St. Michael Prayer

Dear Lord

Image Courtesy of  Divine Mercy Devotion

Italian mom sacrifices life for unborn baby

from lifesitenews:

ROME, June 25, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - When Chiara Corbella learned she was pregnant with her third child, it was a great joy that ended in bittersweet tragedy for the young Italian mother, who died this month after postponing cancer treatment to save her cherished baby.

In a story that echoes that of Roman Catholic saint Gianna Molla, Chiara and her husband Enrico Petrillo embarked on a remarkable journey of faith in 2010 when they learned that they were pregnant with Francisco - and that Chiara had an aggressive form of cancer, reports the Catholic News Agency.

The news was especially poignant for the couple since both of Francisco’s elder siblings, Maria and David, had been lost shortly after birth. In fact, Chiara and Enrico had become popular pro-life speakers for their stories of their few treasured moments with each of their first two children before their brief lives came to an end.

This time, doctors said Francisco was healthy and developing normally. So when Chiara was advised to begin treatment immediately for her cancer, she declined, waiting for Francisco to be born in May of last year. The cancer progressed over the following year, depriving Chiara of sight in one eye before she finally succumbed on June 13, 2012.

“I am going to heaven to take care of Maria and David, you stay here with Dad. I will pray for you,” Chiara wrote to baby Francisco in a letter, one week before her death.

Chiara’s funeral Mass was celebrated by the Vicar General of Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, who called Chiara “the second Gianna Beretta.”

Saint Gianna Molla was an Italian pediatrician who died in 1962 from complications caused by a fibroma on her uterus, after she refused both an abortion and a hysterectomy because she was pregnant with her fourth child.


Although a tragedy to outside observers - and certainly also for Enrico, to whom Chiara was happily married – the couple’s last conversations reveal, in the young husband’s words, “a story of love on the cross” that seemed to conquer even death.


“The truth is that this cross – if you embrace it with Christ – ceases to be as ugly as it looks. If you trust in him, you discover that this fire, this cross, does not burn, and that peace can be found in suffering and joy in death,” said Enrico, according to CNA. “I spent a lot of time this year reflecting on this phrase from the Gospel that says the Lord gives a cross that is sweet and a burden that is light.


“When I would look at Chiara when she was about to die, I obviously became very upset. But I mustered the courage and a few hours before – it was about eight in the morning, Chiara died at noon – I asked her. 


"I said: ‘But Chiara, my love, is this cross really sweet, like the Lord says? She looked at me and she smiled, and in a soft voice she said, ‘Yes, Enrico, it is very sweet.’


“In this sense, the entire family didn’t see Chiara die peacefully, but happily, which is totally different.”


Enrico said he would tell his son Francisco when he was older that “the most important thing in life” is to “let yourself be loved in order to love and die happy,” and that “this is what his mother, Chiara, did.”


“She allowed herself to be loved, and in a certain sense, I think she loved everyone in this way,” he said. “I feel her more alive than ever. To be able to see her die happy was to me a challenge to death.”


Read the full CNA story here.

Thought For the Day: Be Still

Glenn Buys A Young Entrepreneur A Puppy With $1,000 Cup of Lemonade

From GlennBeck.com:

Glenn hosted a “National Lemonade Stand, Bake Sale, and Hug-A-Thon” special on Wednesday night full of excitement, lemonade, dancing cupcakes, fried chicken, families, and good old fashioned summer fun.

The highlight of the night may have been what happened after Glenn finished his monologue. After wrapping up and explaining why he decided to encourage people to hold lemonade stands across the country, he went to Pat and Stu in Babe’s parking lot to talk to some of the young kids at their lemonade stand. One girl had a sign saying she had no licenses, forms, or permits – she was just a nine year old who wanted to raise enough money to buy a puppy. Pat asked her if she got a hundred dollars, how much would she give to charity? She said 75%.

And then he shocked her by asking how much she would give to charity if she got a thousand dollars!

