Clueless as usual where Catholicism is concerned, the secular media have tended to treat Benedict XVI’s action in political terms, as a power grab. This interpretation ignores the fact that the Anglican traditionalists most likely to take advantage of the new provision for “personal ordinariates” have been pleading for something like this for years. The Pope has simply responded to those pleas.

But secular journalists aren’t the only ones to get it wrong. Catholic voices also have been raised in this chorus of callousness. Consider the final paragraph of an article in the London Tablet, a reliable platform for progressive Catholic views: “It is hard to see how this new development will do anything but further sow division in the Anglican Communion and confusion among Catholics who have long been committed to the work of ecumenism.”

As to Anglican “division”: the departure of Anglicans who’ve anguished for a long time over the direction of their fractured communion is much more likely to restore a semblance of unity to that deeply troubled body than it is to create more division.

As to Catholic “confusion”: the confusion admittedly felt by many Catholics about the nature and intent of ecumenism is largely a product of a post-Vatican II interpretation that reduces the ecumenical enterprise to endless dialogue leading—God knows how—to some sort of corporate merger in an unimaginable future. Confusion is a mild word for it.

Most of all, though, such critical comments miss the fundamental point—the relief potentially afforded to those Anglican groups most directly affected by Benedict’s generous gesture. That is best understood in human terms.

A year ago in Rome I had a substantial chat with an Anglican woman who is a member of one of these groups. Moved by her faith and her ardent desire for communion with the Holy See, I told her at the end of our conversation: “I can only hope and pray that you get what you want—and get it soon.”

It’s often said that conservative Anglicans are upset about things like women bishops and openly homosexual bishops. No doubt they are. But much else is involved.

Several years ago an American woman—a contented member of the Episcopal Church—told me an anecdote concerning an Episcopal clergyman which she insisted was true. It seems that this gentleman, in a fit of whimsy, was seen one day to give communion to a dog. The lady seemed to think that was just fine. I was appalled—at what had happened, at her approval of it, and at what it disclosed concerning the state of Episcopalian belief in the Eucharist.

A man who’d been an Episcopalian for years but finally came over to Rome once shared a useful insight with me. “The trouble with those people,” he said of his former co-religionists, “is that they’re sentimental.”

A number of present Anglicans seem to agree. I am glad that Pope Benedict has offered these troubled believers a congenial way out of the dilemma in which their sentimental Anglican brethren placed them. As for those who don’t like what the Pope has done, I suggest they remove their blinders and congratulate him on an act of Christian charity.

Our first child, Therese Marie, was born on September 29th the Feast of the Archangels. While in the hospital I met the mother of a child born prematurely and who had to be treated in the neo-natal intensive care unit. That baby was fortunate to arrive in the USA and not Great Britain.

Sarah Capewell’s boy Jayden came prematurely at 21 weeks and 5 days of pregnancy in an English hospital. Had Jayden been born 48 hours later he would have been eligible for intensive care treatment. Instead, following their medical guidelines, the British National Health Service staff allowed him to gasp for breath for two hours before dying in his mother’s arms.

Welcome to socialized medicine.

My wife and I saw some of the problems with the US health care system firsthand through the delivery and neo-natal care of our daughter. The fear of lawsuits leads directly to costly defensive medicine, including the ordering of unnecessary medical tests. At times it seems like the whole health care system is oriented towards the convenience of medical staff rather than the best interests of the patients. Costs are indeed very high.

On the other hand, we had no fear that the very best trained personnel and technology were ready and willing to care for the patients. For example, the USA has 27 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, very effective tools for accurate diagnosis, per million Americans. The figure for both Canada and Great Britain is 6 per million inhabitants. One could go on about the things that America’s flawed system provides that are simply not available under socialized medical regimes, but the end results of both systems when compared are clear for all to see. Overall cancer survival rates after 5 years for American men are 66% and 63% for women. In Europe they are 47% for men and 56% for women.

"Health Care Reform should be about saving lives NOT destroying them" is the slogan of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ‘ campaign to oppose vigorously the current health care legislation before the US Congress. Abortion providers stand to receive millions of our taxpayer dollars for their deadly work if the bills are not properly amended. The right of medical practitioners to decline to perform immoral procedures because of conscientious objection is not protected in the current drafts. Bureaucrats will be giving the gravely ill and elderly voluntary "end of life counseling" and others will decide who gets life-saving treatments and who won’t, as we see already in Britain.

