Faith & the Public Order – Page 7

Connecticut lawmakers to consider physician assisted suicide

The front page
of today’s New Haven Register carried an article by Jordan Fenster,
“Right-to-die bill may be discussed by legislature” by which the citizens of
Connecticut were alerted to the possibility that in the next session of the
legislature the question of assisted suicide will be on the table. Following
the defeat of Massachusetts ballot on the same subject last week, the contagion is now again flowing south. Already three US states, Oregon, Montana and Washington, allow for
physician assisted suicide. 34 states prohibit lethal doses of medication that
would end human life.

Let me say from the outset, this is not a Catholic issue. Persons of belief and unbelief ought to be concerned about the potential passing of a law that legalizes medically induced suicide. Hence, this is not a conservative issue. This is not a an anti-human dignity issue. It
is just the opposite: this is a human issue. Who we are a human beings, and how
we teach each other is a human issue that is informed by what we believe and
how we behave. Committing this legislative error is a problem of education.
Recall that in the past when a similar bill was brought to the CT voters it failed only 51-49%.

Several weeks ago there appeared in the New York Times an
intriguing OP-ED article that I believe we need to seriously consider in the
discussion of physician assisted suicide. Considering voices that differ from ours need to be thoughtfully taken into account because we are people use who reason to frame our moral lives. We can’t simply dismiss the other and therefore I appeal to people of belief and unbelief to reasonably discuss what’s at stake. When we rush the discuss without fact we always get burned.

In my opinion not enough attention has been devoted
to considering how this legislation has been lived out in this country and in
others, nor have we considered the philosophical, theological, sociological and
human consequences of such an act. Most often our heart-strings are pulled, even stretched leading us to decide weighty matters without due attention to the reality in front of us –to the person and people and intimately connected with life and death issues. We also don’t always adequately consider the eternal consequences of killing someone before natural death happens.

Who’s life are we “making dignified” by engaging death before it’s naturally
presented? What really is human dignity? What does it mean to be truly a man or
a woman in relationship with other men and women here-and-now, and following
death? To what extent does fear, anxiety and perceived suffering dictate how we
think and act toward others? Are we sufficiently aware of and sensitive to the difference between ideology and being a person, no matter how debilitated?

Here is Ben Mattlin’s October 31, 2012 New York
Times article published online.

Suicide by Choice? Not So Fast

Continue reading Connecticut lawmakers to consider physician assisted suicide

Voices without a vote

As a matter of good citizenship, as a concern for faith and public order, for faith and reason, you and I need to vote according to a fully formed conscience.

A video clip of young men and women expressing their desire to be heard in the voting process next Tuesday, 6 November. The young are voices with a vote. Watch the video!

Don’t let your discouragement in the political campaigns be a good reason for not voting. In a democracy not to vote in a significant election is near sinful.

As a beginning step to forming your conscience you may want to consider reading the 2011 document of the US bishops: Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship- A Call to Political Responsibility.pdf

Conflict in Syria close to home

A friend of
mine, a Melkite priest, in fact, alerted his friends that a cousin of his in
Aleppo was abducted by terrorists and days later released. A tense time no
doubt. We are grateful to the Lord the young man’s return.

Of concern, too, is the assassination of a Greek Orthodox priest near
Damascus. Father Fadi Jamil Haddad, 43, pastor of St. Elias Church in Qatana,
outside Damascus, found slain on October 26, shot in head, in the Jaramana district
of the capital. Vatican news people report that an “unidentified armed group” was responsible. $715,000 was
demanded. Further details are really unclear.

Of the Christian minority in
Syria, the Greek Orthodox is known as the largest; Christians represent perhaps
10% of the population. Make no mistake, Christians have long been resident in
Syria now a majority Muslim.

Continue reading Conflict in Syria close to home

The law has betrayed its own vocation, Cardinal George tells

You can always count on Francis Cardinal George, OMI, to speak the truth. He is always very clear, always on target when looking at the American cultural situation. On September 30, 2012, he celebrate a votive Mass of the Holy Spirit and delivered a homily for the annual Red Mass, at which he said, “There are times the law is a a cause of scandal.” The following paragraphs give a sense of what the Cardinal said. The rest of the homily may be read here.

What is left now
to our common life is whatever a legislative majority or the often-manipulated
whims of popular majority opinion will tolerate. That is no longer a classical
Constitutional legal order. The law has betrayed its own vocation.

Continue reading The law has betrayed its own vocation, Cardinal George tells

Michael J. Brescia to speak at October White Mass, New Haven

The 2012 White Mass of the Archdiocese of Hartford will host Dr Michael J. Brescia, Executive Medical Director of New York’s Calvary Hospital on Sunday, 28 October 2012, St Mary’s Church and Hall, (5 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, CT).

Hartford Archbishop Henry J. Mansell will be the celebrant of the Mass at 10am.

Dr. Brescia is known for the development of the Brescia-Cimino Arterio-Venous Fistula, a critical treatment for kidney disease.

The White Mass prays in thanksgiving for the service of physicians, nurses, helathcare providers and administrators.

Questions and reservations: Heather Vaccola: 2012whitemass@gmail.com

More info: visit the website here.

The White Mass is co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Hartford, The St Luke Society, The Connecticut Guild of the Catholic Medical Association and the Pope John Paul II Bioethics Center. This is the second annual Mass and it moves around the state.

Memorial Day 2012

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and fill their souls with splendor.

O God, who willed that your Only Begotten Son, having conquered death, should pass over into the realm of heaven, grant, we pray, to your departed servants, those who served our nation in military service, that, with the mortality of this life overcome, they may gaze eternally on you, their Creator and Redeemer.

A blessed Memorial Day to all.

Work, culture and education according to Benedict

Last week Benedict XVI spoke to people who belong to various movements in the Church that make contributions to work, culture and education. Why is my posting this important? Because I believe what the Pope has to say is crucial in following his lead in the life I lead, and I believe it is helpful for others who desire to live similarly. I am confronted –in a good way– with questions about the value of work, culture and education and the place of the Church in these sectors. As Father Giussani told us, the Church is not here to fix our problems but to offer us a lens by which we can judge the reality in front of us so that we can fix a problem. Pay close attention to what Benedict has to say:

”Work is not only an instrument of individual profit, but it is a moment in which to express ones’ own skills with a spirit of service in a professional activity, be it factory work, agricultural, scientific or otherwise,”

“Culture, voluntary service and work constitute the indivisible trinomial of the Catholic laity’s daily life, which makes belonging to Christ and the Church more real, in the private as much as in the public spheres of society.”

“The lay faithful put themselves in the game when they touch one or more of these contexts and, in the cultural service, by showing solidarity with those in need and on the job, they strive to promote human dignity.”

Continue reading Work, culture and education according to Benedict

Sisters throw Jesus under bus

The world of medical care is always under the gun due to costs. It is has changed so radically in the last 40 years that it would make your head spin. The Church has for 2000+ years been at the center of healthcare around the world. I can think of the hospices at the cathedrals, monasteries, parish churches, roadside stations. Historically, no cathedral church would be without facilities to welcome the stranger, care for the ill person or instruct the ignorant. The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy were always and without reservation kept fresh in our daily activities and living the Gospel. In Connecticut we are blessed to have several hospital centers that were founded by religious sisters following the example of the Lord and then the Apostles in healing the sick and caring for those in need of certain medical attention in body, mind or spirit.

In today’s New Haven Register (26 April 2012) I read the article about the merging of Yale New Haven Hospital with Saint Raphael’s Hospital, a ministry of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth (Convent Station, NJ) with great interest because I wanted to know what was being done about the Catholic nature of Saint Raphael’s. I got my answer. The article reported,

“The first thing we wrestled with was the question of Catholicity, and the sisters were incredibly engaged and courageous and made this decision [to merge with the secular hospital] that it was more important to meet the mission in New Haven than to retain official Catholicity.”

What exactly does it mean say that a Catholic hospital should be able “to meet the mission in New Haven” and divorce itself from the Catholicism? With a Catholic hospital is there a mission without the gospel of Jesus Christ? How can the Sisters of Charity abort their mission to heal based on the charism of their order to easily?

Without a doubt the merger seems to be a good thing, though I am skeptical as to why an alternative like working with a Catholic healthcare organization could not be worked out. Clearly the Sisters of Charity and the CEO Christopher O’Connor are being opportunistic for the bottom line and not too respectful of Christ’s mission through the Church. The Catholicity of any organization in the Church is not lipstick on a pig. The Catholicity is the heart and mind of what we do, why we do it, and how we do it in light of following Christ.

The Sisters of Charity aided by Christopher O’Connor care little, it seems, for the sacramentality of medical care and the care of the whole person as passed down to us by Christ, the Apostles, the Archdiocese of Hartford and Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.

AND we wonder why the Church wants to reform the Leadership Conference Women Religious. If you throw Christ under the bus, there is no reason why we need groups like the LCWR. They are as one may think, not following Christ and the Church too closely, not thinking with the Church.

Good Friday is now a holiday in Cuba, following Pope’s request

The Holy See Press Office Director Jesuit Father Federico
Lombardi said this morning in Rome that “The fact that the Cuban authorities
have immediately accepted the request made by the Holy Father to President Raul
Castro, declaring next Good Friday a holiday, is certainly a very positive
sign. The Holy See hopes that this will facilitate participation in religious
celebrations and favor a happy Easter holiday. It also hopes that the Holy
Father’s visit may continue to produce fruits for the good of the Church and of
all Cubans.”

New leadership for St Vincent de Paul Society

Catholics of a certain vintage remember the Saint Vincent de Paul Society –whose motto is “Seeking Charity and Justice– organizes people to respond to the human and spiritual needs of our neighbor. The Society is getting new life with a new leader. The Gospel is still changing people’s lives.

The board of directors elected John Foppe, 42, to be the new leader. Foppe takes on the work of an organization founded in Paris in 1833 by the layman Blessed Frédéric Ozanam who was moved by the poverty of his brothers and sisters and challenged by his Catholic faith. These lay Vincentians lived, and continue to live, the corporal and spiritual works of charity. What became the Saint Vincent de Paul Society was founded in St Louis, Missouri in 1845. Today, it is estimated that the Society numbers around 172,000 members in the USA organized in more than 4,500 conferences; but worldwide the numbers are more more dramatic.

John Foppe’s story can be read here.

For more information about the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, visit them here.

Saint Vincent de Paul, Saint Louise de Marrilac and Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, pray for us.