Friends,

You are invited to join me by phone and/or internet on Wednesday, June 25 from 9 to 10pm Eastern Time for a teleconference that will inspire and equip you to make a difference in this year’s national elections, and to awaken the conscience of Americans about abortion.

We will discuss and launch the special project called “Is This What You Mean?”, that has already educated hundreds of thousands of Americans and has challenged pro-abortion politicians.

We will give you practical tools to use at the local level to advance the Culture of Life in this election in proven ways!

You won’t want to miss this opportunity and we don’t want to miss out on having you participate!

Once you sign up at www.priestsforlife.org/conferencecall/index.aspx, we will send you details on what number to dial for the call, and how to also listen over the internet, where we will guide you to specific documents and templates that will help you understand and implement these activities!

God bless you, and I look forward to talking with you on the 25th at 9pm ET!

Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director

As the election season intensifies, we all have an important duty and opportunity to inform one another about the candidates. One of the best places for news about candidate statements on life issues is www.lifenews.com. My friend Steve Ertelt does a good job of providing news coverage and commentary on what the candidates are saying and doing about abortion.

We will be providing guidance also at our election website, www.politicalresponsibility.org.

The Church, too, in her various parishes and schools, and vehicles of communication, has a marvelous opportunity to inform voters about where candidates stand on key issues. Unfortunately, most of these Church institutions do no such thing. Either they are not aware that they can do so legally, or they are advised not to do so, “just to be careful.”

Voter education material, if distributed by Churches, has to be provided in a non-partisan manner. There is plenty of guidance on how to do that, and we reference some of the sources at www.politicalresponsibility.org/.

But let me ask a question about this exaggerated need to “be careful.”

About what do we have to be more careful, preserving our institutions from legal entanglements or preserving our nation from total moral collapse?

Even if the danger on the part of our institutions were to risk losing their tax-exempt status – which, by the way, is not at all the danger – then that would still not measure up to what we risk losing in the cultural battles that will be impacted by this election.

Yet what we often see is a willingness to do nothing to alert our people to the candidates’ positions, just so that no questions will be asked, no challenges made, no inquiries conducted about whether we were good boys and girls in the eyes of the IRS.

Can we please end this silliness and get down to fulfilling our serious duty to sound the trumpet and equip  the Christian people with clear knowledge, so that they can go into battle and change this nation for the better?

Blessings,

Fr. Frank

With the primaries now behind us, the general election season is underway. As we have done in the past, and as we do all year long, Priests for Life will again be very vocal in the coming months about the responsibilities we all have “to participate in building the culture of life” (US Bishops, Living the Gospel of Life, n.34).

The voters will hear from us, the candidates will hear from us, and the message will be clear: “The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue among many. It must always be opposed” (US Bishops, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, n.28).

At the outset of this general election battle, we have some questions for several groups of people:

1. To candidates whose position is that abortion should remain legal, we offer the following quotes from abortionists, medical textbooks, and court documents, and we ask, “When you say the word abortion, is this what you mean?”

“[T]ypically the skull is brought out in fragments rather than as a unified piece…” (Sworn testimony given in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, May 27, 1999, Case No. 98-C-0305-S), by Dr. Martin Haskell, an abortionist. He describes legal activity.)

“A long curved Mayo scissors may be necessary to decapitate and dismember the fetus…” (From the medical textbook Abortion Practice – Dr. Warren Hern, p.154, describing legal activity.)

“For example, a leg might be ripped off the fetus as it is pulled through the cervix and out of the woman. The process of evacuating the fetus piece by piece continues until it has been completely re-moved.”  (US Supreme Court, Gonzales vs. Carhart, 2007, describing legal activity).

“Question: Can the heart of a fetus or embryo still be beating during a suction curettage abortion as the fetus or embryo comes down the cannula?  Answer: For a few seconds to a minute, yes.” (Sworn testimony given in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, May 27, 1999, Case No. 98-C-0305-S), by Dr. Harlan Raymond Giles, an abortionist. He describes legal activity.)

2. To candidates who oppose abortion, we do not merely want to hear that you believe it is wrong. Rather, we ask, “What specifically will you do to advance the protection of children threatened by the violence of abortion?”

3. To voters who do not consider the political process helpful, or who are not enthusiastic about the candidates, we ask, “When you are troubled by the outcome of the election, or by the laws passed and court decisions issued by public officials who should not be in office in the first place, whose responsibility will that be?”

