Thursday, March 10, 2011

Defunding Planned Parenthood

Sometimes I have to get political.
A couple of days ago I had an idea. Congress has voted to cut taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, but the U. S. Senate is still working on the budget. Planned Parenthood is using its enormous clout to try to convince the Senate not to cut their funding. Now I am just one person, and I already know my senator will not vote to continue to fund Planned Parenthood. Of course I’m still going to send him a letter, but I was thinking, maybe, just maybe, if there are some of you who would like to write your senators and ask them to defund Planned Parenthood too, maybe we can make a difference. So I had this idea for some letters that I would write and you can copy directly or put into your own words to send to your senator. Let them know that we want to defund Planned Parenthood. Please feel free to send your friends links to this or copy and paste this to them and try to encourage them to get involved. We have to get these letters out this week.
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Suggested Letter #1
Dear Senator ________,
Let me tell you a story: a girl goes into a clinic seeking an abortion. This girl is only 13 years old and this state has parental notification laws. This girl reveals to the clinic worker that her boyfriend is 31 years old. This automatically becomes a statutory rape case just based on that information. The clinic does not report this to the authorities; they instead coach the girl to lie about her age and her boyfriend’s age and seek an abortion in a neighboring state to avoid the parental notification laws.
This story would be disturbing enough to think that it could happen. Unfortunately it has happened. The clinic in the above story is a Planned Parenthood clinic. In an undercover operation from 2008 this Planned Parenthood clinic in Bloomington, Indiana failed to report this clear case of statutory rape to the police. This is not an isolated case; Lila Rose and Live Action have caught Planned Parenthood dozens of times willing to cover up cases of rape.
It is time to defund Planned Parenthood. Our tax dollars should not be given to such a questionable organization that provides services that many Americans find morally objectionable.
Stop and think about it: what if the girl in the case above were your daughter?
Please vote to defund Planned Parenthood. Support the Pence Amendment; it’s the right thing to do.
Sincerely,
<your name>
<your address>
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Suggested Letter # 2
Dear Senator ___________,
Let me tell you a story: someone calls an abortion clinic offering money specifically to abort Black babies. Instead of hanging up or telling the caller to get lost, this clinic is happy, enthusiastic even, to accept this donor’s money.
This is disturbing enough to think that it could happen. Unfortunately it has happened. The clinic in the above story is a Planned Parenthood clinic. During an undercover sting in 2008 a Planned Parenthood clinic in Idaho was caught on tape willing to accept money offered to abort Black babies. This was not an isolated case; another clinic in Ohio was also caught on tape willing to accept the same donation. Planned Parenthood never refused the money offered even though the donor was obviously racist. From their actions in this case it doesn’t sound like a rare occurrence; it sounds like just business as usual for Planned Parenthood.
It is time to defund Planned Parenthood. Our tax dollars should not be given to such a questionable organization that provides services that many Americans find morally objectionable.
Stop and think about it: multiple clinics were willing to accept money to abort Black babies.
Please vote to defund Planned Parenthood. Support the Pence Amendment; it’s the right thing to do.
Sincerely,
<your name>
<your address>
For more info about this case see:  http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64271
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Suggested Letter # 3
Dear Senator___________,
Let me tell you a story: a man goes to an abortion clinic to ask about securing their services for abortions for his “girls.” The man goes on to say that he brings underage girls into the country to provide sex for his clients and that he will sometimes need to get abortions for his girls. Instead of calling the police, the clinic worker assures him that they can provide the services he is looking for, and they even advise him to lie about the ages of his girls and to call himself their guardian.
This story would be disturbing enough to think that this could happen. Unfortunately it has happened. The clinic in the above story is a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington D.C. In this case, revealed earlier this year, a Planned Parenthood worker was perfectly willing to provide abortions for a man who was basically admitting he was a pimp and that he is engaged in underage sex trafficking. The same scenario was given at a New Jersey clinic, and they were very helpful to the pimp there too.
From their actions in this case, is Planned Parenthood concerned with the welfare of girls and women, or are they just out to make money?
It is time to defund Planned Parenthood. Our tax dollars should not be given to such a questionable organization that provides services that many Americans find morally objectionable.
Stop and think about it: what if one of the girls in the above case was your daughter?
Please support the Pence Amendment. Defund Planned Parenthood; it’s the right thing to do.
Sincerely,
<your name>
<your address>
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You don’t know who your Senator is? Follow this link: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/  to find your U.S. Senator and send him or her one of these letters, whichever one you think will have the most impact.
May God bless you for your time and may you be blessed this Lent.
Travis