The legislation as it currently stands in the almost 2,000-page House bill is totally unacceptable from a pro-life perspective. Please join us in taking action to inform our political representatives of how you feel about the health care bills that will be voted on in the next few days (click here ). We must act and pray, asking for Divine deliverance from this impending disaster.

I was stunned, bewildered, grieved. Who could do such a thing?

Apparently, this particular crime is not rare. One expert interviewed for the report I saw averred that homicide is the second-most common cause of death for pregnant women in America.

I’ve thought about this heinous crime repeatedly during the past two years. Here are some thoughts that have occurred to me:

The perpetrators of this crime tend to be men rejecting the responsibilities of parenthood and marriage. Both child and mother are viewed as burdens to be disposed of. How dare the woman carry the baby to term and ruin a convenient, nonbinding sexual relationship!

These double murders don’t occur in a void, but in a social context against the cultural backdrop formed by our values. Please don’t construe what follows as suggesting collective guilt. What I will suggest is that men murdering their lovers and children is the most extreme manifestation of thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs that tend toward death and away from life. The perpetrators are responsible for their crimes. Let’s look around us to see if there are trends in thought in our society that are nourishing a cultural ethos that depreciates the value of individual lives.

The increasing incidence of men killing their pregnant lovers coincides over the last 36 years with abortion having received legal sanction as a legitimate form of birth control. Legalizing the killing of unwanted babies was our first repudiation of the principle of the sanctity of life, a rejection of God’s plan. “Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord” (Isaiah, 66:9).

A next step after abortion on the slippery slope toward death is the killing of women bearing unwanted babies. (A quick aside here: The pro-abortion assertion that a fetus is just a growth inside a woman’s body, not a life, receives a strong rebuke when our laws treat the murder of a pregnant woman as a double homicide.)

Roughly coinciding with the period of legalized abortion has been the insidious error, propagated by pagan environmentalism, that there are too many people, that having children is irresponsible, that a human being is just another mouth to feed, rather than an intelligent, creative, productive being whose life can glorify the Creator of the universe. God’s first command to man—“be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis. 1:28)—was contradicted by green theologians who proclaimed procreation a sin against mother earth.

Also feeding an anti-life culture has been the common “baby boomer” desire to remain young and carefree for as long as possible. Raising kids is hard work and ties one down, right? True, but millions of us who have opted for parenthood have found raising children to be the greatest joy in this world. But the fact remains that many boomers have preferred consumption to investment, immediate gratification to long-term, greater rewards. We’d rather partake of the pleasures of this world (exotic vacations, fancy cars, luxury goods) than sacrifice some of our immediate wants for the long-run benefit of our familial and societal posterity.

Another powerful anti-life undertow was generated by the “sexual revolution.” For many, the Judeo-Christian concept of sex for procreation was eclipsed by the philosophy of sex as recreation. Procreation or recreation: Is sex about creating life or having fun? Is it about giving life and love, or is it about taking pleasure—a self-indulgence so devoid of love that in extreme cases it culminates in murder. Is it life-affirming or life-destroying?

To the extent that sex as fun has eclipsed sex for life, we have trivialized sex and devalued life. The result: Soaring divorce rates, the emotional trauma of broken families, and even men murdering their lovers and unborn children. Clearly, being “liberated” from traditional sexual mores isn’t as progressive—individually or socially—as the proponents of sexual “liberation” promised.

Here is some historical trivia, which I know will sound like raving right-wing paranoia to those who never studied the subject: communists insidiously worked to encourage sexual license and subvert sexual morality in America. It’s all there in black and white, dating back to Beria, the leader of Lenin’s vile secret police. Communists understood that a demoralized population is far easier to enslave than a morally upright people. They delighted in the Vietnam-era countercultural mottoes, “Make love, not war” and “If it feels good, do it,” because they understood that a society filled with people who value self-indulgence above heroism and sacrifice lacks the backbone to resist the encroachments of tyranny.

Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of a more demoralized society and one riper for the loss of self-government than one in which men choose to kill their pregnant lovers and wives.

