Bishop Michael Sheridan's Letter about FOCA (Dec 5, 08)
Allow me to explain the purpose of this post. Although this post doesn’t come directly from me, it speaks to an issue that must be dealt with. As men, we must stand up and fight, not sit back and watch. We, as men, are called to service, to arms, to protect, to lead, to fight, to be righteous, to love and to be faithful. The pro-life (anti-abortion) movement is NOT a woman’s movement alone. This post speaks directly to the role that we play in defeating the evils of the culture of death. Man up!
Dec. 5, 2008 FOCA is a very bad law
Dec 4, 2008 4:00 PM
NOTE: The following article is based on data provided by the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities and the Office of the General Counsel of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and was published in the Catholic Herald newspaper (of the Diocese of Colorado Springs, CO).
Citizens have a right to expect that their elected officials will keep their campaign
promises. If President-Elect Obama keeps all of his campaign promises, the American people — both born and unborn — are in for big trouble.
On July 17, Obama stood before a gathering of Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the United States, and promised attendees that his first act as president would be to sign into the law the so-called Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). FOCA is the most radical abortion legislation in U.S. history. It is proposed by the pro-abortion lobby as simply the codification of the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade. But it is much more than that!
In fact, FOCA goes far beyond Roe vs. Wade. FOCA would propose abortion not just as something legal, but as a fundamental right, just like the right to vote and the right to free speech. FOCA will nullify every statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, policy and practice of any federal, state or local government that seeks to limit or regulate in any way the heinous practice of the murder of unborn children. More specifically:
FOCA will invalidate laws to protect a woman from unsafe abortion clinics and laws to ensure that she is informed about abortion. Because informing women about abortion and alternatives involves some delay and may lead some women to change their decision, laws ensuring informed consent would likely be seen as “interfering” with the abortion right.
FOCA will require taxpayers to pay for abortions. This new legislation would remove any language that ensures that taxpayers will not be forced to pay for abortions. Instead, under FOCA, the government may not “discriminate” against abortion in publicly funded programs.
FOCA will remove any and all bans on the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortions and will require states to allow partial-birth abortions and other late-term abortions. Currently, states are permitted to ban abortions after fetal viability (when a child can survive outside the womb). Because of FOCA’s insistence that abortion is a fundamental right, the murder of a child as (s)he is being born will be permitted.
FOCA will require states to allow abortions by non-physicians. So much for ensuring a medically safe procedure.
FOCA will deny parents an opportunity to be involved in their minor daughter’s abortion decision. So determined are the pro-abortion advocates to make abortion more available that they will see to it that children can undergo this traumatic ordeal without parental permission or counsel. A school nurse may not administer aspirin to minor children without the parents’ permission, but it will be abortion on demand for those same children.
FOCA will bar laws protecting a right of conscientious objection to abortion. The current resolution of the American Medical Association (approved by Roe vs. Wade) that allows hospitals, doctors, medical students and other health-care workers to opt out of participating in abortions will be overturned. Not only will the right to life of the 3,500 babies who are killed each day by abortion (expected to jump to 3,900 per day under FOCA) be taken away, the fundamental right to conscience and the practice of religion (guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution) will also be taken away. The pro-abortion lobby is intent not only on seeing to it that more abortions take place, it is intent on restricting other fundamental human freedoms as well.
In his statement on behalf of the American bishops, Cardinal Francis George, president of the USCCB, said that FOCA would have “a destructive effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal conviction do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children.” FOCA would be a direct threat to the very existence of Catholic hospitals.
In the words of the bishops who serve on the Committee for Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: “A vote for FOCA is a vote against modest, reasonable, widely supported laws that promote and protect women’s health, ensure informed consent, protect minors and ensure parental involvement, safeguard rights of conscience, and respect the desire of most citizens not to pay for abortions with their tax dollars. It is the most radical and extreme abortion legislation ever considered in the United States.”
I ask every Catholic and every man and woman of good will to contact their legislators and protest the passage of FOCA. In January all Catholics will be given the opportunity to participate in a campaign to inform the president-elect and the new Congress that FOCA, like Roe vs. Wade, is a very bad law.
President-Elect Obama has also promised that his administration will seek to reduce abortions in our country. But, as Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, reminds us with basic logic: “We can’t reduce abortions by promoting abortions” (Sept. 19 letter to U.S. Congress).
Great Examples of "What is Real Manliness?"
