EXCELLENT!
Wanna see Christian respect for life in action? See this discussion, justifying Christian reprisal killings of innocent Muslims that are now going on in Nigeria, in the name of Just War! http://
catholica.pontifications....p=1426#comments
Americans, unlike Europeans, tend to be biblical literalists. That is, they believe that God can command genocide and it is all right in that case. They do NOT take "turn the other cheek" literally, of course. Who are the relativists here?
Why do you support the killing of innocent babies, Father?
Oh, excuse me, but you say you don't support the killing of innocent babies? Then why is your contribution to discussions of the sin of abortion always one in which you try to downplay that evil, or in which you try to change the subject. You talk just like someone who doesn't really believe killing babies is evil but won't admit it, so pardon me for concluding that your actions reflect your real beliefs.
As for this news out of South Dakota, God bless the leaders of South Dakota. May God give us more courageous leaders who will stand up for what is right and work to defeat the demonic forces that now rule our land, aided and abetted, to our everlasting shame, but Catholics. Even if this effort proves in vain, it will have been worth it, because it is an audacious challenge to the culture of death that reminds pro-abortionists that we will never give up until respect for life is reestablished in this land.
Oh, and by the way, no one who is familiar with your dissent from the Catholic faith will be surprised to learn that you have borne false witnesses about the discussion at Pontifications. There is no "justifying Christian reprisal killings of innocent Muslims that are now going on in Nigeria, in the name of Just War" going on there. You're just caricaturing the beliefs of your enemies.
Mr Potter, read the comments section in the Pontifications posting, which goes on and on about justifications for civil war. Then read the newspapers about what that means in Nigeria, namely the slaughtering of random targets in amock-style killings.
With the French bishops of 1980 I believe that killing a fertilised ovum is an act of death, but like them I would be unwilling to call it murder, especially in early pregnancy. Why? Because it seems to me difficult to say that the ovum is already a human being (since gemination can occur to up to 14 days, or so I understand, which would seem to entail that individuation has not occurred at the moment of conception). I am also troubled by the thought that nature itself aborts a much greater of fertilized ova than any human agency; or so I gather.
Hyperbolic talk of early abortions as the killing of innocent babies and comparisons with Auschwitz seem to me of little value in creating a responsible attitude the evil of abortion. With the French bishops I am convinced that the issue has to be dealt with in an extremely sensitive way. Loud-mouthed ideologues just turn people off.
The ban has successfully passed. Presumably, like Irish abortion law, it is offset by the easy availability of abortion in neighboring States?
Our ideological posturing in Ireland was punctured by the case of a 14 year old rape victim. The issue is not as simple as the S Dak legislators seem to think.
"a 14 year old rape victim"
Are using this girl's rape to support your argument, or do you just delight in lurid stories? Maybe you could make her give a video interview about the rape, and post it. Have her say "punctured" as well. That's the spirit.
The case I referred to (the "X" case) is extremely famous in Ireland, and it led to the anti-abortion clause that had been added to the Constitution being used as the basis for Ireland's first ever abortion legislation.
http://www.ifpa.ie/abortion/hist.html
- 1992 (Feb) | The X Case
Costello J. granted an injunction in the High Court preventing a pregnant 14-year-old rape victim from leaving Ireland to have an abortion in England. Amid public outcry, AND THIS COULD HAPPEN AT ANY MOMENT IN SOUTH DAKOTA, TOO the Supreme Court overturned his decision two weeks later to allow her to go, ruling that "if it is established . . . that there is a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother, which can only be avoided by the termination of her pregnancy, such termination is permissible."
Here, the Court held that there was a real and substantial risk of suicide if the pregnancy continued; thus the termination was permissible, even in Ireland. However, where no such risk existed, both information and possibly travel could be prevented in the interest of safeguarding the right to life of the 'unborn'. The Government then entered a Declaration to the Protocol, saying that they would not use it to restrict travel or information.
The case is very mysterious. Is "suicide if pregnant, no suicide if pregnancy terminated" a diagnosable condition? This is just taking oneself hostage.
I think I get the gist of your argument: the price of justice is eternal vigilance, even in the face of outside condemnation. Time will tell whether the pro-life movement is posturing or conviction.
Hey Fr Joe,
Of these comments you find so scandalous, may I suggest my personal favorite, #21, Tony:
"There is something positively obnoxoius about comfortable Westerners who are “disturbed” by those who wish to defend their families and their faith from the carnage of Islam."
"I am also troubled by the thought that nature itself aborts a much greater of fertilized ova than any human agency; or so I gather."
Uummmm...everything I have ever learned says that these are spontaneously aborted because they are NOT VIABLE.
I'm sorry - what does the SD story have to do with what SOME Nigerians are doing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Fr. O'Leary admits that killing babies is "an act of death." So he still cannot bring himself to agree with the Church that inducing abortion is a sin. He also brings up the red herring of spontaneous abortions, as if we all don't know the moral difference between someone being killed in an accudental car crash and someone being deliberately run down by a car driven by someone who chose to use the car as a weapon of murder. Are those who die in accidents any less human than those who are deliberately killed? Yet that is what we must conclude about Fr. O'Leary's beliefs based on what he says about spontaneous abortions of embryonic human beings. You see, if they are really human, then God wouldn't allow them to be spontaneously aborted. So the next time you see someone killed in a flood or tornado or hurricane or fire or car crash, be assured that God has thereby declared that they aren't really human.
I am also troubled by the thought that nature itself aborts a much greater of fertilized ova than any human agency; or so I gather.
Yes, and in pre-modern societies nature itself killed more born children than any human agency through disease and whatnot. Did that make it more acceptable to kill born children in those societies than in our society in which childhood mortality is far, far lower?
The Christians in Nigeria are not simply defending their families and faith -- who denies the right of legitimate self-defence? They have retaliated by killing innocent Muslims at random in public places (sellers by the side of the road) -- read the newspaper reports. Also, some of the people I referred to use the just war theory to justify civil war -- we know from the Biafra tragedy of three and a half decades ago what horrors that could entail.
I agree with the Church that abortion is evil. Whether there are some rare circumstances in which it is a necessary evil I am unsure.
Spontaneous abortions performed by nature itself may be of unviable fertilized ova -- I don't know -- but if we take the church doctrine literally should we not be seeking to baptize all these fertilized ova?
Comparing spontaneous abortions of fertilized ova (I am not talking about miscarriages of relatively developed fetuses) to automobile accidents misses the point that the number of such abortions far exceeds those of births and that they are very regular events. Of course I admit entirely that to deliberately abort a fertilized ovum is a very different thing from watching nature at work. But I do not see the spontaneous abortions of ova as accidental; it is part of the normal natural pattern. This seems to me to qualify claims for the ontological status of the just fertilized ovum and consequently to reduce the moral gravity of very early abortions. However, I admit my deep ignorance of these matters. If I am incorrect in my hazy notion that for every baby born a huge number of fertilized ova are spontaneously aborted, then of course my remarks are far off the mark. I gratefully accept any correction or clarification of these matters.
Childhood mortality has been high in many societies and still is in many poor countries. But the number of children lost in this way is very small in comparison with the number of spontaneously aborted fertilized ova.
The permissive attitude of contemporary society to abortion corresponds to the permissive attitude of older societies to infanticide (see William Lafleur's "Liquid Life" for a whole culture of infanticide in Japan, surrounded by religious representations of sending the child back to the gods, and atoning to it for its treatment, etc.)
Someone might even claim that we have ADVANCED from infanticide to abortion and to the ideal of making abortion "safe, legal, and rare" according to the Clinton mantra. The next stage will be to "advance" from abortion to the morning-after pill, and from that to efficient contraception, and from that to a culture of responsible sexuality.
The French Bishops published a helpful book on abortion in 1980, a real contribution to the social debate. The voice of the church has been muzzled since them. All that is allowed is one-sided condemnation both on the moral and legal fronts, on the lines of John Paul II's Encyclical Evangelium Vitae.
A certain "Spirit" expressed many earnest opinions regarding topic on which he admits he knows little. Might that not be considered evidence of a "loud mouthed ideologue"? In response, here is some information:
1) The fact that human life begins at conception is not a theological one, but a scientific one:
a) "From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals." Ultrasound pioneer, Sir William Lily, MD 1967
b) "It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." Professor Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School
c) "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, human life is present from the moment of conception." Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic
d) "After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste of opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris. He discovered the Down syndrome chromosome.
At the moment of conception, all the DNA of a unique human being is present. And a process has begun which we rightly call a "lifetime". This being will develop for the rest of its life until the day it dies. Unfortunately, some people don't know or care enough to stop from killing it very early on.
"Potential" human life would accurately describe a separate ovum or sperm. Once they are together, they are a distinct human life. This is not rationally disputable.
2) There HAS been a question as to the moment of ensoulment. However, there has NEVER been a question as to the permissibility of abortion. The teaching is unequivocal and universal.
3) The issue of rape/incest/life of the mother is bogus. First, there is never a need to directly kill an unborn child to save a mother's life. Second, incest/life of the mother is a TINY fraction of all abortion cases. Third, two wrongs cannot make a right (i.e. killing an innocent child is not right simply because it was conceived wrongly). Fourth, there is absolutely NO proof that aborting a child after rape or incest accrues to the betterment of the mother's mental health, especially in the long run.
In fact, there is evidence to the contrary. Julie Makimaa, herself conceived by rape, did research on this issue and has published a book "Victims and Victors" about violated women. Makimaa contacted 192 women who were pregnant through assault. The women who carried their children through to term grew to love their children. The women who aborted said the effects of the abortion only caused greater trauma than the assault.
4) For those "confused" or "unsure" as to whether there is ever a justified abortion: CCC 2271-2 "Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of EVERY procured abortion....A person who p
procures a complete abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae, 'by the very commission of the act'.
I hope that clears the moral fog.
5) As to miscarriage: a) abortion is the cause of many future miscarriages (due to damage inflicted upon the cervix, for instance), b)estimates range from 1 in 4 to 1 in 8 pregnancies ending in miscarriage. So it is incorrect to say that there are more miscarriages than live births. The causes range from (most common): genetic defect, to incompetent cervix, to hormonal imbalances, to infection.
As to the novel contention that we have ADVANCED from infanticide to abortion, google Peter Singer at Princeton. It would seem infanticide is getting a bit of a hearing again.
And let's not forget that contraception and abortion have been around for thousands of years. These are and always have been evil. They are not "advances".
The disappearance of infanticide in Western society and in Japanese society is surely an advance?
The individual DNA is there at conception, indeed, and so is "human life", yet the possibility that what is conceived can become twins at a later date (fourteen days?) suggests that the ontology of human identity or ensoulment at the moment of conception needs to be fine-tuned.
I am surprised that Augustine did not address either of the two issues I raised: (1) the twinning phenomenon just referred to; (2) the vast numbers of fertilized ova that nature spontaneously aborts, which exceed the number of births. Augustine seems to think that I claimed that miscarriages (of fetuses) exceed the number of births, which of course I did not.
As he notes, I admit my ignorance in this domain, and perhaps I have not expressed myself clearly. Nonetheless, I would be grateful if he would address these two issues (correcting my misunderstandings as necessary).
Of course I know how severely the church condemns abortion. He might consider how he would handle girls and women in these situations in pastoral practice.
The issue of rape/incest is bogus?
Nonetheless, as I showed, a case of a raped 14 year-old was sufficient to swing public opinion in Ireland so far around that a clause they had added to the Constitution to ban abortion (pre-emptively) became the basis for permitting abortion. Later people tried to undo this unexpected leak, thinking that cooler feelings would lead to a restoration of the ban, but in fact the electorate refused to go along with this. Ireland is poised to draft abortion legislation and the longer the legislators stall the more likely that the resulting legislation will be more liberal.
Such developments are quite possible in South Dakota as well.
The stuff about twinning was actually put to me by my own bishop some twenty-five years ago, so it is be no means a new or obscure thought.
Spirit writes directly above:
"Augustine seems to think that I claimed that miscarriages exceed the number of births, which of course I did not."
On the contrary, at 10:35 pm, Spirit wrote:
"Comparing spontaneous abortions (my note: i.e. miscarriages) of fertilized ova (I am not talking about miscarriages of relatively developed fetuses) to automobile accidents misses the point that THE NUMBER OF SUCH ABORTIONS FAR EXCEEDS THOSE OF BIRTHS."
And
"If I am incorrect in my hazy notion that FOR EVERY BABY BORN A HUGE NUMBER OF FERTILZED OVA ARE SPONTANEOUSLY ABORTED, then of course my remarks are far off the mark."
It is these remarks that I addressed. And, indeed, they are "far off the mark."
Regarding the issue of "twinning", I do not recall this being made explicit. However, this should help:
http://www.linacre.org/stemcell.html
3.2c Identical twinning
3.2c.1 A second phenomenon is more difficult to comprehend. Whereas most embryos develop into a single adult organism, a small number (0.3%) undergo division at an early stage so as to produce identical (or `monozygotic') twins. The process of identical twinning is often thought to demonstrate conclusively that the early conceptus is not an individual. If a biological object is to be described as an individual organism it requires a certain level of integration, such that it is not just a collection of cells held together mechanically but a single integrated unit. Some claim that the phenomenon of identical twins shows that the early conceptus is not a unitary organism but only a loose collection of cells yet to develop into an organism or organisms.
