Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Everyone who is concerned with fighting the culture of death should be a regular reader of Wesley J. Smith’s blog at First Things: Secondhand Smoke. No one in the realm of public punditry understands better than he the ethos and tactics of the eugenicists in our midst. And, unlike prevaricators of Rod Dreher’s ilk, who think that it is more appropriate to target Glenn Beck for public recrimination than, say, John Holdren, he does not sugarcoat the perfidious direction in which the Barack Obama administration is taking our nation.

His most recent posts, this one on the New Republic’s Greg Easterbrook, in particular, are bringing to light the truly despicable anti-humanism that is now, with the advent of leftist supremacy in the White House and in congress, coming out into full display. And where are the David Frums, Rod Drehers, and paleo-conservative pundits in general in taking note of this flourishing anti-humanism of the left? They are nowhere to be found. Here’s a tidbit from Wesley Smith’s most recent post, where he makes a connection between the biotech revolution and scientific anti-humanism (part of the ethos that supports eugenics):

The biotech agenda has never been about stem cell research. That is only a stage. The ultimate agenda is Brave New World, e.g. genetic engineering, reproductive cloning, post humanism, and anything goes.  This has been hidden for political reasons, but with the hated Bush’s stem cell funding restrictions now defunct, we are beginning to see some truth in advertising.Greg Easterbrook of the New Republic fame spills some beans over at Wired.  From his column “Embrace Human Cloning:”

Others argue that cloning is “unnatural.” But nature wants us to pass on our genes; if cloning assists in that effort, nature would not be offended. Moreover, cloning itself isn’t new; there have been many species that reproduced clonally and a few that still do. And there’s nothing intrinsically unnatural about human inventions that improve reproductive odds—does anyone think nature is offended by hospital delivery made safe by banks of machines?

This does not necessarily make human cloning desirable; there are complicated issues to consider. Initial mammalian cloning experiments, with sheep and other species, have produced many sickly offspring that die quickly. Could it ever be ethical to conduct research that produces sick babies in the hope of figuring out how to make healthy clones? And clones might be treated as inferiors, rendering them unhappy.

Still, human cloning should not be out of the question. In vitro fertilization was once seen as depraved God-playing and is now embraced, even by many of the devoutly religious. Cloning could be a blessing for the infertile, who otherwise could not experience biological parenthood. And, of course, it would be a blessing for the clone itself. Suppose a clone is later asked, “Are you glad you exist even though you are physically quite similar to someone else, or do you wish you had never existed?” We all know what the answer would be.

The column is mainly a bunch of assertions without real moral engagement.  Note, for example, that Easterbrook is unable or unwilling to say categorically that it would wrong to experiment on sick babies to perfect human cloning.  And that isn’t all it would take to make human reproductive cloning “safe.”  There would have to be many thousands of cloned embryos manufactured (raising the egg biological colonialism issue), eventually gestated into fetuses, and terminated to see how the genes are expressing and as part of the attempt to discover reliable quality control techniques.  Even successful reproductive cloning would also be  human experimentation of the rankest kind since any cloned child successfully brought to birth would be subjected to continued scientific prodding and poking to see how his/her biological systems functioned.

The ethos on display in this ”Wired” article that Smith dissects — that is, turning human persons into subjects fit only for scientific experimentation – was precisely that of the Nazi regime in Germany, in its first stages, and this is why so many on the American right are now prone to level charges of Nazism at the democrats: who uniformly support the biotech revolution. This is a legitimate connection, one that Edwin Black made quite convincingly in linking early twentieth century American eugenics and scientific experimentation to the ethos of Hitler, in his important book The War Against the Weak. Indeed, it was early twentieth century American progressivism that normalized eugenics and the reduction of the person to an experimental subject for scientific prodding. One hundred years later, little has changed.

It seems that there are always numerous stories floating around that manifest the great dangers a society faces when it has rejected sound, classical philosophy. Modern philosophy, with its foundation in Cartesian doubt, has left the average person who has thought about it with the impression that philosophy is to be equated with sophism.

