http://ourladyofvictory.cc Catholic Church – 1559 Roxbury Road, Columbus, Ohio Sat, 19 May 2012 23:03:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/f7HwvoVWmi8/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/f7HwvoVWmi8/#comments Sat, 19 May 2012 23:03:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/exorcist-author-prepares-canon-lawsuit-against-georgetown/ CNA).- The author of the best-selling book and award-winning screenplay “The Exorcist” has announced that he is leading an effort to file a canon lawsuit against Georgetown University for failures to live up to the demands of the school’s Catholic identity. 

William P. Blatty, who graduated from Georgetown in 1950, told CNA on May 18 that he believes there is a need for disciplinary action against the university.

“As I recall it, the Lord knocked over a few tables,” he said.   

Blatty, who has been honored by Georgetown with the John Carroll Medal for alumni achievement, will lead other alumni, students and members of the university community in the newly-formed Father King Society to Make Georgetown Honest, Catholic, and Better.

The society is named for the late Jesuit Fr. Thomas M. King, a former theology professor at Georgetown who was rumored to be the inspiration for the priestly character in “The Exorcist.”

Its website encourages members of the Georgetown community to join the canon lawsuit and share their grievances against the university with Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, D.C. and Pope Benedict XVI.

It also asks them to withhold their donations from the school for one year.

Blatty believes that Georgetown has given scandal to the faithful on numerous occasions and has refused to comply with “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” the document issued by Pope John Paul II in 1990 to outline the functions of Catholic universities.

He explained that the Father King Society’s canon lawyers and scholars are finalizing the brief for the Church law case. It will then go to the Archdiocese of Washington, and then to the Vatican if necessary.

Blatty noted that “Georgetown is merely the leader of a pack” of schools that are failing to live up to their Catholic identity. He hopes that his actions will encourage others to follow suit.

“Georgetown was the first Catholic college in America, and we hope that it will now be the first again,” he said, urging Georgetown to pave the way for other Catholic colleges that are similarly in need of renewal. 

In an open letter explaining his decision, Blatty said that he is grateful for his Georgetown education but is grieved to see “that Georgetown University today almost seems to take pride in insulting the Church and offending the faithful.”

He said that he is now seeking remedies up to the point that “Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic and Jesuit be revoked or suspended for a time.”

“Of course, what we truly seek is for Georgetown to have the vision and courage to be Catholic,” he added, “but clearly the slow pastoral approach has not worked.”

The canon lawsuit was announced on May 18, the same day that Georgetown welcomed U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to speak at an awards ceremony during its commencement weekend.

The invitation drew heavy criticism, not only due to Sebelius’ long record of advocating abortion, but also because she was the architect behind the controversial contraception mandate  that has been denounced by Catholic bishops across the nation for the threat that it poses to religious liberty.

The federal mandate will require employers to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their consciences.
 
The Father King Society said that their legal action was being planned before the Sebelius controversy erupted. Its website lists numerous instances of what it considers to be scandal and violations of “Ex Corde Ecclesiae” by the university in recent months.

In pursuing the Church lawsuit, Blatty and the Fr. King Society will be working closely with the Cardinal Newman Society, an organization that monitors and promotes Catholic identity in American higher education.

Although the process could take months, Blatty believes Catholic education is worth the fight. 

“The Catholic Church has been the single greatest civilizing influence in all of human history,” he said. “It gave birth to the very notion of a university.”

“A Catholic education is valuable because it uniquely combines the truth of science with the truth of revelation,” Blatty remarked. “It is like fighting for freedom and for our faith at once.”

]]> http://ourladyofvictory.cc/exorcist-author-prepares-canon-lawsuit-against-georgetown/feed/ 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/kToiGfAQFhE/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/kToiGfAQFhE/#comments Sat, 19 May 2012 12:06:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/rise-in-surrogate-pregnancies-raises-ethical-concerns/ CNA).- An increase in the practice of surrogate pregnancy is leading to health risks, ethical concerns and a problematic understanding of the family, warns the founder of a bioethics organization.

