Fr. Frank Pavone on MTV's abortion special #prolife

Fr. Frank Pavone:

But there was one major way in which the program contradicted itself. It claimed, with a certain pride, to “show the choice” that many people are afraid of. But it in fact did not show the choice, and this remains the big gap in the abortion debate. If we are going to pride ourselves in being unashamed to face up to this difficult choice and talk about it openly, then let’s go all the way and actually describe and see the procedure. Nobody shared in this program the simple fact about the suction abortion procedure that Markai underwent, in the way, for instance, that abortion doctor Harlan Raymond Giles did when he gave sworn testimony in US District Court as follows:

“Question: Can the heart of a fetus or embryo still be beating during a suction curettage abortion as the fetus or embryo comes down the cannula?

Answer: For a few seconds to a minute, yes.” (Western District of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, May 27, 1999, Case No. 98-C-0305-S).

If there's one thing the pro-abortion side will never show, it's what an aborted fetus looks like.

QUOTATION: Right to Life

Deliberately killing innocent human life, or standing by and allowing it, dwarfs all other social issues. Trying to avoid this fact by redefining when human personhood begins is simply a corrupt and corrupting form of verbal gymnastics.

- Archbishop Charles Chaput, in Renden Unto Caesar

Yeah, kind of like saying a human embryo is a human organism but not a homo sapiens (never mind a human being!)

H/T: Concerned for Life

Mums-to-be in Spain rush to beat cash deadline

The solution is simple:

If you're pregnant on Dec. 31, you should get the money even if your baby is born nine months later.

I also heard the opposite in Cyprus. A few years back, they inaugurated a cash-for-babies program. As the program had not begun, large numbers of women had abortions in anticipation of the program.

I don't think cash for babies scheme do much, really. If you want to encourage people to have children, start by changing the anti-child mentality.

Study: Ambivalence toward mothers who kill

An examination of 45 U.S. cases of maternal neonaticide:

This study includes 44 female offenders and 45 infant deaths and highlights society's ambivalence toward neonaticide offenders. The authors suggest that this ambivalence may be attributed to: (1) the perception that an offender's emotional and physical turmoil during the birth and homicide reduces her culpability; (2) the sentiment that neonaticide offenders are more "redeemable" than other offenders; and (3) the uncertainty about the personhood of a fetus or newborn.

A bad argument for abortion

Among the four listed in this blogpost:

The last bad argument for abortion is that it should be legal because women will keep having abortions even if it’s not, and we should at least ensure that they will have them in safe environments (instead of in back alleys with rusty equipment). By now, the flaw in this argument should be clear. Would you be in favor of safe murder? People are going to keep committing murder even though it’s illegal, so we should legalize it to ensure that they’ll be safe while doing so. Of course we shouldn’t; that’s absolutely ridiculous. And the same is true of abortion. If it really is murder, then we shouldn’t legalize it just to ensure the safety of mothers who kill their children.

If certain abortions are fatal to the mother, then warn women of the risk they incur so that they can avoid them.

But Suzanne, women will have abortions anyway.

Aren't we supposed to trust women?

If a woman can't be responsible, we can't be responsible in her stead. She has to value her own life to want to live.

Ana Rosa Rodriguez: Abortion Survivor

That evening, however, she experienced increasing pain and bleeding. Her mother took her to Jamaica Hospital by taxi, where, five hours later, Baby Ana Rosa was born. But Hayat had left his mark upon her; Ana Rosa's tiny right arm had been torn off in the brutal abortion attempt.

But she wasn't a "human being", so she had no right to her arm back then.

STUDY: Surveillance of sexually transmitted infections among persons living with HIV.

A Belgian Study:

OBJECTIVES: Surveillance of sexually transmitted infections (STI) among HIV patients in AIDS Reference Centers aims at identifying risk groups and detecting specific STI emerging in this population.

METHODS: Seven of the nine AIDS Reference Centers in Belgium participate in this surveillance. The reported STI include Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, Lymphogranuloma venereum, hepatitis B virus and newly acquired hepatitis C in men who have sex with men (MSM).

RESULTS: In 2008, 252 HIV patients (250 men, 2 women) were reported with a new STI episode. Sexual orientation was known for 245 men: 241 were MSM, 4 were heterosexual men. In total, 279 new STI episodes were reported. More than half of the diagnoses were syphilis. In 78% of the syphilis cases, the motive of the consultation was not related to an STI complaint.

CONCLUSIONS: The results underline the importance of regular STI screening among HIV-positive persons, and show a particular sexual health problem among MSM. We estimate that the proportion of HIV-positive MSM acquiring an STI in 2008 was 8.8%.

Gee, gay men with HIV are more likely to get another STI than non-gay men. Whodda thunk?

Ourselves Unborn by Sara Dubow

Ourselves Unborn purports to be a history of the fetus in the United States. You can read a book review here at Slate.

I bought and read the book.

It's a piece of feminist propaganda, and I'm not even sure it counts as history. It's more like anthropology, because instead of getting the history of the fetus, you get a history of the social significance of the fetus.

The main idea of the book is that the fetus is the nexus of concerns that have to do with anything but the fetus.

In other words, in the author's mind, when people claim to care about the fetus, they don't really care about the fetus.

What the book tries to do is undermine pro-life sincerity. Pro-lifers aren't really concerned about women when they talk about the harm of abortion; they don't really care about the fetus when they argue in favour of industrial fetal protection laws; they didn't really care about the fetus when doctors used to propound theories about prenatal origins of psychoses.

It's all a ruse to uphold our racist, sexist, xenophobic and capitalist social order.

It's a bit ironic. She claims that concern about the fetus isn't really about the fetus. And yet, this book which is supposed to be about the fetus isn't really about the fetus.

As the reviewer at Slate puts it:

 But there's a curious omission in her book: the actual, physical fetus itself. Indeed, Dubow appears to believe that no such being exists. "A fetus in 1870 is not the same thing as a fetus in 1930, which is not the same thing as a fetus in 1970, which is not the same thing as a fetus in 2010," she writes.

In another section the reviewer writes;

In this book the fetus is always "constituted" and "produced," "constructed" and "represented"—never conceived or born, nurtured or harmed.

So the title and the sub-title of the book is a little misleading. You open up the book thinking you're going to read a chronological account of the scientific advances affecting fetus, and popular attitudes towards the fetus-- and there is some of that to be sure-- but it's not really about the history of the fetus. It's a history of alleged attempts to control women.

So this can't really be a history of the fetus in America. There's missing info on the introduction of the ultrasound and the development of maternal-fetal medicine,  two of the biggest developments to affect fetuses. Also missing is the development of prenatal diagnosis which has resulted in abortion rates of 80-90% for genetically defective children.

So here's what I wonder pro-lifers: where's our history of the fetus? When are we going to write the history of the unborn child?

The advantage of such a work is that we would actually treat the fetus like a human being, and so every aspect of the history of the fetus would be inherently interesting, not just those reworked to serve a feminist agenda.

VIDEO: Paul Anka does Kurt Cobain

I've always been annoyed by the way that jazz singers put too much zazz into song, thinking that the audience only came for their voice and not the music.

That jazz ego can really ruin any song.

This is Paul Anka singing "Smells like Teen Spirit".

Study: Estimated 22 million European women using the pill

Question: how many of them got pregnant in the last year, and how many of those obtained abortions?

Interesting how nobody asked that question.

QUOTATION: Treatment of the unborn

The way in which a society treats the little gestating child that we call an embryo will become the measure of its degree of  civilization.

Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, Vigil for Nascent Human Life, Paris, November 27, 2010.

(My translation, slightly corrected to improve flow.)

Merry Christmas!

VIDEO: The Pope Speaks to the BBC

It is so rare to hear Pope Benedict speak English.



Here's the text of his speech:

"Recalling with great fondness my four-day visit to the United Kingdom last September, I am glad to have the opportunity to greet you once again, and indeed to greet listeners everywhere as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ. Our thoughts turn back to a moment in history when God's chosen people, the children of Israel, were living in intense expectation. They were waiting for the Messiah that God had promised to send, and they pictured him as a great leader who would rescue them from foreign domination and restore their freedom.