The young girl took a look at the money, screamed in excitement, and quickly went to fill a glass for Pat and Stu. Pat laughed and said the money was from Glenn and Tania who wanted her to get that puppy she wanted. The puppy cost a little over a hundred dollars – and she donated the rest to Mercury One.

Glenn delivered a powerful monologue about the importance of entrepreneurialism. He focused on the way that out of control regulation has hobbled kids from going out and do something as easy as setting up a lemonade stand. He explained that when you’re a kid, lemonade stands can be an entryway to capitalism. When it’s a hot day and you find out that people will give you money for a cold glass of lemonade – that’s a lesson! And you find out you can take that money and buy something (a puppy!) or save it or give it to charity – again, an important lesson.

But laws and regulations passed under the guise of “protecting people” now say that the lemonade a little kid makes and sells outside their house may not meet certain standards or their stand doesn’t meet some ridiculous criteria. In New York City, you have to file IRS forms and permits before opening a lemonade stand. In fact, you even have to take a fifteen hour food protection course! These rules don’t protect us, they stop the next generation from learning about entrepreneurship and capitalism.

God Is Dead: Catholic Priest Slams Atheism

Excerpt from The Blaze:

Fr. Pontifex is not just a Catholic priest, but he’s also a successful hip-hop artist who gained notoriety after he responded to Jefferson Bethke’s "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus."

Now, he’s back with a new clip, this time taking aim at atheist activism. His new spoken word clip, entitled, "God is dead," delves deeply into secularism in an attempt to debunk its claims.


A description of the video reads:

This video is in response to the claims of the "New Atheism." One that has been presented by the likes of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens. One who holds faith is NOT irrational. Science and reason are not incompatible with faith - in fact they compliment each other very well because they come from the same source, God. We hope that this video touches the hearts of many people.

Call Your Mother

Image above courtesy of Our Rosary Hour

June is Crusade of Conversion Month

June is Crusade of Conversion Month

Important Message from Virgin Mary for month of June

given to the visionary Maria Divine Mercy (May 31^st 2012)

---> http://www.thewarningsecondcoming.com/virgin-mary-june-crusade-of-conversion-month/

"I urge you children to dedicate the month of June to the conversion of mankind and to ensure that they will seek salvation.

Call this month the Crusade of Conversion month and pray as one through prayer groups throughout the world.
 

Here is the Crusade Prayer for the Crusade of Conversion 

Crusade Prayer (58) Crusade of Conversion Prayer

O dear Jesus I call on you to embrace
all God’s children and cover them with
Your Precious Blood
Let each drop of Your Blood cover
every soul to shield them from the evil one

Open the hearts of all especially hardened souls
and those who know You, but who are stained with
The sin of pride, to fall down and beg for the light of
Your Love to flood their souls

Open their eyes to see the Truth so that the dawn
of Your Divine Mercy will shower down upon them so they
are covered with the Rays of Your Mercy.

Convert all souls through the graces I ask you for
now Dear Jesus (personal intention here)

I beg you for Mercy and offer you this gift of fasting for one day
Every week for this month of June in atonement for all sins.

Amen.

Children you must fast for one day each week in the month of June.

You must recite My Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet daily.

Doing this children you will save the souls of millions through the Mercy of My Son Jesus Christ.

Your beloved Mother

Mother of Salvation"

more information: www.thewarningsecondcoming.com/important-message-from-virgin-mary-for-month-of-june/

Mehr Infos: http://www.internetgebetskreis.com/en/

Christ, Truly Present in the Eucharist

Click here to read the Testimony of Catalina

Fr. Kubicki reflects on Pope Benedict's general prayer intention for June 2012

Cute Hamster Plays Dead On Command

St. Michael & The Archangels

Abortion Clinic Owner Tells All

From Creative Minority Report:

Foundation Life has this amazing video of former abortion clinic owner Carol Everett explaining all. It's horrifying.

Here's just one quote: "We had a whole plan to sell abortion, and it was called sex education.”

Another thing she says is they dispensed contraception that if the girl didn't take it at the same time everyday was essentially useless.