3.2c.2 A survey of textbooks of developmental biology shows that the embryo is more than an aggregate held together by mechanical forces. `From the outset, the cells of the embryo are not only bound together mechanically, they are also coupled by gap junctions.'27 Nor do biologists regard the phenomenon of twinning as something to be explained as the breaking up of a loose aggregate. They regard twinning as evidence of a power possessed by the embryo to redirect cells that normally would have contributed to only a portion of the embryo, a power they term regulation.28 This is a power of the embryo as a whole, rather than of individual cells. `Since early vertebrate embryos show considerable capacity for regulation and many of the cells are not determined, this implies that cell-cell communication must determine cell fate.'29
3.2c.3 Identical twinning is an exceptional event proving the rule that, in general (in 99.7% of cases), only one foetus develops from each zygote. Where identical twinning does occur, the twinning event (whatever this is) triggers the formation of one or more discrete organized wholes, each in the process of development.30 Each newly generated twin then continues as a well-formed individual. It does not form just half a foetus, nor does it grow wildly as a teratoma. Both in singletons and in identical twins, early human embryology shows a strong commitment to the development of distinct organized individuals.
3.2c.4 Biologically speaking, the early embryo is a well-integrated whole which, even in the rare cases when it splits, does so in such a way that one or more well-integrated individuals are formed. However, it might be argued, do not even these rare exceptions undermine a principle that is supposed to be absolute? If the conceptus could split, or could be made to split, does this not show that it is not yet a genuine individual, even in those cases where it goes on to become an individual?
3.2c.5 This argument relies on the principle that whatever is an individual cannot give rise to
Continued:
other individuals. This principle may once have seemed plausible; however, it is undermined by the very possibility of human cloning. In many living things, including some vertebrates, reproduction can occur asexually: by a parent-cell splitting to give two daughter-cells; or by a new organism budding off from a continuing parent. The suggestion that adult human beings might one day be cloned assumes that human beings can be reproduced asexually - without this compromising the individuality of the human being who generated the clone.
3.2c.6 There is ample evidence for strong integration in the early embryo, both in the case of singletons and in the case of identical twins. From the perspective of biology it is clear that there is one individual which endures from the single cell stage until the death of the multicellular organism - except in the case of identical twins, who are natural clones produced early in development by asexual reproduction. Furthermore, as soon as these twins come to be, they also endure as individual organisms until their own deaths. The normal habit of biologists is to count embryos: to test them, select them and transfer them. In all these actions it is assumed to be unproblematic that even early embryos are a discrete number of individual living organisms such that they can readily be counted.
The Lineacre Center for bioethics had this to say as well:
Firstly we should talk about the human embryo not "fertilized ova" - which suggests we are still talking about an egg. A fertilized ova simply is a new human being.
The suggestions re. enormous amounts of embryos dying is controverted - there is a substantial body of evidence that suggests that many of the entities that die are not in fact embryos at all. However, even if we concede the point it makes no difference morally. What God permits for his purposes (deaths) never justifies (unless Divinely commanded) human actors in deliberately destroying his innocent (and unbaptised)human creations.
The talk re. individuation is absurd. See http://www.linacre.org/preimp.html for example and the status of the embryo section of http://www.linacre.org/stemcell.html
Abortion rates (In England) remain very high, despite (or because of) large increases in (abortifacient) contraceptives and the morning-after-pill. Combined (and working on the correct assumption that these devices can destroy early embryos) we can fairly say that the "abortion" rate is now far higher because of these devices. The only difference is that people taking these pills are probably much less aware that they are destroying a human life than is someone having an abortion/commiting infanticide.
14 days is irrelevant. Twinning too (see link).
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/SFL/
fr...eckwith_004.htm has this remark about spontaneous abortions:
"Related to this last problem is the difficulty of some theologians (Haring, 1976) who are troubled by the high percentage of conceptions that never reach delivery. Some estimate this to be as high as 55 percent, although a recent study indicates this may be closer to 30 percent, as determined from the earliest stages of fertilization (Grudzinskas and Nysenbaum, 1985; Wilcox et al., 198
. They ask, "Is it possible that God could have created so many human souls, foreseeing that they will never reach the level of conscious human life?" In answer to this difficulty it should be recalled that through most of human history, at least 50 percent of all infants perished in infancy. Also, evidence suggests that syngamy frequently fails to be successfully completed (Diamond, 1975; Wilcox et al., 198. Probably many of these imperfectly fertilized ova were never prepared for ensoulment. Although the ova were stimulated by the penetration of sperm to begin a certain number of cell divisions, these entities were never true human organisms. Thus this theological problem of apparent human wastage, which is only one facet of the general problem of God's permission of evil in the world and of miscarriages in particular, however it is to be answered, cannot be solved by a theory of delayed hominization." (Ashley, Benedict M., Health Care Ethics, 235-236)
I am not sure I understand this passage, but it appears I was wrong in thinking that the number of spontaneously aborted fertilized ova exceeds vastly the number of births. It may be about equal to the number of births. Large enough in any case to trouble so expert a theologian as Haring.
1) Calling abortion an "advance" is what I find unacceptable. Let's try a little Dr. Seuss: "A person's a person no matter how small".
By this strange logic, we could consider the murder of children and "advance" over the murder of adults?
2) We are not in a pastoral situation with post-abortive women here. But one might guess that at no time in the process of counseling would "Spirit" advise Confession to heal her wounds.
3) The issue of rape/incest is bogus when used to justify abortion. And I explained why, without any rebuttal. "Spirit" expressed confusion as to whether there is ambiguity in such tough cases, for instance:
"Whether there are some rare circumstances in which it is a necessary evil I am unsure."
While the situation is obviously more emotional in the case of rape and incest, the immorality of the abortion does not change. It is still clear.
4)People react incorrectly in response to many things that pull on their heart-strings. It's called misguided compassion. We see it in the drive to accept homosexual marriage, for instance. Matthew Shepard, Norma McCorvey....both of which were bogus cases, however.
If I understand the Linacre statement, their theory is the embryo is initially an individual human being who then clones him/herself to produce his/her twin?
This raises an interesting issue about clones. Who are the mother and father of a clone? By analogy with the twinning situation as analyzed by Linacre, the parents of the original from whom the clone derives are also the parents of the clone. One of every pair of identical twins is in fact a clone! So in fact cloning turns out to be quite "natural"? Another oddity is that the second twin is "conceived" later than the first.
When I talked about pastoral counseling I was thinking primarily of the confession situation.
From Lineacre bioethics:
Annex A p60
Day 0: Fertilisation: It is not made clear that the “zygote” is a single cell human embryo – that is, a completely new and unique human individual.
Day 3-4: Claim made that at day 3-4 all the cells are essentially identical. This is not true.
Recent work by Richard Gardner of Oxford University in the UK reveals that the early embryo already shows some asymmetry even at the single cell zygotic stage. Earlier work had already shown that the 5-day-old blastocyst has an axis that appears to line up with the later foetus, suggesting that asymmetry is formed at the blastocyst stage. Work by others went earlier still, even identifying the point of sperm entry as the key for determining axis formation, although this work has been challenged. These authors followed up that work by showing that enough specialisation had taken place in the 2-cell embryo to cause each cell to pursue different lineages in the developmental process. References:
Gardner, R.L. Specification of embryonic axes begins before cleavage in normal mouse development. Development 128(6): 839-847, 2001.
Gardner, R.L. et al., Is the anterior-posterior axis of the fetus specified before implantation in the mouse? J. Exp. Zool. 264(4):437-443, 1992.
Piotrowska, K. & Zernicka-Goetz, Role for sperm in spatial patterning of the early mouse embryo. Nature 409(6819) :517-521, 2001.
Piotrowska, K. et al., Blastomeres arising from the first cleavage division have distinguishable fates in normal mouse development. Development 128(19):3739-3748, 2001.
This section also uses the manipulative term “fertilised egg” to mean “human embryo. If an egg has been fertilised it is no longer an egg! Again – this point is accepted in any standard human embryology textbook.
Days 5-7 Blastocyst stage: “The outer cells go on to develop into non-embryonic tissues such as the placenta or umbilical cord. The inner cell mass will give rise to the embryo itself.” This is false – the placenta is not a “non-embryonic” tissue. The placenta is developed precisely as an organ temporarily necessary for the life-support of the embryo, showing the goal-directedness of the differentiation and development of early embryonic life. It is a manifestation of the functional unity of the organism right from the start. That the placenta is lost at birth has no more bearing on the child’s individuality than does the loss of his milk-teeth at a later stage in life.
This section also notes that “A pre-implantation embryo is an embryo in the stage prior to implantation in the wall of the uterus; an embryo cannot develop beyond the blastocyst stage without implantation into the uterus.” While this may be true, it has no bearing whatsoever on the status of the embryo at the blastocyst stage, and we fail to see why the word cannot should be stressed in this context, unless to make the implantation stage somehow morally relevant.
Day 8: Implantation stage: As I have s
Continued:
Day 8: Implantation stage: As I have said before, the figure of 75 per cent natural embryo fatality at this stage is a gross exaggeration. 40 per cent is the standard estimate (See Moore and Persaud The Developing Human – a standard text) – of which many (at least half) are the results of incomplete fertilisations (and thus may not be genuine human embryos). In any case, natural death of embryos has no more moral relevance than natural death of babies (also very common in some countries).
Claim made: “At this stage the cells are still relatively undifferentiated and there is no trace of human structure such as a nervous system (my emphasis)”. This is tendentious in the extreme. A human embryo necessarily has a human structure – it can have no other! To pick out, arbitrarily, certain features as indicative of a “human structure” is misleading – and again appears designed to distract attention from the fact that we are dealing with a human individual at the early stages of development.
Matthew Shepard a bogus case? Only because his murderers said they were not motivated by homophobia. You are hardly adding credibility to your defence of embryonic life by mixing it with credulity toward murderers! Are prolifers necessarily also enemies of gay marriage? If so, the prolife movement should not be surprised that so many find it off-putting.
Distrusting the prolife sources cited by Augustine, I googled for a more neutral one and found this: http://www.ethox.org.uk/educatio.../
pregnancy1.htm
What this source says about twinning seems much less tortured than the lengthy quotes from Linacre above:
"there is a problem with claiming that the fertilised egg has the same identity as the later child. This is because of the phenomenon of twinning. Suppose the single celled fertilised egg A, divides into two cells B and C (which it normally does) and those two cells then split from one another to go on to form different complete human organisms. When did B and C begin to exist? ... B and C did not come into existence until after A had divided. At least in the case of twins, therefore, each twin did not start to exist until twinning is complete. Some philosophers have used this example to argue that we cannot be said to exist until the potential for twinning is lost. It is thought that twinning ceases to be a possibility at about 14 days after conception. This, therefore, might be the point at which the embryo achieves full moral status according to those who believe that the key issue is identity as a human organism."
In a fallen, sinful world that is "passing away", I don't see why it is surprising that there are many miscarriages.
Neither am I surprised by sterility, cancer, arthritis, Down's, MS, etc....
There is much confusion here.
Cloining is no more natural than twinning (which is thought to occur due to a weakened zona pellucida i.e a dysfunction). "Spirit" has clearly not carefully read earlier posts.
In twinning either the original embryo dies giving rise to two others (symmetric split) or a new embryo buds off a pre-existing one. Cloning shows us that the orginal can perdure while giving rise to a new embryo (who comes into existence later than his/her "parent"). If you have a problem with the science cited by Linacre say so. Cite evidence please.
If not why do you assume that the source is not "neutral" (i.e. interested in presenting both scientific and ethical truths). "Prolife" not neutral, pro embryo destruction (Ethox) neutral?
Ethox may not be as neutral as it pretends, I don't know. Just wanted another voice on the matter.
Alphonsus agrees with the conclusion that cloning is no more natural than twinning. I must say that this seems counter-intuitive to me. I have never heard anyone claim before that twins are not a natural phenomenon.
The original embryo dies producing two others -- hmm, but the two others are quite healthy normal embryos, aren't they? Twins are not particularly prone to diseases etc.
Or else the twin is produced by a sort of cloning process.
I have no problem with these accounts of twinning (though I wonder if the process is really perfectly understood by science and I demur at talk of defectiveness at such a primary level of human life -- I am not sure how well-ground such evaluation would be). Anyway, the mechanism of twinning has nothing to do with the point I raised, and all this complicated discussion seems merely to be designed to distract from that point.
The point is made clearly and simply in my quote from Ethox. To resume, if INDIVIDUAL HUMAN LIFE, including that SIMPLE SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE called the soul, immediately created by God, exists from the moment of conception -- how come that this individual human soul can become TWO individual human souls up to 14 days later? Metaphysically it is impossible for one soul to die and produce two new souls. The idea that the embryo clones itself, and that its clone is ensouled after the initial embryo, avoids this difficulty. But Alphonsus seems to say that that is only one possibility of how gemination occurs.
The primary point about Matthew Shepard is that it caused some people to mistakenly consider things like "gay marriage". And it was used by the press immediately before it was truly determined what happened. What happened is still in dispute. There appears to be reasonable doubt that Shepard was attacked solely because he was gay. The bogus part was the way the media and gay-rights movements heralded this. But why do they not report the epidemic of gay on gay violence?
As to being against homosexual marriage, yes, it is a logical part of being pro-life, certainly. The sexual practices of sodomites is deadly, to themselves and to others. From reduced life span to a whole host of diseases and disorders that are uniquely or disproportionately "gay", yes, to be pro-life is to be against that which leads to death...including the sodomite lifestyle.
Augustine admits that nature (fallen nature if you will) produces many miscarriages -- a far greater number than the number of abortions. Thus while the MORAL evil of abortion is to be deplored, the PHYSICAL result of that evil is only a minuscule addition to the "holocaust" produced by Nature itself.
So while one deplores abortion and its frequency, one need not dramatize it as a horrendous Auschwitz-style holocaust, but just admit that humans are being as destructive as nature itself in regard to life in the womb. However, all this applies only to the very early days of pregnancy.