As is always the case with life’s great issues, the Bible provides the best guidance: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward” (Psalm 127:3) and “choose life that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

“Proposed health-reform legislation, H.R. 3200 … radically departs from the current federal government policy of not paying for elective abortion or subsidizing plans that cover abortion. None of the bills reported out of the three committees of jurisdiction have addressed our serious concerns about public funding for abortion. The version that was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, containing the Capps Amendment, actually explicitly authorizes the federal government (the Department of Health and Human Services) to directly fund elective abortions, with federal (public) funds drawn on a federal Treasury account. Widely circulated claims that these would be ‘private’ funds are misleading; they are contrary to law and the until-now universal understanding of what constitutes federal funds. The simple fact is that under the Capps language, the U.S. Treasury will be permitted to issue checks to abortion clinics to reimburse for abortion on demand for the first time in decades.

“The bill also explicitly provides for government subsidies to pay the premiums for private insurance policies that include elective abortion coverage. This, too, is a drastic break from longstanding federal policy. The Hyde Amendment has, for over 30 years, prevented programs funded by the annual Health and Human Services Appropriations bill from financing abortion. However, H.R. 3200 bypasses the annual appropriations bills and directly appropriates funding for both the public options and the affordability credits. This means the Hyde amendment will not apply to the public option or to the premium subsidy program created by H.R. 3200. In two memos … the Congressional Research Services has confirmed that these programs will not require any future appropriations. In addition, legislation of this magnitude should include permanent language to ensure that federal funds are not used to support abortion.”
The 187 members then requested the Speaker and the Rules Committee Chair to permit a clean vote, up or down, on the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which would bar all federal funding for abortion. As of late October, Pelosi, who has cut stalwart pro-life  Democrats and Republicans out of the negotiations to determine the content of the health-care reform bill that the entire House is to consider, had persistently and obstinately refused that request.
This is an outrage in terms of the comity and collegiality of the House: the Speaker is using the considerable powers of her office to coerce the consciences of her fellow members. The outrage is compounded by the fact that Nancy Pelosi regularly describes herself as an “ardent” Catholic formed by the Church’s social justice traditions. An “ardent Catholic” won’t permit fellow Members of Congress from across the political and religious spectrum an open, clean, up-or-down vote on federal funding for abortion? Where is the social justice in this?

And where is the president who promised at Notre Dame to seek “common ground” on abortion? Has he called Speaker Pelosi to urge an open vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment? Or do both Speaker Pelosi and President Obama fear that they would lose any such vote, further aggravating their base on the lifestyle left? Do Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama care more about the rage of pro-abortion activists than they do about the consciences of the Members of the House—and the conscience of the American people?

The period between Halloween and Christmas will likely tell the tale on health-care reform. The moment to act is now. It will be a dark day in the history of Catholicism in America if the Speaker of the House of Representatives, an “ardently” Catholic woman formed by 16 years of Catholic education, willfully blocks an open vote by the people’s duly elected representatives on federal funding of abortion. Write your member of Congress, urging him or her to support a rule allowing an open, clean, up-or-down vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment. Write Speaker Pelosi, urging her to let her House colleagues vote their consciences on this grave matter.

The Reagan-era Mexico City Policy was designed to get the U.S. out of the international abortion business. Under this policy, international organizations that perform, promote, or lobby for the legalization of abortion are ineligible for U.S. tax dollars. The idea behind the Policy is that abortion is always and everywhere a controversial act, which the majority of Americans object to being funded with their tax dollars.

The policy has been alternately rescinded or reinstated since Reagan, depending upon who the President is and where his sympathies lie on the life issues. Not surprisingly, Barack Obama tossed out the Policy within his first week in office, opening up federal funding to abortion groups worldwide.

This was apparently not enough for Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). As a member of the Senate appropriations committee, Lautenberg decided to go one step further: he introduced an amendment in the 2010 Senate Foreign Operations Spending Bill that would permanently rescind the Mexico City Policy.

According to the Congressional Quarterly , Lautenberg offered the amendment in order to “end the uncertainty that foreign aid recipients face whenever control of the White House shifts between parties.”

“Health care providers across the globe,” Lautenberg added, “should be able to care for the health of women and families without ideological obstacles blocking the way.”

The irony of this statement seems lost on Lautenberg, whose opposition to the Mexico City Policy is at direct odds with the majority of the American people. According to a Gallup poll conducted directly after the move, even the dazzlingly popular president was not immune from public ire when he rescinded the Mexico City Policy. The move was the most unpopular of his presidency at the time, with 58 percent of Americans registering disapproval (as opposed to the beggarly 35 percent who thought it was a good idea).

