William Lane Craig, Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Wilson, Lee Strobel discusses if the God of Christianity exists and if it matters March, 2009 at the Christian Book Expo.
Christian Book Expo 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
YouTube censors audio on Democracy Now! newsreel
YouTube silenced the audio today on a newsreel show from Democracy Now! claiming infringement of Warner Bros copyright:
.jpg of screenshot showing date/time/details of YouTube censorship:
.jpg of screenshot showing date/time/details of YouTube censorship:
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
"Transgression against the sacred nature of the Eucharist"
I've previously posted about the continuing controversy between my dear Bishop Frank Dewane and the group of Catholics comprising the SW Florida chapter of the Voice of the Faithful. I have many good friends in the chapter, and have greatly enjoyed their educational programs over the past six years. Unfortunately, the problems that they are experiencing in living their faith in good conscience is again being sorely tried:
----- Original Message -----
----- Original Message -----
From: VOTFofSWFL@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 6:30 AMSubject: IMMEDIATE E-MAIL FOR VOTF
VOICE OF THE FAITHFUL
OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA
HAS BEEN DENIED
THE CHURCH
THE MASS
THE EUCHARIST
Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church will not be the site for VOTF of SWFL Seventh Annual Mass. The reason given by the pastor is that the presence of the VOTF of SWFL may be a transgression against the sacred nature of the Eucharist.
Fr. Thomas Glackin, former pastor of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, will celebrate the Mass for the seventh time.
The VOTF of SWFL Mass and Eucharist will be celebrated in
Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church
1225 Piper Blvd.
Naples, FL
March 26, 2009
3:00 PM
Thursday, March 5, 2009
DOV calls for Justice for Farmworkers, End to Slavery
The Peace and Justice Office of the Diocese of Venice in Florida asks that the following petition be circulated throughout Florida and delivered to their offices by Tuesday, March 10th:
Dear Governor Crist,
In December of last year, federal prosecutors from the Department of Justice wrapped up yet another farm labor slavery case in Florida, a case the Chief Assistant US Attorney called “one of Southwest Florida!s "biggest and ugliest slavery cases ever,!” according to the Ft. Myers News-Press. I am writing today to demand that you use every resource at your command to ensure that it be the last slavery case ever in Florida!s fields.
This latest case – in which, according to court documents, workers were chained to poles, locked inside trucks, beaten, and robbed of their pay – was the seventh such case in just over a decade. Indeed, so shameful is Florida!s record of farm labor abuse that another federal prosecutor was prompted to call the state “ground zero for modern-day slavery” in the pages of the New Yorker magazine. Yet, when a reporter called your office for a comment on the most recent case, you declined to comment and instead passed the call off to the spokesperson for Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Terrence McElroy, who gave the impression that one slavery case per year is somehow no cause for alarm. Given an opportunity to clarify his statement, Mr. McElroy only underscored his disregard for the victims of this most brutal of human rights violations, terming seven slavery cases in ten years, involving well over 1,000 workers, a “rarity.” His comments rightly set off a groundswell
of outraged reactions by human rights, religious, consumer, and labor organizations and leaders across the country.
Governor Crist, even a single case of slavery in the twenty-first century is too many.
As the leader of the state and the single most powerful voice for the protection of every Floridian!s fundamental human rights, you must repudiate the words of your spokesperson, and do so with no further delay. But you must do more than that. The key to ending farm labor slavery is to eliminate the degrading and inhumane working conditions faced by all Florida's farmworkers on a daily basis, as these conditions are what allow slavery to flourish.
The everyday exploitation of Florida!s farmworkers includes:
• Sub-poverty wages - Tomato pickers make, on average, only $10,000/year;
• No raise in nearly 30 years - Pickers are paid virtually the same per bucket piece rate (roughly 45 cents per 32 lb. bucket) today as they were in 1980. At today!s rate, workers have to pick nearly 2.5 TONS of tomatoes just to earn minimum wage for a typical 10-hr day;
• Denial of fundamental labor rights - Farmworkers in Florida have no right to overtime pay, even when working 60-70 hour weeks, and no right to organize or bargain collectively.
