What Is This About?

A rapist or a murderer has a higher place in hell than someone who leads little ones astray to false teaching, especially to false moral teaching, for the one defiles the body, and the other defiles the soul. God help us!



Father John Corapi, Winnipeg, Manitoba, September 1, 2001

Father is apparently coming back to this theme:

The Canadian Bishops & Their Rebellion: What It’s Going to Cost:

The majority of Canadian bishops signed the infamous Winnipeg Statement that just categorically rejected Humanae Vitae. That kind of rebellion is catastrophic

Read the whole thing.

(Via SoCon Or Bust.)

The Brave New World

is upon us:

Re: Designer Babies:

As I mentioned yesterday, when it comes to issues of bioethics the “degradation of language only leads to linguistic confusion and muddy thinking.” A prime example can be found in the BBC article that Ryan cites. The term design means to intend for a definite purpose—and the gene mapping test is intended for the very definite purpose of culling embryos that do not meet the parent’s concept of quality.

Read the whole thing.

(Via First Thoughts.)

As Long As We're Sighing Over Italy

We should have a look at Joan Lewis' pictures of Saint Peter's.

Lies, Damned Lies

and Statistics, in that order. I blame today's outburst on Mark Shea's particularly excellent output today.

Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship - ChronicleReview.com:

By CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS

"Harder to kill than a vampire." That is what the sociologist Joel Best calls a bad statistic. But, as I have discovered over the years, among false statistics the hardest of all to slay are those promoted by feminist professors. Consider what happened recently when I sent an e-mail message to the Berkeley law professor Nancy K.D. Lemon pointing out that the highly praised textbook that she edited, Domestic Violence Law (second edition, Thomson/West, 2005), contained errors.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It.)

From One Extreme to the Other

So here's an in-country commentary on the Honduran crisis. From Capuchin silence to radio-talk-show host blather in sixty seconds. Beat that.

What the world needs to know (Please read!) « Witnessing Hope:

What the world needs to know (Please read!)
June 30, 2009 by Emily
After watching the international news last night, I’d like to clear up a few things concerning the recent political upheaval in Honduras. The coverage these events are getting on the international level is horribly unbalanced! For those of you who don’t have time to read a long explanation, here are the basics:

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It.)

Silence

doesn't always mean absence. I was away from the Internet for ten days while visiting the family in Minnesota. But mostly the daily checks of the New aggregator haven't moved me to comment.

Iran is too complex and I'm still not on the Obama-is-a-wus bandwagon. His gradual move to a mild rebuke isn't necessarily the worst thing he could have done, though I do remain concerned about his grasp of geo-political reality. Reagan was a realist who recognized opportunities to change the reality presented themselves. I'm no convinced Obama and his advisors have that kind of vision.

There has been a lot to comment on besides that, but others seem to be doing a fine job of presenting various perspectives. But I'd be remiss if I didn't point you towards Amy Welborn's series on her taking her family to Sicily. Ah, Bella Italia:

Castle: Check:

As in - serious castle.This is the Castle of Chiaramonte overlooking the town of Mussomelli.We headed up there around 9:45 and arrived around 11:00, even though it was maybe 30 miles from where we are as the crow flies. But...

Read the whole thing.

(Via Via Media.)

Moral Retardation

is a phrase I just picked up from Mark Shea. He's commenting on the Swedish couple who want to keep their child's sexual identity secret until later in life. And I love that there's such a thing as a "Gender Equality Expert" to consult. Could there be a more pernicious form of expertise in our culture?

Anyway, read and think:

Idiots Use Child as Ideological Mannequin:

A Swedish couple believe so strongly that gender is a social construction that they do not reveal whether their 2.5-year-old is a boy or a girl.

Idiot mother explains her stupid, selfish and cruel plan, "We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mold from the outset. It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead."

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

The Spirit of Vatican II

Catholics now have a spokesperson. And the choice is revealing on so many levels:

Jesuit: Obama is "the most effective spokesperson" for "the spirit of Vatican II":

John W. O'Malley, S.J., a professor in the theology department at Georgetown University and author of What Happened at Vatican II (Contiinuum, 2007), is so impressed by President Obama's style and rhetorical skills, he appears to have nominated him, in the pages of America, for the position of Pope of the American Catholic Church:

Read the whole thing.

(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)

Abortafacient Contrceptives?

Following up on the previous post here is some more evidence for that argument:

New Evangelical Documentary Exposes Abortifacient Qualities of the Birth Control Pill, Promotes NFP:

By Alex Bush May 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A documentary called “28 Days on the Pill” has been released that seeks expose the abortifacient properties of the birth control pill.  The documentary explains that many forms of birth control pills contain progesterone,...

