'Legal Abortion Saves No One'

Here is a message from Pro-Life, Philippines, that I received today. It is a response to the demand of the Center for Reproductive Rights, based in New York, that abortion be legalised in the Philippines.

Legal Abortion Saves No One


Abortion does not protect women's rights; rather, it violates the right to life of all. Pro-Life Philippines is outraged by the recent demand of some so-called women’s rights advocates for legalized abortion in the
Philippines. Abortion is itself a blatant violation of human rights and its legalization is is a clear violation of our Constitution. It is unacceptable on any grounds.

Central to the misguided call for legal abortion are three premises: that illegal abortions cause maternal death and illnesses; that rape victims should be given the choice to terminate an unwanted pregnancy; and that poverty causes poor women to turn to unsafe abortions.

On the first premise, we reply that all abortions are unsafe and are not medically necessary. Abortion advocates themselves have stated that “risks associated with induced abortion increase as the pregnancy progresses.”

They also failed to mention the numerous adverse effects of committing abortion physically and psychologically. Some of these women who committed elective abortion remain barren for the rest of their lives. Studies have also linked induced abortions to breast and ovarian cancer. Operation Outcry and Canada Silent No More have collected over 4,000 testimonial declarations from women suffering after legal abortions in developed countries.

In cases of rape, we see that abortion does not solve the problem but instead aggravates it. The crime of rape is not the fault of the child; why should the child be punished for it?. Further, killing the child does not redeem the rape victim, and may in fact drown her in deeper remorse. If the rape victim does not want the child, she can always give it up for legal adoption. No one need be killed.

Finally, if poverty drives some women to abortion, the solution is to address the causes of poverty. Legalizing abortion does nothing to solve the problem. The government should instead minimize graft and corruption, foster good governance and implement economic reforms. Legalizing abortion will never alleviate poverty. In fact it could even exacerbate the economic situation by depleting our nation's most valuable and productive resouce: our people.

The legalization of abortion is not necessary to assist poor women in crisis pregnancies. If the government is serious in its efforts to remedy this dilemma, it should provide counseling services especially for post-abortion mothers; better education, maternal and child care services, economic and social development programs that will lower the incidence of rape, incest, sex outside of marriage and other causes of unwanted
pregnancies. Young women need to be educated on fetal development, the consequences of sex outside of marriage, and on natural family planning.

Pregnant women need support and help, not abortions. We should be saving lives, not taking them.

Pro-Life Philippines calls on our legislators to reject the malevolent urge to kill the weakest members of our future generations. Help us defend our pro-life country and our families who are threatened by the culture of
death. Abortion saves no one, but it does destroy an innocent life.

New website of Holy Family Home, Makati City, Philippines

A Child Redeemed is a Generation Saved

Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family

From time to time I've posted, as far as I can recall about Holy Family Home in Bacolod City where the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family take care of girls and young women who come from backgrounds of abuse and/or poverty. The Sisters also have a home for girls in Makati City, where the financial centre of the Philippines is located. Makati is part of the Metro Manila complex.

In one of the outer parts of Makati City you can find Holy Family Home where the Sisters take in young girls whos families are living in extreme poverty. They have just set up a website. This is basically a source of information about the various services offered at Holy Family Home, which depends on the support of benfactors within the Philippines and overseas.

The Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family came to the Philippines in 1982 from Spain. Many of the Sisters were from Colombia and from some of the Central American nations such as Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Now the majority are young Filipino Sisters and the congregation has Filipino Sisters in Tanzania, India and Korea.

Cooking lessons are conducted by Hands-on-Manila volunteers every 3rd Saturday of the month, while the Latin American Women’s Club (Club de Damas Latinas), which has been helping Holy Family Home Foundation since 1997, teaches the girls how to make accessories from beads. The finished products are sold to augment the income of the center. Sister Luz Maria Buitrago TC, right, is from Colombia.

I believe that God is blessing the Sisters because they live an authentic religious life. They live in community, wear simple habits, have prayer, including prayer specifically for vocations, at the centre of their lives and get on with the job. The have a noticeable Franciscan joy about them.

Please keep these wonderful Sisters and the girls and young women they serve in your prayers. And check out http://holyfamilyhome.org/

'One's life does not consist of possessions'. 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C, 1 August 2010

Christ as Saviour, El Greco, c.1600

Gospel (RSV, Catholic Edition) Lk 12:13-21


One of the multitude said to Jesus, "Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?" And he said to them, "Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

+++

One thing that the gospel says to me is that I should be constantly thanking God for everything. There is nothing I have that isn't a gift from God, life itself, faith, my vocation to be a priest, my family, my friends, my daily bread.

When I was growing up in Ireland people constantly said 'Thank God', especially in the context of hearing of the recovery, for example, of someone who had been ill, or someone rescued from a dangerous situation. A more emphatic expression, especially when it comes from the heart, is 'Thanks be to God!' When people asked 'How are you?' we'd often reply 'I'm fine, thank God'.

Filipinos do the same. I remember twenty years ago giving enough money to buy a meal to a woman and her daughter of about 13 who clearly were tired and hungry. The girl looked at me with the most beautiful smile I've ever seen and said 'Salamat sa Ginoo!' 'Thanks to the Lord!' She didn't thank me but rather invited me to join her and her mother in thanking God for being blessed with enough to buy their next meal.

The man in the parable didn't see things as that young girl did.

Columbans leave the Diocese of Pagadian, Philippines

UCANews carries a report by Faye Reyes dated 27 July on the Columbans leaving the Diocese of Pagadian. The same report is carried by CathNews Philippines, a service of UCANews.