Add to that the fact that the Mexico City Policy doesn’t even block medical aid at all, and that many legitimate NGOs have managed to retain their government funding within its abortion restrictions.

In fact, the primary groups that have lost funding are organizations like the International Planned Parenthood Federation, whose bread and butter is (gasp) performing and promoting abortion worldwide. It is no mystery why these organizations would vehemently oppose the Mexico City Policy, and spend time, talent and resources making the case that abortion is an integral part of health care.

In the face of this, Lautenberg’s platitudes about “ideological obstacles” ring even more hollow.

This entire debate crystallizes the ideological disconnect between politicians like Lautenberg (and, by extension, Obama), and the majority of the American people. The Mexico City Policy does not exist to block health care. It does not exist to kill or maim women. It exists because someone understood that, for most Americans, abortion is not really health care at all, but rather, the death of an innocent child.

And while the nation as a whole may still be wrestling with this issue, the government can at least have the decency not to spend public funds in support of a practice that so many find abhorrent. That Lautenberg would continue to insist that the Policy blocks health care does nothing more than make obvious whose ideological pocket he is in

That temporary work had lasted over six months but was winding down. He hadn’t been a contract “consultant” before and after some additional small talk told me, “… and I’ve discovered something I never knew.” Anticipating a revelation about a new found inner strength, I listened carefully.

“You know,” he began, “when you work as a consultant, you have to pay twice the withholding for Social Security and Medicare that you do when you work for a company.” I told him that wasn’t exactly true and we discussed briefly the labor burden — those costs the employer pays in the U.S. when they hire someone.

The big story these days is employer provided health benefits, but unfortunately that subject overshadows the longer term liability an employer or company faces when they hire employees; and is certainly one of the reasons why many firms increasingly like “contract” agreements. My friend’s take on having to pay a greater amount to Social Security and Medicare was not “exactly true” because the money “contributed” by the employer was always part of his gross wages, but was obscured by the mechanism of the deceit explicit in the government’s term “employer’s contribution.” I have some experience here. I’ve been a business owner and self employed most of my adult life.

You see, the employer by law must add to and pay the government an amount equal to what he withholds for Social Security and Medicare on a full-time employee’s behalf. If you regularly earn $400 a week, you are responsible for sending $30.60 of that amount to the federal government. (And that’s separate from what you may owe for income tax.)

The employee’s Social Security portion is 6.2% of gross wages up to $106,800 a year; and Medicare another 1.45% of gross wages but without a cut off point. For most of us, the combined 7.65% is our “contribution” to the federal retirement and healthcare systems already in place. But it’s not the total “contribution.”

As stated above, an employer or company that hires you is responsible for an equal “contribution” in your name of an additional 7.65% of your gross wage. Many who work for company’s lose sight of the fact that employers must add that cost of having them on the payroll to their cost of hiring us. Put bluntly, our employee has to account for a profit of at least $430.60 a week in order to justify being on a payroll. And because of the federal government’s demand that his and the employer’s “contributions” must be paid weekly, or monthly according to the government’s demands; the system has a tendency to put its own demands on a company’s cash flow. A company has to have enough profitable receipts to be able to “contribute” their one-half of what is demanded for their employee’s government retirement and healthcare system. And believe me, the government wants “their” money first and doesn’t care what other bills an employer has to pay.

My engineer friend was facing the reality of having to be his own employer so to speak and ante up the total 15.3% all on his own. Like most consultants he’d arranged a fee that paid him an amount from which no deductions were taken. At times like these, we’re all small business owners. It’s sobering. Imagine if there was no withholding and all taxpayers had to write a check at the end of the year. How might they choose to act? These government systems managed by Caesar are soon to be bankrupt. I heard someone report recently that Medicare is in arrears by $38 Trillion.

Fall is typically the season during which the sermons delivered by pastors from church pulpits concern stewardship. In making the case for Christian Stewardship many pastors will visit Genesis and the story of Abel and Cain. Compare and contrast are my favorite means of offering clarity on many subjects so I like the Genesis story of obedience versus selfishness. Many use the Bible to promote the concept of the tithe and if you Google Tithe you’ll come up with a plethora of explanations, indictments and opinions. Generally the percentage of income or produce that we are persuaded God asks of us is ten — 10%.

I can tell you that the tithe is a request that staggers most Christians. Those with work earning $400 a week are not likely to volunteer $40 when the plate is passed on Sunday — yet seemingly ignore the fact that $61.20 was sent to the IRS on their behalf that week.

