September 6, 2005
Dear Friends,
First of all, may I ask you to alert your pro-life friends, if you haven't already done so, that I'll be preaching the daily masses on EWTN starting this Sunday, September 11, and continuing every day through Friday, September 16. If someone does not receive EWTN by television or radio, the mass homilies can be heard on the internet. We will post the link at www.priestsforlife.org
My newsletter for September-October is below. You will notice extensive quotes from the abortion industry. It is critical that we continue lifting the veil off of the violence of abortion. You and I may be used to hearing these descriptions; but the majority of Americans have never heard them, and most of those who do hear them are repulsed by them, and have enough of a conscience to oppose abortion. As I have always said,
abortion destroys itself. All we have to do is expose it. Please spread these descriptions far and wide.
And finally, we are getting these descriptions into the minds of churchgoers nationwide by urging pastors to use our bulletin insert, which we are offering free of charge in any quantity the parish wants. The insert can be viewed at www.priestsforlife.org/bulletin/index.htm. If your pastor wants us to send a quantity to him for the bulletin, he can order it at orders@priestsforlife.org (We need to know that the pastor has given permission before we send the requested quantity.)
Thank you for all you do for the cause of life. God bless you!
Fr. Frank Pavone
Priests for Life Newsletter
Volume 15, Number 5
September-October 2005
Clergy Email List
Dear Father/Deacon,
If you have an email address and want to hear from me to be updated more quickly about pastoral resources and pro-life developments, please send us your email address at clergy@priestsforlife.org ! Please include also your name and the state in which you reside. Your email will be kept confidential.
-- Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director
Free Bulletin Inserts for Your Parish!
"You Can Save Someone's Life Today" is a two-page (four-sided) bulletin
insert, revised and updated, that Priests for Life offers free of charge to any Church that wants to insert them in its bulletin. This is especially appropriate this Fall, as parishes observe Respect Life Sunday. The insert contains a) succinct and stunning facts about abortion; b) numbers people can call for alternatives to abortion and for healing after abortion; and c) concrete, practical things people can do to save lives. This insert has in fact changed many hearts and saved many lives across America! You can preview the insert at http://www.priestsforlife.org/brochures/youcan.html To order it, use the form on page 4!
Rhode Island Priest to Work Full Time for Priests for Life
Priests for Life is happy to announce that Fr. Giacomo Capoverdi, a priest of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, has been given permission by Bishop Thomas Tobin to work full-time with Priests for Life. "We are very grateful to Bishop Tobin for permitting Fr. Giacomo to do this national work," said Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, "and those to whom he will preach across the country will be grateful, too."
As an associate of Priests for Life, Fr. Capoverdi will equip his fellow priests nationwide to preach, counsel, and organize more effectively for pro-life activity. Among other things, he will promote post-abortion healing through Rachel's Vineyard, a ministry of Priests for Life, and will foster political responsibility among God's people, who are called to advance the protection of life by the way they vote.
Fr. Capoverdi said he is "very excited," about his new mission, and called abortion "the greatest travesty known to man…I want to do everything I can, using my priestly powers from Christ, to end abortion in America," he said.
Father Capoverdi attended Rhode Island College and achieved a degree in Politics with a minor in Philosophy. He was involved in Rhode Island State Politics, working for the Rhode Island House of Representatives and for two mayors of Providence.He studied at the Catholic University of America where he obtained a Masters degree in 1996. While in seminary, Father Capoverdi was the president of the Graduate Students For Life group. He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Robert E. Mulvee in 1997. He served for six years at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Bristol, Rhode Island, and then at St. Mark’s Church in Cranston.
Father Capoverdi hosted a radio show the first few years of his priesthood, which was aired on WRIB in Rhode Island. He currently hosts a television show "Let the Fire Fall," which is produced by the "North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation."
The fastest way to end abortion
What slows down the abortion debate is that people who think they are arguing about abortion are doing no such thing, because they have totally different ideas of what it is in the first place. Any debate about abortion -- or any other topic -- should begin by establishing agreement about what in fact is being debated. The topic should be defined by the facts, not merely by one's feelings or beliefs. In discussions about abortion, one rarely hears the words of those who actually perform the procedure, and write the textbooks that teach other doctors how to perform it.
