Sr. Lucia, one of the seers of Fatima, revealed that Satan’s attack on humanity in the end times would focus on the destruction of marriage and family. The family is the fundamental cell of society and the domestic church. By attacking marriage and family, Satan is able to weaken society and the church at its very foundations. One alarming survey showed that 98% of men in prison were raised in families with no father in the home.
Let’s go back 51 years to the publication of, “Humanae Vitae – On Human Life,” by Saint Pope Paul VI. There was a lot of pressure from the media and modern society for the Church to change its teaching against using contraceptives, like the new birth-control pill, in order to help couples plan their families and avoid unwanted pregnancies. All hell broke loose when Saint Paul VI reaffirmed the Church’s teaching that it was an intrinsic evil to deliberately sterilize the “marriage act” through chemical, barrier, or surgical methods. Providentially, some modern and highly effective “natural” methods for avoiding, or, achieving, pregnancy, were developed at this time (late fifties) cf. the “Billings Method.” These methods, were based on a woman being able to accurately track her days of fertility by the physical signs in her body. Given a responsible and unselfish reason to avoid pregnancy, the couple could abstain from the marriage act during the relatively few days when the woman’s body was fertile.
Saint Paul VI prophetically warned the world about the serious consequences that would follow if there was wide-spread disobedience to the God-given meaning of human sexuality, marriage and family that he had re-affirmed in the Encyclical Letter, Humanae Vitae.
Next week I will share Saint Paul VI’s prophetic statements.   
 
Blessings, Fr. John 
 

By the time you are reading this, a day “that will go down in infamy,” January 22, 1973, will have anniversaried for the 46th time. On that day seven supreme court justices lifted the protection of the law from human life in the womb in our country. Sixty million surgical abortions later, the majority of voters are still electing political leaders who value a woman’s “right to choose” a baby’s death more than the inalienable right to life of a child in the womb. I repeat, “A Moral Wrong Cannot Be A Civil Right!”
Prayer is powerful. Prayer to God through Mary, who carried Jesus in her womb, is even more powerful. It is more important than ever to pray and fast for an end to abortion in our nation and in the world. May God’s love and truth then animate our thoughts, our words, our actions and our votes as we work tirelessly for life, liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all.
On Saturday, January 26, our parish sent nine bus loads of witnesses to march in the West Coast Walk For Life in San Francisco. What good did it do? Here is some wisdom from Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, “People sometimes ask me if we can be optimistic, those of us who are religious believers, about the future of our country. My answer is always the same. Optimism and pessimism are equally dangerous for the believer because both God and the devil are full of surprises. But the virtue of hope is another matter. We have every reason to hope. Scripture tells us that we must live in hope and hope is a very different creature from optimism. Hope is the grace to trust that God is who He claims to be, and that in serving Him, we do something fertile and precious for the renewal of the world. Our lives matter not because of who we are. They matter because of who God is. His mercy, his Justice, his love – these are the things that move the galaxies and reach into the womb to touch the unborn child with the grandeur of being human. And we become more truly human ourselves by seeing the humanity in the poor, the weak, the elderly and the unborn child – and then fighting for it.”
 
Pro-Life Blessings, Fr. John 
 

Para el momento en que estes leyendo esto, un día “que pasará en la infamia”, el 22 de Enero del 1973, se habrá cumplido el 46ª aniversario. Ese día, siete jueces de la corte suprema levantaron la protección de la ley de la vida humana en el útero de nuestro país. Sesenta millones de abortos quirúrgicos más tarde, la mayoría de los votantes siguen eligiendo líderes políticos que valoran más el “derecho a elegir” de una mujer, la muerte de un bebe  más que el derecho inalienable a la vida de un niño en el útero. Repito, “¡Un error moral no puede ser un derecho civil!”
La oración es poderosa. La oración a Dios a través de María, quien llevó a Jesús en su vientre, es aún más poderosa. Hoy es más importante que nunca orar y ayunar para poner fin al aborto en nuestra nación y en el mundo. Que el amor y la verdad de Dios animen nuestros pensamientos, nuestras palabras, nuestras acciones y nuestros votos mientras trabajamos incansablemente por la vida, la libertad y la justicia, no solo para algunos, sino para todos.
El Sábado, 26 de Enero, nuestra parroquia envió nueve autobuses llenos de testigos para marchar en la Caminata por la Vida de la Costa Oeste en San Francisco. ¿Qué bien hizo? Aquí hay algo de la sabiduría del Arzobispo Charles Chaput de Filadelfia: “La gente a veces me pregunta si podemos ser optimistas, aquellos de nosotros que somos creyentes religiosos, sobre el futuro de nuestro país. Mi respuesta es siempre la misma. El optimismo y el pesimismo son igualmente peligrosos para el creyente porque tanto Dios como el diablo están llenos de sorpresas. Pero la virtud de la esperanza es otro asunto. Tenemos todas las razones para la esperanza. La Escritura nos dice que debemos vivir con esperanza y que la esperanza es una criatura muy diferente del optimismo. La esperanza es la gracia de confiar en que Dios es quien dice ser, y que al servirlo, hacemos algo fértil y precioso para la renovación del mundo. Nuestras vidas importan no por quienes somos. Importan por quien es Dios. Su misericordia, su justicia, su amor: estas son las cosas que mueven las galaxias y llegan al útero para tocar al niño por nacer con la grandeza de ser humano. Y nosotros mismos nos volvemos más humanos al ver a la humanidad en los pobres, los débiles, los ancianos y el niño por nacer - y luego luchar por ella.”
 
Bendiciones a favor de la vida, Fr. John