It’s instructive to remember that the concept of the religious tithe contains a lesson which is not of taxation. It’s argued that all is God’s and all we have comes to us through His Grace. I believe that’s true.

Yet as I sat in the pew recently listening to one of those sermons about “giving” I took a break to recall and pray for my engineer friend’s employment perdicament, I also compared my own hesitation at pledging myself toward a 10% tithe in light of the reality that I was already on the hook to give Caesar 15.3% off the top. Glancing around the sanctuary, the question arose as to whether the bureaucrats at a government office could match our congregation in our common devotion to each other, our Lord; and the missions we support in service to Him.

And it got me realizing that when you compare the two: Caesar and God — 10% is one heck of a deal.

[This article originally appeared on Acton.org and is used by permission of the author.]

Those types of platitudes surround sports today, especially youth sports. And I have to admit:

I don’t understand them.

If you’re playing a competitive sport, you’re playing to win. That is the only substantive good that runs through all competition: baseball, cross-country, checkers, bass fishing, NASCAR, beer pong, poker. Winning. That’s the point of competition.

Does that mean that competitive sports don’t have other benefits? Of course not. Some (track) get you into shape, others (chess) help your ability to concentrate, some (poker) make you money, some (beer pong) get you buzzed. Every form of competition (except maybe NASCAR) has an ancillary benefit, but it’s not a benefit that’s necessary to the pursuit of competition in general. Such benefits are what the Schoolmen might call “accidents” of competition.

Accidents aren’t substances. When it comes to competitive sports, winning is the form that makes competition what it is. It is the essence of competition. If you’re not playing to win, you’re denying the core nature of competition, and it’s no longer competition. If you don’t want to play to win, that’s fine. Take up knitting or walking a treadmill . . . but get off the daggone track.

Now, does all this mean that winning is the most important thing?

Maybe. It depends what you mean by “most important.”

On the plane of competition, yes, winning is the most important thing. Hands down. It’s illogical to claim otherwise, for the reasons set forth above.

But on the plane of existence in general? Is winning the most important thing? Of course not. Don’t be a fool.

Here’s the thing people don’t seem to understand. There are planes of goods and activities. There are higher planes, and there are lower planes.

Sports is a lower plane. In fact, it’s one of the lowest. Without even trying, I can spout off a dozen higher planes of activities: praying, striving for sainthood, being a good Christian in general, serving, being a good husband or father or son or brother or friend, staying healthy, practicing the four cardinal virtues, study, writing. Even earning money is a higher plane (planes’ elevations can shift, incidentally, depending on your station in life and age, and the planes overlap, but that’s going beyond the scope of this piece).

The cardinal rule: Never sacrifice the goals of a higher plane for the goals of a lower plane. The temptation to do otherwise is the old Theophilus/Faustian bargain: Selling your soul (the highest good) for money and success (lower goods).

When it comes to sports, you shouldn’t cheat to win because you’d be sacrificing higher planes of activity (e.g., the obligation of truthfulness) for the goal of a lower plane. You shouldn’t grow glum when you lose, because that means you’ve lost your vision of the higher things in life.

Ersatz Instruction and the Culture of Moral Morons

This whole meditation got me thinking: Why do so many people toss around platitudes like “Winning isn’t everything”? If the person is saying that there are more important things than winning when it comes to that low plane of sporting competition, he’s wrong. If the person is talking about winning compared to, say, being a good father or neighbor, the point is so obvious that it doesn’t merit mentioning (what’s next, you want to tell me fire is hot?).

Either way, it’s a stupid thing to say.

Yet I hear it all the time, and I think a lot of people mean it. They obviously haven’t thought it through, but that doesn’t exonerate their palaver.

But the palaver might be understandable.

Sports might be the only arena where morality can be taught today. Public schools have taken over all areas of youth formation, but the public schools (for a variety of reasons that go beyond the scope of this piece) are poor places to teach morality. Talk about morality and virtue in the classroom and you’ll hear snickers . . . and maybe get a summons from the ACLU.

Sports, though, might (might) offer a pale imitation of moral formation.

Through sports, you can build a kid’s character and make him tough, and thereby indirectly show that, on the plane of existence, virtue is important. You can teach a kid that life goes on even if he loses, and therefore downturns aren’t disastrous. Through sports, a kid comes to realize that behaving like a jackass sticks in the heart longer than winning a trophy, and thereby the kid learns that the means are more important than the ends. A child might learn that practice results in victories, and he thereby learns the importance of sacrifice.

