Week in Review
Join Our Novena to Our Lady of Hope for a Courageous New Pontiff
There is still time to join this important novena! It will conclude on May 6, but you can continue to say it as long as the conclave meets.
Tradition holds that on January 17, 1871, during the time of the Franco-Prussian War, six children in the village of Pontmain, France, saw an apparition of our Blessed Mother. Mary told the children to pray for protection against the enemy troops when they approached the village, and she promised them that the war would end soon. Word immediately spread throughout the village, and the children and villagers prayed together for safety. The village was spared, and the war ended just a week later. After that, Mary became known to the town as Our Lady of Hope.
Today, we long for that same hope that Mary offered to the villagers of Pontmain. Throughout the world, Catholics are fighting a great spiritual battle, and we desperately need a strong leader in the Chair of St. Peter to guide and shepherd us.
As we mourn the death of Pope Francis and approach the beginning of the conclave and the election of a new pope, let us ask Our Lady of Hope for her intercession. Let us pray that the cardinals choose a holy and humble man who embodies the gifts of the Holy Spirit, who leads his flock with moral courage and strength, and who teaches the truths of the Catholic faith with clarity and love.
Each of the first seven days in this novena offers insight from St. John Paul II as we focus on a gift of the Holy Spirit. During the last two days we will pray that the cardinals elect a pope who will foster unity within the Church and respect for all human beings from creation until death. After each day’s prayer, we will close with a Hail Mary.
We invite you to pray with us and to share this novena with your friends. We know that the Holy Spirit guides the cardinals in their decision. Let us do as St. Padre Pio taught: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry,” for we trust in God’s goodness and in the intercession of Our Lady of Hope.
Two More Planned Parenthood Affiliates Welcome New CEOs
Last week, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic announced via social media platforms that it will officially appoint its interim CEO, Paige Johnson, as its next president/CEO. Within a few days, Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernadino Counties reported that it will install Krista Hollinger as its new CEO on July 1. A closer look into Johnson’s and Hollinger’s backgrounds shows that both women have had a relationship with the abortion organization for some time.
According to the social media announcement and her LinkedIn profile, Paige Johnson has worked with Planned Parenthood for nearly 25 years; she worked in various roles with the former Planned Parenthood of North Carolina for 14 years and spent the remainder of her time at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. Johnson’s disturbing dedication to abortion is apparent in her recent statement following the announcement of her new role:
Over the past decade, PPSAT has grown in powerful and transformative ways. We’ve expanded access to abortion and gender-affirming health care, even in some of the most hostile environments, and strengthened our education and advocacy programs to meet each moment with courage and clarity. . . .
PPSAT will move forward with determination, grounded in a strong foundation, driven by a deeply committed team, and uplifted by a resilient and unwavering community of supporters. We remain focused on what matters most: providing essential care, educating our communities, and defending reproductive health and rights — no matter what.
Though not involved with the organization nearly as long as Johnson has been, Krista Hollinger worked with Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernadino Counties from 2000 until 2006. After working for other organizations, Hollinger returned to PPOSBC in 2021 and served as its chief operating officer. With the impending retirement of PPOSBC’s current CEO on June 30, Hollinger will step into this new role on July 1. According to PPOSCBC’s website, Hollinger’s tenure as COO “led the expansion of a number of services at PPOSBC health centers,” including its “Abortion Aid program, which helps out-of-state patients forced to travel to California for abortion care.”
As discussed in STOPP’s 2025 Report on Planned Parenthood CEO Compensation, these affiliates ranked as two of the highest income earners of Planned Parenthood affiliates, with PPOSBC earning over $106 million dollars in 2022-2023 and PPSAT earning $52 million dollars in that same period.
Additionally, Jenny Black, PPSAT’s CEO at the time, earned $367,763 in one year, while PPOSCBC’s CEO Jon Dunn earned $692,905. With these annual exorbitant earnings for Planned Parenthood’s CEO and their growing affiliate incomes, both Hollinger and Johnson can be sure that they will make big money with this big abortion business, despite any financial hardships the affiliates may claim.
One thing is also certain: As long as these affiliates stay in operation under the direction of these CEOs, the number of preborn children killed by abortion, the number of young people who are mutilating themselves with gender hormone drugs, and the number of souls stolen by Planned Parenthood’s perverted sex “education” will continue to grow.
A New Study Looks at the Abortion Pill’s Physical Impact on Women
This week, the Ethics & Public Policy Center published a new study about the safety of mifepristone (the first pill of the abortion pill regimen). Anyone who knows how the abortion pill works knows that it is anything but safe, as its function is to take the life of an innocent preborn child through starvation. But the marketing for this pill is not concerned with the baby at all. Rather, Danco Laboratories markets Mifeprex (its brand of mifepristone abortion pills) as safe for the mother, and the FDA produces drug labels on this brand in concurrence with this statement.
