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Asterisk * Marks the Death: Mourning the Buried Tragedies in Illinois' Abortion Records

As Alabama becomes the fifth state to signed into law more protection for the 20-week-old unborn, Illinois faces accountability for a web of disinformation in its own books.

According to the Chicago Tribune, vague records, holes in reporting, and failed follow-up accountability has left much potentially life-saving information out of government records.

Among the findings: in 2009, about 7,000 abortion procedures were not reported to the state, and nearly 4,000 reports of abortion complications “were missing the required description."

According to Guttmacher—the pro-choice gold-standard institution for abortion statistics—just under 55,000 Illinois women had abortions in 2008.

Presuming the number of abortions was similar in 2009, that means about 7% of all IL abortions had complications with inadequate information provided. And those are just the cases without information about what kind of complications there were.

The new danger is that providing no information masks whether a case is malpractice or natural complications. Without facts, it’s impossible to correctly evaluate the real risk specific procedures pose to the pregnant woman. Without facts, it’s impossible to correctly evaluate the real risk specific doctors pose, as well.

The abortion industry is not a stranger to secrecy. Abortion providers have a high standards of privacy regarding abortion records, abortion referrals, and personal abortion history. One oft-state reason for this is to assuage fears about the stigma of particular pregnancies and/or of having an abortion.

In an age when even advertisements including the "small print" warnings, precisely because the decision is largely a personal, private, and protected decision, it seems all the more important that accurate information about the issue is made available—and readily available—to those who make the decision.

Sometimes too much information to the patient is a problem. As shown in Live Actions' recent undercover reporting, dozens of Planned Parenthood clinics around the country have employed individuals who have blurred the lines between privacy of the patient and endorsing illegal activity, giving tips on how patients can avoid getting their experiences of sex with a minor and even sex trafficking reported.  

But in Illinois, even regulation by the authorities has shown significant failures.

According to the Chicago Tribune, reporting “is the only tool Illinois authorities have to monitor some abortion providers, yet regulators may be allowing doctors and clinics to operate off the books. Regulators collect reports from 26 providers, but the abortion rights research group has identified 37 providers doing business in the state."

In other words, regulators didn't receive reports from nearly 30% of Illinois abortion providers.

In a strange comparison, it seems that, in serving the 1 in 3 women who have an abortion, 1 in 3 IL abortion providers abort government reporting.

Unreported complications - or even malpractice - isn’t a stranger to the state.

In 2008, as Illinois legislature became known as the arena where Obama cut his teeth on abortion laws (especially laws regarding “botched” abortion), Fort Wayne obstetrician-gynecologist Geoffrey Cly struggled with the issue from the other side: administering to victims of shoddy abortionists.

At least three of his patients suffered from complications from abortions, including one woman who had to have her uterus removed due to a series of complications from the incomplete removal of tissue—a procedure that would not have been made necessary if the abortion was “properly” performed or followed up on.

Dr. Cly then pushed the country to step up its requirements for abortion providers which could “subject unaffiliated doctors to greater peer review and follow-up.”

It’s said that 4-weeks in the womb, the baby is the size of a period at the end of sentence. In Illinois, an abortion-related death is recorded a little bigger than that...but not by much. According to another article in the Tribune, in those state records, anything under 51 is not accounted for with a number. Thus, since reported abortion-related deaths number below 51, it is simply marked with an asterisk.

So while some would see the asterisk as a badge of honor—i.e. fewer than 50 incidents—each hidden statistic hides a story.

One of the women “numbered’ by the symbolic asterisk, was wife of Maurice Stevenson who died of a blood infection after a Planned Parenthood abortion. The organization could not confirmed whether her death was reported. The 2002 records were “in storage.”

Also according to the Tribune, a couple organizations could not confirm that whether other recent abortion-related deaths—2009, 2008, 2000, 1999, and 1998—were properly recorded or not.