These are good things. These are things sports can help instill.

And in a culture where such things can’t be taught through philosophy and theology, it might be all we have left. It’s our ersatz moral formation. It’s a poor substitute, but it might be the only substitute we have left on the mass society level.

But rest assured: It doesn’t excuse adults who earnestly implore in the heat of competition, “Winning isn’t everything.” In competition, winning is the only thing . . . the only essential thing.

Those who say “it’s not the most important thing” mean well.

They don’t think well.

High school dropouts cost the nation severely. Not only are American taxpayers getting no return on the $8,701 we spend on average per student, each dropout costs us $292,000 over their lifetime in lost earnings, lower taxes paid, and higher spending for social programs like incarceration, health care, and welfare.

Given the many social pathologies plaguing black males in low-income and fatherless households, the best place for at-risk black males is not the dominant failed public school paradigm. Since public schools are forbidden to teach virtue and often reduce children to receptacles of information, expanding private and faith-based options to black parents is the only compelling solution.

The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), England’s chief education inspection agency, recently released a report lauding the attributes of faith schools. The report, “Independent Faith Schools,” examined the quality of formation provided by Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu religious schools. The inspectors found “pupils demonstrating an excellent understanding of spiritual and moral attributes.” In all the schools visited, “pupils gained a strong sense of identity and of belonging to their faith, their school and to Britain.” In other words, faith-based schools, by simply teaching about religion, are forming their students to be virtuous citizens.

Has America given up on making virtuous citizens out of black males? In England’s faith schools, “good citizenship was considered by all the schools visited to be the duty of a good believer because this honoured the faith,” the report says. In contrast, American public schools have become prisoner factories for at-risk black males. Because producing educated, virtuous citizens is unrelated to funding, the problem cannot be addressed by the simplistic expedient of increasing government allocations to education. The deeper problem is that the American education system seems no longer to value what faith schools in England are recognized for: producing students with good “spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding.”

Even in the public sector, blacks are realizing that the current model fails black males. Kentucky State University President Mary Sias says the university is trying to find funding to open a boarding school for black male youth to get them into college. The Eagle Academy for Young Men, a charter school in the Bronx, is the first all-male public school in New York City in 30 years. Eagle Academy has a high school graduation rate of 82 percent, compared with approximately 51.4 percent of black and 48.7 percent of Hispanic students graduating from high schools citywide. This may explain why Eagle Academy had 1,200 applications for this year’s ninth-grade class of 80 students.

Why do the education elites want to keep at-risk black males in schools that dump them in the streets or jail? Why is America content with the lie that funding is the problem? The District of Columbia spends $12,979 per student and has a black male graduation rate of 55 percent compared to 84 percent for whites. Illinois spends over $8,000 per students with a black male graduation rate of 41 percent compared to 82 percent for whites. When are black parents going to be emancipated from the government telling them what to do with their children?

Americans cannot afford, financially or morally, to trap black males in criminal cultivators masquerading as schools. Even though charter schools, vouchers, and tax-credit programs reflect some progress, black parents need radical new options that empower them with absolute freedom to choose the best schools. While every at-risk black male does not have access to good faith-based opportunities, the only hope for liberating young black males to actualize their potential to be productive participants in a global economy and virtuous citizens of a healthy nation is to free black parents from the tyranny of government bureaucrats. Black America needs a “Freedom of Choice” movement.

Born during the virulently anti-Catholic French Revolution, Jeanne Jugan learned early in her life that fidelity to Christ and his Church could be costly. A history of the period of her childhood sums things up neatly: “In spite of the persecution, the people of Cancale kept the faith. During dark nights, in an attic or a barn, or even in the middle of the countryside, the faithful gathered together, and there in the silence of the night, the priest would offer the Eucharist and baptize the children. But this happiness was rare. There were so many dangers.”

Jeanne Jugan knew poverty as well as persecution, and developed a marked sensitivity to the humiliation that those who have fallen through the cracks of society’s net of solidarity can feel. She declined an offer of marriage because, as she put it, “God…is keeping me for a work which is not yet known, for a work which is not yet founded.” That work came into clear focus when, at age 47, she met an elderly, blind and sick woman, whom she took into her care; from that seemingly random encounter was born a tremendous work of charity. The congregation of women religious she founded dedicated itself to the care of the poor and elderly—and supported itself by begging, with the foundress, Jeanne Jugan, as chief beggar.  The Little Sisters of the Poor spread rapidly throughout Europe, America and Africa, but the going was never easy for Jeanne Jugan.

