This week saw a rare victory in the international battle for truth and religious freedom. You may have heard that Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera, archbishop of Valencia in Spain, had been threatened with legal action following a controversial homily he gave some months ago. In the homily, he criticized the extremely aggressive and overreaching “gay empire” that is attacking the family. He called Catholics to vigilance and prayer, calling for a defense of the family.

Attacking the bishop

As if only to prove him right, homosexual activists brought charges against Cardinal Cañizares for giving the homily. He was in a Catholic Church speaking to Catholics, yet he cannot (to listen to these activists) be allowed to defend Church teaching on marriage and challenge those who, well, threaten anyone who dare raise a voice in opposition.

We’re well past the point of “You can’t make this stuff up.” You don’t have to. The sense of entitlement the “gay empire” (to use the cardinal’s term) has to silence all opposition is limitless and is becoming totalitarian. They’ve had too many successes in just such cases, so it is heartening to see a victory for sanity.

Threatened with three years in prison, Cardinal Cañizares prevailed when a Spanish judge threw out the charges, finding truthfully enough that in the controversial homily in question, he was exercising his right to free speech and had no criminal intent or appeal to hatred or violence.

We have discussed many times in Spirit & Life how radical gender ideology has infected many institutions here and around the world, bringing its corrosive anti-reality and anti-God worldview to corners once thought immune to politics. Since the LGBT movement cannot defend its views with reason, it must appeal with raw emotion and project its own hatred onto its opponents and remove their rights to free speech, and increasingly, to any public endeavor whatsoever.

Bishops Standing Together

So to do what Cardinal Cañizares did takes courage and leadership, traits he shares with Bishop Juan Antonio Reig Pla, who also hails from Valencia but is now bishop of Alcala de Henares, Spain. HLI awarded Bishop Reig Pla the Cardinal von Galen award in 2013 for his courage in defending Christ and His Church. Spain has seen many hardships over the years, but with leaders like this they have greater hope.

Bishops should dedicate themselves to their apostolic office as witness of Christ before all men. They should not only look after those who already follow the Prince of Pastors but should also wholeheartedly devote themselves to those who have strayed in any way from the path of truth or are ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and His saving mercy until finally all men walk “in all goodness and justice and truth (Eph. 5:9)” (Christus Dominus n. 11).

There are many good bishops out there, and we need to acknowledge their courage when we see it. All of our beloved shepherds deserve our love and prayers, and frankly deserve encouragement when they step into the breach and really lead in a difficult time.

Sometimes the attack comes from inside

This is especially true since there is so much to confuse the faithful coming from bishops. Last week we heard a bishop insist that the Church is somehow responsible for attacks on persons who identify as LGBT, repeating a key talking point of those who attack the Church unjustly and are trying to change her teaching on sexuality. This is truly disgraceful and deserves clear condemnation-when the Church is already under attack from powerful sexual radicals it is devastating to have a shepherd of the Church give aid and comfort to the enemy.

Yet, just when some are tempted to despair by such betrayals, we hear from Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez an eloquent defense of the Church’s teaching that life is the most important among many issues that concern Catholics in the public square. He has been a leader on many social justice issues for the Church, particularly on immigration, yet he knows that while some issues admit of a variety of solutions for faithful Catholics, life deserves a complete and unqualified defense in law, which is sorely lacking in the US and around the world today. And it is so for the exact same reason that a poor migrant family deserves our help: because every human person is made in the image of God, and deserves to live the life he already has been given as a gift.

In exercising their duty of teaching — which is conspicuous among the principal duties of bishops — they should announce the Gospel of Christ to men, calling them to a faith in the power of the Spirit or confirming them in a living faith. They should expound the whole mystery of Christ to them, namely, those truths the ignorance of which is ignorance of Christ. At the same time they should point out the divinely revealed way to give glory to God and thereby to attain to eternal happiness. (Christus Dominus n. 12)

Giving glory to God

Cardinal Cañizares and Archbishop Gomez are two of many within the Church doing the right thing by opposing the threat of gender ideology, and by pointing to the truth in Our Lord. So many in the Church are indifferent, which is almost an understandable tragedy given the many years of poor catechesis and compromise with a culture that is falling apart. We pray for the conversion of these brothers and sisters also, as the choices are made clearer by the hostility of the surrounding culture and a core group of faithful Catholics who remain strong and joyful. We pray every day that they will choose Christ and His Church and leave the untruths behind. We pray this for ourselves as well, since we don’t presume to have every answer. We just strive in love and truth to be faithful in small and large things.

Our shepherds and priests desperately need the prayers of the faithful. We need the strength to give ourselves anew to Christ through His Church every day. We can’t do it without your prayers.

Thank you for praying for me and for all priests and bishops, and for standing strong in the fight for life and family with us.

Reprinted with permission from Human Life International.

http://catholicexchange.com/soccer-sacred-heart-rhythm-spiritual-fatherhood?mc_cid=f59dff04e6&mc_eid=d96d44419d

By Dave McClow, June 21, 2016

June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Father’s Day also falls within the month, and spiritual fatherhood ties these two together.

The human heart always operates in two directions—the muscle contracts and then relaxes.  If this rhythm is disrupted, you have earned a trip to either the ER or the undertaker.  There is also a rhythm of Catholic fatherhood—the rhythm of loving, then challenging; of being tender, then tough.  Disruption of this rhythm can create major problems for kids.