Because people are “uninformed about the reality” of surrogate pregnancy, they have “uncritically accepted it as good technology,” said Jennifer Lahl, president of the California-based Center for Bioethics and Culture Network.

However, the practice of gestational surrogacy leads to a variety of ethical issues, as well as growing “confusion” about the purpose of a woman’s body and the meaning of family and parents, she said.

In a surrogate pregnancy, a woman is paid to have a previously created embryo implanted in her womb. After carrying the baby for nine months, she gives birth and returns the baby to the parents.

Lahl told CNA on May 18 that such pregnancies are “becoming more socially acceptable” and mainstream, as wealthy couples are increasingly using them to have children.

In addition to older women struggling with fertility, surrogate pregnancies are often used by homosexual couples who want a child, she said. 

Lahl is the executive producer, director and writer of the documentaries “Eggsploitation,” which reveals the struggles of women who have donated their eggs, and “Anonymous Father’s Day,” which explores the issues faced by children of sperm donors.

She noted that surrogacy veers toward being an exploitative industry, which targets “lower-income women needing to make money.”

While many of these women live in third world countries, women in the United States are also choosing to become surrogate mothers, Lahl said.

This is particularly true of military wives, who are often young and living on a modest income, with their husband deployed for long periods of time, she explained. Surrogate motherhood appeals to these women because it allows them to make money while staying at home with their own children.

But while modern culture often applauds such procedures for helping infertile couples, surrogate pregnancies pose a variety of ethical problems.

Among those are the significant health risks for surrogate mothers, including problems associated with the fertility drugs that are taken as part of the procedure. Lahl remembers a pointed experience speaking to one surrogate mother who developed cervical cancer and was forced to undergo a hysterectomy at a young age.

It's also “not uncommon,” she said, to see gestational surrogates carry twins, which is considered a higher-risk pregnancy.

On a biological level, there is also the possibility of bonding between a mother and the child in her womb, which poses questions on the “long term implications” for both the women and the children they carry.

She also voiced concern about the effect on the woman’s husband, as well as her other children, who watch their mother go through a pregnancy without understanding why the baby is given away after birth.

Children who think concretely may start to wonder when their mother will give them away too, she said. Lahl believes it is problematic to “turn baby-making into a contractual agreement,” as if one were buying a house.

“We really are buying and selling children,” she said, observing the need for contracts to regulate the transaction.

She explained that legal problems can arise in such transactions, as unexpected complications occur or a surrogate mother develops regrets about giving the baby away.

Even more troubling to Lahl is her view that increasing rates of surrogate pregnancy  are “absolutely” changing the way that people think about family.

In a world where it is possible for a child to have one woman donate his genetic material, another woman give birth to him and a third woman raise him, ideas of family and parenthood quickly fall into “confusion.”

Same-sex couples add to the complications, as do intentionally-single mothers, who conceive from donated sperm, she said.

While the culture may accept these alternate understandings of “family” as progressive and tolerant, it does not address the needs of the children, Lahl added.

A former pediatric nurse, she explained that even in cases of adoption, children can feel a great longing to know more about their family tree. Surrogate pregnancies intentionally create a child who lacks a connection to the woman in whose womb he grew and developed, and sometimes to his biological parents as well.

Lahl ultimately sees the process as exploitative, arguing that it involves the use of body parts for money and treats life as a commodity. What needs to be acknowledged, she stressed, is that the child in question “ is another human being.”

]]> http://ourladyofvictory.cc/rise-in-surrogate-pregnancies-raises-ethical-concerns/feed/ 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-vatican/~3/Bg_IzyKTETw/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-vatican/~3/Bg_IzyKTETw/#comments Sat, 19 May 2012 00:33:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/trust-popes-judgment-on-sspx-deal-senior-american-rabbi-says/ CNA/EWTN News).- A leading American rabbi and Holocaust refugee says people should trust Pope Benedict’s judgment when it comes to the Church possibly readmitting the Society of St. Pius X, which has a bishop who denied the scale of the Holocaust.

