Grace Can Straighten That Which Sin Has Twisted

Commentary on the Gospel Reading for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday of Pentecost Archpriest Alexander Shargunov

And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day? And when He had said these things, all His adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him (Lk. 13:10-17). The word of God reminds us of the necessity of prayer. As was His custom, Christ entered the synagogue on the Sabbath to pray. Although He prays in the desert, in secluded spots, He goes to the synagogue together with believers—not because He has need of it, but to show us how we should act. Every Sunday and feast day we must necessarily be in church. It’s a commandment, along with the most ancient ones, placing limits on the disintegration of human life—it is the same as “do not kill,” “do not steal,” “do not fornicate.” Today’s Gospel is about this. The Lord heals the woman of a grievous illness. She was possessed by a spirit of infirmity, she was bound by Satan, bent towards the Earth for eighteen years. She had trouble moving, but she came to the church of God all the same. How we had to marvel in the past, when it was mainly grandmothers in church—feeble, infirm, walking with difficulty, but they didn’t miss a single service!—morning and evening, because the soul is drawn to where the Lord is, where true life is revealed. No infirmity is any obstacle for them. All the moreso should it be a shame for us when God has not taken away our health, and yet we blatantly violate one of His core commandments—to miss a feast day or Sunday service. The Lord performs a miracle on this woman for the sake of her fidelity to the commandment of God. Although she no longer has any hope, she is ready to bear the yoke of her infirmity unto death. But for her it was important to go where the word of the Lord is proclaimed, where they provide the most important things for man. In an instant, this woman is healed and straightened, and she sends up praise to God. Her condition truly was terrible. Bent to the Earth, she was nearly walking on all fours. From afar you could think it was some animal moving along. Such is the spiritual condition of man after his falling away from God. He cannot straighten himself, cannot lift his face to Heaven, cannot see the face of another. He is nourished and inspired only by that which is below. All his joy is in what the earth provides. That which is above, eternal life, Heavenly joy—it’s unapproachable for him—like a man who has become an animal, doubled over, although, physically he can sometimes lift his head very high. St. Nikolai (Velimirović), a Serbian saint, glorified by the Church in 2003, says that, looking at this miracle, we can understand the absurdity of the teaching of the materialists who argue that man came from an ape-like creature, walking for thousands of years on all fours, and then gradually straightened. The Lord straightens this woman bent to the Earth in an instant; and in an instant, He makes man as he should be in order to participate in the life created for him by the Lord. Everyone sees how this woman straightens and sends up praise to the Lord. And we see, besides the appearance of light, the appearance of darkness—how the head of the synagogue—the guardian of the law of God!—is darkened. Fearing to rebuke Christ Himself (because he cannot find the internal strength for it), he turns to the people: “There are six days in which it’s possible to heal, but the seventh is a day of rest, the Sabbath day, and no one can violate it.” Look at what’s happening. The light of this miracle blinds this teacher of the faith, and he wants to hide it from others. Who is not clear that it’s God Himself acting here? But the head of the synagogue wants to turn a miracle of God into something ordinary, a completely insignificant event. External observance of the rules is for him more valuable than anything else in the world, and he is ready to forbid God Himself from performing works of mercy on the Sabbath. This woman didn’t hope in anything anymore. But the Lord Himself called her. And even before she turned to Him, He Himself performed the miracle. If the Lord does not come to us, we will die in our sins. “Verily I say unto you,” He says, “if you do not know that it is Me, that My grace, My power, My love is active in these signs and wonders, you will die in your sins.” Piety and love are one and the same thing. The meaning of piety lies in love, in compassion for others. The Lord says, “If any of you has any kind of livestock, a donkey or an ox, will you really not loose it on the Sabbath to take it for a drink?” Everyone does it: It would be savage and cruel to the animal not to give it a drink. Is it really wrong to loose this daughter of Abraham, bound by Satan and already tormented for eighteen years, from her suffering? Is that not what the Sabbath rest exists for? The mystery of God’s mercy, eternal life—that’s what this “rest” is. And only through compassion, through genuine piety can we enter into it. The Lord rebukes the sin of hypocrisy. Of all the sins it is the most disgusting. Recall with what anger the Lord often repeats, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! He doesn’t say these words, “Woe unto you,” to any simple people—only to the Pharisees, because “outer appearances with inner emptiness” is the “mystery of iniquity” in the Church. Hear the word of the Lord, warns the prophet Isaiah, Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow (Is. 1:14-17). And then the mercy of the Lord appears, and a miracle is performed. God is fire, says St. Seraphim, not rites, not fasting, or prayer, not good deeds, but the fire hidden within them—not our outer presence at a feast, but the presence of the feast within us. The mystery of the miracle, says the righteous St. John of Kronstadt, lies in sincere, heartfelt prayer. When they asked him, “Why has the Lord given you such a wonderful gift?” he answered, “It is the mercy of God. I only try to always sincerely pray from my whole heart, and not allow a single drop of hypocrisy in my relationship with God and with people.” Where there is directness in these relationships, there is the light of Christ, there is revealed the miracle of the love of God, there are straightened those souls bent to the earth by sin. The woman, receiving the gift of healing, thanks the Lord, and all the people marvel at what the Lord has done.. Man, having received healing by the mercy of God, cannot but thank God. It is natural for him, and it is a sign of his healing, because no one is able to bring praise to the Lord until his ailing soul has been healed. The grace of Christ can straighten everything that sin has twisted in our lives. Archpriest Alexander Shargunov Translated by Jesse Dominic

