There is much rejoicing tonight in pro-life circles over the conviction of Dr. Kermit Gosnell on first degree murder charges for his having cruelly severed the spines of babies born alive in his abortion house of horrors. I don’t begrudge folks their joy at justice for the little ones. I’m just not there.
Much as I am opposed to the death penalty, this 72 year-old serial killer should spend the rest of his life on death row fighting off the efforts of those in power over him to take his life. That might bring about some much needed insight into who and what he has become and what it is that he did. Apart from the babies killed in utero, his decades of infanticide, if evidence could show it, would make Gosnell the biggest serial killer in American history. There is less joy and more a sense of relief when a serial killer is neutralized by incarceration.
But this day only serves to highlight the psychosis of American jurisprudence. Were the same spinal cord severings carried out in utero, Gosnell would be regarded as a model abortionist, a man practicing legal medicine.
Location, location, location…
If that sounds glum, it is equally an opportunity moving forward. Having been convicted of first degree murder, Gosnell has perversely catapulted the argument away from justifying abortion on the grounds that we are not sure when life begins, and into its rightful home: personal predilection. If the murder of these babies is indeed regarded as first degree murder because of their location, then their abortions would have been no less an act of murder five minutes earlier when inside their mothers.
If Gosnell is put to death by the state it will not be for taking these babies’ lives at the developmental stages when they were killed. No, Gosnell will be put to death for not following medical protocol as dictated by law, namely failing to call 911 and to keep the baby alive because it couldn’t be murdered in a place prescribed by law.
That’s the true insanity and malignant evil in this case. Are we too far gone to recognize that it is our jurisprudence that is riddled with cancer? Giving abortionists the death penalty is not the answer, and I pray that Gosnell lives thirty years longer with all of his mental faculties intact, that he might repent and atone for his monstrous evil.
Curing the American character after 55 million murders is going to take a bit longer, if indeed we are not already too far gone.
LiveAction debuts a new investigative report, this one on the fate of babies born alive during abortion. The first installment is an investigation of Dr. Emily’s abortion clinic in Bronx, New York. The young hispanic woman in the white lab coat is interesting. She has been working at “Dr. Emily’s” since she was 16 years old (by her admission). Why is she wearing a lab coat is a mystery. Is she a nurse, or just part of the wider deception? Exactly how does one remove a pregnancy and place a pregnancy in a jar, as she repeatedly states? Her flippant and barely literate counseling are ghastly to behold. More to come.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell is on trial for his life in Philadelphia because of how he ran his medical clinic, the “Women’s Medical Society” at 3801 Lancaster. That impressive establishmentarian-sounding title belied a business which reflected the abortion philosophy lived to its fullest expression and logical conclusion. In the final analysis, the Gosnell case reveals much more than who Kermit Gosnell is. It has revealed to us who we have become as a nation.
The Grand Jury Report reads like a a horror novel. So callous and cruel is this page-turner that it simply beggars the imagination. In it, the report details how instruments were not sterilized, and were the cheapest disposable instruments reused from patient to patient. In the process, Dr. Gosnell spread disease like a fly. One can only imagine if HIV was spread in his “clinic”.
Women of color were more often than not attended to by Gosnell’s staff of medically untrained and unlicensed personnel, including a fifteen year-old girl who administered anaesthetics, while Dr. Gosnell saw to the white women in slightly less squalid rooms, because as he said, that’s the way the world is. A black man who graduated from Thomas Jefferson Medical College abandoned black women to untrained, unskilled laypeople.
Looking past all of that, the blood-stained blankets, floors, and treatment tables, the toilet bowls women delivered their babies into (A common delivery method at abortuaries elsewhere), there was so much more.
Gosnell was frequently absent as women were being given their abortion procedures, and hundreds of babies were born alive. Here Gosnell would insure that there was no ambulance to come and discover his macabre shop, and here is where his most heartless proclivities became standard operating procedure. He would cut into the backs of these babies’ necks, crush through their spinal columns with scissors, and then sever the cervical spinal cords, essentially producing an internal decapitation. It is not likely that death was instantaneous for all the babies whose brains remained perfused with oxygen until the cessation of heart and lung function.
