Where a Roman Catholic deacon ponders the world
That was the subject of an e-mail I received late last week, asking me to advise people in my neighborhood of an extraordinary initiative that will take place at the end of this week: On Good Friday, March 29, Msgr Phillip Reilly and the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants will conduct a special Prayer Vigil @ [...]
From Melinda Henneberger in the Washington Post: “Exceptional egg donor needed,” said a recent ad in the Harvard Crimson. The couple looking for that donor, it said, is working with a “prestigious Los Angeles IVF clinic,” in search of a “100% Korean woman” with an excellent education, “outstanding” test scores, “extremely healthy family history,” plus [...]
Details: New York has the highest teen abortion rate in the country, but per capita pregnancy and abortion rates among 15- to 19-year-olds have steadily declined over the last two decades, according to a report this week. Excluding miscarriages, nearly 60 percent of pregnancies among 15- to 19-year-olds in New York end in abortion, according [...]
With the controversy swirling around the German bishops story yesterday, a deacon reader thought it would be helpful to lay out church teaching on this subject. Here, from the National Catholic Bioethics Center: The “morning-after” pill, also known as “Plan B,” is often provided in hospital emergency rooms to women who have been sexually assaulted. [...]
Details from the AP: Roman Catholic-run hospitals can prescribe limited emergency contraception to rape victims, German bishops said Thursday as they sought to contain fallout from an embarrassing recent case in which two hospitals refused to treat a woman. In a statement issued at the end of a regular meeting in the western city of [...]
Details, from CNS: Dr. Evelyn Billings, who with her husband, John, pioneered research that led them to develop a form of natural family planning supported by the Catholic church, died Saturday after a short illness. She was 95. The Australian pediatrician joined her physician-husband’s team in 1965 as he was researching a more reliable method [...]
This makes for a striking counterpoint to the recent essay by Fr. George Rutler, defending capital punishment. It comes from Sunday’s Washington Post, and tells how a man who spent decades personally administering the death penalty came to oppose it: Jerry Givens executed 62 people. His routine and conviction never wavered. He’d shave the person’s [...]
My own bishop, Nicholas DiMarzio, took note of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in a recent newspaper column, and he pulled no punches: On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This Executive Order freed the slaves in the 10 states that were in rebellion. It was not until 1865, with [...]
That, at least, is one of the sentiments expressed here by Fr. George Rutler in Crisis Magazine: The grandson of St. Elizabeth Anne Seton, Archbishop Robert Seton, long-lived but less loved, wrote that during the course of a holiday in France as a boy, the ceremonious spectacle of a man being beheaded inspired him greatly [...]
The official statement, just released, along with Cardinal Dolan’s response: +++ The Feb. 1 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) shows some movement by the Administration but falls short of addressing U.S. bishops’ concerns. “Throughout the past year, [...]
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