It’s been a blistering and draining week with the Komen story. As tomorrow’s Gospel tells us, Jesus often withdrew to prayer and solitude, and so am I today. Time for a retreat weekend. Here is an outstanding homily given by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on the eve of his election to the Chair of Peter. It addresses what we all need to know and understand in our hearts, what we need to do in order to fortify ourselves.

At this hour of great responsibility, we hear with special consideration what the Lord says to us in his own words. From the three readings I would like to examine just a few passages which concern us directly at this time.

The first reading gives us a prophetic depiction of the person of the Messiah – a depiction which takes all its meaning from the moment Jesus reads the text in the synagogue in Nazareth, when he says: “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4,21). At the core of the prophetic text we find a word which seems contradictory, at least at first sight. The Messiah, speaking of himself, says that he was sent “To announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God” (Is 61,2). We hear with joy the news of a year of favor: divine mercy puts a limit on evil – the Holy Father told us. Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: encountering Christ means encountering the mercy of God. Christ’s mandate has become our mandate through priestly anointing. We are called to proclaim – not only with our words, but with our lives, and through the valuable signs of the sacraments, the “year of favor from the Lord”. But what does the prophet Isaiah mean when he announces the “day of vindication by our God”? In Nazareth, Jesus did not pronounce these words in his reading of the prophet’s text – Jesus concluded by announcing the year of favor. Was this, perhaps, the reason for the scandal which took place after his sermon? We do not know. In any case, the Lord gave a genuine commentary on these words by being put to death on the cross. Saint Peter says: “He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross” (1 Pe 2,24). And Saint Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians: “Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree’, that the blessing of Abraham might be extended to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Gal 3, 13s).

The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in his body and on his soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of his suffering love. The day of vindication and the year of favor meet in the paschal mystery, in Christ died and risen. This is the vindication of God: he himself, in the person of the Son, suffers for us. The more we are touched by the mercy of the Lord, the more we draw closer in solidarity with his suffering – and become willing to bear in our flesh “what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Col 1, 24).

In the second reading, the letter to the Ephesians, we see basically three aspects: first, the ministries and charisms in the Church, as gifts of the Lord risen and ascended into heaven. Then there is the maturing of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, as a condition and essence of unity in the body of Christ. Finally, there is the common participation in the growth of the body of Christ – of the transformation of the world into communion with the Lord.

Let us dwell on only two points. The first is the journey towards “the maturity of Christ” as it is said in the Italian text, simplifying it a bit. More precisely, according to the Greek text, we should speak of the “measure of the fullness of Christ”, to which we are called to reach in order to be true adults in the faith. We should not remain infants in faith, in a state of minority. And what does it mean to be an infant in faith? Saint Paul answers: it means “tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery” (Eph 4, 14). This description is very relevant today!

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.

However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an “Adult” means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today’s fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth. We must become mature in this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith – only faith – which creates unity and takes form in love. On this theme, Saint Paul offers us some beautiful words – in contrast to the continual ups and downs of those were are like infants, tossed about by the waves: (he says) make truth in love, as the basic formula of Christian existence. In Christ, truth and love coincide. To the extent that we draw near to Christ, in our own life, truth and love merge. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like “a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal” (1 Cor 13,1).

Looking now at the richness of the Gospel reading, I would like to make only two small observations. The Lord addresses to us these wonderful words: “I no longer call you slaves…I have called you friends” (Jn 15,15). So many times we feel like, and it is true, that we are only useless servants. (cf Lk 17,10). And despite this, the Lord calls us friends, he makes us his friends, he gives us his friendship. The Lord defines friendship in a dual way. There are no secrets among friends: Christ tells us all everything he hears from the Father; he gives us his full trust, and with that, also knowledge. He reveals his face and his heart to us. He shows us his tenderness for us, his passionate love that goes to the madness of the cross. He entrusts us, he gives us power to speak in his name: “this is my body…”, “I forgive you…”. He entrusts us with his body, the Church. He entrusts our weak minds and our weak hands with his truth – the mystery of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the mystery of God who “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (Jn 3, 16). He made us his friends – and how do we respond?

The second element with which Jesus defines friendship is the communion of wills. For the Romans “Idem velle – idem nolle”, (same desires, same dislikes ) was also the definition of friendship. “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (Jn 15, 14). Friendship with Christ coincides with what is said in the third request of the Our Father: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. At the hour in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus transformed our rebellious human will in a will shaped and united to the divine will. He suffered the whole experience of our autonomy – and precisely bringing our will into the hands of God, he have us true freedom: “Not my will, but your will be done”. In this communion of wills our redemption takes place: being friends of Jesus to become friends of God. How much more we love Jesus, how much more we know him, how much more our true freedom grows as well as our joy in being redeemed. Thank you, Jesus, for your friendship!

The other element of the Gospel to which I would like to refer is the teaching of Jesus on bearing fruit: “I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain” (Jn 15, 16). It is here that is expressed the dynamic existence of the Christian, the apostle: I chose you to go and bear fruit…”. We must be inspired by a holy restlessness: restlessness to bring to everyone the gift of faith, of friendship with Christ. In truth, the love and friendship of God was given to us so that it would also be shared with others. We have received the faith to give it to others – we are priests meant to serve others. And we must bring a fruit that will remain. All people want to leave a mark which lasts. But what remains? Money does not. Buildings do not, nor books. After a certain amount of time, whether long or short, all these things disappear. The only thing which remains forever is the human soul, the human person created by God for eternity. The fruit which remains then is that which we have sowed in human souls – love, knowledge, a gesture capable of touching the heart, words which open the soul to joy in the Lord. Let us then go to the Lord and pray to him, so that he may help us bear fruit which remains. Only in this way will the earth be changed from a valley of tears to a garden of God.

In conclusion, returning again to the letter to the Ephesians, which says with words from Psalm 68 that Christ, ascending into heaven, “gave gifts to men” (Eph 4,8). The victor offers gifts. And these gifts are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Our ministry is a gift of Christ to humankind, to build up his body – the new world. We live out our ministry in this way, as a gift of Christ to humanity! But at this time, above all, we pray with insistence to the Lord, so that after the great gift of Pope John Paul II, he again gives us a pastor according to his own heart, a pastor who guides us to knowledge in Christ, to his love and to true joy. Amen.

