The May 2010 Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Newsletter can now be found at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/Newsletters/Newsletter108(May2010)(RGB).pdf Bill C-384 was soundly defeated by a vote of 228 to 59. Check how the Members of Parliament voted at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/HowTheyVoted.pdf On June 5, 2010, we are co-hosting the US/Canda Push-Back Seminar at the Radisson Gateway Hotel at the Seattle/Tacoma Airport. The overwhelming defeat of Bill C-384 proved that we can Push-Back the euthanasia lobby in the US and Canada and convince people that euthanasia and assisted suicide are a dangerous public policy. Register for the Seminar at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/2010SeminarFlyer(RGB)(LetterFormat).pdf The Schindler family are being attacked by a Florida television station and Michael Schiavo. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is standing in solidarity with the Schindler family. My blog comments: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/05/att
Reflections from the pastoral ministry of an Evangelical Catholic Priest.
The Pope says Catholics should do penance for the sins of the Church.
ReplyDeleteWhat did Catholics do wrong? The Catholic Church is not a democracy. Catholics have nothing to do with the current sins of the Church. It is Benedict and his gang of phony, pseudo celibate priests that have sinned and they have mostly sinned against those that call themselves Catholics.
Obscure the issue. Shift the blame. Spout false piety. What good does this twisted old liar serve? Catholics need to throw this bunch of crooks out, not do penance. They are the ones who have been sinned against. The Pope is a continuing source of evil and discord in the community of a decent people who seek to emulate Christ. Time for him and his priests to go.
Reddog, will you please fight fair? It's not only the current pope and his cronies. It goes back way further than that.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm with you on the membership's throwing the bums out and not doing pennance. Let them do their own damned pennance! After all, isn't that what they preach?
Lord, source of eternal life and truth, give to your shepherd, Benedict, a spirit of courage and right judgment, a spirit of knowledge and love. By governing with fidelity those entrusted to his care, may he, as successor to the Apostle Peter and Vicar of Christ, build your Church into a sacrament of unity, love and peace for all the world.
ReplyDeleteTu es petrus
When an egg is fertilized by a sperm, the genetic material of each combine to form an embryo, which becomes a new, genetically complete organism.
ReplyDeleteThe egg also contains mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on intact to the embryo. Mitochondrial DNA is responsible for facilitating cellular "housekeeping" activities that keep the individual cells functioning and healthy. If the mitochondrial DNA sequence becomes broken, the cells may not be able to function satisfactorily and females passing on defective mitochondrial DNA will not be able to conceive viable children. Scientists have now been able to replace damaged mitochondrial DNA with healthy DNA from another woman's egg, so that women who previously were unable to conceive a healthy child are now able to do so.
This is a good thing, right?
Wrong. The Catholic Church believes that this procedure constitutes an abomination against God and has proscribed it.
The Church used to be a repository or human knowledge and the cradle of science. Man, what happened with that?
I think maybe the Catholic Church could use a little new mitochondrial DNA of its own, don't you?
What do it all mean, Mister Natural?
A nine year old girl in Quintana Roo, Mexico, is 14 weeks pregnant by her stepfather.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church recently pushed a law through the legislature there, making all abortion illegal. There are no exceptions. She will have to be transported elsewhere, far from her family, friends and support system, probably Mexico City, to have a therapeutic abortion. There is no doubt it will be done. No doctor in his/her right mind would subject a 9 year old girl to a full term pregnancy. The State Medical system will fund it.
The Catholic Church claims to be all about compassion.
What's up with that?
British Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson was just convicted of incitement in a German Court, for denying, while on a visit to Germany, that the Holocaust against Jews ever took place. He denies it routinely everyplace else. It's only illegal in Germany. This guy's job description is to teach and guide that faithful. Is that what he was doing?
ReplyDeleteBishop Williamson's long excommunication by the Catholic Church was recently lifted.
The Catholic Church, despite thousands of years of antisemitic history, persecution and characterization of Jews as "Christ killers", now claims to be a friend of the Jews and their savior during this self same Holocaust.
What could Pope Benedict have been thinking? I thought he was supposed to be infallible.
