Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

Quick Take: A New addition to my book Hall of Fame, and the first installment of Nutmeg’s online book club! This amazing story of a young Rwandan woman’s faith-filled survival of the 1994 April genocide will blow your mind and deepen your faith all at the same time.

Left to Tell: Finding God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, by Immaculee Ilibagiza (with Steve Irwin)

“I heard the killers call my name.”

That is the first line of a harrowing, uplifting and painful autobiography of Immaculee, a young woman who was a college student home for Easter break when the horrific genocide of April 1994 began in Rwanda. She had grown up the third of four children, and the only girl, with two devoutly Catholic parents who passed their faith onto their children, as well as the belief that all people all God’s children, and worthy of respect and love. She paints vivid pictures of her brothers Aimable, Damascene (the brother she was closest to), and her younger brother Vianney. Immaculee had a happy childhood, and she excelled in her schoolwork.
She did not, initially, understand the differences between Tutsi and Hutu that would so change her life. Her first encounter with ethnicity was at the age of 10, when she attended school with older children. Her teacher had a “tribal roll call ” (16), and Immculee was dismissed from school for not knowing her ethnicity. The next day, her teacher told her stand up when he called “Tutsi.” So she did–and she sawe the horrible impact this emphasis on ethnicity would have first-hand.

As the genocide began in April of ‘94, she tries to stay at home with her family; hundreds of Tutsis came to the family’s property to ask Immaculee’s father for help. A few days later, Immaculee was sent to the home of Pastor Murinzi (57), who was friends with Immaculee’s father. While Vianney and Damascene eventually joined her, they were only permitted to stay one day. Immaculee, however, would wait out the genocide with five other women for 91 days.

How did she survive?

“I realized that my battle to survive this war would have to be fought inside of me. Everything strong and good in me–my faith, hope and courage–was vuleranble to the dark energy. If I lost my faith, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to survive. I could rely only on God to help me fight.” (80)

Taking the rosary her father had given her before she left the house, Immaculee immersed herself in prayer all day. When the Hutu killing squads surrounded the house, she prayed even harder. And she learned to pray for forgiveness for the killers.

Her profound faith left a deep impact on me. In fact, as soon as I finished the book, I began it again, but slower this timer, in order to fully absorb the profound insights she had about the nature of prayer, faith and total surrender to God. She knew that only God and His will would help her survive, and that He would give her the strength to handle whatever obstacles she would face during her incredible trials.

I was also moved to tears by the example of her brother, Damascene. (WARNING: HEre be spoilers!) Aimable was in another country, at school, during the genocide, but the rest of Immaculee’s family was separated throughout Rwanda as they struggled to survive. Immaculee writes about how Damascene was always her defender, protector, and best friend. Their bond was almost more than brother and sister–it was deeply spiritual.

When Immaculee finds out her brother was killed, she is bereft. But he had written her one last letter:

May 6, 1994
Dear [Dad, Mo, Vianney, and] Immaculee,
It has been nearly a month since we were separated, and we are all living a nightmare. Besides what the circumstances suggest, I believe that a tribe can exterminate another tribe only if it’s God’s will; maybe out lives are the price that must be paid for Rwanda’s salvation. I am only certain about one things: we will meet again–there is no doubt in my mind.
I’m going to try to get out of the country, but I don’t know if I’ll make it. If they kill me along the way, you shouldn’t worry about me; I have prayed enough…I am prepared for death. If I do manage to make it out of Rwanda, I will contact you as soon as the peace returns. Bonn will tell you everything that has happened to me…
Immaculee, I beg you to be strong> I’ve just heard that Mom, Dad, and Vianney have been killed. I will be in contact with you.
Big hugs and kisses!
Your brother, who loves you very much!

(152)

The chapter continues with the account of Damascene’s death. After reading it, my first thought was–this young man was a Saint. His life and death should be up for Canonization in Rome. For men like him are certainly in Heaven.