Modern philosophy has also undermined our ability to any longer distinguish right from wrong. For centuries the Christian ethos in the West held at bay the deleterious effects of the loss of classical metaphysics, philosophical anthropology and practical philosophy (politics, economics, and ethics). The West, by and large, is now post-Christian. The Christian ethos is lost and now we are drifting free in Nietzsche’s great sea of endless possibilities that he waxed on about in his Gay Science. Unfortunately the sea he envisioned will be found to be the “lake of fire” St. John saw in his vision.

We now have medical ethicists who, if not morally sound, at least are honest. Two of them recently published an article in the NEJM, as reported by LifeSiteNews, in which they admit that brain death and cardiac death are fictions. These “ethicists” support the donation of vital organs and are left undeterred by the prospects for donations even though they admit we cannot reliably determine death before needing to harvest vital organs. LifeSiteNews quotes the two doctors:

Troug and Miller suggest that, rather than insisting on dead donors, “ethical requirements of organ donation” should be looked at “in terms of valid informed consent under the limited conditions of devastating neurologic injury.”

They base their “ethics” on a synthesis of Mills’s utilitarianism and Nietzsche’s will to power. If one does not have the prospects of an “adequate” quality of life (i.e. a devastating neurologic injury) then someone (Danger! Danger! Will Robinson) can choose (ala Nietzsche) to kill that person in order to harvest his organs. This is perfectly in line with our culture of comfort and choice.

It seems so reasonable because choosing to be comfortable is the only non-negotiable “value” that we seem to have left. Thus, choice becomes the only absolute moral norm. Good is the right to choose, bad is anything that conflicts with this “right.” How about when two choices for comfort conflict? Well, Barack Obama provides us the answer using this neo-Western ethic.

Last week LifeSiteNews ran a story about Senator Obama’s radical position on abortion and his work in killing (sardonic pun intended) the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection bill. The details are curious. Issues of his integrity in owning up to what he actually did with this bill aside, one thing really stands out to me. The Illinois bill copied language from a congressional bill that passed, that included a so-called neutrality clause. The language of this clause is enough to make one shudder:

‘‘(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being ‘born alive’ as defined in this section’’

Look at the stark language which wishes to exclude from the bill, any change in legal status or legal right of “a member of the species homo sapiens” before he is born alive. In other words, those drafting this bill who support the “right” to choose (i.e. abortion) have to have carefully considered how to separate members of the same species from one another with respect to legal rights. We have seen this happen in many different ways in the past. We can see it in the U.S. slavery episode, we can see it with the way aboriginal people were often treated, and we can see it in the systems of totalitarian collectivism of the 20th century in Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, China, North Korea, etc.

Here is the philosophical problem with pro-abortion thinking in terms of the above clause. They have chosen the criteria of passive potency in order to distinguish between members of the same species. Passive potency is essentially all of those possibilities of changes that can be done to a human being from the outside (without killing him). They do not seem to have the sense of active potency, those things that a human being already inherently has and can do by virtue of his nature as being human, but has not yet manifested.

What I mean by this is that they do not seem to recognize that everything that a human being will become, he has already in himself, in seed-form if you will, from conception. In other words, after conception, from the perspective of nature, a man gains nothing new. He simply is able to manifest inherent capabilities at different stages of maturity, that already exist in him as “potency.”

All human attributes, for those who reject classical philosophy, seem to become passive potencies–they are given from the outside–somehow. That is why they think that the status of a member of a species can change when some new attribute is manifested or hidden. The problem with this is that there is no way to decided then which attributes are necessary to be manifested, or even how they should be manifested, in order to change the status of a member of the species from one who deserves no protection under the law to one who now is given rights that can come at the expense of the unprotected class (see list of abuses above).

The underlying danger with this type of thinking is that when choice becomes the absolute moral norm, there is no way of ultimately deconflicting the choices of groups or individuals. The atheist phenomenologist Jean Paul Sartre saw this clearly–that is why he so coldly proclaimed that “hell” is other people. The mere existence of others denies one the absolute liberty to do as he wishes. This explains why the Liberté of the French Revolutionaries turned into totalitarian bloodshed. It also explains why “liberal” political movements such as Nazism, Fascism, and Bolshevism become totalitarian. It helps us to understand why modern liberalism also moves in the direction of media censorship and thought censorship (e.g. Canada’s Human Rights Commissions, the modern liberal mind’s proclivity to legislate against “hate speech,” this movement’s move to do away with medical practitioners’ conscience clauses when it comes to “choice” issues such as abortion and contraception, etc.).