I am tending to think that the medieval theologians were right after all -- ensoulment is not the immediate effect of conception (of course an "animal soul" may be postulated for the living organism called the embryo) -- but demands that the bodily substrate attain a certain perfection (40 days after conception for a man, 80 days for a woman, immediately only in the case of Christ -- as I believe Aquinas claimed -- or let's just some time after 14 days after conception, the same time for men and women, and also for Christ -- It is too docetistic to make an exception for the Savior). Most religions come to a practical compromise on this and recognize that the moral gravity of early abortion is not as great as of later abortion, even justifying it in some circumstances such as rape or incest or to save the mother's life. The only exceptions are (1) Roman Catholicism (2) Evangelical Protestantism, especially in the USA.
I have spoken too much on this subject, prodded by pb's challenge. I should now like to withdraw from any further discussion of it.
I am happy, meanwhile, that Augustine approves of gay marriage between women or between men who do not practice sodomy. Or if not, why not? From a pro-life viewpoint such marriages are very healthy. Even a male couple who practice sodomy are in a healthier situation than if they practiced it in a promiscuous style, so a prolife case could be made for them as well.
A couple of quick points. "Spirit" - natural "evil" and moral evil are incommensurable in the sense that the latter is always infinitely worse: Matthew 10.28. See also Cardinal Newman: Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching.
"Is thought to occur" qualifies my statement re. twinning. "Natural phenomenon" - ambiguous between what happens to occur in nature and what is a result of healthy functioning.
It becomes 2 souls either by dying - and giving rise to 2 new souls - OR one souls is present and gives rise to another (just as if I cloned a cell of mine I would remain me and have given rise to a new embryo which was genetically near identical but had his own unique soul). The fac that I have the potential to do that does not change how many souls I have!
Re. Auschwitz - why deplore that either, given that "nature" destroy human beings at all stages all the time. The Nazis in e.g. euthanasia programmes were just being as destructive as nature is to elderly people so let's not characterise that in dramatic terms either?
1) I said nothing about the number of abortions vs. the number of miscarriages. In the United States at least, between 25 and 33% of all pregnancies are SURGICALLY aborted. There have been an estimated 45 million surgical abortions in the U.S. alone since 1973. These numbers do not include the many more millions that are killed CHEMICALLY or by IUD, etc.
2) Let's try this: "while the MORAL evil of murder is to be deplored, the PHYSICAL result of that evil is only a miniscule addition to the "holocaust" produced by Nature itself....so while one deplores murder and its frequency, one need not dramatize murder as a horrendous Auschwitz-style holocaust but just admit that humans are being as destructive as nature itself in regard to life outside the womb."
Sophistry.
Amazing how the Adversary has so few tricks but uses them well and often. Twisting words. Causing confusion. Casting doubt. The m.o. is unmistakable...
Webster's Collegiate:
Sodomy: 1)copulation with a member of the same sex or with an animal 2) non-coital sex, especially anal or oral copulation
Marriage: 1b) the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of having children and maintaining and family.
As for men and women who "marry" without having sex, it is wrong for the same reason that "marrying" a goat would be wrong, even if there was no sex involved. Perhaps we ought to allow marriage to trees, too? No sodomy there.
"Spirit" says": "Even a male couple who practice sodomy are in a healthier situation than if they practiced it in a promiscuous style, so a prolife case could be made for them as well."
1) Try to find a truly monogamous, sexually active male gay couple. Good luck. Let's talk about gay pixies while we're at it....
2) Hmmm. If I am only having sex with ONE goat, you might consider me pro-life for not having sex with MULTIPLE goats.
Only, among other things, that ignores the impact on others who see the perverse behavior accepted. We live in a society. No one is an island. A Catholic certainly ought to know that.
Homosexual, by definition, means one who is SEXUALLY attracted to the same sex. And the only kind of sex that is possible between members of the same sex is SODOMITIC. The fact that a few homosexuals may not engage in actual sex no more changes the fact that they are sodomites than the fact that some heterosexuals may not engage in actual sex changes the fact that they are "straight".
Those with Same Sex Attraction disorder cannot have it both ways. They want to be seen as "just like everyone else." "We pay taxes, go to school, watch movies, etc....just like straight people! So why are you so focused on our sexual practices?"
But then they IDENTIFY themselves by these exact same sexual practices and want special minority status based upon their sexual tastes.
It is a perversion and it is sin. It is not love to confirm anyone in that which leads to death...physically AND/OR spiritually.
We are all sinners...but not all of us go around trumpeting and rationaling it, demanding the world join in the party.
Clarification: when I wrote "As for men and women who "marry" without having sex" I was referring to men who marry each other and women who marry eachother.
Spirit, a purported Cathoic priest, continues to spout evil in suggesting that abortion may be justified in cases of rape and incest.
He does not interact with the information I gave disproving this notion that abortion somehow helps the health (mental and otherwise) of the women who has the abortion.
If the life inside the womb is human, and it surely is, then killing it can NEVER be permissible.
It is a lie from the pit of hell to say otherwise. It is scandal that a purported Catholic priest wrote such a thing, knowing full well that the Church has been completely clear on this.
In re Matthew Shepherd, read: "The Celebrated Matthew Shepherd and the Forgotton Mary Stachowicz."
From the "Spirit of Vatican II" (not to be confused with the Second Vatican Council) eminates a redolence of the culture of death.
Fr. O'leary,
I'm not a Catholic, or even a Christian; more a virtuous pagan. But even I think your ideas and arguments are highly flawed. Moreover, I think you indeed like being the odd man out in a group of devout (read: actually obeying the church) Catholics. I think your enjoyment of this constitutes a pathology that borders on the perverse. It is very illogical to assume that the actions of any one believer (in any faith) are representative of the faith in general. This is a non sequitur. You know this, but choose to foster a politically correct ideology that I am sure makes you feel progressive and thus more enlightened than the rest of the very well educated but Catholic contributors to the comments sections of this post. You should not call yourself Catholic; indeed you have no right to call yourself
Catholic. While the following comment will undoubtedly seem to be part and parcel of the economy of violence that is supposedly part of religion, I do hope it will not be edited: You make it very easy to understand why some people were burned at the stake.
As an observer watching your conversation, I am interested that--annoying as he may seem to you--you don't seem to be able to calmly discuss the issues with Spirit of Vatican II. Now a new visitor even suggests burning at the stake might be appropriate! Rather over the top, don't you think?
Back to Spirit of Vatican II's point, I did read a few years back that not only do some zygotes divide in the case of twinning, but also in Europe it has been found that some zygotes fuse into one! I haven't yet looked thoroughly at the Linacre website--which looks good--but that is a good philosophical question to address, don't you think?
At any rate, SVII's points were twofold: (1) how to deal with such a raped woman pastorally; and (2) isn't it true that such a situation could cause public opinion to shift radically? Those are very good questions, both of them.
As much as I value human life--and I am adamantly opposed to abortion--I must admit that caring for such a raped girl would be heartrending and difficult. Don't you agree? As to the other point, well, the news media do tend to capitalize on such difficult cases, do they not. Spirit of Vatican II's points ought to make us sit up and take notice.
In other words--if we want the bill in South Dakota to pass--it might do well to pray our hearts out that the news media don't come across some difficult case and captitalize on it. Pray and offer the holy Mass. Because this is an important and gripping time that could curtail the slaughter of abortion.
Mike,
While I agree with most of what you wrote on abortion, that is not an accurate or nearly complete rendering of the points made by "Spirit". The two you have chosen and the way YOU have framed them are not unreasonable.
The problem is that since I have been present on this blog, Spirit exhibits a disturbing propensity to contradict or cast doubt upon Church teaching. I have been around enough to recognize this "spirit" and it is not of God.
If you cannot see that, then we will have to disagree. You seem to consider it just a simple friendly discussion between faithful Catholics trying to understand the issues. It is not that. And the intensity/volume of his postings on every issue support this contention. As a priest, does he have so little to do? He has a subversive agenda and even Brad, a self-described "virtuous pagan", while obviously engaging in hyperbole, recognized this.
And also, Mike, you know that "Spirit" would disdain your use of silly "dramatic" phrases like the "slaughter of abortion", right? You are just a loud-mouthed ideologue in his eyes. Read ALL of his posts....2/22/06 11:43 pm and 2/24/06 6:06 am for instance.....
Gents,
This battle has already been fought. If you think Fr Joe is insufferable now, I highly recommend that you check out the archives from last July & August (actually almost any time in 2005). The accusations you are making have already been made. Many times. I get weary just thinking about them.
Fr Joe is the perfect priest for the post-Christian age. He loves nothing more than to poke his fellow Catholics in the eye by running down their Church, using every hobby horse in the modernist stable. But if you're a buddhist with a taste for that old Nazi toady Heidegger, you're golden! He is probably the star around which all planets turn at Sophia U faculty cocktail parties.
FYI, his weak point is homosexuality. Maximum rug-chewing and froth-spewing is guaranteed by reminding him of the obvious fact that the physical essence of homosexuality is the act of achieving a lonely and bitter orgasm by inserting something or other into the object of your passing affection's rectum. Do so often. We veterans of the wars gratefully pass you the torch.
Roister,
Thank you for the update, newcomer that I am to this blog. I was able to size him up rather quickly,anyway, but this is a useful confirmation.
Perhaps I will now offer a little bit about his favorite recent topic: the Third Reich:
I recently corresponded with the author of the book Salvation is From the Jews about his section on Nazi Teutonic paganism and the homosexual elements of Nazism vs. the targeting of homosexuals by Nazis. The following is a paraphrase of his advice.
The best book on the subject is "The Pink Swastika", which can be downloaded for free: http://www.abidingtruth.com/pfrc...s/pinkswastika/
.
The short answer is that it appears this targeting of homosexuals was "spin" -- the Nazis got a lot of PR heat for homosexuality, so they pretended to be aggressive about it, being VERY selective about who they "targeted". It was a good way to get rid of enemies of the Reich, like Catholic (celibate so suspect) priests. Because of PC, the author I spoke to believes there is credible evidence that many people are jumping on the "poor homosexual victims" bandwagon, including the ADL.
"Is it possible that God could have created so many human souls, foreseeing that they will never reach the level of conscious human life?"
Who knows? Who cares? Abortion is a sin no matter when ensoulment takes place. On that the Church is absolutely clear. If contraception is never acceptable, how could the abortion of a baby that may or may not yet have a soul? And if you're not sure that baby has a soul, do you really want to take the risk that you're committing murder? Isn't the prudent thing to refrain from taking life, just in case? And isn't the wisest course of action of all to listen to what God says when He says abortion is never allowed, even in the earliest stages of pregnancy?
How does it come that a Catholic priest, of all people, does not know these things?
The violence of prolifers never ceases to amaze!
Augustine quotes a definition of Sodomy as "non-coital sex, especially anal or oral copulation" -- rather wide, and including many heterosexual married couples as well.
He further clarifies: "Homosexual, by definition, means one who is SEXUALLY attracted to the same sex. And the only kind of sex that is possible between members of the same sex is SODOMITIC. The fact that a few homosexuals may not engage in actual sex no more changes the fact that they are sodomites than the fact that some heterosexuals may not engage in actual sex changes the fact that they are "straight"."
This of course is a Nazi-style homophobic rant that is completely at odds with Church teaching. Just look up the Catechism.
"They IDENTIFY themselves by these exact same sexual practices and want special minority status based upon their sexual tastes." Not at all; they identify themselves by their ORIENTATION and almost invariably claim to have been conscious of the orientation long before they had any physical sexual experience.
I have to say that, while I have met a surprising amount of naked hatred on this website -- more than any other I have visited except one in which Northern Ireland Christians spewed naked murder at each other -- I find that Augustine's postings have reached new levels of offensiveness. Nor are Da Rulz applied to them, of course.
I see that Augustine is also touting a book that seems to be premissed on the paralogism that because the Nazi Party was rife with homosexuality the Nazis cannot have been responsible for a holocaust of gay people. The Pink Triangle never existed, then?
You could equally argue that Hitler's suspected Jewish blood made it impossible for him to be responsible for a holocaust of Jewish people.
But logic never got in the way of hatred.
Hatred could hardly to farther than this transparent effort to whitewash Hitler.
The opportunistic authors claim to have discovered something that I certainly heard of about 40 years ago, that many of the top Nazis were gay. "we knew that it would cause controversy, contradicting as it does the common portrayal of homosexuals as exclusively victims of the Nazi regime." This is a straw man; no one claims that homosexuals were not also among the perpetrators of the Nazi crimes.
" For this reason we were scrupulous in our documentation of homosexuals as the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities." Note this ingenious but transparent ploy of blaming the victim -- only those filled with hate will buy it.
The authors complain that their work has been "neglected" because of "the dominance of “political correctness” in the academic realm" -- as if mediocrity and prejudice did not merit neglect.
"In the 1960s, Nazi homosexuality was so widely acknowledged in America (at least among the “social elites”) that the portrayal of Nazi thugs as homosexual was a frequent occurrence in Hollywood movies." See, I told you -- nothing new about this at all!
"the thesis that homosexuals invented and ran the Nazi Party. This is a thesis that has been frequently restated since the 1930s. It is a thesis with profound implications for our society, given the growing power of the “gay” movement". SUBTEXT: Gays are Nazis.
"We do not want our view to be imposed on anyone, nor the homosexualist view to be silenced." The fact that there was a massacre of gays under Hitler is just "the homosexualist view"!
Historians speak like this??: "The Pink Swastika is a response to the “gay political agenda” and its strategy of portraying homosexuals as victims of societal and Nazi persecution. ... The Pink Swastika will show that there was far more brutality, rape, torture and murder committed against innocent people by Nazi deviants and homosexuals than there ever was against homosexuals."
