40 Days for Life Starts in London Today

I like reading the SPUC Blog by John Smeaton. My heart was uplifted one evening recently when via the SPUC blog I accessed Robert Colquhoun's blog, called 'Love Undefiled' In my opinion what is on there should be taught to young people gradually at appropriate ages regarding sex education. For example there is a powerpoint presentation on chastity, information on the theology of the body etc. What a contrast to what our young people are bombarded with daily, by the media, family planning and abortion clinics, clinics treating sexually transmitted diseases, infertility etc.
'Love Undefiled' is a fantastic resource, so if you do access it spread the word. In addition Robert Colquhoun is the organiser of a 40 day prayerful, peaceful vigil aiming to end abortion and due to commence today in London - Wednesday 22nd September. Thank God for Robert and all those other young people who have faith, hope and charity and who are relying on God's grace and the power of prayer to fight for life against the culture of death.
http://loveundefiled.blogspot.com/
www.40daysforlife.com/london

Ronni O' Gara

Proof That Evil Exists; Outcry Over Cat As Hundreds of Thousands of Babies Die

I was coming home on the tube a few days ago when I saw the headlines and read the story of the lady who threw a cat into a dustbin and left him there for 15 hours. The article went on to criticise her actions, and to outline the outrage expressed by the public against the lady concerned. She even had death threats made against her.
Later in the day I opened my email to find some pictures. There was the scan of a beautiful baby girl who is not expected to make her entrance to this world until November. The delicate features of her pretty little face partly hidden by a small but perfectly formed hand was so clear. Yet she had been destined to be torn from limb to limb while being aborted. (We don't want to pretend to ourselves that this is true, much less acknowlege that the aborted baby will experience any pain or suffering.)
This little girl "should" be dead, a little tick in the abortion statistics. But her mother met one of Good Counsel's volunteers quietly praying outside an abortion clinic and handing out leaflets which outline the help we can give and which she is now receiving from Good Counsel. She will continue to receive this help while she and her baby need it.
Pro-lifers are often seen as 'crackpots' who harass women outside abortion clinics. They are seen as those who have the cheek to challenge the woman's right to choose. Of course it would not do to see the baby as the fully formed baby she or he is; Don't tell the truth. This is not a baby its only a fetus. It doesn't matter. It is just an inconvenience. Get outraged with those who try to save this child's life. If her mother wants to kill her, that choice and right must be defended at all costs.
Make sure a woman has a right to kill her own child. Threaten with death the woman who allegedly puts a cat in a dustbin. Of course she is wrong to do this, all animals are God's creatures and must be treated properly and with respect. But value a cat above a baby? Is our society mad or very evil. Evil? the Devil?! Surely we are more sophisticated than to believe they exist!!!

Don't they ???

Ronni O'Gara

Do We Pray For and Help the Young to Learn the Truth?

I do not have children or grandchildren so I do not know what Catholic children are taught today in relation to faith or morals. Are all catholic children given age appropriate teaching on for example, chastity, responsibility within all relationships, on the evils of contraception and abortion, love within marriage, natural family planning in compliance with the teaching of the Church?
I imagine that nowadays it would be almost impossible to isolate or completely protect any young person from prevailing views regarding contraception and abortion. I in my own small circle of friends and acquaintances have heard practising Catholics agree with contraception and even abortion in certain serious circumstances.
We have many excellent young people who want to obey God's law. They are under tremendous pressure to conform to current norms and values. Have they got full knowledge of the teaching of the Church? Have they got proper spiritual guidance? Have they our support, e.g. do we pray for them, give good example etc? Young people are our future and the future of our church. Will they be able to stop the tide of contraception and abortion ?

Ronni O'Gara

We Can Turn Our Culture Around

The family planning and abortion "clinics" promote their wares everywhere, they make lots and lots of money from their business.
As catholics with the gift of faith our business is to ensure that we ourselves and everyone we have contact with experiences God's love through us. With all our sinfulness and weakness we each do our best to keep God's law and never knowingly harm anyone. We are human, we fail, but we have been given the Sacrament of Penance so that we can confess our sins no matter how grave, get God's forgiveness and start anew.
Through ignorance and arrogance I rejected the teaching of the Church on contraception without having read the Church's relevant documents and having had no discussion wth those who were learned in those matters. I suspect there are many people who believe as I once did and who need leadership and teaching from our church
Could our spiritual leaders our shepherds please have a year for the promotion of the teaching of the church on love, marriage, sex, openess to life, planning a family, the evils of contraception? Where is political correctness and the desire to go with the flow and not upset the apple cart going to get them and us on the day of judgement.
There is a way to turn things around, it may take some time, but the gangs of today can become the saints of tomorrow (we are a church of sinners eg the great Saint Paul was a great persecuter of christians prior to his conversion)if we trust in God and if we all use our God given talents and leadership skills.