Immaculee’s strength, faith and determination are astounding. This book deepened my faith and demonstrates how we can surrender to God’s will in even the most difficult circumstances. Immaculee and her family are an inspiration to all of us.

how not to do it.

Seen on the sign of the Lutheran Church down the road from my parish:

REFORMATION SUNDAY

LOTS OF SPECIAL MUSIC!

Etc., etc. with times, and a mention of food.

OK, um, wow.

First off, why is there even Reformation Sunday? Yes, I know it’s “technically” the day their denominationw as founded. But basically it’s a slap in the face to Catholics, akin to saying, “boy are we glad we purified our church and separated from all those heretic losers!”   Can you imagine if Catholics celebrated something akin to that? The uproar would be incredible. 500 years after the fact it seems like we’d be sort of past this, right?

When I went to Capital (a technically “Lutheran” school), they always celebrated Reformation Sunday, and it made me think, “how ironic, given that half your student population is Catholic.”  For a religion that preaches love and brotherhood and tolerance and all that good stuff, this doesn’t seem like any of those things.

They went their way. We went ours. Can we move on?
As a side note: do any other Protestant denominations celebrate this? Or is it just the Lutherans?

Side note 2: I know it’s cliche, but seriously, my best friends are  Lutheran. One of them has a brother-in-law who is a Pastor. So it’s not like I don’t know any. And I’m sure that for many of them it’s not an “in your face” kind of thing. But it still bugs me that the denomination continues to have this. If you want to celebrate Martin Luther’s birthday, or whatever, go ahead. But do we need to have “Reformation Sunday”? Please.

Side note– the Assumption (August 15) is celebrated in the Lutheran Liturgical Calendar. Rather ironically, it’s listed as a “lesser festival.” I don’t know a whole lot about Luther, but one of the things I do know is that he kept his devotion to Mary his entire life. So the idea that the Mother of God is relegated to Christmas and a “lesser festival” is ironic.

( A quick web search revealed some Protestant papers trying to debunk the idea that Luther was devoted to Mary in a Catholic sense. The one paper I actually read actually contains several confirmations of Catholic Marian doctrine. So I think that there may be some misunderstandings vis a vis Catholic Mariology here. But I digress.)

At one point in my life, I was engaged to a protestant guy, and as we began to plan the wedding, one of the underriding (like that?) questions was, “um, how do we explain the protocol of a Catholic Mass to half the guests that aren’t Catholic?” Given that I, too, have many non-Catholic friends (in fact they override the Catholic ones), we got this question a lot. I am basing this on my experience and understand of how the Church operated. Alas, there are parishes that do not follow the below guidelines. Sic their bishop on them!!

So, for posterity, I am recording what to DO and NOT to do if you are not Catholic and yet find yourself in a Catholic Church (note: these are guidelines for a general Mass. There’s no way I’m going into all the possible variations for feasts and solemnities and Holy Week and Christmas and what have you. But these’ll get you through).

1. When you enter Mass, you’ll notice people dipping their right hand in the holy water fonts by the doors and making the sign of the cross. This is to remind us of our baptism and note that we are entering a holy place. Do it or don’t do it–up to you.

2. When a Catholic enters the pew, he will not just slouch in (or he shouldn’t!). He will genuflect towards the tabernacle, make the sign of the cross, and then take his seat, acknowledging the True Presence of Christ in the consecreated hosts that are stored in the tabernacle. Again, up to you.

3. Most Catholics will then kneel and pray. Mass is preceded by five minutes of “sacred silence”, so this is not the time to ask your neighbor what he thought of the latest Jennifer Aniston flick. Look through the hymnals and books available; one of them will probably have an Order of the Mass, with the congregation’s responses notes, so you can follow along.

4. Mass begins with an opening hymn and procession. Stand up. NOTE: Catholics do not sing in four-part harmony! The quickest way to reveal Protestant roots is to begin singing the Alto/Tenor/ Bass/ your own harmony line to “The Church’s One Foundation.” This is particularly true if the opening hymn is “A Mighty Fortress”. Only Catholic choirs sing four-part–the congregation doesn’t. Don’t do it.