Soccer

Chad played soccer.  His parents were highly successful professionals, trying to motivate Chad to pay attention and engage in the game with some intensity.  They were turning the situation into a life lesson:  “How do you expect to succeed if you can’t do this?”  There was a lot of criticism and pressure to perform.  Another team was using psych ops, trashing Chad and his team.  The way they talked, I would have sworn this was a U.S. Olympic competition, but Chad was in fourth grade! The parents assured me their behavior was mild compared to other parents.  Nevertheless, the results were predictable:  Chad was anxious, highly critical of himself, and impulsive, almost explosive at times.  He was performing to be loved, which left him only as good as his last performance.  The rhythm of Catholic fatherhood was broken, and they were all frustrated.

Sacred Heart and Spiritual Fatherhood

Jesus’ Sacred Heart teaches men a lot about this rhythm of fatherhood.  During his time on earth Jesus fathered no physical children (unless you believe the fiction writer Dan Brown).  But he was a spiritual father—a leader, mentor, and coach (and much more), to the twelve apostles and his other disciples!  He loved and challenged them.  It was the Heart of Jesus that revealed how his Father’s heart was turned towards his children—us—in love and mercy.  The Father’s heart is what we need to receive and what we are to give to others.  Scripture confirms the giving part, “The hearts of fathers will be turned back to the children” (Mal 3:24, 4:6; Lk 1:17; Sir 48:10).  Jesus actually became indignant, incensed, or irate at the disciples for hindering the little children from coming to him to be embraced, touched, and blessed  by him (Mk. 10:13-16).  He was tough on his disciples and tender towards the children in his spiritual fatherhood!

St. John Paul II reflected on the Sacred Heart quite a bit.  In talking about the gift of the Holy Spirit called piety (reverence, devoutness), he says, “the Spirit heals our hearts of every form of hardness, and opens them to tenderness toward God and our brothers and sisters” (May 28, 1989). From our sonship, tenderness flows toward God and is expressed in prayer that arises from our own poverty and void of chasing after earthly things, and then turns toward him for “grace, help, and pardon.” It is piety which directs us to trust God as “a good and generous Father” and to call him Abba (Gal. 4:4-7)!

This tenderness is manifested in meekness, a familial openness, toward our neighbor.  Meekness is not weakness!  Meekness is having the power to act or destroy, but not using it.  The Spirit infuses into us a new capacity to love others, making our “heart[s] participate in some manner in the very meekness of the Heart of Christ.”  Our spiritual fatherhood is made complete we when see others as part of the family of God, treating them with tenderness and friendliness.

Back to Soccer

I worked with Chad’s father to create new liturgies (rituals and routines) in their domestic church that communicated love to Chad.  He affirmed Chad as a son rather than just his performance.  And we shifted the focus from results, which Chad could not control, to his efforts—so while he might not always score a goal, he could always choose to play hard.  These changes made a huge difference.  Chad paid more attention, became more self-motivated, and everyone noticed the change.  In fact, in one game, he was playing hard, but they were losing badly.  He had put his shorts on backwards, and though it was not obvious, a friend started to harass him about it.  Normally Chad would have blown up, but instead he retorted, “Do you really think that’s the biggest problem we have here?”  I was amazed and laughed, saying, “I can’t even get adults to do this!”  Chad was feeling much more secure and loved.  The rhythm was back in right order:  love and challenge; tenderness and toughness. We had returned from Olympic tryouts to fourth grade soccer!

The Challenge

June is the month of the Sacred Heart.  It includes Father’s Day, which celebrates physical fatherhood.  But we must challenge all men to follow the Sacred Heart and be spiritual fathers, turning their hearts towards all fatherless children in tenderness, challenging them to be the best versions of themselves.  All men are called to reveal and relive the very fatherhood of God on Earth—this is spiritual fatherhood.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/pregnant-after-a-violent-rape-doctors-were-shocked-by-me-and-my-husbands-re

By Jennifer Christie

Last January, I was travelling on business, staying in a little hotel in a college town.  I like to think I’m usually more aware of my surroundings, but it was so snowy and windy that I wouldn’t have heard his footsteps even if he had he been stomping. It happened so fast. I got the door open, turned around to close it, and he was there – a huge man. My first instinct wasn’t fear, just confusion. In an instant, he punched me in the face. I don’t remember being dragged from the room, but I was found in the stairwell. I don’t know why — maybe I was trying to go for help.

The rape kit came back negative for HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, herpes, and dozens of other things I’d never heard of. God is gracious.

The following month, I was scheduled to work on a cruise ship. I was struck with dysentery on day two. But after not getting better with antibiotics, I was taken to what passes for a hospital when we docked in Cartagena, Colombia. Concerned about intestinal obstruction, I was given an ultrasound.  And we saw the pea — my son.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

Back on the ship, I told the doctors an abbreviated version of my story, which resulted in me being quarantined. Suicide watch? In danger of a psychotic break that will have me running naked across the shuffleboard courts? Who knows. What I know is that I spent the next week listening to a team of very well-meaning doctors and nurses console me with how “easy” it would be to “take care of it” – to kill the child. To start over. Easy?

There were a lot of things discussed over scratchy, tearful transatlantic phone calls home that week, but the possibility of “taking care of it” never came off my lips. Or my husband’s.  When I told him I was pregnant, he said with his voice calm and steady, “Okay.  Okay . . . all right . . . this is all right.” I asked him, “What do you MEAN this is all right?” “I mean we can do this. We’ll get through this. It’ll be okay.”  And, “I love babies. We’re going to have another baby. Sweetheart, this is a gift. This is something wonderful from something terrible. We can DO this.” And I began to feel the stirrings of joy for the new life in my womb, blossoming under my heart. That new love that would grow so fierce it overwhelmed any trepidation or angst. And my husband was right.  We could do it.

