Looking back over the posts I’ve done this year, I think I made some hits and misses in reporting on the biggest stories of the 2009 in regard to events in the Catholic Church. But I think I got the top six. In order:
1. Benedict XV’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus welcomes Anglican dioceses and communities home by establishing a special Ordinariate for them as they move into full communion with the Church. This move to help end a almost 500-year old division is the event in the Church in 2009 that will probably have the greatest historical impact.
2. The honorary doctorate given to President Obama at Notre Dame creates controversy — and galvanizes the pro-life movement in the United States. L’Osservatore Romano becomes strangely pro-Obama at precisely the wrong moment.
3. U. S. Catholic bishops take up arms in the health-care debate. Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, as head of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-life Concerns, writes passionate appeals to Congress on abortion and stem cell research.
4. Pope Benedict XVI declares both John Paul II and Pope Pius XII Venerable. Controversy ensues.
5. Pope Benedict’s new social encyclical Caritas in Veritate creates discussion about world events to secure social justice — and more ludicrous misunderstanding than you can imagine.
Other stories I covered: Pope Benedict’s trip to the Holy Land and the controversy over the film of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. And this may be “hometown” news for me, but it does have a great impact on the Church in the U.S. as a whole: New York got a New Archbishop, Timothy Dolan.
Others - controversy over the death of Ted Kennedy and this pro-abortion Catholic’s highly public funeral Mass, the new priestly sex abuse crisis in Ireland — I sort of missed. I certainly followed them while they were happening, but didn’t have time to blog about them.
I only sort-of blogged on one truly unexpected and welcome development. A Catholic Democrat in Congress, Bart Stupak of Michigan, becomes a hero the the pro-life movement by galvanizing his colleagues from both parties to vote against federal funding of abortion. Who would have thought tha a Catholic Democrat would lead the fight against abortion? His countepart in the Senate, Ben Nelson, could have made history on this blog too, but caved in to the pro-death forces.
Let’s have more of this same kind of story in the coming year.
Filed under: Abortion, Angels and Demons, Dan Brown, Life Issues, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II, Pope Pius XII, stem cell research | |No Comments
Not.
That is, from the point of view of the Obama administration, as long as you can pay lip service to the idea of listening to the concerns of Catholics and other Christians on life issues, you can otherwise ignore them.
Here are the latest rounds. From Catholic News Service (CNS)
NIH Rejects 30,000 Comments on Stem Cell Guidelines
Although 30,000 of the approximately 49,000 comments on the National Institutes of Health’s draft guidelines on human embryonic stem-cell research opposed any federal funding of such research, those responses were “deemed not responsive to the question put forth,” according to the acting director of NIH.
“We did not ask them whether to fund such funding, but how it should be funded,” said Dr. Raynard S. Kington in a telephone briefing with the media July 6.
But Richard M. Doerflinger, associate director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, said it was “disingenuous (for Kington) to say that comments criticizing the guidelines overall were to be ignored.”
That means that over 60 percent of all people responding not only rejected the guidelines but rejected the whole idea of government funding of embryonic stem cell research. Their wishes were ignored.
The response from Justin Cardinal Rigali, who in addition to YouTubeing all over the place, is the Chair of the Bishops’ committee on Pro-Life activities:
In April I criticized the NIH’s draft guidelines for destructive embryonic stem cell research, saying that under these guidelines ‘federal tax dollars will be used to encourage destruction of living embryonic human beings for stem cell research – including human beings who otherwise would have survived and been born.’
The final guidelines issued yesterday are even broader. Parents who are asked to consider having their embryonic children destroyed for research will not even have to be informed about all their other options – only about the options that happen to be available at their particular fertility clinic. Moreover, under the final guidelines, stem cell lines that existed previously or that are produced in foreign countries may be made eligible for federally funded research even if they were obtained in ways that violate one or more of the NIH’s own informed consent requirements.
“The comments of tens of thousands of Americans opposing the destruction of innocent human life for stem cell research were simply ignored in this process. Even comments filed by the Catholic bishops’ conference and others against specific abuses in the draft guidelines were not addressed. For example, federally funded researchers will be allowed to insert human embryonic stem cells into the embryos of animal species other than primates; federal grants will be available even to researchers who themselves destroyed human embryos to obtain the stem cells for their research. Existing federal law against funding research in which human embryos are harmed or destroyed is not given due respect here.
“This debate now shifts to Congress, where some members have said even this policy does not go far enough in treating some human beings as objects to be created, manipulated and destroyed for others’ use. I hope Americans concerned about this issue will write to their elected representatives, urging them not to codify or further expand this unethical policy.”
(Emphasis mine).
That last section really tells it like it is - go cardinal Rigali!
For more information about the USCCB’s “Oppose Destructive Stem Cell Research” campaign, go here.
Finally, a comment from one of the Catholic journalists, Paul Baumann of Commonweal, who recently met with the President to prepare him for the trip to Rome to meet with Pope Benedict — yes, it’s going to happen after all, on July 10:
Each of us would get to ask the president one question. In order to cover as much ground as possible, we divvied up topics beforehand. I volunteered to ask the abortion question. America’s Drew Chistiansen asked about cooperation between the Vatican and the administration on international issues. Patricia Zapor of Catholic News Service wanted to know about conscience clauses for Catholic health-care and social-service providers (Obama promised that conscience clauses would be at least as “robust” as they have been). This worked fairly well, and a lot of ground was covered. . .
He answered my question about abortion by reiterating what he had said in his commencement speech at Notre Dame. At one level there is an “irreducible difference, conflict on the abortion issue,” he said. Still, both sides can work together to reduce the number of abortions. If given an opportunity for a follow-up question, I would have asked Obama to explain what exactly he understands that irreducible conflict to be. As long as Roe is the law of the land, the common ground the president so eloquently speaks of will continue to demand much from abortion opponents and few or no concessions from his political allies in the abortion-rights movement.
I can’t help wondering why Baumann didn’t ask this as his main question. Because I have a feeling Pope Benedict will.
And I don’t think he’s the type to be trifled with.
He might ask the President why, if he is in agreement about “reducing the number of abortions,” he has yet to support the proposed legislation to do just that by helping pregnant mothers — the Pregnant Women Support. Evidently that’s just too much common ground for some of his Planned Parenthood supporters (or should I say “handlers”).
The President can talk a good fight about “Common ground” but it just isn’t in him.
(Hat tip to Jack Smith at Catholic Key Blog for pertinent information; some of his words also innocently suggested the title for this post).
Update:
In related news, Pope Benedict’s new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, was issued today. After reading some important passages, I’d suggest to the Pope if I could that he simply hand the President a copy and ask him to read it, with the words:
“Dear Mr. President, ‘common ground’ between individuals and peoples is founded on truth, and that truth is from God. It is based on the imperishable love of God for us, and for our love for one another as human beings who recognize each other’s worth. It is founded on the truth of respect for all human life and human dignity, including the unborn. See, look what I say right here:
28. One of the most striking aspects of development in the present day is the important question of respect for life, which cannot in any way be detached from questions concerning the development of peoples. It is an aspect which has acquired increasing prominence in recent times, obliging us to broaden our concept of poverty and underdevelopment to include questions connected with the acceptance of life, especially in cases where it is impeded in a variety of ways.
Not only does the situation of poverty still provoke high rates of infant mortality in many regions, but some parts of the world still experience practices of demographic control, on the part of governments that often promote contraception and even go so far as to impose abortion. In economically developed countries, legislation contrary to life is very widespread, and it has already shaped moral attitudes and praxis, contributing to the spread of an anti-birth mentality; frequent attempts are made to export this mentality to other States as if it were a form of cultural progress.
Some non-governmental Organizations work actively to spread abortion, at times promoting the practice of sterilization in poor countries, in some cases not even informing the women concerned. Moreover, there is reason to suspect that development aid is sometimes linked to specific health-care policies which de facto involve the imposition of strong birth control measures. Further grounds for concern are laws permitting euthanasia as well as pressure from lobby groups, nationally and internationally, in favour of its juridical recognition.
Openness to life is at the centre of true development. When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good. If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away.67 The acceptance of life strengthens moral fibre and makes people capable of mutual help. By cultivating openness to life, wealthy peoples can better understand the needs of poor ones, they can avoid employing huge economic and intellectual resources to satisfy the selfish desires of their own citizens, and instead, they can promote virtuous action within the perspective of production that is morally sound and marked by solidarity, respecting the fundamental right to life of every people and every individual.”
I think Papa Benny is going to be able to take care of informing the President about the real nature of “common ground” quite well. Let’s pray for his success. And that the President will listen.
Filed under: Abortion, stem cell research | |No Comments
