I am a huge and avid supporter of adoption. One of my mom’s best friends just adopted two girls, ages 9 & 7, that I had the privilege to meet a few weekends ago. And now that I am grown up and out of the house, my mother is considering starting the process to become a foster parent. I hope to become an adoptive parent myself one day….

Some pics of the new Kelly family:

BTW, 40 Days For Life begins next week! Check the website for your local movement.

If you are unaware of the current controversy surrounding Ms. Prejean, check out this video:

I can’t help but be incredibly proud of the way she has handled herself, especially after being called a “dumb b—-” and a “c—” by the childish and misogynistic blogger Perez Hilton.   She truly is pure class. 

Ladies, take note…

Jes talks about her faith, speaking to kids about chastity, and the upcoming fashion show I’ve talked about previously on this blog.

Some snippits:

TR: Your recent focus has been on giving talks to young people about chastity and modesty. What made you start doing that?

Jessica Rey: I despise public speaking, and I know it’s so strange because I’m an actress. But there’s a difference. When you’re acting, it’s somebody else’s words and you’re playing another character. But when you give talks, it’s you yourself…so it is quite frightening. I didn’t want to do it. A lot of my priest friends kept asking me to do it, and I kept saying, “No, no.”

One day my friends went to this Christmas party and I was sick. At the Christmas party, they had these saint’s cards. They have them upside down and they pick one, and you’re supposed to pray to that saint for the rest of the year. I couldn’t go to the party so my friend said, “I’ll get you a card.” So she got me one, she gets home, and I say, “Who’d I get?” She looked at it and it was St. Bernardine of Siena – and I had no idea who that was at the time. I went and looked him up on the Internet and he’s the patron saint of public speaking (laughs). So I said, “Fine God, fine!” and I gave in and started doing it.

TR: Did those topics interest you throughout your life or did you learn about them the hard way by doing the opposite for a while?

Jessica Rey: I wasn’t doing the opposite to an extreme but I definitely didn’t understand fully chastity and definitely not modesty, especially having been in Hollywood for a while. I had a stylist who would dress me in these crazy outfits and I would walk down the red carpet thinking I was all that. I really wasn’t (laughs). So thankfully I learned about it fully before I really got into some bad stuff. But I grew up Catholic and always kind of knew. I just didn’t fully understand it. I learned about it from some people that I met in Hollywood. We actually had a group called “Holywood” and we would do a lot of formation, lots of different talks, Theology of the Body type stuff. So that’s how I fully learned about it.

TR: How do you make the concepts of chastity and modesty appealing to young people when you’ve got so many cultural forces promoting the opposite?

Jessica Rey: I think it’s really important that the people who give these talks are themselves younger and…they’re hipper and with the times. You know, (kids are) not really going to listen to it if it’s from their parents. Most kids don’t, sadly, so it does help that I’m younger, it helps that I’ve been on TV and kids think that’s really cool…And it’s crazy because I was just a Power Ranger (laughs)! I’m not an a-list celebrity that has been in a ton of blockbuster films. But they still think it’s cool that someone in Hollywood is living this life.

TR: So what should churches be doing better to reach out to young people?

Jessica Rey: My friends and I are actually starting – and I know that these exist throughout the country – but we’re going to be starting up some fashion shows here in Southern California. And the fashion show again is this cool thing that the girls want to be a part of. But it’s (also) going to be six weeks of formation on what it means to be a woman, how a man should treat you, we’re going to talk about courtship, modesty and dress, and just all of (those things) they’re not really getting.

Read the rest here.

A student that has made national headlines exposing wrong-doing at abortion clinics, is the recipient of its 2008 Person of the Year Malachi Award.

“Lila Rose exemplifies the new wave of pro-life activism and best reflects Operation Rescue’s own efforts to expose illegal conduct in our nation’s abortion mills,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Her work has helped raise public awareness of the seedy underbelly of the abortion industry and has helped to launch criminal investigations that we pray will eventually hold out-of-control abortionists accountable for their criminal acts.”

Lila Rose is the president of Live Action Films and has released a number of undercover sting videos of Planned Parenthood employees coaching girls to cover up for men who are committing statutory rape.

Each year Operation Rescue presents the Malachi Award to pro-life activists who are impacting the nation for the cause of life. The award is named after an aborted baby that was discovered in an abortion clinic dumpster, whose image has been used nationally to bring attention to the desperate plight of the pre-born.

Previous recipients include Dr. Johnny Hunter of LEARN, who is exposing the devastating effects of abortion on the African-American community, Leslee Unruh, who spearheaded efforts to ban abortion in South Dakota, and Phill Kline, the Kansas prosecutor whose abortion investigations have led to 107 criminal charges against Planned Parenthood. 

Source

Photo Credit

The oh so very lovely Catholic singer and songwriter Marie Miller took some time out of her busy schedule to talk with us here at Modestia: 

When did you start playing music? Who or what would you say are your musical influences?

Marie:  My musical journey is a little scattered, but I started singing when I was about eight or nine, and I began playing mandolin when I was eleven. I didn’t pick up the guitar until I was about thirteen, which was when I started songwriting. I feel like I have so many musical influences, but big ones for me are: Nickel Creek, Cat Stevens, Jaci Velasquez, John Mayer, Point Of Grace, Coldplay, and my DAD! My dad’s a a great musician.

Your music has great Catholic undertones. What made you decide to make more religiously inspired songs rather than become a secular artist?

Thanks for talking with us Marie!

I recommend you buy this book….NOW. I read it over the course of two days, and just couldn’t put it down. I was ecstatic when I was given the rights to the property (meaning given permission to write the movie) and there is a production company out here in LA currently developing a film. The CEO of the company is alumni from my film school, and I’m hoping I can show him my script.  

In addition to being A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, she’s drop dead gorgeous, no?

You may ask, what does it mean to be an “Official Modestia Chick?” #1 it means you love God, #2 it means you serve Him by loving others!

She’s…just…so…adorable…