In 1843, Jeanne Jugan’s re-election as superior was quashed by the community’s priest-advisor, Father Augustin Marie Le Pailleur. Refusing to contest what others would have deemed an injustice (but which she thought to be the will of God), Jeanne Jugan accepted this curious decision and went on the road, supporting her sisters by begging. For the last 27 years of her life, she lived at the order’s motherhouse in retirement, again according to the orders of Father Le Pailleur; her role as foundress was never acknowledged during her lifetime. Yet the novelist Charles Dickens could write, after meeting Jeanne Jugan, that “there is in this woman something so calm, and so holy, that in seeing her I know myself to be in the presence of a superior being. Her words went straight to my heart, so that my eyes, I know not how, filled with tears.”

To enter a house of the Little Sisters of the Poor today is to recapture what Dickens experienced. Elderly men and women with no one else to care for them are given exquisite attention; the dignity of every patient is honored, no matter how difficult that dignity may be to discern amidst the trials of senility and disease. The Little Sisters of the Poor and their patients are living reminders that there are no disposable human beings; that everyone is a someone for whom the Son of God entered the world, suffered and died; and that we read others out of the human family at our moral and political peril.

Yet that is the temptation facing the United States, and every other affluent society confronting a graying population, longer life expectancies, and spiraling medical costs. Where this temptation can lead is brutally displayed in the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legal for years; and as the late Father Richard John Neuhaus said of such travesties as the Dutch “death with dignity” laws, what is permitted will soon become mandatory. That is precisely what has happened in Holland and indeed wherever euthanasia is legally permitted.

St. Jeanne Jugan, Sister Marie of the Cross in her religious life, is thus a powerful—and badly needed—intercessor for all who would defend the gift of life from conception until natural death.

The centers used to be called “crisis pregnancy centers” and were often advertised with the promise of “free pregnancy tests.” Now, the more common term is “pregnancy resource centers” (PRCs), and the range of services provided goes far beyond pregnancy testing, and includes the services of fully licensed medical clinics.

Moreover, these centers do not just operate on their own with the support of their local communities. Rather, there are large well-organized networks of pregnancy centers, united by a commitment to professional standards of care, expert training programs, and joint efforts to make sure everyone knows exactly where to turn for alternatives to abortion.

All this is good news for the pro-life movement, and to help spread that good news, a report was recently compiled by several of the leading pregnancy resource networks and organizations that foster them. Called “A Passion to Serve, A Vision for Life,” this pregnancy center report for 2009 was prepared by Heartbeat International, Care Net, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, LIFE International, and the Family Research Council. The corresponding website is www.apassiontoserve.com.

As the report states, “PRCs serve some 1.9 million people each year with pregnancy assistance, abstinence counseling and education, community outreach programs and referrals, and public health linkages….Every day in the United States pregnancy resource centers assist an average of 5,500 Americans, female and male, young and old, with sexuality-and-pregnancy-related concerns.”

Twenty-nine of every 30 people engaged in pregnancy center work are volunteers, involved with lay and peer counseling, medical services (including ultrasound and STD testing), center upkeep, fundraising, parenting classes, and programs for healing after abortion.

The pregnancy center networks Heartbeat and Care Net operate the “Option Line,” a telephone hotline by which the caller is connected with the center closest to where he/she lives. At Priests for Life, we promote this hotline, 1-800-395-HELP, and its corresponding website, www.pregnancycenters.org, in all our public outreach.

Even the secular world is recognizing the impact of this movement. In January 2008, on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, Nancy Gibbs of Time magazine cited the “evidence that the quiet campaign for women’s hearts and minds, conducted in thousands of crisis pregnancy centers around the country, on billboards, phone banks and websites, is having an effect” in reducing abortion rates, which are down by one third from their U.S. high.

And on September 19, 2008, the White House honored the selfless volunteers who work in the pregnancy centers. Dr. Joxel Garcia, who was the Assistant Secretary of Health, bestowed awards in the name of the President on over 150 volunteers and 56 pregnancy center organizations.

We should honor them too, and the best way we can do that is to make sure that everyone knows about their services. Let’s spread the word vigorously!