She also tells about "counseling" and how it was really just a hard sell.

This is horrifying but pro-lifers must watch this to remind themselves what we're up against. Big Abortion is big businiess. 

The Covenant

  

Excerpt From Blaze.com:

Tim Ballard, author of the book "The Covenant". Ballard contends that America’s founding fathers tapped into an ancient power to build the nation — a feat they accomplished against all odds. The founders, being well-versed in Biblical understanding, believed that the U.S. was a new Israel of sorts, birthed out of a relationship and a covenant with the Almighty. Ballard maintains that, in contemporary times, the nation risks losing its blessings if individuals don’t recognize the importance of the covenant and an ongoing relationship with God.

“Those who understand the covenant feel an affinity to Israel,” Ballard explained. “The covenant is a promise between God and his people and the relationship is one of mutual action – God will deliver if we do what he tells us to do — if, as a nation, we strive to live worthy of it. It has nothing to do with denominations. I don’t care what faith you are – as long as you’re believing in God.”

So, what are these blessings, you ask? According to Ballard, they are liberty, protection and prosperity — all elements that the U.S. has traditionally enjoyed. Each, of course, provides substantial benefits to individual citizens and the nation’s survival as a whole. When the “mutual action” that Ballard spoke about is engaged, he claims that “there’s a response from heaven again and again.”

Nine-Year-Old Stands Up to Westboro Baptist Church with One-Boy Counter-Protest

"GOD HATES NO ONE"

From Gawker.com:

When nine-year-old Josef Miles spotted members of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church doing their hate-mongering thing on the Washburn University campus in Topeka, he asked his mother, Patty Akrouche, if he could stage a small counter-protest to their message of intolerance.

With just a pencil and small notebook in hand, Josef took on the bigots with a succinct yet poignant proclamation: "God Hates No One."

"Those people are scary but he stood strong, was respectful and stood by his convictions," Akrouche wrote on her Facebook page. "He will be a good man, I have no doubt."

I am a survivor: born into addiction and poverty, but grateful to be alive

Excerpt from Lifesitenews:

Life was not always easy for me growing up with a teenage mother, who later became a drug addict and alcoholic. Yet, I always knew I was loved.  When my birth mother was not able to care for me, God always did. She died by the time I was nine years old from a drug overdose. She was 25

.

Oftentimes, pro-choice supporters make statements like, “You do not know what it is like to grow up in poverty or with alcoholic parents,” or “No child would want to be born into poverty or into a family of alcoholics.” Well, I have lived that life, and, I must admit, if given the choice of having a family with money and no addiction versus the life I had, I would probably choose the first option. But, if given the choice between the life I had and that of a death sentence, I would choose the life I had.

Even though I grew up in a poor family that suffered from addiction, I never felt like I did not want to live. I actually never knew my life was that difficult or that my family was poor, because I did not know any different. Being a child of a poor family and of an addict did not define me, nor did it make my life any less valuable than anyone who may be reading this story.

Three years to the day after my birth mother’s death, I sat in a Russian courthouse. A Russian judge approved my adoption into my American family. I soon moved to the United States and now, five years later, I am a senior in high school, with a 3.2 GPA. I have just been accepted into college where I will study to become a registered nurse.

My future is bright, and my life is amazing, all because of one fifteen-year-old’s brave decision to choose life for me.

When I reflect on what my Russian birth mother must have been going through, and think about all the arguments people of pro-choice opinion give for a girl to have an abortion, I am faced with the realization that I am 90 percent of those reasons. Consider the fact that currently in Russia there are more abortions than live births; that definitely makes me a survivor, a person with a purpose. What that purpose is at the moment, I am not sure, but for today, it was to share my story.

Click here to read the whole article.

We Will Wait

Ursuline Nuns Issue Statement Defending Billionaire Contraceptive Campaigner Melinda Gates...

"The antichrist forces of the agents from hell are out now in great numbers invading Our convents and seminaries, My child.  You must hasten to reach your pastors with the Message." 

