Of Trolleys and Trains

Ok...

Consider the following thought experiment:

A trolley (a tram or a streetcar) is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

Of course, while one can argue either way, consider this one:

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

Now go to MercatorNet and read A Streetcar Named Moral Confusion by Zac Alstin.

And while you're there, also check out Tactical Intimidation by Matthew J. Franck.

Where there is no Elijah...

A beautiful story as told by Leonard Fein at the Jewish Daily Forward.

Here is a story of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, a story my mother, herself an eighth-generation descendant of the Besht, told me:

It happened that a disciple of the Besht came one day to the master and said: “I don’t understand. Every year, we have a wonderful Seder, we do everything we have been instructed to do, and every year, we open the door for Elijah — and he never arrives. How can this be? I feel we are spurned.”

The Besht considered his disciple’s complaint, and then told him to load a wagon with food, wine, matzos and also clothes and gifts for the children, and travel to a certain hut in a nearby village and spend the first two days of Pesach with the destitute family that lived there; it was there that he would certainly see Elijah.

The Hasid followed the Besht’s instructions punctiliously, and the next morning he arrived at the dilapidated hut in the nearby village. He was greeted warmly, his gifts were accepted with tears of gratitude, and that night, the entire family — mother, father, five children, along with their surprise guest, celebrated Pesach together.

Yet when the door was opened for Elijah — no Elijah.

Bitterly disappointed, the Hasid returned to the Besht and told him what had happened — and, more important, what had not happened. The Besht explained that Elijah must have been delayed, but that at Pesach time next year, the Hasid would surely encounter him. So he must at the time of the holiday return to the hut, once again with a wagon filled with food and gifts — but this time, before knocking on the door, he must first eavesdrop on the goings-on within the hut.

The Hasid did as told, putting his ear to the door before knocking. He heard the mother’s lament: “We have no food for the holiday. Nothing. How can we celebrate?” And he heard the father’s reply: “Not to worry! Don’t you remember that last year, Elijah came with all that we needed, and gifts for the children as well? Have faith; he will surely come on time once more.”

So ends the story, save for its moral: Hillel taught, “Where there is no man, be thou a man.” The Besht, through this story, taught, “Where there is no Elijah, be thou Elijah.” Bring closer the redemption.

A beautiful sentiment!

A Child's Voice is Silenced in Tripoli (and on Rutledge) as Planned

Where is the outrage?
Where is the shame at the continued slaughter?
Can we really pretend to be righteous
when innocents die,
murdered by those
who claim authority
and blasphemous right?

What has happened to our consciences
that we bray at the suffering of animals,
yet turn a blind eye to a massacre
taking place here in our sight?

How can we lay ourselves down
to hypocritical sleep
while blood stains the ground
and angels weep?

They cry out to God for help
and we, who claim to be His children,
refuse to hear
the dirge that will one day haunt our memory
and condemn us for complacency
for ever more.

And on that day we will mourn,
O yes, and bewail our inaction
laid naked as sin unto ages.

Let prayer be the start of our work,
not the excuse for our inaction.

Cardinal Political Firestarter

It seems the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Quebec has gotten himself into serious PR trouble. The Cardinal spoke out recently espousing 'opinions' that touched off a firestorm of protest and invective from the press, various advocacy groups and even the Parti Quebecois. The Quebec Parliament went so far as to enact a Provincial law to specifically contradict the Canadian Senior Catholic Cleric and show unyielding opposition to his views. Indeed, The Cardinal's statements have been characterized as barbaric and despicable.

What are the comments that started such a firestorm?

I understand very well that a woman who's been raped is dealing with trauma and that she needs to be helped. But she needs to do so with respect for the being that is in her womb. It is not responsible for what happened. It's the rapist who is responsible. But there's already a victim. Do we need to have another one? The child is not responsible for how he was conceived; it is the aggressor who is responsible. We can see him as another victim.

Marc Cardinal Ouellet, Archbishop, Quebec City

Update: Our good friend Josephus Flavius at Byzantine Texas has reproduced a discussion on this issue from Touchstone Magazine's Mere Comments. I am humbled to have "gotten the scoop" on both Tony Esolen and Josephus as this is a quite rare occurrence.

