Abortion support declines, nation now evenly split

The number of Americans expressing support for abortion is clearly declining, leaving the nation now evenly divided on the issue, according to results from a Pew survey released on Thursday.

The survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that finds that the abortion debate has receded in importance among liberals while opposition to abortion has grown more firm among conservatives.

From the Pew release:

In Pew Research Center polls in 2007 and 2008, supporters of legal abortion clearly outnumbered opponents. Now Americans are evenly divided on the question, and there have been modest increases in the numbers who favor reducing abortions or making them harder to obtain.

Other notable findings from the survey, which was conducted from Aug. 11 to 27 among a total of 4,013 adults:

• One of the largest declines in support for legal abortion has occurred among white, non-Hispanic Catholics who attend Mass at least weekly. Substantial change has also occurred among Democratic men (with support for legal abortion down nine points) but not among Democratic women.• Even as the public expresses support for finding a middle ground on abortion, most Americans are quite certain that their own position on abortion is the right one, with only one-quarter saying they ever wonder about their views on the issue.

• Furthermore, many people on both sides of the issue say that the opposite point of view on abortion is not a “respectable” opinion for someone to hold.

• Overall, roughly three in ten Americans think that President Barack Obama will handle the abortion issue about right, while four in ten are unaware of his position on the issue. About two in ten worry that Obama will go too far in supporting abortion rights.

Read more about the survey at pewforum.org.

               Paul Kirk, Jr., chairman of the John Kennedy Library Foundation Board of Directors, shown alongside the late Sen. Edward Kennedy in 2008, has been named to a five-month term to fill Kennedy’s senate seat. CAPTIONBy Lisa Poole, APPaul Kirk has never held elective office before and, in five months, the man named Thursday to stand in for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy will be replaced by the winner of a special election. So why might anti-abortion rights group be displeased with his appointment? After all, Kirk is practically Boston Catholic royalty. According to Michael Paulson at The Boston Globe, he’s … grand-nephew of Cardinal William H. O’Connell, one of the most powerful figures in local church history, who served as archbishop of Boston from 1907 until his death in 1944. (Kirk’s grandfather was an older brother of the Cardinal). However, anti-abortion groups want to lock any prospect of tax-supported insurance that covers abortion out of health care reform legislation — legislation that Kirk will now be voting on, presumably as Kennedy would have voted. And Kirk’s lengthy public service resume includes Democratic National Committee Chairman during the ill-fated 1988 Michael Dukakis presidential campaign. An essay by Jo Freeman for off our backs, gives a glimpse of Kirk’s DNC role from the feminist perspective of those who pushed for strong language supporting abortion rights language and the Equal Rights Amendment. She writes: Feminists were alarmed last December when Democratic National Committee Chair Paul G. Kirk, Jr. stated that he wanted a platform that was short and soft pedaled such controversial issues as abortion and the ERA. Twenty women leaders met with Kirk to point out that leaving those issues out would be more controversial at the convention than putting them in. … But even after numerous meetings, … the initial draft of the platform written by Ted Sorenson at the behest of Kirk … made casual reference to “equal rights of all men and women” and “freedom of choice regarding childbirth.” The language was eventually expanded “behind the scenes,” Freeman writes, and the final platform contained urged adoption of the ERA and demanded that “the fundamental right of reproductive choice should be guaranteed regardless of ability to pay.” So, Kirk will likely be, as expected, a Kennedy on this matter — a Catholic politician social progressives will like and traditionalists despise — until he’s replaced in January. DO YOU THINK … the Catholic Church has been effective in persuading politicians and public officials to line up with Church teachings on life? Tags:Catholic Church Edward Kennedy Michael Paulson Paul G. Kirk, Jr Abortion rights Previous Does a nation need God to be ‘happy?’ Maybe not the French Next Atheist reviewer takes on scholar’s look at Jesus, Bible

All are invited to come.  Fatima Procession on October 13 at 5:30 P.M.  (tuesday)  Blessing of Fatima Shrine and candlelight procession, meditated Rosary…..  Father Robert J. Fox will lead the meditations and Blessing of the Fatima Shrine. Come Join Us… While you are here you can come and see the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament  and the Ave Maria Grotto.  We are all located in the same county.

The Lord Looks at the Heart source unknown “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2) Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. “Why, he’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and here’s no bus till morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. “I guess it’s my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments . . .” For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.” I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.” I told him he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they’d be nice and fresh I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us. In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!” Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God. Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, “If this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!” My friend changed my mind. “I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting out in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.” She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.” All this happened long ago-and now, in God’s garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand. “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b) Return to Stories Page.

