Medical student describes exactly what happened in the operating room as he witnessed an abortion

When I entered the operating room, it felt like any other I had ever been in.

On the table in front of me, I saw a woman, legs up as if delivering a child although she was asleep. Next to her was a tray of instruments for the abortion and a vacuum machine for suctioning the fetal tissues from the uterus.

The doctors put on their gowns and masks and the procedure began. The cervix was held open with a crude metal instrument and a large transparent tube was stuck inside of the woman. Within a matter of seconds, the machine’s motor was engaged and blood, tissue, and tiny organs were pulled out of their environment into a filter.

A minute later, the vacuum choked to a halt. The tube was removed, and stuck to the end was a small body and a head attached haphazardly to it, what was formed of the neck snapped.

The ribs had formed with a thin skin covering them, the eyes had formed, and the inner organs had begun to function. The tiny heart of the fetus, obviously a little boy, had just stopped — forever.

The vacuum filter was opened, and the tiny arms and legs that had been torn off of the fetus were accounted for. The fingers and toes had the beginnings of their nails on them.

The doctors, proud of their work, reassembled the body to show me. Tears welled up in my eyes as they removed the baby boy from the table and shoved his body into a container for disposal.

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Saint Blase’s idea of ecumenism

Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri explained how Saint Blase referred to the gods of the false religion of the Roman pagans shortly before his own martyrdom on February 3, 313:

When St. Blase arrived at the city [of Ragusa] and was presented to the governor, he was commanded to sacrifice to immortal gods. The saint answered: “What a title for your demons, who can only bring evil on their worshippers! There is only ONE Immortal God, and him do I adore.” Agricolaus, infuriated at the answer, caused the saint to undergo a scourging so prolonged and cruel that it was thought the saint could not possibly survive it; but having endured this torture with placid courage, he was sent to prison, where he continued to work miracles so extraordinary that the governor ordered him to be lacerated with iron hooks.

The blood of the saint ran profusely, and certain pious women were induced to collect portions of it, which act of devotion was amply rewarded, for they were seized, with two of their children, and brought before the governor. He commanded them to sacrifice to the gods under pain of death. The holy women asked for their idols, as some thought, to sacrifice to them, but they no sooner had hands upon them than they cast them into an adjoining lake, for which they were instantly beheaded, along with their children.

Agricolaus resolved to wreak his vengeance on St. Blase; and to content with the torture which he had already ceased him to endure, commanded him to be stretched upon the rack, and his flesh to be torn with iron combs, in which state a red-hot coal of mail was placed upon him. Finally, the tyrant, despairing of overcoming his constancy, ordered him to be cast into the lake; the saint, arming himself with the sign of the cross, walked upon the waters, and arriving at the middle, sat down, and invite the idolaters to do the same if they believed that their gods could enable them. Some were so rash as to make the attempt, but were immediately drowned.

St. Blase was admonished then by a voice from heaven to go forth from the lake and encounter his martyrdom. When he reached the land the impious tyrant ordered him to be beheaded. This sentence was executed in the year 313. The republic of Ragusa honor him as their principal patron, and he is the titular saint of many cities. (Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri, The Glories of The Martyrs, as published by the Redemptorist Fathers, Esopus, New York, 1954, pp. 253-254.)

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Pope Francis’ homily reflects on the importance of three words for Catholics: Proclamation, witness, worship.

“I would like all of us to ask ourselves this question: [ask yourself, ask myself] Do we worship the Lord? Do we turn to God only to ask him for things, to thank him, or do we also turn to him to worship him? What does it mean, then, to worship God? … All of us, in our own lives, consciously and perhaps sometimes unconsciously, have a very clear order of priority concerning the things we consider important. Worshiping the Lord means giving him the place that He must have; worshiping the Lord means stating, believing—not only by our words—that He alone truly guides our lives; worshiping the Lord means that we are convinced before him that He is the only God, the God of our lives, the God of our history.”

“This has a consequence in our lives,” the pontiff noted.

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Area Scout Participation Requested for Downers Grove, Illinois – 40 Days for Life Autumn Prayer and Witness Campaign

*** SCOUTS ***

Can You Answer the Lord’s Call?

Pray, Learn, and Enjoy Pizza too!
It’s as easy as 1 – 2 – 3 !!!

40 Days for Life’ is Coming!
Sept. 28th – Nov. 6th
Daily: 6am – 7pm

1. Sign up for a 1 hour time slot with your friends to PRAY to end abortion.

Location: Access Health Center
1700 W 75th Street
Downers Grove
(On 75th street, 1 block east of Woodward Avenue)

2. (Optional) After your prayer hour, TOUR the neighboring Woman’s Choice Services crisis pregnancy center to learn about the wonderful services available for moms to enable
a choice for LIFE!

