TERMINALLY BEWILDERED BY THE CARMELITES AND CLIMATE CHANGE

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Today's Gospel parable isn't perhaps the easiest to understand, but I'm could be terminally bewildered by the interpretation given it in the Carmelites 'of Australia and Timor-Leste' (and incidentally, NZ)'s latest 'JPIC Reflections'.

The steward of the parable, whom the JPIC team liken to a manager whose CEO has given him notice, "won't be the most successful man on the planet compared to the 'children of the light' who are more concerned with accounts than with real people, but he is free-spirited and values what is important."

Ahem. He's actually dishonest and values himself more than the people to whom the money belongs. 

"He's a bit of a scoundrel, but Jesus liked scoundrels, once their efforts were put to good use."

Jesus loves everyone, scoundrel or not. But he hates sin, and the steward's efforts were sinful. He was guilty not just of theft, but theft as a servant.

So when as usual the JPIC team turn their attention to 'climate change', can we trust their judgment? They call for "a measure of cunning (which) may be helpful  …. to create more sustainable ways of inhabiting the planet."

They describe Swedish teen activist (or is she pre-teen, is she even out of nappies?) Greta Thunberg a 'modern prophet' and ask "are our children being encouraged to emulate the actions of the dishonest steward: "For the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light?"

Confused? #Metoo. 

I can’t understand the reference to the "children of light" as being more concerned with accounts than with people. The "children of light" are people who are concerned with eternal values, and consequently are hugely invested in people, whom they love as God as commanded, rather than concerned with the 'accounts' which engross worldly people.

Jesus is reproaching the "children of light" - that is, His own children, who live by His light - for not being as single-minded in our pursuit of eternal values as the "children of this world" are single-minded in their pursuit of wealth.

So to apply the parable to the Carmelite JPIC's ‘Seasons of Creation’, we are to be absolutely single-minded in our purpose, which is to attain eternal happiness for ourselves and for others. The role of the Church and Carmelites is to use our own means wisely, in view of our eternal destination, and to encourage other people to do the same.

The means we have at our disposal are primarily the teachings of the Church and Scripture, which tell us that all evil, including 'leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth' as Pope Francis so threateningly phrases it, in Laudato Si, is caused by sin.

The Church and Carmelites as ‘children of light’ must try to be as single-minded as the ‘children of this world’, not by protest which Jesus Himself eschewed and never encouraged, but by living according to the Gospel and God’s Commandments.

It’s sin, and primarily in the last 50 years the sin of abortion, which causes evil, even the evil of so-called ‘climate change’, and it’s only repentance, conversion and prayer that can mitigate its effects.

Leo Leitch says:
Return to the Stone Age? Where would we be without the Northland Age? - Editorial, "Climate protests getting out of hand"


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northland-age/news/headlines.cfm?c_id=1503402

THE CATHOLIC 'OUR FATHER' REPLACED BY CLIFF RICHARDS' 'MILLENIUM SONG'

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How would you react if at your Sunday Mass, instead of praying the Our Father, you and the rest of the congregation were asked to sing along with Cliff Richards' 'Millenium Song'?

Back in 2000 the English pop singer (I suppose I should call him 'Sir Cliff') took The Millenium Song to the top of the charts. It's not the Our Father of the Catholic Church. It's the Protestant Lord's Prayer, complete with the Protestant Doxology, For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory etc, all sung to the tune, believe it or not, of Auld Lang Syne. 

I use the word 'Protestant' because the Catholic Church does not believe these words were part of the perfect prayer Christ gave His disciples, or that they were included in the early Scriptures. It's never been included in Catholic bibles. 

This doxology was insinuated into later translations of the Bible and adopted by Protestants at the time of the so-called Reformation (Deformation, more like), who ironically were trying to show their new King James Bible to be superior to the 'unbiblical' translations which they'd been using for fifteen hundred years. 

So it was included by Henry VIII - that "miserable monarch", to quote the Baronius Missal, who beheaded Cardinal St John Fisher and Chancellor St Thomas More for defending the indissolubility of marriage (Pope Francis, please note) - in the worship he thought up for his new Anglican Church services. Then Elizabeth I (who contented herself with beheading mere priests) popped it into the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, to shore up her vilification of the Catholic clergy who, she said, had appropriated the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory that rightly belongs to God.

