Miracles among flames: Religious statues SPARED in wildfires



Californians are dealing with devastation after their homes have been lost to the wildfires that ravaged the golden coast — but one family noticed something interesting when they went back to look at the charred remains.

Members of the Halpin family were blessed with a sign of hope when they saw that their statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph miraculously survived the blazes.

“Our son-in-law snuck up the day after the fire and he took some pictures, so those were the first pictures we saw that really confirmed that the house was gone,” Jackie Halpin tells Jill Savage and Matthew Peterson of “Blaze News Tonight.”

“My daughter, his wife, said ‘Mom, look, look at the bottom of the picture,’ and there was the statue. And I’m not saying it was a miracle, but I’m saying it gave us so much hope that we were still protected and loved,” Jackie continues.


That’s when all six of her children decided to return to the remains and “pray to God, thanking him for the wonderful years we had in our home.”

“We did not go to sing; we went to pray. So we said a prayer that our family says; it’s a consecration to the sacred heart of Jesus. So we said the prayer, and then we generally sing that song a lot after baptisms and weddings and funerals, so then it just came about that we sang the song,” Jackie explains.

A family member took a video of the moment, and it went viral.

“We had no idea this was going to become viral or famous. It’s a little bit humbling, but we just did it to cling to hope. And sometimes you have to force yourself to be grateful, and we wanted to be grateful,” she continues.

“We just wanted to say thank you to God, and that's all we can do. That’s our hope,” she adds.

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New York Times uses Christmas to push anti-Christian agenda — but the truth is not on its side



Days before Christmas — one of the most holy Christian holidays — the New York Times pulled a predictable stunt.

Ignoring two millennia of Christian tradition holding to the virgin birth of Jesus, the so-called "newspaper of record" published an editorial column with a historian titled, "A Conversation About the Virgin Birth That Maybe Wasn't." The point of the interview with Dr. Elaine Pagels, a scholar of early Christianity, was to sow doubt that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus.

'Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.'

The New York Times published the interview on Dec. 21 online but printed it in the Christmas Eve edition of its physical newspaper.

The interview centers on Pagels' forthcoming book in which she argues, according to NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof, that "Jesus might have been fathered by a Roman soldier, possibly by rape."

Seriously?! Yes, unfortunately.

Alleged evidence for this claim in Pagels' book, Kristof noted, includes anti-Christian writings from the generations after the apostles that claim Jesus is the son of a Roman soldier named "Panthera."

Pagels told the New York Times:

Yes, these stories circulated after Jesus’ death among members of the Jewish community who regarded him as a false messiah, saying that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier. I used to dismiss such stories as ancient slander. Yet while we do not know what happened, there are too many points of circumstantial evidence to simply ignore them.

In the interview, Pagels' argument appears to rely heavily on inaccurate conclusions about the Gospel of Mark.

For example, Pagels notes that "Mark is the earliest Gospel written." That's true. But she also claims that "Matthew and Luke are basically just revising it." That is not true.

The Gospel authors, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, each advanced the same polemical goal: to show that Jesus is, in fact, the Christ, the long-awaited and promised Jewish Messiah. But each author used slightly different methodologies to accomplish his goals, which explains the differences between Matthew, Luke, and Mark.

What is true is that, according to a popular scholarly theory, the authors of Matthew and Luke used Mark's Gospel and an additional source called "Q" to compile their writings. But in no way, shape, or form are Matthew and Luke mere "revision" of Mark's Gospel.

Pagels then added:

Mark has no suggestion of a virgin birth. Instead, he says that neighbors called Jesus “son of Mary.” In an intensely patriarchal society, this suggests that Jesus had no father that anyone knew about, even one deceased. Yet even without a partner, Mary has lots of children: In Mark, Jesus has four other brothers and some sisters, with no recognized father and no genealogy.

But this is a fallacy: Pagels is arguing from silence.

Just because Mark's account does not include a genealogy of Jesus — which is included in Matthew and Luke — does not mean that Mark is somehow leaving open the possibility that Jesus was not born of the Virgin Mary.

Importantly, Christians see Jesus' virgin birth foretold in Isaiah 7:14, which says, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." Matthew famously cites this prophecy in Matthew 1:22-23.

Unfortunately, the theory Pagels and Kristof advance is not new.