An old college professor of mine, now an Emeritus with fifty years under his belt and a lifelong devout Catholic, spent most of his adult years in a covert domestic partnership with a Catholic priest.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago, tired of living a lie, they changed religious affiliation to a Catholic off shoot that is the same as Catholicism in all ways except that they allow full acceptance and participation of anyone at all, including women and homosexuals.
Now, at the end of their lives, both are still working full time at their chosen fields, though both are nearing eighty years of age. Neither has any thought of retirement. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all of us were so happy with our lives? They are happy to now be living their lives openly without hiding and subterfuge. They regret so many years wasted because of the secrecy required by the Catholic Church's archaic prejudices.
Why do any Catholics remain in a Church that so hatefully treats its most humble and faithful followers?
Today, after nearly a hundred years of misstarts, the United States is beginning to address the need for public health care.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church fought this initiative at every step. Largely because of Catholic Church resistance, the measures passed still do not truly address the need for adequate, affordable health care for the poorest segments of society.
One of the biggest political priorities of the Church, now that health care reform has begun, is to repeal those measures already passed.
I thought that concern for the sick and poor was at the very heart of Christian doctrine? I must have gotten that wrong.
"I think maybe the Catholic Church could use a little new mitochondrial DNA of its own, don't you?"
ReplyDeleteWell, since the mitochondria are only passed on through the female and never through the male, I think we might be waiting an awful long time for that to happen...lol.
"I thought he was supposed to be infallible."
Only in proper context: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility
Believe me, I understand your anger and frustration. But you cannot tar everyone with the same bloody brush! You really need to be able to separate individual cases and deal with each one on its own merits. Otherwise, you run the risk of being labelled a bigot along with the true bigots because you will sound exactly like them.
Last week, Catholic Bishop Giacomo Babini, in Italy, blamed the Jews for the Catholic priestly sexual abuse scandals, World wide.
ReplyDeleteThey made it all up because they hate the Church. Christ killers, every one.
More teachings promoting World peace and religious tolerance, from one charged by the authority of the Holy Mother Church to do so.
reddog: The pain that your professor's partner felt was the hypocrisy of living a lie; being a RC priest, publicly committed to the Church & living in a committed sexual relationship at the same time. When he had the courage to rectify the situation - i.e.) leave his partner... or leave the church and translate to another, his pain went away.
ReplyDeletePlease understand that the RC Church, like all churches, teaches/preaches what it believes to be the will of God. If there is another Church that people chose to belong to, then they are free to do so. What I am arguing is there is no reason or need for the Church to alter what it believes to be true, but rather that people should responsibly live in accordance with what they believe to be true.
Saying that, I believe it to be true that God exists. I believe to be true that He became flesh, died and was resurrected. I believe His spirit animates and guides the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, I very fruitfully and peacefully live my life as a Roman Catholic priest, because my beliefs and action are in harmony. This was not the case for your professor's partner.
Once he garnered sufficient fortitude to bring his belief into accordance with his life, he found peace. I say that it was discordance in his life that caused his pain. If it wasn't that, then it must have been a lack of love that kept him for marrying his partner. That would render his life doubly tragedy.
The church doors are not locked to keep people in. It simply proposes what it believes to be true. People can choose to belong or not.
So, is it the church that hatefully treats its faithful followers (as you describe the situation), or was it an unfaithful witness between his stated beliefs and actions that was the source of any (perhaps self) hatred that existed for all those years?
If they are correct in their understanding of life/God/Church, then it's a 'win-win' scenario for them and I rejoice for them. If they are wrong, then they will face the consequences in the life to come, and I will pray for them. Either way, any pain or suffering he experienced belongs to him to take responsibility for, and not the Church's to carry.
Fr. Tim
A very popular priest on the South side of Chicago, Fr Michael Phleger, stated last week that he believed there could be married priests and women priests. He didn't say so but he may also believe there could be openly Gay priests in committed domestic relationships.
ReplyDeleteAnother well known priest, Fr Roy Bourgeous, was recently excommunicated by the Catholic Church for having very similar views.
The Catholic Church claims to be the one true church of Jesus Christ. Ya know, Big Tent.
Big empty tent, maybe. Pretty soon.
Reddog: Issue #2
ReplyDeleteThe US RC Church was one of the GREATEST SUPPORTERS of universal health care. It was the STRONGEST OPPONENT to the use of government funds to for the procurement of abortion. All they asked of the legislators was to respect the 'Hyde Amendment' which previously prohibited such government funding.