- Our Lady of the Roses, July 25, 1975

LifeSiteNews reported on May 10, 2012:

A group of Ursuline nuns whom billionaire Melinda Gates had claimed in a recent speech supports her campaign to inject tens of millions of women in impoverished countries with Depo-Provera and other contraceptive drugs, has issued a statement defending Gates and the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while simultaneously claiming to support Catholic moral teaching.

Gates recently told Newsweek that the nuns at the Ursuline Academy of Dallas, where she once attended school, were delighted to hear about her plans to initiate a global contraceptive campaign and contacted her to tell her: “We’re all for you. We know this is a difficult issue to speak on, but we absolutely believe that you’re living under Catholic values.”

“It was just so heartening,” Gates said of the phone call, which she says the Ursuline nuns made to her hotel room in Berlin, where she had just announced her intentions at a TEDxChange conference in early April.

In a statement on the matter issued yesterday to “employees, parents, students, alumnae, and other members of our school community” and obtained by LifeSiteNews.com, Academy President Margaret Ann Moser says that the nuns are “proud of Melinda French Gates, her dedication to social justice, her compassion for the underserved, and the great work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”

“Melinda Gates leads from her conscience, and acts on her beliefs as a concerned citizen of our world,” adds Moser, explaining, “The mission of Ursuline Academy of Dallas is to educate young women for such leadership.”

While claiming that “Ursuline is committed to the moral and doctrinal teachings of the Catholic Church” and recognizing that “Melinda’s beliefs on birth control are different from those of the Catholic Church,” the sisters nonetheless say they “respect her right” to “speak from her research and experience of the world we live in.”

The nuns do not address Gates’ claim that they endorsed her contraceptive campaign. A spokeswoman for the Ursuline Academy of Dallas told LifeSiteNews.com that “Ursuline Academy is not participating in interviews or other discussion of Ms. Gates’ remarks or the statement. The attached statement is the extent of Ursuline’s comment at this time.”

As LifeSiteNews.com reported on Tuesday, Gates says her goal is to make contraceptives available to 120 million women by 2020, using a $4 billion budget.

The injectable contraceptive favored by the Gates Foundation is Depo-Provera, which can cause early abortions by preventing a newly-conceived zygote from attaching to the uterine wall. It is also associated with numerous dangerous medical conditions, including bone loss, increased risk of blood clots, breast cancer, cervical cancer, increased herpes susceptibility, memory loss, and other disorders, many of which are acknowledged by the U.S. Food and Drug administration.

In her Newsweek interview and in her April speech at the TEDxChange conference, Gates claimed that women in Africa are clamoring to be injected with contraceptive drugs.  She also says she wants to develop a class of non-hormonal contraceptive implants that permanently reside in the woman’s body and can be activated and deactivated at will. She denies she is engaging in population control and claims that her agenda has nothing to do with abortion.

When an interviewer at the Berlin TEDxChange conference asked Gates if the Ursuline nuns “are going to be horrified, or are they cheering you on?” regarding her campaign, Gates responded: “Well, I know they’re going see the TED Talk, because they know that I’m doing it, and I plan to send it to them. And, you know, the nuns who taught me were incredibly progressive.”

Contact information:

Diocese of Dallas
3725 Blackburn St.
Dallas, Texas 75219
Phone: (214) 528-2240
Fax: (214) 526-1743
info@cathdal.org

Pentecost Novena

PENTECOST  NOVENA 

We invite all brothers and sisters in Christ to pray with us

from May 18^th –  26^th for the graces of the Holy Spirit:

·       for all priests and the whole clergy

·       for our beloved Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI.

·      and for the whole Holy Church

Let us pray together for the Fire of the Holy Spirit, to prevent division, persecution and the secret plans to topple the Holy See. (c.f.: Pain and persecution inflicted upon Me by those sects who work in secret to topple the Holy See is severe )

Let us take the Holy Rosary and save as many souls as possible from the destructive influence of the False Prophet and the Antichrist and from the fire of Hell!

