Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 299

Celebrating the Feast of Saint John Vianney with 20% off select books and DVDs

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Celebrating the Feast of Saint John Vianney with 20% Select Books and DVDs 

Offer ends Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 at 12:00 midnight EST.
These prices are available online only through Ignatius.com

Jean-Marie Vianney, or as he is more commonly known as The Cure d'Ars, is the patron saint of priests. His dedication to his vocation is an inspiration to all. In honor of this beloved saint, whose Feast day is August 4th,  Ignatius Press is offering 20% off select books and DVDs. Learn more about the life and spirituality of St. John Vianney from any of the items listed below!

Cure D'Ars Today
St. John Vianney
Fr. George Rutler
Fr Rutler's classic biography of St. John Vianney.
"An important, fascinating work by an important, fascinating author."
— John Cardinal O'Connor

The Joy Of Being A Priest
Following the Cure of Ars
Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn
This insightful book on the priesthood is based on a series of six talks that Cardinal Schönborn addressed to an international group of priests in Ars, the village where the famed St. John Vianney served as pastor.

The Grace of Ars
Reflections on the Life and Spirituality of St. John Vianney
Frederick Miller
The distilled wisdom of St. John Vianney for his brother priests. We see what it means to be a priest during difficult times by reflecting on the life of Vianney, who was a priest in the aftermath of the French Revolution; a very difficult time to be a priest. 8 pages color illustration.

The Priest is Not His Own
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Sheen presents a deeply spiritual look at the meaning of the priesthood and the priest as an "alter Christus". Sheen delves deeply into what he considers the main character of the priesthood, that of being, like Christ, a "holy victim".

Christ the Ideal of the Priest
Fr. Columba Marmion
The great spiritual writer, Fr. Columba Marmion, wrote this classic work on the priesthood to show the holiness that priests are called to, and how that holiness can only be attained through close union with, and imitation of, Jesus Christ. While aimed at the clergy, this profound spiritual work will also be of immense inspiration for laity in coming to a deeper understanding of the true nature and calling of the priesthood.

John Mary Vianney
The Holy Cure of Ars
Sophie de Mullenheim
In this tenderly and colorfully illustrated story, children will learn how John Vianney heard his calling to the priesthood when as a young boy during the French Revolution he attended underground Masses with his devout family. They will also learn how he struggled in school, yet persevered in his studies until his dream to be a priest was realized.

The Cure of Ars
The Priest Who Out-Talked the Devil
Milton Lomask
Jean-Marie Vianney, a farm boy born during the French Revolution, longed to become a priest. But he could not learn Latin, and it seemed as if the humble, lovable, slow-thinking Jean-Marie would never be ordained. He did at last become a priest, and such a holy one that St. Jean-Marie Vianney is invoked as the patron saint and model of parish priests everywhere.

DVDs

Fishers of Men
In 18 minutes Fishers of Men does what hours of apologetic talks on the priesthood and Catholicism struggle to do. This film has even convinced non-Catholics of the importance of the priesthood, and helped many to understand for the first time what the Catholic priesthood is all about. Developed by the United States Conference of Bishops, it is a film to renew priests in their vocation and to encourage them to invite other men to pursue the priesthood.

Pope John Paul II
This epic film follows Karol Wojtyla's journey from his youth in Poland through his late days on the Chair of St. Peter. It explores his life behind the scenes: how he touched millions of people and changed the face of the Church and the world; how he defended the dignity of mankind.

St. John Vianney
My Catholic Family
In this wonderful new animated series, Thomas and his wife Helen help their children Alex and Sarah come to a greater understanding of the importance of virtue by teaching them about the lives of the Saints.
The life of St. John Vianney and his love of the Eucharist are explored.

St. John Bosco
Mission to Love
Flavio Insinna gives a winning performance as John (Don) Bosco, the great priest and educator of youth from the tough streets of Turin, Italy. Beautifully filmed in Italy, this epic movie dramatizes the many challenges that Don Bosco had to overcome from his childhood through founding his religious order, the Salesians, for helping educate boys.
 