This, I fear, is also behind Senator Obama’s rhetoric about getting beyond the debate about abortion. For him the debate is over, even though in reality it is just beginning to turn against abortion “rights.” The debate must end because the supporters lack the intellectual resources found in classical philosophy to defend their positions and they are now coming to terms with the fact that their arguments leave them in self-contradictory, and thus intellectually indefensible, positions. The only option left to them is the “will to power.” They must gain power in order to exert their will upon others–i.e. to end the debate. If this comes to pass, anyone familiar with history must be aware of the dangers which lie ahead.

Shy of the re-Christianization of the West, we need to re-appropriate the self-consistent philosophical framework of classical philosophy in order to facilitate lucid and fruitful public debate on these life and death issue; that is, if we are to turn back the lemming-like march toward liberal totalitarianism. It appears, however, that at this point a Christian West is the more realistic of the two possibilities.

Update: Senator Obama’s campaign now admits that the “people” whom Obama had accused of lying about his part in voting down the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection bill . . . was Senator Obama.  It appears that Obama did indeed take the position that he now says “defies common sense.”  One wonders what position he really holds with respect to infants born alive as is clear that one cannot reliably discern this based upon his words.

California Catholic Daily had an article yesterday explaining what the San Francisco-based “Gay-Straight Alliance Network” is up to in their latest attempt to promote “marriage” for those who suffer from same sex attraction disorder and number of related affective pathologies. For the upcoming “Freedom to Marry Week” they want clubs in high schools and middle schools to go all out to promote this “fundamental human right — the right to marry those whom we love.”

In order to promote it they are suggesting decorating classrooms and hallways, holding mock weddings complete with wedding receptions with cake and toasts to the “freedom to marry.” One venue aimed at children as young as 14 years old is offering free drag shows and workshops on “safe sex” and “how to do drag.”

Of course, this is the long term strategy. One can see that these activists are hoping to influence enough young minds to become, if not activists themselves, at least favorable to their agenda. The strategy is an appeal to love, human rights, and equality. This seems quite difficult to argue against for many who do not have a solid moral grounding and/or insight into what this lifestyle really entails.

The real difficulty with arguing against this “rights language” is that society has come to distort the meaning of sexuality and marriage so badly that in its present deficient state, there seems little grounds for demonstrating the disordered nature of same sex attraction. This began when we swallowed the error that contraceptive sex within marriage is legitimate. In doing so we separated the inseparable aspects of the marital act–the procreative and the unitive. These two meanings form an inseparable unity just as the body and soul comprise two aspects of one unified human nature. In fact, there is a direct correlation between the marital act and this hylomorphic structure of the human person.

One can see that the procreative aspect of sexual intercourse, the primary end in the biological domain, corresponds to the material/bodily aspect of the human person. Likewise, the unitive aspect of marital intercourse, which weds two souls together, corresponds to the formal/soul aspect of the human person. Just as when one separates soul from body the person dies, when one attempts to separate the unitive from the procreative in marital intercourse, one destroys the marital act. It becomes, what we must admit is the ultimate end of artificial contraception any way, simply an act of hedonism in which pleasure–a fruit of the marital act–becomes the purpose of the act. Making this pleasurable secondary effect an end/purpose results in libidinism. In his work, Love and Responsibility, Karol Wojtyla shows that this libidinism necessarily results in the use (read exploitation) of each person by the other. This is the case even when both consent.

Once we destroyed the meaning of the marital act and treated in such a way that it is now clearly viewed primarily in terms of pleasure, we lost the ability to claim that the act must be reserved to marriage. Thirty years ago living with someone of the opposite sex prior to marriage was still a no no, for the most part, culturally. Today, the average person is often authentically surprised when they hear it suggested that there is actually something morally wrong with premarital intercourse or cohabitation. I see it every year with students and with RCIA.

