I

John asked me if I had ever heard of such a thing. I had not. I did read the brochure and its claims seemed to be outlandish, excessive, and inaccurate. So, I decided to begin a literature search to disprove these claims to my partner, myself, and any patients who might ask about it. The more research I did, the more concerned I became about my findings. I called researchers around the country and interviewed them. During this process I met Joe Stanford, MD. Joe volunteered to assist in the research that ultimately became this systematic review. We were concerned enough about our findings and about the fact that so many of our colleagues and patients seemed to share our ignorance about this potential effect that we presented the preliminary results of our research at a number of research forums, just to see if we were off base. Most of the reviewers suggested that, although this evidence was new to them (as it was to us), it seemed accurate and not off target.

Furthermore, several said that they thought it would change the way family physicians informed their patients about the Pill and its potential effects.

The most difficult part of this research was deciding how to apply it to my practice. I discussed it with my partners, my patients, ethicists I know and respect, and pastors in my community. I studied the ethical principle of double effect and discussed the issue with religious physicians of several faiths. Finally, after many months of debate and prayer, I decided in 1998 to no longer prescribe the Pill. As a family physician, my career has been committed to family care from conception to death. Since the evidence indicated to me that the Pill could have a postfertilization effect, I felt I could no longer, in good conscience, prescribe it—especially since viable alternatives are available. The support and encouragement that my partners, staff, and patients have given me has been unexpectedly affirming. It seems that my patients have appreciated the information

I have given them. Many have been surprised or even shocked (as I was) to learn about this potential effect. Many of my patients have chosen to continue taking the Pill, and we have physicians in our practice and community who will prescribe it for them. Patients who take the Pill tell me that they are much more careful with their compliance. Others have chosen other birth control options—especially one of the modern methods of natural family planning. So, this is research that has changed my soul and my practice. It has been an extraordinarily difficult issue with which I have had to wrestle. I suspect it will be so for many who thoughtfully read and consider the evidence contained in this review.

Walter L. Larimore, MD

Kissimmee, Fla

To download Dr. Larimore’s study, click here.

Peace.

This is in reference to your article posted at the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) last Monday, May 23rd, 2011. But, first and foremost, I would like to sympathize with you if ever a high-ranking ecclesiastical authority labeled you as ‘Judas’ and that you were considered by others a heretic. I understand your position and from that understanding, I am addressing this open reaction letter to Your Reverence for the sake of those who have been listening to your discourses and/or reading your write-ups.

In the same article, you embodied your first position this way:

“First, let me start by saying that I adhere to the teaching of the Church on artificial contraception even if I am aware that the teaching on the subject is not considered infallible doctrine by those who know more theology than I do. Moreover, I am still considered a Catholic and Jesuit in good standing by my superiors, critics notwithstanding!”

Your Reverence, how do you adhere to the teaching of the Church on artificial contraception? When we adhere to certain teaching, we devote ourselves in the observance of such teaching. Moreover, said teaching is made manifest in our gestures, in our dealings, in our principles, and in our advocacy. If we say, we adhere but not observe it, then, adherence is devoid of what it truly means. We become like a “tingling cymbal”. And as a priest adhering to the teaching of the Church on contraception, even common sense dictates that you are one with the Church in teaching that contraception is evil and in enabling people to understand what makes it evil. Are you, truly, one with the Church in this crusade, Your Reverence?

The way I look at them, your positions do not do any good but rather do more harm than good for they aggravate the confusions and divisiveness so characteristic of our nation today along the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill concerns. Much worse, instead of bringing about enlightenment and unity, your articles and discourses exacerbate said confusions and divisiveness, not only among citizens but most significantly among Catholics who look up to you as “Alter Christus” over and above your being a top-caliber constitutionalist, renowned author, intellectual academician, and prolific lawyer. Consequently, confused Catholics and Catholics who have the tendency to use or are actually using contraceptive methods may find moral justification in your positions.