In the research experiments on rat spinal cords and brains for my MS degree in Cell and Molecular Biology, we worked on rats, and I decapitated quite a few with a special guillotine. Once decapitated, the feet ran in place, the tail twitched violently, and one could see the animals’ eyes still blinking until unconsciousness overcame the animal. It was horrid work and helped motivate me to work with bacteria in my doctoral research. I cannot imagine the pain experienced by these babies undergoing internal decapitation.
Yet, even that begs a deeper analysis. Why are we so repelled by these severings of spinal cords, what Gosnell and his criminal employees glibly referred to as ‘snippings’, as though one were simply gliding through a lock of hair? Why can physicians suck out brains, dismember the babies alive in utero, but be charged with murder for the same barbarism once the baby simply changes location?
Why do we consider the baby a patient in its own right only if it is extruded alive from the birth canal?
Here is where we discover Gosnell the monster is really Gosnell the reflection of American Jurisprudence at its own sublime and depraved worst.
The answer to the questions is simple. We have decided that the same baby, simply by being attached to an umbilical cord is not his/her own person, but an extension of the mother’s body. By that logic, an astronaut doing a spacewalk and connected to the ship by an umbilicus should have no more moral worth than the spacecraft itself. Were a fellow crew member to shut off the air supply intentionally, would they be charged merely with vandalism?
As the major media emerge from their blackout on this case, and the nation tunes in, we find ourselves at an interesting juncture. We are united in horror at the depravity and inhumanity of it all. It is a case that makes us consider the biological reality of the child whose murder would not have been murder if only proper protocol had been followed, and therein lies the madness.
Murder is not murder if proper protocol is followed.
We cannot long survive as a civilization of rational human beings with that sort of mentality. American exceptionalism has been consumed by radicalized autonomy, and in the process biomedical ethics, politics, and common decency have been savaged.
What is sickest about the Gosnell case is that Dr. Gosnell is really us. The only real distinction is that he stepped outside of the boundaries we established for our American psychosis. Abortion can only be permissible if we assuage ourselves with certain boundaries of propriety for the mass murder of our citizens. There is no greater pariah in the asylum than the one who upsets the rhythms of the asylum.
The filthy conditions in that clinic would have been a twenty-four hour news story, as would have been the severed feet in jars. It was the decapitations of babies who could be seen and heard that merited him six of the seven counts of murder. Again, it comes down to a matter of protocol. The baby only becomes a patient when it is extruded from the birth canal, which is a radical departure from the traditional two-patient model of obstretric medicine.
To look into the face of Kermit Gosnell is to look in the American mirror, a rare glimpse of clarity as the fog temporarily lifts from the mirror. With more than fifty-five million babies aborted in forty years, it is time to use the Gosnell trial as an opportunity for some national soul-searching. But will we, or have those parameters for the national psychosis become too fixed and immovable? Will we offer up Gosnell as a sacrificial offering, a way to assure ourselves of the validity and functionality of the boundaries of psychosis that were breached?
It is difficult to imagine that any public official could possibly march to the left of Barack Obama or HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, but today Federal District Court Judge Edward Korman did just that when he approved the sale of Plan B to children of any age. Previously, Sebelius ordered that based on the science, children were not capable of complying with the directions of safe use of the drug. Here is Sebelius in her own words not too long ago:
A Statement by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
Plan B One-Step is an emergency contraceptive, sometimes referred to as the “morning after pill.” Plan B One-Step is currently labeled over the counter to women ages 17 years and older, but is sold behind the pharmacy counter. It is available by prescription only to women 16 years and younger. My decision does not change any current availability of the drug for all women.
In February 2011, Teva Women’s Health Inc. submitted to the FDA a supplemental new drug application for Plan B One-Step. This application sought to make Plan B One-Step available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age. The science has confirmed the drug to be safe and effective with appropriate use. However, the switch from prescription to over the counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately. I do not believe that Teva’s application met that standard. The label comprehension and actual use studies did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use.
FDA has recommended approval of this application in its Summary Review for Regulatory Action on Plan B One-Step. After careful consideration of the FDA Summary Review, I have concluded that the data, submitted by Teva, do not conclusively establish that Plan B One-Step should be made available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age.
The average age of the onset of menstruation for girls in the United States is 12.4 years. However, about ten percent of girls are physically capable of bearing children by 11.1 years of age. It is common knowledge that there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age. If the application were approved, the product would be available, without prescription, for all girls of reproductive age.