The 9^th day of the Novena, May 26^th (Saturday before Pentecost Sunday), will again be a “worldwide Day of Prayer” with all Mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

THE PRAYERS OF THE PENTECOST NOVENA:---> PENTECOST NOVENA

or DOWNLOAD: ---> PENTECOST NOVENA May 2012.doc (124 kB)

Mehr Infos: http://www.internetgebetskreis.com/en/

Inspirational Video - The Right Choice

‘I did the right thing by not aborting’: video of young mom with disabled baby 

Tradition, Family and Property Volunteers Are Assaulted by Same-Sex Marriage Advocates

In this newly released video, volunteers with the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) describe how they were violently assaulted by pro-homosexual "marriage" advocates while promoting traditional marriage on college campuses and in the public square.

"That empty slogan about tolerance comes crashing down after you see how TFP volunteers were criminally assaulted by same-sex 'marriage' advocates," said TFP Student Action Director John Ritchie.

"The video speaks for itself. They don't tolerate God's marriage. In fact, our volunteers have been bullied, pepper sprayed, hit with glass bottles, sprayed with pesticide, punched, and spit on for peacefullystating that marriage iswhat it is – the unionbetween one man and one woman."

"When you watch same-sex 'marriage' activists destroy your signs, desecrate the Bible, blaspheme, and burn your literature, it becomes clear that the homosexual agenda is not really about tolerance," Ritchie said. "It's about the formation of a strange dictatorship – a dictatorship of pseudo-tolerance and make-believe equality – where freedom of speech is only allowed if it advances sinful lifestyles; where God, family values and public morality are off limits and targeted for destruction."


We're witnessing a moral revolution," continued Ritchie, "and sometimes I wonder: Will the aggressive attempt to redefine God's marriage lead to a new religious persecution?"

"Just look at the French Revolution of 1789. Back then, the unruly mob screamed 'equality' as they broke the rule of law and committed all sorts of atrocities," he said. "And today, you find people chanting 'equality' as they attack peaceful Americans who affirm the positive, self-evident truth that marriage is between one man and one woman. It's a big eye-opener."

"But despite these attacks, TFP Student Action volunteers are upbeat, and planning more campaigns in defense of marriage. We like to be on the front lines," said Ritchie. "And the more God's marriage is under attack, the more we will defend it."

Thought For The Day: Consider

Excerpt From Archiocese of Washington Blog:

The word "consider" derives from the Latin root words cum+sidera meaning literally “with the stars”.

But the root meaning referring to the stars also brings the word so much more alive. Thus, my definition would include this notion: to reflect on as if pondering the stars, to gaze, as if with wonder and awe, to think carefully, reflectively as when one looks up and out at the night sky.

Yes, to look up and out: billion of miles out, into the vast sweep of space, over 100 Billion Galaxies and untold numbers more of stars in each. Yes, to “consider” in its literal root is to root our thoughts in the perspective of the stars. This fills us with wonder and awe, reminds of the extravagance of God’s love, and humbles us by the sheer vastness of all things God has done. It is to see by the light of God’s glory and his expansive love. To consider is to think in a way that sees the present moment as caught up in something far more vast and ancient that the mere here and now; it is to experience the moment, the is place and time, as part of something more vast and ancient that we can imagine.

Click here to read more.

China's Abuse: Forced Abortion and Forced Labor

May 19, 2011. (Romereports.com) He was tortured and forced into labor for 19 years. Now, Harry Wu, spends his time, trying to fight the system that enslaved him for nearly two decades. 

Harry Wu
Founder Laogai Foundation 
“Living like an animal. If I don't work, they would remove my food.”

They're called Laogai prisons or forced labor camps. Speaking out against the Chinese  government is enough to be imprisoned for life. When he was just 19, Wu was labeled a counter revolutionary. During a recent visit to Rome, with the Laogai Foundation, he spoke about the days he spent in solitary confinement. 
 
