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More Persecution of Christians at the Universities

July 26, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

“URBANA, Illinois, July 22, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of a Catholic professor who was barred from teaching after he explained Catholic teaching on homosexuality to the students in a class on Catholicism, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has defended the decision by saying that the professor was not actually “fired” – he’s just not allowed to teach any more classes.

“UIUC administration has reportedly been deluged with outraged emails and phone calls after news broke that Dr. Kenneth Howell was abruptly disallowed to teach after a student complained about an e-mail in which Howell outlined the arguments for how homosexual behavior is contrary to natural moral law – words the student deemed “hate speech.” The remarks were made in the context of an email to students in a class on Catholicism; Howell had taught classes on Catholicism at the school and its Catholic Newman Center for several years.”

Get the rest here

Yesterday I posted on a graduate student in psychology whose faculty are recommending a Maoist reeducation regimen to teach her sensitivity to homosexuals for suggesting that her Christian faith has a different take on the issue.

Today we hear of a professor who simply taught what the Catholic Church teaches about homosexuality in a course on…Catholicism!! For the crime of being intellectually honest about his subject matter, Dr. Howell is being barred from teaching any more classes. Welcome to the age of tolerance and inclusivity, of mutual respect and diversity.

Liberalism is as fascist as Nazi Germany, and Mao’s China. No dissent is tolerated, and all who dare to speak another point of view are crushed. This is what has become of the greatest university system ever known. I’m fortunate enough to say that I am one of the last who was educated when colleges were great intellectual arenas where people came and were free to state and defend any given position.

When talk began in the 1980′s of bringing tolerance and inclusivity to campus, many of us were confused as it already existed. Then came the speech codes, the sensitivity training, and finally the lists of forbidden ideas. It is into this grinder that we feed our children during the most formative years of their lives. In far too many colleges, education died an ugly death twenty years ago. Now what remains is a grotesque parody of all that once was, husks devoid of their seeds. Now what remains is the bastardization of education: Indoctrination.

All of the intellectual heavy lifting today is being done at the think tanks. Increasingly the universities are being filled with third-rate hacks, idealogues whose ideology can not withstand criticism from nineteen year-old students. How are we do address the ethical issues of the Culture of Death when Christian witness is considered hate speech, when natural law is considered hate speech, when the Bible is considered hate speech?

Having knocked theology, philosophy and anthropology out of the conversation, what is left for grounding one’s argument? The dismissal of thousands of years of religious tradition, the distillation of three hundred years of Enlightenment Philosophy, all in the attempt to squelch opposition is the end of the university system.

In all of this it has become abundantly clear that ethical and moral formation must take place in the home and be substantially in place before our children go off to college. Their faith, likewise must be solid as they go off to school.

A hostile faculty, administration and campus culture await all persons of genuine faith.

Posted in Biomedical Ethics | 43 Comments »

University Persecution of Christians: Game On

July 25, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

A great many Christians face the choice daily in our universities to either bear faithful witness to their beliefs and suffer the consequences, or lie to get by. The unholy alliance of radical feminists and gays/lesbians has been the anchor on the left for far too many years. The following story is not at all uncommon.

AUGUSTA, Georgia, July 22, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed suit against Augusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling student who was allegedly told that her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The student, Jennifer Keeton, says she has been told to stop communicating her beliefs and that she must undergo “training” to accept homosexuality in order to graduate from the counseling program.

Augusta State ordered Keeton to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will expel her from the Counselor Education Program.

“A public university student shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being a Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform,” said ADF Senior Counsel David French.

“Abandoning one’s own religious beliefs should not be a precondition at a public university for obtaining a degree. This type of leftist zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop.”

Keeton, 24, is pursuing her master’s degree in counseling at Augusta State. Lawyers say that after her professors learned of her biblical beliefs, specifically her views on homosexual conduct, the school imposed the re-education plan. Keeton says she never denigrated anyone in communicating her beliefs but merely stated factually what they were in appropriate contexts.

Read the rest here.

Clinical Truth is on Keeton’s side. Psychologists and Psychiatrists have a diagnostic manual entitled Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Mental Disorders (DSM), currently in its fourth edition. As DSM II was being prepared, homosexuality was listed in DSM I as a disorder. It was a bizarre and fascinating set of political machinations that led to homosexuality being dropped from DSM II as a disorder, part of which was deliberately changing the diagnostic criteria.

The story is chronicled by the late Dr. Charles Socarides, an expert in the field of sexual disorders and a leader in the field of treating homosexuality, in the following excerpt from the American Journal of Psychotherapy:

“In early 1973, a group superheaded by several leaders of the A.P.A., other psychiatrists, and members of the Gay Activists Alliance, the Mattachine Society, and the Daughters of Bilitis undertook to influence the Nomenclature Committee of the A.P.A. at a closed meeting at Columbia University Psychiatric Institute by requesting deletion of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual(9).