Now since the marital act has been torn from its unified meaning as procreative and unitive in our culture, it now is free to be redefined however we choose. Add to this the fact that the no fault divorce debacle has led to the annihilation of the meaning of marriage itself, as a life long commitment of two people to one another and to their children. I would argue that the close correlation of the wide availability and “effective” artificial contraception beginning in the 1960s and the radical increase in the divorce rate and the free fall of the nuclear family all represent causally connected phenomena. Because of this destruction of the meaning of marriage and the marital act, some, of course, are choosing to make the case that anyone you can have sex with, you should be able to marry. Now is the opportune time as too many of us have lost the sense of nature and what is natural. All is now all open to redefinition based upon our whims…even the whims of disorder. At least in the sexual sphere, Nietzsche’s nihilistic, deconstructionist dream in his Gay Science is now upon us.

It is not the case that there is a large interest in marriage among those who suffer from these disorders. Rather, what we see in this movement is the manifestation of a phenomenon common to many who find themselves in a perpetual state of moral disorder. These suffering souls need continual reaffirmation that what they are doing is “really ok.” Any sense that there exists anyone, any place who would warn that they are not ok cannot be tolerated. All messages that something is not right with them must be removed.

This is what underlies the movement for “equality” in marriage. SSAD sufferers need continually reaffirmation from all quarters that same sex attraction is not a disorder. They need to hear from everyone that they are normal. This much can be seen from the totalitarian methods taken by many of those suffering from these disorders when they have the power, against anyone who would utter a word suggesting that there might be something wrong with SSAD. And this need for repeated reaffirmation will continue to be the case even when they do not hear anyone telling them they are not.

It is the fault of our society–read those of us in it– that we have promoted the conditions in which the arguments for “equality in marriage” are now compelling to so many. In truth, these disordered efforts to finally destroy the meaning of marriage are not the first volleys in the battle against marriage. Rather, they represent the final assault in a war whose first shot was heard in 1930 in the U.K. when the Anglican bishops meeting in Lambeth agreed that it was permissible to allow artificial contraception in marriage in some restricted cases. That was the initial crack in the windshield; today the windshield is nearing total structural failure.  Don’t be surprised if in the near future, your children or grandchildren will be taking as one of their required courses, How to do Drag…

Found among the “letters to the editor” section of the Medical Journal of Australia or eMJA, is a proposal by a university professor of Obstetric Medicine to overturn a policy of providing Government type grants to families who have children, and to establish a new tax burden onto any of those who go beyond a recommended two children family for what is referred to as a, ”greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour”.

What then should we do as environmentally responsible medical practitioners? We should point out the consequences to all who fail to see them, including, if necessary, the ministers for health. Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and thereby rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour, a “Baby Levy” in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the “polluter pays” principle..

Every family choosing to have more than a defined number of children should be charged a carbon tax that would fund the planting of enough trees to offset the carbon cost generated by a new human being. .

This infers a levy per child of at least $5000 at birth (to purchase the land needed and plant trees) and an annual tax of $400–$800 thereafter for the life of the child (for maintenance of the afforestation project) (based on 1990 figures,4 and probably much more now).

By the same reasoning, contraceptives, intrauterine devices, diaphragms, condoms and sterilisation procedures should attract carbon credits for the user and the prescriber that would offset their income taxes, and lead to rewards for family planning clinics and hospitals that provide such greenhouse-friendly services.

Ironic,  but even more pathetic on how these intellectual types like to assume we are as stupid as they think they would like us to be.  Honestly now, the revelation of a doc-tor’s illogical, eco-facist formula on carbon credits makes among the realms of possibilities a Federal Government totally reversing it’s well thought out policy of population replenishment? 

More likely among the realms of possibility is an embittered Ob-Gyn who has a disdain for Australia’s current policy of re-imbursing families who have children and is hell bent on destroying it by any means necessary. In this case, he exploits his position as a physician, a medical journal, and the hysteria associated with global warming for the purpose of promulgating a culture of animosity and fear - where the divine nature of pro-creation is reduced to a level of being little more than destructive pollution. I think it’s obvious these guys have no idea of what they’re talking about and are well aware that their science is totally flawed and that’s o.k. with them; because any facts about global warming is totally inconsequential to the real objective of manifesting hostility towards those who do not submit to the lies of contraception and abortion.  So transparent and predictible are buffoons and talking points, as cultivating the culture of death has never been and will never be about the truth, but accomplished through simple intimidation and emotional manipulation to induce feelings of fear, anger, guilt and despair.  