“Let me tell you this, I think that Pope Benedict XVI in many ways really understood the Holocaust because he was in the German Army. He deserted (the army), his family was anti-Nazi, I mean he was completely opposed to Hitler,” Rabbi Jack Bemporad told CNA May 16.

“Now, given the fact that he suffered under Hitler and that his family suffered under Hitler, how could he in any way accept or welcome someone who denies that Hitler did anything wrong?” he asked rhetorically.

The Society of St. Pius X broke with the Catholic Church in 1988 after its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ordained four bishops without the approval of Pope John Paul II.

One of those ordained, Bishop Richard Williamson, was fined $13,500 in Germany in 2010 after denying the extent of the Holocaust during a television interview. The Society subsequently issued a statement disassociating itself from his views. The conviction was also later quashed by the German appeals court.

Rabbi Bemporad, who currently serves as Professor of Interreligious Studies at the Pontifical Angelicum University, dismissed Bishop Williamson as “one person who is really crazy” and “knows nothing.”

He also believes that Williamson does not speak for the vast majority of Society members.

“The mistake is to take a few people and make them somehow representative of everyone without realizing that that just isn’t true,” he said. “I think it is only a small part of this group that is that radical. I think the vast majority are very happy and would love to be part of the Church.”

Earlier this week the Vatican announced that negotiations with the Society about reconciling the 1988 breach will now happen “separately and singularly” with three of the Society’s four bishops, including Williamson.

For his part, Williamson has made it increasingly clear that he is opposed to reconciliation with Rome. In a letter written earlier this month to his superior, Bishop Williamson suggested that reunion would cause the Society to cease opposing “the universal apostasy of our time.” He also accused Pope Benedict of being “a subjectivist.”

“Now I don’t think that in trying to find a way of incorporating this group that they are going to accept in any way any of the extreme positions that Williamson stands for,” predicted Rabbi Bemporad.

The Catholic Church’s view of Judaism was most recently set out in the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on relations with non-Christian religions, “Nostra Aetate.” It rejected both anti-Semitism and the belief that present-day Jews are responsible for Christ’s death.

In recent negotiations with the Society, the Vatican has insisted that it accept all the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

]]> http://ourladyofvictory.cc/trust-popes-judgment-on-sspx-deal-senior-rabbi-says/feed/ 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-vatican/~3/i9gio4bFiHU/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-vatican/~3/i9gio4bFiHU/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 22:45:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-praying-for-renewal-of-us-women-religious/ CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI says he is praying that a renewal of female religious life in the United States will “recapture a sense of the sublime dignity and beauty of the consecrated life.”

“I wish to reaffirm my deep gratitude for the example of fidelity and self-sacrifice given by many consecrated women in your country, and to join them in praying that this moment of discernment will bear abundant spiritual fruit for the revitalization and strengthening of their communities in fidelity to Christ and the Church, as well as to their founding charisms,” the Pope said on May 18.

He made his comments to a delegation of U.S. bishops from the Eastern Catholic churches that is currently in Rome on a May 15-19 “ad limina” pilgrimage.

Last month the Vatican called for a reform of the Maryland-based Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), after concluding there was a “crisis” of belief throughout its ranks. It also appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to lead the renewal efforts.
 
During his May 18 address, Pope Benedict asked the bishops to promote and pray for new religious vocations, since there is an “urgent need in our own time for credible and attractive witnesses to the redemptive and transformative power of the Gospel.”

He also called for a “strengthening of the existing channels for communication and cooperation” between dioceses and the individual religious communities within their territory.

The Vatican’s decision to reform the LCWR followed a four-year audit of the group by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Among its key findings, the assessment documented serious theological and doctrinal errors in presentations at the conference’s annual assemblies in recent years.

Several speakers depicted a vision of religious life that is incompatible with the Catholic faith, the assessment said, with some attempting to justify dissent from Church teaching and showing “scant regard for the role of the Magisterium.”
 