In fact, it is a fringe theory in biblical scholarship that is widely discredited. There are many problems with it, including a blinding and deafening absence of historical evidence to prove its reliability, the clear polemical motive to discredit Christianity, linguistic problems, the issue of the Gospels' reliability, and a lack of similar arguments from other early anti-Christian writers.

One of the chief problems with claiming the virgin birth is not true is that it discredits Christianity wholesale.

"This truth about the conception of Jesus is not expendable. If Jesus were conceived in the way everyone else has been conceived, then the Gospel writers are telling falsehoods," explains Dr. Mitchell Chase, a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "And if Jesus were conceived in the way everyone else has been conceived, then his human nature has been corrupted by sin. If Jesus were corrupted by sin, then he wouldn’t be able to bring salvation because he himself would need salvation."

The virgin birth, according to Chase, is therefore not "some extraneous issue." Rather, it is "integral to what we Christians confess about Jesus."

"Through the incarnation of the Son of God, the light of salvation dawned upon the world," Chase explains. "He is the Son of God, with truly divine and human natures. He was born without sin and lived without sin, so that he could die beneath our sin. Now, raised and ascended, the incarnate Son is our perfect mediator and sin-pardoning savior."

This is not the first time the New York Times has tried to stir up doubt about the virgin birth in the days before Christmas. And sadly, it probably isn't the last.

It's a predictable attack on a fundamental Christian doctrine that every Christian — Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant — shares.

One is left to wonder, however, why the NYT never attacks the first proposition of the Bible — that God created everything — or the resurrection of Jesus. For those concerned about the believability of "miracles," those two propositions are much more thorny. If God created everything and Jesus was raised from the dead, the virgin birth of Jesus is easy to "accept."

And yet: The pre-Christmas attacks always center on this one "miracle."

Perhaps it's because critics of the virgin birth know that if you can discredit the beginning of Jesus' life, then you can discredit the end — and with it, Jesus' whole life.

Thankfully, Christians have truth — in Jesus — on their side.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).

What did Mary and Joseph do after Jesus was born? Here's what the Bible says



The Virgin Mary gave birth to the promised Son of God in the town of Bethlehem — just as the angel and the Scripture had foretold. The buildup to this birth in Luke’s Gospel is eventful. In Luke 1 there are angelic appearances and revelations, a visit between pregnant female relatives, songs of praise and wonder, and a formerly barren woman giving birth to the forerunner of the Messiah.

After many years of waiting for the Messiah, the promised Son was born: “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger” (Luke 2:7).

But what about after Jesus’ birth? What happened in the hours and days that followed? Are there things we can both see explicitly and deduce implicitly from the biblical data?

1. Shepherds rushed to Bethlehem to see the newborn.

This was the same day as the birth. The angel told them, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). The shepherds would find the baby still in the manger (2:12; see 2:7).

So in the hours after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph were receiving shepherds as visitors.

2. Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day.

According to Genesis 17, circumcision was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham.

In Luke 2:21 we’re told, “And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

Mary and Joseph were obeying the law of Moses.

3. Mary was persevering through her time of ritual uncleanness.

According to Leviticus 12, a woman was ritually unclean for several weeks if she gave birth to a boy. Biblical law prohibited her from going to the sanctuary until her time of uncleanness was complete. Once her uncleanness was over, she was to bring an offering to the temple (Leviticus 12:5-8).

In Luke 2:22-24, Mary kept the regulations of the law, and at the appointed time she brought the appropriate offering to the temple.

4. Mary and Joseph received visiting wise men.

These men from the east brought gifts for the Christ child (Matthew 2:11-12). They arrived at “the house” where Mary and Joseph were staying (2:11).

This house would have been the same relative’s home where the couple first arrived in Luke 2:1-7. (The “guest room” in Luke 2:7 was not the guest room of a motel; it was the guest room of a home.)

The wise men didn’t arrive on the night of Jesus’ birth. Matthew 2 doesn’t report how much time has elapsed since the birth, but Herod’s plan to kill babies who were “two years old or under” suggests that when the wise men came, more than a year had passed since Jesus’ birth.

5. Mary and Joseph went to Egypt.

Still in Bethlehem with Mary and Jesus, Joseph had a dream, in which an angel told him, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him” (Matthew 2:13). When Joseph awoke, he followed the angel’s instructions and left Bethlehem, taking his little family to Egypt.

