The Effects Of Contraception And Abortion In South Korea: Loses Over 4,000 Schools In A Generation To Birth Rate Collapse!!

 Why do you think that in the U.S., so many novus ordo, synodal parishes/churches are closing or consolidating since the 1970's and forward?

Ever since the rebellion against Humanae Vitae, issued by Paul VI, especially by our northern neighbors (the bishops openly displayed disobedience!), but also that rebellion was and is firmly entrenched here in this country, the birth rates have plummeted, causing that very same consolidation!

(By the way, here is another horrifying statistic for New England: 

Birth Rates in New England

In 2021, there were approximately 3,664,300 births recorded in the United States.  About 4% of U.S. births that year were recorded in the six-state New England region.  With 9.63 births per 1,000 population, a rate that was 12.8% below the national average, New England had the lowest regional birth rate in the nation in 2021.  In fact, every state in the region recorded a birth rate that was at least 10% below the national average.)

My emphasis...

From breitbart.com and written by Frances  Martel 1 Jan 2026, comes this horrific revelation: South Korea Loses over 4,000 Schools in a Generation to Birth Rate Collapse

"The South Korean Ministry of Education revealed this week that over 4,000 schools have shut down nationwide between 1980 and March 2025, responding to the rapid collapse of the child population in the past generation.

School enrollment in South Korea dwindled by nearly 5 million students during the same time period, according to the Korea Times, indicating that the school shutdowns are directly related to South Korea’s status as the world’s least fertile country.

“Elementary schools account for the majority of closures, with 3,674 shut down permanently, compared with 264 middle schools and 70 high schools,” the Korea Times reported. “Over the past five years alone, 158 schools have closed, and an additional 107 schools are projected to shut down over the next five years.”

The newspaper went on to note that studies by Korean government-linked experts indicated that the number of schools is expected to continue to fall through the end of the decade, educating over 800,000 fewer students in the next five years.

The newspaper, citing the Ministry of Education, identified the catastrophically low birth rate as the “chief reason” the school system is shrinking.

The remaining students, Education Ministry officials noted on Tuesday, are also struggling to stay in schools and, in many cases, to stay alive amid a wave of mental health and suicide cases. The Ministry revealed that it had documented 221 teen suicides in 2024, over 100 more than in 2021, over half of them in the greater Seoul area. The government of leftist President Lee Jae-Myung is treating the situation like an emergency, announcing plans to hire large numbers of mental health professionals for schools by 2030, expand counseling and hotline services to ensure 24-hour availability, and implement other measures.

The situation with schools mirrors reports that began surfacing in 2023 of a significant decrease in the number of available pediatric services in the country. As the number of babies being born declined, medical students began avoiding pediatrics as a lifetime career out of financial concern. Pediatricians, reports in 2023 noted, were paid less than peers in other medical fields and less than pediatricians in other countries — in addition to facing the concern of too small a pool of customers to support their business.

Concerns of a lack of appropriate medical care for children in the country were exacerbated by two horrors stories in 2023, both involving hospitals rejecting child patients due to a lack of appropriate staff. One case involved a 17-year-old girl who suffered a major head injury and died after being rejected by four hospitals; no hospital took her before her death. In the second case, a five-year-old died with a respiratory complication after also being rejected by four hospitals, though a fifth hospital took him in before his death.

The alarm about a lack of medical care for their potential children added to already existing anxieties that would-be Korean parents expressed to media about starting families, fueling the birth rate decline. South Korea recorded its first-ever decline in population in 2020, reporting 20,838 fewer people than in 2019. The population at the time stood at about 51.8 million people. The birth rate at the time was documented as 0.92, far lower than the 2.1 rate (meaning, an average of 2.1 children per childbearing woman) necessary for what is commonly referred to as “replacement fertility,” the number of children needed to mitigate deaths and ensure no change in the population.

In April 2025, the birth rate was documented as 0.79, the lowest in the world. Statistics Korea, a government agency, nonetheless reported the first good news on the birth rate front in June that the country had seen in some time — a modest increase in the raw number of childbirths in the country. Following the implementation of aggressive policies to encourage couples to start families under deposed conservative former President Yoon Suk-yeol, who declared the country in a state of “national demographic emergency,” South Korea documented an 8.7-percent increase in childbirths between April 2024 and April 2025. Yoon was impeached and ousted after attempting to impose martial law on the country in December 2024.