4. To those outside the Church who think the Church should keep her mouth shut about political matters, we ask, “Since when do you get to decide which citizens should have more of a voice in the public process than other citizens?”

5. To those inside the Church who are so cautious about political matters that they don’t take any risk or initiative on anything related to elections, we ask, “When a party that is committed to closing your Churches rises to power, can we come back to you then and count on you to say something? Exactly how bad do things have to get in order for you to find your courage?”

Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, pointed to the statement of Pope John Paul II in the “Gospel of Life” which states that when a state makes abortion legal, “the disintegration of the State itself has already begun” (n. 20). “That sounds like more than just a single issue to me,” Fr. Pavone stated, “and our organization doesn’t intend to sit on the sidelines and watch it happen.”

Fr. Pavone will announce, in the coming weeks, a series of conference calls and web seminars that will enable interested citizens to engage the political process to advance the culture of life. To sign up to receive such announcements, visit www.PoliticalResponsibility.org.

Fr. Frank

To say that only Christ in and through His Church can ultimately conquer abortion is not a pious platitude, nor is it a fancy way of saying, “Jesus, help us fight abortion.” Nor is it an elitist way of excluding from the cause of life those who have different religious affiliations.

Rather, it is to say something about the very nature of Christ and the Church, and about the reasons why abortion and contraception, which are fruits of the same tree, continue as they do.

There are many ways to express the purpose of Christ’s mission in the world. St. John in his first letter sums it up by saying, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (I John 3:8). What “works of the devil” does Christ destroy? Christ Himself tells us that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). In the same breath, Our Lord calls the devil a liar and a murderer. Lies and murder go together.

The only way abortion can continue on such a horrible scale is for it to be covered in lies, sugarcoated with denials and distortions of truth. Among the lies that have sustained abortion are the ideas that the unborn baby is not really a baby, that abortion is good for women, and that we can deprive the unborn of protection but keep it for ourselves.

Christ has come to destroy the works of the devil. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). He is the Way to salvation precisely because He is the Truth, shattering the devil’s lies, and because He is the Life, undoing the devil’s work of death.

When we take a pro-life stance, we will be fighting the devil, like it or not. Although his kingdom has been defeated and his power is limited, he still “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The devil will try to discourage and distract us. His favorite approach with good people is not to tempt them to do wicked things, but to tempt them to do good things, which, while good in themselves, distract us from the necessary things.

In fighting the devil, we should never address him directly. Leave that to Jesus. Rather, pray to the Lord to rebuke the devil. Be immersed in God’s Word, because it is “the sword of the Spirit” (Eph. 6:17).

Be close to the Mother of God. Because she gave birth to Christ, there is nobody besides Christ that the devil hates more. Precisely because of her unique closeness to Jesus, we should be close to her, especially through the Rosary. Take refuge in the sacraments, especially Penance and the Eucharist, for there we encounter the only Savior, Jesus Christ.

Fr. Frank Pavone, M.E.V.

Friends,

As of this morning, over 105,000 people have watched the You Tube video that I posted last month describing the D and E dismemberment abortion procedure.

Last night, I posted a new video talking about the prostaglandin method of abortion, which induces delivery. See it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDj12ffvpgY.

After I briefly describe it (including the technique of killing the baby before induction via a needle to the heart), I have one of our medical advisors, Dr. Byron Calhoun, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, examine two babies who died by this procedure.

The bodies of the babies are intact, and were entrusted to us for burial. They show the bruise marks from the violent contractions. And the video ends in a powerful way as I bless the bodies and close the lid of the casket.

Take a look, spread the video around, and let me know what you think.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDj12ffvpgY

Blessings!

Fr. Frank Pavone

Friends,

I was recently talking with one of our medical advisors who is a psychiatrist, and he was pointing out how we in the pro-life movement often think that when people are upset by seeing photos of aborted babies, or are traumatized by taking part in abortion, that there is somehow a better or more ideal reaction.

In reality, the normal human reaction to the violent killing of a child of its own species should indeed by upset and trauma. That is a sign that we are in touch with reality.

What’s far more troubling is when people see abortion – or even have one – and act like it’s “no big deal.” That is unhealthy, out of touch with reality, and downright dangerous.

For them, indeed, we must pray.