From a statistician’s point of view, it’s an understandable—and common practice—not to give an official headcount for groups making up a small percentage of the whole. Even if the abortion-related death slot were maxed out—with 50 abortion-related deaths of the mother in that year—it would be 1 death for a little over 1,000 abortions.

But from a human point of view—and taking into account that Illinois has significant underreporting of complications—a little more detail could convey a world of meaning. 

It might even bring a little more moral accountability to a practice that a majority of Americans - by a 12-point margin - call “immoral.”

-Maureen Walther

No kidding!

Another reason involved fathers help kids, of course, is that families often function better when two parents are working as a team to give children what they need, supporting each other's efforts.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal -- "The Secret of Dads' Success: How Fathers' Teasing, Tickling, Wrestling Teach Kids to Whine Less and Be More Independent."

-- Elizabeth Hansen

What's a Christian to do about Ayn Rand?

Two months after the release of Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 in theaters, discussion and debate over Ayn Rand, Objectivism and the philosopher-novelist's disdain for altruism and Christianity continues, including a column on First Things' website last Wednesday that pulled no punches in arguing why the philosophy espoused by Rand's fictional heroes is incompatible with Christianity.

"Rand's doctines are Satanic," writes Joe Carter -- and he means that literally, with the rest of his piece, "The Fountainhead of Satanism," describing how the founder of the modern day Church of Satan -- Anton LeVay, who also penned The Satanic Bible -- openly credited Rand as his inspiration. Carter writes:

Perhaps most are unaware of the connection, though LaVey wasn’t shy about admitting his debt to his inspiration. “I give people Ayn Rand with trappings,” he once told the Washington Post. On another occasion he acknowledged that his brand of Satanism was “just Ayn Rand’s philosophy with ceremony and ritual added.” Indeed, the influence is so apparent that LaVey has been accused of plagiarizing part of his “Nine Satanic Statements” from the John Galt speech in Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Devotees of Rand may object to my outlining the association between the two. They will say I am proposing “guilt by association,” a form of the ad hominem fallacy. But I am not attacking Rand for the overlap of her views with LaVey’s; I am saying that, at their core, they are the same philosophy. LaVey was able to recognize what many conservatives fail to see: Rand’s doctrines are satanic.

I realize that even to invoke that infernal word conjures images of black masses, human sacrifices, and record needles broken trying to play “Stairway to Heaven” backwards. But satanism is more banal and more attractive than the parody created by LeVay. Real satanism has been around since the beginning of history, selling an appealing message: Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.

Hyperbolic or a fair assessment of the roots and reach of Objectivism?

Striking a more tempered note -- though no more forgiving of Rand's many flaws, both personal and philosophical -- is an article by Fr. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute, posted on Patheos.com the day after Carter's ran on First Things.

"Who Really Was John Galt, Anyway?" Fr. Sirico asks, referring to the iconic hero of Atlas Shrugged whose climactic speech championing the individual and railing against collectivism was considered by Rand herself as the most concise summary of her philosophy. Fr. Sirico writes:

There is in Rand an undeniable and passionate quest, a hunger for truth, for the ideal, for morality, for a just ordering of the world. She is indeed frequently adolescent in this quest, yet this may be just what appeals to so many idealistic young people who read her before reading the Tradition in depth.

One of the most famous opening lines in literature is the question she poses and uses as a device throughout Atlas, a question now on display at Tea Party rallies: "Who is John Galt?" The answer is not immediately given in the book; it (he) remains mysterious throughout much of the novel. Yet it inexorably emerges: Galt is for Rand the ideal man—the Man of the Mind (the logos); the One upon whom the world and its creative capacity depend. He is, in a real sense for Rand, the God-Man.

 "I disagree profoundly with Rand; her attenuated definition of faith as unreason and her notion of sacrifice as wholly lacking dignity are unrecognizable to a Christian," he continues toward the end of the piece. He goes on, however, to quote G.K. Chesterton: "Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God."