“The rise in births appears to be influenced by increased marriages since last year, growth in the population of women in their early 30s, and various birth promotion policies by the central and local governments,” Statistics Korea observed in June.

In addition to attempting to offer money and other incentives for couples to become parents, the South Korean government faces a culture increasingly hostile to children. The phenomenon of “no-kid zones” began emerging in 2023, typically including cafes and restaurants as well as other spaces often considered to be for children in the West, such as museums and libraries. Le Monde reported that “hundreds” of businesses in South Korea were identifying as “no-kid zones” by 2024, including the National Library of Korea.

While an extreme case, South Korea is far from the only country facing projected population decline as a result of low fertility rates. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warned in its annual “State of the World Population Report” in June that the planet is facing a “fertility crisis” in part due to governments and societies offering inhospitable climates for couples to be able to afford and raise children.

“As policymakers and pundits raise the alarm about fertility rates, they often assume that if people are having children, it’s because they can and want to, and if they’re not it’s because they can’t or don’t want to,” UNFPA observed."'

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

End of article...

Pray for strength and honor!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

Pazzo!! (Crazy) Italian Court Approves ‘Gender Transition’ For 13-Year-Old Girl!!!

 Italy, where St. Peter and St. Paul were martyred, is now allowing minors to change their God-given sex -- and all with the approval and support of her nutty parents!!

From lifesitenews.com and written by Gaetano Masciullo Wed Dec 24, 2025 - 10:13 am EST: Italian court approves ‘gender transition’ for 13-year-old girl - LifeSite comes this unbelievable story!

Don't the parents know they will be held accountable for this lunacy??

But then again, maybe they don't believe they will face their Particular Judgement??

"LA SPEZIA, Italy (LifeSiteNews) — An Italian court in La Spezia has legally recognized the supposed “gender change” of a 13-year-old following a medically supervised “transition” process.

On December 21, 2025, the Tribunal of La Spezia, in northern Italy, ordered the rectification of the birth certificate of a 13-year-old minor, allowing the change of both name and registered sex from female to male, after accepting a request submitted by the parents and supported by medical and psychological assessments documenting a completed “gender transition” process.

“This is a historic ruling in terms of precedent,” said family lawyer Stefano Genick, stating that “at 13 years of age, his gender identity is already consolidated, as confirmed by the court-appointed medical evaluations.”

READ: New York governor signs new law to protect abortionists, child gender mutilators

The court decision formally recognizes the adolescent as the youngest individual in Italy to have legally completed a so-called “gender transition.” The ruling followed an application filed by the parents and examined by the judges, which assessed medical documentation, psychological reports, and the minor’s personal situation.

While the legal decision was welcomed by the family and their legal representatives, it also prompted public criticism. Jacopo Coghe, spokesperson for the Italian organization Pro Vita & Famiglia, strongly criticized Italian judges for allowing minors to undergo supposed “gender transition” processes while restricting other forms of consent.

“At 13 years old, Italian law does not consider a minor mature enough to get a small tattoo on their arm, yet it allows them to undergo a gender transition with hormone therapies to change their legal sex and name. This is absolute madness,” Coghe said in an official note.

“We will fight to change Italian law and prevent minors from being involved in sexual transitions, as is happening in more and more countries around the world. It is also chilling to think that the same judiciary that approved the parents’ request in this case is the one that tore apart the ‘Family in the Woods’ and denied their reunification over alleged educational shortcomings. This is a complete overturning of common sense, justice, and reality.”

In 2021, when she was nine years old, the little girl reportedly began to display masculine behaviours. The first to notice this was said to be her twin sister, followed by the parents. The family therefore began to treat her as a male and turned to a major hospital in Florence, which followed the case in the subsequent years from a clinical and psychiatric standpoint.

Specialists in andrology and endocrinology effectively diagnosed gender dysphoria and initiated therapy with triptorelin, a drug that blocks puberty by reducing the production of sex hormones. The family then asked Italian judges to legally recognize the “transition,” so that the girl would be listed as “male” also in official documents.

