Chaput, Charles J., O.F.M. Cap., Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life. New York: Doubleday, 2008. 258 pp.

This timely book by the Archbishop of Denver is of crucial importance for all American Catholics, who should all be struggling to combat the “culture of death” and develop the “culture of life.” One of his major reasons for writing the book was that he was becoming increasingly tired “of the church and her people being told to be quiet on public issues that urgently concern us” (p. 3). He wrote it to challenge “all of us who call ourselves Catholic…to recover what it really means to be ‘Catholic.’…[and] to find again the courage to be Catholic Christians first—not in opposition to our country, but to serve its best interests” (p. 7). Although speaking as an American Catholic to American Catholics, he hopes “many other people of good heart will see the importance of these issues and find value in these pages” (pp. 6-7).

Initiative 1000 in Washington State would legalize assisted suicide, permitting a doctor to give a lethal overdose to a
patient if the doctor feels that the patient is likely to die within six months.

!!Action Item!!

Stand with us in support of the University of San Diego's decision to keep its Theology Department free from heresy.  It was the right decision, and shows the kind of academic leadership Pope Benedict asked Catholic educators to demonstrate when he visited the United States earlier this year.  Read more to sign the petition.

Although they were misleading, Senator Pelosi’s comments on Meet the Press were not entirely incorrect.  Responding to Tom Brokaw, who asked: “Help me out here, Madame Speaker.  When does life begin?”  Pelosi replied, “the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition…  I don’t think anyone can tell you when life begins—human life.  As I say, the Catholic Church for centuries has been discussing this.”  When Brokaw countered saying, “The Catholic Church at the moment feels very strongly that it begins at the point of conception.”  Pelosi replied: “over the history of the Church, this is an issue of controversy.”  Strictly speaking, she is right; the precise moment of the beginning of human life was disputed by theologians for centuries.  John Connery’s classic work on the development of the Roman Catholic teaching on abortion makes this clear (see John Connery, S.J., Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective, Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1977).  The controversy concerned the question of the moment of ensoulment. A centuries old position, relying on Aristotelian embryology, was that the human soul was infused by God forty to eighty days after conception, depending on the sex of the fetus.  Some theologians held that before this time the fetus was not human.  Based upon the best empirical evidence available at the time, this was not unreasonable to hold.

 
“[T]he first thing I will do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.”
Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama
July 17, 2007, Address to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Just over a year ago, the public debate over abortion was irrevocably altered.  In the landmark Gonzales v. Carhart decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortion and, more importantly, abdicated, at least in part, its role as the “National Abortion Control Board.”

Contemporary Western societies such as ours are marked by what Professor Robert George has called the “Clash of Orthodoxies.” The dominant view among the elites of those societies can be, I believe, summed up in the slogan, rooted in the culture of death, that “No unwanted person ought ever to be born.” Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, offers Catholics (and in my judgment others of good will and open mind) a real challenge: to transform the world in which they live so that it is dedicated to the truth, central to the culture of life and civilization of love, that “no person, whether born or unborn, weak or strong, is to be unwanted, i.e., unloved.”

Denise M. Burke is the Vice President & Legal Director, Americans United for Life

Over the last few decades, abortion advocates and others have launched a concerted campaign to force hospitals, healthcare institutions, health insurers, and individual healthcare providers to provide, refer for, or pay for elective abortions, abortifacient drugs, contraceptives, assisted reproductive procedures such as in vitro fertilization, and sterilizations.  Their determined effort to eviscerate the concept of individual conscience and the freedom to follow one’s religious, moral or ethical beliefs from the medical profession has resulted in the following:

Translated by William E. May
Michael J. McGivney Professor of Moral Theology
John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at
The Catholic University of America

Author, Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life

Michael J. McGivney Professor of Moral Theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute at The Catholic University of America and Culture of Life Foundation Contributor

“Without dissecting in detail the ethical dilemma brought on by using vaccines originally developed from induced abortions, what are we as faithful Catholics to do? It is important to note that some countries have produced and are using vaccines derived from nonhuman tissue, such as the Japanese rubella vaccine grown with the use of rabbit kidney cells. Unfortunately, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve the use of these particular vaccines in the United States.”

As medical technology advances and the body of medical knowledge increases, the amount of medical information on the ability of a fetus to experience pain continues to grow as well. These scientific advancements have prompted medical, legal, and ethical dialogue on the following questions: At what stage in fetal development can a fetus experience pain, and what impact would this information have on women and abortion law in the United States?

"The Dictatorship of Relativism"

By Most Reverend Robert C. Morlino – Bishop of Madison

April 7, 2006

Bishop Morlino brilliantly explains the metaphor, 'The Dictatorship of Relativism' coined by Pope Benedict XVI, how it flourishes in our contemporary culture and how it undergirds the Culture of Death.

Officials at the National Institutes of Health conceded that the data necessary to replicate a New Zealand study linking abortion with depression do not exist in America. The admission came in a reply to a letter from Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) seeking the NIH's "advice on searching out the best US research data on the effects of abortion on women in the United States."

Apparently responding to Catholic bishops who spoke out in 2004 about the obligations of Catholics in public life to oppose legal abortion, 55 Catholic Democratic members of Congress have released a "Statement of Principles." Though the letter attempts to declare the signatories strong support for the dignity of life the document refuses to call for outlawing abortion and instead declares that "we acknowledge and accept the tension that comes with being in disagreement with the Church in some areas."

We face an unavoidable problem once we accept the creation of a subcategory of human beings which we call "persons."