Pink Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Pink Smoke Gets in Your Eyes | Gail Deibler Finke | July 29, 2011 | Ignatius Insight

The woman next to me loved the title: Pink Smoke Over the Vatican. I know, because she said, "Great title!" with a knowing laugh.

There were a lot of knowing laughs in the theater Saturday morning, when the one-hour independent documentary about women's ordination had its Cincinnati debut. Perhaps the biggest came when the narrator explained that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the modern day name for The Holy Office of the Inquisition—which, though true, does sound a bit over the top. But not as over the top as clandestine ordinations on ships by incognito bishops.

And that's what the film is about: Women who want to be priests, some of whom claim to have been ordained. Sympathetic bishops, they say, have helped them. The first "ordinations" of the infamous "Danube Seven" were done in Germany in 2002—on a boat, so that they were on no bishop's territory, and in secret, so the bishops involved would not be found out. Since then, nine "ordination" ceremonies have been held, most for "priests" but many for "deacons" and ten "bishops." Because no male bishops are now involved, assuming any really were to begin with, the ceremonies are no longer secret. They are also no longer held on boats, but take place in synagogues, non-Catholic churches, and hotels. The Association of Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) claims to have 100 women in training and plans to have several more "ordinations" in 2011.

Director Jules Hart, whose previous efforts for EyeGoddessFilms include a documentary about at-risk youth "creating a totem pole as a symbol of peace and healing," says she made the film because she was captivated by the stories of Catholic women longing for the priesthood. On Saturday, about 200 people, most of them women, crowded into the 220-seat theater to hear those stories. The manager told me that made it one of the most successful private screenings the theater has ever held.

Pink Smoke is on the independent film circuit and may be coming to a theater near you. If you go, what will you see? A lot of kindly white-haired ladies, both on screen and in person—and some angry women thrown in for balance. A lot of talk about feelings and justice, a lot of half-truths and wishful thinking, and a couple of jabs at men. But it's what you won't see that is most important.

Read the entire essay on Ignatius Insight...

The Anchoress: YOUCAT a "terrific resource"

Elizabeth Scalia, "The Anchoress", writes this in praise of the new Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church (YOUCAT):

And additionally — especially if you and your kids are involved with religious ed programs but even if they're "past" them — I cannot too emphatically recommend that you pick up a copy of Youcat; the newly released Catechism written expressly for Catholic Youth.

This is a terrific resource; it is a brilliantly put-together and engaging collection of the foundational questions about our faith, and those issues about faith, love, marriage, sexuality, freedom, sin, life and death that are relevant to our young, who seek clarity without condescension.

And the questions are surrounded in the margins by a treasury of instructive, enlightening, inspiring quotes — from scripture, saints, popes and even Protestants like Bonhoeffer and Lewis — that are themselves invitations to ponder, to discuss with others and from which to grow in wisdom, maturity and understanding. I got my copy two days ago, and have been reading it every free minute, because it is just that engaging.

Where there is more to discuss, the book gives appropriate cross-references to the full Catechism, but really, if you are involved with CCD, or RCIA, if your kids or nieces are involved, get this book.

And seriously, if you have kids who will be entering high school and are "done with religious ed" or even if they're getting ready to go away to college — perhaps especially for these groups, who will be facing so many new challenges and pressures — make a gift of this book, to them. Give it to them now, and look at it with them over the rest of the summer, so they'll be familiar with it when all of that "newness" begins and will know where they can turn within it.

Read her entire piece.

And Sean Gallagher, writing for The Criterion (Archdiocese of Indianapolis), reports:

In her 26 years in youth ministry at Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. Ann and St. Benedict parishes in the Terre Haute Deanery, Janet Roth has had many catechetical books and resources come across her desk.

But none have quite been like Youcat, a new youth catechism sponsored by the bishops' conferences of Austria, Germany and Switzerland that began hitting bookstore shelves earlier this year.

It was written by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, who previously served as the general editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI has endorsed Youcat, and wrote a forward for it.

While Roth values the backing of Youcat by such high-placed Church leaders, it is the book's concise explanations of the faith and eye-catching layout that captured her attention. ...