The court accepted the request. The decision was based on several explicitly cited factors, including “the psychotherapeutic pathway followed consistently, the hormone therapies administered successfully, and the mature management of the social discomfort associated with the process of change,” as reported by the Italian newspaper Libero. The judges concluded that the minor had developed “full awareness of the incongruence between his body and his experienced gender identity.”

There is no Italian law establishing a minimum age for so-called “gender transition,” either from a medical or a legal standpoint. In the rest of Europe, however, the situation varies greatly from country to country: Spain has the more permissive regulation (Ley Trans 2023), while in Hungary such procedures are outright prohibited, and in countries such as Poland there is no specific law.

In Italy, thanks to this ruling, from now on a nine-year-old child may be considered capable of beginning a “gender transition” process, even though the 2011 law no longer requires surgical intervention to change official documents. Italian law, however, at the same time considers persons under the age of 14 not mature enough to be held criminally responsible for serious offences such as theft or homicide, and always treats them as subjects to be protected through social services."

End of article...

Please pray for this little girl and her parents for conversion to God-given common sense, the Natural Law and the Ten Commandments!

Pray too for strength and honor!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

Massive Scandal Of "Catholic" Charities!! Child Trafficking CRISIS Met With SILENCE By Pope Leo

 I have to say, that the massive scandal that "Catholic" Charities has been involved in since the apostate, Biden, and his Marxist cronies, allowing hundreds of thousands -- let me repeat that: hundreds of thousands! of children to enter our country with little or no tracking methods, or sponsors!

The main driving force for this disaster was -- money! to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars!

This, sadly, is also happening in Europe!

This is ongoing, yes, it is still going on to this day!

However, President Trump and his deputies are trying to do their best to locate and save these -- in many cases -- abused children!

To date, about 30- to 40,000 kids have been located...

But the numbers are miniscule compared to the actual number of over 400,000 missing -- missing! -- children of all ages! 

Please listen to this short video/interview from lifesitenews.com from Sign of The Cross media: SCANDAL: Child Trafficking CRISIS met with SILENCE by Pope Leo

Pray for the conversion of these modernist monsters!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

Same-Sex ‘Parenting’ Is An Injustice Against Children – And The Data Prove It!!

 The question begs: should we even be having this discussion?

In a topsy-turvy world, it seems we have to.

This is what happens when "adults" reject the Natural Law, the Ten Commandments -- and God Himself!

He allows us to use our free will either to accept Him or reject Him.

He doesn't interfere -- we can choose to be saved, or we can choose to be damned.

The following article from lifesitenews.com is slightly dated, but always relevant -- in this day and age... Written by Katy Faust Fri Dec 12, 2025 - 12:36 pm EST: Same-sex ‘parenting’ is an injustice against children – and the data prove it - LifeSite

"(Them Before Us) — If you’ve ever argued against same-sex “marriage” or same-sex “parenting,” you’ve probably been hit with what your opponent thinks is a mic-drop: a link to Cornell University’s roundup claiming that 75 out of 79 studies show children of gay or lesbian “parents” fare no worse than other children.

The glossy PDF “What Does the Scholarly Research Say?” just happened to be ready on the eve of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing gay “marriage.” The message is unmistakable: 75 out of 79 studies say no difference; therefore, the science is settled, the debate is over, and the research supposedly proves there is no harm.

READ: Florida sues top medical groups for ‘reprehensible’ promotion of child ‘gender transitions’

But once you look past the headline and actually examine the studies themselves, the picture changes dramatically.

Below is a brief summary of what you’ll find when you apply basic scientific standards – the same standards you would apply to any other area of child-wellbeing research.

Most of the 75 “no difference” studies suffer from severe methodological flaws that would disqualify them in any other domain of social science:

First, many participants were aware that the purpose was to investigate same-sex “parenting,” and they may have biased their responses to produce the desired result.

Second, participants were often recruited through networks of friends or advocacy organizations, resulting in samples of same-sex “parents” who were wealthier, more educated, and more socially stable than the general population of same-sex parents.