You must do everything in your power to ensure an end to those conditions and help lay the groundwork for a future of dignified wages and humane working conditions for farmworkers.
Specifically, I join my voice to that of thousands of other concerned consumers of Florida produce to call upon you to:
1. Publicly condemn the existence of modern-day slavery in Florida;
2. Commit the full power of your office to immediately and comprehensively address the plague of abuse and modern-day slavery in Florida!s fields by:
a) meeting with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and federal officials who prosecute slavery, and
b) demanding that the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange renounce its opposition to implementing the agreements that socially responsible fast food and supermarket companies have signed to insure better pay and working conditions for tomato pickers, so as to eliminate the conditions that give rise to slavery.
Thank you,
Name City, State, Zip
NEVER FORGET: Your ancestors also were immigrants who organized to better their lives and the lot of their children and grandchildren:
Dear Governor Crist,
In December of last year, federal prosecutors from the Department of Justice wrapped up yet another farm labor slavery case in Florida, a case the Chief Assistant US Attorney called “one of Southwest Florida!s "biggest and ugliest slavery cases ever,!” according to the Ft. Myers News-Press. I am writing today to demand that you use every resource at your command to ensure that it be the last slavery case ever in Florida!s fields.
This latest case – in which, according to court documents, workers were chained to poles, locked inside trucks, beaten, and robbed of their pay – was the seventh such case in just over a decade. Indeed, so shameful is Florida!s record of farm labor abuse that another federal prosecutor was prompted to call the state “ground zero for modern-day slavery” in the pages of the New Yorker magazine. Yet, when a reporter called your office for a comment on the most recent case, you declined to comment and instead passed the call off to the spokesperson for Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Terrence McElroy, who gave the impression that one slavery case per year is somehow no cause for alarm. Given an opportunity to clarify his statement, Mr. McElroy only underscored his disregard for the victims of this most brutal of human rights violations, terming seven slavery cases in ten years, involving well over 1,000 workers, a “rarity.” His comments rightly set off a groundswell
of outraged reactions by human rights, religious, consumer, and labor organizations and leaders across the country.
Governor Crist, even a single case of slavery in the twenty-first century is too many.
As the leader of the state and the single most powerful voice for the protection of every Floridian!s fundamental human rights, you must repudiate the words of your spokesperson, and do so with no further delay. But you must do more than that. The key to ending farm labor slavery is to eliminate the degrading and inhumane working conditions faced by all Florida's farmworkers on a daily basis, as these conditions are what allow slavery to flourish.
The everyday exploitation of Florida!s farmworkers includes:
• Sub-poverty wages - Tomato pickers make, on average, only $10,000/year;
• No raise in nearly 30 years - Pickers are paid virtually the same per bucket piece rate (roughly 45 cents per 32 lb. bucket) today as they were in 1980. At today!s rate, workers have to pick nearly 2.5 TONS of tomatoes just to earn minimum wage for a typical 10-hr day;
• Denial of fundamental labor rights - Farmworkers in Florida have no right to overtime pay, even when working 60-70 hour weeks, and no right to organize or bargain collectively.
You must do everything in your power to ensure an end to those conditions and help lay the groundwork for a future of dignified wages and humane working conditions for farmworkers.
Specifically, I join my voice to that of thousands of other concerned consumers of Florida produce to call upon you to:
1. Publicly condemn the existence of modern-day slavery in Florida;
2. Commit the full power of your office to immediately and comprehensively address the plague of abuse and modern-day slavery in Florida!s fields by:
a) meeting with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and federal officials who prosecute slavery, and
b) demanding that the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange renounce its opposition to implementing the agreements that socially responsible fast food and supermarket companies have signed to insure better pay and working conditions for tomato pickers, so as to eliminate the conditions that give rise to slavery.