Well then, what's this Protestant Doxology doing in the Catholic Mass? Its insinuation into the Novus Ordo (New Mass) by Pope Paul VI may be more sinister than that of the 4th century scribe's marginal note which is accredited with its subsequent gradual acceptance into the majority of bible translations.

To find out why it's got into the Mass we could zero in on the statement, "According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and non-believers alike, all things on earth should be ordained to humanity as to their centre and summit" (emphasis added). 

WOT??? Who said that? Any Catholic worthy of the name knows it's Christ who is the centre of "all things on earth" as in Heaven.

Ahem. Who said that is Vatican Council II. in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes. 

So we can see why a primary school DRS could give the 'homily' at Mass about 15 years ago, proclaiming that 'the most important Commandment is to love each other' (sic).

I was indignant, and explained to my daughter that her teacher was wrong, theologically - and grammatically. There I was, thinking that the First Commandment is to love God, when it turns out I was wrong all along.

Because in his Evangelii Gaudium 161, Pope Francis states that "Along with the virtues, this means above all the new commandment, the first and the greatest of the commandments, and the one that best identifies us as Christ’s disciples: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12,15)."

This is the nexus of that nebulous, oft-quoted concept, 'the spirit of Vatican II': it puts man before God. 


Even, it seems, Protestant men. Because to be 'inclusive' and 'ecumenical' and 'nice', the Consilium asked six Proddys along to the Vatican to help make the New Mass more 'acceptable' to the heretical Protestant denominations (Anglican, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Lutheran (2) and Calvinist). The result was such that a Protestant professor of dogmatic theology could  state that "nothing in the renewed Catholic Mass need really trouble the Evangelical Protestant". The Mass, like our church buildings (oops, should I say 'worship spaces'?) had been re-ordered to suit people more than God. 

French philosopher Jean Guitton, described by Cardinal Paul Poupard as "a very good friend" of Paul VI, has stated that "The intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic Liturgy in such a way that it should almost coincide with the Protestant liturgy. 

There was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or, at least to correct, or, at least to relax, what was too Catholic in the traditional sense in the Mass and, I repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass”.

Oh well. Why should I be surprised if at Sunday Mass sixtyish years later, Father wants the congregation to sing the Protestant Lord's Prayer? But to spin it out (prolong the agony!), The  Millenium Song finishes with:

Let all the people sing Amen
In every tribe and tongue
Let every hearts desire be joined
To see the kingdom come

Let every hope and every dream
Be born in love again
Let all the world sing with one voice
Let the people say amen

Amen Amen Amen

Amen Amen Amen

We had an Oirish PP once, Father Michael Madden, who'd have said that was 'lovey-dovey nonsense'. But oh, doesn't it just fit in beautifully with the upcoming Amazon Synod, whose preparatory document has been condemned by three Cardinals (Burke, Mueller and Brandmueller) as apostate?

Infiltration is the title of a new book written by American commentator Dr Taylor Marshall which I've been clamouring to get my hands on (and God, consenting, is lending it to me this very day). I'm told every Catholic should read it (St Joseph's Bookshop in Melbourne had sold out).

I'm not sure how far back Marshall goes in pursuing his highly credible theme of Communist and Freemason infiltration of the Catholic Church with the intention of destroying Her, but consider this quote from the Alta Vendita, an Italian group closely associated with Freemasonry, way back in 1859: "That Pontiff, like the greater part of his contemporaries, will be necessarily imbued with the … humanitarian principles we are about to put into circulation". 

And from the Grand Master of the Lodge Grand Orient of Italy, a statement of regret at the passing of Paul VI during whose pontificate, he said, “Freemasonry had a season of great dialogue with the Church, many of the clergy spoke about the end of the anti-Masonic censure and argued in favor of a compatibility between Church and Loggia.” 

As to Pope Francis, never before has a Pontiff garnered such approval from the Masons. In 2013 the Vicar Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Italy of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons pointed out that Freemasonry does not follow the [Catholic] tenets and complained that the Church does not accept the way of thinking of the Masons. He then answered this following question: “Pope Bergoglio has [already] made many openings; may there be something positive to be seen from him with regard to Freemasonry?” 