Third, average sample sizes of fewer than 40 children virtually guaranteed that there would be no statistically significant differences found between groups.

Fourth, vanishingly few studies measured actual child outcomes – such as medical records, report cards, or even the children’s own reports once they were grown. The vast majority relied on parental self-reporting. No surprise that children with two “dads” have fewer externalizing and internalizing problems when “gay father’s report” is the method of data collection.

In any field of study, such factors have a major impact on the credibility of the findings. But when you take into account the cultural/political landscape leading up to redefining marriage, it’s clear that something other than scientific inquiry played a role in the same-sex “parenting” outcomes. What was that “something”? Researcher bias. When the outcome is predetermined, the methodology becomes a formality – and the “science” becomes little more than advocacy with footnotes.

Don’t want to take our word for it? The comprehensive 2015 review, “A Review and Critique of Research on Same-Sex Parenting and Adoption,” concluded that – given high parental instability, limited data on adopted children raised by same-sex couples, and the overwhelming reliance on parental self-report – claims of “no differences whatsoever” are “premature.” In other words, ideologically motivated scholars were building a skyscraper of certainty on a foundation of sand.

And just one of these flaws – recruited vs. randomly derived participants – dramatically alters outcomes. One analysis revealed that:

… studies which recruited samples of children in same-sex unions showed that 79.3 percent (range: 75–83) of comparisons were favorable to children with same-sex parents. In comparison, there were no favorable comparisons (0%, range 0–0) in studies that used random sampling.

Translation: when researchers handpicked the parents, the kids looked great. When the kids were identified randomly or via government data, the picture reversed. That’s not science – that’s prejudice. Rigged research.

Why rely on recruited samples? Because finding children actually raised by same-sex couples is challenging. According to the 2010 census:

• 594,000 same-sex couple households (about 1 percent of all households)
• Only 115,000 reported raising children (0.02 percent of all U.S. households)

READ: Father files federal complaint after daughter forced to compete against ‘transgender’ male

Finding a target population that is two one-hundredths of a percent is like searching for a demographic needle in a geographic haystack. Randomly identifying them is expensive, time-consuming, and methodologically challenging – and it was time that politically-motivated sociologists didn’t have in the lead-up to Obergefell.

That difficulty is precisely why the field leaned so heavily on whatever looked rigorous – and why one study in particular carried outsized weight.

Wainright and Patterson didn’t use recruited samples. It pulled from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health dataset and concluded that adolescents with lesbian “parents” were indistinguishable from peers raised by heterosexual parents in academic performance, psychological health, delinquency, and social functioning.

The researchers pulled data from government records (good) so participants weren’t aware of the study’s aims (good), had a sample size of 44 (typical) and surveyed the actual outcomes of children (good). Because it was one of the few “no difference” studies that employed gold-standard methodology, it was cited by about a dozen of the other 74 studies as “foundational large-sample evidence” that kids with same-sex “parents” were doing “just as well” as kids with heterosexual parents.

The problem was, Wainright and Patterson were wrong. They had misclassified participants by coding teens as having “lesbian parents” if their mother identified as lesbian – even if the teen had never lived with two women. That’s not a minor typo – they were tracking and reporting on the wrong kids.

Dr. Paul Sullins later re-coded the dataset by actual household composition. The original 44 cases of children with same-sex “parents” dropped to barely more than a dozen. And once the category errors were corrected, the results flipped: the supposedly “indistinguishable” kids actually showed clear disadvantages. In that corrected group, adolescents raised by two women showed:

• higher depressive symptoms,
• higher daily fearfulness/crying,
• lower autonomy,
• higher anxiety,
• slightly better school performance.

Sullins also discovered a shocking conclusion – the Wainright and Patterson children with “married” same-sex “parents” fared worse than those with unmarried same-sex “parents”:

• Above-average depressive symptoms: 50 percent → 88 percent,
• Daily fearfulness/crying: 5 percent → 32 percent
• GPA: 3.6 → 3.4
• Reported child sexual abuse by parent: 0 percent → 38 percent
• And, critically, the longer a child was in a same-sex household, the worse the outcomes.