On my last morning aboard the ship, I said to this caring team, “If you ever think about this again, if you ever wonder what happened to me — I had a beautiful baby in October 2014.”  Their reaction…the looks on their faces…the doctor who had pushed abortion more vehemently than the others — she had tears in her eyes. For the first time, I thought of how God can use this, this nightmare I’d endured. Use me.

I live in North Carolina. My OB who delivered my last two children was running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. He talks to people all the time who challenge him with the “What about in cases of rape?” question. What about them? My son will have a voice. Until he can use it, it’s my responsibility — my privilege — to speak for him. That’s my story.

During my pregnancy, I was in and out of the hospital for a couple of months – more in than out. I had preeclampsia, high blood pressure and uncontrolled seizures. It was terrifying at 26 weeks when they admitted me saying they might have to deliver that night — terrifying because I desperately wanted my son to live! We got past that fear. I had strict bed rest, but was home. Every week we made it further was awesome, knowing how glad I’d be once he got here safely in my arms. Emotionally, I was doing very well.

We were working with a really godly team of doctors. It’s just a matter of trusting utterly. This wasn’t new. I’d felt completely out of control since the assault in January — not that “control” is ever anything but an illusion, but, you know. Eight and a half months ago the world upended and hadn’t righted since — until my son was born. It’s not a bad thing. It keeps me on my knees, keeps me from my arrogant, self-reliant “It’s okay, God. I got this” attitude, which I’m so quick to adopt.

Our little boy may have been conceived in violence, but he is a gift from God — a delicious gift that filled the hole in our family that we never realized was there. He made us complete.

I’m so thankful to have been connected to other mothers who became pregnant by rape as well. We are survivors. Not victims. My son has healed me.

The pressure to abort from the medical community was extremely eye-opening to me. So many times I was told how “simple” it would be and how quickly I could just “get on with my life” once it was over. It was heartbreaking to have to repeatedly hear it. Even some friends thought keeping the baby was a mistake — that I wouldn’t be able to handle things emotionally. Every time we, as rape survivor mothers, share our stories, we are strengthened as we strengthen others….And who knows what lives might be spared?

Jennifer Christie is a wife and mother of 5, and a blogger for www.savethe1.com.  She’s using her middle name in lieu of her surname in order to protect the identity of her family.

Fish struggle to fertilize eggs three generations after exposure to contraceptive hormone, raising questions about the effects on humans.

by CELESTE MCGOVERN

WASHINGTON — A recent report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that birth-control hormones excreted by women, flushed into waterways and eventually into drinking water can also impact fish fertility up to three generations after exposure — raising questions about their effects on humans, who are consuming the drugs without even knowing it in each glass of water they drink.

The survey, published in March in the journal Scientific Reports, looked at the impact of the synthetic hormone 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2), an ingredient of most contraceptive pills, in the water of Japanese medaka fish during the first week of their development.

While the exposed fish and their immediate offspring appeared unaffected, the second generation of fish struggled to fertilize eggs — with a 30% reduction in fertilization rates —  and their embryos were less likely to survive. Even the third generation of fish had 20% impaired fertility and survival rates, though they were never directly exposed to the hormone.

“This study shows that even though endocrine disruptors may not affect the life of the exposed fish, it may negatively affect future generations,” said lead author of the study Ramji Bhandari, a USGS visiting scientist and University of Missouri assistant research professor. “If similar trends were observed in subsequent generations, a severe decline in overall population numbers might be expected by the F4 generation.”

Conducted by scientists at the USGS and the University of Missouri, the research also examined the effect of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in plastics that has been implicated in breast cancer, which was similar to the contraceptive hormone.

The study adds to a growing body of evidence that man-made endocrine-disrupting chemicals — those that affect hormone systems and numerous body functions, including conception — are damaging wildlife, wreaking havoc on reproductive, immunological and nervous systems.

Widespread Contamination

Scientists have known for more than 15 years that humans are excreting their prescription drugs into American sewers and that water-purification systems are not equipped to filter the chemical effluents from drugs, including anything from birth-control pills and painkillers to psychiatric medicines.

In a landmark 1999-2000 USGS survey, 80% of water samples from 139 American rivers and streams in 30 states were found to be contaminated with drugs, ranging from antibiotics and antidepressants to contraceptives and hormone replacements.

But scientists are particularly concerned about the contraceptive chemical EE2 because of its ability to “feminize” male fishes and its association with plummeting fish fertility. A landmark 2007 study, for example, described a seven-year whole-lake experiment in northern Ontario, Canada, in which tiny amounts of EE2 induced “intersex” male minnows whose testicles contained eggs, as well as altered egg production in female fishes; this ultimately resulted in the “near extinction” of the species from the lake, as well as a threat to larger fish populations.

Numerous subsequent studies across the globe have linked birth-control hormones to impaired fertility, “transgender fish” and reduced fish populations. Minnesota pollution researchers looking for the endocrine disruptors found them even in remote lakes thought to be pristine; and when they lowered cages of male lab minnows into the lakes, most of them were feminized within three weeks.

By 2009, USGS scientists found that one-third of 111 American waterways they tested contained some intersex fish, particularly male bass. A year later, scientists were reporting that 80% of the fish in the Potomac River — whose water is pumped into the homes of 4 million people — showed “intersex” features.

Mammals Affected Too

The impact of EE2 has been demonstrated experimentally in mammals as well. In one 2009 study, for example, newborn rats exposed to the hormone in the first days of life developed small and abnormal penises and lowered sperm counts, and they struggled to reproduce.

