Catholic Faith

St. Thérèse, privileged Little Flower of Jesus and Mary, I approach you with childlike confidence and deep humility. I lay before you my desires, and beg that through your intercession they may be realized. Did you not promise to spend your heaven doing good upon earth? Grant me according to this promise the favors I am asking from you.

Angel of God, my guardian dear, To whom God’s love commits me here, Ever this day, be at my side, To light and guard, Rule and guide.

“From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their (the angels) watchful care and intercession. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life. Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united to God.”

‎”Eucharistic Adoration is the closest thing we can do to imitate the highest level of angels.” -Dr. Miravalle, professor of Mariology at Franciscan University of Steubenville

St. Michael is one of the principal angels; his name was the war-cry of the good angels in the battle fought in heaven against the enemy and his followers. Four times his name is recorded in Scripture.

Following these Scriptural passages, Christian tradition gives to St. Michael four offices:

To fight against Satan.

To rescue the souls of the faithful from the power of the enemy, especially at the hour of death.

To be the champion of God’s people, the Jews in the Old Law, the Christians in the New Testament; therefore he was the patron of the Church, and of the orders of knights during theMiddle Ages.

To call away from earth and bring men’s souls to judgment (“signifer S. Michael repraesentet eas in lucam sanctam”, Offert. Miss Defunct. “Constituit eum principem super animas suscipiendas”, Antiph. off. Cf. The Shepherd of Hermas, Book III, Similitude 8, Chapter 3).

I was wondering something tonight in light of the news that Congress will be investigating Planned Parenthood.   Are there really Catholics who are personally pro-life and publicly pro-choice?   Is that an honest opinion?   The answer, if you can call it that, came to me in the form of a question.   Have I ever seen or heard of personally pro-life Catholics praying in front of abortion clinics?

Nope.

Have I seen personally pro-life Catholics pushing to hold Planned Parenthood or other abortionists to higher safety standards?

Nope.

But the truth is that to be pro-anything it can not be a passive stance.   It must be active or it can’t be described as “pro,” can it?

In the political sphere, there’s plenty of so-called personally pro-life Catholics like Rudy Giuliani.   He’s so personally pro-life that he’s donated to Planned Parenthood.

But it ain’t just Rudy.  These names ring a bell?  Kerry, Schwarzenegger, Dodd, Durban, Leahy, Mikulski, Pelosi, Delahunt, Capuano, Markey, Murkowski, Casey, Collins, McGovern, Meehan, Granholm, Sebelius, Pataki, Pelosi, Richardson, Cellucci, Cuomo, Kucinich, Rangel, and Biden.   All “personally pro-life Catholics.”   And there’s lots more.   You ever hear any of them talk at length about abortion being the taking of a human life?   Any of them?   We see plenty of evidence for the publicly pro-choice part but little to back up the personally pro-life part.

Cardinal Arinze was quoted as saying:

“Some…say I am personally not in favor of abortion, but I will not impose my views on others.  It is like saying, I am personally not in favor of killing you….But since some people want to shoot all of you in the Senate and the House of Representatives, I won’t impose my views on them, it is pro-choice!

“You are not serious!  This is Divine Law, it’s not a tennis club regulation.”

The personally pro-life but publicly pro-choice argument, as far as I can make out, is there’s a tiny human being in the womb but don’t want to tell you that you can’t kill that tiny human being because you don’t believe it’s a human being.   Or something.

They seem to love classifying abortion as a religious issue and insist they can’t force their religion on others because of the separation of church and state (a pretend benchmark).   But of course that’s a bunch of hooey.

The fact is that life begins at conception.   That’s science folks.   The pro-aborts are the ones who want everyone to come up with their own timeline as far as this yet another pretend benchmark they call “personhood.”   So to them, the right of individual personhood granting ability supersedes any right to life.

Here’s the thing - I don’t believe in “personally pro-life.”   Not anymore.   It just strains credulity.   Either you believe it’s the taking of a human life or you don’t.   There’s no middle ground.   Either you believe in the right to life or you don’t.

Personally pro-life is a tactic, not a position.   And it should be called out. When the next 40 Days for Life rolls around, call some personally pro-life Catholics you know and ask them to come with you because you know how strong their “personal” commitment is.   Or offer them a pro-life bumper sticker saying something like “Abortion stops a beating heart” for their personal hybrid car.   Watch their lips curl and react as if you just handed them a rodent.

Personally pro-life is, at best, neutral about life, in which case you just don’t care about protecting life.   As Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.   Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”   If you’re making a distinction between personally pro-life and publicly pro-choice you’re indistinguishable from the oppressors.

“Just over a week into the mission, one of us realized it was Sunday again, two weeks after Easter. Our shifts overlapped for a few hours, so during one orbital night Sid, Kevin and I gathered on the flight deck for a short Communion service.

Kevin, a eucharistic minister, carried the Blessed Sacrament with him, contained within a simple golden pyx. The three of us shared our amazement at experiencing the beauty of creation, and thanked God for good companions and the success achieved so far. Then Kevin shared the Body of Christ with Sid and me, and we floated weightless on the flight deck, grateful for this moment of comradeship and communion with Christ.

Our silent reflection was interrupted by a sudden burst of dazzling white light. The sun had risen (as it did 16 times each day) just as we finished Communion, and now its pure radiance streamed through Endeavour’s cockpit windows and bathed us in its warmth. To me, this was a beautiful sign, God’s gentle touch confirming our union with him.

I rolled away from my crewmates, unable to stem the tears evoked by that singular sunrise. My gaze turned to the overhead windows and the Pacific Ocean, the dawn lighting its surface in a rich, limitless blue.