EPPC examined insurance claims for 865,727 prescriptions for mifepristone from 2017-2023 and found that 10.93% of the women experienced serious health effects because they took the abortion pill. The EPPC states: “10.93 percent of women experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious or life-threatening adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion, far greater than the summary figure of ‘less than 0.5 percent’ in clinical trials reported on the drug label.”
The study dives deeper into the history of mifepristone and its unfortunate inception in the US under the Clinton administration, the increasing number of pill abortions from 2000 to 2024, and the change in the FDA’s regulations for mifepristone during both the Obama and Biden administrations; most notably, it examined the revision of the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy standards in 2023, which have remained unchanged.
These numbers prove that the FDA, Danco, and the abortion industry in our country are not being transparent about the adverse effects of the abortion pill on women.
However, the proposed solutions of the study ask that the FDA “reinstate the original patient safety protocols that were required when mifepristone was first approved.” Unfortunately, reverting to restrictions on the abortion pill will only mean that there will be a few more steps involved than there are currently to murder a preborn baby with pills. Reverting to these “safety protocols” also suggests that it is still okay to kill a preborn child up through seven weeks gestation. We can see from the Guttmacher Institute’s graph included in this study that abortion pill numbers continue to increase each year in the US.
We must never look at restrictions on abortion as “saving more lives”; preborn babies continue to die at the hands of these “exceptions” we have put into place. Additionally, if we seek restrictions on abortion, mothers will continue to suffer from the effects of the abortion pill. Because we know that a preborn baby is a human being, we must support measures that seek to completely end abortion and get this murderous drug off the market in the US.
ALL in the News
Following the passing of Pope Francis, Judie Brown released a statement remembering the pope’s staunch stance on human life. Read the statement here.
Immediately after the release of the Guttmacher Institute’s latest abortion study, ALL national director Katie Xavios released a statement condemning the rise in abortion numbers, specifically the pills sent from the abortion pill drug cartel. Katie then interviewed with American Family News and was a guest on the radio show From the Median.
The winter 2025 issue of Celebrate Life Magazine is officially out! Catch up on all the articles online here.
Susan Ciancio, editor of Celebrate Life Magazine and director of the Culture of Life Studies Program—ALL’s pre-K-12 pro-life education program—penned an op-ed on male birth control. It was published by LifeSiteNews. She also wrote an article about the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion and its part in the Jubilee Year. It was published by the Catholic World Report. Additionally, she wrote about St. Joseph the Worker. You can read it on our website.
Twice a week, Judie’s commentaries are distributed to an expansive media list. The list contains over 100 media outlets such as Fox News, The Federalist, Breitbart, and The Daily Caller, among others. Judie’s commentaries are each featured on the front page of ALL.org.
Pro-Life Education
Culture of Life Studies Program
When Heroes Become Saints: Saint Damien de Veuster of Molokai: Celebrate his feast day on May 10 with this lesson (now on SALE for just $2) that tells his heroic story. St. Damien volunteered to serve the lepers on the desolate peninsula of Molokai in Hawaii. He showed his flock that even though they suffered from a debilitating disease they deserved to be treated with dignity and respect and honored as adopted sons and daughters of God. This lesson challenges students to think about the outcasts whom they encounter in their own lives—a teased fellow student, a lonely relative, an argumentative sibling—and how they can follow the example of St. Damien by reaching out to them. ORDER HERE
ALL’s Education Materials
Vital Organ Removal: Did you check the box on your driver’s license agreeing to be an organ donor if something should happen to you? Doctors can only remove organs from a living person. This important and eye-opening brochure provides you with the information you must know about organ donation and removal and why you should not check that box. SHOP NOW
Pro-Life Social Media
Users on Facebook Share Terrifying Organ Donation Stories
We intercept a lot of fascinating conversations on X and post them here. This week we deviate from X to a once-thriving platform: Facebook. Comments can’t be embedded, so we have to screenshot them instead. The conversation we came across is an important one. In fact, you could call it a lifesaving one.
The topic of organ donation gets a lot of folks riled up because it’s an evil perpetrated on one person to bring about an outcome that benefits others. The sad fact is that too few people understand it. Human organs never come from the dead, or else they are rendered useless. Human organ “donation” comes from the living. One user on Facebook shared his horrific experience with organ donation. His story provoked other Facebook users to share their own:
Click arrow for full text of the Facebook post.
