I don't have any anger or need for revenge […] I'm more about the signs of justice. If justice would've (meant) a sentence of life imprisonment and it was carried out, I would've been satisfied. But I still think terrorists should get the death penalty.So Mr. Quayle sees that the death penalty is not a matter of revenge, but of justice. If a non-lethal punishment could balance the scales of justice then let it be imposed. But the case of the Bali bombers is clearly not such a case. And there is not even a shadow of a doubt that the right men have been convicted, so there is no chance of wrongful execution.
recent furore over WA Labor MP Melissa Parke's warning that the execution of the Bali bombers "will only decrease our human dignity" - a claim that angered victims' families.We need firstly to distinguish between human ontological dignity and human operative dignity. The former is man’s orientation towards a transcendent goal, namely God, and cannot be extinguished, not even in the damned, so there can be no question of this being ‘decreased’. Man’s operative dignity, though, increases or decreases according to what he does. Clearly the Bali bombers lost their operative dignity through their heinous crime, by which they also forfeited their right to life, but a just executioner will suffer no loss of operative dignity for carrying out the death penalty, since he acts on behalf of the civil authorities, “to whom is entrusted power of life and death” (Catechism of the Council of Trent, http://www.catecheticsonline.com/Trent3.php).
NarrationThe medical team went ahead with its collective decision: to end the woman’s pregnancy.Dr de CrespignyThe procedure for terminating a pregnancy beyond around 24 weeks is a 2 stage one. The first step is to do a foetal injection so that the foetus is not born alive.Obviously it's never an easy process. People do find it difficult, as I do, particularly at this late stage and the second step then is to bring on labour. So I carried out the injection and the patient then went to the labour ward and had labour induced. I didn’t see her again after that.
Beth Wilson, Health Services CommissionerIt was shocking to me that somebody, especially a politician, would distribute the name of a patient in those circumstances. He makes no secrets of his beliefs, he is anti-abortion, that’s fine. He can have his own particular views but to breach a patient’s privacy in those circumstances is, I think unethical and immoral.
Dr de CrespignyForever on Trial was a reference to Kafka’s book, the Trial, in which somebody is charged with a crime they don't know what it is. And their whole life gets filled with this case. So it increasingly there's no time for anything else. And this was very much the way I felt this case was.
Beth Wilson, Health Services CommissionerThis long slow sorry saga which in my view should never really have happened did have some good outcomes as well. The government responded by recognising that we need to have good clear laws to guide everybody.
(my emphasis)
Whyever not that particular case? His actions in that situation are no longer regarded as criminal, but as mandatory!Dr De Campo[Dr. de Crespigny has] been an advocate for change even in adversity actually, he has contributed to the debate by being public about it when he could be…. [sic] maybe it took a lot out of him to achieve reform and he feels exhausted…[sic] But I think he could look back at the reform proudly… [sic] if not this case.
(my emphasis)
If anyone says that by these words: "Do this for a commemoration of me" [ Luke 22:19;1 Cor. 11:24], Christ did not make the apostles priests, or did not ordain that they and other priests might offer His own body and blood: let him be anathemaMr. Tom McMahon has taken the opportunity in his latest post to undermine Christian Marriage. In an article on so-called ‘gay marriage’ in which he fails to develop any coherent argument, preferring instead to throw around wild calumnies, he reveals his radical historical materialism:
(Council of Trent, Session XXII, can. 2
Dz. 949, http://www.catecheticsonline.com/SourcesofDogma10.php)
the Roman Church's interest in marriage was mainly in royal and political unions. With the coming of the industrial revolution and ownership of private property by a budding middle class, the Catholic church moved in to take advantage with its laws and prohibitions ……. [sic] follow the money trail.Then, rather than explain how ‘gay marriage’ could possibly be anything other than a legal, natural and moral absurdity, he asserts that “[t]he issue is medical and scientific and yet because it relates to sexuality the Roman stand pathetically brands it all as an evil.” Well, I’m not sure what to call something that tends to anal fissures and genital warts (not to mention A.I.D.S. and syphilis if one is particularly unlucky) other than an evil.
