The Morning-Star of Memory

Apparently, the morning-star of memory rises earlier than we knew. The Washington Times reports that even before birth, babies have memories. Monitoring babies' responses to stimuli in the womb shows that they get used to sounds from outside the womb well before birth.

The Times reports that NARAL Pro-Choice America could not be reached for comment.

Now More than Ever

One glance at the headlines proves it's about time we got busy and started wearing out the rosaries. What was once considered intolerable -- abortion on demand; open and notorious concubinage; children born out of wedlock in epic numbers; the sexualization of little kids; instant divorce; filth over the airwaves; militant campaigns for gay "marriage" -- is now not only tolerable, but raised to the dignity of God-given rights. We have let our country slide into the sewer, and as a reward, the enemies of everything this nation has ever stood for are now in charge. Things are only going to get worse from here.

Unless we straighten up and start flying right. We are never going to change the world by marching and carrying signs; the change has to come from within. And a sure means of effecting that change is the Rosary -- which is why, in 1917, the Blessed Mother asked the world to pray the Rosary every day.

Here, from the website of the Rosary Confraternity, are the Blessed Mother's Fifteen Promises to Christians who faithfully pray the Rosary:

1. To all those who shall pray my Rosary devoutly, I promise my special protection and great graces.

2. Those who shall persevere in the recitation of my Rosary will receive some special grace.

3. The Rosary will be a very powerful armor against hell; it will destroy vice, deliver from sin and dispel heresy.

4. The rosary will make virtue and good works flourish, and will obtain for souls the most abundant divine mercies. It will draw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

5. Those who trust themselves to me through the Rosary will not perish.

6. Whoever recites my Rosary devoutly reflecting on the mysteries, shall never be overwhelmed by misfortune. He will not experience the anger of God nor will he perish by an unprovided death. The sinner will be converted; the just will persevere in grace and merit eternal life.

7. Those truly devoted to my Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.

8. Those who are faithful to recite my Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plenitude of His graces and will share in the merits of the blessed.

9. I will deliver promptly from purgatory souls devoted to my Rosary.

10. True children of my Rosary will enjoy great glory in heaven.

11. What you shall ask through my Rosary you shall obtain.

12. To those who propagate my Rosary I promise aid in all their necessities.

13. I have obtained from my Son that all the members of the Rosary Confraternity shall have as their intercessors, in life and in death, the entire celestial court.

14. Those who recite my Rosary faithfully are my beloved children, the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.

15. Devotion to my Rosary is a special sign of predestination.

When the Blessed Mother asked for daily Rosaries in 1917, she didn't get them. As predicted, we got World War II. Based on the current state of world affairs, she still isn't getting them. When are we going to learn?

Closed for Business

George Tiller's human slaughterhouse in Wichita has closed for good. In a statement released by their lawyers, Tiller's family at once affirms their pride in his work and states that no family members will be involved in any "similar clinic."

Can't say I'm sorry to hear it.

Infallibility, However Much It Hurts

One of the comments to this piece of Fr. Z's about Francis Cardinal Stafford stepping down as Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary (not the Big House) led me to read The Year of the Peirasmòs - 1968 by Cardinal Stafford. It was published on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, and deals with the howls of dissent from within the Church that greeted Pope Paul VI's encyclical in 1968.

Cardinal Stafford describes his experiences in 1968 as a priest who, having seen through his ministry "the bitter fruits of the estrangement of men and women," and of the separation of the unitive and procreative aspects of sexuality, dissented from the dissenters. "The summer of 1968," he recalls, "is a record of God’s hottest hour. The memories are not forgotten; they are painful. They remain vivid like a tornado in the plains of Colorado. They inhabit the whirlwind where God’s wrath dwells. In 1968 something terrible happened in the Church. Within the ministerial priesthood ruptures developed everywhere among friends which never healed. And the wounds continue to affect the whole Church. The dissent, together with the leaders’ manipulation of the anger they fomented, became a supreme test. It changed fundamental relationships within the Church. It was a Πειρασμός [peirasmòs, in Greek, "trial," "test," "temptation"] for many.

As I read, I was struck by a few lines (emphasis added):

...the Papal Commission sent its recommendations to the Pope. The majority advised that the Church’s teaching on contraception be changed in light of new circumstances. Cardinal Shehan [archbishop of Baltimore] was part of that majority. Even before the encyclical had been signed and issued, his vote had been made public although not on his initiative.

