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.
Hi Tim:
ReplyDeleteMr. Weigel writes:
"The impending fiscal meltdown of European welfare states vindicates subsidiarity by making clear that providing necessary aid to those in genuine need means, among other measures, developing the associational and charitable instincts of civil society. The alternative is state bankruptcy and social chaos..."
Unfortunately, Mr. Weigel is engaging in a lot of selective analysis to come to his dubious conclusion. In truth the crisis is largely contained to Protugal, Italy, Ireland, and Spain (not all of "socialist Europe").
There are a number of complex factors that have converged to create the current situation, namely:
a) International trade imbalances;
b) the globalization of finance;
c) easy credit conditions during the 2002–2008 period that encouraged high-risk lending and borrowing practices;
d) real-estate bubbles that have since burst;
e) slow economic growth in 2008 and thereafter that were percipitated by the credit crisis created by the United States;
f) fiscal policy choices related to government revenues and expenses;
g) the approaches used by nations to bailout troubled banking industries and private bondholders;
I note that both Germany and France (who are the very embodiments of a social welfare state) are doing comparatively well, and are actively propping up the troubled economies noted above. It is quite a stretch to suggest that it is social spending alone which is the underlying cause of the current crisis. Consequently, these circumstances are hardly a validation of the Catholic notion of "subsidiarity".
Just thought I would inject a bit of reality into this revisionist article.
Cheers...Martin
The left has a tendency to see things through rose coloured glasses, and one wonders if the following quotation from scripture hits the nail on the head? Ecclesiastes 10:2
ReplyDelete"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Cliff