Human Work Shares in God's Work

Faithfulness to small, ordinary duties can sometimes move mountains and change the world. Grace, joined to our labor and love, renews all things; suffuses all things; holds the cosmos together. Let your life mediate love. Excerpts:

...Somehow I am mindful that the Lord also had “other duties as assigned.” One of the most touching and moving scenes in the Gospels is on a certain resurrection morning, at the lakeside in Galilee. Peter is eagerly swimming ashore to see the Risen Lord. And there is Jesus, the very Son of God and Lord of all, cooking breakfast for them (Jn 21:7). Yes, Jesus Christ, Eternal Son of the Father, Divine Logos, Universal King, Savior of the Nations, and breakfast chef….”Other duties as assigned.”...

Gay Rights and Wrongs

A few interesting pieces.  A gay Catholic writes over at Mark Shea's blog.  Excerpts:

...Perhaps I am biased. But when a gay person, prior to the repeal of the DADT, could serve in the military and be discharged not for a sexual act, but the mere knowledge of their orientation being known, it seems unjust. It is my understanding that sexual activity by anyone, regardless of orientation, is (rightly) grounds for discharge, and that is the policy with DADT repealed. Whereas before, the policy even allowed knowledge of a homosexual orientation, even not acted upon, to be grounds for dismissal. Catholic dismay over the repeal of DADT, I have always found demoralizing, not simply because people opposed it, but no one was seriously trying to find a workable solution that dealt with their concerns, but was respectful to gays serving in uniform. No one wanted to upset “conservative” orthodoxy.

Similarly, it is my understanding that the knowledge that some young men are homosexual have prevented them from advancing in Boy Scouts. I see this is in a similar like. If homosexual acts are involved, my opinion is similar. But if someone happens to be a homosexual, I do not see why knowledge of this must be accompanied by negative consequences. And, similarly, I have not seen similar efforts to find a workable solution. Just a similar situation to DADT in that it was very politicized with the same battle lines drawn.

These two issues are often talked about in two ways. First, no one was a “right” to serve in the military. The primary goal is national defense and, it is said, it is the prerogative of military leaders to discriminate in anyway that keeps up safe. Secondly, Boy Scouts is a private organization, which is accorded the rights to make up rules as they see fit. If you don’t like those rules, it is said, don’t join or start another organization.

These are typical conservative arguments. But, to me, they miss the point. As a Catholic, and even more so, as someone who is gay, I see just another symptom of the pastoral failure toward homosexuals.

I see this is just another instance in which homosexuals are shut out, unless they are closeted and are lying about who they are. Sure, we are not reducible to our sexuality. We are living images of God. But, believe me, I speak from experience. It is very, very difficult when you are growing up as a gay teen and same-sex peers are always talking about the opposite sex, relationships, and such things, and it not to come out either by confession, or by inference from your silence or awkwardness in such situations, that you are gay. The only other way requires great acting skills or lying. And many, like me, decided that integrity and not lying was the high road.

So, I empathize deeply, when someone decides to join the military, or at the behest of their parents, ignorant of their child’s sexuality, they start scouting, and they feel they have to lie in order to excel. And what’s worse is that if that if their secret is ever discovered, it can mean punishment, and exclusion; and this is backed by Christians. I just don’t understand it. These are our brothers and sisters, many of whom are Christ’s lost sheep. We can’t make the truth less hard, but I feel that too many Catholics are making stumbling blocks that need not be...

And then on the related issue of the current gay rights movement and the culture wars spawned in part by the sexual revolution, Mark Steyn elegantly restates the point that if heterosexuals hadn't done so badly by the institution of marriage in the first place, the redefinition couldn't possibly have come so far, so fast. Excerpts:

Gay marriage? It came up at dinner Down Under this time last year, and the prominent Aussie politician on my right said matter-of-factly, “It’s not about expanding marriage, it’s about destroying marriage.”

That would be the most obvious explanation as to why the same societal groups who assured us in the Seventies that marriage was either (a) a “meaningless piece of paper” or (b) institutionalized rape are now insisting it’s a universal human right. They’ve figured out what, say, terrorist-turned-educator Bill Ayers did — that, when it comes to destroying core civilizational institutions, trying to blow them up is less effective than hollowing them out from within...