"...[T]here is in each heart an innate human thirst for beauty and Truth," Fr. Sirico concludes. "The question Rand poses at the outset of Atlas Shrugged reveals more of this sad woman than I think even she realized. One can only pray that in the infinite mercy of the God in whom she did not believe, that Rand in the end may actually have found out who John Galt really is."

Despite their different tones, are Carter and Fr. Sirico essentially pointing out the same theme in Rand's work? In articulating her philosophy of radical individualism, and in exalting John Galt as Objectivism's Christ-figure in the world of Atlas Shrugged, Rand's grasp for truth devolved into an ideology that exalts  -- demands, really -- each person's self-interest in all realms of life, from morality to economics. In her revolt from the Socialism of her Russian homeland, Rand rejected one godless ideology, but for what? Another cold system, one that supplanted mercy and compassion with self-interest? Doing away with God, man's reason and self-determination take His place; in place of the God who gave His life for man is a man who rises above the collectivist masses by embodying Rand's Objectivism and declaring, "I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

Her system -- like any other ideology -- is a narrow prism through which to view the world in an attempt to make sense of it. And like any other prescription for happiness, freedom and fulfillment crafted by human hands, it will fall short. There is only one Ideal Man whose "life was the light of the human race," and no charismatic businessman, economic system, philosophy -- or fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil -- can take His place.  

-- Elizabeth Hansen

"Jane Roe" plays cameo in one of two upcoming movies on the theme of abortion

According to the LA Times—the newspaper of the movie capital of the U.S.—“Two movies with anti-abortion messages seek distribution.” And if the pre-distribution news is correct, they take very different approaches.

Both of them - at least to those "in the know" - carry clear off-screen indications that the movies are intended to strike a cord with those involved in the abortion debate.

As the LA Times notes, one of the movies - "Dooby" - includes a cameo appearance by Norma McCorvey (better known as "Jane Roe" of Roe vs. Wade, and who is now pro-life) plays a pro-life cameo. In fact, the movie is set in her hometown. The other movie - "Life Zone" is by a director (and republican candidate for NJ house) Ken Del Vecchio, who sees his movie as a clear message piece again abortion.

With neither in the theaters yet, it's difficult to tell what they're like. And the biggest question...will they get a distribution deal and actually make it to the theaters? But here's what's known so far:

“Life Zone”

Director: Kenneth Del Vecchio

Genre: horror-flick-meets-morality-tale — with a very supernatural twist at the end.

Plot: Three women go in for abortions, and wake up in unreal predicament. They appear to have been abducted from the abortion table, and are being kept in a different facility until they give birth. Kept by a repulsive, overbearing, video-conferencing jailer, and attended by a female doctor, they undergo a seven-month “think-tank” regarding the facts and morality of abortion.

Interesting because…: the situation is a picture-perfect pro-choice nightmare—women forced to carry to term. (I kept rereading the LATimes title doubtfully - is this really an anti-abortion movie?) It takes a natural process—pregnancy and giving birth—and puts it in an unnatural context: forced dependency (actually, much like the “forced dependency” of an unborn child). As one character notes, the only way anyone is getting out alive is by giving birth. But then there’s a twist—is this real life, or the afterlife?

My hunch: is that it is one of the most clever plots to take abortion head-on. But does it go too far in moralizing al Dante at the end? Leading to the question: Is there a “wrong way” to do an anti-abortion movie?