The researchers compared EE2’s effects to those of diethylstilbestrol (DES) —  a notorious endocrine-disrupting chemical given to pregnant women to prevent miscarriage. The women themselves had an elevated risk of breast cancer, but it was their children who developed rare vaginal and testicular cancers and other reproductive anomalies after they reached puberty; and those children were 40 times more likely to be sterile.

It’s a comparison that the current Scientific Reports study researchers make as well.

“EE2 use during pregnancy can cause the same type of disruption of development that the drug DES caused in millions of offspring of women given this drug during the 1940s to 1970, when it was banned for use during pregnancy,” Frederick vom Saal, professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri and one of the authors of the study of medaka fish, told the Register.

“Also, male reproductive organs are sensitive to estrogens, which interfere with normal function — estrogens have a contraceptive effect in males.” EE2 has also been linked to testicular tumors.

Toxicologists have dismissed the comparisons of EE2 in the water supply to DES because the DES exposures were in larger doses. However, tiny doses of hormones can produce large effects.

“That this is considered controversial by toxicologists is considered laughable by endocrinologists,” said vom Saal. “EE2 can cause effects in human tissues at concentrations in blood below one part per trillion, so this is an extremely potent drug.”

The Canadian lake study, for example, saw near extinction of a fish species with EE2 given in “environmentally relevant” doses of five parts per trillion — the equivalent of five drops in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Unabsorbed Contraceptives

About 50 million women worldwide are taking contraceptive pills, and it is the leading form of birth control in the U.S., consumed by about 10.5 million women annually, according to the Guttmacher Institute.  Up to 68% of the contraceptive drugs being consumed are not absorbed, but excreted into sewage systems, according to the USGS study.

And according to one 2009 study of loss of fertility in rats due to EE2, about 3%- to 4% of women continue to take birth control inadvertently in the first trimester of pregnancy, raising concerns about their babies’ early exposure to endocrine disruptors, though it’s impossible to say how many babies and children are inadvertently exposed through drinking water and to what doses or what impact the hormones are having on adults, if any.

With unexplained soaring incidences of testicular cancer, infertility, childhood “gender dysphoria” in increasingly young children, who are confused about their sexual identity, and plummeting sperm counts, some scientists are asking if the fish in the study are like miners’ canaries: They are warning of a problem that has not yet been fully realized.

“Beyond the aquatic environment, the feminizing syndromes found in wildlife appeared to mirror reports of male infertility, genital abnormalities and testicular cancer observed in the human male population, collectively termed Testicular Dysgenesis Syndrome,” recounted Susan Jobling, director of the Institute of Environment, Health and Societies at Brunel University, London, in a 2013 paper for the European Environment Agency.

But in the absence of public awareness and outcry, little has been done about the problem in the U.S. or elsewhere. As long ago as 2004 the Environment Agency of England and Wales had accepted the evidence of the environmental harm from EE2 as significant enough to warrant consideration of risk management, Jobling recounted.

In 2012, the European Commission proposed to regulate EE2 as a European Union-wide “priority substance” for legislation, but the proposal was later amended — mostly due to a consideration of the cost of removing trace amounts of chemicals from water — and a decision on a regulatory “environmental quality standard” was delayed until at least 2016.

Evidence Ignored

The Catholic Church has always taught that pharmaceutical contraception to prevent pregnancy is “intrinsically evil” and “contrary to the good of the transmission of life” (Vade Mecum for Confessors 2:4, Feb. 12, 1997), even without considering its effects on the environment or public health.

The effects of BPA from plastics are well recognized, but the impact of birth control on the environment and fertility has been downplayed and dismissed — a reaction vom Saal thinks is not based on science. “Clear evidence for equal potency is ignored by the industry,” he said.

“It’s strange how even the most ardent environmentalists suddenly go silent when confronted with evidence of how birth-control pills harm aquatic ecosystems. Instead of angry calls for the regulation of a pollutant that is causing a  ‘silent spring’ of hermaphroditic fish unable to breed, we hear nothing,” said Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute. “The barren left is so wedded to contracepted sex that they will brook no criticism of the means they use to ensure their sterility, even though, as the science shows, they sterilize other species in the process.  Environmentalism meets the sexual revolution, and the sexual revolution wins.”

Celeste McGovern writes from Scotland.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/birth-control-in-drinking-water-a-fertility-catastrophe-in-the-making/#ixzz4C9rMk6K

A new study confirms that virgin brides have the lowest divorce rates.

Carolyn Moynihan | Jun 13 2016

Virginity gets very little press or screen time these days and that’s a shame. As a new American study confirms, a woman who enters marriage as a virgin has the best chance of still being married five years later – and probably beyond that. In fact, the odds of her marriage lasting have got better over the last 30 years, as divorce rates for such women have dropped from 11 percent in the 1980s to 6 percent in the 2000s.

The likely reason for that, says the author of the study, University of Utah sociologist Nicholas H. Wolfinger, is religion –that other uncool topic. His data, taken from three waves of the National Survey of Family Growth, shows that women who marry as virgins are far more likely to attend church at least once a week. Sadly, there are fewer and fewer of them. Four decades ago 21 percent of brides had no previous sexual partner, but by 2010 that figure had dropped to 5 percent, representing the most religious women.

(By now you may be asking, Hey, what about the men? Wolfinger explains that “the NSFG doesn’t have full data on men’s premarital sexual behaviour, and in any event they recall their own marital histories less reliably than do women.”)

As you might expect, the next most likely to last marriages are those of women who have had only one sex partner previously – in most cases their future husbands. Their numbers, however, have dropped from 43 percent in the 1970s to 22 percent in the current decade.

