Recent research indicates a link between boredom and early death.

Based on questionnaires completed by 7,500 London civil servants aged 35 to 55 in the 1980s: those who reported being bored at work have subsequently died of heart attacks at over double the rate of those saying they liked their jobs. (International Journal of Epidemiology)

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A quote from Pope Benedict XVI: “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism . . . which has as its highest goals one’s own ego and one’s own desires . . . the church needs to withstand the tides of trends and the latest novelties.”

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To hear a child say, “I’m bored,” is a frightening thing. We hear it all the time. We don’t know what to do.

The temptation is to be blackmailed — to give children even more of the very “trends and novelties” which are white-anting their souls.

Must their lives centre forever around the shopping mall and what can be bought there or shoplifted there?

See them practising at being little middle-aged robots. See them “hanging out” in the mall with like-minded, unprogrammed automatons — bored, bitter and meaningless already.

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We educate them in the technological questions of “how?” Secular education ignores and lampoons all questions of “why?”

The answer to questions of “why?” ultimately relate to God.

Love for God is what could save them – and us.

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Another beautiful quote: “O God, my love for you ought to be total, infinite in desire; because you will not give yourself entirely to a soul unless it gives itself wholly to you. I must not cling to any attachment, nor admit even a single voluntary imperfection, nor refuse you anything . . . .

“Seeking sacrifice in the smiling acceptance of suffering, O God, for love of you, I want to take advantage of the little opportunities, so that I may be strong in the big ones.”  (Sister Carmela of the Holy Spirit)

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Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, a key day in the Christian year, a day to begin in earnest to mentally approach Good Friday, Easter and all that they mean.

They mean everything.

More about that tomorrow.

Pope Benedict and 24 Irish bishops are meeting this week in Rome to discuss the priestly paedophilia scandal in Ireland, one of the world’s most Catholic countries.

The Murphy Commission Report revealed in November 2009 that the Church in Ireland had “obsessively” hidden child abuse by priests in the Dublin archdiocese from 1975 to 2004 — and that all Dublin bishops had been aware of some complaints, but were more preoccupied with protecting the Church’s reputation than safeguarding children.

Four bishops have offered their resignations. The pope has already accepted one.

The Vatican says the pope will be writing to the Irish people about the crisis — the first time a pope will have devoted a document solely to the clergy’s abuse of children.

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The head of the Pope’s Congregation for Priests, Cardinal Hummes, announced last Thursday that the Church condemns sex abuse by clergy and “will drive out offenders”.

The emphasis, he says, will be on “a rigorous selection process” for priesthood candidates and on “a spiritual renewal of the clergy”.

Let us hope so.

* * *

The Church has certainly let itself down badly — a priest sexually molesting a child is the worst possible example of betraying a trust.

And it has let God down badly – giving his enemies excuses to claim that Catholic religion somehow condones sexual sin — the exact reverse of the truth.

The belief that women and children must be protected from sexual exploitation is historically a belief invented by, and proclaimed and defended by, the Christian religion.

Look at non-Christian cultures, past and present — see how they treat their women and children.

Look, for example, at Labor state governments in Australia — which legalise same-sex acts involving boys as young as 16 years.

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The whole clergy-abuse issue is complicated by some who expose the wrongdoings of priests seeming to have agendas of their own.

Some of the media and some victim groups give the impression that they will never be happy with anything the Catholic Church does — never until the Church goes out of existence will they let up on criticising and passing judgement on it.

Saint Valentine was a Catholic priest, first clubbed almost to death — and then beheaded — by Roman Emperor Claudius, apparently on February 14, in about the year 270AD.

Claudius had ordered all Romans to worship the Roman pagan gods.

The alternative was execution.

Valentine had been famous for his real love for mankind, giving from his heart and assisting the poor, the needy and widows – and encouraging the well-to-do of his time to be generous to the less privileged in their communities.

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In Saudi Arabia, celebrating Saint Valentine’s Day is prohibited.

The nation’s Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is supposed to enforce bans against “pagan holidays”.

Virtue Commission spokesman, Sheik Ali Qarni, defends this ban, saying that Muslims know the true meaning of love — the love of God — and behave accordingly throughout the year.

Of course, wherever there is a ban there is a black market. Some Saudi florists are supplying bootleg bunches of red roses (at over three times the regular price) to those who will pay.

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Meanwhile, polls are reporting that 40 percent of Muslims in the United Kingdom want Sharia Law introduced in Britain – more so young British Muslims than their elders.

Muslims now number 1,591,000 in the UK — 2.7 percent of the population — a proportion said to be rising 10 times faster than rest of society.

What about Australia?

At the 2006 Census there were 340,000 Muslims in Australia. In early 2010, WikiAnswers estimates it is now 446,500 (about 2 percent of the population).

How many Australian Muslims want Sharia Law? Nobody seems to know. Perhaps we don’t want to know.

* * *

This year, Melbourne’s Latrobe University is offering an 18-month course in Master of Islamic Banking and Finance – described as a “cutting-edge program built around a defined body of knowledge of proven relevance to the Islamic finance industry”.

The thin edge of the wedge, perhaps?

Certainly, it’s a long way from amputation for thieves, stoning for adultery etc. . . . .

And a long way from being clubbed and beheaded for being a Christian . . . .