 

“Dooby”

Director: Peter Mackenzie

Genre: Small-town mystery

Plot: A mysterious drifter (John Schneider) “quickly makes himself indispensable to a small Texas town. The secret of Doonby’s past lies in the only person in town he doesn’t like — a gynecologist named Dr. Cyrus Reaper (Martin Sheen’s brother Joe Estevez).” (LATimes summary)

Interesting because…: Besides choosing "Jane Roe" connections, another interesting choice is that it approaches the male-view of abortion as a mystery. While you read about people having abortions  to “cover up” that they were pregnant or sexually active, abortions are often even more hidden  in the lives of men. As one website says, “Men are hidden partners in every abortion decision.” Not in the room, often not even part of the decision, it leaves so many questions, many elements of mystery to unravel—mysteries that cannot be solved.  For some men, there are so  It’s a mystery who they might have been if their child lived, how they got to be “that man” who encouraged an abortion or couldn’t provide enough for his girlfriend/wife to feel comfortable having their child, or couldn’t protect his kid for more than a trimester. Moreover, these become cold-case mysteries in the hands of another man—the abortion doctor. And since men often struggle with emotions on their own rather than “talking it through” with another person...is this a sort of cultural, theraputic self-reflection?  

My hunch: is that it’ll be well-crafted, an interesting combination of subtle and punchy (literally), telling a story with abortion, rather than being an “abortion movie”—and offer a masculine view of abortion regret/memory/intrigue rarely explored in Hollywood. It’ll be interesting.

-Maureen Walther

'Islands of Plenty'

This month's issue of Columbia features an article by Stephen Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, on the theory of overpopulation and its alleged impact on economic prosperity. Mosher focuses specifically on the Philippines, where proposed legislation seeks to implement government-funded "family planning services" (including contraception and an encouraged two-child policy), and notes that, despite UN leaders' insistence on the soundness of China's one-child policy, all is not well in nations where abortions or sterilizations are routinely mandated in the name of population control. To make matters worse, often these practices come via the generosity of foreign governments (including the United States):

It would be bad enough if it were just a matter of China denying one-fifth of the world's families the right to have children. But the excessive use of force in the pursuit of a population control agenda extends to numerous developing countries around the world.

To give just a few examples: Women in Indonesia have been apprehended at gunpoint by the military for mandatory sterilizations; hundreds of thousands of Native Americans have been pressured by the Peruvian government to accept tubal ligations; and government-run hospitals in Mexico routinely sterilize women after they give birth — with or without their consent.

This is the sort of thing that happens when, in Pope Benedict's words, "development aid is sometimes linked to specific health-care policies which de facto involve the imposition of strong birth control measures" (28). In other words, when we use foreign aid as a carrot to get governments to act, all too often they turn around and use the stick on their own people. Given the long and dismal catalog of abuses, it is unlikely that a birth control program can be both government-run and non-coercive, especially in the context of a developing country.

-- Elizabeth Hansen

 

Media and Religion

Religious faith is the driving force for so many individuals who in turn impact society on multiple levels. That begs the question: Why do the media have a tendency to ignore the religious angles in major news stories, or as happens all too often, simply get the faith-based story wrong? This week the Deseret News published an intriguing article exploring this very question. 

The piece makes it clear that one of the biggest areas for improvement in the media’s coverage of religions lies in the education of the journalists covering these issues. Michael Cromartie, Vice President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, explains:

“The simple reason the press is this way is that they’ve all gone to universities where the secularist mindset is the norm. It’s a higher education problem. They’ve been incubated in a world where religion is seen as a phenomenon of the past.”

Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, agreed with that sentiment, pointing out that many journalists were educated at a time when religion was being ignored in university curriculum. In the 1970s, thanks in a large part to the “secularization thesis” that grew out of the 1960s, many academics came to the conclusion that religion would become increasingly marginalized in public life. However, that mode of thinking failed to materialize, and increasingly today publishers and newsroom editors are realizing that faith and religion are key components of the news cycle.

Rob Wallace, an ABC News Producer who has broken the mold by creating several popular programs on religious faith, explained the thinking in many newsrooms: “We don’t focus on the religious elements in many stories because we are in the business of reporting facts and known events rather than concepts based on faith….I think there is a huge group that is interested in this sort of thing, and I think big media doesn’t serve that group.”