And Catholics and Protestants do not have the exact same hymnal, so don’t expect to know every hymn.

5. Introductory rites: The priest opens the Mass with “The Lord be with you”. Then we have the penintential rite (”Lord have Mercy”/ “Christ have Mercy”/ “Lord have Mercy”). Unless it’s Lent or Advent, the Gloria (”Glory to God in the highest/ And peace to His people on Earth”), which is sung, follows. This is similar to the “Hymn of Praise” some Protestants sing, although the words are totally different.

6. Then we have the opening prayer. Sit.

7. The Liturgy of the Word: First reading, from the O.T. (or Acts/ Revelation, depending on the feast/ season) Notice “reading”, not “lesson”. The response after the reading is “Thanks be to God.”

8. Responsorial Psalm: Sung by the cantor or small group (if small group, could be in four-part harmony). The cantor will sing the refrain and the congregation repeats it after each verse. It’s usually a psalm, but could be another scripture verse.

9. Second reading–an epistle.

10. Gospel Acclamation (stand): Unless it’s Lent, some form of “Alleluia”. Same protocol as Pslam. If it’s Lent, then it’s “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ / King of endless Glory!” (no Alleluia during Lent)

11. Gospel. The priest/deacon will say, “The Lord be with you”. Response: “And also with you”. The priest will then announce the reading, which the congregation will reply to with “Glory to you, Lord” while making the sign of the cross on their foreheads, lips, and heart, to remind them to keep Christ always present in these areas. The Gospel is then proclaimed. At the end, the congregation replies, “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.” Sit.

12. The Homily, NOT the sermon. Not the most important part of Mass, thus is short. A reflection on the readings of the day and how they apply to our daily lives.

13. Stand for the Creed-usually the Nicene, but occasionally the Apostles’.

14. Intercessions–when the reader/ deacon reads the prayer requests of the faithful. Response is “Lord, hear our prayer.”

15. Liturgy of the Eucharist begins–this happens EVERY SUNDAY. The gifts are brought up to the altar, the altar is prepared for Communion, and a hymn is sung. Offetory (ie, the envelope baskets) is also taken at this time. We’re sitting at this point. There is usually a hymn sung.

16. Stand for the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer. Note that this can be chanted. If everyone around you starts chanting (it seems that we Catholics are born with an extra chip in our head that allows us to do monochant without much of a problem), just join in if you’re comfortable, and stay silent if you’re not.

17. Followed by the “Holy,” which is sung.

18. Now everybody kneels (!) for the Eucharistic Prayer. Eucahristic Prayer I is the longest and usually reserved for special feasts. Usually you’ll get 2 or 3, which are shorter. This can also be chanted.

19. After the Consecration, the “Memorial Acclaimation” (Christ has died / Christ is risen / Christ will come again) is sung.

20. The Eucharistic Prayer finishes, leading to the Doxology (Though Him / With Him /In Him/ In the Unity of the Holy Spirit / All Glory and Honor is yours, Almight Father / Forever and Ever) followed by the Great Amen.

21. Stand. The “Our Father” is prayed. NOTE: The Catholic “Our Father” does NOT segue right into “for the kingdom”. This is the surest sign that there’s a Protestant in our midst.  When I was a cantor in college, we always (well, almost always) had Protestant organists (it was a Protestant school, after all) and the first time they would play for us they would give themselves away by going right into it, then stopping abruptly when they realized they were the only ones going on. We say it after the priest gives a brief prayer.

22. The Sign of Peace. Everyone hugs or shakes hands or kisses (depending on the level of affinity) with the people around them.

23. The “Lamb of God”.

24. Kneel again. Time for Communion. The priest distributes Communion to the Eucharistic Ministers and the distribution begins. Hymns are sung throughout, or a piece by the choir. Some churches only do vocal music after Communion is finished as a “song of praise”. Whatever.

