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.

Somebody I knew for over twenty years died recently.

In our grandparents’ days, death was all around and thought of constantly. Sex was private and seldom mentioned.

Now we saturate ourselves in what passes for sex — all advertisements, entertainments and gossip seeming to drag sex in somehow.

But when forced to talk about death – as at funerals – we mostly find we have nothing intelligent to say.

* * *

Somebody gets up and describes the deceased’s hobbies, favourite music, favourite sporting club — and how “passionate” he/she was.

Cheer up, says somebody else, death is merely a journey. Whatever you do, do NOT get up and ask, “A journey to where?” Nobody will forgive you.

Modern funerals: we tend to call these embarrassing gatherings “not so much a grieving at his loss, but more a celebration of his life . . . .”

But clearly they are designed to celebrate, console and comfort the living – with little thought for any spiritual profit for the dead.

Yet death is a religious subject, whether we like it or not.

We can try having our funerals at the graveside, or at other places that are not churches . . . but we’re wasting our time. Death is religious by its very nature, and there is nothing we can do about it.

* * *

You, dear reader, are going to die:

 * make sure your relatives know that you want your funeral held in a church.

 * and that you want prayers said for your departed soul — both at the funeral and privately by all    present for the rest of their lives.

 * and that you want the priest to wear black vestments, as done for centuries for good reasons, and    abandoned recently for bad reasons.

 * and insist that you be buried, not cremated.

I was reading about how Mother Mary MacKillop tried to help children find God in their lives – not only through school-teaching, but also in out-of school activities.

In the 1860s, she started a group for young people in Adelaide which she called “The Guild of the Holy Eucharist”.

Its rules included that the young people must “dress with simplicity, modesty and neatness. They must be known to be obedient at home and at school. They must not be out after dark unless with someone approved by parents or the Sisters. They must hear Mass every day, and suffer any inconvenience rather than miss it.”

* * *

Every day?

Wasn’t that a bit much to ask of young people?

Yet hasn’t God has always demanded of human beings that they give him generously of their time?

The Ten Commandments include the command to keep one day a week “holy”.

In today’s “busy” materialistic, individualistic, self-indulgent world we have plenty of spare time. Ordinary Australians spend up to 20 hours per week looking at television.

We must have time, literally, to kill.

* * *

Most people do, in fact, treat Sunday as in some way a different day.

You could say that everybody worships on Sunday.

*  you play sport on Sunday?  You’re a sport-worshipper.

*  you drink beer on Sunday?  You’re a beer-worshipper.

*  you spend  Sunday with family without devoting time exclusively to God?  You’re a family-worshipper.

Which is not good. 

Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.  He that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.”

* * *

You attend church on Sunday?  You MAY be a worshipper of God — only God knows your motives.

On Sundays, try put God first.  Go to Mass — at least every Sunday. Make it an unbreakable rule.

Today is the first Sunday in Lent.

Some Anglican bishops in England are getting headlines this Lent by asking their followers to do, this year, a “carbon fast”

They are talking about less using of energy-guzzling luxury items — including, for some reason, iPods.

Has the climate-change lobby skyjacked Lent?

* * *

There’s nothing wrong with cutting our carbon-based energy use. That is something we can do any time . . . and perhaps we should.

Would it “save the planet”? Who knows.

The important thing to remember this Lent is that saving-the-planet is not what God gives us Lent, Passiontide and Easter for.

There is something more important at stake than the planet.

The stakes are higher — spiritual, infinite and eternal.

* * *

Jesus Christ spent 40 days in the desert between Jerusalem and Jericho, fasting, before he started on his public life.

That’s why the Church asks Catholics to spend Lent — 40 days before the seasons of Our Lord’s Passion and Easter – preparing our souls for the supernatural climax of the year.

The traditional methods of preparation are “fasting, prayers and works of charity”.

* * *

So the most important thing about Lent is to make ourselves humble.

We need God. Without him we are nothing.

Our thoughts towards God should be like those of Saint Catherine of Siena:

“Your Passion is neither desired nor loved by anyone who loves himself, but only by the one who has stripped himself of self, and clothed himself with you . . . .”

Although Our Lord can no longer suffer, we, his Church, his Body on earth, can suffer . . . .

And  if we willingly accept our sufferings, offering them up to him, he can use our fasting, prayers and charity to continue his work of redemption in the world.

Sometime in the next 24 hours Pope Benedict will announce Mary MacKillop’s recognition as officiallybeing a Catholic saint.

The formal canonisation ceremony will be later this year.

Then what?

Will Australians then suddenly change their ways and start living by the principles which Mary MacKillop lived by?

* * *

What principles did Mary MacKillop live by?

(1) Mary MacKillop believed in poverty — always ensuring that she had as little of this world’s goods as humanly possible.

Will we copy that?

(2) Mary MacKillop opposed government funding of Catholic schools.

She raised money, instead, by begging. All her nuns, including herself, begged — both in the streets and door-to-door.

Today’s church schools accept government money. Catholic teachers demand pay equal to government teachers.

(3) Mary MacKillop believed in obedience — expecting her Sisters to give absolute submission to the Rule of their Order, and to herself as their Superior.

Do Catholics today obediently submit to, and live by, Church teachings — or only to those teachings compatible with their worldly lifestyle?

(4) Mary MacKillop believed that God wants everybody to be a Catholic.

She requested prayers for her friends and relatives who weren’t Catholic, that they should convert.

So-called “ecumenism”, popular in today’s Catholic Church – the notion that God is happy with any religion so long as we’re sincere — was unknown to her.

* * *

So why is Mary MacKillop popular with Australians — most of whom have no intention whatever of living as she did?

We think we like her because we have created a FAKE Mary MacKillop.

A “feminist”, a “rebel” — that’s what we like to think she was.

But she wasn’t.

The “Mary MacKillop” we admire is a fraud of our own invention.

* * *

Do you want to learn what Mary MacKillop was really like, and to seek after God in her spiritual footsteps?

Then read about her — study what she herself actually said, wrote and did.

Don’t read just any old book about her, or you’ll end up misinformed.

What you need is a book about the REAL Mary MacKillop.