Source: NSFG, 2002-2013
The stats for the 1970s may surprise us, as they did Wolfinger. Even though the sexual revolution was well under way, he notes, almost two-thirds of brides had at most one sexual partner before getting married.

“Even in the 1980s, slightly over half of women had a maximum of one sex partner before walking down the aisle. Things looked very different at the start of the new millennium.”

By the 2010s,the number of brides who had had multiple sexual partners had climbed significantly. Those who’d had 10 or more partners had gone from 2 percent to 18 percent. As you would expect, this group has the highest five-year divorce rates – but only since the 2000s. Prior to that, women with two partners prior to marriage had the highest divorce rates – around 30 percent – compared to those with more partners.

This again is surprising, Wolfinger admits. He suggests a couple of reasons:

* Women with two previous partners may already have a child from another relationship when they marry, and this is known to have a “profound negative effect on marital happiness” as well as carry a higher risk of divorce.

* “Over-emphasised comparisons”:

“In most cases, a woman’s two premarital sex partners include her future husband and one other man. That second sex partner is first-hand proof of a sexual alternative to one’s husband. These sexual experiences convince women that sex outside of wedlock is indeed a possibility. The man involved was likely to have become a partner in the course of a serious relationship—women inclined to hook up will have had more than two premarital partners—thereby emphasizing the seriousness of the alternative. Of course, women learn about the viability of nonmarital sex if they have multiple premarital partners, but with multiple partners, each one represents a smaller part of a woman’s sexual and romantic biography. Having two partners may lead to uncertainty, but having a few more apparently leads to greater clarity about the right man to marry. The odds of divorce are lowest with zero or one premarital partners, but otherwise sowing one’s oats seems compatible with having a lasting marriage.”

Well, lasting five years, at least. But this ceases to be the case (statistically) beyond 10 partners: “a lot of partners means a lot of baggage, which makes a stable marriage less tenable.” Wolfinger speculates further about whether this correlation is true or spurious, and notes that the difference between this group and the women with two premarital partners when it comes to divorce is not significant.

Bottom line, however: “The odds of divorce are lowest with zero or one premarital partners.”

Finally, Wolfinger notes that these findings remain substantially true after controlling for the effects of other social and demographic characteristics of women. Some of these factors, however, explained more than others:

“Aside from religion, race and family of origin accounted for the largest portion of the sexual partners/divorce relationship. Caucasian and African American women had similar premarital sexual behavior, but Latinas and members of the “Other” population group had notably fewer sex partners and lower divorce rates than either whites or blacks. Similarly, people who grew up without both parents had more partners and divorced more. Detailed psychometric data would be necessary to further explain the relationship between numbers of sex partners and marital stability.”

Perhaps one could conclude that the race factor is itself largely explained by family structure. It makes sense that coming from an intact family gives a person some protection against divorce. And religious practice makes that protection even stronger. That is not surprising, even if other aspects of the study are.

Michael Cook   Jun 15, 2016   |   11:45AM    Brussels, Belgium

Since 2005 about 40 people in Belgium and the Netherlands have successfully combined euthanasia with organ donation, according to an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics by ethicists and transplant specialists.

The [five] doctors are so enthusiastic about the procedure that they have proposed legal changes which will speed up the procedure and maximize the number of donations. Although the numbers are still low, the idea is becoming more popular in both countries, according to the authors.

(Not everyone – in fact, only a small proportion – of people who request euthanasia are potential organ donors. Most requests come from patients with cancer, which makes them unsuitable donors. Most of the Belgians who have already participated in the programme appear to have suffered from strokes or multiple sclerosis.)

However there are some legal and ethical wrinkles to be ironed out to make the transition from euthanasia to organ donation seamless.

Some regulations and laws are supposed to be safeguards, but they “slow” the procedure down. For example, in the Netherlands, euthanasia is not regarded as a natural death and so permission must be sought from the public prosecutor to dispose of the body. In Belgium (where euthanasia is regarded as “natural”), three doctors need to sign off on the procedure. …

Another consideration is whether informing euthanasia patients about organ donation puts pressure on them to agree. The authors believe that it doesn’t, provided that it is done tactfully.

According to the principles of the Hippocratic Oath, the authors argue, doctors may even have an obligation to inform patients because they will be saving lives of organ recipients. They also point out that “The patient could be very relieved discovering the existence of this option and receiving the possibility to give meaning to his or her own suffering, by potentially relieving the suffering of others.”

Until now, transplant protocols have specified a strict separation between organ donation and euthanasia. However, if the patient is [willing], this is not necessary. “As long as all due diligence requirements are fulfilled, it should not be an obstacle if euthanasia and donation are not fully separated,” the authors argue.

Finally, the “dead donor” rule is frustratingly inconvenient for organ donor euthanasia. Since the patient has chosen to die anyway, why shouldn’t it be possible, the authors argue, to have “a ‘heart-beating organ donation euthanasia’ where a patient is sedated, after which his organs are being removed, causing death”?

The authors conclude:

“Combining euthanasia and organ donation in a so-called ‘donation after circulatory death’ procedure seems feasible on legal, ethical or medical grounds, and is increasingly gaining social acceptance in both Belgium and the Netherlands. Since current legislation does not specifically focus on the—when drafted unpractised—combination, future redrafting may be necessary in perspective of the contemporary developments regarding occurrence of such combined procedures”

LifeNews Note: Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet where this story appeared.

CHICAGO, June 13, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Catholics are not alone in holding that birth control is a sin against God.

