If you are interested in attending this event, please call Rockland Right to Life at 845-732-8277 or email RocklandRTL@optonline.net, and we will put you in touch with others in Rockland who would like to go. Perhaps you can arrange to carpool together. 
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“His Daughter’s Smile”
Last week Rick Santorum suspended his campaign for the presidency. Santorum, who never shied away from issues of life, faith, and family, is the father of seven, including 3-year-old Bella, who has Trisomy 18, a condition which, when detected prenatally, almost always results in the child being aborted.
Sometimes a candidate’s strongest message is not found in his speeches or debate arguments. It emanates from who he or she is, and that can have the most powerful influence of all. Below, Joe Klein, the Newsweek columnist, who says he disagrees with Santorum on “almost every possible issue,” nevertheless admits that Rick and Bella have made him think about his own and our society’s response toward the disabled.
I am haunted by the smiling photos I’ve seen of Isabella with her father and mother, brothers and sisters. No doubt she struggles through many of her days — she nearly died a few weeks ago — but she has also been granted three years of unconditional love and the ability to smile and bring joy. Her tenuous survival has given her family a deeper sense of how precious even the frailest of lives are.
All right, I can hear you saying, the Santorum family’s course may be admirable, but shouldn’t we have the right to make our own choices?
Yes, I suppose. But I also worry that we’ve become too averse to personal inconvenience as a society—that we’re less rigorous parents than we should be, that we’ve farmed out our responsibilities, especially for the disabled, to the state—and I’m grateful to Santorum for forcing on me the discomfort of having to think about the moral implications of his daughter’s smile.
NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE ENDORSES GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY
Right-to-Life Movement Focused on Defeating Barack Obama in November
WASHINGTON – Determined to secure a pro-life victory in the November election, which will decide the fate of unborn children for decades to come, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, today endorsed Mitt Romney for President of the United States.
“On pro-life issues, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama provide a stark contrast. As the country’s most pro-abortion president, Barack Obama has pursued a radical pro-abortion agenda,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “It is now time for pro-life Americans to unite behind Mitt Romney. For the sake of unborn children, the disabled, and the elderly, we must win.” Continue reading
Good Friday Prayer Vigil
Beginning at noon and Good Friday and continuing through the night and on until noon on Holy Saturday, people came to pray for the victims of abortion.
At this most solemn time of the year, they prayed that Planned Parenthood, the “modern-day Calvary,” will move out of our community.
Closing Ceremony for 40 Days for Life
The 40 Days of prayer and fasting to end abortion concluded at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 1, with a prayer service at the vigil site near the Planned Parenthood office on Perlman Drive in Spring Valley.
Eileen Peterson, co-director of the 40 Days for Life project in Rockland, welcomed the 30 volunteers who attended the closing ceremonies and thanked them for their faithful witness for Life. She noted the mainly positive response from the pedestrians and motorists who passed by during the long vigil. Continue reading
40 Days for Life: Week 5 — Bringing the Message
As the 40 days have passed, we’ve seen the changing of the seasons at the prayer site on Perlman Drive. Now, it’s no longer dark at 5 o’clock and the shrubs that were bare when we began our vigil of prayer to end abortion are now covered with white blossoms.
Now there are just a few days left. How many lives were saved, how many hearts moved — these are things known only to God. But we know He hears our prayers and listens to the cry of the distressed.
And we know that the message of LIfe was seen by thousands of people who drove past the vigil site during those 40 days. Like the apostles, the faithful volunteers accepted the mission — and on the curbside near Route 59 and the Planned Parenthood building, they set out for the deep and let down their net for the catch.
October Baby Playing at Palisades Center
EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
OCTOBER BABY
“Tonight we went to the AMC at the Palisades Center to see ‘October Baby.’ Don’t miss it! The best we have seen in years and has a very emotional and powerful message. And wait and don’t leave until the final credits are shown at the end of the movie. You will be surprised.”
Here’s a link to the trailer for this incredible movie — the story of a young woman who discovers that she was actually adopted . . . after a failed abortion attempt. Bewildered, angered and confused, Hannah embarks on a journey with Jason, her oldest friend. In the midst of her incredible journey to discover her hidden past and find hope for her unknown future, Hannah sees that life can be so much more than what you have planned.Rocklanders Stand Up for Religious Freedom in NYC
On Friday, March 23, Rocklanders took part in the Manhattan “Stand Up for Religious Freedom” Rally, which was one of 140 such demonstrations held in major cities across the nation. The group traveled by bus to the Federal Hall National Monument on Wall Street to protest the Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate that would force religious charities and individual employers to purchase insurance coverage for abortion-causing drugs, birth control, and sterilization.
Under the Obama administration’s mandate, people who opposed such “services” on the basis of their religious beliefs — for example, religious orders and laity that operate the many hospitals, schools, and social services of the Catholic Church — would nevertheless be required to provide them and so be forced to violate their consciences.
The rallies were organized to protest this assault on religious freedom.
The day began for many of the Rockland group with mass, which was celebrated by Msgr. Edward Weber, Vicar of Rockland, at St. Francis Church in West Nyack.
Before boarding the bus outside the church, rally signs were distributed by Richard Bruno, who organized the trip.
Also on board was Rev. Fredy Patino from St. Peter’s Church in Haverstraw, who offered the opening prayer as the trip got under way. The group prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary and joined in singing hymns during the ride to Wall Street.
The passengers disembarked behind Trinity Church and walked the short distance to Federal Hall, the rally site, which is where George Washington was inaugurated. There they joined the 500+ others who assembled on the steps of the building and the adjoining plaza.
Among the speakers were Chris Slattery, the New York rally’s main organizer and president of Expectant Mother Care, and Chris Bell of Good Counsel Homes. Bell emphasized that the fines that might be imposed for refusing to comply with the mandate could result in the closing of the Good Counsel maternity homes, such as the one in Spring Valley.
This unprecedented intrusion of the government into how we practice our faith has further implications for all of us. If the government can demand that citizens jettison their convictions to comply with its vision of what “good” for us — watch out for what may come next.
The National Right to Life Committee stands with people of faith protecting religious liberty — with good reason!
Photos by John Ferrao
40 Days for Life: Week 4 — The Signs
To hold a sign at a rally or protest, you have to believe what it says — or you’d feel like a liar. At the 40 Days for Life, some of the signs are beautiful, others sad, and some give warning (and it takes a lot of courage to hold them). But all together they make up the message, told in as many ways as there are people who come to give witness.
There are only about 10 days left. If you haven’t yet made a visit to pray at the 40 Days for Life prayer site on Perlman Drive, please come.
40 Days of Life for the end to abortion and closing of Planned Parenthood
Perlman Drive, Spring Valley
9 am to 5 pm thru Sunday, April 1
PLEASE TAKE ONE HOUR A WEEK — email Rachelminister@aol.com or call 845-492-6709
JOIN THE RALLY — Religious Freedom for all Americans
On Friday, March 23, thousands are expected to gather across Amerca in opposition to the HHS mandate on second anniversary of the health-care reform act. Read all about it here. There will be a bus leaving from Rockland to the rally in New York City.
Speakers at the rally will include Father Benedict Groeschel of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Alveda King, the pro-life activist and niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Chris Bell of Good Counsel Homes. Continue reading
ROCKLAND RIGHT TO LIFE COMMITTEE 