Furthermore, a part of your next argument goes this way:

“Second (very important for me as a student of the Constitution and of church-state relations), I am very much aware of the fact that we live in a pluralist society where various religious groups have differing beliefs about the morality of artificial contraception. But freedom of religion means more than just the freedom to believe. It also means the freedom to act or not to act according to what one believes.

I agree with Your Reverence, that the Philippine society has become pluralistic now. In fact, moral pluralism along contraception conspicuously exists not only among various religious groups but also among Catholics (among priests? Hmm… Hope not). That is why, not a few people adhere to moral subjectivism/relativism so that “what is good or true for you may not be good or true for me and vice versa”. Your being very much aware of the existence of our pluralistic society which is very important to you indicates your high regard and deep respect for religious freedom and individual conscience. Along this line, I am with you, Your Reverence. We have to respect the freedom of religion and conscience. Even erroneous conscience, as inculpably erroneous as it maybe, should be respected. It is a product of ignorance through no fault of one’s own and without any knowledge about being in error. (However, the case would be morally different should
conscience become erroneous due to consequential moral blindness stemming from misguided passions inadequately tamed and/or due to insufficient efforts exerted to dispel ignorance and obtain knowledge of what is truly good as distinct from what is truly evil. This does not exonerate the person from moral culpability).

But then, Your Reverence, respect for freedom of religion and conscience does not and should not hamper you from adhering to a much higher value which is to proclaim the truth that sets man truly free and from practicing your ministry which is to teach in accordance with the Church’s teaching. With all the more reasons, your being very much aware of moral pluralism calls and urges you to do something about it, to preach and witness that right is right no matter how many are wrong, and to teach the universality of truth (not conditioned by time and space, culture and individual opinions and beliefs) about the wrongness of contraception thereby informing human consciences (through teaching). And it is up to the people whether or not they will listen and obey. After all, teaching cannot be identical with imposing, with coercing and with forcing. Besides, you (and the Church) do not have police power to invoke and enforce particularly, against those who
will defy and disobey. What is important is that you teach no matter how few listen and obey.

I also have the impression that you are treating contraception, in your article, as a religious issue so that if a member of a certain religion believes that it is good, then, he/she can freely act according to that which he/she believes (that contraception is good). And if a Catholic believes it is wrong, then he/she can freely avoid it as it is evil.
I beg to disagree. The issue on whether contraception is wrong or not is not exclusively a religious concern. It is not a religious issue which may be good to a religion that regards it as such, while evil, to a religion that looks at it as such. It is not a Catholic issue that only concerns Catholics.

Contraception is, rather, a moral issue, not according to Christian/Catholic Morality but according to the measure of its relation to that which makes good or evil, to the norm of morality. And the relation of contraception to the norm of morality measures in terms of the disagreement of the former with the latter so that contraception is, indeed, wrong. For the sake of your fans, the norm, proximately refers to the dictates of right reason to which an act should be conformed in order to be right. And what makes reason right is its being anchored on the ultimate norm manifesting itself in the “order of existence of things”.

This “order of existence” stands a priori to any human positive establishment of “order and harmony of things”. It means that such order existed before man ever conceptualized and set any man-made order as in the promulgation of human positive laws. The existence of the entire universe and everything it contains is being maintained by such order without which disorder and unimaginable chaos occur. This order expresses itself in the way everything exists, in what it is and in its last end toward which its existence is directed. If a thing exists this or that way because of what it is and takes a given course according to its nature, it must be what its order of existence mandates. It is a given order. It is not designed by man. It has been there ever since. Hence, reason dictates that it be preserved and not be disturbed or destroyed. Otherwise, disorder and disharmony occur.

