40 Days for Life with Archbishop Sample and Vicar General, Father Peter Smith

Friday September 20: Beaverton 40 Days for Life Vigil.

6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. at Planned Parenthood, SW 1st and Betts, Beaverton.

With Vicar General, Father Peter Smith

The 40 Days for Life campaign is the largest and longest coordinated pro-life mobilization. It is a focused respect-life effort that consists of 40 days of prayer and fasting, and 40 days of peaceful vigils.

Why You Want to Attend: From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person-among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life... Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2270, 2271, 2272

 

 

 

 

Opening Prayer Vigil of 40 Days for Life:
 FRIDAY, SEPT. 27th, 6:30 pm with Archbishop Sample

We're excited to announce that Archbishop Alexander Sample will lead us in prayer, and Dr. Arthur Henry (40 DFL participant) and Students for Life Rebekah Barnes will also be speaking.

 

This prayer vigil / opening event will be at the Planned Parenthood at 3231 SE 50th (and SE Franklin St, 2 blocks N. of Powell)  

 

Join us on the sidewalk for uplifting prayer, inspiring speeches, sign-ups to stand vigil and pray during the 40 days, and more!

 

Please share this email with all of your friends THANK YOU...

 

 

WE NEED YOU ON WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY, TOO!

 

Join the Most Visible Part of the Campaign

In just one week 40 Days for Life begins!  Our 40 day vigil at Planned Parenthood begins at 7:30 am on Wednesday, September 25.

  

Right now we have a few people signed up for that first Wednesday, and none on Thursday, Sept 26th.

  

If you want to be a part of this most visible aspect of our campaign, you can sign up right now.

Here's how:

1.  Go to www.40daysforlife.com/portland.

2.  Click on "Vigil Schedule" in the second paragraph.

3.  Complete the "New User Sign Up" section.  If you are already registered, just sign in as "Already registered." If you forgot your password, just get a new one.

4.  Go to the vigil schedule and pick a time to come and pray.  If you do not want to come alone, bring a friend or sign up for a slot that is yellow or green - that means at least one other person is already signed up to be there. 

  

Contact Therese Ruesink at 503 997 1884 ruesinktherese@comcast.net503 

or Randy Stewart at 503 659 7869  rrstwt@gmail.com for more information.

 

Dissent at Catholic Youth Ministries - Archdiocese of Portland is a "Go" for their November Meeting.

Thanks CPO for this piece.  It is timely for us.  Our Catholic children are running out of heroes and young.   We are being forced to pay or JustFaith with Jack Jezreel and now this for our children
with Robert McCarty.  (Maybe we should invite Duck Dynasty to Oregon?) 

The question so many are asking is "Is anyone vetting these people?" If they are who are they?

Archbishop Sample is new and so doesn't know the circuitous route to hearing the REAL truth for adults and our children and grandchildren.  We don't want anti-Catholic views leading souls away from Holy Mother Church.

Information for all Oregon Catholic Parents/Grandparents.  http://ym.archdpdx.org/ncyc13groupleadersite.htm


From Catholic Parents Online from Catholic Media Coalition - Thanks for this article.

 

Our children/grandchildren are growing up fast in a world that is spinning out of control. They need the shelter and protection of a loving, secure, holy family and our Holy Mother Church. Families have no time nor use for the dissenting and irreverent programs of the Catholic Youth Ministries. Catholics need to speak out against this organization... let your pastors and bishops know that you don't approve. We can do much better... there are other programs that are respectful and orthodox. 

 

The National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministries (NFCYM) also promotes homosexuality on their website by endorsing the dissenting organization called Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministries. (Note: they do offer the Catholic group, COURAGE as a 2nd option.)

 

July 19, 2013

Dissent at Catholic Youth Ministries

by Austin Ruse

 Not long after I published my recent column about Robert McCarty and the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministries (NFCYM), I started receiving emails from concerned and in some cases very well informed parents. One of the emails included screen shots from Facebook postings of one of McCarty’s senior employees.

On Facebook this fellow celebrates the recent Supreme Court rulings in favor of homosexual marriage as “historic” and an “affirmation of the love and dignity of all human beings.” In another post he congratulates Rhode Island for legalizing homosexual marriage. To his credit, on his Facebook page he also celebrates the recent pro-life victory in Texas.