The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible, acting through the FDA Commissioner, for executing the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Today’s action reflects my conclusion that the data provided as part of the actual use study and the label comprehension study are not sufficient to support making Plan B One-Step available to all girls 16 and younger, without talking to a health care professional. Plan B One-Step will still be available over the counter to women ages 17 and older.
Because I do not believe enough data were presented to support the application to make Plan B One-Step available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age, I have directed FDA to issue a complete response letter denying the supplemental new drug application (SNDA) by Teva Women’s Health, Inc..
Sebelius received Obama’s support for her decision. From news reports at the time of the ruling:
Obama said that as a father of two daughters, he thinks the government should “apply some common sense” to rules governing over-the-counter medicine. He said he understood Sebelius’ concern about letting medication with potentially adverse side effects be available to 10-year-old girls “alongside bubble gum or batteries” at drugs stores.
“I think most parents would probably feel the same way,” he said. Asked point blank if he supports Sebelius’ decision, Obama said, “I do.”
While the Judge today said that his decision was supported by science, it remains for the Judge to enlighten both the regulatory and scientific/medical communities as to what secret studies he was privy to in his decision-making. The truth is that every study, including those by Teva, the manufacturer of Plan B, indicate that half of al women taking the drug were incapable of following the directions on the product insert for correct use of the drug and/or failed to understand that Plan B is not meant to replace regular contraceptives or be used more than once in a menstrual cycle.
Further, studies have indicated that when used by teens the rate of Chlamydia infection rose (presumably from increased sexual activity). Additionaly, studies have indicated that the incidence of teen pregnancy was not lowered by the use of Plan B.
Perhaps even more disturbing is the lack of understanding by the judge that children’s medications are dispensed on a milligram of drug per kilogram of body weight basis. This is because standard adult doses would be double, triple, or even quadruple the necessary amount in children whose bodies are often 1/4 the mass of an adult’s. There are NO KNOWN STUDIES of the effects of the single, adult dose of Plan B on girls under age 18, which makes the specter of girls twelve and thirteen years old purchasing this drug over the counter just as frightening as can be. There are also no long term studies of Plan B’s. effects on adults, either. So the whole enetrprise is one, large human experiment.
It isn’t impossible to imagine a young girl whose body mass is half that of an eighteen year-old’s taking this dangerous hormonal drug after every act of sex, up to several in one month. This drug is several times the dose taken daily by women using oral contraceptives. Recall that half of all grown women studied couldn’t grasp this reality.
Our daughters have become lab rats in Judge Korman’s great experiment. Better he should leave such matters to those of us trained in the field, and that he stick to the law. It is now open season on girls, whose gynecologic standard of care would be improved if they were accorded the same standards that govern veterinary medicine. If vets did to animals what we do to our women, they would lose their licenses and be prosecuted for cruelty. That’s how far gynecologic medicine and its governmental regulation have sunk.
Below, an interview I gave earlier this year at a medical conference in Washington, DC, dealing with this issue of targeting children.
During the singing of the passion today I sat and contemplated something I’d heard a thousand times and never really gave much thought: St. John tells us it was Caiaphas the High Priest who first floated the idea to the Jewish people the advantage of having one man die for the people. Immediately a thousand pro-choice arguments along similar lines crowded in on me.
Caiaphas was the High Priest, the mediator between God and man, the one who offered animal sacrifice for the remission of the people’s sins, for the Mercy of God. Somewhere along the way Caiaphas lost his faith in God, and he eventually became no better than the Canaanite priests who offered human sacrifice to appease the gods. Caiaphas would offer a man to the Romans, and in so doing he would elevate Caesar above the one true God of the universe.
For Caiaphas, Caesar alone had the power to save and deliver, and he would be offered a human sacrifice in exchange by God’s High Priest. That’s stunning.
The complete perversion and implosion of the priesthood. The God who delivered Israel repeatedly, who blessed Israel abundantly was abandoned by his own High Priest.
Why?
It’s easy to cast stones at old Caiaphas. He’s the villain of today’s narrative, but he’s also pretty tame by today’s standard. In truth, we’ve eclipsed Caiaphas long ago.
The main reason(s) for sacrificing the most innocent of our age have much to do with Caiaphas’ theme of blood sacrifice for material benefit. In the inner-city the narrative is that babies keep girls from becoming all they can be, that they hold girls back from completing education. With 20 million dead Black babies in 40 years, the Ivy League colleges ought to have annexes in Harlem, Watts, and Detroit.
