#10forTebow *Updated*

ChelseaAbortion4 Comments

tebow-si.pngAre you “Tebowed”-out, yet? I absolutely love the guy both as a football player and a human being, but even I’m getting a bit Tebow-fatigued from the constant barrage of Tebow related news articles and blog posts. And, yet, here I am writing another one of my own. But it’s for a good cause.

The other day I told you about the pro-abortion blogger who was using Tebow-mania to solicit funds for pro-abortion organizations. She asked her readers to donate $10 every time Tebow throws a touchdown against the Patriots this afternoon. The author, Sophia Brugato, told the New York Observer that it wasn’t her intent to start a major campaign asking for pro-abortion funds, but that’s what it has become. Now there is a Twitter account called @10forTebow with over 200 followers, people are using the hashtag #10forTebow to pledge their support and the webstie 10forTebow.org is currently under construction.

I don’t know how big of a campaign this is really going to be and if it’s worth caring about at all, but I do find it rather distasteful. For what it’s worth, in response, Jill Stanek is calling for a pro-life take-over of #10forTebow, asking pro-lifers to donate $10 to a crisis pregnancy center for every Tebow touchdown. Sounds like a plan to me. Participate if you can!

**Update**
Final score 41-23 Patriots with Tebow and the Broncos scoring three touchdowns on the ground. The irony of the whole thing is that none of those touchdowns would have raised any abortion funds if they followed Sophia Brugato’s original instructions (emphasis mine):

For every touchdown Tebow throws next week…donate $5 or $10 to your local pro-choice organization.

That didn’t seem to matter to the pro-abortion #10forTebow supporters, of course, who pledged their money regardless, but I thought it was fairly amusing.

Blogger Uses Tebow-Mania to Solicit Pro-Abortion Funds

ChelseaAbortion1 Comment

nike-tebow.pngAs a life-long Gator fan, I’ve been on the Tebow train since he was a freshman at Florida – before the eyeblack scripture and, really, before I heard anything about his faith. As he lead the mighty Gators with his arm and his legs and we learned more about his steadfast convictions, we knew that we had someone special on our hands in GatorNation both on and off the field. But I don’t think any of us envisioned just how big of a cultural, or, really counter-cultural, icon he would become.

While Tebow-mania, both pro and con, really exploded nation-wide after he and his mom starred in an for Focus on the Family that aired during the Super Bowl last year, it has reached a fever-pitch in the past few weeks since he has taken over starting quarterback duties for the Denver Broncos and, despite predictions of his inevitable failure to perform as a QB in the National Football League, has been enjoying a lot of success. Whether they’re criticizing his throwing motion, praising his Christian witness or just trying to explain his ability to win and the TDS (Tebow Derangement Syndrome) that infects his critics, it seems nearly everyone is talking about Tebow these days.

And I mean everyone. Even non-football fans like “Sophia”, a writer for the Abortion Gang blog who, conflicted by her desire to see Tebow win and her radical pro-abortion views, is urging readers to support Tebow by donating to pro-abortion groups. In all my years of being a Tebow fan I really thought I had read every ridiculous thing that could possibly be written in relation to him, but this one takes the cake:

Even I, the anti-Tebow, anti-Bronco fan, basketball-loving woman that I am, have been rooting for him. Yeah, he’s that damn good. But it always feels a bit, well, wrong. How can I support a guy that’s openly anti-choice? This is the same man that used the Super Bowl to a) build his reputation and brand as the saintliest saint of an athlete that ever lived, and b) raise money for an anti-choice organization that would deny the right to abortion to millions of women that need it. Yuck.

So here is my solution, and if you’re a sports fan that also thinks women should be able to do what they want, when they want, and how they want it with their uteri, you can join in this too. For every touchdown Tebow throws next week (when the Broncos play against another famous QB, Tom Brady) , donate $5 or $10 to your local pro-choice organization. If the Broncos make the playoffs (I haven’t checked if that’s even a possibility at this point), I plan to continue the pledge.

