Fr Frank Pavone led the protest prayer at Notre Dame Graduation

My Day at Notre Dame
Fr. Frank PavoneNational Director, Priests for Life
There was an eerie stillness and silence across the Notre Dame campus as my colleagues, a few of the seniors and I walked across the campus very early on the morning of Commencement Day. It was the calm before the storm of what we knew was an historic day.
I started with a national Foxnews interview along with Fr. Richard McBrien. We were asked our views of the Commencement. My message was: Everyone can imagine people they would protest speaking at a commencement: an avowed racist, anti-Semite, or advocate of terrorism. So the failure to object to one who is unwilling to call for an end to abortion is the failure to see that abortion is as bad or worse than those other evils. We have to stop trivializing abortion.
Moreover, the university gave the President an honorary law degree. Law exists to protect human rights; but this president has admitted that he doesn't know when a child receives human rights. How can he defend human rights when he doesn't know who has them?
After speaking to various media, I greeted people on campus who were coming from all over the country to stand with the courageous students who boycotted their own commencement and invited me to lead them in an alternate ceremony.
After I greeted and blessed the demonstrators who were at the campus entrance, and concelebrated a special Mass for Life, I led the Class of 2009 Vigil for Life. We meditated on the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, on the victory of life over death, and on the fact that Jesus is King over every nation, over the courts, the Congress, and the White House. As I gave the students and their families reflections on these truths, the current occupant of the White House was calling the graduates to have "open minds, open hearts" and a spirit of dialogue.
Now dialogue with our opponents on this issue is something we at Priests for Life specialize in. I maintain friendships with abortion advocates and practicing abortionists. The clarity of our own convictions never means we despise, demonize, or shut out other people. And yes, we are willing to collaborate with others in morally legitimate ways to reduce the numbers of abortions.
But the President's remarks had a glaring omission. While willing to dialogue and to promote adoption, he gave no indication of any willingness to protect the children in the womb. And that's the crux of the issue. In his remarks, he referred to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation. Certainly, his call for open minds does not include openness to reconsider the segregation issue. There's a right answer to it, period.
So it is with the protection of the unborn. And as quiet again descended on campus at the end of the day, I reflected... Open minds, yes, but for the purpose of eventually firmly closing upon the truth! And isn't that supposed to be the purpose of Catholic universities?
Fr. Frank's columns are podcast, see www.priestsforlife.org/podcast

Christendom College to honor Fr Frank Pavone with graduation speech

I find myself saying this every year; when choosing a college for your son or daughter, look at whom they honor, it tells you what they value. Since Christendom College is an hour drive from Washington DC, you would think they'd choose a Washington big shot for graduation speaker.
Instead they choose a pro-life hero, Fr Frank Pavone, whose bold eloquence in defense of the unborn leaves no doubt that he is the perfect graduation speaker.
My 15 year old daughter has been asking about a summer program in Christendom, and I'm encouraging her to look into this truly Catholic college.
Watch and learn, Notre Dame!
“Over the years, we have had some great Catholic men and women as commencement speakers, particularly, some great pro-life ones," Director of Admissions and Public Relations Tom McFadden said in a statement to LifeNews.com.
Nellie Gray of the March for Life, Joseph Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, Gov. Robert Casey, and Congressman Chris Smith from New Jersey are some of the past award recipients.

McFadden talked about the controversy at Notre Dame and he said pro-life Catholics never have to worry about Christendom getting into hot water with students or alumni by honoring or inviting abortion advocates to deliver the commencement address."
Read the entire story at Life News.

Travesty of justice: Killer Tiller gets away with it!

from Operation Rescue
TILLER FOUND NOT GUILTY!
March 27th, 2009
Operation Rescue vows to continue efforts to bring Tiller to justice
Wichita, KS - Today a jury of three men and three women found George Tiller not guilty on 19 charges of illegal abortions.
Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue releases the following statement:
Justice has been denied! Today a jury found late-term abortionist George R. Tiller not guilty of having committed 19 illegal abortions in 2003. While disappointed in the verdict, we at Operation Rescue are not deterred in our commitment to one day bring Tiller to justice. The 19 charges that Tiller faces were only a small fraction of the illegal activity that we believe and have documented that occurs at Tiller's Wichita abortion clinic. On behalf of the pre-born children wrongly killed by Tiller and his associates, we vow to press on until Tiller is finally held accountable to the law and his late-term abortion mill is permanently closed.
[Listen to audio file of this statement]
Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Policy Advisor for Operation Rescue releases the following statement:
We must remember that these are the weakest charges that could have been brought by the state. There were thirty criminal charges filed by former Attorney General Phill Kline, which were much stronger that were dismissed on jurisdictional grounds without having been considered on their merits. While we are disappointed by the verdict, we are far from surprised.
We thank Assistant Attorney General Barry Disney for the job that he tried to do. He did the best he could with the hand he was dealt. We wish he had been dealt a stronger hand. We are committed to continuing our efforts to bring Tiller to justice and we are confident that justice will one day prevail.
Fr Frank Pavone comments on this outrage on his blog here.
Abortionist George Tiller’s trial is over and the jury has rendered a verdict of “not guilty.”