Thank you,
Name City, State, Zip
NEVER FORGET: Your ancestors also were immigrants who organized to better their lives and the lot of their children and grandchildren:
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
For Ben: One Man Much Loved
Ash Wednesday 2009
I tried to give it to Peggy, but she was adamant that she was done with trinkets. My son Stephen and I had been delivering odds and ends to various charities, and the medal must have fallen out of one of the bags.
I continued out the door to my car. Ben Simpson was re-arranging his music and stands in his car. He didn't know, but I'd left him a music 'cheat book' for the Big Band era songs for the nursing homes with one of the priests, for him to receive as a surprise. I was curious if he'd gotten it yet, & surreptitiously looked for it in the very cluttered vehicle. This was pretty normal for me, as I flit about many places and have many interests. I joke that I'm "one of St. Anthony's kids", i.e. that I'm always finding things or remembering treasures discarded.
Ben wandered in much the same way, so we were related in many ways. For example, I always sought advice from men I respected when I was unsure of decisions involving my fatherless sons, and Ben often was kind enough to help me think things through. I always hit the pancake breakfasts for clubs and charities, including the one at the airport for the Civil Air Patrol. When I mentioned going there one year, of course it was one of Ben's passions. (On his advice, I even took the boys and their friend to see if anyone might be interested in joining their youth corps.) When I was a teenager, I'd been a member of a guitar mass group, so sometimes we talked about music or discussed which hymns might appeal to which congregations. I was always honored that he asked my opinion, since he was a professional and I just a tinkerer whose memory bridged the 'old' and the 'new' Church music years.
Ben and I were also family in a couple of ways. For several years, my son had a best friend who shared his entire name... Stephen Joseph Bartholomew was the son of my body and Stephen Joseph Nathaniel, now a Marine, was the son of my heart. I used to call them "Stephen Joseph squared." Well, the Marine's aunt and the Simpsons were best friends; in fact, one couple were godparents to the son of the other. So, sometimes we talked about them.
I have six younger brothers and sisters, and through the marriages we have a very wide range of nationalities and religions. I have two Jewish nieces in a progressive community in New Jersey, Irish, Mexican, Greek, two families of Polish, English Presbyterian...So when Ben's son was "breaking his mother's heart" by marrying outside of the Roman Catholic Church, I could share how the Lord worked his will in my own family life. There's nothing to soothe a troubled soul like a factual witness!
Earlier this Wednesday morning, I'd been teasing him about playing 'follow the leader', since we'd visited just yesterday after mass at St. Agnes and here we were together again at St. John's. Now, here we were as fellow travelers again moving from the church to the parish hall. In a way I was glad to speak with him again, since Bob & Peggy were as concerned as I about how sad he was this Advent season. That is a time when everyone needs to be particularly solicitous of the widowed. Advent is harder than Christmas for so many. Ben was always so faith-filled that the change in him this year was apparent. The joy was missing, and replaced with something else that he was not yet comfortable sharing. Just before mass, Peggy had noticed that something was not quite right, but she didn't know what it was either.
"Ben, I have this little angel for the car," I said. "You see so many more people than I do. Do you think you could find someone who needs it?"
Ben took the angel from me and looked at it thoughtfully.
"It's for me...it's mine," he said. "I'm always in a hurry these days. I don't worry about it, though, since I have a very fast guardian angel."
"Benjamin," he said. "You remember who Benjamin is, don't you?"
I don't know why Ben wanted to talk about his name. By now, he should have learned not to play Bible trivia with me since I'm a history and Old Testament buff. I remember being impatient, since I was in a rush to finish many things before taking my sons to Chicago for Christmas, and all I wanted to do was to find a home for something beautiful.
"Of course I remember, Ben," I said. "He was the youngest and dearest child of Jacob, called Israel. His beloved wife, Rachel, died giving birth to him and Jacob was never happy ever after unless that boy was by his side. His full-blooded brother, Joseph, nearly killed Israel when he insisted his father allow Benjamin to be brought to him in Egypt during the famine."