I recall once participating in a round-table debate on media and religion. One speaker, a religious publisher, pointed out that millions of Americans attend religious services on the weekend, far more than those who attend professional sporting events. Why is there no faith insert, akin to a sports page, on Monday morning, he asked? Another speaker, a nationally syndicated columnist, countered humorously, saying, “When people are talking around the water cooler at work, they will talk about the big home run or the come-from-behind win, not the virgin birth.” Perhaps both men had a fair point. Faith is a far more subtle and nuanced topic than reading a box score, but it cannot be ignored due to ignorance or blatant disregard.

--David Naglieri

The Christian Way of Being Present in the Digital World

“We are living through a period of vast cultural transformation,” writes the Holy Father in his message for the 45th World Communications Day. The digital age has changed not only the way we communicate but the way in which we think about communications. But along with these unprecedented opportunities there come risks which, according to Pope Benedict, demand “a serious reflection on the significance of communication in the digital age.”

He reminds the faithful that communications technologies “must be placed at the service of the integral good of the individual and of the whole of humanity.” When we forget this end goal, we lose sight of the limits of the web: namely, the one-sidedness of our interactions; our tendency to communicate only some parts of our interior world; the risk of constructing a false image of ourselves – which can become a form of self-indulgence – and the risk of replacing direct human contact with virtual contact.

The Holy Father outlines a series of questions to reflect on as we assess how and for what purpose we engage in the digital world:

-Does the danger exist that I may be less present to those whom I encounter in my everyday life?

-Is there a risk of my being more distracted because my attention is fragmented and absorbed in a world “other” than the one in which I live?

-Do I have time to reflect critically on my choices and foster human relationships which are truly deep and lasting?

In the second part of his message, Pope Benedict focuses on the dynamic inherent in social networking in which a person cannot separate themselves from what he or she disseminates on the web. “When people exchange information, they are already sharing themselves, their view of the world, their hopes, their ideals,” writes the Pope. “It follows that there exists a Christian way of being present in the digital world: this takes the form of a communication which is honest and open, responsible and respectful of others.”

He explains: “To proclaim the Gospel through the new media means not only to insert expressly religious content into different media platforms, but also to witness consistently, in one’s own digital profile and in the way one communicates choices, preferences and judgments that are fully consistent with the Gospel, even when it is not spoken of specifically.”

Pope Benedict strongly asserts that in our day-to-day digital interactions, we must always remain aware that our deepest desire as Christians is to share the truth, a truth which “does not derive its worth from its ‘popularity’ or from the amount of attention it receives.” We must make it known in its integrity, without changing or diluting it to make it more acceptable in the eyes of others.

He concludes his message with an invitation for all Christians to join the network of relationships made possible by the digital era and, in doing so, continue to bear witness to their most profound convictions. Such a witness, he says, will help prevent the web from becoming an instrument which depersonalizes people, attempts to manipulate them emotionally or monopolize their opinions.

"On the contrary," he writes, “believers encourage everyone to keep alive the eternal human questions which testify to our desire for transcendence and our longing for authentic forms of life, truly worthy of being lived.”

Michèle Nuzzo-Naglieri

A Tale of Two Sheens - Are Charlie and Fulton really that different?

The past couple months, the lives of two famous TV personalities have entered the moral spotlight.

First, actor and self-proclaimed “warlock” Charlie Sheen came under cultural—and legal—scrutiny after a series of unplugged, uncensored diatribes…costing him his role in “Two and Half Men” now filled by Ashton Kutcher.

Then this month another Sheen—Servant of God, Archbishop Fulton Sheen—made the news when the documents of his Cause for Sainthood were received by Pope Benedict, thereby submitting his life for scrutiny by the Congregation for Causes of Saints.

Putting the playboy and the priest on the same scale may seem like little more than a crude joke.

But is it really too much to look for common ground—not only in their names, but in their lives?

Pope Benedict offers this, in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate: “All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person.”

It must be possible to find in two men—or even two and half men—that vocation of love and truth found in “all people.” As part of the same human family, one can only be so different.