It’s what we mean by a culture of death…The way we operate, at every level of society, favors death. The poison of abortion permeates the electoral process (resulting in public officials who support the killing); it permeates the educational institutions (who then invite and honor pro-abortion public officials); and the courts (putting people like Pastor Walter Hoye in jail and acquitting killers like George Tiller.)
Tiller belongs in jail. We have to understand once and for all that abortionists care nothing about pesky provisions of the law like Kansas has to introduce some slight measure of restraint (if we can even call it that) into the process of late-term abortion.
After all, if these abortionists can kill late-term babies and throw their bodies in incinerators in the back room after sometimes having the parents take locks of hair from these children after they are dressed up in post-abortion baptismal garments – well, then, their consciences are dead.
In reality, Mr. Tiller, you are not acquitted at all. You’re killing babies, and the verdict of the court of heaven is against you.

This is what abortion looks like

A Timely Reminder from Fr Pavone that life didn't lose the election

only Republicans did. The pro-life movement is not dead, it was merely overlooked as Americans feared for their finances, and since I complain how half-heartedly it is championed by the Republicans, so, this is good to remember.
Father Pavone says “The vast majority of Americans are pro-life. They will fight abortion on the local level, opening pregnancy centers and closing abortion mills, activating their Churches and educating their children, proclaiming the message in the media and demonstrating in the streets. The pro-life movement is winning this battle in the hearts and minds of the American people, as opinion polls show and as the shrinking number of abortion mills and abortion providers prove.

“Political races are always a swinging of the pendulum. As soon as you win, you begin to lose, and as soon as you lose, you begin the ascent again to winning. In the next two election cycles (2010 and 2012) the pro-life movement will make up for political ground lost in this one.”
Read the entire story at the National Catholic Register.

International Week of Prayer and Fasting

The pundits have declared Obama the winner, and the Great Depression around the corner, but Catholics know how to turn things around; prayer and fasting. The International Week of Prayer and Fasting based in Washington DC could not have come at a better time. Join the effort to turn this crisis into victory on this feast day of Our Lady of Victory, also known as Our Lady of the Rosary.
HT Life Site News

Fr Frank Pavone on the elections: Let us pray

Click here to participate in Priests for Life 9 week election novena.
Please consider making a committment to prayer and fasting to spare us from the moral poverty of an Obama-Biden regime. I shudder to think of what damage can be done to our nation if these men are given power.

I joined with Fr. Pavone in praying a Pentecost Novena

Holy Spirit,
At the dawn of creation,
You brought order out of chaos,
Light out of darkness,
Life out of nothingness.

Breathe on us once again,
And change this culture of death
Into a Culture of Life.
Inspire in your people
A spirit of generous welcome
For each and every life,
No matter how unexpected or dependent
That life may be.

Holy Spirit,
You are the Advocate.
As you fill us with Yourself,
Make us advocates
For the unborn and all the vulnerable,
Until we are all united
In the endless life and joy of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit,
One God,
forever and ever.
Amen.

Just go here and tell him you're praying with him as well, for the Holy Spirit to bring about the Culture of Life in the world.

40 Days for Life

Fr Frank Pavone gives his endorsement for Forty Days for Life which will take place this Lent at 59 cities around the nation. We can end abortion in our communities before it ends legally.

USCCB: Forming Consciences for Faithful Citzenship

If you go WAY down to item 37 and 38, you will see a discussion about voting for a candidate who supports "instrinsic moral evil". This is code for abortion and euthanasia, the only two issues which have absolutely NO possible licit purpose. War, the death penalty, liberals' favorite no-nos, DO have legitimate uses, ie self-defense, and the protection of society.
I have one question for our shepherds: why not just come out and say "a candidate who supports abortion is never acceptable"? If you don't you are leaving liberals a loophole, so large, that someone like Guiliani gets called a "dedicated Catholic" by Pat Robertson. I saw him and Sean Hannity discussing Guiliani the other night, and had to turn off the TV. That's like saying Osama Bin Laden is good to the poor; as Fr. Pavone says, a candidate that supports murder of innocents of any kind, abortion, terrorism, embryonic research, or euthanasia has no character, and on this basis alone, has eliminated himself from consideration by serious Catholics.
Would you support Adolf Hitler for his health care plan?