That is why, the growth of human existence starts at being a fertilized ovum, a zygote (this happens at the completion of fertilization), then it develops into a morula, then a blastocyst, then an embryo, then a fetus, and not the other way around. Upon birth, he/she starts being an infant, then a toddler, a child, a teen-ager, an adult, then an old man/woman. No human being starts existing by being an old man/woman, then an adult, a teen-ager, a child, then an infant, and so on. Plants and trees grow the way they tend to and not upside down, water seeks its own level, and so on and so forth. These are manifestations of the natural order of existence of things.

It indicates the truth which is necessarily immutable, the universal truth at which man is capable of arriving so that “what is true for you is also true for me while what is false for you is also false for me”. (Moral scientists and philosophers call the ultimate norm which sustains the “order of existence of things” as Eternal Law).

By the light of his intellect, man knows the natural order in the existence of things which he recognizes as that which has to be preserved. We call it natural law. Natural Law refers to the Eternal Law expressed in the natural order of existence and is knowable to man by the use of his intelligence. Acknowledged by man’s reason, the one which is in accordance with the said order is good while the other which runs counter to it is evil. The former is moral whereas, the latter is immoral. Thus, he has the natural capacity to distinguish what is right from what is wrong, to do good and avoid evil (Bonum est faciendum et malum est vitandum).

Now, human reproductive system has its own functions and operations proper to its nature. It operates according to what its nature designs and never according to what it is not (unless, it is arbitrarily interfered with).  It is specially designed in the biological order to be the natural vehicle through which the generative power of the human person is exercised. This power is inherent in the very sexual structure of the human person and is able to generate new life when it is employed during sexual intercourse within fertility period.

Conception/fertilization of an egg, can only occur after ovulation. The egg stays alive for about 24 hours once released from the ovary. Sperm can stay alive inside a woman’s body for 3-4 days, but possibly as long as 6-7 days. If a couple has intercourse before or after ovulation occurs, the wife can get pregnant, since the live sperm is already inside the woman’s body when ovulation occurs. Thus a woman can become pregnant from intercourse for about 7-10 days in the middle of her cycle. All these functions of the sexual system proceed from its order of existence. No one can ever deny this reality as it is a ‘given’ configuration.

Now, what do contraceptive methods do? The use of any method of artificial contraception runs counter to and even destroys the “order of existence of things” particularly of human reproductive system. Some of them suppress ovulation when it is supposed to naturally occur as designed by its order of existence, others cause thickening of the cervical mucus making it difficult for the sperm to go through, and still others prevent implantation of the fertilized ovum by altering the normal functioning of the endometrium. All these are arbitrary and positive actions to distort the ‘order of existence of things’  – - of human reproductive system.

Contraception destroys such ‘order’ manifested in the course of its natural functions and operations according to what it is. It makes the reproductive system operate according to what it is not. That is why, contraception is evil as it is in itself. If the Church prohibits it, it is because contraception is intrinsically evil . Its evil proceeds from within itself, from what it is regardless of whether it is prohibited.

From this perspective, this sense of evil which ought to be avoided or this issue on contraception applies not only to Catholics but to all human persons of good will and of right reason regardless of religious denominations and affiliations.

Your last statement:

“Fourth, I have never held that the RH Bill is perfect. But if we have to have an RH law, I intend to contribute to its improvement as much as I can. Because of this, I and a number of my colleagues have offered ways of improving it and specifying areas that can be the subject of intelligent discussion. (Yes, there are intelligent people in our country.) For that purpose we jointly prepared and I published in my column what we called “talking points” on the bill.

Your Reverence, what do you mean by the term “improvement”? The dictionary may say, “improvement” means ‘making things better’. It implies that, that which is to undergo improvement is something already good only that it has to be improved to make it better. And nothing will be removed or erased from that which is to be improved. In fact, its status will just be made better. Now, what is it in the RH Bill (which may eventually become an RH law) that you will try to improve or make better? How can you make things better out of something which is, in itself, wrong?

I also found this statement contrary to the first argument you cited that you adhere to the teaching of the Church on contraception. Since, the Church teaches that contraception is not capable of being ordered to human nature and to God’s law, then, it should also be your stand as you said, you adhere to it. But how come, that you will improve or make better of the RH Bill/Law which boldly promotes that which the Church regards as evil?