They attempted NOTHING to weaken any aspect of the legislation save for that ONE SINGLE ISSUE, which to for people of a pro-life conviction, (who comprise a CLEAR MAJORITY of Americans), it is tantamount to using tax dollars to kill an innocent life. You and others may believe that this one detail of the 'Obamacare' legislation did not warrant opposing the total package. As a pro-life Roman Catholic, I disagree. The RC Church is not responsible for any legislative weakness in the American health care plan (save for the abortion inclusion). The fact that the government can't offer needed and timely medical care for 'Mom & Pop' in their old age may be because it spends money on unnecessary procedures now and in the future.
IF YOU BELIEVE AS I DO, (and no one has to, just as anyone is free to) that 'human rights' begin at the moment of conception (or perhaps at the point of medical viability), then any legislation that would violate one's human right to exist (ontologically the first of all rights) from that point on must be opposed. IF YOU DON'T hold to the same position as me (vis a vis the life issue), then you must hold that human rights begin from the moment of one's first breath, and continues until his/her last.
Now, if you want to have a discussion about these moral issues....
Fr. Tim
"Please understand that the RC Church, like all churches, teaches/preaches what it believes to be the will of God. If there is another Church that people chose to belong to, then they are free to do so. What I am arguing is there is no reason or need for the Church to alter what it believes to be true, but rather that people should responsibly live in accordance with what they believe to be true."
ReplyDelete*sigh* I wish everyone had that attitude, Tim. I really wish.
Problem is, I run into people all the time -- and you do, too -- who truly believe that the Catholic church is always infallible (yeah, the church, not the pope) in its teachings and that it's The Direct Word Of God, and that if you don't believe the same, you're going to hell.
Now, all that wouldn't bother me (since I have no idea where "hell" is supposed to be, or even what it's supposed to be) if every such pronouncement weren't also accompanied by a supercilious sneer and a dismissive, patronizing, and deliberately insulting attitude.
Reddog goes overboard in his exuberance, but he does make some pretty good points if you can get past the bluster.
"The US RC Church was one of the GREATEST SUPPORTERS of universal health care. It was the STRONGEST OPPONENT to the use of government funds to for the procurement of abortion."
ReplyDeleteThat's because the Chruich does not admit that access to abortion qualifies as health care, and that women have a right to govern their own fertility.
Which is fine. For Catholics and those who believe that abortion is wrong. Let them not have abortions.
Problem is, they're trying to force that attitude on those who don't think the same way. And THAT is absolutely and unqualifiedly unacceptable!
Abortion has been legal in America for 35+ years. Since then it has been made legal in virtually every developed Western nation that possesses a truly participatory democracy, including your own. Which, by the way, legalized abortion before the United States. Countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal, which contain only scant non RCC minorities have legalized abortion. Ireland, which still technically outlaws abortion and where the RCC retains substantial governmental influence, pays for women choosing abortion to travel outside the country for that purpose. A clear majority of Americans may state that abortion is the wrong choice for them. On the other hand, if a clear majority of Americans wanted abortion to be illegal, it would be or do you doubt the effectiveness of our mother of all democracies? I do not.
ReplyDeleteAbortion will never be made illegal in any modern Western democracy because people believe strongly in honoring individual conscience and rights, unlike the Catholic Church, which recognizes only the authority of its own monolithic, autocratic and totally non participatory style of governance by an elite, all male, pseudo celibate, clerical class, of which you are a member and whose party line you faithfully promulgate.
How many of your own flock do you think would vote against the continuance of legalized abortion? No doubt there are some but I'll bet not nearly enough to constitute a majority. On issue after issue, the Church, by its lack of inclusivity, has lost the support and trust of its own membership.
The World wide priestly sexual abuse of minors scandal, is only the tip of the iceberg and the Church is like the "unsinkable" liner Titanic, which steams on after collision, too long unaware of the mortal damage it has suffered and the catastrophe ahead.
Reddog: Yes indeed Abortion is legal in America. The Obamacare amendment that the Bishops fought for would not have changed that. What they opposed was not 'the status quo'; they were opposing a long established policy being overthrown! The US government has not up to now paid for elective abortions. Now they will.
