Bishop Bernard Fellay of the schismatic Society of St. Pius X met with Pope Benedict Monday, and both sides agreed to take steps toward resolving their differences. "While knowing the difficulties, the desire to proceed by degrees and in reasonable time was shown," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said. Other than that, not much from the meeting is reported in the article.
News Clips: August 2005 Archives
Seems that the London Zoo wants to make the point that humans are animals, too, no better than the other primates. Left unanswered is why humans have built the advanced complex civilization they have and the primates are stuck monkeying around. Why do we have a greater capacity to love? Why are we far more intelligent? Why are our language skills far above theirs?
Who was it that said that when you bring animals and humans to the same level, it is not the animals that are raised in dignity but the humans who lose it? Note that it is the humans that are put in the zoo, not the animals that are put in offices and homes.
This kind of stuff just makes me sick.
(Thanks to John.)
An abortionist and a NARAL lawyer author of a fetal study concluding that unborn children do not feel pain until late in the pregnancy apparently did not think that they had a conflict-of-interest situation and so did not report their roles to the journal editors.
Uh-huh. Sure. The fact that I am abortionist is irrelevant to the fact that I am arguing that unborn children do not feel pain in an abortion.
Give the NY Times credit for reporting on this aspect of the article
In Lynn, Mass., a thief broke into a church and carefully stole nothing but the Eucharist out of the tabernacle, passing over gold vessels. Someone knew what he was doing and was very specific. Could they be destined for use in an occult ritual?
Which reminds of the whole theology of desecration. I admit I don't know what the saints and doctors of the church say, but somehow I don't think God is harmed by desecration. Grieved, definitely, but not harmed. Only the perpetrator is harmed. How we treat the sacred, especially the Eucharist, is a symbol of our attitude and devotion toward God. A friend of mine found a consecrated Host in a urinal in the church bathroom. That's a desecration: Someone expressing symbolic hostility toward God (unless they ran downstairs after communion and it accidentally fell out of their mouth, which seems quite unlikely). Lovingly burying that host in the back yard is a symbolic act of devotion intended, in a sense, to reverse the act of desecration. But not because God "needs" it. The one who benefits by the act of devotion is the one who makes it. It's like sending a sympathy card to God. "Dear God, I am so sorry to hear You were desecrated. I extend my deepest sympathies. Please accept this act of love as a sign that I love you more than this sad soul desecrated you."
Let us pray for this irreligious thief, and for whoever may be involved in the theft, and show more devotion to our God than these people are showing hostility toward him.
The Wall Street Journal published an article about how state and federal laws restricting parental access to adolescent medical records are hindering the conversion to electronic medical records.
"Who should access teen information is a difficult issue; the laws are subtle, and do not always provide clear direction," says Tim McKay, a senior practice leader at Kaiser Permanente's Internet Services Group.
"Parental access to teens' health information continues to be a hot-button issue 30 years after the federal government first granted wide confidentiality protection to adolescents as part of an effort to reduce teen pregnancy rates and sexually transmitted diseases. The federal Title X program requires all family-planning clinics to offer confidential services to teens. And the federal privacy law, which went into effect in 2002, extended additional protections to teens, says Abigail English, director of the Center for Adolescent Health and the Law in Chapel Hill, N.C."
"Most states allow minors to consent to treatments including substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases and mental-health counseling. In Washington, for example, minors can seek treatment for chemical dependency at age 13 and seek contraception and reproductive health care at age 14, without parental consent or notification."
At Dallas Children's Hospital, Chief Medical Information Officer Joseph Schneider, sums up the issue: "Teens enter into this limbo land, where we can hide information from their parents, but we can't necessarily share it with them."
Smirk of the day: Apparently a nun got carried away at World Youth Day, allowing herself to be hoisted by a missionary and wrapping her legs around his body.
Researchers have found a way by merging embryonic stem cells with adult skin cells to provide stems cells that can be used without having to create and destroy embryos, effectively turning skin cells into stem cells. A major hurdle has to be overcome because the DNA has to be removed from the resulting cells.
