Oregon Catholic Conference and My Thanks!

Dear Advocates for Life, The Oregon Catholic Conference material came in the mail today. There was no mention of any lobbying on their part of HB 2020 the Laci and Connor Peterson Law. The only thing under "Advocacy for Life" is HB 2101, which is regarding Homeland Security. Declares state policy relating to adoptions. Requires Department of Human Services, Oregon licensed adoption agency or approved child-caring agency of this state that may consent to adoption of child to give preferences to prospective adoptive parents who are married over those who are unmarried or same-sex partners. Requires department or agency to give preference to prospective adoptive parents who live in this state over those who live outside this state. Provides exceptions. (relatives, etc. CW) The Marriage Team bn2rhea@msn.com Date: Monday-February 21 Time: 8:30 A.M. Room: 357 Public Hearing and Possible Work Session HB 2020 Expands criminal homicide to include causing death of unborn child. Invited Testimony Public Testimony Staff respectfully requests that you submit 25 collated copies of written materials at the time of your testimony. Persons making presentations including the use of video, DVD, PowerPoint or overhead projection equipment are asked to contact Committee staff 24 hours prior to the meeting. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the prayers and support for my family. I would love to share YOUR stories someday (with permission of course) to uplift, comfort and educate. We are truly one family in Christ. God Bless, Carolyn Wendell “We shall be called to account not only for every idle word, but also for every idle silence.” St. Ambrose V.O.C.A.L. Voice of Catholics Advocating Life PO Box 458 Sublimity, OR 97385

Urgent Prayer Request for a MIRACLE!

Dear Friends, It's been a long time since I've sent an update on Terri Schaivo there were so many ups and downs in her case. Now, her life is at stake and it's time to fast and pray to save her. No matter how small the sacrifice, they can all contribute to a miracle. Please read Father Pavone experience. He just visited her, Terri is also a Roman Catholic. Here are some phone numbers you can call: Archibshop Vlazny 503-234-5334 or email him at rjohnson@archdpdx.org and Bishop Vasa 541-388-4004 or email him at bpvasa@dioceseofbaker.org Her feeding tube will be removed by Feb. 22nd without Divine intervention. Go to www.terrisfight.org for an update. Terri Schiavo Fr. Frank Pavone National Director, Priests for Life > > She is not dying. She has no terminal illness. She is not in a coma. She is > not on life- support equipment. She is not alone, but rather has loving > parents and siblings ready to care for her for the rest of her life. She has > not requested death. > > Yet a battle rages regarding whether Terri Schindler-Schiavo should be > starved. She has sustained brain injuries and cannot speak or eat normally. > Nevertheless, the only tube attached to her is a small, simple, painless > feeding tube that provides her nourishment directly to her digestive system. > > Her legal guardian is her husband, who already has another woman -- by whom > he also has children. He wants Terri's feeding tube removed. Of course, he > could simply allow her to be cared for by her parents and siblings, and get > on with his life, but he refuses. > > I have had two opportunities to visit Terri, most recently on the first > Sunday of February. > I have been able to talk to her, to listen to her struggle to speak, to > watch her focus her eyes and smile and attempt to kiss her parents. I have > prayed with her, blessed her, and assured her that she has many friends > around the country and around the world, who love her and want her to enjoy > the same protections we all enjoy, even when we're wounded. > > News articles have recently characterized Terri's situation by saying that > some want to "keep her alive against her husband's wishes." But Terri is not > dying. What does "keeping her alive" mean, if not the same thing as keeping > you and me alive -- that is, by giving us adequate food, shelter, and care? > > Some say that Terri's family should "let her go." But this is not a matter > of "letting her go," because she isn't "going" anywhere. If, however, she is > deprived of nourishment, then she would slowly die in the same way that any > of us would slowly die if we were deprived of nourishment. It is called > starvation. > > If the courts permit that to happen, then why should that permission apply > only in Terri's case? There would be no way to limit it to her case alone. > Countless others would follow, and their deaths would be described as > "letting them die" instead of "killing them." > Where, indeed, does the state get the authority to starve people? Court > decisions permitting this lack all authority, as Pope John Paul II teaches > in "The Gospel of Life" > (section 72). These decisions cannot be obeyed, because they are not binding > on the conscience and are in fact acts of violence. > > At the present time, there are two simple things you can do. Educate your > neighbors about this situation. Visit our website, www.priestsforlife.org, > and click on the "Terri Schiavo" link. Second, contact anyone you know in > Florida and ask them to encourage their Governor and state legislators to > continue doing everything possible to save Terri's life. > > For more information on this crucial case, visit our website, > www.priestsforlife.org. If you want educational cards on Terri's situation, > contact our orders department at orders@priestsforlife.org, or by calling > 888-PFL-3448, ext. 237, or by writing Orders Department, Priests for Life, > PO Box 141172, Staten Island, NY 10314. _____________________________________________________________________________ The need for an ADVOCATE when admitted into the hospital is VITAL. Don't sign ANYTHING without reading it first. "Living wills" are different from hospital to hospital. Have someone you trust completely and has a clear moral knowledge of Church teaching. I will set up a forum for "Advanced Directives" to protect you and your loved ones. It's vital, educational and will change your life. May God give wisdom to those who have control over Terri Schiavo and love conquer all. God Bless, Carolyn Wendell "We shall be called to account not only for every idle word, but also for every idle silence." St. Ambrose V.O.C.A.L. Voice of Catholics Advocating Life PO Box 458 Sublimity, OR 97385

