Silent No More and Vocations to the Priesthood

Yesterday on Patheos, The Crescat posted a very personal, moving account of the lasting effects she suffers from mistakes she has made in the past.  Please head over there to read the whole thing, say a quick prayer for her and all those who are agonizing with such mistakes that they might be healed by Christ's loving call and then comeback over here.  Ok?  Ok.



Back?  Good.  A few thoughts, if I might.

I am involved in the Pro-Life Movement.  Gladly.  I say Mass once a month for the Helpers of God's Precious Infants at Holy Name Church, Mount Auburn.  (I'm on 1st Saturday of the Month, 8:00 AM, stop by if you get the chance.)  I pray regularly for an end to abortion and the conversion of hearts of those who are in that industry and the lawmakers who shelter and coddle them.  I've been to the March for Life, but need to go more often.  I am an advisor for Cincinnati Right to Life, where the Pro-Life Movement was founded.  (Really, I mean that.)

With all the above, I also recognize that I am not going to be the one who wins the war against abortion on the everyday level.  I can't.

However, those who, like the Crescat, come forward after an abortion and admit the terrible and lasting effects that it has had on them in their lives.  The depression.  The feeling of absolute inadequacy.  The imprisonment. The Shame.

I have counseled women who have had abortions, at least initially.  It is beyond my limited abilities.  I have seen the same pain and turmoil that the Crescat talks about in her post face to face.  I have also seen the courage that it takes to publicly admit that mistakes have been made.  The fear that paralyzes.  The evil one whispering in the ear that 'because of this, you are unloveable.'

It is not so.  I look at the Gospels and see the ones Jesus called closest to Himself were not the perfect and the 'Holy,'

Rick Warren speaks out

It is not often that I would post something by an evangelical megachurch pastor, but through Headline Bistro comes word of Pastor Rick Warren's disagreements with Barack Obama regarding abortion. The telling line came towards the beginning of the article:

“Of course I want to reduce the number of abortions,” Warren told Beliefnet Editor-in-Chief Steven Waldman when asked if he was going to work with the Obama administration to achieve an abortion reduction agenda or if he thinks that the effort is a charade.
“But to me it is kind of a charade in that people say ‘We believe abortions should be safe and rare,’” he added.
“Don’t tell me it should be rare. That’s like saying on the Holocaust, ‘Well, maybe we could save 20 percent of the Jewish people in Poland and Germany and get them out and we should be satisfied with that,’” Warren said. “I’m not satisfied with that. I want the Holocaust ended.”

I think this is an area where Catholics and Evangelicals can really do some great work together.

6,852 priests and 11,010 nuns (vocations “shortage”?)

So gives Fr. Thomas Euteneuer as the number of potential priests and religious killed by abortion. He cites the statistics in an article on Tim Tebow and his rise to the Heisman Trophy, but also that because of a set of circumstances before he was born, his mother's doctors advised her to have an abortion. The only question that remains: 'What could've been???'

The sports world recently greeted the news that this year’s Heisman Trophy Winner, Tim Tebow from the University of Florida, was almost a casualty of abortion. Twenty-some years ago he was not the strapping 6’3”, 235 lb. beloved sports hero that he is today. At that time he was a one-inch-long unborn child whose existence, because of an amoebic infection, was defined as threat to his mother’s health. Pam Tebow, his mother, was told by a doctor that it would be in her best interests to abort this baby, and she refused. Her husband backed her up on that generous decision, and seven months later they gave birth to a perfectly healthy boy. Little did they know that twenty years later they would be standing on a national stage with a Heisman Trophy winner giving that magnificent witness to life. The world thanks you, Mr. and Mrs. Tebow! There cannot be a more touching Advent story than this.

Standing ground together

What happens when a large group stands together for something worth believing in?

Find out here.

Thanks to David for sending the link.

Snark, Snark

With a swing of the Thurible to Jen, of 'Et, Tu?' fame, comes a slightly snarky post on the Bayly Blog regarding the hypocrosy of attacking Mike Vick by the Peta people, yet where is the outcry over abortion.