Pope mandates recant to reconcile with SSPX

For those who doubted:

The Vatican demanded Wednesday that a bishop who denied the Holocaust recant his positions before being fully admitted into the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican also said in a statement that Pope Benedict XVI didn't know about Bishop Richard Williamson's views when he agreed to lift his excommunication and that of three other ultraconservative bishops Jan. 21.

The statement was issued by the Vatican's Secretariat of State a day after German Chacellor Angela Merkel urged the pope to make a clearer rejection of Holocaust denials, saying there hadn't been adequate clarification from the Vatican.

Read more here

This needed some public clarification--so while the Vatican is showing some semblance of PR savvy all of a sudden, they finally are showing the world what the process of reconciliation will entail. My guess is that Williamson won't recant and that he will maintain some kind of renegade society while others in the SSPX will reunite with the Pope. As I believe I stated here and certainly stated to others who spoke to me about it, it seemed obvious to be that the Pope didn't know about this guy even when an easy 30 second google search would've uncovered it. The headline was expected to be "Pope heals schism" which shows the single-mindedness of his intentions but a lack of seeing the big picture. It also shows that the Pope considers this guy a minor player in the society as a whole since he obviously wasn't on his radar.

Perhaps we should consider him in a similar vein. After all, there are nuts in every walk of life and although we don't always like to admit it, in every corner of the church as well.

Haven't been to Confession in ages?

USCCB, Cardinal George weighs in on SSPX

Cardinal Francis George, USCCB President and friend of Googling God made this statement on the recent SSPX shenanigans and Bishop Williamson.

Hat tip to Deacon Greg:

Statement of Cardinal Francis George, President USCCB

Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the personal penalty of excommunication incurred by four schismatic bishops belonging to the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. This gesture on the part of the Holy Father was an act of mercy and personal concern for the ordained and lay members of this Society and was meant to coincide with the fiftieth commemoration of the convening of the Second Vatican Council.

The Holy Father's lifting of the excommunications is but a first step toward receiving these four bishops, and the priests who serve under them, back into full communion with the Catholic Church. If these bishops are to exercise their ministry as true teachers and pastors of the Catholic Church, they, like all Catholic bishops, will have to give their assent to all that the Church professes, including the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

As is now widely known, one of the four bishops, Richard Williamson, has recently made some deeply offensive and utterly false statements about the Holocaust of the Second World War. Bishop Williamson has denied historical facts about the Shoah, in which six million Jews were cruelly annihilated, innocent victims of blind racial and religious hatred. These comments have evoked understandable outrage from within the Jewish community and also from among our own Catholic people. No Catholic, whether lay person, priest or bishop can ever negate the memory of the Shoah, just as no Catholic should ever tolerate expressions of anti-Semitism and religious bigotry.

I make my own the words of the Holy Father spoken at the General Audience on January 28, 2009: "[May] the Shoah show both old and new generations that only the arduous path of listening and dialogue, of love and forgiveness, can lead peoples, cultures and religions of the world to the longed-for goal of fraternity and peace, in truth. May violence never again humiliate man's dignity." We Catholic bishops in the United States are as committed as ever to building bonds of trust and mutual understanding with our elder brothers and sisters, the Jewish people, so that together with them we may be a blessing to the world.

Daily Inspiration

Casting Crowns--another Christian rocker that I can more than tolerate.

Sad Time for Legionaries of Christ

The Legionaries of Christ are having themselves a week they'd soon like to forget. It has long been rumored that their founder Marcial Maciel was in fact accused of several accusations including the following with a hat tip to the Life after Regnum Christi blog:

* Maciel fathered a child who is now in her early 20's;

* Maciel offered some money illicitly to his own family;

* The current head, Alvaro Corcuera, entertaining his own suspicions, demanded that the case be reopened several years ago;

* Maciel had numerous accusations against him for paedophilia, beginning with his earliest recruits (none of whome were ever ordained);

* Early companions of Maciel recount several affairs with women with details reaching back to the 1950's;

* Maciel has been accused of extensive drug problems;


* The rank and file were recruited for their connexions, money, and sincere zeal for souls.