In the upper echelons of society, our elites practice what they don’t preach. Scrupulously nonjudgmental about everything except traditional Christian morality, they nevertheless lead lives in which, as Charles Murray documents in his book Coming Apart, marriage is still expected to be a lifelong commitment. It is easy to see moneyed gay newlyweds moving into such enclaves, and making a go of it. As the Most Reverend Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said just before his enthronement the other day, “You see gay relationships that are just stunning in the quality of the relationship.” “Stunning”: What a fabulous endorsement! But, amongst the type of gay couple that gets to dine with the Archbishop of Canterbury, he’s probably right.

Lower down the socioeconomic scale, the quality gets more variable. One reason why conservative appeals to protect the sacred procreative essence of marriage have gone nowhere is because Americans are rapidly joining the Scandinavians in doing most of their procreating without benefit of clergy. Seventy percent of black babies are born out of wedlock, so are 53 percent of Hispanics (the “natural conservative constituency” du jour, according to every lavishly remunerated Republican consultant), and 70 percent of the offspring of poor white women. Over half the babies born to mothers under 30 are now “illegitimate” (to use a quaintly judgmental formulation). For the first three-and-a-half centuries of American settlement the bastardy rate (to be even quainter) was a flat line in the basement of the graph, stuck at 2 or 3 percent all the way to the eve of the Sixties. Today over 40 percent of American births are “non-marital,” which is significantly higher than Canada or Germany. “Stunning” upscale gays will join what’s left of the American family holed up in a chichi Green Zone, while beyond the perimeter the vast mounds of human rubble pile up remorselessly. The conservative defense of marriage rings hollow because for millions of families across this land the American marriage is hollow...

Entire new categories of crime have arisen in the wake of familial collapse, like the legions of adolescent daughters abused by Mom’s latest live-in boyfriend. Millions of children are now raised in transient households that make not just economic opportunity but even elementary character-formation all but impossible. In the absence of an agreed moral language to address this brave new world, Americans retreat to comforting euphemisms like “blended families,” notwithstanding that the familial Cuisinart seems to atomize at least as often as it blends.

Meanwhile, social mobility declines: Doctors who once married their nurses now marry their fellow doctors; lawyers who once married their secretaries now contract with fellow super-lawyers, like dynastic unions in medieval Europe. Underneath the self-insulating elite, millions of Americans are downwardly mobile: The family farmers and mill workers, the pioneers who hacked their way into the wilderness and built a township, could afford marriage and children; indeed, it was an economic benefit. For their descendants doing minimum-wage service jobs about to be rendered obsolete by technology, functioning families are a tougher act, and children an economic burden. The gays looked at contemporary marriage and called the traditionalists’ bluff...

The Laboure Society: "Delivering Vocations Which Would Otherwise be Lost"

A cause well worth supporting.  Excerpts:

...What Laurent discovered — and what few casual observers realize — is the roadblock debt presents to thousands of potential priestly and religious vocations. While guidelines vary by order, diocese and seminary as to what debt new members are allowed to carry, for many religious orders that number is zero.

...“We are a national organization with the specific purpose of serving the Church by delivering vocations which would otherwise be lost,” he said.

The Laboure Society assists aspiring religious in addressing their financial situation in several ways. Applicants are thoroughly vetted, including through the order they wish to join. Roughly every six months, those accepted are organized into classes, usually 10 to 15 members in size.

The class is brought together at a three-day financial boot camp where members are taught ethical fundraising skills and work through a strategic plan to tackle the accumulated student loans of the group (personal debt is not addressed by the society’s program).

Laurent said while class members then return to implement the fundraising plan in their home areas, they are not cut adrift. Each class is assigned a mentor who follows up to assess progress and provide support.

“This is a very well-thought out protocol,” he said. “The individual serves as accountability to the team members.”

Once the money has been collected, it is allocated to each team member in the form of grants with the exact amount each team member receives calculated by a comprehensive formula. The society doesn’t issue checks to team members, but takes over management of loan payment schedules. Individuals who don’t receive grants sufficient to wipe out their debt join a second team to participate in additional rounds of fundraising.

The group makes loan payments as long as the individual continues to advance through their vocational path and returns any unpaid principal if a person abandons their vocation. To date, the non-profit organization has helped more than 230 individuals into priestly and religious formation...

Their website here. See also Serra International.

The Law of the Gift

The New York Times asks:

Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?