 Source 

You probably have already seen the National Catholic Register story about the findings of a Boulder Colorado study which found that synthetic estrogen is showing up in waterways and causing havoc with fish.  The Register reports on what one of the scientists doing the study had to say:

It’s “the first thing that I’ve seen as a scientist that really scared me,” said then 59-year-old University of Colorado biologist John Woodling, speaking to the Denver Post in 2005.

They have determined that these hormones that are causing deformation and sterility in fish are coming from urine processed in water treatment facilities.  The ultimate culprit is birth control pills and patches.

The big news is that this hit the newspapers two years ago and evironmentalists have ignored it since then.  Here is what some of them have said as Reported in the Register:

Dave Georgis, who directs the Colorado Genetic Engineering Action Network, took to the streets of Boulder on several occasions to hold signs demanding that Boulder County regulate genetically modified crops from existence.

When asked about the genetically modified fish and the contaminated drinking water, however, he said: “It just has so much competition out there for stuff to work on.”

He told the Boulder Weekly that nobody needed to consider curtailing use of artificial contraceptives out of concern for the creek.

“You can’t have a zero impact, and this is one of the many, many impacts we have on the environment in everyday life,” Georgis said. “Nobody is to blame for this, and I don’t have a solution.”

[snip]

Curt Cunningham, water quality issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Sierra Club International, worked tirelessly last year on a ballot measure that would force the City of Boulder to remove fluoride from drinking water, because some believe it has negative effects on health and the environment that outweigh its benefits. But Cunningham said he would never consider asking women to curtail use of birth control pills and patches — despite what effect these synthetics have on rivers, streams and drinking water.

“I suspect people would not take kindly to that,” Cunningham said. “For many people it’s an economic necessity. It’s also a personal freedom issue.”

Another activist, Betty Ball the nonviolence coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, said that while she is concerned they do not have the time to work on it.  She admits that it is a political hot button issue:

To avoid genetically modified crops, Ball said, one needed only to buy organic, genetically modified organism-free products at health food stores. Asking residents to stop polluting water with hormones, however, “gets into the bedroom.”

“I’m not going there,” Ball said. “This involves people’s personal lives, child bearing issues, sex lives and personal choices. Maybe people are saying, ‘O my God, what do we do about this?’

I suppose that this is not surprising.   With the first hint of problems with pharmaceuticals, the FDA is forced to take drugs off the market.  However, with contraceptives everyone always advises caution.  We all know that taken as directed, they are “safe.”  What this really means is that the risks of breast cancer and a host of embolism related maladies are worth it when the alternative is something much more horrifying…a woman’s fertility.

It seems that without God, we have become worshipers of science, especially medicine because of its relation to health.  When there is no eternal life, we want to hang on to natural life at all costs–almost.

For some reason the one thing for which we do have the courage to face the risk of death is when we are presented with the danger of bringing a new life into the world.  And some have wondered what the tie is between contraception and the culture of death…

Facts presented in a lawsuit against the FDA reveal that it had skirted laws and regulations which were originally put into place to ensure all drugs made available to the public are safe and effective. What is most alarming to me in this unprecedented move by the FDA is the approval a more potent formulation of over-the-counter Plan B than those by prescription. The FDA never required or requested any manufacturer information on the safety and efficacy of the higher doses when taken by girls during puberty. Other actions by the FDA which ignored the measures normally put in place to protect the safety of the public include:

A misleading label which does not provide the legally required disclaimers to delineate what it can and cannot do, which is required for ALL MEDICATIONS.

Its failure to conduct the necessary rulemaking process which is required by the Administrative Procedure Act and the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Its approval of OTC Plan B even after it found that it was unsafe for girls to use this product without medical supervision, as denoted by the fact it is prescription- only for those under 18.