"It's awesome," said Roth. "It has the best explanation of the sacraments that I've ever read. And I've read a lot. I'm sold on this.

"It's so easy to read. And I love the quotes on the side from different people. I'm going to use different things like that when I put out my newsletter. I love the layout."

For more about the new Youth Catechism, visit www.YouCat.us.

"Breivik": A predator who posed as a protector

Tim Drake has written a good piece for National Catholic Register about how some in the media, led by The New York Times, are working hard to pin the descriptive "Christian" on mass murderer Anders Breivik:

So the New York Times described Norway's mass murderer with its headline: "Christian Extremist is Charged in Norway."

Does the fact that Breivik said he was a Christian make him one? Does the fact that he dressed in a police uniform make him a police officer?

We shall know they are Christians, the song tells us, by their love.

Is there anything in Breivik's actions that suggests love?

A minimal requirement of a Christian is that one be a follower of Christ. Anders Breivik admits that he has no relationship with Christ and that he does not pray. Neither, does it seem, that he participated in any kind of formal, communal Christian worship.

Breivik's actions display nothing but hatred.

Describing Breivik as a "Christian" is more a sign of the animus of the NY Times than the allegiance of Anders Breivik.

The Times, for instance, could have just as easily used the headline "Norwegian Extremist Charged in Killings." But that headline doesn't carry quite the same message does it?

(To be fair to the Times, the newspaper has a history of supporting efforts demanding that posers be allowed to take on titles and offices they don't hodl or cannot hold. For example, a Time's piece published last week valiantly took up the cause, once again, of priestettes:

More than 150 Roman Catholic priests in the United States have signed a statement in support of a fellow cleric who faces dismissal for participating in a ceremony that purported to ordain a woman as a priest, in defiance of church teaching.

The American priests' action follows closely on the heels of a "Call to Disobedience" issued in Austria last month by more than 300 priests and deacons. They stunned their bishops with a seven-point pledge that includes actively promoting priesthood for women and married men, and reciting a public prayer for "church reform" in every Mass.

And in Australia, the National Council of Priests recently released a ringing defense of the bishop of Toowoomba, who had issued a pastoral letter saying that, facing a severe priest shortage, he would ordain women and married men "if Rome would allow it." After an investigation, the Vatican forced him to resign.

While these disparate acts hardly amount to a clerical uprising and are unlikely to result in change, church scholars note that for the first time in years, groups of priests in several countries are standing with those who are challenging the church to rethink the all-male celibate priesthood.

Yes, and back in the 300s, church scholars noted that for first time, a large number of priests and bishops were holding to the false teachings of Arius. And we all know how well the Church of Arius is doing today. Slendidly!)

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter notes that the Times insistence on Breivik being Christian is in contrast to how it reported on another murderous shooting spree:

This was a big departure from the Times' conclusion-resisting coverage of the Fort Hood shooting suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Despite reports that Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar!" as he gunned down his fellow soldiers at a military medical facility in 2009, only one of seven Times articles on Hasan so much as mentioned that he was a Muslim.

Of course, that story ran one year after Hasan's arrest, so by then, I suppose, the cat was out of the bag.

In fact, however, Americans who jumped to conclusions about Hasan were right and New York Times reporters who jumped to conclusions about Breivik were wrong.

True, in one lone entry on Breivik's gaseous 1,500-page manifesto, "2083: A European Declaration of Independence," he calls himself "Christian." But unfortunately he also uses a great number of other words to describe himself, and these other words make clear that he does not mean "Christian" as most Americans understand the term. (Incidentally, he also cites The New York Times more than a half-dozen times.)

Now, it would be ridiculous to insist that individuals calling themselves "Christians" are, by virtue of doing so, free from the ability to murder, steal, etc. Of course not. But for all of the talk over the past few decades of "right-wing" violence and "fundamentalist hatred" and so forth, it's revealing that nearly all politically-motivated acts of murder and violence have been committed by left-wingers (how about the Weather Underground, for starters?) and that lone "spree" killers are usually completely unhinged. And if they do hold to religious beliefs, they are either extremely vague or the sort that Christians would deem "false" or "heretical" (as in the case of Timothy McVeigh, who is routinely mischaracterized as "Christian", as if saying, as he did, that "Science is my religion", is solid proof for being a follower of Christ).