While we only have snapshots of things that happened in the hours, days, weeks, and months that followed Jesus’ birth, these snapshots should be studied and treasured.

This essay was originally published at Dr. Mitchell Chase's Substack, "Biblical Theology."

'Mary' didn’t know: New film about the mother of Jesus muddles and misleads



Mary the mother of Jesus was remarkable for one very important reason: God chose her (and Joseph) to raise the Son of God.

"Mary," the new Netflix movie, is not remarkable. For a (heavenly) host of reasons.

My hopes were dashed when Mary announces somewhat defiantly, looking straight into the camera: 'You may think you know my story. Trust me. You don’t.'

First, let’s get this straight. Mary was not born holier than anyone else. She was just a normal girl with a heart to please the Lord, as evidenced by her reaction to the angel Gabriel giving her the news that would change her life forever. From this reaction, we can deduce that her family was likely devout. They had arranged an engagement for her, as was culturally customary. And her fiancé, Joseph, proved himself worthy by his kind intentions toward her even when he thought she had betrayed him.

You can read this whole narrative in Luke 1:26-38 and Matthew 1:18-25. And I suggest you do, because that’s the real story. Netflix could have made a beautiful movie telling that story — it’s full of drama and mystery and fear and hurt and love — but director D.J. Caruso, along with executive producer (and televangelist) Joel Osteen, chose to tell an entirely different story. An unbiblical story.

And it’s not even a good unbiblical story.

Unbiblical non-epic

Film scripts based on the Bible run the gamut from straight scripture (like 2003’s "The Gospel of John"), to fanciful depictions that spin off so wildly from the Bible that the message and meaning of the biblical text is completely twisted (looking at you, Darren Aronofsky, for messing with "Noah").

Somewhere in the middle there I’d put "The Chosen," Dallas Jenkins’ multiple-season series on the life of Jesus. It’s firmly rooted in scripture, but Jenkins attempts to flesh out the story (with often-but-not-always historical and cultural context) to help us imagine what it must have been like for regular people who encountered Jesus Christ. Much of the time these efforts are successful; sometimes not so much.

I was hoping that "Mary" would be like a good episode of "The Chosen," but alas my hopes were dashed almost from the film’s first moments, when Mary announces somewhat defiantly, looking straight into the camera: “You may think you know my story. Trust me. You don’t.”

If a film billing itself as an “epic biblical” tale tells us from square one that it’s going to tell us the “real” story, it is no longer biblical (and probably not epic either).

Isn't that special?

The entire premise of this film is the entirely imagined idea that Mary was no humble teenage girl but was special from before she was born.

This is evidenced by the angel Gabriel visiting both her parents to inform them that their childlessness was about to end with a special daughter who would belong to God.

As a child, flocks of butterflies follow her around, and people stare at her, sensing ... something. Her parents eventually fill her in on her status and tearfully deliver her to the temple to serve God as part of some weird underage girl temple helper group, which I am fairly certain was not a thing (there’s certainly no biblical mention of girls being dropped off to live in the temple, and it doesn’t seem like it would be culturally acceptable).

Plus, the outfits the girls wear look a bit like "The Handmaid’s Tale," so it’s a bit creepy.

Reality check: Mary did not know she was chosen until it was time for her to know. Her family didn’t know until she told them, and we can imagine that was a difficult situation.

Again, that might have made for some powerful film storytelling, if the filmmaker could have just stuck to the scripture instead of the script.

Speaking of the script, it’s packed with foreshadowing of elements from the life of Christ, including a disturbing scene where wicked King Herod presses a crown of thorns into the Jewish high priest’s head, blinding him (after which Herod stares at young Mary, also sensing ... something).

Eventually, they get around to the real story, when the angel Gabriel visits Mary, but they only stay with the Bible briefly before the film transitions to an action movie.

Crowds of Jews who hate the Romans are shown rioting and also trying to stone Mary for her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Joseph is a full-on action hero who bravely fights his way out of this situation and a few others, eventually getting Mary to Bethlehem.

In the film, they went not to comply with the Roman census (the real reason they went there — see Luke 2:1-5) but because he “has family there.”

Hollywood hallucinations

And this is where the movie’s plotline unravels completely. They make their way through the crowded streets of Bethlehem looking for a place to stay. Why? He just said he had family there. Mary then asks Joseph if all the people are there because of the census, but he tells her ominously, “No — this is something else.”