The Mason replied: “Pope Bergoglio thus far has proved to be a great Pope".

But back to Mass here in New Zealand, a couple of Sundays ago. By the end of it, the cumulative effect of  modernist songs, the parts of the Mass a mismatch of superseded texts, and the Millenium Song, was such that I was nearly in tears - and I don't do tears. Such was the chat and laughter in the church that thanksgiving prayers were an impossibility.   

As I said to a Rad Trad who's currently on pilgrimage in Fatima (oh how I wish I were there too!), I’m feeling like, I’m ‘outta here’ from now on and off to Ashhurst, an hour and a quarter away, for the Traditional Latin Mass.

A priest I asked for advice has given it: yes, get outta there. He made no bones about it: our spiritual welfare is endangered, he says, by this "abuse and error". 

Brad Larsen says:

We stopped attending the Novus Ordo Mass a few years back and have been so blessed to have found Tradition. The only times we attend a NO Mass is when we have to - recently for two funerals - what a shock! It’s like another planet. At least you have the TLM available albeit a decent drive away. But as your priest friend said our Faith is too important to mess with and be scandalised by attending Bugnini’s Masonic/Protestant-inspired Rites. We have six young children so we made the move to ensure they get fed the ‘real deal’ but to be honest it was as much for my wife and I for the reason you’ve implied - support and community! And we haven’t regretted it. It’s not easy but it’s so much more real and fulfilling! God bless you!

KILLING THE UNBORN IN A SENSE IS KILLING GOD - letter to NZ Herald

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The true origin of climate change and mitigation of its effects is properly the task of the Church to explain, but the Church in New Zealand - and its mouthpieces, in imitation of the secular media - have faffed around bemoaning its consequences, with no cognisance of its cause.



The root of greenhouse gas emissions, like all evil, is sin. We in wealthy countries like ours have brought this situation on ourselves, abusing the planet by gross self-indulgence, especially in the last fifty years by abusing our own children, killing our own unborn in selfish pursuit of our perceived ‘rights’.



Unborn children are God’s creation, his “little ones” and “as long as you did it to one of these, you did it to me” (Mt 25, 40). In killing them, in a sense we kill God. 



We are all God’s creation, and by his divinely poetic justice God unleashes his created forces of climate to abuse us in our turn.

The Herald is right; “it’s a bleak picture - but it doesn’t have to happen”.



However, it’s not science that will save us, but repentance.

AD ORIENTEM VERSUS VERSUS POPULUM

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Ad Orientem. It's a mysterious expression which was recently introduced into the vocabulary of the Parish Council of St Joseph's, Dannevirke. I'm not saying none of the parish worthies had heard it before, but it may well have been the first time Ad Orientem had been discussed by the parish council.

Remember that since the departure of Father Bryan Buenger, St Joseph's is laboring under the huge disadvantage of being priestless. Had Father remained, the parish council might by now know all about Ad Orientem, but as Father Bryan has returned to the Diocese of Phoenix Arizona where Ad Orientem is a commonplace, let's explain it here.

'Ad Orientem' literally means 'towards the east', and applies to the celebration of Holy Mass, and was the manner in which it was done throughout the Latin Rite until - you guessed it - after Vatican II. In practice it means priest and people face the same way, towards our rising Sun who is Christ, who is to come at the end of time. 

Vatican II ended all that. How come? Vat II never called for priests to turn around. It did not abolish the Mass ad orientem. The Consilium actually stated that "the faithful take part very well in a Mass … (even if) the celebrant turns his back to them" when at the altar.

Hmmm. I'm suspicious. 'Turns his back'. When celebration of the liturgy of the Word facing the people had already been approved, was that phrase calculated to stir people up, to have priests thinking, gosh, turning my back to my people isn't nice? Was that why permission was sought and given to priests to celebrate versus populum (facing the people)?

Of the Mass versus populum, the only other thing I'll say in the meantime is what Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, powerful overseer of Church doctrine as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said, way back in 1993, that  he would like to see altars in Catholic churches turned around again …."I would say that, in a certain way, the priest has become too important.  Those attending Mass must always be looking at him. In reality he is not nearly that important."