Late last Spring I became increasingly convinced that a major area not tackled by the pro-life movement in any coordinated fashion is the new eugenics movement in fetal medicine. Specifically, increasing numbers of physicians are advising, demanding, and even coercing women to abort babies diagnosed with what have become known collectively as “Poor Prenatal Diagnoses.” Such conditions as Down Syndrome, Trisomy 18, Trisomy 13, Anencephaly, Spina Bifida, etc… constitute this constellation.

Over the past two years, I have heard dozens of women tell me their personal horror stories, many of whom refusing to abort and then going on to have a perfectly normal child. We hear of countries in Europe who are boasting that they will have eradicated Down Syndrome in a few short years, not by eliminating the ongoing occurrence of trisomy 21, but by a 100% abortion rate as the diagnoses come in.

Why not tell women of all that can be done to help these babies?

I contacted Chris Gacek of the Family Research Council, who put me in touch with Jeanne Monahan, the Director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity. Together with Jeanne, and with the advice of Peg Kolm of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, and my good friend Leticia Velasquez who co-founded KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome), a working group formed around the idea of having a full day medical conference for medical professionals and the public alike. What emerged from this group is the Council on Poor Prenatal Diagnoses and Therapeutic Interventions.

And here we are. A wonderful collaborative project with others including the Lejeunne Foundation on therapeutics from the womb and throughout the individual’s life.

The conference on Saturday will be live webcast from FRC Headquarters in Washington, and is free to sign up and watch. Just follow this link to register. (We’re pretty near our limit for in-person attendance)

Conference main speakers will address the tidal wave of therapeutic interventions available for these children. They include:

John Bruchalski, M.D.
Byron Calhoun, M.D.
Alberto Costa, M.D., Ph.D.
Jeanne Monahan, M.A.
Gerard Nadal, Ph.D.
David Prentice, Ph.D.
Laura Toso, M.D.

In addition, we’ll be hearing the witness of Samuel Armas, the little baby who had fetal surgery for Spina Bifida, and whose hand was photographed reaching out from the womb and holding the finger of his surgeon. He’ll be there with his mother, Julie.

We’re also going to have a panel discussion and presentations by people who have founded organizations to support these children and their parents:

Melinda Delahoyde, Care Net
Leticia Velasquez, Kids
Christopher Bell, Good Counsel Homes
Nancy Mayer Whittington, Isaiah’s Promise
Mary Kellett, Prenatal Partners for Life

Kristan Hawkins, Students for Life

Paper Presentations by medical students.

Documentary preview and discussion by In Altum Productions Filmmakers
Jordan Allott and Daniel Allott.

The conference begins at 8:30 A.M. and ends at 5:00 P.M.

The good news is that there is a group of physicians here in New York who have been thinking along the same lines, as well as pro-life medical professionals around the country who have all come up with the same concern and the same resolve to effect a change. It’s the leading of the Holy Spirit, and just in time. Many medical school professors encourage eugenic abortion and don’t teach the therapeutics. This conference will pierce the encroaching shroud of silence and shine the light on all that medicine has to offer its tiniest patients.

So, starting this coming Saturday, The Council on Poor Prenatal Diagnoses and Therapeutic Interventions is kicking off A Year of Hope and Healing, which will see more conferences and coordinated activity in bringing to the fore the many support and advocacy groups, more physicians, scientists, and ethicists.

Please join us this coming Saturday for the live webcast, and spread the good word!

Again, it’s free to attend on-line. Just register at this link.

http://www.frc.org/player.swf

Pat Archbold at the National Catholic Register writes on the Death of Pretty:

This post is intended as a lament of sorts, a lament for something in the culture that is dying and may never been seen again.

Pretty, pretty is dying.

People will define pretty differently. For the purposes of this piece, I define pretty as a mutually enriching balanced combination of beauty and projected innocence.

Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence. I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is. But some things were different in the back then. First and foremost, many beautiful women, whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence and virtue. And that combination of beauty and innocence is what I define as pretty.

By nature, generally when men see this combination in women it brings out their better qualities, their best in fact. That special combination of beauty and innocence, the pretty inspires men to protect and defend it.
Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different. When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.

As I said, pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend. Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity. Its value is temporary and must be used. It is a consumable.

Nowhere is this pretty deficit more obvious than in our “stars,” the people we elevate as the “ideal.” The stars of the fifties surely suffered from the same sin as do stars of today. Stars of the fifties weren’t ideal but they pursued a public ideal different from today.

The merits of hotness over pretty is easy enough to understand, they made an entire musical about it. Who can forget how pretty Olivia Newton John was at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the pretty. What we are left with is hotness.
Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth.

Most girls don’t want to be pretty anymore even if they understand what it is. It is ironic that 40 years of women’s liberation has succeeded only in turning women into a commodity. Something to be used up and thrown out.

Read the rest here.

Pat nails it in his article. Girls have turned themselves into a “commodity,” into, “A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth.”

This is the pivot point of a civilization in decline. Contraception and abortion are the bulwarks which buttress and facilitate a girl’s ability to persist in the lifestyle that comes with hotness, with wanting to be desirable and desired, “A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth.”

Whereas hotness is aggressive, pretty waits. Pretty invites a man in, and then it makes demands of the man. As Pat notes, “…the pretty inspires men to protect and defend it.” Therein lies the great practical value in women holding their dignity, making themselves known to the men they find attractive in a dignified manner, and then waiting to be recognized and approached by the man.

When a girl retains and lives pretty, while eschewing hotness, the bulk of men who cannot appreciate the virtue behind pretty will move on to more fruitful hunting grounds in the pursuit of immediate gratification. Pretty requires too much energy to overcome. While there are some who relish the challenge of destroying innocence, pretty attracts the noble, the good, like a magnet.

It’s self-selective for its complement in men.

With CDC reporting 1 in 4 American girls contracting a sexually transmitted disease before the age of 19 (48% among African Americans), with 35% of all throat cancers being caused by human papilloma virus, new HIV infections increasing steadily, all STD’s (with three temporary exceptions) rising steadily since the 1960′s, some 80% of STD’s occurring in those under 25, with a 540% increased risk of the most deadly form of breast cancer for women who begin oral contraceptives prior to age 18, something needs to give.

