Ah yes, another
Sunday, another Sunday Snippets (A Catholic Carnival, don’t you know). This is the first Sunday in a while that hasn’t
been a solemnity of some sort, but that doesn’t mean that it’s just
another Sunday: every Sunday is a commemoration of the Resurrection, a Little
Easter . . . but I was talking about Sunday Snippets, wasn’t I? It’s a weekly gathering of Catholic bloggers
who gather here, at This
That and the Other Thing (home of the esteemed RAnn) to share the
fruits of their bloggery from the previous seven days.
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| Red roses representing years since Roe vs. Wade |
Before I get to
my snippets from Principium et Finis, however, I’d like to share a little about
where I was Saturday. This coming
Thursday will be the 42nd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s notorious
Roe
vs. Wade decision, which wiped out the abortion laws of all fifty
states and created de facto abortion on demand in the United States; there have
been an estimated 57 million legal abortions since that time. Here in Maine we observe this sad anniversary
with an event called Hands Around the
Capitol on the Saturday prior, in which
we hold a rally at the St. Michael’s (formerly St. Mary’s) gym, followed by a
march to the State Capitol. Here, as participants hold hands in a ring around
the entire building, one person rings a replica of the Liberty Bell on the
Statehouse grounds once for every year since the Roe decision, while
another places one rose beneath the bell at each tolling; this year 42 red roses lay in the snow at the end.
A highlight of
the rally this year was the return of pro-life governor Paul LePage. When he spoke last year, he was a
conservative, pro-family, anti-abortion governor seeking an unlikely
re-election in a state dominated by the political left. Seemingly oblivious to his tenuous political
situation, he gave an impassioned speech denouncing abortion and praising the
traditional family (see my account here). He came back this year after winning more
votes than any governor in Maine history, but he didn’t sound any different:
abortion, LePage said, was robbing us of our future in a state where “more
people are dying than are being born”, and the key to solving social problems
like poverty is “getting the family unit back together”, to which the first
step is “a man and a woman to take care of the children.” Obvious, maybe blindingly obvious, but how
many politicians have the political courage to come out and say it?
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| Governor LePage greeting rally participants |
Something new
this year is that we have, in the words of Maine Right to Life Executive
Director Theresa McCann Tumidajski, “the first United States Representative
from Maine to call himself ‘proudly pro-life.’”
That would be Bruce Poliquin, newly elected congressman from the 2nd
District. Poliquin also gave a heartfelt
defense of human life, even though he serves in a state where left-wing and
pro-abortion groups have tremendous clout, and despite the fact that the Democratic
leader in the U.S. House, California’s Nancy Pelosi, was hard at work trying to
bring about his defeat in the next election even before he was sworn in (see here).
Now, some will
say that politicians will talk, but that it really doesn’t make any difference
in the end. When it comes to the right
to life, pro-life laws and government officials do, in fact, make a difference, as I will
show later this week in "Abortion Myth #17".
Also, the fact that these two men have been elected at all (in addition
to a growing number of like-minded state senators and representatives) shows
that there is hope for life.
More photos from Hands Around the
Capitol are posted below; meanwhile, here are snippets from the past week at Principium
et Finis:
Monday – In the
opera Don Giovanni, Mozart’s Don Juan enjoys some music from a couple
of the composer’s contemporaries before he is dragged off to take up a
well-deserved residence in Hell; one of those other composers, Giuseppe Sarti,
had just arrived in Russia where he composed some beautiful music that looked
to a much better place: “Giuseppe Sarti – ‘Now The Powers of Heaven’ &
Russian Icon Painters” [here]
Tuesday – Planned
Parenthood tells us that they mostly provide vital “health care” to women, such
as mammograms, and abortion is just an afterthought - and if you believe that
one . . . “Abortion Myth #16” [here]
Wednesday – Interesting news on the marriage front “Marriages
Are Made in Heaven” [here]
Thursday – This
Ratzinger fellow sounds familiar . . . has he done anything since? “Fr. Ratzinger’s Prophecy, 45 Years Later” [here]
Friday – A
picture’s worth a thousand words – and worth a human life: “The Truth Will Out”
[here]
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| Brothers Jamie & Jared McCabe present a "Chalk Talk" at the rally |
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| Governor LePage and young pro-life constituents in St. Michael's gym. |
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| Pro-life Mainers gather at state capitol building |
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| "Hands Around the Capitol" |
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| Knights of Columbus with Blaine House (governor's mansion) in the background |
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