Pope Benedict’s audience with the leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches marks the conclusion of several months of “ad limina” visits by U.S. bishops.

The Pope said he hoped that the forthcoming Year of Faith, which begins in October, will “awaken a desire on the part of the entire Catholic community in America to re-appropriate with joy and gratitude the priceless treasure of our faith.”
 
“With the progressive weakening of traditional Christian values, and the threat of a season in which our fidelity to the Gospel may cost us dearly,” he warned, “the truth of Christ needs not only to be understood, articulated and defended, but to be proposed joyfully and confidently as the key to authentic human fulfillment and to the welfare of society as a whole.”

]]> http://ourladyofvictory.cc/pope-praying-for-renewal-of-us-women-religious/feed/ 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/NYVkyji_AdM/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/NYVkyji_AdM/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 21:09:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/actor-admires-mexican-martyrs-strong-defense-of-the-faith/ CNA/EWTN News).- Mauricio Kuri has come to believe that, like the teenage Mexican martyr he plays in the upcoming film “For Greater Glory,” people must stand up for religious freedom.
 
Kuri is not your typical fourteen-year-old boy. Born and raised Catholic in Mexico City, he was cast in the upcoming film “For Greater Glory” with fellow stars Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria, Nestor Carbonel, and Eduardo Verastagui.
 
Blessed Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio is “a really strong character because you can see the transformation in him,” Kuri told CNA in an April 25 interview in Los Angeles.
 
“At the beginning he's just a young boy, naughty. He even makes a prank to the Father of the church, but you can see his transformation in his beliefs, and at the end he’s a martyr.”
 
“For Greater Glory” charts the history of Mexico’s Cristero War, which was sparked by anti-clerical legislation being passed by the Mexican President Elías Calles in 1926. Those laws banned religious orders, deprived the Church of property rights and denied priests their civil liberties, including the right to a trial by jury and the right to vote.
 
The persecution became so fierce that some Catholics began to forcibly resist, fighting under the slogan and banner of “Cristo Rey” (Christ the King).
 
“I think this movie, it threw me closer to my religion because it is a really strong character,” he said.
 
Kuri explained that Bl. Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio is “a Cristero martyr, and he was beatified by the Pope.”
 
Most importantly for the young actor, “this character existed. He was a real person.”

Kuri keeps a medal of Bl. Jose around his neck. Holding the medal up and pointing at the image on it, he explains, “This is his real photo. It's the real Jose Sanchez del Rio, and he was fourteen years old; I'm fourteen.”

“I don't believe in coincidences,” Kuri said.

The actor said he did spend a great deal of time thinking about his “strong character” and wondered if he could show the same courage as Bl. Jose.
 
“There is a phrase of the movie that I love that says ... ‘Who are you if you don't stand up for what you believe?’”

The young actor began to wonder if he had lived in Mexico during the 1920s and during the Cristero War, “Would I do what Jose did?”

“I tested myself, and I said 'I think I wouldn't,’” Kuri admits.
 
So he started to read about the life of Bl. Jose as part of his research for the role. He also sought guidance from a priest—his “spiritual guide.”
 
Looking back on the whole experience, Kuri sees Bl. Jose’s true strength as being rooted in his courage to stand up for what he believes in.
 
“I think I would do that,”Kuri said, “because to defend for what you believe is the most cool thing” you could ever do.
 
Kuri was particularly impressed the “strong” and “beautiful” transformation that becomes so visible at Bl. Jose’s moment of martyrdom. Bl. Jose was “a little naughty guy,” he explained, but “at the end you can see him as a saint.”
 
Kuri encourages Catholics everywhere to stand up for religious freedom like the faithful Catholics of Mexico did during the Cristero War.

“What is happening right now with the Church and the attack to the religious freedom is something that will happen to the end of the times. And I think if you stand up and you say 'I am Catholic and I am not ashamed of being Catholic and I'm proud of being Catholic … and you defend it, then you are a terrific person.”
 