Father Patrick Henry Reardon, pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Chicago, who’s also an author and senior editor for the Christian magazine Touchstone, spoke in a recently published YouTube video of how throughout history until the 20th century all Christians, not just the Orthodox, but the Church fathers and Protestants as well, regarded birth control use as immoral and a sin.

“Now it’s lost,” he states in the video. “And the Church really must not go with the flow on this matter. Because this really is an insult to God.”

Watch Father Reardon deliver his sound message with clarity on God’s gift of life and the consequences of separating procreation with the marital act:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)

How much more bizarre can our society get? It’s a question that many have been asking for a long time, but these days it’s hard to keep up with the answers, which change hourly.

In Alaska, a boy who thinks he’s a girl is allowed to participate in the girls’ track meet, and he wins. The girls are not happy, but are not quite sure how to express their protest since they don’t want to be branded as bigots for calling a boy a boy when that boy wants to be called a girl.

There are a growing number of reports that the man formerly known as Bruce Jenner, who now goes by the name “Caitlyn,” is having second thoughts about “transitioning” to womanhood and is contemplating returning to identifying himself as what he still actually is, a man. This regret is actually common for people who adopt the appearance and lifestyle of the opposite sex. These reports have not been confirmed, but were this to occur, does anyone really think that the fascistic LGBT movement will support such a transition?

A famous homosexual couple has adopted children (apparently two men cannot naturally conceive a child) and projected a carefully cultivated image as a “happily” “married” couple with the help of media who desperately want to tell such a story. Yet as it turns out, their private lives are more sordid than the story allows, and the couple is suing to silence media who would report certain ugly and inconvenient facts, so that their adopted children would be spared the pain of knowing what their adoptive parents actually do.

The idea that the LGBTQQ… movement is about to implode has been discussed recently, and there are signs of sanity coming from progressives who have been supportive of the movement but are starting to recognize its totalitarian and anti-human nature. Better late than never, I suppose.

How much more bizarre can it get? I’m not sure the question is meaningful anymore, since all bets are off. There are many conversations going on about how we arrived here, with a great deal of interesting histories of cultural Marxism, Communism, feminism, and other anti-Christian ideologies whose goal has been to “liberate” men and woman from the oppression of religion, marriage, traditional roles of men and women, etc.

I’m not sure the girls in Alaska, Mr. Jenner, or the famous couple and their children feel all that liberated.

When your revolution is based on a lie, it will certainly fall, but it can do a lot of damage to nations, lives and souls before it does. We “got here” because we turned our backs on God. We happen to be living through a deluge of degradation almost unimaginable even a few years ago.

Except that the Church did imagine this collapse. Specifically, Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, said something that could have been written yesterday, in 1984’s The Ratzinger Report (summarized by Christopher West):

What we are living through in our day is the result of an ideology that has completely severed body and soul. And that’s the very definition of death. Barring a divine intervention, we must now endure the full consequences of the “uprooting of the human person in the depth of his nature” – an uprooting that stems from the fact that “sex has remained without a locus and has lost its point of reference” since the cultural embrace of contraception (The Ratzinger Report, p. 84).

By detaching sex from procreation, the essential meaning and natural orientation of the gender distinction is lost and one’s sex is eventually “viewed as a simple role, interchangeable at one’s pleasure,” Ratzinger observed. From there, people end up demanding the right of “escaping from the ‘slavery of nature,’ demanding the right to be male or female at one’s will or pleasure” (p. 95).

Call this an update of Humanae vitae 17, in which Blessed Pope Paul VI famously predicted — against the spirit of the age — that the wide embrace of contraception would have a host of negative consequences. Those who dismissed Pope Paul, and later Cardinal Ratzinger, simply couldn’t imagine what we are actually seeing happen today, when we call evil good, and good, evil. When we don’t know God, how can we know ourselves?

I love serving a Church that knows the true nature of man and woman because she knows the One in whose image we are made. I love serving a Church that knows what is true and good, a Church that knows Christ because she was founded by Him. I am grateful for her social and moral doctrine, which are rooted in Holy Scripture, and offer true liberation by guiding all people of good will to live in love and truth.

If you are looking around for a rock to hold onto as the flood waters rise and currents seem to pull you away, know that you have it in the One, Holy, Catholic Church. Avail yourself of God’s mercy in the Sacrament of Penance and in His body and blood, soul and divinity in the Blessed Sacrament. Choose from among the many devotions available to the faithful and make your faith central to your life, and invite others to do the same. Be an example of joyful and intelligent faith, and a source of strength for your family and all whom you meet.

Don’t be afraid! Live with courage, faith, hope and love.

June 10, 2016 (LiveActionNews) — Estudiantes De Caracas, a professional soccer team in Venezuela, wanted to encourage parents to enroll their children in their soccer academy, so they created the first ever soccer game to be played by preborn children.

The dads were on hand to watch the game and the parents celebrated the kicks and goals with cheers and excitement. They also showed disappointment when the other team scored. Estudiantes De Caracas calls it “the first football match played by kids who haven’t been born, yet.” And you can tell by the expressions on the parents’ faces that they are just as excited by this game as any game played by a child already born.

While babies are active through all nine months of pregnancy, right around the 20th week is when those kicks can be better felt to the mother and anyone who touches her belly. That makes the 28th week a great time to put these kicks to fun use, highlighting the humanity of the preborn – and what the team calls “the next generation of footballers.”

Preborn children the same age as the children in this video are targeted for abortion in this country, and groups like Planned Parenthood intend to keep the killing going. States across the country are moving to ban abortion after 20 weeks gestation based on the viability of children this age, as well as their ability to feel pain.