Fr. Frank

Friends,

I hope you have been tuning in to my You Tube channel (www.YouTube.com/frfrankpavone) and helping me spread far and wide the two videos I made depicting the two most common abortion procedures. We want to be able to generate news stories from the fact that these videos get a lot of viewers, so that we can spread, through the power of mass media, the reality of what abortion is, and challenge pro-abortion politicians to admit what they are talking about when they say “abortion.”

Two things that are amazing once videos like this are posted are a) the impact they have on people, as reflected in comments like, “I never knew how horrible abortion really was - we have to work to stop it”, and b) the ways that some people, who don’t want to admit this, will try all sorts of rationalizations to avoid the uncomfortable truth of the matter, as reflected in the question that one person asked me, “Are you a board certified OB-GYN?”

The implication of that question is twofold, equally false in both aspects: a) that you have to be an OB-GYN to understand how an abortion is done, and b) that abortionists are board-certified OB-GYNs.

To understand how abortions are done, you only have to be able to read. The abortionists describe it pretty clearly in their medical textbooks (like Warren Hern’s Abortion Practice) and in court testimony, and that is what we quote when explaining it.

Moreover, the law does not require an abortionist to be an OB-GYN in order to do abortions. In fact, abortionists are the lowest rung of the ladder in the medical community, and often end up doing abortions precisely because they can’t do anything else. Read the book Lime 5 to learn more about that!

Please urge people to watch the abortion videos at www.YouTube.com/frfrankpavone.

Blessings!

Fr. Frank

On Saturday, May 3, a funeral is scheduled in Michigan.  Bishop John Quinn of Detroit will offer the Mass for twenty-five babies who were murdered in nearby abortion mills, and their burial will follow. The bodies of these babies were retrieved in February and March from the garbage dumpsters behind “Woman Care” abortion mills, owned and operated by abortionist Alberto Hodari. Citizens for a Pro-life Society, headed up by my friend Monica Miller, oversaw the proper retrieval and care for the babies’ bodies and organized the funeral.

This is no ordinary funeral. There are still too many of our fellow citizens who don’t even acknowledge that the people who will be buried this Saturday are people at all. To mourn their deaths publicly, therefore, is not just to honor them, but to sound a wake-up call to our nation that we are living amidst the biggest holocaust of all time. That is why I have called upon my brother priests nationwide to bring to the attention of their congregations this weekend that children are being buried who were brutally, legally killed, and that the killing has to end.

Providentially, the Church observes the Feast of the Ascension this weekend. Jesus, in ascending into heaven forty days after his resurrection, takes our human nature to the heights of heaven. That is the hope we present to humanity. We will sit on the throne with Christ (see Rev. 3:21). It is impossible, therefore, for us to ignore the fact that those who share that same human nature are being thrown in the garbage.

Abortion has become too abstract. The word has lost its meaning. The conceptual knowledge that children are being killed is no longer enough to awaken many people to action. We need the funerals, we need to see the bodies, we need to hear the disgusting details of the abortions in order to be roused out of our moral slumber and end this killing once and for all.

Abortionist Hodari, when he disposed of these babies, also threw into the dumpster the patient records. Sadly, that is the only issue on which he may get into trouble. Of course, carelessness with patient records should be punished. But when society will punish a man for the pieces of paper he threw in the garbage but excuse him for throwing babies into that same garbage, we have become guilty of straining the gnat and swallowing the camel. We have become far worse than the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.

Two weeks after this funeral, the pro-life community of Dallas will pray at another grave, for the 25^th year in a row, to honor aborted babies who are buried there…1300 of them! As my friend Monica said, “This tomb will be a place of refuge especially for grieving mothers and dads who regret that they made the decision to abort their children - a place of reconciliation.” Indeed, let the healing begin; but that can happen only when we first mourn the dead.

See details and photos of the babies at www.priestsforlife.org and www.ProLifeSociety.org

Fr. Frank

Friends,

The Pope’s visit to America has certainly been exciting and has been a great way for the American people to get to know him better. I was present at the White House on Wednesday the 16^th to join the President in welcoming the Holy Father. Janet Morana was also there, representing all the women and men of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, which she co-founded (www.SilentNoMoreAwareness.org). Janet likewise was invited to a State Dinner that evening and greeted the President and First Lady, as well as three Supreme Court Justices (Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Thomas) on behalf of Silent No More Awareness and Priests for Life.