"Today in the West, a new and aggressive homosexualism is making its bid for power. The media, psychiatry, science and academia have all been corrupted and pressed into the service of establishing homosexuality as a normal and acceptable variant of human sexuality. Those who are unwilling to bend to the new dispensation are bludgeoned into submission with slanderous accusations of intolerance and “homophobia.” Our efforts will certainly fail to corroborate the politically correct propaganda offered by much of today’s media, academia, psychiatry, various federal agencies, the courts and human rights organizations which are now driven by the new sexual ideology rather than by honest debate and inquiry. Coming in the wake of a successful public campaign conducted over decades, our book will also fly in the face of much of today’s popular opinion. This having been said, we believe that The Pink Swastika will show clearly how the world the Nazis attempted to create is a world, not of the past, but of the pos
"The Pink Swastika will show clearly how the world the Nazis attempted to create is a world, not of the past, but of the possible future. It will show that, given its present course and left unchallenged, America could easily become the Nazi Germany of 50 years ago." GAYS ARE NAZIS! GAYS ARE NAZIS!
It goes on and on like this, lies and hatred. In my considered opinion, Augustine, if he really subscribes to this kind of hate speech, and if he is fully aware of its implications, cannot call himself a Christian.
Roister,
Indeed, you are a prophet. It is always interesting and telling to see what gets a man most passionate and agitated. The disembodied Spirit is most passionate and fixated upon defending and promoting homosexuality (and a few other sins).
A couple of points before I go do dinner with my lovely bride:
1) Sodomy, committed by anyone is is serious sin. But homosexual sex, by definition, can ONLY be sodomy. There is no such thing as "coital homosexual sex".
2) The case that spirit brought up of two "gays" marrying but not having sex is the background for my comments about such people still being "sodomites". The attempt to prove a disconnect between what I wrote and the Catechism was incorrect. Those with Same Sex Attraction disorder who decide to make a public spectacle of themselves by aping true marriage are still purposely, publicly and fundamentally tying themselves to "the homosexual lifestyle", assuming that such odd couples even exist. As such, yes, calling them sodomites is not incorrect.
Those who struggle with their disorder and resist it or reject it are not rightly called Sodomites or "gay". The are simply people who struggle with disordered sexual feelings, and they have my deepest prayers and sympathy.
3) To IDENTIFY one's self by one's disorder, treating and embracing it as a natural, good, and fundamental aspect of one's identity is exactly the problem, the error.
4) My point is and has always been that Nazi Germany/Hitler followed a Teutonic pagan religion that was filled with many perversions, including (but not limited to) homosexuality. Neither Hitler or Nazism were Catholic. I have personally never made any claim at all about whether or not homosexuals were targeted. However, when I contacted the author of a book I mentioned, he suggested the Pink Swastika which does not deny that homosexuals were targeted either (from what I gather), only that they the persecutions were highly "selective"...i.e. the Nazis used homosexuality as a tool to persecute those that were distrusted...enemies, etc. The same was done in Communist countries, from what I have read. And it is also one of the reasons why, I have read at least, that the past Holy Father was so reticent to believe claims that certain bishops or priests were homosexual. That charge was used so often by Communists as an excuse to target and smear enemies.
From what I can gather, the subtext is this: deep sin and perversion breeds other deep sins and perversion. When one does not fight against perversion but rather embraces it, we ought not be suprised to see that "where there is one rat....there are many more."
Just as we are not surprised that once a priest becomes a a public dissident on one issue, the disease spreads to other issues.
I am glad to see that Augustine distances himself form the antichristian views that homosexual people as such are evil, and that Nazism was a product of the movement for homosexual liberation of the 1920s and 1930s. The argument of The Pink Swastika could easily be changed into The Catholic Swastika -- just replace "homosexual" with "Catholic" throughout. Then you could say that the Holocaust was the Roman Catholic Church's last attempt to wipe out Jews and gays. Hitler was baptized, never excommunicated, and head of one of the few States with a Concordat with the Vatican. He imprisoned priests in Dachau, but that was merely selective targeting; in reality he was a pawn of the Church (so this insane logic, modeled on The Pink Swastika, would go) and he was cheered most warmly by the Catholic laity as "the good Hitler".
Let me clarify that I am not an advocate of gay marriage but of civil unions, and that I do not deny that abortion is evil; I merely query whether it is murder in the case of very early pregnancies, and it seems that you all here concede that I was right in suggesting that the embryo is not an individual human soul in the first fourteen days (because it can twin, or two embryos can fuse into one) -- perhaps your rage against me is due to my having forced you to make this concession (much to my own surprise, because I am very ignorant indeed about such matters).
On the church's teaching on homosexuality, I would not say I am a dissident -- rather I call for further development. We already see considerable development within Vatican documents since 1975, and that is without the benefit of full consultation and dialogue; with more consultation and dialogue further development is assured.
The Nazis used homosexuality as a tool, to be sure. But I understand that they also propagated theories about homosexuality as a disorder (and one of the most embarrassing things about the 1986 document of Ratzinger is its unwitting proximity to such utterances).
1) Anyone who follows "spirit" for any period of time will notice that he is seemingly always "merely" doing this and "merely" doing that. There is an awful lot of "merely" doings in spirits writings, and they always move in a particular direction....and together, these "merely's" constitute a very problematic thing, indeed. He is rather like modernist heresy in this. It is not always so much any one point, but rather, the accumulation that paints the darkest picture.
It is worth reviewing what people write and what this spirit tries to paint from these writings. The twisting, spinning, distorting and deception are distinctly reminiscent of another certain "free thinker" in the spiritual realm.
For instance, notice this loaded and deceptive sentence: "I am glad to see that Augustine distances himself from the antichristian views that homosexual people as such are evil and that Nazism was a product of the movement for homosexual liberation of the 1920s and 1930s."
Review the posts above to determine who first introduced the notion that those with Same Sex Attraction disorder are fundamentally evil. It was not I. It was he. And then he tried to suggest that I back-pedaled, "distancing" myself from it.
Regarding the second part of that sentence, I neither distanced nor embraced anything at all.
This kind of twisting and deception is first seen in the book of Genesis and later in the desert with Christ.
This kind of dishonesty and treachery is far more dangerous because one has to be more vigilant to catch it.
2) In the sense that the "gay community" uses these terms "gay", "homosexual," they embrace their sinful tendencies as though they are fundamentally and willingly identified by their disorder, their sin. It is not like a person who recognizes their sinful attachment to alcohol calling himself "an alcoholic". The "alcoholic" means to identify his STRUGGLE with a problem, not to embrace it as though it is simply a good and natural part of his identity that others should celebrate.
3) The obvious difference between trying to paint Nazism as a Catholic phenomenon vs. a pagan one with homosexual elements is all of the evidence that Teutonic paganism was actively embraced at the highest levels, including Hitler. Within the context of this paganism, there appears to be significant evidence, including articles in the German papers at the time, etc., that homosexuality was indeed practiced actively at the very highest levels, including Hitler himself. There is no similar evidence I have ever seen that Hitler and the highest echelons of Nazism were practicing Catholics. If there is such evidence, then it ought to be brought forth.
But again, what is telling here is that my original points, going back to comments on a previous article, had to do entirely with disproving that Nazism and Hitler could be blamed in any way on Catholicism. And why did I find the need to make that argument?
Continued:
Well, it was that the disembodied spirit "merely suggested" just such possibility in a previous post (regarding another article).
The issue of homosexuality in the 3rd Reich was only a part of the post I originally made, but the primary issue was pointing out the Teutonic pagan beliefs, the cult within Nazism. And within this, deviant sexuality was a part (not just homosexuality, btw).
Yet what is the only thing that concerned "spirit" in all of this? What was it that raised his ire and made him fight at length? Was it tying Catholicism to Nazism? Well, no, as he was the one who actually suggested the tie. Was it paganism and Nazism? No. It was the sodomite lifestyle. The battles one chooses tell a story all their own.
4) Notice again, that spirit "merely queries" about whether abortion is murder at very early stages. Is that all he "merely" did? Let's see, how about this quote from above: "I agree with the Church that abortion is evil. WHETER THERE ARE SOME RARE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH IT IS A NECESSARY EVIL I AM UNSURE." That certainly sounds quite different fround "merely querying" whether abortion is MURDER at very early stages, doesn't it? Here, Spirit, a purported ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, publicly casts doubt upon express, Roman Catholic teaching....whether abortion may be permissible, i.e. not a sin.
And note the nifty little jab at the Pope at the end...once again drawing comparisons to Nazis. Oh, yes, this is a humble, faithful Catholic priest! Goodness.
This is the kind of evil of which I speak coming from the poisoned keyboard of the disembodied spirit.
If he were a mere layman trying to understand the issues by debating them, that would be one thing. He is not. He is a Roman Catholic Priest, unfortunately, and as such it is a sin and a terrible scandal that he continues to publicly write such things. To the unsuspecting, he carries a certain clout because he wears that Catholic collar (assuming he even does so) and they are tainted and harmed by his personal errors, believing them to be legitimate Catholic opinions or beliefs.
And He obviously feels compelled to "share" his sin, doesn't he?...much as "gay" men with AIDS sometimes purposely "share" their "gift" with others. Let him have his "doubts" and "mere questions" in private. This private sin will at least accrue less to his eternal detriment and to that of others.
How many people are sucked into sin by these "confused men of the cloth"? I pray for every one of them. And I also pray even for these priests because their sin is deep indeed, and so will their punishment be unless they repent. For it is better that they be cast into the ocean with a millstone around their neck than that they deceive one of God's little ones.
Re-read the information from Alphonsus and visit Linacre bioethics center online to clear up the fog Spirit tries to create.
http://www.linacre.org/index.htm
He freel
He freely admits he knows very little, so it would be wise to ignore his "mere" ramblings on the subject and consult the experts.
1) It seems that spirit read Alphonsus and Linacre very carelessy or selectively. I do not see where any point was "conceded" regarding the argument about "14 days". Reread the above by Alphonsus in particular (2/24 5:50 am, 2:24 6:21 am) and visit Linacre bioethics at www.linacre.org
In particular, as Alphonsus wrote:
"The talk regarding individuation is absurd. See http://www.linacre.org/preimp.html for example and the status of the embryo section of http://www.linacre.org/stemcell.html\"
and
"It becomes 2 souls either by dying -and giving rise to 2 new souls - OR one souls is present and gives rise to another (just as if I cloned a cell of mine I would remain me and have given rise to a new embryo which was genetically near identical but had his own unique soul). THE FACT THAT I HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO DO THAT DOES NOT CHANGE HOW MANY SOULS I HAVE!"
2) A point I am not sure I made previously: ALL SURGICAL ABORTIONS ARE PERFORMED AFTER 6 WEEKS GESTATION. At this point in the unborn child's development, there is already a heartbeat and measurable brainwaves among many other things. As such, even beginning to raise the issue of what does or does not occur previous to "14 days" is specious in the case of all surgical abortions....1.2-1.6 million annually in the United States alone.
3) spirit writes: "Let me clarify that I am not an advocate of gay marriage but of civil unions."
I am against polygamous marriages but for polygamous civil unions.
I am against beastiality as marriage, but for beastiality-based civil unions.
I am against incestuous marriages but for incestuous civil unions.
Well, now, CIVIL UNIONS make ALL the difference!
4)spirit writes: "On the church's teaching on homosexuality, I would not say I am a dissident." How many dissidents admit they are dissidents? Admitting that somewhat hampers one's ability to mislead, after all. I'm sure Crossan thinks he's a good Catholics just looking for "developments" and "corrections" too. Even Martin Luther did.
How is it, with the purported terrible shortage of priests that this one has so much time to write this volume of dreck (the one useful thing from "sprit" to date..a yiddish word meaning "trash")? Has he nothing better to do than to perpetually haunt blogs with his personal, heterodox musings, spreading his ignorance and confusion....and "mere suggestions"?
Spirit of Vatican II,
I know you like reacting to messages such as these, but I hope you will take the following seriously and not dismiss it as something crude: Are you or have you ever considered yourself homosexual? Of course you may very well call such a question an attempt at an ad hominem argument. It is not and you should, if you are indeed homosexual, not shy away from telling us. Usually people of your sort, (and I speak from education in psychology) often display homoerotic behavior at some point in their lives; this naturally breeds the tendency to spend a considerable amount of time defending a lifestyle that otherwise makes them feel guilty. I would not be surprised to find out that you are a homosexual or you have engaged in such acts in the past, or, perhaps, you have had, or continue to have, homosexual/homoerotic desires. I speak from a clinical perspective. I completely agree that Brad's comments above were ill-founded. I do not approve of such evocations of violence. I am interested in various behaviors that arise out of a context such as this. You react to the statements of others as if you really have something to prove. Perhaps you could explain this to me, and for the sake of honesty, others could understand you better. I would be concerned about your behavior in any other (actual) context. I worry that is has consequences. Perhaps you should consult a physician. Not being religious myself, I hope you take my advice as professional and not polemical. I know some good clinical doctors who could address this matter with great clarity. I am eager to hear your reply.
Augustine, the points I was attacking are those made in the book you recommended, and to which you gave a link -- namely, the notorious far-right tract hawked for a long time now under the title of THE PINK SWASTIKA. If you are not distancing yourself from this hate-literature, you know what I think of that.
Brandon Lee, are you an expert therapist? What are your qualifications for spouting such extraordinary stuff? You are not a Catholic, yet you set yourself up as a judge of Catholic theologians? What planet are you broadcasting from?
Yes, one point more: if the embryo is not an individual soul in the first fourteen days, then early abortion -- such as the morning-after pill -- cannot be considered murder, strictly speaking. The physiological details you want to go into are perfectly irrelevant to this simple argument. Are you ready to argue that a complete individual human soul is present at the first moment of pregnancy or not? If you are, then you can argue that abortion even at this early stage is murder. If not you can argue that it is very bad, the thwarting of a potential for human life, an act of death, but not in fact murder.
Coming back to Akinola and his support of a truly vicious anti-gay law in Nigeria, at last a pastor has spoken out: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp...6022401801.html
Here's a good remark from Andrew Sullivan: "The past two decades have seen a huge shift in how homosexual people are viewed in the West. Where once they were identified entirely by sex, now more and more recognise that the central homosexual experience is the central heterosexual experience: love — maddening, humiliating, sustaining love." Augustine radically disagrees with this -- or is it that he recognizes the truth in it and does not like it one bit?