Better the babies should die, that the mothers might live.
However, the truth is that these centers of slaughter are more violent, squalid, and desperately poor than ever before. That’s the real payout from blood sacrifice of humans.
Today’s high priest in the White House has ordained through his healthcare plan that people at age 75 or older may not receive cancer treatments or pacemakers if the physicians can’t guarantee at least five more years of quality life. Such rationing also saves quite a bit of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and government pension benefits for a nation that is dead broke.
Better for them to die that the nation might live.
Caiaphas let Satan lead him into the death cult mentality, and we have followed suit. Thirty-seven years after Caiaphas sold out, the Temple in Jerusalem was leveled by those same Romans to whom Jesus was offered as a peace offering. Thirty-seven years after the embrace of legalized abortion (beginning in New York) we were saddled with a president who has torn down the pillars of American society.
That’s the price of embracing human sacrifice to appease Satan and his lies.
That’s the price of turning one’s back on God.
False gods have a nasty way of enslaving their followers, as Americans are beginning to learn.
There is good news in North Dakota this week as the legislature there has passed two bills: one outlawing gender-selective and eugenic abortions rooted in genetic anomalies, and the other outlawing abortion once a heartbeat is detectable. Get the N.Y. Times story here.
This news comes hot on the heels of Arizona’s banning abortions at 12 weeks, and adds to the victories in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma, which have banned sex-selective abortions. While this is all good news, we must stop and consider what is happening here, what is being accomplished, and how far we have fallen.
There was a time when the American Civil Liberties Union actually championed the rights of the weakest and least among us to the fullest protection of the law. Times have changed, as we’ve seen last week in North Dakota. From the Times article:
“We urge the governor to veto all of these bills to ensure that this personal and private decision can be made by a woman and her family, not politicians sitting in the Capitol,” said Jennifer Dalven, the director of the A.C.L.U.’s Reproductive Freedom Project.
But again, and again, the central issue remains the great unanswered question, one which Ms. Dalven and her organization would have answered with ease in a bygone era:
Do politicians sitting in the capital, or judges in courtrooms have the right to determine who among us is human and what the criteria for being considered human ought to be?
This isn’t a religious question, but a civil one, and hinging on it is nothing less than the fate of American jurisprudence, as well as scientific and biomedical ethics. Before one can pass a law, make a legal judgement, or perform a scientific or clinical manipulation, one must first determine the identity and status of the object under consideration.
People of reason and good will recoil at the consideration of our slave-holding past in America. They similarly recoil at our segregationist past, as well as our past with eugenic sterilization. All of these issues are repellent to the ACLU as well, and as Ms. Dalven would have to agree, these issues scorched the American landscape precisely because the legislators sitting in capitals failed to rein in justices and judges who were out of control.
Ms. Dalven would also have to agree that these issues scorched the American landscape precisely because a political elite arrogated to themselves the power to define personhood criteria. This was done as the sole means of usurping the ability to control those rights defined by the Founders as unalienable and granted solely by the Creator.
Having abandoned the protection of the weakest among us and championing the “rights” of those who prey upon the weak, the ACLU has gutted itself. In championing the right to murder little girls for being little girls, and for championing the murder of the genetically imperfect, the ACLU has become indistinguishible from the slaveholding and segregationist class it once despised and against whom it found its organizational identity.
Such is the malevolent power of abortion to corrupt.
In Roe v. Wade the justices argued that the absence of scientific evidence supporting a definitive beginning of life was their rationale for permitting abortion. Using arguments from the Middle Ages, such as ‘quickening’, they ignored the embryology texts of their day that fixed the beginning of human life at fertilization. With the advances in embryoscopy and ultrasonography today one would think that the last vestige of doubt would have been destroyed by science, warranting a revisiting of Roe by the Court; but that would require intellectual honesty and human decency.
Instead, today, forty years later we are now arguing the right to target what science shows as fully formed human beings because of their genetalia, or because of some atypical genetic constellation.
Instead,, today, forty years later Planned Parenthood has dropped the euphemisms such as “pro-choice,” no longer seeing them as necessary or servicable.
Similarly, the attempts to defeat the fetal heartbeat bills bespeak a duplicity from the outset. What can be more human or romantic than the sound of a beating heart?