But you have to start somewhere if you want “change”, as President Obama might say.

Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, said last Wednesday that he personally favours a 21-year old minimum legal drinking age, quoting links between Australia’s high P-plater road deaths and alcohol-swallowing.

But is it not probable that most teenage drunks will vote Labor (if still alive when next election happens)?

And likewise most people who sell alcohol?

It is hard, under Australia’s present form of “democracy”, to imagine any major party – especially Rudd’s so-called “Labor” — doing anything real to upset either of those two interest groups.

* * *

Federal Opposition leader, Mr Abbott, commented that 18-year olds drinking is OK with him, because he is not a “wowser”.

Deep stuff, eh?

* * *

The scientific evidence about drinking ages and alcohol-related mayhem is, of course, well and truly in.

Professor Ian Hickie, at Sydney University’s Brain and Mind Research Institute, really does want legal alcohol drinking ages raised to 21 — on the basis of research showing that young people’s brains are particularly susceptible to alcohol damage.

Also the US experience, which provides further evidence –- in those states which have raised their drinking age to 21, accidents and violence involving youths having fallen . . . .

* * *

Both sides of Australian politics are carefully testing the water. Could it be that winning the next election is almost as important to both of them as is doing the right thing — i.e. preventing teenage deaths?

* * *

Once again, the Church isn’t much help.

Two generations ago, when young Catholics celebrated their Confirmation, they were encouraged to sign an undertaking not to drink before turning 21. Many adhered to that promise.

Will that excellent practice ever be re-introduced?

Or would Church leaders need to “test the water” too – so as not to offend anybody – pretty much like a bunch of politicians?

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On 25 February 2009, the media announced that doctors in Recife, Brazil, were planning to abort a nine-year old girl made pregnant with twins by her step-father.

On 3 March, the bishop of Recife, Archbishop Sobrinho, warned that if the abortion was done, all medical staff involved would be excommunicated from the Church, as per canon 1398 of Catholic Church law.

On 4 March, the abortion was performed.

On 15 March, Archbishop Fisichella, head of the Pope’s “Academy for Life” (PAV), published an article in the Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano, condemning Archbishop Sobrinho, saying that the abortion was justified as a means of saving the young mother’s life.

On 16 March, a number of Sobrinho’s fellow bishops issued a letter defending Sobrinho’s action, describing the compassionate help the girl and her family had received, behind the scenes, from her parish priest and bishop — and how the warning regarding excommunication had been delayed until other methods of persuasion had failed.  They also quoted the Chief of Obstetrics at a Rio de Janeiro hospital, who, in 35 years coping with difficult pregnancies, had never found it necessary to resort to abortion “to save lives”.

On 4 April, a majority (but not all) of the members of the PAV wrote to Archbishop Fisichella, explaining why his Osservatore Romano article was wrong, and asking him to withdraw his condemnation of Archbishop Sobrinho. Fisichella refused to do so.

* * *

The PAV members then approached Pope Benedict himself.

On 7 July, an article of “clarification” appeared in Osservatore Romano, reversing what the Fisichella article had said, and declaring that Archbishop Sobrinho had been right in his actions, and reiterating that “formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offence. The Church punishes this crime against human life with the canonical penalty of excommunication.”

February 2010: The latest news is that the PAV itself, having had its credibility ruined, may be dismantled. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10020802.html)

* * *

Excommunication is an excellent part of the Church’s way of doing things. A warning of likely excommunication can do good in convincing a Catholic to avoid serious sin.

For the Church not to do so would be unjust to that sinner — and harmful to the Church’s witness to God’s love and holiness.

The Queensland Bligh government intends to “reform” surrogacy laws – their philosophy being, apparently, that a baby is a toy — that anybody who wants one has a “right” to one.

A different attitude might be to put the “rights” of the child first.

* * *

Should not the state always do everything possible to try to give every child at least the chance to start life with the love and care of their real mother and father?

Isn’t it wrong to separate a child, in cold blood, from his birth mother — and then falsify his birth certificate to make it “legal”?

Dumping a child, without his consent, into complex, unnatural relationships, expecting him to like it or to lump it?

* * *

Remember the baby in the Mary Beth Whitehead surrogacy case (USA, 1986). The child she bore was confiscated by police. During subsequent “access” times the baby sought birth-mother Mary Beth’s breast, for both nutrition and comfort. The court-appointed supervisor wouldn’t let her nurse, “lest it create a mother-child bond”!  

Too late, mate — and very stupid.

* * *

What is it like to be a child subjected to surrogacy? The infertility experts don’t know. The social scientists don’t know.

The politicians certainly don’t know. And they certainly don’t want to know.

No one knows except the surrogated people themselves.

Thousands of adult surrogacy-victim Australians are involved in support groups such as Tangled Webs, whose policy is clear:

A child should only be removed from his or her genetic parents in extreme circumstances as a last resort for their safety. The desire to provide children for infertile couples etc. does not override the child’s need for and right to this vital relationship with his or her genetic parents . . . No-one has the right to a child. To claim the right to a child is to treat that child, another human being, as an end to satisfying one’s own desires, as an object and not as a person . . . . (http://www.tangledwebs.org.au/dc.php)

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Yes, to demand the right to a child is to treat children as an item of property, just as slaves were once considered the rightful property of their masters — and women were once regarded as the property of their husbands.

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