This is the big sticking point: Catholic doctrine says that you shouldn’t receive communion if you’re not Catholic. The reason is simple: Catholics see the Eucharist as a sign of their oneness in Faith. When you receive Eucharist, the exchange is thus: the distributor says “The Body/ Blood of Christ” and you answer “Amen”. The “Amen” implies that you believe what was just told to you. If you don’t, then you’re essentially committing blasphemy by taking it. That’s not cool. If you’re not united with the Catholic Church and don’t believe what we believe, then why would you want to receive Eucharist? But some of you will do it anyway, and I will tell you that the Church floor won’t open and God won’t smite you with thunder (at least I’ve never seen it) but it’s not generally accepted practice. It is quite acceptable to remain in your seat in silent prayer while everyone else receives. You won’t be the only one sitting there, trust me.

25. After Communion, people kneel until the priest/ deacon is seated and the altar servers begin clearing the altar. Sit.

26. Stand. The Prayer After Communion is given. Annoucements (if any) are read.

27. Final blessing.

28. Closing hymn–you stay until the hymn is over!! I don’t care if the choir is launching into all 11 verses of “O Sons and Daughters”–you stay!!! It’s polite! And it’s not the Indy 500 out in the parking lot, anyway!

That, my friends, is the Order and Etiquette of the Catholic Mass. A few other points:

–no gum chewing, please. Or eating in general. You are supposed to have fasted for one hour prior to attending Mass, anyway.
–wear nice clothes, i.e. not ripped jeans or a trampy t-shirt or something with inappropriate messages (i.e., a shirt with a Darwin fish wouldn’t fly). Remember it’s God’s house you’re visiting.
–Refrain from any and all snide comments about the Faith during Mass!
–Catholics do not bring Bibles to Church–the priest doesn’t announce a particular verse that he’s preaching on and have everyone open up. You may see some Catholics with St. Joseph’s Missals, which give the Order of the Mass and the readings for the particular day. That’s not the same thing.
–The Homily will most likely be under 10 minutes. Shocking, I know.
–Catholic Churches don’t pass out bulletins with the reading in them. These readings can normally be found in one of the books in the pews/

Hope this was helpful–Catholics, let me know if I’ve left anything out.

From NRO. But it’s a different take on the issue:

Life Matters
I’m pro-life not because I’m certain, but because I’m not.

By Jonah Goldberg

I don’t know if life begins at conception. I don’t really know what “life” means. Consciousness? Possessing a soul? Well, if consciousness defines the issue, then life surely does not begin at conception. Not even the most adamant pro-lifer claims otherwise.

As for souls, I believe we have them, but I don’t know how they work. Indeed, ensoulment — the process by which God puts a soul in our bodies — is a controversial topic among religious scholars, people who know a lot more about such things than I do. And I’m not sure any of them are right anyway.

If “life” simply means that fetuses are something more than inanimate objects, I’m with you. But that hardly seals the deal for me on the issue of abortion. After all, the world is filled with organisms that do not deserve any special consideration, let alone a claim on a human being’s life or liberty.

In short, while I have great sympathy for “culture of life” arguments, if you tallied most of the above views on abortion, they’d appear to add up to my being pro-choice. And yet, when I get right down to it, I’m not. Why?

I’ve been trying to find my own answer to that question as the GOP comes to grips with the fact that its presidential front-runner, Rudy Giuliani, is pro-choice. I confess: A fully satisfactory answer eludes me, but I have enough of one to stay pro-life.

Part of my reasoning is politically pragmatic. Right-wing activist Grover Norquist once told my NRO’s David Freddoso that anyone who can go to black-tie dinners and face the haranguing of rich donors for his pro-life stance has the backbone to support tax cuts, too.

That’s a crude way of putting it, but I know what he means. Being pro-life is so unfashionable, so uncool, I tend to trust politicians who are willing to hold the line.

This, in turn, is why I have special contempt for anti-abortion politicians who switch sides. Jesse Jackson used to call abortion “genocide.” Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, and other pro-choicers all once championed the unborn. Did each of them revisit the moral, philosophical, scientific, and theological issues involved and, after careful study, decide that abortion doesn’t kill “babies,” after all, but merely evacuates “uterine contents”? I doubt it.

