But life is more complicated than a snapshot poll can ever show. The
pollsters make three mistakes. First, they presume that people are
telling the truth. The fact that voters regularly say that they back gay
marriage yet always vote it down in popular referenda, proves that many
don’t like owning up to their own prejudices over the telephone.
Second, while the headline figures in these polls show majority support
for the equal availability of contraception, other findings within the
same reports sometimes articulate unease about compelling Catholic
organisations to provide it (in this poll,
Catholics voice support for exemptions for religious institutions).
There’s an obvious difference between personally thinking contraception
is okay but not wanting to see others forced to share your view. No one
would mandate a kosher kitchen to serve up pork, no matter how good it
might taste... (continued)
(Hot Air) In the clearest statement of what’s at stake for Catholic employers when it comes to the Obamacare contraception mandate, a leading Catholic cardinal recently said that it is, in fact, a sin for employers to comply with the mandate.
Cardinal Raymond Burke told EWTN’s Thomas McKenna that Catholic employers would not only be guilty of material cooperation with sin, but also formal cooperation because they would knowingly and deliberately be providing employees with contraception:
Thomas McKenna: “So a Catholic employer, really getting down to it, he does not, or she does not provide this because that way they would be, in a sense, cooperating with the sin … the sin of contraception or the sin of providing a contraceptive that would abort a child, is this correct?”
Cardinal Burke: “This is correct. It is not only a matter of what we call “material cooperation” in the sense that the employer by giving this insurance benefit is materially providing for the contraception but it is also “formal cooperation” because he is knowingly and deliberately doing this, making this available to people. There is no way to justify it. It is simply wrong.”
Responding to the comments, [former executive director of HLI America Jenn] Giroux says, “This comment by a high ranking Cardinal is the clearest explanation to date on the issue of an employer’s culpability when providing contraception, sterilization, and abortion inducing drug options in the insurance plans for employees.”
It’s easy to see that this statement might come as a surprise even to the most faithful of Catholics, who are taught that an individual must freely consent to sin to bear full responsibility for it. Under the mandate, do employers really have the freedom not to consent? Cardinal Burke is telling them that, yes, they do. They have the freedom, for example, to get out of whatever business it is they’re running. They have the freedom to not have employees. They have the freedom to ignore the mandate and suffer the legal consequences. Burke’s comments are a hard call to faithfulness to all those Catholic employers who have been outraged by the mandate but might have been tempted to justify their ultimate compliance with it with that perennial of excuses: “I had no choice.” The seriousness of Burke’s words are also a warning to the Obama administration: He is saying that Catholic employers should go out of business before they comply with the mandate. Just as opponents have said from the very beginning, the mandate does, in fact, endanger the very existence of Catholic hospitals, schools and other charitable organizations. The president had better think long and hard about whether contraception coverage is more important to him than broader health care, education and help for the poor.
(The Christian Post) An atheist activist group is fighting the Catholic Church's "war against contraception" by stepping up its campaign that suggests believers should end their faithfulness to their religion.
The Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation plans to run a full-page ad in The New York Times that states, "It's Time to Quit the Catholic Church." FFRF is conducting a fundraiser to pay for the $52,000 ad and has collected $45,000 so far, according to a chart on the group's website.
The FFRF campaign began last month in light of opposition from the Catholic Church to the Obama administration's decision that seeks to guarantee employees of church and ministry-affiliated institutions reproductive health coverage, including contraception, abortifacients and sterilization.
"Dear 'Liberal' Catholic," an open letter written by the group's co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, begins. "It's time to quit the Roman Catholic Church. It's your moment of truth. Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages? Do you choose women and their rights, or Bishops and their wrongs? Whose side are you on, anyway?"
Gaylor called the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops' opposition to mandatory free contraception to employees of religious organizations a "ruthless campaign endangering the right to contraception."
"If you're part of the Catholic Church, you're part of the problem," she continued. "Why are you propping up the pillars of a tyrannical and autocratic, woman-hating, sex-perverting, antediluvian Old Boys Club? Why are you aiding and abetting a church that has repeatedly and publicly announced a crusade to ban contraception, abortion and sterilization, and to deny the right of all women everywhere, Catholic or not, to decide whether and when to become mothers? When it comes to reproductive freedom, the Roman Catholic Church is Public Enemy Number One."
Last Thursday, the Senate rejected by a 51-48 vote a bill that would have permitted religious employers to refuse to cover medical services that violated their moral and religious convictions.
A Catholic political action group is targeting the 13 Democratic senators who supported the contraception mandate and is making plans to defeat those who are up for reelection in November.