Yes--because the dynamic at the heart of the Trinity is utter and absolute self-gift. Since the Trinity is the source all of that is, the universe is set up to sacramentally mediate self-gift through time and space between God and creatures, as well as between created beings. This is why life demands everything from us--either we participate in the dynamic of self-donation and receiving gratefully the gifts of others, or we attempt to control others and retain ourselves.

More simply: "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it." (Luke 9:24; Matthew 16:25; Luke 17:33; Mark 8:35; Matthew 10:39; John 12:25)

It's all in John Paul II, all in John Paul II--bless me, what do they teach in schools these days!

Happy Divine Mercy Sunday!

Same-Sex Marriage, Traditional Sexual Morality, And What's Next

Signs of the times.  Excerpts:

...As the Washington Post scandal showed, through ignorance or inability to understand the arguments made by marriage traditionalists or some other problem, many in the media are convinced that they’re fighting the equivalent of racists and that, as such, horrific treatment of the people and their arguments is justified.

Here’s another example of that. Poynter discusses how some media figures took part in that most brave and meaningful public sacrament: changing one’s Facebook avatar to support changing marriage laws to include same-sex couples. You can read about it at “Journalists share arguments for, against using same-sex marriage symbols on social media profiles.”

My favorite part:

A human rights issue vs. a political issue: Journalists who changed their avatars and were willing to talk about it generally said they view same-sex marriage differently from a regular political issue in which both sides must be presented fairly and objectively.

Matt DeRienzo, an editor for the Journal Register Company in Connecticut, tweeted: “I don’t have a problem with journalists who work for me voicing support for basic civil rights for gay people. Or kids, sunshine, etc.”

And then we get various other quotes from people who are unable to view this issue beyond the “civil rights” paradigm they’ve adopted.

This breezes right past the central, fundamental question under debate and begs the question. If one adopts a certain view of marriage — then opposition to that view is akin to racism. If one retains the view that marriage is the institution that governs sexual complementarity and requires male and female then civil rights is the wrong framework and cries of bigotry are uninformed and scurrilous at best.

The problem I see with many of these media discussions is that reporters and editors aren’t thinking very much about it. There’s a lot of emotion, but not a lot of thinking. There’s close to no curiosity about intellectual arguments in play and the end result is some scary behavior on the part of the Piers Morgan types.

In the words of David S. Crawford, the tolerance that will be given to those who aren’t on board with changing the basis of marriage from sexual complementarity to sexual orientation will be:

…provisional and contingent, tailored to accommodate what is conceived as a significant but shrinking segment of society that holds a publically unacceptable private bigotry. Where over time it emerges that this bigotry has not in fact disappeared, more aggressive measures will be needed, which will include more explicit legal and educational components, as well as simple ostracism...

Some of the arguments for traditional marriage, in case anyone has never encountered one:

• What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense
• Family and Civilization
• Debating Same-Sex Marriage (Point/Counterpoint)
• Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work
• The Future of Marriage
• The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially
• Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family Is Built
• Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution
• On the Meaning of Sex

The Story of Sexuality

In a fallen world, in one video.

And the path out of it.

Laborem Exercens, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, Centesimus Annus: The Social Doctrine of Blessed Pope John Paul II

From the invaluable Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Excerpts:

...Ninety years after Rerum Novarum, Pope John Paul II devoted the Encyclical Laborem Exercens [187] to work, the fundamental good of the human person, the primary element of economic activity and the key to the entire social question. Laborem Exercens outlines a spirituality and ethic of work in the context of a profound theological and philosophical reflection. Work must not be understood only in the objective and material sense, but one must keep in mind its subjective dimension, insofar as it is always an expression of the person. Besides being a decisive paradigm for social life, work has all the dignity of being a context in which the person's natural and supernatural vocation must find fulfilment.

With the Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis[188], Pope John Paul II commemorates the twentieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio and deals once more with the theme of development along two fundamental lines: “on one hand, the dramatic situation of the modern world, under the aspect of the failed development of the Third World, and on the other, the meaning of, conditions and requirements for a development worthy of man”[189]. The Encyclical presents differences between progress and development, and insists that “true development cannot be limited to the multiplication of goods and service — to what one possesses — but must contribute to the fullness of the ‘being' of man. In this way the moral nature of real development is meant to be shown clearly”[190]. Pope John Paul II, alluding to the motto of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, “opus iustitiae pax” (peace is the fruit of justice), comments: “Today, one could say, with the same exactness and the same power of biblical inspiration (cf. Is 32:17; Jas 3:18), opus solidaritatis pax (peace is the fruit of solidarity)”[191].