As we know, the Pope decided otherwise.

This is not the first I had heard of the findings of the papal commission, but it is the first time I have received this fact with such force. Here is a striking proof that the Church is not purely a human invention, and that therefore her visible head on earth cannot err in matters of faith and morals. If she were, then no doubt the Pope would have bowed to the papal commission's recommendations, and swung into line with increasingly vocal and strident public opinion on the subject of birth control. But instead, he stuck to the Truth, in spite of the cost -- and the cost was indeed appalling, as Cardinal Stafford describes.

Yet the harm done was not the product of the Pope's teaching, but of the actions of those who refused to listen to him. Cardinal Stafford describes the ruptures within the clergy resulting from the preference on the part of many for their own opinions over the teachings of the Magisterium. And today we are reaping the bitter fruits of the Sexual Revolution: abortion raised to the level of a constitutionally guaranteed right; burgeoning illegitimacy; the tidal wave of crime and other social pathologies stemming from fatherless families; the appalling degradation of women; the destruction of marriage as an institution that protects children.

Nevertheless, the loss is not total, thanks to a Pope who -- despite his faults and mistakes -- stood by the Truth, so that his prodigal sons and daughters would at least have a beacon to light their way back home once they came to their senses. The moment of Humanae Vitae's publication ranks with Clement VII's decision not to grant Henry VIII his hard-fought-for divorce from Catherine of Aragon, even though so many prominent persons were in favor of it, and even though he knew it would be the excuse for England to enter into schism. Moments like these prove that the Holy Spirit guides the Church, and that however close to the edge of the abyss He may allow her to go, He will never let her fall in.

This is the reason the Pope is infallible on questions of faith and morals: not for his own personal aggrandizement in the eyes of the world (of which Paul VI enjoyed precisely none on this occasion), but so that Faith and Truth may be preserved inviolate.

On the Murder of George Tiller

Late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller, age 67, was gunned down at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas at about 10:00 a.m. on Sunday the 31st. Based on witness descriptions, police tracked down and arrested Scott Roeder, about whom the media are, at this writing, furiously speculating. Meanwhile, Wichita police Detective Tom Stoltz has stated: "We will investigate this suspect to the Nth degree -- his history, his family, his associates -- and we are just in the beginning stages of that."

The murder of George Tiller is just that: murder. There can be no justification for it, regardless of what he has done. Murder is murder, whether committed by an abortionist or a cold-blooded shooter; the murderer needs to prosecuted and, if found guilty, punished accordingly. If the motive here is because Tiller was an abortionist -- and it is universally assumed that that was the motive -- then, besides incurring eternal punishment for himself, (failing repentance) the shooter has accomplished nothing more than the false martyrization of Tiller and, under the present political circumstances, has let the pro-life movement in for an era of persecution.

But there is another lesson in this: the lurking possibility of sudden death that could strike any of us at any time. We are prone to entertain the notion that we have all the time in the world, and that we can do whatever we want now and repent on our deathbed; but how do we know we are going to get a deathbed, or any sort of warning? The thread of our life may suddenly be cut, without any chance to settle our affairs, or make up for the smallest misdeed, or even to say we are sorry to God; then, without warning, we are stripped of everything and standing before Him in judgment. What will we then say to the One Who sees everything, hears everything, knows everything? What are the odds George Tiller expected to be gunned down while ushering at his church on the feast of Pentecost? What are the odds any of us expects the time and manner of death that are in store for us?

One can only hope that George Tiller was given, and took advantage of, the opportunity to repent of his evil deeds before his death, even though to our eyes it appears he had no such opportunity. But we dare not presume on such a grace for ourselves. This is why Scripture warns us that if today we hear His voice, we had better not harden our hearts.

How Appropriate...

...that news of the latest vacancy on the Supreme Court should break on May Day, Day 102 of the most virulently leftist and pro-abortion administration ever in the history of the United States. NARAL and the other militant leftists must be thinking that maybe there is a God after all, and daring to entertain the possibility that maybe He is on their side.

For the rest of us, it's time to start wearing out the rosary beads. After decades of stealth liberal Supreme Court justices installed by Republican administrations, aren't we long overdue for a stealth conservative justice?

The Midwife of Auschwitz

Out of the abyss of horror at Auschwitz arises, perhaps, yet another saint. Much is made of alleged Catholic indifference in the face of the Holocaust; but no other faith could have given rise to a Stanislawa Leszczynska.

