YOU *CAN* Be A Research Scientist!

Are you qualified to be a research scientist?
Find out by taking our simple quiz!

First, read this new story from Time magazine. It describes a new drug regimen for preventing cerebral palsy, a condition that is strongly associated with pre-term birth.

Next, read through the articles linked here: why are pre-term births, and the cerebral palsy associated with them, considered news fit for Time magazine? Why, because the rate of pre-term births has skyrocketed over 30% since 1981! The rate has increased more than 20% since 1990, and now stands at 12.8% of all births.

Note the sentence in the first article: As the rate of pre-term births rise, so does the rate of "cerebral palsy, mental retardation, chronic lung disease, and vision and hearing loss." The cost of pre-term births is estimated to be 26 billion dollars, with average medical costs 10 times greater than that for a normal birth.

So, are you ready for our quiz?

Here it is! (drum roll please)

What is the number one cause of pre-term birth?

Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Anyone?

Hmmm... There's a puzzler.

Time magazine is silent on that issue.

The March of Dimes, which supports embryonic stem cell research, fetal tissue research and abortion, also seems to be at a complete loss, although - thank God - they are spending millions of dollars to try and figure it out.

But don't worry!
Here's where YOU can find out if you are qualified to be a real research scientist!

Read any one of the thirty-eight studies listed below, either alone or in combination, and see if YOU can figure out what might be causing the rise in premature births (HINT: the first study is the best, as it shows how undergoing a simple, safe and legal medical procedure can increase your risk of subsequent pre-term birth by a whopping 1155%).

1. Zhou W, Sorenson HT, Olsen H. Induced Abortion and Subsequent Pregnancy Duration. Obstetrics & Gynecology 1999;94:948-953
2. Berkowitz GS. An Epidemiologic Study of Preterm Delivery. American J Epidemiology 1981;113:81-92
3. Lang JM, Lieberman E, Cohen A. A Comparison of Risk Factors for Preterm Labor and Term Small-for-Gestational-Age Birth. Epidemiology 1996;7:369-376
4. Lieberman E, Ryan KJ, Monson RR, Schoenbaum SC. Risk Factors Accounting For Racial Differences in the rate of premature birth. NEJM 1987;317:743-748
5. * Hillier SL, Nugent RP, Eschenbach DA, Krohn MA, et al. Association Between Bacterial Vaginosis And Preterm Delivery Of A Low-Birth-Weight Infant. NEJM 1995;333:1737-1742
6. Schoenbaum LS, Monson RR. No association between coffee consumption and adverse outcomes of pregnancy. NEJM 1982;306:141-145
7. Mueller-Heubach E, Guzick DS. Evaluation of risk scoring in a preterm birth prevention study of indigent patients. Am J Obstetrics & Gyn 1989;160:829-837
8. Shiono PH, Lebanoff MA. Ethnic Differences and Very Preterm Delivery. Am J Public Health 1986;76:1317-1321
9. Pantelakis SN, Papadimitriou GC, Doxiadis SA. Influence of induced and spontaneous abortions on the outcome of subsequent pregnancies. Amer J Obstet Gynecol. 1973;116:799-805
10. Lumley J. The association between prior spontaneous abortion, prior induced abortion and preterm birth in first singleton births. Prenat Neonat Med 1998;3:21-24.
11. Van Der Slikke JW, Treffers PE. Influence of induced abortion on gestational duration in subsequent pregnancies. BMJ 1978;1:270-272 [>95% confident of preterm risk for gestation less than 32 weeks]
12. Richardson JA, Dixon G. Effect of legal termination on subsequent pregnancy. British Med J 1976;1:1303-1304
13. Pickering RM, Deeks JJ. Risks of Delivery during 20th to the 36th Week of Gestation. Intl. J Epidemiology 1991;20:456-466
14. Koller O, Eikhom SN. Late Sequelae of Induced Abortion in Primigravidae. Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 1977;56:311-317
15. Papaevangelou G, Vrettos AS, Papadatos D, Alexiou C. The Effect of Spontaneous and Induced Abortion on Prematurity and Birthweight. The J Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Commonwealth. May 1973;80:418-422
16. Bognar Z, Czeizel A. Mortality and Morbidity Associated with Legal Abortions in Hungary, 1960-1973. AJPH 1976;66:568-575
17. Martius JA, Steck T, Oehler MK, Wulf K-H. Risk factors associated with preterm (<37+0>European J Obstetrics & Gynecology Reproductive Biology 1998;80:183-189
18. Vasso L-K, Chryssa T-B, Golding J. Previous obstetric history and subsequent preterm delivery in Greece. European J Obstetrics & Gynecology Reproductive Biology 1990;37:99-109
19. * Ancel P-V, Saurel-Cubizolles M-J, Renzo GCD, Papiernik E, Breart G. Very and moderate preterm births: are the risk factors different? British J Obstetrics and Gynaecology 1999;106:1162-1170
20. Lumley J. The epidemiology of preterm birth. Bailliere's Clin Obstet Gynecology. 1993;7(3):477-498
21. * Michielutte R, Ernest JM, Moore ML, Meis PJ, Sharp PC, Wells HB, Buescher PA. A Comparison of Risk Assessment Models for Term and Preterm Low Birthweight. Preventive Medicine 1992;21:98-109
22. Grindel B, Lubinski H, Voigt M. Induced abortion in primigravidae and subsequent pregnancy, with particular attention of underweight. Zentralbl Gynaekol 1979;101:1009-1114
23. Kreibich H, Ludwig A. Early and late complications of abortion in juvenile primigravidae (including recommended measures). Z Aerztl Fortbild (Jena) 1980;74:311-316
24. Zwahr C, Voigt M, Kunz L, et al. Relationships between interruption abortion, and premature birth and low birth weight. Zentrabl Gynaekol 1980;102: 738-747
25. Pickering RM, Forbes J. Risk of preterm delivery and small-for-gestational age infants following abortion: a population study. British J Obstetrics and Gynecology 1985;92:1106-1112
26. Muhlemann K, Germain M, Krohn M. Does an Abortion Increase the Risk of Intrapartum Infection in the Following Pregnancy? Epidemiology 1996;7:194-198
27. Daling JR, Krohn MA, Miscarriage or Termination in the Immediately Preceding Pregnancy Increases the Risk of Intraamniotic Infection in the Following Pregnancy. American J Epi 1992;136:1013 [SER Abstracts]
28. Prof. Barbara Luke. Every Pregnant Woman's Guide to Preventing Premature Birth (1995) [forward by Emile Papiernik], New York: Times Books
29. Gersh ES. Children with Cerebral Palsy 1998; chapter 1:page 14; DD: 618.92836 C53G1, ISBN: 0933149824
30. Paroah POD. Cerebral Palsy and perinatal care. British J Obstetrics Gynaecology 1995;102:356-358
31. Pediatrics 1985;76:154-158
32. Escobar GJ, Littenberg B, Petitti DB. Outcome among surviving very low birthweight infants; a meta-analysis. Arch Dis Child 1991;66:204-211
33. Wright CSW, Campbell S, Beazley J. Second-Trimester Abortion After Vaginal Termination Of Pregnancy. Lancet 1972 [June 10]:1278-1279
34. Rooney B. Racism, Poverty, Abortion, and Other Reproductive Outcomes. Epidemiology 2000;11:740-741
35. Rooney B. Having an induced abortion increases risk in future pregnancies. British Medical J 2001;322:430
36. Potts M. Legal Abortion in Eastern Europe. enics Review7;59:232-250
37. Obel E, et al. Pregnancy Complications Following Lgally Induced Abortion With Special Reference to Abortion Technique. a Obstet Gynecol Scand 1979;58:147-152
38. Levin A, Schoenbaum S, Monson R, Stubblefield P, Ryan K. Association of Abortion With Subsequent Pregnancy Loss. JAMA 1980;243(24):2495-2499

If you are still puzzled, try reading this, this or this.