Anyway, the intrepid Bob Gill of Dannevirke is pursuing the aim of reintroducing ad orientem at St Joseph's. He was initially rebuffed by the Parish Council, but in hindsight thinks they might have taken him to mean he wanted the Latin Mass, simply because that is invariably celebrated ad orientem. But ad orientem isn't a synomym for the Latin Mass. It can be, and is, applied to the 'New Mass' (the Novus Ordo).

Bob's asked advice from Father Bryan, who says it's quite common in the Phoenix Diocese, in one high school daily and in many presbytery chapels (almost all presbyteries in the US have chapels, you know. You didn't? No, neither did I.

Bob is dead keen on the idea. Father Bryan advises that the design of St Joseph's - its lamentable rejig, with a table designated as an 'altar' in the centre of the church - isn't conducive to celebrating Mass ad orientem. Neither is the Tararua Parish's other main church, St Brigid's Pahiatua.

Bob's not to be deterred, and suggests the St Joseph's side chapel, but worries about the lack of a tabernacle.

Mass ad orientem doesn't depend on the location of the tabernacle. No worries there. Bob is probably more concerned about the location of a priest who'd be willing to celebrate the Mass facing the same way as the people, but he's looking for one.

FORCING HORRIBLE FACTS DOWN MALE THROATS

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"Most men are swayed by women saying, 'it's a woman's body', " says the irrepressible Bob Gill of Dannevirke. "I wish the Church would hit these issues harder – it’s very low key on these matters."

Bob Gill is definitely not my 'nice old codger from Dannevirke' but like the latter, Bob is not one to lie down and let evil roll over him, in the Catholic Church or anywhere else. And as New Zealand has a legislative steamroller approaching in the shape of the Labour-Coalition Government's  Abortion Legislation Bill, and submissions close Thursday week, Bob’s getting hot under the collar. 

He continues, “It would really help I the Church commented more on these issues, especially at Sunday Mass. But priests are virtually silent. More open discussion by the Church would surely make people think and be more pro-active to the cause."

It occurs to me that 'most men' - maybe including some clergy - are hiding behind the 'it's a woman's body' line. They don't know the facts of abortion, maybe because they don't want to know the facts. 

So pardon me if I'm forcing them down their throats, but the facts are these:

• A fetus is clearly not 'a woman's body'. The fetus is a completely separate entity, in a woman's body, and that woman is his/her mother.
• A fetus feels pain. The published scientific literature shows he or she feels pain at 20 weeks or earlier, and the pain is probably more intense than adults'. Hey guys, do you need to read any further? Doesn't that one fact shoot the 'it's a woman's body' argument down in flames? 
  
• In the first nine weeks - when under the proposed legislation a woman or teenager would get an abortion, no questions asked - the fetus is killed and forced out of the womb by drugs.
  Cramping, pain which is often intensive, and heavy bleeding can last several days. One per cent of women are hospitalized with heavy bleeding.
  
  If the mother looks carefully at her dead baby, which will be about an inch long, she'll be able to count fingers and toes. Maternal death may occur.

• The baby may be killed by being sucked out of the womb in a procedure called Dilatation and Curettage (D&C). It's also called a dismemberment abortion (I bet that's not what they tell the mother).
  The baby has a beating heart, arms and legs but its bones are still soft enough to be sucked out by a vacuum machine 10 to 12 times more powerful than the one you use on your carpets. Bits of the baby may be left behind.
  The uterus may be perforated. Maternal death may occur.
• At 13 - 27 weeks the baby is too big to be sucked through a tube so the procedure is Dilatation and Evacuation. The abortionist kills the child by blindly tearing it to pieces inside the womb (remember, it's established that the baby feels pain at 20 weeks). Are you still with me, guys? The baby is now about 7 inches long. The hard part to extract is the head, which is now about the size of a plum. It has to be crushed. The abortionist knows s/he's got it out when he sees a white substance. That's the baby's brain.
  Once the baby's all out, its body parts must be re-assembled to make sure there's not a leg or an arm left inside the womb. The risks to the mother include perforation of the uterus, laceration of the cervix, infection, haemorrhage and death.
• In the third trimester (27-39 weeks) the baby is killed by a partial-birth abortion. The baby is pulled out feet-first, leaving the head just inside the cervix. The abortionist punctures the base of the skull and sucks the baby's brains out. The baby's skull then collapses and the rest of the baby can be delivered.