January 23, 2009 by admin
Filed under Scriptural Examples
Here are the answers to the previous post “What is Real Manliness?”
- King David
- Joseph (of the Old Testament)
- St. Joseph, the Earthly Father of Jesus
The story of King David can be a very compelling story for us. It’s likely that each of us can compare at least one aspect of our life to something that David went through in his. We know a great deal about David, but how often do we stop and contemplate his life? His life, from childhood to old age, is a great example of faithfulness, growth, repentence and success. One of the most ravaging evils of our time is pornography (aka: lust, sins of the flesh, impurity, etc.). David is normally associate with a few things: slaying Goliath, writing the Psalms, being a great king and his sins of lust with Bathsheba. When I wrote before that “this man screwed up royally” (although full of puns), he did. The event with Bathsheba shaped his life. He had a choice to make (and thanks to his “wingman” Nathan, he made the right choice). He owned his mistake, made it right and went on to live a pure life from that point forward, leading men and women closer to God for generations after him. I suggest that you read about King David in Scripture. His life can be a great tool in living a life “after God’s own heart”. Check out 1 Samuel 16:19 and on.
Joseph of the OT was a man that could easily have chosen vengeance, anger and retaliation. Instead, he chose faithfulness and reliance on God. Joseph, after living an up-and-down life (from a young boy, to a slave, to a prisoner, to pharoah’s right hand man) is a great example to us of humility, perseverance and honor. He foreshadows our next amazing example of manliness, St. Joseph. Check out Genesis 37 and on.
St. Joseph, the carpenter, the worker, the patron of fathers and the Most Chaste Spouse… our model and our guide. St. Joseph’s task of being the father of Jesus the Christ is as unparalleled a task as any. Can you imagine the immense responsibility that he had with raising God? Not only did he willingly accept this challenge, he accepted the challenge of being a husband to the Virgin Mary. Obviously, I don’t have the time or space to write everything that St. Joseph deserves. Scripture doesn’t tell us much about Joseph, but you can see some of his characteristics in Matthew 1:16 – Matthew 2.
Man Up!
"It's How Guys Do Fancy"
Have you seen this commercial from Carl’s Jr? Every time I see it, it makes me more and more frustrated with society’s expectations for men. Check it out…
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=298875895280712774&ei=cs52SfiWK47Q-AHM9PGnBQ&q=carl%27s+jr+steak&hl=en]
What is this guy telling/showing/portraying to his girlfriend? What sort of respect is he giving her? What amount of priority is he putting on her and their relationship?
What happens in these situations is that society looks at these ads with a sense of humor. Did you laugh the first time you saw this commercial? I did, although I don’t like admitting it. I laughed the second time I saw it, too. As I began to think about it after I saw it again and again, I realized that society is telling men of all ages that it’s okay to skimp, to show your girlfriend/fiancee/wife/daughters that it’s normal and expected to give her less than what she deserves. It’s normal to give her less respect than she deserves. It’s normal to put her on the back burner and prioritize something else higher than her. Society says… “act like this guy, she’ll stay with you and not expect anything better from you because YOU’RE A GUY! That’s what guys do, so you’re par for course.” Instead, society needs to realize that this woman, a beautiful creation of God, deserves to be treated like a queen. She should be the most important thing in this guy’s life, other than his relationship with, and service to, God.
Fellas, if you find yourself in a situation where your girlfriend comes over and is dressed to the nines and is ready for your date –> stand up and greet her. Give her words of praise for looking so beautiful and tell her how wonderful she is. Compliment her on her beauty, her dress, her shoes and her hair. Be ready, before she gets there, dressed well, groomed and ready to take her out (or cook a romantic meal for her at your place). Be her knight in shining armor. Be her man, treat her with dignity and respect. Don’t settle for mediocrity, strive for excellence.
To the Ladies that read this post: if a guy you are dating treats you like this Carl’s Jr guy would, he’s not worthy of your time. Like I told the guys, don’t settle for mediocrity, strive for excellence. You are worth only the best, nothing less.
Subscribing to TrueManhood.com
I’ve had a few requests of how to subscribe to the website. There are a few different ways to go about this. Check out this video on using Google Reader.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSPZ2Uu_X3Y]
Various readers alert you in various ways: some use emails, othes text messages, most pop up on your desktop reader. If you don’t have a software program (these are free by the way; use google, or other free software), you can simply use feeds that Internet Explorer gives you. (Firefox probably has this too…) Here’s how you do that.