Akinola, the US Right, and the sinister future of Christianity -- see this: http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/
Fr Joe is "pro-life" in some hyper-qualified, prestidigitory way, but never has anything good to say about pro-lifers or the work they do. Plainly, he finds the "common clay" frumpy housewives, ordinary laborers, and elderly couples who line up in front of abortion slaughter houses to pray for innocent life clearly an embarrassment, not nearly as sleek and sophisticated as the "A" list of Sophia U faculty before whom he preens. They have no titillating bon mots or slick pretzel logic to offer, only plain-spun zeal. Fr Goeschele, himself no raging traditionalist, was tossed into jail for standing with these folk. Have you ever stood with them, father? Oh, how to explain to your esteemed colleagues, should your picture be taken with them, standing in the rain holding a silly sign, such a sad sack!
A rainbow-sash, on the other hand, is a gesture of true style and verve!!
1) From his first comments on the book the Pink Swastika, it seems clear spirit has read little more than a few snippets and possibly some reviews from his pre-existing point of view before summarily condemning it. And I know what liberals at least claim to think of doing that.
2) Notice how spirit deftly avoids the point.
He wrote: "I merely query whether it is murder in the case of very early pregnancies"
But I pointed out that he did not "merely query" whether abortion in very early pregnancies is "murder", giving proof with his own words.
He wrote: "WHETHER THERE ARE SOME RARE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH (ABORTION) IS A NECESSARY EVIL I AM UNSURE."
Here he casts doubt upon whether abortion is sinful and always prohibited, period, as the Church teaches that it unequivocally is. There is no such thing as a "necessary abortion."
CCC 2270: Human life must be respected and protected ABSOLUTELY from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person-among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
CCC 2271: Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of EVERY procured abortion. This teaching has not changed AND WILL NOT CHANGE.
It is also noteworthy that there was never a response on his canard about rape and incest. There is no proof that abortion "helps" a woman who has been raped or incested, and in fact, there is evidence exactly to the contrary as per the study I cited above.
It is clear that "spirit" read a few snippets and commentaries that agreed with his leanings before pronouncing his condemnation of the Pink Swastika. And we know what liberals claim to think about doing things like that.
It is also clear that spirit thinks people do not read his earlier posts. It's rather like 1984...rewriting history. He more than "merely" questioned whether very early abortion was technically murder. He questioned whether it might not be permissible in certain circumstances...quite a difference. Re-read my post with his actual quotes.
Sorry about that....something strange happened with my computer. I didn't mean to repost the same material.
1) The points I raised about when surgical abortion occurs were a necessary clarification. I have found a that only the tiniest minority know that all surgical abortions occur AFTER a baby already has a heartbeat and brainwaves (i.e. 6 weeks gestation). And if I didn't make that clarification, we can be relatively sure that spirit was not going to either.
2) The question of ensoulment is an interesting one, but it is irrelevant as to whether killing an unborn child at ANY stage of development could ever be permissible. It is a grave sin under all circumstances, period. As such, the only possible question is to whether or not someone who aborts a child at an older age commits a worse grave sin than one who aborts at the very earliest ages. But this is casuistry. It has little, if any, relevance to real life. It is not permissible, period. It is a grave sin, period. So why fixate upon it?
3) Alphonsus and Linacre seemed to lay out a reasonable and convincing argument as to why even the earliest abortions would be murder.
4) Let me try this imperfect analogy. If I am in the woods hunting deer and I see movement in the distance, but I am not sure whether it is a man or a deer, is it ever morally licit for me to shoot, hoping that it is a deer?
And of course, in the case at hand, we are not even talking about a deer vs. a man. It is morally licit to kill a deer. It is NOT morally licit to kill a very young pre-born human, EVER.
May I interject a medical piece of information into this mix?
A woman's body treats chemical and surgical abortions differently than what the medical profession calls "spontaneous abortion". Similarly, a nun's body behaves differently than one full of contraceptive hormones.
Anyone wonder why?
Spirit writes:
" 'Where once (homosexuals) were identified entirely by sex, now more and more recognise that the central homosexual experience is the central heterosexual experience: love — maddening, humiliating, sustaining love.' Augustine radically disagrees with this -- or is it that he recognizes the truth in it and does not like it one bit?"
Well, yes and no. I do not deny that those who embrace their Same Sex Attraction love many people...non-sexually. But the attachment and sexual expression between homosexual "partners" cannot be called "love"...maddeningly or not.
True romantic love cares as much or more for the other than the self. How is it loving to engage in practices that are damaging to your "partner"? Surveys, especially of gay men, prove that there really is no such thing as a "monogamous gay couple". True romantic love is creative in its basic essence, sodomitic expressions are inherently sterile. True romantic love embraces the "otherness" of one's lover (male/female), sodomitic sex rejects otherness and turns inwardly to sameness.
To recap:
1) The sexual practices of sodomites are deadly (temporally and eternally), to themselves and to others. From reduced life span to a whole host of diseases and disorders that are uniquely or disproportionately "gay".
2) Gay activists try to have it both ways. They say "Why are you fixated on our sexuals practices? We are just the same as you, be pay taxes, go to movies, etc." But then then demand special minority status and recognition BASED PRECISELY UPON THEIR SEXUAL PREFERENCES. They can't have it both ways. Either they are fundamentally identified by their disorder/sin, (calling it "good" in the process) or they are NOT. Candidly, I wish they WOULD stop fundamentally identifying themselves by their disordered sexual preferences. That would be a sign of hope.
3) Frankly, if those who wish to engage in sodomy stopped insisting that everyone else accept and celebrate it, even calling it a sacrament, I would not be as concerned and focused upon it. But gay activists are not after mere acceptance and "equal rights", many are after a societal revolution that rejects traditional notions of sexuality altogether. This naturally induces a legitimate testosterone-based response to protect one's family.
Look, Augustine, could there not be the following case? A woman is told that if she becomes pregnant she will inevitably die if the child comes to term. Moreover, her early pregnancy is detected in the first fourteen days.
Now the choice is between the certain death of the mother and the suppression of life that is not yet in all probability individual human life.
I do not know whether such situations can actually arise, but if they do I am not at all sure that an abortion would not be morally justified in that case.
Augustine, lots of men love one another romantically without ever being involved in sex together. Love is sometimes one-sided, too. Why have you such a big problem recognizing that? And yes, I have known loving same-sex couples who have been together for decades. If they do not love one another, as you claim, why do they stay together? Why do they grieve when their partner dies?
Still defending The Pink Swastika? Why not search for objective historical truth on this topic, if it really interests you? Why steep your hands in a text that has been universally condemned as vile hate literature? Would you seek objective knowledge of Judaism from such hate-tainted sources?
http://www.holocaust-trc.org/homosx.htm
see also http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/homobg.html
Here is how Nazis treated gays -- much like the murderers of Matthew Shepard:
...In the SS, today, we still have about one case of homosexuality a month. In a whole year, about eight to ten cases occur in the entire SS. I have now decided upon the following: in each case, these people will naturally be publicly degraded, expelled, and handed over to the courts. Following completion of the punishment imposed by the court, they will be sent, by my order, to a concentration camp, and they will be shot in the concentration camp, while attempting to escape. I will make that known by order to the unit to which the person so infected belonged. Thereby, I hope finally to have done with persons of this type in the SS, and the increasingly healthy blood which we are cultivating for Germany, will be kept pure.
I see there is a cottage industry of correcting the falsehoods in The Pink Swastika, as in the case of The Da Vinci Code. See this: http://www.geocities.com/Pentago...8706/
apsc01.htm
It look as if hatred not only blinds one to people's humanity and skews one's judgment, but even prevents one from writing with factual accuracy.
Gents,
I have two family emergency situations that preclude me from continuing (one involving an early emergency child delivery, ironically). I will leave the defense of the faith and in your able hands and I ask your prayers.
One quick, parting remark: There is no such situation wherein the deliberate and direct taking of an unborn child's life is necessary to save the life of its mother. This is Catholic bio-ethics, 101. Try the Linacre site.
God be with you all.
"There is no such situation" -- famous last words? I remember a novel called "The Cardinal" (also a movie, early 1960s) where the priest had to advise his sister who was facing precisely that situation. In any case, my question is IF there was such a situation, would you choose with infallible resolve to sacrifice the mother's life to that of an embryo (not yet an individual human life)one or two days old? If you cannot answer YES, without hesitation, to this question then you are every bit as "unorthodox" as you claim I am.
Interesting reaction of Bush to South Dakota http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?...=1671087&
page=4
Interesting the Bush sees the life of the mother as a real issue, and sees it as justifying abortion (along with rape and incest).
The violence of prolifers never ceases to amaze!
"Spirit," contain yourself and buck up: don't confuse disgust at perversion and hatred of sin with "violence" against homosexual pederasts, those who prey on teenage boys, adults, or with "violence" against yourself. Individuals (including I) have hotly disagreed with you on this website, but I find it rather inordinate to think of you as having been victimized here. If anything, you've been given free reign to DOMINATE these comment boxes and inflict your dissident opinions on everyone else. With all the time you have to link and post here -- far more time than most of the rest of us -- I do find the presumption of your remark impressive.
This is a forum for free and open debate, with only minimal monitoring and minimal rules, as you know. Further, that you would call "violent" those who are zealous in the defense of human lives amidst a holocaust of abortions, and those who are scandalized that you would spend such hours as you do at your overheated computer defending, not unborn human lives, but the rights of buggery and privileges of narcissistic homoerotic self-indulgence -- I do find that a trifle amazing.
The violence I referred to was that of the tract THE PINK SWASTIKA. I believe you yourself may have drawn on that tract in arguing that Nazis cannot have been homophobes since they were themselves homosexual.
I remember Daniel Berrigan in a room of anti Vietnam protestors saying there was enough violence in the room to start a war...
The rights of buggery and privileges of narcississtic homoerotic self-indulgence....
And you say you are not homophobic, but deplore homophobia????????
The rights of Jewry and privileges of narcissistic Jewish obstinacy...
The rights of blacks and privileges of narcissistic racial pride...
The rights of women and privileges of naricissistic female pushiness...
Reaction is all of a piece, and equally DEAF on all fronts...
Roister,
Thank you for the update, newcomer that I am to this blog. I was able to size him up rather quickly,anyway, but this is a useful confirmation.
Perhaps I will now offer a little bit about his favorite recent topic: the Third Reich:
I recently corresponded with the author of the book Salvation is From the Jews about his section on Nazi Teutonic paganism and the homosexual elements of Nazism vs. the targeting of homosexuals by Nazis. The following is a paraphrase of his advice.
The best book on the subject is "The Pink Swastika", PB, HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? DO YOU AGREE WITH AUGUSTINE?
The short answer is that it appears this targeting of homosexuals was "spin" -- the Nazis got a lot of PR heat for homosexuality, so they pretended to be aggressive about it, being VERY selective about who they "targeted". It was a good way to get rid of enemies of the Reich, like Catholic (celibate so suspect) priests. Because of PC, the author I spoke to believes there is credible evidence that many people are jumping on the "poor homosexual victims" bandwagon, including the ADL.
Augustine | 02.24.06 - 5:54 pm | #
DO YOU SEE NO VIOLENCE IN THIS? (This was the mail that prompted the remark you are so upset by -- that "the violence of prolifers never ceases to amaze".
Am I to conclude that you are so blinded by homophobia that you share Augustine's admiration for THE PINK SWASTIKA? Are you not aware that it is a very notorious far-right piece of hate literature?
Do you wish to go on record as a subscriber to the views of THE PINK SWASTIKA????
I made the mistake of checking this.....
Oh, well. I am thankful for the offer of prayers for my family emergencies from the liberal "I feel everyone's pain more than you do" spirit....I'm sure those prayers and thoughts of sympathy were implied in there somewhere.
The child survived, praise God. But the other situation is not faring so well. Lord have mercy.
1) In regard to abortion for the sake of saving a mother's life, it is never permissible to intentionally kill innocent life, period. Church teaching is black and white on that. Appeals to movies are hardly convincing.
http://www.priestsforlife.org/qu.../
questions.html
The principle of "double effect" is of help in understanding the moral distinction between taking actions to save a life that INDIRECTLY and UNINTENTIONALLY may bring about the demise of another vs. DIRECTLY and INTENTIONALLY bringing about the death of innocent human life.
2) Odd reference to George Bush on abortion. Since when does a Catholic turn to "W" for Catholic teaching? One supposes spirit is now a "W" groupie...
"spirit" writes:
"I have known loving same-sex couples who have been together for decades. If they do not love one another, as you claim, why do they stay together?"
I am very incredulous about claims of "homosexual fidelity", especially among males. This is found even in homosexual literature. Even in so-called “monogamous” relationships, homosexuals regularly engage in serial infidelity and this is accepted as normal. (The Male Couple by David P. McWhirter and Andrew M Mattison)
Also, try these sites:
http://members.aol.com/gaymatter...atter/
monog.htm
http://www.findarticles.com/p/ar...762/
ai_20856082
2) 70% of homosexuals admitted to having sex only one time with over 50% of their partners (Bell, A. and Weinberg, M. Homosexualities: a Study of Diversity Among Men and Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 197
3) the average homosexual has between 20 and 106 partners per year (Corey, L. and Holmes, K. "Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men." New England J. Med., 1980, pp. 435-38. )
4) The Average Homosexual “union” lasts only 1.5 years (based upon health records of Dutch homosexuals by Dr. Maria Xiridous of the Amsterdam Municipal Heath Service and published in the May issue of AIDS)
Why do these few "couples" spirit claims to know stay together, mustn't they love one another? I'll answer these questions with a few of my own:
Why do drug addicts sometimes stay with their dealers? Why do prostitutes stay with their pimps? Why do abused women stay with their abusers?