“By spring 1973 the A.P.A. Committee on Nomenclature and Statistics was seriously considering the removal of homosexuality from the DSM II without consultation with the psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who had long labored in this area of clinical research, and held opposing views.

“A Symposium held in Hawaii on May 9, 1973 was entitled “Should Homosexuality Be in the A.P.A. Nomenclature?” As a member of this panel, I presented the conclusions of the eleven-member Task Force on Homosexuality appointed in 1970 by the New York County District Branch of the A.P.A., of which I was chairman. (10)”

Read the rest here

Keeton’s story, and Socarides’ tale are both cautionary. The fields of psychology and psychiatry do not recognize post-traumatic stress arising from abortion. This stems in part from an official APA position paper in 1978 denying any harm done to women by abortion. Medical schools screen out pro-life candidates in their interviews, a phenomenon discussed at length at a recent bioethics conference. The unholy alliance is firmly in control of our educational institutions from kindergarden to post-doctoral fellowship training, with few notable exceptions.

It is the reason why I and other scientists have stepped forward into the breach. There are many others who would love to give voice to the truth but do not for fear of the consequences being experiences by Keeton, including Maoist indoctrination training or loss of academic rank and standing. Pray for these professors and students.

In our universities the truth is irrelevant.

Posted in Biomedical Ethics | Tagged , , , , , | 32 Comments »

Planned Parenthood and Abortion Misinformation: Why?

July 21, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

Live Action has released another video showing a PP worker misleading a young woman over the human identity, and developmental status of her purportedly 10 week-old baby.

Note in the video how the worker kept pausing to choose her words with great care? Words meant to deny the human status of the baby.

Why?

Apart from PP’s racist eugenics there needs to be something deeper that animates low level employees such as the one in this video, something narrower and more personal than a sharing of Sanger’s disdain for the broad sweep of humanity. In all revolutions only the upper echelon are hard core idealogues. The grunts fight for more parochial interests.

So what animates the people who perform the interviews, who staff the front desk, who kill the babies?

The abortionists are mostly the bottom of the barrel as physicians go. This is the last stop for many of them before license revocation.

For all who sit and lie, there is no doubt to us or them that they are lying. Look at how carefully this PP worker stopped to parse her words. These are the people who see the sonogram and persist in saying to the unknowing mother that the baby is just a blob of tissue. At its root, this evil has its beginnings in unlove, or anti-love, because it is so caught up in deliberate deception.

It is no mere lie, but raging contempt for the pregnant patient and her baby. It is the deliberate will to destroy at all costs, beginning with the destruction of the truth.

That’s why these people fight tooth and nail to derail legislation requiring informed consent before abortions. That’s why they fight against parental notification laws.

Unlove and anti-love.

The wounds that create these twin evils run deep and are inflicted during the formative years. They are the maladaptive response to evil, the loss of perspective and the absence of forgiveness.

We become what we think we are: The deception propagating itself in the victim. The victim becoming the victimizer. The ongoing cycle of despair.

Campaigning with the truth will certainly educate mothers to be. CPC’s have a 90% success rate at changing women’s minds when they see the sonograms. But we must never cut off the clinic workers from our care or love. To do so is to make ourselves become as the unforgiving servant in Jesus’ parable. It is the beginning of our own loss of perspective, our own sinking into despair.

We must do as Jesus commands and love our enemies, pray for our persecutors, and do good to those who hate us. These weren’t suggestions from the divine healer. They were commands for our own spiritual well-being.

In viewing this video, I felt no rancor, but only a deep, deep sadness for this woman who sat and attempted to coerce through deception what she thought was a young woman seeking abortion. While it may seem paradoxical, the killers among us are most in need of our love. That begins with prayer.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Rest In Peace, James Cooke

July 16, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

Tomorrow (Saturday), we will bury a giant who lived among us.

Jim Cooke died this week at the age of 49 of a very rare genetic liver disease. Jim was a member of my parish, a fellow Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus, President of the Holy Name Society, President of the Family Association, Author and liason who brought to our parish school a Universal Pre-K program, architect of innumerable parish projects, counselor, sage, friend to all, model husband and father.

A good many of us offered Jim our livers for transplant, knowing the risks associated with such surgery (They transplant 75% of the donor’s liver, which then grows back in the donor!). Such was the love this man inspired in our Church. Jim refused all offers and placed his trust in the God he loved. That hope and trust were brought to fruition this week as he returned to the God he loved with absolute faith that all would be well for his wife Joan and three adolescent children.

So in the morning we will celebrate the life of a man who was my age, and a great inspiration to me. Jim made me want to reach for being a better husband and father. We will have Jim’s Funeral Mass and formally commend his soul to God. If anyone has a moment around 10:30, please whisper a quiet prayer for Joan and the children, and the saint we will be commending to God at that hour.

Thank You.

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Culture of Death: Rationing Abundance

July 16, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

My article in today’s HeadlineBistro.

The recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has triggered alarm among various quarters for his self-professed admiration of health care rationing as seen in other countries such as Britain’s National Health Service. The issue here moves well past the politics and begs the question: How have we as a society become so deadened to the value of human life, that in our abundance of wealth and blessing from God we could seriously entertain the word “rationing” as applied to health care for our elders, for the poorest among us?

This move is a game-changer on so very many levels. Juxtaposed with the almost weekly reports of breakthroughs in cancer therapy, treatment of chronic conditions and adult stem cell therapies, this is not only an odd moment for considering rationing health care, but a dire threat to the advancement of science. A society that commits itself to death as a solution to its self-inflicted financial wounds cannot long endure as a pioneer of extending and improving the quality of life through research in the biomedical sciences; not when the government that funds such research is busy eliminating the need for it.

So how did we get here?

Twenty years ago when I was studying and working as a psychiatric research assistant at Columbia University, I was invited by one of the faculty to attend a talk being given by a medical economist. The topic was the new system of managed care and HMOs. In this talk, the economist made a very prescient observation that I took as a harbinger. He said that increased access to high quality health care does not make for a healthier population. It creates a larger, more chronically ill population of people who will exceed the lifespan dictated by their illness by twenty to thirty years.

Consider those who undergo coronary bypass surgery, who have pacemakers, treatments for cardiac dysrhythmias, diabetes, HIV, hypertension, vascular disease, COPD, cancer, etc. Advances in medical treatments and access to those treatments produces a population who live decades longer, mostly by taking medications daily. The longer we live, the greater the likelihood of new conditions arising needing surgical and medical interventions. All of this costs money.

The economist went further. Are we prepared to extend social security benefits to an ever-burgeoning population of retirees? Can the civil servant pension systems cope with people who retire after twenty years in their early forties and collect pensions well into their eighties and nineties? What do we expect from managed care?

Two decades later we are now being forced to address these questions. It seems that death is being proffered as the solution. Ridding ourselves of the elderly not only saves Medicare dollars, but also saves social security dollars as well as civil servant pension payouts. Cutting Medicaid services also saves on welfare and related money. Such solutions to vexing financial difficulties requires little intellect and even less heart and soul.

Death is cheap and easy.

The coarsening that has led us down this path began with the sexual revolution and legalization of abortion. Mother Teresa of Calcutta cut straight to the heart of the issue when she stated that it is a poverty that a child must die so that we may live as we wish. That has been the great selling point of abortion, that babies are an economic encumbrance that will hold us back from being and doing all that we wish to be and do.

The coarsening continued to unfold with the “Death with Dignity” movement, which really appeals to the same obsessive need for radical control and moral autonomy that has gripped us ever tighter during the past five decades of the sexual revolution. Now we have a political appointee whose duties could foreseeably include saving the nation money by institutionalizing a system of treatment refusals that make the worst of the HMOs pale in comparison.

In Immunology, the process of opsonization – the marking of a pathogen for destruction – has its etymology in the Greek word meaning “to mark for death.”

We opsonize the unborn, the poor, the elderly. With the steady rise in autism diagnoses, which are breaking the backs of school districts across the country (one out of every 110 children), will we return to eugenic sterilization that is still Constitutional Law, enshrined in the 1927 Buck v. Bell decision?

We cannot absolve ourselves of culpability in this trajectory toward the Culture of Death. Pope Paul VI warned us of this in Humanae Vitae back in 1968. Pope John Paul II warned us repeatedly for over twenty-five years in all of his writings, in which he gave us the roadmap, philosophically and theologically, back to a Culture of Life.

We should not deceive ourselves: The raised issue of health care rationing represents significant momentum for the Culture of Death that will require a muscular response to slow, halt and reverse. We need to become very vocal in our affirmation of life in all of its stages. We are in dire straits, but we have all the answers before us, and all of the graces of Heaven for the asking.

Posted in Health Care | Tagged , , | 5 Comments »

Self-Evident Truth

July 4, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

In two sentences, Thomas Jefferson distilled two centuries of Enlightenment Philosophy.

The truths of which he speaks are, according to Jefferson, so fundamental and not needing explanation as to be self-evident.

It is self-evident that there is a “Creator”

It is self-evident that humans are endowed by that Creator with unalienable rights, meaning that man cannot take them away, as they come from God.

It is self-evident that these rights begin with the most fundamental of all-Life.

It is self-evident that the next two follow in logical sequence: Liberty, and then the Pursuit of Happiness.

It is self-evident that the role of government is to protect those three greatest rights.

It is self-evident that the people reserve the right to alter or abolish that government if it becomes destructive of those rights.

We have seriously lost our way.

November is coming.