Well, there are other meanings that can be attributed to “improvement”. But its use in your paragraph is vague. It can be misconstrued. That is why, I said earlier that   confused Catholics and Catholics who have the tendency to use or are actually using contraceptive methods may find moral justification in your positions.

Your Reverence, these are all what make your article more confusing, more perplexing and more divisive than enlightening, illuminating and unifying. I don’t see any contradiction between your being a lawyer and a priest. The two disciplines can even be harmoniously employed to advocate the truth and goodness as opposed to falsity and evil.

Your Reverence, I hope and pray that you take a strong stand on the RH Bill by anchoring it on the order of existence of things. This way, you can effectively deal with and unify our pluralistic society whose sense of ‘truth’ and sense of ‘goodness’ are conditioned only by one’s beliefs, values, opinions, culture and the like, which may of course, vary and even contradict from one person or group to another. Please be a catalyst of unity and order, Your Reverence. Please.

Good day.

Very truly yours:

PROF. MARVIN JULIAN L. SAMBAJON, JR.

Prof. Sambajon is an author, a lecturer and a research consultant. He is a graduate of philosophy and has academic background in theology. He is about to finish his masteral studies in theology, major in moral theology. He is also a master of arts in education (M.A. Ed.) holder and is currently pursuing his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.) in Educational Foundations at the Bicol University, Legazpi City. He has started writing his doctoral dissertation delving into the transformative pedagogical approach to ethics in institutions of higher learning. Prof. Sambajon can be contacted via: marvinsambajon@yahoo.com

After the Republic of Malta succumbed to the pressure of legalizing divorce, the Philippines along with the Vatican remain the two surviving countries without legislation on the controversial process. Now, pressure to follow suit Malta has brought the committees of the Lower House of Representatives to set up the venue to discuss a drafted bill geared towards making divorce a legal right for Filipinos.

With this scenario, PRO-LIFE PHILIPPINES FOUNDATION, INC. has sought to educate the general public of the repercussions of concocting a culture of divorce in the country. The group invites all to attend the first installment of its Pro-Life Seminar/Forum Series for 2011 titled “Let No Man Put Asunder: Uncovering the Culture of Divorce”

This half day forum will feature vanguard pro-life lawyer ATTY. AUREA “JO” IMBONG (Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines Legal Counsel) as she sheds light on the meticulous and sensitive topic of divorce, its history, its conflict with human and divine laws, and its possible compromising and unsettling consequences to the status of the Filipino family.

Scheduled on a Saturday, July 16, 2011 from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM at the St. Joseph Retreat House Conference Room, Manzanas Street, Bustillos, Sampaloc Manila, the forum includes one snack, one seminar kit, and a certificate of participation signed by the organizers all for the registration fee of P 300.00

For reservations or more information, please call Ellen at 733-7027. Or, you may send us a telefax at 734-9425; a text through mobile# 0919-2337783; or an email at life@prolife.org.ph. Visit our website at www.prolife.org.ph

In filing House Bill No. 4509 entitled “An Act Penalizing the Distribution, Possession with Intent to Distribute and Production of Any Device for the Physical Stimulation of Human Genitals for Anything of Pecuniary Value …”, Tieng said he was out to safeguard the moral, spiritual and social being of the citizens from the destructive effects of these “obscene devices.”

“The influence of obscene devices designed primarily for the physical stimulation of human genitals, commonly called as sex toys and gadgets may seem unnoticed. However, there is now an influx of these kind of devices in the Philippines, especially in Metro Manila,” Tieng said in the bill’s explanatory note.

“The proliferation of these obscene devises which are insensitively and openly displayed in shops or stalls is very alarming. The public, especially minors, being exposed to these obscenities may suffer disturbing effects and could trigger sexually impure ideas and acts that give room to sex related offenses,” Tieng said.