So, what do YOU think might be the cause?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Anyone?

What's the Difference?

Question:

When I read the Bible I am being taught by the Word (Jesus Christ), is it correct that my Bible contains the presence of Christ? And if I ask Jesus to come dwell in my heart during prayer, He does come to me, correct? So if those things are true then how does receiving Holy Eucharist differ from and why is it better than what the Bible & prayer can do for me?

Jesus comes in His spiritual presence when you read the Scriptures or pray, but only through the Eucharist do you receive His substantial presence (which is NOT the same as His physical presence). Distinguishing between these three ways that God is present to us requires some careful thought and it doesn't hurt to have a grounding in philosophy. Instead of going through the whole philosophy of Aristotle, let's see if we can boil this down a bit. Historically speaking, Jesus permits us to experience His presence in three different ways:

• physically
• spiritually
• substantially

1) Let's begin by comparing the physical and spiritual presence:

Certainly we would agree that Jesus standing in front of us is a much different kind of presence than reading the Bible. The opportunity to experience His physical presence - the touch of His hand, the sight of His face, etc. - is simply not the same as reading the Bible and imagining these things. His physical presence includes our physical sensing of the Body He owns - the caress of His Hand, the sound of the air that He has formed into His Words, etc. When He is present to us in a physical way, our body physically experiences the five sensations produced by His human body (taste, touch, sight, hearing, smell).

It is clear that there is a big difference between the physical and the spiritual presence of God. This is especially true since God does not have a body in the same way we do: although He owns a human body, that human body is not a necessary part of His divinity. Thus, even after the Incarnation, God doesn't have a physical presence in the same way we do - our physical presence is a necessary part of our identities, but God doesn't NEED a body in order to be God. This is why, even though the apostles experienced God physically, they did not immediately or fully understand that they were in the presence of the living God.

2) This leads us to our second comparison: the difference between the physical and substantial presence of God:

Even if I had had the honor of experiencing Jesus' physical presence, God Incarnate standing in front of me, that doesn't mean I would recognize the substance of divinity present. I would see His flesh, feel His touch, smell Him, hear Him, perhaps even be physically healed by Him, but even with all of that, I would not necessarily fully understand that He is fully God, that I am physically in the presence of the substance of God, the substance of divinity. After all, pretty much everyone who met Him, with the possible exception of His parents, physically interacted with Him but didn't recognize the substance of divinity He is.

 The Divine Nature *IS* God. Every time we encounter the substance of divinity, we necessarily encounter God in the core of His Being. So, we can distinguish between the physical and the substantial presence of God as well.

3) Now, here's the question we need to consider: what is the difference between the spiritual presence and the substantial presence of God?

Since the encounter with the substance of divinity is God Himself, if God were substantially present in the Scriptures, then the Scriptures would - by themselves - necessarily *BE* God in exactly the same way that Jesus *IS* God. Now, no one believes the Scriptures are such a thing, not even the most ardent supporter of Scripture. We recognize that the Scriptures are God-breathed, have immense authority, are inerrant, etc., but no one thinks the Scriptures *ARE* God in the same way that Jesus *IS* God. And just as encountering the substance of divinity - even hidden behind the veil of human flesh - is really superior to reading the Bible, so receiving the Eucharist - Who is the substance of Jesus hidden behind the veil of bread and wine - is really superior to reading the Bible.

Now, it would be wonderful if we were able to experience the physical, substantial presence of Jesus in His glorified body as the apostles did after the Resurrection, but that is reserved for heaven. Here, we see as though through a glass, darkly. At His Ascension, He carried His human nature, including His human flesh and blood, with Him into heaven for the eternal, perpetual sacrifice He offers the Father. His Ascension moved His glorified body "beyond the veil", as it were. So, instead of experiencing His physical presence, we experience the glorified Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the resurrected Christ, the substantial presence of God, *as He offers Himself to the Father in the heavenly temple*. 

Because our eyes cannot stand such glory, He presents this to us hidden behind the veil of bread and wine. Even though His Body and Blood are truly present in the Eucharist, substantially present, He is not said to be physically present precisely because our senses do not perceive His Body as a physical human body. In fact, there is no physical (i.e., scientific) test that is capable of detecting His Body and Blood.

As Thomas points out in the Summa,

Reply to Objection 3. As has been already stated (III:75:5), after the consecration of the bread into the body of Christ, or of the wine into His blood, the accidents of both remain. From which it is evident that the dimensions of the bread or wine are not changed into the dimensions of the body of Christ, but substance into substance. And so the substance of Christ's body or blood is under this sacrament by the power of the sacrament, but not the dimensions of Christ's body or blood. Hence it is clear that the body of Christ is in this sacrament "by way of substance," and not by way of quantity. But the proper totality of substance is contained indifferently in a small or large quantity; as the whole nature of air in a great or small amount of air, and the whole nature of a man in a big or small individual. Wherefore, after the consecration, the whole substance of Christ's body and blood is contained in this sacrament, just as the whole substance of the bread and wine was contained there before the consecration.

That is, the substance of His Body and Blood are present, but His physicality is not, at least not in the sense that we normally use the word "physical."  

So, God opens the door to heaven through the veil of His own flesh, yet His flesh is itself veiled in Beth-le-hem (Hebrew for "the House of Bread"), it is veiled under the appearance of bread and wine. This double veiling of the substance of His divinity corresponds to the double veiling aspect of the Tent of Meeting that Paul speaks about in Hebrews 9:1-5. The bread and wine veil the Body, Blood and Soul, which in turn veil the Divinity. This is also why John talks about Jesus having "pitched His tent among us" (John 1:14). Jesus' tent (His Body) is not just the normal, single-veiled tent. Because He is God, He pitches among us the double-veiled Tent of Meeting - the Eucharist. He took human flesh precisely in order to establish the Holy of Holies, He provided the Eucharist in order to create the outer tent within which the Holy of Holies is hidden. And that's the difference between the Bible and the Eucharist. One is a God-breathed book, the other is God Himself.

Follow the Money

Historically, Confirmation is very tightly tied to baptism. Indeed, of the 21 rites of the Catholic Church, 20 of them give baptism, confirmation and first Eucharist all in the same ritual in infancy - this is called chrismation. As you know, these three sacraments are called the sacraments of initiation because receiving all three fully initiates us into Christ.

In the early years of the Church, each city had its own bishop. To this day, in fact, most Italian cities each have their own bishop, which is why there are so many more Italian bishops than there are bishops from any other country.

There really weren't any parish churches until the eleventh or twelfth century. Instead, each city had one church, the cathedral. Everyone would go to the city cathedral for Mass and all the sacraments. There might be some outlying meeting places on the edge of the city, but sacraments only happened in the cathedral.

In early Christianity, the one receiving the sacrament was typically an adult (i.e., over the age of twelve). No unbaptized person was permitted to attend Mass beyond the homily - after the homily, all unbaptized persons would be escorted out of the Church, the doors would be locked, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist would then commence.

The Eucharist was considered so sacred that no one was permitted even to be present in the building unless they were fully initiated into the Faith. Remnants of this practice are still found in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom: after the homily, the deacon will call out "The doors! The doors!" - a reminder to get the unbaptized out of the building and lock the doors.

So, anyone seeking to enter into the Church wouldn't know about anything except baptism. They would spend years being instructed about baptism. Then during the night of Easter Vigil they would be taken into the baptistry (which was an eight-sided building external to the Church), stripped naked (men in one group, women in another, and separated by a screen so they couldn't see each other and be scandalized) and there be baptized.

Incidentally, the two roles the deaconess performed in the ancient Church was the anointing of naked females with baptismal chrism (it was deemed unwise to let men see the women naked) and the barring of the doors after the homily. Deaconesses were never considered to be part of Holy Orders.