And then he finds out what that something else is, when a woman tells him: Everyone’s here because the Messiah is to be born here! And indeed later scenes after Jesus’ birth appear to show crowds of people coming to see Mary and the baby.

Mary was a devout “nobody” — exactly the kind of person God delights in using (and blessing). And almost nobody was reading the Old Testament scriptures looking for the Messiah.

Nobody was in Bethlehem expecting to be witness to the birth. Angels told a group of raggedy shepherds, and wise men (who did study the scriptures) followed the star.

There were no crowds. Most people, and certainly the religious authorities, were caught up in their conflict with the oppressive governing Romans, jockeying for position and obsessed with internal politics. Most were blind to the Messiah when he arrived on the scene 30 years later; they were certainly not interested in a humble teenage girl from Nazareth at this time.

Osteen-approved

"Mary" continues to spiral into nonsense.

Herod is enraged about a new king of the Jews being born and decrees all the baby boys in Bethlehem be killed (that really happened). He then asks them to bring back alive the one baby who is the actual problem baby (that didn’t happen, and why would it? In real life, he thought he was taking care of the problem by killing all the babies).

Also, please don’t fall into the giant plot pothole where huge crowds come to visit Mary and the baby but the murderous Roman soldiers could not find that same baby.

We haven’t even gotten to Joseph’s last action-hero scene where he fights off a platoon of fully armed Romans who are trying to set fire to them while Mary kicks out a window, action-hero style, and baby Jesus gets tossed down from a roof in a basket.

There's also some silly, self-empowerment dialogue, like when Elizabeth tells Mary to “trust the strength inside her,” which is simply not what a devout Jewish woman in first-century Israel would tell anyone to trust in. (It does sound suspiciously like the kind of thing televangelists like Osteen might say, though.)

But for all the foolishness of the action scenes, the real damage of this movie is perpetuating the myth that Mary was anything other than a normal human being.

She was chosen by God for a divinely appointed task, and he gifted her with everything she needed to fulfill that to his glory. But angels did not announce her coming, and butterflies didn’t follow her around. She was born in sin like every other human, and she was saved by his grace through her faith, like every other saint. Like all of us who call him Lord.

Leftists losing their minds that 'Mary' movie about Jesus' mother — who was from Israel — stars woman who's from Israel



November has not been a happy month for leftists.

Donald Trump was re-elected president a few weeks ago, resulting in left-wingers shedding actual tears and engaging in ill-advised freak-outs. Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced legislation declaring that biological men shouldn't be allowed to use women's restrooms on Capitol Hill, punctuated with a "Period. Full stop. End of story." Which, of course, raised the ire of transgender-affirming lawmakers.

'Jesus, Mary, and everyone in this show should be Palestinian.'

Now leftists have something outside of Washington, D.C., to complain about.

See, it concerns a Netflix movie releasing Dec. 6 all about Mary, the mother of Christ. The trailer description reads, "In this coming-of-age religious epic, Mary is shunned following a miraculous conception and forced into hiding. When King Herod ignites a murderous pursuit for her newborn baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph flee to save his life."

Pretty non-controversial so far, right? Not so fast.

Turns out leftists have gotten word that the actress who portrays Mary, Noa Cohen, is from Israel — and leftists are losing their precious minds over it.

Some examples from X:

  • "Jesus, Mary, and everyone in this show should be Palestinian," one observer wrote.
  • "Palestinians aren’t available for the role?" another user wondered.
  • "A movie set in a time when Palestine was occupied played by the people who are colonizing Palestine now is beyond disgusting," another commenter declared.
  • "Easy to boycott as zionist Israeli[s] are in it," another user said.
  • "If they wanted authenticity they would have picked a Palestinian actress to play her given that all available genetic evidence suggests that modern [Palestinians] are the direct descendants of the inhabitants of the region at the time," another commenter noted.
  • "War criminal settlers are the main actors," another user stated. "My family will be boycotting this film @netflix."
  • "First Netflix taking all Palestinian content down and now they stream a movie about Mary with an all-Israeli cast whilst those same people are bombing the birthplace of Christ?" another commenter noted, while adding an accompanying video. "Boycott that s**t."
  • "The casting of an Israeli actress to play Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not just a casting choice—it's a clear political statement that trivializes sacred beliefs," another user exclaimed.