One WaPo columnist, Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, lectures, "Christians are often reluctant to see these connections between their religion and extreme violence." That's a mighty big claim to make (is she speaking for every single Christian group, denomination, church, in existence?); it's also rather convenient considering that it's one thing for a solitary madman to wrap himself in a particular flag/creed/manifeso and quite another to have religious/social movements directed by a specific theology. The latter, when it comes to Christianity and terrorism, doesn't exist. Tellingly, Thistlethwaite describes as "supremacist" the belief that "Christianity is the 'only' truth..." In other words, if you believe (as I do) that Christianity is the one true religion, you are a potential terrorist. And how many people were killed, say, in the 20th century, by those believing in the uniqueness of Christianity? (Answer: few to none.) And how many were killed by those insisting that religion—especially orthodox Christianity—be surpressed, denounced, and even destroyed? (Answer: tens of millions). For what it's worth.

Finally, I grew up in western Montana as a Fundamentalist (we called ourselves "born-again Christians") and my father is a gunsmith and a gunmaker. Not once did I hear anything about violence or bloodshed being the answer to any problem, with the possible exception of an act of self-defense. We believed that murder is murder—whether in the form of abortion, an act of rage, or a premeditated anti-government shooting spree. Why? Because we took very seriously the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and so forth. And so I was taught, without exception, that the taking of innocent life is an evil in the sight of God. Period. No exceptions.

So it is more than a little frustrating to read that a man who, at most, considered himself culturally "Christian" while rejecting essential Christian beliefs and a basic tenet of Christian morality ("Thou shalt not murder!") is somehow the poster child of right-wing Christian fundamentalism. As Matthew Schmalz rightly notes, "Breivik's vision is a Christianity without Christ." And Christianity without Christ is, in a word, anti-Christ. It is a Satanic parody of the truth, which always leads to some sort of violence, either physical or spiritual. Breivik was, it seems safe to say, a madman consumed by fear, hatred, and bigotry who, rather than pursuing peace and upholding order, opened the door to destruction and hell and stepped through to the other side.

Go and Make Disciples: The demise of the missionary vocation

Go and Make Disciples | Jeff Ziegler | Catholic World Report

The demise of the missionary vocation

At 5:00 each morning, Father Mike Snyder rises and prays before the Blessed Sacrament. At 6:30, he offers Mass at his university's chapel; he spends most of the rest of his day meeting and praying with students, visiting the sick at a local hospital, and performing mundane office tasks.

Ordained in 1979, Father Snyder has ministered in Tanzania for decades and now works as the Catholic chaplain at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), the national medical university. The university is located in Dar es Salaam, a city of 3.2 million and the nation's capital.

Tanzania is among the world's poorest nations; the life expectancy is 53. According to Vatican statistics, 30 percent of the nation's 41 million people are Catholic. The US State Department estimates that 35 percent of Tanzanians are Muslim and 35 percent retain indigenous beliefs.

Whether Tanzania will be predominantly Catholic or Muslim in a century is an open question. Addressing the Synod of Bishops for Africa in 2009, Archbishop Norbert Mtega of Songea warned of "the Islamic monetary factor, whereby huge sums of money from outside countries are being poured in our countries to destabilize peace in our countries and to eradicate Christianity."

At MUHAS, half of the 1,600 students are Catholic. Father Snyder told CWR that his ministry's greatest successes "lie in seeing these gifted young people—the intelligentsia of Tanzania—take responsibility for the operations of the Catholic student community…I would say 50 percent are active in our community. I am able to train them in leadership skills while seeking out ways to assist them in developing their faith. We organize regular retreats and seminars for the students and always have excellent turnouts."