Born in 1896, Leszczynska was a wife and mother of three. In 1922 she became a midwife, and worked among the poor in the city of Lodz in Poland. In 1943, the Germans arrested her and her children; Leszczynska and her daughter were sent to Auschwitz, where they were put to work in the sick ward. Leszczynska delivered more than 3,000 babies during the two years of her imprisonment, making sure the babies were baptized. Miraculously, despite the horrific conditions, Leszczynska never lost a single mother or child.

Yet very few of the babies survived the war. Although, after May of 1943, the "Aryan"-looking children were spared, the rest were required to be drowned in a barrel. Despite threats on her life, Leszczynska flatly refused to commit infanticide, even facing down the notorious Dr. Mengele. Her son described the encounter:

When my mother opposed Mengele, who ordered her to kill babies being born in Auschwitz, he became furious. Describing this, my mother said: "I only saw his long boots jumping back and forth. . . and I heard him shout: 'Befehl ist befehl' [an order is an order]. " Recalling these words many years later, I realized that since my mother was quite small and she had the habit of looking down when she thought about something. . . she stood with lowered eyes and saw his long boots nervously jumping in front of her.... Was this terrible murderer (he was a physician after all) trying to explain away his order to kill newborn babies? In any case, neither then nor at any other time, did he raise his murderous hand against my mother.

Although Leszczynska's husband was killed in 1944, she and her children survived the war. Stanislawa Leszczynska died in 1974 and is still honored and venerated in Poland, where many favors have been attributed to her intercession. Evidence is being compiled for her cause for sainthood. You can read more about her amazing story here.

Even on hell's doorstep, God plants His standard.

The Hypocrisy of the Williamson Furor-Mongers...

...thrown into sharp focus by Paul at Catholic Cartoon Blog.

How Shocked Are We, Really?

On July 20, 2006, 18-year-old Sycloria Williams went to the A Gyn Diagnostic Center in Florida to complete an abortion procedure that she had begun several days earlier by means of drugs. When the doctor who was to have performed the abortion didn't arrive in time, Williams went into labor and gave birth to a live baby girl.

Whereupon one of the clinic's owners came and cut the umbilical cord, stuck the baby and the afterbirth into a biohazard bag, and threw them into the trash. An autopsy on the remains showed that the baby had filled her lungs with air -- confirming that she had been born alive.

Williams is now suing the doctor and the clinic. "I don't care what your politics are, what your morals are," says Tom Pennekamp, one of her attorneys. "This should not be happening in our community." "People all over the country are just aghast," says Tom Brejcha, another attorney. Even Joanne Sterner, president of the Broward County NOW chapter has public said she was "really disturbed" by the incident. "I know that there are clinics out there like this. And I hope that we can keep (women) from going to these types of clinics," says Sterner, leaving one with the inescapable feeling that her real problem with what happened was that it brought Sycloria Williams face to face with what she had done. As attorney Pennekamp summed it up: "She came face to face with a human being. And that changed everything."

Let's hope that it has changed everything for Sycloria Williams, and that she has repented. We wish that it would change everything for American society, and that the country would repent. But the question arises: How can this incident shock the conscience of a nation that just elected President a man who doesn't think there should be any laws against what happened to this little baby girl?

A Grim Anniversary

An especially grim anniversary at the beginning of an administration whose chief has opposed state legislation aimed at protecting babies who survive abortion procedures, and has pledged to enact the "Freedom of Choice" Act. Thirty-six years ago, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), whose pseudonymous plaintiff later converted to Christianity and renounced abortion "rights."

In an age when so many are willing to buy into the myth that an unborn child is not a human being, and when we have elected to the highest office in the land a man whose answer to the question when life begins is that it is above his pay grade, it might pay to remind ourselves how abortionists and hardened abortion rights advocates answer the question, and how abortion has corrupted society in general and the medical profession in particular.

It is morally and ethically wrong to do abortions without acknowledging what it means to do them. I performed abortions, I have had an abortion and I am in favor of women having abortions when we choose to do so. But we should never disregard the fact that being pregnant means there is a baby growing inside of a woman, a baby whose life is ended. We ought not to pretend this is not happening."