If they do not love one another, why do they stay together?
Is this to say that there is absolutey NO aspect to their relationships that is loving? No, but the essential nature of the romantic relationship is perverse and so, there is no hope of it ever growing into full-fledged, honest romantic love. And this perversion cannot but also taint the other aspects of the relationship as well.
As to unrequited homosexual love, we know what Christ said about even entertaining notions of illicit romantic love. It is wrong and must be resisted.
Finally....
As to spirit's last claim, he wrote that I expressed "admiration for" the Pink Swastika.
Nowhere did I express "admiration".
I explained very clearly that the author of another book recommended it. spirit is being dishonest here....which shows even from the snippet he provided. I, myself, did not write that it was the best book on the subject. The AUTHOR I spoke to said it was the best book on the subject.
However, it is telling that "spirit" keeps condemning it without providing any real evidence, and in light of his comments which show that he has never read the book himself. That does catch one's attention.
Finally, in his post of 12:51 am on 3/2/06, criticizing Dr. Blosser, the comparison between homosexuality and Jews, women and blacks is absurd.
No one here has criticized those who merely have SSA disorder but who resist it. Even sympathy and understanding has been conveyed.
However, embracing and engaging one's sin is what is unacceptable and sinful. And spirit's attempts to beautify or rehabilitate it are repugnant. He exhibits a distorted, misguided concept of love himself in these futile attempts. To confirm or excuse those who consciously embrace serious error in that very error is from the pit of hell.
Augustine, I have read most of that hate-literature you recommended and I posted a site that refutes it paragraph by paragraph. Did YOU read that?
The movie, or rather novel, I referred to does NOT argue against the teaching that the mother's life must be sacrificed for the child's where a conflict arises. I read the novel as a boy and never doubted that this was the divine law.
Your comments on gay sex refer to males. What of female couples?
It seems to me that gays are witnessing possibilities of love and creative fidelity that the Church has tabooed for two millennia. Using language like "SSA disorder" is a way of trashing human beings, beneath the claimed compassion.
I find it objectionable that you bring intimate matters concerning yourself and family into an argument of this sort. It seems to me to show a deep lack of respect.
Spirit writes that he has read "most the hate literature" that I recommended. Interesting. I mentioned two books: Salvation is From the Jews and then mentioned that the author of this book recommended another book, "The Pink Swastika" regarding homosexuality within Nazism. So, what exactly is "most"? Two books were mentioned, one of which I personally recommended. Did spirit read "most" of Salvation is from the Jews?
His earlier posts seem to make evident that he did not read even the Pink Swastika. He has read parts, critiques, etc. And he believes the critiques whole-heartedly, of course. SCANDALOUS to even SUGGEST their may be another view!
Yet, regarding the Catholic Church and Nazism? Well, that's open for discussion. Yet regarding abortion? Well, gee, he has his doubts there, too.
Nifty for a Catholic priest.
Spirit has a very interesting moral compass...the things that get him all worked up, the things he rejects out of hand. Yes, they are quite telling.
Spirit writes:
>>The movie, or rather novel, I referred to does NOT argue against the teaching that the mother's life must be sacrificed for the child's where a conflict arises. I read the novel as a boy and never doubted that this was the divine law.>>
Yet, previously he wrote:
"In any case, my question is IF there was such a situation (where the life of the mother was in danger by having a child), would you choose with infallible resolve to sacrifice the mother's life to that of an embryo (not yet an individual human life)one or two days old? If you cannot answer YES, without hesitation, to this question then you are every bit as "unorthodox" as you claim I am."
And previous to that:
"WHETHER THERE ARE SOME RARE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH (ABORTION) IS A NECESSARY EVIL I AM UNSURE."
spirit is an "innocently confused" person, CLEARLY....simply trying to foster discussion, not trying to manipulate at all by his "mere" thoughts, doubts, ideas....
Yes, we know.
Unfortunate that he is a priest, spreading the virus of his "confusion".
It is a very "selective confusion", indeed.
What I find objectionable is a) That spirit uses his Catholic collar to undermine the Church and sow confusion and most recently, b)his cowardly way of ratcheting up dishonest charges when he believes I may not be back to call him to account. Notice his reaction after he believed I may not be back to continue?
And interesting again to see what spirit, a purported PRIEST, finds so objectionable: a simple, factual explanation for my absence, noting the ironic relation to the discussion, and a request for PRAYER.
Could it be that spirit is most bothered by the fact that his purported "caring" and "liberal sensitivity" were roundly undercut by his own manifest callousness here? That he "outed" himself for the heartless extremist ideologue that he is, perhaps?
spirit writes:
"Your comments on gay sex refer to males. What of female couples?"
The comments and statistics were not solely related to males. The same types of issues seem to be related to lesbians as well, but to a varying extent. However, it does not change the immoral nature of embracing a romantically-based relationship with someone of the same sex.
On the "natural law" front (i.e. perversion has consequences) there are also many statistics that are not good news for lesbians, for example:
1) A study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that 90% of the lesbians surveyed had been recipients of one or more acts of verbal aggression from their intimate partners during the year prior to this study with 31% reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse.
2) A study published in Nursing Research found that lesbians are three times more likely to abuse alcohol and to suffer from other compulsive behaviors
3) 25-33% of homosexuals and lesbians are alcoholics (Kus, R. “Alcoholics Anonymous and Gay America” Medical Journal of Homosexuality, 1987, 12(2), p. 254)
4) 21% of lesbians die of murder, suicide or traffic accident, which is at a rate 534 times higher than the number of white heterosexual females aged 25-44 who dies of these things (Ibid)
spirit writes: " It seems to me that gays are witnessing possibilities of love and creative fidelity that the Church has tabooed for two millennia. Using language like "SSA disorder" is a way of trashing human beings, beneath the claimed compassion." END quote
No, telling homosexuals confusing and misleading things like that they have "found new ways of love and creative fidelity" is a way of trashing human beings. spirit's "compassion" is confirmation and enabling in that which leads to death. True compassion faces truth squarely and courageously.
The alcoholic is not "hurt" by recognizing his disorder. The abusive man is not "hurt" by recognizing his disorder. Neither is the homosexual "hurt" by recognizing the disorder.
Recognizing and acknowledging sin and disorder in one's life may be painful, but it is a temporary pain, a necessary first step to true healing.
I read most of the hate literature called THE PINK SWASTIKA.
I believed that the mother's life should of course be sacrificed to the child's when I was a boy (aged 13). I now feel I was lacking in humanity in going along so blithely with this.
Romantic love of man for man or of woman for woman is not a disorder, nor does the Church say it is.
Consider David and Jonathan, Augustine and his friends (Confessions IV), Aelred (On Spiritual Friendship), or consider the Phaedrus, quoted warmly by Benedict XVI and by countless church fathers, etc. etc.
Augustine:
you seem continue to enjoy hiding behind a facade of onesided statistics( along thelines of "21 % of Lesbians die of murder , car accidents suicides - right? - very charitable view Herr Augustine). Why do you keep 'just mentioning' such hateful statistics and literature and seem in this particualr instance rather happy to judge fellow human beings not based on charity and good will?
I would rather leave the judgement if a samesex relationship is founded in true love and commitment to our Lord and the couple in question.
I certainly claim that my wife and me found such love and commitment - it seems not hard for me to envision that my fellow brothers and sisters are blessed by our Lord with a similar gift.
In any case I would give it the benefit of a doubt.
I certainly would find it rather objectionable and disturbing if somebody who does not know me from Adam would call me 'disordered'. Thus I can very much understand that our samesex brothers and sisters have an issue with the language used currently in the CCC.
I happen to think that such language eventually has to change.
Certainly IMHO in the long run it is not a good situation to continue to give mixed signals and confuse many fine believers like yourself Augustine. Indeed. I admit that I can understand that some in our church focus on the 'disordered 'and forget in the heat of the 'battle' to pay proper respect the fellow human being.
To love ones enemy is certainly hard.
I certainly struggle to contain myself when I read what some of my fellow catholics propose for the future of our church and society.
I can give you many examples from my everyday live were my family encounteres the most wonderful samesex couples and individuals.
In my parish I encounter every sunday many samesex families that raise there kids in the catholic faith. The do so despite all the heartless voices that seem so prevailing these days in our church as in our society.
How come that some would find nothing wrong with having there car,pet or house blessed but seem unwilling to accept that our many samesex brothers and equaly deserve our support and blessing.
I have a couple of aging gay neighbors that lovingly take care of each other.
As a member of this society I find this a very important development that ought to be encouraged. In my view my gay neighbors deserve all the legal rights that enable them to age together and take care of another as long as they can.
The church clearly advises us to deeply respect our fellow brothers and sisters with same sex attraction.
I find your continuing uncaritable references to rather grass details of human interaction tastless and
I will promise you I will spare you to respond in kind.
By the way you must recognize that the kind of language and literature you use, mention and promote is not benign.
We all have seen the fruits of antisemitism. I truly believe that most of our fellow americans and citizens of the
Spirit,
I have not written and the Church does not teach that a mother's life must be "sacrificed" to an unborn child. There is a difference between that and saying that one may not directly and intentionally kill innocent human life, period.
There are ways to address difficult circumstances that do not require the sacrifice of the mother...or of morality. While I am afraid I may open a can of worms (if, as it appears to me, you are more interested in exploiting/causing confusion than upholding Catholic teaching) here goes....for instance, it is possible to take life-saving actions for one that indirectly and unintentionally harms another. Ectopic pregnancy is one such case. A doctor may excise the dangerously growing fallopian tube before it explodes, or possibly consider an attempt to transplant the embryo to the uterus in order to save the mother. The first will certainly result in the death of the unborn child, the second may or may not. But the point is, the actions were not directed or intended to bring about the death of the unborn child. We must strive mightily not to sacrifice EITHER morality or life, rather than simply giving up because a problem may appear at first to be difficult or impossible to solve.
One would hope and pray that you of all people would rejoice and expend your seemingly endless energy in finding truly faithful and creative answers to such difficulties. If only you would expend as much energy on this as you do in trying to find ways to harmonize aspects of homosexuality with Catholic morality. I suspect you could do so with distinction.
To demand a woman sacrifice her life is surely a troublesome, repugnant thought. I understand that. I have a wife and have gone through some of this very directly and so understand more than you possibly can (not intended as a slap, only as a statement of fact).
But to demand that the morality which guards and protects the humanity and lives of ALL men be sacrificed should be equally troublesome and repugnant. This is the road of moral relativism...which leads to Auschwitz.
Grega,
I responded to you already at the other article. However, I'll address at least some of this here.
Would you argue that identifying the adult desire for sex with young children as "disordered" is "insulting"?
How about sex with animals?
You do know that in the first case there is a growing community that considers this perfectly normal (the second as well), right? Including the American Psychological Association?
When I meet homosexuals face to face, do I begin with, "so, you're disordered, huh?" Of course not. (And believe it or not, I know more than one person with SSA....some very close to me!)
But this is a discussion about the underlying reality, the underlying truth of the situation. And as you continue to openly contradict clear Catholic teaching on the issue, I assume you are unpersuaded by it. As such, I have made appeals to evidence of the violation of natural law...i.e. studies and statistics.
Quite frankly, personally, I could give a rat's backside about the issue. But the problem is that it is the frontline of the culture war, the line where Catholic morality is in tension with the trajectory of the world. Homosexuals and those who mistakenly support homosexual acts as "just another equally good lifestyle choice" have been amazingly successful at pushing their agenda.
It is for this reason that I engage the issue, because I do not want others to fall into the deadly error that there are no serious moral and epidemiological ramifications to these choices. Read: LOVE is my motivation.
It does not matter if there is a genetic component to it or not. The fact is, men are born with MANY inherently bad tendencies (violence being a common one) and we do not say that men ought therefore embrace it. Men are also naturally (in the fallen state, that is) promiscuous sexually. And we would be wrong to encourage them in that, either.
But if we cannot forthrightly address right and wrong because it is "offensive", this turns morality on its head, making morality the cause of injury rather than that which protects from injury.
It is rarely enjoyable to face one's sinful tendencies and actualities, but it is necessary.
Spirit,
I will leave the issue of the Pink Swastika after this, because, truly, I am not married to it. How could I be? I haven't read it. But at the time you began attacking it, it seems clear you had not read it, either. Apparently you have subsequently read more of it. But in this light, it is difficult to accept your criticism as truly objective and not emanating from your own strong visceral bias. That is all I was saying...that you rejected it as completely unacceptable from the get-go, whereas on the issue of Hitler and the Pope, you immediately exhibitied openness and also an openness to contradict or at least undermine the teaching of the Church on abortion, homosexuality, etc.
However, it is your attempts like those above to paint the relationship between David and Jonathan or Augustine and his friends in a homosexual light that make it very difficult to address you directly and with respect. As a Catholic priest is it scandalous for you to be openly writing such things. You are not just anybody. You are an official representative of the Catholic Church. I believe Dr. Blosser already addressed that with you on a previous article (reading approval of homosexuality into things where there is no such approval....)
If you read or watched Lord of the Rings, I imagine that you believe Frodo and Sam have a homosexual interest in each other, that their relationship is "romantic", too?
I have many friends for whom I have a great affection. We embrace, I may actually give a kiss on the cheek. I still greet my father and mother with a kiss.
Yet, there is nothing "romantic", nothing remotely or implicitly "sexual" about it.
The Church proclaims that homosexual acts are acts of grave depravity, they are intrinsically disordered. It also proclaims that these acts "do not PROCEED from a GENUINE AFFECTIVE and sexual complementarity." Therefore, the impulses that lead to the acts are themselves logically flow from an INAUTHENTIC affective complementarity: i.e. they are ALSO DISORDERED. As such, unless one is using words in an uncustomary way, "romantic" feelings toward one of the same sex are disordered.