Peggy now was making her way to the parish hall. I caught her satisfied smile as she watched us talking by Ben's car under the tree. She was probably relieved she escaped being saddled with another piece of paper or medal or something I'd picked up from the floor. I can be quite annoying, and no doubt she was very relieved that I was bothering someone else today!
"Benjamin", my friend Ben said as he loaded his car, "was much loved. Did I tell you that I'm going flying today?"
We talked some more, about nothing and everything as was our way together. He spoke several times about how very much he was looking forward to finishing the many things he must do--always quite a list!--before he finally would be free to fly.
Ben loved to fly. There, in his eyes each time he mentioned his plan to fly this evening, was the joy that I had missed in his manner. That was all that he really wanted to talk about. I teased him about having way too much to do and that he should have a kid chauffeur him around so that he could finish his notes and make his plans instead of having to keep his eyes on the road. Ben agreed that he was probably doing too much again, but it was obvious that being of service, being busy, and having just a few minutes in the Lord's beautiful sky was all that he wanted in life right now.
No longer worried about him for today, I left the pretty little trinket with him. Knowing Ben, it was in his pocket when whatever overtook him that night robbed us of his melodious voice.
Ben, our dear friend, please know how very much we all miss you.
This Benjamin was one man much loved, and I have no doubt that he knows now, as he rests in the arms of the Savior he so loved, just how very much.
I tried to give it to Peggy, but she was adamant that she was done with trinkets. My son Stephen and I had been delivering odds and ends to various charities, and the medal must have fallen out of one of the bags.
I continued out the door to my car. Ben Simpson was re-arranging his music and stands in his car. He didn't know, but I'd left him a music 'cheat book' for the Big Band era songs for the nursing homes with one of the priests, for him to receive as a surprise. I was curious if he'd gotten it yet, & surreptitiously looked for it in the very cluttered vehicle. This was pretty normal for me, as I flit about many places and have many interests. I joke that I'm "one of St. Anthony's kids", i.e. that I'm always finding things or remembering treasures discarded.
Ben wandered in much the same way, so we were related in many ways. For example, I always sought advice from men I respected when I was unsure of decisions involving my fatherless sons, and Ben often was kind enough to help me think things through. I always hit the pancake breakfasts for clubs and charities, including the one at the airport for the Civil Air Patrol. When I mentioned going there one year, of course it was one of Ben's passions. (On his advice, I even took the boys and their friend to see if anyone might be interested in joining their youth corps.) When I was a teenager, I'd been a member of a guitar mass group, so sometimes we talked about music or discussed which hymns might appeal to which congregations. I was always honored that he asked my opinion, since he was a professional and I just a tinkerer whose memory bridged the 'old' and the 'new' Church music years.
Ben and I were also family in a couple of ways. For several years, my son had a best friend who shared his entire name... Stephen Joseph Bartholomew was the son of my body and Stephen Joseph Nathaniel, now a Marine, was the son of my heart. I used to call them "Stephen Joseph squared." Well, the Marine's aunt and the Simpsons were best friends; in fact, one couple were godparents to the son of the other. So, sometimes we talked about them.
I have six younger brothers and sisters, and through the marriages we have a very wide range of nationalities and religions. I have two Jewish nieces in a progressive community in New Jersey, Irish, Mexican, Greek, two families of Polish, English Presbyterian...So when Ben's son was "breaking his mother's heart" by marrying outside of the Roman Catholic Church, I could share how the Lord worked his will in my own family life. There's nothing to soothe a troubled soul like a factual witness!
Earlier this Wednesday morning, I'd been teasing him about playing 'follow the leader', since we'd visited just yesterday after mass at St. Agnes and here we were together again at St. John's. Now, here we were as fellow travelers again moving from the church to the parish hall. In a way I was glad to speak with him again, since Bob & Peggy were as concerned as I about how sad he was this Advent season. That is a time when everyone needs to be particularly solicitous of the widowed. Advent is harder than Christmas for so many. Ben was always so faith-filled that the change in him this year was apparent. The joy was missing, and replaced with something else that he was not yet comfortable sharing. Just before mass, Peggy had noticed that something was not quite right, but she didn't know what it was either.