Ronni O'Gara

Shepherds Must Guide the Flock On Contraception and Give Light to the Secular World

Contraception has encouraged the 'sexual revolution' enabling sex to be separated from conjugal love within marriage. Sex has become a commodity to be enjoyed in an expection that there are no consequences, no responsibility.
The use of contraception is generally deemed to be the responsibility of today's 'liberated' woman. Therefore when it fails the man sees the resulting pregnancy as the woman's failure, her problem, nothing to do with him, hence the pressure to abort and generally immediate abandonment of the woman and of any responsibility towards his child.
Some men do of course use condoms, in an effort to protect themselves from another consequence of this so called sexual freedom, sexually transmitted disease, including HIV, Aids and the many other STDs.
Every day we hear via the media of the breakdown in our society, the breakdown of family life, divorce, single parents, the lack of male role models in many families, men's disempowerment in relation to taking responsibility and being fathers to their children, the gang culture, the killing, the drugs, the alcohol abuse, the sexual abuse. Our secular leaders - those in power - wring their hands: their solution, more sex education to younger and younger children, more contraception, more abortion.
Jesus asked who wanted to throw the first stone at the woman caught in adultery. So none of us have the right to judge anyone else, we do not know what that person has suffered, how they have been disadvantaged in life. Those of us who have been given the wonderful gift of faith have a greater responsibility than anyone else to fulfill our vocation in life to the best of our ability.
Our spiritual leaders, cardinals, bishops and priests know - or should know - that contraception is sinful, that natural family planning works, that it enhances the loving relationship of a husband and wife enabling them to truly love one another, to be open to life, to limit the number of children they have when there is a serious reason to, helping them to be chaste and faithful within marriage. We know it has no side effects, no ill effects, and that statistically it is much more effective than any form of contraception in planning a family in compliance with the will of God; true liberation for men and women.
If our church leaders, our shepherds, are not willing to speak out. If they are not willing to say in a compassionate way that sex outside of marriage is a mortal sin, if they are not willing to promote chastity, saving sex for marriage, natural family planning, if they are not willing to ensure that their congregations know the truth, to ensure that our schools follow the full teaching of the church so that our young people grow up without the contraceptive mentality of previous and current generations, what hope have we of our secular leaders ever seeing the light?

Ronni O'Gara

The Evils of All Contraception - Even Barrier Methods

While listening to the radio today I heard a very shocking account of boy gang initiation rituals in this country where apparently girls as young as ten are raped by the gang. Members of a charity who say they are helping these young women were interviewed. One said they were teaching these young women that their bodies are their own to do what they want with, so long as they are consenting to what is done.
Are our bodies our own? Or are we created by God, to know love and serve Him and to be happy with Him for all eternity?
But of course we human beings are very clever. We have managed to find a way to thwart God's plan (as human beings have so foolishly done from Adam and Eve onwards) and interfere with His creation by inventing contraception. Many reasons are given as to how and why this 'wonderful' invention can change our lives for the better. The Catholic Church examined the case for contraception and concluded that it was against God's law and outlined the reasons for this conclusion in a document called 'Humanae Vitae'. I along with many catholics decided this was a harsh and unrealistic conclusion. I was working with young families at the time and was very sympathetic towards those married couples who already had children and who were living in poverty. What was wrong, I thought, with allowing them to use barrier methods of contraception? They already had enough to cope with.
It was only some years later that I learned how right and wise the teaching of the Church is and I also learned about natural family planning. The Church does not, contrary to what many think, expect parents to have more children than they can cope with spiritually, emotionally, practically or financially. Married couples are required to always be open to life, but they can use natural family planning to plan the number of children they have in relation to their spiritual, physical, emotional and financial resources. Also those who have problems conceiving a child can use natural family planning help them to do so.
Gradually I began to realise what an evil contraception really is. Over the years I have seen the many awful effects on humanity including, for example, the murder of millions of unborn babies through abortion when contraception fails, the easy availability of contraception and abortion on demand, even to school children whose parents do not have to be informed.
The majority of the women helped by the Good Counsel Network to avoid abortion, have become pregnant due to the failure of contraception. Since they are a random sample of women approaching abortion clinics it goes without saying that the majority of women who have abortions do so due to contraception failure.