We have provided some of those words for you below. Please share these words with as many people as you can reach. We are convinced that the fastest way to end abortion is simply to expose it.
While it is true, as we ourselves have said repeatedly, that many people know it is wrong but just don't care, the reason many still don't care is that they don't quite know how wrong it is. They imagine abortion to be a benign evil, and have never been shaken to their core by the descriptions or pictures of abortion. They have never allowed themselves to feel overwhelmed or angry about it; they have never wept over it or let their hearts be broken.
Of course, it is also true that all too many people hear the descriptions or see the pictures and still don't care. But the fact is that there are enough Americans who still have a functioning conscience. Because of that, when they hear the descriptions or see the pictures of abortion, they are horrified and are moved to do something to stop it. Our job is to get as many of these people to hear and see the truth about abortion as quickly as possible.
The quotes below are provided for just that purpose. The photos of abortion, the justification for using them, and numerous quotes from those converted by them, are likewise provided at
www.priestsforlife.org/images.
"The physician will usually first notice a quantity of amniotic fluid, followed by placenta and fetal parts, which may be more or less identifiable." (Warren Hern, Abortion Practice, p.114, in section on First Trimester Abortion).
"My official title ... was 'health worker.' I did various duties-lab work, leading groups ... and assisting the abortionist, which included helping during the abortion and checking to make sure all the parts of the baby were there in the collection jar afterwards. I will never forget, in the second-trimester abortions, holding those little feet up to a chart on the wall to make sure of the age of the baby." -(Dina Madsen, Testimony of an Abortion Provider.).
"The procedure changes significantly at 21 weeks because the fetal tissues become more cohesive and difficult to dismember. This problem is accentuated by the fact that the fetal pelvis may be as much as 5cm in width. The calvaria is no longer the principal problem; it can be collapsed. Other structures, such as the pelvis, present more difficulty ... A long curved Mayo scissors may be necessary to decapitate and dismember the fetus ..." (Warren Hern, Abortion Practice, p.134)
"...the surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents." (Dr. Martin Haskell, "Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion, Presented at the National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar, September 13, 1992, Dallas, Texas.)
The following passages are from court testimony, given under oath by abortionist Martin Haskell in May, 1999, United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, case Case No. 98-C-0305-S. He describes legal activity.
"Let's just say for instance we took a different view, a different tact and we left the leg in the uterus just to dismember it. Well, we'd probably have to dismember it at several different levels because we don't have firm control over it, so we would attack the lower part of the lower extremity first, remove, you know, possibly a foot, then the lower leg at the knee and then finally we get to the hip."
"When the abortion procedure is started we typically know that the fetus is still alive because either we can feel it move as we're making our initial grasps or if we're using some ultrasound visualization when we actually see a heartbeat as we're starting the procedure. It's not unusual at the start of D&E procedures that a limb is acquired first and that that limb is brought through the cervix and even out of the vagina prior to disarticulation and prior to anything having been done that would have caused the fetal demise up to that point."
"When you're doing a dismemberment D&E usually the last part to be removed is the skull itself and it's floating free inside the uterine cavity. It's not at all lodged or set in the lower uterine segment as the previous two descriptions that I've given. So it's rather like a ping-pong ball floating around and the surgeon is using his forcep to reach up to try to grasp something that's freely floating around and is quite large relative to the forcep we're using.So typically there's several misdirections, misattempts to grasp. Finally at some point either the instruments are managed to be placed around the skull or a nip is made out of some area of the skull that allows it to start to decompress. And then once that happens typically the skull is brought out in fragments rather than as a
unified piece, the result being that sharp bony edges of the skull are exposed and are drawn out unprotected through the cervix where they can lacerate or cause other injury or damage. The instrument themselves while you're attempting this grasping technique can also cause damage to the uterus as attempts are made to grab the, this free-floating skull."
