Barb Budson, pictured here on the right with ArchAngel Board member Gloria Carrel (and here is Barb with Bishop John D’Arcy at the Institute last month) is great treasurer! Her countless hours of behind the scenes work in the Institute’s first year of operation and beyond has been most necessary. She is a fine lady and pro-family activist who also donates much time to the St. Vincent’s Society, to the Women’ Care Center and to her parish.

Thank you, Barb.

Also thanks to Keith Brown, the President of the ArchAngel Board. Keith is active at Blackhawk Christian School, active teaching in various capacities around the area (including college classes on management systems) and quite active in helping his Father and big brother renovate the former abortion clinic into the home of the ArchAngel Institute and other coming attractions on the second floor.

ArchAngel Institute Board President Keith Brown is caught in the act of working to transform the former abortion clinic in the picture below. (Alongside his lovely daughter, a teenage supporter of the ArchAngel Institute.)

While on the subject of Board officers, there is a vacancy on the ArchAngel Institute’s Board. If interested let us know in writing, via snail mail to 827 Webster Street, Fort Wayne, 46802 or via archangelinstitute@gmail.com. We are in need of a Board member and new secretary on the Board. Pray about it and let us know if you are interested.

Pro-aborts need not apply. (Sorry George and Susan.)

Thank you so much for being yourselves Barb and Keith. Thanks for all you have given this past year and even before that to get ArchAngel launched.

Retta Kohrman is now stationed at the ArchAngel Institute every day from 9:30 to 2:30. She is there to host daily prayers and to reach out to men and women suffering from the pain of post-abortion trauma. Retta is well positioned to reach out in loving hope to such wounded persons, for Retta is herself a wounded healer.

Pictured: Retta, prayer co-captain Dolores Torrez and Donegal Corridor principal Berenice Brown standing under an important sign donated by  Mike and Cathy Butler of Diskey Sign (thanks!!!)

Consider the following quote from Jill Carattini of Ravi Zararias International Ministries:

In the stories recounted in the gospels, it was the wounded and rejected who arguably saw Christ the clearest. In fact, the New Testament speaks pointedly about God being active—and honored—in our weakness. Of the thorn in his flesh Paul told the Corinthians, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). Our weakness can be the fount of our hope, our woundedness a spring of healing. Seeing our great need, we see the splendor of Christ’s ability to meet it.

Moreover, since we share a similar condition with those around us, we do well to speak of the cure. In his memorable work The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen writes, “Making one’s own wounds a source of healing, does not call for a sharing of superficial personal pains but for a constant willingness to see one’s own pain and suffering as rising from the depth of the human condition which all men share.” Speaking of Jesus, the Christ who would come to mend the wounds of humanity, the prophet Isaiah declared: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Doctor’s are no more invincible to disease than Christians are invincible to weakness, pain, or trial. But we are under the direction of one who sees our need and hears our cries. He is the perfect Physician we seek. Christ answers our weakness with strength, our illness with mercy, our wounds with his own.

The Institute is thankful to have Retta onboard and reaching out to those who seek a wounded healer. We have such persons drop by the Institute from time to time. Here are links on such “divine appointments.” No fewer than seven such drop ins have been documented in the past year.

Retta Kohrman’s ministry at the Institute is one born of compassion and one centered on the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Retta is very open about her Christian testimony and clearly presents Jesus Christ as the only path to hope, healing and wholeness. We hope to keep Retta officing at the Institute, but must do better at raising money for rent, utilities and her meager salary if we are to do that. Please consider supporting our Christ-centered mission. This link will give you more on Retta and her mission at the Institute.

If you are led to help support Retta and this crucial mission then you can send checks or money orders to The ArchAngel Institute, 827 Webster Street, Fort Wayne, IN 46802 or call Retta at (260) 423-1771.

Your prayers for our sustenance are always welcome. Especially when they are prayed at the Institute at 1:00 pm, which greatly encourages Retta.