In short, oh brother. Amy Welborn who is always fair in her judgments of such matters has an excellent take on most of the proceedings.

Serious problems have surfaced in relationship to the group, both present and past. Financial questions. Questions of formation. There is much, much to be concerned about, concerns voiced by many observers and several bishops, most notably Archbishop O’Brien of Baltimore, who stepped in and requested complete transparency from LC and RC regarding their apostolates in his see last year.

We should note, in retelling this story, that the charges against Maciel apparently had no traction at the Vatican, for whatever reason, until Benedict XVI became Pope. In May, 2006, Maciel was ordered to retire to a life of prayer and penance. Here is the text of the communique, which was intermidably parsed here and other places, but whose meaning is hard to escape.

There are, indeed, good people associated with LC and RC - many of us reading this blog know them. They need our prayers and great strength - the strength that any and all of us need when we have been deceived in the name of God.

That said, the book on this affair will be long and complex. Torturous, in fact. There will undoubtedly need to be several volumes.

The news coming out now is sketchy and incomplete. The word is that the leadership is admitting that Maciel fathered at least one child, perhaps two. Some sources are saying that the leadership is admitting the veracity of the previous accusations, as well, but that is fuzzy to me at this point. Over the past few days, various parties and groups have been informed of this. After the question of the accusations against Maciel himself, the huge question waiting to be unraveled, but extraordinarily difficult to do because of the group’s obsession with secrecy, is the awareness of the LC leadership of all of this over the years.

The third question is that if the leadership is admitting the truth of the bulk of the many accusations against Maciel…will the victims, long vilified by the movement and its defenders…receive an apology?

Indeed that is my question as well. If the founder is guilty --and it looks like he obviously is--then what does that mean not only to his legacy but to the future of the order? As Welborn also notes above this is a blight on the Papacy of John Paul II as well as it seems that he or at the very least, his senior aides, didn't believe that the accusations could be true.

Much was made of the Legion's "secrecy pledge" that they required of faculty at Atlanta's Donnellan School which led to many staff firings and resignations. Coercion and outright hostility towards perceived enemies seemingly has followed the Legion wherever it goes.

However, Welborn makes a good point when she says:

What is the appeal of Regnum Christi and its apostolates in the United States? The appeal may be negative in some ways, but those I have met who have been drawn to it are thirsting for solid faith content. They know that their children live in a challenging world and have no confidence in what passes for catechesis in the parish or even in many Catholic schools to equip them for that world. They do not see these programs or liturgies seriously oriented toward bringing those participating into a deep, committed relationship with Christ.

So something substantive appears…it appeals.

But this problem is also systemic in its very nature. We leave religious education in most parishes in the hands of willing volunteeers, without much (or any) proper training or assurance that they know even the basic tenets of the faith at all. (My 5th grade CCD teacher didn't know how to look up a bible verse!). We also give parents little training in passing along the faith and with Generation X parents we need to give them a remedial Catechetical course so that they have some sense of a tradition to pass on because in many cases nothing was transmitted to them in terms of faith information at all.

But what of the more traditional orders who teach the basics well but perhaps act somewhat judgmental towards others, cover up their own sins to make them seem above the fray and often simply seem to be unstable or unhealthy? And what of the other extreme? Where almost nothing in tradition is transmitted, everyone's sins are often minimized and while care for the poor is often espoused as a central element of the faith not much connection to Jesus, much less Catholicism is often coupled to it?

It strikes me that a more centrist view is needed. Community AND contemplation, a vertical relationship between us and God needs to be joined with a horizontal relationship with the community. Traditional devotions like the rosary and eucharistic adoration need to be coupled with discernment so as to ask greater questions:

What do these devotions empower you to do? What does your knowledge of Catholic tradition mean for you in your everyday life? How will you live now knowing Jesus more intimately?