Harry Wu
Founder Laogai Foundation
“Six feet long, three feet wide and only three feet high made of cement. So I was inside, no blanket, no food, no water. You have to give a confession. After three days, if you don't do it, they can't let you go.”

Wu survived and later moved to Washington. But he says, it's a problem that still goes on today, with roughly one thousand Laogai prisons scattered throughout China. 

Harry Wu
Founder Laogai Foudnation
“There are three to five million people as a labor force to make a product, that benefits the government.”

He says products, like auto parts, hand tools and even some Christmas lights are made by prisoners. Despite international laws, that prohibit the sale of goods made through forced labor, Wu says plenty of them are sold in the U.S. Another concern, is freedom of religion, since Catholics are often targeted. 

Harry Wu
Founder Laogai Foundation 
“All Churches, all temples are government property. All priests, pastors are sent to labor camps.”
For years, Reggie Littlejohn has denounced the government, saying the abuse goes far beyond prison walls. China's one child law, has led to hundreds of thousands of forced abortions. 

Reggie Littlejohn
President Women's Rights Without Frontiers 
“China's one child policy is enforced through forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide.” 
She says if women don't register their pregnancy with the Chinese government, they could be subject to a violent abortion, regardless of their pregnancy term. 

Reggie Littlejohn
President Women's Rights Without Frontiers 
“If you want to have a second child, you can simply pay a fine. What they don't tell the tourist is that that fine can be up to ten times your annual salary.”
Every day, roughly 500 women commit suicide in China.  Littlejohn believes it's directly connected to the country's strict family planning laws. 

Having significantly more men than women is provoking other problems. 

Reggie Littlejohn
President Women's Rights Without Frontiers 
“Because of the gender imbalance in China, and the presence of 37 million more men than women. Women and girls are trafficked into China from surrounding countries.”
The fight against these abuses has been going on for years. Until they see changes, these activists say, the fight will continue. 

17,500 capsules of powered human baby flesh made in China, sold to cure disease and boost stamina

Excerpt From BBC World News:

The Korea Customs Service said it had found almost 17,500 of the capsules being smuggled into the country from China since August 2011.South Korea says it will increase customs inspections targeting capsules containing powdered human flesh.

The powdered flesh, which officials said came from dead babies and foetuses, is reportedly thought by some to cure disease and boost stamina.

But officials said the capsules were full of bacteria and a health risk.

"It was confirmed those capsules contain materials harmful to the human body, such as super bacteria.



Excerpt From Daily Mail:

Thousands of pills filled with powdered human flesh have been discovered by customs officials in South Korea, it was revealed today.

The capsules are in demand because they are viewed as being a medicinal 'cure-all'.

The grim trade is being run from China where corrupt medical staff are said to be tipping off medical companies when babies are aborted or delivered still-born.

The tiny corpses are then bought, stored in household refrigerators in homes of those involved in the trade before they are removed and taken to clinics where they are placed in medical drying microwaves.

Once the skin is tinder dry, it is pummelled into powder and then processed into capsules along with herbs to disguise the true ingredients from health investigators and customs officers.

Hospitals and abortion clinics in China reportedly pass the remains onto drugs companies when a baby is stillborn or aborted, the South Korean SBS documentary team reported last year. 

The San Francisco Times reported that tests carried out on the pills confirmed they were made up of 99.7 per cent human remains. The tests were successfully able to establish the genders of the babies used.

However, in reality the human flesh capsules contain super-bacteria and other harmful ingredients.

There have been disturbing reports that some babies were those who had perished in China's notorious 'dying rooms' where youngsters are deliberately left to die because they were born into families that already had the limit of one child in country areas.

In order to keep its population down, China performs 13 million abortions a year - mainly because mothers sacrifice their newborns to avoid punishment such as severe fines or even a beating by the authorities.

The Chinese authorities have confirmed that 38 per cent of women of child-bearing age have been sterilised - but the babies that are aborted do not go to waste because of the sickening trade in using their corpses for purported medicinal purposes.