In any case, after baptism, the newly baptized would be clothed in a white garment. The bishop would now confirm the newly baptized, who would in turn then run across the lawn in their white garments, smelling of the fragrant oils of baptism and confirmation, and enter into the Church where the Catholic faithful had been praying all night. At that point, the Mass would begin.

As the newly baptized (called neophytes, which means "new plants") ran in, everyone present would remember the time when THEY had gone through the same ritual, running across the cold, snowy lawn and into the warm Church filled with men and women praying for them. They would remember the excitement of the congregation, the cries of "Hosanna" and "Alleluia!", the heady fragrance of the oil mixing with the incense and the smoke from the candles and the torches in their sconces, at their own initiation. It was an exuberant joy that no one ever forgot.

But there was more. The neophytes knew about baptism, but only during the homily would they find out about and be instructed in the mystery of the Eucharist. Then, immediately after the homily, when the doors were locked and barred, the gifts would be consecrated, and the newly baptized would would be brought forward and given the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ for the first time.

So, that was the order of sacramental reception: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist.

But two things changed.

First, as all the adults in western Europe were brought into the Church the emphasis switched away from adult baptism and towards infant baptism. Second, as the Church spread, the number of cities each new bishopric had to oversee increased.

Because of this switch in emphasis, the bishop found he could not be present at every baptism. For obvious reasons, infants don't need instruction, they can be baptized at any time. Indeed, Origen said (185-253 AD) "The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants" (Commentaries on Romans 5:9). The Council of Carthage (A.D. 252) condemns those who postpone baptism until the eighth day after birth. Baptism perfects Jewish circumcision. St. Cyprian of Carthage wrote to Fidius, "As to what pertains to the case of infants: you said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth,... In our council it seemed to us far otherwise. No one agreed to the course which you thought should be taken. Rather, we all judged that the mercy and grace of God ought to be denied to no man born."

And because of the both the number and the size of cities to be overseen had grown, using just the city cathedral for sacraments became difficult. Monasteries out in the country tamed the land (monks were always built in wild forests, swamps or desert places - monks were the European equivalent of the American pioneer/cowboy), people moved out to farm the newly cleared land and those same lay people started participating in the sacramental life of the monastery instead of always making the long trek into the city.

This is where the concept of the parish church really arose. A place that wasn't the cathedral but you could still get sacraments there - that was unusual at the time.

But now you can see the problem. While adults had always been brought in as a batch on Easter Vigil in the single city cathedral, infants were being baptized literally every day of the week in several cities and monasteries simultaneously throughout the diocese.

There were only two ways to solve the problem: have the priest do both baptism and confirmation or have confirmation await the appearance of the bishop. In the East, the bishops decided to let the priests confirm as long as they used oil blessed by a bishop; the oil was called myron. In the West, the bishops chose to reserve confirmation to themselves.

But the number of cities and parishes each bishop had to oversee kept increasing. Consequently, the time between (1) baptism in infancy and (2) confirmation followed by First Eucharist kept increasing.

By the time Bernadette Soubirous was having her visions of Our Lady of Lourdes in the 1800's (and for several centuries prior), it was not uncommon for confirmation and First Eucharist to be administered as late as the age of fifteen or sixteen.

This wasn't good. It was not uncommon for people to marry by that age and they needed the grace of the sacraments (remember, the Blessed Virgin Mary herself was believed to have accepted the Incarnation somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14). Pope Pius IX didn't like delaying full initiation for so long, so he introduced First Eucharist at the age of seven with the directive Quam Singulari in 1910.

Now, he assumed that all of the bishops would realize that if the age of First Eucharist was lowered, the age of confirmation would also have to be lowered in order to precede confirmation as it always had. Unfortunately, most of the world's bishops failed to take the hint. They moved the age of first Eucharist but didn't do anything with the age of confirmation.

Thus, about 1910, many areas of the Church began doing something extremely odd from an historical point of view: they began giving confirmation AFTER first Eucharist. The practice has continued in some areas right up until this day.

This is a really weird new innovation, and Rome doesn't particularly like it. She keeps hinting to the bishops that Confirmation should really be coming before First Eucharist.

So, if you read through the CCC or any of the other Magisterial documents, you will always see the sacraments of initiation listed in this order: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist.

At Easter Vigil, the order of sacramental reception is always: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist.

If you read Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical on the Eucharist, Sacramentum Caritatis, he hints in #17 and 18 that the order of sacraments should really be looked at and established so that the emphasis is always on the Eucharist.

This is a very quiet way of prodding the bishops throughout the world, since every bishop has studied philosophy, and philosophy always insists that the last thing done in a process is the point of the whole process. Thus, if you want an initiation process that is centered on the Eucharist, the Eucharist should really be the last sacrament that is received.

The bishops of Scotland have taken the hint and restored the order as have several other small countries, but there are a lot of bishops in the US, so it's a lot more difficult to get all the bishops in America to get on the same page.

Since the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) was newly re-established in the 1970's, Rome had the opportunity to establish the regulations for RCIA in such a way that it forces the American bishops to do things a little more like they are supposed to be done, tying all three sacraments of initiation together very tightly and in the proper order. Thus, it says:

"Since those who have the faculty to confirm are bound to exercise it in accord with canon 885:2, and may not be prohibited from using the faculty, a diocesan bishop who is desirous of confirming neophytes should reserve to himself the baptism of adults in accord with canon 863." (RCIA Appendix III, #13)

A priest who baptizes anyone who has come through RCIA or RCIC (the rite for children) must confirm in the same ceremony. He has zero choice in the matter. It doesn't matter what the diocesan age for confirmation is or whether or not the candidates have gone to all the retreats, done all the service hours, etc. They have to be confirmed if they are being baptized.

Unfortunately, we lay Americans (even some bishops) don't have much historical sense nor much knowledge of history, so we tend to be under the false impression that confirmation is supposed to be last. The only reason we think this is because that's how our parents and grandparents did it. We've forgotten that this practice really doesn't go back farther than our great-grandparents, and is really not what happened throughout the whole history of the Church nor is it even what happens throughout the entire world today.

Today, many bishops realize that the sacraments are not properly ordered, but they don't feel the backlash they would get from the laity in the diocese to be worth the trouble of changing the sacramental reception ages back to the correct order.

Worse, some bishops actually tend to use the sacrament as a carrot to force children to go through excessively long preparation. At this point, many dioceses actually force children to go through a confirmation process that is FOUR TIMES LONGER than the process engaged adults are asked to go through in order to get married and raise a family (two years for confirmation, six months for marriage).

Catechists like later confirmation ages because it forces children to stay in front of them: they typically aren't competent enough as teachers to hold most children's interest otherwise. Once a child is confirmed, the child is finally freed from any sacramental motivation to continue to attend religious education classes. A child who hates these classes generally never returns to learn more. Most children apparently hate the classes, because most don't come back after confirmation.

But if children don't come back, directors of parish religious programs have very little rationale for the existence of their job. Instead of having hundreds of children in their programs through eighth grade or high school, they have a dozen or so that stay on past third grade. The only way to keep their phony-baloney jobs is to keep confirmation age as high as possible. They all get together and lobby the bishop to make sure this happens.

The only way to stop the madness is to follow the directive found in the Rite of Confirmation #3:

"The initiation of children into the sacramental life is ordinarily the responsibility and concern of Christian parents. They are to form and gradually increase a spirit of faith in the children and, at times with the help of catechism classes, prepare them for the fruitful reception of the sacraments of confirmation and eucharist. The role of the parents is also expressed by their active participation in the celebration of the sacraments."

As you may imagine, this is a passage which is never quoted by bishops or parish religious staff. The idea that parents should fulfill their sacramental vows of marriage and teach their own children is anathema to the power structure of most parishes. It is a positive danger to the paychecks of thousands of youth ministers and directors of religious education.

So, parishes actively attack parental rights and responsibilities instead of assisting parents in doing what parents are ordained by their marriage vows to do: teach their own children about God. Until this situation changes, the parish will be but one more contributor to the breakdown of the American family.