Hot is deadly.

A major victory yesterday for conscience protections. From LifeSite News:

Thu Dec 22 7:53 PM EST

NEWARK, New Jersey, December 22, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a triumph for conscience protections, a New Jersey hospital agreed that nurses will not have to assist with abortions if doing so would violate their moral or religious views.

Twelve nurses filed a lawsuit on October 31 against at the hospital run by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), alleging that the hospital threatened to fire them if they refused to assist in abortions. According to the lawsuit, a supervisor told a nurse in the Same Day Surgery Unit that UMDNJ had “no regard for religious beliefs.”

Forcing a health care professional to participate in an abortion could violate both state and federal law. UMDNJ receives $60 million in federal funding, which protects the consciences of medical staff in some situations. New Jersey state law guarantees, “No person shall be required to perform or assist in the performance of an abortion or sterilization.”

“We are glad that the hospital finally agreed to obey the law and not force our clients to do any work on abortion cases in violation of their beliefs,” Matt Bowman, the attorney who handled the case for the Alliance Defense Fund, stated in an e-mail statement sent to LifeSiteNews.com. “The hospital agreed not to penalize our clients in any way because they choose to not help abortions according to their legal rights.”

The nurses agreed they will briefly assist mothers during a medical emergency, until new staff members who do not object can take their place. The hospital hired four new nurses for these cases. “I’m still scared about the part of them having four nurses brought in and we might become the surpluses,” said Fe Esperanza-Racpan Vinoya, one of the plaintiffs. However, Bowman stated, “the hospital cannot use pro-abortion staff to replace our clients or reduce their hours.”

“The judge warned the hospital that our clients could return to his court if they were assigned to work abortion cases or if the hospital pretextually tries to require the nurses to assist abortions,” Bowman stated.

The hospital notified members of the unit in September that they would undergo abortion training, which included participating in abortions, beginning on October 14. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to halt the practice on November 3, but nurses say the hospital continued to pressure them to participate. “They said very clearly if we did not assist, we would face termination,” said Racpan Vinoya.

Doctors reportedly told Vinoya, “You just have to catch the baby’s head. Don’t worry; it’s already dead.”

The agreement, which was reached on Thursday, ended the case Danquah v. University of Medicine and Dentistry of N.J. (UMDNJ), which was filed by all but four nurses in their unit.

Rep. Christopher Smith, R-NJ, said the hospital’s disregard for state and federal law and violation of its staff members’ consciences was “not only highly unethical but blatantly illegal.”

This was indeed a great victory, and the credit goes to twelve brave and principled nurses who stood their ground, and attorney Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund for his skillful and equally courageous defense of the nurses. There is a fundamental principle at stake here, one that is testing all of our established human anthropology, metaphysics, ethics, and jurisprudence.

Are medical professionals autonomous human beings or vending machines acting at the behest of patients and the state?

A government hospital in New Jersey was extremely backward thinking. They claimed that the medical professionals must assist in procedures that their well-formed consciences told them are inhuman and immoral, legality notwithstanding.

We’ve been here before.

The Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II wrestled with a very difficult decision. Nazi leaders and concentration camp personnel claimed to be following the lawful orders of Adolph Hitler, orders which were indeed lawful under Germany’s constitution, as the constitution had been amended by the people to declare the Fuehrer’s word law. At those trials, every civilized nation in the world stood to declare that Natural Moral Law is universal, and supersedes all manmade (positive) law.

Yes, the orders in Germany were indeed lawful under positive law, but the Natural Moral Law which takes the human nature of all human beings into its view supersedes any positive law which might conflict with the dictates of Natural Law.

On that basis, war criminals were hanged or imprisoned for life.

In Germany, it mattered not whether one actually dropped the gas tablets into the showers, or stood guard in the tower, or prepped the victims for their slaughter. Even today in 2012, those suspected of being camp guards are hunted down and put on trial.

It matters that much.

What Nuremberg tells us is that the human conscience is supreme over all positive law, that men and women in medicine are not inanimate vending machines who must respond mindlessly in the affirmative to all requests. That is the basis of conscience protections for health care workers.

Alarmingly, in medicine there are increasing voices who would take us back to a pre-Nuremberg world where the will reigns supreme over humble submission to universal law which respects universal human nature.

Blessedly, there were principled leaders who took on fascism in the middle of the last century in a conflict that claimed over 50 million human lives, and then charted a course in jurisprudence to help ensure that similar tragedies never befell humanity again. Twenty-five years later, the same US Supreme Court that sent Justice Jackson to preside at Nuremberg lost sight of its great contribution and enshrined in our law the principle that individual will trumps the rights of other human beings. Since then, over 53 million humans have lost their lives because of that decision.

Now we are faced with a series of Nurembergs, each struggling to assert the principle laid down so clearly, forcefully, and eloquently over 60 years ago in Germany.

Blessedly, we have principled leaders and warriors today in people like Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, Nikolas Nikas and Dorinda Bordleee of the Bioethics Defense Fund, who speak frequently at medical and law schools about conscience rights, and brave medical professionals who are dedicated to upholding the highest estimation of humanity under the law.

To all of them, Thank You, and a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Further thoughts on the incest-as-entertainment at Rosemount High that I blogged on earlier.

The AP has a report on the incident with some pretty disturbing quotes from Principal Wallersheim, whose staff planned the event:

“This activity was intended to be fun, but some found it offensive,” he wrote. “We apologize to anyone who was offended by this activity.”

Incest was intended to be fun. Perhaps as long as it’s presented as a game, it’s really okay. It isn’t the abuse, so much as whether the abuse is turned into a game.

More from AP:

Wollersheim said he wasn’t considering any disciplinary action against the high school employee who came up with the idea. A district spokesman said Superintendent Jane Berenz was not commenting the matter.

Then comes the most appalling of all from Wallersheim:

Wollersheim said he had not received any complaints from the athletes or their parents.