Fr Frank Pavone keynote speaker at Life Center Event

The annual Life Center Dinner Dance was held on Thursday, October 11, when hundreds of supporters gathered at the Woodbury Country Club, despite road closings, flooding and a reported tornado. Sprits were high as the crowd anticipated the arrival of keynote speaker, Fr. Frank Pavone. Deacon Frank Gariboldi, husband of Lorraine Gariboldi, the Director, kept the crowd informed of Fr. Franks’ slow progress through the snarled traffic around New York City. The trip from the airport took five hours.
In her talk, Lorraine share recently on a trip to Washington, DC, the Federal Government singled out Life Center among dozens of participants in a focus group for their outstanding work, and asked them to apply for more grants to promote chastity education on Long Island. Life Center has already received a $3 million grant to give abstinence education in school districts. They have been invited into 7 districts where their influence has given hope to thousands of Long Island teenagers. Life Center has just purchased an RV which will be equipped with a sonogram machine to travel to all the abortion clinics on Long Island, offering women a look at their unborn children. More that 88% of women who see their unborn child in a sonogram, change their decision to end their child’s life.
Life Center volunteer, Dr. Robert Scanlon, an obstetrician from Huntington, sees five women a week from the Life Center, all of whom decide to keep their babies. His gentle manner and prayers to the Holy Spirit for inspiration are the secrets of his success in saving lives. He shared about a time in his life when he doubted his faith, while on a trip to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. “I stood where St. Peter gave up his life for the faith, and then the guide showed us the tomb of another pope, who lived two weeks, and was killed, the next who lived three months. . .and I said to myself, ‘these men died so that the faith would come to me, and I’m doubting it?” Dr. Scanlon in addition to the women he sees from Life Center spends two weeks in Nigeria delivering the babies of poor women who have little access to medical care. His dedication to the sanctity of human life is a testament to his vibrant faith.
The crowd was thrilled when Fr Pavone arrived late, but undimmed in his enthusiasm. This is a man who has faced the media and the pro-choice movement without flinching, so he was not inclined to let a mere tornado dissuade him from speaking on behalf of Life Center. Fr Frank Pavone founded Priests for Life in 1993 with the permission of Cardinal John O’Connor, and after some time in Staten Island, Priests for Life has founded a new order of priests based out of Amarillo, Texas.
“I don’t know if you will believe this, but I average four states a week and I can tell you from what I see that the days of legal abortion are numbered”. He assured us, “One day, we will attend banquets like this one to celebrate this victory”. Why does Fr. Frank have this assurance? He continued, “What we in the pro-life movement are about is; solidarity with women who have been wounded by abortion, and their voices are being heard through such campaigns as ‘Silent No More’. There is nothing the pro-choice movement can do about this; they were the ones who told us to listen to women, and they can’t take it back now that more and more of them are saying that they regret their abortions. They try to counter us by having women say they don’t regret their abortions, but they can’t say that this abortion is a positive thing. We know the pain of women who have had abortions from running the nation’s biggest post-abortion ministry, ‘Rachel’s Vineyard’. Can the other side have a counter rally of women who say, ‘I regret my child’? No way!”
On pro-abortion politicians, Fr. Frank was clear,” Imagine if a candidate were to say, ‘I don’t believe in terrorism, but I don’t want to interfere with your right to support it.’ Would you ask him what his tax policy was? NO! You would consider him unfit for public office! It’s the same with pro-abortion politicians, if you believe that some members of our society are to be killed, you are not fit to hold public office.”
Fr. Pavone said that many of the Dinner attendees were veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. He continued, “One March for Life, I was walking with Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, and co-director of the “Silent No More” awareness campaign, and asked her whether this movement was a continuation of the Civil Rights movement. She answered, ‘This IS the Civil Rights Movement, and my uncle believed in equality for all men and opposed all violence’.”

