A Pastor’s Reflections was created in 2015 by Reverend W. Ross Blackburn, who has been a pastor in the Anglican Church in North America for 20 years, and a longtime contributor to the Human Life Review. It was then expanded to Pastoral Reflections, with contributions from a variety of clerics and religious who write on abortion and other grave moral transgressions that not only hurt individuals but deform the culture and threaten religious liberty. We are expanding again, this time to include the lay faithful, in our new feature Faithful Reflections. We look forward to continued wisdom from our pastors as well as thoughtful reflections from those for whom faith is foundational. 

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Articles

Pastoral Reflection for Lent 2025

  On the first Sunday in Lent this year, many churches will read St. Luke’s account of our Lord’s forty days’ temptations in the wilderness, which is preceded by a genealogy of Jesus (Lk. 3:23-38). St. Matthew’s Gospel has a genealogy too...
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Saved But Not Yet Safe

  I recently read Carmen Joy Imes’s Bearing God’s Name, an accessible, albeit somewhat academic meditation on the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai. This is just my sort of thing, both meditative and intellectual, biblical and gentle. During...
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Pro-life Integrity

    Persuasive people are logical, passionate—and credible. And undergirding credibility is the virtue of integrity. If prolifers want to win people over to the pro-life cause, we should be in the habit of building and repairing our...
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Makers of Men

    You may have heard that President Trump recently pardoned several prolifers who were arrested and jailed for peacefully praying/protesting at abortion clinics. Kayleigh McEnany of Fox News interviewed three of them: Paulette Harlow...
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The Church’s Countercultural Mary

    Women in leadership roles are to some degree immune from public criticism. Often, those who find female leaders lacking tend to restrict their observations to private communication. Afraid of being labeled “sexist,” they pretty...
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When a Monk Dies

    In my last reflection here, I argued against euthanasia and physician assisted suicide—medically available options in an increasing number of countries, and states in the U.S. But as with many other unethical practices, simply...
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“May I interrupt you?” “Go right ahead.”

  Someone once remarked that life is a series of interruptions. That certainly is the case for the pastor of a parish in the city that never sleeps! Yet this description of day-to-day life really applies to just about everyone. We all have...
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Homily for Epiphany

  At the time of our Lord’s birth, Jews were present in most major cities throughout the known world. This was called the “Diaspora,” which the story of Pentecost refers to in the Book of Acts (2:1-11), where we read that, “Staying in...
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God Adopts Little Girls Too

      In the ancient world, baby girls were in effect disposable. Women were necessary to produce the next generation, but they could not inherit, fight in wars, or carry the family name, so girls were not generally seen as worthy of...
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