Granted, Fulton Sheen’s famous quote, “It takes three to make love,” may make Charlie Sheen think of something entirely different than a triune, God-centered marriage.  However, beneath Charlie’s assessment of his love life—that dating two “Goddesses” at the same time is a sign that he is “winning”—is the idea that his “love life” is an integral part of his identity.

For both men, there is the expectation of extraordinary, larger-than-life love. For Fulton, that expectation is fulfilled in God’s love—a love that is sacramental, sacrificial, unfailing, healing, challenging, and everlasting. Even in Charlie’s case, there’s the expectation that someone—even if it’s the other person in the relationship—“seeks the good of the beloved…is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice.” (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §6).

The difference is the type of love—something Fulton laid out clearly: “Love exists on three different levels: the sex level, the friendship-love, and the sacramental.” His description of the first type sadly matches an all-too-familiar tabloid story: “Because it cares only for its own rapture and its own fulfillment, such love (sex-love) quickly turns to hate when no longer satisfied.”

Each in his own way, both Sheens tried to prove that “Life is worth living”—or at least my life is worth living. Each in his own way tried to live with freedom, and proclaim the truth.

In the 1950s, Americans saw in Fulton Sheen an unconventional, countercultural, straight-talking archbishop who declared there is truth and untruth, and who promised a free, happy life could be lived (life with Christ). As the Fulton Sheen website notes, “When it came to authoritative moral teaching, Catholics and non-Catholics alike listened to Fulton Sheen because he was someone they could trust to ‘tell it like it is.’”

Likewise, Charlie’s unplugged tirades may be entertaining—but he would not have been nearly as popularized had he not crossed the lines he did (becoming downright offensive). For audiences, part of his allure is that he’s had the guts to exit the PC and PR safe-zones. This attitude of “freedom from fear” of speaking out led him to launch his “Violent Torpedo of Truth” tour.

But who we popularize says a lot about the culture—and us. Why Fulton then? Why Charlie now?

If Fulton were here today, he might remind us of his words in the 1950s about freedom:  “A proof that we are in danger of losing [freedom], is that everyone is talking about it. … Slaves talk most about freedom; the oppressed talk most about justice; the hungry talk most about food.”

Have we progressed to the point of not recognizing genuine freedom when we see it? We crave expressions of love and truth, but in all the hype over Charlie's antics, we can only gape upon and mock his sad illusions of the two.

Now, one Sheen’s audience ridicules when given the chance and moves on; the other wants to elevate him to sainthood, because he has enriched their lives, always pointing to Someone greater than himself. 

Interestingly, as James Breig noted at FathersForGood, it’s Fulton Sheen’s fault that Charlie has the name “Sheen” at all; Charlie’s father, Martin (who returned committedly to the Faith), took the stage-name “Sheen” out of admiration for the archbishop.

But as hard as it is be scrutinized in the public eye when you’re alive, just imagine what it’s like after you’re dead—and cannot change, apologize, or improve your life. So for Charlie and for us, it’s a comfort that as long as there’s life, God’s love and truth never abandon us completely. There’s always an opportunity for grace, drawing us to God through a life of authentic love and truth.

And that is the real role of a lifetime, that no one—not even Ashton Kutcher—can replace.

-Maureen Walther

'A concrete answer to the moment of crisis in Christian life'

This week marked the conclusion of the first meeting of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. On Monday, Pope Benedict XVI, who announced the formation of the council last summer, addressed the meeting's participants at the Vatican.

From the beginning of his ministry as the Successor of Peter, Pope Benedict has articulately described the situation the Church finds herself in today: standing against the "dictatorship of relativism," as he put it in his homily to the conclave of cardinals just before being elected pope.