Just like Bl. Jose, Kuri said that “We can be Cristeros right now; we can defend our faith; we can defend not only our faith, but our freedom.”

]]> http://ourladyofvictory.cc/actor-admires-mexican-martyrs-strong-defense-of-the-faith/feed/ 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-vatican/~3/u7fCHfWnNaU/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-vatican/~3/u7fCHfWnNaU/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 20:03:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-says-immigrants-could-revitalize-us-church/ CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI says that Catholic immigrants to the United States could play a crucial role in the renewal of the Church and society.

“The immense promise and the vibrant energies of a new generation of Catholics are waiting to be tapped for the renewal of the Church’s life and the rebuilding of the fabric of American society,” said the Pope at a May 18 audience.

Pope Benedict made his remarks to a delegation of U.S. Eastern rite Catholic bishops who are at the Vatican for a May 15-19 “ad limina” visit – the first one specifically created for non-Roman rite bishops.

He told the bishops that the apostolic opportunities provided by immigration require more than “simply respecting linguistic diversity, promoting sound traditions, and providing much-needed social programs and services.”
 
Instead, there also has to be a commitment to “ongoing preaching, catechesis and pastoral activity aimed at inspiring in all the faithful a deeper sense of their communion in the apostolic faith and their responsibility for the Church’s mission in the United States.”
 
With many Eastern Catholics hailing from the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the Pope noted how the Church in the United States has historically “struggled to recognize and incorporate this diversity, and has succeeded, not without difficulty, in forging a communion in Christ.”
 
More recently, the largest waves of immigration into the United States have come from other predominantly Catholic cultures, such as the Dominican Republic and Mexico. A recent study suggested that Latinos now make up 32 percent of the U.S. Catholic population compared with only 10 percent in 1987.

Pope Benedict praised the “unremitting efforts” of Catholic institutions that are responding to the needs of new immigrants and described their endeavors as “in the best traditions of the Church in America.”

“The Catholic community in the United States continues, with great generosity, to welcome waves of new immigrants, to provide them with pastoral care and charitable assistance, and to support ways of regularizing their situation, especially with regard to the unification of families.”

Earlier this month, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York publicly criticized the attitude of some Republican politicians towards immigration. He described laws that separate immigrant families and require identification before giving charitable assistance to the needy as “not Christian” and “not American.” Instead, he urged lawmakers to “come up with a much saner, more civil, more just immigration policy.”
 
In his May 18 remarks, Pope Benedict expressed his “profound concern” over United State’s immigration policy being reformed and called for the “just treatment and the defense of the human dignity of immigrants.”

“In our day too, the Church in America is called to embrace, incorporate and cultivate the rich patrimony of faith and culture present in America’s many immigrant groups.”

The leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches are the last of 15 groups of U.S. bishops to visit Rome on pilgrimage in recent months.

Pope Benedict concluded his meeting with them by imparting his apostolic blessing and entrusting them, along with their flocks to “the loving intercession of Mary Immaculate, Patroness of the United States.”

]]> http://ourladyofvictory.cc/pope-says-immigrants-could-revitalize-us-church/feed/ 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/0SgpyQK6tkM/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/0SgpyQK6tkM/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 17:50:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/sebelius-petition-with-35000-signatures-reaches-georgetown-president/ CNA).- A petition with tens of thousands of signatures was recently delivered to the president of Georgetown University in protest of a decision to honor U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius with an invitation to speak at a commencement weekend ceremony.

Thomas Peters of CatholicVote.org said that the Catholics for Unity petition shows strong “grassroots Catholic support” for the bishops’ message about religious freedom.

“Religious liberty is the first freedom. It’s there from the founding of America,” he told CNA. “And Catholic institutions have a special responsibility to stand up for that freedom.”

Peters said that the petition is a “positive protest” that allows American Catholics “to come together for something that we all hold dear, which is the right to practice our faith fully.”

On the afternoon of May 17, Thomas Peters joined several concerned members of the Georgetown community to deliver the Catholics for Unity petition with some 35,000 signatures to the office of university president John J. DeGioia.