"Ben, I have this little angel for the car," I said. "You see so many more people than I do. Do you think you could find someone who needs it?"
Ben took the angel from me and looked at it thoughtfully.
"Benjamin," he said. "You remember who Benjamin is, don't you?"
I don't know why Ben wanted to talk about his name. By now, he should have learned not to play Bible trivia with me since I'm a history and Old Testament buff. I remember being impatient, since I was in a rush to finish many things before taking my sons to Chicago for Christmas, and all I wanted to do was to find a home for something beautiful.
"Of course I remember, Ben," I said. "He was the youngest and dearest child of Jacob, called Israel. His beloved wife, Rachel, died giving birth to him and Jacob was never happy ever after unless that boy was by his side. His full-blooded brother, Joseph, nearly killed Israel when he insisted his father allow Benjamin to be brought to him in Egypt during the famine."
Peggy now was making her way to the parish hall. I caught her satisfied smile as she watched us talking by Ben's car under the tree. She was probably relieved she escaped being saddled with another piece of paper or medal or something I'd picked up from the floor. I can be quite annoying, and no doubt she was very relieved that I was bothering someone else today!
"Benjamin", my friend Ben said as he loaded his car, "was much loved. Did I tell you that I'm going flying today?"
We talked some more, about nothing and everything as was our way together. He spoke several times about how very much he was looking forward to finishing the many things he must do--always quite a list!--before he finally would be free to fly.
Ben loved to fly. There, in his eyes each time he mentioned his plan to fly this evening, was the joy that I had missed in his manner. That was all that he really wanted to talk about. I teased him about having way too much to do and that he should have a kid chauffeur him around so that he could finish his notes and make his plans instead of having to keep his eyes on the road. Ben agreed that he was probably doing too much again, but it was obvious that being of service, being busy, and having just a few minutes in the Lord's beautiful sky was all that he wanted in life right now.
No longer worried about him for today, I left the pretty little trinket with him. Knowing Ben, it was in his pocket when whatever overtook him that night robbed us of his melodious voice.
Ben, our dear friend, please know how very much we all miss you.
This Benjamin was one man much loved, and I have no doubt that he knows now, as he rests in the arms of the Savior he so loved, just how very much.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
The battle of mortal sins: Scandal vs Calumny in Catholic Culture Wars
Our teachings against procuring abortion, a practice condemned in the first century of the Church, make no unscientific claims and are morally clear. No one may interfere with the development process from embryo to fetus to human child. The encyclical Evangelium vitae is accessible to all: ...we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception......It is true that the decision to have an abortion is often tragic and painful for the mother, insofar as the decision to rid herself of the fruit of conception is not made for purely selfish reasons or out of convenience, but out of a desire to protect certain important values such as her own health or a decent standard of living for the other members of the family. Sometimes it is feared that the child to be born would live in such conditions that it would be better if the birth did not take place. Nevertheless, these reasons and others like them, however serious and tragic, can never justify the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.
I don't know any pro-choice Catholics who reject this teaching. Despite the opinion of those who have appointed themselves my judge and jury, I certainly don't. When I was pregnant, I avoided all tests whose purpose was 'to help me make an informed decision' about continuing the pregnancy, I instructed my non-Catholic husband about the importance of saving the child instead of me in case of health emergency, and I fought my doctors' unwarranted interference whenever I deemed it morally appropriate. I have been active in the Gabriel Ministry, donate cash and goods to Providence House and Sunlight Home, and give regularly to CRS and to the American Friends relief service who goes freely where we cannot.