It seems to me that this is what the good men and women who have dedicated their lives in religious profession do well. They come from all walks of life. There are great members of the Legion but also great Jesuits, Paulists and Redemptorists. Great women exist in Opus Dei who bring others to Christ and great women in the Sisters of St. Joseph. Diocesan officials who have healed marriages and educated children well and other officials who have let marriages fail and children go uneducated too. All have different approaches to be sure, but in all these various "faith journeys" individuals have cared for souls in great ways.

Unfortunately, we have the best and worst in all our traditions--just like everywhere else. It is up to our own judgments to seek the best of our tradition and to associate ourselves with what seems healthy, true and Christ-like.

We've all had good and bad math teachers, co-workers and Presidents. Why should our religion be any different.

Prayers today for all good religious educators, The Legion and the victims of abuse who have suffered for so long. And for all of us who try to bring people closer to God.

St. Blaise Day - Get yer Throats Blessed!

Today is one of my favorite feast days of the Church. St. Blaise, an Armenian Bishop was martyred for the faith by order of the Emperor Licinius, who wanted all Christians killed.

As he was being led away to prison a young boy was brought before him choking on a fish bone and Blaise cured him immediately. (Some jokingly refer to St. Blaise as the Saint of the Heimilich manuever. Regardless, the miracle that is attributed to him lives on each February 3 when churches offer a blessing of the throats to all who ask for it. Two candles (Unlit!) are placed against the throat and the following blessing is invoked:

Through the intercession of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr, may you be free of every ailment of the throat and from every other evil. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A little known legend about St. Blaise: He is also the patron saint of wild animals. Much of what we hear about St Blaise surrounds his persecution. And that gives us this story. When the persecution of Christians began Blaise received a message from God to flee to the h.ills. Hunters discovered him in a cave surrounded by wild animals who were sick but Blaise walked among them unafraid and cured them of their illnesses. The hunters however, considered Blaise to be a better catch than the animals themselves. On the way back, however Blaise talked a wolf into releasing a pig. It turns out that the pig was the livelihood of a poor woman, who was thus saved from abject poverty by his action. Ironically, Blaise was sentenced to be starved to death. The woman, in gratitude, however, sneaked into the prison with food and candles, keeping Blaise temporarily sustained. Blaise was beheaded by the governor.

So today let us pray for those who care for animals and take care of them--especially animals that are not household pets. In these cold winter months, may we also ask St Blaise to pray on behalf of those who suffer from throat ailments.

Archbishop of Hamburg Criticizes Vatican PR

Give this Bishop credit for saying what everyone else is thinking.

Werner Thissen, the archbishop of Hamburg, said Pope Benedict XVI should have lifted the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson only if he had recanted his "unspeakable" claim that the Nazis did not use gas chambers.

He criticized the Vatican's "sloppy" handling of Bishop Williamson's rehabilitation, which caused a furore around the world, incensing Jewish groups and moderate Catholics.

Clercial Whispers has more here. I do wonder what the long term fallout is going to be with this. With interfaith marriages now nearly the norm with younger people there is going to be a huge need for discussion about what Catholics believe about Judaism during marriage preparation now. Dialogue has got to be on the docket quickly for the Pope and other Bishops with Jewish leaders now--and that should happen sooner rather than later and in a public forum as well.

Interview with the Vampire Writer

I've never been a big fan of the vampire books that Anne Rice has written over the years but this new spiritual memoir, Called Out of Darkness, seems really interesting. BustedHalo's Bill McGarvey has had the excerpt up for a bit. As someone who was an atheist for most of her life, it's interesting to see how she's realized that God was lurking in her work for many years.

These books transparently reflect a journey through atheism and back to God. It is impossible not to see this. They reflect an attempt to determine what is good and what is evil in an atheistic world. They are about the struggle of brothers and sisters in a world without credible fathers and mothers. They reflect an obsession with the possibility of a new and enlightened moral order.