3. Then, EAT at Nonnie’s (across the street) ½ OFF Pizza — Coupons will be available at the prayer site.

What is 40 Days for Life?
It is a constant prayer vigil outside of a place
where children are aborted.
Your visible prayerful presence is very powerful.

Read more (PDF file)

Contact Kim to schedule your troop:
(847) 651-6649 or email her at 40DaysDG@gmail.com

Visit the official website/schedule

Locate a vigil site in your area

What’s so great about the Catholic religion?

Q: What’s so great about the Catholic religion?

A: The Catholic Church is the only church that was ever personally founded by Jesus Christ … while he still walked the earth. (Jesus is God, incarnate.)

The Catholic Church has Jesus Christ as its eternal head, and the Holy Spirit as its perpetual guide and advocate.

The only church that was ever authentically established and empowered in this way … the Catholic Church remains the living eye-witness for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the world today, just as it has been since the very beginning.

Despite the internal and external human corruption with which the Catholic Church has always contended, the truth of the church’s essential doctrines, dogmas, liturgies and devotions has miraculously, never been compromised.

The church remains the only infallible guide to a proper moral existence, although few within the church have actually managed to live up to that ideal. Those who are known to have have successfully done so are called “Saints”.

In addition to being The Universal Christian Church on Earth … the Catholic Church is also a sovereign nation-state, known as the Vatican. The Vatican constitutes the world’s oldest, continuously operating government (of any kind).

The Pope is the chief pastor and the leader of the Church, on earth. The holy office of the papacy was also established personally by Jesus Christ. St. Peter was the first pope … the “Rock” on which Jesus Christ would build his church. And lest anyone doubt this is indeed the case … the bones of St. Peter rest today, in an ancient cemetery, almost directly beneath the main altar of St. Peter’s basilica, in the Vatican. See also the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16, verses 18 &19.

Endowed with the “Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven” … and the virtually unrestricted power of  “Binding and Loosing” … on earth and in heaven … the Pope wields truly awesome power and authority.

After the fall of Rome, the Catholic Church took it upon itself to rebuild western civilization in the image of heaven. And in many ways, it succeeded!

The Holy Bible remains a thoroughly Catholic book … preserved, compiled, translated, certified and infallibly endorsed as the totally inerrant, divinely inspired, written Word of God, by the Catholic Church alone … more than a thousand years before any other Christian church even existed.

There are more than 1.1 billion Catholics in the world, today.

Since its original institution in the early first century, the Catholic Church has consistently fulfilled its prophetic mission of saving souls and offering acceptable worship to God … something it never fails to do … every hour of every day … every day of every year … in every nation on earth.

Four “marks” serve to identify the authentic Catholic Church, from age to age:

1) One. The Catholic Church is unique: Jesus Christ founded only one church … the Catholic Church.

2) Holy. The Catholic Church is holy. With Jesus as its founder, the Holy Spirit as its perpetual advocate, and God the Father as its eternal patron, the Catholic Church belongs solely to God. Pure and spotless. Set apart for God’s purposes alone, the church can never be corrupted by sin, or by any other human fault.

3) Apostolic. The Catholic Church is apostolic. The divine power and authority given to the Catholic Church by Jesus Christ is passed down through the generations from the original apostles, to their duly ordained successors, the bishops. And so on.

4) Universal. The word “Catholic” means “universal”. Jesus Christ founded one church to be the universal sacrament of salvation for all.

There’s much, much more … but I think you probably get the idea.

Seen on the web: Remarkable Conversions To Catholicism

Visit the site

Pope on priestly celibacy: When a man’s sexuality is not properly integrated, it becomes “banal and destructive”.

Throughout his pontificate, Pope Benedict has repeatedly spoken of celibacy as a “gift.”

In celebrating the close of the Year for Priests on June 10, he said priests were united with the “unique priest,” Jesus Christ, mysteriously drawn into the reality of Christ’s resurrection, to a new life “already beyond marriage.”

In this relationship with Christ, he said, “celibacy is anticipation,” taking the priest beyond this world and time to the “world of the resurrection.” In opening the doors to this “future of God,” he said, celibacy is lived as a witness to faith, a testimony of true belief that God exists and is found in one’s life.

Link

Pro-Life Students Finish Cross-Country Walk Against Abortion This Weekend

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — On Saturday, nearly four dozen young adults and college students from colleges around the country will meet in Washington, D.C. to cap off three different cross-country walks. Their participation in the Crossroads event is a way to highlight opposition to abortion nationwide.

Crossroads has sponsored these pro-life walks across America every summer since 1995.