     God may call us to do something for him or for someone else.  Do we always answer His call?   We must always say in our heart “Your will be done, Lord”.  Many times with our human nature of selfishness we forget about the things and the people around us and just focus on ourselves.  What do we want?  How can I get that?  Why isn’t he helping me?  Were are you Lord?   God knows what is in your heart and the way you act.  Start focusing on other people besides yourself and think of there feelings and pray for them instead of always praying for yourself and you will grow in virtue.  God will bless His people, if we live for Him.

Benedict XVI Offers Word to the Wise Notes That True Wisdom Is Peaceful CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, SEPT. 20, 2009 (Zenit.org).- According to Benedict XVI, every once in a while it’s good and necessary to stop and contemplate the beauty of true wisdom. The Pope said this today before praying the midday Angelus with the pilgrims gathered at Castel Gandolfo. He took as his point of departure the Letter of James that contrasts “true wisdom” with “false wisdom.” Quoting James, the Pope noted that false wisdom is “worldly, material and diabolical, and is recognized by the fact that it provokes jealousies, arguments, disorder and every kind of evil deed,” whereas “[true] wisdom, which comes from above is first of all pure, then peaceful, meek, docile, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.” The Pope noted that James lists “seven qualities, according to the biblical custom, from which perfection of authentic wisdom comes, along with the positive effects that it produces.” “As first and principal quality, almost the premise for the others, St. James sets down ‘purity,’ that is, sanctity, the transparent reflection — so to say — of God in the human soul,” he continued. “And, like God, from whom it comes, wisdom does not need to impose itself by force, because it has the invincible vigor of truth and love, that affirms itself. “That is why it is peaceful, meek and docile; it does not need to be partial, nor does it need to lie; it is indulgent and generous, it is recognized by the good fruits that it bears in abundance.” Benedict XVI then asked, “Why not stop every once in a while to contemplate the beauty of this wisdom? Why not draw from this unpolluted source of God’s love the wisdom of the heart, which cleanses us from the filth of lies and egoism?” “This holds true for everyone,” he answered, “but, in the first place, for those who are called to be promoters and ‘weavers’ of peace in religious and civil communities, in social and political relations and in international relations.” “To ‘do’ works of peace we need to ‘be’ men of peace,” the Pope continued. “If everyone, in his own circle, succeeds in rejecting the lie and violence in intentions, in words and in actions, carefully cultivating sentiments of respect, understanding and esteem for others, perhaps it would not resolve every daily problem, but we could face them more serenely and effectively.”

   With all do respect, what does he know about our government with 16 years of residence in the U.S.  I am for healthcare reform.  Lower costs private care and freedom of choice.

J Preiss

Cardinal Martino applauds universal health care initiative

Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, speaks at a press conference Dec. 11, 2008. (CNS photo/Emanuela De Meo, Catholic Press Photo) 

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican hasn’t weighed in very much yet concerning the fierce debate in the United States over health care reform. Some of the opposition in the U.S. centers around whether the government should have such a dominant role in providing affordable coverage for all Americans.

Cardinal Renato Martino, who is head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, lived in the United States for 16 years when he served the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations from 1986-2002.

When I interviewed the cardinal today at the end of a Vatican press conference, I asked him what he thought of the current health care debate in the U.S. and whether the government should be offering universal coverage or if it should just be left up to private businesses. Here’s what he said:

The health of their own citizens belongs to the authorities, to the central government. And so I have been 16 years in the States and I was wondering why a big portion of the American people is deprived, have no health assistance at all. I could never explain this…

And you know that everywhere in the world it is a concern of the government first of all, and after there are possibilities also on the private sector, but those who are without anything… the central government must provide to that. So I cannot but applaud this initiative.

   Many people think that faith is all joy.  Faith is many things, for instance it can involve suffering and this can be scary.  There are many moments in life where we do not know what direction to go and this is when faith is tested.  There is a certain type of darkness in faith and not the darkness that involves sin.  When we feel this darknessand this feeling of abandonment we should send up a prayer of hope,”I put all my trust in You Lord”.  When we do not feel like praying this is when we need to pray the most.  Life is not perfect and we are born with original sin from Adam and Eve.  Pray and pray more and God will console and give you an answer according to His Will.