Obviously, unwanted babies of over 27 weeks' gestation are killed in this way so that the procedure can be called an abortion and under New Zealand's proposed legislation, a 'health issue' and so not a crime. Not murder. The same baby of the same age could be killed after birth with no danger to the mother, but that would be infanticide. In the US, late-term babies born live after botched abortions are left to die.

If this Abortion Legislation Bill is passed, as Lawrence Yule MP for Tuki Tuki predicted at our Voice for Life CHB meeting last week it would, babies will be left to die here. In Canada in the five years up till 2018, 766 babies were born alive - but what happened to them, no one officially knows or, one is tempted to add, cares. If the Abortion Legislation Bill is passed, will anyone be told what's happened to babies left to die in New Zealand?

Bob Gill concluded by saying, "It sticks out to me that you are highlighting not just words to be said against the likes of abortion but physical action if we are to be listened to. Is that what you are trying to tell me, Julia?

Absolutely! Every Catholic worthy of the name, especially the clergy, should be supporting a pro-life group in some way* and especially in prayer. 

Every priest and bishop, while there's still time, should speak from the pulpit on this horrific Abortion Legislation Bill. 

Priests, bishops and laity in Germany were silent during the Third Reich, and what happened? 

The Holocaust.

*JOIN Voice for Life Central Hawke's Bay, for example, by banking your $20 sub at Westpac, account number 03 0779 0112419 00. Or post to 45 Black Rd, Ashley Clinton R D 1 Takapau 4286 Central Hawke's Bay.

Anonymous says:


Julia, you are right to highlight these gruesome realities. What is more amazing is our society, our politicians and our Church pretty much ignore them.

I say:

Yes, just like the German politicians and the Church in Germany did during the Third Reich. And we wag our heads and say, "How could the Germans have allowed that slaughter of 6 million Jews to happen?" 

Remember, that started with the slaughter of the disabled. Then homosexuals.  We start with the slaughter of the unborn. We proceed with the slaughter of the vulnerable elderly. And so on ...

How hypocritical! We are the 'scribes and Pharisees', of whom Jesus said, "Unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven" (Mt 5,20).

Anonymous adds:

They (those 'gruesome realities') are not part of the abortion narrative because those who control the narrative don't want them discussed.  I pray that God will not tolerate these murderous practices on earth for much longer.

I add:

God doesn't tolerate them, so much as He permits them. Just as He permitted the Holocaust. And look what's happened to the world since.

We who are faithful to Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church must continue as 'the ten righteous men' (Gen 18: 32) for whose sake God spared Sodom.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE SOULS OF ALL THESE ABORTED BABIES?

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What flummoxes me is, how can the Catholic Church in New Zealand and Australia bang on endlessly about 'social justice' when the plight of God's "little ones" is largely ignored?

For instance, I receive a Carmelite JPIC newsletter from Australia. The September issue, typically, mentions 'justice' four times, and 'human rights' once. Not 'justice' or 'human rights' for the unborn - but it does feature a lovely prayer "grieving for loss of precious life in the Amazon". 

The 'precious life' that JPIC grieves for is apparently, not unborn children, but trees.

And take The Common Good, the Christchurch Catholic Workers' paper, a creature I gather, largely of Father Jim Consedine - although like Cardinal 'call me John' Dew, he prefers to be just plain 'Jim'. 

The spring issue of The Common Good poetically describes the 'Works of Mercy' which ironically concludes, 'Bury the dead'. 

But we can't bury aborted babies. Nurse just drops them in a bin.

The Common Good juxtaposes the 'Works of War'. Equally ironically, it concludes with 'Kill the Living' - but not by killing them in their mother's womb. 

The Common Good laments NZ's record of "some of the highest reported rates of family violence in the developed world. Experts (where would we be without 'experts'?) say a warped sense of masculinity is partly to blame". 

It's violence towards their own unborn children which is mostly to blame. 

In 11 pages, with New Zealand facing the devastating probability of the Labour-Coalition Government's evil Abortion Legislation Bill being passed, no referendum needed, The Common Good makes no mention of NZ's slaughter of the unborn - which with sex-selective abortions allowed, will rapidly become Daughter Slaughter. 