Oregon Catholic Conference Advocacy Day is $10 and.....

Oregon Catholic Conference Advocacy Day is $10 and..... Dear Friends, A quick note - the cost for the Advocacy Day is $10. This covers the cost of breakfast goodies, lunch and a packet of information to help understand the issues and how the Legislature works. VOCAL would be happy to pay for any Advocate for the Unborn if you have a tight budget. Just let me know. REMEMBER! • Archbishop Vlazny and Bishop Vasa will be there! • Advocacy Day happens every two years! • It'a a holiday - President's Day! • The babies need you! • You CAN make a difference for the Culture of Life! There is also a meeting at 8:30am for testimony regarding HB 2020 the Unborn Victims of Violence/Laci & Connor Peterson Law. If you'd like a fact sheet please let me know and I'll send one to you. Any citizen can speak to the committee. You need 25 copies of your talk to hand out and speak for the voiceless! God Bless, Carolyn Wendell “We shall be called to account not only for every idle word, but also for every idle silence.” St. Ambrose V.O.C.A.L. Voice of Catholics Advocating Life PO Box 458 Sublimity, OR 97385

Lent and Lobbying

Lent and Lobbying Dear Friends, Lent is upon us. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen might call this a "Return to Nothingness"; "God made us out of nothing...nothing at all...and it is well for us to occasionally recall that fact." The reality of this "nothingness" came our family this Ash Wednesday. John Paul Tamiian, beloved son and grandson had died before he was born this morning. At seventeen weeks gestation, weighing only nine ounces, John Paul was already well-loved and a future with him pictured in our minds. Let us pray for all families who have lost children at any age. They are precious in His sight. The reality of the personhood of these little ones is common sense, yet we need to constantly battle the Culture of Death and their ideology. To help the Culture of Life in Oregon we have an opportunity to make our values known through the Oregon Catholic Conference Advocacy Day. Archbishop Vlazny and Bishop Vasa Invite You to: Presidents’ Day - Monday, Feb. 21, 2005 8:00 AM - 3:00 PM "Issues 2005" Advocacy for Life + Advocacy for the Poor Advocacy for the Elderly + Affordable Housing Refundable State Earned Income Tax Credit Start the day in Salem at the State Capitol, Room 50 Register at 8 a.m. Program begins at 8:30 a.m. (Coffee and donuts provided) Please pre-register by phone. 503-233-8387, fax: 503-235-2630, or email: rcastagna@archdpdx.org Please make checks payable to Archdiocese of Portland, 2838 E. Burnside St., Portland 97214 For more information please call 503-233-8387. FYI Please encourage the OCC to support HB 2020 the Laci/Connor Peterson bill that gives personhood to the unborn. You can phone Archbishop John Vlazny 503-234-5334 Bishop Robert Vasa 541-388-4004 or email bpvasa@dioceseofbaker.org More information will be coming as the House/Senate Bills start coming in. Thank you for your support for Life in Oregon. God Bless, Carolyn Wendell “We shall be called to account not only for every idle word, but also for every idle silence.” St. Ambrose V.O.C.A.L. Voice of Catholics Advocating Life PO Box 458 Sublimity, OR 97385