I’m used to seeing Tebow’s name/image used to get attention and make money, but this is a new low. Well, at least she’s only encouraging donations for every time he throws a touchdown. Here’s hoping the Pat’s run defense is off its game so the Broncs can score on the ground – and maybe with a few amazing 50+ yd. field goals (that Prater is a beast!).

We Cannot Follow Christ Without Sharing in His Cross

ChelseaFaith, Suffering3 Comments

johnofcross.pngToday is the 12th anniversary of my paralyzing car accident. It is also the feast of St. John of the Cross, the real Dark Knight. Coincidence? I think not. This writing from a spiritual Canticle of his sums up much of what I have learned over the course of the last twelve years:

“[T]he apostle Paul said of Christ: In him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God…Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much [interior and exterior] suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there is consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross.

Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth – to know what is beyond knowable, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God.

Sometimes it is necessary for us to experience the thickest darkness in order to finally be able to see the light. We are like gold that is tested in fire – the fire of God’s love. A fire which, though it burns, is not meant to destroy us but to soften our ugly, sinful, hardened hearts so that the Divine Goldsmith can more easily shape them into something beautiful:

“In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” -1 Peter 1:6-7

We can’t follow Jesus Christ without sharing in His Cross. This is the “narrow gate” through which we must travel in order to merit eternal life. Many avoid this gate because it can be so very painful, but we do not travel alone. In his second encyclical, Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict speaks of Christ the true shepherd in this way:

“The true shepherd is one who knows even the path that passes through the valley of death; one who walks with me even on the path of final solitude, where no one can accompany me, guiding me through: he himself has walked this path, he has descended into the kingdom of death, he has conquered death, and he has returned to accompany us now and to give us the certainty that, together with him, we can find a way through.”

It is not fleeing from suffering that heals us, but our willingness to accept it, mature through it and find meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love (Spe Salvi, 37).

Great Pro-Life, Catholic Fiction

ChelseaPro LifeLeave a Comment

Mary Meets Dolly blogger Rebecca Taylor kindly wrote up a review of Brian J. Gail’s pro-life trilogy for me to publish over at Catholic Lane:
gail-trilogy

Fiction is as instructive as non-fiction, maybe even more so. The best fiction catches us up in a world outside our own all the while teaching us truths about ourselves and humanity. The pleasure of reading a great story cements those truths into the deepest corners of our mind. Dean Koontz has been quietly reeducating the masses for years and now there is Brian J. Gail and his trilogy Fatherless, Motherless, and Childless.

Brian J. Gail’s trilogy is uniquely Catholic taking on the American sacred cows of contraception in Fatherless and IVF and embryo destructive research in Motherless. Through the books’ main character, Father John Sweeney, the reader discovers the destructive nature of the Pill, the evils of creating life in a dish and the eugenic underpinnings of embryonic stem cell research. The characters are real Catholics faced with real problems. True to life, Gail’s characters make their decisions in the face of life’s dilemmas and their choices reverberate through their spiritual lives. Gail is clearly a business man with many passages in both novels taking place in New York board rooms. I admit I sometimes felt lost amongst the business speak, but Gail depicts a reality: that many of our current moral conundrums originated with decisions made by powerful businessmen willing to obscure the truth to maximize profits.

Read the rest! It sounds like a great series. I’ve got Fatherless on my Kindle. Hopefully I will be able to take some time soon and finally read it!

Taylor mentioned Dean Koontz. Another book series worth checking out is his Frankenstein series about transhumanism and the deadly quest for human perfection and immortality. See my post: Dean Koontz: Chronicling Our Doom

TOB Tuesday: Finding Joy

ChelseaAdvent, TOB TuesdayLeave a Comment

Yes, you guessed it. Here is your Theology of the Body Advent reflection for week three. This time from Fr. Martin Connor, LC:
advent-wk-3.png

In 2000, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, made the following comment: “The deepest poverty is the inability of joy, the tediousness of a life considered absurd and contradictory… the inability of joy presupposes and produces the inability to love, produces jealousy, avarice — all defects that devastate the life of individuals and of the world.” On the third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, the Church calls all of us to remember the importance and the power of joy (gaudete) in our lives. It is truly our singular duty to bring joy into this world which is steeped in so much spiritual poverty. The Prophet Isaiah could not say it more directly to us: “He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor.” If I do not first find joy in my own life, in my very spirit, I will be unable to give this joy to others. The key to finding this joy begins with prayer.