Did I know this when I wrote them? No.

But the research I did for them, the digging through history, the studying of ancient history in particular, was actually laying the ground for my return to faith.

The more I read of history—any history—the more my atheism became shaky. History, as well as Creation, was talking to me about God. The great personalities of history were talking to me about God.

You can check more out about Anne Rice here.

Daily Inspiration: How You Live

To steal a line from South Park about Christian Rock:

"You're not making Christian music cooler, you're just making rock music worse."

That in fact is the way I feel about most Christian Rock stuff that I hear but I like these women: Point of Grace.

Congrats Steeltown

For the very Catholic Rooney family who own the Pittsburgh Steelers they will now need to add one more knick-nack to their shelf. A sixth Super Bowl Title to the Men from Steeltown gives Pittsburgh a record number. Sheepishly, a reporter asked Mr. Rooney if he had room for one more trophy.

He replied quickly, "We'll make room."

Paul has a great profile of Dan Rooney, the patriarch of the family here.

Santonio Holmes made a great catch to seal the deal but a valiant effort by the Cardinals and by Kurt Warner the QB who found WR Larry Fitzgerald several times to keep this one close and even a near upset.



We profiled Warner on BustedHalo some time ago so I thought y'all might be interested in re-visiting that article here.

Warner’s Christian faith manifests itself in a different way on the field. Since winning the Super Bowl and being a two-time league MVP very early on in his career, Warner has struggled since 2003 to get playing time with both the New York Giants and the Arizona Cardinals. Throughout it all he’s handled both the extreme highs and lows with extraordinary class and grace. Off the field, his charity, First Things First, is involved in projects ranging from Special Olympics to helping single mothers.

Warner recently sat down with BustedHalo to discuss football, faith and what the future holds.

BustedHalo: As someone in the public eye who is so openly religious, how do you deal with the pressure and temptation of being a professional athlete and the lifestyle that comes with it?

Kurt Warner: One of the fortunate things about my career—although most people see it as a detriment—is that it took me so long to get to the NFL. I didn’t start my first game until I was 28 years old. The blessing is that God prepared me for that. God had placed me in a lot of different situations, He had set up my priorities, so when I did get here, I knew why I was here. I knew God placed me here for a purpose. When I went before the Billy Graham crusade in 1999, it was an opportunity to put me out there, but it also kept me accountable. People say, you know it’s a lot of pressure when you step out there and say you’re a Christian, but at the same time, when you do that in front of millions of people, you know everybody’s going to be watching. So, every time there’s a temptation, every time I’m put in a situation that could be difficult, it holds me accountable to what I represent, to what my priorities are, and to the kind of person I want to be.

So while Warner didn't win the big game, he can certainly hold his head up high.

For many reasons, indeed.

Looking for a place to do service?

Nazareth Farm is but one place that you might look into...

Nazareth Farm is a non-profit organization located in Center Point, West Virginia that is founded upon the Catholic tradition. Nazareth Farm provides the surrounding Appalachian region with home repair needs. We also provide high school and college volunteers with week-long immersion experiences based on our four cornerstones of community, simplicity, service and prayer while engaging with the Appalachian community.

They also have a superb blog that's chock full of good reflections--for example:

There are obviously regions of the United States, and the world, that need talented individuals to give of themselves more than other regions, but wherever you are ask yourself how you can use your gifts and talents more wisely. How can you serve you family, your friends, your neighbors and your greater community? It may not be as difficult or as tangible as you think, but it definitely entails you to learn about yourself and then give of yourself. Pray about it, reflect about it, and act on it.

Discernment is always about trying to figure out to where and to what one may be called to serve. This is at the heart of the Farm's work and it allows you to see where you fit once you leave the service experience that you engage in and then say--what can I do like this back home that I have some energy for?

Pray, think, discuss....and then go DO.

iPray

What shall we pray for today?