On the hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope John Paul II promulgates his third social encyclical, Centesimus Annus[192], whence emerges the doctrinal continuity of a hundred years of the Church's social Magisterium. Taking up anew one of the fundamental principles of the Christian view of social and political organization, which had been the central theme of the previous Encyclical, the Pope writes: “What we nowadays call the principle of solidarity ... is frequently stated by Pope Leo XIII, who uses the term ‘friendship' ... Pope Pius XI refers to it with the equally meaningful term ‘social charity'. Pope Paul VI, expanding the concept to cover the many modern aspects of the social question, speaks of a ‘civilization of love”'[193]. Pope John Paul II demonstrates how the Church's social teaching moves along the axis of reciprocity between God and man: recognizing God in every person and every person in God is the condition of authentic human development. The articulate and in-depth analysis of the “new things”, and particularly of the great breakthrough of 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet system, shows appreciation for democracy and the free economy, in the context of an indispensable solidarity.

Other tallies of the social encyclicals include Evangelium Vitae on this list.

To Love Another Person Is To See The Face of God

Yes, love; love changes everything. From the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church:

...The transformation of the world is a fundamental requirement of our time also. To this need the Church's social Magisterium intends to offer the responses called for by the signs of the times, pointing above all to the mutual love between human beings, in the sight of God, as the most powerful instrument of change, on the personal and social levels. Mutual love, in fact, sharing in the infinite love of God, is humanity's authentic purpose, both historical and transcendent. Therefore, “earthly progress must be carefully distinguished from the growth of Christ's kingdom. Nevertheless, to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the kingdom of God”[67]...(article 55)

You Will Be Like God: The Meaning of Life

We are called to deification, to be sons in the Son. Excerpts:

The story of the Fall of our race as it comes to us in Genesis is marked by the ironic promise made by the serpent to Eve: "When you eat of [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God" (Gen. 3:5).  Just as the devil would later tempt Christ, the Second Adam, with a distorted view of his divine sonship ("If you are the Son of God," Mt 4:3), so he beguiles Eve with a distorted account of God's purpose ("If you eat, you will be like God").  There is a certain truth lodged in the serpent's words.  It was indeed the purpose of God that the human race become like God.  This is what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God.  In this respect the devil's seduction was especially effective.  He dressed up the path to disobedience with a promise that represented God's true purpose for our race.  But instead of attaining to likeness to God through obedience and fear of the Lord as we were intended to do, we set out on our own path to "become like God," imitating the disobedience of the devil, and reaping the fruit of death instead of partaking of the tree of life.--Daniel Keating, Deification and Grace, (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007), pg. 108.

God Loves You as You Are--So Change!

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.--1 Corinthians 14:1-8

People often say, "Love me for who I am."  "Accept me for who I am."  "If you really loved me, you would love me for who I am and not ask me to change."

  And there's an element of truth in this expectation.

For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.  Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.  But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.--Romans 5:6-8

In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.--1 John 4:10-11

God loves us as we are, where we are, no matter what we've done or are doing or will do. God loves us. God is love. (1 John 4:8)

And yet--and yet! God loves us as we are, and calls us to become radically transformed because of his love.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?  So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."--Matthew 5:43-48

Or, as Andrew Lloyd Weber puts it:

God's love--all love--is transformative.

To love is to contemplate, to be transformed.

And true, self-donating, self-emptying love always confounds evil.

So love reaches us where we are, enfolding us, suffusing us, holding us in life. And then it lifts us up where we belong.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”--C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

And when we, by God's grace, take the risk of loving God, ourselves, and our neighbor, what happens then? Deification. (For more, see here.)

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pray for Us!

Happy feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

By artist Nellie Edwards

"Do not be troubled or weighed down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?"--Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, 1531, at Tepeyac Hill near Mexico City, Mexico

Divinization: Becoming Sons and Daughters of God

From Divine Intimacy, an extraordinary book. Excerpts:

Monday of the 1st Week of Advent

Presence of God

I place myself in the presence of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, contemplating Him as the Redeemer and Sanctifier of my soul.