Santo Nino Cathedral, Pagadian City

The Diocese of Pagadian was established on 12 November 1971, just over a month after I arrived in the Philippines but didn't acquire its first bishop until Fr Jesus B. Tuquib of the Diocese of Dipolog was ordained bishop on 29 May 1973. All the priests in the diocese when it was established were Columbans, though Jesuits had worked in the area before them. Now most parishes are staffed by diocesan priests. A eyar or two ago the Spiritans took over the last Columban parish, Midsalip.

When the Diocse of Pagadian came into being there were 260 Columban priests in the Philippines, all of them foreign. We were by far the largest group of foreign missionaries in the country. Today there are 47, four fo them Filipinos who have served overseas, and 19 students for the priesthood who have been aggregated to the Society. Aggregation is the equivalent of first profession in religious life. We are a society of apostolic life, whose members are secular priests.

Fr Michael Sinnott giving Holy Communion

Kidnapping ‘did not cause’ mission closure

Published Date: July 27, 2010

By Faye Reyes, Pagadian City

Fathers Michael Sinnott (extreme left), Daniel O’Malley (center) and Paul Finlayson (extreme right) greet friends from Pagadian diocese during the July 26 Mass.

The 2009 kidnapping of Irish Columban Father Michael Sinnott was not the cause of a decision by the missioners to pull out of a southern Philippines diocese.

Father Daniel O’Malley explained that the decision by the Missionary Society of St. Columban (MSSC) to leave Pagadian diocese after 62 years was the result of a shortage of priests to administer the parish of Malate.

“They are asking me to go” to a downtown Manila parish where the other Columbans are all over 70 years old, Father O’Malley said.

He said the decision had “nothing to do with the kidnapping” of Father Sinnott from the Columban house in Pagadian City.

Father Sinnott was held in captivity for a month after armed men seized him on Oct. 11, 2009.

Father O’Malley, 62, said leaving was a “difficult” decision for 80-year old Father Sinnott, who decided “he would not stay in Pagadian without me because of his health.”

Philippine Columbans began discussing closing the Pagadian mission in 2008 and finally decided last April.

“All this could have happened without the kidnapping,” the missioner said.

Father O’Malley said that Filipino Columban priests could be assigned to the diocese for missionary service among indigenous people and other work.

He and Father Sinnott joined another Columban, Father Paul Finlayson, at a thanksgiving Mass at Santo Nino Cathedral on July 26.

Bishop Emmanuel Cabajar of Pagadian expressed his “deep gratitude” for the work of the Columbans, whose “missionary zeal” inspired so many young Filipinos to become diocesan priests.

Jasmine Sabino, 19, whose studies are funded by the Columbans, said she will always remember Fathers O’Malley and Sinnott.

The two priests have been “like a father to me,” she said.

Founded in Ireland in 1916, the Missionary Society of St Columban has 66 members in the Philippines, 47 of them priests.

In Canada for a Silver Wedding

St Martin of Tours Parish Church, Smithville, Ontario

I arrived in Smithville, Ontario, from Dublin yesterday I wasn't quite over my jet-lag from my flight from Manila to Dublin via Abu Dhabi last Tuesday. Dublin is seven hours behind Manil at this time of year and Smithville is a further five hours behind. I also picked up a cold on the way home but that seems to be on the way out now.

I'm staying with Douglas and Maeve Devlin, both originally from Dublin, whom I met shortly after I wetnt to New York to study in 1969 when I was a young priest. They sold me their old car the following year for $1 when they went back to Dublin. However, they moved to Canada the following year and have been here ever since.

Maeve and Doug Devlin (left) at a parish function.

I attended the wedding of their elder daughter Jacqueline to Guy Lupien in 1985 and on Sunday will celebrate the parish Mass here at which they will renew their marriage vows.

The parish priest of St Martin of Tours is a Nigerian, Fr Obioma Anyanwu.

Father Obioma with Bishop James Wingle of the Diocese of St Catharines whose resignation was accepted in April.

There is an hour of adoration with Benediction every weekday before Mass. This is the result of Father Obioma asking for suggestions from the parishioners when he took over as pastor.

Pray for Father Patrick Hurley

I'm flying home to Dublin tonight from Manila. Father Patrick Hurley (second from the left in the photo above taken 23 November last year at the new San Columbano Center in the Diocese of Kabankalan, Philippines,) was supposed to travel with me. He recently turned 86.

However, yesterday morning he had a fall and fractured his left hip. It's not a serious fracture but he will need surgery. He's in good spirits. The accident happened on the 60th anniversary of his arrival in Negros as one of the pioneers in the then new Columban mission in the Diocese of Bacolod. The territory we were given is now the Diocese of Kabankalan, covering the southern part of the province of Negros Occidental. He is the only member of that first group still based in Negros.

Please keep him in your prayers.

Off to Dublin!

Bus in Dublin

I'll be flying to Dublin, my home town, on Tuesday night, God willing, and will probably be using buses like the one above quite often. I'll be coming back to the Philippines in mid-October but will be fying to Toronto on 25 July to spend some time with friends who live not far from there. I studied in Toronto for a year in 1981-82.

River Liffey in centre of Dublin

This photo was taken from the Ha'penny Bridge, a pedestrian bridge, looking east towards O'Connell Bridge at the southern end of O'Connell Street, the city's main thoroughfare. The Luas (Irish for 'speed') is heading west from Abbey Street, the first street north of the Liffey, crossing O'Connell Street. The statue is of Sir John Gray (or Grey), a prominent figure in Dublin in the 19th century.

Dublin city centre, Luas

I found the photo at the top on http://www.irishbuses.com/  and the other two on http://www.trekearth.com/.