"When we do a suction curettage abortion, you know, roughly one of three things is going to happen during the abortion. One would be is that the catheter as it approaches the fetus, you know, tears it and kills it at that instant inside the uterus. The second would be that the fetus is small enough and the catheter is large enough that the fetus passes through the catheter and either dies in transit as it's passing through the catheter or dies in the suction bottle after it's actually all the way out."
The power of images...
Photos like this on our website, at www.priestsforlife.org/images, bring
conversions every day, as illustrated by the following emails we received recently:
"I have been a pro abortion catholic... After seeing the pictures of what it exactly was, I nearly cried thinking I supported this awful murder. I ask Jesus my Christ to forgive my past way of thinking. I finally "get it." This is pure murder. I pray that more people will get to know what it is they are supporting."
"Hello, I am a sixteen-year-old female and I just finished looking at the pictures on your site and reading what actually happens during an abortion. Up until five minutes ago, I was extremely pro-choice. But within 3 minutes of viewing your website, my face was covered in tears. Those pictures just really hurt to look at. ... I cannot express how
grateful I am that you have shown me the truth about abortion. God bless you."
Bulletin announcements regarding our TV programs
Announcement 1: Learn the Church's teaching about the right to life, and find out what you can do to defend it. Watch Fr. Frank Pavone and his guests on "Defending Life" (airing on EWTN every Friday at 10pm and Wednesday at 5am, Eastern Time.) More information: www.PriestsForLife.org
Announcement 2: Learn what Christians believe about abortion, and what they are doing to stop it. Watch Fr. Frank Pavone and his guests on "Gospel of Life" (airing on Sky Angel's "Angel One" satellite every Monday at 3:30am ET, Tuesday at 2:00 am, Thursday at 8:30am ET, and Saturday at 7:30pm ET.) More information: www.PriestsForLife.org
Voter Registration -- All Year, Every Year
Good Christians are called to be good citizens. Being a citizen of heaven does not replace being a citizen of earth. Rather, we work out our salvation and sanctification precisely through the exercise of our earthly duties, including our civic duties.
And primary among our civic duties is the duty to vote. One of the tools we need to carry out that mission is to register to vote. The Church's role is not to set up or run the political parties. But the Church's role does include equipping the people with the tools they need to be good citizensof earth so that they can be citizens of heaven. Hence, Churches should register voters.
Now we normally hear about this only at election time. But we cannot afford to wait until then to try to get all of the unregistered believers registered. We are called to be proactive, not just reactive. There simply isn't enough time to do the kind of persuasion, education, and outreach needed to activate all believers if we only do it when a major election is on the horizon. Voter registration is an activity Churches should do all year long, every year. The call should go forth constantly: be vigilant, be ready, have your tools in hand. Let's not wait until registration deadlines surprise us, or people realize too late that because they have moved, they have to register in their new district.
And let us not tire of repeating the rather elementary legal principle that voter registration is an activity perfectly legal for Churches to perform, as long as it is non-partisan. In other words, we do not limit the opportunity to register only to people of a specific political party. Rather, we open the doors to everyone without regard for party affiliation. That's because the motive is not to promote a party, but rather to equip Christians to do the work for which the Spirit impels them.
All year long, every year, Churches can have voter registration forms available at the rectory, and regularly have tables at the back of Church to give people an easy opportunity to register. Mailings to parishioners can contain regular reminders about this. The parish website can have a link to www.VoterSunday.org, which enables people to download the registration forms from their own computer. That same website gives all the information you need to conduct voter registration in
Church or in a church-group meeting.
Don't wait! Let's register voters all year, every year!
Can you make a gift to enable us to send this newsletter to every priest in your diocese? Call Jerry at (718) 980-4400
Prayer Intentions
You are encouraged to remember the following intentions as you pray the Liturgy of the Hours:
September intention: That schools and universities teach the full truth about the abortion issue.October intention: For strong and effective pro-life homilies throughout the Church.
Our Latest Products
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From Fr. Frank Pavone
Moderators: johnmc, Johnna, MarieT