I could be wrong. But the fact that their conversions echoed the march of the Democratic party and, for the most part, dovetailed with their presidential ambitions suggests to me that they were willing to sanction the taking of what they had once believed to be innocent lives merely for political gain. That is disgusting.
Flip-flopping the other way (as George H. W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and others did) may be no less cynical. To pro-choice voters, it’s surely offensive to watch someone sacrifice the individual liberty of women for political expediency. But, morally, it just doesn’t seem as bad to me.

Every day, the government restricts what you can do with your body, from the drugs you can take to the surgeries you can subject yourself to. In other words, the line of personal autonomy is often blurry and narrow. The line between life and death is supposed to be bright and wide. Once a politician takes a stand that a certain population — be they fetuses, blacks, Jews, the handicapped or anybody else — has the right to life, their motive for changing their minds should be a lot better than fear of losing support from NARAL and the New York Times.

And that gets me to my more philosophical or principled reason for being pro-life: I just don’t know. I confess that I lack passion about debates over RU-486, Plan B, and other measures that terminate a pregnancy in the first few hours or days after conception, because that’s when I’m least sure that a life is at stake. But when it comes to, say, partial-birth abortion, I am adamantly pro-life. I don’t know if a fertilized egg has rights. But I am convinced that a baby minutes, days or weeks before full term is, simply, a baby. And despite what you constantly hear, Roe v. Wade doesn’t recognize that fact.

In death-penalty cases, “reasonable doubt” goes to the accused because unless we’re certain, we must not risk an innocent’s life. This logic goes out the window when it comes to abortion, unless you are 100-percent sure that babies only become human beings after the umbilical cord is cut. I don’t see how you can be that sure, which is why I’m pro-life — not because I’m certain, but because I’m not.

© 2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.

Pertaining to the’08 election and Catholicism:

There is head-scratching in the political marketplace over a looming contradiction. The candidates for president of the United States include a man identified as a Roman Catholic, and among the voters there are, of course, many Catholics. It would be reasonable to suppose that Candidate Giuliani would get the presumptive backing of the Catholic population.

But there are a couple of caveats.

First, is Giuliani a Catholic other than nominally? Because his name is Italian, one assumes that he subscribes to the faith associated with the Italian people. As a boy, he went to Catholic schools, and he was apparently devout; he even contemplated entering seminary. But is he a practicing Catholic now?

In 1999 the question of his religious faith was put to him directly. His reply: “I don’t attend [Catholic services] regularly, but I attend occasionally.”

Now, plop!, this raises special problems in the Catholic communion. Catholics are not only expected to attend Mass every week, they are bound to do so. In the matter of the Sabbath, you can be an easygoing Episcopalian, or Quaker, or even Reform Jew, and no rule is broken of formal consequences. But that isn’t so in the Catholic communion, because there are rules that include attendance at Mass on Sundays. If you’re a Philadelphia lawyer you might here smile a bit and say, well . . . Christians don’t always behave as Christians, so what else is new?

Ah, but that doesn’t work. Because the kind of godlessness expressed by a failure to live a life of charity, sustained by faith and hope, is, unhappily, pretty unnoticeable. Everyone excepting the saints is, under such scrutiny, “un-Christian.” But a failure to attend church on Sunday is, by Catholic standards, contumacious, an ostentatious rejection of a formal obligation. It is the equivalent of an observant Jew biting into a piece of pork. Penitence, if genuine, can minister to any infraction of the faith. But to violate systematically the Commandment that says, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy,” is systematically to reject one’s faith.

There are other problems, in the matter of Mr. Giuliani. One’s sense of things is that the religious communities are understanding in the matter of failed marriages (the divorce rate in the United States has been estimated at about fifty percent), but those who aspire to lead are quite reasonably examined more closely, and in the matter of Mr. Giuliani, there is the second and then the third wife, with ugly consequences involving children and living quarters.