Many take the youthfulness of the March for Life participants (half of whom are under 30) as a sign of hope for the pro-life movement. Fr. Pavone does as well, and understands that their motivation for becoming involved in the pro-life movement is different than their parents’. Fr. Pavone said, “Anyone who is under 35 has to think, “It could have been me” who was aborted. USA Today had an article on ‘Survivors Syndrome’ where the Iraq War veterans come home feeling guilty about their buddies who were killed over there, wondering whether they could have done more to save them. It’s the same thing for youth, they realize they could have been aborted, and it will take a long time to understand the ramifications of their suffering. Their motivation is another fact that can’t be counteracted by pro-aborts”.
Fr Pavone closed his stirring speech saying, “We know we come from the victory of Christ on the cross, so even though the abortion industry makes a half a billion dollars a year and spends millions in public relations efforts to support abortion, but in the end, as GK Chesterton once said, ‘truth, pressed to the earth will rise again’”.

Catholics in the Public Square: Fr. Pavone, Senator Brownback and Rudy Giuliani

Catholics in the Public Square: Fr. Pavone, Senator Brownback and Rudy Giuliani

An Endorsement of Sam Brownback for President

Dear Friend,

When my friend Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas asked me to serve on the Advisory Committee of his campaign for President I eagerly said "Yes."

Since the day he was first elected to Congress in 1994 Sam has been a hero for the unborn and one of the strongest and most consistent supporters of pro-life policies.

He has my unequivocal support. And I urge you to read his important message below and to strongly consider joining me in supporting his campaign.

With best wishes,
Fr. Frank Pavone

Senator Sam Brownback
(R-KS)

Dear Fellow Conservative,

I've sent YOU this urgent email message because I was told that just like me you are a pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, God-fearing American.

Is that correct?

If it's NOT then you might as well just go ahead and delete this message now.

But if it is true -- if you ARE pro-life and if you DO care about protecting marriage -- then I'm personally asking you to take just 30 more seconds to read the rest of this important email.

Why is it so critical that you read this?

Because I need you to take action today!

You need to act TODAY if you want to have a say in who wins the Republican nomination for President

Even as I type out this message to you the battle for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination is raging in full force.

And if you want YOUR pro-life and YOUR pro-marriage views to be represented in the Republican primary, then it's absolutely crucial that you act today to make sure your voice is heard.

There is no time to waste!

If you blink, the Republican primary campaign will be over before you know it.

I am the most consistent social conservative running for the Republican nomination. I represent your values more effectively than anyone else. I need your help today!

As the only tried-and-true social conservative seeking the Republican Party's nomination, I'm personally asking for your support.

In fact, differing stands on social issues like life and marriage represent the main contrast between the candidates running for the Republican nomination.

And this is where the critical battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party is being waged.

My friend, I don't know about you, but for me the social issues are why I became a Republican in the first place.

Yes, I believe strongly in lower taxes, smaller government, and a strong national defense.

But it's the social issues first and foremost that drive my passion.

Others may talk the talk from time to time.

But I've walked the walk for 10 years in the U.S. Senate and 2 years in the U.S House.
My record on social issues is second to none.

Do you want the Republican Party's presidential nominee to be unequivocally and unashamedly pro-life and pro-traditional marriage? If yes, you need to act today!

If you agree with me on these vital issues...

...if you want the presidential nominee of the Republican Party to be unequivocally and unashamedly pro-life...

...if you want the presidential nominee of the Republican Party to work as hard at protecting marriage as he does at cutting taxes...

...then I'm urgently asking for your help today.

Just imagine if Republicans nominate a presidential candidate who is NOT honestly and faithfully pro-life.

Or if Republicans nominate a presidential candidate who is NOT ready and willing to do whatever it takes to protect traditional marriage.

Ask yourself, would it still be YOUR Republican Party?

Would you have a candidate to vote for in 2008 that you felt good about?

Or would you simply be holding your nose while you voted for the candidate not named Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Right now is your best chance to make a difference.

You have a chance to have a serious impact on who wins the Republican nomination and the presidency.

And I'm personally asking you right now to support my campaign.

You can make sure the Republican nominee is not just an economic and national security conservative, but also a rock-solid, true-believing social conservative!

But to win I need you to stand up and make your voice heard.

Reporters have already been calling me the choice of pro-life Americans and "values voters." But they question whether I can raise the money I need to compete.

They are carefully watching my fundraising to gauge how much support I am receiving.

So please, will you cast your vote for a pro-life, pro-traditional marriage nominee for the Republican Party?

My friend, your chance to make a difference for our values is right now - before it's too late!
May God bless you and our great country.

Sincerely,

Sam Brownback
U.S. Senator, Kansas

P.S. If you want the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2008 to share your pro-life and pro-traditional marriage values then please make a difference today by supporting my campaign for President with an immediate contribution of $25 or more. Many thanks in advance for your generous support!!

PAID FOR BY BROWNBACK FOR PRESIDENT