85% of women in the 700-year period of the Middle Ages never experienced marriage, subject to the ancient Roman practice of consortium wherein a father leases/sells his daughter to another man for the purpose of childbearing; marriage existed for the royal and political families so as to assure proper blood successionalthough it is noted in the Catholic Encyclopedia that
[t]he clandestine marriages which gradually came to be tolerated in the Middle Ages, as they lacked the formality of a public sanction by the Church, can be considered as a species of legitimate concubinageit must be conceded nonetheless that things are not as straightforward as he might like us to think, as a cursory reading of the rest of the encyclopedia article would have informed him.
In fact, the proportion of people being sent to jail in the major serious crime groups has been rising for seven years.but fails to mention what sentences were handed down and whether those sentences were intended as punishments for the satisfaction of justice, or whether the punishment was merely a means to deterring or reforming the offender. But even if we just examine it as the bare question of whether or not a conviction was achieved, one has to ask: conviction for what crime? For another way in which the so-called justice system has institutionalised injustice is by the system of ‘plea bargains’ whereby one may plead guilty to a lesser crime in order to guarantee the prosecution a conviction, any conviction. A better way to balance the need to economise on court costs with the need to punish the offender as fully as retribution requires would be the following offer:
Just take a few examples. In sexual assault and related cases, 16 per cent of those convicted went to prison in 2000. Last year it was more than 24 per cent. In robbery cases 25.8 per cent of offenders were imprisoned, and last year that had risen to 45.3 per cent.
JOHN Howard is a bundle of contradictions. An economic liberal, he was the first important leader of the Liberal Party to describe it as a conservative party. A social conservative, he once described himself as a "discerning radical". A person who prided himself on his pragmatic approach to policy-making, he saw politics as primarily a battle of ideas. A believer in social stability, he took Australia down a path of economic deregulation that, while immensely beneficial in the long term, removed traditional protections and created uncertainty in the short term. An apostle of social cohesion, he staked his leadership of the Liberal Party, and arguably lost the prime ministership, by pioneering fundamental industrial relations reforms that, on a few occasions such as the waterfront dispute, provoked acute social conflict. The leader of a party that he held to be the custodian of the tradition of John Stuart Mill as much as that of Edmund Burke, he all too often subordinated the individual to the mainstream.This comes as a timely reminder that the Howard years were really an aberration, an attempt to wed two incompatible world-views to each other. The longevity of this aberration, though, means that most Australians would indeed think of the Liberal Party as Australia’s conservative party, when it is nothing of the sort. The founding and sustaining influence of Sir Robert Menzies K.T. (a Knight of the Thistle and, moreover, a Freemason) might seem to imply that one might indeed reasonably think of the Liberals as essentially (or at least potentially) conservative, but this would only be sustained by judging him according to the present-day characteristics of conservatism, when in fact, as Sen. Brandis points out, he was an heir to nineteenth-century classical liberalism. It is only because of the ever-worsening slide into libertarian debauchery that he appears conservative; indeed, by present-day standards the classical liberals would be Blimps.
As a social conservative, he too often lost sight of a core value of Menzian liberalism: a philosophy that makes paramount the rights of the individual and demands that those rights be defended in the case of every individual, not merely weighed in the balance.
At the heart of the Howard paradox is the fact that, by attempting to blend economic liberalism with social conservatism, he was seeking to reconcile values and attitudes that are sometimes irreconcilable.
[…] Howard's attitude reflected not indifference but a conscious preference for social order above personal freedom, for the attitudes of the "mainstream" above the concerns of the marginalised. Given that the philosophy of the Liberal Party - in particular as articulated by Menzies in the 1940s - is ultimately built upon a belief in the primacy of the rights of the individual, this was a profound shift in emphasis.
…..the Redemption of Our Lord Jesus Christ must be brought about with the help of civil society, and the state must therefore become, within the limits of the temporal order, the instrument of the application of the work of Redemption.Reginaldvs Cantvar
….all has been created for Our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore for the accomplishment of the work of the Redemption: everything including civil society, which, is itself a creature of the Good Lord. Civil society is not a pure creation of the will of men; it results above all from the social nature of man, from the fact that God has created men so that they will live in society; it is written into nature by the Creator. Therefore civil society itself, no less than individuals, must render homage to God, its author and its end, and serve the redeeming design of Jesus Christ.