The petition – which has continued to gain signatures – is the largest of several open letters protesting Georgetown’s decision to honor Sebelius.

Led by Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote.org, the signatories argued that the invitation harms the unity of the bishops’ fight for religious freedom, a battle that is largely centered on the current contraception mandate.  

They warned that allowing the invitation to stand will only “inflame this conflict, invite justified protests, cause great harm and detract from the necessary dialogue required to resolve the issues surrounding this mandate.”

Georgetown has come under fire for inviting Sebelius as a featured speaker at a commencement weekend awards ceremony. She is addressing the university's Public Policy Institute awards ceremony on May 18.

Sebelius has been the center of controversy since issuing a federal mandate that will require employers to offer health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.

Catholic bishops from every diocese in the U.S. have spoken out against the mandate, warning that it poses a grave threat to religious liberty and could force Catholic hospitals, schools and charitable agencies across the nation to close down.

Sebelius also has a long history of supporting abortion, both in her current position and in her former role as governor of Kansas.

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. denounced the invitation, saying that Georgetown had displayed an “apparent lack of unity with and disregard for the bishops” and all those who are fighting to defend religious liberty.

A May 10 editorial in the archdiocese newspaper called the decision “disappointing, but not surprising.”

President DeGioia defended the invitation in a May 14 statement. He said that the university is “committed to the free exchange of ideas” and was not attempting to endorse Sebelius’ views or challenge the U.S. bishops.

However, Peters argued that there is a difference between discussing ideas in an academic setting and offering someone a public platform to speak, which is “what we use to honor people.”

“There’s no one protesting Sebelius just coming in the audience,” he explained. However, “she doesn’t have the right to be put in a place of authority and to be part of the teaching office that universities hold.”

Brendan Gottschall, a member of the class of 2012, called the invitation “a misrepresentation of Georgetown’s Catholic identity and community.”

He said that there are many Catholics on campus who do not agree with the decision to honor Sebelius.

Deirdre Lawler, who works for the university’s Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy, said the invitation “is nothing less than a scandal and a blow to unity within the Church."

“There are no two ways to read this,” she explained. “Georgetown University, which proudly wears the title of a Catholic institution, is bestowing an honor upon a woman who has essentially declared herself at war with the bishops and all who hold religious freedom dear.”

Lawler said that as a staff member of the university, she is “ashamed of the institution.” Given the current situation between Sebelius’ department and the Catholic Church, she does not believe that Georgetown can “host and honor Sebelius in good conscience.”

“This invitation ought to have been rescinded in the name of fidelity to the Church, in the name of religious freedom, and in the name of Truth,” Lawler said.

“I hope that President DiGioia does take some time to flip through the many, many pages of signatures we left on his desk, just so that he understands what a huge number of people are willing to speak up in fidelity to the Church.”

]]> http://ourladyofvictory.cc/sebelius-petition-with-35000-signatures-reaches-georgetown-president/feed/ 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/t8C16Cgk3jw/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/t8C16Cgk3jw/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 10:09:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/law-professor-says-flawed-view-of-sex-threatens-religious-freedom/ CNA).- A law professor at George Mason University believes that current threats to religious freedom are intrinsically connected to the modern understanding that “sexual freedom is about shaping yourself.”

Helen Alvaré, who has formerly worked with the U.S. bishops' pro-life office, spoke on May 10 at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. She observed that many modern threats to religious freedom “are coming by way of a newly strong government position on human sexuality.”

This view holds that sex is unrelated to procreation or the union of man and woman, but is simply about “expressing oneself” and forming one’s identity through various sexual acts, she explained.

Alvaré traced this understanding of sexuality through court decisions in the last 50 years.

In 1965, the Supreme ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut that the Constitution implicitly protects the “right to marital privacy” and that married couples therefore have a right to contraception. At this point, Alvaré observed, the union of the married couple was still intact in the understanding of sex.

By 1992, however, the court upheld the “right” to abortion by describing sexual decisions as a means of shaping one’s identity, she said.