A primary mission of the Orthodox Church is to guard the true faith

– A primary mission of the Orthodox Church is to guard the true faith against false prophets, teachings, and practices. To be Orthodox is to be committed to the truth: the truth of the Gospel, the Holy Trinity, the scriptures, and the Holy Tradition The word for today is “false.” In today’s reading of 2 Corinthians 11:5-21, we note how seriously St. Paul takes the false teachers who are misleading the congregation at Corinth. The Apostle is so concerned—and incensed—that he is willing to defend himself on the low level of his adversaries. St. Paul begins his diatribe against those who are pretending to be apostles, “For I consider that I am not at all inferior to the most eminent apostles” (vs. 5). Then he writes that he is going to “boast a little” (vs. 16). His boasting will not be “according to the Lord” (vs. 17). In this case, the Apostle admits that, he will not follow the Lord’s direction, but he will speak “foolishly” in the same manner as his opponents. Truth Is a Straight Path: Falsehood Lead to Confusion We learn in this passage that St. Paul’s primary concern was that the Corinthians were being misled by lies and deceptions. Why was that of critical concern? The Apostle writes, “You put up with fools gladly…for you put up with it if one brings you bondage, if one devours you, if one takes from you, if one exalts himself, if one strikes you on the face” (vs. 20). In other words, if the truth sets us free, lies take us captive. Deceits catch us and swallow us up in their world of make-believe. Falsehoods honor dishonesty and despise honesty. In short, the truth is a straight path: those who forsake it get lost in a thicket of confusion. The New Testament constantly urges vigilance against false prophets who “will arise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (vs. 24). From the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ to the visions of St. John in Revelation (e.g., vs. 10:13), the warnings are urgent and consistent. The case of the apostasy at Corinth reveals the havoc that these false “disguises of Satan” can wreck (vs. 13). The flock of the Church must be on guard for the wolves of deception in their midst. For Reflection A primary mission of the Orthodox Church is to guard the true faith against false prophets, teachings, and practices. To be Orthodox is to be committed to the truth: the truth of the Gospel, the Holy Trinity, the scriptures, and the Holy Tradition, etc. The witness of the saints and martyrs, the confession of the Creed, and the testimony of the church fathers all serve to protect the faithful from error. Yet, in so far as we are committed to the truth in matters of faith, our dedication should extend to all our speech and conduct (Ephesians 4:23 and 6:14). The commandments charge that we should not “bear false witness” (Exodus 20: 16). Moreover, the Lord Jesus taught that the prohibition against “swearing falsely” covers all oaths. He says, “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No’ for whatever is more than these is from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37). With this lesson in mind how can we who are committed to the truth live and represent the truth in these times of wholesale deceitfulness?

HOW DID ANCIENT PAGANS SEE THE BEGINNING OF CHRISTIANITY ?