….Jesus Christ is therefore the centre of all history. History has one sole law: “He must reign”, if he reigns, true progress and prosperity also reign, which are goods more spiritual than material! If He does not reign, it is decadence, decay, slavery in all its forms, the reign of the evil one. This is what Holy Scripture promises besides: “the nation and the kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish, those nations will be entirely destroyed”.
….there is a goal of history, it is the “recapitulation of all things in Christ” it is the submission of the whole temporal order to His redemptive work, it is the mastery of the Church militant over the temporal city, which prepares the eternal reign of the Church triumphant in heaven.
"One day we'll get to the level of maturity where this can be discussed without being divisive," he said.Is he saying, then, that to be fervently for (or for that matter, against) the Our Father is to lack the ‘maturity’ to move in the enlightened, genteel circles where all are glib, syncretistic irenicists who don’t really feel too strongly one way or the other? The glaring contradiction in his remark, though, is that any debate with clear-cut affirmative and negative sides will be, of its nature, divisive.
it may very well be more accurate to consider [prohibition of the death penalty] the result of the kind of humanistic narcissism that sees man as the ultimate goal and master of all things; including determining the value of human life, not to mention choosing who shall live and who shall die.He concludes by suggesting that
Perhaps we should consider that the truth of man’s unique dignity may be best communicated when the infinite value of a human life taken is demonstrated by applying the only penalty that can ever reflect the value of what was lost; death.How refreshing to see a partisan, as it were, of Vatican II acknowledging what Traditionalists had defended all along (and what I have been arguing since my first post on the death penalty), namely, that there is simply no other earthly penalty that can satisfy justice in the case (at least) of murder. Mr. Verrecchio’s article was not perfect—its leisurely lead-up to its main point, its timid assertion of that point (“it may very well be more accurate …”, “[p]erhaps we should consider …”), and its use of the word “infinite” for the value of human life when a word like ‘inestimable’ might have been more apposite are among its shortcomings—but it was most pleasing nonetheless to see a bit of balance in a paper that is usually (or rather, always) uncritically anti-execution. The reaction in the letters page should be interesting.
Reginaldvs CantvarPatrick St George (Letters, October 23) makes a good point. Why doesn't the Vatican allow historians access? While we are at it, we can get Israel to let us check on the city of Dimona and all their documents about the relocation of people who used to live where Israelis now call home. The US can let us loose in the Pentagon and I am sure old Vladimir will let us stroll around the Kremlin.
Daniel Gardiner Camperdown
The crime of the Bali bombers is heinous ("Rudd faces pressure on death penalty", October 21). Their lack of remorse is (to us) a shocking indictment of their religious beliefs. They need to be imprisoned at least until they are no longer a danger to anyone who happens not to be a Muslim. But it would still be wrong - and bad public policy for Indonesia - to execute them. Indonesia and Australia both need governments that are better than murderers.The first one’s assertion that “[t]hey need to be imprisoned at least until they are no longer a danger to anyone who happens not to be a Muslim” is very telling. Clearly Mr. Mullen sees no place for punishment as an end in itself. Most people, one suspects, would not yet be infected deeply enough with utilitarianism as to think that the terrorists ought not to be gaoled for life, even if people oppose the death penalty. But one infers from his letter that Mr. Mullen views imprisonment as nothing more than a means to ends such as crime prevention.
Geoff Mullen McMahons Point
The impending execution of the Bali bombers will achieve nothing. Australia is opposed to the death penalty, even when fundamentalist Muslims slaughter our families and friends. An eye for an eye is not justice. Let's solve the problems that created these crazed jihadists, and not condone state-sanctioned terrorism.
Michele Grant Ocean Shores
[…] There are billions on this planet right now who would prefer to go home tonight and find [television celebrity chef Mr. Gordon] Ramsay in their kitchen, eyeballs popping, mouth spitting, ready to deliver a tirade about the state of their fridge rather than face a quiet evening alone.As one observes the iPod zombies, the families switching the T.V. on as soon as they come home and leaving it on non-stop till bed-time, the blind drunk partygoers at the weekend, it is clear that there is an emptiness and insecurity at the core of present-day society that these distractions cannot conceal. Hence the aversion to and contempt for silence, contemplation and introspection.