"Faithful Catholics should take the opportunity to thank those Senators supporting our religious liberties," said Matt Smith, president of the Catholic Advocate, a group that encourages Catholics to be active in the political process. "It is our duty as laity to hold those who did not support our values accountable and vote our conscience when the time comes."
Evangelical columnist Chuck Colson recently argued that the way the issue of free contraception through health care has played out among its supporters is deceitful and "downright shameful."
"They say this is all about protecting women's access to contraception. This is, folks, the biggest red herring I've seen in politics. It's garbage, and they know it," Colson said. "Shame on them. Nobody is saying they shouldn't have access to contraceptives. Any woman can go to virtually any drug store and purchase them. Even drugs that induce abortion. As I told you last week, these things are even available in vending machines now!"
The scathing letter against Catholics by Gaylor included a paragraph that reads: "You're better than your church. So why? Why continue to attend Mass? Tithe? Why dutifully sacrifice to send your children to parochial schools so they can be brainwashed into the next generation of myrmidons (and, potentially, become the next Church victims)?"
Gaylor continued, "It is disgraceful that U.S. health care reform is being held hostage to the Catholic Church's bizarre opposition to medically prescribed contraception. No politician should jeopardize electability for failure to genuflect before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops."
However, Colson wrote that the national debate is not really about contraception.
"Folks, women's access to contraception is not the issue here. They have it. In spades. What's really going on is that the Obama Administration wants women to have access to FREE contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. It's an ideological imperative for them. And such niceties as the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom just don't matter in comparison," Colson stated.
"Make no mistake: What we are witnessing is indeed the leading edge of tyranny," Colson concluded.
At a young age, many women start imagining who their Prince Charming will be: what he’ll look like, what interests he’ll have, if he’ll have a sense of humor and so forth. However, it’s very unlikely that Prince Charming will literally come galloping in on a horse and sweep us off our feet. In fact, ladies, listen up, or chances are fairly good that you could end up with someone who is a complete loser and not your type at all … that is, if you're on the birth control pill.
As you may have experienced yourself, when you first meet someone, there may be an immediate attraction. In fact, when people speak of “love at first sight,” what they really mean is that they feel an immediate surge of emotion when they meet a person of the opposite sex. A chemical attraction can occur between a male and a female as a result of hormones called pheromones, which are exchanged through the olfactory nerves – that is, our sense of smell. The more a male and female are biologically compatible (able to reproduce with each other), the more likely they will be attracted to each other. Couples with different genes are usually more biologically compatible (more likely to have healthy children and less likely to experience infertility and miscarriages).
In August, scientists at the University of Liverpool published a new study showing that the birth control pill can dramatically affect this natural phenomenon. The study found that "when the women started taking the Pill, their preferences shifted towards the scent of men with more similar genes to their own."
What does this mean? It means that there is mounting evidence that the pill can seriously disturb a woman’s healthy, natural tendency to be drawn toward a mate with different immune system genes. This, in turn, can lead to having a genetically similar mate, which increases the risk of infertility and miscarriages. It also means that the pill can change a woman’s love interest so much that she could end up in a relationship with someone to whom she normally wouldn’t be attracted. The study concludes, "If odour plays a significant role in actual human mate choice… our results indicate that use of the contraceptive pill could lead to choice of an otherwise less preferred partner.”
This leads to yet another very serious problem. Since a woman taking the pill is thus more likely to end up with a husband she wouldn’t naturally have chosen, when she decides to go off the pill, she may find she is not attracted to her husband any longer. Craig Roberts, the Liverpool study's lead researcher, said, “It could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odour perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners.”
A similar study was conducted in 1995 by a German researcher, Claus Wedekind, at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Lionel Tiger, Ph.D., an author and the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University, discussed Wedekind’s research in his book The Decline of Males. The women who were not on the birth control pill “preferred the scents of men socially regarded as desirable potential mates… However, women using oral contraceptives reversed [italics in the original] their preferences and chose inappropriate partners.”
The growing amount of scientific evidence should be a wake-up call for women who are on the birth control pill. This drug can seriously harm a woman’s system in so many ways. You may have heard of the pill's possible side effects, such as weight gain and depression. But the pill can also increase a woman’s chances of getting a blood clot or breast cancer. And thanks to pro-life doctors and pro-life organizations such as Pharmacists for Life International and American Life League, many women are finally learning that the pill can kill (visit www.thepillkills.com). It can actually cause early chemical abortions. But if that isn’t enough, the pill can also radically change women's perceptions about whom they should date and marry. So, if you’re a woman seeking the man of your dreams, you probably won’t find him if you’re taking the birth control pill. You might find someone to settle down with, but once you go off the pill, the veil of tainted fascination will be lifted and you might realize that the choices you made while on the pill were not in your best interest. In fact, you might actually meet your perfect match, your Prince Charming, but since you are on the pill, you may not even recognize him. Instead, you may well find yourself in one failed relationship after another.
