The Pope today said that "embryos developed for in vitro fertilization deserve the same right to life as fetuses, children and adults — and that that right extends to embryos even before they are transferred into a woman's womb." Nothing particularly earth-shattering about this — it has been the church's position basically from the beginning — but it is good to see it clearly articulated and applied to situations today.
News Clips: February 2006 Archives
Ever seen those charities that allow you to buy a chick or sheep or goat for some poor person? Apparently some experts are complaining that contributing to goat overpopulation is a cause of "desertification" and is therefore destructive to the environment. The theory goes that the goats eat the limited available vegetation to such a degree that it doesn't grow back. I'm not sure I'm convinced of their "proof" that we need only look at Africa's deserts to prove that what they say is true (one would need to prove that A) there was a population of goats in the desert areas and B) it was not a desert before the goats got a hold of it) and C) there is no other plausible cause of desertification). But it seems plausible.
This fellow constructed a scale model of a church inside of his house. Now his daughter and heir is trying to determine what to do with it after his death.
(Thanks to RC)
The issue of "academic freedom" at Catholic universities is always a perennial problem, as illustrated by this article that discusses the new Notre Dame president and his choice to remain faithful to Catholicism (faithful Catholic university? Notre Dame no less? Heart, be still!).
The complaint is that academic freedom is getting short shrift. Personally if you ask me, promoting homosexuality or saying obscene things has little to do with academic freedom. There are plenty of places and opportunities for academic freedom and free inquiry; thousands of disciplines. Guess what they want to zero in on? Of course; the controversial points. As if resisting the onslaught of gay rights is going to produce people unable to think out of the box enough to find a cure for cancer.
These folks don't acknowledge that even at secular universities, academic freedom has limits. Take intelligent design, for example. Or, perhaps more fairly, 2 + 2 = 4. You can't question that. Or say if you wanted to study alchemy. There are host of other things that you can't question in an academic environment. There are boundaries to academic freedom. As there should be, otherwise you're not filtering out all the superfluous nonsense.
So it is with the church. There really aren't a lot of restrictions we're advocating. Restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and anything else involving abortions or destruction of human life. Promoting homosexuality, though that's really less something academic than something political. Things that degrade human sexuality &mdash again it's unclear whether this is academic per se, or simply a free speech/artistic license thing.
The article cites a statement, the Land-of-Lakes Statement, which said a university could not thrive without institutional autonomy and academic freedom. Not sure how you can have a Catholic university with institutional autonomy. Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
Apparently police officers in Spotsylvania PA (Spotsylvania?) have been going deep undercover in sex stings. Claiming that they need to gain the trust of the prostitutes, they've been enjoying a lot of action at taxpayer expense. (That's one way to get rid of prostitution: engage in it.) The sheriff defended the practice (?!!??!?) but is suspending it after public outcry. All I have to say is, wow. All that's missing is a few training missions to Nevada.
Some liberals have been encouraged by the Pope speaking positively of love and hope that this means the Pope will budge on contraception and other issues.
These people just don't get it. (It's the old "give 'em an inch, and they'll take a mile" syndrome.) They don't understand that the Pope's view of love as expressed in this encyclical is precisely why he views contraception as immoral. The whole view of the body as an expression of marital love is why artificial contraception is wrong — the marital act is an act of total self-giving love and to hold back one's fertility is to hold back one's love.
They think he's cracking, yielding. He's merely doing a better job at giving voice to authentic Catholic tradition.
Still, I am happy to hear that the Pope has engaged the liberals. That means they're listening, and that is progress.
ZENIT has an interesting report on the cartoon controversy, analyzing the decision to publish the cartoons in various newspapers, the Christian view of liberty, the forged cartoons that were presented as ones that were published, the misrepresentations of the Moslems to their people, and the deliberate attempt by Moslem leaders to inflame passions over the issue.
If you're not sick of the topic so far, it's worth a read.
Willie Nelson has recorded what may be the first gay cowboy song recorded by a major artist. It was actually written in 1981 by Ned Sublette. It's available exclusively through iTunes and was released on Valentine's Day.
(Thanks to Caleb)
The high and mighty ones have decreed that Wal-Mart must stock the morning-after abortion pill. A plaintiff sniffs, "My patients should not have to shop around." No, that would just be awful, now wouldn't it? Must have one's preferred form of murder served up obsequiously on a silver platter.
I think I said this before — few things tempt me to fantasize about people burning in Hell. This is one of them.
Here is one area where Benedict differs dramatically from his predecessor. He is cracking down on visions, messages, miracles, and so forth that allege to be supernatural and can cause problems for the church.
The Pope stripped Fr. Gino Burresi of active ministry. He had founded his own congregation of 150 priests, including an official in the Vatican Secretariat of State. It was said Burresi could read souls, had the odor of sanctity, and could produce works of art miraculously.
The CDF also overruled the judgment of Bishop Joseph Maria Punt, of Haarlem in the Netherlands, concerning the vision of "Lady of All Nations who once was Mary". Apparently this constitutes "the death knell for an international movement to redefine the Virgin as 'coredemptrix, mediatrix and advocate'" (well-deserved if you ask me).
"The Pope is about to reform the Curia, and so far the signs are not very promising for those who prefer miracles and wonders to the simple darkness of faith."
"Furthermore, they point out that 'old cases of dubious apparitions' are likely to be reopened and dealt with in a similar way by Benedict and his like-minded officials in the CDF."
A judge shelved the court case of an Italian atheist against a priest over the priest's assertion that Jesus Christ existed, apparently ending the case, at least until it is appealed (ok you read the article and try to make sense of it). O happy day!
The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article
We are told that it is blasphemous to portray Mohammed in print. Well as it turns out the Koran says absolutely nothing about this — indeed it has no restrictions on images at all. Apparently, that comes from the age when Muslims had contact with Christian iconoclasts. Moreover, portraying Mohammed is a well-established tradition in the Islamic world. So someone's been picking your pockets right there.
He also comments on another claim which I have not heard, and that is that Islam is not used to laughing at religion. This claim also is not true, on the basis of the practice of the Muslim world.
Here are examples the article gives of portrayals of Mohammed:
A miniature by Sultan Muhammad-Nur Bokharai, showing Muhammad riding Buraq, a horse with the face of a beautiful woman, on his way to Jerusalem for his M'eraj or nocturnal journey to Heavens (16th century); a painting showing Archangel Gabriel guiding Muhammad into Medina, the prophet's capital after he fled from Mecca (16th c.); a portrait of Muhammad, his face covered with a mask, on a pulpit in Medina (16th c.); an Isfahan miniature depicting the prophet with his favorite kitten, Hurairah (17th c.); Kamaleddin Behzad's miniature showing Muhammad contemplating a rose produced by a drop of sweat that fell from his face (19th c.); a painting, "Massacre of the Family of the Prophet," showing Muhammad watching as his grandson Hussain is put to death by the Umayyads in Karbala (19th c.); a painting showing Muhammad and seven of his first followers (18th c.); and Kamal ul-Mulk's portrait of Muhammad showing the prophet holding the Quran in one hand while with the index finger of the other hand he points to the Oneness of God (19th c.).
Amazing the distortions these people use to wage war against us.
Ok, slow news day, but I thought this article about a pastor who got arrested during his sermon was interesting, in particular since the church's board of directors and the denomination disagree on whether he was properly fired or not (the BoD were the ones who called the police).
There is a big controversy brewing about Google's refusal to hand over search information to the federal government. Here is the deal: The federal government is doing an investigation about cyperporn. It wants to get copies of search terms from queries over a certain time period from all the search engine. Note that this is merely an aggregated list of queries; no personal identification is involved. All they want are the search terms. The other search engines have complied, but Google refuses to.
What's the brouhaha? Well privacy fundamentalists object to the government collecting this information. Given that Google displays search terms on a moving displayed in the foyer of its headquarters, one would not think that search terms, as such, are private. It's hard to conceive data that has no personally identifiable information as "private". There are a lot of legitimate research purposes to studying Google search terms, and it puzzles me that these privacy advocates object.
Of course, a lot more scary is the ability of Google to associate identifying information with your searches. The feds did not ask for the personally identifying information, but they could have if they wanted to. There are two ways Google associates searches with you: One is through their signup & login process, which very obviously keeps a search history on you (and gives you access to it), and through cookies, which associate the searches with your PC. The first associates it with your email address; the second with your PC, so in the second case, someone would have to have those cookies on your PC to know what your searches were.
The threat here is if Google keeps this information, even if they don't use it themselves for nefarious purposes, it could be subpoenaed. Of course, there are a lot of details of everyday life that can be subpoenaed; no one seems to care that cell phone records can be subpoenaed. Movie rental information can be subpoenaed. Your computer can be subpoenaed. Basically anything that's written down and filed can be subpoenaed. Next to that it seems hard to get excited about your Internet searches being subpoenaed. Especially when it's so easy to keep Google from collecting this information.
My only wish is that people don't get excited about things that are not worth getting excited about. Too often, I think, people see extreme dangers to privacy in things that aren't that worrisome.
This is the kind of thing that really gets my dander up.
A group of the usual suspects is trying to force Wal-Mart to carry an abortion pill in Massachusetts, citing a law that states that pharmacies "shall maintain on the premises at all times a sufficient variety and supply of medicinal chemicals and preparations which are necessary to compound and dispense commonly prescribed medications in accordance with the usual needs of the community." (Ha, it says they have to maintain them on the premises, doesn't say they have to sell them.) The state pharmacy board is in a quandary what to do, as no one has complained about lack of access to this drug. Wal-Mart is claiming business reasons for not carrying the drug. One pharmacist who clearly hasn't reviewed his Hippocratic Oath says, "Your moral responsibility as a pharmacist is to make medicines available to patients."
Few things make me as angry as people who try to force people to act contrary to their conscience. If someone believes something is morally wrong, especially if they are backed by the largest Christian church on the planet, we have no right to compel them to do it. Isn't this fundamental, people? Wasn't it for such reasons that this nation was founded?
I hope the offenders realize the error of their ways and repent. Otherwise, I can only fantasize how the offenders will suffer for their arrogant crimes in the life to come.
