Bump+
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court gave women a choice. Thirty-seven years later, we’re giving them a voice. BUMP+ is a provocative web series from Yellow Line Studio that follows the fictional stories of three women facing unintended pregnancies.
If you haven’t heard, a new online program by Yellow Line, entitled “Bump+” has those on both sides of the abortion argument debating opposing viewpoints. Not surprising. What is surprising, is that they seem to be debating those within their own camp.
Fr. Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, recently commented on the show in an interview with Tim Drake, over at the National Catholic Register.
“Bump+” is a great service to the pro-life movement. “Bump+’s” target audience is not the pro-life community. It is trying to reach the vast number of citizens whose attitude toward abortion can best be described as conflicted. “Bump+” is not a forum for an abortion debate. The point here is to help viewers hear and feel both sides of the issue through stories. This is simply a conversation, not a condoning of abortion. We need to bring people through the conversation through stories. Jesus was a storyteller. You tell a story and let people connect with that. We do this through our Silent No More Awareness Campaign.
Laura Ingraham, however, tends to disagree.
For people to root on women to have an abortion online is moving the ball forward? Remember, you’re tying make abortion entertaining on your little faux web bogus little event here on the internet. It’s an immature, petty, Sophomoric, and unserious approach to what is a cataclysmic issue for our culture. We’ve got 46 million people who can’t participate in the “Bump+” reality show because they’re not here today.
The show “airs” every Monday and Thursday through March 15th.
“Love” is in the Air
Niederauer Responds!
“Freedom of will is the capacity to act with moral responsibility; it is not the ability to determine arbitrarily what constitutes moral right.”
Read more here: http://www.catholic-sf.org/news_select.php?newsid=&id=56744
Future Physicians of America
As second year medical students, my class was recently asked to submit three responses to the question, “After initial treatment, where would you refer a 16 year old pregnant woman who comes in to the ER suffering from Major Depression?”
The responses ( bold and underline mine):
Planned Parent Hood
WIC – Women, Infants, and Children
Family Resource Center
WIC for nutrition and education, the Depression Connection Team to take care of her mental health, and the Parenting Center to show her how to take care of a child.
Planned Parenthood
Mental Heath Mental Retardation
KEYS Learning Center or New Lives School
The YWCA is a place where she and the baby could stay before/after the baby was bornThe Nurse-Family Partnership through the County Public Health assigns a nurse to a mother and child up to the child’s second birthdayDepression and Bipolar Support Alliance offers education programs, guest speakers and peer support groups
The first place I would refer a depressed, pregnant, 16-year old would be Planned Parenthood for pregnancy options counseling.If she decided to have an abortion, Planned Parenthood would be able to help her. I would recommend that the patient follow up after her procedure with Planned Parenthood for birth control counseling as well. Then I would refer the girl to MHMR for continued monitoring of her mental health.
If she decided to give the child up for adoption, I would refer her to the Gladney Center for Adoption. They could assist her with the adoption procedures. I would then, again, also refer her to planned parenthood for birth control counseling and MHMR for her mental health.
If she decides to keep the pregnancy, I would refer her to MHMR for post-partum care of her mental health, Planned Parenthood for post-partum birth control counseling, Big Brothers Big Sisters of for mentoring by an older girl.
DISCLAIMER: This assignment was for extra credit, and is not therefore representative of the entire class. Disturbing nonetheless.
Quick poem.
A friend sent this to me. A composition by one Father Abram Joseph Ryan, a priest who served the Confederate States.
Two lights on a lowly Altar;
Two snowy cloths for a Feast;–
Two vases of dying roses,–
The Morning comes from the East,–
With a gleam for the folds of the Vestments
And a grace for the face of the Priest.The sound of a low, sweet whisper
Floats over a little Bread,–
And trembles around a chalice,–
And the Priest bows down his head!
O’er a Sign of White on the Altar,–
In the cup–o’er a sign of Red.As red as the Red of roses
As white as the White of snows!–
But the red is the red of a surface
Beneath which a God’s blood flows;
And the white is the white of a sunlight
Within which a God’s Flesh glows.Ah! Words of the olden Thursday!
Ye come from the Far-away!–
Ye bring us the Friday’s victim
In his own love’s olden way?–
In the hand of the Priest at the altar
His Heart finds a Home each dayThe sight of a Host uplifted!
The silver-sound of a bell!–
The gleam of a golden chalice–
Be glad.–sad heart! ‘t is well;
He made,–and he keeps love’s promise
With thee, all days to dwell.From his hand to his lips that tremble,–
From his lips to his heart a-thrill,–
Goes the little Host on its love-path
Still doing the Father’s Will;–
And over the rim of the chalice
The Blood flows forth,–to fill,–The heart of the man annointed,
With the waves of a wondrous grace;
A silence falls on the Altar–
An awe, on each bended face–
For the Heart that bled on Calvary
Still beats in the Holy-Place.The priest comes down to the railing
Where brows are bowed in prayer,–
In the tender clasp of his fingers
A Host lies pure and fair,–
And the hearts of Christ and the Christian
Meet there,–and only there!Oh! Love! that is deep and deathless!
Oh! Faith that is strong and grand!