The Buhay party-list solon pointed to Quiapo, Sta. Cruz and Recto the so-called university belt in Metro Manila as among the areas where sex toys  are allegedly proliferating.

According to him, the bill seeks to “penalize the distribution, possession with intent to distribute and production of any obscene device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the physical stimulation of human genital organs for anything of pecuniary value in order to protect the morals of the society.”

“This is also in keeping with the policy of the state to value the dignity of every human person and to promote and safeguard its integrity and the moral, spiritual and social being of its citizenry from the pernicious effects of obscene devices,” he added.

The bill calls on government agents to “pursue an intensive and unrelenting campaign against the distribution, possession with intent to distribute and production of any obscene device.”

Under the bill, it will be unlawful for any person to: a.) Knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute, any obscene device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the physical stimulation of human genital organs for anything of pecuniary value; b.) Become a wholesaler, to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute, for the purpose of resale or commercial distribution at retail of sex toys; and c.) To knowingly produce, or offer or agree to produce sex toys.

Violators of the proposed law will suffer the “penalty of imprisonment of not more than one (1) year and/or fine ranging from Ten Thousand (P 10,000.00) to Twenty Thousand Pesos (P 20,000.00)” and  for acts falling under Section 3(a);” and the “penalty of imprisonment of not more than one (1) year and/or a fine ranging from Twenty Thousand Pesos (P 20,000.00) to Thirty Thousand Pesos (P 30,000.00) for acts falling under Section (b) and (c).”

The bill tasks the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Department of Justice to implement and promulgate the proposed law.

Buhay Party-List Rep. Michael Velarde co-authored Tieng’s bill.

Two recent reports in the British Medical Journal found a twofold to threefold greater risk of blood clots in women taking pills like Bayer’s Yaz, the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday in a statement.

European regulators said last week that they were revising the products’ prescribing information to include the new safety findings.

While all birth control pills pose a risk of blood clots, the F.D.A. review focuses on the hormone drospirenone, found in Bayer’s Yaz, Yasmin, Beyaz and Safyral. The agency expects to have results later this summer of an 800,000-person study it commissioned to examine the risks.

In the meantime, regulators said doctors and patients should watch for symptoms of blood clots, including leg or chest pain.

The Yaz family of products generated $1.47 billion in sales last year for Bayer, or 3.3 percent of the company’s revenue.

“Patient safety is Bayer’s top priority,” the company said in an e-mail. “Bayer’s analysis of the overall body of available scientific evidence continues to support its current assessment about the safety of its oral contraceptives.”

Credits:

Cited from an original article by Bloomberg News published at the New York Post. May 31, 2011

Registration and praying of the rosary will commence at 9:00 pm of June 6 followed by the celebration of the Mass at 10:00.  Several worship activities take place at 11:30, then at 12:00 midnight post-abortive women and women in other difficult situations will share their experiences. The event is set to culminate at 3:00 am of June 7.

We are calling on all pro-life groups to at least be represented in this endeavor. Participants are advised to wear blue or white and to bring candles and rosaries during the prayer activities. Pro-life banners and posters will be highly appreciated.

For more details, dial 733-7027 or 734-9425. You can also tune in to Radyo Veritas 846 for further announcements.

An organized assembly for a pro-life caravan followed by a Jericho march will commence at 12 noon at the St. Peter’s Parish Church in Commonwealth, Quezon City. After the march, a prayer rally and short program will follow.

Wear white and blue for this activity. For more details and to register your group for the march, contact 733-7027 or 734-9425.

The walk, dubbed “Penitential Walk for Life,” will be held from the Cebu Provincial Capitol to Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral.

“Thousands of rosary and candle-bearing Catholics are expected to join the prayerful protest against the demonic RH bill,” said Rene Josef Bullecer, chairman of the Cebu City Anti-Indecency Board and the Philippine representative to Vatican City for the Pontifical Council for Life.

