The bishops “wimped out”.

They could have stood strong, but did not.

But, then again, American Catholics, for the most part,
are the largest group of Protestants on Earth…

oh yeah.  much better that they skip the pill that stops the pregnancy from starting and geet an abortion a few months later.  why would we want to harm the abortion industry?

Lester, you just love being a contrarian, don’t you?  The answer, of course, is not to abort the child at all, whether through a chemical abortion shortly after conception or any of the other methods “a few months later.”

Scott, that’s a very insightful essay which goes to the heart of Christian values.  I wish our bishops had your insight instead of just being CYA bureaucrats.

What bishops do and say…

In the past bishops have been wrong, and sometimes
spectacularly so.

But sometimes I wonder if we got at this issue from the
wrong end. Somehow we cannot visualize the child, and
when we do, we have trained ourselves to callousness.

A few years ago I was one of those who helped bring a
homeless shelter to Annapolis. Until it was done, the
homeless played “musical churches”. When it was my
turn to keep watch we had as a guest a very young woman
and her baby, just released from the hospital It was
heartbreaking to see that baby on the grey cot, all
alone, with its mother in the cot next to it, so small,
so helpless.

A few weeks later there was a debate at City Hall about
opening a permanent shelter, with too many voices
opposing it. I spoke for it, as you can imagine, and
I mentioned that baby spending his first days on a
grey cot in a church basement..

It struck me that not anyone saw something precious in
that baby, that they only saw a social problem (both
mother and baby were black). Words like “welfare mothers”
or “underclass” were bandied about.

If we cannot see a little baby as precious, when it is
there to be seen, what hope is there for it when it
cannot?

As a father, the image of a newborn on a cot brought tears to my eyes, then I remembered what God told to us in Matthew 25:35-46.

God may be in the greatest of humans, but He is definitely in the least of humans.

We should always consider that once God was a helpless infant, He was once hungry, thirsty, tired, and don’t forget that He was once imprisoned, on trial, tortured, and executed.

What gives us all Hope is that He also conquered Death and His Salvation is for all that accept it.

Once again the Church drops the ball. After a century of not understanding how bad things really were out there, going along to get along, letting the camel’s nose in the tent, and letting internal discipline lapse with horrendous results, the Church hasn’t learned a damn thing.

Where the hell is Rome in this? This calls for discipline, and once again instead we hand hem-and-hawers and buck-passers.

I was conceived by an act of multiple rape.
Just think, had it happened now, I would not only have secular society to fear, but also the hirelings of the Catholic church.

scott- but that’s not what is going to happen.  Why risk the possibilit y that that person may decide to have an abortion?  why gamble that they will have the child when abortion is so widely available.  the morning after pill isn’t abortion.

There is something a bit sickening about the idea that
abortion should be allowed in case of rape. Why? Because
since the woman was an innocent party, then she does
not deserve to carry a baby to term. She cannot be
punished when she is not guilty.

Somehow the baby got identified with punishment for the
sin of fornication. If you consented to have sex, then
the baby is your punishment and should not be allowed to
abort because you are evading punishment, but if you
were innocent, then of course, abortion is your right.

Add to it that in our economic system too often women
pay an economic penalty for bearing children. Just to
hear learned analysts say that women trapped in poverty
deserve to be there because of their bad choice of not
controlling their fertility and it gives you chills down
the spine.

We do not cherish the babies we see. How can we then
cherish the ones we don’t?

The reality is that the Catholic Hospitals of CT made a decision on pragmatic grounds (keep state money coming) and were forced to make some embarrassing cover story.  They invited the vampire in through the front door, as the folklore tells us it must be.

why doesn’t the catholic church simply change their name to the christian scientists and whenever anyone comes to the clinic just tell them to pray harder.

“the morning after pill isn’t abortion.”

So, Lester, you are, in fact, just a contrarian.  Or is there some part of “abortifacient” you don’t understand?

is menstruation abortion too?

Lester, perhaps you should go down to your local public school and sit in on a sex-ed class.  Then, you might understand that menstruation occurs if, after approximately 10-14 days after ovulation, no fertilized egg has implanted in the uterine wall.

Plan B works (in part) by deliberately preventing implantation of a fertilized egg.  The deliberate prevention of implantation is called abortion.

A chemically induced abortion has nothing to due with the natural process of menstruation.

“no fertilized egg has implanted in the uterine wall. “

therefore, it is not an abortion unless you think people shold let their broken legs be healed by god and so forth

@lester

Read carefully

no *fertilized* egg.

In menstruation we are dealing with an unfertilized
egg which can never be other than a cell. It is only
after it is fertilized we can talk about an embryo, a
future person. Sloughing off an unfertilized egg is of
no more importance than sloughing off dead skin.

An unfertilized egg cannot adhere to the uterine wall.

aren’t such fertilized eggs regularly disposed of at fertility clinics?

They are, and that’s why the Catholic Church condemns
fertility treatments.

“aren’t such fertilized eggs regularly disposed of
at fertility clinics?”

“They are, and that’s why the Catholic Church
condemns fertility treatments.”

Doh!

One can only hope that somehow, someday, Lester’s
capacity for logic—and grammar—will evolve
beyond: 

oh yeah well your religion sucks and youre a
superstitious poophead and richard dawkins and
other smart people is on my side

I suspect the reason Lester does not see the
significance of 23 chromosomes vice 46 is that he
might not be carrying the standard number himself…

The more I think about this, the angrier I get.

The Church has always taught me that human life begins at the moment of conception. Now, either they really don’t believe that, or just figure that no one should pay attention to it.

