The Ark and The Dove

Is an Abortion also a Rape?

The fact that I'm posing this as a question should make it clear that I'm contemplating this issue rather than asserting a thesis.

I'm going to put the actual thoughts in a continued post, since I realize this might not be a topic that all readers will want to consider.

I Suspect this Article is Blocked in China

Via Drudge...Rural Chinese couple complains about forced, late-term abortion.

Is there anything in the Constitution that definitively protects a married couple's right to give birth to children they have naturally conceived, and, if not, can we start an amendment?

Fr. Obi-wan

Here's a little reflection on Sir Alec Guiness's (Obi-wan Kenobi's) conversion to Catholicism. Obviously, it's an old piece, but worth reading.

Apparently, Guiness hated the Star Wars films (an opinion he shares with his cinematic successor)...which makes the following line from the previous reflection all the more poignant:

Now there's a scene. Picture someone confronting Guinness, moments after he had knelt to receive Holy Communion, and asking about Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Debunking Islam

Frustrated after discovering one of my library books was three weeks overdue, I tried to distract myself by getting lost in one of those Internet-wide search-engine sweeps. Jumping from link to link, I somehow ended up reading a rash of poorly written online disputes between Websites trying to debunk Islam and Websites trying to debunk the Christians trying to debunk Islam.

It led me to conclude the attempt to debunk Islam to a Muslim is pretty much doomed from the start.

Nobody wants to be told their faith is a lie, and any attempt to undermine another religion with logic is fraught with peril...since that same logic can often find seeming absurdities in one's own faith.

Just try to find a "logical" way of proving the Real Presence. It's a lot easier to "debunk" such a belief than it is to prove. All a "debunker" has to do is run a quick chemical test on it to "prove" it's bread. I'm afraid I'm becoming one of those people who always uses provocative quote marks, but hopefully you see my point. (Obviously, I don't believe it's really bread, but I know of no incontrovertible way to prove this to someone who believes otherwise...if I did, I don't think I'd spending my time writing this blog entry.)

Anyways, all these debunkers seem to really achieve is expressing their own frustration with the other side. They aren't really building bridges or making their faith seem more attractive.

And that's the key here. If Christianity is going to prove its worth, we need to show our non-Christian brothers and sisters what we are capable of achieving...not through signs and wonders, and not through intellectual bullying...but through lives that are holy because they freely choose what is good, and through lives that show mercy is stronger than punishment or retaliation.

The whole Middle East crisis is like a drawn out version of the scene at the end of most action movies...the one where two opposing characters are hanging off of a cliff and in danger of falling into a bottomless pit. They could help pull each other out, but one of them will probably try to kill the other, and end up falling headlong into the pit in the process. We want to make sure that we play the role of the protagonist who offers to help save his opposition despite their differences...and hopefully the other guy will break character this time.

Wrist Hurts

I picked up a copy of that new-fangled Guitar Hero II game this weekend. It was on sale.
Frightening how playing a virtual guitar can cause you actual pain.

Audience Analysis

Via Foxnews...

If you are an American soldier who wants to make friends with local villagers in a Muslim country, you might try to find something that has universal appeal. Soccer might seem just the thing. It's an international sport beloved by lots of non-Americans. Just look at how much joy and unity soccer brought to the Iraqis after their team's victories. And, as a sign of solidarity, you might even want to show that you appreciate their country by printing that country's flag on the soccer ball...
Whoops...
That was a mistake...especially if the country's flag has the name of Allah and Mohammed emblazoned on it. Now you have to apologize.
Granted, I don't think as a Catholic, I'd be exactly thrilled if someone gave me a soccer ball with an image of Christ crucified on it...but I don't think I would get all huffy about it.

Proposal for New Terps for Life Shirt

I am not endorsing the site I am about to link to. A lot of the shirts, while pretty funny, don't exactly send a message of willingness to engage in a dialogue. That being said, I think the Terps for Life would do better to wear this shirt than some of the more maudlin ones I've seen them sporting.

Hybrid, Clone, or Slave?

So Drudge linked to another piece on so-called "hybrid" embryos.

I still don't understand what makes them "hybrid." From what I gathered, scientists are essentially cloning human beings in animal eggs. My layman's lexicon doesn't really consider that a hybrid, but perhaps I don't really understand the process. To me, a hybrid creature would be a mixture of animal and human DNA. While a true hybrid still seems like a bad idea, I think one would have to pause to think about the moral and ethical consequences of that a bit more than just cloning people in animal cells. If we could grow limbs and organs in animals, that may or may not make those animals humans.

It's a paradoxical exercise to determine just how much humanity...or what part of humanity...does an animal have to possess before it becomes human?

According to the article:

The Catholic Church has made clear its opposition. Bishops told the parliamentary committee scrutinising a draft bill to allow the research to go ahead, that they opposed the creation of any embryo solely for research - they believe that all life begins at conception. They said they were also anxious to limit the destruction of such life once it had been brought into existence.

In a submission to the committee, they said: 'At the very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings, and be treated accordingly.'

"Anxious to limit the destruction of such life" seems like it might be a bit of understatement. And since when is the Church against the creation of any embryo for research? I don't think there is much concern in the Church about breeding rats and mice...

We're against creating a race of human slaves for science. The more I think about it, that's precisely what we're doing, isn't it? Sure, people like the GAP like to draw comparisons to slavery and the Holocaust, but we are really and truly breeding a race of human beings to exist as property of science, to exist solely to do work in a lab.

Embryos in a lab aren't merely dehumanized like slaves, they are, by definition, slaves in the truest sense. In a certain way, they are more enslaved than any other human beings have ever been before, since their very existence was at the command, whim, and will of their masters. Never before in the history of mankind has human life been so subject to the control of another person -- certainly never to the point where the most basic processes of life such as growth and development -- must first meet with approval of the master. I'll have to think more about this and blog again later...must work now...(speaking of slavery...)

So Many Candidates, So Few Choices...

I stumbled across an article about this site: Catholics Against Rudy.
I'm not advocating the site one way or another...at least I'm not advocating it any more than I'm advocating (or denigrating) one political candidate over another.

Every time I think about the next presidential election, I keep hearing the Simon and Garfunkel line "Laugh about it, shout about it when you've got to choose, every way you look at this you lose..."

Mother Teresa: Patron Saint of Hypocrisy?

(Via Drudge)

At least, that's the view that Time Magazine at first spins in its piece on the new book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. Here's a passage from the article:

The two statements, 11 weeks apart, are extravagantly dissonant. The first is typical of the woman the world thought it knew. The second sounds as though it had wandered in from some 1950s existentialist drama. Together they suggest a startling portrait in self-contradiction — that one of the great human icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera, was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape from which the deity had disappeared.

The article makes sure to quote a passage from a letter the book in which

The more success Teresa had — and half a year later so many young women had joined her society that she needed to move again — the worse she felt. In March 1953, she wrote Périer, "Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started 'the work.'"

The article goes on to offer scores of explanations for her "darkness", from a range of Catholic theologians to atheist psychologists. Ultimately, the article is trying to generate some dramatic conflict to propel the reader through another six pages, and it's thirst for such conflict means that a lot of the complexities of debate over her letters' meanings get oversimplified for the sake of exciting disagreement. The article does at least end with a positive concession to believers who might take heart in facing their own doubts after seeing how much Teresa did despite her even graver doubts...but you have to read the article all the way to the end to get to that.