There is a certain ho-hum quality to this news. Are we really surprised to find that an employee of a quasi-official Catholic organization is squishy on a key teaching of the Church? Sadly, no.  Dissenters from Church teachings have occupied senior positions in chanceries, rectories, seminaries and certainly in quasi-Church organizations for at least 50 years.

Yet in these days of increasing orthodoxy isn’t it at least a little bit surprising that a senior official of a Catholic organization would flaunt his dissent so publicly?  Some compare Facebook to a cocktail party, others to an office water cooler. But it is even more public than that.  And in this public forum, in front of his boss McCarty who is on Facebook with him, this youth ministry leader felt quite comfortable announcing his dissent from this Catholic teaching that so deeply affects children. Maybe these views are de rigueur at the NFCYM water cooler. Did they all celebrate homosexual marriage after the Prop 8 and DOMA decisions?  Do they know the teachings of the Church on homosexual marriage? More importantly, how do they instruct Catholic youth on the subject?
It makes sense that one of the last redoubts of the failed Church revolution would be youth ministries. As the revolutionaries are driven from the chanceries, rectories and bishops conferences, it makes sense they would remain imbedded in an area with so many impressionable minds and so little adult supervision.

Most of us would not come within a mile of Catholic youth ministries, for a whole host of reasons. It is not for adults, though adults run it. And much of it is simply strange to us. The floridly tattooed Bryan Kemper, who runs a thoroughly solid youth outreach for Priests for Life, says a certain level of excitement is necessary to keep the kids’ attention and I believe him.

While many young people are attracted to the Traditional Latin Mass, many others need something quite different. But, do they need what McCarty’s annual conference offers them?

He regularly features a comedienne who makes fun of—or at least light of—Catholic practices. A campy Christmas skit from a recent NFCYM youth catechist conference featured adults dressed as Mary and Joseph and the Three Wise Men. While the choir sings Christmas hymns, the Mary character makes periodic comic grimaces, presumably from labor pains, to audience laughter.  Other adults sashay and shimmy on stage until the climax of the skit, when, as the choir crescendos to the words, “This, this is Christ the King,” a man in a bear costume stumbles onto the stage. Hilarity ensues.

The skit was proudly posted on YouTube by the head of an archdiocesan Catholic youth ministry who attended the conference, but after it appeared among the comments of my last column on this topic it has been taken off YouTube—not likely because it is blasphemous, but because shining a spotlight on it is a danger to McCarty’s project.

Most of us steer clear of youth ministry. Other than a sojourn in a Methodist youth singing group called New Faith, so did I. My time in New Faith was mostly about girls. The whole scene was just too touchy feely, and not in the way I sought in those days.

Maybe kids need pop music and silly skits to keep them interested in the Church, but you have to wonder if this is the only way to pass along the faith to kids. And you have to ask if it is working. Look around your Church on Sunday and count the number of teenagers. You will be shocked at the how small the number is. So, you have to wonder if McCarty’s way is really working. After all, he and his have been at this for decades. Yes, he turns out 20,000 for his annual conference, but where are these kids on Sunday? Not in Church.

Not all diocesan Youth Ministry offices are content with the hippy-dippy way. Informed sources tell me the Diocese of Arlington has pulled out of the NFCYM, or at least its annual conference.  There are probably many others.

Other groups offer a different and a better way. Curtis Martin and his Fellowship of Catholic University Students put on an annual conference for several thousand students that is respectful and thoroughly orthodox. His group is growing exponentially. The Steubenville youth conferences draw many thousands of young Catholics, too, where they hear about the love of Christ and the call to purity, chastity, and self-sacrifice.

Scott Hahn, once a charismatic himself, told me the charismatic movement was one lane coming into the church and six going out. What is the calculus for Catholic youth ministries? How many lanes in? How many lanes out?

The next national conference of McCarty’s group is in November in Indianapolis. Let us hope some fearless and faithful videographers attend.
 

Pope Francis' Five Finger Prayer

 foThis helpful way to remember to 
 pray well if stumped was fashioned by Pope Francis before he was pope.