Other X commenters complained about what they characterized as the pale complexions of some "Mary" actors.

Director D.J. Caruso noted the following to EW last month in regard to the casting decisions: "When we started on this project, I immediately initiated a search for Mary. It was important to us that Mary, along with most of our primary cast, be selected from Israel to ensure authenticity."

You can view the "Mary" trailer here.

(H/T: Not the Bee)

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FACT CHECK: Michael Steele Claims Donald Trump Was ‘All Wrong’ On Post About Mary

'The Catholic Church celebrates Mary's birthday on Sept. 8. Some Eastern Orthodox Churches also celebrate it on Sept. 8. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is allegedly a vision of Mary that was seen by St. Juan Diego'

Ana Navarro puts her ignorance on full display while trying to needle Trump over Virgin Mary post



Trump posted an image of the Virgin Mary to social media Sunday with the caption, "Happy Birthday Mary!"

The post ostensibly resonated with a great many Christians, Catholics in particular — of which there are nearly 1.4 billion worldwide and at least 52 million stateside. However, various radicals reflexively went on the attack.

Among those prickled by the painting of Christ's mother was Harris booster Ana Navarro, a former foreign agent who is now co-host of ABC's "The View." In a desperate attempt to embarrass Trump over the post, Navarro instead beclowned herself.

Navarro, a recent speaker at the Democratic National Convention and former national surrogate for John McCain's failed 2008 presidential campaign, responded, "When you obviously know nothing about virgins."

The image Trump shared is a devotional image of the Virgin of Guadalupe displayed on woven cloth and located within the Basílica de Guadalupe in Mexico City.

While Navarro suggested that Trump is ignorant of virgins, his understanding appears to have bested hers on the fundamentals.

The image he shared — of the Virgin of Guadalupe — depicts the Virgin Mary. Where Catholics like Melania Trump are concerned, September 8 is the feast day celebrating the nativity of the Virgin Mary — also known as her birthday.

Christians outside Mexico have been celebrating Mary's birthday, as Trump had, since at least the sixth century.

'Can somebody please tell this idiota to show some respect.'

Some individuals online who attempted to extract sense from Navarro's tweet concluded that the former Contras campaigner was herself perhaps unclear about what "virgin" meant, at least in the case of Mary — that Navarro believed that the Virgin Mary had no birthday.

While the Catholic Church holds that Mary was "preserved immune from all stain of original stain" from the first moment of her conception, it nevertheless maintains she was still conceived and born, hence her centuries-old birthday celebration.

In the face of significant backlash online over her failed attack, Navarro indicated why she was upset in an edited Instagram post.

Navarro wrote, "I mean, I know Trump knows nothing about virgins, but even for him, this is ridiculous. Can somebody please tell this idiota to show some respect. September 8th is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Feast Day of La Virgén de la Caridad del Cobre, patron Virgin of Cuba. This is the Virgin of Guadalupe - Patron Virgin of Mexico. Her Feast Day is Dec 12th. I can't. I just can't."

The religious figure celebrated in each of those feasts is the same depicted in the image Trump shared Sunday. It appears Navarro either regards them as distinct entities or the image used by Trump to be regionally exclusive.

Navarro told CNN talking head Erin Burnett in 2016 that "maybe if the Virgin Mary appeared to me and asked me to do it, I would consider [voting for Trump]."

Clearly, the co-host of "The View" will take more convincing than a post she failed to appreciate.

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Woman runner says she was 'robbed' after trans athlete — who lived as a married man just 4 years before — smashes her 5K record



A transgender athlete easily beat a woman's running record for a 5K race recently, with the former record holder telling outlets she feels "robbed" and "cheated."

According to the Daily Mail, Deb Roberts, now 51 years old, set a 5K race record for the 40-45 women's category in 2018 with a time of 20 minutes and six seconds. Previous records were just seconds behind, at 20 minutes 10 seconds and 20 minutes 18 seconds.

However, transgender athlete Sian Longthorpe smashed the record by more than a minute with a time of 18 minutes and 53 seconds in Porthcawl, South Wales, in the United Kingdom.

Longthorpe, a 45-year-old who appears to have previously gone by the name Simon, was living as a married man as recently as four years prior to the race.