Reprinted with permission from Live Action News.

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 7, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Senate Democrats have introduced a bill that would impose crushing fines on pharmacists who refuse to personally dispense “emergency contraception,” a potential abortifacient, removing conscience protections from the law.

The “Access to Birth Control Act” (S. 2960), introduced on May 19 by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, would require pharmacists to provide “any drug or device approved by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent pregnancy.”

But the bill’s text specifically mentions “emergency contraception” – which often refers to Plan B, the “morning after pill,” or Ella, the “week after pill.”

The text specifically states that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not apply.

“Access to legal contraception is a protected fundamental right in the United States and should not be impeded by one individual’s personal beliefs,” the bill states.

Violators will be fined $1,000 a day, or up to $100,000 “for all violations adjudicated in a single proceeding,” according to the bill.

Emergency contraception may act to prevent fertilization, but it also acts to make the uterine lining inhospitable and sometimes prevents a newly conceived child from implanting in the womb.

While the Roman Catholic Church teaches that all contraceptive use constitutes a grave sin, evangelical Protestants object to providing any form of potentially abortifacient device. A 2014 study conducted by the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that all forms of emergency contraception has the potential to cause an early chemical abortion. Plan B is more likely to induce an abortion than to prevent conception, according to a 2015 analysis co-authored by Dr. Christopher Kahlenborn for the Linacre Review.

A pharmacist may only refuse to fill a prescription based on his “professional clinical judgment,” not due to religious conviction.

If the customer’s preferred method is not in stock and the customer refuses to take a referral to another pharmacy (which is also mandatory for druggists per the bill), the pharmacist would be required to order it through “expedited ordering.”

A similar law in Washington state is being contested in court.

“No one should be forced out of her profession solely because of her religious beliefs,” said Luke Goodrich, deputy general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the group challenging the statute.

But lawmakers seem unmoved by appeals to conscience. “A pharmacist is free in their own life to live the way they want,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-VA, told local media.

Some pro-life advocates warn that pharmacists are all-too-eager to dispense Plan B, which is available without a prescription. Students for Life of America released a video showing a pharmacist selling the morning after pill to an adult male who said he was using the drug to cover up statutory rape.

Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, blamed the bill on cultural degeneration. “We live in an age when sex is a god and respect for religious liberty is gasping for its final breath,” Brown, who lives in Virginia, told LifeSiteNews. “Given these two facts we are not at all shocked that the infamous pro-abortion U. S. Senator Tim Kaine would find it perhaps obligatory to assault the conscience rights of pharmacists who put good health and ethics before political correctness.”

The bill, which has 18 Democratic co-sponsors, has been assigned to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

By Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, May 31, 2016

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Once again common sense has been turned on its head in our culture, this time by transgender activists agitating for people to be able to use the bathroom that they feel corresponds emotionally to their self-identified gender rather than the anatomical gender of their biological sex. The issue has emerged prominently in recent national and local news.

In North Carolina, in response to an ordinance adopted in Charlotte that would have allowed transgender people to use whatever bathroom they wanted, the state legislature passed a law in March blocking local governments from enacting rules that grant such privileges to transgender people. A similar law recently passed in Mississippi allows people to withhold services from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals on religious grounds. In response, President Barack Obama has said that these laws in North Carolina and Mississippi are “wrong” and “should be overturned.” The Obama administration used the Department of Justice to warn the state of North Carolina that its new law limiting bathroom access violated the civil rights of transgender people.

Here in Illinois, in response to a federal complaint, the Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 in suburban Chicago earlier this year granted a transgender student, who was born male but identifies as female, limited access to the girls locker room at Fremd High School. Similarly, a transgender student at a Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 school has been granted access to a locker room designated for the opposite sex. The Chicago Public Schools have announced that their students, teachers and staff could use whichever restroom matches their self-selected gender identity.

Nearby in central Illinois, a transgender student at Williamsville High School who was born with female anatomy but identifies as a male recently resolved a complaint filed in October with the Illinois Department of Human Rights. The school had previously provided a private bathroom for the transgender student, who complained that this was unacceptable, saying, “It made me feel like I was being treated differently and ostracized.” So now all transgender students at Williamsville High School will have access to the restroom and locker room facilities of the gender they identify with emotionally, not the biological gender that they were born with.

Earlier this month, a group of Illinois students and parents sued the Obama administration over its stance on transgender students’ access to school bathrooms and locker rooms, arguing that the U.S. Department of Education is illegally forcing local authorities to let children use facilities that correspond to their subjectively chosen gender identity. The complaint alleges that the federal government has violated students’ fundamental right to privacy and parents’ constitutional right to instill moral standards and values in their children.

The transgender activists would have you believe that their politically correct ideology is based on science; however, the American College of Pediatricians has pointed out that transgenderism is classified as a mental illness and therefore has warned legislators and educators that conditioning children to accept transgenderism as normal is child abuse. They advised, “When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind, not the body, and it should be treated as such.”

Dr. Paul McHugh, psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, was so concerned about the psychological origins of gender-identity disorder that he halted the practice of sex-reassignment surgery at his institution. He concluded that the research demonstrated that Johns Hopkins should no longer participate in what he called “unusual and radical treatment” for “mental disorders.”

The Catholic Church has some clear teachings on transgender issues. Catholics are called to treat everyone with compassion. Yet the church maintains that people may not change what Pope Benedict XVI called “their very essence.” In a speech at the Vatican on Dec. 23, 2008, Benedict directly addressed transgender issues by cautioning Catholics about “destroying the very essence of the human creature through manipulating their God-given gender to suit their sexual choices.”