That said, the actual theme of his remarks this week -- that there is a grave need of a "new evangelization" from the Church that can creatively approach the unique and specific challenges of secular modernity -- is not new to his pontificate, nor to John Paul II's before him. His insights into the problems posed by that culture  -- and how the Church can effectively evangelize in such an environment -- are fascinating, though, and will truly be a hallmark of his legacy. In particular, two aspects of his address struck me:

The crisis being experienced bears in itself traces of the exclusion of God from people's lives, of a generalized indifference toward the Christian faith itself, to the point of attempting to marginalize it from public life. In past decades it was still possible to discover a general Christian sense that unified the common feeling of whole generations, growing up in the shadow of the faith that had molded the culture.

Today, unfortunately, we are witnessing the drama of a fragmentation that no longer consents to a unified point of reference; moreover, we often see the phenomenon of persons who wish to belong to the Church, but are strongly molded by a vision of life that opposes the faith.

That "phenomenom" reminds me of any poll or study of religiosity among young adults, specifically ones that show youths' clear preference for considering themselves "spiritual, but not religious." Young adults strongly believe in life after death, heaven, hell, even miracles -- but they balk at the concept of any one religion holding the fullness of truth about those very things.  Last year, a Knights of Columbus-Marist poll dug deeper into the beliefs and motivations of Catholic Millennials in particular, and found that while a majority of them believe in God; value marriage, family and concern for the poor; stand with the Church's teachings on several moral issues (includng abortion); and even want to know more about their faith, in some ways they are even more relativistic than the rest of the culture. (Six in 10 think it's okay to practice more than one religion, nearly two in three consider themselves more "spiritual" than "religious," and a whopping 80% believe morals are relative).  As an example of how this plays out in social issues, the same age cohort that names committment to marriage as being one of the most unappreciated values in society is also leading the pack among Americans who believe same-sex marriage should be legal. How do we reach them? How do we convince young adults that the faith they're looking for -- the fulfillment they long to grasp -- is offered by Christ in the Catholic Church?

The second line that struck me occurred toward the end of his address:

Even in one who remains linked to his Christian roots, but lives the difficult relationship with modernity, it is important to make it understood that being Christian is not a sort of uniform to wear in private or on particular occasions, but is something alive and all-encompassing, able to take up all that is good in modernity.

While acknowledging the Christian's "difficult relationship" with a secular, modern culture, Pope Benedict is not calling for a retreat into a Catholic ghetto, sequestered from the rest of the world; nor an all-out assailment of the world around us. The new evangelization is about dialogue, not angry or fear-filled defensiveness -- it's about the ability "to take up all that is good in modernity" and use it to point to the fullness of truth found in Christ, while staying grounded in the wisdom of the Church.

More than ever, we need "a concrete answer to the moment of crisis in Christian life." The Holy Father is reminding us that it is the task of all believers to participate in the new evangelization, living our lives so as to be credible witnesses of the Gospel.

-- Elizabeth Hansen

Defending a Memorial Day Prayer

As our nation prepares Memorial Day observations from coast to coast, one Houston pastor is celebrating a court victory that will allow him to utter ‘Jesus Christ” in a Memorial Day invocation.
Rev. Scott Rainey, lead pastor at the Living Word Church of the Nazarene, was informed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, that a prayer he had prepared for a public observation of Memorial Day needed to be edited because of his use of Jesus’ name. Rainey’s prayer included a recitation of the Lord's Prayer and closes with one reference to Jesus. It was to be delivered at the Houston National Cemetery.

Rainey appealed for a restraining order that would allow the prayer to go forward as planned. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes sided with Rainey. Hughes issued the restraining order, providing this justification:

"The government cannot gag citizens when it says it is in the interest of national security, and it cannot do it in some bureaucrat's notion of cultural homogeneity...the right to free expression ranges from the dignity of Abraham Lincoln's speeches to Charlie Sheen's rants."

Our nation’s cemeteries are filled with rows upon rows of crosses that pay tribute to fallen heroes. It is only just that Christ’s name, forever linked to the cross and the virtue of sacrifice, can be safely proclaimed on a day when we commemorate those who gave their lives for us.

--David Naglieri