Ronni O'Gara

Abortions Continue Because We Lie

I recently watched an inspirational programme on television; A family kept a video diary of the natural world around their large garden through which a river flows. It showed the two parents observe the fascinating flora and fauna and all the fish and animal life and delight in teaching their three little boys about the beauty and wonder of the world around them.

It was good to see the warm family interactions which include all the emotions, love laughter, exasperation, arguments sadness, joy, care and concern both for each other, the environment and the animal and fish life around them. The children observe birth, death and everything in between in a normal and natural way as children should.

When I saw the programme, I was grateful for television which enables us to see close at hand so much of the beauty of God's creation which is around us and which we take so much for granted. It is hard to see why people cannot believe in God when one sees the beauty and order of creation.
There are also instances where animals or fish were killed for food or injured.

There was one particular instance where a baby kingfisher had a broken wing, The father of the family rescued it fed and cared for it, including two trips to the vet, and was visibly very upset when it died. His wife had a dilemma as to whether he should have rescued it in the first place as perhaps the bird would have suffered less by dying quickly and naturally had he left it in the river where he found it.

As I watched the soul searching, the care and attention to nature I thought of all the abortions which take place every day of every year all over the world. If only we could give the same thought and care to the innocent and helpless unborn babies that this bird had. So many of us lie to ourselves and others; "No it is not a baby, it is just a group of cells"(cells with a beating heart at 18 days old when most women do not even realise they are pregnant) ."It is not a baby so it cannot feel pain". How do we know he or she can't? What is the difference between the baby born at 24 weeks lying, in the incubator, showing distress, crying reacting to pain and the baby of 23 weeks gestation still safe and protected in the uterus but about to be aborted because he or she is not perfect in our eyes. There is no difference, we lie and pretend there is, so that we do not have to face the fact that not only are we murderers, we are torturers too.

Ronni O'Gara

Destitute in London

The phone was ringing: the call was for me. One of the women to whom we sent vouchers each week was ringing to say she had received her voucher for that week.It was, like all financial help we give, a subsistence amount enabling her to buy enough food, nappies etc for her children. It did not allow for the tinest luxury but she was grateful, as all the women to whom we send vouchers are, because without this help she and her children would literally starve.
Yes in London England we have women and young children who are totally destitute. They are people who, for whatever reason, reasons usually outside of their control, have no money and no home. The baby's father has usually abandoned them. This is the story one such woman told to me when I first saw her..
Elaine's husband had emigrated to England. Once he was established in a job and had a home he sent for his wife and 3 year old son to join him. The plan was that they both would work, the child would attend nursery and they would build up a prosperous life for themselves. However the plan went wrong as it so often does due to the failure of the artificial contraception they used. Elaine found she was pregnant. Her husband was very angry and told her to abort the baby. She refused, so he regularly beat and kicked her and told her he would get rid of the baby. He also brought another woman into their dwelling place and openly slept with this woman. Elaine fled with her son and relied on a friend to provide accomodation food and essentials for both of them. Her friend told her that she would be unable to accomodate her after the baby's birth.
She saw one of our leaflets which outlines the help we can give and made an appointment to be seen when she was about 35 weeks pregnant. On assessment her main needs were for accomodation and enough money to feed and clothe her family once her baby was born. She also needed baby clothes and equipment , most of which were given to her on that first visit. I also referred her to an organisation via which she could access free legal help so that she could regularise her situation.Her husband's solicitor had been doing this but she no longer had contact with her husband. She was asked to return a week or two later to be told the outcome of the assessment of need and to learn what help could be offered to her.She had been asked to bring with her, to this first first visit, means of identification , passport, Home Office documents, any proof she could provide regarding her financial situation etc. This type of information is used to help inform all assessments and aids the decision making process. but the priority of the organisation is to prevent abortion. This lady was strong enough to resist her husband's violent attempts to get her to abort their baby, because of that resistence she was now homeless and penniless.
She did not return as expected but rang a few days later to say she had gone in to labour and her baby girl was born a few weeks earlier than expected, but she was due to be discharged from hospital and had nowhere to stay . Following discussion at Good Counsel it was decided that we would provide short term housing, vouchers, friendship, and support. She returned to practice of her faith and her children were baptised. She was able to leave within a few months, having regularised her legal situation. She now has a home and an income. She no longer needs our practical help but she continues to access moral support and friendship by visiting the Sisters(who ran the house where she stayed) and attending some of our mother's meetings.

Ronni O'Gara