God is always faithful to his promises, but he often surprises us in the way he fulfils them. The child that was born in Bethlehem did indeed bring liberation, but not only for the people of that time and place - he was to be the Saviour of all people throughout the world and throughout history. And it was not a political liberation that he brought, achieved through military means: rather, Christ destroyed death for ever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross. And while he was born in poverty and obscurity, far from the centres of earthly power, he was none other than the Son of God. Out of love for us he took upon himself our human condition, our fragility, our vulnerability, and he opened up for us the path that leads to the fullness of life, to a share in the life of God himself. As we ponder this great mystery in our hearts this Christmas, let us give thanks to God for his goodness to us, and let us joyfully proclaim to those around us the good news that God offers us freedom from whatever weighs us down: he gives us hope, he brings us life.

Dear Friends from Scotland, England, Wales, and indeed every part of the English-speaking world, I want you to know that I keep all of you very much in my prayers during this Holy Season. I pray for your families, for your children, for those who are sick, and for those who are going through any form of hardship at this time. I pray especially for the elderly and for those who are approaching the end of their days. I ask Christ, the light of the nations, to dispel whatever darkness there may be in your lives and to grant to every one of you the grace of a peaceful and joyful Christmas. May God bless all of you!"

H/T: Sunlit Uplands.

Expect to be hated

Says Dakota Voice:

I read, and write, a lot of comments on online news stories. Recently I saw a comment that particularly intrigued me, though not in the way its writer intended. I don’t remember what the story was about, but it dealt with one of those issues where the reactions reveal a sharp divide between Christians and non-Christians.

The comment in question began, “Hey Christians – if you don’t want to be hated, here’s what you need to do.” What followed amounted to, “Just completely abandon your convictions in controversial but crucial areas!”

Well, I have news for the author of the comment: It is not our goal as Christians to avoid being hated. In fact, Christ’s words in the Bible make it clear that our being hated is quite inevitable.

If Christians are not free to be Christians, then freedom does not exist.

VIDEO: Hospital/Orphanage in Bethlehem takes care of abandoned babies (French)

This is a report done by France's TF1.

It's about a maternity hospital in Bethlehem where on average one baby is abandoned every week. Unmarried Palestinian women go there to "cut short" their pregnancy. The suggestion is that they somehow induce labour in themselves. I don't think the hospital, run by a Catholic order, would be the ones inducing labour.

The orphanage on the same complex then takes care of the orphans.

Look at the faces of those kids. Feminists say that mothers should have had a choice to kill those children in the womb.

They would prefer that these children end up as dead fetuses (if their mothers so chose) than remain alive.

But hey, as long as women's autonomy is upheld, right? That's all that matters.

Note that the report ends at about the 2:55 mark-- the rest is of no interest.

Study: Early exposure to porn increases likelihood of sexual aggression

Abstract:

Longitudinal linkages between intentional exposure to x-rated material and sexually aggressive behavior were examined among youth 10-15 year olds surveyed nationally in the United States. At Wave 1 in 2006, participants (n = 1,588) were queried about these exposures and outcomes in the preceding 12 months. Wave 2 data (n = 1,206) were collected approximately 12 months after Wave 1 and Wave 3 data (n = 1,159) were collected approximately 24 months after Wave 1. Thus, data for this project represent a 36-month time frame. A marginal model with generalized estimating equations was used to represent the population-average odds of sexually aggressive behavior over the 36 months as a function of exposure to x-rated material over the same time and to account for clustering in the data within person over time. An average of 5% of youth reported perpetrating sexually aggressive behavior and 23% of youth reported intentional exposure to x-rated material. After adjusting for other potentially influential proximal (i.e., sexual aggression victimization) and distal characteristics (e.g., substance use), we found that intentional exposure to violent x-rated material over time predicted an almost 6-fold increase in the odds of self-reported sexually aggressive behavior (aOR: 5.8, 95% CI: 3.2, 10.5), whereas exposure to nonviolent x-rated material was not statistically significantly related (aOR: 1.7, 95% CI: 0.94, 2.9).

But hey, porn is harmless, right?

An annoying question about the pro-life movement in Canada

There's a little something that burns me about the pro-life movement.

Take Heather Stilwell's obituary in The Interim.

I'm sure Heather deserved every bit of praise.

The question is: why didn't I know about her?

Take a poll of 100 pro-lifers and ask them who Heather Stilwell is (was) and I'm betting dollars to doughnuts most of them don't have a clue.

If Heather Stilwell was so great (and I have no doubt that she was) why didn't I know about her before?

It's like when Joe Borowski died.

Joe who?

The guy who led the court battle to settle the question about the status of the fetus. His court challenge was made moot by the Morgentaler decision. Everybody said how great he was. I hadn't the faintest clue about him and I had to look him up on the Internet.

I've been in the movement for about ten years now, and every so often I see The Interim or some other forum praise this or that pro-life activist and I don't have the faintest idea who they are.

I feel so out of the loop, and yet here I am, in Ottawa, with access to some pretty big names in the pro-life movement, and I don't know who these people are.

Is the pro-life movement a clique?

Do we not celebrate our activists?

I know we're ignorant of our own history. Which I try to remedy in my own way.

If we are to be a serious movement, we're going to need a little more cultural and identity cohesion.

Why do traumatized post-abortive women continue to defend abortion?

Wonders Real Choice.

I have a simpler answer: because she'd have to admit she was wrong.

Okay, maybe not as fancy as her answers, but it's a biggy. :)

QUOTATION: Communion of Faith and Orthodoxy

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).

Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cogitum, On the Unity of the Church 1896.

QUOTATION: The Church and Persecution

‎"A church that suffers no persecution but enjoys the privileges and support of the things of the earth - beware! - is not the true church of Jesus Christ. A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good, so that they are secured in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call."

-- Archbishop Oscar Romero

QUOTATION: The Visitation

Elizabeth was the first to hear the voice but her son John was the first to feel the effects of grace...She sensed the coming of Mary, he the coming of the Lord — the woman knew the woman, the child knew the child. The women speak of grace while inside them grace works on their babies. And by a double miracle the women prophesy under the inspiration of their unborn children.

--St. Ambrose

Taken from here.

Study: Majority of men who have sex with men think it should be illegal for HIV + people to have sex without disclosing status

Published October 2010:

Participants self-identified as male, 18 years of age or older, a US resident, and having ever had sex with a man. In addition, participants were coded as residing in a state with HIV-specific laws or not. Results showed that most (65%) respondents believed it should be illegal for persons living with HIV to have unprotected sex without disclosure

However:

among the total sample and HIV-positive MSM, attitudes and unprotected sex with recent partners did not vary by state law. Believing that it should not be illegal for persons living with HIV to have unprotected sex without disclosure was associated with HIV-positive status (OR=0.33), higher education (ORs=0.42-0.64), gay orientation (non-gay orientation: OR=1.54), perceptions that state residents were somewhat or very accepting toward homosexuality (OR=0.75), unprotected anal intercourse with two or more recent sexual partners (OR=0.72), and lower perceptions of responsibility (OR=0.75). The results did not support the proposition that HIV-specific laws deter high-risk sexual behavior, however further research is needed to examine whether they act as a barrier for MSM at highest risk for acquiring or transmitting HIV.

Ontario Catholic teachers union funds leading gay activist group

When Catholic teachers don't act Catholic, they do not make good teachers of the Faith.

They're all leftists. Colour me shocked.

Ann Furedi, Head of BPAS, Defends Late-Term Abortion

Interesting article.

Lots to comment. Too much in fact.

Ann Furedi say that when it comes to abortion, she wonders "who decides?" which abortions are moral or not.

Funny, but, we don't have trouble deciding when it comes to other morally-related hot button issues.

Abortion is supposed to be an exception?

She writes that we should "trust women", as if that's enough. Don't examine what we're trusting women to do-- kill human beings-- just trust them.

I don't trust anyone to kill human beings. I don't trust human beings-- male or female-- to do a lot of things, because some actions are wrong and should never be performed.

