June 2011 Archives

Philip Lawler links to an article in Boston College Magazine about how Cardinal Cushing and the Archdiocese of Boston tacitly promoted - or allowed themselves to be used to promote - the legalization of contraception in Massachusetts:

...the archdiocese had begun quietly planning for a change in the law even before Dukakis [yes, that Dukakis, in 1965] introduced his formal bid for repeal.

In 1963, the article reports, Cardinal Cushing was a guest on a radio call-in show. One caller asked the cardinal about his stance on the contraceptive ban, and he replied: “I have no right to impose my thinking, which is rooted in religious thought, on those who do not think as I do.”

At the time of that broadcast, listeners in the Boston area did not know the identity of the woman who called in with the question that drew that response. But now, thanks to Boston College Magazine, we know that it was Hazel Sagoff, the executive director of Planned Parenthood. There is reason to believe that both Sagoff’s call and the cardinal’s response had been arranged in advance. (emphasis added)

To put things in perspective:

The first birth control pill was brought to market in the US in 1959-60.

The Second Vatican Council began October 11, 1962.

Cardinal Cushing went on the radio show on February 15, 1963.

In April, 1963, Pope John XXIII established the Pontifical Commission on Population, Family, and Birthrate, "to prepare for the Holy See’s participation in a conference organized by the United Nations and the World Health Organization." This Commission becomes known as "the birth control commission."

In June, 1964, Pope Paul VI expanded the membership of the Pontifical Commission.

In summer, 1964, the Kennedy family invited a team of theologians, including John Courtney Murray and Charles Curran, to Hyannisport to come up with justifications for a Catholic politician to support legalizing abortion. Fr. Murray was a major influence on Cardinal Cushing.

In 1964, the Council Fathers of Vatican II "deferred decisions on marital morality to the Pope."

In 1965, Michael Dukakis introduced the repeal ban in the Massachusetts legislature. Journalists at the Boston archdiocese's paper The Pilot were instructed not to comment on the legislation. Lay Catholic representatives in the lower house banded together, and the bill was defeated.

On June 7, 1965, SCOTUS issued the Griswold v. Connecticut decision.

In 1966, the Governor of Massachusetts set up a commission to study the birth control issue. Cardinal Cushing wrote to the commission that Catholics "do not seek to impose by law their moral view on other members of society." The repeal ban came up again in the MA legislature and passes.

In the fall of 1966, rumors started swirling that the Church would soon change her teaching on artificial birth control. In 1967, some of the Pontifical Commission's documents were leaked in English and French translation and were spun as support for these rumors.

Humanae Vitae was promulgated in 1968.

UPDATED: Link to Humanae Vitae. If you haven't read it, what are you wasting your time here for? I, lege!

Also fixed some grammar errors in the timeline....

"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering."

--Dr Who

Poor Joplin

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>Aggressive fungus compounds tornado trauma:

Kendra Williams, the administrator of community health and epidemiology for the health department, said the common fungus likely came from soil or vegetative materials imbedded in the skin by the force of the tornado.

HT: MCJ

And here's a different video of the same trick, but slower and with English explanations.

Thanks Anchoress!

CatholicCulture.org's take (emphases added):

This site has a long history of carelessness concerning fidelity to the Magisterium. Although its material is constantly changing, there is a continued pattern of failure to screen out organizations and materials which are unfaithful to the teachings of the Church....

There have been over $200,000 worth of judgments and liens filled against Michael Galloway, the owner of Catholic Online, for unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business acts and practices....

...a significant number of Catholic webmasters have reported that Catholic Online has repeatedly taken materials developed by others and posted them as its own. The Catholic Encyclopedia, which was put online through a collaborative effort organized by Kevin Knight of New Advent, is one significant example, and Trinity Communications (the non-profit corporation that runs CatholicCulture.org) is by no means alone in reporting similar experiences....

Just posted on Feminine Geniuses: Link to the Mean Girls in the Nursing Home article, plus new demotivator

7_quick_takes_sm.jpg


1.

Oh dear -- I've gone and done it. I've offered myself up to teach CCD. I'm hoping to find myself teaching Hambet and some of his crew, but we'll have to see how it goes. Prayers and advice appreciated!


2.

