Participants from 65 countries at the Moscow demographic summit have reaffirmed the natural family as “the basic unit of society and the fundamental social value, that is a necessary prerequisite for the very existence of world civilizations and the whole humankind.”

“We, participants of the Moscow Demographic Summit, … hereby declare that the Natural Family is the basic unit of society and the fundamental social value, that is a necessary prerequisite for the very existence of world civilizations and the whole humankind. The
Natural Family is a necessary condition with no alternatives for survival and stable/sustainable development of all nations and states, basic and integral condition for the demographic well‐being. …”

–o–o–o–o–

• Former Philippine Senator Francisco “Kit” Tatad’s paper at Moscow Demographic Summit.
  
• Speech “Finding Our Way Out of the Forest – Faith, Family and Fecundity” by Don Feder.

Interesting related links:

• MercatorNet, a voice for human dignity
• Pro-Life links
• Ruth Pakaluk, a pro-life activist

–o–o–o–o–

In a column of ‘Today’s Catholic’, we are told that the Hennesseys are ‘strongly pro-life’, with Michael ‘having helped start Greater Austin Right to Life (later known as Texas Alliance for Life) while a student at the University of Texas in Austin’.

Michael Hennessey has set up the Ironman for Kids Foundation to raise awareness for Trisomy, a chromosomal disorder.  Here’s a video of the story of Michael and his record accomplishment of doing the most Ironmans in a year by doing 15 in 9 months in 2008:

• Michael Hennessey in Facebook.
• In the photo below, you see him coming out of the St Josemaría Mass at the Basilica of the Little Flower in San Antonio, Texas, in 2009:

• Here’s a nice video of love shown to a Trisomy baby who lived 99 days:

–o–o–o–o–

Ruth married Michael [Michael’s responses to an interview can be found in opusdeiblogs.org.]

Both Ruth and Michael went to Harvard University. During the early part of their university studies, they were atheists, but converted to Christianity and became Evangelical Protestants. In their third year, they got married: they felt the special call to live the rest of their lives forming a family and living an intense family life. By Divine Providence, they were surrounded by good friends and, wanting to seek and find the ultimate truth, ended up converting to Catholicism. One of those friends, who decided to “come home”, explained to them something that left them restless: the theological notion of munus [office] in our Catholic faith: that if a Church were the true one, then there would have to be someone or some authority that would say whether something’s good or bad. This can be a rather disarming or thorny issue for Protestants surrounded by persons in search of the true faith. In Ruth’s case, her re-reading of the Apostolic Fathers brought her closer to her conversion to the Catholic faith. Meanwhile, there remained in Ruth certain issues of morality, e.g., the question of abortion and her pro-choice stance. Having been convinced, in a debate with a friend, that there was no difference between a fetus and an infant, the only unanswered question that remained was contraception: but even in this, her friend easily convinced her that the entire “contraceptive mentality” was ultimately selfish, individualistic, and consumerist.

Since the couple were in the “Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship” at Harvard, some leaders in the group, in order to prevent their eventual conversion, invited two parties ―one a Protestant, the other a Catholic― to a debate, so that each side would expose his true convictions before the public on campus. Guess who was invited to speak about the Catholic faith: Peter Kreeft! Ruth and Michael delayed slightly the moment of their conversion, because the latter had received a scholarship to study in Britain. But no sooner had they arrived at Edinburgh than she knocks at the door of the chaplaincy directed by a Dominican, and declared: “I want to become Catholic.” It was here that Ruth conceived her first son, whom she had always considered a gift coming from the all-bountiful God, the Giver of all life and grace. Both began practicing the Catholic faith from Christmas of 1980.

Since then, Ruth turned into a great and zealous pro-life advocate. She also used, with great effectiveness, the weapon of “letter-writing apostolate”. Together with Paul Swope, and with the help of the Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL), she decided to initiate a series of meetings, film showings and other pro-life activities at Harvard. This movement produced the Harvard-Radcliffe Human Rights Advocates. Ruth went on to be President of MCFL, from which she launched a dynamic and vibrant work in defense of life and helped form a coalition of Protestant communities interested in the pro-life movement.

In 1989, they lost their fifth child: thousands went to his funeral, including some people of the Work. Even in Scotland they had known the Work, because the godfather of their first child was a resident at a Residence run by people of the Work. Back in Cambridge they were in touch with Fr. Sal Ferigle. Within a year, the couple joined the Work. Since the death of the fifth child, Ruth began longing for heaven in a real and concrete way. The birth of another child, a daughter, gave her much consolation and joy; but nothing presaged another suffering she was to undergo: during the medical exams at this stage, it was found out that she was afflicted with breast cancer, to which she was later to succumb. In spite of this, she conceived and gave birth to another daughter. In addition, she carried on her intense pro-life work: during this period, she crafted a series of presentations*, which used a new paradigm that was to influence individual hearts and minds through education. In particular, she addressed the young people of Massachusetts, so that she called them “Life Education Awareness Project” [LEAP], and at times she’d entitled the talks “Pro-Life is Pro-Love”.

During this entire period, she fully placed her trust in God and in His love. She spoke very clearly about how much she longed for Heaven; in talks and Circles about vacation and sanctification of leisure, she would manifest her desire for Heaven which was real. But the cancer had spread to the bones by 1993. Still, she had plenty of energy left for being the director of Religious Education at the Parish, which led her to re-organize and make more youthful the learning of the Catechism, especially for the young ones. She died in September of 1998. Thousands of people, many more than for her little child, went to the funeral and rites in honor of the “most pro-life woman in Boston”.

Ruth: Pray for me; pray for us.

–o—o—o—o—o—o—o–

*Her memoirs are forthcoming with Ignatius Press, and shall carry the title “The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God”. There is no intention here whatsoever to pre-empt such publication. In the final work, there shall appear the pro-life presentations she used to give all over Boston.

**Five years after Ruth’s death, in early 2004, Bishop Reilly before his retirement constituted a Postulating Committee to prepare a formal request to the Bishop of Worcester to open Ruth’s cause of canonization.

]]> http://opusdeitoday.org/2010/04/ruth-pakaluk-a-zealous-apostle-in-massachusetts/feed/ 4 http://opusdeitoday.org/2010/03/one-man-one-woman-for-life/ http://opusdeitoday.org/2010/03/one-man-one-woman-for-life/#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:59:21 +0000 Aliza Racelis http://opusdeitoday.org/?p=32 The Ruth Institute

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is the founder and President of the Ruth Institute. Dr. Morse brings a unique voice to discussions of love, marriage, sexuality and the family. A committed career woman before having children, she earned a doctorate in economics, and spent fifteen years teaching at Yale University and George Mason University. In 1991, she and her husband adopted a two year old Romanian boy, and gave birth to a baby girl. She left her full-time university teaching post in 1996 to move with her family to California. She was a Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. Until August 2006, Dr. Morse and her husband were foster parents for San Diego County. In the summer of 2008, Dr. Morse founded the Ruth Institute, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to bringing hope and encouragement for life-long married love.

What I wish to highlight here are characteristics that I think set the Institute apart from other pro-family organizations that defend and promote marriage as a natural institution: its grounding in honest-to-goodness research as well as its special focus on young people, especially university students.  For instance, recently some students’ essays at a Conference called “Stand For Family” have been awarded for being the best research outputs for topics ranging from Parenting and Marital Relationship Quality, to Family and the Natural Law, to the phenomenon of Same-Sex ‘Marriages’.  The essays have been made available here.