In its Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, the plurality opinion affirmed “the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

At this point, Alvaré said, sex has been “completely disconnected from the other person” and is solely about expressing oneself and building identity.

This view is reflected today, she explained, pointing to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S., which distributes information to young people encouraging them to explore and express themselves in different sexual ways.
 
This disconnected idea of sexual expression as an individual right can also be seen in a careful reading of the court cases supporting a redefinition of marriage, Alvaré added. In these court opinions, “same-sex marriage is not about the two people in the marriage. It’s about the individual expressing themself sexually.”

It is in this context that the Obama administration’s contraception mandate comes into being, with “no hesitation in divorcing sex from everything” that it physically, emotionally and spiritually means, she continued.

The mandate has been heavily criticized as a major threat to religious freedom because it will require employers to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.

Alvaré views the mandate as a “culmination” of a view of sexuality that has become more and more disconnected from marriage, procreation and the natural unity of man and woman.

She explained that this way of thinking began with the argument that taking the babies out of sex would allow couples to flourish, women to escape poverty and children to avoid being raised in bad situations.

But this has changed drastically, in a way that is evident by the “models of freedom” used to defend the contraception mandate, she said.

Rather than a woman facing poverty or a married couple overwhelmed by a dozen kids, the iconic figures in the sexual freedom debate today are unmarried, highly educated, and fairly well-off financially.

She pointed to Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student who has become a leading figure in the push for free birth control.

These women are not talking about marriage, poverty or the wellbeing of children, Alvaré observed. Rather, they are simply saying that they want a regular sex life with a constant supply of contraception, and they want someone else to pay for it.

This “right to a commitment-free, child-free sexual experience” has become so elevated that no religious conscience is permitted to object to it, she said, explaining that when disconnected sexual expression becomes a basic and fundamental right, religious liberty suffers.

This can be seen today, as Catholic individuals and institutions are told that they shouldn’t “even be able to have a critical stance” on issues such as contraception, she said.

She also observed that proponents of the mandate are making claims of a “war on women” and using “language of discrimination,” as if religious individual seeking to follow their conscience were violent members of the Ku Klux Klan, who should not have a voice in the public square.

The Catholic Church’s idea of sexuality as being connected to marriage and new life is “absolutely contrary” to the modern understanding, Alvaré explained.

As Catholics step up to defend religious freedom, she noted, they also have a chance to help change the way that human sexuality is viewed.

“I really see this time as an opportunity,” she said.

]]> http://ourladyofvictory.cc/law-professor-says-flawed-view-of-sex-threatens-religious-freedom/feed/ 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/IX9eEpWvxjs/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/IX9eEpWvxjs/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 08:29:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/parish-threatened-harassed-over-sign-opposing-gay-marriage/ CNA/EWTN News).- A Massachusetts Catholic parish has received threats of arson and other harassing messages after posting a sign with the Church's position on same-sex “marriage.”

“It went viral,” said Steven Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services at Saint Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet, recalling an “explosion” of responses to the message displayed on the sign in front of the church earlier this week. It read: “Two men are friends, not spouses.”

Guillotte posted the message on the morning of May 15, and responded within hours to an e-mail “saying that it was hateful.” Later that day, Guillotte's e-mail response ended up being posted to Facebook.

“Next thing you know, the nasty telephone calls started to come, and they were coming every few minutes,” said the pastoral director in a May 17 interview with CNA.

After local media took an interest, there were “some horrible e-mails overnight,” and a phone call from a woman “saying the church should be burned down.”

“We had a group of three young men and a woman who were upset. They were actually planning on going into the church,” he recounted. Guillotte steered them away, while trying to field an inquiry from a reporter.

“She witnessed one of the guys scream across the parking lot that he was going to burn the church down. We hear that, here and there.”

Guillotte said the sign was intended to clarify Catholic beliefs after President Obama's recent support for redefining marriage. After the president's announcement, he recalled, “there were a lot of Catholics out there misrepresenting, or even maligning, the Church's position on gay marriage.”

