the ecclesiological point of view has not been well addressed.”

https://cruxnow.com/amazon-synod/2019/09/25/venezuelan-cardinal-synod-document-strong-on-ecology-weak-on-ecclesiology/
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3. Balderdash on the Tiber.

By George Weigel, First Things, September 25, 2019

The John Paul II Institute was founded in 1982 to help reform Catholic moral theology. Over three decades, the institute has trained a new generation of Catholic scholars committed to the gospel conviction that the truth sets us free in the deepest meaning of human freedom. Moreover, the institute’s scholars, following the lead of their now-canonized patron, have helped put Catholic moral theology on a firmer foundation through a searching philosophical reflection on the nature of the human person, created male and female and made for communion in sharing the divine gift of life.

…
Now, the John Paul II Institute has been hijacked by a new pack of Vandals conducting a new sack of Rome. The new Vandals march under the banner of pastoral “accompaniment.” But it has been clear for some time that their primary purpose is deconstructing John Paul II’s encyclical on moral theology, Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth), and its teaching that some acts are simply wrong, period, such that no calculus of intentions and consequences can give them moral value. In aid of that destructive program, the Vandals have now fired tenured professors at the institute, remade the curriculum, and hired faculty whose grip on Catholic doctrine is tenuous at best. Now, they attempt to justify this vandalism with gobbledygook about the “planetary theological space for the epochal remodeling of the Christian form.” 

This is nonsense on steroids. It has nothing to do with either the New Evangelization or compassionate pastoral care, and everything to do with a craven surrender to the spirit of the age.

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/09/balderdash-on-the-tiber
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4. California Democrats Pass Bill to Require State Universities to Provide Abortions, Senate Bill 24, a proposed law that would require public student health centers at state universities to dispense chemical abortion pills, could be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom this week.

By Mary Rose Short, National Catholic Register, September 24, 2019

California Senate Bill 24, a proposed law to require student health centers at each of the 34 University of California and California State University campuses to dispense chemical abortion pills, passed an assembly floor vote on Friday and could be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom this week. Every Republican assemblymember and one Democrat voted against the abortion expansion.

Last year, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed S.B. 320, a similar bill, Newsom said he would have signed it. “I would have supported that. I have long supported that,” he said. “I subscribe to Planned Parenthood and NARAL’s position on that.”

The California Catholic Conference released a statement urging Gov. Newsom, who has described himself as a practicing Catholic with a strong faith, to veto the “unprecedented and unnecessary” legislation. “The right to life is the first and most fundamental principle of human rights,” said Andrew Rivas, executive director of the California Catholic Conference. “As Catholics, we recognize the sacredness and primacy of human life and we oppose any legislation or attempt to deny the basic human right to life.”

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/california-democrats-pass-bill-to-require-state-universities-to-provide-abo
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