Notes: Wednesday, April 25-Monday, May 21, 2012

1. The transcript for the Monday, April 9, 2012 episode of Q&A, in which Cardinal Pell appeared, is available here:

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3469101.htm

Labels: George Pell

2. How Hansard can change:

Early last month, on a tediously slow Wednes-day afternoon, [Senator The Hon. Bob ]Carr slips into the chamber 15 min-utes ahead of schedule to deliver his first speech to the Senate. …

[… ]Carr's memory microchip spits out an error as he recalls passing Henry Kissinger at the end of the Olym-pics in "September 2001"; too much terror, not enough five-ringed circus (later, for posterity, Hansard will record Carr said "October 2000", even though he didn't). …
[bold type and dashes (from where a word spanned two lines) in the original, my square-bracketed interpolations]

I transcribed that from p. 14 of "Second coming", by Tom Dusevic, The Weekend Australian Magazine, April 21-22, 2012, inserted in The Weekend Australian, April 21-22, 2012, Second Edition, No. 14789, ISSN 1038-8761, available on-line, but behind a paywall, here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-second-coming-of-bob-carr/story-e6frg8h6-1226331179611

The text of Senator Carr's maiden speech is available here:

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F34dcc858-84ef-4fe3-9144-f6f97af26110%2F0180%22

(I write this item well aware that Hansard is not just a transcript, but an edited transcript.

Furthermore, I neither write nor publish this item in connection with today's speech in Parliament by Mr. Craig Thomson M.P.)

Labels: Hansard

3. Ms Legge on "genetic sexual attraction"

"Intimate relations", by Kate Legge, pp. 18-22, The Weekend Australian Magazine, April 21-22, 2012, inserted in The Weekend Australian, April 21-22, 2012, Second Edition, No. 14789, ISSN 1038-8761, available on-line, but behind a paywall, here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/intimate-relations/story-e6frg8h6-1226331192545

Labels: G.S.A.

4. "if you are a young woman who needs to have an abortion, you will need to go to a private provider and pay upfront for at least half of the $600 cost"

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/high-cost-of-abortion-hurts-young-women-20120508-1yalr.html?skin=text-only

Ms Price also writes that "occasionally charity groups such as the Salvation Army have been able to offer assistance", apparently in the form of "funds for women who had nowhere else to go". According to The Salvation Army Australian Territories' Positional Statement on abortion, "The Salvation Army … accepts that termination of a pregnancy may be justified on certain limited grounds" (and as you'll see if you read that Statement, the foetus reaching the point of viability is not one of those grounds).

Labels: abortion, Salvation Army

5. Mr. Brent on Mr. Slipper's Parliamentary record:

In 1994 [The Hon. Peter ]Slipper [M.P.] was one of twelve Coalition MPs who abstained from voting on the so-called “gay sex bill"— the Keating government’s Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Bill 1994 that was largely aimed at over-riding Tasmania’s anti-sodomy laws.

(The federal Coalition under Alexander Downer had decided to support the bill; Slipper was with the conservative “rebels”.)
[http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/quick_history_of_slipper_and_fisher/]

Labels: Peter Slipper

6. "Pastors, both bishops and priests, should make every effort to consolidate the lay faithful in their knowledge of the teachings of Vatican Council II"

That headline is a quotation from the text of the communiqué which was released in English and Chinese at the end of the fifth meeting in the Vatican, from April 23-25, 2012, of the Commission for the Catholic Church in China contained in this Vatican Information Service news item:

"MAY THE FACE OF CHURCH SHINE FORTH WITH CLARITY IN THE MIDST OF THE NOBLE CHINESE PEOPLE"
http://www.news.va/en/news/may-the-face-of-church-shine-forth-with-clarity-in

Here is another quotation from the text of that communiqué:

In the first place, ["the Catholic lay faithful in China"] must enter ever more deeply into the life of the Church, nourished by doctrine, conscious of their being part of the Catholic Church, and consistent with the requirements of life in Christ, which necessitates hearing the word of God with faith. From this perspective, a profound knowledge of the Catechism of the Catholic Church will be a particularly important aid for them.

Labels: C.E.C., Roman Curia, Vatican II

7. "[The late Mr. David Scott] was made an officer of the Order of Australia ''for outstanding achievement and service'' twice. After receiving the award in 1975, he resigned a year later together with ''Nugget'' Coombs, Patrick White and Jean Blackburn, in protest against the creation of knights and dames in the Australian order."

http://www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/welfare-advocate-lobbied-for-timor-20120507-1y8rk.html?skin=text-only

According to the Order of Australia page at the It's an Honour website,

From 1976 to 1986 there was provision for the appointment of Knights and Dames in the Order of Australia. Removal of this provision does not affect pre-existing appointments.