Which is to say that a candidate holding out his affiliation with a religious body as a reason to presume harmonious values with other voters of the same faith has to prepare for a likelihood of resentment among coreligionists if he appears lax in the practice of his faith. Members of a club can be relaxed about the member who does not pay his dues. But there is the risk there of continued neglect gradually understood as disloyalty. The way things work in modern times, under modern pressures, more people’s attention is attracted by defiance of a protocol than by inconsistent attention given to it. The guest who neglectfully fails to bow when the queen enters the room is not especially conspicuous, but becomes so if it crosses the mind of others that he is challenging the legitimacy of the sovereign, rather than merely to being absent-minded about protocols.

There is the factor that in any political contest others are aspiring to win the voters’ approval. It is natural that candidates will call attention to the failures of their rivals, and that interested observers will join in. Gary Bauer, for instance, a longtime champion of the relevance of the Christian faith in politics, cannot be expected to be indifferent to the anomalies we speak of. James Dobson is likely to be heard from. And then — and then, there are the bishops and priests who will not wish to be thought indifferent to the indifference of others to the cosmic commitments they have made.

© 2007 Universal Press Syndicate

From newsweek. My comments in bold.

Crossing the Line
The ripple effect of Missouri’s controversial new abortion law goes far beyond its borders.
By Sarah Kliff
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 12:37 PM ET Oct 19, 2007
On a Saturday morning in October, Hope Clinic draws a crowd of 100 protesters, some with signs depicting fetuses, others with Catholic rosaries—and all shouting and chanting outside the purple-trimmed building where abortions are performed in Granite City, Ill.

The protests are jarring to incoming patients. But they do little, if anything, to affect Allison Hile, the clinic’s director of information and education. “I am so proud of what we do,” says Hile (!), who has been counseling patients for 28 years. Hile has, after all, seen much worse at her clinic. She remembers the wreckage the day after it was bombed in 1982—the blast destroyed a third of the facility’s physical plant. And she remembers when a pro-life extremist kidnapped one of the clinic’s doctors that same year, holding him and his wife blindfolded for eight days. For over a decade now Hile has endured the presence of pro-life activist Angela Michael, who lives in an RV parked outside the clinic. Under the guise of being a Hope Clinic employee, Michael leads women into her trailer (billed as offering “A Window to the Womb”) for ultrasounds and a chance to talk them out having an abortion. (Hile says she can find no record of Michael being a registered nurse in Missouri or Illinois.) After all that, a group of noisy protesters seems relatively benign.

But soon Hile and the rest of the staff at Hope Clinic may have more than shouts and signs to contend with. The clinic sits on the state line between Illinois and Missouri. And while it’s just a 10-minute drive over the Mississippi River from Granite City to St. Louis, the ideological distance between the cities is far greater when it comes to abortion law. On the Missouri side of the river, lawmakers take a dim view of abortion rights. The pro-choice group NARAL gives the state an F in its rankings, while Illinois gets a C+. “Illinois law is in every aspect and way better than Missouri,” says Pamela Sumners, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri. “That’s a pretty big river separating us.”

While Hope Clinic may be governed by Illinois’s more lenient laws, a large percentage of its patients come from Missouri for family planning and abortion services. So this summer, when the Missouri state legislature passed House Bill 1055, a law that Gov. Matt Blunt has called “one of the strongest pieces of pro-life legislation in Missouri’s history,” Hope Clinic began preparing for the possible ripple effects. As Hile explains it, should the new law pass constitutional muster—a decision that could be made within the next two months—it would likely leave the entire state of Missouri with one abortion clinic, at least for a time. And that could create an unmanageable influx of patients for Hope. “We’d be overwhelmed if we had to see not only the women who come to us now but many others,” says Hile.

The Missouri bill is not an outright ban on abortion but rather a regulation that financially squeezes practitioners who perform the procedure to the point where many will no longer be able to function. The bill reclassifies any facility that performs five or more abortions each month as a surgical outpatient center, meaning it must comply with a number of specifications for things like hallway widths and ceiling heights.