Let’s face the task of putting ourselves in the place of a pagan of the East and West of the Eastern and western Empire. Let’s “try on his dress”. How would he react to the preaching of the Jewish fishermen? Let’s listen with his ears and think with his mind. Perhaps then it will be possible to understand more clearly how Christianity entered the Roman world, how it penetrated into homes and into hearts. Ancient culture was focused on searching for meaning: philosophy with its inexhaustible existential questions, sculpture with its proportions and search for the perfect beauty, work on the political structure as a search for a form to embody the ideals of society. All this inspired people to look for a standard and an idyll. The Birth of Christ on the outskirts of civilization A magnificent emperor ruled in the majestic Palatine Palace, which opened when the King of Kings and the Lord of all Living Things came into the world in a squalid cave in little known Bethlehem on the outskirts of a huge empire. Delving into the religious history of Rome during the time of Christ and the Apostles, we can find amazing meanings, with which the heads of the Romans were “seasoned”. It is impossible to disregard them, and we also cannot help but marvel at the greatness of Divine Providence, which was preparing people’s hearts to accept the Good Tidings of the Salvation of the world and man. Christ was born in the multinational Roman Empire, which included both the East and the West, absorbed the great cultures of antiquity, their customs and religions. Christ was recorded on the census as a citizen of such an empire in order to attract from the east and from the west… to the Kingdom of God (cf. Lk. 13:29). Caesar and the God-Man Christ The Roman Empire was founded almost on the eve of the Birth of the Lord under Emperor Octavian Augustus (the 30s BC—14 AD). Studying the life and activity of the emperor, in whose days the Savior was born, we admire the greatness of Divine Providence. By the earthly order of things, the minds and the hearts of the citizens of the Roman world were being prepared to accept the Heavenly Fatherland. We will single out several facts from the life of the pagan emperor, which can be considered symbolic and even to some extent “prototypal”. They prepared the pagan hearts to receive the message of the Savior and salvation. 1. We know about St. Isaiah’s prophecy that Christ would bring peace: And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks (Is. 2:4). The prophets themselves, centuries before Christ, said of the Messiah, This man shall be the peace (Mic. 5:5). In Rome just before Christ’s Birth and in the early years of Jesus’ life, the idea of ending wars and establishing peace (pax Augusta) were widespread. Thus, in 13 BC, the “Altar of Peace” was set up in Rome. In “The Acts of the Divine Augustus” the Emperor emphasized that during his reign the gates of the temple of the god Janus were closed three times, which meant the end of all wars and was a symbol of peace. Christ, Who brought true peace, deigned to come to earth in the days of the cessation of wars. 2. Christ is the Son of God, God Who came into the world, clothed in our nature and making us His kin. All nations and kingdoms must offer their glory to Him. He brought everyone together before Him: At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth (Phil. 2:10). He, the true Son of God, was born under the emperor who called himself the “son of god.” This is what Octavian, Julius Caesar’s adopted son, called himself. In the time of Octavian, the cult of imperial liturgies appeared (“liturgy” means “work of the people” in Greek, because they were performed at the expense of the empire’s population). January 1, 42 BC, the senators proclaimed Caesar god, and Octavian became known as the “son of god”. 3. In the days when Christ God, Who revealed to us the Name of God the “Father”, was an Infant and made His first steps, Octavian received from the Senate the honorary title of “father of the fatherland” (pater patriae—2 BC). Octavian did not choose Mars, the god of war, as his patron deity, but Apollo, who brings order and arranges human affairs. Christ, Who was born at this time, truly arranged all our affairs for good. He is the only One Whom the Prophet Isaiah called the everlasting Father during the foundation of Rome (Is. 9:6). 