Labels: Order of Australia

8. Mrs. Shanahan on the 2012 Federal Budget

"'Heartland' pitch swamped by sleaze", p. 14, "Inquirer" section, The Weekend Australian, May 12-13, 2012, First Edition, No. 14807, ISSN 1038-8761, available on-line, but behind a paywall, here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/heartland-pitch-swamped-by-sleaze/story-e6frgd0x-1226353353947

Labels: economics, families, taxation

9. On Australians' approval or disapproval for "various aspects of IVF treatment"

"The Australian community overwhelmingly approves IVF to treat subfertility, with increasing support over three decades", by Gabor T. Kovacs, Gary Morgan, Michele Levine, and Julian McCrann, in The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, DOI: 10.1111/j.1479-828X.2012.01444.x; that article's abstract is available here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1479-828X.2012.01444.x/abstract

That article came to my attention via the first item in Adam Taor's "Pulse" column on p. 9 of the "Health" section of the "Weekend Professional" supplement of The Weekend Australian, May 12-13, 2012, First Edition, No. 14807, ISSN 1038-8761, available on-line, but in a different form, and behind a paywall, here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/most-people-approve-of-ivf/story-e6frg8y6-1226352215703

Labels: I.V.F.

10. Msgr. Williamson on, among other things, the "Note on the conclusions of the canonical visit to the Institute of the Good Shepherd" in France

The following is the text of Eleison Comments, Number CCLII (252), May 12, 2012:

FAITH KILLERS
But if Rome offers the Society of St Pius X all that it wants, why should the SSPX still refuse ? Apparently there are Catholics still believing that if a practical agreement fulfilled all the SSPX’s practical demands, it should be accepted. So why not ? Because the SSPX was brought into existence by Archbishop Lefebvre not for its own sake, but for the sake of the true Catholic Faith, endangered by Vatican II as it has never been endangered before. But let us see here why the Newchurch authorities will seek any practical agreement as much as the SSPX must refuse it.

The reason is because the Newchurch is subjectivist, and any merely practical agreement implies that subjectivism is true. According to the new Conciliar religion, dogmas of Faith are not objective truths but symbols that serve subjective needs (Pascendi, 11-13, 21). For instance if my psychological insecurity is calmed by the conviction that God became man, then for me the Incarnation is true, in the only sense of the word “true”. So if Traditionalists have their need of the old religion, then that is what is true for them, and one can even admire how they cling to their truth. But in justice they must agree to let us Romans have our Conciliar truth, and if they cannot make that concession, then they are insufferably arrogant and intolerant, and we cannot allow such divisiveness within our Church of luv.

Thus Neo-modernist Rome would be happy with any practical agreement by which the SSPX would even only implicitly renounce its radical claim to the universality and obligation of “its” truths. On the contrary the SSPX cannot be happy with any agreement that in an action speaking louder than words would deny the objectivity of “its” religion of 20 centuries. It is not “its” religion at all. To come to an agreement with subjectivists, I have to stop insisting on objectivity. To insist on objectivity, I cannot accept any terms at all proposed by subjectivists, unless they renounce their subjectivism.

These Romans are doing no such thing. Yet another proof of their crusading insistence upon their new religion came in the form of their recent “Note on the conclusions of the canonical visit to the Institute of the Good Shepherd” in France. Readers will remember that this Institute was one of several founded after the Council to enable Traditional Catholicism to be practised under Roman authority. Rome can wait for a few years before closing in, to make sure that the poor fish is well on the hook, but then -

The “Note” requires that Vatican II and the 1992 Catechism of the Newchurch must be included in Institute studies. The Institute must insist on the “hermeneutic of renewal in continuity”, and it must stop treating the Tridentine rite of Mass as its “exclusive” rite of Mass. The Institute must enter into official diocesan life with a “spirit of communion”. In other words, the Traditional Institute must stop being so Traditional if it wants to belong to the Newchurch. What else did the Institute expect ? To keep to Tradition, it would have to get back out from under the Newchurch’s authority. What chance is there of that ? They wanted to be swallowed by the Conciliar monster. Now it is digesting them.

So why, in Heaven’s name, would it be any different with the SSPX ? Rome’s temptation may be rejected this time round by the SSPX, but let us be under no illusions: the subjectivists will be back and back and back to get rid of that objective truth and objective Faith which constitute a standing
rebuke to their criminal nonsense.

Kyrie eleison.

© 2012 Richard N. Williamson. All Rights Reserved.

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www.dinoscopus.org

I quote the full text of the article in order to fulfill the conditions for posting it licitly to the Internet, but, as the headline of this item suggests, it is the fourth and fifth paragraphs in which I'm interested here (though the whole article is worth reading).

Labels: I.B.P.

11. Some figures regarding the number of repeat abortions and the cost of abortion in the U.K.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2143936/NHS-spends-1m-week-repeat-abortions-Single-women-using-terminations-form-contraceptive.html

(That came to my attention via this blog post by Mr. Muehlenberg.)

Labels: abortion, U.K.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
21.V.2012