Similarly, in his encyclical Laudato Si, issued last year on the environment, Pope Francis called for men and women to acknowledge their bodies as a gift from God which should not be manipulated. “The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home,” the pope wrote, “whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation” (no. 155).

In his recent apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), Pope Francis warns that gender ideology “denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences … It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality. Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent. Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created” (no. 56).

Here in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, we ask that people respect these teachings of the Catholic Church in their use of facilities in our churches and schools. People who are confused about their gender identity — especially children and adolescents — should be treated with compassion and provided counseling rather than being further confused by activists promoting their political ideology.

May God give us this grace. Amen.

Bishop James Conley, Lincoln Nebraska, Tuesday, 17 May 2016

On Friday, May 13, the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice issued a joint instruction, which they called “significant guidance,” to public school districts across the country. The guidance stated that in order to receive federal funds for education, every public school district must provide services, restrooms, and “equal access” to all students according to their stated gender identity.

The federal government has ordered that when any student and his parents tell the school that his “gender identity” has changed—if he was born a boy, for example, but considers himself a girl—the school must treat him, in every possible way, like an actual girl. The government declared that the boy who says he is a girl must be permitted to change in locker rooms with girls, to stay in girls’ rooms on overnight trips, and, very often, to participate on girls’ sports teams.

This “guidance” is deeply disturbing. In fact, the administration’s action is simply wrong. It is wrong to deny the fundamental difference between men and women; and to teach children that our identity, at its very core, is arbitrary and self-determined. God created us male and female, and policies like this deny the basic beauty of God’s creation.

Boethius, the 6th century Roman senator and Christian philosopher, was a thoughtful critic of disturbing trends he saw in Roman society. In his classic work, the Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius criticized those evil spirits “who slay the rich and fruitful harvest of Reason with the barren thorns of Passion. They habituate men to their sickness of mind instead of curing them.”

We are living in a time when ordinary human reason is quickly being replaced by “the barren thorns of passion.” Our entire culture has been caught up in a kind of sentimentalized and relativized tyranny of tolerance: we vilify and condemn, ever more quickly, any sense of reasonable and ordered social policy. We have a vague sense that endorsing certain fashionable kinds of social and emotional disorders—including transgenderism—is a mandate of justice, or a victory for civil rights.

But the real victims of our culture of relativism are those who suffer from serious problems, and who need compassionate help. Pathological confusion about one’s own identity is a kind of illness. It brings tremendous personal and emotional difficulties. Transgenderism cries out for compassionate assistance. Pope Francis says that “acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital,” and “valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary” for authentic human freedom.

But, as Boethius wrote, we “habituate men to their sickness, instead of curing them.”

Children and parents in very difficult situations deserve compassion, sensitivity, and respect. The Church will continue to make every effort to assist those suffering gender dysphoria; in fact, we can improve our efforts in this regard in many ways. But the Church will not deny that God created us male and female. We will not confuse respect and compassion with capitulation to a tragic delusion. Our Catholic schools will continue to teach and live the truth, because of our care for every student. We can only help students grow in holiness when we help them to live in accord with the truth. We will continue to do that, no matter the cost.

The Obama administration’s directive is a sign of the brokenness of our culture; of our lost sense of the common good, of individual goodness, of true freedom, real rights, and authentic happiness.  Nebraska’s Governor Pete Ricketts pointed out earlier this week that this directive is basically a kind of coercive opinion, which does not enjoy the authority of law. It is a form of bullying and, ultimately, it is a sad sign of how much we have lost our way; how little of the Gospel’s good news forms and shapes our culture.

This directive is a sign of a great tragedy.  We are living in an atheocracy: a society determined to stamp out every vestige of God’s plan for mercy, and justice, and goodness. We are living in a society ensnared by the evil of relativism, to which human flourishing, in this life and the next, poses a threat.

The Gospel is a threat to the forces of this world. And in such a circumstance, there is a great temptation, for all of us, to withdraw into our families, into our Catholic community, into those places which we believe are safe, places in which we think we might be spared from the evil of this world.

But facing an evil world, Boethius wrote that “it is time for healing, not lamenting.” Boethius was right. Our culture is in need of healing. The victims of relativism’s dictatorship—those who are harmed by false compassion and tolerance for evil—need our help. Only we can be the leaders who stand up in the face of the storms. The Lord calls us to leadership, and so do the victims of the culture of death.

We are called to stand up—right now, we must be committed to carrying the healing mercy of Jesus Christ to this world. And the fight is not easy. We will not likely fight on a battlefield, in a glamorous blaze of glory. Instead we fight by claiming our nation for Christ, by forming Catholic culture that welcomes others to real freedom, by speaking—heart to heart—with those who are in need of Christ’s healing. We fight evil by praying, and hoping, to win every heart, every soul, every life, for Jesus Christ; as missionaries and disciples of mercy.

We also fight evil on our knees. We fight evil through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We fight evil by invoking St. Michael the Archangel. We fight evil by consecrating our nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the fount of true mercy, and true peace.

All of us can read the signs of the times. We are living through a great trial and a great tragedy. Real people, about whom we care very much, are gravely harmed by the infiltration of evil in our world. We know that Christ will be victorious in the end. But we also know how urgently Christ is needed in this world. Only we can entrust this nation to Jesus Christ—especially his Sacred Heart—in our prayers. And only we can choose, in response to the urgency of the moment, to be active, joyful, faithful missionaries of Jesus Christ—declaring the Gospel, and inviting the world to mercy.

We live in a grave and serious time in history. But now is time for healing, not for lamenting.