Who can resist a trusting little baby’s helpless gaze? Who can miss the message with it: “Did you know? Your baby’s heart starts beating at 21 days. Is abortion really an option? Get the facts; get help.”

The picture and message appear on some of the latest outdoor ads from 40 Million and Counting. Like the babies it’s trying to save, this grassroots campaign is itself young and small, but it is already making some impact in parts of Los Angeles and San Diego.

“We’re trying to educate the public to show them going through an abortion is more than what the people you’re paying $300 for it are telling you,” explained one of 40 Million and Counting’s staff members. “This is a living being, a...READ MORE

What do you get when you team up two pro-lifers, one a former Hollywood filmmaker and the other a Florida songwriter? You get a professional, quality music video that hopes to become the anthem for the unborn.

The song is I Am the Unborn, and the makers chose to premiere it here at the Register.

The filmmaker is Christian Peschken, who has a list of television and film credits to his name — stretching from major shows in his native Germany clear to Hollywood, where he worked with the likes of Martin Sheen. Peschken now focuses his producing/filmmaking talents almost exclusively on Catholic subjects.

The songwriter is Barry David Butler, who wrote a heartfelt song from the point of view...READ MORE

As the nation’s attention turns to the Palmetto State for this Saturday’s primary, I’d like to call your attention to a series that Register correspondent Charlotte Hays has done.

The Register wanted to give Catholic voters as best a picture as possible of all the candidates vying for president in 2012 so that they could make informed choices when they go into the voting booth.

We’ve tried to focus on the candidates’ stands and, where applicable, voting records on life issues (abortion, embryonic stem-cell research), marriage issues (same-sex “marriage”) and economic issues — the latter because we believe it’s important to be good stewards of the gifts God has given us and support...READ MORE

The Family Rosary apostolate has launched its 2012 “Try Prayer! It Works!” contest and is gearing up for a banner year of entries.

For this 17th national contest, Family Rosary is again asking children and teens from all over the country to express their faith through their art, poetry and prose, with a particular theme.

The contest is open to all students in grades K through 12 from Catholic schools, parishes, home schooling, religious-education classes and other Catholic organizations. Depending on the final tally, there is a potential of a total of 36 awards: first, second and third place at each grade level.

This annual national competition regularly draws more than 3,000 entries.

Nothing says “Christmas” more clearly at the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Conn., than its annual crèche exhibit.

In years past, we’ve marveled at crèches from the Vatican, Italy, Europe, Central and South America and Asia.

The seventh-annual exhibit takes visitors to Africa in “Christmas Across Africa.”

More than a dozen countries are represented in this show, where each Nativity scene has been adapted to each country or local culture and customs.

Most of the crèches have European influences. The reason is simple: European countries colonized Africa, especially in the 19th century. Even before that, European missionaries brought Christianity to many places on the African...READ MORE

For the ninth year in a row, the Liberty Counsel, a pro-life, pro-family litigation group based in Florida and Washington, is releasing its annual “Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign.”

“We’ve seen a major shift in the last several years, and now the ‘Nice’ side outnumbers the ‘Naughty’ side,” said Matthew Staver, Liberty Counsel’s founder and chairman. “For just one example, CVS was historically on the ‘Naughty’ side, but now it’s come over on the ‘Nice’ side.”

Staver noted a major shift came in 2006. In 2005, Walmart “forbade employees even returning ‘Merry Christmas’ when customers initiated (saying) ‘Merry Christmas.’ And they called their trees ‘holiday trees.’ When we pointed that out...READ MORE

Father Robert Barron’s Catholicism series is already being hailed as a major documentary in this country. EWTN is airing six parts of the series, and more than 100 PBS stations across the country, from New York to Los Angeles, are airing four parts of the 10-part series.

Now Catholicism will be broadcast in Germany.

Nanette Noffsinger, the project’s and Father Barron’s public-relations representative, told me the release dates for the German edition haven’t been set yet, but German producer and filmmaker Christian Peschken is busy helping Father Barron’s ministry, Word on Fire, get Catholicism ready for the German people.

Peschken has been doing a lot of German-language adaptations of...READ MORE

Here we are at another Thanksgiving, that most American of feast days. For so many of us, it has come to mean food, family and football.

Oh, and phenomenal savings — the next day, anyway.

We are reminded to thank God for our many blessings. And then we indulge.

I’ve never really thought about it much, but Archbishop Timothy Dolan made a lot of sense the other day when he pointed to the basic thing for which we must be grateful: the religious liberty we enjoy in this country, settled in large part by those whose religious freedom had been curtailed in the Old World.

In speaking of that “first freedom,” the archbishop of New York found himself in an interesting setting. He had just...READ MORE