-- Judith Arcana, abortion activist, at a London seminar, October 1999

"I know that the fetus is alive during the process most of the time because I can see fetal heartbeat on the ultrasound. . . I think brain death would occur because the suctioning to remove contents is only two or three seconds, so somewhere in that period of time, obviously not when you penetrate the skull, because people get shot in the head and they don't die immediately from that, if they are going to die at all, so that probably is not sufficient to kill the fetus, but I think removing the brain contents eventually will. . . My intent in every abortion I have ever done is to kill the fetus and terminate the pregnancy."

-- Leroy Carhart, testifying under oath in 1997 about what he does to commit abortion, Asheville Tribune

"[T]he abortion patient has a right not only to be rid of the growth, called a fetus, in her body, but also has a right to a dead fetus. . . [I] never have any intention of trying to protect the fetus, if it can be saved. . . as a general principle [t]here should not be a live fetus."

-- Robert Crist, abortion doctor, testifying in federal court in 1980

" 'Forceps, please,' Mr. Smith slaps into his hand what look like oversized ice-cube tongs. Holtzman pushes it into the vagina and tugs. He pulls out something, which he slaps on the instrument table. 'There,' he says, 'A leg. You can always tell fetal size best by the extremities. Fifteen weeks is right in this case.' I turn to Mr. Smith. 'What did he say?' 'He pulled a leg off,' Mr. Smith says. 'Right here.' He points to the instrument table, where there is a perfectly formed, slightly bent leg, about three inches long. It consists of a ripped thigh, a knee, a lower leg, a foot, and five toes. I start to shake very badly, but otherwise I feel nothing. Total shock is painless. 'I have the rib cage now,' Holtzman says, as he slams down another piece of the fetus. 'That's one thing you don't want to leave behind because it acts like a ball valve and infects everything.... There, I've got the head now. Also a piece of the placenta.' I look at the instrument table where next to the leg, and next to a mess he calls the rib cage but that I cannot recognize, there lies a head. It is the smallest human head I have ever seen, but it is unmistakably part of a person."

-- Magda Denes, abortion advocate, clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, In Necessity and Sorrow; Life and Death Inside an Abortion Clinic, 1978

"When you're a doctor who does these abortions and the leaders of your movement appear before Congress and go on network news and say these procedures are done in only the most tragic of circumstances, how do you think that makes you feel? You know they're primarily done on healthy women and healthy fetuses, and it makes you feel like a dirty little abortionist with a dirty little secret. I think we should tell them the truth, let them vote and move on. In the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along. The abortion-rights folks know it, the anti-abortion folks know it, and so, probably, does everyone else."

-- Ron Fitzsimmons, Executive Director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, in "An Abortion Rights Advocate Says He Lied About Procedure", New York Times (February 26, 1997)

"Is birth control an abortion? Definitely not; an abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun."

-- Planned Parenthood pamphlet (August 1963)

"The pro-life groups were right about one thing, the location of the baby inside or outside the womb cannot make much of a moral difference. We cannot coherently hold it is all right to kill a fetus a week before birth, but as soon as the baby is born everything must be done to keep it alive. The solution, however, is not to accept the pro-life view that the fetus is a human being with the same moral status as yours or mine. The solution is the very opposite, to abandon the idea that all human life is of equal worth."

-- Peter Singer, Princeton "ethicist" and death enthusiast, Practical Ethics, pp. 185-8, 1993

Study on the Fate of Unbaptized Infants

I have previously posted on the fate of unbaptized infants, especially in the context of abortion. Quite a while after publishing that post, I caught hell from a "miscarriage support" forum, none of whose members were prepared to let their self-pitying wrath be quelled either by Christian charity or by what I actually said.

But in an age when more and more parents see no need to have their children baptized, and when so many children don't even make it to birth, it becomes necessary to reflect on the question of whether there is a possibility of salvation for unbaptized babies. Hence the International Theological Commission's study on this subject, the report on which was approved for publication by Pope Benedict on January 19, 2007.

Thanks to Fr. Powell, OP for bringing this to our attention.

Over-the-Counter Abortion

I never knew there was an over-the-counter "morning after" pill -- until I saw the ads on the internet radio station I listen to Christmas music on at work. If your regular birth control fails, says the ad, just relax: you've always got "Plan B" to fall back on.

Euphemistically called "emergency contraceptives," "Plan B" levonorgestrel tablets are "not intended to replace regular birth control," and should only be used in "emergencies." They are available without a prescription, unless you're a minor, in which case they're available with a prescription. They work by preventing the fertilized egg (i.e., the newly-conceived human being) from implanting in the wall of the uterus.