The organizers said the demonstration aims to press lawmakers to reject the RH bill, which they branded as a “birth control measure.”

Click here and here to see the circular issued by the Chancery of the Archdiocese of Cebu.

Several dioceses in Visayas are also set to show their forces in rallies to show their indignation against the RH bill.

On March 11, pro-life advocates will also hold a protest rally in Tagbilaran City (Bohol) and in Maasin City (Southern Leyte) the following day.

Jaro (Iloilo) Archbishop Angel Lagdameo said they will also hold a mass action in Iloilo City on March 17.

In Mindanao, meanwhile, anti-RH bill groups are also preparing a huge rally in Butuan City on March 22.

On March 26, the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal organization of Catholic men, will also hold a “March for Life” at the Rahaj Sulaiman Park in Malate, Manila; and simultaneously by other members in other dioceses nationwide.

Credits:

Cited from an article from gmanews.tv last 03/11/2011

“How do you combine the best of modern medicine with the healing presence of Jesus Christ?  That’s what we’re about,” he told LifeSiteNews.

Though raised in a devout Catholic family, Bruchalski says he began his exit from the faith when he left for Catholic college. By the time he entered medical school in 1983 at the University of South Alabama, contraception and abortion seemed to him “the way to promote health and happiness and wholeness in a woman’s reproductive life.”  Aiming to be the best gynecologist he could, he learned the different methods for abortion, sterilization, and artificial reproduction, and began providing them during residency.

But he began to have doubts.  “I didn’t see happiness or joy in my clinics,” he explained.  “Wherever I had more abortion, more contraception, there were more broken relationships, more infections, more destruction, more brokenness.”

Bruchalski first felt the call back to the faith of his childhood right before beginning his residency, when a friend convinced him to take a trip to Guadalupe in Mexico City.  He says there he heard Our Lady of Guadalupe – whom Catholics revere as the patroness of the unborn – ask him, “Why are you hurting me?”

Yet he wasn’t ready to respond.  “I kind of put that in the back of my mind,” he said.

Then two years later, between the 2nd and 3rd year of residency, his mother took him on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where many Catholics believe Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, has been appearing since 1981.

He says the pilgrimage reawakened the great love for Christ and Mary that his parents had nurtured in him during his childhood.  “It was the simplicity of the messages of getting back to conversion,” he explained.  “And then I had an experience there with a young woman from Belgium who was there praying for the pro-life cause.  She told me she had a message for me about Our Lady and began telling me things about my life.”

“It was life changing for me.”

“When I came home, I was given the grace not only to see myself as I really was – you know, my whole life passed before me – but I actually saw that … there was a better way to practice medicine,” he explained.  “The approach to reproductive health was the polar opposite to what Planned Parenthood was saying.  That’s what Our Lady told me my role was going to be.”

He put that vision of medicine into practice in 1994 when he founded the Tepeyac Family Center with his wife in the basement of his house.  The obstetric and gynecological medical facility now boasts six pro-life physicians and one nurse practitioner.

Based on a Catholic vision of health care, the Center promotes health practices that respect the natural rhythm of the woman’s cycle and the sanctity of human life.  They advocate natural family planning as opposed to contraceptives, and in cases of infertility they focus on treating the underlying causes rather than using assisted reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization.

“We believe that health is based on the relationships found in community, and we believe that if we love enough in medicine we can create a loving atmosphere where abortion becomes unthinkable,” he said.  “Almost like an abortion-free zone.”

The Tepeyac Family Center now operates under an umbrella organization called Divine Mercy Care, which raises funds and heightens awareness through educational programs.  Their network of services includes a perinatal hospice, and in coming years they hope to offer a family practice, pediatric care, and a mental health program.

“Ideally, we would like to be a city on a hill, where you have a multi-specialty group that is dedicated to the healing and the wholeness and the healthiness of the human person in body, soul, and spirit,” he explained.  “A medical facility and a medical system where the human person is respected as he’s made in the image and likeness of our God.”