Today is a good day to start a Novena to the Holy Spirit:

O Lord Jesus Christ Who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Your work in the souls of Your Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me that He may perfect in my soul, the work of Your grace and Your love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth, the Spirit on Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with You and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, and the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord with the sign of Your true disciples, and animate me in all things with Your Spirit. Amen.

Read more: http://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/pentecost/seven_tx.htm#ixzz1OFQis1Lw


3.

I haven't heard any from Catholic Online yet. We did heard someone who's asked Catholic Online similar questions about other articles, with no good answer. And on our Facebook page, another reader shared a couple of links about the company's founder:

Bakersfield man accused of scamming in God's name...

...and sues group of disabled nuns

4.

"In praise of the narrow life":

..."the more experiences, the better" is a philosophy I had to think about a little more. At first, I liked it. It sounded brave.... [But] the more I read this inspiring message in different forms, the more it didn't sit right.

Risk more, have adventures, amass a collection of life experiences of variety and intensity. Run don't walk, throw yourself into every new exploit, and at the end of your life, greet feeble old age with a kind of post-coital exhaustion, knowing that you have wrung out of life every drop of excitement you could.

It sounds exhausting. It does not sound peaceful. But more than that, when I think of the people I respect most in life, the people I most want to be like, this describes none of them.

When I think about it, the people I respect most are people who create peace. And they are almost always people who chose one path and followed it to the end, instead of exploring every branch.

Hat tip: Jen

5.

Garden report! I'm tickled that so many people seem to be trying out square-foot gardening; a store around here was even selling kits for building the beds.

This has been our first spring in the new house and I was slow getting started. We don't really have a good spot for a vegetable garden - at least, not all in one place. I set up a couple of whiskey-barrel planters and have been harvesting our first crop of spring mix. There are some sunny spots amid the flowering shrubs where I plan to stick some basil, rosemary, and a tomato plant. The big thing has been weeding, weeding, weeding - our sellers kind of let things go last year, and when we first moved in we had other projects that needed to come first. I've also been doing a lot of pruning, which is doing weird things to my mind; when I take the dog out for the evening walk, I find myself looking at every shrub and tree branch and thinking about where I'd make my first pruning cuts.

6.

I have no idea what I'm going to make for supper tonight.

7.

Would be grateful for your prayers for two intentions - I can't go into specifics, but they involve healing in two different families.

8.

DIY stink bug trap!

Yesterday I wrote about finding some Ratzi-the-Nazi disinformation in a Catholic Online article.

I posted a comment on Catholic Online about the most glaring issue. My comment was posted, and the article was corrected - but there was no acknowledgement that the article had been changed, and no response to my comment.

Last night, I submitted another comment pointing out that it's usual to acknowledge a correction. That comment hasn't been released from moderation.

There were still some sections of the article that bothered me. The original line, "Joseph Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth in 1941 when, according to him and his supporters, it became compulsory for all German boys" had 338 Google hits. So just out of curiosity, I searched on some of the other text of the article - a nice, long chunk of text:

Resistance to the Nazis was dangerous and difficult, but not impossible. A few hundred yards away from his family home, a family hid Hans Braxenthaler, a local resistance fighter who shot himself rather than be captured again. The SS regularly searched local homes for resistance members, so the Ratzingers could not have been unaware about resistance efforts.

I got 41 hits. The first result on both searches was to the atheism.about.com page on Pope Benedict XVI.

Surprise, surprise - huge chunks of the atheism.about.com article (which is credited to Austin Cline) were copied, pasted, and rearranged into the Catholic Online article. Sometimes they were fluffed up a bit; Cline writes, "Ratzinger believes that greater fidelity to Catholic doctrine, as defined by the Vatican, is necessary to counter movements like Nazism." This line became "The pope believes that greater fidelity to the truth as revealed in the Natural Law, confirmed and expounded upon by revelation, taught and defended by the magisterium of the Church is necessary to counter movements like Nazism." in the Catholic Online article.

g

Here's a screenshot of the Catholic Online article, pulled this morning

and of the Atheism.about.org article, also pulled this morning.

So, again,

Who wrote this article?
Why is a plagiarist working for Catholic Online?
Why is someone who plagiarizes from sources hostile to the Church writing for Catholic Online?
How did an article with this tone make it onto Catholic Online?


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