Stay tuned for a brand new brochure on the ArchAngel Raphael side of the Institute. Retta is finalizing that important brochure next week.

The ArchAngel Institute would not have been able to be born in the former abortion clinic were it not for the Donegal Corridor, LLC. The Donegal Corridor, LLC bought the building when it came up for sale. The Donegal Corridor bought the (downstairs) furnace and paid for much of the upgrades necessary to render the downstairs of the building habitable. (The abortionists had been using it without a furnace, with massive leaks in the roof and foundation, with unsanitary floors and sinks and kitchenettes, with walls that were painted a hideous blue and sickening pink. Yes, blue and pink. Come see the evidence, we now have it on display in the ArchAngel Raphael Room. How sick is that, a pink and blue abortion clinic?)

Want proof? Try this, and this, and here is another link on how the building was one year ago . . .

Want to know more about how the ArchAngel Institute came to be in a former abortion clinic?

Here is more on the Donegal Corridor …

and here

John and Bernie Brown are the principals of the Donegal Corridor. They own the building, not Bryan Brown nor Wendell Brane. If Bryan or Wendell owned it then Susan Hill or George Klopfer could grab it. The abortionists cannot take 827 Webster Street from John and Bernie. This is no ruse, for John and Bernie put up the funds, and they have carried the note with almost no rents and no return on investment for a year and a half.

The Institute honors and thanks John and Bernie Brown this Thanksgiving. They have advanced the Institute in a million different kindnesses, and they are greatly appreciated by the Institute.

We love you Mom and Dad.

p.s. Make that HIll and Klopfer would try to grab it from Bryan or Wendell. Actually that would prove quite litigious and very exciting. So, please, George and Susan, do come try. We are ready to return to court on your service of process. (As I have written you both and stated clearly.) Confused? Click here for context and Click here for more context.

The Internet is buzzing with news from Catholic University of America, where Cardinal James Stafford today called President-elect Barack Obama “aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic,“ and said he campaigned on an “extremist anti-life platform.”

“Because man is a sacred element of secular life,” Stafford remarked, “man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person’s life cannot ultimately be controlled by government.”

“For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden,” Stafford said, comparing America’s future with Obama as president to Jesus’ agony in the garden. “On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake.”

Cardinal Stafford said Catholics must deal with the “hot, angry tears of betrayal” by beginning a new sentiment where one is “with Jesus, sick because of love.”

***

Stafford also spoke about the decline of a respect for human life and the need for Catholics to return to the original values of marriage and human dignity.

“If 1968 was the year of America’s ‘suicide attempt,’ 2008 is the year of America’s exhaustion,” said Stafford, an American Cardinal and Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary for the Tribunal of the Holy See. “In the intervening 40 years since Humanae Vitae, the United States has been thrown upon ruins.”

This destruction and America’s decline is largely in part due to the Supreme Court’s decisions in the life-issue cases of 1973, specifically Roe v. Wade. Stafford asserted these cases undermined respect for human life in the United States.

“Its scrupulous meanness has had catastrophic effects upon the unity and integrity of the American republic,” said Stafford.

Humanae Vitae (“On Human Life”) reaffirms traditional Catholic teachings regarding abortion, contraception and other human life issues. Pope Benedict XVI said in May it is “so controversial, yet so crucial for humanity’s future…What was true yesterday is true also today.”

For all of the above article (in green) hit this hyperlink.

The good Cardinal sounds much like this great dissident (hit this link for the transfer to our series on a great Russian dissident) Here is another installment from that series. Click on great dissidents at the right and scroll down to read all fourteen installments on Alexander Solzhenitsyn — a truly prophetic voice. Like Cardinal Stafford!

Thank you, Jesus!

The Institute will spend the next several weeks thanking those who have been most instrumental in making our first year a success. But before we do that we pause to receive a thank you from a descendant of one of the Fort’s finest culture warriors.