Read the whole thing.

(Via LifeSiteNews.com Headlines.)

Don't You Prefer Contraception to Abortion?

This is what an earnest young candidate asked me a few years ago during the RCIA Process. He reasoned, as many do, that it is the lesser of two evils. But I had to answer "no".

You see, it's not really abortion or contraception; the two go hand-in-hand:

"Most abortions are the result of unwanted pregnancies, most unwanted pregnancies are the result of sexual relationships outside of marriage, and most sexual relationships outside of marriage are facilitated by the availability of contraception. To turn this 'progression' around: contraception leads to more extra-marital sexual intercourse, more extra-marital sexual intercourse leads to more unwanted pregnancies; more unwanted pregnancies lead to more abortions."

Janet Smith (via the USCCB Pro-life page.)

The mentality that separates the sex act from procreation doesn't greet pregnancy as a happy accident. If sex is for gratification (mutual or otherwise) then the "burden" of parenthood doesn't exactly signal gratification to the reluctant parent. And that doesn't even address the fact that the contraceptive pill and IUD's are abortifacient by themselves already.

And even the so-called 99% effective method (birth control pills) fails sometimes. Consider that:

"Pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute has repeatedly reported on major surveys that show 56%-58% of all women having abortions were using contraception the month they became pregnant."

(Hat tip to Physicians for Life.)

If President Obama offers contraception to "lessen the need for abortion" he is in fact promoting a mindset and technologies that will increase the actual number of abortions. There's no common ground between the pro-lifer and pro-choice positions in contraception.

For those desperate for common ground they have to consider sterilization. Good luck with that project.

Dialogue: Answer to Example Number One's Question

Lo and behold, Obama does not want to reduce the number of abortions. He just wants to increase the use of contraceptives. Oh yeah, there's a common ground for him to work with the "Spirit of Vatican II" Catholics: they both reject Humanae Vitae. Guess where the rest of us are left?

Key Obama aide: "It is not our goal to reduce the number of abortions.”:

The goal, as reportedly stated by Melody Barnes, who is the President’s Domestic Policy Adviser and the Director of the Domestic Policy Council, is to "reduce the need for abortions."

And what has been Obama's preferred method of "reducing the need for abortions" in the past?


Each of these prominently features the use of contraceptives as an essential means of reducing abortions.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)

Dialogue, Part Four

Here's a link to some analysis about what dialogue should be:

stages in dialogue:

Father Robert Barron of Word on Fire has written a thoughtful article on dialogue, in wake of the speeches given at Notre Dame's commencement cermonies last Sunday. A snip:

It comes down to that slippery little word “dialogue.” I realize that to say that one is against dialogue is akin to saying that one is impatient with motherhood, patriotism, and sunny days. But the point is this: one should,

Read the whole thing.

(Via The Weight of Glory.)

Dialogue: Example Number One

Does the President want to reduce abortions? Or just the need for them? Is he ok with unneeded abortions? (Which pro-lifers will happily identify as all abortions currently being performed.) Enquiring minds want to know:

...and we're off:

Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of America writes in Human Events of the specific nature of the conversations that have taken place in the Obama - administration-sponsored meetings about abortion, seeking to find common ground:This meeting took place two days...

Read the whole thing.

(Via Via Media.)

Dialogue, Part Three

It's not an endearing trait, but some things I approach with an air of deep suspicion. Calls to "dialogue" on abortion is one of those things. What does "dialogue" mean to the speaker? What does he want to change about the present state of the controversy? Is the possibility of reaching an agreement on a moral truth even exist for this person?

To get a possible answer to some of these questions start with the link below to Professor Beckwith's CRI article "Deconstructing Liberal Tolerance":

I’ll be on Hugh Hewitt and the Bible Answer Man next week, May 26 and May 28:

 I will be a guest on the Hugh Hewitt and Bible Answer Man programs on May 26 and 28. On the former I will be talking about my new book, Return to Rome: Confessions of An Evangelical Catholic (Brazos Press, 2009). On the latter I will be discussing a chapter I contributed to the new book published by Christian Research Institute, What is Truth?: The Best of the Christian Research Journal (CRI, 2009). The chapter, “Deconstructing Liberal Tolerance” was originally published in 2000 in the Christian Research Journal.

(Cross posted on Return to Rome and What’s Wrong with the World)

(Via Southern Appeal.)