Where the Curia insults the sensus fidelium and undermines their own moral authority on this and other issues throughout the world is in the hypocrisy of their political position. As Joseph Cardinal Bernadin said so well "...the Church's understanding of the gospel defies conventional political and ideological lines," but a few of our U.S. Catholic Bishops have led a very vocal minority to believe otherwise. Should any Catholics not embrace their stringent insistence that overturning Roe vs Wade claims our highest allegiance, our orthodoxy is suspect. Exactly which mortal sin we Democrats are guilty of is unclear; I can only guess they mean scandal. What I consider far more scandalous is that the Bishops are repeating the same mistake that they made in Germany in the 1930s of believing the lip service of criminals.
These nasty accusations by the ultramontane, including the position paper of the USCCB for Catholics in Political Life that anyone who doesn't work to correct the abortion laws is "guilty of cooperating in evil and sinning against the common good" are pretty hard to justify on any rational ground. While a particle physicist is the one to ask about atomic structure, one consults an engineer to apply that knowledge; similarly, the Church has always recognized that the laity have an important role in the application of our Christian ethic in the secular sphere. Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Katharine Townsend Kennedy, et al., have said little that anyone but the most rigidly dogmatic crazies can claim contradicts the Magisterium's teachings. In some cases, public apologies have been given them, but they have not gone far to repair the damage to reputations nor cover the stink raised by veiled accusations. Most recently Cherie Blair, a human rights attorney married to the former British PM, was libeled this way; to his credit, one of our Catholic moral theologians called the claims of her critics "rash and outright calumnious" in Catholic News Service. I doubt any of her critics were denied communion for their mortal sin.
My sympathy for our vocal pro-life vicars of Jesus Christ is tainted by despair that their actions are mostly public pillories of desperate women that contradict Our Lord's words and actions towards sinners. The question is not whether abortion is an evil, it certainly is; however, it is also a fact that some pregnant women will even risk their lives to avoid bearing a child they do not want. Where abortion is illegal, the main result is not a low abortion rate but a very high maternal death rate accompanied by dead fetuses in dumpsters. How should Catholic Christians respond to the fear and moral confusion of these mostly poor women?
The political question is whether or not the state should throw people in prison. The only thing that passing laws does is make criminals of more sinners and interject the government into these decision. In the United States, our penal system is already the disgrace of the free world in its emphasis on revenge, nearly total lack of rehabilitation, outrageously long sentences for relatively minor infractions, and unequal punishment of wealthy over poor and white over people of color. Is prison the appropriate place to send these women, who often have other children at home? When the Catholic principle of subsidiarity is ignored, governments often overstep their bounds; Americans in general and American Catholics specifically believe that issues at the very beginning and at the very end of life should be made without government interference. The bishops and priests may intervene if they are so called; however, we prefer you not call the police.
In our relations with our governments and within the secular world, the laity who have the expertise needed to form appropriate public policy. Listening to the opinions of the faithful isn't a matter of putting fingers in the wind, but of heeding the voice of well-formed consciences of the Church itself active in the world. The Catholic faithful in the U.S.A. mostly agree with Roe vs Wade's ruling that the state "has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life" and very few Americans favor re-criminalizing medical procedures in general. From Europe to Melbourne, Australia to even very Catholic areas like Uruguay, Mexico City, and the Philippines, the laity disagrees with a legalistic approach to these sins. My own opinion is that insistence on this particular political approach is a grievous sin against women, indefensible in an age where we imprison neither adulterers nor sodomists. That those women murdering their children are often drawn from the poorest and least educated compounds my pain at the grave consequences of their lack of charity.
A better approach than the recent postcard campaign against legislation that doesn't really exist yet would be to help to write a strong, pro-life half of FOCA. Our bishops should lobby to provide the support that poor women need to bear their children: paid maternity leave rather than unpaid, prison sentences for those who fire pregnant women, free universal health care for childbirth and childhood innoculations, etc. Put your money where your mouths are, Excellencies, and put the resources you now waste on making noise to work caring for people. Give pro-life budgets to our Catholic hospitals instead of insisting that people lift burdens they cannot financially bear.