On the left side of the site, scroll down to and click “ENTRIES RSS”, this will take you to a page that you then click “Subscribe to this feed”. Clicking this will put TrueManhood.com on your feed list, which is a tab next to your favorites.
An Example on the Slopes
January 19, 2009 by admin
Filed under Fatherhood
Yesterday, while enjoying an absolutely perfect day on the slopes of Keystone, I witnessed something that made me think. I witnessed a father interacting with his young son. The young boy’s name was Henry and he was about 4 years old. Henry made his way down the mountain in a slow, snow-plow fashion; I thought he was doing really well. Henry’s father made his way down the mountain just below the boy; there, he stopped and looked up at him. Henry had taken a seat on the mountain, eventually laying his head on the snow. He was tired and a bit frustrated and didn’t think he could make it any further. The father, looking up at the boy, started to get rather perturbed and impatient. “Get up Henry”, “Let’s go Henry”. “If you can’t ski, we’re going straight home, Henry.” The father continued his, now angry, tone with the boy. Henry remained on the mountain, in the same spot he originally stopped. I was torn as to what to do in the situation. On the one hand, I wanted to tell Henry, “You can do it Henry!”. On the other hand, I wanted to ski down to the father and suggest that he give his young son some encouragement instead of frustration.
This father had an amazing opportunity to be his son’s hero. He had a crucial decision to make: give encouragement and excite his son to pick himself up and keep trying OR (what he did) get frustrated at this four year old and allow the four year old to dictate his reaction. I wish that this father would have made a better choice. I pray that Henry knows how wonderful he is and grows to be a strong man.
Our witness in the world to others around us is a huge responsibility. Not only could this father have been a great example to Henry, he could have been a great example to me. Maybe the father didn’t know I was watching and listening. Either way, make certain that YOU are acting in a way that, no matter what the situation is, you are setting an example to others around you. This example should be one of love, the love that Christ exampled for us.
*** Best wishes in your daily examples to the world around you. ***
What is Real Manliness?
January 17, 2009 by admin
Filed under Scriptural Examples
Society makes suggestions to us, either directly or indirectly, about what is manly and what’s not. Typically, society paints a picture (let’s call this picture “cultural manliness”) that cultural manliness stems from all or part of the following: POWER, MONEY, WOMEN and/or STUFF. Society might call a man who possesses these things a “real man”. If a male possesses one (or more) of these attributes, than he automatically racks up points on a invisible ‘man scale’. A given amount of points on the cultural manliness scale doesn’t necessarily gain a guy anything, and it’s not like he can cash those points in for anything tangible. However, because of the picture that is painted, a man with lots of points is (for whatever reason) elevated to a higher level than a regular joe. As this happens – men being elevated and esteemed – other men desire to obtain what a “real man” has. Other men begin to shoot for power, money, women and/or stuff, instead of what really determines what manliness is.
What is real manliness??? If real manliness isn’t power, money, women and/or stuff, what is it? Where can we find out? What can we do to become really manly? Well, we’re given lots of great examples throughout history of what NOT to do and what’s NOT really manly. Where do we go to find good examples? I’d like to point to a few perfect examples of what manliness is using three Biblical characters. I’m going to save their identities for another post to determine if anyone can guess who they are.
1. This man screwed up royally. He engaged in sins of the flesh which led to men dying and problems for others around him. However, instead of remaining lazy and indifferent, he heeded the words of his dear friend and decided to better himself and devoted his life to serving, honoring and praising God. He became faithful, prayerful and humble. He set an example of great virtue for others to see. Who was he?
2. This man was wronged at an early age. After spending many years in confinement for crimes he hadn’t committed, he rose in the ranks and eventually became the king’s trusted advisor. Instead of taking vengeance on the men who wronged him, he chose love, honor and service. This man was a humble and faithful servant to God, never losing his foundation of prayer and faith. Who was he?
3. This man was given, quite possibly, the hardest task a human father could be given. He was asked to take on a role that no other father had ever been asked to do, but he readily accepted and because he was a virtuous man, he succeeded in this difficult task. Because he trusted God (and His messenger), this man remained faithful and obedient. Due to his successful job-well-done, all men have a perfect example of what it means to be a chaste husband, a loving father and a hard worker. Who was he?
What is real manliness? –> from these three examples, we see a theme: these three men were virtuous. Their virtue (especially their theological virtue of faith) allowed them to persevere and to continue to serve God. Today’s post is only the beginning of this topic, stay tuned for more!