Lazarus: the Raising of the Dead and Death via Division

I'm not one to post on specific political issues save the dignity of the human person (e.g., such issues as abortion) and those stances that are derived from this axiom. The Church in the US particularly frowns on clergy directly speaking for or against political persons, parties, and movements. In principle, this is not a difficult prohibition as one can always simply proclaim the Gospel and the moral message that it espouses and leave it to the congregation to draw the appropriate inferences. I say this because it is, or should be, obvious that certain positions, and therefore movements, parties, and politicians who hold them inevitably risk ignoring or outright denying elements of the Gospel. That there can be only one Gospel of Jesus Christ is not only unequivocal it is scriptural. (Galatians 1:8f)

To be a Christian is to believe. And the belief of Christianity has real, discernible content. Anyone can interpret around specific aspects of that divine corpus of wisdom we call the Gospel, but in the end, the Faith of the Fathers is exactly as described: a Rock.(Matthew 7:24f, I Corinthians 10:4, I Peter 2:8). As people are fond of saying these days, "It is what it is."

Having given this 'disclaimer' - so that hierarchical bureaucrats need not post me copies of corporate rules written in fear of losing the government granted/imposed tax exemption (READ: "politically motivated gag order") - I would draw your attention to an editorial in today's Washington Times by Jeffrey T. Kuhner, a columnist, president of the Edmund Burke Institute Washington think tank, and host of a daily radio talk show. The editorial is entitled, "Will America break up?"

Ostensibly, the piece is concerned with the ongoing US debate concerning government administered health care. The thesis is that the divisions of opinion regarding the topic of government intervention in assuring basic health care coverage for all citizens, and perhaps non-citizens needing it while on American soil, is so divisive that it can only either threaten or presage the eventual break up of the United States. How this division will unfold is not clearly enunciated in that the diverse opinions of Americans on this topic, like so many others, is not one that can be demarcated along geographical lines. Yet the author draws one illustration that I have long felt apropos to one hotly debated portion of the program recently passed by the US Federal legislature: Abortion.

Mr Kuhner says:

Moreover, the law codifies the federal funding of abortion. Taxpayer dollars will be used to subsidize the murder of innocent life. Hence, Mr. Obama has violated the social compact: He has abrogated the conscience of pro-lifers, making them tacitly complicit in the slaughter of the unborn. Obamacare is a radical assault upon fundamental religious freedoms.

The Obama revolution threatens to tear America apart. This has happened before. Slavery eventually triggered the Civil War between the industrial North and the agrarian South. Abortion is the slavery of our time - the denying of basic human rights to an entire category of people.

He goes on from this unarguably accurate analysis of the two basic positions on aborticide to conclude: "The bitter debate over Obamacare has exposed the country's profound divisions. We are no longer one nation or one people. Rather, there are now two Americas: one conservative, the other liberal. Increasingly, we no longer just disagree but we despise each other." This conclusion is itself debatable, if in no other measure than the hatred and starkness of division it ascribes.

Today is the Saturday of Lazarus for Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Christians. On this day, we commemorate the death of a close friend of Jesus, whom Jesus allows to die and lay in the crypt for four days until the stench of rot has set in. In that moment, when the crowds begin to mummer that such a great 'faith healer' should have been able to prevent Lazarus's death, our Lord prays to God the Father and through His divine command, restores, resuscitates and resurrects Lazarus. One might say, therefore, that out of the rot of human corruption God provides Lazarus a second chance (although by all accounts, Lazarus was a just man).

People may take various sides on the many issues that confront modern society. These positions may lead one to a triumphalism or else full dispairity that any hope remains. We Christians of the East, following fast the example and living witness of the Church Fathers refuse to succumb to either extreme trusting rather in the Rock that may bruise the storm tossed but also proves the salvation of all who cling to it.

I pray that everyone used the time of Great Lent for spiritual profit, take the opportunity of today and tomorrow (Palm Sunday) to reflect on the power and humility of God, and follow the hours of Holy Week to follow, imitate and grow in the Image and Likeness of the God who, in giving up all gained everything for those who accept the chance to cling to that Rock.

Sin and Morality

Man was neither made sinful, nor corrupt, nor was he made for sin or corruption. Man was made incorrupt and for sharing in the incorrupt Life of the All-holy Trinity, now attainable through Christ Jesus.

