First They Came for the Catholic, But I Wasn't a Catholic...

A well-known pro-life author, public speaker, and sidewalk counselor was arrested in front of his children after the Department of Justice ordered a SWAT raid on his house for alleged violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. 

Mark Houck, a devout Catholic and a father of seven, drove two hours to Philadelphia every Wednesday to speak outside of abortion clinics for six to eight hours at a time, according to his wife Ryan-Marie Houck. 

There was an altercation, a suit was filed, the claim was thrown out of court---then the Biden administration with their SWAT team came for the devout Catholic.

I know---many of you who read this are not Catholics. Some are. But all of us should be informed of what happened next. And we should care.

Be informed, not misled.

It was German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller who penned the now famous words after World War II:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out---because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--- because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me---and there was no one left to speak for me."

 They came for the Catholic...

A well-known pro-life author and sidewalk counselor was arrested in front of his children after the Department of Justice ordered a SWAT raid on his house for alleged violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. 

Mark Houck, a father of seven, drove two hours to Philadelphia every Wednesday to speak outside of abortion clinics for six to eight hours at a time, his wife Ryan-Marie Houck, told the press. 

Houck’s wife told Catholic News Agency that a “SWAT team of about 25 came to my house with about 15 vehicles and started pounding on our door” on Friday to arrest her husband after he allegedly physically assaulted a 72-year-old Planned Parenthood clinic escort in October 2021.

Lifesite News has led in telling this story and getting it out to the public.

Lifesite says, "Ryan-Marie, who is a homeschooling mother, described how the SWAT team of 25 to 30 FBI agents swarmed their property with around 15 vehicles at 7:05 a.m. this morning. Having quickly surrounded the house with rifles in firing position, “they started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it.”

They continue:

Before opening the door, she explained, her husband tried to calm them, saying, “‘Please, I’m going to open the door, but, please, my children are in the home. I have seven babies in the house.’ But they just kept pounding and screaming,” she said.

When he opened the door, “they had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house,” Ryan-Marie described.

When they came in, they ordered the kids to stay upstairs. “Our staircase is open, so [the kids] were all at the top of the stairs which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down.”

“The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic,” she explained.

After asking them why they were at the house, the agents said they were there to arrest Mark. When Ryan-Marie asked for their warrant, “they said that they were going to take him whether they had a warrant or not.”

When Ryan-Marie protested, saying that is kidnapping, “you can’t just come to a person’s house and kidnap them at gunpoint,” they agreed to get the warrant for her from one of their vehicles.

At this point, Mark asked her to get him a sweatshirt and his rosaries, but when she returned, they already had loaded him into a vehicle.

They provided the first page of the warrant and said they were taking him to “the federal building in downtown Philadelphia.”

“After they had taken Mark, and the kids were all screaming that he was their best friend, the [FBI agents on her porch] kind of softened a bit. I think they realized what was happening. Or maybe they actually looked at the warrant,” Ryan-Marie explained. “They looked pretty ashamed at what had just happened.”

What had just happened?

The warrant charged Mark with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, due to a claimed “ATTACK OF A PATIENT ESCORT.”

Ryan-Marie stated this charge comes from an incident that had already been thrown out of the District Court in Philadelphia but was somehow picked up by Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice.

On several occasions when Mark went to sidewalk counsel last year, he took his eldest son, who was only 12 at the time. She said for “weeks and weeks,” a “pro-abortion protester” would speak to the boy saying “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things,” such as “you’re dad’s a fag,” and other statements that were too vulgar for her to mention.

Repeatedly, Mark would tell this pro-abortion man that he did not have permission to speak to his son and to please refrain from doing so. And “he kept doing it and kind of came into [the son’s] personal space” obscenely ridiculing his father. At this point, “Mark shoved him away from his child, and the guy fell back.”

“He didn’t have any injuries or anything, but he tried to sue Mark,” and the case was thrown out of court in the early summer.

We'll see where this case eventually goes.

They are not only coming for the Catholics.

LifeSite notes, "Since the Biden administration has taken power in January 2021, Garland’s Department of Justice and the FBI have committed dozens of SWAT team raids that have been characterized as a political “weaponization” of the federal agencies against pro-lifers, Trump supporters, conservative Christians, and medical freedom advocates."

For example, in contrast to left-wing rioters who caused enormous damage in cities across the nation in 2020 and the vandals who have attacked dozens of pro-life centers this year with little or no legal ramifications, the Department of Justice implemented the harshest of consequences for those they identified as having anything to do with the disturbance at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. These actions have included early morning SWAT team arrests, ransacked homes, confiscation of property, indefinite pre-trial solitary confinement without bail in a dedicated D.C. prison, significant physical abuse, and the violation of the Constitutional right to a speedy trial.

In March, the FBI rounded up 10 pro-life activists, including Joan Andrews Bell, with SWAT team raids that serve to intimidate and humiliate the accused through an exercise of excessive force.

A surfaced video of one of these raids shows armed agents holding pro-lifers at gunpoint and ordering them to put their hands up, drop to their knees and scoot backward out their front door in the middle of the night. The pro-lifers are respectful and compliant throughout.

After the FBI’s unprecedented August 8 raid on President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called it “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents.”

Selective raids and arrests.

Fox News reports that " Not a single arrest has been made in the more than a dozen attacks on pro-life organizations across the country claimed by left-wing pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge."

Fox says, "Jane’s Revenge has claimed responsibility for at least 18 arson and vandalism attacks on crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) and other faith-based organizations throughout the U.S. since the May 2 leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade."

Although Jane's Revenge has claimed responsibility, there are, according to Fox, no arrests in these multiple acts of arson and defacing.

In Washington State, the investigation is "still open" regarding the defacing of Saint Michael Parish in Olympia. Same regarding the "Next Step Pregnancy Services" in Lynwood, WA. The same story regarding the Dove Medical Center in Eugene, Oregon. While a few were briefly arrested for disorderly conduct, none were arrested for spray painting "ABORTION IS HEALTHCARE" on the buildings. The same story in Vancouver, WA. The "Options360 Women's Clinic"---a Christian facility, was defaced and spray painted on June 8---still no arrests. It's "being investigated," they claim.

Options360, an evangelical pregnancy crisis center in Vancouver, WA, was hit with some red paint last night and had “Jane’s Revenge” written on the front of the building. pic.twitter.com/YcxvG5pF49

— alissa azar (@AlissaAzar) June 9, 2022

Takeaway

There is a growing bias toward biblical Christianity and its teachings. It is particularly directed, I believe, toward those Christians who take a stand for Life. And for biblical teaching on human sexuality and the institution of marriage.

I take no joy in observing that indeed it appears "they are coming for us."

Certainly, there must be a political angle, otherwise, why did the SWAT team wait from last summer to just a few weeks before the mid-term election to take action against Mark Houck?

It is time to take a stand.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful. Be Bold.