This comment just posted to our website:

Jennifer Hoffmann Says:

November 16th, 2008 at 9:39 am Thank you for this article! Phyllis and Frank are my Grandparents. Not a day goes by that I am not proud of them. They both continue to be quite an inspiration to me, and to all of their many children and grandchildren!

You are welcome Jennifer. Your Grandparents are an inspiration to many, the Institute included. Click here for our tri-fold brochure noting that fact

Your Grandmother Phyllis is mentioned or refenced at the following places on this website:

Fly The Corridor

A soldier stolen away

A win for the Culture of Life

Her picture now hangs in one of the procedure rooms in the former abortion clinic. It is behind me (Bryan Brown) and in front of the Institute’s Operations Manager, Retta Kohrman, in the above photo. Bishop John D’Arcy was photographed blessing the room as my firstborn, Ignatius, looks on. The good Bishop took a few minutes ot pray for those who lost so much in this former abortion clinic — the very clinic from which Susan Hill sued Phyllis Avila back in the early 80’s — the very lawsuit that led to our loss of our dear Phyllis.

That history is told in the following posts:

Exposing Susan Hill

Susan Hill’s testimony

ArchAngel Raphael Division

My (Bryan Brown’s) first serious consideration of the Catholic faith took place at Phyllis’ funeral. I respected her for her stand against the Culture of Death and went to pay my respects for that reason. That was December, 1983.

Eleven years later I was received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Your Grandmother’s faith first pointed the way for me, as did the testimony of very many of the faithful who lived their Catholic faith like she and Frank.

The Institute thanks God for the Avila family. I have to thank God even for Phyllis’ Funeral Mass.

“When you come to a fork in the road,” said Yogi Berra, “take it.”

Are we at just such a fork today?

Some say yes.

Here is one Brit who believes that history writ large is now in the making:

But at this point I have given up hoping that we will draw the right conclusions from this crisis. The universal verdict is that capitalism has run amok.

In any case the damage caused as credit retrenchment squeezes real industry is likely to be so great that Barack Obama may have to pursue unthinkable policies, just as Franklin Roosevelt had to ditch campaign orthodoxies and go truly radical after his landslide victory in 1932. Indeed, Mr Obama – if he wins – may have to start by nationalizing the US car industry.

For those who missed it, I recommend Edward Stourton’s BBC interview with Eric Hobsbawm, the doyen of Marxist history.

“This is the dramatic equivalent of the collapse of the Soviet Union: we now know that an era has ended,” said Mr Hobsbawm, still lucid at 91.

“It is certainly greatest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s. As Marx and Schumpeter foresaw, globalization not only destroys heritage, but is incredibly unstable. It operates through a series of crises.

“There’ll be a much greater role for the state, one way or another. We’ve already got the state as lender of last resort, we might well return to idea of the state as employer of last resort, which is what it was under FDR. It’ll be something which orients, and even directs the private economy,” he said.

Click here for this story in full. (Entitled The Revenge of the Left Across the World by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard)

Some may perceive shades of the Book of Revelation, at chapter 13, in the red highlights above.

When the State assumes military powers inside its own borders it is called martial law.

When that State is apostate that martial law can quickly become a persecution of the Christian church.

Click here for a possible foreshadowing. (parental warning: links to profane language in comment section)

Click here for a more nuanced explanation of this seeming call for an internal military force. (It could be that Senator Obama did not intend to sound like a German Chancellor from the 1930’s.)

Even if the above example is not a good one, it remains true that when the Church refuses to obey its Lord, and instead chooses to obey Mammon, then the goose stepping soldiers are at the door.

Some have said, “Its the Economy, Stupid.”

Wrong!

Its the Culture, Pilgrims.

And if the culture goes bad, well then ….

Matthew 5:13

13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

Wise words from one of the Founders of our Republic seem most appropriate in this dire hour …

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Thomas Jefferson

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Thomas Jefferson

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

Thomas Jefferson

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Thomas Jefferson

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

Thomas Jefferson
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson