From Lifesitenews: The head of the United Nations' food agency has said that population
control is not necessary to combat food shortages. Dr. Jacques Diouf told a
synod of African bishops meeting in Rome this week that "On the earth,
there is a sufficient number of financial means, effective technologies,
natural and human resources to eliminate hunger in the world once and for
all." [LifeSiteNews.com, 13 October] Dr Diouf's position
is in marked contrast to the calls for population control frequently made
elsewhere in the UN system.
Showing posts with label International. Show all posts
Showing posts with label International. Show all posts
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Plenty of food for the World's Population: UN official
Monday, August 31, 2009
Dissident theologians and pro-abortion politicians
The Kennedy clan is the most prominent Catholic family in the highly dynastic world of US politics, and it is firmly pro-abortion. How did this come about? The promise of money and allies from the abortion lobby was underpinned by a group of dissident Catholic theologians who actually had a formal meeting in 1964 to coach family members in the sophistical distinctions they could make to rationalise their position. What they advocated appears to have been basically the familiar claim that a politician can be 'personally opposed' to abortion but as a matter of policy various considerations, from the need to maintain public order to the 'distress' of a woman who might be refused abortion, can justify voting to make abortion easier in every possible way - as if the state's duty to defend the lives of the innocent could be set aside so easily.
From Fr Z, with his emphases and comments in red (see his post):
The former Jesuit priest Albert Jonsen, emeritus professor of ethics at the University of Washington, recalls the meeting in his book "The Birth of Bioethics" (Oxford, 2003). He writes about how he joined with the Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick and Charles Curran, to enable the Kennedy family to redefine support for abortion. [Get that? There was a workshop for them to help them get around the teaching of the Church.]
Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that [AGAIN… pay attention…] "distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue." It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians "might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order."
Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that [AGAIN… pay attention…] "distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue." It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians "might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order."
One conclusion to draw from this is that these networks of dissent which this blog has sought to highlight have their importance and can do real damage. Simply by providing 'cover' for dissenting positions they can render inneffective the Church's opposition to some of the greatest evils of the day.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Archbishop Chaput responds to The Tablet
Business as usual in The Tablet last week - claiming that abortion is just 'Catholic' issue and that therefore Catholics should not let it get in the way when they decide what political policies to support (er, right!). This is a central tenat of the implicitly or explicitly pro-abortion dissident network of 'Catholic' organisations which feed off the Church and neutralise her public teaching. On this occasion The Tablet was addressing not a UK issue but an American one, so Archbishop Chaput pf Denver has posted a reply. (H-t Damian Thompson) In part:
Last week a British Catholic journal, in an editorial titled “US bishops must back Obama,” claimed that America’s bishops “have so far concentrated on a specifically Catholic issue - making sure state-funded health care does not include abortion - rather than the more general principle of the common good.”
It went on to say that if US Catholic leaders would get over their parochial preoccupations, “they could play a central role in salvaging Mr Obama’s health-care programme.”
The editorial has value for several reasons. First, it proves once again that people don’t need to actually live in the United States to have unhelpful and badly informed opinions about our domestic issues. Second, some of the same pious voices that once criticized US Catholics for supporting a previous president now sound very much like acolytes of a new president. Third, abortion is not, and has never been, a “specifically Catholic issue,” and the editors know it. And fourth, the growing misuse of Catholic “common ground” and “common good” language in the current health-care debate can only stem from one of two sources: ignorance or cynicism.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Overpopulation myth
The myth of overpopulation has been exploded so many times it is astonishing that you find people still banging on about it. Here's a nice video.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI, the Reformer
Comment: Luke Coppen makes a good case for Benedict XVI being what commentators said before his election, a man who cracks down on abuses. The Holy Father is doing it in different places and on different subject with seriousness, but no fanfare - sometimes even with a degree of necessary secrecy. As Coppen points out, this means that his reforming zeal has gone largely unnoticed; it also fails to fit the stereotype of a liberal reformer which many commentators assume is the only kind.
We should qualify what we said about the foccacia episode in the diocese of Linz. It is not that the Pope is doing nothing about Linz - as noted below he's just had an emergency meeting with the Austrian bishops to talk about it, and other matters. Nevertheless he doesn't feel able to do what many frustrated faithful Catholics assume he should do, which is simply remove the bishop, because of the nebulous concept of 'collegiality' which descended like a miasma onto the Church after Vatican II. However, even that needs to be qualified, since he has removed an African archbishop who tolerated concibinage among his clergy. Since this is one of the problems in Linz, is sauce for the African goose going to be sauce for the Austrian gander?
Coppen's article is worth reading in full but here's the key passage:
The Maciel affair: In May 2006 Pope Benedict took the highly unusual step of ordering one of the world's best-known priests to retire to a life of prayer and penance. His decision followed a Vatican investigation into allegations that Fr Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement, was a sexual abuser who had fathered at least one child.
Investigating America's seminaries: Not long after his election Benedict XVI oversaw an apostolic visitation of seminaries in the United States. The investigation was inspired by the clerical sexual abuse crisis of 2002 and covered all schools of theology as well as college-level seminaries, houses of formation, and academic institutions that form future priests.
Scrutinising American female religious orders: The Pope has also ordered a wide-ranging investigation of American women religious. The apostolic visitation of institutes of women religious in the United States, which is currently underway, covers approximately 400 apostolic religious institutes of women and approximately 59,000 women religious. It is likely to lead to a shake-up of American female religious life.
Deposing the leader of an African Church: Earlier this month Pope Benedict accepted the resignation of Archbishop Paulin Pomodimo of Bangui, the most senior Catholic cleric in the Central African Republic (CAR). The resignation followed a visit to the CAR by a papal emissary, Archbishop Robert Sarah, secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, in March. It is widely thought that the Pope requested the archbishop's resignation because he tolerated priests keeping mistresses.
Calling for a thorough accounting of abuse in Ireland: Also this month Pope Benedict called for a profound examination of the state of the Irish Church following a damning report into "endemic" abuse in schools run by religious orders.
Crisis talks with the Austrian bishops: And this week Pope Benedict held an emergency meeting with the leaders of the Austrian Church. The gathering followed the appointment and subsequent resignation of Gerhard Wagner as auxiliary Bishop of Linz and reports that priests in senior positions in the diocese live with mistresses. The Pope reminded the bishops of "the urgency of going deeper in the faith and the integral fidelity to the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium of the Church" - a coded message that the Austrian Church is in serious need of reform.
These events together show the determination with which Pope Benedict is confronting the gravest scandals in the Church today. They have all had considerable publicity, but nevertheless have not created the perception that Benedict XVI is a bold reformist pope.
Investigating America's seminaries: Not long after his election Benedict XVI oversaw an apostolic visitation of seminaries in the United States. The investigation was inspired by the clerical sexual abuse crisis of 2002 and covered all schools of theology as well as college-level seminaries, houses of formation, and academic institutions that form future priests.
Scrutinising American female religious orders: The Pope has also ordered a wide-ranging investigation of American women religious. The apostolic visitation of institutes of women religious in the United States, which is currently underway, covers approximately 400 apostolic religious institutes of women and approximately 59,000 women religious. It is likely to lead to a shake-up of American female religious life.
Deposing the leader of an African Church: Earlier this month Pope Benedict accepted the resignation of Archbishop Paulin Pomodimo of Bangui, the most senior Catholic cleric in the Central African Republic (CAR). The resignation followed a visit to the CAR by a papal emissary, Archbishop Robert Sarah, secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, in March. It is widely thought that the Pope requested the archbishop's resignation because he tolerated priests keeping mistresses.
Calling for a thorough accounting of abuse in Ireland: Also this month Pope Benedict called for a profound examination of the state of the Irish Church following a damning report into "endemic" abuse in schools run by religious orders.
Crisis talks with the Austrian bishops: And this week Pope Benedict held an emergency meeting with the leaders of the Austrian Church. The gathering followed the appointment and subsequent resignation of Gerhard Wagner as auxiliary Bishop of Linz and reports that priests in senior positions in the diocese live with mistresses. The Pope reminded the bishops of "the urgency of going deeper in the faith and the integral fidelity to the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium of the Church" - a coded message that the Austrian Church is in serious need of reform.
These events together show the determination with which Pope Benedict is confronting the gravest scandals in the Church today. They have all had considerable publicity, but nevertheless have not created the perception that Benedict XVI is a bold reformist pope.
Monday, May 18, 2009
WHO's fantasy statistics to promote abortion
Briefing.
From C-Fam: 2 Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. writes : A newly released research paper identifies structural flaws in United Nations (UN) data collection and analysis of global maternal health, finding that UN maternal heath policies based on the bad data are jeopardizing women's health in the developing world.
The paper, 'Removing the Roadblocks from Achieving MDG 5 by Improving the Data on Maternal Mortality,' by Donna Harrison, M.D., was published by the International Organizations Research Group (IORG) [IORG is a division of C-FAM, publisher of the Friday Fax]. The paper shows how the World Health Organization's (WHO) guidelines to UN member states require nations to collect faulty data while at the same time pressuring them to enact UN policies such as liberalizing abortion laws based on that data.
Harrison finds that the WHO's Reproductive Health Indicators are flawed because of 'quasi-legal, rather than scientifically-based definitions used to define maternal health.' Specifically, she examines WHO documents that equate 'safe abortion' to legal abortion, and 'unsafe abortion' to illegal abortion. Harrison said that even pro-abortion groups have taken WHO to task for its faulty definitions. She gives the example of Marie Stopes International, which claims that the abortions it performs in countries where it is illegal are safe.
WHO definitions also create confusion about the true number of deaths attributable to abortion, Harrison argues. This is because WHO guidelines require hospitals to count deaths from miscarriages (spontaneous abortions) in calculating maternal mortality, but not deaths from planned abortions. Maternal deaths due to planned, induced abortion are therefore not required to be recorded in government statistics, and the extent to which such abortions harm women is impossible to measure.
Despite this fact, WHO is promoting planned abortion as a way to improve maternal health. Citing WHO's 2006 report 'Sexual and Reproductive Health: Laying the Foundation for a More Just World through Research and Action,' Harrison says that 'the report details its extensive research and promotion of chemical or medical abortions in developing countries using mifepristone and misoprostol and manual vacuum aspirators, a technique used by some to perform abortions in countries where the practice is illegal under the auspices of 'fertility regulation.'…Without accurate data collection and analysis, the effects of such changes are often not perceived until years after damage has been done and may not be reversible at that late point.'
Harrison quotes WHO researchers who admit to 'adjusting the data' up to 50 percent based upon what they 'expect to find' in order 'to make the numbers turn out right.' To improve WHO statistics and policies Harrison offers several policy recommendations, including the collection of data 'for all pregnancy outcomes,' separating the data on miscarriages and induced termination, and refining the definition of 'induced abortion' to distinguish among terminations medically necessary to save the life of the mother, voluntary terminations performed in the hospital, and voluntary terminations performed in an outpatient setting.
If WHO does not improve what one World Bank researcher calls 'tortuous statistical techniques and educated guessing,' Harrison concludes, 'Policy decisions will be founded on political assumptions, rather than scientific fact.' [C-FAM]
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
AI campainging for abortion in Dominican Republic
Briefing. This is how low Amnesty International has sunk. Once they accepted abortion as a 'human right', it was never going to be a marginal issue.
From C-Fam: Piero A. Tozzi, J.D. writes : ' The politicized human rights organization Amnesty International has again taken a pro-abortion position in a nation's internal debate over abortion, coming out against the Dominican Republic's proposed protections for unborn life in its draft constitution and in the country's penal law. In so doing, Amnesty pits the rights of the mother against those of the unborn child while misrepresenting what international law says - or doesn't say - about abortion.
In a statement issued a few weeks ago, Amnesty International claims that the country's constitutional and legal reforms 'could lead to violations of women's human rights' and further claims that laws penalizing abortion would lead to increased maternal mortality. It also argued that the proposed protections of the unborn were inconsistent with the Dominican Republic's 'obligations under international human rights law.'
According to Amnesty, the penal law revisions 'would increase penalties for persons involved in carrying out an abortion.' Amnesty criticized the proposed revisions for allowing criminal prosecution of abortionists 'for providing abortion services that are safe.'
Critics point out, however, that in addition to being fatal to the child in utero, maternal health risks from abortion outweigh those associated with childbirth, particularly where the level of obstetric care is low.
Moreover, such claims about 'international human rights law,' which Amnesty also made in an informal 'friend-of-the-court' memorandum circulated last year among the justices of the Mexican Supreme Court, are contradicted by prior statements by the group. As recently as 2005, Amnesty acknowledged that 'There is no generally accepted right to abortion in international human rights law.'
Two years later, however, Amnesty International formally abandoned its previous objectivity and embraced abortion advocacy. According to Dr. Rachel MacNair, a former Amnesty member and Vice President of the group 'Consistent Life,' Amnesty's board 'railroaded' the new policy through, never announcing the results of a member vote on the issue.
Since Amnesty International abandoned neutrality on abortion, it has become an increasingly aggressive abortion advocate. Earlier this year it demanded that Mexican physicians be forced to perform abortions in cases of rape, even where doctors had conscientious objections to abortion. Noting the irony of a group founded to defend prisoners of conscience seeking to override conscience rights, MacNair called Amnesty's Mexican position 'too bizarre for words.'
Amnesty International's Dominican statement closed by praising the judicial activism of the Colombian constitutional tribunal that in 2006 struck down certain penal laws in that country protecting unborn life, implicitly calling on Dominican courts to do the same.
Amnesty's revisionist approach to global human rights is unsupported by traditional understandings of international law based principally on the consent of state parties to precisely-drafted and duly-ratified treaties. Activists have been pressing national courts to modify abortion laws to conform to their notions of evolving obligations and non-binding 'interpretations' by United Nations treaty compliance committees, which are often staffed with radical advocates.
Among major human rights organizations, Human Rights First still maintains neutrality on the abortion issue, in contrast with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. [C-FAM]
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Cardinal of Bologna restricts communion in the hand
Briefing. In response to the abuse of the Blessed Sacrament, both deliberate and through carelessness, the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna has banned communion in the hand from those churches where the abuses are most common - the largest, where the congregation is less well known to the priests and include tourists and the like.
Let us pray that other bishops around the world take this elementary step to protect the Blessed Sacrament, as the law of the Church indicates that they should.
In the meantime, there have been reports of the cessation of giving communion under both kinds, or on the tongue, in response to Swine Flu. The sharing of the chalice is clearly a hygine issue; the giving of communion on the tongue is not so clear, at least if it is done properly. See the end of this post.
Hat-tip to New Liturgical Movement and Fr Z. Below is an extract fro Fr Z's post, which is the original story with his comments in bold.
In recent weeks, parish priests and rectors of churches in our diocese received a communique of the provisions issued by the Cardinal Archbishop, in the face of grave abuses that have been confirmed in this regard. In particular, the Cardinal has ordered that in the Cathedral of St. Peter, in the Basilica of San Petronio and in the Shrine of the Madonna di San Luca, Communion must be distributed to the faithful only on the tongue.
The possibility to receive the consecrated Host in the hand that was granted may, in fact, give rise to "grave abuses", because there are those "who take away the Sacred Species to keep them as souvenirs", "who sell them", or even worse "who take them way to desecrate them in Satanic rituals." [This is a real situation in Italy! Some areas of Italy have high occurances of activity by manifestly Satanic groups. They break into churches and desecrate cemetaries and other holy places.] Thus writes Provicar General, Msgr. Gabriele Cavina in the letter to the priests which accompanies the provisions of the Cardinal, citing a text of [Archbishop] Malcolm Ranjith, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
"We must take cognizance", Caffarra Cardinal writes,"that unfortunately there have been repeated cases of profanation of the Eucharist, taking advantage of the possibility to receive the consecrated Bread on the palm of the hand, above all, but not exclusively, on the occasion of large celebrations or in large churches subject to the passage of numerous faithful.
Hat-tip to New Liturgical Movement and Fr Z. Below is an extract fro Fr Z's post, which is the original story with his comments in bold.
In recent weeks, parish priests and rectors of churches in our diocese received a communique of the provisions issued by the Cardinal Archbishop, in the face of grave abuses that have been confirmed in this regard. In particular, the Cardinal has ordered that in the Cathedral of St. Peter, in the Basilica of San Petronio and in the Shrine of the Madonna di San Luca, Communion must be distributed to the faithful only on the tongue.
The possibility to receive the consecrated Host in the hand that was granted may, in fact, give rise to "grave abuses", because there are those "who take away the Sacred Species to keep them as souvenirs", "who sell them", or even worse "who take them way to desecrate them in Satanic rituals." [This is a real situation in Italy! Some areas of Italy have high occurances of activity by manifestly Satanic groups. They break into churches and desecrate cemetaries and other holy places.] Thus writes Provicar General, Msgr. Gabriele Cavina in the letter to the priests which accompanies the provisions of the Cardinal, citing a text of [Archbishop] Malcolm Ranjith, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
"We must take cognizance", Caffarra Cardinal writes,"that unfortunately there have been repeated cases of profanation of the Eucharist, taking advantage of the possibility to receive the consecrated Bread on the palm of the hand, above all, but not exclusively, on the occasion of large celebrations or in large churches subject to the passage of numerous faithful.
From the Swindon Advertiser: Holy Rood Church in Groundwell Road has stopped offering communion wine and has asked worshippers to take communion by hand.
The move has been taken in a bid to improve hygiene standards at the church following recent Government guidelines following the swine flu outbreak.
Although there have been no confirmed cases of the virus in Swindon or Wiltshire, Monsignor Richard Twomey, pictured, is taking no chances.
The move has been taken in a bid to improve hygiene standards at the church following recent Government guidelines following the swine flu outbreak.
Although there have been no confirmed cases of the virus in Swindon or Wiltshire, Monsignor Richard Twomey, pictured, is taking no chances.
See the full story.
Fr Corapi on the Notre Dame scandal
Fr Corapi speaks for the Cardinal Newman Society, an important conservative Catholic organisatiion in the US.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Pro Abortion L'Osservatore Romano article uncorrected
Briefing. We commented on the article here.From LifeSiteNews: In recent weeks, pro-life Catholics from around the world have flooded Vatican offices with protests, petitions and letters asking for a retraction or clarification on an article published by L'Osservatore Romano implying that direct abortion could be morally justified or its evil mitigated in some 'extreme circumstances'.
However, since the March 15th publication of the article, provocatively titled, 'On the side of the Brazilian girl,' by Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV), nothing has been heard from the Vatican or Fisichella himself.
Archbishop Fisichella prompted widespread outrage when he attacked as 'hasty' the decision by Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife to announce that those who had procured the abortion of twins for a nine year-old rape victim had incurred an automatic penalty of excommunication. Fisichella wrote that the decision to 'help stop the pregnancy,' was a 'difficult' one 'for doctors and for the moral law.'
On Thursday, April 30, LSN was informed that Monsignor José Geraldo Caiuby Crescenti, a noted canonist, former judicial vicar of the archdiocese of Anapolis in Brazil and close friend of Archbishop Sobrinho, had confirmed that to date, no response has come to the archdiocese from Archbishop Fisichella or any official of the Vatican.
LSN has been shown dozens of letters and petitions sent to Rome by prominent academics, physicians, and pro-life advocates from sixteen countries asking Archbishop Fisichella and various Vatican congregations for a correction or clarification.
The article, and the silence following it from Pope Benedict's curia, has raised fears among some in the worldwide pro-life community that key members of the Vatican hierarchy are silently moving away from the Church's historically robust condemnation of abortion and defence of the absolute sacredness of human life.
In an open letter published by LifeSiteNews.com, highly respected philosopher Professor Joseph Seifert, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that the article has led to a 'deep crisis' in the PAV, and 'more importantly, of the public perception of Church teaching on abortion.' (See letter: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09050107.html )
Professor Seifert, rector and professor of philosophy at the International Academy of Philosophy of Liechtenstein, writes that because of this article, and its support by the pope's official media spokesman, Fr. Frederico Lombardi SJ, 'countless persons' throughout the world now attribute to the PAV and by extension to the Pope himself, 'a propagation of a new moral doctrine diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Church'.
Although Msgr. Fisichella wrote in his article that 'procured abortion has always been condemned by the moral law as an intrinsically evil act, and this teaching remains unchanged to our day,' at its end, he praised those who had 'allowed [the girl] to live' by killing her two children. He concluded by stating that those who were involved in the abortion did not 'deserve' excommunication.
In a statement of clarification, the archdiocese responded to Fisichella's accusations, saying that the local Church had come to the child's aid in many ways, both spiritual and material, and that Fisichella had perpetrated a serious injustice against his 'brother in the episcopate' by failing to contact Archbishop Sobrinho or find out what had happened directly from anyone involved.
Calling Fisichella's article 'a direct affront to the defense of the life of three children carried out energetically by Dom Jose Cardoso Sobrinho' the authors of the Recife diocese's statement said Fisichella had spoken 'about something he did not know, and what is worse, without even doing the work of speaking previously with his brother in the episcopate...'
The secular press and the pro-abortion lobby responded promptly to the article, with headlines and hundreds of articles and editorials claiming that Fisichella is hinting at a softening of the Church's position on abortion. The Associated Press announced, 'Vatican prelate defends abortion for 9-year-old.' The Washington Post said, 'Vatican Official Defends Child's Abortion.'
Significantly, Fisichella's article was highly praised by France Kissling, the former president of Catholics for a Free Choice, an abortion lobby group that presents itself as Catholic and attempts to pressure the Catholic Church to abandon its teachings on life and family.
In a widely published essay, Kissling called Fisichella's article 'an amazing shift in the Vatican's strategy of no dissent from its position that direct abortion is never permitted.' She said it was a 'modest deviation' that 'opens the door for Catholics who follow church teachings on reproduction to discuss the possibility that there are some cases officially acknowledged where individuals can choose abortion and have a calm conscience.'
Taking a similar interpretation to that of Ms. Kissling, pro-life leaders reacted with shock. Letters of protest are known to have been received by Archbishop Fisichella, and circulated to several Vatican dicasteries, from Italy, Spain, England, Canada, the US, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatamala, El Salvador, Venzuela, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Panama, Argentina and Belgium.
Adding to the unease is the fear that the article has recieved the highest possible sanction from the hierarchy of the Church. It is common knowledge that articles intended for L'Osservatore Romano are vetted first by the Vatican's Secretariat of State, the highest office under the papacy. Vatican watcher and respected journalist Sandro Magister said that given the prominence of the article's author and its content, it 'was certainly among the most carefully scrutinized and authorized by the Vatican Secretariat of State.'
Moreover, rumours have circulated in Rome that the article had also been approved by an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church's doctrinal watchdog.
During the 26-year papacy of John Paul II, pro-life people had relied heavily on the unswerving defence and frequent expositions on the Church's teaching on the sanctity of life both from the pope himself and from various high-level Vatican officials. Key Vatican posts, such as the congregations on doctrine and the family, were held by well-known and outspoken defenders of Catholic teaching.
Prominent among these was the Pontifical Academy of Life which, under the guidance of the now-retired Bishop Elio Sgreccia, was described as a 'bastion and guiding light' to the pro-life movement around the world.
One prominent pro-life advocate, who asked not to be named, told LifeSiteNews.com that the shock of this incident, compounded and intensified by the Vatican's complete silence, is a sign of a significant shift against the pro-life movement at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
He said that pro-life people around the world are asking why this undermining of Catholic teaching has gone uncorrected and why this attack on a 'brother bishop' has been un-answered?
'At this stage,' he said, 'we need a clarification or a retraction by Archbishop Fisichella, a press release from the Holy See Press Office or even a clear re-statement of the Church's unchanging teaching from the [Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith] CDF.'
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Notre Shame
Please sign the petition if you haven't yet. This is a really huge campaign now: they have well over 300,000 signatures, and the support of more than 30 American bishops, including the local bishop.
Notre Dame, the flagship of the US's system of Catholic universities, has invited President Obama to received a honorary law degree and address them at their 'commencement' ceremony. To invite the most pro-abortion President in the history of the country is not a monor faux-pas. Notre Dame is saying that it no longer wants to be associated with Catholic teaching and values.
If so they must cease to call themselves a Catholic university!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
What happened to the University of Notre Dame?
Briefing, This is a very interesting and informative article about how America's top 'Catholic' university same to be so detached from the Church as to invite President Obama to address it. There are two, linked tendencies, which go back 40 years: federal funding was available if it played down its Catholic identiy, and academic prestige is increased on the same basis.
Mutatis mutandis this is the mechanism driving all sorts of Catholic institutions out of the Church: Government funding and the desire for the respect of secularist colleagues in whatever field the institution happens to be working.
From the Wanderer: Christopher Manion comments in his 'From Under The Rubble...' column in The Wanderer: 'In 1974, 1 attended a meeting designed to probe the possibilities of rescuing Catholic education from the nebulous but ubiquitous 'spirit of Vatican II.' At lunch. I joined Fr. Christopher O'Toole, CSC, and my own bishop, Leo Pursley, DD. who had confirmed me years before. Why were these two luminaries interested in supporting efforts to preserve orthodox education for the next generation of college students? Their answer was blunt. 'I'm doing penance,' said Fr. O'Toole, somberly. And Bishop Pursley nodded in agreement.
Penance for what? Well, Fr. O'Toole explained, as the superior general of the Congregation of the Holy Cross throughout the 1960s, he had not done enough to prevent the secularization of the University of Notre Dame during that fateful decade. Bishop Pursley, who had presided over the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend for almost 20 years, also admitted that he had not been forceful enough with the university. That afternoon, both men agreed that, as far as Notre Dame was concerned, they had failed.
That conversation came to mind during the uproar that followed the recent announcement by Fr. John Jenkins. CSC, president of Notre Dame, that Barack Obama would address the class of 2009 at commencement in May. This decision was shocking, yes - but it was based on a fundamental error that goes back 40 years.
In 1967, a group of Catholic educators, led by Notre Dame President Theodore M. Hesburgh, met at Land O'Lakes, Wis., and formally declared their independence from the Catholic Church. Alas, their motives were less than noble. Just two years before, LBJ's Omnibus Education Act had opened the floodgates to federal funding of higher education, and Catholic colleges wanted a place at the trough. Notre Dame quickly adopted a lay board of trustees so it could receive federal money, and only a year later the other shoe fell when numerous Notre Dame faculty and religious roundly denounced Humanae Vitae.
In a 2007 Wanderer interview, Archbishop Raymond Burke zeroed in on Land O'Lakes as a central catalyst of decline in Catholic education. 'So much was undone,' he said, 'and there's a mentality [that] entered into the universities by which those people who dedicated their lives to Catholic education believe that they could not be an excellent university and at the same time be faithful to the Church's teaching and discipline. That is a fundamental error, and it takes a lot to undo it.'
Shaking Down The Thunder
Since announcing Obama's acceptance. Fr. Jenkins has been deluged with phone calls, e-mails, and letters denouncing his decision and requesting that he rescind the invitation. Within days, 160.000 people signed an online petition at notredamescandal.com and Notre Dame students began planning a series of events addressing Obama's policies that have already proven him to be the most pro-death president in U.S. history.
Not that any of this will bother Fr. Jenkins. Notre Dame's administration these days is thoroughly intimidated by the increasingly left-wing and non- Catholic faculty, which apparently expects to be running the school within a generation.
The reasons are simple. Consider the CSCs: The Catholic News Service incorrectly reports that Notre Dame is 'run by the Congregation of Holy Cross.' Sorry, that ended 40 years ago, when federal money required that the congregation not run the school. Moreover, vocations to the CSCs are dwindling to the point that, in 40 more years' priests on the faculty will be a rare anachronism.
But won't outraged alumni stop donating? No problem! NBC Sports has an exclusive multiyear contract to broadcast Notre Dame's home football games. University spokesman Dennis Brown cannot reveal the amount the school receives from NBC, but a source in NBC's New York headquarters says that Notre Dame receives more from NBC than it receives from all alumni giving. And what about that federal money? Brown tells The Wanderer that, in a typical year, Notre Dame receives about eighty million dollars in federal grants.
In brief, Notre Dame's institutional priorities have moved since the 1960s from the principles of the faith to money and power. And what has been the engine of that change? Ralph Mclnerny, who retires this year after teaching philosophy at Notre Dame for 54 years, blames it on the university's 'truly vulgar lust to be welcomed into secular society.'
In short, from the point of view of Notre Dame's first priority since 1967 - money - the Obama invitation is a win-win situation. The uproar delights the faculty: Their status rises in the eyes of their secular counterparts who sit on the 'peer review' committees that approve federal grants. So does their prestige, since being a Catholic who actually embraces Church teaching is a ticket to nowhere among any university's faculty nowadays.
The Silver Lining
Two opportunities emerge here. First, in brushing off the avalanche of criticism. Fr. Jenkins, at the end of some blather celebrating Obama's appearance, said that 'we see his visit as a basis for further positive engagement.' Well, a number of Notre Dame students have taken him seriously. Already, several organizations have banded together - first, to repudiate the invitation, and second, to organize a series of events that will reveal whether Fr. Jenkins is as good as his word. Does Obama really want engagement? Does he really want to discuss embryonic stem-cell research beyond the blithe pleasantries he offered at his press conference on March 24? How about the ten billion condoms that the U.S. has sent to poor countries around the world?
Would Obama care to compare his views on African AIDS with those of Pope Benedict? And, if the president is 'personally opposed' to abortion, will students have a chance to ask him why he is personally opposed? What is it about abortion that is so gruesome that he would personally oppose it, when so many of his ardent supporters are pro-abortion zealots?
The second opportunity lies with the real authority here - diocesan Bishop John D'Arcy. Canon law gives the ordinary, not the university, the right and the duty to bestow and to remove the name 'Catholic' from any institution or endeavor in his diocese (c. 216). There is recent precedent. Last fall, Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde announced 'that Notre Dame Academy can no longer identify itself as a Catholic school.' The academy. founded in Middleburg. Va., by the Sisters of Notre Dame 45 years ago, is now governed by a lay board of trustees who no longer want to uphold the teachings of the Church. Bishop Loverde thus announced that 'the school will no longer have the Blessed Sacrament reserved in its chapel and the diocese will not be able to guarantee the quality or authenticity of religious or other instruction.'
Bishop Loverde saves the best till last: 'I have strongly suggested to [the chairman] that the Board of Trustees consider changing the name of the school. The title 'Notre Dame' (Our Lady) is so closely associated with our Catholic faith that continued use of the name would undoubtedly be a cause of confusion to potential students and their families.'
Bishop D'Arcy wrote that 'President Obama has recently reaffirmed, and has now placed in public policy, his long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred,' the bishop wrote, announcing that he would not attend the ceremony.
But he can do more. Let us pray that Bishop D'Arcy doesn't someday lament that, when it came to Notre Dame, he was not forceful enough. [http://www.thewandererpress.com]
Penance for what? Well, Fr. O'Toole explained, as the superior general of the Congregation of the Holy Cross throughout the 1960s, he had not done enough to prevent the secularization of the University of Notre Dame during that fateful decade. Bishop Pursley, who had presided over the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend for almost 20 years, also admitted that he had not been forceful enough with the university. That afternoon, both men agreed that, as far as Notre Dame was concerned, they had failed.
That conversation came to mind during the uproar that followed the recent announcement by Fr. John Jenkins. CSC, president of Notre Dame, that Barack Obama would address the class of 2009 at commencement in May. This decision was shocking, yes - but it was based on a fundamental error that goes back 40 years.
In 1967, a group of Catholic educators, led by Notre Dame President Theodore M. Hesburgh, met at Land O'Lakes, Wis., and formally declared their independence from the Catholic Church. Alas, their motives were less than noble. Just two years before, LBJ's Omnibus Education Act had opened the floodgates to federal funding of higher education, and Catholic colleges wanted a place at the trough. Notre Dame quickly adopted a lay board of trustees so it could receive federal money, and only a year later the other shoe fell when numerous Notre Dame faculty and religious roundly denounced Humanae Vitae.
In a 2007 Wanderer interview, Archbishop Raymond Burke zeroed in on Land O'Lakes as a central catalyst of decline in Catholic education. 'So much was undone,' he said, 'and there's a mentality [that] entered into the universities by which those people who dedicated their lives to Catholic education believe that they could not be an excellent university and at the same time be faithful to the Church's teaching and discipline. That is a fundamental error, and it takes a lot to undo it.'
Shaking Down The Thunder
Since announcing Obama's acceptance. Fr. Jenkins has been deluged with phone calls, e-mails, and letters denouncing his decision and requesting that he rescind the invitation. Within days, 160.000 people signed an online petition at notredamescandal.com and Notre Dame students began planning a series of events addressing Obama's policies that have already proven him to be the most pro-death president in U.S. history.
Not that any of this will bother Fr. Jenkins. Notre Dame's administration these days is thoroughly intimidated by the increasingly left-wing and non- Catholic faculty, which apparently expects to be running the school within a generation.
The reasons are simple. Consider the CSCs: The Catholic News Service incorrectly reports that Notre Dame is 'run by the Congregation of Holy Cross.' Sorry, that ended 40 years ago, when federal money required that the congregation not run the school. Moreover, vocations to the CSCs are dwindling to the point that, in 40 more years' priests on the faculty will be a rare anachronism.
But won't outraged alumni stop donating? No problem! NBC Sports has an exclusive multiyear contract to broadcast Notre Dame's home football games. University spokesman Dennis Brown cannot reveal the amount the school receives from NBC, but a source in NBC's New York headquarters says that Notre Dame receives more from NBC than it receives from all alumni giving. And what about that federal money? Brown tells The Wanderer that, in a typical year, Notre Dame receives about eighty million dollars in federal grants.
In brief, Notre Dame's institutional priorities have moved since the 1960s from the principles of the faith to money and power. And what has been the engine of that change? Ralph Mclnerny, who retires this year after teaching philosophy at Notre Dame for 54 years, blames it on the university's 'truly vulgar lust to be welcomed into secular society.'
In short, from the point of view of Notre Dame's first priority since 1967 - money - the Obama invitation is a win-win situation. The uproar delights the faculty: Their status rises in the eyes of their secular counterparts who sit on the 'peer review' committees that approve federal grants. So does their prestige, since being a Catholic who actually embraces Church teaching is a ticket to nowhere among any university's faculty nowadays.
The Silver Lining
Two opportunities emerge here. First, in brushing off the avalanche of criticism. Fr. Jenkins, at the end of some blather celebrating Obama's appearance, said that 'we see his visit as a basis for further positive engagement.' Well, a number of Notre Dame students have taken him seriously. Already, several organizations have banded together - first, to repudiate the invitation, and second, to organize a series of events that will reveal whether Fr. Jenkins is as good as his word. Does Obama really want engagement? Does he really want to discuss embryonic stem-cell research beyond the blithe pleasantries he offered at his press conference on March 24? How about the ten billion condoms that the U.S. has sent to poor countries around the world?
Would Obama care to compare his views on African AIDS with those of Pope Benedict? And, if the president is 'personally opposed' to abortion, will students have a chance to ask him why he is personally opposed? What is it about abortion that is so gruesome that he would personally oppose it, when so many of his ardent supporters are pro-abortion zealots?
The second opportunity lies with the real authority here - diocesan Bishop John D'Arcy. Canon law gives the ordinary, not the university, the right and the duty to bestow and to remove the name 'Catholic' from any institution or endeavor in his diocese (c. 216). There is recent precedent. Last fall, Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde announced 'that Notre Dame Academy can no longer identify itself as a Catholic school.' The academy. founded in Middleburg. Va., by the Sisters of Notre Dame 45 years ago, is now governed by a lay board of trustees who no longer want to uphold the teachings of the Church. Bishop Loverde thus announced that 'the school will no longer have the Blessed Sacrament reserved in its chapel and the diocese will not be able to guarantee the quality or authenticity of religious or other instruction.'
Bishop Loverde saves the best till last: 'I have strongly suggested to [the chairman] that the Board of Trustees consider changing the name of the school. The title 'Notre Dame' (Our Lady) is so closely associated with our Catholic faith that continued use of the name would undoubtedly be a cause of confusion to potential students and their families.'
Bishop D'Arcy wrote that 'President Obama has recently reaffirmed, and has now placed in public policy, his long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred,' the bishop wrote, announcing that he would not attend the ceremony.
But he can do more. Let us pray that Bishop D'Arcy doesn't someday lament that, when it came to Notre Dame, he was not forceful enough. [http://www.thewandererpress.com]
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Petition Notre Dame
Action: please sign the petition. It now has 156,000 names.
From SPUC: Mr Barack Obama, labelled by Congressman Christopher Smith as the abortion
president, is to visit a Catholic university. He will give an address and receive an honorary degree from Notre Dame University, Indiana, which has received many complaints. [LifeSiteNews, 23 March] Rev John Jenkins, university president, defended the decision and said he hoped to engage with Mr Obama on life issues. [Catholic News Agency on EWTN, 24 March] Rt Rev John D'Arcy, the local bishop, will boycott the event and has asked the institution to reconsider. [LifeSiteNews, 24 March] More than 110,000 signatures have been added to an online petition against the visit.
[LifeSiteNews, 24 March]
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Pope attacked over condoms
Update and action: the increasingly appalling Ruth Gledhill draws our attention gleefully to a cartoon by Peter Brookes of the Holy Father with condom on his head, which appeared in The Times. This is absolutely outrageous and people must complain. H-t Catholic Truth: thank you, Patricia!
You can go the Gledhill's article to post a comment; more importantly complain to the Press Complaints Commission here. The cartoon infringes section 12 (i) of the Code of Practice:
The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.
However the Code has little to say about hate speech, since it is covered by the law of the land, including the 2007 Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which outlaws incitement to hatred, though not ridicule and insult. How these two principles are supposed to work together is anyone's guess.
Nevertheless the PCC is the obvious first place to go for redress, so please make the point that this cartoon is insulting to Catholics and denigrates their religion and beliefs. Just imagine how long it would be tolerated if it insulted the Chief Rabbi, an Iman, or a homosexual.
In the meatime 'Iosephus' on the Cornell Society has a very good piece on why condoms increase AIDS. (Anyone who has run out of sleeping pills can read about whether the Vatican Press Office's version of the Pope's remarks diverges from that of the press corps in a totally insignificant way, here. Damian Thompson is getting very excited about it.)
The Pope's crime is to point out, to journalists on the plane to Cameroon, that condoms can actually make AIDS epidemic worse. This is to deny a key article of liberal faith, but it is nevertheless obviously true. Just as the provision of contraception increases promiscuity in the West, so it does in Africa. More promiscuity means more infections - since condoms are far from 100% effective, and are not used 100% of the time. Simple, really.
The exact increase or decrease of the infection rate will depend on the ratio between the reduced chance of infection of each act of intercourse and the increased number of acts of intercourse. Depending on the exact numbers, condoms might paliate or aggravate the immediate problem. In either case, it is not exactly a sure-fire way of combatting AIDS. In the meantime, the underlying problem which give all venerial diseases their opportunity, promiscuity, is being increased, not decreased. Now that is just stupid. For more on condoms and AIDS, see here.
Here is what the Pope said (h-t Fr Ray Blake):
The question's premise was "The Catholic Church's position on the way to fight against AIDS is often considered unrealistic and ineffective," and the pope responded:
"I would say the opposite. I think that the reality that is most effective, the most present and the strongest in the fight against AIDS, is precisely that of the Catholic Church, with its programs and its diversity. I think of the Sant'Egidio Community, which does so much visibly and invisibly in the fight against AIDS ... and of all the sisters at the service of the sick.
"I would say that one cannot overcome this problem of AIDS only with money -- which is important, but if there is no soul, no people who know how to use it, (money) doesn't help.
"One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.
"The solution can only be a double one: first, a humanization of sexuality, that is, a spiritual human renewal that brings with it a new way of behaving with one another; second, a true friendship even and especially with those who suffer, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices and to be with the suffering. And these are factors that help and that result in real and visible progress.
"Therefore I would say this is our double strength -- to renew the human being from the inside, to give him spiritual human strength for proper behavior regarding one's own body and toward the other person, and the capacity to suffer with the suffering. ... I think this is the proper response and the church is doing this, and so it offers a great and important contribution. I thank all those who are doing this."
"I would say the opposite. I think that the reality that is most effective, the most present and the strongest in the fight against AIDS, is precisely that of the Catholic Church, with its programs and its diversity. I think of the Sant'Egidio Community, which does so much visibly and invisibly in the fight against AIDS ... and of all the sisters at the service of the sick.
"I would say that one cannot overcome this problem of AIDS only with money -- which is important, but if there is no soul, no people who know how to use it, (money) doesn't help.
"One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.
"The solution can only be a double one: first, a humanization of sexuality, that is, a spiritual human renewal that brings with it a new way of behaving with one another; second, a true friendship even and especially with those who suffer, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices and to be with the suffering. And these are factors that help and that result in real and visible progress.
"Therefore I would say this is our double strength -- to renew the human being from the inside, to give him spiritual human strength for proper behavior regarding one's own body and toward the other person, and the capacity to suffer with the suffering. ... I think this is the proper response and the church is doing this, and so it offers a great and important contribution. I thank all those who are doing this."
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Divisions over the excommunication of abortionists
Comment: it seems extraordinary that Archbishop Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, has criticised the action of a local ordinary in the Brasilian rape case. As John Smeaton says, to subject this unfortunate girl to abortion is a further violation of her following her appalling rape. Abortion is gravely illicit; it carries with it the penalty of excommunication and it would cause confusion and scandal for Archbishop Sobrinho, the local bishop, to seem to excuse it in this case.
You can't kill innocent people just because they are inconvenient, or bring unpleasant memories to mind. There is simply no logic to the idea that abortion might be permissible in the case of rape, if not in other cases.
From SPUC: The president of the Pontifical Academy for Life has criticised excommunications which were announced after the abortion of twins belonging to a nine-year-old girl in Brazil. Archbishop Rino Fisichella opposes the decision by Most Rev José Cardoso Sobrinho, Archbishop of Recife, to exclude medical staff and the girl's mother from the sacrament. The former says the move eroded the credibility of Catholic teaching and seemed insensitive. Brazil's episcopal conference has also distanced itself from Archbishop Sobrinho's actions, though Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Holy See's Congregation for Bishops, approved. The girl was allegedly raped by her stepfather. [Times, 16 March] SPUC's national director wrote: "[T]he right to life of the twins in the womb of this poor Brazilian girl has been denied by all those participating in the abortion, and all those approving of the abortion (neither of which category, of course, includes the nine-year-old mother). [T]he little girl at the centre of this tragic situation has suffered not only the violence of rape but also the violence of abortion, which carries with it the risk of long-term harm including a seriously increased risk of suicide." [John Smeaton, 16
March]
March]
Film on abortion on Russia
Comment: this film should be required viewing for anyone who thinks Russia has been converted by the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady.
It will also be interesting to those who think that shock images of abortion will win the argument. Note what the film producer says.
Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek asked Kinsella why the film, which took such an unflinching glance at the circumstances of abortion, overlooked the actual deed. Kinsella said that he had footage of abortions, but left it out of the final version. 'I think … I will have a much higher success rate with the normal public by not showing scary images,' he told Stanek. 'People, especially women, just would turn off.'
From CFNews: A graphic documentary touted by its creator as 'neither pro-life nor pro-choice' that depicts in intimate detail the disturbing reality of Russia's abortion culture has been released.
'Killing Girls,' so named because all the women filmed eventually learned they carried baby girls, is a documentary seven years in the making that discusses the history of abortion in Russia and follows the induced abortions of several young Russian girls. Only one girl in the documentary chooses to keep her daughter.
The film is set in the Center for Family Planning and Reproduction in St Petersburg, where babies are delivered on one floor and aborted on the floor above.
According to the film, in Russia 80% of women have had at least one abortion. Of these, the average woman has aborted between two and ten times throughout her life, and hundreds of thousands of Russian women each year are permanently stripped of their fertility due to their abortions.
Despite the prevalence of late-term abortion as the country's 'birth control' of choice, says the film, the public discussion about abortion is nearly silent.
'Killing Girls has also been my most difficult film to produce, mainly because it was next to impossible to find finance,' said Ireland-born producer and director David Kinsella. 'Everybody was telling me that I could not show this or that! ... I was being suffocated by all the negative criticism towards our film. So I decided to make a film straight from my heart and soul and forget all the negative reactions.
'At times I felt totally helpless during the filming, the screaming from the hospital are tattooed on my soul, the sound of a baby crying during the abortion,' he said. 'I was totally shocked.'
The raw filmmaking spares few details except one: the abortions themselves. Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek asked Kinsella why the film, which took such an unflinching glance at the circumstances of abortion, overlooked the actual deed.
Kinsella said that he had footage of abortions, but left it out of the final version. 'I think … I will have a much higher success rate with the normal public by not showing scary images,' he told Stanek. 'People, especially women, just would turn off.'
Kinsella said there were already 'a number of countries' that have asked to use the film in sex education.
Anna Sirota, script writer and narrator of 'Killing Girls,' said she too was shocked 'not just because this was so painful and cruel, but also because I could not understand how easy it is to give and to take lives, how mechanical the whole abortion process looks.'
Sirota has given birth to one daughter and had four abortions.
'The project started to become an obsession. Maybe I was trying 'to excuse' away my sins… I still have no answers,' she said.
To view the trailer (WARNING: The trailer contains very graphic nudity and is not suitable for young audiences): http://www.killinggirlsmovie.com/trailer/
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Tax payers fund abortion
Briefing
Ivan Lewis (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for International Development; Bury South, Labour) 'Details of DFID's 2008-09 spending are not yet available but will be published in our 2009 annual report in July. DFID contributions to the listed organisations in the 2007-08 financial year are as follows;
* Marie Stopes International (MSI) (funding for three projects): £220,000
* International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF): £9.55 million (£7.5 million core contribution and £2,050 Safe Abortion Action Fund)
* United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA): £34.9 million (£20 million core contribution, £14.9 million in funding for projects at a country level)
* British Pregnancy Advisory Service: 0
* Family Planning Association: 0
'UNFPA has the global mandate to assist countries deliver better sexual and reproductive health and rights including voluntary family planning services, gender equality, and to better understand population dynamics including growth, ageing, fertility and mortality. Comprehensive family planning includes the provision of reproductive health services and the provision of services to prevent unsafe abortion. It is therefore not possible to disaggregate these figures.
'DFID will provide £8.6 million per annum to IPPF over the next three years. DFID will also provide up to £89.5 million in un-earmarked core funding to UNFPA between 2008 and 2011. We will also provide £100 million between 2008-09 to 2012-13 to support UNFPA's Global Programme for Reproductive Health Commodity Security (GPRHCS).
'It is not possible to provide similar figures for MSI. This is because DFID has a number of funding channels for country programmes including budgetary support for health systems, direct government budgetary support and multilateral funding which may have as a sub-component the provision of family planning commodities and services contracted to MSI'.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Papal letter on the SSPX excommunications
Update: official version available here. (H-t Cathcon)
Comment: the Pope is sending a letter about his lifting of the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops to the bishops of the world. A leaked copy is available in German. It has been translated by Cathcon and by the NLM. In it the Holy Father acknowledges the doctrinal issues which are obstacles to the SSPX's reconciliation, but defends his overtures to them, against those whose idea of Christian charity includes hatred for groups who harbour opinions different from their own.
Here's an interesting passage from the Cathcon version:
But some of those who take themselves as great defenders of the Vatican Council, must also remembered that the Second Vatican Council is located in the teaching history of the whole of the church. Whoever wants to be obedient to it, must have the faith of the centuries and may not accept the cutting of the roots from which the tree lives.
...
Can we be totally indifferent to a community in which there are 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 Seminars, 88 schools, 2 university institutes, 117 brothers and 164 sisters? Should we really be happy to let them be driven from the Church?
I am thinking, for example, of the 491 priests. The fabric of their motivations, we cannot know. But I think that they would not have decided for the priesthood, if they could not show the love of Christ to some of the flock have the will to proclaim the living God. Should we simply turn them away as representatives of a fringe group when seeking reconciliation and unity? What would then happen?
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Archbishop of Baltimore on the Legionaries
Comment: Archbishop O'Brien gives authoritative voice to many long-standing concerns about the Legionaries of Christ and its lay affiliate Regnum Christi, which have come to a head following the scandalous revelations about its founder, Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado. Here are some selected comments, which he made to his diocesan newspaper after meeting the order's superior in Rome.
"It seems to me and many others that this was a man with an entrepreneurial genius who, by systematic deception and duplicity, used our faith to manipulate others for his own selfish ends,"
"While it's difficult to get ahold of official documents," Archbishop O'Brien said, "it's clear that from the first moment a person joins the Legion, efforts seem to be made to program each one and to gain full control of his behavior, of all information he receives, of his thinking and emotions."
The archbishop said many members who leave the order suffer "deep psychological distress for dependency and need prolonged counseling akin to deprogramming."
"It's been said that the founder is alone called 'nuestro padre' ('our father') and that no one else can have that title," Archbishop O'Brien said. "All are bound to identify with him in his spirit, his mind, his mission and in his life. This would suggest that the very basis of the Legion movement should be reviewed from start to finish."
See the article in the National Catholic Reporter. H-T to Damian Thompson.
The Archbishop is quite right: the problem here is not one abberrant individual, but an institutional culture which is completely rotten and completely un-Catholic. Catholic spirituality and obedience is not about losing one's individuality. Maciel's exploitation of this culture for the grossest abuses is the icing on the top.
We agree with Damian Thompson: the Legionaires and Regnum Christi have to be dissolved. It will be painful, but they have to be helped to form themselves according to the charism of one of the Church's many great founders of orders - St Benedict, St Ignatius, St Francis, St Dominic - and leave behind the hideous pattern of Marcial Maciel.
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