So this is an over-the-counter abortion. What a wonderful advance in medical science. Now you can have all the benefits of abortion without all the muss and fuss of vacuums, dilation and curettage, needles, saline solution, and bloody pieces of little baby all over the place. You just pass the baby and flush it down the toilet. It dies in the sewer, and you are spared a major inconvenience.

And, incidentally, what a wonderful thing to look at while listening to "Away in a Manger."

Do More than Half of American Catholics Need to Go to Confession Right Now?

Well, we all need to go to confession regularly if we are serious about saving our souls. But where do the 54% of us who voted for Barack Obama stand now? Some of our shepherds are giving us serious food for thought on this subject.

Radio host Hugh Hewitt interviewed Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph before the election, and asked him how he would address the Catholics who were then undecided about whom to vote for. His reply:

Well, I just don’t think there’s any question that in all of Church teaching that the life issues, particularly the protection of unborn children against the crime of abortion, has to be our greatest priority. This is an ongoing slaughter of 4,000 children every single day for the last 35 years. And if we don’t do anything about it, we bear a lot of responsibility. If we support and promote persons who have pledged to extend it and intensify the slaughter, then we bear a great responsibility with them.

Is it a grave sin to vote for a pro-abortion politician? asked Hewitt. Bishop Finn's reply:

I think it is, of course. You know, how important is, you know, someone might say how important is my vote. Well, ask somebody if they think what they think if their vote was taken away from them, or if they felt that they had been defrauded of their vote. And I think all of us as Americans would say my vote’s very, very important. So…and then we’re talking about the willful destruction, direct destruction of a human life. And so when you couple the gravity of the sense of our vote, and the gravity of the action of abortion, and we see candidates pledge that they’re going to, for example, in addition to promoting everything that we have right now, they’re going to enact the Freedom Of Choice Act, removing all reasonable limitations. So many Americans say they want limitations on abortion. The Freedom Of Choice Act would remove every single limitation that’s been put in place by well-meaning folks for the last 35 years – parental notification, mandatory waiting periods, counseling, the use of ultrasounds, and not to speak of the fact that taxpayers will have to pay for abortions, and also the conscious clauses will be removed from individual healthcare workers, or even institutions. So you can’t support a person who wants to go to complete full-scale war against the unborn.

What about a Catholic who will vote for an absolutist on abortion because that candidate is better than the opposing candidate on questions of poverty, global warming, etc.? Suppose such a Catholic thinks that dealing with these issues will in turn reduce abortions Bishop Finn's answer:

[T]he real root of abortion in our country is this total disregard and numbness about the value of human life. It’s the idolatry of self and selfish convenience. It’s the total neglect of personal responsibility. These are the things that are at the root of abortion, not just poverty. I’m afraid some people think that if we throw enough money at people, well then they’re going to stop all their choices for abortion. I don’t think that will work. I don’t think that it would be the solution fully, even if it was. And the same people who are then promoting someone who wants to remove limitations on abortions, which are measurable at having reduced abortions by 125,000 a year through parental notifications and the like, they can’t be serious. They can’t be serious that voting for someone who’s going to throw some more money at the poor is going to reduce abortion. What they’re looking for is a way to salve their conscience, and give them a rationalization that will help them sleep tomorrow after they vote....People have to realize that they will be held accountable for these important decisions before God.

Does being accountable before God for one's vote means that one could lose one's immortal soul over it?

Well, of course. I mean, the decisions that we make are important, and they have…you know, these people who get elected, they don’t just arrive all on their own. We elect them. We, you and I support them or we don’t. And so we have some participation in that. Now you know, someone wrote to me and said well, you know, I voted for Obama, I’ll repent later. And well, you know, I hope that God does change a heart if they feel that they’ve made a terrible mistake and to have to repent. But it’s much more important and vital that we make the right decision when it’s before us.

May a Catholic who votes for Obama knowing he is voting for abortion rights absolutism present himself for Communion the next day?