However I have to admit to being a bit confused — you apparently need embryonic stem cells to start with (which they are taking from the Bush-approved line), so it's unclear to me exactly what is different about what they are generating. The question arises, why not use the original stem cells? What are you gaining by fusing the stem cells with the skin cells (assuming you consume a stem cell for every stem cell generated?
I shall monitor this for further development ... any additional information is welcome.
Quotes:
The pope on Sunday said that "there is a strange forgetfulness of God in many parts of the world. But there is also frustration," and this dissatisfaction has led to "a new boom of religion."
"I have no wish to discredit all the manifestations of this phenomenon," he said. "There may be sincere joy in the discovery. But if it is pushed too far, religion becomes almost a consumer product. People choose what they like, and some are even able to make a profit from it. But religion constructed on a `do-it-yourself' basis cannot ultimately help us. Help people to discover the true star which points out the way to us: Jesus Christ."
‘Synthetic biologists’ are building new living things one genetic molecule at a time. Instead of modifying existing organisms, they are building new organisms from scratch. Are they playing God? Or just using the tools that God gave us? Undoubtedly, from their perspective, they are merely taking advantage of natural processes to achieve a useful result, as man has been doing for thousands of years. Yet there is something that calls to mind the mad scientist. It raises some interesting ethical questions.
I doubt the church will rule on this particular topic, as there are many similar topics she has not ruled on.
I guess the best we can do — given that we will not be able to stop it — is pray that people use it for good.
The founder of the Taize ecumenical community was brutally murdered by a psychologically unstable woman. What a sad end for the founder of a community with an incredible ecumenical witness. I have some of their music and I find it soothing and very meditative.
Pierogi with Jesus's Face Sells for $1,775
Being Ukrainian, I wish I had bought it! If I had only known!
Clearly with the spate of recent miraculous images, God is trying to speak to us, to tell us the error of our ways, and give us hope for the future.
For some reason I cannot find the listing. However I did find several wags who did knock-offs, including one with a image of Frank Zappa drawn on it.
CNN (TV, not website) has reported on the fact that NARAL's Judge Roberts attack ad is misleading. It's a little short on exactly why it is misleading, but it includes a very strong condemnation by factcheck.org, an independent, non-partisan effort to promote objective facts.
Glad to see this issue getting some air.
Some malls are tired of babysitting teenagers and are turning them out on their ear, requiring that they have adult escorts during prime hours. The teens complain that they have nowhere else to socialize. Sometimes parents drop them off at 4pm and pick them up at closing time! Malls complain that the teens deter families who spend money, although I'm not entirely sure why someone would refuse to shop simply because there are a lot of teens hanging out.
I see this as just another symptom of the shifting of society and lack of communities like there used to be. Teens used to have more appropriate outlets for socializing. Of course, the practice of allowing your teens to be on their own most of their free time deserves censure (although it's not clear that's necessarily happening in most cases).
Just got this piece after posting my previous one:
Planned Parenthood Abortion Video Backs Violence Against Pro-Lifers
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — An online cartoon video sponsored by a Planned Parenthood affiliate in California is drawing sharp criticism because it advocates violence against pro-life advocates. The video is sponsored by Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, the abortion business that distributed the dangerous abortion pill to teenager Holly Patterson — ultimately killing her. The PPGG video features a cartoon superhero who travels the globe to promote abortion and oppose abstinence education. Music reminiscent of doomsday booming introduces the cartoon and Planned Parenthood’s self-described mission. An African-American woman dressed as a superhero begins her journey in California promoting contraception and birth control. She tells viewers that pro-life people often protest outside Planned Parenthood and claims they "can sometimes become unruly." “But mostly, I just wish they would disappear," the character says. Next, the "Superhero for Choice" shoots each protester with a gun that envelopes the pro-life person in a condom. The condoms explode and the protesters die. The abortion activist cartoon character happily explains that, with the death of the protesters, people can now visit the abortion business "without intimidation or violence." At the end of the video, during the rolling of the credits, a pro-life person is decapitated.
UPDATE: Here is a summary of the plot with snapshots and a link to the whole video.
The Wall Street Journal reported
At issue is Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, a 1991 Supreme Court case. Roberts was Solicitor General, and filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Operation Rescue. PP claims he was siding with "violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber" and concludes: "America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans."