Quote of the Day

"So there are three places where the pope cannot go: Moscow, Beijing, and the university of Rome", comment from one of the young people present at the January 16, 2008 papal general audience.

Read the address Pope Benedict was going to give here.
And yes, we only find this kind of thing reported in the Asian press, never in the American press.

That Good Night

Bishop Matthew Clark is closing thirteen schools in Rochester, New York, with several more to follow, and it couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.

As I pointed out in Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America, the Catholic school system doesn't have much longer to live. Indeed, in the couple of years since I wrote that book, it has become clear that not only will the Catholic parochial school disappear, but that technology is even going to push most public schools to the brink of extinction within the next couple of decades.

The Catholic schools are just the canary in the coal mine.

Today, most major universities offer on-line courses (some for free), and now Michigan requires all high-school students to take at least one on-line learning course.

As sexual and homosexual rights advocates increase the "nasty" quotient at primary, middle and high schools across the nation, Christian families are bailing out of the public school system in droves. No school, not even a publicly-funded school, can stand the loss of one-quarter to one-half of its population. Just ask the Catholic parochial school systems.

But there is something fitting to the extinction of the Catholic school system - it has lost its reason for existence. Just talk to the principals of these schools:

"We felt (Catholic education) was the prime reason for the Catholic Church existing," said principal Michael Macaluso. "The school is necessary to evangelize and bring youngsters into the church."

Catholic schools were "the prime reason for the Catholic Church existing?"
The school is necessary to evangelize?

Silly me.

I thought the Catholic Church existed primarily in order to bring all men (including women and children) to salvation through participation in the sacramental life. Last time I checked, the school was not considered a sacrament, despite the way that same school is treated by some groups.

And if "the school is necessary to evangelize", how on earth did the Church get along for the 1.5 millennium in which she did not maintain any schools for children? Does the principal not realize that Martin Luther was the man who first insisted all children attend mandatory schools? Does he not recognize that parents are the primary educators of their own children when it comes to the Faith?

When even the people running the schools don't understand why they exist, it is time to go quietly into that good night.

Different Standards

Well, there's the difference between Golfweek and the Dallas Morning News.

Golfweek fires editors who make references to black men being violently attacked.
The Dallas Morning News doesn't.

Not Until We Say You Are

What do these headlines have in common?

Obama Pledges Support for Animal Rights

Tyranny grows in the Golden State

Microsoft seeks patent for office "spy" software

Well, Barack Obama distinguished himself as an Illinois legislator in being one of only two who opposed treating born children as persons who have constitutional rights.

He voted against the Illinois Born Alive Protection Act because, he argued:
10) Babies born alive are not protected by the Constitution
9) Babies born alive are burdensome to their mothers
8) This was a purely political bill
7) There was no proof it happened (pace all the state and federal testimony to the contrary)
6) It is a doctor's prerogative to let babies die
5) Abortionists always save children born alive during an abortion
4) It's a purely religious issue
3) There's nothing really wrong with letting babies die
2) Letting born babies live is just a tactic to trap Democrats
1) Letting born babies live would undermine Roe v. Wade

But now, he's concerned that animals may be mis-treated. Apparently there IS a universal principle to care for animals.

Even more, "I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other," he said. "And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals." I think he is absolutely right.

How we treat our animals IS a reflection of how we treat each other.
If we treat our animals as persons, we will treat each other as animals.

Consider two points:

1) As Walter E. Williams points out, California is preparing not only to monitor the electrical usage of every house in the state, it also plans to create a way for the government to override how the owner of the house uses electricity in his own house. The house, ahem, the kennel we live in will be controlled by our masters.

2) At the same time, Microsoft is planning on handing both government and corporations the keys to complete monitoring of its employees, right down to blood pressure, heart rate and facial expression. Thus, our masters will be able to watch over us and care for us as every good pet deserves.

Could it be that Barack Hussein Obama is interested in treating animals well precisely because he is part of the governing elite?

From all indications, it looks as if the governing elites see the rest of the nation as animals - objects to be monitored, cared for, and overseen by government agencies who will lovingly watch over us, mercifully euthanizing us when our useful lives (as defined by the state) are at an end.

When God is gone, the only ones who can define personhood are those with power: the government and the corporation.

Either we accept that God exists and order our lives according to His laws, or we deny He does and have our lives ordered for us according to the laws of the state and corporation. We either rely on the beneficence of an all-loving God or on the beneficence of the loving masters of the state.

If we choose the latter, we must admit that none of us are persons deserving of care and respect unless our loving masters say we are.

Protecting Who?

Ok, I don't get it.

There is an AP photo with this byline at this link on Yahoo! News:

This image released by the US Navy Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2008, and shot Sunday, Jan. 6 from the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper, shows 2 small boats, alleged to be Iranian, purportedly racing near the wake of U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. The incident, which President George W. Bush denounced Tuesday as a 'provocative act,' was videotaped by a crew member on the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper, one of the three ships that faced down five Iranian boats in a flare-up early Sunday.

(AP Photo/U.S. Navy)

Why are they only "alleged" to be Iranian? Is the AP afraid that Iran will sue them for defamation of character?

Does the AP hold out hope that the boats are really just filled with native fishermen out for a pleasure cruise through eel-infested waters?

Why are they only "purportedly racing near the wake of US Navy ships" (sic - I always thought plural ships left plural wakes, but maybe that's because I'm not an ace AP reporter).

So, the boats that we can see with our own eyes in the photographs are only "alleged" and "purportedly", yet the film itself was most definitely shot by a crew member (whom we don't see with our own eyes in the photo) on the bridge of a ship (which we also don't see in the photo) that definitely faced down (no question of a conflict there) definite Iranian boats (now we've decided they ARE Iranian, apparently) in a definite flare-up (and not nice Iranians either) on a day that was definitely Sunday (although evidence of the day of the week is also not present on the film).

I know that taking shots at the MSM is not fair, as they can't think clearly enough to shoot back, but every once in a while the kettle boils over a bit.

Double Standards

I don't normally re-post items, but this one rather angers me.
I've been arrested and carted to jail for simply sitting in front of a clinic door.

Pro-Life Activist Assaulted, Police Allow Assailant to Walk.

12/28/2007

http://www.tfp.org/TFPForum/TFPCommentary/injured_in_line_duty.htm

By Michael Whitcraft

CONTACT: Michael Whitcraft (717) 451–5685
mwhitcraft@tfp.org


At 6:30 am on Saturday, December 22, while most were snug in bed, resting up for Christmas activities, veteran pro-lifer Ed Snell was arriving at Hillcrest Abortion Center, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He had come with two other activists to persuade women entering the clinic not to abort their pre-born children.

The group customarily meets at the clinic and has saved many lives. In fact, they have been so effective, that the clinic erected a 7-foot privacy fence to cut off all communication between the women and the pro-lifers. However, their efforts were scuttled, when the activists began bringing ladders so they could speak over the fence.

Mr. Snell, age 69, preferred to stand on a more solid foundation, so he constructed a plywood platform on the roof of his car to elevate him above the fence.

“This platform gives him a real steady base and a commanding view,” said fellow activist and eyewitness John McTernan. As Ed stood on his platform that morning, a man and woman exited a car in the parking lot and proceeded towards that door of the abortion mill.

When Mr. Snell tried to counsel the woman, his words were cut short when the man became furious, jumped the fence and, in the words of Mr. McTernan, “leaped on the vehicle with Ed and catapulted him off of the vehicle and onto the ground.” Mr. Snell hit his back and head on the pavement and was knocked unconscious.

His medical report outlines the extent of his injuries: “multiple trauma, right subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding in the area between the brain and the tissues that cover the brain), compression fractures of four vertebrae (T3, T4, T5 and T10), right scapula fracture and fracture of the fourth and fifth ribs.” Before doctors were able to stop the bleeding in his head, they even feared Mr. Snell would die.