St Paul, in the second reading, calls us to “pray without ceasing,” in other words, be connected to the spirit of God by developing a more “listening” demeanor in all things. Blessed John Paul II called this listening demeanor, “receptivity.” We are all called to a deeper and more profound “receptivity” of the presence of God in our life. Given the extreme activism of our world, we fall into thinking that with prayer we need to be “doing” something. Yet quickly we find that perhaps “It is not working.” “Nothing is happening.” “I do not sense the presence of God even with all my efforts.” Where are we to find this joy? Perhaps rather than busily “looking for it” in our lives, let’s just have joy find us. Let’s take the joys that come to us day by day in the little things and “receive.” True joy comes in first recognizing that we have received so much and this leads us to give thanks.

Read the rest!

Protecress of the Unborn

ChelseaAbortion, PrayerLeave a Comment

guadalupe1.jpgHappy feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn and Mother of the Americas!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, we turn to you who are the protectress of unborn children and ask that you intercede for us, so that we may more firmly resolve to join you in protecting all human life. Let our prayers be united to your perpetual motherly intercession on behalf of those whose lives are threatened, be they in the womb of their mother, on the bed of infirmity, or in the latter years of their life. May our prayers also be coupled with peaceful action which witnesses to the goodness and dignity of all human life, so that our firmness of purpose may give courage to those who are fearful and bring light to those who are blinded by sin.
(from a prayer said at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on January 22, 1999)

    Prayer for Victims of Abortion

Holy Mother of God and of the Church, our Lady of Guadalupe, you were chosen by the Father for the Son through the Holy Spirit.

You are the Woman clothed with the sun who labors to give birth to Christ while Satan, the Red Dragon, waits to voraciously devour your child.

O Help of Christians, we beg you to protect all mothers of the unborn and the children within their wombs. We plead with you for your help to end the holocaust of abortion. Melt hearts so that life may be revered!

Holy Mother, we pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all mothers and all unborn children that they may have life here on earth and by the most Precious Blood shed by your Son that they may have eternal life with Him in heaven. We also pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all abortionists and all abortion supporters that they may be converted and accept your Son, Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Savior. Defend all of your children in the battle against Satan and all of the evil spirits in this present darkness.

O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, hear our pleas and accept this cry from our hearts!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!

More on Our Lady of Guadalupe

Charges Dropped Against Man Accused of Helping Father Commit Suicide

ChelseaAssisted Suicide1 Comment



Last year a Connecticut trial judge rejected a lawsuit by “right to die” advocates seeking to overturn the Connecticut ban on assisted suicide. While their lawsuit technically wasn’t successful, it seems their public campaign to normalize suicide for the sick may have still had an impact.

This week prosecutors in Connecticut dropped all charges against a Massachusetts man who was accused of helping his West Hartford Conn. father commit suicide. Bruce Brodigan was charged with second-degree manslaughter, tampering with or fabricating evidence, and providing a false statement.

Brodigan allegedly helped his father, George Brodigan, take his own life through an overdose of drugs and alcohol (gee, what a dignified way to die, like a common drug addict). George had had Alzheimer’s disease and police say Bruce told them that he wanted to end his life before becoming incapacitated.

According to the LA Times, Judge David Gold would not grant Brodigan a “special form” of probation, which would have allowed him to clear his record upon successful completion. So, after speaking with Brodigan’s family and learning that he had completed 200 hours of community service, Prosecutor Thomas Garcia decided to drop the charges saying that there was “no purpose of saddling him with a criminal record.”

Only three states in America currently have legal assisted suicide, but as this story indicates, we are increasingly becoming a suicide friendly nation, regardless of the law. This is largely due to the fact that assisted suicide has successfully been rebranded as “compassionate care” and a “dignified” way of dying. But what, I wonder, is dignified about giving up when life gets too hard or painful?