The birth control pill, which burst onto the scene in the 1960s, may represent sexual freedom to some, but in reality, it causes far more problems than the average American realizes. The University of Liverpool study is just the latest evidence of the havoc wreaked by the contraceptive culture.
Marie Hahnenberg is researcher for American Life League and project manager of The Pill Kills project. (www.thepillkills.com).
(Scientific American) This year 2.25 million Americans will get married—and a million will get divorced. Could birth control be to blame for some of these breakups? Recent research suggests that the contraceptive pill—which prevents women from ovulating by fooling their body into believing it is pregnant—could affect which types of men women desire. Going on or off the pill during a relationship, therefore, may tempt a woman away from her man.
It’s all about scent. Hidden in a man’s smell are clues about his major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, which play an important role in immune system surveillance. Studies suggest that females prefer the scent of males whose MHC genes differ from their own, a preference that has probably evolved because it helps offspring survive: couples with different MHC genes are less likely to be related to each other than couples with similar genes are, and their children are born with more varied MHC profiles and thus more robust immune systems.
A study published in August in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, however, suggests that women on the pill undergo a shift in preference toward men who share similar MHC genes. The female subjects were more likely to rate these genetically similar men’s scents (via a T-shirt the men had worn for two nights) as pleasant and desirable after they went on the pill as compared with before. Although no one knows why the pill affects attraction, some scientists believe that pregnancy—or in this case, the hormonal changes that mimic pregnancy—draws women toward nurturing relatives.
Women who start or stop taking the pill, then, may be in for some relationship problems. A study published last year in Psychological Science found that women paired with MHC-similar men are less sexually satisfied and more likely to cheat on their partners than women paired with MHC-dissimilar men. So a woman on the pill, for example, might be more likely to start dating a MHC-similar man, but he could ultimately leave her less sexually satisfied. Then if she goes off the pill during the relationship, the accompanying hormonal changes will draw her even more strongly toward more MHC-dissimilar men. These immune genes may have a “powerful effect in terms of how well relationships are cemented,” says University of Liverpool psychologist Craig Roberts, co-author of the August paper.
Note: This article was originally published with the title, "A Tough Pill to Swallow".
Then this response [with my comments] was posted by Father Jonathan Morris, Fox News Analyst and at the time, rector of the Legionaires of Christ seminary in Rome:
An Open Letter to Sean Hannity
By Father Jonathan Morris
Dear Sean,
As I watched a fellow Catholic priest spar with you on the March 9 edition of Hannity and Colmes, I hung my head in shame and sadness. My colleague in religion (whom I've never met) used the public airways and Internet to call you a heretic and hypocrite. Because he chose to do this in a public forum, I want you and your viewers to know, publicly, that as an analyst of this television network, I believe this good priest, who does great work, exercised, on this occasion, shockingly poor judgment. I consider his willingness to give his personal opinion about your status within the Church inappropriate and ill-considered, to say the least.
Regardless of the issue and arguments at hand [the issue was artificial contraception and dissent from Church teachings, teachings which Fr. Euteneuer accurately described and defended, and which Fr. Morris apparently isn't willing to bring up in this letter], brandishing law without palpable love almost always repels. I must assume he just made an honest mistake. [by using the term "mistake," here, Fr. Morris may be implying unintentionally to the reader that Fr. Euteneuer was wrong about Church teaching, and he was not.]
The unfortunate event reminded me of the bigger question of the fast-eroding credibility among religious leaders in our nation and its causes.
I should start, or rather continue, at home with the Catholic Church, your church and mine. As you rightly stated in the same television segment, the systematic cover-up of sexual abuse within some sectors of Catholic Church leadership was a monstrous scandal and its effects will be long-lasting. Even those priests who were not involved in the mess, as I am sure is the case with the priest in question, can never forget that those of us who wear a clerical collar still conjure up painful memories in many people's minds. The strange looks and rash judgments to which we are at times subjected is not the people's fault; it's ours, in as much as we are members of a very guilty family.
In this light, before we clergy members speak out publicly against public offenses, as sometimes we must do, we should ask ourselves and God why we are doing what we are doing, and what the best way to do it is, according to the circumstances, and always with palpable love. The question is not only if what we have to say is correct, but where, when, and how we should say it. I, for one, would have communicated my beliefs in a different way on more than one occasion if I had followed this advice.
