The things one finds on a stroll down memory lane!

http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com/2008/11/more-on-sinister-relationship-between.html

Late last year I published a couple of posts on the relationship between the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development (P.G.P.D.) and the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance (A.R.H.A.). In that context I quoted a comment at The Australian's letters blog from an abortionite, one Iris Ashton. I mention this because after finding, in my blog's abortion tag, a reference which I needed for the post before the one which you're reading now, I thought I'd just have a bit of a browse through some of my old posts while I was there, a little stroll down memory lane, I suppose. Lo and behold, I came across a comment from the same Iris Ashton at one of my P.G.P.D./A.R.H.A. posts. Why had I not noticed this earlier? Because, oddly, the comment was submitted almost six months after I published the post! In fact, I had thought that comments were automatically disabled after less than such a considerable length of time, but there you go (and that's got me wondering how many other delayed responses are tucked away in the archives here). Here is how I respond to that comment (quotations from her comment first, in small type, then my response, in normal type):

I know Senator Moore personally and know that she is an intelligent, kind and humane Christian lady whose only thought in the matter of abortion is to save people, including the fetus, a life of pain and suffering.

A person can be saved from a life of pain either by relieving the pain, or by killing the person in pain. The latter option is not what I would call intelligent, kind, humane or Christian. The duty to minimise human suffering does not override the duty to preserve innocent human life.

I found your analysis of my comments skewed by religious dogma.

I found your advocacy for abortion skewed by nihilist dogma.

If, as you believe, we are completly dependent on God, is He not a kind and loving God who gave us free will?

Yes, God is kind and loving and gave us free will. The fact that someone freely wills this or that doesn't make it right or wrong though, so why have you mentioned this?

Nowhere in my letter did I mention the 'burden' on society of a deformed or disabled child

Nowhere in my blog post did I say that you did. Let's be clear: I observed, correctly, that an aversion to dependence was one of the themes in your original comment. Some people might, without any great leap of logic, take such an aversion even futher than you do and call into question the rights of the elderly or infirm who live in a condition of dependence, but I never said that you did--though you did speak, of course, of the burden on the family.

I also gave no opinion on the subject of euthanasia, especially as "being a way of 'freeing the infirm from being a burden on society", which I personally find to be a disgusting comment.

I never said that you gave an opinion on the subject of euthanasia, and I find such comments disgusting too. For instance, I found it digusting that euthanasia advocate Lady Warnock in the U.K. said recently that

... I feel there's a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they're a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they too should beallowed to die.

"Actually I've just written an article called 'A Duty to Die?' for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself."
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2983652/Baroness-Warnock-Dementia-sufferers-may-have-a-duty-to-die.html]

You see, Ms Ashton? The notion of 'freedom from burdening society' is not a straw man raised by the pro-life movement, it's a conclusion which follows without great difficultly from an aversion to dependence and a corresponding exaltation of autonomy, and is invoked by the pro-euthanasia movement. (Please do check that link, by the way, in case you fear that I might have taken Her Ladyship out of context. That ellipsis is where she talks about euthanasia being supposedly justified in cases of severe pain before she goes on to talk about the burden-to-others justification, which is what we're interested in just now so we can ignore the first part at present.)

the deformed fetus to be aborted is just that...a fetus, not a living, breathing child. If allowed to be born it then becomes a child and has my deepest sympathy on it's condition.

Why? What is the transmogrification which occurs during the child's passage from the womb to the outside world? What is the essential difference between, if you will, a t-minus-five-minutes baby and a t-plus-five-minutes baby? (I don't mind whether you or someone else from the pro-abortion movement answers me, I just hope that someone does, because I'm desperate to know.)

I found your comments to be not only offensive, but devious, inhumane and bigoted.

You believe that a baby is disposable until someone decides to 'allow' him or her the privilege of being born, but I'm the one who's offensive, devious, inhumane and bigoted?!

If I could finish with this reminder: as I point out at the right-hand side of this webpage, comments are not moderated, so if you have made a comment on an older post (by "older post" I mean roughly one which is no longer on the cardinalpole.blogspot.com main page), then please draw it to my attention.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, A.D. 2009

A letter from a reader to The Australian on the abortion and euthanasia slippery-slope

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/first_byte_august_272/

Here is a strange letter published yesterday in the First Byte section (for brief, to-the-point messages) of The Australian:

Richard Congram (Letters, 26/8) states that the killing of deformed infants and the unwanted elderly are “the logical next steps” for a society which has legal abortion. He is unbothered by reality: we are spending more than ever before on neonatal and aged care and with increasing success.

John Cusack
Mt Warrigal, NSW

'Unbothered by reality'? The very quotation which Mr. Cusack supplies speaks of "the logical next steps" (my emphasis), so the present reality is not necessarily evidence against the possible future reality of which Mr. Congram warns. And ironically, it is precisely the higher "than ever before" spending on "neonatal and aged care" which Mr. Cusack mentions which threatens even more draconian anti-life provisions in the future--indeed some ghoul has already highlighted the cost-cutting potential of legalised euthanasia:

In 1994 the Economic Planning Advisory Commission discussed the rising costs of health care for the elderly, and the problem of overcrowding in hospitals. In a publication called “Australia’s Aging Society,” EPAC actually looked at the use of euthanasia as one option in the whole discussion!
[http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2008/10/15/abortion-population-and-eugenics/]

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, A.D. 2009

A comment at CathNews on gaymarriage

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=16023

Here is a comment which I submitted a short time ago at CathNews (note that the webpage to which Mr. Lawson linked was the laughable Frequently Asked Questions section of the Australian Marriage Equality website, and "said Archbishop Desmond Tutu" was the commenter name supplied by someone for a quotation from the pseudobishop):

***

Mr. Lawson,

As it happens, at my blog a couple of months ago I refuted the arguments accessible by the link which you provide. The link to my rebuttal is

http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com/2009/06/facts-and-figures-on-australian-popular.html

said Archbishop Demond Tutu,

Here is a confutation of Dr. Tutu's arguments:

1. He says that

"If it is so [that the love between a husband and a wife is more than just Platonic] for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual, provided the relationship is exclusive, not promiscuous?"