Really?! Neither the offending parents, nor the abused children complained! Is this man for real?! When I read that comment, I immediately thought of this exchange in the movie, Ghandi, an exchange between General Dyer and a government board of inquiry after he ordered a massacre of men, women, and children:

Lord Hunter: General, did you realize there were children, and women, in the crowd?
Gen. Dyer: I did.
Government advocate: But that was irrelevant to the point you were making?
Gen. Dyer: That is correct!
Government advocate: Could I ask you what provision you made for the wounded?
Gen. Dyer: I was ready to help any who applied.
Government advocate: General, how does a child shot with a 303 Lee-Enfield “apply” for help?
Gen. Dyer: [silence]

I thought of this scene, because Principal Wallersheim’s responses evoke the same question for me:

Where is a child who has been sexually assaulted by its parent,
in the school and with the school administration’s consent and approval,
without police or social services intervention,
without spontaneous outrage by the town’s clergy–supposed to apply for redress??

The crime in Rosemount is that every authority figure in the town, civil and religious, has punted.

In Rosemount there is no one to weep for these children, to tell them that they deserved better, that their bodies are sacred, that their dignity forbids being held up to public ridicule and sexual misconduct directed their way. When the Gospels tell us that Jesus wept over Jerusalem, I never quite grasped why.

I get it now.

I get it.

Please bear with me on this one. It comes with a warning. This is gut-wrenching and nauseating, but needs to be aired.

After having worked for seven years with teen prostitutes at Covenant House in the 1980′s, I honestly thought that I had seen it all. It’s tough to live with the memories of all that I saw, especially as I am now a father and understand the fragility of children from the perspective one can only develop as a loving parent. Mostly I try to forget, because the memories are all the more horrifying when I think of my own children. Some of the most damaging experiences our kids at Covenant House had experienced, and from which they were running, were those of incest.

Teen prostitution, incest, abortion, IVF. What do they all have in common?

Control. Callous Disregard. Objectification. Commodification.

I guess I haven’t seen it all. On their blogs this weekend, both Elizabeth Scalia and Deacon Greg Kandra covered a horrifying incident in Rosemount High School, Minnesota. From the Star Tribune:

A prank on some blindfolded Rosemount High School athletes — they were unknowingly and at times amorously kissed by their parents during a recent pep fest — is collecting YouTube views by the tens of thousands and has the principal apologizing for what happened.

Here’s how the practical joke, originated by school staff members, played out during the assembly on Dec. 8:

The captains of the school’s winter sports teams — boys and girls — were lined up and blindfolded. They were told they would be kissed and then asked to guess who was on the other side of their lips.

Some of the parents during the 59-second YouTube video are seen holding the kisses for several seconds, cupping their child’s faces or embracing and swaying.

One mother moved her son’s hand down to her behind during the encounter. Another mom has her son down on the gym floor to the delight of two male students nearby.

The hoots, screams and laughter rolled on as the students pulled off their blindfolds to realize it was Mom or Dad they were smooching.

Read the rest here.

See the video here.

The story goes on to tell how the principal apologized because some people were offended (not because anything intrinsically immoral, illegal, or psychologically and developmentally damaging had occurred on his watch).

The article goes on to say:

Principal John Wollersheim said he received e-mails and phone calls soon after the pep fest from people who said they were offended by the display. This week, he said, the feedback he’s received has been more supportive.

The focus here should be on the giddy delight of the crowd in the video, and the general support of the principal.

We have imploded as a civilization.

Children are not viewed as autonomous human beings from the very earliest stages of their lives, with parents freezing dozens of their embryonic babies in IVF labs, mothers and fathers (married!!!) aborting their less-than-perfect babies with poor prenatal diagnoses, and now incest-as-pep rally fare.

At its core is the view of the child as property to be disposed of at will. They have ceased being persons to their narcissistic parents and school administrators, and contrary to protests from people around the blogosphere, this is NOT an isolated incident.

The cheers of the crowd and the preponderance of support for the principal tell us just how bad this has seeped into the collective consciousness of society. Need more proof?

The Star Tribune story is most notable for what it DIDN”T report: The arrest of the parents. The firing of the school personnel responsible. The involvement of child protective services. It didn’t report these things because they didn’t happen. Even if these students were beyond the age of statutory rape, what of the younger children present for whom incest was offered as wholesome pep rally entertainment?

When we come to the broader culture with an anthropology that values all human life with an intrinsic dignity from its earliest stages and we make little headway, we need to look at the impediments to our message in the broader culture.

This story, in all of its sordid dimensionality, is a chilling and sobering look into the soul of a civilization that has completely imploded. If we are to be successful in our life apologetics, we will have to take all of this into account. We need to rebuild from the ground-up, and it can’t be done without evangelizing with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

God have mercy on us all.

Part II Here

Yesterday, Christopher Hitchens entered into eternity at age 62. The celebrated atheist succumbed to pneumonia, which was a complication associated with his esophageal cancer. If Hitchens did great harm by his atheism, it is also certainly true that his atheism was the rhetorical wet stone used by a generation of Christian apologists.

Among the positions staked out by Hitchens, Wiki reports succinctly:

“He argued that the concept of god or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, and that free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization.”

I often wondered if Christopher Hitchens and I inhabited the same planet. Scientific discovery does not teach us ethics. It can’t. Science is performed by human beings operating within given systems of human anthropology. How we define ourselves, a priori, determines how we do science, and how we utilize the results. That there are hundreds of thousands of scientists bringing to their research dozens of anthropological perspectives only muddies the waters.

Hitchens knew this.

It is an odd thing that Hitchens, born four years after World War II, should have equated religion with totalitarianism, when in fact Stalin and Hitler were the Continent’s totalitarian criminals who made war on Judaism and Christianity, seeing faith as the obstacle to their totalitarian designs.

The Third Reich, Tojo’s Japan, and Soviet Stalinism would employ the most barbaric, cruel, and sadisdic scientists to further their twisted anthropology and its aims. Herein may lie the key to Hitchens.

Hitchens’ father was a navy Commander and his mother a navy WREN during the war. His father saw great action, and was also a part of the planning for the failed raid on Dieppe, which was a bloodbath. How were his parents, as well as the rest of the continent, sculpted by their wartime experiences? Judging from the complete moral implosion of Europe in the decades following the war, it’s safe to say that Hitchens was not alone in being contaminated by the war’s fallout.

