World Day for those with AIDS

Pope Benedict talked about World AIDS day at his general audience this week:

"Tomorrow, 1 December, is World AIDS Day, an initiative of the United Nations aiming to draw attention to the scourge of AIDS and to invite the international community to a renewed commitment in the work of prevention and support for those who are affected. Relevant statistics are alarming!

“Following Christ’s example closely, the Church has always considered the care of infirm people to be an integral part of its mission. I therefore encourage the many initiatives under way to overcome this sickness, especially by church communities, and I feel close to people with AIDS and their families, invoking upon them the Lord’s help and comfort.”

AIDS has wrought terrible devastation around the world but especially in Africa. There, millions of children have been left orphans because of the disease. The average life span has shrunk dramatically in many countries. In Zimbabwe it is only about 38 years, while in Zambia and Angola life expectancy is just under 40 years.

Joyous Expectation

This new book by Sr Jean Frisk is a wonderful companion for your Advent journey. Her warm, insightful reflections and prayers for each day offer an easy way to stay close to Jesus and Mary in the midst of the Christmas rush.

Daily Advent readings

The Bruderhof community posts a daily thought for Advent. Check out the above link for one of their articles. You can also sign up for an email meditation delivered to you each day of Advent.

Women used as "Guinea Pigs": Ethical questions about cloning

This important article on the ethical issues of cloning came through the e-mail today from Culture & Cosmos:

Ethical Scandal at Korean Laboratory Raises Questions Concerning Human Cloning

Recent allegations that the famous Korean engineer of the world's first cloned human embryos obtained the eggs for those clones from his own team of junior researchers have jolted the scientific community.

Earlier this month, Dr. Gerald Schatten, a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh, severed ties with Dr. Woo Suk Hwang's laboratory at Seoul National University in the Republic of (South) Korea because Hwang had obtained human eggs unethically. Two years ago "Nature" reported that a young PhD student employed at Hwang's lab had told the journal that she and several other junior colleagues had donated eggs for the lab's groundbreaking cloning research. At the time, Hwang denied this allegation and asserted that "Nature" had mistaken what the young researcher had meant to say because of her poor English. Eventually, the PhD student herself also stated that Hwang's revision of her remarks was accurate. Schatten's decision to break with Hwang's lab, however, lends new credibility to the assertion that the initial story in "Nature" was true.

The procedure whereby a young woman's eggs are harvested for in vitro fertilization and/or human cloning can be dangerous to her health, and consequently human eggs can be worth tens of thousands of dollars in the United States, where there is an open market for eggs. In South Korea, the incentives, such as extensions of tenured positions and more prestigious employment, for a young female scientist to donate her eggs for her lab's research can also be compelling. This is why medical ethicists around the world have been alarmed at the news that Schatten has severed ties with Hwang's lab.

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, by Rick Weiss, Marcy Darnovsky, the Associate Director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, California, has stated in reaction to Schatten's decision that, "We're in danger of making women into guinea pigs for this research even before there are any treatments to be tested."

Medical ethicists who have made critiques of the entire enterprise of human cloning in order to produce embryonic stem cells for medical research seem to have had their arguments strengthened by the news. California-based medical ethicist, Wesley Smith, has written in his "Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World" that the full legalization and funding of research into producing cures from cloned embryos' stem cells might lead to poor women in the undeveloped world selling "their egg cells at bargain-basement prices."

Culture of Life Foundation
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Washington DC 20005
Phone: (202) 289-2500 Fax: (202) 289-2502 E-mail: clf@culture-of-life.org Website: http://www.culture-of-life.org

Kids and the missing connections

Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities by Kathleen Kovner Kline: The report’s main argument is that too many U.S. children are suffering from a lack of connectedness. The authors mean two kinds of connectedness — close, enduring connections to other people, and deep connections to moral and spiritual meaning. The report argues that the human person is biologically primed — or “hardwired” — for these two types of connectedness, and that the weakening of both of these forms of relatedness in our society in recent decades is a primary cause of today’s high and rising rates of mental problems and emotional distress among U.S. children and adolescents.


Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities. The report was co-authored by 33 children’s doctors, research scientists, and mental health and youth service professionals. More specifically, for what we believe is the first time, the study brought together prominent neuroscientists who study the child’s developing brain with social scientists who study civil society.

Vatican: Church cannot ordain active homosexuals

Although not officially released by the Vatican, the Italian news agency ADISTA published the Italian text of the Document on Ordination and Homosexuality on November 22, a week before it was expected to be released at the Vatican. A Vatican spokesman did not confirm or deny the authenticity of the text; church sources said the content was accurate.

The Vatican document took a strong line against priestly ordination of men who are active homosexuals, who have "deeply rooted" homosexual tendencies or who support the "gay culture." The document contrasted men with deeply rooted homosexual tendencies with the transitory problems of adolescence which must be overcome three years before ordination to the diaconate.

The document cited the church's teachings that homosexual acts are gravely sinful and that homosexual tendencies are "objectively disordered."

In the light of those teachings, it said, the church, while deeply respecting homosexuals, "cannot admit to seminaries and to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, who present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or who support the so-called gay culture."

"The above-mentioned persons find themselves, in fact, in a situation that seriously obstructs correct relations with men and women," it said.

Implosion: The Collapse of the United Nations

The link above is to an excellent article by Crisis magazine on the problems within the UN and why Catholics are worried.

Books of Comfort report

After Hurricane Katrina, we began collecting money for to send Books of Comfort down to the Hurricane Survivors. After they had food and shelter, the first request was for bibles and rosaries. Our first shipments of Bibles and books for adults and children went to San Antonio where our sisters personally visited and helped in the shelters where the New Orleans evacuees were staying. Sr. Sharon, who took care of the project from here in Boston, says:

The people were just thirsting for something to help them cope with the tragedy and suffering they’d experienced. Many books of comfort were distributed with the help of sisters and priests throughout the Gulf Coast. In rapid succession, 71 large packages with a total of 5,280 individual items were sent to the dioceses of Biloxi and Lake Charles for the students in 24 schools, and the New Orleans evacuees. In addition to the 174 initial donors, the Daughters of St. Paul’s communities also responded with the sisters sending their personal treasures of books and bibles and rosaries. Other sisters from Louisiana were beginning to use the Comfort Books in Bible studies with groups of evacuees they were counseling. “Thank you so much for thinking of us and helping us. We will always remember you,” were the responses from the donees. Some donors thanked the Daughters of St Paul for giving them an opportunity to reach out by giving encouragement, comfort, and inspiration through the Books of Comfort to their brothers and sisters who were suffering so much. Also, through this apostolic project, the lives of several heroic rescue workers themselves were comforted who felt the need for inspiration and strength.

We are not done yet! Donations are still coming in. We will be contacting our sisters in New Orleans to see what are the spiritual needs of the people who have returned to the city and how we can collaborate with the diocese in its pastoral minitry to its scattered flock.

Each donor receives a personal note with the name of the destination of the books and a listing of titles thta their specific donation helped send.

Unreported News: Device Designed to Grow Adult Stem Cells

While California is in the news regarding the research program they instituted with Proposition 71: "California devotes $3 billion to human embryonic stem-cell experiments and comprises the biggest-ever state-supported scientific research program in the country," I found information on the research going ahead on adult stem cell research which is by far more reliable and certainly more ethical. This is from www.thecbc.org site whose mission is to educate and equip people of traditional Judeo-Christian faith in bioethics issues of the 21st Century. Another example why you shouldn't form opinions on important issues based on what you read in the newspaper or see on TV news. You simply don't have all the facts.