The "earthly reason" is that sex suits the nature of a man and of a woman and hence is, in the right circumstances, good, whereas the various natural-law-defying, pseudo-sexual things which same-sex 'partners' do to each other suit no-one's nature and deprive them of the natural good and are therefore evil. Indeed, these acts are intrinsically evil, since an intrinsically evil act is one which is an abuse of the faculty from which it proceeds, and is wrong in all circumstances.

2. He says that

"We say that sexual orientation is morally a matter of indifference, but what is culpable are homosexual acts. But then we claim that sexuality is a divine gift, which used properly, helps us to become more fully human and akin really to God ..."

The key words there are "which used properly". There are proper uses of bodily organs, and there are improper uses, or abuses--*ab*uses--of bodily organs, and as I said in 1., when an act is an abuse of the faculty from which it proceeds it is intrinsically evil.

"Why should we want all homosexual persons not to give expression to their sexuality in loving acts?"

This is defective in two respects. Love means desiring the highest good for another, and the good is that which suits the nature of the thing desiring it, so natural-law-defying acts are not loving acts. Furthermore, there are proper expressions and improper expressions. Bashing someone up might be a powerful 'expression' of one's strength and vitality, but it's hardly proper.

"Why don't we use the same criteria to judge same-sex relationships that we use to judge whether heterosexual relationships are wholesome or not?"

We do use the same criteria:

2.1 The good is that which suits the nature of the thing desiring it.
2.2 Evil is a deprivation of the natural good.
2.3 Do good and avoid evil.

Where's the inconsistency?

3. He says that

"[He] was left deeply disturbed by these inconsistencies and knew that the Lord of the Church would not be where his church is in this matter."

I do not have time to chase up chapter and verse, but Our Lord said "If you love Me, keep My commandments"--in other words, if you love Him, keep the natural law which He has inscribed on your hearts.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
[approx. 0140hrs., Sydney time, 28.VIII.2009]
Thankyou for your comments.

***

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, A.D. 2009

Reminder: Msgr. Fellay to speak at Rockdale this Thursday evening

http://www.sspx.com.au/parish/sydney/bulletin/2009/Tenth-Sunday-After-Pentecost.pdf

From this week’s S.S.P.X. Sydney Parish bulletin:

Bishop Fellay’s Conference
His Lordship Bishop Fellay will give a conference on Thursday, 13th August after the 6:30 p.m. Mass

Check the bulletin or Fr. Black’s latest District Newsletter for more information on Msgr. Fellay’s schedule while in Australia.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Philomena, Virgin, Martyr, A.D. 2009

A comment for thepunch.com.au on gaymarriage

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-no-logical-reason-to-allow-gay-marriage/

I submitted the following comment for publication at the web page to which I link at the top of this post. I’m not sure why the moderators refused to publish it, since even more hard-line anti-gaymarriage comments were published, but here it is anyway:

***

The commenters who’ve objected to Mr. Kenyon’s argument against gaymarriage by reason of its sterility seem to have missed the point (at least partly because Mr. Kenyon has not stated his case adequately, I grant). Opposite-sex marriage is, by its *nature*, open to new life, and the fact that there might happen to be some *defect* of nature in either spouse does nothing to detract from this; so long as the spouses have the requisite working parts, so to speak, for consummating the marriage, they can contract marriage validly. So-called same-sex marriage, on the other hand, shuts itself off to new life *by its very nature*, not because of some defect on the part of either ‘spouse’. Moreover, same-sex pseudo-sexual relationships shut themselves off to love, since love is desiring the highest good for another, and the good is that which suits the nature of the thing desiring it, so for someone to purport to show love for someone else by doing things which suit no-one’s nature is absurd and obscene. In a nutshell: same-sex relationships are anti-family (and anti-love) *because of* their very nature, whereas opposite-sex relationships might happen to be anti-family and anti-love, but only *in spite of* their nature.

As for those who turn ‘discrimination’ into a dirty word: an earlier commenter unwittingly indicated the full absurdity of this notion when she wrote, apparently in all seriousness, that

“Discrimination is not acceptable. Ever.”

Really? Shall we legislate to end the wickedness of gender-segregated bathrooms, then? What a joke. Actually, let’s develop the bathroom example into an analogy. Let’s suppose we have a men’s bathroom which contains a toilet and a tap and sink, and a women’s bathroom which contains a toilet and a tap and sink, so the two rooms differ only in name. For the gaymarriage lobby to insist on calling their repulsive relationships ‘marriages’ is like someone demanding to use the bathroom of his or her opposite sex and refusing to use the bathroom proper to his or her own sex despite the fact that the two rooms are the same (which, we are expected to believe, is the case with opposite-sex marriage and so-called same-sex marriage). But of course, the weakness of this analogy is that real marriage and gaymarriage are not the same: the former is based on the expression of conjugal love, the latter is based on consensual violence. The family based on marriage is prior to the State, and all the State can and should do about it is discriminate in favour of it and discriminate against attempts to corrupt it.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com
Thank You!
Your comment will be reviewed by a moderator for approval.

***

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Philomena, Virgin, Martyr, A.D. 2009