Sin is not an offense against God; the Lord cannot be offended, insulted, or hurt. Sin is an offense against ourselves, a corruption of our human nature hurtful to us, not to God. The entire purpose of God's moral law is to help us lead the normal life of incorruption, as much as possible in the fallen world, so that our hearts and souls would be open to divine grace and we would rejoice forever abiding in the Glory of God. This is what is normal for human nature; everything that falls short of this, everything that is corrupt, regardless of its origin or composition, is abnormal.

Metropolitan Ephraim of Boston, An Encyclical On the Moral Law of God, Holy Orthodox Metropolis of Boston, 2005

Assisted Suicide? or Coerced Murder?

I know; the title doesn't really make the intended distinction clear. The various "assisted suicide" euphemisms when viewed with absolute objectivity all mean "coerced into letting a medical professional murder under the guise of empathy". MercatorNet features an excellent article on this topic by Michael Cook entitled "Is death better than disability?" In it, he reports on an even more insightful article from an important issue of the journal Disability and Health Journal by Dr Suzanne McDermott. Below are a few paragraphs from Mr Cook's article to whet your whistle. Read it, then read it, and then read it!

Several themes emerge from the articles.

First, the very existence of legalised assisted suicide leads to an expectation that the disabled, elderly and infirm should shuffle off their mortal coil a bit early to relieve the burden on their carers.

This fear has been ridiculed by supporters, who contend that all they want is choice at the end of life and that a lifelong experience of disability is different from the pain of seeing one’s life ebb away. They think that disability advocates are demonising euthanasia lobby groups and exaggerating their own vulnerability

Nonsense, says Diane Coleman, of the lobby group Not Dead Yet. She points out – quite eloquently -- that pity can be more dangerous than a mad doctor in a nursing home. We are, she says, "more frightened by the doctors who are out to help us but who see our lives as burdensome and who know little about options that make life with disability valuable."

Why should valuable resources be wasted on them, anyway? "Every week, I hear another person with a disability recount a disturbing interaction with a physician, nurse, or other health professional who clearly transmitted the view that life with a disability is inherently burdensome," she writes. "It does not feel safe to have one's life in the hands of someone who views that life as unfortunate, maybe even tragic or unfair."

As an aside: Whenever I pass an abortuary or "Planned Parenthood facility", I quietly make the sign of the cross and ask our Lord to close all abortuaries in our country and return our nation to a respect for the dignity of all human life from conception to natural death. I encourage you the reader to do so as well.

An Argument for Home Schooling...

cut straight from today's headlines....

THIS POSTING IS NOT FOR MINORS

 NOR FOR THE SQUEEMISH!

You have been warned.

Let me preface this by urging us all to recall the Prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian: "O Lord and Master of my life, a spirit of idleness, despondency, ambition, and idle talking give me not. But rather a spirit of chastity, humble-mindedness, patience, and love bestow upon me Thy servant. Yea, O Lord King, grant me to see my failings and not condemn my brother; for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen."

If it weren't for the reliability of the source, I wouldn't believe this. Read this story, and be aware that there is extremely graphic material involved. It is entitled: Breaking: Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Is Promoting Child Porn in the Classroom– Kevin Jennings and the GLSEN Reading List

Very seldom will you find me urging you to make a "political" call. But the main number for the White House is (202) 456-1111, and the "Contact Us" page is here.

But before you "make that call" pray the following Psalm, as we are all sinners and in some way must have contributed to this situation.

Psalm 50

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy; and according to the multitude of Thy compassions blot out my transgression. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know mine iniquity, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee only have I sinned and done this evil before Thee, that Thou mightest be justified in Thy words, and prevail when Thou art judged. For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bear me. For behold, Thou hast loved truth; the hidden and secret things of Thy wisdom hast Thou made manifest unto me. Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be made clean; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. Thou shalt make me to hear joy and gladness; the bones that be humbled, they shall rejoice. Turn Thy face away from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation and with Thy governing Spirit establish me. I shall teach transgressors Thy ways, and the ungodly shall turn back unto Thee. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation; my tongue shall rejoice in Thy righteousness. O Lord, Thou shalt open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. For if Thou hadst desired sacrifice, I had given it; with whole-burnt offerings Thou shalt not be pleased. A sacrifice unto God is a broken spirit; a heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise. Do good, O Lord, in Thy good pleasure unto Sion, and let the walls of Jerusalem be builded. Then shalt Thou be pleased with a sacrifice of righteousness, with oblation and whole-burnt offerings. Then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar.

Someone Must Have Been Praying to the Softener of Evil Hearts

This from KBTX' Web Page.
(Hat Tip to the Priestly Puglist - quite a srappy guy!)


Planned Parenthood Director Leaves, Has Change of Heart

Planned Parenthood has been a part of Abby Johnson's life for the past eight years; that is until last month, when Abby resigned. Johnson said she realized she wanted to leave, after watching an ultrasound of an abortion procedure.

"I just thought I can't do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it," said Jonhson.

She handed in her resignation October 6. Johnson worked as the Bryan Planned Parenthood Director for two years.

According to Johnson, the non-profit was struggling under the weight of a tough economy, and changing it's business model from one that pushed prevention, to one that focused on abortion.

"It seemed like maybe that's not what a lot of people were believing any more because that's not where the money was. The money wasn't in family planning, the money wasn't in prevention, the money was in abortion and so I had a problem with that," said Johnson.

Note especially the phrase: the money was in abortion.

Read the entire story here.

Elizabeth Bathory must be dancing in her grave

This from yesterday's Washington Times.

Aborted fetus cells used in beauty creams

Valerie Richardson

A San Francisco cosmetics company has ignited an outcry among pro-lifers for including an unexpected ingredient in its anti-aging creams: skin-cell proteins from an aborted fetus.

Children of God for Life, a watchdog group that monitors the use of fetal material in medical products, called last week for a boycott of all treatments manufactured by Neocutis Inc., which acknowledges that the key ingredient in its product line was developed from an aborted boy.

"There's just no excuse for using aborted babies in skin-care products," said Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, a 10-year-old organization based in Murfreesboro, Tenn. "The reaction, the shock and anger I've seen is incredible."

In a statement released Friday, in response to a wave of condemnation from pro-life and religious blogs, Neocutis defended the use of its trademarked ingredient, Processed Skin Cell Proteins, or PSP, arguing that the fetal cell line was harvested in a responsible, ethical manner for use in treating severe dermatological injuries.

The company compared its situation to that of researchers who used fetal kidney cells to develop the polio vaccine. {BR notes: Of course, kidney cells do not require the death of a child to provide working 'material' for use in pharmacological development.}

"Our view - which is shared by most medical professionals and patients - is that the limited, prudent and responsible use of donated fetal skin tissue can continue to ease suffering, speed healing, save lives and improve the well-being of many patients around the globe," said the statement.

The ingredient was developed at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland from proteins in the skin tissue of a 14-week-old male baby electively aborted at the university's hospital and donated to the Swiss university. The abortion was deemed medically necessary because the baby could not survive to term, according to Neocutis.

The fetal skin cell line was taken from a piece of skin the size of a postage stamp and donated voluntarily by the parents for medical research. The donation was approved by the hospital's medical ethics committee and in accordance with Swiss laws, said the Neocutis statement.

And comments from the Church Fathers?

Charity is no substitute for justice.
Saint Augustine

Unfortunately, in our time, when spheres of knowledge have greatly multiplied, logic has shaken the very foundations of people's faith, and has filled their hearts with questions and doubts. As a consequence, they have been deprived of miracles, for a miracle is something experienced personally, not something than can be logically explained.
Elder Paisios

Theology without action is the theology of demons.
St. Maximos the Confesso

Thou shalt not murder.
Moses the Lawgiver

Wisdom for our day from St Ephraim the Syrian

53*
Lament over the scarcity of saints
My heart is pained, my soul agonizes and my inner parts are torn! Where am I to find the tears, where am I to find the contrition and the sighs to rightly mourn our orphaned state and the paucity of sanctity among us?

I see, O Master, that Thou takest Thy saints, like choice gold, from the vain world to the resting-place of life.

Like a farmer who sees his fruits well ripened and prudently hastens to gather them that they might not be the least bit spoiled, so doest Thou also, O Savior, gather Thy chosen ones who have labored righteously.

Yet we, who are slothful and weak-willed, remain hardened, and our fruits never ripen; for we have not the resolve to labor without sparing ourselves, in order to ripen the good works and rightly be gathered into the storehouse of life.