Love and affection between two people that is devoid of a sexual aspect cannot be either "homoSEXUAL" or "heteroSEXUAL", by definition.
To have "romantic" feelings toward a person with whom one may never, under any circumstances licitly express the fulfillment of those same "romantic" feelings is certainly disordered. The actual personal culpability for such feelings is of course contingent upon the usual prerequisites.
Augustine, you raise the issue of the law of double effect. But my issue was to do with cases where this law cannot be applied. I gave the case of a woman who knows that a pregancy will lead to her death, and is face with the possibility of terminating a pregnancy -- or say a suspected pregnancy -- by an early abortion (say a morning-after pill). You say it would be "repugnant" to "sacrifice" the life of the mother but it seems that church teaching would oblige one to do so in this case.
Morally, it could perhaps be argued that the embryo is an innocent aggressor who could be killed in self-defense. Such scenarios occur in shipwrecks etc, where you might kick off someone who was clinging to you, thus saving your own life instead of losing two.
The slippery slope "moral relativism" argument could be invoked to ban all killing, as pacifists etc. invoke it. "Thou shalt not kill" is a principle whose application in practice is often very slippery.
You haven't read the Pink Swastika????
That is like someone who posts the Protocol of the Elders of Sion as an interesting expose of Judaism and then says he hadn't read it.
"Quite frankly, personally, I could give a rat's backside about the issue. But the problem is that it is the frontline of the culture war, the line where Catholic morality is in tension with the trajectory of the world."
So you have not interest in the people involved, only with a culture war position. Hence you toss around hate literature like molotov cocktails, a brave terrorist in the culture war.
"Homosexuals and those who mistakenly support homosexual acts as "just another equally good lifestyle choice" have been amazingly successful at pushing their agenda." Here the phrase in quotes shows your incomprehension of homosexuality and of what gay people are saying. Ask your gay relatives or friends one day what they REALLY think of your homophobic attitudes. Gays are very long-suffering people -- most have homophobic siblings or parents - so they know how to pass over attitudes that pain and repel them, or that with maturer years inspire their pity.
"It is for this reason that I engage the issue, because I do not want others to fall into the deadly error that there are no serious moral and epidemiological ramifications to these choices. Read: LOVE is my motivation." You are talking through your hat, like someone who said "I deplore Jewish blindness, because I worry about their salvation if they succeed in breaking our of their church-controlled ghettos. Love is my motivation." The reason is that you have not LISTENED to your gay friends and relatives, and indeed have probably made it quite clear to them that your would be an impossible person to receive confidences about their personal lives.
It does not matter if there is a genetic component to it or not. The fact is, men are born with MANY inherently bad tendencies (violence being a common one) and we do not say that men ought therefore embrace it. Men are also naturally (in the fallen state, that is) promiscuous sexually. And we would be wrong to encourage them in that, either.
But if we cannot forthrightly address right and wrong because it is "offensive", this turns morality on its head, making morality the cause of injury rather than that which protects from injury.
It is rarely enjoyable to face one's sinful tendencies and actualities, but it is necessary.
Augustine | 03.07.06 - 7:02 pm | #
Homophobia is sinful, a breeding ground for hatred, prejudice and violence, as history shows.
It does not matter if there is a genetic component to homophobia or not. The fact is, men are born with MANY inherently bad tendencies (violence being a common one) and we do not say that men ought therefore embrace it. Men are also naturally (in the fallen state, that is) promiscuous sexually. And we would be wrong to encourage them in that, either.
But if we cannot forthrightly address right and wrong because it is "offensive", this turns morality on its head, making morality the cause of injury rather than that which protects from injury.
It is rarely enjoyable to face one's sinful tendencies and actualities, but it is necessary.
Spirit,
1) I said very clearly from the beginning what I did read and that I spoke to the author of the book who in turn recommended The Pink Swastika (and also mentioned the other books that were in his footnotes to the quotes I provided).
The comparison with the Protocols is inapt. The Protocols were a complete fabrication, not at all even from whom they were originally purported to be. And as you do not claim to be an expert in Nazi German history, then your opinions are just that: opinions. Opinions based upon the opinions of others. Your obvious initial visceral reaction undermines your objectivity.
I will cadidly admit that I reacted similarly to the charges of "Hitler's Pope", too. My point is, and has always been that one's automatic reactions, their tendencies, tell us something important about a person. You are open to ugly claims about the Church, to creating doubt about Church teaching on abortion and homosexuality (even as an official representative of that Church), but you are viscerally, reflexively defensive and reject that which goes against homosexuality. This is certainly important in terms of understanding your predispositions, your non-negotiables, etc. As a Catholic (especially an offical rep of the Church), I believe your priorities are notably confused.
2) You misinterpreted what I wrote to Grega about not giving a rat's backside. I meant simply that on a personal level, I do not find myself obsessed with who is sodomizing whom or who has SSA. But after understanding the issue more fully and understanding what the Church teaches and why, in conscience, I could no longer be so laissez faire about it. If the Church had said it was all good and fine, if there was no serious danger involved (morally or epidemiologically), and if so many were not in danger, I would not be so concerned about it. One has only so many hours in a day and must choose where to use that time wisely. I could focus on bestiality, but I don't. The magnitude does not approach the other human dangers such as abortion, pornography and homosexuality. Is that clearer?
3) Not meant in an aggressive way, but you have no idea how I approach this issue on a personal basis and also have no idea what kind of relationship I have with them. I gave some indication of that difference to Grega already. There is a difference between a frank discussion like this on a Catholic forum and a personal interaction with those who may or may not have SSA.
Just as it may be true that all men are sinners deserving death...including me, and it is appropriate, even necessary, to acknowledge that harsh underlying truth in the proper context, it would not be appropriate **pastorally**, if you will, to come right out with such a thing in a more generalized social setting. I wrote about this previously regarding alcoholics, drug addicts, etc. I don't understand what is so difficult to comprehend about that.
Spirit,
I think this bears repeating: I have the deepest sympathy and love for those who have SSA. There are some very close to me (and one has subsequently left the "gay" lifestyle, another is moving in that direction).
But hiding or obfuscating the truth about sin, any sin, can never be an authentic act of love. And those in the "gay rights movement" are doing precisely this (here I distinguish between those who try to justify or rationalize homosexuality from those who do not). It is the obfuscation of right and wrong that I resist and reject. "Woe to those who call good evil and evil good."
God has given us directions to heaven and they depend upon our ability to see and read the map clearly, to follow the markers. When we confuse morality, we do great harm to ourselves and our brothers and sisters by enabling, compounding and excusing our already existent myopia. This is not true compassion.
And as with any sinful tendency, or "disorder", the first step to real healing involves acknowledging the existence of a problem. And the desire for homosexual sex is inherently, in every case, disordered. Every act proceeding from this desire is gravely immoral.
Spirit,
It is an odd, uncomfortable reality, but we must sometimes simultaneously love and fight against the same human beings. Humans are both the battleground and the prize.
When the fight reaches the point that it emanates from hatred and the desire for the ultimate destruction of the other, it is "disordered", also.
But the fight itself is not inherently sinful, disordered...neither is the fight against societal acceptence of the moral evil of homosexual acts inherently sinful, disordered. But homosexual desire IS inherently disordered, without exception.
If you wish to judge me, you do so at your own peril. But I suffer no such danger in judging homosexual desires and acts as inherently wrong, disordered....dangerous.
Spirit,
Regarding abortion:
One issue as I see it in your latest expressions revolves around the term "sacrifice". Sacrifice involves the intentional, direct taking (or giving up) of life. There is no doubt that the life will be forfeited and for what reason. There is a moral difference between seriously risking death by a refusal to take medical action and directly and intentionally killing one for the sake of another. Strictly speaking, the latter case is the "sacrifice", the former is not.
Looking into the future about what MAY happen as the result of a particular preganacy (doctors are not God, they do not KNOW, and neither does the mother "know" she will die) is not the same as actively and directly ending the life of an unborn child.
1) While your theoretical situation rigs the terms in an illegitimate way (as I discussed above), the unjust aggressor argument is somewhat more interesting and worth at least some consideration, imo. I have spent some time on it in the past. Of course, from the outset, it would have to be a variant of that, as we cannot rightly call a child an "aggressor". I see a parallel to the Talmudic principle of "rodef", wherein one may be an "innocent aggressor" or "unintentional aggressor", and the target of the aggression may licitly defend oneself, even causing injury to the other, or possibly death.
But I believe the difficulty is, even from a Talmudic point of view, that the response must be as non-lethal to the other as possible. One may not assume that the result of the unintentional aggression will be mortal, and one may not use force that is willfully, specifically and intentionally designed to kill the other.
So, this issue of an analog to the "unjust agressor" does not really solve things. For instance, even in the case you raise of the man in the water pushing someone off of him when he is drowning, this is very different morally than that same man pushing the head of the other man under the water and directly drowning him.
The case of directly killing the unborn child for the sake of the mother is analogous to the latter case, not the former.
Direct, intentional killing of an unborn child is not an option, period.
It MAY be potentially conceivable (but I am not sure)to address such a case if there was a way to also at least attempt to save the life of the unborn child by removing it (rather than killing it directly and intentionally), perhaps by implantation into another woman's uterus or some other method. But this is just conjecture on my part.
2) The analogy to pacifism does not hold. There is a bright red line between the killing of the innocent and the killing of the guilty. From the oldest human codes and the Decalogue, this distinction is made. The purposeful, direct killing of the innocent is strictly forbidden. The killing of the guilty is not. While I understand there is a grey area in terms of determning real guilt, etc, there is at least a legitimate "grey area" in terms of Catholic morality. There is no such "grey area" in terms of the killing of the innocent.
My initial visceral reaction was based on reading the opening of The Pink Swastika (which you had not read) -- in which it was explained that the gay movement in Germany was at the roots of Nazism and thus gays were as much perpetrators of the holocaust as its victims, and that the gay movement in America today could be the beginning of new nazi horrors. That is vile fabrication.
I agree that the analogy of directly drowning someone is closer, but I suggest that in some shipwreck scenario pushing off a man who is clinging to you could involve directly drowning him.
You offer practical solutions to practical problems, such as implanting the embryo in another womb. But I am arguing on a much simpler lesson, putting scenarios and drawing out the moral implications (though I am very uneasy in this role, aware that I am not a moral theologian). My scenario is one in which the mother and her doctors know (or let us say are 99.9% certain) that pregnancy will cause her death -- whether such situations really occur is irrelevant to the moral argument I am sketching. I think it could be argued that the embryo a few days old, which is not yet an individual human life in all probability, could be argued not to have the right to life in so absolute a fashion as to make an abortion clearly wrong.
I understand why you had a visceral reaction, Spirit. But those things which one reflexively rejects (or accepts) are indicative of one's personal bias or leanings. And I believe your bias is as I described (by this, I do not deny my own).
But I have considerable experience with those with SSA (both those who embrace it and those who resist it). Living in Massachusetts next to Northampton, it is somewhat unavoidable. But my experience is not just by general proximity, as I have previously indicated. I do work with homeless shelters and soup kitchens, ministering to the needs of the poor, regardless of their sexual proclivities, color, religion, etc.
And I do believe that many homosexuals and non-homosexuals (not the poor, but those with money) who approve of homosexual sex have engineered a potent, militant movement to supplant more traditional views on sexuality with more liberal, dangerous ones. I believe this goes back some time, including the political pressure that was so effective at getting the APA to remove homosexuality as a psychological illness (an action that was manifestly NOT predicated upon science, but politics)...and more recently with "heather has two mommies" being forced into our school district....and now "gay marriage."
Homosexual activists are not really very secretive about their motives in these regards. For instance, they generally consider traditional notions of monogamy in need of eradication, as is rather easily documented.
And I have seen the effect of their propaganda machine on those close to me with SSA. Where once these individuals would admit freely that they had heterosexual feelings in their youth, but that unfortunate experiences changed their feelings, now they obediently tow the pc homosexual line that homosexuals are all "born this way". They now find (some of them anyway) "Churches" that tell them "JESUS had NOTHING to say about Homosexuality!"...rather like the link you gave to the confused Episcopalian priest on the other article.
The only problem is, I KNOW these people intimately and remember the provocative posters of the opposite sex they used to have in their rooms, etc. It is brainwashing.
1) I would disagree that when trying to save oneself from drowning there is ever a moral equivalency between knocking a man off you, who is pulling you down, and directly and intentionally drowning him. I can't conceive of any scenario that would change that. Can you, really? If you can, I'd be interested to review it.
2) I think you are somewhat changing your argumentation. Your original argument focused primarily on the idea of the wrongness of sacrificing a mother's life for a very young unborn child. But now your argument seems to be returning solely to the issue of whether or not the very earliest stages of human life are as sacred as those at later stages...the possible death of the mother is somewhat superfluous in your argument now.
My examples were meant to illustrate an underlying general principle: it is never necessary to directly and intentionally kill the one in order to save the other. There are other ways that do not compromise the morality.
In the very specific case you are entertaining (i.e. a VERY young pre-born human), there is obviously no immediate threat to the life of the mother. The threat is distant. As such, how could it be argued that immediate, direct and purposeful action to kill the young life is critical? There ARE and will ALWAYS be other alternatives that do not require direct, intentional killing.
This case, very newly conceived human, is the only case you are addressing, correct?
3) I don't agree with the statement that very recently conceived humans are "not not yet an individual human life in all probability." And I believe that Alphonsus and Linacre gave rather good evidence of that.
4) As I wrote previously, does Catholic morality allow a hunter to fire his weapon at a target if he is unsure whether it is a deer or a human being?
5) Do you agree that your statement here (last sentence of last post) is in contradiction to the CCC?
