News

Re: A Short Story of a Loving Mother's Miscarriage and Her Fruitful Sorrow

The story was very moving and deeply spiritual; praise God that one woman's grief became a beacon of life transfigured and illuminated for others! You are doing an excellent work!

Frances Everett
Winnipeg, Manitoba

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Re: LifeSiteNews is Under Attack

Mr. Westen,

You said, “Some Church leaders have shown that they do not comprehend the great social and spiritual dangers of our times – the D&P and US CCHD scandals have demonstrated that more than a few within those organizations have no understanding of the Christian principles they supposedly strive to promote and would rather continue their 'inadvertent' funding of pro-abortion and otherwise anti-Christian groups than admit the truth.”

I understand what you mean. I once gave a few printed articles that you had on Amnesty International (AI) to someone in my Church (Catholic) who financially contributed to AI. He said that he didn't believe the articles and that AI continues to do great humanitarian work.

Catholics, such as the Catholics at my Church or the Catholics at Zenit, just can't believe the truth about their social justice organizations in relation to abortion no matter what facts are presented to the contrary. Even when they entertain the possibility that their organization contributes to the killing of innocents in abortion, they downplay their significance.

I answered my fellow parishioner's conundrums in two ways. (1) Like the segregation issue (read David Duke), if some entity or person is for abortion, they should be automatically disqualified from anyone's money and/or vote. (2) It's a priority issue; I would venture to say that there are fewer people killed or imprisoned unjustly in one year around the world than there are killed in abortion in one year or even one day. Everyone in the world, especially Catholics, should fight as hard as they can against abortion: the most tragic civil rights violation of our day.

I pray that you keep up the Good Work that God has given you and your staff to do in telling the Truth no matter what the consequences.

Sincerely,
Gerry McClain
Baltimore, MD, USA
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I am deeply sorry to hear that D & P have turned a blind eye to the evidence you have presented on monies going to fund abortions.  It is appalling.  I, as a Catholic believe, as you said, this is a spiritual battle and I know the truth will prevail, eventually.  Keep up the excellent work you are doing.  Every evil needs to be exposed whether we like it or not.  Keeping all of you in my prayers.

Jae Ewing
White Rock, B.C.
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My heart grieves at what I consider a betrayal of Catholic values.  You are wonderful!  Amazing! What would we do without you???  Thank God that you exist! You are in my prayers every day.

Anne E.
Nanaimo BC
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This is an obvious attempt by D&P to deflect the spotlight on their dirty laundry by initiating a smear campaign against LifeSiteNews. It is a shameful way to address the valid concerns that LifeSiteNews has raised about some of their avowed pro-abortion partners in third-world countries. Why aren't the faithful Canadian bishops speaking out or at least allaying our fears that D&P is being investigated? As a Canadian Catholic I feel betrayed: it appears the Truth is being sacrificed for political reasons.

Helene Pineau
Ontario, Canada
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All of us are going through simular things like this. Keep on the same path and don't give in like Stupac. We are all having to stand and look foolish but what else can we do and live with ourselves? Why not ask your pope to do something about this situation? The nuns have spoken and the dems quoted them as if they were the pope. Mercy!!!

Kay McMillan
North Carolina, USA
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Dear Mr. Westen,

I read with deep sorrow your email to me entitled “LifeSiteNews is Under Attack.” I am sure you know all that is good, and holy and true is being violently attacked everywhere truth shines its unwelcomed light. This will go on and it will be violent, heartrending and relentless.

LifeSiteNews is a light shining in the darkness, and the darkness hates you. Jesus said it clearly when stated in John 3:19-22: “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.”

LifeSiteNews, by spreading the splendor and beauty of truth attracts hatred, but it is not LifeSiteNews that is hated but Jesus Christ that is hated, Jesus Christ who is the Light of LifeSiteNews.

Fr. Maryon Jordan, OSB
Beaverton, Oregon
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I am not a Catholic but I have greatly enjoyed the strictly conservative points of view that are sent regularly by email.  I just wanted to encourage you to keep up the struggle against false accusations and stand up for truth.  I will be praying for God to intervene on your behalf.  I am a retired minister of a Charismatic church.

