The people behind the widely popular “May Feelings” videos that encourage the recitation of the holy rosary have a new video out urging young people to pray for priests:
During this Month of Mary, as the is the Year for Priests begins to wind down, let us pray to Our Lady particularly for our priests, for their protection and in praise and thanksgiving for all these men who have renounced freely the gift of self to another person in marriage in order to give themselves entirely to Christ and the Church.
I don’t know if it’s just because my parents have worked in the ag world for the last 25-30 years or what, but I think this is my favorite of the Population Research Institute’s POP 101 videos, so far (h/t American Papist):
This video reminds me of a Penn and Teller piece (language warning) on Norman Borlaug who used ag technology to help feed hundreds of millions of starving people throughout the world.
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Here are some recent pictures of my youngest cousins. The first two are Abi (short for Abigail) and her brother Charlie and the last one is Gabriel:
I came across a couple of pretty awesome stories recently. The Telegraph this week has a rather unusual, but very encouraging story about the “Britain’s smallest mother” (pictured here). She refused to have an abortion despite significant health risks and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy who, after only a year, is already bigger than she is! “But,” she tells the UK Telegraph, “he’ll never be too big for a telling off from his mum.” This story reminded me of a good piece I read from CNN last week on parents with disabilities (complete with video of a mother who changes diapers with her FEET!!).
I can still has babiez?!
YES (if God wills it)! One of the things I was most excited to learn soon after my injury is that the joys of marriage and parenthood are still possible. Paraplegics and quadriplegics alike can still fall in love, get married, get pregnant and give birth – naturally (watch: Paralyzed & Pregnant)! And, as the stories above indicate, we can love and raise and enjoy our children as well or as much as any “able-bodied” parent can.
Our comfort seeking, eugenic abortion/ESCR/assisted suicide friendly world tends to get so caught up in the things that a disability takes away that we almost completely lose sight of what is still possible. Sure, life with a disability is sometimes challenging and can have its limitations, but that doesn’t mean it’s less enjoyable. And, to be honest with you, after 10+ years in a wheelchair I’ve come to realize that quite often I am really only “limited” by my own lack of imagination, determination and ingenuity.
Bonus videos: Wheelchair wedding dances! Because first comes love, then comes marriage and THEN comes the baby in the baby carriage:
I don’t do much…err…any dancing in my wheelchair (it’s just not my thing), but how cool is it that there are professional wheelchair dancing competitions?? Check out the American DanceWheels Foundation and Wheelchair Dancesport USA And if you’re disabled and planning a wedding soon here are some helpful tips from those who have been there.
As a single person myself, I really enjoyed this column from Theology of the Body speaker Katrina Zeno on being single in a “couple’s world”
Sex dominates movies, teen magazines, television sit-coms, romance novels, and pop music. A statistic taken from the Center for Population Options and quoted by CareNet in a fund-raising letter I received last fall left me speechless (well, actually, I was livid): A typical teenager sees about 14,000 sexual encounters through the entertainment media in a year.
We’re awash in “couples” garbage. While I was struggling to pay bills and teach my son the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary,” coupleness and contraception came of age. It’s now “normal” for two people to live together out of wedlock. It’s now “normal” for high school boys and girls to discuss their sex lives. And it’s now “normal” for first or second dates to turn into sexual encounters. Contraception hasn’t just unleashed its infertile poison on the sexual act; it’s rendered marriage irrelevant.
So where does that leave me as a single person without a “partner,” or even a boyfriend?
Read more for her advice to singles on how to handle the constant pressure to “couple up”.
Despite popular belief, the Catholic church is not “anti-stem cell research.” In fact, she is very much in favor of stem cell research, so long as tiny human beings are not created, used and destroyed in the process. Not only that, but she puts her money where her support is:
The Vatican will help fund a research study into the potential use of adult stem cells to treat intestinal and possibly other diseases, officials announced April 23. The research study, now in a preliminary stage, is being carried out by a group of American and Italian scientists led by the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine.
The university said that the Vatican had already agreed to donate 2 million euros ($2.7 million) for the project. Cardinal Renato Martino said the exact amount would be decided in future meetings.
This isn’t the first time the Church has funded stem cell research. In 2005 the Archdiocese of Seoul dedicated 10 billion won (US$9.6 million) to studying the science and last year the Archdiocese of Sydney Australia gave ASC researchers a grant for $100,000.
On September 25, Ven. Chiara Luce Badano will be beatified (via Rome Reports):
What a beautiful example of hope and joy in the midst of terrible sickness and suffering – something I think (I hope) our suicide friendly world could greatly benefit from. Find out more about this extraordinary young woman who offered all her suffering to Jesus saying: “I want to share as much as possible the pain of Jesus on the cross.” *sigh* There is so much wasted suffering in the world today.
Bonus quote:
“If I had to choose between walking or going to heaven, I would choose going to heaven.”
Jill Stanek has an interesting account of a confrontation between Center for Bioethical Reform Dir. Gregg Cunningham and embryonic stem cell researcher Dr. Hans Keirstead at CBR’s Genocide Awareness Project at the University of California, Irvine this week.
Hans Keirstead’s main arguments were exactly the ones used by the Nazi doctors who were doing lethal experiments on Jews. Their victims were subhuman, they were destined to die anyway, it was all legal, other countries were doing it and it would benefit all mankind to find cures for dread diseases. He was standing in front of a sign with the covers of the books quoting those exact arguments and the irony was totally lost on him. He just stood there parroting propaganda like a programmed robot.
….
Then Keirstead would fall back on the usual “form and function” arguments such as a lack of “sentience,” which are so easily knocked back by reminding him that he will be rendered “insentient” when he falls asleep tonight but he will gain sentience when he awakens and his victims would gain sentience when they are born, it he doesn’t kill them first. Keirstead also derided adult stem cell research as inferior in its potential to deliver therapeutic applications but I countered that for the sake of argument, even if that were true, embryonic stem cell harvesting still kills babies.
Kudos to Cunningham for staying on point – that ESCR kills tiny human beings and is unethical, period – and not getting distracted into an ASCR vs. ESCR debate. Of course, it sounds like nothing was really accomplished as a result of the conversation (i.e. Keirstead was not at all persuaded by Cunningham’s logic). But let’s some seeds were planted, at least.
I came across a couple of pretty awesome stories recently. The Telegraph this week has a rather unusual, but very encouraging story about the “