So much for the claim that gay “marriage” was a universal child-welfare cure; in this case, it amplified the very harms to kids that the movement insisted didn’t exist.

READ: Newsom ramps up transgender advocacy ahead of midterms: ‘I want to see trans kids’

What happens when you apply gold-standard scientific screening to the 79 studies?

The gold-standard method requires:

• Participants are not aware of the study’s aims.
• Large sample sizes.
• Randomly derived or government-collected data.
• Objective child outcomes or direct child/young adult self-report.

When you apply that filter, the Cornell roundup collapses. Instead of “75 studies showing no harm,” only a handful remain – and only one found “no difference.”

• 2000 Census PUMS (nationally representative).
• ~3,500 children in same-sex couple households.
• Outcome measured: grade progression/school advancement.
• Objective, government-collected, not parental self-report.
• Controls for socioeconomic status (SES), race, region, and parental education.
• Result: No statistically significant difference after controls.
• Limitations: Cannot confirm children were raised from birthby a same-sex couple; same-sex households are rare; exposure duration unclear.

So much for “75 studies.” When you apply actual scientific standards, only one out of 75 still stand. Which means the famous “75 out of 79” isn’t a research finding at all. It’s a marketing slogan built on statistical quicksand.

On the other hand, three out of four Cornell studies on the side of “you’re damn right there’s a difference” did adhere to the scientific gold-standard.

1. Allen (2013): Canadian Census Microdata

• 1 percent Canadian Census (nationally representative, government-collected).
• Several hundred children in same-sex households.
• Outcome measured: high school graduation.
• Objective, census-verified educational outcome.
• Controls for age, province, income, parental education, urban/rural, and siblings.
• Result: Children in same-sex households are significantly less likely to graduate (girls ~70 percent as likely; boys ~65 percent as likely vs. married opposite-sex parents).
• Limitations: Cannot confirm full childhood exposure; cannot distinguish biological vs. adopted; cannot measure psychological outcomes.

2. Regnerus (2012): New Family Structures Study (NFSS)

• Large national survey (15,000 adults ages 18–39), but not population-based for same-sex households.
• 248 respondents reported that a parent had a same-sex relationship (not necessarily a same-sex household).
• Outcomes measured: adult well-being (employment, criminal justice, education, family stability, psychological health).
• Mix of self-report and survey instruments.
• Controls for demographic variables.
• Result: Respondents whose parent had a same-sex relationship reported worse outcomes on multiple markers of adult well-being.
• Limitations: Does not measure children raised from birth by same-sex couples; captures family instability/divorce rather than same-sex “parenting” per se; widely debated coding and classification issues.

•       3. Sullins (2015): U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)

• National Health Interview Survey, 1997–2013 (large, nationally representative U.S. dataset).
• ~207,000 children total; ~512 identified as living with same-sex “parents.”
• Outcome: emotional and developmental problems (ADHD, learning disability, emotional difficulties, special-education use, mental health service use).
• Parent-reported health and functioning measures (validated NHIS child-health instruments).
• Controls for child age, sex, race, parental education, household income, marital status, region, survey year.
• Result: Children with same-sex “parents” were 2.4 times more likely to have emotional problems compared to children with married biological parents; higher rates of ADHD and learning disability.
• Limitations: Cannot confirm full childhood exposure to same-sex “parenting”; cannot distinguish biological vs. adopted children; cross-sectional design; classification of same-sex “parenting” depends on survey coding.

In other words: when the data aren’t curated, filtered, or massaged, the disadvantage shows up again and again. Reality keeps interrupting the narrative.

After peeling back the layers, the entire “no difference” narrative collapses. Most of the 75 studies Cornell touts depended on tiny, non-representative, hand-selected samples, parental self-reporting, or activist-aligned recruitment pools – methods that would be dismissed outright in any other area of child-wellbeing research. The one study that looked rigorous on its face, Wainright and Patterson, turned out to be based on a fundamental classification error that evaporated once corrected. And when truly representative datasets were used-national census data, government administrative records, large random samples-the results consistently showed disadvantages for children in same-sex households, not parity.