"My visits among the sick are also often rewarding as they show the depth of their faith and hope in Jesus through the patient endurance they display during this time of illness," he adds. "So often I walk away realizing that I have come in contact with the face of Christ through them."

Father Snyder's work is not without its disappointments and challenges. "The disappointments lie in the lack of good medical facilities," he notes. "Muhimbili is probably the best-equipped hospital in the country, but there is still so much lacking. Also, the corruption rampant throughout the country is a disappointment."

"Challenges lie in motivating our medical students to remain in Tanzania after graduation," he says. "So many are lured to attractive jobs outside the country and others to lucrative employment inside the country but outside the medical sector. There is just one medical doctor for 28,000 Tanzanians and one nurse for every hundred hospital patients. Medical salaries in government service are much lower than in other fields."

Father Snyder is part of a rapidly dwindling breed: he is an American missionary priest.

Read the entire article on www.CatholicWorldReport.com...

The Constant Temptation: On Man's Pursuit of False Gods

The Constant Temptation: On Man's Pursuit of False Gods | Fr. James V. Schall, S. J. | July 26, 2011 | Ignatius Insight

"This is a constant temptation on the journey of faith to avoid the divine mystery by constructing a comprehensible god who corresponds with one's own plans, one's own projects."
-- Pope Benedict XVI, Audience, June 1, 2011.

The notion of a "comprehensible god" is an intriguing one: to only admit a god we can understand. The Catholic view of God is not that we can know nothing about God, but that what we know is remarkably less than what is to be known. The mystery of the Christian God is not how little we know of Him but how much more there is to know—even when we know a lot, including what He has revealed to us. We are not skeptics, but we are careful. We consider the question of whether God has revealed anything of Himself to us over and above what we might know by our own reasonings. We find that a rather considerable amount of what God is and is like has been made known to us. Yet, we must put this knowledge in place and proper order. The relatively little that we do know of God, as Aristotle said, is worth all our efforts.

God did not reveal everything we need to know about everything. He expected us to figure out many things by ourselves. Indeed, what in addition, beyond our own reflections, was made known to us was designed for our own good. We were told things about God that were helpful to reach Him. The reaching of God was itself the purpose of our creation and subsequent redemption; it was the purpose of the Resurrection and the gift of eternal life.

Aquinas stated we were given a more clear idea of God's inner being with divine revelation. Beyond what we could figure out by ourselves, we were provided with further insight into what was right and wrong in our lives. We were told of the relation of our thoughts to our actions. And we were explicitly told of further rewards and punishments so that we could grasp the importance of our own lives and what we do with them. None of what were told about God coerced us or removed our freedom to reject Him. But it did give us reasons why it might well be God who was addressing Himself to us.

As Benedict XVI tells us, however, whatever God indicates about Himself, either in reason or revelation, we have an abiding or constant temptation to "avoid" it. We can ignore what we know of God in reason and revelation. We give excuses. We think that revelation is unimportant or insignificant. We can get along without it. We don't need God to be good. We can set up our own good. Yet, we cannot leave it at that. We cannot just live on a negative theory of our own making. We must find something more to our liking.

We want a "comprehensible god." We want a God who does not make us think too much or who does not ask us to do much. It has often been remarked that the Christian God is too "complicated." He requires too much thought of us. The Muslim god is much simpler: four or five basic rules and acts do it for everybody; God as Trinity and Incarnate is specifically rejected. And yet, as we see from Christianity's earliest days, it is precisely in thinking about the Trinity and the Incarnation that we learn most about ourselves and our world. Indeed, thinking of them, paradoxically, enables us to philosophize better. It makes us suspect reason and revelation have the same origin.

Read the entire essay on Ignatius Insight...

"In humble obedience then to her voice, let Christian husbands and wives ..."

... be mindful of their vocation to the Christian life, a vocation which, deriving from their Baptism, has been confirmed anew and made more explicit by the Sacrament of Matrimony. For by this sacrament they are strengthened and, one might almost say, consecrated to the faithful fulfillment of their duties. Thus will they realize to the full their calling and bear witness as becomes them, to Christ before the world. For the Lord has entrusted to them the task of making visible to men and women the holiness and joy of the law which united inseparably their love for one another and the cooperation they give to God's love, God who is the Author of human life.