[…] There is no silence and no escaping a world ablaze with white noise and the all-consuming grind of technology.
[…] who could ever have foreseen a future like this: People huddled in McDonald's, bowed before their laptop computers, slaves to technology, and doing anything to escape the one thing that strikes terror into Ramsay's heart.
That sound of silence.
Most people don't like themselves--which is why being alone is scary----they would rather burden someone else with all their flaws and annoyancesReginaldvs Cantvar
Meantime, as the paedophilia scandal continues to grab headlines, let the Bishops continue to postpone any serious review of the possible relationship between compulsory celibacy and the incidence of paedophilia among our celibate clergy. That continuing scandal really helps to slow vocations to the priesthood and maintains the .momentum of the collapse.
(bold type in the original)
show a bit of compassion and uncertainty and join in a search with other Christians and people of good will for ways of handling this difficult issue.(bold type in the original)
It seems probable that every foetus (as long as it is in the womb) lacks a rational soul and begins to have the same at the time that it is born; and consequently it will have to be said that no homicide is committed in any abortion.So the mere probability of human personhood at any given point during the pregnancy suffices to make abortion illicit; any uncertainty is not a mitigating circumstance or reason for sympathy in an abortion. If you’re not sure whether or not he or she (the child’s sex is given at conception) is a human person, then don’t, as it were, pull the trigger.
(Moral error no. 35, condemned in a decree of the Holy Office, March 4, 1679
Dz. 1185, http://www.catecheticsonline.com/SourcesofDogma12.php)
Representative democracy is a form of hierarchical authority. But the heart of democracy for Australians is that anyone with authority is accountable to the community.He might be quite right as regards the second sentence, but the first one is a contradiction in terms: an hierarchy is literally a ‘holy rulership’, ‘holy’ as in ‘of God’; hierarchs exercise their authority as delegated to them by God, not delegated by the populace as in democratic political theory. If Church authority emanates from the faithful, then what need have we for God in this life? The Church becomes a self-sufficient closed circle, turning the symbolism of versus populorum worship into a reality in Church leadership. As for accountability, Bishops are indeed accountable: they must render an account to God for everyone under their authority. Does this not satisfy the Catholica crowd?
The people of God have been sorely cheated by so called bishop educators who continue to claim direct decendence [sic] from Jesus (that bogus Last Supper ordination) and a magic power of salvation in ordained clericsSo Mr. McMahon appears to be of the opinion that the Institution of the Priesthood was a sham. And it appears that his objection to ‘womenpriests’ is based not on the ineligibility of women but on the inefficacy of the Sacrament even for men:
As to women being ordained priests I have a reservation. I have never considered myself a genuine priest of Jesus because a bishop laid hands on me in a Roman ordination; I have seen men ordained in ceremony and in no way did they change to be followers of our Christ. I have seen many ordinary people priest their lives in service to others and they wore no clerical collar or had no title; this I learned from my priest uncle and from the Worker Priests of Paris. People ask me today "Tom, are you still a priest?" and I smile responding "which kind of priest are you asking about?"One can just imagine Mr. McMahon’s smug little smile.
(italics in the original)
If we are to continue to allow politicians to cut and run, I suggest the introduction of one of two measures in the public interest. The first is that the politician involved repay the cost of the byelection. It could be withheld in annual instalments from their $130,000 per annum pensions, like HECS, with the cost being recovered over say 10 years.But it’ll never happen, of course; politicians regard themselves chiefly as representatives of their respective parties, and electors seem satisfied to choose representatives chiefly for party allegiance rather than personal qualities, so we can hardly complain when the politicians behave accordingly.
If this is unacceptable, another idea would be to redress the imbalance in the present arrangement, which allows a politician to withdraw from their contract with the electorate, but doesn't give the electorate the same power. I'd suggest some sort of arrangement whereby a byelection could be called by voters, as well as by the politician, if they became unhappy with the way things were going.