She mentions a study that was done by the BPAS, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. They perform tax-payer funded abortions.

In this study, the researchers recorded the situations of women who sought abortions but were denied because their pregnancies were over the legal limit.

Ann Furedi seems to think that all these abortions should have been granted.

Consider this case-- a woman from the Indian sub-continent seeking an abortion at 30 weeks:

Thought she was about 18 weeks pregnant. Has an arranged marriage in the Indian sub-continent in the summer with an expectation that she would be a virgin. She had told no one of her situation because of fear, embarrassment and shame. An abortion was not possible because she was over the current gestational limit. Bpas counsellors arranged for her to have help to mediate with her family and potential emergency accommodation, should she need it.

I presume that this woman had sex before marriage, and therefore the pregnancy is evidence of her non-virginal status, which is the problem.

So let me get this straight. Ann Furedi thinks that this woman should be allowed to have her baby killed at 30 weeks gestation-- an age which we know the fetus suffers pain-- because her family might not be mad that she wasn't a virgin, and that might cause embarrassment and shame?

You might counter that she is probably in a very vulnerable position, being female from the Indian sub-continent.

Could Be.

Then why not empower her?

If her future husband is her meal-ticket, and her family would disown her because of this pregnancy, and her pregnancy ruins future prospects for marriage (at least in her mind) then isn't the problem her situation, not the baby?

Maybe this is just a hunch, but I bet she doesn't really want the abortion. The overwhelming majority of women who carry to thirty weeks don't want abortions, even if they had wanted one earlier.

I think that she just doesn't know what else to do.

But trust women! Don't try to find a way around the problem. Just do the abortion, no questions asked. And if a human being has to die because of it, well who cares? As long as the woman's autonomy is maintained, that's the main thing. The woman, the father, the family, society-- none of these is responsible for this unborn child as far as feminists are concerned. Because the notion of responsibility would imply that you have an obligation to take care of this child, whether you like it or not.

Responsibility is so inconvenient that way.

H/T: Bound4Life.com

Illegal to conceal body of post-viability baby: Ontario court

LifeSiteNews:

According to the court, the law against concealment of the child’s body applies when that child could survive outside the womb under appropriate care. “A foetus becomes a child when it (the foetus) has reached a stage in its development when, but for some external event or other circumstances, it would likely have been born alive,” wrote Justice David Watt in the 3-0 decision.

Interesting, that the court would admit that this fetus is a child, even though it's not a human being, under our legal system.

The origins of secularism

This interview with philosopher Rémi Brague refutes a lot of myths, and I intend to quote from it in the future.

One commonly held notion is that secularism is basically a non-religious idea invented in the 20th century.

Not so. It has deep roots. Into the Middle Ages:

As for the case of secularity, its advocates specifically want, or pretend to, ignore that it appeared in the Middle Ages, a period that was emphatically not secularist. The dividing line drawn between the Church and the State is a Christian invention that began among the Church Fathers, as a reaction against Constantine’s claim to control the Church and further culminated in medieval times. Moreover, this line was drawn by the Church, not by the State. The Holy See’s constant policy from the Investiture Controversy in the late 11th century consisted in sending the State (i.e. the Emperor or the Kings) back to its own merely this worldly—“secular” if you want—task: enforcing peace, justice, good social order. The State, on the other hand, was not merely “secular”, but claimed its share in sacrality. Just think of the adjective: “Holy Roman Empire”. Secularity was a conquest of the Church.

The idea that Catholics are working towards a form of theocracy is false.

What secularists do not accept is Catholics working according to their values.

A democratic society cannot require people, including politicians, to stop acting on their religious values in the public square.

American Public Schools Infested with Pedophiles

Creative Minority Report alerts me to this story. I missed it. I've been busy with other things lately.

Interesting tidbit:

The GAO found that in many cases, school officials allow teachers to resign rather than face disciplinary action, and often provide positive references. Some schools did not perform required criminal checks, and even if checks were performed, they usually only cover that home state. If a teacher has moved around to various states (as did Kevin Ricks), a single-state check would not turn up the critical information.

So...are we going to have school principal accountability? Will the media be all over public schools the way it dumped on the Church.

Somehow I doubt it.

Why Hide Abortion Statistics?

People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing.

Roddis said provincial governments should require hospitals and private abortion clinics to report fully on abortion procedures. “We need to know complete numbers, the age of the mothers, the gestational age of the babies, the repeat abortions and the total cost to our health care system.”

I agree.

Another possibility: couldn't a pro-life health researcher make an access to information request, to ask how many D&C's, D&E's and other abortion types the government paid for?

Woman in fetus rights case speaks out

What I find interesting about this article is the title. It mentions a "fetus rights case".

Feminists would argue that it's a woman's rights case.

The Supreme Court has subsequently ruled in several instances that there is no such thing as fetal rights.

And yet, the issue of fetal rights is always alive, always in the public consciousness.

I also note that the woman does not mention how she feels now about the case itself, whether she thought it was the correct decision. Her son is now 14. I also wonder how he feels about it.

The Death Penalty and Abortion Issues Have Things in Common

Dahn Batchelor has written a thorough post on the death penalty.

I note that when it comes to killing human beings, the general population doesn't typically care whether the target suffers or not. Because if you start to care, then you develop empathy for your target. And if you develop empathy for your target, then you have to start accommodating that victim, and you have to start thinking about their welfare. And if you have to think about their welfare, then you have to start questioning whether death is in their interest.

And of course, it's not. Death is never in an individual's interests. (And by saying that, I'm not saying that you have to keep people alive with extraordinary means).

Dahn describes how a muscle relaxing drug is used to immoblize the prisoner. He theorizes this is to make execution less unpleasant for those watching. If the victim wakes up during the execution, he won't writhe in pain and fear.

Painkillers administered to the fetus in late-term abortions are often done for the mother's benefit. The mother does not want the baby to suffer. But I don't know that anyone has every actually studied fetal pain during abortion. It could undermine the "right to choose".

Christians. The Weird Kind

I don't usually care for Bene Diction Blogs On, but he published an interesting link to Internet Monk about "Weird" Christians.

For some people, all Christians are weird. But I'm not talking about an atheist prejudice.

I'm talking about the kind of Christian who wears his faith on his sleeve, for whom life is filled with miracles, prophecies, anointings in the spirit, "speaking in tongues" and so forth.

And the idea that interested me the most is that of "supernatural lust". I belive that St. John of the Cross or St. Teresa of Avila referred to a similar idea.

I thought this might be a good springboard to talk about Catholic spirituality.

Supernatural lust (as I term it, and I think it's part of theological lingo, though I may be wrong) is the constant quest for visions and supernatural manifestations. It's really unhealthy.

It's the secular equivalent of always wanting your boyfriend or husband to show affection to prove their love. In the same way, you want God to constantly show his love for you.

Some people want their faith justified, authenticated and rewarded with ecstasies of various forms (and I use the word "ecstasies" loosely). So they spend their time contemplating, waiting for something to happen. Or they study the Scripture looking for some special knowledge of the future so that they can be a kind of prophecy insider.

I really do believe that ecstasies, miracles, prophecy, etc happen. I believe that they happen more than we think.

But the absence of daily manifestations of the divine is not a sign of lack of faith.

I do believe we are part of a cosmic battle. And I do belive angels and demons are part of that battle, and that prayer is necessary.

But those things are lived through the mundane, and not being party to them does not change the direction of supernatural history one bit.

So if you can't know whatthe angels or the demons are doing, it makes no difference. I truly believe that there spirits of darkness at abortion clinics, for instance, and I pray for God to bundle them up and send them back to hell.

Notwithstanding this, the way we're going to experience them is fairly mundane. We won't see the effects of our prayers in a great divine battle. We're going to see people change jobs or change minds.

Another important part of Catholic spirituality is the idea that private revelations are meant for you and perhaps another specific party. Not typically for general consumption. If you read about the visions of the saints, they don't get on a platform and start preaching "I saw this, I saw that." They might write about them in books, but they don't go to the pulpit with that particular message, placing themselves as some kind of divine conduit. You might say that there are obvious exceptions to this like the Revelations of Fatima. The Revelations of Fatima were also accompanied by very public miracles.

Most experiences are private. And they are not accompanied by miracles.

What I find Protestantism lacks is a body of wisdom on revelations and institutional controls. The "democratic" of Protestantism leads to a lack of authoritative discernment-- everyone's an expert. In the Catholic Church, there exists a branch of theology called mystical theology that can inform a person about true and false revelations. There is also the formal examinations of church authorities to make sure that religious manifestations do not get out of control. There's a reason why Catholics don't tend to writhe around on the ground as a show of their faith.

I can't say that I've had a lot of direct experience with "weird" Christians. I come from a Catholic culture. It's just not done.

I simply wanted to use this post as a springboard to start a conversation about Catholic spirituality.

VIDEO: Pope bemoans “professional Catholics” in the Church

YAY! The Pope gets it!

Are you listening Development and Peace and all Church bureaucrats for whom fetal rights is a non-issue: THIS IS ABOUT YOU.

(Fetal rights is not the only issue they don't care about, but let's say it's one litmus issue among many that points to who is the real thing and who's not.)

VIDEO: Assumptions Abortion Advocates Make

Debunks the most common pro-abortion arguments. Brought to you by the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform. Note, there is a graphic image in the latter part of the video.

Pro-Life Art: Rainbow Angel

This an image of bronze sculpture by British artist Marc Quinn. It is titled "Rainbow Angel."

I found this picture in a French book about the pre-born (see bottom for reference.)

According to the book, the sculpture is a bronzed model of a skeleton of a 22-week fetus. He is represented as praying in Winchester Cathedral. It is supposed to represent an anti-abortion viewpoint.

I googled the artist's name and found another one of his sculptures that I love. It's called "Planet". I would love to have this in a local park in Ottawa. Isn't it gorgeous?

Reference:
Demarre, Alicia, "Foetus et art contemporain", p. 192 dans Avant la Naissance: 5000 ans d'images. Ed: Jean-Louis Fischer, et al. Éditions de Conti, 2009.

QUOTATION: Certainty

Life in fact can never be grounded upon doubt, uncertainty or deceit; such an existence would be threatened constantly by fear and anxiety.

--Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio

Cardinal Ouellet Picks Another Winner

The Last Papist Standing blogs about the new bishop of Oklahoma City, Bishop Paul Coakley.

When asked by LifeSiteNews whether he would rule out applying Canon 915, he said:

Bishop: Oh, absolutely not. I think it is something that Canon Law sanctions and that I think many bishops find themselves with no other choice but to make that decision. I think in many cases it becomes the right decision and the only choice.

Italian Researcher: Biology alone does not explain male homosexuality

Abstract:

The JSM's readers should recognize that there are several biological factors in MH. However, these findings do not seem to be able to explain all cases of homosexuality. Some others may be due to particular environmental factors. The issue is complicated and multifactorial, suggesting that further research should be undertaken to produce the final answer to the question raised in this Controversy section.

Exactly. A biological predisposition does not amount to being "born gay".

Does Prenatal Sex Selection Improve Girls’ Well‐Being?

Ask a couple of economists. From an abstract:

We find that an increase in the practice of prenatal sex selection appears to be associated with a reduction in the incidence of malnutrition among girls.

And killing a select group of poor people would mean more resources for those who are left, thereby improving their well-being.

My take on C-510 and pro-life strategy

I think this bill failed to generate any genuine excitement. No doubt, the usual suspects-- pro-life and pro-abortion groups-- spoke up to make their views known. But Bill C-510 didn't generate polls, didn't generate a lot of commentary, didn't whip up a lot of controversy.

It was too safe a bill.

It was about co-erced abortion. And practically no one favours co-erced abortion-- at least publicly. But people just didn't see the need for the bill. They don't think they would be involved in such a situation. Or perhaps they were a guilty party.

Pro-lifers tried to operate on our opponent's premises-- that of protecting women. I'm all for protecting women, but when you try to debate using your opponent's premises, you are setting yourself up for doom.

If we want to make the most of our legislative efforts, I think the pro-life caucus should present a bill that goes right to the heart of the fetal rights is.

I think there should be a private member's bill to ban dilatation and evacuation, also known as D & E.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with abortion methods, a D & E consists of ripping off the baby's limbs and then crushing his skull. It's typically performed in the second trimester after the ossification of bones, which makes a suction curettage abortion impossible.

In conjuction with a ban on D & E, I also think we should ban the practice of feticide. Feticide is that act of killing the fetus before expulsion. Usually it's performed with an injection to the baby's heart, either of potassium chloride or digoxin. However, in the medical literature, drugs administered orally can also be used.

If we banned those two things, what would happen is that chemical abortions in the 2nd trimester would become more common. It's being studied now in the medical literature and I expect that they will become more common. Basically, the abortionist would induce labour in order to expulse the fetus.

If the fetus is not killed before being delivered, there is a small but non-negligeable chance that he could survive birth. The next step would be to vote in an Infant Born Alive act.

It would be something of a long shot as far as pro-life bills are concerned. However, it would generate a lot of interest. Picture abortionists being summoned to a Parliamentary Committee to describe how they rip off the arms of little babies and crush their heads; picture them describing sticking a needle full of potassium chloride in the baby's heart. Picture a pro-life group showing a video of a live 2nd trimester abortion to Committee, and it's broadcast on CPAC.

Picture all the media coverage of that.

Now I can see the medical objections to this. In an emergency, a D & E is faster than an induction.

But most D & E's are elective, not medical-related.

We should stop trying to present timid bills, and try something a little more bold. If we don't have the votes to begin with (which is something we should make sure before we present a bill we are seriously trying to pass) then we should try to make hay by presenting bills that go to the heart of the issue.

The AmChurch Dictionary

A useful guide from The Last Papist Standing.

Somebody should compile an authoritative guide to dissenting buzzwords and then widely disseminate them, and then any time someone tries to push their BS, we can call them on it.

I like this one:

WITCH HUNT

Term used when a reporter from The Wanderer, The Remnant, or any other media uncovers the misdeeds of any bishop, priest or parish employee.

Yeah, heard that one before...

VIDEO: Hell is for cowards

H/T: SoCon or Bust

Danish Study: 25% of HIV positive men engaged in "unsafe sex"

Abstract:

Results: Of 812 eligible patients, a total of 275 (34%) had engaged in unsafe sex with an HIV-negative partner or a partner with unknown HIV status in the previous year. On multivariate analysis, men who have sex with men (MSM) was the only statistically significant risk factor associated with unsafe sex (odds ratio 3.24, 95% confidence interval 1.72-6.12). The main reason for practicing unsafe sex was that the partner did not wish to use a condom (53%). Conclusions: A high proportion of HIV-positive patients engage in unsafe sex, especially MSM. The reasons for unsafe sex are primarily linked to negotiation issues concerning condom use, including assumptions about the sexual partner's intent.

There are actually three official language groups--

English, French and Bilinguals.

Bilinguals are people who know both languages and can navigate between both cultures.

Bilingualism was their invention.

It was the invention of people who live between New Brunswick and Windsor.

And because they are able to straddle both cultures, they are able to convince both.

That being said, official bilingualism is bad for every day bilingualism.

There is really no point in hiring a bilingual postmaster in Pakenham, Ontario or Montmagny, Quebec.

The level of second-language knowledge will probably be poor in any case.

And it tends to put French at a disadvantage.

Rather than wall-to-wall bilingualism, Canada should have a practical bilingualism policy.

In places where there are at least 10% of the population that is of the second language, official bilingualism can make sense.

Otherwise, the language of work should be that of the local area.

It's widespread unilingualism that makes bilingualism necessary and valuable. When a lot of people are bilingual, it's not such an advantage in the job market.

So, we should really have a lot more flexibility on the language issue, and develop policies that reflect the local cultures, rather than the top-down vision of Central Canadian elites.

So...where are the feminists?

Will they protest this segregationist restaurant?

Of course not. It's "multiculturalism".

Honestly, I don't care that they have family and women's sections.

But I do care that things like Ladies' Nights are being contested at Human Rights Tribunals.

In my book, your restaurant, your rules.

VIDEO: The Life Ballet - Death March to the Clinic

I'm always happy to share art that presents a pro-life perspective.

VIDEO: What not to get your kids for Christmas

It's in German, but you'll get it.



H/T CMR

VIDEO: Camel falls in Church

Just dumb, that's all:

But there's no evidence WHATSOEVER that homosexual behaviour is unhealthy

A Danish abstract:

Lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) is a sexually transmitted disease, endemic in tropical and subtropical areas for many years. After 2003 there have been several outbreaks in western countries, especially among HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM). An important manifestation of LGV is a proctitis, with a clinical presentation and endoscopic findings resembling those of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs). LGV is considered new in Scandinavia. This case report focuses on difficulties in differentiating LGV and IBD. Material and methods. [...] Results. Clinical and endoscopic findings in LGV and IBD resemble each other. All cases were MSM. Three out of four were HIV-positive. Three out of four contacted their general practitioner (GP) due to gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, and were referred to a gastroenterologist (GE) with suspicion of IBD. Because of non-successful IBD treatment, control of HIV status, relapses of GI-symptoms or extended information concerning sexual habits, LGV was suspected and diagnosed. All patients responded with remission of GI-symptoms and endoscopic findings after oral treatment with doxycycline. Conclusion. Due to similarities between LGV and IBD, LGV should be considered as a differential diagnosis in patients with proctitis or IBD-related symptoms, especially among HIV-positive men. Hence LGV patients may be spared long-lasting examination, mistreatment and surgery.

Tales from sidewalk counselling

At SoCon or Bust:

Two weeks ago, I arrived at 1pm on Friday. Just as I went over to start sidewalk counselling, a young woman (I’ll call her B.) came out and sat on the steps of 63 Bank St. She kept rubbing her belly, looking rather sad. I approached her an offered her a rosary, which she took. As I was looking through my flyers for a “How to pray the rosary” brochure, she noticed a “Rachel’s Vineyard” flyer which read “Healing after abortion”. She took it right out of my hand and said “I need that, I never want to come back here again”. She then shared with me what made her feel like she had no choice but to have an abortion.

Go read the whole thing.

Denzinger online

If you've ever read works of theology, it's not typical to come across a book routinely cited as "Denzinger".

"Denzinger" refers to the name of the editor who compiled the Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum.

This book contains a list of authoritative statements of faith, as well as condemnations of heretical propositions.

According to Wikipedia, the English version online is an older version (different versions can have a different numbering system).

Have fun.

VIDEO: The D & C abortion machine

This is really trivia. But it's the kind of thing I like to know about. It's an overview of the D & C abortion machine.

Selective reduction: the abortion that's not an abortion

The National Post has an article on selective reduction.

The reason these procedures are not considered abortions is that they do not end a pregnancy.

So the abortion stats do not include these procedures.

We should consider lobbying for accurate statistics on this operation.

Medical professionals often do not recognize that fetal reduction can be traumatic, said Ms. Haddon. She knows of one mother who years after a reduction still watches her children in the playground, thinking “there should have been more.”
“These poor parents are caught between a rock and a hard place,” she said. “They tried so hard to get pregnant and probably spent a lot of time, energy, emotion, money and now they have to kill some of them, now they have to reduce. Even though the child was lost through reduction, it lives on, in mind and fantasy.”

The old pro-life saying is true: it's a child, not a choice.

Children became a commodity the day they were made a choice, not a blessing.

A History of the Catholic Church and Abortion #prolife

An excellent two-part article by professor Donald DeMarco. God Bless Him. He's one of the best.

Part One
Part two

Here is something that I did not know:

The distinction between the formed and unformed fetus (animated and unanimated), though recognized and accepted by many jurists, philosophers, and theologians, was used only for purposes of classification and distinguishing penalties. The first person in the Christian tradition to suggest that the distinction might be used as a basis to justify abortion in special cases is a Dominican, John of Naples (c. 1450). In an unpublished work, the Quodlibeta, John argues that a doctor may and should give the mother an abortifacient medicine if it is necessary to save her life, provided he is certain that the fetus is not animated. This opinion was brought to light by another Dominican, Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence.Discussion of this exception occupied the attention of theologians for the next three or four centuries, until theories of delayed animation—on which it was based—became obsolete.

The exception introduced for discussion by John of Naples met with considerable opposition, although it did claim some followers, particularly, the Jesuit theologian Thomas Sanchez. Sanchez' argumentation to justify abortion in certain instances (and when it was determined that ensoulment had not yet taken place) was eventually condemned in 1679 by Pope Innocent XI. A French Jesuit, Theophile Raynaud (1582-1663) was the first author to argue in favor of aborting an animated fetus to save the mother's life. Raynaud's position was unique for his time and had no adherents for the next two centuries.

In the seventeenth century, two scientists—Thomas Fienus and Paolo Zacchia —who rejected the Aristotelian theory of delayed animation, made important historical contributions that led ultimately to the Church's abandoning the speculation that there is such a thing as unanimated (or non-human) fetus.

Fienus, a professor of medicine at Louvain, published a biomedical treatise in 1620 on the formation of the fetus (De formatrice fetus liber). He concluded that the soul is infused on the third day. The Aristotelian notion of a succession of souls or "functions" of one soul (first vegetative, then sentient, and finally rational) made no sense to him. He developed nine lines of argumentation to support his thesis. In general, Fienus argues that the soul must be present at the beginning in order to organize the body. Moreover, in order to avoid an unnecessary multiplicity of explanatory factors, there must be one soul from the beginning that establishes the specific unity and individual continuity of the developing embryo.

Concerning the Septuagint passage in Exodus, Fienus stated that it does not oblige one to believe that the unformed fetus has no rational soul, but only that it is an incomplete man. He also points out that the Latin (Vulgate) text, which is authoritative in the Church, makes no distinction between the formed and unformed fetus. St. Jerome had translated the Bible into Latin directly from Hebrew and therefore avoided the erroneous Septuagint version of the celebrated Exodus passage.

Zacchia, physician general of the Vatican State, published a book, also in the year 1620 (Quaestiones medico-legales) in which he argues a position remarkably similar to that of Fienus. He concludes that the rational soul is created and infused at conception. He also maintains that the development of the fetus is a continuum, rather than a series of distinct stages. Like Fienus, he reasons that the soul must always organize the body if development is to be determined from within.
The Unborn A person At Every Stage

Concerning the Septuagint passage, Zacchia argues that it is commentary and not inspired text. The dichotomy between animated and non-animated fetuses, he contended, is maintained by lawyers because they want to distinguish the punishments for abortion. Besides, early pregnancy is an uncertain fact and the law takes the less strict possibility.

In 1644, Pope Innocent X conferred upon Paolo Zaccharia the title of "General Proto-Physician of the Entire Roman Ecclesiastical State."

The rejection of the theory of delayed animation by these two scientists was met with considerable opposition. Nonetheless, the reasonableness of their arguments—which received added confirmation from the scientific research of Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, Gassendi, DeGraaf, and others—gradually found acceptance. By the end of the seventeenth century important theologians such as Caramuel of Prague and the Spanish Jesuit, Juan Cardenas, found the distinction between the animated and unanimated fetus to be of no practical significance. Cardenas argued that abortion to save the life of the mother is impermissible if there is any reason to suspect the presence of a rational soul. But, Cardenas added, this suspicion is always present. It took another century, however, before immediate animation was generally accepted.

In 1869, Pope Pius IX officially removed the distinction between the animated and unanimated fetus from the penal legislation of the Church. This was, of course, disciplinary and in no way involved Church teaching on abortion. Henceforward, every direct killing of human life after conception would be treated in the same way, that is, the penalty of excommunication applied to all abortions.

VIDEO: Don't test bullet-proof vests (episode of Dr. Phil)

An episode of Dr. Phil. Don't do stupid crap like this. Some slightly disturbing images of a dumb guy getting shot.

British women in their 20s earn more than men

The Daily Mail:

Economist Ruth Lea, of the Arbuthnot Banking Group, said: ‘There is no pay gap for women who do not have children, and for women under the age of 40 the gap is now trivial.

We always knew that single women were paid just as well as men. The idea that women are discriminated against was always a fantasy. I think the equality lobby will be running out of things to say

Oz Conservative comments:

We always knew that single women were paid just as well as men. The idea that women are discriminated against was always a fantasy. I think the equality lobby will be running out of things to say

They won't marry. They'll end up having one-night stands and unstable relationships. And then realize that family is more important when it's too late to have a baby.

British autistic man detained "for his own good"

This should be in the papers, but it's not...

One cold winter’s day, Stephen’s father succumbed to the flu. Genuine flu – you don’t suffer from ‘Man Flu’ when you are a full time single parent carer. He rang his local authority’s respite centre, where Stephen had been once before, to ask if they could look after him for three days. They could.

At the end of that first day in respite, despite the fact that Stephen had been there many times before, the staff felt themselves ‘unable to cope with Stephen’. He was aware that his Father was ill and upset at being separated from him. The respite centre transferred him to the ominously named ‘Positive Behaviour Unit’.

Now the Positive Behaviour Unit is a mighty politically correct place. Tap someone on the shoulder to attract their attention, and they don’t think ‘that is how Stephen has always attracted my attention since he was a child’ – they say – ‘he touched me, that is an assault’ and promptly record it in their daily log…..

When Stephen’s Father went to collect him after three days, they had logged many such ‘assaults’ – and announced that they were retaining Stephen for ‘assessment’. No! His Father couldn’t take him home.

I hate bone-headed theories about treating autism. It seems the only party upset with Stephen is the State.

Gas chambers for puppies legal in Quebec

About a hundred protesters came out to the National Assembly in Quebec City to protest against the legal use of gas chambers by puppy mills.

Our state has no issue with sticking a needle full of potassium chloride in the heart of a third trimester fetus.

Why would gas chambers for puppies be a problem?

Note how the Canoe.ca has no problem showing images of animal abuse in the report.

But the media won't show images of aborted babies when it comes to abortion.

Donate to LifeSiteNews.com

Pro-lifers: all of us have benefitted from LifeSiteNews' reporting.

We need to support those who are on the front lines of the abortion debate. LifeSiteNews should not have to beg for its bread, especially considering all that it does for us.

Most of you reading this have a credit card and at least five bucks to spare.

And if you don't: God Bless You!

But if you do have five bucks and a credit card, donate.

Now don't be a cheapo if you have more than five bucks but you only give five bucks 'cuz that's how much I asked for you to give. Give until it hurts. That's the Christian thing to do.

STUDY: Gay men more likely to have been abused as children

Abstract:

MSM who initially disclosed male sex partners reported significantly (P <; 0.0001) higher rates of early physical abuse (36%) and lifetime abuse (49%) compared with non-MSM (15 and 22%), respectively. These MSM reported significantly higher rates of sexual abuse by age 11, age 21, and over a lifetime compared with non-MSM (P < 0.0001). Being an MSM who initially disclosed male sex partners (OR: 2.1; 95% CI: 1.2, 3.6) and early-life sexual abuse (OR: 2.8; 95% CI: 1.8, 4.3) was associated with IPV victimization in current relationships. Similarly, being an MSM with early-life physical and sexual abuse was associated (0.0004 ≤ P ≤ 0.07) with IPV perpetration. Early-life physical and sexual abuse was higher among MSM who disclosed male sex partners compared with heterosexual men; however, all MSM who experienced early-life abuse were more likely to be IPV victims or perpetrators.

The pro-life movement comes to China

Now that must be a tough gig.

Chinese women undergo an average of 3.4 abortions apiece, with some having as many as 15, said Zheng Shurong, an obstetrician at the Peking University First Hospital.

Chu Yuhan, 28, who had five abortions before publishing an anti-abortion booklet and establishing an Internet discussion group earlier this year, is one Chinese citizen who is challenging the norm in her homeland. A 46-page booklet she wrote was circulated among more than 3,000 people in three months, according to the Global Times.

Romanian woman's incredible story of her miracle baby #prolife

Doctors were sure her child would not survive. And they pressured her to get an abortion.

QUOTE:

On August 10, at only 26 weeks and four days, Irina went into labor. Her doctor had arranged for her to deliver at a hospital known for its advanced technology and highly trained medical staff. The hospital had prepared carefully for her special case.

The labor was moving so swiftly her doctor didn't have time to send her in an ambulance, so he put her in his own car. On the way, he called the hospital to let them know Irina was coming to give birth. He was shocked when they told him not to bring her, since the premature babies ward was still under repairs and renovation.

Frantically the doctor changed routes to a different hospital, where Irina safely gave birth to a boy.

The new doctor realized the baby had been living in the womb with very little amniotic fluid. She suddenly became angry with Irina.

"There is no chance for him to survive even 24 hours," Irina said the woman told her. "You have to forget about this child."

She gave a long list of health problems the child would suffer if Irina allowed the newborn to live. She pointed to the boy's left leg and said that there were no ligaments from his heel to his knee; he would never be able to bend his leg.

"I said, 'Don't you believe in miracles?' She got crazy when she heard about God. The child survived, and after a month, this doctor was forced to admit at the end that our baby was the subject of a series of miracles."

Read the whole thing. So many twists and turns.

The Jewish Pro-Life Foundation

...offers help for unplanned pregnancy, post-abortion healing and pro-life apologetics from a Jewish perspective.

Ann Coulter on gays in the military

She writes:

Racial prejudice is not the same thing as sexual attraction, so please stop telling us this is just like integrating blacks in the military.

A Military Times survey in 2005 found that nearly half of all women in the military claim to have been the victim of sexual harassment -- ludicrously more than women in civilian life. By contrast, two-thirds of minorities said they were treated better in the military than in society at large.

There's a reason why discriminating against gays is rational but discriminating against blacks is not.

Black is not a behaviour.

Black is not a mental state.

Jesuit Scientist States Obvious About Creation

Jesuit astrophysicist: Hawking’s theory on origin of universe is unscientific

Fr. Carreira said Hawking’s theory is “unscientific” because it contradicts the laws of physics and provides no proof for its claims, according to AVAN news agency. (...)
[Hawking's] book is only “original” in its illogical denial of human freedom in chapter one and its claims in the final chapter that “through the force of gravity, a universe created itself from nothing.” “Nothingness does not have any force or properties,” Fr. Carreira noted. It is “purely the absence of all reality.” What is evident, he continued, is that “gravity is the result of mass,” such that “since nothingness has no mass, it cannot have gravity either. It would be like saying from zero you could get a bank account.”

As George Orwell said: some ideas are so stupid only intellectuals can believe them.

This is why I could never be an atheist. The notion that anything in creation just sprang from the Void is beyond irrational.

Fr. Carreira also noted the “compatibility” of science, philosophy and theology in discovering truth. “They are all partial ways of understanding a reality that is very rich and that cannot be known by just one methodology.” All three can “complement each other in bringing about the development of human knowledge,” he added.

Christmas songs that don't suck

One of my pet peeves at Christmas time is horrible versions of Christmas songs.

I get very annoyed because I don't think traditional Christmas songs need to be jazzed up. They just have to be sung according to the traditional tune, without added scats, jazzed up notes, made up words or, even worse, electronic drum beats.

My philosophy is: just sing the song!

So I've used my blip account to search out Christmas songs that don't suck so that we can play them around the house. And I thought I'd share them with you. They're on my sidebar underneath the facebook badge. If you click on the "play" link, a new window will open. You need a blip.fm account to listen, but the sign up is fast and free.

You might notice that at the time of posting there are still a few secular songs at the bottom of the list. As I add more Christmas classics to my blip account, they will fall off.

I'm trying to find good versions of religious songs. Those are really hard to find.

So enjoy.

Can Dogma Develop?