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Ending Abortion: Force Concentration as A New Strategy

July 3, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

Brother Paul O’Donnell gave courageous public voice at last week’s NRL Convention to what I have heard several pro-lifers say in private. There needs to be less territoriality and greater sharing of resources within the pro-life movement. I’ll take that a step further and suggest that the pro-life movement too often is like a superior military dividing its forces in the face of the enemy and at best gaining very little ground.

The opposition knows how to deploy their forces, and does so in a tightly disciplined fashion. We have the superior forces though, with some astounding special operations forces such as the post-abortive mothers and fathers of Silent No More, the healing ministries such as Lumina and Rachel’s Vineyard, the vast network of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, information clearing houses and legislative action centers such as Priests for Life and the National Right to Life Committee, scientific and medical groups such as American Association of Pro-life OB/GYN’s, Physicians for Life, National Association of Pro-Life Nurses, and the list goes on and on. These groups and many others are linked in the side panels of this blog. Add to them great news outlets and blogs such as Jill Stanek, LifeNews, LifeSite News, and over a thousand pro-life blogs.

The number of pro-life organizations numbers over a thousand.

What is needed now is a coordination of these groups that actually multiplies their firepower. In the military it’s called Force Concentration, where all of one’s forces are brought to bear on a particular point of the enemy’s forces so as to overwhelm them and capture that territory. Then the forces are turned on the next enemy objective in an overwhelming manner and so on.

By way of example, there was a brilliant billboard campaign recently in Atlanta, Georgia that heightened the awareness that black babies are an endangered species. Such a billboard campaign is great in opening the conversation. But how much preparation went into the ground campaign?

Was Priests for Life brought in to do preaching at all area Catholic churches?
Silent No More events?
Rachel’s Vineyard?
Speakers on behalf of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, Abortion/Breast Cancer Coalition?
Methodists for Life?
Teens for Life?
Students for Life?
Extensive screenings of Maafa 21?
40 Days for Life?
Other picketers for Planned Parenthood?
Truth Trucks?
A coordinated March for Life starting outside of Martin Luther King’s Ebeneezer Baptist Church?
Teach-ins?
CPC’s?

Were there objectives to follow up this campaign with starting new chapters of Rachel’s Vineyard and Silent No More?

The black community is a great place to start because of Planned Parenthood’s genocidal campaign against blacks, operating 80% of their clinics in inner city neighborhoods. That’s where this despicable group can be hurt the most; by bringing in as many groups as possible for a three month saturation campaign in one city. This can make an unbelievable difference in a city such as Atlanta. Such a campaign clearly helps to magnify the capability and visibility of each organization.

It isn’t enough to fight honorably. We must do so strategically and tactically as well. When we identify a city and declare it a “No Abortion Zone”, we need to marshal our resources and bring them to bear relentlessly until we break the back of Planned Parenthood and the local abortionists in that town.

This needs to be our goal in moving forward: the complete and utter destruction of abortion through a relentless campaign of truth-telling, especially among blacks and hispanics. It must be accomplished through mutual cooperation between the many special operations organizations in the pro-life movement. It must be entirely legal and peaceful, as pro-lifers always are. It must be tactical and strategic.

If it is, it will be devastatingly effective.

Posted in Abortion | Tagged , | 7 Comments »

JOIN THE RALLY FOR MOTHER TERESA!

June 30, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

The following is a letter from Bill Donohue of the Catholic League regarding a protest outside of the Empire State Building on August 26, the 100th birthday of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Owner Anthony Malkin is a craven and cowardly revisionist who refuses to honor the woman who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Medal of Freedom–the two highest civilian honors bestowed by the United States. Come dressed in blue and white, the colors of Mother’s order.

I’ve written twice before about the war against Mother Teresa here and here.
.

June 2010

Dear Friend,

As president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, I have witnessed many assaults on Catholic sensibilities. But of all the indignities that Catholics have had to endure – movies, plays, songs, artistic exhibitions, books, articles, newspaper cartoons, classroom diatribes, television shows, lawsuits, obscene street fairs, music videos, and the like – nothing has insulted Catholics more than to see Mother Teresa dissed by the owner of the Empire State Building; a request to honor her on the 100th anniversary of her birthday, August 26, was denied without explanation!

The Empire State Building frequently beams into the sky the colors associated with all kinds of persons, organizations and events. From Mariah Carey to the Simpsons, and from NASCAR drivers to the Ninja Turtles, tribute is offered by way of the tower’s lights on a regular basis. But not for Mother Teresa – she doesn’t qualify.

Lit to Honor Mao's Chinese Communist Revolution (77 Million Murdered Under Mao)

Indeed, the Empire State Building’s owner, Anthony Malkin, honored the genocidal regime of Communist China, even though 77 million innocent men, women and children were murdered under Mao Zedong. So you can see why I was stunned when I learned that my request to honor Mother Teresa was denied; I asked that the tower lights shine blue and white, the colors of the Missionaries of Charity, on her birthday. By contrast, the U.S. Postal Service is honoring her with a commemorative stamp.

When I made my request in writing on February 2, I was told by two women from the Empire State Building that my application looked fine; they said they would get back to me in a few months. Then on May 5, I was faxed an unsigned letter denying my request. I quickly contacted Malkin, but he never replied to my letter. In fact, he has steadfastly refused to speak to the media.

After being pummeled with bad publicity, Malkin said they have a policy barring an honor to any religious person or group. But that is a lie. In the past, they have honored John Cardinal O’Connor, Pope John Paul II, the Salvation Army, the Salesian Sisters and Rev. Martin Luther King. And they further lied when they said this “policy” – which was just made up out of thin air – was in place when I applied. I have a copy of the application and it says no such thing. Moreover, no one ever indicated there was any problem with my application. It looked like a slam dunk.

On August 26, there will be a demonstration in the street outside the Empire State Building. There are many costs associated with this event, ranging from ads in newspapers, mailings, renting a stage, etc. In addition to your prayers, we need both your participation at the rally and your contributions.

Mother Teresa deserves better. Just as important, Catholics do not deserve to be treated like second-class citizens by snobby elites who think they can stick their middle finger in our faces. The time to support Mother Teresa is now.

Bill Donohue
President
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
450 Seventh Avenue
New York, New York 10123

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments »

Abortion ‘Triples Breast Cancer Risk’: Fourth Study Finds Terminations Linked to Disease

June 29, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

If anyone is inclined to support Breast Cancer Research, may I respectfully suggest that Karen Malec’s organization can get a much greater bang for the buck by getting the word out about PREVENTION. This is the message that the media will never divulge. This newsletter and related article are a must read.

Dear Friends:

The Daily Mail (London, England) published a very thoughtful article on the Sri Lankan study last week that found women with abortions more than triple their breast cancer risk. A link to the article is provided below.

Even though the Sri Lankan study, De Silva et al. 2010, was a small study of 100 breast cancer cases and 203 controls (health women), Professor Joel Brind (Baruch College, City University of New York) argues:

“It’s still a good study, just not quite as powerful. I would emphasize that it is typical of studies that have come out early in countries where breast cancer and abortion are not yet that common, like studies in the 1980′s in China, Japan, Australia and even the US: RR’s (relative risks) between 2 and 4, where the baseline lifetime incidence is closer to 2% rather than 10%. Once abortion is very common, the link is more like 1.1-1.5–relatively lower, but still impacting a similarly large number of women.”

In other words, in countries where abortion and breast cancer are still uncommon, scientists are able to detect that women with abortions multiply their breast cancer risk between two and four times. The fact that the study was conducted in a country where abortion and breast cancer are both uncommon is one of the strengths of the Sri Lankan study.

Once abortion and breast cancer become common, it becomes more challenging for scientists to detect large risk increases because it is harder to find a satisfactory control group of women who have never been exposed to abortion. In countries where abortion and breast cancer are common, scientists report lower relative risks, i.e. women with abortions multiply their risk of the disease by 1.1 to 1.5 times.

Please send us a donation today so we can help women in two African nations whose religious leaders have requested our literature and a video. Your assistance is urgently needed during the summer months.

Be sure to read the story in the Daily Mail below.

“Abortion ‘Triples Breast Cancer Risk’: Fourth Study Finds Terminations Linked to Disease”

Sincerely,
Karen Malec
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer

Posted in Abortion, Breast Cancer | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

Peter, Paul and a New Evangelization

June 29, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

My article in today’s Headline Bistro.

If there is one potential social-scientific study that cries out to be performed, it is the measure of the Culture of Death’s activities in a nation as a function of Christian belief and practice. In formulating a hypothesis for such a study, it would seem the anecdotal evidence suggests that as faith and its related activities decreases, there is a proportional increase in the activities of the Culture of Death.

This shouldn’t come as any great surprise. Rejection of our fundamental identity and great dignity, which is inherent in Christian anthropology, leaves the human little more than a sentient animal on the taxonomic tree in any biology classroom.

By way of example, the Netherlands appears to be a bellwether. Religion overall has declined there throughout the twentieth century. While several studies give varying percentages, the most reliable indicate 61% of the population has no religious affiliation, with that number climbing to 69% for those under 35 years of age. In that period of decline, legalized prostitution, abortion, homosexual marriage and euthanasia have been adopted and taken deep root. Far from a grab bag of licentious issues, these issues share an organic unity in purpose and function.

They are the foundations of an anti-Christian “civilization.”

As Saint Augustine teaches us, heterosexual, sacramental marriage is meant to be an earthly icon into the inner life of the Blessed Trinity, where the radical and reciprocal self-donation between the Father and Son in Love generates the Holy Spirit of God. The completeness of this Love forms the oneness between the three persons in the Godhead. So it is supposed to be between spouses in God’s design. The two become “one flesh” both literally and metaphorically, whose radical self-donation produces new life, which is both a product of that love and the object of that love.

Artificial contraception represents a fundamental rejection of complete self-donation, and has taken millions one long step toward abortion when the contraception fails. Prostitution builds on the use of contraception and further distorts conjugal appetites and expression by making sex and the body of the prostitute a mere commodity, as opposed to the priceless treasures that they are.

Homosexual marriage builds on all of the above by accepting their prerequisite ideologies and then removing the opposite sex from the equation.

Enter the perversion of science.

Having rejected God’s wise design for His creation, children have come to be regarded as a right of possession, rather than a blessing issuing forth from sacramental mutual submission. The mentality of rights demands further distortions of the created order through scientific machinations such as artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and surrogate motherhood. In the latter, a child may rightly claim up to five parents: sperm donor, egg donor, gestational mother, and adoptive parents.

Finally, having entirely redefined the parameters of marriage, family, conjugal expression and life’s beginning, the last area of radical autonomy is over life’s ending.

In the Netherlands, this began with the Dr. Jack Kevorkian model of physician-assisted suicide for patients in end-stage terminal illness, driven by fear of unimaginable pain and suffering. It rapidly degenerated into a system where the fear of suffering in those terminally ill, but not yet in end-stage, was sufficient to merit the consent of two physicians. Now, physicians routinely sign the death order, without the patient’s knowledge or consent, if the physicians believe the patient is “suffering.” This process now encompasses the mentally ill. Such cases of “involuntary euthanasia” number approximately 550 per year.

It’s cold-blooded murder, and it’s spreading across a European continent increasing marked by atheism, agnosticism and hedonism. On May 17, the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that in Belgium, cases of euthanasia were up 40% in 2009 over the previous year, and in one region of the country 30% of cases were performed without the patient’s knowledge or consent.

It is noteworthy that Catholicism represents 75% of Belgian religious affiliation, and that Sunday Mass attendance has steadily declined from 42.9% in 1967, to 22% in 1985, to 11.2% in 1998, to 7% in 2006. After weekly Mass attendance dipped below 25%, the following were adopted in rapid succession: abortion, 1990; euthanasia, 2002; gay marriage, 2003.

Last week the Federal Court of Justice of Germany legalized euthanasia.

According to Gallup, here in the U.S., Catholic Mass attendance has steadily declined from 75% in 1955, to 55% in 1973, to tie with the Protestants at 45% in 2008. The narrow margins between pro-choice/pro-life voters, pro-gay marriage/traditional marriage are reflected in those attendance data.

There is reason for hope in all of this. We are without a doubt in a period of great disintegration. So was the world of Saints Peter and Paul, whose solemnity we celebrate today. Rather than curse the darkness around them, these men rejoiced in their sufferings, and saw the world about them as a harvest waiting for workers to bring in the sheaves. They looked upon the pagans as utterly bereft and boldly proclaimed their dignity and true worth. We must do the same.

Catholicism has become the fodder for comedians who ceaselessly riff on our faith as being nothing more than a compendium of rules to be obeyed mindlessly. Our most persuasive arguments will not be intellectual apologias of dogma and canon law, which seem parched and lifeless to the parched and lifeless. Rather, our evangelization must target people’s hearts, address the issues of isolation, meaninglessness and despair that drive people to contraception, abortion, euthanasia, and the rejection of sacramental marriage. We must appeal to the fruits of faith and not its rules. People buy the rules only when they desire the fruits that follow.

The letters of Peter and Paul and the Acts of the Apostles form the template that these two extraordinary men have laid down for us to follow. Their feast is a perfect day to rededicate ourselves to a new evangelization of a world desperately seeking meaning in all the wrong places.

Posted in Biomedical Ethics, Euthanasia, Family | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

Abortion and The Law: Who We Are Is Who We Were

June 27, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

In the 1997 movie Amistad about the true story of African slaves who mutinied on the slave ship carrying them to America, President John Quincy Adams delivers a stemwinder to the United Sates Supreme Court on behalf of the slaves:

“James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington… John Adams. We’ve long resisted asking you for guidance. Perhaps we have feared in doing so, we might acknowledge that our individuality, which we so, so revere, is not entirely our own. Perhaps we’ve feared an… an appeal to you might be taken for weakness. But, we’ve come to understand, finally, that this is not so. We understand now, we’ve been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding… that who we are IS who we were. We desperately need your strength and wisdom to triumph over our fears, our prejudices, ourselves. Give us the courage to do what is right. And if it means civil war? Then let it come. And when it does, may it be, finally, the last battle of the American Revolution.”

We fought that Civil War not long after Adams spoke those words, a war finally precipitated by the same Supreme Court in the infamous Dred Scott decision, a war that ended the national tragedy that was slavery.

That same Supreme Court went on to enshrine in law the segregation laws of the South in Plessy v. Ferguson, enshrine eugenic sterilization of the developmentally disabled under Buck v. Bell, enshrine concentration camps for Japanese-American citizens during WWII in Koramatsu v. United States, and finally enshrined abortion in Roe v. Wade.

Again and again the injustice of this Court has poisoned the body politic and torn this nation asunder. Again and again people have marched, and clashed, and spilled one another’s blood in senseless fratricide.

Justice has always prevailed, but never before the effusion of much blood. So it is with abortion.

In New York State, a bill may come to vote before next Friday’s recess of the legislature, the so-called “Reproductive Health & Privacy Protection Act”
(“RHAPP”) would:

• Promote late-term abortions of fully-formed infants
• Authorize non-physicians to perform abortions
• Lift the current age restriction on over-the-counter sales of the “morning-
after pill”
• Thwart any efforts to involve parents in the abortion decisions of their
children

In addition, it could:

• Compel hospitals, including Catholic hospitals, to allow abortion
• Compel schools and charitable agencies to facilitate abortion

More from the New York State Catholic Conference Here.

It is clear that we are in the midst of a civil war over abortion, which is only the tip of the spear for the Culture of Death. It has deadened moral sensibilities with its language of radical autonomy. The radical nature of this autonomy has crept into how we view the elderly, infirm and handicapped–as encumbrances to be dispatched if they threaten our ability to realize our ‘potential’.

Such potency has always been rooted in the communal soil of family and church. The fruits of what we ‘do’ have always redounded to the benefit of the family and community. Now however, the self is viewed as answerable only to itself. Family and community are no longer one’s primary means of self-definition so much as a utilitarian means toward a narcissistic end. This is what we have been enshrining as law for five decades. This is the face of the newest civil war, one which has claimed over 52 million human lives. Compare that to a little over 600,000 lives lost in the American Civil War.

The enemies of life have doubled down with such sweeping legislation as is pending in New York. We must meet them on the legislative battle-field and make our politicians hear our voices and fear our wrath at the voting booth more than they fear the opposition’s.

John Quincy Adams appealed to the character and wisdom of the founders, one of whom, John Adams, was his father. We too appeal to the wisdom of our founders, and our forbears in the abolitionist movement. We must present such a positive and noble lineage to our legislators and ask that they too join this lineage which celebrates the authentic freedom of the human person at its very root: The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The latter two are not possible without the first.

In the decades to come, our posterity too will look back and join in Adams’ words:

“We understand now, we’ve been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding… that who we are IS who we were.”

We have before us today the power and ability to determine for our posterity who we were.

We should choose courageously and wisely.

Posted in Abortion | 8 Comments »

Adult Stem Cells: The Blind See Again

June 23, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

Jesus Healing the Man Born Blind

Referencing his miracles in John 14, Jesus told his Apostles, “Greater works than these will you do.”

And do it is today with adult stem cell therapy. What once required the laying on of hands in so many areas is now routine medical treatment. I suspect that this protocol will become very routine in the next five years. Here is a link to a recent news report of doctors treating the blind with their own stem cells to restore sight. The article is wonderfully written and needs no further explanation here.

Posted in Stem Cell Therapy, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Long Island Catholic Writers: Full of Grace

June 23, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

There are moments in life when God opens yet another door to yet another room filled with His treasures, treasures to be used for our personal enrichment and to be shared with the world. This past week was one of those moments.

Through my FaceBook community I saw a notice for a newly formed group of Catholic Writers of Long Island and a workshop. Eager to escape the dimension of the internet and the luminiferous ether for some face time with fellow Catholic writers sans computer screen, I contacted the president, Lisa Mladinich. In our subsequent communications, I was invited to attend the organizational meeting of the group this past Wednesday.

The fifteen or so people in attendance were quite an impressive group: an RN getting into bioethics, catechists, columnists, editors, bloggers, high school and college students. Begun in prayer, the meeting was very instrumental in bringing together several people who’ve known one another only through their writing, and who seek fellowship beyond the virtual dimension.

Lisa and Conference Chairperson Peggy Clores have founded a remarkable group of Catholic writers, many who are pro-life authors, and produced a first-ever Catholic writers conference this past Saturday that was notable for its speakers, crisp and vibrant programming, liturgical grounding with Mass and Rosary, three networking sessions, and the presence of Ann Lewis, President of the Catholic Writers Guild, and keynote speaker Rick Hinshaw, Editor of The Long Island Catholic.

The day was held at Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, LI (Diocese of Rockville Center). This is a group for Catholic writers in the NY area to connect with and fellowship. Next year’s conference will doubtless exceed the already 120+ in attendance this year.

Much more to come about this extraordinary group of people. For now, here is a three minute video of the day produced by the TV show Currents

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Coming Home Awarded Top Medical Blog Award

June 23, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

Coming Home has been recognized by Awarding the Web “a grass-roots group that works with sponsor sites to recognize quality blogs & bloggers in various categories,” and awarded a 2010 Top Pediatrics Blog Award in the Medical Category for its advocacy on behalf of the unborn, and for presenting the truth regarding sex education among children.

The other winners in this category are listed here .

Many thanks to the folks at Awarding the Web and their sponsor organizations for this recognition of the inherent dignity of the youngest pediatric patients, and our collective efforts on their behalf. Such recognition also highlights the shifting momentum in the pro-life direction.

Many thanks to the several people who have given me invaluable guidance and shaped Coming Home with their great wisdom and gentle humor.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Science, Causes, Truth, or Science Causes Truth? (Part II)

June 23, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

Illustration: Lisa Nolan

In preparation of next week’s discussion on the abortion/breast cancer link, and other sequellae, this two-part series is reprinted.

“At the heart of science lies discovery which involves a change in worldview. Discovery in science is possible only in societies which accord their citizens the freedom to pursue the truth where it may lead and which therefore have respect for different paths to that truth.”

-John Polanyi, Canadian Nobel Laureate (Chemistry);
Commencement Address, McGill University,
Montreal, Canada, June 1990

If you haven’t read Part I of this series, it’s worthwhile, as it sets the table regarding the issue of scientific orthodoxies. The two main areas of scientific contention arising from the post-abortive experience are:

1. Post-abortion syndrome.
2. Increased risk of breast cancer.

We’ve been dealing with the breast cancer link for a few weeks. For now, we need to turn our attention to post-abortion syndrome. Is it real, or artifact? It’s a valid scientific question, and pro-lifers should not shrink from the rigors of the scientific method in analyzing just what signs and symptoms constitute this syndrome and the extent to which post-abortive women are affected by it. Further, there should be a collaborative research project designed by pro-life and pro-choice scientists, rigorously designed and executed, whose data and conclusions could not be legitimately open to partisan sniping from either side.

But what if the data suggest that post-abortion syndrome is real? Would the anonymous peer reviewers, to whom a potential article would be submitted, kill the project with endless sniping and suggestions for alteration-as happens in real life? As was discussed in Part I, scientists have their established orthodoxies and don’t let go so easily. The fields of psychology, sociology, biology, and medicine are well-populated by pro-choice proponents who have much invested in the current pro-choice orthodoxies. It’s doubtful that such a proposed study would make it past peer reviewers and the editorial boards of the more mainline journals.

The matter of funding is another nightmare altogether. Still, It’s worth the try.

In the coming weeks, I’ll have guest-posters who run post-abortive counseling and healing ministries describing post-abortive syndrome as they understand it. But is it real and do we need science to pronounce on it to make it legitimate?

The answers are yes, and no, respectively.

I don’t mean to suggest that science isn’t necessary. Quite the contrary. However, science discovers truth, it doesn’t create truth. As seen in Part I, science often blinds itself to truth until it is no longer capable of doing so. Currently, we are in the denial stage.

The beauty of science is that we often observe what we believe to be a phenomenon, and then set out to ascertain just what it is we are seeing. Often, we are afraid or unwilling to entertain someone else’s hypothesis because it contradicts our own, and the work we are trying to do based on our world view.

That’s why I lead off with that beautiful quote from Prof. John Polanyi, which is worth a great deal of serious contemplation. How willing or open are the pro-choicer’s to make a change in their worldview if the emerging data continue to point in the direction of abortion as an experience that hurts women? This would challenge the very mechanism employed by modern feminism to advance its own cause-the liberation of women from motherhood and its demands through birth control and abortion. The suggestion by so many of feminism’s founders that motherhood prevents women from being all that they can be is at once a statement of women at war with their very biological and ontological identity, and a bold-faced lie.

To say the least, it is belied by the body of literature showing that latch-key children have higher rates of substance abuse and juvenile delinquency, and that home schooled children score higher in the aggregate on standardized exams than their traditional counterparts. These mothers must know something that the feminists do not. That isn’t to say that women who choose career over children and family are any less accomplished than their domestic sisters.

The three women who have had the greatest influence on my life and development as a Catholic and as a scientist all poured their lives into nurturing students. One took a vow to live her life as a single lay woman in service to the Church. The other two were on my dissertation committee in graduate school and were mentors extraordinaire. I owe these three women a great deal. Much of who I am is because of them, because they had the time to offer, and the generosity to extend themselves. It’s not necessary for women to become mothers in order to have fulfilling lives. Nor is it necessary for mothers to eschew family to have fulfilling lives.

Then there are women such as my wife who combine both career and motherhood.

The more strident feminists are not so given to equanimity and belittle their domestic sisters, and the agony of those whose abortions torture their souls. Unfortunately, the post-abortive literature must gain the approval of these same feminists in order to make it into mainstream professional journals.

It will happen one day. For now, pro-life professionals must continue to adhere to the highest standards of scientific record keeping and data reporting. The timbers supporting the Culture of Death are beginning to creak under the strain.

They’ll yield in due season.

Posted in Abortion, Breast Cancer | 1 Comment »

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