And as you'd expect, The Catholic Worker takes a poke at "the lies of Donald Trump". The Catholic Worker thinks CNN is a "trustworthy news organization", and trumpets that Trump, "the President of the US, is saying 12 untrue things a day".

Yes, Trump says silly things sometimes, and gets his facts wrong. (Aren't we all fortunate that CNN doesn't broadcast the silly things we sometimes say?) But Trump does not deliberately set out to prevaricate, to avoid the truth, as the Catholic Church in New Zealand seems to do.

Prevarication is the thief of truth. And the truth is that justice demands a total gift of one's self to God and to others, meaning primarily their souls. 

Just what happens to the souls of aborted children?  Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae, gave us a glimpse when compassionately addressing women who'd had abortions, he wrote, “…. Aborted children, like the Holy Innocents who were canonized as martyrs, have a natural yearning for God which explains why they "live in the Lord". Personally, I believe we can pray for their baptism by desire. 

"Justice," says St Thomas Aquinas, "is the perpetual constant will to give to everyone what is due to him". And what everyone is due, first and foremost, is the very life which is God's to give, and only God's to take away. 


More than that, the "love" our clergy constantly exhort us to have for one another  - without ever defining it correctly as love propter Deum, meaning loving one another because we love God first - must be based on justice. 

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice (Mt 5, 6). Without justice, there can be no love in the sense that God demands it. Without justice we cannot please God.

It follows that to do justice for the unborn means we must materially support a pro-life organization, and/or 'voice' our conscientious objection to abortion by standing outside an abortion facility. You mightn't be allowed to do that for much longer. 

Yesterday our Voice for Life Annual General Meeting, featuring Lawrence Yule, National MP for Tuki Tuki, was blessed with a prayer by a Presbyterian minister. And Lawrence had been thanked ahead of the meeting, with two tickets to the sensational pro-life meeting Unplanned, donated by our treasurer's pastor at the Riverbend Bible Church in Havelock North.

I'd invited the St Andrew's minister to do us the honour only the day before the meeting, after first asking our parish priest. Father told me that the time of day - 12.30 p m - didn't "fit".

It's my fault I know, for not thinking to ask Father earlier, but our meeting had been advertised in the parish newsletter and I know Father knew that, because when I asked him to say a few words about it at the end of Mass last Sunday, and urge parishioners also to make submissions on this truly horrific Abortion Legislation Bill, he said, "it's all in the newsletter". And indeed it was.

But you know what Catholics are. Some will say it's because we've put priests on a pedestal, but we do what they tell us (and one reason why Mass attendances have plummeted since Vatican II is that priests no longer tell us to turn up). We follow, like sheep, only where they lead us and that's the model Jesus left us - He told us we are His sheep and like Christ, priests are supposed to be our shepherds. Shepherds like Cardinal George Pell, who has said: “Abortion corrupts everything it touches—law, medicine, and the whole concept of human rights.” 

No wonder Cardinal Pell is in prison. No wonder his own Church, the Catholic Church, is not seen to be praying for him. 

Back to the Voice for Life meeting yesterday: I being the only R C on the committee, and Lawrence Yule and his secretary being good Protestants, and the Seventh Day Adventists putting in a good appearance, local Catholics were hugely outnumbered. (I'm not counting a good contingent of Catholics who'd come from much further afield).

While it's hard to take notes while watching the audience for hands up to speak, I think I can report that Yule has changed his mind on euthanasia. Because it's not now possible for the final sign-off to go to the District Court, at the third reading, he will oppose the End of Life Choice Bill. But he thinks it will go to a referendum, and that it will probably pass into law.

He told us that the Abortion Legislation Bill will probably not go to a referendum, because it will go into law without one. He said deluging MPs with emails is not a good idea; what will convince MPs is personal interaction. Some people were heard to say they'd be putting old-fashioned pen to paper. And get it couriered, I said.

Some people were surprised to hear of his opposition - partial opposition - to the Abortion Legislation Bill. He told us he's a Christian, "a pragmatic Christian." I badly wanted to say there's no such thing, but such a comment would not have been becoming to the Chair.