(http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/michael-duffy/hit-these-surrender-monkeys-where-it-hurts--in-their-pockets/2008/10/17/1223750326827.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1)
[Mr. O’Connell] has done extensive work in broadening focus for law enforcers by conferencing with all parties affected by crime: victims, perpetrators and their families, in order to achieve understanding and reconciliation on both sides.Well and good. And the article notes further that
His work with criminal offenders has been accompanied by a remarkable decrease in repeat offences among those offenders.Excellent. Deterrence, rehabilitation and ‘closure’ for victims are all laudable outcomes. But they are distinct from and subordinate to justice, with ‘justice’ essentially being that each person gets what he or she is owed, so that good deeds are appropriately rewarded and bad deeds are appropriately punished. There is a hierarchy of virtues, and all other natural virtues hinge on the cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude.
Abortion is the deliberate, intentional expulsion of the human foetus at any stage after conception. (The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II, n58) [sic]Yet such a definition does not appear in the on-line text of n. 58 of the encyclical. Rather, His late Holiness writes that
procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth.Nonetheless, even if, for the sake of argument, we take Mr. Durkin’s definition, it is still jarring to read the following portion of Mr. Durkin’s article:
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html)
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is always wrong and immoral as human life begins at conception. Therefore, abortion is not acceptable under any circumstance except in the rare and unusual instance where the life of the mother is at real risk. Only then should an abortion be considered.Now I want to give Mr. Durkin the full benefit of the doubt. The word ‘abortion’, strictly speaking, refers to the process of pregnancy, not to the baby’s life. Now a pregnancy can end in one of four ways: the death of the child, whether by miscarriage or by external interference, or by the child’s exit from the womb, whether naturally or induced. So one can, strictly speaking, end (or abort, or terminate) a pregnancy without ending the child’s life. Perhaps it would have been better if, following Fr. Brennan’s recent reminder of the much-neglected fact that the ending of a pregnancy need not mean the ending of the child’s life, Mr. Durkin had spoken of the possibility of removing the child when the mother’s life is in danger.
Under proposed Federal Government reforms to be released by the National Curriculum Board, primary-school teachers must devote 10 per cent of their time to history lessons.Now someone tell me: what is missing from the following list:
Secondary students in years 7 to 10 will have to take an average of 100 history classes a year.
Students in years 11 and 12 will not be forced to study history, but will be encouraged to do so.
Students will learn Australian and world topics such as the early humans, the Roman Empire, the Industrial Revolution, the Eureka Stockade, the Gallipoli campaign, the Holocaust and the Whitlam dismissal.The 1500 years or so from the Roman Empire to the Industrial Revolution has been skipped! Now it is true that pupils in pre-senior level classes are expected to continue to receive instruction on the Middle Ages, but according to the National History Curriculum initial advice paper (section 49),
History at the senior secondary level typically offers a range of choice of more specialised units that are studied in greater depth. There should be options to pursue more advanced studies in the histories taught in Years 7 to 10. It is proposed that there should be units in Years 11 and 12 in Ancient and Modern History, and Australian History. The Modern History unit should ensure coverage of the full period from 1750 to the present.So right when pupils are really beginning to think critically about history, the Age of Faith is removed from their consideration. And it is, of course, because the Middle Ages truly were the Age of Faith that the history intelligentsia wants to avoid them. This is already the case in New South Wales, where only Ancient and Modern History are on offer in years 11 and 12. Sadly, the Catholic schools no doubt will be only too happy to go along with this; Professor Romano Amerio described quite well in Iota Unum the denigration of the historical Church that has characterised the post-Conciliar years.
(http://www.ncb.org.au/verve/_resources/History_Initial_Advice_Paper.pdf)
476 – 1453Whatever ‘humanistic considerations’ means; I could take this to be a classic case of the secularists viewing the religionists on the secularists’ own terms, never the religionists own terms, but that might be reading too deeply into it.
Medieval Christian theology holds that infidels and barbarians are not entitled to humanistic considerations.