The number of drugs which have failed in FDA approval since the Vioxx incident several years ago is unprecedented. The FDA and the pharmaceutical industry were forced to adhere to the public’s demand for safe and effective drugs, and as seen in recent months, if there are any hints of a concern over the safety of a drug – the FDA and the press are quick to respond. This issue of FDA approval of OTC Plan B is not only a concern for morality, but it is also a concern over women’s health and safety and this concern is now being expressed by those in the medical community. We have witnessed the corruption of a process meant to ensure product safety and efficacy by an institution which has been entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the public. The FDA has now betrayed that trust by allowing a politicially motivated agenda to trump the responsiblity they have towards those who could be potentially harmed by Plan B. The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons understand the significance of this irresponsible move by the FDA, which contradicts all of the rules and regulations, and yes even common sense, instituted for the purpose of public safety. That is why they have chosen to bring the FDA to court. In this instance, the FDA took it upon themselves to establish their own protocols in leiu of statutory and ethically mandated regulations because they caved into political pressure. This is totally irresponsible and should be of major concern to us all.

LifeSite

Jens Galschiot will be moving his controversial sculpture, “In the Name of God” from the Lutheran Cathedral in Copenhagen to the World Social Forum in Nairobi to protest on “the Christian fundamentalists’ crusade against contraception.” The sculpture is supposed to be the artist’s interpretation of what religious fundamentalism has done to teen mothers. He hopes it will help in the fight for the rights of teenage girls to be provided with contraception and sexual education and blames President Bush and the Pope as a major part of the problem by forcing women and teenagers to bear the brunt of the disastrous consequences through the ban on condoms based on ´Christian´ morality.

Since I don’t recall President Bush ever having a specific policy on contraception, I will make a short comment on the Pope’s influence on the decision making process of contraception in the secular world. What goes through the mind of most, young and unmarried women (and men for that matter) who consider having a sexual encounter outside of marriage? Whether catholic or not, are we to believe she makes the conscious decision to omit ALL of the morality issues of the Church that concerns consenting to an illicit sexual act, EXCEPT one – contraception? I challenge anyone to find a case where a chaste teen became pregnant or transmitted a sexual disease. I would love to hear how the artist’s logic makes any sense at all.

How many blank stares do you think you would get if you went around the world and asked any teen to explain the views of contraception as they relate to the Pope and President Bush? If one uses plain common sense, the biggest culprit in the propagation of the AIDS epidemic, abortion rate and unwanted pregnancies is no other than the failed policies of the secular world. They don’t believe or take into account that we live in a fallen world, and when combined with the immature frontal lobe brain development of adolescents and young adults (which leads to impulsive, risk taking behaviors) who are not protected by the graces and appropriate guidance of responsible adults; all the contraception and sex education in the world won’t change the hearts and minds of our sexually active teens. I find it difficult to find a more irresponsible and immature approach to solving one of the most serious issues of our times than to search out and blame two of the most hated men in our present day?

A kindergarten teacher has sued and won a decision against a gynecologist for child support until the child’s 18th birthday, which will total about $150,000. The ruling isn’t being based on damages, but on the fact the single mother is unable to work to support herself and her baby. I would like to propose a bill which would hold everyone in the contraceptive industry to this standard.

In Scotland, despite the assurance by “experts”, that emergency contraception would cut down on the amount of abortions. When the sin of sexual promiscuity is seen as pregnancy as opposed to impurity, it’s no wonder the incidences of promiscuity is on the rise.

Cases have emerged in Scotland of health workers arranging for schoolgirls to receive the pill in nearby clinics, although the Executive has said it is not handed out in schools.

Surveys of UK women having abortions in 1984 showed that 1 per cent had recently taken the morning-after pill. By 2002, this had risen to 12 per cent. But at the same time, rates of abortion in the UK have increased from 11 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in 1984 to 17.8 per 1,000 in 2004.

Past studies, including one involving 18,000 Lothian women, have shown that getting emergency contraception to keep at home increased its use by two or three times – but with no measurable effect on abortion rates.

Now that the “plan B” abortion pill will be available OTC, you can bet it will be on the top of the “wish list” for countless adolescent boys and men.

Source/Photo:News.scotsman.com

The only official demonstration to take place with the pope’s visit to Bavaria will be held by “gay” activists who plan on being “respectful” in their protest.

“I consider the pope my personal enemy,” said Gabriel Walser, who had also joined the demonstration. “But we have to offer him the respect we demand from him.”