You say it is never necessary to kill an embryo to save its mother. But that is a cop-out. In any case, you make it clear that you hold that even if the mother will certainly die, you would not allow an abortion even a few hours after possible pregnancy.
And for that you get ten marks for Catholic orthodoxy, and five marks for humanity.
Spirit,
How is it a cop out to say it is never necessary to directly and intentionally kill a young human child for sake of its mother? Can you be more specific?
It seems you cannot conceive of the idea that it is always possible to do things to save a mother's life that do not involve directly and intentionally killing a child. Why is this so difficult to undersand?
The Catholic Church's teaching is one of compassion for both of them, not just one.
By all means, give me a scenario that you believe would DEMAND the direct and intentional killing of a young unborn child in order to save the mother. Medical doctors have testified before Congress that no such situations exist.
As we have at least limited the potentiality of this discussion to VERY young humans (those you THINK may not have undergone ensoulment), I believe you will have a very difficult, impossible time proving any such situation exists at all.
I believe there is no inherent contradiction between truth and charity and I am honestly surprised and disappointed that as a Catholic priest you do not believe that (I do not say this as a rhetorical device, but honestly, to you personally).
What happened? I mean that sincerely. I hope the human frailties of those in authority have not undermined your faith that Christ is powerful enough to protect and proclaim the truth infallibly even through such broken vessels.
Augustine, as I understand it, the Catholic Church teaches that the mother's life must be sacrificed rather than commit an abortion under any circumstances not covered by the law of double effect. If recent advances in medicinal technology mean that such a choice between the life of the mother and the life of the embryo no longer arises this is quite irrelevant to the moral issue. I am arguing a point of principle. Your refusal to engage on the point of principle is a cop out as you do not wish, evidently, to state straight out that if there were a choice between sacrificing an embryo and sacrificing the mother's life, you would choose the latter. For this you get 9 points for humanity, 5 for Catholic orthodoxy.
Spirit,
I maintain that there is no such situation, past OR present, in which the direct and intentional killing of the baby is absolutely necessary in order to save its mother. And you have not provided such a case. Perhaps it is not because you are insufficiently intelligent and resourceful to find one?
Perhaps it's rather like saying God is not all-powerful because he can't make a rock so big that he can't lift it.
Also, the original point of the discussion was in dealing with REAL WORLD situations in which you said you were unsure whether a woman could licitly, morally abort a very young child.
Your theoretical point does not touch that original issue, of course.
So, do you or do you not agree that abortion is never morally permissible under any circumstances...even just today?
Also: could you show me where the Church has said that the mother's life must be "sacrificed"? I still object to that terminology, because it implies the direct, purposeful taking of life. That makes no sense, it is precisely the rejection of such a principle that leads to the necessity of rejecting the "sacrifice" of the unborn child.
You said there is never a clash between mother's life and embryo's life. Yet you mentioned that an embryo could be transplanted to another womb, if need be. But this is surely very expensive (and how many prolifers are lining up to volunteer their wombs for the purpose?). So a poor mother whose life is threatened by a pregnancy has no alternative but to die?
For all I know there may never have been a case where a woman's life was threatened by a pregnancy. If so, I wonder why the Church appears to have talked so much about this alleged dilemma and why so many States talk about abortion for the sake of the mother's life.
A point to bear in mind is that mainstream Roman Catholic moral theology supported abortion to save the mother's life until quite recently. St Alphonsus Liguouri held that the great Jesuit Sanchez's view that the intentional killling of the unformed foetus to save the mother could be justified, was a probable opinion (an opinion that could be legitimately held). St Antoninus of Florence accepted as probably the view of John of Naples OP that a physician ought to give an endangered mother abortifacient medicine: "although he impedes the ensoulment of a future fetus, he will not be the cause of the death of any man". Martin Azplicueta, leading canonist of the 16th century and guide in moral questions of three popes accepted abortion for therapeutic purposes up to 40 days. Sanchez justified abortion in the case of rape: "the fetus invades and, as it were, attacks", where a danger of angry relatives killing the mother existed, or even to avoid scandal. Antoninus says that abortion by women who had conceived in fornication, adultery or incest was homicide, but "it is not reputed homicide". St Alphonsus also taught that "if it is judged that the mother of an ensouled embryo will die unless she takes medicine fatal to the fetus, 'it is lawful to take it , and, according to some she is bound to take it, intending directly only her own health, although indirectly and consequently the fetus is destroyed". The present position of the RCC is in contrast not only with that of all other religious groups except fundamentalist Protestants, but also with its own past (when it had a richer tradition of moral theology than it has today).
Bernard Haering writes that "the theory of a successive ensoulment of the embryo,which was the more common opinion before St Albert the Great, is gaining ground once more". One reason is the idea that "a certain analogy occurs between the development of the embryo and the long process of hominization in evolution". "Until the fifth month, the surface [structure?] of the brains of the fetus is not yet fully distinct from the structure of the brains of lower animals". See Noonan et al. The Morality of Abortion, Harvard UP, 1970. He adds "at least after the twentieth day there is an individuum: and there is an inborn dynamism, a principle of life in this individuum, developing toward the full organization of a human person
"The theory of a successive ensoulment of the embryo,which was the more common opinion before St Albert the Great, is gaining ground once more". One reason is the idea that "a certain analogy occurs between the development of the embryo and the long process of hominization in evolution". "Until the fifth month, the surface [structure?] of the brains of the fetus is not yet fully distinct from the structure of the brains of lower animals". See Noonan et al. The Morality of Abortion, Harvard UP, 1970. He adds "at least after the twentieth day there is an individuum: and there is an inborn dynamism, a principle of life in this individuum, developing toward the full organization of a human person
Spirit,
1) You did not answer my questions/points from above (including official Church teaching indicating that a mother's life must be "sacrificed") and you still have not provided this life of the mother that demands the abortion situation you refer to hypothetically.
And you have not addressed the practical aspects of your original argument....i.e. only situations pre-14 days.
2) With the development of science we gained a fuller understanding of the development and humanity of the unborn child. References to previous eras are not relevant because they are based upon faulty scientific knowledge. And the theology of the times was partially dependent upon that faulty knowledge. This is true of St. Thomas Aquinas as well, by the way.
3) References to abortion "for the sake of the mother's life" are perhaps a result of a lack of either understanding what abortion is (i.e. direct, intentional killing, vs. indirect, unintentional killing, etc), what the unborn child is, or what is possible (i.e. stemming from a lack of creativity)....whether from the state or whomever.
4) The Church has never approved of abortions, Spirit...the direct and intentional killing of unborn children. If you can provide any official teaching to the contrary, I would be interested.
5)The possible solution I gave was only one, to prove that killing the unborn child is not absolutely necessary. It was certainly not intended to be exhaustive.
6) You would have to provide the full context for the rest of your assertions/quotations. I have seen these things twisted too many times....people giving me the nonsense that St. Thomas approved of abortions for instance because of his opinions on when ensoulment occurred....but regardless, of course, the "teaching of the Church" does not one, or even a few dispersed opinions make.
Finally: why does it seem that you expend so little effort trying to find solutions that defend the mother, child and morality? It seems you expend all of your effort trying to find exceptions and loopholes. You certainly have a creative mind and I suspect you could find more answers yourself if you were so inclined.
I am merely pointing out that ABSOLUTISTIC attitudes to abortion conflict with what Church teaching used to be and what the attitude of the most seasoned moral theologians today appears to be.
That they are also counter-productive in the movement to reduce the number of abortions and the factors that lead to abortion is quite obvious I should have thought.
Spirit,
1) a) With all due respect, your point has seriously evolved here. You began by questioning, very practically, whether or not very early abortions may be permissible. It was not a mere theoretical argument about historical teaching and current "absolutism" as you put it.
And it is a bit frustrating that you do not seem willing now to candidly address this genesis of our disagreement. So I ask you again, do you still hold that today (in this present reality), it can be morally permissible for a woman to have her unborn child killed if it is "very young" (i.e. less than 14 days gestation)?
b) Church teaching today does not contradict previous Church teaching. It is very strange to me that you claim to be able to conceive of a legitimate development of doctrine that would permit homosexual actions and bless them while you cannot see the much more obvious organic development of Church teaching on abortion...a growth that naturally followed scientific discovery and understanding. The Church has always been against abortion. Further explaining the nature of that opposition and firming it up is quite different than once completely opposing same-gender genital acts and then accepting and approving them. The former is an authentic development, the latter is a contradiction.
2) Regarding your belief that Church teaching has been "counterproductive" in this fight, I could not disagree more. I have been intimately involved in the pro-life movement for the past decade. It is the Catholic Church that has led the fight to educate the world about the humanity of the pre-born.
In the United States, all surveys show a very significant increase in those who believe abortion is immoral. And the youngest generation is the most prolife yet. Right now, the vast majority of Americans support serious restrictions on almost all abortions. And a growing number agree that ALL abortions are wrong. This is a very significant movement from just even a decade ago.
Also, btw, abortions are decreasing. More and more doctors even refuse to perform them at all.
And who is leading the organizations that spread the information about the harm done to women by abortion and the humanity of the pre-born to the population at large? Catholics. EVERYONE in the pro-life movement knows and acknowledges this.
Abortions are decreasing, I am happy to hear. Whether the absolutism of prolifers is the main reason for this I very much doubt. Recall that President Clinton was devoted to making abortions rarer.
Have you ever read about slavery in the United States? On such issues, it is always the absolutists that push the issue, change the tide, hearts and minds. Those who are wishy washy never have the energy necessary to give potent impetus to such an undertaking.
There is a Southerner saying: "the only things you find in the middle of the road are yellow lines and road kill."
Regarding president Clinton, you can't be serious! If I didn't know better, I would say that you are pulling my leg and having a good laugh about it (truthfully I did laugh out loud, so if you were trying to be funny, you succeeded).
But on the off-chance you were serious: Exactly what did he do to make abortions rarer? He couldn't even bring himself to sign the ban on the barbaric practice of partial birth abortion. He increased funding for International Planned Parenthood (including money for sterilizations, abortions, etc), lifted the ban on funds for abortions at military bases, rescinded the "Mexico City" policy and more.
And exactly why do you think Clinton even MENTIONED the desire to make "abortions rare"? Because he had a personal conviction about this? No, it was because pro-lifers had been so successful in educating people as to the horrors of abortion that guys like former Clinton campaign guru Dick Morris told him he had better "triangulate" to the middle in order to somewhat neutralize the detrimental electoral effects his party's obsession with killing babies has had.
Oh please, please tell me you were joking....say it ain't so, (Fr.) Joe!
"rare" is the most anyone can reasonably hope for where abortion is concerned, and people should unite on this instead of fighting over shrill absolutisms.
Popes in the past were not absolutists. They did not all identify all abortions as homocides. The question of whether the human embryo or fetus is a person is currrently swinging back to the older view that hominization is gradual; thus early abortions are not homicide, much less murder. The potency for human life is not the same as actual human life. Biblical teaching is in line with this: "When, in the course of a brawl, a man knocks against a pregnant woman so that she has a miscarriage but suffers no further injury, then the offender must pay whatever fine the woman's husband demands after assessment. But where injury ensues [i.e. to the woman], you are to give life for life...wound for wound." (Exodus) Jewish ethics valued the potential human life of the embryo, but permitted abortion for weighty reasons -- life or health of the mother, serious fetal abnormalities, Traditional Jewish legal scholars believed that most women would not obey a civil law prohibiting abortion, and thus they hesitated to recommend such a law.
Tertullian thought that abortion should be permitted when necessary to save the mother's life (i.e., therapeutic).
Augustine of Hippo taught that early abortion should not be regarded "as homicide, for there cannot be a living soul in a body that lacks sensation due to its not yet being fully formed." Augustine believed that "hominization" took place at forty days after conception for males and eighty days for females. Several medieval Muslim authorities mentioned "ensoulment" occurring at 120 days of gestation, or about four months into a pregnancy. Authorities disagreed as to whether abortion was permissible prior to ensoulment.
John of Naples (1315) used "delayed hominization" to justify early abortions when necessary to save the life of the mother.
Immediate hominization and a total ban on abortion were declared by Pope Pius IX in 1869 and written into the Code of Canon Law in 1917.
Pope Pius XI, in Christian Marriage (1930), made it clear that the Vatican opposes all direct abortions, even those necessary to save the lives of women:
. . . [N]o reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. . . . But another very grave crime is to be noted, Venerable Brethren, which regards the taking of the life of the offspring hidden in the mother's womb. Some wish it to be allowed and left to the will of the father or the mother; others say it is unlawful unless there are weighty reasons which they c
When does human life begin?
1) "Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei ... and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning ... of a human being." (Moore, Keith L., Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker, Inc., 1988, p.2.)
2) "Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. ... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity." (O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29).
3) "Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote). ... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual." (Carlson, Bruce M., Patten's Foundations of Embryology, 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p.3.)
4) "Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus." (Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146.)
*"The fertilized egg, now properly called an embryo, must make its way to the uterus." (Carlson, Bruce M., Human Embryology and Developmental Biology. St. Louis: Mosby, 1994, p.3).
Who is this Spirit? And why does anyone listen to him?
Pushing for developments of teaching that embrace homosexuality and the right to certain abortions? Lucifer.....that you?
Spirit,
Your citations do not prove what you imply. You know that a couple of quotes do not make "Church teaching". The Church has never sanctioned abortion.
Ancient views on hominization are irrelevant. They were obviously not privy to modern scientific knowledge as to the humanity of the unborn. That is a scientific question. We've covered this before. It is now obvious that human life begins at conception. At conception as process begins, an independent force for development commences.
It is only organizations like the ghoulish Planned Parenthood that try to assert that human life does not begin until implantation, rather than conception, because that suits their drive to make RU-486 etc. more palatable.
The quotes from Wes Grant above are quite on point.
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