Meditation

"Where sin abounded, grace did more abound." (Romans 5:20) Adam's fall brought about the destruction of God's plan for man's sanctification. Our first parents, created to the image and likeness of God, in a state of grace and justice, and raised to the dignity of children of God, were hurled into an abyss of misery, drawing with them the whole human race. For centuries man groaned in his sin, he could no longer call God by the sweet name of Father, he did not even dare to pronounce His name, regarding the Most High with a sense of terror: "He is a powerful and terrible God, the God of justice and vengeance." Sin made an insurmountable abyss between man and God, and man groaned in the depths of the abyss, utterly incapable of rising from it.

To do what man could not do, to destroy sin and restore divine sonship to the human race, a Saviour was promised. The most merciful God, "so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son" (John 3:16) for its salvation. The Word, the splendour of the Father, and the figure of His substance became flesh in order to destroy sin and restore grace to us, that "we might once again be called, and really be the children of God". (cf. 1 John 3:1)

God wants us "all to be saved"; for this reason He gave us His Son, and with Him and through Him, all the means necessary for our salvation. Therefore, if a soul is not saved, it alone will be responsible.

2. Jesus was not satisfied with destroying sin and meriting only a sufficient amount of grace for our salvation. He did much more and He Himself declared it, "I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly." (John 10:10) . This plenitude of life is the plenitude of grace, the supernatural life which causes sanctity to blossom. Sanctity is not reserved for a few; Jesus, by His Incarnation and by His death on the Cross, merited the means of salvation and sanctification for all who believe in Him. He, the All-holy, came to sanctify us, and has taught us, "Be you therefore perfect, as also Your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)

Jesus did not give this precept to a chosen group of persons, nor did He reserve it for His Apostles and close friends; He proclaimed it to the multitude who were following Him. St. Paul received His message and announced it to the Gentiles, "This is the will of God, your sanctification." (1 Thessalonians 4:3) And in our times the Church, speaking through the great Pope Pius XI, has repeated it strongly and on many occasions to the modern world: "Christ has called the whole human race to the lofty heights of sanctity.... There are some who say that sanctity is not everyone's vocation; on the contrary, it is everyone's vocation, and all are called to it.... Jesus Christ has given Himself as an example for all to imitate." And elsewhere: "Let no one believe that sanctity belongs to a few chosen people, while the rest of humanity can limit itself to a lesser degree of virtue. Everyone is included in this law; no one is exempt from it."

Jesus comes not only to save me, but to sanctify me. He is calling me to sanctity and has merited for me all the graces I need to attain it.

Colloquy

"It grieves me, my God, that I should be so wicked and that I am able to do so little in Your service. I well know that it is my own fault that You have not granted me the favours which You gave to those who went before me.... I grieve over my life, Lord, when I compare it with theirs; and I cannot say this without weeping. When I meditate, my God, upon the glory which You have prepared for those who persevere in doing Your will, and when I think how many trials and pains it cost Your Son to gain it for us, and how little we have deserved it, and how bound we are not to be ungrateful for this wondrous love which has taught us love at such a cost to itself, my soul becomes greatly afflicted. How is it possible, Lord, that all this should be forgotten, and that, when they offend You, mortal men should be so forgetful of You? O my Redeemer, how forgetful are men! They are forgetful even of themselves. And how great is Your goodness that You should remember us when we have fallen and have tried to strike You a mortal blow, and that You forget what we have done and give us Your hand again and awaken us from our incurable madness so that we seek and beg You for salvation. Blessed be such a Lord, blessed be such great mercy and praised be He forever for His merciful pity! O my soul, bless forever so great a God! How can a soul turn against Him?" (St Teresa of Jesus, Foundations, 4 -- Exclamations of the Soul to God, 3)

O Lord, although I know how much this poor soul of mine has cost You, yet how often have I offended You, resisted Your grace, been unfaithful to Your love, and deaf to Your invitation to a more perfect life, to sanctity.

You, my God, have given everything, You have given Yourself entirely for me; therefore, it is not seeking too much in return to ask me to give myself entirely to You, to give You everything in order to match Your love for me. Yes, I know that You are not satisfied with my thinking only of saving my soul, just as You were not satisfied to acquire for me only the means necessary for my salvation, but willed also to acquire the means necessary for my sanctification. You have already purchased and paid for all of them; therefore, if I do not become a saint, it is entirely my own fault.

