By John-Henry Westen

VATICAN CITY, February 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Vatican Press Office released a note this morning detailing part of the conversation which Pope Benedict XVI had with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Pelosi also released a statement on the meeting, which ignored the one and only crucial issue mentioned in the Vatican note.  While Pelosi presented the meeting as a fully positive encounter, the Vatican indicated the Pope reminded her of the requirement of Catholic politicians to defend life. Also, contrary to normal protocols for such meetings with dignitaries, no photos of Pelosi with the Pope have been released.

The Vatican note reads: "His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

Vatican insiders stressed to LifeSiteNews.com that such releases are always phrased in diplomatic language and thus the correction of the Speaker who describes herself as a "faithful Catholic," despite her abortion advocacy, should be taken as a firm rebuke.

LifeSiteNews.com also learned that concerns about Pelosi were presented to Vatican officials a day prior to the meeting.
 
Such encounters with the Pope are treasured by politicians for the photo opportunity they provide. Pelosi, however, was not afforded that customary photo by the Vatican.  The Associated Press reports that "the Vatican said it was not issuing a photo of the meeting—as it usually does when the pope meets world leaders—saying the encounter was private."
 
For her part, Pelosi issued a press release on the 15-minute meeting with the Pope.  "It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI today," she said.  "In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger, and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel."
 
The release from the Vatican, however, made no mention of the comments that Pelosi stressed in her release.
 
Pelosi’s positive spin on the meeting is not being swallowed even by left-leaning Papal watchers.  Vatican correspondent John Allen, who writes for the National Catholic Reporter, noted that "routine Vatican declarations after diplomatic meetings also generally sum up the range of issues discussed rather than concentrating on a particular point. In that sense, the statement can only be read as a rejection of Pelosi’s statements last summer, and, in general, of her argument that it’s acceptable for Catholics in public life to take a pro-choice position."
 
Allen also noted that "by issuing an unusual public statement after the session with Pelosi—which insisted that all Catholics, including legislators, are obliged to work for the defense of human life from conception to natural death—the pope also made clear there will no let-up in the pressure on pro-choice Catholic politicians to change their ways."
 
Many pro-life organizations from the US and Canada expressed their serious concerns to the Holy See that Mrs. Pelosi was going to be received by the Holy Father. Some of these organizations sent to different Vatican authorities comprehensive memoranda in which they showed in a detailed and precise way the anti-life statements and the pro-death voting record of Mrs. Pelosi.
 
Catholic sources in Rome, who asked to remain anonymous, said they were "very much encouraged by this statement," saying that it shows that the "Holy Father is ready to stand up with courage to politicians that claim they are Catholics but their voting record denies those hypocritical assertions."

January 4, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Bill Clinton gave a crowd in New Hampshire this morning another reason to get out and vote: the winner of the 2016 election may have the opportunity to transform the Supreme Court, he said.

Speaking at a campaign rally for his wife, the 42nd president of the United States said the High Court may be in play in the next four years.

"We need to recognize something that has received almost no attention in this election," Clinton said approximately eight minutes into the 29-minute speech. "In all probability, the next president of the United States will make between one and three appointments to the United States Supreme Court - and I know who I want doing that."

Four Supreme Court justices are over the age of 75 -- including both the justices he appointed: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both reliable members of the Court's liberal bloc. Conservative justice Antonin Scalia and swing vote Anthony Kennedy will both turn 80 this year.

The Susan B. Anthony List agreed that the balance of power on the Supreme Court is "one reason electing a pro-life president in 2016 is important."

Any justice's retirement or death could reshape the Supreme Court, which usually breaks down between evenly divided groups of liberals (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) and conservatives (Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito), with Justice Kennedy often holding final sway - for instance, on the Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

In his speech, the first on behalf of Hillary's primary campaign, Bill Clinton said voters must elect Hillary to continue President Barack Obama's "inclusive social policy" and "stop us from going in reverse."

While he remains popular in Democratic circles, the former president's return to the campaign stump has not been without controversy. After Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of sexism, Trump raised Bill's history of womanizing and Hillary's work to suppress stories ranging from adultery to rape - something Clinton staffers referred to as "bimbo eruptions."

On Saturday, Trump tweeted:

I hope Bill Clinton starts talking about women's issues so that voters can see what a hypocrite he is and how Hillary abused those women!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2016

He doubled down on the allegation today. On CNN's "New Day" program this morning, Trump said, "I think that Hillary is an enabler."