“This isn’t an anti-pope demonstration,” said Thomas Niederbühl, a Munich city council member for the gay rights group Pink List. Niederbühl added that he had no problem meeting Benedict face to face — he shook his hand during an audience for Munich officials in Rome last October and said he plans to attend a ceremony on Saturday during which the pope will sign the city’s Golden Book. “It’s the Catholic Church that has never bothered to enter a dialogue with us.”

I have a question, why do those who condemn, criticize and hate the Catholic Church with such zeal, feel the need to have It’s approval? I find the word “respectful” to be a very curious choice of words in describing the tone of a demonstration, where the objective is one of total submission and betrayal of one’s faith and morality. How much respect do you really have for a person, if you feel you could break them down enough to abandon everything they hold dear and sacred, while submitting to your will? I wonder, what kind of character and responsibility do they think our pope has and what would they be willing to “bring to the table”?

None-the-less, I think the demonstators may be surprised to learn that Pope B. already accepts and respects them, totally!!! As for the “nasty”,…. it still is and always will be a sin.

A bizarre trend in England is showing that male fish are changing sex due to the, “gender bending” pollution of female hormones from the contraceptive pill and HRT, which is being washed into area rivers. Raising concerns that the pollutants could also be contaminating drinking water-and even be affecting the fertility of men. British men’s sperm counts have dropped by almost a third between 1989 and 2002, and one in six couples now have difficulty conceiving.”

The Environment Agency study looked at the health of more than 1600 roach found in 51 rivers and streams around the country, finding that a third of the male fish were between sexes. However, in one waterway, near a particularly heavy discharge of treated sewage more than 80 percent had female characteristics.

Tests showed the males developed female sex organs and were producing eggs. Such fish also produce less sperm and the sperm that is produced is of low quality. Females may also be affected, producing abnormal eggs.

“There is a soup of estrogen compounds, all with different degrees of potency and they are interactive in their effects-if you add them together, you add there are additional effects. This soup of estrogen is responsible for causing these changes to the fish. It is abnormal. These fish should be male or female. The fact that we have got such a large proportion right across the country is not right.”

I’m not trying to be koi, but I hope those responsible won’t be hard of herring and take steps towards curing the fish so that the scales of justice will help turn the tide before we have another finland on our hands.

 According to citizenlink.org

According to a U.S. government report, Filipino health-care workers, many affiliated with International Planned Parenthood, are sterilizing women using USAID funds. U.S. tax dollars contribute to the U.N. agency, and Eileen Cosby, president of the Filipino Family Fund, is outraged.

“This is not in accord at all with foreign policy that the United States should be offering to democratic nations like the Philippines,” Cosby told Family News in Focus. “These are our cousins, our aunts, and this cannot be happening.”

According to the story, this has launched a congressional investigation.

 

In its study, the Robert Bosch Foundation found that “men are scared to start families,” said Ingrid Hamm, managing director of the foundation. The study says one in four men in Germany do not want children, whereas one in seven women prefer to remain childless. In Eastern Germany, that rate is lower, with one in 10 women expressing the wish to remain childless.

The study was based on responses from 10,017 people. Researchers say the survey was representative, even of the smallest groups in Germany.

“In Germany, we have lost a sense that everything will turn out all right. Germans are prone to worrying about the future a lot more than other people,” she said.

“German” is not just German, however. The study found that the wish to forgo having children is much stronger in the former West German states. In the new German states (formerly East Germany), fewer women want to remain childless.

In a recent survey of 280 girls, over a 2 year time period reported, that 41% of the girls had unwanted sex at some point. The most common reason was fear of anger by a “boy friend”. An alarming 10% said their partner forced them to have sex against their will. Money and gifts was reason enough for 5% of the girls to have unwanted sex. I’m sure there are probably many more males than females who are thankful for the abortion “safety net.”

An environment that puts unnecessary stress or pain on a fetus will have long term implications.

Opened 7 days a week, this new service which is easy and convenient for those who want their planned parenthood services “to go”.  The new clinic is located in between a bank and a mexican restaurant but is for paying customers only.

“It’s very fresh, upbeat _ people getting being responsible, doing their shopping, getting the Starbucks and going in and getting their contraception,” said Dianne Luby, who heads the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. Luby said the clinic should break even within 18 months.