But, O Lord, how can a soul as weak and miserable as mine, one so full of faults, selfishness and meanness aspire to an ideal as high as that of sanctity? Oh yes, my pretensions would certainly be the greatest temerity if You Yourself had not shown me that this is exactly what You will. You have even given me a precious commandment concerning it, "Be you therefore perfect as also Your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48)

I beseech You, O Lord, repeat this sublime invitation to my poor soul, pressingly, compellingly, so that held by this ideal, it may be urged to greater generosity, stronger resolutions, and more complete confidence in Your merciful work of redemption and sanctification.

"Is Life Fully Human Wthout Christianity?"

So I posted this to Facebook:

h/t Father Robert Barron and the Catholicism Project.
 Read the Pope's Wednesday address here.

and immediately got this question from a friend:

Is life fully human without Christianity?

to which I responded:

Ah--thereby hangs a massive, massive theological discussion. Bleah--permit me a few really nuanced, seemingly non-answer answers.

Storks Bringing Kids to Their Mothers--Via Ultrasound

An interesting, cool new pro-life ministry.  Excerpts:

...Dave and the team have high hopes, and they should. The approach is breathtakingly simple and, if early tests are any indication, profoundly effective.

As mentioned, the Storks take to the streets of Dallas on March 13. Meanwhile their website is up and running at SaveTheStorks.com with the purpose of raising money to take the program national. A Save the Storks bus is not cheap, and it takes people to run it. While Dave and his team get things off the ground in Dallas, Joe is in charge of building a national movement.

Steroids--Illegal. The Pill--Given Away.

A really interesting piece by Anthony Esolen.  Excerpts:

...when one compares this sex hormone, testosterone, to the sex hormone now in the news, estrogen, it is hard to see why, on medical and social grounds alone, the one would be severely restricted and the other so freely dispensed that people are ready, not simply to affirm its legality, but to mandate that people and institutions violate their religious faith to purchase it for women who want it.

Yes, You Can Fool the Children of the (Sexual) Revolution

Mary Eberstadt offers hope.  Excerpts:

...In the end, consolation also comes from this fact: The intellectual divide over the Cold War and the divide today over the sexual revolution another feature in common. In both cases, many on both sides suspected that history had already decided the matter. This was true even of some of the leading anticommunist intellectuals of the day. Jean François Revel opened his 1984 book, chillingly entitled How Democracies Perish, with the equally chilling sentence: “Democracy may, after all, turn out to have been a historical accident, a brief parenthesis that is closing before our eyes.” Similarly, Whittaker Chambers famously opens his magisterial autobiography, Witness, with a letter to his children warning darkly of a world “sick unto death,” and he told his wife when he chose to defect from communism, “You know, we are leaving the winning world for the losing world.” Chambers was wrong about that, of course—even as he was singularly and fearlessly right about so much else.

Humanae Vitae Was Right

Mary Eberstadt lays out the evidence, then asks, "Why does no one want to acknowledge it?"  Excerpts:

...the fundamental issue is rather what Archbishop Chaput explained ten years ago: “If Paul VI was right about so many of the consequences deriving from contraception, it is because he was right about contraception itself.”

Contraception and Conscience in Washington State

A remarkable decision in the context of the HHS controversy.  Excerpts:

Washington state cannot force pharmacies to sell Plan B or other emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying the state's true goal has been to suppress religious objections by druggists — not to promote timely access to the medicines for people who need them.

The Cost of Divorce

Not a happy picture.  Here's an interview with Elizabeth Marquardt, author of Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (review here).  Excerpts:

...How does divorce affect how the children of divorce read the Bible?

Let's take, for instance, the parable of the Prodigal Son. The children of divorce don't focus on the end of the story, when the child comes home and is welcomed by a loving parent. They focus on the beginning of the story, when someone leaves the family home. For them, it's not the child who leaves the home; it's the parent.

Natural Family Planning: Effective and Cheap

As with all forms of family planning, effective if used properly.  From ScienceDaily:

Researchers have found that a method of natural family planning that uses two indicators to identify the fertile phase in a woman's menstrual cycle is as effective as the contraceptive pill for avoiding unplanned pregnancies if used correctly, according to a report published online in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction today (21 February)...

Study abstract can be found here.