(http://www.humanrights.gov.au/info_for_students/essentials/timeline/index.html)
I think some people who want to maintain these provisions in the Crimes Act want to say to women who want to have an abortion or are thinking of having an abortion, ‘Thou shalt not’. That is what they want to say. It is not the state’s role to do that. The state’s job is to reflect modern-day conditions and to reflect what real people are actually doing and what is acceptable for the majority.Now in the traditional Catholic theory of the State, the State is the juridical and moral person that exercises God-given temporal authority over a given populace in a given territory. The State’s proper end is the building-up of the common good, and with it the upholding of justice—it must legislate in accordance with the eternal moral law, discernible by the light of natural reason. ‘Thou shalt not’ is exactly what the State should be saying sometimes, perhaps even most of the time. But for Mr. Leane, the State wields not a sword, as St. Paul put it, but a mirror—it simply serves the populace directly rather than serving God or serving the common good directly, and the populace only indirectly. Thus the very meaning of the State’s authority is subverted. What Mr. Leane is advocating here is a naked positivism whereby the State simply indulges the populace in whatever debauchery takes its fancy, so long as a majority can agree on it.
justice is largely a part of the broader social contract that is the society in which one lives.So justice, far from being a virtue on which all other goods hinge (hence its status as a cardinal virtue), itself hinges on the whim of society. Justice becomes whatever the majority (or whatever decision rule is used) wants it to be; there is no longer any question of trying to discern unchanging moral standards against which to evaluate right and wrong. Positivism, utilitarianism and relativism are the order of the day, even to the extent of forcing people to disobey their consciences. This is what we are up against.
(http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com/2008/10/on-revenge-and-retribution-plus-request.html)
Under the legislation doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion would be required to refer a woman to doctor [sic] who didn’t. They would also be obliged to perform abortions in an emergency if necessary to protect the woman’s life.
To act against one’s honestly erroneous conscience is to sin. Thus, to force someone to act against such conscience is to cooperate in his sin; but again, we need to further distinguish between two different cases:
To formally cooperate in someone else’s sin is never permissible (in this case, willing precisely to extort from someone an act against his wishes); it is a sin against charity.
It is, however, permissible to cooperate materially in someone else’s sin (desiring that someone do willingly what at first he did not want to do without opposing the eventuality of a forced act) provided that this cooperation be remote and that there is a grievous proportional cause for such a course of action.
(emphasis in the original)
There are many today who claim that God should be left on the sidelines, and that religion and faith, while fine for individuals, should either be excluded from the public forum altogether or included only in the pursuit of limited pragmatic goals. This secularist vision seeks to explain human life and shape society with little or no reference to the Creator. It presents itself as neutral, impartial and inclusive of everyone. But in reality, like every ideology, secularism imposes a world-view. If God is irrelevant to public life, then society will be shaped in a godless image. When God is eclipsed, our ability to recognize the natural order, purpose, and the “good” begins to wane. What was ostensibly promoted as human ingenuity soon manifests itself as folly, greed and selfish exploitation. And so we have become more and more aware of our need for humility before the delicate complexity of God’s world.Given that no régime is truly neutral, why continue to defend one whose agnosticism towards faith and morals constitutes a veritable Social Reign of Pontius Pilate, washing its hands of guilt while permitting injustice to fester? All States are confessional, it’s just a matter of whether they confess Christ or Belial. The ‘integral humanism’ advanced by Fr. Maritain and influential even at the highest levels of the Hierarchy has been shown to be a pipe dream; the benign phase of secular liberal democracy has now well and truly passed.
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/july/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080717_barangaroo_en.html)
(my emphasis)
Australian Catholic University has awarded former Wagga Wagga police officer, Terry O'Connell, with an honorary doctorate for his ground breaking work in restorative justice in Australian communities and abroad.No doubt rehabilitation and crime prevention are worthy ends, but they are distinct from and subordinate to the cardinal virtue of justice (the cardinal virtues being those on which other virtues hinge). Punishment is every bit an end in itself as a just wage for an hour’s work is an end in itself. Considerations on whether punishment can serve other ends, or whether it should conflict with those other ends and not be meted out at all, are secondary. Let the justice system dispense justice before anything else.
[… Mr. O’Connell] has done extensive work in broadening focus for law enforcers by
conferencing with all parties affected by crime: victims, perpetrators and their families, in order to achieve understanding and reconciliation on both sides.
“Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH”
"highly offensive" and [the comment] did not reflect its views.
But MgS responded with icy fury:Wow, so Mr. Harper has despatched squads of goons to shut down all dissenting artists?Oh, wait, he's just cut funding to overseas-based artists. False alarm.
You clearly have no clue what you are talking about here.