On the Last Day of Christmas.... and Remember Alea

On the Last Day of Christmas.... and Remember Alea Dear Friends, It is the last day of the Christmas season; everything changes at the Baptism of Our Lord and....there has been a gift to the Catholic community: a spirit of reconciliation between the family and the priest. They had a long conversation and although there is not a complete meeting of the minds the family is content, but will not return to that parish. This "confrontation" was necessary and there's a great possibility that no other little children will be denied their blessing in the future. For those of you who have written with their "election stories", or questions about this one, I thank you and will get back to you ASAP, if necessary. Remember that no emails will be given out from VOCAL to anyone without your permission. As our Oregon Catholic community celebrates together we mourn together. On January 1st at 10pm a car lost control on an icy bridge and a beloved child of God and man was the first traffic fatality. Alea Kosydar, 22 years old, was killed as the car she was riding in slid an hit a tree. Her dad, Jerry, said that she had in her possession a new video of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Christmas gift she "borrowed" from another family member so she could share it with others; among them the family of her boyfriend. He was driving the car and suffered minor injuries. Not only did his family learn the pro-life message of Our Lady, but the forgiveness of Christ from holy Christian examples who had just lost their most precious girl. On the Feast Day of the Mother of God, Alea was taken into the arms of her Heavenly Mother. May we have the blessing to be doing His work when we are called home. Iin the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pope John Paul II entrusted the cause of life to her loving protection, and placed under her motherly care the innocent lives of children, especially those who are in danger of not being born. This is a story that Jerry Kosydar loves to tell to his family and surely Alea herited his passion as well. Here is the story in memory of Alea. We read in the Book of Leviticus how the Lord tells Moses about the serious crime of offering children to Molech, referring to the Canaanite custom of sacrificing children to the god Molech. The little victims were first slain and then cremated. (Leviticus 20,1-5 and 18,21). In the Americas, five centuries ago, cruel human sacrificing rituals were performed in the Aztec empire. Between 20,000 and 50,000 were sacrificed a year. The rituals included cannibalism of the victims limbs. Most of them were captives or slaves, and besides men they included women and children. The early Mexican historian Ixtlilxochitl estimated that one out of every five children in Mexico were sacrificed. The climax of these ritual killings came in 1487 for the dedication of the new and richly decorated with serpents temple of Huitzilopochtli, in Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), when in a single ceremony that lasted four days and four nights, with the constant beating of giant drums made of snakeskin, the Aztec ruler and demon worshiper Tlacaellel presided the sacrifice of more than 80,000 men. Our Lady of Guadalupe crushed this serpent in 1531. Today, the ancient Serpent is certainly achieving big hits in its attack upon human life. Millions of unborn children are killed every year around the globe, in procedures that in some countries are not only legal but also officially supported and financed. In many cases the procedures follow the same rules as the sacrifices to the ancient god Molech: the slain and then cremation of the little children. The Woman clothed with the sun, in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, will crush this serpent again. A Prayer for Abortion Victims Prayer for all victims of abortion. May those involved in abortions be reconciled to God and may the innocent dead be saved. 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. So too did Herod seek to destroy your Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and massacred many innocent children in the process. So today does abortion killing many innocent unborn children and exploiting many mothers in its attack upon human life and upon the Church, the Body of Christ. Mother of the Innocents, we praise God in you for His gifts to you of your Immaculate Conception, your freedom from actual sin; your fullness of grace, your Motherhood of God and the Church, your Perpetual Virginity and your Assumption in body and soul into heaven. 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. We desire that the innocent unborn children who die without Baptism should be baptized and saved. We ask that you obtain this grace for them and repentance, reconciliation and pardon from God for their parents and their killers. Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite power of merciful love. May it put an end to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. May Christ the King reign over us, our families, cities, states, nations and the whole of humanity. 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! Prayer of John Paul II for Life O Mary, bright dawn of the new world, Mother of the living, to you do we entrust the cause of life: Look down, O Mother, upon the vast numbers of babies to be born, of the poor whose lives are made difficult, of men and women who are victims of brutal violence, of the elderly and the sick killed by indifference or out of misguided mercy. Grant that all who believe in your Son may proclaim the Gospel of life with honesty and love to the people of our time. Obtain for them the grace to accept that Gospel as a gift ever new, the joy of celebrating it with gratitude throughout their lives and the courage to bear witness to it resolutely, in order to build, together with all people of good will, the civilization of truth and love, to the praise and glory of God, the Creator and lover of life. Pope John Paul II Encyclical Letter "The Gospel of Life" Given in Rome, on March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in the year 1995. Let's start this New Year with the resolution to do the work of the Lord by advocating for the lives of his most innocent children. Sunday, January 16th at the Oregon State Capitol from 2:30-3:30 is the Oregon Right to Life Rally. Father Charles Taaffe will be honored for his 30 years of caring for young mother's and their babies in his three homes. A mass for Life will be at noon at St. Joseph Church. There will be pro-life displays to educate and energize us until the Rally. Also, Monday, February 21st, President's Day is Oregon Catholic Conference's Advocacy Day at the Capitol. It will be hosted by Archbishop Vlazny and Bishop Vasa at St. Joseph Church, Salem from 8am until 3pm. The cost is $10. Let our Shepherds know how much we value Life. More information will be coming. Life is so precious and fragile. Let us remember the love for life that Alea Kosydar shared so eagerly and pray for the repose of her soul and peace and comfort for those who love her. God Bless, Carolyn Wendell "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death,, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" Revelation 21:4 V.O.C.A.L. Voice of Catholics Advocating Life PO Box 458 Sublimity, OR 97385