The mother at the airport who was at her wits end with her rambunctious son.
People who struggle with addictions
My family
That I can be a better and more patient husband.
For Dan, Anne, Joe, Abigail and all those who have asked me to pray for them.
In thanksgiving for the finding of Fr Brett's computer files.

Daily Inspiration

This is from a bit back but Paul Potts went from working in a Carphone Warehouse to singing opera. This will bring tears to the eyes of the most jaded person.

Is Blogging Ministry?

Yes...next question...

But seriously, Deacon Greg thinks so too. And in this beautiful and funny piece for our friends at America Magazine he tells us why.

Then, one night in August, on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption, I decided to check my e-mail before going to bed. There was an item in my inbox titled, “I lost one of my students today.” I sat down and took a deep breath. It was from a Catholic teacher in Newark, N.J. One of his pupils, a 15-year-old boy, had been shot and killed that morning while sleeping in his own bedroom. News reports said a neighbor downstairs had been handling a rifle that had gone off accidentally.

The teacher was devastated. He told me that he wrote because he just needed to get it off his chest. “I am stricken with grief at a time when my heart would otherwise be elated—but I know my young student, my child, celebrates this feast in the arms of the Blessed Mother,” he wrote, and asked for prayers for himself, his students and the boy who had been killed.

I did not know what to say. I wrote back to him, offering a few words of consolation, and told him I would pray for him. But something, I felt, had changed.

The flickering words on a computer screen spoke of something greater, and deeper, and sadder than anything else I had encountered in my months of blogging. In the middle of all the bickering in the blogosphere, I had encountered a moment of unexpected grief and profound grace—beautiful, heartbreaking, soul-wrenching grace.

If nothing else, the Internet makes us acutely aware of this: the world is bigger than we realize and smaller than we expect. We are bound together in ways we cannot even imagine. I have learned a lot since I began blogging, but the greatest lesson may be that we are catholic, which means we are universal, and that we are everything and everyone, for better or for worse.

Indeed he is correct. From my time here and my 8 1/2 years at Busted Halo I've gotten e-mail from prisoners concerned about homosexuality, women who have had miscarriages and thought their child had lost all hope for salvation, I even had someone write in who was afraid their son was contemplating suicide. While our retreat program is filled with similar experiences, they pale in comparison to what gets revealed in the anonymity of the internet. It is beautiful and sad at the same time. Beautiful that we are all connected and can reach out to one another and that we can provide some kind of virtual ministry to these people who seek us out. At the same time, the world seems like a lonely place where people have to resort to sending a note on the internet to virtual strangers, albeit people with whom they likely respect and maybe even feel some kind of spiritual or emotional resonance.

The rest of the article is downright funny and poingnant in other ways. So check out the whole thing here.

Williamson apologizes, perhaps also dying

Scott over at about.com and Deacon Greg have the info here:

The apology is dated January 28, 2009, and the text below is from the traditionalist website Rorate Caeli:

To His Eminence Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos

Your Eminence

Amidst this tremendous media storm stirred up by imprudent remarks of mine on Swedish television, I beg of you to accept, only as is properly respectful, my sincere regrets for having caused to yourself and to the Holy Father so much unnecessary distress and problems.

For me, all that matters is the Truth Incarnate, and the interests of His one true Church, through which alone we can save our souls and give eternal glory, in our little way, to Almighty God. So I have only one comment, from the prophet Jonas, I, 12:

"Take me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you."

Please also accept, and convey to the Holy Father, my sincere personal thanks for the document signed last Wednesday and made public on Saturday. Most humbly I will offer a Mass for both of you.

Sincerely yours in Christ
+Richard Williamson

Most unexpected. My initial inclination was that this Bishop might not even reconcile when the rest of the Society does--but now perhaps he's seeing things differently?

At the same time, he doesn't renounce what he believes to be true about the Holocaust. He simply apologizes for making things hard on the Vatican officials. Perhaps an apology to the Jews might also be in order here? Or perhaps, something else is at play here--something that may humble all of us who have been offended by his remarks.