Though their services are available to people of any creed or culture, he said they believe that through medicine they can offer patients “the happiness, and wholeness, and healthiness that comes with coming to a deeper sense of the sacred in their own life.”

Offering hope for life with a child

Dr. Bruchalski said his experience working with abortion-minded women has shown him the need to focus on offering women hope for life with their child, rather than emphasizing adoption or images of fetal development.

“You can show women fetal development and many of them it doesn’t phase,” he said.  “Remember the fetus, the baby, the unborn child is an adversary to the woman, it’s going to cramp her life.”

Abortion-minded women see adoption, on the other hand, as a “double negative,” he says.  “Not only are you not qualified to be a mother and care for the child, but you have to give the child up,” he explained.  “They hate that choice, so for them the abortion becomes the best alternative, the least terrible of those options.”

“You really have to focus on [the fact] that there is life after having a child, that there is a way out of your predicament,” he said.  “Just meeting women where they are by being able to listen to their pain and their agony and their suffering, and then love them so much that we walk them through this.”

Practicing the theology of the body

The Center has a special focus on implementing John Paul II’s theology of the body, which Dr. Bruchalski says was “revolutionary for relationships, for medicine, and for families.”

He said one’s approach to medicine is profoundly impacted “if you believe that the story in Genesis is real and that we were created in the image and likeness of God, and that men and women are complementary – that we were not meant to be alone – and that our bodies speak a language to us, our actions, and that to love God and to love neighbor is what we’ve been called to do.”

“The theology of the body in medicine means that you cooperate with the body, you don’t repress it,” he explained.  “You focus on health, not disease.  You don’t treat desires, you treat the disease.  You don’t treat people like products. …  You don’t try to go to the best doctor who creates the healthiest babies with the best techniques.  Because we’re more than products, we’re people.”

“We are just now developing the wording and the language of translating [the theology of the body] from the religious and the anthropological to the medical and the scientific,” he added.

Spreading the Gospel of life in medicine

Divine Mercy Care hopes to inspire and mentor other health care professionals to take up the Gospel of life in their practice.  In February and March Bruchalski’s spending two weeks on a speaking tour to 22 medical schools in 19 states with Medical Students for Life.

“At the heart, abortion is a medical procedure,” he said.  “We need to inspire doctors to step out in faith and become the men and women that God’s called them to be.”

His conversion experience shows that “no one is beyond God’s mercy, no one, no one,” he said.  “I was doing the abortions because I believed it was the lesser of two evils, … yet I realized that people were just more broken after the procedure.  There might have been a brief respite from the stress and strain, but most relationships broke up after the abortion.”

“The mercy of God was what truly penetrated my heart.”

Find more information on Divine Mercy Care and the Tepeyac Family Center here.

Credits:

Cited from an original article by Patrick Craine for lifesitenews.com last 03/11/2011

During a national convention with the theme “Marian Pro-Life Witnesses of Hope, Reconciliation and Peace in Our Times”, the Perpetual Dawn Rosary (PDR) and Cenacle of Fr. Stephano Gobbi urged all the attendees of the convention and its members to a sign an omnibus resolution declaring their total “rejection of the RH agenda and to choose life.”

The groups’ bold move is in consonance with the Joint Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines titled “CHOOSING LIFE, REJECTING THE RH BILL” which proclaims the strong opposition of Filipino bishops against the RH agenda as well as a lucid explanation of the real reasons behind the country’s poverty.

The statement was signed by over 1,400 leaders and members of the various Perpetual Dawn Rosary and Cenacle organizations that met during the convention.

The Task Force for Family and Life Visayas, Inc. (TFFL) in turn forwarded copies of the resolution to President Aquino, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, CBCP President Nereo Odchimar, and newly-installed Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma. The TFFL called on all parties to heed the heartfelt sentiments of ordinary Filipino citizens expressed in the resolution.

To view the complete omnibus resolution, click here.