Say: woe is me, alas, O soul, and weep; for thou hast been left an orphan so young by the blameless fathers and righteous ascetics. Where are our fathers? Where are the saints? Where are the vigilant? Where are the sober? Where are the humble? Where are the meek? Where are those who vow silence? Where are the abstinent? Where are those who with a contrite heart stood before the Lord in perfect prayer, like angels of God? They have left here to join our holy God with their lamps brightly burning.

Woe is us! What times are these in which we live? Into what sea of evil have we sailed? Our fathers have entered the harbor of life, that they might not see the sorrows and seductions that overcome us because of our sins. They are crowned, yet we slumber; we sleep and indulge in selfish pleasures.

O Lord, have pity on us! Make sober our thoughts which whirl about in vain. Grant us contrition and tears, that they might shed some light on the blindness of our hearts, and we might see that way in which our fathers walked when they followed Thee. Grant us the desire and the strength to follow in this same way, so that we too with them might receive the lot of those who are saved, to the glory of Thy Name.

*From A Spiritual Psalter: or Reflections on God excerpted by Bishop Theophan the Recluse from the works of our Holy Father Ephraim the Syrian.

While I would prefer to post joyous things during this Holy Season, perhaps we still need to consider our lives in the light of the urgent necessity of repentance.

Of Stem-Cell and Relativism

John Kass at the Chicago Tribune has written a biting essay on the US Administration's change in stem cell policy. Entitled Stem Cell Policy Shift Brings a Sinking Feeling, it is worth your reading time.

Larry Anderson's essay The Myth of Relativism and the Cult of Tolerance at American Thinker is also succinct an worthy of consideration.

(Note: I may revise this entry as I am trying to find an article I read a few days ago on the use of the term "fetus" and the political shift in its meaning.)

As my Grandfather would have said, "Now, there's stem cells and there's stem cells...."

Real Clear Politics has an essay by Kathleen Parker regarding President Obama's recent "lifting" of the stem cell ban by the US Government. Here are a few pertinent excerpts:

Unfortunately, the stem cell debate has been characterized as a conflict between science (as though science is always right) and religious "kooks" (as though religious folk are never right). In choosing sides, it is, indeed, easier to imagine lunch with a researcher who wants to resurrect Christopher Reeve (whom Obama couldn't resist mentioning) and make him walk again, than with the corner protester holding a fetus in a jar. (Note: I don't believe I've ever heard of an abortion protester "holding a fetus in a jar".)

The insistence on using embryonic stem cells always rested on the argument that they were pluripotent, capable of becoming any kind of cell. That superior claim no longer can be made with the spectacular discovery in 2007 of "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPS), which was the laboratory equivalent of the airplane. Very simply, iPS cells can be produced from a skin cell by injecting genes that force it to revert to its primitive "blank slate" form with all the same pluripotent capabilities of embryonic stem cells.

The iPS discovery even prompted Dr. Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, to abandon his license to attempt human cloning, saying that the researchers "may have achieved what no politician could: an end to the embryonic stem cell debate." And, just several days ago, Dr. Bernadine Healy, director of the National Institutes of Health under the first President Bush, wrote in U.S. News & World Report that these recent developments "reinforced the notion that embryonic stem cells ... are obsolete."

Many scientists, of course, want to conduct embryonic stem cell research, as they have and always could with private funding. One may agree or disagree with their purposes, but one may also question why taxpayers should have to fund something so ethically charged when alternative methods are available.

Read the entire essay here.

Twixt (Support for) Life or Death (PC="Choice")

Kathryn Jean Lopez, of the National Review Online reports on her attendance at last week's March for Life in DC, as well as reflecting on attending 2004's March for Women's Rights. March for Life is an annual protest march in Washington, DC, in support of equal rights for all human beings from conception to natural death. March for Women's Rights was a protest march in 2004 organized by the National Organization for Women in support of abortion and other political 'rights'. Below is an excerpt from Ms Lopez' article.

But I walked the whole March. I walked the March from the Mall to the Supreme Court after attending the pre-rally. I walked the March and hung around on the House side of the Capitol for a little while. The only display of anger I saw came from a woman walking a block away from the Supreme Court with a big round “Keep Abortion Legal” sticker from the National Organization for Women. She was furious, saying to a friend, “They don’t care about human rights. I can’t believe all these people. They just care about babies.”

Of course they care about babies. Some of them have had a lot of them, and brought some of them along; others look on with joy at the families. But it is because they know these babies are human—which shouldn’t be in dispute, though it seemed to be back when Obama was in the statehouse arguing that a newborn shouldn’t have the same rights as an older baby—that they care about this issue.

And that message—that this is a human-rights issue and men, women, and children deserve better than a culture that values the legal “choice” of abortion over all other values, including compassion and common decency—was emanating from the March for Life this year, and so many of the events surrounding it. “Healing” had a big presence there.

Read the whole article here.

Benedict on Original Sin

Sandro Magister reports on Pope Benedict's recent teachings on Original Sin. The Eastern Churches have always viewed Original Sin in different terms than the Roman Church. Indeed, it has been a topic of much polimical debate - although I have always found a congruence between the two understandings, which the Holy Father seems to balance in his catechesis. It will be interesting to see the reactions to his teachings from the various proponents of the differing interpretations.

Here is a snippet...

God created everything for existence, and in particular he created the human being in his own image; he did not create death, but this entered the world through the envy of the devil, who, rebelling against God, also drew men into deceit, inducing them to rebel (cf. Wis. 1:13-14; 2:23-24). This is the drama of freedom, which God accepts completely for the sake of love, while promising that there will be a son of woman who will crush the head of the ancient serpent (Gn. 3:15).

For the rest, go here.

Is it all relative?

If my bishop wishes, I will obediently remove this post.

New Natural Law Anthology Reviewed

MercatorNet today features a review of Contemporary Perspectives on Natural Law: Natural Law as a Limiting Concept, an anthology edited by Ana Marta Gonzalez. An extended quote from the review follows.

Natural law starts by assuming there is such a thing as human nature. This
insistence on a human nature is a limiting concept. It claims that true freedom
is only to be found in acceptance and respect of this human nature that we have
inherited, not created.

A recent book on the topic of natural law, which is a compilation of
papers from an international conference held in Spain in 2006, makes this point
clear. If you accept natural law, you accept that human nature exists and that
it is the same for all humans. This in turn implies that some actions that human
beings can perform are not good for them. It further implies that freedom is not
the goal of human existence but rather a faculty of choice which allows us to do
good actions and thus to flourish as human beings.

Contemporary Perspectives on Natural Law: Natural Law as a Limiting
Concept is a useful addition to contemporary debate, given that, despite its
pariah status in some universities, natural law ethics is still one of the great
traditions of ethical thinking and is given some time in most ethics courses,
even if this amounts to a dismissive nod.

Read the whole review here. Click the title of the book, above, for its listing on Amazon.

Does making babies make sense?

MercatorNet features an essay by Professor Richard Stith, who teaches at Valparaiso University School of Law, entitled "Does Making Babies Make Sense?". Let the following excerpt encourage you to read the entire essay.

In December of 2005 an op-ed piece by sociologist Dalton Conley appeared in the New York Times, stating that “most Americans... see a fetus as an individual under construction.” This widespread vision of the embryo and fetus as “under construction” is the key to understanding why good people may find pro-life arguments to be absurd or otherwise non-rational, eg, religious, particularly with regard to embryonic stem cell research.

The construction idea also may explain how Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been able to support both the right to life from the moment of conception and embryonic stem cell research.

It is a very thought-provoking essay. Read it here.

St John Chrysostom on Contraception

Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well…Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his [natural] laws?…Yet such turpitude…the matter still seems indifferent to many men—even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks.

Homilies on Romans, 24 - .St. John Chrysostom

Jose Yulo on Atheism and the Beatitudes

Over at Ignatius, Dr Jose Yulo has written an article on Atheism, morality and his experiences teaching a Western Civilization class. It is well worth the time spent to read it.

Below is an excerpt.

But the topic that easily garnered the most attention in the class and generated spirited debate was a seemingly unlikely product of the Beatitudes. Christ warns His followers that they would be "persecuted for righteousness' sake," at the very least an intriguing notion. If the followers of Christ begin laying down the temptation of Agamemnon and all of those cut of the same imperial brocaded cloth, how could this lead to them being subject to ostracism, today often performed by the atheism advocate du jour?

Read the article here.