Aurora Borealis

… as shared with our pastor.

November 6, 2008

Dear Father Schillinger:

It is with sadness but resolve that we write this letter to inform you that we are modifying our 2009 offertory pledge. We turned in our completed pledge form as Mass last weekend indicating an annual pledge of $____, but in light of the recent election we will be reducing our 2009 offertory contribution from $___ per month to $___ per month. [We halved our pledge.]

With a radical pro-abortion, even pro-infanticide (he voted 3 times to deny any care to infants in Illinois born alive after abortion) president and pro-abortion liberals in control of Congress, we know that what rather meager resources we have must be directed to pro-life causes. As pro-abortion forces now in control work to expand the “right” to abortion and force taxpayers to fund abortion, organizations who speak clearly and forcefully for the unborn must be strengthened. Their work - Birthright, PATH, Priests for Life, and similar organizations - must be supported as much as possible.

Unfortunately, as a parish, IHM does not make the list of organizations that speak clearly and forcefully for the unborn. With [Mrs. Tldz] heading up the pro-life committee for several years, we wish that were not so; but that involvement has proven to us that it is. Our committee received criticism for our prayer vigil sign which said “say NO to abortion mill on Cliff Valley Way,” being told that the term “abortion mill” lacked “Christian charity.” But what about the Christian charity lacking in intentionally and brutally ending the life of a completely defenseless unborn baby? In your years as IHM’s pastor, we have heard you publicly mention the word “abortion” perhaps three or four times - a paltry number considering that abortions are routinely being performed within walking distance of the parish. When we made a submission for the prayers of the faithful around the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we were questioned by a member of the parish staff about the use of the word “abortion” several times in the prayer. We had to explain that given the presence of a facility performing abortions so close to our parish, and the fact that Our Lady of Guadalupe is patroness of the unborn, it was an appropriate prayer. It seems that at IHM, those of us who defend the right to life of the unborn are called upon to explain ourselves more than those who remain silent, or even support, this slaughter. We are often told that abortion is not the only life issue, which is true; but those who say we should address other life issues really seem to believe that we should talk about other issues and NOT talk about abortion. This is not what we know our Church to teach.

Archbishop Gregory, in his pre-election column, wrote:

“According to the principles of Faithful Citizenship, Catholics must support the just care of the poor, the rights of workers, the dignity of people who immigrate to a new nation, the conservation of the environment; we must assess the very complex economic issues, seek to provide affordable health care for people who do not enjoy that security, and foster the more humane treatment of those who are imprisoned, to list only some of the issues that we now face. However, before and prior to all of those vitally important concerns, Faithful Citizenship places the issue of Life itself. All of those other matters are of immense and lasting significance, yet they remain of no consequence for those who are not granted the first right—the right to be born. For this reason, I want to remind all of you, my brothers and sisters, to remember those famous Jeffersonian words borrowed from Locke—and especially remember the order that he gave them.”

So we were taken aback to hear you say on the Sunday before election day that a Catholic could “in good conscience” vote for Barack Obama - one of the most pro-abortion politicians ever elected. If all those other “vitally important concerns” are of “no consequence” to those not allowed to be born, how can we “in good conscience” vote for someone who would deny the right to be born to so many because we may like his stance on other issues?

While we would have been disappointed by your words no matter the outcome of the election, if pro-abortion forces had not won, we would have maintained our pledged support of IHM. Now, however, the need for pro-life work and post-abortion work will sadly be so great that we must redirect some of our limited resources to it. Note, though, that we are not eliminating our support of the parish. It is where we worship and we know we have an obligation to support its operation; and we happily fulfill that obligation.

Please know that IHM, you, your brother, and your family remain in our prayers.

Sincerely,

Mr. and Mrs. Tldz

Now I just hope the action plan we parish pro-life leaders are awaiting to formally address President-elect Obama’s stated intention to promote abortion among his earliest actions will be coming quickly - and will be a strong one.  I fear, though, that our bishops often fail to recognize the necessary time frames/time constraints to address legislation, etc. effectively.  Lord, give them courage.

It saddens me that we have elected a man who is pro-infanticide as the next president of this great country.  Thinking of the millions more babies who will continue to be slaughtered by abortion as a result makes me cry.  The thought that my tax dollars will likely be taken to fund these murders sickens me.  And that’s before we get to issues of our national security, taxation, etc.  (On that more mundane note, it looks like we’ll be postponing any move for a while until we see how much of our income the liberal Democrats deign to let us keep so we know whether we can afford a different house.)

So we’ll be reevaluating where our charitable dollars go so we do as much as we can to build a Culture of Life in this onslaught of the Culture of Death.  And we’ll be praying for our country and our president-elect.  Maybe if enough of us pray, his heart can be changed.

I know, we are called to be faithful, not successful.  But some success every now and again would be an encouragement.

Agent Murphy and I went for a little walk around the neighborhood this morning.  I should be doing that more.  Maybe now that the weather is nice and crisp, I will.  I am happy to report that I saw four McCain-Palin yard signs (still waiting for ours to show up) and only one for Obama.  I guess Georgia is considered pretty safe to go for McCain, but still this makes me happy.

In other news, Mr. Tldz and I had a lovely evening last night just being together.  With his new commute, it normally feels like we don’t really see each other during the week.  He gets home and we have dinner and then Agent Murphy does or vice versa, depending on the timing, I pack Mr. Tldz’s lunch, Agent Murphy gets put to bed, dishes get cleaned up, etc., Mr. Tldz spends a little time catching up on e-mail or other miscellaneous things he needs to do, and then it’s time to go to bed to get up early and do it all over again.  But last night was nice.  We need to find a way to make more “us” time regularly.

I said I wanted a t-shirt and yard sign.  Finally got around to ordering them.  I hope they show up quickly!

Wow.  I wish these big convention speeches weren’t so late so I could actually see them.  But in the clips I’ve seen and heard today, just wow.  Sarah Barracuda alright!  I’m finally excited about this election.  I want a yard sign and a t-shirt.

You know, I always think with a long weekend that lots will get done and we’ll have time to really enjoy just being home, relaxing, etc.  Well, I guess we had a pretty good weekend, but it always goes faster than expectations.  Saturday we had regular errands, plus a couple of extra ones (haircuts, picking up a pair of shoes we’d ordered for Mr. Tldz).  Sunday we took Agent Murphy to a birthday celebration for his little friend E.  Unfortunately, Agent Murphy was fussy and just wanted to be held.  And he made the birthday boy cry when we tried to get them to play together.  Yesterday we went over the B.’s for lunch with a few friends.  And we were able to get a few episodes of Matlock watched over the weekend.  And Mr. Tldz got a little extra time in with his guitar, besides the normal 20 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings before he leaves (the days he doesn’t shave).  So all in all a good weekend, but Labor Day was Mr. Tldz’s only day off for a long while - well, I guess until Thanksgiving; so it’s kind of sad to see it come and go.

Now Mr. Tldz is off to work again, and we’re back to the normal routine.  We really need to figure out how we’re going to make a move to give Mr. Tldz a less taxing commute.  Let’s just hope the big tax-and-spend folks don’t win in the fall elections (you know who I’m talking about) or we probably won’t be able to make a move.

Mr. Tldz graciously agreed to look after the little guy for a bit this morning while I went off to church for a “Lunch & Learn” session on St. Paul in honor of the Pauline year the pope has announced.  It was a good session and really got me looking forward to the resumption of Thursday night Scripture study.  Hopefully I’ll be able to work that into the schedule regularly.

One little off topic point of annoyance came up.  We were conjecturing as to how Paul may have come to have Roman citizenship.  One woman in the class said, “Well, it could be like the politicians of today who say ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’  Like George Bush and Exon, financing his campaign.”  Really now.  As a conservative, it would never occur to me in a setting where we’re discussing St. Paul or something similar to say, “Well, maybe it was like Barack Obama and that outrageous Jeremiah Wright.”  I just wouldn’t think of throwing my politics into something like that.  Why do liberals feel so free to do so?  Mr. Tldz speculates, and I think he may be right, that liberals act on the assumption that everyone in any group they’re in agrees with them.