Following publicity about child abuse by priests in Ireland and Germany, Vatican spokesman, Father Frederico Lombardi, made an apology, acknowledging that abuse is “especially reprehensible” when it happens inside the Church.

He made the point, however, that child sexual abuse is NOT confined to priests, despite the media’s tendency to make it seem so. It’s a problem that “belongs to the whole of society”.

The media exploit the tragic situation of these children for sensational stories.

It certainly isn’t easy to keep a sense of proportion.

* * *

Look at yesterday’s media revelations.

In the Netherlands: “More than 200 reports of abuse have been made to a victims’ support organisations . . . .”  (BBC News, March 10)

What about these “victim support organisations”?

What are they actually trying to do?

* * *

Australia’s main “support” group seems to be the Broken Rites organisation.

 Broken Rites says its purpose is “obtaining justice”. 

However their own website gives them away:

 “The Church has traditionally interfered in the bedrooms of its congregation — no sex outside marriage, no contraception, no divorce, no termination of a pregnancy, and so on . . . . ” 

The hatred of all things Catholic is just under the surface.

* * *

If Broken Rites wants to discredit Catholic teachings on extramarital sex etc., they should try another tactic.

Exploiting child victims as a stick to beat the Church with, is simply exploiting the already-exploited even worse.

If Broken Rites succeeded in making sex outside marriage even more respectable —  would that help children?

Ask your local family GP-doctor: for every one victim of abuse by a priest that they see, how many dozen have been abused at home by mum’s de facto boy-friend?

The typical child-molester is a great believer in sex outside marriage — double-dipping with whatever females are available – the mother, the daughters, anyone he can get hold of.

* * *

Attempts to destroy the Church, whose good teachings are children’s best protection for their safety, is counterproductive.

It’s the Christian gospel that uniquely teaches that every child is a child of God — infinitely entitled to loving protection.

The Church must get back to being faithful to its traditions — to Our Lord, to his Mother and to the traditional Sacraments.

A court in Poland has ordered a priest, Father Marek Gancarczyk, to pay a fine of $11,000 because the Catholic paper, of which he is editor, described a woman seeking an abortion as “wanting to kill her child”.

He has refused to pay.

The judge, in passing the sentence, treated Fr Gancarczyk to a lecture on theology. “Christianity is a religion of love and this is what the language used by Catholic press should be like,” she said.

* * *

Polish law permits abortion only in cases of rape, serious handicap in the baby, or serious health risk to the mother. In this case, the mother had an eye condition. She was denied an abortion because her doctors decided the pregnancy would not seriously damage her health.

The local archbishop, Father Damian Zimon, said, “No state law can undermine God’s commandment and the order of Jesus Christ . . . . Recall the words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta: ‘The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion . . . if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?’ ”

The Catholic Association of Journalists in Poland commented, “We consider this verdict an attempt to gag Catholic media, also directed against freedom of speech in the wider sense . . . .We call on all journalists who hold Christian values not to be afraid to write the truth about abortion, about abortionists and about the supporters of this Holocaust of the 21st century.”

* * *

Two points that Australians might ask themselves:

(1) is our law permitting any woman, any time, to have an abortion, simply by telling her doctor she wants one, good enough?

(2) at least one priest, somewhere, is willing to suffer imprisonment, or whatever the court comes up next time, rather than compromise the Church’s teaching of love and respect for all human life, including the unborn babies.

Father Marek Gancarczyk

An American lady aged 90-plus recently had a stroke which left her unable to swallow.

She had previously signed an “advance directive” specifying that no artificial hydration or nutrition be given her if she wasn’t going to recover.

But her nephew, her designated proxy, insisted that Catholic teaching be practised in her case, and that a feeding tube be installed anyway.

* * *

Father Thomas Weinandy, spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, confirmed that Catholic health facilities have “an obligation to provide patients with food and water, including medically-assisted nutrition and hydration for those who cannot take food orally . . . you can’t just starve them to death. It’s hard to know whether someone will regain consciousness or not.”

A feeding tube was not, he said, required if it wouldn’t prolong life, or would be “excessively burdensome for the patient” or would “cause significant physical discomfort.”

In this case, doctors believed the patient had, at most, a few months to live, but would die sooner unless a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy ( PEG ) tube was surgically inserted.

* * *

A rumpus ensued when the nephew made his decision – but as it happened, in the midst of it all, the patient died.

So did that solve the problem? Not entirely. This particular lady has gone to her judgement. But there are going to be thousands (millions?) more, just like her, about whom similar decisions will have to be reached.

We seem to have reached a turning-point in human history. Some questions can no longer be avoided.

What is a human being? Who decides what is “burdensome” and what isn’t? Burdensome to whom?

* * *

The key point, for Catholics, is that you cannot do evil so that “good” may come of it.

Some people, including some doctors, don’t really distinguish between good and evil – when using those words they really mean more convenient or less convenient. For somebody.

Mr Rudd says Australia’s new education system will be “back to basics”.

More science, more mathematics, more history?  

Nothing “basic” about that.

More basic to ask: “Do these children know how to behave themselves?”

And: “Do they know why they should behave themselves?”

Leading to the truly basic questions:  “Is there a God? What has God put us here on earth for?”

Postpone increasing maths/science/history. Boost religion classes.

* * *

The questions above are answered on one single page of your Bible – in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:

“The just man shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who suppress the truth of God: because that which is known of God is manifest . . . for the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable . . . .”

(comment: Godliness (religious gusto) is basic to justice, and the two of them are basic to everything worthwhile — so obviously so that there’s no excuse not to know it)

* * *

 “Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law. For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these not having the law are a law to themselves: the law written in their hearts . . . .”

 (comment: Even people not brought up knowing any religion know right from wrong. Woe betide educators who twist young minds into “rights/self-esteem” mentalities)

* * *

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus . . . .”

(Comment: Every child must learn the supreme importance of what the Church offers, especially Baptism, Holy Communion and the Sacrament of Confession)

* * *

If you doubt that your local school will teach your children these basics, don’t send them.

In today’s Australia, a decision to send a child to school is a grave decision. Perhaps the normal/default practice for thinking parents should be home schooling

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This week is officially “Organ Donation Awareness Week” in Australia.

It was launched last Tuesday by Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, who said it is“crucial” that  families talk about this touchy issue.

A new program administered by the Federal Organ and Tissue Authority is to offer hospitals up to $11,400 a time for harvesting transplant organs from dying patients.

Mr Rudd lamented the fact that at present only 56 percent of Australian families give consent when approached for permission to remove a dying relative’s organs for transplant purposes.

His government is spending $150 million to try to boost that percentage.

* * *

Why would families refuse to permit having their dying relatives harvested?

 *  do they doubt whether the doctors will wait until their loved one is really dead before starting to take things out?

 *  do they wonder whether “brain-death” is simply a convenient myth?

 *  do they wonder whether a person’s soul has necessarily left the body just because one organ — the brain — doesn’t look like working again?

Good questions.  The exact moment the soul departs cannot be known by scientific means.  Death is only certain when the body starts to decompose – which is why priests are permitted to give the Last Rites up to an hour after patients are certified medically dead.

By which time their organs are useless for transplanting.

Organs good enough to be worth transplanting must come from patients only pretend-dead — not dead-dead.

* * *

The government’s new pro-organ-harvesting website assures us that “most religions, including all major religions, support organ and tissue donation and transplantation as acts of generosity and merit . . . .”

Could that be a fib?

Even on life-support — while heart and lungs function, albeit artificially assisted – does not the body remain one organism, with one being, one soul?

Does that mean that it is removing his/her organs which actually kills the donor-patient?

Is that murder?

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.