Notes: Tuesday, February 5-Monday, July 22, 2019 (part 3 of 3)

7. The latest bioethical offences from Australia's political duopoly

7.1 A Labor Federal Government would work to increase access to contraception and abortion, most notably by ensuring that "Commonwealth-State hospital funding agreements will expect that termination services will be provided consistently in public hospitals."

See the Media Release "LABOR’S PLAN TO SUPPORT WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS", Wednesday, March 6, 2019, issued jointly by The Hon. Tanya Plibersek M.P. (at the time, Deputy Leader of H.M.A. Opposition and its Shadow Minister for Education and Training and for Women) and The Hon. Catherine King M.P. (at the time, Federal Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) and available at their respective websites:

http://www.tanyaplibersek.com/media_release_labor_s_plan_to_support_women_s_reproductive_rights_wednesday_6_march_2019

https://www.catherineking.com.au/2019/03/05/labors-plan-to-support-womens-reproductive-rights/

Labels: A.L., abortion, contraception

7.2 "Women will have greater choice around IVF services with the NSW Liberals & Nationals Government providing up to a $500 rebate for pre-IVF fertility testing and greater access to lower cost treatments", whereby "the NSW Government will provide lower cost IVF treatments for around 6000 women through services at Royal Prince Alfred, The Royal Hospital for Women and Westmead hospitals"; and there will be "a partnership with UNSW for the first statewide fertility preservation service for young cancer patients at The Royal Hospital for Women."

Those quotations come from the press release "MAKING IVF MORE ACCESSIBLE FOR WOMEN", Saturday, March 9, 2019, downloaded from the website of The Liberal Party of Australia's New South Wales Division:

https://nsw.liberal.org.au/candidates/gladys-berejiklian/news/articles/MAKING-IVF-MORE-ACCESSIBLE-FOR-WOMEN

Labels: I.V.F., L.P.A., Nationals

8. St. Thomas Aquinas against the doctrines of original liberty and original equality

See note 92 at the end of the article "The Corporate Idea and the Body Politic in the Middle Ages", by Anton-Hermann Chroust, in The Review of Politics, Vol. 9, Issue No. 4, October 1947, pp. 423-452:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-politics/article/corporate-idea-and-the-body-politic-in-the-middle-ages/0B226F3CF3CB5272E74E7655C48EE5D2

This is the relevant section of that note:

Compare St. Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica I, quaest. 96, art. 3 Google Scholar: “We must of necessity admit that in the primitive state there would have been some inequality.…” See ibid, quaest. 96, art. 4: “… a man is the master of a free subject, by directing him either towards his proper welfare, or the common good. Such a type of mastership would have existed in the state of innocence between man and man, for two reasons: first, because man is by nature a social being, and thus in the state of innocence he would have led a social life. Now a social life cannot exist among a number of people unless under the direction of one to look after the common welfare; for many, as such, seek many things, whereas one attends only to one.…” See also Summa contra Ceniiles[ sic] III, 81
[italics, bold type, and hyperlinks in the original, my square-bracketed interpolation]

Labels: Democratism, liberalism, morals, politics, St. Thomas Aquinas

9. Dr. Gosbell on ancient Christian (and pagan) attitudes to abortion and infanticide

See the A.B.C. Religion and Ethics article ""As long as it's healthy": What can we learn from early Christianity's resistance to infanticide and exposure?", by Dr. Louise Gosbell, Wednesday, March 13, 2019:

Warning: That article is headed by a picture which could scandalise some readers:

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/early-christianitys-resistance-to-infanticide-and-exposure/10898016

Labels: abortion, Fathers, infanticide, morals

10. 24% of mothers in couple families in Australia were unwaged in 2016, down from 32% in 1991.

My immediate source for the information in that headline is Figure 2 of the Australian Institute of Family Studies research summary "Fathers and work: A statistical overview", by Dr. Jennifer Baxter, May 2019:

https://aifs.gov.au/aifs-conference/fathers-and-work

(The ultimate source is the Australian Population Census customised reports, 1991–2016, according to Figure 2's caption.)

Labels: demography, family, social trends, work

11. On the morning of the 26. ult., The Duke of Cambridge "officially opened the Albert Kennedy Trust new Services Centre" in London.

See the Court Circular of that date. According to akt's "our history" webpage, akt is the "world’s first ever service for homeless LGBT youth":

https://www.akt.org.uk/our-history

and according to its "duke of cambridge visits akt" webpage, that official opening involved "the first visit to a lgbtq+ youth charity by a member of the royal family":

https://www.akt.org.uk/news/duke-of-cambridge-visits-akt

Labels: G.L.B.T., William Cambridge

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Penitent, A.D. 2019

Notes: Wednesday, September 30-Monday, November 30, 2015 (part 2 of 2)

5. St. Augustine and St. Alphonsus de Liguori on the religious duties of kings, as kings

See respectively the answers to the questions "What do the Fathers of the Church have to say about this?" and "Are the Doctors of the Church unanimous on this point?" at this The Angelus Online webpage, giving part seven of a serialisation of Fr. Gaudron's Catechism of the Crisis in the Church:

http://www.angelusonline.org/index.php?section=articles&subsection=print_article&article_id=2660

(The stated sources for the relevant quotations from St. Augustine are his Letter 185, Chap. 5, §19, PL 33, col. 801 and "Four Books in Answer to the Grammarian Cresconius," Retractations, Chap. 51, §56, and the stated source for the quotation from St. Alphonsus is Fedelta dei Vassali (June 1777), quoted by Augustin Berthe, C.SS.R., St. Alphonse de Liguori 1696-1787 (Paris: Reteaux), II, 440-41.)