Oh! Hope that will shine forever,
O’er the wastes of a weary land!–
Christ’s Heart finds an earthly Heaven
In the palm of the Priest’s pure hand.
The Virtue of Tolerance, Part I
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. – G.K. Chesterton
Tolerance
I was in the supermarket the other day buying some charcoal and lighter fluid (like a good Catholic, I had some books to burn), and I saw a drop-quote on one of the magazine covers from Paster Rick Warren, founder of Saddleback Church. The quote went something like this: ‘The idea of tolerance has come back into style.’ This was the teaser line from an interview he did for Reader’s Digest… Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that preachers are teaching that which is fashionable – I mean, Jesus was pretty fashionable in all He did, I’m sure – but I was surprised that the ‘hook’ for the article was Pastor Warren’s desire for tolerance. It seems tolerance has become synonymous with love. And I think there is nothing further from the truth…
What is the Church?
The Church to me is all important things everywhere. It is authority and guidance. It is love and inspiration. It is hope and assurance. It is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It is our Lady and St. Joseph. It is St. Peter and Pius XII. It is the bishop and the pastor. It is the catechism and it is our mother leaning over the crib teaching us our evening prayers. It is the cathedral at Chartres and the cross-tipped hut on Ulithi. It is the martyrs in the Colosseum and the martyrs in Uganda, the martyrs at Tyburn and the martyrs at Nagasaki. It is the wrinkled old nun and the eager-eyed postulant. It is the radiant face of the young priest saying his first Mass, and the sleepy boy acolyte with his soiled white sneakers showing under his black cassock.
Birth Control
An important article from the Catholic News Agency: (My emphasis)
.- The chemist who made a key discovery leading to the invention of the birth control pill has written a commentary calling demographic decline in Europe a “horror scenario” and a “catastrophe” brought on in part by the pill’s invention.
Mr. Carl Djerassi, now 85 years old, was one of three researchers whose formulation of the synthetic progestagen Norethisterone marked a key step in the creation of the first oral contraceptive pill, the Guardian reports.
In a personal commentary in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, Djerassi said his invention is partly to blame for demographic imbalance in Europe. On the continent, he argued, there is now “no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction.”
“This divide in Catholic Austria, a country which has on average 1.4 children per family, is now complete,” he wrote.
Djerassi described families who had decided against reproduction as “wanting to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it.”
The fall in the birth rate, he claimed, was an “epidemic” far worse but less highlighted than obesity. In his view, young Austrians who fail to procreate are committing national suicide.
If it is not possible to reverse the demographic decline, an “intelligent immigration policy” will be necessary, Djerassi said.
According to the Guardian, Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schonborn told Austrian TV that Pope Paul VI had predicted the pill would cause a dramatic fall in the birth rate.
“Somebody above suspicion like Carl Djerassi … is saying that each family has to produce three children to maintain population levels, but we’re far away from that,” the cardinal said.
Ugh. God bless Europe. God bless the world.
Romano Guardini on Mary
I have never understood Mary. Don’t get me wrong; I believe every Marian dogma. I just have never felt the connection.
I’ve tried, though. I read Hail, Holy Queen by Scott Hahn and Our Lady and the Church by Hugo Rahner, S.J. I thought they were very nice books, but I still didn’t feel it. Some meditations by Chiara Lubich, foundress of the Focolare Movement, stirred something inside me. Lubich focuses on Mary’s personal faith as opposed to the doctrines and dogmas that Hahn discusses, or the theological implications about which Rahner writes. With those meditations in mind, I prayed for a more personal relationship with and understanding of Mary.
Then, it finally happened. I read a chapter called “The Mother” from Romano Guardini’s book The Lord. I have never seen a more beautiful interpretation of why we honor Mary. Guardini focuses on her heroic faith and not “the miracles of Marianic legend.” As Guardini says, “Legend may delight us with deep and gracious images, but we cannot build our lives on imagery, least of all when the very foundations of our belief begin to totter.”
Guardini frames her heroic faith in this way: “Everything that affected Jesus affected his mother, yet no intimate understanding existed between them. His life was hers, yet constantly escaped her.” Almost every encounter between Jesus and Mary shows that some type of separation existed between them.
The Banality of Evil
Somebody’s knocking, should I let him in?
Lord, it’s the Devil, would you look at him?
I’ve heard about him, but I never dreamed,
He’d have blue eyes and blue jeans.–Terri Gibbs, “Somebody’s Knocking”
My dad used to sing us that song – and only on the rarest of occasions would he use it as a lullaby. He used it when I was a teenager to illustrate the point that evil is enticing. If Satan showed up at your door with his Pitchfork ‘n’ Horns™, you’d probably run. However, if he shows up in blue jeans and sunglasses, you’re more likely to fall for his wiles.
I listened (mostly) to his caution and it served me well. In fact, I never hung out with anyone who wore blue jeans or had any eye color other than brown… so that kept me from interacting with, well, anyone. Evil avoided.
But as these years have passed, another theory I was exposed to has started to make more sense. Yeah, evil is attractive in some cases – but the real nasty evil is neither unattractive nor alluring. Nasty evil is boring. Nasty evil is blasé. Nasty evil is banal… and its power is the apathy from whence it was borne.