I would be remiss if I were to suggest that the loss of religious credibility begins and ends with Catholic leaders. When we hear television evangelists wonder out loud whether Ariel Sharon's stroke might be God's judgment on him for making territorial concessions to the Palestinians, we lose trust. When, year after year, we listen to self-proclaimed prophets predict the day and the hour of the “end-times,” we lose trust. When we turn on the television and hear preachers promise heaven on earth if we give, give, give to the Church — their church — we lose trust. When we hear mainline Protestant pastors and their associations throw Biblical tradition to the wind and make wishy-washy statements about faith and morality, we lose trust.
The non-Christian religions are in even worse shape regarding leadership credibility. Is there a single Muslim imam who stands out today for his national leadership toward peace? What Muslim scholar can we trust to speak with scholarly proficiency and universal authority about the alleged peaceful nature of Islam?
The Jewish community in America is so splintered and disjointed on themes of dogma and religious tradition, it is difficult to find anyone who speaks for the majority, or even for the masses.
Here's my point:
When we believe we have discovered truth and, therefore, we believe others are wrong — a sign of cultivated intelligence, not pride — we must reject the temptation to throw civility to the wind. Being right always didn't ever inspire Jesus to jeopardize people's reputation or dignity. It went against his very nature, and it should go against ours too. Sometimes he spoke harshly, but he always spoke in love, and he made sure people knew it.
Sean, I don't always agree with you and Alan, as I have told both of you in person, but I think you are both honest, and both have the humility and courage to accept truth when you stumble across it, even when it comes in bits and pieces. I think it's precisely this three-pronged attitude of honesty, humility and courage that best prepares us, with all of our imperfections, for heaven.
Here is Father Thomas Euteneuer's polite but firm response to the brother priest who publically chastised him for taking a stand. (Via Spirit Daily) The red highlights are mine. What happened to fraternal correction? It seems that those who speak out against what is wrong are the ones who get corrected.
Dear Father Jonathan,
Your letter to Sean Hannity indicates that you did not know that I asked to speak to him in private about this matter in 2004 otherwise you may have tempered your remarks about my supposed lack of charity in dealing with a high profile Catholic who dissents from clearly-defined and reiterated Church teachings....You also seemed to be unaware of the fact that Sean was the one who invited me on his program and who then promptly “[threw] civility to the wind,” refused to display “cultivated intelligence” on the issues and jeopardized another person’s “reputation and dignity.” May I also point out that you did not employ with me the same standard of “fraternal correction” that you expected me to employ with Mr. Hannity. I at least made the attempt to speak to him about this issue in private without success; you, in contrast, went immediately to the internet to take me to task. I do not intend to understand your motives; I can only evaluate what I see in your actions.
The question that comes to mind is an obvious one: if you are a Fox analyst on Catholic matters, wouldn’t you have been the one to have had those “private conversations” on birth control with Mr. Hannity? How about discussions on his abortion exceptions? When you told Sean “in person” that you “disagreed with him,” was it on the issue of birth control? If you had done that, I applaud you, but your powers of persuasion may need a little honing—Sean has only gotten more vocal on this issue over time. If you did not speak to him about his public dissent, then I ask you, “Why?” While we are on the subject, have you also analyzed and disagreed with Bill O’Reilly’s perfectly horrible disdain for the Holy Father and the Church that you represent?
The church sex abuse scandal was not just about homosexual and predatory priests. It was about clerical negligence and silence on issues that not only affect people’s souls but also ruin people’s lives. It is highly unusual that you or anyone else would want a priest to be silent on issues that affect the salvation of souls. We used to recognize “admonishing the sinner” as one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy, and I consider my admonishment of Mr. Hannity to have been done in that spirit. I might also add that in doing so I have fulfilled my duty as a priest which is a requirement for my salvation.
As a seminary rector, I would sincerely hope that you are not teaching by word or example the young men in your charge to be politically correct sissies who are afraid to roll up their sleeves and defend the Church in private and in public. We have tons of those types in the clergy already. I would advise you to drink deeply of the wisdom of the Number Two man at our Headquarters who has in no uncertain terms told all of us that high profile dissenters are a scourge and a danger to souls. [See item: “Bertone: Dissident Catholics More Worrying Than Atheists.” http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07011003.html.]
I wish you fraternal blessings for your priestly work.
(The Telegraph) On Monday, 43 Catholic institutions filed lawsuits against the White House
in protest at its contraception mandate. The culture war just got
hotter, and we just moved a few steps closer to Obama’s eventual defeat.
(Scientific American) This year 2.25 million Americans will get married—and a million will get divorced. Could birth control be to blame for some of these breakups? Recent research suggests that the contraceptive pill—which prevents women from ovulating by fooling their body into believing it is pregnant—could affect which types of men women desire. Going on or off the pill during a relationship, therefore, may tempt a woman away from her man.