When brain dead people lie on the operating table to undergo surgery, in 75% of cases it happens that they make spontaneous defensive reactions with their arms and legs. Some slap their arms in front of their chest in a protective gesture, others among them even stand up a little. It also happens that they sit down completely upright, grab their carer tightly or even wrap them around and make garrling noises. Blood pressure and heart rate also goes up. According to the surgical assistants who are present, it’s scary every time: you never get used to it! There are even examples of surgical assistants who are so terrified that they have given up their profession.
The defensive movements of donors, who are about to be operated on, are called “Lazarus-Reflex.”
Also the Lazarus reflexes are a sign that the brain dead is not dead: Which dead person is able to stand up and surround the operating assistant? Doctors say about these gestures and movements that these are involuntary muscle reflexes: spinal reflexes triggered by the spinal cord. They suggest that this answer answers all the questions you can ask about this phenomenon. That’s not the case though. This justification alone should give us to think; because such involuntary muscle reflexes are probably only possible in someone who is alive, and not in someone who is dead. Have you ever seen a dead person who suddenly sat up?
A young anesthetist was present for the first time in a surgery where organs were extracted. At the beginning of the operation, his boss, an anesthesiologist, gave him the instructions to begin administering the anesthesia. The young anesthetist reacted surprised: “That’s not necessary, he’s dead after all?” Are we not going to administer anesthesia to someone who is dead? “Her face turned to an almost vicious face, and she threw a single sentence at him: “How do you know that for sure?” “Then the young anesthetist was stunned.
In this context, Ger Lodewick asks the only too understandable question: “Should we possibly consider the Lazarus reflexes as the last effort of a person who is aware of what will happen to him?”
The administration of anesthesia when organs are extracted is thought differently. In the guidelines of the German Foundation for Organ Transplantation (DSO) – the foundation that regulates organ donation in Germany – it states that anesthesia is not necessary to exclude the consciousness of the organ donor and to avoid pain reactions. However, in view of the Lazarus reflexe, it is still reasonable to calm the organ donor with appropriate means (such as opiates) or relax (“relax” is in the German text). You ask yourself: How can you relax and put a dead person to rest?
Also-that’s how it says in the German text- it makes sense. with these opiates to prevent an increase in blood pressure and heart rate. Whoever reads this can only come to the conclusion that this is about a living person and not a dead person – isn’t it?
-Which dead person needs anesthesia?
-Which death can cause blood pressure to rise?
–Which dead is doing the defensive response?
So it is not right to claim that a person is dead if his brain does not work – that person still has a (higher) consciousness. Consequently, we cannot claim that a person is dead if the brain stops working.
Therefore, more and more people are convinced that the moment when brain death is determined is not the moment of death, but a moment or stage in the dying process.
Most doctors agree that the moment when brain death is determined, the process of dying has become irreversible. But brain dead is not dead! Brain death marks a specific moment in the dying process. Consequently, we can say that the brain dead man is still alive.
If the kidneys don’t work, let’s not say that the person in question is “kidney dead”, but join him to dialysis! When our brain doesn’t work anymore, it’s sick – just like the kidneys – but not dead! Therefore, it is also possible for people who are described as “brain dead” to wake up again and come to their senses.
There are more and more doctors who admit the possibility that a brain dead can still feel something, feel pain and possibly even hear what is being said. Even a leading doctor of the DSO states: “It is indeed impossible to prove that someone who has been declared brain dead really no longer has a sense of perception – therefore we also do not know whether he can feel pain or not.” But if we don’t know for sure that a brain dead person doesn’t feel pain – neither in tests nor in the removal of organs themselves – then why do we continue to do so?
It would be much better, of course, to completely stop the ‘slaughtering’ of organ donors, who are in the middle of their dying phase, and allow them their personal death.
How is it that nowadays we deal with the death of a month so superficially?
… we are no longer able to see and/or experience that the whole process of dying makes sense! And indeed every single part of this process: All experience is necessary to achieve a good transition.
Our process of dying is a process of birth. This is what he’s fighting for. to get rid of the old earthly world in order to enter the new world freely.
There is now enough evidence that makes us suspect that in the process of dying we are intervening in a sacred event, of which we basically do not have a real understanding yet. But this is exactly why our intervention will have great consequences for the donor, and much more profound than we are aware of – consequences that will be felt not only in life after death in the spiritual world, but also in the next life.
Scary stuff. Others chimed in with their experiences.
One final frightful comment:
“Spinal reflexes.” That ought to be a clue. Sadly, that’s a phrase that “organ procurement coordinators” will use to rationalize their profession. Perhaps she never asked herself if these “spinal reflexes” are the result of the patient feeling every cut of the blade but is too paralyzed to scream.