Former record holder Roberts, who is a prison officer, recently competed on the same course but in the women's 50-55 age group. Roberts expressed discontent with the transgender runner after learning her record had been broken.

"I only realized the record had still been mine when my friend told me last night. She then went on to tell me that it had been broken, by a trans athlete," Roberts explained. "I felt robbed, to be honest. If my record has been beaten by a natural-born female runner, I would have accepted that as fair and square," she continued.

"I am very competitive, but I would've thought it was fair enough because all records are there to be broken and mine is no different. Except this is different because my record has been broken by someone who was not born as a woman. That does not seem fair," the prison officer added.

\u201cSi\u00e2n Longthorpe, 43 ans, l'athl\u00e8te transgenre qui a bris\u00e9 le record f\u00e9minin du Porthcawl Parkrun d'une minute et 13 secondes \u00e9tait un homme mari\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0 il y a quatre ans\nhttps://t.co/NV2sCkYVct\u201d
— Claire L. Royaliste L\u00e9gitimiste - Compte secours (@Claire L. Royaliste L\u00e9gitimiste - Compte secours) 1684945296

Roberts said she is still unsure whether she will complain, however, due to not wanting to be perceived as a poor loser.

"My friends have told me I must complain to Parkrun, but I'm not sure yet whether or not I will," she stated. "Parkrun is supposed to be about inclusivity, and I don't want people thinking I'm having a moan just because I lost my record."

Roberts said she once complained because a man used his wife's barcode to register his race time, and his result was overturned.

"When I complained, the officials put it right. Somehow, I don't think that will happen this time," she predicted.

\u201cA company sponsors a race for women and congratulates the fastest \u201cfemale\u201d who is actually a man. How can we trust their boast about the number of females they have promoted to partner? @ByMichelmores #parkrun #sianlongthorpe #SaveWomensSports\u201d
— Mary Maloney's Bell (@Mary Maloney's Bell) 1684958928

Longthorpe appears to have been featured in a 2020 profile on an Instagram page promoting runners. In the profile, Longthorpe explains the three factors that played into him believing he was a woman.

"One was the birth of my son. This was a hugely stressful time and I retreated more into this world I had built, Siân’s world, where life was rosier," Simon explained. "My wife knew about it and would reluctantly leave me alone to go there. The second was when my marriage broke down. I had more time to be Siân, and I embraced it. Even to do a mundane task, like housework, I would get made up and present as Siân as I felt more comfortable."

The third moment, as Longthorpe described it, was when a close friend committed suicide.

Parkrun, the race organizer, told the Daily Mail that the organization believes it would not be "appropriate or practical" to request proof of gender or "adjudicate the validity of a person's gender identity."

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Pro-life activist claims the purpose of the FBI's visit to her mother was to 'intimidate,' part of a 'coordinated onslaught'



A pair of FBI agents stopped by the childhood home of a pro-life activist on April 18. They told the woman who answered the door that they were looking to speak to her daughter, who had long since moved from Virginia to Washington, D.C., and made no secret of having done so.

While the bureau's competence has come into question again in recent weeks, Elise Ketch thinks the FBI's efforts to darken her mother's doorstep in Virginia were not only a calculated move rather than misstep, but an effort to intimidate — an effort Ketch underscores has failed.

What's the background?

The Daily Signal reported that Ketch is a member of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, a leftist group that manages some rare consistency in its discussion of victimhood, acknowledging that there may be no group today more oppressed than the unborn.

According to its website, PAAU is "committed to the progressive feminist values of equality, non-violence, and nondiscrimination through an anti-capitalist lens. ... We're committed to unparalleled bravery and to always challenging the oppressive status quo. We're committed to ending elective abortion to matter how long it takes."

Ketch, 26, joined PAAU in December 2022 — just months after Catholic pro-life activist Matt Houck had his home besieged by 25 FBI agents and was dragged out at gunpoint in front of his family for having allegedly shoved an individual in front of an abortion clinic.

'Intimidation' with a smile

FBI agents Ashley Roberts and Kathleen Brown appeared at the Woodbridge, Virginia, home belonging to the activist's mother, Tracy Ketch, on April 18, which just happened to be one day after the pro-abortion terror group "Jane's Revenge" attacked a pregnancy center in Bowling Green, Ohio.

"We are both with the FBI," said the agent who identified herself as Roberts. "We just need to speak with her regarding some information that was sent to us."

