Pro-Life Dinner

I attended the annual banquet for Pro-Life Wisconsin on Friday night. It was a nice evening, though I always enjoy these things more when John is able to go with me. Ria was helping out at the event - selling raffle tickets and such.

I enjoyed visiting with many friends (some of whom I only see once a year at this banquet) and browsing through PLW's unique selection of silent auction items (I managed to come home with a little purse).

I also met an interesting young woman who reminded me that we had met at the Minnesota Catholic Homeschool Conference the previous year. Her name is Sabitha Narendran and she and her friend, Andrew Salzmann have written a book that I'd like to take a look at one of these days. It's called Catholic and Loving It: Traditions for a New Generation (published by Servant Books). Sounds fascinating, even though my to-be-reviewed stack is awfully tall right now!

Our local Sports guy on Fox NEWS - Tom Pipines - was emcee. How cool is that!

The featured speaker was David Bereit, the national director of 40 Days for Life. His talk was fascinating and I was introduced to the dramatic story unfolding in Aurora, Illinois. Earlier this year, a huge medical facility called "Gemini Health Care" was being built in Aurora. Sometime during the construction process, one of the workers noticed that the equipment being put in seemed incongruous with a health care facility. He and his parish priest did some research and discovered that it was simply a Planned Parenthood clinic, sold to the community under false pretences. They discovered this 43 days before the clinic was scheduled to open. Someone from the community asked if they could set up a "40 Days for Life" with just three days notice. They did, and on the 40th day, the judge refused Planned Parenthood's occupancy permit. (This was almost two weeks ago). Naturally, the story isn't over and the community continues to pray in front of the site 24 hours a day. Official website of those opposing the clinic is here.