Passing through 36 states and thousands of towns and cities, they have witnessed the reality that the overwhelming majority of Americans identify themselves as pro-life.

Walking night and day, through rain or shine, these young people have spent the last 12 weeks witnessing to hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Link

Priest: I am Catholic because I believe it is true (the best reason for believing anything!), and, to quote GK Chesterton, to get my sins forgiven.

I was walking in Leeds with my friend Martin, when we were surrounded by a gang of Asian youths, who looked neither friendly nor sober. This was about 15 years ago, when I was a student at the university there. I assumed they were going to make trouble because Martin was (and remains still) white. “Stick with me, homie,” I joked. “I’ll protect you.”

As it turned out, the lads were more interested in me, the Asian out of the two of us. Then it came. His words, and he left me in no doubt how seriously he meant them, were, “Is you Muslim or Hindu, yeah?”

I had the flabber taken out of my gast. I thought, Gosh! How do I answer this one? I couldn’t tell if they were Muslims or Hindus themselves, so who could tell what they thought the right answer might be.

But I remembered the words of the Lord, Whoever denies me before men, him will I deny him before the Father. So, honesty being the best policy, I stammered: “I-I-I’m a Catholic.”

His friends had to pull him off me as he raged (I remember there was a lot of spittle going on): “Why? Why the f— are you a Catholic??!”

Should I tell him, Because the apostle St Thomas came to India 2,000 years ago and converted my ancestors, or, Because this is the church Jesus Christ, true God and true man, established on the foundation of the apostles.

In the end, a quick getaway seemed more expedient, for I had reason to believe he was not truly interested in inter-religious dialogue.

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John the Baptist, Unborn Witness to Christ

John the Baptist, Unborn Witness to Christ

The touching story of the two unborn children who were present at the Visitation should give us a reason to rejoice with Elizabeth and Mary at the dawning of our salvation. While the mothers basked in the overwhelming grace of the moment, the older of the two children was already working for our salvation in the way decreed for him by the Almighty from all eternity. That little baby was announcing the coming of the Savior even from the womb!

One has to marvel at the life of St. John the Baptist whose feast we celebrate each year on June 24th. Perhaps we take him for granted because his story is so familiar to us, but his vocation to holiness is beyond comparison with any other saint in history. With the exception of Jesus’ most holy Mother, never has there been a human being so perfectly united to the Person of Christ than John. He was so perfect a man that Jesus Himself said that there was “no man born of woman greater than John.” Great men of the world exalt themselves over their subjects as a way to assert their grandeur; yet, John’s greatness was precisely in lowering himself to the depths of the earth (i.e., the Dead Sea, geographically the world’s lowest point on land) and turning the attention of men away from himself onto Another. What worldly man does that? A man who lives in the desert and wears camel hair garments is hardly going to be accepted among the movers-and-shakers of society, but it was this greatest of men who said that he actually had to decrease if he were to fulfill his essential mission. Truly John’s was a life of striking paradoxes which, when examined closely, point out the holiness of the man whose whole existence was to bear witness to Holiness Himself.

John’s greatest witness was not in his words, however. It was in his actions. We know of only two actions outside of his baptizing and preaching that give us a window into this man’s pure soul: his joyful leap in the womb of Elizabeth and his ultimate act of self-sacrifice in martyrdom. In birth and death he was the Lord’s, as in every other moment of his existence. His pre-natal rejoicing at the Christ Child wordlessly proclaimed that all children, no matter the circumstances of their conception or birth, are unqualified blessings to us, joyful additions to the human family of which God never repents. We have the testimony of the “greatest man born of woman” as our witness to the sanctity of each and every human life!

John also valiantly embraced the multiple crosses of his life: penitence, suffering, imprisonment and beheading before the Perfect Sacrifice of the Cross was consummated. No wonder the scriptures tell us that even the wicked Herod, “felt the attraction of his words.” John had that rare integrity of life that filled his words with grace. It was his life, his appearance, his humility, his mission and his gift of self that make John attractive to all generations, especially those who suffer injustice for the cause of righteousness.

I have no doubt that if John the Baptist were alive today he would be standing in front of abortion clinics witnessing to the unborn Christ in each child, calling people to account for their promiscuity, challenging the powers that keep this immoral industry in business, healing the wounded souls victimized by abortion, washing men clean of their sins that lead to death, teaching us to find joy even in our suffering and ready to lay down his own life so that others could live.

Truly there is no greater man born of woman than John the Baptist. He is the Unborn Witness to Christ who shows us the way out of the culture of death; if only we will listen to the silent eloquence of that little baby leaping in his mother’s womb.

Sincerely,

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,

President, Human Life International