A Florida State University research team reports that it has designed a biomedical device that will allow stem cells derived from adult bone marrow to be grown in sufficient quantities to permit far more research - and allow faster growth of tissues that can be transplanted into patients.

... "The perfusion bioreactor can be used to reproduce mesenchymal stem cells and to direct their differentiation into bone, cartilage, muscle, heart muscle, fat or nerve tissue," Ma said. "The tissues grown then will be suitable for clinical transplantation." He added that stem cells can live for up to 40 days within the bioreactor.

... While much of the controversy surrounding stem cell research has centered around the use of cells derived from fetal or embryonic tissue, Ma points out that the mesenchymal stem cells used in his research come from adult donors.

... "All of their donors are adults between the ages of 19 and 49. Essentially, each donor undergoes a medical procedure in which a small amount of bone marrow is extracted from his or her pelvic bone." Within that extracted bone marrow, only about one in every 100,000 cells is a stem cell, Ma said.

"Because they are so rare, the ability to reproduce stem cells in a laboratory becomes particularly significant for further research and clinical trials." Ma's research may lead to important breakthroughs in the field of stem cell research and application, said Bruce Locke, chairman of the department of chemical and biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering.

"By addressing one of the key issues constraining this research - a limited supply of stem cells - he could help advance the development of numerous medical therapies by years," Locke said.

Can Catholics who commit suicide have a funeral Mass?

Zenit posted a response to this question which causes such grief and worry for those left behind:

Funeral Masses for a Suicide NOV. 15, 2005 (Zenit.org).-

Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University.

Q: What is the current stand of the Church regarding the possibility of funeral Masses "in corpore presente" of persons who are said to have committed suicide? Is it true that there already are mitigating circumstances, like the possibility of irrationality at the moment of taking one's life (even if there was no note), whereby it would be possible to suppose that the person was not in his right mind, and that therefore it is licit to let the funeral entourage to enter a church and a funeral Mass be said? -- E.C.M., Manila, Philippines

A: In earlier times a person who committed suicide would often be denied funeral rites and even burial in a Church cemetery. However, some consideration has always been taken into account of the person's mental state at the time.

In one famous case, when Rudolph, the heir to the throne of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, committed suicide in 1889, the medical bulletin declared evidence of "mental aberrations" so that Pope Leo XIII would grant a religious funeral and burial in the imperial crypt. Other similar concessions were probably quietly made in less sonorous cases.

Canon law no longer specifically mentions suicide as an impediment to funeral rites or religious sepulture. Canon 1184 mentions only three cases: a notorious apostate, heretic or schismatic; those who requested cremation for motives contrary to the Christian faith; and manifest sinners to whom a Church funeral cannot be granted without causing public scandal to the faithful.

These restrictions apply only if there has been no sign of repentance before death. The local bishop weighs any doubtful cases and in practice a prudent priest should always consult with the bishop before denying a funeral Mass.

A particular case of suicide might enter into the third case -- that of a manifest and unrepentant sinner -- especially if the suicide follows another grave crime such as murder. In most cases, however, the progress made in the study of the underlying causes of self-destruction shows that the vast majority are consequences of an accumulation of psychological factors that impede making a free and deliberative act of the will.

Thus the general tendency is to see this extreme gesture as almost always resulting from the effects of an imbalanced mental state and, as a consequence, it is no longer forbidden to hold a funeral rite for a person who has committed this gesture although each case must still be studied on its merits.

Finally, it makes little difference, from the viewpoint of liturgical law, whether the body is present or not. If someone is denied a Church funeral, this applies to all public ceremonies although it does not impede the celebration of private Masses for the soul of the deceased. The same principle applies to funeral Masses of those whose body is unavailable for burial due to loss or destruction. Certainly the rites are different when the body is present or absent, but the Church's public intercession for the deceased is equally manifest in both cases.

A great quote when you're feeling harassed by deadlines and production demands or the need to creatively outmaneuver one's business competitors:

Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy. (Wendell Berry)

Why Confess Our Sins to a Priest?

Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieto-Vasto, a profound theologian and friend of the Daughters of St. Paul, has written a pastoral letter which answers this question. Some lines from the letter, as reported in Zenit:

"Why must one confess one's sins to a priest and not do so directly to God?"

"Of course, one always addresses God when confessing one's sins," begins the archbishop. "That it is necessary to do so before a priest is something that God himself makes us understand."

"When sending his Son in our flesh," the prelate continues, "he shows that he wants to meet with us through direct contact, which passes through the signs and language of our human condition."

"As he came out of himself for love of us and came to 'touch' us with his flesh," he adds, "so we are called to come out of ourselves, out of love for him, and to go with humility and faith to the one who can give us forgiveness in his name, with word and gesture," namely, "to whom the Lord has chosen and sent as minister of forgiveness."

"Confession is therefore an encounter with divine forgiveness, which Jesus offers us and is transmitted to us through the ministry of the Church," writes Archbishop Forte, 56.

"Approach confession with a humble and contrite heart and live it with faith," he urges. "It will change your life and give you peace of heart."

Veteran's Day--"Someday there will be no more war..."

I received a marvelous reflection for Veterans Day in The Daily Dig from the Bruderhof Community:

For Veterans Day
Kaethe Kollwitz

One day, a new ideal will arise, and there will be and end to all wars. I die convinced of this. It will need much hard work, but it will be achieved… The important thing, until that happens, is to hold one’s banner high and to struggle… Without struggle there is no life.
Source: Quoted in Otto Nagel, "Kaethe Kollwitz"
More from Kollwitz, whose only son was killed after two days at the front...

International Marian Center at Nazareth

For the first time: a project to construct an international Marian Center right across from the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, and others across the world. The project is supported by Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox alike.

Visit their imposing multi-media site at: http://www.mariedenazareth.com/.

This project wishes to palliate this important need. The goal of this initiative is to create in Nazareth an International Marian Center which would propose for tourists, pilgrims, locals and visitors of the companion interactive Website, to discover the Virgin Mary through different historical, archeological, cultural, artistic and ecclesial approaches.

For the first time, all the differents Churches and many theologians, movements and sanctuaries are going to work together and show the unity of love for Mary, in the diversity of the Christian traditions.

Everything began in Nazareth and the city of the Annunciation belongs to all.

It is very important to be able to bring about this project of unity, hope and peace, starting from the very heart of Nazareth, right across the street from the Basilica of the Annunciation.

2 Keys to Transform the World: Pope Benedict

Benedict XVI says that dialogue and an objective morality are the keys to transform the world into a place of peace.

"Only through dialogue can there be hope that the world will become a place of peace and fraternity," he said in the message transmitted to the participants in the meeting by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. "It is the duty of every person of good will, and especially of every believer, to help build a peaceful society and to overcome the temptation towards aggressive and futile confrontation between different cultures and ethnic groups," Benedict XVI said.

However, the Bishop of Rome acknowledged: "This goal can only be achieved if at the heart of the economic, social and cultural development of each community is a proper respect for life and for the dignity of every human person."

"Without an objective moral grounding, not even democracy is capable of ensuring a stable peace," he stressed. "In this sense, moral relativism undermines the workings of democracy, which by itself is not enough to guarantee tolerance and respect among peoples," affirmed Benedict XVI, recalling a point that particularly concerned Pope John Paul II. Of "fundamental importance therefore," the message continued, is "to educate in truth, and to foster reconciliation wherever there has been injury."

"Respect for the rights of others, bearing fruit in sincere and truthful dialogue, will indicate practical steps that can be taken," concluded the message.

(reported from Zenit)

Can Catholics Believe in Extra-Terrestrial Life?

A recently released 48 page book by a Vatican astronomy, Guy Consolmagno, seeks to answer the questions alot of Catholics have when they start to think of the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. He wrote the book as an answer to questions he gets all the time from visitors to the Vatican Observatory.