Taken together, those are profoundly troubling developments. We have defined deviancy down. We are arguing over a degree of malevolance that makes the original argument pale in comparison.
The Democrat Party defeated attempts in Congress last year to outlaw sex-selective abortions. In those and other similar measures, both they and the ACLU have abandoned the moral high ground. Let’s hope that the Republican governor of North Dakota has the courage to pick up the fallen battle standard of the left and soldier on.
That is the goal of every true pro-life citizen when it comes to abortion legislation. Rape, incest, and the life/health of the mother have been wedge issues that have been used to establish the principle for acceptable/legal abortion that have led to the more liberalized laws accounting for 55+ Million abortions over the past 40 years.
While “No exceptions. No compromise,” are the goal, the question arises as to an appropriate response to legislative proposals that have the standard exceptions language written into them. Can Christians in general, and Catholics in particular support legislation that seeks to limit the extent of this grave moral evil, without abolishing it altogether? Can it ever be acceptable to use the same language of rape, incest, and life of the mother to severely and immediately restrict abortion, just as they were once used to establish abortion?
To hear some in the pro-life movement, the answer is an emphatic, “NO!”
The powerful witness by many who were conceived in rape is a vital ministry and has won many hearts and minds by giving a face, identity, and human story to those who are singled out for destruction because of the circumstances surrounding their conception. But some use an emotional arm-twisting tactic, wherein they say that support of exceptions clauses means that the supporter would have had them aborted.
It’s flawed logic, and counter-productive. It’s meant to shut down opposition, but in reality it frequently shuts down productive and vital dialogue.
Nobody would support the rape that led to the activists’ conceptions, but that doesn’t mean that such a moral position means we are implicitly wishing they had never been conceived. In the same way, if it can be shown that it is morally acceptable to embrace pragmatic, incremental legislation as the best available means of limiting abortion en route to abolishing it altogether, it does NOT suggest an implicit endorsement of the abortions allowed in the exceptions clauses.
Here is where Pope John Paul II added much-needed clarity in his 1995 Encyclical, Evangelium Vitae.:
A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. It is a fact that while in some parts of the world there continue to be campaigns to introduce laws favouring abortion, often supported by powerful international organizations, in other nations-particularly those which have already experienced the bitter fruits of such permissive legislation-there are growing signs of a rethinking in this matter. In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.
{Emphasis added, G.N.}
Thus, in the ordinary teaching of the Catholic Church, it is permissible to limit the grave evil of abortion if incremental legislation is the only currently available option.
For those who say, “It’s not up to me to say who lives and who dies,” my own opinion is that the polar opposite is true. What we must first realize is that the current liberal application of abortion is the default condition.
What we are offered, frequently, is a compromise law that would restrict, but not eliminate abortion. In other words, we are being offered the lives of the babies not conceived through rape and incest (which are the vast majority of abortions). For many who can’t see this reality, they turn down the opportunity to save tens of millions until the day comes when they can save the remaining thousands. In the interim, the millions who could have been saved perish with the thousands who could not.
This because some pro-lifers wanted an all-or-none reality. Such an approach would be intolerable in a police hostage negotiator, but in certain pro-life quarters it is the epitome of virtue.
Pope John Paul II helped us see that the moral Magisterium of the Catholic Church sees it differently.
We abhor EVERY abortion, but are loathe to ignore the lives being offered to us through less than perfect legislation. Along with the missed opportunity to save millions, there is another missed opportunity.
A derivative benefit of incremental legislation is the conditioning, or forming, of the public conscience about the sanctity of pre-born human life. Outlawing the majority of abortions becomes a societal statement that elevates the public conscience. It is precisely through that elevated conscience that society will come to an appreciation for the humanity of those conceived in rape or incest.
If, unlike Superman who is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, we cannot achieve our aim in a single stroke, it remains for us to take the stairs.
Thank you, Pope John Paul II, for your enduring witness to the moral Magisterium of the Church.
Good news this week from Dr. Mary Davenport, President of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG). RU-486 abortions can be reversed in many cases where the mother has second thoughts. It’s beautiful news during this 40th anniversary week of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Links to help lines follow at the end of the post.