READ: Over 40 percent of Netflix’s children’s shows contain LGBT content: report

Now that the prize of gay “marriage” has been achieved, the pace of research on same-sex headed households has slowed. But there was one study in the last ten years that deserves to be highlighted. A 2020 study – Mazrekaj, De Witte & Cabus – from the Netherlands employed rigorous methodology and showed that children with same-sex “parents” from birth had equal or sometimes better academic outcomes as children raised by heterosexual couples. However, the researchers conceded that much of the advantage could likely be attributed to higher socioeconomic standards in children raised by same-sex “parents.” Meaning, a bigger paycheck, not two “moms” or two “dads,” seemed to bolster academic success.

Taken together, there is still very little evidence that children with same-sex “parents” fare “no different” than kids raised by their own mother and father. The supposed “consensus” wasn’t built on science at all – it was built on misclassification, small samples, self-report bias, and ideologically motivated research shortcuts.

Because once you understand how children thrive – and why biology and gender matter – the whole premise of “no difference” collapses under its own weight.

None of this should surprise us

The general consensus in sociology is that children fare best when raised by their own married mother and father in a low-conflict home. And everywhere except the same-sex “parenting” debate, researchers agree on three realities:

Gender matters in parenting — Fathers and mothers bring complementary parenting styles. Children need and benefit from the distinct maternal and paternal love that maximizes child development and helps children form a healthy sense of self. The absence of a father often correlates with behavioral issues in boys and early sexual activity in girls.

Biology matters in parenting — Research on divorce, step-parenting, and adoption shows that biological parents are statistically the most connected to, invested in, and protective adults in a child’s life. Non-biological caregivers – regardless of sexual orientation – elevate risks of abuse and neglect. A child’s own mother and father also help children establish a stable identity by connecting them to their heritage and kinship network.

Children experience trauma when separated from a biological parent — It is widely acknowledged within the psychological community that children suffer trauma and, thus, negative effects when they lose one or both parents to divorce, abandonment (even if subsequently adopted), death, or third-party reproduction. Losing a biological parent can negatively impact cellular health, mental health, emotional stability, and social development.

Given that children with two “moms” or two “dads” are always:

• missing maternal or paternal love,
• being raised by at least one unrelated adult,
• separated from their natural mother or father,
• deprived of half or all of their biological identity and extended family,

… it should be considered a sociological miracle that any study claims “no difference.”

Marriage’s primary benefit for children is that it tends to place them with their own mother and father. That’s not ideology – it’s anthropology, sociology, psychology, and common sense all in one household. And it’s never possible in a same-sex headed home.

With or without legal same-sex “marriage,” these two pairings will never be equal in terms of child well-being. Opposite-sex marriage is a social institution designed to connect children to their own biological parents. Same-sex “marriage” ensures the opposite.

READ: Australian woman ordered to pay $95k to ‘transgender’ men for ‘misgendering’

The science points in one direction, and it’s the same direction human experience has pointed for millennia: children do best with the mother and father who made them.

Family structure is serious business, and children are depending on us to advocate on their behalf. The best outcomes occur when children are raised by their own married mother and father. That doesn’t mean children raised in same-sex households cannot thrive. It means they face significant, predictable structural disadvantages. And it means that enshrining a family structure in which children necessarily lose a parent is an injustice against children."

(Reprinted with permission from Them Before Us.)

End of very revealing article...

Pray for strength and honor!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen Reflects Christ’s Own Humility And Victory Over Death!

 On the feast of St. Stephen, in the year of 2007, my dear mother passed away...

(Has it really been 18 years since her death??)

She was 92 years old and loved Our Lady to the end of her earthly life.

I remember -- on Christmas Day -- we, Kathy, James and I, visited her in the hospital...

We had a good time!

We laughed, played one of her favorite games, and I have to say, she was as "sharp as a tack"... No dementia for her!

I noticed on her little night table/tray, lay the Rosary, this, no doubt she prayed religiously -- all the way up to the end!  What a way to go to Our Lord!

As our visit ended, we said we'll be back on the 26th, but later on, Christmas night, the nurse called us about 10:30 or 11pm, stating that she had taken her last breath...

We weren't at her side, but she was in our prayers that night -- and always, to this present day...