The London Telegraph reports that Williamson may indeed be dying of cancer and that perhaps these statements may be attributable to this illness. In other words, he may not indeed know what he is saying at times because the cancer may be effecting his brain. Given his long track record this seems unlikely, but not completely out of the question.

Rumours have surfaced that Bishop Williamson, the SSPX bishop whose Holocaust denial has caused such horror, is seriously ill with cancer. Father Z passes on a report in La Repubblica that the bishop - whose excommunication was lifted at the weekend - "has a tumour and is dying".

Similar reports have reached me, but I haven't wanted to print them without some sort of confirmation. Apparently Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos has asked for prayers for Williamson, whose recent statements - outrageous even by his standards - may be attributable, in part, to his illness.

Meanwhile, I address the issue in a more reflective and prayerful matter in this week's Busted Halo Cast in the Out of the Haze segment. Check it out.

For What Else Shall We Pray?

I'd like to start a daily regimen of prayer on the blog and hope that y'all will add your prayers in the comments section so we can all pray as a blog community.

I'd like to ask prayers for:

A friend's sister who recently went through a divorce.
All the couples on our recent retreat.
People with mental illnesses.
Fr. James Keenan, SJ
Joe
Abigail
Healing from a broken relationship with a colleague.
Understanding and patience
Our Jewish brothers and sisters
Fr. Frank Diskin, CSP

Oh God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, has instructed the hearts of the faithful grant that by the same spirit we may come what to know what is right and rejoice with the truth. May this same Holy Spirit allow me and all of us to seek peace without our own prejudices blocking our minds. Amen.

The White Chapel of Dachau

Fr James Keenan, SJ is a moral theologian at Boston College but I simply knew him as the Jesuit who lived in our dorm, who led us on retreats and who was funny and droll at dinner. He is recuperating from Cancer these days, so I ask for prayers for him--but with the talk of the holocaust these days I have been reminded of a moving story he told me once.

He was in Germany and had to go to Dachau. It occured to him that for the people who live in Dachau it had to be embarrassing. I mean who in their right mind would want a city that was known for the concentration camps to be their home? Why would anyone freely choose to live there?

He went and visited the camps and was moved and angered by what he saw. He needed to pray, but upon finding the church nearby, he was turned away by an angry nun who had told him firmly that the church was closed and then slammed the door in his face.

As he began his walk back to his train, he caught sight in the distance of a small white chapel. He walked to that chapel and when he entered in, he found something that moved him to tears.

Above the altar was Christ in a cruciform--though he was not nailed to wood, rather he hung on barbed wires.

It seems the people of Dachau could not forget what had happened there and indeed had appropriated the horror of what happened into their need for prayer, their need to pray for an end to such madness. And it was in that prayer and in seeing the atrocities of Dachau that they met the living God, the one who suffers with his creation.

May their lesson and their prayer continue for all of us today.

Do you see what happens when Mel Gibson makes a movie?

Methinks that Papa Benedict might be re-thinking that bit of reconciliation with these guys.

NCR Reports:

In the wake of a global furor triggered by Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to lift the excommunication of four traditionalist Catholic bishops, including one who cast doubt on the Holocaust, another leader in the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X has questioned whether the Nazis used gas chambers for anything other than “disinfection,” and said that people who hold revisionist views on the Holocaust are not anti-Semites.

Fr. Floriano Abrahamowicz, a pastor and spokesperson for the Society of St. Pius X in northeastern Italy, also referred to Jews as “a people of deicide,” referring to the death of Christ, and suggested that the Jewish Holocaust has been “exalted” over what he called “other genocides,” such as the Allied bombing of German cities and the Israeli occupation of the Gaza strip.

On the other hand, Abrahamowicz insisted that the traditionalist movement founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre is not “anti-Semitic.” Among other things, Abrahamowicz said, he himself has Jewish roots on his father’s side.