Well, they shouldn’t. It’s not a matter of public action, so it’s not the same scandal as a public official who places, a legislator who places a public vote in support of abortion. But no, if formal cooperation, there’s absolutely no doubt about it that if you agree with the right of abortion, you shouldn’t be, you’re in grave sin. You shouldn’t be receiving the Sacraments.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, canon law expert and formerly Archbishop of St. Louis, is now Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura at the Holy See, what might be thought of as the Vatican's Supreme Court. In a pre-election interview with Inside the Vatican, the Archbishop was even more pointed on the question of subordinating abortion to other pressing issues:

It is not my intention to engage in partisan politics. I wish that both of the major political parties in the United States of America were more coherent regarding the right to life. The Democratic Party, however has, over the years, put forth and defended a political agenda which is grievously anti-life, favoring the right to procured abortion and "marriage" between persons of the same sex. One can legitimately question the wisdom of the decisions taken in the war in Iraq, but war in itself is not always and everywhere evil, as are, for example, procured abortion, human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, and the so-called "marriage" of persons of the same sex. Engagement of the nation in a war cannot be placed on the same moral level as the nation making laws which permit the wholesale killing of the unborn or the artificial generation of human life or experimentation on embryonic human life or "marriage" between persons of the same sex.

Procured abortion is the fundamental moral issue in the safeguarding and fostering of human life. To make economics or the environment the fundamental political issue, when life itself, in its most innocent and defenseless form, remains unprotected is morally irresponsible. Yes, the government of the United States must address a number of critical issues, including the current and most serious economic crisis. But it must address first its duty to promote the common good by defending the life of every human being, from the moment of its inception, and by safeguarding the integrity of marriage and the family.

Thus spake two of our shepherds, saying some of the same things I have been saying. So these are not just my opinions on Catholics supporting Obama that I spout here.

Why Catholics Cannot Compromise on Abortion

Is it okay (as some Catholics hold) to support a candidate who supports abortion on demand, on the grounds that the candidate is against the war in Iraq and against the death penalty? Some thumbnail observations:

-- The Catholic faith does not require us to oppose either the war in Iraq or oppose capital punishment. On these matters, we are free to form our own opinions based on prudential judgment. But the Catholic Church has always held that abortion is gravely and inherently evil, always and everywhere, and justified under no circumstances. Our faith therefore does require us to oppose abortion.

-- For every one word that has issued from the present and/or previous Pope opposing either the war or capital punishment, I can guarantee there have been at least ten opposing abortion. It is not clear why the Pope's pronouncements on matters falling within the scope of prudential judgment should carry weight, but not those on a matter that binds Catholics in conscience.

-- Abortion is such a serious matter that a Catholic is not only bound in conscience to oppose it, but is automatically excommunicated for having an abortion, procuring an abortion, performing or assisting in performing abortion, or even advising someone to have an abortion. Catholics do not incur excommunication for supporting either the war in Iraq or capital punishment.

In short, it is a sign of moral confusion for a Catholic to support a candidate who supports grave, inherent evils that Catholics are bound to oppose, on the basis that that candidate opposes what Catholics may in good conscience support.

More on the Fate of Aborted Babies

It has come to my attention that a miscarriage support group forum, Daily Strength, has latched onto my post from February of last year speculating about the fate of the souls of aborted babies. To a person, the correspondents on this thread have written me off as heartless, counter-Scriptural, and even anti-Catholic. I don't wish to intrude upon their forum, so I post my replies here, linked back from the original post, for anyone from Daily Strength who cares to read it.

1. I am sorry that you have missed what I actually said. I wish you would go back and read my post more carefully. I did not state that aborted babies go to Hell; nor did I state that the Church teaches that aborted babies go to Hell. In fact, when I wrote that post, I went to great pains to avoid being understood to say either of those things. The Church does not teach that unbaptized babies go to Hell. In fact, the passage I quoted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that we may hope for the salvation of unbaptized infants. Their fate, however, is uncertain in view of the necessity of Baptism (more on which later); and therefore, the Church commends them to the mercy of God, who loves these babies far, far more than any human or all humans put together could. It is worth noting that far greater minds than yours or mine in the history of Christianity (for example, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas) could not declare themselves certain of the salvation of unbaptized infants.

2. I am sorry that you did not notice that my own opinion -- uniformly vilified in your thread -- is actually inclined toward the view that unbaptized babies may go to heaven. I actually mustered several arguments in favor of that view, and against the proposition referred to at the beginning of the post that had originally prompted my thoughts on the subject. Please go back and read this. However, when all is said and done, however much I hope the souls of unbaptized babies enjoy the Beatific Vision, I cannot be absolutely certain that they do. The mercy of God may be trusted in, but not presumed upon. This is why the Church requires her children to baptize babies as soon as possible after birth; and I believe it is why God leaves us uncertain as to their fate if they die without Baptism.