A similar problem haunts Catholic teachings against forms of contraception. Some positions don't make much sense at all, particularly if you happen to be female rather than male. We respect 'natural law' when it suits the purposes of the husband, and ignore the way that women's libidos and biology work. Desperate to continue to defend the 1968 Humanae vitae that is rarely accepted in practice by the faithful, Cardinal Ratzinger himself tried a 1987 follow-up Donum vitae that was barely coherent, and bishops tout the "Theology of the Body" by our dear philosopher-mystic Pope John Paul II, a man so steeped in Marian devotion that he doesn't seem to know any real women. The Curia is neurotic with worry that people will confuse abortifacients with contraceptives, and then compound the error by confusing the two themselves in public pronouncements.
The recent Dignitas Personae continues this trend of shooting Catholicism's credibility in the foot. The document exhibits little moral clarity and some of its claims are false. Anglican bishop Dr. Lee Rayfield, spokesman for the Church of England on ethics, put it very diplomatically: “... It worries me that there are assertions in it, for example about IVF and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection, which simply do not bear the weight of theological or ethical scrutiny, even from within the absolutist standpoint taken by the Roman Catholic Church.” The Episcopalians in the U.S. were less charitable, with one headline reading "Pseudo-science from the Vatican". A deputy chair of the Italian Society of Contraception was widely quoted as calling Dignitas Personae a work of science fiction, and even those who wrote it seem to have problems with it. On top of this, we have the Vatican making claims about the Pill and the water supply (see here here here here here ...well, you get the idea) that really make them look--well, stupid.
Where's a leader like our dear 'brother Joe' when we need him? I pray for his intercession from heaven: perhaps it's time for a new Common Ground.
I don't know any pro-choice Catholics who reject this teaching. Despite the opinion of those who have appointed themselves my judge and jury, I certainly don't. When I was pregnant, I avoided all tests whose purpose was 'to help me make an informed decision' about continuing the pregnancy, I instructed my non-Catholic husband about the importance of saving the child instead of me in case of health emergency, and I fought my doctors' unwarranted interference whenever I deemed it morally appropriate. I have been active in the Gabriel Ministry, donate cash and goods to Providence House and Sunlight Home, and give regularly to CRS and to the American Friends relief service who goes freely where we cannot.
Where the Curia insults the sensus fidelium and undermines their own moral authority on this and other issues throughout the world is in the hypocrisy of their political position. As Joseph Cardinal Bernadin said so well "...the Church's understanding of the gospel defies conventional political and ideological lines," but a few of our U.S. Catholic Bishops have led a very vocal minority to believe otherwise. Should any Catholics not embrace their stringent insistence that overturning Roe vs Wade claims our highest allegiance, our orthodoxy is suspect. Exactly which mortal sin we Democrats are guilty of is unclear; I can only guess they mean scandal. What I consider far more scandalous is that the Bishops are repeating the same mistake that they made in Germany in the 1930s of believing the lip service of criminals.
These nasty accusations by the ultramontane, including the position paper of the USCCB for Catholics in Political Life that anyone who doesn't work to correct the abortion laws is "guilty of cooperating in evil and sinning against the common good" are pretty hard to justify on any rational ground. While a particle physicist is the one to ask about atomic structure, one consults an engineer to apply that knowledge; similarly, the Church has always recognized that the laity have an important role in the application of our Christian ethic in the secular sphere. Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Katharine Townsend Kennedy, et al., have said little that anyone but the most rigidly dogmatic crazies can claim contradicts the Magisterium's teachings. In some cases, public apologies have been given them, but they have not gone far to repair the damage to reputations nor cover the stink raised by veiled accusations. Most recently Cherie Blair, a human rights attorney married to the former British PM, was libeled this way; to his credit, one of our Catholic moral theologians called the claims of her critics "rash and outright calumnious" in Catholic News Service. I doubt any of her critics were denied communion for their mortal sin.