Elroy Pankratz
British Columbia, Canada
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I am not only perturbed by but disheartened at the reaction of D&P and others. As a teacher, let me share with you how valuable Lifesite news is to me and my students.

I was once asked, at the last minute, to teach a course on, ahem, “Social Justice”.  The major evaluative project was a portfolio of social justice related news articles that the students needed to collect, summarize and evaluate.  I seized the opportunity to provide the students with news stories from Lifesite news. That's 3 articles x 8 issues x 30 students = 720 articles.

We appreciate your commitment to journalistic excellence and true Catholic social justice teaching.  I will continue to use Lifesite as a rewarding classroom tool and I encourage other educators to do the same.

With much gratitude
Kate Purcell
Welland, Ontario
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I just want to let you know how much I value your work and how important I feel it is. I only recently began receiving your daily newsletter. I find your website to provide the most accurate and thorough news accounts with updates along the way and corrections, however rare.

I will be sending another donation in the very near future as I have just recently decided to cease supporting what I thought was another reputable Catholic news source. I will put my money where the truths of the Faith are openly & accurately reported. I also want to let you know that I have been recommending your site to other like-minded faithful Catholics who are searching for the true story.

Margaret Murphy
Grand Rapids, Michigan
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Dear Friends at Lifesite News:

It was with deep consternation that I read about Development and Peace and its threat to the survival of your service.  I have been a follower of your news for several years now; It's a critical component of my daily life.  Thanks to your excellent work I have become a passionate advocate for life and it grieves me deeply to read that you are on someone's hit list.

God give all of us strength, particularly all of you who have sacrificed so much to bring us the truth, unpleasant and unadorned as it often is.  We stand in solidarity and continue to pray that God will protect you in your efforts and that the future will reveal how critical your role has been in bringing his truth into our world.

I will make a further donation of $150.00 if three people will match it. 

Suzanne Formanek
Prague, Czech Republic

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Re: Heroes Campaign Goes Over the Top

Your Heroes campaign went over the top. Take note. You are faithful and Divine Providence is faithful to you.

Albert Lalonde, OMI
Manitoba, Canada
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Re: Would you pay to read LifeSiteNews.com?

Dear Steve,

No one knows better than I the sacrifices one has to make to be a witness to the world in the area of journalism. I got my start in 1950 at the age of 20 as a founding staff member of The Sun Herald of Kansas City. We ran it on the basis of voluntary poverty. My initial salary was $15 a week and I even had to be prepared to find a job to help support the ongoing effort to launch America's last attempt at a Catholic daily. Depending on God's providence was the only way to go. It was that or nothing.

We were even told to get out of Chicago under “pain of serious sin”—mainly because the editor of the local diocesan weekly thought we would be competition, The awful thought of a daily diocesan weekly was not what we were out to establish. Our goal was to publish the news of the world viewed in the light of eternity—a perspective that is still needed today.

We were welcomed in Kansas City by the saintly Archbishop Edwin O'Hara and ended up publishing for seven great months during which I had a chance to do everything under the sun a young guy can do on a daily—from a 3 times weekly column to editing and rewriting national and foreign news to running the city desk while the city editor was on his honeymoon. I even learned nearly all the mistakes one can possibly make on a venture if this kind. It was an education you couldn't get in any J-school.

In the process, we produced a daily whose foreign coverage was called “second to none” and that managed to scoop the NY Times with major stories from behind the Iron Curtain. Their stories ran again 6 months to a year later in the Times with bylines by  C..L. Sulzberger, Jr., and Harrison Salisbury.  We had built a great network of foreign correspondents all over Europe. Publisher's weekly even ran a cartoon about us, showing a cub reporter in Korea with a press pass in his fedora, saying “I work for the Sun Herald for space rates.” So it was fun, too.

Later, the effort moved to NY and launched me into a new career as an investigative reporter. Althought it “failed” in a technical sense, its seeds were cast far and wide—with key staff members going on to successful careers in television, Washington, and the Catholic press. By 23, I was editing a major Catholic magazine with 400,000 circulation (The Sign) and later became a publishing consultant and helped launch, save or redesign more than a dozen Catholic publications—some of which still survive today. The pressures of making a living later sent me to Madison Avenue where I had major successes with a host of clients and added to the skills and experience that were sorely needed to make an effort like The Sun Herald really succeed.