When asked on the phone about the vicious attack, the receptionist at Hillcrest Abortion Clinic refused to give a recorded statement and angrily shouted: “He got what he deserved! He earned what he got!” She then hung up the phone.

Immediately after the attack, Mr. McTernan ran over to Ed and was frightened to see that he was unconscious and breathing irregularly. He reported the attack to “911” and then shouted to the assailant: “You assaulted him and he is unconscious.” Agitated, the man replied: “I did not assault him, I just pushed him,” with an aggressiveness that made Mr. McTernan fearful for his own safety.

Ed was taken away in an ambulance and three police officers arrived to investigate. They went into the clinic, where the assailant was waiting. After a few moments, the assailant and his companion left the clinic freely, got into their car and drove away.

Shocked, Mr. McTernan shouted to the police: “What are you doing? That’s him! That’s the assailant!”
One cop replied: “It is none of your business!”

Mr. McTernan: “I am making it my business, Ed Snell is my good friend!”

The officer then threatened to arrest Mr. McTernan for interfering with a criminal investigation. Mr. Mcternan replied: “Go ahead and arrest me, I am not afraid. I want to know why the assailant walked away from this scene where an elderly man was left unconscious. We have excellent attorneys and we will sue you if you do not do your job.”

She angrily responded: “Don’t threaten me or I will arrest you!” She then returned to the police car and drove away. At the time this article was written, the Harrisburg Police Department had not returned a phone call requesting a statement on the incident.

Once the extent of Mr. Snell’s injuries were discovered, the assailant was arrested. Nevertheless, as Mr. McTernan put it: “I cannot imagine me [as a pro-lifer], striking someone connected with Hillcrest [Abortion Center], knocking them unconscious, the police coming, the injured person being taken away in an ambulance and the police letting me go. There is something wrong with that.”

There is also something wrong with the lack of media coverage of the incident. At the time this article was written, a google search about the attack returned no results.

Ed returned home just in time to celebrate Christmas with his family. He was released from the hospital on Christmas Eve, just a couple of hours before Bishop Kevin Rhodes of Harrisburg arrived to pay him a visit.

Doctors expect him to make a full recovery, although it will take a long time. “Ed is very sore,” said Mrs. Snell in a telephone interview, “he is black and blue and the doctor said that it will be a full eight weeks before his bones heal completely.”

Mrs. Snell is thankful for the prayers that Ed has received and hopes these will continue. She feels confident that, supported by these prayers, he will recover well.

As for Mr. Snell, he is not yet accepting telephone calls, but feels humbled by all the prayers and attention he has received. A man of faith, he feels called to his work and remains undaunted. As Mrs. Snell aptly put it: “I know that the Devil is busy and that he does not like the work that Ed does, but if that is the case, then Ed is doing the right job.”

Please keep Mr. and Mrs. Snell in your prayers and, due to the lack of press coverage, please email this article to all your friends.

Celine Dion't Get It

Celine Dion wrapped up her last act in Las Vegas.

While the show was still in development in 2000, Dion, 39, became pregnant and told husband-manager Rene Angelil she did not want to continue.

(AP) Celine Dion accepts roses following her final performance of A New Day at Caesar's Palace Hotel &... Full Image

"I had a life for the first time," the French-Canadian chanteuse said in a video before her 717th show. "I knew then that I wanted to have more success as a mother than a singer."...

After her last number, Dion invited husband Angelil and her son, Rene-Charles, now 7, on stage with her.

"Most of us have left our families behind to give ourselves every night," she said. "I can assure you it was worth it."

I'm trying, but I can't figure out how those two sentiments go together.

Earning millions of dollars and the adulation of crowds was worth giving up her family?

What a wonderful sentiment for Christmas.

Tastes Great, Less Filling

Native Americans ate dogs. Lewis and Clark ate dogs. Asians still eat dogs. For instance, the South Korean dog meat industry alone reportedly involves about 1 million dogs, 6,000 restaurants, and 10 percent of the population, according to Slate.com writer William Saletan.

But, as Saletan wisely pointed out in 2002,

You can abstain from meat because you believe that the mental capacity of animals is too close to that of humans. You can eat meat because you believe that it isn't. Either way, you're using a fixed standard. But if you refuse to eat only the meat of "companion" animals—chewing bacon, for example, while telling Koreans that they can't stew Dalmatians—you're saying that the morality of killing depends on habit or even whim.

Exactly.


If we are not careful, science and technology - the pre-eminent way by which we change the world to match our preconceptions of how it ought to be - lead us ineluctably to conclude that all of creation should match our desires. Because we have bent so much of the world to our will, we come to the erroneous conclusion that we can even change the fabric of reality itself.

Thus, we decide whether a member of the species homo sapien can live or die depending on whether or not s/he is "wanted", either in extreme youth, illness or extreme old age. The utility of companion animals undergoes a similar transformation: if we want the cute doggie, we transform it into a quasi-person. If we don't, we eat it.

The hallmark of the culture of death is precisely the attempt to define the world according to our desires instead of recognizing the world exists apart from our desires. The culture of death is a culture of illusion, and we are deeply immersed in it.

Americans spend an astonishing $41 billion a year on their furry friends. That's double the amount shelled out on pets a decade ago, with annual spending expected to hit $52 billion in the next two years, according to a Business Week Article published in August, 2007.

Now, one of the common complaints made against pro-lifers is, "Pro-lifers only care about unborn babies - they ignore the ones already born. They should spend their time helping children already in the world!" Notice how rarely this objection is raised against pet owners.

I recently made this point to Bruce Tomaso, the editor of the religion blog at The Dallas Morning News. From all reports an essentially fallen-away Catholic, Bruce - like most lax Catholics - frequently shows a blatant disrespect for religion in general and Catholic Faith in particular on the DMN blog.

And, as one would expect from a basically anti-Catholic personality, he has a remarkably poor grasp on reality.

For instance, when a drunken Rodney King was recently shot in the face, Bruce felt it an excellent occasion for political jokes. Although I pointed out in the comments section of another article that this was not particularly humorous, he actually defended his post, saying,

And, to answer your question, Yes: Rodney King getting sprayed with buckshot (but not seriously injured) while riding his bicycle, drunk, through the streets of San Bernadino IS funny.

So, in addition to being both remarkably liberal and an anti-Catholic bigot, the Dallas Morning News religion blog editor apparently finds it hilarious when a drunken black man gets shot in the face - he seems to be a racial bigot as well.

Now, compare his reaction to a man being shot to his reaction over the recent death of his dog. A man who cares nothing for black men subjected to random street violence apparently spent thousands of dollars to fix his dog's spinal cord before finally having it killed.

As one might have foreseen, his followers gave him moral support. I, on the other hand, detected a certain lack of consistency, which I pointed out in a comment to his dog's eulogy:

Get over it.
It was a dog.

Why didn't you spend the money on helping poor children instead of having the vet perform surgery?

Oh, that's right - we never chastise pet lovers for the money they spend on pets, do we? I forgot.

Well, you could at least have followed Native American Indian practice and eaten it for supper.

Bruce found this comment, which apparently struck too close to home, to be "hateful." So, I am now banned from commenting on any articles posted by him on the Dallas Morning News religion blog.

The situation is rather surreal: The Dallas Morning News defends jokes about a drunken black man being shot in the face, but will not permit discussion concerning the consumption of certain kinds of animal meat.

After all, that's hateful.

Update: CNN reports on a related event.

Fantasy is News, Reality is Not

Over four years ago, I joined quite a lot of others in opposing the sale of RU-486 and the morning-after pill. We predicted that nefarious men would obtain the drugs and slip it into the food or drink of the women they knocked up. After all, getting and using such a drug would be a lot cheaper than paying child support.