How Reversals Are Possible
Unlike surgical abortions which are immediately lethal, RU-486 (mifepristone) works over a period of 36-72 hours. The drug binds to progesterone receptors in the uterine lining, blocking progesterone from binding. That’s key, as progesterone is the hormone that keeps the uterine lining (endometrium) intact. If progesterone is blocked by RU-486, then the endometrium begins to break down, losing its ability to supply the baby’s placenta with oxygen and food. Over a period of a couple of days, the baby is suffocated as the placenta detaches. At that point the drug misoprostol is ingested, inducing uterine contractions to expel the baby.
The good news is that women can receive shots of progesterone if the baby is still alive. These shots will overwhelm the RU-486 and keep the endometrium intact. Dr. Davenport has sent along a few links that are helpful.
Shoveling against the tide. That’s been the pro-life reality under President Barak Hussein Obama. It’s difficult to advance a Culture of Life behind the iron curtain of the Culture of Death.
It’s draining. Exhausting.
The corruption of the scientific and medical communities by abortion and its allies has hampered the advancement of the healing arts by dimensions that are staggeringly incalculable. The waste of precious dollars on abortion, and cleaning up its mess, on cleaning up the mess left behind by the sexual promiscuity promoted by Planned Parenthood (STD’s, AIDS) is similarly staggering. The direct costs are easily well above $1 Trillion. Consider the cost of:
55 Million abortions since Roe v. Wade
Treating hundreds of millions of STD’s since the late 1960′s
The research costs around AIDS (largely an STD)
The hospitalization costs and medication costs of AIDS {$36.4 Billion per year}
Then there was the solid economic impact study conducted by Dennis M. Howard, founder of Movement for a Better America
“We found that the 50.5 million surgical abortions since 1970 have cost the U.S. an astonishing $35 trillion dollars,” in lost Gross Domestic Product, he told LifeNews.com. “However, if you include all the babies lost to IUDs, RU-486, sterilization, and abortifacients, the number climbs to $70 trillion.”
$70 Trillion
Drink that in. We’re in a panic over Obama’s staggering debt load of $16 Tillion, yet the lifestyle advocated by BO and his fellow travelers, in both parties, has cost us $70 Trillion and counting.
The lost opportunities for curing diseases and treating disorders. The lost lives who might well have prevented wars or invented new technologies.
Read the rest at Howard’s site.
So what have we been reduced to by all of this?
We have Obama’s healthcare replete with death panels, with a rationing czar who came here for 2 1/2 years to set up a rationing program for healthcare because the same government that has sponsored this civilizational suicide has now established itself as the arbiters of who among the survivors will die first in order to assure a better quality of life for the remainder.
It’s filthy and grubby, but to be honest, it’s who and what we have become as a people. We voted them in. We tolerated the evil, even participated in it. We let it happen.
The lost money, the lost time and talent of all who work at shoveling against this tide of sewage, the lost opportunities to work for healing surgeries and therapies that would ameliorate the coldest of eugenic hearts…
What have we done to ourselves?
There is one more good chance to elect a president who will overturn Obamacare. Just one more.
But to be certain, the change of hearts will continue to consume the time and creative energies of some of the best and brightest among us for decades to come. More lost opportunities for advancing what was once the greatest civilization in the history of the world; but what else can we do?
Still, there is the hope that people have begun to see what we have collectively wrought-and now wish to change.
Tonight we conclude our Divine Mercy Novena for Theodore Shulman and those affected by his actions. We do so on the Feast of Saint Gerard Majella, my patron saint, who is the Patron Saint of Expectant Mothers. It was through Gerard’s powerful intercession that I was born, and for him that I was named. We invoke Gerard’s mighty intercession tonight, on this last day of the Divine Mercy Novena, for Theodore’s conversion
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all who have participated in this spiritual exercise of compassion and mercy. God Bless you all.
The link to the Divine Mercy Chaplet follows the prayer.
We Pray.
✞ ✞ ✞
Day 9
Today bring to Me SOULS WHO HAVE BECOME LUKEWARM,* and immerse them in the abyss of My mercy. These souls wound My Heart most painfully. My soul suffered the most dreadful loathing in the Garden of Olives because of lukewarm souls. They were the reason I cried out: ‘Father, take this cup away from Me, if it be Your will.’ For them, the last hope of salvation is to run to My mercy.
On this final day of the Novena for Theodore Shulman, let us pray for him and those who have failed him in charity. Let us pray for those in the pro-life movement who may be indifferent to his suffering. Finally, let us pray for all of those lukewarm souls who know neither the fire of love for God, nor the icy cold of rebellion, but who are merely lukewarm and indifferent.