We have no wish at all to pass over in silence the difficulties, at times very great, which beset the lives of Christian married couples. For them, as indeed for every one of us, "the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life." Nevertheless it is precisely the hope of that life which, like a brightly burning torch, lights up their journey, as, strong in spirit, they strive to live "sober, upright and godly lives in this world," knowing for sure that "the form of this world is passing away."

Recourse to God

For this reason husbands and wives should take up the burden appointed to them, willingly, in the strength of faith and of that hope which "does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Then let them implore the help of God with unremitting prayer and, most of all, let them draw grace and charity from that unfailing fount which is the Eucharist. If, however, sin still exercises its hold over them, they are not to lose heart. Rather must they, humble and persevering, have recourse to the mercy of God, abundantly bestowed in the Sacrament of Penance. In this way, for sure, they will be able to reach that perfection of married life which the Apostle sets out in these words: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church. . . Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church. . . This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

That from paragraph 25 of Humanae Vitae, the prophetic encyclical issued forty-three years ago today by Pope Paul VI.

A revised and improved translation of the encyclical is available from Ignatius Press in print and electronic formats. Also see Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader, edited by Janet Smith and featuring essays by William May, Paul Quay, Elizabeth Anscombe, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Carlo Caffara, Cormac Burke, Ralph McInerny, John Kippley, John Finnis and Janet Smith.

For more on the Church's consistent stand for life and against contraceptives, see:

"This is a contingent that is small, geriatric, and schismatic."

Dave Pierre saves me the trouble of having to rant about pathetic "journalistic" attempts to fight the dying cause of priestettes.

And Gail F., on the "Son Rise Morning Show" blog, writes of attending a showing of Pink Smoke Over the Vatican, a new documentary about Catholic "women priests." Needless to say, the "documentary" is long on emotion and short on truth.

Newspaper: Planned Parenthood = Harry Potter; pro-lifers = Lord Voldemort

While out and about yesterday, I glanced through the July 21st edition of Eugene Weekly, which an ultra-"progressive" rag that sings the praises of saving trees and insects, killing the unborn, ingesting illegal substances, and "alternative" lifestyles. A short article, "Planned Parenthood's New Digs", caught my eye:

Across the U.S., Planned Parenthood has weathered the political climate much like Harry Potter and friends defending Hogwarts from Voldemort. And despite the best efforts of those bearing the dark mark, Planned Parenthood is "The Clinic That Lived."

I don't follow Harry Potter at all, but I think I'm correct in interpreting the above as saying Planned Parenthood are the Good Guys, while those who oppose the work of PP are the Evil Guys. But what, exactly, is the main work of PP?

"We're here. Our doors are open," Planned Parenthood of Southwest Oregon (PPSO) President Cynthia Pappas says. In fact, Southwest Oregon is one Planned Parenthood region that is brimming with good news. In September, construction workers will break ground on a new Regional Health and Education Center in Glenwood.

The need for the Glenwood facility became apparent, Pappas says, because PPSO's existing facilities weren't built to handle the volume of patients they now experience. "The Regional Health and Education Center is going to allow us to increase our client volume by about 50 percent," Pappas says. It will also provide meeting space for parent education classes, Planned Parenthood's youth council and its sex ed boot camp for educators.

Ah, "parent education classes" and "sex ed boot camps". Okay. Anything else?

The decision to build between Eugene and Springfield in Glenwood was made easy by the transportation infrastructure, according to Pappas. "There's an EmX stop right at our property, we're as close to the UO at the new location as the current High Street location and it gets us a little more of a direct route from the LCC campus," she says. In addition to a public transport-friendly location, the new building is aiming for LEED silver certification.