If I became pregnant now, there is no way I would consider an abortion.The catalyst for this was the near-miscarriage of her now-healthy young son at about the same time as he would have been permitted to be killed in utero under proposed Victorian laws. But the basis for this conversion is unclear, since she seems to favour legalisation of abortion in some circumstances, provided the baby is young enough. It appears that her objections are purely emotional and subjective, rather than being based on the objective humanity of the fœtus. She says in the very next paragraph that
Equally, my heart goes out to women who have been raped and abused, or are simply too emotionally fraught to take on the onerous task of parenting.Obviously only the hardest heart can fail to sympathise with a rape victim, but if the baby conceived is a human being, then how can it possibly be licit to impose what amounts to a death penalty for rape to be served vicariously by the innocent baby? And the notion of a pregnancy being ‘emotionally fraught’ is simply feeble; an unwanted pregnancy does not necessarily mean an unwanted child, and even in a case where it might, there is always adoption.
you only need to look at a six months' pregnant woman to know that 24 weeks is too late.So when does abortion cease to be ‘too late’, Ms Spicer? You oppose it at twenty-four weeks, but what about twenty-three, or twenty-two, or twenty-one? Or three, or two or one? What a sad evasion.
Kids may be resilient and able to pick a phoney at 40 paces, but can they assess the impact of being his model? Won’t their naked images haunt them all their lives? Henson offers no clear-cut answer to this. He doesn’t claim that growing into adults will give these kids the complete disguise of age. He acknowledges they may be recognised, but argues that the “strangeness” and strong abstraction of his work makes it unlikely.So Mr. Henson has no ‘clear-cut answer’, even with hindsight, but he did it anyway?! What moral bankruptcy. I suppose this is what to expect from those who fancy themselves as having ‘outgrown bourgeois morality’ or whatever pompous slogans they affect. As far as I can tell the only situation in which nude child photos might (and I stress might) be justified is when it involves capturing events as they unfold. The only three examples that I can imagine satisfying this criterion would be family ‘happy-snaps’, photography during a medical examination or surgery, or journalistic photography e.g. the famous photo of a young Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack. But even in these cases I am open to being persuaded that it is still unjustified.
the force of law must never itself become iniquity, nor can the free exercise of religion be limited, because freely to profess one's faith is a fundamental and universally-recognised human right".Note His Holiness’ very careful choice of words in the highlighted portion of the first quoted paragraph. To say that “everyone has a natural right to the free exercise of religion” (call this proposition A) is not erroneous, since it does not specify the object of this right. But if one were to add the words ‘any’ and ‘whether Catholic or non-Catholic’, so that the proposition becomes “everyone has a natural right to the free exercise of any religion, whether Catholic or non-Catholic” (call this proposition B), then this would indeed be erroneous. It is the diction of proposition A, as one finds in Dignitatis Humanæ, that has got me wondering whether Dr. Sudlow was right when he said that
Benedict XVI highlighted how "the Church does not impose but freely proposes the Catholic faith, well aware that conversion is the mysterious fruit of the action of the Holy Spirit. Faith is a gift and a work of God, and hence excludes any form of proselytism that forces, allures or entices people by trickery to embrace it. A person may open to the faith after mature and responsible reflection, and must be able freely to realise that intimate aspiration. This benefits not only the individual, but all society, because the faithful observance of divine precepts helps to build a more just and united form of coexistence".
(my emphasis)
I see no reason why a confessional State and religious liberty, not in the Enlightenment sense but as understood by Dignitatis Humanae, cannot be reconciled http://thesensiblebond.blogspot.com/2008/07/confessions-of-nobody-or-why-i-quit.htmland that in fact it was Fr. Murray who was wrong when he inferred, in the commentary to his translation of Dignitatis Humanæ, that
The Church does not make, as a matter of right or divine law, the claim that she should be established as ‘the religion of the state’and that
The freedoms listed here are those which the Catholic Church claims for herself. The Declaration likewise claims those for all Churches and religious communities.One might object that the Holy Father’s reference to ‘freely professing one’s faith’ is problematic, but this need not be the case. ‘One’s faith’ can still mean either Catholic or non-Catholic faith.
(both quotations from The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty by Mr. Michael Davies)