Meanwhile, on the footpath outside Hastings Hospital this morning a Voice for Life leader was close to tears. I don't know, but I'm guessing the young woman she'd persuaded to cancel her abortion appointment last Thursday had returned there today. This in spite of two Voice for Life families offering a home for her and her baby. Both those families are Protestant.

When you're desperate enough, and killing your own child is offered as a viable choice by your peers, it's hard not to accept it.

St Catherine of Siena goes a long way towards explaining the hideous mess New Zealand finds itself in now.

"O justice, if thy light failest, we are immediately plunged into confusion and surrounded by the darkness of injustice."

Bob Gill says:

Yes, most men are swayed by women saying it's a woman's body. They need to know the likes of the birth of a child begins at conception. I wish the Church would hit these issues harder - very low key on these matters

It would really help if the Church commented more on these issues, especially at Sunday Mass, but priests are virtually silent. More open discussion by the Church would surely make people think and be more proactive to the cause of acting on behalf of the unborn.

I say:


Yes, priests are virtually silent, and that more than any other single factor I believe, is the cause of this horrendous legislation. If only they had preached courageously and faithfully in support of Pope Paul VI on contraception, for a start.


Leo says:

Julia, despite your exposed disingenuousness, I’ve continued to watch your blog.




Bob Gill is clearly awaiting a graphic such as this, so that he can put it on banners and get t-shirts printed.

LUNCH WITH LAWRENCE AND THE PRO-LIFE FIGHTERS

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We who fight for the right to life thought last year would be a tough bout, and it was. But that was just the warm-up.

That's my intro to what Voice for Life CHB's committee know as my 'begging letter' - my annual appeal for subs from our very generous members. And as we're holding our Annual General tomorrow I thought I might give it another airing, in the hope that we'll attract a good audience. 

The AGM is masquerading as 'LUNCH WITH LAWRENCE' (Lawrence Yule, National MP for Tuki Tuki), and a jolly good lunch it will be: homemade soup, buns and slice. The AGM comes last, only 10 minutes or so for people who want to stay, or might turn up just to compete for a place on 'the committee' (we can always put out extra chairs ...)

Lawrence Yule is actually subbing for our first choice, the Honourable Maggie Barry, who put Yule's hand up when she decided she couldn't come. I confidently expect Lawrence will explain why he voted for both the End of Life Choice Bill and the horrific Abortion Legalisation Bill. I'm sure he had good reasons. The Honourable Maggie actually tells me that Lawrence has changed his mind on euthanasia which makes sense, because he was on my list of MPs to pray for, with that intention.

Lawrence will speak at 12.30 p m at St Andrew's Hall, Porangahau Rd Waipukurau, just up the hill from the town square in the main street. Q&A to follow should be interesting. Lunch to follow that will be delicious. And free. 

To return to the 'begging letter', I'll quote the rest of it, slightly edited to suit this blog, in the hope of attracting new members to enjoy reading it every year. 

We who fight for the right to life thought last year would be a tough bout, and it was. But that was just the warm-up.

In the opposite corner of the ring is our Prime Minister the Honourable Jacindarella, who's been granted her wish for legislation to take abortion out of the Crimes Act. She says it’s no longer a crime to kill a baby. She calls abortion a 'health issue' and wants to reduce unborn children to the status of your appendix or tonsils. If they’re a nuisance, just take them out. 

Handing Ms Ardern a towel, patting her down, urging her back into the ring is her second: the Honourable Winsome Peters of NZ First, who five years ago thought a baby was a baby from conception and came with a life-time guarantee.

The Honourable Winsome sold that baby down the river for political advantage.  He agrees now with Labour’s Honourable Andrew Little-by-name, little-by-nature, that if a doctor decides it's 'appropriate' to kill a baby after 22 weeks of life in the womb, then preventing that baby being torn apart in excruciating pain is none of the State's business. That baby could be killed any old time up to full-term, which since January has been the horrible scenario in the State of New York, where the Honourable Jacindarella's wish for abortion to be removed from the Crimes Act has already been granted, and babies aborted alive are left to die. But the medics have been invited to cuddle them first. How kind. 

However, the Honourable Winston isn’t prepared to stand by his ‘principles’ and vote for them, oh no. He wants the NZ public to do his task of governance for him – and pay millions for the privilege – in a referendum.