From Catholic Answers:

As these and many other cases demonstrate, doctrinal questions can remain in a not-yet-fully-defined state for years. The Church has never felt the need to define formally what there has been no particular pressure to define. This strikes many, particularly non-Catholics, as strange. Why weren’t things cleared up in, say, A.D. 100, so folks could know what’s what? Why didn’t Rome issue a laundry list of definitions in the early days and let it go at that? Why wasn’t an end-run made around all these troubles that plagued Christianity precisely because things were unclear? The remote reason is that God has had his own timetable and set of reasons (to which we aren’t privy) for keeping it. The same could be said about Old Testament prophets: Why didn’t they understand the fullness of the doctrine of the Trinity all at once? Or the identity of the Messiah? Or the fullness of Christian teaching? Partly because God had not revealed it all yet, and partly because their understanding of the implications of the doctrines they had needed to grow clearer over time.

This need to discern more clearly what is contained in the deposit of faith given to the Church by the apostles points us to the related subjects of infallibility and inspiration. The pope and the bishops (when teaching in union with him) have the charism of infallibility when defining matters of faith or morals; but infallibility works only negatively. Through the intervention of the Holy Spirit, the pope and bishops are prevented from teaching what is untrue, but they are not forced or told by the Holy Spirit to teach what is true. To put it another way, the pope and the bishops are not inspired the way the authors of Scripture or the prophets were. To make a new definition, to clear up some dogmatic confusion, they first have to use human reason, operating on what is known to date, to be able to teach more precisely what is to be held as true. They cannot teach what they do not know, and they learn things the same way we do. They have no access to prophetic shortcuts—they must delve by study into the riches of the words God has already given us.

Borrowing From Paganism?

Fundamentalists assert that what Catholics label as development is nothing more than a centuries-old accumulation of pagan beliefs and rites. The Catholic Church has not really refined the original deposit of faith, they claim. Instead, it has added to it from the outside. In its hurry to increase membership, particularly in the early centuries, the Church let in nearly anybody. When existing inducements were not enough, it adopted pagan ways to encourage pagans to convert. Each time the Church did this, it moved away from authentic Christianity.

Consider Christmas. Strict Fundamentalists do not observe it, and not only because the name of the feast is inescapably "Christ’s Mass." Some say they disapprove of it because there is no proof Christ was born on December 25. Others argue he couldn’t have been born in winter because the shepherds, who were in the fields with their sheep, never put sheep into fields during that season (a plausible, though in this case, erroneous assumption). Others, noting the Bible is silent about the feast of Christmas, say that should settle the matter. But these are all secondary considerations.

The real reasons many Fundamentalists oppose the celebration of Christmas are, first, that the feast of Christmas was established by the Catholic Church (which is bad enough) and, next, that the Church provided celebrating the birth of Christ as an alternative to celebrating a pagan holiday occurring at the same time.

The Fundamentalist objections notwithstanding, Scripture sanctions this practice. The Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was on the same day as a Canaanite vintage festival that it supplanted, much as Christmas coincided with the festival of Sol Invictus that non-Christians were celebrating. This is the same principle that Protestant churches use when they replace the celebration of Halloween with "Reformation Day" or "harvest festival" celebrations. It is an attempt to provide a wholesome alternative celebration to a popular but unwholesome one. Anti-Catholics who accuse Christmas of having "pagan origins" fail to recognize that it is precisely anti-pagan in origin.

Berling hospital performs scan on baby during birth

Hey look. It's a picture of a non-human being. :)

Seriously, it looks like the baby is playing with his (or her) mouth.

Child Protection is the Modern Inquisition

As far as I'm concerned, it's too easy to make accusations against innocent parents. And Child Protection has more power than the police. There must be more checks to protect the innocent.

Time to rein these folks in.

How does if I have Solar panels have anything to do with of those two accusations?

How does Where we go Camping have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does where we go hiking have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does what we do when we go camping have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does Who has ever gone camping with us, have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does if I have any stored food, have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does if I have an alternative heat source have anything to do with those two accusations?

I would like to know How doing Renovations on my house has anything to do with those two accusations?

How does what I write on my blog, have anything to do with those accusations?

Study: Large numbers of men who have sex with men say homosexuality is wrong

An interesting abstract:

The proportion of blacks who indicated that homosexuality was "always wrong" was 72.3% in 2008, largely unchanged since the 1970s. In contrast, among white respondents, this figure declined from 70.8% in 1973 to 51.6% in 2008 with most change occurring since the early 1990s. (...) Among MSM, twice as many black MSM reported that homosexuality is "always wrong" compared with white MSM (57.1% versus 26.8%, P = 0.003). MSM with unfavorable attitudes toward homosexuality were less likely to report ever testing for HIV compared with MSM with more favorable attitudes (relative risk, 0.50; 95% confidence interval, 0.31 to 0.78).

I would like to survey such men and see whether they are open to a program that helps them re-program their homosexual feelings or behaviour.

Student vilified by homosexuals, seeks legal help

Sixteen-year-old Daniel Glowacki has retained the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) for help concerning an October 20 incident at Howell High School, when he came to the defense of another student who was told by his economics teacher, Jay McDowell, to remove a Confederate flag belt buckle. (See earlier story)

TMLC attorney Robert Muise tells OneNewsNow the teacher was wearing a T-shirt to highlight the alleged "bullying" of homosexuals, so Glowacki exposed his hypocrisy.

"Then the teacher said, 'Don't you accept the homosexual lifestyle?' And Daniel said, 'No, I'm a Catholic; I don't.' And the teacher got very angry at him; he ordered him out of the classroom," Muise reports. "He was shouting at him, [making] comments to the effect that...'if you're a Catholic, you ought to be in a Catholic school and not this public school.'

If that were my son, I'd be proud of him.

Muise says homosexual activists across the country are hailing the teacher, who was suspended for two days, as a hero, but they are vilifying Glowacki and his family, describing them as "bigots" and referring to the studen'ts religious objection to the homosexual agenda as "hate speech."

Objecting to behaviour will never amount to objecting to the person. Never has, never will.

Catholics will never be silenced. Deal with it people.

VIDEO: Child Nears Pope During Vigil For Unborn

It's just cute:

VIDEO: Austrians stand up for life

In Linz, Austria.

Just a few highlights. But they have it tough in Austria, especially given the lackadaisical Catholic hierarchy.



Question: are the cops there to keep them in line or to protect them from the pro-aborts?

QUOTATION: Margaret Sanger on Contraception & Abortion

If the laws against imparting knowledge of scientific Birth Control were repealed, the 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 women who undergo abortions in the United States each year would escape the agony of the surgeon's instruments and the long trail of disease, suffering and death which so often follows.

--Margaret Sanger.

Considering that we live in an age in which contraception is widely accepted and promoted, I think we can call her prediction an epic fail.

(Note that the estimates of one million abortions a year have been said to be vastly over-estimated.)

We spend more and more on condoms in Africa...

And the AIDS crisis only gets worse.

Increased condom use, on the other hand, seems to actually contribute to higher levels of infection. Why? Because when you tell young people that condoms will protect them against HIV infection, many will take greater sexual risks as a result. Of course, condoms often fail even when they are used consistently—which is, as it turns out, not often. Those who argue that “consistent condom use” will lower HIV infection rates have produced no evidence to speak of. Consistent condom use is rare.

...

The major HIV/AIDS organizations, most of whom double as population control promoters, are ideologically committed to sexual license at all costs—even the cost of African lives—and take a very dim view of the African people. First and foremost, they claim that Africans cannot control their sexual urges and cannot change their sexual behavior, except of course for adopting condom use.

VIDEO: Do the Unborn Unjustly Use Another's Body? #prolife

This video answers the arguments presented in Judith Jarvis Thompson's famous pro-abortion essay on the kidnapped violinist.

Please note there are graphics pictures at the end.

QUOTATION: Carrying our cross

In this life Jesus does not ask you to carry the heavy cross with Him, but a small piece of His cross, a piece that consists of human suffering.

- St. Padre Pio

Fetal remains at the centre of trial in North Bay, Ontario

The trial of Tabatha Etches has been put on hold as the Court awaits an Ontario Superior Court decision in an appeal of the acquital of Ivana Levkovic.