Thursday, March 3, 2011

On Truth and the Christian’s Responsibility

Matthew 10:16 Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
I am hearing that some people are making an issue out of Lila Rose’s investigations into Planned Parenthood’s actions.
In case you have not heard, Lila Rose has caught Planned Parenthood breaking the law dozens of times on audio and video. A couple years ago, Lila herself visited a Planned Parenthood center and claimed she was an underage girl wanting an abortion and told workers that her boyfriend was 21. Instead of reporting a case of statuatory rape to the authorities, the Planned Parenthood workers coached Lila to lie about her age and the age of her boyfriend.
In her latest sting Lila hired an actor to pose as a “pimp” who imports underage (12-13 year old) girls into our country for sex work. He informed the Planned Parenthood worker that he would need their services from time to time to get abortions for his girls. Again, instead of reporting this scum to the police the Planned Parenthood worker told the “pimp” that he would have no problems securing their services for his girls and that everything will be kept confidential. It’s very reminiscent of the ACORN sting that happened last year.
Planned Parenthood performs about one third of the 1,200,000 abortions in our country every year, and every year Planned Parenthood receives about $360 million from our government – nearly a million dollars-a-day. They have been caught time and time again not following the law and yet they still get our money.
Over the past couple of years Lila Rose has shown that Planned Parenthood is willing to break state, local and Federal laws to keep providing abortions. Sometimes to do this Lila has had to assume false identities or hire other people to set up the stings and now some people (whom I feel should be on Lila’s side) are saying that her deceptions and lies are wrong and she should not be doing them.
This is almost unreal: here we have a girl doing the same undercover work that most reporters used to do; she targets a horrendous corporation that receives money and support from our own government to provide abortions; this girl uncovers their corruption and lawlessness multiple times and yet she’s being called out by people in her own church because she used deceptive means.
So I think the question comes down to this: does Planned Parenthood have the right to be told they are being secretly videotaped and that the very people who are talking to them might be in costume or even using a false identity? In other words: does Planned Parenthood have a right to the truth?
Consider these two scenereos:
Think of the family who hid Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis to save their lives – did the Nazis have a right to be told the truth when they came knocking?
If we had a spy inside another country giving us information about that country’s nuclear weapons development and their plans to destroy a neighboring country – should we tell them that we have a spy who has infiltrated them? Does that country, planning evil actions, have a right to the truth? Would a spy be very successful if he were truthful in everything?
Remember, if you are Catholic you cannot hold a pro-choice position. The Church has been very clear on this. We are all called to be pro-life as our Father in Heaven is pro-life. Every child conceived has a purpose and a reason. Every person was planned for by God; we have no right to stop a pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood is in the business of killing babies, sometimes ignoring laws in order to provide their deadly services. Do they deserve to get caught? Yes. Should they have all their federal funding cut off? Yes. Do they deserve to know the truth? Anyone who commits endless sins has their grasp of truth and reality distorted.
Lila Rose deserves a medal for her actions. She has gone behind enemy lines and, like a spy, has brought back proof of the horrors that go on behind Planned Parenthood’s doors. If only we had twenty more people just like Lila, think of all the abortion clinics that would have closed their doors by now. Think of all the babies’ and women’s lives that would not have been torn apart.
Matthew 7:3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy Mercy.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Why Doesn’t the Catholic Church Allow Women Priests?

I think that when people from modern Protestant churches ask why we will not allow women to be priests what they are asking is why won’t we allow people to be ministers/pastors in our Church like they have ministers in their churches. It’s an innocent enough question and I don’t think anyone means anything by it. But to answer the question I have to lay some groundwork; for starters the Catholic Church does not consider itself the same as other Christian Churches. The Church is here to teach, offer its members the Sacraments and continue the Sacrifice of the Mass until the end of time. We do not just read from the Bible hear some preaching, pray and then we’re done, we continue on to the Liturgy of the Eucharist where we believe Jesus becomes present under the appearance of bread and wine. All of the immediate descendents from the Catholic Church have kept their version of the Mass; the Orthodox churches kept their version of the Mass, the Lutheran Church has their version of the Mass and the Episcopal (Anglican) Church has kept their version of the Mass. Remember, this is the way all of Christianity worshipped God for 1500 years. Only as churches got further and further from their roots have they dropped and then forgotten about the Mass as a sacrifice.

If we look at the ancient Jews you will notice something different about them from all the other ancient religions on earth. Besides believing in only one God, the Jews only had male priests to offer sacrifice in the temple. There were no priestesses in Judaism. Every other religion has priestesses but the Jews never did. Our theology is that while the Jews offered animal sacrifice for the sins of the people, the Catholic Church offers the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in atonement of our sins and those of the whole world. It might sound strange if you are not Catholic but we offer God the Father the body and blood of the perfect and spotless sacrifice, our Lord Jesus Christ. We must have priests, just as the Jews had priests, to continue the re-presentation of the Sacrifice to God the Father.
Now, lest it sound like we self-appointed ourselves to carry out this work I want to emphasize the Church is just doing what Jesus demanded we do and we continue doing it. In John 6 Jesus calls Himself the bread of life and says that you have no life within you if you do not eat of it. How is that bread supposed to be made available to everyone throughout time? At the last supper He asked that we do this (the breaking of bread) in memory of Him. When He appeared on the road to His two Apostles they did not recognize Him, when they invited Him to eat with them He once again went through the ritual of breaking the bread then at once they knew who it was that was with them and He disappeared. (Luke 24:30-35) Again He shows that He wants us to keep practicing the communion ritual that became our Eucharistic (which means Thanksgiving in Greek) celebration, which we call the Mass. It is mentioned a couple of times in the Bible that that’s what the early Christian communities were practicing. So strong was the understanding that we were partaking in the Body and Blood that people outside of the Christian communities thought the Christians were practicing cannibalism.
Our priests must be male; there is no example of female priests in the Bible. I dare say it might be un-biblical to have anyone except a man functioning as priest in a church. If you read about the Korah rebellion in Numbers 16 you will see that God does not tolerate anyone who tries to act as a priest who has not been officially appointed. Not only does God kill all of those who would try to be priests but also the people who followed the renegade priests. So we take the office of priest very seriously. In Jude 11 it warns that those who usurp the office of the priesthood will be destroyed like those in the Korah rebellion. We will not have female priests and anyone within the Church who wants us to have female priests better get back to reading their Bible.