4. Pagan emperors and kings of Rome bore the title “Pontifex Maximus”, literally “the great bridge builder”—the one who united the earthly with the Heavenly. In fulfillment of the great Pontifex, the cult charged to avoid not only touching, but even looking at the dead, including one’s relatives, which Octavian observed carefully. Let us recall that in the Old Testament, given 1400 years before the Birth of Christ, the high priest of the true God was forbidden to touch the dead, even his own parents. In the paganism of Rome and in the Jewish religion there was a foretaste that death had nothing to do with the true High Priest. It was fulfilled in Jesus. Christ is the Conqueror of death: He came to destroy its power and make the way, the bridge from death unto life (Jn. 5:24). Not only did He raise others from the dead, but He even entered death Himself, and death, trampled down, could not bear His burial that lasted three days. 5. Octavian’s adoptive father Julius Caesar became the first “god” proclaimed in Rome. After that he was killed by supporters of the republic. He wore the purple robe of Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill and went down in history. Let’s recall how the soldiers at Pilate’s trial put a purple robe on Christ—the clothes of Caesar and Jupiter. Christ always called Himself the Son of Man, being God from Heaven. He was put to death. But He rose again, having conquered death and hell. After another victory a statue was erected to Caesar as to the “invincible god” (“pantocrator” in Greek), where he was depicted leaning on a sphere that symbolized peace. Christ, the true “Pantocrator”—the Almighty—enlightened the whole universe, wins all the battles that those who believe in Him wage in His name, and contains the world with His Love. 6. There were oak leaf wreaths in the military halo of glory of Rome—the symbol of Jupiter. A valiant soldier was crowned with it as a reward for saving a fellow soldier on the battlefield. The saved one wove a wreath for him for the great good deed of saving his life. The saved one was supposed to honor his savior as his father. When Emperor Octavian saved the country from civil war, he was regarded as a benefactor. An inscription has survived in Ephesus that calls Octavian “the common savior of all human lives.” Christ is the Savior from the power of death. He alone is the true Savior of all people’s lives. When the Apostles spoke of salvation, all the Gentiles understood the true meaning of this word: salvation from the power of death, the gift of life. From the earthly to the Heavenly—from the emperor to Christ At the turn of the age, Rome was engulfed by a surge of lively religious feeling, and the center of that feeling was the emperor—a living god who brought peace, a good and just winner. It seemed that the whole world was being renewed. At that time, the poet Ovid revived the concept of a Golden Age where people would be faithful to justice without coercion. The emperors who succeeded Octavian Augustus did not come up to the people’s expectations; among them were both worthy men and outright monsters. Both in Judaism and in the Roman State at the time of the preaching of the Apostles there was a “Great longing” for an earthly kingdom with an earthly living and good god. This idea brought both Jews and Gentiles to Christianity. Let’s recall the great Paul and the great former pagan witnesses—the elite of the Roman State: Great-Martyrs George the Victorious, Demetrius of Thessalonica and Barbara. Researchers note that the New Testament authors were already using terms from the imperial cult, explaining the relations between man and Christ the Savior. Pagan religious honors rendered to the emperor, and all the hopes pinned on him, became a reflection of the glory of Christ. Through the Roman State on the earthly level the minds were prepared for the Heavenly message. Earthly values carried a deeper meaning and Heavenly hopes. The desire for purification was the religious motivating force of Rome at the turn of the old and the new eras of mankind, in the years when the Deliverer came, and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be (Gen. 49:10). Christ was killed by the Sadducees because He proclaimed Himself God, but He truly resurrected, and streams of preaching about the great King of Kings flowed into all corners of the empire. These were fervent words supported by deeds, life and miracles. This confirmed the belief that He was indeed the true Son of God, God and the Savior, the Ruler and the Peacemaker. Researchers call the ancient religion the “Old Testament of European Christianity”, and Augustus the “Roman David”—the king and a prototype of the true Messiah. What the prophets had said was fulfilled. The Almighty came that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (Jn. 10:10). Pagans, disappointed in the subsequent decline of Rome, could not but believe this.

