“My family will never forget Sam Brownback’s valiant efforts to save my sister’s life,” said Schindler. “Sam Brownback is the pro-life conservative we can trust to stand for all life, regardless of political calculations.”
Hope For Hannity
I do not wish to add further commentary on this issue, but I do want to say that I would like to see some good come out of this, namely that Sean will come to a further understanding and acceptance on the important issues of his Catholic faith. So I offer this passage from the news article on LifeSite, which echoes my hope for Hannity:
As a man who has defended the Catholic position on the right to life for the unborn, on traditional marriage, and against the euthanasia of Terri Schiavo, Sean Hannity has come to grips with many of the hard teachings of the faith. Some observers are suggesting that his encounter with the Church’s position on contraception, was an eye-opener and may in fact lead Hannity to a fuller adherence to what he professes to believe. To this priest, who so perturbed him, Hannity may one day find himself grateful, perhaps eternally so.
Bogus Cloning Ban Reintroduced Last Week
Yesterday(woops! I started writing this last Fiday)Last week, Senators Orin Hatch of Utah and Diane Feinstein of California reintroduced their Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Protection Act. This ‘ban on human cloning’, just like with Amendment 2, refers only to the implantation and birth of a cloned child. Perhaps the most ludicrous language, however, came from Sen. Orin Hatch’s website. This debate is no longer scientific, it’s just plain ridiculous. According to the Sen. the product of SCNT is now, not an embryo, not a pre-embryo, not a blastocyst, but an unfertilized egg. “[this bill will] Allow the most promising form of stem cell research (somatic cell nuclear transplantation) to be conducted on a human egg for up to 14 days only…Allow this stem cell research only to take place on unfertilized eggs.” WHAT?! An unfertilized egg is just an egg – no stem cells! Then, on the Senate floor last Thursday he said this:
“Scientists are now working with stem cells created by a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer. In this laboratory procedure, the DNA from the cell of one adult is inserted into an empty egg that has been donated from another adult. The result, if the science develops further, is a collection of stem cells that could become a kidney or liver.”
Excuse me, Sen. Hatch, but SCNT creates a living human organism, not spare human organs! Oh, wait, he did acknowledge that these “cells” could become a human being if they are implanted into a uterus. Last I checked, you could not implant a kidney or a liver into a woman’s uterus and get a human being. I really hope Sen. Hatch is not as ignorant as he sounds here.
Sean Hannity and Contraception
I am happy to report that I have returned safely from another relaxing and reflective retreat. These retreats always serve to reinforce my love for and faith in the Catholic Church and all of her rich moral truths. Which is why I take issue with Sean Hannity’s recent interview with Fr. Euteneuer about his criticism of Sean’s stance on artificial birth control.
I knew there was a good reason I stopped listening to Sean a few years ago. Even so, I still tuned in every once in a while, but no more. Not only does he openly and quite arrogantly dissent from the Catholic moral teaching (which I did not know) but his treatment of Fr. Euteneuer was utterly disrespectful and his arguments juvenile.
Due to the defensive tone of his remarks he clearly felt threatened by Fr. Euteneuer’s presence on the show, but that doesn’t excuse the rude and accusing way he treated Fr. who is a Catholic Priest, a holy man of God and a Representative of Christ on earth.
While most of his “interview” is just a childish, defensive attack on Fr. Euteneuer and the Church, some of the claims he makes are worth addressing.
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First is the question of judgment. On this I quote Domus Dei:
When cornered all Hannity could do was resort to the tired old, “stop-judging-me” bit. He was quick to pull out: “Judge not and you will not be judged.” from Luke chapter 6, verse 37. Sean would have done well to read these passages in context and maybe he wouldn’t have made himself a public fool. We know from Scripture that when “Judge not and you will not be judged” is taught, it does not mean that we cannot criticize or ‘judge’ a persons’ actions and beliefs to be objectively wrong or even objectively sinful. In fact to charitably admonish someone for their sin is a spiritual work of mercy! Sean definitely does not know his Faith and one can judge that with confidence.
It is out of love that we dutifully point out the wrong that another person is doing and call them to conversion. Fr. is also concerned about the impact that Sean’s public expression of dissent may have on his very large audience. Sean is an influential public figure and his words carry weight with his listeners.
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Next is his constant attack on the Church and its handling of the sex abuse scandal.
Clearly Sean has issues with the Church’s handling of this issue and that may be legitimate. But here this only serves to divert attention away from himself and the argument at hand and thus has no place in the current discussion.
Again from Domus Dei:
He states that Fr. Euteneuer should be applauding those that stayed in the Church after the scandal. Hannity fails to realize that our hope is in God and not in man. Anyone who leaves the Church due to the failing of any percentage of the hierarchy simply do not know their faith. We are in the Church for one reason and one reason alone: truth. Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church on the solid rock of Peter. No amount of human sin can take that away from us. Christ will always be present for us in the Eucharist and His grace in the Sacraments. God will be with the Church always, according to His promises.
Rather, Sean, you should be applauding Priests like Fr. Euteneuer who have the guts to publicly stand up for the Christ’s teachings uncompromisingly.
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He tries to explain away his position on b/c by saying that it’s only for non Catholics that he approves of it because it is better for them to use contraception than to have abortions.
The Church teaches that artificial contraception is a grave moral evil for every human person. Not only does the use of it actively reject God’s plan for life, but, by rendering the marital act sterile, it turns sex from a beautiful sharing of mutual self giving into an act whose sole purpose is physical pleasure.
Besides that, the use of artificial contraception perpetuates the abortion mentality of rejecting the child and in some cases does so physically by acting as an abortifacient and ending the life of an already developing human embryo. The person using contraception, instead of ending the life that is already there, seeks to prevent the life that is to come. They are indeed “fruits of the same tree.”
Just because one is not Catholic and doesn’t espouse the Church’s teaching on sexual morality does not mean that we throw are hands up and give blessing to their immoral actions. As Catholics we are called to evangelize and encourage people to live the splendor of truth.
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Then of course is his gross misunderstanding of the Church’s view of Natural Family Planning which he considers “Catholic birth control.”
The use of NFP should be used only as a way to regulate and space the birth of children and to avoid pregnancy only for serious reasons. She remains steadfast that every marital act be open to the transmission of life and that a couple who wishes to employ this method should seek the council of a priest.
I hope that the reason for Sean’s position here is a simple lack of understanding of Church teaching. He has done many good things for the pro-life movement, most notably his rigorous activism on behalf of Terri Schiavo. So I pray that he will soon come to a full knowledge and acceptance of the truth.
It will be interesting to see how this might affect turnout for the Jefferson City Vitae Caring Foundation Event where Sean will be the keynote speaker.
For those of you who don’t know, Vitae is an organization that uses mass media education to help encourage respect for human life and reduce the number of abortions. I used to work there.
While Vitae takes no position on birth control many pro-life supporters staunchly oppose its use and promotion because of its close relationship to abortion and the culture of death. And at the very least, his position on BC does not fit Vitae’s mission to change hearts and minds and encourage respect for human life.
Contraception is a deliberate rejection of the child, and thus serves to disrespect God’s gift of life and advance the culture of death in our society. I had my reservations about his invitation in the first place as I don’t get the sense that abortion is high on his priority list. Perhaps I should have voiced them to the proper person there sooner. The invitations have already gone out and reservations are currently being taken. What a shame.
Update: see my post – Hope for Hannity
Going on Retreat
I leave for my yearly retreat tomorrow morning. There are a couple of posts that I am working on, but they will have to wait. The previous post on openness to life took way too long and now it’s way too late. I have to leave early in the morning. Have a great weekend! Please keep me in your prayers, you will be in mine. I am definitely in need of a retreat right now!!!
Cord Blood Miracle
Born four months premature, Olivia weighed only 1 pound, 2 ounces. She required more than 10 blood transfusions, heart surgery and extensive treatment for her eyes and lungs. In all, the infant was hospitalized for the first five months of her life.
Today, Olivia is a healthy girl who loves cartoons and doles out potato chips one by one to her 3-year-old sister, Sophia.
When Berry and her husband, John, were asked to donate her umbilical cord blood upon the Feb. 12 birth of their son, Nicholas, it was a no-brainer.
“If people didn’t donate, Olivia wouldn’t be here today,” the 33-year-old Berry says, overcome with emotion. “Without this stem-cell research, there’s no future, maybe no chance of curing so many diseases.”
“How Can There Be Too Many Children?”
“That is like saying there are too many flowers” (Mother Teresa). Nowadays the use of contraception is quite accepted and even encouraged and couples frequently aren’t encouraged to ever actually have children. And when they do, it seems that it is frowned upon for them to have more than one or two. Even in the Catholic Church, over 90% of couples use some form of artificial contraception (including sterility) despite the Church’s teaching against it.
Why all this opposition to having children and embracing God’s gift of life?
Mark Pickup at Human Life Matters offers a wonderful reflection on his unwillingness to be open to life as a young man and what he might have done differently if he knew then what he knows now.
For many, like Pickup, the decision not to have “too many” children is financial. A large family would get in the way of advancing one’s career and hinder the expansion of one’s savings account. The expense of feeding all those hungry mouths would supersede the ability to acquire greater material possessions to ensure a more comfortable living situation.
As a young man with a career ahead of me, I did not have time for a large family. There were places to go and people to see. I can’t remember the places or the people anymore – but they were so very important at the time. I was convinced of it. I wanted more money and more status. I can’t remember why, or what I needed to buy, and the professional accolades have long since died away. In short, my career was calling me to bigger and better things.
The idea of modest homes filled with children was passé: Anybody who was anybody used birth control and limited their families to two kids. They warehoused them in daycares because both parents “had to work” to pay their large mortgages on big new houses in well-tailored cul-de-sacs, in just the right neighborhoods. There were, after all, appearances of success to maintain.
True, having more children sometimes requires greater financial sacrifices and to this Pope John Paul II noted that “it is certainly less serious [for parents] to deny their children certain comforts or material advantages than to deprive them of the presence of brothers and sisters, who could help them to grow in humanity and to realize the beauty of life at all its ages and in all its variety.” In her book, Life Giving Love, Kimberly Hahn points out many times that “siblings are the greatest physical gift, apart from the love you give your spouse, that you can possibly give your children.” We want to be able to provide well, financially, for our children, but we also have to remember to provide well for them spiritually and emotionally. In Life Giving Love, a woman who is one of 13 children says of her parents:
I can never thank them enough for all they have provided me: food, shelter, clothing, a two-parent household…a great faith, and twelve best friends that will be there for me the rest of my life. The best gifts my parents could give us children, besides our faith, were siblings. For when the entire world is against you, your family will always be there to support, help, guide, protect, and love you.
Being open to life not only benefits the other children in the family, but can be a great benefit to parents as well. Another anecdote in Hahn’s book is from a woman who wasn’t sure, at 10 children, whether she could be open to number 11, when a friend mentioned that number 11 could be her special companion in old age: “She was right. My husband passed away recently, and this special son, number eleven, is my heart and a dear friend.”
It is rather unheard of that someone, later in life, wishes that they had had one less child. Instead, like Mark, they have been known to wish they had been open to at least one more:
If I could go back and do it again, I think I would have more children—lots of them. Yes! I would fill the rooms of my little house with the joie de vivre of children’s perpetual laughter, the hum of play, and then I’d revel in the offence it caused the population control fanatics. I’d attach a swing to the maple trees in my backyard and have a fire-pit to roast marshmallows on warm summer nights. We would have hours of fun doing nothing in particular.
So many people mistakenly think that espousing the Church’s teaching on contraception and openness to life means that you have to have as many children as humanly possible, or that you will have a baby every year. To this, Kimberly points out that “God doesn’t ask us, ‘Are you willing to have a certain number of children?’ Rather, he says, ‘Will you be open to the next one?’ Yes, we may sometimes have legitimate, serious reasons for declining the gift of life at one moment or another and we recognize this by examining our motivation (is it faith or fear) and praying for the gift of wisdom. Entrusting our family size to God does not mean that we will have many children (it is possible that we may not have any), but simply that we are open to doing God’s will. If we do that, God will never fail us; he always provides.
BTW: The pictures are of a few children and siblings in my family – including me and my sisters (picture 3).
Please Pray For This Little Boy!
A woman that I work with told me today that a nephew of hers is dying of cancer. He is only three years old and has been dealing with this for about two of those years. He was in the hospital receiving chemotherapy but the chemo was not working out so doctors have released him, saying that he has about 30 more days to live. I don’t pray for many miracles, but I’m sure hoping for one in this case!
Attention IE7 Users
I have been meaning to address this issue and it always slips my mind when I start posting. If you use Internet Explorer you may have noticed that it looks like part of my blog is cut off at the top of the page so you can’t really see the top post (you probably won’t even see this post until it gets moved down the page). I use Firefox so I never noticed it until another IE7 user pointed it out to me. I am not quite sure how or why this problem has occurred, but I have noticed similar problems with other sites. Certain things work for Firefox that don’t work for IE7 and vice versa. Anyway, I want you to know that I am aware of this problem and I intend on getting it fixed. We just have to figure out what is the best way to fix it. One of my options is to change the design – which I don’t want to do – but there may be another way to solve the problem. Either way it requires the help of our IT person who stays pretty busy keeping up my dad’s websites. So please hang in there with me. In the meantime, if you click on the RSS button at the bottom of side bar to your right you should be able to see the posts without any trouble.
I am deeply grateful to everyone for your continued support of this blog and your willingness to listen to my humble opinion on these very important issues. I am also interested in and welcome all of your opinions as well, so please feel free to add your own comments and discussion on any topic that strikes your fancy.
75 Reasons to Be Encouraged About Stem Cell Research
I try to post as many adult stem cell/umbilical cord blood success stories as I can, but there is so much going on it really is hard to keep up. It’s also hard to find the stories since they’re not all covered by the media. Lucky for us the Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics does keep up on anything and everything that goes on in the area of stem cell research and makes it available to the rest of us. Richard Doerflinger has put together a list of 75 New Reasons to Reconsider Research That Destroys Human Embryos. It is well documented and an excellent tool for us to use against those who belittle the significance of adult stem cell research. Check it out!!!