It is the hope that the profits made from this quick stop shop will help support their other clinics.

Pope Benedict asks the country’s bishops to counter the trend of Canada’s birth rate, which, in 2005, was 10.5 births for every 1,000 people. He recommended implementing a concept called preaching the truth of Christ.

Two recent national surveys found about 1 in 5 women have used oral contraceptives to stop or skip their period. Who needs them anyway, right? These strategies not only desecrate the sexuality of the female person but also increase the health risks associated with hormonal contraception. I don’t think it will take a rocket scientitst of figure out that by significantly increasing the exposure of hormones to the body, there will be an increase in the incidents of blood clots, strokes and heart attacks; as well as depression, mood swings and a loss of the desire for sexual intimacy.

If this is one of the best things you ever do, I would hate to see the worst!

“The tax is part of the United Nations plan to subsidize its radical agenda.

For a lot of people, a flight to Paris will soon be an unwitting purchase of condoms for children in third world countries. A new levy to be implemented by the French government on July 1st will tax fossil fuel consumption with the proceeds to be used to fund AIDS prevention, UN style. Doug Sylva is a fellow with the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute.

“People have to understand just how radical a money grab this is. It’s going to go to places that we don’t want it to go and we won’t have any control over it whatsoever. This is the ultimate taxation without representation.” (More)

Thomas has an excellent post about the debate of some years ago in which Janet Smith quashed Fr. Charlie Curran in Dallas over the issue of contraception.  He includes the audio of the debate and an article covering the debate, from a (not very) Catholic newspaper which I will not name.

Curran is clearly out matched in articulate presentation as well as logical argumentation.  I won’t summarize the debates or arguments here; I will let you help use up the rest of Thomas’ bandwidth for the month as you listen to it.  Rather, I would like to mention one of Curran’s arguments using the terms he has coined: “physicalism” or “biologism.”

Here what he means as far as contraception is concerned, is that in looking at the telos of the sexual act, he claims the Church reduces the acts moral character to the physical aspects of act itself.  Fr. Benedict Ashley addresses Curran on this point.

Fr. Ashley finds that Curran calls it the “fallacy” of Thomists in trying to ascertain the morality of human acts by determining the teleology of various bodily parts.  Curran claims that this approach succumbs to the Stoic reduction of human morality to the teleology of animal instincts.  Ashley agrees with Curran that one must reject the Stoic reduction but argues that Curran’s complete separation of human morality from the teleology of the human body falls into Platonic dualism (Cf. Benedict Ashley, Theologies of the Body: Humanist and Christian [Braintree, MA: The Pope John Center, 1985/1995], 369-70).

Platonic dualism or, perhaps, Cartesian dualism but dualism nonetheless.  It is the separation of the person from his body.  It is a materialist presupposition that seems to think that the body and the material world have little to do with the physical world.  If Fr. Charile has paid attention during his philosophy courses he would not fall into this Cartesianism.  He would recognize that the soul is the substantial form of the body, likewise the body expresses the soul.  Thus, the telos of sexuality express something about the soul, in fact, about the entire person.

Curran’s reductionism also fails to recognize the ontological nature of acts for the person.  In other words, a human act (or an act of volition) has a perduring effect on the person for the better or worse.  In a certain sense, the act resides in the soul and becomes part of the person.  Pardoxically, Curran thinks that he is trying to maintain the totality of the good of the marriage by allowing contraception within marriage.  However, he refuses to see that he fragments the human person and isolates him from his actions in the process.

We have posted on Fr. Charlie here previously.  His arrogance is well attested to and it is no small arrogance for someone who has sworn an oath of obedience to teach the gospel under the authority of the Magisterium, to think that he has it right and the Church is wrong.  Curran justifies himself because he finds a few issues like slavery and religious freedom, which can easily be reconciled as development of doctrine, which he thinks show that the Church can be wrong and so they warrant his disobedient arrogance.  Pray for Fr. Charlie that his heart may be softened, that he repent of his sins, and that he spend the rest of the time he has left on this earth trying to repair the great damage he has done to Christ’s Church.

Go over a listen to Dr. Smith expose Fr. Curran’s faulty thinking.