In his homily at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Pope said,

The Church, as “a people made one by the unity of the Father, the Son and the Spirit” (cf. Lumen Gentium, 4), is called to proclaim the gift of life, to serve life, and to promote a culture of life. Here in this cathedral, our thoughts turn naturally to the heroic witness to the Gospel of life borne by the late Cardinals Cooke and O’Connor. The proclamation of life, life in abundance, must be the heart of the new evangelization.

He mentioned Cardinal Terence Cooke, who was Cardinal O’Connor’s predecessor in New York. Cardinal Cooke suffered from cancer all throughout his years as Archbishop of New York, though we never knew it. He never complained, and he kept up a tireless schedule of service to the people. In the course of his final illness, in 1983, he wrote a letter on the sanctity of life, which was read, as scheduled, on the weekend of October 8 in the New York parishes. The Cardinal had died two days earlier. In that letter he wrote, “The gift of life, God’s special gift, is no less beautiful when it is accompanied by illness or weakness, hunger or poverty, mental or physical handicaps, loneliness or old age. Indeed, at these times, human life gains extra splendor as it requires our special care, concern, and reverence.” Cardinal Cooke’s cause of canonization has been underway for years now.

In other matters, the videos I posted on You Tube, showing the abortion procedure, have been causing quite a stir and attracting a lot of visitors. If you can help me get more people to view them, not only will you be educating them about the procedure, but you will help us make the videos into a news story. The videos are as follows: 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=us_y9GP_-DA - Dismemberment D&E Procedure
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBOAPleF1t0 - Suction Abortion Procedure 

My You Tube page is www.YouTube.com/frfrankpavone. If you become a You Tube subscriber (it’s free!) and then subscribe to my videos and put these procedure videos in your “Favorites” section, it will help them to get an even wider audience.

Finally, we got news last night (April 19) that Cardinal Lopez-Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, passed away. I worked with him during the years that I was there at the Vatican, and he was one of the Church’s greatest defenders of human life. Pray for him, and thank the Lord for his life and ministry.

Blessings!

Fr. Frank Pavone

Dear Friends: 

We in the pro-life community have been fed up for a long time with “public servants” who can’t seem to tell the difference between serving the public and killing the public. They mask the violence of abortion with the smooth language of “choice,” and refuse to protect the victims.

These politicians are found in both major political parties; some hold public office and others seek it. And many Church leaders have been hesitant to discipline such individuals, even though many of them claim to practice their faith.

These abortion supporting politicians get away with what they are doing in large measure because they refuse to talk about what the “choice” actually is. They try to avoid the word “abortion” altogether; but even when they use it, the word has lost practically all its meaning. Voters hear the word but are left with little or no awareness of the gruesome horror it represents.

This election season, it’s time for that to change. No matter what politicians or voters or Church officials are or are not going to do, it’s time that we who know what abortion is draw a line in the sand and give candidates and office-holders alike this challenge:

If you’re going to take a position on abortion, then you’re going to have to come clean about what it is. We are no longer going to let you obscure or trivialize the issue. Whether people agree with you or not, you owe it to them to be honest about what you’re talking about. 

Therefore we issue this simple call to honesty: We will describe abortion to you, and you tell us if that’s what you’re talking about.

That’s it, pure and simple. This is not a debate, nor a threat. It’s a call to clarity, a demand for honesty. That is not partisan, nor is it unreasonable; it is not fanatical or inappropriate in any way. Nor is this about religion or morality.

We just want to make sure that we’re hearing you. When you say “abortion,” we just want to make sure we’re both talking about the same thing.

I recently posted two videos on You Tube in which I describe and demonstrate the two most common abortion techniques, using the actual instruments of abortion and the words found in medical textbooks and court testimony. Click here and you will see the links to these videos, as well as brief quotes you can use from abortionists themselves.

For example, Dr. Carolyn Westhoff testified, “In the dismemberment D&E…it is necessary to insert our forceps…and then crush the head.” (National Abortion Federation v. Ashcroft, April 2004, US District Court, Southern District of New York).

Then simply ask “pro-choice” politicians (whether they are candidates or already in public office) if this is what they mean when they say “abortion.”  Yes or no. Ask it publicly. Ask it repeatedly. Ask it at town meetings, on blogs, in editorials. Those whose support they are seeking deserve to know.

You Tube links on the abortion procedures: 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=us_y9GP_-DA 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBOAPleF1t0