Photo of baby aborted in China at 9 months in forced abortion circulates on Internet, sparks outrage

Excerpt from LifeSiteNews:

LINYI CITY, Shandong Province, China, April 3, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A chilling photograph circulating in China shows the body of a 9-months-gestation baby submerged in a bucket of water, apparently a victim of the country’s one-child policy.

Digital Journal reports that the photograph, in which the head and arm of a child can be seen underwater in a large red bucket on the floor, was posted to the Chinese web services company Baidu before it was circulated on Weibo, the country’s version of Twitter, last week.

The abortion appears to have taken place on March 26 after Chinese family planning police in the town of Moshan hunted down the family because the couple already had one child.

According to English reports regarding the original post, the pregnant mother was forcibly held down as she was given an injection to induce labor, after which the baby “even gave a cry when it came out,” but was left in a bucket to drown.

In response to the photo, Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, which opposes China’s one-child policy, confirmed that late-term abortions and infanticide are common means of enforcing China’s one-child population rule.


“These violent procedures can happen up to the ninth month of pregnancy,” Littlejohn told LifeSiteNews.com. “Sometimes the women themselves die along with their full term babies. Forced abortion is China’s war against women.  It is official government rape.”


“Late term babies are injected with poison in their skulls or drowned in buckets,” she continued. 


Click here to read the rest of the article.

The Prince of Liechtenstein is upholding natural justice in his threat to veto a law legalising abortion

From Catholic Herald:

By FRANCIS PHILLIPS

We live in a constitutional monarchy where the actual powers of the monarch are very limited: to listen, to advise, and to warn, as Bagehot says. This is not the case in the tiny principality of Liechtenstein (population: 36,000 with a land area of 62 square miles) where the constitution gives the hereditary prince the right of veto. Tim Tindal-Robertson of the World Apostolate of Fatima in the UK has emailed me to say that this right of veto has resulted in a difficulty: Hereditary Prince Alois von und zu Liechtenstein, who assumed his constitutional powers in 2004, has stated that he is prepared to abdicate his position if the principality carries out a referendum this Thursday, May 10, to approve a new abortion law.

Political activists want to revoke the Prince’s right of veto and have formed a citizens’ committee for this purpose. The Prince, a devout Catholic, told the parliament on March 1 that if the population wants to change the constitution, effectively removing the princely family’s power, a power it has exercised for over 200 years and which has given the principality its identity, he would not be able to undertake his political responsibilities and would “completely withdraw from political life”.

This seeming impasse began in 2011 when Prince Alois threatened to veto a referendum legalising abortion if it were passed. That attempt at a referendum failed because of his threat and the current campaign has developed as a result. Under the Liechtenstein constitution, it has to gather 1,500 signatures by May 10 in order to call the referendum. Currently the Prince still retains his power of veto; it is thought this might not last for much longer.

Many commentators will think, “Quite right too.” How can a modern democracy develop when one person, by the caprice of birth, still retains seemingly feudal powers? But the Prince is not exercising this power arbitrarily. Within recent memory, unborn children were protected by law as a matter of course in every European country, a law that stated they had “the right to life”. Prince Alois, as a practising Catholic – and unlike some American high-profile, supposedly Catholic politicians who I have blogged about recently – does not believe he can separate his faith from his public duties over a matter of such fundamental importance. I think he is right. He is exercising his right of veto, not because of a personal whim but to uphold natural justice against the threat of an unjust law. As the custodian of justice towards unborn future citizens of Liechtenstein, he is acting more responsibly than the activists.

In 1990 a somewhat similar crisis occurred in Belgium. The government wanted to bring in a new law permitting abortion. Such a law, constitutionally, had to be signed in by the King of Belgium, Baudouin I. Not having the power of veto, he stated that as a Catholic, he could not, in good conscience, sign the proposed law. The Cabinet declared the King “unable to govern”; he abdicated, and the law was passed. Yet 44 hours after his abdication, the Belgian parliament reinstated him. It was a compromise solution to a potential constitutional crisis. No compromise is being talked about in Liechtenstein.