Unfortunately, the world had changed around us after the Council and the whole Catholic press became pretty much a shadow of its former self.  If the '50's and '60's were its golden age, we're now in the depths of the dark ages, except for the new beginnings we see in efforts like yours. That's what tough times are for—new beginnings.

Personally, I've never seen tougher or darker times.  I've spent the last 15 years trying my level best to bring the pro-life message alive in new and different ways that can make a difference with the generation now coming of age. However, there is no doubt that we are in a post-Christian era, and if we put mammon first, we will surely fail. Our job is to keep planting the seeds in the most fertile ground. God will bring the harvest. I say this in spite of the fact that I literally don't know where our next month's “budget” (he said laughingly) is coming from. I've been at this 15 years and haven't collected a paycheck yet. Believe me, that is painful sacrifice. If it were not for good health and a loving, working spouse, I'd be done for.

If you suddenly start charging for Lifesitenews, I'd have to say no. On the other hand, if God blesses us, we will certainly bless you for the valuable service you perform. Sadly, we live in a very dysfunctional world, one in which even our moral and spiritual leaders are lost and groping and terribly confused.  As for politics, the two parties act like a divorcing couple fighting over the family dog, and meanwhile no one is taking care of the children.  Apathy hangs over the Christian community like a cloud. Trying to wake people up is like trying to light wet matches on a rainy day. Nevertheless, there are sparks here and there, and our job is kindle them and make them break into flame.

I met a couple of your people in Washington during the March and I am impressed with their commitment and their professionalism. Keep that up and you will survive and eventually prosper. But considering the nature of the internet, what you need now is even more free access so that your voice becomes the most widely heard across the web. That should not stop you from doubling and redoubling your efforts to raise funds to support your work. Indeed, you have to become even more creative and persistent in that task. 

“We all need to pray that the seeds its failure scattered to the winds will take root and prosper in a new generation.”

Dennis Howard
Movement for a Better America
Mt. Freedom, New Jersey

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Re: US Health Care Proposals

As a Canadian, it is painful to watch our southern cousins struggle with the issue of government funded abortion, partly because we were so unsuccessful in stopping it.  I believe there is a bypass to the impasse, in fact two:
 
1) Ensure the legislation contains provisions that make funders and providers treat abortion like all reputable medical procedures and potions.  This means there is no funding and no operation unless the abortion is proven to be:
  a) medically necessary. (There must be some real medical, surgical or psychiatric indication both for the group of patients containing this patient and for the individual for whom the abortion is being recommended. The science is clear that there are no psychiatric indications. In fact psychiatric illnesses are made worse by abortion. Choice is not a medical indication)
  b) it has proven long term benefits.
  c) there are no serious, unnecessary harmful effects; at least none that outweigh the proposed benefits.
  d) the full range of treatments that are less expensive and noninvasive and with fewer, less serious, non-reversible damages are tried first.
  e) the full range of options for the mother and baby are offered and made available. (There are at least nine of these)
  f) the medical personal who perform the operation must do it in good faith which in medicine means they are personally convinced, by doing a careful analysis of their own patients, that they are doing more good than harm.
  g) the patient is fully informed and has opportunity to ask questions, get a 2nd opinion, resolve the underlying conflicts and think about the consequences before giving consent.
  h) all the external pressures to acquiesce from finances, boy friend etc are removed.
  i) the ambivalence and indecision are taken into consideration so that the proposed patient is asked repeatedly over a period of weeks.(Almost every couple have moments of ambivalence about welcoming a new life into their family.)
  j) after careful examination, the patient is given a clearly described recommendation. (The only choice is to refuse or accept that recommendation.)

The legislation must also reinforce the ancient medial dictum that the burden of proof for all the above rests on those who perform, support or fund an unproven remedy like abortion.

In this regard, all political parties can be legitimately pragmatic. Eg. “Since we don't want to harm women, we must wait until the medical scientists can clearly and honestly tell us if we are doing the right thing before we provide funding for abortion.”

2) For concerned citizens to simply refuse to pay that portion of their taxes or insurance premiums that pay for abortions or any other unproven reputed remedy as is their right.

Philip Ney MD
British Columbia, Canada
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