3. If babies who die without Baptism do not go to heaven, it does not follow that they must go to Hell. In fact, the mercy of God runs counter to the idea of damnation for unbaptized infants. This is where the speculation regarding Limbo comes from -- a state in which the soul, though deprived of the supernatural happiness of Heaven, nevertheless enjoys perfect natural happiness. As I said in the original post, this is not a defined doctrine of the Church, but an attempt to reconcile the mercy of God with the necessity of Baptism. My own opinion (which I am accused of superimposing upon Catholic teaching) is that even if unbaptized babies are not in Heaven (though I sincerely hope they are), they are far happier where they are than anyone will ever be in this life.

4. Someone on your thread disputes the necessity of Baptism. Jesus Himself, who did nothing pointless, and everything with a view to teaching us and setting us an example, underwent Baptism. And in the Scriptures, we read:

He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16)

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit....(Matthew 28:19)

As to infant Baptism, consider Acts 16:14-15, 27-33, where new disciples are described as being baptized with their entire households -- that would include men, women and infants. Infant Baptism -- which goes back to the beginning of the Church -- is not an addition to Scripture or an unlawful innovation.

5. One person in the thread who posted several entries professes to be a Catholic. I am very sorry to see that you do not assent to all of the Church's teachings, because there is no dichotomy between Christ and His Church ("He who hears you [said Jesus to His disciples and their successors] hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him Who sent me." -- Luke 10:16). I am also sorry that, for the sake of human respect, you feel the need to apologize for what you call the Church's "weird rules." "For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of Him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:38.) Please understand that as Catholics, we are bound in conscience to believe all of the Church's doctrines, whether we understand them or not, whether we like them or not. You admit to not knowing all about your faith; but we all have a duty to inform ourselves about our faith, lest we run the risk of losing it. How can you be so sure I am misrepresenting the faith when you are uninformed about it yourself?

It appears that this post of mine about where aborted babies go has caused some pain and grief to some who have suffered the agony of miscarriage. I am sorry that this is so; however, it was not intended. I am especially sorry, because the pain was needless, as I did not say what I am taken to have said.

Is Planned Parenthood off the Hook in Kansas?

Phill Kline, District Attorney for Johnson County, Kansas, has lost his bid for election to a full term of office. Steve Howe, of the Johnson County D.A.'s office, won the Republican primary by a landslide, the apparent beneficiary of a perception of Kline as more of a politician than a prosecutor. Kline has gained national attention for his courageous attacks on Planned Parenthood, against which Kline has launched a criminal prosecution for covering up the sexual abuse of children.

Is this the end of the case against Planned Parenthood (midwived, by the way, by eugenicist Margaret Sanger as part of her campaign against "inferior" races)? One hopes not. The Kansas City Star reports that Howe is also opposed to abortion, and that he states he will evaluate the case against Planned Parenthood and proceed according to the dictates of the law.

Whether or not Planned Parenthood is quaking in its boots in the wake of the Johnson County primary remains to be seen.

Why They Call It "Practicing" Medicine

When 35-year-old Michelle Stepney of London, England went to the hospital showing signs of having miscarried her twins, the doctors discovered cervical cancer. So far from having miscarried, the babies in their vigor had kicked loose a tumor in their mother's womb, thereby cluing doctors in to a condition they might not otherwise have discovered in a timely manner.

So naturally, the docs told Michelle she would need to abort her twins in order to survive. This she refused to do. "I knew I could have an operation straight away and it would cure me of the cancer," she said, "but that would mean getting rid of my babies and I couldn't do that. I had two lives inside me and I just couldn't give up on them -- especially after they had saved me like this."

And events bore her out. Instead of undergoing an abortion, Michelle opted for reduced chemotherapy to prevent the cancer from spreading, with constant monitoring of the twins' health. Alice and Harriet Stepney were delivered by C-section in December of 2006, underweight and hairless, but otherwise healthy; they are thriving today. And their mother, who underwent a hysterectomy a month later, has been cancer-free ever since.

Thus is proven wrong yet another authoritative pronouncement by doctors on the side of death -- and they do frequently seem to err on the side of death in our post-Hippocratic-Oath world. This is an age of astounding advances in medicine; yet doctors are still fallible human beings with faulty moral compasses, just like the rest of us. And so there is no need to accord unconditional obedience to doctors, whether they are telling you you must die in six months, you must have embryonic stem cell research to live -- or you must abort your child. There's a reason they call it "practicing" medicine: they haven't got it right yet.