KILLING CHILDREN VIA PLANNED PARENHOOD

According to a press release, The Center for Medical Progress has confirmed that the University of Pittsburgh investigated by federal law enforcement regarding a tissue harvesting program using the bodies of aborted children. CMP uncovered documents through the Freedom of Information Act which support the claim it has long made: University of Pittsburgh has been working with Planned Parenthood to criminally harvest the body parts of babies aborted late in gestation. Those documents include email exchanges from late 2021 through early 2022 between leaders of the National Institutes of Health, University of Pittsburgh's senior vice chancellor for research, and the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIS). The OIS conducts criminal, civil, and administrative investigations of fraud and misconduct related to HHS programs. It has the authority to make arrests. In an email dated November 5, 2021, University of Pittsburgh’s Dr. Rutenbar stated, we received a subpoena from requesting similar documentation on October 28, 2021.” The emails uncovered through the FOIA reference this subpoena to investigate fetal organ harvesting at University of Pittsburgh’s funding program. The Genito-Urinary Development Molecular Anatomy Project — studies how the genito-urinary tract develops in utero in order to develop therapies for diseases of the kidneys, bladder, ureter, and urethra. According to an NIH funding award notice from 2016, the GUDMAP research uses the body parts of children aborted between six and 24 weeks gestation. In one year alone, Pitt “disbursed over 300 fresh samples collected from 77 cases.” Pitt promised, “The collections can be significantly ramped up as material could have been accrued from as many as 725 cases last year.” The government gave $600,000 to Pitt for the program. In Pitt’s application to become the fetal tissue “distribution hub” for the GUDMAP program, it advertised to NIH that it would use labor induction abortions to harvest fetal kidneys, record the time the kidneys were removed from the baby’s blood supply, and “minimize” this “warm ischemic time.” “Ischemic time” refers to the time frame in which there is an inadequate blood supply to an. To “minimize” and to “record” this time as University of Pittsburgh advertised that it does, it would be harvesting kidney samples from babies who are still alive, said CMP, rather than from kidneys that had already been cut out from the baby’s body or kidneys that had already been cut off from a blood supply. Babies can and do survive induction abortions in the second and third trimesters. “University of Pittsburgh’s own statements indicating its Planned Parenthood partners use criminal partial-birth abortions to harvest fetal organs to sell for grant money are serious enough that a federal law enforcement agency opened a formal investigation following reporting,”- “If this investigation has been conducted honestly, the facts uncovered may be more horrifying than we ever imagined. Planned Parenthood has cloaked its human atrocities committed against vulnerable mothers and infants under its ‘research’ program for decades — it is time for justice under the law for every level of the taxpayer-funded enterprise of selling aborted baby body parts.” University of Pittsburgh has been involved in human tissue procurement for more than two decades and boasts that it has a “long standing history of collecting, maintaining and disbursing quality samples to research scientists, both in house and outside the University of Pittsburgh.”