So, PP is very close (less than a five-minute drive) from a large state university (23,000+ students) and a community college. Why? Do college-aged kids really need to attend "sex ed boot camps"? Haven't they received plenty of "sex ed" for years by the time they hit their late teens? Since the Eugene Weekly thinks so highly of the "good guys/gals" at PP, and since PP performs over 300,000 abortions a year (while involved with less than 3,000 adoptions a year), surely the newspaper would want to readily acknowledge the central, money-making "work" of the organization. But, no, the piece is fully intent on portraying the folks at PP as potential victims of violence (no mention, again, of babies being destroyed in the womb):

Despite PPSO's run of positive events, Pappas admits that the year has been a rough one. "There's really a very focused effort to discredit Planned Parenthood and defund the services we provide, which really puts clients at an extraordinary disadvantage across the country," she says. At PPSO's Birds and the Bees Garden Party July 15, the organization sent its guests directions only after they registered for the event, partially to gather an accurate head count, Pappas says, but also with safety in mind.

"We, like any Planned Parenthood, have our detractors," she says. "We have picketers. People have the right to have a difference of opinion and they are for the most part very respectful and nonviolent."

Pappas says of the national climate, "In Oregon we haven't been impacted yet and we feel very fortunate for that, but it doesn't mean that we can be complacent. We work every day to ensure that birth control access is available and affordable."

Oh my: PP had a "rough year"! Hand me a hanky! Give me your bloody shoulder to cry on! But how rough, in comparison, was it for the aborted girls and boys,and their scarred mothers who must now bear the life-long pain of having an abortion? Thank goodness, however, that PP is so openminded about the "detractors" who don't understand, in their narrowminded obsession with human life and human dignity, the importance of "birth control access". It must be hard to see people criticize your gravy train, especially when there are so many potential victi—er, "clients" to be had.

Well, I just looked up "Lord Voldemort" on Wikipedia (oh, please, it works just fine sometimes) and found this description:

[Rowling] elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who derives amusement from inflicting pain on others without any remorse and murders people just for fun, especially Muggles, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.

Quick exercise in simple logic: which of these two groups does that most sound like?

A). Those who encourage, perform, and make money from the destruction of potential and existing human life through contraceptives and abortion.
B). Those who believe that from the moment of conception, every child deserves life and love, free from the possibility of being murdered.

Ooh. That's a tough one. I also noticed that the character Lord Voldemort works to acheive "pure-blood dominance":

Rowling draws several parallels between the pure-blood supremacists and Nazi ideology in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (the belief that pure-blood wizards have the right to subjugate the Muggle world and view themselves as a "master race", laws requiring Muggle-borns to register with the Ministry of Magic, rounding up Undesirables, etc.)

And who was one of the leading proponents of racial eugenics in 20th century America? That's right, kids: Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, as this article on BlackGenocide.org outlines:

At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in New York City, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the "black" and "yellow" peril. The man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger's American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood.

Sanger's other colleagues included avowed and sophisticated racists. One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against White Supremacy. Stoddard was something of a Nazi enthusiast who described the eugenic practices of the Third Reich as "scientific" and "humanitarian." And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another Sanger associate and board member for her group, spoke of purifying America's human "breeding stock" and purging America's "bad strains." These "strains" included the "shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South."

Not to be outdone by her followers, Margaret Sanger spoke of sterilizing those she designated as "unfit," a plan she said would be the "salvation of American civilization.: And she also spike of those who were "irresponsible and reckless," among whom she included those " whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers." She further contended that "there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped." That many Americans of African origin constituted a segment of Sanger considered "unfit" cannot be easily refuted.

While Planned Parenthood's current apologists try to place some distance between the eugenics and birth control movements, history definitively says otherwise. The eugenic theme figured prominently in the Birth Control Review, which Sanger founded in 1917. She published such articles as "Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics" (June 1920), "The Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921), "The purpose of Eugenics" (December 1924), "Birth Control and Positive Eugenics" (July 1925), "Birth Control: The True Eugenics" (August 1928), and many others.