All of the secular newsies and commentators made fun of the idea. "RU-486 is tightly regulated!" they would reply, "No one will find this on the black market! The scenario is outrageous, bordering upon lies!"

Fast forward to February, 2007, and we see "Veronica Mars" contemplating an episode in which exactly this happens. As Salon.com said, "This week's award for major disappointment during prime-time network programming goes to the generally talented crew over at "Veronica Mars," who egregiously and stupidly conflated emergency contraception and RU-486 in Tuesday's episode..."

The article itself makes fun of the very idea that anyone would write a sitcom based on such an impossible set of events. That article is joined by articles from feministing, ThinkProgress, and StrollerDerby, among others. TVSquad even reports that the third season DVD of Veronica Mars features commentary on how much flack the writers got for producing such a stupid episode.

It is important that women not be misled by silly sitcom plots. After all, as Salon's Broadsheet points out in reference to this episode of Veronica Mars, "Television shows like "Mars" are, of course, entertainment, and no show should be anyone's sole source of medical (or other) information. But that doesn't mean viewers don't absorb messages from their programming, and as Think Progress pointed out this week, "'Veronica Mars' is extremely popular among young women, the very women who need accurate health information."

Alright, now fast forward again to Dec 3, 2007. We see a man do the impossible - apparently, he regularly slips RU-486 into his girlfriend's food in order to cause miscarriage. He succeeds not once, but twice. Now he is up on charges of manslaughter.

Now, pay close attention.

The sitcom was news because it was television fantasy. Such a thing couldn't happen. Thus, all the secular blogs commented on how stupid it was, how impossible it was, how important it was to write in a responsible manner and not pass on stupid myths.

The actual event - that's not news. It doesn't appear on Salon, on ThinkProgress or any of the other blogs. It is not even a blip on the national news scene.

Remember, fantasy is news, reality is not.
Real feminists know how to tell the difference.

Progress is a Shibboleth

I like Peggy Noonan. I really do. She's a great writer with a habit of calm, penetrating analysis that almost always brings you to think about the world from a different perspective.

But not this time.

In her most recent essay, Mrs. Noonan makes the point that religion was not an issue in politics forty years ago. Mitt Romney's father campaigned for the presidency: his Mormonism was never a question. Richard Nixon's Quaker roots, Lyndon Johnson's Disciples of Christ upbringing, Nelson Rockefeller's Baptist background, none of this mattered.

She admits that Kennedy's Catholicism was something of an issue, but argues that religion never became a real political issue until the rise of the evangelical movement made Jimmy Carter's evangelicalism a major campaign theme. She decries the fact that today we constantly delve into candidates' religious backgrounds, even as she admits that the question is relevant.

But her analysis is uncharacteristic - it is hackneyed, done to death, old as Moses. As I was reading her essay, I found myself thinking, "I've read this before... not as well-written, but I've read it before." In fact, it is nothing more than the common complain that religion is a private matter and has no substantive place in politics.

Is that true?

Private Religion
C.S. Lewis wrote, "When the modern world says to us aloud, 'You may be religious when you are alone,' it adds under its breath, 'and I will see to it that you never are alone.'"

Mrs. Noonan correctly notes that Catholic candidates for the Presidency have always had a hard time of it and she correctly notes that religion was not much of an issue until Jimmy Carter came along. But she fails to think through the problem.

Why did evangelicalism make its rise in politics in the 1970's as opposed to the 1990's or the 1950's? Why have Catholic presidential candidates always had a hard slog no matter what the age?

The answers to both questions are quite straightforward: it's the problem of absolutism (or perceived absolutism) versus relativism.

Catholics were always opposed in political life precisely because Catholics were suspected of taking their marching orders from a foreign despot, an absolutist, in a word, the Pope. Al Smith didn't just lose his candidacy because he was a city boy in an agricultural nation - city boys like Woodrow Wilson had won before.

No, Al's problem was precisely that he was a Catholic whose Catholic values were necessarily seen as dramatically different than those held by a Protestant nation. Episcopalians may always have been called "the frozen chosen" but that was only because their worship was so close in outward form to Catholic worship. No one suspected them of actually being Catholics - the Anglican church had slaughtered too many priests for that suspicion to take root - but it was odd in comparison to the rest of America.

The Episcopalians shared Protestant values, and that was what mattered. Catholics lived in Catholic neighborhoods, Catholic ghettos, with their own distinct Catholic culture and Catholic life. They weren't really, fully Americans.

It was Catholic Faith that had always been the odd duck in the United States, thus it was Catholic Faith that was the harbinger of the change Noonan comments on. What 1930's Catholics were to 1930's Protestant Christian political elite, so have Christians in general become to the current political elite.

In the past, Catholics were attacked because they stood for something that the rest of the cultural elite did not. Today, Christians in general stand for something that the rest of the cultural elite does not.

No one asked about Nixon's Quaker roots or Johnson's Disciples of Christ upbringing because it wasn't a marker for anything. For all their ballyhooed theological differences, neither a 1950's Quaker nor a 1950's Episcopalian was going to vote to support legalizing gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, contraception or pornography. The cultural life of one was indistinguishable from the cultural life of another.

The Shibboleth
The Christian evangelical movement rose to political power in the late 1970's precisely because Christians began to realize that their values were no longer being represented among the political elites. Even denominations that were fine with contraception and abortion were not fine with the increasingly pornographic culture that contraception and abortion inevitably creates. Christians began to notice skews, gaps, lacunae, holes, empty spaces between where they stood and where the nation was going.

Today, asking about a political candidates' fervor in regards to religion is a short-hand way of asking where that candidate stands on a host of important cultural issues. Instead of delving into a dozen different topics, trying to ascertain the candidates' position on each, the voter asks one question: "What is your relationship to Jesus Christ?" The answer to that question simultaneously answers all the others.

The practice is as old as Scripture itself:

And the Gileadites took the passags of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, "Let me go over"; that the men of Gilead said unto him, "Art thou an Ephraimite?" If he said, "Nay" Then said they unto him, "Say now Shibboleth" and he said "Sibboleth" for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. (Judges 12:5-6)

Test everything: hold to what is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Yes, Mrs. Noonan, religion is again an important question in politics.
Yes, this is progress
Yes, it is good.

Designed to Fail

And fail they do.

Catholic schools in Los Angeles are dropping like flies. Things aren't going any better for Catholic schools across the nation. Only 15% of Catholic children are enrolled in Catholic schools - that's down from 20% just five years ago. At this rate, the entire thing will be gone before I hit retirement age.

Given how things have worked out in Kentucky, that's all for the best.

This is, of course, what I predicted in Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America. If you want to know what happened and why, I lay the case out in spades there.

Just Trying to Be Helpful

Have you ever wondered what the movies "War of the Roses" would look like if it were updated to the 21st Century? You don't have to wonder anymore.

Thousand Miles: Catholic version

Vaccinated Against Complaints

Many people are up in arms about the recent Associated Press story on vaccines and religion, which highlights the fact that the number of people refusing vaccines on religious grounds is rising. This has caused a large number of people to chastise the benighted ignorance and superstition of Jesus freaks and other backward-thinking peoples.

To demonstrate exactly what's going on, let's take a look at two vaccines: HPV and chickenpox.

The HPV vaccine only protects against about 70% of the organisms that cause cervical cancer. If you are already infected with the disease, it won't help. Men transmit the virus, but they aren't required to be vaccinated. It is recommended for girls as young as 9, but it is only known to be effective for 5 years. The American College of Pediatricians has come out in opposition to mandating it in school-age girls.

Worse, the vaccine doesn't appear to be necessary. Fifty to seventy-five percent of all people are exposed to HPV in their lifetimes. The virus clears spontaneously by the immune system within two years in over ninety percent of all women, posing no risk at all.

Furthermore, the incidence of cervical cancer has already decreased dramatically through routine cervical screening with pap smears and HPV (DNA) testing. For example, the National Health Service of England reports that the incidence of invasive cervical cancer fell by 42 percent between 1988 and 1997 in the U.K because of cervical cancer screening programs.