My sympathy for our vocal pro-life vicars of Jesus Christ is tainted by despair that their actions are mostly public pillories of desperate women that contradict Our Lord's words and actions towards sinners. The question is not whether abortion is an evil, it certainly is; however, it is also a fact that some pregnant women will even risk their lives to avoid bearing a child they do not want. Where abortion is illegal, the main result is not a low abortion rate but a very high maternal death rate accompanied by dead fetuses in dumpsters. How should Catholic Christians respond to the fear and moral confusion of these mostly poor women?
The political question is whether or not the state should throw people in prison. The only thing that passing laws does is make criminals of more sinners and interject the government into these decision. In the United States, our penal system is already the disgrace of the free world in its emphasis on revenge, nearly total lack of rehabilitation, outrageously long sentences for relatively minor infractions, and unequal punishment of wealthy over poor and white over people of color. Is prison the appropriate place to send these women, who often have other children at home? When the Catholic principle of subsidiarity is ignored, governments often overstep their bounds; Americans in general and American Catholics specifically believe that issues at the very beginning and at the very end of life should be made without government interference. The bishops and priests may intervene if they are so called; however, we prefer you not call the police.
In our relations with our governments and within the secular world, the laity who have the expertise needed to form appropriate public policy. Listening to the opinions of the faithful isn't a matter of putting fingers in the wind, but of heeding the voice of well-formed consciences of the Church itself active in the world. The Catholic faithful in the U.S.A. mostly agree with Roe vs Wade's ruling that the state "has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life" and very few Americans favor re-criminalizing medical procedures in general. From Europe to Melbourne, Australia to even very Catholic areas like Uruguay, Mexico City, and the Philippines, the laity disagrees with a legalistic approach to these sins. My own opinion is that insistence on this particular political approach is a grievous sin against women, indefensible in an age where we imprison neither adulterers nor sodomists. That those women murdering their children are often drawn from the poorest and least educated compounds my pain at the grave consequences of their lack of charity.
A better approach than the recent postcard campaign against legislation that doesn't really exist yet would be to help to write a strong, pro-life half of FOCA. Our bishops should lobby to provide the support that poor women need to bear their children: paid maternity leave rather than unpaid, prison sentences for those who fire pregnant women, free universal health care for childbirth and childhood innoculations, etc. Put your money where your mouths are, Excellencies, and put the resources you now waste on making noise to work caring for people. Give pro-life budgets to our Catholic hospitals instead of insisting that people lift burdens they cannot financially bear.
A similar problem haunts Catholic teachings against forms of contraception. Some positions don't make much sense at all, particularly if you happen to be female rather than male. We respect 'natural law' when it suits the purposes of the husband, and ignore the way that women's libidos and biology work. Desperate to continue to defend the 1968 Humanae vitae that is rarely accepted in practice by the faithful, Cardinal Ratzinger himself tried a 1987 follow-up Donum vitae that was barely coherent, and bishops tout the "Theology of the Body" by our dear philosopher-mystic Pope John Paul II, a man so steeped in Marian devotion that he doesn't seem to know any real women. The Curia is neurotic with worry that people will confuse abortifacients with contraceptives, and then compound the error by confusing the two themselves in public pronouncements.
The recent Dignitas Personae continues this trend of shooting Catholicism's credibility in the foot. The document exhibits little moral clarity and some of its claims are false. Anglican bishop Dr. Lee Rayfield, spokesman for the Church of England on ethics, put it very diplomatically: “... It worries me that there are assertions in it, for example about IVF and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection, which simply do not bear the weight of theological or ethical scrutiny, even from within the absolutist standpoint taken by the Roman Catholic Church.” The Episcopalians in the U.S. were less charitable, with one headline reading "Pseudo-science from the Vatican". A deputy chair of the Italian Society of Contraception was widely quoted as calling Dignitas Personae a work of science fiction, and even those who wrote it seem to have problems with it. On top of this, we have the Vatican making claims about the Pill and the water supply (see here here here here here ...well, you get the idea) that really make them look--well, stupid.
Where's a leader like our dear 'brother Joe' when we need him? I pray for his intercession from heaven: perhaps it's time for a new Common Ground.
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