Tracy Ketch notified the agents that her daughter no longer lived with her.

The agents asked for the activist's phone number and new address, adding, "She's not in any trouble. We just have some information we need to ask her about."

"We would tell you all the information because, like I said, she’s not in any trouble, but just out of respect for her, we’d like to speak with her first," added Roberts. "It's nothing."

\u201cNEW: FBI agents Ashley Roberts and Kathleen Brown showed up at the childhood home of pro-life activist Elise Ketch. The agents asked to speak with Ketch, who is a member of @PAAUNOW. \n\nHere's the Ring security camera footage, first obtained by @Dailysignal:\u201d
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@Mary Margaret Olohan) 1684349524

In a second video taken by the doorbell camera, Tracy Ketch can be heard speaking to her daughter over the phone, indicating that two FBI agents are at the front door.

"FBI agents ... don't tell them anything," responded Elise Ketch.

\u201cElise's mom called her, the footage shows. \n\n"I have two FBI agents at the door." \n\n"FBI agents?? Mom, don't tell them anything."\u201d
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@Mary Margaret Olohan) 1684349524

Ketch suggested to the Daily Signal that she had "no idea what information the FBI was sent" that would prompt them to reach out to her, but suspected that they might be on a fact-finding mission to build a case against her PAAU colleague Lauren Handy, indicted under the FACE Act.

Around the time of her induction into the group in December, some of her fellow PAAU members were facing jail time for having allegedly violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 2019.

The act bars activists from exercising their First Amendment rights near the entrances of abortion clinics and pro-life pregnancy centers alike, but Heritage suggested that the DOJ appears keen to primarily tackle perceived obstacles to women offing their young.

While Ketch reckons she had not run afoul of the act, she told the Daily Signal she had participated in PAAU's "Pink Rose Rescues," where activists handed out pink roses in the waiting rooms of abortion clinics, then left upon being informed that they were trespassing. The roses contained information about emergency pregnancy centers

Alternatively, Ketch said, "It’s also possible that they see me as a threat due to my pro-life activism and intended to investigate me. ... I believe the FBI’s true motive behind their visit to my parents’ home was to intimidate me and my team."

After mulling it over further, Ketch recently told Fox News Digital, "I think my mom's house was specifically targeted because I feel like they should … if they're really an intelligence agency, they should have known by now that I moved and that I'm living here in Washington, D.C. That's not a secret."

"So it only makes sense to me that they went to my mom's house just to intimidate my family and to intimidate me. It really does," said Ketch. "At the end of the day, it feels like a threat, but at the same time, like an empty one."

Ketch believes that pro-lifers, her group in particular, present a challenge to "institutional and corporate power, especially because the abortion industrial complex is a major pillar of power. It's the status quo. The government and our country, frankly, doesn't know how to run without child killing. So here we are. They really don't want us to topple that pillar for them. We're definitely a threat to the government."

Following the Dobbs ruling, which saw Roe v. Wade overturned, big businesses rushed to ensure that their female employees had what they needed in the way of abortion access to remain childless and productive.

The Biden administration and Democrats in Washington have similarly fought to foist abortion on red and blue states alike.

Extra to ostensibly letting hundreds of pro-abortion terror attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers, activists, and churches go unanswered or off easy, the FBI and Justice Department under President Joe Biden have taken an active role in advancing the cause of pro-abortion radicals in the United States.

The DOJ announced the establishment of the Reproductive Rights Task Force in July 2022. This task force's work has included centralizing "information about the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act," reported the Washington Examiner.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who helms this task force, made her bias well known in December, claiming that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was "a devastating blow to women throughout the country, taking away the constitutional right to abortion and increasing the urgency of our work, including enforcement of the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services."

Gupta went so far as to intimate that pro-lifers and the challenges they present to the abortion status quo are "insidious," comparing the pro-life cause to slavery and Jim Crow.

Referencing FBI whistleblower accounts on Thursday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) noted, "If you're a parent attending a school board meeting; if you're a pro-lifer praying at a clinic, or you're a Catholic simply going to Mass, you are a target of the government, a target of the FBI."

Terrisa Bukovinac, the founder of PAAU, appears to agree.

Bukovinac told the Daily Signal, "The feds are desperate to find a reason to shut us down and they’re not above coming to our parents’ homes to try to find what they’re looking for.

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