How useless is this vaccine? Let's look at actual incidence of the disease. In a 2006 study at the University of Alabama, of 39,661 Pap smears, only 732 cases of high risk HPV were detected. Only 6 had smears that required follow-up. Only one of these had high-grade dysplasia.

On the bright side, eleven children have died from the recent HPV vaccination push, and 3700 have reported adverse reactions, according to a report released October 5, 2007 by Judicial Watch using FOIA on the FDA. Of those reactions, 52 were life-threatening, 119 required hospitalization.

So, HPV in non-immunosuppressed, healthy women, is normally cleared just fine by the immune system in about two years. Regular screening substantially reduces the cancer risk in any case, and screening is going to continue to be necessary because the vaccine is only 70% effective at best.

What can we conclude? this vaccine is just a money-maker for Merck. Every companies dream is to become a line item on a government voucher. Merck found a way.

What about chickenpox? For chickenpox, the BBC reports there were a grand total of 269 deaths from chickenpox between 1986 and 1997. 88% of those deaths occurred in people over the age of 20. In the US, of the roughly 100 deaths each year, 55% occur in people over the age of 20.

15-20% of the people who are vaccinated still catch the disease. Vaccinations are not required for adults, even though adults suffer a greatly disproportionate death toll (very few adults catch chickenpox, but they make up over half the fatalities).

So, if you catch chickenpox as an adult, or if you are on any kind of steroids or have an immunopressive disease, such as leukemia, then chickenpox can kill you. But for a normal child not on steroid drugs and without cancer? Not a problem. And notice that a vaccine doesn't work on the immuno-suppressed, so you couldn't vaccinate the leukemia patients anyway.

But wait, there's more. Shingles, which results in three times as many deaths and five times the number of hospitalizations as chicken pox, is much more likely among people who have received chickenpox vaccinations than it is among people who caught the wild strain.

Estimates of costs that these new cases of vaccine-generated shingles will produce over the next 50 years? That would be 4.1 billion.

Hmmm.... what to do?

I've got it! They are now working on a shingles vaccine to compensate for the health problems the chickenpox vaccine is going to cause! And they already know it won't work because vaccination campaigns among adults never do.

The Japanese only vaccinate high-risk populations (1 in 5 children), because they know that regular contact with wild strains boosts the vaccine effectiveness. Our universal vaccination campaign will destroy that natural boost.

But there's a final irony. US pharma companies were careful to use the tissue of aborted children to isolate and grow the virus for vaccine production, even though this is entirely unnecessary. The Japanese, for instance, developed both chickenpox and measles vaccines by simply swabbing the throats of infected children and growing the virii on a morally acceptable tissue substrate.

They had a chickenpox vaccine before we did, but instead of simply approving their vaccine for import, our pharma companies insisted on producing their own and insisted on using aborted children to accomplish it. Chickenpox vaccine isn't the only one that suffers this problem: many of today's vaccines were developed on substrates that used human tissues obtained from aborted children. Many parents, including myself, find these kinds of vaccines as repugnant as using soap derived from the fat of Auschwitz victims.

The number of vaccines recommended for children has more than doubled (23 in the 1980's, 48 today). Giving multiple vaccines simultaneously is KNOWN to increase the risk of negative sequelae, and we're forced to do it more often now precisely because the number of vaccinations keeps increasing, but the time for them (between 6 months and five years for most) doesn't.

Vaccines for polio, tetanus, etc. - all well and good. But we are vaccinating for sillier and sillier reasons. Hepatitis-B in infants? HPV in a nine-year old? Chickenpox? What's the point here?

Now, many people have heard parts of this story swirling around their homes, their schools, their places of work. Is it not the case that even those who cannot articulate their opposition to a stupid vaccine may still rightly reject it?

Is it the fault of religion that the government mostly only allows refusal of vaccines on religious grounds, and won't allow you to refuse the vaccines on the grounds that the relevant scientific studies demonstrate certain vaccines are stupid?

It's another case of government controlling the conversation. I can't walk into most schools in the US and say, "As a certified medical professional who has studied the relevant medical literature on the subject, I find Vaccine X to be a taxpayer boondoggle designed to line the pockets of pharma companies." Nope, that won't cut it. Other "health professionals" opinions trump mine, for no particular reason other than they have billions of dollars backing them and I don't.

Instead, I have to walk into that school and say, "God told me this was wrong." THAT'S the only way I can keep the needles out of my kids' flesh.

So, when a reporter asks me why I don't want the vaccine for my kids, am I going to publicly say anything but what the government requires me to say? NO, I am not.

If I've heard rumors that the medical community is not united on the subject of Vaccine X, can I point to that and opt out? No, I can't. I have to say "God told me it was wrong."

What's the point of even doing the research on the vaccine if I know none of it will matter anyway? All I have to say is, "God told me it was wrong." And if someone I trust has already done the research and tells me the vaccine stinks, then I know my lines: God told me it was wrong.

The problem with government mandates is they create a path of least resistance that doesn't involve learning anything. You just look for the loophole and jump through it.

And how is this the fault of religion?

The way things work now, government isn't the fall guy for buying tons of stupid vaccines with taxpayer money. No, religion is the fall guy. We don't question the vaccine, we look at the Jesus freak and cluck sadly.

Nice work, if you can get it.

The Power of Catholic Schools

And people ask why I wrote this book:

Does God Change?

I was recently asked a question which a lot of people pose:

Steve,
You've just described at best, a mechanical universe, and at worst, a static universe. Your statements also contradict themselves. If God is unchanging, God could not possibly always do what is best for us, because we ARE always changing (unless, of course, we want to throw out any concept of free will, and thus posit that we are mere cogs in a machine, and what we experience is all illusion). The idea that God transcends time really doesn't help here, because God always "doing" for us necessitates entering into time.

There is a way out, though. A God that is changing and unchanging could always do what is best for us, because we are always changing. This is called a relational universe; it is dynamic and more closely resembles the Bible's COMPLETE depiction of God and our experiences.

BTW, I think there may be a few Christians out there who believe Christ suffered on the cross, and that God grieves and rejoices with humanity and for humanity.

Answer

God is not the universe. He exists apart from it. So, He created a universe which is meant to grow in its ability to glorify God.

Man, the height of creation, is likewise a creature that grows towards God like a vine grows towards the sun.

Time is just as much a created thing as a rock or you and me. God exists outside of time. Thus, His relationship towards us does not change, even though we change in our relationship towards Him.

As for your last comment, it introduces a paradox (a seeming contradiction):
God does not have a body.
Jesus is fully God.
Jesus DOES have a body.
Discuss. :)

Jesus is one Divine Person having two complete natures.

The human nature Jesus possesses is not intrinsic to Who He Is. Jesus doesn't *NEED* the human nature, He just happens to possess it.

How does this work? The single Divine nature consists of the Divine Intellect and the Divine Will. A complete human nature consists of a human body and a human soul. The human soul consists of the human intellect and human will, so human nature = body, soul, intellect and will.

The one Divine nature does not change.
Human nature is meant to grow and change, it is capable of suffering.

There is only one Person in Jesus - the Son of God.

However, since Jesus possesses two complete natures, He is the only person in existence who possesses two intellects (the Divine intellect and a human intellect) and two wills (the Divine will and a human will).

Thus, while the Divine nature He possesses does not undergo any change (and therefore doesn't suffer), His human nature is absolutely capable of suffering, weeping, laughing, etc.

Because the Person of God possesses this intrinsically unnecessary but still fully functional human nature, we can say "God suffered and God died on the Cross": His actions are "theandric", that is, they have the nature of human actions, but - since those human actions are joined to the divine nature - the human actions are capable of being attributed to God.

We must simply keep in mind that when we attribute a human action to God, that this human action is not intrinsically necessary to Who God is in Himself since the human nature is not intrinsically part of or necessary to the divine nature.