ReplyDeleteYou overstate what the Bishops can or wanted to do and them pummel the crap out of it... I think that's called a straw-man fallacy.
Fr. Tim
Obamacare, as the Tea Party racists, you apparently among them, like to call it, does not fund abortion. The rabidly Right Wing, women entering abortion clinic harassing, Catholic Right to Life movement and elderly, pseudo celibate, exclusively male, Bishops were holding out for nothing less than a complete ban on insurance coverage of abortion, whether or not the individual policy holder pays for it themselves.
ReplyDeleteWho's strawmaning who, Father "Clear Majority of Americans" Scarecrow, who doesn't even live here and whose own National Health Service freely admits abortion is health care and gladly pays for it.
Give me a effin' break. You want me to moderate myself? Quit lying through your teeth.
Reddog:
ReplyDeleteBEFORE OBAMACARE: federal funds could NOT fund abortions.
AFTER OBAMACARE: federal funds MUST BE USED to pay for insurance coverage (via 'Health Care Insurance Exchange')
As to a clear majority of Americans being pro-life (51%/42%) ... check out this link yourself. It'll take you to the Gallup website to show that I am correct.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choice-first-time.aspx
EVERY Canadian that lives within 200 miles of the border (90+%) has their media filled with whatever is the latest bit of crap fills your media. We have to know your country well. Given that Canada possesses 25% of all the globe's oil, is the largest producer of hydro electricity on the continent, and perhaps most importantly, we hold 1/3 of all the fresh water in the world.
Since we know that your SUV's are soon to grind to a halt*, your cities soon to run dry and your economy about to fall into the control of your adversaries for global power (China & India), we NEED to know what next stupidity your media obsesses over.
So, YES SIR, please self moderate yourself. Finding the gems of wisdom among the shit you offer as argument is getting tiresome. Unless you desire to be treated in the same insulting manner that you address others, you most certainly should learn to overcome your bombast American bluster.
Fr. Tim
*together with the jobs to make them
Federal funds will be used to subsidize insurance coverage for those deemed unable to fund themselves without financial hardship. It will not fund that segment of the coverage that pays for abortion.
ReplyDeletePro life is not the same thing as denying others the right of choice, as you well know and as the democratic law of the land reflects.
I myself drive a 50 year old VW bug with a 1200cc engine, to places where my equally old Honda 50 scooter won't take me and they are few.
You have a lot of resources in Canada, as I am well aware. I own stock in the companies that exploit them. I no longer hold any American Dollars, other than in the housekeeping account or investments denominated in them. This country will be bankrupt soon. Perhaps that is one thing we can agree upon.
All you have to do is ban my IP from your site to prove to me that you are exactly like every other closed or excessively comment moderated Catholic propaganda site on the Web. Then I win, Big Boy and you are what you are.
Let it be known that I bear no animus toward any Catholic, among whom are neighbors, friends and many family members. The institutional Catholic Church and the those that compose it, may call themselves Catholic but to do so is a slur upon those who really make up the Church. By whose authority do they rule the Church? Some long dead fisherman? Why not seek some spiritual input that is a little more current?
Fr Cantalamassa, the Pope's private preacher, same guy who a couple weeks ago compared the current persecution of the Catholic Clergy by the news media to the Shoah against Jews in WWII, has now sermonized that abuse of women must stop.
ReplyDeleteHow very liberal and modern of him.
I wonder which of the myriad of institutionalized abuses heaped upon women by the Catholic hierarchy he was referring to?
Hey...y'know, if you two wanna get a room...I'll just show myself out... :lol:
ReplyDeleteLady Janus: I fear I may have frightened Reddog off... he canceled his status as a follower of the blog. Hopefully he comes back as, despite the hostile nature of some of his posts, he does have a legitimate argument to make.
ReplyDelete(sigh)
Fr. Tim
wow...it got hot...who is winning? Father Tim or Reddog... I know Father Tim can handle it... way to go Father, I'm on your side.
ReplyDeleteI think he might come back once he's allowed his passion to cool a bit. I was beginning to fear for his blood pressure. But I don't think it was you who frightened him off. I think he might have done it out of frustration at not being able to bulldoze all of us into his corner with pure sturm und drang.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he does make some good points. He'll make a terrific motivator if he can harness and control all that anger, and funnel it into a direction where it might do some real good.