NZ First and Labour were emboldened by a threat to human life from the other end of the political spectrum, from Act's solo MP, David Seymour - Saymore. His End of Life Choice Bill would inevitably turn into an End of Life Enforcement Act for elderly and disabled people with selfish rellies. The Honourable Mr Peters seems to think governments are elected not to govern but to run expensive referendums and wants us voters to decide about euthanasia, but more likely it would be whoever writes the questions who decides. 

So that's the state of play, politically. But wait, there's more.

In Australia we've seen hatred unleashed against Israel Folau who proclaimed his Christian beliefs, and against Cardinal George Pell who lives those beliefs. It was Cardinal Pell's conservatism on sexuality, economics and the environment which made him a target for the Victorian police, who trawled for two years for an accuser before charging Cardinal Pell with a literally incredible crime.

And in New Zealand, a registered teacher has been labelled 'transphobic' for calling out the Ministry of Education's Health and Sexuality Department for transgender 'inclusive' teaching, with Rainbow Youth and InsideOUT supplying resources for all ages starting at 5 with, for example: "different types of families (Mum's new wife is picking me up from school today)".

Yes, really. And after his family's holiday in Europe, Austin Ruse of  United Nations' C-Fam describes England as wrapped in rainbows from end to end (okay, I'm hyping a bit here). Trapped in the 'Pride' Parade in Paris, his wife was literally spat upon, presumably for wearing a crucifix round her neck.

True Christians are hated by Satan because he hates life, which is given by God, which organisations like Voice for Life defend. That’s why Satan promotes homosexuality and transgenderism and will co-opt for his deathly and deadly campaign any rugby supporters, police, government departments or well-meaning individuals he can win over to his cause, that homosexuality, transgenderism, fascism and/or neo-Marxism pose no threat to our civilisation.

So what have Voice for Life been doing about any or all of the above? 

Since June last year we have:

·        Contributed to LifeNews ($200)

·         Broken Branches Australia($100)

·        Activ8 2019 Voice for Life CHB delegate Chris Redstone ($525)

·        Voice for Life Napier delegate to Activ8 ($300)*

·         Family Life International, Gianna's Choice Mobile Life Centre for education on the right to life in schools ($500).

·        Took a record $1700 in two days of ticket-selling at our annual raffle at New World.

·        Pounded the pavements, letterboxing anti-euthanasia pamphlets in CHB and Havelock North; can't tell you how many because we lost count! 

·        Have divvied up the list of MPs who voted for the End of Life Choice Act among us committee members, and pray they'll change their vote at the Third Reading.**

·        We’ve all signed the Choose Life petition opposing liberalization of the abortion law and urge you to do the same at: https://www.chooselife.org.nz/sign-the-petition/.

·        We'll be distributing the Choose Life Q&A pamphlet which explains the reasons for opposing removal of abortion from the Crimes Act. 

*You'll note that we were in a position to help Napier VFL send delegate Thomas Moore, a nephew of James Bedingfield who began the pro-life outreach at Hastings Hospital, to Activ8 earlier this month. Thomas is thinking about starting a pro-life movement at Victoria University Wellington. Please pray he can do this.

**You too might like to pray for one specific pro-End of  Life Choice MP (or more than one!) to change their vote.

 From time to time I stand on the footpath outside Hastings Hospital at the pro-life outreach on Thursdays - Thursday is the day they kill babies. The pro-life team needs more volunteers. It's not hard work; you get to talk with like-minded people and maybe save a life. 37 babies are known to have been saved already. Email James Bedingfield: james.bed28@gmail.com If Jacindarella gets her wish on this, we won't be able to do it much longer without threat of criminal prosecution. For standing on a public footpath.

In spite of the best advice to branches (from Voice for Life National Admin) to increase our subscription to $25 at least, we've kept our sub at $20 and have been rewarded by you members with extraordinary generosity. Thank you so much.

Our donations were made possible by your subscriptions, by the great generosity of several members who would probably prefer to be unnamed, and the record $1700 Jodie Nelson and I took at our annual two-day raffle outside New World Waipukurau last December.

Please be assured of our gratitude for your support of the unborn child and the elderly vulnerable, and of our prayers. We ask that you pray for us too, in our God-given mission to defend the life that is His to give and His to take away.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live (Deut 30: 19).