Pro-life groups hail the legislation as a way to protect women’s health—by ensuring that facilities are prepared to handle abortions, which are, after all, surgical procedures. “Women who seek abortions deserve to have the same level of surgical care,” says Pam Fichter, president of Missouri Right to Life. “To not give them that same basic level of care would be a great disservice to women who are seeking abortions.” The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Therese Sander, describes the regulation as an attempt to provide “the best possible service to women in crisis pregnancy no matter which way they choose go, whether life or abortion.”

But pro-life activists are also well aware of the potential fallout. “We certainly would not be brokenhearted” if access to abortion were limited, Fichter says, while reasserting that such a result “was not the original intention of the bill.”

Pro-choice advocates fear that is exactly what will happen. The cost of upgrading facilities would be so high, they argue, that abortion clinics would be forced to find significant new sources of funding—or shut their doors (A few things: 1) Wow, what a shock that a surgical procedure should be subjected to safety laws and regulations. 2) If the doors shut, I wouldn’t be brokenhearted. 3)If there was such a demand for abortion, shouldn’t there be funds to cover these renovations?). One Planned Parenthood administrator at a facility in Columbia, Mo., told the Los Angeles Times that the necessary upgrades would cost $1 million; the facility’s annual budget, the administrator said, is $780,000. The law could force the closure of two of Missouri’s three active abortion clinics. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, says that’s no accident. “I think they’re being totally disingenuous,” she says of the legislation’s supporters. “They’re trying to create this gantlet for women to go through and aren’t in the business of providing health care at all.” (well, if you’re going to kill a baby, I think you should have to jump through some hoops here.)

Hile, who has lobbied on abortion issues in both the Missouri and Illinois legislatures, believes this is the latest in a series of moves aimed at cutting access to abortion providers. “The crux of this whole issue right now is it’s not about Roe v. Wade and overturning it,” says Hile. The battle today is all about “limiting abortion care and making it more difficult for women to receive abortion care.” (abortion care??? Who, exactly, are we caring for here?)
Missouri is not the only state where anti-abortion activists are taking aim at access. In Minnesota, Mississippi and Texas, state regulations require women to undergo counseling prior to an abortion that includes information about a suspected link between abortion and breast cancer. The studies on the subject have been conflicting, however, and the National Cancer Institute concluded in 2003 that “induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.”

Should the Missouri bill pass, Hope Clinic expects to see its annual flow of more than 6,000 patients increase considerably. Already 40 percent of the women seeking abortions and family planning come from out of state, many from Missouri. Some go to Hope Clinic because of its proximity to St. Louis. But others seek out the Illinois facility specifically to avoid Missouri’s more stringent laws—which include a measure requiring women to undergo in-person counseling 24 hours before an abortion. That provision drove one young woman (her name has been withheld for privacy reasons) to cross the border recently. “In Missouri there was going to be a two-day process,” says her mother, who accompanied her daughter to Illinois for the procedure. Critics say the two-day toll is too much of an emotional burden for some women; (you know what? A two-day process before you kill your child does not sound unreasonable to me. For pete’s sake–a transplant eval takes 2-3 days. Nothing moves quickly medically, and something like an abortion certainly should not) others may not be able to afford to take that time off from work.

For now, opponents of the new measure are hoping it does not survive court scrutiny. When the bill passed this summer, Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of regulating abortion clinics as surgical outpatient centers. The federal judge hearing the case issued a temporary injunction, calling on the clinics and health department to negotiate the required upgrades. The injunction allows clinics to continue practicing for the time being but makes no guarantee about the future; a more definitive ruling is expected in about two months. If the provision remains in place, pro-choice advocates vow to try to take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court if need be.

