Pro-life Movie

Here's a little event that is being put together by the HELP! Pregnancy Crisis Aid Center.  It is a very worth little place.  Check 'em out! www.helppregnancy.org/

And here are the event details and the trailer for the movie!

Something special is coming to a theater near you. It’s October Baby–a movie with a pro-life message that seeks to remind audiences of the truth that “every life is beautiful.” October Baby tells the story of a young woman who finds out that she is the survivor of an abortion, which sets her on a journey to learn about her hidden past and find her birth mother. In the process, she discovers hope for her future.
You can join HELP Pregnancy Crisis Aid for a private showing of October Baby at Celebration Cinema–RiverTown at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 25th. Tickets are $10 each, with a portion of the proceeds going to benefit HELP.
Tickets are only available in advance, so please don’t wait–get yours now! Contact us to purchase and pick up tickets, 616-459-9139, 705 Bridge Street NW 49504.
For more on October Baby, go to http://www.octoberbabymovie.net/.

Fight for Religious Liberty!

Here is another even I just recently found out about.

Event: A Call for Religious Freedom

On Thursday, March 1 at 7pm, Acton Institute president Rev. Robert Sirico will speak about the implications of the recent mandate for religious organizations handed down by the Health and Human Services Department of the federal government under the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

Rev. Sirico will explain the mandate and the February 2012 revision of that mandate, as well as the Constitutional protections for religion and conscience in the United States.  The implications for Catholic hospitals, Christian schools, and all faith-based organizations will be considered within the broader context of our history and religious tradition.  Father Sirico will be joined in prayer by Rev. Phil Smith, pastor of the Eternal Word Church in Grandville, and Rev. Tyler Wagenmaker, pastor of Beaverdam Christian Reformed Church.

The evening will take place at Ridge Point Community Church, 340 – 104th Avenue, Holland, Michigan. Please use Entrance C in ”The Center.” This event is free and open to the public.

Stop HHS!

A message from Al Kresta!

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Now, go to stophhs.com and get it going!

The DVD's...

have arrived!  It took a little doing and a couple of extra programs but we now have several copies of the DVD for the Culture of Life Conference available!  We will be working on getting some sort of graphic on the DVD itself as well but we'll see how that goes.  More to come soon!

Status update

We're in the process of taking those YouTube videos of the Culture of Life Conference and converting them into audio and video files that can be turned into DVD's and other things.
There is also a KofC meeting this week in which we'll no doubt be discussing the mandate and what to do about it.

The Mandate etc

By now everyone has heard of the HHS Mandate and Obama's initial double-down on it.  Now he is attempting what Mark Shea called a head fake.  As I heard it explained on NPR, it basically would require insurance companies themselves to cover the contraceptives of a religious employer, rather than the employer himself.  After a little thought, I realized a few things.  The first is that nothing has really changed. No matter what, the insurance company is the one who writes the checks and not the employer.  The only difference here is that the Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist hospital, school, soup kitchen doesn't have contraception as a line item in the insurance policy.   But it is still there.  I'm willing to bet that the cost of insurance will be exactly the same, or even higher for religious employers who object to contraception than for those who think it is just fine.  Why do I think it will be higher?  I'm willing to bet the insurers will up the premiums to accommodate the extra hassle they need to go through.  It will likely not be signaled out as a separate item in the bills they send as that would be too obvious.   More likely, they will simply increase the base fee for all religious employers so as to appear to not be discriminating.  Essentially, the companies will wind up making even more money off of this deal.
Here's another concern.  What about religious insurers who pride themselves on not providing coverage for abortion and contraception?  I can't think of any but I'm sure there are a couple out there.  They're still stuck.
But can't they just not have insurance?  I thought this might be a possibility.  Don't pay for insurance but still give the employees the money that would have gone to the insurance company.  That way the employees can still afford their own insurance.  That'd be great except that there is this health care legislation that recently passed mandating that everyone have insurance.  So if religious organizations don't actually have insurance they still need to pay a penalty to the government. 
At the end of the day nothing has changed and I pray that our bishops and other religious leaders don't back down for a moment.

From our friends at Cathechical Foundations

Our friends over at Catechetical Foundations passed along a talk the other day.  Go visit their site and check out all three parts.