Most compassionate Jesus, You are Compassion Itself. I bring lukewarm souls into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart. In this fire of Your pure love, let these tepid souls, who, like corpses, filled You with such deep loathing, be once again set aflame. O Most Compassionate Jesus, exercise the omnipotence of Your mercy and draw them into the very ardor of Your love, and bestow upon them the gift of holy love, for nothing is beyond Your power.
Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon lukewarm souls who are nonetheless enfolded in the Most Compassionate Heart of Jesus. Father of Mercy, I beg You by the bitter Passion of Your Son and by His three-hour agony on the Cross: Let them, too, glorify the abyss of Your mercy. Amen.
Day 8
Today bring to Me THE SOULS WHO ARE DETAINED IN PURGATORY, and immerse them in the abyss of My mercy. Let the torrents of My Blood cool down their scorching flames. All these souls are greatly loved by Me. They are making retribution to My justice. It is in your power to bring them relief. Draw all the indulgences from the treasury of My Church and offer them on their behalf. Oh, if you only knew the torments they suffer, you would continually offer for them the alms of the spirit and pay off their debt to My justice.
Lord Jesus, we take the pain of our doubts and confusion, of disappointment and despair including those of Theodore and offer them to you to be washed clean by the waters of your love and mercy. Take the pain of all his hurts and disappointments, that of his aborted siblings, and transform them into life-giving purpose.
Most Merciful Jesus, You Yourself have said that You desire mercy; so I bring into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart the souls in Purgatory, souls who are very dear to You, and yet, who must make retribution to Your justice. May the streams of Blood and Water which gushed forth from Your Heart put out the flames of Purgatory, that there, too, the power of Your mercy may be celebrated.
Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon the souls suffering in Purgatory, who are enfolded in the Most Compassionate Heart of Jesus. I beg You, by the sorrowful Passion of Jesus Your Son, and by all the bitterness with which His most sacred Soul was flooded: Manifest Your mercy to the souls who are under Your just scrutiny. Look upon them in no other way but only through the Wounds of Jesus, Your dearly beloved Son; for we firmly believe that there is no limit to Your goodness and compassion. Amen.
Day 7 Today bring to Me THE SOULS WHO ESPECIALLY VENERATE AND GLORIFY MY MERCY,* and immerse them in My mercy. These souls sorrowed most over my Passion and entered most deeply into My spirit. They are living images of My Compassionate Heart. These souls will shine with a special brightness in the next life. Not one of them will go into the fire of hell. I shall particularly defend each one of them at the hour of death.
Let us pray for the penitent soul that through the mercy of God and through the Blood of the Lamb, has been reconciled to God. That by this gift of reconciliation may be an example of how merciful our loving God is and lead others to seek that same mercy. We pray too for Theodore and his mother, that they may come to know in an ever more personal way the love and mercy of God.
Most Merciful Jesus, whose Heart is Love Itself, receive into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart the souls of those who particularly extol and venerate the greatness of Your mercy. These souls are mighty with the very power of God Himself. In the midst of all afflictions and adversities they go forward, confident of Your mercy; and united to You, O Jesus, they carry all mankind on their shoulders. These souls will not be judged severely, but Your mercy will embrace them as they depart from this life.
Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon the souls who glorify and venerate Your greatest attribute, that of Your fathomless mercy, and who are enclosed in the Most Compassionate Heart of Jesus. These souls are a living Gospel; their hands are full of deeds of mercy, and their hearts, overflowing with joy, sing a canticle of mercy to You, O Most High! I beg You O God:
Show them Your mercy according to the hope and trust they have placed in You. Let there be accomplished in them the promise of Jesus, who said to them that during their life, but especially at the hour of death, the souls who will venerate this fathomless mercy of His, He, Himself, will defend as His glory. Amen.
Today bring to Me THE MEEK AND HUMBLE SOULS AND THE SOULS OF LITTLE CHILDREN, and immerse them in My mercy. These souls most closely resemble My Heart. They strengthened Me during My bitter agony. I saw them as earthly Angels, who will keep vigil at My altars. I pour out upon them whole torrents of grace. Only the humble soul is capable of receiving My grace. I favor humble souls with My confidence.