(St. Alphonsus's and St. Augustine's opinions came to my attention via the S.S.P.X. Sydney Priory bulletins of yesterday and two weeks ago, respectively.)

Labels: Church and State, Confessional State, Fathers, morals, Social Reign of Christ

Reginaldvs Cantvar
St. Andrew's Day, A.D. 2015

Notes: Thursday, January 1-Monday, February 2, 2015

1. Some changes to this blog's links

Just now, I've added a link to the website of The Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia (that website came to my attention via this CathNews item) to my "Bishops and (Local) Churches of Australia and the world" links (and changed that links section's heading from "Bishops and Sees of Australia and the world"), and removed the respective links to the Bundarrah Days and Cooees from the Cloister blogs from my "Daily-visit blog links" (because those two blogs have gone private), and I've also removed the respective links to the Imperium Christi and Opuscula blogs from my "Weekly-visit blog links" (because those two blogs have not been updated in a long time).

Labels: blogs

2. "The American Revolution had more to do with the Quebec Act, which recognised the traditional rights of the Catholic church in Canada, than with the Stamp Act."

The quotation in that headline comes from the book review "All you’ll ever need to know about the history of England in one volume", by Mr. Daniel Hannan M.E.P., dated December 13, 2014, downloaded from The Spectator's website:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9395372/all-youll-ever-need-to-know-about-the-history-of-england-in-one-volume/

(That book review came to my attention via the version printed under the headline "Fair England's triumphs and travails", with the same byline, on pp. 16 f. (the quotation was on p. 16) in the "BOOKS" pages of the "review" supplement of The Weekend Australian, January 17-18, 2015, Second Edition, No. 15629, ISSN 1038-8761, published by Nationwide News Pty. Limited.) See also the comments at that webpage (especially the ones in the first thread) and the comment by me in the combox at this blog post by Dr. Sudlow.

Labels: Canada, colonialism, U.S.A.

3. "An extremism checklist has been distributed to line managers in the [Defence ]department, with tips for spotting warning signs that their public servants might be flirting with the hard right."

The quotation, excluding my square-bracketed interpolation, in that headline comes from the article "Defence Department cracks down on office extremists", by Mr. Noel Towell, dated January 20, 2015, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/defence-department-cracks-down-on-office-extremists-20150120-12tu9s.html

(But I don't log that article just for that quotation; the whole article is worth reading.)

Labels: Defence Department

4. "I[, Miranda Devine,] have nothing but admiration for the gay couples I know who have done a great job bringing up children."

The quotation, excluding my square-bracketed interpolation, in that headline comes from the opinion piece "The horror of the boutique baby scandal", by Ms Miranda Devine, dated January 21, 2015, downloaded from the Sydney Daily Telegraph's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-horror-of-the-boutique-baby-scandal/story-fni0cwl5-1227191252693

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the headline "Boutique baby scandal", with the same author, on p. 13 of The Daily Telegraph, Wednesday, January 21, 2015, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd. and is also available at Ms Devine's blog.)

Labels: G.L.B.T., Miranda Devine

5. Prof. Bury on the second-century Apologies for Christianity:

The Apologies for Christianity which appeared at this period (second century) might have helped, if the Emperors (to whom some of them were addressed) had read them, to confirm the view that it was a political danger. It would have been easy to read between the lines that, if the Christians ever got the upper hand, they would not spare the cults of the State. The contemporary work of Tatian (A Discourse to the Greeks) reveals what the Apologists more or less sought to disguise, invincible hatred towards the civilization in which they lived. Any reader of the Christian literature of the time could not fail to see that in a State where Christians had the power there would be no tolerance of other religious pracices.¹[ "¹ For the evidence of the Apologists see A. Bouché-Leclercq, Religious Intolerance and Politics (French, 1911)—a valuable review of the whole subject."] If the Emperors made an exception to their tolerant policy in the case of Christianity, their purpose was to safeguard tolerance.
[italics and round-bracketed parentheses in the original, my square-bracketed interpolation (quoting from the relevant footnote),
pp. 44 f., A History of Freedom of Thought, eighth impression, by Prof. J. B. Bury, published by Thornton Butterworth, London, January 1932]

See also item 1.2 of this Notes post.

Labels: Fathers, religious liberty, Roman Empire

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Candlemas, A.D. 2015