So, yes, He weeps with us, grieves with us, suffers with us, dies with us and resurrects with us, but at the same time He does not change in Himself.

This is why the Incarnation is the key to everything. If God did not take on flesh, then the Deists would be absolutely right. But since He *HAS* taken on flesh, they are absolutely wrong. He injected Himself into time while simultaneously remaining outside of it.

Respect

I have just lost all respect for the Nobel Peace Prize.
If Al Gore can win it for lying about global warming, then I should be able to win it for training my pet hamster to urinate in the appropriate corner of his cage.

Ann Coulter, on the other hand, continues to command my respect as a woman who is unafraid to speak her mind and say what is true. While I have had differences with her in the past, her recent commentary concerning the need for everyone to convert to Christianity (well, she should have been specific and said "Catholicism", but she's still in need of full conversion herself), even the Jews, is absolutely correct:

Catechism of the Catholic Church:
674 The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel", for "a hardening has come upon part of Israel" in their "unbelief" toward Jesus. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles", will enable the People of God to achieve "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", in which "God may be all in all".

839 "Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."

The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, "the first to hear the Word of God." The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ", "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."

Romans 11:13-22
Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I glory in my ministry
14 in order to make my race jealous and thus save some of them.
15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
16 If the firstfruits are holy, so is the whole batch of dough; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place and have come to share in the rich root of the olive tree,
18 do not boast against the branches. If you do boast, consider that you do not support the root; the root supports you.
19 Indeed you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in."
20 That is so. They were broken off because of unbelief, but you are there because of faith. So do not become haughty, but stand in awe.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, (perhaps) he will not spare you either.
22 See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who fell, but God's kindness to you, provided you remain in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.
23 And they also, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated one, how much more will they who belong to it by nature be grafted back into their own olive tree.
25 I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not become wise (in) your own estimation: a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the full number of the Gentiles comes in,
26 and thus all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come out of Zion, he will turn away godlessness from Jacob;
27 and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins."
28 In respect to the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but in respect to election, they are beloved because of the patriarchs.
29 For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.
30 Just as you once disobeyed God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience,
31 so they have now disobeyed in order that, by virtue of the mercy shown to you, they too may (now) receive mercy.
32 For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.

But It Ain't Racism

A friend of mine told me the story of his illegal immigration. It was quite an eye-opener.

When he was young, his family lived in a country crushed by poverty and crime, government corruption and greed. Bribes to government officials were frequent and necessary because the country was a conduit for drug trafficking, which was rampant.

Nearly all of the citizens were dirt-poor, many keeping subsistence-level gardens in order to assure themselves of enough food during the year. Because everyone was poor, because no one had anything, everyone shared. It was the only way to survive.

His mother slowly scrimped and saved enough over the years to pay what we now call a "coyote" to smuggler herself and her son out. She recognized that neither she nor her eight-year old boy could survive a walk across the border - another way had to be found. So, she negotiated with a man whose company regularly ran a van filled with workers back and forth across the border checkpoint. Because the van made the transit every day, border guards were used to it, they paid less attention to it than to the general population.

Each seat in the van could be opened to store tools underneath the cushions. The cavities were also large enough to store people, if the hidden person was willing to put up with the contortions necessary to fit inside.

On the appointed day, he and his mother each climbed into their box, the seat cushions were adjusted and a worker took his place on the seat for the ride across the border.

They made it, but, as it turned out, their success was simply the first trial. The van didn't travel very far past the border checkpoint. Once they were safely across, they needed to get away from the area as quickly as possible. They had tickets for the train and began to walk towards the train station in order to get to where relatives would take them in.

On their way to the station, they were stopped by the police. The police officer noticed that they appeared to be lost, discovered they were not legally in the country, pointed them back to the border, ordered them to return to their own country and walked away. The mother and her boy walked in the direction the officer pointed out until he was out of sight, then turned and quickly headed back towards the train station.

This happened six times.

Finally, they made it onto the train, to their relatives and to freedom. The young man joined the air force, became a jet pilot and spent years ready to defend the country against attack. But it would be years longer before he finally became an American.

As Horst told me the story of his escape from East Germany, I thought it incredibly ironic. The same conservatives who used to champion every escape from the oppression, fear and poverty of communist governments now vilify those who wish to escape similar oppression, fear and poverty in Mexico. The same liberals who used to decry the way these communist immigrants were lauded in the West now themselves laud the migrant.

Despite the fact that these illegal migrants (from East Germany's point of view) were often deliberately infiltrated with spies and criminals intent on destroying the West, despite the fact that East Germany deliberately trafficked drugs across the border, despite the fact that the communist East bent every power at its disposal to destroy the capitalist civilization its citizens invaded, West Germany welcomed the immigrants and the West applauded her for it.

What a difference a few decades makes.

In Praise of Religious War

War, as has often been noted, is hell. But what if you got to take weekends off? The Catholic Church long insisted on the necessity of exactly this kind of holiday. Between 989 AD and roughly the mid 1200’s, war could only be waged between sunrise Monday and sunset Wednesday. Likewise, no one could do violence nor confiscate anyone’s goods during the four weeks of Advent and the octave of the Epiphany, or during Lent and the octave of Easter, or during the two weeks prior to or the week following upon Pentecost. Anyone who violated these days of peace was exiled for thirty years and excommunicate. Such were the rules imposed by the Peace of God and its close relative, the Truce of God.

Now, keep in mind that peasants could not be expected to take to the field of armed service when they were needed in the field to sow and reap the harvest. In a subsistence level economy, part of the spring and fall were already off-limits to warfare if only because lack of attention to the fields would mean starvation for the whole land within a year. So, when the Truce of God and the Peace of God are taken together with the natural disinclination to wage war during the sowing and harvest seasons, we see a most remarkable result: only 80 days of each year were left for fighting. Can anyone imagine Alexandar the Great succeeding under such terms? Even the famous Jewish reverence for the Sabbath did not restrict warfare to this degree.

Contrast this distaste for war and carnage with Martin Luther’s opinions about the usefulness of war, especially war against the peasant: “whosoever can, should smite, strangle, and stab, secretly or publicly, and should remember that there is nothing more poisonous, pernicious, and devilish than a rebellious man. Just as one must slay a mad dog, so, if you do not fight the rebels, they will fight you, and the whole country with you… For we are come upon such strange times that a prince may more easily win heaven by the shedding of blood than others by prayers.”

Luther merely mimicked the Muslims in his fondness for violence. Muslims, of course, have never had any holy day prohibitions on warfare. Nor, for that matter have the leaders of our own lovely and civilized scientific culture. Just for comparison’s sake, here are some numbers to compare:

Wars of science (begun or waged to support specific biological, political, economic, etc., principles)

• World War II – 72 million, including 25 million military deaths.
• World War I – 40 million total, including 9.7 million military deaths.
• Franco-Prussian war – 750,000, including 250,000 military deaths.
• Napoleanic wars – Estimated 6 million dead.
• French Revolution – 40,000 in the Revolution; probably 500,000 killed in the Vendee.
• American Revolution – estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 dead total.
• Seven Years’ war – estimated 1.3 million dead, including 700,000 military deaths

Religious Wars

• Crusades – Total deaths from 1096 to 1270 are estimated at about 1.5 million.
• Germany’s Peasants’ War – 100,000 dead. 
• Hungary’s Peasants’ War – 70,000 dead. 
• Thirty Years’ War – 7.5 million 
• War on Terror – about 70,000 military deaths to date.

Religious wars tend to be low-violence affairs. Our current War on Terror, for instance, sees a handful of people killed every few weeks – not even comparable to traffic deaths, in most cases. Even the deaths resulting from the destruction of the World Trade Center barely matched the number of abortions committed on September 11.

If we are going to have a war, let it be a religious war.

It tends to be a lot less nasty.