From the interview itself when asked why people still cast doubt on the Shoah:

Because the whole history of humanity is marked by the people of Israel, who initially were the people of God, who then became the people of deicide, and who at the end of time will reconvert to Jesus Christ. Behind it all is a mysterious theological aspect, which is that of the people of God which rejected its Messiah and which still combats him. It’s a mystery of doctrine. Anti-Semitism is born from the illuminated liberal and Gnostic world. The church throughout history has always protected the Jews from pogroms, as one reads, for example, in Domenico Savino’s book on ritual homicide.

In fairness, after reading the interview, I think they may have put some words in this priests mouth, but it's still astounding that

OK, for the record:

Catholics believe the following:

1) The Jews did not kill Christ. Jesus was sacrificed for our sins.

2) The holocaust actually happened and the last two Popes saw what happened with their own eyes. They have become staunch supporters of order and of life because of their witness to what happens when you don't defend order and life. You get Auschwitz.

3) The Second Vatican Council is valid and every Pope since John XXIII is not evil.

I could go on but this is just starting to make me sad. Do you see what happens when they let Mel Gibson make a movie?

I will say one thing...there certainly have been other genocides in history including many recent ones. Rwanda is a good example. But I don't think that any were so systematically accepted by such a large number of people as was the case with the holocaust. We need people to never forget that moment in history or it will continue to spew hatred and death throughout the world.

A full interview with Fr. Abrahamowicz is found at the link.

New Faces of the Abortion Debate

A Good story on BustedHalo today about students from Boston who attended both the inauguration and the Pro-life rally.

But the more telling perspective comes not from these two extremes, but rather from the majority of students who find themselves somewhere between the “pro-life” and “pro-choice” labels. Overwhelmingly, students voice some support for a consistent ethic of life while grappling with many of the nuances intrinsic to the topic.

“I think that the consistent ethic of life is a good principle, and it’s very air tight,” said Junior Rob Finn. “In that sense, I think that it’s good thing. But in terms of my personal beliefs, I question certain parts of it.” Other students stated that while they ultimately hope to eliminate the need for abortion, for now a more practical solution is working to reduce abortion rates. “I feel strongly that no mother that finds out that she’s pregnant wants to have an abortion out of malice,” said McNeill. “She feels cornered and feels that she has no other alternative.” If the cultural ethos is changed to encourage women to have children, and young single mothers are supported through social programs, fewer women will ultimately seek abortions.

I agree with the author here. Most people are in the middle with regards to the practicality of how to end the issue of abortion. However, I also find a shift in thinking, especially amongst young women, who seem to be consistently saying that abortion is not a good idea because life begins at conception. At the very least, they don't think abortion a good solution and think most women resort to it because they see no other way out.

It's clear that this attitude represents a drastic change in thinking from other women who considered it simply their own right to do what they wanted to do with their body.

FOCA: Not to say I told you so but...

From CNS and a hat tip to Deacon Greg:

Internet rumors to the contrary, no Catholic hospital in the United States is in danger of closing because of the Freedom of Choice Act.

As a matter of fact, the Freedom of Choice Act died with the 110th Congress and, a week after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, has not been reintroduced.

But that hasn't kept misleading e-mails from flying around the Internet, warning of the dire consequences if Obama signs FOCA into law and promoting a "FOCA novena" in the days leading up to Inauguration Day.

And here's the final nail:

Said Bishop Robert N. Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla., an elected member of the CHA board of trustees since June 2006.

"But there is no plan to shut down any hospital if it passes," he added in a Jan. 26 telephone interview. "There's no sense of ominous danger threatening health care institutions."

So sit back and relax at home and figure out how to care for a pregnant teen today along with writing a letter to congress to ask them to support the unborn. While you're at it, take some time to care for the poor and ask congress to do that too. Oh yeah, perhaps you should pray for peace in the world while you're at it.

In other words, we have better things to do than to concern ourselves with FOCA.