For more on the delightful and charming Sanger, see "The Negro Project: Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Plan for Black Americans", by Tanya L. Green. Finally, on a directly related note regarding PP, here is the opening of Helen Alvaré's just-posted essay, "Contracepting Conscience":

Richard John Neuhaus once commented that the "philosophes" of the French Revolution would turn over in their graves to discover how the Catholic Church had become the chief defender of the place of reason in the public square in the late 20th century. Today in the 21st century it is the feminist revolutionaries of the 1960s who are squirming in their rocking chairs as the Catholic Church dares to defy "the establishment" to stand for the freedom of women and of conscientious objection to federal mandates.

The greatest attack on women's freedom is last week's recommendation by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) that the new health care law should mandate "the full range of FDA-approved contraceptive methods [and] sterilization procedures" as "preventive services." This means that every health insurance plan must provide these services without co-pays or deductibles. "Grandfathered" employer plans are exempted, but these lose their "grandfathered" status if the plans are significantly changed; HHS estimates that by 2013, about 88 million Americans' preventive services coverage will be affected by federal decisions. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has solicited IOM's recommendations and will render a final decision August 1.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops responded immediately that the new threat to religious conscience posed by this recommendation fails women. He noted further that the "FDA-approved" category includes even abortion-inducing methods (such as Ella), and that IOM's report appeared to be driven by ideology, not science or care for women's health.

If you want to give new meaning to the word "outsider" in Washington today, identify yourself prominently as a conscientious objector to birth control as a tool in the "war against unintended pregnancy." A giant federal health care bureaucracy becomes your enemy. So does one of its closest collaborators, the self-described champion of all things female, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The IOM's report gave Planned Parenthood everything it lobbied for—even the opinion that abortion, too, is a form of preventive health care, but one that the IOM believed it could not recommend in light of extant law.

Read her entire essay on the Public Discourse site.

Related Ignatius Insight Articles, Excerpts, & Interviews:

• Abortion and Ideology | Raymond Dennehy
• The Illusion of Freedom Separated from Moral Virtue | Raymond Dennehy
• Contraception and Homosexuality: The Sterile Link of Separation | Raymond Dennehy
• Privacy, the Courts, and the Culture of Death | An Interview with Dr. Janet E. Smith
• What Is "Legal"? On Abortion, Democracy, and Catholic Politicians | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Deadly Architects | An Interview with Donald De Marco and Benjamin Wiker
• Human Sexuality and the Catholic Church | Donald P. Asci
• The Truth About Conscience | John F. Kippley
• The Case Against Abortion | An Interview with Dr. Francis Beckwith
• What Is Catholic Social Teaching? | Mark Brumley
• Introduction to Three Approaches to Abortion | Peter Kreeft
• Some Atrocities are Worse than Others | Mary Beth Bonacci

Some commonsense comments about moral relativism...

... in the pages of The New York Times, of all places:

Most moral relativists say that moral right and wrong are to be relativized to a community's "moral code." According to some such codes, eating beef is permissible; according to others, it is an abomination and must never be allowed.  The relativist proposal is that we must never talk simply about what's right or wrong, but only about what's "right or wrong relative to a particular moral code."

The trouble is that while "Eating beef is wrong" is clearly a normative statement, "Eating beef is wrong relative to the moral code of the Hindus" is just a descriptive remark that carries no normative import whatsoever.  It's just a way of characterizing what is claimed by a particular moral code, that of the Hindus.  We can see this from the fact that anyone, regardless of their views about eating beef, can agree that eating beef is wrong relative to the moral code of the Hindus.

So, it looks as though the moral case is more like the witch case than the simultaneity case:  there are no relativistic cousins of "right" and "wrong."  Denial of moral absolutism leads not to relativism, but to nihilism.

There is no half-way house called "moral relativism," in which we continue to use normative vocabulary with the stipulation that it is to be understood as relativized to particular moral codes.  If there are no absolute facts about morality, "right" and "wrong" would have to join "witch" in the dustbin of failed concepts.

The argument is significant because it shows that we should not rush to give up on absolute moral facts, mysterious as they can sometimes seem, for the world might seem even more mysterious without any normative vocabulary whatsoever.

Read the entire essay, "The Maze of Moral Relativism" (July 24, 2011), by Paul Boghossian.

Also see, on Ignatius Insight: