'End of Life' Issues, Conference: 'Death in Ireland"

On a number of previous occasions I have blogged (most recently on 19 May 2011) about the Forum on End of Life in Ireland.   (The Irish version for this title is given as Bás in Éireann [sic] i.e. ‘Death in Ireland’.    Should we be worried?)

To re-cap - the Forum on End of Life in Ireland has organised ‘Forum 2011’ – with the key theme being ‘Resilience’ – and the event will take place on Wednesday, 12 October next, at Croke Park, Dublin, from 10 am to 4 pm.

The Chair for the day will be Mrs. Justice Catherine McGuiness and the guest speaker will be the Taoiseach, (Irish Prime Minister) Enda Kenny.  

Four workshops will be held during the course of the day, as follows: Carers; Preparing the Public; Spiritual and Psychological Support; The Medicalisation of Dying.

The deadline for registration at the event, which is organised in association with the Irish Times newspaper and the Irish Hospice Foundation, is Monday, 3 October, and details and bookings may be sought at www.endoflife.ie

In the light of recent and ongoing debate about the sacredness of all human life we suggest that attendance at this meeting is something that as many as possible should contemplate.

Powerful pro-life video

LifeNews.Com reports today on a powerful video for sharing the pro-life message released to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks to promote respect for all human life.

The new video “Humane Humanity” released by Virtue Media according to the release is to help Americans take a moment to rededicate themselves to upholding the sanctity of all human life. It is however a powerful message for all of us and a timely reminder of the intrinsic value and dignity of all human life

The text of the video expresses the following;

“Over the years humanity has made terrible mistakes. People were treated as less than human, even killed … because they were a different skin color, because they were a different faith…because they were unplanned, unknown and helpless,’ the video says. “But over time we are slowly learning that we are all God’s children, created in His image. And to disregard the value of human life whether through hate or indifference, is wrong.”

“That all human creation, regardless of race, religion, abilities or stage of human life has an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness … a right to love and be loved,” it continues. “As Americans, let’s cherish the sanctity of life. Because we know how it feels when others treat us as less than human.”

The message is read as video footage and pictures are interspersed showing tombs, Jews treated as prisoners in Nazi death camps, black Americans struggling for civil rights, and images of unborn children in 3D and 4D ultrasound settings. It later adds positive images of children, a Jewish rabbi, and ultimately a fireman responding to the terrorist attacks. It concludes with an image of one of the towers of the World Trade Center falling and a call to respect life.

“The 10th anniversary of 9/11 reminds each of us of the dignity of every human life.  Not only on 9/11, but each and every day God calls us to the heroic and loving support and protection of all human life…life created in His own image,”says Tom Peterson of Virtue Media.

Cardinal Burke's visit to Knock Shrine on Saturday 10th Sept.

On 10 September, at Our Lady’s Shrine at Knock, Co. Mayo, Cardinal Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, addressed a large gathering of pro-life people.   He spoke powerfully of the need to be witnesses to life in today’s world, and not to be afraid to stand up and defend the inviolability of all human life from the moment of conception until natural death.   In doing so, he also of course spoke of the evil of embryonic stem cell research and any manipulation or experimental use of the human embryo.   He didn’t leave things at that – he spoke very sternly about the role of politicians, Catholic politicians in particular, and of how they must not sacrifice the protection of human life to political expediency.   Their faith must inform their conscience.

It is hoped that the full text of Cardinal Burke’s talk will be published in the Catholic Voice newspaper in the near future.

In a related theme, the New York Times reported (July 2011) in relation to the appointment of Archbishop Charles Chaput to the archdiocese of Philadelphia, U.S.A., that:

‘He [Archbishop Chaput] is among a minority of Roman Catholic bishops who have spoken in favor of denying communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights.  He helped defeat legislation that would have legalized civil unions for gay couples in Colorado.  And he condemned the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic institution, for granting President Obama an honorary degree in 2009 because of his stance on abortion.

‘For these and other decision stands, Archbishop Chaput has been hailed as a champion by not only Catholic conservatives, but also by evangelical Protestants.’

Let us pray for Cardinal Burke and Archbishop Chaput and for all others with like outspoken courage.    Let us pray also that those who lack such courage and conviction may find it in their hearts and minds to follow the admonition of St. Thomas Becket to his bishops – 

‘If we who are called bishops desire to understand the meaning of our calling and to be worthy of it, we must strive to keep our eyes on Him Whom God appointed High Priest forever, and to follow in His footsteps.  … As successor of the Apostles, we hold the highest rank in our churches; we have accepted the responsibility of acting as Christ’s representatives on earth; we receive the honour belonging to that office, and enjoy the temporal benefits of our spiritual labours.  It must therefore be our endeavour to destroy the reign of sin and death, and by nurturing faith and uprightness of life, to build up the Church of Christ into a holy temple in the Lord.  There are a great many bishops in the Church, but would to God we were the zealous teachers and pastors that we promised to be at our consecrations, and still make profession of being. …’

And our politicians could pay heed to the words of St. Thomas More, patron saint of politicians – ‘I am the King’s good servant, but God’s first

Rome Reports You Tube coverage of Matercare Conference

Some video coverage and of  last weeks MaterCare conference in Rome and some of the issues discussed

Great Catholic Writers

Following Sunday Mass in a Dublin church last week, the entire stock of a new edition of The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc was sold out.  The book was chosen as the ‘Book of the Month’, and further copies will no doubt be made available for those who were disappointed in not getting a copy.   

This set me thinking about the paucity of intellectual Catholic writers today, and it led me to seeking out what another great English Catholic writer had to say about a subject not generally associated with him – the subject of ‘birth control’.  In his essay on Babies and Distributism [1935] here is some of what G.K. Chesterton wrote:

‘ … I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification.  I do not feel any contempt for a Bolshevist, who is a man driven to the same negative simplification by a revolt against very positive wrongs.  But there is one type of person for whom I feel what I can only call contempt.  And that is the popular propagandist of what he or she absurdly describes as Birth-Control.  I despise Birth-Control first because it is a weak and wobbly and cowardly word.  It is also an entirely meaningless word; and is used so as to curry favour even with those who would at first recoil from its real meaning.  The proceeding these quack doctors recommend does not control any birth.  It only makes sure that there shall never be any birth to control.  … Normal people can only act so as to produce birth; and these people [the quacks] can only act so as to prevent birth.  But these people know perfectly well as I do that the very word Birth-Prevention would strike a chill into the public, the instant it was blazoned on headlines, or proclaimed on platforms, or scattered in advertisements like any other quack medicine.   They dare not call it by its name, because its name is very bad advertising.  Therefore they use a conventional unmeaning word, which may make the quack medicine sound more innocuous.

‘ … Birth-Control … is not even a step along the muddy road they call Eugenics; it is a flat refusal to take the first and most obvious step along the road of Eugenics.  Once grant that their philosophy is right, and their course of action is obvious; and they dare not take it; they dare not even declare it.  If there is no authority in things which Christendom has called moral, because their origins were mystical, then they are clearly free to ignore all the difference between animals and men; and treat men as we treat animals.  They need not palter with the stale and timid compromise and convention called Birth-Control.  Nobody applies it to the cat.  The obvious course for Eugenists is to act towards babies as they act towards kittens.  Let all the babies be born; and then let us drown those we do not like.   … By the weak compromise of Birth-Prevention, we are probably sacrificing the fit and only producing the unfit.  The births we prevent may be the births of the best and most beautiful children; those we allow, the weakest or worst.  Indeed, it is probable; for the habit discourages the early parentage of young and vigorous people; and lets them put off the experience to later years, mostly from mercenary motives. …

‘Now a child is the very sign and sacrament of personal freedom.  He is a fresh free will added to the wills of the world; he is something that his parents have freely chosen to produce and which they freely agree to protect. … He is a creation and a contribution; he is their own creative contribution to creation.  He is also a much more beautiful, wonderful, amusing and astonishing thing than any of the stale stories or jingling jazz tunes turned out by the machines.  When men no longer feel that he is so, they have lost the appreciation of primary things, and therefore all sense of proportion about the world.  People who prefer the mechanical pleasures, to such a miracle, are jaded and enslaved.  They are preferring the very dregs of life to the first fountains of life.  They are preferring the last, crooked, indirect, borrowed, repeated and exhausted things of our dying Capitalist civilisation, to the reality which is the only rejuvenation of all civilisation.  It is they who are hugging the chains of their old slavery; it is the child who is ready for the new world.’