"She has one of the great woman abusers of all time waiting for her at the house for dinner," he said.

Liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus agreed that President Clinton's history of womanizing - from carrying on an affair in the White House to allegations that he raped Juanita Broaddrick in the late 1970s - was "fair game" if Mrs. Clinton accused other candidates of sexism.

That turn of events pleased talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who said on today's program, "Donald Trump may be a one-man wrecking ball on the entire concept of this War on Women business."

Jan. 4, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) - It’s a common complaint in pro-life circles: Why is it often so hard to get the churches involved in social causes? We know that Christians have abortions, too—so it is impacting us personally. We know that Christians are, for the most part, very anti-abortion—so it’s not as if they disagree with the pro-life movement. So what is holding so many people back from getting involved?

Apathy is part of it. Lack of awareness is part of it. But by and large, the real reason is an attitude that runs much deeper. The answer is simple: Church-going people are often traditional, conservative people. And here I don’t mean those terms in the way that political analysts might use them, to describe specific policy positions. I mean simply that they are people who want to work hard, raise their children, and be left alone.

Prayer is out, queer theory is in, and many a middle-aged conservative has found occasion recently to splutter his coffee and gape at his newspaper: “How did things change so fast?”

“Have you ever met a parent of nine kids who was a Democratic activist?” Dennis Praeger once asked wryly. Everyone laughed. Perhaps not everyone even knew why it was so funny—it was just an absurd thought. Such a parent, everyone presumes, would have better things to do. People like my grandparents, who immigrated virtually penniless to Canada from the Netherlands in 1953, began working the land, and raised eleven children on a farm they built through blood, sweat, toil, and tears. They were too busy raising children and putting food on the table to trouble themselves with the screechings of Canadian feminists and other such activists.

Herein lies the problem the pro-life and pro-family movement has in recruiting conservative people to engage the culture to combat the social ills infecting our society: There is something fundamentally foreign about “activism.” Indeed, the term “conservative activist” itself seems to be something of a contradiction in terms. Small-c conservatives and traditionalists do not want to change the world. They want to live in it and not be bothered.

It’s in the very root of the word—“conserve.” It is markedly different in temperament from “liberal,” which denotes “liberalizing”—action. Thus, many suspicious church people even find that the word “activism” carries with it a whiff of liberalism. Ambrose Bierce brilliantly encapsulated the contrast between these two temperaments when he defined a conservative as, “A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the liberal who wishes to replace them with others.”

Which brings us to our present unpleasant realization that from a cultural perspective, the traditionalists and conservatives have been thoroughly beaten in the war for the culture. For the most part, we never even showed up. We raised families, built farms and businesses, and attended church functions while secular revolutionaries took over the entertainment industry, the media, academia—and finally, the public education system that now dutifully serves as a conduit for secular “values.” Prayer is out, queer theory is in, and many a middle-aged conservative has found occasion recently to splutter his coffee and gape at his newspaper: “How did things change so fast?”

They didn’t, of course. The Sexual Revolution has been unfolding now for over sixty years. But now, for the first time, people are beginning to wake up and realize that what is happening is not something we can ignore, because very rapidly, it is beginning to happen to us. Already, the influences of the entertainment industry and pornography are showing in the youth. It’s why Christian publications mourn the rise of “sexual atheists”—people who still believe in God, but just don’t think His rules apply to their sex life. Churches across North America are hemorrhaging young people as the public education system dutifully does what it was put in place to do: Plant skepticism, undermine the beliefs of any children from Christian homes, and then send them off to university so that the faculty there can finish the job. It’s why enormous numbers of Christians lose their faith during university.

The government, too, will no longer leave us alone. As I wrote previously concerning Ontario’s war over sex education, the government needs the ability to re-educate children into the values of their secular system, and will go to war with parents for the right to do so. In some European countries, children are being taken away from their parents because Christian beliefs could “harm” the children—and some academics are already suggesting that Christianity could, one day, be “treatable.”

Conservatives want to be left alone to raise their children. The unfortunate fact is that we won’t be.

The secularists never had any intention of letting us carve out enclaves where we could live in peace—and a stream of legislation like Alberta’s Bill 10, which would force home-schoolers and private schools to change their teaching on sexuality, is simply the most recent evidence.