Lord if you had been here, our continent would not have died.

Hitchens’, and Europe’s, embrace of radicalized autonomy was perhaps a failed attempt at ensuring that no fascist dictator could ever again get a nation goose-stepping into the total oblivion that was visited on the continent during a war that claimed well over 50 million lives. Creeds, praying in unison, codes of conformity, etc.. may have been more than most could have accepted.

But the unanimity of individualism was spoofed in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where Brian is being acclaimed Messiah in Jesus’ day. Brian tries to disabuse the crowd:

Brian: Please, please, please listen! I’ve got one or two things to say.

The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!

Brian: Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t NEED to follow ME, You don’t NEED to follow ANYBODY! You’ve got to think for your selves! You’re ALL individuals!

The Crowd: Yes! We’re all individuals!

Brian: You’re all different!

The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!

Man in crowd: I’m not…

The Crowd: Sch!

Hitchens never learned that authentic human freedom consists in doing what we ought to do, not what we wish to do. Autonomy permits us a response to God and His creation. It does not permit us to each determine what is or is not worthy of dignity.

Hitchens’ Europe, and its Union, is a totalitarian state that devalues the human person, the sanctity of the human life every bit as much as Hitler and Stalin did. They just do it in the name of individualism and freedom. It’s Brian’s Palestine with a deadly twist.

Hopefully, Jesus came to Hitchens before his last breath with the offer of authentic freedom which, paradoxically, requires complete surrender.

Let’s pray that he’s free at last.

The recent overruling of the FDA decision to sell Plan B over the counter (OTC) to children as young as eleven years of age has engendered no small amount of outrage by proponents of the FDA plan, and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has come in for severe criticism from women’s health and advocacy groups. Setting aside for a moment the undercurrent of abortion and the distrust between warring parties over the issue, this decision by Secretary Sebelius is a victory for the very children the FDA purports to serve and protect.

According to FDA labeling on Plan B:

“Ectopic pregnancies account for approximately 2% of all reported pregnancies. Up to 10% of pregnancies reported in clinical studies of routine use of progestin-only contraceptives are ectopic.”

That represents a five-fold increase in the incidence of a potentially fatal side effect of the drug’s usage in those taking the drug. The very issue proponents of OTC Plan B sale cite for selling to young adolescents, their fear of parental knowledge and involvement in their sex lives, heightens the risk of fatality in the very young.

Aiding and abetting the young in skirting parental involvement fosters a do-it-yourself gynecology where side-effects such as cramping, nausea, vomiting, and bleeding can serve to reinforce and heighten the fear and distrust that led to the child’s self-medication in the first place. Plan B taken by a child with an existing and untreated endometriosis can lead the child into thinking that the lower abdominal pain and heavy bleeding of a resulting ectopic pregnancy may well be her monthly norm. Such a mistake can be fatal, but what is an already fearful and distrustful child to do? It is entirely unreasonable to expect children, who are notoriously ignorant of their changing physiology, to engage in self-differential diagnosis and admit their clandestine activities to the parents they fear and distrust.

In research conducted by Family Health International (FHI), January, 2003.

“… the sine qua non of an OTC-switch is that patients should be capable of self-medicating by reading the drug’s package insert. The above label comprehension tests for Plan B indicate that safe self-medication is not possible for a significant segment of the population. For example, only 75% of all respondents answered correctly that Plan B should not be taken in the presence of unexplained vaginal bleeding. Among the low-level literacy group that figure declined to 69%. Furthermore, only 67% of all respondents understood that Plan B is designed to serve as a backup for regular contraception methods, not a replacement. Among those of low-literacy this figure dropped to 46%; whereas for women of high literacy the figure was 78%. Obviously, many patients do not understand much of the drug’s package insert, which argues against FDA approval of EC OTC.”

If there are any doubts about the ability of children and teens to self-prescribe such medication and act responsibly, NPR published a story about the work of Harvard’s Dr. Frances Jensen that shows how the child and adolescent brain is underdeveloped in the areas responsible for critical and prudent decision making:

She learned that that it’s not so much what teens are thinking — it’s how.

Jensen says scientists used to think human brain development was pretty complete by age 10. Or as she puts it, that “a teenage brain is just an adult brain with fewer miles on it.”

But it’s not. To begin with, she says, a crucial part of the brain — the frontal lobes — are not fully connected. Really.

“It’s the part of the brain that says: ‘Is this a good idea? What is the consequence of this action?’ ” Jensen says. “It’s not that they don’t have a frontal lobe. And they can use it. But they’re going to access it more slowly.”

Do-it-yourself gynecology is bad medicine for the young, and our daughters deserve better than such callous disregard for their lack of knowledge of their bodies, lack of impulse control, and lack of sufficient neurological development to enable them to make reasonable and informed decisions. For those who lack trust in the experience and wisdom of the adults who know them best, it is all the more imperative that we ensure they don’t fall victim to pharmaceutical merchants and their allies who would exploit the callowness of their youth.

For the women’s groups howling with rage at Sebelius, I remember a time when feminism demanded medicine’s best for women, not do-it-yourself gynecology for our teenage and pre-teen daughters.

This evening, I received the following communication from Newt Gingrich’s communications director, which I believe clears the air and provides Mr. Gingrich with a way forward:

Hi Gerard,

Joe DeSantis
Communications Director
Newt 2012

Last week, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich made the following statement in an interview with Jake Tapper:

“I think that if you take a position when a woman has fertilized egg and that’s been successfully implanted that now you’re dealing with life,” he added. “Because otherwise you’re going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions.”

Which prompted this reply from me: Click Here.

The next day, I received the following reply from the Gingrich Campaign. The reply is presented in its entirety, with my analysis following.
.
.
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Dr. Nadal,

Newt has stated many times throughout the course of his public life that he believes that human life begins at conception. Here is a statement Newt released today reaffirming that belief: http://bitly.com/tr7cP6 . (Full text pasted below)

In terms of new pro-life legislation, Newt said at The Family Leader Thanksgiving Family Forum on November 19 that he supports Congress enacting pro-life legislation under the 14th Amendment, including legislation that would define personhood as beginning at conception. Watch the video here: http://bitly.com/svuZAc .

During his 20 years in Congress, Newt held a consistently pro-life voting record. He received a 98.6% lifetime rating from the National Right to Life Committee, consistently voted for the Hyde amendment, and twice during his speakership passed legislation banning partial birth abortion. More details on his consistent pro-life voting record here: http://bitly.com/vzQkD4 .

For more info about the pro-life positions Newt will advocate as president, here is the Susan B. Anthony List’s 2012 Pro-life Presidential Leadership Pledge he signed in June: http://bitly.com/rAXj0E . And here is the candidate questionnaire Newt submitted to the National Right to Life Committee last month: http://bitly.com/u73oBP .

Thanks,
Dan

Gingrich Reaffirms His Belief in the Sanctity of all Human Life, Born and Unborn

“My convictions on human life are longstanding, deeply felt, and irrevocable matters of conscience. I will do all in my power – always – to foster reverence for life.”

All of this is very reassuring, on one level.

That said, I cannot fathom how Mr. Gingrich could have uttered the words he did with Tapper, unless he has bought into the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s politically corrected definition of conception beginning at implantation. That is the only way that we can square Gingrich’s comment to Tapper with his reply to the criticism of those comments.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have always been a big admirer of Mr. Gingrich, and fully support his candidacy. However, I have a very basic question for him to put this issue to bed:

Do you accept the definition of conception as the fertilization of egg and sperm, with the resultant single-celled embryo being a new human being, or do you equate conception with implantation?

UPDATE 12/5/11: The Gingrich Campaign responded. I’m not entirely sold on the response. Check it out.

That title isn’t a mistake. It’s the question that Newt Gingrich’s comments to Jake Tapper have brought into sharp relief.

When the Speaker said that we have life at implantation, he stepped on a land mine. I’m awaiting his clarification on his understanding of conception and life.

He has often said that life begins at conception. So do pro-choicers, as they are operating under the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s redefinition (four decades ago) of conception and pregnancy happening at implantation.

Thus, a pro-choicer could say with a straight face that life begins at conception, and with just as straight a face claim that Ella is not an abortifacient, because it prevents implantation. In this presidential season, we must make these two competing operational definitions of conception and pregnancy known, and we must call the other side out at every turn to clarify what they mean by conception and life.

It matters.

We await Mr. Gingrich’s clarification of his understanding of these terms, and the meaning of his comments to Jake Tapper.

UPDATE 12/5/11: The Gingrich Campaign responded. I’m not entirely sold on the response. Check it out.

News today that presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich believes that life begins at implantation does not come as a great surprise. Other pro-life denizens of Capitol Hill, such as Senators Connie Mack and Orin Hatch have also stated that the embryo is not human until it’s in the womb.

Having recently covered this topic on when a human life begins, I’d like to probe deeper into the thoughts of Mr. Gingrich and extend to him an invitation to a cordial dialogue on this issue.

A telling remark made by Mr. Gingrich sheds light on whence this issue arises:

“I think that if you take a position when a woman has fertilized egg and that’s been successfully implanted that now you’re dealing with life,” he added. “Because otherwise you’re going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions.”

That last line is the key. Wittingly or unwittingly, the Speaker is guilty of the same error as our pro-choice opponents. He is defining away the human identity and status of the embryo in order to avoid wrestling with difficult questions of responsibility toward members of our species in their earliest and most vulnerable stage of existence.

Yes, by acknowledging the human identity and status of the pre-implantation embryo we find ourselves immersed in a world of searing questions that directly challenge our infatuation with the unchecked exercise of raw political power, of personal predilection without accountability.

We call into question the use of hormonal birth control measures, which carry the risk of preventing implantation.

We call into question the use of chemical abortifacients such as Ella that are marketed as contraceptives precisely because of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s change of the terms conception and pregnancy to be synonymous with implantation.

We call into question the use of IUD’s, which prevent implantation.

We call into question the tearing apart of embryonic humans for medical experimentation.

We call into question the inhumanity of freezing hundreds of thousands of embryonic humans in liquid nitrogen, treating them as property and not as persons.

One of the many impressive qualities of Mr. Gingrich is that he brings his Ph.D. in history to the table when he debates and puts forth a vision of this nation’s future. It is specifically to the latter point made that he must turn his attention, that of treating pre-implantation embryonic humans as mere property (especially to avoid the difficult questions that acknowledging their humanity presents).

We have been down this road before.

Because our Founders failed to root out slavery from the outset, the nation was riven for over eighty years by the Faustian bargain made in the beginning. The malevolence came to its full-flower with the Dred Scott decision, which entirely stripped African Americans of their personhood identity. What to do with freed slaves was a burning issue in its day. How would they, or could they integrate into the broader society as free persons?

We suffered that evil as a people for as long as that evil was sufferable. In the end, the civil war that everyone feared came anyway, and it laid waste the nation, North and South, with over 600,000 men dead, and millions grievously wounded.

The same is happening today, with the exception that the civil war we are in has been, with rare exception, a bloodless war. However, it has poisoned our body politic, and brought this nation to its knees politically. The one who would be President of the United States cannot seek refuge from the political storm by engaging in deft verbal engineering. It didn’t work with slavery and personhood, and it won’t work here either.

Mr. Gingrich has given voice to a very consequential idea, that a broad spectrum of difficult questions might have to be answered if we deal in the truth of science, and in the truth of human anthropology witnessed to, not only by the Declaration of Independence, but by his newly-adopted Catholic faith. It will mean dealing with the rampant narcissism and hedonism that have swamped the nation he would lead.

So consequential is this idea, that it has profound implications for conscience protections for healthcare professionals as well as the rights of the Catholic Church and its related agencies to refuse mandatory coverage of contraception, most of which is abortifacient in nature, though not under Mr. Gingrich’s nomenclatural accommodation.

It would mean declaring that sex and reproduction have consequences, and that embryonic human beings have moral claims on us as individuals, and as a nation. Such moral claims would mean people reassessing their recreational use of sex, and their utilitarian use of in vitro fertilization.

These are serious problems in the life of this nation, and as the Speaker knows all too well from our experience of slavery, we won’t solve them by attempting to define the victims away.

Over a year ago, friend, Catholic blogger and co-founder of KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome), Leticia Velasquez asked if I would be interested in contributing a chapter to an anthology of stories by parents of special needs children, A Special Mother Is Born. It was a book a couple of years in the making, and I agreed. I thought the title bemusing for a dad as contributor, but Leticia assured me that Senator Rick Santorum had contributed, as had Patrick Coffin. We three would be in the great company of some truly great women.

This book addresses one of the burning issues of our day. With prenatal diagnostics leading to the abortions of the less-than-perfect among us, with parents who are frightened into paralysis by these diagnoses and a medical establishment increasingly surrendering to the cowardice of eugenics, over thirty mothers and three fathers of special needs children have stepped forward to share their journeys.

If one is looking for a feel-good easy read, this book isn’t it. This book tells the story of fear, bewilderment, broken hopes and dreams, and the triumph of love in all of its raw and untamed beauty. It is a window into the human soul, into souls that have been forever transformed by children whose needs call forth what love demands most:

Sacrifice.

For those of us who have known the unspeakable beauty of being loved by another, we know that the love we have experienced has come at a cost to the one who has loved us. They have given us their time, attention; material, spiritual and emotional substance. They have accepted us with our strengths and pursued us in spite of our weaknesses–even because of our weaknesses. They have wrapped us in their love and esteem, and lifted us to heights we never could have attained by our own efforts.

That is the sort of love that flows through this book like a rampaging river, overflowing the banks that would contain it, and flooding the surrounding countryside. It is the sort of love that is desperately sought after in a world desperate for authentic love, and purpose, and meaning.

The stories in this book are the stories a frightened and weary world needs to hear, a world that has bought into the counterfeit culture for so long it mistakes love’s essence–sacrifice–with servility, and fails to see its reciprocity. Here’s a teaser from Chapter 13.

Mary von Schlegell is in her eighties and is the mother of Tony, who has Down Syndrome and is in his forties. Born in the age before the therapies that now advance these children as far as college graduation, the only word Tony has ever spoken is “Mama”. Here is Mary’s poem to her beloved son:

Tony

As you, my child, are the limitation
So are you the sweetest consolation of my life
And imitation of our Lord.

Oh how can we ever fathom
The strange economy of a loving God?
Why does our trust so often fail,
With salvation springing even here along our path?

Mary’s sentiment is shared throughout this book. Our special children have been our salvation. We perfect ourselves as humans to the degree that we empty ourselves for another. The movements of the parents in this book go from joyful anticipation, to shock and despair, to fear, and finally to the triumph of love and our personal salvation.

The children mentioned here span the spectrum of poor prenatal diagnoses and other challenges, from the trisomic conditions, to autism, to tracheoesophageal fistulas, to brain tumors, Type 1 diabetes, epilepsy, and ADHD.

There are the stories of the doctors who along with family and friends brought relentless pressure to abort, and of the resistance by men and women who felt the depths of betrayal, isolation, and abandonment in that relentless pressure.

Through it all, these are the stories of grace and triumph in the face of cynical abandonment and despair. These are the stories that needed to be told, that need to be heard, that need to be shared. These are the stories that medical students need to read and carry with them into their practice of medicine. So vital are these experiences to our physicians in training, that I will see to it that every medical student who wants a copy of this book will have one.

Next year, for the entire year of 2012, Medical Students for Life, in conjunction with the Family Research Council and KIDS will be hosting a series of medical, psychological, and services conferences addressing the many facets of treating patients with poor prenatal diagnoses and their families. We will be educating the medical students, resident physicians, nurses and the public in a series of live webinars and conferences in the treatment, care and therapeutic management of these special children, and how to advance them as far as technology and therapy will permit.

This book is already getting our year off to a jump-start with pre-publication orders and sales skyrocketing. Books may be purchased by clicking here at aspecialmotherisborn.blogspot.com

In this book, Leticia Velasquez has succeeded in tearing away the veil of silence surrounding the mounting eugenic pursuit of perfection in medicine, and in shining the light of truth on the reality that parents not only survive, but thrive as they pour themselves out for their special children. If we are to stop medicine’s slide into soulless oblivion, we must plant our flag on this hill and defend it at all cost.

Leticia Velasquez has done so, commandingly. The stories are so compelling that I could not put this book down and read it in one long sitting.

If there is one book that points the way forward in reclaiming a culture of life, this book is it. It is triumphal, but not at all in the way the world would expect. It needs to be read, and contemplated, and then acted upon. It needs to be shared and its stories celebrated. Most of all, it needs to be a source of strength and hope to other parents who are facing or will face similar diagnoses.

Normally, Deacon Greg Kandra’s homilies are superb, but this one has left me speechless. I believe he has said it all right here. Visit his blog, The Deacon’s Bench, for a daily dose of clarity, balance, and unsurpassed wisdom.

Here’s Deacon Kandra:

Since this is Respect Life Sunday, and the beginning of Respect Life month, I wanted to talk about one woman who did respect life – and her choice has made a difference in the life of virtually every person in this church.

Her name is Joanne Schiebel. In 1954, she was a young unmarried college student who discovered that she was pregnant. In the 1950s, her options were limited. She could have had an abortion – but the procedure was both dangerous and illegal. She could have gotten married, but she wasn’t ready and didn’t want to interrupt her education. Joanne opted, instead, to give birth to the baby and put it up for adoption.

And so it was that in 1955, a California couple named Paul and Clara Jobs adopted a baby boy, born out of wedlock, that they named Steven.

We know him today…as Steve Jobs.

It would not be overstating things to say that Steve Jobs is my generation’s Thomas Edison. As one observer put it, he knew what the world wanted before the world knew that it wanted it.

If you have an iPhone or an iPad or an iPod, or anything remotely resembling them, you can thank Steve Jobs.

If your world has been transformed by the ability to hear a symphony, send a letter, pay a bill, deposit a check, read a book and then buy theater tickets on something smaller than a cigarette case…you can thank Steve Jobs.

And: you can thank Joanne Schiebel.

If you want to know how much one life can matter, there is just one example.

But: imagine if that life had never happened.

Imagine if an unmarried pregnant college student 56 years ago had made a different choice.

Now, imagine all the unmarried pregnant college students who make that different choice today.

By one measure, more than half of all abortions in the United States – 53% — occur in young women under the age of 25. That is hundreds of thousands of lives every year, snuffed out. Millions over the last quarter century.

The horrifying truth is this: we live now in a culture that not only does not respect life, but discards it like trash — not only at the beginning of life, but also at the end, and every place in between.

What has happened to us?

In Europe, there’s a new industry of “suicide tourism,” for people who are old or infirm and want to kill themselves.

In California, when it was announced during a recent presidential debate that 234 people had been executed in Texas, hundreds of people in the audience applauded.

What has happened to us?

Catholics can disagree about whether the death penalty is necessary. But we can’t disagree about this: cheering death – any death, especially if it involves someone who may be innocent – is an affront to life. And yet we do it so easily. And that is part of the problem.

Life has become disposable.

In the New York Times recently, there was a long article about the practice called “singleton” – where women pregnant with triplets or twins can arrange to have one or more of the babies aborted, to better manage the size of their family.

We don’t talk about it often, but it needs to be said: the reason we don’t see as many children any more with Down Syndrome isn’t because of some great medical breakthrough. No. It’s because roughly 90% of them are being aborted.

What has happened to us???

If you listen closely, the gospel this Sunday is, in one sense, about respecting life – and choosing death. It brings us the familiar saying about “the stone that the builder rejected.” Well, we have rejected more stones, more lives, than we can count. When will it end?

It’s increasingly clear that the only lasting change will happen when we work to change not only laws, but also hearts.

And that begins with each of us.

When will it end? This nightmare will end when we pass on what we all know to be true: for all its complexity and complications, all its sorrows and fears, all its headaches and heartaches…life matters. Every life. At every moment.

This nightmare will end when we teach our children that nothing, and no one, is ever discarded. Remember the multiplication of the loaves and fishes? When Christ performed that miracle, the story didn’t end when everyone ate. It ended with the people gathering up every crumb. Because every crumb was a part of that miracle. No one, no thing, no life is wasted in the incredible work of God.

This nightmare will end when we acknowledge that life is inconvenient, and difficult, and unplanned. But nothing, and no one, is ever unplanned or unwanted when the one doing the planning and the wanting is God.

This nightmare will end when we realize, at last, that love is greater than fear.

It will end when we make of our lives a continuing prayer – prayer that isn’t afraid to plead, to ask, to question, to hope. Prayer that embraces the beautiful truth of the most popular prayer in the world: “Thy will be done.” Prayer that is able to trust.

It will end when we see life not as a problem to be solved, but as a gift to be embraced.

It will end when we simply choose life. Beautiful, chaotic, unpredictable, explosive, crazy life. Life isn’t something to be discarded because it is difficult, or inconvenient, or unexpected, or old or sick. It is so much greater than we realize.

I sometimes mention this in baptism instruction: the baptism rite begins with declaring the name of the child. It harkens back to Genesis, and the first thing Adam did after God created him – he named everything around him. With that, man continued God’s creative work in the world. And we do that today: with every life we welcome, God continues His creation. Choosing life, we choose to be a part of that.

That’s what Joanne Schiebel did. Think of her the next time you make a phone call or plug in your iPod or download music.

And this morning, consider the work before us. It begins here, and now.

By changing how we talk about life, how we treat life, how we teach life to our children, we will begin to change hearts, change minds.

“Respect life” is more than just a catchphrase. It needs to be a way of living. Respect life. Not just in the womb, but everywhere, at every time, in all circumstances — within our families, our communities, the places we work and do business. It means treating every life with dignity, and honoring every life as a gift.

Doing that, moment by moment, we will begin to change the culture.

And: heart by heart, we will begin to change the world.

As hurricane Irene bears down upon us, Mass was packed at 5 P.M. with those who know that Irene will prevent anyone from going tomorrow. The question on everyone’s lips, as many in my parish were mandatorily evacuated from their homes, was “WHY?”

Why does God permit these things to happen? Why the destruction, the hardship? Why doesn’t He spare us? Father’s answer was not entirely clear or satisfactory to most. Thinking about it on the way home, I came at it from several perspectives.

Droughts are good for killing certain infectious microbes in an area. Forest fires similarly wipe away threats, and renew the face of the earth. Out of the fertilizing ashes of the old, comes new and hardy life. Volcanic eruptions perform similar renewing effects. Hurricanes end droughts and replenish reservoirs for city dwellers. Earthquakes result from the shifting plates of the earth’s crust.

All of these events are a part of the earth’s own life cycle. They help to renew the face of the planet, and in the long run, they actually support life. In the process, however, people die. People are left homeless and without food. They are injured and frightened. These are the issues upper-most in people’s minds.

Earlier today, the following wryly humorous posting began making its way around my FaceBook community:

As Hurricane Irene prepares to batter the East Coast, federal disaster officials have warned that Internet outages could force people to interact with other people for the first time in years. Residents are bracing themselves for the horror of awkward silences & unwanted eye contact. FEMA has advised: “Be prepared. Write down possible topics to talk about in advance. Sports, the weather, etc. Remember, a conversation is basically a series of Facebook updates strung together.”

There is much truth in this.

Perhaps God permits tragedy to call us out of ourselves, to give us the opportunity to escape our insularity and see His face in those of our needy brothers and sisters. I think of 9/11 and its aftermath, of the tsunami of love and support that washed over New Yorkers as nothing I’d ever seen before. The nation and the world dropped all and dropped to their knees in prayer. They gave to the widows and orphans of 9/11 in money and material that simply overwhelmed us.

We are a crusty, hard-bitten lot here in this city. We’re impatient and love to show that impatience with our embarrassingly aggressive driving. Yet, for months afterward, New Yorkers were actually courteous behind the wheel! Even more alarmingly, we were deferential!!! Tragedy slowed us down and allowed us to share in our common humanity.

Sometime around January 2002, the city began to heal from the trauma, as evidenced by the blaring horns and the return to shorter tempers. I have always wondered, though, which was the true healing; the kindness or the blaring horns and aggressive driving?

It tends to refocus the question from this evening and redirect it. The question isn’t why God permits tragedy. He does so to help us regain the best of our humanity.

The real question is why the lesson is so short-lived?