The Crown in that case did not claim the baby died during birth, arguing the legislation protects a vulnerable segment of society and prevents investigations into suspicious child deaths from being frustrated."

Levkovic's lawyer argued a fetus has no rights, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects abortion and a woman's control over her body.

It's ridiculous to say that one group can't have rights in order to protect the rights of others.

That's not how you argue rights. A right exists or it doesn't. There's no such thing as a right NOT existing in order for someone else to have a right.

It's a power thing see. Feminists are saying that they NEED the right to kill their unborn, so for that reason, the unborn must not have rights.

A fetus may not have rights, but there are very good reasons to prosecute concealing a child's body, namely that it constitutes an improper disposal of a human body which can have effects on public hygiene.

As I understand it, the law only applies to fetuses past 20 weeks.

Note that the idea of an "unborn child" was never problematic before the age of widespread abortion. It's only when feminists decided that killing unborn children is the key to emancipation did the phrase become contested. That's why a law covering the "hiding the body of a child" (re: fetus) seems archaic in this day and age. It never was when it was passed. It's just that feminists and their followers got into the habit of redefining inconvenient terms like "human being" so that their power could not threatened.

Abortion Ganger: Pro-lifers "invented" problem of women killing fetuses

As if being killed is not a problem for the fetus.

Proving once again that feminists think: if a fetus has to suffer and die in the name of women's empowerment, oh well!

Never mind that condemnation of killing the unborn has been universal in the West. I know people will say that "quickening" was the cutting off point between legal and illegal abortion. As Joseph Dellpenna points out in his book "Dispeling the Myths of Abortion History" this was not universally true, and the impetus against abortion was even stronger once it was discovered that life begins at conception.

Pro-abortion historians have made stuff up about the history of abortion. It was never common, legal or accepted in English-speaking countries. It was pro-abortionists who sowed the problem of abortion.

Campaign to revoke charitable status of Exodus Global Alliance

A group that seeks to help people overcome homosexual tendencies.

Reinforcing the idea that people should detest their natural sexual orientation can lead to demonstrable harm,

But...what about...choice?

What if you don't want to be gay?

What if you've determined you'd be happier not having homosexual tendencies?

Doesn't the invidual know better than some lobbying organization?

Isn't this a violation of personal autonomy?

Guess not!

I guess if you want to change gender, that's fine, but if you want to change sexual orientation, that's wrong.

While Exodus likes to spin the same argument around and claim that the “gay lifestyle” (whatever that means) is harmful even if gay people don’t agree, this is not backed up by the medical and psychological community.

Except for all those diseases that are the result of frequent anal sodomy. No evidence whatsoever...

The world’s largest and most well-respected medical organisations have all gone on record to say that homosexuality is not a recognized disorder, that gay people are not inherently worse off than straight people, that sexual orientation is unchangeable, and that attempts to change it often result in serious psychological harm.

And they're not motivated by ideology what-so-ever. We know it's all politics.

An argument against legalized polygamy

But that's won't convince those who favour it. It's all about individual desires. To heck with the consequences!

Other things being equal (and, to a good first approximation, they are), when one man marries two women, some other man ends up marrying no woman. When one man marries three women, two other men don't marry. When one man marries four women, three other men don't marry. Monogamy gives everyone a shot at marriage. Polygamy, by contrast, is a zero-sum game that skews the marriage market so that some men marry at the expense of others.

For the individuals affected, losing the opportunity to marry is a grave, even devastating, deprivation. But the effects are still worse at the social level. Sexual imbalance in the marriage market has bad social consequences and many grim ones at that.

Two political scientists, Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer, pondered those consequences in their 2004 book Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population. Summarizing their findings in a Washington Post article, they wrote: "Scarcity of women leads to a situation in which men with advantages — money, skills, education — will marry, but men without such advantages — poor, unskilled, illiterate — will not. A permanent subclass of bare branches (unmarriageable men) from the lowest socioeconomic classes is created.” unquote

In China and India, for example, by the year 2020 ‘bare branches’ will make up 12 to 15 percent of the young adult male population."

The problem in China and India is sex-selective abortion (and sometimes infanticide), not polygamy; where the marriage market is concerned, however, the two are functional equivalents. In their book, Hudson and den Boer note that "bare branches are more likely than other males to turn to vice and violence." To get ahead, they "may turn to appropriation of resources, using force if necessary." Such men are ripe for recruitment by gangs, and in groups they "exhibit even more exaggerated risky and violent behavior." The result is "a significant increase in societal, and possibly inter-societal, violence."

The problem is that those who favour legalized polygamy only see the effects on the partners. It does not "harm" the partners, therefore it's fine.

That it has social ramifications far beyond the home is considered irrelevant.

From the archives: Russian abortionist says abortion is murder

I'm reposting items from the past-- doing the blog version of playing re-runs-- because I'm busy and I just want to make sure that the blog is always full. So I'm scheduling items in advance.

Unfortunately, the link to the original article no longer works. But I still have many of the juicy quotes. Such as:

These days, [Abortionist Marina] Chechneva is writing magazine articles about fetus development in hope of raising public opposition to abortion. After years of handling fetuses, she explains, she has come to feel a responsibility toward the unborn children.

"They should realize that what they're doing is already a murder," she said.

It kind of puts a whole new spin on the line "the only moral abortion is MY abortion."

Anti-choice abortionists. The least worst of the bunch.

Pro-life pioneers’ home damaged in middle-of-the-night pro-abort attack

CHICAGO, December 2, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The home of long-time pro-life leaders Joseph and Ann Scheidler was attacked in the middle of the night with bricks of asphalt being thrown through two front windows, reports Operation Rescue.

One of the bricks contained a threatening note from an obvious abortion supporter. The attack occurred around 2 am.

The note read: “We are crazy feminist bi***es who will destroy your sexist ideas.”

“P.S. I’ve had an abortion and no laws could ever stop me,” it continued. “You can’t make Queen Anne’s lace illegal, a******.”

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman denounced “in the strongest terms” the “cowardly violence that shattered the peace of the Scheidler home last night.”

Joseph and his wife Ann Scheidler are among the most respected pioneers of the pro-life movement, and have been active on behalf of the unborn for decades. Scheidler is the head of the Pro-Life Action League.

“We demand that that Attorney General Eric Holder order the Justice Department to launch an immediate investigation into this violent hate crime and to provide the same protections to Joseph and Ann Scheidler as they have in the past for unthreatened abortionists.”

There has been a recent increase in violence against peaceful pro-lifers. In September, 2009, activist Jim Pouillon was brutally murdered as he stood with a pro-life sign in front of a high school in Owosso, Michigan. Operation Rescue’s headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, has been repeatedly vandalized, and staff threatened in recent months. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, sidewalk counselors were threatened by a man at gunpoint and police later discovered a cache of weapons in the man’s vehicle.

Developing…

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I'm just wondering.

What exactly is that supposd to accomplish?

Aside from damaging the house, do these a**holes think that this is going to stop anyone?

Destroy sexist ideas? You can't destroy ideas. You can only make them less popular.

But polls have shown that the US is becoming more and more pro-life.

What a bunch of nutcases.

Aspiring Italian priest kills himself when ordination cancelled by the Vatican

It said he wasn't mature enough.

"I wanted to become a priest and all my life was devoted to that," he wrote.

"I am fragile and I ask for forgiveness," Seidita added.

Bishop Scanavino said Seidita's receiving a fax on Monday cancelling the ordination had been "an absolute drama" for the young man from Lecce in Puglia.

The bishop quoted Deacon Seidita as saying, "over and over again": "What have I done, tell me what I've done".

I don't wish to make light of this story.

But being Catholic means being open to things not going your way.

This is Spiritual Life 101.

The fact that he thought his life was over when he was turned down suggests that he didn't get that.

And I suspect if this one great rejection in his life led him to suicide, he had mental health issues.

When you have your mind set on a particular vocation, you can never count on that particular vocation to come to fruition, because God may have other plans in mind for you. I'm only sorry that this young man did not appear to realize this.