Well, if they didn’t believe this, what else have they taught me that they don’t really believe? And if they are allowed to ignore the moral teachings of the Church, why aren’t I allowed to?

I forego much pleasure in order to abide by the moral strictures of the Church. Am I a poltroon to do so?

I do not know wether I can take communion from a church that has a sideline as an abortion provider.

As for the state money, better that lightning should strike every Catholic hospital and they all burn down than that one abortion should happen there.

Where is Rome in this? The American branch of the church is in utter disarray and complete moral breakdown, and Rome does nothing. Why?

I am livid. I may soon be an ex-Catholic over this.

adriana- so if couples have trouble conceiving, that’s just the lords way of saying they can’t reproduce.  nice

@Nergol:

The Church is composed of both divine and human elements, and the human elements can, and often do, err.  Please don’t let those errors undercut your faith in the Church.

I don’t think that the Connecticut bishops are deliberately sanctioning chemical abortion.  I think that they, like so many other people today, have gotten caught up in their “compassion.”

Bishop Lori issue a “clarification” that I’ll blog about later, but the one thing that became clear from it was that he and his brother bishops are explicitly thinking what I outlined above--namely, that rape is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, and therefore we should do everything in our power (short of abortion) to help keep her from carrying the rapist’s child and prolonging the injustice.

That is, frankly, a warped view of the world.  And it has warped the bishops’ views so much that, I think, they’ve been blinded to the fact (not supposition, not even possibility, but fact) that this pill works, in part, as an abortifacient.  They regard the fact that it works in multiple ways as “uncertainty” over how it works in a particular case, which would mitigate against complicity.

They’re wrong, of course, but not because they’re evil, but because they, like everyone else today, are too nice.

@lester

If a couple has trouble conceiving maybe that’s
the Lord way of telling them to open their hearts
to children without a home of their own.

@Scott

Indeed, corruption is not a new story in the
Church.  As Chesterton said, there would have
not been so many reformers if there had not been
something to reform.

The problem is not that they think that rape is the
worst thing that can happen to the woman, but that
they think of pregnancy and the child as a punishment.
The woman fornicated and now she is pregnant. Serves
her right. But since she is an innocent victim, then
she does not deserve the punishment, so let’s remove it,

With this kind of thinking, the baby gets lost in the
rhethoric.

Unfortunately there is a long story of cruelty towards
single mothers, and in the measure that the Church
condoned it, or participated in it, it is responsible
for the outlook that abortion is the lesser evil.

I do not know if there an acknowledgement of past wrongs
would help much, but it might clear the air, and open
a sincere dialogue with many feminists who revolt against
the injustice that they perceive the Chruch has inflicted
in the past, or may yet be inflicting.

(By the way, I remember that no long ago a teacher that
got pregnant got fired for morality reasons, which
provided a very good incentive for abortion… unintended
consequences).

Scott;

I grew up in New Jersey - and in the old New jersey, before it became a gentrified bedroom community for Wall Street stock brokers. it taught you a few things.

One of them is this: The Sixth Commandment does not read: “Thou shalt not kill… unless ya really gotta”.

And the reason for that is that *everyone* who kills does so armed with a perfectly good and sensible reason why they really gotta. Mobsters, street thugs, tyrants of all flavor - all of them have a good reason in their corner when they kill or hurt their fellow human beings. And it all makes perfect sense once it’s explained to you.

Unless of course there is *no* good reason. None at all.

One day, sitting in a booth in the Bendix Diner, where, in the early morning, the air smells of home fries and diesel fuel, my father told me: “Son, everybody has a story that’ll make ya cry”.

By this he meant that, as the Buddhists say, to be in human form is to suffer. But some will use their suffering as a justification to visit all sorts of injustices upon their fellow human beings. This is not to say that their suffering is not real or genuinely pitiable - usually it is. But it is an all too human temptation, and the road to terrible moral injustice, to make one’s own suffering the center of one’s universe so much that it justifies harming others.

And it is unforgivable moral laxness for one to accept this coming from another person. On one level it may seem heartless not to accept it, but on another level, it provides evil, which always stands by, hammer in hand, looking for a weak spot in the foundations of goodness which it can strike, with just such a striking point.

These women who have been raped have a story that’ll make ya cry. Then again, so does every women walking into every abortion clinic in the world. So does everybody in prison for visiting violence and chaos upon common folk. Just ask them.

Hackensack is a fine place to learn the great moral truths which govern the human condition.

@Nergol,

Take Scott’s advice.  I like the way my buddy put your father’s words.  He would always tell me ‘everybody’s got their bag of rocks.’

Additionally, not that I expect much from government in general, democracies in specific, or Connecticut in even more specific, but where the hell does the state government get off ordering Catholic hospitals not to take ovulation tests into account when deciding wether or not to administer this pill? Or ordering any hospital anywhere to take or not take anything into consideration before deciding which medical services it will or will not provide?

I guess “pro-choice” does not cover *that* choice.

This clearly is something the bishops could have taken to court. They should have. They still should.

@Nergol:

“This clearly is something the bishops could have taken to court. They should have. They still should.”

Absolutely.  And their claim that they did not because they were advised that they would likely lose the case does not matter.  There are battles that should be fought even if you will almost certainly lose.

The Connecticut legislation, by the way, was anti-Catholic.  Period.  It was aimed at the Connecticut bishops’ previous policy.  Secular hospitals were not requiring ovulation tests.

(By the way, I think the previous policy was flawed as well, since conception could occur after a negative ovulation test, and Plan B could still result in an abortion.  But that’s a discussion for a different day.)