One contentious aspect of the Missouri bill is already in place. Anyone who works at an abortion clinic, or at an organization that refers patients to abortion clinics, is now barred from teaching sexual education in Missouri public schools. Hile, who holds a master’s in sexual health, has spoken on condoms and safe sex at Oakville High School in St. Louis for 26 years. This year she won’t be able to return to Oakville, but educators who promote abstinence until marriage, like those supplied by Lutheran Family and Children’s Services of Missouri, are still allowed in the public schools of Missouri. The Lutheran agency believes the provision is necessary to prevent a conflict of interest. “They say they won’t talk about abortion, but once they get in the classroom, who knows?” says Christine Reams, the group’s director of community services. “It opens up too many doors having them there.” (The educator couldjust say, “we’re not covering that today,” or some other teacher evasive tactic. How many times, as a conservative student, did I hear things like that…)

At the end of the day, Hile wishes there weren’t a need for her clinic. (THERE ISN’T) “When women stop coming to us, we can find something else to do,” she says. But after 28 years of counseling dozens of women each day, she is not optimistic; increasingly restrictive legislation only gives her more reason to think that numbers will not be declining. “You need to have people who are certified and educated in the area and comfortable enough to answer student’s questions and answer them with respect and accuracy,” says Hile. Now that she can’t go to Missouri as an educator, she fears that even more women will be coming to her—after it’s too late. Only time will tell whether her fears are well founded.

Since October is the month of the Rosary, and Oct. 11 is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary (followed closely on Oct. 13 by the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, where her messages were focused quite closely on the Rosary and the importance of its recitation), my church has decided to have rosary said after each Mass during the month of October. We also going to try to do this in May.

I have gone to our 10:15 Mass, which is usually the best attended. The first week, I led the recitation, and about 10 people were there. Not too bad. I’m not sure how many were there last week. For this, I don’t think it’s the  quantity of people that’s important. It’s the fact that we’re doing it at all. It was nice to be saying the rosary in a group, and it felt like we were bathing the church in our rhythmic prayers, helping to prepare the sanctuary, as  it were, for the next Mass. We were seated near the tabernacle, which added to the feeling.

I try to say the rosary daily, and normally I say it silently and alone. Saying it communally was, however, something I grew up with; occasionally we would say the family rosary, and Dad was a big fan of saying a decade or so in the car on the way to school or church.  The rosary has permeated my life and it’s an important devotion for me.

On top of saying it after Mass, my faith sharing group (FSG) has also been saying it at the end of our meetings this month.

It has been said that the rosary is “the weapon.” It is one of the most powerful prayers we have. If you don’t say the rosary regularly, or not at all, this would be a good month to consider doing so. Mother Teresa once wrote that when she was having spiritual difficulty, she would pick up her rosary and say it slowly and deliberately, until the pain had passed or lessened. It is a great way to increase meditation and reflect more deeply on the life of Christ and His Mother. It makes us realize that they truly experienced every human emotion, and know what we are going through here on earth.

I seriously need to do a books/movies update, so here’s what you have to look forward to:

BOOKS

–Rediscovering Catholicsm

–Left to Tell

–The Choice

–The Gift

MOVIES

–Evening

–Knocked Up (Yes, it does belong on CPG–trust me!)

Excited yet? 

For those of you who love dessert, as I do, and/or those who want to expand their repetoire as the holidays approach, go here for a great cake recipe.

I swear, it is the Best, Most Lovely and Light Cake you will Ever Eat.

Is driving an SUV a sin?

I once heard a priest give a sermon to this effect. Apparently it’s a sin because we’re  warming the globe! Oh my gosh!

But it got better.

And the kicker–

We shouldn’t be “one issue voters.” Oh, what’s that one issue? Abortion! Geez, one of the things the Church is absolutely adamant about should not figure into our voting decisions! Perhaps he’d like to talk to, um, the Pope, the Magesterium, the USCCB??? hmmm? because I think I remember someone saying something about how abortion is one of those bright-line things–you cannot condone something that is inherently evil, which abortion always is.

Sorry, but a candidate’s environmentally policy is a far, far, far way down my list of priorities. I’d like to save the babies first.

Now I know we are to be good stewards of the Earth. But “thou shalt not pollute” is not one of the 10 Commandments. “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is.