As many of you know, the pro-life movie “Bella” was released this past weekend in the U.S. What you might not know is that it finished in second place in box office sales, a wonderful achievement by any standards.  Predictably, the critics were not amused.  64% of them gave Bella a thumbs down, despite it winning numerous awards including the People’s Choice award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

These days, of course, any thumbs down by the critics really translates into a thumbs up for the rest of us. It looks like it’s going to be another “Passion” reaction from these secularists at Bella’s success.  The amusing thing to me is, of course, the stunned reaction from these critics – as if they think everyone thinks like them.  Well, newsflash for them:  the public doesn’t.  And as much as they want to consider it a dead and buried issue, abortion is never going to be settled in favour of the pro-aborts’ wishes. Much to their chagrin, the pro-life movement is garnering momentum and now we have a movie to bust into their little silver screen club.

But we cannot let the momentum end.  Bella needs more distribution in the U.S. and when it comes to Canada in the near future, we need to get on the horse and guidyup! That means you need to put pressure on the movie theatres to bring the film to your own city. You can learn more the film and about the details on how you can help by visiting the the film’s official website here:

http://www.bellathemovie.com

To learn more about the movie and the wonderful, inspiring stories about its movers, you can read about it through LifeSiteNews.com’s coverage:

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jul/07072609.html
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/aug/07083105.html
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/oct/07102408.html
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/oct/07102409.html

For everyone in Ottawa, we need to get organized and be ready to show the theatres here that we mean business. Practically speaking, we need people to commit to helping to promote this movie in their families, churches, associations and other organizations. It’s very simple and I have offered Bella’s promotion team to co-ordinate events here in Ottawa. If you’re interested – and I have absolutely no idea why you wouldn’t be – please email me to get started.

Bella is not a second rate religious or cheesy pro-life movie. It’s first rate and hits the spot BIG TIME. It’s exactly the shot in the arm that we need. Let’s not drop the ball on this. To impact the culture at large in a significant way, we need to be on the big screen. That’s where a large part of this war is won and lost.

There is a side story to this movie and it concerns the actors and producers who moved when God asked them to move. Their own conversions and heroic struggles in bringing this movie into production could be a movie on its own, the drama is so thick. If we want to see a real change in this culture, we have to do the same thing. And here is our golden opportunity. If this thing takes off, it will spawn other opportunities for Catholic film makers which, in turn, could have a reverberating and revolutionary effect on the motion picture industry. I have a film-maker friend who once worked with the big studios in Hollywood, and left, in part, because of the filth there. After reading a rough transcript of his own special effect dream project, I thought to myself “if we could ever get this to the Screen, we’d evangelize millions and we’d make buzzillions of dollars to start our own bank!” It’s that good. But first things, first.  We need to support “Bella” in the hopes that we can kindle a movie film industry that produces “subtle” Christian messsages but with a big stick.

It’s time to start forging that big stick.

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SOCON OR BUST POSTINGS: 

Bella Leaves Pro-Aborts in the Dust

Bella Continues Its Meteoric Rise

Bella Coming to Canada & Ottawa

BELLA IS BELLISSIMA (Movie Review)

Bella Breaks Through To The Heart

Bella10Campaign.com: Pre-order sales of Bella DVD Make it #1 Selling Romantic Movie on Amazon.com Over Weekend

I have been enjoying some much needed rest and relaxation with my family.  I sure did miss my wife and kids during the election, and it’s good to be back enjoying their company.  I looked at my eldest yesterday and I noticed that this little girl is actually quite tall and growing up really quickly. She’ll be a teenager before I know it and then….I don’t want to think about it.  So we played Monopoly tonight and had a few laughs.  Dad doesn’t take any prisoners when he’s rolling the dice in Monopoly.  My Issy gets a kick out of the personna I take on when I play board games with her. I think she’ll look back fondly on these times.  After all, for kids, family life is about acting on and keeping up traditions. That is what helps keep us whole, to a large extent.

It kind of makes you focus on every minute with them because, as the good book says,  you’re here for a short time only.  I was reading an article in Love One Another magazine yesterday about this nineteenth century mystic Lebanese saint whose body continues to ooze holy oil to this very day.  Before he died, he summed up the judgement very succinctly: in the end you will be judged on how much you loved.  And that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? Of course, the Christian understanding of love is what he is talking about, not the counterfeit that poses as the genuine article in our time.

I’ve also noticed that getting away from blogging has profited my sense of balance.  I am sure I will lose it again, once I get back on the horse, but it is nice to enjoy this rest just the same.  Still, for me, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get rid of the itch. I’m already reaching for the holster….

 :)

During my campaign, I featured a number of pro-life videos.

I found the first two music videos very moving, and needless to say, extremely effective. The third video, although done by amateurs, is also effective and disturbing:

An American colleague and I are currently putting the finishing touches on our own music video which we were planning to release during the campaign. Unfortunately, due to unforseen circumstances, time did not permit it.

Should be ready in a week or so. Stay tuned. 

In the 2007 Ontario Provincial election, our director, John Pacheco, ran for Family Coalition Party of Ontario. He earned 651 votes (1.3% of the popular vote) in Ottawa West Nepean. John’s focus in the campaign was to educate and bring awareness to the plight of the unborn child. He did this primarily through the use of the campaign signs. (07.10)

Election Log | Of Human Life

I know it is customary to say that the electorate is “always right”, but I don’t believe that so I am not going to say it. Instead, I will say that the electorate is apathetic to politics so much so that the Liberal Party will be ruling us again with about 20% electoral support. Pathetic. As for my campaign, I always maintained that it would be about educating people about the humanity of the unborn child. 20weeks and a picture. Boom. For 30 days, I had about 40 of these signs scattered throughout Ottawa West Nepean. Would that cause people to vote for me? Not likely. Would it cause people to reflect on abortion? Definitely. Would it change perspectives? Probably. Did it cause controversy? Certainly. Of course the media was not particularly interested in reporting anything about it because they couldn’t spin it. If they were to show those signs in the papers or on TV, the game and match would be over. How do you argue for abortion when such a picture would make you look like a barbarian? So they did what reporters generally do when they cannot spin: they ignore. In fact, they ignored FCP candidates right across this province and that is why the Party failed to do better. In ridings where the FCP had more prominence and manpower, the candidates did much better. Next month, just like the election in 2003, people will forget the issues, forget the candidates, and forget almost everything about this election. In Ottawa West Nepean, they might remember it was the issue of faith-based funding for education which sank the Tories, but that’s about it, if that. But they won’t forget those signs or the message they communicated. On that score, I win hands down over all the other candidates. Mission accomplished. Thank you Mr. McGuinty for financing my pro-life campaign….By the way, all of you who send your kids to the separate school system and voted for Dalton McGuinty, you can probably kiss the separate school system good bye. I give it 5 years, if that.  – John Pacheco

OTTAWA WEST NEPEAN RESULTS:

• Life Chain 2007: This past Sunday was Life Chain. According to our area-coordinator, it was the biggest turnout in a few years. We got about 140 people out to silently hold up a sign about abortion. I told her that it was indeed encouraging, but, frankly, it’s a disgrace considering that we have hundreds if not thousands of people who are within our geographic territory and should be there. Next year, we are going to come up with a plan to get the pew warmers to hit the streets and blow the lid off of the whole sham that is abortion.

Pictured above: Some participants in the 2007 Life Chain and yours truly with eldest daughter, Clarissa