SOME PEOPLE WAIT TO KIDNAP YOUR CHILD

In 2020, Aaron Stevenson, then a federal employee of the Department for Homeland Security, started to realize the lies dictating our lives, in February 2021, he blew the whistle on government-sponsored child trafficking, and in June 2022, he was baptized into Christ in the Orthodox Church. “This is what’s basically saved me,” Stevenson said about his path over the past three years. And although he was fired from his very comfortable job with the DHS for coming forward, he says he would absolutely do it again. Aaron Stevenson recently joined his fellow whistleblower Tara Rodas on the Kyle Seraphin Show to talk about the horrifying government program that has resulted in thousands of children becoming victims of sex and labor trafficking. Stevenson recounts how after serving in the marines, he became a federal employee, working for the DHS from 2012 until he was fired in 2023, helping with various programs and various forms of analysis. One program was the International Crime Watchlist, which he worked on from its inception, identifying and tracking transnational organized criminals (cartels, mafias, etc.). Stevenson recalls how in February 2021, he came across a case where a watchlisted person was trying to sponsor a child who had arrived at the U.S. border illegally and unaccompanied. From there, he noticed a pattern beginning to emerge, with criminals (including many sex traffickers) from countries all across the globe also applying to sponsor children. When Stevenson tried to track down whose job it was to address this shocking fact, he couldn’t find anyone, so he took it to the media, first anonymously and later openly. Tara Rodas, a federal employee for decades, explained how she became aware of the child trafficking through first-hand experience. In 2021, the Biden administration knew it had a border crisis on its hands and called on all federal employees to leave their home agencies and go on detail to Health and Human Services (HHS) to help with the mission of taking unaccompanied children into the care of the HSS to be placed with sponsors in the U.S. Fluent in Spanish, Rodas went to an HHS site near the border to spend time with the children, but she learned that the HSS had been handing children over to unvetted sponsors—traffickers, members of transnational criminal organizations—for more than a decade. After seeing Aaron Stevenson’s initial testimony, Rodas also began to report on the cases she was personally seeing at the HHS site, which eventually got her kicked off the site. The official purpose of the sponsor program, Rodas explains, is for children to have a place to live and someone to help them through the court process of claiming asylum. However, since many of the sponsors themselves are criminals, of course they have no intention of helping the children become legal. According to Stevenson, in fact, 90% or more of the sponsors are illegal aliens. What happens, Stevenson and Rodas explain, is that the children are being forced into labor and/or sex trafficking. Some have died and some have been badly injured working in unsafe conditions. The HHS itself admits that it has lost contact with 85,000 of the children placed in this program. Essentially, Rodas explains, the criminal sponsors offer to pay for a child’s trip to the U.S. and give them a well-paying job. But after being smuggled into the country, they find themselves in debt bondage/slave labor, working in horrendous conditions. Often, the children agree to come because the criminal organizations sponsoring them threaten their families back home. Moreover, the children undergo “unspeakable horrors” on the way to the U.S.—some, being so young, are even raped to death, Rodas says. Asked whether his faith inspired him to blow the whistle on the program, Stevenson explains that, in fact, uncovering the truth of the government program helped lead him to faith: I was an atheist from 2010 till about 2020. I was full-on don’t believe it, I would argue with people, yadda yadda yadda. I started seeing all the lies in 2020, and I started thinking about things differently, going forward. Come February 2021, I’m still not going to church, I don’t understand things yet. Doing all these things has brought me back. You can see it [points to icons], I’m baptized now, Divine Liturgy every Sunday, I pray every day. This is what’s basically saved me. There’s no way I could be doing this without the grace and protection of Christ. It’s all thanks to God. And that’s been my take on it. Without that, there’s no way I’d be where I’m at today, either doing this or being able to mentally or spiritually take it. I’d be depressed, I’d be an alcoholic, who knows? But this right here [points to icons] is the way. Stevenson told OrthoChristian that he began to question why he was an atheist in 2020 and realized he had no solid reasons. “So I accepted I was wrong and began to search,” he said. Realizing that God is real, he began to look for an explanation of this truth. “That’s when I learned about Orthodoxy and it’s like it just clicked,” he said. Speaking with Kyle Seraphin, Stevenson further explained that, rather than cracking down on criminal sponsors of unaccompanied minors, the Biden administration is attempting to deregulate the process even further, doing away with sponsor background checks and home visits, and much more. In fact, as the Washington Examiner reported on Monday, December 4, a group of 39 Republican Senators “have called on the Biden administration to cancel a Department of Health and Human Services proposal that would allow the government to stop vetting certain adults who apply to take custody of an unaccompanied migrant child.” “In effect, ORR [the Office of Refuge Resettlement] accepts a sponsor’s representations almost entirely on face value. ORR then delivers the child at taxpayer expense and free-of-cost to the un-vetted sponsor, opening up the possibility that a vulnerable child could fall into the hands of a potentially criminal or drug-addicted sponsor. At this point, ORR considers its work largely done,” the Senators write. To learn more about the problem of child trafficking and about Aaron Stevenson and Tara Rodas’ efforts against it, visit https://truthtrench.org/defendthechildren/

Conservative mom's and dad's win again.

Conservative and very conservative parents are more likely to raise mentally healthy teens compared to liberal parents, according to a new study from the Institute for Family Studies and Gallup. The results drop amid a nationwide mental youth crisis among youth, stemming partly from the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. A report released in February by the NC Child Fatality Task Force found that the youth suicide rate has nearly tripled in two decades. North Carolina lawmakers included additional funding for mental health services in the new state budget. The IFS/Gallup report found that “the most important factor in the mental health of adolescent children is the quality of the relationship with their caregivers.” The key driver is parents who have an “authoritative” style that combines “affection and attentiveness to children’s needs with structure and requirements for pro-social, responsible behavior.” In contrast, liberal parents are more likely to have a permissive parenting style and “are the least likely to successfully discipline their children.” “[C]onservative parents enjoy higher quality relationships with their children, characterized by fewer arguments, more warmth, and a stronger bond, according to both parent and child reporting,” the report concluded. “There is no meaningful public effort to educate parents on the best-practice parenting styles that have long been associated with teen mental health,” said the report’s author Jonathan Rothwell, principal economist at Gallup and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in a statement. “The results of our report should be seen as empowering parents to play the lead role in guiding their children to healthy psychological development. Their actions, judgments, and relationships are key to their teen’s mental health.” Importantly, household income, parental education, and race and ethnicity are largely unrelated to the quality of parenting and mental health outcomes for teens, the report found. Data for the analysis were collected from 2,995 parents of adolescents in June and July of 2023. The survey included measures of adolescent mental health, social media use, parental demographics, political views, and attitudes toward marriage, parenting practices, and parent-child relationships.