"But what sort of effect would it have on Catholic beliefs? Would Christian theology be rocked to the core if science someday found a distant orb teeming with little green men, women or other intelligent forms of alien life? Would the church send missionaries to spread the Gospel to aliens? Could aliens even be baptized? Or would they have had their own version of Jesus and have already experienced his universal or galactic plan of salvation?"

A peek inside the book for some of his answers, as reported by Catholic News Service:

He said his aim with the booklet was to reassure Catholics "that you shouldn't be afraid of these questions" and that "no matter what we learn, it doesn't invalidate what we already know" and believe. In other words, scientific study and discovery and religion enrich
one another, not cancel out each other.


If new forms of life were to be discovered or highly advanced beings from outer space were to touch down on planet Earth, it would not mean "everything we believe in is wrong," rather, "we're going to find out that everything is truer in ways we couldn't even yet have imagined," he said.

The Book of Genesis describes two stories of creation, and science, too, has more than one version of how the cosmos may have come into being.

"However you picture the universe being created, says Genesis, the essential point is that ultimately it was a deliberate, loving act of a God who exists outside of space and time," Brother Consolmagno said in his booklet.

"What Genesis says about creation is true. God did it; God willed it; and God loves it. When science fills in the details of how God did it, science helps get a flavor of how rich and beautiful and inventive God really is, more than even the writer of Genesis could ever have imagined," Brother Consolmagno wrote.

The limitless universe "might even include other planets with other beings created by that same loving God," he added. "The idea of there being other races and other intelligences is not contrary to traditional Christian thought.

"There is nothing in Holy Scripture that could confirm or contradict the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe," he wrote.

Brother Consolmagno said that, like scientists, people of faith should not be afraid of saying "I just don't know."

Human understanding "is always incomplete. It is crazy to underestimate God's ability to create in depths of ways that we will never completely understand. It is equally dangerous to think that we understand God completely," he said in his booklet.

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

The Word of God Guides Believers--But How?

Benedict XVI stated at the general audience last week:

The Word of God, by the action of the Holy Spirit, guides believers to the fullness of truth (cf. John 16:13). Among the many fruits of this biblical spring, I want to mention the spread of the ancient practice of "lectio divina," or spiritual reading, of sacred Scripture. It consists of meditating fully on a biblical text, reading and rereading it, "ruminating it" in a certain sense, as the Fathers write, and squeezing all its "juice" so that it nourishes meditation and contemplation and, like sap, is able to irrigate concrete life. As a condition, "lectio divina" requires that the mind and heart be illuminated by the Holy Spirit, that is, by the inspirer himself of the Scriptures and to place oneself, therefore, in an attitude of "religious listening."

So how does one learn lectio divina?

Life for the World: Reading Scripture in the ambient of Eucharistic Adoration: http://www.pauline.org/store/moreinfo/0819844993.html

Finding God in the Dark: Reading Scripture in connection with movies in the context of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius:
http://www.pauline.org/store/moreinfo/0819826804.html

How to do Lectio Divina:
http://users3.ev1.net/~gaillundblad/lectio.htm

"Something Terrible Is Going to Happen..."

Last night I spoke with a dear old friend of mine. She said these words, "Something terrible is going to happen. Just see everything around the world--the war, the violence, the killings. God is going to do something to punish us. My friend agree."

This morning's quote in A Daily Dig from the Bruderhof community is an excellent response to this situation in which the world finds itself:

People Will Marvel
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Everywhere in these days people have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible state of affairs must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light... But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw other souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die.
Source: Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov"

It linked to a powerful Russian legend retold by Maxim Gorky.

January 27 Declared Annual Holocaust Remembrance Day

With the strong support of the Holy See, the United Nations decided to declare January 27 as an annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, in memory of the victims of the atrocity. With this day of remembrance, the United Nations seeks to keep the memory alive in a bid to prevent future acts of genocide. January 27 marks the day in 1945 when an advancing Soviet army liberated the largest Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Poland.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations, took part in the debate, to stress that "remembering is a duty and a common responsibility." However, the archbishop lamented that "for 60 years we have had the horror of this kind of crime before us, in spite of which history has still repeated itself." "May the Holocaust serve as a warning to prevent us from yielding to ideologies which justify contempt for human dignity on the basis of race, color, language or religion," the papal representative said at the U.N. headquarters.

Subcommittee on the Constitution Hears Testimony on Fetal Pain

A prominent doctor and scientist told a Congressional committee yesterday that a recent study claiming unborn babies are unlikely to feel pain before 30 weeks gestation is based on an outdated definition of pain and used a questionable methodology that puts its findings into doubt.

Dr. K. S. Anand said the conclusions of a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association regarding fetal pain were "flawed, because they ignore a large body of research related to pain processing in the brain, present a faulty scientific rationale and use inconsistent methodology for their systematic review." Anand, a professor of pediatrics, anesthesiology, pharmacology, and neurobiology at the University of Arkansas College of Medicine, went so far as to question whether reliability of the authors of the study. "Inconsistent inclusion of evidence and ambiguous methodology used for data syntheses (such that this systematic review cannot be replicated) raises serious questions about the author' scientific bias and the validity of their findings."

Anand was joined by three other experts at a hearing of the House Subcommittee of the Constitution to address the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. The bill, introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, would require abortion providers to inform mothers who are 20 weeks or more into their pregnancy that their child could feel pain during the abortion and give mothers the option to have their child anesthetized before the abortion.

The committee also heard testimony from, Dr. Jean Wright, a professor of pediatrics at the Mercer School of Medicine, who operates on infants born as early as 23 weeks into gestation. She said, "we no longer speculate as to whether they feel pain. We understand it, try to avoid it and treat it when appropriate." Wright said that giving mothers seeking abortions information on the possibility of pain is simply an extension of an already acknowledged principle of medical ethics. "Parents are entitled to this information for their children. They need it explained in a clear and meaningful way that they as laypeople can understand. This standard exists for children born; now we raise the standard and ask that it exist for those unborn. 'Will this surgery or procedure on my premature baby cause pain? What will be done to alleviate the pain and suffering?' We should answer those questions as clearly for procedures concerning the unborn as the born."

Arthur Caplan, a bioethicists at the University of Pennsylvania, criticized the bill's requirement that abortion providers read from a script. He said it was unnecessary and was an example of Congress inappropriately inserting itself into science and medicine. "[F]orcing providers to read claims about fetal pain is showing no respect for the ability of the medical profession to present information about pregnancy, abortion and fetal pain." But later in the testimony, law professor Teresa Collett said that was a mischaracterization of the bill. Though abortion providers must read a script, she said, the bill clearly gives providers the opportunity to tell the mother their own opinion.

Culture of Life Foundation1413 K Street, NW, Suite 1000Washington DC 20005Phone: (202) 289-2500 Fax: (202) 289-2502 E-mail: clf@culture-of-life.org Website: http://www.culture-of-life.org

From whence comes renewal?

A new book on the theology of John Paul II published in Italy, Giovanni Paolo Teologo, studies 14 of his documents to show how John Paul II addressed the major approaches to life today: widespread tendencies to subjectivism, utilitarianism and relativism, approaches which claim full cultural and social legitimacy.

The book begins with the centrality of the Trinity in the works and thought of John Paul II, revealed in his first encyclicals: Redemptor hominis, Dives in Misericordia, and Dominum et Vivificantem. Here the author finds a guide for all renewal in the Church and in the world:

Renewal springs from the re-meditation of the mystery of the
Trinitarian God: it is only by “remaining still” in the Trinity that each
journey may start again.