Witholding someone’s food and water or injecting poison into their bloodstream when they’re at their lowest point is not caring. It is, as Mark Pickup noted last week, profound abandonment!

A Shocking Dose of Sanity From the HHS

ChelseaAbortion, Contraception2 Comments

plan-b2.jpgPlan B (also known as the morning-after pill) was approved by the FDA at the end of the Clinton administration in 1999. Since 2009, it has been available behind the pharmacy counter without prescription for women 17 years of age and older. This week, the FDA considered a request from Plan B manufacturer Teva Pharmaceuticals to allow women of any age to obtain the drug directly off the shelf, no prescription or interaction with a pharmacist required.

This move sparked outrage from pro-life groups for several reasons, including the fact that the drug can kill a newly conceived human being. That such poison might soon be available to any woman, regardless of her age or condition, is unfortunate; and making it so accessible for young girls is particularly worrisome. Not only would it encourage youthful promiscuity, it would also increase the risk of underage sexual abuse by giving would-be abusers an easy means of concealing their crimes.

Yesterday, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D., announced approval of Teva’s request. However, Heath and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius proceeded to overrule that decision. Sebelius’ decision was, to borrow the phrase pro-life blogger Jill Stanek used upon hearing the news, a shocking dose of sanity for the HHS, which earlier this year ruled contraception “preventative medicine” covered under the Affordable Care Act, thus forcing its coverage under all insurance plans — even those of religious institutions.

In a statement explaining her decision, Sebelius, Secretary Sebelius, who is normally known for her radical pro-abortion views, expressed concern that the “label comprehension and actual use studies submitted to FDA do not include data on all ages for which the drug would be approved and available over-the-counter.” Relevant to determining the non-prescription availability of Plan B for all ages, she said, was the “cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age” (girls as young as 11-years-old) who would be able to purchase the drug without prescription or other point-of-sale restrictions.

Needless to say, it is now the abortion rights proponents’ turn to be outraged. Ms. Magazine considered Secretary Sebelius’ move betrayal by someone they thought they could always count on as a “friend of ‘women’s health.’” Meanwhile, Amanda Marcotte smartly called it the “stupidest decision ever.” Some are questioning the motives behind the decision, labeling it a political maneuver triggered by relentless pressure from religious groups, or based upon fear of potential liabilities during the 2012 presidential campaign.

Whatever the reason for her decision, it was certainly the right one. Plan B is harmful to both nascent human life and underage girls. We should be thankful that the widespread availability of such a powerful and toxic drug is off the table — for now.

This article also posted at CatholicLane.com

Stephen Colbert on Embryonic Stem Cell Research

ChelseaEmbryonic Stem Cell Research, Humor, videoLeave a Comment

nullToday Marc Barns posted his favorite Colbert Catholic moments. This made me think of one of my personal favorite Colbert moments: his 2006 interview with bioethicist Lee Silver. Silver says plenty of stupid things during the whole interview, but the stupidest is when he tells Colbert that the cells on his arm are human life in the same way that embryos are. To which Stephen responds, “If I let my arm go for a while and didn’t wash it, you’re saying I’d have babies on my arm?” Hilarious, and exactly right!

I know that Colbert is a satirist and, for the most part is making fun of conservative ideals, but, as I’ve said before, you can’t deny the truth amid his “truthiness.”

TOB Tues: And With Your Spirit

ChelseaAdvent, Theology of the Body, TOB TuesdayLeave a Comment

Here’s another great Theology of the Body Advent reflection, this time from Damon Owens:
advent-wk2.png

In the United States, we mark both the second week of Advent and our second week with a new English translation of the Roman Missal. Every day while traveling this week, I have found myself at a different parish fumbling with both the pages and the words on the page. Though excited and (seemingly) prepared for these changes, I have been jolted a bit by the communal experience of proclaiming two of the new responses.

Four times now in the liturgy, we respond to the priest with “And with your spirit.” I’ve joked for years with my audiences how the response “And also with you” is so imbedded in us that we would start it reflexively from a dead sleep or in a crowded supermarket if provoked by, “The Lord be with you!” That is going to take a while to undo.

Read the rest!