“So I came in on this past Tuesday morning and just decided to put up a sign expressing the Church's teaching in a very concise way … saying that the proper relationship between two men – or for that matter, two women – is friendship, and not marriage.”

Opponents of the message starting posting their own signs on or near the parish property. One of them contained an invitation to “spread LOVE, not hate,” while another used a sexual insult to describe the Virgin Mary. Others read “Jesus Freaks, come to your senses,” and “Pray for death.”

Many of the phone calls “were just f-words and people hanging up,” along with others “saying they were disgusted with the sign” and asking “how could we do it, because it was so 'hateful.'”

But Guillotte said the expressions of “hate” or “intolerance” seemed to be coming from the Church's critics in this case.

“If the Methodist church down the street put a sign up that said they were in favor of gay marriage,” he observed, “you wouldn't see me down their with a hammer and nails on their property.”

Another phone call came from a concerned Catholic, who worried that the sign would drive people away from the Church. Guillotte disagrees.

“We have a pastor who's taken a firm, orthodox stand on Church teaching, and our staff is the same way,” he said. “Unlike some parishes in the area, our census has actually gone up this last year.”

Although the Church sign has since been changed, Guillotte continues to stand by Tuesday's message as one that should be brought into the public square. He said Catholics should show patience and love in the debate over marriage, but also be “firm in our presentation of what the truth is.”

Otherwise, he warned, “next thing you know, you're agreeing with the other side, which is exactly what they're really striving for.”

He believes advocates for sexual radicalism “don't really want tolerance, in my opinion; they want us to agree with them.”

“When we do that,” he said, “we give up our Catholic faith, and I think we turn our back on Christ.”

]]> http://ourladyofvictory.cc/parish-threatened-harassed-over-sign-opposing-gay-marriage/feed/ 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/wopH2RPxlJA/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catholicnewsagency/dailynews-us/~3/wopH2RPxlJA/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 06:01:00 +0000 Feednews http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/senator-proposes-adding-prayer-to-wwii-memorial/ CNA).- U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) has introduced a bill to place President Franklin D. Roosevelt's D-Day prayer on the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C.

“On D-Day, courageous Americans risked and sacrificed their lives to preserve our freedoms and end tyranny abroad,” said Portman. “That morning, President Roosevelt asked our nation to come together to pray for the men overseas.”

A senator in the key swing state of Ohio, Portman is considered one of the top potential picks for Vice President on the 2012 Republican ticket. 

In a May 10 statement shortly after he introduced the legislation, he explained that Roosevelt’s prayer “brought strength and comfort to many during one of the most challenging times for our nation.”

Those words “will forever be etched in our history,” he said.

The World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2012 would commemorate D-Day, June 6, 1944, when more than 150,000 American, British and Canadian troops landed along a 50-mile beach stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline.

More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded, but the invasion allowed many others to begin the march across Europe to fight Hitler’s forces.

On that day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt invited the nation to prayer through a national radio address.

In his historic prayer, Roosevelt asked the Lord to watch over those who were fighting “to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.”

He called on America to join with him in praying for guidance to fight “greed and racial arrogances” while seeking true freedom and lasting peace.

The president called for the blessings of Almighty God in the fight for justice and freedom, saying that “by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.”
 
Although many people had asked him to call for “a single day of special prayer,” Roosevelt said that he instead wanted to encourage the people to “devote themselves in a continuance of prayer.”

Acknowledging that the road ahead would be long and difficult, he prayed for the gifts of faith, courage and strength, both for the soldiers and the American people at home.

“As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts,” he said.
 
The president also beseeched the Lord to embrace those soldiers who would not return, welcoming them into his kingdom.

Asking that God’s “will be done,” Roosevelt prayed for those at home “to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.”

Portman said that his bill ensures that Roosevelt’s prayer “will become a permanent reminder of the sacrifice of those who fought in World War II,” as well as a modern remembrance of “the power of prayer through difficult times.”

A companion bill, introduced by Congressman Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year.

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