How to talk about pro-life: Two words we must always use

A pro-life old pal was telling me yesterday that back in 1974 he heard one of the founders of the U.S. pro-life movement, John Willke, M.D., dispense real wisdom about how to talk about pro-life.

Dr. Willke wrote the pioneering pro-life Handbook on Abortion in 1971. In an address in 1974, he said there are two words that pro-lifers must always use: "Baby" and "kill."

The reason is that only those two words truly, accurately say what abortion is. Killing the baby is what abortion is.

We pro-lifers need to take Dr. Willke's counsel today. The babies need us to take his counsel, if we are to have any hope of saving them from being aborted.

Why am I writing about this now?

Because even some of the most prominent pro-life leaders today have gotten away, far away, from Dr. Willke's truth-telling, life-saving wisdom.

They do not say "baby." They say, "life." Or they say, "unborn life."

Nor do they say "kill." They say, "destroy."

The trouble is that "life" is an abstraction, whereas "baby" is a person, an individual.

And "destroy" is what is done to an injured racehorse on the track -- an animal -- not to people.

No headlines say, "Psychiatrist destroys life at Army base."

You and I need to treat our little brothers and sisters in the womb as we would want people to treat us if we were in their position -- as real persons, real individuals, who are of dignity and worth equal to us and to everyone who is already born.

So let's be sure to always say, "baby" and "kill."

That way we'll keep the babies, and what happens to them, at the center of things. And that will make people think, and will even touch their hearts. And that in turn will end up saving some babies, and maybe many, from being aborted.

Daily Prayer During the Year for Priests

Daily Prayer During the Year for Priests

O Jesus, Eternal Priest,
Keep all Your priests within the shelter of Your
Sacred Heart, where none may harm them.
Keep unstained their anointed hands
which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips purpled with Your Precious Blood.
Keep pure and unearthly their hearts sealed with the
sublime marks of Your glorious priesthood.
Let Your holy love surround them and shield them
from the world's contagion.

Bless their labors with abundant fruit,
and may the souls to whom they have ministered
be their joy and consolation
and in Heaven their beautiful and everlasting crown.

O Mary, Queen of the clergy, pray for us;
obtain for us many holy priests.


(Thanks to hicatholicmom.blogspot.com for posting this venerable prayer!)

Did Vatican II really say THAT?

Probably you heard this summer (click on this post's title) that the Archdiocese of Boston was resuming Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament after dropping it for 40 years.

If anyone you know is not familiar with Perpetual Adoration, send them here:
http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/euchd3.htm

I don't know for sure why Boston dropped Perpetual Adoration back in 1969. But it couldn't be just a coincidence that 1969 was in the middle of the U.S. and worldwide liberals' phony "spirit of Vatican II" hijacking of the true intent of the Second Vatican Council.

So it shouldn't need to be said, but I guess one of the things we have to tell Catholic liberals is that, no, the Vatican II Council Fathers did not say to stop Perpetual Adoration.

And if you're like me, you probably have your own list of things that Vatican II did not say. I'd love to hear from you about that.

Here are a couple: As we know, Vatican II did not say to exchange the Tridentine Latin Mass for the vernacular or to turn the altar and the priest around. Nor did Vatican II say to drop catechetics in favor of liberal lies and dumbing-down.

You can read here about some relevant facts that Fr. Joseph Fessio related:
http://hicatholicmom.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-vatican-ii-did-not-say.html

Okay, your turn, now. What else did Vatican II not say?

U.S. bishops finally quash Bishop Trautman's 10 years of defending faulty translation of the Roman Missal

Maybe you've heard the good news: At their semi-annual fall meeting this week, the U.S. bishops finished approving, overwhelmingly, the final portions of the Vatican-okayed accurate English translations of the Roman Missal. Click on this post's title to see the official news.

This is good news for almost everyone except Bishop Donald Trautman, who has complained long and loud about the translation, which stresses accuracy -- fidelity to the Latin texts.

No doubt he would say he doesn't object to the translation's accuracy. But given his strident criticisms of the translation, Catholics can be forgiven for wondering about that.

To read some background about the faulty translation, go to:
http://www.adoremus.org/0908MassTranslation.html

The translation now goes to Rome for approval sometime in 2010 and for implementation here in the USA about a year after that.

Let's pray that the accurate translation gets implemented here sooner than expected and that it will help bring back to the Sacraments everyone who has left the Church in the last 45 years.