That's a misrepresentation of the facts. The case pertained to using an 1871 civil rights law enacted to fight the Klu Klux Klan to convict peaceful participants in clinic blockades. Roberts argued that such a protest did not constitute discrimination against women, and the Supreme Court agreed. In fact, it had nothing to do with violence, &mdash much less the kind of violence they suggest in the ad (Eric Rudolph's murder).
Why Planned Parenthood associates peaceful clinic blockades and Operation Rescue with violence is beyond me. One wonders if they think the same thing of civil rights pioneers that engaged in sit-ins and so forth.
This reminds me of a good Newsweek article on how desperate pro-choicers are, how they are losing the battle, and how they are having to redefine themselves to attract support. Thanks be to God! They admit that they need to "reconnect" with voters on abortion. And here is an interesting quote from the article: Meanwhile, the pro-life movement got an unwitting boost from Clinton, who decreed abortion should be "safe, legal and rare," says Emory University legal historian David Garrow. "Once the pro-choice movement sent the message that abortion was undesirable, we were on a slippery slope headed downhill." Wow — talk about a damning admission.
A 2,000 year-old seed of an extinct date was found in the ancient mountain fortress of Masada near Jerusalem (and I can say now that I've been there). They planted the seed and the sapling is now 12 inches high. Wow, that's one valuable plant, that's for sure. You think I'm paranoid about my garden plants dying? ...
The Boston Globe (who else) reported that there is a bill being introduced in the Massachusetts legislature to force the church to open its books to public scrutiny.
I am amazed that such a gross violation of separation of church and state has made it as far as it has. Our books are no business to the public. If Catholics want to fight internally to make those books available to its members, then they are free to fight for that, but the government has no business getting involved. Fat chance the ACLU will side with the church, though.
Well, Wikipedia isn't going to be so easy to edit anymore. Wikipedia is a collaborative Internet encylopedia — something like an open source encyclopedia, if you are familiar with the term. The idea was to give anyone an opportunity to contribute to the product and work toward the common good. Excellent idea, in theory. Personally I think this is the way things will work in the life to come. But in this life, it doesn't always work.
Seems that in April, some rascal decided to modify the entry for Pope Benedict to replace the photo with one of the Star Wars evil emperor.
This is prompting the founder to now be a bit more discriminating about who edits entries.
Should be interesting to see how he does it. Frankly I'm surprised he lasted this long without controlling editing more strictly. Many subjects can be subject to passionate but opposing viewpoints and these must be handled carefully (e.g., "Kashmir").
Thanks be to God that common sense has prevailed and a girl who threw a rock at boys who attacked here with water ballons avoided a felony trial and will have the charges dismissed if she keeps her nose clean.
I'm not saying she didn't do something wrong, but — a felony? For an 11-year-old girl scared of a bunch of boys threatening her?
Susan Torres has died after giving birth to 1 pound, 13 ounce Susan.
I'm sure they could still use contributions to cover the exorbitant medical bills involved ($400,000).
The head from a statue of Emperor Constantine was found in a sewer in central Rome.
Watchdog Group Attacks School Bible Study
Basically, a watchdog Christian group — which seems to be on the left side of the spectrum — is criticizing a bible study course used by certain public schools in Texas as being fundamentalist and inaccurate in several ways.
Personally I am very surprised that public schools are teaching a bible study class at all. And this is not a class that merely looks at it as a historical text; it teaches that it is "inspired", for example. That seems to violate the First Amendment. (If it were me, I would say "Christianity teaches that the Bible is inspired" and leave it at that.) At the same time, it's an elective course, which hardly means it's violating people's religious freedom as the watchdog group claims. The group also objects to its using archeological evidence to support the Bible's historicity; it's unclear to me why this is objectionable, unless it is just engaging in bad academics. In other words, are they objecting that the Bible is portrayed as historically accurate, or was there some genuine distortion of history or facts that prompted this objection?
The name of the group — "Texas Freedom Network" — makes it sound like the group has a rather leftist agenda. Looking at their website, I see I am right: "The Texas Freedom Network advances a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the religious right." They look like a pure advocacy group.
No indication whether Catholics are involved in the group. This being Texas I would doubt it.