I wanted to post an article from lifesitenews.com about the proto-martyr, St. Stephen, as my mom passed away on the feast of his great martyrdom.

Folks will recognize the author of the article: Dom Prosper Guéranger Fri Dec 26, 2025 - 12:01 am EST:  The martyrdom of St. Stephen reflects Christ’s own humility and victory over death - LifeSite

"(LifeSiteNews) — St. Peter Damian thus begins his sermon for this feast:

We are holding in our arms the Son of the Virgin, and are honoring, with our caresses, this our Infant God. The holy Virgin has led us to the dear Crib. The most beautiful of the Daughters of men has brought us to the most beautiful among the Sons of men, (Psalm 44:3) and the Blessed among women to Him that is Blessed above all. She tells us … that now the veils of prophecy are drawn aside, and the counsel of God is accomplished … Is there anything capable of distracting us from this sweet Birth? On what else shall we fix our eyes?

… Lo! while Jesus is permitting us thus to caress him; while he is overwhelming us with the greatness of these mysteries, and our hearts are riveted in admiration – there comes before us Stephen, full of grace and fortitude, doing great wonders and signs among the people. (Acts 6:8) Is it right that we turn from our King to look on Stephen, his soldier? No – unless the King himself bid us do so. This our King, who is Son of the King, rises … to assist at the glorious combat of his servant … Let us go with him and contemplate this standard-bearer of the martyrs.

The Church gives us, in today’s Office, this opening of a sermon of St. Fulgentius for the feast of St. Stephen:

Yesterday, we celebrated the temporal Birth of our eternal King: today, we celebrate the triumphant passion of his Soldier. Yesterday, our King, having put on the garb of our flesh, came from the sanctuary of his Mother’s virginal womb, and mercifully visited the earth: today, his Soldier, quitting his earthly tabernacle, entered triumphantly into heaven. Jesus, while still continuing to be the eternal God, assumed to himself the lowly raiment of flesh, and entered the battlefield of this world: Stephen, laying aside the perishable garment of the body, ascended to the palace of heaven, there to reign forever. Jesus descended veiled in our flesh: Stephen ascended to heaven amidst the shower of stones, because Jesus had descended on earth midst the singing of Angels.

Yesterday, the holy Angels exultingly sang, Glory be to God in the highest; today, they joyously received Stephen into their company … Yesterday was Jesus wrapped, for our sakes, in swaddling clothes: today was Stephen clothed with the robe of immortal glory. Yesterday a narrow crib contained the Infant Jesus: today the immensity of the heavenly court received the triumphant Stephen.

 Thus does the sacred liturgy blend the joy of Our Lord’s Nativity with the gladness she feels at the triumph of the first of her martyrs. Nor will Stephen be the only one admitted to share the honors of this glorious octave. After him, we shall have John, the Beloved Disciple; the Innocents of Bethlehem; Thomas, the Martyr of the Liberties of the Church; and Sylvester, the Pontiff of Peace.

But the place of honor amid all who stand round the crib of the newborn King belongs to Stephen, the protomartyr, who, as the Church sings of him, was “the first to pay back the Savior, the death suffered by the Savior.” It was just that this honor should be shown to martyrdom; for martyrdom is the creature’s testimony, and return to his Creator for all the favors bestowed on him: it is man’s testifying, even by shedding his blood, to the truths which God has revealed to the world.

In order to understand this, let us consider what is the plan of God, in the salvation He has given to man. The Son of God is sent to instruct mankind; He sows the seed of His divine word; and His works give testimony to His divinity. But after His sacrifice on the cross, He again ascends to the right hand of His Father; so that His own testimony of Himself has need of a second testimony, in order to its being received by them that have neither seen nor heard Jesus Himself.

Now, it is the martyrs who are to provide this second testimony; and this they will do, not only by confessing Jesus with their lips, but by shedding their blood for Him. The Church, then, is to be founded by the Word and the Blood of Jesus, the Son of God; but she will be upheld, she will continue throughout all ages, she will triumph over all obstacles, by the blood of her martyrs, the members of Christ: this their blood will mingle with that of their Divine Head, and their sacrifice be united to His.

