Today is the first day of LifeSite’s year-end Christmas fundraising campaign – by far our most important fundraiser of the year! This year we must raise a minimum of $300,000 by December 23rd to continue our mission into 2017.
A very turbulent 2016 ends with the stunning election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. President. Many Christians were overjoyed that Hillary Clinton did not win, knowing that she and her administration would have continued the outright war on the unborn, the family, and religious freedom waged for eight years under President Obama.
The future certainly appears brighter under President-Elect Trump, especially given the solidly pro-life, pro-family persons he has so far nominated to many senior positions in his administration. However, the pro-life movement, and alternative pro-life media like LifeSiteNews, can’t afford to take anything for granted. Now is the time to work harder than ever, encouraging Trump to continue to follow through on his pro-life promises, and supporting him when he does so, and the going gets tough (as we know it will!).
Meanwhile, there is growing darkness and confusion within the culture, and – perhaps more painful to many of our readers – even within the Catholic Church. In 2016 we have seen the unprecedented situation (at least in modern times) of cardinals openly disagreeing with cardinals, bishops with bishops, and a widespread uncertainty about the direction the Church is taking on central moral issues.
And even though we know that Christ has already won the victory, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail, our hearts cannot help at times but feel troubled.
In the midst of this confusion, there is a greater need than ever for clear voices that are unafraid to speak TRUTH without compromise – particularly the life-giving teachings of St. Pope John Paul II’s Gospel of Life and Splendor of Truth, with the latter especially being neglected. LifeSiteNews has striven to be one such voice for nearly 20 years.
Your support for our Christmas campaign means that we can continue to be an uncompromising beacon of truth for literally tens of millions of people in the U.S. and around the world into 2017.
Without the generosity of readers like you, LifeSiteNews would not exist, and would not continue to grow year after year after year. Today, we must ask for your help again as we close the final chapter on 2016 and brace for the challenges that lie ahead in the coming year.
The Christmas season is an extremely special time for the whole staff of LifeSite. Every single thing that we do flows out from the birth of Christ.
Recall the words of the late Pope St. John Paul II: “Christmas….reveals the full meaning of every human birth, and the joy which accompanies the birth of the Messiah is thus seen to be the foundation and fulfilment of joy at every child born into the world.”
The end of the year is also an important time to look back on the events that had the greatest effect on the culture and will shape the year to come.
We remain deeply concerned year after year by the advancement of ideologies opposed to the sanctity of life and the family – and 2016 was no exception!
Consider some of these important developments that happened this past year:
- Hundreds of huge corporations, the Obama administration, and the NBA and NFL all threatened North Carolina with massive financial repercussions for refusing to cave to transgender extremism by passing a common-sense bathroom privacy law
- A grand jury filed criminal charges against heroic pro-life investigators David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for exposing Planned Parenthood’s gruesome practice of selling aborted babies.
- Obama issued his extreme transgender bathroom mandate, threatening public schools with loss of funding if they didn’t comply.
- Pope Francis issued the controversial apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which unleashed what four cardinals, including Cardinal Raymond Burke, have labeled “grave disorientation” and “great confusion” about the Church’s teachings on marriage, the conscience, and other issues.
- Retail giant Target announced that it was implementing a new “transgender” bathroom policy in all of its stores.
But as troubling as these developments are, they are only a partial view of the overall sea of change we are witnessing on a global scale. We must prepare ourselves with prayer, truth and inspiration for the events of 2017.
With your help, LifeSite is determined to continue to be the go-to source for the most crucial news and information that will allow our readers to respond effectively to every major attack on life and the family.
However, let us not forget that we are to find strength and consolation in the celebration of Christmas and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ – the fulfilment of God’s promise to free his people once and for all from sin and death.
In Christ – the way, the truth and the life – we rejoice, and in Him we have certain hope!
This Christmas, prayerfully consider supporting the vital truth mission of LifeSite.
We are not just another news agency. Our growing team of professional journalists have joined our team because they feel a personal calling to devote their life to the mission of defending and protecting life and family – a demanding job, I can assure you!
We are the #1 most-read online news source that offers investigative reporting on the issues that matter the most: life, family, faith and culture.
With millions of people visiting our site each month, it would only take 600 people to make a donation of $500 for us to reach our goal.
Whatever you can give, whether it be $35, $50, $100, or $500+, we hope you will be as generous as you can this Christmas.
Please help us continue to fight fearlessly on behalf of the unborn, the family, faith and freedom – as we have for the past 20 years.