Respect Life Radio, hosted by Deacon Geoff Bennett of Catholic Charities in Denver.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son, "I think about the triumphant return, not the living in the pigsty," said Brandon McGinley, speaker and author of books, including "The Prodigal Church: Restoring Catholic Tradition in an Age of Deception," just published. Follow him on Twitter @brandonmcg.
"If we don't know what to do, desolation can really wreak havoc in our lives," said Fr. Ed Broom, OMV, whose recent article on Catholic Exchange described, "10 Bible Verses that Fight Discouragement."
Fr. Broom was previously on Respect Life Radio, discussing "How to resist the attacks of the devil."
"People have forgotten that bullies are cowards," said Prof. Robert George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and author of books and of articles, including "Solzhenitsyn's Prophecy."
"We need outspokenness. It's the power of the word, not the force of arms, that will win this battle. But if people are too afraid, too frightened, too intimidated, too bullied to speak out against the bully — to stand up and defy the bully when the bully says, 'Oh, you're not allowed to say that,' or the bully says, 'Oh, you must say this, you must give me your loyalty oath' — until somebody stands up, until we gather ourselves and stand up to the bullies, this bullying is going to continue. But the minute that we do stand up, the bully will be revealed to be what all bullies are...a coward. And then we will begin to restore our civilization and our country."
Follow George on Twitter @McCormickProf.
"The sin of the world is much more than just the naughty things I've done," said Fr. Dwight Longenecker, a Catholic parish priest in South Carolina, as well as a writer, speaker and author of "Immortal Combat: Confronting the Heart of Darkness" among other books. "The sin of the world is a deeply-woven net of deception and lies and deceitfulness written right into our genetic code, almost, right into the way we're wired — as individuals and as a society."
Fr. Longenecker was previously on Respect Life Radio in a podcast titled, "Build on the rock of the Catholic faith."
"We have our highest court completely unhinged from reality," said C.C. Pecknold, Ph.D., a professor at The Catholic University of America, referring to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock vs. Clayton County. "Bostock unhinges just the very nature of the person as sexually differentiated. It's a kind of sad, in a way not surprising, conclusion to a long series of decisions."
Also interviewed on this episode of Respect Life Radio is Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and author of books including, "When Harry Became Sally" and "Truth Overruled."
Anderson refers to the Supreme Court imposing "a misguided sexual and gender ideology on the country" and that, "Unfortunately, the Supreme Court can do a lot of damage when judges just impose their personal belief, their personal policy preferences, their views — on contested questions on the American people."
Follow Pecknold @ccpecknold and Anderson @RyanTAnd on Twitter.
Karl Marx "said so many things that, unfortunately, resonate with these radical elements today," said Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pa., and an author of numerous books including "Dupes" and "A Pope and a President."
"One of them at the close of the Communist Manifesto is, 'the Communists [everywhere] support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.'"
Kengor's commentary, "Riots, Pandemic and Astronauts: How 2020 Is Like 1969 All Over Again," was recently published in the National Catholic Register.
"You can be a Democrat and you can be pro-life," said U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Illinois, an eight-term Congressman. "About one out of every three Democratic voters in the country say that they are pro-life. I think it's very important for the pro-life movement to not just be a one-party movement, that there are not just Republicans, but there are Democrats who are pro-life."
In March, Lipinski lost his Democratic primary to challenger Marie Newman. She had the "support of EMILY’s List, a national group that supports pro-abortion rights Democratic women," according to the Chicago Tribune.
"I know there's going to be a lot of national attention paid" to Initiative 120, said Lipinski, when asked about the late-term abortion ban that will be on the Colorado ballot in November. "Hopefully we can all get the message out there of what the truth is and that the voters of Colorado stand up strongly and say that life needs to be protected. There's no way that you can deny that, after 22 weeks, we know that child can survive outside the womb. So, even if you don't believe that life begins at conception, you have to understand that that is a viable life outside the womb, at that age."
Lipinski also referred to his 2019 commencement address at Ave Maria University, an adaptation of which was recently published by Public Discourse, titled, "Carrying Jesus into the Public Square."
"One of the first successful direct democracy campaigns that pro-lifers did actually took place in Colorado. In 1984, Colorado voters approved Initiative 3 that prevents taxpayer funding of elective abortions in the state Medicaid program," said Michael J. New, Ph.D., who is "a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science and Social Research at The Catholic University of America, as well as an Associate Scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute," according to the Lozier website.
New wrote a recently article on National Review Online, titled, "An important pro-life opportunity in Colorado," referring to Initiative 120, the late-term abortion ban proposed for the November 2020 ballot in Colorado.
"I did know that if I continued to just look at the cross and pray to Jesus and kind of fundamentally get my feet back on the ground — and using the Holy Bible, and the Bible only for my references and my truth — that I would be led to where I was supposed to be," said Kendra Clark. She is interviewed by Deacon Geoff Bennett, the host of Respect Life Radio, who introduces her as "a wife, a mother of four and convert to the Catholic faith after spending 40 years in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints..."
Clark also told her story in 2018 on the TV program, "The Journey Home," hosted by Marcus Grodi. Clark helps others and provided her email as kendraclark15@gmail.com.
"What I like about this issue is that it is bipartisan," said Krista Kafer. "When it comes to late-term abortion...a good three-quarters of Americans who say: Why do we have this? Why would you abort a child that can survive outside the womb?"
Kafer is a proponent of Initiative 120 that would put a late-term abortion ban on the Nov. 3, 2020, ballot in Colorado. Follow her on Twitter @KristaKafer.
The map at https://respectlifedenver.org/sign120map shows sites where and when registered Colorado voters can sign Initiative 120, with signatures being turned in the last week of May to the Colorado Secretary of State by Due Date Too Late. The language of the ballot initiative is available at this link.
Kafer, a weekly columnist for The Denver Post, wrote in favor of the ballot initiative in October 2019. More recently, she has been a paid communications person for the Initiative 120 effort.
Gallup polling nationwide from the mid-1970s consistently shows a majority of Americans support restrictions on abortion, with only 25 percent polled in 2019 agreeing that abortion should be legal under any circumstances.
Of a previous sample of 40,000 verified Initiative 120 petition signatures, Due Date Too Late had reported that 12.5% were Democrats, 26.3% were unaffiliated and 61.2% were Republicans.
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