Let us pray for the gift of humility to pray for the poor sinner as they seek refuge in Christ’s Ocean of Mercy. In their humility may they find reconciliation and a renewed sense of mission to spread hope through Christ’s bountiful mercy.
Most Merciful Jesus, You yourself have said, “Learn from Me for I am meek and humble of heart.” Receive into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart all meek and humble souls and the souls of little children. These souls send all heaven into ecstasy and they are the heavenly Father’s favorites. They are a sweet-smelling bouquet before the throne of God; God Himself takes delight in their fragrance. These souls have a permanent abode in Your Most Compassionate Heart, O Jesus, and they unceasingly sing out a hymn of love and mercy.
Today the Coming Home pro-life family continues to lift up in love and prayer Theodore Shulman, his family, and the pro-life community. Our prayer is for healing whatever bitterness that resides in the hearts of people on either side of this issue. Mr. Shulman is a truly gifted scientist whose skills are desperately needed in research to cure human affliction. In the next nine days, we’ll pray for his inner-healing and for his heart and mind to be guided by love of humanity.
Some Notes: First, for our non-Catholic brothers and sisters, novenas are nine days of intercessory prayer. We welcome you to join us in the novena prayers, or to pray along with us each night at 8 PM EST in any manner of prayer that you prefer. I have also linked to the chaplet at the end of the prayers.
We Pray
✞ ✞ ✞
Day 5
Today bring to Me THE SOULS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SEPARATED THEMSELVES FROM MY CHURCH,* and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy. During My bitter Passion they tore at My Body and Heart, that is, My Church. As they return to unity with the Church, My wounds heal and in this way they alleviate My Passion.
Lord Jesus, we lift up to you Theodore, his mother, and all who have separated themselves from your body, the larger church of faithful believers from Judaism and other faiths who place their belief in the God of Abraham. Send your irresistible Holy Spirit into their lives and light in them the fire of your love. We pray too for those who claim to be pro-life whose hearts are similarly far from you.
Most Merciful Jesus, Goodness Itself, You do not refuse light to those who seek it of You. Receive into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart the souls of those who have separated themselves from Your Church. Draw them by Your light into the unity of the Church, and do not let them escape from the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart; but bring it about that they, too, come to glorify the generosity of Your mercy.
Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon the souls of those who have separated themselves from Your Son’s Church, who have squandered Your blessings and misused Your graces by obstinately persisting in their errors. Do not look upon their errors, but upon the love of Your own Son and upon His bitter Passion, which He underwent for their sake, since they, too, are enclosed in His Most Compassionate Heart. Bring it about that they also may glorify Your great mercy for endless ages. Amen.
Today the Coming Home pro-life family continues to lift up in love and prayer Theodore Shulman, his family, and the pro-life community. Our prayer is for healing whatever bitterness that resides in the hearts of people on either side of this issue. Mr. Shulman is a truly gifted scientist whose skills are desperately needed in research to cure human affliction. In the next nine days, we’ll pray for his inner-healing and for his heart and mind to be guided by love of humanity.
Some Notes: First, for our non-Catholic brothers and sisters, novenas are nine days of intercessory prayer. We welcome you to join us in the novena prayers, or to pray along with us each night at 8 PM EST in any manner of prayer that you prefer. I have also linked to the chaplet at the end of the prayers.
We Pray
✞ ✞ ✞
Day 4
Today bring to Me THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD* AND THOSE WHO DO NOT YET KNOW ME. I was thinking also of them during My bitter Passion, and their future zeal comforted My Heart. Immerse them in the ocean of My mercy.
<em>Lord Jesus, we lift up to you Theodore Shulman whose heart is far from you, and yet so very near. Heal in him whatever wounds there are that bind his heart and cause him to see himself as less than worthy of your love. Bind up those hearts as well, who claim to be pro-life and yet would do violence to other humans
Most compassionate Jesus, You are the Light of the whole world. Receive into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart the souls of those who do not believe in God and of those who as yet do not know You. Let the rays of Your grace enlighten them that they, too, together with us, may extol Your wonderful mercy; and do not let them escape from the abode which is Your Most Compassionate Heart.
Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon the souls of those who do not believe in You, and of those who as yet do not know You, but who are enclosed in the Most Compassionate Heart of Jesus. Draw them to the light of the Gospel. These souls do not know what great happiness it is to love You. Grant that they, too, may extol the generosity of Your mercy for endless ages. Amen.
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