This is why the tables have been turned. Now, it is secular progressive ideology that is the status quo, having successfully infiltrated and established itself in every major institution. They have achieved a new status quo, and we traditionalists have been left with nothing left to “conserve” in the first place. We can no longer be Chamberlain giving up territory bit-by-bit—we are now the frog in boiling water, and have to decide how to confront these encroachments to retain the freedoms we need to live as Christians in a society that increasingly holds us in contempt.

How can one be a conservative in a society with nothing left to conserve and everything to fight for? It’s a pressing, imminent question that demands our attention. The twofold task of passing our Christian beliefs on to our children and preventing the government from interfering in that process was once easy—we could just live and let live. That was always a questionable strategy, especially as it ignored the massive loss of life through abortion happening in our own towns and cities. Standing up for our pre-born neighbors is not just a “cause,” but a biblical command. But now, it is in our self-interest to engage. It is not just the children of others we should be worried about, but our own. We will not have the luxury of raising children the way our parents and grandparents did. The time to speak Truth to power is now.

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 4, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Planned Parenthood performed 323,999 abortions and received $553.7 million from U.S. taxpayers during the 2014-2015 fiscal year, according to its most recent annual report.

Although it saw 200,000 less patients and provided 11 percent fewer services than the previous year, its taxpayer subsidy increased by nearly $25 million.

Abortions are down from 2013, when the industry performed 327,653 abortions.

"The stability of Planned Parenthood's abortion count – between 324,000 and 334,000 since 2008 – is remarkable, given that national figures for abortions have been in a nosedive since 2008," the National Right to Life Committee noted. "They have dropped 13 percent in just three years."

In 2014, Planned Parenthood provided 931,589 emergency contraception kits, a decrease from 2013.

Nonetheless, the Planned Parenthood increased the amount of money it received from taxpayers over the previous year, when it received $528.4 million. Government revenues accounted for 43 percent of the abortion provider's $1.296 billion in revenue during the 2014-2015 reporting period.

"We helped several affiliates return to financial health," the group's most recent report said. Its 661 affiliates reported $61.2 million in "excess revenue" (profits) in 2014. That's significantly down from $127.1 million in 2013-2014.

The most recent report, released late last month, found a decrease in overall services from July 1, 2014, through last June 30.

It performed 123,226 fewer breast exams during that time than it had in the previous year.

The number of abortions, birth control, and cancer screenings decreased markedly.

Its prenatal services continued its downward trend, as well, from 18,684 to 17,419.

The group performed 718 female sterilizations and 3,445 vasectomies last year, another downturn.

One area that showed a modest increase was adoption referrals - 2,024, up from 1,880 in 2013. That means the organization performed 160 abortions for every child referred for adoption.

Yet the new report hails a series of "breakthroughs," particularly its legislative lobbying efforts.

"We protected and expanded access to abortion," one headline in the report says.

The group spent $39.3 million on "public policy," another $16.7 million to "engage communities," and $4.6 million to "refresh our brand."

"Our advocacy efforts never slow down," the report states. "We are constantly working hard to deepen our partnerships with allies, lobby in state legislatures, and fight in the courts when access to safe and legal abortion is threatened."

It credited a bill it supported, a California law allowing non-physicians to perform abortions, with "raising abortion access to a gold standard."

Planned Parenthood also saluted the Supreme Court decision redefining marriage nationwide, Obergefell v. Hodges, as well as saying that the Affordable Care Act (conventionally known as ObamaCare) "is woven into the fabric of our health care system."

The report states that abortion advocacy is seamlessly tied to homosexual and transgender activism. "Planned Parenthood believes that reproductive rights are deeply connected to LGBTQ rights and is proud to be a provider of health care and information for so many in the LGBTQ community," the report says. Its affiliates now provide hormone treatments for transgender people in 26 centers across 10 states: California, Colorado, Maine, Montana, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, New York, Vermont, and Washington state.

The report concluded just weeks before the Center for Medical Progress released a series of undercover videos showing prominent Planned Parenthood officials haggling over the price it hoped to receive in exchange for organs and tissue harvested from aborted babies.

“We are at a critical moment in our history," Planned Parenthood President and CEO Cecile Richards wrote in a joint statement with Chairwoman Jill Lafer, which is included in the report. "Over the past several months, we have been tested in every way imaginable.”

You may read the full 2014-2015 Planned Parenthood report here.

The previous year's report is here.