Woman laughs before her ninth abortion – then she sees her aborted baby

Abby Johnson’s book The Walls Are Talking: Former Abortion Clinic Workers Tell Their Stories collects firsthand accounts from former abortion facility workers. The stories vary in theme, each one an abortion worker’s memory of an event that stuck with her after she left. One story here, called “Frequent Flyers,” is about a young woman who had nine abortions. The chapter’s author, who is unnamed, explains how women who came in for repeat abortions at her facility were called “frequent flyers” by the staff. Even though abortion facility workers were committed to promoting and providing abortions, some of them had judgmental feelings toward these “frequent flyers.” An abortion facility worker says: When Angie walks through our doors for her ninth procedure, even those of us whose paychecks were funded by abortion shook our heads and said “Really? Seriously?”… Although it went against my own ideology, I wanted Angie to show some indication of remorse. I didn’t want to feel that way about the numerous women who presented for abortions two, three, or even four times. But nine? That, I felt, deserved at least a slight show of regret or even a bit of good old-fashioned shame. Angie showed no trace of guilt or any kind of distress when she came to the abortion facility. She had laughed through her first abortion, and every abortion since. It was not at all different when she came in for her ninth. The abortion facility worker described Angie’s demeanor: [S]he seemed to regard her visits to our clinic as an opportunity to perform her improv comedy act. “Could y’all just xerox my chart and I’ll fill in the dates?” She would jest. Once the paperwork was in order, Angie would attempt to banter with the girls in the waiting room. “It’s no big thing,” she assured them. “I’ve done it 8 times before, and I have no regrets.” Although I couldn’t help but like Angie, her flippancy appalled me, and she showed no guilt or remorse: Over the years, I had consoled and held the hands of scores of women who approached that same table with much trepidation. Some would weep, their knuckles white as they gripped my hand until it ached. Others would clutch Bibles to their chests and mouth prayers begging for forgiveness, even before the abortionist had begun his work and when their babies were still safe in their wombs. Many times women would climb onto the table and remain limp and unresponsive during the procedure. Mentally, they were a million miles away. And then there was Angie… Angie never even attempted to explain herself. When we would talk to her about birth control and try to set her up with an appointment to explore the matter further, she would just smile and politely refuse with a wave of her hand. Angie was using abortion for birth control, not bothering to learn any other method. She may have gone on to have nine more abortions – but something happened. Angie had no doubt heard pro-abortion rhetoric. She had certainly been told that abortion is only removing a ball of cells, a piece of tissue, or an undeveloped mass. But after her ninth abortion, she was curious and wanted to see the “tissue” for herself. She asked the abortion worker to show her the remains of the abortion, and the abortion worker complied. At 13 weeks, her child was fully formed. I debated about how to arrange the pieces. Would it be best to throw them all together in a clump so that none of the parts would be recognizable, or should I piece it back together as we normally did to ensure that none of the parts were missing. There was no protocol on such things, so in the end I opted to piece the parts back together. Angie’s reaction was not what the abortion worker anticipated: “Thanks,” she said, her trademark smile still fixed on her face. When her eyes traveled to the container, she gasped sharply, and for the first time since she had arrived, Angie was utterly silent. A few moments later her entire body shuddered and gooseflesh was raised on her smooth brown arms. When she reached out her to touch the baby, I tried to pull the dish away. She grabbed my wrist and stopped me. We were both silent for a few moments as she continued to stare at the contents of the dish. I stepped back and Angie fell forward to her knees, her fingers still wrapped around my wrist. The other girls in the recovery run began to take notice, and my discomfort level rose exponentially. Realizing her mistake, the abortion worker tried repeatedly to take the dish containing the bloody body parts away. But Angie held tight to the remains of her child, and wouldn’t let the abortion worker pry it from her hands. The abortion worker said: [Angie] remained frozen on the clinic floor. “That’s a baby,” she said, barely audible at first. “That was my baby,” she said. Her volume steadily increased as a torrent of words poured from her mouth, words that made everyone extremely uncomfortable. “What did I do? What did I do?” she said over and over and began to sob. Some of the girls in the recovery run began to weep along with her. Some covered their faces with their arms or buried their heads in the arms of the recliners. Finally, the abortion facility "workers" were able to tear away the dish. Angie became hysterical. Other abortion workers tried to calm her. Fellow workers rushed to my side to calm Angie down. After a few minutes, it became obvious that she wasn’t going to calm down. We couldn’t even get her off the floor. After discussing it hastily, we decided to drag her to the bathroom. At least the heavy door would stifle her sobs to until we figured out what to do. Angie flailed her arms and legs and her screams reached a fever pitch as we dragged her down the hall. We must have been quite a spectacle for the other girls in the recovery room. Finally we managed to place a still panicked Angie in the bathroom and closed the door. I suggested that she splash some cold water on her face and “pull herself together.” Her cries, although muffled, were easily distinguished through the door. Angie began begging the abortion workers to take her mutilated baby home with her. She did not want to part with her child, even though her child was dead. She pleaded with the workers to give in and let her have the baby. They refused. She continued to sob and wail in the bathroom, disrupting the entire facility. The abortion workers finally went to her paperwork and found her emergency contact – the number the facility was supposed to call in the event of a life-threatening complication. They dialed the number and got her current boyfriend. He arrived at the clinic. It took him 45 minutes to coax Angie out of the bathroom. They both left the abortion facility in tears. Angie never came to the facility again. The writer of the story does not know what happened to her. The road ahead of her, once she realized her responsibility for the deaths of nine of her children, would be agonizing to travel. We can only hope she found healing. From then on, the abortion facility had a strict rule never to show the aborted babies to women. Ultimately, another scene like Angie’s would slow down abortion facility operations and affect the facility’s profits. More women would learn about fetal development, and there would be a decrease in the number of abortions. In order to keep everything running smoothly, quickly, and profitably, the facility banned all women from seeing their aborted babies. Sometime later, the abortion facility worker who showed Angie her aborted baby left the abortion business. She does not give her reasons why, but the story of Angie and her emotional agony no doubt influenced her. How many women go into abortion facilities not knowing how developed their children are? How many repeat abortion patients have no idea their babies were pulled limb from limb and then thrown out with the trash or sold for parts? All of the abortion facility workers that day discovered that the truth is the ultimate enemy of abortion. They were reminded how vital it is to keep the facts away from vulnerable women if abortion is to be sold to them. It was the only way to continue making money off them. Source: Abby Johnson The Walls Are Talking: Former Abortion Clinic Workers Tell Their Stories (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2016) 71-77

LGBT IS NOW ILLEGAL IN RUSSIAN FEDERATION

The Supreme Court of Russia declared the international LGBT movement to be extremist yesterday, banning its activities within the country. The Court thus granted the request of the Ministry of Justice, reports RIA-Novosti. According to the Ministry, the movement contains “signs and manifestations of an extremist orientation, including the incitement of social and religious hatred.” The decision came into force immediately. According to Interfax, yesterday’s decision “does not affect citizens’ right to privacy and will not entail any negative legal consequences.” Restrictions are related to the need to comply with the prohibition on LGBT propaganda, advertising, interest formation, attracting people to the LGBT movement. The ban is “a form of societal moral self-defense,” said Vakhtang Kipshidze, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Department for Relations Between the Church, Society, and the Media. “We know from the testimony of many Western Christians who adhere to traditional beliefs regarding marriage and family that the activities of LGBT movements are aimed at displacing the Christian idea of ​​marriage and family from both the public and legal space,” the Church rep added