The martyrs shall bear the closest resemblance to their Lord and King. They shall be, as He said, like “lambs among wolves.” (Luke 10:3) The world shall be strong, and they shall be weak and defenseless: so much the grander will be the victory of the martyrs, and the greater the glory of God who gives them to conquer.

The Apostle tells us that Christ crucified is “the power and the wisdom of God”; (1 Corinthians 1:24) – the martyrs, immolated, and yet conquerors of the world, will prove, and with a testimony which even the world itself will understand, that the Christ whom they confessed, and who gave them constancy and victory, is in very deed the power and the wisdom of God. We repeat, then – it is just that the martyrs should share in all the triumphs of the Man-God, and that the liturgical cycle should glorify them as does the Church herself, who puts their sacred relics in her altar stones; for thus the sacrifice of their glorified Lord and head is never celebrated without they themselves being offered together with Him in the unity of His Mystical Body.

Now, the glorious martyr-band of Christ is headed by St. Stephen. His name signifies the Crowned – a conqueror like him could not be better named. He marshals, in the name of Christ, the white-robed enemy, as the Church calls the martyrs; for he was the first, even before the apostles themselves, to receive the summons, and right nobly did he answer it.

Stephen courageously bore witness, in the presence of the Jewish Synagogue, to the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth; by thus proclaiming the truth, he offended the ears of the unbelievers; the enemies of God became the enemies of Stephen and, rushing upon him, they stoned him to death. Amid the pelting of the blood-drawing missives, he, like a true soldier, flinches not, but stands (as St. Gregory of Nyssa so beautifully describes it) as though snowflakes were falling on him, or roses were covering him with the shower of their kisses.

Through the cloud of stones, he sees the glory of God – Jesus, for whom he was laying down his life, showed Himself to His martyr, and the martyr again rendered testimony to the divinity of our Emmanuel, but with all the energy of a last act of love. Then, to make his sacrifice complete, he imitates his divine master, and prays for his executioners: falling on his knees, he begs that this sin be not laid to their charge.

Thus, all is consummated – the glorious type of martyrdom is created and shown to the world, that it may be imitated by every generation to the end of time, until the number of the martyrs of Christ shall be filled up.

Stephen sleeps in the Lord, and is buried in peace – in pace – until his sacred tomb shall be discovered, and his glory be celebrated a second time in the whole Church by that anticipated resurrection of the miraculous invention of his relics.

Stephen, then, deserves to stand near the crib of his King, as leader of those brave champions, the martyrs, who died for the divinity of that Babe, whom we adore. Let us join the Church in praying to our saint, that he help us to come to Our Sovereign Lord, now lying on his humble throne in Bethlehem. Let us ask him to initiate us into the mystery of that divine Infancy, which we are all bound to know and imitate.

It was from the simplicity he had learned form that mystery, that he heeded not the number of the enemies he had to fight against, nor trembled at their angry passion, nor winced under their blows, nor hid from them the truth and their crimes, nor forgot to pardon them and pray for them. What a faithful imitator of the Babe of Bethlehem! Our Jesus did not send His angels to chastise those unhappy Bethlehemites, who refused a shelter to the Virgin Mother, who in a few hours was to give birth to Him, the Son of David. He stays not the fury of Herod, who plots His death – but meekly flees into Egypt, like some helpless bondsman, escaping the threats of a tyrant lordling.

But it is under such apparent weakness as this that He will show His divinity to men, and He the Infant-God prove Himself the strong God. Herod will pass away, so will his tyranny; Jesus will live, greater in His crib, where He makes a king tremble, than is, under His borrowed majesty, this prince-tributary of Rome; nay, than Cæsar Augustus himself, whose worldwide empire has no other destiny than this – to serve as handmaid to the Church, which is to be founded by this Babe, whose name stands humbly written in the official registry of Bethlehem."

To read the remainder of Dom Guéranger’s reflection on the Feast of St. Stephen, see the Ecu-Men website HERE.

This text is taken from The Liturgical Year, authored by Dom Prosper Guéranger (1841-1875). LifeSiteNews is grateful to The Ecu-Men website for making this classic work easily available online.

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