God Bless America and may the Holy Spirit teach us to pray for peace.

Syria Crisis: al-Qaeda Seizes Village That Still Speaks the Ancient Language of Christ

 

A branch of al-Qaeda fighting in the Syrian civil war has seized one of the few remaining villages where the original language of Christ is still spoken, residents say.

 By Ruth Sherlock, Beirut and Magdy Samaan

7:46PM BST 05 Sep 2013

 

Fighting raged through the picturesque mountain village of Maaloula, near Damascus, on Thursday, as the regime launched a counter-attack against the rebels.

"They entered the main square and smashed a statue of the Virgin Mary," said one resident of the area, speaking by phone and too frightened to give his name. "They shelled us from the nearby mountain. Two shells hit the St Thecla convent."

Maaloula, tucked into the honey-coloured cliffs of a mountain range north of Damascus and on a "tentative" list of applicants for Unesco world heritage status, is associated with the earliest days of Christianity.

St Thecla, who is supposedly buried in the convent, was a follower of St Paul who fled to the village in Syria to avoid marriage, having taken an oath of chastity. It is said that the cleft of rock in which the convent is placed opened up to allow her to escape her pursuers.

The inhabitants are mostly Melkite Greek Catholic and Orthodox Christians, but have historically lived peacefully alongside a Sunni Muslim minority. It is one of only three places in the world where Western Aramaic, a dialect of the language spoken by Christ, is still used.

  Pope warns Obama that military strike on Syria would be 'futile'

• 05 Sep 2013

Until recently, the town had managed to remain mostly unaffected by the civil war that has already claimed more than 100,000 lives. A visit by The Daily Telegraph last year found it ringed by government checkpoints but suffering from the lack of pilgrims and tourists who are normally vital to its economy.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, rebel groups, a mix of the extremist Jabhat al-Nusra and the more moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA), attacked with full force.

"First they took a brick factory owned by a Christian guy, who is now missing," said the
 resident. "Then at around 5.30am, a car bomb detonated at the checkpoint at the entrance to the village.

"Some of the rebels entered a home near the checkpoint belonging to Yousef Haddad, a Christian. They tried to force him to convert to Islam."

A nun living in a convent in the village told the Associated press that 27 orphans living in the convent were taken to nearby caves for shelter.

Video footage posted on YouTube showed rebel fighters on a pick up truck with an anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back firing erratically from inside the mountain town.

Christians, who make up approximately 10 per cent of Syria's population, have increasingly become targets in the conflict as sectarian-minded foreign jihadists gain influence in the opposition ranks.

Almost a third of the Syriac Christian population has fled the rebel-held northern town of Hassakeh after Christians became targets for kidnappings and assassinations.

Mousab Abu Qatada, a spokesman for the FSA in Damascus and the Damascus suburbs, denied that the attack on Maaloula had been sectarian.

"We are trying to protect the minorities and the holy sites of Syria. We promise to protect it against the criminal regime," he said.

Residents said the rebels had been pushed back to Safir hotel in the mountains, where they had been based since March this year.

The resident said: "They have been annoying the Christian people of the village since then. A Christian farmer cannot go up there to his land unless he is accompanied by a Muslim resident of the village."

Pope Francis Calls For Peace In Syria, Announces Worldwide Day Of Fasting On September 7, 2013

Pope Francis Calls For Peace In Syria, Announces Worldwide Day Of Fasting On                    Saturday. September 7, 2013 


"Brothers and sisters, I have decided to proclaim for the whole Church on 7 September next, the vigil of the birth of Mary, Queen of Peace, a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria, the Middle East, and throughout the world, and I also invite each person, including our fellow Christians, followers of other religions and all men of good will, to participate, in whatever way they can, in this initiative.On 7 September, in Saint Peter's Square, here, from 19:00 until 24:00, we will gather in prayer and in a spirit of penance, invoking God's great gift of peace upon the beloved nation of Syria and upon each situation of conflict and violence around the world. Humanity needs to see these gestures of peace and to hear words of hope and peace! I ask all the local churches, in addition to fasting, that they gather to pray for this intention." Pope Francis