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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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)

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 “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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Marriage provides a more stable family environment for growing children than does living with unmarried parents.

Ten times more stable.

This is confirmed by research, based on almost 30,000 family cases, published last Monday.  

The survey found that in 1992, 70 percent of married couples who had children stayed together until their child’s 16th birthday. By 2006, this had increased to 75 percent.

Only 36 percent of couples who were unmarried when their child was born stayed together until their offspring reached 16 in 1992. By 2006, it was down to 7 per cent. (Family Law Week, ‎22 February 2010‎)

 Dr John Hayward, director of the Jubilee Centre, which commissioned the study, commented that the evidence suggests that families headed by traditionally-married, biological parents provide the best environment for both themselves and their children.

 Didn’t everybody know that already? It seems funny that we need “research” to prove it.

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Meanwhile, a “same-sex marriage” bill was defeated in the Australian Senate on 25 February 2010, by a vote of 45 to 5.

Those voting for it were all Greens Party members — a party ever so keen to provide the best environment for trees, whales, lizards and so forth, actively trying to promote what is , arguably, the worst possible environment for young humans.

How about that?

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It is important to remember is that Marriage is, first and foremost, a Sacrament of God’s Church.

Marriage was invented by God — the God who created us.

Marriage is not just an option or a photo-opportunity.

Marriage is an obligation that God demands of those who would have children. It is a sin, punishable as God sees fit, to do otherwise.

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Catholic Marriage, like all the Catholic Sacraments, is a means by which God offers us grace.

God’s grace is a practical thing.

The sacramental grace conferred by Christian Marriage offers married couples extra power, unavailable by any other means, for dealing with life’s day-to-day problems.

Couples who are not married must struggle on without this grace and power, in a state of spiritual poverty and impotence of willpower.

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.

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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?

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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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The other day, Australia’s federal opposition leader, Mr Tony Abbott, told a women’s magazine that he doesn’t think women should “give away their virginity too lightly”.

Criticism followed.

Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said, “These comments will confirm the worst fears of Australian women about Tony Abbott.”

How about Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd? Yes, he ducked for cover again, saying it’s not his place to “provide individual personal and moral advice to the young people of Australia”.

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The question is whether marriage – traditional marriage – is an indispensable basic to society.

Or is marriage just a matter of fashion – currently out of fashion with the media and trend-setters in today’s affluent societies?

Hundreds of thousands of young Australians suffer suicide attempts, drug addiction, dropping out of school and general misery. Ask your family GP how, in his/her experience, do children from stable families compare with those from de facto relationships in this regard.

The traditional family gives children security in a world that can be otherwise frightening and destructive of young bodies, minds and souls.

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The enemies of marriage and chastity accuse the Church and traditional parents, especially fathers, of double standards – focussing on girls being chaste, while condoning young males being unchaste.

But that is NOT what the Church teaches.

The Catholic Church teaches that, “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptised persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a Sacrament.” (CCC, 1055)

And that, “People should cultivate chastity in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart . . . married people are called to live conjugal chastity . . . .” (CCC, 2349)

Jesus Christ taught his disciples that, “You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Saint Matthew’s gospel)

This week an American judge will decide the case of the Romeikes, a German family seeking political asylum following persecution from the German government for homeschooling their children – which is a crime in Germany.

For years, Mr and Mrs Romeike have had to pay thousands of euros in fines, been threatened with imprisonment and had their children seized and forced to attend a local state-run school.

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The Catholic Church has always taught that parents are the primary teachers of their children. Children should attend school only if the parents are certain that what is taught there is in line with the family’s religion.

Here in Australia, government-run schools are, by law, “secular” — meaning that God’s existence must be ignored in them.

In Victoria, Australia, one role that secular schools give themselves is to take teenage girls to “family planning  centres” to collect morning-after-pills if they  indulged in sex the previous night. The parents are not informed. Schools also supply contraceptive pills to young girls.

Health bureaucrat, Dr Rob Moodie, said this “radical approach” is needed as an antidote to “prudish” approaches to teen sex that “risk lives”.

He also supports installing condom machines in schoolyards.

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Anybody sending their child to an Australian government-run school will have to explain to God on Judgement Day why they didn’t take the child out of the system and teach them themselves.

Are “church schools” a satisfactory substitute?

If you think so, you should probably look more closely at what goes on in them.

Almost all Australian church schools accept subsidies of government money. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

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Mary MacKillop, soon to become Australia’s first Saint, never accepted government money at any of her schools.

She said that once the government money moves into a school, respect for God is moved out.

Australians pretend to honour Mary MacKillop.

They do so with their lips only.

Their hearts are far from her.